Quite right, Sir Georg: We'll need to hear not just Haydn's orchestral depiction of "pre-Creation" chaos but the "breathtaking" explosion when suddenly "there was light!"

[PLUS: Some serial aural remembrances of Kurt Moll]

[MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: Now with various sorts of upgrading, to bring the post a tiny bit closer to what I'd hoped to make -- notably fleshing out the section of Moll archival clips, with English text added, along with minimal comments and some non-Moll performances]

CHORUS: "Und es ward licht!" ("And there was light!")
[from "The First Day," in Part I of Haydn's Creation]

"I can think of no other work by any composer in which a single chord comes as such a surprise." -- Georg Solti (see below)

Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz, Munich, June 1986

Stockholm Radio Chorus, Stockholm Chamber Chorus, Berlin Philharmonic, James Levine, cond. DG, recorded in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, December 1987

Chicago Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded live in Orchestra Hall, Oct. 29-30 & Nov. 2, 1993

"A personal note by Sir Georg Solti" -- from the CD booklet for his 1993 re-recording of Haydn's Creation

The older I get, the more deeply I love the genius of Haydn, especially his two late oratorio masterpieces, The Creation and The Seasons.

In re-recording The Creation, I was struck by the incredible modernity as well as the startling originiality of so much of the score. To mention just two examples: the opening "Representation of Chaos," with music that so poignantly symbolizes the emptiness and hopelessness before creation; and, immediately thereafter, the breathtaking C major of "Light." I can think of no other work by any composer in which a single chord comes as such a surprise. How completely I can understand the reactions at the first public performance, as my friend Robbins Landon so well describes in his article [a reprint in the CD booklet of a long, wide-ranging background piece by the great Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon].

I was joined in my excitement and passion for this work by all my colleagues, soloists, orchestra and chorus alike. Rarely can I recall such exuberant joy and sheer enchantment as we shared during these Chicago concerts. I hope this will come across to the listener.

[Note: In the first paragraph I've taken the shocking liberty of reversing the order of Sir Georg's reference to the great late-Haydn oratorios, so that The Creation comes before The Seasons, as they did in real life. Is it possible that an editor suggested this to him c1994? I don't think so; I think he'd not only have approved but been grateful. Now I'm afraid it's too late to ask. -- Ed.]

by Ken

I was surprised how moved I was re-encountering this "personal note" from Georg Solti (1912-1997) about his experience re-recording Haydn's Creation -- days after his 81st birthday. In that late period of his life he memorably re-recorded a number of big vocal works that were clearly close to his heart, some of which had gone just fine in his earlier efforts -- I think in particular of Mozart's Così fan tutte and Magic Flute and Verdi's Falstaff; the latter two, notably if possibly coincidentally, are works that as a fledgling conductor in the 1930s he had helped Arturo Toscanini prepare at Salzburg) -- and others, at least to me, not so fine, like Mozart's Don Giovanni, Wagner's Meistersinger, Verdi's Otello -- and The Creation. (Among those happy late-life "big works" recording projects we should note as well Sir Georg's companion recording, this one his first ever, of Haydn's final "big work," The Seasons.)

What's so moving about Solti's Creation note is that it rings so true. "The older I get, the more deeply I love" declarations are so common as to be commonplace as applied to, say, Mozart, but Haydn [seen here as sculpted on the Frieze of Parnassus, encircling the base of London's Albert Memorial -- from the blog London Remembers], not so much. In fact, real imaginative identification with Haydn isn't common at all. A lot of performers you sense approach Haydn's music as kind of like Mozart's only not quite -- an approach that hardly ever works. We can talk about this more after we've heard today's Creation clips.

For those who weren't here for yesterday's preview post ("I won't go out on a limb and say this is the most beautiful bass voice I've ever heard, or this the most beautiful minute-and-a-half of singing. Then again --"), the explosions of light we "heard" above are from the same recordings of The Creation I teased therein, offering their accounts of the remarkable hushed lines uttered by the angel Raphael -- the first singing heard in the oratorio, Haydn's setting of some of the most famous words in the human record, the opening of the Book of Genesis.

The plan for today, in addition to filling in the somehow-missing performer identifications (notably of the bass soloists), was to fill in Haydn's introductory orchestral depiction of the chaos out of which the world would be created. Now in addition, inspired by Sir Georg's personal note, I've realized we also have to continue on a few extra minutes, to hear God conjure up light. I've remade the ready-made audio clips accordingly.

Karl Ridderbusch as the King in "Lohengrin" -- this is what's now called "shouting"???

ELSA has appeared in a very simple white garment and overwhelmed the assembled nobles with the purity and innocence of her bearing. Now KING HEINRICH tries to get, well, anything at all out of her regarding the disappearance of her little brother Gottfired, which she is accused of being responsible for.

KING HEINRICH: Are you she, Elsa of Brabant?
[ELSA nods her head affirmatively.]
Do you recognize me as your judge?
[ELSA turns her head toward the KING, looks him in the eye, and then affirms with a trust-filled gesture.]
Then I ask you further:
Is the charge known to you,
which has been brought so weightily against you?
[ELSA glances at TELRAMUND and ORTRUD, shudders, bows her head sadly, and affirms.]
What do you have to say against the charge?
[ELSA through a gesture: "Nothing!"]
So you acknowledge your guilt?
ELSA [staring sadly for a long time around her]: My poor brother!
ALL THE MEN: How wondrous! What strange behavior!
KING HEINRICH: Speak, Elsa, what do you have to confide to me?

by Ken

Can't somebody get that damned Ridderbusch fellow to stop ferchrissakes shouting? (This is a very tiny joke, which I'll explain in a moment.)

This two-minute-plus extract comes from what is still my favorite Lohengrin recording, the 1971 DG studio version conducted by Sunday Classics stalwart Rafael Kubelik. In it we hear Karl Ridderbusch in his matchless prime as King Heinrich and Gundula Janowitz singing Elsa's single line, one of the most haunting lines in opera, "Mein armer Bruder. (I had thought of doing a collage of maybe ten singers singing it, but do you have any idea how much time editing such a thing would have taken?) If there are two more beautiful, riveting minutes of music anywhere in the recorded annals, I don't know what they are.

Since we last dipped into Lohengrin, this past February in the "Remembering Eugen Jochum" posts that included excerpts from his 1954 Bayreuth performance, I've gotten hold of a CD edition of the Kubelik-DG recording, which I had only on LP and open-reel tape, and my admiration is if anything greater than ever. I think the Act I Prelude is an excellent example.

WAGNER: Lohengrin: Prelude to Act I

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded April 1971

We've heard some beautiful performances of the Lohengrin Prelude. In that February post, for example, we heard one by Sir Adrian Boult. But I'm not sure I've ever heard a fuller, more pulsing-with-life one than Kubelik's. And this is true of the Lohengrin performance as a whole. I'm not sure people generally appreciate just how difficult an opera this is to make musical and dramatic sense of, and Kubelik's performance has a riveting continuity I've never heard matched in a lifetime that has included a lot of Lohengrin performances. (Curiously, Kubelik's 1967 Bavarian Radio broadcast Meistersinger, which acquired a legend before anyone without archival access was able to hear it, and which to my ears turns out to be crashingly ordinary, is praised to the skies by the online cognoscenti.)


IT WAS, IN FACT, A BIZARRE ONLINE REVIEW OF THIS
RECORDING THAT TRIGGERED THIS SERIES OF POSTS

Preview: What a difference a top-quality bass makes as King Heinrich in "Lohengrin"

WAGNER: Lohengrin: Act I: Royal Herald, "Gott richtet euch nach Recht und Fug" ("God will pass rightful judgment on you") . . . King Heinrich, "Mein Herr und Gott" ("My Lord and God")

ROYAL HERALD [to LOHENGRIN and TELRAMUND]:
God will pass rightful judgment,
so trust in Him, not in your own strength!
LOHENGRIN and TELRAMUND [standing opposite each other, outside the circle]:
God will pass rightful judgment on me,
so I shall trust in Him, not in my own strength!
KING HEINRICH [proceeding to the middle with great ceremony]: My Lord and God, I call upon you
[Everyone bares their head in deepest reverence]
to be present at this fight!
Proclaim through the sword's victory a verdict
that clearly shows what is deceit and what is truth!
May he who is innocent fight with the arm of a hero,
and may he who is false be sapped of strength!
So help us God in this hour,
for our wisdom is but folly!

PERFORMANCE A

PERFORMANCE B

PERFORMANCE C


by Ken

What we have here are three performances of the King's great prayer near the end of Act I of Lohengrin -- performances widely spaced in time, by basses who were all highly regarded in their times, and also widely spaced in quality, ranging from the near-sublime to the near-ridiculous. We'll hear them again in a moment, with proper identifications.

But first I should explain that when we first dipped into Wagner's Flying Dutchman last month ("Preview: Father's Day special -- meet the sea captain Daland" and "Father's Day special -- Wagner's Daland usually knows better than to trust in the wind"), the idea was to focus on the outstanding German bass Karl Ridderbusch in his glorious prime, in two great performances, as Daland in Dutchman and as the King in Lohengrin. Then I got sidetracked into "A little more of The Flying Dutchman -- we hear from the sailors" (preview) and "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." Well, around here that's always a risk.

This week I want to proceed to Ridderbusch's King Heinrich der Vogler, and we'll get there Sunday, but first I wanted to hit the King's two vocal high points.. We started with the King's stupendous invocation near the end of Act I, initiating the trial by combat between the unknown knight who has fallen from the heavens to defend Elsa of Brabant, accused of causing the disappearance of her little brother, Gottfried, and her accuser, her and Gottfried's guardian, the Brabantine noble Friedrich of Telramund.

NOW LET'S HEAR AND IDENTIFY OUR THREE PERFORMANCES

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")