WAGNER Tannhäuser: Overture and Venusberg Music DELIUS The Walk to the Paradise Garden ELGAR Variations on an Original Theme Enigma

Transcription

1 WAGNER Tannhäuser: Overture and Venusberg Music DELIUS The Walk to the Paradise Garden ELGAR Variations on an Original Theme Enigma Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Sir Charles Mackerras conductor

2 RICHARD WAGNER Tannhäuser 1 Overture and Venusberg Music FREDERICK DELIUS arr. Thomas Beecham 2 The Walk to the Paradise Garden EDWARD ELGAR Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 Enigma 3 Theme I. (C.A.E.) Caroline Alice Elgar, the composer s wife II. (H.D.S.-P) Hew David Steuart-Powell, pianist in Elgar s trio III. (R.B.T.) Richard Baxter Townshend, author IV. (W.M.B.) William Meath Baker, nicknamed the Squire V. (R.P.A.) Richard Penrose Arnold, son of Matthew Arnold VI. (Ysobel) Isabel Fitton, viola player VII. (Troyte) Arthur Troyte Griffith, architect 1 01! VIII. (W.N.) Winifred Norbury 1 IX. (Nimrod) August Johannes Jaeger, reader for the publisher Novello & Co 4 13 X. (Dorabella) Intermezzo Dora Penny, later Mrs Richard Powell 2 50 $ XI. (G.R.S.) Dr G.R. Sinclair, organist of Hereford Cathedral 0 57 % XII. (B.G.N.) Basil G. Nevinson, cellist in Elgar s trio 2 57 ^ XIII. (***) Romanza Lady Mary Lygon, later Trefusis 2 50 & XIV. (E.D.U.) Finale Elgar himself ( Edu being his nickname) 5 36 Total Playing Time RECORDED LIVE IN CONCERT AT THE ARTS CENTRE, HAMER HALL, 24 NOVEMBER 2007 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Sir Charles Mackerras conductor 2 3

3 The original Tannhäuser is thought to have been a knight from 13th-century Franconia, who may have turned his attention to the amorous arts of gentillesse in the pauses between crusades. Wagner based his libretto on sources ranging from Ludwig Tieck s collection of fairytales, Phantasus, to Heinrich Heine s essay Elementargeister. He also derived another plotline from E.T.A. Hoffmann s story Der Kampf der Sänger, about a song contest at W artburg Castle. The result is a highly romanticised version of the mediaeval tale. Tannhäuser, a relatively early Wagner opera predating the massive Ring cycle, was first produced in Dresden in However, following the success of a series of Paris concerts of his music in 1860, the Emperor Napoleon III invited Wagner to stage Tannhäuser at the Opéra the following year. Wagner had already revised the work in response to the bemusement and hostility of its first audience, but he decided to create yet another version for Paris. To no avail: demonstrations closed down the production after only three performances. In part, Tannhäuser s public disfavour was linked to the fact that the politically unpopular Princess Pauline Metternich, wife of the Austrian Ambassador and Wagner s patron in Paris, had instigated the production. On the other hand, Wagner had incurred the wrath of the Jockey Club, those members of society who liked to lounge at their dining tables until it was time to depart for the Opéra and ogle their favourite dancers in the ballet that was customarily placed in Act III for their entertainment. W agner s refusal to alter his opera to fit this custom incurred the Jockey Club s revenge. They deafened the audience with their prolonged braying and blasts on their dog whistles, not only on the opening night of 13 March 1861, but at a further two performances, thus prematurely closing down a production that had taken 164 rehearsals to stage. Ironically, it had been the Jockey Club s expectation of a ballet that had inspired W agner to lengthen the Venusberg music which opened Act I. In the Dresden version, Tannhäuser rests his head in the lap of the reclining V enus, and is surrounded by frolicking nymphs and sirens. The dancing reaches an orgiastic climax, at least as far as mid-19th century musical language will allow. In the Paris version, the dance is more Bacchanalian and climactic by far, and adds to the onstage characters the Three Graces, cupids, fauns and satyrs. The frenzy is finally suppressed by a hail of Cupid s arrows. Naturally, with more than a decade ( ) between Dresden and Paris versions, they exhibit stylistic differences. By the time of Wagner s Paris revisions, he had written Tristan und Isolde, whose erotic subject matter required the composition of music stretching the expressive limits of 19th-century style almost to breaking point. The revised Paris-version Overture and Venusberg Music contains unmistakable Tristan-esque chromaticism, textures and asymmetrical expressiveness. Castanets and a third set of timpani fill out the orchestration in a wild dance which reaches a fortissimo climax before, as Gerhart von Westerman says in his Concert Guide, repletion sets in, the call of the sirens sounds from a distance, the wild rhythms fade away and Wagner s brilliant improvisation ends in a lovely melodic style. The contrast between Wagner s 1840s style and his progressive post-tristan style contributed to his own dissatisfaction with the completeness of the score. According to Cosima W agner s diaries of 1883, Wagner was still avowing that he owed the world Tannhäuser shortly before his death. Nevertheless the revisions he had already made give the Overture and Venusberg Music special richness and exhilaration. The well-known themes of the old version of Tannhäuser appear in a completely new form everything is new, more colourful, wilder, delirious, says Westerhagen. The following description of the music is taken from Wagner s own program note for a series of concerts he conducted in Zurich in May 1873: At first the orchestra introduces us to the Pilgrims Chorus alone. It approaches, swells to a mighty outpouring and finally passes into the distance. Twilight: dying echoes of the chorus [voices optional in concert performance]. As night falls, magic visions show themselves. (At this moment the feverish Allegro of the Overture begins; the harmonies turn chromatic; and we hear the first of many Bacchanalian themes associated with the unholy revels of the legendary Venusberg.) A rosy mist floats up, exultant shouts assail our ears and the whirlings of a fearfully voluptuous dance are seen. These are the seductive spells of the Venusberg, which show themselves by night to those whose souls are fired by bold, sensuous longings A slender man s figure draws near: it is Tannhäuser, the minstrel of Love. He sings his proudly jubilant chant of love as if to force the voluptuous magic to come to him His heart and senses glow, the blood in his veins takes fire As if in response to his call, all the wonders of the Venusberg are now revealed to him Symphony Australia 4 5

4 The Walk to the Paradise Garden is an intermezzo between the fifth and sixth scenes of Delius opera A Village Romeo and Juliet, first produced in Berlin at the Komische Oper in 1907, and then in Great Britain, by the Delius champion, Sir Thomas Beecham, in A Village Romeo and Juliet is based on a tale from Swiss writer Gottfried Keller s People of Seldwyla. Two farmers, Manz and Marti, quarrel over a strip of land which lies between their holdings a quarrel instigated by the mysterious vagabond, the Black Fiddler. Each has driven his furrow nearer and nearer to the disputed land, and finally, their children, Sali and Vrenchen (playmates since birth) are forbidden to have anything further to do with each other. Over the years, Sali and Vrenchen meet secretly while Manz and Marti ruin themselves in a lawsuit, and finally they confess their love. They decide to have one day of happiness together at a neighbouring fair. But the gossiping and inquisitive glances make them uncomfortable and they leave to walk to an inn on the banks of a river. The name of the inn is the Paradise Garden, and there, the Black Fiddler is entertaining the company with their story. The Black Fiddler attempts to draw them into a life of wandering but they feel their love is too deep for a transient way of life. A ware that their fathers feud makes it impossible for them to enjoy an untroubled life together, Sali and Vrenchen decide to end it all. Sali carries Vrenchen to a boat and pulls out the bung. The river closes over them. According to one writer, the music of their walk expresses the beauty of constant love, the awakening of...sexual awareness, the enduring serenity of the countryside and a sense of imminent tragedy [which plays] through the music like the dappled rays of sunlight in a deep forest. The country in Delius mind when he composed this music may have been his immediate environment at Grez-sur-Loing in France, where he had lived since 1897; the slow-moving river at the bottom of his property was perhaps a visual reference for the river which is so important in this tale. At any rate, Delius own preoccupation with the ephemeral nature of human life suffuses the opera. The detachment which Cecil Gray described as characterising Delius own brand of nostalgia and melancholy may well explain the almostcontemplative attitude with which this opera explores the tragedy of frustrated love and the imposition of external forces on internal needs. Technically it could be said that Delius artistic position is arrived at by making an expressive virtue of the indefiniteness of fin de siècle chromatic harmony. Taking advantage of this freedom, Delius softened the edges of rhythm and form, within the general orbit of a slow tempo, until his music took on all the aspects of a stream of pure rhapsody (in the words of Deryck Cooke). Felix Aprahamian s description of this intermezzo details the music as much as one would wish in the light of the rhapsodic nature of its construction: [It] begins slowly in E flat major. With its shedding of flats in a nominal but highly chromatic C major, there appears a motif on the clarinet soon taken up by other instruments. Beginning with a rising triplet, a characteristic Delian fingerprint, it plays an important part in the ecstatic progress of the piece which rises to two climaxes each culminating in a broad tune sung out by the strings. The second of these, more fully orchestrated, is in B major, the key of the final scene and of the quiet ending of the lovers wordless walk. It may raise a smile to learn that Australia s Percy Grainger once told Duke Ellington that his music bore striking harmonic resemblances to the music of Delius but the resemblance surely stops there. In other respects, Delius, though nominally an English composer, possesses with French artists such as Flaubert, Baudelaire and Verlaine the nostalgia of the infinite and the unappeasable longing for an impossible bliss (Louis Biancolli). Gordon Kalton Williams In middle age, Edward Elgar loathed having to earn the bulk of his income as a humble rural music teacher. Nevertheless, in spite of his obvious talent as a composer (displayed in a handful of shorter works which sometimes elicited the odd flicker of interest), his career during his 20s and 30s had been a series of disappointments. After a stint conducting the band at the local lunatic asylum he had gravitated toward London, but Elgar and the big city never got on. And so, at a time when Schoenberg was emerging in Austria and Debussy was writing his Nocturnes in France, poor Elgar (who was older than both of them) found himself back in his native Malvern region, eking out a living as best he could. He took in students, made instrumental arrangements, played in an occasional performance and continually threatened to give away music altogether. (He often mentioned his desire to become a professional golfer.) Elgar s disappointment indeed downright bitterness during the 1890s was understandable. For serious composers, England had produced no role models since the days of Purcell; and even the modest Renaissance of English music sparked by the efforts of the Brahmsians Stanford and Parry involved styles and personalities which were a world away from Elgar s Roman Catholic sentiments and pro-wagnerian aesthetics. 6 7

5 And so by 1898, as the 41-year -old Elgar languished in the Malvern Hills, he must have realised that time was passing him by. By the same age, his idol Mozart had been dead for five years. Elsewhere, the glory days of the British Empire which meant more to the politically conservative Elgar than to many of his musical contemporaries were beginning to fade. But one evening in that October, typically weary and perhaps a little bored after a long day s teaching, Elgar began to doodle away at the piano. Somehow, he chanced upon a brief theme that pleased him. He played it through for his wife and then, as a mixture of curiosity and wilfulness took over, started fooling around with it, elaborating on its sad, haunting and simple melody. It was in G minor, the key of Mozart s great Symphony No. 40, which he had once reworked bar-for-bar into an original composition. Imagining his friends confronting the same theme, he commented to his wife, This is how so-and-so would have done it. Or then he would try to catch another friend s character in a variation, asking his wife to guess, Who is that like? The harmless bit of fun, initiated accidentally, would single-handedly turn around the composer s career and by February 1899 the work had grown into what would become one of England s greatest orchestral masterpieces, Elgar s Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36. Where the word Theme should have appeared in the score, the composer wrote Enigma. In explaining his use of the term, Elgar stated that the theme itself was a variation on a well-known tune. It was an Enigma because he never said what it was. ( The Enigma I will not explain, he wrote. Its dark saying must be left unguessed. ) It s a conundrum which has occupied concertgoers and scholars alike ever since. Over the years the British press has even run competitions, attracting thousands of entries, to attempt to identify the mystery theme which, according to Elgar, goes in counterpoint with the one we actually hear. Elgar himself rejected suggestions of God Save the King and Auld Lang Syne. Other suggestions have included Rule, Britannia, various nursery rhymes, a theme from Beethoven s late quartets, an extract from Wagner s Parsifal, and even Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay. Another suggestion is that it s a simple scale, while Michael Kennedy has proposed that the unheard theme could be Elgar himself, with the famous two-quaver two-crotchet motif on which the entire work is based capturing the natural speech rhythm of the name Edward Elgar. But, mischief-maker that he was, Elgar went to his grave without revealing the truth and no one since has come up with the definitive answer. The second enigma was the identity of the characters depicted within each variation, who were identified at first only by their initials or nicknames in the score. Fortunately this enigma has proved to be much easier to solve and for many years the appeal of the superb orchestration has been balanced by the local snapshots which gave rise to it. The orchestral masterpiece which became Elgar s first popular success can be enjoyed both as a work of domestic music as well as an embodiment of universal themes. The main theme, which will lurch between minor and major keys, is given to the violins, who state it immediately. Variation 1, which simply elaborates the main theme with prominent wind playing, depicts Elgar s wife, Caroline Alice ( Carice ). The second variation brings the first hint of actual imitation. Pianist H.D. Steuart-Powell was one of Elgar s chamber music collaborators, who characteristically played a diatonic run over the keyboard as a warm-up. It s imitated here in this section in 3/8 time. Variation 3 depicts the ham actor R.B. Townshend, whose drastic variation in vocal pitch is mocked here. The Cotswold squire W. Meath Baker is the subject of Variation 4, while the mixture of seriousness and wit displayed by the great poet Matthew Arnold s son Richard is captured in the fifth variation. The next two variations parody the technical inadequacies of Elgar s chamber music acquaintances. Violist Isabel Fitton (depicted in Variation 6) had trouble performing music where the strings had to be crossed, while Arthur Troyte Griffith (Variation 7) played the piano in a vigorous style that sounded more like drumming. Poor Winifred Norbury is actually represented in Variation 8 not as herself but in a musical depiction of her 18th-century country house, Sherridge. The most famous variation of course is Nimrod (No. 9), the great adagio which has been used for countless television themes and even more funerals. Nimrod (the mighty hunter before the Lord of Genesis chapter 10) was Elgar s publisher A.J. Jaeger (German for hunter ). Apparently the idea for this particular variation came to Elgar as he was going through one of his regular slumps in morale and wanted to give away his musical career. He wrote to Jaeger, who subsequently took Elgar on a long walk during which they discussed the creative artist s constant desire to do something other than making art. Apparently Jaeger said that whenever Beethoven was troubled by the turbulent life of a creative artist, he simply poured his frustrations into still more beautiful compositions. And Jaeger concluded by noting that of course Beethoven s slow movements were simply incomparable a statement which met with Elgar s wholehearted agreement. So in memory of that conversation, Elgar made those opening bars of Nimrod quote the slow movement from Beethoven s Pathétique Sonata. And Elgar later wrote to 8 9

6 Jaeger that the Nimrod variation was just like you you solemn, wholesome, hearty old dear. But the Nimrod variation that Elgar originally composed was a rather different one from the magnificently slow adagio that we hear today. It was written at a tempo of a crotchet = 66, which meant that it went at a much more jaunty pace than we re used to. In fact one reviewer at the opening concert wrote that Nimrod sounded like he was a cheery personage beaming through gold-rimmed spectacles! It was only in 1903 after the piece had been performed many times all over Europe that Nimrod was slowed down to just 52 crotchet beats per minute and became the funereal adagio that we know today. Variation 10 depicts a young woman called Dora Penny, whose soubriquet Dorabella comes from Mozart s Così fan tutte. And then Variation 11 goes beyond the human species. G.R. Sinclair was the organist at Hereford Cathedral but the variation, with its downward-rushing opening scale, actually depicts Sinclair s bulldog Dan, falling down the steep bank into the river Wye, paddling upstream, coming to land and then barking. Elgar even wrote Dan s name into his manuscript in the fifth bar where he barks. By all accounts, Dan was a bit of a dog-abouttown and Elgar seems to have adored him. Whenever Elgar visited Sinclair he d make musical sketches headed Moods of Dan in Sinclair s guestbook and a couple of these themes were used later in major works, including The Dream of Gerontius and In the South. Dan himself lived until 1 July And within an hour of the bulldog s death, Sinclair wrote to Elgar with the sad news, and reported that his best friend had been buried in a quiet little grave under the big apple tree. The cello features prominently in Variation 12 a tribute to the cellist Basil Nevinson, who would figure again many years later as the inspiration for Elgar s great Cello Concerto. Mendelssohn s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage is quoted in Variation 13, said to depict Lady Mary L ygon s departure by ship to Australia. And then finally we hear E.D.U. where the composer depicts himself (his wife s nickname for him was Edoo) cocking a snook at all those who said he d never make it as a composer. The Enigma Variations, performed for the first time in London on 19 June 1899 under Hans Richter, were the conclusive evidence that he had. Martin Buzacott Sir Charles Mackerras CH AC CBE Sir Charles Mackerras is Conductor Laureate of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Conductor Emeritus of the Welsh National Opera, Principal Guest Conductor Emeritus of the San Francisco Opera, Conductor Emeritus of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Principal Guest Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra (London). A specialist in Czech repertory, Sir Charles was Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from , following his life-long association with both the Orchestra and many aspects of Czech musical life. He regularly conducts at the major opera houses and has built up a particularly close relationship with The Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), The Metropolitan Opera, Welsh National Opera and San Francisco Opera. He celebrated his 80th birthday and his 50th anniversary with the Royal Opera House in 2005, conducting Un ballo in maschera. He marked his 55th year at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006 conducting the complete Beethoven symphonies. His recordings of the Mozart, Brahms, Mahler and Beethoven symphonies as well as the Mozart operas continue to attract critical acclaim and his vast discography includes an award-winning cycle of Janaček operas with the Vienna Philharmonic. Sir Charles was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1974 and in 1979 was knighted for his services to music. In 1996 he received The Medal of Merit from the Czech Republic and in 1997 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia. In 2003 Sir Charles was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen's Birthday Honours. In 2005 he was presented with the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal and he was also the first recipient of the Queen s Medal for Music. Sir Charles was recently named Honorary President of the Edinburgh International Festival Society

7 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra With a reputation for excellence, versatility and innovation, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is Australia s internationally acclaimed and oldest orchestra, established in Following integration with the Melbourne Chorale in 2008, the Orchestra has responsibility for its own choir the MSO Chorus. This fine orchestra is renowned for its performances of the great symphonic masterworks with leading international and Australian soloists and conductors including Emanuel Ax, Nigel Kennedy, John Williams, TaikOz, Edo de Waart, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Mark Wigglesworth. It has also enjoyed hugely successful performances with, among others, Harry Connick Jr, k.d. lang, Ben Folds, Burt Bacharach, and rock acts KISS, The Whitlams and Meat Loaf. The MSO has received widespread international recognition in recent overseas tours to Europe (2000), China (2002), St Petersburg, Russia (2003) and Japan (2005). In 2005, Oleg Caetani took up the baton as the MSO s Chief Conductor and Artistic Director for a four -year appointment, and in 2007, he led the Orchestra on its second European tour to Spain, Paris, Berlin and Milan. Each year the Orchestra performs to more than 250,000 people in Melbourne and regional Victoria. The MSO reaches an even larger audience nationally through its regular concert broadcasts on ABC Classic FM. Some performances are presented on ABC TV, including the documentary To Russia with Love, about the MSO s 2003 St Petersburg tour, and MSO Century, in celebration of 100 years of the Orchestra. Recent recordings include major CD releases on the Chandos and ABC Classics labels. The MSO s Chandos recordings of Alexandre Tansman s Symphonies Vol 1 and 2 with Oleg Caetani have both received Diapason d Or awards. The third volume in the series was released in August In 2005 the Orchestra launched a live-in-concert CD series, MSO LIVE through ABC Classics. In addition, members of the Orchestra have featured on numerous film soundtracks including Babe, IQ, Six Degrees of Separation and The Dish. The MSO has also recorded music for a number of computer and console games based on films such as Jurassic Park and The Polar Express. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Pty Ltd is a member of the Symphony Australia network. The Orchestra is funded principally by the Australia Council, the Commonwealth Government s arts funding and advisory body, and is generously supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria, Department of Premier and Cabinet. The MSO is also funded by the City of Melbourne, its Principal Partner, Emirates, and individual and corporate sponsors and donors. Executive Producers Martin Buzacott, Robert Patterson Recording Producer Caroline Almonte Recording Engineer / Mastering Alex Stinson Editorial and Production Manager Katherine Kemp Publications Editor Natalie Shea Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd Cover Photo Queen Victoria Gardens, Melbourne David Messent /Photolibrary For the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Oleg Caetani Chairman Harold Mitchell Managing Director Trevor Green Recorded live in concert on 24 November 2007 in the Arts Centre, Hamer Hall, Melbourne. ABC Classics thanks Phillip Sametz, Alexandra Alewood and Melissa Kennedy Australian Broadcasting Corporation Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright owner is prohibited

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