"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Politicizing The NRA/GOP Massacre In Santa Fe
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Adrienne Bell and Trump Regime con man
Santa Fe is a small, affluent city-- population just over 12,000-- that sprawls on both sides of state highway 6 in Galveston County, south of Houston. A little context: in 1981, when Vietnamese shrimpers moved into the area, the KKK hosted a fish fry in Santa Fe and ceremonially burned a Vietnamese fishing boat. About 2 decades later Santa Fe was in the news again when the Supreme Court ruled their school district's sneaky way of allowing prayer in the school district was unconstitutional. And last week, about 2 decades later, Santa Fe was in the news again-- 9 dead students and one dead teacher... another NRA/GOP special event. Santa Fe is part of Texas' 14th congressional district, represented by far right Republican Randy Weber, whose lifetime score from the NRA is "A." And, yes, he has accepted NRA bloody money for his votes in their favor. The PVI of TX-14 is R+12 and Obama lost the district both times he ran. In 2016 Trump beat Hillary there, 58.2% to 38.4%. Weber was reelected with an even higher percentage-- 61.9% against an unfunded Democrat, Michael Cole. This cycle his Democratic opponent is Adrienne Bell, a Berniecrat who beat Levy Barnes in the primary with enough votes (79.8% to 20.2%) to avoid Tuesday's run-off. She's a school teacher who has been endorsed by Our Revolution Texas and the Justice Democrats. If you want to contribute to her campaign you can do so by clicking on the ActBlue Turning Texas Blue thermometer on the right. Her grassroots campaign can certainly use the help and support. As of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline, Weber had raised $471,983 for his campaign compared to Adrienne's $76,960. After the massacre she issued this statement:
My heart goes out to the families impacted by the horrendous act that happened today at Santa Fe High School. As an educator, who has taught in a classroom, we view our students as our own. We are there not only to educate, but also to protect and serve. It breaks my heart to think of the fear our teachers, students, and parents are experiencing. This national tragedy, which has plagued schools across America, made it to our doorsteps in Santa Fe, Texas. It’s past time for Congress to act. Federal representatives must explore EVERY avenue to make sure our children can learn, and our teachers can teach, in a safe environment. This is not a red/blue issue, it is an American issue. Parents should be able to send their children to school without fear. Children should be able to attend school without fear. It is time to come together as a community of Americans, in support of our children and their right to learn in a safe environment.
On her campaign website she had made it clear that she believes in and supports the second amendment and supports sane, common sense gun legislation: "This national conversation of arming teachers to prevent gun violence in our schools," she wrote, "is disturbing. Texas teachers are trained to meet pedagogy and professional standards, that make learning relevant for today’s learners. Our responsibility does not, and should not, be that of an armed guard. Teachers have always been on the frontline, and now we are on the front-line of violence. Instead, the conversation should be focused on AR-15s being used in the recent mass murders of students, and school personnel, at Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Since 2012, the AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle, has been the weapon of choice, in the deadliest mass murders in our country. At Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the gunman fired 154 rounds in less than five minutes, murdering 20 innocent children, aged 6-7, and six staff members. A recent Quinnipiac poll, released February 20, 2018, found that 67% of Americans, which included 53% gun owners, are in support of a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons. This is the conversation we need to have-- banning assault weapons, and protecting Americans from mass murders. I stand with the majority of Americans, and call for a ban on assault weapons. I support: Assault weapon ban-- including the sale, transfer, manufacturing and importation of customizable semi-automatic rifles Universal background check, Mandatory waiting period for all gun purchases, Ban of high capacity ammunition magazines, Extreme Risk Protection Order." Right after the massacre, Kellyanne Conway rushed to Fox News Radio to politicize the latest NRA/GOP murder spree by falsely blaming Democrats, claiming-- and without a shred of evidence-- that Democrats are "going right into this gun grab mode." The Con:
There is certain reflexive and thoughtless and pretty predictable and pathetic reaction coming from lots of folks. And frankly, it usually comes from folks who, unlike Donald J. Trump, have been in office for decades and decades and decades and so that certainly applies to the two people you just mentioned. It also is always insensitive that they will… [go] right past the fact that people are suffering, their lives have changed in blink of a second, and they never get all the facts. They just know, right away, they know because it fits the political narrative.
Let's help get rid of NRA handmaiden and Trump rubber stamp Randy Weber and replace him with Adrienne Bell, who does not and will not, take any contributions from the NRA or, for that matter, from any corporate or right-wing PACs. Again, please consider clicking on the thermometer above and contributing what you can to Adrienne's campaign.
Sunday Classics chronicles: Remembering Eugen Jochum (3) -- Overtures Plus, part 1
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Act III of Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz
Huntsmen's Chorus
What pleasure on earth can compare with the hunter's?
Whose cup of life sparkles so richly?
To lie in the verdure while the horns sound,
To follow the stag through thicket and pond,
Is joy for a prince, is a real man's desire,
Is strengthens your limbs and spices your food.
When woods and rocks resound all about us,
A full goblet sings a freer and happier song!
Yo ho! Tralala!
Diana is present to brighten the night;
Her darkness cools us like any refreshment in the day.
To fell the bloody wolf, and the boar
who greedily roots through the green crops,
Is joy for a prince, is real man's desire,
It strengthens your limbs and spices your food.
When woods and rocks resound all about us,
A full goblet sings a freer and happier song!
Yo, ho! Tralala!
Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1959
by Ken
Do I need an excuse for bringing back the "Huntsmen's Chorus" from Act III of Der Freischütz? I love it. It's another of this musical bits I can listen to over and over and over. (This isn't theoretical. I've done it a bunch of times, usually along with the preceding Entr'acte, which works the same material in purely orchestral form.)
Looking back, I rather admire the audacity with which I first slipped these goodies into Part 5 of the "Remembering Margaret Price" series, on the pretext that we were hearing Dame Margaret sing Agathe's grand Act II aria "Leise, leise" as well as the following trio and Agathe's Act III cavatina. We also heard the performance of the Freischütz Overture we're about to rehear, along with a bunch of other performances of it. It is, of course, a glorious piece, from its brooding and fraught beginnings to its giddily triumphant conclusion, anticipating the joyful concluding section of Agathe's "Leise, leise."
WEBER:Der Freischütz:
Overture
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1959
For those just coming in at the point, we're continuing a mostly archival (from the Sunday Classics archives, that is) remembrance of that wonderful conductor Eugen Jochum (1902-1987). Last week we focused on his concert work, specifically on two very different composers for whom he had a remarkable affinity, Haydn and Bruckner. This week we're moving on to his operatic work.
THE FREISCHÜTZ OVERTURE STRADDLES THE DIVIDE
It's probably heard more often in the concert hall than in the opera house. I don't know that Jochum would have conducted it any differently as a concert piece, but I do think it makes a difference atmosphere-wise that he was thinking of it here in its context as a curtain-raiser for the opera. The performance seems to me to work fine either way.
Sunday Classics special: Remembering Margaret Price, Part 5 -- as Weber's Agathe
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We've already seen and heard the glorious Overture to Weber's Oberon, in a terrific performance by the Berlin Philharmonic under Mariss Jansons, in my "comfort music" post, "Just like there's comfort food, there's comfort music." There are a surprising number of video clips of the Freischütz Overture, but I haven't found anything anywhere near the quality of Jansons' Oberon. This performance by the Spanish Radio-Television Symphony Orchestra under Michal Newterowicz isn't bad, but I'm afraid we're going to have to supplement it in the click-through.
by Ken
Sor far in our remembrance of soprano Margaret Price we've focused on her Mozart roles, which for reasons I've tried to explain seemed only natural to me. Now we move beyond. (Programming note: The original plan was to encompass Weber's Der Freischütz and Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos tonight. Once again, by the time I had all the parts laid out, it seemed to me just too much. So we'll do Freischütz and Ariadne tomorrow.)
It wasn't much of a stretch from her Mozart roles when Margaret Price joined conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch in Rome in January 1973 for a broadcast performance of Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz. Although hardly comic in subject matter or tone, Freischütz grows straight out of the world of the Singspiel as represented by Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio and Magic Flute -- a stage piece in which musical numbers of operatic musical stature are bridged by spoken dialogue, the form still used by Beethoven for Fidelio, and even as Weber was boosting his requirements in terms of tonal format and vocal size (we are well on the way to the Wagnerian soprano), he couldn't let go of the use of florid writing not at all easy for the kind of voice he now seemed to be imagining. In this sort of vocal impracticality too, Weber's big operas, Euryanthe, Freischütz and Oberon, recall the compositional impracticality of Mozart's Abduction, in being just too much for all but the most exceptional singer.
But for a role that, like Agathe, calls for a soprano voice of size and beauty capable of considerable vocal acrobatics, the 31-year-old Price was all but ideally cast. As the voice continued to fill out, inevitably Price was drawn to Richard Strauss's Ariadne, and we're going to hear her in that role from one of her late recordings.
Sunday Classics: Just like there's comfort food, there's comfort music
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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.)
[3/12/2011] Special: Remembering Margaret Price, Part 5 -- as Weber's Agathe (continued)
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Pay no attention to the idiotic visuals, and even bearing in mind the sound YouTube comment "Beautiful tone but the tempo is too fast," you'll get a vague glimmering of the wonderfulness of the Huntsmen's Chorus from Act III of Der Freischütz. (You'll find the English text below, by the way.)
Oh jeez! It baffles me why people continue to perform works for which they have such evident contempt and loathing. Is it just for the paycheck? Or perhaps to show how clever they are? But what if, far from being clever, they show themselves to be gibbering idiots? Contemptible and loathsome gibbering idiots at that. Here, by contrast, is a performance that's definitely on the bracingly quick side but stays within the realm of actual musical response and allows the music to register some visceral impact.
Der Freischütz: Act III, Huntsmen's Chorus
Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1959
BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF DER FREISCHÜTZ
Before we get to Price as Agathe (who doesn't even appear until Act II), we have some remedial work to do on the Overture, which I think is just too important and too wonderful a piece to be given short shrift. Since we're going to be hearing Price in the Italian Radio performance conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch, I thought we should hear that Overture, even though the playing and sound aren't of the best -- it's still a heck of a performance. Then we hear the Overture from three complete recordings of the opera.
Der Freischütz: Overture
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1959 Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Lovro von Matačić, cond. Eurodisc, recorded February 1967 Staatskapelle Dresden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded January 1990 Orchestra of RAI Rome, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. Myto, broadcast performance, Jan. 27, 1973
As we proceed with the opera, we should be clear that a "free shooter," as in the title, referring to our hero, Max, is a hunter using bullets over which a spell of dark enchantment has been cast. Max is driven to this desperate expedient (in this community of exceedingly orthodox Christian piety, consorting with the forces of darkness is especially frowned on) by what appears to him as a run of dreadful life luck which is about to shatter all his hopes.
The one indisputably spectacular piece of good luck in Max's life is having won the undying love of the lovely and innocent Agathe, who as we finally meet her at the start of Act II -- in the company of her cousin Ännchen -- is already experiencing feelings of impending dread.
Der Freischütz: Act II, Scene and Aria, Agathe, "Wie nahte mir der Schlummer" . . . "Leise, leise, fromme weise"
How did sleep come to me Before I saw him? Yes love and anxiousness take care Always to go hand in hand. Is the moon too laughing on its course? [She opens the balcony door to reveal a star-bright night.] What a beautiful night! [Goes onto the balcony and raises her hands in pure rapture.] Softly, softly, My pure song! Waft yourself to the region of stars. Resound, my song! Solemnly float My prayer to the halls of heaven! [Looking out.] O how bright the golden stars are, With how pure a gleam they glow! There only, in the distant mountains A storm seems to be brewing up. There too in the forest hovers a clump Of dark clouds, brooding and heavy. To you I turn My hands, Lord without beginning or end! From dangers To guard us Send your hosts of angels! [Looking out again.] All things have long betaken themselves to rest. Dear friend, where are you tarrying? Even when my ear listens keenly, Only the tops of the firtrees rustle. Only the birchleaves in the grove Whisper through the wondrous silence. Only the nightingale and cricket Seem to enjoy the night air. And yet? Do my ears deceive me? That sounds like footsteps! From the middle of the firs there Someone is coming! It is he, it is he! Let love's banner flutter! [She waves with a white kerchief.] Your maiden is watching Even thought it is night! He does not seem to see me yet! God, if the moonlight Does not deceive me, A bunch of flowers adorns his hat! For sure he has made the best shot! That tells of good luck for tomorrow! O sweet hope, o courage new revived! All my pulses are beating, And my heart pants wildly, Full of sweet enchantment at his approach! Could I dare to hope it? Yes, luck has returned Back to my dear friend, And will stay faithful tomorrow! Is it no mistake? Is it no madness? Heaven, receive these tears of thanks For this pledge of hope! All my pulses are beating, And my heart pants wildly, Full of sweet enchantment at his approach! Enchanted at his approach!
Margaret Price (s), Agathe; Orchestra of RAI Rome, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. Myto, broadcast performance, Jan. 27, 1973
Let's continue on. Max finally arrives, and he and Agathe swap details of his disastrous day, which has been strangely mirrored in hers. Finally he discloses that he must leave again, immediately, with a cockamamie story about having shot a huge stag that has to be brought in -- by way of covering up his real mission, which is to join the alarming huntsman Caspar in the forging of those demonically charmed bullets. Perhaps trying to offer a measure of verisimilitude in his story, he reveals that he will be near that most fearsome of local destinations, the Wolf's Glen. (Actually, it's the Wolf's Glen he's headed for -- and one of opera's great spine-tingling scenes, the forging of the bullets by the demon Samiel.) Naturally Agathe's dread is only compounded by this revelation.
Act II, Trio, Agathe, Ännchen, and Max, "Wie? Was? Entsetzen!"
AGATHE: What? Where? Appalling! There in the glen of terror? ÄNNCHEN: The wild huntsman rages there, they say, And he who hears him flees. MAX: Can fear dwell in the huntsman's heart? AGATHE: But he who tempts God, sins! MAX: Can fear dwell in the huntsman's heart? I am aquainted with that horror, The midnight murmuring in the forest, When oaks rustle in the storm, And jay squawks, the owl hovers. [He takes his hat, his hunting bag and rifle.] AGATHE: I am so afraid, do stay! Don't hurry away so fast. ÄNNCHEN: She is so afraid, do stay! Don't hurry away so fast. MAX: gazing at the balcony beyond The moonlight is not waning yet; Its shimmer still beams clear and bright; But soon it will lose its gleam -- ÄNNCHEN: D'you want to observe the heavens? That wouldn't be up my street! AGATHE: Cannot my fear, then move you? MAX: My word and my duty call me hence! AGATHE, MAX and ÄNNCHEN: Farewell! Farewell! MAX [hurrying out, turns round at the door]: But have you really forgiven The reproaches, the suspicion? AGATHE: My heart feels only its quaking. Take heed of my warning! ÄNNCHEN: That's a huntsman's life, No rest, day or night! AGATHE: Alas, I must leave you! Think on Agatha's words! MAX: Soon the moon will grow pale, My destiny tears me away! ÄNNCHEN [to Agatha]: Try to take hold of yourself, dear one! [to Max] Think on Agathe's words! [MAX, cramming his hat over his eyes, rushes out violently.]
Margaret Price (s), Agathe; Helen Donath (s), Ännchen; James King (t), Max; Orchestra of RAI Rome, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. Myto, broadcast performance, Jan. 27, 1973
Originally I was only going to include the above two excerpts from Price's Agathe. But with Strauss's Ariadne cleared from tonight's schedule, we can include Agathe's second aria as well. But before we get to that, we've got a Freischütz bonus.
FREISCHÜTZ BONUS: LOVE THOSE HUNTERS -- AND THEIR HORNS!
Der Freischütz: Act III Entr'acte, and Act III, Huntsmen's Chorus
What pleasure on earth can compare with the hunter's? Whose cup of life sparkles so richly? To lie in the verdure while the horns sound, To follow the stag through thicket and pond, Is joy for a prince, is a real man's desire, Is strengthens your limbs and spices your food. When woods and rocks resound all about us, A full goblet sings a freer and happier song! Yo ho! Tralala!
Diana is present to brighten the night; Her darkness cools us like any refreshment in the day. To fell the bloody wolf, and the boar who greedily roots through the green crops, Is joy for a prince, is real man's desire, It strengthens your limbs and spices your food. When woods and rocks resound all about us, A full goblet sings a freer and happier song! Yo, ho! Trala!
The reason I threw in that dubious video clip of the Freischütz Huntsmen's Chorus is mostly that for me this is some of the most irresistible music ever written -- both in its choral form and in purely orchestral form, as heard earlier in the Entr'acte.
Entr'acte Huntsmen's Chorus Chorus and Orchestra of RAI Rome, Wolfgang Sawallilsch, cond. Myto, broadcast performance, Jan. 27, 1973
Now let's hear our Berlin and Dresden performers. (We've already heard the Jochum-Munich Huntsmen's Chorus; the Entr'acte was omitted from the original recording, presumably to help fit the opera on two LPs. Back in 1959 it didn't occur to anyone that one day this would make for two meagerly filled CDs.)
Entr'acte Huntsmen's Chorus Chorus and Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Lovro von Matačić, cond. Eurodisc, recorded February 1967
Entr'acte Huntsmen's Chorus Leipzig Radio Chorus; Staatskapelle Dresden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded January 1990
Now back to the "action." A still-jumpy Agathe prepares for the great celebration, including a shooting competition, at which she and Max are to be formally pledged to each other.
Der Freischütz: Act III, Cavatina, Agathe, "Und ob die Wolke"
AGATHE, dressed in bridal white with green ribbon, is kneeling at the prie dieu. She gets up and sings with melancholy devotion.
Even when clouds hide it, The sun still shines in the tent of heaven; One holy will rules there; No blind chance governs the world. That eye, eternally pure and clear, Looks lovingly after all creation! Our Father will care for me too, With my childlike heart and trusting mind, Even if this were my last morning, If his paternal word would call for me, a bride: His eye, for ever pure and clear Looks upon me too with love.
Margaret Price (s), Agathe; Orchestra of RAI Rome, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. Myto, broadcast performance, Jan. 27, 1973
TOMORROW IN PART 6 OF OUR REMEMBRANCE OF MARGARET PRICE . . .
As noted above, we move on to one of Price's later roles, Richard Strauss's Ariadne. (And maybe this would be the logical time to listen to a little more of her recording of Isolde?)
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I 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.
with 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.)
by 
by 
(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 
