Ghost of Sunday Classics: "Kaleidoscope" -- a fondly remembered LP happily holds up under decades-later scrutiny

HOW DO WE GET FROM POINT A TO B TO C?

Point A, the opening of the piece (as heard last night):

Later we'll hear how we get from there to Point B:

However, Point B leads directly into Point C:

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

by Ken

Last week I reported my discovery of a hidden treasure trove (free!) of overtures, F. Reeder's Internet Archive compendium of "Overtures - Recorded 1926-1847)" -- 33 mp3 transfers of 29 overtures conducted by 18 conductors, most of them legendary (e.g., Barbirolli, Beecham, Furtwängler, Mengelberg, Mitropoulos, Reiner, Rodzinski, Toscanini, Walter, Weingartner). That helped nudge me into an overtury mood. I recalled that a happy heap of my listening over the years has been to recorded collections of overtures and related short orchestral pieces.

As I mentioned, this mood inspired me to finally order CD issues of material that had once been part of my "go to" listening material. As a result, we're not going to do much with the Reeder treasure trove this week, but we'll come back to it. Also, I should mention that in a February 2011 post I already flashed back to one of those treasured overture discs, the Capitol Paperback Classics reissue of Erich Leinsdorf's wonderful c1958 catchily titled Opera Overtures LP with the Philharmonia, augmented on CD with some fine overture performances by Felix Slatkin and Miklós Rózsa.

Another of those LPs sprang back to life with the arrival of those ordered CDs: a Mercury Living Presence CD reincarnation of sorts of Charles Mackerras's Philips LP Kaleidoscope. What we heard in last night's preview was the music that more than anything made me fall in love with the original Kaleidoscope. The CD isn't the original Kaleidoscope, exactly. On it material from two LPs is smooshed together (from the Kaleidoscope LP everything is here except two additional Brahms Hungarian Dances, a minimal loss), all recorded at the same time by the legendary Mercury "Living Presence" team of Wilma Cozart Fine, recording director; Harold Lawrence, musical supervisor; and C. Robert Fine, chief engineer and technical supervisor. The domestic Philips LP was in effect a "Living Presence" LP, which explains why it sounded so good. Unfortunately as with the general run of domestic Philips pressings, it could be, well, problematic -- my copy came badly warped.

But that didn't stop me from listening to it a few zillion times, especially the piece we began hearing last night. What we heard was the hushed, haunting opening -- "Point A" in the A-to-B-to-C sequence above. Now here's the whole thing, starting with the Mackerras recording. Then we have that wise old German hand Robert Heger (from a complete Merry Wives recording) and vintage Herbert von Karajan, plus a dip into the F. Reeder overture grab bag, turning up a conductor now hardly known, Nikolai Sokoloff (1886-1965), who does a pretty nice job while squeezing the thing onto one 78 side.

NICOLAI: The Merry Wives of Windsor: Overture


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

Bavarian State Orchestra, Robert Heger, cond. EMI, recorded 1964

Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded c1959

[trimmed (and rushed) to fit on one 78 side] Cleveland Orchestra, Nikolai Sokoloff, cond. Brunswick, recorded May 1927 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)


A CONDUCTOR NOT SO EASY TO "TYPE"

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Sunday Classics: Who can resist the "elaborate" and "extravagant" song of the high-flying lark?

"[Larks] have more elaborate calls than most birds, and often extravagant songs given in display flight. These melodious sounds (to human ears), combined with a willingness to expand into anthropogenic habitats -- as long as these are not too intensively managed -- have ensured larks a prominent place in literature and music, especially the Skylark in northern Europe and the Crested Lark and Calandra Lark in southern Europe." -- Wikipedia. Pictured above: a skylark.

"Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise:
Arise, arise."

-- Cloten's song from Cymbeline, Act II, Scene 3

In the first 2:32 of the clip, tenor Fritz Wunderlich sings the first stanza of "Horch', die Lerche singt im Hain," the German rendering of Shakespeare's "Hark, hark! the lark" which Otto Nicolai gave to the love-besotted young Fenton in his Merry Wives of Windsor. The clip continues with the duet between Fenton and the object of his affections, Anna Reich (the young Edith Mathis), from EMI's lovely 1962 recording of the complete opera conducted by Robert Heger. You'll notice that in the course of the duet Fenton sings his lark song again!

by Ken

Not much to look at is our little friend the lark.

