Sunday Classics: Inscribed in the book of pardon -- we see Berlioz' "Roméo et Juliette" through to the soaring conclusion

Shakespeare's humble Friar Laurence has been promoted by Berlioz to the rank of father, in which capacity he will rise, in guilty and righteous rage, to browbeat the once-again-battling Capulets and Montagues into reconciliation.

FATHER LAURENCE: Swear then by this august symbol,
on the body of the maiden and the body of the son,
by this sorrowful wood that consoles,
swear all, swear by the sacred cross,
to fix between you an eternal chain
of tender charity, of fraternal amity;
and may God, who holds future judgment in His hand,
inscribe this oath in the book of pardon.

[CAPULETS and MONTAGUES sing their own versions of the above.]

José van Dam, bass-baritone; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded October 1975

This final scene of the reconciliation of the two families is reserved for the domain of opera or oratorio. It hasn't been played on any stage since the time of Shakespeare; but it is too beautiful, too musical, and it crowns a work of the nature of this one too well for the composer to have thought of treating it otherwise.

-- Berlioz, in the Preface to Roméo et Juliette

by Ken

Whew, as I laid out in last night's combined "flashback" and mini-tribute to tenor Cesare Valletti, we have a lot of ground to cover today -- and, happily, a lot of astounding music to listen to. So I'll try to keep the chatter to a minimum.

As we proceed through Parts II and III of Berlioz' "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette, we need to keep in mind the composer's explanation for his decision to portray the impassioned scenes of the lovers, which fall within what we're calling Part II, in purely orchestral language. One last time, then:

If, in the famous scenes of the garden and the cemetery, the dialogue of the two lovers, the asides of Juiet and the impassioned expressions of Romeo, aren't sung, if finally the duets of love and despair are confided to the orchestra, the reasons are numerous and easy to grasp. It is first -- and this motive alone would have provided the author with sufficient justification -- because we're dealing with a symphony and not an opera. Then, duets of this nature having been treated vocally a thousand times and by the greatest masters, it was prudent as well as intriguing to attempt a different mode of expression. It's also because the very sublimeness of that love made portraying it so dangerous for the musician that he had to give his imagination a latitude that the positive sense of sung words wouldn't have allowed him, and recourse to instrumental language, a language richer, more varied, and less fixed, and, by its very vagueness, incomparably more powerful in such a case.

-- Berlioz, from the Preface

"What we're calling Part II"??? In case that slipped past you, there is much confusion and disagreement about the breakdown of Berlioz' Roméo, and we had better establish right now exactly what we mean by Parts II and III.

A NOTE ABOUT THE THREE "PARTS" OF ROMÉO

There's no question that the "symphony" is made up of seven "scenes" ("tableaux") or, more symphonic-sounding, "movements." Nor is there much disagreement that what we've been calling Part I actually is Part II. From here, though, all hell breaks loose.

I've stuck with a division into three parts, which is what one most commonly encounters, even though my Peters miniature score clearly divides the work into four parts: Part II consisting of just the "Roméo Alone" sequence; Part III of just the "Love Scene"; and Part IV all the rest, including the "Queen Mab Scherzo," which would seem clearly to belong with the events and aftermath of the great ball at the Capulets', just like the Scherzetto version of Queen Mab in Part I.

However, since the Toscanini downloads of the complete are in three strictly defined files, we're going to follow its division. It's the one that's probably most often encountered, and it actually seems to me quite reasonable:

Part II --
1. Romeo alone
2. Love Scene
3. Queen Mab Scherzo

Part III
1. Juliet's funeral convoy
2. Romeo at the tomb of the Capulets
3. Finale

ROMÉO ET JULIETTE
PART I

Believe it or not, I think I've had my say (at least for now!) on Part I. If you've missed any of it, or just want to review before setting off into Parts II and III, check out Friday night's "flashback" post.

* * *

ROMÉO ET JULIETTE
PART II

1. Roméo alone -- Melancholy -- Distant noises of music and dancing -- Grand festivities at the Capulets'

We heard perfectly good performances of the extractable orchestral excerpts from Roméo in our very first Roméo preview, as performed by Carlo Maria Giulini and the Chicago Symphony, and a number of them we're simply going to bring back for another hearing, as in the case of the "Romeo Alone" sequence. First, though, we're going to hear the stereo Munch performance (we've heard excerpts from both his 1953 mono and 1961 stereo versions) of this sequence, for the convenience of hearing it broken down into its component parts on separate tracks.

In sections:

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 23-24, 1961
In one fell swoop:

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 13-15, 1969

2. Love scene -- Night -- The Capulets' garden

As I pointed out in last night's "flashback," a purely orchestral version of the Love Scene can be produced with the simple excision of about 80 bars of choral depiction of the Capulet ball guests "go off in the distance," as the semi-chorus narrators put it in Part I. We'll hear it both ways.

Without chorus:

NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. Music & Arts, recorded live, Apr. 5, 1941
Complete:

Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, Cleveland Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, cond. DG, recorded May 2000

Perhaps this is a good place to note that Toscanini was a leading champion of Berlioz' Roméo in this country, first during his years with the New York Philharmonic and then with the NBC Symphony. Apart from excerpts, he performed the complete piece as a guest conductor with the Philharmonic in 1942, then gave a broadcast performance with the NBC Symphony spread over two broadcasts in April 1947 which was something of a watershed in fostering awareness of the piece, even though the broadcast performance wasn't released on commercial records until almost two decades later, in 1965.

