"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Friday, August 30, 2013
Sunday Classics' Great Moments in Music History: Arnold Schoenberg, the movie mogul, and the mogul's "boys"
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Schoenberg, seen in a 1910 self-portrait
(Yes, he was also a painter)
by Ken
Or we could call this installment of Great Moments in Music History: "The Day Arnold Schoenberg's career as a Hollywood film composer began and ended."
As I mentioned last week, I've been reading the second part of Arthur Rubinstein's autobiography, My Many Years. And as I also mentioned, Rubinstein seems to have known just about everybody in the world of the arts (not just music) through most of his career.
In October 1939, with Poland already fallen to the German Blitzkrieg that set off World War II, placing Rubinstein, his wife Nela and their children (just two at the time) in a dangerous status as Polish nationals, and with France already taking on an alarmingly anti-Semitic tone, the family advanced by several weeks their planned departure from their home in Paris for a U.S. tour. At Nela's urging, Arthur pulled strings to secure very limited space aboard a U.S. ship sent as "a rescue boat for their citizens in France."
In the course of their New World stay, which came to include a South American tour and then one in Mexico, the Rubinsteins watched with mounting horror as events in Europe unfolded and they knew that returning home would be impossible for at least the duration of the war. The family wound up settling in Los Angeles, where of course large numbers of European émigrés had found their way, many of whom were already acquaintances if not friends of the pianist.
Rubinstein takes note of the plight of the composer Arnold Schoenberg, who had been living in L.A. since 1934, for both political and health reasons. Schoenberg, Rubinstein notes, "gave us musicians quite a lot of trouble."
He was left without money after his dismissal from the University of California, simply because of his age. I joined a group of musicians who decided to help him. The best way was to obtain a commission for him to compose music for films. We were lucky to persuade one of the moguls of the cinema to receive the great composer and offer him a contract. Schönberg was not only willing to do it but became interested in the project. It became common knowledge how the interview ran:
The mogul says: "Professor, I have a film right up your alley. You will write the best music of your life for it."
Schoenberg says quietly: "I would like to settle the financial question first. I need fifty thousand dollars for my music."
The mogul raises both hands in the air. "But, Professor, we've never paid more than ten thousand to our composers.,"
Schoenberg protests: "It takes me a year to composer my music and this is the least I can ask for it."
"But, Professor," laughs the mogul, "why a year? You can write a few tunes and my boys will arrange it for the orchestras and they will do whatever you want."
"Your sons?" asks Schönberg.
"No. We have, at the studio, fellows who finish up the music overnight, arrange it for orchestra or other things. They know what they're doing."
The two men separated without understanding each other. His worried friends were of the opinion that he should have accepted the ten thousand, but the master made this sublime reply: "I cannot commit suicide by making a living on ten thousand dollars."
The moment I dearly wish there'd been cameras there to record is the one when, at least in Schoenberg's mind, the mogul's sons enter the discussion. I'm having more fun than I can tell imagining the "professor" asking, "Your sons?"
HERE ARE SOME TUNES SCHOENBERG COULD
HAVE TURNED OVER TO THE MOGUL'S "BOYS"
The first of the Two Piano Pieces, Op. 33 (1938-41)
Uh, dunno, not sure. Most of the ideas percolating would require quantities of either work or thinking (or, heaven help me, both), commodities that have been in short supply for me for, oh, I dunno, the last couple of decades?
But I'm thinking maybe we could ease into a closer look at the poor comédienne Nedda in Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci (which we've looked at parts of pretty closely, notably the baritone's remarkable Prologue, in the February 2010 post "The Prolgoue to Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci entreats, 'Consider our souls' "), the victim half of one of the theatrical literature's more explosive relationships. It's her successive scenes with the opera's two baritone characters which I want to get to, and that's one of those deals that's going to require abundant work and thought. Still, we might be able to ease into it, maybe by setting up the relationship with her theater-troupe director husband, Canio.
Or . . . my friend Conrad L. Osborne has latterly published a piece in Opera News about Enrico Caruso, unlike anything you've read about Caruso, even if you've read everything there is, or was, to read about Caruso. I had this idea that we could poach some of that and interlace it with the actual recordings he cites as a sort of value-added enrichment. This takes care of a lot of the "thinking" problem, since C.L.O. has done most of that (all I'd have to figure out is how to poach it), but doing the audio clips and assembling texts and whatnot . . . I get tired just thinking about it. Meanwhile, as of now you can still read the piece -- which combines meaningful description of how that amazing voice worked and how its workings varied over time with a powerfully personal appreciation of the artistry that technique was put at the service of -- for free on the magazine's website.
