Post rehabilitated and updated, June 2018 (see below)
At top, Leonard Bernstein conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in the instantly recognizable first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (in the Vienna Konzerthaus, 1977); above, Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony (March 22, 1952).
by Ken
The music is all set to go for this post, and I think this week I'm just not going to say very much. [Well, this was so in 2010, a little less so in 2018. -- Ed.] We've already established the chronological connection between Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies (whose slow movements we heard in, respectively, Friday night's and last night's previews), which were created in almost a single continuous burst of inspiration, and had their first performances at that amazing four-hour-plus concert on December 22, 1808, at which not just the two symphonies but the Fourth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy for piano and orchestra (both of which we heard quite a lot of in a post on Beethoven's piano concertos) plus three movements from the C major Mass and the concert aria "Ah, perfido" also had their premieres -- and the composer also offered a solo piano improvisation, presumably worrying that the audience might not feel it was getting its money's worth.
We've also hinted at the thematic connection between these near-twin symphonies (fraternal twins, of course), which is basically that there doesn't seem to be one. Of course Beethoven had a horror of repeating himself, but when it comes to consecutive creations there seems also to have been an utterly understandable impulse to go somewhere wildly different.
Leonard Bernstein conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in the second movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.
by Ken
I promised a companion piece to the one we heard in last night's preview, the flowing but muscular slow movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony). And pieces don't come much more companionable than Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, written in such quick succession that there must have been overlap in the composer's imagining of these two works, which nevertheless -- or perhaps for that very reason -- are staggeringly different works. But they came into the world together:
The Fifth Symphony was premiered at a mammoth concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna consisting entirely of Beethoven premieres, and directed by Beethoven himself. The concert went for more than four hours. The two symphonies appeared on the program in reverse order: the Sixth was played first, and the Fifth appeared in the second half. The program was as follows:
The Sixth Symphony
Aria: "Ah, perfido," Op. 65
The Gloria movement of the Mass in C major
The Fourth Piano Concerto (played by Beethoven himself)
[Intermission]
The Fifth Symphony
The Sanctus and Benedictus movements of the C major Mass
A solo piano improvisation played by Beethoven
The Choral Fantasy
Glenn Gould plays Liszt's piano transcription of the slow movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. (The movement concludes here.)
by Ken
In Beethoven's time, and Liszt's too, of course, concert opportunities to hear orchestral works were far more limited than they are now, and radio broadcasts and recordings still undreamt of. And so as a way of enabling the music to circulate, and of allowing music lovers to enjoy them in their own homes, and of providing publishers an opportunity to make some money, piano transcriptions were abundant -- sometimes done by the composers themselves, more often done by competent musical journeymen, and in rare cases done by musicians of the order of a Franz Liszt. The thing to remember about Liszt's transcriptions of the nine Beethoven symphonies is that they were undertaken as a labor of love, with no thought of any creative contribution by the distinguished transcriber.
Juan Pons as Tonio lip-syncs the Pagliacci Prologue in Unitel's 1982 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, with Georges Prêtre conducting the La Scala orchestra. (Ignore the other clowns Zeffirelli's inserted, mere distractions.) We even get to see the traveling players arrive in the Calabrian village, with Plácido Domingo as the master of the troupe, Canio, and Teresa Stratas as his wife and costar, Nedda.
If I may? If I may?
Ladies! Gentlemen!
Excuse me if I present myself thus alone. I am the Prologue.
Because the author is putting
the old-style masks
onstage again.
In part he wants to revive
the old customs, and to you
once again he sends me.
But not to tell you, as before,
"The tears that we shed are false,
by our agonies and our suffering
don't be alarmed."
No! No!
The author has sought
to paint truly for you
a slice of life.
He has for maxim only that the artist is a person,
and that he must write for people,
and draw inspiration from what's true.
A nest of memories in the depths of his soul
sang one day, and with real tears
he wrote, and his sobs beat time for him!
So then, you'll see loving, yes, the way
real human beings love; you'll see hate's
sad fruits, miseries' agonies.
Cries of rage you'll hear, and cynical laughter!
And you, rather than our poor
actors' costumes, consider
our souls, because we are people,
of flesh and bone, and since in this orphan
world, just like you, we breathe the air!
I've told you the concept.
Now hear how it worked out.
Let's go -- begin!
by Ken
Hanging on the grimy wall of my college newspaper office was a yellowed sheet that was the "key" to the 5-point rating system we used for movie reviews. Oh, I pooh-poohed the numerical ratings, on the ground that how can you reduce a sensible evaluation to a number? But the fact was that our readers all too clearly paid more attention to the ratings than to the ever-so-wise reviews.
Jussi Bjoerling sings the recitative and aria, with Howard Barlow conducting, from the Voice of Firestone telecast of Nov. 19, 1951.
by Ken
First, let's finish last night's unfinished business. Here again are our seven recordings of "Vesti la giubba," now properly identified. You'll notice that the singers are in alphabetical order.
LEONCAVALLO: I Pagliacci: Act I, " Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio . . . Vesti la giubba"
[English translation by Peggie Cochrane]
Recitative
To have to act, whilst caught up in mad frenzy;
I no longer know what I'm saying nor what I'm doing.
And yet you must -- force yourself to try!
You're the comedian! Aria
Put on your costume and make up your face.
The public pays and wants to laugh here.
And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine,
laugh, comedian, and everyone'll clap!
Turn your agony and tears to jest,
your sobs and sufferings to a grimace.
Ah! Laugh, comedian, over your ruined love.
Laugh at the pain that is poisoning your heart.
A
Jussi Bjoerling, tenor; RCA Victor Orchestra, Renato Cellini, cond. RCA/EMI, recorded January 1953 B
Franco Corelli, tenor; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Apr. 11, 1964 C
Mario del Monaco, tenor; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Dimitri Mitropoulos, cond. Live performance, Jan. 3, 1959 D
Giuseppe di Stefano, tenor; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Tullio Serafin, cond. EMI, recorded June 12-17, 1954 E
Plácido Domingo, tenor; San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Kenneth Schermerhorn, cond. Live performance, Nov. 5, 1976 F
Luciano Pavarotti, tenor; Philadelphia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti, cond. Philips, live performance, February 1992 G
[aria only] Lawrence Tibbett, baritone; orchestra, Alfred Newman, cond. Delos (Stanford Archive Series), recorded for the soundtrack of Metropolitan, 1935
The oddity is that our final Canio is not a tenor but a baritone, perhaps the finest America has produced, Lawrence Tibbett. (Okay, it's transposed down a tone, and yes, that would have been a correct answer to the question of what's odd about one of our recordings. But still . . . ) Tomorrow we're going to hear him back in his proper range, singing the Prologue to Pagliacci. Note that among our tenor Canios we've heard a not-quite-even split between lyric (Bjoerling, di Stefano, Domingo, Pavarotti) and dramatic (Corelli, del Monaco) tenors, and while "Vesti la giubba" is probably the part of the role most accessible to lyric tenors, I think you'll still hear a marked difference in the kind of effect the different voice types make in the music.
BONUS: NOW WE ARE GOING TO HEAR CARUSO
Last night I teased you with a photo of the label of Victor 88061, Enrico Caruso's third (I think) recording of "Vesti la giubba" (famous, by the way, as the first record to sell a million copies), with the news that no, we weren't going to hear it. Well, now we are. (Confession: I didn't realize I had it on CD.)
Enrico Caruso, tenor. Victor, recorded March 17, 1907
Here Giuseppe di Stefano sings just the aria.
NOW WHY DON'T WE HEAR THE ARIA IN ITS PROPER CONTEXT?
