Smetana’s Ma Vlast constitutes the greatest orchestral score between Berlioz and Brahms. I don’t raise an eyebrow if you would like to correct that to “between Beethoven and Mahler”. And the jewel in the crown is “From Bohemia’s Woods and Valleys”.
Smetana composed his greatest work, the orchestral cycle Ma Vlast while being stone deaf. I am frequently asked how a composer can compose when he is deaf. It isn’t alchemy, it’s training.
I do not anticipate having time in class to discuss Smetana’s Trio in g minor or Dvorak’s late folk/fairy tale opera “The Devil and Kate” but I’d like to recommend these fine pieces to my class, and of course my general readership as well.
The Dates I would like to use for Smetana Wk. 1 should be as follows: Macbeth and the Witches, 1859, Brandenburgers in Bohemia, 1864, Bartered Bride, 1866, Rev. 1869, Dalibor, 1867, Libuse, 1872. I lazily asked Bonnie to put in dates for Smetana, and I think she found first performance and or revision dates. I will change it in the on-line syllabus, but the handouts tomorrow will need to be adjusted. Printing materials for use in class may prove problematical for a while, there have been significant protocol changes in the Graham School hand-out printing operations, to which I’ll need to adjust, so online materials could very well be more up to date than actual handouts. Macbeth and the Wiches as well as Brandenburgers in Bohemia will be included tomorrow. That stuff is too good to lose!
The orchestral version of “Macbeth and the Witches’ is, according to Brian Large, made by somebody named Otakar Jeremias. David’s research is correct, unsurprisingly! The orchestration is brilliant in the extreme. Nevertheless, the novelty of the piece is not primarily due to the orchestration.
Smetana: Macbeth and the Witches; Dvorak: Prelude to Spectre’s Bride, The Water Goblin, and The Hussites, Prague Symp.With Smetacek, Czech Phil with Chalarala, on Urania.
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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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!”
