"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Saturday, March 30, 2002
[4/30/2011] Preview: From song to symphony -- the journey of Mahler's lonely wayfarer (continued)
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Leonard Bernstein conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in this October 1974 performance of the first half of the first movement of Mahler's First Symphony. (The rest of the movement is here. The later movements are also posted.)
FIRST LET'S HEAR THE ORCHESTRAL VERSION OF THE SONG
MAHLER: Songs of a Wayfarer:
No. 2, "Ging heut' Morgen übers Feld"
("Went this morning across the field") Hermann Prey, baritone; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded May 1970
For comparison here's the piano-accompanied version again, this time in Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's later recording, with Daniel Barenboim. As I've mentioned previously, I'm not a great fan of Fischer-Dieskau's fussy way with Mahler, which doesn't seem to me to have been nearly as clever as he seems to have thought. (Of course the fussiness also cleverly conceals, or at least works around, technical peculiarities and difficulties in the voice.) But I can't offhand think of other recordings I have of the piano-accompanied Wayfarer Songs.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Daniel Barenboim, cond. EMI, recorded Feb. 5-10, 1978
NOW LET'S HEAR HOW MAHLER SETS UP THE SONG AS THE
EXPOSITION OF THE FIRST MOVEMENT OF THE SYMPHONY
And I thought that for some consistency we would hear Maestro Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra again, even though this recording of the First Symphony is a good deal earlier than that of the Wayfarer Songs. I was tempted to turn instead to the maestro's next recording of the symphony, but it's with the Berlin Philharmonic rather than the Concertgebouw, and while it's a little more picturesquely recorded, I really don't like it as well.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 in D:
i. Langsam. Schleppend -- opening only
Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded September 1962
Tell you what, why don't we hear the opening of the Bernstein-NY Phil recording? You'll notice that this time we hear the exposition -- the part that we heard originally, before the click-through -- twice. In his First Symphony Mahler held onto the symphonic tradition of repeating the exposition before moving on to the development section.
New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded Oct. 4 and 22, 1966
(Mahler would only indicate an exposition repeat once more, and we've actually heard that one: in the Sixth Symphony, in a July 2011 post I was pretty fond of: "Is Mahler's Sixth Symphony any more 'tragic' than life itself?")
IT SEEMS A SHAME TO LEAVE THE SYMPHONY WITH JUST
THIS TEASE. SO LET'S HEAR THE WHOLE FIRST MOVEMENT
And in case you were wondering how the first movement of the 1966 Bernstein-New York Philharmonic recording turned out, we'll hear that as well as the 1962 Haitink-Concertgebouw one.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 in D:
i. Langsam. Schleppend
Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded September 1962 New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded Oct. 4 and 22, 1966
[3/25/12]: Let's hear how Samson rallies his people (The opening scene of Saint-Saëns' "Samson et Dalila," part 2 -- continued)
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As I've already indicated, EMI's 1962 Paris Samson et Dalila, with Jon Vickers and Rita Gorr in the title roles and Ernest Blanc an outstanding High Priest of Dagon, is a favorite recording of mine, and one of the easiest first-choice recommendations of any opera I know. We've already heard some of it, and today we're going to hear the opening scene broken down in accordance with the CD track divisions. A couple of them strike me as odd, and of course it wouldn't matter if you were listening to the CD, but in our format we're stuck with some arbitrary "break" points. For the sake of being able to focus even more fully than we have so far on the scene's component parts, I think we can make it work.
The presentation is a little backwards, in that for each "part" I've gone straight to the relevant music track, and only then presented any supplementary material, even though I would probably suggest listening to those supplementary tracks first. It just seemed easier to present the material in this form.
SAINT-SAÉNS: Samson et Dalila: Opening Scene
Part 1 (of 5): Orchestral introduction
Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 25-Oct. 10, 1962
At this point I don't think we need to say much more about this haunting orchestral attention-grabber!
Part 2 (of 5): Chorus of Hebrews, "Dieu! Dieu d'Israël! Écoute la prière de tes enfants"
CHORUS OF HEBREWS [behind the curtain]: God! God of Israel! Hear the prayer of your children, imploring you on our knees; take pity on your people and our misery! Let our sorrow disarm your wrath! HEBREW WOMEN [half of the sopranos and altos]: One day you turned your face away from us, and from that day your people were defeated!
Choeurs René Duclos, Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 25-Oct. 10, 1962
Again, I don't think we need to say much more. We didn't hear the beautiful little wail of the Hebrew women in our Part 1 (at 2:45 of this clip), but we added it last night, and I don't think we need to hear it separately.
Part 3 (of 5): Chorus of Hebrews, "Quoi! Veux-tu donc qu'à jamais on efface"
The curtain rises.
A public square in the city of Gaza, in Palestine. At left, the portico of the temple of Dagon. At curtain rise, a crowd of Hebrews, men and women, has gathered on the square in an attitude of sorrow and prayer. SAMSON is among them. It is night.
CHORUS OF HEBREWS: What! Do you wish that forever the peoples that have known you be erased? But vainly do I implore you every day; deaf to my voice, he doesn't answer! And yet from evening till dawn I implore here the help of his arm! [Basses, then tenors, then altos, then sopranos] We have seen our cities overturned, and the Gentiles profaning your altar; and under their yoke our dispersed tribes have lost everything, even unto the name of Israel! Are you then no longer that God of deliverance who extracted our tribes from Egypt? God! Have you broken that holy alliance, divine promises received by our forefathers?
Choeurs René Duclos, Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 25-Oct. 10, 1962
As I noted in last night's preview, it isn't necessarily easy to find the drama in the fugue that erupts when the Hebrews recall, "We have seen our cities overturned." This links up directly with the chorus's "God! Have you broken that alliance," which we heard last night flowing directly into Samson's explosive first utterance, "Arrêtez, ô mes frères."
Hebrews, "Nous avons vu nos cités renversées" . . . "Dieu! As-tu rompé cette sainte alliance"
CHORUS OF HEBREWS: We have seen our cities overturned, and the Gentiles profaning your altar; and under their yoke our dispersed tribes have lost everything, even unto the name of Israel! Are you then no longer that God of deliverance who extracted our tribes from Egypt? God! Have you broken that holy alliance, divine promises received by our forefathers?
Vienna Festival Chorus, Sofia Chamber Chorus, Bregenz Festival Chorus, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Sylvain Cambreling, cond. Koch-Schwann, recorded live, July 21, 1988
Part 4 (of 5): Samson, "Arrêtez, ô mes frères!"
SAMSON: CHORUS OF HEBREWS: Alas! Alas! Vain words! To march into combat where then can we find arms? How arm our arms? We have only our tears! SAMSON: Have you then forgotten him, the one whose power made itself your ally? He who, filled with clemency, has so often for you made his oracles speak, and relit your faith in the fire of his miracles? He who in the ocean knew how to carve a passage for our fathers fleeing a shameful slavery? CHORUS OF HEBREWS: They no longer exist, those times where the God of our fathers protected his children, heard their prayers! SAMSON: Wretched ones, be quiet! Doubt is blasphemy!
Jon Vickers (t), Samson; Choeurs René Duclos, Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 25-Oct. 10, 1962
What's so wonderful about this scene is the back-and-forth between Samson and his fellow Hebrews, the way he gradually rouses them from the torpor of their whining helplessness to, well, something very different. So I'd like to break this down a bit, for the most part overlapping a bit so we can better hear how each reply follows from what came before.
Let's start by picking up near the end of Samson's first peroration (at "Brothers; let us break our chains") and then hear the crowd's abject response.
SAMSON: Brothers, let us break our chains, and let us reraise the altar of the one God of Israel. CHORUS OF HEBREWS: Alas! Alas! Vain words! To march into combat where then can we find arms? How arm our arms? We have only our tears!
Carlo Cossutta (t), Samson; Vienna Festival Chorus, Sofia Chamber Chorus, Bregenz Festival Chorus, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Sylvain Cambreling, cond. Koch-Schwann, recorded live, July 21, 1988
Now, based on this response, Samson adjusts his mode of exhortation. We heard this last part of the scene, from Samson's "L'as-tu donc oublié," in the preview to Part 1, with five Samsons -- Georges Thill, Mario del Monaco, Plácido Domingo, Ramón Vinay, and Jon Vickers. We're going to hear Thill again here, plus the new Samson we've just heard, Carlo Cossutta, attached to the choral episodes in this recorded performance from the Austrian Bregenz Festival with a very good French conductor, Sylvain Cambreling.
