Nicolai Gedda (1925-2017)

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.

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Happy New Year from all of us here at DWT!

by Ken

For this new year, I thought I'd bring back a Sunday Classics triple toast (with trimmings) I whipped up for last New Year's, with assists from assorted participants in that greatest of operettas, Johann Strauss Jr.'s Die Fledermaus, beginning with this immortal (if hard to translate-in-song) pearl of wisdom:

Richard Leech (t), Alfred; Kiri Te Kanawa (s), Rosalinde; Vienna Philharmonic, André Previn, cond. Philips, recorded November 1990

[in English] Richard Tucker (t), Alfred; Marguerite Piazza (s), Rosalinde; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Live performance, Jan. 20, 1951
[Note that the English translation doesn't even attempt to retain the sense of the original. But just listen to the sounds being made by the young Richard Tucker! Note that he's also the Alfred of American Columbia's recording of Fledermaus based on this Met production.]


NOW ON TO OUR TOASTS, OR ALMOST

Three New Year's toasts from Die Fledermaus, starting with the one in Act I that's excerpted above, with this invaluable lesson taught by the Alfred, a tenor (yes, in "real" life) who never lets anything get him down. But first, in accordance with what was common Sunday Classics practice, we start at the beginning, with the Overture.

J. STRAUSS Jr.: Die Fledermaus: Overture


Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Decca, recorded June 1960

Vienna Philharmonic, André Previn, cond. Philips, recorded, November 1990

Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Ackermann, cond. EMI, recorded June 1959

Bavarian State Orchestra, Carlos Kleiber, cond. Live performance, Dec. 31, 1974

We've heard all of these performances before, but let me say again -- as I do each time the Karajan-Decca Fledermaus comes up -- that it's one of the handful of recordings I would offer in evidence of Karajan's greatness as a conductor, along with, I think, his first DG Beethoven symphony cycle (you can hear how hard he worked on that set, not in the effort but in the results), the DG Ring cycle, and the EMI Fidelio.


NOW WE SKIP TO THE FINALE OF ACT I . . .

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It's hard to think of many more inspiriting musical greetings than the start of Johann Strauss II's "Tales from the Vienna Woods"

Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra play the Waltz King's Tales from the Vienna Woods -- and with an actual zither for the zither solo at 1:56! (Not all conductors and orchestras use an actual zither. The zither version is much more piquant than the schmaltzy alternative for solo-string ensemble.)

by Ken

By the time music started coming out of the headphones I was already thinking there wasn't going to be music after all, just odd assorted beeps and blips and a background of hiss. The first time, the offer of music had been a surprise, and oddly assorted though the music was, and crummy-sounding, it turned out to be a great help. And this time it was going to be 45-50 minutes of not moving, which I think is longer than the first time. So I was glad to hear the music, even if it was pretty faint, and it was too late to ask if they could maybe turn it up. Well, I did finally ask, but I don't suppose anybody heard me.

The best thing about the music was, you know, the music. The first thing I heard wasn't the very start of the joyful, magisterial, and irresistible Tales from the Vienna Woods, one of the handful of the greatest waltzes of Johann Strauss II. It was the orchestral tutti at 0:17 of the clip, which under the circumstances was actually better! What a welcome! The rest of the music -- all piano solo -- was fine in its dimly audible way, and despite the only-faintly-audible commercials (there was one for Home Depot), and at times two pitchpersons seeming to talk over one another, the music accomplished its function of helping me through it.

I know I could probably have used those 45-50 minutes, or however long it was (I didn't have my watch, of course) to dream up a killer post and lay it out in my head, but I didn't. Anyway, my mind doesn't work so well under conditions of enforced confinement. Plus today I've been kind of knocked out by the start of a course of antibiotics followed by a (totally unrelated) dental extraction yesterday. So I thought I'd just offer you Tales from the Vienna Woods.

Even that wasn't simple, since the first three or four YouTube clips I tried to embed turned out to contain "content from WMG" and are "restricted from playback on certain sties," apparently including this one. Well, fuck 'em. I could give you a link or two, but I don't think I will. Meanwhile, having left this nonpost to the last minute, I didn't have time to play around, and with much of my Johann Strauss hiding somewhere awaiting refiling from previous posts, I grabbed pretty much the first one I laid hands on. And it's fine!

FOR THOSE IN NEED OF BREAKING NEWS --

In late developments lots deranged right-wing thugs in Washington and elsewhere said and did lots of deranged and thuggish things today. And that's the way it is.

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Ghost of Sunday Classics preview: Attention, please!

Can you imagine a more ravishing musical attention-getter?



London Symphony Orchestra, Charles Mackerras, cond. Philips-Mercury, recorded July 1961

by Ken

What we hear above is really and truly a preview; we're not going to hear any more of this piece until tomorrow's Ghost of Sunday Classics post. Many of you will recognize it (we've actually heard it before), but for now I just want to focus on this ravishing opening.

This is a talent, I think, the ability to grab a listener's attention musically. Not in a mechanical, conk-over-the-head way, which I suppose can be done by formula, but in a genuinely imagination-engaging way. The talent can certainly be cultivated, shaped, refined, but I think either you've got stuff in you head that can do the trick or you don't. We've listened, for example, to the way Puccini opened nearly all of his mature operas -- that, I think, is simply astounding, and a measure of unique genius.

One reason I'm so bowled over by the way our composer above seizes hold of our imaginations is precisely because there isn't any conking over the head. Just listen to what he does with that out-of-nothing hush, then gradually gathers momentum. Gorgeous!

This makes me think of the musical solutions Puccini's great predecessor Verdi found for the first of his two supreme masterpieces, Otello. We've heard all of these before (if anyone would like links, please just let me know in the comments; it's so tedious gathering them when there's no earthly purpose), but let's listen first to the similarly quiet orchestral introductions to Acts II, III, and IV.

VERDI: Otello
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Sunday Classics: With the full symphony orchestra you can create a heckuva storm (aka: Musical storms, part 2)

There are funny storms too! Alexander Prior conducts the deliciously raging thunderstorm in Act II of Rossini's Barber of Seville at the Chuvash National Opera in the Volga River port of Cheboksary, capital of Russia's Chuvash Republic, November 2009. We've got some better performances coming up in the click-through.

As music lovers know, the hint of a distant storm from a few timpani rolls can be as evocative as the crepuscular waves portrayed by Constable. The ability of music both directly to mimic the sounds of the weather and indirectly to imply its subtler moods perhaps gives this medium more scope for dramatic expression than the visual arts and literature, which unavoidably are limited to more literal interpretations.

-- Karen L. Aplin and Paul D. Williams,
in "Meteorological phenomena in Western classical
orchestral music," in the November issue of Weather

by Ken

Just for the record, the authors of the above-cited monograph hail from the Dept. of Physics, University of Oxford (Aplin), and the Dept. of Meteorology, University of Reading (Williams). If that gives you a gnawing bad feeling, trust it. When I discovered the piece, I thought at first it was a happy coincidence that such a piece had been published just as I was setting out to write about musical storms. Then I started reading the piece. And I was reminded why I rigorously avoided taking any academic classes that impinged on my love of music. If you were thinking there was bound to be some fun in such a piece, so was I. We were all wrong.

Anyway, we began listening to our storms imagined in music a couple of weeks ago, leading off with probably the most celebrated from the concert repertory, the sequence from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony that includes his famous thunderstorm, and surely the most spectacular storm in the operatic repertory, the cataclysm that opens Verdi's Otello -- and nearly rings down the curtain on the opera when Otello's ship is nearly dragged under as it approaches the Cypriot shore. For good measure we threw in a less threatening operatic storm, the beautiful "Royal Hunt and Storm" sequence from Berlioz's epic opera The Trojans.

In Friday's preview we took a step back in time to hear what Vivaldi could do stormwise with just the modest baroque orchestras -- incorporating storm movements in three of the Four Seasons. Today we track what some composers have done with the increasingly resource-rich resources of the modern symphony orchestra.

One perhaps obvious observation is still worth observing: that there's not much point in doing a musical storm if you don't also provide a sort of musical "baseline" -- life as it was being carried on before the storm and as it continues afterward. Beethoven, for example, gave us his countryside peasants dancing merrily before the interruption of the weather event, and then the the merry-making that follows it. The storm itself is brief, but illustrates thrillingly the cleansing, purifying, and exhilarating effect a storm can have. Just to refresh our memory, why don't we listen again to the Klemperer recording with the slow "Peasants' Dance" that producer Walter Legge very likely never did get used to.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 (Pastoral):
iii. Merry gathering of the peasants: Allegro
iv. Thunderstorm: Allegro
v. Shepherd's song; Happy and grateful feelings after the storm: Allegretto

Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded October 1957

I thought of including the "Scene in the fields" from Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, which we listened to in June 2010), itself a clear hommage to Beethoven's thunderstorm. But the distant thunder near the end seems kind of incidental for our purposes. In that 2010 post you can hear a quite lovely performance of the movement by Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony.

Okay, you talked me into it; here's the Paray "Scene in the fields" again. Just as a reminder: The composer's program for the movement concludes: "The sun retires . . . distant noise of thunder . . . solitude . . . silence . . ."

BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14:
iii. Scène aux champs (Scene in the fields)

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded Nov. 28, 1959


LET'S MOVE ON TO A REAL STORM, THE CLIMAX
OF FERDE GROFÉ'S GRAND CANYON SUITE

Again, we've heard the Grand Canyon Suite in its entirely, in a July 2010 Fourth of July post. At this point in the piece we've witnessed an awesome musical "Sunrise" and the spooky "Painted Desert," ridden our burros "On the Trail," and watched the "Sunset." You never know when you may be caught in a cloudburst.

GROFÉ: Grand Canyon Suite:
v. Cloudburst

Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, Howard Hanson, cond. Mercury, recorded May 1958

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded Sept. 30, 1991

RECORDING NOTE: I know there's a resistance among many modern listeners to "old" recordings like these. It still seems to me that the recording art has gone mostly backward, not forward, since, say, the late '60s. If anyone has heard an orchestral recording made in the last 20 years remotely comparable in sonic beauty or believability to the 1958 and 1959 Mercury recordings we've just heard, I'd sure like to know what it is.


COMING UP: STORMS BY RICHARD STRAUSS,
GRIEG, BRITTEN, AND ROSSINI -- CLICK HERE

(And, oh yes, we've also got a storm-pretender from the Waltz King, Johann Strauss II.)

SUNDAY CLASSICS' MUSICAL STORMS

Preview: Tonight's musical selections should give you a good idea of Sunday's subject (January 13)
The thunderstorm movement from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and Otello's "Esultate" from Verdi's Otello
Stormy weather, part 1 (January 15)
Verdi's Otello, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and Berlioz's Les Troyens, plus Lena Horne singing "Stormy Weather"
Preview: Given the resources at his disposal, Vivaldi's musical storms may be the most remarkable of all (January 27)
The three storm movements from Vivaldi's Four Seasons
With the full symphony orchestra you can create a heckuva storm (aka: Musical storms, part 2) (January 29)
Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (again), Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite, Johann Strauss II's Amid Thunder and Lightning polka, Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony, Grieg's Peer Gynt incidental music, Britten's Peter Grimes, and Rossini's Barber of Seville
Preview: En route to more of our musical storms, we encounter perhaps the most eerily wonderful music I know (February 3)
The Preludes to Acts I and II of Wagner's Siegfried
Storms that set three great operatic scenes in motion (aka: Musical storms, part 3) (February 5)
The openings of Wagner's Die Walküre Act I and Siegfried Act III and of Act III of Puccini's La Bohème
Preview: En route to our final operatic storms, we hear two famous tenor tunes sung by a very famous tenor (February 24)
"La donna è mobile," the Quartet, and the Storm Scene from Act III of Rigoletto
Musical storms, part 4: We come to our raging storms from Janáček's Kátya Kabanová and Verdi's Rigoletto (February 26)
The storms from Act III of both operas, with a close-up look at how Verdi created the Rigoletto one -- plus the whole of Act III

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Sunday Classics: Why I'm crazy about "Die Fledermaus"

At Prince Orlofsky's (Act II), at the Bavarian State Opera

DETECTIVE GREGGS: Boring, ain't we?
CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANT BUBS: How y'all do what you do every day and not want to get high? That's what I be asking.

-- from "The Pager," Season 1, Episode 5 of The Wire

by Ken

Maybe I should explain that Bubs's perception of acute futility has been prompted by watching Detectives Greggs (Sonja Sohn) and McNulty (Dominic West) on a stakeout while waiting for his ride back downtown. But if this doesn't resonate wildly for you, I'm thinking you must be one of those lucky people whose life is warpped up in activities and pastimes that provide more satisfaction and stimulation than is the case for most of the people I know.

I promised Friday night ("Beginning a Fledermaus New Year's -- 'Happy is he who forgets what can't be changed anyway'") to try to explain today why I am crazy about Die Fledermaus. (Last night we paused for a Fledermaus-themed New Year's celebration.) Okay, here goes.

There is, for all of us leading such lives, that irresistible urge to get the fuck away from it all, to get outside, beyond, or some such damn place. And this, for me, is the overpowering appeal of Johann Strauss's masterpiece, Die Fledermaus. And amazingly this appeal cuts across class lines, from the bored upper class represented by Gabriel von Eisenstein and his wife Rosalinde down to the servant class represented by their maid Adele. And thanks to the genius of Strauss's librettists Carl Haffner and Richard Genée (and of course the sources they drew on), for one and all that "someplace" to get away to turns out to be the very same place: the ball thrown by the Russian prince Orlofsky, who has raised boredom to something like an art.

It gets even better, because this need for getaway not only drives all the characters to made-up stories but produces stories within stories and, ultimately, unknown to all of them, a still larger story lurking behind the whole craziness.

For tonight, my only ambition is to get our three central characters from the Eisenstein abode (Act I) to Prince Orlofsky's gathering (Act II). (No, we're not even going to touch Act III.)


TO HEAD TOWARD THE BALL, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics, New Year's Eve edition: "In the fiery sap of the vine, there sparkles a life divine": The King of All Wines, Champagne!

Prince Orlofsky: "And now, ladies and gentlemen, for some refreshment. And let me propose a toast to his august majesty, King Champagne!"

Mildred Miller (ms), Prince Orlofsky; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Tibor Kozma, cond. Metropolitan Opera Record Club, recorded c1955

by Ken

Last night I set out to try to explain what makes Die Fledermaus so special to me. We'll finish that discussion tomorrow. Tonight we'll just use the operetta as a jumping-off point for celebrating New Year's Eve -- starting, rather unoriginally, with the Champagne Trio of Act II, of which we heard just the first stanza, Prince Orlofsky's, above.

In the click-through we'll have a special gala musical celebration. For now, let's hear the full trio, still in English, from the LP's worth of excerpts made at the time of the Met production of Die Fledermaus that was part of Rudolf Bing's first season as general manager, 1950-51. (With artist contracts split between record rivals Columbia and RCA, some cast members participated in Columbia's official Met complete recording, conducted by Eugene Ormandy, while some -- notably the Orlofsky, Risë Stevens, sang in the RCA excerpts LP under Fritz Reiner.) We should note that this performance reverses the sequence of the second and third stanzas, with Eisenstein going second and Adele third.

J. STRAUSS II: Die Fledermaus: Act II, Champagne Trio (in English)

Risë Stevens (ms), Prince Orlofsky; James Melton (t), Gabriel von Eisenstein; Patrice Munsel (s), Adele; Robert Shaw Chorale, RCA Victor Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. RCA, recorded c1950


FOR FURTHER TRIBUTE TO KING CHAMPAGNE, AND OUR
SPECIAL NEW YEAR'S EVE MUSICAL GALA, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: Beginning a "Fledermaus" New Year's -- "Happy is he who forgets what can't be changed anyway"

Laura Albino as Rosalinde and Keith Klassen
as Alfred in Toronto last January

J. STRAUSS II: Die Fledermaus: Act I, "Glücklich ist, wer vergisst, was doch nicht zu ändern ist"

ALFRED, later joined by ROSALINDE:
Happy is
he who forgets
what can't be changed anyway.

