Week Thirty-Seven: September 11

Three fun new pieces to enjoy this week. I’ll complete the Cav/Pag that I left dangling a few months back. Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana is one opera that has elude me all these years completely. I’m not even sure I’ll recognize the noted Intermezzo that everyone is supposedly so familiar with. But at 80 minutes in length, I suspect this will be just what I need to bring back my confidence. I sure did enjoy Manon the past three weeks, but it didn’t leave me with much time for my other pieces. Hopefully, this shorter opera will do just that.

Update: This opera was completely attainable in just a week. With two more to go on its cycle, I’m planning to get a head start on a much larger opera for the next session, perhaps increasing that unofficially to a four-week run (thinking Wagner at the moment). There are some very nice moments in Cavalleria, but on the whole the biggest frustration I have is with the story. I have seen two videos of the performance in the last week, an eighty minute duration easily allows for that! I’m intrigued that the characters often don’t interact with each other: lots of choruses, and countless minutes of Santuzza gazing at the fun, blocked from the Easter festivities. It is striking that she is being punished from a previous affair, having returned to her original guy. It’s confusing.

I’m also going to be starting up Beethoven’s Mass in C. Not nearly as immense as his Solemnis, but large enough that I’m glad to have the shorter opera to complement it. Many years ago, probably 1999, I performed this at someone’s doctoral recital. But it was one of those one-rehearsal-one-performance sort of deals, and I don’t know how much of it stuck with me. We’ll find out shortly.

Update: Yeah, I know this piece very well. My mistake. It came back to me in a heartbeat, so I guess when I performed it and bought the recording, I must have actually listened to it quite a bit. Not a great piece. One of those masses that is much more fun to sing than to listen to. Oh well.

The first piece of my whim in this set is Hindemith’s Konzertmusik for Brass and Strings, a piece I had my first exposture to from a Tanglewood Fellows broadcast this summer. Hindemith takes a bit of effort, not the easiest music to digest, but the pay-off is usually quite large, and I’m hoping for some memorable moments to come out of this week’s selection.

Update: At the end of the week, not a lot to say about this piece. It’s got a lot of fun moments, but nothing worth digging too deeply into here. Reminds me a bit of my pinnacle of Hindemith achievement, Mathis der Maler. It’s funny that a piece for strings and brass basically is saying “Woodwinds, take five.”

Week Thirty-Eight: September 18

To the pile this week, I’m adding Bruckner’s massive “Tragic” Symphony No. 5 in Bb. I chose this larger work, because this past week I found that my multi-week opera and choral work were more attainable than I’d imagined, so I should be able to give greater focus to this piece. I had to consult my playlists, I must admit, to see which Bruckner symphonies I have already studied (3, 4, 9), and then went through my existing library, found that this one bears the same nickname as the Schubert I did a few weeks ago, and decided that would be a fun juxtaposition. The challenge with Bruckner is always finding a score that matches your recording. He was a notorious revisionist, and unfortunately, although score sites will tell you which version you are looking at, recordings rarely tell you which you are listening to! So, you can end up several happy pages in, and realize you have lost your way.

For a spot of fun, I’m writing this the day before I actually begin with the “Tragic”, and today I plan to listen to the previous three Bruckner symphonies, to remind my palate what I’ve already heard.

Week Thirty-Nine: September 25

I found an old archival Bernstein recording of a piece with which I have had no awareness whatsoever. It’s called In the Steppes of Central Asia by Alexander Borodin. It’s a symphonic poem depicting the eastward expansion of the Russian empire, first presenting a Russian theme, so caravan plodding, an eastern theme, and finally only the Russian theme. A bit morbid, depending on your angle, but still pretty fun music to listen to.

I’m also picking up Morten Lauridsen’s Les Chansons des Roses. Back when I was in graduate school, I sang in one of my friends’ conducting recital, which featured my first bit of Lauridsen. He seemed well-familiar, and I asked him, “Is this guy the real deal?” His answer was most affirmative. There are some who say that his music all sounds the same, and in fact there are definite hallmarks to his style, but there’s little arguing, in my opinion, that it is sublime, beautiful music. I don’t believe all music needs to be earth-shattering in its originality to be deeply felt. I remember when my band teacher in high school inferred that I shouldn’t be interested in composing film music because it’s sub-standard. And some of it is quite poor, I don’t disagree, and often formulaic. But, also some of the most enduring themes from any 20th century genre, of course, come from the world of film.

Week Forty: October 2

It’s my wedding anniversary today, so you’ll forgive me if I indulge a bit. Yeah, I’ve done a lot of Puccini this year, so what, I’m doing more. Turandot has been a lead-off at the Metropolitan Opera this season, and it’s got me interesting in learning more deeply about it. Way back in 1999 when my wife and I first got together, I was really hung up on a Jussi Bjoerling recording of “Nessun Dorma” (this was long before it became overly mainstreamed through every PBS special you’ve seen since then). It’s fun to learn more about its context in the opera now.

I’ve also got Ravel’s Piano Concerto for Left Hand on the front burner. No particular reason, aside from curiosity. I’ve had consistent fun with Ravel before, and expect this same this time around. Unless it involves the pinky and thumb playing octaves, Billy Joel-style throughout, I’m pretty sure this concerto will never be attainable for me and my weak little left hand.

Week Forty-One: October 9

Heading back to Liszt. His “third” piano concerto, published posthumously, though it may have been written prior to his previous two. Seems like it’s a crap-shoot, and I don’t feel like investigating further. So, we’ll just leave it there. It seems rather difficult to find much about the piece. In fact, I’m not sure this is even the score for it, in the image.

Update: After listening this week, I’m not very taken by this piece. Sorry, Franz.

And then, I’ll also be looking at the cantata by Sergei Prokofiev to accompany his score for the film Alexander Nevsky. I know very little about the film or the score, or the cantata, but hopefully, I’ll dig in a bit this week and become more aware. At least that’s the goal right now.

Update: Whoops, seems like I’ve practically forgotten to look at this one at all. It’s been a busy first week on it, I guess.

Week Forty-Two: October 16

This week’s piece of my choosing is Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 in Eb, which opened the BSO 2015-2016 season and is now available as a stream on their website. I had a preconceived image of what it would sound like, knowing a few other Shostakovich symphonies, but I guess I was wrong. On my first run-through, albeit quietly in the background, I found it to be quite melodious and so-far enjoyable.