The Lost Operas of Palais Garnier

It all started for me with Phantom of the Opera.  I have always loved Broadway shows (and operetta, starting in 2003) and after listening to the original cast soundtrack and reading Phantom 3 times in a row cover to cover, decided to try listening to a real opera. The first operas available to me were Lucia di Lammermoor,  Don Giovanni,and Dido and Aeneas.  But as soon as I could get to a Borders bookstore, I bought myself a copy of Faust,  because this opera is central to the plot of Phantom.  Christine sings the role of Marguerite, Faust's virginal victim, in this most famous of Gounod's operas (or entire works). Faust was the most popular and first opera at the Metropolitan Opera House when it opened in 1883, and continues to be performed today because of its dramatic story and archetypal characters. But there were other operas mentioned in Leroux' novel: La Juive,  by Halevy; Le Prophete, by Meyerbeer; and more. These operas, blockbusters in their day, survive today on excerpts albums or curiosity revivals. If Meyerbeer is thus represented, what of the countless other operas  which premiered in this era of luxury and grand 5 act dramas only to be forgotten by the newer trends? 

This question has intrigued me since I first listened to Faust,  in 2006. Some time I would like to find a list of performances in the 1870s-1900s at the Paris Opera, and research the scores and composers who have become obscure. There may be better reasons for their disappearance than changing tastes, but the librarian in me would love to properly archive them in order to facilitate research and possible revivals. 

Here is an aria which made it out of obscurity into recent renown when Placido Domingo performed it at the original Three Tenors concert, 1990.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TscVCfHAJvc  O Paradis, from Meyerbeer's L'Africaine sung by 20th c. tenor Jussi Bjorling

Gilding the Lily? Additions to Classic Pieces

What do Edvard Grieg and Ignaz Moscheles have in common? Aside from being European composers of the second half of the nineteenth century, they both felt certain classics of the solo piano repertoire could use a supplemental second piano. Grieg wrote a second piano part to three Mozart piano sonatas, and Moscheles practically rewrote 10 preludes from the Well-Tempered Clavier, conceiving of

Atonal Counterpoint from Norway: Fartein Valen

Valen (1887-1952) lived his entire life a bachelor in the country of Norway, but made important strides in the field of 20^th century music despite his relative isolation. His particular atonal “dissonant counterpoint” was developed in all likelihood completely unaware of Schoenberg’s work, though based on the same recognition of the need for a solid ground when leaving tonality behind. Valen was fond of the polyphony of Bach and worked out contrapuntal solutions which, while not tonal or based on consonant intervals, are as intricate and complex a system as that of the old masters. Interestingly, Valen studied composition with Max Bruch about ten years after the latter had mentored Ernst Mielck (see Friday’s post).

Much of Valen’s work is available at IMSLP, which is where I first encountered this fascinating composer. Recordings are available through Naxos for most of his work including the pieces written after 1923 which are not yet in the public domain. In addition, here is a taste of Valen’s unique style, from YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kPHBiB0Lc Nachtstuck, from a set of 4 piano pieces

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q2rBzyPzhM Glenn Gould plays the 2^nd piano sonata (part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hrz-vSBpVw&feature=related (part 2)

Sources: Grove, Naxos, links from Wikipedia

Tchaikovsky, Boris

Yes, that’s right, not Piotr Ilich, but Boris Alexandrovich Tchaikovsky (1925-1996). A composer of the modern age, his career took place 100 years after his more famous countryman. This Tchaikovsky is represented by orchestral works, film scores, chamber music, and an opera. His miniatures for piano are playful, sometimes modal, and ultimately charming.  If you can, check them out on Naxos, or his "After the Ball" suite, also on Naxos - lovely old-fashioned orchestral dance music.  Developing his style from the Russian masters of the previous generation and mixing in contemporary influences, Tchaikovsky was famous in his country but not well known outside of the Iron Curtain. Nowadays, he is fairly well represented on record, with several dozen recordings at the Naxos Music Library. 

Here is a recording of one of his settings of Pushkin’s poetry:

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

the String Quartet, no.6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zoh9cBkEL8

and the Sinfonietta for Strings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YNaxTW5l4


Sources - Grove, Naxos, additional links available from Wikipedia

Career Contemplations

This summer is both a time of relaxation and a nonstop continuance of the previous school year. I’m taking classes online and working part time, but overall my workload is much easier than during the school year and I have time for long term goals. So I find myself applying to grad school – Indiana University, Bloomington is my first choice. The program I am interested in is the dual Master’s in Library Science and Musicology, a combination which does not exist anywhere else in the country, and seems tailor-made to my favorite career choice: music librarian. While writing my personal statement for the application, I decided to revisit my goals before codifying and concentrating them to 500 words. Here go my thoughts, starting slowly.

I love school, and I love work. I want to combine all I love about education - learning languages, dissecting and enjoying music, meeting contrasting points of view – with what I love about work – connecting people with information or services, a long-term pattern of variety within continuity – and having worked in a library setting, I would love to work in libraries for the rest of my life. Being at UNH has given me free access to much of what comes under the heading of “culture:” different people, different traditions at all scales, a wide focus on learning and learning everywhere, and an appreciation of history and histories. Because of this broad range of experiences, I have grown as a person and a lifelong student, and I want to continue to experience new things through the lens of a university town. No, New Hampshire is not the most diverse state, but you get out of UNH what you put into it and through effort and the internet you can get a lot in this small white-bred state. Of course, in order to access the important next steps of my career I have to leave New Hampshire and join a new intellectual collection. Indiana’s proud reputation as a language school fits my goal to learn as much as I can about as many languages as possible. The Jacobs School’s partnership with the Library Science program will allow me to prepare for a career of helping people and working with information, with a view towards the historical uses and meaning of music in culture. The community of Bloomington will be a place to grow and pursue intellectual avenues only available at a large university.

Other options include Florida State, University of Maryland, University of North Carolina, and University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. All of these will require major relocating and culture adjustments, and each has its own merits as an institution. The dual master’s degree is unique to Indiana, but all my other top contenders offer me the option of successive Library Science & Musicology degrees with small cross-enrollment possibilities.

Alfredo Casella

Casella (1883-1947) is another one of my cherished finds from IMSLP.  His use of modes and colorful pianistic style make him a unique find from the era immediately surrounding 1923 - the beginning-date of copyright, the end-date of free public domain music.  Casella was also a theorist and talented orchestrator, and I own a copy of his treatise on orchestration. His piano works vary from miniatures "for children" to vignettes in the style of various contemporaries or predecessors- Brahms, Debussy, Wagner, Strauss. The  children's pieces are a joy and cover various levels of technical skill, all in Casella's unique style and mixing in various influences and modes. The vignettes demonstrate the composer's sense of reverent and not-so reverent humor towards his fellows - in each piece, both the title and the use of the piano are pitch-perfect to the composer they evoke.  His orchestral music represents different periods of his career, from the early influence of Impressionism (A Notte Alta is a good example), to the "second generation" (Puccini being the first) of lush pieces like Resphighi's Pines of Rome, to angular, chromatic works of the later years. 

Here is a recording from YouTube of the first 6 of the Children's pieces: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4-qsdEjeaY 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq5il4xkPmw  virtuoso etudes 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuA8QOXpCFA&playnext=1&list=PLAEB1B84D21D745DD  A Notte Alta part 1 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXG8A8NPp5g&feature=related  part 2

The Short but Promising Life of Ernst Mielck

Ernst Mielck was a Finnish pianist and composer whose life was entirely spent in the last third of the 19th century. He died of tuberculosis two days before his 22nd birthday, leaving a small oeuvre of approximately 30 works. The Finnish critic Flodin, a contemporary of Sibelius, called him "the Finnish Schubert." During his brief career Mielck wrote songs for four part choir, orchestra pieces, chamber music, and works featuring his own instrument, the piano. As with the premature death of Mozart, we will never know what the mature Mielck would have produced; at the time of his death, his compositions had just won international notice, and even favorable comparison with Sibelius, considered a rival by critics. It is interesting to note that Mielck did not begin playing or composing music until he was 10, making his career and development by the time of his death even more remarkable. 

The few recordings I can locate are available through Naxos Music Library: the String Quartet, op.1; the Fairy Tale Symphony, op.4; the Konzertstuck for Violin, op.8, and two songs for baritone on poems by Fontane, without opus. Scores for one of the songs, Heimat, and the String Quartet are available through IMSLP, as well as 3 works for piano and 4 songs for choir. These pieces, however, have been scanned in color and are consequently difficult to reproduce in a printed copy. I transcribed several of the partsongs and the Sarabande, one of Mielck's last works, in a clean and reproducible copy.  Mielck's music is late-Romantic and as accessible as that of Sibelius, with the piano music idiomatic and brilliant as might be expected from a composer who was first a pianist. What I have seen of his oeuvre tends to be melancholy, but this may not be representative of the (only slightly larger) entire collection. 

Here is a recording of the Symphony from youtube: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wCb3ggMAD8 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R7h1qEUPxc 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DosihHqf61o 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCyi9vkxJc8 

and the Violin Concerto: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9yxF6AATH0&feature=related 


Sources: Grove, Naxos, additional links available from wikipedia