Sunday Classics: Arthur Rubinstein offers compelling advice for young pianists
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"Many pianists perform at their concerts music which they do not understand or particularly like, only because these pieces are much in demand and recommended to them by their managers. . . . My long experience taught me that your only way to success, young pianists, is to pour out your own deep emotion into the music you really love and understand."
by Ken
I admit it's taken me till now to read Arthur Rubinstein's two volumes of autobiography: My Young Years (1973) and My Many Years (1980). But I often think the passage of some time gives us a better indication of the value of a piece of writing. (A slight caveat needs to entered about that word "writing" in the case of My Many Years, by which time the author had lost his sight. So the book was all dictated. Nevertheless, I have written, "Rubinstein writes," which seems to me a defensible liberty.)
I'm still only halfway through My Many Years (both of these are big books), but I've been sitting for a while on a passage from it so interesting that it cries out for sharing. We'll get to the full quote in a moment, but I've put the gist at the top, and I thought we would start with two pieces that could hardly be more different but that could both be counted on win audiences pretty much anywhere in the world over to his playing.
It should be noted that Rubinstein evolved enormously as a pianist, with a lot of the change which occurred at a surprisingly advanced age quite deliberate on his part, to fix what he had come to regard as a too easy approach to his playing, which relied on his natural musical instincts at the expense of close contact with the musical texts. We're going to hear performances "early" and late, though we need to be careful with that word "early"; his earliest recordings were made when he was in his early 40s.
DE FALLA: El Amor brujo: "Ritual Fire Dance" (arr. Rubinstein)
From the autobiographies we learn how much Rubinstein loved Spain and how much Spanish audiences, from the start, responded to his playing. With the composer's enthusiastic approval he made his own arrangement of the orchestral "Ritual Fire Dance" from Manuel de Falla's El Amor brujo. His Spanish audiences loved it, but so did audiences everywhere.
Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA-BMG, recorded in Hollywood, May 18, 1947
Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA-BMG, recorded in New York City, Mar. 23, 1961
CHOPIN: Barcarolle in F-sharp, Op. 60
Considering how revered Rubinstein eventually became as a Chopin player, it's interesting how long it took audiences to accept his way of playing Chopin. There were pieces he could always count on, though. We have the flashiest one, the A-flat major Polonaise, coming up. Apparently, though, his way with the Barcarolle rarely failed to melt audiences' hearts.
Arthur Rubinstein, piano. EMI, recorded in London, Apr. 18, 1928
Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA-BMG, recorded in New York City, Nov. 26-28, 1962
Sunday Classics: Encores, part 1 -- Three legendary pianists
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It makes a nifty encore too!Leonard Bernstein conducts his Overture to Candide, kicking off this December 1989 concert performance of the complete musical with the London Symphony Orchestra.
by Ken
As you may have guessed from Friday's preview ("Encore, encore!"), when we heard the great cellist János Starker play three prime encore pieces -- all, as it happened, arranged for cello and piano from other instrumental configurations. I didn't have a very clear idea Friday where exactly this post was headed, except that it would be all encores.
Okay, we're stretching a little with the above video clip, in which Leonard Bernstein conducts his Candide Overture at the start of a concert performance of the piece. But for easily understandable reasons, countless conductors -- including Lenny himself, as memory serves -- used the Candide Overture as a peerlessly rousing encore.
The thing about encores is that they often represent the artist at his/her most personal, whether they're designed to rouse, seduce, charm, or just plain ravish. It's such a large subject, however, that after initially deciding that we would deal only with instrumental encores, leaving the vast subject of vocal ones for another time, I decided to narrow it down even further, to piano encores, at least once we get to the click-through, where we're going to hear sets of encores from three of the 20th's century's greatest pianists-- two of them actual sets of encores from actual concerts, the third a selection of favorite encores of his made by the artist to fill out an LP side.
Before we go there, though, I though we might hear another encore-suitable piece, an arrangement of a traditional Catalan carol for cello and orchestra, which aims to stir listeners in a very different way.
CASALS (arr.): El Cant dels ocells (The Song of the Birds)
Prades Festival Orchestra, Pablo Casals, cello and cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded 1950
Sunday Classics preview: A little Bach(-Stokowski) and Chopin
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Arthur Rubinstein
All of tonight's music will figure (in some fashion!) in Sunday's post, and some of it we'll hear again and talk about a little. -- Ken
BACH-STOKOWSKI: Chaconne (arr. from Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin in D minor, BWV 1004: v. Ciaconna) Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond. Victor, recorded Nov. 30, 1934 [audio link: digital transfer by F. Reeder]
CHOPIN: Mazurkas (4), Op. 17: No. 1 in B-flat No. 2 in E minor No. 3 in A-flat No. 4 in A minor Arthur Rubinstein, piano. EMI, recorded 1938-39 [audio link]
In Clarence Brown's Song of Love (1947), Paul Henreid as Robert Schumann introduces the newly composed "Widmung" to Katharine Hepburn as Clara; later Henry Daniell as Liszt plays his version, and finally Clara has her turn with it. (All the piano-playing is by Arthur Rubinstein, whom we'll hear playing the Liszt version straight through in the click-through.)
by Ken
Among the great creative feats on record, I'm not sure that any surpasses what is often referred to as Robert Schumann's Year of Song, 1840, the year in which he married Clara Wieck, which we talked about back in April 2010. As Eric Sams has put it, "In the 12 months beginning 1 February 1 1840 he wrote over 160 vocal works, including at least 135 of the 246 solo songs in the complete Peters Edition."
Near the head of the list is the collection of 26 songs published as Schumann's Op. 25, Myrthen (myrtles -- "European evergreen shrubs with white or rosy flowers that are often used to make bridal wreaths"), which the composer presented to Clara as a wedding gift and of course dedicated to her. And at the head of Myrthen is "Widmung" ("Dedication"), the exhilarating song we previewed Friday night.
SCHUMANN: "Widmung" ("Dedication"), Op. 25, No. 1
Baritone Hermann Prey, with pianist Leonard Hokanson (1975)
German text by Friedrich Rückert
You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world in which I live,
my heaven you in which I soar,
o you my grave in which
I have buried my sorrows forever.
You are rest; you are peace;
you were destined for me by heaven.
That you love me makes me feel worthy;
your glance has transfigured me;
you lift me, loving, above myself --
my good spirit, my better "I"!
You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world, in which I live,
my heaven you, in which I soar --
my good spirit, my better "I"!
In the click-through we're going to have much more of and about "Widmung," and then, well, as I mentioned Friday night, it was a recital this past week by pianist Anne-Marie McDermott that set me to thinking about the song, in both its original form and the bravura solo-piano expansion of it created by Liszt. This is all leading up to my threatened reflections on that recital and an attempt to describe, if not explain, the effect Ms. McDermott's performance of the Liszt version had on me; more about that in the click-through.
Sunday Classics: Who says a piano concerto has to be all this way or that way? Not Camille Saint-Saëns, for sure!
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Movement "B" (plus, for reasons I can't explain, the opening of the following movement), played by pianist Nelson Freire, with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by David Shallon
by Ken
If you were with us in Friday night's and last night's previews, you know we've been listening to two piano-concerto movements, about as different as piano-concerto movements get, and now you know the CD that's had me listening to and thinking about them.
If you didn't know the identity of the music in question, if you just looked closely at the photo I posted last night of the jacket of the original RCA Arthur Rubinstein Heart of the Piano Concerto LP, which I told you was where I first encountered our Movement "B" (we even heard that very performance!), from the list of composers you shouldn't have had much difficulty picking out Charles Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) as the composer of this supremely scintillating music.
Since the Testament Gilels CD cover is frustratingly vague about the actual contents of the disc, I can tell you that the Saint-Saëns concertos it contains is the Second, and Movement "B" is the middle movement, marked appropriately Allegro scherzando. For a lazy Sunday, I thought it might be pleasant to hear both Gilels and Rubinstein play it again, this time leading right into the suitably volatile, worry-free finale.
Sunday Classics Preview: Does anybody actually remember "Elvira Madigan"?
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Part 1 (of 9) of Elvira Madigan. The opening strains of the Andante of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21, K. 467, are heard at 2:46.
by Ken
You can actually watch all of Elvira Madigan on YouTube, though I can't think why you'd want to. I recall the 1967 film as seriously tedious, despite its brilliantly effective use of the slow movement of Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto, K. 467, as the backdrop for the romantic idyll embedded in it.
I don't know whether it was superior taste, dumb luck, or something in between that led director Bo Widerberg to use the recording of the concerto played and conducted by Géza Anda, from his DG cycle-in-progress of the complete Mozart piano concertos with the Salzburg Mozarteum orchestra (begun in 1961, but not completed until 1969), but it was an inspired choice. While any other performance would likely have served the purpose, Anda's performance has a glow that makes it special even by the standard of the best of the considerable competition. I have to believe that its distinctive quality had something to do with the way the film and the concerto exploded in the cultural consciousness.
Anda was hardly an obvious candidate to record the Mozart concertos. Before this project, he was known at the time as a Romantic specialist. (We just heard him play some lovely Chopin.) And I'm not sure that all those music lovers have ever caught up with the achievement of that cycle, which deals as richly and satisfyingly with this remarkable body of music as I can imagine any one performer doing. There's drama and poetry and passion and an abundance of sheer joy. It would still be my first choice for a set of the complete Mozart piano concertos, as I write, there's an Amazon.com vendor selling the eight-CD setfor a trifling $32.85 (plus shipping).
It was thinking about Anda's recordings of K. 467 that set me on course to writing about the concerto. Mozart's piano concertos have been near the top of my to-do list since I began writing these pieces, but the subject has always seemed too immense. We've even jumped ahead and done some preliminary exploring of the Mozart concertos' direct descendant's, Beethoven's five piano concertos.
In the course of doing some long-deferred CD reshelving this week, I found myself staring at the CD edition of Anda's later recording of Concertos Nos. 20 and 21 -- for Eurodisc, during the brief heyday of "quadriphonic" recording, again conducting as well as playing, with the Vienna Symphony. (Inexpensive used copies of the same performances can be found in a different CD issue.) It occurred to me that if we were to focus on K. 467, the subject might be doable. That doesn't mean we're going to be listening to just K. 467 tomorrow, but maintaining the focus on it will keep us within manageable bounds.
For tonight, our business is nothing but this amazing slow movement, which we'll hear first in the Anda-DG recording used in the film, and then in a somewhat quicker performance by Arthur Rubinstein and finally in a broader one (I don't think there's any question that in the post-Elvira Madigan era performances have tended to broaden) by Daniel Barenboim.
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467: ii. Andante
Camerata Academica of the Salzburg Mozarteum, Géza Anda, piano and cond. DG, recorded May 1961
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, Alfred Wallenstein, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded in New York, Apr. 1, 1961
Berlin Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim, piano and cond. Teldec, recorded November 1986
As indicated, we're going to be focusing on Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto, but naturally we'll also be listening to its fraternal twin, the D minor Concerto, No. 20 -- and also its predecessor, the F major Concerto, No. 19.
Sunday Classics: In perfect balance -- Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto, where everything comes together just right
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This is the first part (of three) of longtime pals Martha Argerich (born 1941) and Nelson Freire (born 1944) playing Rachmaninoff's delightful Second Suite for Two Pianos. (We last heard Argerich and Freire, separately, playing Schumann.) We'll hear more of the performance below.
by Ken
Friday night we heard the first movement of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, as played by Arthur Rubinstein and Fritz Reiner -- the way I first encountered the music on RCA's Rubinstein Heart of the Piano Concerto compilation LP. Last night we detoured to make a quick run through Rachmaninoff's "other" piece for piano and orchestra -- other than the four concertos, that is -- the wonderful Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Today we're back to the Second Concerto.
It's not Rachmaninoff's most ambitious concerto, which would be the Third. I know people who are nuts for the Third Concerto, but I've never warmed to it nearly as much as the Second, which seems to me not only one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, but one of the most amazingly well-balanced, in terms of its movements, in the classical literature.
Now this isn't what makes it a masterpiece. In fact, if any of its three movements carried its weight even a trifle less successfully, it could have ruined the whole piece. it fascinates me, nevertheless, that my attachment to those three movements is absolutely equal. In almost all performances, by the way, the three will time out to within a couple of minutes of each other. In Sviatoslav Richter's DG recording, which we almost heard today, the movement timings are 11:15, 11:53, and 11:38, for a 38-second spread between the "fastest" and "slowest" movement. The Zymerman-Ozawa timings are 11:46, 12:15, 11:34, for a 41-second spread. You can't get much evener than that!
i. Moderato; Allegro
Of course we've already heard this movement, and I don't plan to say much more about it. As I said, given any kind of competence in the performance, the distinctive solo-piano opening gets me every time, and then when the orchestra joins in sounding that wonderful opening theme, wow! And then Rachmaninoff finds yet another level when the soloist introduces that gorgeous lyrical theme. Since we have a suitably "poetic" performance below, in the complete recording by Krystian Zimerman, I thought I'd go with this clearly and beautifully projected one by the Texas-born Van Cliburn (born 1934), with our old friends from Friday night, Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony.
Van Cliburn, piano; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded March 31 and Apr. 2, 1962
ii. Adagio sostenuto
If Rachmaninoff hadn't come up with a great principal theme for his slow movement, the kind that burrows into your consciousness and doesn't let go, I don't think the concerto would have worked. Fortunately he did and it does. As I was sampling my Rachmaninoff Second CD holdings, the performance that really gripped me was this earlier recording by Arthur Rubinstein, mono sound and all. (I think the sound is quite fine for 1946, though.) It's possible to hear a darker side of the music, but I don't think it's possible to play it much more beautifully.
