Hear three themes get made over!(A sneaky way to sneak a peek into an imagination like none other?)

You'll probably know the composer(s?) who created our themes -- and why I've made a group out of these themes

[Partial revise, 7/28/2025: Timings for all of the audio clips, now stripped out of Internet Archive's clip-embedding format, have been added -- and some other problems have been addressed, in an all-too-micro way. -- Ed.]

[1:58] Norwegian Chamber Orchestra players (Per Kristian Skalstad, violin; Hanne Skjelbred, viola; Ole Eirik Ree, cello; Kenneth Ryland, double bass; Ole Christian Haagenrud, piano) deliver the second of our themes -- from an NCO chamber series called "Feel Good" ("a weekly dose of music that will lift and comfort your spirits"). [Watch on YouTube.]

THE THREE THEMES

[1] A familiar-to-us "Introduction" and "Theme" for flute and piano
(As we've heard, this stand-alone work gets a gorgeous "Introduction")

[4:56; Theme at 3;15] Alexander Korneyev, flute; Emil Gilels, piano. Melodiya, recorded in Moscow, 1958
[4:38; Theme at 3:01] Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute; Robert Veyron-Lacroix, piano. EMI, published 1959
[4:43; Theme at 2:46] Emmanuel Pahud, flute; Eric Le Sage, piano. Valois, recorded in the Salle de Châtonneyre (Switzerland), February 1994

[2] A theme for piano (+violin/viola/cello/double bass) quintet
(I've cheated and tacked on a variation, so we get to hear the piano! -- Ed.)

[1:58] Berlin Philharmonic soloists (Guy Braunstein, violin; Amihai Grosz, viola; Olaf Maninger, cello; Janne Saksala, double bass); Yuja Wang, piano. Live performance, Salle Pleyel, Paris, Mar. 20, 2011 [from the Yuja Wang Archives]
[2:05] Smetana Quartet members (Jiří Novák, violin; Milan Škampa, viola; Antonin Kohout, cello); František Pošta, double bass; Josef Hála, piano. Supra­phon-Denon, recorded in the House of Artists, Prague, Oct. 11-14, 1983
[2:18] Alexander Schneider, violin; Michael Tree, viola; David Soyer, cello; Julius Levine, double bass; Peter Serkin (age 18), piano. Vanguard, recorded in New York City, 1965
[UPDATE: From quickest performance to slowest, the timings broaden by only 7 and 13 seconds -- but hear what a difference those seconds make!]

Finally: [3] A haunting theme for string quartet --

[2:17] Tokyo String Quartet (Peter Oundjian and Kikue Ikoda, violins; Kazuhide Isomura, viola; Sadao Harada, cello). RCA, recorded in Richardson Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, Sept. 19-22, 1989
[2:27] Brandis Quartet (Thomas Brandis and Peter Brem, violins; Wilfried Strehle, viola; Wolfgang Boettcher, cello). Nimbus, recorded in the Concert Hall of the Nimbus Foundation, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, Wales, Mar. 2-3, 1994
[2:58] Kodály Quartet (Attila Falvay and Tamás Szabo, violins; Gábor Fias, viola; János Devich, cello). Naxos, recorded in the Unitarian Church, Budapest, Oct. 8-11, 1991

The Tokyo and Brandis are our speed merchants here, but these are such solid and sonorous players that the music doesn't sound rushed, or at least not too rushed. But enter the wider-open, vibrant-toned, and yet lurkingly dangerous world of the Kodály, and now we've really got something! (Longtime readers know how easily seduced I am by the singing tones of a good Hungarian or Czech string ensemble.) We even get the sense of foreboding built into the music. I like this performance a lot. -- Ed.

by Ken

Anyone who happens to have kept tabs on these theoretically weekly posts knows that we're simultaneously immersed in an almost uncountable number of musical inquiries. Today I propose to begin cleaning up an unforgivable breach of Sunday Classics conduct. It dates back [link tk] to when I was taking note of the very musical transformations we're listening to "up-closer." But back then, I merely mentioned that we'd heard them all before and left it at that -- without providing so much as a link!

This isn't how we normally do business in this department. Wherever possible, I try to take advantage of our basic format opportunity: to actually hear stuff that comes up for discussion, or even just mention, not just yammering.


WHAT WE HEARD ARE ALREADY TRANSFORMATIONS --
NOW LET'S GO BACK TO THEIR "SOURCE" FORMS

The nature of those "sources" -- three songs -- is obviously how these themes have come to form a group. And as we hear them, we're also going to hear the final transformations that were wrought on them. I'm going to try to keep the chatter to a minimum, so it'll be (I hope) mostly listening and hearing.

THE THREE SONGS -- TAKING SOME NOTE NOW
OF THE TRANSFORMATION(S) THEY WOULD UNDERGO

(2) It's Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's 100th birthday Wednesday!And (1) We ask a panel of experts:Can a flute do "somber"?

WE'RE GOING TO ATTEMPT HERE SOMETHING WE'VE NEVER DONE BEFORE: THE BEGINNINGS OF TWO DIFFERENT POSTS

HAPPY 100th, DIETRICH F.-D.! (1925-2012)

With András Schiff, Fischer-Dieskau sings "Trockne Blumen" (1991).
Of course we're going to hear it, right after some administrative stuff.

[Screen cap from video of their Schöne Müllerin in Feldkirch (Austria)]

by Ken

Post No. 1 is the long-awaited follow-up to the April 21 post, "Schubert understood that life sometimes works out and other times . . . well, it doesn't." The beginning has been sitting ready for a while now, waiting for the rest of it to come together. Much progress has been made, but we're not there yet, and when, amid the huffing and puffing to get there, I was reminded that the Fischer-Dieskau centenary is imminent --

I got the idea for "Post No. 2," which could be made by simply ripping a completed chunk out of the draft of Post No. 1, with minimal alteration, as an introduction to a selection of Fischer-Dieskau gems from the SC Archive. Not so simple, alas, as I realized when I got as far as some Bach and Gluck. No problem: We'll reserve the full archival dip to a future date and tack the Bach and Gluck excerpts onto the chunk extracted from "Post No. 1."

OH, ONE MORE THING: We'll be hearing the two post-beginnings in reverse order. After all, it's Dieter F.-D.'s b'day!


Post No. 2
IT'S D.F.-D.'S 100th BIRTHDAY WEDNESDAY!

Just 'cause here's no longer with us is no reason not to mark the occasion.

SCHUBERT: Die schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Milleress), D. 795:

[1] Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, as we heard in our last post, from his 1971 DG recording of Die schöne Müllerin with Gerald Moore at the piano
[2] AS PICTURED ABOVE: Fischer-Dieskau at 65 (!), with András Schiff, at the Schubertiade in Feldkirch (Austria), June 1991  [Watch here, at 47:18]
[3] Baritone Sanford Sylvan, with David Breitman accompanying on fortepiano, from their 1991 Schöne Müllerin for Elektra Nonesuch

Schubert understood that life sometimes works out and other times . . . well, it doesn't

PANICKY MONDAY 12:15pm UPDATE: OMG, after the heap of fixing and tinkering I've done, suddenly the audio clips aren't loading! I think it's an Internet Archive website problem and, um, maybe it'll fix itself? Please check back, and maybe pray? -- Ed.

RELIEVED MONDAY 12:50pm UPDATE: I think we're OK! In the meantime, I've fixed yet another incorrect clip. Sigh! -- Ed.

The world's first superstar flutist, Jean-Pierre Rampal, with his frequent collaborator -- on both harpsichord and piano -- Robert Veyron-Lacroix

I THINK SOMETHING OF A MIRACLE HAPPENS AT
THE VERY START OF THIS ROUSING MUSICAL BIT

For now let's call it "Flute & Piano Bit A," and note that it consists of a mere eight bars of music, repeated. Note too how differently our two elite performing teams imagine it. (If you need a hint, start by noting the timings.)

Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute; Robert Veyron-Lacroix, piano. EMI, ℗1959
Emmanuel Pahud, flute; Eric Le Sage, piano. Valois, recorded in the Salle de Châtonneyre (Switzerland), February 1994

BUT TO APPRECIATE WHAT HAPPENS AT THE START OF 'BIT A,'
WE NEED TO HEAR SOMETHING REALLY QUITE DIFFERENT

We can call it "Flute & Piano Bit B" -- and note again how differently our performers hear this music. (A word of caution: Be careful not to crank your volume up. Note that this bit begins pp [very soft] for the piano and p [soft] for the flute, and while it does heat up, it quickly cools back down.)

Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute; Robert Veyron-Lacroix, piano
Emmanuel Pahud, flute; Eric Le Sage, piano

by Ken

Before we go on, there are a few more things you should perhaps know about "Flute & Piano Bit A."

(1) My proffer of "something of a miracle" may be misleading, given that we usually think of "miracles" as happy-making events. I think the composer was well aware of this, and really meant for what's happening here to sound happy-ish, but I don't want you to blame me if the "miracle" turns out to seem fairly catastrophic.

As we've noted, there's more than one reason to care about Mahler's loopy little Wunderhorn song "Ablösung im Sommer," Part 1

FOR STARTERS, IS THIS THE SAME SONG?

MAHLER: Lieder aus der Jugendzeit (Songs from Youth):
"Ablösung im Sommer" ("Summer Replacement")

Cuckoo has fallen to his death
on a green willow tree.
Cuckoo is dead!
Fallen to his death.

Who then for us this whole summer
will while away the time?
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
Hey! Lady Nightingale must do so!

She sits on a green branch:
the small, delicate Nightingale,
the dear, sweet Nightingale!
She sings and hops, is ever happy,
even when other birds are silent.

We'll wait for Lady Nightingale,
who lives in green hedgerows.
And if the cuckoo is at an end,
then she will start to warble.

-- original text "based on" Des Knaben Wunderhorn but
mostly by Mahler, translation (mostly) by William Mann

Listen on YouTube (audio only)
Or click here to go to Internet Archive, then press ► to play


Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; Geoffrey Parsons, piano. Hyperion, recorded in Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, London, Feb. 24-25, 1983

Or click here to go to Internet Archive, then press ► to play


Diana Damrau, soprano; Stephan Matthias Lademann, piano. Telos Music, recorded in Telos Music Studios, Mechernich-Floisdorf, Germany, May or Sept. 2003

Click here to listen on Internet Archive, then press ► to play


Anny Felbermayer, soprano; Viktor Graf, piano. Vanugard, recorded in Vienna, 1952

Click here to listen on Internet Archive, then press ► to play


Judith Raskin, soprano; George Schick, piano. Epic-CBS-Sony, recorded in New York City, June 1965

A NOTE ON THIS WEEK'S MUSIC (AND SOME
CONSIDERATIONS GOING FORWARD)

Happily, Internet Archive seems back to something like normal functioning, meaning that it's once again possible to draw on Sunday Classics clips that reside there. However, this post, as you may recall, was originally conceived to depend on YouTube for music, and so a fair amount of today's music is so sourced, though it's all audio-only.

A number of today's performances already existed in the SC Archive (chez Internet Archive), and I've returned to embedding clips, hoping they'll play normally. But for these selections I've also included links to their Internet Archive pages. And I've included them in a particular form: with the "Webamp" player active. I've done this for another reason. While I.A. was grounded, the team was also working on a new version of its player, which is what 's used to play the clips that are embedded here. So that even after access to the archive was restored, for a while it was necessary, even if you were listening on-site, to switch to the Webamp option in order to hear anything.

