Sunday Classics preview: The post-operatic Rossini

Tenor Dalmacio Gonzalez sings the "Cuius animam" from Rossini's Stabat Mater -- in an August 1981 Proms performance with the Philharmona Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini. (DG made a recording with the same forces as the Proms performance.)

by Ken

It's impossible to talk about the career of Gioachhino Rossini (1792-1868) without taking note of the fact that, though he lived almost another 40 years, he completed his last opera, William Tell, in 1829, at the age of 37. With his retirement from the stage he didn't stop composing, though -- though now, freed from the exigencies of opera-house work, he could decide what and when to compose (probably the most representative products of this period are the short instrumental and vocal pieces collected as his Sins of Old Age), and didn't show a lot of concern for unleashing these works on the public.

Among the "post-theatrical" compositions are Rossini's two major sacred works, the Stabat Mater (1831-1841) and the Petite Messe solenelle (1864-67). The highly unorthodox Mass clearly qualifies as a "late" work, whereas Rossini's setting of the medieval Latin poem Stabat mater dolorosa (The Sorrowful Mother Stood) was completed well before the composer's 50th birthday. For our purposes this week, however, it does give us one example of music that came from his pen following his retirement from the stage.

What we're hearing tonight is the famous tenor solo, "Cujus animam gementem" (which soars famously up to higher-than-high-C high D-flat). I don't think it's going out on a limb to suggest that not many composers would have heard music anything like what Rossini did for the "Cujus animam."

The Caruso and Bjoerling recordings were done as 78s, and so were almost certainly influenced by the 78-side recording limitation. Even so, I think it's fair to say that the Giulini-conducted performance in the video clip above is really broadly paced, even more so than the 1967 Rome Radio performance from which we hear Luciano Pavarotti singing the "Cujus animam" below. For comparison, we're also hearing the Decca studio recording Pavarotti made just a few years later with István Kertész.

ROSSINI: Stabat Mater: "Cujus animam gementem"

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,

now at length the sword has passed.

O how sad and sore distressed

was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.

Christ above in torment hangs,

she beneath beholds the pangs

of her dying glorious Son.

[English adaptation by Victorian poet-composer Edward Caswall]

Enrico Caruso, tenor; Victor Orchestra. Victor, recorded Dec. 15, 1913

Jussi Bjoerling, tenor; orchestra, Nils Grevillius, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 12, 1938

Luciano Pavarotti, tenor; RAI Symphony Orchestra, Rome, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. Live performance, Dec. 22, 1967

Luciano Pavarotti, tenor; London Symphony Orchestra, István Kertész, cond. Decca, recorded March 1971


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

We're actually going to be focusing on the other end of Rossini's creative career.

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Sunday Classics: More comfort music -- I dream of Jussi singing "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair"

It would be hard to think of a happier match of performer and material than tenor Jussi Bjoerling (1911-1960) singing Stephen Foster's "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair." (By the way, whatever the record label may think, Foster's spelling was "Jeanie," not "Jeannie.")

by Ken

Last week we were talking about "comfort music," and our friend Balakirev raised the question of comfort coming from the singing of the Swedish tenor Jussi Bjoerling and the Soviet baritone Pavel Lisitsian. This struck me as an interesting idea, and I've been thinking about it.

I guess the reason I don't normally look to vocal music for my musical comfort is that the overtures I offered last week (Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor on Saturday; Weber's Oberon, and Suppé's Poet and Peasant on Sunday) provide solid 10-minute infusions of comfort. I don't know about you, but I need more comfort than I'm apt to get from the 3-5 minutes of your typical vocal excerpt, and I really don't think I would want to hear a singer -- no, not even Bjoerling -- do a cluster of such numbers. Surely it would become monotonous, no? Singers certainly don't often program recitals that way, building in enough contrast to keep the listener alert.

Nevertheless, it didn't take me long to long for one of the best matches of singer and repertory I know: Bjoerling and Stephen Foster's "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair." The version heard here was recorded in Sweden in 1948, with long-time collaborator Nils Grevilius conducting. It, but not "Jeanie," is included in EMI's two-CD "Very Best of Jussi Björling set. (But then, there's an enormous amount of Bjoerling on CD, both from the original issuing companies and from others.) The version I know better is the piano-accompanied one from Bjoerling's September 1955 Carnegie Hall recital, which was part of the single LP's worth of material that RCA issued originally; one of the happy discoveries in BMG/RCA's "Rediscovered" CD series is the complete 1955 recital. Not only was Bjoerling's English more confident in 1955, but I think the piano accompaniment, played by Frederick Schauwecker, suits the song better than the oddly tricked-up orchestral version we hear here. Which is not to say that the 1948 version is anything less than miraculous.

My first thought was to pair Bjoerling's "Jeanie" with the really spellbinding performance of Foster's "Beautiful Child of Song" included in the out-of-print Nonesuch program Songs of America by the late mezzo Jan DeGaetani (1933-1989). Okay, I could accept that this haunting performance isn't to be found, but to my horror, DeGaetani appears unknown on YouTube.

Now we could easily stick with Bjoerling. His meltingly beautiful Swedish-language "O Holy Night" is readily accessible. But then I would feel obliged to offer equal time to the great French tenor Georges Thill, whose recording of Adolphe Adam's original version, the "Cantique de Noël" (happily also accessible) is simply stupendous -- and perhaps takes us out of the "comfort music" zone, for Thill hears the music in almost martial terms. When he commands, "Peuple à genoux" ("People, on your knees"), I think you'll find yourself dropping to the floor. (In fairness, he is every bit as commanding in getting us back on our feet, with "Peuple debout" at 3:01.)

An obvious comfort number would be Schubert's "Serenade," which we could listen to with ravishing pleasure as performed in the above-mentioned 1955 Carnegie Hall recital. Instead I thought we would be serenaded by the tragically short-lived German tenor Fritz Wunderlich. He doesn't quite match Bjoerling in sheer liquid ease or elegance, but then, who does? The pianist is Hubert Giesen.

(Note: The spectacular group of seven Schubert songs that appeared as the fourth-side filler for Wunderlich's still-indispensable remake of Schubert's great youthful song cycle Die schöne Müllerin has been orphaned on CD. Three songs -- "Die Forelle," "Frühlingsglauben," and "Heidenröslein" -- were shoehorned on as fillers for the DG Originals issue of the Schöne Müllerin,which I consider a basic-library item. However, they all appear in the expanded-for-CD version of Wunderlich's Beethoven-Schubert-Schumann program.)

There's a clip, from the Schubert biopic Blossom Time, of the quintessential Viennese tenor, Richard Tauber, impersonating the composer -- accompanying himself at the piano, of course -- singing the "Serenade." The performance is on the quick side to allow Tauber his full vocal refulgence, but is certainly worth a look, and the clip is filled out with assorted other Tauberiana.



If we may indulge one last bit of comfort, this time from the ladies, could we really not include Brahms's "Lullaby"? YouTube is littered with hundreds of performances, vocal and otherwise, mostly by people who don't have the talent, skill, or sense to be embarrassed. It may be a simple song, but the simplicity is deceptive -- there's really no way of fudging the evenness and assuredness of line required, and any attempts to call attention to oneself will be instantly recognized and kill the performance dead. The singer here is the American soprano Felicia Weathers, and she does okay in this difficult assignment.



And whom, you may ask, might I really like to have sing me to sleep? Well, Christa Ludwig gave an unforgettable performance as the only encore for the Carnegie Hall lap of her yearlong "farewell" tour, but it wasn't included in the CD she recorded at the time. Hmm, I see there's a recording by Erna Bergerin the CD devoted to that singularly communicative soprano in Decca's "The Singers" series. I'll bet that's yummy.


UPDATE: LIKE A "VAPOR" OR A "ZEPHYR"?

A commenter notes that in the first stanza of "Jeanie" Bjoerling sings "floating like a zephyr," whereas another tenor -- John McCormack? -- sings "floating like a vapor." In fact Bjoerling sings "zephyr" both times: "Borne like a zephyr on the sweet summer air" and "Floating like a zephyr on the soft summer air." The printed edition I consulted has "vapor," but I assume there must be a variant version. In any case, after all these years of listening to Jussi sing "zephyr," I have a hard time hearing it any other way.

By the way, we could certainly have pushed our comfort-music drive in the direction of one of McCormack's matchless recordings of his Irish favorites -- say, "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling." Is it possible to resist the young McCormack singing, "And when Irish eyes are smiling, sure they'll steal your heart away." (Note: There have been scads of McCormack CDs, and I haven't heard any of them. You do want to steer toward the early ones, though -- say, pre-1925.)

While we're on the subject of other possibilities, the recording I would have liked to represent Fritz Wunderlich with was the "Midnight" quartet from Flotow's Martha, from the EMI LP of excerpts he recorded with Anneliese Rothenberger, Hetty Plümacher, and Gottlob Frick -- pure vocal gold. (Amazon has a listing for an EMI "DRM,"whatever that is, of the Rothenberger-Wunderlich Martha excerpts, but lists it as currently unavailable ("We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock"). There were accessible options: the classic Caruso recording (in Italian, of course, so that "Mitternacht" becomes "Mezzanotte," with the extra syllable squeezed in) with Frances Alda, Josephine Jacoby, and Marcel Journet, but the sound seems to me to do less justice to the voices, especially Caruso's, than some transfers I've heard of the original 78. You can hear this magical quartet -- in English! ("Mitternacht" becomes "Twelve o'clock," quite plausibly since the foursome is hearing the hour sounded) -- from a 1961 live performance (I guess we're not supposed to say from where) with Richard Tucker, Victoria de los Angeles, Rosalind Elias, and Giorgio Tozzi; it's at 1:04 of the clip. The 10:11 clip goes on to include the dull plot business that ends Act II -- and exposing us to the creepy bass of Lorenzo Alvary as Lord Tristan -- and on into Act III, with Tozzi sining Plumkett's "Porterlied," or I guess "Ale Song.")

If we'd gone the Martha quartet route, though, how could we have stopped short of Mozart's two unique, sublime "parting" ensembles: the (post-parting, actually) trio "Soave sia il vento" from Così fan tutte, and the farewell quintet from Act I of The Magic Flute. And then, on the subject of comfort, how could we not include the supremely human sextets from The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni?

All in good time, I guess.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

Here is the updated list.

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So who was the world's greatest tunesmith? Owing to a sudden, er, schedule availability, my answer will come in tomorrow's classical music post

Raina Kabaivanska (at age 56) and Luciano Pavarotti (age 55, in a role I don't think he ever sang all that effectively) sing most of the Act I duet from Puccini's Tosca, with Daniel Oren conducting. On the plus side, the clip has subtitles. (It begins at Tosca's "Al tuo fianco sentire.") The phrase "Qual occhio al mondo . . ." comes at 4:29.

by Ken

Owing to technical difficulties (mine, and trust me, you don't want to get me started on that -- after staying up an entire night trying to do a couple of pathetically simple "clips," consisting of nothing more than an image tacked onto an MP3 audio file -- I'm prepared to swear that this whole Internet thing is a cruel hoax, and this YouTube thing a ridiculous scam that'll never catch on), this week's music program has been pushed back to next week.

We were going to have a name-the-composer quiz in anticipation of tomorrow's Sunday classical music post. I'm going to allow that damned Internet and YouTube a week to get their act together. For now, though, I want to pursue an issue that comes up in the course of the now-delayed discussion: What the heck makes a great melody a great melody?

Oh no, I'm not going to try to answer that question. I'm not that crazy. I'm simply going to register astonishment at how ill-equipped I am to even consider it, and I'm not sure there's anybody much better equipped. I don't see any fancier alternative to the reality that we recognize great tunes after the fact, by the power they have to take control of the consciousness, and burrow into the unconscious, of large numbers of listeners.

By way of an obvious example of how hopeless it seems to me to try to define or analyze this, I return to that great moment I wrote about last week in the Act I "love duet" of Tosca, a duet that barely manages to be one as Tosca and Cavaradossi, preoccupied with their own problems, mostly talk past one another. Finally comes that remarkable moment when Cavaradossi, responding to Tosca's jealous fixation on the eyes he has painted in his portrait of the Madonna, for which he has used the beautiful Marchese d'Attavanti as a model.

Suddenly Floria has Mario's full attention, and Puccini has given him one of the great opportunities in the tenor literature. "Qual occhio al mondo puo star di paro all'ardente occhio tuo nero?" "What eyes in the world can stand comparison with your ardent black eyes?" (For the record, Mario refers in both instances to "eye," singular, but it seems to me that in English that just sounds silly, especially when we're confronted with the image of Tosca's "black eye.") This is the kind of take-charge moment for which good singers pay their career dues, and great singers announce themselves. If our tenor can take charge of it, can pour forth the wash of honeyed tenor magic for which the composer set him up, this can be as arrestingly beautiful moment as has ever been conjured by the mind of man.

(Not entirely surprisingly, if I could hear only one singer here, it would be Jussi Bjoerling -- in the RCA Tosca with Zinka Milanov and Leonard Warren, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf -- even though his was a lighter grade of tenor than the role calls for. No tenor has matched, not just his vocal refulgence, but his seemingly intuitive sense of how to shape a Puccinian phrase for maximum buildup and release. No, I'm not thrilled with the above clip, but I decided it was the best I could do. A significantly younger Kabaivanska, a fine artist of whom I have some lovely memories, can be heard from Japan with tenor Flaviano Labo in 1973. And I've heard worse performances than the Standard Hour one, apparently from 1953, by the improbably cast Licia Albanese and Jan Peerce, who actually did sing these roles a little.)

But as I pointed out last week, from the analytical standpoint, the "melody" Puccini has given the tenor is mostly just a series of upward-and-downward scale passages. This is supposed to be melodic genius? Uh, well, 'fraid so.

Obviously there's no rational answer to as preposterous a question as "Who was the greatest melody-writer of all time?" But it can be a fun question to speculate on. And the field is wide open -- anyone who wants to throw in the name of Irving Berlin can make an awfully good case, based on both quality and the astonishing volume.

It's not hard to think of candidates for the title. What I find kind of surprising is that, at least in my mind, there's not much question about the answer. And obvious as the answer seems to me, I can't offer any kind of rational defense of it. Tomorrow I will content myself with a couple of examples.

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