Richard Leech (t), Alfred; Kiri Te Kanawa (s), Rosalinde; Vienna Philharmonic, André Previn, cond. Philips, recorded November 1990

by Ken

Sometimes these music posts take shape just the way they formed in my head, which is swell, sometimes. (Sometimes you wish they hadn't.) More often they balk and resist, or -- at happier times -- take on a life of their own. I think that's what's happening this weekend.

Some of you may recall from last week's holiday posts devoted to Part I of Handel's Messiah that this week we were scheduled to do the same sort of thing with Part I The Childhood of Christ, Berlioz's always-unexpected and deeply moving oratorio. And we'll get to that eventually. But I thought for this more carefree holiday weekend we would go in a different direction, ringing in the new year with a frequent New Year's celebration vehicle, Johann Strauss II's operetta Die Fledermaus.

Tomorrow night in a special New Year's Eve edition of Sunday Classics we're going to be crashing the masquerade ball at Prince Orlofsky's, where by three quite different routes three members of the household of Gabriel von Eisenstein will find themselves -- in disguise, of course -- in attendance, none of them knowing that the others are there. How this comes to pass we'll hear a little more of in the click-through, but for now I thought we'd hear the whole scene of which we've just heard that juicy morsel from near the beginning.

To set the scene: On the very day when Herr von Eisenstein is due to turn himself in for a brief prison sentence for some indecorous behavior, his wife Rosalinde's ex-boyfriend, an Italian tenor named Alfred, has turned up hoping to renew auld acquaintance. It's Alfred who espouses the giddily sensible philosophy of life we heard above. And for once I think we need to at least look at it in the original language, which is impossible to translate with the economy and rhyming brio of the German:

Glücklich ist,
wer vergisst,
was doch nicht zu ändern ist.

Three lines, note, of three three, and seven syllables, respectively, neatly rhyming -- bubbling over almost irresistibly.

Naturally Fledermaus is often performed in the local language, and translation is always a near-insoluble ordeal. In addition the kinds of problems I've suggested with these lines, there's the problems of tone. There's a tendency in particular to resort to cartoony "cuteness," which changes the character of the piece. (Of course as many German-language performances show, it's quite easy to transform the tone of the piece in this direction even in the original, but when the text you're singing performs the task for you, this particular battle is lost before the first shot is fired.)

The translation we're going to hear in a moment, by contrast, seems to me quite clever, and even singable -- good enough that you think somebody really ought to set it to music. Certainly Johann Strauss didn't, and especially not to this music. The problem is that the English text is hardly even related to what the characters are singing at the moment. Oh well, it's a nice performance musically and vocally.

To finish setting the scene: Eisenstein has already made his departure, presumably (or so Rosalinde thinks) to make his way to prison. Alfred, wearing Eisenstein's dressing gown, makes his presence known, and he and Rosalinde are flirting and sparring when who should appear but the prison governor Frank, come to haul the master of the house off to the pokey. Naturally he assumes that the gentleman in the dressing gown is his quarry, and Rosalinde is hardly in a position to disabuse him.

Die Fledermaus: Act I finale: Scene, Alfred-Rosalinde; Scene, Frank-Rosalinde-Alfred (English translation by Mel Mandel and Norman Sachs)

Sergio Franchi (t), Alfred; Anna Moffo (s), Rosalinde; John Hauxvell (b), Frank; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Oskar Danon, cond. RCA, recorded June 1963

TO CONTINUE WITH OUR FLEDERMAUS SETUP, CLICK HERE

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[1/29/12] With the full symphony orchestra you can create a heckuva storm (continued)

BEFORE WE CONTINUE, LET'S DISPOSE OF ONE
FAMOUS MUSICAL STORM THAT REALLY ISN'T

J. STRAUSS II: Unter Donner und Blitzen (Amid Thunder and Lightning), Op. 324

This breathless little polka is understandably one of the Waltz King's best-loved works, but despite all that supposed thunder, the thing has never sounded very thundery or lightningy to me. Carlos Kleiber (sort of) conducts the Bavarian State Orchestra in Tokyo, May 1986.


WE HEARD VIVALDI CONJURE STORMS WITH A MERE
BAROQUE ENSEMBLE. HERE'S . . . RICHARD STRAUSS

If there's a wizard among orchestral wizards, surely it's Richard Strauss. I imagine his basic position to have been: If it can be done with an orchestra, I can do it. Sometimes he seems to have taken on just this sort of thing as a personal challenge. A "day in the life" at home? Can do -- the Symphonia domestica. An arduous mountain ascent and descent? Sure thing -- An Alpine Symphony.

Because the Alpine Symphony in particular is so expertly written, it's grand fun for the performers to perform, perhaps more fun (it has sometimes seemed to me) than for listeners. Still, when the performers are skilled enough and engaged enough, the results can be surprisingly persuasive. Curiously, Georg Solti and Herbert von Karajan recorded the piece about a year apart, and I think the results --very different, I think you'll note -- occupy special places in these conductors' mammoth discographies. I had no idea when I grudgingly bought the Karajan that I would listen to it as often as I have.

In our Alpine adventure there is, not surprisingly, a fair amount of weather detail. Here, for example, is a wisp of a fragment that occurs late in the piece, after the climber has reached the summit. I should warn that since Strauss's symphonic "program" is continuous, fragments ripped out of context really sound it.

R. STRAUSS: An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64: Mists rise; The sun gradually dims

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded 1979

Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded December 1980

A coupe of minutes later we're set up for one of the great musical storms. We can trust that Strauss was familiar with all those earlier efforts, and was surely confident that he could have his own say.

R. STRAUSS: An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64: Calm before the storm; Thunderstorm, Descent; Sunset

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded 1979

Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded December 1980

Now we're going to hear the complete sequence, including the little in-between "Elegy" we haven't heard yet. Again, bear in mind that the Alpine Symphony is musically continuous. While the concertgoer would presumably be provided with a list of the section identifiers, there would be no artificial separations like our unwieldy track changes. Since the Telarc Alpine Symphnony indexes rather than tracks these points, in our format it comes out musically continuous, which for us effectively "takes the training wheels off" and lets us hear this sequence as the composer expected the whole Alpine Symphony to be heard.

(I might also note quickly that in our four recordings of this orchestral display piece we're hearing four of the world's preeminent Strauss orchestras. I've noted before when we've dipped into it that the extensive series of Strauss orchestral works by Rudolf Kempe and the Staatskapelle Dresden seems to me on all counts one of the most impressive projects in the history of orchestral recording -- though the CDs don't seem to me to have done it justice.)

R. STRAUSS: An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64: Mists rise; The sun gradually dims; Elegy; Calm before the storm; Thunderstorm, Descent; Sunset


Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded December 1972

Vienna Philharmonic, André Previn, cond. Telarc, recorded Nov. 22-24, 1989


COMPOSERS FOR THE STAGE MAY HAVE TO DO STORMS FOR
DRAMATIC PURPOSE -- LIKE MR. GRIEG AND MR. BRITTEN

We already heard in the earlier post two prime theatrical specimens: the violent opening scene of Verdi's Otello and the very different storm in Berlioz's Trojans which serves as the occasion for the, er, coming together of Dido and Aeneas.

Here's a storm we've heard before, in February 2010 as part of the Peer Gynt Suite No. 2. It had been composed with the large quantity of incidental music the composer provided for Ibsen's play, where it served as the prelude to Act V. (Which reminds me that one of these days we still have to do a post on Grieg's incidental music in theatrical context.)

GRIEG: Peer Gynt (incidental music): Prelude to Act V: Peer's Homeward Journey (Stormy Evening at Sea)

NARRATOR: Peer Gynt, by now a vigorous old man with hair gray as ice. Stormy crossing and homecoming.

Friedhelm Eberle, narrator; Gewandhaus Orchestra (Leipzig), Kurt Masur, cond. Philips, recorded March 1988

Berlin Philharmonic, Jeffrey Tate, cond. EMI, recorded March 1990

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, cond. DG, recorded June 1987

Straddling the line between "concert" and "stage" storm is the violent interlude Britten composed to bridge the two scenes of Act I of Peter Grimes, which has an important theatrical function but has taken on an active concert life as part of the understandably popular suite of Four Sea Interludes (with or without the Passacaglia) from Peter Grimes. (In the suite of interludes it's placed last, for fairly obvious reasons, I think.)

We've heard the 1973 Bernstein "Storm" Interlude before, in a November 2009 Britten post along with the other three interludes. I failed to point out then that Lenny had a history with Peter Grimes. In 1946, at age 28, he conducted the American premiere of the opera, at the Tanglewood Festival. The Sea Interludes were also on the program for his final concert, in August 1990 -- at Tanglewood. I thought we might hear that notably broader performance too. We lead off with a violently impassioned performance by an unexpected Brittenite, Carlo Maria Giulini (who was later asked by the composer to conduct his War Requiem).

BRITTEN: Peter Grimes, Op. 33: Act I: Storm Interlude: Presto con fuoco -- Molto animato -- Largamente -- Tempo I


Philharmonia Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. EMI, recorded c1963

New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Mar. 8, 1973

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live at the Tanglewood Festival, Aug. 19, 1990

To really appreciate how Britten musicalizes this storm and how it's woven into the action of the opera, we need to back up a bit into Act I, Scene 1, as the approach of the storm is registered, and then listen a bit into Act II, as the storm batters "the Borough" -- on England's Suffolk coast -- at hurricane force. (We performed a similar exercise with the first interlude, "Dawn," which joins the Prologue and Act I, in our November 2009 Britten post.) We're only venturing about a minute into Scene 2, but that's long enough to appreciate how Britten handles the storm. As pretty much the whole of the Borough finds its way into the Boar inn, even though Auntie is trying to close for the night, each time the door opens the storm churns again in the orchestra until the storm refugees manage to get the door closed again.