Although Pagliacci is normally thought of as a one-act opera -- usually in combination with Pietro Mascagni's one-act Cavalleria rusticana -- it's technically in two acts, separated by an intermezzo (just as Cavalleria is in two scenes separated by the famous Intermezzo). The scene that culminates in "Vesti la giubba" brings Act I to a pretty theatrical close, and since the opera is virtually always performed in one act, it's followed immediately by the Intermezzo sinfonico (technically really an entr'acte), so why don't we hear that as well? We're going to hear it again tomorrow, when it will make more musical sense after we've spent some time with the Prologue, which contributes important music to it. Our final Canio today, the Russian Vladimir Atlantov, is another specimen of the full-weight dramatic tenor.
LEONCAVALLO: I Pagliacci: Act I, Scene 4; Intermezzo sinfonico
A little troupe of traveling players, having only recently arrived in this Calabrian village, has a show to put on, "a ventitre ore," as Canio, the volatile boss of the troupe has put it so invitingly to the villagers -- "at 23 hours," or 11pm. Canio accepted an invitation from the villagers for a pre-show libation, and was joined by Beppe but not the hunchback Tonio, who claimed he had to groom the donkey and stayed behind with Canio's wife, the troupe's diva, the extremely unhappy Nedda. Leaving the donkey to fend for itself, Tonio made profoundly unwelcome overtures to Nedda, which she not only rejected but ridiculed, finally driving him off with a whip. Nedda was then joined by a man with whom, in a tender and passionate scene, she agreed to run off after the show, at midnight. Unfortunately Tonio saw them and to get revenge on Nedda has quietly brought Canio back to the scene.
TONIO [to CANIO]: Tread softly and you'll catch them! SILVIO [climbing over the wall, to NEDDA]: I'll be waiting there at midnight. Clamber down cautiously and you'll find me. NEDDA [to SILVIO]: Till tonight, and I'll be yours forever. CANIO [overhearing these words]: Ha! NEDDA [shouting in Silvio's wake, as she becomes aware of CANIO's presence]: Fly!
[CANIO rushes to the wall. NEDDA goes to bar his way but, shoving her aside, he vaults over.] NEDDA: Help him, Lord! CANIO's voice offstage: Coward! You're hiding! TONIO [laughing cynically]: Ha ha ha! NEDDA [to TONIO]: Bravo! Bravo, my Tonio! TONIO: I do what I can. NEDDA: That's what I thought. TONIO: But I don't despair of doing a great deal better! NEDDA: You revolt and disgust me! TONIO: Oh, you don't know how happy I am about it! Ha ha ha! CANIO [clambering back across the wall]: Derision and scorn! Nothing! He knows that path well. No matter -- [furiously, to NEDDA]: since you're going to tell me your lover's name now! NEDDA: Who? CANIO: You, by our eternal Father! [Drawing his knife] And if I haven't cut your throat before this it's because, before I soil this blade with your stinking blood, you shameless woman, I want his name! Speak! NEDDA: Insults won't do any good. My lips are sealed. CANIO: His name, his name, don't delay, woman! NEDDA: No!
[At this point BEPPE comes hurrying onto the scene.] No! I'll never tell it! CANIO [rushing at NEDDA, knife upraised]: By Our Lady! BEPPE [seizing him, as he rushes at NEDDA, wrestling the knife away from him and flinging it away]: Boss! What are you doing? For the love of God! People are coming out of church and coming here for the show. Let's go . . . come along. Calm yourself! CANIO: Let me go, Beppe! His name! His name! BEPPE [calling to TONIO]: Tonio, come and hold him! CANIO: His name! BEPPE: Let's go, the public is arriving! You'll talk things over later! [To NEDDA] And you, come away from there. Go and get dressed. [As he pushes her inside and goes in with her] You know, Canio is violent but good-hearted. CANIO: Disgrace! Disgrace! TONIO [softly, to CANIO]: Calm yourself, boss. It's better to dissemble; the gallant'll return. Rely on me! I'll keep a watch on her. Now let's give the performance. Who knows but he won't come to the show and give himself away. Come now. One must dissemble, in order to succeed! BEPPE [coming from the stage]: Let's go, come on, get dressed, boss. [Turning to TONIO] And you beat the drum, Tonio.
[Both go off, leaving CANIO alone.] CANIO: [Recitative]
To have to act, whilst caught up in mad frenzy;
I no longer know what I'm saying nor what I'm doing.
And yet you must -- force yourself to try!
You're the comedian!
[Aria]
Put on your costume and make up your face.
The public pays and wants to laugh here.
And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine,
laugh, comedian, and everyone'll clap!
Turn your agony and tears to jest,
your sobs and sufferings to a grimace.
Ah! Laugh, comedian, over your ruined love.
Laugh at the pain that is poisoning your heart.
Bernd Weikl (b), Tonio; Wolfgang Brendel (b), Silvio; Lucia Popp (s), Nedda; Vladimir Atlantov (t), Canio; Alexandru Ionita (t), Beppe; Munich Radio Orchestra, Lamberto Gardelli, cond. Eurodisc, recorded December 1983
Tito Gobbi (b), Tonio; Mario Zanasi (b), Silvio; Lucine Amara (s), Nedda; Franco Corelli (t), Canio; Mario Spina (t), Beppe; Orchestra of the Teatro all Scala, Lovro von Matačić, cond. EMI, recorded 1961
TOMORROW: The Prologue to Pagliacci begs us, "Consider our souls."
And while we're at it, you might
as well name the singers
No, we're not hearing Caruso sing "Vesti la giubba."
by Ken
One of these performances of Vesti la giubba (from Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci) has something distinctly unusual about it. (No, I don't mean that one that doesn't include the prececding "Recitar!" recitative.)
I can't identify the singers for you, for reasons that will become obvious in tomorrow night's preview when we do identify all the recordings. But these are seven of the most recognizable voices since . . . well, since they began recording voices. And so, as I said, while we're at it, you might as well identify them, just to get that out of the way
LEONCAVALLO: I Pagliacci: Act I, " Recitar!
Mentre preso dal delirio . . . Vesti la giubba"
[English translation by Peggie Cochrane]
Recitative
To have to act, whilst caught up in mad frenzy;
I no longer know what I'm saying nor what I'm doing.
And yet you must -- force yourself to try!
You're the comedian!
Aria
Put on your costume and make up your face.
The public pays and wants to laugh here.
And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine,
laugh, comedian, and everyone'll clap!
Turn your agony and tears to jest,
your sobs and sufferings to a grimace.
Ah! Laugh, comedian, over your ruined love.
Laugh at the pain that is poisoning your heart.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G [aria only]
SATURDAY NIGHT: The "Vesti la guibba" recordings are identified, and supplemented with a special bonus performance, and the aria is put in its dramatic context.
SUNDAY: The Prologue to Pagliacci begs us, "Consider our souls."
Here's the first part of the Second Piano Concerto played by Alfred Brendel, with Eliahu Inbal conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. (The performance concludes here. There's an interesting video performance by pianist Yakov Fliere, from 1974, with Maxim Shostakovich conducting -- part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.)
by Ken
We've heard a sampling of Liszt the orchestral virtuoso (in the form of the best-known of his 13 symphonic poems, Les Préludes, Friday night) and of his virtuosic but equally poetic keyboard wizardry (performances by Sviatoslav Richter, Georges Cziffra, and Aldo Ciccolini last night, along with a video performance of the First Piano Concerto).
We've talked before about the emergence in the West of the roster of great Soviet musicians long prevented from performing here by the Stalinist and immediately post-Stalinist regimes. When Emil Gilels, by any standard one of the century's great pianists, caused the predictable furor, he told interviewers that the pianist they really needed to hear was Richter, who was still being kept under wraps. Rather amazingly, he lived up to the hype.
In 1961 in London Richter played both Liszt piano concertos and the Hungarian Fantasia for piano and orchestra with his compatriot Kiril Kondrashin and the London Symphony, and happily Philips recorded the concertos, for a disc that remains a phonographic landmark -- recorded, incidentally by the Mercury "Living Presence" team of producer Wilma Cozart Fine and engineer Robert Fine, though the tapes have for decades now rested exclusively in the hands of the sonically more conservative Philips technical people. It's a pity the two concertos made such a convenient LP, which is presumably what discouraged Philips from recording the Hungarian Fantasia, which turns out to be quite a loss when we hear the live performance. True, notes get spilled all over the place when all hell breaks loose, and this would have been fixed in a studio recording, but my goodness, is it possible not to be blown over by the hurricane force of this outburst?
LISZT: Hungarian Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra
Sviatoslav Richter, piano; London Symphony Orchestra, Kiril Kondrashin, cond. Live performance, 1961
Jorge Bolet, piano; Symphony of the Air, Robert Irving, cond. Everest, recorded c1959
Michel Béroff, piano; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Kurt Masur, cond. EMI, recorded June 1979
Liszt wrote his two piano concertos (and indeed most of a third, only in modern times come to light) at basically the same time, which allowed him to pursue markedly different expressive agendas; the two are so different, and yet so complementary, that they have flourished in each other's company since early LP days. The First Concerto, as you may gather from the video clip we saw last night, is in large measure the Liszt of Les Préludes: grandiose, sweeping, a robust treat. While the Second Concerto indeed builds to a wonderfully grandiloquent march finale, the wonder of this piece is the gentle songfulness of its opening theme, and the way it evolves into that finale.
The piece is basically a theme-and-variations set, in a single movement, though with significant changes of tempo -- and, more significantly, and deliciously under-conspicuously, a slide from triple meter, first to 6/8 duple meter (at the Allegro agitato assai), then briefly back to the 3/4 of the opening (Tempo del Andante) before switching to good old-fashioned square-jawed 4/4 at the Allegro moderato -- the very tempo we're going to need (even with a brief return to the still-duple-meter 6/8) for the outbreak of the Marziale. (And when the Marziale finally breaks out, you really shouldn't have any difficulty hearing in it the lovely original theme.)
We're going to hear the 1961 Richter-Kondrashin studio recording I mentioned above, and also a performance by the highly poetic Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman, whom we heard playing the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto, also with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony, and finally Alfred Brendel's first recording (for Vox).
On a technical note: CD programmers naturally enough treat some (and some cases all) of the tempo changes in the Liszt A major Concerto as appropriate points for tracking; of course on a CD we don't hear those track points. Since in our format I have no way of creating seamless track switches, we're going to hear the piece somewhat broken up, and not identically broken up, so that in the Richter-Kondrashin recording we hear the buildup to and outbreak of the Marziale un poco meno allegro, whereas in the Zimerman-Ozawa the Marziale gets its own track point, and the Vox recording has a slightly different breakdown.
LISZT: Piano Concerto No. 2 in A: Adagio sostenuto assai; Allegro agitato assai Allegro moderato Allegro deciso; Marziale un poco meno allegro; Allegro animato
Sviatoslav Richter, piano; London Symphony Orchestra, Kiril Kondrashin, cond. Philips, recorded 1961
Krystian Zimerman, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded April 1987
Alfred Brendel, piano; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen, cond. Vox, recorded 1975
Jon Vickers, not in his best vocal shape but still a powerful presence, sings "The Drinking Song of the Sorrow of the Earth" in a 1985 Proms concert, with Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. (The other soloist was Vickers' partner in the 1982 Philips recording with Colin Davis, Jessye Norman.)
by Ken
Nobody who's visited Sunday Classics will be surprised that we're taking on Mahler's Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde) backwards. This is the work, you'll recall that Mahler conceived, after soaring with Goethe to the cosmological heights in his Symphony No. 8, in the aftermath of the diagnosis of his terminal heart condition.
In Hans Bethge's German translation and adaptation of Chinese poems, The Chinese Flute, Mahler found texts for the six song-movements that made up what should by rights have been his Symphony No. 9, if he hadn't had such superstitious dread of the doom a Ninth Symphony had spelled for Beethoven and Bruckner. (To compound the craziness, by the time the decision about naming was made, the work he would call his Ninth Symphony was mapped out in his head, which led him to believe that he had circumvented the jinx. Of course the joke, such as it was, was on him. He didn't live to complete the work that by his numbering would have been his Tenth Symphony.)
Talk about working backwards! First, in a need to celebrate the artistry of Maureen Forrester, we simply blundered into the undisputed crowning glory of Das Lied, the half-hour final alto song-movement, "The Farewell" ("Der Abschied"). In a way, though, it was helpful to be focusing on Forrester, since it allowed us to focus on her stupendous performances of this music. That spared us the distraction of other, differently glorious performances.
Now, as I explained in Friday's and last night's previews, we've been working our way backwards through the three tenor songs of Das Lied: movements No. 5, "The Drunk in Spring"; No. 3, "On Youth"; and now finally No. 1, "The Drinking Song of the Sorrow of the Earth." I made the point, in connection with "On Youth," that I have found rather circuitious paths to personal identification with the songs of Das Lied, and I might make the general point that this is what, for me, music or any other art form is about: finding one's own connection to it. I don't believe that anyone can "teach" us how to listen, though many people can, by design or otherwise, provide us with lessons of varying usefulness as we develop our own way of listening.
Just by way of demonstrating how never-ending this process is, in the course of my relistening for these posts, I put on the 1959 EMI recording conducted by Paul Kletzki (made, by cosmic coincidence, some two weeks before the memorable RCA recording conducted by Fritz Reiner), intending to listen, of course, to the first movement, but I let it play, and for as much as I've said I'm unpersuaded by the octave-lower baritone option Mahler offered for the alto songs, and as often as I've listened to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's performance in this recording and been left unpersuaded by it, this time I found myself warming to it more, especially in the movement that I confess remains most elusive for me, No. 4, "On Beauty." Just goes to show ya . . . er, something.
I've already made an embarrassing attempt to describe my personal connection to "On Youth." You'll surely be relieved to learn that I don't propose to do the same with "The Drinking Song of the Sorrow of Earth." Let me just say that this movement, despite being not even a third as long as "The Farewell," has come to be just as personal. But then, it is perhaps one of the abiding deep truths of Das Lied that the small matters as much as the big.
Mahler doesn't leave much idea about the central idea of this drinking song. Three times, at the end of what we might think of as the song's three stanzas, the tenor sings to us:
"Dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod"
("Dark is life, is death")
Jon Vickers, tenor; London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded March 1981
BREAKING IT DOWN
I've broken this movement down according to those three "stanzas" defined by the "Dunkel ist das Leben"s. I had a much more ambitious musical plan, though still following this breakdown plan, but it self-destructed via my clumsy editing skills and the obstreperousness of the editing software I'm using. Still, we do have what I'm calling parts A, B, and C, more or less as I intended them, with parts parts A and B going beyond their "Dunkel ist das Leben" to include the orchestral music between "stanzas" (and in one case maybe a tiny bit into the next) and parts B and C going back to the previous "Dunkel ist das Leben," so that there is considerable musical overlap. That was intentional, if only to give you an opportunity to hear this amazing music more often.
Before we go there, however, I thought it might be helpful, since I keep mentioning the shocking transformation of Mahler's artistic identity between the climax of the Eighth Symphony and the start of its successor work, to hear that climax of the Eighth Symphony, a setting of the final scene of Goethe's Faust, so here it is.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 8 in E-flat: Part II, conclusion: "Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis"
[English translation by Peggie Cochrane]
All things transitory are but parable;
here insufficiency becomes fulfillment,
here the indescribable is accomplished;
the ever-womanly draws us heavenward. [much repeated]
Soloists, choruses, London Symphony Orchestra, Jascha Horenstein, cond. BBC Legends, recorded live in the Royal Albert Hall, March 20, 1959
Now let's hear the start of Mahler's Song of the Earth, the opening chunk of "The Drinking Song of the Sorrow of the Earth." Note that all of the Das Lied translations are by Deryck Cooke.
part A
Now beckons the wine in the golden goblet,
but drink not yet, first I'll sing you a song!
The song of sorrow
shall in gusts of laughter through your souls resound.
