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.

Maybe we should listen more to try to locate the wonderfulness of Till Eulenspiegel and the Largo of the New World Symphony

“I have already put together a very pretty scenario [i.e., for an operatic treatment of the part-historical, mostly-legendary figure of Till Eulenspiegel -- Ed.]," Strauss wrote in a letter, “but the figure of Master Till does not quite appear before my eyes.”

But if Strauss could not see Master Till, he could hear him, and before 1894 was out, he had begun the tone poem that he finished the following May. As always, he could not make up his mind whether he was engaged in tone painting or “just music.” To Franz Wüllner, who conducted the first performance, he wrote: “I really cannot provide a program for Eulenspiegel. Any words into which I might put the thoughts that the several incidents suggested to me would hardly suffice; they might even offend. Let me leave it, therefore, to my listeners to crack the hard nut the Rogue has offered them. By way of helping them to a better understanding, it seems enough to point out the two Eulenspiegel motifs [Strauss jots down the opening of the work and the virtuosic horn theme] [BUT SEE BELOW* -- Ed.], which, in the most diverse disguises, moods, and situations, pervade the whole up to the catastrophe when, after being condemned to death, Till is strung up on the gibbet. For the rest, let them guess at the musical joke a Rogue has offered them.”

-- from Michael Steinberg's San Francisco Symphony program
note on Richard Strauss's tone poem Till Eulenspiegel

*Strauss's "Eulenspiegel motif" no. 1

Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond.

*Strauss's "Eulenspiegel motif" no. 2 (played twice)

With the horn solo played by Philharmonia principal Alan Civil

THREE REMINDERS THAT A SPECIAL CONNECTION HAS
ALWAYS EXISTED BETWEEN STRAUSS AND DRESDEN

The composer hailed from Munich, and the Bavarian capital has a storied Strauss tradition, and he was at home in the musical capitals of the German-speaking world -- Berlin and especially Vienna, of course -- but the musical connection with Dresden was, well, something else.

R. STRAUSS: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche
(Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks), Op. 28


Staatskapelle Dresden, Herbert Blomstedt, cond. Denon-Deutsche Schallplatten, recorded in the Lukaskirche, February 5-9, 1989

Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI-Deutsche Schallplatten, recorded in the Lukaskirche, June 1970

Staatskapelle Dresden, Franz Konwitschny, cond. Broadcast performance, Aug. 7, 1959

by Ken

So, for starters, we've got three Dresden performances of Till Eulenspiegel, same basic orchestra but pretty different performances, to which we can apply the wisdom left to us by that fine writer on music Michael Steinberg: that when it comes to the Strauss tone poems that seem to have "programs," do they really or don't they? I often worry that I'm not sufficiently up on the story-telling elements of even as short a piece as Till Eulenspiegel, let alone the considerably longer pieces that would come, and even with one I love as much as I do Don Quixote, for proper appreciation should I be listening with my nose buried in a printed "program," which I hate doing?

So, it seems that Strauss himself took a pretty casual view of the program business, at least as applied to Till. I still have to wonder, when we come eventually to the Alpine Symphony and Symphonia domestica, don't we really need to know what the composer thinks is going on section by section? I usually settle for taking in the "effects" I "get," with maybe the occasional glance at some sort of cheat sheet, but should I be more rigorous about all this? For what it's worth, as we make our way again through Till, I note that there are really useful Wikipedia articles both on the background of the character Till Eulenspiegel and on Strauss's musical rendering. (We're not done with Till, by the way.)

In case it hasn't been obvious, or you weren't here for the previous post, I should say for the record that I've already been referring back to Wednesday's "Post tease (I guess?): Does music get wonderfuller than this?" Almost as soon as I put that post up, I realized that I didn't want to tell the story I thought I was going to about the day that had been marked by my happening upon Blomstedt and Karajan performances -- in totally different media -- of Till Eulenspiegel and the Largo of Dvořák's New World Symphony.

I thought I was kind of looking forward to sharing, um, what I was setting out to share, and had only been held up by the teensy-weensy complication that the story is pretty complicated to tell, and also pretty sensitive, so that unless I get it close enough to "right," I can't even think of posting it.

What I think we can accomplish without an inordinate amount of fuss is taking a closer look at the wonderfulness of these two pieces, since this can take us into territory that the dozen or so still-loose threads of posts past were designed to nudge us toward: what it is that we're looking for from music and what it's offering.


IN A MOMENT I'LL SHARE THE BARE BONES OF THE "STORY," BUT RIGHT NOW MAYBE SOME MORE MUSIC WILL HELP . . .

Sure! Why don't we move on to our other "core piece" from Wednesday, the New World Largo, doing basically what we started going above with Till Eulenspiegel: listen again to the performance we heard in the post "tease" and setting it alongside some others, mostly drawn from the SC Archive? For the record, while the Kempe-Dresden Till indeed came from the archive, I just made the Konwitschny-Dresden clip.

Let me check what we've got stashed away to add to the Karajan-Vienna New World Largo we heard last time. Then we can pick up on the other side of the jump.

Post tease (I guess?): Does music get wonderfuller than this?

UPDATE: Now with (more than) twice as much music!

Herbert Blomstedt (born July 11, 1927), seen here at 90-plus

R. STRAUSS: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Op. 28

Staatskapelle Dresden, Herbert Blomstedt, cond. Denon-Deutsche Schallplatten, recorded in the Lukaskirche, Feb. 5-9, 1989

Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989)

DVOŘÁK: Symphony No. 9 in E minor (From the New World), Op. 95: ii. Largo

Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded in the Musikverein, Feb. 9, 1985

by Ken

This isn't so much "a post tease" as "a post so's I can -- as you're no doubt sick of hearing me whine about -- see and listen to the embedded versions of the audio clips and thus actually see and hear them together at will.

For now you'll have to trust me that there's a reason why we're hearing these particular selections. (Like as if we needed some damned reason.)


OKAY, MAYBE A COUPLA BACKGROUND NOTES,
KIND OF RELATIVE TO THE MARCH OF TIME

"It's a gift" (cont.): A bit more about operatic intermezzos, and a lot more about 19th-century-style instrumental ones

[Some of you had a chance to wander through the construction site for this post, and you'll notice that many things have changed -- while many haven't! At this point I'm calling it "done." -- Ken]

At Scottish Opera in 2011, soprano Anita Bader and baritone Roland Wood portray Christine and Hofkapellmeister Robert Storch in Richard Strauss's Intermezzo (1924). Funnily, Intermezzo the opera contains a generous helping of distinctive "Zwischenspiele" -- er, intermezzos.

