"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Sunday Classics: What comes after Mozart's and Beethoven's minor-key symphonic opening movements?
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What comes after the monumental, mysterious opening movement of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, which we heard last week? At the link, Christian Thielemann conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in what seems to me a grindingly prosaic rendering of the thunderingly dramatic scherzo.
by Ken
I realize I should have been saying more about this amazing music we've been hearing, dipping into the two symphonies apiece for which Mozart and Beethoven composed opening movements in the minor mode. But really, when it comes to an incandescent movement like the opening one of Mozart's great later G minor symphony, No. 40, could I really have said anything more helpful than, say, "Wouldja listen to that?" And ditto when it comes to the opening movements of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies. I mean, we're talking here about two of the monuments of human civilization, and I thought talking should take distant second place to listening.
My point was, if we accept that writing a minor-mode symphonic first movement is an uncommon and nervy thing to do, and is likely to happen only if a composer has been seized by some gripping musical material that requires it, where does he want to take his audience next?
Sunday Classics: The symphonic Mozart and Beethoven open in minor mode
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They look so simple, these eight notes, but they form one of the most striking and readily identifiable motifs in all of music -- the opening of one of Beethoven's two minor-key symphonic first movements.
by Ken
In Friday night's preview we listened to all of the first movements among Mozart's 40 or so symphonies which are in minor keys. That's right, both of them, which happen to be in the same key, G minor.
Partly this was out of abiding affection for the masterpiece among them, the great Symphony No. 40, and partly it was as a springboard to listening to the two first movements among Beethoven's nine symphonies which are in minor keys, Nos. 5 (C minor) and 9 (D minor). It seems clear to me that these movements have something in common, something that sets them apart from all their major-key brethren -- and something that even sort of applies to the littler Mozart G minor Symphony, No. 25.
Let's listen again to the Mozart G minor opening movements.
MOZART: Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183: i. Allegro con brio
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia, recorded Dec. 10, 1954 (mono)
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Josef Krips, cond. Philips, recorded June 1973
MOZART: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550: i. Molto allegro
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded 1959
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Josef Krips, cond. Philips, recorded June 1972
I DON'T WANT TO MAKE THIS SOUND MORE
MYSTERIOUS THAN IT ACTUALLY IS
Sunday Classics preview: The symphonic Mozart dips into the minor
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Leonard Bernstein prepares listeners for listening afresh to Mozart's Symphony No. 40. (Warning: It's pretty technical.)
by Ken
I had a couple of possible post ideas that started to overlap and scrunch into each other. I had in mind a post where we would listen to the iconic first movements of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, and I was thinking separately about my curious ambivalence about Mozart's symphonies with the notable exception of the G minor, No. 40. And it was hard to escape one thing these three landmark symphonies have in common.
For tonight I thought we'd start by listening to the first movements of the Mozart's Symphony No. 40 and also No. 25, which happens to be in the same key (G minor). Of Mozart's 40-ish symphonies, these are the only ones that have minor-key first movements.
MOZART: Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183: i. Allegro con brio
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia, recorded Dec. 10, 1954 (mono)
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Josef Krips, cond. Philips, recorded June 1973
MOZART: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550: i. Molto allegro
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded 1959
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Josef Krips, cond. Philips, recorded June 1972
On Jan. 18, 1961, the first day of recording (the date cited above is clearly wrong), Bruno Walter rehearses the Los Angeles free-lancers who made up the Columbia Symphony Orchestra in the second half of the first movement of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. Producer John McClure also talks about the circumstances of the recording, and then we hear work on the opening of the second-movement Ländler.
by Ken
Before we continue, perhaps we ought to make sure we know what a Ländler is.
The ländler is a folk dance in 3/4 time which was popular in Austria, south Germany, German Switzerland, and Slovenia at the end of the 18th century.
It is a dance for couples which strongly features hopping and stamping. It was sometimes purely instrumental and sometimes had a vocal part, sometimes featuring yodeling. -- Wikipedia
There is a Ländler, as it happens, in Mahler's First Symphony. Here it is in the recording the 84-year-old Bruno Walter made during the same time period -- late January and early February of 1961 -- as the recording of the Ninth Symphony which is the subject of the above clip, narrated by original producer John McClure.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 in D:
ii. Kräftig bewegt (Powerfully animated)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Jan.-Feb. 1961
TO RETURN TO THE NINTH SYMPHONY . . .
Maybe we should reestablish Walter's connection to both the Mahler Ninth and the work that preceded it, the song-symphony Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) -- the supreme masterworks conceived and completed after the composer learned he was suffering from terminal heart disease.
Sunday Classics preview: Put these two little orchestral excerpts together, and you'll know the subject of Sunday's post
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by Ken
Tonight we have two orchestral excerpts. The first, about four minutes, is clearly an introduction to something. (In the click-through we're going to hear it again and take it just a bit further.) The second, a scant minute, is a tiny morsel snatched out of the early going of a staple of the orchestral literature, which we've heard before and will hear again in its entirety in the click-through.
Excerpt 1
Excerpt 2
The works from which these excerpts are drawn are related, but not the same. The performers in both, I will tell you, are the same: the Bavarian State Orchestra conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch. As I suggested in the post head, if you put the two excerpts together, you can hardly fail to know what the subject of this week's Sunday Classics post is going to be.