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; NBC Symphony Orchestra, Vladimir Golschmann, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded May 27, 1946
iii. Allegro scherzando
Again, after two such extraordinary movements, if Rachmaninoff hadn't managed to maintain the level and also add something new, the piece as a whole wouldn't have worked. It turns out that he had something ideal up his sleeve: this brilliant and boisterous movement, which perfectly complements what we've heard while taking us in a direction I don't think anyone could have anticipated. For this movement I've turned to another fine American virtuoso, the Pennsylvania-born Byron Janis (born 1928).
Byron Janis, piano; Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, Antal Dorati, cond. Mercury, recorded April 1960
HERE'S PART 2 OF THE ARGERICH-FREIRE
PERFORMANCE OF THE RACHMANINOFF 2ND SUITE
NOW HERE'S THE COMPLETE RACH 2ND CONCERTO RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 i. Moderato; Allegro
ii. Adagio sostenuto
iii. Allegro scherzando
Krystian Zimerman, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded December 2000
As I mentioned Friday night, I had a different recording in mind: my very first one, bought back when direct importation of German Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (as the company was still known) pressings was still relatively new, and DGG LPs commanded an extra suggested-retail dollar (in additon to the then-standard extra suggested-retail dollar for the stereo edition, bringing them up to a whopping $5.98, meaning that I would have expected to pay $2.99 on sale at Goody's or Korvette's, rather than my standard stereo LP sale price of $2.49). It's Sviatoslav Richter's April 1959 studio recording made in, of all places, Poland -- we may think of Poles and Russians as more or less interchangeable, but they sure don't. (As far as I know, the very fine conductor, Stanislaw Wislocki, didn't have any kind of career outside Poland.)
I used to think of the Richter Rachmaninoff recording as one of my private pleasures; you never used to hear about it much. But I see from the assorted online reviews that the world has caught up to it, and I think "gotten" that it's a darker-than-usual performance, more melancholy -- not really the right word, maybe stoic? Definitely not heart-on-sleeve, and certainly not "tragic," but still a long way from cheerful. I do have a CD issue of it (somewhere!), and on renewing acquaintance, I was relieved to find that I love the performance as much as ever, maybe more, though in one important way less. In some ways the most remarkable thing about the LP issue was the assortment of Rachmaninoff preludes that filled out the second side -- Richter at his introspective yet commanding best. (I assume they've found a place on CD somewhere.)
Since the Richter-Wislocki recording is so well appreciated, and at least for the moment readily available(coupled with a recording of the Tchaikovsky First Concerto conducted by Herbert von Karajan that's nobody's favorite performance of that piece but is still an awfully good performance), I don't mind giving it a pass in favor of what seems to me a beautifully poetic (and very beautifully played) performance by the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman (born 1956) with the Boston Symphony contributing appropriately soulful playing under Seiji Ozawa.
BONUS: THE COMPLETE RUBINSTEIN-REINER RACH 2ND
Since we'd already sampled both this recording and the composer's own 1929 one with Stokowski, I deliberately looked for other recordings above. But I've got sound files for the whole of the Rubinstein-Reiner recording, and it seems a shame to let them go to waste. (You can compare this slow movement with the 1946 recording above.) And I think it would be kind of silly to make you dig out the first movement from Friday's post, so here's the whole thing.
RACHMANINOFF: PIano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 i. Moderato; Allegro
ii. Adagio sostenuto
iii. Allegro scherzando
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Jan. 9, 1956
HERE'S THE LAST BIT OF THE ARGERICH-FREIRE
PERFORMANCE OF THE RACHMANINOFF 2ND SUITE
Sunday Classics: In the piano concertos, we hear Beethoven in hard-fought sort-of-harmony with the universe
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No less than Van Cliburn introduces the piano-playing Serkins, Rudolf (1903-1991) and Peter (born 1947), playing Schubert's four-hand Military March in G, D. 733, No. 2, on the occasion of Serkin père's 85th birthday in 1988, from a 1988 concert featuring 26 pianists, issued by VAI.
"Rudolf Serkin was once asked, jokingly of course, if Beethoven had composed the Choral Fantasy for Marlboro. The piece has everything Marlboro could have wanted for its final concert: an orchestra in which everyone could play; solos within the orchestra; ensemble playing among various instruments; piano solo; and a chorus for everyone else in the Marlboro community. Rudolf Serkin responded, with his characteristic smile, 'No, Beethoven didn't compose it for Marlboro.... But he approves.'"