We're hearing Toscanini's 1947 Roméo in its entirely thanks to the $2.97 (!) download (see below for download info). I'm far from an unabashed admirer; almost none of the performance goes in any of the ways I would really like to hear this music. That said, the performance exudes understanding and commitment, and is in a different league from most of the recorded competition -- not that this is saying all that much.

3. Scherzo: Queen Mab, or the dream fairy

The "Queen Mab Scherzo" was one of the works Toscanini recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1941-42, the masters of which were assumed to be damaged beyond repair until the miraculously restored 2006 BMG issue of the whole series,where we can hear that the Philadelphians yield little in precision to Toscanini's own NBC Symphony while playing with a fullness and beauty of sound we don't associate with Toscanini performances. After that, let's listen again to the Giulini-Chicago recording.


Philadelphia Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Feb. 9, 1942


Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 13-15, 1969

Roméo et Juliette: Part II (complete)

Available for 99-cent download here.


Chorus, NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. Recorded live, Feb. 9 and 16, 1947

* * *

ROMÉO ET JULIETTE

PART III

1. Juliette's funeral convoy
2. Roméo at the tomb of the Capulets -- Invocation -- Juliette's reawakening -- Delirious joy, despair, final anguishes and death of the two lovers

So far, the only music we've heard from Part III (as we're defining it here, meaning everything after the "Queen Mab Scherzo") is the orchestra-only "Romeo at the tomb of the Capulets" sequence, which breaks down as listed above. It too was included in that batch of Giulini-Chicago orchestral excerpts. Why don't we listen to it again?

Roméo at the tomb of the Capulets

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 13-15, 1969

As noted above, the "Roméo at the tomb of the Capulets" sequence is preceded by "Juliette's funeral convoy," a choral setting of the following text:

Strew flowers for the dead maiden!
Follow to her tomb our adored sister!

Here's the complete sequence.

Part III, 1. Juliette's funeral convoy
2. Roméo at the tomb of the Capulets


London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. Westminster/MCA/DG, recorded June 1962

And now, finally, we're ready to take the big plunge into the grand finale.

3. Finale: The crowd gathers at the cemetery -- Recitative and aria of Father Laurence -- Brawling of Capulets and Montagues -- Oath of reconciliation

[a] The crowd gathers at the cemetery (Capulet and Montague choruses)


New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 23-24, 1961

[b] Recitative (Father Laurence and Capulet and Montague choruses)

At this point Father Laurence steps forward. He stuns the Capulet and Montague factions with a startling as well as horrific account of how the children come to be lying dead before them. There's an especially poignant moment at 0:24, when he cites his authority for the startling claim that the young lovers were married: He's the one who married them ("C'est moi qui les ai mariés").

FATHER LAURENCE: I'm going to lift the veil from the mystery.
This corpse, it was
the husband of Juliette. Do you see
that body stretched out on the ground?
That was the wife, alas!, of Roméo. I was the one
who married them.

CAPULETS and MONTAGUES: Married?

FATHER LAURENCE: Yes, I have to
admit it. I saw in it the hopeful pledge
of a future amity between your two houses.

CAPULETS and MONTAGUES: Friends of Montagues/Capulets -- us! We curse them!

FATHER LAURENCE: But you resumed the war of the families.
To escape another marriage, the unhappy girl,
in despair, came to find me.
"You alone," she cried, "could have saved me.
I have nothing left but to die." In this extreme peril,
I had her take, to cheat her fate,
a potion that, that very evening,
the pallor and cold of death.

CAPULETS and MONTAGUES: A potion!

FATHER LAURENCE: And I came here without fear
to rescue her.
But Roméo, deceived, arrived before me
within the burial walls, to die
on the body of his beloved;
and upon her reawakening Juliette, realizing
that death was lodged in his breast,
turned Roméo's dagger against herself,
and was passing into eternity
when I appeared -- there's the whole truth.

CAPULETS and MONTAGUES [with consternation]: Married!

Giorgio Tozzi, bass; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 23-24, 1961

[c] Aria (Father Laurence)

Now the good father goes into (gorgeously) elegiac mode, but it isn't long before the rage bursts through again, at 2:52: "Where are they now?" ("Où sont-ils maintenant?"). With the air we have bass-baritone José van Dam taking over as our primary Father Laurence. Any number of perfectly estimable and honorable basses and bass-baritones have recorded this music, but van Dam seems to me truly without competition.

Short of a true bass with a free and easy upper range (hey, I can dream, can't I?), van Dam's bass-baritone is something close to the ideal voice for this music, having a smoothly, evenly, and beautifully knit compass with a modicum of basslike timbre and a full-bodied upper range that smartens excitingly when he's in his high-energy mode. He could be disappointingly casual at times, but when music like this induced him to really bring it, he could be a thrilling singer. We've already heard him in the final oath of reconciliation at the top of this post, and we're going to hear it again at the end -- he makes musical and dramatic sense of it in a way I've never heard anyone else even approach. I really don't have a second-place finisher.

FATHER LAURENCE: Poor children, for whom I weep,
fallen before your time,
on your somber resting place
posterity will come to weep!
Made great through you in history,
Verona one day, without believing in it,
will have its sorrow and its glory
in your memory alone.

