Before we take our closer look at Gurre-Lieder, I want to think about two performers who make one performance a special case

The ruins of Gurre Castle (as of 2007), in the far northeast of Denmark (on the map Gurre looks like a stone's throw across the water from Sweden) where King Valdemar I is supposed to have tucked away his beautiful, dearly beloved mistress Tove -- until, well, thereupon hangs a tale.

Which we'll get to. Just maybe not right away.

So it begins --


Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded live in the Kongress-Saal of the Deutsches Museum, Munich, March 9-12, 1965

Staatskapelle Dresden, Giuseppe Sinopoli, cond. Teldec, recorded live in the Semper Oper, August 1995

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton, cond. Live performance from Grieg Hall, in the Bergen International Festival, June 4, 2008

Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance from the Vienna Festival, in the Vienna Konzerthaus, June 10, 1969

In time, these Gurre-Lieder, or Songs of Gurre, come to Tove's declaration, "Nun sag' ich dir zum ersten Mal, 'König Volmer, ich liebe dich'" (replaying the performances we've already heard) --

Now I say to you for the first time, "King Volmer, I love you."
Now I kiss you for the first time, and fling my arms around you.
And if you were to say I had earlier said it
and ever given you my kiss,
then I say, "The king is a fool,
who recalls vague rubbish."
And if you say, "Indeed I am such a fool,"
then I'll say, "The king is right."
But if you say, "No, I'm not that,"
Then I'll say, "The king is bad."
For I have kissed all my roses to death,
all the while I was thinking of you.

Gundula Janowitz (s), Tove; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance from the Vienna Festival, in the Vienna Konzerthaus, June 10, 1969

Jessye Norman (s), Tove; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded live in Symphony Hall, April 1979

by Ken

Believe it or not, we're making progress, even if it's of a kind of sidewise sort. I remember there was a plan to illustrate the special qualities I hear in the conducting of Josef Krips (1902-1974), which at the time seemed to require nothing more than plucking an abundance of for-instances out of the Sunday Classics Archive. I'm not so good at just-plucking-out, however, and as soon as I started, the project began to grow and shift, especially when I found myself taking a better listen than I have before to a performance I've owned for ages: Krips's 1969 Vienna Festival rendering of Arnold Schoenberg's monumental cantata-oratorio-or-whatever (I'm not aware of a term that begins to cover it), Gurre-Lieder.

At that point it seemed necessary to pause the Krips quick-tour and spend a jot of time with Gurre-Lieder, one of the most arresting and astonishing musical creations I know. No sooner had I set out on that tack (well, maybe many, many hours of toil after I set out on that tack), I realized that before we got to that, it might be useful for me to explain why that particular performance exerted such a fascination for me. Which meant a closer look at conductor Krips and the singer who incarnated King Waldemar's inamorata Tove, which is to say the soprano Gundula Janowitz (born 1937).

Again, I first thought this could be accomplished easily and painlessly by a simple raid of the archives. And probably it could have. But again, my mind doesn't work that way. Soon enough I was back at work crafting whole new sets of audio clips and puzzling out a navigable path through them. And in just a moment we're going to partake of a teasing taste of G.J.


BUT FIRST, BACK TO THE BEGINNING -- OF GURRE-LIEDER

What's that, a trumpet? We hear two Great Moments in Act II to prepare to root around further in Beethoven's overtures for Fidelio

"Töt' erst sein Weib" ("First kill his wife"): In this presumably, er, staged shot featuring the stars of Decca's 1964 Fidelio recording, Birgit Nilsson and James McCracken (with Lorin Maazel conducting), Leonore shields Florestan from his would-be executioner.

Do you hear a trumpet?

We pick up deep into Act II of Fidelio, in the secret deep-underground dungeon where the prison governor Don Pizarro has been keeping his old enemy Don Florestan. Pizarro is about to take his final revenge on the dastardly truth-teller (it's hard to believe, but there were olden times when certain depraved villains regarded truth-telling as subversive to the proper order of things). At the last moment the young assistant jailer Fidelio, present in the dungeon with his boss, the head jailer Rocco, steps in front of the prisoner to shield him, and makes a startling revelation.

LEONORE [shielding her husband]: First kill his wife!
DON PIZARRO: His wife?
ROCCO: His wife?
FLORESTAN: My wife?
LEONORE [to FLORESTAN]: Yes, here see Leonore!
FLORESTAN: Leonore!
LEONORE [to the others]: I am his wife,
I have sworn comfort for him,
destruction for you!
DON PIZARRO: His wife?
ROCCO: His wife?
FLORESTAN: My wife?
DON PIZARRO: What incredible courage!
FLORESTAN [overlapping]: My blood stands still with joy!
ROCCO [overlapping]: My blood stands still with fear!
LEONORE [overlapping, aside]: I defy his rage!
Destruction for him,
I defy his rage!
DON PIZARRO: Ha, Shall I tremble before a woman?
Then I sacrifice them both to my fury!
You have shared life with him,
now share death with him!
LEONORE [overlapping]: Death I have sworn you,
first you must stab this heart. [Suddenly brandishes a pistol.]
One more sound -- and you are dead!
The trumpet sounds from the tower.
LEONORE: Ah, you are saved! Almighty God!
FLORESTAN [overlapping]: Ah, I am saved! Almighty God!
DON PIZARRO [overlapping]: Ha! The Minister! Death and damnation!
ROCCO [overlapping]: O! what is that? Righteous God!
[PIZARRO and ROCCO stand dumbfounded. LEONORE and FLORESTAN embrace.]
The trumpet sounds again, but louder.
[JAQUINO, two oficers, and soldiers bearing torches appear at the uppermost opening on the staircase.]
JAQUINO: Father Rocco! Father Rocco! The Lord Minister has arrived!
ROCCO [joyful and surprised, aside]: Praised be God!

[1st trumpet call at 0:53, no following spoken dialogue] Birgit Nilsson (s), Leonore; Paul Schoeffler (bs-b), Don Pizarro; Gottlob Frick (bs), Rocco; Hans Hopf (t), Florestan; Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, Erich Kleiber, cond. Broadcast performance, June 1956

[1st trumpet call at 0:46] Birgit Nilsson (s), Leonore; Hermann Uhde (bs-b), Don Pizarro; Oskar Czerwenka (bs), Rocco; Jon Vickers (t), Florestan; Charles Anthony (spkr), Jaquino; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Feb. 13, 1960

[1st trumpet call at 0:57] Birgit Nilsson (s), Leonore; Tom Krause (b), Don Pizarro; Kurt Böhme (bs), Rocco; James McCracken (t), Florestan; Donald Grobe (spkr), Jaquino; Vienna Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, cond. Decca, recorded March 1964

[1st trumpet call at 0:59, no following spoken dialogue] Birgit Nilsson (s), Leonore; Theo Adam (bs-b), Don Pizarro; Franz Crass (bs), Rocco; Ludovic Spiess (t), Florestan; RAI Rome Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Broadcast performance, Mar. 17, 1970

by Ken

The next post here was supposed to be "Fidelio by the numbers: How do Three Great Moments in Act II go into four overtures?" -- as forecast in last week's tease-post. However, even though most of the elements for that post have been pretty much ready to roll all week, as soon as I figure out how to do it, my revised thinking is that maybe we better stick closer to the overtures, the four of them, that Beethoven wrote for his only opera. We're going to start by re-presenting the overtures in the same form we heard them last Sunday, despite what I believe I described as two quite different kinds of "temporal anomalies" in this seemingly straightforward-as-can-be presentation of them.

Quick nomenclatural note: It's well known that Beethoven preferred Leonore as the opera's title, which is how the first three overtures her wrote have come down to us as Leonore whatever. I happen to think Fidelio is a better title, referencing not Leonore personally but the character she has invented and impersonated for the long, arduous, and seemingly hopeless search for her husband, missing and presumed dead by everyone except her. But my preference aside, the finally revised version was presented as Fidelio, and since 1814 Fidelio it has been.

THE FOUR OVERTURES FOR FIDELIO

Leonore Overture No. 1, Op. 138

Leonore Overture No. 2, Op. 72a

Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72b

Fidelio Overture,  Op. 72c

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond.