[4/6/201] Easter Edition preview: It's a miracle -- no, TWO miracles! Berlioz imagines the saving of the baby Jesus (continued)

Part III, The Arrival in Saïs

NARRATOR: For three days, despite the hot winds,
they journeyed through the shifting sands.
The holy family’s poor servant,
the ass, had already fallen in the desert dust;
and long before they saw a city’s walls, his master
would have died from exhaustion and thirst,
but for God’s help.
Only holy Mary
walked on serene and untroubled; and her sweet
child’s fair locks and blessed head, resting against
her breast, seemed to give her strength.
But soon her feet stumbled ...
How many times the couple stopped ...
At length they came
to Saïs, gasping
and near to death.
It was a city that had long been part
of the Roman Empire,
full of cruel folk, with haughty airs.
Hear now of the grievous agony endured so long
by the pilgrims in their search for food and shelter.

Michel Sénéchal, tenor; Orchestre des Concerts Colonne, Pierre Dervaux, cond. Véga/Adès, recorded 1959


We've jumped to the last part of Berlioz's "sacred trilogy," for a glimpse of the dire straits our desert wanderers find themselves in as they stagger into the Egyptian city of Saïs, as laid out once again by our Narrator. The three sections of narration (plus the introduction to the Finale) don't account for that much of the running time of L'Enfance, but for me they're not just the narrative but the emotional core of the piece. We've heard them all before, though I've done some cleaning up of the recordings I dubbed from LP, which in this installment means the '50s mono versions with those fine Gallic tenors Jean Giraudeau (1916-1995) and Quebec-born Léopold Simoneau (1916-2006), which I haven't seen on CD. Anyway, let's quickly review the three narrations.

From the performance standpoint, the terrible trap of the narrations is to fall into a sentimentalizing sing-songy delivery. This is musically ultra-precise story-telling. (Note how different the three narrations are.) Which is why so far I've been highlighting the expert French character tenor Michel Sénéchal (born 1927), who has the extra advantage of working with a conductor who shows little inclination to drawn-out "expressiveness." (By comparison, the wonderful light lyric tenor Cesare Valletti, whom we mini-profiled back in June 2010, faces a much stiffer challenge in Charles Munch's lusher, more expansive environment.) On Sunday we're going to hear the whole of Part I from perhaps the least sentimentalized and most fully realized L'Enfance on records, the '60s version conducted by Jean Martinon (once available here on Nonesuch LPs), where we'll hear the opening narration sung just about ideally by the fine legit lyric tenor Alain Vanzo (1928-2002).


Opening Narration

NARRATOR: In the manger at this time Jesus had just been born,
but no wonder had yet made him known.
And already the powerful were trembling;
already the weak were hoping.
Everyone was waiting.

Now learn, Christians, what a monstrous crime
was suggested to the King of the Jews by terror.
And the celestial warning that in their humble stable
was sent to the parents of Jesus by the Lord.

Jean Giraudeau, tenor; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. Pathé/Vox, recorded early '50s

Anthony Rolfe Johnson (t), Narrator; English Chamber Orchestra, Philip Ledger, cond. ASV, recorded 1986

Cesare Valletti (t), Narrator; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded 1956


Part II, The Repose of the Holy Family

The narration in tiny Part II comes not at the beginning but at the end, after the holy family has taken flight, following a tearful farewell from the shepherds among whom they have been living. In this more reflective bit of story-telling the more "emotional" L'Enfance performances come on strong.

NARRATOR: The pilgrims having come
to a place of fair aspect
with bushy trees
and fresh water in abundance,
St Joseph said: "Stop,
near this clear spring!
After such long toil
let us rest here."
The child Jesus was asleep. Then Holy Mary,
halting the ass, answered:
"Look at this fair carpet of soft grass and flowers
that the Lord spread in the desert for my son."
Then, having sat down in the shade
of three green-leaved palm trees,
while the ass browsed
and the child slept,
the holy travellers slumbered for a while,
lulled by sweet dreams,
and the angels of heaven, kneeling about them,
worshipped the divine child.
CHORUS: Alleluia! Alleluia!

Léopold Simoneau (t), Narrator; Choral Art Society, The Little Orchestra, Thomas Scherman, cond. BOMC Classics Record LIbrary, recorded c1957

Cesare Valletti (t), Narrator; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded 1956

Michel Sénéchal, tenor; French Radio-Television Chorus, Orchestre des Concerts Colonne, Pierre Dervaux, cond. Véga/Adès, recorded 1959


Part III, The Arrival in Saïs

As the narrator tells us here at the start of Part III, the holy family, after wandering through the Sinai desert, arrives in the Egyptian city of Saïs on the brink of death from thirst, hunger, and exposure.

NARRATOR: For three days, despite the hot winds,
they journeyed through the shifting sands.
The holy family’s poor servant,
the ass, had already fallen in the desert dust;
and long before they saw a city’s walls, his master
would have died from exhaustion and thirst,
but for God’s help.
Only holy Mary
walked on serene and untroubled; and her sweet
child’s fair locks and blessed head, resting against
her breast, seemed to give her strength.
But soon her feet stumbled ...
How many times the couple stopped ...
At length they came
to Saïs, gasping
and near to death.
It was a city that had long been part
of the Roman Empire,
full of cruel folk, with haughty airs.
Hear now of the grievous agony endured so long
by the pilgrims in their search for food and shelter.

Léopold Simoneau (t), Narrator; The Little Orchestra, Thomas Scherman, cond. BOMC Classics Record Library, recorded c1957

Cesare Valletti (t), Narrator; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded 1956

Anthony Rolfe Johnson (t), Narrator; English Chamber Orchestra, Philip Ledger, cond. ASV, recorded 1986


THERE'S STILL ONE MORE PIECE OF NARRATION . . .

. . . following the miraculous rescue of the desperate family by a compassionate Ishmaelite father. I discovered that I had already made audio files for this Finale, but I don't think we've ever actually heard them. So I think we'll save them for Sunday's main post.


ALSO IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

Although we've heard substantial chunks of the largest part of L'Enfance, Part I, Sunday we're going to have a Sunday Classics first: the whole of Part I, in two lovely performances from the '60s -- as noted above the sadly disappeared recording conducted by Sunday Classics standby Jean Martinon, and André Cluytens's second recording, for EMI, featuring Nicolai Gedda as the Narrator. Along the way we'll hear an interesting "double" from bass-baritone Roger Soyer, still early in his career, singing both King Herod (with Martinon) and Saint Joseph (with Cluytens).


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