Samson, "L'as-tu donc oublié"
SAMSON: Have you then forgotten him, the one whose power made itself your ally? He who, filled with clemency, has so often for you made his oracles speak, and relit your faith in the fire of his miracles? He who in the ocean knew how to carve a passage for our fathers fleeing a shameful slavery?
Georges Thill (t), Samson; orchestra, Eugène Bigot, cond. (?). EMI, recorded 1930
Nice try, Samson, but no sale. A frustrated Samson now goes into overdrive. (The continuation of this exhortation comes in Part 5.)
Hebrews, "Ils ne sont plus, ces temps" . . . Samson, "Malheureux! taisez-vous! Le doute est un blasphème!"
CHORUS OF HEBREWS: They no longer exist, those times where the God of our fathers protected his children, heard their prayers! SAMSON: Wretched ones, be quiet! Doubt is blasphemy!
Carlo Cossutta (t), Samson; Vienna Festival Chorus, Sofia Chamber Chorus, Bregenz Festival Chorus, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Sylvain Cambreling, cond. Koch-Schwann, recorded live, July 21, 1988
Part 5 (of 5): Samson, "Implorons à genoux le Seigneur qui nous aime"
SAMSON: Let us implore on our knees the Lord who loves us! Let us put back in his hands the care of our glory, and then let us gird our loins, certain of victory! He is the God of combat! He is the God of armies! He will arm your arms with invincible swords! CHORUS OF HEBREWS: Ah! The breath of the Lord has passed into his soul! Ah! Let us chase from our hearts an unworthy terror! And let us walk with him for our deliverance! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah guides him and gives us hope!
Jon Vickers (t), Samson; Choeurs René Duclos, Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 25-Oct. 10, 1962
And here's Georges Thill again.
Hebrews, ". . . entendait leurs prières" . . . Samson, "Malheureux! taisez-vous! Le doute est un blasphème! Implorons à genoux"
CHORUS OF HEBREWS: . . . heard their prayers! SAMSON: Wretched ones, be quiet! Doubt is blasphemy! Let us implore on our knees the Lord who loves us! Let us put back in his hands the care of our glory, and then let us gird our loins, certain of victory! He is the God of combat! He is the God of armies! He will arm your arms with invincible swords! CHORUS OF HEBREWS: Ah! The breath of the Lord has passed into his soul!
Georges Thill (t), Samson; orchestra, Eugène Bigot, cond. (?). EMI, recorded 1930
Ah, finally, I do believe we've got something!
Samson, "Il armera ton bras" . . . Hebrews, "Ah, le souffle du Seigneur"
SAMSON: He will arm your arms with invincible swords! CHORUS OF HEBREWS: Ah! The breath of the Lord has passed into his soul! Ah! Let us chase from our hearts an unworthy terror! And let us walk with him for our deliverance! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah guides him and gives us hope!
Carlo Cossutta (t), Samson; Vienna Festival Chorus, Sofia Chamber Chorus, Bregenz Festival Chorus, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Sylvain Cambreling, cond. Koch-Schwann, recorded live, July 21, 1988
NOW LET'S HEAR THE WHOLE OF OUR SCENE (SO FAR)
I think these two performances complement each other rather nicely. We've got a French performance with a pretty good French tenor in the 1946 EMI version, and then in the 1978 Eurodisc another case of German players and choristers having a perhaps stronger feeling for the music's gravity and depth. (The Eurodisc recording has a solid Dalila in Christa Ludwig, and a pretty good supporting cast, and it can be had for a song -- but without libretto.)
José Luccioni (t), Samson; Chorus and Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Louis Fourestier, cond. EMI, recorded September 1946
James King (t), Samson; Bavarian Radio Chorus, Munich Radio Orchestra, Giuseppe Patanè, cond. Eurodisc/Sony-BMG, recorded 1973
It should be clear from the end of our scene-so-far that something is about to happen. As a matter of fact, the Hebrews are about to be confronted by a most unpleasant personage, who may not, however, be prepared for the downtrodden people he's confronting.
[3/24/2012] Preview: How we get to Samson's heroic first utterance (The opening scene of Saint-Saëns' "Samson et Dalila," part 2 -- continued)
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Richard Decker as Samson in the opening scene of the opera at the Royal Stockholm Opera in 2008, in a controversial production that I gather presented the events of the opera as part of the Israel-Palestine conflict
AS I MENTIONED IN PART 1, WE'RE NOT EVEN GOING TO ADVANCE AS FAR IN PART 2 AS WE DID BACK THEN
In Part 1, after hearing Samson's "Arrêtez, ô mes frères" outburst, we skipped to his second peroration, "L'as-tu donc oublié" ("Have you forgotten him"), for the sake of hearing a great French tenor, Georges Thill, utter this utterance, because even though Thill was far from a full-fledged dramatic tenor, he sang so manfully and in such gorgeous French that he was able to give us an idea of just how integral the language of the text of Samson, by Ferdinand Lemaire, is from a dramatic standpoint.
In Part 2, in fact, we're not going to get any farther than Samson's "Arrêtez, ô mes frères" outburst. Our goal now is just to get us up to that heroic first utterance, which means we'll be overlapping a little with the excerpt we just heard before the click-through. For reference, that excerpt, which began with the choral accusation "Dieu! As-tu rompu cette sainte alliance?" ("God! Have you broken that holy alliance"), comes at 8:32 in the Barenboim-conducted clip, 8:49 in the Davis-conducted one. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, with this "Have you broken that holy alliance?," the Hebrews are giving a more forceful thrust to the open-fifth motif they sang earlier on "Que sa douleur désarme ton courroux" ("Let our sorrow disarm your wrath!"), at 4:35 in the Barenboim ciip, 4:48 in the Davis.
Again for reference, last week we listened as far as 5:45 in the Davis-Philips recording (which would be about 5:28 in the Barenboim) -- i.e., through the chorus's "Let our sorrow disarm your wrath!" and the following plaintive orchestral figure. So there's important "new" choral material here, and again I think Davis's Munich choristers do this almost as well as any chorus I've heard. It's again that odd situation whereby the music, despite its quintessential Frenchness, especially with regard to the use of language, may actually be more accessible to non-French performers, notably German ones. (We're going to hear portions of another German performance on Sunday.) I think the Barenboim-DG performance captures at least some of the drama of this music, and it's interesting to hear the characteristically French vibrato of the Orchestre de Paris wind players in the orchestral introduction.
I would just note that Davis does maybe less well at capturing the drama built into the fugue that breaks out with the Hebrews' "We have seen our cities overturned." Yes indeed, a fugue can be dramatic, as we'll hear when we return to the great Prêtre/EMI recording on Sunday -- when (I'm a bit nervous to have to report) we're going to be breaking this opening scene down even more, in preparation for Part 3.
Samson et Dalila: Act I: Orchestral introduction; Chorus of Hebrews, "Dieu! Dieu d'Israël!" ("God! God of Israel!") up to Samson's vocal entrance
CHORUS OF HEBREWS [behind the curtain]: God! God of Israel! Hear the prayer of your children, imploring you on our knees; take pity on your people and our misery! [BARENBOIM 4:35, DAVIS 4:48] Let our sorrow disarm your wrath! [BARENBOIM 5:30, DAVIS 5:47] HEBREW WOMEN [half the sopranos and altos]: One day you turned your face away from us, and from that day your people were defeated!
The curtain rises. [BARENBOIM 6:19, DAVIS 6:32]
A public square in the city of Gaza, in Palestine. At left, the portico of the temple of Dagon. At curtain rise, a crowd of Hebrews, men and women, has gathered on the square in an attitude of sorrow and prayer. SAMSON is among them. It is night. [BARENBOIM 6:32, DAVIS 6:45] THE HEBREWS: What! Do you wish that forever the peoples that have known you be erased? But vainly do I implore you every day; deaf to my voice, he doesn't answer! And yet from evening till dawn I implore here the help of his arm! [BARENBOIM 7:11, DAVIS 7:29] [Basses, then tenors, then altos, then sopranos] We have seen our cities overturned, and the Gentiles profaning your altar; and under their yoke our dispersed tribes have lost everything, even unto the name of Israel! Are you then no longer that God of deliverance who extracted our tribes from Egypt? [BARENBOIM 8:32, DAVIS 8:49] God! Have you broken that holy alliance, divine promises received by our forefathers?