Sunday Classics: Bruno Walter rehearses and plays Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll"
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This is, as best I can tell, a mockup for a Japanese issue of the rehearsal for Bruno Walter's recording of the Siegfried Idyll.
by Ken
When we did our first exploration of the Siegfried Idyll in May, I promised that we would be coming back to the piece, approaching from a different direction. This is it. As I indicated in Friday night's preview ("Bruno Walter comes to America") and last night's ("The 'American' Bruno Walter brings his humanity to Wagner"), we've been heading toward a return engagement with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll as seen through the eyes of the 82-year-old Bruno Walter. Happily, Columbia Records released a 45-minute slab of rehearsal, which gives us an even closer view of his view than the lovely finished recording. Let's plunge right in:
BRUNO WALTER REHEARSES WAGNER'S SIEGFRIED IDYLL
(American Legion Hall, Hollywood, Feb. 27, 1959)
"You see, In Wagner, più piano means 'blot out,' you know, just give in, and it goes to the nothing . . ."
The published rehearsal begins at the upbeat to bar 4:
For reference, here's the finished recording of this same chunk of the piece (though starting at the beginning), bars 1-25:
Sunday Classics preview: The "American" Bruno Walter brings his humanity to Wagner
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The "Good Friday Spell" at Bayreuth, 1983
WAGNER: Parsifal: Act III, Good Friday Spell Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Feb. 25, 1959
by Ken
It's a nonstandard view, I know (and I've expressed it here before), but for me the really cherishable music-making Bruno Walter did was done here in North America. It's not just that this was Walter in the last two decades of his life -- as I noted in last night's preview, in which we heard a 1958 radio interview with him and the Fidelio and Leonore No. 3 Overtures from his 1941 Met Fidelio broadcast, he was 64 when he made his Met debut in 1941 -- though it's partly that. Walter unquestionably did "ripen" in his advancing years. But in what I've heard of his European performances of the later period, they still reflect an eyes-straight-ahead German traditionalism that hardly hints at the more spacious, lyrical, humane, frequently profound music-making he did so much of on this side of the Atlantic.
I am, as far as i know, the only person on the planet who considers Walter's 1936 and 1951 Vienna Philharmonic recordings of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) okay but nothing special -- not remotely in a class with the glorious 1960 Columbia recording with the New York Philharmonic. (See, for example, this August 2010 Sunday Classics post.) This of course is a work with which Walter was singularly connected, dating from the final years of Mahler's life, when Walter was most closely associated with him, and it would be the first major work of Mahler's whose premiere he did not live to conduct, a job that fell to Walter.
Anyway, this "Good Friday Spell" from Parsifal seems to me a fine example of what I mean, and it should sound even more so when we hear it again in the click-through in its more expected position following the opera's prelude, which I think will set us up pretty well for our glimpse tomorrow of Walter's special accomplishment with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, which again seems to me very much the work of the deeply feeling "American" Walter.
Sunday Classics preview: Bruno Walter comes to America
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A 1958 interview with conductor Bruno Walter (1876-1962)
by Ken
Although the sound suggests that this interview was recorded on an Edison cylinder (it actually improves suddenly in the last minute or two), we know from internal evidence that it took place in 1958. The maestro explains in his charming accent that he "started conducting in eighteen hundred and ninety-four -- so, sixty-four years ago." In September 1958 Walter turned 82.
It's an interview where fairly pedestrian questions turn out to have fairly interesting answers. I actually transcribed some of it, for the benefit of non-audio-clickers, only I don't know what I did with the transcription, and I'm just not up to doing more transcribing just now. So let me commend to you Walter's description of the nature of a conducting career, especially the peculiar conditions under which a would-be conductor learns his craft -- without benefit of his actual "instrument" until he actually gets a job! Beyond that I hope you'll be charmed (I was, and I'm not easily charmed) by his description of the personal and imaginative qualities required of a conductor.
The interview is included as a bonus with the Guild International issue of Walter's 1941 Met broadcast performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, and our musical offerings tonight come from that performance.
Sunday Classics preview: In Mahler's "Song of the Earth" we meet a springtime drunk
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The elegant Swiss tenor Ernst Häfliger is our first
soloist in Mahler's song "The Drunk in Spring."
by Ken
Bruno Walter's 1960 Columbia recording of Mahler's song symphony Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde), the composition that fell between his Eighth and Ninth Symphonies and would have been No. 9 if he hadn't been so superstitious about allotting that fateful number to a symphony, was originally released on three LP sides. Surprisingly quickly, though, it was compressed onto two very well-filled sides, and that was my first recording of Das Lied, whose texts are German adaptations by Hans Bethge (from the collection The Chinese Flute) of Chinese originals.
Even as I was getting to know the piece, it was obvious that the emotional center of gravity was the concluding sixth movement, the half-hour song "The Farewell" ("Der Abschied," which we blundered our way into in our Maureen Forrester remembrance), about equal in length to its five predecessors put together, so that was where I usually headed, and since it was preceded on Side 2 by the last of the tenor songs, that meant I listened just as often to the contrastingly very brief song "The Drunk in Spring" ("Der Trunkene im Frühling"), as sung by the elegant Swiss tenor Ernst Häfliger -- a studio replacement, you'll recall, for the English tenor Richard Lewis, who sang in Walter's live New York performances that April but had only months earlier recorded Das Lied with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony for RCA. (We're going to hear some of that performance tomorrow night.)
