Sure, literally speaking Guntram (with, we might note, a libretto by the composer, Wagner-style, something Strauss would attempt again only once more, still perhaps problematically but, I think, a lot more successfully, with the sort-of-autobiographical Intermezzo) was the start of something, but could anyone have guessed "of what"? (We can also note at the very top that Strauss's first opera was "Dedicated to my dear parents.")
by Ken
To recap, our subject is still Salome, Richard Strauss's third opera, focusing here on the powerful anecdotal evidence from these snatches of the operas that preceded and followed Salome of the startling transformation that took place, all at once, in Strauss's ability to make the operatic medium work for him. In the main portion of this week's post, "Strauss's operatic beginnings: We don't need an excuse to listen to Till Eulenspiegel -- but the Symphonia domestica, maybe so?" we heard these same operatic clips, in this same order, with no identification of either the operas or the performers. In this concluding portion of the post we have all those identifications available, as well as English texts for most of the sung portions of these excerpts.
As I'm sure you guessed, Operas X and Y were Strauss's pre-Salome operatic endeavors, the turgid late Romantic stinker Guntram (first performed in 1894) and its "satirical" successor, Feuersnot (first performed in 1901). Perhaps surprisingly, given how adept Strauss would become at devising operatic openings that plunge us directly into the action, he began his operatic career with a full-fledged overture. Oy, is it full-fledged; it just fledges on and on -- and on. (Note that it's not entirely free-standing, as we might expect an "overture" to be in one frequently proposed distinction between an "overture" and a "prelude," which not only tends to be shorter but normally flows directly into the opening scene. The Guntram whatever-you-want-to-call-it flows directly into the equally nondescript music of the opening scene.
[AFTERTHOUGHT: I have to say that rather unexpectedly the Guntram Overture has started to grow on me -- hey, this is not some no-talented musical hack we're dealing with. But it still seems to meander hopelessly, stretching this thin material many long, long minutes beyond the breaking point. -- Ken]
[X] R. STRAUSS: Guntram, Op. 25: Overture
BBC Symphony Orchestra, John Pritchard, cond. Gala, broadcast performance, 1981
Hungarian State Orchestra, Eve Queler, cond. CBS-Hungaroton, recorded 1984
"There is a realm where all is pure" Funny business on the island of Naxos: Ernst Stern's design for the original (prologue-less) 1912 Ariadne auf Naxos
R. STRAUSS: From the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos:
The Composer, "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst"
THE COMPOSER: Music is a sacred art, which brings together all men of courage, like cherubim around a shining throne, and for this reason it is the most holy of the arts. Holy music!
From a performance at Buenos Aires's Teatro Colón conducted by Lovro von Matačić, October 1964
by Ken
From last week's post ("We have more 'An die Musik,' 'Zueignung,' and 'Musik ist eine heilige Kunst' -- but remember, this only sounds like a "good news" post"):
Just to touch quickly again on what I shorthanded as the "Reverse-Strauss" that's driving this series of posts: What's so wonderful about this excerpt, and indeed the entire comically, over-the-toply-serious character of the Composer, is that our real composer, Richard Strauss, mostly meant all of the things that come out of our over-the-top young Composer's mouth, but he would almost surely never have dared utter them "straight." Instead, as he and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal conceived the character, he can make these things not only resonantly beautiful but borderline hilarious.
I mean only to suggest here: What if it's the exact opposite? What if the sentiments truly are preposterous, and we only kid ourselves that they have some real-world applicability? Wouldn't that be a kick in the head?
By hook or by crook we're going to finish up with "An die Musik," "Zueignung," "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst," and the perspective I've been calling a Reverse-Strauss -- in last week's post and the previous week's ("Today's sacred word is 'heilig' ('holy' or 'sacred'), chez Schubert and R. Strauss -- make of it what you will"). I'm afraid, though, that the finishing up isn't going to happen today; I'm reckoning it'll take us another two posts.
And along this twisty way, we're going to be fielding some questions, starting with this one:
Q1: Who says that Strauss "mostly meant all of the things that come out of our over-the-top young Composer's mouth"?
"Das Geheimnis des Lebens tritt an sie heran, nimmt sie bei der Hand" ("The secret of life is revealed to them in it, takes them by the hand")
Sena Jurinac (s), Composer; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
Tatiana Troyanos (ms), Composer; San Francisco Opera Orchestra, János Ferencsik, cond. Live performance, Oct. 28, 1977
Irmgard Seefried (s), Composer; Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, Aug. 7, 1954
Julia Varady (s), Composer; Gewandhaus Orchestra (Leipzig), Kurt Masur, cond. Philips, recorded January 1988
by Ken
This is, in case you hadn't guessed, once again the possibly over-earnest Composer, in the Prologue to Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos, having just heard that a little comedy dance entertainment is to be given following the premiere of his new opera seria, Ariadne on Naxos, here in the home of the richest man in Vienna.
This 10-11 seconds of music is one of those infinitely deep-reaching musical nuggets we've been encountering all through the Prologue to Ariadne -- for that matter, all through the opera as a whole -- which lodge in the most intimate recesses of the mind and don't let go. Lately we've been focusing more on the comic view of life represented in the opera by the grand comedienne Zerbinetta and her quartet of commedia dell'arte players, as against the view embodied in the plight of the abandoned Ariadne as argued by her deeply feeling Composer. Now I think we need to return to the Composer's point of view.
