Decoration Day greetings -- with "old New England"-style memories provided for us by Charles Ives

According to Ives, Decoration Day "was started as a brass band
overture, but never got very far that way" -- yet it could have!

Decoration Day was completed in 1912. Ives arranged the piece for full orchestra, and it lasts about nine to ten minutes. The piece is scored for 2 flutes with optional piccolo, 2 oboes and solo English horn, 2 clarinets and optional E-flat clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 or 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum with attached cymbals, high bells or celesta, low bells, and strings. Numerous instruments are called on to play offstage, including the English horn, two solo violins and a solo viola, the high and low bells, and a trumpet imitating a military bugle.

Ives was inspired to write Decoration Day after listening to his father's marching band play on Decoration Day. The marching band would march from the Soldiers' Monument at the center of Danbury to Wooster Cemetery, and there Ives would play "Taps." The band would leave often playing Reeves's Second Regiment Connecticut National Guard March.

"Decoration Day begins with an extended meditative section, mostly for strings," symbolizing morning and "the awakening of memory." Ives has the aforementioned players separated from the orchestra play as if they are alone, in what he calls "shadow lines." The music slowly unfolds, yielding an eerie mix of major and minor keys. Ives begins to incorporate his memories of Decoration Day into his piece by transforming "Marching Through Georgia" into the mournful "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground." At this point, we are back in the cemetery where his father's marching band stops, and just as Ives played "Taps" as a boy, he writes "Taps" into Decoration Day. "Taps" is coupled with "Nearer, My God, to Thee" played by the strings. Ives uses "Taps" to pave a way from the despairing section to the elated section. "On the last note of 'Taps' the music begins to surge into a drumbeat that crescendos until with a sudden cut we are in the middle of the march back to town, and the pealing melody of 'Second Regiment.'" Ives follows this jubilation with the music from the beginning of the piece.

The score of Decoration Day was published for the first time in 1989. -- from Wikipedia (footnotes available onsite)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded in Medinah Temple, 1986
Arranged for concert band by Jonathan Elkus

"The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band, Col. Timothy W. Foley, cond. USMB, recorded in the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall, Northern Virginia Community College, Alexandria, VA, c2003

by Ken

Yes, for over a half-century now it's been federally enshrined as Memorial Day, and for a number of reasons a good swap-out, but even when Ives wrote his Decoration Day he understood it -- like the other three holidays he musicalized from his New England memory bank -- as a memory event. (For those to whom the very idea of a "Decoration Day" comes out of nowhere, the "decoration" involved didn't involve sprucing up the den or the patio, but decorating the graves of Civil War veterans

We've already "done" Thanksgiving and Forefathers' Day, the first-composed but eventually finally-positioned movement of Ives's Holidays Symphony, four pieces he always thought suitable for individual or collective performance. And I could swear we've done Fourth of July (though the only post I've found is one that was never published), which as the "summer" installment would take its place before the concluding "fall" one. And we still haven't touched the opening "winter" entry, Washington's Birthday. But now we've got the "spring" holiday, Decoration Day front and center.

We've got some more ground to cover -- more of Ives and Decoration Day itself, and some associated Ivesiana == including, I'm thinking, the thematically related Central Park in the Dark and The Unanswered Question.

Of course we've also got to finish up our Radu Lupu remembrance with the final installment devoted to Schumann's Humoreske, which is coming along but not quite ready yet. And another project has arisen, in the form of interstitial loose ends from last week's "We're still targeting Radu Lupu's Schumann Humoreske, but first we're going to detour through some miniatures: kiddie keyboard goodies and a whirlwind of a song." If you were here, you may recall that that "Schumann piano" post wandered through the likes of Schumann's song "Widmung," the Gilbert and Sullivan duet "I have a song to sing, O!" from The Yeomen of the Guard, and the Hugo Wolf Italian Songbook comical song "Wie lange schon," with the piano postlude depicting the violin-playing of the song narrator's heaven-sent boyfriend. We've got addenda to all three, of various sorts. Coming soon.

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We're still targeting Radu Lupu's Schumann Humoreske, but first we're going to detour through some miniatures: kiddie keyboard goodies and a whirlwind of a song

dba: "Radu Lupu (1945-2022) [4]"

Here are a couple of pretty nice performances
(and yes, one of them is Lupu's!):

Artur Schnabel, piano. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 3, London, June 3, 1947

Radu Lupu, piano. Decca, recorded in the Salle de Châtonneyre, Corseaux, Vaud (Switzerland), January 1993
[NOTE: We're going to be hearing more, and then still more, of the Schnabel and Lupu performances. -- Ed.]

And here are a clutch of performances by top-notch pianists -- from the SC archive -- which I find problematic (yes, even the Kempff!):

Wilhelm Kempff, piano. DG, recorded in the Beethovensaal, Hannover (Germany), February 1973

Claudio Arrau, piano. Philips, recorded in Amsterdam, March 1974

Nelson Freire, piano. Decca, recorded in Emil Berliner Studios, Berlin, Dec. 18-22, 2002

Martha Argerich, piano. DG, recorded in the Plenar-Saal of the Akademie für Wissenschaften, in the Residenz, Munich, April 1983
[NOTE: So what's the problem? Rhythmic chaos. We'll get to it in time. -- Ed.]

NOW FOR THE PROMISED "WHIRLWIND OF A SONG"

SCHUMANN: Myrthen, Op. 25: i. "Widmung" ("Dedication": "Du meine Seele, du mein Herz," "You my soul, you my heart")

You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world in which I live,
my heaven you in which I soar,
o you my grave in which
I have buried my sorrows forever.

You are rest; you are peace;
you were destined for me by heaven.
That you love me makes me feel worthy;
your glance has transfigured me;
you lift me, loving, above myself --
my good spirit, my better "I"!

You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world, in which I live,
my heaven you, in which I soar --
my good spirit, my better "I"!

-- German text by Friedrich Rückert

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Jörg Demus, piano. DG, recorded c1960

Jorma Hynninen, baritone; Ralf Gothóni, piano. Tactus Oy, recorded in Helsinki (I think!-- Ed.), c1978

Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone; Imogen Cooper, piano. Philips, recorded in the Jugendstiltheater, Vienna, Dec. 17-21, 1998

Elly Ameling, soprano; Dalton Baldwin, piano. Philips, recorded c1976
[NOTE: There are performance notes below. We'll get to them too. -- Ed.]

[AFTERTHOUGHT: I finally mustered enough mental leisure to do some clip-listening, and could I just say, this is some display of pianistic grace! Four quite different but really terrific pianists performing heroic feats in service to both Schumann's brilliant accompaniment and the needs of their gloriously diverse singing partners, none better than that one-of-a-kind piano partner Dalton Baldwin supporting the, er, least flamboyant of our singers, Elly Ameling. But JD, RG, and IC as well -- what a treat! This may be something we should talk about sometime. -- K.]

by Ken

I admit it, I'm being deferentially cautious about diving into the creative ocean that is Schumann's body of large-scale solo-piano writing. In earlier installments of this Radu Lupu remembrance series we had -- going into last week's post ("Radu Lupu (1945-2022) [3]: We are going to hear more Lupu, but I'm afraid we're sticking awhile longer with the 'opening sections' of Schumann's Humoreske") -- polished off four of the five suggested listenings offered by The Guardian's Andrew Clements ("Radu Lupu: Five key performances"), and last week we ventured partway into the remaining one, Schumann's Humoreske, Op. 20.

Now I admit as well that the Humoreske isn't representative of the largest-scale of Schumann's "large-scale solo-piano writing." It does, however, share some of the large issues, such as complexities of structure and manner of musical argumentation, multiplicities of identities and points of view, and technical challenge. And so I thought we might slip back into it via a detour through some pleasingly more manageable Schumann miniatures, starting with the beloved little piano suite Kinderszenen (Scenes of Childhood). A side benefit is that we get to hear a Lupu recording that, as suggested above, I can really get behind.

All the same, the seemingly unrelated song "Widmung" may be more directly on our path back to the "Humoreske" than its keyboard cousin, the Kinderszenen.


HOW ABOUT ANOTHER SONG TO HELP EXPLAIN THIS ONE?
(Like Jack Point & Elsie Maynard's "I have a song to sing, O!"?)

Radu Lupu (1945-2022) [3]: We are going to hear more Lupu, but I'm afraid we're sticking awhile longer with the "opening sections" of Schumann's Humoreske

SCHUMANN: Humoreske, Op. 20: opening sections --

i. Einfach (Simple)
ii. Sehr rasch und leicht (Very quick and light)
-- Noch rascher (Still quicker)
-- Erstes Tempo (First tempo)
-- Wie im Anfang (As at the beginning)
iii. Hastig (Hurried)
-- Nach und nach immer lebhafter and stärker (Bit by bit ever livelier and stronger)
-- Wie vorher (As before)

[i. 0:01; ii. 1:59, 2:53, 4:19, 5:07; iii. 5:57, 7:51, 9:09]
Radu Lupu, piano. Live performance in Amsterdam, May 29, 1983

[i. 0:01; ii. 1:59, 2:53, 3:55, 5:11; iii. 5:55, 7:38, 8:44]
Vladimir Horowitz, piano. Live performance in Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C., Apr. 22, 1979

[i. 0:01; ii. 1:31, 2:25, 3:55, 4:43; iii. 5:18, 7:24, 8:50]
Alicia de Larrocha, piano. RCA, recorded at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, Nov. 8-9 & 11, 1994

[i. 0:01; ii. 1:15, 2:03, 3:15, 4:00; iii. 4:28, 6:09, 7:30]
Imogen Cooper, piano. BBC Music, recorded live in Wigmore Hall, London, May 28, 1994

A TIP: If you continue reading, a feeling may gradually overtake you that we're never going to come back to these musical examples. Surprisingly, this is not true! At the end, there's a section suggesting kinds of things to consider in listening just to the 38-bar "Einfach" section reproduced in its entirety up top.

by Ken

Some of you may have noticed that the rendering by the fine English pianist Imogen Cooper of what I'm calling "opening sections" of Schumann's Humoreske which we heard earlier today in "post under construction" form ("Before we hear Schumann's Humoreske, might we wonder: What the heck is a 'Humoreske'?") was a Sunday Classics "encore presentation," dating back to last summer, when the news of Imogen C (born August 1949) becoming Dame Imogen occasioned a series of posts -- specifically, in the July 25 "post tease" "A special artist finds her way into our Brahms piano party."


UM, WHY (AGAIN) ARE WE LISTENING TO THE HUMORESKE?

[post under construction]Before we hear Schumann's Humoreske, might we wonder: What the heck is a "Humoreske"?

The "Einfach" ("Simple") opening of Schumann's Humoreske

SCHUMANN: Humoreske, Op. 20: opening sections

i. Einfach (Simple) [at 0:01]
ii. Sehr rasch und leicht (Very quick and light) [at 1:15]
iii. Hastig (Hurried) [at 4:28]

Imogen Cooper, piano. BBC Music, recorded live in Wigmore Hall, London, May 28, 1994

Humoreske [humoresque]. Term used by Schumann as the title for an extended piece (op. 20) and by later composers for pieces of a relaxed and genial kind.

-- Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music, 1st ed.

humoresque  n.   Music.   A whimsical or light-spirited composition.   [German Humoreske, from Humor, Humor, from English HUMOR]

-- American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed.

by Ken

Readers who've been around for a while may recall that I don't turn to The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia for elucidation of musical forms with great hope, and once again I think my trusty old American Heritage Dictionary (3rd ed.) does better.

Basically, what Norton/Grove has to offer is this: So Schumann wrote this Op. 20 Humoreske, by which he meant, well, whatever the heck he meant, and some later composers composed Humoresken and they seemed to think the term referred to a piece "of a relaxed and genial kind." Note that N/G doesn't exactly commit Schumann to this understanding of the term, which is just as well, because even in Imogen Cooper's performance, which is unusual in honestly honoring Schumann's "Simple" and "Very quick and light" markings for the previous sections (you get the sense that she knows quite well that in the course of the piece's 25-30-minute duration it will encompass all sorts of music that isn't remotely "simple" or "light"), by the time we reach the "Hurried" marking at 4:28 we're in musical terrain that surely isn't fairly described as "relaxed," and almost surely not as "genial" either.

AHD too wants us thinking in "light-spirited" directions, but kudos to the AHD definer for giving us "whimsical," almost always a good descriptor for the musical imaginings of Schumann, who tapped so freely and abundantly into one of music history's most fantastic and diverse imaginations, so often allowing his inspirations not only to contrast but to transform and overlap in the most, well, imaginative ways.


NOW POSTED: "Radu Lupu (1945-2022) [3]: We are going to hear more Lupu, but I'm afraid we're sticking awhile longer with the 'opening sections' of Schumann's Humoreske"

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Radu Lupu (1945-2022) [2]

Part 2: The Schubert picks from Andrew C's list
[We're not even going to finish with Schubert in this post, let alone get to Schumann, so I'm afraid we're looking at a Part 3]

SCHUBERT: Fantasy in F minor for Piano Four Hands, D. 940

Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia, four-hand piano. Sony, recorded in The Maltings, Snape (Suffolk), England, June 21 & 25-26, 1984

by Ken

As I hope I made clear in last week's Part 1, I had (and have) a heap of professional respect for the Romanian-born pianist Radu Lupu, even though he was never a favorite pianist of mine. Which makes for a tricky issue of remembrance, but I was helped as well as intrigued by a list proposed by The Guardian's Andrew Clements, "Radu Lupu: Five key performances." Andrew C made some really interesting choices, and it turned out to be an interesting path to relistening to, and maybe rethinking about, the performer.

Last time we covered two of Andrew C's choices -- the two concertos: Mozart's No. 19 in F, K. 459, and Brahms's No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15. The Mozart is a simply glorious performance, thanks in good part to the inspired contribution of David Zinman and the ardent young players of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. That was a great call, Andrew! The Brahms D minor he selected, a 1994 live performance from Tokyo with Wolfgang Sawallisch and the NHK Symphony, is nice enough, though I think anyone who knows this concerto, a work of deep brooding as well as considerable exaltation, may suspect that "nice" is not an epithet ideally applied to it.

A little foraging turned up an even nicer live performance, from 1996, with the Finnish Radio Symphony under Jukka-Pekka Saraste, but also a gripping, gorgeous, death-defying live performance from 1983, in which again the driving force appears to be the conductor, Klaus Tennstedt (with an orchestra he worked with so much, the London Philharmonic). In fairness, Lupu in key places rises -- in a way many other pianists wouldn't have been able to -- to the considerable challenges created by Tennstedt's relentlessly brave probing.

YOU KNOW, WE COULD HEAR THOSE PERFORMANCES AGAIN

Since in "Radu Lupu (1945-2022), part 2" we'll be hearing both sets of Schubert impromptus, maybe this'll help get us in the mood

A meditative (rather than apocalyptic) Vladimir Horowitz plays
the haunting Schubert G-flat major Impromptu, D. 899, No. 3 (in
the Grosser Saal of the Vienna Musikverein, May 1987 ) (Watch on YouTube)

by Ken

A YouTube commenter, while regretting that English isn't his first language, nevertheless conjures quite an image: "He doesn’t seem like playing the piano, seems like he’s just petting it and the piano speaks by itself as if a cat purrs when it is petted." (Except that this cat's rapturous purr can mount to the most gloriously thundering roar.)

Did I mention that Horowitz was 83 at the time of the Vienna concert video?

By now you're probably almost as tired of hearing it as I am of saying it, but it continues to drive me nuts that since the last overhaul of the Blogspot software ("Us at Google is prouda how we ain't got nobody hereabouts with the bittiest bitta brains") I don't have a way of hearing the audio clips for a post in their post-ular context until I actually post a post. So while I was fiddling with the continuation of "Radu Lupu (1945-2022)," after making this clip and imagining a possible way of incorporating, I needed to see-and-hear it, and so, as I sometimes do, I went ahead and threw it up, intending to take it right down as soon as I had seen-and-heard it.

Only -- and I put it to you -- is it possible, once this is posted, to take it down?

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Radu Lupu (1945-2022) [1]

Part 1: We've got a really terrific performance to hear [UPDATE:] two really terrific performances, actually!

GENERAL UPDATE (MONDAY EVENING): There's updating scattered through the post, now that I've been able to look at it and listen to some of the music in context. (Importantly, the clip of the Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story" is fixed, so that it now plays the whole thing, not just track 1!) -- Ed.

"Everyone tells a story differently, and that story should be told compellingly and spontaneously. If it is not compelling and convincing, it is without value."

-- Radu Lupu, quoted by the YouTube poster of a Lupu Brahms First
Piano Concerto with Jukka-Pekka Saraste (which we'll be hearing)

MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 19 in F, K. 459:
iii. Rondo: Allegro assai

Radu Lupu, piano; Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, David Zinman, cond. Live performance in the Sophiensaal, Munich, July 12, 1990

[UPDATE: Not to worry, we're gonna hear the whole concerto -- which you can watch here. And by the way, note (especially if you look at the video) the average age of the poised German Chamber Philharmonic players playing their young hearts out! -- Ed.]

by Ken

Say, in our clip above (and the linked complete video), is this Radu Lupu being playful in the rondo finale of Mozart K. 459? Playful? Radu Lupu?

I guess we need to back up. We're supposed to be talking about Kurt Moll and Massenet's Werther -- unfinished business from last week's "We're going to be hearing Kurt Moll in his famously 'Unexpected French Role' -- so curtain up!," April 20, and " 'I don't know if I'm awake or if I'm still dreaming' (Do those poets know how to make an entrance?)," April 24. But, well, while progress is being made, that has bogged down a wee bit. And meanwhile I've found myself thinking about -- and listening to -- the Romanian-born pianist Radu Lupu, who died April 17 at 76.

I hadn't taken much notice of Lupu's passing. While I certainly have no lack of respect for a musician of his professional skills and career accomplishments, he wasn't exactly a favorite pianist of mine. I don't think he would crack my Top 50 list -- even a Top 50 list of pianists I've actually heard in performance. Actually, the live performances of his I recall attending were kind of, um (how to put this delicately?), stultifying. After the last of those, I kind of tended to pay less close attention to his career.

At some point, quite possibly a point when I meant to be plowing forward with matters relating to Werther and Kurt Moll, I happened upon a piece by The Guardian's Andrew Clements, "Radu Lupu: Five key performances," which begins:

We have the Leeds Piano Competition to thank for first showcasing the unique poetry of Radu Lupu’s playing: the young Romanian pianist won first prize there in 1969. That success launched his international career, but as the years went by he became a more and more reticent performer, both in the concert hall and on disc. Yet every rare opportunity to hear him was a reminder of just how special a pianist he was, in a repertory that extended from Mozart and Beethoven to Bartók and Janáček, and who was quite peerless in Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. Here are just a few examples of his art.

Ooh, there's that word: "poetry." Somehow a legend came into being that Lupu was a "poetic" performer. Maybe that made me curious to see which performances Andrew C was commending to Guardian readers. Which made me curiouser, because I was unfamiliar with most of the performances, and although I'm still in the midst of processing it all, I can say I'm enjoying taking a new look at, or listen to, Lupu. There's an abundance of interesting music-making here, and I may even be getting some sense of why performances that don't hold great interest for me may please other listeners.

The project unquestionably got off to a great start, because --

AT THE TOP OF ANDREW C'S LIST IS MOZART K. 459!

"I don't know if I'm awake or if I'm still dreaming" (Do those poets know how to make an entrance?)

Georges Thill (1897-1984)

With THE BAILIFF and all his children inside the house, as Papa continues to drill the six younger children in their "Noël" (in July!), WERTHER has appeared, led by a young guide, and verified that this is the home of the Bailiff. Alone, he penetrates farther into the courtyard and stops in front of the fountain.

WERTHER: I don't know if I'm awake or if I'm still dreaming.
Everything that surrounds me has the air of a paradise.
The wood sighs like an echoing harp.
A world reveals itself to my blown-away eyes.
O nature full of grace,
queen of time and space,
deign to welcome him who passes
and salutes you, humble mortal!
Mysterious silence! O solemn calm!
Everything attracts me and pleases me!
This wall, and this somber corner,
this limpid spring, and the freshness of the shade.
There's not a hedge, there's not a bush,
where a flower isn't enclosed, where a breeze doesn't pass.
O nature, intoxicate me with perfumes!
Mother eternally young, lovable, and pure!
And you, sun, come flood me with your rays!

Georges Thill (t), Werther; orchestra, Fernand Heurteur, cond. EMI (HMV), published Oct. 5, 1927

César Vezzani (t), Werther; with orchestra. EMI (Columbia), recorded Feb. 27, 1929

by Ken

This is one of the great operatic entrances, which Massenet has devised, and these Werthers -- whom I think we could describe without much fear of contradiction as the greatest French tenors of the 20th century -- sure know how to make that entrance sing. Note, though, what a different thing they make of it. Thill, master of making most everything he sang sound utterly and yet utterly unself-consciously, jaw-droppingly gorgeous and at the same time utterly, actively alive in the moment, is the purest of poets. Vezzani (1888-1951, seen at right) was a tenor of more heroic vocal bent (we should note that he was, properly speaking, Corsican, and though his mother had moved the family -- his father died before he was born -- to the French mainland when he was 12, Wikipedia describes him as, when he made his way to Paris at age 20, "speaking a poor French"), the poetic tingle he creates with his idyllic vision of the Bailiff's home is of a distinctly more energetic, physical sort.

In both cases, note the pleasure the singer enjoys and the communicative intent he shares in the singing of his language. The composers who have written great large-scale vocal works in French -- in addition to Massenet, I think (in no particular order) of Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Bizet, Meyerbeer -- share a skill and delight in showcasing their language, which calls not so much for "French singers" (after all, lots of French singers aren't much good at this either) as singers who have corresponding competence and relish in singing the language.

Werther's disposition to poetic rapture comes straight from his creator, Goethe, and while Massenet's idea of poetic raptures may not be exactly the same as Goethe's, they gave him an easy and darned effective entryway to the character -- everything Massenet's Werther sees is poetic, an elevated but not altogether practical way, as he never manages to understand in his overwrought existence, to go through one. In the last post, ("We're goig to be hearing Kurt Moll in his famously 'Unexpected French Role' -- so curtain up! "), we got as far as raising the curtain and watching the Bailiff -- in the heat of July -- preparing his six youngest children to sing a "Noël" -- before we wound up gulping down the first two-thirds or so (maybe three-fifths?) of Act I in a single swallow, or rather three single swallows, since we heard three performances of it.

If we're going to be sticklers, though, we've actually skipped over Werther's entrance proper. We'll come back to it, but meanwhile we have Georges and César to tide us over. And when we resume, we'll even have Georges with us, thanks to the complete recording of Werther he made just a few years later.

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We're going to be hearing Kurt Moll in his famously "Unexpected French Role" -- so curtain up!

Naturally, we've got a "Prélude"

West German Radio (WDR) Symphony Orchestra, Cologne, Riccardo Chailly, cond. DG, recorded in the Forumhalle, Leverkusen (across the Rhine from Cologne), February 1979

by Ken

As I mentioned in the Kurt Moll-themed posts from Saturday ("Preview: 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 --") and Sunday ("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!' "), it was a chance hearing of KM in what I've dubbed "an Unexpected French Role" which got me to thinking about him.

There's no other "news" peg for this 1979 recording -- the very recording from which we've just heard, as a curtain-raiser, the Prélude. It's a recording I was pretty sure I had on LP but realized I had no clear recollection of when I spotted a cheap CD copy in my used-CD mart of choice (no mystery: Academy Records on West 18th Street in Manhattan), where periodically, despite knowing that goodness knows I don't more damn records, I allow myself to browse -- especially on the "$1.99 and under" shelves, but also (when I have, or make, time) among the pricier $2.99- and $3.99-per-disc offerings, not to mention the cheap DVDs and Blu-rays. [POSTSCRIPT: Just to be clear, those aren't my CDs. I just borrowed the image to represent a tiny fraction of mine. (I only wish I had shelves like those!) -- Ed.]

At times it seems to me almost a moral issue not to allow tantalizingly underpriced musical items of value to languish unloved, like the time I came upon an irresistibly modest-priced copy of a pristine-looking EMI CD set of the 1953 Furtwängler-RAI Ring, of which my original copy, though I believe all the CDs are still playable, is badly beaten up from the heavy use it continues to get. Notwithstanding that Ring's undeniable limitations, it remains a repository of all manner of in-performance wisdom which makes it almost as essential to me, in its very different way, as the Solti-Decca and Karajan-DG Ring cycles. (Did I mention that I also have two LP editions of the Furtwängler-RAI Ring, the original American one and a later reissue made from supposedly better source material?)

So for the asked $5.98, I added that set to my growing pile. But then at home I never seemed to be in the mood to listen to it it, and it sat for months among a clump of other as-yet-unlistened-to CDs. Until one day I decided I wouldn't mind taking a listen.

And what a difference! I'm guessing that when I first acquired the LPs, which I indeed found neatly in place on my LP shelves, I sampled it and didn't much cotton to it, as I didn't with most of the growing number of recordings of this once-infrequently-recorded opera. Maybe I held its German provenance against it? It was made by Deutsche Grammophon, as German a record company as there is (though of course long since internationalized in its a&r thinking and its audience reach), with a German orchestra and supporting cast, and while most of the vocal principals and the conductor aren't German, they aren't French either, and neither is anybody else involved, in an opera by the most French of composers.


SAY, THIS IS GETTING TO BE AN AWFUL LOT OF
TALK -- HOW 'BOUT WE HAVE SOME MORE MUSIC?

Okay, can do!

Act II: Prélude

Act III: Prélude

Act IV: 1st Tableau, "The Night Before Christmas"

West German Radio (WDR) Symphony Orchestra, Cologne, Riccardo Chailly, cond. DG, recorded in the Forumhalle, Leverkusen (across the Rhine from Cologne), February 1979

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.

Preview: 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 --

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

by Ken

Wait, there seem to be a few bits of information missing from the above credits! Hmm, let's think . . .

Well, one thing we could do is fill in the missing information tomorrow, when we hear a more properly contextual version of this breathtaking musical moment -- anyway, it's been taking my breath away for some 35 years now, especially in video form via an ancient VHS tape -- and I explain (more or less; you know how this trying-to-explain business usually goes) how I happened to settle on this as a topic that might bring us (finally!) to a state of postability.


AS LONG AS WE'RE AT IT, THERE ARE TWO OTHER
PERFORMANCES IT'D BE USEFUL FOR US TO HEAR

They're all different, our three performances -- well, two of them not so much in this excerpt; their differences will become clearer when we hear the fuller-context versions. Even now, though, I think we can agree that one of the performances is more different from the other two -- in more ways than one.

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

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

When we resume, we're also going to have a personal note on The Creation from one of our three conductors, who was making his second recording of the piece. On account of that personal note I've wound up having to redo, in a more expansive direction, the other "expanded-context" clips. (It so happens that one of our other conductors was also making his second recording of The Creation. See how complicated this gets? Maybe I can scrounge up a personal note from him too! Or maybe his re-recording will have to speak for itself.)

UPDATE: Find the main post here, and a follow-up post here pondering the unexpected role recorded by Kurt Moll which set these posts in motion.

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Fricka-Wotan 1 [files in preparation for our continued look at "Fricka vs. Wotan"]

SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO GO BACKWARDS TO GO FORWARD
(Can we make sense of Fricka and Wotan's final showdown in Die Walküre Act II without some experience of their clashes in Das Rheingold?)

Valhalla as painted in 1896 by scenic designer Max Brückner (who with
his younger brother Gottfried had designed for Wagner at Bayreuth)

WAGNER: Das Rheingold: scene change from Scene 1 (from Flosshilde, "Haltet den Räuber!") to Scene 2 (through Wotan, "Vollendet das ewige Werk!")

At the bottom of the Rhine: Previously in Scene 1, the Nibelung ALBERICH, frustrated in his romantic overtures to the three RHINEMAIDENS, has stolen the Rhinegold and retreated to the murkiest depths of the river, pursued by the MAIDENS.

FLOSSHILDE: Stop the robber!
WELLGUNDE: Save the gold!
WOGLINDE and WELLGUNDE: Help! Help!
THE THREE RHINEMAIDENS: Alas! Alas!
[The waters sink down with them, and from the lowest depths ALBERICH's mocking laughter is heard. The rocks vanish in thickest darkness; the whole stage is filled from top to bottom with black waving waters, which seem to go on falling for some time.]

Orchestral interlude

Scene 2: The waves are gradually transformed into clouds and then, as an increasingly bright dawn light passes behind them, into fine mist. When the mist has completely vanished aloft into clouds, and an --

Open space on the mountaintop becomes visible in the light of dawn. The daybreak illuminates with increasing brilliance a fortress with gleaming battlements standing on a rocky summit in the background. Between this and the foreground of the stage a deep valley is to be imagined, through which the Rhine flows. WOTAN and beside him FRICKA, both asleep, are lying on a flowery bank at one side. The fortress has become completely visible.

FRICKA [awakening, catches sight of the fortress and shrinks back, astonished]: Wotan, husband, awake!
WOTAN [still quietly dreaming]:
The sacred hall of delight
has gates and doors to guard me:
Man's honor, eternal might
stretch out to endless fame!
FRICKA [shakes him]:
Up, leave your dreams, delightful illusions!
Awake, husband, and reflect!
WOTAN [awakes and raises himself a little; his gaze is at once drawn by the sight of the fortress]:
The eternal work is completed!
On the mountaintop the gods' fortress
rears regally aloft, resplendent edifice!
Just as I saw in my dreams,
just as my wishes intended it,
strong and beautiful it stands on show;
majestic, marvelous building!

-- libretto by the composer, translation (mostly) by William Mann

[Scene 2 at 3:23] Helen Donath (s), Woglinde; Edda Moser (s), Wellgunde; Anna Reynolds (ms), Flosshilde; Josephine Veasey (ms), Fricka; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Wotan; Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, December 1967

[Scene 2 at 3:02] Oda Balsborg (s), Woglinde; Hetty Plümacher (ms), Wellgunde; Ira Malaniuk (ms), Flosshilde; (laughing) Gustav Neidlinger (bs-b), Alberich; Kirsten Flagstad (s), Fricka; George London (bs-b), Wotan; Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded in the Vienna Sofiensaal, Sept.-Oct. 1958

[Scene 2 at 2:54] Lucia Popp (s), Woglinde; Uta Priew (ms), Wellgunde; Hanna Schwarz (ms), Flosshilde; (laughing) Siegmund Nimsgern (b), Alberich; Yvonne Minton (ms), Fricka; Theo Adam (bs-b), Wotan; Staatskapelle Dresden, Marek Janowski, cond. Eurodisc, recorded in the Lukaskirche, Dec. 8-11, 1980
ANOTHER VERSION TK? (Pring-Bailey-Goodall? Ludwig-Morris-Levine?)
[Scene 2 at XXXX] XXXX (s), Woglinde; XXXX (ms), Wellgunde; XXXX (ms), Flosshilde; (laughing) XXXX (bs-b), Alberich; XXXX (s), Fricka; XXXX (bs-b), Wotan; XXXX, XXXX, cond. XXXX, recorded iXXXX


I love that our intrepid translator William Mann uses "fortress" as the term for what Valhalla is. Wagner's word is "Burg," most often rendered as "castle." But one of my German-English dictionaries indeed offers "castle, fortress, citadel," and while Wotan might take his pick among these options, there's no question that what Fricka sees -- as we would have learned if I hadn't so ruthlessly ended the clips here -- is pure "fortress."