Balakirev King Lear Overture

 Day 31

Balakirev King Lear Overture

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Choo Hoey

A busy day today so only time for a short piece.

I have heard a few bits and pieces of Balakirev over the years - the second symphony and Islamey - but nothing has really stuck in the mind. I do recall that one of my lecturers at University had studied Balakirev and remember her pointing out some deficiencies in his technique - he had not been able to notate properly what he obviously intended in a piano postlude to a song.

Balakirev wrote incidental music to King Lear but I only had a recording of the overture. Hearing it blind I think that I might have thought the introduction was by Weber or perhaps the young Wagner. But later on there was much more of a Russian feel to the music and at times it did sound a bit like proto-Tchaikovsky. There were some interesting orchestral effects as well as one or two oddities - a whole string of bottom A’s for the bassoon which I think must have stemmed from a misunderstanding and some very strange doubling of the cor anglais and the clarinet which didn’t really work. The quiet end was effective. Balakirev had an important place in Russian music as a mentor to other composers which in the end was probably had a greater long term significance that his own achievements as a composer. Crucially it was him that persuaded Tchaikovsky to write the Romeo and Juliet overture, indeed dictating to him the form and even the key structure.  But Tchaikovsky’s music is on another plane altogether - the difference between talent and genius.

Britten String quartet no 3

 Day 30

Britten string quartet no 3 op 94

Maggini string quartet

It took me a while to get on the right wavelength with Britten. We did Noyes Fludde at school (I played a mixture of piano and handbells) and I was rather smugly superior about having to perform ‘children’s music’ - now I think that the piece is an absolute masterpiece. I heard Peter Pears sing the Nocturne in Norwich - I went to the concert to hear the Stravinsky pieces either side (I think that it was The Firebird and the Symphony of Psalms) and didn’t find any connection with the Britten - in fact I seem to reall that I rather pointedly sat on my hands during the applause - what a pompous youth I must have been!. But I do remember that Britten himself was in the audience and took a bow at the end - so I can at least say that I did see him in person.

Over the years I have come to appreciate more and more Britten. Peter Grimes is an extraordinary work (when Britten said is was ‘full of howlers’ he must have known he was just teasing) and among the other operas A midsummer Night’s Dream stands out. Among other pieces I would mention the Violin concerto, and who could overlook the folk song settings.

I’ve known the 2nd string quartet since university but I had never heard the 3rd quartet. It is his last major work, dating from 1976. Somehow I missed hearing the first radio broadcast and so this was an opportunity to catch up at last.

What a piece it is. Britten hadn’t written a string quartet for 30 years but right from the start you can tell that he is a master of the form - the instrumental writing, though requiring great virtuosity, is completely idiomatic and Britten achieves an astonishing variety of textures and effects - including at one point asking the viola to play arpeggios on the wrong side of the bridge! There is vigour in this music, which is all the more astonishing when you consider how ill Britten was when he wrote it. It is suggested that he couldn’t reach far enough to the top of large sheets of manuscript paper so he wrote a quartet instead which required less physical effort. But there is also wit and lyricism. 

The end is very moving - it is very much in the world of Death in Venice and contains several allusions to that score.  After the opening recitative it develops into a passacaglia - one of Britten’s favourite structures - and in very simply pure E major flows effortless to a quiet reflective end. The first performance was given only two weeks after Britten’s death - the atmosphere in the hall after the performance must have been quite magical.

Thanks to Mark again for the suggestion.

Saint-Saëns Piano quintet in a minor op 14

 Day 29

Saint-Saëns Piano quintet in a minor op 14

Groups instrumental de Paris

Saint-Saëns is a composer I have come to admire more and more in recent years. I suppose like most people my introduction to his music was The Carnival of the Animals, but as a teenager I didn't have the range of musical knowledge to appreciate the subtleties of its various allusions to other composers' works. I remember playing in the orchestra as a student for a performance of the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, which I enjoyed. I've conducted and played in several performances of the Organ Symphony and over the years have played one or two other works,

It was the Stephen Hough set of the piano concertos which set me off on my exploration of Saint-Saëns and I am really enjoying getting to know more of his vast catalogue of works. Saint-Saëns wrote a fair amount of chamber music. The septet with trumpet is great fun and there is some really attractive music in the two string quartets.  The piano quartet in b flat (actually the second but the first was only published relatively recently) is gorgeous.

This piano quartet is an early work dating from 1855 when the composer was 20. I enjoyed much of it but it is not in the same league as the other works I have mentioned.  There are some very attractive passages but I didn't think that it held together all that well. The writing for the strings is quite often orchestral in style , with lots of tremolos and passages in octaves for the two violins which sometimes go unnecessarily in to the stratosphere. The middle movements came off best - with some really beautiful lyrical passages in the slow movement and a real sense of excitement and daring in the scherzo.  The finale is a real oddity. It starts with a slow solemn fugue in the strings: my assumption (and I didn't turn the page in the score to find out what happened next) was that the composer would suddenly change the mood and give us one of his delightful light-hearted finales, as if to say 'fooled you'. But that didn't happen, The fugue subject turned into the main theme of the movement but in a way which was neither one thing nor the other - not academic but not fun.  Really odd.

The recording I have (from the big collection of Saint-Saëns' music on Warner) is quite old and the sound is quite wiry in places. Perhaps a better recording might have created a more positive impression.

So perhaps this piece didn't quite meet my expectations - but there is still plenty more Saint-Saëns to go at. I am currently exploring the operas - there is some absolutely gorgeous music there as well as drama and pathos. I haven't got to them all yet, so there is a fair chance that one of them will feature in this series later in the year. The only one of his operas I have seen is Samson and Delilah, but that was mainly memorable for a catastrophic failure in the scenery where Samson brought down the walls of the temple an act too early!

Elgar The Apostles

 Day 28

Elgar The Apostles op 49

Soloists

London Philharmonic choir and orchestra

Sir Adrian Boult

I've never been an out-and-out Elgarian. I think that the Enigma Variations is one of the most perfect masterpieces in the repertory and love the first symphony - I often wonder what it must have been like at the very first rehearsal when the players first encountered that motto theme. On the other hand I've never quite seen why the Cello concerto has such a devoted following and when my orchestra played the Violin concerto I felt (quite disgracefully)  that there was a great 20 minute piece struggling to get out of a 50 minute epic. 

I did play in a performance of the Dream of Gerontius at university and struggled to get on its wavelength - like many people I found the text very hard to take and at times Elgar's response to it was very harmonically diffuse. But if Janet Baker were available I might well take her to my mythical desert island to sing the Angel's farewell.

I had head a brief extract from The Apostles a few years ago when the scene with the Shofar (ram's horn) was features, but otherwise I knew nothing of the music. It is an epic piece scored for very large forces including 6 soloists, a choir and semi choir and a full orchestra with organ, harps and lots of percussion.

I have to say that I find the whole aesthetic of the piece difficult to related to. The Victorian oratorio tradition of massive choirs which take part in the narrative as well as reflect on it, and solo singers who take named parts is very far removed from anything that I am used to. But more than that, the whole pacing of the work seems odd - lines which in an opera would come and go in an instant or be the basis for a whole area seem here to be neither one thing nor the other. And it had to be said that I find that Elgar's word setting can be very odd - there often seem to be cases where the 'wrong' syllable was stressed for no apparent reason. Listening to the two hours of music here did make me appreciate how much Walton was able to pack in to the 35 mins or so of Belshazzar's Feast. An unfair comparison of course as Walton was writing in a very different era, but there were in fact less than 30 years between the two works. It feels much longer.  Incidentally Elgar and Walton did meet but only once: in the gents' lavatories at Hereford Cathedral in the interval of a concert where they both had works performed! Walton was too tongue tied to say anything - which in the circumstances was probably for the best!

In purely musical terms of course there is a huge amount to enjoy in The Apostles. The range of orchestral writing is extraordinary with all sorts of unexpected effects - not least the ram's horn I mentioned earlier - and the choral writing tests the choir to their limits - with some very atmospheric effects for the semi-chorus and off-stage voices. But as is often the case with Elgar, it is the simplest, most contemplative music which has the greatest impact. The end is a really good example of this - it might seem complex on the page with so many different strands going on, but in essence the music has a tenderness and directness that leaves a really strong impression. To hear the ending live in a cathedral acoustic must be a wonderful experience.

Boult's recording, the first, stands up well after 50 years and in his 80s he had mastery of the score and of the pacing required over such a long piece. The soloists are a rather mixed bunch - the style does now sound rather old fashioned and the singer taking the part of Judas struggled at times.

So I was glad that I have at least listened to The Apostles. The recording has sat on my shelf for a very long time. I might dip into parts of it again - particularly the orchestral introductions and the end, but I suspect that it may be a long time before I am ready to hear the full piece again. But I will try to include The Kingdom later in this project.

Granados Goyescas

 Day 27

Granados Goyescas

Alicia de Larrocha

So far in this project I have not included any piano music or music from Spain so I will kill two birds with one stone with Goyescas.

I'm not sure that I have heard any of Granados' music before - I might possibly have heard the maiden and the nightingale, which is part of this suite, but I don't have any strong memories of it. So I came to this music with no expectations but an assumption that it would be full of Spanish rhythms and seductive harmonies.

I have to say that I was rather disappointed. There were some lovely moments (the quiet passage before the coda in the last piece stands out for me) but it seems much of the time as if the music was not going anywhere but was progressing rather aimlessly. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the stories behind the pieces. That might have given a better shape to my appreciation, but as a purely musical experience this did not really generate much enthusiasm or commitment on my part. Ernest Newman said of Goyescas that it was 'piano music of the purest kind', something which I find difficult to comprehend. but he also said of it that it was ' the finest written out improvisation'. I certainly can relate to that. One can imagine Granados sitting at the piano looking at Goya's pictures and seeing where his fingers took him on the keyboard. 

As a piece of piano writing Goyescas has some remarkable textures makes finger-breaking technical demands. It it is real virtuoso music. Alicia de Larrocha was always a specialist in this music. She was known to have very small hands and listening to her playing one can only be astonished at just how she was able to get all of the notes under her fingers.

So I doubt that I will be returning to Goyescas any time soon. Granados expanded the music into an opera of the same name. Again I don't think that that will be on my list of pieces to explore.

 

Grieg Peer Gynt

 Day 26

Grieg Peer Gynt

Soloists

Malmö Chamber Choir

Malmö Symphony Orchestra

Bjarte Engeset 

Peer Gynt: 365 new pieces?

Yes of course I have know the famous pieces from Peer Gynt from school days, but this was an opportunity to listen to the whole of the incidental music. There is about 90 mins worth of music altogether - scored for a full orchestra and choir. It is a reminder that, at least in the largest centres, 19th century audiences would expect that a theatre would have an orchestra on hand, not only to play music before and after the performance but as incidental music. I doubt that there is any theatre anywhere now that could afford to put on a full production of Peer Gynt with the full musical forces that Grieg wrote for.

What an interesting experience to hear the whole thing. I do recall one of my lecturers at university saying that there was much more to Peer Gynt that the suites - it is just a pity that it has taken me the best part of 50 years to discover this for myself!

There is an astonishing variety of music here - some extended scenes and quite a lot of places where the dialogue and music come together in melodrama. Often where other composers have tried this the combination doesn't work, but here Greig paces things so well that it seems the most natural thing in the world. He uses the full panoply of orchestral colour - lots of percussion and plenty of stopped horn effects as just two examples.  Some of the supernatural music is clearly in the tradition of Wagner , Weber and Marschner  (indeed at one point there is a more or less straight lift out of the Flying Dutchman) but elsewhere we are in the world of late-romantic opera and some of the music points forward to the early twentieth century.

What is particular interesting is to hear the familiar excerpts in context. Morning Mood for example comes in the middle of the play and much earlier we hear a folk like almost modal version of the main tune as a hint of what is to come later. The death of Åse is surprisingly moving heard in the distance under dialogue, and the  Hall of the Mountain King takes on another dimension when you hear it with the wild voices that originally came with - the effect is hair raising.

This really was an enjoyable, even revelatory, afternoon's listening. Grieg tends to be looked at as a miniaturist who wrote nice but rather sugar-coated music. Peer Gynt shows just how wrong that view is - this was full blooded dramatic music which really packs a punch.

Handel Siroe, Re di Persia

 Day 25

Handel Siroe, Re di Persia

Solists

Cappella Coloniensis

Andrews Spering 

I came fairly late to Handel Opera. I remember writing an essay on Handel and opera at university but that was a bit of a abstract exercise - I'd never seen one of his operas on stage and the only recording I had heard anything of was the old New York City opera performance of Giulio Cesare with ponderous tempos and the title role sung an octave too low by a bass.

Two things changed all that. The first was attending a performance of Tamerlano in Leeds, which just happened to be on while I was staying there for work. The second was listening to a recording of Va Tacito from Giulio Cesare included on a sampler CD which came with a magazine. Hearing it at the right pitch and with the right articulation transformed the music, and I began to look at Handel in a new way.

Since then I've got to know quite a fair number of the operas through seeing them on stage and listening to recordings. There is no doubt that the historically informed performance movement has had a huge impact on Handel and the operas are no longer seen as museum pieces but real dramas that can communicate directly with modern audiences. Indeed two of the most memorable evenings I have had in the opera house were seeing the ENO productions of Partenope and Agrippina.

Siroe is one of the least known of the Handel operas.  None of the Handel recital discs in my collection have any extracts from it and as far as I know I had never heard a note of it before. It has the usual impossible complicated plot involving disguise and mistaken identity and it would take far to long to summarise what takes place. But when listening at home none of that really matters. You can sit back and enjoy a constant stream of musical invention. I don't think that there was a dud aria anywhere and some of the music was exceptional - particularly the scene in the prison in Act 3 where Handel writes in the highly unusual key for the time of B flat minor.

Siroe is quite a small scale work - is uses only 6 singers and an orchestra of strings, 2 oboes and continuo - though I noticed that in this performance the conductor added some recorders in Act 3. Perhaps there is no real showstopper in this opera, or one of the those moments of introspection when time just stands still. But all in all it was still a really positive experience to make the opera's acquaintance.

Sometimes I think that Handel is the greatest composer of all time. As a student I would have found that an absurd thing for anybody to say but as I get older the more I appreciate the sheer variety, inventiveness and richness of his output. There will be more Handel to come later in this series - there are at least a couple more operas that I want to tackle before the year is out.

Mendelssohn Piano quartet no 3

 Day 24

Mendelssohn Piano quartet in b minor op 3

Juho Pohjonen

Erin Keefe

Paul Neubauer

Narkek Hakhnazaryan

Any discussion of Mendelssohn's chamber music has to start with the Octet - surely one of the greatest examples of youthful genius anywhere in music. I've know and loved the Octet all my adult life. I've also know the string quartets reasonably well but the rest of Mendelssohn's chamber music is still there to explore.

His first published works with opus numbers are three piano quartets - this third was finished on 18 January 1825 - almost exactly 200 years ago. He was 15 when he wrote them, but you would never tell that from listening to them. There is an astonishing maturity to them - a complete mastery of the style and of the musical material. It is said that Mendelssohn's father was only prepared to support his son's musical education if professional musicians gave a positive endorsement to his composition, so this piece was tried out for the first time at the Paris Conservatoire, where the piano part was played by none other that Cherubini (somebody who will feature presently in this series) and the violin by Baillot, the foremost violin teacher of the first half of the 19th century. His father was clearly able to pull a few strings to get them to agree to play the piece through.

The piano quartet is an unusual format, particularly at this time. I suppose that Mendelssohn would have know the two quartets by Mozart but I doubt that he would have know the very early examples by Beethoven which were not published until 1828. Mendelssohn handles the ensemble with ease and refinement: while most of the time the three strings form a group to complement the piano there are all sorts of interesting textures.

The third movement is a typically whirlwind Mendelssohnian scherzo which is great fun. Perhaps the last movement is the weakest. The piano writing is virtuosic and does rather overpower the strings at time, and perhaps the movement is a bit long for the material. But all in all this was a very satisfying piece to listen to. Any composer of the early 19th century would have been proud to have written it - it really does stretch the imagination to get your head round the fact that it was written by a 15 year old.

