[2/26/2012] Musical storms, part 4 (continued): Verdi, "Rigoletto"

HOW TO MAKE MUSICAL WIND

Just put together tremolo violins near the bottom of their range with firsts and seconds playing in minor thirds (underpinned by trembling violas and cellos), plus a pair of bassoons -- plus a wordless chorus humming closed-mouthed behind the scenes. (This is from storm fragment 7 below, Sparafucile saying, "There's still half an hour"; Maddalena saying "Halt, brother"; and the watching Gilda saying, "What! A woman like that weeps, and I do nothing to help him!"

And by cultivating different balances among these components, you can create subtly (or even not so subtly) different wind effects.

AND YOU CAN GET LIGHTNING AND THUNDER . . .

. . . by punctuating upper-string tremolos with a darting flute figure for lightning, and having lower-string tremolos rumble for thunder.

NOW, ABOUT THOSE EIGHT RECORDINGS WE HEARD
OF THAT SNIPPET OF THE RIGOLETTO STORM SCENE

The "trick," in case you didn't guess, is that the excerpts were presented in alphabetical order by their Rigolettos. So Group A featurea Ettore Bastianini, Renato Bruson, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and Nicolae Herlea; Group B, Robert Merrill, Heinrich Schlusnus, Leonard Warren, and Giorgio Zancanaro. (Just to be absolutely clear: There was no significance to the separation into groups beyond the numerical, to make for two more manageable gulps of storm warnings.) Here they are again, but this time I would encourage you to focus on the storm effects of lightning, thunder, and wind.

VERDI: Rigoletto: Act III, "Egli è Delitto"

RIGOLETTO: He is Crime; I am Punishment.
[He leaves; the sky darkens, it thunders.]
SPARAFUCILE: The storm is getting closer.
The night will be darker.
["Bella figlia dell'amore" tune sounded by clarinet]
DUKE: Maddalena? [Trying to embrace her]
MADDALENA [pushing him away]: Wait -- my brother is coming.
DUKE: So?
MADDALENA: Thunder!
SPARAFUCILE [entering]: It's going to rain soon.

Group A

(1) Ettore Bastianini (b), Rigoletto; Ivo Vinco (bs), Sparafucile; Alfredo Kraus (t), Duke of Mantua; Fiorenza Cossotto (ms), Maddalena; Chorus and Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, cond. Mercury/Ricordi/BMG, recorded 1960
(2) Renato Bruson (b), Robert Lloyd (bs), Neil Shicoff (t), Brigitte Fassbaender (ms); Chorus and Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Giuseppe Sinopoli. Philips, recorded September 1984
(3) Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Ivo Vinco (bs), Carlo Bergonzi (t), Fiorenza Cossotto (ms); Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded July 1964
(4) Nicolae Herlea (b), Nicolae Rafael (bs), Ion Buzea (t), Dorothea Palade (ms); Romanian National Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Jean Bobescu, cond. Electrecord/Vox, recorded 1963
Group B

(5) Robert Merrill (b), Ezio Flagello (bs), Alfredo Kraus (t), Rosalind Elias (ms); RCA Italiana Chorus and Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded June 1963
(6) [in German] Heinrich Schlusnus (b), Josef Greindl (bs), Helge Roswaenge (t), Margarete Klose (c); Chorus and Orchestra of the Berlin State Opera, Robert Heger, cond. DG, broadcast performance, November 1944
(7) Leonard Warren (b), Nicola Moscona (bs), Jan Peerce (t), Nan Merriman (ms); Chorus, NBC Symphony Orchestra. RCA, recorded live in Madison Square Garden, May 25, 1944
(8) Giorgio Zancanaro (b), Paata Burchuladze (bs), Vincenzo La Scola (t), Martha Senn (ms); Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Muti, cond. EMI, recorded June and Oct. 1988

MAYBE I'M OVERLY SUSCEPTIBLE, BUT LET'S HEAR HOW
VERDI USES THESE RESOURCES TO CREATE HIS STORM

VERDI: Rigoletto: Act III, storm fragments

(1)
MADDALENA [softly to the Duke]: Ah no! You must leave.
DUKE [to Maddalena]: In this weather?
SPARAFUCILE [softly to MADDALENA]: It means twenty gold scudi.
(2)
MADDALENA: God! What a night this is!
(3)
SPARAFUCILE: Sir, may God protect you.
(4)
GILDA: Ah, my reason has left me!
Love draws me back . . . Father, forgive me!
[Thunder] What a terrible night!
(5)
SPARAFUCILE [throwing MADDALENA a sack]: Mend this sack!
MADDALENA: Why?
SPARAFUCILE: Because your Apollo, when I've cut his throat,
will wear it when I throw him in the river.
GILDA: I see hell itself!
(6)
SPARAFUCILE: Kill the hunchback?
What the devil do you mean?
Am I a thief? Am I a bandit?
What client of mine has ever been cheated?
This man pays me, and I shall deliver.
MADDALENA: Ah, have mercy on him!
SPARAFUCILE: He must die.
MADDALENA: I'll see he escapes in time.
[She runs towards the stairs.]
GILDA: Oh, merciful girl!
SPARAFUCILE [holding her back]: We'd lose the money,
MADDALENA: That's true!
SPARAFUCILE: Don't interfere.
MADDALENA: We must save him.
(7)
SPARAFUCILE: If someone else comes here before midnight,
they shall die in his place.
MADDALENA: The night is dark, the weather too stormy;
no one will pass by here at this late hour.
GILDA: Oh, what a temptation! To die for the ingrate?
To die! And my father?… Oh, Heaven, have mercy!
[A distant clock chimes half past eleven.]
SPARAFUCILE: There's still half an hour.
MADDALENA [weeping]: Halt, brother . . .
GILDA: What! A woman like that weeps, and I do nothing to help him!
Ah, even if he betrayed my love
I shall save his life with my own!
[She knocks on the door.]
MADDALENA: A knock at the door?
SPARAFUCILE: It was the wind.
[GILDA knocks again.]
MADDALENA: Someone's knocking, I tell you.
SPARAFUCILE: How strange! Who's there?
GILDA: Have pity on a beggar;
grant him shelter for the night.
MADDALENA: A long night will it be!
SPARAFUCILE: Wait a moment.
(8)
MADDALENA: Get on with it!
SPARAFUCILE: Open up!
MADDALENA: Enter!
GILDA: (God! Forgive them!)
MADDALENA, SPARAFUCILE: Enter!

Ivo Vinco (bs), Sparafucile; Fiorenza Cossotto (ms), Maddalena; Renata Scotto (s), Gilda; Chorus and Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, cond. Mercury/Ricordi/BMG, recorded 1960

NOW LET'S GO STRAIGHT THROUGH THE
RIGOLETTO STORM SCENE (IN ENGLISH!)

We've already heard the Storm Scene straight through in Friday night's preview, and we've got a couple more performances available, which I'll direct you to in a moment. For now, though, I thought we'd listen to this English-language performance.

We pick up just after Rigoletto has sent Gilda home (with instructions to change and leave immediately for Verona), after dragging her out to the godforsaken dilapidated little inn where the assassin he's hired, Sparafucile, has had his sister (and business partner) Maddalena entice the Duke of Mantua. He thought by showing her the Duke's true colors she would get over her infatuation. It didn't work, though. (Just how badly it didn't work we learn when we discover that she's still in the area.

VERDI: Rigoletto: Act III, Storm Scene


[in English] John Rawnsley (b), Rigoletto; John Tomlinson (bs), Sparafucile; Arthur Davies (t), Duke of Mantua; Jean Rigby (ms), Maddalena; Helen Field (s), Gilda; English National Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Mark Elder, cond. EMI/Chandos, recorded 1983

As I mentioned, we've got two more performances of the Storm Scene ready for clicking, following two performances of the first third of Act III, as explained below.

FOR TODAY'S PERFORMANCES OF THE STORM
SCENE, WITH ENGLISH TEXTS, CLICK HERE


BACKING UP, LET'S HEAR JUST HOW WE
GOT TO THE SITUATION OF THE STORM

I don't know when we're going to get back to Rigoletto, in particular the last act. (There are some other things in the opera we might fix on first.) We've already had pretty decent coverage of the middle third of the act, the Storm Scene, and having heard both "La donna è mobile" and the Quartet, we've heard most of the first third. So I thought what we'd do is, first, to hear that first third with the gaps filled in, and then just take a flying leap and hear the whole act, adding on without further comment the final third,

THE FIRST THIRD OF ACT III

Since this isn't strictly speaking part of our subject unit today, and the English texts will take up a fair chunk of space, I've moved this section off-site.

TO HEAR THE OPENING SCENE OF ACT III, CLICK HERE


FINALLY, LET'S HEAR THE COMPLETE ACT III

We're going to hear two recordings from which we've already heard selections. As it happens, they're both recordings of broadcasts from 1944, which took place probably less than six months apart. They're pretty different, but both of sufficient interest, I think, to warrant continued attention and enjoyment. For the final scene of the act, the one we haven't talked about at all, we have two pretty potent, and again very differnt, teams, with Leonard Warren and Zinka Milanov as Arturo Toscanini's Rigoletto and Giilda and Heinrich Schlusnus and Erna Berger as Robert Heger's.

In Toscanini's Act III there is a high level of exactitude in the rendering of Verdi's musical notations, but not for the purpose of exactitude. Almost always Toscanini is finding the expressing necessity and human urgency of those instructions. His tautly dramatic realization of the storm figurations is an excellent example. Act III is, sadly, all of Rigoletto that was include in that June 1944 concert, whereas the 1944 Berlin broadcast performance, solidly conducted by the always dependable Heger (1886-1978) -- nearly 58 at the time, but with more than two decades of solidly dependable music-making still ahead of him.

