As I wrote a few days ago, I've always enjoyed the traditional Christmas music of Britain. Today, I want to share a recording that takes in the traditions of Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Spain, Italy and more, and does it all in the way these songs would traditionally or originally have been sung.
This unique and fascinating 2-CD set is simply titled The Carol Albums: Seven Centuries of Christmas Music. It's full of familiar and unfamiliar tunes, familiar words set to unfamiliar tunes, and unfamiliar versions of familiar tunes! The music reaches clear back to mediaeval plainsong and forward into the nineteenth century.
The variety is endless, and there's not a boring moment throughout the two CDs. Boring, no, but certainly a bit provocative at times. An example is the reconstruction of the original version of Silent Night heard in that tiny Austrian village church in 1818 -- a duet of male voices accompanied by a guitar, with a small choir joining in on the refrains. The melody is familiar up to a point, but has a couple of clear differences from the version widely sung today. The performance here eschews the solemnity thought appropriate nowadays, and gives the tune a waltz-like lilt entirely appropriate to its original shape.
Another example is God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, which is sung here to a folk tune different from the common one we know, but which was long associated with the words.
Contributing to the variety is a wide range of original instruments appropriate to all the different time periods and countries covered, and a judicious variation in choices and numbers of voices used, with a few instrumental numbers included to leaven the mixture.
A further cause of perk-up-your-ears moments is the use, where appropriate, of period pronunciation of English texts. This can sometimes seem far over the top, as for instance in the lusty singing of Glory to God on High which comes out as "Glawry ta Gawd ahn Highhhhnnn" with a distinct nasal twang. At first it sounds merely comical, but it does serve to remind us that our language is a living, evolving organism in both words and manner of speaking!
The recording ends grandly, in the nineteenth century manner, with a large-scale performance for full choir and organ, of Hark the Herald Angels Sing, the tune restored to its original (slightly different) form and the words restored to their original order, compared to the scrambled versions now heard.
The copy I own is a re-release from the Musical Heritage Society, which combines the contents of what were originally two separate recordings, made by EMI in 1989 and 1993. The enclosed booklet gives detailed historic notes and complete texts of every number.
Throughout the two discs, the singers of the Taverner Consort, Choir, and Players outdo themselves in finding the necessary variety of tones and textures for such a huge range of musical styles, and Andrew Parrott's crisp direction keeps the programme moving smoothly along without haste.
I found one of the two recordings available for download from Classics Online, and the rights may well be available elsewhere too. This is definitely worth your time and trouble to seek out, especially if you are interested in the Christmas musical traditions of times gone by in a variety of other lands.
Saturday 21 December 2013
Tuesday 17 December 2013
Christmas Delights # 1
Almost every country in the Christian world has its own traditional songs for Christmas. As a boy, I grew up singing in an Anglican church choir and later on shifted to United churches with British-trained organist-choirmasters, so I learned from an early age to love the old traditional carols and hymns of the British Isles. Last year I was writing about Christmas music based on old French noels, so going to Britain this year seems like a good idea.
Actually, the recording I want to share with you today consists of music by one composer, none other than my old friend Ralph Vaughan Williams. In earlier years of his career he edited for publication both the English Hymnal and the Oxford Book of Carols so it's not surprising that traditional hymns, folk tunes, carols, and folk dances formed one of the key elements of his musical personality.
Some time back, I wrote about his splendid cantata Hodie ("A Christmas Miracle in Music"), a concert work for choir, children's choir, soloists, organ and orchestra (written in 1954, the same year I was born). It's a magnificent masterpiece by any standards, but the folk element is notably in abeyance.
But just a few years later, in 1958, he was asked to compose music for a Christmas play to be performed at a charity matinee. Much to the surprise of the play's author, Simona Pakenham, he leaped at the chance and filled his score with all his favourite Christmas carols. Sadly, he died just 4 weeks later, but he had already completed a surprising amount of the music and orchestration, and had chosen all the carols to be used for the remaining sections. Roy Douglas completed the score, marking clearly the portions which he had contributed, and the premiere of The First Nowell duly took place on schedule.
It's presented on this Chandos recording, conducted by Richard Hickox, in full, warm sound and with the singers and players savouring to the full the skill which Vaughan Williams lavished on this final work. The full score lasts for half an hour, during which the ear is constantly beguiled by the arrangements, both vocal and orchestral, and the ease with which the composer leads us on from carol to carol. A real delight!
It's accompanied by not one but two world premieres! The first is an arrangement for strings and organ of the early and well-loved Fantasia on Christmas Carols, written in 1912. Hitherto, this piece has always been recorded either with full orchestra or with organ accompaniment. This third option does not notably change the impact of the work, since the string writing was always very much to the fore in any case, but it counts as one of the finest recordings of the Fantasia that I have ever heard -- and I have three or four others in my collection!
The other premiere is a ballet score, On Christmas Night, loosely based on the story of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Vaughan Williams and his friend, Gustav Holst, made a number of attempts to develop a uniquely English style of "ballet" by using traditional folk dances, and this is one of several examples which he wrote.
This score too makes use of several carol tunes -- a few of which are actually heard in all three works, not that I'm complaining. What makes this work stand out is that the music is definitely dramatic, intended as it was for staged storytelling through dance. The other two works tend more to the contemplative in tone.
On Christmas Night derives much of its energy from the traditional folk dance tunes woven into the score, eight of which are identified by name in the detailed synopsis in the recording booklet. The music takes on a special air of get-up-and-go from these lively dances, and the carols act as suitable foils during alternate quieter scenes. There are two vocal soloists, and a small choral part, but as befits a ballet this music is mainly orchestral.
On the Chandos CD recorded in 2005, the Fantasia comes first, and The First Nowell ends the record, framing the more rumbustious On Christmas Night between them. All three works are expertly performed, with splendid sound from both singers and players. Even conductor Richard Hickox, renowned for his choral-orchestral recordings and performances, rarely produced a warmer, more loving presentation than he achieved here. This is a Christmas treasure that is not to be missed!
Actually, the recording I want to share with you today consists of music by one composer, none other than my old friend Ralph Vaughan Williams. In earlier years of his career he edited for publication both the English Hymnal and the Oxford Book of Carols so it's not surprising that traditional hymns, folk tunes, carols, and folk dances formed one of the key elements of his musical personality.
Some time back, I wrote about his splendid cantata Hodie ("A Christmas Miracle in Music"), a concert work for choir, children's choir, soloists, organ and orchestra (written in 1954, the same year I was born). It's a magnificent masterpiece by any standards, but the folk element is notably in abeyance.
But just a few years later, in 1958, he was asked to compose music for a Christmas play to be performed at a charity matinee. Much to the surprise of the play's author, Simona Pakenham, he leaped at the chance and filled his score with all his favourite Christmas carols. Sadly, he died just 4 weeks later, but he had already completed a surprising amount of the music and orchestration, and had chosen all the carols to be used for the remaining sections. Roy Douglas completed the score, marking clearly the portions which he had contributed, and the premiere of The First Nowell duly took place on schedule.
It's presented on this Chandos recording, conducted by Richard Hickox, in full, warm sound and with the singers and players savouring to the full the skill which Vaughan Williams lavished on this final work. The full score lasts for half an hour, during which the ear is constantly beguiled by the arrangements, both vocal and orchestral, and the ease with which the composer leads us on from carol to carol. A real delight!
It's accompanied by not one but two world premieres! The first is an arrangement for strings and organ of the early and well-loved Fantasia on Christmas Carols, written in 1912. Hitherto, this piece has always been recorded either with full orchestra or with organ accompaniment. This third option does not notably change the impact of the work, since the string writing was always very much to the fore in any case, but it counts as one of the finest recordings of the Fantasia that I have ever heard -- and I have three or four others in my collection!
The other premiere is a ballet score, On Christmas Night, loosely based on the story of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Vaughan Williams and his friend, Gustav Holst, made a number of attempts to develop a uniquely English style of "ballet" by using traditional folk dances, and this is one of several examples which he wrote.
This score too makes use of several carol tunes -- a few of which are actually heard in all three works, not that I'm complaining. What makes this work stand out is that the music is definitely dramatic, intended as it was for staged storytelling through dance. The other two works tend more to the contemplative in tone.
On Christmas Night derives much of its energy from the traditional folk dance tunes woven into the score, eight of which are identified by name in the detailed synopsis in the recording booklet. The music takes on a special air of get-up-and-go from these lively dances, and the carols act as suitable foils during alternate quieter scenes. There are two vocal soloists, and a small choral part, but as befits a ballet this music is mainly orchestral.
On the Chandos CD recorded in 2005, the Fantasia comes first, and The First Nowell ends the record, framing the more rumbustious On Christmas Night between them. All three works are expertly performed, with splendid sound from both singers and players. Even conductor Richard Hickox, renowned for his choral-orchestral recordings and performances, rarely produced a warmer, more loving presentation than he achieved here. This is a Christmas treasure that is not to be missed!
Wednesday 13 November 2013
Beautiful & Unusual from Italy No. 2
The other day I was writing about my recording of two works by Giuseppe Martucci, and mentioned a fill-up by Ottorino Respighi. Today I want to discuss that work, and a couple of others by Respighi which are all of a similar type -- and not nearly as well known as his trilogy of symphonic poems about Rome.
The first of those tone poems (and Respighi's first big success as a composer), The Fountains of Rome, is big in every way -- big orchestra, big, bold sounds, vividly coloured tone painting. The same is even more true of its later successors, The Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals. So it will come as a surprise to many to hear that just 2 years after writing The Fountains, Respighi produced a genuine masterpiece of a very different stamp: Il Tramonto ("The Sunset").
The poem by Shelley (set in an Italian translation) seems to cry out for a passionate, ripely Romantic setting for voice and large orchestra, perhaps in the manner of Richard Strauss -- or of those Roman tone poems. Yet Respighi's way is different. The music does not shirk passionate utterance, but uses it sparingly. In its place we have a masterpiece of delicate colour and gentle sound, the melodic line rising and falling, turning in unexpected directions, yet always with great beauty and lyricism. The orchestration is for strings alone (or string quartet plus double bass), and Respighi coaxes a masterly array of textures from this limited palette.
Again, as in the Martucci pieces discussed previously, Carol Madalin sings with translucent tone, and Alfredo Bonavera leads the English Chamber Orchestra in a beautifully-shaped accompaniment. The Hyperion digital sound is perfectly attuned to this music.
The other pieces I want to discuss come from a Decca recording made in 1978 with the London Chamber Orchestra conducted by Laszlo Heltay.
The first, Deita silvane ("Forest Gods") is cut from very much the same cloth as Il Tramonto. It's a cycle of seven poems inspired by classical mythology, all about fauns and nymphs and the world of nature. The poems are set for soprano solo and chamber orchestra, and share the characteristics and strengths of the Shelley setting. Nor is this surprising when we realize that Deita silvane was composed less than a year before Il Tramonto.
The record continues with a fine performance of Trittico botticelliano. This is a suite of three tone poems for chamber orchestra, inspired by three famous Botticelli paintings found in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. The three pictures in order are Spring, The Adoration of the Magi, and The Birth of Venus. Again, Respighi's mastery of orchestral colouring is demonstrated as clearly with this smaller ensemble as with the large orchestra he used in the Roman trilogy. The Adoration of the Magi makes effective use of a well-known tune, the haunting mediaeval plainsong hymn, Veni, Veni Emmanuel.
Finally, we come to the Lauda per la Nativita del Signore. This 25-minute cantata for chorus, three soloists, and chamber orchestra has been described as "a large Christmas carol", and that's a very appropriate description! The simple beauty of the melodies and harmonies chimes well with the mediaeval poem which depicts the shepherds first being amazed by the angelic glory, and then worshipping at the manger. The three soloists (Jill Gomez, Meriel Dickinson, and Robert Tear) all sing with appropriately understated style, and the chorus and chamber orchestra are equally effective. Especially moving is Mary's lullaby, a duet for soprano and a single pastoral oboe.
In the re-release which I have, these Respighi works come coupled with a very fine performance of Rossini's magnificent Petite Messe Solennelle, in its original version for 16 singers, two pianos and harmonium. This set is a bargain of bargains if you can find it!
The first of those tone poems (and Respighi's first big success as a composer), The Fountains of Rome, is big in every way -- big orchestra, big, bold sounds, vividly coloured tone painting. The same is even more true of its later successors, The Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals. So it will come as a surprise to many to hear that just 2 years after writing The Fountains, Respighi produced a genuine masterpiece of a very different stamp: Il Tramonto ("The Sunset").
The poem by Shelley (set in an Italian translation) seems to cry out for a passionate, ripely Romantic setting for voice and large orchestra, perhaps in the manner of Richard Strauss -- or of those Roman tone poems. Yet Respighi's way is different. The music does not shirk passionate utterance, but uses it sparingly. In its place we have a masterpiece of delicate colour and gentle sound, the melodic line rising and falling, turning in unexpected directions, yet always with great beauty and lyricism. The orchestration is for strings alone (or string quartet plus double bass), and Respighi coaxes a masterly array of textures from this limited palette.
Again, as in the Martucci pieces discussed previously, Carol Madalin sings with translucent tone, and Alfredo Bonavera leads the English Chamber Orchestra in a beautifully-shaped accompaniment. The Hyperion digital sound is perfectly attuned to this music.
The other pieces I want to discuss come from a Decca recording made in 1978 with the London Chamber Orchestra conducted by Laszlo Heltay.
The first, Deita silvane ("Forest Gods") is cut from very much the same cloth as Il Tramonto. It's a cycle of seven poems inspired by classical mythology, all about fauns and nymphs and the world of nature. The poems are set for soprano solo and chamber orchestra, and share the characteristics and strengths of the Shelley setting. Nor is this surprising when we realize that Deita silvane was composed less than a year before Il Tramonto.
The record continues with a fine performance of Trittico botticelliano. This is a suite of three tone poems for chamber orchestra, inspired by three famous Botticelli paintings found in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. The three pictures in order are Spring, The Adoration of the Magi, and The Birth of Venus. Again, Respighi's mastery of orchestral colouring is demonstrated as clearly with this smaller ensemble as with the large orchestra he used in the Roman trilogy. The Adoration of the Magi makes effective use of a well-known tune, the haunting mediaeval plainsong hymn, Veni, Veni Emmanuel.
Finally, we come to the Lauda per la Nativita del Signore. This 25-minute cantata for chorus, three soloists, and chamber orchestra has been described as "a large Christmas carol", and that's a very appropriate description! The simple beauty of the melodies and harmonies chimes well with the mediaeval poem which depicts the shepherds first being amazed by the angelic glory, and then worshipping at the manger. The three soloists (Jill Gomez, Meriel Dickinson, and Robert Tear) all sing with appropriately understated style, and the chorus and chamber orchestra are equally effective. Especially moving is Mary's lullaby, a duet for soprano and a single pastoral oboe.
In the re-release which I have, these Respighi works come coupled with a very fine performance of Rossini's magnificent Petite Messe Solennelle, in its original version for 16 singers, two pianos and harmonium. This set is a bargain of bargains if you can find it!
Saturday 9 November 2013
Beautiful & Unusual from Italy No. 1
In late 19th-century Italy, almost nothing could be more unusual and unexpected than a composer who never wrote one single solitary opera! A lot of people may think I am making this up, but such a composer does exist. And his music is so beautiful that it passes my ability to understand why people condemn him to obscurity and fourth-rate status without having heard any of his work.
Giuseppe Martucci lived from 1856 to 1909. He was a noted and notable teacher and conductor (one of his pupils who later distinguished himself was Ottorino Respighi). Unlike most musicians north of the Alps, Martucci revered the works of both Brahms and Wagner and introduced many of them in his homeland, including his direction of the Italian premiere of Tristan und Isolde. If you want to really look hard, you may find traces of both in his own works, but louder than any outside influence is the sunny lyricism that is the unique gift of Italy to the world of music. That lyric influence usually finds expression in Italy through opera, and an independent orchestral or chamber-music repertoire was virtually non-existent in Martucci's day. But Martucci was a forward-looking man, and he composed multiple symphonies, concerti, chamber works, and large numbers of piano pieces.
The particular recording at hand features a kind of cantata or song cycle (either term could work) called La Canzone dei Ricordi ("The Song of Remembrance"). It's a setting of poetry by R. E. Pagliara for mezzo-soprano or baritone and small orchestra. This work bears no opus number of its own, but we know that Martucci was working on it at the same time that Mahler was underway on his early orchestral song-cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ("Songs of a Wayfarer").
The poetry speaks of dreaming, and of regrets for things which have disappeared into the past and can only return in memory. Martucci spins out a glorious stream of enticing melody throughout the seven songs, and accompanies with subtle orchestral colours, in very light textures. None of the risk you find in Mahler or Richard Strauss of the poor singer being overwhelmed by the players! The colouring shifts frequently, adding interest and variety to the sound. All in all, a masterly composition and a brave one too, considering that Martucci's contemporaries were one and all engaged in composing operas.
