by Peter Cates

Respighi: Fountains of Rome/Pines of Rome

Franz Andre conducting the Belgian National Radio Orchestra; Telefunken TC-8002, vinyl budget-priced LP from the late 1950s.

For people starting to listen to classical music, I would more readily recommend the Respighi Pines and Fountains of Rome over most Beethoven and Brahms Symphonies. These two pieces have the most colorful sounds, the loveliest strands of melody, and a very vivid sense of location.

The fountains are four spread around the historical city and musically evoked at different times of day, while four different rows of Rome’s magnificent pine trees are treated the same. The Fountains were premiered in 1916 during World War I, while the Pines received their debut in 1924. Both demand extraordinary virtuosity from a full symphony orchestra but have become immensely popular, receiving numerous recordings since then.

I have several different ones but, for some mysterious reason, was particularly drawn to Franz Andre (1893-1975), who was arguably the most prominent and busiest conductor in Belgium’s cultural life for almost 40 years, yet not that well-known in the United States. He delivered exceptionally exciting renditions that stand alongside those of Arturo Toscanini, Fritz Reiner, Eugene Ormandy Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, to mention a few. Several of Andre’s recordings of other works can be heard on YouTube but not the Respighis. However, E-bay and other vendors have copies of the LP for sale.

Some facts about the composer, Ottorino Respighi (1879-1956) – He had a fascination with languages as well as music and collected dictionaries.

He took piano under his father’s tutelage but was quite undisciplined in his habits. However, his father was startled one day to find his son playing the very difficult piano work, Symphonic Etudes, with total mastery.

He suffered from narcolepsy and would suddenly and frequently fall asleep.

He married one of his composition students in 1919 when she was 25 and he was 40. She outlived him by 60 years and died at 102, in 1996.

by Peter Cates

Handel’s Messiah

Donald Neuen conducting the Eastman Chorale and Philharmonia, Word, SPCN 7-01-892910, three lps, recorded 1984 at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

Handel’s Messiah has been recorded numerous times with choirs and orchestras ranging from huge to very small. I have a number of these sets and found at least something good in each of them, because, like so many other masterpieces, it is infinitely and inexhaustibly rich in its musical and spiritual content.

Donald Neuen, still living in his early 80s, worked with the great choirmaster Robert Shaw, taught at Eastman School of Music and UCLA, and led choral groups and workshops all over the country.

For this recording, Neuen took the unusual step of rotating eight different soloists for various arias instead of the usual quartet of soprano, contralto, tenor and bass. This approach gave an extra freshness to this performance with different singers on various numbers. The bass Thomas Paul’s Thus Saith The Lord was quite the nice dynamic contrast to baritone James Courtney’s The Trumpet Shall Sound.

Both the performance and recording make this one of the better Messiahs and it can be recommended, along with ones conducted by Eugene Ormandy, Sir Thomas Beecham, William Christie, Harry Christopher, Neuen’s colleague Robert Shaw and several others. It is also available through various internet outlets and tracks can be auditioned on youtube.

Frank De Vol

and the Rainbow Strings

The Old Sweet Songs of Christmas; Columbia CL 1543, lp, recorded 1960.

Frank De Vol (1911-1999) was not only an arranger/conductor for Capitol, Columbia and other record labels, but also appeared in films and on TV as an actor. Fans of Martin Mull’s very funny short-lived late ‘70s series, America 2-Night, might remember De Vol as the poker-faced bandleader Happy Kyne.

The album contains 26 famous Christmas carols and popular songs in sweet string arrangements bordering on the syrupy and best taken in small doses.

The Irishman

The new Martin Scorsese film, The Irishman, is 210 minutes of swiftly moving drama starring Robert De Niro as a ‘house painter’ (pseudonym for hitman) for mobster businessmen, Joe Pesci, as one of the bosses and Al Pacino as Teamsters leader, Jimmy Hoffa. Each of the three gentlemen delivers the kind of performance in which every glance and movement of the character he plays communicates. And every other detail of this brilliant and, of course, violent movie repays close study.

by Peter Cates

Saturday, November 23: Philip Glass’s 1983 opera, Akhnaten, deals with the Egyptian pharaoh of that name who launches monotheism as the country’s faith upon replacing his late father, Amenhotep III, on the throne. He marries Nefertiti, throws out the pagan polytheism and its priests, lives in a very insulated world with his Queen and family and is eventually overthrown via a rebellion by the former subjects and murdered. His son, King Tut, restores the old pagan order.

Having watched this well-produced, directed, conducted and performed new Met production, I found it a very good example of dance, narration, acting and juggling – and a smaller than usual amount of opera singing. Certain musical melodies and rhythms take on a repetitious quality at a sometimes monotonous level yet a wonderful beauty and vibrancy is communicated, too.

Anthony Roth Costanzo gave a fine performance in the title role with good work by J’Nai Bridges as Nefertiti, Zachary James as the narrating ghost of Akhna­ten’s father, Amenhotep, and others. Guest Maestro Karen Kamensek directed the orchestra brilliantly, being already experienced in conducting this work abroad and other Glass compositions.

The original 1983 re­cord­ing on CBS Sony can be heard on youtube, along with other excerpts.

Sunday, November 24: Puccini’s Madame Butterfly was postponed from the live November 9 broadcast due to projector problems here. The opera is one of the most frequently produced in the entire repertoire. Its story of the tragically deluded geisha girl, Cio-Cio-San or Butterfly, and the jerkish Lieutenant Pinkerton was colorfully produced, directed and staged with generally captivating results as theater.

Contralto Elizabeth DeShong sang Butterfly’s maid Suzuki warmly while baritone Paulo Szot was good as the American consul Sharpless. Soprano Hui He handled the middle and lower notes of Butterfly and gave a very convincing portrayal of her hopes and anguish, really building to her heart-breaking suicide. Her high notes were not good. Tenor Andrea Care’s Pinkerton was bland.

Pier Giorgio Morandi’s conducting was quite good in balancing the tragedy and lyricism.

The next link, Alban Berg’s opera, Wozzeck, will be January 11, 2020.

 

by Peter Cates

Met Opera Links at WOH

Recently I mentioned the live Met Opera links being seen at the Waterville Opera House. This past Saturday, Puccini’s Madame Butterfly was scheduled there, starting at 12:55 p.m., as were October 12’s Turandot and October 26 Massenet Manon, both of which I attended.

Not googling its website before walking a mile there, I found all the doors locked and later found out it was postponed to be seen recorded Sunday afternoon, November 24, also starting then at 12:55 p.m., the reason being problems with its projector.

Meanwhile, the Met’s next live link, Philip Glass’s opera, Akhnaten, is scheduled Saturday afternoon, November 23. For further details, the House can be reached at 873-7000 or on Google. This column will be covering both operas in the November 28 issue and the links are still highly recommended. Also, anybody can call the number to be put on the broadcast notification list.

Netflix has a four-episode BBC TV series, Collateral, starring actresses Carey Mulligan as detective Kip Glaspie, and Jeany Spark as British army captain Sandrine Shaw. The story concerns the murder of a pizza delivery driver in London and its quite ominous repercussions.

I have watched this program at least three times and find it a simply brilliant depiction of people caught between rocks and hard places and their evil antagonists. Mulligan and Spark become their characters as do the ensemble cast members. It was first shown on the BBC in February 2018, and became available as a DVD soon after. A word of caution – it does have a few nude scenes and curse words but still sustains its rocks and hard places.

Quote from Giacomo Puccini: “I lived for art, I lived for love.”

by Peter Cates

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6

“Pathetique”; Muir Mathieson conducting the Sinfonia of London. Camelot CMT 102, stereo LP, recorded 1958.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony was given its world premiere on October 28, 1893, nine days before he died at 53. He wrote a letter to his nephew that year describing his feelings about what would be his last work :

“It would not surprise me in the least if this Symphony meets with abuse or unfavorable criticism. It would not be the first time. I myself regard it as the best and most sincere of all my works. I love it as I have never loved any other of my musical offsprings before.”

As in so many of his major works – the 1st Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, Swan Lake and Nutcracker ballets, Romeo and Juliet, 4th, 5th and Manfred Symphonies etc.; – the composer so brilliantly poured his entire heart and soul into the Pathetique Symphony (his own meaning of the word vaguely hinted at as ‘private and personal’.). He also utilized the entire range of dynamics from softest to loudest.

The Symphony has been performed and recorded infinitely countless times; I have scads of different performances ranging from A-plus to bad. It has never gone sour for me and even the worst performance has something interesting.

Muir Mathieson (1911-1975) was best known for composing soundtracks for English movies and conducting those of other composers. This recording is superb and stands out in a very distinguished catalog; it can also be heard on YouTube but the Symphony’s four movements are posted separately.

WOH to host live Metropolitan Opera

The Waterville Opera House is hosting live links from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The next one is Puccini’s Madame Butterfly on November 9. I attended Puccini’s last opera Turandot on Saturday, October 12, and Massenet’s Manon this past Saturday, October 26.

Highly recommended. Check the Waterville Opera House website for times.