From part 2 of the abandoned Ariadne's monologue, as she awaits the messenger of death:
ARIADNE: But soon a messenger will draw nigh,
Hermes they call him.
With his staff
he rules all souls:
Like birds on the wing,
like dry leaves,
he drives them before him.
Thou beautiful, serene god!
See! Ariadne awaits!
Leonie Rysanek (s), Ariadne; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
Christa Ludwig (s), Ariadne; Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. Live perfomance from the Salzburg Festival, July 26, 1964
From the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos, in which the Composer and Zerbinetta take different views of Ariadne's "death":
COMPOSER: She is one of those women who belong to one man only in their life and after that to no one else -- ZERBINETTA: Ha! COMPOSER: -- to no one else, save Death!
COMPOSER: She takes him for the god of Death. In her eyes, in her soul, he is Death, and for that reason, for that reason only -- ZERBINETTA [from the door, very gently]: That's what she'd have you think COMPOSER: -- for that reason only she goes with him on his ship.
COMPOSER: Ariadne is the one out of a million. She is the woman who does not forget. ZERBINETTA: Childishness!
Sena Jurinac (s), Composer; Roberta Peters (s), Zerbinetta; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
Now we've added the above tiny bits of the Prologue, containing some more of the most thrillingly beautiful singing I've heard -- from, you'l notice, the very same recording of Ariadne auf Naxos, as Sena Jurinac as the Composer of the opera seria expresses her understanding of the title character.
Margaret Price (s), Fiordiligi; Yvonne Minton (ms), Dorabella; Hans Sotin (bs), Don Alfonso; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded Jan. 25-Feb. 18, 1971
Irmgard Seefried (s), Fiordiligi; Nan Merriman (ms), Dorabella; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Don Alfonso; Berlin Philharmonic, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1962
[in English] Elizabeth Harwood (s), Fiordiligi; Janet Baker (ms), Dorabella; John Shirley-Quirk (bs-b), Don Alfonso; Scottish National Opera Orchestra, Alexander Gibson, cond. Live performance, May 1969
by Ken
Okay, I know we've heard "Soave sia il vento" bunches of times before. And it seems likely that we'll hear it bunches of times again, maybe even in this post. (It could be that I know something, but I'm not telling.) It goes like this: We have occasion to listen to it this week, and if you think we're going to bypass a gimme like this, you're wrong.
Last week's post was called "Ariadne and Fiordiligi: Real people and feelings vs. ideas about people and feelings," and you may have noticed that I didn't particularly pursue the theme announced in the title. Mostly I presented Fiordiligi's two stupendous showpiece arias from Mozart and da Ponte's Così fan tutte. Both show Mozart deploying all his craft and a good measure of his genius toward creating a show-stopper of an aria. But there's a world of difference between Fiordiligi's Act I declaration of rock-like fidelity and the heart-rending state of confusion she's reduced to in her Act II rondo as she finds herself prepared to betray her beloved.
The men whom Fiordiligi and her sister Dorabella love -- or at least think they love in Act I -- aren't drawn in anything like the depth of the women, but their music reflects the same schism: trafficking in Act I with unthinking, abstract images of people, and then in Act II coming up against feal feelings as they find themselves dealing with their fiancées as real people. Here, for example, is how it all starts.
Well, not quite how it all starts. It all starts with a sparkling Overture, and long-time visitors to Sunday Classics know that we often like to start at the start. So here's the actual start. (We've heard all these performances before, but let me just say a couple of things again. The Jochum and Klemperer are from complete recordings of the opera, and the Jochum Così, which I've been living with now for 50-plus years, still seems to me a wonder -- perhaps more of a wonder than ever. The Klemperer Così remains indispensable if only for the almost-superhuman Fiordiligi of Margaret Price. The Colin Davis performance comes from a wonderful early Davis LP of Mozart overtures which is still the way I would wish to remember him.)
[This isn't the full post yet, but it's closer than I was expecting. Stay tuned. UPDATE: Okay, this is pretty much the post. I scaled down the intended scope, so that we still have some Così business to pursue along with making the connection to Ariadne. -- K] [LATER UPDATE: There's now a linked list of "The Ariadne Posts" at the end of this post.]
In pity's name, my dearest, forgive
the misdeed of a loving soul;
amid this shade and these plants
forever hidden, oh God, let it be.
Margaret Price (s), Fiordiligi; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded Jan.-Feb. 1971
Montserrat Caballé (s), Fiordiligi; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded c1973
by Ken
Yes, we're still talking about Strauss and Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos, and we're getting nearer to dealing directly with its supposed musico-dramatic split personality, between the "Italian buffo manner" (as the Music Master refers to it) of Zerbinetta and her commedia dell'arte companions and the tragic world of Ariadne herself, abandoned by Theseus on the isle of Naxos.