At some point the new player must have been activated, but it appears that, understandably, it wasn't designed to work on old, no-longer-supported browser versions. So anyone who's dependent on such browsers isn't going to be hearing much music. If there are any SC readers in that situation, I'd love to know about it, because this means that all those years' worth of posts are going to be music-less for you. K can at least continue going forward to provide on-site links.

by Ken

In last week's post ("Not that it takes much, but I'm in an 'Urlicht' frame of mind -- and we're going to have some other Mahler Wunderhorn songs too," Oct. 28) we listened to a pair of Mahler's great song hits, "
Urlicht" and "Father Anthony's Fish Sermon," both settings of texts drawn from the folk-song anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn" ("The Youth's Magic Horn") -- and a little wisp of a third, less consequential Wunderhorn song: the song we've just heard again in an almost confounding range of renderings, "Ablösung im Sommer." It's one of Mahler's early Wunderhorn settings, which he felt no need (or reason) to orchestrate himself, though we've already heard it with orchestra (and we have in store performances with orchestratations by several different hands).


IT'S A CHARMING, PERHAPS GOOFY
OR MAYBE EVEN WEIRD LITTLE SONG

Not that it takes much, but I'm in an "Urlicht" frame of mind -- and we're going to have some other Mahler Wunderhorn songs too

AND DO WE HAVE A KNOCKOUT "URLICHT" COMING UP!

---

TODAY WE HAVE MUSIC!!!  (It's just not in our usual form)

Internet Archive, where SC's music is lodged, has been dealing with major cyber-attacks (see below). While it's back online (hooray!), it's still in "read-only" form, so I still had to find another way to "re-musicalize" an SC post.

---

zart  adj  sensitive, delicate, tender
[from Mahler's directive to the singer of "Urlicht":
"durchaus zart" -- "throughout zart"]

MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 in C-sharp minor (Resurrection):
iv. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light"): Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht (Choralmässig) (Very solemn, but simple/plain/truthful) (Chorale-like)
Then at bar 3: "Nicht schleppen" ("Don't drag")


Per the 2015 YT posting: "the first known footage of Glenn Gould conducting"

O little red rose,
Man lies in greatest need,
Man lies in greatest pain,
I would rather be in heaven.
Then I came upon a broad path,
then came a little angel and wanted to turn me away.
Ah no, I didn't let myself be turned away:
I am from God and want to return to God,
the dear God will give me a little light,
will light the way for me to eternal blissful life.

-- original German text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Maureen Forrester, contralto; orchestra, Glenn Gould, cond. Live performance filmed in Loew's Uptown Theatre, Toronto, for the CBC's 1956-57 Chrysler Festival series, aired Feb. 20, 1957

by Ken

To quote myself from the Oct. 2 Sunday Classics post:

Mahler had access to sheer beauty in a way that only Schubert could rival (think of "Urlicht," the radiant alto setting drawn from Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano's three-volume German folk-poetry anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn, which sets the stage for the monumental finale of the Resurrection Symphony). In addition, for all Mahler's command of musical tragedy, he was the genuinely wittiest composer the classical world has produced (think of "Father Anthony's Fish Sermon," a very different Wunderhorn settting).

Now, the above text chunk contains a basic breach of Sunday Classics protocol -- did you spot it? It's the, er, inspiration for the form this blogpost has finally taken: to rectify that error, which we'll talk about -- after:

(1) We deal with the Internet Archive disaster;
and (2) we hear more Mahler songs based on Des Knaben Wunderhorn.


(1) NOW, ABOUT INTERNET ARCHIVE: FINGERS CROSSED
FOR A RETURN TO NORMAL (BUT MORE SECURE) SERVICE
[Feel free to skip this section -- I really had to include it, though. -- Ed.]

You've probably noticed that we haven't had music on Sunday Classics since early October, and that's because essentially all our music is lodged on the indispensable Internet Archive, which describes itself as "a non-profit library of millions of free texts, movies, software, music, websites, and more." The Archive took itself offline in response to massive cyber-assaults beginning Oct. 8-9 (prefigured by lesser attacks in the spring). This update was posted by I.A.'s director of Library Services. (There are numerous links, which you can see in the online posting.)

Internet Archive Services Update: 2024-10-21
Posted on October 21, 2024 by Chris Freeland

Let's open this book of spells and see if we find a Stanley Drucker "moment" or two lurking inside

Okay, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn) isn't really a "book of spells," but the three volumes of wildly diverse German folk poetry were a creative wellspring for Mahler. (Wikipedia can get you up to speed.)

LET'S START OFF WITH WHAT CYNTHIA PHELPS*
MIGHT CALL A STANLEY DRUCKER MAHLER "MOMENT"

*You recall from last week NY Phil principal violist Cynthia P.'s quote at the time Stanley D. retired (2009), at which point they'd been fellow principals since she joined the orchestra in 1992:

"I think the thing I'll miss most about Stanley is his unbelievable creativity, his ability to make a moment anytime he has the opportunity."

OH, ONE MORE THING: As we listen to a pair of performances of one itty-bitty Wunderhorn song setting, just for now I'm not going to identify the performers. For this moment, we can call them, oh, "Team X" and "Team Y."


MAHLER: Songs from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn":
"Lob des hohen Verstandes" ("In Praise of High Intellect")

Once in a deep valley,
a cuckoo and nightingale
struck a wager:
Whoever would sing a masterpiece,
whether he won by art or luck,
he would win the bet.

The cuckoo spoke: "If you consent,
I have chosen a judge."
And he instantly appointed the ass.
"For since he has two large ears,
he can hear all the better,
and know what is right."

Soon they flew before the judge.
When he was told about the matter,
he decreed that they should sing.
The nightingale sang out sweetly!
The ass spoke: "You confuse me!
Hee-haw! Hee-haw!
I can't get it into my head."

Thereupon the cuckoo immediately began
his song with thirds, fourths, and fifths.
It pleased the ass, who said only: "Wait!
I will pronounce your judgment.

"You have sung well, nightingale!
But cuckoo, you sing a true anthem!
And held the beat precisely!
I say that from my great wisdom!
And even if it costs a whole country,
I thus pronounce you the winner."
Cuckoo, cuckoo! Hee-haw!

-- translation by Cecilia H. Porter

Team X

Team Y


by Ken

The song, of course, is one of the dozen free-standing settings Mahler made in his first fully mature years -- roughly the decade 1892-1901 -- from the strange and wonderful, almost indescribably diverse three-volume collection of German folk verse Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn). (Again, keep the Wikipedia link handy.) "Lob des hohen Verstandes" falls in a category we might call "Wacky-Satirical Plays on Nature," the most familiar of which would be the riverside sermon preached to the wild assortment of fishes by the good St. Anthony of Padua: "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt." We're going to be hearing that too.

Speaking of diversity, our two performances sure embody it, don't they? One thing they have in common is some pretty spiffy clarinet-playing (we'll talk about that later), but even that is different. Obviously one performance is sung by a man and the other by a woman, and just as obviously, one performance is a good deal perkier, if nothing else just plain quicker, than the other, which gives the song a markedly different character, I think. Maybe less obviously, or at least more subjectively, I would venture that one is warmer, more endearing, more user-friendly, though the other is equally, and cherishably, precise in its realization of the wealth of detail Mahler has crafted into both the vocal line and the orchestral setting.


WHICH REMINDS ME: WE CAN ACTUALLY SEPARATE
THE SONG FROM ITS ORCHESTRAL SWADDLING

After all, like Mahler's other Wunderhorn settings, "Lob des hohen Verstandes" was composed first for voice and piano. If we get the orchestras cleared away, making room to wheel in the piano so Team Z can take their places, it'll sound like this:

Team Z


AS I'M SURE YOU'VE FIGURED OUT, TEAM Z . . .

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"

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.

Wait, who is Timotheus, and why is he crying "Revenge! Revenge!"? (Oh yes, plus a morceau of Fauré, and some other stuff at the end)

No, the image isn't Dryden's Timotheus, per se. It's a vase depiction (proffered by Wikipedia) of 'an' aulos player, as 'our' Timotheus, a musician who had Alexander the Great's ear, happens to have been. Close enough!

"Revenge, revenge! Revenge, Timotheus cries!"


Forbes Robinson (bs); Philip Ledger, cond. (rec. London, 1966)

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b); Hans Stadlmair, cond. (rec. Munich, 1977)

Bryn Terfel (bs-b); Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. (rec. Edinburgh, 1997)

by Ken

You know how suddenly you realize a snatch of music is playing in your head, and at least at first you can't think why? At first, in fact, for a bit -- or longer than a bit if you've reached a certain age -- you may not be able to puzzle out what the heck the music is? And even then you may be mystified as to what the heck it's doing in your head? Except that it must surely be connected, somehow!, to something (or things) in your immediate reality?

For me the other day it was a snatch of the above excerpt, a snatch containing just the words "Revenge, Timotheus cries" (or, more likely, "cried" is how my head was remembering it), and I couldn't even shake any other words loose. Until I recollected that for a goodly stretch there aren't any other words.

As to what the heck the snatch was doing in my head, it seemed somehow a good bet that it had something to do with thoughts of, you know, revenge. You'd figure that the context of the snatch would provide vital clues. Having tracked down the source of the snatch, I wasn't overly optimistic, since Handel's Alexander's Feast isn't a piece I've ever thought about (or listened to) much. In fact, my acquaintance with the air generally known as "Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries" never had much to do with Handel's setting of Dryden's Alexander's Feast.

No, it was the number that popped out to me from the swell LP of Handel bass arias from which the Forbes Robinson performance comes -- a part of the substantial swelling of 1960s interest, following ground-laying pokings-at in the 1950s, in Handel's vast "beyond Messiah" catalog of dramatic works -- the oratorios as well as the operas, and a range of other large-scale vocal feasts, like Alexander's Feast, which is effectively "another" Ode for St. Cecilia's Day.

The Fischer-Dieskau recording, though from a later decade, reminds us that the 1960s produced not one but two fine stereo recordings of Handel's opera Julius Caesar, the earlier one notable for Beverly Sills's "breakthrough" role, Cleopatra, as well as Norman Treigle's Caesar; the later one featuring Fischer-Dieskau in the title role, partnered by Tatiana Troyanos. Whereas by Bryn Terfel's time, a mainstream opera singer recording a whole program of Handel arias seemed hardly a novelty.

Fischer-Dieskau's'60s recording life, by the way, was bracketed by Giulio Cesare -- not just finishing in April 1969 with the complete recording, in Munich, conducted by Karl Richter, but beginning in April 1960 with an LP's worth of "Arias and Scenes of Cleopatra and Caesar," partnered with Irmgard Seefried, in Berlin with that noted baroque stylist Karl Böhm.


OKAY, BUT WE STILL WANT TO HEAR THE CONTEXT OF
"REVENGE, REVENGE, TIMOTHEUS CRIES," DON'T WE?

Sure, we can do that. Why not?

Here's a tease, or maybe a tiny bit more than a tease, of a sort-of-post that should be coming up soon

Here's a catchy old tune:

by Ken

The blog horror I reported last week, the imposition of a radical and near-catastrophic new interface by Google's Blogger bloghost, has taken an enormous toll, requiring limitless reserves of energy and determination to accomplish basic things that used to be fairly routine, making it that much more difficult to try to conceive a workable blogpost. I've got something that's not much of a blogpost but does advance us a little in some of our current inquiries, which have taken us from Mozart's Don Giovanni to Beethoven's Fidelio and onward to the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, but I still haven't been able to get even that stopgap thing posted. Monday, I hope?

Meanwhile, let me make good at least a little on the tease above.

To put it another way:

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Berlin Philharmonic, Ferenc Fricsay, cond. DG, recorded Dec. 1957-Apr. 1958

Franz Crass, bass; Vienna Singverein der Gesellschaft der Freunde, Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. Live performance from the Vienna Festival, June 6, 1960

Watch for further developments.

#

We need music! Now, I was thinking about Mahler's "Die zwei blauen Augen," the last of the four Wayfarer Songs --

Plus: We have a special musical bonus at the end!

Want a hint? I'll go you one better: Here's an audio tease --



Now could we have a post (of some sort?)


Irmgard Seefried sings Richard Strauss's "Morgen!," Op. 27, No. 4, in the composer's own orchestration, with Piero Bellugi conducting the Orchestre National de l'ORTF in Paris's Salle Pleyel, Jan. 20, 1965. Note -- as the camera does! -- the soloist playing the violin solos around which Strauss built his orchestration of the song. Isn't it interesting that in January 1965 the Orchestre National, at least for this concert, had a female concertmaster?

by Ken

This is a time, it seems to me, when we need more music. So that's pretty much what we're going to do today.

WHERE WE ARE NOW, BLOG-WISE?

Yes, I know we've got a growing tangle of loose threads, and I hope gradually to work our way through them. I'm even adding a couple of more. Last week's two-item "Rita Gorr sings Gluck" mini-compendium led me to want to listen to her performances of those two arias (Orfeo's "Che farò senza Euridice?" and Alceste's "Divinités du Styx") in context with other singers', to get a better sense of why Gorr's mean so much to me. As I've played with this, the project has become more and more intriguing, as to what makes these arias work and not work, so I still want to pursue this.

What's more, the SC vault has a good helping of Gorr as Saint-Saëns's Dalila, and a couple of snatches of her Walküre Fricka, which I want to bring out. And considering that I made particular reference to these roles along with Verdi's Amneris, I'd like to add some samples of that to what shapes up as yet another post.

AS FOR TODAY, WE NEED MUSIC NOW, DON'T WE?

Like it says up top, during the week I found myself thinking about, and hearing in my head, "Die zwei blauen Augen, the last of Mahler's four Songs of a Wayfarer, a song to which we once devoted a good deal of attention, icluding most of a post of its own (see below). I vaguely recalled that I had the Wayfarer Songs on a DVD of some sort, and finally tracked it down to an extremely miscellaneous one that EMI issued in its "Classic Archive" series, which they couldn't find a better way of titling than:

Schwarzkopf    Seefried
Fischer-Dieskau

Which is (let the record show) absolutely accurate. We get soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in an October 1961 staged-for-TV excerpt from her most famous role, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, giving us the final chunk of Act I, starting in the middle of the Marschallin's great monologue, at "Kann ich auch an ein Mädel erinnern"her sudden, haunting recollection of her innocent younger self, "fresh from the convent," with mezzo Hertha Töpper (who died just a week ago Saturday, a few weeks short of her 96th birthday); then soprano Irmgard Seefried is seen in two orchestral song groups via French TV: five by Richard Strauss from January 1965, including the "Morgen!" performance atop this post, and three by Mahler; and Dietrich Fischer Dieskau singing -- yes! -- Mahler's Wayfarer Songs from Japan's NHK, October 1960, with an outstanding Mahlerian, Paul Kletzki conducting. (There's also a Fischer-Dieskau "bonus": four core-repertory Schubert songs from 1959, with the great Gerald Moore at the piano.)


I WOUND UP WATCHING EVERYTHING ON THE DVD

Schubert's "Die Krähe": A pretty little song overlaid with creepiness or a creepy little song overlaid with prettiness?