Inevitably, the attention of the Das Lied listener gravitates to the generally weightier alto songs, Nos. 2, 4, and 6. The alto has the two longest (No. 2, "On Beauty," in addition to "The Farewell") and the tenor the two shortest (No. 3, "On Youth," in addition to "The Drunk in Spring"). As I've lived with this music, however, I've found myself gravitating to the more laconic, even engimatic tenor songs.
I thought this week we would listen just to the three tenor songs, and naturally, the way we do things here at Sunday Classics, we're going to approach them backwards, starting with "Der Trunkene im Frühling," and starting with my trusty old Häfliger-Walter-Columbia recording (in which the American mezzo Mildred Miller gives a smashing performance of the alto songs). Then we hear the performance by René Kollo (pictured here) and Leonard Bernstein, from the same concerts -- featuring a glowing performance of the alto songs by Christa Ludwig -- at which Bernstein's video recording was made.
MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth): v. "Der Trunkene im Frühling" ("The Drunk in Spring")
[English translation by Deryck Cooke.]
If life is but a dream, why then toil and fret? I drink till I can drink no longer, the whole livelong day!
And when I can drink no longer, since gullet and soul are full, then I stagger to my door and sleep stupendously!
What do I hear on awakening? Hark! A bird sings in the tree. I ask him if the spring is here; I feel as if it were a dream.
The bird twitters, "Yes! Spring is here -- came overnight!" In deepest wonder I listen. The bird sings and laughs.
I feel my glass again, and drain it to the dregs, and sing, until the moon shines bright in the black firmament.
And when I can sing no longer, then I go back to sleep; for what does spring matter to me? Let me be drunk!
Ernst Häfliger, tenor; New York Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded April 1960
René Kollo, tenor; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded live, May 1972
Logically enough, as we move backwards through the tenor songs of Das Lied, en route to the opening "Drinking Song of the Sorrow of the Earth," tomorrow night we'll hear the third movement, "Von der Jugend" ("On Youth"), and I'll tell you the special personal identification that opened this song up for me -- or perhaps opened me up for this song.
Sunday Classics: Remembering Maureen Forrester, Part 2: Mahler
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A lot of Maureen Forrester's Mahler is actually available. An unfortunate exception is the RCA coupling of the Songs of a Wayfarer and Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Death of Children," the cycle based on poems by Friedrich Rückert) with Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony. Happily, they're all available on YouTube, though unfortunately in mono. Here's the final song of the Kindertotenlieder. Even if you don't know the cycle, or the song, the situation should be clear enough, and you're bound to note the devastating switch from the minor to the major for the final stanza.
"In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus" ("In this weather, in this bluster")
In this weather, in this bluster, never would I have sent the children out. They were taken out. I had nothing to say about it.
In this weather, in this storm, never would I have sent the children out. I would have been afraid that they would catch sick. Those are now idle thoughts.
In this weather, in this horror, never would I have sent the children out. I worried they might die tomorrow. That's now not to be worried about.
In this weather, in this bluster, never would I have sent the children out. They were taken out. I had nothing to say about it.
In this weather, in this storm, in this bluster, they're resting as if in their mother's house, not frightened by any storm, by God's hand protected.
by Ken
One immediately striking feature of Mahler's writing for the female voice is a clear preference for the lower types over the soprano. Christa Ludwig has explained that Mahler's songs were a treasure bequeathed to her by her mother, also a mezzo-soprano -- a legacy that had to be guarded closely during the Third Reich, when the music of the Jewish-born Mahler was taboo. Yet a precious gift it was. Ludwig and Mahler became one of the greatest of all matches of performer and composer. But Mahler's "low voice" songs are equally accessible to a true contralto, and if I had to choose between Christa Ludwig's Mahler -- of which we've heard quite a lot in our Mahler explorations -- and Maureen Forrester's, well, I simply couldn't.
One distinction I can make, though: While there are lots of excellent mezzo performances, including some that can be said to rival Ludwig's, beyond Forrester (1930-2010) the true-contralto option is hardly represented. There's the too-little-appreciated Lili Chookasian (born 1921, retired 1986), who recorded Das Lied von der Erde with Eugene Ormandy for Columbia and later, somewhat past her prime, with Walter Susskind for Vox. There's the fine Czech contralto Véra Soukupová. And that's about it.
(I guess I should make clear that I'm not a great fan of the English-style contralto, which tends to substitute hooting for the lower-range fullness and lushness we expect in a true contralto, and I'm afraid that includes the much-loved but to me hooty and flutter-toned Kathleen Ferrier, especially in Mahler. I will say, though, that I really like what Ferrier does in a miraculously preserved -- except for the first seven bars -- 1952 broadcast performance by John Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra finally released in 2003,which also features tenor Richard Lewis sounding like I doubt you've ever heard him, in fact rather lovely -- I kid you not.)
JUST WHAT IS A CONTRALTO ANYWAY?
I suppose we ought to provide some definition for "contralto." It's the deepest of the female vocal ranges, anchored in those rich vocal depths. Here's a commonsense way to distinguish it from the next-upward female voice type: If you have to wonder whether a voice is a contralto or a mezzo-soprano, odds are it's a mezzo-soprano.