If you look at early reviews of Ariadne, whether in its original 1912 format as an entertainment within Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's Le bourgeois gentilhomme, or in the 1916 revision with the added Prologue that made the opera free-standing, you frequently encounter the criticism that the two musico-dramatic worlds that the creators so gleefully moosh together simply don't go together, that they're incompatible. Which is odd, because you'd think that one of the first things an audience member might want to puzzle out is why they've been mooshed together. And you'd think it would be rather obvious that they give us two quite different ways of looking at the same set of circumstances, each of which has something important to show us.
And somewhere along the line this week that got me to thinking about Mozart's Così fan tutte, the last of the three operas he set to librettos by his great librettist Lorenzo da Ponte -- and the only one of the three that on da Ponte's part wasn't an adaptation of existing material. And it occurred to me that the very different understandings of the characters of Così between the start and finish of the opera have a lot in common with the different ways of looking at Ariadne's bust-up with Theseus and subsequent hookup with Bacchus.
And that difference is embedded in the markedly different character of Fiordiligi's two great, hugely difficult showpiece arias, which we've heard before -- and we're now going to hear again. Starting, naturally, backwards. (Isn't that how we usually do things around here?) Just as I've been burbling on about the depth of beauty of Ariadne's music, I would venture that Fiordiligi's Act II aria, "Per pietà," might be the most beautiful thing Mozart ever wrote. I'm not going to say that it is the most beautiful thing Mozart ever wrote, because there are probably a dozen or two others to set alongside it. But the mere fact that it might be so considered tells us that we're dealing with one of the supremely beautiful creations of the human mind.
And this time I thought we might begin by breaking down just the very opening. In part this is useful because the aria is in the form of a rondo, meaning that we're going to be hearing this "A" section again, and again. And in part this is useful because it allows us to trail along as Mozart puts these musical materials together.
[NOTE: This is still a rough version of this post, which needs a bit of fixing and amplifying that I'll get to ASAP. Okay, the updating is pretty well done -- or at least done as well as it's gonna get done.]
THE DANCE MASTER: There's nothing more tasteless than a desert island. THE COMPOSER: Ariadne on Naxos, sir -- she is the symbol of human solitude. THE DANCE MASTER: That's just why she needs company.
Murray Dickie (t), Dance Master; Sena Jurinac (s), Compower; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
Gerhard Unger (t), Dance Master; Tatiana Troyanos (ms), Composer; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Nov. 29, 1967
by Ken
Awhile back I asked, "Why won't everyone just let poor abandoned Ariadne die in peace?" Rather than try to answer the question directly, I hoped that the answer, or at least an answer, would be clear from the extravagantly gorgeous music the abandoned princess sings in the two-part monologue she has been given upon her awakening from her weeping slumber.
Of course, as we're reminded by the little exchange I've reproduced atop this post, there are two decidedly different schools of thought about Ariadne abandoned on Naxos among the participants in the strange hybrid entertainment about to be performed in the house of the richest man in Vienna: the "serious opera" folk including the Music Master and his student, the Composer, the composer of the opera seria Ariadne auf Naxos that's on offer; and the entertainers "in the Italian buffo manner," as the Music Master puts it, led by the Dance Master and "the incomparable Zerbinetta."
Now I don't believe we've yet seriously encountered the Dance Master, a treat of a little character-tenor role. For one thing, the fellow knows how to present himself. Here we're hearing one of my favorite character tenors, Murray Dickie, a Scotsman we've heard in repertory from Mozart to Wagner to Mahler.
THE MAJOR-DOMO: Where is Master Dance Master? I have an instruction from my honorable master for you both. THE DANCE MASTER: What's wished of me?
Kurt Preger (spkr), Major-Domo; Murray Dickie (t), Dance Master; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
And he knows how to plead his case. Here he's debunking the notion that the comic presentation will be dragged down if it's give following the soporific opera seria.
THE DANCE MASTER [to ZERBINETTA]: On the contrary. They've just got up from table, they feel much too full and disinclined for anything save forty winks on the side. They clap, then, out of politeness and to wake themselves up. In the meantime they become quite lively. "What's next?" they say to themselves. "The Inconstant Zerbinetta and Her Four Suitors": a merry comedy to follow with dancing, light, tuneful music and a plot as clear as daylight where one knows where one is. "That's what we like," they say to themselves. "This is where we wake up. We know where we are with this!" And afterwards, when they're driving home, they can't remember a single thing, except that they saw the incomparable Zerbinetta dance.
Murray Dickie (t), Dance Master; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
Now here's how this occurs in context, reflecting the comedians' view of the Ariadne story, with some other characterful Dance Masters. I would put in a good work in particular for that wonderful Spieltenor of the '50s and '60s Gerhard Unger. (One thing to note in these excerpts is how each tenor copes with that totally exposed, long-held high B-flat at the end, on "Zerbi-net-ta." Peter Schreier may not have been the goldenest-voiced of tenors, but he was a legit lyric tenor rather than, strictly speaking a Spieltenor, and I think that gives him an edge here.)
I was already thinking that maybe we should do a "Murray Dickie Day" post, if only gathering together the repertory we've already heared; now I'm thinking maybe we should do Murray Dickie-plus-Gerhard Unger, since there was of course a good deal of repertory overlap.
R. STRAUSS: From the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos
ZERBINETTA sits on a little straw stool at the front of the stage and finishes applying her makeup assisted by her partners; HARLEKIN holds the light, BRIGHELLA the mirror.
PRIMA DONNA [opens the door and beckons to the MUSIC MASTER]: Have you summoned the Count?
[Comes out a little and notices ZERBINETTA and the rest]
Pfui! What kind of visions are these, pray?
[To the MUSIC MASTER, not exactly softly] Fancy our being mixed up with people of that sort! Don't people hereabouts know who I am? How could the Count -- ZERBINETTA [with an impudent look at the singer and in a purposely loud voice]: If the rubbish is so boring, then we ought to have been allowed to appear first, before they become irritable. If they've been bored for a whole hour beforehand, then it will be twice as hard to make them laugh. DANCE MASTER [to ZERBINETTA]: On the contrary. They've just got up from table, they feel much too full and disinclined for anything save forty winks on the side. They clap, then, out of politeness and to wake themselves up. In the meantime they become quite lively. "What's next?" they say to themselves. "The Inconstant Zerbinetta and Her Four Suitors": a merry comedy to follow with dancing, light, tuneful music and a plot as clear as daylight where one knows where one is. "That's what we like," they say to themselves. "This is where we wake up. We know where we are with this!" And afterwards, when they're driving home, they can't remember a single thing, except that they saw the incomparable Zerbinetta dance.
Leonie Rysanek (s), Prima Donna; Jeanette Scovotti (s), Zerbinetta; Gerhard Unger (t), Dance Master; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Nov. 29, 1967
Gundula Janowitz (s), Prima Donna; Sylvia Geszty (s), Zerbinetta; Peter Schreier (t), Dance Master; Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded June-July 1968
Maria Reining (s), Prima Donna; Alda Noni (s), Zerbinetta (s), Josef Witt (t), Dance Master; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance in honor of Strauss's 80th birthday, June 11, 1944
BUT ABOVE ALL THERE'S ARIADNE'S MUSIC
And now, as promised way back when, we're returning to Ariadne's monologue, this time hearing the whole chunk of the opera seria through the second part of the monologue. Is it really possible to stand by and allow Ariadne to will herself into oblivion, even for the commedia dell'arte players?
R. STRAUSS: Ariadne auf Naxos, Op. 60:
The first part of the Opera Seria
(1) Overture
(2) Ariadne watched by the nymphs Najade, Dryade, and Echo (Najade, "Schläft sie?")
ARIADNE lies prostrate on the ground before the mouth of a cave. NAJADE is left, DRYADE right, ECHO at the back against the wall of the grotto.
["Is she sleeping?" first NAJADE and then DRYADE ask. "No, she is weeping," they determine. "Weeping in her sleep." "Day after day benumbed in sorrow." And they continue their lamentations, joined by the echoing ECHO, until finally ARIADNE awakens.]
(3) Ariadne awakens ("Ach! Wo war ich?")
ARIADNE [on the ground]: A-ah! ECHO: A-ah! ARIADNE: Where was I? Dead? And alive, alive again
and still living?
And yet it is no life that I live!
Broken heart, will you continue forever beating?
[Half raising herself]
What then was I dreaming? Woe is me! Forgotten already!
My head retains nothing anymore.
Only shadows slip
through a shadow.
And yet, something suddenly blazes up and pains me so!
A-ah! ECHO: A-ah!
(4) Ariadne's monologue, part 1: "Ein schönes war, hiess Theseus-Ariadne"
ARIADNE [to herself, as in a monologue]:
There was a thing of beauty, called Theseus-Ariadne,
that walked in light and rejoiced in life,
that walked in light and rejoiced in life.
A thing of beauty was: Ariadne. Theseus.
Theseus! That walked in light and rejoiced in life.
Ariadne. Theseus.
Why do I know of it? I want to forget!
[Another idea occurs to her poor deranged mind.]
This one thing I have still to find: It is shameful
to be as confused as I am.
I must try to rouse myself: Yes, this I still must find:
the maiden that once I used to be!
Now I have it -- the gods grant that I hold on to it!
Not the name -- the name has grown together
with another name, one thing grows
so easily into another, alas! NAJADE, DRYADE, and ECHO [trying to awaken her]:
Ariadne! ARIADNE [motioning them away]:
No, not again! She lives here quite alone.
Lightly she breathes, lightly she moves,
not a blade stirs where she treads,
her sleep is chaste, her mind serene,
her heart as pure as a spring;
she keeps herself undefiled, for the day is soon to come
when she can wind herself in her mantle,
cover herself with a cloth
and lie there,
among the dead.
(5) Ariadne not quite alone (including Harlekin's song)
ZERBINETTA [from the wings]:
Oh then, try a little song! HARLEKIN [singing from the wings]:
Love, hatred, hope, fear,
every joy and every pain,
all this can a heart endure
once and many times again. ECHO: repeats it soullessly, like a bird, without words. HARLEKIN: But to feel not joy nor sadness,
even pain itself being dead,
that is fatal to your heart,
this you must not do to me!
You must lift yourself from darkness,
were it but to fresher pangs!
You must live, for life is lovely,
you must live again once more. ECHO: as before.