"A crow has flown back and forth over my head"

José van Dam, bass-baritone; Dalton Baldwin, piano. Forlane, recorded in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (France), January 1990

Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone; Imogen Cooper, piano. Philips, recorded in Salzburg, November 1994

Olaf Bär, baritone; Geoffrey Parsons, piano. EMI, recorded in London, December 1988

by Ken

I haven't been writing much lately -- well, at all, at least not that I've actually posted. (I don't expect the reasons are of any importance to anyone but me.) One day this week "Die Krähe" ("The Crow"), no. 15 of the 24 songs of Schubert's Winterreise (Winter Journey), the all but unique song cycle (the only close kin I'm aware of is Schubert's own Die schöne Müllerin, also set to poems by Wilhelm Müller) popped into my head and wouldn't go away. You know how that goes, right? Sometimes you can trace by which the thing lodged in your brain, but sometimes you can't, and I still can't figure how "Die Krähe" took possession of me. More worryingly, I'm not sure what to make of it -- I can't help feeling there's nothing good about it.

I started gathering recordings, in particular by singers I respect who've made multiple recordings of Winterreise. Some of you may have seen this compendium taking shape, since for technical reasons the pile proved easier to keep track of and spot-check in posted form. One thing I discovered quickly is how surprisingly different performances of the song are. "Surprisingly" different because, suggestive as the song is, it's such an unassuming one that I don't think the considerable differences in tone and emphasis (what does this whole overflight-by-crow business mean to the singer-narrator, let alone to us?) necessarily register. If you want a real jolt, listen in succession to the 1954 and 1961 Hotter recordings.

The 1962 Fischer-Dieskau and 1961 Prey take pride of place here, likely because the former's 1962 Winterreise and the latter's 1961 one were my first recordings of the cycle. (And I still enjoy the latter a lot. The Fischer-Dieskau Winterreise I really like, from which we've heard excerpts, is the 1971 DG one with Gerald Moore.) The singleton performances up top, by the way, are simply by performers whose Winterreise recordings I really enjoy.

I should probably want to talk about this a little. Who knows? Maybe I will. One thought for now, though: If "creepy" in the post title doesn't sound quite right, how about "spooky"? "Morbid"? "Foreboding"? For that matter, "pretty" isn't quite what I mean, I don't think. But isn't there something decidedly and weirdly, um, charming about a song whose subject matter is so weird?


Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Klaus Billing, piano. Broadcast performance, Berlin, Jan. 19, 1948 (mono)

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. EMI, recorded in Berlin, Jan. 13-14, 1955 (mono)

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. EMI, recorded 1962

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Jörg Demus, piano. DG, recorded 1966

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. DG, recorded in Berlin, August 1971

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Alfred Brendel, piano. Philips, recorded in Berlin, July 1985
[This by no means exhausts even Fischer-Dieskau's commercial Winterreise recordings. When, with great difficulty, I rolled aside an audio cart that blocks the relevant section of my LP shelves, I found a 1979-ish DG one with Daniel Barenboim which I'd forgotten about, and even after the Brendel version there's a 1990 Sony one (audio and video) with Murray Perahia.]


Hermann Prey, baritone; Karl Engel, piano. EMI, recorded in Berlin, October 1961

Hermann Prey, baritone; Irwin Gage, piano. Italian Swiss Radio performance, Locarno, Oct. 2, 1978

Hermann Prey, baritone; Philippe Bianconi, piano. Denon, recorded in Hamburg, Apr. 3-6, 1984


Hans Hotter, bass-baritone; Michael Raucheisen, piano. DG, recorded in Berlin, November 1942 (mono)

Hans Hotter, bass-baritone; Hans Schörter, piano. Live performance from Frankfurt, Mar. 27, 1947 (mono)

Hans Hotter, bass-baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. EMI, recorded in London, May 24-29, 1954 (mono)

Hans Hotter, bass-baritone; Erik Werba, piano. DG, recorded in Vienna, Dec. 15-18, 1961
[There's also an April 1969 live performance from Tokyo with pianist Hans Dokoupil, recorded and released by Japanese Columbia, which I've been curious about since I first learned it exists but have never been able to lay hands on.]


Jon Vickers, tenor; Geoffrey Parsons, piano. EMI, recorded in Paris, July 9-13, 1983

Jon Vickers, tenor; Peter Schaaf, piano. VAI, live performance in Canada, Oct. 2, 1983

#

"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