What Christopher Serkin, a distinguished law professor, discreetly doesn't mention here -- though his last name is certainly suggestive -- is that Rudolf Serkin, a co-founder of the Marlboro Music Festival who was for decades its presiding artistic spirit -- was his grandfather, and Peter Serkin, whom he later mentions conducts the Choral Fantasy performance included in this Marlboro anniversary issue, is his uncle. (Peter Serkin, while a dramatically different sort of musician from his father, established himself at an early age as one of the leading pianists of his generation. It's kind of weird, for me at least, to think that young Peter is now in his 60s.)
Not many serious music people take the Choral Fantasy seriously, and for a long time I didn't get either. At some point the pieces fell into place, and that was thanks mostly to Rudolf Serkin's recordings. However, I was unaccountably unaware of something Christopher Serkin points out in his comment: "For almost 40 years, the Choral Fantasy was the last piece in the last [Marlboro Festival] concert of the summer." He goes on:
Especially in recent years when Marlboro has been exclusively a chamber music festival, the Choral Fantasy was the one time during the summer when all of the chamber musicians would come together into an orchestra, and the results were invariably magical. In any given year, the orchestra would include a mixture of some of the great luminaries of the musical world playing alongside brilliant younger musicians -- soloists and chamber musicians briefly forming an orchestra. For that one moment, it could be the greatest orchestra in the world. . . .
Despite all of the remarkable Choral Fantasy performances over the years, this CD marks the first time that a Marlboro recording of the piece has been released. Whatever one's view of the work itself, it represents Marlboro to many of us who have spent summers there.
[Note: You know where Amazon asks, at the end of each "customer review," "Was this review helpful to you?" When I looked, "27 out of 28 people found the following review helpful." I made it 28 out of 29. I'm wondering what the deal is with the person who didn't find this review helpful.]
We're going to talk more about the piece later. For now, let's just plunge into Serkin's first recording, made in 1962 as the second-side LP filler for his new recording of the Beethoven Third Concerto with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80
The most obvious observation to be made is that the Choral Fantasy of 1808 (thus at roughly the time of the Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral is a dry run for the monumental finale of the Ninth Symphony, which culminates in a setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy including four vocal soloists and chorus, composed more than a decade later. As in the finale of the Ninth, Beethoven takes us through a winding, surprise-filled landscape before we reach the unexpected choral destination. Wikipedia has German and English texts in a pleasantly sympathetic article on the Choral Fantasy, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choral_Fantasy. Here's Decca's translation:
Enticingly fair and lovely sound the harmonies of our life, and from a sense of beauty arise glowers that bloom forever.
Peace and joy flow hand in hand like the changing play of the waves; what was crowded together in chaos and hostility now shapes itself into exalted feeling.
When music's enchantment reigns and poetry's consecration speaks, wondrous things take shape; night and storm change to light.
Outer peace, inner bliss are the rulers of the happy man. But the spring sun of the arts causes light to flow from both.
Great things that have penetrated the heart blossom anew and beautifully on high, and the spirit that has soared up is always echoed by a chorus of spirits.
Take them, then, you noble souls, gladly, these gifts of noble art. When love and strength are wedded together mankind is rewarded with divine grace.
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Westminster Choir, New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded May 1, 1962
THERE'S SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT BEETHOVEN'S FIVE PIANO CONCERTOS
It may be with his five piano concertos that Beethoven's link to Mozart feels most direct. They were written more than anything for the composers' own use, as exceedingly public demonstrations of what they could do. The concerto we know as Beethoven's Second could be one that Mozart never lived to write.
(Let's get the numbering straight: No, I'm not concerned about the earlier concerto or two Beethoven wrote. The "canon" is appropriately five concertos. But the first two have come down to us numbered wrong. The one we know as No. 2, which could pass for a concerto Mozart never lived to write, was composed first, and then "No. 1," the mighty C major Concerto, which recalls Mozart's grandest concerto, No. 25, also in C major, and expands it yet another step.)
The C major Concerto is thought to have been written in 1798 and revised in 1800, whereupon Beethoven seems to have set to work almost immediately on a companion piece in C minor, which also has an illustrious antecedent in Mozart's No. 24. We've already heard the finale of Beethoven's C minor Concerto. Let's listen now to the whole thing, in what I'm calling an "all-Rubinstein performance," assembled from his first three recordings of the piece. (I didn't consider using the fourth, from his third and final Beethoven concerto cycle, from 1975, with his young keyboard colleague Daniel Barenboim conducting, which I actually quite like, for all the evidence of Rubinstein's advancing age. But I don't have it on CD, which I guess says something about just how much I like it, at least relative to the earlier versions.)
