Opera Spotlight: Il Trittico, Lohengrin, and Semele

WETA is featuring Puccini's Triptych this Saturday at 1pm. Listen on the livestream to this performance from last July, conducted by Lorin Maazel. IMSLP has the scores:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Suor_Angelica_(Puccini,_Giacomo)
http://imslp.org/wiki/Il_tabarro_(Puccini,_Giacomo)
http://imslp.org/wiki/Gianni_Schicchi_(Puccini,_Giacomo)
and the libretti are at Operaglass:
http://opera.stanford.edu/Puccini/IlTabarro/libretto.html
http://opera.stanford.edu/Puccini/SuorAngelica/libretto.html
http://opera.stanford.edu/Puccini/GianniSchicchi/libretto.html

Lohengrin is this week's Chicago Lyric broadcast, with Sir Andrew Davis conducting a great cast headed up by Johan Botha and Emily Magee. WFMT also runs a live stream - Lohengrin plays at 12:00pm Central Time (1pm Eastern). Here's the score, from IMSLP, and the libretto.

NPR World of Opera will be featuring Handel's Semele from the Champs-Elysees Theatre. Here's the libretto and the score at IMSLP.

Countertenor Nicholas Spanos

In search of countertenor versions of the late 19th century French chanson repertoire, I encountered the gorgeous voice of Nicholas Spanos. His repertoire embraces all the usual standbys of modern countertenors - Baroque and older opera, with a good showing of French chanson, some Handel oratorio in English, Spanish folk songs, and Schubert lied. As well as possessing a beautiful timbre and well-chosen vibrato, Spanos is also a very handsome fellow (a necessary trait for fame in this media age, I am sorry to say), with the properly "exotic" tall-dark-handsome look of a leading tenor heartthrob. In short, I hope to see much more of this young singer in the future!  Check out plavos's channel on Youtube for the extensive collection of his repertoire.
Now if only I could hear him sing "Lascia ch'io pianga"......

History through the Operaglass

When I found this book, about 4 years ago, I was thrilled that one of my favorite subjects had been addressed and compiled at such length. Opera tends to tap the most dramatic of stories, so there are plenty of fictional or mythological plots, but many librettists have seen dramatic potential in real stories. That is not to say that "historically based" operas are always accurate: sometimes they can have more legend in them than those based in myth.George Jellinek guides the reader through approximately 1800 years of opera plots, from Giulio Cesare to Tosca and many others in between. Google Books also has a preview and e-book available.

Perhaps someday this book will be updated to the modern era.

Concert: Allentown PA

This week I traveled to Allentown, PA to visit family and friends. We went to a recital at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, featuring local organist Stephen Williams and the Monocacy chamber orchestra. This is the program, recreated from YouTube links (not with this ensemble).

Toccata Festiva - Samuel Barber
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC4zz5tP22M&feature=related

Concerto in F - Josef Rheinberger
The Trinity Cathedral is similar to St. John's, though the organ set-up seems larger and more prominent in these videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xfe_Y-1IJo Movement I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhrYOZVyQ-Y Movement II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExT8N4JhmO0 Movement III

Divertimento in D, K.136 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Tough choice of recordings - the  Youth Orchestra of the Americas is represented on YouTube, but the recording is a bit fast for my taste. That recording is here if you want to take a look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXzWjaTCO38 Here is a different recording at a more laid-back pace. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb5d5qQpCdA and the IIIrd movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y447ddkRNM4

Concerto in G minor - Francois Poulenc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yiq-QcBHXM

Opera blog : Likely Impossibilities

http://likelyimpossibilities.blogspot.com/ A great read about all things opera- thanks for posting!

Paganini's Ubiquitous Theme

An inspiration for works by Liszt, Brahms, Schumann, and most famously Rachmaninov, the last caprice of Paganini’s 24 (opus 1) has had a well-cited life over the last century and a half. Other composers, less famous today but celebrated in their time such as Mark Hambourg and Ignaz Friedman also wrote paraphrases on the theme. This theme continues to be “varied” today, with the “Song and Dance” of Andrew Lloyd Webber being a famous example, and influence is seen in numerous other rock/pop writers. The 24^th caprice itself is in theme and variations form, lending itself to new interpretations and homage. Theme and variations is perhaps my favorite form because of the different twists and colors each new composer adds to the original, while still remaining recognizable. Here are some of my favorite takes on the 24^th caprice, both famous and less well-known.

To start off, here is Itzhak Perlman with the original. Perlman is possibly my favorite violinist ever (not a group I’m terribly familiar with, but regardless), with impeccable technique and considerable, friendly charm. Paganini’s 24^th caprice is in A minor, fast and agile, and presents numerous technical demands on the violinist. When transplanted to a different instrument or orchestrated, the caprice’s theme loses some of its diabolical technique but none of its explosive energy and hair’s edge precision. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM3Qfhd7dAw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9zYrBW9jVQ + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZJtwdFOoi8&feature=related Ignaz Friedman opens our set of Paganini variations, quoting the theme and varying it in 17 concert studies in A minor. Friedman was a fantastic Polish virtuoso pianist who often wrote concert transcriptions of opera arias or canonical repertoire. He lived from 1882 to 1948, making him a contemporary of the next composer on the list: Sergei Rachmaninoff, who wrote perhaps the most famous piece based on the Paganini caprice.

Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini” gets a lot of airplay on today’s “easy listening” classical radio stations, and still gets featured in film soundtracks. The most memorable use in film (for me) was in the 1980 film “Somewhere in Time” with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve, set in a grand turn-of-the-century hotel. Here’s a clip of the music itself as it appeared in the movie, as Reeve is musing on the lovely actress Seymour. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4N1mxN5JbU He happens to have fallen in love with her across time, but time travel is no match for their love (though doomed). The film is based on a Richard Matheson novel Bid Time Return and uses the 18^th variation, a theme with long lines and sentimental grandeur made for Hollywood (which Rachmaninoff knew, calling this variation “a theme for my producer”) though the equivalent in Matheson’s novel is a Mahler symphony. Interestingly, Matheson is better known for having written I am Legend. The 18^th variation is the most famous of Rachmaninoff’s set, which follows a loose concerto form (fast-slow-fast, with the introduction and 1^st variation placed before the theme appears) and features a piano soloist. Rachmaninoff, like Friedman, brings a virtuosic element to the piano, and casts the homage to Paganini in gigantic Rachmaninoff concrete-and-steel style. When the 18^th variation arrives, the piece has moved in the slow section to Db major and the theme is inverted; it is still a massive, crashing section in terms of what the piano is actually doing, but the orchestra softens the edges and creates the lush romantic atmosphere for which we love this piece. 

Finally, no less a composer than Johannes Brahms (unlike others mentioned here including Paganini himself, a composer of “serious,” German non-”brillant” music) wrote a set of variations on this theme. http://www.kellydeanhansen.com/opus35.html Here is a link with extensive detail regarding each variation, and links for Evgeny Kissin’s rendition on YouTube. Brahms’ variations are of the same cloth as Rachmaninoff’s – the piano here has a big and dense sound, with many shadings of color and sound. These variations are also entitled “Studies,” a title that draws attention to the various pianistic challenges in this work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fihjGJ0Brw0

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcOeXpV5uzU&feature=related

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw3VjY4rda8

Turandot: Modern Atalanta - Spring 2009

In 1921, Giacomo Puccini began composing an opera which was to be his last.  The story was based on a play by Gozzi, also set by Schiller, which in turn owes much to the Greek archetypal myths of such as Atalanta, Hippodameia, and Thetis.  The archetypes of the reluctant bride, ice princess, femme fatale, and intellectual or athletic woman mix in these myths and plays, and reflect a fascination through time with the unattainably desired woman. Turandot, the princess who kills her spurned lovers, combines

Waiting Music

At one point of my life before UNH, I spent a lot of time in waiting rooms. Two albums which kept me company through those times are still my favorites today, and they hold special meaning from the time I spent waiting and listening.

Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov (Karajan, Ghiaurov)

Ghiaurov is, as I have mentioned elsewhere (http://majoringinunhstudies.blogspot.com/2011/05/prima-la-musica-dopo-le-parole-or-opera.html) one of my favorite singers of all time. His magisterial bass was smooth and intense, with a real bite to the attacks - he was trained in Italy as well as his native Bulgaria, and the legato phrasing he brought to Russian opera is a great gift. Even before Ghiaurov makes his first entrance with the monologue at Boris’ coronation, however, the music for the chorus resonates with me. They too are waiting, considerably more uncomfortable than I, out in the Russian winter outside the palace, and they are waiting for their “father” to come and save them – they wish for Boris to ascend to the throne and remember the Russian people. They pray dutifully, seemingly without much hope of fulfillment. The chorus is answered indirectly, by Shchelkalov, a minor official who takes up the themes of their dissatisfaction and hope but cannot promise that Boris will accede. He sings a short monologue of a few lines which are some of the most reassuring in opera; reassuring, yet realistic in their limited optimism. In my time waiting in March 2007 I listened to these scenes from the Prologue over and over, enjoying Mussorgsky’s sympathetic harmonies.

Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem (Maazel, Prey, Cotrubas)

A requiem which is not in Latin, and does not use the Requiem text, Brahms’ is a Requiem in name only. The main theme of a Latin Requiem is death and eternal damnation from which we pray to be saved, but the theme of Brahms’ Requiem is comfort for those left behind. As one not yet left behind, this piece was key to the beginning of my grieving my father before he had actually gone. Nearly everything in the Requiem is oriented toward this process of grieving, with the solos especially moving in their recognition of realistic emotions. The Requiem is a particular kind of dark music which is not morbid but knows that there are times in winter when there is less sunlight around, just as it knows that there will be a spring. The last movement, I feel, can see that spring as the year turns.

Kindespflicht, oder das höchste der Gefühle: Filial Relationships in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Idomeneo - Spring 2011

Mozart's final Singspiel, like many of his previous works, features paired characters with opposite or complimentary attributes. The Queen of the Night, and her opponent Sarastro, the ruler of all that is light and good, are the most prominent pair (and highest in the social hierarchy); Pamina and her lover Tamino represent idealized female and male youth, and unite at the opera’s end as virtue and peace are established; Papageno the birdcatcher seeks his mate, as do the birds. These paired characters relate to one another in the horizontal direction of attraction or repulsion, and meet as peers; they also relate in a generational, vertical direction: as parents and children, whether

Leo Treitler on oral traditions - Spring 2011

In his 1974 article Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant, Leo Treitler discusses the dissemination of chant through the Holy Roman Empire, which was prompted by Charlemagne’s desire for uniformity in liturgical practice. Charlemagne arranged for official chanters to teach far-lying dioceses the official chants, and viewed divergence from these as corruption of the music. The chants which we know as Gregorian were ascribed to the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, which taught them to Pope Gregory the Great. Because these chants were believed in this way to be divinely prescribed, corruption was to be purged and the authoritative canon to be fixed. Treitler postulates that this is the first occurrence of our modern view on the musical canon, and points out that the co-incidence of the Carolingian reforms and the origins of notation for chant seems intentional (that Charlemagne resorted to notation in order to fix the correct repertoire for the entire empire and for future generations). This causality is complicated, however, by several factors. Elucidating these factors takes Treitler through an explanation of Bartlett’s theories on memorization, and an exploration of the process by which a chant is transmitted orally.

            Oral transmission of chant has several important consequences: the workings of memory mean that chant remembered is not simply reproduced, but rather reconstructed, and if the method of transmission of chant is oral in the absence of scores, the method of composition is also oral (in some ways, similar to improvisation, but different in the details and purpose). Formulas and formulaic systems in chant both constrict and aid the singer in creating/recreating chants for various parts of the service. These conclusions are drawn from the studies of oral transmission which have their beginning in Homeric studies, yet another nested explanation in this article. Treitler’s necessary digressions and detours follow eachother seamlessly and without superfluity.

            Treitler shows how Homeric epic, as presented by Parry, makes sense as seen within the tradition of oral epic, and how what we know/study about Homer helps our knowledge of chant and other oral repertoires. One major commonality is the use of formulas as both aide-memoires and compositional techniques: for instance, the beginning and end of lines tend to be memorized easily, and so this lends itself to formulas for these components. Treitler shows examples of chants (Gregorian and Old Roman) which start and end similarly or contain other melodic formulas, and similarity in single chants – Tracts, which are long antiphonal chants – where each strophe begins and ends the same way. A famous example from oral poetry is the Homeric epithet, a naming formula for the various gods, goddesses and heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey; e.g. gray-eyed Athena, or swift-footed Achilles.

Finally, Treitler speculates about the possible decline in oral composition and greater use of what we would normally consider memorization (with more tradition of specific melodies rather than general formulas), preceding the beginnings of notation. These melodies could have become more fixed with the passing of time, or in accordance with the prevailing tradition, becoming a prescribed canon for liturgical observance. Whether the Carolingian reforms caused this trend towards canon before notation, or used notation to bring about a unified canon is not clear.

The differences in style between the Gregorian and Old Roman chants are explored in light of oral transmission: Treitler presents three possible scenarios regarding the reliance of each tradition on oral transmission and concludes that it seems most plausible that Old Roman chant shows more evidence of oral transmission because it was oral longer, rather than that it was “more oral” or that the Gregorian chants had these aspects of oral transmission purged from them editorially. Other authors have concluded that Old Roman chant is “more primitive” and therefore older; Treitler does not rely on the duality of primitive and advanced to explain the relative age of these traditions. Treitler ends the analysis with three different angles from which to examine the uniformity of chant: 1) the Carolingian reforms caused uniformity; 2) the chants show this uniformity because of a common ancestor, so to speak, which can be traced; and 3) oral transmission causes and makes use of this uniformity in composition. It is difficult to examine Old Roman chant and Gregorian chant from before the Carolingian reforms, because the only notated examples we have of Old Roman postdate these reforms. For this same reason, it is difficult to obtain evidence of a common ancestor tradition of chant, either in written examples of the ancestor itself, or in older examples of Old Roman and Gregorian chant. The third angle is likely to be the most fertile for future study: oral transmission, though increasingly difficult to encounter in today’s world, is still present, as well as studies cited in Treitler’s article which rely on Eastern European traditions which may no longer be extant. Further study of oral transmission may give us textual analysis techniques which can probe Old Roman and Gregorian chant for their DNA, so to speak, and determine (as modern DNA testing can now tell us so much) details about their ancestry.