"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Sunday Classics: Remembering Risë Stevens
>
Risë Stevens sings the "Habañera" from Act I of Bizet's Carmen -- I gather from a 1951 TV performance.
by Ken
As I mentioned in Friday night's preview, since Risë Stevens was an important exponenet of a number of roles that have commanded attention here at Sunday Classics that we've already heard a fair amount of her. For the most part, then, today's musical remembrance will involve literal remembrances, with the addition of a couple of items we haven't heard before.
The plan couldn't be much simpler: We're just going to revisit each of these classic roles from Stevens's repertory, starting with what I suppose must be considered her real signature role, Carmen.
Sunday Classics: Among our team of operatic avengers, which does Saint-Saëns's Dalila resemble most?
>
Shirley Verrett sings Dalila's Act II aria "Amour! Viens aider ma faiblesse" with Julius Rudel conducting in San Francisco, 1981. If the staging at the opening makes you wonder whether the stage director ever listened to the music (forget reading the libretto), we're on the same page.
Samson, seeking my presence again, this evening is to come to this place. Here is the hour of vengeance, which must satisfy our gods.
Love! come aid my weakness! Pour the poison in his breast! Make it happen that, conquered by my artfulness, Samson is in fetters tomorrow! In vain would he wish to be able to chase me out of his soul, to banish me. Could he extinguish the flame that memory feeds? He is mine! my slave! My brothers fear his wrath; I, along among all, I defy him and hold him at my knees!
Love! come aid my weakness! Pour the poison in his breast! Make it happen that, conquered by my artfulness, Samson is in fetters tomorrow! Against strength is useless, and he, the strong among the strong, he, who broke his people's chains, will succumb to my efforts.
by Ken
Okay, here's where we are. Last week, in both the preview ("In which we hear a lady weighted by a heap of hurt") and the main post ("Meet Saint-Saëns's Dalila"), we heard the seductive side of Dalila -- and also the side, whatever you want to call it (I called it deep hurt) displayed in the great solo she sings when she's finally alone at the start of Act II. Then in Friday night's preview we heard her in "vengeance" mode, swearing along with the High Priest of Dagon, to bring Samson down -- and I also introduced several other operatic vengeance-seekers: Mozart's Queen of the Night, Beethoven's prison governor Don Pizarro, and the heroine of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.
I certainly didn't mean to suggest any equivalence among our team of avengers. I wanted to lay the groundwork, because the text of Samson et Dalila doesn't give us much factual background to work with, for the best case I can make that Dalila's closest kin here is Isolde.
First we're going to hear from an actual monster, Don Pizarro in Fidelio, who has been forced into the decision to put an end to the suffering he has been inflicting on his old nemesis, Don Florestan, in a secret dungeon (where, you'll recall, we heard him languishing last month. Then, in the click-through, we'll hear from the Queen of the Night and Isolde, and finally we'll come back to Dalila.
(Note that I've juggled the lineup of recordings somewhat from the samples we heard in Friday night's preview. I wrote a bunch of long-winded explanations and exegeses, and then threw them out. We can talk about some of those issues some other time. Maybe. And note too that inclusion of a recording here doesn't necessarily constitute endorsement. There are some I'm not crazy about but have included for particular reasons.)
BEETHOVEN: Fidelio, Op. 72: Act I, Don Pizarro, "Ha! Welch ein Augenblick" ("Ha! What a moment!")
Ha! What a moment! My vengeance I will cool; your fate is calling you! In its heart dwell, oh live, good luck! Already I was nearly in the dust, by the loud scorn robbed, there to be stretched. Now it is up to me, to commit the murder myself. In his last hour, the steel in his wound, to cry in his ear: Triumph! Victory is mine!
THREE SNIPPETS OF REVENGE (EACH PERFORMED THREE TIMES)
(1)
Hell's revenge seethes in my heart! Death and despair burn all around me.
(2)
Ha Ha! Ha, what a moment! I will have my revenge! Your fate calls you! In his heart roots -- o wonder! -- great fortune.
(3)
HER: But what once with hand and mouth I swore -- that I swore silently to keep. HIM: What did you swear, lady? HER: Revenge for Morold!
by Ken
Yes, we're still getting to know Saint-Saëns's Dalila, and indeed in just a moment we're going to hear a side of her wildly different from anything we heard in last week's preview or the Sunday main post. By way of preparation, I thought this brief digression on operatic avengers would be helpful.
They'll be familiar to most music-lovers, but we'll hear them again, properly identified (including the performers)), in the click-through.
Including a recording that Maria Callas refused
to allow to be released (don't ask me why!)
Just 'cause we slipped into Act II of Samson et Dalila in Friday night's preview is no reason to go crazy and think we're going to make it to Act III today, but here's the famous "Bacchanale," from the Met's 1983 Centennial Gala, conducted by James Levine.
by Ken
Friday night we heard Maria Callas's riveting 1961 recording of Dalila's Act II-opening "Amour! viens aider ma faiblesse!," one of three excerpts from Samson et Dalila she recorded for the first Callas in Paris LP. Only two of those excerpts -- "Amour! viens aider" and the Act I solo "Printemps qui commence" -- found their way onto the record, though. Callas refused to allow the recording of the opera's best-known number (maybe along with the "Bacchanale") to be released, and in fact it wasn't in her lifetime, not slipping into print until 1982, five years after she died.
Our goal today is going to be to get (finally!) to the end of Act I of Samson. But we're going to digress again into Act II to hear what has become one of Callas's best-known recordings, the amping up of Dalila's seduction of Samson.
SAINT-SAËNS: Samson et Dalila: Act II, Dalila, "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" ("My heart opens at your voice")
My heart opens at your voice like the flowers open
at the kisses of dawn!
But, o my beloved, to better dry my tears,
let your voice speak again!
Tell me that you return to Dalila forever!
Say again to my tenderness
those promises of before, those promises that I loved!
Ah! answer, answer my tenderness!
Fill me, fill me with delight!
Answer my tenderness, etc.
As one sees ears of corn undulating
under a light breeze,
just so my heart flutters,
ready to take comfort
from your voice, which is dear to me!
An arrow is less swift in carrying death
than is your lover to fly into your arms,
to fly into your arms!
Ah! answer etc.
Maria Callas (s), Dalila; Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Mar.-Apr. 1961
IN THE INTEREST OF MAKING OUR WAY TO
THE END OF ACT I, LET'S TAKE ONE SMALL STEP
When we left off in April, the High Priest of Dagon had just discovered the body of Abimélech, the satrap of Gaza, "struck down by slaves," meaning the Israelite rabble newly roused by their young rabble-rouser Samson. He storms off, vowing to make those uppity Hebrews pay. We'll hear the end of that again in the click-through, but for now let's listen to the very next thing that happens: this ravishing orchestral daybreak.
SAINT-SAËNS: Samson et Dalila: Act I, Daybreak Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept.-Oct. 1962
Sunday Classics preview: In which we hear a lady weighted by a heap of hurt
>
Yes, in the click-through we're going to hear Callas,
in what I think of as one of her great recordings.
by Ken
I'm not being intentionally mysterious . . . okay, I guess I am, but not gratuitously mysterious. The lady whose musical acquaintance we're about to make isn't normally thought of as a victim, but we're going to hear her in a condition of pain that -- in a good performance -- I find almost palpable. (It shouldn't be any surprise that we're setting up for a performance by Maria Callas. She was especially good at rooting out characters' pain.)
I just thought it would be interesting to hear how the lady's composer sets up this outpouring. So we're going to hear this musical introduction, and then in the click-through we'll go straight into
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded February 1989
Sunday Classics: Don't worry about the unusual form of Saint-Saëns's Piano Concerto No. 4 -- just go with it!
>
With the Fairbanks Symphony, Eduard Zilberkant draws an evocative performance -- note the movement and mystery, the colors and the shape -- of the first part of Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2. (The performance concludes here.)
by Ken
As I mentioned when I first wrote about the powerful impression conductor Eduard Zilberkant made in the two concerts he conducted of this year's "Evenings of Piano Concerti" from the New York Concert Artists, the first work that really make me sit up and take notice was the second work on the opening program, Saint-Saëns's Fourth Piano Concerto. It hadn't occurred to me that the piece was likely to flourish with a chamber orchestra with a bare-bones complement of strings in the friendly confines of Manhattan's Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian Church, but I was delighted by the impassioned sweetness of the songful sections and thrilled by the infectious exuberance when the piece reached full cry.
The impression held up through a really grand performance of the Beethoven First Concerto (with NYCA Artistic Director Klara Min), which had me remembering how much I love the piece, and a fine account of the Grieg Concerto (handsomely played by Christoph Declara). Zilberkant's second EPC IV concert -- with overlapping but not identical orchestral personnel from concert to concert -- consisted of three Mozart concertos and our old friend Saint-Saëns's Second Concerto.
I didn't get quite the effervescent enthusiasm of the earlier concert, but the sense of purpose and musical immersion was just as strong. As I've mentioned, I was delighted by the grace as well as lyrical intensity of the performance of Mozart's Concerto No. 12 with Shiran Wang, not at all an easy piece to bring off on this level. (We listened to the whole concerto last week, in "How a "second-tier" Mozart piano concerto can command top-tier attention.") I didn't mention the dazzling performance, with Hee Sung Jang, of one of the composer's most fraught masterpieces, the D minor Concerto (No. 20).
I'm sorry I can't offer you any of the performances I actually heard, but as I noted in Friday night's preview, I do want to devote some attention to the Saint-Saëns Fourth Concerto.