Intermezzo. (1) Term used in the 18th century (generally in the plural, 'intermezzi') for comic interludes performed between the acts or scenes of an opera seria. . . .

[We hereby ellipsize a lengthy emburblement of facts about
18th-century intermezzi, picking up (at long last) here --]

. . . In the 19th century the term 'intermezzo' was used for lyrical pieces or moments, often for piano solo. Mendelssohn called the third movement of his Piano Quartet no. 2 'Intermezzo' and Schumann made frequent use of this title in his early piano music. Brahms composed numerous independent intermezzos for piano, and the term has been used for operatic entr'actes, as in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana.
(2) Opera in two acts by Richard Strauss to his own libretto (1924, Dresden).

-- from The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia
of Music (1st edition, 1988)

ABOUT STRAUSS'S LOVELY ZWISCHENSPIELE

In due course we're going to hear the Vier Zwischenspiele aus 'Intermezzo' (Four Interludes from 'Intermezzo'), but for now I thought we might rehear the most beautiful of Strauss's innumerable operatic Zwischenspiele, the "Moonlight Interlude" that sets the stage for the famous Final Scene of his final opera, Capriccio. Because we've heard it a number of times, we've got a whole bunch of performances in the SC Archive, and I'd be happy to rehear them all, probably more than once.

For you, though, I'm limiting it to three: first, the Previn and Karajan performances, because they have the radiant measure of this music, not to mention the participation of the ultimate Strauss orchestras, the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, and then the soulful Clemens Krauss performance -- Krauss of course was not only an important conductor but a co-creator of Capriccio, having written the libretto with the composer, then naturally enough conducted the premiere, at the Bavarian State Opera in October 1942. In 1953, after the composer's death (at 85, in September 1949), he conducted the Bavarian Radio performance from which this clip is taken. Not long after, in May 1954, Krauss's own life would be cut short by a heart attack, age 61.

R. STRAUSS: Capriccio: "Mondscheinmusik" ("Moonlight Music")


Vienna Philharmonic, André Previn, cond. DG, recorded in the Grosser Saal of the Musikverein, October 1992

Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded in the Philharmonie, November 1985

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Clemens Krauss, cond. From a broadcast performance of the opera, 1953

by Ken

As you'll recall from the last post, "It's a gift: Intermezzo," when we began zeroing in on the tiny but endlessly fascinating "extra" movement, called Intermezzo, seemingly squeezed into Brahms's early breakthrough masterpiece, the Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5, we're trying to pin down just what in heck an intermezzo is anyway. And so, above, we've consulted a Proper Authority.

You'll note that Our Authority points out that "the term has been used for operatic entr'actes, as in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana," which we've already seized the opportunity to pay a call on in the previous post, and as promised, before we're done we're going to revisit it and also drop in on the Intermezzo of Cav's usual companion piece, Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci, where we won't allow some quibbling about terminology distract us overmuch from savoring the beauty of the music.

Although the sense of "intermezzo" that we're looking for is clearly the one we're going to have to try to extract from Our Authority's sense (1), I've already allowed myself to be diverted by OA's sense (2): "Opera in two acts by Richard Strauss to his own libretto (1924, Dresden)." It seems odd that OA makes no mention of the intermezzos to be found in Strauss's Intermezzo, but as you've seen, we've got his/her back on this. Before we allow ourselves this exceedingly pleasant digression, however, we should probably made some honest effort on our Intermezzo Hunt.


OBVIOUS STARTING POINT: THE LEADS OFFERED BY OA!

Salome the opera has a built-in perv-o-meter for Salome the character -- his name is Herod

Cheryl Barker as Salome and John Pickering
as Herod in Opera Australia's new Salome

HEROD: Salome, come, drink wine with me!
An exquisite wine! Caesar himself sent it to me.
Moisten your red lips with it; then I will empty the cup.

Jon Vickers (t), Herod; Orchestre National de France, Rudolf Kempe, cond. Live performance from the Orange Festival, July 14, 1974

Karl Liebl (t), Herod; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Mar. 13, 1965

Kenneth Riegel (t), Herod; Hamburg State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. DG, recorded live, Nov. 4, 1970

Ramón Vinay (t), Herod; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Dimitri Mitropoulos, cond. Live performance, Jan. 8, 1955

Gerhard Stolze (t), Herod; Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded October 1961

Set Svanholm (t), Herod; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. Live performance, Jan. 19, 1952

by Ken

With last week's posts ("Strauss's operatic beginnings: We don't need an excuse to listen to Till Eulenspiegel -- but the Symphonia domestica, maybe so?" and "The start of something: Here's the promised follow-up to the post spotlighting Till Eulenspiegel and the Symphonia domestica -- focusing now on the already-heard openings of six Strauss operas") stretching on and on in both time and blogspace, we have not much of a post this week, though it involved a heap of audio editing, which is at least better than having to think.


OUR QUESTION: HOW DOES HEROD GET FROM THE
CLIP ABOVE TO THE ONE WE'RE GOING TO HEAR?

The start of something: Here's the promised follow-up to the post spotlighting Till Eulenspiegel and the Symphonia domestica -- focusing now on the already-heard openings of six Strauss operas

Sure, literally speaking Guntram (with, we might note, a libretto by the composer, Wagner-style, something Strauss would attempt again only once more, still perhaps problematically but, I think, a lot more successfully, with the sort-of-autobiographical Intermezzo) was the start of something, but could anyone have guessed "of what"? (We can also note at the very top that Strauss's first opera was "Dedicated to my dear parents.")

by Ken

To recap, our subject is still Salome, Richard Strauss's third opera, focusing here on the powerful anecdotal evidence from these snatches of the operas that preceded and followed Salome of the startling transformation that took place, all at once, in Strauss's ability to make the operatic medium work for him. In the main portion of this week's post, "Strauss's operatic beginnings: We don't need an excuse to listen to Till Eulenspiegel -- but the Symphonia domestica, maybe so?" we heard these same operatic clips, in this same order, with no identification of either the operas or the performers. In this concluding portion of the post we have all those identifications available, as well as English texts for most of the sung portions of these excerpts.

As I'm sure you guessed, Operas X and Y were Strauss's pre-Salome operatic endeavors, the turgid late Romantic stinker Guntram (first performed in 1894) and its "satirical" successor, Feuersnot (first performed in 1901). Perhaps surprisingly, given how adept Strauss would become at devising operatic openings that plunge us directly into the action, he began his operatic career with a full-fledged overture. Oy, is it full-fledged; it just fledges on and on -- and on. (Note that it's not entirely free-standing, as we might expect an "overture" to be in one frequently proposed distinction between an "overture" and a "prelude," which not only tends to be shorter but normally flows directly into the opening scene. The Guntram whatever-you-want-to-call-it flows directly into the equally nondescript music of the opening scene.

[AFTERTHOUGHT: I have to say that rather unexpectedly the Guntram Overture has started to grow on me -- hey, this is not some no-talented musical hack we're dealing with. But it still seems to meander hopelessly, stretching this thin material many long, long minutes beyond the breaking point. -- Ken]

[X] R. STRAUSS: Guntram, Op. 25: Overture


BBC Symphony Orchestra, John Pritchard, cond. Gala, broadcast performance, 1981

Hungarian State Orchestra, Eve Queler, cond. CBS-Hungaroton, recorded 1984


MOVING ON TO "OPERA Y": FEUERSNOT

Strauss's operatic beginnings: We don't need an excuse to listen to Till Eulenspiegel -- but the Symphonia domestica, maybe so?

MONDAY NIGHT UPDATE: I think we've finally gotten this post to where it wanted to go. Thanks for your patience. [OK, maybe not "finally" -- ]
TUESDAY-THURSDAY UPDATES: I've added another performance of Till Eulenspiegel, fiddled a fair amount with the opera clips (and added English texts), and as explained below finally spun off the section of fully identified Strauss-opera audio clips into a separate follow-up post. -- Ken


In Munich's Herkulessaal, Lorin Maazel leads the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in a beautifully relaxed performance of Till Eulenspiegel.

by Ken

In listening to and thinking about Richard Strauss's Salome, as we've been doing for a number of weeks ("Some out-of-this-world sounds from a singer who proves mistress of a surprising role" [11/18], "After all, the Page in Salome does warn that horrible things are going to happen" [11/25], and "Word is that "Today we are not shocked by Salome." Really?" [12/2]), it's hard not to be aware that when the first performance of the composer's unmistakable breakthrough opera took place, on December 9, 1905, he was already 41½. With regard to Salome's "breakthrough" standing, as Wikipedia notes, "Within two years, it had been given in 50 other opera houses."

It's not that Strauss was a "late starter." After all, by the time of Salome, his Op. 54, he was already world-famous, as the composer of a stream of music that quickly joined and remains firmly ensconced in the standard repertory -- the likes of Aus Italien (From Italy, Op. 16, 1886), Don Juan (Op. 20, 1888), Macbeth (Op. 23, 1886-88), Death and Transfiguration (Op. 24, 1889), Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Op. 28, 1894-95), Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra, Op. 30), Don Quixote (Op. 35, 1896-97), Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life, Op. 40, 1898), and the Symphonia domestica (Op. 53, 1902-03). There were also assortments of chamber music and solo-piano works, concertos for piano (the Burleske, 1886), violin (Op. 8, 1881-82), and horn (Op. 11, 1882-83; there would be another horn concerto, but not till 1942) -- and, oh yes, nearly 150 songs.


AND THERE'D BEEN TWO OPERAS BEFORE SALOME
(AND WE'RE GOING TO HEAR SNATCHES OF BOTH!)

Word is that "Today we are not shocked by Salome." Really?

LATE SUNDAY UPDATE: Those who've visited earlier know that this post has been a construction zone. Now, though, apart from incidental fixes (if I find the courage to look at the thing), we've got our four performances of the "Dance for me, Salome" excerpt (with performance notes) and this week's four performances of the Final Scene. -- Ken

Salomé by Gustave Moreau (1876)

Salome's Dance (aka "Dance of the Seven Veils"): The musicians begin to play a wild dance. SALOME, at first motionless, reaches up high and gives the musicians a sign. At once the wild rhythm is succeeded by a gentle, rocking melody. SALOME then dances the Dance of the Seven Veils. After a moment of apparent exhaustion she leaps up, as if newly elated. For a moment she lingers in a trance-like state by the cistern in which JOCHANAAN is held prisoner; then she rushes forward and lands at HEROD's feet.

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Heinz Rögner, cond. Berlin Classics, recorded Feb.-Mar. 1977

Vienna Philharmonic, André Previn, cond. DG, recorded October 1992

New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded Oct. 12, 1965

Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Decca, recorded 1960

by Ken

I see that I didn't actually identify the music we heard above. As I'm pretty sure you figured out, it's "Salome's Dance" (aka the "Dance of the Seven Veils") from Richard Strauss's Salome. Actually, we've already heard an assortment of performances of the "Dance" -- two weeks ago, as "a Salome bonus" to the post "Some out-of-this-world sounds from a singer who proves mistress of a surprising role," part of our still-ongoing remembrance of Montserrat Caballé, whom we were encountering as a (to me) surprisingly remarkable exponent of the title role, at least in the RCA recording conducted pretty remarkably by Erich Leinsdorf.

(I've been listening to two other Caballé Salome performances, one earlier and one later than the recoding, as well as the still-later recording of the Final Scene, and while some of the qualities I find so remarkable in the RCA performance can be glimpsed in other performances, none of them seem really in the same class.)

In the course of playing with some of my Salome materials I happened to glance, apparently for the first time, at the background essay on the opera which Michael Kennedy wrote for the booklet of the 1985 CD issue of the classic 1961 Nilsson-Solti-Decca recording, which looks to be quite an interesting piece, but in which my eyes lit on a string of words that kind of made my blood run cold. After writing at length about the shock that the opera had caused in its early years, he writes:

"Today we are not shocked by Salome . . ."

Huh??? We're not shocked by Salome??? Huh???


"DANCE FOR ME, SALOME"

After all, the Page in Salome does warn that horrible things are going to happen

Salome (Angela Denoke at Covent Garden, 2010) finally gets to kiss the mouth of the prophet Jochanaan, who may have wished he'd let her do it when his head was still attached to him.

by Ken

It was as part of our Caballé-remembrance series that, last week, we ventured into Salome ("Some out-of-this-world sounds from a singer who proves mistress of a surprising role"). Now, having ventured there, I don't see how we can leave without some further exploring, and for this week's installment we're not even going to have Caballé at the center -- though I think you'll notice, if you compare her with the (very fine) other Salomes we'll be hearing, that she's plugged into the role in a way that is very much her own.

Just to recap, the opera is set on a terrace of the palace of Herod, the tetrarch of Judea, inside which a great feast is taking place. For a while the audience is invited to observe the wild infatuation of a handsome young captain, Narraboth, with the princess Salome, daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter (as well as niece) of the tetrarch (her father, Herodias's first husband, was Herod's half-brother), and we've been introduced to some of the many palace functionaries and guests who populate the terrace (and the opera), including a page of Herodias (presumably male) who appears as fixated on Narraboth as the latter is on Salome. We've also heard briefly from a still-invisible character: Safely locked away in a heavily guarded cistern is the prophet Jochanaan, aka John the Baptist, who despite his unfortunate incaraceration voices a soaring brand of religious ecstasy, for which Strauss found an appropriately ecstatic musical format, even as the prophet details the sea of human corruption all around.

Last week we heard Salome make her escape from the banquet to the terrace, and this week we're going to overlap a clip we heard last week, so we can immediately hear Salome switching on a dime from pouting rage to angelically youthful sweetness. One point to note: As far as I know we're not given an age for Salome, but the implication seems fairly clear that she's still a teenager, and again I would call attention to the young-girlishness that comes out so strongly in Strauss's musical setting, at least if the singer can make it come out, which it seems to me Caballé did, at least in the RCA recording of the opera conducted by Erich Leinsdorf, better than any other Salome I've heard. Again, the sound that's made by a big-voiced singer capable of scaling the voice down has an intensity and excitement that a smaller-voiced singer can't match -- as a matter of fact, as I think I've already mentioned, Birgit Nilsson, the greatest of the post-Welitsch Salomes, who pretty much obliterated the competition in the flaming outbursts, did some of her most memorable work in Salome's quiet moments.


LET'S HEAR SOME MUSIC ALREADY!

Some out-of-this-world sounds from a singer who proves mistress of a surprising role

How good it is to see in the moon.
It is like a silver flower, cool and chaste.
Yes, like the beauty of a virgin,
who has remained pure.

How sweet is the air here.
Here I can breathe.

by Ken

Yes, yes, something happens at the end of the first clip, something I couldn't edit out, which is actually kind of the point. In Richard Strauss's Salome things just kind of happen, one thing after another, and one of the miracles of Strauss's breakthrough opera -- here we might bear in mind that his operatic breakthrough didn't come till he was 40 -- is that he had music, utterly extraordinary music, for all those things that happen.

As many of you will know, the two audio clips we've already heard are reversed -- for visual effect, the visual effect being the illustration of the full moon, which clearly favors our moon-clip. In the opera, though, the "How sweet is the air" clip comes first; it's almost the first thing we hear from Salome after she makes her entrance -- fleeing from the banquet inside to the terrace of the palace of the Tetrarch Herod, her stepfather (and also her uncle, which is even worse than it sounds, but that's another sordid story for another time). We'll be hearing these musical bits in context shortly, with all participants properly identified.


OH YES, THE SINGER, OF COURSE, IS . . .

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

"There is a realm where all is pure"

Funny business on the island of Naxos: Ernst Stern's design for the original (prologue-less) 1912 Ariadne auf Naxos

R. STRAUSS: From the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos:
The Composer, "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst"

THE COMPOSER: Music is a sacred art, which brings together all men of courage, like cherubim around a shining throne, and for this reason it is the most holy of the arts. Holy music!


From a performance at Buenos Aires's Teatro Colón conducted by Lovro von Matačić, October 1964

by Ken

From last week's post ("We have more 'An die Musik,' 'Zueignung,' and 'Musik ist eine heilige Kunst' -- but remember, this only sounds like a "good news" post"):

Just to touch quickly again on what I shorthanded as the "Reverse-Strauss" that's driving this series of posts: What's so wonderful about this excerpt, and indeed the entire comically, over-the-toply-serious character of the Composer, is that our real composer, Richard Strauss, mostly meant all of the things that come out of our over-the-top young Composer's mouth, but he would almost surely never have dared utter them "straight." Instead, as he and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal conceived the character, he can make these things not only resonantly beautiful but borderline hilarious.

I mean only to suggest here: What if it's the exact opposite? What if the sentiments truly are preposterous, and we only kid ourselves that they have some real-world applicability? Wouldn't that be a kick in the head?

By hook or by crook we're going to finish up with "An die Musik," "Zueignung," "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst," and the perspective I've been calling a Reverse-Strauss -- in last week's post and the previous week's ("Today's sacred word is 'heilig' ('holy' or 'sacred'), chez Schubert and R. Strauss -- make of it what you will"). I'm afraid, though, that the finishing up isn't going to happen today; I'm reckoning it'll take us another two posts.

And along this twisty way, we're going to be fielding some questions, starting with this one:

Q1: Who says that Strauss "mostly meant all of the things that come out of our over-the-top young Composer's mouth"?

We have more "An die Musik," "Zueignung," and "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst" -- but remember, this only SOUNDS like a "good news" post

We have our missing recording of "An die Musik"!
So let's hear it along with its intended companion --




Pavel Lisitsian, baritone; Naum Valter, piano. Melodiya, recorded 1961

Fritz Wunderlich, tenor; Hubert Giesen, piano. DG, recorded November 1965

by Ken

Last week, for possibly predictably perverse purposes of your proprietor, we focused on three bits of music that almost inevitably suggest some connection to the proposition that life is good, life is worth living ("Today's sacred word is 'heilig' ('holy' or 'sacred'), chez Schubert and R. Strauss -- make of it what you will"). Our cases in point were the Schubert song "An die Musik," Richard Strauss's song "Zueignung," and the moment in the final minutes of the Prologue to Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos when the super-serious Composer of the super-serious opera seria Ariadne auf Naxos, in the countdown to its first performance (under troubled circumstances, to put it mildly, in the home of "the richest man in Vienna"), declares, "Music is a sacred art."

However, we only heard two of the three song performances we should have, performances I've lived with so long and so closely that they're inextricably woven into my consciousness. The problem was that one of the two intended "An die Musik"s I had only on an old MK LP I've cherished for more than 40 years (since I plucked it out of a 99-cent bin in the old Sam Goody bargain store across 49th Street from the old West Side store), and at the moment I'm unable to make audio files from LP. Anyway, as I hope you've heard above, the Armenian-born Soviet baritone Pavel Lisitsian's "An die Musik" is now united, as intended, with the much-lamented tenor Fritz Wunderlich's, originally recorded as part of a glorious group of Schubert songs to fill Side 4 of his wonderful 1965 DG Schöne Müllerin (the way the Schubert song cycle, which now fits comfortably on a single CD, usually came to us in those days, on three LP sides).

Over this past week I've scouted for a companion to Jussi Bjoerling's March 1958 Carnegie Hall encore performance of "Zueignung," again with the limitation that it would have to come from my CD holdings, or possibly via digital download. We heard some pretty good ones last week, and I heard lots more this week, but just now we're not looking for pretty good, we're looking for magic. As often happens, though, the joke was on me. I found magic, but not with "Zueignung." Oh, I'd just heard a very very good one, but again, we're not looking for very very good. I couldn't be bothered to stop the disc after the very very good "Zueignung," and wound up hearing something like this:

R. STRAUSS: "Zueignung," Op. 10, No. 1,
plus a special bonus performance (at 2:09)

Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; Geoffrey Parsons, piano. BBC Legends, recorded live at Summer Festival, Wigmore Hall, July 15, 1978


OHMYGOODNESS! ARE THERE ANY WORDS? WELL,
FIRST OFF, I HAVE TO EAT SOME UNKIND ONES

Today's sacred word is "heilig" ("holy" or "sacred"), chez Schubert and R. Strauss -- make of it what you will

UPDATE: A second Fischer-Dieskau/Moore "Zueignung" added!

"An die Musik": Maybe we don't need words?
(But not to worry -- we'll have 'em eventually)


The man himself, seen here at home, is heard playing his own solo-piano rendering -- one stanza only -- of Schubert's one-of-a-kind song "An die Musik" ("To Music"), to conclude the Homage to Gerald Moore in London's Royal Festival Hall, Feb. 20, 1967 (as audio-recorded by EMI).

by Ken

I hadn't known when I started out that Gerald Moore, the one and only, was going to be leading the whole thing off, but when the above solo performance of "An die Musik" slipped provisionally into this lead-off position, it just seemed right. I hadn't expected either to be so affected rehearing this performance of an indulgent kind G.M. never would have given when he was partnering another performer, as he did so luminously with so many performers in his long and storied career. Nor, finally, was I prepared for the double take I did the third or fourth time I typed the date of the Homage to Gerald Moore concert. My goodness, that was more than 50 years ago! How did that happen?

For years now I've wanted to "do" G.M. in a post or posts, and have always shied away from it. Do I have to add that in all this time I still haven't heard another accompanist in his league? Oh, every now and then I hear a pianist who seems in that moment almost worthy of comparison. I settle almost-happily for that.


IF YOU DON'T KNOW "AN DIE MUSIK," BY ALL MEANS
SKIP AHEAD TO THE PERFORMANCES WITH WORDS

"The secret of life is revealed to them in it," says the Composer of his "Ariadne auf Naxos"

"Das Geheimnis des Lebens tritt an sie heran, nimmt sie bei der Hand" ("The secret of life is revealed to them in it, takes them by the hand")


Sena Jurinac (s), Composer; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958

Tatiana Troyanos (ms), Composer; San Francisco Opera Orchestra, János Ferencsik, cond. Live performance, Oct. 28, 1977

Irmgard Seefried (s), Composer; Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, Aug. 7, 1954

Julia Varady (s), Composer; Gewandhaus Orchestra (Leipzig), Kurt Masur, cond. Philips, recorded January 1988

by Ken

This is, in case you hadn't guessed, once again the possibly over-earnest Composer, in the Prologue to Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos, having just heard that a little comedy dance entertainment is to be given following the premiere of his new opera seria, Ariadne on Naxos, here in the home of the richest man in Vienna.

This 10-11 seconds of music is one of those infinitely deep-reaching musical nuggets we've been encountering all through the Prologue to Ariadne -- for that matter, all through the opera as a whole -- which lodge in the most intimate recesses of the mind and don't let go. Lately we've been focusing more on the comic view of life represented in the opera by the grand comedienne Zerbinetta and her quartet of commedia dell'arte players, as against the view embodied in the plight of the abandoned Ariadne as argued by her deeply feeling Composer. Now I think we need to return to the Composer's point of view.


NOW LET'S HEAR OUR NUGGET IN CONTEXT

Is Ariadne waiting for death, or for another lover?

Leonie Rysanek as Ariadne

From part 2 of the abandoned Ariadne's monologue, as she awaits the messenger of death:

ARIADNE: But soon a messenger will draw nigh,
Hermes they call him.
With his staff
he rules all souls:
Like birds on the wing,
like dry leaves,
he drives them before him.
Thou beautiful, serene god!
See! Ariadne awaits!

Leonie Rysanek (s), Ariadne; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958

Christa Ludwig (s), Ariadne; Vienna Philharmonic, Karl Böhm, cond. Live perfomance from the Salzburg Festival, July 26, 1964

From the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos, in which the Composer and Zerbinetta take different views of Ariadne's "death":

COMPOSER: She is one of those women who belong to one man only in their life and after that to no one else --
ZERBINETTA: Ha!
COMPOSER: -- to no one else, save Death!

COMPOSER: She takes him for the god of Death. In her eyes, in her soul, he is Death, and for that reason, for that reason only --
ZERBINETTA [from the door, very gently]: That's what she'd have you think
COMPOSER: -- for that reason only she goes with him on his ship.

COMPOSER: Ariadne is the one out of a million. She is the woman who does not forget.
ZERBINETTA: Childishness!

Sena Jurinac (s), Composer; Roberta Peters (s), Zerbinetta; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958

by Ken

We've already heard the tiny bit above from part 2 ("Es gibt ein Reich") of Ariadne's monologue, as she awaits the messenger who will take her to the realm "where everything is pure" -- the realm of death. (See the November 1 post "Why won't everyone just let poor abandoned Ariadne die in peace?" and the December 13 post "Ariadne is "the symbol of human solitude" -- which is "just why she needs company" (says the Dance Master).") And I'll say even more strongly than before that this 49 seconds of Leonie Rysanek's recording is some of the most thrillingly beautiful singing I've heard.

Now we've added the above tiny bits of the Prologue, containing some more of the most thrillingly beautiful singing I've heard -- from, you'l notice, the very same recording of Ariadne auf Naxos, as Sena Jurinac as the Composer of the opera seria expresses her understanding of the title character.


"THE WOMAN WHO DOES NOT FORGET"

We continue our detour through "Così fan tutte" on the road back to poor Ariadne, abandoned -- only now with company! -- on the isle of Naxos

"Soave sia il vento"
("Gentle be the breeze")

FIORDILIGI, DORABELLA, and DON ALFONSO:

Gentle be the breeze,

calm be the waves,

and every element

smile in favor

on their wish.

Margaret Price (s), Fiordiligi; Yvonne Minton (ms), Dorabella; Hans Sotin (bs), Don Alfonso; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded Jan. 25-Feb. 18, 1971

Irmgard Seefried (s), Fiordiligi; Nan Merriman (ms), Dorabella; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Don Alfonso; Berlin Philharmonic, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1962

[in English] Elizabeth Harwood (s), Fiordiligi; Janet Baker (ms), Dorabella; John Shirley-Quirk (bs-b), Don Alfonso; Scottish National Opera Orchestra, Alexander Gibson, cond. Live performance, May 1969

by Ken

Okay, I know we've heard "Soave sia il vento" bunches of times before. And it seems likely that we'll hear it bunches of times again, maybe even in this post. (It could be that I know something, but I'm not telling.) It goes like this: We have occasion to listen to it this week, and if you think we're going to bypass a gimme like this, you're wrong.

Last week's post was called "Ariadne and Fiordiligi: Real people and feelings vs. ideas about people and feelings," and you may have noticed that I didn't particularly pursue the theme announced in the title. Mostly I presented Fiordiligi's two stupendous showpiece arias from Mozart and da Ponte's Così fan tutte. Both show Mozart deploying all his craft and a good measure of his genius toward creating a show-stopper of an aria. But there's a world of difference between Fiordiligi's Act I declaration of rock-like fidelity and the heart-rending state of confusion she's reduced to in her Act II rondo as she finds herself prepared to betray her beloved.

The men whom Fiordiligi and her sister Dorabella love -- or at least think they love in Act I -- aren't drawn in anything like the depth of the women, but their music reflects the same schism: trafficking in Act I with unthinking, abstract images of people, and then in Act II coming up against feal feelings as they find themselves dealing with their fiancées as real people. Here, for example, is how it all starts.

Well, not quite how it all starts. It all starts with a sparkling Overture, and long-time visitors to Sunday Classics know that we often like to start at the start. So here's the actual start. (We've heard all these performances before, but let me just say a couple of things again. The Jochum and Klemperer are from complete recordings of the opera, and the Jochum Così, which I've been living with now for 50-plus years, still seems to me a wonder -- perhaps more of a wonder than ever. The Klemperer Così remains indispensable if only for the almost-superhuman Fiordiligi of Margaret Price. The Colin Davis performance comes from a wonderful early Davis LP of Mozart overtures which is still the way I would wish to remember him.)

Ariadne and Fiordiligi: Real people and feelings vs. ideas about people and feelings

[This isn't the full post yet, but it's closer than I was expecting. Stay tuned. UPDATE: Okay, this is pretty much the post. I scaled down the intended scope, so that we still have some Così business to pursue along with making the connection to Ariadne. -- K]
[LATER UPDATE: There's now a linked list of "The Ariadne Posts" at the end of this post.]

In pity's name, my dearest, forgive
the misdeed of a loving soul;
amid this shade and these plants
forever hidden, oh God, let it be.

Margaret Price (s), Fiordiligi; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded Jan.-Feb. 1971

Montserrat Caballé (s), Fiordiligi; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded c1973

by Ken

Yes, we're still talking about Strauss and Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos, and we're getting nearer to dealing directly with its supposed musico-dramatic split personality, between the "Italian buffo manner" (as the Music Master refers to it) of Zerbinetta and her commedia dell'arte companions and the tragic world of Ariadne herself, abandoned by Theseus on the isle of Naxos.

If you look at early reviews of Ariadne, whether in its original 1912 format as an entertainment within Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's Le bourgeois gentilhomme, or in the 1916 revision with the added Prologue that made the opera free-standing, you frequently encounter the criticism that the two musico-dramatic worlds that the creators so gleefully moosh together simply don't go together, that they're incompatible. Which is odd, because you'd think that one of the first things an audience member might want to puzzle out is why they've been mooshed together. And you'd think it would be rather obvious that they give us two quite different ways of looking at the same set of circumstances, each of which has something important to show us.

And somewhere along the line this week that got me to thinking about Mozart's Così fan tutte, the last of the three operas he set to librettos by his great librettist Lorenzo da Ponte -- and the only one of the three that on da Ponte's part wasn't an adaptation of existing material. And it occurred to me that the very different understandings of the characters of Così between the start and finish of the opera have a lot in common with the different ways of looking at Ariadne's bust-up with Theseus and subsequent hookup with Bacchus.

And that difference is embedded in the markedly different character of Fiordiligi's two great, hugely difficult showpiece arias, which we've heard before -- and we're now going to hear again. Starting, naturally, backwards. (Isn't that how we usually do things around here?) Just as I've been burbling on about the depth of beauty of Ariadne's music, I would venture that Fiordiligi's Act II aria, "Per pietà," might be the most beautiful thing Mozart ever wrote. I'm not going to say that it is the most beautiful thing Mozart ever wrote, because there are probably a dozen or two others to set alongside it. But the mere fact that it might be so considered tells us that we're dealing with one of the supremely beautiful creations of the human mind.

And this time I thought we might begin by breaking down just the very opening. In part this is useful because the aria is in the form of a rondo, meaning that we're going to be hearing this "A" section again, and again. And in part this is useful because it allows us to trail along as Mozart puts these musical materials together.


LET'S GET OUR GRAPHIC UP AGAIN AND GET STARTED

Ariadne is "the symbol of human solitude" -- which is "just why she needs company" (says the Dance Master)

[NOTE: This is still a rough version of this post, which needs a bit of fixing and amplifying that I'll get to ASAP. Okay, the updating is pretty well done -- or at least done as well as it's gonna get done.]

THE DANCE MASTER: There's nothing more tasteless than a desert island.
THE COMPOSER: Ariadne on Naxos, sir -- she is the symbol of human solitude.
THE DANCE MASTER: That's just why she needs company.

Murray Dickie (t), Dance Master; Sena Jurinac (s), Compower; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958

Gerhard Unger (t), Dance Master; Tatiana Troyanos (ms), Composer; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Nov. 29, 1967

by Ken

Awhile back I asked, "Why won't everyone just let poor abandoned Ariadne die in peace?" Rather than try to answer the question directly, I hoped that the answer, or at least an answer, would be clear from the extravagantly gorgeous music the abandoned princess sings in the two-part monologue she has been given upon her awakening from her weeping slumber.

Of course, as we're reminded by the little exchange I've reproduced atop this post, there are two decidedly different schools of thought about Ariadne abandoned on Naxos among the participants in the strange hybrid entertainment about to be performed in the house of the richest man in Vienna: the "serious opera" folk including the Music Master and his student, the Composer, the composer of the opera seria Ariadne auf Naxos that's on offer; and the entertainers "in the Italian buffo manner," as the Music Master puts it, led by the Dance Master and "the incomparable Zerbinetta."

Now I don't believe we've yet seriously encountered the Dance Master, a treat of a little character-tenor role. For one thing, the fellow knows how to present himself. Here we're hearing one of my favorite character tenors, Murray Dickie, a Scotsman we've heard in repertory from Mozart to Wagner to Mahler.

THE MAJOR-DOMO: Where is Master Dance Master? I have an instruction from my honorable master for you both.
THE DANCE MASTER: What's wished of me?

Kurt Preger (spkr), Major-Domo; Murray Dickie (t), Dance Master; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958

And he knows how to plead his case. Here he's debunking the notion that the comic presentation will be dragged down if it's give following the soporific opera seria.

THE DANCE MASTER [to ZERBINETTA]: On the contrary. They've just got up from table, they feel much too full and disinclined for anything save forty winks on the side. They clap, then, out of politeness and to wake themselves up. In the meantime they become quite lively. "What's next?" they say to themselves. "The Inconstant Zerbinetta and Her Four Suitors": a merry comedy to follow with dancing, light, tuneful music and a plot as clear as daylight where one knows where one is. "That's what we like," they say to themselves. "This is where we wake up. We know where we are with this!" And afterwards, when they're driving home, they can't remember a single thing, except that they saw the incomparable Zerbinetta dance.

Murray Dickie (t), Dance Master; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958

Now here's how this occurs in context, reflecting the comedians' view of the Ariadne story, with some other characterful Dance Masters. I would put in a good work in particular for that wonderful Spieltenor of the '50s and '60s Gerhard Unger. (One thing to note in these excerpts is how each tenor copes with that totally exposed, long-held high B-flat at the end, on "Zerbi-net-ta." Peter Schreier may not have been the goldenest-voiced of tenors, but he was a legit lyric tenor rather than, strictly speaking a Spieltenor, and I think that gives him an edge here.)

I was already thinking that maybe we should do a "Murray Dickie Day" post, if only gathering together the repertory we've already heared; now I'm thinking maybe we should do Murray Dickie-plus-Gerhard Unger, since there was of course a good deal of repertory overlap.

R. STRAUSS: From the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos

ZERBINETTA sits on a little straw stool at the front of the stage and finishes applying her makeup assisted by her partners; HARLEKIN holds the light, BRIGHELLA the mirror.

PRIMA DONNA [opens the door and beckons to the MUSIC MASTER]: Have you summoned the Count?
[Comes out a little and notices ZERBINETTA and the rest]
Pfui! What kind of visions are these, pray?
[To the MUSIC MASTER, not exactly softly] Fancy our being mixed up with people of that sort! Don't people hereabouts know who I am? How could the Count --
ZERBINETTA [with an impudent look at the singer and in a purposely loud voice]: If the rubbish is so boring, then we ought to have been allowed to appear first, before they become irritable. If they've been bored for a whole hour beforehand, then it will be twice as hard to make them laugh.
DANCE MASTER [to ZERBINETTA]: On the contrary. They've just got up from table, they feel much too full and disinclined for anything save forty winks on the side. They clap, then, out of politeness and to wake themselves up. In the meantime they become quite lively. "What's next?" they say to themselves. "The Inconstant Zerbinetta and Her Four Suitors": a merry comedy to follow with dancing, light, tuneful music and a plot as clear as daylight where one knows where one is. "That's what we like," they say to themselves. "This is where we wake up. We know where we are with this!" And afterwards, when they're driving home, they can't remember a single thing, except that they saw the incomparable Zerbinetta dance.

Leonie Rysanek (s), Prima Donna; Jeanette Scovotti (s), Zerbinetta; Gerhard Unger (t), Dance Master; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance, Nov. 29, 1967

Gundula Janowitz (s), Prima Donna; Sylvia Geszty (s), Zerbinetta; Peter Schreier (t), Dance Master; Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded June-July 1968

Maria Reining (s), Prima Donna; Alda Noni (s), Zerbinetta (s), Josef Witt (t), Dance Master; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance in honor of Strauss's 80th birthday, June 11, 1944


BUT ABOVE ALL THERE'S ARIADNE'S MUSIC

And now, as promised way back when, we're returning to Ariadne's monologue, this time hearing the whole chunk of the opera seria through the second part of the monologue. Is it really possible to stand by and allow Ariadne to will herself into oblivion, even for the commedia dell'arte players?

R. STRAUSS: Ariadne auf Naxos, Op. 60:
The first part of the Opera Seria

(1) Overture

(2) Ariadne watched by the nymphs Najade, Dryade, and Echo (Najade, "Schläft sie?")

ARIADNE lies prostrate on the ground before the mouth of a cave. NAJADE is left, DRYADE right, ECHO at the back against the wall of the grotto.

["Is she sleeping?" first NAJADE and then DRYADE ask. "No, she is weeping," they determine. "Weeping in her sleep." "Day after day benumbed in sorrow." And they continue their lamentations, joined by the echoing ECHO, until finally ARIADNE awakens.]

(3) Ariadne awakens ("Ach! Wo war ich?")

ARIADNE [on the ground]: A-ah!
ECHO: A-ah!
ARIADNE: Where was I? Dead? And alive, alive again
and still living?
And yet it is no life that I live!
Broken heart, will you continue forever beating?
[Half raising herself]
What then was I dreaming? Woe is me! Forgotten already!
My head retains nothing anymore.
Only shadows slip
through a shadow.
And yet, something suddenly blazes up and pains me so!
A-ah!
ECHO: A-ah!

(4) Ariadne's monologue, part 1: "Ein schönes war, hiess Theseus-Ariadne"

ARIADNE [to herself, as in a monologue]:
There was a thing of beauty, called Theseus-Ariadne,
that walked in light and rejoiced in life,
that walked in light and rejoiced in life.
A thing of beauty was: Ariadne. Theseus.
Theseus! That walked in light and rejoiced in life.
Ariadne. Theseus.
Why do I know of it? I want to forget!
[Another idea occurs to her poor deranged mind.]
This one thing I have still to find: It is shameful
to be as confused as I am.
I must try to rouse myself: Yes, this I still must find:
the maiden that once I used to be!
Now I have it -- the gods grant that I hold on to it!
Not the name -- the name has grown together
with another name, one thing grows
so easily into another, alas!
NAJADE, DRYADE, and ECHO [trying to awaken her]:
Ariadne!
ARIADNE [motioning them away]:
No, not again! She lives here quite alone.
Lightly she breathes, lightly she moves,
not a blade stirs where she treads,
her sleep is chaste, her mind serene,
her heart as pure as a spring;
she keeps herself undefiled, for the day is soon to come
when she can wind herself in her mantle,
cover herself with a cloth
and lie there,
among the dead.

(5) Ariadne not quite alone (including Harlekin's song)

ZERBINETTA [from the wings]:
Oh then, try a little song!
HARLEKIN [singing from the wings]:
Love, hatred, hope, fear,
every joy and every pain,
all this can a heart endure
once and many times again.
ECHO: repeats it soullessly, like a bird, without words.
HARLEKIN: But to feel not joy nor sadness,
even pain itself being dead,
that is fatal to your heart,
this you must not do to me!
You must lift yourself from darkness,
were it but to fresher pangs!
You must live, for life is lovely,
you must live again once more.
ECHO: as before.
[ARIADNE, unmoved, dreams on as before.]
ZERBINETTA [sotto voce]: She didn't raise her head once!
HARLEKIN [the same]: It's all no use.
I felt as much while I was singing.
ZERBINETTA: You're quite upset.
HARLEKIN: Never have I been so moved by any human being.
ZERBINETTA: You're the same about every woman.
HARLEKIN: And aren't you the same about every man?

(6) Ariadne's monologue, part 2: "Es gibt ein Reich, wo alles rein ist"

ARIADNE: There is a realm where all is pure:
it has a name too: Realm of Death.
[Rises from the ground.]
Here nothing is pure.
All is finished here.

[She pulls her robe close around her.]
But soon a messenger will draw nigh,
Hermes they call him.
With his staff
he rules all souls:
Like birds on the wing,
like dry leaves,
he drives them before him.
Thou beautiful, serene god!
See! Ariadne awaits!

Oh, my heart must be cleansed
of all wild grief,
then your presence will call me,
your footsteps will approach my cave,
darkness will cover my eyes,
your hand will touch my heart.
In the beautiful festal robes
that my mother bequeathed me
my body will remain;
the silent cave will be my tomb.
But mutely my soul
will follow its new lord,
as a light leaf in the wind
flutters downward, gladly falling.
Darkness will cover my eyes
and fill my heart;
this body will remain,
richly adorned and all alone.

You will set me free,
give me to myself,
this burdensome life,
take it from me.
I will lose myself entirely in you;
with you Ariadne will abide.
[She stands lost in thought.]

-- English translation of texts by Peggie Cochrane

Erika Wustmann (s), Najade; Annelies Burmeister (ms), Dryade; Adele Stolte (s), Echo; Gundula Janowitz (s), Ariadne; Hermann Prey (b), Harlekin; Sylvia Geszty (s), Zerbinetta; Hans-Joachim Rotzsch (t), Brighella; Siegfried Vogel (bs), Truffaldin; Peter Schreier (t), Scaramuccio; Staatskapelle Dresden, Rudolf Kempe, cond. EMI, recorded 1967
[(1)-(6) tracks 1-6]

Mimi Coertse (s), Najade; Hilde Rössl-Majdan (ms), Dryade; Liselotte Maikl (s), Echo; Leonie Rysanek (s), Ariadne; Walter Berry (b), Harlekin; Roberta Peters (s), Zerbinetta; Murray Dickie (t), Brighella; Gunter Adam (bs), Truffaldin; Kurt Equiluz (t), Scaramuccio; Vienna Philharmonic, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1958
[(1) start; (2) 3:38; (3) 7:30; (4) 10:15; (5) 16:00; (6) 18:53]

Eleanor Bergquist (s), Najade; Gwendolyn Jones (ms), Dryade; Pamela South (s), Echo; Leontyne Price (s), Ariadne; Dale Duesing (b), Harlekin; Ruth Welting (s), Zerbinetta; Robert Johnson (t), Brighella; Alexander Malta (bs), Truffaldin; Joseph Frank (t), Scaramuccio; San Francisco Opera Orchestra, János Ferencsik, cond. Live performance, Oct. 28, 1977
[(1) track 1; (2) track 2; (3) track 3; (4)-(5) track 4; (6) track 5]

Deborah Cook (s), Najade; Enid Hartle (ms), Dryade; Norma Burrowes (s), Echo; Leontyne Price (s), Ariadne; Barry McDaniel (b), Harlekin; Edita Gruberová (s), Zerbinetta; Gerhard Unger (t), Brighella; Manfred Jungwirth (bs), Truffaldin; Kurt Equiluz (t), Scaramuccio; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded November 1977
[(1) start; (2) 3:30; (3) 7:41; (4) 11:00; (5) 18:15; (6) 20:19]

Emmy Loose (s), Najade; Melanie Frutschnigg (ms), Dryade; Elisabeth Rutgers (s), Echo; Maria Reining (s), Ariadne; Erich Kunz (b), Harlekin; Alda Noni (s), Zerbinetta; Peter Klein (t), Brighella; Marjan Rus (bs), Truffaldin; Richard Sallaba (t), Scaramuccio; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Karl Böhm, cond. Live performance in honor of Strauss's 80th birthday, June 11, 1944
[track 1: (1) start, (2) 3:58, (3) 8:38, (4) 11:53; track 2: (5) start; (6) 1:56]

UPDATE: A note about the recordings

We already heard Leonie Rysanek's thrilling "Es gibt ein Reich," from the Leinsdorf-RCA studio recording, in the earlier Ariadne's-monologue post, at which time I promised that we would be hearing the whole scene. I assumed nobody would mind hearing the Es gibt ein Reich" again! By virtue of the voice's natural weight and soaring upward extension, it seems to me a just about ideal Ariadne voice -- like Jessye Norman's, which we heard in both halves of the monologue, with its sumptuous lower range as a vocal bonus.

Gundula Janowitz, of course, is a representative of the lighter-weight sopranos who have made the role work, and while some listeners have been put of by the quasi-instrumental quality of the vocalism, I really loved the sound of the voice in these glory years -- and especially working with a conductor as inspiring as Rudolf Kempe in this outing, she remains for me a memorable Ariadne.

I haven't included two Leontyne Price performances because I think either is "definitive"; I would have loved, for one thing, to hear her in the role when she was younger -- as in the gleaming studio recording we heard of "Es gibt ein Reich" (and also the first two of the Four Last Songs). The San Francisco performance and the London studio recording are almost contemporary; one gets the feeling that Price headed straight from San Francisco to London to make the recording. That said, she sounds to me vocally more assured and dramatically more comfortable in the live performance, but since I had already made a file of the studio version, I decided to include both.

Finally, I'm happy to have included the excerpt from the June 1944 Vienna State Opera performance conducted by Karl Böhm to commemorate Strauss's 80th birthday, from which we've already heard the Prologue. Maria Reining, the Ariadne, was not at all surprisingly in considerably better vocal health here, at age 41, than she was in the recording for which she's surely best known, the Marschallin in the June 1954 Decca recording conducted by Erich Kleiber, when she was about to turn 51. The Ariadne seems to me an all-round lovely piece of work.


STILL TO COME: No, we're not done with Ariadne

We still have to look at the way the comic and tragic elements are not only balanced but in fact brought into harmony.

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