[ARIADNE, unmoved, dreams on as before.] ZERBINETTA [sotto voce]: She didn't raise her head once! HARLEKIN [the same]: It's all no use.
I felt as much while I was singing. ZERBINETTA: You're quite upset. HARLEKIN: Never have I been so moved by any human being. ZERBINETTA: You're the same about every woman. HARLEKIN: And aren't you the same about every man?
(6) Ariadne's monologue, part 2: "Es gibt ein Reich, wo alles rein ist"
ARIADNE: There is a realm where all is pure:
it has a name too: Realm of Death.
[Rises from the ground.]
Here nothing is pure.
All is finished here.
[She pulls her robe close around her.]
But soon a messenger will draw nigh,
Hermes they call him.
With his staff
he rules all souls:
Like birds on the wing,
like dry leaves,
he drives them before him.
Thou beautiful, serene god!
See! Ariadne awaits!
Oh, my heart must be cleansed
of all wild grief,
then your presence will call me,
your footsteps will approach my cave,
darkness will cover my eyes,
your hand will touch my heart.
In the beautiful festal robes
that my mother bequeathed me
my body will remain;
the silent cave will be my tomb.
But mutely my soul
will follow its new lord,
as a light leaf in the wind
flutters downward, gladly falling.
Darkness will cover my eyes
and fill my heart;
this body will remain,
richly adorned and all alone.
You will set me free,
give me to myself,
this burdensome life,
take it from me.
I will lose myself entirely in you;
with you Ariadne will abide.
[She stands lost in thought.]
-- English translation of texts by Peggie Cochrane
Mimi Coertse (s), Najade; Hilde Rössl-Majdan (ms), Dryade; Liselotte Maikl (s), Echo; Leonie Rysanek (s), Ariadne; Walter Berry (b), Harlekin; Roberta Peters (s), Zerbinetta; Murray Dickie (t), Brighella; Gunter Adam (bs), Truffaldin; Kurt Equiluz (t), Scaramuccio; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
[(1) start; (2) 3:38; (3) 7:30; (4) 10:15; (5) 16:00; (6) 18:53]
Eleanor Bergquist (s), Najade; Gwendolyn Jones (ms), Dryade; Pamela South (s), Echo; Leontyne Price (s), Ariadne; Dale Duesing (b), Harlekin; Ruth Welting (s), Zerbinetta; Robert Johnson (t), Brighella; Alexander Malta (bs), Truffaldin; Joseph Frank (t), Scaramuccio; San Francisco Opera Orchestra, János Ferencsik, cond. Live performance, Oct. 28, 1977
[(1) track 1; (2) track 2; (3) track 3; (4)-(5) track 4; (6) track 5]
Deborah Cook (s), Najade; Enid Hartle (ms), Dryade; Norma Burrowes (s), Echo; Leontyne Price (s), Ariadne; Barry McDaniel (b), Harlekin; Edita Gruberová (s), Zerbinetta; Gerhard Unger (t), Brighella; Manfred Jungwirth (bs), Truffaldin; Kurt Equiluz (t), Scaramuccio; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded November 1977
[(1) start; (2) 3:30; (3) 7:41; (4) 11:00; (5) 18:15; (6) 20:19]
Emmy Loose (s), Najade; Melanie Frutschnigg (ms), Dryade; Elisabeth Rutgers (s), Echo; Maria Reining (s), Ariadne; Erich Kunz (b), Harlekin; Alda Noni (s), Zerbinetta; Peter Klein (t), Brighella; Marjan Rus (bs), Truffaldin; Richard Sallaba (t), Scaramuccio; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance in honor of Strauss's 80th birthday, June 11, 1944
[track 1: (1) start, (2) 3:58, (3) 8:38, (4) 11:53; track 2: (5) start; (6) 1:56]
UPDATE: A note about the recordings
We already heard Leonie Rysanek's thrilling "Es gibt ein Reich," from the Leinsdorf-RCA studio recording, in the earlier Ariadne's-monologue post, at which time I promised that we would be hearing the whole scene. I assumed nobody would mind hearing the Es gibt ein Reich" again! By virtue of the voice's natural weight and soaring upward extension, it seems to me a just about ideal Ariadne voice -- like Jessye Norman's, which we heard in both halves of the monologue, with its sumptuous lower range as a vocal bonus.
Gundula Janowitz, of course, is a representative of the lighter-weight sopranos who have made the role work, and while some listeners have been put of by the quasi-instrumental quality of the vocalism, I really loved the sound of the voice in these glory years -- and especially working with a conductor as inspiring as Rudolf Kempe in this outing, she remains for me a memorable Ariadne.
I haven't included two Leontyne Price performances because I think either is "definitive"; I would have loved, for one thing, to hear her in the role when she was younger -- as in the gleaming studio recording we heard of "Es gibt ein Reich" (and also the first two of the Four Last Songs). The San Francisco performance and the London studio recording are almost contemporary; one gets the feeling that Price headed straight from San Francisco to London to make the recording. That said, she sounds to me vocally more assured and dramatically more comfortable in the live performance, but since I had already made a file of the studio version, I decided to include both.
