FLASH: Want to see 'n' hear Seiji Ozawa conduct Mendelssohn's Elijah for free? Act now!

We're also going to hear (right here!) Seiji conduct Beethoven's irresistible Choral Fantasy with its great champion Rudolf Serkin

The Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall is honoring Seiji Ozawa with free access to the performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah -- built around a commanding assumption of the crucial title role by baritone Matthias Goerne -- recorded on May 17, 2009. But I don't know how long it'll be free!

AN APOLOGY: This is really inexcusable. There's no good reason why I couldn't have gotten this "FLASH" up Monday, but here it is Sunday (well, actually, Monday again by the time this is posted), and .*nbsp. . . In one source I saw something like "On demand through February 29, but I didn't know if that was a legit cutoff date for free access. I dithered. The good news is that the 2009 and 2016 interviews shouldn't be going away anytime soon. Sorry!

by Ken

For once, I heard that clock ticking and punched up the 2009 Seiji-Berlin Elijah right away, and watched the whole thing. It took me a long time to come to grips with the piece, but I did, and it occupies a special place in my affections. I was especially happy to discover how strong Matthias Goerne's performance of the title role is, because without a strong Elijah the piece kind of doesn't make a lot of sense. But there's still a serious burden on the conductor, because a fair amount of the piece really does need a major effort of motivation-defining, and this is the sort of thing Seiji was so good at: helping his co-performers feel the importance of what they're performing in the moment and how it relates to a piece's grand design.

There's also some important history embedded in the Elijah performance, as I came to understand from watching the 2009 and 2016 interviews in the Digital Concert Hall archive. Onsite they're described as "conversations," and they truly are -- with a member of the orchestra, sometimes even in English, and always with subtitles even if they aren't. It turns out that the Elijah, owing to what I recall him describing in the 2016 "conversation," with his countryman Daishin Kashimoto, as "my mysterious illness" (all week I've been thinking I should really rewatch the 2016 conversation to pin down his exact words; this'll have to be close enough), would be his last Berlin appearance until he was finally able to return in 2016 to conduct an all-Beethoven second half of a concert that began with a conductorless performance by elite winds of the Berlin Phil of Mozart's stupendous Gran Partita Serenade, K. 361.


MORAL: DON'T OVERLOOK THE INTERVIEWS!

Probably next week we'll hear what higher-class singing can mean for even a grim character like Hunding -- this week we've got some other business

STORMY WEATHER -- AS IF SIEGMUND DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH
TROUBLES! NO WONDER HE'S SO DESPERATE FOR SHELTER

Inside a dwelling. In the middle stands a mighty ash tree, whose prominent roots spread wide and lose themselves in the ground. The summit of the tree is cut off by a jointed roof, so pierced that the trunk and the boughs branching out on every side pass through it, through openings made exactly to fit. We assume that the top of the tree spreads out above he roof. Around the trunk of the ash, as central point, a room has been constructed. The walls are of rudely hewn wood, here and thre hung with plaited and woven rugs.

In the foreground, right, is a hearth, whose chimney goes up sideways to the roof; behind the hearth is an inner room, like a store room, reached by a few wooden steps. In front of it, half drawn, is a plaited hanging. In the background, an entrance door with a simple wooden latch. Left, the door to an inner chamber, similarly reached by steps. Further forward, on the same side, a table with a broad bench fastened to the wall behind it and wooden stools in front of it.

A short orchestral prelude of violent, stormy character introduces the scene. When the curtain rises, SIEGMUND from without, hastily opens the main door and enters. It is towards evening; a fierce thunderstorm is just about to die down. For a moment, SIEGMUND keeps his hand on the latch and looks around the room; he seems to be exhausted by tremendous exertions; his raiment and general appearance proclaim him a fugitive. Seeing no one, he closes the door behind him, walks to the hearth, and throws himself down there, exhausted, on a bearskin rug.

-- translation by Andrew Porter

This storm has more menacing weight:

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Teldec, recorded live, June-July 1992
While this storm has more slashing drive:

Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi, cond. Decca, recorded 1992

by Ken

The above should provide a gentle reminder that coming off last week's post ("Last week I stuck up for Josef Greindl as Wagner's Daland, and this week too, as both Daland and Hunding -- but only up to a point"), we're lodged in Act I of Die Walküre, with particular focus on that shrouded-in-darkness householder Hunding, into whose house we have just slipped, mere minutes in advance of Siegmund. The idea for this week was that we were going to listen closely to Hunding's contributions to the grisly little domestic scene. We're looking to see what singing of real vocal distinction, allied with seriousness of purpose, of course, can add to the character's dimension.


I STILL WANT TO DO THAT -- JUST NOT RIGHT NOW