|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
216.253.237.2
I don't want to throw off the Vickers thread, so I'll start a new one. Glad to hear that I am not alone in my inability thus far to appreciate Britten. Everything I have heard thus far (and I admit it is not a profound number of works) has left me not wanting to explore further. I have yet to explore two of the works considered the greatest - Peter Grimes and the War Requiem, and I have acquired, cheaply, copies of the LPs conducted by the composer....but things like the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, the Simple Symphony, pieces of Midsummer Night's Dream and Billy Budd - just haven't floated my boat. There is so much music to explore and enjoy- why continue to explore paths that are dark for you?
Follow Ups:
The recording alone is stunning. I believe most of the material was simply arranged by Britten, quite effectively. Love the solo harp material. Boy soprano sounds as if in the room.
"Saturday Afternoons" Britten
"Rejoice in the Lamb" George Guest
"Cello Symphony" Rostropovich, Muller-Schott, Walton
"String Quartet No. 3" Sorrel Qt, Endellion Qt, Amodeus qt
"Cello Suites" Walton, Muller-Schott, Jean-Guihen Queyras.
Have you seen the film, Moonlight Kingdom? Sound track is all Britten. Wonderful.
Try these suites
Certainly well recorded. Sound GREAT even when streaming 16/44.1 Lossless FLAC over the internet.
I've never heard the Britten Cello Suites, so I couldn't (and wouldn't!) dispute your Wispelwey recommendation, but something tells me that these have got to be good too:
as usual :)
If you don't care for the Serenade and MSND, I suspect that Britten simply isn't for you.
I enjoy the Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell, which is "Young Person's Guide" without the narration.
I guess it's a matter of personal taste. I like a lot of Britten. I've heard nearly all of the operas, and my favorites are Grimes and Midsummer Night's Dream. Listening to the War Requiem is always a moving experience. Ditto Sinfonia da Requiem, Spring Symphony, and the Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings. Nocturnal is one of the landmark 20th century pieces for guitar.
I do have an aversion to Peter Pears' voice, so I pick recordings with other tenors.
The children's opera Noye's Fludde is a particular joy to listen to (if cuteness isn't a turnoff) for the scene when the children, dressed as various animals, come down the church aisle and into Noah's Ark singing Kyrie Eleison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGroEYn6oMU (start at about 2:00).
The Britten violin concerto is a masterpiece. For me it is finer then either the two each of Prokofiev and Shostakovich; a personal opinion of course. As already mentioned Britten was popular behind the old "Iron Curtain". The finest recording of the Britten VC is by Nora Grumlikova with Peter Maag conducting the Prague SO on Supraphon. A recording (LP) I treasure.
What passages caught your ear first?
If you want some accessible Britten, listen to his ballet "The Prince of the Pagodas". There are two outstanding recordings - Britten himself conducting on Decca with superb playing and sonics, and a more recent one with Oliver Knussen conducting the London Sinfonietta on Virgin Classics (ditto).
Many years ago I attended a luncheon at my university for Britten and Peter Pears. Britten asked the attendees to write on a piece of paper the Britten work that they most admired, and the results were passed to him just before he made a brief speech. I was surprised when he held up my vote and said words to the effect that only one person had mirrored his own preference. They put on a hastily-arranged public concert the next day which drew a full house. The proceeds were donated to the university for a music scholarship.
While I "get" the majority of his works (and I like to believe that his operatic output is what Mahler would have composed had he lived long enough to write some operas - the influence of Mahler on Britten is still relatively unexplored) I've never gotten a handle on the Cello Symphony. God knows I've tried - my Rostropovich LP recording is just about worn out.
But then I've never gotten the Missa Solemnis, the last Beethoven quartets, nor the Berg violin concerto either, so I'm not too worried. The Britten violin concerto incidentally is a good listen.
Peter Grimes as portrayed by Jon Vickers or Philip Langridge is in my view one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.
I get the Missa Solemnis and the late quartets, and the Berg concerto - it has always surprised me to hear that others don't, since I found these instantly accessible. Yet I don't get Britten, and can't fathom the comment that these are the operas Mahler would have written.
I have a lot of listening projects on hand....need to clean those Britten LPs and get around to that one as well.
I've enjoyed the Young Person's Guide for years--fantastic concluding pages with choral over fugue subject.
The Grimes Interludes work for me as well. There's also a Rosenkavalier-like trio in the complete opera that's pretty gorgeous.
Haven't been able to get into his other operas or famous works you mention either. Decca sure served him well though.
Obviously.
Which is why it was popular in Russia during the Soviet era.
No, I am not on drugs.
It should be self-evident--no?
So I can understand your disconnect, but I have to respect the opera's power--the cry of an under-appreciated artist that, if only persons of taste and refinement were in control, life would be better for sublime artists. Like me!
So first, we have to establish Social Control, and then--Good Taste. As I define it... .
Of course, the music business is full of people my age who will go to their graves morally certain that if only THEY had had their hands on the levers of power, Aztec Two-Step would have been as big as Grand Funk Railroad.
Pax vobiscum,
JM
Where did you get that info? Were you serious or did I miss the joke? That popular opera in Russia had its first performance at a theater that opened in the 1800's just 2 years ago.
Yes, I was serious.
The source was an article in IIRC The Atlantic some time between 1979 and 1982--unfortunately, I am sure I de-cluttered that issue years ago, and The Atlantic's online coverage starts in 1995.
I meant fascist in terms of the fasces, which is symbolic of all the elements of society being basically uniform like rods in a bundle, and all acting as one.
Perhaps a better characterization would have been that "Billy Budd" was popular with the Soviet cultural establishment as an example of what a work of art should be.
Billy Budd is innocent and idealistic, but he has a stammer (often times wrongly interpreted as a sign of low intelligence) and not being able to defend himself verbally, he lashes out at an AUTHORITY FIGURE and kills him.
So, Lesson No. 1 from "Billy Budd" is that even if you are in the right and the authority figure is in the wrong, YOU MUST DIE. The Soviets in effect said, "That works for us."
But it gets even better.
Upon learning that the crew is willing to mutiny to save his life, Budd declines. This sends the message that the proper duty of a citizen is to preserve the established social order, even if it means that the citizen will be wrongfully executed.
I don't have the libretto handy, but, before he is hanged, does not Budd in effect say "Thanks, I needed that," in response to a pep talk? Again, the duty of someone who cares for a wrongly convicted citizen is to make him feel better about being executed, because it preserves the established social order.
At the end, Budd sings a benediction on the Captain who could have saved him but who stayed remote... I think that when you connect all the dots, the Soviet cultural establishment thought that "Budd" was one of the few worthwhile Western musical works post-WWII, for the wrong reasons, but for understandable reasons. Killing innocent beauty in the name of preserving the forms of authority was all in a day's work for the Soviet system.
Whereas my crystal ball tells me that Britten and Forster were drawn to the story because its failures of legal due process and basic human decency resonated with British gays who had lived through WWII. And Budd's stammer mirrors "the love that dare not speak its name."
FWIW & YMMV, obviously.
But I find Budd's blessing of Vere (read: Truth?) to induce profound moral queasiness. And of course one must remember that to a great extent, Forster and Britten were bound by Melville's text, and Melville was a very twisted dude.
JM
John:
With respect, I think you miss the essence of Melville here (and "twisted dude"? Really!). Melville's works repeatedly confront a reader with the problem of knowing. The whale, Bartleby, the Budd/Claggart/Vere troika -- all are undefinable or else susceptible to an unlimited variety of (some very tempting) definitions (including yours). The plots are objects, and the real characters are the fallible narrators; and what really happened if the narrators cannot wholly be trusted? Thence arises the perhaps-insurmountable challenge of turning any Melville work into a stage piece like an opera. But no need to call names!
(Though I recall that you don't like late Beethoven either; but I am a tolerant person.)
Best,
Jeremy
. . . I'm going to hold off giving any credibility to your (and the Atlantic's) assertion that the Soviets (authorities or not) were all into Billy Budd. It just doesn't pass the giggle test.
I of course understand that in the realm of art, there are layers to the onion, many layers.
But is not the dramatic crux of the story of Billy Budd that the crew was willing to mutiny to save Budd's life, but Budd declined the offer?
And does not that sentiment play into the needs of totalitarian governments?
One subtext is of course (given the date of the action--1797) British horror at the French Revolution. Act II starts with the sighting of a French ship, but losing it in the fog leads to the confrontation scene. So, for the British sailors to reject Revolution, even in the interest of Justice, is I think nothing other than applied Fascism.
Anyway, BB and Peter Grimes have always creeped me out, frankly.
Captain Vere did not have to steer the court to a death sentence--but he did. An old man, he was envious of Budd's natural beauty and charisma.