Finally, I'm happy to have included the excerpt from the June 1944 Vienna State Opera performance conducted by Karl Böhm to commemorate Strauss's 80th birthday, from which we've already heard the Prologue. Maria Reining, the Ariadne, was not at all surprisingly in considerably better vocal health here, at age 41, than she was in the recording for which she's surely best known, the Marschallin in the June 1954 Decca recording conducted by Erich Kleiber, when she was about to turn 51. The Ariadne seems to me an all-round lovely piece of work.
STILL TO COME: No, we're not done with Ariadne
We still have to look at the way the comic and tragic elements are not only balanced but in fact brought into harmony.
THE COMPOSER: Music is a holy art, which brings together all men of courage, like cherubim around a shining throne, and for this reason it is the holiest of the arts. Holy music!
-- from the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos
Sena Jurinac (s), Composer; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
Teresa Zylis-Gara (s), Composer; Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded June-July 1968
Agnes Giebel (ms), Composer; Vienna Philharmonic, James Levine, cond. DG, recorded January 1986
Anne Sofie von Otter (ms), Composer; Staatskapelle Dresden, Giuseppe Sinopoli, cond. DG, recorded Sept. and Dec. 2000
by Ken
Last week, in part 1 of this post, our ongoing look-and-listen to Richard Strauss's favorite among his operas, and probably among his works, Ariadne auf Naxos, landed us at this passionate declaration by the idealistic young Composer in the Prologue created with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal for the revised 1916 version. And from there we detoured to the first two of Strauss's Four Last Songs, at least in the order devised by Strauss's publisher at Boosey and Hawkes, Ernst Roth, who took the posthumous publication of these songs in hand and included this note (in German, French, and English):
These four songs are not only Strauss's last contributions to the "Lied," which played such an important part in his life's work, but they are also the last compositions that he finished.
The first sketches of Im Abendrot (At Dusk) are found in a notebook from the end of 1946 or beginning of 1947. The final sketch of the score is dated "Montreux, 27th April 1948" and the score itself was finished on 6th May of that year.
The sketch of Frühling followed, with the full score completed at Pontresina on 18th July 1948.
Beim Schlafengehen (On Going to Sleep) was finished on 4th August and September, Strauss's last completed work, on 20th September of the same year.
A mood of farewell pervades the four songs, particularly Im Abendrot and September. It is, however, the farewell of a man who leaves the scene of earthly struggle and triumph without disappointment or reproach, without fear of destruction and doom, but with serene confidence in eternity and immortality. And so when the poet asks in Im Abendrot (bars 69-75) "Ist dies etwa Tod?" ("Can this be death?") the horn enters with that same Transfiguration motif which the young man 60 years before had set against Death.
E.R.
The title Four Last Songs isn't Strauss's, of course. In fact, from among the poems of Hermann Hesse he had been considering (he flagged 14 in a collection he had been given), in addition to the three he completed setting -- "Frühling" ("Spring"), "September," and "Beim Schlafengehn" ("On Going to Bed") -- he began sketching a fourth, "Nacht" ("Night"), to go with a setting of Joseph Eichendorff's "Im Abendrot" ("At Dusk").
LAST WEEK WE HEARD LISA DELLA CASA SING
"FRÜHLING" AND "SEPTEMBER" IN JUNE 1953
Ernst Stern's design for the original 1912 Ariadne auf Naxos (click to enlarge)
There is a realm where all is pure:
it has a name too: Realm of Death.
[Rises from the ground.]
Here nothing is pure.
All is finished here.
[She pulls her robe close around her.]
But soon a messenger will draw nigh,
Hermes they call him.
With his staff
he rules all souls:
Like birds on the wing,
like dry leaves,
he drives them before him.
Thou beautiful, serene god!
See! Ariadne awaits!
Oh, my heart must be cleansed
of all wild grief,
then your presence will call me,
your footsteps will approach my cave,
darkness will cover my eyes,
your hand will touch my heart.
In the beautiful festal robes
that my mother bequeathed me
my body will remain;
the silent cave will be my tomb.
But mutely my soul
will follow its new lord,
as a light leaf in the wind
flutters downward, gladly falling.
Darkness will cover my eyes
and fill my heart;
this body will remain,
richly adorned and all alone.
You will set me free,
give me to myself,
this burdensome life,
take it from me.
I will lose myself entirely in you;
with you Ariadne will abide.
[She stands lost in thought.]
-- English translation by Peggie Cochrane
Maria Cebotari, soprano; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded Nov. 16, 1948
Leontyne Price, soprano; London Symphony Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. RCA, recorded 1965
"Playgoers, I bid you welcome. The theater is a temple, and we are here to worship the gods of comedy and tragedy. Tonight I am pleased to announce a comedy."
-- the principal player at the outset of A Funny
Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
by Ken
We've already had a taste of the comedy of Ariadne auf Naxos, in the October 11 Sunday Classics snapshots post "Meet the Composer, Richard Strauss-style," observing the comically serious young Composer make his way backstage through the craziness preceding the performance of his opera seria of the same name. Now, above, we've gotten a taste of the tragedy.
