Glancing back over the BSO's concertmaster path from 1962

When Erich Leinsdorf (center) became BSO music director in 1962, he engaged Joseph Silverstein as concertmaster; two years later he hired away Cleveland's principal cellist, Jules Eskin. Both long outlasted him -- Silverstein until 1984, Eskin until his death, at 85, in November 2016.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Swan Lake: Act II, Dance of the Swans - Pas d'action (Odette and the Prince; 2nd Dance of the Swan Queen)

Bernard Zighera, harp; Joseph Silverstein, violin [at 1:20]; Jules Eskin, cello [at 4:55]; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded in Symphony Hall, November 1978

by Ken

One measure of an orchestra's greatness is its principals, and we just heard the 1978-vintage Boston Symphony putting on quite a show -- one after the other after the other. I think we can hear then-music director Seiji Ozawa having a ball with the range of choices, both bold and intimate, made possible by his soloists' instrumental prowess and creative imagination, knowing too that pretty much anything he can think to ask of them, they can give him. Of course the same thing applies to the orchestra as a whole.

By 1978 Joseph Silverstein and Jules Eskin had been making music together for 14 years, not just as fellow orchestra principals but as fellow founding members of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players in 1964. (Was the prospect of Leinsdorf's plan for the BSCP part of the lure that brought Jules E. to Boston from Cleveland?) They remained as foundations of Seiji Ozawa's BSO, and Jules would wind up teaming up with Joseph S.'s successor, Malcolm Lowe, even longer than he had with Joseph S. (in the post-to-come we'll hear him paired with both); he was still on the job when current music director Andris Nelsons took the reins (in 2013 as music director designate, in 2014 as music director).

Harpist Bernard Zighera [right] dates way farther back, to the early years of the Koussevitzky era, having been imported from Paris in 1926 to be in place when the harp principalship opened, two years later. For his first 17 years he was the orchestra's pianist as well. (When he had to choose, and chose to retain his harp position, his piano duties were taken over in 1943 by a young Koussevitzky protégé name of Leonard Bernstein.)

So we're all on the same page, let me note that we're picking up from last week's "The BSO's soon-to-be-seated new concertmaster, 'the other Nathan,' is only its 4th in the last 104 years," but the plans I had for a survey of the concertmaster succession from Joseph Silverstein to Malcolm Lowe to the incoming Nathan Cole have kept turning and twisting and been obstinate about resisting forward movement. So I got the idea of this sort of transitional post where we'll get to listen to a lot of nice music. Never mind that very little of it was in the plans and so had to be worked up from scratch.


WE'RE GOING TO RETURN TO SWAN LAKE IN THE POST-
TO-COME. FOR NOW LET'S JUST ENJOY SOME LISTENING

An orchestra principal's most visible job is playing orchestral solos written for his/her instrument. He-e-re's Stanley D.!

STANLEY DRUCKER (1929-2022)
Continuing our remembrance: Part 1 of [I think] 3

Final pages of "Pines of the Gianicolo" -- with Stanley Drucker & nightingales

A CLARINET VET'S TOP 10 [or 11] CLARINET SOLOS

"As a 34-year veteran of the CSO, I am often asked what music I particularly like. With that in mind, I've devised a list of my top ten favorite orchestral clarinet solos." -- Charlotte Symphony clarinetist Allan Rosenfeld, on the CSO's Sound of Charlotte Blog, Nov. 2020

In his blogpost, A.R. presented his "Top 10 Orchestral Clarinet Solos" -- really 11, with the inclusion of an "honorable mention" that rates pretty high in the "wow!" department -- illustrated with YouTube clips generally cued to the moment of clarinetic takeoff. In this series of posts we'll have A.R. introduce the 11 solos, which we'll hear played mostly by our guy Stanley D.

by Ken

During the long Sunday Classics blog silence -- which we're not going to talk about (right?) except to note that it was caused, as you probably realized, by those gosh-darn supply-chain issues -- one of the first things I actually did was a version of the journey we're now, finally, undertaking, through Allan Rosenfeld's Top 10 (or 11) Orchestral Clarinet Solos. One curious evolution I witnessed (more or less as a spectator!) was a shift of emphasis from Stanley Drucker himself to, well, the music. Lots of music. Until, as we now experience on the journey, there's lots of music that has very little directly to do with Stanley D., unless we count the zillions of performances he participated in.

Which, come to think of it, isn't that different from the turns some other of my musical remembrances took, as with soprano Margaret Price and bass John Macurdy. And this, I kept telling myself as I watched this evolution and expansion, was kind of Drucker-esque, in that his in-all-ways-remarkable career seemed so squarely focused on the music.

At the time of his retirement, in 2009, and then again after his death, in December, we were inundated with mind-boggling number. If I'm remembering correctly, the NY Phil's statsfolks reported not just that in his 61 years with the orchestra (49 of them as principal clarinet), he played in 10,700 concerts, but that this number represented, as of the time of his retirement, some 70 percent of all the concerts the orchestra had ever given.


I KEEP WONDERING WHAT A CATALOG OF ALL THE
WORKS STANLEY D. PLAYED IN WOULD LOOK LIKE

Let's have a first look at a project we're going to be undertaking

THERE'VE BEEN NOTABLE UPDATES (SORTA MARKED) SINCE
FIRST POSTING -- NOT PLANNED, THEY JUST KINDA HAPPENED

We note the obvious trend going from performance A to F, right? (With just an interesting variant in the B-C sequence)

[UPDATE NOTE: If you just want to get your toes wet to start, focus just on the Andante con moto section, which ranges -- rather amazingly! -- from roughly 1:25 to 2:40 in our specimens. (This was my original plan anyway for first presentation of these clips, rather than going to the huge hassle, not to mention blog-loading drain, of adding shorter new clips.) Btw, since that first score page took us so close to the end of the Andante non troppo, I've added another chunk to get us there and into the Allegro non troppo.]

[A]

[Allegro moderato at 1:25] Full symphony orchestra, March 1957
[B]

[Allegro moderato at 1:56] Reduced-size orchestra, December 1986
[C]

[Allegro moderato at 1:53] Chamber orchestra, February 1986
[D]

[Allegro moderato at 2:09] Full symphony orchestra, 1988-89
[E]

[Allegro moderato at 2:26] Reduced-size orchestra, June 1958
[F]

[Allegro moderato at 2:42] Full symphony orchestra, October 1970

by Ken

Okay, so maybe a minor derailment here. I was aiming for a post that would in some way tie up our loose ends and dangling threads regarding musical larks, serenades, and the tragic case of Schubert, and also a separate post (or maybe two) to wrap up our Ives explorations (it's looking likelier that we're going to culminate with Ives's most ambitious creations: the Concord Sonata and the Fourth Symphony, which -- even just whizzing through -- are both sizable work units). And this is still the hope. It's just that each of these topics, which we'd all dearly love to be done with, kept throwing up obstacles that sent me in as much of a sideways as a forward direction.

Meanwhile, I've got a good start on another project, which without any such specific intention will actually continue one of the above-enumerated threads, and while the bulk of that project is still in the drawing-board stage, there's enough ready -- or at least there was enough ready once I added some music -- to allow what might have been a mere teaser to stand pretty well on its own.


YOU LIKELY RECOGNIZED THE MUSIC WE JUST HEARD

We now hear our "elite" violin concertos in their entirety

As we edge forward with our Mendelssohn "sidebar" -- as I just explained -- it's time to hear these concertos in full.

[TUESDAY UPDATE: You might watch for updates to this post, like the one I just added for the Brahms Concerto.]

Last week ("Rondomania: A quick hit at violin-concerto rondo finales looking back from Mendelssohn to Mozart and Beethoven and ahead to Brahms and Sibelius"), pursuing the Mendelssohn "sidebar" that grew out of the Nov. 28 post "One Sunday afternoon in
August 1943 in Carnegie Hall . . .," we listened to the great chain of violin concertos with rondo finales stretching out before and after Mendelssohn. I said at the time that I'd really like to be able to present those concertos in full. Well, here they are!

This all still needs to be integrated with a mostly written first part that continues the Mendelssohnian thread. And probably it should be improved in all sorts of other ways. I wouldn't hold my breath about that part, though. -- Ken

AGAIN, WE REALLY HAVE TO START WITH MOZART

In our original consideration of the place of the rondo finale in the line of the great violin concertos, we started with Mozart --

• not because he invented either the violin concerto or the rondo or even the use of the rondo in violin (and other) concertos, which he didn't, but because he grasped the possibilities of this combination in a way, or ways, that made it stick.

• and not because Mozart's violin concertos, taken on their own, are equivalent in stature to the line of violin concertos they did so much to inspire. The form -- the Classical concerto, that is, not to be confused with the Baroque one -- was still too new to aspire to that stature. (Thank you once again, Herr Beethoven.)

Not that the three "mature" concertos (which followed with scarcely any separation from the not-yet-mature ones) can't still hold their own on a concert platform. But you kind of feel that the audience needs at minimum a somewhat bigger kick, and the performer has to put out a portion more to earn his/her fee. So, with no disrespect to any of these much-loved works, I'm thinking of them maybe more as a collective than as separate entires in our violin-concerto sweepstakes. (If it were piano concertos we were tracking, I'm not sure I would take the same position. But Mozart's piano concertos come from a more developed stage of his creative energies. There are at least half a dozen Mozart piano concertos I'd consider worthy of inclusion in such a survey.

BUT: We're skipping the Mozart Violin Concertos Nos. 1-2

'In modo di canzone': If it's singing we aim to talk about, how come we're listening to 'Le Tombeau de Couperin'? (Part 2)

With apologies for the sprawl of this post: I kept thinking I should really spin off a Part 3, but that seemed too easy a way out -- and likely would have needed to happen before we got to (ahem) "the point." Still, I probably should have. Sorry! -- Ed.

Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin, arr. Mason Jones

i. Prélude, at 0:00; ii. Fugue, at 3:35; iii. Menuet, at 6:30; iv. Rigaudon, at 10:34.  French Woodwind Quintet: Philippe Bernold, flute; Olivier Doise, oboe; Patrick Messina, clarinet; Julien Hardy, bassoon; Hervé Joulain, horn

Just the "Prélude," in the Jones arrangement

Quintette Les Cinq: Federico Dalprà, flute; Ian Barillas-McEntee, oboe; Letizia Elsa Maulà, clarinet; Georgie Powell, bassoon; Derrick Atkinson, horn (in the Jurriaanse Zaal, De Doelen, Rotterdam, Feb. 17, 2015)

by Ken

As I sort-of-explained last week in part 1 of this post, my path to Albrecht Mayer's 2013 oboe master class began with "a birthday-gift concert of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center," at which Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin (of 1914-18) was played in a version I'd never heard, bracketed -- in a program called Through the Great War -- between a pair of piano quintets I don't think I'd ever heard at all, Dohnányi's Second (1914) and Elgar's (1918).

To my considerable surprise it was not just a terrific concert but one of my great musical experiences, at a time when such an experience was as welcome as it was unexpected. I think I'd still like to write about it, because it struck at a whole bunch of issues that are of considerable importance to me, but it's not easy, since aspects of it are pretty personal, which amps up the difficulty of writing, as well as the personal unease about how much I want to share, especially at a time when I'm finding it hard to imagine that it would be of interest to anyone but me. My best hope is that it'll get a tiny bit easier once I have more confidence that there's nobody out there reading. (And if by chance there is somebody out there reading, can you explain yourself?)

So for now for the most part I'm going to table the concert itself, except perhaps to thank the Chamber Music Society, not just for the concert but for the birthday gift. You see, when I described this as "a birthday-gift concert of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center," what may not have been clear is that it was a gift from CMS -- owing, as best I can tell, to my having once bought a ticket directly from them (probably at a discount at that, if I know myself). I meant to drop the folks there a note of thanks, but somehow I didn't. So thanks, folks!


TOO MUCH TALK! LET'S HAVE MUSIC!

'In modo di canzone': If it's singing we aim to talk about, how come we're listening to 'Le Tombeau de Couperin'? (Part 1)

Hints: It has to do with: (1) a birthday-gift concert of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and (2) the 2013 Carnegie Hall master class of master oboist Albrecht Mayer

Note: Updated with some expansions and Sunday Classics links,
notably in the section on the Brahms First Symphony

What is it?
The oboe is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family. It has a conical bore and a flaring bell, which gives it a clear, penetrating voice compared to other woodwind instruments. A person who plays the oboe is an oboist.

[from the Manning Music website]

by Ken

And not just Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin, which I can reveal was included (in an unexpected form) in the above-hinted-at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center concert, which set off this whole line of inquiry. No, for reasons that will eventually become clear (though perhaps only clearish this week), we've also got music by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Rossini, none of it with any singing -- and never mind (maybe?) that all four of these are composers for whom vocal music was a prime concern.

At least there's no singing in the literal vocal sense. Consider this, however:

TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36:
ii. Andantino in modo di canzone


London Symphony Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Decca, recorded September 1962

RIAS Symphony Orchestra (Berlin), Ferenc Fricsay, cond. DG, recorded Sept. 9-10, 1952

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton, cond. Virgin Classics, recorded 1988-91


AT THIS MOMENT, THIS IS MY FAVORITE MUSICAL
DIRECTION: "ANDANTINO IN MODO DI CANZONE"

Nicolai Gedda (1925-2017)

10pm ET UPDATE: We have Yevgeny Onegin audio files!

Anneliese Rothenberger and Nicolai Gedda as Constanze
and Belmonte in Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio,
from the cover of their 1966 EMI recording

MOZART: The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384: Overture and Belmonte's entrance aria, "Hier soll ich dich denn sehen?"

BELMONTE: Here am I then to see you,
Constanze -- you, my happiness?
Let Heaven make it happen!
Give me my peace back!
I suffered sorrows,
o Love, all too many of them.
Grant me now in their place joys
and bring me toward the goal.

[aria at 4:35] Nicolai Gedda (t), Belmonte; Vienna Philharmonic, Josef Krips, cond. EMI, recorded February 1966

Now here it is sung by a younger, fresher-voiced Nicolai --

[aria at 4:20] Nicolai Gedda (t), Belmonte; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, Hans Rosbaud, cond. Recorded live at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, July 11, 1954

Finally, here it is sung in English (from a complete Abduction
recording based on a Phoenix Opera Group production) --

[in English; aria at 4:10] Nicolai Gedda (t), Belmonte; Bath Festival Orchestra, Yehudi Menuhin, cond. EMI, recorded Oct.-Dec. 1967 (now available in Chandos's opera-in-English series)

by Ken

Although Nicolai Gedda continued singing publicly well into his 70s, he had, not surprisingly, slipped out of the international circuit well before then, and since he was 91 when he died on February 8, in Switzerland, it may be that to younger music lovers the Swedish tenor is just a name, if that. But there was a time, and a fairly long one at that, when he seemed to be everywhere, singing more or less everything -- at least everything assumable by a generous-voiced lyric tenor, in the wide range of languages in which he sang with both technical and expressive assurance.


I NEVER THOUGHT OF OUR NICOLAI AS A FAVORITE
SINGER. IT'S MORE THAT HE WAS ALWAYS THERE.

Sunday Classics holiday edition: It's "The Nutcracker" -- the whole deal! (One more time!)

With the "Nutcracker Suite" sequence of Disney's Fantasia now unavailable, I thought to kick off we'd just look at this little teaser from Helgi Tómasson's San Francisco Ballet staging.

by Ken

[To repeat, this is a second "encore presentation" of 2011's complete-Nutcracker post (the first since since all the way back in 2012!), which I thought came out pretty darned well. As I wrote in 2012, you probably think it's a huge labor-saver just running a post "rerun," and perhaps I thought so too, but it didn't work out that way.]

The plan is pretty simple. As promised in last night's preview, when we heard two quite differently terrific performances of Tchaikovksy's own Nutcracker Suite, today we're going to hear the complete ballet, and chunks of it -- solely at my discretion -- twice!

Pretty much the last thing I added to what you'll see in the click-through is the plot synopsis (filched from Wikipedia). I went back and forth a lot about this, because I really don't pay much attention to plots, or even programs, when I listen to music written for the dance. I'm not a dance person to begin with, and I guess my listening orientation is to allow the music to plug its own built-in "program" into my imagination. Still, in the end it seemed to me that this curious format (for want of a better word) we've got going here at Sunday Classics is actually an extremely good way to hook up the plot and the music.

I'll have some quick (I hope) notes about the specifics when we get to the click-through, so let me just throw out two points about The Nutcracker:

(1) Tchaikovsky really didn't want to write the damned thing. So no, it was about as far from a "labor of love" as you can get.

(2) It was written to share a double bill with one of the composer's less-performed operas, Yolanta, which is the part of the bill that really interested and moved him. It has, in fact, nothing (that I can see or hear) in common with its birth billmate, and it strikes me as an incredibly difficult piece to really bring to life, but as with many difficult, fragile creations, its specialness holds special rewards. It deals, first, with the desperate desire of a very powerful man -- a king, in fact -- to shield a loved one, in this case his only daughter, from pain, in her case the knowledge that she's blind. But in the larger sense it deals with the futility of trying to protect someone from something it's impossible to "protect" her from, like reality. Someday we should undoubtedly talk about Yolanta. (But it's difficult.)


MOVING ON TO OUR COMPLETE NUTCRACKER

Sunday Classics holiday edition preview: For the first time since 2012, we bring back the legendary DWT gala "Nutcracker ('The Whole Deal')"

You'd want to think twice before bidding on this record. The ABC Command label tells you it's one of the inferior later pressings; you want an original gold-label issue. (Note: Unfortunately, last year's preview-opening video clip of the Nutcracker Suite segment of Walt Disney's Fantasia has disappeared -- not entirely surprisingly, I guess. To be honest, I don't like it much anyway.)

by Ken

As far back as the mind recalls, Sunday Classics has celebrated the holiday musically at last in part with music from Tchaikovsky's ballets, and last year I went whole hog and offered a complete Nutcracker, basically double-covered throughout, and assembled from, well, a whole bunch of recordings. And as I ventured in 2010's Nutcracker preview, what better way could there be to "warm up" for the main event than with the composer's own Nutcracker Suite, good old Op. 71a? In the click-through we've got two quite splendid, and interestingly different, performances.


WE HAVE TWO DIFFERENTLY SPLENDID
RECORDINGS OF THE NUTCRACKER SUITE

TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a:
i. Miniature Overture


Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, William Steinberg, cond. Command, recorded c1963

Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit, cond. Decca, recorded c1985

You'll note straightaway in the Miniature Overture that William Steinberg is taking a rather spritelier approach and Charles Dutoit a more buoyant, caressing one. Both the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Montreal Symphony play utterly delectably.


IN AUDIO TERMS, BOTH RECORDINGS HAVE
STELLAR PEDIGREES, IN CONTRASTING STYLES

It's "The Nutcracker" -- the whole deal! (again -- our last annual encore presentation)

With the "Nutcracker Suite" sequence of Disney's Fantasia now unavailable, I thought to kick off we'd just look at this little teaser from Helgi Tómasson's San Francisco Ballet staging.

by Ken

[To repeat, this is an "encore presentation" of last year's encore presentation of 2011's complete-Nutcracker post, which I thought came out pretty darned well. You probably think it's a huge labor-saver just running a post "rerun." Perhaps I thought so too, but it never works out that way.]

The plan is pretty simple. As promised in Friday night's preview, when we heard (once again) two quite differently terrific performances of Tchaikovksy's own Nutcracker Suite, today we're going to hear the complete ballet, and chunks of it -- solely at my discretion -- twice!

Pretty much the last thing I added to what you'll see in the click-through is the plot synopsis (filched from Wikipedia). I went back and forth a lot about this, because I really don't pay much attention to plots, or even programs, when I listen to music written for the dance. I'm not a dance person to begin with, and I guess my listening orientation is to allow the music to plug its own built-in "program" into my imagination. Still, in the end it seemed to me that this curious format (for want of a better word) we've got going here at Sunday Classics is actually an extremely good way to hook up the plot and the music.

I'll have some quick (I hope) notes about the specifics when we get to the click-through, so let me just throw out two points about The Nutcracker:

(1) Tchaikovsky really didn't want to write the damned thing. So no, it was about as far from a "labor of love" as you can get.

(2) It was written to share a double bill with one of the composer's less-performed operas, Yolanta, which is the part of the bill that really interested and moved him. It has, in fact, nothing (that I can see or hear) in common with its birth billmate, and it strikes me as an incredibly difficult piece to really bring to life, but as with many difficult, fragile creations, its specialness holds special rewards. It deals, first, with the desperate desire of a very powerful man -- a king, in fact -- to shield a loved one, in this case his only daughter, from pain, in her case the knowledge that she's blind. But in the larger sense it deals with the futility of trying to protect someone from something it's impossible to "protect" her from, like reality. Someday we should undoubtedly talk about Yolanta. (But it's difficult.)


MOVING ON TO OUR COMPLETE NUTCRACKER

Preview: By popular demand, the gala Sunday Classics "Nutcracker (The Whole Deal)" returns AGAIN (one last time!)

You'd want to think twice before bidding on this record. The ABC Command label tells you it's one of the inferior later pressings; you want an original gold-label issue. (Note: Unfortunately, last year's preview-opening video clip of the Nutcracker Suite segment of Walt Disney's Fantasia has disappeared -- not entirely surprisingly, I guess. To be honest, I don't like it much anyway.)

by Ken

As far back as the mind recalls, Sunday Classics has celebrated the holiday musically at last in part with music from Tchaikovsky's ballets, and two years ago I went whole hog and offered a complete Nutcracker, basically double-covered throughout, and assembled from, well, a whole bunch of recordings. I brought it back last year, and now darned if it isn't here again. And as I ventured first in 2011's Nutcracker preview, what better way could there be to "warm up" for the main event than with the composer's own Nutcracker Suite, good old Op. 71a? In the click-through we've got two quite splendid, and interestingly different, performances.


WE HAVE TWO DIFFERENTLY SPLENDID
RECORDINGS OF THE NUTCRACKER SUITE

TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a:
i. Miniature Overture


Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, William Steinberg, cond. Command, recorded c1963

Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit, cond. Decca, recorded c1985

You'll note straightaway in the Miniature Overture that William Steinberg is taking a rather spritelier approach and Charles Dutoit a more buoyant, caressing one. Both the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Montreal Symphony play utterly delectably.


IN AUDIO TERMS, BOTH RECORDINGS HAVE
STERLING PEDIGREES, IN QUITE DIFFERENT STYLES

Preview: Remembering Van Cliburn

TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23: 
ii. Andantino semplice; Prestissimo; Tempo I

Van Cliburn, piano; RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, Kiril Kondrashin, cond. RCA-Sony, recorded mostly live in New York City, May 30, 1958

by Ken

In the quick remembrance I posted following the death of Van Cliburn, I ventured: "The easy way to go would have been with the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto, the piece that became so identified with him when he rocketed to fame in 1958 (at age 23) with his grand-prize win at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow." Well, now that we're approaching the closer listen to Cliburn's art I promised then, we're getting around to the Tchaikovsky First Concerto, but most people would probably be expecting to hear one of the fistfuls-of-notes outer movements, and here we are with, instead, the slow movement. Oh, there's some fireworks in the movement's accelerated mid-section, but when I think of Cliburn, I always think first of the seemingly effortless, un-self-conscious beauty of the playing -- beautiful in sound and expression.

FOR CLIBURN'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN
FROM MOSCOW IN MAY 1958 . . .

It's "The Nutcracker" -- the whole deal! (Again!)

With the "Nutcracker Suite" sequence of Disney's Fantasia now unavailable, I thought to kick off we'd just look at this little teaser from Helgi Tómasson's San Francisco Ballet staging.

by Ken

[To repeat, this is an "encore presentation" of last year's complete-Nutcracker post, which I thought came out pretty darned well. You probably think it's a huge labor-saver just running a post "rerun." Perhaps I thought so too, but it never works out that way.]

The plan is pretty simple. As promised in Friday night's preview, when we heard two quite differently terrific performances of Tchaikovksy's own Nutcracker Suite, today we're going to hear the complete ballet, and chunks of it -- solely at my discretion -- twice!

Pretty much the last thing I added to what you'll see in the click-through is the plot synopsis (filched from Wikipedia). I went back and forth a lot about this, because I really don't pay much attention to plots, or even programs, when I listen to music written for the dance. I'm not a dance person to begin with, and I guess my listening orientation is to allow the music to plug its own built-in "program" into my imagination. Still, in the end it seemed to me that this curious format (for want of a better word) we've got going here at Sunday Classics is actually an extremely good way to hook up the plot and the music.

I'll have some quick (I hope) notes about the specifics when we get to the click-through, so let me just throw out two points about The Nutcracker:

(1) Tchaikovsky really didn't want to write the damned thing. So no, it was about as far from a "labor of love" as you can get.

(2) It was written to share a double bill with one of the composer's less-performed operas, Yolanta, which is the part of the bill that really interested and moved him. It has, in fact, nothing (that I can see or hear) in common with its birth billmate, and it strikes me as an incredibly difficult piece to really bring to life, but as with many difficult, fragile creations, its specialness holds special rewards. It deals, first, with the desperate desire of a very powerful man -- a king, in fact -- to shield a loved one, in this case his only daughter, from pain, in her case the knowledge that she's blind. But in the larger sense it deals with the futility of trying to protect someone from something it's impossible to "protect" her from, like reality. Someday we should undoubtedly talk about Yolanta. (But it's difficult.)


MOVING ON TO OUR COMPLETE NUTCRACKER

Preview: By popular demand, the gala DownWithTyranny "Nutcracker (The Whole Deal)" returns

You'd want to think twice before bidding on this record. The ABC Command label tells you it's one of the inferior later pressings; you want an original gold-label issue. (Note: Unfortunately, last year's preview-opening video clip of the Nutcracker Suite segment of Walt Disney's Fantasia has disappeared -- not entirely surprisingly, I guess. To be honest, I don't like it much anyway.)

by Ken

As far back as the mind recalls, Sunday Classics has celebrated the holiday musically at last in part with music from Tchaikovsky's ballets, and last year I went whole hog and offered a complete Nutcracker, basically double-covered throughout, and assembled from, well, a whole bunch of recordings. And as I ventured in last year's Nutcracker preview, what better way could there be to "warm up" for the main event than with the composer's own Nutcracker Suite, good old Op. 71a? In the click-through we've got two quite splendid, and interestingly different, performances.


WE HAVE TWO DIFFERENTLY SPLENDID
RECORDINGS OF THE NUTCRACKER SUITE

TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a:
i. Miniature Overture


Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, William Steinberg, cond. Command, recorded c1963

Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit, cond. Decca, recorded c1985

You'll note straightaway in the Miniature Overture that William Steinberg is taking a rather spritelier approach and Charles Dutoit a more buoyant, caressing one. Both the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Montreal Symphony play utterly delectably.


IN AUDIO TERMS, BOTH RECORDINGS HAVE
STERLING PEDIGREES, IN QUITE DIFFERENT STYLES

They say that falling in love is wonderful -- Tchaikovsky's Tatiana writes a letter

Renée Fleming as Tatiana in the Letter Scene

Are you an angel, sent to guard me,
or will you tempt and then discard me?
Resolve these doubts I can't dispel.
Could all my dreams be self-delusion?
Am I too innocent to tell?
Has fate prepared its own conclusion?

Renée Fleming (s), Tatiana; London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Dec. 16-21, 1996

by Ken

Is there anyone who hasn't frenziedly punched out an e-mail and then, still in the grip of that frenzy, pressed SEND only to regret it as soon as the frenzy passes? It appears that for all the wizardry of the technology and the instantaneousness of communication, we 21st-century folk aren't that different from our technologically primitive letter-writing ancestors.

In last night's preview we set the scene for what we're going to be hearing tonight: the scene in which young Tatiana Larina, in the wee hours of the morning, declares her love for Yevgeny Onegin, the visiting friend of her sister Olga's fiancé, Lenski. We heard the intense Prelude, the opening quartet, set in the garden of the Larin country estate, in which the sisters sing a duet from inside the house while their mother and nurse listen and reflect outside, and we heard some interactions between the paired young people and Lenski's ravishing declaration of love for Olga.

TATIANA WRITES HER LETTER

Now it's several days later, and an intensely excited Tatiana, alone in her room, figures out what to do. We're going to listen to the whole of Act I, Scene 2, where the "Letter Scene" proper is bracketed by scenes between Tatiana and Filipyevna, the nurse. In fact, we're going to break it down into manageable bits with the assistance of one of our CD versions, but I thought we now might just take the plunge.

Here are three performances -- very different but, I think, quite effective in their distinctive ways.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Yevgeny Onegin, Op. 24:
Act I, Scene 2, Letter Scene, Tatiana

TATIANA's room, very simply furnished with old-fashioned whtie wooden chairs covered with chintz, and window curtains of the same material. A bed, over which is a bookshelf. A chest of drawers, covered with a cloth, and on it a mirror on a stand. Vases of flowers. At the window, a table with writing materials.

TATIANA has told the nurse, Filipyevna, that she can't sleep, and had Filipyevna set up her writing table with writing supplies. The nurse has left. TATIANA remains for a long time lost in thought. Then she rises, very agitated and with an expression of resolute determination.

[Note: What follows is the singing translation by David Lloyd-Jones used in the Welsh National Opera English-language recording we're going to be hearing.]

TATIANA: To write is foolishness, I know it,
but as I love him, I must show it.
And though I languish evermore,
I'll learn what rapture lies in store!
Desire has poisoned me with longing;
all day I only think of him.
For though I hide in my despair,
my fatal tempter finds me there;
My tempter haunts me everywhere!
[She goes to the writing table, sits down and writes, then pauses.]
No, that won't do! I'll start another.
[She tears up the letter.]
What's wrong with me? I'm all on fire.
I can't think how to start.
[She writes again, then pauses and reads over what she has written.]

"I had to write, my heart compelled me;
What is there more that I need to say>
Henceforth I know that you'll disdain me
for acting rashly in this way.
But if you'd only show compassion
and think how wretched I must be,
you'll surely not abandon me!
At first I meant to hide my secret;
believe me, I had hoped that you would never know it;
never know, never know!"
[She lays the letter aside.]
Oh yes, I'd sworn that I would hide my love.
And not betray this madness that consumes me.
But now I can't subdue my passion any more;
fate will decide what whatever lies in store.
I shall declare myself and trust in my confession!
[She writes again.]
"Whatever brought you to this lonely place?
For since I live here in seclusion
I would never have seen your face,
or would have known such bitter torment.
My heart would soon have grown contented,
and then as time went by, who knows,
I might have chanced to find another,
agreed to honor and respect him,
and made a faithful, loving wife . . ."
[She becomes lost in thought, then rises suddenly.]
But no!

No, there could never be another
to whom I'd give my love!
My life is bound to yours forever;
this is decreed by heaven above.
Now my existence has a meaning,
that noble soul for which I sigh.
I know that God above has sent you
to guard and to love me till you die!
Often I'd seen you in my dreaming;
your face and form had long been dear.
Nightly you whispered in my ear;
your words disturbed me with their meaning.
And then . . . that dream of mine came true.
For when we met, I straightaway knew you,
and in that instant, beating wildly,
my heart cried out to me: "Love him, love him!"

For you were always there beside me
when, sick at heart, I knelt in prayer.
Your noble presence seemed to guide me
when I would help the poor and
needy in charity.
Yes, it is your beloved vision
that comes in this moment of decision
to stand beside me as I write,
and fill my heart with new emotion,
with whispered promise of devotion
that brings me comfort and delight.
[She goes to the table and sits down again to write.]

"Are you an angel, sent to guard me,
or will you tempt and then discard me?
Resolve these doubts I can't dispel.
Could all my dreams be self-delusion?
Am I too innocent to tell?
Has fate prepared its own conclusion?"
[She again rises and and walks about pensively.]

"No, come what may, I'm now resolved
to lay my worthless life before you.
Pity my burning tears and grant me
your protection, I impore you,
I implore you!
Imagine, I am all alone;
there's no one here who understands me.
[She comes downstage.]
I fear my reason will desert me;
to find release I'd gladly die.
I long for you,
I long for you to be my savior;
one word can set my heart on fire
or simply stifle my desire,
to leave me desolate and wretched!"
[She goes quickly to the table and hurriedly finishes the letter. Then she stands up and seals it.]
It's finished! Dare I read it through?
For shame and terror now assail me.
But since his honor is my pledge
I boldy trust he will not fail me!

Galina Vishnevskaya (s), Tatiana; Bolshoi Opera Orchestra, Boris Khaikin, cond. Melodiya, recorded 1956

Leontyne Price (s), Tatiana; London Symphony Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded June 1970

[in German] Ljuba Welitsch (s), Tatiana; Philharmonia Orchestra, Walter Susskind, cond. EMI, recorded May 22, 1948

RECORDING NOTES: The Price and Welitsch recordings are stand-alone excerpts; the Vishnevskaya is from the 1956 Bolshoi Opera complete Onegin . . .

Preview: Meet Tchaikovsky's Tatiana, who's going to be writing a famous letter

Soprano Anna Leese and baritone Mark Stone as Tatiana and Onegin in Act I of Yevgeny Onegin at London's Opera Holland Park this past July

by Ken

In early September we listened to a bunch of Tchaikovsky waltzes that included the one embedded in the opening scene of Act II of the composer's opera Yevgeny Onegin, which led to mention of the letter that young Tatiana Larina had written to a guest at her mother's country estate, Yevgeny Onegin, the worldly friend of her sister Olga's fiancé, Lenski. The writing of that letter is one of opera's great scenes, and I've been meaning to get back to the Letter Scene. This week is it.

Tonight we're going to fill in some background, and we're going to start at the very beginning, on the country estate of Madame Larina. After the Prelude, the curtain rises on Larina and her children's old nurse, Filipyevna, in the garden, listening to the Larin daughters, Tatiana and Olga, singing a suitably moody Russian duet from inside the house.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Yevgeny Onegin, Op. 24: Prelude and Opening quartet

The garden of the Larin country estate. On the left a house with a terrace; on the right, a shady tree. It is early evening.

Madama Larina is sitting under the tree making jam on a portable stove; Filipyevna is helping her. Te doors leading from the house onto the terrace are open and the voices of the two girls, singing a duet, can be heard coming from within.

TATIANA and OLGA: Have you not heard, from beyond the grove at night,
the voice that sings of love and sings of sorrow?
When, at the morning hour, the fields lay silent,
the music of the pipe, simple and sad,
have you not heard?
Then the music of the pipe, simple and sad,
have you not heard?
LARINA: They sing, and I too
used to sing that song in days gone by.
Do you remember? I used to sing it too.
FILIPYEVNA: You were young then.
[The duet continues as the older women chat and reminisce.]
TATIANA and OLGA: Have you not sighed
on hearing that sweet voice
sing of love
and of its sorrows?
Wen in the forest . . .
LARINA: How I loved Richardson!
FILIPYEVNA: You were young then.
LARINA: Not that I'd read his books,
but in the old days Princess Alina,
my cousin in Moscow,
kept on to me about him.
FILIPYEVNA: Yes, I remember.
TATIANA and OLGA: . . . you saw a youth
and met the gaze
of his sunken eyes . . .
LARINA: Ah, Grandison! Ah, Richardson!
FILIPYEVNA: At that time your husband
was still courting you, but against your will;
you were dreaming of another,
one who pleased you much more
in heart and mind!
TATIANA and OLGA: . . . Did you not sigh? Did you not sigh? &c.
LARINA: Ah, Richardson!
Why, he was a fine dandy,
a gambler and an ensign in the Guards!
FILIPYEVNA: Years long gone by!
LARINA: How well I always used to dress!
FILIPYEVNA: Always in the latest fashion!
LARINA: Always in the fashion and becomingly!
FILIPYEVNA: Alwaways in the fashion and becomingly!
TATIANA and OLGA: Did you not sigh,
when you met the gaze
of his sunken eyes,
did you not sigh, did you not sigh, &c.
LARINA: But suddenly, without even asking me . . .
FILIPYEVNA: They married you off without further ado!
Then, to relieve your unhappiness . . .
LARINA: Oh, how I cried to begin with!
I nearly left my husband!
FILIPYEVNA: . . . The master came here.
Here you busied yourself with the household,
became resigned and settled down.
LARINA: I busied myself with the household,
became resigned and settled down.
FILIPYEVNA: And God be thanked!
LARINA and FILIPYEVNA: Habit is sent us from above
in place of happiness.
Yes, that is how it is:
Habit is sent us from above,
in place of happiness.
LARINA: Corsets, album, Princess Pauline,
the book of sentimental verse,
I forgot them all.
FILIPYEVNA: You began
to call the maid Akulka instead of Celine
and restored at last . . .
LARINA: Ah!
LARINA and FILIPYEVNA: . . . The quilted dressing gowwn and mob cap!
Habit is sent us from above,
in place of happipness.
Yes, that is how it is:
Habit is sent us from above,
in place of happiness.
LARINA: But my husband loved me truly . . .
FILIPYEVNA: But the master loved you truly . . .
LARINA: . . . and trusted me unreservedly.
FILIPYEVNA: and trusted you unreservedly.
LARINA and FILIPYEVNA: Habit is sent us from above,
in place of happiness.

Mirella Freni (s), Tatiana; Anne Sofie von Otter (ms), Olga; Rosemarie Lang (ms), Madame Larina; Ruthild Engert (ms), Filipyevna (the Nurse); Staatskapelle Dresden, James Levine, cond. DG, recorded June 1987

[in English] Kiri Te Kanawa (s), Tatiana; Patricia Bardon (ms), Olga; Linda Finnie (c), Madame Larina; Elizabeth Bainbridge (ms), Filipyevna (the Nurse); Welsh National Opera Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, cond. EMI/Chandos, recorded June 29-July 6, 1992

WHAT DOES OLGA HAVE THAT TATIANA DOESN'T?

The sisters, for all they have in common, are also very different. Most obviously, Olga is way more outgoing than the introverted Tatiana. More particularly, Olga has a fiancé, the poet Lenski; the two of them grew up on neighboring estates, and as we'll hear in a moment their parents in fact destined them for each other.

Do I hear a waltz? (Tchaikovsky edition)

Ferenc Fricsay (1914-1963)

by Ken

Nothing fancy going on here this week. As I explained in Friday night's preview, we're just listening to four waltzes that happen to be included on an-all Tchaikovsky DG CD reissue conducted by Ferenc Fricsay. Okay, maybe not quite "just." It's possible that there are one or two diversions or digressions along the way.

Right now, for example, we're going to kick off, not with a waltz, but with a polonaise. Friday we listened to the waltz from Act II of the opera Yevgeny Onegin -- in both its "concert" form and as it's heard in the opera, as the music around which the opening scene of Act II, a ball given on the country estate of Madame Larina, unfolds. We're going to hear that again, in some different performances (plus the Fricsay, of course), but first we're going to hear the polonaise that opens Act III, introducing a considerably more cosmopolitan ball, in Moscow, at the home of Madame Larina's daughter Tatiana, now married to a genuine prince (and a prince of a fellow is our Prince Gremin).

TCHAIKOVSKY: Yevgeny Onegin, Op. 24:
Act III, Polonaise

Staatskapelle Dresden, James Levine, cond. DG, recorded June 1987

Orchestre de Paris, Semyon Bychkov, cond. Philips, recorded October 1992

USSR State Radio and Television Large Symphony Orchestra, Vladimir Fedoseyev, cond. Audiophile Classics, recorded 1986

Sofia Festival Orchestra, Emil Tchakarov, cond. Sony, recorded Jan. 15-21, 1988

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded December 1977

New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 12, 1971


NOW LET'S GET TO OUR WALTZES --

Preview: Do I hear a waltz? (Tchaikovsky edition)

TCHAIKOVSKY: Waltz from Act II of Yevgeny Onegin, Op. 24
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ferenc Fricsay, cond. DG, recorded Sept. 10-12, 1957

by Ken

So I was looking at this DG CD reissue of the 1952 recording of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony by the dynamic Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay (1914-1963), filled out with material from a 1957 Fricsay Tchaikovsky LP. It's that filler material that I fixed on, and in particular the profusion of waltzes -- three of them standing by themselves (from the ballets Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker and the opera Yevgeny Onegin), plus yet a fourth contained in a little suite from the ballet Swan Lake.

In a way this isn't all that remarkable, since Tchaikovsky wrote a lot of waltzes, and not just the ones in the three ballets, and among them are some of the world's most celebrated, like the four included on this CD. Still, I thought it was interesting that the planners of that 1957 Fricsay Tchaikovsky LP were so waltz-happy.

If we wanted to go really waltz-crazy there is, goodness knows, plenty of material among Tchaikovsky's output. But I thought it might be fun just to focus on the four included on this CD, even though we've surely heard the three ballet-derived waltzes in our frequent incursions into the Tchaikovsky ballets. For our preview, we're starting with the other waltz, which in fact is played by Fricsay (and others) in not-quite-its-original form. In the click-through we'll hear that original form.

[In case there's any confusion, the above image is indeed of the CD, whose cover is a miniaturized reproduction of the original LP jacket of the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony recording, which of course made no mention of the other Tchaikovsky material Fricsay recorded exactly five years later. (The recording dates are September 9-10 for the 1952 symphony sessions, and September 10-12 for the 1957 dance-music sessions.)]


TO HEAR THE ORIGINAL FORM OF THE
YEVGENY ONEGIN WALTZ, CLICK HERE

#

Tchaikovsky's home away from home, or perhaps haven from home, inspired this "Memory of Florence"

No, there's nothing at least overtly Italian about the orchestral introduction to Tchaikovsky's great opera The Queen of Spades (performed here by the Sofia Festival Orchestra under Emil Tchakarov). The connection is that a good part of the composition of the opera was accomplished in the haven provided by the composer's beloved Florence.

When he is creating, the artist must have calm. In this sense, creative activity is always objective, even musical creation, and they are mistaken who believe the artist can use his talent to rid himself of specific feelings of the moment.

The sad or happy emotions which he expresses are always and invariably retrospective.

-- Tchaikovsky, in a letter to his patron Nadezhda
von Meck, explaining how he set about composing

by Ken

We began this series of musical reminiscences of Italy with Tchaikovsky's glorious romp, the Capriccio Italien, then moved on to Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony -- offered with the promise that we would be returning to Tchaikovsky, who was able, thanks to the generosity of his patron Nadezhda von Meck, to establish a sort of home away from home or perhaps a haven from home in Florence. (Madame von Meck had a villa there, but they don't seem to have broken their rule of never actually meeting.)

In Friday night's preview we heard the gorgeous Adagio of the string sextet, Souvenir de Florence, that Tchaikovsky conceived in his happy refuge. In the liner note for the orchestral performance we heard by David Zinman and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, John Warrack writes:

It was to Italy, and above all to Florence, that Tchaikovsky owed what he called "the happiest months of my life." Time and again, fleeing from the exhausting round of his duties at the Moscow Conservatory or from the unhappiness of his private life, he would turn his steps to the South and, basking in the warmth of the Italian spring, he absorbed impressions that were to colour his music in many different ways . , , ,

To his patroness Nadezhda von Meck he was able to write, after returning to Russia from Florence with the score of Queen of Spades: "I had hardly finished the opera before I took up a new piece, the sketch of which I have already finished. I hope you will be pleased to hear that I have written a string sextet.

WE'LL HAVE MORE OBSERVATIONS ABOUT
THAT SEXTET, IN ADDITION TO HEARING IT

Preview: A quick musical peek at the place in Italy that really captured Tchaikovsky's heart

Florence: Il Duomo. We hear, in orchestral guise, the end of the second movement, Adagio cantabile e con moto, of the Tchaikovsky string sextet Souvenir de Florence ("Memory of Florence"). We're going to hear the complete performance of this movement in the click-through.

by Ken

In last Friday's preview we kicked off this composers' celebration of Italy with Tchaikovsky's Capriccio italien, a souvenir of the composer's happy visit to Rome. But the city that really captured his heart was Florence, which inspired one of his chamber masterpieces, the string sextet Souvenir de Florence (Memory of Florence). (For the record, the main work we heard in Sunday's post, "Young Felix Mendelssohn traveled to Italy, and when he returned home . . . ," was Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony.)

Tchaikovsky stressed that he was composing six solo parts that would combine in a unique way. Which hasn't stopped orchestras from beefing the sextet up to chamber-orchestra proportions. And I thought we would start tonight by listening to the glorious slow movement both in its composed form and then in orchestral guise. The orchestral version may not have been what the composer had in mind, but once you hear it, I think you'll understand why orchestras like to claim it as their own.