King Kong in a Convent Garden: 7 Feb 2010

King Kong, the first All African Jazz Opera 1958

 King Kong is of course one of the most famous American films ever made (and remade). The story of the giant ape transported from a faraway island to New York, captured the imagination of millions since its first release in 1933. South Africa however, has its own King Kong. In 1958 King Kong became the first all African Jazz Opera, with a star studded local cast including Miriam Makeba and the Manhattan Brothers, Kippie Moeketsi, Abigail Kubheka and Hugh Masekela.

Opera in a Convent Garden, an annual concert held at Springfield Convent School (St. John’s Road, Wynberg), this year features a delightful choral extract from this work.  Albert Horne, chorus master of Cape Town Opera, made an arrangement of the famous number Back of the Moon, which will be performed by the Cape Town Opera Voice of the Nation Ensemble – South Africa’s premier opera chorus.

Miranda Tini

Soloists will be Cape Town favourites Shirley Sutherland (My Fair Lady) and  Miranda Tini, whose extraordinary voice has thrilled audiences locally and internationally in roles as diverse as Jezibaba from Dvorak’s Rusalka and Mariah in Porgy and Bess praised at the Cardiff Millennium Centre in Wales, for her “powerful stage presence and equally powerful voice.” (Bill Kenny: Music Web International) 

Cape Town Opera chorus’ experience with Jazz influenced works such as Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha and Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess make them ideal interpreters of this neglected work from the South African cultural heritage.

In 1956, the Syndicate of African Artists commissioned Todd Matshikiza to write a large work for choir and orchestra. The composer had written successful choral works before, but since no orchestra was available, Uxolo was created on a massive scale for choirs and brass band. The success of this work – with its jazzy undertones, led in part to the creation of the musical/Jazz Opera King Kong. Lyrics were by Pat Williams. Matshikiza wrote the music as well of some of the lyrics (some in African languages).

Miriam Makeba: Our beloved "Mama Africa"

Lead roles were taken by Nathan Mdledle and Miriam Makeba, who created the role of Shebeen Queen Joyce, the matriarch running the Back of the Moon watering hole. This role brought Mama Africa Makeba international attention and launched a singing career that sustained her throughout her life as an Apartheid exile. The 63 member cast was backed by the cream of South Africa’s jazz musicians, including the now legendary reed player Kippie Moketsi. 

 

Opening early in 1959 at the Wits University Great Hall, the show was an immediate success. By the time the show travelled to London in 1961, 200 000 South Africans, had seen the show. The life of boxer Ezekial Dhlamini was good material for a stage work. His meteoric rise to the top of South Africa’s boxing world as the famous ‘King Kong’ was in sad contrast to his descent into drunkenness, violence and murder. He killed himself by drowning at age 32. Matshikiza had covered Dhlamini’s 1950’s trial for treason as a journalist and was aboviously well-acquainted with his subject matter. According to The Daily Mail & Guardian, “Matshikiza understood his central character, and, more importantly, understood the whole world that surrounded ‘King Kong’. He understood the whole black world of the townships that fed Johannesburg and the histories of the people who filled those townships.” ~ Craig Harris, All Music Guide

 

Composer and author Todd Matshikiza

Todd Matshikiza (1921-1968)  is considered by many, as belonging to the royalty of South African music. One of a family of 10 – all of whom instrumentalists and singers –  Todd started piano lessons at the age of 6. As an adult he ran the Todd Matshikiza School of Music, where he also taught the piano. From 1949 to 1954, Matshikiza was a committee member of the Syndicate of African Artists. This group aimed to promote music in the townships by getting visiting artists to perform there. Finding it difficult to make a living as a jazz musician, he joined the editorial staff of Drum Magazine.  He wrote a jazz column covering the township scene, particularly in Sophiatown, where he commented on the likes of Kippie Moeketsi and Hugh Masekela who both played for the The Jazz Epistles. He also covered township life in his regular column With the lid off.

South African arts bosses should take note:  the time is surely right for a revival of King Kong. With musicians such as Albert Horne taking such an active interest in the history of black jazz in this country, it would be a pleasant surprise if the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology would also take such an active interest in the preservation of this piece of cultural heritage.

  Read more about Todd Matshikiza at africancomposers.co.za and sacomposers.co.za

Other works on the programme Opera in a Convent Garden  include operatic extracts such as Juliet’s Waltz Song from Gounod’s opera Romeo e Juliette, the Doll Song from Offenbach’s Les Contes D’Hoffmann. Musicals The Student Prince and Show Boat round out a programme designed to please all ages. The accompanists are pianists Albert Horne and Albert Combrink.

When: Sunday 7 February 2010

Time: 17h30

Where: Springfield Convent School (St. John’s Road, Wynberg, Cape Town)

Price: Adults R100 / Scholars R20

Bookings: 076 696 4630

Chorus Master Albert Horne with the Cape Town Opera Voice of the Nation Ensemble

Cape Town Tango Ensemble MP3 and Video clips

Fleur Du Cap 2007

This posting contains links to MP3 files where you can listen to or download tracks by the Cape Town Tango Ensemble. It will be updated as new material becomes available.

Rhythm Records offers MP3 demos and downloads.

Cape Town Tango Ensemble homepage offers photographs, booking details and CD reviews

Cape Town Tango offers information on Tango Salons and events in Cape Town, hosted by Mark Hoeben

El Cacha Dance studio offers video clips from the show El Beso during its sell-out season in 2004. The site also offers other valuable and practical guidance to dancers.

Watch this space for updates!

Astor Piazzolla: Cobblestone to Dance Floor

Morgann Rose, Jared Nelson and Laura Urgellés in Piazzolla Caldera -© Carol Pratt

The word Tango conjures up many images. The word Tango tells many stories. The word Tango merely hints at the mystery of a music that has run in the bloodstream of generations. A dance of sex and violence born in the bordellos of Buenos Aires. Seduction. Murder. Handsome men in patent leather shoes and white fedoras. Hot blooded women with beautiful thighs and high heels. Two hands clasping together. Tango speaks of the body, and it speaks to the body.

The story that Tango tells is far richer than the one restricting it to the simplistic legend of brothel entertainment – although that certainly is one of it’s tales in a country where, at the start of the 20th century, male immigrants outnumbered females 8 to 1. European immigrants, mainly from Italy and Spain, flooded into Argentina hoping to cash in on the boom in the farming industry. Argentina was enormous by comparison and held promise of land, gold and prosperity – unlike Europe which was sliding into war. The sad reality was, of course, that many were unable to afford to buy the lands that would make them rich, in the first place. Homesick, poor and often unemployed, immigrants settled in working-class neighbourhoods. The colourfulness of the neighbourhoods reflected a poverty of material goods, but not of spirits. Houses were often painted in a variety of colours – left-overs from other projects. Inspired by the colour of local arts and crafts, a vibrant society developed. Along with the port-city’s natives, these people gave expression to their daily struggles. European Polkas intermingled with traditional dances to create a new hybrid. Originally danced on rough and uneven cobblestone, Tango  took a long journey before it reached the smooth polished dancefloor.

Astor Piazzolla

Unlike the chequered history of the Tango, the story of one of it’s greatest exponents – Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) – gives up its secrets more willingly. Beginning and ending his life in Argentina, frames periods of study in Paris and New York, and a lifetime of travel as a concert musician. As a child his Italian father insisted that he learn the Bandoneon, the quintessential “Voice of Tango ”. His virtuosity was such that already as a teenager he was given a job in Anibal Troilo’s famous Tango orchestra. Troilo is today regarded as one of the fathers of the traditional dance tango and his music is still performed regularly.

Piazzolla was obviously a highly creative teen, and was soon bored by what he considered a genre that had stagnated into formulaic gestures and was in danger of becoming extinct. He went to Paris to study “serious” classical music composition with Nadia Boulanger, probably the world’s most famous composition pedagogue. This encounter was to change the history of the Tango for ever. Boulanger was complimentary about Piazzolla’s well-crafted music, noting as his influences Bartok , Stravinsky and Ravel. At this point in his life he was still ashamed of his passion  for his “native tongue” – the Tango, and had kept his arrangements and compositions a secret. Boulanger convinced him to finally play some to her class. Reportedly she took his hands and said: “Astor, this is beautiful. Here is the true Piazzolla – do not ever leave him.” Calling this epiphany the “great revelation of my life” he returned to Argentina brimming with confidence, enthusiasm and energy.

I love Nadia Boulanger and all her stories, but for me this is one of the most touching, as the music that Piazzolla created after their encounter is, to my mind, one of the great bodies of work of the 20th Century. He took the formulas of Tango – the dance rhythms of the various styles from Milonga to the Habanera – and infused them with the pungent harmonies and cross-rhythms of the twentieth century classical masters. His new style of tango – Tango Nuevo - took the tango from the Dance Hall to the Concert Hall.

