Franz Schubert Dressed to the Nines

This montage from our Podcast Vault revisits a post from September 26, 2014. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast166

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Our Podcast Vault montage this week come from our “Dressed to the Nines” series of 2014, this time focused on Schubert’s Great C Major Symphony.

We’ve done quite a number of Schubert musings over the years, considering many aspects of his output – lieder, chamber music and his orchestral music. In fairness, his orchestral output can be characterized as modest when compared to other aspects of his production, but some of these works – this ninth symphony more specifically – is noteworthy dues to its clear “late romantic” atmosphere.

The other feature work on the montage – selections from his music for Rosamunde. By all accounts the 1820 production of the play Die Zauberharfe was a flop. There were, however, positive things to say about Schubert’s musical prowess; scholars have noted that Schubert takes many steps here towards his mature style, tempering both his lyrical genius and displaying masterful motivic development.

Schubert did not write an overture to his drama Rosamunde, which premiered on December 20, 1823, and he instead used a variety of overtures, including at one point, the Act I Overture from Die Zauberharfe. A more explicit connection between these two dramas comes from a piano forte duet, purportedly arranged by Schubert in 1825 with an explicit description “Overture to the play ‘Rosamunde’.” Whether the association is correct or not, the reception history of Die Zauberharfe has been unquestionably attached to the later production.

Our filler clip today, keeping with the “nines” is Schubert’s piano sonata no. 9, performed in its entirety here by Alfred Brendel.

I thin you will (still) love this music too.

Beethoven - Sviatoslav Richter, Piano Concerto No. 3

 

This is my post from this week's Tuesday Blog.

This week's post on our ongoing #Beethoven2020 series is a Vinyl program featuring Sviatoslav Rchter playing Beethoven's third piano concerto.

Beethoven composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 at the time when he still performed himself, his increasing deafness would soon end his career as a piano virtuoso.

A quick review of Richter's Beethoven output on record has him performing cello sonatas as accompanist, and as soloist on the piano sonatas (he probably recorded them all in the USSR over a span of 30 years) but no "complete" concerto cycle. From what I could find, he recorded this concerto three times, twice with Kurt Sanderling (in Russia with the Moscow Youth Symphony and with the Vienna Symphony for DGG) and this recording (conveniently reissued for Melodiya in the Russia) for EMI with the Philharmona under Riccardo Muti.

The filler piece, the Andante Favori, is another Richter specialty, found in a few of his recordings.

Happy listening

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770- 1827)
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Andante Favori Wo0 57 In F Major

Piano – Sviatoslav Richter
Orchestra – Philharmonia Orchestra
Conductor – Riccardo Muti
Recorded: 19 & 20. IX. 1977, Abbey Road Studios, London.
Angel Records ‎– AM-534717
Series: Angel Master Series –
Format: Vinyl, LP, Reissue, Remastered (ADA)
Reissued: 1985

DETAILS - https://www.discogs.com/Beethoven-Sv...elease/8638699

Internet Archive - https://archive.org/details/01-piano-concerto-no.-3-allegro-co

Jewish Inspirations

This montage from our Podcast Vault revisits a post from September 22, 2017. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast259

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Today’s post marks the Jewish New Year-  Rosh Hashana - which technically starts at sunset tonight and ends at sunset this coming Sunday. The biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah (literally "day of shouting or blasting"). It is the first of the Jewish High Holy Days hat occur in the early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere.

Its observance involves praying, congargating in synagogue, personal reflection, and hearing the shofar, an ancient musical horn. I guess it is appropriate to associate music with this holidaty, as we do today with some selection of “Jewish tradition”.

As I pointed out in the original commentary for today’s montage, music of Jewish tradition falls somewhere between what we think of as being music of secular, national tradition and religious / sacred music. None of the pieces I selected for this montage of music of Jewish inspiration are in my view religious in nature, but they do share the common distinctive sound, at times “schmaltzy” we associate with Jewish folk music.

The filler piece this week, Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, is styled as an “Adagio on 2 Hebrew Melodies for Cello and Orchestra”. It predates Bloch’s Schelomo by about 30 years. Bruch, a Protestant, first became acquainted with the Kol Nidrei melody through the cantor-in-chief of Berlin, Abraham Jacob Lichtenstein. Cantor Lichtenstein was known to have cordial relations with many Christian musicians and supported Bruch's interest in Jewish folk music. While some commentators have criticized the lack of Jewish sentiment in Bruch's piece, Bruch never presumed to write Jewish music.

The clip here is a performance by Jacqueline Du Pré, with the Israel Philharmonic under her then-husband, Daniel Barenboim.

I think you will (still) love this music too.

Grande messe des morts

 

This montage from our Podcast Vault revisits a post from March 15, 2013. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/GrandeMesseDesMorts

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This week’s throwback montage was chosen to commemorate the 19^th anniversary of the terrir attacks of September 11, 2001. Hector Berlioz's 1837 Grande Messe des Morts ("Great Mass for the Dead," often referred to as his Requiem Mass) is an appropriate work to mark this somber anniversary. As I pointed out in the original commentary, the performance of the Requiem I retained marked another commemoration – the bombing of Dresden by Allied forces at the height of the Second World War.

In a Classical Notes article, we are reminded that, although Berlioz retained warm memories of his religious upbringing, he referred to God as "standing aloof in his infinite unconcern," dismissed worship as "revolting and absurd," called Catholicism "charming now that it no longer burns people. Berlioz's cynical attitude colors perceptions that his Requiem is predominantly secular.

The article provides critiques of Berlioz’s Requiem that, some might say; underscore the dichotomy of Berlioz’s agnostic views and the Mass’ ambitious scale. George Bernard Shaw disparaged the Berlioz Requiem as "only a peg to hang his tremendous music on; to a genuinely religious man the introduction of elaborate sensational instrumental effects into acts of worship would have seemed blasphemous." One suspects that such reproaches reflect the critics' shallow view of religion as merely providing worshipers with spiritual comfort, a narrow purpose to which they also consign requiems. Andreas Kluge credits Berlioz with balancing social protest with religious hope, "rais[ing] a voice of protest at human suffering on earth while also casting a wistful glance in the direction of divine redemption in the world to come."

Our filler work, marking the tenth anniversary of the 1830 Revolution, is the Grande Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, comprising three sections evoking eruptions of battle amidst a mournful cortege, a funeral oration as the victims were reinterred in a new commemorative monument in the Place de la Bastille, and a hymn of glory as the tomb was sealed. Initially written for a large symphonic band, in 1842 he added string and choral parts "which, although not obligatory, add considerably to the effect."

The filler, as for the main work this week, is performed under Sir Colin Davis.

I think you will (still) love this music too.

OTF Link - https://operalively.com/forums/showthread.php/3284-OTF-Grande-Messe-des-Morts