Toscanini deployed a cast that would have been familiar to New Yorkers of the time, though I don't imagine that anyone would have expected to hear the great dramatic soprano Milanov in the lyric-coloratura role of Gilda. (She's really good, isn't she?) In the Berlin performance we re-encounter our old friend Schlusnus, whom we heard at length as Wolfram in Wagner's Tannhäuser, along with the singularly affecting Berger. I'm not an unalloyed fan of tenor Helge Roswaenge, but the voice has plenty of presence; this is about as un-namby-pamby a Duke as we're going to hear, and some of it is authentically terrific. The 1944 Berlin Rigoletto part of the large harvest of recordings from the later '30s and early '40s made possible by German engineers' widespread use of magnetic recording tape well before it came into use elsewhere.

VERDI: Rigoletto: Act III (complete)

You can find English texts here (and, separately, the Italian original). Just click on "E" for English (or "I" for Italian).

Leonard Warren (b), Rigoletto; Zinka Milanov (s), Gilda; Jan Peerce (t), Duke of Mantua; Nicola Moscona (bs), Sparafucile; Nan Merriman (ms), Maddalena; Chorus, NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA, recorded live in Madison Square Garden, May 25, 1944

[in German] Heinrich Schlusnus (b), Rigoletto; Erna Berger (s), Gilda; Helge Roswaenge (t), Duke of Mantua; Josef Greindl (bs), Sparafucile; Margarete Klose (c), Maddalena; Chorus and Orchestra of the Berlin State Opera, Robert Heger, cond. DG, broadcast performance, November 1944


TO PROCEED TO THE STORM FROM ACT III OF
JANÁČEK'S KÁTYA KABANOVÁ, CLICK HERE


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

#

[2/26/2012] Musical storms, part 4 (continued): Janáček, "Kátya Kabanová"

Karita Mattila as Kátya in Chicago

The plot of the opera is way too intricate to go into here; Wikipedia has a useful synopsis. For our purposes I hope it will suffice to note that Kátya is another of those people all too common in Janáček operas who are trapped by their circumstances, and with no way out of their hopeless situation make a misstep from which there will be no coming back. In her case, she has cheated on her not-much-of-a-husband. The interaction of her conscience and this violent storm produces devastating results.

First we have an intimation of the storm to come.

JANÁČEK: Kátya Kabanová: Act III, opening scene

A ruined building with colonnades and vaulted ceilings around it grass and bushes. Through the arches, view of the Volga and its bank. Late afternoon on a dull day with rain clouds.

KULIGIN: The first drops!
VÁŇA: There's a storm coming!
KULIGIN: Lucky there's somewhere to take shelter!
VÁŇA: What a crowd on the promenade here!
KULIGIN: Looks as if everyone will be piling in!
[Passersby come running in from the rain.]
VÁŇA: These merchants, dressed up to the nines!
KULIGIN: Look at this! Must have been paintings on the walls!
You can still see what they were, here and there. [Inspects the walls.]
VÁŇA: The place was burnt out.
KULIGIN: This one must be Gehenna -- all the fires of Hell!
VÁŇA: They never repaired the building afterwards.
KULIGIN: It shows all sorts of people dropping down into it.
VÁŇA: That's the way it is, my friend!
KULIGIN: People of every rank!
VÁŇA: That's it -- you've got the idea.
KULIGIN: Even blackamoors too!
VÁŇA: Right you are! Blackamoors and all!
[DIKOJ enters. All the otherws make obeisance.]
DIKOJ: I'm wet through!
VÁŇA: Savjol Prokofjič!
DIKOJ : Get away from me! Move along sharp!
Don't crawl over me, boy!
I may not even want to speak to you!
Poking your snout in other people's conversation!
VÁŇA: We get a lot of storms in these parts.
DIKOJ : Piffle!
VÁŇA: No lightning conductors!
DIKOJ : Piffle!
What are these conductors of yours anyway?
VÁŇA: Made of steel.
DIKOJ : Go on.
VÁŇA: Steel rods.
DIKOJ : I see, rods.
VÁŇA [explaining with gestures]: You let them down into the ground.
DIKOJ : Then what? Then what?
VÁŇA: That's all!
DIKOJ [rolling his sleeves up menacingly]: And what exactly is a storm in your theory?
VÁŇA: Electricity!
DIKOJ [stamping his foot]: Electricity? Electricity my foot!
Look at him! Are you telling me he isn't a swindler?
Storms are punishment, sent to us
to make us realize the power of the Almighty!
And you propose to put up rods and
skewers and things to protect us from that?!
What are you? Some heathen Tartar, are you?
Own up! A Tartar?
VÁŇA: Savjol Prokofjič! Your worship!
Děržavin writes:
"Though mankind's body turn to dust,
his mind has quelled the thunder!"
DIKOJ : You heard what he said, gentlemen?
Arrest him! One of these phony peasants!
[Turning to the bystanders] Damn you people, you'd provoke a man into sin! [To Vaňa] Has the rain stopped?
VÁŇA: Apparently.
DIKOJ : "Apparently"!
Go and have a look!
"Apparently," he says!
[DIKOJ walks out of the building, the rest following.]
VÁŇA [outside]: It's stopped.

Jaroslav Souček (b), Kuligin; Zdeněk Švehla (t), Váňa; Dalibor Jedlička (bs), Dikoj; Vienna Philharmonic, Charles Mackerras, cond. Decca, recorded December 1976

Rudolf Jedlička (b), Kuligin; Viktor Koči (t), Vanya; Zdeněk Kroupa (bs), Dikoj; Prague National Theater Orchestra, Jaroslav Krombholc, cond. Supraphon, recorded 1959

Just a moment later, all hell breaks loose.

JANÁČEK: Kátya Kabanová: Act III, storm scene

The setting is the same as above, just a minute or so later. Distant thunder.

KÁTYA [rushing in, taking VARVARA's hand and gripping it frenziedly]: Oh, Varvara!
It's going to kill me!
A WOMAN FROM THE CROWD: There's some woman here scared to death.
VARVARA [to KÁTYA]: Enough of that, already!
CHORUS:
[basses] When judgment is passed, there's no escape!
[tenors] Isn't she gorgeous?
VARVARA: Pull yourself together!
KÁTYA: I can't!
VARVARA: Be yourself again!
KÁTYA: My heart aches so!
VÁŇA [with BORIS, backstage of him]: What are you afraid of, may I ask?
CHORUS: Isn't she gorgeous?
VÁŇA: Every flower of the field rejoices,
and you hide yourself away?
KÁTYA [seeing BORIS]: God, what does he want here?
[Leans toward VARVARA and sobs]
Isn't he satisfied yet?
Isn't it enough to see what I am going through?
VARVARA: Hush now, kneel down and pray a little.
[Enter DIKOJ with KABANCHA and TICHON.]
DIKOJ [to KABANICHA, pointing at KÁTYA]:
What sins can she have on her mind worth mentioning?
KABANICHA: There's no fathoming other people's souls.
KÁTYA [suddenly falling to her knees]: Mama! Tichon!
I have sinned before God and before you two!
I am a sinful woman!
Did I not swear on my oath to you
that I would not even glance at another man
whilst you were gone, Tichon?
And do you know what wickedness
I did without you? On the very first night . . .
TICHON: Stop, there's no need for this!
VARVARA: She doesn't know what she's saying.
KÁTYA: . . . I ran out of the house . . .
KABANICHA: No. Speak up, speak up, once you've started!
KÁTYA: . . . and every night, ten nights, I dallied with him.
KABANICHA: With whom?
DIKOJ: With whom?
KABANICHA: With whom?
VARVARA : You can tell she's lying -- she doesn't know what she's saying.
KÁTYA: With Boris Grigorjič!
[She falls senseless into her husband's arms.]
KABANICHA: My son, it's turned out as I said.
TICHON: Katěrina!
[KÁTYA tears herself away and rushes off into the storm. The rest run in all directions.]

Elisabeth Söderström (s), Kátya Kabanová; Libuše Márová (s), Varvara; Zdeněk Švehla (t), Váňa; Dalibor Jedlička (bs), Dikoj; Nadežda Kniplová (s), Kabanicha; Vladimir Krejčik (t), Tichon; Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Charles Mackerras, cond. Decca, recorded December 1976

Drahomira Tikalová (s), Kátya Kabanová; Ivana Mixová (s), Varvara; Viktor Koči (t), Váňa; Zdeněk Kroupa (bs), Dikoj; Ludmilla Komancová (s), Kabanicha; Bohumir Vich (t), Tichon; Prague National Theater Chorus and Orchestra, Jaroslav Krombholc, cond. Supraphon, recorded 1959


TO PROCEED TO THE STORM FROM ACT III
OF VERDI'S RIGOLETTO, CLICK HERE


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

#

[2/26/2012] The first two-thirds of Act III of "Rigoletto"

The Duke gropes Maddalena in Act III
of Lyric Opera of Chicago's Rigoletto.

THE FIRST THIRD OF ACT III

VERDI: Rigoletto: Act III, Opening scene

The right bank of the River Mincio. On the left is a two-storied house, half fallen into ruin. At ground level, beyond an arcade, the interior of a rustic wine shop can be seen and a rough stone staircase leading to a loft with a small bed, which, since there are no shutters, is in full view. Downstairs, in the wall facing the road, is a door that opens inwards. The wall itself is so full of cracks and boles here that whatever takes place within is clearly visible. In the background are the deserted fields along the Mincio, which runs behind a crumbling parapet. Beyond the river lies Mantua.

It is night. GILDA and RIGOLETTO, both ill at ease, are standing in the road; SPARAFUCILE is seated at a table in the wine shop.