"DER ABSCHIED" ("THE FAREWELL")
In our numerous Mahler explorations to date (see the post listing), we've stuck mostly to the relatively early period; I don't think we've ventured beyond the Fourth Symphony (1900). This has seemed to me quite an enormous enough bite to try to chew. Now we're jumping ahead, jumping in fact right over the fullest expression of the composer's artistic self-confidence, the monumental Eighth Symphony with its philosophically triumphant conclusion drawn from Goethe's Faust.
After completing the Eighth Symphony, however, Mahler learned (in 1907) that he had a terminal heart condition, and the transformation in his artistic outlook was startling. In his new relationship to the finiteness as well as the preciousness of mortal existence, Mahler found in a copy he had been given of Hans Bethge's The Chinese Flute, translations (or more likely adaptations) of Chinese poems, both the inspiration and the actual texts for what became in all but name his ninth symphony, Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth).
The first, third, and fifth movements of Das Lied are set for tenor solo; the second, fourth, and sixth for alto (or alternatively for baritone, singing the music an octave lower -- an alternative that sounds interesting but in my experience doesn't work very well). That last movement, "Der Abschied" ("The Farewell"), is roughly equal in length to the first five movements combined, and has always been recognized as one of Mahler's supreme achievements. Even though he was by no means finished with his life or work (still to come were the whole of the sublime Ninth Symphony and the considerable work he achieved on the Tenth by his death in 1911), there's no question that this is in part Mahler's own farewell to the earth.
One of these days we'll talk more about and hear more of Das Lied, but for now, quite madly, we're just plunging into the half-hour expanse of "Der Abschied." Conveniently for our purposes, this CD issue of the Berlin tour performance by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, with Forrester and Richard Lewis (who seem to have been joined at the hip in this music), has track points that enable us to commit the appalling barbarity of splitting the thing apart and separately registering its component parts, which more or less correspond to stanzas.
MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth): vi. "Der Abschied" ("The Farewell")
Maureen Forrester, contralto; Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Live performance in Berlin, Apr. 21, 1967 (mono)
The sun is going down behind the mountains. In every valley evening is descending, bringing its shadows, which are full of coolness. O look! where like a silver bark afloat, the moon through the blue lake of heaven soars upwards. I sense the shivering of a delicate breeze behind the dark fir trees.
There aren't many more beautiful moments in music than the refrain "O sieh! Wie eine Silberbarke schwebt der Mond am blauen Himmelsee herauf" ("O see! Like a silver bark the moon soars over the blue heavenly lake"), at 2:48 of the Szell performance, and just about the same point in the Forrester-Reiner and Forrester-Walter below.
Let's continue now.
track 2, "Der Bach singt voller Wohllaut durch das Dunkel"
The brook sings, full of melody, through the darkness. The flowers grow pale in the twilight. The earth is breathing, full of rest and sleep; all desire now turns to dreaming. Weary mortals wend homewards, so that, in sleep, forgotten joy and youth they may learn anew. The birds huddle silent on the branches. The world is falling asleep!
track 3, "Es wehet kühl im Schatten meiner Fichten"
It blows cool in the shadow of my fir trees. I stand here and wait for my friend. I wait for him, to take the last farewell. I long, O my friend, to be by your side, to enjoy the beauty of this evening. Where are you lingering? You leave me long alone! I wander to and fro with my lute on pathways that billow with soft grass. O beauty! O eternal life- and love-intoxicated world!
Orchestral interlude
After the magnificent orchestral interlude, when the soloist resumes her song we've actually switched to a second poem, by a different poet, which Mahler cunningly amalgamated with the first.
track 4, "Er stieg vom Pferd und reichte ihm den Trunk"
He alighted from his horse and handed him the drink of farewell. He asked him whither he was going, and also why, why it had to be. He spoke; his voice was veiled: "You, my friend -- In this world fortune was not kind to me! Whither I go? I go, I wander in the mountains, I seek rest for my lonely heart! I journey to the homeland, to my resting place; I shall never again go seeking the far distance. My heart is still and awaits its hour!
The dear earth everywhere blossoms in spring and grows green again! Everywhere and eternally the distance shines bright and blue! Eternally . . . eternally . . .
THE COMPLETE "ABSCHIED"
Having taken the movement apart, we surely need to put it back together. We're going to hear it now in two performances that are bound historically.
When Bruno Walter, who had conducted the premiere of Das Lied in November 1911, some six months after the composer's death, gave his last concert performances of the work, with the New York Philharmonic in April 1960, his soloists were Maureen Forrester and (who else?) Richard Lewis. Happily, Columbia chose to make a studio recording, but unfortunately Forrester and Lewis had just recorded Das Lied the previous November with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony. Here is the "Abschied" from that wonderful RCA recording.
Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth): vi. "Der Abschied" ("The Farewell")
Maureen Forrester, contralto; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Nov. 7 and 9, 1959
So Walter and Columbia had to find replacement soloists for their recording. They did so so successfully, with the American mezzo Mildred Miller and the Swiss tenor Ernst Häfliger, and Walter himself was in such inspired form, that the result was not just -- it seems to me (if not many other music lovers) -- one of the conductor's finest recordings but one of the most memorable recordings ever made. We do, however, have an aural record of the Forrester-Walter collaboration in Das Lied, from the radio broadcast. Here's that "Abschied."
