Ghost of Sunday Classics: "Baton Bunny" music with and without the Bunny, plus a treasure trove of overtures and, oh yes, "Gaudeamus igitur"

In which we watch part of a cartoon, then listen
to an overture, and then another overture, and then --
can you imagine? -- drift off into other, er, stuff


A nice chunk of Chuck Jones's Baton Bunny (1959) -- from the confident-looking start, things deteriorate pretty quickly.

by Ken

As I mentioned most recently Friday night, New York City's Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, is currently hosting a grand exhibition devoted to one of the giants of animated film, Chuck Jones. And as I mentioned Friday night, this afternoon I hope to get to MoMI for this week's "Chuck Jones Matinee" (each week the same hour-long program is offered on Saturday and Sunday), to see -- in 35mm, on a large screen -- Duck Amuck, which I've already declared the greatest cartoon ever made, and What's Opera, Doc?, the famous Bugs Bunny classical-music extravaganza.

On my last weekend visit to the museum, the CJM program included a different classical-Bugs enterprise, one I didn't remember: Baton Bunny, from 1959. In it Bugs attempts to conduct Suppé's A Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna Overture, and you can see some of it above.

We've heard our fair share of Suppé, entirely in the form of overtures. Yes, occasional efforts are made to revive some of his numerous operettas, but they don't stick. A dozen or so of his overtures do, however, for the simple reason that they're utterly wonderful, utterly gorgeous music, and among them are a couple -- I mean Poet and Peasant and Light Cavalry -- that I would listen to as happily as anything in the orchestral repertory.

When the poster of our Baton Bunny clip posted it, a rash of commenters were frantic to know what the music was. The question was answered in due course, of course, but we're going to answer it in our own way -- with three distinctly different performances.


FRANZ VON SUPPÉ: A Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna: Overture

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Sunday Classics: Can we brand a composer "great" based on a handful of overtures? Consider the case of Franz von Suppé

I couldn't resist bringing back this lovely 1955 CinemaScope-and-stereo film of Suppé's Poet and Peasant overture with that fine conductor Alfred Wallenstein leading the MGM Symphony Orchestra, which we first saw in the July 2009 "comfort music" post.

by Ken

In that "comfort music" post, I recalled an LP of overtures by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic officially titled William Tell And Other Favorite Overtures.

Now, the younger Lenny was nothing if not a drama freak, and I listened to that rock 'em, sock 'em performance of Rossini's William Tell Overture easily a zillion times. Quietly as it too begins, and achingly beautiful as its earlier sections are, I wouldn't describe this as "comfort music," though. This is almost the opposite: music designed to send the blood racing.

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

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

SUPPÉ: Dichter und Bauer (Poet and Peasant)

Carl Stern, cello; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 21, 1963

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

If you recall that post, or have used the link, you're aware that back then I wasn't able to play the Bernstein recording of Poet and Peasant on cue. That's where I inserted the MGM Wallenstein film, so you could hear the music, quite ably performed fortunately, but not by Lenny B. I felt even more seriously hamstrung back then by not being able to enable you to hear another record:

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

* * *

SUPPÉ: Pique Dame

We've overcome that technical limitation, so I think now we ought to listen to the Paray performance of Pique Dame. For me his performances have everything I could think of to ask: a really bold and beautiful sound in the massed passages, effortless rhythmic buoyancy, propulsion, and precision, and an amazing cherishing -- and, where called for, delicacy -- of individual and group instrumental textures. And in case it isn't obvious from the foregoing: a sense of purpose and bubbling life that doesn't flag from start to finish.

The magical moment for me is the entry of the subject sounded by paired flutes, at 4:55. Even now that I lie in wait for it, it makes me melt every time I hear it. Which is not to suggest that Paray is marking time till he gets to the "good parts." As in all of these performances, he doesn't let a bar go to waste.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959

I've chosen another performance of Pique Dame that has many qualities similar to Paray's, notably the unforced sense of forward movement and the sensitive appreciation of instrumental detail. (Barbirolli coaxes an even more languorous flute duet, at 4:46.) By coincidence, the Pye recording was in fact made by the Mercury team (producers Wilma Cozart and Harold Lawrence, engineer Robert Fine) visiting Manchester.

Hallé Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. Pye/EMI, recorded June 28-29, 1957

* * *

SUPPÉ: Die leichte Kavallerie (Light Cavalry)

Next to Poet and Peasant, surely the most played of the Suppé overtures is Light Cavalry, which has seeped into the pop culture. Let's hear Maestro Paray have a go at it.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959

It doesn't sound like much of a compliment to say that a disc of Suppé overtures is one of the loveliest things a conductor has done, and this is indeed the case of a conductor about whom I have seriously mixed feelings, but I don't mean at all to minimize the accomplishment of Zubin Mehta's Suppé. Mehta's formative musical training happened in Vienna, and his adoptive Vienneseness pops out in certain repertory, especially with the Vienna Philharmonic -- his Decca recordings of the Bruckner Ninth and Mahler Resurrection Symphonies, for example, and also these CBS Suppé overtures. Here's Light Cavalry.

Vienna Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded 1989

* * *

SUPPÉ: Ein Morgen, ein Mittag und ein Abend in Wien (A Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna)

Morning, Noon, and Night is written on something like the grand scale of Poet and Peasant -- and I'm not thinking just of the cello solo. For that reason I thought this would be a good occasion to bring in Charles Dutoit's Montreal recording. I've always found something, well, (to be harsh but blunt) empty at the core of Dutoit's performances, but he certainly has a winning fondness for the full richness of the symphony orchestra, and in collaboration with the Decca recording team, he and the Montreal Symphony produced an extensive series of recordings that are rightly valued for their sonic splendor.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959
Guy Fouquet, cello; Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Charles Dutoit, cond. Decca, recorded c1984

* * *

SUPPÉ: Die schöne Galathée (Beautiful Galatea)

I don't know that you'll hear the same thing, but after complaining about the hollow core of Charles Dutoit's performances, I can report almost the exact opposite with regard to Gustav Kuhn's, and this carries over even to their performances of such humble music as Suppé:'s. Note, for example, how Kuhn not only brings such life to the delicacy of the first main section of Beautiful Galatea (at 1:36) while conveying such a feeling of grounded substance.

Meanwhile, Paray just goes on getting everything right -- and making it sound as if there was no trick to it at all.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Gustav Kuhn, cond. BMG, recorded Dec. 13-15, 1988

* * *

SUPPÉ: Boccaccio

Boccaccio isn't one of the handful of Suppé overtures that are deemed "most do"s for any collection. Nevertheless, Paray makes it sound like the equal of any of them, and all you have to do is compare the rich and soulful horn call of his opening with the perfectly correct but comparatively ordinary opening of Sir Adrian Boult's in fact quite fine performance. Has Paray performed a magic trick in making the music sound better than it is, or is he simply better tuned in than most any other conductor to the music's possibilities?

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult, cond. EMI, recorded Apr. 27, 1955

* * *

You know what we never did hear? The Paray performance of Poet and Peasant. That seems as good a way to close as any.

SUPPÉ: Dichter und Bauer (Poet and Peasant)

Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded November 1959


THE GREAT CD GIVEAWAY

As I mentioned in the previews (Friday night's featuring music from Johann Strauss II's Gypsy Baron and Saturday night's featuring music from Strauss's Fledermaus) I am in possession of an extra copy of the Mercury CD reissue of the Paray Suppé overtures, with three Auber overtures thrown in to fill out the CD. (I guess while my original copy was missing, as noted above, I must have bought a replacement, and eventually the missing copy turned up.) All somebody has to do is offer some sort of contribution to somehow earn it.


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

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

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

by Ken

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

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

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

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

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

Talk about "just what the doctor ordered"!

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

THIS IS WHAT I MEAN BY COMFORT MUSIC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SHIMMERING MERRY WIVES, POETIC POET AND PEASANT

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


OUR COMFORT MUSIC ON RECORDS

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

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

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

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


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