No. 11 - Scena and Canzone
RIGOLETTO: And you love him?
GILDA : I always will.
RIGOLETTO: Yet I have given you time to forget.
GILDA: I love him.
RIGOLETTO: Poor woman's heart! Ah, the scoundrel!
You shall be avenged, o Gilda.
GILDA: Have pity, my father!
RIGOLETTO: And if you were sure
of his lack of faith, would you still love him?
GILDA: I do not know, but he adores me.
RIGOLETTO: He does?
GILDA: Yes.
RIGOLETTO: Well then, just watch.
[He leads her to a crack in the wall. She looks through into the wine shop.]
GILDA: I see a man.
RIGOLETTO: Wait a moment.
[The DUKE, wearing the uniform of a cavalry officer, enters the wine shop through a door on the left.]
GILDA [startled]: Ah, father!
DUKE [to SPARAFUCILE]: Two things, and quickly.
SPARAFUCILE: What things?
DUKE: A room and a bottle of wine!
RIGOLETTO: (These are the fellow's habits.)
SPARAFUCILE: (Oh, the gay blade!)
[He goes into an adjoining room.]
DUKE: Women are as fickle
as feathers in the wind,
simple in speech,
and simple in mind.
Always the lovable,
sweet, laughing face,
but laughing or crying,
the face is false for sure.
If you rely on her
you will regret it,
and if you trust her
you are undone!
Yet none can call himself
fully contented
who has not tasted
love in her arms!
Women are as fickle, etc.
[SPARAFUCILE returns with a bottle of wine and two glasses, which he puts on the table; then he strikes the ceiling twice with the pommel of his sword. At this signal, a buxom young woman in gypsy costume comes jumping down the stairs. The DUKE runs to kiss her, but she eludes him. Meanwhile, SPARAFUCILE, having slipped out into the road, speaks softly to RIGLETTO.]
SPARAFUCILE: Your man's in there. Is he to live or die?
RIGOLETTO: I'll come back later to conclude our business.
[SPARAFUCILE moves off behind the house in the direction of the river.]

No. 12, Quartet
DUKE: One day, if I remember rightly,
my pretty one, I met you...
I asked someone about you
and was told that you live here.
Let me say that ever since,
my heart has been yours alone.
GILDA: (Deceiver!)
MADDALENA: Ah! Ah! And of twenty others
that maybe you're forgetting?
I think my fine young man
is a bit of a libertine.
DUKE: Yes, I'm a monster. [Goes to embrace her]
GILDA: Ah, father!
MADDALENA: Leave me alone, you scatterbrain!
DUKE: Ho, what a fuss!
MADDALENA: Behave yourself!
DUKE: Be nice to me,
don't play hard to get.
Good behavior doesn't exclude
jollity and love.
[Caressing ber hand] Pretty white hand!
MADDALENA: You are joking, sir.
DUKE: No, no.
MADDALENA: I'm ugly.
DUKE: Kiss me.
GILDA: (Deceiver!)
MADDALENA: You're drunk!
DUKE: With love.
MADDALENA: If you're trifling with me, sir,
I'm indifferent.
DUKE: No, no. I want to marry you.
MADDALENA: I want your word of honor.
DUKE [ironic]: Sweet little maid!
RIGOLETTO [to GILDA, who has seen and heard all]: Haven't you seen enough?
GILDA: The wicked deceiver!
Quartet -- Duke, Maddalena, Gilda, Rigoletto
DUKE: Fairest daughter of love,
I am a slave to your charms;
with but a single word you could
relieve my every pain.
Come, touch my breast and feel
how my heart is racing.
MADDALENA: Ah! Ah! That really makes me laugh;
talk like that is cheap enough.
Believe me, I know exactly
what such play-acting is worth!
I, my fine sir, am quite accustomed
to foolish jokes like this.
GILDA: Ah, these are the loving words
the scoundrel spoke once to me!
O wretched heart betrayed
do not break for sorrow.
RIGOLETTO [to Gilda]: Hush, weeping can do no good.
You are now convinced he was lying.
Hush, and leave it up to me
to hasten our revenge.
It will be quick, it will be deadly,
I know how to deal with him.

RIGOLETTO: Listen to me, go home.
Take some money and a horse,
Put on the men's clothes I provided,
then leave at once for Verona.
I shall meet you there tomorrow.
GILDA: Come with me now.
RIGOLETTO: It's impossible.
GILDA: I'm afraid.
RIGOLETTO: Go!
[The DUKE and MADDALENA continue to laugh and talk together as they drink. GILDA having left, RIGOLETTO goes behind the house and returns with Sparafucile, counting out money into the cut?throat's hands.

[in English] John Rawnsley (b), Rigoletto; Helen Field (s), Gilda; Arthur Davies (t), Duke of Mantua; John Tomlinson (bs), Sparafucile; Jean Rigby (ms), Maddalena; English National Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Mark Elder, cond. EMI/Chandos, recorded 1983
["Women abandon us" at 2:35; Quartet, "If you want a faithful lover," at 6:55]

Ettore Bastianini (b), Rigoletto; Renata Scotto (s), Gilda; Alfredo Kraus (t), Duke of Mantua; Ivo Vinco (bs), Sparafucile; Fiorenza Cossotto (ms), Maddalena; Chorus and Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, cond. Mercury/Ricordi/BMG, recorded 1960
["La donna è mobile" at 2:16 of track 1; "Bella figlia dell'amore" at 1:42 of track 2]


THE SECOND THIRD OF ACT III: THE STORM SCENE

VERDI: Rigoletto: Act III, Storm Scene

RIGOLETTO has come to this remote, dilapidated inn to show GILDA what her dearly beloved is really like and to conclude his "contract" with the hired assassin SPARAFUCILE. Following the Quartet, he instructed GILDA to go home, dress as a man, and leave immediately for Verona.

Scena, Trio, and Storm

RIGOLETTO goes behind the house and returns with SPARAFUCILE, counting out his money for him.

RIGOLETTO: Twenty scudi, you said? Here are ten,
and the rest when the work is finished.
He is staying here?
SPARAFUCILE: Yes.
RIGOLETTO: At midnight I shall return.
SPARAFUCILE: No point:
I can throw him in the river without help.
RIGOLETTO: No, no, I want to do it myself.
SPARAFUCILE: All right. His name?
RIGOLETTO: Do you want to know mine as well?
He is Crime; I am Punishment.
[He leaves; the sky darkens, it thunders.]
SPARAFUCILE: The storm is getting closer.
The night will be darker.
["Bella figlia dell'amore" tune sounded by clarinet]
DUKE: Maddalena? [Trying to embrace her]
MADDALENA [pushing him away]: Wait -- my brother is coming.
DUKE: So?
MADDALENA: Thunder!
SPARAFUCILE [entering]: It's going to rain soon.
DUKE: So much the better.
You can sleep in the stable...
or in hell … wherever you like.
SPARAFUCILE: Thank you.
MADDALENA [softly to the Duke]: Ah no! You must leave.
DUKE [to Maddalena]: In this weather?
SPARAFUCILE [softly to MADDALENA]: It means twenty gold scudi.
[To the DUKE] I'll be glad
to offer you my room.
If you want to see it, let's go up now.
[Taking a lamp, he starts up the stairs.]
DUKE: Good; I’ll be with you in a moment.
[He whispers something to MADDALENA, then follows SPARAFUCILE. Again, "Bella figlia dell'amore" tune sounded by clarinet]
MADDALENA: (Poor lad! He's so handsome!
God! What a night this is!)
DUKE [upstairs, noticing that the loft is open on one side]: We sleep in the open, eh? Good enough!
Good night.
SPARAFUCILE: Sir, may God protect you.
DUKE: We'll sleep a little; I'm tired.
Oh, women are fickle, etc.
[He lays down his hat and sword and stretches out on the bed and falls asleep. MADDALENA, meanwhile, has sat down at the table below. SPARAFUCILE drinks from the bottle which the DUKE left unfinished. Both are silent for a moment, lost in their thoughts.]
MADDALENA: He is really most attractive, this young man.
SPARAFUCILE: Oh, yes . . . to the tune of twenty scudi.
MADDALENA: Only twenty! . . . That's not much! He was worth more.
SPARAFUCILE: His sword: if he's asleep, bring it down to me.
[MADDALENA goes upstairs and stands looking at the sleeping DUKE, then closes the balcony as best she can and comes down carrying the sword. GILDA, meanwhile, appears in the road wearing male attire, boots and spurs, and walks slowly towards the inn, where SPARAFUCILE is still drinking. Frequent thunder and lightning.]
GILDA: Ah, my reason has left me!
Love draws me back . . . Father, forgive me!
[Thunder]
What a terrible night! Great God, what will happen?
MADDALENA [having put the DUKE's sword on the table]: Brother?
GILDA [peeping through a crack]: Who is speaking?
SPARAFUCILE [rummaging in a cupboard]: Go to the devil!
MADDALENA: He's an Apollo, that young man; I love him,
he loves me . . . let him be . . . let's spare him.
GILDA [listening]: Dear God!
SPARAFUCILE [throwing her a sack]: Mend this sack!
MADDALENA: Why?
SPARAFUCILE: Because your Apollo, when I've cut his throat,
will wear it when I throw him in the river.
GILDA: I see hell itself!
MADDALENA: But I reckon I can save you the money
and save his life as well.
SPARAFUCILE: Difficult, I think.
MADDALENA: Listen -- my plan is simple.
You've had ten scudi from the hunchback;
he's coming later with the rest . . .
Kill him, and the twenty you've got;
so we lose nothing.
GILDA: What do I hear?. . . My father!
SPARAFUCILE: Kill the hunchback?
What the devil do you mean?
Am I a thief? Am I a bandit?
What client of mine has ever been cheated?
This man pays me, and I shall deliver.
MADDALENA: Ah, have mercy on him!
SPARAFUCILE: He must die.
MADDALENA: I'll see he escapes in time.
[She runs towards the stairs.]
GILDA: Oh, merciful girl!
SPARAFUCILE [holding her back]: We'd lose the money,
MADDALENA: That's true!
SPARAFUCILE: Don't interfere.
MADDALENA: We must save him.
SPARAFUCILE: If someone else comes here before midnight,
they shall die in his place.
MADDALENA: The night is dark, the weather too stormy;
no one will pass by here at this late hour.
GILDA: Oh, what a temptation! To die for the ingrate?
To die! And my father?… Oh, Heaven, have mercy!
[A distant clock chimes half past eleven.]
SPARAFUCILE: There's still half an hour.
MADDALENA [weeping]: Halt, brother . . .
GILDA: What! A woman like that weeps, and I do nothing to help him!
Ah, even if he betrayed my love
I shall save his life with my own!
[She knocks on the door.]
MADDALENA: A knock at the door?
SPARAFUCILE: It was the wind.
[GILDA knocks again.]
MADDALENA: Someone's knocking, I tell you.
SPARAFUCILE: How strange! Who's there?
GILDA: Have pity on a beggar;
grant him shelter for the night.
MADDALENA: A long night will it be!
SPARAFUCILE: Wait a moment. [Searching in the cupboard]
MADDALENA: Come on, get on with it, finish the job.
I am eager to save one life with another.
SPARAFUCILE: So, I'm ready; open the door;
all I want to save is the gold.
GILDA: (Ah, death is near, and I am so young!
Oh, Heaven, for these sinners I ask thy pardon.
Father, forgive your unhappy child!
May the man I am saving be happy.)
MADDALENA: Get on with it!
SPARAFUCILE: Open up!
MADDALENA: Enter!
GILDA: (God! Forgive them!)
MADDALENA, SPARAFUCILE: Enter!
[Dagger in hand, SPARAFUCILE positions himself behind the door; MADDALENA opens it, then runs to close the big door under the archway while GILDA enters. SPARAFUCILE closes the door behind her and the rest is darkness and silence.]