The 2003 CD Release "El Tango en Africa"

The Cape Town Tango Ensemble has been performing Piazzolla’s music for a decade, in the Dance Hall as well as the Concert Hall. Performances at Aardklop, Klein Karoo and the Grahamstown Festivals achieved much critical acclaim and excellent CD sales. Along with Mark Hoeben and Ina Wichterich through a strong collaboration with Tango Cape Town they helped create many original stage productions in South Africa, including Tango del Fuego  by Marthinus Basson for Oude Libertas Teater, and All you ever wanted to know about Tango but were too afraid to ask for the Windhoek BankFees as well as the Klein Karoo Nationale Kunstefees. They regularly perform at dance and concert venues from Cape Town to Potchefstroom. Their first CD El Tango En Africa was released in 2003. Guest artists were Mezzo-soprano Violina Angeulov and African Percussion by Dizu Plaatjies. The Piazzolla tracks recorded on that disc are:

Addios Nonino

Oblivion

Milonga del Anunciacion from the “Tango Operita” Maria de Buenos Aires

Chiquilin de Bachin

Libertango

The tracks can be bought in MP3 format at Rhythm Records, who also have samples for you to listen to.

The CD itself can be bought from One World Cyber Music Store or from any of the musicians in the group.

The American site CDBaby also has Mp3’s to hear.

You can also view video extracts from the show El Beso (The Kiss)  produced in collaboration with El Cacha Tango Company, directed by Heinrich Riesenhofer. An electrifying “Libertango” is danced here by Nur ‘Latino’ Dreyer and Cherona Reisenhofer-Dreyer.

The Cape Town Tango Ensemble is currently working on the release of their second album Tango Club due for release in early 2010. This CD will feature Piazzolla again, as his music is central to this ensemble’s work.

Musicians on the CD include:

Stanislav Angeulov – Accordion and Bandoneon

Jacek Domagala – Violin

Albert Combrink – Piano

Charles Lazar – Double Bass

James Grace – Guitar

Willie van Zyl – Saxophone

Kevin Gibson – Drums

Mark Hoeben and Ina Wichterich performing at "The Valve"

Press Release: Opera in a Convent Garden, Cape Town 7 February 2010

Sunday, February 7^th, 2010, will find Opera in a Convent Garden once more in the beautiful gardens of Springfield Convent in Wynberg, Cape Town.    Our formidable cast this year features soprano Shirley Sutherland and the Cape Town Opera Voice of the Nation Ensemble.    Chorus Master of Cape Town Opera Albert Horne and pianist Albert Combrink will create the very essential ‘orchestra’ to match the voices.   

Gems from the soprano coloratura repertoire will be woven between extracts from Porgy and Bess, Die Fledermaus, My Fair Lady, The Student Prince, King Kong and Traditional Gospel Spirituals.

The Gate in the Junior School campus, opens at 15hoo, parking will be on the grounds accessed via Convent Road.   The show begins at 17.30 and pre-concert attractions will include the Cape Town Caledonian Pipe Band and a Marimba orchestra). 

Bring your picnics, blankets and low chairs.  Pizza and pancakes will be available at the Opera Cafe as well as other refreshments.

Book during school hours on 021 797 9637 (ext 200) or on 021 689 8345 and 076 696 4630.    Contact us on OperaConventGarden@mweb.co.za

Press Release: Blues in the Night – Louise Howlett and Albert Combrink at “The Big Blue(s) Festival” 10 Jan 2010

Louise Howlett and Albert Combrink present “Blues in the Night” at the Kleinmond The Big Blue(s) Festival on Jan 10 2010. Taken from their latest CD “Night Sessions”, this programme of songs is inspired by the Night, the Blues, and the great singers who have sung the Blues: Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Eva Cassidy are amongst the vocalists that provide the inspiration for a fresh look at these ever-popular songs. The songs such as  ”Old Devil Moon”, “Round Midnight” and  ”Fly me to the Moon”, will take you on a personal journey of musical and personal memories of love, longing, and everything else. As always, Louise puts her own spin on the songs, and the team makes their own arrangements of all the material.

The programme will include songs from Louise and Albert’s latest CD “Night Sessions” as well as songs from Louise’s first CD “Your Song”. Louise and Albert have been seen in a variety of programmes from Classical to Jazz to Pop, in programmes such as  “Cinema Serenade” and “Moonlight Serenade” which they presented at the Baxter Theatre, Die Boer Theatre, The Greyton Rose Festival and the Kirstenbosch Chamber Music Breakfast series, to name but a few.

Read more about Louise and Albert’s “Cinema Serenade” HERE

Read more about “The Big Blue Festival” HERE

Louise and Albert share the stage with an exciting  line-up of top South African Artists.

Anton Goosen

Boulevard Blues Band

Coda

Akkedis

Dan Patlansky

Diamondback

In the Deepend

Matthew Kruger

Get directions to The Big Blue(s) Festival  in Kleinmond HERE

Wagner’s Liebestod transcribed for piano – Not Lost In Translation

The South African Richard Wagner Society celebrates its 25th Anniversary this year, and I will be including Franz Liszt’s transcription of “Isolde’s Liebestod” in the gala concert. Preparing a piano transcription of an operatic excerpt has led me to ask fascinating questions regarding the very nature of the piano, the art of the transcription, and the purpose of the performance. This blog puts some of my thoughts into perspective.

Isolde (1895) - Aubrey Beardsley

“Shall I breathe my last in sweet aromas?”

Just as Isolde reflects on her love for Tristan which has grown so intense and all-encompassing as to have no resolution other than death, Richard Wagner (1813-1882) distilled the crisis of nineteenth century Romanticism to one chord. At the same time the apotheosis of Romantic chromaticism and the gateway to atonality, Tristan und Isolde marks a turning point in the history of Western Classical music. No composer could remain untouched by his influence. Franz Liszt (1881-1886) and Wagner were exact contemporaries, becoming friends as early as 1842 when Wagner was becoming famous as a composer and Music Director of the Dresden Opera. Liszt eventually became Wagner’s father-in-law when Wagner married Liszt’s daughter Cosima. Their friendship was based on mutual admiration, but given two such large personalities, not without conflict.

Liszt transcribed many pages from Wagner’s operas, often very shortly after the premiere. Transcriptions and arrangements for piano of various types of music was common in the nineteenth century. In the absence of recordings, these works were of vital importance for the dissemination of music. Sometimes these works very virtually direct transcriptions.

Liszt versus Thalberg

Concert pianists were also quick to write fantasies or paraphrases of popular items to show off their abilities both as pianists and as inventors of pianistic technique. This also enabled audiences to compare one virtuoso with another. Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871) and Liszt were even pitted against each other in “contests”. Fashioned most often as sets of variations, these works vary from the dreary note-spinners to the creation of large-scale works able to stand on their own.

 

 

N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945): "Wagner and Liszt"

Transcription versus Paraphrase

Liszt excelled in both of these arias. Some of his operatic transcriptions are titled “Reminiscences”, “Fantasy on the motives of…” or “Souvenir of”, acknowledging at the outset that he is using the themes of the original merely as raw material for a newly fashioned work. A very good example of this is Rigoletto: Paraphrase de Concert d’après Verdi. Written by Liszt in 1859, the work is based on musical ideas taken from the opera Rigoletto, composed in 1851 by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). The work is very successful as a reminiscence of the opera, but the music from the opera is not presented in chronological order, and Liszt appears to have had little interest in maintaining the original narrative or even stylistic congruency. Apart from the thematic material, the work is not “Verdian” in any sense but rather resembles Liszt’s other virtuosic works: daring leaps and filigree runs abound in a way that have very little to do with Giuseppe Verdi, who was refused entry to the Milan Conservatory of Music on the grounds of his bad piano playing.

On the other side of the spectrum are the great Operatic Transcriptions. Liszt attempts to recreate the original on the piano as truly and faithfully as possible. It is in this category that most of his Wagner transcriptions fall. Given that both composers were concerned with the idea of motivic transformation, it might have been tempting for Liszt to take some of Wagner’s themes and prove that they could be developed in different ways, in a sense of competing with Wagner as he had with Thalberg earlier in his career. Yet, somehow the music of Wagner immediately arrested this instinct in Liszt even more than the revered Master Beethoven. While Liszt’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s nine symphonies are faithful piano-reductions, he felt free to paraphrase Beethoven’s works for the theatre.

In this category falls the big transcriptions such as the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and the Overture to Tannhäuser.

The Orchestra Versus the Piano

Liszt had already used the arrangement of songs as a vehicle for experimenting with piano colour and translating vocal lines to the piano. But with the operatic transcriptions he forged an entirely new path. His aim was to make the piano sound truly orchestral. The biggest difficulty in translating the music from one medium to another, is the limitations of the piano. Firstly, the sound starts dying the moment the note is played, unlike most orchestral instruments or the human voice, which can sustain and increase volume on a note. Also, in an orchestra, many different musicians can each be assigned an individual line, whereas a pianist is limited to what the ten fingers can reach.

Pianists and composers have devised many techniques to disguise this instrument’s “fatal flaw”. Liszt employed a stock arsenal of repeated chords, tremolos, arpeggios in his entire output for the instrument. At that time, Liszt and Chopin were pushing the boundaries of virtuosity to hitherto unseen levels.

Velazquez: The Dwarf Sebastian

Goya versus Velasquez

Today, the idea of listening to transcriptions when the original versions are available on recordings may seem at first a little superfluous. Yet, in the world of fine arts, “copying” a great painting is often used as a learning tool. Recreating the original as closely as possible, or copying or creating etchings of the original is viewed as a legitimate learning process. Spanish painter Francico Goya (1746-1828), copied and made etchings of the works of Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660). He set about the task of copying 16 of Velasquez’ paintings in the royal collections. As copies they were not successful – Goya could not help but try his own variations on the master’s work – but the careful study he made of the originals had a profound effect on him. Until that point in his career he had inexplicably paid little attention to this greatest of Spanish masters. He undoubtedly knew the work of Velasquez, but never before had he confronted him so directly. Now he perceived in Velasquez’ work a native tradition far better suited to his own temperament than anything in the contemporary styles. Moreover, he saw that Velasquez was a painter who had, a century earlier, practiced what the Enlightenment was now preaching – the close scrutiny of nature, in particular human nature – and that he had a psychological awareness that none of Goya’s contemporaries approached. Goya laboured long and hard on this project. In the process, almost incidentally, he developed the technical skills that were to make him one of the greatest graphic artists the world has ever known. Goya claimed that his teachers were “nature, Rembrandt and Velasquez” [Page 54, The World of Goya, by Richard Schickel, Time-Life Books 1968 

Goya's etching of Velazquez' painting of the dwarf Sebastian

This 1779 copy by Goya of the painting Un enano (A Dwarf) of a painting by Velazquez – one of Goya’s acknowledged masters – depicts Sebastian de Morra. At court in Renaissance and Baroque Europe, it was customary for monarchs to “collect” jesters and dwarves for their amusement. Although deprived of the dignity of a chair, Morra looks anything but submissive, and regards the viewer critically.Viewing Goya’s etchings, one undoubtedly misses the colours and contours of the originals. The perspective is profoundly different. And yet, it would be a mistake to view them as “bad copies” or inferior to the original. The basic structure, the great lines, the contrasts between light and shadow are brought to the fore and seen more simply, more directly. Read more about Goya’s copies of Velazques, as well as other re-interpretations in the visual arts HERE.

In the same way, when an orchestral score is “reduced” to a piano version, the bones are laid bare, so to speak. The thematic material is made clearer, as well as its transformations and relationships. The skeleton on which the work is built is revealed.

Orchestral Opera versus Vocal Opera

 As I studied the “Liszt Liebestod” I went through various phases of frustration with elements of the material. I knew the vocal line especially well from years of listening to recordings of great sopranos. Occasionally I was surprised and disappointed at some of the singer’s notes that Liszt chose to leave out. It seemed that Liszt was mainly concerned with the new ground Wagner was breaking in the area of harmonic and thematic development, and the transcription reveals a hierarchy of emphasis which simply does not place the voice at the helm. For me, this disregard for certain vocal moments, was a fundamental problem, as it was the great soaring vocal climaxes with which I had fallen in love, and which were the prime motivation for my desire to perform this work. It seemed to me the direct opposite of for example a Puccini opera aria, where very often the only material that exists, is that of the soloist, with the orchestra either doubling the melody or “carrying it over” the breaks in the voice. I am not yet clear as to whether this says more about Wagner the composer or Liszt the transcriber. I have therefore taken the liberty to add a few of Isolde’s sung notes in certain parts. From the syllable missing at the end of the first “lächelt” to the final “Höchste Lust!”, I either discreetly added a few notes, or simply choose to accentuate certain notes within the texture to bring out the overlaying vocal line – even if these were not overtly indicated by Liszt through means of accents or other highlighting instructions.

Liszt’s Liebestod versus Moszkowksi’s Liebestod versus…

The other aspect of the Liszt transcription which is problematic is the use of tremolo effects. It seems to me that one of the prime questions is “How to make the piano sustain sound in the way a group of instruments can”. Liszt came up with a set of answers. Chords are repeated directly, or the melody is held while chords underneath repeat and undulate, giving the impression that the note is sustained. And Liszt’s answers to this question is undoubtedly impressive. His works represented some of the most daringly advanced pianistic effects up to that point in the instrument’s history. And yet, if one is acquainted with the works of later composers such as Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Debussy or Ravel, to name a few, a certain frustration with some of Liszt’s solutions does creep in. Scriabin used the thinnest bass textures and extended use of the pedal, to create a transparent canvass in which harmonies are sustained over long periods of time. Debussy used mix pedal effects and exploited modal overtones to disguise the piano’s “dying throat”. There are moments in Liszt’s version, where the broken-chords, delayed bass lines and treble-trembles just feel a little pedantic, no matter how revelatory these might have been in 1867.

I explored other versions, such as Willinck and most importantly by Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925). A very beautiful transcription, less intent on recreating the overwhelming power of the orchestral version, there are many beautiful “solutions” in this version. Unlike Liszt, Moszkowski was mainly successful as a piano composer. An opera, and a concerto each for violin and piano are virtually his sole contribution to orchestral repertoire. And it shows in the transcription, which is very faithful to the concept of the original, but given to flowery piano figuration. Perhaps an amalgamation of the best of Moszkowski and the best of Liszt would be a good place to start in presenting a successful transcription. For more thoughts on the art of transcription, I refer you to a very useful article by concert pianist Eric Himy.

 

Richard Wganer

Concert Pianist versus Accompanist

In preparing an interpretation of the Liebestod I have drawn on the various experiences of my career thus far. From my classical background I learnt a fidelity to the printed score. From my Tango and other light music work I learnt to improvise from a “score” that is no more than a mere description of possibilities. Yet, this is not a recreation as much as it is attempting to firstly understand Liszt’s understanding of Wagner, and then to transcend that by using Liszt’s vision as the springboard for my own, while somehow still remaining as faithful to the printed score as possible.

I have also had the misfortune of being repeatedly yelled at by a certain opera conductor  for apparently “leaving out notes” from the score. Eventually it became clear that the orchestral reduction I was using had been arranged in a way to make it playable, rather than being a religiously accurate transcription. As it turns out I was playing what was in the arrangement and not what was in the full score. This however did not appease the said conductor for a moment. In the most humiliating and demeaning language I was instructed to disregard the edition I was using, and simply rework the entire opera from the full score and add all the missing bits! Naturally the payment I was offered as a repetiteur was not going to encourage such enterprise, but it did teach me a healthy suspicion of the printed page – not to mention conductors. From then on I never believed everything I read in the score.

As a repetiteur and accompanist I have worked with singers who have taught me that the true art of playing the piano resides in the “breath” of the instrument: a) how one phrases firstly to assist a singer in their interpretation and need to breathe, and b) how one imitates a singer when performing on any other instrument. Before critical breathing moments a pianist does far more than simply “wait” for the singer to take their breath. There is a subtle “disguising” of the exact breathing moment that has to be set up before hand, and snuck away from afterwards. There are subtle dynamic alterations which prepare an ascent to a higher note or create time and space for a chest note to sound adequately. Far from being a “cheat”, I have learnt to accept this as the true ebb and flow of all music. Therefore, as I play the piano transcription, I attempt to apply the same subtle “disrespect” for the bar-line in order to create as “vocal” a gestallt  of the work as possible. This, I think, is not contrary to Liszt’s vision of the Liebestod but is more explicit than indicated in the score by the Abbé Ferencz.

Final words:

As I prepare for my first performance of this work, I still have not answered all the questions and solved all the problems. I experiment each time I practice. My own “arrangements” of the material are occasionally successful and often dreadful, and I come back to the Liszt version with new respect for his solutions. There is ultimately no substitute for hearing a great soprano singing the Liebestod with a full orchestra at the end of five hours of opera. Since I can not sing it myself, playing it on the piano is as close as I can get.

Some useful links:

A complete description and discussion of the Tristan Myth can be found HERE.

FREE SCORES:

Download a Free Score of Moszkowski’s “Liebestod” transcription HERE.

Download a Free Score of Franz List’s “Liebestod” (S.447)  transcription HERE.

Download a Free Score of the transcription of the “Prelude and Liebestod” for Two Pianos by Max Reger HERE.

 

Recordings of the Wagner-Liszt “Liebestod” (Piano transcription):

Pianist Alfred Brendel performing Liszt’s “Liebestod” transcription can be found HERE.

Pianist Jorge Luis Pratz performing Liszt’s “Liebestod” transcription at the 2007 Miami Piano Festival, can be found HERE.

Pianist Ervin Nyíregyházi performing the Wagner-Liszt “Liebestod” can be found HERE.

Recordings of the original “Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”

 Birgit Nilsson conducted by Karl Böhm at the Thèâtre Antique d’Orange, July 7, 1973.

Frida Leider with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli in 1931.

Lotte Lehman performing the Liebestod in 1930.

Kirsten Flagstad singing Isolde’s Liebestod at the Met conducted by Erich Leinsdorf in 1941.

Mezzo Soprano Christa Ludwig never recorded the complete role, but her Liebestod recorded in 1963 with Hans Knappertsbusch is superb.

Another superb and regal Isolde that was never seen complete on stage or heard in the studio is the great Jessye Norman conducted here by Herbert von Karajan.

More lightweight Isoldes who nonetheless offer valid interpretative insights include Joan Sutherland, Leontyne Price and Montserrat Caballe.

Of course, the Liebestod  is often as much about the conductor and the orchestra as the soprano. Carlos Kleiber recorded a magnificent Tristan und Isolde  conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden, with Margaret Price  singing an exquisitely detailed Isolde.

Leonard Bernstein’s “Tristan und Isolde” drew mixed reviews, but he himself felt that the youthful quality of  Hildgard Behrens combined with a powerful voice which had made her such a popular Salome, also made her the ideal Isolde.

The glorious Strauss soprano Leonie Rysanek appears to have recorded the Liebestod only once.

South African singers who have sung the Liebestod

These include Joyce Barker, whose return to South Africa unfortunately coincided with a downturn in the number of productions of the dramatic soprano repertoire at which she was best.  Andrea Catzel   recorded a version accompanied by a 1938 recording of the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. A famous Isolde from this country was Marita Napier of whom I could not find a sound-clip in this role, but extracts from her Turandot and Götterdämmerung can be found HERE. Her life and career is also the topic of an M MUS dissertation by Eridine Roux.

Tristano e Isotta: Translation into other languages

Maria Callas performed very little Wagner, and only ever sang his roles in Italian. She claims to have felt little affinity for Wagner, although her Kundry sizzles with intensity. Her Walküre Brünnhilde (learnt and performed in a week after her debut in Bellini’s Il Pirata) caused a sensation. Her 1949 RAI radio Recording included the Liebestod, which she was performing in Venice at the time. Wonderful legato singing and a gleaming tone add a unique view of Isolde. Her 1957 Athens Recital conducted by Antonino Votto reveals a voice intensely responsive to the nuances of the text and is possibly an even greater interpretation than her earlier radio broadcast.

I do not know of any performances of this opera in other languages.

Other Wagner transcriptions:

German composer Franz Waxman (1906-1967), best known for his film scores, took an extract from his 1946 film Humoresque based on love motifs from Tristan und Isolde, turning it into the Tristan and Isolde Fantasia for Violin and Orchestra. A prominent obbligato piano adds to the lushness of this ultimately Hoolywoodified Wagner.

Download the FREE SHEET MUSIC of the Overture to Tannhäuser HERE.

 Listen to a 1926 recording of the Overture to Tannhäuser played by Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) (Incidentally, Cortot conducted the first Paris performance of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung)

Overture to Tannhäuser, is played here by Jorge Bolet in a live Carnegie Hall recital in 1974.

Here, the Overture to Tannhäuser is performed by Russian-born Benno Moiseiwitsch. He was a pupil of Wagner’s and Liszt’s contemporary, Theodor Leschetizky.

Too much of a good thing?

And if one pianist is not enough for you, here you can hear the Overture to Tannhäuser played by SIXTEEN PIANOS in an arrangement by Louis Moreau Gottschalk.

From the Verbier Festival comes this transcription of the “Ride of the Valkyries” for EIGHT PIANOS

Information on the Bayeuth Scholarship Programme is available HERE.

Benjamin Britten Folksong (re)settings: when artsong meets folksong

The arranged folksong is a bit like a precious stone, taken by a well-known composer and reset in a new setting, both creating an opportunity to view the well-known gem afresh, but also to create a new piece all-together. Benjamin Britten’s folksongs vary from simple re-arrangements to virtually brand new art-songs. I will be performing a selection of these in a programme called Sweeter than Roses,  and other upcoming concerts.

Benjamin Britten

The first set was written during the self-imposed exile of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears – as conscientious objectors to the British War effort as well as the legal intolerance of homosexual partnerships – to the USA from 1932 to 1942. Published in 1943 these works therefore also reflect a certain nostalgia for the homeland of a composer in exile. Benjamin Britten (Lord Britten of Aldeburgh 1913-1976) needed recital and encore material for his recitals with England’s foremost tenor of the time, his life-partner Sir Peter Pears (1910-1986). By 1947, three sets of folksongs from the British Isles and mainland Europe were published, forming a treasure trove of recital material. Written with piano accompaniment, a few were orchestrated in the early 1950’s.

Folksong setting in Britain prior to Britten

Britten’s English folksong publication is predated by a massive project during the 1780’s by George Thomson Edinburgh (1757-1851), of publishing arrangements of folksongs by the greatest European composers. Thomson recruited no less than Joseph Haydn and Ludwig von Beethoven, Hummel and Carl Maria von Weber. The British public seemed to enjoy the prestige of these names, and there was an absolute boom in sales and interest in dressing up folkmusic in “civilised garb”.

Cecil Sharp (1859-1924) was another important figure in the history of English Folksong, collecting over 4000 folksongs and notating each by hand. He published 1, 118 folk melodies and wrote over 500 accompaniments. By all accounts he was not much of a composer, and his accompaniments and folksong settings are rather dull, but they are extremely valuable in the preservation of the vocal lines. According the Graham Johnson, veteran accompanist and close friend of Peter Pears in his last years, Cecil Sharp prided himself on the “unobtrusive” nature of his accompaniments, claiming that they added to the authenticity of his legacy.

Grainger's "Free Music Machine"

Australian pianist and composer Percy Grainger (1882-1961) came to Britain in 1901, using a recording machine.  Britten got to know these recordings, conducting and recording “Salute to Percy Grainger” in the 1970’s for the Decca record Label. Grainger’s folksong transcriptions differ radically from his folksong arrangements, in that they are meticulously notated, often with highly complex metres and rhythmic patterns, as the young man strove to write down the performance he heard as accurately as possible.

 Britten’s Folksongs

Britten was content to use the material collected by others. His songs are not meant for the ethnomusicologist or anthropologist. They are designed for a collector and analyst of a very different nature: the recitalist. Many writers have bemoaned the “artyness” of Britten’s folksong settings. They were specifically intended as encores and to end the Britten-Pears recitals.

  Some musical characteristics of Britten’s folksong settings.

Britten was a great Schubert interpreter. The Britten/Pears Schöne Müllerin is a joy to hear. I am in awe of Britten’s control and fine sense of nuance in this performance in particular, but the entire Britten/Pears Schubert legacy is a treasure. As a performer, I sense something Schubertian in the folksong settings. As with some of Schubert’s accompaniments the piano parts are often based on a single motif or pianistic “idea” without too much development. The strophic nature of the songs lend themselves to a comparison with Die Schöne Müllerin . The beauty of the Britten settings is the simplicity but highly effective nature of the accompaniments, to reveal, introduce and weave the mood of the song. Britten’s experience as an opera composer comes into play in the more narrative songs, where dramatic scenes are spun with utmost efficiency.

 I won’t be discussing all the folksongs in the settings here, but some that I am preparing for current concerts.

 Down By The Salley Gardens (W. B Yeats) 1889

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

Salley Gardens where the lovers did meet

 The Salley Gardens

Ironically, the first folksong isn’t really a folksong. Unhelpfully, Britten subtitles the song as “Irish Tune”.  The text is by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet and dramatist and one of the greatest poets in the English language of the twentieth century. He was a leader of the “Irish Renaissance” and spiritualist, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. It was published in 1889 in “The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems”.

 Yeats indicated in a note that it was “an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballisodare, Sligo, who often sings them to herself.” Yeats’s original title, “An Old Song Re-Sung”, reflected this; it first appeared under its present title when it was reprinted in Poems in 1895

The melody is by Northern Irish Composer Herbert Hughes, whose Down by the Sally Gardens was published in 1909 in “Irish Country Songs Vol. 1”, who originally used the text by Yeats. True, his accompaniment is clumsy and fussy, but he created the essence of the song. Britten’s “resetting” gives us the opportunity to appreciate the gem in all it’s glory.

 All through The Sally Gardens the accompaniment suggests the slow falling of tears and – you will notice this at once when you hear the song – the introduction, at the start, of a note contradicting the key is a masterly touch. The gentle throb of the quaver pattern is broken by a sad little figure, but follows the natural rhythm of Yeats’ poem perfectly. A song both static and somehow “suspended” in time, a moment of reflection captured in space and time, this is a truly remarkable creation. A very effective “flattening” of the harmony on the final “young and foolish” is an expressive masterstroke of a composer acutely attuned to the mood and emotion of the text. The tiny postlude sums up the sadness of an older protagonist who remembers his/her own youth and the loss of love.

 The Latin name for the Weeping Willow is the Salix, and willows are sometimes referred to in poetry as “weeping Salleys”. The Irish name for a willow is “Saileach”. “Salley Gardens” then could refer to a secluded willow grove where lover’s could tryst in secret and seclusion.

 The Ashgrove – the version of the text set by Britten

Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander
When twilight is fading I pensively rove.
Or at the bright noontide in solitude wander
Amid the dark shades of the lonely ash grove.

Twas there while the blackbird was cheerfully singing
I first met that dear one, the joy of my heart.
Around us for gladness the bluebells were ringing
Ah! then little thought I how soon we should part.

Still glows the bright sunshine o’er valley and mountain,
Still warbles the blackbird its note from the tree;
Still trembles the moonbeam on streamlet and fountain,
But what are the beauties of Nature to me?

With sorrow, deep sorrow, my heart] is laden,
All day I go mourning in search of my love!
Ye echoes! oh tell me, where is the sweet maiden [loved one]?
“She [He] sleeps ‘neath the green turf down by the Ash Grove.”

Ashgrove in Winter

The Ashgrove

Subtitled “Welsh Tune”, the first published version of the tune was in 1802  in the book “The Bardic Museum” by harpist Edward Jones.. Telling of a sailor’s love of “Gwen of Lynn”, a similar tune appears in “The Beggar’s Opera” by John Gay (1728) in the song “Cease your Funning.”

Britten here moves away from simple “Folksong setting” or Schubertian “artistry”, experimenting with harmonies and canons and passages in varied imitation. The bluebells “chime” almost literally in the piano part. A little Messianic bluebird triplet  ruffles the feathers of traditional folksong collectors and various harmonic shifts, reflect an unstable mind. The simple tune belies the tragedy of the text, and Britten’s miniature mad-scene is filled with tremendous empathy for the suffering of the mourning lover.

 O Waly, Waly – The text as set by Britten

The water is wide, I cannot cross o’er,
But Neither have I the wings to fly.
Give me a boat, that can carry two,
And both shall row, my love and I.

I leaned my back up against an oak
I thought it was a trusty tree
but first it bent and then it broke
And so my love did unto me.

A ship there is and she sails the sea,
She’s loaded deep as deep can be,
But not so deep as the love I’m in
I know not if I sink or swim.

O love is handsome and love is fine
And love’s a jewel when it is new
but love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like morning dew.

 O Waly, Waly

The inherent challenges of love are made apparent in the narrator’s imagery: “Love is handsome, love is kind” during the novel honeymoon phase of any relationship. However, as time progresses, “love grows old, and waxes cold”. Even true love, the narrator admits, can “fade away like morning dew”

Britten here uses the tune as transcribed by Cecil Sharp on his trip to America during World War 1. It is thought to be a Scottish or English Folksong. Britten creates a sparse accompaniment allowing the voice to float free. A gentle barcarolle rhythm in the accompaniment sets the watery scene that rocks with a gentle ebb and flow. The harmonies in the accompany change, but very slowly, gently. The subtle changes makes this song a hypnotic masterpiece. Powerful but understated discords such as the one on the word “cold” create new meanings in the text. In one chord, the disintegration of a relationship is expressed, summed up, wrapped up in a flattened seventh at once comforting as symbolic of the death of love.

Down By The Salley Gardens: Some Recorded Materials

Tenor John McCormack performing an arrangement not by Britten. I enjoy his “folk” accent and the glimpse into the past provided by the scratchiness of the old record.

Countertenor Andreas Scholl performing (in the studio in 2001) an arrangement for voice and string orchestra. While the strings add the rustling of the trees of the “Salley Gardens” I do miss the simplicity of Britten.

Nicolai Gedda and Gerald Moore, another great Schubertian pianist, give a rather “recitalish” performance. However, Gedda, whose range of recording and performance simply continues to amaze me for its sheer breadth and depth, displays admirable sensitiveity to the text.

Irish folk duo Lark and Spur  sing a charming popular celtic version.  

The Ashgrove: Some Recorded Materials

Nana Mouskouri with two guitarists accompanying.

These original Welsh words tell a violent, bitter tale. A young heiress falls in love, to the dismay and rage of her powerful father and lord of the region. He means to kill her lover, but kills her by chance, and she prefers death to being an unloved prisoner at Ash Grove Palace. It is sung here in Welsh by Llwyn Onn  as Dafydd o Fargoed. The accompaniment is based on Benjamin Britten’s arrangement from 1943 set then to gentle English words of mourning for a dead lover.

O Waly, Waly: Some Recorded Materials

Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears give the autoratitive version. The pathos and pianissimo of the final verse is breathtaking.

A modern tenor version by American tenor Gregory Kunde. The pianist is not credited in this live 1998 perfromance.

Sir Thomas Allen sings an unaccompanied version at the Northumbrian seashore. The seagulls in the background form a touching accompaniment to a tune of great power. 

At the other end of the spectrum is Bob Dylan in a live 1975 version.

The beautiful and always sensitive Eva Cassidy sings a touching version I would not want to be without.

The Foggy, Foggy Dew: Some Recorded Materials

Tenor Steve Davislim and pianist Simone Young perform the Britten arrangement of folksong ‘Foggy, Foggy Dew’ and speak about thier approach to presenting this piece. From ‘Benjamin Britten Folksong Arrangements’, MR301120 Melba Recordings SACD.

Sinead O’Connor and the Chieftains sing the Irish republican song “The Foggy Dew”.

 

I will be performing these and other Britten folksong settings in concerts over the next few months. One of these features singers Louise Howlett, Shirley Sutherland and John Hardie, accompanied by Albert Combrink. Also on the programme is “Sweeter than roses” and other Britten realisations of Purcell songs, and extracts from that delightful Rose seller Eliza Doolitle from “My Fair Lady”, and some operatic roses such the one one Carmen throws at at Jose, intoxicated with love.

Press release: “Sweeter than Roses” – Lindbergh Arts, 28 October 2009. 8pm

 

 

  “Sweeter than Roses”

 - English and Italian songs of the joys of love by
Purcell, Britten, Mozart, Sondheim incl. “My Fair Lady”
This delightful programme of mostly English songs explores the joys and dreams of young lovers through the songs of Purcell (“If music be the food of love”), Britten’s famous Folksong settings (“The Foggy, foggy dew”) and operatic extracts by Mozart, that master of comic characterisation. The three singers are all noted for their variety and can perform in different styles. Shirley Sutherland will lead the second half of the programme with extracts from “My Fair Lady”, the show in which she had a major triumph at the Artscape Theatre in 2008. Louise Howlett, a veteran stage performer, will include extracts from her soon-to-be released second CD from the musicals “Cats” and “A Little Night Music”. Baritone John Hardie – winner of various awards such as the Leonard Hall Memorial Prize – is the perfect foil for the two ladies. He will be the Figaro to their Suzanna and Cherubino and the Don Giovanni to their Zerlinas. The programme will reflect the more playful aspect of young love, from the charm and beauty of setting of Shakespeare to more contemporary and popular music. The fact that most of the songs are in English makes this a programme with instant appeal for audiences of all ages. The keyword is variety, and versatility is what this set of performers are known for.

Lindbergh Arts Foundations – 18 Beach Road, Muizenberg

R105 Including Snacks

Booking 021 788 2795
Louise Howlett (Soprano)
Louise Howlett, originally from England, studied at the Royal College of Music in London, with Margaret Cable where she featured in a number of competitions and masterclasses.  As a member of the National Youth Music Theatre, Louise toured to the Bergen Festival and Edinburgh Main and Fringe Festivals, aswell as performing in the award winning production of The Ragged Child at the Sadlers Wells Theatre, London. She performed in television productions of both The Ragged Child and the opera of The Tailor of Gloucester.
Louise came to South Africa in 1993 to work as Organiser for the National Chamber Orchestra in the North West Province, and soon decided to make South Africa her home.  She sang on many occasions with the NCO including a number of corporate functions in Sun City and Johannesburg. She also performed in a number of Oratoria including Nelson Mass, The Messiah and Vivaldi’s Gloria, and was involved in choral training workshops and master classes. In March 1999 she moved to Cape Town where she is now based.  Her Cape Town debut took place with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra at their Kirstenbosch Millennium Concert; but her love of jazz and the musicals led her to create her own unique combination of classical, broadway and jazz “Across the Styles” projects out of which her “Serenade” series was born.  These productions can vary from classical versions, to jazz standard evenings to the full range of genres blended into one programme. She has performed with great success at various venues and festivals including the Kirstenbosch Winter Chamber Music Series, the Greyton Rose Festival, and most recently at the Baxter Theatre.

Louise is a regular presenter on Fine Music Radio.  Her programme “For the Love of Opera” features all the latest news and reviews of opera around the world today.

 
John  Hardie (Baritone)
John studied singing at UCT and Stellenbosch University and his teachers include Sarita Stern, Nellie du Toit and Marita Napier. He sang with Capab Opera for 3 years taking part in productions of “Albert Herring” and “Cosi fan Tutte”. He won the College of Music Opera prize in 1988 and 1989, the Friends of the Nico Malan Opera Prize in 1990, the Leonard Hall memorial Prize in 1991. He has performed professionally with accompanists such s ALbie van Schalkwyk, Tommy Rajna and Neil Solomon.

 

SHIRLEY SUTHERLAND  – Coloratura Soprano

Shirley Sutherland graduated from UCT with an Honours degree in Music  under Sarita Stern and Angelo Gobbato.  She has also completed a  National Higher Diploma in Opera (Cum Laude) at the Pretoria Technikon  Opera School under the tutelage of Eric Muller.

Her ability to sing such a varied repertoire of music being Opera,  Operetta, Broadway, Classical contemporary, light classical has found  her performing to diverse audiences locally and abroad.

Her many operatic roles include that of Tytania in Britten’s A  Midsummer Night’s Dream, Adele in Die Fledermaus, Hanna in Lehar’s  The Merry Widow, Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute, Micaela and  Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen, Lucy in Menotti’s The Telephone  Madame Mademoiselle Warblewell in Mozart’s The Impresario and as  well as Dvorak’s Rusalka which she performed in Sweden.  Her many  musical roles include that of Eliza from My Fair Lady, Magnolia from  Showboat which was performed in Germany, Julie in The Carousel,  Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Meg in Brigadoon and Roxie in  Chicago for which she received the Cape Times Award for the best  leading lady in a musical. She has sung Gabriel in Haydn’s Oratorio  The Creation and performed in Mozart’s Coronation Mass with the  Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra.

She has been part of the Pretoria based Black Tie-Ensemble with Mimi  Coertse and part of Cape Town’s Opera Studio.

Shirley is in great demand as a soloist and also teaches part-time at  schools in the Cape area.
Albert Combrink (Piano)
Albert, currently a freelance pianist, completed his MMUS in Piano Performance from Natal University under Isabella Stengel, as well as three UNISA Licentiates: Piano Performance, Piano Accompaniment and Teaching (Cum Laude). He made his concerto debut with the NPO at 18. Since then he has performed regularly at major centres throughout the country, as soloist and accompanist, in both classical and popular music fields. He was finalist in the ATKV Music Competition and winner of the Young Natal Chamber Competition and UND Performer’s and Composer’s competitions after which he was commissioned to write to the first Afrikaans Catholic Mass. He has extensive recording experience, including Hindemith’s Piano Concerto “Four Temperaments” with the NPO and David Tidboald, through radio and television broadcasts (including BBC World) to the recent CPO recordings of works by Hofmeyr and Schnittke. He was repetiteur for the UCT Opera School as well as Cape Town Opera, performing also as orchestral pianist and harpsichordist in operatic productions. His operatic experience with CPO included “Showboat” and “Porgy and Bess” which toured Sweden and Germany. He has acted and recorded for the eTv show “Backstage” and “Stokvel” and been involved in various film projects. As member of the Cape Town Tango Ensemble he has performed at all the major festivals in the country, with performers such as Mark Hoeben and Ina Wichterich. His Tango CD featured in the film “Tango Club”. He has worked with directors such as Janice Honeyman, Jaco Bouwer and Marthinus Basson. He is vocal coach for Portabello, whose production of Mozart’s “Magic Flute” won a London Critics’ “Olivier Award” in 2008, and has toured Ireland, Japan and Singapore. He has also been Music Director and Assistant MD for various productions including the New Space Theatre’s production of Sondheim’s “Assassins” which won two Fleur du Cap Awards. He is co-author of 3 Arts & Culture Textbooks which have sold over 150 000 copies.

Kaddish – Music as Prayer

Jewish Cemetary in Krakow

The first time I heard the Kaddish, it struck me very deeply. I did not understand the language; I did not know what it was about. All I know is that it was the most beautiful melody I had ever heard. That opening phrase with its flattened second note of the scale was absolutely hypnotic. The language I did not know: strange and earthy. When it built to its climax, I was swept with it.

 Ritualistic and from the depths of the soul, the Kaddish has been part of my life since I was a child. A scratchy old record from the music section of the Bloemfontein Municipal library became a powerful conduit of things fo which it is hard to find terminology. Only years later would I learn that the actual words were a prayer, and what they meant. Having grown up in the dry formulaic asceticism of the Afrikaans Dutch Reformed Church, there was a definitely an element of “Orientalism” in my initial passion for this music. I responded to the unashamedly emotional expression of spirituality. As so often with Jewish music, not understanding the language or the context does not prohibit one from having a very strong emotional connection it. I would also be surprised to learn that the composer himself was not of the faith from which this prayer was drawn. And yet, the power of the music was strong enough to transcend these boundaries.

“For me, whenever I hear the end of the Ravel Kaddish—which uses a very clear motif from the High Holidays—an image always flashes in my mind of sitting next to my grandfather at High Holy Day services; I can almost taste the pickled herring my grandmother and I used to share at the end of our Yom Kippur fast. That’s the power of music—it can evoke associations above and beyond our understanding of the theological or liturgical significance of a particular service or holiday”. Cantor Andrew Bernard 

 

 

Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel’s “Jewish” works:

I first got to know the Kaddish in a setting by Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937).  Written in 1914, just before he enlisted for service in World War I, his Kaddish forms the first of two songs of the Deux mélodies hébraïques. Ravel uses the Aramaic text from the Jewish prayer book for the Kaddish, and the second song, L’Énigme éternelle is based on a traditional Yiddish verse. They were first performed in June 1914 by Alvina Alvi – who had commissioned them – with Ravel at the piano. In 1919 and 1920 Ravel orchestrated the two songs. Ravel had earlier set a Yiddish text “Mejerke, main Suhn”  under the title Chanson hébraïque  as the fourth of the  Chants populaires (1910). Ravel’s mother was Basque, and Ravel is thought to have developed a certain affinity with Spain from her. His father was a Swiss clock-maker.

 While many critics claim Ravel was influenced by composer Claude Debussy, Ravel himself claimed he was much more influenced by Mozart and Couperin, whose compositions are much more structured and classical in form. Ravel and Debussy were, however, clearly the defining composers of the impressionist movement. Ravel was also highly influenced by music from around the world, including American jazz, Asian music, and traditional folk songs from across Europe. Ravel had left the Roman Catholic Church and was a self-declared atheist, although he was also a spiritualist like many sceptics of his generation. He disliked the overtly religious themes of other composers, and instead preferred to look to classical mythology for inspiration. While Ravel’s music has tonal centres that never dissolve into atonality, his melodies are often modal. It is easy to see how the traditional modal melody of the Kaddish would have appealed to him. Ravel also was trict in his musical arrangements of folk material to leave the melodies unaltered.

 Writer and critic Michel de Calvocoressi  (1877-1944) met Ravel in 1898, and after an initial period of mutual suspicion, they became lifelong friends. It was Calvocoressi who provided Ravel with the folk texts to the Cinq mélodies populaires grecques. (1904-1906), and some suspect, the texts to the Deux mélodies hébraïques. Born in Greece, but educated in France, Calvocoressi was a skilled linguist and wrote in several languages, publishing books on Liszt, Moussorgsky and Schumann. Ravel dedicated the Alborada del Gracioso from the suite Mirroirs to him.

 Significance and meanings of the Kaddish

The oldest version of the Kaddish is found in the Siddur of Rab Amram Gaon, c. 900.

"Kaddish" by Rex Sexton

Kaddish (קדיש Aramaic: “holy”) refers to an important and central prayer in the Jewish prayer service. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God’s name. In the liturgy, several variations of the Kaddish are used functionally as separators between various sections of the service. The term “Kaddish” is often used to refer specifically to “The Mourners’ Kaddish,” said as part of the mourning rituals in Judaism in all prayer services as well as at funerals and memorials. When mention is made of “saying Kaddish”, this unambiguously denotes the rituals of mourning.

 The opening words of this prayer are inspired by Ezekiel 38:23, a vision of God becoming great in the eyes of all the nations. The central line of the kaddish in Jewish tradition is the congregation’s response “May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity”, a public declaration of God’s greatness and eternality. This response is a paraphrase of part of Daniel 2:20.  The Mourners’, Rabbis’ and Complete Kaddish end with a supplication for peace, which is in Hebrew, and comes from the Bible. Along with the Shema and Amidah, the Kaddish is one of the most important and central prayers in the Jewish liturgy. Written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic the Kaddish is about a half-page long text, primarily magnifying and glorifying God, as well as expressing a wish for a speedy coming of the Messianic era. It is recited primarily in the synagogue service after principal sections of the liturgy or at the beginning of such sections. 

Kaddish Candle

“There are four main types of the synagogue Kaddish [there is also a fifth type recited at the cemetery], each containing a slightly different version of the text. In most occasions the service leader sings the Kaddish, with some congregational responses. The two main exceptions are the Kaddish recited by people in mourning or observing a death’s anniversary (Kaddish Yatom), and the Kaddish recited after a study session (Kaddish Derabannan). On these occasions the Kaddish is normally not sung but rather spoken out loud by the mourners or those who finished a study session” ( Boaz Tarsi, “Observations on Practices of Nusach in America,” Asian music, Volume xxxiii-2, 2002). 

 

 

Marc Chagall "Violinist" (1913)

Ravel’s Kaddish:  Sacred or Secular?

Despite the mournful tone of the melody, Ravel’s is a setting of the Chatzi Kaddish, rather than the full Mourner’s Kaddish, making it’s placing in a service in the synagogue more problematic than at first expected. The Chatzi Kaddish is a shorter version of the prayer that is used to demarcate sections of the liturgy. Unlike many other pieces of liturgical music written for synagogue use in the twentieth Century, Ravel’s setting is designed purely as a solo performance piece. No section of the work lends itself to choral or congregational participation. Given its setting of a liturgical text, many Orthodox Jews would consider this Kaddish a prayer, with its only rightful place in a service, and would see no need for it to be performed outside of that context. Given the exquisiteness of the work, its delicate accompaniment and the way it allows great artistic expressive freedom for the soloist, many would argue that it has a rightful place in the concert repertoire.

 I encountered this work on an LP of Ravel’s orchestral works and have seen it in recital only once in my life. As a non-Jew I would have no other means of contact with this work. It is therefore ironic that I am trying to find an appropriate space within the Jewish High Holidays to perform this.

 Kaddish Original Text

Yithgaddal weyithkaddash scheméh rabba
be’olmà diverà ‘khire’ outhé
veyamli’kl mal’khouté’khön,
ouvezome’khôu ouve’hayyé de’khol beth yisraël
ba’agalâ ouvizman qariw weimrou, Amen.

Yithbara’kh Weyischtaba’h weyith paêr
weyithroman weyithnassé weyithhaddar
weyith’allé weyithhallal
scheméh dequoudschâ beri’kh hou,
l’êla ule’êla min kol bri’khatha weschi’ratha
touschbehata wene’hamathâ daamirân ah!
Be’ olma ah! Ah! Ah! We imrou. Amen.

Kaddish: Free English translation by Boaz Tarsi

Magnified and sanctified be the name of God throughout the world
which He has created according to His will.
May He establish His kingdom during the days of our life
and the life of all speedily and soon and let us say Amen.

(Here normally comes a congregational response, which is missing from Ravel’s setting).

Exalted and glorified, lauded and praised,
Acclaimed and honored be the name of the Holy One
Blessed be He, praised beyond all blessings and hymns,
beyond all tributes that mortals can express and let us say Amen.

 

 

 

Spring in the Jewish Cemetary

Kaddish: Some recorded materials

 Transliteration and pronounciation of the Aramaic, which proves that everybody speaks with an accent.

 

Baritone José Van Dam  gives a powerful performance which would please those in search of an “authentic” male voice version. In this clip the pianist is not acknowledged, but it is likely to be French pianist and Van Dam’s long-term collaborator  Jean-Philippe Collard. Belgian born, Van Dam was superb in French repertoire.

Soprano Montserrat Caballe sings a very finely crafted but perhaps overwrought Kaddish, although hampered by bad sound recording. She uses the sheetmusic through-out the entire recital. The pianissimi that were her stock in trade, takes one’s breath away.

A 1962 recording of Victoria de los Angeles presents the Kaddish in a rarely heard French version. Her singing always had a vulnerable human quality, which comes through in this recording.

 Yehudi Menuhin performing a violin transcription of Ravel’s version. The power of the melody communicates the esesence of the text even in the absence of the language of words.

A Violin and Organ version  by Alexander Skwortsow and  Bert Mooiman reveal that sensitive performers can reinvent a piece of music  

Ravel’s Kaddish is sung here in an orchestral version at the Nazi camp Auschwitz Birkenau. It is intended as a Mourner’s Kaddish, while technically it is a Chatzi Kaddish. To me this is of less importance, as the music speaks the text that might be “missing”. Daniel de Vicente – Tenor, Quadrivium Ensemble and Dan Rapoport – Conductor

 Huw Morgan plays a trumpet transcription accompanied by pianist Nicholas Oliver in concert setting, ive from the BBC Young Musician Wigmore Hall Series 2006. It is played so beautifully and movingly that it could happily be transposed into a synagogue.

A modern soprano recording: Barbara Hendricks with John Eliot Gardiner in 1988.

Chanson hébraïque (“Mejerke, main Suhn” ) the fourth of the  Chants populaires (1910) is sung here by Victoria de Los angeles accompanied by pianist Miguel Zanetti at the Teatro Real de Madrid (1980).

 

 

 

Jewish Memorial Berlin

Other aspects of the Kaddish:

 

 

Francis W. McBeth’s Kaddish for Band has received much attention from young bands and orchestras world wide.

An “artwork” of sorts is the “Mourner’s Kaddish“, using the context of the Kaddish as a means of coming to terms with the Holocaust. Joe Engel, a Holocaust surviver. It is very moving viewing.

 The Holocaust is close to the surface in the Jewish pshyche. Ofra Haza created this Holocaust Kaddish for the 1990 Montreaux Jazz festival

 An interesting meditation reflects on psychological impacts of the Kaddish .

Peter Pringle composed this Theremin Kaddish for Clara and performs it on the Theremin, an electronic instrument with surprisingly vocal quallities. 

Non-Jewish composers creating “Jewish Music”

While orchestral and operatic music works by Jewish composers would in general be considered secular, many Jewish (as well as non-Jewish) composers have incorporated Jewish themes and motives into their music. Sometimes this is done covertly, such as the klezmer band music that many critics and observers believe lies in the third movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, and this type of Jewish reference was most common during the 19th century when openly displaying one’s Jewishness would most likely hamper a Jew’s chances at assimilation. During the 20th century, however, many Jewish composers wrote music with direct Jewish references and themes, e.g. David Amram (Symphony – “Songs of the Soul”), Leonard Bernstein (Kaddish Symphony, Chichester Psalms), Ernest Bloch (Schelomo), Arnold Schoenberg (see below), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Violin Concerto no. 2) Kurt Weill (The Eternal Road) and Hugo Weisgall (Psalm of the Instant Dove).

Jewish Cemetary in Krakow

However, even during the 20th century some Jewish composers often quoted Jewish music within non-Jewish contexts; for example, Gershwin used liturgical melodies and Hebrew songs for a few numbers in Porgy and Bess, and many also believe that the opening clarinet glissando in his Rhapsody in Blue is a reference to klezmer. Finally, many non-Jewish (mostly, but not all, Russian) composers have composed classical music with clear Jewish themes and inspiration, such as Max Bruch (Kol Nidre), Sergei Prokofiev (Overture on Hebrew Themes), Dmitri Shostakovich (Second Piano Trio, From the Jewish Folk Poetry and Symphony No. 13 “Babi Yar”) and Igor Stravinsky (Abraham and Isaac – used the Hebrew Masoretic text of a passage of Genesis, and was dedicated to the Jews and the State of Israel).

Manyoperatic works by non-Jewish composers show a direct connection with and sympathy for the Jewish people and history, like Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah (incidentally, Saint-Saëns’ composition teacher was Halevy) and Verdi’s Nabucco.

From the “All-Knowing-God-Of-Wiki” comes the following list of Kaddish used in various artforms:

Kaddish in the Arts (from WIKIPEDIA KADDISH)

The Kaddish has been a particularly common theme and reference point for Jewish writers, especially since the Haskalah.

• “Kaddish” is the title of an episode of the television show The X-Files (season 4, episode 15), in which a Golem is avenging a murder.
• “Kaddish” is the title of an episode of the television show Homicide: Life on the Street (season 5, episode 17), in which detective John Munch (Richard Belzer), who is Jewish, investigates the rape and murder of his childhood sweetheart.
• The Mourner’s Kaddish can be heard being recited by Collins and Roger during the song “La Vie Boheme” in the musical Rent.
• In the television series Drawn Together, Toot recites the Mourner’s Kaddish in the episode “A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special,” after saying that her son was (metaphorically) dead.
• In Rocky III, Rocky Balboa recites the Mourners’ Kaddish for Mickey.
• In Philip Roth’s novel The Human Stain, the narrator states that the Mourners’ Kaddish signifies that “a Jew is dead. Another Jew is dead. As though death were not a consequence of life but a consequence of having been a Jew.”
• In Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, one of the antagonists goes by the name of Kadaj, possibly a take on Kaddish, which keeps in line with the common use of religious symbolism throughout Final Fantasy VII (Jenova is another example of this.)
• In Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America (and the subsequent TV miniseries), the characters of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg say the Kaddish over Roy Cohn’s dead body.
• In the television show Everwood, Ephram Brown recites the Mourner’s Kaddish at his mother’s unveiling.
• The Kaddish can be heard in the opening credits of Schindler’s List.
• In Yentl, at her father’s burial, the rabbi asks who will say Kaddish (Kaddish is traditionally said by a son). Yentl replies that she will and, to the horror of those assembled, grabs the siddur and starts saying Kaddish.
• Kaddisch is the first of Ravel’s two songs Deux mélodies hébraïques.
• The fictional character Dan Turpin was killed by Darkseid in Superman: The Animated Series, and at his funeral, there was a Rabbi saying Kaddish. After the episode, there was a message that the episode was dedicated to Jack Kirby, a Jewish comic book artist, who influenced the entire comic book community.
• In Torch Song Trilogy, the main character Arnold Beckoff says the Mourner’s Kaddish for his murdered lover, Alan, much to the horror of his mother.
• Kaddish For Uncle Manny[6]” from the 4th season of Northern Exposure (first aired 5-3-93) relates to Joel’s (Rob Morrow) seeking out of ten Jews in remote Alaska to join him for Kaddish in memory of his recently departed Uncle Manny in New York City. Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin) takes to Alaska’s airwaves and offers a cash stipend for Jews in KBHR’s listening area to trek to Cicely in order to form a minyan, or the prerequisite ten adult males, to accompany his recital of the prayer. As strangers appear from nowhere, Joel realizes that his mitzvah to say Kaddish for his uncle is best accomplished through the presence of his new Cicely family, who although Gentile, are most near and dear to him as compared with ten ‘mercenary’ Jews who are unknown to him. The episode ends with Joel leading the townspeople through the service.
• Nobel Laureate Imre Kertesz’s “Kaddish for an Unborn Child“
• Zadie Smith’s novel “The Autograph Man” revolves around Alex-Li Tandem, a dealer in autograph memorabilia whose father’s Yahrzeit is approaching. The epilogue of the novel features a scene in which Alex-Li recites Kaddish with a minyan.
• In Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Odessa File, a Jew who commits suicide in 1960s Germany requests in his diary/suicide note that someone say Kaddish for him in Israel. At the end of the Novel, a Mossad agent involved in the plot, who comes into possession of the diary, fulfils the dead man’s wish

  

Jewish Cemetery in Prague

Avinu Malkeinu – The voice that demands to be heard

My first encounter with the Jewish prayer Avinu Malkeinu was in the now famous version sung by Barbra Streissand on her album “Higher Ground”. Form the warm opening strains on the cello I knew I was in for something special. When she started singing in a hushed, reverent voice I was captivated. As the song rose to its climax, I had very intense emotional responses. I had no idea what the song was about. But it was clear that it was from the depths of the soul and meant to rise to the highest of the high.

Avinu Malkeinu, (Hebrew: אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ‎), translating to Our Father, Our King, is a prayer that is recited during Jewish services from Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) to Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and on certain public fast days at other times of year. Each line of the prayer begins with the words Avinu Malkeinu, followed by varying phrases for the remainder of the verse. It often has a slow, chanting, repetitive aspect to the melody to represent the pious pleading within the prayer.

Now, many years later, I have “performed” this work in various contexts, occasionally as a concert piece, and more recently, in its place in the synagogue service, as it was intended. I know two versions of  Avinu Malkeinu. A shorter traditional version is for congregational and public use and known by Jewish people around the globe.

Max Janowski

A more ambitious work is the version by Max Janowski (1912-1991). Berlin-born Janowski was a composer of Jewish liturgical music, a choir director, conductor and a voice teacher, who even taught piano in Japan before emigrating to the United States in 1937 where he served in the United States Navy during World War II. His singing students included the famous Baritone Sherrill Milnes. (New York Times)

Again, as with so much Jewish music, many arrangements of this work exists. Today even Rock and Club remixes – controversial as they are – can be found. While clearly written for cantor or soloist – in the original key would indicate a tenor or soprano – there are large choral sections, which are mainly repeats of the main part of the melody, especially recognisable on the opening phrase of Avinu Malkeinu. Marsha Edelman, writing on synagogue music in the modern era, alludes to a tension that developed between cantorial schools and congregants. In short, some cantorial schools (such as the Cantors Institute created in 1952) raised the art of the cantor to an enormously sophisticated level, but unfortunately left less opportunity for the congregation to sing as well. The time after World War II was one of tremendous adjustment and change for Jews throughout the diaspora. Composers such as Janowski and Max Wohlberg (1907-1996) included “singable refrains” into works that were written for cantor and/or chorus. Janowski’s Avinu Malkeinu does just that, allowing the congregants to join in the singing of parts of the prayer. While Orthodox Judaism prohibits accompaniment, Janowski’s is clearly for use with orchestral or organ accompaniment.

The many roles of the Hazzan (Cantor)

Over the centuries and across the diaspora, cantors took on a variety of religious and communal roles in addition to leading prayer services, including shohet (ritual slaughterer), mohel (performer of circumcisions), teacher and government official.

Dr. Scott Sokol, Associate Professor of Jewish Music and Psychology writes: “Although the roles have changed somewhat in the present time, the template of the cantor as a religious and cultural functionary has largely remained. It is common for professional hazzanim to serve many functions in the modern synagogue-community, including teacher, pastor, chaplain, choir director, and cultural impresario. And to this day, some of our most talented mohalim [plural of mohel] are still cantors!” Returning to the musical landscape of the cantor and synagogue, the most significant change to the modern cantorate has probably been the move from a congregation of listeners to a congregation of participants. Participation was always a part of the Jewish worship service, but now active participation is the rule rather than the exception for an increasing number of communities. As a result, today’s cantor is responsible for teaching and leading the congregation in song and for crafting a worship experience that invites communal singing for more of the service.

Avinu Malkeinu – Hewbrew Text and English Translation:

Avinu malkeinu sh’ma kolenu. Avinu malkeinu chatanu l’faneychaOur Father our King, hear our voice. Father our King, we have sinned before Thee

Avinu malkeinu chamol aleynu, Ve’al olaleynu vetapeinu
Our Father our King, have compassion for us, and also on our children

Avinu malkeinu Kaleh dever, vecherev vera’av mealeynu
Our Father our King, bring and end to pestilence, war and famine around us

Avinu malkeinu kaleh chol tsar Umastin mealeynu
Our Father our King, bring an end to all trouble and oppression around us.

Avinu malkeinu, Avinu malkeinu, Kat’veinu besefer chayim tovim
Our Father our King, Our Father our King, inscribe us in the book of life

Avinu malkeinu chadesh aleynu, Chadesh aleynu shanah tovah
Our Father our King, renew upon us, renew upon us a good year

Sh’ma kolenu, Sh’ma kolenu , Sh’ma kolenu
Hear our voice, hear our voice, hear our voice

Avinu malkeinu, Avinu malkeinu, Chadesh aleynu shanah tovah
Our Father our King, Our Father our King, renew upon us a good year

Avinu malkeinu, Sh’ma kolenu, Sh’ma kolenu, Sh’ma kolenu
Our Father our King, hear our voice, hear our voice, hear our voice

Saving the Torah after Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans) 2005

A liturgical analysis of the Avinu Malkeinuby Michael Koplow can be found HERE.

For an arrangement of Janowski’s Avinu Malkeinu, in a lower key for vocal soloist, organ and small chamber ensemble, click HERE.

Sheet Music of very userfriendly arrangement of Janowski’s Avinu Malkeinu is available HERE.

Sheet music of the traditional version of Avinu Malkeinu can be found HERE.

Avinu Malkeinu (Janowski): Some recorded materials

The famous version by Barbra Streissand, that brought this work to a wider public, as well as criticism that a liturgical work was sung by a woman on a commercial album. Be that as it may, it is a highly reverent version of the prayer, sung with great artistry and conviction and the orchestration is superb.

A humble but sincere version combines Hebrew and Arabic, much to the consternation of some.

Nora Dori created this version in a stage performance. Even removed from its liturgical context, the work has a powerful impact.

Russian singer Svetlana Portnyansky’s performance is accompanied by disturbing images of political conflict in Israel/Palestine.

The “Traditional” Avinu Malkeinu: Some recorded materials

A wonderfully charming discovery was this “Lyre Lesson”, which teaches the basic construction of the tune, identifying the mode as Ahavarava, with the notes E F G# A B C D E, which resembles the Phrygian mode (but with a raised third) or a Harmonic Minor, but using the Dominant note as a Tonic.

A traditional choral version with Benjamin Posnansky gives a fair impression of much that can be heard in schools and synagogues today.

An utterly unique and charming version by “Harold Vargas y Michel” performed on Flute and Recorder on the cliffs of the Jewish fortress Masada.

Rabbi Shai’s controversial Club/Dance mix is bound to raise some eyebrows.

Soprano Beverley Chiat

The soloist in Janowski’s Avinu Malkeinu at Temple Israel in Green Point, Cape Town, will be sung during this year’s High Holidays by one of South Africa’s top sopranos, Beverley Chiat