Can You Imagine What This Crisis Would Be Like If We -- Or At Least Lots Of Us -- Didn't Have Access To Today's Onilne Resources?

Plus: Since the world needs music, I'm tacking
a bit on at the end of this post. Here's a tease:





Nobody could be more surprised than your humble author to find himself a practicing Zoomer.

-by Ken

I imagine that Howie and Noah have covered this by now. Nevertheless, let me note for the record how inexpressibly grateful I am, first, for the unbelievably vast range of resources for information and occupation now available online to those of us with decent online access, which is the other thing I want to express inexpressible gratitude for: that I do have such access. I have no idea how many people don't have such access; I just have this terrible feeling that there are a scary-awful lot of them. I try to imagine sometimes what this crisis, dreadful as it is, would be like without that access. It scares and horrifies me.

That said, count me astounded at the quantity and range of stuff being made available for me to read, watch, and do -- going beyond the expanded information and content universe the Intertubes have, in just a few decades, made us take for granted, to a new world of information, instruction, and entertainment which, at least for most of us, didn't exist even a few years ago.

While I don't think of myself as a Luddite or technophobe, I'm far from what you'd call can't-get-enough-new-technology type. I'm a confident e-mailer (hey, it's just writing and reading; I can do those!), but the whole social-media thing fills me with something bordering on dread and horror. I consort with Facebook only 'cause there's stuff and folks there I really do want to keep up on, and I shudder at the thought of going onto Twitter -- the only tweets I see are those for which I've been sent links by a trusted soul.

You can imagine, then, that I would never have imagined myself as even a candidate for Zooomerdom. When, from one week to the next, the leader of my clutter-fighting Meetup group Neatniks (or, more formally, "Hoarders No More"), took us virtual, I approached the first session, not really knowing WTF this Zoom thing is exactly, with intense unease. I got through it in a daze, but was grateful for the trian run when, in short order, my WW workshops also went virtual. By now they've both become fixtures of my life, and I've begun Zooming into a wider world. Just this afternoon, after doing another WW workshop (my third this week, with three different coaches, who've all figured importantly in what I've accomplished), I "attended" a slide-illustrated talk by the associate curator of the New York Transit Museum (one of my favorite places in NYC) on the history of transit signage in the city.


WHEN THE CORONAVIRUS BEGAN ITS LOCAL ROLLOUT --

Notices began to trickle into my e-mailbox, as I expect they did yours, from organizations and businesses I've had dealings with announcing at first the postponement of events or cutback in services, then increasingly cancellations and on-site physical closures. When the trickle started flowing faster, I had the presence of mind to create a folder into which I could dump the ones I'd read and wanted available for future reference and also lots of others I didn't take precious time to read but thought I might later want to.

At first the e-mails were basically informational announcements. Almost from the start, though, the announcements were including stuff to read or watch, and links -- lots and lots, and soon more and more links to a mind-boggling range of stuff to read and watch. It wasn't long before the onetime trickle had swollen to a flood, and my bluntly named "coronavirus" folder was overflowing to the point where it will now require a project in itself to distribute the contents into separate folders by category (which I'm still working out in my head), in order to have any chance to have some control over this material, and to retrieve any of it.


IMPORTANT AS THE MEETINGS ARE . . .

. . . for their stated purposes, they're godsends for the social contact they make a possible, at a time when social contact is the very thing we can't have. Granted, virtual meetups aren't the same as the real thing. Still, It's been wonderful to (literally) be able to see all those familiar faces at my Neatniks and WW gatherings -- and to meet up with new folks too.


AND ALL OVER THE COUNTRY TERRIFIC
PEOPLE ARE GOING ONLINE TO SURVIVE

I can't claim to have more than scratched the surface of what's out there. Early on I remember logging on to an entertaining audienceless performance in a series offered free, with the hope that we'll be moved to cough up some bucks, by Caveat, the politically charged comedy club housed (when it's offering actual performances, I mean) in a basement on the Lower East Side. Now, I can't keep up. For example, Brooklyn Brainery, where I've done a slew if interesting, offbeat, modestly priced classes in recent years, has virtualized its upcoming class schedule, and looking at the list the other day I spotted a class I'd have signed up for on the spot -- if it wasn't already full!

You say you've never heard of Caveat and Brooklyn Brainery? They're among the countless invaluably enterprising organizations which are now struggling to stay viable, and the thing is, anyone anywhere with online access can now participate in what they're doing. Ditto with all the museums and cultural organizations and . . . and, well, everybody.

All these orgs, large and small, are hungry for virtual audiences, and of course support. Brooklyn Brainery's Jen Messier, for example, put up this blogpost on March 15:

We Need Your Help!

The COVID-19 wildness has come at us all in NYC fast and furious over the past week or so. Like lots of other tiny businesses here, we have really small margins and depend on a packed schedule to cover expenses. Because we also have two storefronts, we have a lot of fixed costs, and this past week has been nothing short of devastating. My ultimate goal is to have nothing change once we all bounce past this phase - hell, to have even more classes to help our teachers make up any losses - but right now we're faced with a difficult situation where revenue has dried up almost entirely while expenses remain nearly the same. We'll of course be applying for the city's small business aid when available as well!

If you're able to and would like to help us during this financially tough stretch, we have a few options. Thank you so much!

1) Purchase a gift certificate to be used on a future in-person class: https://brooklynbrainery.com/gift-certificates

2) Try out an online class (more being added each day as we navigate this new world): https://brooklynbrainery.com/courses - just look for "online class" next to the class name

3) Sign up for a class further into the future: https://brooklynbrainery.com/courses

4) Join us as a virtual member to provide critical revenue for our fixed expenses at this time: https://brooklynbrainery.com/c…/virtual-supporter-membership

5) Grab a Brainery tote bag online (this is all we have to sell you!)

6) Share these options with friends!

There's really no good reason for me to be sharing this story rather than the thousands of others. It just happens to be something I'm looking at right now.

There's so much good work being done out there, and so much of it hanging by a thread. And of course this is happening everywhere. I feel horrible that I can't afford to help much, but for all of us this is a unique chance to get acquainted with stuff happening all over the country -- my guess is that any time you Web-surf you'll stumble across a zillion such opportunities, people and organizations who have gone virtual to survive, and are offering us all these riches.


