Day 20: Gilbert & Sullivan, Mikado

Day 20: Gilbert & Sullivan, Mikado

Ok, I know, in your book Gilbert and Sullivan doesn’t count as real music – but I love it! I remember when I was a child we used to go to the New Theatre in Cardiff every season that D’Oyly Carte were there and saw at least two productions each time! I have some very fond and vivid memories of those events!

The CD I listened to was actually a compilation CD, that included excerpts from some of the other operas as well as from the Mikado. This was the Pro Arte Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent, and was sung by some famous singers, my favourite of which was Sir Geraint Evans, playing Koko. When we saw those wonderful performances at Cardiff, I admit that John Reed was my absolute favourite: He was a master of the comic part. John Reed died early in 2010 and prompted an article on this blog.

Anyway, I’ve seen the Mikado so many times that I am virtually word-perfect (but I’ve never sung it on stage), so it was a treat to sing along to A Wand’ring Minstrel, Here’s a how-de-do, The flowers that bloom in the Spring, and Tit Willow! 

Day 19: Weill, Threepenny Opera

Day 19: Weill, Threepenny Opera

While I was at university I studied music as part of my course. Each year we studied a different aspect, and I remember the year we did vocal music, from Monteverdi’s Orfeo up to the present day, which of course included the Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill.

I think this was written in about 1928, and I do know it was to a libretto by Bertolt Brecht, although I really can’t remember what it was all about, except it was inspired by John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera! It does seem to be quite typical of some music of the time in that it uses rather more unusual instruments, like saxophones, and definitely has a jazz feel to it.

One of the most famous songs from the opera is Mackie Messer, otherwise known as Mack the Knife (sung by the character MacHeath?), which has been made popular by a variety of artists, including Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra and Robbie Williams. I must admit, I do prefer the gutteral, gruff tones of the more traditional renditions of this song, rather than the more pretty versions of late.

The recording I listened to had Ute Lemper playing the part of Polly. In the original performances the part of Jenny was sung by Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya (apparently she has also sung the part of Jenny too). What I didn't realise, however, was that she pursued an acting career, and played Rosa Klebb in he James Bond, From Russia with Love!

Day 18: Bach, Italian Concerto

Day 18: Bach, Italian Concerto

Although this is called a concerto, it’s actually a piece for unaccompanied harpsichord, although it is in 3 movements – fast-slow-fast – as would be a concerto of the time. Now, according to the CD sleeve, what makes this more of a concerto is that it uses a two-manual harpsichord, which apparently means that the two different manuals have different tone qualities, so the one can sound rather like an orchestral tutti, and the other like the soloists! My words, so they probably don’t make much sense!

This was a piece we studied for O level – around about the time that J.S.Bach was composing! Though I am not a very good pianist, I did have a go at this on the piano, and managed to play the first movement, albeit at about half the speed it is supposed to go! In reality, the first movements goes at breakneck speed! This is beautifully played on my CD which has Wanda Landowska playing the harpsichord; she was originally from Warsaw, but she taught in Berlin and later settled in Paris. She made some very early recordings of Bach harpsichord works, including the Goldberg Variations. The only other thing I know about her is that someone took an X-ray of her hands and hung it as a work of art.

Day 17: Dukas, Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Day 17: Dukas, Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Dukas was a French romantic composer who struggled to make a living being a composer; for some reason his music took a long while to become popular, so I think he was a music critic. I don’t think there’s a lot of his music around as he was regularly unsatisfied with it and destroyed a lot of it.

Luckily for us though, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was rather successful at its first performance in 1897, and is really his most popular work! It’s another tone poem, this time based on a work of the same name by Goethe. The music tells the story of the apprentice who is left alone while the magician goes off somewhere, and thinking he can do more magic than he really can, he tries out some spells and gets completely overwhelmed by things. Thankfully, the magician comes back and make everything right again! As you can imagine, the music is light and bouncy, tuneful and full of vigour; it seems to move along at a terrific pace, and at only about 10 minutes it’s all over far too quickly for my liking!

As you might have guessed, this is yet another of my favourite pieces, not because I studied it for any exams, but I did have the good fortune to play it with the South Gwent Youth Orchestra many years ago, and was totally enthralled by the bassoon part. I believe this music was used to accompany Disney’s film, Fantasia, but as I’ve never seen it, I am only reporting what I’ve heard!

The version I listened to was performed by the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, conducted by Charles Dutoit.

Day 16: Prokofiev Excerpts from Romeo and Juliet

Day 16: Prokofiev Excerpts from Romeo and Juliet

Well, I can tell you this journey is certainly one of musical education for me, or at least putting straight a few misunderstandings I’ve been harbouring all these years! Forgive me, I’m talking about Romeo and Juliet. Tchaikovsky wrote an overture to Romeo and Juliet – yes? Now, because he wrote music for lots of ballets (here I’m thinking the Nutcracker and Swan Lake) in my naivety, never having bothered to check, I assumed that this was an overture to a ballet, but no, it’s actually a standalone fantasy piece!

So, I’m glad I cleared that up, because, actually, I may well have known that someone had composed some music to accompany a ballet called Romeo and Juliet, especially as I know the music quite well (and I can assure you it was well before the Apprentice ever came to our television screens!) but it has taken me until today to realise that this was actually Prokofiev!

So, on my little CD of ballet music, I have quite a nice little collection of snippets from famous ballets. I had a spare ten minutes today so I listened to some of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet; Montagues and Capulets, Death of Tybalt and Dance of the Maids with Lilies, to be exact.

The first of these starts off with such dissonant chords, presumably to draw your attention to the war waging between the two families. Then, comes the stately theme with which we are all so familiar! You can almost see the two families parading around and trying to outdo each other! The next excerpt is light and, well, flowery, whilst the final one is rather more morose. If you close your eyes whilst listening, you can just imagine how the ballet would look!

Performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Efrem Kurtz* Altogether a good listen!

Sorry to link to an obituary, but it was rather a good summation of his life and career.

PS Yes, I know Berlioz is also associated with Romeo and Juliet, through his choral symphony of the same name!

Day 15: Howells’s Sonata for oboe and piano

Day 15: Howells’s Sonata for oboe and piano

Howells! Now there’s a good Welsh name for you! Only he wasn’t! Or at least, he was born in Lydney in Gloucestershire, so I guess that makes him English! His name may well make several appearances in this diary of music I am listening to as I do seem to have quite a few of his works in my collection, although I really don’t remember listening to any of them before!!!

I think Howells is more usually remembered for his choral works, but I chose to listen to the oboe sonata, although I must admit the oboe isn't one of my favourite instruments, generally to me it tends to sound a bit “waily”. The sonata itself seems to be in four movements and lasts about 20 minutes. It’s quite a roller coaster of a ride with lots of sparky, jumpy rhythms and what to me seem like disjointed tunes.

Ah, now I’ve just opened the sleeve in the CD and it says here: “the piece … was to wait forty-two years for its premiere, given by Sarah Francis and Peter Dickinson at the Cheltenham Festival on 9 July 1984.” That’s a long time! Strangely, the recording I listened to was also of Sarah Francis and Peter Dickinson.

However, if you’ve never listened to much oboe music before I’m not sure this is the easiest introduction to it!

Day 14: Brahms Symphony no. 4

Day 14: Brahms Symphony no. 4

Yet another one I studied for music A level: Beginning to wonder if I did any studying for the others! Haven’t listened to this in absolutely ages, but it all came flooding back as soon as I heard the opening notes! This is just such fantastic stuff! It’s rousing, emotional, evocative, and tuneful!

Apparently, Brahms delayed writing any symphonies until quite late in his career for fear that he wouldn’t measure up well against classical composers like Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart. Well, perhaps if he hadn’t waited so long he might have been able to create more; his music is great stuff and 4 symphonies really isn’t enough! That’s my opinion, anyway!

It’s divided into the fairly typical four movements and is scored for the standard orchestra of the time, which now includes trombones – three of them to be precise! The final movement is a bit of an innovation in that he takes a theme by Bach (possibly from the Cantata no.150) and creates numerous variations, done in a passacaglia, a sort of ostinato, but slightly different in that the theme doesn’t only appear in the bass parts. You really do have to listen to it to understand what I mean; I’m not good with words!

Anyway, the recording I listened to was of the Berlin Phil (ooops, again!) conducted by Karajan!

Day 13: Ives, Holiday Symphony

Day 13: Ives, Holiday Symphony

In the absence of any Schoenberg in my CD collection, I thought I’d dust of my Charles Ives CD. Probably not the most common thing to find in a collection, but it goes back to my university days when we studied American music – Spirituals to Bob Dylan through Ives and Copeland and jazz!

The full title of this particular piece is A Symphony: New England Holidays, and my recording was made by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. This is an interesting work: to me it’s typical of the 20^th century avant-garde movement – mostly cacophonous, seemingly disorganised and written for a huge range of instruments, including a set of bells, and a Jews harp.

In amongst all the dissonance, I could recognise quite a lot of familiar tunes, each being played against  another, for example, Battle Hymn of the Republic and Yankee Doodle. Apparently, it took Ives nearly 16 years to write the complete symphony! Although it is a symphony, each movement can also be played as a standalone piece of music.

Just in case you are thinking of giving this a go, I should warn you it does take a bit of getting used to!

Day 12: Variations on a Rococo theme, Tchaikovsky

Day 12: Variations on a Rococo theme, Tchaikovsky

As I haven’t got a copy of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Variations (for cello), written for his brother, Julian, and made popular by the South Bank Show, I thought I’d listen to Tchaikovsky’s Rococo variations, which are also for cello. Now, I’ve already told you that my favourite composer is Saint-Saens, but I didn’t mention that one of my favourite instruments is the cello!

Ofra Harnoy and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Charles Mackerras do a wonderful job with this piece (another CD from Abergavenny Music!). This was a lovely piece of music, but it wasn’t as obvious to me that this was a set of variations as I remember the Lloyd Webber to be, or as I know Beethoven or Mozart variations to be. After the theme is played there are 8 variations, which are played without a break. This was 18 minutes of lovely playing and helped to keep me relaxed.

 

Day 11: Karl Jenkins, Adiemus 2 – Cantata Mundi

Day 11: Karl Jenkins, Adiemus 2 – Cantata Mundi

The first Adiemus was known as Songs of Sanctuary and was released in 1995. Both Songs of Sanctuary and Cantata Mundi were written by the Welsh composer Karl Jenkins and performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Miriam Stockley on vocals.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve listened to Cantata Mundi, and I’d forgotten just how emotive it is. I’m no musical expert, but to me, it some of the vocals sound almost African, very clear and penetrating. I’m sure I’ve heard somewhere that this is achieved by the composer not using real words for the singer, and even that it’s mostly singing syllables, that achieve the effect he wants.

Another thing I do remember is that Miriam Stockley sings the theme tune on the Beatrix Potter videos my children and I used to watch when they were really little. And she really does have a lovely voice.

The whole of the work is just over an hour, but I can’t listen to all of it in one go as after a while it all starts to sound the same! Oh dear, perhaps I shouldn’t say that!

Day 10: Carnival of the Animals, Saint-Saens

Day 10: Carnival of the Animals, Saint-Saens

At one time I used to listen to Carnival of the Animals regularly, but it’s another CD that’s been languishing on the shelves for a while, despite Saint-Saens being my favourite composer (have I told you that before?!)

In fact, it’s been such a long time that I’d forgotten all the animals who are represented in the piece! And that’s what it is – musical representations of animals (including humans!) One of the most famous pieces from this orchestral suite is The Swan, a piece for cello which is just so sublimely graceful, and one of my favourites is the Elephants – played by double bass.

The recording I listened to was by the Sinfonia da Camera, conducted from the piano by Ian Hobson. This recording was made using the original instrumentation: 2 pianos, 2 violins, a viola, a cello, a double bass, flute, clarinet, celeste and xylophone. Given the relative simplicity of this original instrumentation, the evocation of each of the animals is quite superb!

Just wondering, as this is only my second week in this quest, am I going to listen to a piece of Saint-Saens music every week??

Day 9: Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade

Day 9: Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade

A good friend reminded me of this fantastic work, which I used to listen to regularly, but has lain hidden on my CD shelves for quite some time!

Scherherazade, composed by the Russian Rimsky-Korsakov, is an orchestral suite that is loosely based on the tales of the Arabian nights. It’s in four movements and uses a range of instruments: flute, piccolos, oboes, cor anglais, clarinets, bassoon, horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, strings and a variety of percussion typical of music from this era (about 1888) including, timpani, harp and tam-tam.

Also fairly typical of the era, the music is quirky and tuneful, although, we often think of Russian music as being quite doleful and heavy (well, I do!)! In some ways it almost sounds oriental.

At one point, some of the music was set as a ballet, and was also arranged to accompany the end of the film “Song of Schererazade”, which is a bio-pic of Rimsky-Korsakov.

I’m pretty sure I’ve played some of this when I used to play in a wind band – or it could have been that other Rimsky-Korsakov suite, Le Coq D’Or. Either way, it’s great stuff too play!

Day 8: Wasps, Vaughan-Williams

Day 8: Wasps, Vaughan-Williams

I do have quite a lot of English music, and Vaughan Williams in particular, in my CD collection, but I haven’t got his London Symphony, which was suggested to me by a friend. So, instead, I listened to a couple of excerpts from the Wasps!

The music was originally written as incidental music, to accompany the play of the same name by the Greek Aristophanes. The overture begins with a very wasp-like buzzing, but this theme is very quickly followed by some rather typical Vaughan Williams writing. The whole suite of incidental music amounts to about an hour or so of music, but the actual overture itself is only about 10 minutes long.

The other extract on my CD – which was recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, one of the best interpreters of Vaughan Williams’ music – is the March Past of the Kitchen Utensils. The story goes that Vaughan Williams composed the movement to represent a judge who blames his dog and outs him on trial for stealing some cheese! As his character witnesses the dog calls upon some of the kitchen utensils! I’ve no idea if he was found guilty or not, but it’s certainly an amusing story!

Recommendations for week 1

In my quest to listen to every CD in my collection, I’ve been blogging about what I’ve been listening to, and I’ve also asked friends for their recommendations!

So, the ones I’ve listened to so far are as follows:

1. Messiaen – Turangalila Symphony
2. Handel – The Messiah
3. Walton – Façade Suite
4. Saint-Saens – Cello Concerto no.1
5. Mozart – Symphony no.38
6. Beethoven – Symphony no.6 (Pastoral)
7. Strauss – Till Eulenspiegel

If you like the above, the suggestions from my friends of things you might also like are these:

1. Rimsky-Korsakov – Scheherazade
2. Saint-Saens – Carnival of the Animals
3. Karl Jenkins – The Armed Man
4. Andrew Lloyd Webber – Variations
5. Faure – Requiem
6. Schoenberg – Gurrelieder
7. Vaughan Williams – London Symphony
8. Resphigi – Roman Festivals

 Happy listening!