"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Nicolai Gedda (1925-2017)
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10pm ET UPDATE: We have Yevgeny Onegin audio files!
Anneliese Rothenberger and Nicolai Gedda as Constanze
and Belmonte in Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio,
from the cover of their 1966 EMI recording
MOZART: The Abduction from the Seraglio: Overture and Belmonte's entrance aria, "Hier soll ich dich denn sehen?"
BELMONTE: Here am I then to see you,
Constanze -- you, my happiness?
Let Heaven make it happen!
Give me my peace back!
I suffered sorrows,
o Love, all too many of them.
Grant me now in their place joys
and bring me toward the goal.
[aria at 4:35] Nicolai Gedda (t), Belmonte; Vienna Philharmonic, Josef Krips, cond. EMI, recorded February 1966
Now here it is sung by a younger, fresher-voiced Nicolai --
[aria at 4:20] Nicolai Gedda (t), Belmonte; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, Hans Rosbaud, cond. Recorded live at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, July 11, 1954
Finally, here it is sung in English (from a complete Abduction
recording based on a Phoenix Opera Group production) --
[in English; aria at 4:10] Nicolai Gedda (t), Belmonte; Bath Festival Orchestra, Yehudi Menuhin, cond. EMI, recorded Oct.-Dec. 1967 (now available in Chandos's opera-in-English series)
by Ken
Although Nicolai Gedda continued singing publicly well into his 70s, he had, not surprisingly, slipped out of the international circuit well before then, and since he was 91 when he died on February 8, in Switzerland, it may be that to younger music lovers the Swedish tenor is just a name, if that. But there was a time, and a fairly long one at that, when he seemed to be everywhere, singing more or less everything -- at least everything assumable by a generous-voiced lyric tenor, in the wide range of languages in which he sang with both technical and expressive assurance.
I NEVER THOUGHT OF OUR NICOLAI AS A FAVORITE
SINGER. IT'S MORE THAT HE WAS ALWAYS THERE.
For Christmas Eve, we hark unto the openings of Berlioz's "Childhood of Christ" and Handel's "Messiah"
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In the Sunday Classics era, Christmastime provided a bountiful musical opportunity. Since 2016 brings us a "three-day Christmas" -- Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Christmas holiday celebrated -- I thought I would dip back to 2011, when Sunday Classics had a three-day sequence that began with the openings of Berlioz's oratorio L'Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ) and Handel's eternal Messiah, then zoomed in on that opening tenor solo of Messiah, and finally expanded to encompass the whole of Part I, the only one of Messiah's three parts that is in fact Christmas-connected.
The original plan, of course, was just to paste the contents of the three original posts into new blogfiles. Alas, for all sorts of reasons that wasn't possible. Behind the scenes, for starters, all of the audio clips, every one of them had to be reformatted -- that is, once I figured out how to reformat them. For that matter, substantial portions of the texts of these posts had to be reformatted thanks to the Googlified software's fondness for eating up line breaks in older posts. Then, as noted below, a video clip had disappeared. On the bright side, my MIA-in-2011 CD copy of Colin Davis's first Messiah recording (the good one) has resurfaced, and will be pressed into heavy service on Monday. And on and on. The upshot is that, while I've tricked to stick as close as possible to the 2011 posts as possible, a fair amount of the 2016 versions is not only updated but brand new.
In the manger at this time Jesus had just been born,
but no wonder had yet made him known.
And already the powerful were trembling;
already the weak were hoping.
Everyone was waiting.
Now learn, Christians, what a monstrous crime
was suggested to the King of the Jews by terror.
And the celestial warning that in their humble stable
was sent to the parents of Jesus by the Lord.
Michel Sénéchal (t), Narrator; Orchestre des Concerts Colonne, Pierre Dervaux, cond. Adès, recorded 1959
Jean Giraudeau (t), Narrator; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. Pathé/Vox, recorded in the early '50s
Cesare Valletti (t), Narrator; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA, recorded Dec. 23-24, 1956
Anthony Rolfe Johnson (t), Narrator; English Chamber Orchestra, Philip Ledger, cond. ASV, recorded 1986
NOTE: These audio files were made, not for the 2011 post being revived here but for a later post. Since we're not returning to that later post anyway, I've folded these performances of the Opening Narration in here to replace a now-vanished video clip of the early numbers of L'Enfance du Christ. For more about the "new" clips of the Opening Narration, see below.
by Ken
Don't tell Bill O'Reilly, but I'm not a Christmas person. People don't come much more secular than me. But there are things about the Christmas season that I respond to, and Sunday Classics actually has several Christmas traditions. We do Tchaikovsky, and in particular the ballets -- a tradition carried forward with last week's first-ever Sunday Classics complete Nutcracker. [This was 2011, remember. The DWT complete Nutcracker became a mini-tradition itself for a couple of years.] And we do two altogether extraordinary works, which we've been prodding and poking at for years now: Handel's Messiah and Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ).
As it happens, both Messiah (following its overture) and L'Enfance kick off with tenor solos, each of which is for me one of the most meaningful, most powerful pieces of music I know. We have, in fact, dealt with both of them in past years, and we're going to be dealing with them again this week and next. But for tonight, I thought it might be fun to hear them sung by the same tenor.
Of course there wouldn't be much point if the tenor wasn't much good. But it occurred to me that we could accomplish this with a pretty good tenor indeed, Nicolai Gedda -- not one of my very favorite singers, but a good one, with a high degree of stylistic adaptability and and ability to sing effectively in more languages than any singer I can think of. (You'll notice that in "Comfort ye," for the phrase we normally hear as "saith your God," he carefully and precisely sings, each time, "sayeth two syllables] your God.") I don't know whether it qualifies as irony that for this quintessentially English and quintessentially French music, we're turning -- where else? -- to a Swede. These are both highly accomplished performances, which we're going to hear in the click-through.
2016 UPDATE:In 2011 there was actually a second week of "Christmas" posts, in which, having listened more closely to the opening tenor solo and then the whole of Part I of Messiah, which we're going to do again tomorrow and Monday, respectively, we proceeded to do the same with L'Enfance du Christ; this year, though, I'm afraid we're going no farther into L'Enfance than the Opening Narration. In the click-through -- new for 2016 -- I'm going to say a little about our opening assortment of performances of the Opening Narration of L'Enfance. We can proceed just as soon as you click through!
Sunday Classics: The young Colin Davis gets off to a running start
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The early-career Colin Davis
MOZART: The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384: Overture (with concert ending)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Colin Davis, cond. EMI, recorded c1961
by Ken
In this week's preview, I took a stab at describing the "happy traits" of Colin Davis's early career: a natural sense of musical flow coupled with a preference for having the music play with determination and make its points naturally. By way of illustration, I offered the vivid performances of Mozart's Idomeneo and Clemenza di Tito Overtures from CD's c1961 EMI LP of nine Mozart overtures, as contrasted with the still-pretty-good but noticeably more forced performances from his c1989 BMG CD of 12 Mozart overtures. We also heard the Magic Flute Overture from both Mozart overture records along with the performance from Davis's 1984 Philips recording of the complete opera.
As I've said before, very likely a bunch of times (at least I hope so!), there aren't many things I value more in the realm of art than the alert musical instincts of a talented musician. That innate talent still needs a whole lot of developing, including in the direction of expanding, both widening and deepening, in order to provide a true underpinning for an artistically productive career. But without this innate musicality as a starting point, where is there for the would-be musician to develop?
EVENTUALLY WE'LL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE
NONDEVELOPMENT OF DAVIS'S GOOD INSTINCTS
Sunday Classics preview: Three "K"s -- remembering three conductors who were great artists
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The gossamer "Ballet of the Sylphs" from Berlioz's Damnation de Faust is played by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Rafael Kubelik in this 1950 EMI recording, from a four-CD Kubelik "Portrait," one of the treasures that came out of my nearly 17-pound Berkshire Record Outlet carton this week.
by Ken
I'd been good for so long. Oh sure, I usually scanned the new classical overstock and cut-out listings on the Berkshire Record Outlet website most every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and sure, I dumped stuff in my shopping cart. But that didn't commit me to anything, and I figured that by and large the things that interested me would interest enough other site followers that they would soon enough go out of stock -- "soon enough" in this case being "in time to protect me from actually buying them."
Every now and then, something appears that (a) I really want and (b) I know can't remain in stock very long. Which happened just recently with a CD issue -- finally! -- of the not-quite-complete series of Beethoven string quartets recorded by the Paganini Quartet for RCA Victor between 1947 and 1953. Not only have these never been on CD; I'm not aware of them ever being reissued on LP. And in fact, all the LP copies I've ever come across have been really chewed up. They may not have sold a huge number of copies, but the people who bought them apparently played the heck out of them.
What that means, when there's an item I really want, is that I have to take a look at my shopping cart, to see what might still be available. And apparently it had been long enough since my last order that, even though yes, a fair number of things I'd dumped in had indeed gone out of stock, there was a heckuva a lot of stuff still poised for purchase. I started studying the list like it was a work of scholarship, or maybe a primary source document. I tried everything in my powers (which unfortunately include only a small store of willpower) to jettison items to get the order down to manageable size. But still there remained something like 46 other items (CDs and DVDs, many of them of course multiple sets). What could I do? The flesh is weak.
I won't tell you how much the order came to in dollars, but in weight it came to nearly 17 pounds. Since it arrived earlier this week, andI've only begun to sift through the treasures. But I noticed a number of samplings from conductors of a sort I'm especially fond of.
It goes back to a point I was making just last week, contrasting performers who think they can assemble performances by tacking bunches of notes together following some rules they think they've found in some book or article with performers who understand that the only way you find you way inside a piece of music is by finding how and why it moves from the inside.
We've already heard a morsel from one of our "three 'K's," Rafael Kubelik's "Ballet of the Sylphs,' above, and we'll hear another Kubelik tantalizer in a moment, along with samples from our other conducting "K"s.
Sunday Classics Easter Edition: Berlioz baits-and-switches us on the miracles of "The Childhood of Christ"
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King Herod's Dream
KING HEROD: That dream again! Again the child who is to cast me down. And not to know what to believe of this omen which threatens my glory and my existence!
O the wretchedness of kings! To reign, yet not to live! To mete out laws to all, yet long to follow the goatherd into the heart of the woods! Fathomless night holding the world deep sunk in sleep, to my tormented breast grant peace for one hour, and let thy shadows touch my gloom-pressed brow.