BONUS: WE EXPERIMENT WITH TACKING ON
A BIT OF MUSIC, JUST FOR PLEASURE

I don't want to burden DWT readers, as I often felt I was doing with the old Sunday Classics posts, with the kind of music I love. But lately, as I've been writing a little, I've also had cherished pieces of music lodge in my head which I thought might be pleasant to pass along. And I thought maybe I'd tack one on every time I write a post.

One such is the overture to Leonard Bernstein's deeply delightful, verging-on-opera 1956 Broadway musical Candide. As I've mentioned in the past, this is one of those pieces which can seize hold of me to the point of listening endlessly -- 5 times, or 10, maybe 15. Just now, at a time when I think most of us could sure use an infusion of joie de vivre in our lives, I can't imagine a more sheerly joyous four, or four and a half, minutes' worth.

BERNSTEIN: Overture to Candide


Original Broadway Cast recording, Samuel Krachmalnick, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded Dec. 9. 1956

New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded 1960-63

Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded July 1982

London Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded December 1989

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, David Zinman, cond. Decca, recorded Feb. 3-4, 1996

London Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Davis, cond. EMI, recorded live at Glyndebourne, Apr. 27, 1997

In the event that the Candide Overture has the effect on you that it so often does on me, you can of course listen to it now as often as you like, and you don't even have to listen to it the same way, at least not the first six times. We hear, in chronological order (and also, you'll note, in order of fastest to slowest):

• First, the boisterous performance (of which we sampled the final minute at the top of the post) from the Original Broadway Cast recording conducted by that crackerjack theater conductor Samuel Krachmalnick.

• Then three performances, steadily more gradual, by the composer -- with orchestras in New York, within memory of the original Broadway production; Los Angeles, two decades later, and noticeably broader; and, finally, a bit slower still, London, from the studio recording made at the time of Lenny's famous London concert performance of Candide (available on video).

• A suitably sparkling performance from Baltimore conducted by one of the more satisfying (and versatile) conductors of recent times, David Zinman.

• And a wholly international performance, recorded live, with another English orchestra but this time an English conductor, and a fine one, (not-yet-Sir) Andrew Davis (now music director of Lyric Opera of Chicago), who provides a rousing kickoff for a gala concert staged in the theater at Glyndebourne celebrating the centenary of EMI.

Nicolai Gedda (1925-2017)

10pm ET UPDATE: We have Yevgeny Onegin audio files!

Anneliese Rothenberger and Nicolai Gedda as Constanze
and Belmonte in Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio,
from the cover of their 1966 EMI recording

MOZART: The Abduction from the Seraglio: Overture and Belmonte's entrance aria, "Hier soll ich dich denn sehen?"

BELMONTE: Here am I then to see you,
Constanze -- you, my happiness?
Let Heaven make it happen!
Give me my peace back!
I suffered sorrows,
o Love, all too many of them.
Grant me now in their place joys
and bring me toward the goal.

[aria at 4:35] Nicolai Gedda (t), Belmonte; Vienna Philharmonic, Josef Krips, cond. EMI, recorded February 1966

Now here it is sung by a younger, fresher-voiced Nicolai --

[aria at 4:20] Nicolai Gedda (t), Belmonte; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, Hans Rosbaud, cond. Recorded live at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, July 11, 1954

Finally, here it is sung in English (from a complete Abduction
recording based on a Phoenix Opera Group production) --

[in English; aria at 4:10] Nicolai Gedda (t), Belmonte; Bath Festival Orchestra, Yehudi Menuhin, cond. EMI, recorded Oct.-Dec. 1967 (now available in Chandos's opera-in-English series)

by Ken

Although Nicolai Gedda continued singing publicly well into his 70s, he had, not surprisingly, slipped out of the international circuit well before then, and since he was 91 when he died on February 8, in Switzerland, it may be that to younger music lovers the Swedish tenor is just a name, if that. But there was a time, and a fairly long one at that, when he seemed to be everywhere, singing more or less everything -- at least everything assumable by a generous-voiced lyric tenor, in the wide range of languages in which he sang with both technical and expressive assurance.


I NEVER THOUGHT OF OUR NICOLAI AS A FAVORITE
SINGER. IT'S MORE THAT HE WAS ALWAYS THERE.

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Happy New Year from all of us here at DWT!

by Ken

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

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

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


NOW ON TO OUR TOASTS, OR ALMOST

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

J. STRAUSS Jr.: Die Fledermaus: Overture


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

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

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

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

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


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

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A hopeful holiday musical greeting from G. F. Handel -- and another from L. van Beethoven

HANDEL: Messiah: No. 2, Accompagnato, "Comfort ye"

Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

-- Isaiah 40:1-3

by Ken

Last night ( For Christmas Eve, we hark unto the openings of Berlioz's Childhood of Christ and Handel's Messiah") I took a stab at explaining how it came that, given this year's unusual three-day Christmas "arc," I had the idea of resurrecting a three-day musical post from Christmas 2011, and how it wasn't actually possible, as I'd first hoped, to simply paste the old posts into new blogfiles, but that that provided an opportunity to do various sorts of updating and expanding for the 2016 version.

One of the problems, with which I had to bore you but have to, just a little, is an infuriating technical incompatibility between our posts of bygone times and current ones, and in fact for the intended second and third parts of the sequence the problem has proved insurmountable -- tonight's continuation of last night's post had to be entirely typed from scratch, and I don't think tomorrow's planned resurrection of my composite performance of the whole of Part I of Messiah is going to be impossible for tomorrow's "third day" of Christmas ("Christmas observed").

As promised last night, when we listened to the opening tenor solos of Handel's Messiah and Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ, including hearing both sung by the fondly remembered Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda, we're returning to the Messiah vocal opening (following the orchestral Overture, that is). Tonight, as I laid out the agenda in 2011, "I'm going to be resurrecting my account of how I first came to hear a tenor singing it singing directly and personally to me." And in addition:

As it happens, there's another musical excerpt, by coincidence or otherwise also written for tenor, which under the right circumstances can give me this same sensation of its composer reaching out -- through the agency of this singer -- and offering hopefulness. So I thought we would start out once again by hearing the two excerpts sung by the same tenor.

From the choral finale of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony:

Happily, happily, as his suns fly
across the heavens' splendid expanse,
run, brothers, your course,
joyfully, like a hero toward victory.

OUR HARD-WORKING TENOR WELL-WISHER TONIGHT IS --

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For Christmas Eve, we hark unto the openings of Berlioz's "Childhood of Christ" and Handel's "Messiah"

In the Sunday Classics era, Christmastime provided a bountiful musical opportunity. Since 2016 brings us a "three-day Christmas" -- Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Christmas holiday celebrated -- I thought I would dip back to 2011, when Sunday Classics had a three-day sequence that began with the openings of Berlioz's oratorio L'Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ) and Handel's eternal Messiah, then zoomed in on that opening tenor solo of Messiah, and finally expanded to encompass the whole of Part I, the only one of Messiah's three parts that is in fact Christmas-connected.

The original plan, of course, was just to paste the contents of the three original posts into new blogfiles. Alas, for all sorts of reasons that wasn't possible. Behind the scenes, for starters, all of the audio clips, every one of them had to be reformatted -- that is, once I figured out how to reformat them. For that matter, substantial portions of the texts of these posts had to be reformatted thanks to the Googlified software's fondness for eating up line breaks in older posts. Then, as noted below, a video clip had disappeared. On the bright side, my MIA-in-2011 CD copy of Colin Davis's first Messiah recording (the good one) has resurfaced, and will be pressed into heavy service on Monday. And on and on. The upshot is that, while I've tricked to stick as close as possible to the 2011 posts as possible, a fair amount of the 2016 versions is not only updated but brand new.

In the manger at this time Jesus had just been born,
but no wonder had yet made him known.
And already the powerful were trembling;
already the weak were hoping.
Everyone was waiting.

Now learn, Christians, what a monstrous crime
was suggested to the King of the Jews by terror.
And the celestial warning that in their humble stable
was sent to the parents of Jesus by the Lord.


Michel Sénéchal (t), Narrator; Orchestre des Concerts Colonne, Pierre Dervaux, cond. Adès, recorded 1959

Jean Giraudeau (t), Narrator; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. Pathé/Vox, recorded in the early '50s

Cesare Valletti (t), Narrator; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA, recorded Dec. 23-24, 1956

Anthony Rolfe Johnson (t), Narrator; English Chamber Orchestra, Philip Ledger, cond. ASV, recorded 1986

NOTE: These audio files were made, not for the 2011 post being revived here but for a later post. Since we're not returning to that later post anyway, I've folded these performances of the Opening Narration in here to replace a now-vanished video clip of the early numbers of L'Enfance du Christ. For more about the "new" clips of the Opening Narration, see below.

by Ken

Don't tell Bill O'Reilly, but I'm not a Christmas person. People don't come much more secular than me. But there are things about the Christmas season that I respond to, and Sunday Classics actually has several Christmas traditions. We do Tchaikovsky, and in particular the ballets -- a tradition carried forward with last week's first-ever Sunday Classics complete Nutcracker. [This was 2011, remember. The DWT complete Nutcracker became a mini-tradition itself for a couple of years.] And we do two altogether extraordinary works, which we've been prodding and poking at for years now: Handel's Messiah and Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ).

As it happens, both Messiah (following its overture) and L'Enfance kick off with tenor solos, each of which is for me one of the most meaningful, most powerful pieces of music I know. We have, in fact, dealt with both of them in past years, and we're going to be dealing with them again this week and next. But for tonight, I thought it might be fun to hear them sung by the same tenor.

Of course there wouldn't be much point if the tenor wasn't much good. But it occurred to me that we could accomplish this with a pretty good tenor indeed, Nicolai Gedda -- not one of my very favorite singers, but a good one, with a high degree of stylistic adaptability and and ability to sing effectively in more languages than any singer I can think of. (You'll notice that in "Comfort ye," for the phrase we normally hear as "saith your God," he carefully and precisely sings, each time, "sayeth two syllables] your God.") I don't know whether it qualifies as irony that for this quintessentially English and quintessentially French music, we're turning -- where else? -- to a Swede. These are both highly accomplished performances, which we're going to hear in the click-through.

2016 UPDATE: In 2011 there was actually a second week of "Christmas" posts, in which, having listened more closely to the opening tenor solo and then the whole of Part I of Messiah, which we're going to do again tomorrow and Monday, respectively, we proceeded to do the same with L'Enfance du Christ; this year, though, I'm afraid we're going no farther into L'Enfance than the Opening Narration. In the click-through -- new for 2016 -- I'm going to say a little about our opening assortment of performances of the Opening Narration of L'Enfance. 

We can proceed just as soon as you click through!


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Sunday Classics snapshots: Meet the composer, Richard Strauss-style

The first part of the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos, with Paul Schoeffler as the Music Master and Sena Jurinac as the Composer (we're going to hear the radiant Jurinac in her glorious 1958 studio recording, which I've described as the best recorded performance I know of any operatic role, and Schoeffler in a 1944 live performance), staged by Günter Rennert and conducted by Karl Böhm, filmed at Salzburg in 1965 -- the remaining four parts are also on YouTube.

by Ken

It was along, arduous path from conception to ultimate creation, the strange entertainment concocted by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, his librettist on two previous, wildly different operas, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier, in collaboration with the great stage director Max Reinhardt, who had collaborated with them on Rosenkavalier.

The original idea was to provide a half-hour musical entertainment to be inserted in an adaptation (by Hofmannsthal) for Reinhardt of Molière's Le bourgeois gentilhomme, with incidental music by Strauss. Not surprisingly, the half-hour entertainment grew and grew, until it was a weird one-act opera that -- despite being scored for chamber orchestra -- would tax the vocal resources of the greatest opera houses. And it combined two seemingly uncombinable art forms: a deeply serious opera seria that is observed, commented on, and eventually intruded on by a troupe of commedia dell'arte musical comedians. And of course it was imprisoned inside the play, and constitued too much opera for playgoers and too much play for operagoers.

Long story short: Eventually Hofmannsthal and Strauss liberated Ariadne by creating a Prologue, set backstage in the room of the home of the richest man in Vienna where the evening's entertainment is shortly to be performed. And they created the character of the Composer, the creator of a deeply serious opera seria. The new Prologue not only explains how these two wildly different entertainments came to be scheduled for the same evening's entertainment (and, eventually, how they come to be combined) but creates for us the world of a theatrical backstage. (The always-practical Strauss arranged an orchestral suite from the incidental music he had written for the play, in its German guise as Der Bürger als Edelmann.)

We've already heard the very opening of the Prologue -- still scored for chamber orchestra, as the original opera-intermezzo was.

R. STRAUSS: Ariadne auf Naxos: Prologue: Orchestral introduction


Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Mar. 28, 1970


AS THE CURTAIN RISES ON THE PROLOGUE --

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Sunday Classics snapshots: They don't make organists like Virgil Fox anymore

Virgil Fox at the console of Riverside
Church's grand Aeolian-Skinner organ

by Ken

Somehow I wound up with at least two and maybe three copies of a CD reissue in the "RCA Living Stereo" series: the album of Encores recorded January 27-30, 1958, on the grand Aeolian-Skinner organ of Manhattan's Riverside Church by that master showman of the organ Virgil Fox (1912-1980). When one of those copies, still sealed, suddenly popped out in the open, it got me to thinking. While most of the selections would be sneered into oblivion by today's musical intelligentsia,

I had a feeling it would be both more fun and more musical than the music being generated contemporarily in what word has it is a new golden age for the organ, with incomparable genius organists composing new horizons for this grand old instrument. The only thing that would be more exciting is if any of the music was the tiniest fraction as interesting as these little baubles.

So I thought today we'd just arrange a series of musical snapshots from the album, like these organ arrangements of three thrice-familiar little pieces.

BACH: Jesu, joy of man's desiring (arr. from final chorale of Cantata No. 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben)



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Sunday Classics snapshots: In D.C., still no Lincoln -- or even a Boccanegra

Leonard Warren as Simon Boccanegra

I weep for you, for the peaceful
sun on your hillsides,
where the olive branches
bloom in vain.
I weep for the deceptive
gaiety of your flowers,
and I cry to you "Peace!"
I cry to you "Love!"

Leonard Warren (b), Simon Boccanegra; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Stiedry, cond. Live performance, Jan. 28, 1950

Lawrence Tibbett (b), Simon Boccanegra; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Ettore Panizza, cond. Live performance, Jan. 21, 1939

by Ken

The great political chronicler Richard Reeves titled his book about the start of the post-Nixon (i.e., post-Watergate) presidency of Jerry Ford: A Ford, not a Lincoln. I think of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt. And while other American presidents have certainly risen to moments of great challenge, it's not something our political system can be counted on to make happen, and if anything even less so with the rabble that makes up our Congresses.

So perhaps it's not surprising that under the combined influence of the fratricidal follies rending the House of Representatives and a not-all-that-attentive watching of the whole of the upgraded-for-HD Ken Burns Lincoln film, and in addition with the notable contrast of the summonses to a very different sort of action delivered by Pope Francis on his American visit, my mind wandered to the rising-to-the-moment of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, the plebeian Doge of Genoa faced with the riot that breaks out in his own Council Chamber between the blood-rival factions of Plebeians and Patricians, following the attempted abduction of the patrician daughter Amelia (in reality Boccanegra's long-lost daughter Maria, as he himself has only recently discovered, in the Recognition Scene of Act I, Scene 1, which we spent a fair amount of time on here once upon a time) on behalf of the Doge's henchman Paolo, which was foiled by Amelia's patrician fiancé, Gabriele Adorno, who killed the would-be abductor.


ABOVE WE'VE HEARD THE DOGE'S GREAT PLEA --

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Sunday Classics snapshots: Ramón Vinay and the search for the soul of Otello

Lauritz Melchior sings Otello's monologue (in German, in a 1930 HMV recording) maybe better than I've heard anyone else sing it. (Note: We've got English texts coming up in a bit if you want to jump ahead to them.)

by Ken

I first heard about the Melchior performance of Otello's monologue in Conrad L. Osborne's 1963 High Fidelity magazine discography of Otello. It took awhile, but eventually one day I was browsing the import section of the new releases at one of the record stores I frequented, and there was an LP devoted to Melchior on a label I had never seen, which as far as I could tell didn't even identify itself, except as "Lebendige Vergangenheit," or LV. The company turned out to be Preiser, which became and remains an important source of vocal reissues. I didn't know that then, though, but I had no choice except to pay bust-out retail for the disc. (When could I expect to find this unknown label on sale?)

As I hope you've already heard, the performance turned out to be every bit as good as promised by CLO.

As it happens, Conrad's Otello discography in High Fidelity is also the source of the quote about Ramón Vinay's Otello that I talked about the other day, when I recounted how I succeeded in digging it up for an obituary I was assigned to write of the Chilean-born baritone-tenor-baritone after he died (on Jan. 4, 1996; I looked it up).


NOW HERE I AM, FACED WITH THE SAME SITUATION!

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Sunday Classics snapshots: Swinging Haydn with Vilmos Tatrai playing and conducting

Violinist and conductor Tátrai (1912-1999)

Symphony No. 31 in D (Horn Signal) (1765):
i. Allegro

Symphony No. 73 in D (La chasse) (The Hunt) (1782)
iv. Presto

Hungarian Chamber Orchestra, Vilmos Tátrai, cond. Hungaroton, recorded 1965

by Ken

So I noticed this CD lying atop one of the millions of piles of CDs I've finally been trying to organize, and it didn't instantly ring a bell: a pair of D major sort of hunt-themed Haydn symphonies -- the Horn Signal, No. 31, and La Chasse, No. 73, performed by the Hungarian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Vilmos Tátrai. Above we've heard the movements most responsible for the symphonies' nicknames (though it should be noted that the then-overwhelming contingent of four horns is used throughout the Horn Signal Symphony).


MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS THAT THE CD WAS LYING ABOUT --

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Sunday Classics snapshots: Signposts on the steep path of Otello's downfall

[Click to enlarge.]

Now and forever farewell, blessed memories!
Farewell, sublime enchantments of her thought!
Farewell, shining battalions; farewell, victories,
flying arrows and flying steeds!
Farewell, triumphant and sacred banner,
and reveille ringing shrilly in the morning!
The clamor and song of battle, farewell!
The glory of Otello is here at an end!

Francesco Tamagno (t), Otello; piano. Victor, recorded February 2003 (digital transfer by Tim Ecker) -- for some notes on this recording, see below

by Ken

We've been ruminating about and eavesdropping on Verdi and Boito's Otello and his monstrous fall, and last week I posed the question of how the Moor of Venice sinks from the ecstatic raptures of the Act I Love Duet to the moment in Act III when he browbeats the innocent Desdemona lying in the dust by his hand ("More Vickers -- 'Otello fu,' how he gets from here to there").

I would like to answer that more fully, but for now we're just going to signal a pair of signposts along the way, as the poisons his lieutenant "honest Jago" dumps in his mind take hold, in the form of the lie that Desdemona is having an affair with the Moor's former lieutenant, Cassio. Then next week I hope to flesh these moments out.

Otello: Act II, Otello "Tu, indietro" . . . "Ora e per sempre addio"

OTELLO: You! Stand back! Flee!
You have bound me to the cross! Alas!
More horrible than any horrible injury
is the injury of suspicion!
In the secret hours of her lust
(and they were stolen from me!) was by breast agitated
by no omen? I was bold, happy.
I knew nothing yet; I didn't feel
on the divine body that I adored
and on her lying lips
the burning kisses of Cassio! And now, and now . . .

Now and forever farewell, blessed memories!
Farewell, sublime enchantments of her thought!
Farewell, shining battalions; farewell, victories,
flying arrows and flying steeds!
Farewell, triumphant and sacred banner,
and reveille ringing shrilly in the morning!
The clamor and song of battle, farewell!
The glory of Otello is here at an end!

[from "In the secret hours of her lust"] Enrico Caruso (t), Otello; Victor Orchestra. Victor, recorded in New York City, Dec. 28, 1910

Mario del Monaco (t), Otello; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Georg Solti, cond. Live performance, June 30, 1962

Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 30, 1971

Plácido Domingo (t), Otello; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Carlos Kleiber, cond. Live performance, Dec. 7, 1976

Luciano Pavarotti (t), Otello; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded live in concert, April 1991

The great heroic tenor Francesco Tamagno was 36 when he created the role of Otello at La Scala in February 1887, but 52 and semi-retired when he recorded three excerpts, in February 2003: Otello's entrance, "Esultate"; the scene at the end of the opera following his murder of Desdemona, "Niun mi tema"; and the performance we heard above of the Act II outburst "Ora e per sempre addio." At least four takes have been circulated, and they're noticeably different, perhaps nor surprising when we hear his sort of improvisatory, embellished approach -- and all much slower than the composer's metronome marking, which we see above.

But notice that Enrico Caruso too sings "Ora e per sempre addio" a lot more lyrically than the virtual battle cry we're accustomed to. Would they actually have sung it this way (a good deal slower than Verdi's metronome marking, as we see above) in the theater? Who knows?

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Sunday Classics snapshots: More Vickers -- "Otello fu," how he gets from here to there

Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Rome Opera Orchestra, Tullio Serafin, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded July-Aug. 1960

by Ken

Leonard Bernstein had such a strong feeling for the scene of the death of Otello as depicted by Arrigo Boito and Giuseppe Verdi that, as I recall the story (maybe somebody can help me out here? I can't remember where I read or heard him tell the story), he named a family dog "Otello Fu" -- and everyone assumed the name was Chinese.

Last week, remembering Canadian tenor Jon Vickers, we heard two performances of the sublime Love Duet that ends Act I of Verdi's Otello, one of his legendary roles. I should perhaps have issued a spoiler alert before noting that by the end of the opera Otello will murder Desdemona.


HOW DO WE GET FROM HERE TO THERE?

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Sunday Classics snapshots: More Vickers -- "I am afraid, I am afraid that I will never again be granted this divine moment" (Boito and Verdi's Otello)

A chunk near the end of the Otello Act I duet lip-synched by Jon Vickers (Otello) and Mirella Freni (Desdemona), from the Unitel film, with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, including our excerpt (at 1:21)

[The sky is now quite clear. Some stars are visible and, on the rim of the horizon, the blue reflection of the rising moon.]
OTELLO: Such is my soul's joy that I am afraid,
I am afraid that I will never again be granted
this divine moment
in the unknown future of my destiny.
DESDEMONA: Dispel such anguish.
Our love will not change from year to year.
OTELLO: Upon this prayer,
let the ranks of angels respond: Amen.
DESDEMONA: Amen, let them respond.

Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Leonie Rysanek (s), Desdemona; Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Tullio Serafin, cond. RCA, recorded July-Aug. 1960

Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Mirella Freni (s), Desdemona; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 30, 1971

by Ken

We've talked about this before, and for me the giveaway here is Otello's repeated "temo" ("I am afraid"). I suppose someone without his potentially disabling fear might express himself similarly at a moment of such perfect happiness -- and this is surely the greatest love scene, with or without music, ever imagined by the mind of artistic man, only somewhat undercut by our knowledge that by the end of the opera the man will murder the woman.

But again, listen to that repeated "temo," and tell me you're not hearing a man who, at the pinnacle of his success, both career-wise and personal, believes at every moment that in the next moment it could all be taken away from him. If for some reason you really, really hated Otello, and wanted to destroy him, and you knew this about him, this might be the angle you would work.


AT THE RISK OF BELABORING THE OBVIOUS --

Jon Vickers's great roles were always some sort of outlier, outsider, or other kind of social doesn't-fit-in. And there happen to be a group of such roles that were written for -- and some others that can be advantageously allotted to -- a voice of this immense scale.

I don't think we need to say any more before listening to the whole of the Otello Act I Love Duet, backing up to the riot that brings Otello back out to face the Cypriot mob, a riot orchestrated by Jago to bring down his rival, Cassio.

VERDI: Otello, Act I, Cypriots, "All'armi! All'armi!" . . . Otello, "Abbasso le spade!" . . . Otello-Desdemona duet, "Già nella notte densa"

It's the night of the triumphant but terror-inspiring return to Cyprus of its governor from his whupping of the Saracens, which was almost climaxed by the demise of his own in a violent storm within sight of home port. Now, amid the island festivities, Jago has been furiously setting in motion plots against his rival, Cassio -- a first step in his ultimate plot, against Otello himself. Jago has nudged events so that a drunk Cassio winds up starting a riot that brings Otello storming out of his castle followed by torchbearers like so.

CYPRIOTS: To arms! To arms! Help! Help!
OTELLO: Down with your swords.
[The combatants stop fighting.]
Hold there! What's happening?
Am I among the Saracens?
Or have you become rabble Turks,
who fight each other like dogs?
Honest Jago, by the love and loyalty
that you have for me. Speak.
JAGO: I don’t know . . .
We all were just celebrating, as friends.
Then, as if a malicious star fell upon us,
a quarrel broke out.
Weapons were drawn -- chaos ensued.
I would rather cut these legs off,
for having brought me to witness this.
OTELLO: Cassio -- how could you forget yourself like this?
CASSIO:. Pardon, my Lord. I don't know . . .
OTELLO: Montano?
MONTANO [supported by a soldier]: I'm wounded, and cannot speak.
OTELLO: Wounded! By Heaven, my blood rages.
Yet my better angels restrain me.
[DESDEMONA enters. OTELLO quickly goes to her.]
What -- my sweet Desdemona.
She too was awoken by this outrage.
Cassio, you are no longer my captain!
[CASSIO lets his sword fall. It is picked up by JAGO.]
JAGO [handing CASSIO's sword to a soldier and speaking aside]: Oh, my triumph!)
OTELLO: Iago, go around the frightened town
with this squadron and restore the peace.
[JAGO leaves.]
Someone help Montano.
[MONTANO is helped into the castle.]
Everyone return to your homes.
[With an imperious gesture] I will remain here until the streets are deserted,
and calm reigns once more.

[The people leave. OTELLO makes a sign to the torchbearers who accompanied him to return to the castle. OTELLO and DESDEMONA are left alone.]
OTELLO: The vast night sky extinguishes all strife,
And my trembling heart is calmed by its embrace.
Yet, from such immense hatred
comes our immense love.
DESDEMONA: My superb warrior.
Many torments, and such sadness,
And much hope have brought you
to this blessed embrace.
How sweet when we whispered together:
Remember now with me.
When you revealed your life of exile,
and told me of your battles, and sorrow.
And I would listen from my very soul
with fear, and ecstasy in my heart.
OTELLO: I painted a canvas of armies,
of weapons poised to attack,
The assault -- of terrible victory –
cutting to the rampart -- killing the foe.
DESDEMONA: Then you would guide me
to the shining deserts of your homeland,
At last sharing your suffering –
in chains, as a slave.
OTELLO: Your tears ennobled my story.
Your beautiful visage, and your sighs
Descended upon my darkness
a blessed glory -- a paradise -- and the stars.
DESDEMONA: And I saw in your brow
a genius of eternal beauty.
OTELLO: And you loved me for my misfortunes;
And I loved you that you pitied them.
DESDEMONA: And I loved you for your misfortunes:
And you loved me that I pitied them.
OTELLO: Truly you loved me.
Let death come! And may the supreme moment take me
in the ecstasy of this embrace.
[The sky is now quite clear. Some stars are visible and, on the rim of the horizon, the blue reflection of the rising moon. ]
Such is my soul's joy that I am afraid,
I am afraid that I will never again be granted
this divine moment
in the unknown future of my destiny.
DESDEMONA: Dispel such anguish.
Our love will not change from year to year.
OTELLO: Upon this prayer,
let the ranks of angels respond: Amen.
DESDEMONA: Amen, let them respond.
OTELLO [supporting himself against the parapet]:
Ah. Such joy overcomes me
so vehemently, I cannot bear it.
A kiss.
DESDEMONA: Otello.
OTELLO: Yet another kiss.
The stars of the Pleiades descend toward the sea.
DESDEMONA: It is late.
OTELLO: Come. Venus shall guide us.
DESDEMONA: Otello!
[They go slowly toward the castle, clasped in each other's arms.]

Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Tito Gobbi (b), Jago; Florindo Andreolli (t), Cassio; Franco Calabrese (bs), Montano; Leonie Rysanek (s), Desdemona; Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Tullio Serafin, cond. RCA, recorded July-Aug. 1960

Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Peter Glossop (b), Jago; Ryland Davies (t), Cassio; Siegfried Rudolf Friese (bs), Montano; (s), Mirella Freni (s), Desdemona; Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 30, 1971

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Sunday Classics snapshots: Jon Vickers in consolatory, even happy mode

"Froh, froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen"

Gladly, like the heavenly bodies
which he set on their courses,
through the splendor of the firmament;
thus, brothers, you should run your race,
like a hero going to conquest.

Jon Vickers, tenor; London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. Westminster-MCA-DG, recorded June 1962

Jon Vickers, tenor; Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, Cleveland Orchestra, Lorin Maazel, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded Oct. 13-15, 1978

-- from the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

by Ken

Last week I put together, from audio clips we'd already heard over the years, a quick tribute to the late Jon Vickers, and still feel guilty about not including at least English texts for the selections, on the shabby ground that digging them out would have involved too much time and effort. (Well, oo-hoo!) Nobody complained, which is even more discouraging. One of these days I will go back and fix that post.

I led that post off with the above excerpt from the epochal finale of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, precisely to hear Vickers in a "froh" frame of musical mind, since his greatest musical assumptions, despite moments of triumph, were on the desolate side. Again, we have two versions, one early-ish, the other much later. I thought you might like to hear the complete performances of the finale from which the excerpts are drawn (which we have in fact heard before, so you'll find them at the end.)


NOW FOR SOMETHING PRETTY DIFFERENT

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Sunday Classics snapshots: Lucia's last happy snap

Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti at the Met in 1987

LUCIA: Ah! On the breezes
will come my ardent sighs.
You will hear in the murmuring sea
the echo of my grieving
Thinking that I feed on sighs and grief,
shed a bitter tear then on this ring.
Ah, on this ring then!
Ah, on this ring then!
Ah, on that ring then!

Joan Sutherland (s), Lucia; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Tullio Serafin, cond. Live performance, Feb. 26, 1959

by Ken

I know we're making microscopic progress toward our goal, that other Verdian musical dramatization of the aging process (besides Germont's aria "Di Provenza" in La Traviata, by way of the "double aria" format Verdi inherited from the Italian bel cantists. And this week we're slowing down even further.

Last week we heard Lucia di Lammermoor's great Scene 2 double aria as she awaited her secret lover, Edgardo, near the fountain on his family's ruined Scottish estate. I thought this week we would move on, or rather back, to the Scene 1 double aria of Lucia's brother, Lord Enrico Ashton and maybe get as far as the way he treats his sister. But even though we left Lucia singing rapturously of her love for Edgardo, a rare moment of unbridled happiness for her, I don't think we can leave her there. We really need to "see" her meeting with Edgardo. Here are four musical snapshots.


(1) ENTER EDGARDO

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Sunday Classics snapshots: A fountain, a harp, and a mind in distress

No, this isn't the fountain of "The Siren" referred to in the stage direction, but it's a reasonable guess that the Ravenswood fountain might have been based on the Fontana della Sirena in the Piazza Sannazaro in Naples. Just imagine it on a lonely Scottish estate fallen nearly to ruins, like so --

A park in the ground of the Scottish castle of Ravenswood. We see the fountain called "The Siren." Once it was covered by a beautiful structure decorated with all sorts of Gothic details; now only the ruins of this structure remain. It is nightfall.

[All translations in today's post by William Ashbrook]

RAI Turin Symphony Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Broadcast performance, Oct. 10, 1967

RCA Italiana Orchestra, Georges Prêtre, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded July-Aug. 1965

Orchestra of Lyric Opera of Chicago, Richard Bonynge, cond. Live performance, Nov. 12, 1975

by Ken

Here we hear three takes on a lovely 2½-to-3-minute musical snapshot -- Molinari-Pradelli decisive and sympathetically straightforward; Prêtre similarly decisive but a little more individual in some of his phrasing choices and, surprisingly (at least to me), turning out to time out a little quicker; and Bonynge more romantically discursive.

The music, which is sometimes described as an "interlude" between the scene preceding and the one about to take place, is pretty clearly indicated in the score as an orchestral lead-in to what follows -- though of course it's up to the stage director to decide where exactly to raise the curtain on Scene 2. In the meantime, I'm delaying identifying this piece of musical mood-setting (in the event that you don't know) to give you a chance to just allow it to wash over you and maybe sink in a little, to maybe set a mood. It's clearly the harp that dominates the music, and the fountain that dominates the scene, but I don't think anyone can say how exactly they're expected to relate.

And here I think we can jump ahead just a bit to our next snapshot, to add this vivid response to mention of the aforementioned fountain. In fact, since it's only 11-12 seconds, we're going to hear it three times.

That fountain! Ah! never
do I see it without trembling.

I think we clearly have three interesting, and interestingly, different renderings of this extraordinary moment, but one thing I think we can also say is that, from the purely vocal standpoint, singer B handles it with greater assurance, and singer C handles it with astonishing assurance -- producing a sound of amazing fullness that doesn't strain or curdle at all on the upward leap for the "Ah!" in "Quella fonte! Ah! mai."


PROCEEDING NOW TO THAT NEXT SNAPSHOT --

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Sunday Classics snapshots: LIfe among the Druids

The first page of Bellini's Norma autograph score

BELLINI: Norma (1831): Overture

Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Antonino Votto, cond. Live performance, Dec. 7, 1955

Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Tullio Serafin, cond. EMI, recorded Nov. 5-12, 1960

London Philharmonic Orchestra, Carlo Felice Cillario, cond. RCA, recorded September 1972

National Philharmonic Orchestra, James Levine, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded 1979

About the performances: I really admire the weight that Votto brings to the Overture without stretching or padding it, as Serafin and Cillario do with varying degrees of success. If you want just the notes, Levine's your guy.

by Ken

The plan was different. We've been poking around the 19th-century Italian opera format of the aria-and-cabaletta or "double aria" -- a contrasting pair of arias, usually the first slowish and the second fastish, which with an adjustment of circumstances producing the change allows the singer to show off a wide range of vocal and dramatic capabilities.

We started with Verdi struggling with the format in La Traviata, producing pedestrian or worse cabalettas for the tenor and baritone in Act II, Scene 1, but then last week pointed out that to end Act I he had produced for Violetta what is surely the greatest double aria of them all, her "Ah, fors'è lui" and "Sempre libera."


YOU HAVE TO LOVE THOSE DRUIDS

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Sunday Classics snapshots: Look, it's Violetta!

Joan Sutherland as Violetta in Act I of La Traviata

Act I of La Traviata ends with Violetta's great solo scene

[in English] Valerie Masterson (s), Violetta Valéry; John Brecknock (t), Alfredo Germont; English National Opera Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. EMI, recorded Aug.-Oct. 1980

by Ken

Last week I tried to explain that in order to continue with the second example I promised of Verdi depicting a conspicuously aging parent, we really needed to give some attention to the composer's triumphs and tribulations with the "double aria" form carried over from the bel canto period. It's what always used to be known as an "aria and cabaletta" -- the first aria typically situational and often reflecting on that situation; the second aria, in reaction to the first, ususally with some additional circumstances tossed in to alter the situation or the perception of the situation, typically more declarative, often energized for pyrotechnical display.

While Verdi was capable of using the format brilliantly, we have a pile-up of evidence that even as he was making his historicthe "breakthrough" into his middle period with the overlappingly created masterpieces Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata, all three operas contain evidence that cabaletta-for-the-sake-of-cabaletta was something that didn't much stimulate his creative juices. By way of demonstration, last week we took as our musical snapshots the celebrated arias for tenor and baritone with regrettable cabalettas tacked on at the start and finish of Act II, Scene 1 of Traviata, the scene in Violetta's country house (where she and Alfredo have been living idyllically), the cabalettas for Germont fils and père, respectively.

I did point out last week, though, that "if we think of the form as 'double aria' rather than 'aria and cabaletta,' then Violetta's "Ah! fors'è lui" plus "Sempre libera" at the end of Act I of Traviata may be the supreme example of the format." And having dropped that loaded statement in, even though we did listen to this great solo scene, which so starkly rounds out an act that began with perhaps opera's most rousing party scene in February 2011, we can hardly escape "snapshotting" it now.


SO HERE ARE THREE REALLY NICE PERFORMANCES

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Sunday Classics snapshots: Aren't the jolly boys and girls of "The Gondoliers" really somebodies after all?

"The Piazzetta in Venice, Looking East with the Doge's Palace, the Columns of Saint Mark and Saint Theodore, the Riva degli Schiavoni and the Bacino di San Marco," oil painting by Bernardo Bellotto (1722-1780)

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Gondoliers: Act I, Francesco, Good morrow, pretty maids . . . Antonio, For the merriest fellows are we

During the previous chorus, in which the CONTADINE (peasant girls) have been discovered in the Piazzetta in Venice arranging floral bouquets, ANTONIO, FRANCESCO, GIORGIO, and other GONDOLIERS have entered unobserved by the girls -- at first two, then two more, then half a dozen, then the remainder.

FRANCESCO: Good morrow, pretty maids. For whom prepare ye
these floral tributes extraordinary?
FIAMETTA: For Marco and Giuseppe Palmieri,
the pink and flower of all the gondolieri.
GIULIA: They're coming here, as we have heard but lately,
to choose two brides from us who sit sedately.
ANTONIO: Do all you maidens love them?
CONTADINE: Passionately!
ANTONIO: These gondoliers are to be envied greatly.
GIORGIO: But what of us, who one and all adore you?
Have pity on our passion, we implore you!
FIAMETTA: These gentlemen must make their choice before you.
VITTORIA: In the meantime we tacitly ignore you.
GIULIA: When they have chosen two, that leaves you plenty.
Two dozen we, and ye are four and twenty!
FIAMETTA and VITTORIA : Till then, enjoy your dolce far niente!
ANTONIO : With pleasure, nobody contradicente!
Song, Antonio and Contadine
ANTONIO : For the merriest fellows are we, tra la.
CONTADINE: Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la-la-la, tra-la-la-la la.
ANTONIO : That ply on the emerald sea, tra la.
CONTADINE: Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la-la-la, tra-la-la-la la.
ANTONIO : With loving and laughing
and quipping and quaffing,
we're happy as happy can be, tra la.
With loving and laughing
and quipping and quaffing,
we're happy as happy can be, tra la.
ALL: Tra la-la-la-la, etc.
ANTONIO : With sorrow we've nothing to do, tra la.
CONTADINE: Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la-la-la, tra-la-la-la la.
ANTONIO : And care is a thing we pooh-pooh, tra la.
CONTADINE: Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la-la-la, tra-la-la-la la.
ANTONIO : And jealousy yellow,
unfortunate fellow,
we drown in the shimmering blue, tra la.
And jealousy yellow,
unfortunate fellow,
we drown in the shimmering blue, tra la.
ALL: Tra la-la-la-la-la-la-la, etc.

Alexander Young (t), Francesco; Stella Hitchens (s), Fiametta; Helen Watts (c), Giulia; James Milligan (bs-b), Antonio; James Milligan (bs-b), Giorgio; Lavinia Renton (s), Vittoria; Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Mar. 11-15, 1957

Dawn Bradshaw (s), Fiametta; Joseph Riordan (t), Francesco; Daphne Gill (ms), Giulia; Michael Wakeham (b), Antonio; George Cook (b), Giorgio; Ceinwen Jones (s), Vittoria; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded September 1960

Enid Walsh (s), Fiametta; Thomas Hancock (t), Francesco; Joyce Wright (ms), Giulia; Geoffrey Sanders (b), Antonio; Radley Flynn (bs), Giorgio; Yvonne Dean (ms), Vittoria; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Promenade Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded Mar. 11, 1950

by Ken

This week's late-scheduled musical snapshot is kind of blurry, I'm afraid, but seems important nevertheless. I expected to be proceeding, finally, with Part 2 of the "Sound of Aging, Verdi-style" miniseries I began a few weeks ago with Giorgio Germont's calculatedly fatigue-ridden appeal to his wayward son Alfredo to abandon wicked Paris and come home to beautiful, sunny, wholesome Provence -- in the form of the celebrated baritone aria "Di Provenza il mar, il suol." But Friday night I attended a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers which went beyond good-or-bad (there were good things and there were bad things) to show me something about the piece I've never heard before, and that's always exciting.


THE PROBLEM IS . . .

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Sunday Classics snapshots: "Papa" Monteux, "Petrushka," and fiddlers four

Monteux conducted Saint-Saëns (!) in the Schumann Concerto
[from the 80th-birthday interview with Edward Kelly
included in the set]


How Monteux came to conduct the premiere of Stravinsky's
Petrushka (and later, of course, The Rite of Spring)


Monteux conducts the opening of Petrushka

As we know, he conducted the ballet's premiere with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1911. This excerpt is from the recording he made with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for RCA, Jan. 25-28, 1959.

by Ken

If we had an actual snapshot to accompany today's musical ones, it would be of me arriving at my desk to find a package of a size that didn't immediately suggest anything I'd ordered. This is the plus side of dissipating memory: the occasional surprise "gift." (In fairness of a sort to me, the two things I could recall having ordered both had special circumstances -- meaning complications -- attached.)

I had to rip the package open to find, as you've probably guessed by now, the Sony set of Pierre Monteux: The Complete RCA Album Collection, which is to say all the recordings he made for RCA. (There's a fellow online who refuses to grasp, no matter how many times it's explained to him, that this is not the same thing as "all the recordings of his that were issued on RCA" (and thus it excludes those made during the label's affiliations with EMI and then Decca, which after all don't belong to it), and keeps insisting that he was somehow cheated. I have suggestions of what he might do, but I'll be good and keep them to myself.

I ordered this set, even though I already had a lot of the material on CD -- there's the rest that I didn't have, and some that I did that I hoped might sound better. And more than anything, this is Monteux, and longtime readers will have some idea how much that means to me. This is a musician with as deeply resonant and finely tuned musical sensibilities as any conductor I'm familiar with.

When I came to musical consciousness, Monteux (1875-1964) was still very much among us, and still -- into his 80s -- amazingly active. So perhaps it's understandable that for me he is permanently "Papa" Monteux. The new set reminds me, however, that his air of seniority goes back a ways. When he made his first RCA recordings, in San Francisco in April 1941 (weirdly, by telephone line to RCA's recording studio in Los Angeles), he was already 66! And though Sony bills the first 10 of these 39 music CDs, devoted to the pre-LP recordings (there's also a "bonus" CD with a 29-minute 80th-birthday interview), "The Early Recordings," these are of course only Monteux's early RCA recordings; he had been recording in Europe for decades.


SO WHAT SHALL WE LISTEN TO?

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