ABS Orphean Enchantments

This is sort of a bad news entry.  I have been driving to Davis to see the American Bach Soloists since I moved to Sacramento.  My first entry, I believe, was in 2013.  I was happy about the fact that they played mostly Bach and in excellent style.  I attended performances of the St John Passion, the St. Matthew Passion, the Magnificat, the B Minor mass, Brandenberg Concertos, Orchestral Suites, etc.  That's a lot of Bach.  Occasionally other things appeared.

Well, Monday they performed only one piece by Bach:  Concerto in A Minor for Harpsichord, flute, violin, Strings and Basso Continuo.  Well, that sounds like a concerto grosso to me.  That's a small group of soloists who play both with and without the larger group of strings.  It was just ok.

In addition they played some pieces with Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, a countertenor.  I have recently warmed up to countertenors, but would always prefer to hear a female mezzo.  Oh well.  I wish I liked him better.  He sang:

Vivaldi's Stabat Mater
Buxtehude's Jubilate Domino omnis terra
Johann Christoph Bach's Lamento
Hoffmann's Schlage doch, gewuenswchte Stunde [previously attributted to Bach.]

This is the first time I have not enjoyed one of their concerts.  Part of this is old age which makes it exhausting to drive to Davis.  The conductor Jeffrey Thomas said that they would be doing less Bach this season.  They would teach us to enjoy other things.  I have only gotten really enthusiastic about their Bach.  That's why I'm here.

Juditha Triumphans

Conductor: Andrea Marcon
Orchestra: La Cetra Barockorchester Basel 
Director: Floris Visser

Juditha, contralto, a Bethulian widow: Gaëlle Arquez
Holofernes, contralto, Assyrian general: Teresa Iervolino
Vagaus, soprano, eunuch, Holofernes's squire: Vasilisa Berzhanskaya
Ozias, contralto, high priest of Bethulia: Francesca Ascioti
Abra, soprano, Juditha's handmaid: Polly Leech
Jewish virgin: Gloria Giurgola

Vivaldi's Juditha Triumphans (Judith Triumphs) was streamed from the Dutch National Opera on Operavision.  My usual source book says this was an oratorio in Latin, here performed in Italian and staged as an opera.  Interesting.  The story is from the book of Judith from the apocrypha, as it is called by protestants.  All of the singers are female, including the chorus, because Vivaldi taught at a girls' school.  There do seem to be quite a few male supers, many in NAZI uniforms, and occasionally they sing with the chorus of soldiers.  Holofernes and his troops are Assyrian while the people in mufti are Jews from Bethulia.  The timing of the original performance in Venice suggests that it is translated into an oratorio about the Turks invading Corfu in 1716.  So 3 time periods.

• Book of Judith old testament era
• Oratorio by Vivaldi 1716 not staged.
• WWII Nazis 1940s for the staging.

The orchestration is astounding.  The same reference says: "The string orchestra is augmented by timpani, 2 trumpets, mandolino, 4 theorbos, 5 lyra viols (viols), 1 viola d'amore, 2 recorders, 2 chalumeaux (soprano) [ancestor of the clarinet], 2 oboes, organ."   I am hearing harpsichord.  Impressive.  It sounds much thicker than your average Baroque Italian orchestra.  In general Baroque scores don't show full orchestration, but to know more about these things, I would have to consult a Vivaldi specialist.

To begin we have the famous painting of Judith Beheading Holofernes (oops.  spoiler alert) by Caravaggio c. 1598.  People are shot.  Judith tries to persuade Holofernes that his power would be enhanced by clemency.

Structurally this is a Neapolitan opera with one florid da capo aria after another.  Maybe an opera would have more recitative.  The Assyrians are a bit creepy.  At about 1:40 the above painting is unveiled.  They are Nazis, so perhaps they are looting it.  This gives her the idea?  Yes.  She chops off his head.  At the end we are transported back to Venice, Judith regrets her deed and tears up the Caravaggio painting.

Musically this is a triumph.  The sounds are varied and fascinating.  We are hearing the real thing.  Vivaldi vocal music is seriously neglected by everyone except Cecilia Bartoli.

Vivaldi Part II

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Happy birthday to me.  This arrived just in time.  Thank you, dear.  The voice is as good as new.  Perhaps she is immortal, a goddess.  There is only one Bartoli. 

OMG.  Track 2 from Orlando Furioso is magnificent.  Spectacular phrasing.  Sigh.  She knows that it's all in the music.

The ensemble is completely with her.  They are Ensemble Matheus conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi. I hope you weren't expecting a regular review.

I wish you could see me smiling.
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The Four Seasons in Sacramento

Gioachino Rossini – Italiana in Algeri Overture
Joseph Haydn – Symphony No. 101, “Clock”
Antonio Vivaldi – “The Four Seasons”
Andrés Cárdenes, conductor and violin

This is the program for last night's performance by the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera.  Andrés Cárdenes guested last season in a program that featured him playing a Mozart violin concerto.  In the first half of our program the orchestra included winds and timpani and a podium for Rossini and Haydn.  For the Vivaldi all the winds disappeared and the timpani were replaced by a harpsichord.  The podium also disappeared and was replaced by a music stand.

American Bach in Davis

Conductor:  Jeffrey Thomas
Violin and Viola d'amore:  Elizabeth Blumenstock
Violin:  Cynthia Black
Countertenor:  Ian Howell
Cello:  Gretchen Claassen

The American Bach Soloists, who generally play in a church in Davis, are my favorite group in the greater Sacramento area.  They did not fail to please.

Joyce at Carnegie Hall

This concert has a theme and it is Venice.  It is a theme that works well.

Antonio Vivaldi

   Ercole su'l Termodonte

• "Onde chiare che sussurrate"
• "Amato ben"

Gabriel Fauré 
   Cinq mélodies "de Venise", Op. 58

• 1. Mandoline 
• 2. En sourdine 
• 3. Green 
• 4. À Clymène 
• 5. C'est l'extase

Gioachino Rossini
    La regata veneziana

• 1. Anzoleta avanti la regata 
• 2. Anzoleta co passa la regata 
• 3. Anzoleta dopo la regata

Gioachino Rossini
   Otello ossia il Moro di Venezia

• III: "Assisa a piè d'un salice" - " Che dissi!" 

Michael Head
  Three Songs of Venice

• 1. The Gondolier 
• 2. St Mark's Square 
• 3. Rain storm

Reynaldo Hahn
  Venezia

• 1. Sopra l'acqua indormenzada 
• 2. La Barcheta 
• 3. L'avertimento 
• 5. Che peca! 
• 6. La Primavera 

Carnegie Hall chose Joyce DiDonato's recital with David Zobel as their first ever stream.  It's simply exquisite.  Believe it or not, almost all of this music is on my iPod, even the Vivaldi.

Joyce is moving to the very top of the heap.  Recently she sang for game 7 of the world series.  My favorite part of this event was when toward the end she extemporized a small ornament and the crowd roared.  It was an acknowledgment of who she really is.  It made me want to hear the ornamented version.

For me her gifts as an interpreter are at their peak.  This is a very well programmed and sung recital.  If you don't know La regata veneziana, it is sung by Momolo's girlfriend.  Momolo is a gondolier, and he wins the regata.

Writing this blog is for my soul, to teach me once again after years of abandonment that music is my first and always greatest love.  I love the big emotions of opera, but my deepest love is for songs.

Dear Carnegie Hall:  Good choice.

Dear Joyce:  Be always yourself.  You will have figured this out already.

2 encores
Canzonetta Spagnuola Rossini
No ti scordar di me De Curtis

Orlando Furioso DVD

Conductor:  Jean-Christophe Spinosi
Orlando:  Marie-Nicole Lemieux (contralto)
Alcina (sorceress):  Jennifer Larmore (mezzo-soprano)
Angelica:  Verónica Cangemi (soprano)
Ruggiero:  Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor)
Astolfo:  Christian Senn (baritone)
Bradamante:  Kristina Kammarstrom (mezzo-soprano)
Medoro:  Romina Basso (mezzo-soprano) (heard in the recording of Ercole)

This DVD came unbidden in my mail.  Let's see.

The male characters in Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso (1727) are Orlando (originally sung by a woman), Ruggiero (originally sung by a castrato), Astolfo (sung by a bass) and Medoro (also originally sung by a castrato).  The female characters are Alcina, Angelica and Bradamante who is in disguise as a warrior (all sung by women).  Are we confused?  As if that weren't bad enough, one of the castrato parts is sung by a woman named Basso.  Just go with it.

Recently has come the news that a new/old manuscript by Vivaldi has been found in Turin that has proved to be a completely different Orlando Furioso than the already known one that this DVD is based on. The new/old manuscript dates from 1714 and has a baritone for the lead character. Maybe some day soon we will see that one.  I digress.

As if we weren't confused enough, this opera is one of those Baroque love plots.  Angelica and Medoro are in love, but Orlando also loves Angelica.  Ruggiero and Bradamante are in love, but Alcina also likes Ruggiero.  Orlando goes mad and havoc ensues.  You would only put on this opera because you had a coloratura contralto capable of endless rage arias.  I've seen it with Marilyn Horne, and she was outstanding.

The singers in this video are youthful and vigorous in their seemingly endless coloratura.  The production is period and set in a ramshackled castle.  The colors are dark and also the emotions. The men are mere pawns of Alcina--no surprise--and Jennifer Larmore is deliciously evil in the part.  The part is slightly low for Jaroussky, but he sings it beautifully anyway.

The intensity is surprising and builds to the end.  Besides Jaroussky I think I like Kristina Kammarstrom best.  Any discussion of singing in the Italian Baroque must consider this.  I think the virtuosity of this period is outside our awareness, since for us Baroque opera is the German Handel.

They are all amazing.  Orlando rants occasionally in French.  The period costumes emphasize the madness of Orlando.  She plays it for pure madness.  Bravi.
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Vivaldi

If you hurry right now to YouTube there is a film of the entire Vivaldi concert of Cecilia Bartoli posted by Power Classic. This is undoubtedly covered by copyright and will soon disappear. They don't make as much noise as Berkeley.  This was recorded in Paris.

This is Bartoli at her most spectacular, Bartoli the great athlete, the mad woman of classical music. "Agitata da due venti" is the third encore.

Jaroussky

This is embarrassing.  In my youth we had only one countertenor--Alfred Deller--and he was strictly take it or leave it.  Now there are countertenors everywhere.  I've always hated them, both for the odd sound of their voices and for the fact that they were taking parts from my beloved mezzos.  So how should I confess that I really love Philippe Jaroussky?  It's so embarrassing.

He appeared at Hertz Hall in Berkeley on Sunday afternoon, the same time as the opening of Xerxes at War Memorial across the bay.  I've seen him before, though only from the back, at Salle Pleyel as Sesto in Giulio Cesare.

He shared the stage with a group called Apollo's Fire, conducted by Jeannette Sorrell.  There was an interesting story told between arias about Jaroussky and Sorrell exchanging letters of mutual admiration.  Apollo's Fire would be a difficult name to live up to.

Apollo's Fire play standing.  Except for the cellos.  I don't know if you can play a cello standing.  The theorbo player also sits, but Ms Sorrell stands at the harpsichord.  When they stand, their bodies become involved in the emotion of the music.  This is some of the most passionate playing by a Baroque ensemble I have ever heard.

I added this picture because it's the only one I have that shows the theorbo player on the right end.  These are everywhere now.  In Baroque music theorbo is now as common as the harpsichord and cello for realizing the figured bass.

This is an Italian style ensemble with no winds.  Many of the instrumental numbers are arranged by Jeanette Sorrell, the conductor.  I am going to guess that this is due to the sketchy nature of the orchestration in the original scores.  It is hard to picture this, but the original purpose of the figured bass was much like a modern fake book, to provide a basis for extemporizing.  Not many can do this today.  Instead of carefully planned orchestration such as we have today, a piece might be played by whoever was available, and they would extemporize their parts.

The entire concert was Handel and Vivaldi, so the period of the music was basically identical to Saturday night's program, and similarly it alternated instrumental with vocal numbers.  The violinist Olivier Brault played a Vivaldi concerto and shared another Vivaldi concerto with Johanna Novom.  It was all very dynamic and exciting.

So why Philippe Jaroussky?  He sang Handel in the first half of the program, including an aria from Ariodante, and Vivaldi in the second half.  His voice is actually beautiful and shows a lovely vibrato, a rarity among countertenors.  And he phrases the dickens out of everything.  Both slow tempo and up tempo showpiece arias were wonderful.  He sang three encores including a final glorious "Ombra mai fu."

How can this be happening?  At the end we waved at each other.  In Berkeley this is the sign that the concert is over.

Arias for Farinelli

This was very much a Baroque weekend.  On Saturday night was Vivica Genaux with the Philharmonia Baroque in Berkeley doing her Arias for Farinelli program.

Philharmonia Baroque performs in the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, and after living in Sacramento for a while, I am feeling a bit of envy for such a spacious room with such nice acoustics.

This was sort of an anyone but Bach concert from the generation born from the decade 1678-88:

• We begin with a concerto for six woodwinds by Johann Friedrich Fasch, who worked within 50 miles of Bach.  This was on the program as a memorial for two of their woodwind players who died last spring.

