WDBX Opera Overnight – Handel, Verdi, Praulens

Caricature of Handel by Joseph Goupy (1754) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Israel in Egypt (HWV 54) is a biblical oratorio by the composer George Frideric Handel. Many historians believe the libretto was compiled by Handel’s collaborator Charles Jennens, and it is composed entirely of selected passages from the Hebrew Bible, mainly from Exodus and the Psalms.  Handel premiered it in April of 1739, one of a series of works that began with Alexander’s Feast in 1736, and which culminated in 1742′s Messiah.  Israel in Egypt came at a transition point for Handel, as the oratorios were so generally successful that he was using more choral parts and less soloists, with Part 1 of Israel in Egypt consisting entirely of choral parts.  Handel later moderated this practice, and he later made a revised version of Israel in Egypt in 1756, balancing the choral parts with solo parts, similar to what he had done with Messiah.  Tonight’s recording gives the listener both options, but we shall hear the original version, as Handel premiered it in 1739.  The recording is a truly excellent one, one of the 2013 Grammy nominees for Best Choral Recording (a well deserved nomination).  The Trinity Wall Street Church Choir and Orchestra are conducted by Julian Wachner.

Aida, one of Giuseppe Verdi‘s truly great works, was commissioned by an Ottoman governor of Egypt, and as such is set in Egypt during the Old Kingdom, and was premiered in Cairo, Egypt, in 1871.  Verdi did not write an overture for the opera, so it just dives right into the action.  It ranks as the 13^th most performed opera worldwide, with more than 1,100 performances at the Met.  It was the first opera to be televised, has been made into several motion pictures, and the story was used as the basis for a musical by Elton John and Tim Rice.

Leontyne Price’s Aida album cover (1962)

Tonight’s recording is a 1962 recording, featuring Leontyne Price, Jon Vickers, Robert Merrill, Rita Gorr, Franco Riccardi.  Sir Georg Solti conducts the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro del’Opera di Roma.  The recording is not without some controversy, as some think that Solti was too bombastic with how he handled the orchestra, and that he took the opera into Wagnerian territory.  This is fairly natural, as Aida is probably the closest that Verdi came to Wagnerian proportions.  But many will argue that this may be one of the best Aida recordings available.

Our last piece this evening is a choral piece from the Danish composer Ugis Praulins.  The Nightingale is a 2010 composition that is based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen.  It was nominated for two 2013 Grammy Awards, for Best Choral Recording and for Best Contemporary Composition.  Michala Petri performs on recorder, with Stephen Layton leading the Danish National Vocal Ensemble.

The Galaxy – Exploring some edgy music

Historically, it is nights like tonight that I probably enjoy the most.  Nights when I find myself, for whatever reason (mood, inspiration, external events, pure happenstance), pushing the boundaries of my usual playlists and finding the more interesting, exotic material.  Over the course of the two hours of tonight’s show, I found myself wearing a perpetual smile, whilst sitting back and luxuriating in the moments of pure sound that filled the air this evening.

English: Ravi Shankar performs in Delhi with his daughter Anoushka in March 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We started off with a recent recording by the great sitar master, Ravi Shankar.  This Raga Khamaj, from The Living Room Sessions Part 1 (there is also a Part 2 which was released last month), issued by Shankar’s private label East Meets West Music, is an absolutely serene, graceful piece of music.  Of course, given the skill of Ravi Shankar, even as he was well into his 90s, this is no surprise.  One doesn’t have to be Hindu to enjoy the meditative properties of his music – which is just as he had intended.  I am looking forward to hearing Part 2.

eighth blackbird

We then heard some selections from a rather interesting disc that I stumbled upon last week.  eighth blackbird (purposefully spelled in lowercase) is a Grammy-winning sextet from Chicago that specializes in new music by forward-looking composers.  From their 2012 album Meanwhile, we heard:

• Still Live With Avalanche, composed by Missy Mazzoli.
• …à mesure, by Philippe Heurel
• Meanwhile: Incidental music to imaginary puppet plays, by Stephen Hartke – A piece in 6 movements, commissioned for eighth blackbird by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University.

Frankie Yankovic (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I am frequently given to enjoying wide musical contrasts, I followed this avant garde with some polka.  Not just any polka, but a performer long referred to a “The Polka King”.  Frankie Yankovic, from Cleveland, was a noted practitioner of the “Slovenian style” of polka.  He recorded over 200 polka recordings, and won the first ever Polka Grammy in 1986.  His stature was such that Weird Al Yankovic (no relation) played as a sideman on one of his last records (Weird Al is said to have stated that his parents had him learn accordion because “there should be at least one more accordion-playing Yankovic in the world”).  Yankovic died in 1998, aged 83.  From Frankie Yankovic and his Yanks, we heard Blue Skirt Waltz, Who Stole The Keeshka (a really fun song!), Hoop-Dee-Doo and Milwaukee Polka.

Of course, as I am given to wide degrees of contrast in my musical selections, we threw the gearshift into high gear with Free Jazz, A Collective Improvisation by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet.  The double quartet is just as it sounds – two quartets playing side-by-side, using the stereophonic effect (a new thing in 1960) to help clarify the music.  From one side you hear the combo of Ornette Coleman (alto sax), Don Cherry (pocket trumpet), Scott La Faro (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums), while on the other side you hear Eric Dolphy (bass clarinet), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Charlie Haden (bass), and Ed Blackwell (drums).  While the concept of two quartets playing simultaneously sounds chaotic, the experience is something different.  Upon a proper listen, one may find oneself redefining the term “musical chaos”, because this wasn’t chaos.

Your Community Spirit 2013 June 14

News includes How Fracking Companies Exploit Amish Farmers; Colorado Burning As Climate Change Extends Wildfire Season; Climate Change Could Increase Areas At Risk Of Flood By 45 Percent; How The World Can Get On Track With Climate Goals; Yes Men Get Away With Chamber Of Commerce Prank; Bike Parking System Sucks Your Ride Into Depths Of Earth. Happenings include Friday Night Fair; Open Mic At Gaia House; Carbondale Farmer’s Market; Carbondale Community Farmers Market; Brown Bag Concert And Lunch Series.

WDBX Opera Overnight – Mozart, Spohr

The Magic Flute – play bill of the first performance on September 30, 1791 at Schikaneder’s Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We’re going to start the evening with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, The Magic Flute.  This opera was premiered in September of 1791, using a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, who also was the original Papageno.  Mozart had been involved with Schikaneder’s theatrical troupe since 1789, and constructed the opera so that it could be sung by both virtuosos and ordinary comic actors, with the notable exception being the Queen of the Night role, which was originated by Mozart’s sister in law Josepha Hofer and is noted for its difficulty, which includes a rare high F6 in the aria Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen.  The opera is infused throughout with a number of Masonic elements, which should not be surprising as Schikaneder and Mozart were both in the same Masonic lodge.  It was an immediate success, and had already been performed 100 times by November of 1792.

Fritz Wunderlich as Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute

Tonight’s recording is a 1964 edition that is considered among the best available recordings of the piece.  The great German tenor Fritz Wunderlich (in 1964 a star on the ascendency, before he was killed after falling down a flight of stairs, only 36 years old) stars as Tamino, along with Evelyn Lear (Pamina), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Papageno), Roberta Peters (Queen), Franz Crass (Sarastro), Lisa Otto (Papagena).  James King and Martti Talvela have small parts.   Karl Böhm directs the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Our next work is a piece by Louis Spohr.  We don’t hear much about Louis Spohr now, but in his day he was a highly regarded composer, musician, author and conductor, and his work, along with that of composers such as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann helped mark the turning point between Classicism and Romanticism.  There are some other areas that you might not have expected in which his work impacts the larger scope of music history – he invented the violin chin-rest and the orchestral rehearsal mark, and he was among the first conductors to use a baton.

Louis spohr (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tonight’s opera is Faust, an opera Spohr wrote in 1813, using a libretto by Josef Karl Bernard that was not based on Goethe’s Faust, but rather on other Faustian plays and poems.  The opera was premiered in 1816, with Carl Maria von Weber conducting.  Spohr first wrote it as a Singspiel, but revised it in 1851 and turned it into a grand opera in three acts.  This is the form that we hear tonight.  The Bielefeld Opera revived the opera in 1993, and it is their recording that we will be hearing.  Michael Vier, Eelco von Jordis, Diane Jennings, and Claudia Taha lead the cast.  The Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir are directed by Geoffrey Moull.

The official playlist can be found here.

The Galaxy – Finding a pleasurable groove

Portishead (Photo credit: LittleO2)

Several of our selections this evening defy attempts at categorization.  Such is the case with Portishead.  Superior music, to be sure, but what does one call it?  Rock?  Ambient?  “Trip-hop”?  In the end, it doesn’t really matter what we call it, so long as we listen and enjoy.  We heard:

• Humming
• Cowboys
• All Mine (all three from the Roseland NYC live album from 1998)
• Machine Gun
• Small
• Magic Doors
• Threads (all from their third album, appropriately titled Third)
• Glory Box (a request, also from the Roseland NYC album)

The Civil Wars’ Barton Hollow cover (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We then heard a few songs from the excellent album from The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow.  I am pleased to see the May 1 announcement on their website that their hiatus, announced in November 2012, is apparently over and they have returned to the studio for what is to be a self-titled album.  So, while we patiently await this new recording, we can enjoy songs such as:

• I’ve Got This Friend
• To Whom It May Concern
• Poison & Wine

We then heard some classic jazz recordings:

• Charles Mingus‘ Haitian Fight Song, from The Clown, recorded 1957, released 1961, with Shafi Hadi, Jimmy Knepper, Wade Legge, and Dannie Richmond
• Sonny Rollins‘ Decision, recorded and released in 1956 on Sonny Rollins Vol. 1, with Donald Byrd, Wynton Kelly, Gene Ramey, and Max Roach
• John Coltrane and Don Cherry, with Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell, playing The Blessing.  Recorded in 1960, released in 1967 on The Avant-Garde.  An unusual recording on multiple points:
  • Coltrane and Cherry are co-leaders here.  While this is relatively early in Coltrane’s solo career, he had already recorded Giant Steps by this time, and was well on his way to establishing his reputation with his Quartet.
  • The song, like all of the others on the album here, is not a Coltrane composition, but an Ornette Coleman composition (there was also a Thelonious Monk song on the album).  The album is comprised of then-unreleased recordings, and was issued by Atlantic without Coltrane’s input or control.  Yet the recordings are of great interest to those interested in Coltrane’s development.  While there are a few other examples of Coltrane recording someone else’s compositions, these examples are few and far-between.
  • Part of the interest in this particular song comes with the fact that this was the first time that Coleman recorded a solo on soprano sax.  This predates My Favorite Things by several months.

We also heard a couple songs from the great Chicago album, Chicago Transit Authority: Questions 67 and 68, and Beginnings, before closing the show with Mastodon’s Hearts Alive.

The full, and OFFICIAL (a new thing we are doing here at WDBX), can be found here.

Your Community Spirit 2013 June 07

News includes Pro-Fracking Greens Called Out In Ecologist’s New Manifesto; Gulf Oil Wells Leaking Since 2004 Hurricane; Monsanto Says Opponents May Be To Blame For GMO Wheat Escape; Arctic Summers Could Be Nearly Ice Free In 7 Years; BP To Pump $1 Billion Into Alaska Drilling Efforts; Carbon Pricing Catching On Around Globe But Not in Washington D.C.; Bike Part Vending Machine Can Rescue You From Breakdowns. Happenings include Open Mic At Gaia House; Friday Night Fair; Carbondale Farmer’s Market; Carbondale Community Farmers Market; Saturday Night Music; Transpoetic Playground; Brown Bag Concert And Lunch Series.

WDBX Opera Overnight: Mussorgsky, Gluck

Young Mussorgsky as a cadet in the Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guard. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our first opera of the evening is the only opera written by the great Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, and is considered to be one of his masterpieces.  Mussorgsky began writing Boris Godunov in 1868, using a play by the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin as its basis.  He submitted it to the Russian censors in 1870.  His original submission was rejected by the censors for various reasons, ostensibly because it did not have a major female role, so Mussorgsky engaged in a radical expansion, adding multiple scenes, a female lead, and expanding several other female roles.  This second version was premiered on January 27, 1874 with great success.  Although it left the standard repertory for a while after Mussorgsky’s death, the efforts of the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin resurrected it, and it has been performed regularly ever since.  It is a showpiece for the great bass singers, with multiple lead bass roles, and also has numerous strong choral parts.  Beyond the preeminence of the bass parts, the real star of the show is Mussorgsky’s writing, as I have difficulty imagining any other operatic work that comes close to achieving the sort of regal, grand Russian style that Mussorgsky achieved here.

Tonight we’re going to hear a 1972 live recording that features another one of the great Russian basses, Nicolai Giaurov, along with Mark Reshetin, Aleksandr Vedernikov, Ludovic Spiess, Ruza Baldani, Antonin Grigoriev leading a large cast. The RAI Rome Symphony Orchestra and Chorus is directed by Boris Khaikin.

Gluck, detail of a portrait by Joseph Duplessis, dated 1775 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our second opera of the evening is a work by Christoph Willibald Gluck, and his first major reform opera.  He wrote Orfeo et Euridice in 1762 as part of an effort, along with other composers and dramatists, to get away from the opera seria trend, refocus operas on human drama and passion, and make the words and music to be of equal importance.  His efforts were wildly successful, and he is seen as being a big influence on Mozart, Beethoven, Weber and Wagner, and on German opera in general, even though this actually qualifies as French opera.  Variations on the plot used in Orfeo were also used in The Magic Flute, Fidelio, and even in Das Reingold.  So it can be said that the opera that we are about to hear constitutes one of the major turning points in the history of opera.

Tonight’s recording is a 1993 recording that features Sylvia McNair (sop), Derek Lee Ragin (counter-tenor), and Cyndia Sieden (sop).  The Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists are directed by John Eliot Gardiner