Sunday Classics preview quiz: Hiyo, Silver, and away! Moving on, how many of our William Tells can you identify?

Yes, with that familiar call of the trumpets and answering call of the horns, we're off to the races, with the final quarter-plus of the Overture to Rossini's last opera, William Tell. Herbert von Karajan conducts the Berlin Philharmonic on New Year's Eve 1983.

by Ken

That's right, this week we're taking a brief look at Rossini's enormous and enormously complicated William Tell (Guillaume Tell in the original French, Guglielmo Tell in the more commonly encountered Italian translation). I'm going to try to keep the talk to bare bones tonight, because we have a lot of ground to cover. For starters, now that we've been teased, why don't we listen to the whole of Rossini's grandest overture? Neville Marriner conducts the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (from a wonderful and modestly priced three-CD Philips setof the "Complete Overtures" of Rossini). For reasons that will become clear in a moment, I encourage you to pay special attention to the way this grand and glorious piece starts (trumpets blare at 8:04):



Next to the Overture, probably the best-known number in the score is Tell's "prayer" as he prepares his young son Jemmy for the shooting of the apple. I think of William Tell as the Angriest Man in Opera, and as you listen to most of his music in the early acts of the opera, what you being to notice is the amount of rage seething under that on the whole remarkably well-controlled surface. For his Swiss countrymen, who live in comfort and harmony with their beautiful physical surroundings, life is good, and never mind the stifling Austrian occupation. For Tell, the occupation poisons every breath he draws.

On this fateful day Tell's uppitiness has pushed the Austrian governor Gessler over the edge, and Gessler has dictated this singularly vicious punishment: that Tell, whose bow-and-arrow marksmanship is legendary, must attempt to split the apple placed on top of his son's head. In this haunting solo, in the brief time allowed him Tell has to at once prepare Jemmy for this trial and get control of his own mind and body. You will notice that the aria -- "Sois immobile in French, Resta immobile in Italian, has no formal structure. The progression of the music is dictated strictly by Tell's on-the-spot choices of how to both prepare and calm the boy and to steady himself. Note too where, despite his best efforts of control, Tell loses it, and how he pulls himself back and uses the tension -- at, of course, the great outpouring, "Jemmy, Jemmy," surely one of the most haunting moments in the musical literature.

We're going to hear seven performances, or rather, there are seven performances here available for you to listen to. If you want to take this as a quiz, of course, your mission is to identify as many of the singers as you can.

You're also welcome, even encouraged to make any observations you care to about any or all of the performances. (Although I didn't choose these seven because I think they're the best -- or worst; the key consideration was that I had to have them in digital form. That said, I don't think there are any bad performances here, and there are some I really like. I can say that there aren't any obscure singers here, at least none that I would consider obscure. Naturally there are assorted internal clues beyond the vocal performances themselves, and in addition there is one rather large built-in aid.

If you know the conductor and orchestra too, by all means include that (some of these should be fairly easy), and if you know about when the recording was made, that might be really interesting information -- I've found it strongly affects the way I respond to these performances. (I might add that I think I'm responding to them rather differently from the way I might once have.)

As you listen, I suggest paying attention to how each of our putative Tells deals with his son. It's not about showing off emotions, or making it all sound as pretty as possible. I can assure you that if the singer has the basic vocal goods to sing the piece, then the more he makes it about dealing humanly with this incredibly fraught situation, it will be quite ravishing -- and moving in a way that the show-off performing mentality can't match.

Note: This is a translation of the Italian text, used in most of our performances.

Stay motionless, and toward the ground
bend one knee to pray.
Invoke God, invoke God,
that through His favor alone
you'll be able to return to the bosom of your father.
Remain like that with your gaze fixed toward heaven,
remain like that with your gaze fixed toward heaven.
You through love could tremble
seeing the sharp point hurling toward you;
a single movement could cost us your life --
Jemmy, Jemmy, think of your mother,
who's waiting here for us together.
Jemmy, Jemmy, think of your mother,
who's waiting here for us together.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

Note: And this is an Englishing of the original French text.

Be motionless, and toward the ground
bend a supplicating knee.
Invoke God, invoke God.
It's he alone, my child,
who through the child can spare the father.
Remain like that, but look at the heavens,
remain like that, but look at the heavens.
By threatening this head so dear
that iron point could frighten your eyes.
The least movement, the least movement --
Jemmy, Jemmy, think of your mother.
She's waiting here for us both.
Jemmy, Jemmy, think of your mother.
She's waiting here for us both.

Now that I've got this whole thing put together -- including having all the clips in the right places, I think -- I realize that this should probably have been the actual Sunday piece. It seemed like a fun little quiz to help get us all in the mood. Oh well. We'll do another preview piece tomorrow night, and if the singers haven't all been identified by then, we can take care of that.


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