Some years ago, I guess it was, I was hooked up to a project with someone who wanted some classical music for a particular use. I went at it with gusto, and soon had put together a list of short pieces I thought would be highly recognizable and appealing. Of course I didn't stop there. Soon I was putting pieces together in miniature suites, built around all kinds of themes: waltzes, marches, polkas, fanfares, Americana. Since I was making up my own rules as I went, it wasn't long before the concept had grown to sets of three or even four pieces totaling 15-20 minutes. I had a grand time swapping pieces in and out, and especially swapping performances in and out. Since the whole thing was being done digitally, I was limited to things I had on CD and could rip into MP3 form -- the first time I had ever used iTunes.

Of course all the excitement was happening in my head. As proud as I was of my little lists, which I was sure would be so much better than what narrow expectation the client had in mind, it turned out that the client didn't give a damn about any of it. Nevertheless, I was able to provide assistance with the client's own choice, and most important, I got paid. And I have to say, I had worlds of fun playing with all these wonderful little pieces -- and even occasional not-so-little ones. Once I had expanded the overall time frame to 15-20 minutes, as I recall, I was able to do a Brahms group that included the slow movement of the Brahms Double Concerto (which all these years later found its way into the first of the series of Sunday Classics Brahms pieces), and I remember trying to find a performance of the Scherzo of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony that sounded OK in MP3 form.

More recently I had occasion to be thinking again about some sort of very basic classical-music programming, and I thought of those old lists. Eventually I found a printout of one version of them, but the music files must have been on a different computer, and I had to re-create them. It was a great opportunity to redo the whole project, actually, and I was startled by how dramatically my CD holdings had grown in the intervening years. Drawing just on my own collection, I almost always had much better choices available. Well, that too exceeded the interest level of the prospective host -- by about 100 percent.

I think that version too is on the wrong computer, but it doesn't matter much, since the music files would be useless as long as I can't figure out how to incorporate audio files into our format. But I suddenly found myself thinking about one of my favorite groupings, which I called something like "Three Larks."

Now, it's not as if there's a vast literature of lark-inspired music. Setting aside Schubert, who had a veritable exaltation ( the applicable collective term, according to Wikipedia) of larks flit through his songs, including a setting of "Horch', horch', die Lerche" itself (not a major Schubert song, but there's a socko performance by the irresistible Richard Tauber from the film Blossom Time, in which he played Schubert), there are three musical specimens of larkdom that have little in common except that they're all spectacularly and effusively beautiful -- "extravagant songs in display flight" indeed.

WIKIPEDIA ON THE SKYLARK

The Skylark is 16 to 18 cm long. It is a bird of open farmland and heath, known throughout its range for the song of the male, which is delivered in hovering flight from heights of 50 to 100 m, when the singing bird may appear as just a dot in the sky from the ground. The song generally lasts 2 to 3 minutes, but it tends to last longer later in the season. The male has broader wings than the female. This adaptation for more efficient hovering flight may have evolved because of female Skylarks' preference for males that sing and hover for longer periods and so demonstrate that they are likely to have good overall fitness.

Note that Fenton's ravishing aria from Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor, at 2 1/2 minutes, is of perfect skylark length. (Note too that this isn't our first encounter with this opera. The magical Overture was one of our prime specimens of "comfort music.") Where Nicolai makes excellent use of the flute to suggest the lark's "hovering flight," our other larkmasters, Franz Josef Haydn and Ralph Vaughan Williams, turned to the violin.

The Lindsay Quartet plays the first movement of Haydn's Lark Quartet.

This opening movement of Haydn's Lark Quartet -- or, more properly, the Quartet in D major, Op. 64, No. 5 -- is another of those pieces that I'm prone to obsess over, and listen to 10 or 20 or 30 times in a row. It begins with a trompe l'oreille piece of musical misdirection of which Haydn was a master. For nearly a full eight bars, the second violin, viola, and cello announce what sounds like an almost childishly simple, bouncy main theme.

(The simplicity, by the way, is deceptive. Sample some of the many amateur performances posted on YouTube, and you'll discover quickly that what looks so simple on the page can be excruciatingly difficult to execute with seemingly effortless ease. I think it's wonderful that all these young people are trying to play the piece, and I'll bet they're all having fun making their fingers and bow arms produce something that recognizably resembles its. I just don't understand why they would wish to make their not-very-successful efforts public.)

But then, off the downbeat of that eighth bar, the heretofore-silent first violin slips in and takes larklike flight in a seemingly free-form melody that seems unrelated to the tune that the rest of the quartet has sounded -- except that it isn't. That bouncy opening theme continues as both a countertheme and a perfect accompaniment to the lark's song.

Dutch violinist Janine Jansen (25 at the time) is the soloist in The Lark Ascending at the July 2003 "Nation's Favourite" Prom, with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth. (The second half of the piece is here.)

"Romance for violin and orchestra" is Ralph Vaughan Williams' formal designation for this haunting pastoral meditation inspired by George Meredith's poem "The Lark Ascending," with the solo violin of course representing the flight of the lark. The piece is roughly 15 minutes of some of the most sheerly beautiful music I know. There's no question that the image of the lark's song fired VW's imagination, and I really don't know anything quite like his Lark, by him or anyone else. It's a glorious piece to listen to in a darkened room when you're in need of a mind relaxer, but it can also be a wonderful tool for focusing your attention.

The Lark was written in 1914 and revised in 1920. The composer could be fairly cranky over attempts to link his works to historical events. In response to a critic's suggestion that his conflict-ridden Sixth Symphony, begun in 1944 (which is to say the year before World War II ended) and completed in 1947, was his "War Symphony," he objected, "It never occurs to these people that a man might just want to write a piece of music." And so he would perhaps have downplayed the coincidence that the two versions of The Lark bracket World War I.

It took The Lark a surprisingly long time to catch on with the public, but by now it has become almost inescapable. One curiosity of its history with the public is that it has tended to s-t-r-e-t-c-h over time. The very pleasing performance begun in our clip runs up toward the 16-minute vicinity. When Sir Adrian Boult, probably the conductor most closely associated with Vaughan Williams, recorded the piece in 1952, it took him 13:20; when he recorded it again in 1967, it expanded to 14:42. On the whole this seems reasonable. As audiences became more familiar with it, it's likely that they accepted and even welcomed more leisurely traversals. It only becomes a problem if The Lark Ascending begins to turn into The Lark Wallowing.

One last thought about our three musical larks: The unfortunately not-terribly-long-lived Nicolai (1810-1849) would certainly have known Haydn's Lark Quartet, and Vaughan Williams would have been familiar with both Haydn's lark and Nicolai's. Can this be heard in the music?

FINAL ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTE

According to Wikipedia, North America is lark-challenged. The only lark we have is the shore lark (pictured above), which for reasons unknown to me we choose to call the horned lark.

Our horned lark is apparently not highly thought of amongst the lark family. "Vocalizations are high-pitched, lisping or tinkling, and weak. The song, given in flight as is common among larks, consists of a few chips followed by a warbling, ascending trill." Oh well, I suppose it's better than nothing.


QUICK HITS: OUR LARKS
SING ON RECORDS

Haydn: Lark Quartet

The Lark has always been one of the most popular of Haydn's quartets, though perhaps more as a novelty item than as one of the great Haydn quartets, which it undoubtedly is. Played by competent professionals, it's a hard piece to spoil, which makes choosing a recording a lot easier.

Partly it depends what kind of lark you're imagining. The Lindsays, in our clip, give a performance of the first movement that by today's standards is brisk, though not as brisk as was once common -- as in a wonderful live performance by the Hungarian Quartet recorded at U.S.C. in 1951, included in Music and Arts' rewarding eight-CD compendium of "Historical Recordings and Public Performances" by the Hungarian. There is a Lindsay performanceavailable, in a two-CD collection of "Six Popular String Quartets" by Haydn, but I'm not a big Lindsay fan. For a performance along these lines, if you're prepared to invest in a lot of Haydn, I would suggest DG's lovely seven-CD set of the Amadeus Quartetrecordings of Haydn's Opp. 51, 54, 55, 64, 71, 74.

As with Vaughan Williams' lark, Haydn's seems to have become a slower flier over the years, conrtrary to the general trend toward faster tempos in Haydn fast movements. (In addition to slower tempos, modern performances of the first movement of the Lark have been lengthened by standard inclusion of the repeat, once rarely observed.)

At a slower tempo you need really unanimous ensemble and a first violinist who can really make our lark sing. I don't think it's coincidence that I'm offering two (more!) performances by Hungarian quartets and one by a Czech quartet.

The complete Haydn quartets have now been traversed a number of times on records. For me the most flavorful series is the one by the veteran Tatrai Quartet on Hungaroton, and I have no hesitation in recommending the two-CD set of all six Op. 64 quartets. At budget price, the Kodaly Quartet's disc of Op. 64, Nos. 4-6, is an excellent buy.

Unfortunately, I can't find a current listing for the recording I was going to suggest as my favorite from this round of relistening: a Praga CD by the Prazak Quartet containing richly songful performances of the Lark Haydn's Op. 20, No. 6, and Op. 76, No. 3 (the great Emperor).

Nicolai: The Merry Wives of Windsor

A midprice reissue of the highly recommendable Heger/EMI Merry Wives with Wunderlich and Mathis (with Gottlob Frick as Falstaff) seems to be available from some sources. The less flavorful mid-'70s East-West German coproduction (originally issued here on DG), decently enough conducted by Bernhard Klee, with Kurt Moll as Falstaff, is available at midprice (with a libretto in German only)
on Berlin Classics.
I wonder if anyone can count how many CD anthologies of EMI's Wunderlich material his "Horch', die Lerche" has been included in. I've got the generously packed (154 minutes) two-CD Very Best of Fritz Wunderlich, which includes both Fenton's aria (both stanzas!) and the Anna-Fenton duet.

Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending

EMI has assembled a wonderful CDof shorter Vaughan Williams works from the "Indian summer" of the career of Sir Adrian Boult (1889-1983), his late 70s and 80s, when he became a one-man recording industry. This Lark Ascending, with New Philharmonia concertmaster Hugh Bean as soloist, was recorded as the LP filler for Sir Adrian's stereo recording of VW's Sixth Symphony, and this is still the way The Lark plays in my head. However, you can't go wrong with the rival Decca VW anthologyconducted by Neville Marriner, with his longtime collaborator Iona Brown as soloist in The Lark.

As it happens, I don't have the stereo Boult version on CD. I listen happily, though, to André Previn's recording (filling out his Telarc VW London Symphony) and Andrew Davis's (available in a reissue of its original coupling, with the VW Sixth Symphony and Thomas Tallis Fantasia). Warning note: If you think you might have any interest in acquiring Sir Andrew's really outstanding cycle of the Vaughan Williams symphonies and other major orchestral works -- and if you care about VW, you should be interested -- watch for the Teldec boxed set. I don't find any current listing for it, except via download, but it was available for some time at fairly modest price.

If you're foolish enough to begin acquiring the individual Davis CDs, trust me, when it comes to the final one, comprising Symphonies Nos. 3 and 7 (the Pastoral and the Sinfonia Antartica), which apparently had virtually no circulation before the first boxed set came out, you won't find it. This is how record companies reward customer loyalty, in this case the loyalty of customers who patiently supported the series, disc by disc, as they were being made. As I write, there's a copy of the Pastoral-Antartica coupling on offer at Amazon.com for a mere $80.71. Um, no thanks.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The updated list is here.

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Sunday Classics: Just like there's comfort food, there's comfort music

Mariss Jansons and the Berlin Philharmonic get just about everything there is to be gotten out of Carl Maria von Weber's spirit-cleansing Oberon Overture (in Tokyo's Suntory Hall, November 2000). NOTE: When the "HQ" button appears, if you're able to play clips in "High Quality," by all means do so. This clip looks and sounds amazing.

by Ken

It was a stressful day this week, and by mid-afternoon a point came when I had to get the hell away from my desk, and indeed out of the [expletive-deleted] building -- not soon, but right then.

I had the presence of mind to grab my portable CD player and headphones, but that meant I also had to grab a CD, with no time for thought. This is the oneI grabbed, not because my brain was up to Beethoven symphonies, not even one as user-friendly as the First, but I'm guessing because my eyes registered the non-Beethoven item on the disc: the much-performed overture to Carl Maria von Weber's not-much-performed opera Oberon.

I staggered into the elevator and then out to the street, which you may recall is the block of Broad Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Except for specially passed vehicles there's no traffic on that block, which is paved with not-really-cobblestones for a nice pedestrian-mall effect, and at this time of year nice stone benches [stone benches? -- c'mon, fella, don't you think they're probably concrete? -- Ed.] for passersby to sit on are set out right there in the street, or rather the half of the street that's not occupied as the fortress-like NYSE DMZ, which stretches about halfway out into Broad Street. And there are lots of passersby. A load of tourists find their way to our block every day, partly for the Stock Exchange, but also because Federal Hall is just up the short block at the corner of Broad and Wall Streets.

Safely outside, I started up the CD, and almost as soon as the opening horn call of the Oberon Overture sounded, answered by those muted strings, the pressure on my poor addled brain eased. As the flutes added their delicate chirps, and then first the trumpets and then the horns sounded their firm but gentle fanfares, I found myself feeling almost human.

It helped that the conductor of that performance, the late Klaus Tennstedt, had a gift bordering on genius for finding the inner animation of slow- to moderate-paced music (the slow movements of the Beethoven First and Fifth Symphonies on the same CD are so concentrated, they seem to sail forward), and so the whole of the majestic opening section of the Oberon Overture not only had the expected consciousness-expanding spaciousness but crackled with moment-to-moment tension.

Talk about "just what the doctor ordered"!

(Parenthetical note: Tennstedt (1926-1998) was a one-of-a-kind conductor of real depth who had the simultaneously good and bad fortune to have toiled in near-obscurity in East Germany until he was nearly 50. By the time he found his way onto the international stage, he had developed an artistic personality of a completeness that just doesn't happen often in these days of instant media celebrity. Sadly, he didn't have nearly enough time in the spotlight, though it's hard to bemoan a cruel tragic fate -- the steep decline in his health must have had something to do with the gazillion cigarettes a day he was reported to smoke. Nevertheless, his forced retirement and death was a terrible loss.)

THIS IS WHAT I MEAN BY COMFORT MUSIC

While Latvian-born Mariss Jansons (born 1943), in the above Oberon clip, may not match Tennstedt's intensity in that incomparably beautiful opening section, there's nothing whatsoever to apologize for in the performance he coaxes out of the Berlin Philharmonic here. I'd go so far as to say that this is a genuinely great performance of this much-performed masterpiece. For once this undeniably great orchestra is matched with a conductor who takes advantage of its greatness, pressing it to do all sorts of things that more ordinary orchestras can't -- and that the Berlin Phil itself isn't often challenged to do. Just listen, even in YouTube sound, to the glowing sound the Berlin strings produce here at hushed dynamic levels, something that only the greatest orchestras can do, and only when they're asked.

[TECHNICAL UPDATE: If you watch the Oberon clip onsite, you have the option of viewing it in "High Quality." I assume this requires additional system resources, but boy oh boy, does the clip look and sound fabulous in HQ! Wow! UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Ooh, I see that once you start up the clip on our site, you get the button for the HQ option! I thought I'd seen the HQ button here on DWT -- then it disappeared and I thought I must be losing it!]

In case you haven't guessed, I have a history with the Oberon Overture. My experience with it this week set me to thinking about a record I must have played, oh, a jillion times: a collection of six opera overtures played by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf.

I imagine that every music lover, of whatever genre, has records that through repeated playing become enmeshed in his or her consciousness. Interestingly -- to me, anyway -- the pieces I remember best from that record are the Oberon and the sparkling overture to Rossini's comic gem, L'Italiana in Algeri, another long and multifaceted piece that by curious coincidence features a breathtakingly beautiful hushed opening section, this one built around plucked strings.

I think this truncated jacket must be from the original Capitol issue of the record in question, but I never had or even saw that. The form in which I know it is the reissue in Capitol's '60s series of "Paperback Classics." A blurb on the front proclaimed: "World renowned artists in modern recordings of highest fidelity . . . A top quality pressing in new economy packaging," and that's just what they were. The jackets (blue for mono, red for stereo) were either the lightest of cardboards or simply heavy paper, with no notes -- just a list of the works and artists on the front and a list of series releases on the back.

As I recall, the Paperback Classics sold for something like 99 cents, but there was no skimping on the music. My copy of that Leinsdorf overture LP, pulled off the shelf a couple of days ago for the first time in, well, I have no idea how long, still sounds splendid. And the series releases were drawn, not just from Capitol's own extensive domestically recorded classical catalog, but from the vast EMI treasure trove, Capitol being EMI's U.S. company. (Leinsdorf was actually under contract to Capitol, not to EMI, but this London-made record was presumably recorded by EMI.)

From my memories of the Leinsdorf LP, I would have guessed that the Oberon and L'Italiana Overtures, the pieces I remember listening to all the time, were placed at the start of the two LP sides. And I would have been wrong. In fact, they filled out Side 1, following Wagner's massive and mighty Meistersinger Prelude -- the Rossini and then the Weber. On Side 2, you had Mozart's incomparably buoyant Marriage of Figaro Overture, Beethoven's monumental Leonore No. 3, and the grandest of Verdi's overtures, La Forza del destino.

Now that is one hell of a package, about as much musical greatness as it's possible to stuff onto two LP sides. After listening to it again, I can assure you that, deeply conflicted as I am about Erich Leinsdorf (for me there were about six different Erich Leinsdorfs, and the large and diverse body of work they produced includes a fair number of first-rate performances along with some of the most loathsome ones I've heard), these Philharmonia overture performances are all quite fine.

Still, it intrigues me that the record lingers in my mind above all for the Oberon and L'Italiana in Algeri Overtures. And it doesn't take much analysis to figure out why. For me, this was a "comfort" record. And as I flashed back to it that day, my mind leapt to a couple of others.

SHIMMERING MERRY WIVES, POETIC POET AND PEASANT

There was, for one, a domestic Philips LP called Kaleidoscope, on which a then only moderately known Charles Mackerras conducted the London Symphony in a number of overtures and other short orchestral works, including the piece we heard last night, Otto Nicolai's overture to his opera The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Again, there were curious things about my recollection. Most obviously, Mackerras isn't a conductor who has since then much impressed me. In fact, this Merry Wives performance constitutes must about my fondest recollection of a conductor who otherwise has struck me as generally an earnest plodder. Then there's the fact that I couldn't even remember what else was on the LP. As often as I put it on, I must have listened almost exclusively to the Merry Wives Overture.

The other record that popped into mind was an overture collection by the dynamic younger Leonard Bernstein, with (of course) the New York Philharmonic, officially titled William Tell And Other Favorite Overtures. (No, that's not it, at least not exactly, at right. See below.) Now, the younger Lenny was nothing if not a drama freak, and I listened to that rock 'em, sock 'em performance of Rossini's William Tell Overture easily a zillion times. Quietly as it too begins, and achingly beautiful as its earlier sections are, I wouldn't describe this as "comfort music," though. This is almost the opposite: music designed to send the blood racing.

However, placed before it on that side of the LP was another of my comfort treasures, Franz von Suppé's Poet and Peasant Overture. While Suppé was in fact a composer of operettas, and most of his overtures were written to introduce those (mostly forgotten) operettas, Poet and Peasant was written as part of some incidental music composed for a now-forgotten play.

Poet and Peasant has another of those slow-and-soft introductions that have the power to drain nasty stress out of my brain. Soon enough it leads into a lovely cello solo. Well, listen --


In another of these wonderful MGM CinemaScope "films," this one from 1955 (in stereo!), the widely underrated Alfred Wallenstein conducts the MGM Symphony in Franz von Suppé's poetic Poet and Peasant Overture. (Again, because of the wide-screen format, the best way to view it may be on YouTube directly. Again, though, when the "HQ" button appears in our version of the clip, punch it!)

The other side of the Bernstein William Tell LP contained three lovely French overtures: Louis Joseph Hérold's Zampa and Ambroise Thomas's Mignon and Raymond. I'm sure I listened to that side too, but not nearly as often as the Poet and Peasant-plus-William Tell side. Not long afterward, incidentally, Lenny and the New York Phil recorded an overture LP that included Suppé's other blockbuster overture, The Light Cavalry (and also his Beautiful Galathea), and, yes, Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor. I'm sure that LP got its share of hearings too.

As noted, by the way, the above illustration is not the one that housed the Bernstein overture collection I treasured. The original jacket featured a big photo of an apple with a large painted target superimposed on it. Get it? William Tell? An apple with a target painted on? The LP must have been reissued in CBS's "Great Performances" LP series, which was eventually transferred to CDwith just the same five overtures -- not much over 46 minutes' worth of music, which made for a not especially generous LP and a decidedly chintzy CD.)

I really don't have any grander point to make today. I just hope you enjoy the music. I know I feel better.


OUR COMFORT MUSIC ON RECORDS

These pieces have all been recorded countless times, but in such diverse couplings (and of course re-couplings) that it's not easy to keep track of them -- and not so easy to find really good performances.

DG has already deleted its CD of attractive performances of German Overturesby Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic, including both Oberon and Merry Wives of Windsor -- along with such other staples as Weber's Euryanthe, Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Hebrides, and Wagner's Rienzi. Thielemann (born 1959) is probably the foremost German conductor now plying his trade, and is clearly a very talented guy, but I don't recall ever hearing a performance from him that didn't leave me frustrated, and if you listen closely, or repeatedly, to these overture performances you find, or anyway I find, that they're slack at the core. The music doesn't really have any internal reason to move forward. Still, for some of these old warhorses there don't seem to be a lot of ready alternatives, and this CD lops off a gorgeous chunk of repertory in reasonably satisfying form. Copies shouldn't be that hard to find.

One way to get the Oberon Overture is as part of a program of Weber overtures, and in the absence of an available CD issue of Rafael Kubelik's lovely DG LP's worth, EMI offers a solid collectionby Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Lenny B's Poet and Peasant is of course obtainable on the above-noted Sony "Great Performances" CD, but here I've got something really special to suggest: an indispensable Mercury CD(I wish I knew what the hell happened to my copy!) on which three overtures by Daniel-François Auber have been added to the six by Suppé that were recorded for a magical LP by Paul Paray (1886-1979) and the Detroit Symphony in 1959. I actually didn't know the LP; I fell in love with the Paray Suppé overtures later in the form of a budget cassette edition. Listen to the effortless and serene playfulness of the woodwind figurations in Pique Dame, and I think you'll be hooked. (As much as I try not to pay too much attention to the reviews on Amazon.com, I think it's noteworthy that one reviewer after another goes wild over this CD.)


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

Here is the updated list.

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Music Tonight: A preview of tomorrow's Sunday Classics post devoted to "comfort music"

In this 1953 MGM CinemaScope film, Johnny Green and the MGM Symphony Orchestra have a grand time with one of my all-time best-loved pieces of music, Otto Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor Overture. (Note: When the "HQ" button appears, click on it to view in "High Quality," assuming your system is appropriately equipped. See the technical note below.)

by Ken

For once, instead of bitching about the available clips, I've got too many for tomorrow's classical music post, so we're jumping the gun with this delightful clip, really a self-contained little MGM film -- in 1953 CinemaScope! (Unfortunately it's still in mono. By 1954 MGM was recording these little films in stereo, and we've got one of those on view tomorrow.) The performance is just a shade pressed for my taste, especially in the fast sections, but it really is a wonderful performance of this piece, especially the shimmeringly beautiful opening section, which has been known to lift me out of some of the darkest moods. (In case you're wondering whether the "which" refers to "this piece" or "the shimmeringly beautiful opening section," the answer is yes.)

A beneficent soul has posted a bunch of these little MGM films featuring the MGM Symphony Orchestra, in the MGM Concert Hall, many conducted by composer-arranger-conductor Johnny Green (1908-1989), who from 1944 through the late '50s pretty much was the musical voice of MGM (general music director, 1950-58). Later in his career he went back to just "John" rather than "Johnny" Green, but by either name, and wearing all his many musical hats, he was a fabulous musician, and it's a delight to discover these film souvenirs. This Merry Wives Overture is a seriously big-time piece of music-making.


TECHNICAL NOTE: Sorry if the right side of the image is cut off in your display of the clip, as it is in mine. I guess we're not set up for wide-screen here -- I really didn't want to compress the image any more. Suggestion: Watch the clip on YouTube directly. It really looks swell.

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