Where are they now, these cowardly enemies?
Capulets! Montagues! Come, see, touch!
With hatred in your hearts, insults on your lips,
approach these pale lovers, barbarians!
God will punish you through your tender spots.
His chastisements, his avenging thunderbolts
will find the secret of our terrors!
Hear his voice, which thunders:
"So that on high my vengeance may pardon you,
forget your rage."

José van Dam, bass-baritone; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded October 1975

[d] Brawling between Capulets and Montagues

The raging and mutual recriminations of the two factions give way to another great moment for Father Laurence, at 0:32: his "Silence, wretches!" ("Silence, malheureux!").

FATHER LAURENCE [with indignation]:
Silence, wretches! Can you without remorse,
in the face of such a love, vent such hatred?
Must your rage in this place break out,
rekindled by the torches of the dead?

Great God, who sees into the depths of the soul,
thou knowest if my pledges were pure.
[As he continues, the choruses join in, each family lamenting the other's lost child.]
Great God, with a spark of thy flame
touch these somber and hard hearts!
and may your enlightening breath,
rising toward them at my voice,
chase and dissipate their rage
like chaff at the will of the wind.

CAPULETS and MONTAGUES: What a strange miracle!
No more horror, no more bile!
Just tears from heaven!
Our whole soul is changed!

José van Dam, bass-baritone; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded October 1975

Before we move on to the Oath, let's recap the Finale so far.

[a] through [d]


David Ward, bass; London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. Westminster/MCA/DG, recorded June 1962

[e] Oath (Father Laurence and Capulet and Montague choruses)

We're going to let all three of our Father Laurences have a crack at this soaring conclusion.

FATHER LAURENCE: Swear then by this august symbol,
on the body of the maiden and the body of the son,
by this sorrowful wood that consoles,
swear all, swear by the sacred cross,
to fix between you an eternal chain
of tender charity, of fraternal amity;
and may God, who holds future judgment in His hand,
inscribe this oath in the book of pardon.

[CAPULETS and MONTAGUES sing their own versions of the above.]

Giorgio Tozzi, bass; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 23-24, 1961


David Ward, bass; London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. Westminster/MCA/DG, recorded June 1962


José van Dam, bass-baritone; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded October 1975

Roméo et Juliette: Part III (complete)

Available for 99-cent download here.


Nicola Moscona, bass; Chorus, NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. Recorded live, Feb. 9 and 16, 1947

SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

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Sunday Classics flashback: "Soon death is sovereign" -- more of Berlioz' "Roméo et Juliette"

Verona: "Ancient hatreds, dormant, have surged as if from hell"

by Ken

There was so much to cover last week, introducing Berlioz' "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette in the company of another Berlioz Shakespeare adaptation, the opera Béatrice et Bénédict, that I think tonight and tomorrow night we need to do a little retracing and consolidating and contemplating.

In order to round out the relatively brief Part I, in which, as I pointed out, Berlioz basically tells the whole story, before telling it all again in Parts II and III, we need first to add just a bit more music to what we covered in last Friday's preview as well as the Sunday main post. By Sunday, you may recall, we'd gotten our protagonists as far as the aftermath of the great festivities at the Capulets': Juliette, alone on her balcony, thinking herself alone, confiding her love to the night; and the lurking Roméo taking that great leap of faith and revealing himself and his love. All that's left in Part I is Roméo rejoining his Montague relations and friends, and being roundly ridiculed for his pale, dreamy state. His friend Mercutio ventures that he has been visited by the fairy queen Mab.

Finally it's left to the small chorus (14 voices, you'll recall Berlioz asked for) to encapsule the rest of the action ever so briefly. "Soon death is sovereign," they warn, and then foretell the great reconciliation among the Veronese which again we read the composer explaining seemed to him appropriate.

The section is so brief that I thought we might hear several performances, even if the geographical range is from Boston to Boston to Cleveland. Believe it or not, we're hearing the entire tenor part, which is why we'll encounter singers on records we'd hardly ever expect to hear in a live performance. I have a distinct order of preference among our three tenors (a Frenchman, an Italian, and an American, you'll ntoe); I wonder whether other listeners will share it.

BERLIOZ: Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17:
Part I conclusion, Recitative and Scherzetto

RECITATIVE AND SCHERZETTO (solo tenor with semi-chorus)

Recitative

TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: Soon Romeo's
pale dreaminess
puts all his friends in a state of mirth.

TENOR: "My dear," says the elegant Mercutio,
"I wager
that Queen Mab has visited you."

Scherzetto

TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: Mab! The messenger,
slender and feathery,
she has for chariot a nutshell,
TENOR: which a squirrel fashioned;
the fingers of a spider
wove her harness.
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: In the nights, the fairy, with this tiny train,
gallops madly through the brain of a page
TENOR: who dreams of impish trickery
or tender serenading
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: in the moonlight under the tower.
And following her outing
TENOR: the little queen alights
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: one the bronzed neck of a soldier.
TENOR: He dreams of cannonades
and lively thrusts . . .
The drum! . . . the trumpet! . . . he wakes up, and then
swears, and prays, swearing all the while,
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: then falls asleep again
TENOR: and snores with his comrades.

TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: It's Mab who made this whole bacchanal!
It's also she who, in a dream, dresses
the girl
and escorts her to the ball.
TENOR: But the cock sings, day shines,
Mab flees like a lightning bolt
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: in the air.

Narration (semi-chorus)

SEMI-CHORUS: Soon death is sovereign.
Capulets, Montagues, chastened by their sorrows,
are reconciled finally into abjuring the hatred
that caused the flow of so much blood and tears.

Jean Dupouy, tenor; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded October 1975


Cesare Valletti, tenor; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 23-24, 1961


Kenneth Tarver, tenor; Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, Cleveland Orchestra, Pierre Boulez, cond. DG, recorded May 2000


NOW TO PULL THE WHOLE OF PART I TOGETHER

We first heard the agitated opening of the piece in last Friday's preview, in which we heard the extensive orchestra-only excerpts recorded by Carlo Maria Giulini and the Chicago Symphony. Now we're ready to put the whole part together, via Arturo Toscanini's famous 1947 NBC Symphony Roméo, which can be downloaded for an amazing $2.97 ($.99 cents for each of the three files containing the work's three parts).

Roméo et Juliette, Op. 17:
Part I (complete)

INTRODUCTION

Combat and tumult -- [1:36] Intervention of the Prince

PROLOGUE

Narration (semi-chorus with solo mezzo-soprano)

[4:27] SEMI-CHORUS: Ancient hatreds, dormant,
have surged as if from hell.
Capulets, Montagues, two enemy houses,
have crossed swords in Verona.

However, these bloody disorders' course
has been halted by the Prince,
threatening death to those who, despite his orders,
would again have recourse to the justice of swords.

[5:20] In these instants of calm a ball is given
by the old head of the Capulets.

[5:33] MEZZO-SOPRANO: Young Romeo, bemoaning his destiny,
comes to wander sadly around the entrance to the palace,
for he's madly in love with Juliet, the daughter
of the enemies of his family.

[6:01] SEMI-CHORUS with MEZZO-SOPRANO:
Noise from the instruments, melodious singing
emerge from the salons where gold shines,
arousing dancing and joyous cries.

[6:16] [Music from the ball is heard.]

[6:53] SEMI-CHORUS: The ball is finished, and when all the noise dies out,
under the arches can be heard
the exhausted dancers singing as they go off in the distance.
Alas! and Romeo sighs,
for he has had to leave Juliet!

[7:36] Suddenly, in order to breathe again that air that she breathes,
he vaults over the garden walls.

[7:47] Already on her balcony snow-white Juliet
appears, and believing herself alone until daybreak,
confides her love to the night.

[8:18] Romeo, trembling with a restless joy,
[8:23] reveals himself to Juliet,
and from his heart fires break out in their turn.

STROPHES (mezzo-soprano solo with semi-chorus)

[8:53] First transports that no one forgets,
first declarations, first vows
of two lovers.
Under the stars of Italy,
in that warm air without breezes,
which distant orange blossoms scent,
where the nightingale
wastes away with long sighs.

[10:06] What art, in its chosen tongue,
could describe your heavenly delights?
First love, are you not
more exalted than all poetry?
Or rather are you not, in our mortal exile,
that poetry itself
of which Shakespeare alone had the supreme secret,
and which he took with him
[SEMI-CHORUS joining in] to heaven?

[11:50] Happy children with hearts on fire!
Joined in love by the chance
of a single look,
hide it well under the shadow of flowers,
that divine fire that sets you ablaze,
ecstasy so pure
that its words are tears.

[13:06] What king could match the transports
of your chaste delights?
Happy children! and what treasures
could purchase a single one of your sighs?
Ah! savor for a long time that cup of honey,
sweeter than the chalices
from which God's angels, jealous of your delights,
draw happiness
[SEMI-CHORUS joining in] in heaven!

RECITATIVE AND SCHERZETTO
(solo tenor with semi-chorus)

Recitative

[14: 56] TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: Soon Romeo's
pale dreaminess
puts all his friends in a state of mirth.

TENOR: "My dear," says the elegant Mercutio,
"I wager
that Queen Mab has visited you."

Scherzetto

[15:20] TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: Mab! The messenger,
slender and feathery,
she has for chariot a nutshell,
TENOR: which a squirrel fashioned;
the fingers of a spider
wove her harness.
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: In the nights, the fairy, with this tiny train,
gallops madly through the brain of a page
TENOR: who dreams of impish trickery
or tender serenading
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: in the moonlight under the tower.
And following her outing
TENOR: the little queen alights
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: one the bronzed neck of a soldier.
TENOR: He dreams of cannonades
and lively thrusts . . .
The drum! . . . the trumpet! . . . he wakes up, and then
swears, and prays, swearing all the while,
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: then falls asleep again
TENOR: and snores with his comrades.

TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: It's Mab who made this whole bacchanale!
It's also she who, in a dream, dresses
the girl
and escorts her to the ball.
TENOR: But the cock sings, day shines,
Mab flees like a lightning bolt
TENOR and SEMI-CHORUS: in the air.

Narration (semi-chorus)

[17:03] SEMI-CHORUS: Soon death is sovereign.
Capulets, Montagues, chastened by their sorrows,
are reconciled finally into abjuring the hatred
that caused the flow of so much blood and tears.