Orchestre de Paris Chorus, Orchestre de Paris, Daniel Barenboim, cond. DG, recorded 1978
Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded February 1989
IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST
As I think I've already made clear, we're going to be going back over this scene somewhat more carefully, to prepare us for the dramatic entrance (and its sequel) that we'll hear in Part 3.
[3/23/2012] Urban Gadabout: Spring tours of Manhattan's northernmost neighborhoods, Washington Heights, Inwood, and even Marble Hill (continued)
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The beautiful Church of the Intercession, at Broadway and 155th Street (diagonally across from Audubon Terrace), long a northern outpost of the Episcopal heart of New York City, Trinity Church in the Financial District, now struggles against the financial realities of surviving on its own. It's well worth a visit, not just for the gorgeous church itself and for the large and historic uptown cemetery of Trinity Church (which still belongs to Trinity), but for the current spiritual leader of Intercession, Father Berto (more formally, the Rev. José R. Gándara Perea, S.T.L., priest-in-charge, one of the most charming and inspring people you'll meet. When I visited, I bought a mug!
Here as promised is the schedule for the Spring 2012 WAHI Tours schduled by Northern Manhattan historian James Renner.
WAHI TOURS PRESENTS SPRING 2012 SCHEDULED WALKING TOURS
James Renner
Washington Heights and Inwood (WAHI) are communities that have, over the years, gained recognition in massive demographic changes. People from other parts of the city are visiting and moving here because of its affordable housing and beautiful parks. These tours will demonstrate to the resident and visitor alike how upper Manhattan has changed and adapted to suit the needs of its new inhabitants and tourists.
The tours are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors or students. No reservations are necessary.
FORT WASHINGTON-HUDSON HEIGHTS (New Tour) Sunday, March 25, 2012, 12:00 noon
FORT WASHINGTON-HUDSON HEIGHTS combines local history and real estate. The Battle of Fort Washington will be discussed at Bennett Park on Fort Washington Avenue and 184th Street where the last major battle of New York City was fought during the American Revolution. Hudson Heights is a real estate term used today by local realty companies to promote the neighborhood. Afterwards, other sites will include the estates of James Gordon Bennett, Dr. Charles Paterno, Lucius Chittenden, August C. Richards and C.K.G. Billings will be visited and discussed. The Shrine of Mother Francesca Xavier Cabrini will also be visited as well.
MEET: 181st Street and Fort Washington Avenue, N.W. corner
SHERMAN CREEK Sunday, April 15, 2012, 12:00 noon
SHERMAN CREEK was named for a working class family that occupied a fisherman's shack in what is now Inwood in 1807. The family lived in the community for almost a century. During the American Revolution a ferry operated from Sherman Creek to the Bronx. The area was also home to the Dyckman Oval where the Negro Baseball League team the New York Cubans had played until the 1940s when the ballfield was razed for the Dyckman Houses, an urban renewal project. The Dyckman Houses was home to basketball great Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
MEET: Entrance of IRT #1 Dyckman Street Station
FORT GEORGE (190th to 193rd Street, Amsterdam to Audubon Avenue) Sunday, April 22, 2012, 12:00 noon
FORT GEORGE was named for the Revolutionary fort and the amusement park which overlooked the Harlem River. It is also home to two educational facilities (George Washington High School and Yeshiva University) and the Isabella Geriatric Center.
MEET: N.W. corner of 190th Street and Audubon Avenue
JUMEL TERRACE HISTORIC DISTRICT & SUGAR HILL Sunday, April 29, 2012, 12:00 noon
JUMEL TERRACE HISTORIC DISTRICT & SUGAR HILL is noted for the Morris-Jumel Mansion, Sylvan Terrace and the homes of famous African American entertainers Paul Robeson, Count Basie and Duke Ellington at 555 Edgecombe Avenue. The area is home to a local bookstore, art gallery and the Washington Heights branch of the New York Public Library. Nearby Coogan's Bluff is where baseball fans watched the New York Giants play at the Polo Grounds at 155th Street.
There is an admission fee to the Morris-Jumel Mansion: $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students.
MEET: 160th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in front of the Library
AUDUBON PARK (155th to 158th Streets, Broadway to the Hudson River) Sunday, May 6, 2012, 12:00 noon
AUDUBON PARK was the home of naturalist and artist John James Audubon and conservationist George Bird Grinnell, founder of the Audubon Society. It has been designated a Historic District on May 12, 2009 by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Audubon's grave at Trinity Cemetery and Mausoleums and the Audubon Terrace museum complex are some of the many steps included on the tour.
MEET: At the triangle at 157th Street and Broadway
MARBLE HILL Sunday, May 13, 2012, 12:00 noon
MARBLE HILL is the landlocked part of Manhattan to the Bronx that had been separated from Manhattan (Inwood) when the Harlem River ws rerouted and dredged for improved ship navigation around Manhattan. The community has homes dating back to the 1870s for those who are interested in architecture known as "Painted Ladies." There are Dutch and English colonial sites and military sites from the American Revolution (Fort Prince Charles) within the community that will fascinate those interested in history.
MEET: 225th Street and Broadway in front of Chase Bank
TUBBY HOOK (Dyckman Street, Riverside Drive and Broadway) Sunday, May 20, 2012, 12:00 noon
TUBBY HOOK is a community that is coming of age. It started as a fishing village in the valley situated between Fort Tryon Park and Inwood Hill Park in 1819. During the American Revolution it was used as a transfer point for information between both parks in which the American army had fortifications. It was also known for its railroad and ferry service along and across the Hudson River. The Riverside-Inwood Neighborhood Garden is a beautiful oasis that is the centerpiece of the area.
[3/18/2012] Two chamber concerts, with pleasures stacked in an unexpected direction (continued)
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The Fine Arts Quartet today(with each member's year of entry): first violinist Ralph Evans (1982), second violinist Efim Boico (1983), cellist Robert Cohen (2012), and violist Nicolò Eugelmi (2009).
NOTE: Online you can find a smoking-hot young Ralph Evans -- sporting a lush, only slightly receding head of curly dark hair -- delivering a mellifluous performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (a piece we spent some time with last December) in July 1982 at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, with Pavel Kogan conducting -- 1st movement, part 1 and part 3 (I don't see part 2); 2nd movement; 3rd movement. Evans was awarded sixth prize, and the following December succeeded longtime Fine Arts Quartet first violinist Leonard Sorkin, and the rest is history. (There's also a 1982 Tchaikovsky Competition performance of the Bartók Second Concerto and an audio-only 1994 performance of the Mendelssohn E minor Concerto.)
ABOUT THE FOUR VIOLINISTS
The Fine Arts's current bio points out that violinists Ralph Evans and Efim Boico have now been playing together for nearly 30 years, and boy, does it show! This doesn't happen that often in string-quartet life, since many violinists chafe at long terms in the second-violin slot of a string quartet, which is often held to be relatively easily replaceable. But it's amazing the difference it can make when the second violinist not only is an excellent player in his own right but is closely integrated with his/her fellows.
The way the Fine Arts violinists complement each other is special, and violist Nicolò Eugelmi, although a much more recent colleague, seems to take special pleasure in hearing how he can combine optimally with his mates, separately and together. The energetic new cellist, Robert Cohen, is fitting in very nicely and also bringing the ensemble a welcome shot of oomph.
You wouldn't expect this kind of "complementarity" from the ad hoc ensembles of the CMS concert, which a program note explained was inspired by a favorite party pastime of one of the great chamber musicians, Robert Mann (the founding first violinist of the Juilliard Quartet in 1946, who remained in that chair until he retired in 1997). Mann apparently enjoyed throwing members of four different quartets together to play -- without rehearsal -- a work they'd undoubtedly played with their respective quartets but never together. It sounds like a lot of fun, though probably only fully appreciable by musicians who knew firsthand what it was like to play the quartet repertory on a year-in, year-out basis. Here was the musical lineup for Tuesday's CMS concert:
Misha Amory, viola -- Brentano Quartet Shmuel Ashkenasi, violin -- Vermeer Quartet David Finckel, cello -- Emerson Quartet Joel Krosnick, cello -- Juilliard Quartet Arnold Steinhardt, violin -- Guarneri Quartet Steven Tenenbom, viola -- Orion Quartet
It was certainly an all-star gathering, then, the kind of occasion that doesn't come along often. And the evening certainly had its rewards, just not as many as I might have expected.
The workhorses were the two violinists, who played in all four works on the program: before intermission, the sextet that Richard Strauss wrote as the prelude to his last opera, Capriccio, and Fritz Kreisler's A minor String Quartet; after intermission, six brief violin duets from the 34 composed by Luciano Berio in the years 1979-83, and one of the sublime Mozart string quintets, the C minor, K. 406, arranged from the Octet for Winds, K. 388.
IT WASN'T JUST LACK OF FAMILIARITY --
The program note assured us that these musicians, unlike Bobby Mann's "party" quartets, had rehearsed, though obviously not extensively. However, I really don't think it was lack of collegial familiarity I was hearing, though I did wonder if perhaps Orion Quartet violist Steven Tenenbom was overwhelmed by the circumstances. In the three works he played (in order,: the Strauss sextet as first violist; the Kreisler Quaret; and the Mozart quintet as second violist), I made an increasing effort just to hear him, and found him barely detectable outside the overall framework.
Still, by and large the qualities I picked up were consistent with what I've heard from the ensembles in which these gentlemen normally play (or played, in the case of the Guarneri Quartet, which officially retired in 2009 last year, with Steinhardt, second violinist John Dalley, and violist Michael Tree having remained in place for the full 45-year run). I can't say I ever found the Guarneri a very interesting quartet. It seemed to take on Steinhardt's personality: musical enough, but decidedly drab, and I've been even less a fan of the celebrated Emerson Quartet.
The Vermeer Quartet's Shmuel Ashkenasi, who once had a fairly active (and fairly interesting) solo career, is to my hearing a noticeably more interesting musician than Steinhardt, which provided a big lift when he switched to the first-violin position in the second-half Berio and Mozart works. Joel Krosnick, who was in his early 30s when he replaced Claus Adam as cellist of the Juilliard Quartet, is now a white-haired septuagenarian but remains a dynamic player, and lent more urgency to the Mozart than Finckel did to the Kreisler. It's also hard to believe that the Brentano Quartet is now celebrating its 20th anniversary. I haven't heard much of them in recent years, but in their early years they seemed poised to take a place alongside the major quartets of yesteryear, and its violist, Misha Amory, who certainly looked to be the "baby" of Tuesday's sextet, really did seem to be especially alert to his colleagues as well as productively decisive in his own part.
This was good for the Mozart quintet, with Ashkenasi and Amory playing first violin and viola and Krosnick the cellist; and maybe not so good for the Kreiser Quartet, with Steinhardt playing first violin and Tenenbom and Emerson cellist David Finckel (who happens also to be the CMS's co-director, with his wife, pianist Wu Han) the violist and cellist. The Kreisler team did fine with the jaunty finale, whose thread is kind of hard to lose, which is presumably why that movement has been in my head since, and earned a slot in Friday night's preview.
THE KREISLER QUARTET IS WELL WORTH REVIVING, BUT --
What we heard was the 1935 recording made by the composer plus players recruited for the occasion. The gap between what the "Kreisler String Quartet" did and what I heard Tuesday night becomes fairly sizable in the earlier movements, for which the composer's team made much compelling cases. And so I thought today we might hear the whole of a piece that certainly merits wider play, but only by performers with a strong sense of where the music is going and why.
KREISLER: String Quartet in A minor
i. Fantasia: Moderato; Allegro moderato
ii. Scherzo
iii. Introduction and Romance: Allegretto; Andante con moto
iv. Finale: Retrospection
"Kreisler String Quartet": Fritz Kreisler and Thomas Petre violins; William Primrose, viola; Lauri Kennedy, cello. EMI, recorded April 1935
(As I mentioned Friday, I see that Naxos has recently released a new recording of the Kreisler Quartet by, of all people, the Fine Arts Quartet! That's definitely on my "to hear" list.)
PERHAPS MY FAVORITE ENTRY ON THE CMS PROGRAM --
. . . was the selection of those half-dozen miniature violin duets by Luciano Berio, music I didn't know at all. CMS annotator Richard Roddy explains:
In 1979, Leonardo Pinzauti, the Italian musicologist, music critic, and editor of Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana, suggested to Berio that he should compose a series of duets for violin that would serve performers as both teaching material and as an introduction to contemporary styles. . . . Each was titled with the name of a composer, performer, scholar or personal acquaintance, perhaps as a sort of musical snapshot.
I suppose I shouldn't say this, but I was relieved to find that the numbers we heard don't sound much like any of the Berio music I do know. We've already heard the last of the pieces that violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi and Arnold Steinhardt played, the lovely Aldo. Here's their next-to-last selection, the duet named for Leonardo Pinzauti himself, again played by our 2011 Polish competition violin duo of Ania Górecka and Zosia Konieczna.
You'll note that the second violinist basically plays scale figures while the first violinist weaves spells around them. This nicely suited the musical personalities of Steinhardt (second) and Ashkenasi (first), and the six pieces they chose made a lovely group.
WHAT ABOUT THE FINE ARTS QUARTET'S PIANO COLLEAGUE?
Xiayin Wang wasn't even a name to me. She seems to have a strong solo career under way, but then, so do a number of younger pianists whose work doesn't interest me much when I get to hear it. She's also done a fair amount of chamber music, including the Schumann and Franck Quintets with the Fine Arts last season and now the Saint-Saëns. She's made a number of solo recordings, and online you can find a number of solo works as well as a nice performance of the first movement of the Schumann Quintet with the Cuarteto Latinoamericano.
She certainly got my attention. After the Fine Arts Quartet opened the program with Mozart K. 421, she played the set of five Sarcasms, Op. 17, from 1921-23, Prokofiev's student years. We tend to slap labels like "impudent" and "nose-thumbing" on his music of this period, and correspondingly to take in stride, or even expect, performances that have those qualities. A set of Sarcasms would seem right in line, and probably people who've never looked at the music could think that this live performance of No. 1, marked "Tempestoso," by the much-admired Marc-André Hamelin is just the ticket.
But if you look at the music, you see that percussive hammering accounts for only a small part of it. Prokofiev's varied articulation markings, and in particular the careful gradations of dynamics, with as much soft music as loud, and clearly marked extremes in both directions, very soft and very loud, suggest a much wider range of expression than you'll hear in any of the YouTube clips.
Of course thinking of the music in the terms suggested by the composer's markings makes it a lot harder to play. Playing softly is hard, for one thing, and playing really softly is even harder, especially in the context of so much musical proclamation.
György Sándor did somewhat better in his long-ago (c1966) Vox recording:
And in her Thursday-night performance of the Sarcasms, Xiayin Wang did much better still, really delighting in the welter of kinds of sounds the composer butted up against each other, and finding lyricism as well as raucous amusement. She really does have a remarkable control of touch, or rather an enormous range of kinds of touch, all under strong-willed control but also commanded with a winning feel for musical line and color.
All of which was totally to the point in the early Saint-Saëns A minor Piano Quintet, Op. 14, of which we heard a student performance of the haunting slow movement Friday night. I wish I could offer you the performance I heard Wang and the Fine Arts boys give Thursday night, but I'd at least like you to hear more of the music. Here's the first movement. Note, for example, the melting lyricism of the secondary theme as it emerges at about 1:58.
[3/16/2012] Preview: Souvenirs of two concerts -- intriguing chamber curiosities by Camille Saint-Saëns and Fritz Kreisler (continued)
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Five youngsters from the Mallarmé Youth Chamber Orchestra of Chapel Hill, NC -- violinists Young-hun Kim and Taisuke Yasuda, violist Forrest Li, cellist Jacob Reed, and pianist Richard He -- play the searingly beautiful second-movement Andante sostenuto from Saint-Saëns' A minor (not major, as announced) Piano Quintet, Op. 14, in Raleigh, November 2009.
It's a shame the sound of this clip is so glaring, because the kids grapple honorably with this special movement. (It seems to end suddenly, because the movement is continuous with the following Presto.) There's a more polished performance (audio only) featuring Lithuanian pianist Edvinas Minkstimas, with string players not identified in the YouTube clips, who do sound kind of anonymous. I'm not sure they make a more persuasive case than our North Carolina kids for the stature of the piece; I'd be happy to have a recording of last night's performance by pianist Xiayin Wang and the Fine Arts Quartet. (Meanwhile I've got my eye on a two-CD Hyperion set of Saint-Saëns chamber music by our friends the normally ultra-trustworthy Nash Ensemble.
As it happens -- more connections! -- I see that the Fine Arts has recorded the Kreisler String Quartet for Naxos (along with world-premiere recordings of a quartet by another great violinist, Efrem Zimbalist, and of a work with chamber orchestra, Harmonies du soir, by yet another, the legendary Eugène Ysaÿe; available on CD and via download). I really do want to hear the Fine Arts version. Meanwhile, as promised, here is the jauntily irresistible finale from the recording made by the composer-plus-friends (assembled for these sessions).
KREISLER: String Quartet in A minor: iv. Finale: Retrospection
"Kreisler String Quartet": Fritz Kreisler and Thomas Petre, violins; William Primrose, viola; Lauri Kennedy, cello. EMI, recorded April 1935
IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY SUNDAY CLASSICS POST --
More about these two intriguingly juxtaposed concerts, both of which I was glad I attended, but one of which gave me conspicuously more actual musical pleasure than the other.
[3/11/12] Introducing Saint-Saëns' Samson, the second-angriest man in opera (continued)
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TWO NOTES BEFORE WE LISTEN TO SAMSON'S DRAMATIC EXHORTATION
First, don't be intimidated if you can't or don't want to follow the printed music. I did think, though, that some listeners might enjoy being able to see how the music they're hearing takes shape. Second, in the text block below I've gone to the trouble of including the French original as well as an English translation (made possible in our format because the lines are so short) because, as I said Friday, the next itself seems to me so beautiful and plays such a large role in the aural and dramatic effect -- that is, assuming we have a tenor who can actually sing French, which was why I introduced Georges Thill's recording of the later excerpt, "L'as-tu donc oublié." Our results here are, shall we say, mixed.
SAINT-SAËNS: Samson et Dalila: Act I, Samson, "Arrêtez, ô mes frères!" José Luccioni (t), Samson; Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Louis Fourestier, cond. EMI, recorded September 1946
Mario del Monaco (t), Samson; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. RCA, recorded 1958
Plácido Domingo (t), Samson; Opéra-Bastille Orchestra, Myung-Whun Chung, cond. EMI, recorded July 1-11, 1991
José Cura (t); London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Erato, recorded July 21-27, 1998
Jon Vickers (t), Samson; Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 25-Oct. 10, 1962
SAMSON STANDS IN AN OPERATIC TRADITION OF HEROIC-SIZE-TENOR CROWD CONTROLLERS
Here's another of those funny coincidences. Remember Ponchielli's La Gioconda? In Friday's preview we heard the Prelude, with its brooding opening, alongside the brooding opening of Saint-Saëns' Samson. It's probably just a coincidence that Samson debuted in 1877, the year after Gioconda, in which in Act I another tenor -- also ideally of the heroic-caliber voice type -- did his version of one-man crowd control.
PONCHIELLI: La Gioconda: Act I, Enzo, "Assassini!"
The crowed, whipped into murderous rage against a helpless old blind woman, is shouting variants of "Death to the witch," until the woman's daughter, known as La Gioconda, returns with her boyfriend.
ENZO: Murderers! Spare that venerable head or I shall draw my sword! A brave battle you wage against infirmity deprived of light! Shame! A race of cowards has been born to the winged lion of St. Mark. CROWD: No, God wills what the people want. No, the witch deserves no mercy.
The choral hubbub resumes and continues until ALVISE BADOERO, one of the heads of the state Inquisition, enters at the rear with his wife, LAURA, and the inquisitor brings an abrupt halt to the furor..
LAURA: Mercy! ALVISE: Rebellion!
Franco Corelli (t), Enzo Grimaldo; Eileen Farrell (s), La Gioconda; Nell Rankin (ms), Laura Badoero; Giorgio Tozzi (bs), Alvise Badoero; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Mar. 31, 1962
And remember that the librettist of La Gioconda, "Tobia Gorra," would be, nearly two decades later, the man, himself a composer, who lured Giuseppe Verdi out of retirement to write first Otello, then Falstaff, with libretti he wrote under his un-anagrammed name, Arrigo Boito. In Act I of Otello, Otello gets to crowd-stop twice -- first when he emerges on dry land after nearly being shipwrecked during the violent storm that opens the opera, then when Jago engineers a riot to discredit his rival, Cassio and the enraged Otello enters ordering one and all to put down their swords.
VERDI: Otello: Act I: Otello, "Esultate!"
Otello, "Abasso le spade!"
Mario del Monaco (t), Otello; Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Georg Solti, cond. Live performance, June 30, 1962
[3/9/2012] Preview: These two Mystery Openings introduce works that I for one can't wait to hear more of (continued)
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First a lone bassoon, then a pair of horns, then three flutes soon overlapped by pairs of clarinets and bassoons, and then the first of those shuddering deep thuds from the cellos and double basses -- the haunting melancholy opening of Camille Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila. Georges Prêtre conducts the Paris Opera Orchestra in an outstanding 1962 EMI recording we'll be hearing more of. (You can click to enlarge the score page.)
LET'S START WITH MYSTERY OPENING B
This is the Prelude to Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda, performed by the Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala conducted by Antonino Votto in September 1959. It's an opera that was surely well-known by all the Opera Quiz panelists who didn't recognize the opening phrases, at least as played "on the Knabe." My only guess is that they just didn't connect music like this with the music they associated with these operas.
I had this great idea of jumping into Act I to hear how the "big tune" of the Prelude is actually heard in the opera. But we have to much to do tonight with our actual target piece.
OKAY, LET'S GO BACK TO MYSTERY OPENING A
I would have to guess that this opening stumped those quiz panelists for much the same reasons as the Gioconda Prelude -- notably that this isn't the kind of music they think of when they think of Samson et Dalila. Let's listen to it again, but this time let it continue on a bit (in the same recording). You'll recall my saying that Opening A was clearly leading into something else.
CHARLES CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS: Samson et Dalila: Act I, Orchestral introduction; Chorus of Hebrews, "Dieu! Dieu d'Israël" ("God! God of Israel!")
CHORUS OF HEBREWS [behind the curtain]: God! God of Israel! Hear the prayer of your children, imploring you on our knees; take pity on your people and our misery! Let our sorrow disarm your wrath!
Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded February 1989 [UPDATE: I've amended the text to reflect that, according to the score, the curtain is still down at this point.]
I think it's worth noting in passing that the German orchestra and chorus, which you might think out of their element in such a very French opera, in fact play and sing the music notably better than most French orchestras and choruses. I guess I'm suggesting that Saint-Saëns imagined an intensity and depth, in both musical texture and performance sensibility, that perhaps comes more easily to German players and choristers.
NOW, SKIPPING REGRETFULLY OVER SOME IMPORTANT MATERIAL, WE COME TO THIS . . .
Let me caution that the music we're skipping over really is extremely important music, but we'll plug that gap on Sunday. We're picking up at this point because as far as I know this is the only portion of this opening scene that the great French tenor Georges Thill recorded. And then, because the 1930 choral work and recording don't exactly do the music justice, we're going to hear a sonically more up-to-date version, with a tenor who, from a strictly vocal standpoint, is actually better-suited to the monumental role of Samson than Thill, though in matters of actual delivery he's a long way from being a Thill. I think you'll easily hear what I mean.
SAINT-SAËNS: Samson et Dalila: Act I, Samson, "L'as-tu donc oublié?" ("Have you then forgotten him?")
SAMSON: Have you then forgotten him, the one whose power made itself your ally? He who, filled with clemency, has so often for you made his oracles speak, and relit your faith in the fire of his miracles? He who in the ocean knew how to carve a passage for our fathers fleeing a shameful slavery? THE HEBREWS: They no longer exist, those times where the God of our fathers protected his children, heard their prayers! SAMSON: Wretched ones, be quiet! Doubt is blasphemy! Let us implore on our knees the Lord who loves us! Let us put back in his hands the care of our glory, and then let us gird our loins, certain of victory! He is the God of combat! He is the God of armies! He will arm your arms with invincible swords! THE HEBREWS: Ah! The breath of the Lord has passed into his soul! Ah! Let us chase from our hearts an unworthy terror! And let us walk with him for our deliverance! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah guides him and gives us hope!
Georges Thill (t), Samson; orchestra, Eugène Bigot (?), cond. EMI, recorded 1930
Mario del Monaco (t), Samson; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. RCA, recorded 1958
Maybe we could have this in more plausible French, and with more plausible choral singing (with not at all terrible conducting? (The younger Plácido Domingo's French certainly wasn't word-perfect but was fairly credible, and more importantly, he could actually make something of French texts and the language brought out some really beautiful colors in his voice. Strangely, in later years his French seemed to me to get steadily worse)
Plácido Domingo (t), Samson; Orchestre de Paris Chorus, Orchestre de Paris, Daniel Barenboim, cond. DG, recorded July 1978
Of course, Domingo's voice had nothing like the sheer weight and impact without which a lot of Samson's music simply doesn't register. Let's dip back in history to that famous Otello, Ramón Vinay (in, unfortunately, sound AM-broadcast quality preserved on poor-quality ancient discs).
Ramón Vinay (t), Samson; Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Emil Cooper, cond. Live performance, Nov. 26, 1949
Finally for now let's have our first hearing of my close to one-and-only Samson, Jon Vickers, from the 1962 EMI Samson recording (with Rita Gorr as Dalila) that I said we'd be hearing more of. Vickers's Samson, like all of his roles in all of his languages, unfortunately comes fitted out with idiosyncratically odd vowels, which matters in this scene in particular, because the sound of the beautiful words provided by librettist Ferdinand Lemaire is an important part of the effect of the scene, but Vickers's feel for the declamatory intent built into the words and music is unmatched in my experience, and of course he has a voice of the enormous scale needed to really sell it. Plus here we get some top-quality, dramatically alive choral singing and orchestral playing in excellent stereo sound.
Jon Vickers (t), Samson; Choeurs René Duclos, Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 25-Oct. 12, 1962
IN CASE YOU HADN'T WORKED IT OUT, IT'S THE OPENING SCENE OF SAMSON ET DALILA . . .
. . . that we're going to begin exploring on Sunday, and believe it or not, in that first main post devoted to this scene we're not going to get any farther into it than we did tonight, but we will fill in the gaps and also kick the tires a little. This is a scene for which I have no words, a scene for which words like "amazing" and "astonishing" and "unbelievable" fall lamentably short.
Flute-and-Harp Week, part 2: Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp -- plus two mighty concertante works that bracket it (continued)
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The second movement (Andantino) is again played by flutist Patrick Gallois and harpist Fabrice Pierre with the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana conducted by Sir Neville Marriner.
"It was for these two, then [the flute-playing Duc de Guines and his harp-playing daughter], that Mozart wrote the Concerto for Flute and Harp, one of the longest and richest in melody of his concertos. If it does not approach in emotional impact the astonishing and great E-flat Piano Concerto, K. 271 of 1776, it is ideally suited to its sociable purpose. Full of colourful uses of the orchestra as well as of the solo instruments, this concerto is characterised by a touching morning innocence."
-- producer Erik Smith, from his Philips liner note
ABOUT THE CONCERTO
By way of background, here's the portion of the liner note devoted to our concerto by Erik Smith, the highly musical producer of our Philips recording. I think it's worth pointing out that Erik Smith (1931-2004) was the son of the wonderfully musical conductor Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1900-1973). And speaking of famous sons-of, the Philips flutist, Claude Monteux (born 1920, and as far as I know still with us), is the son of the great conductor Pierre Monteux.
When Mozart arrived in Paris in 1778, he was repeatedly humiliated by the Duchesse de Chabot, who let him freeze for hours before requiring him to play on a miserable piano to a company of people uninterruptedly occupied in sketching, by the Duc de Guines who failed to pay him for music lessons and compositions, by Le Gros, director of the Concert Spirituel, who ordered compositions and then did not use them, and so on. The final insult inflicted by Paris, and the most serious for posterity, is the fate of most of the major works Mozart wrote there.
[The principal survivors, Smith writes, are the Paris Symphony (No. 34) and the Flute and Harp Concerto. Now he writes about the latter.]
Mozart wrote to his father (May 14, 1778): "I think I have already told you that the Duc de Guines plays the flute incomparably and his daughter, my composition pupil, plays the harp magnifique; she has much talent and genius; in particular an incomparable memory, in that she plays all her pieces by heart and really knows 200 of them. But she greatly doubts if she also has any aptitude for composition, especially in the matter of ideas; her father, however (who, between ourselves, is a little too much in love with her), says that she certainly has ideas -- it is only her silliness for she lacks self-confidence."
Unfortunately, she was proved right. Mozart went on to describe the painful process of trying to induce her to put down an idea of her own. "I wrote down four bars of a minuet and then said to her: 'Look what an ass I am. I've begun a minuet and cannot even finish the first part. Please be good enough to do it for me.' She thought this was impossible, but finally after great efforts something appeared."
It was for these two, then, that Mozart wrote the Concerto for Flute and Harp, one of the longest and richest in melody of his concertos. If it does not approach in emotional impact the astonishing and great E-flat Piano Concerto, K. 271 of 1776, it is ideally suited to its sociable purpose. Full of colourful uses of the orchestra as well as of the solo instruments, this concerto is characterised by a touching morning innocence. It is perhaps a pity that Mozart did not dare to allow the concerto to end piano like the violin concertos, but thought it necessary to add four conventional bars of forte.
The mention of the K. 271 Piano Concerto is a reminder that this "astonishing" (yes, Mr. S, absolutely!) piece had been written the year before in Salzburg by the then-21-year-old composer. It may be the earliest work of his that seems to me to represent the "mature" Mozart without qualification. Of course he would have been in the process of discovering for himself who and what the mature Mozart would be. From Smith's description of his circumstances in Paris, they don't seem to have been conducive to facilitating the process.
ABOUT OUR PERFORMANCES
For the Flute and Harp Concerto, a work I've never made a point of "collecting," we're making do with what I've found in my collection, but I don't think any ap0logies are in order. We've got actual performances conducted by actual conductors, namely those reliable Mozarteans Neville Marriner and Karl Böhm and that special musician Fernand Oubradous, and for music-lovers who like their music stripped of any actual content or emotional substance, we've got an "authentic"-style performance.
Since I'm clearly ill-equipped to advocate for the latter, here's an excerpt from a MusicWeb International review by Dominy Clements of the 2010 British Nimbus issue of a boxed set of the MusicMasters recordings of the Complete Mozart Wind Concertos on Period Instruments (same link), including the performance we're about to hear of the Flute and Harp Concerto:
CD 2 is given over entirely to the flute concertos, of which the Flute Concerto in G major, K313 is arguably the finest. Sandra Miller plays a traverso flute from the period, which has a tone more akin to a recorder than the modern power-flutes we hear in orchestras these days. Unlike a recorder however, the horizontal blowing hole allows for greater flexibility of dynamics, colour and tuning, and Miller’s nicely centred tone rings out over the orchestra with fine projection and excellent intonation, making one wonder why Mozart had such an apparent loathing for the things. . . .
The Concerto for Flute and Harp K299 is justly popular, though I am sure this has as much to do with the wonderful sonorities created by this combination of instruments as with the actual musical material. Once again the soloists are beautifully balanced in the recording, and well matched even though there are no surviving usable pedal harps from Mozart’s time. The instrument used here must come close to what he would have expected to hear, with a marvellous transparency and gentle articulation and resonance played with fine musicality by Victoria Drake.
As for our other performances, we've got three really distinguished Mozart conductors in Fernand Oubradous, Karl Böhm, and Neville Marriner. And, intending no disrespect to our flutists, when it comes to our harpists, even I -- about as far from harp aficionado-dom as you can get -- know that in Lily Laskine, Nicanor Zabaleta, and Osian Ellis we've got three from the elite echelon.
