Intermission -- with clarinet

-- from Merriam-Webster.com

PAIR A

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Capriccio espagnol:
i. Alborada: Vivo e strepitoso

iii. Alborada: Vivo e strepitoso


PAIR B

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Capriccio espagnol:
i. Alborada: Vivo e strepitoso

iii. Alborada: Vivo e strepitoso


by Ken

Okay, it's not going to happen this moment. I'm called away on a pressing mission, sitting here with armloads of blogchunks waiting to be assembled and properly stitched together.

In the meantime, I thought I'd offer this tease, as a hint of what's to come: these two pairs of performances of the two Alborada movements from Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio espagnol.

I can tell you this much: Each pair of performances is from the same source, and the orchestra throughout is the New York Philharmonic.

Rapid hits: Part 4 of 3 -- There's more than one way you can launch a piece with a solo clarinet

Our man in Frankfurt

Once again we hear Stanley Drucker tootling the opening of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, this time in Frankfurt's Jahrhunderthalle, June 8-9, 1976, mere days after the London performance we heard Wednesday (and will hear more of below), in the New York Philharmonic's Bicentennial Tour of Europe with then-laureate conductor Leonard Bernstein.

SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39:
i. Andante, ma non troppo; Allegro energico - opening


Stanley Drucker, clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in Philharmonic Hall, Mar. 14, 1967

OH YES, WHAT AM I DOING ABOUT THE TECH
WALL I SMASHED INTO ON WEDNESDAY?

Not much. I chickened out of trying to bludgeon my way through it, after posting -- as "Rapid hits: Part 3 of 3 -- Some quick(ish) thoughts on Stanley Drucker (1928-2022)" -- the postable portion of the planned post and promising rapid action on a rehab-and-expansion of the rest. Looking at the positive, this has indeed enabled me to round up a better sampling of Stanley D. performing the most obvious assignment of an orchestra principal: playing solos in orchestral works. It's a grimly grinding project, but I've made progress since Wednesday and I'm still working on it. And I think we can get somewhere by listening to a pair of day-and-night-different clarinet-solo openings.

So in what I guess becomes "Part 4 of 3," we're setting our already-heard opening of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue alongside the singular opening Sibelius crafted for his First Symphony. (In the case of the Sibelius, it has occurred to me that maybe all we needed to do was hear Stanley D.'s chill-inducing performance.)

by Ken

This could just be me, but I hear either of these mind-enflaming orchestral openings and what I want to hear -- next-most to what comes next in each piece, of course -- is a repeat of the opening, again and again. In the case of the Gershwin Rhapsody, we're going to have the fixings for doing that -- over and over and, well, over and over. In the case of Stanley Drucker's riveting performance of the 28-bar opener of the Sibelius First Symphony, marked Andante, I have just this one performance, but that doesn't stop me from clicking to hear it over and over.

It's just 28 bars in all: the first 16 with the solo A clarinet singing its mournful song over a hushed but relentless single-note timpani roll, marked by a couple of swells and fadebacks; the remaining 12 bars entrusted solely to the clarinet, dying away (yes, it's marked "morendo") from pp to ppp, until the startling intrusion of the second violins with a tremolo-like repeated note (well, pair of notes) of their own, kick-starting the movement's main Allegro energico -- marked, interestingly, mf, only moderately loud. Sibelius means to build us a climax, and a whopper of a climax it's going to be.


A FEW WORDS ABOUT LENNY B. AND SIBELIUS

Rapid hits: Part 3 of 3 --

(1) MEDIC NEEDED FOR VAUGHAN WILLIAMS'S LARK? [Oct. 9]
(2) ONE SOLOIST, MULTIPLE VIEWS OF VW'S LARK [Oct. 10]
(3) A WHOOSH OF MEMORY OF AN EPIC CLARINET GUY [Oct. 11]

[SORRY, I'M BATTLNG A TECHNICAL GLITCH I'VE NEVER ENCOUNTERED. HERE'S THE START OF THE POST -- Ken]

(3) SOME QUICK(ISH) THOUGHTS ON STANLEY DRUCKER (1929-2022)

NY Phil caption: "Stanley Drucker was appointed Assistant
Principal and E-Flat Clarinet by Bruno Walter in 1948."

"The New York Philharmonic deeply mourns the passing of the legendary orchestral clarinetist Stanley Drucker, who joined the Philharmonic in 1948, at age 19, and was appointed Principal Clarinet by Leonard Bernstein in 1960. Over the course of his 60-year tenure he appeared in more than 10,200 concerts in 60 countries, with solo turns including 64 performances of Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, and worked during the tenures of nine NY Phil Music Directors. Accolades on his retirement in 2009 included the Guinness World Record for “longest career as a clarinetist” and being named an Honorary Member of the New York Philharmonic. At the time, then Music Director Lorin Maazel said: “He stands alone in the world of clarinetists. His contribution to the orchestra and its fame is immeasurable.” The Philharmonic extends condolences to his wife, Naomi, and to his children and grandchildren." -- from the New York Philharmonic website

As often happens these days, I was late catching up with the news, in this case of the passing, on December 19, of Stanley D., closing in on his 94th birthday, following a career that seems that beggars description -- I find myself reaching for words like "epic." For a while I thought I'd shove aside (temporarily, of course) all the work we're, you know, working on and do a musical remembrance, and we may yet do that. I even devised not one but two openers for such a post. One you've already seen, above. Here's the other:

Stanley D. plays the opening solo of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue -- with Leonard Bernstein of course playing the piano solo as well as conducting the New York Philharmonic -- in the Royal Albert Hall, London, June 3-4, 1976. (Not to worry, we are going to hear the whole performance. Have patience.)

The Gershwin Rhapsody is a piece S.D. was closely associated with, and he played it like nobody else. Commentators have noted the ring of klezmer in parts of the piece, and not many clarinetists have been better positioned to bring that to life. One of the enduring fascinations of the career he built is that, growing up in Brooklyn, son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he seems to have had no serious music in his family history or in his surroundings. How then did he happen upon the clarinet? He mentioned in interviews that one thing that inclined him toward it was the sound of klezmer.

UP ABOVE I PROMISED THE WHOLE RHAPSODY.
MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST GO AHEAD AND HEAR IT

Rapid hits: Part 2 of 3 --

(1) MEDIC NEEDED FOR VAUGHAN WILLIAMS'S LARK? [Oct. 9]
(2) ONE SOLOIST, MULTIPLE VIEWS OF VW'S LARK [Oct. 10]
(3) A WHOOSH OF MEMORY OF AN EPIC CLARINET GUY [Oct. 11]


(2) VW'S LARK: ONE SOLOIST, THREE VARIED VISIONS

Neville Marriner & Iona Brown: Collaborators from the time I.B. joined the violins of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (1964) -- in time becoming concertmaster, frequent soloist and conductor, eventually director.

by Ken

It was yet another seemingly inescapable (try though a person might!) attention-diverter, but in this case a happy one. While playing with Vaughan Williams's musical lark, I kept being drawn back to one performance, liking it more and more: Iona Brown's 1983 Proms performance with conductor Elgar Howarth. I was responding to I.B.'s strikingly personal, boldly confident, even daredevilish playing, so different (my memory was telling me) from her decade-plus-earlier recording with Neville Marriner. Indeed, on rehearing, the 1971 performance seemed coolly, carefully poised -- the word "nocturnal" occurred to me. Listening to it more, I found it more and more fascinating in its own right, all the more intriguing for the contrast with the 1983 Royal Albert Hall performance.

The CD with the 1983 Lark (unfortunately not in general circulation)

THEN I REALIZED I HAVE A THIRD I.B. LARK

It's with Marriner again, and I'd kind of assumed it was a recoupling of assorted older Marriner recordings (the only other Vaughan Williams on the disc is the Thomas Tallis Fantasia) and safely shelved it away as a Marriner collection. But no, it's a 1982 recording -- a year before the Prom performance! It's not the 1983 performance, but it's not the 1971 either.