Schoenberg String Quartet no 3

 Day 23

Schoenberg String quartet no 3 op 30

LaSalle Quartet

Even after 100 years Schoenberg is a tough nut to crack. I listened to a fair amount of his music as a student and have heard Pierrot Lunaire and the 5 Orchestral pieces live. I don't think that I have ever played any of the music as an orchestral player but have tried to play at least some of the simpler piano pieces. And I love Verkläte Nacht.

I knew the second quartet, which is in all the text books as the moment where Schoenberg finally left all traces of tonality behind, but as far as I recall I had not heard the third quartet - which dates from 1927 - before.

I have to say that I found it very hard going and at the end really wanted to play a C major chord. I've no problem listening to Webern or Boulez - they in their different ways created a new musical language in which to exploit atonality. The problem with Schoenberg, at least in this relative later phase of his development is that is still using all of the gestures of late romanic music but without the harmonic foundations that go with it. If you look at the score and ignore the actual notes but retain the rhythms phrasing and structure much of the music could almost pass for Brahms. But  for example, gestures towards climaxes make little sense without the underpinning of an impetus towards the tonic.  The effect is nothing like, say, the 'wrong note' harmony in Stravinsky's Neo classical style where the dissonant chords give a piquancy. It, to my ears at least, is unrelenting and has not real sense of direction.   

I don't quite know what led Schoenberg to write in this style - his more expressionistic earlier music has much more invention and does create its own sound world. But in the end this just seemed rather sterile. I've generally liked most of the pieces that I have heard so far in this project and even when I haven't particularly enjoyed them I could see what they were trying to do. But this one just left me cold.

I remember at university one of my lecturers saying in a rather sotto voce tone that she didn't think that Schoenberg was actually very musical! Yes he was a theorist and a teacher but ultimately there was some spark of musicality lacking in him.  It seems rather a shocking thing for a musical academic to say in the 1970s, where serialism still held sway in many places, but I do now see exactly what she meant.

Taverner Missa Corona Spinea

 Day 22

Taverner Missa Corona Spinea

The Sixteen

Harry Christophers

The music of John Taverner was on the syllabus for my B.Mus degree and I do remember hearing one of the masses (I think it must have been the Western Windye mass) and one of the settings of Dum transisset sabbatum. My main memory is of very high notes in the top line.

That is certainly a feature of this mass, which probably dates from about 1525-1530. It was written for Cardinal Wolsey's choir at (what is now) Christ Church College Oxford, which was thought to be the best choir in England at the time. Indeed there is speculation (probably without much foundation) that Henry VIII, who may well have heard the mass, was jealous of Wolsey's choir and this is some way contributed to Wolsey's downfall. 

My mental association of Taverner with high voices is certainly borne out by this mass. The treble part is extraordinary high. It is not so much the occasional high note, but the fact that the music lies very high for bars on end (accepting that the concept of a bar is a bit of an anachronism when talking about about music of this era). Indeed there is a lively musicological debate about precisely what pitch this music should be sung at - it is certainly high, but how high?  If you want to see how academic debate can descend into point scoring and bitchiness see some of the discussion  on line about the validity of using measurements of historic organ pipes to determining the pitch of music in the 16th century!

To my non expert ear this music is a clear bridge between the medieval eraand the polished renaissance polyphony of Palestrina which I referred to on Day 8. It has the rough edges and surprising harmonic abruptness of medieval music but you can also see the move towards longer and more lyrical lines. The rhythms are more varied and in this particular mass there is a great variety of texture from the full six voices through to the parts with only two or three voices. I say six voices but towards the end Taverner splits first the top line and then the top two lines into two/four voices in an effect known as Gymel. The effect is astonishing - rather like solo instruments emerging from an orchestral texture in much later music.

This is fascinating music and I enjoyed listening to it. I have to admit though the effect of all of those high notes was a bit overwhelming. Perhaps in the echoing acoustic of a cathedral it would have been easier to absorb - this is not really the sort of music to listen to in one's living room.  How the singers managed to maintain such consistency of tone in such difficult music I have no idea. To perform the whole thing live must be a huge undertaking particularly if boy trebles are used for the top line, as they would have been in Taverner's day.  This recording used women's voices for the top line, and very splendid they were too.

Messager Les P'tites Michu

 Day 21

Message Les P'tites Michu

Soloists

Orchestra National des Pays de la Loire

Choeur D'Angers Nantes Opéra

Pierre Dumoussaud

I've mentioned before in this project my interest in French opera.  One of the things that most attracts me is that there is no real dividing line between what one might call serious grand opera and lighter operetta. Stylistically there are strong similarities between the two extremes and many composers were able to move seamless between one and the other. If you take Carmen, for example, the intense tragic music is contrasted with something like the Act 2 quintet. Even in Benventuto Cellini the trio in Act one would fit very easily into a comic opera.  Categorisation of the lighter French opera genres is quite complicated. What is an Opéra Comique, an Opéra Bouffe, an Operetta, a light opera, a lyric opera and even a musical comedy? 

There is so much music to enjoy here. Offenbach is a constant delight (I'm sure I will be including him in this project) and slightly later there is a whole raft of composers to explore - Planquette, Lecocq, Christiné, to name but a few who are well worth listening to. Then there are people like Reynaldo Hahn and Chabrier - the list goes on.

Probably the most highly regarded of all of these light opera composers is André Messager. He is a reallygood example of the way that there was no real hard and fast distinction between light and serious music. He was at one time musical director of the Folies Bergère but also become the musical director of the Paris Opera, where among other important premieres he conducted the first performance of Pelléas et Mélisande. Ballet lovers will know his score for Les Deux Pigeons. His most famous opera is Véronique. You probably know the donkey duet from Act 1, even if you didn't know where it came from.

Les P'tites Muchu (1897) is a constant delight. It has a plot involving babies mixed up at birth -conveniently called Blanche Marie and Marie Blanche. If that reminds you of Gilbert and Sullivan it is no real surprise. Messager comes from the same tradition - indeed he had an opera performed at the Savoy Theatre - the spiritual home of G+S. The one word I would use to describe the score is 'suave'. There is an elegance in the melodic writing and some piquant harmonic moments which come just when you least expect them. I knew a couple of the individual numbers but this was my first time listening to the whole thing, It was a lovely way to spend a morning.

I'm sure that I will be returning to lighter French opera later in this series - there is so much more to explore. If this genre is new to you I would recommend the single disc that Susan Graham recorded of highlights from a number of these operas: it includes one from this piece.

Schubert songs from 1825

 Day 20

Schubert songs from 1825

Im Abendrot (1)

Der Einsame (2)

Die junge Nonne (3)

Lied Der Anne Lyle (4)

Gesang der Norna (5)

Des Sängers Habe (6)

Auf der Bruck (7)

Im Walde (8)

Der blinde Knabe (9)

Totengräbers Heimweh (10)

 

Christine Brewer (1)

Richard Jackson (2) (6)

Margaret Price (3) (9)

Marie McLaughlin (4) (5)

Peter Schreier (7) (8)

Christopher Maltman (10)

Graham Johnson

How does one get to grips with the vast corpus of Schubert songs? Depending on how you count variants and fragments there are well over 600 of them. John Reed in his Schubert Song Companion comes to a total of 631 but readily accepts that there will never be a single definitive answer.

I know the song cycles and most of the famous songs but much of the rest is completely unknown to me. I indulged in purchasing the box set of the complete Schubert songs issued by Hyperion a few years ago and sometimes I think that it is staring at me, challenging me to tackle each and every song. One day (or should say year) I might tackle this.

The Hyperion Schubert set was originally issued as a separate recitals with songs from various periods, but the reissue has them organised in date order. This meant that for this project I was able to sample a group from the same year. I chose 1825, 200 years ago, and listened to 10 songs. 

What astonishing variety there is in this music. From the almost domestic ambience of the first song through to the near-Wagnerian intensity of no 3 - the only song in this group that I remember hearing before. As ever the piano parts a delight. Schubert has a way of making even the most simply harmonic support to the melody come to life and there are lots of little touches in these songs that bring a smile - such as the chirping of the cricket in no 2. The harmonic range in these songs is quite extraordinary. Again even in the simplest diatonic songs there are touches of chromatic inflections which take you by surprise. 

The last of these 10 songs left the greatest impression on me. It starts of in that quite heavy ‘plodding’ way we know from the late song cycles as the gravedigger goes about his daily task but as he contemplates his own death and wonders who will bury him the mood changes into something very introspective and almost transcendental - the music hangs in the air and takes us in all sorts of directions. A piece like this really makes you wonder what on earth Schubert matured music might have been like had he lived into his old age - after all he was only 15 years younger than Wagner. It is one of the great imponderables of music.

I’m sure that later in this project I will return to Schubert’s songs and take another dip into that big box of CDs. How lucky we are that Graham Johnson was there to partner all of these singers and to write such inspiring commentary on the songs. The box set includes all of the translations but there is not room for the commentary - but the notes to the individual songs can be found on line. Johnson did publish expanded versions of his notes in a massive three volume companion to the Schubert songs. It is unfortunately out of print and second hand copies command very high prices.

Liszt Hunnenschlacht

 Day 19

Liszt Hunnenschlacht (the Battle of the Huns)

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Gianandrea Noseda

The Liszt symphonic poems have a slightly curious place in music history. They are seen as key works in the development of the symphonic poem and programmatic music more generally yet they are often discussed in a patronising tone, as if they are not quite respectable and too vulgar and populist. This discourse is not helped by the long-standing rumours that Liszt didn't orchestrate them himself, suggesting that he was not a 'proper' composer. The orchestration myth has been debunked. Liszt did try out ideas with colleagues and took their advice on some aspects of how to write for particular instruments but it is now clear that the final orchestration was entirely his work. 

The only one of the symphonic poems that it at all well known (and the only which which I have played) is Les Préludes, though even that is a rarity in the concert hall these days. 

Hunnenschlacht is based on a painting which depicts a battle between the forces of Atilla the Hun and the Romans. I enjoyed it immensely. it is full of very vivid music description - the sound of the horses as they gallop towards the battlefields, the battle cries themselves and then the ascent of the souls of the dead soldiers as they ascent heavenwards. The first section is perhaps a bit overlong and repetitive (it must be a nightmare to play for the strings) and the apotheosis is rather over the top - complete with organ solo. But overall it does make a very strong impression. The musical language is quite advanced and at times looks forward to the world of The Ring and Parsifal, which were a couple of decades away.

One problem with listening to this sort of piece is that descriptive musical language has been absorbed into the world of the film and television score, so that what was novel in Liszt's time has become the commonplace and clichéd. (Indeed there was an irreverent moment when my mind turned to the Devil's Gallop by Charles Williams - as used in Dick Barton special agent, and the Spanish Inquisition sketch of Monty Python!). That's hardly Liszt's fault.

One interesting point is that the score specifies that an organ or harmonium can be used. Presumably that for situations where a full organ is not available. The same thing happens in Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony. I did once hear a recording of a performance where a harmonium was used - it sounded dreadful!

There is so much Liszt to go at that I hardly know where to start.  The complete piano music on Hyperion takes 99 CDs (and more is still being discovered). How, given his very active life as a performer - to say nothing of the complexities of his private life - he ever found time to compose is a mystery to me.

Spohr Double quartet in d minor op 65

 Day 18

Spohr Double quarters in d minor op 65

Melos ensemble

For British musicians the name Spohr is remembered (if only vaguely) for two reasons. The first is because of the reference in The Mikado ‘like Spohr interwoven with Bach and Beethoven’. The second is because his same appeared on the frame of the front cover of the standard Novello editions of choral works, alongside Mozart Beethoven Haydn, Handel, Mendelssohn, Weber and Bach. It is inconceivable now that any publisher wanting to put the names of major 19th century composers on a cover would think of adding Spohr.  His fall into obscurity has few parallels.

The only work of Spohr that I know is the Nonet, which is a delightful piece, I did hear one of the symphonies years ago and when we were looking at interesting operas to perform with the University Opera Group Spohr’s Faust was on a list of possibles but never made the cut.

This double quartet is the first of four by the composer. Unlike the Mendelssohn octet, which treats the 8 instruments as a single group, this is piece where the two quartets maintain their separate identity for most of the time - indeed the second quartets is very much subservient to the first and I have seen it suggested that it is good piece for experienced quartets players to use to introduce their advanced pupils into the art of quartets playing.

The music itself was perfectly pleasant but to be honest it rarely seemed more than this. It was all well controlled but a bit anonymous - a bit like Schumann or Mendelssohn without the moments of genius. The scherzo is the most attractive movement with a lively rhythm and an inventive form where the scherzo is not repeated verbatim after the trio but where the main ideas are further developed.

There are those who hold Spohr in high regard and perhaps I picked the wrong piece, but I don’t feel tempted to explore his output further at the moment - though there is certainly plenty off it - there are 18 violin concertos, 10 operas and 10 symphonies to go at just for starters.

Purcell Why, why are all the muses mute?

 Day 17

Purcell Why, why are all the muses mute

Choir of New College Oxford

The King's Consort

Robert King

My first experience of Purcell was singing in the choir in a performance of Come Ye Sons of Art at school. We also did a production of Dido and Aeneas. I didn’t sing in that, though I helped backstage and as far as I remember I rattled the thundersheet at a dramatic moment!

We think of Schubert and Mozart as producing huge amounts of music in a short life time - we should put Purcell in that list. The Z numbers in the standard catalogue of his works go well into the 800s. One of the issues with all that music that it is difficult to place in modern concert life. The sacred music still works in a church context but much of the secular music is incidental music for long-forgotten plays, so we are unlikely to hear it in context. Hence the suites and arrangements of Purcell which were quite common during the last century, though we hear less of them these days. 

The operas are a special case. Dido and Aeneas still works well, though it is too short to make a full evening’s entertainment on its own. But the other ‘operas’ are more problematic. They are generally described as semi-operas because they are a curious mixture of play and opera which are difficult to bring off. How much of the dialogue do you retain where some of the main characters only speak and don’t sing? The last production of King Arthur I saw abandoned all dialogue and just presented the work as a series of musical tableaux. That’s one solution but I am not sure that it was an ideal solution. But the music in these semi operas is so wonderful that it cries out to be performed. If you don’t know it try the frost scene in King Arthur or If love’s a sweet passion from The Fairy Queen.

Why, why are all the muses mute is one of Purcell’s welcome songs. These are occasional pieces written largely for royal events. This one is for the return of James II to court after the successful putting down of the Monmouth rebellion. These welcome songs tend to have very sycophantic texts that seem all most comic to our ears. This one is no exception, comparing the King’s triumphs to those of a Caesar!. In many ways it is a curious piece. It has no instrumental introduction and goes straight into a recitative (perhaps the introduction has got lost somewhere over time) and it ends with a chorus lamenting that all things decay with the last words being His fame and the world together will die, shall vanish together away. The piece is quite long and episodic and one imagines that James II (if he was actually there) would have been metaphorically looking at his watch waiting for the final chorus in his honour only to find this very different sort of ending.

Musically this final chorus is the highlight of the piece. We see Purcell’s mastery of chromatic harmony and melodic invention in all its splendour. Else where I found the piece a bit patchy and somewhat discursive. The duet for the two basses (complete with fruity bottom Ds) was a bit hard to take seriously but the soprano duet was a delight in a work in which lower voices predominate. Perhaps most notable were the instrumental postludes, particularly the one after Britain thou now are great. These postludes are generally one of the high points of Purcell’s odes - he elaborates so inventively on the melodic material of the preceding songs and takes the harmony into quite unexpected places. Jazz musicians will recognise some of his ‘blue note’ chords!

So this was a curates egg of a piece. Not a place to start an exploration of Purcell’s - I’d go with Come Ye Sons of Art - but which shows , in its finest movements, just why Purcell is celebrated as one of England’s greatest ever composers.

Chaminade Callirhoé suite de ballet

 Day 16

Chaminade

Callirhoé Suite de Ballet

Orchestra national de Metz Grand Est

David Reiland

One of the most encouraging developments in the last few years has been the increasing attention paid to the work of female composers. I think that I went through my entire school and university music studies without  the work of any female composers being discussed - other than perhaps Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, very much as adjuncts to their husband/brother rather than in their own right. The position is now significantly different. I see several works by female composers in the forthcoming concerts in my own city and I know that a number of promoters are keen to do what they can to spread the message.

I don't buy into the argument that somehow all female composers are the equal of their male counterparts and it is only prejudice that has held them back. But equally we need to hear as much as possible of the music of female composers so we can start to identify which of them really were writing music of the highest quality. Recordings help a lot here and I have been greatly enjoying the set Compostrices on my favourite Bru Zane label, which brings together a really good collection in many genres written by 19th century female composers. From that I have already started to explore in more detail the works of Mel Bonis and and Louise Ferrenc.

Today's piece comes from that same collection. Ironically perhaps it is by the one female composer who has at least a wider name recognition. Cécile Chaminade music had quite a following at the end of the 19th century in France but also internationally. One of her pieces was played at Queen Victoria's funeral. She was seen very much as a 'respectable' composer of salon music and songs. You quite often find pieces by her in piles of old music in second-hand book shops. Tastes change and her music went completely out of fashion. It all but disappeared other than her flute concerto, which is still part of the standard repertoire for that instrument. 

Callirohé is a ballet suite in 4 movements dating from 1888. It is typically French and inhabits the same musical world as Massenet and Delibes. Charming and melodic with just enough hint of harmonic daring to escape the commonplace. The orchestral writing is also very French with lots of interesting harp effects and some inventive woodwind writing. Here are there (particularly in the first movement) are hints of the more adventurous harmonic language which we would see a generation later in Ravel and Debussy. The last movement is perhaps a little too long for its material - and in a few places it seemed as if Chaminade was writing with the score of España propped up beside her! - but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this music. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece but it was well worth hearing. 

I'm sure that there will be more in this project from that same Bru Zane compilation.

Mozart Symphony no 20

 Day 15

Mozart Symphony no 20 in D K133

The English Consort

Trevor Pinnock

The last three Mozart symphonies are of course key works in the repertoire. There are perhaps a further half dozen or so of his symphonies which are well know but I suspect that for most people, including me, much of the rest is practically unknown. So I decided to explore these earlier symphonies by selecting one at random. Whether by luck or otherwise I don't know but I certainly found a winner.

No 20 dates from 1772 when he was would have been 16. It is a delightful work full of energy and invention. The orchestra includes two trumpets as well as the usual pairs of oboes and horns and this certainly gives a brighter texture, right from the start. The slow movement is a lovely example of Mozart writing in the 'style gallant' where, for this movement only, a flute joins the strings. My assumption when listening to this was that one of the oboists would have taken the flute for this movement - something I was pleased to note was also suggested in the commentary in Neal Zaslaw's masterly book on Mozart's Symphonies. The minuet is relatively conventional but the trio is fascinating with some interesting cross rhythms and syncopations. The last movement is an energetic tarantella. 

There is one very odd bar in the first movement (bar 161) where the second oboe is suddenly exposed playing a D major scale after everybody else has finished their scales. Had I heard this live I might have thought that the oboist had lost his/her place but it is very clearly marked in the score. Was it meant to be a Haydnesque joke - if so it doesn't come off. I looked up what Zaslaw had written about this piece after I had heard it I saw that he was similarly troubled by the passage. He is bolder than I would have been and calls it 'a rare instance of failed artistic judgement on Mozart's part'.  Even Homer nods!

In this performance by Trevor Pinnock the repeats were observed in the return of the minuet after the trio. Nowadays the convention is not to take the repeats when the minuet returns but I don't think that there is historical evidence to suggest that in Mozart's time this modern practice was the norm. Certainly Hogwood in his pioneering set of Mozart symphonies did all of the repeats.  I suspect that it is when minuet and trio movements became longer that people started to omit the repeats. I need to do some more research.

There is bound to be more Mozart in this series.  I treated myself to the big box of Mozart's complete works on CD a few years ago and there are many many CDs there that have not yet been played. I suspect that later in the year I will investigate one of the early operas.

Wolf Spanisches Liederbuch

 Day 14

Wolf Spanisches Liederbuch

Anne Sofie von Otter

Olaf Bär

Geoffrey Parsons

My first memory of Hugo Wolf is watching a masterclass on TV where Elizabeth Schwarzkopf more or less terrified a young singer who was trying to start the last song in the Italian Songbook - Ich Hab’ in Penna - she wouldn’t let her get past the first few notes. I don’t think that Schwarzkopf could understand that young people didn’t have her level of perfection.  Other than that the only other early experience of Wolf was hearing the Italian Serenade. Since then I have got to know and love many of the songs from the Italian Song book - including that one that the young singer struggled so much with, but I’ve not explored Wolf more widely and didn’t know any of the songs from the Spanish Songbook.

It is a rather curious collection. There are 44 songs in total of which the first 10 are spiritual and the remainder secular. I have to say that I found those spiritual songs rather hard going. They are very much concerned with suffering and anguish rather than joy, The mood is pretty bleak. It is all very intense with little light and shade. At time is was as if Amfortas and Gurnemanz were taking in turns to tell us how difficult  life can be.

The secular songs had much more variety. There are still plenty of them which dwell on the anguish of love but there are also some much lighter songs with a sense of fun. 

Wolf is not an easy composer to listen to. The harmonic language is extremely complex. The spirit of Wagner lurks behind most of the songs. At times one can see Wolf as the heir to Schumann but elsewhere the music seems to look forward to early Schoenberg.  The piano writing is exceptionally demanding and in live performances there must be places where the pianist is in real danger of completely overwhelming the singer. 

This is not music that you can sit back and let wash over you - as you can sometimes even with the songs of Schubert and Schumann. Almost every bar demands close attention. There is almost two hours of music here and there is no way that I could have listened to it all in one sitting. I paced myself through the day, listening to a few songs at a time. 

Wolf’s fusion of words and music has no real equal anywhere in music. My German is rudimentary to say the least and my score had no English translation with the music - I had to follow a separate text. So I am sure that there were many subtleties that I missed. This is very much music which demands repeated listening before you can really appreciate what it is all about. It is the ultimate connoisseur’s music.   

I would certainly recommend the Italian songbook as the place to start an exploration of Wolf. The Spanish songbook is something to follow up with later.

Haydn Theresienmesse

 Day 13

Haydn Theresienmesse

Erna Spoorenberg

Bernadette Greevy

John Mitchinson

Tom Krause

Choir of St John's College Cambridge

Academy of St Martin-in-the-fields

George Guest

Haydn has a central part in my musical life. I find his range of invention absolutely astonishing and I don't think that I have ever heard a piece of his which did not contain at least one moment of astounding individuality. I've been lucky enough to perform a lot of Haydn over the years - including conducting the London symphony, which was a real treat. 

Haydn's masses - especially the six late masses of which the Theresienmesse is one, have been regarded with some suspicion by some musicians because they sit too close to the sound world of the symphonies and hence not 'religious 'enough. I'm not really sure what people expect from a composer who had more or less single-handedly developed the symphony and string quartet into major art forms. Was he expected to drop everything that he knew and find a different way of composing, just because he was setting the mass?

My experience of the Haydn Masses goes back a long way. As a boy treble before my voice broke I sang in a School performance of the Nelson Mass.  I still remember the terrifying exposed entry on the top A in the Dona Nobis Pacem.

The Theresienmesse does not have quite the white hot level of inspiration of the Nelson Mass, but then what has? Robbins Landon called that mass 'arguably Haydn's greatest single composition, and who am I to disagree with him. But is still a splendid piece full of inspired moments. I'd call out two. First the unison choral opening of the Agnus Dei, which comes as a real surprise, and secondly the whole of the Et incarnatus est, particularly the quiet but menacing entry for the trumpets and drums towards the end.

The recording I have of the mass is quite old (1965). It comes from the famous series of Haydn masses conducted (mainly) by George Guest which gave the first opportunities people had, at least in this country, to hear the masses as a collection in good sound. The performance holds up well as far as the orchestra and choir are concerned but the solo voices now seem rather too operatic and over the top - with much more vibrato than one would expected nowadays. I think that Haydn would have expected members of the choir to sing the solo parts rather than engage separate soloists (I don't know for certain) and if that was the case there would be much better integration of choir and soloists than there is here. But still it was a performance full of vigour and the true Haydn spirit.

I don't know how much more Haydn there will be in this series, simply because I have put a lot of time in recent years in listening to as much of his music as I can. Last year I did a project listening to one symphony a day in number order and I also listen to a lot of the string quartets. The piano trios I have only dipped into occasionally so there are plenty there that I could used, and the Haydn Operas are very much unknown territory so one of those might feature at some point.

Fauré Two late song cycles

 Day12

Fauré  two late song cycles

Mirages op 113

Stephen Varcoe

Graham Johnson

L'Horizon Chimérique op 118

Charles Panzéra

Madeleine Panzéra-Bailot

I came fairly late to French song. Schubert and Schumann were 'my' song composers and although I will have head some French song in recitals I didn't really explore the repertory. My way in was through hearing Susan Graham singing Reynaldo Hahn's L'Heure Exquise, which totally captivated me. From there I started to find more about Hahn and heard his own recordings as a performer of French song, particularly Bizet and, especially, Chabrier. Since then with the help of Hyperion's superb series of recordings of French song I have started to explore the repertory in greater breadth. Of course Fauré is an essential part of that corpus but I hadn't previously got round to these two late song (and relatively compact - four songs each) cycles.

As is the case for most people of my age my first experience of Fauré was via Listen with Mother, where the Berceuse from the Dolly Suite was used as the theme music. It was a joy later on to be able to play this as a piano duet with my daughter and an even greater joy when she chose it as music for us to walk into the register office for her wedding. Other than that Fauré for most people means the Requiem. This was a favourite of my mother's and the famous King's College recording was often playing in the house. Wonderful as this is I do sometime wonder what it would have originally sounded like - is our aural image of it rather too sugar-coated?

Late Fauré is rather a different matter. By this time in his life he was virtually deaf and his musical style was very stripped back, with very few expansive gestures. Indeed there is little here which could be regarded as conventionally melodic. But what really counts here is the harmonic inventiveness. This is of course still tonal music but the subtle shifts of key and the chromatic inflections create an atmosphere of real beauty and infinite imagination. Of the two cycles I preferred  Mirages because of its real inward looking intimacy. L'Horizon is slightly more extrovert, though still tinged with sadness. The version of this I heard was that by Charles Panzéra and his sister. They gave the first performance and the work is dedicated to him. 

French song can be an acquired taste. It can certainly sometime seem refined to the point of pretentiousness - Dudley Moore so beautifully captured this in his parodies in Beyond the Fringe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujei43f2qkU.  But, as I have been discovering, there is so much here to enjoy once you find a way in.  

I've certainly been helped by the writings of Graham Johnson. Not only in his superb notes to the Hyperion recordings but his book A French Song companion, which is essential reading for all who wish to explore this repertory.  I'm sure there will be more French song in this project.

Méhul Uthal

Day 11

Méhul Uthal

Les Talens Lyriques

Christophe Rousset

18th and early 19th century French opera is one of my particular interests. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that there was a tradition of performing rare operas in my time at Nottingham University and several of these were French. I conducted Auber's Masaniello (La Muette de Portici) and also took part in performances of Spontini's La Vestale, Grétry's Richard Coeur-de-lion and Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable. The year before I went up to Nottingham the opera group also performed Halévy's La Juive. So there was a chance to get to know this repertoire from the inside.

The second is that Berlioz was an early enthusiasm of mine and I was keen to understand the operatic tradition in which he grew up.  His memoirs and other writings are full of references to otherwise obscure composers such as Le Suer, Dalayrac, Cherubini and others made me want to explore his musical roots. After all even a composer as innovative as Berlioz doesn't spring out of nowhere - these earlier composers undoubtedly influenced his musical development.

Méhul (1763-1817) was one of those composers frequently mentioned by Berlioz. I have heard a couple of his operas and even conducted once of his symphonies a few years ago, but Uthal (1806) was new to me. It is an early example of the obsession that romantic composers had with a largely mythical version of Scotland (think Lucia di Lammermoor or Der Vampyr). It does get an occasional mention in the text books because the composer omitted violins from the score and doubled the viola parts - it seems in an effort to capture the gloomy atmosphere of the Scottish scenery. This incidentally prompted Grétry so say (so legend has it) 'I would have given a Louise d'or to hear an E string' after the first performance.

It is in fact the orchestral sonorities that are one of most attractive features of the opera. Aside from the lack of violins there is much inventive writing for the wind, especially the horns, and some very impressive effects on the timpani. There is also, very unusually for such an early opera, an important harp part , not just reserved for special effects but well integrated into the texture of the music.

Uthal has, like many French operas of the period, spoken dialogue between the music numbers, but the music itself contains much accompanied recitative and has quite a fluid structure. There are arias, but this is predominantly an ensemble piece where there is a fairly free flow between recit and more formal sections. The male chorus is used extensively and again is integrated into the overall dramatic flow. 

There's some really impressive music here - perhaps most notable is the chorus of Bards near the end (don't ask why they are there) which is quite beautiful in its repose and yet at the same time with undercurrents of forward momentum.  Overall this was a really good addition to my knowledge of French opera and it won't be the last time I dip into this repertoire this year. 

If you don't know any of this music it is quite hard to get across the style of this music. Think a mixture of Gluck, the Magic Flute and early Beethoven and you will get some idea - but you really should listen for yourself.

The recording comes from the marvellous series of French opera recordings which is being put together by the palazzetto Bru Zane. The CDs come with a hardback book with full texts and translations and extensive background notes on the music and its context. Being able to hear so much of this music in really good quality performances and decent sound is a revelation. Hitherto many of these operas were simply unobtainable or only available in historic recordings in poor sound taken from radio broadcasts.

In recent years my explorations of French opera have gone back in time and I have discovered Rameau. He is now very much at the top of my list of favourite composers. He should appear in this project later this year - if I can find a new piece of his that I haven't heard yet.

 

 

Boulez Répons

 Day 10

Boulez Répons

Ensemble Intercontemporain

Pierre Boulez

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Pierre Boulez. Even as I write that I find it impossible to believe. In my mind he is still the leader of the avant garde but of course that betrays my own age. It is rather like somebody just before the start of the First World War regarding Wagner as the last word in modern music.

Boulez was certainly an important figure when I was at university.  We would have certainly heard some of music - probably Le Marteau sans maitre and the piano sonatas. I also read - or at least try to read - some of the very impenetrable writings by the composer and even more the writing of analysts about his work. Since then I haven't actively listened to much Boulez but I continued to be aware of his music through fairly regular BBC television programmes where there was serious attention to his music - those were the days. I heard him conduct live once, when he came to Nottingham with a programme of Webern, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. What stood out for me in that concert was the way that he made the Webern Cantatas sing - a far cry from the early recordings I heard where , understandably, the singers struggled to do anything more than get approximately to the right notes. 

I had I think seen an extract from Repons in a television documentary but I had never heard the whole thing. It has the reputation of being perhaps the most successful piece ever written to combine live instruments with electronics. It really should be heard in the round, but on headphones it was still remarkably effective.  What a fantastic piece it is!  I'd expected that the colours would be extraordinary, as indeed they were. Boulez had a wonderful ear and the sonorities he conjured up, both from the live instruments and the electronics were a constant pleasure. What I wasn't prepared for was the sheer rhythmic vitality. My student memories of Boulez were that the music wandered about a bit aimlessly without out much sense of pulse. This was not the case here at all and there were genuinely exciting moments of rhythmic momentum. 

With the benefit of hindsight you can now see Boulez not as a destroyer of tradition but somebody who was part of that tradition. You hear echoes of Debussy and Ravel in the wind textures and the rhythms clearly would not have been possible without Stravinsky. But those influences, and many others, are all absorbed into a wholly personal style. I certainly think that anybody open minded who is prepared to give it a go will find a huge amount to enjoy in this music.

I can't leave without discussing the end - where the electronically supported instruments play out a long and very evocative coda. I was reminded of the chorale-type codas in some of Stravinsky's work - particularly the Requiem Canticles. Very different in sound of course but the kinship is clearly there.

 

Schumann Piano trio no 3 in g minor op 110

 Day 9

Schumann Piano trio no 3 in g minor op 110

Isabelle Faust

Jean-Guihen Queyras

Alexander Melnikiov

I came to know Schumann at university where as well as learning Palestrina counterpoint and Bach chorales we also learned how to write pastiche Schumann songs. Though I don't believe that my attempts would have the slightest chance of being mistaken for the real thing it was a valuable experience in getting inside the mind of a composer and understanding exactly what make him so distinctive.  Ever since then Schumann has been one of the composers I return to time and time again.  My piano technique is not up to actually being able to play anything but the simplest of his piano music properly, but do have the ability to bash through things quite well, at least to my own satisfaction so I know most of the major piano works.  I've played all but the second symphony and a few other bits and pieces. But more than anything it is the songs which are at the heart of Schumann.  Dichterliebe would certainly be one my desert island discs.

I know most of the chamber music but in thinking of what to listen today I realised that I had never heard the third piano trio. It is generally considered to be the weakest of the three and like all of Schumann's late works it can be seen as being the product of the composer's mental decline.

I certainly didn't see it in that way. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it and will certainly return to it. In the first place Schumann achieves what seems to be a perfect balance between the three instruments. Piano trios can see a battle of wills of two string players against an over dominant piano (Tchaikovsky anybody.....) but there was none of that here. Everything fitted beautifully into place with no strain. Then there was a greater degree of colouristic effects than one might have expected. You don't really look to Schumann for textural innovation but there was plenty here, with some very striking pizzicato effects among others.  

As for the music itself it had all of the qualities that one associates with Schumann at his best. Lyricism, harmonic invention and rhythmic subtlety. Only the last movement was perhaps a bit of a disappointment. The main theme is over fussy and causes a lack of momentum because of the need to fit in the grace notes, and at times Schumann does get rather stuck in his dotted quaver-semiquaver rhythmic figure, which can get a bit tedious.  But three out of four movements is not bad!  I don't see evidence of decline in this music - but then I love the violin concerto, which Clara Schumann and Joachim suppressed after the composer's death because they felt it was lacking in inspiration. 

There's more Schumann to explore. Although I know all of the main song cycles there are plenty of small sets and individual songs which I have yet to get to grips with and there is a whole collection of choral music of which I know very little.  I'm sure I will explore some of this later this year.

Palestrina Missa Assumpta est Maria

 Day 8

Palestrina Missa Assumpta est Maria

Choir of Clare College Cambridge

Timothy Brown

To music students of my generation the word Palestrina is inevitably followed by the word 'counterpoint' and brings back memories of having to do exercises to master (though I never quite did) the intricacies of 16th century counterpoint. At times it did seem more like an intellectual exercise akin to a crossword puzzle rather than anything connected with music as I understood it. But I do recall after one session our rather fearsome counterpoint teacher playing us a recording of the last part of Palestrina's Missa Brevis to stress that this was real music were were dealing with. It made quite an impression at the time but I don't think that I have actively listened to any Palestrina since those days 50 or so years ago.

I found when I came to prepare for today's blog that I had more Palestrina in my CD collection than I expected. This was because I acquired some of my mother's CDs when her hearing started to fail her and she had always been a choral singer. I by contrast haven't sung in a choir since I was at university and therefore have no experience of performing any of this music - or indeed of hearing it in a liturgical context.

I certainly enjoyed listening to this mass, perhaps more than I was expecting. It took a while to get into the very different world of Renaissance church music with its very controlled harmonic and rhythmic language where time moves at a slower rate than most of the music I would generally listen to. But the beauty of the music grew on me, particularly the Benedictus, where the six part texture thins down to only four parts. What surprised me most however was the amount of chordal writing there was - my memories were that everything in Palestrina was polyphonic throughout but that is certainly not the case and there is plenty of contrast.

I've no context for this sort of music. I've no idea what distinguishes Palestrina from his contemporaries or how his polyphonic style differs from, say, Tudor Church music. We did briefly touch on this in music history classes at University but in those days my mind was pretty closed to anything before about 1750. Perhaps during this 365 project I can explore some Byrd and Tallis.

The performance I listened to was from an extremely disciplined and beautifully controlled British College Choir. Everything was in its place with clear and clean voices and as far as I could hear perfect intonation. To a British musician like me this is the sound world of Renaissance Polyphony. Would Palestrina have recognised it or do we have a quite false perspective of how this music should be performed? Much food for thought.

Prokofiev Piano concerto no 2 op 16

 Day 7

Prokofiev Piano concerto no 2 in G minor op 16

Vladimir Ashkenazy

London Symphony Orchestra

André Previn

Today's choice was suggested by the conductor Mark Prescott during a discussion in the interval of our rehearsal last night of the Enigma Variations.

I don't have much experience of Prokofiev. I've played most of the obvious pieces - the Classical symphony, Peter and the Wolf, Lieutenant Kije and the suite from Romeo and Juliet but that's about it. I've not listened to much of his music either. I know the 1st and 3rd piano concertos and the 5th symphony but that is about it. So the second concerto was completely new to me.

It has the reputation of being one of the most difficult concertos in the repertory. The piano writing is unbelievably complex in places and clearly the composer was trying to push what was possible to its absolute limit. Indeed although Prokofiev was a virtuoso pianist it clearly stretched his technique and there are reports that he messed up a performance in the 1930s when playing the concerto with Ansermet and the BBC symphony orchestra.  So it was certainly worth hearing, and following the score, to see just how many contortions the soloist is put through.

But in purely musical terms I must confess that I didn't find it a gripping piece - indeed  I did the unforgivable more than once and looked to the end of the score to see how many pages were left! At times it seems little more than note spinning with no real substance. I'd make an exception for the second movement - a scherzo perpetuum mobile which was fun: it must be an absolute nightmare to keep orchestra and soloist together in a movement which never lets up.  The very end of the concerto is also curiously underwhelming - you expect a big climax but it just stops with a single note played by only half of the orchestra.

A conductor friend of mine years ago told me that he thought that Prokofiev was a lazy orchestrator. There are pages with almost no dynamic or articulation markings. This can be effective in places but it does sometimes get rather heavy handed and unsubtle.

So not a piece that I am likely to go back to. But the whole point of this project is to widen my experience by listening to pieces that I have not heard before - I am not expecting to fall in love with each and every one of them! 

Bartók String quartet no 3

Day 6 

Bartók String quartet no 3

Emerson String Quartet

My first encounter with Bartók was (I think) in an A level music lesson when we heard at least part of the music for Strings percussion and celesta. It made a strong impression on me then and remains the Bartók piece I know best. I played a few of the easier pieces on the piano and did a rehearsal run though of the Concerto for Orchestra as a bassoon player but I am not sure that I have ever played and Bartók in a concert.

The first time I came across the quartets was at University, when we had a very interesting session comparing records of the 4th quartet. I've got to know the 1st and 6th quartet but as far as a recall I have never heard the 3rd quartet.

What astonishing music this is - it is extraordinary to think that is now nearly 100 years old (it was written in only 3 weeks in 1927 and won a chamber music prize the following year). It places huge difficulties on the performers, not just in terms of the notes but especially in regard to the rhythm. The meter changes almost bar by bar in the fast sections and in places the bar lines for the four players don't coincide. Music of this rhythmic complexity is hard enough as an orchestra player with a conductor to guide you - for four individuals each with their own complex part co-ordination must be nightmare involving enormous amounts of rehearsal.

This is not easy music to listen to but it is highly rewarding. The sheer variety of sound that Bartók gets from his four players is extraordinary and the ferocious folk-based rhythms are infectious. But perhaps in the end it is the beauty and intensity of the quieter music with which the quartet begins and which returns towards the end which is the most memorable feature of the work. 

There is much more Bartók to explore. I've probably heard most of the main pieces at some time or other but I don't know all of them very well. I'm sure Bartók will reappear at some point in this project.

Bach Cantata no 39 Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot

 Day 5

Bach Cantata no 39 Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot

Collegium Vocale Ghent

Philipp Herreweghe

For many years Bach was a completely closed book to me - I couldn't find any way to get towards any sort of understanding of what it was all about. Given that so many fellow musicians worshiped at the altar of Bach I felt that I must be missing something but I had no idea how to unlock the secrets. It didn't help that I was discovering music just before the historically aware performance movement really got going. I recall that we had the Bach 2nd suite as a set work for music O or A level (I can't remember which) and we had the Klemperer recording in school music lessons. It seemed to me that the music was turgid and muddy and I couldn't see what the attraction was.

These days I have come, late as it is, to some understanding about the greatness of Bach but in all honesty the range of his music that I listen to regularly is still very small - the Goldberg Variations, Brandenburg 6, the first part of the Christmas Oratorio and selected movements from the violin and cello suites.

The Cantatas are very much unknown territory for me. I've played in a few of the over the years and know some of the famous ones but that it is about it. There is probably no body of work by a major composer that it is so intimidating to get to know. First of all, of course, there are so many of them. Secondly, for a non-German speaker, the titles themselves take a great deal of effort to remember and then, more importantly, the whole aesthetic is so far removed from a modern secular listening experience.  But obviously there are treasures here to be found if you apply yourself.

I selected this cantata at random. What did I make of it?  As ever with Bach the choruses are what really makes an impact. The cantata opens with a massive choral movement with recorders and oboes featuring prominently. The forward momentum and sheer richness of invention is astonishing and one can see here why for so many people Bach is the closest approach to God that there has ever been in music.

The rest of the cantata - three arias, some recitative and a final choral seem rather dwarfed by this opening chorus.  But of course that is because it was never meant to be listed to as a single concert piece. It was intended for performance within the context of of a church service, with a sermon breaking the piece into two parts. I must confess that I still struggle with the solo arias - in all three there are some beautiful touches but they can be hard going. Not having a grasp of the German text, so say nothing of the biblical context, is a handicap and it is difficult to really just sit back and enjoy the music on its own merits. But of course that was never what these cantatas are about - they demand concentration and engagement with the words and the liturgical context.

Richard Taruskin has a very thoughtful, and typically provocative, essay on aesthetics of the Bach cantatas as seen through modern eyes in Facing Up, Finally, to Bach's Dark Vision, in his book Text and Act. It is well worth reading.

I'm sure that there will be more Bach in this 365 series - the organ music is another huge body of work about which I know very little so that might be the next challenge.

Verdi Alzira

Day 4

Verdi Alzira

Orchestra de las Suisse Romande

Fabio Luisi

The first Verdi opera I saw was La Forza del Destino which I saw (in German) at Koblenz when we were all taken to see it as part of the Norwich Student Orchestra exchange visit to the city. The only thing I remember about it was that the overture was played between the first and second act and not at the beginning!

The first Verdi opera I got to know well - and the first I acquired on records - was Falstaff which I still rate as one of the greatest of all operas. Since then I have seen most of the major Verdi operas and heard most of the rest but there were still gaps and Alzira was one of them.  It has the reputation of being Verdi's worst opera - indeed he himself said of it that it was 'downright bad'. So I was intrigued to see whether its low standing was deserved.

The first surprise was that it had a full length overture, We tend to associate Verdi with short preludes or going straight into the action but here there was a proper overture which would certain be a good piece to start a concert with. I don't think that you would imagine that the opera which follows would be a melodrama because the overture is relatively light and breezy, but on its own terms highly entertaining. It turns out that the overture was a late addition, written at the request of the theatre impresario because the opera was too short without it. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the opera. Yes there is quite a lot of blood and thunder and what might be described as rum-ti-tum convention but there was also some real quality to the score.  I pick out in particular the duet in Act two Scene One but most of all the finale where the music has a depth and grandeur which foreshadows some of the great Verdi scenes which were to come in operas such as Simon Boccanagra and Don Carlos. 

When I studied music at university there was still a faint element of Verdi being considered slightly too crude and (dare I say) entertaining to be worthy of proper study - particularly in comparison to Wagner. Thank goodness all of that nonsense as gone and we can now see Verdi for what he truly was - a true master of opera as drama (with no apologies for the Wagnerian reference...).   

Perhaps by the end of this year I can knock the remaining few unheard Verdi operas from my list. If they are all as enjoyable as Alzira it will be no hardship whatsoever.

Beethoven Meeres Stille und Glückliche Fahrt

Day 3

 Beethoven - Meeres Still und Glückliche Fahrt op 112

Turku Philharmonic Orchestra

Chorus Cathedrals Aboensis

Leif Segerstram

This project won’t just be about little known composers. There are plenty of works by major composers that I have never heard. Today’s piece is a case in point.  I knew the title of the piece because of the Mendelssohn overture of the same name (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage) and was aware that Beethoven had also used the same title but I am sure that I have never heard the Beethoven before.

It is a curious piece - a choral setting in two short contrasting movements  - a generally quiet a slow first piece and then a vigorous conclusion. Beethoven was I think more or less on autopilot when he wrote the piece, which was performed at a benefit concert, though there doesn’t seem to be much more information about the background to the piece. But of course even if Beethoven was on autopilot there is still much of interest in the score. The stillness of the first part is impressive and in the second part we get some glimpses of the energy which we find in choral parts of the 9th symphony and the Missa Solemnis.

It is very much an occasional piece and it is difficult to see where it could fit into a concert programme. I’m glad to have heard it but it wouldn’t be something to return to very often. If I want a calm sea and prosperous voyage I would certainly prefer to travel with Mendelssohn.

Honegger Symphony no 1

Day 2

Honegger - symphony no 1 (1930)

Serge Baudo

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra

Honegger is an interesting composer. If you read older histories of music he would often be depicted as the most important member of Les Six, at least in part because he was thought to be more serious than the other more frivolous members of the group. Nowadays we have a quite different view. Poulenc has emerged as by far the most important member of the group and in many ways the others are little more than names.

I have encountered Honegger before. I actually played the 5th symphony with the Norfolk Youth Orchestra in about 1973 and still remember it well.  I also played Pacific 231 some years ago. I also know the 2nd (strings and trumpet) and 3rd symphonies but as far as I recall I have never heard the first symphony.

I enjoyed the first movement which was very muscular and rhythmic. Had I heard it without knowing who composed it I might have thought it was Hindemith or even Stravinsky.  But I think that the work rather tailed off after that. The second movement wandered along quite nicely but without any really memorable ideas and I have already forgotten anything about it.  The third movement was an oddity - almost at times being a light-hearted scherzo which never really decided whether it was serious or not. The quiet ending was unexpected - almost as if Honegger was channelling Appalachian Spring and it did end rather abruptly with a very odd couple of notes on the horn.

So while I might well remind myself of the other symphonies - I'd quite like to play the 5th again - I think that I won't be rushing to hear the 1st symphony again.

 

Koechlin - Les Bandar-Log

DAY 1

Koechlin - Les Bandar-Log op 176.

BBC symphony orchestra

Antal Dorati

Les Bandar-Log is one of the symphonic poems by Koechlin based on Kipling's The Jungle Book.

I don't think that I have heard a note of Koechlin before - if I have I don't remember it.  I enjoyed this piece, particularly the opening section for its many and varied orchestral colours. It was more modern than I had expected - I thought that Koechlin would have been more of a late-romantic composer. It was difficult at times to know whether some of this music was intended as parody - the Bandar Log are the Kaals monkeys and certainly there are a lot of monkey-like sounds.

I think that based on this Koechlin is worth exploring a bit more - perhaps the best place to go next is the seven stars symphony - nothing to do with astronomy but portraits of seven Hollywood starts from the golden age of the cinema.