Monday, 2.23.09, 6:00 am
Edward Elgar (1857 – 23 February 1934)
"Library Building" posts are reviews of recordings I find to be essential to every good collection of classical music - recordings of interpretations that are the touchstone for their repertoire.
Looking at Edward Elgar 75 years after he died (today, on February 23rd), he looks to be the quintessential English gentleman composer. From his handlebar mustache to his glee club membership to his avid bike-riding to his compositions that seem to presage that particular type of British “pastoral” music, he has become the mold for a stereotype. There is no composer native to England that is more famous or more often performed.
There can’t be many English speaking classical music lovers who don’t know at least his Pomp & Circumstance march and the Enigma Variations. His Cello Concerto has received mythical status through the famous EMI recording of Jacqueline du Pré and the LSO under John Barbirolli. His Third Symphony is—with Mahler’s Tenth, Mozart’s Requiem, Berg’s Lulu, and Puccini’s Turandot—one of the famous unfinished works that has been ‘completed’ posthumously.
Information about Elgar is easily found, so in acknowledgment of his 75th death anniversary, I restrict myself to listing recordings of some of his works—famous and obscure—that I think are particularly notable.
There must be over 100 recordings of the Enigma Variations in and out of print. Even if I wanted to hear them all—I don’t—I couldn’t. But from about two dozen that I do know, there are some renditions of these 14 variations dedicated to-and depicting-Elgar’s friends and acquaintances that I particularly cherish. Over-romantization is a danger lurking here, because some variations—the “Nimrod Variation” most notoriously—just seem to beg for slow tempos they weren’t intended for. Leonard Bernstein’s recording of it (DG) is the most famous case of making a slothful lamento of what should be a “conversation about Beethoven”. It reminds me of a spurious anecdote where Simon Rattle, purportedly to illustrate that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony did not work well played at the speed the composer’s (retroactively added) metronome markings demand, conducted the first movement as indicated. When he had finished he scratched his head, turned around to the audience and admitted: “Actually, that sounded pretty good, didn’t it.” Well, the Nimrod Variation is actually not supposed to be played at Bernstein’s chosen tempo… but he makes it sound pretty darn good. Call it the guilty-pleasure recording, but try to listen to it some time.
My personal favorite really shouldn’t be any good, either. It’s George Solti (of whom I am not generally a fan, and certainly not in his Elgar symphonies) with the Vienna Philharmonic (London). Recorded in Solti’s last year, it’s almost the inverse of late Bernstein. Surprisingly quick (though not as fast as his 70’s Chicago recording), the colors are saturated like in an old Technicolor film and there’s warm sparkle throughout. A surprisingly wonderful performance much enhanced by the superb couplings of Boris Blacher’s Paganini Variations and Zoltán Kodály’s Peacock Variations. Still, a more mainstream British recommendation would be Bryden Thomson (Chandos) who is at his Elgar-best in the non-symphonic orchestral pieces, the classic Barbirolli (not afraid to linger) with the Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI), or the propelling Andrew Davis with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (Teldec).
The Cello Concerto is dominated by said du Pré recording from 1965. Not unlike with Gould’s Goldberg Variations, it doesn’t matter whether you particularly like it: it’s essential—especially as it also includes Dame Janet Baker’s Sea Pictures. The vigorous, almost aggressive way that Pré had with Elgar’s Cello Concerto isn’t the only way to play this work (a more loving, gentle opening—think Lynn Harrell—suits it rather well, too), but it is mesmerizing all the same. Two years after the EMI effort, du Pré and Barbirolli were recorded in Prague playing this concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Daniel Barenboim apparently prefers this to the 1965 recording and her 1971 account with himself conducting (Sony). It sounds nearly as good as the EMI studio effort and is quite different, perhaps even better, interpretively . Particularly the opening captured me immediately: With the notes set apart, like fleeting touches, I have never heard the concerto in a more modern light. For those who don’t already have the EMI recording – or those who simply can’t have enough Elgar or du Pré, this is worth the (hefty) Testament price tag.
