Bloggo Musico: a Quick Look at Two Concerts and an Extensive Essay on a Third

Dottore Gianni is back, in his capacity as music critic sans pareil (“sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste…sans everything”)!  Because of his recent travels he confesses that he has missed the opportunity to review three concerts by members of the Greenville Symphony. But he plans to fix that, by commenting briefly before he examines the most recent concert, on two of the three previous – the third, alas, he missed altogether, and not because of travel.

Has the good doctor created some suspense? No? Not even a wee bit? Well! Harumph!

Suffice to say that the opening concert of the 2013-14 season, titled The Greatest Revolutionary, was mostly about Richard 

Richard Wagner, looking rather
artsy-fartsy

Wagner. In the first part of the program the orchestra played three (count ‘em) overtures/preludes and two pieces of incidental music from Wagnerian operas. The concert began pleasantly enough, with the majestic Prelude to Die Meistersinger, but an overture is just that…an overture. One generally expects something more after that, in Wagner’s case about five hours’ worth – the opera itself. Now, one Wagner overture in the first segment of a concert is certainly acceptable. But this potpourri of overtures interspersed with incidental music (after Die Meistersinger we heard the haunting Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and the first half ended with electrifying Ride of the Valkyrie from Die Walkürie – “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”) struck me as a tad excessive. An overture (the other two were the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin – OK no overture, instead an ent’racte – same principle – and the Overture to Tannhäuser) seems to me like an engine that is being revved up for the start of something big – the overture gets one excited about the opera, right? But with three overtures it’s as if you’re not only revving an engine excessively, but that it’s in danger of flooding. That’s how I felt at intermission – flooded, even inundated by Wagner, flashy at moments but lacking substance.

But I wasn’t really there for too-much-Wagner. I was waiting for something wonderful in the second part of the program, which consisted solely of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, 

Beethoven

one of my very favorites of his nine. And I was not disappointed. There is a tenuous connection between the Wagner and the Beethoven, as Wagner apparently dubbed Beethoven’s Seventh the “apotheosis of the dance…tables and benches, cans and cups, the grandmother, the blind and the lame – even the children in the cradle – fall to dancing.” Dottore Gianni was not aware of this quote, but thanks to the program notes he has been educated, and admits that there is much exhilarating movement to this symphony, tempered by haunting sections in minor keys. Maestro Tchivzhel conducted the orchestra in a masterful performance of this work, so that despite feeling awash in Wagner, the good doctor had half of a fine time, and left the Peace Center in the mood to dance, though fortunately for the other exiting audience members, he resisted the urge.

The second concert was one of three very intimate offerings in the Spotlight Series in which anywhere from two to five or so principal players make beautiful music together. Except that in this case the only piece that I would categorize as beautiful was the last of four works (are we seeing a pattern here? Pray it doesn’t continue!) Of course this series depends on finding music that can be played by a very few players, and sometimes the repertoire for such instruments is limited. For example, how many musical works have been written for bassoon, oboe and clarinet? One at least, the one we heard that afternoon, a divertissement written by Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942 – died in a concentration camp). And I’m betting no more than one piece, called Night Watch, has been composed for the unusual combo of flute, horn and kettle drums, this one concocted by Ellis B. Kohs 1916-2000). Even less likely is the duo of oboe and double bass, but we were treated to Andrea Clearfield’s (born 1960) Three Songs for Oboe and Double Bass (after Poems of Pablo Neruda). Before each musical offering in the Spotlight Series one of the performers comes out and talks about it a bit. While each of these pieces was interesting at least in the sense that it was unusual, the most pleasure I received was from the musicians’ dexterity in the playing of them. I found nothing in any of the work to make me want to explore further the music of any of the composers.