Gladys Swarthout, mezzo-soprano; John Garris, tenor; Chorus, NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. Recorded live, Feb. 9 and 16, 1947


IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S SUNDAY CLASSICS PREVIEW --

We forge back onward into Parts II and III of Roméo, with more Berlioz in store for Sunday. Okay, I'm not absolutely sure exactly what at this precise moment. So sue me. I'm thinking maybe Harold in Italy (another Berlioz "symphony," though a much more nearly recognizable one, except for the pesky business of the viola solo), maybe with (or then again maybe without) some surprises.

SATURDAY MORNING UPDATE -- CHANGE OF PLAN:

There's just too much music for "review" to dump it all into another "flashback." So let's do something of a "preview" nature for tonight, and then finish up with Roméo -- and that includes going into the great finale of reconciliation -- in Sunday's post. Then maybe we'll visit Italy with Harold next week.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

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Sunday Classics: Berlioz tackles that most basic and intimate issue, the terrifying vulnerability of owning up to loving

"There will undoubtedly be no mistake regarding the genre of this work. Although voices are used often in it, it is neither an opera in concert form nor a cantata, but a symphony with choruses."

-- Hector Berlioz, start of the Preface to Roméo et Juliette

by Ken

We have to establish at the outset that Berlioz must surely have been joshing in this opening paragraph of the Preface to his "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette. It's hard to think of any piece of music whose genre is more likely to be misunderstood. In fact, I can't tell you how often I've seen this mistranslated to say the opposite: that there doubtless will be confusion regarding the genre of this work. And there's confusion because, as he so often did, Berlioz invented the form himself, as his perception of the requirements of the story dictated, and the piece presents a constant juxtaposition of elements that hardly any other composer might have thought of.

The two exceptions that leap to mind are Gustav Mahler and Dmitri Shostakovich, whose wind-ranging imaginations ran to a similar sort of juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated or even incompatible elements -- made inseparably related and compatible by the power of those imaginations. We've already talked a bit about these kinds of juxtapositions in consecutive Christmas Eve posts from 2008 and 2009 focusing on Berlioz' improbably sublime, and really not at all sacred, oratorio The Childhood of Christ. The charge you will sometimes hear leveled at any or all of these composers is that their music is "uneven," when in fact I would argue that what it is is extremely heterodox -- these guys will throw any resource they can summon to rise to a communicative challenge. Which means that audiences are often left playing catchup, coming to understand why these disparate elements have been put together and what is achieved. (This subject came up, for example, in our consideration of Shostakovich's strangely wonderful Sixth Symphony.)

In Friday night's Roméo preview, we heard the very opening, the depiction in a fugato for the strings of the violence between the warring Montague and Capulet families, which is interrupted by the Prince's intervention. (That was the first of the series of orchestral excerpts we heard performed by Carlo Maria Giulini and the Chicago Symphony.) Then as the final item in our preview we went back to close to the beginning for our only vocal excerrpt, the aria-like "strophes" sung by the mezzo-soprano in tribute to those "first transports that no one forgets, first declarations, first vows of two lovers under the stars of Italy."

What we didn't hear was the roughly four and a half minutes of music between those two excerpts: chanted narration by the "semi-chorus" ( the composer asked for 14 voices) with, at first, relatively inconspicuous assistance from the mezzo-soprano soloist, who then joins in the story-telling. This little block of music -- completely different in character from what precedes as well as what follows it (that we have three such different musics butted up against each other is a prime Berliozian ploy) -- is one of the most amazing chunklets of music I know, and it's really what I want to talk about today.

In fact I've wanted to talk about since I began writing these posts, and I've never had any confidence in my ability to communicate what makes them so extraordinary to me. I'm not sure I'm any better able to do it now, but sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith. As it happens, the qualities that eventually came to seem so magical to me here sneaked up on me over a period of some years' acquaintance, and while I'm sure there are people who are quicker on the uptake, I'm not sure I can offer a much better route to "getting" it. For me it was hearing the music, over and over, in different performances, some of which proved less uncomprehending than the others, until it exploded in my consciousness.

Let's start by putting the first two pieces of this puzzle together. You may have noticed Friday night that our opening excerpt trailed off rather inconclusively at the end. That's because at this point what Berlioz identifies in the score as "prologue" begins, with the first utterance of the semi-chorus, informing us of the ancient, bloody feud between the houses of Montague and Capulet. At the other end of this narration are the "strophes" sung by the mezzo-soprano, which we heard last night. We're going to stick with the same conductor we heard last night in the strophes, Charles Munch, but we're going to switch recordings. Last night we heard his 1958 stereo version; now we're going to back to the 1953 mono version.

Roméo et Juliette: Part I, Orchestral introduction and narration for semi-chorus with mezzo-soprano solo

SEMI-CHORUS: Ancient hatreds, dormant,
have surged as if from hell.
Capulets, Montagues, two enemy houses,
have crossed swords in Verona.

However, these bloody disorders' course
has been halted by the Prince,
threatening death to those who, despite his orders,
would again have recourse to the justice of swords.

In these instants of calm a ball is given
by the old head of the Capulets.

MEZZO-SOPRANO: Young Romeo, bemoaning his destiny,
comes to wander sadly around the entrance to the palace,
for he's madly in love with Juliet, the daughter
of the enemies of his family.

SEMI-CHORUS with MEZZO-SOPRANO:
Noise from the instruments, melodious singing
emerge from the salons where gold shines,
arousing dancing and joyous cries.

[Music from the ball is heard.]

SEMI-CHORUS: The ball is finished, and when all the noise dies out,
under the arches can be heard
the exhausted dancers singing as they go off in the distance.
Alas! and Romeo sighs,
for he has had to leave Juliet!

Suddenly, in order to breathe again that air that she breathes,
he vaults over the garden walls.

Already on her balcony snow-white Juliet
appears, and believing herself alone until daybreak,
confides her love to the night.

Romeo, trembling with a restless joy,
reveals himself to Juliet,
and from his heart fires break out in their turn.

Margaret Roggero, mezzo-soprano; Harvard Glee Club, Radcliffe Choral Society, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Feb. 22-23, 1953

What the strangeness as well as seeming plainness of the small-chorus chanting may obscure is that Berlioz has here invented his own form of choral narration, just for this piece, a form that gradually takes on gradations and variations and soon blossoms into something altogether extraordinary, but none of that can happen unless the performers and the audience tune into this rhythmic chant he has concocted. I don't doubt that many listeners will grasp it much quicker than I did, but then, I've heard countless performances in which the conductors, most of them highly respected practitioners, seem to have been quite clueless even as they undertook to commit the music to recording.

One characteristic of this chant, it seems to me, is that it gives an immediate impression of "sameness," of unvaried narrative chant, even though it begins to undergo variation almost immediately. Berlioz seems to me to have been staking out a claim to some kind of timelessness, evoking not just the chorus of Shakespeare's play but those of antiquity, going back at least to the dramas of the ancient Greeks.

[Note: Time cues refer to the Ozawa-DG recording, but the Monteux-Westminster is pretty close.]

NARRATION (semi-chorus with solo mezzo-soprano)

[0:00] SEMI-CHORUS: Ancient hatreds, dormant,
have surged as if from hell.
Capulets, Montagues, two enemy houses,
have crossed swords in Verona.

[0:20] However, these bloody disorders' course
has been halted by the Prince,
threatening death to those who, despite his orders,
would again have recourse to the justice of swords.

[0:52] In these instants of calm a ball is given
by the old head of the Capulets.

[1:04] MEZZO-SOPRANO: Young Romeo, bemoaning his destiny,
comes to wander sadly around the entrance to the palace,
[1:20] for he's madly in love with Juliet, the daughter
of the enemies of his family.

[1:36] SEMI-CHORUS with MEZZO-SOPRANO:
Noise from the instruments, melodious singing
emerge from the salons where gold shines,
arousing dancing and joyous cries.

[1:49] [Music from the ball is heard.]

[2:28] SEMI-CHORUS: The ball is finished, and when all the noise dies out,
under the arches can be heard
the exhausted dancers singing as they go off in the distance.
[2:50] Alas! and Romeo sighs,
for he has had to leave Juliet!

[3:18] Suddenly, in order to breathe again that air that she breathes,
he vaults over the garden walls.

[3:27] Already on her balcony snow-white Juliet
appears, and believing herself alone until daybreak,
confides her love to the night.

[3:56] Romeo, trembling with a restless joy,
[4:00] reveals himself to Juliet,
and from his heart fires break out in their turn.

STROPHES (mezzo-soprano solo with semi-chorus)

[0:00] First transports that no one forgets,
first declarations, first vows
of two lovers.
Under the stars of Italy,
in that warm air without breezes,
which distant orange blossoms scent,
where the nightingale
wastes away with long sighs.

[1:12] What art, in its chosen tongue,
could describe your heavenly delights?
First love, are you not
more exalted than all poetry?
Or rather are you not, in our mortal exile,
that poetry itself
of which Shakespeare alone had the supreme secret,
and which he took with him
[SEMI-CHORUS joining in] to heaven?

[3:00] Happy children with hearts on fire!
Joined in love by the chance
of a single look,
hide it well under the shadow of flowers,
that divine fire that sets you ablaze,
ecstasy so pure
that its words are tears.

[4:11] What king could match the transports
of your chaste delights?
Happy children! and what treasures
could purchase a single one of your sighs?
Ah! savor for a long time that cup of honey,
sweeter than the chalices
from which God's angels, jealous of your delights,
draw happiness
[SEMI-CHORUS joining in] in heaven!

Narration

Strophes

Julia Hamari, mezzo-soprano; New England Conservatory Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded October 1975

Narration

Strophes

Regina Resnik, mezzo-soprano; London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. Westminster/MCA, recorded June 1962

[The "Strophes" track includes the following choral narration, which establishes that the lovelorn Romeo's friends begin to make fun of him, preparing for Mercutio's Queen Mab fantasy.]

It's amazing how many performances whiff totally on this crucial setup of the entire piece. From the starkness of the setting, and its rhythmic spareness, not to mention the reduced chorus, it seems clear that Berlioz wanted: (a) to establish a musically striking, almost primitive-chant-like narrative mode, and (b) to provide musical space for absolutely clear as well as forceful delivery of the words of this remarkable narration. I can only guess that most performers think that, on the contrary, this is simply an embarrassingly inept span of unmusical drivel that they have to either gussy up, as if it were maybe a Christmas carol, or just slur their way through and hope nobody will notice. (Perhaps the most egregious is the progressive descent into sing-songy gibberish of Colin Davis's numerous recordings.)

I'm sorry I can't offer you the best performance I've heard of this music, from what would appear to be the least probable source: a recording made by Austrian Radio forces under the rarely inspired Italian conductor Lamberto Gardelli (1915-1998), with Brigitte Fassbaender singing the daylights out of the mezzo solos.

Just a few things to note in this chunk of prologue:

* For all the seeming chantlike quality of the choral narration, note how both the choral setting and the accompaniment respond to shifts in tone in the story, though regularly resolving in broad major-key cadences to maintain the aural image of chantlike uniformity.

* Note how the tone personalizes when the story brings in Roméo, starting with the switch to the solo narrative voice of the mezzo-soprano.

* The orchestral music depicting the Capulets' ball should sound familiar. We heard it in expanded form last night in our second orchestral excerpt, from Part II. Which brings us to an important point about the structure of Berlioz' Roméo: In Part I, which as I'm mentioned is in effect a prologue, we go through -- in varying detail -- the entire story of Romeo and Juliet, through their deaths, and then in Parts II and III we go through it again. Let's return to Berlioz' Preface:

If singing figures in [the piece] almost from the beginning, it's in order to prepare the mind of the listener for the dramatic scenes whose feelings and passions are to be expressed by the orchestra. Beyond that it's to introduce little by little in the musical development the choral forces, whose too sudden appearance could have harmed the unity of the composition. Thus the prologue, where -- following the example of the play of Shakespeare himself -- the chorus reveals the plot, it's sung by only 14 voices. Later, offstage, the chorus of just the Capulet men is heard; then during the funeral ceremony the Capulet men and women. At the beginning of the finale, two entire choruses, of Capulets and Montagues, are involved, as well as Father Laurence; and at the end, the three choruses are reunited.

With regard to those "dramatic scenes whose feelings and passions are to be expressed by the orchestra," Berlioz went on to explain more precisely:

If, in the famous scenes of the garden and the cemetery, the dialogue of the two lovers, the asides of Juiet and the impassioned expressions of Romeo, aren't sung, if finally the duets of love and despair are confided to the orchestra, the reasons are numerous and easy to grasp. It is first -- and this motive alone would have provided the author with sufficient justification -- because we're dealing with a symphony and not an opera. Then, duets of this nature having been treated vocally a thousand times and by the greatest masters, it was prudent as well as intriguing to attempt a different mode of expression. It's also because the very sublimeness of that love made portraying it so dangerous for the musician that he had to give his imagination a latitude that the positive sense of sung words wouldn't have allowed him, and recourse to instrumental language, a language richer, more varied, and less fixed, and, by its very vagueness, incomparably more powerful in such a case.

Berlioz even gives us two renderings of Mercutio's evocation of Queen Mab: first a spritely sung version for tenor and chorus, and then in Part II the orchestral scherzo (which again we heard Friday night) that is one of the composer's most popular stand-alone orchestral pieces.

* Finally, with regard to this bit of narration, and I'm afraid here's where my explanatory powers will fail me, there is the amazing depiction of the state of mind of the young lovers on the brink of their surrender to their first love: Juliet alone on her balcony (3:27), and then the love-struck Romeo, unable to contain himself (3:56), summoning more courage than he's ever had in his life and (4:00) revealing himself, totally vulnerable, to Juliet, declaring his love. This is such an extraordinary moment, both in the story and, I suspect, for most every audience member, that it demands an extraordinary response, which Berlioz delivered in the form of the mezzo-soprano strophes, and in particular that remarkable refrain in each stanza (3:00 and 4:11) -- the first moments that invariably grabbed me as I was getting to know the piece.

This is by no means all the Berlioz is up to in Roméo et Juliette For the Finale he has prepared a grand reconciliation between the warring families, brought about by an amazing harangue from Father Laurence (promoted from Shakespeare's humble friar, you'll notice), who shames them into submission, pining the blame on them for the deaths of their treasured children. The composer explained this too in the Preface:

This final scene of the reconciliation of the two families is reserved for the domain of opera or oratorio. It hasn't been played on any stage since the time of Shakespeare; but it is too beautiful, too musical, and it crowns a work of the nature of this one too well for the composer to have thought of treating it otherwise.

But I'm afraid we'll have to save that for another time.


MEANWHILE THE OLDER & WISER BEATRICE & BENEDICK
FIND THEMSELVES IN MUCH THE SAME PREDICAMENT

I'm not sure I really need to add much to what I had to say last night about the coming together of the title characters in Berlioz' Béatrice et Bénédict, cunningly adapted from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. All the time these verbal warriors have spent attacking each other with their acute wits has been a cover-up for their terrors of very much the same helpless vulnerability Roméo exposes himself to. These people are so smart that they're scared almost to death to admit even to themselves how powerfully they're attracted to each other.

First, let's listen again to the wonderful Overture.

BERLIOZ: Béatrice et Bénédict: Overture

Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon, John Nelson, cond. Erato, recorded March 1991

And here again is Béatrice, having overheard a staged conversation revealing that Bénédict loves her:

Béatrice et Bénédict: Act II, "Dieu! Que viens-je d'entendre? . . . Il m'en souvient" ("God! What have I just heard? . . . It all comes back to me")

BÉATRICE: God! What have I just heard? What have I just heard?
I feel a secret fire
spreading through my breast.
Bénédict! Can it be so?
Bénédict might love me?