In this 1987 Hyperion recording, mezzo-soprano Carol Madalin sings with purity of tone and clarity of text, all while effortlessly spinning out Martucci's soaring, ravishing phrases. It's a truly winning performance, and certainly captivated me at first hearing.
After the Canzone dei Ricordi, the CD continues with a Notturno for orchestra, another beautiful lyrical outpouring with the strings leading the way in establishing a truly poetic mood painting.
Throughout these two beautiful works, the English Chamber Orchestra plays radiantly and conductor Alfredo Bonavera makes a splendid case for these neglected pieces.
The CD fills out with another rarity by Martucci's pupil Respighi, and I will go on to discuss that one and other Respighi works little-known in my next post.
Giuseppe Martucci lived from 1856 to 1909. He was a noted and notable teacher and conductor (one of his pupils who later distinguished himself was Ottorino Respighi). Unlike most musicians north of the Alps, Martucci revered the works of both Brahms and Wagner and introduced many of them in his homeland, including his direction of the Italian premiere of Tristan und Isolde. If you want to really look hard, you may find traces of both in his own works, but louder than any outside influence is the sunny lyricism that is the unique gift of Italy to the world of music. That lyric influence usually finds expression in Italy through opera, and an independent orchestral or chamber-music repertoire was virtually non-existent in Martucci's day. But Martucci was a forward-looking man, and he composed multiple symphonies, concerti, chamber works, and large numbers of piano pieces.
The particular recording at hand features a kind of cantata or song cycle (either term could work) called La Canzone dei Ricordi ("The Song of Remembrance"). It's a setting of poetry by R. E. Pagliara for mezzo-soprano or baritone and small orchestra. This work bears no opus number of its own, but we know that Martucci was working on it at the same time that Mahler was underway on his early orchestral song-cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ("Songs of a Wayfarer").
The poetry speaks of dreaming, and of regrets for things which have disappeared into the past and can only return in memory. Martucci spins out a glorious stream of enticing melody throughout the seven songs, and accompanies with subtle orchestral colours, in very light textures. None of the risk you find in Mahler or Richard Strauss of the poor singer being overwhelmed by the players! The colouring shifts frequently, adding interest and variety to the sound. All in all, a masterly composition and a brave one too, considering that Martucci's contemporaries were one and all engaged in composing operas.
In this 1987 Hyperion recording, mezzo-soprano Carol Madalin sings with purity of tone and clarity of text, all while effortlessly spinning out Martucci's soaring, ravishing phrases. It's a truly winning performance, and certainly captivated me at first hearing.
After the Canzone dei Ricordi, the CD continues with a Notturno for orchestra, another beautiful lyrical outpouring with the strings leading the way in establishing a truly poetic mood painting.
Throughout these two beautiful works, the English Chamber Orchestra plays radiantly and conductor Alfredo Bonavera makes a splendid case for these neglected pieces.
The CD fills out with another rarity by Martucci's pupil Respighi, and I will go on to discuss that one and other Respighi works little-known in my next post.
Friday 25 October 2013
Music and Magic from France
Music in the service of depicting magic at work -- it's been one of the great preoccupations of composers throughout the history of European music from the birth of opera in the early 1600s right to the present day. Even such apparently staid and un-pictorial composers as Brahms had a go at it. Sometimes magic is depicted as happening at quicksilver speed (think Mendelssohn in A Midsummer Night's Dream). In the particular cases I want to consider today, the power of magic is quiet, immense, gentle and awe-inspiring all at once.
I've always found it curious that more composers weren't inspired by the vast trove of legends accumulating around King Arthur. These stories have always seemed to me to be made to order for operatic or symphonic treatment, with their wealth of dramatic incident and their vividly colourful characters and settings. Well, Wagner dipped into the edges with the operas Lohengrin and Parsifal, both of which draw on the legends of the Holy Grail that figure so prominently in the tales of Arthur and his knights. Other examples, though, have been few and far between and mostly have remained relatively unknown.
What would a Wagnerian Arthur have sounded like? Well, we can get a bit of a taste by listening to Ernest Chausson's opera Le roi Arthus, his last completed work. No, it's not pure Wagner by any means, but if you combine the twin influences of Wagner and Cesar Franck with a French environment in the late 19th century, you've pretty much described the musical style in which Chausson was working. From Wagner, he derived first the idea of creating his own libretto, and it is full of the positive spirit of the man who wrote it. Even though it is framed as a tragedy, the tragic downfall of the man Arthur happens even as his great ideal promises its own future redemption.
Like Wagner, Chausson also composed in lengthy scenes, six in all for an opera lasting a little under 3 hours. There are no detachable set pieces, arias, etc. The continuous flow of the music shows how much he learned from the master of Bayreuth, even though he makes but slight use of leitmotifs. There is a lyrical quality to the score, not at all Wagnerian, but definitely in line with other French composers of the late 19th century. All in all, a joy to the ear.
Now, what about the magic? Well, there's plenty of that in the Arthurian legendarium; which moments would Chausson choose to include? There are two main scenes of magic. In Act II the distraught Arthur cries out to Merlin to help him, and Merlin appears upstage, imprisoned by magic in the apple grove, to foretell, in dark bass tones, Arthur's death. The music here is spare, lightly scored, with muted strings and occasional quiet phrases from the winds.
At the end, Arthur is left alone after the death of Lancelot, with his entire world in ruins. As he pleads for God to end his life, a mysterious, mystical sequence of common chords is heard from an offstage chorus, ushering in the final scene where Arthur is taken away in a magical boat to be healed of his wounds and to sleep in peace until the future time when is to return. Those beautiful common chords have an interesting history -- fittingly enough, one where the present circles around to join hands with the past.
Chausson's Op. 5 is a masterly symphonic poem entitled Viviane, the name of the fairy/witch who tricks Merlin into surrendering his magical powers and then imprisons him in the tree. These events are clearly depicted in the music, which opens with that same beautiful sequence of common chords, scored lightly for strings.
There's no question that this magical sound deserves a place in his magnum opus. By placing it in the mouths of the mystic celestial singers at the end of Arthus, Chausson retroactively conferred on this potent musical idea a stature of the divine, or of good or "white" magic if you prefer. In the opera, the chorus continues singing in the background throughout Arthur's magnificent concluding arioso, and finally leads the way as his body at last appears in the magical boat, sailing into the distance.
It seems to me little short of scandalous that Le Roi Arthus has only been recorded in full (as far as I can find out) two times. The older recording from 1987 is the one I have, on three Erato CDs, and is conducted with great passion and fire by Armin Jordan. The three leads are all first-rate: Teresa Zylis-Gara as Genievre (Guinevere), Gosta Winbergh as Lancelot, and Canadian baritone Gino Quilico as Arthus.
Like most of Chausson's output, Viviane has not fared much better in frequency. My recording is a re-release of an EMI France CD conducted by Michel Plasson with the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, and comes together with the Symphony in B flat and another symphonic poem, Soir de fete. All these works are well worth having, especially in you like Cesar Franck's lone symphony and wish he had written more of them!
I've always found it curious that more composers weren't inspired by the vast trove of legends accumulating around King Arthur. These stories have always seemed to me to be made to order for operatic or symphonic treatment, with their wealth of dramatic incident and their vividly colourful characters and settings. Well, Wagner dipped into the edges with the operas Lohengrin and Parsifal, both of which draw on the legends of the Holy Grail that figure so prominently in the tales of Arthur and his knights. Other examples, though, have been few and far between and mostly have remained relatively unknown.
What would a Wagnerian Arthur have sounded like? Well, we can get a bit of a taste by listening to Ernest Chausson's opera Le roi Arthus, his last completed work. No, it's not pure Wagner by any means, but if you combine the twin influences of Wagner and Cesar Franck with a French environment in the late 19th century, you've pretty much described the musical style in which Chausson was working. From Wagner, he derived first the idea of creating his own libretto, and it is full of the positive spirit of the man who wrote it. Even though it is framed as a tragedy, the tragic downfall of the man Arthur happens even as his great ideal promises its own future redemption.
Like Wagner, Chausson also composed in lengthy scenes, six in all for an opera lasting a little under 3 hours. There are no detachable set pieces, arias, etc. The continuous flow of the music shows how much he learned from the master of Bayreuth, even though he makes but slight use of leitmotifs. There is a lyrical quality to the score, not at all Wagnerian, but definitely in line with other French composers of the late 19th century. All in all, a joy to the ear.
Now, what about the magic? Well, there's plenty of that in the Arthurian legendarium; which moments would Chausson choose to include? There are two main scenes of magic. In Act II the distraught Arthur cries out to Merlin to help him, and Merlin appears upstage, imprisoned by magic in the apple grove, to foretell, in dark bass tones, Arthur's death. The music here is spare, lightly scored, with muted strings and occasional quiet phrases from the winds.
At the end, Arthur is left alone after the death of Lancelot, with his entire world in ruins. As he pleads for God to end his life, a mysterious, mystical sequence of common chords is heard from an offstage chorus, ushering in the final scene where Arthur is taken away in a magical boat to be healed of his wounds and to sleep in peace until the future time when is to return. Those beautiful common chords have an interesting history -- fittingly enough, one where the present circles around to join hands with the past.
Chausson's Op. 5 is a masterly symphonic poem entitled Viviane, the name of the fairy/witch who tricks Merlin into surrendering his magical powers and then imprisons him in the tree. These events are clearly depicted in the music, which opens with that same beautiful sequence of common chords, scored lightly for strings.
There's no question that this magical sound deserves a place in his magnum opus. By placing it in the mouths of the mystic celestial singers at the end of Arthus, Chausson retroactively conferred on this potent musical idea a stature of the divine, or of good or "white" magic if you prefer. In the opera, the chorus continues singing in the background throughout Arthur's magnificent concluding arioso, and finally leads the way as his body at last appears in the magical boat, sailing into the distance.
It seems to me little short of scandalous that Le Roi Arthus has only been recorded in full (as far as I can find out) two times. The older recording from 1987 is the one I have, on three Erato CDs, and is conducted with great passion and fire by Armin Jordan. The three leads are all first-rate: Teresa Zylis-Gara as Genievre (Guinevere), Gosta Winbergh as Lancelot, and Canadian baritone Gino Quilico as Arthus.
Like most of Chausson's output, Viviane has not fared much better in frequency. My recording is a re-release of an EMI France CD conducted by Michel Plasson with the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, and comes together with the Symphony in B flat and another symphonic poem, Soir de fete. All these works are well worth having, especially in you like Cesar Franck's lone symphony and wish he had written more of them!
Monday 21 October 2013
Scandinavian Rarities # 2
Hi there, loyal readers -- sorry it's taken me so long to get back here for the second installment of this little mini-series.
Ask most music lovers to name two Norwegian Romantic composers, and this is what you will likely get in answer:
[1] Edvard Grieg
[2] uhhhh....
This is especially unfortunate, because Grieg's art (masterful as it became) was strongly tilted towards the production of small character pieces and songs. In this kind of musical lyricism he was truly unequalled. But the composition of larger musical structures was not his métier. Apart from the famous Piano Concerto, there is an early symphony of relatively little interest (to me at any rate) and that's about all. Almost all of Grieg's most noteworthy musical inspirations tell their tale within a span of five minutes or less.
I'm making a point of this reality, because Grieg himself regarded today's composer as his natural counterpart, excelling in the larger symphonic structures which Grieg himself preferred to leave to others.
The saddest point of this story is that Johan Svendsen's composing career came to a premature end after a quarrel with his wife led to her burning the manuscript of his Third Symphony. He simply lacked the motivation to re-write it from memory, and just dried up as a creator of new music. For the rest of his career he scored notable successes as a conductor, but composed nothing.
If that story sounds familiar, it may be because you've seen or read Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler. The quarrel and burning story made the rounds of artistic circles in Oslo (then called Kristiania) and Ibsen put the incident almost unaltered into his newest play!
So, today's recording contains the two existing Symphonies and a Polonaise for orchestra. The symphonies have been recorded before, but certainly not often, nor are they likely to be known to most music lovers outside of Norway. The Polonaise is a premiere recording.
The first thing that strikes you right at the opening bar of the Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 4 is the sheer energy and driving force of the music. This is a work that hits the ground running and keeps right on going. If the opening theme perhaps sounds a bit naïve, it's worth remembering that opus number and realizing that Svendsen was still a young man (age 25) when he wrote it in 1865. In the first minute he has already given a balancing second statement to the first one, and begun to put the first few bars through a fugato passage. This movement is nothing if not eventful!
The succeeding slow movement is imbued with poetic sounds of the horns. The scherzo brings us into the world of folk music, mixing it with a kind of mock-Mozart ambience in a very winning combination. The finale opens with a slow introduction which accelerates into another energetic burst of good-natured melody. Again, as in the first movement, the music surges onward at speed, with occasional cross-rhythms to add spice to the mixture.
The Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 15 was composed eleven years after No. 1, and surprisingly shows not as much development as you might expect. Does that matter, when the music is just as zippy and ingratiating as its predecessor? The first movement is composed in an energetic triple time, which produces memorable musical ideas with as much flair as many of Dvorak's first movements. The succeeding slow movement also reminds me of Dvorak.
The Intermezzo third movement is inspired by the Halling or Springdans, a Norwegian folk dance which calls for the dancers to leap frequently into the air. The bass line is a kind of drone bass familiar from many of Grieg's dance inspirations, but here less overtly reminiscent of the droning understrings on the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle. The finale again has a dark slow introduction, but this soon speeds up into another brightly-lit, high-spirited finale with a main theme which anticipates by two decades one of the dances in Act 1 of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.
The Polonaise No. 2, Op. 28 is a suitable encore to the two symphonies, with the classic polonaise rhythm underlying another characteristically bright and cheerful string of melodies. The central trio is charmingly scored for flute and strings, a good contrast to the grandiose ending of the main theme.
Again, thanks to the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard for another sparkling collection of music that deserves to be heard, and heard often, not neglected on a dusty library shelf. The full, warm Chandos sound again presents this music most effectively.
Ask most music lovers to name two Norwegian Romantic composers, and this is what you will likely get in answer:
[1] Edvard Grieg
[2] uhhhh....
This is especially unfortunate, because Grieg's art (masterful as it became) was strongly tilted towards the production of small character pieces and songs. In this kind of musical lyricism he was truly unequalled. But the composition of larger musical structures was not his métier. Apart from the famous Piano Concerto, there is an early symphony of relatively little interest (to me at any rate) and that's about all. Almost all of Grieg's most noteworthy musical inspirations tell their tale within a span of five minutes or less.
I'm making a point of this reality, because Grieg himself regarded today's composer as his natural counterpart, excelling in the larger symphonic structures which Grieg himself preferred to leave to others.
The saddest point of this story is that Johan Svendsen's composing career came to a premature end after a quarrel with his wife led to her burning the manuscript of his Third Symphony. He simply lacked the motivation to re-write it from memory, and just dried up as a creator of new music. For the rest of his career he scored notable successes as a conductor, but composed nothing.
If that story sounds familiar, it may be because you've seen or read Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler. The quarrel and burning story made the rounds of artistic circles in Oslo (then called Kristiania) and Ibsen put the incident almost unaltered into his newest play!
So, today's recording contains the two existing Symphonies and a Polonaise for orchestra. The symphonies have been recorded before, but certainly not often, nor are they likely to be known to most music lovers outside of Norway. The Polonaise is a premiere recording.
The first thing that strikes you right at the opening bar of the Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 4 is the sheer energy and driving force of the music. This is a work that hits the ground running and keeps right on going. If the opening theme perhaps sounds a bit naïve, it's worth remembering that opus number and realizing that Svendsen was still a young man (age 25) when he wrote it in 1865. In the first minute he has already given a balancing second statement to the first one, and begun to put the first few bars through a fugato passage. This movement is nothing if not eventful!
The succeeding slow movement is imbued with poetic sounds of the horns. The scherzo brings us into the world of folk music, mixing it with a kind of mock-Mozart ambience in a very winning combination. The finale opens with a slow introduction which accelerates into another energetic burst of good-natured melody. Again, as in the first movement, the music surges onward at speed, with occasional cross-rhythms to add spice to the mixture.
The Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 15 was composed eleven years after No. 1, and surprisingly shows not as much development as you might expect. Does that matter, when the music is just as zippy and ingratiating as its predecessor? The first movement is composed in an energetic triple time, which produces memorable musical ideas with as much flair as many of Dvorak's first movements. The succeeding slow movement also reminds me of Dvorak.
The Intermezzo third movement is inspired by the Halling or Springdans, a Norwegian folk dance which calls for the dancers to leap frequently into the air. The bass line is a kind of drone bass familiar from many of Grieg's dance inspirations, but here less overtly reminiscent of the droning understrings on the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle. The finale again has a dark slow introduction, but this soon speeds up into another brightly-lit, high-spirited finale with a main theme which anticipates by two decades one of the dances in Act 1 of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.