When, however, a concert ends with Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, played by four of the finest members of the Greenville Symphony, that makes a concert worthwhile in substance as well as in style. I’ll only comment about young 

Maurice Ravel

Ravel’s depression when, having dedicated the quartet to his teacher Gabriel Fauré, it was panned in the press and also by…his teacher Fauré, who called its last movement, “stunted, badly balanced, in fact a failure.” Ravel might have come unraveled (drumroll) but his pride and probably the piece itself were saved by another composer, Claude Debussy, when he wrote Ravel, “In the name of the gods of music and in my own, do not touch a single note of your Quartet.” In his younger days, Dottore Gianni played this lovely work on many a late afternoon, so thank you Ravel and Debussy, but alas the good doctor lost track of his DVD recording of it, so he was looking forward to this performance and got more than his money’s worth (note: these intimate concerts cost a mere $15 so let’s amend that to MUCH more than his money’s worth).

The concert Dottore Gianni missed was Oktoberfest, which is especially sad since you get free beer with it. Interestingly, the reason that the good doctor missed it is that he had been detained…by drink.

Understand, I go to matinees for two reasons. First, I have the devil of a time driving after dark, as my corneal dystrophe makes even a green light a blinding experience. When a good-ole-boy South Carolina driver tailgates you in a truck (pretty much ensured in this benighted state), which is set just enough higher than my Corolla to be a potentially blinding experience even to those with healthy eyes…well, let’s just say it is unsafe for me and other drivers to have me driving around at night unless I absolutely have to – and these days there is very little that Dottore Gianni absolutely has to do.

Second, let me use a phrase that slipped out of my mouth once and that sent two of my sisters-in-law roaring with 

laughter/approval: “The one thing I will not do, is not have my vodka!” A single person, particularly a single person who is retired, must, Dottore Gianni believes, play out his rituals. One ritual that the good doctor plays out every evening begins at 5:30, when he prepares hors d’oeuvres and readies dinner as well for a six pm cocktail hour designed to coincide with the News Hour on PBS. At six he settles into his reclining love seat with snacks on a bamboo tray and vodka in hand. At some point after that, usually 7-ish, he switches to either white or red wine, as the meal (in his opinion) requires, and by around 8 pm he wraps up that ritual.

Hrk's hors d'oeuvres

Because he foolishly bought tickets at the Peace Center to War Horse for a Sunday afternoon that happened to coincide with the matinee of Oktoberfest that he would normally attend – actually it wasn’t foolish, as he himself enjoyed it the second time around, as it was a birthday present for his nephew and as it was an opportunity for his sister-in-law Kara to see a show that he knew would bring her pleasure – he moved his Oktoberfest ticket to the night before. But as the time for the concert drew near, the two above-mentioned (confessed?) obstacles began to compete against his desire for classical music, and guess what won? One thing he will not do…So he will slightly amend his simply stated reason: He was detained by drink…and by dark.

No such complications emerged regarding last Sunday’s concert, titled The Fantastic Symphony. The title refers to a work that more sophisticated concert-goers than those in Greenville SC call the Symphonie Fantastique, by Hector Berlioz. That lengthy and complicated piece of music made up the entire second half of the concert. Before intermission the symphony offered its interpretation of El Sombrero de Tres Picos, or The Three-Cornered Hat, a ballet written by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla.

This pairing struck Dottore Gianni as a very nice one, and hit a personal note (if you will…whether you will or not) for the good doctor as he has just returned from Spain, so Falla is a fine musical option, and as he is writing about the Romantic movement in theatre in his OTHER, more academic blog, in which he goes by the name of Dr Jack, and in that post he mentions Berlioz and…but stop! I get ahead of my story!

Falla’s ballet suite took the entire first part of the concert. I enjoyed it, but once again, a ballet suite is lacking a central 

Manuel de Falla

element – the ballet! It was also rather short to fill the entire first half – the teenaged girl next to me (tall and blonde and one day she’ll grow into a pretty young lady, but while I think she enjoyed the concert she could not stop squirming throughout, which lessened my enjoyment of it somewhat) remarked to her grandfather…hmmmm…let’s hope he’s her grandfather… “Is that all?” She was right, as the Falla comes in at under a half hour. Perhaps an overture…maybe one of Wagner’s (NO!!!), some short piece begin the concert?

The Three-Cornered Hat

The story, by famed Spanish author Alarcon, is a simple variation on medieval farce – a miller and his wife and a wealthy magistrate (who wears the sombrero de tres picos) who wants to have his way with her – much merriment and 

Picasso costume design for the ballet

confusion ensues, and in the end the lecherous magistrate is tossed in a blanket! The story is inconsequential, but the music is often exciting, and Falla’s first version of the ballet (informatively but uninterestingly named The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife) was revised and re-named when the impresario Sergei Diaghilev saw it and approached the composer. It was produced by his famous company, the Ballets Russes, with sets and costumes designed by Picasso and choreographed by Leonide Massine, opening at London’s Alhambra Theatre in 1919 and frequently revived.

The music, which makes use of Andalusian folk tunes and flamenco-style music, is occasionally recognizable (or was to Dottore Gianni) and often vibrant, but one wished to see famous dancers such as Massine (who also danced in the original and several revivals) and Margot Fonteyne (both pictured below in a revival), performing the work.

After an intermission that almost equaled the first half of the concert in time, We were treated to the main event, the symphonie Fantastique. Rather than revealing more of his ignorance of the music itself, Dottore Gianni will focus on the hopelessly romantic love story that brought the music into existence.

The French were late coming to Romanticism. The movement started in Germany during the late eighteenth century with the writings of August Wilhelm Schlegel (who translated Shakespeare and coined the term “Romantic” to contrast it with “Classical”) and quickly spread to England, where in 1798 it was marked by the publication of the Lyrical Ballads, poems by two unknowns, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But while the French Revolution would seem to have been the quintessentially Romantic event, a little corporal rose quickly to power after it and in 1804 crowned himself Emperor. Napoleon, himself a soldier in the Revolution, no longer approved of revolutionary thoughts, movements or arts. The Revolution led ironically to his despotic rule, and once in power he was damned if any sort of revolution was going to knock him out of power.

After Napoleon the monarchy was restored and forces of change in Paris moved forward very slowly. In 1822, for example, a British acting troupe performed a brief season of Shakespeare in Paris.  There were riots at these performances and the troupe was hissed, because Shakespeare’s own revolutionary plays – revolutionary in that they refused to comply with rules of writing established in Renaissance Italy and reinforced emphatically in France – rules of verisimilitude and decorum and the unities of time, place and action – were simply incomprehensible and worse, offensive to French tastes.   A French writer even labeled the visiting theatre troupe’s work in 1822 “an invasion!”  Not that the Bard was unknown in France. In the late eighteenth century Jean François Ducis translated Shakespeare into French, but he twisted the plays ridiculously to make them fit the neoclassic ideal, which included showing no violence on stage but instead “messengering” them in. 

But certain French writers and intellectuals became very excited by the writing of Schlegel, and in 1810 the French writer Madame de Stael published D’Allemagne, a work that praised the German Romantics. Stendhal, the French novelist, wrote an essay comparing Racine and Shakespeare, in which he praised Shakespeare over Racine (mon dieu!) and commended the Romantic qualities of Shakespeare’s 

work.  So in 1827, when another British troupe, led by Charles Kemble, played Paris, they created a sensation.  Resentment still ran high among French conservatives, but liberals saw in the freedom of Shakespearean style an analogy to their own cries for greater freedom.  Kemble’s Hamlet was seen by the French as the quintessential, brooding, romantic hero. Even more popular was Harriet 

Smithson’s Ophelia, especially her mad scene. A “mad scene” on the French stage?  Mais non! At least mais non a few years before, when in France such disturbing actions were messengered in. Beginning in 1827 it was for many, mais oui!  Delacroix, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas all raved about Smithson, and composer Hector Berlioz…wait! Berlioz? 

Hector Berlioz

Didn’t he write the Symphonie Fantastique?

Mais oui, mes amis, mais oui.

…was so smitten that he pursued and wooed her, sending her love letter after love letter even though they had never met, which frightened her more than anything else. More important than the letters he wrote, was the musical piece, the Symphonie Fantastique, Berlioz composed for the actress. Finally in 1832 Berlioz invited her to a performance, she came and they were married the following year at the Britisy Embassy (Franz Liszt was one of the witnesses) in Paris!

Voila! A happy ending! Mais non!

For, as Wikipedia explains it, “at the time of her wedding, her popularity was past and she was deeply in debt, a factor believed to have strongly influenced her decision to marry. A 

Harriet Smithson

benefit was given her, but she was coldly received. She retired from the stage. Louis Berlioz, the only child of Hector and Harriet, was born on 14 August 1834 (d. 1867). By about 1840, the marriage was failing, and Berlioz had begun affair with Marie Recio, whom he was to marry after Smithson's death. Smithson moved out of the matrimonial home on the rue Saint Vincent, Montmartre, to the rue Blanche in 1843, still financially supported by Berlioz. She was to return to her former home on the rue Saint Vincent in 1849, long after Berlioz had left it.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Smithson

Quel domage!

Another Wikipedia article puts its finger on an identifying characteristic of the Romantic temperament, one Dottore Gianni knows well, as he has been sadly marked (marred?) by this characteristic himself.

“Unfortunately for Berlioz, he was soon to discover that living under the same roof as the Beloved was far less appealing than worship from afar. Their marriage proved a disaster as both were prone to violent personality clashes and outbursts of temper. With their marriage a failure, Berlioz and Harriet Smithson separated, the latter having become an alcoholic due to the collapse of her acting career.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Berlioz#Decade_of_productivity

Perhaps I should have, but I couldn't resist this found on a
Berlioz webpage!

Ah yes, for many a male Romantic (including the good doctor), placing a woman on a pedestal and, when she does not (cannot) live up to expectation (a beautiful statue does not talk back) knocking her unceremoniously off it, is all too common.

If there is any sort of happy end to come of this, still another Wiki-quote from the Berlioz article points to it:

“This led to two intense infatuations. One was to Smithson, which would result in a disastrous marriage. The other was to Shakespeare, which would become a lifelong love.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Berlioz

That fateful night in Paris, 1827, led Berlioz into the second infatuation. The composer wrote several works based on the Bard, including Romeo et Juliette and Beatrice et Benedict, the first a romantic symphony, the second a comic opera.

The Symphonie Fantastique has been called as the first “programmatic” symphony, an instrumental work that tells a 

interesting album cover (one of many I discovered) for
the Symphonie Fantastique

specific story. Berlioz subtitled the symphony an “Episode in the Life of an Artist, “ referring to his infatuation with Harriet Smithson, which is the “subject” (the idée fixe) of the story. It is told in five (instead of the usual four) movements; and Berlioz described in writing an introduction to the work and a description of each movement.

In the first Berlioz describes in music “Reveries, Passions,” setting up his desires and the “volcanic love” she inspired when he first saw her. The second is set at “A Ball” where he sees her again. The third is a “Scene in the Country” in which he begins to think that she might deceive him. The fourth leaps into a “March to the Scaffold” after he dreams that he has killed his beloved, which features some of the best known music in the piece. And the finale is positively macabre, his “Dream of a Witches Sabbath, a wild dance in which his beloved participates. “Funeral knell, burlesque parody of the Dies Irae and Sabbath round dance. The Sabbath and the Dies Irae combine.”

Whew! A wild ride, and the orchestra accomplished some of it well, the last two movements very well indeed. 

And because of the short first half, Dottore Gianni was in his car driving home before 5 pm (the concert began at 3), arriving in plenty of time to prepare his cocktail hour! What more could the good doctor ask?