• Then Vivica thrilled us with three arias by Antonio Vivaldi.

• Georg Philipp Telemann's "Sinfonia Spirituosa"

• Then we have two arias by Nicola Porpora and one by Roccardo Broschi.  Broschi is heard only because he was Farinelli's brother and wrote a number of show piece arias for him.  He is younger than the others.  These were pretty flashy.

• The program closed with a suite by Jean -Philippe Rameau from La Guirlande.  This included some very primitive looking percussion--a tall drum and a tambourine. 

• Vivica sang "Agitata da due venti" from Vivaldi's Griselda as an encore.  I don't think it was as funny as this film.

 

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Griselda

From l:  Griselda, Costanza, Gualtiero, Roberto.

Every year the Santa Fe Opera does one new or neglected opera, and this year it is Vivaldi's Griselda.  Obviously, 1735 isn't new, so that leaves neglected.

The plot is not politically correct.  King Gualtiero divorces his wife Griselda and threatens to marry someone else for the sole purpose of improving his political standing.  Peter Sellars, the production designer, changed the ending.  In the original there is a kind of double wedding where mother Griselda and Daughter Costanza get together with their respective men.  Instead the King announces simply that all is forgiven, you're still queen, and Griselda just goes on sweeping the floor like it's all too much for her.  Perhaps this helps our modern sensitivities, but it does not save this cruel, anachronistic plot.

I've seen stagings of Baroque operas I liked more--I was quite fond of Rinaldo in Zurich--but I don't really know if any staging could save Griselda.  Gronk painted the set.  Everything looks like modern northern New Mexico.  Do we care one way or the other?  Not really.

Because it's really all about the singing.  And gorgeous singing it was, too.

David Daniels as Roberto is probably the biggest name, and he sang very well, but for me I can't get past the countertenor thing.  Sorry.

Tenor Paul Groves as King Gualtiero, the lowest voice on the stage, was excellent.  My previous reservations about his singing--pushed down tone--were nowhere in evidence.  His coloratura is smooth and natural for such a dark voice.

You could not do this opera without contralto Meredith Arwady as Griselda.  The role was written for Vivaldi's girl friend who, everyone keeps telling us, was a terrible singer.  I was happy to see Meredith take a dip into the Baroque but hope for something more congenial next time.  She was the emotional heart of this otherwise heartless opera.

I enjoyed Amanda Majeski as Ottone, Griselda's other suiter.  This character was translated into a highschool kid with jeans and sneakers and a gun.

The unqualified star of the evening was the incredible, spectacular, gorgeous Isabel Leonard, a mezzo in the role of Costanza.  There were rumors of a shoving match for attention between Paul and David, a seemingly pointless activity, since it was clearly Isabel who stole the show.  Hers were the best arias and she aced every single one of them, including the famous "Agitata da due venti," the hit tune for this opera.

Griselda is saved by singing.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1715-40]

Vivaldi Ercole

There's some pretty wonderful stuff in this recording of Vivaldi's Ercole sul Termodonte (1722) with Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante.

This performance is yet another result of the current burst of Italian musicology. The booklet that comes with the CDs describes the process required to revive this opera and recreate the original score.

The opera was written for Rome, and even at this late date the roles seem all to have been performed by men, either castrati or tenors. The casting for the recording is somewhat curious. Hercules and his band of Greeks have been tasked with stealing the arms of Antiope, the queen of the Amazons. The Greek roles consist of two tenors and two mezzo-sopranos: Ercole (Hercules) is sung by Rolando Villazon; Teseo (Theseus) is sung by Romina Basso, a female mezzo, not a bass; Alceste is sung by Philippe Jaroussky, the only countertenor; and Telamone is sung by another tenor, Topi Lehtipuu.

Both camps, Greeks and Amazons, are composed of two distinct types of personalities: lovers and fighters. For the Greeks the tenors represent the fighters, and the mezzos are the lovers. On the Amazon side Antiope, the queen, sung by Vivica Genaux, mezzo-soprano, and Orizia, her sister, sung by Patrizia Ciofi, soprano, are the fighters. Ippolita, another sister of the queen, sung by Joyce DiDonato, mezzo, and Martesia, the queen's daughter, sung by Diana Damrau, soprano, are the lovers.

That's a lot of treble characters. Some are pissed off and want to kill people, while others are desperately in love and pine for their lovers. The plot has an annoyingly conventional ending with no one dying and both pairs of lovers getting together. And incidentally the queen gives Hercules her arms. They all live happily ever after in the by then well established tradition of Neapolitan Opera.

By now in 2011 we are accustomed to the sound of Handel operas with their Germanic density of instrumentation. It's nice to hear this transparency. Italian opera is about singing.

With this collection of singers there is a lot of fabulous singing. Everyone gets something nice, but the sweetest arias are for Joyce DiDonato. She shines.  So does Rolando Villazon.  It's a good recording.
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Education of a musician

Riding over to the opera, I was talking about some incomprehensible musical abstraction to my friends, both not musicians, who were sitting in the front seat, when D said (suddenly realize that both of their initials are D, but never mind) that he had no idea what I was talking about.

This made me think. When I started college as a music major, my only musical experiences had all been singing. A singer doesn’t actually need to know anything. If you can accurately repeat what you are taught by the coaches, that fills the minimum requirement. I’ve never forgotten the German mezzo who didn’t know which end of the keyboard had the low notes. Ignorant though I was when I started, I think I had already figured that part out. Maybe she was dyslexic.

As a music major, five days a week for two years we came every morning to study music theory. Our text book was McHose, an unusual book which is based entirely on statistics. Someone (undoubtedly Dr. McHose’s graduate students) had analyzed all of the harmonized Bach chorales and compiled statistical tables on what each chord resolved to.

If I determine that this is a tonic chord, 52% of the time it resolves to a subdominant, 22% to a submediant, etc. [Editorial comment—these numbers are made up. It’s just an illustration. I don’t see McHose on my shelf anywhere. I do see something called Beyond Midi which I must remember to read some time.] It is the standardization of expectation that is the main factor in creating tonality.

We practiced sight-reading, writing music from dictation, analysis, voice-leading, etc. Then in the third year we went on to form and analysis, counterpoint, and ultimately composition.

It changes a person. I hear immediately the presence or absence of tonality, for instance: present for much of Dowland, but little of Schuetz, absent completely from Froberger, but coming along in Purcell. Bach is the high point of tonal sophistication, actually, one of the reasons for the reverence paid to him. Mozart simply takes it for granted.

Once you have been through all this, you can never go back. I’m writing this while listening to the new recording Ercole sul Termodonte by Vivaldi, and am surprised to hear how much slower his harmonic rhythm is than Bach’s, who generally gets in at least two different chords per measure. Never mind. It’s a wonderful recording, incidentally, with a number of excellent artists.

I deliberately abandoned music for personal reasons, but all this blogging about opera keeps it stirred up, much like remembering how to speak German. My friends are to be commended and thanked for not abandoning me when I go off on a tangent. D turns up the radio occasionally, though.

General Horne

No offense to Bartoli, but we older folks had our own pseudo castrato in the magnificent Marilyn Horne. She performed Vivaldi's Orlando Furioso in San Francisco, too, where this film is from.  I was there.

She balanced her voice in her throat with such precision that she could do virtually anything with it.

Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741) worked in his young life at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for young women in Venice. He taught them to play the violin and composed hundreds of concertos for them to play. This is the church Santa Maria della Pietà where these concertos were performed.

This is the door where the babies were dropped off. It is still an active orphanage.

This is where the orphans play.

It will transform your feeling for Vivaldi if you imagine an orchestra of adolescent girls playing.

Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina

We went together to hear the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina in the Bargello, a smaller venue than the Palazzo Pitti but still open air. They played Le quattro stagioni by Vivaldi and Concerto No. 1 per Marimba e archi by N. Rosauro, a Brazilian composer.

The Marimba concerto was only interesting in the marimba part. The orchestral part was weak and unidiomatically conceived. He clearly likes the marimba, but doesn't understand the idea of a concerto as a duel between two equals.

I found out that Vivaldi wrote a program for the four seasons into the score. I didn't know that. This group played Vivaldi with passion and understanding. The conductor, Giuseppe Lanzetta, was quite reserved and left the passion and drama to his players. I liked him very much.

Sono in vacanza

I have hopped down to Italy where it is only a bit warmer. I arrived coincidentally in front of the church San Paolo Entro le Mura on the Via Nazionale just as the Nova Amadeus Chamber Orchestra was beginning a concert of Bach and Vivaldi concertos with solo violin by Luca Blasio. They played the Quattro Staggione of Vivaldi as though they were a single piece. There were about 10 people in this orchestra. It's wonderful how full a small ensemble sounds inside a church.