FIRST LET'S LISTEN TO THE INDIVIDUAL MOVEMENTS
There's nothing startling about the form: a robust opening Allegro, a songful slow movement (marked, rather quickishly, Andantino), and a concluding Rondo. We shouldn't be surprised that the period-instrument performance is pitched about a semitone lower than the modern-instrument one, in accord with our understanding of the period standard.
i. Allegro
Sandra Miller, flute; Victoria Drake, harp; American Classical Orchestra (aka Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy), Thomas Crawford, cond. MusicMasters, recorded c1996
Claude Monteux, flute; Osian Ellis, harp; Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded c1971
ii. Andantino
Sandra Miller, flute; Victoria Drake, harp; American Classical Orchestra (aka Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy), Thomas Crawford, cond. MusicMasters, recorded c1996
Claude Monteux, flute; Osian Ellis, harp; Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded c1971
iii. Rondo: Allegro
Sandra Miller, flute; Victoria Drake, harp; American Classical Orchestra (aka Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy), Thomas Crawford, cond. MusicMasters, recorded c1996
Claude Monteux, flute; Osian Ellis, harp; Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded c1971
NOW LET'S HEAR THE COMPLETE CONCERTO
MOZART: Concerto in C for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra, K. 299: i. Allegro ii. Andantino iii. Rondo: Allegro
François-Julien Brun, flute; Lily Laskine, harp; Fernand Oubradous Chamber Orchestra, Fernand Oubradous, cond. EMI, from the French EMI set Mozart in Paris, recorded Oct.-Nov. 1955 (mono)
Wolfgang Schulz, flute; Nicanor Zabaleta, harp; Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded 1976
The finale (Rondo: Allegro) of the Flute and Harp Concerto is played in the Mormon Tabernacle by flutist Jeannine Goeckeritz and harpist Tamara Oswald, with the Orchestra at Temple Square under Igor Gruppman.
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I PROMISED A SIMPLE, DIGRESSION-FREE POST, BUT CAN WE REALLY NOT HEAR MOZART'S K. 271 -- AND K. 364?
I'm still thinking about Erik Smith's liner-note evocation of Mozart's "astonishing" E-flat major Piano Concerto, K. 271, composed the year before the Flute and Harp Concerto. I tried very hard to resist the temptation to toss it into our mix, but I'm afraid I've failed. I've assembled a hybrid performance by three pianists conducting from the keyboard.
Not that the outer movements are in any way inferior, but note particularly the heart-stopping slow movement, which slips into the relative-minor key of C minor and stands with Mozart's (and thus anybody's) most searchingly beautiful slow movements. I can't help wondering if he knew before this that he had such music in him (its soulful depth isn't hinted at in the tempo marking, which is Andantino just as in the Flute and Harp Concerto), and what it might have felt like to discover that he did.
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat, K. 271: i. Allegro ii. Andantino iii. Rondo: Presto
1st movement:Berlin Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim, piano and cond. Teldec, recorded January 1991 2nd movement:Camerata Academica of the Salzburg Mozarteum, Géza Anda, piano and cond. DG, recorded Nov. 1968 3rd movement:English Chamber Orchestra, Murray Perahia, piano and cond. CBS/Sony, recorded Sept. 20 and 22, 1976
While I was at it, I couldn't resist assembling a similarly hybrid performance of the glorious Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra composed the year following the Flute and Harp Concerto. Again, along with a grand, engrossing first movement and one of Mozart's most infectious final rondos (though of the compact variety), we have another of his most breathtakingly beautiful slow movements -- again in C minor, and clearly related to the Andantino of K. 271.
Concerning the soloists in two of our recordings, by way of reminder (we actually heard the whole of all three of these recordings in that October 2010 post that included the Sinfonia Concertante): (1) Norbert Brainin and Peter Schidlof were the first violinist and violist of the legendary Amadeus Quartet, and played K. 364 a fair amount. This is the last of at least three recordings they left us. (2) Rafael Druian and Abraham Skernick were the concertmaster and principal violist of the Cleveland Orchestra at the time of the Columbia recording.
MOZART: Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra, K. 364: i. Allegro maestoso ii. Andante iii. Rondo: Presto
1st movement:Norbert Brainin, violin; Peter Schidlof, viola; English Chamber Orchestra, Sir Alexander Gibson, cond. Chandos, recorded April 1983 2nd movement:Yuri Bashmet, viola; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin and cond. DG, recorded July 2005 3rd movement:Rafael Druian, violin; Abraham Skernick, viola; Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Nov. 28, 1963
A CONCLUDING WORD: I haven't dragged in these glorious before-and-after concertante works for the purpose of demeaning the Flute and Harp Concerto. Every composer targets compositions for particular audiences and audience needs, and as Erik Smith says, the Flute and Harp Concerto is "ideally suited to its sociable purpose," which seems to have been about the limit of Mozart's reach in Paris in 1777. Nevertheless, it's pretty clear to me why I return so often to the Piano Concerto No. 9 and the Violin-Viola Sinfonia Concertante and so little to the Flute and Harp Concerto.
[3/2/2012] Flute-and-Harp Week, part 1 -- in which we somehow hear Bizet's "Toreadors" (continued)
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BIZET: Carmen: Entr'acte to Act III
In printed form: the first 15 bars of the entr'acte, in piano reduction -- for flute-and-harp duo until the clarinet and strings join in in bar 13. The performance is by the London Philharmonic under Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961), from their 1939 British Columbia recording of theCarmen Suitetransferred and restored by Bob Varney. (Coming up we have another Beecham performance, from two decades later.)
AS PROMISED, WE'RE GOING TO HEAR TWO FLUTE-AND-HARP-HEAVY WORKS THAT I LOVE
Actually, we've already heard them both: the trio from Part III of Berlioz's Childhood of Christ before the click-through, the Entr'acte to Bizet's Carmen above. I guess the Carmen entr'acte can't properly be said to be "for" flute and harp, but as we heard, it starts out importantly with them, and I don't think I've heard anyone make more inspired use of this combination than Bizet did in this haunting little act-introducer. Here it is again (and again and again).
I thought it might be interesting, since we've heard the 1939 Beecham recording, to hear the version from his 1958-59 complete recording of the opera. Disclosure: The Beecham-EMI was my first Carmen recording, and I still love its vibrance and color. I like the more serene, ethereal Prêtre performance too, and I was kind of blown away rehearing the Frühbeck de Burgos -- more about this later.
BIZET: Carmen: Entr'acte to Act III
Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion française, Sir Thomas Beecham, cond. EMI, recorded 1958-59
Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 1964-Jan. 1965
Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, cond. EMI, recorded 1969-70 [In case you were wondering, the Beecham-EMi Carmen features Victoria de los Angeles in the title role, Nicolai Gedda as Don José, Janine Micheau as Micaëla, and Ernest Blanc as the toreador Escamillo; the Prêtre-EMI -- Maria Callas, Gedda again, Andréa Guiot, and Robert Massard; and the Frühbeck-EMI -- Grace Bumbry, Jon Vickers, Mirella Freni, and Kostas Paskalis.]
MOVING ON, OR BACK, WE'VE SPENT A LOT OF TIME ON BERLIOZ'S CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST . . .
. . . most recently here. Along with Handel's Messiah it's a Sunday Classics Christmas staple, and in fact from the 2011 Sunday Classics Christmas posts we still have a promised Berlioz follow-up (still!) in the works. It's scarcely at all a "religious" work, as I long dreaded before I finally got to know (and love) it.
It's true that Berlioz is at pains to refer to "Saint" Marie and "Saint" Joseph, and to the family unit of them plus the baby Jesus as "the Holy Family," and certainly a central feature of the piece is the "celestial warning" vouchsafed to them, which causes them to flee to Egypt to save the infant from King Herod's "Massacre of the Innocents." Neverthess, in both the text and the music the composer pointedly doesn't treat them as saints or "holy" people, but as a struggling, poor young family that, faced with dire peril (see the 2010 post "In Berlioz's telling, unto us child is saved"), forced to flee the people who know and care for them (we heard this painful parting first in 2008 and then as part of the 2009 post "A Christmas miracle, courtesy of Hector Berlioz") and following their desperate flight across the desert are within a breath of death from thirst, starvation, and exposure, when at the last possible moment they are taken in by an Ishmaelite family, which immediately abandons all other concerns except tending to the physical needs of the unknown wanderers. "The children of Ishmael are brothers of those of Israel," the Ishmaelite Father declares.
There are moments of ineffable charm, as when the Ishmaelite Father asks the baby's name and, being told, responds, "Jesus! What a charming name!" Or when he discovers that his Israelite counterpart, like himself, is a carpenter. And then there's what long seemed to me a bizarre digression: a trio for two flutes and harp, offered by the Ishmaelite Father as sustenance for his now-physically-strengthening guests' needs. The standard explanation is that Berlioz had this trio in his drawer and found here a place to use it. But such explanations only explain the behavior of mediocrities. In the case of a genius of Berlioz's thoroughness, the point has to be why this seemed to him a suitable place to insert this trio.
It finally occurred to me that the piece begins to make sense when, instead of being played for "prettiiness," it's played for the crazy energy that underlies it. According to the score heading, as I've noted in the title, it is "performed by the young Ishmaelites." What this little performance is, then, is what the Ishamelite family has to offer their guests by way of diversion and mental and emotional restorative. Specifically, it's something shared by the Ishmaelilte young 'uns to their infant Israelite counterpart. (We all remember who he is, right?)
I'm not sure I've ever heard a performance that actually offers much of this. Certainly these don't. And I don't have the initiative to undertake a search of all my L'Enfance recordings to see if I can find one closer to what I may now be hearing only in my head. Neverteless, these are all certainly very pretty performances, of notably different kinds, and at least in the quick sections you can hear some of that weird energy I'm talking about. Now just try to imagine it carried over even to the "lyrical" sections.
BERLIOZ: L'Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ), Op. 25: Part III, The Arrival in Saïs: Trio for Two Flutes and Harp (Performed by the young Ishmaelites)
Jean Chefnay and Eugène Masson, flutes; Annie Challan, harp (Colonne Concerts Orchestra); Pierre Dervaux, cond. Adès, recorded 1959
Doriot Anthony Dwyer and James Pappoutsakis, flutes; Bernard Zighera, harp (Boston Symphony Orchestra); Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Dec. 23-24, 1956
William Bennett and Paul Davies, flutes; Thelma Owen, harp (English Chamber Orchestra), Philip Ledger, cond. ASV, recorded December 1985 (You'll note that on this first page there's a repeat, which among our performers only the ASV team observes.)
DIGRESSION: ABOUT DORIOT ANTHONY DWYER, JAMES PAPPOUTSAKIS, AND BERNARD ZIGHERA
Doriot Anthony Dwyer (born 1922) became principal flute of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1952, engaged by incoming music director Charles Munch to replace retiring 34-year incumbent Georges Laurent. At the time, a female orchestra principal wasn't unprecedented but was certainly rare. Dwyer went on to top Laurent's tenure by four years, retiring only in 1990. (I'm startled to see her first name rendered as "Dorothy" in the BMG anthology of Munch-BSO Berlioz recordings -- apparently available now only in MP3 download form -- from which this selection is drawn. The story goes that in her application for the BSO job she took pains to identify herself as "Miss" Doriot Anthony, to prevent any mistaking her gender.)
Dwyer was a splendid flutist, no doubt about it. But it's her partners in this performance who are the subject of this digression. When she joined the BSO, Jimmy" Pappoutsakis (1911-1979, born in Cairo to Greek parents who shortly thereafter relocated to Boston) was in place as assistant principal flutist, and remained in that post until his retirement in 1978 after a remarkable 40 years (!) with the orchestra, during which he established himself as a mainstay of the local music community. The photo, from the James Pappoutsakis Flute Competition website, is from 1967.
Following Jimmy's death "from complications of emphysema" a little over a year after his retirement, a James Pappousakis Memorial Fund was established, which since 1981 it has overseen the annual competition. In addition, each year the Memorial Fund commissions a new composition for flute, to be played by the finalists in the final round. The 2012 winner, announced just last month, is 20-year-old Jisun Oh; the second-place winner, Bethanne Walker; and the other finalists, Michel Dew and Hanol Lee.
The Munch-BSO recording of Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ was made in December 1956, and thus almost exactly midway through Jimmy Pappousakis's tenure with the orchestra. The story I can't resist sharing, which links him and BSO harp principal from 1926 to 1980, Bernard Zighera (1904-1984), dates back to the beginning, or rather before the beginning. It comes from Jimmy's website bio, following a paragraph that takes him through his studies at the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC). (The photo below shows Jimmy in 1937, the year he joined the BSO.)
To sustain a living in the years following his graduation from NEC [the New England Conservatory of Music], Jimmy freelanced, taught privately and played in small opera companies, theater pit orchestras, and radio concerts in Boston and the surrounding areas. At a concert in the Boston Public Library in 1937, then BSO harpist Bernard Zighera attended a recital of one of his finest pupils, Miss Louise Came. Among other repertoire, this particular harp recital featured Louise performing a work for flute and harp with Jimmy as flutist. Zighera remembered the concert a few weeks later, when BSO conductor Serge Koussevitsky remarked at a meeting at Symphony Hall that he would soon be holding auditions for the position of assistant principal flute. Zighera spoke up and Jimmy was called to ask if he would audition. The forthcoming audition went well, with several standard excerpts, at which time Koussevitsky called for the 1st flute part of "Daphnis and Chloe" from the library. Jimmy surprised all with a quick offer to play it there on the spot from memory. The conductor was delighted and the position was promptly offered to Pappoutsakis. Incidentally, Miss Came eventually entered the BSO and the Boston Pops Orchestra (Pops) as harpist, and a few years later became Mrs. James Pappoutsakis. They can be heard together on one of the earliest Pops recordings featuring flute and harp in a performance of the Menuette from "L'Arlesienne Suite" of Georges Bizet.
TO RETURN TO CARMEN: I ENJOYED THE FRÜHBECK PERFORMANCE OF THE ACT III ENTR'ACTE SO MUCH . . .
. . . that I couldn't resist extracting all four act-openers -- the Prelude and the entr'actes to Acts II-IV -- from his 1969-70 EMI recording of the opera (which featured the original spoken dialogue instead of the recitatives composed by Ernest Guiraud, but spoken -- given the exceedingly "international" singing cast, what with an American Carmen, Canadian José, Italian Micaëla, and Greek Escamillo -- by a disconcertingly different-sounding speaking cast). It may be worth noting that unlike so many Carmen recordings, even French ones, this one was made with an actual opera-house orchestra, with plenty of experience of playing the music in the orchestra pit in context.
Frühbeck's incisively vigorous way certainly isn't the only way to play this music -- sometime we should listen to Leonard Bernstein's Met recording (which unfortunately I'd have to dub from LP) -- but Frühbeck's performances of these orchestral excerpts strike me as outstandingly persuasive. And if the recorded sound strikes you, as it did me on this rehearing, as remarkably good, let the record show that the EMI producer was Christopher Bishop.
Note that the track with the Prelude goes on to include the first statement of the "Fate" motif, which is properly speaking part of Act I. Note too that all four act-openers are included in the Carmen Suite No. 1 (not) assembled by the composer): the Prelude (with the "Fate" motif) as No. 1, Prelude; the Act II Entr'acte as No. 5, Les Dragons d'Alcala; the Act III Entr'acte as No. 3, Intermezzo; and the Act IV Entr'acte as No. 2, Aragonaise.
BIZET: Carmen: Prelude
Entr'acte to Act II
Entr'acte to Act III
Entr'acte to Act IV
Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, cond. EMI, recorded July 1969-Feb. 1970
OH, WHAT THE HECK! WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GET BACK TO CARMEN? HERE'S . . . LENNY!
Besides, what else do I have to do but sit around dubbing LPs for MP3 files?
You'll notice we're in a different musical world here -- not just broader and more spacious, but weightier and more richly and variously textured, with greater intensity and depth. Remember, I really, really like the Frühbeck de Burgos performances, which have what I can only call "earned energy," seemingly generated from within, rather than slathered on from the outside. But Lenny's Met Carmen wasn't like any other I've heard.
BIZET: Carmen: Prelude; Entr'actes to Acts II-IV
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded 1973