Sunday Classics snapshots: They don't make organists like Virgil Fox anymore

Virgil Fox at the console of Riverside
Church's grand Aeolian-Skinner organ

by Ken

Somehow I wound up with at least two and maybe three copies of a CD reissue in the "RCA Living Stereo" series: the album of Encores recorded January 27-30, 1958, on the grand Aeolian-Skinner organ of Manhattan's Riverside Church by that master showman of the organ Virgil Fox (1912-1980). When one of those copies, still sealed, suddenly popped out in the open, it got me to thinking. While most of the selections would be sneered into oblivion by today's musical intelligentsia,

I had a feeling it would be both more fun and more musical than the music being generated contemporarily in what word has it is a new golden age for the organ, with incomparable genius organists composing new horizons for this grand old instrument. The only thing that would be more exciting is if any of the music was the tiniest fraction as interesting as these little baubles.

So I thought today we'd just arrange a series of musical snapshots from the album, like these organ arrangements of three thrice-familiar little pieces.

BACH: Jesu, joy of man's desiring (arr. from final chorale of Cantata No. 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben)



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Sunday Classics: Fischer-Dieskau and Richter just perform "Schlummert ein" way better than anybody else I've heard

So here's how the cantata begins

BACH: Cantata No. 82, "Ich habe genug":
i. Aria, "Ich habe genug"

-- from the Bach Cantatas Website

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Manfred Clement, oboe; Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, cond. DG Archiv Produktion, recorded July 1968

Hermann Prey, baritone; Willy Garlach, oboe; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Kurt Thomas, cond. Eterna-EMI, recorded Dec. 14-19, 1959

Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; Michael Dobson, oboe; Bath Festival Orchestra, Yehudi Menuhin, cond. EMI, recorded July 1966

by Ken

So a couple of weeks ago I told the story of how suddenly the audio cassette became a medium for music for me: when I listened to a DGArchiv cassette of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's second (1968) recording of the popular coupling of Bach's two solo-bass cantatas, and we heard all three of his recordings of the great central aria, "Schlummert etin," of Cantata No. 82, "Ich habe genug." I warned that we might be returning to the scene of the crime, in the form of taking a shot at hearing the margin of superiority of this not-really-wildly-heralded recording in collaboration with the once-admired (but not so much anymore) baroque specialist Karl Richter, over any other I've encountered.

So here we are.

But first, as noted above, I thought we might hear how Cantata No. 82 begins, with the aria "Ich habe genug." (This is not exactly a coincidence. We know the Bach cantatas by the title, usually the first line, of their opening number.)

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From the Sunday Classics Technology Dept.: When music can sound like THIS . . .

BACH: Cantata No. 82, "Ich habe genug":
iii. Aria, "Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen"

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (May 28, 1925 – May 18, 2012)

-- from the Bach Cantatas Website

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, cond. DG Archiv Produktion, recorded July 1968

by Ken

Awhile ago I shared WNYC's New Tech City's "Bored and Brilliant" project, which was aimed at helping smartphonomaniacs get some control over their habit. Judging from the onsite response the project seems to have stimulated a lot of phone compulsives to (a) recognize their jones and (b) take some steps to overcome it.

One thing I tried to refrain from was getting too judgy, even though I probably am pretty judgmental when it comes to the smartphone compulsion and the related "social media" one. As it happens, perhaps merely by some fluke, I don't seem to have any temptation toward either, and really can't fathom what the attraction is. But I try to be careful about judging others, first under the "There but for the Grace of God" precept, but also in recognition of my own technological compulsions.

MY TECHNOLOGICAL COMPULSIONS RUN MORE
TO THE AUDIO AND -- MORE RECENTLY -- VIDEO

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YouTube Watch: From Paraguay with love -- "Watch the First 54 Seconds. That's All I Ask. You'll Be Hooked" (Adam Albright-Hanna)

by Ken

This video (which, given its wide-screen format, you might want to watch on YouTube directly) came to me as a pass-along, from an upworthy.com post by Adam Albright-Hanna whose full title is:

"Watch the First 54 Seconds. That's All I Ask. You'll Be Hooked After That, I Swear" (Adam Albright-Hanna)"

It's at about 0:51 that the boy who has just described how his "cello" was constructed -- out of discarded scrap materials, starting with an oil can for the body of the instrument -- begins to play the opening Prelude of the Bach First Cello Suite. And sure enough, I was hooked.

I know there are messages being sent and lessons to be learned, but I really don't know how to amplify this. About the only thing I could think to add was a fuller representation of the music we hear:

BACH: Solo Cello Suite No. 1 in G, S. 1007:
i. Prelude

János Starker, cello. BMG, recorded June 1992

Or this very different take, by Mstislav Rostropovich, who when he finally got up his courage to recorded the Bach cello suites declared himself unfavorably disposed toward what he called the French habit of turning Bach's structural writing into sing-songy tunes.


Mstislav Rostropovich, cello. EMI, recorded March 1991

VIVALDI: The Four Seasons: I. Spring:
i. Allegro
ii. Largo
iii. Allegro

Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Szymon Goldberg, violin and cond. Philips, recorded Oct. 22-26, 1973

MOZART: Serenade in G, K. 525 (Eine kleine Nachtmusik):
i. Allegro
ii. Romanze: Andante
iii. Menuetto: Allegretto
iv. Rondo: Allegro

Vienna Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 17, 1936 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

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For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."

Sunday Classics: Not a review, but some thoughts prompted by Anne-Marie McDermott's recent New York piano recital

Even in this brief clip, I think you can hear that a (the?) distinguishing quality of Anne-Marie McDemott's piano-playing is the bracing physicality.

by Ken

Last week I laid the groundwork for some thoughts prompted by a recital that pianist Anne-Marie McDermott gave recently at New York's Rubin Museum of Art. (Of course it was a week more recently last week.) I focused last week on Liszt's solo-piano expansion of Schumann's brief but grandly expressive song "Widmung" ("Dedication"), which stands at the head of the list of songs he wrote for his new bride Clara, not to mention the vast number that were merely inspired by his passion for her, in his historic "Year of Song" (1840).

We never did get around to the recital itself. As I explained last week, that part was already written, but I just thought it would be too much for a single post. After the click-through we'll be picking up more or less where we left off last week, including hearing music by Prokofiev and Chopin which preceded the Schumann-Liszt (which we'll hear again, this time in some sort of context).

One thing we're not going to hear is the opening work, the Busoni rendering of the Bach solo-violin Chaconne, which I dislike a lot, though there'll be links to a couple of performances. To get us going, here's a performance of the violin original -- announced, you'll note, as "take one" -- by Jascha Heifetz. You might compare this with the Stokowski performance of his own orchestral version which we heard in Friday night's preview.



FOR THE THOUGHTS PROMPTED BY THE RECITAL,
AND A FAIR AMOUNT OF MUSIC, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics preview: A little Bach(-Stokowski) and Chopin

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]

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Sunday Classics: Gotta dance -- Bach the suite-maker, Part 3

János Starker (born 1924) plays the Prelude of the Bach Cello Suite No. 3 at a recital in Tokyo, July 29, 1988. For a markedly different approach, considerably less inclined to make songlike phrases out of the writing, watch Mstislav Rostropovich. (We'll be hearing his performance later.)

"One night in my studio it dawned on me that in the year of Orwell, 1984, I will be sixty years old. For pianists, violinists, and especially conductors, sixty denotes a possible time of maturity. For cellists it represents the outer limits of physical ability to handle the instrumental demands."

-- János Starker (February 1984), in the booklet
with his 1983-84 Sefel recording of the Bach cello suites

by Ken

Before we proceed, I think we should note that when János Starker wrote his 1984 booklet account of his long relationship with the Bach cello suites, dreading the imminent arrival of his 60th birthday, he probably wasn't imagining giving the performance we saw at the top of this post (several weeks after his 64th birthday), let alone that he would make yet another complete recording of the complete Bach, the one from which we've heard a number of movements in Part 1 (Friday night) and Part 2 (last night) of this series, in 1992!

In the course of Parts 1 and 2 we took a quick look at five of the basic dance types that occur most frequently in Bach's suites (or partitas, or overtures, forms that were essentially interchangeable in his time), bearing in mind that he wrote them for orchestra, for keyboard solo (notably the six French Suites, the six English Suites, and the six keyboard partitas), and for solo cello, violin, and lute. Friday night we test-drove the sarabande and bourrée, and last night the allemande, courante, and gigue.

Of the dance movements that Bach incorporated frequently in his suites, I think the only ones we haven't touched on are the gavotte and menuet. This was partly because I think they're more likely to be familiar to listeners for their continued use in the classical era, but also because we actually didn't need them for our destination today. With the weighting of the examples toward the six cello suites, you may have guessed that that was our destination, and I even let slip a hint Friday night that it's the C major Suite, No. 3, toward which we were headed.

It's almost impossible to generalize about the format of Bach's many suites for diverse instruments (orchestra, keyboard, solo violin, solo cello, lute), but generally there's a prelude of some sort followed by a selection of dance movements, typically five. He also felt free to include a "ringer" -- an unexpected nondance movement, the most dramatic instance being the monumental Chaconne of the Violin Partita No. 2. The Cello Suite No. 3 could hardly be more expected in its formal plan, with six movements: prelude, allemande, couratne, sarabande, bourrée(s), gigue.

I suppose, though, that we should say something about those preludes, though here again it's impossible to generalize. Bach after all could do anything he damn pleased -- including, for example, starting off by dashing of a descending C major scale. (Watch János Starker's performance of the Prelude to No. 3 above.)

One thing I thought we might do is the same thing we did with a couple of the dance-type suite movements: listen first to a Stokowski orchestral arrangement alongside the Bach original. So why don't we do that?

BACH: Partita for Solo Violin No. 3 in E, BWV 1006:
No. 1, Preludio

orchestral version arr. Stokowski
Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond. Capitol/EMI, recorded August 1957

original version for solo violin
Ruggiero Ricci, violin. Westminster/MCA, recorded c1966


FOR MORE ON THE PRELUDES, AND MORE ABOUT
AND OF BACH'S CELLO SUITE NO. 2, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: Gotta dance -- Bach the suite-maker, Part 2

Allemandes are at the top of tonight's "Bach the suite-maker" agenda. Here Mischa Maisky plays the Allemande from the First Cello Suite.

by Ken

Oh my. This was supposed to be a simple sequel to last night's presentation of some basics of Bach's suite-writing, including samples of two of the commonly used dance forms, the sarabande and bourrée, aiming us toward tomorrow's presentation of an actual whole Bach suite. The idea for tonight was just to toss in a couple, maybe a few examples of three more dance forms that appear regularly in Bach's suites (alternatively called partitas or overtures): the allemande, courante, and gigue.

And I guess really that's all I've done, but it involved a full day's work, and the result calls for more than previewlike listening attention. So I've gone back and officially relabeled last night's post "Part 1" of what is now a three-part Sunday Classics post.


FOR TONIGHT'S SAMPLING OF BACH ALLEMANDES,
COURANTES, AND GIGUES, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: Gotta dance -- Bach the suite-maker, Part 1 [formerly "Preview 1"]

Guitarist Per-Olov Kindgren plays his arrangement of the Air, popularly known as "Air on the G String," from Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3.

by Ken

In my small way I've tried to defend Bach against the charge of being an offputtingly "intellectual" composer, whose music demands a superhuman effort of analytical penetration. The thing is, there's an element of truth to this. Bach can be difficult. But I don't think you enter the highest ranks of the musical immortals without a powerful ability, even compulsion, to communicate on a basic human level, and J.S.B. could do this as well as anyone who's ever set writing instrument to music paper.

This week we're going to dabble with the world of the suite as practiced by Bach, which means the partita and even overture as well, since functionally they were indistinguishable. I've thought for a long time that it would be fun to approach the large number of such works Bach wrote for such diverse forces -- keyboard, violin, cello, orchestra -- by breaking them down into the dance forms he used so frequently. But Bach always felt free to slip in a "ringer" movement, a "something else," and I can't help but start off with the amazingly beautiful Air from the Orchestral Suite No. 3, which we hear above played in a guitar arrangement, and we'll hear more of in the click-through.

FOR MORE OF THE AIR, AND MORE OF
"BACH THE SUITE-MAKER," CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: "Brandenburg"s for the holidays, Part 2

Notice anything unusual about Bach's Sixth Brandenburg Concerto? Here Claudio Abbado conducts members of the Orchestra Mozart in the first movement at the Teatro Municipale Valli, Reggio Emilia, April 2007.

by Ken

In last week's Part 1, we began our traditional holiday-time traversal of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos with complete performances of Nos. 1-3. This week we've eased into our task of completing the sequence by pausing to sample Nos. 4 (Friday night) and 5 (last night).

Again, it's helpful to remember that in assembling this set of concertos for presentation to the Margrave of Brandenburg (presumably from works that were mostly, if not entirely, already written), Bach was demonstrating some of the range of what he could do with the Baroque concerto medium. I think this explains why the six concertos, and sometimes even movements within concertos, are written, not just so differently, but for such differently configured instrumental ensembles.


PLAYING WITH STRINGS

Perhaps the most easily overlooked of the Brandenburg Concertos are the two written for strings only, Nos. 3 and 6. Tthe exclusion of non-string instruments limited the obvious ways in which Bach could achieve striking effects, but that doesn't mean he was any less striking in his inventiveness. By way of a Brandenburg warmup, I thought we'd hear their perky finales.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G, BWV 1048:
iii. Allegro

The ensemble Tafelmusik dispatches the finale of No. 3 at Toronto's Trinity-St. Paul's Centre, May 2009.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-flat, BWV 1051:
iii. Allegro

For once the members of the Freiburg Chamber Orchestra don't sound as if they're running for their lives!


WHY ARE WE HEARING THESE MOVEMENTS? TO FIND OUT,
AND TO HEAR BRANDENBURGS NOS. 4-6, CLICK HERE.

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Sunday Classics preview: Going back in time with the Fifth "Brandenburg" Concerto

Kind of weird, but . . . The first half of the irresistible Fifth Brandenburg is played and conducted by Glenn Gould (with some pretty weird tempo haulings-about), with flutist Julius Baker and violinist Oscar Shumsky. (The performance concludes here, beginning with Gould going at the cadenza.)

by Ken

Last night we previewed the fizzy Fourth Brandenburg, as part of Part 2 of our holiday traversal of the complete Bach Brandenburg Concertos.

Surely the most obviously irresistible (as well as structurally impeccable) concerto of the Brandenburg set is No. 5, and I thought we'd work into it by harking back in time to a performance from a complete recording of the Brandenburgs made in 1932 by the great pianist Alfred Cortot. The performance shows its age in the use of the piano for the keyboard solo part and in those unapologetic slowdowns at the end of movements (which don't bother me -- it's such a natural impulse that I would need way more evidence than anyone has presented that Baroque musicians never did it -- but are a ready target for today's Baroque robocops, who think they're way smarter than I think they are). However, I think the spirit of the performance is, well, pretty darned irresistible.

BACH: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, BWV 1050

i. Allegro (with cadenza)
ii. Affettuoso
iii. Allegro

Roger Cortet, flute; Jacques Thibaud, violin; Orchestra of the École Normale de Musique, Paris, Alfred Cortot, piano and cond. EMI, recorded May 16-18, 1932


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

We take a listen to some of the audacious feats Bach worked ever so casually into the Brandenburg Concertos, then complete our holiday traversal of the set with Nos. 4-6.

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Sunday Classics preview: It's New Year's Eve, and have we got a "Brandenburg" Concerto for you!

For New Year's Eve, the fizziest of the Brandenburgs: Sir James Galway is joined by Andrea Griminelli and an unidentified violin soloist in the effervescent first movement of Concerto No. 4, with the Union Chamber Orchestra at the Teatro Giacosa in Aosta, April 2009.

by Ken

We began our once-through of Bach's timeless Brandenburg Concertos last week with Nos. 1-3, meaning that this week's business is Nos. 4-6. And as suggested above, I think the ebullient Fourth Brandenburg is an excellent match for New Year's Eve. The paired flutes lend it an especially heady note.

While we're thinking "flutes," I thought it might be fun to hear our old friend flutist-conductor Kurt Redel, whom you'll recall we heard playing as well as conducting Telemann. This performance is from his Erato stereo remake of the Brandenburgs with his Munich Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and featuring many of the same instrumentalists who'd been with him for the 1955 mono set.

BACH: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G, BWV 1049

i. Allegro
ii. Andante; iii. Presto

Kurt Redel and Paul Meisen, flutes; Reinhold Barchet, violin; Munich Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Kurt Redel, cond. Erato/Musical Heritage Society, recorded My 1-6, 1962


We even have New Year's fireworks! Well, after a fashion -- accompanying the first movement of Brandenburg No. 4 in a synthesized version "using both analog and digital synthesizers" according to the poster.


IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW --

We have a first listen to the Fifth Brandenburg. Sunday, of course, is our Brandenburg Nos. 4-6 day (with a bit of extra business on tap).

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Sunday Classics: "Brandenburg"s for the holidays, Part 1

The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra gives a now-fashionably lickety-split but still quite nice performance of the final movement (Menuetto and Polacca) of Bach's First Brandenburg Concerto. Listen particularly for the second Trio -- not the first Trio, of the Menuetto, written for, literally, a trio of two oboes and bassoon, at 1:12, but the second Trio, of the Polacca (which begins at 3:14), written for a "trio" of two horns plus a trio of oboes, at 5:17.

by Ken

I expect you're thinking, haven't we had enough music this week with our Christmas specials, Handel's Messiah for Christmas Eve and Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ for Christmas Day? Obviously, you already have my answer.

One pleasant tradition that's developed around the holidays is performing the entire set of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos. In a sense it's easier now that we think of the concertos as chamber rather than orchestral music, but it really tests the mettle of the presenting chamber music group. The six concertos are so different, and scored for such different instrumental combinations, that just figuring out who's to play what and then managing the logistics of having the correct players available, first for rehearsal (today's musicians racing from job to job to keep their heads above water can hardly be asked to sit through rehearsals in which they have nothing to do, but at the same time you can't rehearse a concerto if you don't have all the necessary performers on hand) and then for onstage at the right time for the right pieces -- the logistics are exhaustive and exhausting, and for obvious reasons it's not easy to get all six pieces prepared to the degree of thoroughness that most of those musicians might wish.

Nevertheless, performing the complete set of Brandenburgs can be an exhilarating experience for both performers and audiences, and the holidays just seem like a natural time to undertake it. I thought that we might join in this particular celebration, only we're not going to do it in all-in-one fashion. We'll get through the first three concertos today, and then the remaining three (probably) next week.

In the only all-Bach post I've written to date, devoted to the unusually personal world of his arias, I wrote:

If I were setting out to "sell" Bach, or even to try to sketch the Bach who most matters to me, I would start with the secular music -- with, say, the Brandenburg Concertos and the solo-cello suites. But the cantatas may be the place where one comes closest to encountering the soul of Bach.

WE COME AT LAST TO THE BRANDENBURGS

Not quite for the first time, though. Shortly after, I wrote a post built about extraordinary surprises composers may bury in larger works, offering as examples the totally unexpected and totally wonderful methodically galloping rhythmic figure that breaks out suddenly in the cello then works its way up the string-quartet membership in the theme-and-variations slow movement of Mozart's String Quartet No. 18, and the tiny bit -- a mere minute in our performance -- known innocently enough as "Trio II" in the final movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1.

Here's the bit we're talking about, in the best performance I've heard of it, or at any rate the one that really made me sit up and take notice. It still sounds awfully good to me. (Note: You can click to enlarge the score page, but you won't be able to hear the music at the same time. Sorry!)


CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Mario Bernardi, cond. CBC Records, recorded 1983
[I'm sorry not to be able to identify the soloists of this performance, but my copy of the CD booklet has gone missing!]


TO HEAR THE WHOLE BRANDENBURG NO. 1
(TWO WAYS!) AND NOS. 2 AND 3, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: As the names remind us, the concerto and the sonata (and the sinfonia and the opera) came out of Italy

This is the YouTube poster's quite nice off-the-air VHS recording of the fine Korean violinist Kyung-Wha Chung playing the Largo of Bach's E major Violin Concerto in 1982.

"What can one say of the C-sharp minor Adagio [of Bach's E major Violin Concerto]? Is there not, far beyond the depth and profundity of this psalm, in which all grief and all bliss are united, everything that we are able to comprehend? Does there not wake in us a presentiment, an awe of the most holy mysteries, upon which no human word can touch?"

-- the uncredited annotator of Epic's U.S. issue of I Musici's
Philips recording of the Bach violin concertos

by Ken

Why don't we start with the performance of that Largo under annotation? It's from the same I Musici LP from which we heard first just the Largo (in Friday night's preview) and then the whole (in last night's preview) of Bach's D minor "Double" Violin Concerto, with then-violinist-members of the heart chamber ensemble Roberto Michelucci and Felix Ayo. Each violinist was assigned one of the two solo-violin concertos, and while Michelucci seems to me the more interesting violinist, he got the A minor Concerto. Still, Ayo isn't violinistic chopped liver.

BACH: Violin Concerto No. 2 in E, BWV 1042:
ii. Largo

Felix Ayo, violin; I Musici. Philips, recorded c1960

As long as we're here, we might as well hear the whole Bach E major Concerto. Which we'll do in the click-through.

TO HEAR THE WHOLE BACH E MAJOR CONCERTO, AND
CONCERTOS BY TELEMANN AND HANDEL, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics preview: Baroque composers, like musicians before and since, had it bad for Italy, Part 1

Another Winter: Giuliano Carmignola plays the last of Vivaldi's Four Seasons with Andrea Marcon conducting the Venice Baroque Orchestra from the harpsichord.

by Ken

One thing Bach and Handel, those champions of the Class of 1685, had in common was a passion for Italy, or at any rate the music that came out of Italians. Handel was a great traveler; Bach wasn't. But he too managed, even in those days before radios and records and easy air travel, to keep current on what was going on musically in the rest of Europe.

His passion for blessed-by-the sun Italian music was tremendous. Listen, for example, to the slow movement of Bach's ever-popular "Double" Concerto:

BACH: Concerto in D minor for Two Violins and Strings, BWV 1043:
ii. Largo

Roberto Michelucci and Felix Ayo, violins; I Musici. Philips, recorded c1960

I just don't think Bach could have written that without the sounds of Italy playing in his head. And no, it's not by accident that I chose this quintessentially Italian performance. No again, it's not "authentic" in performance style, but I have a good idea that Bach would be astonished that anyone would wish to listen to, let alone prefer, those imitation cat-screechings.


SHADES OF VIVALDI

Every now and then I get a post to come out more or less right, which is why tonight I'd like to direct attention back to the one I devoted a number of weeks ago to Vivaldi's Four Seasons (plus the two previews, one and two).

Yes, what was intended -- as so many of these posts originally were -- to be simple and to the point, and wound up being long and involved. But we had four remarkable concertos, covering the four seasons, to encompass, and overall considerations to consider, and I really wanted you to be able to zero in on the individual movements -- in particular the four slow ones -- as well as whole seasons/concertos as well as the piece as a whole. And in particular I wanted us to be able to hear an assortment of ways of hearing the music. In the end we heard, in various forms, all of four recordings and parts of three others -- not to mention the movement-by-movement commentaries offered by violinist Gil Shaham when he recorded the piece at the tender age of 22. On top of which I offered you "what may be the only Four Seasons recording you'll ever need," violinist-conductor Szymon Goldberg's with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra.

And here again we're going to here an Italian performance, somewhat lusher in style, by the Virtuosi di Roma under Renato Fasano, And then, while we're at it, why don't we hear that luscious Goldberg-Philips recording again?

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE WITH THE FOUR SEASONS RECORDINGS

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Sunday Classics: Remembering Maureen Forrester, Part 1: A bulwark of the baroque revival

As the poster notes, YouTube's 10-minute-plus time limit doesn't accommodate the whole of "He was despised," the great alto aria from Handel's Messiah (which we talked about and heard in this past Christmas's Messiah post). The poster can't recall what CD it's from; I assume it's a reissue of the Vanguard Bach-Handel recital, with Antonio Janigro conducting I Solisti di Zagreb (which I don't have), presumably also the original source of the aria below from Handel's Samson.

by Ken

In last night's preview I described contralto Maureen Forrester (1930-2010) as "one of the least replaceable singers" I've heard, and looking back, I'm a little surprised how casually her presence was taken on the musical scene. (For the record, we also had a non-preview "down payment" pre-preview week before last.) She wasn't quite taken for granted, but the vocal completeness of her performances of whatever repertory she was plunked into was such that she came perilously close, and she seemed so unfailingly just to be there, when and where she was needed, that I don't think many music lovers gave much thought to what it would be like when that presence was no longer present, with no replacement available.

Case in point: perhaps the best-known tune Handel left us, known as "Handel's Largo" -- in context, as sung by the Persian emperor Xerxes at curtain rise, a love song to a tree.

HANDEL: Serse: Act I, "Frondi tenere . . . Ombra mai fù"

RECITATIVE
Tender and fair leaves
of my beloved plane tree,
may Fate shine on you.
May thunder, lightning and storms
never disturb your dear peace
or any other predator
manage to despoil you.

ARIA: Serse
Never was shade
of vegetation
more dear and
endearingly comforting.

Maureen Forrester, contralto; Vienna Radio Orchestra, Brian Priestman, cond. Westminster/CBC, recorded June 1965

This "Ombra mai fù" is from a complete recording of Serse undertaken by Westminster as a follow-up to its recording the year before of Handel's Rodelinda (with Teresa Stich-Randall in the title role). Not surprisingly, Forrester was in the cast of both. Although by present-day Handel performance standards those recordings sound like unalloyed treasures, response to them at the time was understandably mixed, making Westminster unable to continue the series. (A recording of the English-language "musical drama" Hercules, again with Stich-Randall and Forrester, was released by RCA, and even less well-received.) Similarly, when Vanguard launched a series of Handel oratorios with the shockingly neglected late masterpieces Theodora and Jephtha, Forrester was in the casts. It was an obvious "ask" for the record companies.

Sadly, for an artist who recorded as much as Forrester, hardly anything remains in print, and we have to be grateful for a two-CD set put together by CBC Records, A Legendary Voice: Maureen Forrester (pay no attention to the unfortunate French album title, La Voix du Siècle, "The Voice of the Century") -- a CD of Handel compiled from assorted Westminster and Vanguard originals attached to a CD reissuing CBC's own March 1968 coupling of Brahms's Four Serious Songs and Wagner's Wesendonck-Lieder (once released by Decca), filled out with song material from a January 1981 Toronto recital. (The performance we heard two weeks ago of Brahms's "Lullaby" was, as noted, an encore from the 1981 recital.)

From the CBC anthology, here's Micah's great aria from the oratorio Samson.

HANDEL: Samson: Act II, "Return, o God of hosts"

Return, o God of hosts! Behold
thy servant in distress!
His mighty griefs redress,
nor by the heathen be it told.

Maureen Forrester, contralto; I Solisti di Zagreb, Antonio Janigro, cond. Vanguard/CBC, recorded c1964

Among the Handel projects of her time for which Forrester was an obvious choice was the now-legendary New York City Opera production of Julius Caesar in a version prepared by the company's general director Julius Rudel, who also conducted the production. The role of Cleopatra made an "overnight" star of the (in reality) long-toiling Beverly Sills, with an equally gripping performance by bass-baritone Norman Treigle in the title role. Thank goodness RCA chose to make a recording based on the production.

Last night we heard Forrester singing one of Cleopatra's arias, "Piangerò la mia sorte," rightfully a soprano or mezzo-soprano role. For the City Opera production Rudel had the good sense to ask her to sing the important role of Cornelia.

HANDEL: Julius Caesar, Act I, recitative and aria, "Priva son d'ogni conforto" ("I am deprived of every consolation")

RECITATIVE
[It has been a great military triumph for Caesar in Egypt, with the defeat of his former ally but now rival, Pompei. To his horror, though, he has been presented by his Egyptian hosts with the great general's severed head -- this in the presence of Pompei's wife, suddenly widow, Cornelia and their son Sextus. Cornelia promptly fainted, and following the exit of the enraged Caesar, his aide de camp Curio picks this curious, not to mention wildly inappropriate, time to go a-courting the new widow.]
CURIO: She's coming to now.
SEXTUS: Mother!
CURIO: Cornelia!
CORNELIA: O stars! And I'm still alive?
[She tries to wrest Sextus' sword away from him.]
CURIO [restraining CORNELIA]: Stop! In vain you seek
to stain your weapon
with blood in that breast.
Curio, who still adores you,
and wants you as his wife, if only you'll accept,
will know how to avenge you
with his sword.
CORNELIA: Your wife?
CURIO: Yes.
CORNELIA: Silence yourself!
SEXTUS: Mother!
CORNELIA: My flesh!
SEXTUS: What shall we do now?

ARIA: Cornelia
I am deprived of every consolation,
and yet there is no hope for death
for me, wretched one.
My heart, engulfed with pain,
is already weary of suffering,
and death denies itself to me.

Maureen Forrester (c), Cornelia; Beverly Wolff (ms), Sextus; William Beck (b), Curio; New York City Opera Orchestra, Julius Rudel, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded April-May 1967

Given the sparse representation of Forrester on current records, the ample contributions of the YouTubers are indispensable. At the top of this post we have that amazing performance of "He was despised," or most of it, thanks to the YouTube time limitation. And for a representation of Forrester's important Bach repertory we have to turn to YouTube. Here is the great alto aria "Bereite dich, Zion" ("Prepare thyself, Zion") from the Christmas Oratorio.

BACH: Christmas Oratorio: Part I, No. 4, "Bereite dich, Zion" ("Prepare thyself, Zion")

Prepare thyself, Zion,
with tender desire
the fairest and dearest
to behold with thee soon.

Thy cheeks today must
much lovelier shine!
Hasten most ardently
the Bridegroom to love.

Maureen Forrester, contralto; I Solisti di Zagreb, Antonio Janigro, cond. Vanguard/CBC, recorded c1964

In 1965 Forrester became the alto soloist of the Bach Aria Group, whose pioneering resurrection of Bach's vast aria repertory we talked about here. The idea of the group's founder, William H. Scheide, you'll recall, is that Bach's arias, while vocal solos, are in fact generally duets -- in the case of this performance (taken from a retrospective series devoted to the great oboist Robert Bloom, a member of the Bach Aria Group throughout its 34-year run, 1946-1980), a duet for alto and oboe.

BACH: Cantata No. 79: No. 2, "Gott is unsre Sonn' und Schild" ("God is our sun and shield")

God is our sun and shield!
Therefore our thankful heart
praises His goodness,
which he reserves for His little band.
For He will protect us further,
though the enemies sharpen their arrows
and a blaspheming dog howls.

Bach Aria Group: Maureen Forrester, contralto; Robert Bloom, oboe; Bernard Greenhouse, cello; Paul Ulanowsky, piano. Boston Records, recorded live in Town Hall, New York, Dec. 7, 1966

ENCORE: A BIT MORE BRAHMS

Don't ask me how this fits in with our chapter on "the baroque Forrester." It doesn't. It just happens that I made an audio file of this last of the Brahms Four Serious Songs which I wound up not using in last night's preview, and I think it would be a shame to waste it.

BRAHMS: Four Serious Songs: No. 4, "Wenn ich mit Menschen- und mit Engelszungen redete" ("Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels")

Though I speak with the tongues
of men and of angels,
and have not charity,
I am become as sounding brass,
or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy,
and understand all mysteries,
and all knowledge;
and though I have all faith,
so that I could move mountains,
and have not charity, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned,
and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

For now we see through a glass darkly,
but then face to face:
now I know in part;
but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity,
these three;
but the greatest of these is charity.

-- I Corinthians, XIII:1-3,12-13

Maureen Forrester, contralto; John Newmark, piano. CBC, recorded March 1-9, 1968

(Also in the realm of the baroque, last night we heard Forrester in one of her select operatic roles, Gluck's Orfeo, singing "Che farò senza Euridice." One of these days -- like when I acquire the technical competence to digitize LPs -- we'll hear some of her complete Vanguard recording conducted by Charles Mackerras, and maybe a bunch of other stuff as well.)


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST --

Finally, Mahler. As noted last night, we'll hear Forrester in the great culmating movement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), "Der Abschied" ("The Farewell"), in performances conducted by George Szell, Fritz Reiner, and Bruno Walter. And we'll sample some of the rest of this unique Mahlerian's repertory.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The current list is here.

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Sunday Classics: Surprise! With wizards like Bach and Mozart, you never know what you may hear next

The Freiburg Orchestra plays the fourth and final movement, Menuet-et-al., of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1.

Menuet, part 1 [0:04] + repeat [0:21]
-- part 2 [0:39] + repeat [0:56]
Trio, part 1 [1:14] + repeat [1:26]
-- part 2 [1:38] + repeat [2:09]
Menuet repeat: part 1 [2:42], part 2 [259]
Polonaise, part 1 [3:19] + repeat [3:39]
-- part 2 [3:59] + repeat [4:19]
Menuet repeat: part 1 [4:39], part 2 [4:58]
(Polonaise) Trio, part 1 [5:17] + repeat [5:33]
-- part 2 [5:49] + repeat [6:05]
Menuet repeat: part 1 [6:23], part 2 [6:41]

by Ken

We're listening today to two musical movements that have a lot in common. They're both fairly extended, and their extension comes in large part from a great deal of straight repetition built into their forms, and since their melodic material isn't the absolutely most memorable of which their august composers were capable, they don't necessarily draw that much attention to themselves apart from their length, especially coming as they both do from sets of six works which are watersheds in the history of music.

However, for me these movements are both treasures, for the buried treasures they contain. It may just be an accident, of course, or a pair of accidents. After all, it may be that composers really don't know when they've stumbled on something as arrestingly delicious as these two "surprises," and simply strew them about their works indiscriminately when they happen to happen. Or it may be, as I am beginning to think, that these composers were aware that these movements, exquisitely well-crafted though they are, have a certain plainness that cries out for, well, something special.

I mentioned last week in writing about Bach's cantatas: "If I were setting out to 'sell' Bach, or even to try to sketch the Bach who most matters to me, I would start with the secular music -- with, say, the Brandenburg Concertos and the solo-cello suites." And here we are at the Brandenburgs, the set of six concertos -- concertos in the baroque "concerto grosso" style, not to be confused with the later virtuoso-solo concerto -- Bach wrote for presentation to the Margraf of Brandenburg, in which he seemed to be trying to incorporate everything he knew about the form, which is pretty much everything there is to know about it.

I suppose Nos. 2 and 5 will always be the fan favorites among the Brandenburgs, and you won't hear me say a discouraging word about either. There's a reason, or rather a zillion reasons, why they're so loved. But somewhere along the line I found my fascination shifting to the "presentation" piece, No. 1, which has an extra movement (four instead of the customary three) and was clearly meant to be an attention-getter.

And what a strange idea to finish the piece off with a Menuet, even this enormously expanded Menuet-Trio I-Polacca-Trio II-Menuet, with repetitions of the Menuet at every opportunity (and an open question as to whether the repeats within the Menuet were meant to be observed at every repetition, which would make the movement that much longer.

Our "surprise" is what I've just called "Trio II." Bach just calls it "Trio," but I've added the roman numerals to make clear that it's a new piece and not a repeat of the Trio of the Menuet proper. No, this is the Trio of the just-introduced Polacca, or Polonaise. Don't ask me what's Polish about this somewhat characterless Polonaise -- you'll note that the Freiburg performers deal with this section [at 3:19] by taking it very fast. But when, after yet another repeat of the Menuet, we get to the Trio of the Polonaise, ah, magic! On an obvious technical level, note that after all the rest of the movement being in triple meter -- think "wsltz" -- this second Trio is in a spitfire 2/4, a "duple" meter.

A "trio" in this sense, simply refers to the contrasting central section, in a typical A-B-A form, of a dance like a minuet. Originally it was actually performed by a subsection of three players -- and you'll note that the Trio proper of the Menuet of the First Brandenburg [at 1:14] is scored for two oboes and bassoon! Oh, that Bach! (Actually, the second Trio is also literally a trio, for two horns plus the three oboes playing in unison.)


From its first recording of Mozart's last ten quartets, for Teldec in the late '70s, the Alban Berg Quartet -- consisting at the time of violinists Günter Pichler and Klaus Maetzl, violist Hatto Beyerle, and cellist Valentin Erben -- plays the theme-and-variations third movement, Andante, of Quartet No. 18 in A major, K. 464. The "surprise" comes at 8:40.

Theme, part 1 [0:00] + repeat [0:20]
-- part 2 [0:38] + repeat [1:03]
Variation I, part 1 [1:28] + repeat [1:47]
-- part 2 [2:06] + repeat [2:30]
Variation II, part 1 [2:54] + repeat [3:12]
-- part 2 [3:31] + repeat [3:53]
Variation III, part 1 [4:16] + repeat [4:35]
-- part 2 [4:54] + repeat [5:19]
Variation IV, part 1 [5:44] + repeat [6:03]
-- part 2 [6:22] + repeat [6:53]
Variation V, part 1a [7:26], part 1b [7:45]
-- part 2a [8:03], part 2b [8:22]
Variation VI, part 1 [8:40] + repeat [8:59]
-- part 2 [9:16] + repeat [9:39]
-- part 3 [10:00] -- viola takes over "surprise"
-- -- 2nd violin takes over "surprise" at 10:17
-- -- 1st violin takes over "surprise" at 10:26
Recapitulation [10:45] with cello "surprise" at 11:18

Haydn first heard the set of six string quartets that Mozart dedicated to him, written between 1781 and 1785, in Mozart's Vienna apartment in January and February 1785. Mozart was just turning 29 then, while Haydn was nearing his 53rd birthday. This is one of those artistic intersections where we can't do much better than just to stand back and behold.

The idea of writing instrumental works like sonatas and concertos in sets of six was carried over from the baroque, and Haydn had invented the string quartet form as we know it writing quartets in sets of six. By the time Mozart set out to write his "set of six," he had already written more than a dozen quartets, and Haydn had written his Opp. 1, 2, 9, 17, 20, and (just recently) 33.

It was after hearing these six quartets of Mozart's that Haydn made his famous declaration to the younger composer's father:

"Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition."

In terms of the compositional challenge Haydn set himself, his string quartets remain an unmatched and almost unimaginable achievement. Although nearly every one of his quartets is a remarkable work in its own right, the fact is that they weren't conceived as individual works. They really were created in and as sets -- in effect, 24-movement compositions. Each of the six opening movements, slow movements, minuets, and finales not only forms a a harmonious entity with its own partners but complements and contrasts with all the others.

What seems to have gotten Mozart to thinking was the additional potential that could be realized by thinking of each of the six works as more of an independent entity. And that, fired by the unique force of his own imagination, led him to explorations and inspirations that produced, well, the overwhelming effect on Haydn. In a sense, all of Haydn's remaining quartets (the Opp. 50, 54/55, 64, 71/74, and 76 sets of six, the Seven Last Words, and the two glorious quartets of Op. 77, clearly intended as the start of a never-completed set of six) are tributes to Mozart. Sadly, from Op. 71 on, they were posthumous tributes.

It's worth remembering that when Beethoven set out to write string quartets, he too tried to honor the set-of-six form, in his Op. 18, and he went even farther than Mozart in realizing the individuality of the six quartets. He clearly recognized the limits to which you can push the "set" compositional idea, and while his next quartets were written as a set of three, his Op. 59, that was the end of his dalliance with quartet sets.

I don't think I need to say much about the Andante of K. 464, the fifth of the six Mozart "Haydn" Quartets. Its variation form should help in following it. Note that the names I've slapped on are strictly mine, not Mozart's, and are for signpost identification only. What I've called "part two" of the Theme is already a variation, and within each two-part "Variation" the second is already a variation of the first. Note too that in general the "part 2"s are longer than the "part 1"s. The "part 1"s are good, solid eight-bar units; the "part 2"s are mostly stretched-out ten-bar ones -- swelling to 14 in what I've called Variation IV, which is followed by a variation (my no. V) that contains no straight repeats; it's a through-composed 32-bar structure in four neat eight-bar sections.

And then in Variation VI, Mozart cuts loose, and it's in the cello part that it happens, for the longest time seemingly ignored by the violins and viola, though eventually even they will get a turn at this strange and wonderful invention. It's certainly possible, by the way, for the quartet cellist -- with the consent of his/her partners, of course, to make even more of this out-of-nowhere inspiration, something I wouldn't mind at all.

Let me just call attention to one incidental delight in this movement: what I've called part 1 of Variation III. Note the little figure sounded by the two violins, then the quick intervention of the viola, whose downward figure is quickly undergirded by the cello, playing nothing more than a whole-note D followed by an eighth-note E on the downbeat. Then a similar mini-section follows, and growing out of it the cello gets to play a few solo notes, passed on to the viola and then the violins. It would be hard to be more economical with musical materials in this eight-bar unit, or to achieve more magical results.

Well, one final note. This is, as I've noted a long movement, almost twice as long in running time -- depending in part on how scrupulous the players are in observing every last repeat -- and the tempo marking is "Andante," a standard slow-movement marking. This is unquestionably the "slow movement" of K. 464. But it doesn't often sound slow, because much of it is written in (relatively) lickety-split 32nd notes. This is a master at play.

UPDATE: I actually uploaded two recordings of the Andante of K. 464, but the one I originally did my timings to seemed to disappear, so I redid all the timings and went with the ABQ version. Now the other one has miraculously reappeared. It's by the Smetana Quartet, from their 1975 Denon recording -- the last of the three recordings of theirs of K. 464 I own (which doesn't mean they made only three, just that I have only three):

Theme [0:00, 0:39], Variation I [1:28, 2:08], Variation II [2:57, 3:36], Variation III [4:24, 5:04], Variation IV [5:29, 6:10], Variation V [6:46], Variation VI ("surprise") [7:59, 8:36, 8:57], Recapitulation [9:42]

Note that the Smetana discreetly skips "part 2" repeats after the first couple. Note too that Smetana cellist Antonin Kohout (the only cellist in the group's 44-year history, 1945-1989) has more fun with our "surprise" figure than the ABQ's Valentin Erben (the only cellist in his quartet's 37-year history, 1971-2008).


QUICK HITS

For Bach's Brandenburg Concertos on records, the conductors' names that pop first into my mind are Pablo Casals (on two Sony budget CDs -- Nos. 1-3and Nos. 4-6,each with an orchestral suite as filler), Benjamin Britten (Decca),Adrian Boult, maybe Otto Klemperer.

UPDATE: As regular Sunday Classics readers know, these posts grow out of, reflect, and often trigger or at least prolong my musical occupations of the moment, so just because I finished with this post doesn't mean I've finished with the Brandenburg Concertos. This is the sort of music that, once I'm wound up, I don't easily release. So when I went out earlier today (to a tea tasting, of all things: teas that calm the body -- very nice!), I packed a couple of Brandenburg CDs of which I didn't have clear recall. And as I listen to the recording the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Centermade in 1995 for Delos, vigorously played and bold and vivacious in spirit, I'm thinking this might be an excellent choice if you're looking for a more stripped-down kind of performance that yet steers clear of what I think of as the Baroque Perversion. I wouldn't pay Amazon's $35 asking price, but I see there are vendors selling the set for not much more than $16 plus shipping.

As for Mozart's "Haydn" Quartets, there have been a bunch of fine recordings. As between the Alban Berg Quartet's two traversals of the last ten Mozart quartets (the "Haydn" Quartets and the four quartets that followed), I'm not saying I prefer the now-harder-to-find earlier Teldec version,but I'm also not saying I don't. The later EMI setis more confident, even assertive, but it's also slicker. (EMI now offers a seven-CD set,which you may find cheaper than the five-CD set of just the string quartets, adding to them the only two of Mozart's sublime string quintets the ABQ recorded as well as the two piano quartets with Alfred Brendel.)


COMING UP NEXT WEEK: YES, IT'S
ANOTHER NAME-THE-COMPOSER CONTEST

Barring technical glitches (which I'm not at all sure I have the power to bar), the first clues will be available Friday night, with give-away follow-ups scheduled for Saturday night. The composer in question will be the subject of next Sunday's post.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

Here is the updated list.

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