And of course there's more Christ symbolism at work than you can shake a stick at--starting with Budd's being a foundling, the closest one can get to a Virgin Birth in these times.
ATB,
John
though I am certain that Melville would have been delighted to see you take your position, and also with genungo who takes his just below. Many more analyses are possible, and none is certainly correct. All reflect the understandings, attitudes and values of their holders, the truly interesting central characters of these works -- that is, the narrators, and above them, the position-holders.
Melville was a thoroughly modern writer and a philosopher and a genius. And I look like him.
All the best,
Jeremy
How about this scenario:BB rejected the idea of mutiny, not because he was so devoted to the system, but because he wanted to spare the lives of the crew members he loved. He knew that the system was incapable of rendering true justice. And he knew that the system would hunt down any mutinous crew member until the system's version of "justice" was finally served. BB sacrificed himself for the sake of his "natural" blue-collared co-workers. I doubt that he would have thought to sacrifice himself for the sake of some "unnatural" bureaucratic system, or for any of those dirty white-collared seabirds who were in control of it.
The story of "Billy Budd, Sailor" serves to highlight differences between the workings of "natural law" and the workings of "law and order" as administered by bloated and corrupt bureaucratic systems and the bottom-feeders who hide within them. How could the Soviets have missed that point?
At the end, Melville invokes the vision of sea worms twisting around BB's dead and sunken body.
Captain Vere probably would have "steered the court toward a death sentence" in this case regardless of his personal feelings. Necessarily perhaps, there was almost zero tolerance for severe infractions on board a ship like that in those days. If one hopes to maintain proper discipline on a ship full of wild men one must crack down on severe infractions harshly and consistently - much more so than if the very same infraction had occurred on land. So, once again, BB = Victim of the Machine.
Edits: 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/15/15 07/16/15 08/01/15
Perhaps he was referring to the amount of "Billy Budd" recordings sold or broadcasts made back in Soviet Russia?
Edits: 07/14/15
Well, I have never seen Billy Budd (the opera) and at this stage can't recall the music, or at least the small amount I heard and didn't like. I have read the Melville novel and did see a movie adaption, and I can't see how this translates to fascism. I also thought that fascism was all about sublimating oneself to the goals of the state (and the difference with communism is that in the latter you are sublimating self to the goals of the people - which, in the end, turns out to be no difference.) B
I once heard a sociology professor proclaim that JFK's most fascist proclamation was "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". While in general I find JFK to have been an inspirational figure, this statement does give me pause.
at a neighborhood church years ago. Great fun. Doesn't much matter from our pov who is big and who isn't, does it?
Benjamin Britten is a clear no. 1 on my British composers list, distantly followed by Vaughan Williams. Frederick Delius, William Walton, Peter Warlock, Michael Tippett and Peter Maxwell Davies are back there too.
So to me, Britten is BIG! BIG! BIG! I'll have to seize the levers of power and -- not sure what to do with the levers of power, actually.
Byrd & Tallis.
Hi rbolaw - for me too, Britten is a clear no. 1 among British composers by miles. One that you left out, which I would put a clear no. 2, is Henry Purcell. Some of the comments on this particular thread are downright absurd, so much so that I am not even going to try to reason with them. I'll just say that for one thing, Britten is fantastic at the expression of emotion - much like Shostokovitch in this respect. The only other qualm I have about your list is that I would definitely leave Delius off of it - otherwise I like your list.
I'll never understand the appeal of Britten -or Delius -or Shostakovitch. I'm speaking "for the most part". And, yeah, I know it's my loss, and you feel sorry for me, etc., etc. But can you honestly tell me with a straight face that the by-turns-overblown-and-vapid War Requiem is a better work than the Mass in G minor? Or that some stupid opera such as "Albert Herring" even belongs on the stage? Please!And don't even get me started on Britten as an interpreter! That clunky St. John Passion, or his amateurish duo performances with Richter. . . words fail me!
No! The great British composers are without doubt: Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Stanford, Parry. . . (And Will and Kate evidently agree with me about Parry, considering all of his music they used at their wedding!) Those composers at least wrote real music that stirs the soul. In fact, in this respect (now that I think of it), the Tallis Fantasy may be the greatest work ever composed in the history of music!
Edits: 07/15/15
The two greatest composers of the 20th century.
I am ducking now . . . .
Jeremy
I'd agree with that goldenthal.
But you see how lonely we are, P.C.
Best,
Jeremy
I am a Britten admirer but there is very little of his music that I love. He wrote a considerable amount of vocal music which, as a genre, doesn't do much for me. I've recently become acquainted with Britten's string quartet works via the BIS SACD's performed by the Emperor Quartet. Of particular note is an early quartet in F from 1928. I reviewed this over at SACD_net and noted:
"This sounds a bit like the 15-year-old composer channeling Haydn though the tonality is more advanced than anything Haydn would have written. This is skillful writing for the string quartet medium. The booklet note writer, Arnold Whittall, cites a "Dvorak-like ebullience" with which I agree. The brief second movement (andante) presents an eerie, pulsing two-note chord (from the second violin if I'm not mistaken) while the other strings take turns interjecting somber melodic lines. And then, like gossamer, it fades away. This is quite an outstanding 3 minutes of string quartet writing. While the rest of the quartet doesn't rise to that level of inspiration, I am glad to have heard it and will return to it if only to experience that wonderful second movement."
That second movement is worth price of the SACD IMO. Alas, Britten "grew up" and left this style for browner pastures.
Thanks for the review link and excerpt!
And, yeah, I should have included Bax too! ;-)
Edits: 07/15/15
. . . sitting at a dinner. Von Bulow gets up and declares, "Bach, Beethoven, Brahms! All the rest are cretins!". So Moszkowski gets up, and, in a voice imitating Von Bulow, declares, "Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Moszkowski! All the rest are Christians!"
To your post however, Ceremony of Carols (on the Shaw recording you showed) is fairly tolerable for me. ;-)
-except that I don't know whether the embedded file actually showed up, since I finally took Steve Jobs' five-year-old advice yesterday and banned Flash from my computer. I can see it on YouTube in HTML5, but not embedded here in Flash. Here's the link, which you've no doubt seen, but just in case:
The occasion was Henri Temianka's birthday party--years ago, obviously.
IIRC Temianka came in third behind Neveu and Oistrakh in the first Wieniawski competition.
There were giants in the earth in those days... .
jm
Moore was a brilliant pianist aside from the comedy shtick and gave concerts throughout his career. Unfortunately in his later years a debilitating illness and depression took their toll.
Yup - and Dudley Moore was one of them too! ;-)
Back in the halcyon days of my childhood, I remember my parents still laughing uncontrollably years after they had seen Beyond the Fringe on Broadway.
Yes -- I can't argue with you on either point. Purcell was a major omission on my part, and for me Delius is not nearly in the same league as Britten or Vaughan Williams. Or Purcell, for that matter.
'cause for some reason he didn't make your list.
Perhaps he's French?
No, this guy is :
Oh well, as the bible says, "and some fell on stoney ground".
Sometimes when I preview I forget to actually post.
i cheated and used Google Pictures to find out who it was.
. . . and I didn't want to face the embarrassment! ;-)
I still don't know who that is.
Ha, ha.
Quite a few, including this one.
And that's a nice early photo of him, very different from how I think of him with that scowling Winston Churchill look of old age.
What, no Elgar?
Nathan Milstein, in his entertaining memoir, says that the Brahms violin concerto is a poor imitation of Beethoven's, though he was willing to perform it and record it many, many times.
The Elgar violin concerto, on the other hand, he thought a poor imitation of the Brahms, and so bad he would go nowhere near it.
Of course he would go nowhere near the Sibelius violin concerto either, and the Sibelius and Elgar concertos both just happened to be repertoire favorites of ...
. . . used Dvorak's Cello Concerto as a model - in some ways at least, such as the tempo reductions and nostalgic reminiscences of earlier themes just before the end of all three concertos. Of course, this is taken to such an extreme in the violin concerto that it may be too much of a good thing, and you want to tell Elgar to get on with it already! ;-)
I think the point was, the Sibelius and Elgar concertos were both major successes for his rival Jascha Heifetz.
Also, Milstein's tastes were surprisingly modernist. He was bitterly disappointed that for his violin concerto Stravinsky chose to work with Samuel Dushkin, another violinist whom he considered his inferior. He liked Prokofiev's concertos, especially the first. He also very much liked the Berg concerto, and got permission from Louis Krasner, who commissioned it, to perform it with piano.
He was also lukewarm about the Dvorak and the Glazunov, which he played as a child prodigy with the composer conducting. On the whole, the classical and modern composers appealed to him more than the romantics.
Got any links (for my further reading and edification)?
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: