Here it is: our Garrulous Old Moneygrubbers' Week bonus -- and now it's a double bonus!

THURSDAY UPDATE: The second part of the bonus isn't just ready but now has additional circumventions and digressions.

I tried like heck to find an image that might be taken as somehow relating to a ship's crewman falling asleep while sitting watch. This is as close as I got.

After the worst of the storm in Act I of The Flying Dutchman --

The STEERSMAN, having been left on deck to stand watch while captain Daland and the rest of the crew, exhausted by their exertions coping with the near-fatal storm, rest below deck. He made one more round of the deck, then sat near the rudder. Now he yawns, then rouses himself as sleep comes over him.

Steersman's Song
Through thunder and storm, from distant seas
I draw near, my lass!
Through towering waves, from the south
I am here, my lass!
My lass, were there no south wind,
I could never come to you:
ah, dear south wind, blow once more!
My lass longs for me.
Hoyohe! Halloho! Yoloho! Hoho!
[A wave breaks against the ship, shaking it violently. The STEERSMAN starts up and looks around. Having satisfied himself that no harm has been done, he sits down again and sings, while sleep gradually overcomes him.]
On southern shores, in distant lands,
I have thought of you.
Through storm and sea, from Moorish strands
a gift I have brought for you.
My lass, praise the fair south wind,
for I bring you a golden ring.
Ah, dear south wind, then blow!
My lass would fain have her gift.
Hoyohe! Halloho! Hoyohe! Halloho!

The STEERSMAN struggles with his fatigue and finally falls asleep. The storm begins to rage violently; it grows darker. In the distance appears the ship of the "Flying Dutchman" with blood-red sails and black masts. She rapidly nears the shore, on the side opposite the Norwegian ship; with a fearful crash, she casts anchor. -- DALAND's STEERSMAN starts up from his sleep; without leaving his place he glances hastily at the helm and, reassured that no harm has been done, murmurs the beginning of his song,

My lass, were there no south wind --

and falls asleep again. -- Mute and without making the slightest noise, the spectral crewmen of the DUTCHMAN furl the sails.

-- translation by Lionel Salter

Fritz Wunderlich (t), Steersman; Staatskapelle Berlin, Franz Konwitschny, cond. EMI-Deutsche Schallplatten, recorded 1959

Harald Ek (t), Steersman; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded live, July-Aug. 1971

Ernst Häfliger (t), Steersman; RIAS Symphony Orchestra (Berlin), Ferenc Fricsay, cond. DG, recorded 1952

Uwe Heilmann (t), Steersman; Vienna Philharmonic, Christoph von Dohnányi, cond. Decca, recorded March-Nov. 1991

by Ken

I didn't see how it could be done: to get as close as we got, in this week's post ("Ohmygosh, it's turned into Garrulous Old Moneygrubbers' Week here at Sunday Classics -- or has it?"), to the Steersman's Song in Act I of The Flying Dutchman and not hear the song itself. At any rate, I don't know how to do it. And since, as I mentioned, we had a fine sampling of performances in the Sunday Classics audio archive, I gave up trying to resist.

Actually, we're going to significantly more: something I've long longed to hear. Again, I can't help myself. For now, though, here we are, with the sea captain Daland's little ship anchored offshore after being blown violently off course by a sudden storm that attacked it just as it was within sight of home -- Daland could literally see his house. The little Act I excerpt we heard took us right up to the point of the Steersman is left alone on deck, just as he was about to break into song in an effort to keep himself awake.


READY TO JUMP TO THE SECOND HALF OF OUR BONUS?

Ohmygosh, it's turned into Garrulous Old Moneygrubbers' Week here at Sunday Classics --or has it?

NOTE: If the audio clips don't all load, try refreshing the post -- more than once if necessary. They're all ready and waiting.

His chance encounter-at-sea with the mysterious -- and rich as all get-out -- Dutchman (Darren Jeffery) gives Daland (Steven Gallop) ideas about his marriageable daughter's future, in Melbourne's 2019 Flying Dutchman.


CAUTIONARY NOTE ABOUT THIS SET OF AUDIO CLIPS: They're all, er, special, in a particular way, and are here for a reason. (Okay, okay: We might call these "Garrulous Old Moneygrubbers' versions.") If your ears and brain are screaming, "Yuck, I can't stand it!," farther down we've got a heap of clips, of both selections, that are special in a way different way. -- Ed.

BEETHOVEN: Fidelio: Act I, Rocco, "Hat man nicht auch Gold beineben" ("If you don't have money too")

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Kurt Böhme (bs), Rocco; Vienna Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, cond. Decca, recorded March 1964

Herbert Alsen (bs), Rocco; Vienna Philharmonic, Wilhelm Furtwängler, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, Aug. 3, 1948

WAGNER: The Flying Dutchman: Act II, Daland, "Mein Kind, du siehst mich" ("My child, you see me") . . . "Mögst du, mein Kind" ("Might you, my child")

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["Mögst du, mein Kind" at 1:43] Josef Greindl (bs), Daland; Annelies Kupper (s), Senta; RIAS Symphony Orchestra (Berlin), Ferenc Fricsay, cond. DG, recorded 1952

["Mögst du, mein Kind" at 1:45] Josef Greindl (bs), Daland; Anja Silja (s), Senta; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond. Philips, recorded live, August 1961

by Ken

We've got so many balls hanging precariously in the air that I was really hoping we snatch and ground one or two this week. Instead we're tossing up another.

The obvious follow-up to the "post-taste" I offered earlier today (or maybe it was yesterday -- you know, one of those days in there), which included performances of Beethoven's Creatures of Prometheus Overture, would have been something I've had in mind for several weeks, for some point in the future: a look into the mystery of the master's overture-making skills, as reflected in the four specimens he created over that nine-year period for Fidelio, which include two gems and -- yes, I'm going to use the word -- two duds.

First page of the Fidelio Overture

The mystery becomes a little less mysterious when we factor in that, as I pointed out in the post-taste, while by 1805 the 35-year-old Beethoven had already have produced a large body of music of a high level of mastery in a wide variety of genres, as an overture-writer he was still a novice, whereas by 2014, when he sealed the deal with the fourth and final overture for the opera, the one we know as the Fidelio Overture, he was one of music's all-time master overturists. What may be most amazing is that in his second attempt at an operatic overture, as early as 1806, he gave us what may not be a useful operatic curtain-raiser but nevertheless is one of the great masterpieces of music. And then he produced a real dud. Maybe it just goes to show that by and large "easy" wasn't in Beethoven's working vocabulary.

Again, though, this was a subject for the future -- no way it was going to be doable on the spot, even if I curtailed the plan I'd roughed out, which would have included hearing all of the canonical Beethoven overtures.

Similarly, I didn't see any way of jumping from where we are to the lesson of Fidelio.


WHAT WE'RE DOING, THOUGH, ISN'T UNRELATED

In "The Flying Dutchman" Wagner shows there's more than one way to get from Act I to Act II and from Act II to Act III

by Ken

In our earlier post about Wagner's Flying Dutchman we heard the Norwegian sea captain Daland return home from a perilous voyage bringing a guest, none other than the Flying Dutchman to meet (and hopefully entrance) his daughter, Senta. Then we left the two potential lovers alone for their long scene, and I would have liked to return for the end of Act II, as Daland returns. Here is that little fragment.

DALAND: Forgive me! My people will stay outside no longer;
each time we return home you know there is a feast.
I would enhance it. Therefore I come to ask
if it can be combined with a betrothal.
[To the DUTCHMAN]: I think you've wooed her to your heart's content!
[to SENTA]: Senta, my child, do you too consent?
SENTA [with solemn resolution]:
Here is my hand! And without regret
I plight my troth till death!
DUTCHMAN: She gives her hand! Powers of hell,
through her troth I defy you!
DALAND: You shall not regret this union!
To the feast! Today let all rejoice!

Karl Ridderbusch (bs), Daland; Gwyneth Jones (s), Senta; Thomas Stewart (b), Dutchman; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded live, 1971

Kurt Moll (bs), Daland; Dunja Vejzovic (s), Senta; José van Dam (bs-b), Dutchman; Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded 1981-83


TRANSFORMATIONS

In Friday's preview we heard the Sailors' Chorus that opens Act III. Now we're going to hear two ways that Wagner put Acts II and III together. Originally he imagined the opera's three acts running together; later he separated them by repeating orchestral material at the ends and beginnings of the interior acts.

Preview: A little more of "The Flying Dutchman" -- we hear from the sailors

WAGNER: The Flying Dutchman: End of Act I, Daland, "Hei! Wie die Segel schon sich blähn" ("Hey, how the sails are already filling!") . . . Sailors, "Mit Gewitter und Sturm" ("Through thunder and storm")

DALAND [going aboard his ship]:
Hey, how the sails are already filling!
Hallo! Hallo!
[He gives a signal on his whistle.]
Quick, lads, cast off!
SAILORS [as they sail off]:
Through thunder and storm, through distant seas
I draw near, my lass! Hurrah!
Through towering waves, from the south
I am here, my lass! Hurrah!
My girl, were there no south wind,
I could never come to you:
Oh, dear south wind, blow once more!
My lass longs for me!
Ho! Ho! Ho, yo-lo-ho!
Ho ho ho ho ho!
Ho! Ho! Ho, yo-lo-ho! Ho ho ho ho ho ho!

Hans Sotin (bs), Daland; Vienna State Opera Concert Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Christoph von Dohnányi, cond. Decca, recorded March-Nov. 1991

by Ken

Two weeks ago, in our Father's Day special, we made the acquaintance of the Norwegian sea captain Daland in Wagner's Flying Dutchman -- first (barely) surviving a sudden, violent storm just as his ship is nearing home port, in sight of his own house; then introducing his cherished daughter, Senta, to an eminently marriageable fellow sea captain he has met by the most remarkable chance.

The gentleman caller is in fact none other than the legendary Flying Dutchman, doomed to sail the seas until he finds redemption through love. Only the Dutchman turns out to be not a legend but a flesh-and-blood man, and one who could provide for Senta better than Daland could have dared hope. In our excerpt above, after Daland and the Dutchman have gotten to know each other under these bizarre circumstances and the Dutchman has agreed to call on Senta, the sailors have been roused by the sudden rising -- finally! -- of a south wind, the wind that will take them home. What we've heard is in fact the end of Act I.


IF THIS MUSIC SOUNDS FAMILIAR (BUT DIFFERENT) . . .

Father's Day special -- Wagner's Daland usually knows better than to trust in the wind

DALAND: [coming down from the cliff]:
No doubt! Seven miles away
the storm has driven us from safe port.
So near our goal after a long voyage,
this trick was saved up for me!
STEERSMAN [on board, shouting through cupped hands]:
Ho! Captain!
DALAND: On board with you -- how goes it?
STEERSMAN [as before]: Good, captain!
We have firm grounding.
DALAND: It's Sandwike! I know the bay well.
[0:53] Damn! I already saw my house on the shore.
Senta, my child, I imagined myself already embracing.
Then came this blast from the depths of hell.
Who trusts in wind trusts in Satan's mercy.
Who trusts in wind trusts in Satan's mercy,
trusts in Satan's mercy.
[He goes on board the ship.]
There's no help for it! Patience! The storm is abating;
so fierce a storm couldn't last long.
[On board] Hey, lads! Your watch was long --
to rest then! I'm not concerned anymore.
[The sailors go below deck on the ship.]
Now, steersman, will you take the watch for me?
There's no danger, but it's good if you keep watch.
STEERSMAN: Be without worry! Sleep peacefully, captain!
[DALAND goes into his cabin. The STEERSMAN is alone on deck. The storm has abated somewhat and returns only at sporadic intervals. The waves are still rough on the open sea. The STEERSMAN makes his round once more, then sits down near the rudder. He yawns, then rouses himself as sleep comes over him.]

Karl Ridderbusch (bs), Daland; Harald Ek (t), Steersman; Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded live, 1971

by Ken

In Friday night's preview we met the Norwegian sea captain Daland in happy homecoming mode, in Act II of The Flying Dutchman -- not just happy to be returning to his home and his beloved daugher Senta from an unusually perilous voyage with life and limbs intact, but returning in the company of a stranger, met under extraordinary circumstances, who is the best son-in-law material fate could have sent his way.

Now we're returning, not quite to Act I curtain rise (we'll get there in a moment), but to the brush with death, for him and his crew, that Daland has just survived thanks to a combination of luck and his own nautical skill. With his ship becalmed but safe just off the coast, not far from home, he berates himself for having, incredibly foolishly, let slip his guard against the vagaries of fate. The section we're especially concerned with here is the highlighted one, where for the first time he indulges in sustained singing, when he recalls that literally within sight of home, already imagining himself there, with Senta in his arms, he was beset by a violent storm outburst that caught him almost tragically unprepared.

This extraordinary little set piece he sings is at once one of the most vivid examples I know of the way music, and in particular vocal music, can be used to create character and dramatic urgency and one of the most challenging but potentially rewarding pieces of vocal writing I know. And I've never heard anyone do it fuller justice than Karl Ridderbusch in this live performance from the 1971 Bayreuth Festival.

He sings high, he sings low; he sings with unmatched power and unrivaled delicacy; he attacks every pitch dead-on while binding phrases with ravishing tone and dramatic sweep. Above all he really does sing every note, filling out each syllable with the ravishing sound of a great bass voice under complete, sculpting phrases with seemingly effortless control.

To be perhaps a little clearer, I though we'd listen to this amazing scene chunk again, in an assortment of performances that I consider admirable in many respects (much better than the average one encounters; it would be too easy to make the case with that sort of performance), and then listen to Ridderbusch's again.

WAGNER: The Flying Dutchman: Act I, Daland, "Kein Zweifel! Sieben Meilen fort" ("No doubt! Seven miles away")

Preview: Father's Day special -- meet the sea captain Daland (with UPDATE: Overture!)

In Act II of Wagner's Flying Dutchman, the sea captain Daland has just walked into his home on the rugged Norwegian coast following a harrowing voyage with a near-fatal landing, as we witnessed in Act I. Here bass Karl Ridderbusch as Daland exhorts his daughter, Senta, to welcome the guest he's brought home with him (from a Rome Radio broadcast performance conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch, February 15, 1969).

DALAND: Would you, my child, bid this stranger welcome?
A sailor is he, like me; he asks our hospitality.
Long without homeland, always on far, long journeys,
in foreign lands he has gained great wealth.
Banished from his fatherland,
for a home he will pay richly.
Say, Senta, would it displease you
if this stranger stays with us?
[SENTA nods her approval. DALAND turns to the DUTCHMAN.]
Say, did I praise her too much?
You see her yourself -- does she please you?
Should I let my praises yet overflow?
Admit, she is an ornament to her sex.
[The DUTCHMAN makes a gesture of approval.]
Would you, my child, show yourself well-disposed to this man?
He also asks for the beautiful gift of your heart.
If you give him your hand, you are to call him bridegroom.
If you heed your father, tomorrow he'll be your husband.
[SENTA makes a convulsive, painful movement. DALAND produces some jewelry and shows it to his daughter.]
See this ring, see these bracelets!
What he owns makes this meager.
Mustn't you, dear child, long for it?
It's yours if you exchange rings.
[SENTA, without paying any attention to him, doesn't take her eyes off the DUTCHMAN, who likewise, without listening to DALAND, is absorbed in contemplating her. DALAND becomes aware of this; he looks at them both.]
But neither speaks . . . Am I not wanted here?
So it is! I'd best leave them alone.
[To SENTA] May you win this noble man!
Believe me, such look won't happen again.
[To the DUTCHMAN] Stay here alone! I'll go away.
Believe me, however beautiful, she is that faithful.
[He goes out slowly, watching them both with pleased surprise. SENTA and the DUTCHMAN are alone. Long pause.]

by Ken

This week's post has come about in an even more than usually roundabout way, triggered by a comment I was startled to encounter online about a performance by the bass we just heard, Karl Ridderbusch -- a comment so bizarrely off the mark that it made me wonder whether it tells us something about the way at least some latter-day listeners hear singing.

The comment pertained to Ridderbusch's first commercial recording of King Heinrich in Wagner's Lohengrin, but it soon occurred to me that the discussion should be expanded to include his Daland in The Flying Dutchman as well. Then it occurred to me that the discussion might more sensibly begin with The Flying Dutchman, and finally it occurred to me that we could hardly have a more appropriate subject for the Father's Day weekend.

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE PIECES I'VE BEEN KNOWN
TO LISTEN TO OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN