mercoldi musicale

Okay the first day of Spring was over two weeks ago and temperatures are still coming in the minuses - we even had snow for Easter, try finding white Easter Eggs in the snow!!!!

However here are two of my favourite chantootzies singing the praises (???) of Spring!

The great cabaret and Broadway star Julie Wilson died earlier this week and here she tells us about  one of the more melancholy aspects of the Equinox.

The wonderful Blossom Dearie has a slightly more optimistic outlook on the season - perhaps one we should stick with, even if it takes to June to prove true.

Oh look the forecast calls for snow and -10 tonight! Spring Fever? I don't think so more like the winter flu!

April 8 - 1820: The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Milos.

Mercoledi Musicale

Grimaldi as clown in the pantomine Harlequin &
Frair Bacon at Covent Garden in December 1820
as captured by Issac Robert Cruickshank.

Museum of the City of London

Last week I wrote about the great clown and namesake of every clown in the world: Joseph "Joey" Grimaldi. His story is a fascinating if sad one of a child performer who grew to become a major star of his era but ended, if not forgotten, certainly neglected.  It's recorded that at his final benefit on 27 June 1828 he aroused himself from his sick bed - he was in constant pain from injuries incurred during a childhood and later life of performing his famous tricks - and entertained an audience of 2000 who had waited for hours to gain entrance to Drury Lane.  He lived another nine years - the last few alone (his wife and son had both died), in penury and prone to alcoholism.

But if his life was an example of the sad clown, on stage he was a remarkable entertainer who could quell even the toughest audience - and audiences of the time were tough!  And nothing pleased his audience more than when he stood centre stage and told the tale of the little old lady who sold her codlins (baked apples) in the streets of London. 

Hot Codlins - a watercolour from 1827 by
Charles Cooper Henderson.

Museum of the City of London

Peddlers plied their wares on the streets of every major European city.   Though shops abounded the streets of London were filled with the cries of men, women and children hawking food stuffs of every kind - produce, game, meat, cooked food, sweet snacks and there were even nutmeg grinders.  Milkmaids would sell you milk right from the cow that they lead into the square by your house; should you be lactose intolerant (yes they knew what it was) there was asses' milk readily available with the beast trotted up to your door step.   Vegetables, herbs and fruit were carried through the streets in baskets balanced on the heads of the sellers. And Grimaldi's little old lady would have transported her brazier and codlings much after the fashion of the woman in the drawing at the left. Indeed many of Grimaldi's audience may well have bought one of her apples, hot, hot, hot to have as a snack during the performance or as a missal for a less than appreciated artiste.

When Grimaldi sang his little ditty the only thing the audience ever threw was the last word of each verse.  Here's the only version I could find of the original sung by, appropriately, The Grimaldi Band.

January 14 - 1933: The controversial "Bodyline" cricket tactics used by Douglas Jardine's England peak when Australian captain Bill Woodfull is hit over the heart.

Mercoledi Musicale

At their recent sold out Chamber Society concert here in Ottawa the King's Singers included a short cantata by Francis Poulenc as part of their Christmas programme.   Written in 1944 it is based on four poems that Paul Éluard sent him later in the winter of 1944.  Éluard was fighting for the Resistance and at the time was in hiding with other fighters and Jews who had been give cover at the mental asylum at Saint-Alban.   Poulenc lived in Paris during most of the occupation but was under constant surveillance because of his homosexuality and as a suspected Resistance supporter.   Earlier he had written Figure humaine, a cantata based on eight of Éluard's poems which had been banned for its final sentence: I was born to know, to name you: Liberty.    Needless to say the authorities squashed any attempt to perform it in France.

Un Soire de Neige is filled with hidden references to the life of the Resistance fighters:  the wolves refer to the German soldiers in their gray uniforms hunting down their prey.  And the elements of the winter are as cruel and unforgiving as the enemy.

The piece was written for six mixed voices or choir acapella: the Netherlands Chamber Choir's version is remarkably fine.  The songs will follow one after the other automatically on separate videos.

Un Soir de Neige	A Snowy Evening
I. De grandes cuillers de neige De grandes cuillers de neige Ramassent nos pieds glacés Et d’une dure parole Nous heurtons l’hiver têtu Chaque arbre a sa place en l’air Chaque roc son poids sur terre Chaque ruisseau son eau vive Nous nous n’avons pas de feu	I. Great snowy spoons Great snowy spoons Pick up our icy feet And with a harsh word We confront stubborn winter Each tree has its place in the air Each rock its weight on the earth Each stream its living water But we have no fire
II. La bonne neige La bonne neige le ciel noir Les branches mortes la détresse De la forêt pleine de pièges Honte à la bête pourchassée La fuite en flêche dans le coeur Les traces d’une proie atroce Hardi au loup et c’est toujours Le plus beau loup et c’est toujours Le dernier vivant que menace La masse absolue de la mort	II. The good snow The good snow, the black sky The dead branches, the pain Of the forest full of traps Shame to the hunted creature Flight like an arrow in its heart The tracks of a ferocious prey Onward, wolf, and it’s always The finest wolf and it’s always The last one alive threatened by The absolute weight of death
III. Bois meurtri Bois meurtri bois perdu d’un voyage en hiver Navire où la neige prend pied Bois d’asile bois mort où sans espoir je rêve De la mer aux miroirs crevés Un grand moment d’eau froide a saisi les noyés La foule de mon corps en souffre Je m’affaiblis je me disperse J’avoue ma vie j’avoue ma mort j’avoue autrui.	III. Bruised Woods Bruised woods, lost woods of a winter’s journey Ship where the snow takes hold Sheltering woods, dead woods, where without hope I dream Of the sea with its gutted mirrors A surge of cold water gripped the drowned Making the crowd of my body suffer I grow weak, I am scattered I confess my life, I confess my death, I confess the other
IV. La nuit le froid la solitude La nuit le froid la solitude On m’enferma soigneusement Mais les branches cherchaient leur voie dans la prison Autour de moi l’herbe trouva le ciel On verrouilla le ciel Ma prison s’écroula Le froid vivant le froid brûlant m’eut bien en main	IV. Night cold loneliness Night cold loneliness They locked me in carefully But the branches were seeking their way into the prison Around me grass found the sky They locked and bolted the sky My prison crumbled The living cold the burning cold had me right in its hand
Paul Éluard (1895-1952)

The composition, dated December 24 to 26, 1944, carries the dedication:

Pour le Noël de Marie-Blanche [de Polignac] tendrement, Francis, 25 décembre 1944. Excusez cette cantate sur la neige, tout à coup pleine de boue.

For  Christmas, to Marie-Blanche [de Polignac] tenderly, Francis.  25 December 1944. Excuse this mud-caked (somber) cantata on snow.

The Wikipedia link to the biography of Éluard makes for a fascinating reading and a left click on the link at the first reference to him (above) could prove interesting.

December 17 - 1790: Discovery of the Aztec calendar stone.

Mercoledi Musciale

It's often mere serendipity that sends us off on wild goose chases in the Celtic knot that is the Internet.  And such is the case with this lovely version of an oft performed favourite of the Irish diaspora, Oh Danny Boy.   My friend Richard drew my attention to it and remarked on the sensitive singing of John Brancy and the lovely piano accompaniment by Peter Dugan. 

Of course this led to me searching the origins of this most Irish of ditties - only to find that the lyrics were penned by an Englishman and a lawyer to boot!  Though his profession was that of a barrister Frederic Weatherly's legacy is the over 3000 lyrics he wrote for hymns, ballads and popular songs.  His first success was in 1892 with The Holy City - a much beloved anthem that I recall singing in my boy soprano days.   Weatherly was also the lyricist for many popular songs during the First Great War including the lovely Roses of Picady.

When Weatherly first penned the lyrics of Danny Boy in 1910 it was set to a melody other than the familiar Londonderry Air.   It was only after he had been sent a copy of the Irish folk melody by his sister-in-law Margaret, Irish-born but residing in the United States, that he adapted the lyrics to fit the familiar melody's meter.

The melody of what is now called The Londonderry Air has been used in many forms - folk song, hymns, pop and love songs.  It's appeared in symphonic suites, movie scores, cartoons and, I'm told, a video game.  The originals have been much discussed and are briefly outlined in the Wikipedia entry and more exhaustively in Brian Audley's study for the Royal Music Association.

Whatever it's origins it still can bring a lump to the throat particularly when sung and played so beautifully as it is here.

As a side note Mr Brancy will be singing Figaro in the Marriage of said character here in Ottawa with Opera Lyra in March.

November 26 - 2004: The last Poʻouli (Black-faced honeycreeper) dies of avian malaria in the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, Hawaii, making the species in all probability extinct.

Mercoledi Musicale

To celebrate the delicate snow scene outside my window (oh joy! oh bliss!) and as a thank offering for not living in the Buffalo-Niagara area I offer up this small excerpt from Claude Debussy's  Children's Corner Suite. 

André Caplet and Claude Debussy

The Snow is Dancing is the fourth in the series of six piano pieces Debussy composed between 1905 and 1908.  They were meant to evoke scenes of childhood and when it was completed he dedicated the suite to his treasured "Chou-chou": his three year old daughter Claude-Emma.  Sadly, Chouchou passed away from diphtheria in 1919 at the age of 13, only a year after her father's death from cancer. 

Shortly after the piano score was published Debussy's friend André Caplet created a transcription for orchestra, as he was to do for several of Debussy's works.  Caplet was a composer in his own right whose career was cut short by the effects of a gas attack during the Great War.  He never completely recovered and died from a lung disease in 1925.

Though I would have difficult choosing between the two I find Caplet's transcription the more evocative of a snowy landscape and gentle swirls of snow dancing through the air.   The piano version seems to have the odd shard of ice hidden within its whirling flakes.  But I'll let you decide which you prefer..

Here's Jean-Yves Thibaudet playing Debussy's original piano piece.

 The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal always had a special way with Debussy when Charles Dutroit was on the podium.

Even as I type this there are gentle swirls of snow outside my window - at this point it's almost possible to believe in Debussy's winter magic. Ask me how I feel about it in two months time.


November 19 - 1916:  Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures.

Mercoledi Musicale

Until last week my only knowledge of the music of John Sheppard came from a recording by the Gabrieli Consort of his Messe Cantate written for Christmas in the Chapel Royal of Queen Mary and her husband King Philip.  Sheppard was one those composers,  who like Tallis and Tye, lived through the turbulent religious changes during the reign of the Tudors.  He composed for Catholic Cathedral and Protestant Chapel; for Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I however he died within the first few days of the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, the last Tudor.

A Sarum missal created for Florence Chichele Darell circa
1418 and now in the collection at SMU. A left click will
take you to a larger view and a short history of the missal.

Much of his music was written for the Sarum rite celebrations that were common in the Catholic church in England of the time.  Established in the 11th century by St Osmund in Salisbury (Sarum) it was the standard liturgical practice (Use) for much of England, Wales, Ireland and eventually Scotland.  Osmund created very little himself but took what he saw as the best from the many Uses in the dioceses around him - each seemed to have its own way of doing things - and set them forth as the standard for the Divine Offices, Mass and the Church Calendar.  Though originally meant for his own diocese of Salisbury the usage spread and within a hundred years became the liturgical standard in most of England. 

The Sarum rite was more ritualistic than the Roman rite and certainly more elaborate in its ceremonies and its use of music.  Music - plainsong and polyphony - were central to the form of worship.  Many parts of the Offices and Mass were sung:  collects, antiphons, canticles, psalms and responsories as well as prayers, litanies, invocations and at Festal masses even the consecration.  The ability to sing was much valued in a priest or for that matter in a parishioner - even when he was Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More sang in his Chelsea parish choir at Evensong.  More than one wealthy patron saw to that his local church had the monies to employ "an able priest, and in especiall a syngynge man yf he may be gotten"*. 

The rite disappeared under Edward but was re-instituted when Mary came to the throne.  It was during this brief five year period that Shepperd wrote many of his most complex masses and motets.  I was unable to find a date for this Lenten motet which Christopher Hossfeld used as inspiration for the conclusion of his In Pace premiered by the Cantata Singers last week but it is possible that it was written during his time at Magdelen College.

In Pace		In Peace
In pace, in idipsum dormiam et requiescam. Si dedero somnum oculis meis, et palpebris meis dormitationem, dormiam et requiescam. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.		In peace and into the same I shall sleep and rest. If I give slumber to my eyes and to my eyelids drowsiness, I shall sleep and rest. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

The first line is from Psalm 4:9, and the second two lines are from Psalm 132:4, both in the Vulgate version.

With the advent of Elizabeth the Sarum rite disappeared from use however it's influence can be seen in the Book of Common Prayer and also in the musical tradition of the Anglican Church.  The rite also strongly influenced the founders of the Oxford Movement and many of the practices within the Anglo-Catholic church can trace their roots to the traditions instituted by St Osmund. 


*From a bequest in the will of John Lang of Lincolnshire in 1516.  He also requested that the priest be able in plainsong at the least but suggested that someone also skilled in "pricksong" or polyphony was preferable.

November 12 - 1439: Plymouth, England, becomes the first town incorporated by the English Parliament.

Mercoledi Muscicale

Back in my high school days I was fortunate to have several teachers who encouraged my interest in music, theatre and literature.  Doug Livingstone was our music and drama teacher - yes boys and girls we had music and drama classes.  He desperately attempted to teach me how to read music but had the good sense not to allow me any where near an instrument.  But he did allow me to try my hand at acting - the annual school play, assembly appearances and, just for the joy of it, exploring plays in Drama Club.

One year a drama club exercise was a reading of Under Milk Wood,  that remarkable evocation of life in Llareggub*, a fictional seaside town in Wales by Dylan Thomas.   Being a bit pompous - a bit? - I had started to read the introduction in my best poetic manner when Mr Livingstone stopped me and said,  "Just read the words in your normal voice".   Being a brash little bastard I probably sniffed with that "what does he know" adolescent sniff.  But as I simply read it in my natural voice I found that the rhythm of the lines, the portmanteau words,  the alliteration and the simple beauty of the language produced a voice of it's own that was almost like singing.  

To this day I dare anyone to read that passage out loud and not end up sounding like they are singing:

To begin at the beginning:
It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

Though Thomas's words provide music of their own a chance mention by a friend of one of the characters in Under Milk Wood led me to this lovely Anglican chant setting of the Reverend Eli Jenkins' Morning Prayer.

Every morning when I wake,
Dear Lord, a little prayer I make,
O please do keep Thy lovely eye
On all poor creatures born to die

And every evening at sun-down
I ask a blessing on the town,
For whether we last the night or no
I’m sure is always touch-and-go.

We are not wholly bad or good
Who live our lives under Milk Wood,
And Thou, I know, wilt be the first
To see our best side, not our worst.

O let us see another day!
Bless us all this night, I pray,
And to the sun we all will bow
And say, good-bye – but just for now!

In this frightening age of absolute  I find that third verse reassuring that there is a middle ground and, God willing, not just in Llareggub.


* Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru (the National Library of Wales) has a map that Thomas sketched of his fictional town.   By the way Llareggub has no special meaning other than being "bugger all" spelled backwards.

05 November - 1872: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.

Mercoledi Musicale

One of the pleasures of social media is becoming acquainted with people around the world and through them finding things - music, books, op-eds, facts, figures and even those annoying quizzes - that give you pleasure or pause for thought.  I have one FB friend in New York who constantly expands my musical knowledge with links to programmes, videos and audio of music.  He and I may have differing views on a few things political and musical but his suggestions have led me to discover or rediscover some wonderful music.

Last week he introduced me to the music of Déodat de Séverac, a French composer of the Belle Époque, whose music was entirely unknown to me.  A look at the video he had posted led me to this version of his lullaby "Ma Poupée Chérie" by the Corsican soprano Martha Angelici.  She is accompanied on this recording by Maurice Faure. 

This link will take you to the translation of de Séverac's lyrics.   There are several versions out there including one by the great Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester.  

October 22 - 1844: The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.

Mercoledi Musicale

Maurel was a bit of a dandy and considered a
matinee idol by his adoring public.  Here he
as captured by Spy (Leslie Ward) for the
October 20, 1898 edition of Vanity Fair.

As I said in my previous post Verdi's Falstaff is on of my favourite operas and I hope to write about last Friday's performance by the COC with Gerald Finley.  But for today's Mercoledi Musicale I thought I'd reach back to 14 years after the work's premiere in 1893; in 1907 the great French baritone Victor Maurel who had created the role recorded a short excerpt from the opera.  (The record label in the video indicates 1904 but apparently this is an error in the reissue.)

And I do mean short.  "Quand'ero paggio" lasts all of 35 seconds and is one of those moments in a score full of melodies that come and go with the speed of quicksilver.  In fact to fill the side of the 78rpm disc Columbia had Maurel sing it not once, not twice but three times - twice in Italian and once in French for good measure.  It is rather delightfully encored at the insistence of at least three stout fellows in the studio with encouraging cries of "Bravo" and a clarion call for a "bis".  I'm not sure but one of those voices sounds suspiciously like the good artist himself.

I always loved the way this tiny vignette just pops up in response to Alice Ford's less than flattering remark about Falstaff "vulnerabil popla" - amble flesh.   He quickly assures her that things were different when he was a mere slip of a lad:

Quand'ero paggio del Duca di Norfolk ero sottile, sottile, sottile, ero un miraggio vago, leggiero, gentile. Quello era il tepo del mio verde aprile, quello era il tempo del mio lieto maggio. Tant'era smilzo, flessibile e snello che sarei guizzato attraverso un annello.

When I was page to the Duke of Norfolk I was so so slender, a mirage, light and fair, and very genteel. That was my verdant April season, the joyous Maytime of my life. Then I was so lean, so lithe, so slender, you could have slipped me through a ring.

Maurel was to sing the role of Falstaff in many major opera houses including the work's premieres in France and the United States.  At the Metropolitan alone he sang it 22 times.  In each city his portrayal was greeted with unstinting praise.   And how this debonair French man turned himself into Verdi and Boito's "mountain of fat" was a favourite news topic of the day.   In April 1894 an article showing the transformation appeared in one of the many illustrated magazine to coincide with the Paris premiere.  Obviously it was a good press piece and possibly Maurel carried it around with him as it showed up in periodicals in England and America.

Maurel was one of the preeminent singing actors of his day and Verdi was quoted as asking in admiration,  "Was there ever such a complete artist?"  After hearing him Wagner  cried, "Friends, come, salute a great artist".  But his vanity - and vain he was of both his appearance and his standing in the music world -    almost ruined his chances of creating the two roles that would guarantee him a place in the operatic Pantheon:  Iago and Falstaff.   After it became known in the mid-1880s that Verdi was working on an opera based on Shakespeare's Othello Maurel began to brag that Verdi was writing Iago for him.  Now the working title of the new opera, in deference to Rossini's Otello, was Iago, and Verdi had mentioned that he was writing the villainous character with Maurel in mind but did not want it voiced all over Europe.  It's said he almost sought another singer for the role but relented because he knew what the baritone could bring to the role.

In 1903 Maurel recorded Iago's aria "Era la notte" - by this time his voice, never known for its lyrical beauty, had diminished but his artistry was still at its peak.

In the case of Falstaff correspondence reveal that Maurel became increasingly demanding of La Scala and to a certain extent Verdi.  He believe that he had a right to sing the role and asked for larger than normal fee.  There was some unpleasantness but again the threat of being deprived of the role he so desperately wanted made him back away from his demands. 

Maurel was to retire in 1909,  two years after he made that little recording of "Quand'ero paggio" for Columbia.  He did not give up the stage completely and turned to designing - a production he did for the Met of Gounod's Mireille evoked the colours and landscape of his native Provence.  After several years in Paris he settled in New York City where he taught young singers until his death in 1923 at the age of 75.

October 8 - 1645:  Jeanne Mance opened the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, the first lay hospital in North America.

Mercoledi Musicale

Well it's that time of year again - tomatoes are ripe on the vine and plentiful in the market - and there's nothing I love more than a ripe tomato.  I have fond memories of those first beef streaks when I was a child - my father would cut one in two and we'd share the salt-seller - that's all that was needed.   The taste of sunshine, summer and the approaching change of season all rolled into one.

My friend Spo is just as crazy about tomatoes as I am and was bemoaning his inability to grow and, more important, harvest the ripened berry of Solanum lycopersicum in his southern climate.  In response to his request of yesterday here's my all-time favourite performer: the divine Josephine singing a timely warning about the fruit of the vine!

September 10 - 1939: World War II: Canada declares war on Nazi Germany, joining the Allies – France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

Mercoledi Musicale

One of the concerts I choose to give a miss this year at the Whitsun Festival was a piano recital by the young French pianist David Fray. Fray appeared on the music scene in 2004 winning the second grand prize at the Montreal International Piano Competition . He is a rather mannered player reminiscent of a long-haired Glen Gould – though he has voiced little admiration of Gould citing Wilhelm Kempff as his model. Unlike much of the performances scheduled last week he will not be concentrating on Rossini however he won’t be entirely neglecting the Man of the hour.

In 1820 Liszt transcribed La caritá (Charity), a short religious choral composition of Rossini’s, for piano. It was the last work of a triptych – I’ll let you figure out what the other two may have been called. Fray will be including it in his programme along with selections by Schubert, Bach and other works by Liszt.

I tried to upload a version by an Australian pianist who has recorded all the piano works of Liszt - 98 volumes - however YouTube banned it almost immediately despite the link to his website etc.  I will not name either the artist or the label because I was all set to give them free publicity .

Unfortunately the only piano version on YouTube is not a particularly good one but there are several lovely postings of the original choral piece (mostly by amateur choirs) and this one is particular favourite.

The soprano Jodie Devos was the second laureate in this year's Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels. Should you wish to hear a bit more of this young soprano, her performance at the finale of the Competition is available here.

June 17 - 1631: Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.

Mercoledi Musicale

One of the lovely things about the internet is being able to tap into the knowledge and enthusiasms of people from all over our small planet.  I have been very lucky in that respect in getting to know people with wide ranges of experiences and interests particularly musically.

Perhaps a bit frivolous for this posting but I
found this cartoon of Saint-Saëns conducting
his Carnival of the Animals delightful.

I've learned so much - discovered so much - from people such as my friend David in London - a man who has influenced my reading and listening habits greatly in the past seven years.  And not just things classical - I flew to London at his urging to catch Dame Edna in her one and only Panto and have eaten at three great London restaurants at his suggestion and in his and his diplomate's delightful company.  I've also met some delightful and interesting people of their acquaintance to add to the pleasure.

And the past month or so I've been getting suggestions on music - and jabs about Canadian politics, but those I ignore - from a FaceBook friend in New York City who is constantly coming up with intriguing musical selections.  One morning he had me pumped to Shostakovitch's #3 and another day he suggested this rather elegiac piece by Camille Saint-Saëns .

La Muse et le Poète pour violon, violoncelle et orchestre, op. 132 is a relatively unknown, late (1909 - 1910) piece from Saint-Saëns' vast catalogue.  There has been some attempt to assign instruments to the characters of the title however it appears that the name was given to the piece a time after its composition by Jacques Durand , the composer's publisher.

In 1909 at the age of 74 Saint-Saëns had just finished composing the world's first film score for  a silent costume drama called La Mort du duc de Guise.*  Exhausted and in need of a vacation he went to North Africa, his favourite destination.  He composed this seventeen-minute, single-movement piece while relaxing in Luxor in December of the year.   Originally scored as a  trio for violin, cello and piano,  the composer played the piano part himself at the 1910 premiere in London with the Belgian virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe and the German cellist Joseph Hollmann.   The piece was originally intended as a memorial for Mme. J-Henry Carruette.  The later orchestration is a direct transcription of the piano part.   Despite the difficulty of the two solo parts, the work was never intended as a virtuoso piece; Saint-Saëns himself described it as "a conversation between the two instruments instead of a debate between two virtuosos."

This particular version is taken from a project to record all twenty-eight of Saint Saëns compositions for violin and orchestra and cello and orchestra.   It is a joint venture between The Queen Elizabeth Music Chapel - a music school founded in 1939 by Eugène Ysaÿe - and Zig Zag Territories.  Young violinists and cellist from the school are accompanied by the Liège Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of the Viennese conductor Christian Arming.  

February 26 - 1909: Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process, is first shown to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London.

Mercoledi Musicale

Memory can be a confusing thing. For some reason I thought that the first time I had seen Patricia Routledge on stage was with Alastair Sim at the 1969 Chichester Festival.  I have written previously about the comic delight that was Sim's Mr Posket in The Magistrate and that Patricia Routledge once said that it was through working with Sim that she perfected her comic timing.

Patricia Routledge as Alice Challice in Darling of
the Day, the 1968 musical that won her a Tony Award.

However a quick look through Broadway records tells me that the first time I saw her was in Darling of the Day (it was called Married Alive when my friend Charlie and I saw it) on its pre-New York try-out in Toronto.  It starred Vincent Price and the lyrics were by E. Y. Harburg and the music by Julie Styne and despite the billing the real star was Patricia Routledge.  And yes it was a musical and that year - 1968 - she won the Tony Award as Leading Actress in a musical.

What most people don't realize is that Hyacinthe Bucket was a trained singer and that many of her early stage appearances were in musicals.  And most people don't realize that in 1976 she also starred in Alan Jay Lerner and Leonard Bernstein's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue playing every American First Lady from Abigail Adams to Eleanor Roosevelt.  The show was a legendary flop but opening night Routledge stopped the show with Duet for One where she played both Julia Grant and Lucy Hayes on the day of Rutherford B. Hayes's inauguration.  With a simple re-angling of her bonnet and a slight change of accent she switched from one to the other in a brilliant display of her musical and dramatic abilities.  Bernstein would not allow an original cast recording so unfortunately only a less than perfect pirated recording of that opening night performance exists.

Several years before that virtuosic performance she recorded an album of show tunes and romantic ballads released by RCA in 1973 under the title Presenting Patricia Routledge.  Unfortunately the orchestrations are the lush arrangements of the period that swamped many a lesser voice;  the simplicity of her singing and delivery ride over the throbbing violins and cut through the saccharine to the heart.

Many standards of the time are included along with the occasional lesser known piece such as this lovely song from Jerry Herman's Dear World.

I was one of those people who resisted the cloying Gallic charm of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg and I was never that fond of its hit song I Will Wait For You - even if it was mouthed by Catherine Deneuve.   I'm trying to think of a single singer of the time that didn't cover Michel LeGrand's song but not many gave it quite the same operatic treatment as Routledge does here.  Still can't say that I'm fond of it but she does a fine job and its the only other cut from this album I've been able to find.

And somewhere out there in the ether there must be a copy of her singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the 1994 revival of Carousel at the National Theatre.   Her Nettie was universally praised in a highly praised production but unfortunately she didn't accompany the show on its transfer to New York.

And by the way yesterday (February 18th) was her 85th birthday and she seems to still be going strong.

February 19 - 1674: England and the Netherlands sign the Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. A provision of the agreement transfers the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England, and it is renamed New York.

Mercoledi Musicale

So this was all this to-do this past weekend about an opera singer - AN OPERA SINGER I tells ya! - performing the American National Anthem at a major sports event.   When they weren't otherwise occupied with the uproar over a song about the United States being an all-inclusive country sung in foreign languages the waves were atwitter with silliness about how well/badly this opera singer - AN OPERA SINGER I tells ya! - did.

Sorry but I had to snicker behind my hand - well okay a few times I just outright guffawed - at the way both opera fans and the "common man" were treating this as an unusual, never before in the history of human existence occurrence.

Every Sunday night we tuned in
to Ed Sullivan's "Really big show!"

Damn folks, let cast our minds back to a time, not that long ago, when an opera singer on television wasn't such a big deal just part of normal programming.  In those days opera singers were regular guests on many of the variety and talk programmes - hell at one point NBC had its own opera company and its own orchestra (anyone every heard of a guy called Arturo Toscanini?).   And then there was this guy called Ed Sullivan.  He had a show on Sunday nights - the show where Elvis Presley, The Beatles, MARIA CALLAS, the Rolling Stones, The Supremes, JOAN SUTHERLAND,  Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, RICHARD TUCKER, the Jackson Five and a whole gang of other song birds strutted their stuff before the households of North America. 

From 1948 until 1971 The Ed Sullivan Show was the quintessential variety show and for that hour from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM America almost came to a standstill.  It featured everything from ballet to Broadway and often opera was up there with the best and the emerging best in entertainment.

Roberta Peters as Rosina in Il Barbiere - one of her
signature roles.  Her's was a Rosina for the canary
fanciers - but what an extraordinary canary it was!

The record for appearances on Ed's show is held by two Canadians - the witty and erudite Wayne and Schuster with 58 appearances, followed by comedians Jack Carter with 49 and Myron Cohen with 43.  And right behind them in #4 place: opera singer Roberta Peters with 41!  AN OPERA SINGER I tells ya!  Who would have thunk?

Peters was a real American success story, she made her unscheduled debut at the Met in November 1950 at the age of 19 having never sung on a stage in her life.  At the time Met General Manager Rudolph Bing observed: To be thrown on the stage at the Met for the first time like that is a shock few can survive.  Peters did!.  She not only survived but she went on to become an established star at the Met and sang over 520 performances with the company in New York and on tour.   She was a great favourite there and, it would seem, with the audiences across America on Sunday night too!

Perhaps these two clips will explain, a little, why she was a favourite in both the Big Bad Apple and the heartlands.

In a broadcast from 1955 Roberta Peters sings the Doll's aria from Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann.  I'm not sure but this looks like it could be from The Voice of Firestone, another classic classical television show.

At her audition for the Met Rudolph Bing had her sing the Queen of the Night's vengeance aria from Die Zauberflöte which contains four high Fs.  He had her sing it seven times!  That's 28 high Fs for anyone who's counting.  He was unsure if her voice would carry in a house the size of the old Met and listened from all parts of the auditorium.  It did and would both at the old Broadway house and at the new Lincoln Center Met for the next 35 years.

In 1964 she appeared at the Salzburg Festival as the Queen of the Night in Otto Schenk's production of Die Zauberflöte under the baton of István Kertész.  She subsequently recorded the role with Karl Böhm.  Vocally she is completely in control but that costume and the need to be positioned on the trap seem to literally hobble her dramatic performance.

She was only one of a list of opera singers that included Beverly Sills, Robert Merrill, Franco Corelli, Renata Tebaldi, Birgit Nilsson, Leontyne Price, Anna Moffo, Lily Pons, Jan Peerce, Marilyn Horne, Dorothy Kirsten, George London Eileen Farrell and Eleanor Steber - all who appeared "right here on our stage"!

While looking up some information I came upon these opening and closing paragraphs from an entry on The Ed Sullivan Show:

The Ed Sullivan Show was the definitive and longest running variety series in television history (1948-71). Hosted by the eponymous awkward and fumbling former newspaperman, the show became a Sunday night institution on CBS. For twenty-three years the Sullivan show fulfilled the democratic mandate of the variety genre: to entertain all of the audience at least some of the time.

.............

The Ed Sullivan Show reflected an era of network television when a mass audience and, even, a national consensus seemed possible. Sullivan became talent scout and cultural commissar for the entire country, introducing more than 10,000 performers throughout his career. His show implicitly recognized that America should have an electronic exposure to all forms of entertainment, from juggling to opera.

Ron Simon

Museum of Broadcast Communications

Encyclopedia of Television

An interesting observation.

February 5 -  62 CE: Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.

Mercoledi Musicale

In 1948 the 84 year old Richard Strauss read the poem Im Abendrot (At Sunset) by Joseph von Eichendorff and in May of that year set it to music.  Shortly after he was given the complete poems of Hermann Hesse and set three of the poet's works: Frühling (Spring), September, and Beim Schlafengehen (Going to Sleep). With the exception of Frühling the poems deal with death perhaps something the composer was giving much thought to as his own life was drawing to a close.  But his settings were not those of the past: this was no heroic or romantic death but a philosophical sense of calm and acceptance - death as a natural end.

There is no indication that Strauss ever intended these songs to be cycle and he did not hear them performed in his lifetime - he was to die in September 1949.   Ernst Roth, his chief editor at Boosey & Hawkes who compiled them as a song cycle, gave them their title Vier Letzte Lider (The Four Last Songs) and arranged for their premiere in May 1950.  The great Kirsten Flagstad accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler sang them at the Royal Albert Hall.

There have been many performances and recordings of them since - probably as many as there are sopranos - and each has its champions.  My own favourite has always been a live 1951 recording from Stockholm of Sena Jurinac with Fritz Busch conducting the Stockholm Symphony - one of the first recordings ever made of the cycle.  It has its faults - the Stockholm musicians are not in the same league as many of the other orchestras that have recorded it.

Though the entire group has always touched me emotionally Im Abendrot has the ability - along with the remarkable violin passage in Frühling - to move me to tears.  I believe the late Margaret Price only made one commercial recording but fortunately her 1981 performance with the late Claudio Abbado and the Chicago Symphony was recorded.  The combination of these two remarkable and much loved artists with an orchestra at the top of its form make the tears flow. 

Im Abendrot Wir sind durch Not und Freude gegangen Hand in Hand; vom Wandern ruhen wir nun überm stillen Land. Rings sich die Täler neigen, es dunkelt schon die Luft. Zwei Lerchen nur noch steigen nachträumend in den Duft. Tritt her und laß sie schwirren, bald ist es Schlafenszeit. Daß wir uns nicht verirren in dieser Einsamkeit. O weiter, stiller Friede! So tief im Abendrot. Wie sind wir wandermüde-- Ist dies etwa der Tod?

At Sunset We have through sorrow and joy gone hand in hand; From our wanderings, let's now rest in this quiet land. Around us, the valleys bow as the sun goes down. Two larks soar upwards dreamily into the light air. Come close, and let them fly. Soon it will be time for sleep. Let's not lose our way in this solitude. O vast, tranquil peace, so deep in the evening's glow! How weary we are of wandering--- Is this perhaps death?

Joseph von

Eichendorff (1788-1857)

January 29 -1886: Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.

Mercoledi Musicale

I know that the commemoration of what would have been the 90th birthday of Maria Callas was two days ago but thought I'd wait a day or two as the internet was awash with tributes on December 2.

As a young opera queen goer I was not a big Callas fan - my taste ran more to (gasp!) Renata Tebaldi for Verdi-Puccini and Joan Sutherland for the bel canto.  I did have - and oft played - her Mad Scenes recording with its famous Anna Bolena finale.  That I had to admit was pretty damned exciting stuff.  She only made two appearances in Toronto during her career: once on October 21, 1958 when she performed in concert at the mammoth Maple Leaf Gardens hockey rink and again during her, sadly unsuccessful, farewell concert with Giuseppe di Stefano on February 21, 1974 at old Massey Hall.  

My appreciate of her came later in my opera-going life, long after she had retired from both singing and public life.  I came to realize that there is more to singing than beautiful sound - there is the ability to take a piece of music and with it create a vast array of emotions in the listener.  The sounds may not always please the ear but they touch the heart - and perhaps more to the point the gut.   I recently heard it explained that Callas was a "great artist" not necessarily a "great singer".  I think I know what the commentor was getting at - particularly as she ran into more and more vocal difficulties after 1958.

Though she sang Puccini and Verdi on stage, notably Tosca, La Traviata and Macbeth, she was best known for her bel canto roles - Anna Bolena, La Sonnambula, Norma, Il Pirata.  However in the recording studio she committed many of the Puccini and Verdi roles to disc.  Desdemona in Verdi's Otello was a role she never sang on stage and only recorded excerpts from in 1963.  By that time the voice was in decline - a decline that many claimed had started as early as 1955 - but that ability to take a piece of music and with it create a vast array of emotions was still there.  Some may not consider it great singing but no one can deny that it is great, and moving, artistry.

As her gentlewoman Emilia brushes her hair, Desdemona prepares for bed and she recalls a song that Barbara, a maid of her mother's sang after she had been deserted by her lover.  Frequently she breaks off to refer to the poor jilted mad girl; at one point the wind at the shutters frightens her; as Emilia leaves she is suddenly gripped with anguish and bids her not "good night" but "addio - farewell".   Turning to her prayers she says her Ave Maria - her voice fading away into troubled sleep as she repeats:

per noi, per noi tu prega, prega sempre e nell'ora della morte nostra, prega per noi, prega per noi, prega. Ave Maria. . . nell'ora della morte. Ave!. . .Amen!

for us, pray for us, pray now and at the hour of our death pray for us, pray for us, pray Ave Maria.... at the hour of our death. Ave! ....  Amen

While I was doing a Google search - they did a wonderful tribute to La Divina on December 2 - for an image I came across an Al Hirschfeld caricature that I had never seen before.  It is Callas as she appeared in the finale scene of La Sonnambula in Luchino Visconti's production at La Scala in 1955.  No longer Annina, the simple village maiden of Romani's libretto but a grand diva of the ottocento - bejeweled, grand and showing us the vocal technique at her command.   As he always did I think Hirschfeld caught the essence of the character and the singer - both as seen by Visconti and projected by Callas.

December 4 -1909: 1st Grey Cup game is played. The University of Toronto Varsity Blues defeat the Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club 26–6.

Mercoledi Musicale

I only wish that I could join Vanessa Williams in singing this great number from Harold Arlen's House of Flowers.

Though nobody beats Diahann Carroll who first sang the song in her 1954 Broadway debut, the combination of Vanessa Williams and the incredible cello obbligato by Martha Babcock is pretty darn fine.  If that doesn't melt the snow, nothing will.

The view from our living room this morning - yeah, yeah it's lovely.  Just a Winter Wonderland!
Talk to me sometime in late February and we'll compare wonderlands!  Okay?

Sadly I "has seen" snow - last night's "first big dump" of the winter wasn't quite as bad as they were predicting but .....   it's only November for heaven's sake!  If this is what we get in November what will we be getting the remaining  122 days before the official beginning of Spring?

November 27 -  1810: The Berners Street Hoax was perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City of Westminster, London.
 

Mercoledi Musicale

Well Sidd listen to both Beethoven and Mendelssohn and decided that a bit of choral music wouldn’t go amiss. So Beethoven it is!

Composed with a dedication to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, it uses two of his poems as subjects for a brief cantata. It was premiered in Vienna in 1815 but wasn’t published until 7 years later. That young scamp Felix Mendelssohn was to use the poems as inspiration for his concert overture of the same name. It’s the better know of the two – which could account for Sidd’s choice! He can be a bit perverse that way.

Grosser Chor des Berliner Rundfunks, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin                                    

Helmuth Koch, conductor 1970                                    

Though we’re praying for “calm seas” when Goethe wrote his poem that was the last thing a sailor wanted - sailing ships needed wind.  We could do with a little less.

Calm Seas (Meeres Stille)

Deep stillness rules the water
Without motion lies the sea,
And sadly the sailor observes
Smooth surfaces all around.
No air from any side!
Deathly, terrible stillness!
In the immense distances
not a single wave stirs.

Prosperous Journey (Glückliche Fahrt)

The fog is torn,
The sky is bright,
And Aeolus releases
The fearful bindings.
The winds whisper,
The sailor begins to move.
Swiftly! Swiftly!
The waves divide,
The distance nears;
Already, I see land!

November 6 - 1917: World War I: Third Battle of Ypres ends: After three months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Passchendaele in Belgium.

Mercoledi Musicale

In my post yesterday about my first visit to Stratford I mentioned that the Beatrice for that production of Much Ado About Nothing was the Scottish actress Eileen Herlie.  Miss Herlie had a fascinating career.  Though 16 years younger than Olivier she played Gertrude to his Hamlet in his 1948 film version of Shakespeare's tragedy.  She was to repeat the role in the 1964 Broadway outing with Richard Burton - though at least this time she was 7 years older than her son.  That famous production was directed by John Gielgud who had directed her previously in the West End in Medea.  She was a member of Gielgud's classic company in his season at the Lyric Hammersmith and played frequently on the West End.

Fame - or infamy depending on your point of view -  came early in her career: in 1946 she appeared as the Queen (left with co-star James Donald) in John Cocteau's exercise in intellectual melodrama, The Eagle Has Two Heads.  As the Queen of an unnamed Ruritanian country she performed what was one the longest speeches in the history of the English stage.  Ronald Duncan's translation contained some 2,982 words; her twenty-one minute tirade ranged from memories of her dead husband to an invitation to a young poet, who resembles her dead beloved, to assassinate her.  It was a performance that left opinion divided and very few on the fence - it was either a tour de force of acting or a theatrical pony trick.

Herlie was to divide critics, and audiences, throughout her varied career.  Harold Hobson adored her but she was the victim of Kenneth Tynan's acid tongue on more than one occasion.  Her Medea was memorably sent up by Hermione Gingold as "the grreat tradddgic awktress".   A transfer to Broadway of Thorton Wilder's The Matchmaker brought her to North America in 1956 and she stay there until her death in 2008.  During that time, in New York and on tour,  she played classics, modern (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf), comedy, melodrama and musical comedy.

Eileen Herlie in  publicity photo for her
role as Myrtle Fargate in All My Children.
She was to play the role for 32 years.

Musical comedy?  Yes, though she really didn't have much of a singing voice the one thing Eileen Herlie had was presence.  In 1960 she held her own against Jackie Gleason and won a Tony nomination for Take Me Along, a musical adaptation of Eugene O'Neil's Ah Wilderness.  Two years later she appeared with Ray Bolger in the ill-fated All American.  With a script half-written by the young Mel Brooks - he failed to delivery act 2 and director Joshua Logan had to take over - and a story tailored to the talents of a fading star the show didn't stand much a chance of success.  But what it did have was Eileen Herlie and a lovely song that was to become a standard, Charles Strouse-Lee Adams'  Once Upon A Time.

Though it has been recorded by everyone from The Four Tops to Tony Bennett there is something quite touching and lovely about Bolger and Herlie's delivery on the original cast album.  Neither of them had great voices but they, and to my mind particularly Herlie, bring to it an aching melancholy of young love past, perhaps lessons learned and maybe even a quiet acceptance of the way life has turned out. 

In 1976 Eileen Herlie all but deserted the stage for the world of television soap opera.  She was to play the role of Myrtle Fargate on All My Children until three months before her death in 2008 at the age of 90.

As I said earlier - her's was a fascinating career.

May 8 - 1886: Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.

Mercoledi (on Venerdì) Musicale

I know I'm a little late but I've just been so caught up in the Italian elections, the Pope doing his peek-a-boo thing, Canadian Senate scandals and another "Storm of the Century" that my music listening has been greatly curtailed.

However I will now make up for it by listening to - and hopefully you will join me in this - a potpourri of music in this witty Spanish (yes I know Spanish???? but music is an international language) cartoon retrospective of The History of Western Music.  (And no Jackiesue I'm sorry that doesn't mean Willie Nelson!)

Though Paolo Morales de Los Rios should more rightly have called it Historia de la Música Occidental, it really is a great piece of animatin.

Many thanks to John, my good buddy from Roman Days - honestly I saw more of him in Rome than I do here in Ottawa. Definitely my bad!

01 March - 1457: The Unitas Fratrum is established in the village of Kunvald, on the Bohemian-Moravian borderland. It is to date the second oldest Protestant denomination.