Sunday Classics preview: Musical motion, perpetual and otherwise

Mickey Mouse plays the title role in the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" sequence from Fantasia, with Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. If any music depends on musical movement, surely it's Paul Dukas's symphonic poem.

by Ken

This is a tricky subject we're going to try to tackle this week. (Well, not so much tackle as sneak up on, the way we usually do.) It's the subject of musical motion -- how music moves forward of its own inner rhythmic urgencies and necessities, as opposed to simply obeying the waving of a conductor's baton, or responding to the inner metronome of singers or instrumentalists.

When we did our post-New Year's celebration of the Strauss family of Vienna last year, I pointed out that this supposedly "light," even trivial, music not only attracts the greatest conductors, but usually finds them bringing their "A" game. And I think perhaps the reason I love so much such music perhaps more than other, more serious-minded music-lovers -- this is music that is almost bursting with urgent musical purpose. And it's in good measure the performer's sense of musical urgency that separates good from mediocre performances.

ROSSINI'S IRRESISTIBLE OVERTURES:

MUSICAL DRIVE DOESN'T MEAN SPEED

A natural for our subject, surely -- this is music that's all about forward movement, which, we need to establish once and for all, has nothing to do with speed. The typical form of a Rossini overture is to introduce several kinds of music (normally not drawn from the opera) of contrasting sorts, leading up to a spritely romping section that may be quite extensively worked out. Here are two favorites, one from a comic opera (Cenerentola), the other from a serious one (Semiramide).

ROSSINI: Cenerentola: Overture


Philharmonia Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond., recorded 1964

ROSSINI: Semiramide : Overture


Philharmonia Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond., recorded December 1962

THE GREAT JOHANN STRAUSS II:
So is there perpetual musical motion?


Herbert von Karajan conducts Johann Strauss Jr.'s Perpetuum mobile at the 1987 Vienna New Year's Concert. Usually at the end the conductor says, "Und so weiter" ("and so forth," the German equivalent of "et cetera"); Karajan instead waves the music off when he's had enough.

Here's another, perhaps less ethereal take on Strauss's Perpetual Motion.

J. STRAUSS II: Perpetuum mobile, Op. 257


Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded c1972

Now a polka, you might think, anyone could make move. But what if you had all your strings plucking rather than bowing their instruments? Note the remarkable continuity of phrasing and the control of dynamics in this performance.

J. STRAUSS II: Pizzicato Polka


Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded c1972

And finally we have to include at least one of the great Strauss waltzes. So here is the king of them, or rather the emperor, the Emperor, so proud and confident that it begins not in waltz but in march rhythm.

J. STRAUSS II: Emperor Waltz, Op. 437


Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded c1972

You will probably have noticed that all three of our Johann Strauss excerpts come from the same recording (orinally an LP) by Karl Böhm and the Vienna Philharmonic. As I've mentioned before, this is not just a special treat among Böhm's many recordings but one of my very favorite records. And, as you'll see Sunday, there's another reason why we're hanging out with Karl tonight.

IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW --

We move on to this week's principal laboratory for exploring musical movement: the music of Richard Wagner, which is where we'll wind up Sunday.


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