Ettore Bastianini (b), Rigoletto; Ivo Vinco (bs), Sparafucile; Alfredo Kraus (t), Duke of Mantua; Fiorenza Cossotto (ms), Maddalena; Renata Scotto (s), Gilda; Chorus and Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, cond. Mercury/Ricordi/BMG, recorded 1960

Renato Bruson (b), Rigoletto; Dimitri Kavrakos (bs), Sparafucile; Roberto Alagna (t), Duke of Mantua; Mariana Pentcheva (ms), Maddalena; Andrea Rost (s); Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Muti, cond. Sony, recorded live, May 13-21 1994


RETURN TO TODAY'S RIGOLETTO PRESENTATION


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

#

[2/24/2012] Preview: En route to our final operatic storms, we hear two famous tenor tunes sung by a very famous tenor (continued)

The young Luciano Pavarotti

LET'S HEAR THE COMPLETE NUMBERS FROM
WHICH OUR TWO FAMOUS TENOR TUNES COME

They're from a December 1967 Turin Radio performance, and now we hear them in their proper order. I switched them for several reasons, not least that they will recur in the Storm Scene in the opposite order. But now we'll hear them in the order in which they actually appear in the opera: first, possibly the most famous of all tenor arias, the Duke of Mantua's "La donna è mobile"; then the shortly-ensuing quartet, led off by the Duke's "Bella figlia dell'amore," in which the Duke woos the young woman who has lured him to this remote dive of an inn, Maddalena, observed from outside by Rigoletto, who has hired her brother to murder the Duke, and Rigoletto's daughter, Gilda, still in love with the philanderer.

(The trick employed by Luciano in the second stanza of the aria, singing just the opening phrase softly and then quickly raising the volume back to a more comfortable level, was a career-long favorite of his. He thought it impressed audiences as interpretive subtlety -- as we see him impart -- in a video-recorded master class -- to a young baritone singing Germont's "Di Provenza" from La Traviata. Of course it could be too that he didn't have much else to say to a baritone.)


VERDI: Rigoletto, Act III:
Aria, Duke of Mantua, "La donna è mobile"

DUKE: Women are as fickle
as feathers in the wind,
simple in speech,
and simple in mind.
Always the lovable,
sweet, laughing face,
but laughing or crying,
the face is false for sure.

If you rely on her
you will regret it,
and if you trust her
you are undone!
Yet none can call himself
fully contented
who has not tasted
love in her arms!

Women are as fickle, etc.

Quartet, "Bella figlia dell'amore"

DUKE: Fairest daughter of love,
I am a slave to your charms;
with but a single word you could
relieve my every pain.
Come, touch my breast and feel
how my heart is racing.
MADDALENA: Ah! Ah! That really makes me laugh;
talk like that is cheap enough.
Believe me, I know exactly
what such play?acting is worth!
I, my fine sir, am quite accustomed
to foolish jokes like this.
GILDA: Ah, these are the loving words
the scoundrel spoke once to me!
O wretched heart betrayed
do not break for sorrow.
RIGOLETTO [to Gilda]: Hush, weeping can do no good...
You are now convinced he was lying.
Hush, and leave it up to me
to hasten our revenge.
It will be quick, it will be deadly,
I know how to deal with him.

Luciano Pavarotti (t), Duke of Mantua; plus in the Quartet: Adriana Lazzari (ms), Maddalena; Margherita Rinaldi (s), Gilda; Piero Cappuccilli (b), Rigoletto; RAI (Turin) Symphony Orchestra, Mario Rossi, cond. Performance broadcast on Dec. 26, 1967

NOW LET'S HEAR THE WHOLE OF
THE STORM SCENE FROM RIGOLETTO

The portion of the storm we heard before the click-through, by the way, was from my much-loved July 1964 DG Rigoletto conducted by Rafael Kubelik, with Ivo Vinco as Sparafucile, Fiorenza Cossotto as Maddalena, Renata Scotto as Gilda, and the chorus and orchestra of La Scala.

For the full scene, note that I chose the Gardelli-Eurodisc recording in good part because it's the most satisfactory CD version I found in my collection that has no internal track points, which in our format would have occasioned track-switching interruptions. The Toscanini performance, from his complete Act III (which we're going to hear on Sunday), was dubbed from LP.

Within this scene note the clarinet sounding the "Bella figlia dell'amore" tune at 1:02 of the Gardelli clip, when Maddalena arrives upstairs in the Duke's (open-air) room, and again at 1:47; then at 2:44 we hear him singing "La donna è mobile" to himself. (The timings are just a second or two or three later in the Toscanini.)

VERDI: Rigoletto: Act III, Storm Scene

RIGOLETTO has come to this remote, dilapidated inn to show GILDA what her dearly beloved is really like and to conclude his "contract" with the hired assassin SPARAFUCILE. Following the Quartet, he instructed GILDA to go home, dress as a man, and leave immediately for Verona.

Scena, Trio, and Storm

RIGOLETTO goes behind the house and returns with SPARAFUCILE, counting out his money for him.

RIGOLETTO: Twenty scudi, you said? Here are ten,
and the rest when the work is finished.
He is staying here?
SPARAFUCILE: Yes.
RIGOLETTO: At midnight I shall return.
SPARAFUCILE: No point:
I can throw him in the river without help.
RIGOLETTO: No, no, I want to do it myself.
SPARAFUCILE: All right. His name?
RIGOLETTO: Do you want to know mine as well?
He is Crime; I am Punishment.
[He leaves; the sky darkens, it thunders.]
SPARAFUCILE: The storm is getting closer.
The night will be darker.
["Bella figlia dell'amore" tune sounded by clarinet]
DUKE: Maddalena? [Trying to embrace her]
MADDALENA [pushing him away]: Wait -- my brother is coming.
DUKE: So?
MADDALENA: Thunder!
SPARAFUCILE [entering]: It's going to rain soon.
DUKE: So much the better.
You can sleep in the stable...
or in hell … wherever you like.
SPARAFUCILE: Thank you.
MADDALENA [softly to the Duke]: Ah no! You must leave.
DUKE [to Maddalena]: In this weather?
SPARAFUCILE [softly to MADDALENA]: It means twenty gold scudi.
[To the DUKE] I'll be glad
to offer you my room.
If you want to see it, let's go up now.
[Taking a lamp, he starts up the stairs.]
DUKE: Good; I’ll be with you in a moment.
[He whispers something to MADDALENA, then follows SPARAFUCILE. Again, "Bella figlia dell'amore" tune sounded by clarinet]
MADDALENA: (Poor lad! He's so handsome!
God! What a night this is!)
DUKE [upstairs, noticing that the loft is open on one side]: We sleep in the open, eh? Good enough!
Good night.
SPARAFUCILE: Sir, may God protect you.
DUKE: We'll sleep a little; I'm tired.
Oh, women are fickle, etc.
[He lays down his hat and sword and stretches out on the bed and falls asleep. MADDALENA, meanwhile, has sat down at the table below. SPARAFUCILE drinks from the bottle which the DUKE left unfinished. Both are silent for a moment, lost in their thoughts.]
MADDALENA: He is really most attractive, this young man.
SPARAFUCILE: Oh, yes . . . to the tune of twenty scudi.
MADDALENA: Only twenty! . . . That's not much! He was worth more.
SPARAFUCILE: His sword: if he's asleep, bring it down to me.
[MADDALENA goes upstairs and stands looking at the sleeping DUKE, then closes the balcony as best she can and comes down carrying the sword. GILDA, meanwhile, appears in the road wearing male attire, boots and spurs, and walks slowly towards the inn, where SPARAFUCILE is still drinking. Frequent thunder and lightning.]
GILDA: Ah, my reason has left me!
Love draws me back . . . Father, forgive me!
[Thunder]
What a terrible night! Great God, what will happen?
MADDALENA [having put the DUKE's sword on the table]: Brother?
GILDA [peeping through a crack]: Who is speaking?
SPARAFUCILE [rummaging in a cupboard]: Go to the devil!
MADDALENA: He's an Apollo, that young man; I love him,
he loves me . . . let him be . . . let's spare him.
GILDA [listening]: Dear God!
SPARAFUCILE [throwing her a sack]: Mend this sack!
MADDALENA: Why?
SPARAFUCILE: Because your Apollo, when I've cut his throat,
will wear it when I throw him in the river.
GILDA: I see hell itself!
MADDALENA: But I reckon I can save you the money
and save his life as well.
SPARAFUCILE: Difficult, I think.
MADDALENA: Listen -- my plan is simple.
You've had ten scudi from the hunchback;
he's coming later with the rest . . .
Kill him, and the twenty you've got;
so we lose nothing.
GILDA: What do I hear?. . . My father!
SPARAFUCILE: Kill the hunchback?
What the devil do you mean?
Am I a thief? Am I a bandit?
What client of mine has ever been cheated?
This man pays me, and I shall deliver.
MADDALENA: Ah, have mercy on him!
SPARAFUCILE: He must die.
MADDALENA: I'll see he escapes in time.
[She runs towards the stairs.]
GILDA: Oh, merciful girl!
SPARAFUCILE [holding her back]: We'd lose the money,
MADDALENA: That's true!
SPARAFUCILE: Don't interfere.
MADDALENA: We must save him.
SPARAFUCILE: If someone else comes here before midnight,
they shall die in his place.
MADDALENA: The night is dark, the weather too stormy;
no one will pass by here at this late hour.
GILDA: Oh, what a temptation! To die for the ingrate?
To die! And my father?… Oh, Heaven, have mercy!
***THIS IS THE POINT WHERE OUR EARLIER EXCERPT BEGAN***
[A distant clock chimes half past eleven.]
SPARAFUCILE: There's still half an hour.
MADDALENA [weeping]: Halt, brother . . .
GILDA: What! A woman like that weeps, and I do nothing to help him!
Ah, even if he betrayed my love
I shall save his life with my own!
[She knocks on the door.]
MADDALENA: A knock at the door?
SPARAFUCILE: It was the wind.
[GILDA knocks again.]
MADDALENA: Someone's knocking, I tell you.
SPARAFUCILE: How strange! Who's there?
GILDA: Have pity on a beggar;
grant him shelter for the night.
MADDALENA: A long night will it be!
SPARAFUCILE: Wait a moment. [Searching in the cupboard]
MADDALENA: Come on, get on with it, finish the job.
I am eager to save one life with another.
SPARAFUCILE: So, I'm ready; open the door;
all I want to save is the gold.
GILDA: (Ah, death is near, and I am so young!
Oh, Heaven, for these sinners I ask thy pardon.
Father, forgive your unhappy child!
May the man I am saving be happy.)
MADDALENA: Get on with it!
SPARAFUCILE: Open up!
MADDALENA: Enter!
GILDA: (God! Forgive them!)
MADDALENA, SPARAFUCILE: Enter!
[Dagger in hand, SPARAFUCILE positions himself behind the door; MADDALENA opens it, then runs to close the big door under the archway while GILDA enters. SPARAFUCILE closes the door behind her and the rest is darkness and silence.]

