Sunday Classics: Can we brand a composer "great" based on a handful of overtures? Consider the case of Franz von Suppé

I couldn't resist bringing back this lovely 1955 CinemaScope-and-stereo film of Suppé's Poet and Peasant overture with that fine conductor Alfred Wallenstein leading the MGM Symphony Orchestra, which we first saw in the July 2009 "comfort music" post.

by Ken

In that "comfort music" post, I recalled an LP of overtures by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic officially titled William Tell And Other Favorite Overtures.

Now, the younger Lenny was nothing if not a drama freak, and I listened to that rock 'em, sock 'em performance of Rossini's William Tell Overture easily a zillion times. Quietly as it too begins, and achingly beautiful as its earlier sections are, I wouldn't describe this as "comfort music," though. This is almost the opposite: music designed to send the blood racing.

However, placed before it on that side of the LP was another of my comfort treasures, Franz von Suppé's Poet and Peasant Overture. While Suppé was in fact a composer of operettas, and most of his overtures were written to introduce those (mostly forgotten) operettas, Poet and Peasant was written as part of some incidental music composed for a now-forgotten play.

Poet and Peasant has another of those slow-and-soft introductions that have the power to drain nasty stress out of my brain. Soon enough it leads into a lovely cello solo. Well, listen --

SUPPÉ: Dichter und Bauer (Poet and Peasant)

Carl Stern, cello; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 21, 1963

The other side of the Bernstein William Tell LP contained three lovely French overtures: Louis Joseph Hérold's Zampa and Ambroise Thomas's Mignon and Raymond. I'm sure I listened to that side too, but not nearly as often as the Poet and Peasant-plus-William Tell side. Not long afterward, incidentally, Lenny and the New York Phil recorded an overture LP that included Suppé's other blockbuster overture, The Light Cavalry (and also his Beautiful Galathea), and, yes, Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor [another of our "comfort music" pieces]. I'm sure that LP got its share of hearings too.

If you recall that post, or have used the link, you're aware that back then I wasn't able to play the Bernstein recording of Poet and Peasant on cue. That's where I inserted the MGM Wallenstein film, so you could hear the music, quite ably performed fortunately, but not by Lenny B. I felt even more seriously hamstrung back then by not being able to enable you to hear another record:

Lenny B's Poet and Peasant is of course obtainable on the above-noted Sony "Great Performances" CD, but here I've got something really special to suggest: an indispensable Mercury CD(I wish I knew what the hell happened to my copy!) on which three overtures by Daniel-François Auber have been added to the six by Suppé that were recorded for a magical LP by Paul Paray (1886-1979) and the Detroit Symphony in 1959. I actually didn't know the LP; I fell in love with the Paray Suppé overtures later in the form of a budget cassette edition. Listen to the effortless and serene playfulness of the woodwind figurations in Pique Dame, and I think you'll be hooked. (As much as I try not to pay too much attention to the reviews on Amazon.com, I think it's noteworthy that one reviewer after another goes wild over this CD.)

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SUPPÉ: Pique Dame

We've overcome that technical limitation, so I think now we ought to listen to the Paray performance of Pique Dame. For me his performances have everything I could think of to ask: a really bold and beautiful sound in the massed passages, effortless rhythmic buoyancy, propulsion, and precision, and an amazing cherishing -- and, where called for, delicacy -- of individual and group instrumental textures. And in case it isn't obvious from the foregoing: a sense of purpose and bubbling life that doesn't flag from start to finish.

The magical moment for me is the entry of the subject sounded by paired flutes, at 4:55. Even now that I lie in wait for it, it makes me melt every time I hear it. Which is not to suggest that Paray is marking time till he gets to the "good parts." As in all of these performances, he doesn't let a bar go to waste.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959

I've chosen another performance of Pique Dame that has many qualities similar to Paray's, notably the unforced sense of forward movement and the sensitive appreciation of instrumental detail. (Barbirolli coaxes an even more languorous flute duet, at 4:46.) By coincidence, the Pye recording was in fact made by the Mercury team (producers Wilma Cozart and Harold Lawrence, engineer Robert Fine) visiting Manchester.

Hallé Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. Pye/EMI, recorded June 28-29, 1957

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SUPPÉ: Die leichte Kavallerie (Light Cavalry)

Next to Poet and Peasant, surely the most played of the Suppé overtures is Light Cavalry, which has seeped into the pop culture. Let's hear Maestro Paray have a go at it.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959

It doesn't sound like much of a compliment to say that a disc of Suppé overtures is one of the loveliest things a conductor has done, and this is indeed the case of a conductor about whom I have seriously mixed feelings, but I don't mean at all to minimize the accomplishment of Zubin Mehta's Suppé. Mehta's formative musical training happened in Vienna, and his adoptive Vienneseness pops out in certain repertory, especially with the Vienna Philharmonic -- his Decca recordings of the Bruckner Ninth and Mahler Resurrection Symphonies, for example, and also these CBS Suppé overtures. Here's Light Cavalry.

Vienna Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded 1989

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SUPPÉ: Ein Morgen, ein Mittag und ein Abend in Wien (A Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna)

Morning, Noon, and Night is written on something like the grand scale of Poet and Peasant -- and I'm not thinking just of the cello solo. For that reason I thought this would be a good occasion to bring in Charles Dutoit's Montreal recording. I've always found something, well, (to be harsh but blunt) empty at the core of Dutoit's performances, but he certainly has a winning fondness for the full richness of the symphony orchestra, and in collaboration with the Decca recording team, he and the Montreal Symphony produced an extensive series of recordings that are rightly valued for their sonic splendor.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959
Guy Fouquet, cello; Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Charles Dutoit, cond. Decca, recorded c1984

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SUPPÉ: Die schöne Galathée (Beautiful Galatea)

I don't know that you'll hear the same thing, but after complaining about the hollow core of Charles Dutoit's performances, I can report almost the exact opposite with regard to Gustav Kuhn's, and this carries over even to their performances of such humble music as Suppé:'s. Note, for example, how Kuhn not only brings such life to the delicacy of the first main section of Beautiful Galatea (at 1:36) while conveying such a feeling of grounded substance.

Meanwhile, Paray just goes on getting everything right -- and making it sound as if there was no trick to it at all.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Gustav Kuhn, cond. BMG, recorded Dec. 13-15, 1988

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SUPPÉ: Boccaccio

Boccaccio isn't one of the handful of Suppé overtures that are deemed "most do"s for any collection. Nevertheless, Paray makes it sound like the equal of any of them, and all you have to do is compare the rich and soulful horn call of his opening with the perfectly correct but comparatively ordinary opening of Sir Adrian Boult's in fact quite fine performance. Has Paray performed a magic trick in making the music sound better than it is, or is he simply better tuned in than most any other conductor to the music's possibilities?

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult, cond. EMI, recorded Apr. 27, 1955

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You know what we never did hear? The Paray performance of Poet and Peasant. That seems as good a way to close as any.

SUPPÉ: Dichter und Bauer (Poet and Peasant)

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959


THE GREAT CD GIVEAWAY

As I mentioned in the previews (Friday night's featuring music from Johann Strauss II's Gypsy Baron and Saturday night's featuring music from Strauss's Fledermaus) I am in possession of an extra copy of the Mercury CD reissue of the Paray Suppé overtures, with three Auber overtures thrown in to fill out the CD. (I guess while my original copy was missing, as noted above, I must have bought a replacement, and eventually the missing copy turned up.) All somebody has to do is offer some sort of contribution to somehow earn it.


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