A holiday post of sorts: Werther may not qualify as "merry," but isn't it as completely a "Christmas opera" as you could imagine?

[NOTE: THIS ISN'T THE POST (OR ANY OF THE POSTS)
PLANNED FOR TODAY -- I'LL EXPLAIN EVENTUALLY]

Christmas in July: Curtain rise of Werther [4:28 of the audio clip] finds the Bailiff -- here Jonathan Summers, seen with the younger children and the oldest, Charlotte (Joyce DiDonato), at Covent Garden in 2016 -- trying to coax out of his now-motherless brood a passable rendering of their little Christmas song. With such labors, he clearly believes, it's never too early to begin.

The Bailiff's House (July 178_). At left, the house, with a wide bay window, with a usable veranda covered with greenery, accessed by a wooden stairway. At right, the garden. At the rear, a small door with a clear view. In front, a fountain. THE BAILIFF is sitting on the veranda with his youngest children, whom he's having sing.

The curtain rises on a great burst of laughter, very prolonged, from the children.

THE BAILIFF [grumbling]: Enough! Enough!
Will you listen to me this time?
Let's start again! Let's start again!
Above all not too much voice, not too much voice!
THE CHILDREN [singing brusquely, very loud and without nuance]: Noël! Noël! Noël!
Jesus has just been born,
here is our divine master . . .
BAILIFF [overlapping, annoyed]:
But no! It's not that!
No! No! It's not that!
[Severely] Do you dare to sing that way
when your sister Charlotte is in there?
She must be hearing everything on the other side of the door!
[The CHILDREN have appeared totally moved at CHARLOTTE's name. They take up the "Noël" again with seriousness.]
CHILDREN: Noël! . . .
BAILIFF: That's good!
CHILDREN: Noël! . . .
BAILIFF: That's good!
CHILDREN: Jesus has just been born,
here is our divine master,
kings and shepherds of Israel!
In the firmament,
faithful guardian angels
have opened their wings wide,
and go about everywhere singing: Noël!
BAILIFF [joining in]: Noël! &c
[And as the CHILDREN continue the "Noël" --]
It's just like that!
Noël! Noël Noël! Noël Noël!

[curtain rise at 4:28] Kurt Moll (bs), the Bailiff; West German Radio (WDR) Symphony Orchestra, Cologne, Riccardo Chailly, cond. DG, recorded in the Forumhalle, Leverkusen (across the Rhine from Cologne), February 1979

by Ken

And if Werther begins with "Christmas in July," it ends, of course, on Christmas Eve (in French "la nuit de Noël," "Christmas Night," which to them is definitely Christmas Eve and not, as we might take it, "the night of Christmas Day"). Let's recall the purely orchestral Scene 1 of Act IV:

Stage direction for the scene: "The little village of Wetzlar, Christmas Eve. -- The moon casts a great clarity on the roofs and trees, covered with snow. -- Some windows light up little by little. -- It's snowing. -- Then total obscurity."

West German Radio (WDR) Symphony Orchestra, Cologne, Riccardo Chailly, cond. DG, recorded in the Forumhalle, Leverkusen (across the Rhine from Cologne), February 1979


WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE CONTINUING (OR REALLY FINISHING UP) WITH SCHUBERT'S THREE SERENADES

As all veteran serenaders know, the enterprise comes with no guarantee of success

Serenade by Judith Leyster (1609-1660), in the Rijksmuseum

Let's see how these randomly chosen serenaders make out --
and how they handle, er, lack of response (oops, spoiler!)

Brigitte Fassbaender, mezzo-soprano; with women of the Bavarian State Opera Chorus, Munich; Erik Werba, piano. EMI, recorded in the Bürgerbräu, Munich, June 18-20, 1973

Sarah Walker, mezzo-soprano; with male vocal ensemble (6 tenors, 5 baritones and basses); Graham Johnson, piano. From Vol. 8 of the Hyperion Schubert Edition, recorded May 29-31, 1989

Peter Schreier, tenor; András Schiff, piano. Decca, recorded in the Mozartsaal of the Vienna Konzerthaus, August 1989

Håkan Hagegård, baritone; Emanuel Ax, piano. RCA, recorded in RCA Studio A, New York City, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 1984

Matthias Goerne, baritone; Alfred Brendel, piano. Decca, recorded live in Wigmore Hall, Nov. 5 & 7, 2003

by Ken

To recapitulate: We have slid through a wormhole into the world of Schubert's serenades. We came by way of matters larkish -- originally my fondly remembered old trio of larks: Haydn's Lark Quartet (Op. 64, No. 5), Nicolai's setting of Shakespeare's "Hark, hark, the lark" in Act II of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Vaughan Williams's "rhapsody for violin and orchstra The Lark Ascending. (The relevant posts are "Just so you know what we're up to: Three familiar larks, a bonus lark, and (oh yes!) Death and a maiden," Oct. 16, and "If we're musical-lark-harking, we really need to count the number of: (1) 'hark's and (2) stanzas ['finally' (?) updated version]," Nov. 21.


THEN I REMEMBERED THAT SCHUBERT
TOO HAD SET "HARK, HARK, THE LARK"

From the Loose Ends Dept.:Yet another Schubert serenade

TEMPORARY POST, I think (so that, with this chunk of music "ready," I can hear it in this form -- and I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to too)

FRIDAY UPDATE: We've added a performance each for D. 920 and D. 921 -- featuring big-time talent: Janet Baker and Christa Ludwig

Brigitte Fassbaender (born 1939): Listen to either of her performances of the serenade "Zögernd leise" (she recorded both of Schubert's versions) and see if you don't feel you've been in the presence of a great singer.

❡

What we'll be doing, as best I can scope it out at present, is rehearing "the" Schubert Serenade, "Leise flehen" (you know, the one from the song collection Schubert had done so much work on without putting it in final form, published posthumously as Schwanengesang, or "Swan Song"; maybe in some performances we haven't heard?) and "the other" Schubert Serenade (the "Hark, hark, the lark" setting that got us into this whole territory) along with this utterly captivating "newcomer," of which we have these four quite different but pretty wonderful peformances (just note, in the piano introd, as dramatic and grabbing as it is brief, how differently our four pianists hear it, setting such interestingly different tones for the performances to come), and we may want to fill some of the gaps we've left from these staggeringly productive last couple of years of Schubert's life.

Example: The earliest of the three serenades, "Horch, horch, die Lerch' im Ätheblau," D. 889, was written days after he finished what would be his last string quartet, No. 15 in G major, D. 887 (though the sublime String Quintet was still to come), and especially considering the overpowering need Schubert felt near the very end -- as Graham Johnson laid it out for us -- to hear Beethoven's Op. 131 Quartet (which friends managed to arrange for him to hear, and we heard it too), which tells us so much about where his head was musically at this point, I'm thinking maybe we should hear not just the G major Quartet but its predecessor, No. 14, the Death and the Maiden Quartet (an imposing work in its own right, but still a leap behind the G major), and the String Quintet as well. Meanwhile . . . . -- Ken

SCHUBERT: Ständchen, "Zögernd leise, in des Dunkels nächt'ger Stille" ("Lingering quietly, in the dark's nighttime stillness"), 1st and 2nd versions, D. 920 and 921

Let's have a first look at a project we're going to be undertaking

THERE'VE BEEN NOTABLE UPDATES (SORTA MARKED) SINCE
FIRST POSTING -- NOT PLANNED, THEY JUST KINDA HAPPENED

We note the obvious trend going from performance A to F, right? (With just an interesting variant in the B-C sequence)

[UPDATE NOTE: If you just want to get your toes wet to start, focus just on the Andante con moto section, which ranges -- rather amazingly! -- from roughly 1:25 to 2:40 in our specimens. (This was my original plan anyway for first presentation of these clips, rather than going to the huge hassle, not to mention blog-loading drain, of adding shorter new clips.) Btw, since that first score page took us so close to the end of the Andante non troppo, I've added another chunk to get us there and into the Allegro non troppo.]

[A]

[Allegro moderato at 1:25] Full symphony orchestra, March 1957
[B]

[Allegro moderato at 1:56] Reduced-size orchestra, December 1986
[C]

[Allegro moderato at 1:53] Chamber orchestra, February 1986
[D]

[Allegro moderato at 2:09] Full symphony orchestra, 1988-89
[E]

[Allegro moderato at 2:26] Reduced-size orchestra, June 1958
[F]

[Allegro moderato at 2:42] Full symphony orchestra, October 1970

by Ken

Okay, so maybe a minor derailment here. I was aiming for a post that would in some way tie up our loose ends and dangling threads regarding musical larks, serenades, and the tragic case of Schubert, and also a separate post (or maybe two) to wrap up our Ives explorations (it's looking likelier that we're going to culminate with Ives's most ambitious creations: the Concord Sonata and the Fourth Symphony, which -- even just whizzing through -- are both sizable work units). And this is still the hope. It's just that each of these topics, which we'd all dearly love to be done with, kept throwing up obstacles that sent me in as much of a sideways as a forward direction.

Meanwhile, I've got a good start on another project, which without any such specific intention will actually continue one of the above-enumerated threads, and while the bulk of that project is still in the drawing-board stage, there's enough ready -- or at least there was enough ready once I added some music -- to allow what might have been a mere teaser to stand pretty well on its own.


YOU LIKELY RECOGNIZED THE MUSIC WE JUST HEARD

When you think "Schubert Serenade," isn't this the one -- "one of the most beloved of melodies" -- you're thinking of? (Part 2)

ALONG OUR WAY, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO PAUSE
TO LISTEN TO THE LAST MUSIC SCHUBERT HEARD

This photo of Graham Johnson, taken by Malcolm Crowthers at the site of Schubert's original grave, graces the cover of the 37th and final volume (titled "The Final Year") of the Hyperion Schubert Edition. In the booklet, among many other matters, Graham tells the horrible story of Schubert's final and unexpectedly quick descent, aware that he wasn't far from his end, which came on November 19, 1928, more than two months shy of his 32nd birthday. In chronicling the aftermath, Graham tells us:

Schubert was fortunate to have a devoted brother in Ferdinand, who went to some trouble to fulfil the composer's whispered dying wishes. Normally the body, after a blessing of a local church, would have been taken to the official burial ground for the Wieden district; but Schubert had said in his last hours that he wished to lie next to Beethoven. This was the last and most profound of his pleas that his contemporaries, and thus all of us who have come after him, should identify him with his immortal forebear. It was a desire stemming from the very heart of Schubert's own belief in his place in musical history, and it was honoured by his friends and family, some of whom, even then, sensed the justice of his beliefs.

Schubert's body was taken some distance to the Währinger cemetery where Beethoven had been buried the year before. It was not possible for him to lie right next to the older composer, but he was placed two grave plots away from his idol. (Schumann later went to visit the graves and wrote to Clara that he rather envied the man who lay between them -- a certain Colonel O'Donnell.) A permanent memorial, designed by Schober, and with a bust by Josef Dialer and an inscription by Grillparzer (quoted at the top of this essay) --

Die Tonkunst begrub hier einen reichen Besitz aber noch viel schönere Hoffnungen
(The art of music here buried a rich possession but far fairer hopes)

was erected in 1830. Care seems to have been taken that the Greek temple-like construction should not stand as high as the Beethoven column to the left of it. Fifty-eight years later Schubert's body and Beethoven's were exhumed and taken to the grand, and rather inappropriately pompous, new monuments in the Zentralfriedhof [Central Cemetery] (The one appropriate thing about this new locale is that the tombs of Schubert and Wolf are situated back-to-back as if representing different sides of the art of lieder.) The Währinger cemetery ceased to be consecrated ground and was turned into a park. Today Turkish children play in the 'Schubert Park' without having any idea why oddly emotional admirers (myself and the photographer Malcolm Crowthers among them -- see the cover of this disc) should pay attention to those rather uncared-for memorials situated between a wall and a pathway overrun by youngsters' bicycles.

The pair of graves between those of the two composers are no longer identified. Beethoven and Schubert now lie, if not exactly together, then inextricably linked, each within the space of his own immortality. In this unlikely space in an unfashionable corner of Vienna, and despite an ugly backdrop of council flats erected in the 1920s, we recapture the scale of Biedermeier culture with greater accuracy than in the stately memorials built in the era of Franz Josef.     ⓒ2000 by Graham Johnson

FROM SCHUBERT'S FINAL DAYS, GRAHAM SHARES
A GRIPPING DETAIL WE OUGHT TO FOLLOW UP ON

The obsession with Beethoven continues right until the end. In his last days Schubert expressed a desire to hear Beethoven's C sharp minor Quartet Op 131: this was arranged thanks to the violinist Karl Holz and his colleagues. Holz later recounted his memories. 'Schubert was sent into such transports of delight and enthusiasm and was so overcome that we all feared for him . . . the quartet was to be the last music he heard. The king of harmony had sent the king of song a friendly bidding to the crossing'.

WHAT THE DYING SCHUBERT SO BADLY WANTED TO HEAR --
BEETHOVEN: String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131:

i. Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo [at 0:01]
ii. Allegro molto vivace [at 6:50]
iii. Allegro moderato [at 10:02]
iv. Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile [at 10:50]
v. Presto [at 25:02]
vi. Adagio quasi un poco andante [at 30:52]
vii. Allegro [at 32:54]

Barylli Quartet (Walter Barylli and Otto Strasser, violins; Rudolf Streng, viola; Richard Krotschak, cello). Westminster, recorded in the Mozartsaal of the Vienna Konzerthaus, 1952

by Ken

We left off with our sights on the "Serenade" from Schubert's posthumous final song collection, Schwanengesang. As promised, we're going to have Graham Johnson lead us through three chunks of the song, to give you a tiny sampling of some of the kinds of things that turn up in his voluminous Hyperion Schubert Edition commentaries.


BUT FIRST, THERE ARE VINTAGE PERFORMANCES
OF OUR "STÄNDCHEN" I'D REALLY LIKE TO SHARE

When you think "Schubert Serenade," isn't this the one -- "one of the most beloved of melodies" -- you're thinking of? (Part 1)

"This is probably the most famous serenade in the world, but the cost of such fame to the music has been high. It has become so hackneyed, and such a symbol of Schubert in his Lilac Time incarnation, that one must always make a constant effort to hear it with fresh ears."

-- Graham Johnson, in his booklet commentary on
the "Ständchen" from Schubert's Schwanengesang

According to Vladimir Horowitz: "This is one of the finest of all Liszt's arrangements of Schubert songs. At first deceptively simple, this transcription of one of the most beloved of melodies demands more and more pianistic control over balance, dynamics and color until, in the last variation, the pianist is required to create the illusion that he has three hands playing three separate dynamic levels and individual colors: the melody, a canonic echo of the melody, and the accompaniment. The effect can be sheer magic, transcending what is ordinarily expected of the instrument. This is one of my favorite Schubert-Liszt transcriptions."

-- liner note for V.H.'s DG recording (edited by Thomas Frost)
[hold on, we are going to hear it -- wait just a moment!]

This, as reimagined by Franz Liszt, is the "Schubert Serenade"
we've been hearing -- to Liszt, the "Ständchen von Shakespeare"


Setrak, piano. EMI France, released 1975

Yevgeny Kissin (age 19), piano. DG, recorded in Bavaria-Studio, Munich, December 1990

And this is Liszt's reimagining (the arrangement that Horowitz
was talking about) of the more famous "Schubert Serenade"


Setrak, piano. EMI France, released 1975

Vladimir Horowitz, piano. DG, from Horowitz at Home, recorded in New York City, 1986-89

by Ken

Maybe we ought to start by hearing the actual songs, and since through our pursuit of musical larks Fritz Wunderlich has been our lark-lucky tenor charm, we're going to lead off with him. But first let's clear away some peripheral business:

(1) To be clear, the picture of Vladimir Horowitz is not directly connected to the performance of the Schubert-Liszt Schwanengesang "Ständchen." I mention this because, as noted, the "Ständchen" is from a record called Horowitz at Home, and the picture quite clearly is not Horowitz at home, but in a studio -- it's from a record called Vladimir Horowitz: The Studio Recordings - New York 1985, so it's from the right period (the At Home recordings were made in 1986, 1988, and 1989), and it shows him playing, whereas the picture officially connected to Horowitz at Home has him standing merrily in the curve of the piano.

(2) I'm sorry I don't know much more than the scraps I've been able to glean online about Setrak, a Lebanese-born pianist who for at least awhile seems to have been known just by the one name. More properly, he was Setrak A. (for Antoine) Setrakian (1938-2013). I'm sorry to say that he's really known to me almost entirely for the c1975 French EMI LP of Liszt piano arrangements of Schubert songs from which we heard two samples, which I think you'll agree offer some quite lovely piano-playing.


NOW BACK TO BUSINESS -- AND FRITZ W.