O the wretchedness of kings!, etc.
All effort’s useless! Sleep shuns me; and my vain complaining no swifter makes thy course, O endless night.
Roger Soyer (bs-b), King Herod; Orchestre National de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon, cond. Tono/Nonesuch, recorded in the early 1960s
Ernest Blanc (b), King Herod; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, Andre Cluytens, cond. EMI, recorded 1965-66
by Ken
What a prince this King Herod is! Would rather not be a king at all, but just frolic with the goatherds. That is, until the second he learns from his soothsayers that there's a threat to his continued reign, at which point he instantly goes as murderously berserk as it's possible for a human person can get.
We're going to review that story, at least in Berlioz's recounting, in a moment, by listening to the whole of Part I of Berlioz's Childhood of Christ. Meaning that we'll relive the celestial intervention by which the baby Jesus is saved from Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents, as promised in the opening narration -- which by now longtime Sunday Classics readers have heard, oh, a zillion times. (What can I say? It's one of the most amazing two-minute spans of music I know.)
Nobody grasps the human dimension of the saving of an innocent child better than Berlioz, who wrote the text as well as the music of L'Enfance du Christ, but as I noted in Friday's preview ("It's a miracle -- no, TWO miracles! Berlioz imagines the saving of the baby Jesus"), it's only one of two miracles depicted in this amazing "sacred trilogy," and only this first one involves divine intervention -- and even in the case of this one I think it would be inadvisable to stress the divinity overly hard; after all, who created the murderously mad king who creates the need for the miracle?
The second miracle, the saving of the little family unit of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus (and while Berlioz carefully refers to them as the holy family, and to the grownups as "Saint Mary" and "Saint Joseph," his treatment of them is otherwise strictly as the struggling family of a precious newborn) is entirely human, though again, it's made necessary by the substantial inhumanity of all the humans who turn a deaf ear to the desperate pleas of the near-death strangers.
I was wrong Friday to say that we had never heard this summing-up Epilogue (I found the post!). Nevertheless, for now we're going to jump straight to the end of L'Enfance.
BERLIOZ: L'Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ): Epilogue
The family of the baby Jesus, after wandering in the Sinai desert for three days, arrived in the Egyptian city of Saïs on the brink of death from thirst, hunger, and exposure. At the last possible moment they were taken in from the street without hesitation by an Ishmaelite family (whose father turned out to be, like Joseph, a carpenter), which dropped everything to tend first to the physical and then to the spiritual needs of their unexpected guests. In this Epilogue, the Narrator -- soon joined by a Mystical Chorus -- finishes the story.
NARRATOR: It was thus that by an infidel the Savior was saved. For ten years Mary, and Joseph with her, saw flourish in him sublime gentleness, infinite tenderness united with wisdom. Then at last, returned to the place where he first saw the day, he wished to accomplish the divine sacrifice that redeemed the human race from eternal punishment, and made clear for it the way of salvation. O my soul, what does it remain for you to do but to break your pride before such a mystery? MYSTICAL CHORUS: O my soul, what does it remain for you to do but to break your pride before such a mystery? NARRATOR and CHORUS: O my soul! O my heart, fill yourself, fill yourself with that serious and pure love that alone can open to us the celestial sojourn. Amen! Amen!
Cesare Valletti (t), Narrator; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded 1956
Michel Sénéchal, tenor; French Radio-Television Chorus, Orchestre des Concerts Colonne, Pierre Dervaux, cond. Véga/Adès, recorded 1959
Anthony Rolfe Johnson (t), Narrator; chorus directed by John Alldis, English Chamber Orchestra, Philip Ledger, cond. ASV, recorded 1986
12/24/2009: "Christmas Eve edition: A Christmas miracle, courtesy of Hector Berlioz" Opening Narration sung by Jean-Luc Viala, Cesare Valletti, and Anthony Rolfe Johnson; Opening Narration plus Scene 1 (with Michel Sénéchal et al., conducted by Pierre Dervaux) Part II: Overture and Farewell of the Shepherds; Repose of the Holy Family; Part III: Arrival in Saïs narration and Epilogue (all conducted by Jean-Claude Casadesus, Charles Munch, Philip Ledger, and Pierre Dervaux)
12/25/2010, "Christmas Eve edition: In Berlioz's telling, unto us a child is saved Opening Narration (sung by Giraudeau and Nicolai Gedda Part I: Scenes 1 and Scene 2 (Herod's aria) (Cluytens-EMI) Opening Narration through Herod's aria (sung by Roger Soyer, conducted by Jean Martinon) Scenes 5 and 6 (The Stable in Bethlehem) (Cluytens-EMI) Plus Part II, Overture and Farewell of the Shepherds; Repose of the Holy Family. Part III: The Arrival in Saïs narration
3/2/12: from Flute and Harp Week The trio for two flutes and harp played by the children of the Ishmaelite family in Part III (three performances)
Sunday Classics Easter Edition preview: It's a miracle -- no, TWO miracles! Berlioz imagines the saving of the baby Jesus
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Yessirree, girls 'n' boys 'n' moms 'n' dads . . .
It's a genuine downloadable "Holy Family Picture" coloring page! Download the pattern, color it in with crayons, cut it out with scissors, and with the mere addition of navy blue construction paper, four Popsicle sticks, glue, and a gold or silver star, you can make your very own version of this lovely, um, thing -- just in time for the holiday! (One quick word of caution, though, kids: "Parental supervision is recommended.")
NARRATOR: In the manger at this time Jesus had just been born, but no wonder had yet made him known. And already the powerful were trembling; already the weak were hoping. Everyone was waiting.
Now learn, Christians, what a monstrous crime was suggested to the King of the Jews by terror. And the celestial warning that in their humble stable was sent to the parents of Jesus by the Lord.
Michel Sénéchal, tenor; Orchestre des Concerts Colonne, Pierre Dervaux, cond. Véga/Adès, recorded 1959
by Ken
Personally, as a culturally Jewish nonreligious person, I have no stake in Easter, unless you count the slashed-price leftover chocolate bunnies and Easter-colored m&m's we can look forward to finding on the shelves next week. And while I can't speak for Hector Berlioz, I don't think his "sacred trilogy" The Childhood of Christ has much to do with religion either -- unless you think of religion as having something to do with fundamental issues of humanity and human relations, stuff like social responsibility, altruism, and empathy. And how crazy do you have to be to think of those things as having anything to do with religion?
Usually at Sunday Classics we "do" Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ in time for the Christmas season, along with Handel's Messiah. After December's preview post (in which we heard Nicolai Gedda singing the first tenor solos from both works), the main post focused on Messiah (we heard the whole of Part I), leaving us with an opening for a special Easter edition devoted to L'Enfance, focusing on the two miracles depicted in the text (the composer's own) and music. The one that the composer himself seems to focus on, as expressed in the opening narration that we've just heard, is the "celestial warning" that enables Joseph and Mary to spirit the baby Jesus away to safety from the paranoia-induced infanticide ordered by King Herod.
But as it turns out, the first miracle saves the little one only in the short term, and the second miracle is wrought entirely by human agency. Without giving short shrift to the first miracle, this holiday weekend we're going to be keeping an ear open for the second.
Sunday Classics: Flute-and-Harp Week, part 1 -- in which we somehow hear Bizet's "Toreadors"
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Claudio Abbado conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in the ever-familiar and ever-rousing Prelude to Bizet's Carmen, known in the Carmen Suite No. 1 as "The Toreadors." (We've got an uncommonly fine performance coming up in the click-through. UPDATE: Actually, two uncommonly fine, and very different, performances upcoming.)
by Ken
How we arrived at the Carmen Prelude should be clear, or clearish, by the time we're done tonight. In fact, this post -- which started out life as a normal Friday-night preview and swelled into "part 1" of a pair of Flute-and-Harp Week posts -- turns out to be a festival of digressions. For just a moment, at least, let's try to focus.
AS SOME OF YOU WILL RECALL, WE RECENTLY HEARD DEBUSSY'S SONATA FOR FLUTE, VIOLA, AND HARP
It was one of the Debussy works we listened to in connection with the panel of Debussy choosers polled by BBC Music Magazine as part of its celebration of the composer's 150th birthday -- chosen specifically by flutist Emmanuel Pahud. As I noted, this combination of flute and harp has a considerable history, and for that matter present, encompassing both works written for this combination, especially by French composers, and seemingly endless works arranged for it. Think of most any piece of music, and the odds are that some flute-and-harp duo somewhere has played it.
I can't say the flute-and-harp passion is one I've ever cultivated, but this seemed an appropriate time to poke at it a little. No, we're not going to do an exhaustive survey of the flute-and-harp literature Sunday, but we'll do something, and by way of preview I thought we could listen to two little pieces that i actually love -- both, as it happens, French.
Here's a first hearing of one of them, which as you'll see is going to occasion yet another digression. As I discovered while rooting out some biographical material on the performers, two of them embody a little story I can't resists sharing. We'll get to that too in the click-through.
BERLIOZ: L'Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ), Op. 25: Part III, The Arrival in Saïs: Trio for Two Flutes and Harp (Performed by the young Ishmaelites)
Doriot Anthony Dwyer and James Pappoutsakis, flutes; Bernard Zighera, harp (Boston Symphony Orchestra); Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Dec. 23-24, 1956
IN CONTRAST TO ALL OF TONIGHT'S DIGRESSIONS, SUNDAY'S POST SHOULD BE A MODEL OF SIMPLICITY
As I explained, this post started out life as a simple preview, and I actually considered recasting just this much as its own preview-plus-main-post, but realized that it doesn't contain that much music! So it will have to stand as part 1 of a two-part post, with Sunday's part 2 remaining as planned. Since there's only one relatively compact work on the schedule, that post should be compensatorily streamlined and to the point. (Hey, it could happen!)
Sunday Classics: Rambling through the countryside with Beethoven and Berlioz
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Pianist-as-conductor Zoltán Kocsis zips his way through the "Scene by the Brook" from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, with an orchestra identified as the Hungarian National Philharmonic. At 9:53 we get to see as well as hear the answering birdcalls from the flute and clarinet.
by Ken
We've spent a lot of time with the music of Hector Berlioz here at Sunday Classics -- not surprisingly, since he's one of the composers whose music is most personal to me. And not surprisingly that includes a fairly intensive session with the Symphonie fantastique. I think I mentioned back then that, while the Fantastique is a lot of things, one thing it clearly is is a deliciously twisted remapping of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. The most direct correspondence, of course, is between their slow movements, Beethoven's "Scene by the brook" morphing into Berioz's "Scene in the fields," which comes complete with the distant rumble of thunder that might have come in handy for Beethoven's third-movement dancing peasants who get caught in his fourth-movement thunderstorm.
So for tonight I thought we'd just listen to these two movements, conducted by the same pair of conductors. (And where but Sunday Classics would one of those conductors be Eugene Ormandy? Or, for that matter would the other be André Cluytens?) With, of course, the bonus of our video performances of both.
Sunday Classics, Christmas Day edition: In Berlioz's telling, unto us a child is saved
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by Ken
"For unto us a child is born," as we heard again in yesterday's Christmas Eve tribute to Handel's Messiah, and in both Handel's and Berlioz' celebration of this Christmas miracle the emphasis is clearly on the birth of "a child," with all the possibilities and hope the birth of every child represents.
Berlioz' Childhood (which we can also think of as "Infancy") of Christ is usually treated as if it were a simple bit of treacly sentimentality, but it seems to me one of the toughest-minded (if warmest-hearted) as well as elusive of Berlioz' characteristically elusive masterpieces. We've been poking at it for a couple of Christmas seasons now -- in 2008 and 2009.
We've seen, by now a lot, that Hector Berlioz was a compulsive inventor. Almost every time he imagined a major work, he invented a form (or, more accurately, a set of forms) for it. The result isn't easy for performers, as we saw, for example, with the extraordinary first part of his "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette, in which a semi-chorus functions as narrator, telling the whole story (with careful guest interjections) in a sort of chanting mode the composer concocted for the occasion.
Narration is a major issue in The Childhood of Christ as well. The tenor Narrator sings to us three times: before Part I, at the end of Part II, and at the start of Part III. We focused on the narration last year, and I'm going to plunge right into the amazing Opening Narration, where the tenor's lines, which have to be sung musically and beautifully without lapsing into the "sing-songy," minutely track the import of the horrific and miraculous doings they relate, while the modest orchestra is layered to suggest a wheezing church organ.
BERLIOZ: L'Enfance du Christ: Opening Narration
At that time Jesus had just been born in the manger; but no portent had yet made him known. Yet already the mighty trembled, already the weak had hope. Everyone waited ... Learn now, Christian folk, what hideous crime terror prompted then in the King of the Jews, and the heavenly counsel the Lord sent to Jesus’s parents in their lowly stable.
Jean Giraudeau, tenor; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. Pathé/Vox, recorded 1951
Sunday Classics, Christmas Eve edition: "Comfort ye"
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The Mormon Tabernacle Choir announces the joyful news, "For unto us a child is born," from Part I of Messiah.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
[Isaiah 9:6]
[No. 12]Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded 1958-59
Once again I thought we'd go straight to the heart of the matter and start with the chorus "For unto us a child is born," and once again, note the way Handel emphasizes, in the roster of names the newborn child will have, "Prince of Peace."
Mostly we're going to concentrate this year on the big bass excerpts from Messiah. We're doubling up with two fine basses, and we're going to have a lot of lovely singing, but mixed in is one truly breathtaking performance.
For now, though, we're going to start, resume, with the very beginning, almost -- we're skipping the Overture to go straight to the first musical numbers, the tenor recitative "Comfort ye, my people" and aria "Every valley shall be exalted." Note that the numbers included in brackets for all our Messiah selections are from the Eulenburg score edited by Brian Priestman. I've included them simply to give you an idea how the selections fit together, which we're really not going into today.
I've mentioned before that the little "Comfort ye" is one of my most deeply loved pieces of music, and I've already told the story of listening, on my friend Richard's 78-rpm copy, to the opening numbers of Sir Malcolm Sargent's first recording of Messiah and being simply overwhelmed by tenor James Johnston's seemingly singing directly to me about my warfare being accomplished and my iniquity pardoned. It was the beginning of my understanding that in setting this curious assortment of biblical texts, Handel wasn't trying to strike religious poses -- he found music that made the ideas embodied in the verses human and deeply personal.
Now this isn't James Johnston we're going to hear sing "Comfort ye" and "Every valley," but I've picked (I think) a pretty special recording, by a very familiar -- and distinctive-voiced -- performer who should be readily recognizable, but perhaps may not be. Just for fun, I'm not going to identify him till the click-through.
HANDEL: Messiah
Part I, Recitative and aria (tenor), "Comfort ye, my people" . . . "Every valley shall be exalted" [Nos. 1-2]
Recitative Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
[Isaiah 40:1-3]
Aria Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.
Sunday Classics: Berlioz' "Byronic" hero Harold seems more Berlioz than Byron
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The outstanding Russian violist Yuri Bashmet is the soloist, with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra, in most of the first movement of Harold in Italy, in a 2006 St. Petersburg New Year's performance. (The movement is completed here. With some fearsome intra-movement breaks, the piece is completed in two more clips.)
by Ken
Although we're rounding out our third week with Berlioz, I've been trying to stick close to the particular music we've been hearing, and so we haven't gotten to some basic points about his position in the musical cosmos. But since he defies ready classification in almost every other way, why should we surprised that his national identity too is blurry?
Oh, he's French all right, no doubt about that. He's as French as they come; it imbues his music in every possible way. And all things being equal, I would much prefer to hear not just French singers but French conductors and even orchestras perform his music. Unfortunately, those "things" are almost never anywhere near equal. The problem is that hardly any major musical country has been less attuned to Berlioz' music than his own. It doesn't help -- and this is one of those sweeping generalizations that is bound to cause offense, but that everyone knows is true, even (often especially) the French -- that the French tend to be, on the whole, so unmusical.
Because Berlioz as a composer "fit in" so badly, he would have been in trouble anywhere, but it surely didn't help that his own countrymen were in general so baffled by and indifferent to (more indifferent, I think, than hostile -- I don't think they took his music seriously enough to be actively hostile) his music. From the start, his music has been not just better liked but better understood abroad, not least in the German-speaking countries.
Here's a performance of the opening movement of the symphony with viola solo Harold in Italy -- which we began previewing Friday night -- by the Berlin Philharmonic under the dynamic Russian conductor Igor Markevitch:
BERLIOZ: Harold in Italy, Op. 16: i. Harold in the mountains; scenes of melancholy, of happiness, and of joy
Heinz Kirchner, viola; Berlin Philharmonic, Igor Markevitch, cond. DG, recorded 1956
And here's another "foreign" performance -- American orchestra, Hungarian-born conductor. Of course it matters that the orchestra is the lustrous Philadelphia and the conductor the perennially undervalued Eugene Ormandy.
Harold in Italy: i. Harold in the mountains; scenes of melancholy, of happiness, and of joy
Joseph de Pasquale, viola; Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 21, 1965
Of course Berlioz' standing outside his homeland has something to do with his own deeply cosmoplitan mindset. He was a literary omnivore, and as I tried to suggest in our consideration (in the main posts last week and the week before, and their assorted previews and flashbacks linked therein) of the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette and the opera Béatrice et Bénédict (adapted from Much Ado About Nothing), he showed in those musical realizations a depth of understanding that puts him on something like equal creative footing with Shakespeare, the only comparably successful musicalizations of Shakespeare being Verdi's (and his librettist Boito's) Otello and Falstaff.
Berlioz did enjoy some triumphs at home, perhaps most notably with the Symphonie fantastique (our subject in last night's preview). Nobody had heard anything like it, but for once it could be taken in by the musical public. One person it really excited was the great violinist (and himself a notable composer) Nicolò Paganini, who was persuaded by hearing it that Berlioz was the man to produce a glorious showpiece for viola and orchestra with which he could show off the splendid viola he had recently acquired. Berlioz was game, and hatched the idea of another literary-based symphony, this one taking off from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, into which he would weave a crucial viola solo.
Berlioz composed the first movement and sent it to Paganini, and really the only question is why he was surprised by the response. About the last thing the great virtuoso was expecting was A carefully interwoven viola solo. He expected his virtuoso showpiece to keep the soloist, meaning him, front and center, and constantly occupied. That may have ended his involvement with the piece, but fortunately Harold had taken firm enough shape in Berlioz' imagination that he hardly noticed.
One crucial difference between the Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy is that Harold, for all its professed literary indebtedness, has no "program," whereas the program of the Fantastique was an almost obsessive preoccupation of the composer, as we noted in last night's preview. (On this subject,
Not only does Harold have no program, it's next to impossible to point to anything in it that's truly "derived" from Byron's lengthy (I'm tempted to say "interminable") poem, beyond the general idea of wandering through Europe. Yes, Harold does visit Italy, but none of Berlioz' movement headings, or indeed their subject matter, seems to relate to incidents in Byron. Nor is there anything notably "Byronic" about Berlioz' Harold. Anthony Bruno ventures in his foreword to the Eulenburg miniature score: "The idée fixe, identifying Harold and recurring throughout, seems more the dreamy observer than passionate rebel, more Berlioz than Byron."
I can't imagine a better illustration than the movement we heard in Friday night's preview.
Harold in Italy: ii. March of the pilgrims singing their evening prayer
Laurent Verney, viola; Orchestra of the Opéra Bastille, Myung-Whun Chung, cond. DG, recorded June 1994
Nobuko Imai, viola; London Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded 1975
As Edward T. Cone points out in the essay on "The Symphony and the Program" which I referenced in last night's quick tour of the Symphonie fantastique (in the invaluable all-in-one resource for the piece, the encyclopedically informative Norton Critical Score he edited), it seems clear that some of the evolution of Berlioz' thinking about the program of the Fantastique had to do with the considerable success of his next major creative project, the programless symphony with viola obbligato Harold in Italy. Audiences seemed able to "get" it just from the music, with no more guidance than the (admittedly wonderful) suggestions provided by his movement headings.
Which brings us to the third and shortest movement of Harold, the "Serenade of an Abruzzi mountain man to his mistress." I often wonder whether conductors are noticing that very first word: serenade. It's certainly a mighty particular sort of serenade that Berlioz has imagined here, but it strikes me that in some fashion we ought to be able to hear our Abruzzi mountaineer reaching out musically to his sweetheart. The two performances I've picked seem, well, better on this count than many other performances.
Harold in Italy: iii. Serenade of an Abruzzi mountain man to his mistress
Pinchas Zukerman, viola; Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Charles Dutoit, cond. Decca, recorded June 1994
Donald McInnes, viola; Orchestre National de France, Leonard Bernstein, cond. EMI, recorded November 1976
Another point I don't think we've made explicitly in our three weeks' visit with Berlioz is his orchestral genius. His music itself may not have had much immediate influence, but his expanded imagining of the symphony orchestra had a lot to do with the way many Romantic composers used it. Which brings us finally to the finale of Harold.
Harold in Italy: iv. Brigands' orgy; recollections of the preceding scenes
Gérard Caussé, viola; Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson, cond. EMI, recorded March 3-7, 1991
Yuri Bashmet, viola; Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eliahu Inbal, cond. Denon, recorded March 24-25, 1988
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Of course we want to hear the whole of Harold. So why don't we return to the three performances we sampled Friday night, all featuring William Primrose as soloist?
BERLIOZ: Harold in Italy, Op. 16: i. Harold in the mountains; scenes of melancholy, happiness, and joy ii. March of the pilgrims singing their evening prayer iii. Serenade of the Abruzzi mountain man to his mistress iv. Brigands' orgy; recollections of the preceding scenes
William Primrose, viola; NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. Music & Arts, recorded live, Jan. 2, 1939
William Primrose, viola; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Nov. 13 and 15, 1951
William Primrose, viola; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded March 31, 1958
A BERLIOZ BONUS: MORE ROMÉO
If by chance Berlioz' Roméo has affected you the way it does me, it has infected you, and while the recordings we've already heard are still there to listen to again, I was reminded that I also have these orchestral excerpts on CD, as one of the fillers for Sony's reissue of Leonard Bernstein's Paris recording of the Berlioz Requiem. So I thought I'd throw them in.
BERLIOZ: Roméo et Juliette (dramatic symphony), Op. 17: Orchestral excerpts
i. Roméo alone -- Melancholy -- Distant noises of music and dancing -- Grand festivities at the Capulets'
ii. Love scene -- Night -- The Capulets' garden
iii. Queen Mab Scherzo
New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Oct. 26, 1959
Sunday Classics Preview: En route to Berlioz' "Harold in Italy," we have to pass through his "Symphonie fantastique"
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UPDATED to include some consideration of Berlioz' post-composition decision to make the whole Fantastique a dream rather than just the "psychedelic" 4th and 5th movements
Witches' sabbath -- as imagined by Arthur Rackham
in pen and ink and watercolor
by Ken
Our subject this week is Berlioz' symphony with viola solo Harold in Italy. Last night we heard three very different performances, all with William Primrose as soloist, of the second movement, "March of the pilgrims singing their evening prayer." Our big Harold push comes tomorrow, but just to touch base -- and since I happen to have an extra file left over from tomorrow's music, let's listen to the opening movement:
BERLIOZ: Harold in Italy, Op. 16: i. Harold in the mountains: Scenes of melancholy, of happiness, and of joy
Gérard Caussé, viola; Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson, cond. EMI, recorded March 3-7, 1991
IN WHICH WE DISPOSE OF BERLIOZ' SYMPHONIE
FANTASTIQUE IN A MERE PREVIEW!
As we noted last week in connection with the dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette, Arturo Toscanini took his Berlioz seriously, and was a great champion of both Roméo and Harold in Italy, which I think we can fairly describe as neglected masterpieces in those years, and for some years to come. After the great triumph of his NBC Symphony broadcast of the complete Roméo in 1949, he turned his attention to The Damnation of Faust, but sadly was never able to solve logistical problems starting with the availability of a suitable tenor.
Curiously, Toscanini seems not to have thought much of most of the Symphonie fantastique, an opinion I don't think many of us would share. The Fantastique remains one of the best-loved pieces of music ever written, and I'm kind of astonished that we're "dispatching" it in a "preview." Nevertheless, the piece's close connection to Harold in Italy, which we'll talk about more tomorrow, makes it suitable fare for this preview.
The history of the Fantastique, both its creation and the composer's subsequent thinking about it, is much too elaborate for us to go into here. But it's well to remember that symphonie fantastique was originally just part of the piece's subtitle. The working title was Episode from the life of an artist, which became the subtitle -- we assume with Berlioz' approval if not at his instigation.
I go into this because Berlioz' thinking about the "program" of the Symphonie fantastique evolved in a number of ways, and there are two significantly different versions, at least for the first four movements. Some of the changes reflect the inclusion of the strange sequel he had by then written, the "lyrical monodrama" Lélio, or The Return to Life. But clearly, by the time of the revised program, he had done some rethinking about the role of the program itself. In the new introductory note, in fact, he says that if the symphony is performed by itself, without Lélio, it's possible if necessary to refrain from distributing the program to the audience -- "retaining only the titles of the five pieces; the symphony (or so the author hopes) being able to offer on its own a musical interest independent of all dramatic intention."
AN ALL-IN-ONE RESOURCE FOR THE FANTASTIQUE
I should express my debt here to Edward T. Cone's outstanding essay on "The Symphony and the Program" in his invaluable Norton Critical Scoreedition, which presents not just "an authoritative score," but "historical background," "analysis," and "views and comments" (principally by composers). I'm delighted to see that it's still in print, though the list price is now closer to seven than six times the $3.25 printed on my copy -- but Amazon.com lists copies almost that cheap (not counting shipping)!
So by all means feel free to pay little or even no attention to the program. However, if you need to see the program in order to decide how much heed to pay it, here it is, in the revised version, which you'll note now makes the entire piece a product of the young musician's drug trip.
Originally only the "psychedelic" fourth and fifth movements, the "March to the scaffold" and "Dream of a night of witches' sabbath," were drug-induced dreams of the young musician. Edward Cone makes the interesting suggestion:
Berlioz certainly realized that whatever music can or cannot portray, there is no way that music alone can distinguish between the depiction (a) of an experience, (b) of a memory of the experience, and (c) of a dream about the experience. The distinction between waking and dream in the earlier program had thus been artificial and nonmusical, and the obliteration of the division might have been a confession that the descriptive powers of music were even more limited than the composer had hitherto admitted. It is possible, then, that the new program was his way of telling the audience: "Look, don't take all this too seriously; it's only a dream. The main thing is the music."
Speaking of the young musician's drug trip, for $2.97 you can download Leonard Bernstein's 15-minute illustrated talk on the Fantastique, "Berlioz Takes a Trip." I'm not sure if I've ever actually listened to it, but I'm sure you can expect, as usual with the "teaching" Lenny, much useful audible analysis of the piece -- provided you can get past the unfortunate '70s-style marketing hype that seems to suggest, "If you like drugs, you'll love this music."
Just to keep the performance selection within manageable bounds, I've confined the selection to Francophone conductors -- not strictly speaking French, or we would lose our Belgian maestro, André Cluytens. The orchestras aren't necessarily French (or even Francophone), though, but we have managed to work in a couple.
First Berlioz sets the scene:
A young musician with a morbid sensibility and an ardent imagination poisons himself with opium in a fit of amorous despair. The dose of narcotic, too weak to bring him death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by strange visions, during which his sensations, his feelings, his memories are translated in his sick brain into musical thoughts and images. The beloved woman herself has become for him a melody, like an Idée fixe that he reencounters and hears everywhere.
BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14:
i. Rêveries. Passions
1st PART Reveries. Passions
He remembers first that malaise of the soul, that vague des passions [wave of passions], those melancholies, those joys without origin which he experienced before having seen her whom he loves; then the volcanic love that she instantaneously inspired in him, his delirious agonies, his jealous furies, his returns of tenderness, his religious consolations.
Orchestre national de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon, cond. EMI, recorded January 1973
* * *
Symphonie fantastique:
ii. Un bal
2nd PART A ball
He reencounters his beloved at a ball in the setting of the tumult of a great festivity.
Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, Alain Lombard, cond. Erato, recorded c1972
* * *
Symphonie fantastique:
iii. Scène aux champs
3rd PART Scene in the fields
A summer evening in the country; he hears two shepherds who dialogue a "ranz des vaches"; this pastoral duo, the setting of the scene, the light rustling of the trees gently stirred by the wind, some trains of hope that he has recently developed, everything comes together to bring to his heart an unaccustomed calm, to give his ideas a more jocular color; but she appears again -- his heart is torn, dolorous presentiments disturb him: if she were deceiving him. . . . One of the shepherds repeats his naive melody; the other no longer answers. The sun retires . . . distant noise of thunder . . . solitude . . . silence . . .
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded Nov. 28, 1959
* * *
Symphonie fantastique:
iv. Marche au supplice
4th PART March to the scaffold
He dreams that he killed the one he loved, that he is condemned to death, led to the scaffold. The procession advances, to the sounds of a march at once somber and fierce, at once brilliant and solemn, in which a noise of heavy steps gives way without transition to the most clamorous outbursts. At the end the idée fixe reappears for an instant, like a last thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Nov. 14-15, 1954
* * *
Symphonie fantastique:
v. Songe d'une nuit du sabbat
5th PART Dream of a night of witches' sabbath
He sees himself at the witches' sabbath, in the midst of a frightful troupe of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every sort gathered for his funeral. Strange noises, groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries to which other cries seem to respond. The beloved melody reappears again; but it has lost its character of nobility and shyness; it's no longer anything but a base, trivial, and grotesque dance; it's she who's come to the witches' sabbath. . . . Blast of joy at her arrival. . . . She mingles with the diabolical orgy. . . Funeral-bell tolling, burlesque parody of the Dies irae. Witches' sabbath round-dance. The witches' sabbath round-dance and the Dies irae together.
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Georges Prêtre, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Feb. 3, 1969
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
THE SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE
Here's a recording I like a lot, which I don't think has gotten as much attention as it deserves.
BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique; Episode from the life of an artist, Op. 14
i. Reveries. Passions
ii. A ball
iii. Scene in the fields
iv. March to the scaffold
v. Dream of a night of witches' sabbath
ii at 14:00, iii at 20:26. iv at 36:50, v at 41:39 Philharmonia Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. EMI, recorded November 1958
edition, which presents not just "an authoritative score," but "historical background," "analysis," and "views and comments" (principally by composers). I'm delighted to see that it's still in print, though the list price is now closer to seven than six times the $3.25 printed on my copy -- but Amazon.com lists copies almost that cheap (not counting shipping)!