(In studio recordings, I should add, of just this excerpt. The lovely Maria Cebotari [seen at right], heard here less than seven months before her untimely death, at 39, did sing Ariadne, and must have been radiant in the role, but Leontyne Price didn't take it on until years after she recorded this stand-alone "Es gibt ein Reich" in her Art of the Prima Donna series, in which she sampled roles she hadn't sung. (Eventually -- not this week, but eventually -- we'll hear more of her eventual Ariadne.)
We've also had a masterful exposition, two weeks ago, of the conventional way of handling comedy and tragedy, from the principal player at the top of Burt Shevelove, Larry Gelbart, and Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, the first show for which Stephen Sondheim wrote music as well as lyrics. It's probably still my favorite Sondheim song, and I can't ever hear it enough. So . . .
The first part of the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos, with Paul Schoeffler as the Music Master and Sena Jurinac as the Composer (we're going to hear the radiant Jurinac in her glorious 1958 studio recording, which I've described as the best recorded performance I know of any operatic role, and Schoeffler in a 1944 live performance), staged by Günter Rennert and conducted by Karl Böhm, filmed at Salzburg in 1965 -- the remaining four parts are also on YouTube.
by Ken
It was a long, arduous path from conception to ultimate creation, the strange entertainment concocted by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, his librettist on two previous, wildly different operas, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier, in collaboration with the great stage director Max Reinhardt, who had collaborated with them on Rosenkavalier.
The original idea was to provide a half-hour musical entertainment to be inserted in an adaptation (by Hofmannsthal) for Reinhardt of Molière's Le bourgeois gentilhomme. Not surprisingly, the half-hour entertainment grew and grew, until it was a weird one-act opera that -- despite being scored for chamber orchestra -- would tax the vocal resources of the greatest opera houses. And it combined two seemingly uncombinable art forms: a deeply serious opera seria that is observed, commented on, and eventually intruded on by a troupe of commedia dell'arte musical comedians. And of course it was imprisoned inside the play, and constitued too much opera for playgoers and too much play for operagoers.
Long story short: Eventually Hofmannsthal and Strauss liberated Ariadne by creating a Prologue, set backstage in the room of the home of the richest man in Vienna where the evening's entertainment is shortly to be performed. And they created the character of the Composer, the creator of a deeply serious opera seria. The new Prologue not only explains how these two wildly different entertainments came to be scheduled for the same evening's entertainment (and, eventually, how they come to be combined) but creates for us the world of a theatrical backstage. (The always-practical Strauss arranged an orchestral suite from the incidental music he had written for the play, in its German guise as Der Bürger als Edelmann.)
We've already heard the very opening of the Prologue -- still scored for chamber orchestra, as the original opera-intermezzo was.
R. STRAUSS: Ariadne auf Naxos: Prologue: Orchestral introduction
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Mar. 28, 1970
Post rehabilitated (with UPDATEs), July 2018 [including the
addition of audio clips of "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst"]
Is this the most beautiful music ever written?In the 2018 rehab of this post, we have the sublime second-movement Adagio of Schubert's C major String Quintet played by the Camerata Quartet (violinists Wlodzimierz Prominski and Andrzej Kordykiewicz, violist Piotr Reichert, and cellist Roman Hoffmann; with guest cellist Marta Kordykiewicz), in place of the no-longer-available clip of the Alban Berg Quartet with longtime cellist pal Heinrich Schiff, video-recorded a quarter-century after their still-glowing 1982 EMI recording.
Sena Jurinac (s), Composer; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
Teresa Zylis-Gara (s), Composer; Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded June-July 1968 \
"Music is a holy art, to gather all sorts of daring like cherubim around a shining throne, and that is why it is the holiest of the arts! Holy music!"
-- the Composer, at the end of his comically heroic trials
in the Prologue to Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard
Strauss's revised version of their opera Ariadne on Naxos
by Ken
In the Prologue to Ariadne, Richard Strauss of course had the luxury of irony. I don't doubt that he shared all of his idealistic young Composer's beliefs about the sacredness of music and art, but he would have been much too clear-headed to just come out and say so. With the delicious layer of irony afforded him by the Composer's youthful naivete, he managed to make this both a richly comic and a deeply felt moment. Franz Schubert, however, had had the courage to express such sentiments without any distancing filters.
As I wrote yesterday, you can't really provide a rational answer for a question like "Who was the world's greatest melody-writer?" And as I also said, if I kick the question around a little, the answer seems obvious. Yesterday I was talking about Puccini, and he certainly rates consideration, as does Richard Strauss, and you could throw in "the other" Strauss, the principal subject of last week's classical music post, Johann II. Mozart has to be in the mix, and maybe Verdi, and perhaps Rossini.
But in the end, it seems to me that there's no one quite in a league with Schubert.
Just consider the above clip. I kept going back and forth between the first and second movements of Schubert's glorious String Quintet in C. They're almost identical in length, in the 13-minute range. I finally settled on the first movement, if only for the lyrical second subject, first sung by the paired cellos. Maybe I was thinking it was just unfair to enter the uniquely sublime slow movement in such a competition. But I had already copied the embed code for the start of the second movement, and I was too lazy to change it. Besides, how do you turn your back on this ethereal movement?