Maureen Forrester, contralto; New York Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, cond. Music & Arts, recorded live in Carnegie Hall, Apr. 16, 1960 (mono)
MAHLER: Rückert Songs
In addition to the cycle of Kindertotenlieder poems (of which we heard the final one at the top of this post), Mahler set five other poems by Friedrich Rückert. We're going to hear the anxiety-ridden "At Midnight" and the famously valedictory "I have lost touch with the world."
v. "Um Mitternacht" ("At Midnight")
At midnight I awoke and looked up at the sky. No star in the galaxy smiled at me at midnight.
At midnight my thought went out to the barriers of darkness. No thought of light brought me comfort at midnight.
At midnight I paid attention to the beating of my heart; a single pulse of pain was roused at midnight.
At midnight I fought the battle, o Mankind, of your sorrows; I couldn't decide it with my powers at midnight.
At midnight I gave my powers into your hand. Lord! Over death and life you keep watch at midnight.
Maureen Forrester, contralto; Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ferenc Fricsay, cond. DG, recorded Sept. 16, 1958
i. "Ich bin her Welt abhanden gekommen" ("I have lost touch with the world")
I have lost touch with the world, with which I formerly wasted much time. It has for so long heard nothing of me, it may well think that I have died.
And for me it doesn't matter at all if it takes me for dead. I can't even say anything against it, for really I am dead to the world.
I am dead to the worldly tumult, and rest in a quiet place. I live alone in my heaven, in my loving, in my song.
Maureen Forrester, contralto; Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ferenc Fricsay, cond. DG, recorded Sept. 16, 1958
MAHLER: "Urlicht" (from Symphony No. 2)
The setting of "Urlicht" ("Primal Light"), from the collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn), which Mahler incorporated into the Resurrection Symphony as fourth-movement lead-in to the heaven-storming finale, is one of the composer's most beautiful songs, and something of a Maureen Forrester signature piece. The first Forrester recording I'm aware of of "Urlicht" is the 1957 video version with Glenn Gould conducting (yes, conducting! and conducting left-handed!) that we saw way back when (It doesn't get more eloquent than Maureen Forrester singing Mahler's "Urlicht"). Her first commercial recording followed soon thereafter, when Bruno Walter chose her for his New York Philharmonic performances and studio recording of the Resurrection Symphony.
O rosebud red! Man lies in the greatest need. Man lies in the greatest anguish. Far rather would I be in heaven.
Then I came to a broad path. Then a little angel came and wanted to send me away. But no! I didn't let myself be sent away.
I am from God, I want to return to God. Dear God will give me a little light, will light me all the way to eternal blessed life.
Maureen Forrester, contralto; New York Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Feb. 17-21, 1958
We heard Forrester's next-to-last recording of "Urlicht" (again as far as I'm aware) in our Forrester pre-preview last week. Now we're going to hear the last, made some 30 years after the TV performance with Gould, when rich-guy Resurrection aficionado Gilbert Kaplan made his second recording of the symphony. Note how much broader the pacing is than Walter's -- much harder for both the conductor and the soloist to sustain. It's tantalizing to imagine how the young Forrester would have risen to this challenge. Still, for a 57-year-old singer this seems to me a pretty astonishing piece of singing.
Maureen Forrester, contralto; Vienna Philharmonic, Gilbert Kaplan, cond. DG, recorded July 1987
SONGS FROM DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN
Finally, we return to the world of the folk-poetry anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which provided Mahler with so much inspiration, of such varied sorts, in the early part of his career. First is a song we've heard a great deal of (and a performance we've heard too), "Anthony of Padua's Fish Sermon." Then, finally, we hear one we haven't heard, a haunting specimen from Mahler's "military" group, "Where the Beautiful Trumpets Blow," a mournfully appropriate parting glimpse of this special singer.
"Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" ("Anthony of Padua's Fish Sermon")
Antonius, arriving for his sermon, finds the church empty. He goes to the rivers and preaches to the fishes;
They slap their tails, glistening in the sunshine.
The carp with roe have all come here, have their mouths wide open, listening attentively.
No sermon ever pleased the carp so.
Sharp-mouthed pike that always fight have hurriedly swum here to hear the pious one;
No sermon ever pleased the pike so.
Also those fantastic creatures that are always fast, the stockfish, I mean, appear for the sermon;
No sermon ever pleased the stockfish so.
Good eels and sturgens that banquet so elegantly even they took the trouble to hear the sermon:
No sermon ever pleased the eels so.
Crabs too, and turtles, usually such slowpokes, rise quickly from the bottom, to hear this voice.
No sermon ever pleased the crabs so.
Big fish, little fish, noble fish, common fish, all lift their heads like sentient creatures:
At God's behest they listen to the sermon.
The sermon having ended, each turns himself around; the pikes remain thieves, the eels, great lovers.
The sermon has pleased them, but they remain the same as before.
The crabs still walk backwards, the stockfish stay rotund, the carps still stuff themselves, the sermon is forgotten!
The sermon pleased. They remain as always.
Maureen Forrester, contralto; Vienna Festival Orchestra, Felix Prohaska, cond. Vanguard, recorded May 27-June 1, 1963
"Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen" ("Where the beautiful trumpets blow")
"Who then is outside and who is knocking, waking me so gently?"
"It is your heart's beloved, and let me in with you! Why should I stand here longer?
"I see daybreak rising, daybreak, two bright stars. I surely wish I were with my sweetheart! With my sweetheart!"
The girl got up and let him in. She also bids him welcome.
"Welcome, my dear boy! You've been standing so long!" And she gives him her snow-white hand. In the distance the nightingale sang. The girl began to weep.
"O do not weep, my beloved! By year's end you will be my own. My own you will certainly be, as no other is on earth! O love, on the green earth. I go off to war on the green heath; the green heath, it's so far!
"There where the beautiful trumpets blow, there is my house of green turf."
Maureen Forrester, contralto; Vienna Festival Orchestra, Felix Prohaska, cond. Vanguard, recorded May 27-June 1, 1963
[Note: I have to say, I'm not thrilled with what I hear coming out of these audio tracks of the Forrester-Prohaska performances, which sound metallic and fake-echoey, certainly not what I recall from my exceedingly well-played LP. I'd like to think that this is a quirk of the processing chain I've subjected them to rather than (admittedly more likely) a lousy CD transfer -- not what you'd hope for one of the all-time great recordings.]
Sunday Classics: Dvořák's music isn't just music to love, it's music that loves you back
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UPDATE, 9:05am ET: Crisis! The site that hosts the audio clips doesn't seem to be hosting at the moment. I don't think there's anything I can do except hope it spontaneously regains its equilibrium. (I thought it was too much to believe I'd actually gotten control of this process. Ha!) Well, you can still enjoy the "Song to the Moon."
UPDATE, 9:15am ET: Seems to be OK now. Don't ask me. (I don't plan to hold my breath though.)
Okay, I suppose the lip-synched visuals are kind of hokey, but in this undated German TV clip Lucia Popp (1939-1993) sings the daylights out of the water nymph's haunting "Song to the Moon" from Dvořák's Rusalka, in which Rusalka sings of her love for a handsome young prince -- one of those inter-life-form relationships that rarely seem to end well.
Silver moon upon the deep dark sky, Through the vast night pierce your rays. This sleeping world you wander by, Smiling on men's homes and ways. Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me, Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide? Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide? Tell him, oh tell him, my silver moon, Mine are the arms that shall hold him, That between waking and sleeping he may Think of the love that enfolds him, May between waking and sleeping Think of the love that enfolds him. Light his path far away, light his path, Tell him, oh tell him who does for him stay! Human soul, should it dream of me, Let my memory wakened be. Moon, moon, oh do not wane, do not wane, Moon, oh moon, do not wane....
by Ken
So, finally, we get to the long-delayed and much-previewed Dvořák piece. In case anyone's keeping track, I can report that back on January 17 I mentioned that that week's intended subject was being put on hold -- for a week, I thought at the time! By way of easing into the still-unnamed subject, I did some speculating on who might be "the world's greatest tunesmith," focusing that day on Puccini and the next day on Schubert.
The point was that when it comes to sheer melodic inspiration, this is the company in which I would place Dvořák. It's the top rank. And in the case of Rusalka's aria, his melodic and also harmonic radiance is equally apparent in the orchestral accompaniment, and this too is characteristic of the composer.
Which is practically a cue for the second-movement Largo of Dvořák's last symphony, From the New World, written during the spring and summer of the composer's first academic year in New York, 1892-93, as director of the new National Conservatory of Music. (The New World was long known as Symphony No. 5, but by now is securely established as No. 9, thanks to numerical fixes starting with the inclusion of four earlier, previously unnumbered symphonies.) For this post, after listening to the Largo in a sizable stack of New Worlds I have on CD, I was set to go with Bruno Walter's Columbia Symphony recording(the CD that coupled it with his lovely Eighth Symphony is hard to find now, and therefore expensive, but Amazon offers an MP3 download), until it was nosed out by one last contender, Otto Klemperer's EMI recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra (not available at all now except at silly prices).
Yes, this is the entire English horn part of the New World Symphony; note that the instrument "tacet" (is silent) in movements I, III, and IV.
You'll note that the English horn part begins with six bars of rest. (That's what that "6" over the printed rests at the very start means.) In those six bars you'll hear the kind of intensity and emotional resonance Dvořák could build out of such seemingly materials as the four-bar chorale for lower woodwinds and all the brasses, which offers a textbook demonstration of the fundamental process of harmonic "resolution," where the chords go through harmonies that tease the ear as it craves for those harmonies to "resolve" into a satisfactory "root" chord. When it finally does, Dvořák brings the timpani in, tapering off then to set the stage for a segue into a gentler string chorale. (The wind chorale recurs in varied forms at strategic points through the movement.) Shockingly, you'll hear conductors simply chug through these six opening bars as if they were mere filler inserted to delay the entrance of the English horn -- amazing.
As for that entrance of the English horn (or cor anglais, the slightly larger and deeper and significantly reedier and more plaintive cousin of the oboe; the English horn, as always needs to be pointed out, is neither English nor a horn), sounding that ineffably beautiful melody, you may be thinking that surely this melody is the Negro spiritual "Going Home"? Indeed it is. But as far as I know, the scholarly position is still that the spiritual borrowed the tune from Dvořák rather than vice versa. Clearly, though, the tune is in the spirit of the spiritual. During his time in the U.S., Dvořák made no secret of his admiration for the spiritual, which he thought could help form the basis for a truly American music.
ENCORE! LET'S HEAR THE LARGO AGAIN!
I couldn't resist buying it (it was only $2.99 [note: and that includes a second CD containing the great cycle of overtures, In Nature's Realm, Carnival, and Othello, Opp. 91-93! -- Ed.]), and now I can't resist sharing it. Sometimes you can be blown away by a recording and it turns out it kind of hit you "just right." But as I was transferring it, I just listened again to the Largo in this 1999 recording of the New World Symphony by the Czech Philharmonic under pianist-turned-conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, who was principal conductor of the orchestra from 1996 to 2003, and wow! It's a genuinely great performance, in authentically Czech orchestral colors, remarkably vivdly recorded (by a Japanese recording team, whose tape was subsequently licensed by the Finnish label Ondine,which has been recording and/or releasing Ashkenazy with several orchestras).
The case of "Going Home" isn't unique in Dvořák's output. Even now people probably tend to assume that those 16 glorious Slavonic Dances, of which we heard the second last week, are arrangements of folk melodies, as Brahms's Hungarian Dances, the obvious model for them, mostly are. In fact, the musical material is almost all original.
Like Brahms's Hungarian Dances, Dvořák's Slavonic Dances were written originally for piano duet. Brahms orchestrated some of his dances but doesn't seem to have felt any urgency about it. Almost immediately the Brahms dances began to be arranged for every imaginable combination. Dvořák, however, was systematic about orchestrating his dances, and while it's fun to hear them occasionally in the four-hand piano originals (and probably more fun to play them), I don't think there's any question that these amazing miniatures achieve their full stature in their full orchestral garb. The Hungarian Dances, by contrast, seem to me most fully imagined in their original form, at least theoretically; I can't say I can point to any performances that back me up. Still, it seems to me that Brahms was expressly trying to create an artificial -- or should I say artistic? -- miniature world conjured by these wonderful exotic tunes.
I don't doubt that Brahms himself understood what Dvořák was up to. The generous support he gave his young Bohemian colleague was no doubt a repayment, in his mind, of the patronage that had been so generously extended to him. And if you set the two composers' bodies of work side by side, it's clear how closely Dvořák absorbed Brahms's view of the musical world, working so many of the same forms in such similar ways.
I don't mean to say that there's anything unoriginal in Dvořák's working method, but rather that, like most creative artists, he learned by example, and he had the excellent taste to find and set his standards according to the best model there was. It's the good way that values are passed on. (Dvořák also seems to have absorbed Brahms's ferocious work habits and self-critical faculty.) My mental image is that at the intersection between Schubert's lyrical genius and Brahms's feeling for musical structure and discipline, you find Dvořák.
There's good reason for Americans to feel a special kinship with Dvořák: He felt the same for us, having taken his mission at the National Conservatory seriously. And while he semms to have experienced feelings of loneliness and separation from his own home, nevertheless his time here clearly provided a burst of creative stimulus, starting with the New World Symphony, written as we noted during his first academic year in New York.
The following summer, the summer of 1893, Dvořák and his family spent in the Czech-speaking community of Spillville, Iowa. And during that time he produced two more indelible masterpieces: the String Quartet in F major, Op. 96, known as the American, one of the best-loved of all chamber works, and its almost as wonderful fraternal twin, the String Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 97, also known as the American.
I don't know that we need to say anything more about the American Quartet before plunging in. We're hearing the first two movements, Allegro ma non troppo and Lento, played by the mystery quartet we heard playing Haydn Friday night and Smetana last night. Unlike in the Haydn movements we heard, in particular, all four players get a good workout here. The American is especially rich in viola opportunities. It may not come as a great surprise to learn that among Dvořák's musical accomplishments, he was a professional-caliber violist.
That's the first page of the first violin part of the American Quartet (you can click to enlarge),taking us up to about 2:36 of the movement -- note that the repeat in the bottom line at rehearsal no. 6 isn't observed.
NOTE: I'll add an update with the identity of the mystery quartet about 3pm PT (6pm ET). UPDATE: Update added below.
Just to complete the tale of Dvořák in America, between homesickness and growing discord with the conservatory management, he didn't make it through the 1894-95 academic year. But before he departed for Europe, he composed yet another towering masterpiece, the B minor Cello Concerto. But I don't think we hear any of his musical image of America in the Cello Concerto; his mind, it seems, was already back home.
UPDATE: OUR MYSTERY ENSEMBLE IS THE JANACEK QUARTET
And what a glorious run the Janáček had, though it was never accorded the prestige its remarkable musical standards warranted. These wonderful musicians were violinists Jiří Trávníček and Adolf Sýkora, violist Jiří Kratochvíl, and cellist Karel Krafka. Since the Brno-based Janáček never had the status domestically of Czechoslovakia's ranking Prague-based quartets, it generally had fewer opportunities at home for both studio recordings and radio broadcasts. Ironically, it seems to have been more appreciated abroad, and when it toured, it was hustled into recording studios by Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, and even the American Westminster company.
It happens that all of these companies have wound up under the umbrella of Universal Classics, and as a result the 2002 seven-CD DG Original Masters boxdevoted to the Janáček Quartet, billed as "The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon," is, happily, the complete DGs, Deccas, and Westminsters. While copies can still be found at reasonable prices, they should be snapped up. Amazon also offers also an MP3 download version.
The Original Masters box is the source of all our samples. The Haydn and Dvořák quartets are from gorgeous 1963 Decca stereo originals made in Vienna (Haydn) and London (Dvořák), the Smetana from a 1956 DG mono. (The Haydn LP, from which we heard a movement each of Op. 3, No. 5, and Op. 33, No. 2, and which also included Op. 76, No. 2, may be the most beautiful quartet record I've ever heard.) On at least two occasions, the Janáček joined its more celebrated (but to my hearing nowhere near asx musically disciplined or structurally sophisticated) colleagues the Smetana Quartet to record Mendelssohn's splendid Octet for strings. The version recorded by Westminster in 1959 is included in the Original Masters box. It's heaven.
Beyond that, Supraphon recordings turn up sometimes. There's a set of the three Brahms string quartets, for example.
QUICK HITS: DVORAK BASICS
SYMPHONIES: I can't imagine being without the last three symphonies, Nos. 7-9, of which there are of course lots of first-rate recordings (and of course many more less-than-first-rate ones). It has become increasingly common to package these symphonies in a CD twofer with at least some other filler material, and two that seem to me esepcially recommendable both feature the Cleveland Orchestra. Yesterday I mentioned the Sony reissue of George Szell's classic Epic recordings, also including Dvořák's Carnival Overture and Smetana's Moldau and From My Life String Quartet as orchestrated by Szell and recorded in 1949. More recently, Christoph von Dohnanyi'srecordings of the three symphonies plus the wacky and wonderful Scherzo capriccioso, which we heard last week, are highly recommendable. With Witold Rowicki's excellent Philips traversal of the complete symphonies available in three attractively priced "twofer" sets, the middle volume, containing Nos. 4-6,is an obvious next step.
CONCERTOS: The great B minor Cello Concerto, Op. 104, one of Dvořák's most gripping and powerful works, is hard to spoil, while the more fragile Violin Concerto in A minor needs really sympathetic and understanding performers to realize its true stature. For the Cello Concerto, I still love Janos Starker'sMercury recording with the London Symphony under Antal Dorati. (There's also a hybrid SACD edition.) Last week we heard the finale from my much-loved Suk-Ancerl recordingof the Violin Concerto. An excellent bargain is the Sony Essential Classics CD containing beautiful Ormandy-conducted performances of both the Cello Concerto, played by Leonard Rose, and the Violin Concerto, played by Isaac Stern; Amazon.com lists new copiesas cheap as $2.83 plus shipping and used onesas cheap as $1.62.
SLAVONIC DANCES AND OTHER ORCHESTRAL WORKS: It's deleted now, of course, but as long as you can still find it as cheaply as it's still being offered on Amazon.com, the DG Trio set of Rafael Kubelikconducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony in the Slavonic Dances (the source of the performance of Op. 46, No. 2 we heard last week) and a whole bunch of other beautiful shorter orchestral works -- these are three really well-filled (in both senses) CDs -- is a no-brainer.
CHAMBER WORKS: There are excellent series of the string quartets and quintets by the appropriately Czech-flavored Vlach Quartet Prague (Naxos) and the more robust Chilingirian Quartet (Chandos). The eminently logical coupling of the American Quartet and American QuINtet is available from the Talich Quartet.There are outstanding recordings of the four piano trios by the Suk Trio (Supraphon)and the Borodin Trio (Chandos).
VOCAL WORKS: The most immediately appealing of Dvořák's operas, Rusalka, has been a happy vehicle for Renee Fleming, who has recorded it for Deccawith tenor Ben Heppner and Charles Mackerras conducting. (There's also a video recording from Paris with tenor Sergei Larin and James Conlon conducting.) The Supraphon-DG coproduction of Dvořák's Requiem with Karel Ancerl conducting the Czech Philharmoninc is available both from Supraphonand from DG.Of the lovely Stabat Mater there are lovely recordings conducted by Rafael Kubelik and Zdenek Macal,among others.
OR IN ONE FELL SWOOP: As I've mentioned, the 40-CD Brilliant Classics Dvořák anthology,which contains all of the above (yes, including a complete recording of Rusalka) plus much more, is surprisingly solid musically as well as a great buy. (You can easily find it for not much more than $80.)
which also features tenor Richard Lewis sounding like I doubt you've ever heard him, in fact rather lovely -- I kid you not.)
(the CD that coupled it with his lovely Eighth Symphony is hard to find now, and therefore expensive, but Amazon offers 
which has been recording and/or releasing Ashkenazy with several orchestras).
devoted to the Janáček Quartet, billed as "The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon," is, happily, the complete DGs, Deccas, and Westminsters. While copies can still be found at reasonable prices, they should be snapped up. Amazon also offers also 
recordings of the three symphonies plus the wacky and wonderful Scherzo capriccioso, which 
is an obvious next step.
Mercury recording with the London Symphony under Antal Dorati. (There's also 
) Last week 
of the Violin Concerto. An excellent bargain is the Sony Essential Classics CD containing beautiful Ormandy-conducted performances of both the Cello Concerto, played by Leonard Rose, and the Violin Concerto, played by Isaac Stern; Amazon.com lists 
as cheap as $2.83 plus shipping and 
as cheap as $1.62.
conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony in the Slavonic Dances (the source of the performance of Op. 46, No. 2 
There are outstanding recordings of the four piano trios by 
and 
with tenor Ben Heppner and Charles Mackerras conducting. (There's also 
and 
Of the lovely Stabat Mater there are lovely recordings conducted by 
and 
among others.
which contains all of the above (yes, including a complete recording of Rusalka) plus much more, is surprisingly solid musically as well as a great buy. (You can easily find it for not much more than $80.)