When sorrow draws near,
wasted lie the gardens of the soul.
Withered and dying are joy and song.
Dark is life, is death.
Murray Dickie, tenor; Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Kletzki, cond. EMI, recorded October 1959
part B
Dark is life, is death.
Master of this house! Your cellar holds its fill of golden wine!
Here, this lute I name my own!
To strike the lute and to drain the glasses,
these are the things that go together.
A full goblet of wine at the right time
is worth more than all the kingdoms of this earth!
Dark is life, is death.
Francisco Araiza, tenor; Berlin Philharmonic, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. DG, recorded Feb.15-17, 1984
[UPDATE: Thanks to my clip-editing and -processing ham-handedness, and to my general organizational gracelessness under time pressure, I originally posted a defective version of this clip, which started in the right place but continued to the end of the movement. I've got it right now. I think.]
part C
Dark is life, is death.
The firmament is blue eternally, and the earth
will long stand fast and blossom in spring.
But thou, O man, how long then livest thou?
Not a hundred years canst thou delight
in all the rotten trash of this earth!
Look there, down there! In the moonlight, on the graves
squats a mad spectral figure!
It is an ape! Hear how his howling
screams its way through the sweet fragrance of life!
Now take the wine! Now it is time, companions!
Drain your golden goblets to the dregs!
Dark is life, is death!
James King, tenor; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded September 1975
NOW LET'S PUT IT BACK TOGETHER
Now we're going to hear "The Drinking Song of the Sorrow of the Earth" from my three all-around favorite recordings of Das Lied. (There's a large group of wonderful recordings, including some we've sampled, like the Reiner-RCA, the Kletzki-EMI, and the Giulini-DG, or even better the live Giulini performance with the Vienna Philharmonic on Orfeo, that occupy what for me is an elite "second tier.")
We start with Bruno Walter's final recorded crack at this work whose premiere he had conducted not quite 50 years earlier, in Munich in November 1911, five months after the composer's death. This is the eternally splendiferous New York Philharmonic recording for Columbia, from which we heard tenor Ernst Häfliger sing the fifth song, "The Drunk in Spring," Friday night.
Colin Davis's Philips Das Lied offers its share of frustrations but nevertheless seems to me a truly great performance. Davis has never been known for his "way" of working with singers, and in this recording he seems hardly aware of what sort of tenor he's working with in Jon Vickers, with that oddly produced but engulfingly huge voice and singular personal intensity; clearly, to take advantage of his special qualities, he should have had less driven tempos, and a bit of give and take with his conductor, which might also have smoothed out his German. (Vickers traveled with his own set of vowels, which weren't right for any of the languages he sang regularly in -- German, Italian, French, and English.) Davis was more considerate of his alto soloist, Jessye Norman, whose voluminous soprano descended easily into true contralto territory.
MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth):
i. "Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde"
("The Drinking Song of the Sorrow of the Earth")
Now beckons the wine in the golden goblet,
but drink not yet, first I'll sing you a song!
The song of sorrow
shall in gusts of laughter through your souls resound.
When sorrow draws near,
wasted lie the gardens of the soul.
Withered and dying are joy and song.
Dark is life, is death.
Master of this house!
Your cellar holds its fill of golden wine!
Here, this lute I name my own!
To strike the lute and to drain the glasses,
these are the things that go together.
A full goblet of wine at the right time
is worth more than all the kingdoms of this earth!
Dark is life, is death.
The firmament is blue eternally, and the earth
will long stand fast and blossom in spring.
But thou, O man, how long then livest thou?
Not a hundred years canst thou delight
in all the rotten trash of this earth!
Look there, down there! In the moonlight, on the graves
squats a mad spectral figure!
It is an ape! Hear how his howling
screams its way through the sweet fragrance of life!
Now take the wine! Now it is time, companions!
Drain your golden goblets to the dregs!
Dark is life, is death!
Ernst Häfliger, tenor; New York Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded April 1960
Jon Vickers, tenor; London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded March 1981
And now, from what just may be my very favorite Das Lied recording, Otto Klemperer's EMI stereo remake (which by the way was Christa Ludwig's first recording of the piece, when she claims she didn't understand the music yet -- ha! so much for the importance of "understanding"), let's hear all three tenor songs, in part for the opportunity to hear the astounding Fritz Wunderlich sing them. I think, by the way, that it must surely have been via the Wunderlich-Klemperer recording that I experienced the revelation regarding "On Youth" which I tried to describe last night; now if only Colin Davis had had the sense to take a tempo like this in his recording with Jon Vickers!
(I notice that we haven't talked at all about the strange vocal requirements of this music, which result in its being sung by such a strange assortment of tenors, from light "character" tenors like Murray Dickie and Richard Lewis to full-fledged heroic tenors like Vickers and James King. Well, some other time perhaps.)
MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde i. "Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde"
("The Drinking Song of the Sorrow of the Earth")
Now beckons the wine in the golden goblet,
but drink not yet, first I'll sing you a song!
The song of sorrow
shall in gusts of laughter through your souls resound.
When sorrow draws near,
wasted lie the gardens of the soul.
Withered and dying are joy and song.
Dark is life, is death.
Master of this house!
Your cellar holds its fill of golden wine!
Here, this lute I name my own!
To strike the lute and to drain the glasses,
these are the things that go together.
A full goblet of wine at the right time
is worth more than all the kingdoms of this earth!
Dark is life, is death.
The firmament is blue eternally, and the earth
will long stand fast and blossom in spring.
But thou, O man, how long then livest thou?
Not a hundred years canst thou delight
in all the rotten trash of this earth!
Look there, down there! In the moonlight, on the graves
squats a mad spectral figure!
It is an ape! Hear how his howling
screams its way through the sweet fragrance of life!
Now take the wine! Now it is time, companions!
Drain your golden goblets to the dregs!
Dark is life, is death!
iii. "Von der Jugend" ("On Youth")
In the middle of the little pool
stands a pavilion of green
and of white porcelain.
Like the back of a tiger
arches the bridge of jade
over to the pavilion.
In the little house friends are sitting,
beautifully dressed, drinking, chatting;
several are writing verses.
Their silken sleeves slip
backwards, their silken caps
perch gaily on the back of their necks.
On the little pool's still
surface everything appears
fantastically in a mirror image.
Everything is standing on its head
in the pavilion of green
and of white porcelain;
Like a half-moon stands the bridge,
upside-down its arch. Friends,
beautifully dressed, are drinking, chatting.
v. "Der Trunkene im Frühling" ("The Drunk in Spring")
If life is but a dream,
why then toil and fret?
I drink till I can drink no longer,
the whole livelong day!
And when I can drink no longer,
since gullet and soul are full,
then I stagger to my door
and sleep stupendously!
What do I hear on awakening? Hark!
A bird sings in the tree.
I ask him if the spring is here;
I feel as if it were a dream.
The bird twitters, "Yes!
Spring is here -- came overnight!"
In deepest wonder I listen.
The bird sings and laughs.
I feel my glass again,
and drain it to the dregs,
and sing, until the moon shines bright
in the black firmament.
And when I can sing no longer,
then I go back to sleep;
for what does spring matter to me?
Let me be drunk!
Fritz Wunderlich, tenor; Philharmonia/New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded 1965-66
Tenor Robert Dean Smith sings "On Youth" from Mahler's Song of the Earth, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink, in November 2006 (part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Haitink's association with the orchestra).
MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth):
iii. "Von der Jugend" ("On Youth")
[English translation by Deryck Cooke]
In the middle of the little pool
stands a pavilion of green
and of white porcelain.
Like the back of a tiger
arches the bridge of jade
over to the pavilion.
In the little house friends are sitting,
beautifully dressed, drinking, chatting;
several are writing verses.
Their silken sleeves slip
backwards, their silken caps
perch gaily on the back of their necks.
On the little pool's still
surface everything appears
fantastically in a mirror image.
Everything is standing on its head
in the pavilion of green
and of white porcelain;
Like a half-moon stands the bridge,
upside-down its arch. Friends,
beautifully dressed, are drinking, chatting.
by Ken
As I explained last night, heading toward tomorrow's Sunday Classics post, we're working our way backwards through the three tenor songs (Nos. 1, 3, and 5) of Mahler's Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde), starting last night with the last of them, "The Drunk in Spring" ("Der Trunkene im Frühling"). Tonight we come to the shortest of the song symphony's six movements, No. 3, "On Youth" ("Von der Jugend"), which typically lasts 3-3½ minutes -- though tomorrow we're going to hear the longest as well as most remarkable performance of the song I've ever heard.
FOR THIS SONG I PROMISED YOU A STORY . . .
. . . of "the special personal identification that opened this song up for me -- or perhaps opened me up for this song" type. Here goes.
The elegant Swiss tenor Ernst Häfliger is our first
soloist in Mahler's song "The Drunk in Spring."
by Ken
Bruno Walter's 1960 Columbia recording of Mahler's song symphony Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde), the composition that fell between his Eighth and Ninth Symphonies and would have been No. 9 if he hadn't been so superstitious about allotting that fateful number to a symphony, was originally released on three LP sides. Surprisingly quickly, though, it was compressed onto two very well-filled sides, and that was my first recording of Das Lied, whose texts are German adaptations by Hans Bethge (from the collection The Chinese Flute) of Chinese originals.
Even as I was getting to know the piece, it was obvious that the emotional center of gravity was the concluding sixth movement, the half-hour song "The Farewell" ("Der Abschied," which we blundered our way into in our Maureen Forrester remembrance), about equal in length to its five predecessors put together, so that was where I usually headed, and since it was preceded on Side 2 by the last of the tenor songs, that meant I listened just as often to the contrastingly very brief song "The Drunk in Spring" ("Der Trunkene im Frühling"), as sung by the elegant Swiss tenor Ernst Häfliger -- a studio replacement, you'll recall, for the English tenor Richard Lewis, who sang in Walter's live New York performances that April but had only months earlier recorded Das Lied with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony for RCA. (We're going to hear some of that performance tomorrow night.)
INEVITABLY, THE ATTENTION OF THE DAS LIED LISTENER
GRAVITATES TO THE WEIGHTIER ALTO SONGS (NOS. 2, 4, 6)
UPDATED to include some consideration of Berlioz' post-composition decision to make the whole Fantastique a dream rather than just the "psychedelic" 4th and 5th movements
Witches' sabbath -- as imagined by Arthur Rackham
in pen and ink and watercolor
by Ken
Our subject this week is Berlioz' symphony with viola solo Harold in Italy. Last night we heard three very different performances, all with William Primrose as soloist, of the second movement, "March of the pilgrims singing their evening prayer." Our big Harold push comes tomorrow, but just to touch base -- and since I happen to have an extra file left over from tomorrow's music, let's listen to the opening movement:
BERLIOZ: Harold in Italy, Op. 16: i. Harold in the mountains: Scenes of melancholy, of happiness, and of joy
Gérard Caussé, viola; Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson, cond. EMI, recorded March 3-7, 1991
IN WHICH WE DISPOSE OF BERLIOZ' SYMPHONIE
FANTASTIQUE IN A MERE PREVIEW!
As we noted last week in connection with the dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette, Arturo Toscanini took his Berlioz seriously, and was a great champion of both Roméo and Harold in Italy, which I think we can fairly describe as neglected masterpieces in those years, and for some years to come. After the great triumph of his NBC Symphony broadcast of the complete Roméo in 1949, he turned his attention to The Damnation of Faust, but sadly was never able to solve logistical problems starting with the availability of a suitable tenor.
Curiously, Toscanini seems not to have thought much of most of the Symphonie fantastique, an opinion I don't think many of us would share. The Fantastique remains one of the best-loved pieces of music ever written, and I'm kind of astonished that we're "dispatching" it in a "preview." Nevertheless, the piece's close connection to Harold in Italy, which we'll talk about more tomorrow, makes it suitable fare for this preview.
The history of the Fantastique, both its creation and the composer's subsequent thinking about it, is much too elaborate for us to go into here. But it's well to remember that symphonie fantastique was originally just part of the piece's subtitle. The working title was Episode from the life of an artist, which became the subtitle -- we assume with Berlioz' approval if not at his instigation.
I go into this because Berlioz' thinking about the "program" of the Symphonie fantastique evolved in a number of ways, and there are two significantly different versions, at least for the first four movements. Some of the changes reflect the inclusion of the strange sequel he had by then written, the "lyrical monodrama" Lélio, or The Return to Life. But clearly, by the time of the revised program, he had done some rethinking about the role of the program itself. In the new introductory note, in fact, he says that if the symphony is performed by itself, without Lélio, it's possible if necessary to refrain from distributing the program to the audience -- "retaining only the titles of the five pieces; the symphony (or so the author hopes) being able to offer on its own a musical interest independent of all dramatic intention."
AN ALL-IN-ONE RESOURCE FOR THE FANTASTIQUE
I should express my debt here to Edward T. Cone's outstanding essay on "The Symphony and the Program" in his invaluable Norton Critical Score edition, which presents not just "an authoritative score," but "historical background," "analysis," and "views and comments" (principally by composers). I'm delighted to see that it's still in print, though the list price is now closer to seven than six times the $3.25 printed on my copy -- but Amazon.com lists copies almost that cheap (not counting shipping)!
So by all means feel free to pay little or even no attention to the program. However, if you need to see the program in order to decide how much heed to pay it, here it is, in the revised version, which you'll note now makes the entire piece a product of the young musician's drug trip.
Originally only the "psychedelic" fourth and fifth movements, the "March to the scaffold" and "Dream of a night of witches' sabbath," were drug-induced dreams of the young musician. Edward Cone makes the interesting suggestion:
Berlioz certainly realized that whatever music can or cannot portray, there is no way that music alone can distinguish between the depiction (a) of an experience, (b) of a memory of the experience, and (c) of a dream about the experience. The distinction between waking and dream in the earlier program had thus been artificial and nonmusical, and the obliteration of the division might have been a confession that the descriptive powers of music were even more limited than the composer had hitherto admitted. It is possible, then, that the new program was his way of telling the audience: "Look, don't take all this too seriously; it's only a dream. The main thing is the music."
Speaking of the young musician's drug trip, for $2.97 you can download Leonard Bernstein's 15-minute illustrated talk on the Fantastique, "Berlioz Takes a Trip." I'm not sure if I've ever actually listened to it, but I'm sure you can expect, as usual with the "teaching" Lenny, much useful audible analysis of the piece -- provided you can get past the unfortunate '70s-style marketing hype that seems to suggest, "If you like drugs, you'll love this music."
Just to keep the performance selection within manageable bounds, I've confined the selection to Francophone conductors -- not strictly speaking French, or we would lose our Belgian maestro, André Cluytens. The orchestras aren't necessarily French (or even Francophone), though, but we have managed to work in a couple.
First Berlioz sets the scene:
A young musician with a morbid sensibility and an ardent imagination poisons himself with opium in a fit of amorous despair. The dose of narcotic, too weak to bring him death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by strange visions, during which his sensations, his feelings, his memories are translated in his sick brain into musical thoughts and images. The beloved woman herself has become for him a melody, like an Idée fixe that he reencounters and hears everywhere.
BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14:
i. Rêveries. Passions
1st PART Reveries. Passions
He remembers first that malaise of the soul, that vague des passions [wave of passions], those melancholies, those joys without origin which he experienced before having seen her whom he loves; then the volcanic love that she instantaneously inspired in him, his delirious agonies, his jealous furies, his returns of tenderness, his religious consolations.
Orchestre national de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon, cond. EMI, recorded January 1973
* * *
Symphonie fantastique:
ii. Un bal
2nd PART A ball
He reencounters his beloved at a ball in the setting of the tumult of a great festivity.
Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, Alain Lombard, cond. Erato, recorded c1972
* * *
Symphonie fantastique:
iii. Scène aux champs
3rd PART Scene in the fields
A summer evening in the country; he hears two shepherds who dialogue a "ranz des vaches"; this pastoral duo, the setting of the scene, the light rustling of the trees gently stirred by the wind, some trains of hope that he has recently developed, everything comes together to bring to his heart an unaccustomed calm, to give his ideas a more jocular color; but she appears again -- his heart is torn, dolorous presentiments disturb him: if she were deceiving him. . . . One of the shepherds repeats his naive melody; the other no longer answers. The sun retires . . . distant noise of thunder . . . solitude . . . silence . . .
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Paul Paray, cond. Mercury, recorded Nov. 28, 1959
* * *
Symphonie fantastique:
iv. Marche au supplice
4th PART March to the scaffold
He dreams that he killed the one he loved, that he is condemned to death, led to the scaffold. The procession advances, to the sounds of a march at once somber and fierce, at once brilliant and solemn, in which a noise of heavy steps gives way without transition to the most clamorous outbursts. At the end the idée fixe reappears for an instant, like a last thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Nov. 14-15, 1954
* * *
Symphonie fantastique:
v. Songe d'une nuit du sabbat
5th PART Dream of a night of witches' sabbath
He sees himself at the witches' sabbath, in the midst of a frightful troupe of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every sort gathered for his funeral. Strange noises, groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries to which other cries seem to respond. The beloved melody reappears again; but it has lost its character of nobility and shyness; it's no longer anything but a base, trivial, and grotesque dance; it's she who's come to the witches' sabbath. . . . Blast of joy at her arrival. . . . She mingles with the diabolical orgy. . . Funeral-bell tolling, burlesque parody of the Dies irae. Witches' sabbath round-dance. The witches' sabbath round-dance and the Dies irae together.
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Georges Prêtre, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Feb. 3, 1969
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
THE SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE
Here's a recording I like a lot, which I don't think has gotten as much attention as it deserves.
BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique; Episode from the life of an artist, Op. 14
i. Reveries. Passions
ii. A ball
iii. Scene in the fields
iv. March to the scaffold
v. Dream of a night of witches' sabbath
ii at 14:00, iii at 20:26. iv at 36:50, v at 41:39 Philharmonia Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. EMI, recorded November 1958
Valery Gergiev conducts the London Symphony in the concluding "Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea" from Debussy's La Mer in March 2007.
by Ken
After Friday's quick look at Debussy's world of piano miniatures, in last night's preview we left off with the full orchestral splendor of one of the staples of the orchestral repertory, the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. As I noted, it's part of one of the seemingly endless stream of busted plans and projects that lined the creative career of Debussy (1862-1918), in this case what was to have been an orchestral suite inspired by Mallarmé's poem "L'après-midi d'un faune" ("Afternoon of a Faun"). As with so many of those aborted projects, however, the yield was nonetheless some extraordinary music.
(Quick faun-check: Remember, we're not talking about a fawn, such as Bambi, but a faun, the half-man, half-goat Roman woodland spirit known for its insatiable horniness.) Here's the Afternoon of a Faun again:
Alain Marion, flute; Orchestre National de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon, cond. EMI, recorded 1973-74
Here's another work of Debussy that was born of a plan that didn't come to fruition the way that was intended, of all things a Rhapsody for Saxophone and Orchestra:
Jean-Marie Londeix, alto saxophone; Orchestre National de l'ORTF, Jean Martinon, cond. EMI, recorded 1973-74
LET'S PLAY OUR FAVORITE DEBUSSY GAME,
"WHICH CAME FIRST?"
Paula Robison plays Debussy's "Syrinx" at the 1986 Festival Casals in Puerto Rico.
If you spend much time among flutists -- a course of action I'm neither recommending nor especially warning against -- you'll find that "Syrinx" is one of the standbys to which they return constantly in warmups and instrumental noodling.
by Ken
You may have noticed that in last night's preview featuring three simple but exquisite little pieces by Claude Debussy (1862-11918), in assorted arrangements as well as the piano originals, I neglected to include dates of composition. This wasn't entirely neglect. Except in the broadest terms, I have more difficulty hearing time with Debussy than with almost any other composer. The dates just didn't seem to come into the discussion. For the record, the Suite bergamasque, which includes "Clair de lune" ("Moonlight"), was written around 1890.
PLEASE DON'T ASK WHAT BERGAMASQUE MEANS
It's a good question, and deserves an answer. The answer is that nobody knows. Oh, it has a bunch of linguistic analogs that suggest various meanings, but what exactly it means, we don't know. You might think it would help that Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)wrote a piece called Masques et bergamasques, but he didn't do that until 1919, when Debussy had recently died, and the likelihood is that what he meant by "Bergamasques" was, "whatever the heck Debussy meant, morbleu.")
David Oistrakh plays "Clair de lune" ("Moonlight") with trusted accompanist Frida Bauer in Paris, 1962.
by Ken
So you think you don't know from Claude Debussy (1862-1918)? Here are three little pieces, originally written for piano solo, that have been absorbed into the general culture, arranged for just about every imaginable performance situation.
(1) "Clair de lune" ("Moonlight")
arranged (again) for violin and piano
Jascha Heiftez, violin; Emanuel Bey, piano (arr. Roelens). American Decca/MCA, recorded Nov. 29, 1945 arranged for guitar Angel Romero, arr. and guitar. Telarc, recorded Aug. 3-6, 1987
played on the organ of New York City's Riverside Church
Virgil Fox, organ of the Riverside Church (New York City). Capitol/EMI, recorded Oct. 4, 1960
This is the first part (of three) of longtime pals Martha Argerich (born 1941) and Nelson Freire (born 1944) playing Rachmaninoff's delightful Second Suite for Two Pianos. (We last heard Argerich and Freire, separately, playing Schumann.) We'll hear more of the performance below.
by Ken
Friday night we heard the first movement of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, as played by Arthur Rubinstein and Fritz Reiner -- the way I first encountered the music on RCA's Rubinstein Heart of the Piano Concerto compilation LP. Last night we detoured to make a quick run through Rachmaninoff's "other" piece for piano and orchestra -- other than the four concertos, that is -- the wonderful Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Today we're back to the Second Concerto.
It's not Rachmaninoff's most ambitious concerto, which would be the Third. I know people who are nuts for the Third Concerto, but I've never warmed to it nearly as much as the Second, which seems to me not only one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, but one of the most amazingly well-balanced, in terms of its movements, in the classical literature.
Paganini started it all,with the theme that every composer wanted to write variations on -- as if Paganini (1782-1840) hadn't already done it himself in the 24th Caprice for solo violin. We've got a proper violin performance below, but here guitarist Eliot Fisk plays his own transcription.
by Ken
Last night we sampled the second of Sergei Rachmaninoff's four piano concertos, in anticipation of our look tomorrow at the entire piece. In addition to the four formal concertos, Rachmaninoff's piano-and-orchestra output includes a remarkable set of variations, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, on "the" Paganini tune. It's one of his most inspired and loved creations, and I don't know of any better way to illustrate the richness of his imagination than to make a tactical leap from the early variations to the most famous of them, the 18th (of 21).
To go back to the beginning, here's what Paganini actually wrote, as played by the young Itzhak Perlman.
PAGANINI: Caprice No. 24 in A minor
Itzhak Perlman, violin. RCA/BMG, recorded March 1965
The opening movement of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto works even if the soloist (Arkady Volodos here) doesn't have all that much imagination. Fortunately the movement (not quite complete -- these aren't exactly speedsters, and that introductory piffle runs the clock down) is nicely conducted by Riccardo Chailly.
by Ken
I explained recently how I was first exposed to Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto: via an RCA compilation LP called Heart of the Piano Concerto, which consisted of single movements from Arthur Rubinstein's then-most-recent RCA recordings of six popular piano concertos. It was the biting, driving Rondo finale of the Beethoven concerto that was included, and that had won my heart by the 50th or 60th playing.
MY SECOND-FAVORITE PIANO CONCERTO MOVEMENT WAS
THE OPENING OF RACHMANINOFF'S SECOND CONCERTO
No less than Van Cliburn introduces the piano-playing Serkins, Rudolf (1903-1991) and Peter (born 1947), playing Schubert's four-hand Military March in G, D. 733, No. 2, on the occasion of Serkin père's 85th birthday in 1988, from a 1988 concert featuring 26 pianists, issued by VAI.
"Rudolf Serkin was once asked, jokingly of course, if Beethoven had composed the Choral Fantasy for Marlboro. The piece has everything Marlboro could have wanted for its final concert: an orchestra in which everyone could play; solos within the orchestra; ensemble playing among various instruments; piano solo; and a chorus for everyone else in the Marlboro community. Rudolf Serkin responded, with his characteristic smile, 'No, Beethoven didn't compose it for Marlboro.... But he approves.'"
What Christopher Serkin, a distinguished law professor, discreetly doesn't mention here -- though his last name is certainly suggestive -- is that Rudolf Serkin, a co-founder of the Marlboro Music Festival who was for decades its presiding artistic spirit -- was his grandfather, and Peter Serkin, whom he later mentions conducts the Choral Fantasy performance included in this Marlboro anniversary issue, is his uncle. (Peter Serkin, while a dramatically different sort of musician from his father, established himself at an early age as one of the leading pianists of his generation. It's kind of weird, for me at least, to think that young Peter is now in his 60s.)
No less than Van Cliburn introduces the piano-playing Serkins, Rudolf (1903-1991) and Peter (born 1947), playing Schubert's four-hand Military March in G, D. 733, No. 2, on the occasion of Serkin père's 85th birthday in 1988, from a 1988 concert featuring 26 pianists, issued by VAI.
"Rudolf Serkin was once asked, jokingly of course, if Beethoven had composed the Choral Fantasy for Marlboro. The piece has everything Marlboro could have wanted for its final concert: an orchestra in which everyone could play; solos within the orchestra; ensemble playing among various instruments; piano solo; and a chorus for everyone else in the Marlboro community. Rudolf Serkin responded, with his characteristic smile, 'No, Beethoven didn't compose it for Marlboro.... But he approves.'"
What Christopher Serkin, a distinguished law professor, discreetly doesn't mention here -- though his last name is certainly suggestive -- is that Rudolf Serkin, a co-founder of the Marlboro Music Festival who was for decades its presiding artistic spirit -- was his grandfather, and Peter Serkin, whom he later mentions conducts the Choral Fantasy performance included in this Marlboro anniversary issue, is his uncle. (Peter Serkin, while a dramatically different sort of musician from his father, established himself at an early age as one of the leading pianists of his generation. It's kind of weird, for me at least, to think that young Peter is now in his 60s.)
Not many serious music people take the Choral Fantasy seriously, and for a long time I didn't get either. At some point the pieces fell into place, and that was thanks mostly to Rudolf Serkin's recordings. However, I was unaccountably unaware of something Christopher Serkin points out in his comment: "For almost 40 years, the Choral Fantasy was the last piece in the last [Marlboro Festival] concert of the summer." He goes on:
Especially in recent years when Marlboro has been exclusively a chamber music festival, the Choral Fantasy was the one time during the summer when all of the chamber musicians would come together into an orchestra, and the results were invariably magical. In any given year, the orchestra would include a mixture of some of the great luminaries of the musical world playing alongside brilliant younger musicians -- soloists and chamber musicians briefly forming an orchestra. For that one moment, it could be the greatest orchestra in the world. . . .
Despite all of the remarkable Choral Fantasy performances over the years, this CD marks the first time that a Marlboro recording of the piece has been released. Whatever one's view of the work itself, it represents Marlboro to many of us who have spent summers there.
[Note: You know where Amazon asks, at the end of each "customer review," "Was this review helpful to you?" When I looked, "27 out of 28 people found the following review helpful." I made it 28 out of 29. I'm wondering what the deal is with the person who didn't find this review helpful.]
We're going to talk more about the piece later. For now, let's just plunge into Serkin's first recording, made in 1962 as the second-side LP filler for his new recording of the Beethoven Third Concerto with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80
The most obvious observation to be made is that the Choral Fantasy of 1808 (thus at roughly the time of the Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral is a dry run for the monumental finale of the Ninth Symphony, which culminates in a setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy including four vocal soloists and chorus, composed more than a decade later. As in the finale of the Ninth, Beethoven takes us through a winding, surprise-filled landscape before we reach the unexpected choral destination. Wikipedia has German and English texts in a pleasantly sympathetic article on the Choral Fantasy. Here's Decca's translation:
Enticingly fair and lovely sound
the harmonies of our life,
and from a sense of beauty arise
glowers that bloom forever.
Peace and joy flow hand in hand
like the changing play of the waves;
what was crowded together in chaos and hostility
now shapes itself into exalted feeling.
When music's enchantment reigns
and poetry's consecration speaks,
wondrous things take shape;
night and storm change to light.
Outer peace, inner bliss
are the rulers of the happy man.
But the spring sun of the arts
causes light to flow from both.
Great things that have penetrated the heart
blossom anew and beautifully on high,
and the spirit that has soared up
is always echoed by a chorus of spirits.
Take them, then, you noble souls,
gladly, these gifts of noble art.
When love and strength are wedded together
mankind is rewarded with divine grace.
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Westminster Choir, New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded May 1, 1962
THERE'S SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT
BEETHOVEN'S FIVE PIANO CONCERTOS
It may be with his five piano concertos that Beethoven's link to Mozart feels most direct. They were written more than anything for the composers' own use, as exceedingly public demonstrations of what they could do. The concerto we know as Beethoven's Second could be one that Mozart never lived to write.
(Let's get the numbering straight: No, I'm not concerned about the earlier concerto or two Beethoven wrote. The "canon" is appropriately five concertos. But the first two have come down to us numbered wrong. The one we know as No. 2, which could pass for a concerto Mozart never lived to write, was composed first, and then "No. 1," the mighty C major Concerto, which recalls Mozart's grandest concerto, No. 25, also in C major, and expands it yet another step.)
The C major Concerto is thought to have been written in 1798 and revised in 1800, whereupon Beethoven seems to have set to work almost immediately on a companion piece in C minor, which also has an illustrious antecedent in Mozart's No. 24. We've already heard the finale of Beethoven's C minor Concerto. Let's listen now to the whole thing, in what I'm calling an "all-Rubinstein performance," assembled from his first three recordings of the piece. (I didn't consider using the fourth, from his third and final Beethoven concerto cycle, from 1975, with his young keyboard colleague Daniel Barenboim conducting, which I actually quite like, for all the evidence of Rubinstein's advancing age. But I don't have it on CD, which I guess says something about just how much I like it, at least relative to the earlier versions.)
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
ALL-RUBINSTEIN PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro con brio
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Symphony of the Air, Josef Krips, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded April 1956 ii. Largo
https://archive.org/embed/BeethovenPianoConcertoNo.3LargorubinsteinLeinsdorf Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Apr. 5-6, 1965 iii. Rondo: Allegro
Arthur Rubinstein, piano; NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded live, Oct. 29, 1944
ABOUT THE THIRD CONCERTO'S LINEAGE
You don't have to take my word -- listen for yourself. It seemed obvious to go with hour honorees Rubinstein and Serkin (and then, which of their recordings?), so I just picked one of each.
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491:
i. Allegro
Rudolf Serkin, piano; London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded October 1985
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15:
i. Allegro con brio
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Telarc, recorded Oct. 5, 1983
Here, then, is an "all-star" performance of the Third Concerto.
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
ALL-STAR PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro con brio
Murray Perahia, piano; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. CBS/Sony, recorded c1985 ii. Largo
Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Kurt Sanderling, cond. DG, recorded Sept. 28-30, 1962 iii. Rondo: Allegro
Rudolf Firkusny, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Walter Süsskind, cond. EMI, recorded c1958
We've already talked about the remarkable opening of Beethoven's Fourth Concerto, in last night's preview, so why don't we just go right into it? Note that the scale of the concluding Rondo has grown conspicuously over its predecessor, but between these mammoth outer movements, Beethoven chose to go short with the slow movement, which is nevertheless a piece of considerable emotional weight. Our "all-Schnabel performance" consists of one movement from each of Since Artur Schnabel's three recordings (about which more in a moment).
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
ALL-SCHNABEL PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro moderato
Artur Schnabel, piano; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. HMV/EMI, recorded Feb. 16, 1933 ii. Andante con moto
Artur Schnabel, piano; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded 1942 iii. Rondo: Vivace
Artur Schnabel, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Issay Dobrowen, cond. HMV/EMI, recorded June 5-7, 1946
Schnabel's 1932-35 Beethoven concerto cycle remains a recording landmark, not just historically but musically, and again -- as with the Pearl transfers of the equally legendary Beethoven sonata recordings -- my piano maven Leo tipped me off to one transfer from the 78s that's so far superior to any other he's heard as to make it an all-or-nothing proposition. This one, however, is readily available: It's Naxos's, done by Mark Obert-Thorn.
THE LATER SCHNABEL BEETHOVEN CONCERTOS
In 1946-47 EMI had the excellent idea of rerecording Schnabel in the Beethoven concertos, taking advantage of all the improvements in recording technology, and two concertos were recorded each year. (In 1942, as we know, Schnabel had rerecorded No. 4 with the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock. They also recorded No. 5, the Emperor. Schnabel never did rerecord No. 1.)
Even though Schnabel was still Schnabel -- and it should be said that, while he put up with it, he hated the recording process -- and two very good conductors, Issay Dobrowen and Alceo Galliera, were engaged (though Galliera, who was brought in for the 1947 Emperor, was only 37, and possibly more influenceable if anyone had wished to influence him), not many music lovers have ever been wildly enthusiastic about the remakes, which objectively seem like Schnabel performances but just don't seem to have the inner life of the real thing. (This sounds horribly pat coming so soon after my vicious attack on Walter Legge for systematically draining outstanding musicians' recorded performances of the connective tissue that made their real performances sound so different, but the symptoms do seem to fit. Do I have to tell you who produced those 1946-47 recordings?
With that, let's have one final go at the Fourth Concerto:
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
ALL-STAR PERFORMANCE
i. Allegro moderato
Leon Fleisher, piano; Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Epic/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 10, 1959 ii. Andante con moto
Wilhelm Kempff, piano; Berlin Philharmonic, Ferdinand Leitner, cond. DG, recorded July 1961 iii. Rondo: Vivace
Emil Gilels, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Leopold Ludwig, cond. EMI, recorded Apr. 26-May 1, 1957
THE LINE ENDS WITH THE EMPEROR
After the Fourth Concerto, Beethoven did return to the piano concerto once more, to produce the grandest and most majestic of the series, the Emperor. It's possible that this is as far as he could have taken the concerto form, but we'll never know, because although his voluminous musical sketchbooks do contain sketches for a sixth concerto, it was never written, and apparently for the simplest of reasons: The composer's hearing had deteriorated to the point where public performance with an orchestra was no longer a realistic possibility.
His most remarkable music was yet to be written, and in a quantity that seems astonishing under the circumstances. But it was increasingly music that he heard only in his head, and not surprisingly his gaze turned increasingly inward. He also had increasingly less need of a form that enabled him to express harmony, however hard-fought, with the universe.
TO RETURN FINALLY TO THE CHORAL FANTASY
Though its opus number is higher, the Choral Fantasy was written shortly before the Emperor, and while it can seem like a wild hodgepodge, to its admirers its wildness is one of its glories.
I'm not going to attempt a detailed analysis. Wikipedia's article, as I noted earlier, does a surprisingly effective job of it. I'm just going to suggest a way of listening to it, focusing on the hysterically overwrought piano solo that occupies roughly the first four minutes.
I think it's important to recognize that it is overwrought. I've just been listening to Vladimir Ashkenazy's self-conducted recording, which rounds out the Beethoven concerto cycle from which we heard the first movement of the Fourth Concerto last night. Ashkenazy plays the music with the utmost beauty; I'm quite sure I've never heard it played with this roundness and finish of tone. He makes it all sound quite logical, quite reasonable, and really rather unintersting, even pointless. Not surprisingly, his performance really has nowhere to go from there.
I don't want to suggest anything quite as extreme as "parody," but there is definitely the sense of a grand orator, a rhetorician trying desperately to express matters too grand and important to be readily within reach, at least at this particular moment, and coming off as maybe slightly hysterical. I'm not sure I would go so far as to suggest that it's even "humorous," but surely there is something going on in the innards of this solo, which doesn't seem able to figure out where it's trying to get let alone how to get there. The word "ironic" comes to mind, or maybe better "laconic."
And here we're in terrain where Rudolf Serkin ruled. I know I'm risking accusations of gross ethnic stereotyping, but I don't think of Germans as being an especially humorous people. Oh sure, there are funny Germans, but by and large it doesn't seem to be a trait that comes quite naturally. But irony, laconic-ness (laconicity?), a sense of the wry -- this is something that is far from uncommon among cultured Germans, and this I sense Serkin had a large supply of. Attitudinally, in other words, I think he was born to champion the Choral Fantasy.
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Nan Nall (s), Beverly Morgan (ms), Shirley Close (ms), Gene Tucker (t), Sanford Sylvan (b), David Evitts (b), Marlboro Festival Chorus and Orchestra, Peter Serkin, cond. Sony, recorded live, Aug. 9, 1981
When the orchestra finally makes its relatively inconspicuous entrance, there's a sort of sense that it's extending a hand, trying to guide the piano gently back from the precipice. And sure enough, with a little working out the piano is able to get it together enough to announce, now with some confidence, the simple, charming little ditty that will eventually provide the grand vocal finale in the way that the dittylike "Ode to Joy" tune later would in the finale of the Ninth Symphony. Whereupon the orchestra takes up the tune for a set of quite charming variations, at first with minimal contribution from the piano, which eventually rallies to make its own contribution.
As I mentioned last night, there is now a fourth commercially issued Serkin recording of the Choral Fantasy, with Orfeo's release of the Beethoven concerto cycle he did in 1977 with Rafael Kubelik and the Bavarian Radio Symphony, which included the Choral Fantasy. Now that I know it exists, I'll be watching for a copy that falls within my "cheapskate" price range, but for the moment you're spared.
We do have one last recording, though, and this one has the best singers and chorus.
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op. 80
Rudolf Serkin, piano; Faye Robinson (s), Mary Burgess (s), Lili Chookasian (c), Kenneth Riegel (t), David Gordon (b), Julien Robbins (bs); Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Telarc, recorded Oct. 2 and 4, 1982
REVIEWING THIS WEEK'S PREVIEWS
Friday:Beethoven and the "heart of the piano concerto"
Rondo from Piano Concerto No. 3 played by Arthur Rubinstein, with the Symphony of the Air under Josef Krips); also by Krystian Zimerman (video, with the Vienna Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein) and by Evgeny Kissin (with the London Symphony under Sir Colin Davis). Plus Rubinstein "Beethoven bonus": Moonlight Sonata.
Saturday:Down in the basement with Beethoven
1st movement of Concerto No. 4, played by Artur Schnabel, with the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock (1942); also by Claudio Arrau (video, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti), by Arthur Rubinstein (with the Symphony of the Air under Krips), and by Vladimir Ashkenazy (also conducting the Cleveland Orchestra). Plus Schnabel "Beethoven bonuses": Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90; Bagatelle, Für Elise.
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