Bernd Weikl (b), Rigoletto; Jan-Hendrik Rootering (bs), Sparafucile; Giacomo Aragall (t), Duke of Mantua; Klara Takács (ms), Maddalena; Lucia Popp (s), Gilda; Bavarian Radio Chorus, Munich Radio Orchestra, Lamberto Gardelli, cond. Eurodisc, recorded May 1984

Leonard Warren (b), Rigoletto; Nicola Moscona (bs), Sparafucile; Jan Peerce (t), Duke of Mantua; Nan Merriman (ms), Maddalena; Zinka Milanov (s), Gilda; Chorus, NBC Symphony Orchestra. RCA, recorded live in Madison Square Garden, May 25, 1944

SUNDAY CLASSICS' MUSICAL STORMS

Preview: Tonight's musical selections should give you a good idea of Sunday's subject (January 13)
The thunderstorm movement from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and Otello's "Esultate" from Verdi's Otello
Stormy weather, part 1 (January 15)
Verdi's Otello, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and Berlioz's Les Troyens, plus Lena Horne singing "Stormy Weather"
Preview: Given the resources at his disposal, Vivaldi's musical storms may be the most remarkable of all (January 27)
The three storm movements from Vivaldi's Four Seasons
With the full symphony orchestra you can create a heckuva storm (aka: Musical storms, part 2) (January 29)
Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (again), Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite, Johann Strauss II's Amid Thunder and Lightning polka, Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony, Grieg's Peer Gynt incidental music, Britten's Peter Grimes, and Rossini's Barber of Seville
Preview: En route to more of our musical storms, we encounter perhaps the most eerily wonderful music I know (February 3)
The Preludes to Acts I and II of Wagner's Siegfried
Storms that set three great operatic scenes in motion (aka: Musical storms, part 3) (February 5)
The openings of Wagner's Die Walküre Act I and Siegfried Act III and of Act III of Puccini's La Bohème
Preview: En route to our final operatic storms, we hear two famous tenor tunes sung by a very famous tenor (February 24)
"La donna è mobile," the Quartet, and the Storm Scene from Act III of Rigoletto
Musical storms, part 4: We come to our raging storms from Janáček's Kátya Kabanová and Verdi's Rigoletto (February 26)
The storms from Act III of both operas, with a close-up look at how Verdi created the Rigoletto one -- plus the whole of Act III

RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

#

[2/19/2012] Still more "Impressions of Debussy" (continued)

This is part 1 of Jeux, danced by Alessandro Molin, Carla Fracci (at age 67!), and Silvia Curti, in an attempted reconstruction of the original Nijinksy choreography by Millicent Hodson, at the 2003 Abano Terme Festival of Dance. (The town of Abano Terme is 10 km southwest of Padua in Italy's Veneto region, more or less ringed by Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, and Venice -- here's a map.) Here are part 2 and part 3.


WE HAVE THREE MORE DEBUSSY "IMPRESSIONS"
FROM BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE'S DEBUSSY CHOOSERS

1. Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp (1915)

At the end of his life, Debussy was midway through a planned set of six sonatas "for diverse instruments," completing only a Sonata for Cello and Piano (1915), this Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp (also 1915), and a Sonata for Violin and Piano (1917). The combination of flute and harp was a familiar one, especially beloved of French composers. (I'm trying to remember whether we've heard the extraordinary flute-harp duo Berlioz incorporated into Part III of L'Enfance du Christ as impromptu entertainment offered to the Holy Family by the Ishmaelite householder who has just rescued them from the brink of death.) But the addition of the viola, sometimes combining with, sometimes contrasting, and sometimes opposing, makes for a distinctly different soundscape.

EMMANUEL PAHUD, flutist

So much of Debussy's music is magnificent for the flute -- straight off I can think of Syrinx for solo flute, or that chromatic line in the introduction of Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, or La Mer [all of which we've heard in previous Sunday Classics posts; see the "Sunday Classics Debussy" listing -- Ed.], or Pelléas et Mélisande. But if I had to pick one work, I'd go for the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp. There is so much happening between the notes in the work -- the notes are moving forward like waves and the idea of taste and smell that emerges from it is unbelievable. Experiencing this power with the other musicians as you perform it is something quite intimate, almost like making love -- having an audience there is almost voyeurism. Sensuous and voluptuous, it's music that really gets under your skin.

i. Pastorale: Lento, dolce e rubato
ii. Interlude: Tempo di minuetto
iii. Finale: Allegro moderato ma risoluto


Members of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Ensemble (William Bennett, flute; Stephen Shingles, viola); Skaila Kanga, harp. Chandos, recorded September 1987

Nash Ensemble and friend: Philippa Davies, flute; Roger Chase, viola; Marisa Robles, harp. Virgin Classics, recorded June 1989

Montreal Chamber Players (principals of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal): Timothy Hutchins, flute; Neal Gripp, viola; Jennifer Swartz, harp. ATMA, recorded Sept. 13-15, 2004

This sonata isn't a piece I knew well, though I was surprised to discover that I own a score, which means that at some point I spent some time with the piece for some reason. (At least I thought to check!. It's happened a bunch of times that I realized I had a score only after I'd written about the piece.) The piece has come to be heard a lot more than it used to be; when I did some online research, I was startled to find listings for 44 recordings! Even among our three you'll notice a trend to broadening the thing. In the case of the Nash Ensemble recording in particular, note how flutist Philippa Davis and violist Roger Chase are able to "equalize" their respective tones -- in the opening of the piece, it's possible to not notice where the viola takes over from the flute (at the end of bar 3 in our printed page).

2. Jeux, poème dansé
(Games, danced poem) (1911)

We've already had one partial vote for Jeux, which composer Colin Matthews cited in his choice of Rondes de printemps: "My immediate reaction was to go for Jeux, which I couldn't live without; but the piece which exemplifies what I most love about Debussy is Rondes de printemps, from the orchestral Images. . . ."

JEAN-EFFLAM BAVOUZET, pianist

Neither of the pieces by Debussy that inspire me most are for piano. The first is Pelléas et Mélisande because it was the no-return point for me. About 15 years ago I was touring in Asia. I listened to the marvellous recording by Herbert von Karajan [we heard the opening scene in last night's preview -- Ed.] in my hotel room and I began to cry. For several years I could not hear a note by Debussy without being moved to tears. Shortly after I wrote a piano version of Jeux -- probably the ultimate in his orchestral and harmonic writing -- which was another turning point for me, a chance to be immersed in the piece's architecture, to plunge into the score.

Jeux was written to be danced by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and had its premiere, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, on May 15, 1913, exactly two weeks before the company launched Stravinsky's Rite of Spring -- of course, one of the most famous, and scandalous, premieres in musical history. Here's the program of Jeux as presented at the premiere:

The scene is a garden at dusk; a tennis ball has been lost; a boy and two girls are searching for it. The artificial light of the large electric lamps shedding fantastic rays about them suggests the idea of childish games: they play hide and seek, they try to catch one another, they quarrel, they sulk without cause. The night is warm, the sky is bathed in pale light; they embrace. But the spell is broken by another tennis ball thrown in mischievously by an unknown hand. Surprised and alarmed, the boy and girls disappear into the nocturnal depths of the garden.

Cleveland Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, cond. DG, recorded March 1993

Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Manuel Rosenthal, cond. Adès, recorded 1957-59

Orchestre National de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon, cond. EMI, recorded 1973-74

We hear a lot of yammering about the importance of authentic "style" in musical performance. True, all three of our conductors are French, and I'm sure that gave them a leg up, but it isn't some sort of imagined "Debussy style" that brought them to these remarkably different but all remarkably persuasive performances -- it's doing the performer's basic job of imaginative identification with the material, especially in the cases (once again!) of Rosenthal and Martinon.

3. Pelléas et Mélisande (1902)

We've already had Pelléas cited by both of today's previous choosers -- and in the excerpt we're about to hear it should be clear why it's so dear to flutist Emmanuel Pahoud's heart. You don't have to agree with everything soprano Natalie Dessay has to say about it (actually, I don't agree with much) to appreciate her connection to it.

NATALIE DESSAY, soprano

I think it must be the chemistry between the words and the music which makes Pelléas et Mélisande such a wonderful opera -- and unique; its music seems to come from another planet. I think this is the only opera I have chosen to do because of the music and not the character. Mélisande is an absolute mystery. I still don't understand her -- and that's how it should be. One almost has to intone her words rather than sing them, and because of this I believe you must truly know French to give the music what it deserves. It's such a beautiful language, but very complicated to sing. Pelléas makes you realize that Fench is not flat, but phrased in little waves. The music of Debussy is really like a language that resides in my body and my mind -- it's part of me.

The opening of Act III of the opera not only gives us some prime Mélisande but seems to me as good a "demonstration" chunklet as we could rip out of it. It's also a much easier scene to make play in the imagination than on the stage, where it's nearly impossible to get the physical relationship between the characters right -- Mélisande in her room on the tower, Pelléas on the ground outside -- not to mention the whole business of M's hair.

Pelléas et Mélisande: Act III: Scene 1 (beginning)

We know that Golaud and Pelléas are half-brothers, grandsons of Arkel, the blind old king of Allemonde. We know too that they are both sons of Geneviève, who -- given the circumstances set out in the libretto -- can only be the daughter-in-law of Arkel, having been married sequentially to both of his sons, and having a son with each (making the boys cousins as well as brothers!). Golaud, following a long estrangement from his family, has returned to the gloomy castle bringing along a mysterious, much younger bride, Mélisande (we saw their exceedingly unusual meeting in the opera's opening scene). Mélisande and Pelléas are almost immediately gripped by a mutual attraction but pretend, most unconvincingly, that nothing is happening -- for a while.

Act III is set outside one of the castle towers. A circular path passes under a window of the tower.

MÉLISANDE [at the window, while she combs her unbound hair]: My long hair descends all the way to the foot of the tower.
My hair waits for you all the length of the tower.
And all the length of the day,
And all the length of the day.
Saint Daniel and Saint Michel,
Saint Michel and Saint Raphaël,
I was born on a Sunday,
a Sunday at noon . . .
PELLÉAS [enters by the circular path]: Holà! Holà! Ho!
MÉLISANDE: Who's there?
PELLÉAS: Me, me, and me!
What are you doing there, at the window,
singing like a bird who isn't from here?
MÉLISANDE: I'm arranging my hair for the night.
PELLÉAS: It's that that I see on the wall?
I thought you had some light there.
MÉLISANDE: I opened the window;
it's too warm in the tower.
It's lovely tonight!
PELLÉAS: There are countless stars;
I never saw as many as this evening;
but the moon is still over the sea.
Don't stay in the shadow, Mélisande;
bend over a little,
so I can see your hair unbound.
MÉLISANDE: I'm hideous that way.
PELLÉAS: Oh! oh! Mélisande!
Oh,you're beautiful! you're beautiful that way!
Lean over! Lean over! Let me come closer to you.
MÉLISANDE: I can't come closer to you.
I'm leaning over as much as I can.
PELLÉAS: I can't climb any higher.
Give me your hand at least this evening
before I go away.
I'm leaving tomorrow.
MÉLISANDE: No, no, no!
PELLÉAS: Yes, yes, I'm leaving, I'll leave tomorrow.
Give me your hand, your hand, your little hand on my lips.
MÉLISANDE: I'm not giving you my hand if you're leaving.
PELLÉAS: Give it, give it, give it!
MÉLISANDE: You won't leave?
PELLÉAS: I'll wait, I'll wait.
MÉLISANDE: I see a rose in the darkness.
PELLÉAS: Where then?
MÉLISANDE: Lower down, lower down, in the garden;
down there, in the somber green.
PELLÉAS: It's not a rose.
I'll go see in a moment,
but give me your hand first, first your hand.
MÉLISANDE: There! There!
I can't lean over any more.
PELLÉAS: My lips can't reach your hand!
MÉLISANDE: I can't lean over any more.
I'm on the verge of falling.
[Her hair suddenly turns over while she's leaning thus, and envelops PELLÉAS.] Oh! Oh! My hair is falling from the tower.
PELLÉAS: Oh! oh! what is it?
Your hair, you hair falls toward me.
All your hair, Mélisande, all your hair has fallen from the tower!

Act III opening scene (beginning): Orchestral
introduction; Mélisande alone, then with Pelléas

Erna Spoorenberg (s), Mélisande; Camille Maurane (b), Pelléas; Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ernest Ansermet, cond. Decca, recorded August 1964

Elisabeth Söderström (s), Mélisande; George Shirley (t), Pelléas; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Pierre Boulez, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded Dec. 1969-Jan. 1970

Micheline Granchet (s), Mélisande; Camille Maurane (b), Pelléas; Orchestre National de l'ORTF, D.-E. Inghelbrecht, cond. Broadcast performance, Mar. 13, 1962

Victoria de los Angeles (s), Mélisande; Pierre Mollet (b), Pelléas; Orchestra of the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Jean Fournet, cond. Live performance, June 19, 1962

Anna Moffo (s), Mélisande; Nicolai Gedda (t), Pelléas; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Ernest Ansermet, cond. Live performance, Dec. 29, 1962

I went a little wild here with audio files of our portion of the Act III scene, not knowing quite what I would wind up using. I thought i would pick two or three and then link to the others, but in the end, what the heck?, the files are there, and nobody's forcing you to listen. Friday night we heard the opening scene of the opera from the 1964 Ansermet and 1969-70 Boulez recordings, and in this scene the Boulez really asserts itself for the strong casting of the title roles -- Söderström is a wonderful Mélisande and Shirley an outstanding Pelléas, and atypically a tenor one. (High as the role lies for the baritones who usually undertake it, the lie of the role actually makes it harder for tenors.) Unfortunately, the Mélisande is the weakest cast link in the two commercially released French Radio broadcast performances conducted by Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht, one of the greatest of Debussy (and Pelléas) conductors. I thought the Colón and Met performances might be of interest for their lovely Mélisandes (and in the Met performance another tenor Pelléas, Gedda).

SUNDAY CLASSICS DEBUSSY

Roaming the landscape (and seascape!) of the imagination -- the full orchestral splendor of Debussy (4/18/2010)
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and Saxophone Rhapsody (cond. Martinon, Masur), La Mer (cond. Boulez, Rosenthal, Martinon, Masur), Three Nocturnes (cond. Plasson)
Preview 1: Debussy -- the man who heard the music in moonlight (4/16/2010)
In various arrangements as well as the piano originals: "Clair de lune," "La Fille aux cheveux de lin" ("The Girl with the Flaxen Hair"), and "Golligwogg's Cake-walk"
Preview 2: Debussy from "Syrinx" to Afternoon of a Faun -- or is it vice versa? (4/17/2010)
Syrinx played by Paula Robison and Jean-Pierre Rampal (videos) and Julius Baker. Afternoon of a Faun conductred by Manuel Rosenthal
Preview: Mezzo Susan Graham shares her favorite Debussy: "Clair de lune"! (2/10/2012)
Played by Aldo Ciccolini, Peter Frankl, and Walter Gieseking, plus Virgil Fox (organ), Angel Romero (guitar), and Jascha Heifetz (violin)
More "impressions of Debussy" (2/12/2012)
A bevy of pianists play the first of the Two Arabesques, "Reflets dans l'eau" from Series 1 of the Images for Piano, and the prélude "La Cathédrale engloutie"; plus the last of the three Images for Orchestra, Rondes de printemps, is conducted by Manuel Rosenthal, Jean Martinon, and Charles Munch
Preview: More Debussy -- a quick entrée into one of the truly unique pieces in the musical literature (2/17/2012)
Act I, Scene 1 of Pelléas et Mélisande conducted by Ernest Ansermet (twice), Pierre Boulez, Claudio Abbado, and Herbert von Karajan
Still more "Impressions of Debussy" (2/19/2012)
Three performances of the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp; Jeux conducted by Pierre Boulez, Manuel Rosenthal, and Jean Martinon; and an assortment of performances of the opening of the Tower Scene of Act III of Pelléas et Mélisande

RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[2/17/2012] Preview: More Debussy -- a quick entrée into one of the truly unique pieces in the musical literature (continued)

DEBUSSY: Pelléas et Mélisande: Act I, Scene 1

A forest. As the curtain rises, MÉLISANDE is discovered at the edge of a spring. GOLAUD enters.

GOLAUD: I will no longer be able to get out of this forest!
God knows where that beast has led me.
I thought, however, I had wounded it mortally,
and here are traces of blood, but now I've lost sight of it.
I think I'm also lost myself, and my dogs aren't finding their way back to me.
I'm going to retrace my steps.
I hear crying. . . .
Oh! oh! What's that there at the edge of the water?
A little girl who's crying at the edge of the water?
[He coughs.]
She doesn't hear me.
I can't see her face.
[He approaches and touches MÉLISANDE on the shoulder.]
Why are you crying?
[MÉLISANDE starts, straightens up, and wants to flee.]
Don't be afraid. You have nothing to fear.
Why are you crying, here, all alone?
MÉLISANDE [almost without voice]: Don't touch me! Don't touch me!
GOLAUD: Don't be afraid . . .
I won't hurt you . . .
Oh! you're beautiful!
MÉLISANDE: Don't touch me, don't touch me, or I'll throw myself in the water!
GOLAUD: I'm not touching you.
[gentle and calm] See, I'll stay here, under the tree.
Don't be afraid.
Has someone done you harm?
MÉLISANDE: Everyone! Everyone!
GOLAUD: What harm have they done you?
MÉLISANDE: I don't want to say it ! I don't want to say it!
GOLAUD: Let's see, don't cry like that.
Where do you come from?
MÉLISANDE: I've fled . . . fled . . . fled . . .
GOLAUD: Yes, but where did you flee from?
MÉLISANDE: I'm lost! lost!
Oh! oh! lost here . . .
I'm not from here . . .
I wasn't born there . . .
GOLAUD: Where are you from?
Where were you born?
MÉLISANDE: Oh! oh! far from here . . . far . . . far . . .
GOLAUD: What's shining like that at the bottom of the water?
MÉLISANDE: Where then? Ah!
It's the crown that he gave me.
It fell while crying.
GOLAUD: A crown?
Who is it who gave you a crown?
I'm going to try to grab it . . .
MÉLISANDE: No, no, I don't want it anymore! I don't want it anymore!
I prefer to die . . . to die right away!
GOLAUD: I could retrieve it easily;
the water isn't very deep.
MÉLISANDE: I don't want it anymore!
If you retrieve it, I'll throw myself in its place!
GOLAUD: No, no, I'll leave it there.
One could get hold of it without difficulty, however.
It seems very beautiful.
Has it been a long time since you fled?
MÉLISANDE: Yes, yes.
Who are you?
GOLAUD: I am the prince Golaud,
the grandson of Arkel, the old king of Allemonde.
MÉLISANDE: Oh! you already have gray hair!
GOLAUD: Yes, some, here, near the temples.
MÉLISANDE: And the beard too.
Why are you looking at me like that?
GOLAUD: I'm looking at your eyes.
You never close your eyes?
MÉLISANDE: You are a giant!
GOLAUD: I'm a man like the others . . .
MÉLISANDE: Why did you come here?
GOLAUD: I don't know anything about it myself.
I was hunting in the forest.
I was pursuing a wild boar,
I lost my way.
You seem very young.
How old are you?
MÉLISANDE: I'm starting to feel cold . . .
GOLAUD: Do you want to come with me?
MÉLISANDE: No, no, I'll stay here.
GOLAUD: You can't stay here all alone.
You can't stay here all night.
What's your name?
MÉLISANDE: Mélisande.
GOLAUD: You can't stay here, Mélisande.
Come with me . . .
MÉLISANDE: I'll stay here.
GOLAUD: You'll be afraid, all alone.
One doesn't know what will happen here . . . all alone . . . it's not possible.
[with a great gentleness] Mélisande, come, give your hand . . .
MÉLISANDE: Oh! don't touch me!
GOLAUD: Don't cry.
I won't touch you anymore.
But come with me.
Night will be very black and very cold.
Come with me . . .
MÉLISANDE: Where are you going?
GOLAUD: I don't know. I'm lost too.
[They exit.]

[A] Heinz Rehfuss (bs-b), Golaud; Suzanne Danco (s), Mélisande; Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ernest Ansermet, cond. Decca, recorded 1952

[B] George London (bs-b), Golaud; Erna Spoorenberg (s), Mélisande; Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ernest Ansermet, cond. Decca, recorded August 1964

[C] Donald McIntyre (bs-b), Golaud; Elisabeth Söderström (s), Mélisande; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Pierre Boulez, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded Dec. 1969-Jan. 1970

[D] José van Dam (bs-b), Golaud; Maria Ewing (ms), Mélisande; Vienna Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded January 1991

A COUPLE OF NOTES

This scene is so full of astounding things -- really, it's nothing but an unbroken sequence of astounding things -- that I wouldn't know where to stop if I began to catalogue them. Consider, though, that for a text invariably branded with the label "symbolist" (since the author of the play that provides the libretto, Maurice Maeterlinck, is invariably identified as a leading practitioner, as poet and playwright, of the French Symbolist school), the actual dialogue is extraordinarily true-to-life and precise. Even when the characters veer into the realm of the poetic, it's in amazingly real ways.

In this context, it's fascinating to note how Mélisande, deliberately or otherwise, evades most of Golaud's fairly obvious questions, but does choose to answer some, and note how Debussy has musicalized her responses, both the responsive and the seemingly nonresponsive ones. The musical characterization of Golaud is every bit as fascinating; I would just note the sense of him we get when he identifies himself ("Je suis le prince Golaud . . .") in response to Mélisande's question -- when she finally asks one!

Now, as to the above-promised notes:

(1) What we've heard is the orchestral introduction and Scene 1 of Act I plus the interlude that joins it to Scene 2

(If we let the music run any farther, we would be hearing Geneviève, the mother of Golaud and Pelléas, preparing to read to her father-in-law, King Arkel, a letter written to Pelléas by his brother sometime after the events of Scene 1.)

For this decidedly untraditional opera, Debussy resorted to the traditional five-act French grand-opera format. All five acts are relatively brief (say, in the half-hour range), and except for the last one, which contains one more extended scene, are made of quite compact brief scenes bridged by extraordinary musical interludes that bear an uncanny resemblance to those that accomplish scene changes in Wagner operas. (Acts I and II each have three scenes.)

(2) We've heard our performance of the full scene in the same order as the tinier excerpts we heard before

And that order, you'll note, is chronological order, starting with the two Ansermet recordings. In both performance and recording, the not-widely-heralded stereo one seems to me upliftingly bold and vividly colored. (I expressed a strong preference for the stereo version in the Pelléas chapter of the Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera.) I love the 1964 Ansermet recording, and have never much warmed to the generally much-more-admired 1952 one, in which even singers as generally admirable as Suzanne Danco and Heinz Rehfuss (we've heard Rehfuss sing some gorgeous Mahler) sound strangely prettified and disengaged, to a degree that for me exceeds the bounds of what might be called an "interpretation."

I also like the Boulez-CBS Pelléas, and hope the more recent CD edition does it better justice than this original one. The Abbado-DG is certainly nicely recorded, and certainly OK, or OK-ish, but really not in the same class, though I do enjoy José van Dam's Golaud (at least in this early scene, before things get ugly).

I'M FEELING KIND OF BAD ABOUT THAT KARAJAN
SORT OF BAIT-AND-SWITCH -- SO MAYBE . . .

Sure, we could have Karajan too, and this time let's let the music run just a tad longer, to hear the completed transition from our forest scene to the room in Arkel's castle where Geneviève is in conversation with her father-in-law, the king, saying: "Here's what he wrote to his brother Pelléas." It's certainly a very lovely performance -- pretty playing, pretty singing. And you can hear that Frederica von Stade is trying to assemble some sort of character life for Mélisande. But mostly what I hear is qualities rather than people and urgencies. And note that the mystery is pretty well gone.


José van Dam (bs-b), Golaud; Frederica von Stade (ms), Mélisande; Nadine Denize (ms), Geneviève; Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded December 1978

[Again, apologies for the LP surface noise. I've never been interested enough in the performance to think of investing in CDs. And this Angel LP has an amazing amount of itty-bitty grit (or something).]


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

As noted, we continue last week's series of "Impressions of Debussy," with four more works culled from the 150th-birthday coverage in the February 2012 issue of BBC Music Magazine. On the menu this week, in addition to Pelléas et Mélisande (we'll be hearing the start of the scene between Mélisande and Pelléas which opens Act III): the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp and the orchestral "danced poem" Jeux. (Some consideration is currently being given to a possible "bonus" work.)

AND NOT TO WORRY, MUSICAL-STORM LOVERS: The final installment in that series, spotlighting the great storms of Verdi's Rigoletto and Janáček's Kátya Kabanová, is still in the works, at the moment penciled in for next week.

SUNDAY CLASSICS DEBUSSY

Roaming the landscape (and seascape!) of the imagination -- the full orchestral splendor of Debussy (4/18/2012)
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and Saxophone Rhapsody (cond. Martinon, Masur), La Mer (cond. Boulez, Rosenthal, Martinon, Masur), Three Nocturnes (cond. Plasson)
Preview 1: Debussy -- the man who heard the music in moonlight (4/16/2010)
In various arrangements as well as the piano originals: "Clair de lune," "La Fille aux cheveux de lin" ("The Girl with the Flaxen Hair"), and "Golligwogg's Cake-walk"
Preview 2: Debussy from "Syrinx" to Afternoon of a Faun -- or is it vice versa? (4/17/2010)
Syrinx played by Paula Robison and Jean-Pierre Rampal (videos) and Julius Baker. Afternoon of a Faun conductred by Manuel Rosenthal
Preview: Mezzo Susan Graham shares her favorite Debussy: "Clair de lune"! (2/10/2012)
Played by Aldo Ciccolini, Peter Frankl, and Walter Gieseking, plus Virgil Fox (organ), Angel Romero (guitar), and Jascha Heifetz (violin)
More "impressions of Debussy" (2/12/2012)
A bevy of pianists play the first of the Two Arabesques, "Reflets dans l'eau" from Series 1 of the Images for Piano, and the prélude "La Cathédrale engloutie"; plus the last of the three Images for Orchestra, Rondes de printemps, is conducted by Manuel Rosenthal, Jean Martinon, and Charles Munch
Preview: More Debussy -- a quick entrée into one of the truly unique pieces in the musical literature (2/17/2012)
Act I, Scene 1 of Pelléas et Mélisande conducted by Ernest Ansermet (twice), Pierre Boulez, Claudio Abbado, and Herbert von Karajan
Still more "Impressions of Debussy" (2/19/2012)
Three performances of the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp; Jeux conducted by Pierre Boulez, Manuel Rosenthal, and Jean Martinon; and an assortment of performances of the opening of the Tower Scene of Act III of Pelléas et Mélisande

RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[2/12/2012] More "Impressions of Debussy" (continued)

The chords representing church bells in "The Submerged Cathedral"

Préludes, Book I: X. "La Cathédrale engloutie"

Marcelle Meyer, piano. EMI, recorded Feb. 14-15, 1956

Krystian Zimerman, piano. DG, recorded August 1991


Above we hear the quickest (Marcelle Meyer's) and most spacious (Krystian Zimerman's) of the six CD recordings I laid hands on of the Debussy piano prélude "La Cathédrale engloutie." Now, as promised, we read about and hear it and two more piano works, plus -- to go with our piano Image -- the last of the three Images for Orchestra.

1. Two Arabesques: No. 1 in E, Andantino con moto;
Tempo rubato (A little less quick); 1st tempo (1888)

OLIVER CONDY, editor of BBC Music Magazine
(from his front-of-the-book "Welcome" to the magazine's cover feature celebrating Debussy's 150th birthday)

Like many people, I was introduced to Debussy's music through his piano works -- specifically the first Arabesque. As a teenager, I found the French composer's music instantly attractive to play (and not just because it was a damn sight easier than Rachmaninov or Bach). This was music that spoke to me -- music that broke free from the rules that the fusty sonatas of Beethoven or Mozart, or so they seemed to me at the time, stuck to bar after bar. Debussy's ethereal harmonies delighted me -- the idea that I could conjure up reflections in the water, the light of the moon or even a sunken cathedral (whatever that was) gave me countless reasons for practising. So I suppose I could say that Debussy may well be the reason why I decided to carry on playing.

Walter Gieseking, piano. EMI, recorded August 1953

Peter Frankl, piano. Vox, recorded c1962

Aldo Ciccolini, piano. EMI, recorded Apr. 11-19, 1991
Two Arabesques: No. 1 in E, Andante con moto;
No. 2 in G, Allegretto scherzando

Beveridge Webster, piano. Desto, recorded c1970

All of our Debussyans are gifted keyboard tone colorists, as you would hope in this music. Note the wide variation in pacing, from Beveridge Webster's lickety-split account to Aldo Ciccolini's spaciously ruminative one. Note too that since I had to go back to the Desto LPs for the Webster performance (from his lovely set of the complete Debussy piano works), I decided to include the playful Second Arabesque as well. (Note, finally, that the Two Arabesques are the composer's first published piano works.)

2. Images for Piano, Series 1: "Reflets dans l'eau"
("Reflections in the Water"), Andantino molto
(Tempo rubato) (1904-5)

NORIKO OGAWA, pianist

While I really love all the Études, particularly the one for sixths, I still have such vivid childhood memories of seeing André Watts on television playing "Reflets dans l'eau" from Images Book I. I just thought it was the most beautiful piece of music. I thought that I would like to play this piece myself, and so in a way it changed my life. The challenges for a player lie in the very fast demi-semi-quavers [16th notes] which have to sound very fluid in order to achieve the needed flexibility of sound and tone colours. And there are also tiny little differences from one figuration to another -- they sound and look very similar, but there may be only one note different. To do what Debussy wanted, you have to look very closely at every note.

Marcelle Meyer, piano. EMI, recorded Jan. 14-17, 1957

Walter Gieseking, piano. EMI, recorded August 1953

Aldo Ciccolini, piano. EMI, recorded April 1991

Peter Frankl, piano. Vox, recorded c1962

Note how differently our pianists handle those right-hand 16th-note passages, broadening out to almost individual chords in Peter Frankl's beautiful performance. He isn't looking in the same water, or seeing the same reflections, as, say, Walter Gieseking in his patrician performance.

3. Préludes, Book I: X. "La Cathédrale engloutie"
("The Submerged Cathedral"), Profondément calme (1909-10)

STEVEN OSBORNE, pianist

For me, "La Cathédrale engloutie" has a lot of sentimental associations. I learnt it when I was a kid and loved playing it -- technically it's pretty simple, and yet there are these amazing sonorities he gets from the piano. But then, as I got older, I realised more and more what an astounding piece of music it is. You have this opening rising figure that comes back constantly, but the piece develops in slow motion into this overwhelming climax when the figure becomes the melody. He does it all with such amazing economy of means. Part of the skill in playing it lies in how you layer the sound -- it has to have an incredible sense of space and you have to control the sound well enough from the first chord to ensure that space isn't disturbed. . . .

Wikipedia notes: This piece is based on an ancient Breton myth in which a cathedral, submerged underwater off the coast of the Island of Ys, rises up from the sea on clear mornings when the water is transparent. Sounds can be heard of priests chanting, bells chiming, and the organ playing, from across the sea. Accordingly, Debussy uses certain harmonies to allude to the plot of the legend, in the style of musical impressionism. . . .


Walter Gieseking, piano. EMI, recorded August 1953

Aldo Ciccolini, piano. EMI, recorded April 1991

Peter Frankl, piano. Vox, recorded c1962

Maurizio Pollini, piano. DG, recorded June 1998

As noted, we've already heard our fastest and slowest performances, both beauties, up top. If this "astounding piece of music," as Steven Osborne calls it, doesn't plug directly into the imagination, what's the point? It's also an excellent idea if we can feel it building to that "overwhelming climax," which nobody does better than the implacable Gieseking. If I hadn't made the MP3 file of the Pollini performance first of all, anticipating that it would be an interesting change of pace, I'm not sure I would have included it; cleanly and even prettily played as it may be, I don't hear it building or in fact going much of anywhere. I'm sure, though, that you'll find people who'll tell you what a great performance it is.

4. Images for Orchestra: No. 3, Rondes de printemps
(Round Dances of Spring) (1905-9)

COLIN MATTHEWS, composer

My immediate reaction was to go for Jeux, which I couldn't live without; but the piece which perhaps exemplifies what I most love about Debussy is Rondes de printemps, from the orchestral Images. It's such a wonderfully elusive piece -- as soon as you've grasped one element of it, off it goes somewhere else. Yet it retains such a strong sense of direction through the constant beauty and subtlety of Debussy's inimitable soundworld. The melodic ideas start by being fragmentary but build towards a brilliant climax -- and it's all achieved with an orchestra that has no trumpets or trombones.

Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Manuel Rosenthal, cond. Adès, recorded 1957-59

Orchestre National de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon, cond. EMI, recorded 1973-74

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Dec. 16, 1957

Manuel Rosenthal acknowledges in a 1996 interview in the Debussy CD booklet that he didn't have a great deal of rehearsal time for the remarkable recordings he made in the late '50s for the plucky Adès label of the major orchestral works of Debussy and Ravel with the Paris Opera Orchestra, which you wouldn't think had played this music much. Perhaps this has something to do with the performances' freshness and seeming spontaneity, though the quality that most strikes me in this Rondes de printemps is, well, intimacy -- with no lack of boldness. We've heard a number of selections from both series, as we have of Jean Martinon's equally remarkable early '70s EMI Debussy and Ravel series. Here the word that pops to mind is mysterious, maybe even eerie. Finally, the Boston Symphony as cultivated by then-music director Charles Munch in the '50s may have been the best "French" orchestra the music world has ever known, and everything seems to me beautifully in place in this classic recording.

SUNDAY CLASSICS DEBUSSY

Roaming the landscape (and seascape!) of the imagination -- the full orchestral splendor of Debussy (4/18/2012)
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and Saxophone Rhapsody (cond. Martinon, Masur), La Mer (cond. Boulez, Rosenthal, Martinon, Masur), Three Nocturnes (cond. Plasson)
Preview 1: Debussy -- the man who heard the music in moonlight (4/16/2010)
In various arrangements as well as the piano originals: "Clair de lune," "La Fille aux cheveux de lin" ("The Girl with the Flaxen Hair"), and "Golligwogg's Cake-walk"
Preview 2: Debussy from "Syrinx" to Afternoon of a Faun -- or is it vice versa? (4/17/2010)
Syrinx played by Paula Robison and Jean-Pierre Rampal (videos) and Julius Baker. Afternoon of a Faun conductred by Manuel Rosenthal
Preview: Mezzo Susan Graham shares her favorite Debussy: "Clair de lune"! (2/10/2012)
Played by Aldo Ciccolini, Peter Frankl, and Walter Gieseking, plus Virgil Fox (organ), Angel Romero (guitar), and Jascha Heifetz (violin)
More "impressions of Debussy" (2/12/2012)
A bevy of pianists play the first of the Two Arabesques, "Reflets dans l'eau" from Series 1 of the Images for Piano, and the prélude "La Cathédrale engloutie"; plus the last of the three Images for Orchestra, Rondes de printemps, is conducted by Manuel Rosenthal, Jean Martinon, and Charles Munch
Preview: More Debussy -- a quick entrée into one of the truly unique pieces in the musical literature (2/17/2012)
Act I, Scene 1 of Pelléas et Mélisande conducted by Ernest Ansermet (twice), Pierre Boulez, Claudio Abbado, and Herbert von Karajan
Still more "Impressions of Debussy" (2/19/2012)
Three performances of the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp; Jeux conducted by Pierre Boulez, Manuel Rosenthal, and Jean Martinon; and an assortment of performances of the opening of the Tower Scene of Act III of Pelléas et Mélisande

RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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