It all comes back to me, it all comes back to me.
The day of the departure of the army.
I couldn't explain to myself
the strange feeling of alarmed sadness
that came to overtake my heart.
He's leaving, I said, he's leaving, I remain.
Is it glory, is it death
that fate reserves
for this mocker whom I hate?
With the blackest terrors
the following night was filled.
The Moors triumphed; I heard their shouts.
With floods of Christian blood the earth was reddened.
In my dream I saw Bénédict gasping,
expiring without help under a heap of bodies;
I tossed and turned on my feverish bed;
cries of fear escaped my mouth.
Finally awakening, I laughed at my agitation.
I laughed at Bénédict. I laughed at myself,
at my foolish concerns.
Alas! alas! that laughter was bathed in tears.

It all comes back to me, etc.

I love him then? I love him then?
Yes, Bénédict, I love you, I love you.
I no longer belong to myself. I'm no longer myself.
Be my conqueror,
tame my heart!
Come, come, already this savage heart
flies toward slavery.
Yes, Benedict, I love you, etc.

Farewell, my frivolous gaiety!
Farewell, my freedom!
Farewell, disdain; farewell, jests!
Farewell, biting mockery!
Béatrice in her turn
falls victim to love!

Susan Graham (ms), Béatrice; Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon, John Nelson, cond. Erato, recorded March 1991


AND A FINAL BONUS FROM BÉATRICE --

Just because this is some of the most beautiful music I know, here is the Nocturne that ends Act I, as Héro and her father's fiancée Ursule contemplate her future with her soon-to-be husband amid the beauty of the night.

Béatrice et Bénédict: Act I, "Vous soupirez, madame?"
("You sigh, madame?") (Nocturne)

URSULE: You sigh, madame?

HÉRO: Happiness oppresses my soul.
I can't think about it without trembling, despite myself.
Claudio! Claudio! I'm going to be yours.

BOTH: Peaceful and serene night!
The moon, sweet queen,
which sails while smiling;
the insect in the fields,
in the flowering grasses,
humming in secret;
Philomena,
who blends
with the murmuring of the woods
the splendors of her voice;
the faithful swallow,
caressing under our roofs
her frightened brood;
into its marble cup
this fountain falling back,
foaming;
the shadow of that tall tree,
like a specter moving
with the wind;
infinite harmonies,
what secret attractions
and charms do you have
for loving hearts?

URSULE: What! you're crying, madame?

HÉRO: These tears comfort my soul.
You'll feel yours flowing in your turn,
the day when you crown your love.

BOTH: Let us breathe in in silence
these roses swayed by
the breath of the zephyr!
To its fresh caress
let us turn our brows!
It stops . . . it stops . . .
and dies in a sigh.

Sylvia McNair (s), Héro; Catherine Robbin (ms), Ursule; Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon, John Nelson, cond. Erato, recorded March 1991

A NOTE ON OUR RECORDINGS

I have to warn at the outset that, in good part because I have a wildly different sense from most listeners of what constitute the "important" Berlioz recordings, I'm once again missing many of the recordings I would most like to have used.

In one case I actually do have a CD edition to use: the Ozawa-BSO Roméo. (Ozawa's Berlioz series for DG was so little appreciated that it was stopped not all that long after it was started.) For Part III, containing the avenging-angel-like harangue of Father Laurence (as noted above, promoted here from Shakespeare's friar) to the assembled Veronese following the deaths of the young lovers, the Ozawa-DG recording is indispensable, if only for bass-baritone José van Dam, the only singer I've heard really make sense of this music.

But for Part I in particular, the recording I would have liked to offer you is an even less appreciated one, the Orfeo one with Lamberto Gardelli conducting Austrian Radio forces. Gardelli, a conductor I usually think of as no more than a competent plodder, may not be much more here; it may just be that competent plodding gets us closer to the heart of this incredibly enigmatic music than the confident bulldozing of all those higher-profile conductors who haven't stopped to really understand what's going on here. In addition, Gardelli's mezzo soloist, Brigitte Fassbaender, pretty much wipes out the competition, with a voice of just the right weight (Julia Hamari does a very nice job with Ozawa, but for me this is music that only really comes to life with a weightier instrument; Pierre Monteux's soloist, Regina Resnik, is much closer to the mark, and in fact does some of the most satisfying singing we're hearing this week, and so is Charles Dutoit's Florence Quivar, whom we heard Friday night, though her French is shaky) and an understanding of this incendiary music that sweeps through it.

In the case of Béatrice, I actually do like the Lyon-Erato recording conducted by John Nelson, which captures more of the special qualities of the piece than most of the others and has a fairly decent cast. I was surprised to find, when I reviewed my CD holdings for the Overture, that I actually liked Nelson's performance best. Really, this is as it should be; his players have the advantage of being saturated in the spirit of the opera.

Again, though, Béatrice seems to me to call for a weightier voice than either Susan Graham's or Frederica von Stade's (in the recital recording we heard last night). I would rather have presented Josephine Veasey, the Béatrice of Colin Davis's first recording of the opera, by far the most satisfactory of his increasingly less satisfactory three, or Yvonne Minton, Daniel Barenboim's (DG).

SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

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