The Polonaise No. 2, Op. 28 is a suitable encore to the two symphonies, with the classic polonaise rhythm underlying another characteristically bright and cheerful string of melodies. The central trio is charmingly scored for flute and strings, a good contrast to the grandiose ending of the main theme.
Again, thanks to the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard for another sparkling collection of music that deserves to be heard, and heard often, not neglected on a dusty library shelf. The full, warm Chandos sound again presents this music most effectively.
Monday 23 September 2013
Scandinavian Rarities # 1
After a recent binge at a sale, I have two new recordings to talk about. Here's the first one. It comes from one of those composers that one sometimes reads about or hears about. But honestly now: how many people have ever actually heard any music by Franz Berwald? Hands up?
My hands are down. Until I picked up this first volume of Berwald's symphonies, the name meant nothing to me except as a name. So, a bit of background: born in Stockholm in 1796, and died there in 1868. Berwald was variously an orthopaedic surgeon, manager of a saw mill, and manager of a glass factory. The time had not yet come when a Swedish composer could make a living as a composer. It's curious, too, that virtually all of Berwald's major orchestral works were composed in the short time from 1841 to 1845.
Those dates place Berwald squarely in the middle of the Romantic ferment, with all that the term implies of music-as-catharsis and music-as-experiment. The present Chandos recording features his third ( Sinfonie singuliere) and fourth (Sinfonie naïve) symphonies and a tone poem called Elfenspiel. Both symphonies use the conventional four-movement layout, and in both cases the adagio and scherzo movements are attached. The unique aspects of structure show in the first movements of each, where interesting experiments with sonata form surprise the theory-oriented listener by going (apparently) in the wrong order and yet arriving in the right place at the right time. In this connection, it's worth recalling Donald Tovey's remark that you simply cannot find a first movement among any of Haydn's 104 symphonies that truly corresponds with most textbook descriptions of sonata form. Another startling invention is the tripartite scherzo-trio-scherzo of the third symphony -- enclosed within the adagio, the rapid-fire music bookended by a slow and solemn string melody of great nobility and beauty.
Berwald has some other surprises up his sleeve too. Consider, for instance, an ostinato figure in his melody part while the accompaniment is continually varied, the reverse of the usual practice which tends to place an ostinato in the bass. A good example is the insistent trumpet ostinato on one note that occurs twice in the opening movement of the Sinfonie singuliere -- it sounds for all the world like the precursor of the One Note Samba. Berwald's use of a conventional orchestra of his day yet produces some original and piquant sounds. The combination of short motifs and varying orchestration in the opening of the Sinfonie naïve sounds for all the world like an operatic overture -- and it's worth remembering that Berwald spent much of his time and effort in trying to gain recognition as an operatic composer. In the scherzos of both symphonies we hear gossamer-light fairy sounds to compare with the best of Mendelssohn. Finally, it must be noted that Berwald is no mean melodist, and is more than capable of developing an extended tune of sufficient strength and interest to carry the weight of his argument.
As always, splendidly warm and rich Chandos sound conveys all the musical strands with lifelike clarity. The Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Thomas Dausgaard do full justice to Berwald's inspiration.
Taken overall, then, Berwald plainly was a composer of no mean skill and with a genuine lyrical gift. It seems a pity that his music has been so little regarded, as the neglect has given rise to an unjustified presumption that Scandinavia lacked genuine composers deserving our attention. Berwald is a more than worthy representative of Sweden. In the next entry I'm going to look at a Norwegian composer of similar skill and interest who is, if anything, even more neglected.
My hands are down. Until I picked up this first volume of Berwald's symphonies, the name meant nothing to me except as a name. So, a bit of background: born in Stockholm in 1796, and died there in 1868. Berwald was variously an orthopaedic surgeon, manager of a saw mill, and manager of a glass factory. The time had not yet come when a Swedish composer could make a living as a composer. It's curious, too, that virtually all of Berwald's major orchestral works were composed in the short time from 1841 to 1845.
Those dates place Berwald squarely in the middle of the Romantic ferment, with all that the term implies of music-as-catharsis and music-as-experiment. The present Chandos recording features his third ( Sinfonie singuliere) and fourth (Sinfonie naïve) symphonies and a tone poem called Elfenspiel. Both symphonies use the conventional four-movement layout, and in both cases the adagio and scherzo movements are attached. The unique aspects of structure show in the first movements of each, where interesting experiments with sonata form surprise the theory-oriented listener by going (apparently) in the wrong order and yet arriving in the right place at the right time. In this connection, it's worth recalling Donald Tovey's remark that you simply cannot find a first movement among any of Haydn's 104 symphonies that truly corresponds with most textbook descriptions of sonata form. Another startling invention is the tripartite scherzo-trio-scherzo of the third symphony -- enclosed within the adagio, the rapid-fire music bookended by a slow and solemn string melody of great nobility and beauty.
Berwald has some other surprises up his sleeve too. Consider, for instance, an ostinato figure in his melody part while the accompaniment is continually varied, the reverse of the usual practice which tends to place an ostinato in the bass. A good example is the insistent trumpet ostinato on one note that occurs twice in the opening movement of the Sinfonie singuliere -- it sounds for all the world like the precursor of the One Note Samba. Berwald's use of a conventional orchestra of his day yet produces some original and piquant sounds. The combination of short motifs and varying orchestration in the opening of the Sinfonie naïve sounds for all the world like an operatic overture -- and it's worth remembering that Berwald spent much of his time and effort in trying to gain recognition as an operatic composer. In the scherzos of both symphonies we hear gossamer-light fairy sounds to compare with the best of Mendelssohn. Finally, it must be noted that Berwald is no mean melodist, and is more than capable of developing an extended tune of sufficient strength and interest to carry the weight of his argument.
As always, splendidly warm and rich Chandos sound conveys all the musical strands with lifelike clarity. The Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Thomas Dausgaard do full justice to Berwald's inspiration.
Taken overall, then, Berwald plainly was a composer of no mean skill and with a genuine lyrical gift. It seems a pity that his music has been so little regarded, as the neglect has given rise to an unjustified presumption that Scandinavia lacked genuine composers deserving our attention. Berwald is a more than worthy representative of Sweden. In the next entry I'm going to look at a Norwegian composer of similar skill and interest who is, if anything, even more neglected.
Wednesday 4 September 2013
A Great Man's Prayers in Music
Because today is Anton Bruckner's birthday, I wanted to share some thoughts about his unique and inspiring music.
During his lifetime, Bruckner was often acclaimed as a "Wagnerian symphonist", not least by Wagner himself. But that misleading label drove both Bruckner and his followers into a blind alley, because the only really common factor between the music dramas of Wagner and the symphonies of Bruckner is their length. And the common factors between their personalities were virtually non-existent.
Nobody can truly understand or come to terms with the music of Anton Bruckner without appreciating the immense depth of his faith in God. To many people today, the concept of believing in any kind of God is laughable, but somehow that cynical amusement tends to fall silent when confronted with the greatest products of that faith -- such as the massive Gothic cathedrals of Europe and Britain or great works of religious art. Bruckner's symphonic output is a little like that. His symphonies can best be appreciated as gigantic cathedrals in sound, each one bringing the composer closer to the moment when, in his Ninth Symphony, he finally dedicated his work to "der liebe Gott".
In relation to those cathedrals, Bruckner's short motets for unaccompanied chorus are like tiny chapels surrounding the high altar. Unlike the symphonies, the motets are short, mostly lasting only a few minutes. And like those chapels, no two are alike although they share a common shape and purpose. Their texts are religious and all are sung in Latin, the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic church. The motets tend to start quietly, in a lower register of the voices, rise both in pitch and intensity to a climax, and then decline in volume as they drop back down to a lower pitch at the quiet ending.
I had the privilege of singing several of these motets in younger days in Toronto, and the beauty and power of this music never failed to move me. That was especially true of his final setting of Christus factus est (he set that text three times in all) which reaches a chromatic climax of shuddering intensity followed by a silent bar in which that astounding chord echoes into silence before the singers resume with the downward decline of the piece.
Recordings of these devotional works, prayers in music indeed, have been few and far between. I've had just two. A fine selection was recorded by the Corydon Singers under Matthew Best on Hyperion CD, and is available to download. An earlier version of many of the same numbers comes on DGG under Eugen Jochum. Many of Jochum's pieces first appeared as fill-ups on LP in his original cycle of all the symphonies. In the CD reissue they are all gathered together with his recordings of the three great Masses, the Te Deum, and Psalm 150.
Best's recording has the advantage of cleaner, more modern sound, and his choir has much better intonation. Jochum's sopranos tend to be wobbly and sing a bit under the note in some very high passages (Bruckner could be as merciless as Beethoven to his sopranos!). The sound also has a slightly dim quality, almost as if heard through the audio equivalent of a scrim or veil. But I always felt, and still feel, that Jochum has a much better sense of the music as music, and is more at home in the idiom. I'm biased, I still feel that way about his recordings of the symphonies as well, and they have few competitors in my appreciation. So it's a trade-off.
Both recordings also include three motets with accompaniment by a trio of trombones. Afferentur regi and Inveni David are both rather similar to the outline I've given above. Ecce sacerdos magnus is another matter altogether, an almost Gabrieli-like mixture of pomp and ceremony with the organ adding its majesty and power. This, by the way, is one of the very few works by Bruckner (one of the greatest organ improvisers in history) in which an independent organ part appears.
During his lifetime, Bruckner was often acclaimed as a "Wagnerian symphonist", not least by Wagner himself. But that misleading label drove both Bruckner and his followers into a blind alley, because the only really common factor between the music dramas of Wagner and the symphonies of Bruckner is their length. And the common factors between their personalities were virtually non-existent.
Nobody can truly understand or come to terms with the music of Anton Bruckner without appreciating the immense depth of his faith in God. To many people today, the concept of believing in any kind of God is laughable, but somehow that cynical amusement tends to fall silent when confronted with the greatest products of that faith -- such as the massive Gothic cathedrals of Europe and Britain or great works of religious art. Bruckner's symphonic output is a little like that. His symphonies can best be appreciated as gigantic cathedrals in sound, each one bringing the composer closer to the moment when, in his Ninth Symphony, he finally dedicated his work to "der liebe Gott".
In relation to those cathedrals, Bruckner's short motets for unaccompanied chorus are like tiny chapels surrounding the high altar. Unlike the symphonies, the motets are short, mostly lasting only a few minutes. And like those chapels, no two are alike although they share a common shape and purpose. Their texts are religious and all are sung in Latin, the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic church. The motets tend to start quietly, in a lower register of the voices, rise both in pitch and intensity to a climax, and then decline in volume as they drop back down to a lower pitch at the quiet ending.
I had the privilege of singing several of these motets in younger days in Toronto, and the beauty and power of this music never failed to move me. That was especially true of his final setting of Christus factus est (he set that text three times in all) which reaches a chromatic climax of shuddering intensity followed by a silent bar in which that astounding chord echoes into silence before the singers resume with the downward decline of the piece.
Recordings of these devotional works, prayers in music indeed, have been few and far between. I've had just two. A fine selection was recorded by the Corydon Singers under Matthew Best on Hyperion CD, and is available to download. An earlier version of many of the same numbers comes on DGG under Eugen Jochum. Many of Jochum's pieces first appeared as fill-ups on LP in his original cycle of all the symphonies. In the CD reissue they are all gathered together with his recordings of the three great Masses, the Te Deum, and Psalm 150.
Best's recording has the advantage of cleaner, more modern sound, and his choir has much better intonation. Jochum's sopranos tend to be wobbly and sing a bit under the note in some very high passages (Bruckner could be as merciless as Beethoven to his sopranos!). The sound also has a slightly dim quality, almost as if heard through the audio equivalent of a scrim or veil. But I always felt, and still feel, that Jochum has a much better sense of the music as music, and is more at home in the idiom. I'm biased, I still feel that way about his recordings of the symphonies as well, and they have few competitors in my appreciation. So it's a trade-off.
Both recordings also include three motets with accompaniment by a trio of trombones. Afferentur regi and Inveni David are both rather similar to the outline I've given above. Ecce sacerdos magnus is another matter altogether, an almost Gabrieli-like mixture of pomp and ceremony with the organ adding its majesty and power. This, by the way, is one of the very few works by Bruckner (one of the greatest organ improvisers in history) in which an independent organ part appears.
Sunday 28 July 2013
Down Among the Dead Men
Now, there's an eye-catching title for a piece of classical music. I've had this one in my collection for quite a while, and just decided to pull it out again. I'm glad I did. Some of the other music in the album is not quite so interesting, but this piece is (for me) extremely gripping and powerful.
In all but name, this is a piano concerto. It's official title is Concert Variations upon an English Theme ('Down Among the Dead Men') for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 71. The composer was Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, one of the leading composers and teachers of the renaissance of English composition in the late nineteenth century. Because Stanford was a man with a truly classical sensibility, he refused to classify this work as a "concerto" since it did not make use of the approved three-movement form. However, it lasts for close to half an hour and would certainly have been seen as a concerto by many of his contemporaries.
The tune is believed to be a traditional folk song which Stanford found in an obscure early collection of such material. The recording I have makes no mention of the song's words, and in this context they surely do not matter (in spite of the eye-catching title). The work exploits all the purely musical possibilities inherent in the tune to great effect, and that's what counts.
Like any good classical composer writing a set of variations, Stanford begins with an introduction that makes use of a short descending motif from the end of the tune before announcing the full melody itself. There then follow 12 variations in all, neatly divided in half by a grand climax at the end of Variation 6. This actually sounds like it could be an ending of the work, until a swift little transition leads the music into a gentler intermezzo which begins the second half. In the true classical manner, the variations are based not so much on the melody of the song (although bits and pieces of it occur in varying guises throughout) but on the bass line. Variation 6, again as an example, presents a rising, aspiring melody in the major key as different in character as could be from the original tune, but still using the same bass line as its foundation.
The writing for piano is very fluent, demonstrating the mastery which Stanford cultivated and for which he was famous. It's often been said that Stanford's mastery came at the expense of interest, originality, and passion, but that's not the case here. These variations cover a terrific variety of musical styles, all most convincingly integrated together, and with the partnership between piano and orchestra perfectly judged (and also nicely varied from point to point). The result, for me, is a major unknown masterpiece of the piano concerto repertoire.
The Chandos recording benefits enormously from that company's favoured rich acoustic, which highlights the full textures of many passages. Margaret Fingerhut is a splendid soloist, and the Ulster Orchestra under Vernon Handley play with power and passion to spare.
The accompanying Second Piano Concerto has its effective moments, but is apt to sound a little more like Brahms mixed with water -- a reaction I've also had to some of Stanford's symphonies. In the 2-CD re-release, these works accompany Stanford's six Irish Rhapsodies and here again the composer makes most effective use of traditional Irish tunes. So all in all, a rewarding release, but most especially for Down Among the Dead Men.
In all but name, this is a piano concerto. It's official title is Concert Variations upon an English Theme ('Down Among the Dead Men') for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 71. The composer was Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, one of the leading composers and teachers of the renaissance of English composition in the late nineteenth century. Because Stanford was a man with a truly classical sensibility, he refused to classify this work as a "concerto" since it did not make use of the approved three-movement form. However, it lasts for close to half an hour and would certainly have been seen as a concerto by many of his contemporaries.
The tune is believed to be a traditional folk song which Stanford found in an obscure early collection of such material. The recording I have makes no mention of the song's words, and in this context they surely do not matter (in spite of the eye-catching title). The work exploits all the purely musical possibilities inherent in the tune to great effect, and that's what counts.
Like any good classical composer writing a set of variations, Stanford begins with an introduction that makes use of a short descending motif from the end of the tune before announcing the full melody itself. There then follow 12 variations in all, neatly divided in half by a grand climax at the end of Variation 6. This actually sounds like it could be an ending of the work, until a swift little transition leads the music into a gentler intermezzo which begins the second half. In the true classical manner, the variations are based not so much on the melody of the song (although bits and pieces of it occur in varying guises throughout) but on the bass line. Variation 6, again as an example, presents a rising, aspiring melody in the major key as different in character as could be from the original tune, but still using the same bass line as its foundation.
The writing for piano is very fluent, demonstrating the mastery which Stanford cultivated and for which he was famous. It's often been said that Stanford's mastery came at the expense of interest, originality, and passion, but that's not the case here. These variations cover a terrific variety of musical styles, all most convincingly integrated together, and with the partnership between piano and orchestra perfectly judged (and also nicely varied from point to point). The result, for me, is a major unknown masterpiece of the piano concerto repertoire.
The Chandos recording benefits enormously from that company's favoured rich acoustic, which highlights the full textures of many passages. Margaret Fingerhut is a splendid soloist, and the Ulster Orchestra under Vernon Handley play with power and passion to spare.
The accompanying Second Piano Concerto has its effective moments, but is apt to sound a little more like Brahms mixed with water -- a reaction I've also had to some of Stanford's symphonies. In the 2-CD re-release, these works accompany Stanford's six Irish Rhapsodies and here again the composer makes most effective use of traditional Irish tunes. So all in all, a rewarding release, but most especially for Down Among the Dead Men.
Friday 12 July 2013
Not Stringing you a Line!
It must be something in the air.
Why else would so many composers from one small group of islands become such masters at the art of manipulating the sound world of the orchestral strings? I'm not referring to string quartets and other variants of chamber music -- this post is specifically about music for stringed instruments en masse, a format which creates quite different sounds.
In most other countries, the sudden appearance of a passage in rich string-orchestral textures is somewhat of a rarity, an interruption in the normal routine of writing for the full orchestra as a body. Try to think of works for string orchestra from the European continent and a few string serenades come to mind -- Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and perhaps Suk or Janacek. You may also zero in on one undoubted masterpiece of the highest rank, the Metamorphosen of Richard Strauss -- but even here Strauss was writing for 23 solo string players and the richer orchestral textures are shot through with many exquisite passages for only 1 or 2 players at a time.
But in the British Isles, including all of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, string writing seems to be very much the essence of music making. Almost every major composer since the late 1800s (and most of the minor ones) have produced striking works scored for string orchestras. I really have no theories to suggest on why this should be so, but would love to hear any interesting guesses in the comment section!
The early years produced three popular and enduring masterpieces in this form, the Introduction and allegro by Elgar, the St. Paul's Suite by Holst, and the monumental Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams. These three works, in three very different styles, set the bar very high and doubtless inspired many composers who followed.
At any rate, today I want to discuss three quite different examples. The first is a piece by Granville Bantock called A Celtic Symphony, written for string orchestra and six (!!) harps. It was first performed in 1940, but I believe was written somewhat earlier. It's a classic piece of the type of folk-inflected writing so common in the earlier years of the century among such composers as Holst and Vaughan Williams. The combination of strings and harps creates a kind of misty sound which evokes to outlying regions of northern and western Scotland. I'm specifying Scotland (which is by no means the only Celtic region of Britain) simply because the main theme of the final section has an unmistakable and oft-repeated "Scotch snap" rhythm. The entire work lasts less than 20 minutes and can be divided into 4 "movements" although it is meant to be played continuously. The harps have their moment of glory shortly before the end when all six join in a swirling cadenza of simultaneous rising and falling glissandi. There's a fine recording on Hyperion CD, part of a programme of Bantock's Celtic-inspired works.
Another splendid example is the work simply titled Music for Strings by Arthur Bliss, composed in 1930. It was said at the time that Bliss had staked his claim to be the legitimate successor of Elgar in this work. Like Elgar's monumental Introduction and allegro of this work uses string soloists as well as string orchestra. It's written in an idiom that often sounds Elgarian, but also shows the harmonic impact of the developments in the years since Elgar's work premiered in 1905. Bliss was certainly familiar with works by such cutting-edge composers as Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, and Stravinsky. So the familiar rich sounds of the string orchestra are livened from time to time by acerbic harmonic clashes. These are in any case much less offensive in the soft-grained sound of strings than they would be if played on winds or brasses! In three movements, Bliss demonstrates his complete mastery of string orchestra technique. There's a terrific amount of energy in the first and last movements and a kind of elegiac purity about the middle slower movement. The kind of folk inspiration found in Bantock's work is absent here; this is absolute music, pure and simple, and a splendid example of the art.
The late Richard Hickox recorded a fine version for Chandos records, partnered with another unusual and beautiful Bliss work, the Pastoral (Lie Strewn the White Flocks) for choir, mezzo-soprano, strings, timpani and flute/piccolo. It's a lovely homage to the tradition of the pastoral poem, which was a style of writing that Bliss particularly loved. The ideas for the work began to come to him during a holiday in Sicily, and he conceived of a cycle of short poems that would take you through the shepherd's day from dawn to dusk. This of course means a shepherd of the world of Greco-Roman antiquity, so the god Pan must necessarily be invoked and appear, his voice imitated by the haunting sound of the flute.
This short work, perhaps better identified as a song cycle than a cantata, begins with a string orchestral introduction that seems to depict the waning of night towards the dawn. There then follows a sequence of nine settings of poetry from different writers. Most are set for chorus, but one -- The Pigeon Song -- is given to the mezzo-soprano. In seventh place comes the memorable Song of the Reapers, with the choir's staccato energetic phrases interspersed by wild polytonal skirling from the piccolo. The Pastoral eventually winds down to a gentle conclusion by way of the final Shepherd's Night Song and a short reminiscence of the introduction.
I first heard this beautiful piece, with highly individual string writing throughout, in a concert at Metropolitan United Church (Toronto) under Dr. Melville Cook back in the late 1970s. I was instantly captivated and have waited a long time to get a recording of it. Thank you, Chandos Records and Richard Hickox!
Why else would so many composers from one small group of islands become such masters at the art of manipulating the sound world of the orchestral strings? I'm not referring to string quartets and other variants of chamber music -- this post is specifically about music for stringed instruments en masse, a format which creates quite different sounds.
In most other countries, the sudden appearance of a passage in rich string-orchestral textures is somewhat of a rarity, an interruption in the normal routine of writing for the full orchestra as a body. Try to think of works for string orchestra from the European continent and a few string serenades come to mind -- Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, and perhaps Suk or Janacek. You may also zero in on one undoubted masterpiece of the highest rank, the Metamorphosen of Richard Strauss -- but even here Strauss was writing for 23 solo string players and the richer orchestral textures are shot through with many exquisite passages for only 1 or 2 players at a time.
But in the British Isles, including all of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, string writing seems to be very much the essence of music making. Almost every major composer since the late 1800s (and most of the minor ones) have produced striking works scored for string orchestras. I really have no theories to suggest on why this should be so, but would love to hear any interesting guesses in the comment section!
The early years produced three popular and enduring masterpieces in this form, the Introduction and allegro by Elgar, the St. Paul's Suite by Holst, and the monumental Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams. These three works, in three very different styles, set the bar very high and doubtless inspired many composers who followed.
At any rate, today I want to discuss three quite different examples. The first is a piece by Granville Bantock called A Celtic Symphony, written for string orchestra and six (!!) harps. It was first performed in 1940, but I believe was written somewhat earlier. It's a classic piece of the type of folk-inflected writing so common in the earlier years of the century among such composers as Holst and Vaughan Williams. The combination of strings and harps creates a kind of misty sound which evokes to outlying regions of northern and western Scotland. I'm specifying Scotland (which is by no means the only Celtic region of Britain) simply because the main theme of the final section has an unmistakable and oft-repeated "Scotch snap" rhythm. The entire work lasts less than 20 minutes and can be divided into 4 "movements" although it is meant to be played continuously. The harps have their moment of glory shortly before the end when all six join in a swirling cadenza of simultaneous rising and falling glissandi. There's a fine recording on Hyperion CD, part of a programme of Bantock's Celtic-inspired works.
Another splendid example is the work simply titled Music for Strings by Arthur Bliss, composed in 1930. It was said at the time that Bliss had staked his claim to be the legitimate successor of Elgar in this work. Like Elgar's monumental Introduction and allegro of this work uses string soloists as well as string orchestra. It's written in an idiom that often sounds Elgarian, but also shows the harmonic impact of the developments in the years since Elgar's work premiered in 1905. Bliss was certainly familiar with works by such cutting-edge composers as Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, and Stravinsky. So the familiar rich sounds of the string orchestra are livened from time to time by acerbic harmonic clashes. These are in any case much less offensive in the soft-grained sound of strings than they would be if played on winds or brasses! In three movements, Bliss demonstrates his complete mastery of string orchestra technique. There's a terrific amount of energy in the first and last movements and a kind of elegiac purity about the middle slower movement. The kind of folk inspiration found in Bantock's work is absent here; this is absolute music, pure and simple, and a splendid example of the art.
The late Richard Hickox recorded a fine version for Chandos records, partnered with another unusual and beautiful Bliss work, the Pastoral (Lie Strewn the White Flocks) for choir, mezzo-soprano, strings, timpani and flute/piccolo. It's a lovely homage to the tradition of the pastoral poem, which was a style of writing that Bliss particularly loved. The ideas for the work began to come to him during a holiday in Sicily, and he conceived of a cycle of short poems that would take you through the shepherd's day from dawn to dusk. This of course means a shepherd of the world of Greco-Roman antiquity, so the god Pan must necessarily be invoked and appear, his voice imitated by the haunting sound of the flute.
This short work, perhaps better identified as a song cycle than a cantata, begins with a string orchestral introduction that seems to depict the waning of night towards the dawn. There then follows a sequence of nine settings of poetry from different writers. Most are set for chorus, but one -- The Pigeon Song -- is given to the mezzo-soprano. In seventh place comes the memorable Song of the Reapers, with the choir's staccato energetic phrases interspersed by wild polytonal skirling from the piccolo. The Pastoral eventually winds down to a gentle conclusion by way of the final Shepherd's Night Song and a short reminiscence of the introduction.
I first heard this beautiful piece, with highly individual string writing throughout, in a concert at Metropolitan United Church (Toronto) under Dr. Melville Cook back in the late 1970s. I was instantly captivated and have waited a long time to get a recording of it. Thank you, Chandos Records and Richard Hickox!
Monday 8 July 2013
Another Beauty That Fell Through The Cracks
Thomas Arne was an English composer, primarily of music for the theatre, who lived from 1710 to 1778. Those dates put him squarely across the evolution from the late Baroque of Bach to the Viennese classical of Haydn and Mozart, by way of what came to be known as the galant style. Like his older contemporary William Boyce (I blogged about him a little while back), Arne composed in a style that was plainly evolutionary.
Arne composed music for dozens of operas, masques, and the like during his lifetime. Much of his most popular theatre music has been lost, perhaps due to a disastrous fire at Covent Garden in 1808. In any case, the kind of English opera which Arne produced passed decisively out of fashion in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and so did Arne. However, he did compose one imperishable popular song -- Rule, Britannia, which is a regular yearly feature at the Last Night of the Proms! He also had a hand in evolving the definitive version of the tune of God Save the King (today, of course, that would be God Save the Queen). Since he was a Roman Catholic, he composed relatively little sacred music.
With so much emphasis on the voice and the stage, it's not surprising that he wrote relatively little free-standing music for instruments. The recording I've just acquired is a lovely set of seven Trio Sonatas, composed for 2 violins and continuo and published in 1757.
Complex or revolutionary this music is not, but then who says a piece of music has to be on the cutting edge to have any intrinsic worth? Arne's sonatas are melodious and lyrical, in a way that makes it easy to appreciate his success in writing for the human voice. There are a few brief dashes at fugal style, but nothing too intensely worked out. Likewise, there are anticipations of the music of Mozart in a few touches, but again nothing that weighs too heavily. The entire set (lasting for 70 minutes) makes for some ideally soothing, gentle background music for a quiet evening of reading.
This recording on Chandos Records' Chaconne early music label is expertly performed by musicians of the Collegium Musicum 90 led by Simon Standage, a foremost exponent of authentic performance in Britain. Standage and company have plainly learned a thing or three about keeping music involving and this record never commits the sin of becoming boring or tedious.
Arne composed music for dozens of operas, masques, and the like during his lifetime. Much of his most popular theatre music has been lost, perhaps due to a disastrous fire at Covent Garden in 1808. In any case, the kind of English opera which Arne produced passed decisively out of fashion in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and so did Arne. However, he did compose one imperishable popular song -- Rule, Britannia, which is a regular yearly feature at the Last Night of the Proms! He also had a hand in evolving the definitive version of the tune of God Save the King (today, of course, that would be God Save the Queen). Since he was a Roman Catholic, he composed relatively little sacred music.
With so much emphasis on the voice and the stage, it's not surprising that he wrote relatively little free-standing music for instruments. The recording I've just acquired is a lovely set of seven Trio Sonatas, composed for 2 violins and continuo and published in 1757.
Complex or revolutionary this music is not, but then who says a piece of music has to be on the cutting edge to have any intrinsic worth? Arne's sonatas are melodious and lyrical, in a way that makes it easy to appreciate his success in writing for the human voice. There are a few brief dashes at fugal style, but nothing too intensely worked out. Likewise, there are anticipations of the music of Mozart in a few touches, but again nothing that weighs too heavily. The entire set (lasting for 70 minutes) makes for some ideally soothing, gentle background music for a quiet evening of reading.
This recording on Chandos Records' Chaconne early music label is expertly performed by musicians of the Collegium Musicum 90 led by Simon Standage, a foremost exponent of authentic performance in Britain. Standage and company have plainly learned a thing or three about keeping music involving and this record never commits the sin of becoming boring or tedious.
Friday 28 June 2013
Unknown Music About a Forgotten Hero
Well, maybe "hero" isn't precisely the right word for Manfred. Lord Byron's dramatic poem has also been described as "Faust without the devil", and that is perhaps closer to the mark. Indeed, the spirit of Goethe's Faust looms in the background of the entire piece, and obviously influenced its shape, although Byron's work is much more than a mere copy.
The cause of Manfred's despair is not the wish for more knowledge, but his guilt for some wrong he committed against his ideal beloved, Astarte -- a wrong which remains unmentioned. Instantly one's mind jumps to the affair Byron was accused of having with his half-sister, and it becomes quite plain that Byron's Manfred is probably autobiographical.
This concept matters a great deal, because it almost certainly explains why this material was so compelling to the closeted homosexual, Tchaikovsky. The emotion of despair was never very far away for him throughout his life, and is plainly a driving force in more than a few of his major works. His programmatic symphony based on Manfred was composed in between his Fourth and fifth numbered symphonies, in 1885, when he was at the peak of his powers.
Tchaikovsky first liked this programmatic symphony, but later felt revulsion and wanted to destroy the score -- except for the first movement, which he still valued highly. While the programme states that this movement depicts Manfred wandering in the Alps, there's no question that it really takes us deep inside Manfred's despairing soul -- and just as much inside the despair in Tchaikovsky's own soul. This is one of the most powerful and truthful character portraits ever painted in music.
The main theme which is announced right at the outset in bare unharmonized melodic form aptly symbolizes Manfred's internal torment. It keeps struggling to rise upwards but each phrase starts lower than the one before it so the net motion is downwards. Later on it is joined by a pendant theme which rises and falls only to return to the note on which it started. Both melodies will recur in each movement as mottoes, tying the whole work together. These melodies, weighty with meaning and emotion, can sound weary and wandering when played in the low range of the instruments. Played quietly, and higher up, they sound wistful. And at the end of the movement they build up to a grim climax of despair like nothing else in music, framed by wildly skirling woodwinds and capped by an agonized scream from the trumpets.
Tchaikovsky was a little unfair to himself in disparaging the second movement. It depicts the Fairy of the Alps, appearing to Manfred in a rainbow cast by the sun in the sparkling spray of a slender Alpine waterfall. Tchaikovsky's music, light, sparkling, dancing, evokes this scene to absolute perfection. It's every bit as effective as the fairy scherzos of Mendelssohn and Berlioz, and that is saying a great deal! In the middle of the scene, the thought of the beloved Astarte enters the picture and so does her theme, originally stated in the quiet middle section of the first movement.
The third movement, a peasant festival, does strike me as a bit weaker at the knees -- like the country scene of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique watered down -- but even here there are moments of rare beauty. The themes of Manfred and Astarte recur here too, just as the idee fixe does in Berlioz.
The finale, a witches' sabbath in the underground caverns of the demonic Arimanes, treads quite different ground from the corresponding movement in Berlioz, so the similarity of theme is forgivable. In the midst of the revels, the spirit of Astarte appears (with her unmistakable theme) to tell Manfred that his death comes on the morrow. The orgiastic dance which keeps erupting has energy enough to keep the movement flying along until the sudden return of Manfred's theme, full force, tells us that his death is drawing near. This is worked up into another massive climax similar to, but differently harmonized, from the one in the first movement.
The ending is the weakest link of the whole scheme. The climax is suddenly interrupted by a harmonium (an organ may also be used) playing a chorale theme. This unfolds in three phrases decorated by strings. In the fourth, the whole orchestra joins in and then gradually unwinds down to a quiet conclusion in a major key. It seems that Tchaikovsky understood the ending to mean that Manfred finally reached peace with himself and redemption at the moment of his death.
That's not the way Byron planned it! Manfred defies any and all authority that crosses his path throughout the poem. At the end, when a priest comes to summon him to confess, he heroically defies both heaven and hell. His final words are: "Old man! Tis not so difficult to die."
So perhaps, what Tchaikovsky was really hoping was that he would achieve redemption, and given his own despair over what he considered his sinful nature, that would be perfectly understandable.
