The idea of writing about this work came to me directly from one of the subjects of my last blog post, the overture to "The Birds" by Alphons Diepenbrock.
This time, the subject is a complete opera based on that ancient Greek satirical comedy by Aristophanes. And once again, it comes from a composer very little known. This time, though, he's not just unknown because of shifting tastes and fashions.
One of the many crimes committed by the Nazi Party during their years in power in Germany was the labelling of art by Jewish artists and Jewish sympathizers as "entartete" -- "degenerate". Any works or artists so labelled were of course banned. Many of the creative artists labelled as "entartete" escaped from Europe and resettled in North America. Others were swept up by the hundred-headed hydra that was the Nazi killing machine, and disappeared into the death camps. Their works, in many cases, also disappeared.
Some years back, the Decca Records label launched a special line called "Entartete Musik", dedicated to recovering the works of the "degenerate" composers from obscurity. And the opera Die Vogel ("The Birds") was one of the major recording projects in this line of CDs.
The composer (and librettist) was Walter Braunfels. He was not himself Jewish (in fact he was a devout Roman Catholic), but he did have partly Jewish ancestry and of course counted many eminent Jewish musicians among his friends and colleagues, and that was enough to put him on the Nazi radar. It didn't help his cause at all that this opera definitely skewers the heaven-storming delusions of ambitious, power-hungry people!
But don't get me wrong! Die Vogel is no political tract, and certainly not advanced music for the time when it was composed (the 1920s). The nearest benchmark to Braunfels' style that I know is found in some of the later operas of Richard Strauss. Braunfels certainly shared Strauss' ability to coax beautiful, bewitching sounds out of singers and players alike, and this score has many examples of that gift in it. Not only that, but the composer has most effectively devised musically beautiful material to suggest (without slavishly imitating) the songs of many different species of birds.
The Aristophanes play involves a plot, suggested by two humans, for the birds to build a citadel in the sky and intercept all the prayers and sacrifices winging their way to the gods. Inevitably, of course, the all-powerful Zeus destroys the city of the birds.
The opera is in 2 acts, the first considerably shorter. The best of the music comes in the second act. This begins with a duet of heart-tugging beauty between the Nightingale and the human Hoffegut ("Good Hope"). The Nightingale is a high lyric soprano, and her voice soars effortlessly along a gently curving vocal line while her human admirer's voice punctuates it. For sheer lyrical gift there are few passages in all of music to match this. Later there is a delightful wedding scene of two doves with appropriate vocal comments from different birds.
The comedy turns darker with the arrival of Prometheus who warns the birds that they are tempting the wrath of Zeus (pronounced "Zoyss" in German). This passage has a splendid chordal theme that sets the name of the god on the highest note. But they ignore him and carry on.
Zeus himself then appears, and in a passage of power and drama summons the winds from north and south, until the winds and a thunderbolt blast the city into fragments.
The cowering birds then sing a hymn of homage to Zeus, with the Nightingale's voice rising above them all onto the high note of the Zeus theme heard earlier. The hymn-like harmonies of this passage are plain block triads, but the simple modulations are all the more effective for that. The humans then make their way back to their homes, with Hoffegut trying to describe and fix in his mind the change that his hour with the Nightingale has brought over him. As he disappears, the opera ends with a last brief lyrical outpouring from the distant voice of the Nightingale.
It seems a little hard on the rest of the singing cast that the soprano who sings the Nightingale gets all the most memorable moments! But in the premiere recording in the Decca Entartete Musik series, Hellen Kwon proves more than memorable in the part, and especially in that marvellous duet.
Her partner, Endrik Wottrich (tenor) sings with clarity and precision as Hoffegut, but has a curious tone quality to his voice which is quite distinctive and hard to describe -- and may not be to all tastes. Baritone Michael Kraus is equally clear as the other human character, Ratefreund (Loyal Friend).
Baritone Matthias Görne sings powerfully in his one scene as Prometheus. Wolfgang Holzmair, another baritone, is nicely contrasted in tone to both Kraus and Görne in his role as Wiedhopf (Hoopoe, the king of the birds). The many smaller roles are all effectively taken by various singers. The entire opera is lovingly played by the German Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin under the direction of Lothar Zagroszek.
This marvellous opera absolutely deserves to be rescued from obscurity, and performed much more often. If you can find a copy of this Decca recording (dating from 1994), grab it fast!
Tuesday 30 September 2014
Saturday 20 September 2014
Beautiful Rarities from the Netherlands
It's interesting that the people of the Netherlands are powerful connoisseurs of the fine arts, and of music in particular (witness the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, consistently ranked one of the world's finest and with good reason). Yet the Netherlands has produced relatively little music of continuing popularity, and none apart from the Renaissance choral music of Sweelinck which has become well-known outside the country.
Just recently I pulled out and revisited two CDs of music by the Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock, a contemporary of Gustav Mahler. These two records were issued in 1990 by the Chandos Records label in England, and I can only find one other disc of this composer's music. Even the apparently ubiquitous Naxos label doesn't seem to have touched him.
More's the pity, because Diepenbrock was a composer of considerable individuality and quality, and this music survives repeated listening uncommonly well. Most of Diepenbrock's list of over 100 compositions consists of vocal music, often with orchestra. In spite of his skillful handling of the orchestra, he wrote very few purely orchestral works apart from those destined for use in the theatre.
The title of one of the works in this collection is Hymn to the Night and the note writer shrewdly remarks that this could stand as the motto of Diepenbrock's entire musical output. Definitely his music is often quiet, lightly orchestrated with constantly shifting textures, and shot through with equal measures of lyrical beauty mixed with melancholy and sadness. The quality, subtlety and beauty of his works is the more remarkable when you find out that he was entirely self-taught as a composer and musician.
The first of the two CDs comprises orchestral works, and here we get three compositions written for the theatre: suites to the plays Marsyas and Elektra, and an overture to The Birds. Any experts reading this will have recognized that two of these are classical Greek dramas, and the third (Marsyas) is a Dutch play based on a Greek legend. The affinity is explained by the fact that Diepenbrock was trained as a scholar of classical Greek and Latin language and literature, and worked all his life as a teacher and tutor of those disciplines.
The overture to The Birds is one of the few genuinely happy pieces Diepenbrock wrote, and has a jolly, upbeat atmosphere entirely appropriate to the satirical comedy which it prefaced. The two suites are full of interesting touches, and the accompanying notes summarize the stories of the plays well enough that the listener can sense how the music would fit in with the stage action.
Set amid these riches is the crown jewel of the collection, the ineffably lovely Hymn for Violin and Orchestra. This is a single long movement, almost 13 minutes, in which two simple slow melodies are developed through transformations and varied orchestrations in an almost endless stream of melody from the solo instrument and orchestra. It remains for long periods grounded firmly in the home key, a fact which throws into the highest relief two simple modulations given to the orchestra right at the end of the work. Violinist Emmy Verhey plays with beautiful tone and long singing legato lines.
The second disc contains four symphonic songs, a form which Diepenbrock cultivated and developed throughout his life. The nearest parallel I can think of in the music of others is the long final movement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, in which a single soloist sings an extended setting of poetry developing a whole string of related but contrasting ideas. In many ways, I find that Diepenbrock's work in this form is fully up to that high standard, and indeed his music was known to and admired by Mahler (and by Richard Strauss).
In these pieces, Diepenbrock set poetry or prose-poetry of high quality to music of remarkable transparency, often achieved by using small chamber-like ensembles within the orchestra, and by scoring many of the parts for solo instruments. The result is certainly similar in texture to Mahler's work which was not widely known at the time.
He composed two pieces titled Hymn to the Night and we hear the second one here (words by Novalis). It's followed by another piece simply entitled The Night (Hölderlin). Both of these are for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. The third work is a shorter piece, Few understand the mystery of Love (Novalis again) for tenor and orchestra. Finally, for baritone and orchestra, we hear In the great silence to words by Nietzche. All four have moments of memorable melody and harmony, and repay close study with the texts in hand to see how the composer's music artfully follows the meanings of the words he chose to set. My own personal favourite is the Hymn to the Night but all four are fine works and merit greater attention. The vocal soloists all provide first-rate work, but the best of them (in my opinion) is mezzo-soprano Linda Finnie. However tenor Christoph Homberger and bass-baritone Robert Holl are by no means also-rans.
Throughout the two discs, the playing of the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague under conductor Hans Vonk is exemplary, as is the rich Chandos sound which serves this music uncommonly well. The entire recording is available for download as a complete 2-for-1 album from Chandos, and from Classics Online (the Naxos download website). Chandos also stocks the 2-for-1 CD album.
Just recently I pulled out and revisited two CDs of music by the Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock, a contemporary of Gustav Mahler. These two records were issued in 1990 by the Chandos Records label in England, and I can only find one other disc of this composer's music. Even the apparently ubiquitous Naxos label doesn't seem to have touched him.
More's the pity, because Diepenbrock was a composer of considerable individuality and quality, and this music survives repeated listening uncommonly well. Most of Diepenbrock's list of over 100 compositions consists of vocal music, often with orchestra. In spite of his skillful handling of the orchestra, he wrote very few purely orchestral works apart from those destined for use in the theatre.
The title of one of the works in this collection is Hymn to the Night and the note writer shrewdly remarks that this could stand as the motto of Diepenbrock's entire musical output. Definitely his music is often quiet, lightly orchestrated with constantly shifting textures, and shot through with equal measures of lyrical beauty mixed with melancholy and sadness. The quality, subtlety and beauty of his works is the more remarkable when you find out that he was entirely self-taught as a composer and musician.
The first of the two CDs comprises orchestral works, and here we get three compositions written for the theatre: suites to the plays Marsyas and Elektra, and an overture to The Birds. Any experts reading this will have recognized that two of these are classical Greek dramas, and the third (Marsyas) is a Dutch play based on a Greek legend. The affinity is explained by the fact that Diepenbrock was trained as a scholar of classical Greek and Latin language and literature, and worked all his life as a teacher and tutor of those disciplines.
The overture to The Birds is one of the few genuinely happy pieces Diepenbrock wrote, and has a jolly, upbeat atmosphere entirely appropriate to the satirical comedy which it prefaced. The two suites are full of interesting touches, and the accompanying notes summarize the stories of the plays well enough that the listener can sense how the music would fit in with the stage action.
Set amid these riches is the crown jewel of the collection, the ineffably lovely Hymn for Violin and Orchestra. This is a single long movement, almost 13 minutes, in which two simple slow melodies are developed through transformations and varied orchestrations in an almost endless stream of melody from the solo instrument and orchestra. It remains for long periods grounded firmly in the home key, a fact which throws into the highest relief two simple modulations given to the orchestra right at the end of the work. Violinist Emmy Verhey plays with beautiful tone and long singing legato lines.
The second disc contains four symphonic songs, a form which Diepenbrock cultivated and developed throughout his life. The nearest parallel I can think of in the music of others is the long final movement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, in which a single soloist sings an extended setting of poetry developing a whole string of related but contrasting ideas. In many ways, I find that Diepenbrock's work in this form is fully up to that high standard, and indeed his music was known to and admired by Mahler (and by Richard Strauss).
In these pieces, Diepenbrock set poetry or prose-poetry of high quality to music of remarkable transparency, often achieved by using small chamber-like ensembles within the orchestra, and by scoring many of the parts for solo instruments. The result is certainly similar in texture to Mahler's work which was not widely known at the time.
He composed two pieces titled Hymn to the Night and we hear the second one here (words by Novalis). It's followed by another piece simply entitled The Night (Hölderlin). Both of these are for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. The third work is a shorter piece, Few understand the mystery of Love (Novalis again) for tenor and orchestra. Finally, for baritone and orchestra, we hear In the great silence to words by Nietzche. All four have moments of memorable melody and harmony, and repay close study with the texts in hand to see how the composer's music artfully follows the meanings of the words he chose to set. My own personal favourite is the Hymn to the Night but all four are fine works and merit greater attention. The vocal soloists all provide first-rate work, but the best of them (in my opinion) is mezzo-soprano Linda Finnie. However tenor Christoph Homberger and bass-baritone Robert Holl are by no means also-rans.
Throughout the two discs, the playing of the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague under conductor Hans Vonk is exemplary, as is the rich Chandos sound which serves this music uncommonly well. The entire recording is available for download as a complete 2-for-1 album from Chandos, and from Classics Online (the Naxos download website). Chandos also stocks the 2-for-1 CD album.
Monday 8 September 2014
A Spectacular Mediaeval Journey
I'm ashamed that I have neglected this blog for the last 6 weeks or so because I have been so busy writing about summer theatre and concerts in Large Stage Live, and about my travels in Round and Round My World. But here I am with another delightful musical rarity.
The starting point for this music is a king -- Alfonso X "El Sabio" ("The Wise") who ruled Castile in Spain during the latter half of the 1200s. Among his numerous interests the arts and sciences ranked highly, and he co-authored or sponsored numerous treatises, books, and catalogues. One of the most noteworthy is the immense collection of Cantigas de Santa Maria ("Songs of the Virgin Mary"). There are over 400 poems, with music, in this collection, describing the miracles of the Blessed Virgin in vivid and colourful terms -- and even including one miracle which the King said happened to him! The manuscript forms the single largest collection of music and poetry in the vernacular from the Middle Ages.
Numerous artists have made reconstructions and recordings of selections from the cantigas. Among them, Philip Pickett (director of the New London Consort) came up with a unique "hook" on which to hang his collection. He surmised that songs like this were very likely sung and played by pilgrims travelling along the ancient pilgrim's road to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela, and set out to recreate a collection of music that might well have been so used. The result is a 2-CD album which appeared on the Oiseau-Lyre label, entitled The Pilgrimage to Santiago.
The Cantigas manuscript supplies only a melodic line -- no indications of instrumentation or vocal distribution are given. As is well understood, this freed musicians everywhere to make what they would of the material with the resources at hand. There's also the whole question of what kind of rhythmic pattern should be used in each number. And here is where Pickett had his real inspiration, which makes his recording lift off the disc and burst into vivid life.
In the Portico de la Gloria of the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela there is a remarkable stone carving above the door. It depicts the Twenty-Four Elders gathered around the throne of God (as described in the book of Revelation), with all of them holding instruments. But unlike the harps so often associated with celestial music, these players comprise an entire orchestra of mediaeval instruments -- fiddles, rebecs, flutes, tabors, an organistrum (a hurdy-gurdy played by 2 people), and so on. Pickett simply made the reasonable assumption that the carver was depicting an ensemble he had actually seen and heard. He then set out to recreate the ensemble for the recording.
The result is fantastic -- energetic, lively, brilliant, earthy in style, and tremendous fun for listening. The selection of instruments constantly shifts and changes from song to song, even from verse to verse within a song. Rhythms are splendidly vigorous. The opening Que la Virgen ben servira has a catchy syncopated rhythm that keeps performers and listeners alike keyed up for the story. While the lengthy strophic songs could be tedious, the energy and variety of the performance keeps them moving right along. Interspersed among the cantigas are other vocal numbers known in Castile at the time of the cantigas: plainsong chants, tropes, teaching songs, love songs, and much more.
The climax of each disc is the splendid processional of Dum pater familias, the traditional song in honour of St. James of Compostela sung by the pilgrims. It's a four-square march tune, entirely appropriate for a walking song, and employs the full instrumental resources of the ensemble. At the end of the first disc it appears as a purely instrumental version, but on the second disc it concludes the entire concert with full choral participation as well.
Singers and instrumentalists alike are first-rate throughout. Words are clearly sung, and complete texts with translations are provided, as well as lengthy notes about the process of reconstructing the music for performance. This recording is now several decades old, but you might be lucky enough to find a copy in a used-CD dealer's store, and if you do you should grab it fast. It's a real winner!
The starting point for this music is a king -- Alfonso X "El Sabio" ("The Wise") who ruled Castile in Spain during the latter half of the 1200s. Among his numerous interests the arts and sciences ranked highly, and he co-authored or sponsored numerous treatises, books, and catalogues. One of the most noteworthy is the immense collection of Cantigas de Santa Maria ("Songs of the Virgin Mary"). There are over 400 poems, with music, in this collection, describing the miracles of the Blessed Virgin in vivid and colourful terms -- and even including one miracle which the King said happened to him! The manuscript forms the single largest collection of music and poetry in the vernacular from the Middle Ages.
Numerous artists have made reconstructions and recordings of selections from the cantigas. Among them, Philip Pickett (director of the New London Consort) came up with a unique "hook" on which to hang his collection. He surmised that songs like this were very likely sung and played by pilgrims travelling along the ancient pilgrim's road to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela, and set out to recreate a collection of music that might well have been so used. The result is a 2-CD album which appeared on the Oiseau-Lyre label, entitled The Pilgrimage to Santiago.
The Cantigas manuscript supplies only a melodic line -- no indications of instrumentation or vocal distribution are given. As is well understood, this freed musicians everywhere to make what they would of the material with the resources at hand. There's also the whole question of what kind of rhythmic pattern should be used in each number. And here is where Pickett had his real inspiration, which makes his recording lift off the disc and burst into vivid life.
In the Portico de la Gloria of the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela there is a remarkable stone carving above the door. It depicts the Twenty-Four Elders gathered around the throne of God (as described in the book of Revelation), with all of them holding instruments. But unlike the harps so often associated with celestial music, these players comprise an entire orchestra of mediaeval instruments -- fiddles, rebecs, flutes, tabors, an organistrum (a hurdy-gurdy played by 2 people), and so on. Pickett simply made the reasonable assumption that the carver was depicting an ensemble he had actually seen and heard. He then set out to recreate the ensemble for the recording.
The result is fantastic -- energetic, lively, brilliant, earthy in style, and tremendous fun for listening. The selection of instruments constantly shifts and changes from song to song, even from verse to verse within a song. Rhythms are splendidly vigorous. The opening Que la Virgen ben servira has a catchy syncopated rhythm that keeps performers and listeners alike keyed up for the story. While the lengthy strophic songs could be tedious, the energy and variety of the performance keeps them moving right along. Interspersed among the cantigas are other vocal numbers known in Castile at the time of the cantigas: plainsong chants, tropes, teaching songs, love songs, and much more.
The climax of each disc is the splendid processional of Dum pater familias, the traditional song in honour of St. James of Compostela sung by the pilgrims. It's a four-square march tune, entirely appropriate for a walking song, and employs the full instrumental resources of the ensemble. At the end of the first disc it appears as a purely instrumental version, but on the second disc it concludes the entire concert with full choral participation as well.
Singers and instrumentalists alike are first-rate throughout. Words are clearly sung, and complete texts with translations are provided, as well as lengthy notes about the process of reconstructing the music for performance. This recording is now several decades old, but you might be lucky enough to find a copy in a used-CD dealer's store, and if you do you should grab it fast. It's a real winner!
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