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 ALL-RUBINSTEIN PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro con brio
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Symphony of the Air, Josef Krips, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded April 1956 ii. Largo
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 5-6, 1965 iii. Rondo: Allegro
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded live, Oct. 29, 1944
ABOUT THE THIRD CONCERTO'S LINEAGE
You don't have to take my word -- listen for yourself. It seemed obvious to go with hour honorees Rubinstein and Serkin (and then, which of their recordings?), so I just picked one of each.
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491: i. Allegro
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 20, 1958
Rudolf Serkin, piano; London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded October 1985
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15: i. Allegro con brio
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Dec. 20, 1967
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Telarc, recorded Oct. 5, 1983
Here, then, is an "all-star" performance of the Third Concerto.
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 ALL-STAR PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro con brio
Murray Perahia, piano; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded c1985 ii. Largo
Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Kurt Sanderling, cond. DG, recorded Sept. 28-30, 1962 iii. Rondo: Allegro
Rudolf Firkusny, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Walter Süsskind, cond. EMI, recorded c1958
We've already talked about the remarkable opening of Beethoven's Fourth Concerto, in last night's preview, so why don't we just go right into it? Note that the scale of the concluding Rondo has grown conspicuously over its predecessor, but between these mammoth outer movements, Beethoven chose to go short with the slow movement, which is nevertheless a piece of considerable emotional weight. Our "all-Schnabel performance" consists of one movement from each of Since Artur Schnabel's three recordings (about which more in a moment).
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 ALL-SCHNABEL PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro moderato
Artur Schnabel, piano; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. HMV/EMI, recorded Feb. 16, 1933 ii. Andante con moto
Artur Schnabel, piano; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded 1942 iii. Rondo: Vivace
Artur Schnabel, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Issay Dobrowen, cond. HMV/EMI, recorded June 5-7, 1946
Schnabel's 1932-35 Beethoven concerto cycle remains a recording landmark, not just historically but musically, and again -- as with the Pearl transfers of the equally legendary Beethoven sonata recordings -- my piano maven Leo tipped me off to one transfer from the 78s that's so far superior to any other he's heard as to make it an all-or-nothing proposition. This one, however, is readily available: It's Naxos's, done by Mark Obert-Thorn.
THE LATER SCHNABEL BEETHOVEN CONCERTOS
In 1946-47 EMI had the excellent idea of rerecording Schnabel in the Beethoven concertos, taking advantage of all the improvements in recording technology, and two concertos were recorded each year. (In 1942, as we know, Schnabel had rerecorded No. 4 with the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock. They also recorded No. 5, the Emperor. Schnabel never did rerecord No. 1.)
Even though Schnabel was still Schnabel -- and it should be said that, while he put up with it, he hated the recording process -- and two very good conductors, Issay Dobrowen and Alceo Galliera, were engaged (though Galliera, who was brought in for the 1947 Emperor, was only 37, and possibly more influenceable if anyone had wished to influence him), not many music lovers have ever been wildly enthusiastic about the remakes, which objectively seem like Schnabel performances but just don't seem to have the inner life of the real thing. (This sounds horribly pat coming so soon after my vicious attack on Walter Legge for systematically draining outstanding musicians' recorded performances of the connective tissue that made their real performances sound so different, but the symptoms do seem to fit. Do I have to tell you who produced those 1946-47 recordings?
With that, let's have one final go at the Fourth Concerto:
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 ALL-STAR PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro moderato
Leon Fleisher, piano; Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Epic/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 10, 1959 ii. Andante con moto
Wilhelm Kempff, piano; Berlin Philharmonic, Ferdinand Leitner, cond. DG, recorded July 1961 iii. Rondo: Vivace
Emil Gilels, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Leopold Ludwig, cond. EMI, recorded Apr. 26-May 1, 1957
THE LINE ENDS WITH THE EMPEROR
After the Fourth Concerto, Beethoven did return to the piano concerto once more, to produce the grandest and most majestic of the series, the Emperor. It's possible that this is as far as he could have taken the concerto form, but we'll never know, because although his voluminous musical sketchbooks do contain sketches for a sixth concerto, it was never written, and apparently for the simplest of reasons: The composer's hearing had deteriorated to the point where public performance with an orchestra was no longer a realistic possibility.
His most remarkable music was yet to be written, and in a quantity that seems astonishing under the circumstances. But it was increasingly music that he heard only in his head, and not surprisingly his gaze turned increasingly inward. He also had increasingly less need of a form that enabled him to express harmony, however hard-fought, with the universe.
TO RETURN FINALLY TO THE CHORAL FANTASY
Though its opus number is higher, the Choral Fantasy was written shortly before the Emperor, and while it can seem like a wild hodgepodge, to its admirers its wildness is one of its glories.
