Preview: Italy!

by Ken

Yes, Italy! (And yes, I think we really do need the exclamation point!)

It was a source of fascination for all manner of more northerly creative artists, not just for the obvious reason (climate!) but for its position as the cradle of so much of Western culture, and there isn't any group for whom this was more true than musicians.

We're going to kick off with a composer who developed a deep affection for Italy. The composer and piece are so familiar that I thought I'd hold off identifying them for the time being -- and the performers as well. I will say, though, that all three of these (I think) quite wonderful recordings were made on what "neutral ground," which is to say North America. But we have one conductor born in Switzerland, one in Siberian Russia, and one in Hungary (Budapest, in fact). The Russian, at least, I think should be relatively easy to recognize. (For some totally inexplicable reason I had a devil of a time uploading this file, but I think the performance -- which hasn't circulated that much -- was worth the trouble.)

If you don't want to play, you can skip straight to the click-through, where the piece and the performances are all properly identified.

[A]

[B]

[The excerpt up top is from performance B (at 7:56).]
[C]



NOW TO HEAR OUR RECORDINGS PROPERLY IDENTIFIED --

#

by Ken

Yes, Italy! (And yes, I think we really do need the exclamation point!)

It was a source of fascination for all manner of more northerly creative artists, not just for the obvious reason (climate!) but for its position as the cradle of so much of Western culture, and there isn't any group for whom this was more true than musicians.

We're going to kick off with a composer who developed a deep affection for Italy. The composer and piece are so familiar that I thought I'd hold off identifying them for the time being -- and the performers as well. I will say, though, that all three of these (I think) quite wonderful recordings were made on what "neutral ground," which is to say North America. But we have one conductor born in Switzerland, one in Siberian Russia, and one in Hungary (Budapest, in fact). The Russian, at least, I think should be relatively easy to recognize. (For some totally inexplicable reason I had a devil of a time uploading this file, but I think the performance -- which hasn't circulated that much -- was worth the trouble.)

If you don't want to play, you can skip straight to the click-through, where the piece and the performances are all properly identified.

[A]

[B]

[The excerpt up top is from performance B (at 7:56).]
[C]



NOW TO HEAR OUR RECORDINGS PROPERLY IDENTIFIED

Among our team of operatic avengers, which does Saint-Saëns's Dalila resemble most?

Shirley Verrett sings Dalila's Act II aria "Amour! Viens aider ma faiblesse" with Julius Rudel conducting in San Francisco, 1981. If the staging at the opening makes you wonder whether the stage director ever listened to the music (forget reading the libretto), we're on the same page.

Samson, seeking my presence again,
this evening is to come to this place.
Here is the hour of vengeance,
which must satisfy our gods.

Love! come aid my weakness!
Pour the poison in his breast!
Make it happen that, conquered by my artfulness,
Samson is in fetters tomorrow!
In vain would he wish to be able
to chase me out of his soul, to banish me.
Could he extinguish the flame
that memory feeds?
He is mine! my slave!
My brothers fear his wrath;
I, along among all, I defy him
and hold him at my knees!

Love! come aid my weakness!
Pour the poison in his breast!
Make it happen that, conquered by my artfulness,
Samson is in fetters tomorrow!
Against strength is useless,
and he, the strong among the strong,
he, who broke his people's chains,
will succumb to my efforts.

by Ken

Okay, here's where we are. Last week, in both the preview ("In which we hear a lady weighted by a heap of hurt") and the main post ("Meet Saint-Saëns's Dalila"), we heard the seductive side of Dalila -- and also the side, whatever you want to call it (I called it deep hurt) displayed in the great solo she sings when she's finally alone at the start of Act II. Then in Friday night's preview we heard her in "vengeance" mode, swearing along with the High Priest of Dagon, to bring Samson down -- and I also introduced several other operatic vengeance-seekers: Mozart's Queen of the Night, Beethoven's prison governor Don Pizarro, and the heroine of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

I certainly didn't mean to suggest any equivalence among our team of avengers. I wanted to lay the groundwork, because the text of Samson et Dalila doesn't give us much factual background to work with, for the best case I can make that Dalila's closest kin here is Isolde.

First we're going to hear from an actual monster, Don Pizarro in Fidelio, who has been forced into the decision to put an end to the suffering he has been inflicting on his old nemesis, Don Florestan, in a secret dungeon (where, you'll recall, we heard him languishing last month. Then, in the click-through, we'll hear from the Queen of the Night and Isolde, and finally we'll come back to Dalila.

(Note that I've juggled the lineup of recordings somewhat from the samples we heard in Friday night's preview. I wrote a bunch of long-winded explanations and exegeses, and then threw them out. We can talk about some of those issues some other time. Maybe. And note too that inclusion of a recording here doesn't necessarily constitute endorsement. There are some I'm not crazy about but have included for particular reasons.)

BEETHOVEN: Fidelio, Op. 72: Act I, Don Pizarro, "Ha! Welch ein Augenblick" ("Ha! What a moment!")

Ha! What a moment!
My vengeance I will cool;
your fate is calling you!
In its heart dwell,
oh live, good luck!
Already I was nearly in the dust,
by the loud scorn robbed,
there to be stretched.
Now it is up to me,
to commit the murder myself.
In his last hour,
the steel in his wound,
to cry in his ear:
Triumph! Victory is mine!

-- translation by Katharina Fink

Zoltán Kélémen (b), Don Pizarro; Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded 1970

Ekkehard Wlaschiha (b), Don Pizarro; Dresden State Opera Chorus, Staatskapelle Dresden, Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded November 1989

Walter Berry (bs-b), Don Pizarro; Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Live performance, June 9 or 14, 1970

Hans Hotter (b), Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Otto Klemperer, cond. Testament, recorded live, Feb. 24, 1961

AVENGERS STILL TO COME: WAGNER'S ISOLDE AND
MOZART'S QUEEN OF THE NIGHT. THEN BACK TO DALILA

Preview: Revenge!

THREE SNIPPETS OF REVENGE
(EACH PERFORMED THREE TIMES)

(1)

Hell's revenge seethes in my heart!
Death and despair burn all around me.

(2)

Ha Ha! Ha, what a moment!
I will have my revenge!
Your fate calls you!
In his heart roots --
o wonder! -- great fortune.

(3)

HER: But what once with hand
and mouth I swore --
that I swore silently to keep.
HIM: What did you swear, lady?
HER: Revenge for Morold!

by Ken

Yes, we're still getting to know Saint-Saëns's Dalila, and indeed in just a moment we're going to hear a side of her wildly different from anything we heard in last week's preview or the Sunday main post. By way of preparation, I thought this brief digression on operatic avengers would be helpful.

They'll be familiar to most music-lovers, but we'll hear them again, properly identified (including the performers)), in the click-through.

LET'S PROCEED WITH THIS SPECIAL "REVENGE"
EDITION OF SUNDAY CLASSICS

Meet Saint-Saëns's Dalila

Including a recording that Maria Callas refused
to allow to be released (don't ask me why!)


Just 'cause we slipped into Act II of Samson et Dalila in Friday night's preview is no reason to go crazy and think we're going to make it to Act III today, but here's the famous "Bacchanale," from the Met's 1983 Centennial Gala, conducted by James Levine.

by Ken

Friday night we heard Maria Callas's riveting 1961 recording of Dalila's Act II-opening "Amour! viens aider ma faiblesse!," one of three excerpts from Samson et Dalila she recorded for the first Callas in Paris LP. Only two of those excerpts -- "Amour! viens aider" and the Act I solo "Printemps qui commence" -- found their way onto the record, though. Callas refused to allow the recording of the opera's best-known number (maybe along with the "Bacchanale") to be released, and in fact it wasn't in her lifetime, not slipping into print until 1982, five years after she died.

Our goal today is going to be to get (finally!) to the end of Act I of Samson. But we're going to digress again into Act II to hear what has become one of Callas's best-known recordings, the amping up of Dalila's seduction of Samson.

SAINT-SAËNS: Samson et Dalila: Act II, Dalila, "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" ("My heart opens at your voice")

My heart opens at your voice like the flowers open
at the kisses of dawn!
But, o my beloved, to better dry my tears,
let your voice speak again!
Tell me that you return to Dalila forever!
Say again to my tenderness
those promises of before, those promises that I loved!
Ah! answer, answer my tenderness!
Fill me, fill me with delight!
Answer my tenderness, etc.

As one sees ears of corn undulating
under a light breeze,
just so my heart flutters,
ready to take comfort
from your voice, which is dear to me!
An arrow is less swift in carrying death
than is your lover to fly into your arms,
to fly into your arms!
Ah! answer etc.

Maria Callas (s), Dalila; Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Mar.-Apr. 1961


IN THE INTEREST OF MAKING OUR WAY TO
THE END OF ACT I, LET'S TAKE ONE SMALL STEP

When we left off in April, the High Priest of Dagon had just discovered the body of Abimélech, the satrap of Gaza, "struck down by slaves," meaning the Israelite rabble newly roused by their young rabble-rouser Samson. He storms off, vowing to make those uppity Hebrews pay. We'll hear the end of that again in the click-through, but for now let's listen to the very next thing that happens: this ravishing orchestral daybreak.

SAINT-SAËNS: Samson et Dalila: Act I, Daybreak

Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded Sept.-Oct. 1962


NOW LET'S FORGE AHEAD IN ACT I OF SAMSON

Preview: In which we hear a lady weighted by a heap of hurt

Yes, in the click-through we're going to hear Callas,
in what I think of as one of her great recordings.

by Ken

I'm not being intentionally mysterious . . . okay, I guess I am, but not gratuitously mysterious. The lady whose musical acquaintance we're about to make isn't normally thought of as a victim, but we're going to hear her in a condition of pain that -- in a good performance -- I find almost palpable. (It shouldn't be any surprise that we're setting up for a performance by Maria Callas. She was especially good at rooting out characters' pain.)

I just thought it would be interesting to hear how the lady's composer sets up this outpouring. So we're going to hear this musical introduction, and then in the click-through we'll go straight into


Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded February 1989


TO MAKE OUR HURTING ACQUAINTANCE --

How a "second-tier" Mozart piano concerto can command top-tier attention

Eduard Zilberkant: The New York Concert Artists' Evenings of Piano Concerti veteran conducted two of the four EPC IV concerts and was the unquestioned star.

by Ken

We're still talking about New York Concert Artists' latest "Evenings of Piano Concerti" series, EPC IV, which as I noted in Friday night's preview gave me an unexpected measure of sheer musical pleasure, with the largest dose coming thanks to the spirit of the playing conductor Eduard Zilberkant drew from the little pickup orchestra in the two concerts he conducted, the first and third.

But for today I thought we'd scale back and just focus on one of the two concertos I mentioned had particularly delighted me in the performance offered by 22-year-old Shiran Wang and Zilberkant in the third concert, Mozart's K. 414. We already heard the slow movement, with that beautiful main theme the composer borrowed as a form of tribute to the recently deceased J. C. Bach.

Before we turn to the complete concerto, I just wanted to highlight a little Mozartean surprise that occurs in the concluding rondo, in the form of what I will call the "countertheme." I don't know if it will have the same effect it does on me, but it's the kind of thing that has a way of seizing control of my brain and not letting go. (Some readers may recall the October 2009 Sunday Classics post called "Surprise! With wizards like Bach and Mozart, you never know what you may hear next," in which the Mozart surprise was a wonderful little figuration that bursts out of nowhere in the cello in the final variation of the theme-and-variations slow movement of the A major String Quartet, K. 464, and then works its way up through all the instruments.)

Countertheme of the Rondo of Mozart's K. 414 Concerto

This is nuts, I know, but I've extracted the portions of the Rondo that are based on this countertheme, starting with its first statement, from Murray Perahia's recording, which we'll hear complete immediately afterward. In this clip we hear ripped-out chunks that representing the following bits of the 6:19 whole: (1) 0:12-0:31, (2) 0:58-2:15, (3) 2:39-2:46, (4) 3:36-4:13, (5) 4:19-4:51 (including the start of the cadenza at 4:40 -- or 0:20 of our clip).



Now here's the whole movement.

MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K. 414:
iii. Allegretto

English Chamber Orchestra, Murray Perahia, piano and cond. CBS/Sony, recorded June 16-18, 1979



New York Concert Artists put together this promotional video for last year's Evenings of Piano Concerti (EPC III).


NOW LET'S HEAR THE WHOLE OF OUR CONCERTO

A vision for the future in Beethoven's last piano sonata

Beethoven's last piano sonata, No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111

In this May 1936 Electrola recording of Op. 111, that great Beethovenian Elly Ney (1882-1968) plays the Maestoso introduction and the exposition of the main Allegro (which is marked for a repeat that we're not hearing).

by Ken

Angry? Defiant? Just powerfully assertive? And yet there's something else going on at the same time, almost at war with those violent outbursts. I tried to find an earlier stopping point, and just couldn't -- I took it right up to the repeat marking. (It's only the Allegro section that gets repeated.)

In Friday night's preview we heard what I think are extraordinary -- as well as extraordinarily different -- performances of Beethoven's first piano sonata, the F minor, Op. 2, No. 1 (a set of three sonatas, like the set of three piano trios that makes up Beethoven's Op. 1), by Artur Schnabel and Glenn Gould. That was in preparation for today's look at the last of the 32 sonatas -- again one of three sonatas written consecutively, and probably overlappingly: Beethoven's Opp. 109, 110, and 111, astonishingly different musical visions that are almost textbook specimens of the composer's haunted and visionary "late" period.

It came about because I was thinking ahead to a recital I eventually attended Thursday night at which a young Korean pianist played Op. 111 and all four of Chopin's ballades. I wasn't sure how the two would go together. It's not a huge amount of music quantity-wise -- figure something under 30 minutes for the Beethoven sonata and maybe 35-40 for the combined Chopin ballades -- but golly, if you want to talk quality! (In the event, after all our talk about piano encores, there weren't any!)

I didn't know going in whether we would be hearing the Beethoven or Chopin first, and was sort of thinking if it was me, maybe I would start with the Chopin. So I thought we might listen to the second of the Chopin ballades, first a lovely performance by Agustin Anievas, then a more searching performance by Sviatoslav Richter (from the same Prague broadcast from which we recently heard the First Ballade).

CHOPIN: Ballade No. 2 in F, Op. 38


Agustin Anievas, piano. EMI, recorded in London, June 1975

Sviatoslav Richter, piano. Praga, recorded live in Prague, Feb. 21, 1960


TO PROCEED WITH BEETHOVEN'S OP. 111 . . .

Encores, part 1 -- Three legendary pianists

It makes a nifty encore too! Leonard Bernstein conducts his Overture to Candide, kicking off this December 1989 concert performance of the complete musical with the London Symphony Orchestra.

by Ken

As you may have guessed from Friday's preview ("Encore, encore!"), when we heard the great cellist János Starker play three prime encore pieces -- all, as it happened, arranged for cello and piano from other instrumental configurations. I didn't have a very clear idea Friday where exactly this post was headed, except that it would be all encores.

Okay, we're stretching a little with the above video clip, in which Leonard Bernstein conducts his Candide Overture at the start of a concert performance of the piece. But for easily understandable reasons, countless conductors -- including Lenny himself, as memory serves -- used the Candide Overture as a peerlessly rousing encore.

The thing about encores is that they often represent the artist at his/her most personal, whether they're designed to rouse, seduce, charm, or just plain ravish. It's such a large subject, however, that after initially deciding that we would deal only with instrumental encores, leaving the vast subject of vocal ones for another time, I decided to narrow it down even further, to piano encores, at least once we get to the click-through, where we're going to hear sets of encores from three of the 20th's century's greatest pianists-- two of them actual sets of encores from actual concerts, the third a selection of favorite encores of his made by the artist to fill out an LP side.

Before we go there, though, I though we might hear another encore-suitable piece, an arrangement of a traditional Catalan carol for cello and orchestra, which aims to stir listeners in a very different way.

CASALS (arr.): El Cant dels ocells (The Song of the Birds)


Prades Festival Orchestra, Pablo Casals, cello and cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded 1950


TO HEAR TODAY'S SELECTION OF ENCORES FROM
THREE LEGENDARY PIANISTS, CLICK THE LINK

Preview: Encore, encore!

by Ken

We've had a generous helping of encores sprinkled through the Sunday Classics programs. I always thought that one of these weeks we'd take a neatly organized, carefully rehearsed tour through the kinds of music and musicians inhabiting the world of concert "bonuses." That could still happen, but probably not this week.

No, I happened to find myself staring at the volume from Les Introuvables de János Starker -- from EMI France's often-valuable Introuvables (literally "unfindables") reissue series -- which includes the 1958 pictured above, which seems to me not so much a "recital" as a collection of fairly short pieces mostly of the type we would generally consider encore material. (I can't believe Starker would ever have given a recital made up of this material. One tip-off -- not conclusive, but a strong hint -- is the number of selections with "arranger" credits.) Including stuff like, you know, this:

DEBUSSY: Préludes, Book I: No. 8, "La Fille aux cheveux de lin" ("The Girl with the Flaxen Hair") (arr. Feuillard)


SCHUBERT: Moment musical in F minor, D. 780, No. 3
(arr. Becker)


MUSSORGSKY: The Fair at Sorochinsk: Gopak
(arr. Stutchevsky)


János Starker, cello; Gerald Moore, piano. EMI, recorded in London, June 4-7, 1958


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST --

Yes, it's all encores!

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Getting through, but not quite finishing with, Mahler's "Songs of a Wayfarer" -- studies in emotional contrasts

Baritone Christian Gerhaher sings the raging, then emotionally wiped-out third of Mahler's Wayfarer Songs, "Ich hab' ein glühend' Messer," at the 2010 Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, with Herbert Blomstedt (age 83) conducting the Mahler Youth Orchestra.

by Ken

Here I was thinking we could cover the four songs of Mahler's Lieder eines farhrenden Gesellen) (Songs of a Wayfarer) in two posts (plus previews). Now it turns out that it's going to stretch to three.

In the first installment we got through the first two songs, "Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht" ("When my darling has her wedding day") and "Ging heut' Morgen übers Feld" ("Went this morning across the field"), which trace -- in an impressionistic rather than narrative way -- the aftermath of the wayfarer's rejected love. Then in Friday night's preview to today's post, we jumped to the great final song, "Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz" ("The two blue eyes of my darling"), which seems to resolve into some sort of acceptance. Along the way we've listened to the way Mahler recycled the second and fourth songs, or portions thereof, into key portions of the first and third movements of his First Symphony.

Well, we're going to hear the third and fourth songs today, all right. In fact, we've already heard the third, "Ich hab' ein glühend' Messer" ("I have a glowing knife") up top. But we're not going to do much more than that. I'm still struggling with how I want to get just a bit inside "Die zwei blauen Augen." And so I'm going to defer most of that to another time. We will, however, entertain a couple of Schubertian digressions.


SO LET'S HEAR THE FINAL WAYFARER SONG

Preview: "By the street stands a linden tree" -- Mahler's "Wayfarer Songs," part 2

"Frère Jacques"? That beloved old French round song -- huh??? You'll hear why, but here's a hint:

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Oct. 10-11, 1962

by Ken

This week we complete our brief but intense journey through Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer. In Part 1, we began by hearing how the composer transformed the song "Ging heut' Morgen übers Feld" into the exposition of his First Symphony. Tonight we're going to hear something still more remakable, I think, and surpassingly beautiful. I think it's fair to describe it as a life-changing moment, at least for the narrator. Let's start by listening to just these two all-too-brief excerpts.

Or three, actually. This time we're not going to cheat as we did with "Ging heut' Morgen übers Feld," when we skipped over the intermediate stage: Mahler's orchestration of the song, prior to his incorporation of it into the symphony.ing by going back to the initially piano-accompanied version of the song, ignoring the fact that Mahler had orchestrated it before incorporating it into the symphony. (We've even got recordings that our soloist made in the same year!)

Piano-accompanied version of the song

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Leonard Bernstein, piano. CBS/Sony, recorded in New York, 1968
Orchestral version of the song

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded December 1968
Symphonic rendering

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded October 1967

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Oct. 10-11, 1962

(I notice that the start points of the clips aren't exactly synched up. I suppose I could redo them, but I don't think that's going to happen.)


NOW TO HEAR THE COMPLETE SONG

With a concerted effort we can get through half of Mahler's "Songs of a Wayfarer" (okay, there are only four)

This October 1960 Paris performance of the second Wayfarer Song, "Ging heut' Morgen übers Feld," with the NHK Symphony under Paul Kletzki is the vocally freest (and, yes, best; it's curious how that works) Fischer-Dieskau performance of the song I've heard. (We've got a bunch of 'em coming up.)

by Ken

Was it clear from Friday night's preview, in which we heard how Mahler transformed the second of his Songs of a Wayfarer, "Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht" ("When my darling has her wedding day"), into the exposition of his First Symphony, whether we were headed toward the song cycle or the symphony today? It wasn't supposed to be.

Once upon a time we might have tackled both in one post. Today I'm not going to try to get all the way through the four Wayfarer Songs. We're going to split them in half and listen just to the first two.

I thought that first we would re-covering the ground we covered Friday night, and for "Wenn mein Schatz" I've plucked out a remarkable performance we're going to hear again in the click-through. I'm not the world's biggest Janet Baker fan, but I really like the performance of the Wayfarer Songs she recorded with Sir John Barbirolli. They take some audaciously broad tempos, which is even riskier given the wispy nature of Dame Janet's mezzo, but I have to say, they really pull it off.

To appreciate the audacity of the Baker-Barbirolli performance, we're going to precede it with a wonderful but more conventional one by Yvonne Minton and Georg Solti. It's worth noting as we hear the song again -- even before we hear it in context, following the opening song of the cycle -- that the one ostensibly "happy" Wayfarer Song ends on a decidedly down note. When we hear the two songs together, you'll understand what the singer is apparently referring to in this unexpectedly down conclusion

MAHLER: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
(Songs of a Wayfarer):
ii. "Ging heut' Morgen übers Feld"
("Went this morning across the field")


Yvonne Minton, mezzo-soprano; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Mar.-Apr. 1970

Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; Hallé Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. EMI, recorded May 4, 1967

Now, to hear how the recycled song fits into the Mahler First Symphony, it seems only logical to hear the recordings made by the same conductors and orchestras, even though the early-stereo Barbirolli-Pye recording represents a decidedly less advanced state in Sir John's (and his provincial orchestra's) Mahler advocacy.

MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 in D:
i. Langsam. Schleppend

Hallé Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, cond. Pye, recorded June 11-12 1957

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded October 1983


LET'S GO BACK TO THE FIRST OF THE WAYFARER SONGS