BRITTEN: Peter Grimes, Op. 33, Act I Scene 1, The storm is here; Storm Interlude; Scene 2 beginning

ACT I, Scene 1 has taken place in the street in the Borough in front of the Moot Hall (where, in the Prologue, a coroner's inquest into the death of the fisherman Peter Grimes's young apprentice took place), the Boar inn (run by "Auntie"), and the shop of the apothecary Ned Keene, opposite breakwaters that run to the sea. Locals wandered in and out of the scene amid growing indications of an approaching storm. At this point the retired merchant captain Balstrode has been encouraging Grimes, still held responsible for the death of the boy despite being spared indictment at the inquest, to leave the Borough. Peter, imagining marrying the kindly schoolteacher Ellen Orford, resolves instead to stay.

CAPTAIN BALSTRODE: The storm, the storm is here, o come away!
PETER GRIMES: The storm is here, and I, and I shall stay!
[BALSTRODE leaves PETER and goes into the Boar. PETER alone -- gazing intently into the sea and approaching storm.]
What harbour shelters peace,
away from tidal waves, away from storms?
What harbour can embrace terrors and tragedies?
With her there'll be no quarrels,
with her the mood will stay
a harbour evermore,
where night is turned to day.
[CURTAIN]

Storm Interlude

Scene 2
Inside the Boar, the same night. AUNTIE is admitting MRS. SEDLEY. The gale is now at hurricane force and they push the door shut with difficulty.

AUNTIE: Past time to close!
MRS. SEDLEY: He -- he -- he said half past ten.
AUNTIE: Who?
MRS. SEDLEY: Mister Keene.
AUNTIE: Him and his women!
MRS. SEDLEY: You referring to me?
AUNTIE: Not at all, not at all!
What do you want?
MRS. SEDLEY: Room from the storm.
AUNTIE: That is the sort of weak politeness
makes a publican lose her clients.
Keep in the corner out of sight.
[BALSTRODE and some of the fishermen enter. They struggle with the door.]
CAPTAIN BALSTRODE: [Whistles] That's a bitch of a gale all right.
AUNTIE: Sh-h-h!
CAPTAIN BALSTRODE: Sorry, I didn't see you, Missis.
You'll give the regulars a surprise.
AUNTIE: She's meeting Ned.
CAPTAIN BALSTRODE: Which Ned?
AUNTIE: The quack! He's looking after her heart attack.
CAPTAIN BALSTRODE: Bring us a pint.
AUNTIE: It's closing time.
CAPTAIN BALSTRODE: You fearful old female, why should you mind?
AUNTIE: Th-e-e-e-e storm!
[BOB BOLES and some other fishermen and women enter. The wind howls through the door.]
BOB BOLES: Did you hear the tide has broken over the North Road?
[The window shutters blow open.]
CAPTAIN BALSTRODE: Get those shutters!

Donald Gramm (bs-b), Captain Balstrode; Jon Vickers (t), Peter Grimes; Lili Chookasian (c), Auntie; Jean Kraft (ms), Mrs. Sedley; Paul Franke (t), Bob Boles; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, John Pritchard, cond. Live performance, Dec. 10, 1977

Anthony Michaels-Moore (b), Captain Balstrode; Glenn Winslade (t), Peter Grimes; Jill Grove (c), Auntie; Catherine Wyn-Rogers (ms), Mrs. Sedley; Christopher Gillett (t), Bob Boles; London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. LSO Live, recorded live in concert at the Barbican (London), January 2004


LET'S WIND IT UP FOR TODAY BY GIVING A PROPER
HEARING TO ROSSINI'S RIB-TICKLING TEMPEST

I'm not sure this storm serves any dramatic purpose -- I mean as a storm. As an interlude, it definitely allows the action time to percolate and set up the opera's grand climax. But as a storm specifically, well, it can provide the stage director with the opportunity to create some (usually hokey) visual effects.

I made two new files for this post, and the Naples and Bucharest ones, and then discovered that I'd already made one of the New York performance, which I don't think we actually heard -- I think that was for another post that's still to come. I really like the hammed-up Leinsdorf performance (I don't think Rossini necessarily meant this storm to be subtle), but I acknowledge that Varviso has as much fun with his straighter approach. Finally, there's a special breath-of-life quality to the Romanian Barber recording from which we hear the storm.

ROSSINI: The Barber of Seville:
Act II, The Storm

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded 1958

Orchestra Rossini of Naples, Silvio Varviso, cond. Decca, recorded c1964

Orchestra of the Romanian Opera, Bucharest, Mihai Brediceanu, cond. Electrecord/Vox, recorded 1960-61


STILL TO COME: MORE OPERATIC STORMS WOVEN INTO THE
ACTION -- LIKE ANOTHER BY VERDI AND ONE BY JANÁČEK

Maybe next week. Or maybe the week after -- it's hard to say with scientific precision.


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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Sunday Classics, New Year's edition: (2) Champagne

(1) LEHÁR: The Merry Widow: "Vilja Song""
Renata Tebaldi, soprano
(2) FERRARI-PLATTE: "Domino"
Fernando Corena, bass
(3) LERNER and LOEWE: My Fair Lady: "I could have danced all night"
Birgit Nilsson, soprano
(4) TAGLIAFERRI: "Passione"
Mario del Monaco, tenor
(5) LAVILLA: "Lullaby"
Teresa Berganza, mezzo-soprano
(6) ARDITI: "Il Bacio" ("The Kiss")
Joan Sutherland, soprano
(7) LEHÁR: The Land of Smiles: "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz" ("Yours is my heart alone")
Jussi Bjoerling, tenor
(8) GERSHWIN: Porgy and Bess: "Summertime"
Leontyne Price, soprano
(9) BERLIN: Annie, Get Your Gun: "Anything you can do, I can do better"
Giulietta Simionato, mezzo-soprano; Ettore Bastianini, baritone
(10) SIECZYNSKI: "Wien, du Stadt meiner Träume" ("Vienna, you city of my dreams")
Ljuba Welitsch, soprano

speakers including Regina Resnik (Prince Orlofsky); Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan. Decca, recorded June 1960

Sunday Classics preview: Another taste of Old Vienna

Seiji Ozawa and the Vienna Philharmonic kick off the 2002 Vienna New Year's Concert with a rousing performance of the Fledermaus Overture.

by Ken

In last night's preview we sampled Johann Strauss II's No. 2 operetta, The Gypsy Baron. Continuing our Viennese weekend, we advance to No. 1, Die Fledermaus. As I mentioned in the 2009 New Year's Strauss-family post I referenced last night, the chapter on Fledermaus was one of those I did for The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera, and instead of coming away not being able ever to hear another note of the damned thing, as I feared, I emerged from the saturation exposure crazy in love with the piece.

I don't see any need for much more yammering. If ever an overture spoke for itself, Fledermaus's does. For the recordings we're hearing tonight, I've noted the first appearance of the great Fledermaus waltz, not because it's better than the others, but because I'm thinking it's probably the operetta's best-known music, and then I thought it would be fun to hear the Overture along with the source of two of its most wonderful tunes, which are linked in the Overture as they are in the Act I trio, a singularly wonderful exhibition of musical crocodile tears.

Unbeknownst to all the others, each of the participants in this trio -- Gabriele von Eisenstein, his wife Rosalinde, and their maid Adele -- have been invited to a ball at the home of the rich Russian prince Orlofsky. Officially, Eisenstein is headed to prison to serve an eight-day sentence he has been given; the highly theatrical Adele is off to take care of her poor, poor sick aunt; and left-behind Rosalinde is facing eight days of lonely torment. (As it happens, she is immediately joined by her old flame, the tenor Alfred, of whom we hear a snatch in the Philips version of the trio, in the spoken dialogue that I left in.)

J. STRAUSS II: Die Fledermaus (The Bat): Overture

Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Decca, recorded June 1960
[waltz at 2:42, "So muss allein" at 3:52; "O je, o je" at 5:00]

Bavarian State Orchestra, Carlos Kleiber, cond. Live performance, Dec. 31, 1974
[waltz at 2:43, "So muss allein" at 3:53; "O je, o je" at 4:58]

Vienna Philharmonic, André Previn, cond. Philips, recorded November 1990
[waltz at 2:45, "So muss allein" at 4:02; "O je, o je" at 5:15]


Die Fledermaus: Act I trio, "So muss allein ich bleibe" ("So I must remain alone") . . . "O je, o je, wie rührt mich dies" ("Oh dear, oh dear, how this touches me") . . . "Es gibt ein Wiedersehen" ("We'll see each other again")

ROSALINDE: So I must remain alone
eight days without you!
How am I to describe for you
my suffering, how frightful!
How will I bear it,
being abandoned by my husband?
To whom am I to lament my suffering?
o God, how this touches me!

I shall think of you
in the morning over coffee,
when I go to give you one,
see the empty cup,
can offer you no greeting,
in my misery I will surely
drink it black and bitter.
Ah!

EISENSTEIN: O God, how this touches me!

ALL THREE: O God, how this touches me!

ALL THREE: O dear, o dear, how this touches me! etc.

ROSALINDE: Where will our domestic circle be
when midday comes around?
For the beef as for the soup,
for the roast, no husband!
And when the veil of night falls,
it will tear at me again.
My pain will be monstrous.

ALL THREE: O dear, o dear, how this touches me! etc.

EISENSTEIN: What's the use of complaining?
I'm quite losing my head!

ROSALINDE: My head is totally dazed.

ADELE: Mine is totally empty.

EISENSTEIN: Farewell, I must go now.

ALL THREE: But there remains one consolation so sweet.

ADELE: We'll see each other again!

ALL THREE: We'll see each other again!
O God, how this touches me!
O dear, o dear, how this touches me! etc.

[EISENSTEIN exits, followed by ADELE.]

Hilde Gueden (s), Rosalinde; Erika Köth (s), Adele; Waldemar Kmentt (t), Eisenstein; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Decca, recorded June 1960
["O je, o je" at 1:23; "Es gibt" at 2:48]

Gundula Janowitz (s), Rosalinde; Carol Malone (s), Adele; Eberhard Wächter (b), Eisenstein; Bavarian State Orchestra, Carlos Kleiber, cond. Live performance, Dec. 31, 1974
["O je, o je" at 1:25; "Es gibt" at 2:52]

Kiri Te Kanawa (s), Rosalinde; Edita Gruberová (s), Adele; Wolfgang Brendel (b), Eisenstein; Richard Leech (t), Alfred; Vienna Philharmonic, André Previn, cond. Philips, recorded November 1990
["O je, o je" at 1:32; "Es gibt" at 3:06]

Bear in mind that Johann II, like his father, made his living as a composer and conductor of his and his family's music with his own orchestra. So you could hardly blame him for trying to get the most mileage out of his own compositions. Last night we heard the Treasure Waltz he composed from Gypsy Baron music. Here is a Fledermaus-Quadrille.

J. STRAUSS II: Fledermaus-Quadrille, Op. 363

Vienna Philharmonic, Willi Boskovsky, cond. Decca


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST --

It's all overtures, all by one composer, and as I mentioned last night featuring some of the best performances of any music I've ever heard.


DON'T FORGET TOMORROW'S BIG CONTEST GIVEAWAY

As I mentioned, I happen to have an extra copy of the splendid CD we'll be featuring, which I'm prepared to give it away, but I'm not up to another failed contest. So the tentative deal is that I'm prepared to bestow it upon someone who does something to earn it.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The current list is here.

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Sunday Classics preview: A taste of Old Vienna

Plus: Watch for another big contest giveaway Sunday!

Can we visit Old Vienna without Richard Tauber? On our Gypsy Baron night, the incomparable tenor sings Barinkay's Act I entrance couplet, "Als flotter Geist."

[English translation based on Gery Bramall's for Teldec. The choral cues indicate where the chorus would join in if there were one.]

A bright spark, though orphaned early in life,
I roamed all over the world.
I was the factotum
of a big circus.
I ruled the whole animal kingdom
from whale to golden pheasant.
The rattlesnake petted me,
the rhinoceros stroked my cheek,
the lion crawled on the ground before me,
the tiger fed from my hand.
I was on the best of terms with the hyena,
I showed my teeth to the crocodile.
The elephant used his trunk
to dress my salad in the bowl.

Yes, all of that, on my honor,
I can do that and still more.
If it can be done somehow,
it's not hard, it's not hard.
[CHORUS joins in as BARINKAY repeats.]

Then I traveled with rare specimens,
as an acrobat and medicine man,
and at the end I was assistant
to a sorcerer!
I called ghosts by the dozen
into my black magic circle.
I was an ardent fire-eater,
and swallowed knives to aid my digestion.
A high-wire artist like the Japanese,
an incomparable quick-change artist.
I can perform splendid card tricks
and am even better as a card-sharp.
I am a magician of importance,
and all without training. Indeed!

Yes, dancer and juggler,
prestidigitator.
If it can be done somehow,
it's not hard, it's not hard.
[CHORUS joins in as BARINKAY repeats.]

by Ken

In the days after Daniel Barenboim's invigorating debut appearance conducting the Vienna New Year's Concert in 2009, including the noteworthy New Year's wish "We hope 2009 will be a year of peace in the world, and of human justice in the Middle East," we took note of the event in a Sunday Classics post on the Strausses of Vienna, "There are good reasons why great conductors bring their 'A' game when they play the music of Johann Strauss II and his family."

My immediate impression, even from watching the concert casually, was that it had been unsually auspicious New Year's Concert in both programming and execution. And that impression was confirmed when the CD version came out. One nice programming point -- not revolutionary, exactly, but felicitous nevertheless -- was the cluster of from and related to Johann II's second-best-loved operetta, The Gypsy Baron," and in tonight's Viennese preview we're going to hear all three pieces in question: the Overture, of course (a fairly standard concert piece), the "Entrance March" from Act III, and the Treasure Waltz created out of Gypsy Baron material.

Naturally along with Daniel B's performances we're going to hear some interesting (I hope!) complements and alternatives.

J. STRAUSS II: Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron): Overture

Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Decca, recorded 1959

Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, cond. Teldec, recorded live, April 1994

Vienna Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Decca, recorded live at the 2009 Vienna New Year's Concert


J. STRAUSS II: Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron):

Act III, Entrance March

orchestra only
Vienna Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Decca, recorded live at the 2009 Vienna New Year's Concert

Vienna Philharmonic, Mariss Jansons, cond. DG, recorded live at the 2006 Vienna New Year's Concert

with chorus: "Hurrah, die Schlacht mitgemacht hab'n wir" ("Hurrah, we've fought the battle")
Arnold Schoenberg Chorus, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, cond. Teldec, recorded live, April 1994


J. STRAUSS II: Treasure Waltz, Op. 418

Vienna Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Decca, recorded live at the 2009 Vienna New Year's Concert

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. RCA, recorded Apr. 25-26, 1960

(arr. Webern -- yes, that Webern!)
Alban Berg Quartet; Alfred Mitterhofer, harmonium; Heinz Medjimorec, piano. EMI, recorded June 1992


A BONUS PREVIEW OF TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW

I already did these audio files, which wound up being surplus from tomorrow night's preview. It seems a shame to waste them, so why don't we use them as a preview of tomorrow night's preview?

J. STRAUSS II: Die Fledermaus (The Bat)

Overture

Act I trio, "So muss allein ich bleiben"
("So I must remain alone")

Gerda Scheyrer (s), Rosalinde; Wilma Lipp (s), Adele; Karl Terkal (t), Eisenstein; Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Ackermann, cond. EMI, recorded June 1959


AND THEN ON SUNDAY . . .

We're going to hear a whole bunch of overtures, including a set of the most wonderful performances ever recorded.


AS FOR THAT BIG CONTEST GIVEAWAY . . .

As it happens I have an extra copy of the precious CD we're going to be featuring, and I'm prepared to give it away. But my attempts at contests have been such a uniform bust that all I can think of is to offer this precious CD to someone who does something to earn it. For starters, maybe somebody could guess just what we're going to be hearing Sunday?


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The current list is here.

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