(I don't know the date of this performance by the Alban Berg Quartet, but it has to fall in the window between 2005, when Isabel Charisius replaced violist Thomas Kakuska, and 2008, when this great quartet -- the one great string quartet of the last several decades, I think -- called it quits after a run of some 37 years. The Berg's 1982-ish EMI recording, also with Schiff, was my first CD version of the Quintet, and it might still be my first pick.)
We think often of the incalculable tragedy of the death of Mozart before his 36th birthday. We don't always remember that Schubert (1797-1828) didn't make it to 32. So it's even more grotesque to speak of Schubert's "late" works, and yet there's no question that, as with Mozart, Schubert in his final years was developing in such amazing ways as to leave one grasping blindly to imagine what he might have achieved with just a few extra years. There's no denying that in the last year or two of his life his art was growing in extraordinarily audacious directions, as reflected not just in our sublime String Quintet but in the giant 9th Symphony (known as the "Great C major," to distinguish it from the "Little C major Symphony," No. 6 -- the word "gross" meaning both "big" and "great"), the last string quartet (No. 15 in G), the last three piano sonatas, and the harrowing song cycle Winterreise ("Winter Journey").
Still, it was evident early on that Schubert had an extraordinary melodic gift, and his subsequent career demonstrated that he had an apparently limitless supply. Without that, it's hard to imagine he could possibly have racked up his mind-boggling total of some 600 songs.
"An die Musik" ("To Music") is at once one of Schubert's least complicated songs and one of his most deeply felt and most searching. There are two recordings I usually press on people -- one obvious, one maybe not. Fritz Wunderlich (1930-1966) recorded his as part of the gorgeous Schubert mini-recital that occupied the fourth LP side of his still-unmatched DG recording of the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin. The Russian baritone (well, ethnically Armenian, but in his lifetime he would have been thought of, at least to the outside world, as simply "a Soviet baritone") Pavel Lisitsian (1911-2004) offered a rollingly luscious account in the diverse '50s song recital once available here as an MK LP.
[2018 UPDATE: In place of the now-gone clip of "An die Musik" I described in 2009 as "a broad, dignified, and just plain beautiful performance" by the Canadian bass-baritone George London, we have this 1960s performance by baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with pianist Gerald Moore. -- Ed.]
Thou lovely art, in how many gray hours,
where the wild circle of life ensnares me,
have you kindled my heart to warm love,
have transported me to a better world,
transported me to a better world?
Often has a sigh escaped from your harp,
a sweet, sacred chord of yours
has opened up to me the heaven of better times.
Thou lovely art, I thank thee for that.
Thou lovely art, I thank thee for that.
SOME SCHUBERT BASICS
ORCHESTRAL WORKS Symphonies Nos. 8 (Unfinished) and 9. Vienna Philharmonic and London Symphony, Josef Krips, cond. (Decca) Symphonies (complete). Vienna Philharmonic, Istvan Kertesz, cond. (Decca)
PIANO WORKS Piano Sonatas, D. 958-60. Sviatoslav Richter (various labels); Richard Goode (Nonesuch); Murray Perahia (Sony) Impromptus. Agustin Anievas, piano (EMI)
CHAMBER WORKS Piano Trios (2). Borodin Trio (Chandos). Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Henryk Szeryng, violin; Pierre Fournier, cello (BMG, in various couplings). String Quartets Nos. 13-15; Quartet Movement (No. 12); String Quintet in C. Brandis Quartet (Nimbus). Plus many fine recordings of the individual pieces. Trout Quintet. Rudolf Serkin, piano; Marlboro Festival soloists (Sony). Mieczyslaw Horszowski, piano; Budapest Quartet members; Julius Levine, double bass (Sony). Nash Ensemble (IMP, with Felicity Lott singing "The Shepherd on the Rock").
SONGS Die schoene Muellerin ("The Lovely Miller's Daughter," song cycle). Fritz Wunderlich, tenor; Hubert Giesen, piano (DG) Winterreise ("Winter Journey," song cycle). Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano (DG -- note,not the F-D/Moore/EMI or F-D/Demus/DG version). Jon Vickers, tenor; Peter Schaaf, piano (VAI). Schwanengesang ("Swan Song," song collection). Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone; Imogen Cooper, piano (Philips). Olaf Baer, piano; Geoffrey Parsons, piano (EMI). Songs. Renee Fleming, soprano; Christoph Eschenbach, piano (Decca). Janet Baker, mezzo; Gerald Moore, piano (EMI). Felicity Lott, soprano; Graham Johnson, piano (IMP). And for the truly committed: Songs. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano (DG, 21 CDs).
F-D can substitute mere hamminess for real interpretive reach, especially when the vocal lie is uncomfortable for him, but how many singers could have produced a collection like this? And the piano playing of Gerald Moore is for me a constant source of wonder and delight. Complete Songs. Many, many singers; Graham Johnson, artistic director and piano (and also annotator extraordinaire; Hyperion, 37 CDs).
Vocally uneven, not surprisingly, but a tour de force for Graham Johnson, a Schubert accompanist of almost Gerald Moore-ian stature and a wonderful tour guide in his really detailed song-by-song annotations. This series is a source of endless fascination.
