On the way to our archival array of performances by conductor Josef Krips, we stall at a piece that cries out for more considered attention

Stanley Drucker, clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, cond. Sony, recorded in Avery Fisher Hall, May 23-28, 1991

by Ken

In fairness, we should probably hear a bit more than this, and even though we're not going to get to a proper version of the post with which I had hoped to follow up last week's "Josef Krips's Requiem," we are going to hear a proper rendering -- two, in fact -- of the source of this haunting theme. For now, though, I was delighted, in working on that still-in=progress post, to find an occasion for another Stanley Drucker "moment" -- after all, we do still have important unfinished business to finish in our remembrance of Stanley D.

And this theme, originally sounded first by the solo clarinet and then taken up by the soprano as the start of the meltingly beautiful solo we're about to hear, takes me back to the summer of 1974, with the late Michael Steinberg -- in his pre-San Francisco days, when he was still the much-admired music critic of the Boston Globe, when Michael played it on the piano, in a small meeting space on the grounds of the Tanglewood Festival, for attendees of that year's annual meeting of the Music Critics Association. It was my first MCA meeting, and my first-ever (and so far still only) visit to Tanglewood, and there was Michael at the piano, so overcome wrought that you wondered if would be able to get through it.


SO LET'S HEAR OUR THEME AS IT WAS WRITTEN

Nun sag' ich dir zum ersten Mal, 'König Volmer, ich liebe dich.'
Nun küss ich dich zum ersten Mal, und schlinge den Arm um dich.
   (Now I say to you for the first time, 'King Volmer, I love you.'
   Now I kiss you for the first time, and fling my arms around you.)

Gundula Janowitz, soprano; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance from the Vienna Festival, Vienna Konzerthaus, June 10, 1969

Jessye Norman, soprano; Harold Wright, clarinet; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded live in Symphony Hall, April 1979
[NOTE: Of course we're hearing another legend of American clarinettery here: the BSO's Harold "Buddy" Wright]

Whenever I hear or even think about this, I still see and hear Michael playing it on the piano that day at Tanglewood. Of course I understand why he was so overcome. If we were to undertake a mission as silly as trying to list the Most Beautiful Pieces of Music Ever Written, the excerpt would have to hold a place all the way to the end. I re-encountered it in the process of extracting, as promised last week, performances by the wonderful conductor Josef Krips from the SC Archive, which is teeming with them, including a number of excerpts from the work our clip comes from.


OF COURSE WE SHOULD HEAR THE WHOLE SOLO

Post tease: Well, why shouldn't we listen to the (at very rough guess) 8th- or 9th-best Suppé overture?

UPDATED with several additional performances,
including a fourth whole overture!
[Further updated to title the Järvi Fatinitza selection properly]

Don't ask me to dredge up from memory what's going on in Fatinitza as captured in this lithograph; we could all look it up. As to the lithograph itself, the photo viewed at full size tells us that it came from "H. A. Thomas, Lith. Studio, 865 Broadway, N.Y." -- in case you were wondering.

FRANZ VON SUPPÉ: Fatinitza: Overture


Hungarian State Orchestra, János Sándor, cond. Hungaroton

Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Charles Dutoit, cond. Decca
Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler, cond. RCA

MAX SCHÖNHERR (arr.): "Marziale" on themes from the operetta "Fatinitza"
Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, cond. Chandos

MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: There's a "post-tease afterthought" coming up that will ask (and answer) the question: "If you listened to the performances of Suppé's Fatinitza Overture in the official 'post tease,' did any particular word come to mind?" So, thoughts? That post should go up tomorrow (i.e., Tuesday). (Okay, a hint: I'm thinking "rhythm.")

UPDATE: Okay, the "post-tease afterthought" didn't come Tuesday, but it did come: " 'Post tease' afterthought: If you listened to the performances of Suppé's Fatinitza Overture in last week's 'post tease,' did any particular word come to mind?"

by Ken

Just to be clear, I didn't sit down and list Suppé overtures and arrive at a scientifically precise ranking. It's just that awhile ago we had a post that began with Suppé's Poet and Peasant Overture, and I think we can likely agree that it's either the 1st- or 2nd-best Suppé overtures, neck and neck with Light Cavalry (I think that's the correct one-two order, if only because Poet and Peasant just has higher artistic ambitions, but it could depend on which day you ask me, like if maybe I happen recently to have heard an especially upllifting performance of Light Cavalry), and beyond that there are up to a half-dozen that most of us would probably go to before we get to Fatinitza. Nevertheless, the Fatinitza Overture is still a darned nifty piece (how many composers would have loved to compose one such?), and maybe all the more welcome for not being heard as often as the other six or eight Suppé overtures.

So, although as it happens we do have a reason for visiting Fatinitza, we don't need a reason beyond the fact that it is, you know, a really nifty piece, do we? Oh yes, in case you were wondering, there is neither rhyme nor reason to the order of the above performances of Fatinitza. It's just the order in which I drug up the audio files -- with, for once, no particular thinking. We know how thinking tends to lead inexorably to trouble.


AS LONG AS WE'RE HERE, WHY NOT GIVE A FRESH
LISTEN TO POET AND PEASANT AND LIGHT CAVALRY?

For the first time ever, this year I went into the Vienna New Year's Concert armed with a listing of the program contents!

NOTE: Just so you know, last week's "post tease" has been significantly filled out and filled in. (I sure didn't know going in that along the way we'd wind up having a mini-tribute to Josef Strauss!)

If you watched this year's Vienna New Year's Concert
on PBS, you saw the musical program start like so:

FRANZ VON SUPPÉ: Overture to Poet and Peasant
On Jan. 1, in the hallowed but for obvious reasons audienceless Great Hall of Vienna's Musikverein (seen here via screen cap from the telecast), Riccardo Muti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in Suppé's ever-inspiriting Poet and Peasant Overture. It sounded more or less like this --

Vienna Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, cond. Sony, recorded 1989

by Ken

I say it sounded "more or less" like that, because as noted above, while what we're hearing is indeed the Vienna Philharmonic playing Poet and Peasant in the Musikverein, it isn't from New Year's Day 2021 and it isn't conducted by Maestro Muti. As noted, it's from a 1989 Sony recording of Suppé overtures -- and a lovely CD it is! -- conducted by Zubin Mehta (seen here conducting the Israel Philharmonic in 2002). Under the subject heading of "Musical Vienna," Maestro Mehta's story is by no means unrelated to Maestro Muti's. Eventually we'll want to talk about this a little.

Now, you may recall that last week's "post tease" began with a musical question:

What link is there between this celebrated Strauss
polka and the 2021 Vienna New Year's Concert?

In which the famous Strauss polka went like this:


Vienna Philharmonic, Willi Boskovsky, cond. Decca, recorded in the 1960s-70s
[At the same time, we heard performances conducted by Stanley Black, Sir John Pritchard, and Peter Guth, which again you can easily enough check out. As a matter of fact, in a moment we're going to hear yet another.]


BUT FIRST, APOLOGIES (FOR A CHANGE) FOR THE DELAY
IN BEGINNING TO CONSUMMATE LAST WEEK'S POST TEASE