Sunday Classics Preview: Marching with Berlioz' pilgrims in Italy

Violist William Primrose is our soloist tonight in all

three performances of Berlioz' Harold in Italy.

by Ken

For once, there's been no change of plan -- yet. I said last week that we might stick with Berlioz and take a peek at his symphony with viola obbligato Harold in Italy, inspired by Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, though nothing seems to have been taken directly or depicted from the long (very long; four cantos' worth) poem. Berlioz seems mostly to have responded to the idea of wandering around Italy.

Harold was a sequel of sorts to Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique, and in its four-movement form it actually behaves more like a symphony than the Fantastic Symphony -- except for that matter of the viola obbligato. It's clearly not a concerto, it's . . . well, a symphony with viola obbligato (an important solo part). And I thought tonight we would plunge right in, with three very different performances of the lovely second movement, the "March of the pilgrims singing their evening prayer." Note how much more jauntily Charles Munch's pilgrims march than Sir Thomas Beecham's (actually a fairly standard pace, but a hard one to maintain with real movement), with Arturo Toscanini's smack in between.

Different as these performances may be, they have one important thing in common: the great Scottish-born violist William Primrose, heard here over a 19-year span as soloist. In 1939, when he first played Harold with Toscanini, he was in fact a member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which had a host of outstanding musicians in its principal chairs.

One thing to listen for: As in the Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz used the idea of an idée fixe, a musical theme that recurs in each movement. In this second movement of Harold in Italy, which begins with some chords of taut expectation that quickly give way to a wonderful pastoral marching tune, the viola slips in with a bit of what sounds like decoration to the melodic line, and then suddenly it's singing, as a beautifully straightforward viola solo, the idée fixe -- at 1:27 of the Toscanini performance, 1:42 of the Beecham, and 1:18 of the Munch.

BERLIOZ: Harold in Italy, Op. 16:
ii. March of the pilgrims singing their evening prayer


William Primrose, viola; NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. Music & Arts, recorded live, Jan. 2, 1939


William Primrose, viola; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Nov. 13 and 15, 1951


William Primrose, viola; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded March 31, 1958


IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW --

I haven't thought that far ahead. It'll be Berlioz, I'm pretty sure, though, and then Sunday we'll take in the whole of Harold in Italy.


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