Sunday Classics preview: Saint-Saëns sure didn't write the same piano concerto five times
>
SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22: Opening Emil Gilels, piano; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. EMI, recorded Mar. 11, 1954
by Ken
This week we're continuing with some ongoing business: Saint-Saëns's Fourth Piano Concerto, with which conductor Eduard Zilberkant made such an exhilarating impression in the performance I wrote about in last week's preview in this year's New York Concert Artists "Evenings of Piano Concerti" series.
Readers who were here for the April 2011 post (and its pair of previews) Who says a piano concerto has to be all this way or that way? Not Camille Saint-Saëns" will recall hearing Emil Gilels play the wonderfully ruminating piano solo that opens Saint-Saëns's Second Piano Concerto, which I presented first as a "mystery piano solo" via an audio clip that stopped short of the orchestral entrance I left in in the above version.
In last year's Saint-Saëns piano concerto post I tried to make the point that the composer had no concern for concerto orthodoxy in deciding what kinds of music to put together for this particular concerto. Now we can extend the principle to his five piano concertos. One thing they don't do is repeat themselves. Here, for starters, is the opening of No. 4. Note that these are both minor-key movements, but they sure don't resemble each other much, do they? (And I've purposely chosen a performance of the opening movement of the Fourth Concerto that's decidedly on the broad and weighty side.)
SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concerto No. 4 in C minor, Op. 44: Opening
Pascal Rogé, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Charles Dutoit, cond. Decca, recorded July 1979
Sunday Classics preview: Piano concertos, piano concertos, and (what else?) more piano concertos
>
Opening of the slow movement of Mozart's K. 414 Concerto We hear Daniel Barenboim conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in the opening theme of the Andante of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K. 414, then play the solo statement of the theme. We're going to hear the whole movement in a moment.
by Ken
This week it's piano concertos, piano concertos, piano concertos. I'm coming off the four evenings of New York Concert Artists' fourth season of Evenings of Piano Concerti (hence EPC IV) -- 15 pianists and 14 concertos in those four nights (one Friday and three Saturdays) in the acoustically exuberant confines of the Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian Church on West 66th Street in Manhattan. I'll be talking more about the smorgasbord on Sunday, but for tonight I thought we'd preview two of the concertos that left especially memorable impressions in this happy-crazy concerto immersion.
My hero for the event was a conductor who has featured prominently in the EPC programs and this year conducted the first and third of the four: Eduard Zilberkant. In tonight's preview I'm highlighting some of the music that particularly gave me the sense that I was hearing a very special conductor.
In the third concert, on May 26, EZ and pianist Shiran Wang made a major statement of what I would describe as one of the "second-tier" Mozart piano concertos, No. 12 in A. I should try to explain that by "second-tier" I don't mean second-rate; I consider them second-tier by the standard of Mozart's concertos. And the thing about them is that they're always ready to be realized -- by performers of sufficient imagination and commitment -- as top-tier experiences. In this performance I took special note of the melting beauty he coaxed out of his little chamber orchestra for the opening of the Andante, which so beautifully matched the soloist's subsequent statement of the theme. (The theme, by the way, isn't Mozart's. It was borrowed as a tribute to a composer Mozart knew and admired, Johann Christian Bach, the "London" Bach, the youngest of Johann Sebastian's sons, who had died, at 46, in January of 1782, the year in which K. 414 was composed.)
As promised above, we're going to hear the whole of the slow movement of K. 414.
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K. 414: ii. Andante
Berlin Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim, piano and cond. Teldec, recorded March 1996
Going back to the first concert, on May 11, in the second work on the program, Zilberkant already demonstrated the kind of lyrical intensity he could inspire his hardy band to in the lyrical Andante of the first movement of Saint-Saëns's Fourth Concerto. Then in the concluding Allegro of the second movement, with a full complement of brasses chiming in, he showed how his musicians could set the lovely open space of the church's compact space reverberating with wall-to-wall music.
We're going to hear both the Mozart and the Saint-Saëns concertos complete on Sunday. For tonight I've ripped these chunks out of the two movements of the Saëns Fourth, in both cases including the music that leads up to the sections I mean to highlight. (From the first movement we hear roughly 4:41-7:58 of the 12:53 Ciccolini-Baudo performance. From the second movement we hear roughly 5:36-10:34 of the 12:46 Entremont-Ormandy performance.)
SAINT-SAËNS: Piano Concerto No. 4 in C minor, Op. 44:
excerpt fromi. Allegro moderato; Andante
Aldo Ciccolini, piano; Orchestre de Paris, Serge Baudo, cond. EMI, recorded Nov.-Dec. 1970
excerpt fromii. Allegro vivace; Andante; Allegro
Philippe Entremont, piano; Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Feb. 5, 1961
Sunday Classics: Some mighty angry Israelites and Philistines -- the opening scene of "Samson et Dalila," part 3
>
Here's a minute's worth of Samson's first solo (picking up at "Oui j'entends dans mon coeur une voix élevée" ("Yes, in my heart an elevated voice"), sung by Plácido Domingo.
by Ken
We've been working our way ever so gradually through the opening scene of Act I of Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila, witness the transformation of the enslaved Hebrews from abject servility to . . . well, today we're going to see what exactly to.
When last we left our downtrodden Israelites, enslaved by the conquering Philistines ("Part 2: Let's hear how Samson rallies his people"; there's a listing of the complete series in the click-through), young Samson, after much exhorting, had rallied them from pathetic whining to a readiness to take action. As I ponted out at the time, it was clear from the very last music we heard then that something was about to happen. This week we meet that something,
There are just two short scenes remaining to complete the opening scene of Act I of Samson, each beginning with a rage-filled entrance. We're going to first sample three dramatic highlights, starting with the entrance of one angry Philistine satrap.
(1) With Samson finally rousing the Hebrews to defiance, Abimélech, the Philistine satrap of Gaza, storms in
Act I, Scene 2, Abimélech, "Qui donc élève ici la voix?" ("Who then raises his voice here?")
ABIMÉLECH: Who then raises his voice here? Again this vile herd of slaves, always daring to flout our laws and wanting to break their shackles! Hide your sighs and your tears, which try our patience; instead invoke the clemency of those who were your conquerors!
Ezio Flagello (bs), Abimélech; Metropoolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. RCA, recorded 1958
Simon Estes (bs-b), Abimélech; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded February 1989
(2) Samson's exhortations to his fellow Hebrews reach their absolute maximum level of intensity
Act I, Scene 2, Samson, "Israël, romps ta chaîne!" ("Israel, break your chains!")
SAMSON: Israel, break your chains! O people, rise up! Come and slake your hatred! The Lord is within me! O thou, God of Light, as in the days of yesteryear, hear my prayer and fight for thy laws!
José Luccioni (t), Samson; Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Louis Fourestier, cond. EMI, recorded September 1946
Mario del Monaco (t), Samson; Metropoolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. RCA, recorded 1958
(3) The uprisen Hebrews rout Abimélech, leaving his body to be discovered by the High Priest of Dagon
Act I, Scene 3, High Priest, "Maudite à jamais soit la race des enfants d'Israël" ("Accursed be forever the race of the children of Israel!")
HIGH PRIEST: Accursed be forever the race of the children of Israel! I want to erase all trace of them, to soak them in bile! Accursed be the one who guides them! I will crush underfoot his broken bones, his parched throat, without a shake of pity!
Paul Cabanel (b), High Priest of Dagon; Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Louis Fourestier, cond. EMI, recorded September 1946
Renato Bruson (b), High Priest of Dagon; Orchestre de Paris, Daniel Barenboim, cond. DG, recorded July 1978
Usually it's automatic, since the post necessarily refers back to the preview. This week, however, the preview wasn't for this week's Sunday post but for some unspecified post, or rather posts, in the future. And I want to remind everyone that I offered what I might be prepared to defend as "the most beautiful recording ever made."
Sunday Classics: Let's hear how Samson rallies his people (The opening scene of Saint-Saëns' "Samson et Dalila," part 2)
>
The opening of Samson at the Met -- James Levine conducting, September 1998
by Ken
We began the preview to Part 1 of our look at the opening scene of Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila with some appreciation of the haunting orchestral opening, and by the time we finished with the main post ("Introducing Saint-Saëns' Samson, the second-angriest man in opera") we'd heard a pile-up of performances of Samson's arresting first solo, "Arrêtetz. ô mes frères," and the second, "L'as-tu donc oublié." I warned at the time that when we resumed, we wouldn't get any further into the scene. Then in last night's preview, ""How we get to Samson's heroic first utterance," we began plugging the gaps, in preparation for today's more systematic listen to just this much of the scene.
Today's plan isn't fancy. The CD issue of the 1962 EMI recording of Samson, with Jon Vickers and Rita Gorr, conducted by Georges Prêtre, tracks the opening scene, in which Samson sets about rallying his troops, such as they are, into five parts, and we're going to listen to them separately, and along the way listen to additional performances of some bits of it. Finally we'll hear two quite different but complementary performances of our entire play unit.
Sunday Classics preview: How we get to Samson's heroic first utterance (The opening scene of Saint-Saëns' "Samson et Dalila," part 2)
>
In this piano-accompanied 1906 Fonotipia recording, the great tenor Léon Escalais makes quite a sound as he sings something resembling Samson's opening solo, "Arrêtez, ô mes frères." (Um, no, that silly "Look, Maman, I sing high" ending isn't the composer's.) Note that we have French and English texts below.
by Ken
I keep wanting to refer to Samson's "Arrêtez, ô mes frères" as his "entrance" solo, but the text is explicit that he's already onstage among his fellow Hebrews during the preceding choruses. Could there be such a thing as an "emergence [as opposed to "entrance"] number"? We heard quite a lot of this solo in the first part of our investigation of this opening scene of Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila ("Introducing Saint-Saëns' Samson, the second-angriest man in opera"). But in Part 1 we left a significant gap between what we heard of those opening choruses and Samson's emergence. We also left a gap between "Arrêtez" and Samson's next solo, "L'as-tu donc oublié." This week we're going to be plugging those gaps, and the larger first one we're actually going to plug tonight!
I thought we'd start this preview by hearing "Arrêtez" again, but in a bit of context: including a bit of the portion of choral whining from Samson's fellow Hebrews, which is to say what finally prompts Samson to open his mouth. So here it is from a small assortment of tenors, some of whom we've heard, and one of whom we haven't.
SAINT-SAËNS: Samson et Dalila: Act I, Chorus of Hebrews, "Dieu! As-tu rompu cette sainte alliance?" ("God! Have you broken that sacred alliance?") . . . Samson, "Arrêtez, ô mes frères!" ("Stop, o my brothers!")
THE HEBREWS: God! Have you broken that holy alliance, divine promises received by our forefathers? SAMSON:
José Luccioni (t), Samson; Chorus and Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Louis Fourestier, cond. EMI, recorded September 1946
Ludovic Spiess (t), Samson; Romanian Radio and Television Chorus and Orchestra (Bucharest), Kurt Adler, cond. Electrecord, recorded May-June 1969
Mario del Monaco (t), Samson; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. RCA, recorded 1958
Jon Vickers (t), Samson; Choeurs René Duclos, Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 25-Oct. 10, 1962
REMINDER: In Part 1, I included the vocal score pages for Samson's "Arrêtez," so listeners can see how the music is shaped if you wish -- something that might have been beneficial to M. Escalier (or maybe not; he seems to have preferred his rewrite of the rhythmic structure).
Sunday Classics: Two chamber concerts, with pleasures stacked in an unexpected direction
>
At the XIV International Competition for Modern Chamber Music in Kraków, Duo Tandemonos (Ania Górecka and Zosia Konieczna) plays No. 24, Aldo, of Luciano Berio's 34 Duets for two violins, named for the violist Aldo Bennici, who assisted the composer in his search for native folk material. It was the last of six of the duets played by Shmuel Ashkenasi and Arnold Steinhardt on Tuesday night's "Quartet Variations" program by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
by Ken
As I noted in Friday night's preview, this week I attended two unrelated concerts that somehow became connected in my head: an "all-star" program offered by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center featuring a sextet of string players drawn from six different modern-day quartets on Tuesday night, and a joint program by the venerable Fine Arts Quartet (celebrating its 66th anniversary season, though of course not with the same players) and pianist Xiayin Wang in the cozy little off-the-beaten-path Dicapo Opera Theatre on Thursday night.
There were musical satisfactions to be had in both events, and there were good reasons for attending both. But there's not much question in my mind which gave me more musical pleasure, and it seems to me that both those satisfactions and those pleasures are worth a closer look.
In this tiny Amsterdam Radio 4 studio, "our" Fine Arts Quartet -- yes, including the newest-comer, cellist Robert Cohen! -- plays first the opening movement of the Mozart quartet the group played here Thursday night, No. 15 in D minor, K. 421; then (at 5:52) is interviewed by the Dutch announcer; and finally (at 9:19) plays the finale of Haydn's Quartet in D, Op. 64, No. 5.
Sunday Classics preview: Souvenirs of two concerts -- intriguing chamber curiosities by Camille Saint-Saëns and Fritz Kreisler
>
Fritz Kreisler, composer (yes, composer):The "Kreisler String Quartet" (Kreisler and Thomas Petre, violins; William Primrose, viola; Lauri Kennedy, cello) plays its namesake's Scherzo à la Dittersdorf in an EMI recording made in London on April 7, 1935.
by Ken
There's a story attached to this charming little piece, which I encountered in an online review by MusicWeb International's Göran Forsling (which I found on the Arkiv Music website) of a Kreisler CD reissue that included this very recording:
An oddity is the scherzo "in the style of Dittersdorf," played by the Kreisler String Quartet, an ad hoc group assembled to record Kreisler's String Quartet. One of the members was William Primrose, who remembered the sessions. It turned out that there was going to be a blank 78 side and producer Fred Gaisberg suggested that Kreisler write a filler, or arrange one of his pieces for quartet, which he did at once in his hotel room with Primrose waiting. He then rushed the score to the copyist and the next day it was recorded.
No, this isn't actually the Kreisler "chamber curiosity" of the post title. In the click-through we're going to hear the impudently striding finale of the Kreisler String Quartet itself, from that April 1935 recording by the "Kreisler String Quartet."
Yes, we still have much work -- or rather play, I hope -- to do on the epic opening scene of Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila, but it's been a curious week with two concerts, of very different sorts under very different auspices, that nevertheless somehow seem to want to be talked about together. With luck by Sunday I'll figure out how to do that. As it happens (by way of showing how everything in the universe is interconnected), one of them featured an early yet decidedly underperformed chamber work by none other than our man Camille Saint-Saëns!
For tonight we're going to sample a pair of chamber works that were featured on those two programs. First, as noted above, we're going to hear the finale of Fritz Kreisler's String Quartet in A minor, which was played Tuesday night by an ensemble of string-quartet all-stars in a Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center concert that featured six players from six different modern-day quartets -- two violinists, two violists, and two cellists. Then we're going to hear the lovely slow movement from the aforementioned chamber work by Saint-Saëns, the Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 14. which was played last night as the climax of a joint program by pianist Xiayin Wang and the current incarnation of the historic (celebrating its 66th anniversary!) Fine Arts Quartet.
Sunday Classics: Introducing Saint-Saëns' Samson, the second-angriest man in opera
>
Tenor José Cura as Samson in Karlsruhe, 2010. We're going to hear him later (perhaps not all that happily). For now, let's recall from Friday night's preview how Saint-Saëns' opera begins.
CHORUS OF HEBREWS [behind the curtain]: God! God of Israel! Hear the prayer of your children, imploring you on our knees; take pity on your people and our misery! Let our sorrow disarm your wrath!
Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded February 1989
by Ken
In Friday night's preview we started poking at Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila, specifically the opening scene. We heard the very opening of the opera and then jumped a bit to the exhortation from Samson which finally gets through to his ceaselessly whining oppressed fellow Hebrews. I noted then that we were skipping over important material but provided assurance that we would fill the gap today. Well, sort of. We're going to plug the single most important piece of that gap: Samson's first exhortation to his fellow Hebrews.
We've already met the Angriest Man in Opera, Rossini's William Tell (in an October 2009 series of posts culminating in "So why is this fellow William Tell so angry anyways?"), whose zero tolerance level for the oppressive Austrian occupation of Switzerland poisons any pleasure he might derive from his undeniably pleasant physical surroundings and his lovely family. This week we're encountering the runner-up. Here's the opening of Act I, the dawn of a beautiful day on a Swiss riverbank.
ROSSINI: William Tell: Act I, Opening chorus and quartet
CHORUS: What a serene day the sky portends! Let us celebrate in our concerts; let the echoes from this riverbank raise our songs into the air! By our labors we render homage to the creator of the universe. What a serene day, etc.
Quartet FISHERMAN: Step into my little boat, o maiden shy, pray come, and bring contentment to my tender heart. I leave the riverbank, Lisbeth, or rather on the way; Ah, come, the sky without cloud promises us a beautiful day. WILLIAM TELL: He sings in his giddiness of his pleasures, of his mistress; by the trouble that oppresses me he isn't tormented. What a joke is life! For us no more fatherland! He sings, and Switzerland weeps, weeps for its freedom. JEMMY and HEDWIGE TELL: His imprudent courage cries out for a shipwreck and defying the storm he thinks only of the return.
Charles Burles (t), Fisherman; Gabriel Bacquier (b), William Tell; Mady Mespé (s), Jemmy Tell; Jocelyne Taillon (ms), Hedwige Tell; Ambrosian Opera Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Lamberto Gardelli, cond. EMI, recorded July-Sept. 1972
Samson is burning inside as feverishly as Tell, but he faces a very different situation. Tell's placid Swiss countrymen are able to ignore the Austrian oppression because, well, life is good, comfort-wise. Samson's fellow Hebrews are only too aware of their misery, and bemoan it endlessly, but seem unable to do anything about it. Which is the point where he steps forward, as we'll hear in the click-through.
Sunday Classics: Who says a piano concerto has to be all this way or that way? Not Camille Saint-Saëns, for sure!
>
Movement "B" (plus, for reasons I can't explain, the opening of the following movement), played by pianist Nelson Freire, with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by David Shallon
by Ken
If you were with us in Friday night's and last night's previews, you know we've been listening to two piano-concerto movements, about as different as piano-concerto movements get, and now you know the CD that's had me listening to and thinking about them.
If you didn't know the identity of the music in question, if you just looked closely at the photo I posted last night of the jacket of the original RCA Arthur Rubinstein Heart of the Piano Concerto LP, which I told you was where I first encountered our Movement "B" (we even heard that very performance!), from the list of composers you shouldn't have had much difficulty picking out Charles Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) as the composer of this supremely scintillating music.
Since the Testament Gilels CD cover is frustratingly vague about the actual contents of the disc, I can tell you that the Saint-Saëns concertos it contains is the Second, and Movement "B" is the middle movement, marked appropriately Allegro scherzando. For a lazy Sunday, I thought it might be pleasant to hear both Gilels and Rubinstein play it again, this time leading right into the suitably volatile, worry-free finale.
Sunday Classics: The fraught world of kiddie classics -- Prokofiev's "Peter," Saint-Saëns' "Carnival," Britten's "Young Person's Guide"
>
It's audio only, but a treat: Boris Karloff narrates the first half of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, with Mario Rossi conducting the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. (The poster is confused about the recording's provenance. Since it's audibly stereophonic, it's unlikely that it was recorded in the '40s, or "appeared originally as a 78 rpm single from Mercury's 'Childcraft' label." Vanguard made this recording in May 1957.) The second half of the performance is here.
by Ken
"Patronizing" is as as close as I can get to the word I'm groping for here. I'm wishing adults didn't have such a kitschy, retarded idea of music they think will appeal to kids -- and really, I'm thinking of bygone times when large numbers of adults actually knew something about the music and cared enough to attempt to inflict it on their offspring.
I think I mentioned here once that, Leonard Bernstein explained to his audience in his Young People's Concert devoted to Mahler that friends of his were horrified to learn than he planned to include a chunk of the extremely serious, even dour, seemingly ultra-kid-unfriendly Ninth Symphony. Lenny had insisted the kids would be fine with it, and as the video record shows, they loved it.
As I mentioned in last night's preview, I hated Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, and had to claw my way to what now seems to me an extravagantly beautiful opera. Luckily, I didn't often have "kiddie" music thrust at me, and instead was left mostly to find my own way to the music I came to love.
Today, as I suggested, we're focusing on the three great works that set out to introduce listeners to the instruments of the orchestra: Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals, and Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. When they're inflicted on young people, it's not the music itself that bothers me, of course, because this is all utterly extraordinary music, but -- how do I say this? -- the unthinkingly closed-minded, talk-down-ish way it's presented. "Patronizing" is as close as I can get in a single word.
* * *
PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67
We're going to take our time with Peter, and actually listen to it both section-by-section with narration and then in one fell swoop, or rather three fell swoops, twice with narration (in English and Spanish; the narration, of course, has been translated into the language of every place where the piece has been performed) and then without narration. I think this illustrates a built-in problem with this music: The narration can quickly become deeply annoying, but the music, while quite lovely, really doesn't have any particular sense without it.
1. Introduction
2. Early One Morning (The Meadow)
3. Look Out!
4. Peter's Theme; Grandfather's Theme
5. The Wolf Appears
6. The Balance of Nature
7. Peter's Plan
8. The Hunters Come Out of the Woods
9. The Triumphant Procession
As promised, here's the whole thing put together, in two versions, musically identical but with the late Jose Ferrer narrating first in English and then in Spanish. Ferrer, of course, had one of the most remarkable speaking voices in the annals of the English language -- and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess in Spanish as well. (I think you'll notice an intriguing personality shift as he moves between languages.)
PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67 (in English) Jose Ferrer, narrator; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens, cond. Kapp/MCA, recorded 1959
PROKOFIEV: Pedro y el Lobo, Op. 67 (en español) Jose Ferrer, narrator; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens, cond. Kapp/MCA, recorded 1959
Now, again as promised, here's the music without the narration, from Sony's "Royal Edition." The original recording was made to be filled out with Maestro Bernstein's own narration, and in its original form the old LP coupling with Lenny's Carnival of the Animalscan still be had on CD.
PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67: Suite New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Feb. 16, 1960
It seems as if most everyone who can talk has narrated a recording of Peter and the Wolf. Among the versions you can download are one from Everest narrated by Captain Kangaroo, with Leopold Stokowski conducting the New York Stadium Symphony, and, yes, the Vanguard one narrated by Boris Karloff we sampled above, with Mario Rossi conducting the Vienna State Opera Orchestra.
* * *
SAINT-SAËNS: Carnival of the Animals
In the LP era Peter and the Wolf and Carnival of the Animals were frequent (I'm tempted to say "almost invariable") disc-mates, but in fact they're really not aimed at the same audience. Amazon comments are unusually interesting here -- judging from the adult accounts, their kids go for Peter but are kind of stumped by Carnival.
The latter is, in its childlike way, a pretty sophisticated piece with its often surprising and sardonic musical characterizations and its network of musical quotations. (I expect you recognized the "Dance of the Sylphs" from Berlioz' Damnation of Faust last night when we heard "The Elephant.") In addition, in the English-speaking world, the Ogden Nash verses often used for narration (written for the André Kostelanetz recording narrated by Noël Coward), for all their deft drollerie, don't seem to me especially kid-friendly at all. Here, for example, are Nash's "Introduction" and the poems for the two movements we heard last night, "The Elephant" and "The Swan."
Introduction
Camille Saint-Saëns Was wracked with pains, When people addressed him As Saint-"Sains."
He held the human race to blame, Because it could not pronounce his name. So he turned with metronome and fife, To glorify other kinds of life.
Be quiet, please -- for here begins His salute to feathers, fur, and fins.
No. 5, The Elephant
Elephants are useful friends, Equipped with handles at both ends. They have a wrinkled moth-proof hide. Their teeth are upside down, outside.
If you think the elephant preposterous, You’ve probably never seen a rhinosterous.
Gary Karr, double bass; Marielle Labèque, piano. BMG, recorded December 1996
No. 13, The Swan
The swan can swim while sitting down. For pure conceit he takes the crown. He looks in the mirror over and ove-a, And claims to have never heard of Pavlova.
[Note: Now just how many kids do you suppose are going to get a reference to Pavlova? -- Ed.]
Gary Karr, double bass; Ruth and Naomi Segal, pianos; (New York Philharmonic,) Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Apr. 9, 1962 Misha Maisky, cello; Katia and Marielle Labèque, pianos. Teldec, recorded December 1996 Pablo Casals, cello; Charles A. Baker, piano. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 24, 1915
On CD, Peter and Carnival are often joined by the next-best-known "young person's guide to the orchestra," Brittten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, more formally known as the Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell. As far as I can tell, I don't have a single narrated version of either the Saint-Saëns or the Britten on CD. So here they are in purely orchestral form. Actually, in the case of Saint-Saëns'Carnival, we hear it once in orchestral form and then in chamber form, with the string parts played one player to a part. (There is, by the way, a lovely score downloadable free in PDF form.)
SAINT-SAËNS: Carnival of the Animals
1. Introduction and Royal March of the Lion (two pianos, strings [two violins, viola, cello, bass]) Andante maestoso; Allegro non troppo; Piu allegro, 4/4 2. Hens and Roosters (clarinet, two pianos, two violins, viola) Allegro moderato, 4/4 3. Wild asses (Swift animals) (two pianos) Presto furioso, 4/4 4. Tortoises (1st piano, strings) Andante maestoso, 4/4 5. The Elephant (2nd piano, double bass) Allegretto pomposo, 3/8 6. Kangaroos (two pianos) Moderato, 4/4-3/4 7. Aquarium (flute, harmonica, two pianos, strings except bass [muted]) Andantino, 4/4 8. Personages with long ears (two violins) Tempo ad lib., 3/4 9. The Cuckoo in the depth of the woods (clarinet, two pianos [with una corda pedal]) Andante, 3/4 10. Aviary (flute, two pianos, strings) Moderato grazioso, 3/4 11. Pianists (two pianos with strings) Allegro moderato [editors' note: "The players should imitate the playing of a beginner and his awkwardness"], 4/4 12. Fossils (clarinet, xylophone, two pianos, strings) Allegro ridicolo, 2/2 13. The Swan (cello, two pianos) Andantino grazioso, 6/4 14. Finale (flute, clarinet, harmonica, xylophone, two pianos, strings) Molto allegro, 4/4
Ruth and Naomi Segal, pianos; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Apr. 9, 1962 Benoît Fromanger, flute; Richard Stoltzman, clarinet; Lily Maisky and Misha Mullov, pianos (in "Pianists"); Evelyn Glennie, percussion; Katia and Marielle Labèque, pianos; Viktoria Mullova and Alexej Nagovitsyn, violins; Yuri Bashmet, viola; Misha Maisky, cello; Gary Karr, double bass. BMG, recorded December 1996
* * *
BRITTEN: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell), Op. 34
Not-quqite-yet-sir Malcolm Sargent narrated and conducted the London Symphony in Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra in the film Instruments of the Orchestra. Sargent conducted the Liverpool Philharmonic in the work's concert (and broadcast) premiere on Oct. 14, 1946. We hear the recording they made below.
The Young Person's Guide was written in 1945-46 (right after the opera Peter Grimes) on commission of the British Ministry of Education for a film called Instruments of the Orchestra, with narration written by writer-director Eric Crozier, who had staged the Sadler's Wells premiere of Peter Grimes and would write the libretto for Britten's Albert Herring and cowrite (with with E. M. Forster) that for Billy Budd. As noted above, the premiere was given in Liverpool on Oct. 15, 1946, by Malcolm Sargent (1946 was the year before he was knighted) and the Liverpool Philharmonic, who then made the work's premiere recording, which we hear below.
You can find a breakdown of the music here. The general plan of the variations could hardly be simpler or more straightforward, though the actual music is hardly either. After sequentially spotlighting the choirs of the orchestra in the opening statement of the theme, Britten works his way through them, in each case working from the top down:
* woodwinds (Variations A through D -- piccolo and flute [Presto], oboes [Lento], clarinets [Moderato], and bassoons [Allegro alla marcia]);
* strings (E through H -- violins [Brillante: alla polacca], violas [Meno mosso], cellos [no tempo marking], and basses [Cominciando lento ma poco a poco accel. al Allegro, "Beginning Lento but little by little accelerating to Allegro"]);
* harp (I [Maestoso]);
* brasses (J through L -- horns [L'istesso tempo], trumpets [Vivace], and trombones and tuba [Allegro pomposo]); and finally --
* percussion (M [Moderato] -- timpani, bass drum and cymbals, tambourine and triangle, snare drum and wood block, xylophone, castanets and gong, whip, all percussion) --
at which point he's ready to unleash the fugue.
Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI/Membran, recorded 1946 BBC Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis, cond. Teldec, recorded October 1990
