Updated on Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 10:05 by
John Gibbons
Bob Simon of 60 Minutes wonders if Gustavo Dudamel is (to paraphrase him) the Barack Obama of conductors.
My suggestions for romantic choices from purely instrumental works without romantic programs (i.e. without cheating).
Updated on Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 01:15 by
John Gibbons
I recently promised to devote special attention on this site to Entartete Musik (music deemed “degenerate” in the Third Reich). My first subject is Viktor Ullmann, a composition student of Schoenberg, a conducting protege of Zemlinsky, and a leader of musical life in the Terezin concentration camp before being murdered in Auschwitz in September 1944. Our Ullmann Resource Guide is still taking shape, but I wanted to offer this unique preview from my YouTube travels.
For those snobbishly inclined persons (you know who you are) who won’t watch a perfectly good Western, the title quote refers to a scene from “The Outlaw Josie Wales” in which the titular character mocks the notion of burying some villains whom he and his pard have just (quite rightly) sent on a Missoura boatride to eternity. Well, reckon I got to doin’ some of that there thinkin’ bout this here blog business, and I’ll be be-danged with a horseshoe if’n lions don’t gotta eat, same as humans. Which brings us to Respighi’s Feste Romane, which is the first of several…
LISTENING SUGGESTIONS FOR CARNEVAL SEASON
1. For those lily-livered weak-kneed aesthetes who can’t stand jolly noise and mayhem (Go Lions!) Be my guest; give “Games in the Circus Maximus” a miss. The finale of Feste Romane features a full scale caneval bacchanalia complete with tarantella.
2. Better yet, if you need to satiate the all-too-common malady of “Jonesing for Respighi”, why not try his masterpiece, the Trittico Bottecelliano? Carneval is at least partly about love, and Venus is the Goddess of love. “The Birth of Venus Rising from the Sea” is the best thing Respighi ever did. It’s the best thing Botticelli ever did. Get a load of the visage on that painted lady! Ooh-la-la!
3. Now that hopefully I’ve offended the snobs, the devout, and the Self-Appointed-Guardians For Defending-Respect-For-Great-Art, its time to offend somebody else. Let’s see. Carneval is derived from the word for “flesh”, non? Who knows this topic better than the French! This one’s for the gentlemen, although the gentleman who wrote the piece was guided by different impulses. Messieurs! c’est tres bon! Ici, Poulenc’s Mammelles de Tiresias, s’il vous plait!
4. Want some tasteless vulgarity? Give Bourbon street a pass, and try Orff’s inimitable Carmina Burana. It has gluttony, drunkeness, sex and appallingly bad music, the worst vice of all.
5. Yep, those Carneval overtures need to be mentioned. Go ahead and listen to Dvorak’s piece, it’s charming and vivacious; approximately as good as Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italian, although I’d rather have carpaccio Italian! As for Berlioz, cut out the middle man. Forget Roman Carneval overture and spend your time with the real McCoy, the wonderful opera Benvenuto Cellini.
6. Anything Venetian will do you just fine for Carneval, except Vivaldi. How many times do I have to keep telling you that! And as for you, you striped shirted, straw hatted gondoliers! Stop ferrying tourists to Vivaldi concerts! Nevertheless, Venice is the Carneval capital. Go ahead and listen to La Gioconda, see if I care. I Due Foscari? Getting warmer. Simon Boccanegra? That’s Genoa, you! Tales of Hoffmann? Warmer still! Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Ete with its lagoon song? Bingo!
John Gibbons
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While blogging about Renee Fleming’s performance of “Ich ging zu ihm,” I mentioned in passing that Korngold’s opera was considered Entartete Musik (“degenerate music”). What does this mean?
Entartete (“degenerate” or “decadent” in English) was Nazi epithet for art and music the regime considered objectionable for racial or ideological reasons. Korngold, as a Jewish composer, was automatically in this category, but race was not the only way to be designated decadent. Ties with Jewish friends and colleagues would do it, as Anton Webern (somewhat a Hitler supporter in the early years) would learn. Content (like the black characters in Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf) would do it. Being too modern or too jazzy (i.e. “African”) qualified as well. (See our recommended books.)
The Nazi campaign against many of its best musicians was part of a larger, more notorious campaign against modern art, which in 1937 climaxed in a multi-city exhibition of “degenerate” art selected from thousands of pieces stolen from museums. The following year, an exhibit on degenerate music opened in Düsseldorf. An image of the Entartete Musik exhibition catalog can seen here. (Warning: it’s pretty offensive.)
Decca released an Entartete Musik CD series beginning in the 1990s, with special emphasis on more rarely performed works.
Korngold was among the lucky ones — he made it to Hollywood and wrote several popular film scores. But some of the composers mentioned in this Decca press release (Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, Viktor Ullman) died in the Holocaust. I will try to get together a list of the “degenerate” composers and performers along with their main works and fates. For now, I just have a great reading list on degenerate music.“From a purely musical point of view, the “Entartete Musik” series has, with unanimous international critical acclaim, brought back to life more than 30 forgotten key works from the first half of this century by composers such as Braunfels, Goldschmidt, Haas, Korngold, Krása, Krenek, Ullmann and Waxman. These recordings may help the listener imagine what the musical life in Europe was before its destruction by the Nazis, and what it might have been if these great branches had not been abruptly cut off.” (Decca press release)
John Gibbons
Several readers have alerted us to this performance of Renee Fleming singing the Korngold aria “Ich ging zu ihm” from Das Wunder Der Heliane. Learn a little more about this rarely-performed work.
This reading list is based on the excellent Music in the Holocaust bibliography from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Chapter: “A Musical Facade for the Third Reich” by Michael Meyer
Several comments on yesterday’s Met Opera broadcast of Prokofiev’s War and Peace.
“We so-called “unwanted toys” may not delight boys and girls as we would like, but we solace ourselves by looking at the majestic lights of the North, the Aurora Borealis. But how many bores can you fit in Borealis? Boring works should go to the Island of Misfit Scores!”
I’m not saying it wasn’t worth the twenty bucks to take in the live Metropolitan Opera performance of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette on the big screen yesterday…
