Our final montage for 2019, just in time for the New Year, features the Waltz, including some waltz collections and was built around the contents of an old Vanguard recording called "The Great Waltz Composers" featuring the Vienna State Opera Orchestra under Anton Paulik.
I added three "waltz collections" to the montage: Richard Rodgers' waltzes from his many Broadway musicals (arranged by Leroy Anderson for the Boston Pops), the set of waltzes composed by Richard Strauss for Der Rozenkavalier (arranged by Artur Rodzinski for the Cleveland Orchestra) and Ravel's own orchestration of his Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.
To close things out, Karajan's arrangement of Sibelius' Valse Triste.
Normally,
when we dig into the Podcast
Vault on Fridays, I provide a fresh musing on a past montage, and provide a
bonus track via YouTube. This week, however, I will not be doing that.
If you wish to read my original take – assorted with a then-bonus clip, please
use the hyperlink I provided at the top of the page.
This
week, I will rather use the opportunity to provide my “Year In Review” and
collected annual assemblage of assorted YouTube clips.
2019 was a busy
year for us on ITYWLTMT. Among the highlights, we spent a lot of time this year
on collections: Part Three of Project 366 proposed a good number
of collections from Bach’s concertos to Stravinsky’s ballets, without
forgetting Beethoven and Mozart. The latter two composers were also featured
throughout the year in our Friday montages, where we completed our overall
survey of their piano sonatas.
In
September, we rebranded our Pod-O-Matic channel into a daily share
portal, walking through old and new Listener Guides from Project 366. We are
almost done with our first four months of daily podcasts, and will provide our
next tranche in calendar form on or around New Year’s day.
We have
continued with our bi-weekly Tuesday Blog, and are setting up for 2020’s
“Beethoven Year” with fresh shares of some of our favourite Ludwig works –
sonatas, concertos, symphonies and the Missa Solemnis, interspersed with
other selections in our ongoing Cover 2 Cover and Vinyl’s Revenge
series.
Our Friday
programming for 2020 will continue to be somewhat sporadic as we intertwine Podcast
Vault selections (per the Project 366 calendar) with new podcasts; by the
end of 2020 we will have created fewer original montages than in past years. We
are on track, however, to issue our 365th podcast in August 2021.
(TEASER - in September 2020, we will embark into another cycle of daily shares
– more on that as we get closer).
Among our
new montages, you will get a good dose of Mozart, Bruckner and (inevitably)
Beethoven. (I plan something special with our 2021 “daily programming” with
Mozart, so I need to get more titles in the bank, as it were.)
One area I
have neglected in the last few months are my posts on OperaLively. I
will admit I feel quite overwhelmed with preparing the daily shares, much more
than I originally thought, actually. As a result, I made the conscious decision
to put Once or Twice a Fortnight on hiatus. My hope is to resume opera
posts next fall, when I’m done with Project 366.
Before I
forget: we are planning a trip to a warm spot in mid-January. I’ll do my best
to queue up material, but if I don’t, I promise to catch up!
Always
appreciate your comments and reactions on our many platforms, including
Facebook and Twitter. Jeep them coming!
Happy and
Safe New Year to everyone! Please enjoy our “Video Favourites” for 2019.
For our final Vinyl’s Revenge of 2019, I dug deep into my record collection to share a compilation of classical hits conducted by Hebert von Karajan
According to discogs, my go-ro source for recorded material (especially vinyl), Karajan has nearly 2000 titles to his credit, and nearly 400 of those fall under “compilations”. As I glanced through the titles, we can find Karajan compilation albums on many of the well-known labels, and quite a few on DG with the Berlin Philharmonic.
There is nothing particularly remarkable about today’s vinyl share, likely picked up nearly 40 years ago in a bargain bin…The four works featured were in some cases recorded several times throughout the years and the resulting album is quite satisfying. An appropriate Christmas present!
Franz LISZT (1811-1886) Les Préludes, S.97 Hungarian Rhapsody in C Sharp minor, S.359 no. 2
This week’s
podcast explores ballet in the context of opera. Opera, as I’ve discussed in
past musings, has to be viewed as the culmination of music, song and stage, so
it should come as no surprise that dance episodes and numbers intended for a
corps de ballet have a place in grand opera.
Of
p[particular note, the Paris Opera Ballet had its origins in the earlier dance
institutions, traditions and practices of the court of Louis XIV. Of particular
importance were the series of comédies-ballets created by Molière with, among
others, the choreographers and composers Pierre Beauchamps and Jean-Baptiste
Lully. The 18th century saw the creation of an associated school, now referred
to as the Paris Opera Ballet School (École de Danse de l’Opéra de Paris), which
opened in 1713. The operas of Rameau, and later Gluck, raised standards for the
dancers. Jean-Georges Noverre was a particularly influential ballet master from
1776 to 1781. He created the ballet Les petits riens in 1778 on Mozart's music.
Two
selections in our podcast, from Massenet and Gounod, are elaborate ballet
sequences inserted within the opera, specifically intended for the Paris Opera
ballet. Selections from operas by Smetana, and Berlioz I consider more as dance
episodes or dance interludes often heard in concert as stand alone “bonbons”.
Sometimes,
ballet companies commission choreographies against opera music. For example, in
the 1970’s, les Grands Ballets Canadiens toured internationally with their own
vision of The Who’s rock opera Tommy. I think it’s in that context that we need
to consider Les Patineurs (The Skaters) a ballet choreographed by
Frederick Ashton to music composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer and arranged by
Constant Lambert. It was first presented by the Vic-Wells Ballet at the
Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, on 16 February 1937.
The
inspiration for the work came from Constant Lambert, who was music director of
the Vic-Wells Ballet during the 1930s and who exercised a major influence on
the artistic as well as musical direction of the company. To create the score
he chose vocal and dance numbers from two Meyerbeer operas, Le prophète and
L'Étoile du Nord, and linked them into an irresistibly cheerful score.
Today’s five year old podcast was the first of two dedicated to Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies. The Hungarian Rhapsodies constitute a set of 19 piano pieces based on Hungarian folk themes, composed between 1846 and 1853, and later in 1882 and 1885. Liszt also arranged versions for orchestra, piano duet and piano trio.
Liszt incorporated many themes he had heard in his native western Hungary and which he believed to be folk music, though many were in fact contemporary tunes written by members of the Hungarian upper middle class, or by composers of the time, and performed publically by Roma (Gypsy) bands. The large scale structure of each was influenced by the verbunkos, a Hungarian dance in several parts, each with a different tempo. Within this structure, Liszt preserved the two main structural elements of typical Gypsy improvisation—the lassan ("slow") and the friska ("fast"). At the same time, Liszt incorporated a number of effects unique to the sound of Gypsy bands, especially the pianistic equivalent of the cimbalom. In their original piano form, the Hungarian Rhapsodies are noted for their difficulty. As is the norm for much of Liszt’s piano solo output, the thinking has to have been to use these works to showcase and display his legendary technique at the keyboard. All nineteen rhapsodies will not fit our usual 75 to 90 minute podcast format, so I had to come up with a logical way of splitting them up over two podcasts… To do so, I chose to consider first the orchestral versions of the rhapsodies.(no. 2, 5, 6, 9, 12, and 14) arranged by Franz Doppler, with revisions by Liszt himself. As a bonus, here is the complete set for piano, thanks to YouTube and Brilliant Classics. I think you will (still) love this music too.
This week's Cover2Cover is a selection from the Royal Philharmonic's own label, from about 20 years ago. These CDs were distributed by third parties in North America and parts of Europe, and I happen to have acquired a few f them around 2005-06. I have a couple of those titles lined up next year in fact.
This Royal Philharmonic Masterworks Audiophile Collection disc features the RPO under the baton of James Lockhart in a selection of later Mozart works. Lockhartworked as an organist in Edinburgh and London, and then as an assistant conductor in German opera houses and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. He was director of opera at the Royal College of Music, London 1986–93, and of the London Schools' Vocal Faculty, from 1993.
The program begins with the overture to The Magic Flute, Mozart's final opera. Despite the large orchestra used in the performance, this track still manages to maintain a sense of lightness, spryness, and crisply executed articulations.
The main body of the disc includes two of Mozart's later symphonies: his 39th (one of the :big three") and his delightful Linz symphony.
Happy Listening!
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Overture to Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), K.620 Symphony No. 36 In C Major K. 425 'Linz' Symphony No. 39 In E Flat Major K. 543
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra James Lockhart , conducting
Label: RPO Records – 204438-201 Format: CD, Compilation Year: 1996
Today’s
podcast, dug out of the Podcast Vault, is nearly three years old, dating
January 2017. It was assembled, in part, to feed into our Trifecta chapter of
Project 366, which is currently being explored in our daily shares these days.
The montage takes new significance on this Beethoven year (though we are
technically a year away from Beethoven’s actual 250th birthday, but
who attention to those details!)
The
original theme of the montage had works by Beethoven performed by Berlin-based
orchestras. (The trifecta angle is our programming of the Triple Concerto and
Third symphony).
Our bonus
feature this week is a performance by a third Berlin-based orchestra. With a
tradition reaching back to 1570, the Staatskapelle Berlin is one of the oldest
orchestras in the world. Initially it performed exclusively for the Court.
However, when Frederick the Great founded the Royal Court Opera in 1742 –
today’s State Opera – and merged the Opera and Orchestra, the sphere of
activity of the Staatskapelle was broadened and the success story began.
The
Staatskapelle Berlin is an essential part of the State Opera: it undertakes the
majority of the opera and ballet performances. In a series of concerts each
season the Orchestra performs major symphonic works of the Classic, Romantic
and Modern periods, commissioned works, and a broad variety of chamber music.
Over time
famous conductors have contributed to the orchestra’s characteristic sound and
musical interpretation. Daniel Barenboim was appointed general music director
of the Staatskapelle in 1992.
The
recording I chose for today’s bonus clip is a vintage DG recording of the
Staatskapelle under Otto Klemperer
As we work
through Part 1 of the Project, we encounter “the trifecta” which is a good
opportunity to add a few “threesomes” as filler guides (Guides 315 and 316)
and provide complete Scott Slapin’s rendering of J.s S. Bach’s works for solo
violin (and solo flute) performed on the viola (Guide #317). As a
“bonus” holiday selections, we added Amahl and the Night Visitors (Guide #63)
and Debussy’s delightful “Toy Box” (Guide #319). Finally, notice a few Beethoven
Listener Guides, in keeping with the Beethoven Year.
Your
Listener Guides
Listener Guide # 315 - Three
Scandinavian Symphonies
Jean
Sibelius wrote seven symphonies; and his Third Symphony represents a turning
point in Sibelius's symphonic output. His First and Second symphonies are
grandiose Romantic and patriotic works. The Third, however, is a good-natured,
triumphal, and deceptively simple-sounding piece which hardly foreshadows the
more austere complexity of his later symphonies. The Sibelius is flanked by a
pair of symphonies by the early-romantic Swedish composer Franz Berwald. (Once
Upon the Internet #55 – 17 January 2017)
Listener Guide # 316 - Afro-American
Opera
If Porgy
and Bess is without a doubt the most well-known opera that deals with African
Americans, there are many other works that have African American subject
matters in the stage repertoire, and I chose to assemble three of them in this
Listener Guide. Works by Scott Joplin, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern. (ITYWLTMT
Podcast #209 - 11 Sep. 2015)
Listener Guide # 317 - J.S. Bach:
Sonatas for Solo Violin
The
complete set of solo violin works by J.S. Bach consists of three sonatas da
Chiesa (or church sonatas), in four movements, and three partitas (or partias),
which are “dance suites”. The set was completed by 1720, but was only published
in 1802 by Nikolaus Simrock in Bonn. Even after publication, it was largely
ignored until the celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim started performing these
works. Today, Bach's Sonatas and Partitas are an essential part of the violin
repertoire, and they are frequently performed and recorded. (Once Upon theInternet #38 – 9 June 2015)
Listener Guide # 318 - Christmas
This
Christmas playlist programs titles from both the French (Canadian) and English
repertoires. Some of the "stand alone" classics come from Adolphe
Adam (Minuit, Chrétiens, which is known in English as O Holy Night), Frederick
Delius (his charming sleigh ride) and Corelli's Christmas Concerto. Bemjamin
Britten and Ralph Vaighan-WIlliams both provide variations based on a pair of
well-known carols: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen and Greensleeves. Marcel Dupre
also adapted a well-known French carol for organ. (ITYWLTMT Podcast
#212 - 25 Dec 2015)
Listener Guide # 319 – Child’s Play
Kids and
Toys are what Christmas is about. This Listener Guide proposes some music that
is appropriate for young (and young at heart) music lovers. There are three
main ideas that intermingle in this montage: children, children’s tales and (of
course) toys. (ITYWLTMT
Podcast #85 - 21 Dec 2012)
This week’s
Podcast Vault selection is from June of 2014, marking what was then the 60th
anniversary of Glenn Gould’s first recorded performance of the Goldberg
Variations – a broadcast performance from the CBC archives.
A year
later, in 1955, Gould recorded the Goldberg Variations for Columbia records,
his breakthrough work. Although there was some controversy at Columbia about
the appropriateness of this "debut" piece, the record received
phenomenal praise and was among the best-selling classical music albums of its
era. Gould became closely associated with the piece, playing it in full or in
part at many recitals. A new recording of the Goldberg Variations, made in
1981, would be among his last albums; the piece was one of only a few he
recorded twice in the studio. The 1981 release was one of CBS Masterworks'
first digital recordings. The 1955 interpretation is highly energetic and often
frenetic; the later is slower and more deliberate —the 1954 CBC performance, I
find, sits som ewhere between the two.
Gould
revered J.S. Bach, stating that the Baroque composer was "first and last
an architect, a constructor of sound, and what makes him so inestimably
valuable to us is that he was beyond a doubt the greatest architect of sound
who ever lived". He recorded most of Bach's other keyboard works,
including both books of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Partitas, French
Suites, English Suites, Inventions and Sinfonias, keyboard concertos, and a
number of toccatas (which interested him least, being less polyphonic).
As our
bonus filler, I chose his studio recording (1963-64) of the two and three-part
inventions. We can compare these with tracks from the CBC broadcast.
After more
than a dozen Friday montages, we finally come to the end of a long thematic arc
in which we will have programmed all 32 piano sonatas (some of them twice) and
all six piano concertos (again, many of those twice, too).
Today’s
featured artist, Murray Perahia, was at the keyboard (for the First piano
concerto, along with Bernard Haitimk and the Concertgebouw orchestra) when we launched our
original “Beethoven project” eight years ago, and he returns with the same
orchestra and conductor this week for a performance of the Third concerto.
Beethoven
did not publish all of his piano sonatas as individual opus numbers; some of
these were “bundled” in sets of two or three sonatas under one opus number. In
our May montage featuring Richard Goode, we shared two such bundles: his opp. 2
and 49. Today, we feature the op. 14 bundle – sonatas nos 9 and 10. The pair
were dedicated to Baroness Josefa von Braun. These lesser-known early-period sonatas
are less travelled but still exquisite. The F-major sonata was later arranged
for string quartet by the composer in 1801.
The sonata
no. 7 (along with sonatas 5 and 6) belong to the op. 10 set (Daniel Barenboim
and Emil Gilels performed these sonatas in past podcasts).
This month’s Vinyl’s Revenge is our final tribute to notable musicians who have left us in 2019. After a pair of Austrian pianists, we offer today a tip of the hat to the German-born American “triple threat” pianist, composer and conductor André Previn.
According to his obituary in the Guardian on line:
The conductor, composer and pianist André Previn, who has died aged 89, was not only among the most charismatic performers of his day, but also enjoyed one of the greatest classical-music lives since Berlioz and Liszt – and one that did not grow less eventful with old age. His pedigree was unique: no other Oscar-winning conductor-composer from the Hollywood film studios became equally successful in the strictly classical world of the London Symphony Orchestra – which Previn headed from 1968 to 1979 – while also maintaining a side career as a jazz pianist.
The obituary continues: His London Symphony recordings are often his best, and they are numerous, thanks to such a congenial relationship with EMI that he could phone the company to say that a certain concert was shaping up unusually well, and have a recording team on hand by the end of the week.
From my vinyl collection, I chose to share this 1977 Previn/LSO recording of the “complete” incidental music Mendelssohn wrote for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, complete with his youthful overtire (op. 21) and seminal tracks including the brisk scherzo and the oft-heard Wedding March.
There are a pair of sung tracks – featuring female soloists and children’s choir. The text is sung here in English rather than in German, making this something of a unique recording.
Happy Listening!
Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Overture, Op. 21 Incidental Music To "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Op. 61
Soprano Vocals – Lilian Watson Mezzo-soprano Vocals – Delia Wallis Finchley Children's Music Group Chorus Master – Colin Howard London Symphony Orchestra André Previn, conducting Angel Records – S-37268 Format: Vinyl, LP, Stereo, Quadraphonic Released: 1977
A little play on words, as we enjoy a “suite” at the movies – and orchestral suites by composers based on music they wrote for films. Music and film goes back to the days of silent films, where music played a large role in providing desired mood effects, and later in the Musicals of the 1940’s, only to name those. Composers as far back as Camille Saint-Saëns provided film music, and a great number of European composers (most noteworthy here being Franz Waxman and Erich Korngold) moved to Hollywood to score great epic films of the first half of the 20th century.
Our selections include music by Serge Prokofiev and Sir William Walton, best known for their more “serious” works, as well as George Gershwin (who briefly worked on Hollywood films before his early death in 1937) and Nino Rota and John Williams, who arebest known for their movie work and have been known to dabble in “serious compositions”.
Over the years, we've shared quite a bit of film music, especially from Mr. Williams. As a bonus this week, I thought I would share selections from one of my favourite Williams film scores. He collaborated on dozens of projects with director Steven Spielberg, but this gem isn't a Waxmanesque symphonic score, but rather a throwback to Williams' years as a jazz pianist. It is from the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, which starred Tom Hanks who plays a seasoned FBI agent pursuing Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) who, before his 19th birthday, successfully forged millions of dollars' worth of checks while posing as a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, and a legal prosecutor.
Wilhelm
Backhaus (1884 –1969), one of the pre-eminent Beethoven interpreters of his generation, is
heard in today’s montage in a set of Ludwig’s sonatas and the Second concerto. Among Backhaus’ contemporaries, we count last
week’s featured artist, Wilhelm Kempff, as well as other pianists we have
explored in past posts – Walter Gieseking and Edwin Fischer. All of these
musicians were at the height of their careers during or after World War II, yet
they have seen their reputations tarnished through their association (tenuous
or not) with the Nazis.
German
musicians reacted to Nazism in many different ways. The pianist Elly Ney, for
instance, was a rabid anti-Semite who idolized Hitler. Backhaus met Adolf
Hitler by May 1933. That same year, he became executive advisor to the Nazi
organization Kameradschaft der deutschen Künstler (Fellowship of German
Artists). For the German elections 1936, Backhaus published a statement in the
magazine Die Musikwoche which stated "Nobody loves German art, and
especially German music, as glowingly as Adolf Hitler…" A month later,
Hitler gave Backhaus a professorship, and invited him that September to attend
the annual Nazi party's Nuremberg Rally. We note that Backhaus elected to live
in Switzerland in the 1930 and never resided in Germany per se, not even during
the Nazi period.
Born in
Leipzig, Backhaus began learning piano at the age of four with his mother and
enrolled at the Leipzig Conservatory – at the urging of Arthur Nikisch, no less
- where he studied from 1891 and 1899. He later perfected his training
privately with Eugen d'Albert in Frankfurt. At the turn of the century,
Backahuis launched into a career that would span nearly 70 years – he died in
1969 a few days before he was scheduled to perform in Austria. Even
at 85 he still had the technical infallibility, which was praised by the jury
of the "Anton Rubinstein Prize" when he won this once most coveted of
all piano prizes (in a group that included Béla Bartók) in 1905. Back then,
when the Liszt students and unrestrainedly romanticizing Beethoven interpreters
Rubinstein and d'Albert set the tone, Backhaus was already a disciplined
outsider, endeavoring to achieve a truly objective performance, without pomp
and false solemnity.
One of the
first pianists to make recordings, Backhaus had a long career not only on the
concert stage but also in the studio. He recorded the complete piano sonatas
and concertos of Beethoven and a large quantity of Mozart and Brahms. His
recordings of the complete Beethoven sonatas, made in the 1950s and '60s,
display exceptional technique for a man in his seventies. His live Beethoven
recordings are in some ways even better, freer and more vivid (some of these
are part of today’s montage, along with vintage recoirdings of Sonatas 22 and 28).
To complete
the montage, I am featuring Backhaus’ 1952 recording of Beethoven’s Second
Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic with Clemens Krauss. Backahus would record
a few years later a “stereo” version of the same concerto as part of a complete
cycle with the same orchestra under Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt. Most aficionados
prefer the latter performance (and set) as they feel the orchestra is more
“committed” under the younger conductor and maybe the soloist is therefore more
inspired. When I listen to this mono performance, I can still appreciate
Backhaus’ approach and esthetic.
This week’s Once Upon the Internet playlist, like our last post on Paul Badura-Skoda, features assorted downloads (mainly from the old MP3.COM) of works featuring Jörg Demus, a fellow Austrian pianist oif the same generation who also passed away earlier this year. He has released over 350 LPs and over 200 CDs, focusing on German items such as Bach, Mozart and Schumann, and has received international acclaim.
He entered the Vienna Academy of Music at the age of 11, and received instruction from Walter Kelschbaumer, Hans Swarowsky, Josef Krips and Joseph Marx. After graduating in 1945, he studied with Yves Nat in Paris, Walter Gieseking at the Salzburg Conservatory, and master classes with Wilhelm Kempff, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Edwin Fischer, and other legendary masters. He won the Busoni International Competition in 1956, and has been active worldwide.
The opening paragraph of his Telegraph obituary is both telling and a bit snippy if you ask me: “Jörg Demus, who has died aged 90, was an old-school Austrian pianist best known for his sensitive accompaniment of singers such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elly Ameling and, above all, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; he made his name with the music of Vienna – Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven – and, according to one reviewer, often performed as if the 20th century had never happened.”
Like Badura-Skoda, Demus was featured on a good number of our past playlists and montages – in fact, some of this week’s tracks are re-used from at least two of our Friday montages – most notably nboth books of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier from 2013.
Enjoy!
(All works featuring Jörg Demus, piano)
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791) Twelve Variations on“Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman” in C Major, K. 265 (Played on the Fortepiano)
Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-1849) Nocturne in E Major, op. 62, no. 2
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750) Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903 Robert SCHUMANN (1810 –1856) Blumenstück in D-flat Major, Op. 19
Franz Joseph HAYDN (1732 –1809) Keyboard Concerto in G major, Hob.XVIII:4 (conducting the Tokyo Chamber Players)
Franz SCHUBERT (1797 —1828) Ganymed, D. 544 (with Elly Ameling, soprano)
November 3rd – "Falling back" to Standard Time in North America (Guide # 86)
November 11 – JRemebrance Day (AKA Veteran's Day or Armistice Day) (Guide # 311)
November 28 – Thanksgiving day (USA) (Guidee # 314)
Continuing our review of past listener guides from Part 1, including sung and stage works (that includes Don Giovanni, Guidess
312 & 313), and some selected themes, like "The Concert Experience" and " The Trufecta". Also, we feature the cmplete set of Tchaikovsky's orchestra suites.
Your Listener Guides
Listener Guide #311 – Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day) is a memorial day observed in Europe and the Commonwealth countries to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty since World War I. Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the official end of World War I on that date in 1918; hostilities formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice. (ITYWLTMT Podcast #30 - 11 November 2011)
Listener Guides #312 & 313 – Don Giovanni
(Mozart)
Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, makes one conquest after another until the ghost of Donna Anna's father, the Commendatore, (whom Giovanni killed) makes his appearance. He offers Giovanni one last chance to repent for his multitudinious improprieties. He will not change his ways So, he is sucked down into hell by evil spirits. High drama, hysterical comedy, magnificent music! (Once or Twice a Fortnight - February 26th, 2015) (L/G 312 Act 1, L/G 313 Act 2)
Listener Guide #314 - Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in Canada, the United States, some of the Caribbean islands, and Liberia. Similarly named festival holidays occur in Germany and Japan. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday. (ITYWLTMT Montage # 296 - 23 November 2018)
This week’s
peek into the Podcast Vault revisits a post from 2013. The occasion, as is the
case today, was All Saints Day, a Christian festival celebrated in honour of
all the saints, known and unknown. In Western Christianity, it is celebrated on
1 November ; the Eastern Orthodox Church and associated Eastern Catholic
Churches and Byzantine Lutheran Churches celebrate it on the first Sunday after
Pentecost. Oriental Orthodox churches of Chaldea and associated Eastern
Catholic churches celebrate All Saints' Day on the first Friday after Easter.
In many
traditions, All Saints' Day is part of the season of Allhallowtide,
which includes the three days from 31 October to 2 November. On All Saints Day,
it is common for families to attend church, as well as visit cemeteries in
order to lay flowers and candles on the graves of their deceased loved ones.
(It goes
without saying that we seem to observe the first night of that three-day season
– Hallowe’en – more than the other two days, All Saints and All Souls days.)
In other
montages, we listened to works that dwell on the topic of death – think of
Berg’s Violin Concerto and Mahler’s Kindertottenlieder. Those works, if I may
say so, tackle the subject and its companion, mourning, straight on. As I tried
to say in the original musing that accompanied this montage, my thinking was to
present music that alludes to death without trying to be morbid. The two
“major” works on the montage – Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet and
Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration provide opportunity to refkexct on mortality
much mire in my mind than death itself, but that’s a personal opinion…
As a bonus,
I selected a work by Franz Liszt who famously provided a piano transcrtiption
of one of the tracks on our montage – the Danse Macabre. Some of the titles of
Liszt’s pieces, such as Totentanz, Funérailles, La lugubre
gondola and Pensée des morts, show the composer's fascination with
death. Totentanz (lit. rrans. Dance of the Dead) is notable for being
based on the Gregorian plainchant melody Dies Irae as well as for daring
stylistic innovations. The video clip features American pianist Byron Janis.
This week’s
Friday montage continues an arc we started ten days or so ago with Beethoven’s
“adaptation” of his violin concerto as a piano concerto. All the works on this
week’s montage are by Beethoven, adapted in other forms by other
composers/arrangers, and one by Beethoven himself.
A while
ago, I discussed how opera transcriptions were, in some way, the precursor of
recordings and radio. Not everybody could listen to elaborate pieces of music –
like an opera – at the drop of a hat.; but if you had a piano in the house, you
could enjoy an aria by simply playing a piano reduction. I like to think of
Beethoven’s “Piano Trio in D Major after his Second Symphony” as another
example of that idea. Not everybody could gather a small orchestra in their
living room, but you probably could find a couple of willing friends to partake
in a reduction of that symphony for piano, violin and cello. From an
entrepreneurial perspective, I think that was a brilliant idea! Musically,
Beethoven captures the essence of his symphony (and then some) in this
ingenious device.
An die
ferne Geliebte (To
the distant beloved) is considered to be the first example of a song cycle by a
major composer, in many ways the precursor of a series of followers, including
those of Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Hugo Wolf. Here is a YouTuibe clip
of the song cycle, as it was originally envisaged:
Franz
Liszt, in the spirit of Mendelssohn’s Songs without words, adapted a good
number of lieder as solo piano reductions without voice by Schubert, Schumann,
Beethoven, Chopin, Lassen, and Mendelssohn. His adaptation of Beethoven’s song
cycle is a fine example of of Liszt’s approach to the song without words.
Beethoven's
String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95, is commonly referred to as the
"Serioso," stemming from his title "Quartett[o] Serioso" at
the beginning and the tempo designation for the third movement. The historical
picture of this time period helps to put the piece in context. Napoleon had
invaded Vienna, and this upset Beethoven greatly. All of his aristocratic
friends had fled Vienna, but Beethoven stayed and dramatically complained about
the loud bombings.
It is one
of the shortest and most compact of all the Beethoven quartets. In character
and key, as well as in the presence of a final frenetic section in the parallel
major, it is related to another composition of Beethoven's middle period — the
overture for Goethe's drama Egmont, which he was composing in the same year he
was working on this quartet. Again, a performance of the work as originally
envisaged:
Gustav
Mahler is known today through his music, but in his own time was equally known
as a conductor and arranger. The music of JS Bach held a certain fascination
for Mahler throughout his life, and he reimagined Bach's music for the early
20th century orchestra. Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 95 was also arranged by
Mahler, who believed that it needed expanding to work in large concert halls,
and the result offers an alternative perspective on the work. Mahler arranged
this quartet for string orchestra, mostly by doubling some of the cello parts
with double basses.
Closing
this week’s podcast is a jazz-inspired version of Beethoven’s well-known piano
bagatelle Für Elise expanding it with orchestral accompaniment.
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