Let's listen to just the opening in all three I.B. Larks, featuring the grand, finger-twisting solo-violin cadenza.

Rapid hits: Part 1 of 3 --

(1) MEDIC NEEDED FOR VAUGHAN WILLIAMS'S LARK? [Oct. 9]
(2) ONE SOLOIST, MULTIPLE VIEWS OF VW'S LARK [Oct. 10]
(3) A WHOOSH OF MEMORY OF AN EPIC CLARINET GUY [Oct. 11]


(1) WHO LOVES A WHEEZING, WHINY, OR ASTHMATIC LARK?

While harking unto our musical larks, as I played with Haydn's I tripped over a snag that had somehow never caught me. -- Ken

Group I -- performances I own which share a particular oddness


Paul Robertson, violin; with the rest of the Medici Quartet (David Matthews, violin; Paul Silverthorne, viola; Anthony Lewis, cello). EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, London, Jan. 16, 1976

István Kertész, violin; with the rest of the Festetics Quartet (Erika Petöfi, violin; Péter Ligeti, viola; Rezsö Pertorini, cello). Harmonia Mundi France, recorded in the Unitarian Church of Budapest, June-Dec. 1991

Simon Standage, violin; with the rest of the Salomon Quartet (Micaela Comberti, violin; Trevor Jones, viola; Jennifer Ward Clarke, cello). Hyperion, recorded Oct. 11-13, 1995

Hubert Buchberger, violin; with the rest of the Buchberger Quartet (Julia Greve, violin; Joachim Etzel, viola; Helmut Sohler, cello). Brilliant Classics, recorded in the Evangelische Burgkirche Nieder-Rosbach, Germany, May 17-19, 2007

Group II, or shall we say: (a) "Subgroup II-A"

Among others, some singing larks of the nonverbal kind are here to wish everyone: Happy New Year! (quick version)

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM VIENNA -- FIRST BY WAY
OF NEW YORK -- AND, OH YES, FROM MUNICH TOO


[in English, lyrics by Howard Dietz] Lily Pons (s), Adele; Ljuba Welitsch (s), Rosalinde; Charles Kullman (t), Eisenstein; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Dec. 24 & 29, 1950 & Jan. 7, 1951

[in English, lyrics by Howard Dietz] Patrice Munsel (s), Adele; Marguerite Piazza (s), Rosalinde; Charles Kullman (t), Eisenstein; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Live performance, Jan. 20, 1951

Edita Gruberová (s), Adele; Kiri Te Kanawa (s), Rosalinde; Wolfgang Brendel (b), Eisenstein; Vienna Philharmonic, André Previn, cond. Philips, recorded in the Musikverein, November 1990

Erika Köth (s), Adele; Hilde Gueden (s), Rosalinde; Waldemar Kmentt (t), Eisenstein; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Decca, recorded in the Sofiensaal, June 1960
And here's an actual New Year's Eve performance:

Carol Malone (s), Adele; Gundula Janowitz (s), Rosalinde; Eberhard Wächter (b), Eisenstein; Bavarian State Orchestra, Carlos Kleiber, cond. Live performance from the Bavarian State Opera (Munich), Dec. 31, 1974
[NOTE: More than a third of this clip is applause. I was all set to snip it out, but even 48 years after the fact I just couldn't strip away the performers' earned plaudits. -- Ed.]

[We'll be hearing the full version of this trio in the follow-up expanded-coverage version of this post scheduled for tomorrow. -- Ed.]

NOW, HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM HAYDN'S LARK

Fledermaus of course is meat-and-potatoes (or maybe we should say champagne-and-caviar?) New Year's material, and we've got more of it in tomorrow's expanded post, but it occurred to me that in a New Year's frame of mind we might finish up our business with at least the nonvocal contingent of the musical larks we've been pursuing, starting with Haydn's -- in two really lovely and interestingly different performances (one of which we're going to hear in its entirety in a moment). -- Ed.