To mark its 120th anniversary, the Concertgebouw Orchestra has made a number of its recordings available to download as MP3’s.
One of the recordings is of a performance the orchestra gave in 2005 of Bruckner’s 8th symphony, under Bernard Haitink. This clip is the last 3 and a half minutes or so of the 3rd movement. It’s a heavenly peroration for 4 Wagner tubas. There are not many opportunities to hear this beautiful instrument, unless you’re willing to sit through the ear-treacle which is Wagner opera, which is a crying shame.
To make this clip, I used the open-source freeware program ‘Audacity’ (downloaded from Sourceforge). To be able to save your selections as MP3’s, you will also need the LAME MP3 encoder, which you’ll find under ‘Optional downloads’ on the same download page as Audacity.
The first track in this mix is a piece written by Gavin Bryars for David James of the Hilliard Ensemble. It’s called Incipit Vita Nova and was written to celebrate the birth of a child called … Vita. There’s a connection with the piece Diptych by Silvestrov, which was on my previous mix. Diptych appeared on one of Gavin Bryars’ albums, On Photography. He explains why:
I sat in a pew [at a rehearsal by the Latvian Radio Choir] and [they] started to sing the piece they were rehearsing before mine. It was something I did not know but I thought it was the most beautiful music I had ever heard in my life. I sat still, completely overwhelmed by the richness of its harmonies, by its serenity and by the way in which it evolved – slowly but inevitably …. I resolved at that moment to include this music on the recording and enable it to be heard more widely.
Then there’s classical Iranian music from the singer Mohammed Reza Shajarian, with Kayhan Kalhor on kamancheh / spike fiddle. The piece is called Avaz va Saz; the words are a poem by Sa’adi: ‘Those who give themselves to the madness of your love, free themselves from the burden of life’s worries.’
Guitar music follows, from John Fahey, Jack Rose and Carlos Paredes.
Like the first track, the last two tracks feature a male alto / countertenor: Andreas Scholl in O Jesu, nomen dulce by Heinrich Schütz and Carlos Mena in Sances’s Stabat Mater.
I recently bought the CDs of Vivaldi’s ‘pastiche opera’ Bajazet, also known as Il Tamerlano. It’s loosely based on the story of the life of the 14th century warrior Timur the Lame and the emperor Bajazeth, as was Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine the Great. I saw the National Theatre’s production of Tamburlaine the Great in 76/77 (Albert Finney was Tamburlaine) and it was grim indeed – Vivaldi’s version is a sunlit picnic by comparison.
I wanted to listen to Bajazet because of the singing of Marijana Mijanovič, my favourite Serbian. I saw her singing Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina in Amsterdam a couple of years ago and was bowled over – I do love a woman in a trouser role. In Bajazet she sings the part of Asteria:
Other highlights of these CDs are Patrizia Ciofi singing ‘Nasce rosa lusinghiera’ (one of the tracks in this mix) and this aria, ‘Qual guerriero in campo armato’, from Vivica Genaux:
Vivica Genaux is a mezzo more famous for singing Bellini etc. apparently. I’d never heard of her, let alone heard her singing – I’m a real ignoramus when it comes to grand opera. This aria was written for the castrato Farinelli by his brother, Riccardo Broschi, who was probably the one who arranged for Farinelli to be castrated at the age of 12 or so. So I guess he owed Farinelli a hit aria.
If you’re wondering how it is that an aria by Riccardo Broschi appears in a Vivaldi opera, Wikipedia’s on hand:
Bajazet is a pasticcio. It was a common practice during Vivaldi’s time for composers to borrow and adapt arias from other composers with their own works for an opera. Vivaldi himself composed the arias for the good characters (Bajazet, Asteria and Idaspe) and mostly used existing arias from other composers for the villains (Tamerlano, Irene, Andronico) in this opera. Some of the arias are reused from previous Vivaldi operas.
as you’ve maybe noticed, i’ve changed the theme on my blog. the new theme, called ‘viala’, was written by david garlitz, who has made it freely available under the GPL licence – generous man. you can download it here.
also new is the flickr plugin, which is ‘Flickr Photo Album‘, written by joe tan, seen here asleep on a plane. this is a great plugin; i’ve tested quite a few flickr plugins over the last 2 or 3 years and this is the most comprehensive and trouble-free i’ve come across. installing it was a breeze – for which i’m very grateful. i stumbled a little when it came to customising the photoalbum pages to fit the viola theme, but in the end it was very simple.
No, not the gone with the wind, but agone with the wind, a CD produced by a group of 4 mongolian musicians who used to busk around amsterdam. the lamb is william blake’s, as set by john tavener, and the unicorn (blue) is mercedes sosa’s. there’s mariza’s own fate, kevin ayers’ stranger in blue suede shoes (thank you … very much … indeed), etta james doing ella and barbara sukowa (one of margarethe von trotta’s german sisters) singing schubert, as recomposed by reinbert de leeuw. finally, one last song from gundula janowitz.
