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A sad year for opera lovers rolls on. Today, Luciano Pavarotti died.

In his younger years Pavarotti was absolutely stellar, and through his entire career he was blessed with a voice that was unmistakable. You could not hear it for a second and be unsure who it was. Anthony Tommasini writes more about that in today’s New York Times.

While Pavarotti was not my favorite tenor–and the circus that was his later years was unfortunate–many records that feature him in a lead role are my favorites, including his first complete Rigoletto, as well as his Lucia di Lammermoor, La Bohème, I Puritani and L’esir d’amore.

And what stands out to me most of all about Pavarotti’s voice was how, even during his highest notes–and they were very high–it retained its beauty. There are a lot of faceless tenors who sound indistinguishable from one another in Bel Canto repertoire, and whose high notes leave something to be desired. But listen to him as Tonio in the first act of La fille du régiment and you will hear seemingly effortless singing with a timbre other tenors just couldn’t match.

I know that lovers of serious music would be worse off without Luciano Pavarotti.

Filed under: Current Events, Music, WAYLTL on September 6th, 2007 | No Comments »

I absolutely love this very brief excerpt of Tove’s “Sterne jubeln” from Schoenberg’s incredible Gurre-Lieder:

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Not only is it great, but it also vaguely reminds me of one of my favorite “Sesame Street” films:

Maybe it’s just me.  In any case, for the record, Schoenberg began composing Gurre-Lieder in 1900, and the work premiered in Vienna in 1913.

Filed under: Music, Nostalgia, WAYLTL on August 27th, 2007 | No Comments »

I have been receiving praise a lot lately for the work I do, and it’s a nice feeling.  Since the beginning of summer I have programmed all the classical music we play at the station, which amounts to six hours each day.  That is a time consuming task, but one I take pride in, which makes the compliments that much more rewarding.

Last Saturday, for example, my Pre-Opera Program garnered several calls during the show, and when I came in on Tuesday I had even more messages from people who had tuned in and enjoyed what they heard.  Today I played the Concerto Symphonique No. 4, Op. 102 by Henry Charles Litolff – an obscure work, but one which is ideally suited to the style of my show.  In no time I was answering phone calls from excited listeners, and returning messages from other listeners brought in to me by the secretary.  I also got kudos for playing a Grand Trio for Two Flutes and Piano, Op. 119 by Friedrich Kuhlau on a Naxos disc, and from other selections played yesterday, namely 18 Divertiment Notturni, Op. 86 by Mauro Giuliani, which isn’t necessarily a piece that I’d listen to in my free time–it’s for flute and guitar–but one which I figured others would like.  Mission accomplished.

Filed under: Music, WAYLTL, Work on August 23rd, 2007 | No Comments »

 It’s been a long time since I have heard Tannhäuser complete.  My last exposure to the opera was watching the first act on DVD with Zubin Mehta conducting the Bayerischen Staatsorchester in an empty Nationaltheater München (I totally went there!).  As much as I prefer more traditional productions, that video benefits from the presence of Waltraud Meier, who looks as good as she sounds.  It also features tenor René Kollo, the Tannhäuser from the much older Solti-conducted Decca recording, which was my first exposure to the work.  I distinctly remember paying $51 cash for that set at the Barnes and Noble in Clearwater in 1999.  I took it home and listened to it straight through.

The Staatskapelle Berlin for Daniel Barenboim cannot compete with the Vienna Philharmonic for Solti, but Meier is also the Venus in the Teldec Tannhäuser, and as good as Christa Ludwig may be, I like Meier better.  I really love her voice.  Plus, Thomas Hampson and René Pape as Wolfram and Landgraf respectively are outstanding.  Dorothea Röschmann as ein Hirtenknabe is luxury casting.  I have had this recording for a couple years, but just never got around to listening to it.  It’s hard to make time for Wagner, made apparent by the copies of Barenboim’s Der fliegende Holländer and Tristan und Isolde that sit on my shelf wrapped.  But he’s a fine Wagnerian, as evidenced by his Parsifal, and the bits of his Teldec Ring I have heard–a set that is made doubly valuable by the notated leitmotifs alongside the printed text in the libretto booklet–which is now on DVD.  Also on DVD now is Barenboim’s 1983 Bayreuth Tristan, which I may look into.  As visually odd as it was, though, the König Marke of Pape might sell me on the James Levine Met production.

Pape is the Heinrich in Barenboim’s Lohengrin, which is enticing, and, since it wouldn’t hurt to have another recording of that opera, Barenboim’s is in the running, alongside Kempe‘s.  But I don’t think his Meistersinger von Nürnberg meets my current needs, which is to say, I don’t need another Meistersinger unless it’s on DVD; I already have Solti’s Chicago set, Jochum’s DG box with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and a still-sealed Sawallisch recording on EMI.  That said, Levine’s DVD has Pape, James Morris and the lovely Karita Mattila!

There are now simply more Wagner on CD and DVD than I know what to do with.

Filed under: Music, WAYLTL on August 22nd, 2007 | No Comments »

Driving home from school the other night, I caught the beginning of a “Live at the Concertgebouw” broadcast featuring, of course, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.  I tuned in just as the Symphony No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 82 of Sibelius was beginning.  This is one of my favorite symphonies, and I will explain why.  Without getting into the musicological debate surrounding this work (the basics of which you can read about here), suffice it to say that the whole symphony is full of wonderful ideas.

Its first theme begins with horns, then adds woodwinds, and it is quite evocative.  Listen:

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That theme often gets glossed over, however, and when it does, I think it hurts the whole performance, since the stage is not set for what is to come.  To illustrate how often this theme is trivialized in performance, I have at least five different recordings of this symphony, and only one of them comes close to sounding the way I think the piece should.

I don’t have enough server space to accommodate a complete analysis of every movement, so let’s skip ahead to the last movement.   Listen to the way this fantastic theme starts in the lowest strings, then opens out with the horns, finally joined by the winds:

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That’s magic!

Charting its development, the same theme is heard again later in the movement, dramatically transformed:

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Finally, everybody’s favorite part about this symphony, and one of its most original ideas, is the great coda, where Sibelius threw in the whole orchestra, brought back the triple-time theme again, and concluded everything with an excruciatingly intense cadence.  Listen to the last few bars; it’s the greatest thing ever:

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That’s good stuff.  Who’d have thought that the man who composed it would look so much like a comic book villain?

Filed under: Music, WAYLTL on July 26th, 2007 | 1 Comment »