I am still more enamored with two recent English performances. Natalie Clein with Vernon Handley (who died shortly thereafter) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra surprised me with their emoting Virgin recording. The sultry-seductive cover picture of this BBC Young Musician of the Year (1994) suggested something as modest and trivial as the releases of Nicola Benedetti (who won the same distinction ten years later), but the result is terrific in its overtly romantic way. She is bested, though, by Jamie Walton (no relation to the composer) whose noble poise allows him to get the moods across without underlining or resorting to the obvious. It is understatement at its most passionate and Alex Briger and the Philharmonia Orchestra support him as well as can be. Unlike the cheesy couplings of Clein, Walton adds the Myaskovsky Cello Concerto which, if Elgar were less famous, would rightfully be considered the real reason to get this Signum U.K disc.
(In Washington, the Cello Concerto was last performed by the NSO in November of 2007 with Han-Na Chang and Lorin Maazel and before that with Truls Mørk under Leonard Slatkin in September of 2005.)
Yehudi Menuhin made Elgar’s Violin Concerto famous, Nigel Kennedy owns it. Fritz Kreisler premiered the work in 1910 to great success, Albert Sammons’ nippy 1929 Columbia recording (under Henry Wood) was (and still is) highly regarded, but when Menuhin, 16 at the time, recorded it for HMV in 1932, it became a lasting hit. Their leisurely interpretation (on EMI) has never gone out of print. The question of the merits of the Menuhin/Elgar collaboration aside, most listeners will understandably not listen to—even good—1932 sound. This is where Nigel Kennedy comes in. No matter what else you might think of that idiosyncratic artist, in the Elgar concerto he is tremendous. He first recorded it with Vernon Handley and the LPO in 1984 and not the least through the very flexible (though ultimately slow, at 53 minutes) tempos it sounded like an emancipation from his mentor and teacher Menuhin. It is now, like Menuhin’s, one of EMI’s “Great Recordings of the Century”. In 1999 he and Simon Rattle recorded the concert again with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra where he explored dynamic and tempo extremes even further (EMI, also). It’s the most dramatic reading, just shy of portentous. It’s not in any meaningful way ‘slower’, but at nearly 55 minutes it takes even longer and over ten more minutes than Sammons’ take.
Gil Shaham, who calls it the “Tristan & Isolde of violin concertos”, has just added a plain gorgeous, all-American version to the catalog. David Zinman leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and they make for a very plush but supple account that clocks in at about 48 minutes and is very easy on the ears (Canary Classics). For something more in the swift vain, Heifetz (no surprise) with Malcolm Sargent is the Menuhin-antidote at under 42 minutes. The 1949 sound of the RCA recording should be acceptable to most; the coupling with his Walton Violin Concerto (1950 recording) makes it a classic.
It wasn’t really until I heard David Zinman with the NSO in the Second Symphony (February 2005) that I thought of Elgar’s symphonies as “great”. Going back to recordings I had had—and new ones added since, I’ve found Daniel Barenboim (LPO, Sony) among the most satisfying in the First Symphony, Mark Elder with the Hallé Orchestra (Hallé live) in the Second, and the Third Symphony (questionable though the completion remains) most Elgarian with Richard Hickox (Chandos).
The sugary Dream of Gerontius is not everybody’s thing. You might find it trite kitsch or a genuinely moving, gentle farewell to the world. If you feel guilty enjoying Der Rosenkavalier, the former might be true, if you cry with pride during that opera’s final trio, the latter. Count me among the latter, despite my usually sensitive schmalz-o-meter. The choice has been the same for years: Boult or Barbirolli. Janet Baker as a young angel for Barbirolli is a good argument in favor of the latter (only Anne Sofie von Otter might steal her show, and she’s stuck on the inferior Colin Davis release on LSO Live). Nicolai Gedda might not best Peter Pears (Decca, with Britten), but I find him on the plus-side of Boult. As is, ultimately, the fresher conducting of the older Boult (EMI, 1975 recording) to the younger Barbirolli (EMI, 1964 recording). Simon Rattle offers Dame Janet Baker 22 years after Barbirolli and John Shirley-Quirk 15 years after he had done baritone duty for Britten. If you like your angels mature, you’ll find that recording on EMI, also.
This covers the well traveled paths—but there is much more Elgar to discover. Why not consider his choral scenes “From the Bavarian Highlands”? (Christopher Robinson and the Cambridge University Chamber Choir offer them on a very fine Naxos disc of Elgar’s Part Songs.) Also on Naxos, and thematically related, are his three frothy “Bavarian Dances”. The excellent James Judd recorded them and several other more or less neglected orchestral miniatures with his New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Elgar didn’t write any alpine-themed chamber music that I know of, but his Piano Quintet and String Quartet—for example with the Chilingirian Quartet (EMI)—are worth exploring.
If you are not afraid of an Elgar overdose (not an unreasonable concern, that), you might consider some of his other oratorios. “The Apostles”, “The Kingdom”, “The Light of Life”, “The Music Makers” (sounds like a choral setting of the Nimrod variation), “Caractacus”, or “The Black Knight”. You can get all of them and much more on the 30 CD EMI “Edward Elgar Collector’s Edition” box that includes every remotely important Elgar work and, as a bonus, a good deal of them with Elgar conducting himself in addition to the more sonically advanced versions of conductors like Boult, Barbirolli, Handley, Hickox, and Groves.
The short but large-orchestra Smoker’s Cantata for baritone and orchestra (“Kindly, kindly, kindly do not smoke in the hall or staircase”) can only be had on Mark Elder’s recording with the Hallé Orchestra (Hallé Live), though. It comes with the Falstaff Overture, Heinrich Schiff’s Cello Concerto and the Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra (thanks to scouring and scavenging bassoonists more often recorded than one might guess—although often transcribed for cello).
Wednesday, 2.18.09, 6:00 am
Lost Music: Eric(h) Zeisl (1905-1959)
There are several strands of “lost” classical music that became extinct in the 20th century. At the very least there is the post-Stravinskean strain that composers like Braunfels, Blacher, K.A.Hartmann or Harald Genzmer could be said to represent; angular, but tonal. And there is a more romantic line of music, very roughly of the type that Richard Strauss was still ‘allowed’ to compose in the middle of the 20th century, though even a composer of his stature was looked at as a musical dinosaur for writing works like Capriccio or the Four Last Songs.
In both cases World War II caused the harm and in both cases a good deal of that harm came indirectly. Ideological shifts after 1945 demanded a radical departure from everything that had been before and classical music split between the ‘safe’ and popular repertoire and contemporary music where a very specific type of modernity was so crammed with subsidies that it did not need to be accountable to a public and—as is the nature of subsidies—significantly decreased the chances of all other contemporary classical music to survive on its own merits.
But when it comes to composers of the second, more romantic, vain (Erich Korngold, Franz Mittler, and Joseph Marx come to mind) the threat was often that of physical extermination. Some, like Korngold, survived and were successful—only to be ignored after the war. (Korngold’s music reminded too much of a time no one wanted to be reminded of. Aside, he had been ‘tainted’ by Hollywood and “Film Music”… which did not go over well with Europeans who had no problem letting the Americans (covertly) finance all their contemporary music festivals after the war but obviously found it in poor taste for a composers to have earned his money in America.)
Many of the composers who managed to escape a murderous Europe to find shelter in the United States did not fare as well as the icons Stravinsky and Schoenberg or the adaptable, seemingly perpetually sunny Korngold. Erich Zeisl was one of these composers, and his song remains unsung to this day except for—delicious irony—a few songs that sometimes creep into particularly Austrian song recitals.
Born in Vienna on May 18th in 1905, Zeisl decided early on to become a composer and he published his first songs being barely 16 years old. No less a singer than Alexander Kipnis included them in his repertoire. The Anschluss put an end his flourishing career in Vienna and he had to begin his exodus which brought him first to Paris (with the help of Darius Milhaud) and then to New York. Hanns Eisler recommended Zeisl to Schoenberg and he ended up working in Hollywood as a film composer for MGM, from 1942 on. But being late to that party, he did not find the success of his friend Korngold (who had established himself in Hollywood long before the war). Instead of composing scores for “Robin Hood”, Zeisl contributed to ‘gems’ like “Lassie Come Home” and “Money, Women, and Guns”.
Monday, 2.16.09, 4:00 pm
François-Joseph Gossec’s Bidemisemiseptcentennial
Although it’s not a round anniversary, it might be worth thinking of François-Joseph Gossec (1734-1829). I missed his 275 year anniversary (would that have been the Bidemisemiseptcentennial or the Biquasquicentennial?) on January 17th but his 180th ‘death-anniversary’ takes place on February 16th. He was born in the tiny town of Vergnies in what is today the Hainaut province in Belgium, bordering France. He was a choirboy in Antwerp but spent most of his long life and career in Paris where he managed to weather all political changes with pragmatic mastery. He held official posts with under Louis XVI but had a Te Deum (for 300 brass players, hundreds of drummers, and three vocal soloists) ready for the one year anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. He became something of an official composer of the revolution (Le Triomphe de la République) and worked with Robespierre. When it came time to celebrate Robespierre’s beheading, he contributed the Hymne à l’huminaté. Together with Méhul and Cherubini he became a member of the Napoleon-founded Académie des beaux arts and navigated his career successfully through the Empire before the Bourbon Restoration, in 1816, nixed Gossec’s position at the Conservatory despite his—undoubtedly earnest—tribute to the Restoration with a setting of Charmante Gabrielle.
Gossec wrote a ballet (“Mirza”) about the American Revolution that was popular—and a sequel to it (“La Fête de Mirza”) which flopped. His historical opera Sabinus might have helped him to greater fame but was foiled when Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide overshadowed its revival in1779. To Gossec’s credit, that didn’t keep him from working with and even composing for Gluck. (He contributed several parts to Gluck’s Alceste for its Paris premiere, for example.)
Flutist have scoured Gossec’s catalogue rich with works for their instrument, he wrote string quartets (op.15, 1771, recorded by the Ad Fontes String Quartet for Alpha), and he was regarded one of the greatest French symphonists (small praise) whose work could stand next to Haydn’s (big praise). It turns out that they could not, because as Haydn’s symphonies hit Paris, Gossec’s disappeared from the programs. This either/or of the concert business back then seems a little unfair, because Gossec’s symphonies are very lovely and worth checking out. (Chandos offers a great selection of five of them, ASV throws in four symphonies and orchestral excerpts from Sabinus and his final opera, Rosine.)
Most enduring and interesting among Gossec’s works is his Grand Mess des Morts, a requiem which started out as the Missa pro Defunctis in 1760. Among the subscribers of the first edition was Baron Gottfried van Swieten. It is likely—and if you listen to Gossec’s Requiem it seems almost impossible but to conclude— that Mozart found the score of Gossec’s work in Swieten’s vast library where he also found Handel and Bach. The parallels between Gossec’s and Mozart’s Requiem are striking—not the least in their tendency towards pomposity and kitsch of the most delightful kind. The recording on Naxos with the Swiss Italian Orchestra under Diego Fasolis is a splendid introduction (recorded in a cathedral, which is the setting Gossec specifically wrote it for) and it also throws in the Symphony à 17 parties in F, written between 1786 and 92.
Popular and respected though he was throughout most his life, Gossec died alone and out of favor at the age of 96.
Monday, 2.16.09, 6:00 am
300 Years Charles Avison (1709-1770)
300 years ago, on February 16th 1709, Charles Avison was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. While we don’t know anything about his early musical upbringing, he likely took a prolonged trip to Italy with his first employer Raph Jenison and studied with Francesco Geminiani upon his return. He also studied with the former head of the Royal Academy of Music, John Blathwayt—himself a former student of Alessandro Scarlatti’s. In 1738 Avison was named the Newcastle Musical Society and he remained in Newcastle his entire life, despite job offers from London, Dublin, and Edinburgh.
In his time he was best known for “An Essay on Musical Expression”, the expanded version of his introductory remarks on concerto performance practice that were the preface to his Six Concertos op.3 (1751). In it, he made his preferences for Italian music well known, holding Geminiani and Benedetto Marcello in higher regard than Handel. As a composer Avison created some 60 orchestral works—his concertos modeled on those of Geminiani; his later chamber music on Rameau’s Pieces de clavecin en concerts.
The most enduring of his compositions are twelve concerti grossi without opus number that are largely (38 of 50 movements) transcribed from, and based on, sonatas by his teachers’ teacher’s son—Domenico Scarlatti. Highly enjoyable music, neither too momentous to serve well as background music, nor so trivial that they could not withstand focused listening. One shouldn’t expect Bach from Avison, but liking Handel’s Concerti Grossi or Scarlatti sonatas is a good indication that Avisions works—original and transcribed—will please greatly.
They are readily available on CD and would do even a modest collection of baroque music proud. Neville Marriner recorded all twelve in 1978 with the Academy of St.Martin in the Fields (Philips) but baroque ensembles like Roy Goodman and his Brandenburg Consort (Hyperion) have since bested that pioneering account. If it need not be the whole set, Café Zimmermann (Alpha) chose six of these concertos to fit on one superb CD… and should they chose to record the missing six, too, they’d be an easy first recommendation.
The Avison Ensemble, not surprisingly, has championed their namesake on Naxos (12 Concertos op.6 and the Concerti Grossi opp.3 & 4) and on Divine Art (Concerti Grossi after Scarlatti, Concerti Grossi after Geminiani, and Concerti Grossi opp.9 & 10).
Thursday, 2.12.09, 6:00 am
Propelling Music: George Antheil (1900-1959)
Two ladies moved in next door to little George Antheil’s childhood home, and they played the piano. Lots. Day and night, pounding away at the poor upright. It’s what first turned Antheil on to music and it’s a charming story tinged by the bizarre… because the ladies were actually trying to cover up the tunneling operation that led to New Jersey’s then most notorious prison breakout.
This is the anecdote with which Robert R. Reilly opens the chapter on Antheil (“Bad Boy Made Good”) in his book “Surprised by Beauty”, and it’s far too good not to retell. Because one cannot help to conclude that the two ladies’ undoubtedly peculiar, possibly none-too-refined, and certainly ‘muscular’ approach to pianism influenced Antheil’s musical tastes lastingly; perhaps more so than his teacher Ernest Bloch.
Antheil arrived on the music scene with a bang when he presented the “Ballet Mécanique”—originally intended to go with Fernand Léger’s film of the same name—in Paris in 1926. Written for two pianists, three xylophones, four bass-drums, tam-tam, half a dozen electric bells, one siren, three airplane propellers, and sixteen (!) synchronized player pianos, it was instant absurdity and guaranteed, rhythmically compelling infamy. As Reilly points out: “Anyone who has sat through an evening of Japanese drumming would understand the experience, and its visceral thrill.” (The National Gallery of Art had it performed as part of its 2006 Dada exhibit.)
So Antheil became the self declared “Bad Boy of Music”, playing recitals with his revolver lying on the piano (“I never had any more trouble until the Nazis”) and enjoying his notoriety and street-cred with the other luminaries of the Paris avant-garde Pound, Picasso, Joyce & Co.
Ballet Mécanique was for Antheil what Le Sacre du Printemps was for Stravinsky, except that Stravinsky went on to become one of the most important composers of the 20th century while Antheil was never again taken particularly seriously on the classical music scene, no matter how serious the music he went on to compose.
That didn’t keep him from composing, fortunately, and he did. In a style that’s surprisingly conservative, neo-classical, with the traditional influences one would expect—from Beethoven to Sibelius and lots of Shostakovich and Prokofiev—all present. He began writing—crime stories, detective instruction books, a prescient account of the World War to come, romantic advice columns, and was even a war correspondent for the Los Angeles Daily News. These are curiosities that bring the flavor to his biography, but the meat of the matter will remain his music. Fortunately we live in the (unrecognized) golden age of classical music recordings and thanks to the ever-increasing availability of hitherto unavailable music on CD, George Antheil’s works are becoming easily accessible for anyone with the interest and a few fivers to spare.
The six symphonies, except for the Second and the original (apparently very different) version of the Fifth, are now all available. Hugh Wulff and the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra on CPO are a good and obvious choice. Naxos has the Ballet Mécanique with Daniel Spalding conducting the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra in the reduced 1953 version of four pianos and percussion—a terrific disc not the least because it also includes the First Serenade for Strings, the Poulenc-ish Symphony for Five Instruments (bassoon, flute, trombone, trumpet, and viola), and the Concerto for Chamber Orchestra. Add the complete string quartets (three numbered quartets and two smaller works, on Other Minds Records), the piano concertos (No.1 from 1922, No.2 from 1926, on CPO), and all the important short solo piano pieces (coupled with Conlon Nancarrow works, played by the excellent Herbert Henck, recorded for ECM) and you have the basics well covered. Reilly again: “If you enjoy the rambunctious, boisterous, and brilliant, give this bad boy a (second) chance. We all deserve one, and you won’t regret it.”
George Antheil died today, 50 years ago, of a heart attack.
Correction: David Spalding’s disc of the Ballet Mécanique is not the recording of the original version (with 16 player pianos) but the 1953 version. The only extant recording of the original version comes from the UMass Lowell Percussion Ensemble. A video of the performance is included as part of the documentary film about Antheil and the Ballet Mécanique, “Bad Boy Made Good“, which had its broadcast premiere on WETA in 2006.
Monday, 2.9.09, 6:00 am
Harald Genzmer (1909-2007)
On Camac’s HarpBlog Helen Radice, formerly of “Twang Twang Twang”, writes an extensive anniversary-appreciation of Harold Genzmer, who would have turned 100 today.
A harpist’s attention to the obscure Genzmer does not surprise, given the fifty-plus harp works that were part of his creative output. And Radice brings further insight to Genzmer, because her own teacher was a good friend of the composer’s who collaborated with Genzmer on most of his pieces for harp.
Because Genzmer wrote for just about every instrument and in any conceivable combination, and not the least because his teacher was Hindemith, his works have the air of Gebrauchsmusic (“Utility Music”). Looking for a work for Cello and Double Bass? Three recorders and piano? Saxophone quartet? Horn quartet? Trombone and organ? Guitar duo and orchestra? Genzmer’s got it.
Despite Genzmer being something of a local hero/house-composer for Munich, I first heard his music in May of last year, when Margarita Höhenrieder dedicated her encore (after Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1 with the Dresden Staatskapelle) to Harald Genzmer, playing a short piano piece of his. Kept in solid C-major—like the concerto—it was of angular beauty and busyness, virtuosic in a way one might expect from Frederic Rzewski.
The niche repertoire label Thorofon is alone in having given Genzmer—who died aged 98 in December of 2007—a platform on record. They include his concertos (flute, piano, viola– Thorofon 2528), clarinet and flute sonatas (Thorofon 2544), violin and oboe concertos, string symphony (Thorofon 2547), and Piano Trios (Thorofon 2495), all of which would make a fine first exposure to this composer.
Like his near-contemporary Hans Gál, Genzmer remained beholden to tonality; unlike Gál he was an audibly modern, not romantic, composer. Honegger and Milhaud are never far away. Jerry Dubins, in Fanfare, spoke of Genzmer’s world being “that of the mid 20th century, and his music bears the stamp of a Romantic spirit viewed through the prism of Hindemith, Milhaud, Martinů, and Bartók.” In a way, Genzmer stood for the sound of the “music that would have been”—that is classical music as it might have developed naturally from the sounds of Stravinsky and Schoenberg, had it not been for World War II to wreak havoc, physically and ideologically, on the modern music scene. A whole style—tonal but angular and craggy—got wiped out in favor of the hard-nosed ideologues of the avant-garde. After 1945, there was no room for composers like Braunfels, Blacher, or K.A.Hartmann. Genzmer defied that trend and his music remains a vivid and pleasing monument to the unredeemed promise and potential of that style of classical music.
Sunday, 2.8.09, 12:00 pm
Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876-1909)
Another anniversary today: Exactly one hundred years ago the composer Mieczysław Karłowicz was buried by an avalanche, skiing in the Tatra Mountains, just 33 years old. Apart from songs and a violin concerto, he wrote gorgeous late-romantic tone poems that have been recorded by Dux Records, Naxos, and perhaps most convincingly Chandos with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Y.P.Tortelier and G.Noseda. To check out the music of “the link between Chopin and Szymanowski”, it might be most rewarding to start with Noseda’s disc containing the “Rebirth Symphony”, “The White Dove”, and the String Serenade. Bob McQuiston, who first pointed Karłowicz’ music out to me, reviews Noseda’s second disc (”Returning Waves” etc.) at Classical Lost and Found. As Karłowicz lived and studied as much in Germany (Heidelberg, Dresden, Berlin) as he did in Poland (Vishneva, Warsaw, Zakopane), the musical influences of Brahms, Wagner, and Strauss are audible in many of these works, as well.
Sunday, 2.8.09, 3:00 am
Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709)
Giuseppe Torelli is a composer omnipresent in Christmas compilations of baroque trumpet concertos, but otherwise obscure. Of the 79 albums listed under Torelli on Arkiv, 77 are compilations and 15 of those include “Christmas” in the title. He died 300 years ago today, in Bologna.
Torelli was born on April 22nd 1658 in Chiavica, near Roveredo di Guà, set between Cologna Veneta, Montagnana, and Noventa Vicentina—sitting roughly in the center of the triangle formed by Verona, Padua, and Ferrara in the Veneto region. He was a violinist at the Verona cathedral, became a member of the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna at 27 where he made a musical career of being a violinist until he became the composition student of Giacomo Antonio Perti (who was three years his junior). The Margrave of Brandenburg George Frederick the Elder, Regent of Prussia ‘found’ Torelli and the alto-castrato Francesco Antonio Pistocchi while on a trip through Italy, and the two musicians followed him to Ansbach (near Nuremberg), hired as Maestro di Concerto and Maestro di Capella, respectively. Torelli’s and Pistocchi’s paths remained identical for years to come. After a few years, they meandered their way back to Bologna, via Vienna, and joined Perti at the Capella Musicale San Petronio.
The many (unpublished) works for solo trumpet and strings that Torelli has become best known for stem from his first Bolognese period where the trumpeter Giovanni Pellegrino Brandi must have made a big impression on the beginning composer with only four sets of published works under his belt, so far. Since the Trumpet pieces were for performance in the gigantic San Petronio basilica (the fifth largest church in the world, even today, with a capacity of well over 25.000), there were no economic constraints on the size of the ensemble, making them (variously named sonatas, sinfonias, and concertos) predecessors of the lavish baroque concerto type.
In 1692 Torelli published his op.5, six trio sonatas and six concertos; in 1698 he published op.6 where, for the first time, he marks sections of the violin part “solo”, specifically demanding they be played by a single violin: the beginning of the violin concerto tradition that Vivaldi would take to new heights in his opp.3 (“L’estro Armonico”, 1711), 4 (“La stravaganza”, 1717), and 8 (“Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione” 1725). While the op.6 concertos were dedicated to the Electress of Brandenburg, op.8 [op.7 has not survived] was composed during his second Bologna period and published posthumously. Op.8 is a selection of concerti grossi and solo concertos that set standards for all composers to come. They alone make—the trumpet concertos aside—Torelli an important figure in Italian baroque music.
Ann Schnoebelen and Marc Vanscheeuwijk write (in the New Groves) that here, “Torelli abandoned traditional Bolognese counterpoint in favor of a dominating top line, an articulated accompaniment, sequential progressions, clear cadences and well-defined tonal contrasts. Ritornellos and episodes are clearly contrasted, and the ritornello functions as both springboard and framework for the mature concerto form”. I would have said it differently, namely that op.8 contains the necessary amount of ‘awesome’ to make every one of those concertos a continuously enjoyable listen. Better yet to quote Robert Maxham who, discussing Simon Standage’s recording of op.8 on Chandos/Chaconne in Fanfare Magazine, said the following about them: “Torelli broke ground in the setting of solo violins[. While their] solo parts seem relatively tame in comparison with the flamboyant, high-flying passages of Vivaldi’s concertos—or even with the crabbed, highly demanding technical double stopping and staccatos of [his] German violinistic predecessors[, they] emerge randomly from their tuttis as wildflowers on a hillside.”
This collection of works by Standage and Collegium Musicum 90 is a splendid primer on matters Torelli and the development of the Concerto Grosso, and it’s a much more varied collection (including, as it does, concertos for one and two violins and trumpets each) on one disc than the other all-Torelli choice: Brilliant Classics’ super-budget two disc set of Trumpet “Concertos” (above mentioned sonatas, sinfonias, and concertos). That said, if you do like a good baroque trumpet concerto, that superbly recorded and played disc with Thomas Hammes and the European Chamber Soloists is a splendid choice. And so much better a way than to know your Torelli only from a Christmas sampler.
Thursday, 2.5.09, 6:00 am
Grażyna Bacewicz – 100th Anniversary
Grażina Bacewicz was born 100 years ago today in Łódź, to a Polish mother and a Lithuanian father from whom she received her first musical training. Her prodigious talent became soon obvious and she gave her fist public performances at the age of seven. Her first composition followed at thirteen. At 19 she began to study philosophy at the University of Warsaw, but after just over a year she decided to focus more on music and enrolled in the Warsaw Conservatoire where she studied violin with Józef Jarzębski, piano with Jan Turczyński, and composition with Kazimierz Sikorski.
During her time at the Conservatoire, Karol Szymanowski recommended she study at the École Normale de Musique with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, which she did in the 1930s, thanks to a scholarship from Paderewski. In Paris, she also studied with André Touret and, after touring Spain as a performer and teaching harmony in Łódz, with Carl Flesch. Part of her graduation concert was the neo-classical Wind Quintet from 1932 which won her the First Prize at the Competition of the ‘Société “Aide aux femmes de professions libres”.
She became the principle violinist of the newly established Polish Radio Orchestra in Katowice where she was able to perform some of her own compositions – including the First Violin Concerto. Several more prestigious prizes followed, including the Second Prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw (1949, for her Concerto for Piano and Orchestra) and the Gold Medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1965 for her Seventh Violin Concerto. A capable pianist as well as a violinist, she also premiered her Second Piano Sonata from 1953, which remains one of her more commonly performed compositions. It was the last composition she would perform herself, after a car accident in 1954 – at age 45 – prohibited a continuation of her professional performing career.
Tuesday, 2.3.09, 6:00 am
Felix Mendelssohn B.
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was born today, 200 years ago, in Hamburg, to Abraham Mendelssohn and Lea Salomon, grandson to Moses Mendelssohn, the famous philosopher, scholar, and model for Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise”. Felix’s father converted to Lutheranism for convenience’ sake (“If you don’t believe in any one Religion as the right one, why burden your children with Judaism”), and added the more Christian sounding “Bartholdy” to the family name.
Felix—not least to honor the memory of his admired grandfather—didn’t quite follow his father’s wishes (who thought it a mistake not to have dropped “Mendelssohn” altogether) and marginalized “Bartholdy”, often signing letters with “Felix Mendelssohn B.”
If Mozart’s biography reads as though the timpani-strokes from his Requiem are already sounding faintly in the background, Mendelssohn’s has the 
soundtrack of his Midsummer Night’s Dream running through it: Happy, lovely, pleasant, well mannered. Mozart, apart from his few innocent Wunderkind-years, was crude, reckless, annoying, broke, borderline delusional—and always at the brink of failure. Mendelssohn was refined, polite, prudent, affable, ever prosperous, level-headed, and successful. Based on stereotypes and expectations, Mozart would have made the better Romantic composer, Mendelssohn the better Classical. When it comes to fulfilling that Beethoven-Schumann-Chopin set romantic ideal of the troubled, struggling artist, Mendelssohn did only one thing right: He died early.
But premature death—at 38, only six months after his beloved sister Fanny died aged 41—wasn’t enough for a romantic reputation. Partly due to the nature of his compositions, partly due to his biography and personality, he has been treated—though never entirely dismissed—as a lightweight composer. In that sense, it wasn’t helpful that he wrote two of his most 
enduring and charming (always that word coming up with matters Mendelssohn) works at the ages of 16 and 17: The Octet for Strings op.20 and the above mentioned Midsummer Night’s Overture op.21, respectively. This contributed to the image of a sort of Benjamin Button of composers—a young man who starts out at perfection (much more accomplished, at that age, than Mozart) but then regressed at a high level, never again to push the boundaries of his craft.
This view is correct only in its high estimate of the Octet and the Overture—they are indeed among the best works any composer that age has put out, including Korngold and Bridge. But it is wrong in many other ways. The works did not come out of nowhere, they were the process of a steady development of his talent backed with a thorough—and unlike Mozart, very broad—education. Nor are these works masterpieces in a bygone style, isolated from the development in music. If Louis Spohr wrote his octets as doubled barreled string quartet arrangements, Mendelssohn introduced a new style: eight instruments and as many voices, wholly integrated in the work blurring the lines between chamber- and symphonic music.