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.
Friday 28 June 2013
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!
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