This rarity has achieved a few more recordings in recent years, but remains largely unknown in the concert hall. The recording I have captures all the considerable range of the music -- the subtle and gentle moments as effectively as the dogged and powerful climaxes. It's a DGG CD from 1994 with the Russian National Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Pletnev, and he does the work full justice.
The cause of Manfred's despair is not the wish for more knowledge, but his guilt for some wrong he committed against his ideal beloved, Astarte -- a wrong which remains unmentioned. Instantly one's mind jumps to the affair Byron was accused of having with his half-sister, and it becomes quite plain that Byron's Manfred is probably autobiographical.
This concept matters a great deal, because it almost certainly explains why this material was so compelling to the closeted homosexual, Tchaikovsky. The emotion of despair was never very far away for him throughout his life, and is plainly a driving force in more than a few of his major works. His programmatic symphony based on Manfred was composed in between his Fourth and fifth numbered symphonies, in 1885, when he was at the peak of his powers.
Tchaikovsky first liked this programmatic symphony, but later felt revulsion and wanted to destroy the score -- except for the first movement, which he still valued highly. While the programme states that this movement depicts Manfred wandering in the Alps, there's no question that it really takes us deep inside Manfred's despairing soul -- and just as much inside the despair in Tchaikovsky's own soul. This is one of the most powerful and truthful character portraits ever painted in music.
The main theme which is announced right at the outset in bare unharmonized melodic form aptly symbolizes Manfred's internal torment. It keeps struggling to rise upwards but each phrase starts lower than the one before it so the net motion is downwards. Later on it is joined by a pendant theme which rises and falls only to return to the note on which it started. Both melodies will recur in each movement as mottoes, tying the whole work together. These melodies, weighty with meaning and emotion, can sound weary and wandering when played in the low range of the instruments. Played quietly, and higher up, they sound wistful. And at the end of the movement they build up to a grim climax of despair like nothing else in music, framed by wildly skirling woodwinds and capped by an agonized scream from the trumpets.
Tchaikovsky was a little unfair to himself in disparaging the second movement. It depicts the Fairy of the Alps, appearing to Manfred in a rainbow cast by the sun in the sparkling spray of a slender Alpine waterfall. Tchaikovsky's music, light, sparkling, dancing, evokes this scene to absolute perfection. It's every bit as effective as the fairy scherzos of Mendelssohn and Berlioz, and that is saying a great deal! In the middle of the scene, the thought of the beloved Astarte enters the picture and so does her theme, originally stated in the quiet middle section of the first movement.
The third movement, a peasant festival, does strike me as a bit weaker at the knees -- like the country scene of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique watered down -- but even here there are moments of rare beauty. The themes of Manfred and Astarte recur here too, just as the idee fixe does in Berlioz.
The finale, a witches' sabbath in the underground caverns of the demonic Arimanes, treads quite different ground from the corresponding movement in Berlioz, so the similarity of theme is forgivable. In the midst of the revels, the spirit of Astarte appears (with her unmistakable theme) to tell Manfred that his death comes on the morrow. The orgiastic dance which keeps erupting has energy enough to keep the movement flying along until the sudden return of Manfred's theme, full force, tells us that his death is drawing near. This is worked up into another massive climax similar to, but differently harmonized, from the one in the first movement.
The ending is the weakest link of the whole scheme. The climax is suddenly interrupted by a harmonium (an organ may also be used) playing a chorale theme. This unfolds in three phrases decorated by strings. In the fourth, the whole orchestra joins in and then gradually unwinds down to a quiet conclusion in a major key. It seems that Tchaikovsky understood the ending to mean that Manfred finally reached peace with himself and redemption at the moment of his death.
That's not the way Byron planned it! Manfred defies any and all authority that crosses his path throughout the poem. At the end, when a priest comes to summon him to confess, he heroically defies both heaven and hell. His final words are: "Old man! Tis not so difficult to die."
So perhaps, what Tchaikovsky was really hoping was that he would achieve redemption, and given his own despair over what he considered his sinful nature, that would be perfectly understandable.
This rarity has achieved a few more recordings in recent years, but remains largely unknown in the concert hall. The recording I have captures all the considerable range of the music -- the subtle and gentle moments as effectively as the dogged and powerful climaxes. It's a DGG CD from 1994 with the Russian National Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Pletnev, and he does the work full justice.
Saturday 22 June 2013
A Relatively Rare Pair of Beethovens
The other day I fished out a 2-CD set of Beethoven Overtures, conducted by Herbert von Karajan at the peak of his powers.
And I realized something very interesting: the nineteenth-century "concert overture" is a kind of poor relation in the modern classical music world. It's there, people hear of it, and occasionally one gets put on a concert program. But recordings are getting fewer in number.
In the 1800s, a concert frequently began with a concert overture. It was a chance for the audience to settle into their seats and develop focus on the music, and it had the advantage that latecomers (as big a problem then as now) wouldn't miss the main works on offer. These overtures were so popular that many composers wrote them in large numbers, and got them performed, too, more than once!
In the days of the LP, the concert overture was made to order to fill out the playing time of a record after a typical Romantic symphony lasting 30-40 minutes. Since the advent of the CD, with its longer playing time, it has often been possible to fit two complete symphonies onto a single disc, which means that the overture is no longer required.
So what is a concert overture? Like the overture to a play, opera, or ballet, it is a short orchestral work in a single movement. The title gives a clue to content. It may be associated with a particular piece of literature or folk talk. It may paint a descriptive picture of some kind. It may evoke some sort of generalized mood or emotion.
Beethoven wrote most of his overtures either for stage works or on commission. Most people who know music have heard that he actually completed three different overtures for his opera Leonora, before he substantially revised the work and composed a fourth overture when it was reissued as Fidelio. But how many people have heard all four of these works? They form the second disc of the set I've got here.
The real rarities are the last two tracks on CD 1. These in fact are the only two actual concert overtures Beethoven composed! The Namensfeier Overture ("Name Day") was composed originally as a piece for any occasion, including concert use. Later it was associated with the feast day of St. Francis, which was celebrated as the "name-day" of the Emperor Francis I. It's a piece with plenty of energy and good humour which certainly qualify it for that kind of occasion.
The other is a late Beethoven work, Die Weihe des Hauses, usually translated as "The Consecration of the House", although "Dedication" might perhaps be the more accurate English word. It was composed for the opening of a new theatre in Vienna, and displays a grand, celebratory character appropriate for such an event. This overture begins with a long introduction in the form of a grandiose slow march which then quickens to the main allegro tempo. Here, Beethoven uniquely introduces lengthy passages written in fugal manner, which reflect his recent studies of the scores of Handel and Bach. The composer said he was actually trying to compose a tribute to Handel.
In that light, it's worth quoting what Beethoven said about Handel's music (I'm doing this from memory, but I think I've got it right!):
"Handel is the unequalled master of all masters. Go to him and learn how to produce the grandest of effects by the simplest of means." Handel certainly does that, but so does Beethoven in this overture.
Karajan was, of course, one of the leading interpreters of Beethoven in the mid-twentieth century and these DGG recordings, made in 1965 and 1969, effectively capture all the diverse aspects of Beethoven's range of overtures.
By the way, what triggered this post was the rare opportunity to hear Die Weihe des Hauses performed live as music for a modern ballet at the National Ballet of Canada this week. To read about that one, go to my companion blog, largestagelive.blogspot.com
And I realized something very interesting: the nineteenth-century "concert overture" is a kind of poor relation in the modern classical music world. It's there, people hear of it, and occasionally one gets put on a concert program. But recordings are getting fewer in number.
In the 1800s, a concert frequently began with a concert overture. It was a chance for the audience to settle into their seats and develop focus on the music, and it had the advantage that latecomers (as big a problem then as now) wouldn't miss the main works on offer. These overtures were so popular that many composers wrote them in large numbers, and got them performed, too, more than once!
In the days of the LP, the concert overture was made to order to fill out the playing time of a record after a typical Romantic symphony lasting 30-40 minutes. Since the advent of the CD, with its longer playing time, it has often been possible to fit two complete symphonies onto a single disc, which means that the overture is no longer required.
So what is a concert overture? Like the overture to a play, opera, or ballet, it is a short orchestral work in a single movement. The title gives a clue to content. It may be associated with a particular piece of literature or folk talk. It may paint a descriptive picture of some kind. It may evoke some sort of generalized mood or emotion.
Beethoven wrote most of his overtures either for stage works or on commission. Most people who know music have heard that he actually completed three different overtures for his opera Leonora, before he substantially revised the work and composed a fourth overture when it was reissued as Fidelio. But how many people have heard all four of these works? They form the second disc of the set I've got here.
The real rarities are the last two tracks on CD 1. These in fact are the only two actual concert overtures Beethoven composed! The Namensfeier Overture ("Name Day") was composed originally as a piece for any occasion, including concert use. Later it was associated with the feast day of St. Francis, which was celebrated as the "name-day" of the Emperor Francis I. It's a piece with plenty of energy and good humour which certainly qualify it for that kind of occasion.
The other is a late Beethoven work, Die Weihe des Hauses, usually translated as "The Consecration of the House", although "Dedication" might perhaps be the more accurate English word. It was composed for the opening of a new theatre in Vienna, and displays a grand, celebratory character appropriate for such an event. This overture begins with a long introduction in the form of a grandiose slow march which then quickens to the main allegro tempo. Here, Beethoven uniquely introduces lengthy passages written in fugal manner, which reflect his recent studies of the scores of Handel and Bach. The composer said he was actually trying to compose a tribute to Handel.
In that light, it's worth quoting what Beethoven said about Handel's music (I'm doing this from memory, but I think I've got it right!):
"Handel is the unequalled master of all masters. Go to him and learn how to produce the grandest of effects by the simplest of means." Handel certainly does that, but so does Beethoven in this overture.
Karajan was, of course, one of the leading interpreters of Beethoven in the mid-twentieth century and these DGG recordings, made in 1965 and 1969, effectively capture all the diverse aspects of Beethoven's range of overtures.
By the way, what triggered this post was the rare opportunity to hear Die Weihe des Hauses performed live as music for a modern ballet at the National Ballet of Canada this week. To read about that one, go to my companion blog, largestagelive.blogspot.com
Sunday 16 June 2013
Spanish Masterpieces
I think I may have been Spanish in an earlier lifetime because I always feel an instinctive "pull" towards the traditional rhythms and melodies of Spain, even though my traceable ancestry is doggedly Scottish with only a small dose of Swedish for variety! Today I want to share some masterpieces of Spanish music for the piano.
The classical music of Spain in earlier years was entwined with the musical mainstreams of Europe. This was partly due, no doubt, to the lengthy reign of the Austrian Habsburg family on the Spanish throne. In fact, the Habsburg rulers exchanged compositions and composers with their brethren in central Europe on a regular basis.
A distinctively Spanish style in concert music only began to appear in the late 1800s. A decisive influence was the musicologist Felipe Pedrell, who taught his students that classical concert music could and should be suffused with the melodies and rhythms of Spanish folk songs and dances. Two composers in particular responded to Pedrell's teachings with major piano works.
The first was Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909). Of the two main anchor points of his piano works, the first is the early Suite española of 1888. Each piece of the suite consists of music of a dancelike quality inspired by a different region of Spain. Most of the pieces are in three parts, with the slower centre section being a copla, which was normally a sung interlude in a dance. Four of the eight pieces were completed and designated by Albéniz himself for this volume. The other four were lifted out of other collections by the publishers who reissued this music out after his death. The most famous of the eight is Asturias, which ironically has become mainly famous in arrangement for guitar. Yet the whole point of the piece as Albéniz originally wrote it was certainly to translate the sound of the flamenco guitar to the keyboard.
Albéniz created his true masterpiece for piano late in life. Iberia, a set of 12 "impressions" in 4 books, was composed in 1905-1908. This music owes something in style to the French Impressionist composers, but most of all to the Spanish tradition. These 12 pieces take the style of the Suite española and raise it to the ultimate degree of sophistication, complexity, and absolutely fiendish technical demands on the player. Indeed, the music was so complex that Albéniz, himself a first-rank concert pianist, considered destroying the score on the grounds that it was unplayable! Fortunately he did not. It's not surprising that several people have tried their hands at arranging Iberia for full orchestra, as the piano writing is often very full, dense, symphonic in character.
Enrique Granados (1867-1916) was another student who took the ideas of Pedrell and elevated the traditional music of Spain into the concert realm. Like Albéniz, he wrote in a variety of genres but his most enduring accomplishments were for the piano. And, again like Albéniz, his music for piano is bookmarked by an early and a late masterpiece.
In 1890 he brought out his twelve Danzas españolas. These inhabit very much the same sound world as the Albéniz Suite española of two years earlier. Several of them have become famous in guitar transcriptions, most notably # 5 (Andaluza).
In 1911, Granados produced his greatest piano work, Goyescas, a set of six pieces inspired by Goya's paintings of life in Spain. Each of the six pieces has an evocative title such as a painting might bear, and these titles strung together suggest the outline of a story, but no more detailed programme is given for the work. The music is poetic, proud, lively, and languishing by turns, and in places develops a strongly improvisational character. There is a seventh piece, El pelele, which Granados composed and published separately, but sometimes performed as an appendix to the Goyescas. Like the Iberia of Albéniz, this is music of great complexity and technical bravura, but by contrast requires often a lighter touch and a gentler, more poetic approach.
For recordings of this music by Albéniz and Granados, there are basically two choices:
[1] Alicia de Larrocha
[2] Everyone else
The great Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha grew up in Barcelona, and studied at the Academia Marshall there with Frank Marshall, Granados' principal pupil. She thus absorbed the style as close to the point of origin as one could possibly get! Just how well she absorbed it can be heard in her several recordings of these pieces. She has generally been acclaimed as the greatest Spanish pianist of the 20th century, and one of the great pianists of the century overall, and with good reason.
I have two sets, both on Decca CDs. One is her 1986 digital recording of Iberia and the Suite española, on 2 discs. The other combines her earlier 1972 version of Iberia with her 1976 traversal of the Goyescas. All of these are remarkable performances, penetrating deeper into the soul of the music than any other, and with absolutely fearless and flawless technical assurance. I had the LP of her digital traversal of the Danzas españolas and wore it out by playing it so often. Faced with a choice between de Larrocha and any other pianist, my simple question would be: why bother looking anywhere else?
The classical music of Spain in earlier years was entwined with the musical mainstreams of Europe. This was partly due, no doubt, to the lengthy reign of the Austrian Habsburg family on the Spanish throne. In fact, the Habsburg rulers exchanged compositions and composers with their brethren in central Europe on a regular basis.
A distinctively Spanish style in concert music only began to appear in the late 1800s. A decisive influence was the musicologist Felipe Pedrell, who taught his students that classical concert music could and should be suffused with the melodies and rhythms of Spanish folk songs and dances. Two composers in particular responded to Pedrell's teachings with major piano works.
The first was Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909). Of the two main anchor points of his piano works, the first is the early Suite española of 1888. Each piece of the suite consists of music of a dancelike quality inspired by a different region of Spain. Most of the pieces are in three parts, with the slower centre section being a copla, which was normally a sung interlude in a dance. Four of the eight pieces were completed and designated by Albéniz himself for this volume. The other four were lifted out of other collections by the publishers who reissued this music out after his death. The most famous of the eight is Asturias, which ironically has become mainly famous in arrangement for guitar. Yet the whole point of the piece as Albéniz originally wrote it was certainly to translate the sound of the flamenco guitar to the keyboard.
Albéniz created his true masterpiece for piano late in life. Iberia, a set of 12 "impressions" in 4 books, was composed in 1905-1908. This music owes something in style to the French Impressionist composers, but most of all to the Spanish tradition. These 12 pieces take the style of the Suite española and raise it to the ultimate degree of sophistication, complexity, and absolutely fiendish technical demands on the player. Indeed, the music was so complex that Albéniz, himself a first-rank concert pianist, considered destroying the score on the grounds that it was unplayable! Fortunately he did not. It's not surprising that several people have tried their hands at arranging Iberia for full orchestra, as the piano writing is often very full, dense, symphonic in character.
Enrique Granados (1867-1916) was another student who took the ideas of Pedrell and elevated the traditional music of Spain into the concert realm. Like Albéniz, he wrote in a variety of genres but his most enduring accomplishments were for the piano. And, again like Albéniz, his music for piano is bookmarked by an early and a late masterpiece.
In 1890 he brought out his twelve Danzas españolas. These inhabit very much the same sound world as the Albéniz Suite española of two years earlier. Several of them have become famous in guitar transcriptions, most notably # 5 (Andaluza).
In 1911, Granados produced his greatest piano work, Goyescas, a set of six pieces inspired by Goya's paintings of life in Spain. Each of the six pieces has an evocative title such as a painting might bear, and these titles strung together suggest the outline of a story, but no more detailed programme is given for the work. The music is poetic, proud, lively, and languishing by turns, and in places develops a strongly improvisational character. There is a seventh piece, El pelele, which Granados composed and published separately, but sometimes performed as an appendix to the Goyescas. Like the Iberia of Albéniz, this is music of great complexity and technical bravura, but by contrast requires often a lighter touch and a gentler, more poetic approach.
For recordings of this music by Albéniz and Granados, there are basically two choices:
[1] Alicia de Larrocha
[2] Everyone else
The great Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha grew up in Barcelona, and studied at the Academia Marshall there with Frank Marshall, Granados' principal pupil. She thus absorbed the style as close to the point of origin as one could possibly get! Just how well she absorbed it can be heard in her several recordings of these pieces. She has generally been acclaimed as the greatest Spanish pianist of the 20th century, and one of the great pianists of the century overall, and with good reason.
I have two sets, both on Decca CDs. One is her 1986 digital recording of Iberia and the Suite española, on 2 discs. The other combines her earlier 1972 version of Iberia with her 1976 traversal of the Goyescas. All of these are remarkable performances, penetrating deeper into the soul of the music than any other, and with absolutely fearless and flawless technical assurance. I had the LP of her digital traversal of the Danzas españolas and wore it out by playing it so often. Faced with a choice between de Larrocha and any other pianist, my simple question would be: why bother looking anywhere else?
Friday 14 June 2013
Something Exotic
Okay, hands up if you've heard of Omar Khayyám. Anyone?
In this day and age, not so likely. Ask that about a hundred years ago and almost everyone who did any reading at all would have heard of, and likely read, Edward FitzGerald's translation/adaptation of the Persian mediaeval philosopher, scientist, and poet under the title of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. This book became one of the publishing phenomena of the Victorian era, and helped to ensure that Khayyám became the best-known Middle Eastern writer in the countries of the Western world. In five successive editions, FitzGerald gradually expanded the scope of his work until he reached his final text of 101 quatrains. It must be said in passing that this text represents a tiny fraction of all the writing that Khayyám did in his lifetime!
With that background, it's not surprising that someone stepped up to the plate and set FitzGerald's English version to music.
Okay, hands up if you've heard of Granville Bantock. Anyone?
If there's a reason for that silence, it's probably the vast scale of Bantock's musical ideas and the singular lack of success he had getting them into performance. His music echoes Wagnerian methods in a way common to many composers of the time, and his ideas of size definitely out-Wagner the master of Bayreuth. He planned an epic called The Curse of Kehoma based on the work of Robert Southey (who?) which was to be in 24 parts. His massive oratorio Christus was completed in an orchestral score that stretches to 700 pages, and then promptly broken into smaller units to make it performable. But his setting of the Rubáiyát, simply titled Omar Khayyám, did see live performance in 1910 and on a few more occasions before dropping out of sight.
Which brings me finally to today's recording. Once again, Chandos Records has done us a huge favour by recording a massive work which probably no other record company could or would touch. As so often with their projects, the result reveals a work of music which definitely deserves to be more often heard and better appreciated.
Bantock's style is heavy-duty post-Wagnerian when appropriate, and heavily laced with recurring motifs that are carefully labelled and identified in the booklet accompanying the 3 CDs. I haven't bothered to chase them all down, simply enjoying the flow of the music and slowly coming to recognize the recurrence of these key melodic ideas. And the music does flow. Bantock was a good deal more than merely competent, even if he wasn't Wagner, and his music stands up well to repeated hearings. Certainly he had a good grasp of the art of building up long-range climaxes and then resolving them.
It's interesting that he generally avoids fake Middle Eastern sounds, although one passage does make evocative use of camel bells, and another effectively introduces hand drums.
The final result falls somewhere between a Wagnerian opera and a Hollywood epic movie in sound. Bantock realistically faced the length of his score by sanctioning cuts, and a few short ones are observed in this recording. Even with these minimal cuts, the work lasts just a few minutes shy of three hours.
Bantock created three "characters" to be sung as solo roles: the Poet, the Beloved, and the Philosopher. These three roles are ably and beautifully sung by tenor Toby Spence, mezzo-soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers, and baritone Roderick Williams respectively. In the third part these three are joined by three more soloists to become the voices of the six pots, formed at the hand of the Potter who makes everything and everyone.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are on top form throughout, whether in quiet passages of reflection or in the massive climactic buildups such as we hear at the end of Part Two. Conductor Vernon Handley has the whole gigantic and diverse score in hand right from the magnificent sunrise which begins the work to the gentle fading away of the end. And the typical rich sound picture so common with Chandos recordings serves this giant tapestry of sound very well.
So Omar Khayyám is a musical curiosity, and a musical rarity indeed. But it's now readily available as a CD album or for download, and definitely rewarding to the ear -- well, my ear, anyway!
Thursday 30 May 2013
Beyond "The Rite of Spring"
Yesterday was the official 100th Birthday of Stravinsky's notorious ballet, The Rite of Spring. It created controversy right from its first performance, both for its jagged rhythmic patterns and for its extremely dissonant harmonies. And then there was the choreography....
If you're a lover of The Rite of Spring and want to hear more Stravinsky along the same lines -- it's not easy. Stravinsky was something of a musical chameleon, continually evolving and reinventing himself and his composing style. But there is one later ballet which may fill the bill, and is definitely worth checking out for its different but equally unique musical substance.
That is The Wedding, more often called by its French name, Les Noces. This work, premiered in 1923, uses a similar rugged musical style to The Rite, but with folk-inflected melodies more to the fore. It also adds singers to the ensemble -- four soloists and a small choir. Stravinsky tried many different combinations of instruments for this piece, but finally settled on the undeniably unique sound of four pianos and a large number of percussionists.
It seems that the composer wanted to make more of an impersonal comment on the wedding rituals than a personally involving account -- and the monochromatic sounds of piano and percussion "...would fulfil all my conditions. It would be at the same time perfectly homogeneous, perfectly impersonal, and perfectly mechanical."
The result is like no other piece of music I have ever heard -- glittering, hard-edged, brittle, and full of unique and intriguing sound combinations. This may sound like a tough nut, but in performance it is much more captivating than you might suspect. And that's how I first heard it, years ago at a Toronto Symphony concert.
The recording I have is a classic by Leonard Bernstein for DGG. The playing time is not long for a CD (Les Noces lasts for 24 minutes, the accompanying Mass for 20) but it's reasonable value at a reissue price if you can find a copy. Both works are given what I would describe as definitive performances.
The Mass, by the way, inhabits a completely different sound world. Completed in 1948, designed for liturgical use, and based (remotely) on Gregorian chant, the music has an austere and dignified beauty all its own. Again, the scoring is unusual -- choir and soloists accompanied by an ensemble of ten winds and brass. Here you can experience for yourself two wildly contrasting facets of Stravinsky's musical personality.
If you're a lover of The Rite of Spring and want to hear more Stravinsky along the same lines -- it's not easy. Stravinsky was something of a musical chameleon, continually evolving and reinventing himself and his composing style. But there is one later ballet which may fill the bill, and is definitely worth checking out for its different but equally unique musical substance.
That is The Wedding, more often called by its French name, Les Noces. This work, premiered in 1923, uses a similar rugged musical style to The Rite, but with folk-inflected melodies more to the fore. It also adds singers to the ensemble -- four soloists and a small choir. Stravinsky tried many different combinations of instruments for this piece, but finally settled on the undeniably unique sound of four pianos and a large number of percussionists.
It seems that the composer wanted to make more of an impersonal comment on the wedding rituals than a personally involving account -- and the monochromatic sounds of piano and percussion "...would fulfil all my conditions. It would be at the same time perfectly homogeneous, perfectly impersonal, and perfectly mechanical."
The result is like no other piece of music I have ever heard -- glittering, hard-edged, brittle, and full of unique and intriguing sound combinations. This may sound like a tough nut, but in performance it is much more captivating than you might suspect. And that's how I first heard it, years ago at a Toronto Symphony concert.
The recording I have is a classic by Leonard Bernstein for DGG. The playing time is not long for a CD (Les Noces lasts for 24 minutes, the accompanying Mass for 20) but it's reasonable value at a reissue price if you can find a copy. Both works are given what I would describe as definitive performances.
The Mass, by the way, inhabits a completely different sound world. Completed in 1948, designed for liturgical use, and based (remotely) on Gregorian chant, the music has an austere and dignified beauty all its own. Again, the scoring is unusual -- choir and soloists accompanied by an ensemble of ten winds and brass. Here you can experience for yourself two wildly contrasting facets of Stravinsky's musical personality.
Friday 24 May 2013
Unfairly Neglected Baroque Quality
Composers are constantly becoming the victims of changing fashions. Usually, after a popular composer dies, his or her music has to go through a purgatory of being out of fashion for a generation or so, and then later musicians rediscover the quality that was there all along.
But then there are the ones who become a victim of mass group labelling. Such a one is William Boyce, who was born in London in 1711, the year before Handel came to England, and died in 1779. It's kind of a received truth that English music after Purcell descended into utter and irredeemable mediocrity until the fresh kick-start from composer/teachers such as Parry and Stanford in the late 1800s. That would certainly cover Boyce, and may go a long way to explain the neglect of his music. The rest is explained by the fact that he continued composing in the late Baroque style that had already become unfashionable by the time Handel died in 1759.
All this as background to a recording that had been gathering dust on my shelves for quite a while until I pulled it out and listened again yesterday. It's a collection of 12 Overtures and 3 Concerti grossi by Boyce, and the music made me re-evaluate that received truth mentioned above. These could almost be considered pastiche works, as they are pulled together from various secular and sacred odes and anthems which Boyce had already composed. But, taken as a group like this, they are highly recommendable.
It's music of undoubtedly high quality. Boyce depended mainly on the strings, but his more sparing use of winds is always appropriate in scale and often quite ear-catching. His music leans a bit more towards the dance than some of Handel and Bach, and has a lift and a lightness to it that is refreshing, if not perhaps truly original. But then, few Baroque composers could ever be considered to be utterly original, since all worked in variants of a highly-developed and widely-disseminated musical language. But Boyce's take on that language is certainly original enough to merit wider hearing, and so thanks to Chandos Records and the chamber orchestra Cantilena, directed by Adrian Shepherd.
This 1979 2-CD set is one of several recordings of little-known British composers from this team, and I now feel I have to go and look out the others too. In the meantime, this one will certainly get another hearing, and soon, now that I have taken the time to re-evaluate it.
But then there are the ones who become a victim of mass group labelling. Such a one is William Boyce, who was born in London in 1711, the year before Handel came to England, and died in 1779. It's kind of a received truth that English music after Purcell descended into utter and irredeemable mediocrity until the fresh kick-start from composer/teachers such as Parry and Stanford in the late 1800s. That would certainly cover Boyce, and may go a long way to explain the neglect of his music. The rest is explained by the fact that he continued composing in the late Baroque style that had already become unfashionable by the time Handel died in 1759.
All this as background to a recording that had been gathering dust on my shelves for quite a while until I pulled it out and listened again yesterday. It's a collection of 12 Overtures and 3 Concerti grossi by Boyce, and the music made me re-evaluate that received truth mentioned above. These could almost be considered pastiche works, as they are pulled together from various secular and sacred odes and anthems which Boyce had already composed. But, taken as a group like this, they are highly recommendable.
It's music of undoubtedly high quality. Boyce depended mainly on the strings, but his more sparing use of winds is always appropriate in scale and often quite ear-catching. His music leans a bit more towards the dance than some of Handel and Bach, and has a lift and a lightness to it that is refreshing, if not perhaps truly original. But then, few Baroque composers could ever be considered to be utterly original, since all worked in variants of a highly-developed and widely-disseminated musical language. But Boyce's take on that language is certainly original enough to merit wider hearing, and so thanks to Chandos Records and the chamber orchestra Cantilena, directed by Adrian Shepherd.
This 1979 2-CD set is one of several recordings of little-known British composers from this team, and I now feel I have to go and look out the others too. In the meantime, this one will certainly get another hearing, and soon, now that I have taken the time to re-evaluate it.
Friday 17 May 2013
Music for Practical Jokers
Stands to reason that I would enjoy any music written by a man who was an inveterate joker. Actually, way back when I was a kid, my brother played on the piano a valse (French waltz) by this man that always struck me as odd because the wrong note that kept intruding at a certain point in the music was so pointless that I could never figure out why it was there.
I know now that it was the musical equivalent of a photobomb.
The man? Francis Poulenc, a French composer who was very much a man of the 20th century -- born in 1899, and died in 1963. If you're the sort of person who can never resist trying to turn everything into a joke, then Poulenc's probably your man. I plead guilty to the charge at once!
Claude Rostand defined Poulenc as "a bit of monk and a bit of hooligan." It's a good description. The austere beauty of some of his sacred choral music is every bit as much a part of the picture as the little ironic and sarcastic touches are in his instrumental music. And what can you say of a man who could write an opera-bouffe based on Apollinaire's surrealist play Les mamelles de Tiresias ("The Breasts of Tiresias") in which a married woman named Therese becomes a man after her breasts turn into balloons and float away?
Consider Poulenc's Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra, premiered in 1932. From start to finish, this modestly-scaled piece is never able to sink into solemnity for more than 10 or 15 seconds. The first movement, in particular, is interrupted frequently by a little 8-bar theme on the pianos that sounds like it was lifted straight out of a can-can in a smoky Parisian night club. Each time it appears, this little riff gets twisted into stranger and stranger harmonic shapes. Kind of like the guy who keeps pulling weirder and weirder faces each time he photobombs a picture where he doesn't belong. The slow second movement sounds like a tribute to Mozart, but "tribute" is a loaded word in Poulenc's musical lexicon, where its closest synonym is probably "mockery". At any rate, the Concerto goes through its three movements in a matter of 18 or 19 minutes, full of high spirits and good fun.
In the early stereo era, Georges Pretre directed a 1957 recording for EMI which featured the composer as one of the soloists. He may not have been a pianist of the first rank, but who better to capture the delicious two-faced ironies found throughout the score? Another good recording came in 1986 from the French Erato label, with a young James Conlon conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. The two pianists were Francois-Rene Duchable and Jean-Philippe Collard. These performers also are completely in tune with the inherent witty character of the piece.
Even when Poulenc tried to be serious, he could have trouble sustaining the mood. His Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani of 1938 inhabits a more serious world than the 2-Piano Concerto, but some of the blaring discords from the organ give the impressions that a naughty choirboy is still peeking out from behind the choirmaster's more solemn mask. Certainly the overall impact is more majestic, the music more overt in tribute (without much mockery) to the great age of Bach and Buxtehude. The thunderous opening chords, which recur several more times in the lengthy single movement, show that this is only one of many works of music inspired by Bach's Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, one of the great monuments of the organ literature. At the same time, the lighter, faster passages undeniably come closer to the sound-world of the 2-Piano Concerto.
No doubt this Poulenc concerto is unique in its instrumentation, but the showy (albeit not difficult) organ part makes it an irresistible work for any orchestra whose hall includes a good big organ. A fine example was the lengthy Grand Opening concert of Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto (1982) where the new pipe organ made by Gabriel Kney got a splendid workout in this piece. It's also been heard in more recordings than almost any other Poulenc work, as so many organists love its marriage of baroque structure and style with 20th-century harmonic touches. I have the partner of the James Conlon CD listed above, where the Rotterdam Orchestra and Conlon are joined by the splendid French organist Marie-Claire Alain (whose recent death ended a long and honoured career).
Hope that gives you a good idea of the diversity of style underlying the music of Francis Poulenc. These two concertos are old favourites of mine, and definitely worth pulling out and enjoying from time to time.
I know now that it was the musical equivalent of a photobomb.
The man? Francis Poulenc, a French composer who was very much a man of the 20th century -- born in 1899, and died in 1963. If you're the sort of person who can never resist trying to turn everything into a joke, then Poulenc's probably your man. I plead guilty to the charge at once!
Claude Rostand defined Poulenc as "a bit of monk and a bit of hooligan." It's a good description. The austere beauty of some of his sacred choral music is every bit as much a part of the picture as the little ironic and sarcastic touches are in his instrumental music. And what can you say of a man who could write an opera-bouffe based on Apollinaire's surrealist play Les mamelles de Tiresias ("The Breasts of Tiresias") in which a married woman named Therese becomes a man after her breasts turn into balloons and float away?
Consider Poulenc's Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra, premiered in 1932. From start to finish, this modestly-scaled piece is never able to sink into solemnity for more than 10 or 15 seconds. The first movement, in particular, is interrupted frequently by a little 8-bar theme on the pianos that sounds like it was lifted straight out of a can-can in a smoky Parisian night club. Each time it appears, this little riff gets twisted into stranger and stranger harmonic shapes. Kind of like the guy who keeps pulling weirder and weirder faces each time he photobombs a picture where he doesn't belong. The slow second movement sounds like a tribute to Mozart, but "tribute" is a loaded word in Poulenc's musical lexicon, where its closest synonym is probably "mockery". At any rate, the Concerto goes through its three movements in a matter of 18 or 19 minutes, full of high spirits and good fun.
In the early stereo era, Georges Pretre directed a 1957 recording for EMI which featured the composer as one of the soloists. He may not have been a pianist of the first rank, but who better to capture the delicious two-faced ironies found throughout the score? Another good recording came in 1986 from the French Erato label, with a young James Conlon conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. The two pianists were Francois-Rene Duchable and Jean-Philippe Collard. These performers also are completely in tune with the inherent witty character of the piece.
Even when Poulenc tried to be serious, he could have trouble sustaining the mood. His Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani of 1938 inhabits a more serious world than the 2-Piano Concerto, but some of the blaring discords from the organ give the impressions that a naughty choirboy is still peeking out from behind the choirmaster's more solemn mask. Certainly the overall impact is more majestic, the music more overt in tribute (without much mockery) to the great age of Bach and Buxtehude. The thunderous opening chords, which recur several more times in the lengthy single movement, show that this is only one of many works of music inspired by Bach's Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, one of the great monuments of the organ literature. At the same time, the lighter, faster passages undeniably come closer to the sound-world of the 2-Piano Concerto.
No doubt this Poulenc concerto is unique in its instrumentation, but the showy (albeit not difficult) organ part makes it an irresistible work for any orchestra whose hall includes a good big organ. A fine example was the lengthy Grand Opening concert of Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto (1982) where the new pipe organ made by Gabriel Kney got a splendid workout in this piece. It's also been heard in more recordings than almost any other Poulenc work, as so many organists love its marriage of baroque structure and style with 20th-century harmonic touches. I have the partner of the James Conlon CD listed above, where the Rotterdam Orchestra and Conlon are joined by the splendid French organist Marie-Claire Alain (whose recent death ended a long and honoured career).
Hope that gives you a good idea of the diversity of style underlying the music of Francis Poulenc. These two concertos are old favourites of mine, and definitely worth pulling out and enjoying from time to time.
Sunday 5 May 2013
An Interesting Collection With Two Highlights
Way back when I was just starting this blog, I wrote a detailed post about some favourite music of George Dyson. I unaccountably forgot to mention one more disc, and indeed hadn't listened to it for ages until I dug it out last week and put it on in the car. It's a Hyperion CD featuring the St. Michael's Singers and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted by Jonathan Rennert.
For much of his life, Dyson worked with school and amateur choirs. The first sets of pieces on this disc, Three Songs of Praise and Three Choral Hymns both were written in the 1930s when he was teaching and conducting in Winchester. These are well-written pieces within the competence of amateur and younger singers, perhaps a little simple, but very beautiful nonetheless.
These hymns are followed by a brief but effective setting of Psalm 150 for chorus and organ, which Dyson composed for the Coronation of King George VI in 1937.
The real prizes, though, come at the end, in two larger works from the "Indian Summer" at the end of Dyson's career. First we hear a Fantasia and Ground Bass for organ, composed in 1960. Dyson started his musical career as an organist, but it was only at the latter end that he began composing for the organ. It seems a pity, as this work begins with the sort of imposing opening that makes you sit up and pay attention right away! The score lasts for over 16 minutes, but the symphonic character and length of the themes prevent the music from ever dragging or seeming too thin for its length. This is the work of a master, and the composer plainly at home with larger forms of music. You'd never suspect that from the assured simplicities of the earlier hymns and songs.
The last piece on the disc is entitled simply Hierusalem, and identified only as a "hymn". This is just as disingenuous as Dyson's use of "cycle of poems" to describe his monumental oratorio, Quo Vadis. Indeed, Hierusalem is a full-scale 20-minute cantata to a mediaeval poem about the Holy City, and involves a soprano soloist and choir, harp, organ, string quartet and string orchestra!
In my previous post about Dyson's music I commented briefly about his dramatic sense, and here again it works at full stretch. The text presents a kind of "preview" of the joys of the heavenly life in the voice of one still firmly locked into the present life on earth. Dyson captures this scenario perfectly, with the longing notes of the soprano representing the earthly voice of the human aspiring towards the divine. The chorus is placed distantly, by the composer's intention, and the result is a clear sense that the "present" of humanity looks towards the distant "future" of heavenly joy. Dyson uses the contrast of solo strings with string orchestra as felicitously as Vaughan Williams did in his masterly Tallis Fantasia, and the harp and organ are effectively used to touch in the colours of the picture at appropriate moments. The whole result gives me a feeling that I am looking at a lovely impressionistic watercolour painting of Paradise through a veil.
Performances of all the works are first-rate, and the Hyperion digital sound is splendid as always. You might enjoy the choral hymns or pass lightly over them, as I tend to do, but the Fantasia and Ground Bass and Hierusalem both captivate me from start to finish.
For much of his life, Dyson worked with school and amateur choirs. The first sets of pieces on this disc, Three Songs of Praise and Three Choral Hymns both were written in the 1930s when he was teaching and conducting in Winchester. These are well-written pieces within the competence of amateur and younger singers, perhaps a little simple, but very beautiful nonetheless.
These hymns are followed by a brief but effective setting of Psalm 150 for chorus and organ, which Dyson composed for the Coronation of King George VI in 1937.
The real prizes, though, come at the end, in two larger works from the "Indian Summer" at the end of Dyson's career. First we hear a Fantasia and Ground Bass for organ, composed in 1960. Dyson started his musical career as an organist, but it was only at the latter end that he began composing for the organ. It seems a pity, as this work begins with the sort of imposing opening that makes you sit up and pay attention right away! The score lasts for over 16 minutes, but the symphonic character and length of the themes prevent the music from ever dragging or seeming too thin for its length. This is the work of a master, and the composer plainly at home with larger forms of music. You'd never suspect that from the assured simplicities of the earlier hymns and songs.
The last piece on the disc is entitled simply Hierusalem, and identified only as a "hymn". This is just as disingenuous as Dyson's use of "cycle of poems" to describe his monumental oratorio, Quo Vadis. Indeed, Hierusalem is a full-scale 20-minute cantata to a mediaeval poem about the Holy City, and involves a soprano soloist and choir, harp, organ, string quartet and string orchestra!
In my previous post about Dyson's music I commented briefly about his dramatic sense, and here again it works at full stretch. The text presents a kind of "preview" of the joys of the heavenly life in the voice of one still firmly locked into the present life on earth. Dyson captures this scenario perfectly, with the longing notes of the soprano representing the earthly voice of the human aspiring towards the divine. The chorus is placed distantly, by the composer's intention, and the result is a clear sense that the "present" of humanity looks towards the distant "future" of heavenly joy. Dyson uses the contrast of solo strings with string orchestra as felicitously as Vaughan Williams did in his masterly Tallis Fantasia, and the harp and organ are effectively used to touch in the colours of the picture at appropriate moments. The whole result gives me a feeling that I am looking at a lovely impressionistic watercolour painting of Paradise through a veil.
Performances of all the works are first-rate, and the Hyperion digital sound is splendid as always. You might enjoy the choral hymns or pass lightly over them, as I tend to do, but the Fantasia and Ground Bass and Hierusalem both captivate me from start to finish.
Sunday 7 April 2013
A Comic Charmer
So completely neglected that only 2 studio recordings have ever been made (and one of those incomplete), Flotow's comic opera Martha has acquired a reputation among many musicians as a dated piece of frippery, unworthy of serious attention.
How wrong can people get?
This opera, premiered in 1847, is actually a very good example of a true comedy, a piece that invites you to laugh at the follies of the characters while at the same time ruefully recognizing aspects of yourself in them. Yet the characters at all times remain true to themselves and to the society in which the story is set -- England in the early 1700s, a period when marriage below one's station was a cardinal social sin.
The comic devices of concealed identities which drive the plot are common ones, but what is uncommon is the idea of an aristocratic, titled lady concealing herself as a young woman of the lower class. Lady Harriet does this out of sheer boredom with the pointless life of her own circle, an attitude which brings her surprisingly close to modern social mores. She and her lady's maid, Nancy, go to the Richmond Fair dressed as peasant girls (named Martha and Julia) and hire themselves out as domestic servants to two landowners, Plumkett and his foster-brother Lyonel.
The entire plot revolves around this quartet of characters, with Queen Anne as an unseen dea ex machina to help untangle the resulting complications. In order of voice type, Lady Harriet is the star soprano, Nancy the mezzo-soprano second lead, Lyonel the leading tenor and Plumkett the comic bass-baritone.
Also uncommon for the times is Harriet's forward approach to wooing the man of her heart in the last act, rather than waiting for him to make the move as might have been considered conventional in the mid-1800s.
Musically, what makes Martha so rewarding? For starters, it's brim-full of memorable melodies of one kind or another. Harriet and Lyonel in particular both get their share of soaring melodic lines that show off the voice without ever deteriorating into mere vocal gymnastics. Nancy and Plunkett are given earthier, more rustic music, but always interesting to the ear. There are also numerous rewarding passages for the chorus, and many of these are set in 3/4 or 6/8 time, a feature which encourages a light-hearted, humorous, bubbly character to the work. Speaking of bubbles, Plunkett's ode to the joys of porter beer gets the third act off to an appropriately lurching, drunken start.
At the same time, Flotow's skill ensures that the whole does not deteriorate into a mere operetta. The injured pride of Lyonel as he rejects Harriet's pleas in Act III is as heartfelt as his own declaration of love in Act II. Equally real is the humility in Harriet's request to Plunkett to help her change Lyonel's mind in the final act. The serious music really is serious in tone, thus creating marvellous contrast with the comic moments. And when Flotow wants to be really romantic, that strain comes to him readily as well. One listening to the beautiful Midnight Quartet and the following brief nocturne for horn which concludes Act II drives the point home.
The two most famous excerpts are the famous Irish song, "The Last Rose of Summer", sung first by "Martha" and later adopted as a motif of Lyonel's love, and Lyonel's own marvellous aria, "Ach, so fromm" (more often recorded in aria recitals in the Italian translation as "M'appari"). But if you only know Martha from these two famous highlights, that is about the same as knowing Canada by the Anne of Green Gables house and the Banff Springs Hotel -- fine as far as it goes, but so much more is being missed.
The most recent recording I have been able to find out about is also the one I own. It was recorded in Munich by Heinz Wallberg for the Eurodisc label in 1978, and later re-released on RCA. It features an all-star cast of Lucia Popp as Lady Harriet, Doris Soffel as Nancy, Siegfried Jerusalem as Lyonel, and Karl Ridderbusch as Plunkett, with Siegmund Nimsgern in the relatively ungrateful baritone role of Sir Tristan Mickleford, Lady Harriet's cousin. If you can find this one, don't hesitate, as Wallberg totally captures the fizzing fun of the comic moments alongside the deeper emotions of the more serious passages. It's also unlikely that any newer contender could better this beautifully-matched ensemble of voices.
How wrong can people get?
This opera, premiered in 1847, is actually a very good example of a true comedy, a piece that invites you to laugh at the follies of the characters while at the same time ruefully recognizing aspects of yourself in them. Yet the characters at all times remain true to themselves and to the society in which the story is set -- England in the early 1700s, a period when marriage below one's station was a cardinal social sin.
The comic devices of concealed identities which drive the plot are common ones, but what is uncommon is the idea of an aristocratic, titled lady concealing herself as a young woman of the lower class. Lady Harriet does this out of sheer boredom with the pointless life of her own circle, an attitude which brings her surprisingly close to modern social mores. She and her lady's maid, Nancy, go to the Richmond Fair dressed as peasant girls (named Martha and Julia) and hire themselves out as domestic servants to two landowners, Plumkett and his foster-brother Lyonel.
The entire plot revolves around this quartet of characters, with Queen Anne as an unseen dea ex machina to help untangle the resulting complications. In order of voice type, Lady Harriet is the star soprano, Nancy the mezzo-soprano second lead, Lyonel the leading tenor and Plumkett the comic bass-baritone.
Also uncommon for the times is Harriet's forward approach to wooing the man of her heart in the last act, rather than waiting for him to make the move as might have been considered conventional in the mid-1800s.
Musically, what makes Martha so rewarding? For starters, it's brim-full of memorable melodies of one kind or another. Harriet and Lyonel in particular both get their share of soaring melodic lines that show off the voice without ever deteriorating into mere vocal gymnastics. Nancy and Plunkett are given earthier, more rustic music, but always interesting to the ear. There are also numerous rewarding passages for the chorus, and many of these are set in 3/4 or 6/8 time, a feature which encourages a light-hearted, humorous, bubbly character to the work. Speaking of bubbles, Plunkett's ode to the joys of porter beer gets the third act off to an appropriately lurching, drunken start.
At the same time, Flotow's skill ensures that the whole does not deteriorate into a mere operetta. The injured pride of Lyonel as he rejects Harriet's pleas in Act III is as heartfelt as his own declaration of love in Act II. Equally real is the humility in Harriet's request to Plunkett to help her change Lyonel's mind in the final act. The serious music really is serious in tone, thus creating marvellous contrast with the comic moments. And when Flotow wants to be really romantic, that strain comes to him readily as well. One listening to the beautiful Midnight Quartet and the following brief nocturne for horn which concludes Act II drives the point home.
The two most famous excerpts are the famous Irish song, "The Last Rose of Summer", sung first by "Martha" and later adopted as a motif of Lyonel's love, and Lyonel's own marvellous aria, "Ach, so fromm" (more often recorded in aria recitals in the Italian translation as "M'appari"). But if you only know Martha from these two famous highlights, that is about the same as knowing Canada by the Anne of Green Gables house and the Banff Springs Hotel -- fine as far as it goes, but so much more is being missed.
The most recent recording I have been able to find out about is also the one I own. It was recorded in Munich by Heinz Wallberg for the Eurodisc label in 1978, and later re-released on RCA. It features an all-star cast of Lucia Popp as Lady Harriet, Doris Soffel as Nancy, Siegfried Jerusalem as Lyonel, and Karl Ridderbusch as Plunkett, with Siegmund Nimsgern in the relatively ungrateful baritone role of Sir Tristan Mickleford, Lady Harriet's cousin. If you can find this one, don't hesitate, as Wallberg totally captures the fizzing fun of the comic moments alongside the deeper emotions of the more serious passages. It's also unlikely that any newer contender could better this beautifully-matched ensemble of voices.
Wednesday 27 February 2013
Music for Harp
I'm listening to a favourite Decca CD of music for harp, either solo or with orchestra, featuring the great harpist Marisa Robles and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields. There are three harp concertos recorded in 1980, and the disc is filled up with three sets of solo variations which come from an earlier (1966) recording.
The harp has not been a favourite instrument as a soloist with many composers, but those who truly understand its capabilities have given us a handful of masterpieces, and the pieces on this recording all fall into that category in one way or another.
Handel's Harp Concerto has the dual designation of being for either harp or organ, and is more familiar in the latter form. But it was actually composed for the harp, most likely for the famed Welsh harpist William Powell. And indeed, the harp sound works (if anything) even better than the organ with the subdued, pastoral accompaniment for strings and 2 flutes or recorders. Each of the three movements brims over with beautiful melody, and the harp contributes elaborately decorated variants of the melody on repeats.
This is followed by François-Adrien Boieldieu's Harp Concerto in 3 Tempi, composed in 1795 after the 20-year old composer visited Sebastien Erard, the renowned Parisian instrument maker whose experiments and innovations culminated in 1810 with the perfected pedal harp still used today in symphony orchestras. Boieldieu's Concerto is very Mozartean in sound, as one would expect given the date, but develops a style all its own, a graceful galanterie entirely appropriate to the instrument. The first two movements have their beauties to be sure, but it is the final Rondeau which brings forth a melody so unique and lovely that it tends to keep replaying in your head long after you hear it!
The third concerto is by Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, an Austrian composer whose work is now becoming more widely appreciated after lengthy neglect. This work in fact was a harpsichord concerto which Dittersdorf wrote in 1779 but left unfinished. It was rearranged for the harp (and completed and reorchestrated) by Karl Hermann Pilley. This score too is tuneful and engaging, and the writing for the soloist is made to sound entirely idiomatic as if conceived for the harp.
The remaining works for solo harp are a Theme, Variations and Rondo pastorale attributed to Mozart, a set of Variations by Handel, and Six Variations on a Swiss Song by Beethoven. All of these, too, offer much for the listener. None of the variations in any of these works actually becomes at all complex as in (for instance) some of Beethoven's piano variations.
The excellence of the playing by Robles and her orchestral supporters (led by Iona Brown) can be safely taken for granted, and the sound is very present and warm without observing the harp too closely.
This is a desert-island record if ever there was one, especially because of the beautiful Boieldieu concerto.
The harp has not been a favourite instrument as a soloist with many composers, but those who truly understand its capabilities have given us a handful of masterpieces, and the pieces on this recording all fall into that category in one way or another.
Handel's Harp Concerto has the dual designation of being for either harp or organ, and is more familiar in the latter form. But it was actually composed for the harp, most likely for the famed Welsh harpist William Powell. And indeed, the harp sound works (if anything) even better than the organ with the subdued, pastoral accompaniment for strings and 2 flutes or recorders. Each of the three movements brims over with beautiful melody, and the harp contributes elaborately decorated variants of the melody on repeats.
This is followed by François-Adrien Boieldieu's Harp Concerto in 3 Tempi, composed in 1795 after the 20-year old composer visited Sebastien Erard, the renowned Parisian instrument maker whose experiments and innovations culminated in 1810 with the perfected pedal harp still used today in symphony orchestras. Boieldieu's Concerto is very Mozartean in sound, as one would expect given the date, but develops a style all its own, a graceful galanterie entirely appropriate to the instrument. The first two movements have their beauties to be sure, but it is the final Rondeau which brings forth a melody so unique and lovely that it tends to keep replaying in your head long after you hear it!
The third concerto is by Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, an Austrian composer whose work is now becoming more widely appreciated after lengthy neglect. This work in fact was a harpsichord concerto which Dittersdorf wrote in 1779 but left unfinished. It was rearranged for the harp (and completed and reorchestrated) by Karl Hermann Pilley. This score too is tuneful and engaging, and the writing for the soloist is made to sound entirely idiomatic as if conceived for the harp.
The remaining works for solo harp are a Theme, Variations and Rondo pastorale attributed to Mozart, a set of Variations by Handel, and Six Variations on a Swiss Song by Beethoven. All of these, too, offer much for the listener. None of the variations in any of these works actually becomes at all complex as in (for instance) some of Beethoven's piano variations.
The excellence of the playing by Robles and her orchestral supporters (led by Iona Brown) can be safely taken for granted, and the sound is very present and warm without observing the harp too closely.
This is a desert-island record if ever there was one, especially because of the beautiful Boieldieu concerto.
Thursday 21 February 2013
Meet the Princess of Cyprus!
The Princess of Cyprus is one of the best-known figures (by name at least) in Romantic music. Her name (in Helmina von Chezy's flopperoo of a play) was Rosamunde, and she is known exclusively today by the music Franz Schubert composed for the one, the only, unmitigated disaster of a production. This should not be surprising, as a similar fate befell von Chezy's equally awful libretto for the opera Euryanthe, a work rescued only by the beautiful music Carl Maria von Weber lavished on von Chezy's flimsy text.
So what about Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern? Of course the third entr'acte of the score is one of the best-known pieces for orchestra by Schubert,and the second ballet is almost as well known. But that's precisely the trouble. They're known as independent pieces. There is almost a full hour's worth of music which Schubert composed for Rosamunde, and most of it is rarely if ever heard. So: everyone has heard of her, but not nearly enough music lovers have heard the score in its entirety. A pity. But there is hope. The work has been recorded in its entirety several times, and has been given a full performance on a few occasions.
The score opens with the overture to Schubert's earlier opera, Die Zauberharfe. Why? Apparently Schubert never had time to write an overture for Rosamunde. At the premiere production the play was prefaced by the overture to another early Schubert opera, Alfonso und Estrella. The overture to Die Zauberharfe was published at the same time as the music for Rosamunde, and that coincidence appears to be its only connection. It makes no matter. It's as tuneful as Schubert could make it, and that is recommendation enough.
The Rosamunde music proper begins with an entr'acte in B- which is dramatic enough, and on a large enough scale, that some experts have suggested it might be the "lost" finale of the Unfinished (8th) Symphony. It certainly works itself up to a powerful climax in the closing bars.
The rest of the score consist of two more entr'actes, two short ballets, and several vocal numbers -- a song for soprano and chorus, and choruses for spirits, shepherds and hunters. All these vocal numbers are contrasted very effectively. There's also a charming little piece of shepherds' melodies, lightly scored for a chamber ensemble of paired clarinets, bassoons, and horns.
The recording I have is a 1991 DGG CD conducted by Claudio Abbado with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, with the lovely voice of Anne Sofie von Otter in the song, and the Ernst Senff Choir providing the choral parts. Abbado seems to have been on a Schubert kick at the time, having just recorded the complete symphonies two years earlier with the same orchestra. I have that set too, and the light, sprightly playing of this orchestra is ideal for Schubert. Certainly the sound is not without weight when needed (in the first two Entr'actes, for instance).
What makes Abbado's recording especially delightful is the fact that the music is rearranged in order, so that pieces come in a musically-rewarding sequence rather than adhering to the dramatic order of events in von Chezy's play (we only know of the plot by reconstruction from referring to newspaper reviews of the premiere, anyway, as the full text has long since been -- mercifully -- lost). If you like Schubert, then it is surely worth your while to seek out this recording of Rosamunde!
So what about Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern? Of course the third entr'acte of the score is one of the best-known pieces for orchestra by Schubert,and the second ballet is almost as well known. But that's precisely the trouble. They're known as independent pieces. There is almost a full hour's worth of music which Schubert composed for Rosamunde, and most of it is rarely if ever heard. So: everyone has heard of her, but not nearly enough music lovers have heard the score in its entirety. A pity. But there is hope. The work has been recorded in its entirety several times, and has been given a full performance on a few occasions.
The score opens with the overture to Schubert's earlier opera, Die Zauberharfe. Why? Apparently Schubert never had time to write an overture for Rosamunde. At the premiere production the play was prefaced by the overture to another early Schubert opera, Alfonso und Estrella. The overture to Die Zauberharfe was published at the same time as the music for Rosamunde, and that coincidence appears to be its only connection. It makes no matter. It's as tuneful as Schubert could make it, and that is recommendation enough.
The Rosamunde music proper begins with an entr'acte in B- which is dramatic enough, and on a large enough scale, that some experts have suggested it might be the "lost" finale of the Unfinished (8th) Symphony. It certainly works itself up to a powerful climax in the closing bars.
The rest of the score consist of two more entr'actes, two short ballets, and several vocal numbers -- a song for soprano and chorus, and choruses for spirits, shepherds and hunters. All these vocal numbers are contrasted very effectively. There's also a charming little piece of shepherds' melodies, lightly scored for a chamber ensemble of paired clarinets, bassoons, and horns.
The recording I have is a 1991 DGG CD conducted by Claudio Abbado with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, with the lovely voice of Anne Sofie von Otter in the song, and the Ernst Senff Choir providing the choral parts. Abbado seems to have been on a Schubert kick at the time, having just recorded the complete symphonies two years earlier with the same orchestra. I have that set too, and the light, sprightly playing of this orchestra is ideal for Schubert. Certainly the sound is not without weight when needed (in the first two Entr'actes, for instance).
What makes Abbado's recording especially delightful is the fact that the music is rearranged in order, so that pieces come in a musically-rewarding sequence rather than adhering to the dramatic order of events in von Chezy's play (we only know of the plot by reconstruction from referring to newspaper reviews of the premiere, anyway, as the full text has long since been -- mercifully -- lost). If you like Schubert, then it is surely worth your while to seek out this recording of Rosamunde!
Sunday 17 February 2013
Mass Meets Symphony
Recently I've been listening to several old favourite recordings of symphonic Masses from the 18th and 19th centuries. When I say "symphonic Masses" many people will automatically think of Beethoven's monumental Missa Solemnis, which is actually a choral symphony in all but name.
What many music lovers do not realize is that the Missa Solemnis, as grand as it is, really is as much evolutionary as revolutionary. The same, by the way, is also true of its close neighbour, the Ninth Choral Symphony. In these two huge works, Beethoven did not rework the art of music wholesale as some would have you believe, but developed the received traditions and conventions further and faster than they had ever been taken before. None the less, he was working within a long tradition of composing Mass settings with full orchestra when he wrote the Missa Solemnis.
Indeed, the symphonic Mass developed almost hand-in-hand with the Viennese symphony itself, and to demonstrate that you have to look no further than Haydn. Alongside his 104 symphonies, Haydn composed well over a dozen settings of the Mass with orchestras of varying sizes. His church orchestra was no different from the orchestra employed in his symphonies at the same period. Where the Haydn Masses differ from the Baroque models is in the employment of the group of soloists from time to time as a quartet, alternating with the full chorus. Haydn's practice in the use of soloists set a model that continued to be followed by composers for well over a hundred years.
The Great Seven were composed near the end of his career for the nameday of Princess Esterhazy, and are all fine works worth your time. My own favourite, though, is the earlier Missa cellensis (often inaccurately called the "St. Cecilia Mass"). This huge setting (about 65 minutes long) reaches back to the Baroque tradition for its structural model. It's a "cantata mass" in which each of the six sections of the Ordinary is broken into further sub-movements, alternating solos and choral numbers. However, the first movement with its plain slow introduction followed by an allegro that can only be called "jolly" is pure unadulterated Haydn, at his most irrepressibly cheerful.
Already, conventions had grown up around the composition of such Masses, and Haydn duly observes them, notably the use of fugues for such climactic passages as Cum sancto spiritu, Et vitam venturi saeculi, Osanna in excelsis and Dona nobis pacem. There are also marvellous inventions like the dark bass aria (not baritone, bass) of the Agnus Dei. But the general tone of the whole Mass is joyful and energetic, and it's great fun to sing too. For this or any of the Haydn Masses your best bet is the marvellous cycle conducted by Richard Hickox on Chandos Records' Chaconne early music label.
Some years later, the Prince Esterhazy commissioned another nameday Mass for the Princess from none other than Beethoven. It's only because of the monumental Missa Solemnis that Beethoven's Mass in A Major is considered unworthy. That's an unfair judgement, because in any other company it would be acclaimed a masterpiece. It's odd, too, because no one suggests that the grandeur of the Eroica and Choral Symphonies in any way negates the value of # 1 and # 2!
The Mass in A lasts about an hour, and is plainly written within the same received tradition that Haydn and Mozart did so much to establish. It's a more noble, serious work than the Missa Cellensis, and the orchestra carries its fair share of the musical argument alongside the singers. There are the obligatory fugal passages but, like Haydn, Beethoven has put in a fair share of ear-catching innovations and memorable melodies as well. I have a beautiful old DGG recording under Karl Richter, who was a leading choral conductor in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. His performance is nimble and thoughtful at the same time, and the recorded balance is clear for both orchestra and choir. In the CD reissue it comes coupled with an early-stereo account of the better-known Coronation Mass by Mozart, conducted with great vigour by Igor Markevitch.
The third Mass I want to mention today is a later work from the Romantic era. However, Franz Schubert was plainly working within the same received tradition. His Mass No.6 in E-Flat is another hour-long work, written for a normal Schubert orchestra and choir, and five soloists -- the unusual number includes 2 tenors. Like the other composers I've mentioned today, Schubert uses his soloists from time to time as an ensemble and includes several of the obligatory fugues. Where this Mass scores over the others is in its use of melody. Schubert, ever the supreme melodist, certainly could not switch off his melodic gift just because he was composing to a sacred text. That brings up an interesting point: Schubert's Mass settings are all unusable for the church service because in each case he deliberately omitted the line "et in unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam" from the setting of the Credo. Exactly why he did so is not definitely known, although there has been much speculation about the omission -- certainly not an accidental one!
The centrepiece of this Mass, and one of its most unforgettable moments, is the setting of Et incarnatus est. It opens as a gently lilting 9/8 song for tenor with a typically Schubertian outpouring of lyrical melody. At the second iteration the tenor is joined by a baritone, and then by another tenor, and each of the singers is given a new melody with its own distinctive character which miraculously harmonizes with the others. The music then clouds over and, with no change of tempo or rhythm, rolls right into the restlessly energetic minor-key setting of Crucifixus which rises to a chromatic climax evoking the tragedy of Golgotha.
My recording of this Mass comes on a Telarc CD conducted by the noted American choral conductor
Robert Shaw with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus and Orchestra. It comes in harness with the earlier, and even lovelier, chamber-scaled Mass # 2 in F Major. With the splendid performances, and Telarc's realistic sound, this is a record to treasure.
What many music lovers do not realize is that the Missa Solemnis, as grand as it is, really is as much evolutionary as revolutionary. The same, by the way, is also true of its close neighbour, the Ninth Choral Symphony. In these two huge works, Beethoven did not rework the art of music wholesale as some would have you believe, but developed the received traditions and conventions further and faster than they had ever been taken before. None the less, he was working within a long tradition of composing Mass settings with full orchestra when he wrote the Missa Solemnis.
Indeed, the symphonic Mass developed almost hand-in-hand with the Viennese symphony itself, and to demonstrate that you have to look no further than Haydn. Alongside his 104 symphonies, Haydn composed well over a dozen settings of the Mass with orchestras of varying sizes. His church orchestra was no different from the orchestra employed in his symphonies at the same period. Where the Haydn Masses differ from the Baroque models is in the employment of the group of soloists from time to time as a quartet, alternating with the full chorus. Haydn's practice in the use of soloists set a model that continued to be followed by composers for well over a hundred years.
The Great Seven were composed near the end of his career for the nameday of Princess Esterhazy, and are all fine works worth your time. My own favourite, though, is the earlier Missa cellensis (often inaccurately called the "St. Cecilia Mass"). This huge setting (about 65 minutes long) reaches back to the Baroque tradition for its structural model. It's a "cantata mass" in which each of the six sections of the Ordinary is broken into further sub-movements, alternating solos and choral numbers. However, the first movement with its plain slow introduction followed by an allegro that can only be called "jolly" is pure unadulterated Haydn, at his most irrepressibly cheerful.
Already, conventions had grown up around the composition of such Masses, and Haydn duly observes them, notably the use of fugues for such climactic passages as Cum sancto spiritu, Et vitam venturi saeculi, Osanna in excelsis and Dona nobis pacem. There are also marvellous inventions like the dark bass aria (not baritone, bass) of the Agnus Dei. But the general tone of the whole Mass is joyful and energetic, and it's great fun to sing too. For this or any of the Haydn Masses your best bet is the marvellous cycle conducted by Richard Hickox on Chandos Records' Chaconne early music label.
Some years later, the Prince Esterhazy commissioned another nameday Mass for the Princess from none other than Beethoven. It's only because of the monumental Missa Solemnis that Beethoven's Mass in A Major is considered unworthy. That's an unfair judgement, because in any other company it would be acclaimed a masterpiece. It's odd, too, because no one suggests that the grandeur of the Eroica and Choral Symphonies in any way negates the value of # 1 and # 2!
The Mass in A lasts about an hour, and is plainly written within the same received tradition that Haydn and Mozart did so much to establish. It's a more noble, serious work than the Missa Cellensis, and the orchestra carries its fair share of the musical argument alongside the singers. There are the obligatory fugal passages but, like Haydn, Beethoven has put in a fair share of ear-catching innovations and memorable melodies as well. I have a beautiful old DGG recording under Karl Richter, who was a leading choral conductor in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. His performance is nimble and thoughtful at the same time, and the recorded balance is clear for both orchestra and choir. In the CD reissue it comes coupled with an early-stereo account of the better-known Coronation Mass by Mozart, conducted with great vigour by Igor Markevitch.
The third Mass I want to mention today is a later work from the Romantic era. However, Franz Schubert was plainly working within the same received tradition. His Mass No.6 in E-Flat is another hour-long work, written for a normal Schubert orchestra and choir, and five soloists -- the unusual number includes 2 tenors. Like the other composers I've mentioned today, Schubert uses his soloists from time to time as an ensemble and includes several of the obligatory fugues. Where this Mass scores over the others is in its use of melody. Schubert, ever the supreme melodist, certainly could not switch off his melodic gift just because he was composing to a sacred text. That brings up an interesting point: Schubert's Mass settings are all unusable for the church service because in each case he deliberately omitted the line "et in unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam" from the setting of the Credo. Exactly why he did so is not definitely known, although there has been much speculation about the omission -- certainly not an accidental one!
The centrepiece of this Mass, and one of its most unforgettable moments, is the setting of Et incarnatus est. It opens as a gently lilting 9/8 song for tenor with a typically Schubertian outpouring of lyrical melody. At the second iteration the tenor is joined by a baritone, and then by another tenor, and each of the singers is given a new melody with its own distinctive character which miraculously harmonizes with the others. The music then clouds over and, with no change of tempo or rhythm, rolls right into the restlessly energetic minor-key setting of Crucifixus which rises to a chromatic climax evoking the tragedy of Golgotha.
My recording of this Mass comes on a Telarc CD conducted by the noted American choral conductor
Robert Shaw with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus and Orchestra. It comes in harness with the earlier, and even lovelier, chamber-scaled Mass # 2 in F Major. With the splendid performances, and Telarc's realistic sound, this is a record to treasure.
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