Day 49: The Creation (Part Two)

HaydnCD49This is the second part of Haydn’s “masterpiece” Die Schopfung (The Creation). It covers parts 2 & 3.

I don’t have much to add to what I posted yesterday. The performances are remarkable. It sounds like it took a master craftsman 2-3 years to compose this impressive oratorio. (By the way, if you do listen to The Creation, be prepared to get an earful of rolling Rs. This is opera, after all.)

Because it’s probably best appreciated in totality, I’ve offered another full performance of Haydn’s The Creation, courtesy of someone posting it to YouTube.

NOTE: This isn’t the performance to which I was listening today.

The clip below features Sally Matthews, soprano, Ian Bostridge, tenor, Dietrich Henschel, bass, and the London Symphony, conducted by Colin Davis.

Day 47: The Seasons (Fall, Winter)

HaydnCD47 Today’s musical selection is the conclusion (Fall, Winter) of the massive oratorio that covers a year’s worth of seasons.

A song cycle about the seasons is nothing new, of course. Antonio Vivaldi’s (1678 – 1741) Four Seasons is likely the most well known of the genre. Certainly, the beloved violin concerto is the most famous work from the Italian.

The totality of yesterday’s CD and today’s (the complete Four Seasons from Haydn) is two hours and twenty minutes of music. Frankly, that’s beyond big. That’s massive.

If Haydn had done nothing else in his long, illustrious career, The Four Seasons, alone, would have been worthy of high praise. It really is a fine, fine oratorio, with terrific performances all around especially from soprano Helen Donath and tenor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalbert_Kraus.

But the instrumentation is superb as well.

And that’s why this works so well for me. If it had Continue reading

Day 46: The Seasons (Spring, Summer)

HaydnCD46There are more German words on the back of today’s CD sleeve than one is likely to hear in a movie about World War II.

Today’s Haydn composition is Die Jahreszeiten, which means The Seasons.

Apparently, according to said sleeve, this is just the “Beginning” of The Seasons, although I’m not sure what that means.

Just Spring? Just Winter?

Winter, Spring, Summer?

Googling is called for. (Actually Googling wasn’t needed. Ogling was. I just sifted through all of the German words and discovered that this recording covers Spring and Summer. That likely means the next CD will Continue reading

Day 44: That’s Just Große

HaydnCD44I can’t even pronounce the title of today’s CD.

It’s a German word that uses a symbol (or a letter) I don’t recognize: Große.

After a bit of Googling, I discovered that the word means grosse, which means — I suppose — “great.” Orgelmesse is a compound word that means “organ mass.”

So, Große Orgelmesse in E Flat is the Great Organ Mass.

In E Flat.

Great.

Except it’s not.

Not to my ears, anyway.

It’s a mass, all right. With a bit of organ thrown in. But it all just sort of lies there. Nothing grabs me by the lapels and shakes me from my stupor.

Here. Listen for yourself:

Große Orgelmesse in E Flat Hob XXII:4 was composed in 1770. Haydn was 38. Continue reading

Day 43: Big

HaydnCD43There’s an exchange in an early episode of The Andy Griffith Show in which Barney tells Andy about something “big” happening in Mayberry.

“Oh, this is big Andy, big big, really big, biggest thing ever happened in Mayberry,” he says.

After a bit of banter, Andy says something like, “There’s only one word to describe it — big.”

That’s how I describe Missa Sanctae Caeciliae in C HOB XXII:5: big.

So big, in fact, that the running time for Haydn CD 43 is an hour and 10 minutes. Just for this one mass.

There’s not really much else I can say about it. Its entry on Wikipedia does a good job of providing pertinent details:

[It] was originally written in 1766, after Haydn was promoted to Kapellmeister at Eszterháza following the death of Gregor Joseph Werner. The original title as it appears on the only surviving fragment of Haydn’s autograph score, that has been discovered around 1970 in Budapest, clearly assigns the mass to the pilgrimage cult of Mariazell, Styria. Until that discovery, the work was formerly known as Missa Sanctae Caeciliae, or in German Cäcilienmesse, a title probably attributed to the mass in the 19th century. Whether the alternative title refers to a performance of the piece by the St. Cecilia’s Congregation, a Viennese musician’s fraternity, on some St. Cecilia’s day (22 November), as has been suggested, remains speculation.

It is believed that the original manuscript was lost in the Eisenstadt fire of 1768, and that when Haydn rewrote the piece from memory, he may also have expanded it. It may have originally consisted of only Kyrie and Gloria, with the other parts added later. This Mass was known to Anton Bruckner.

Haydn was 34 in 1766. Who knows how old he was when he supposedly rewrote it from memory?

What I do know is that this is a very fine mass, with noteworthy performances by soprano Krisztina Laki, tenor Aldo Baldin, and the Kammerchor Stuttgart (chamber choir).

If you’d like to hear what I’m listening to this morning, click on the YouTube clip below. It’s the exact same performance.

I’m sure after you finish you’ll only have one word to describe this 70-minute composition.

Big.

Day 42: A Herd of Turtles

HaydnCD42Back at Denny’s this morning. I’m seeing the sames faces here. Just like at Mr. Burger, my usual breakfast hangout.

Well, usual when I eat breakfast with my wife. Not my usual when I write my blogs.

That spot is reserved for Panera Bread.

Seeing the same faces is comforting, no matter where those faces may be.

I guess the theme song to Cheers was right.

I really do want to go where everybody knows my name.

Another benefit to hanging out in places like this: I get to hear old timers say stuff my dad used to say. For example, the guy leaving just now said his good byes and, over his shoulder on his way out the door, said, “I’m off like a herd of turtles.” Continue reading