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

"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!

A poem that's "not strikingly original" in a setting that's "conventional in every way save for its greatness" -- let's welcome back Schubert's "An die Musik"

Or: "Speaking of Schubert's 'An die Musik,' Strauss's 'Zueignung,' and the Ariadne Prologue, a few (eventually) final questions, Part 1X"

"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

"I always think of this song as a prayer, an expression of deep gratitude, felt deeply at a time when there is so much suffering elsewhere."

-- Lotte Lehmann, in her introduction to her broadcast
performance of "An die Musik" on Oct. 8, 1941

Lotte Lehmann, soprano; Paul Ulanowsky, piano; with spoken introduction by the singer. American radio broadcast, Oct. 8, 1941

by Ken

Yes, we're still technically engaged in the stretched-out post that began last week with "Speaking of Schubert's 'An die Musik,' Strauss's 'Zueignung,' and the Ariadne Prologue, a few (eventually) final questions, Part 1." If the classification is important, we might call this "Part 1A," or maybe "Part 1X" (as I've styled it provisionally above), since it's not only an interlude of sorts but actually a prelude to the interlude -- it won't become clear, or clearish, till next week, why suddenly we're listening to Lotte Lehmann's October 1941 broadcast performance of the song.

My original thought, when I decided we ought to spend more time with "An die Musik," was to make this a brief pre-post to a later-today fuller follow-up post devoted to this unique Schubert song, to be finished up in time to get to a Sunday-afternoon walking tour. However, to give myself a better shot at getting to the tour and getting some Saturday-night sleep, I decided to cut myself even more slack and defer the fuller rehearing of "An die Musik" to next week, which then will be Part I-don't-know-what in this series.

The Lotte Lehmann performance above is from the second of the 15-minute radio broadcasts the 53-year-old singer did on 13 consecutive Wednesday evenings in the fall of 1941, backed by trusted accompanist Paul Ulanowsky. The programs, generally consisting of three or four songs by a single composer (weighted toward his best-known, and introduced by the singer, as "An die Musik" is here), kicked off on October 1st with Beethoven. On October 8th, after "An die Musik," she sang the beloved "Serenade" from the Schwanengesang collection and, for a big finish, the harrowing "Erlkönig." (I'm thinking maybe we should hear the rest of this little broadcast group. Yes, stay tuned, I think we can work it in.)


IT'S LUCKY THAT THE E-ROOM IS MOSTLY CLEARED,
AS I'M ABOUT TO OWN UP TO A DEEP CHARACTER FLAW

Preview: The long-separated twin brother and sister Siegmund and Sieglinde recognize each other

Plácido Domingo and Adrienne Pieczonka as Siegmund and Sieglinde at the Met, April 2009

by Ken

This week I want to finish up with my contention that that extraordinary depth of pain we hear coming out of Wotan, first in Act II of Die Walküre and then, of course, in the his final farewell to his cherished daughter Brünnhhilde at the end of the opera, is tempered by our knowledge that most of this pain is self-inflicted.

Last time we listened to the whole of Act I of the Walküre, the second opera (but properly speaking "First Day") of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung tetralogy. In preparation for Sunday's installment, we're going to back to the end of Act I, and pick up after Sieglinde, having heard her mysterious guest's woeful life story, has drugged her husband Hunding and returned to share some of her background. Suddenly the door of Hunding's house blew open, and Sieglinde has asked who left.

This is of course one of the supreme scenes in the musical literature. We're going to start with the Melchior-Lehmann performance we already heard as part of the complete Act I recorded by EMI in Vienna in 1935 under the baton of Bruno Walter, but then we're going to hear an earlier Melchior recording -- unfortunately acoustical -- with the great Brünnhilde and Isolde Frida Leider as Sieglinde. Then we hear Jon Vickers, who I think it's safe to say has been the most successful of the post-Melchior Siegmunds, in the Karajan recording with the surprising choice of the lyric soprano Gundula Janowitz as Sieglinde (I happen to enjoy her performance a lot), and finally we have the sturdy Siegmund of Sieglinde coupled with the vocally strongest Sieglinde at least since Leonie Rysanek.