So I slapped on this CD I'd picked up -- and had to share this little Intermezzo, Cavatine, and Andante con moto

Yehudi Menuhin, violin; Jacques Février, piano. EMI, recorded Nov. 22-30, 1971

by Ken

Yes, I know we still have important work to complete on Schubert's song "An die Musik," Richard Strauss's song "Zueignung," and the Composer's memorable declaration in the Prologue to Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos that "Music is a holy art," dealing with the important (to me, anyway) questions: (1) What links them? (2) What the hell does it matter? The next, and hopefully final, installment is mostly written, though I suspect that a good part of what keeps me from trying to push it to completion is the fear that it isn't as near to completion as I'm pretending.

Meanwhile, did you listen to the little Intermezzo above? Is that beautiful or what? And did you note Yehudi Menuhin channeling an inner Gypsy I didn't know he had in him. That Intermezzo is one of three movements that grabbed my attention on a CD I slapped on while doing something-or-other at the computer -- all, interestingly, slow movements, from three different works by the same composer. And if you don't know who he is as we listen to the other two, so much the better, because if I hadn't known, I doubt that I would have guessed, and especially not from these slow movements, because even though this is a composer I'm reasonably familiar with, I don't have very good "markers" to identify his music, especially not music of this sort. Or rather these sorts, since these three slow movements are hardly peas in a pod.

So let's listen to a little Cavatine and a little Andante con moto.

Sonata for Cello and Piano:
ii. Cavatine

Pierre Fournier, cello; Jacques Février, piano. EMI, recorded Nov. 22-30, 1971

Trio for Piano, Oboe, and Bassoon:
ii. Andante con moto

Jacques Février, piano; Robert Casier, oboe; Gérard Faisandier, bassoon. EMI, recorded Jan. 20-21, 1964


"THE GUITAR MAKES DREAMS WEEP"

Dept. of Unfinished Business: Lean to the left, lean to the right, stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!

"The people all said, 'Sit down! Sit down, you're rocking the boat!"
[Watch this Tony Awards clip based on the 1992 Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls (which includes a full-cast version of the song "Guys and Dolls") on YouTube.]


Walter Bobbie (Nicely-Nicely Johnson); from the 1992 Broadway Cast Recording, Edward Strauss, musical dir. RCA, recorded May 3, 1992

Stubby Kaye (Nicely-Nicely); Original Broadway Cast recording, Irving Actman, cond. American Decca, recorded Dec. 3, 1950

David Healy (Nicely-Nicely); National Theatre Cast Recording, Tony Britten, cond. EMI, recorded April 1982

"Stand, Old Ivy! Stand firm and strong!"
[Watch the this whole scene from the 2011 Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, albeit in murky video and audio, via this YouTube clip. ("Grand Old Ivy" begins at 2:11.)]


Daniel Radcliffe (J. Pierrepont Finch), John Larroquette (J. B. Biggley); from the 2011 Broadway Cast Recording, David Chase, cond. Decca Broadway, recorded Apr. 10-12, 2011

Robert Morse (Finch), Rudy Vallee (Biggley); Original Broadway Cast Recording, Elliot Lawrence, musical dir. RCA, recorded Oct. 22, 1961

Robert Morse (Finch), Rudy Vallee (Biggley); film soundtrack recording, Nelson Riddle, music supervision. United Artists, recorded 1967

Matthew Broderick (Finch), Ronn Carroll (Biggley); 1995 Broadway Cast Recording, Ted Sperling, cond. RCA, recorded Apr. 2, 1995

by Ken

It's just a coincidence, I swear, more or less, even as I was thinking of a way into this unexpectedly fraught question of when to stand up and when to sit down I happened to be gradually working my way through Thomas L. Riis's 2008 Yale University Press study Frank Loesser (in a $2 thrift-shop purchase of a pristine hard-cover copy). After all, on any given subject it's likely that we can find toe-tapping wisdom from the master.


COULD WE TAKE A QUICK SECOND LOOK AT THESE VIDEO CLIPS?

"An die Musik": How does a musical setting (of a "not strikingly original" poem) that's "conventional in every way save for its greatness" achieve that greatness? (Part C of A-B-C)

Or: "Speaking of Schubert's 'An die Musik,' Strauss's 'Zueignung,' and the Ariadne Prologue, a few (eventually) final questions, Part 1Yc" (following last week's Part "1X")

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! In the light of (another) day, I've brazenly added a sixth version, Christa Ludwig's, to the five performances we were already tracking through Graham Johnson's observations about "An die Musik."


In this continuation of the February 2012 master class at the Jerusalem Music Centre we dipped into in Part B, Graham Johnson works with Hungarian-born mezzo-soprano Hanna Bardos (with pianist Emma Walker) on Schubert's "Death and the Maiden."

TODAY'S A-B-C POST AT THE TIP
OF YOUR CLICKING FINGER

Part A (nos. 1-3 + other stuff)
Part B (nos. 4-7 + other stuff)
Part C (nos. 8-10 + other stuff)

by Ken

Once again, for reasons of capacity somewhere along the distribution line, presumably on account of all those damned (oops, that just slipped out) audio and other embedded files, I had to break this post up -- and broke it, for safety's sake, into not two but three postlets. In part B we left off with no. 7 (in my pedantically imposed numeration), the piano postlude to the first stanza of "An die Musik":

The piano postlude mirrors this descent in a succession of sequences of chords built around appoggiaturas which lean and sigh, tugging on the sleeve and pulling the heartstrings. A simple yet heart-stopping excursion into the subdominant subtly emphasises that this hymn of praise is also a type of prayer.

[We're going to hear that postlude again (and again and again and . . .) in the audio clips for no. 8. -- Ed.]

OKAY, LET'S GET BACK TO IT!

"An die Musik": How does a musical setting (of a "not strikingly original" poem) that's "conventional in every way save for its greatness" achieve that greatness? (Part B of A-B-C)

Or: "Speaking of Schubert's 'An die Musik,' Strauss's 'Zueignung,' and the Ariadne Prologue, a few (eventually) final questions, Part 1Yb" (following last week's Part "1X")

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! In the light of (another) day, I've brazenly added a sixth version, Christa Ludwig's, to the five performances we were already tracking through Graham Johnson's observations about "An die Musik."

"In reality, the song is a dialogue between the voice and the pianist's left hand, the quasi-cello bass line of the music. The right hand is the true accompanist and mediator in this heavenly conversation; it pulsates in a way which is crucial to the mood of the song although the listener may only be subliminally aware of its magic."

-- from Graham Johnson's commentary on "An die Musik," in
the Hyperion Schubert Edition (©1994 Graham Johnson)

Part of a February 2012 master class at the Jerusalem Music Centre in which Graham Johnson works with Hungarian-born mezzo-soprano Hanna Bardos (and pianist Emma Walker) on Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" -- and among many interesting points gives her his thinking about tempo and composers' metronome markings (and what he considers the understandable but often misplaced desire to manufacture "drama"), offering her the opportunity to persuade him otherwise! (We'll see and hear a good deal more of this in Part C.)

TODAY'S A-B-C POST AT THE TIP
OF YOUR CLICKING FINGER

Part A (nos. 1-3 + other stuff)
Part B (nos. 4-7 + other stuff)
Part C (nos. 8-10 + other stuff)

by Ken

This isn't the time or place for fooling around, so let's just pick up right where we left off in Part A, at no. 3: "After 'wilder Kreis umstrickt' an eloquent little falling chromatic motif in the left hand (a single bar) is a prelude to the magic which will lift the spirits (and the vocal line) into higher regions."

Before we go on, however, one question: Does it occur to other listeners, with regard to the observation of Graham's requoted above, "In reality, the song is a dialogue between the voice and the pianist's left hand, the quasi-cello bass line of the music," that others of the pianists we've been tracking -- perhaps all of them? -- make more of this in their performances than Graham does in his?

Anyway, onward!

[4] "At this point a generous and eloquent four-bar phrase takes wing ('hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb entzunden'), this time without the dallying on long low notes which has characterised earlier phrases. It is as if the whole song has caught fire and is aglow with the warmth of the music itself."

"An die Musik": How does a musical setting (of a "not strikingly original" poem) that's "conventional in every way save for its greatness" achieve that greatness? (Part A of A-B-C)

Or: "Speaking of Schubert's 'An die Musik,' Strauss's 'Zueignung,' and the Ariadne Prologue, a few (eventually) final questions, Part 1Ya" (following last week's Part "1X")

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! In the light of (another) day, I've brazenly added a sixth version, Christa Ludwig's, to the five performances we were already tracking through Graham Johnson's observations about "An die Musik."

"The poem . . . is not strikingly original . . . . [T]he setting is conventional in every way . . . save for its greatness. Sincerity and heartfelt devotion seem to emanate from every note, and also a type of exaltation which enable us to glimpse for a moment the transfigured state, remarked on by his contemporaries, in which Schubert wrote his music."

-- from Graham Johnson's commentary on "An die Musik,"
in Vol. 21 of the 37-volume Hyperion Schubert Edition

"In reality, the song is a dialogue between the voice and the pianist's left hand, the quasi-cello bass line of the music. The right hand is the true accompanist and mediator in this heavenly conversation; it pulsates in a way which is crucial to the mood of the song although the listener may only be subliminally aware of its magic."

-- also from Graham Johnson's commentary

TODAY'S A-B-C POST AT THE TIP
OF YOUR CLICKING FINGER

Part A (nos. 1-3 + other stuff)
Part B (nos. 4-7 + other stuff)
Part C (nos. 8-10 + other stuff)

by Ken

Last week we had an overview of "An die Musik", drawing on the above-sourced commentary on the song by Graham Johnson, who in addition to being one of the day's most acclaimed accompanists served as both artistic director and album commentator for Hyperion Records' invaluable Schubert Edition, a gathering of all the composer's songs in 37 volumes -- by comparison, setting aside the zillion other records he's made, the other song-compendia he's undertaken for Hyperion (of Brahms, Schumann, and Fauré and Poulenc and a number of less prolific French composers) seem like just another day's work. (Hyperion has enlisted other pianists for other song compendia, including Liszt and Richard Strauss.)

I said that this week Graham would be leading us through the song, and so he will -- through its entire vast spaces -- all of three minutes, and at that in strophic form, meaning that its two stanzas (or strophes) are essentially identical musically. And so, while we have a number of issues, both substantive and procedural to address, I thought we would plunge right in with the first of ten specific points Graham makes. (I should add that the pedantic numbering of those points has been added by yours truly, to help us keep track of where we are in this broken-up format.)


WELL, BEFORE WE PLUNGE IN, MAYBE WE SHOULD
HAVE ONE MORE BIT OF OVERVIEW FROM GRAHAM

In reality, the song is a dialogue between the voice and the pianist's left hand, the quasi-cello bass line of the music. The right hand is the true accompanist and mediator in this heavenly conversation; it pulsates in a way which is crucial to the mood of the song although the listener may only be subliminally aware of its magic. Except in the postlude to each verse, these chords have no special thematic significance, but the piano needs to repeat notes in order to sustain a harmonic background, and the accompanist has to find a means of allowing these chords to 'happen' without appearing to strike each one individually -- something which would break the music into a succession of pedantic downbeats. Underneath what should be a gliding stream of harmony, the left hand sings its heart out, warming the voice into action.

©1994 Graham Johnson

AND SHOULD WE MAYBE HEAR THE SONG STRAIGHT
THROUGH AGAIN? YES, I REALLY THINK WE SHOULD

A poem that's "not strikingly original" in a setting that's "conventional in every way save for its greatness" -- let's welcome back Schubert's "An die Musik"

Or: "Speaking of Schubert's 'An die Musik,' Strauss's 'Zueignung,' and the Ariadne Prologue, a few (eventually) final questions, Part 1X"

"The poem . . . is not strikingly original . . . . [T]he setting is conventional in every way . . . save for its greatness. Sincerity and heartfelt devotion seem to emanate from every note, and also a type of exaltation which enable us to glimpse for a moment the transfigured state, remarked on by his contemporaries, in which Schubert wrote his music."

-- from Graham Johnson's commentary on "An die Musik,"
in Vol. 21 of the 37-volume Hyperion Schubert Edition

"I always think of this song as a prayer, an expression of deep gratitude, felt deeply at a time when there is so much suffering elsewhere."

-- Lotte Lehmann, in her introduction to her broadcast
performance of "An die Musik" on Oct. 8, 1941

Lotte Lehmann, soprano; Paul Ulanowsky, piano; with spoken introduction by the singer. American radio broadcast, Oct. 8, 1941

by Ken

Yes, we're still technically engaged in the stretched-out post that began last week with "Speaking of Schubert's 'An die Musik,' Strauss's 'Zueignung,' and the Ariadne Prologue, a few (eventually) final questions, Part 1." If the classification is important, we might call this "Part 1A," or maybe "Part 1X" (as I've styled it provisionally above), since it's not only an interlude of sorts but actually a prelude to the interlude -- it won't become clear, or clearish, till next week, why suddenly we're listening to Lotte Lehmann's October 1941 broadcast performance of the song.

My original thought, when I decided we ought to spend more time with "An die Musik," was to make this a brief pre-post to a later-today fuller follow-up post devoted to this unique Schubert song, to be finished up in time to get to a Sunday-afternoon walking tour. However, to give myself a better shot at getting to the tour and getting some Saturday-night sleep, I decided to cut myself even more slack and defer the fuller rehearing of "An die Musik" to next week, which then will be Part I-don't-know-what in this series.

The Lotte Lehmann performance above is from the second of the 15-minute radio broadcasts the 53-year-old singer did on 13 consecutive Wednesday evenings in the fall of 1941, backed by trusted accompanist Paul Ulanowsky. The programs, generally consisting of three or four songs by a single composer (weighted toward his best-known, and introduced by the singer, as "An die Musik" is here), kicked off on October 1st with Beethoven. On October 8th, after "An die Musik," she sang the beloved "Serenade" from the Schwanengesang collection and, for a big finish, the harrowing "Erlkönig." (I'm thinking maybe we should hear the rest of this little broadcast group. Yes, stay tuned, I think we can work it in.)


IT'S LUCKY THAT THE E-ROOM IS MOSTLY CLEARED,
AS I'M ABOUT TO OWN UP TO A DEEP CHARACTER FLAW