I'm not going to attempt a detailed analysis. Wikipedia's article, as I noted earlier, does a surprisingly effective job of it. I'm just going to suggest a way of listening to it, focusing on the hysterically overwrought piano solo that occupies roughly the first four minutes.
I think it's important to recognize that it is overwrought. I've just been listening to Vladimir Ashkenazy's self-conducted recording, which rounds out the Beethoven concerto cycle from which we heard the first movement of the Fourth Concerto last night. Ashkenazy plays the music with the utmost beauty; I'm quite sure I've never heard it played with this roundness and finish of tone. He makes it all sound quite logical, quite reasonable, and really rather unintersting, even pointless. Not surprisingly, his performance really has nowhere to go from there.
I don't want to suggest anything quite as extreme as "parody," but there is definitely the sense of a grand orator, a rhetorician trying desperately to express matters too grand and important to be readily within reach, at least at this particular moment, and coming off as maybe slightly hysterical. I'm not sure I would go so far as to suggest that it's even "humorous," but surely there is something going on in the innards of this solo, which doesn't seem able to figure out where it's trying to get let alone how to get there. The word "ironic" comes to mind, or maybe better "laconic."
And here we're in terrain where Rudolf Serkin ruled. I know I'm risking accusations of gross ethnic stereotyping, but I don't think of Germans as being an especially humorous people. Oh sure, there are funny Germans, but by and large it doesn't seem to be a trait that comes quite naturally. But irony, laconic-ness (laconicity?), a sense of the wry -- this is something that is far from uncommon among cultured Germans, and this I sense Serkin had a large supply of. Attitudinally, in other words, I think he was born to champion the Choral Fantasy.
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Nan Nall (s), Beverly Morgan (ms), Shirley Close (ms), Gene Tucker (t), Sanford Sylvan (b), David Evitts (b), Marlboro Festival Chorus and Orchestra, Peter Serkin, cond. Sony, recorded live, Aug. 9, 1981
When the orchestra finally makes its relatively inconspicuous entrance, there's a sort of sense that it's extending a hand, trying to guide the piano gently back from the precipice. And sure enough, with a little working out the piano is able to get it together enough to announce, now with some confidence, the simple, charming little ditty that will eventually provide the grand vocal finale in the way that the dittylike "Ode to Joy" tune later would in the finale of the Ninth Symphony. Whereupon the orchestra takes up the tune for a set of quite charming variations, at first with minimal contribution from the piano, which eventually rallies to make its own contribution.
As I mentioned last night, there is now a fourth commercially issued Serkin recording of the Choral Fantasy, with Orfeo's release of the Beethoven concerto cycle he did in 1977 with Rafael Kubelik and the Bavarian Radio Symphony, which included the Choral Fantasy. Now that I know it exists, I'll be watching for a copy that falls within my "cheapskate" price range, but for the moment you're spared.
We do have one last recording, though, and this one has the best singers and chorus.
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Faye Robinson (s), Mary Burgess (s), Lili Chookasian (c), Kenneth Riegel (t), David Gordon (b), Julien Robbins (bs); Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Telarc, recorded Oct. 2 and 4, 1982
REVIEWING THIS WEEK'S PREVIEWS
Friday:Beethoven and the "heart of the piano concerto" Rondo from Piano Concerto No. 3 played by Arthur Rubinstein, with the Symphony of the Air under Josef Krips); also by Krystian Zimerman (video, with the Vienna Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein) and by Evgeny Kissin (with the London Symphony under Sir Colin Davis). Plus Rubinstein "Beethoven bonus": Moonlight Sonata.
Saturday:Down in the basement with Beethoven 1st movement of Concerto No. 4, played by Artur Schnabel, with the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock (1942); also by Claudio Arrau (video, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti), by Arthur Rubinstein (with the Symphony of the Air under Krips), and by Vladimir Ashkenazy (also conducting the Cleveland Orchestra). Plus Schnabel "Beethoven bonuses": Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90; Bagatelle, Für Elise.
For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."
for a trifling $32.85 (plus shipping).
) It occurred to me that if we were to focus on K. 467, the subject might be doable. That doesn't mean we're going to be listening to just K. 467 tomorrow, but maintaining the focus on it will keep us within manageable bounds.
(coupled with a recording of the Tchaikovsky First Concerto conducted by Herbert von Karajan that's nobody's favorite performance of that piece but is still an awfully good performance), I don't mind giving it a pass in favor of what seems to me a beautifully poetic (and very beautifully played) performance by the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman (born 1956) with the Boston Symphony contributing appropriately soulful playing under Seiji Ozawa. 
