Edward Elgar
© HNH International

Sospiri is a short work for strings, harp and harmonium. In most performances of the piece, however, conductors choose to replace the harmonium with an organ (but not on our selected recording). It’s not unreasonable to suppose that the emotional intensity of the work reflects the shadow of war that was gathering in Europe at the time of its composition, giving good reason to indulge in some sighing.

Sospiri (8.573250)

Samuel Sebastian Wesley
Source: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Wilderness (8.570318)

Carlo Gesualdo
Source: From the 1926 book by C. Gray and P. Heseltine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By the time of his Fifth Book of Madrigals, Gesualdo was exploring a new relationship between text and music. Progressing from simply reflecting the superficial atmosphere of a text and the passing application of word-painting, he plumbs the deeper essence of single words, not least the word sospiri (sighs) at the opening of his madrigal Itene, o miei sospiri.

Itene, o miei sospiri,
precipitate’l volo,
a lei che m’è cagion d’aspri martiri,
ditele, per pietà, del mio gran duolo;
c’hormai ella mi sia
come bella ancor pia,
che l’amaro mio pianto
cangerò, lieto, in amoroso canto.

Begone, o my sighs,
hurry your flight
to she who is the cause of my bitter torment,
tell her, for pity’s sake, of my great suffering;
that henceforth she may show me
both beauty and compassion,
and that my bitter tears
may change, with joy, into a song of love.

Itene, o miei sospiri (8.573147-49)

Johann Strauss I

Johann Strauss II
© HNH International

Ligourianer Seufzer, Scherz-Polka (8.223216)

Gerald Finzi
Photo: Boosey and Hawkes

At the heart of The Sigh is a question: did the poet’s beloved harbour love for another man rather than himself? Finzi, in the piano’s introduction, creates an equivalent musical image for the woman’s ‘sigh’, which, in varied form, sets the closing lines of each stanza, as though resonating with the nagging question that haunts the man over the years. What do you think the answer is?

The Sigh (8.570414)

Little head against my shoulder,
Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,
And up-eyed;
Till she, with a timid quaver,
Yielded to the kiss I gave her;
But, she sighed.

That there mingled with her feeling
Some sad thought she was concealing
It implied.
– Not that she had ceased to love me,
None on earth she set above me;
But she sighed.

She could not disguise a passion,
Dread, or doubt, in weakest fashion
If she tried:
Nothing seemed to hold us sundered,
Hearts were victors; so I wondered
Why she sighed.

Afterwards I knew her throughly,
And she loved me staunchly, truly,
Till she died;
But she never made confession
Why, at that first sweet concession,
She had sighed.

It was in our May, remember;
And though now I near November
And abide
Till my appointed change, unfretting,
Sometimes I sit half regretting
That she sighed.

The post Trying sighing appeared first on The Naxos Blog.

1.
This work is a set of six part-songs, written in 1895. Maybe you can detect the composer’s style in the following short extracts, one from each of the first three movements. Maybe not. The title of the work includes the area (not in their own country) where the composer and his wife used to enjoy taking holidays. The words were, in fact, written by Mrs Composer, and it’s not the only example of their co-inhabiting a piece. Mr Composer’s identity becomes clear if you’re wearing a sort of glare.

• The Dance
• False Love
• Lullaby

2.
Although this is an example of his sacred music, Mr Composer was, and remains, better known for his secular vocal works. He led a colourful life, at one stage blood-red. Mrs Composer wasn’t heard from afterwards. Can you provide the missing word from the title of the work, which was published in 1603? Mr Composer was known for displaying dual egos.

Ave ________ coelorum.

3.
You may well know of this composer through my country, in a manner of speaking. He was a major figure in the early Czech cultural flowering. His life was no stranger to tragedy: only one of his four daughters lived into adulthood; he himself suffered from a tinnitus-like affliction; and he died in an asylum in 1884. Can you supply the words that are missing from the title of the work, which was written in 1855? Mr Composer’s name might be interpreted as meant.

Piano ____ in G ____

4.
Ms Composer is often unsympathetically caricatured as a militant, cigar-smoking, tweed-clad suffragette in an assertively cocked felt hat. Born in London, she studied with Carl Reinecke in Leipzig, where the first performance of this work was given in 1887. Can you imagine any present-day critic giving such a comment as appeared in the press following that première viz “deficient in the feminine charm that might have been expected of a woman composer”?  Ms Composer can be found in the crazy version of the mad eels’ myth, if you know it. And can you complete the title of the work?

___ Sonata in A ___

5.
This piece has become one of Mr Composer’s most performed works. He composed it in his New York apartment. He called it “the most B-flat majorish tonal piece I’ve ever written.” Unusually, the commissioning body didn’t give the first performance. You’ll be hearing acres of anniversary accolades for Mr Composer next year. Mrs Composer’s maiden name was Felicia Cohn Mentealegre. Mr Composer is known both by this extract from the featured work and his confused inner best.

6.
Mr Composer was French. He spent the first part of his career serving in the French Navy before turning in earnest to the study of music. He reached the mature phase of his compositional style around the year 1925. The music you will hear is taken from a ballet score that received its first performance in 1930. It’s arguably one of Mr Composer’s best works. The year before its première, Mr Composer enjoyed a highly successful visit to the United States; his reputation had begun to grow outside his native country. And yet he could be considered a US loser. How can that be?

7.
Mr Composer enjoyed the limelight in his native France as one of the most exceptional child prodigies ever. That was as a pianist; but he went on to compose some of the most popular works in the French repertoire, contributing to most musical genres. Surely he couldn’t have been sent as a sin, could he? Here’s one of his bonbons which you may recognise. It was written in 1857.

8.
Representing a bridge between America’s Tin Pan Alley and serious music, Mr Composer enjoyed success with his light music, songs and musicals, but in a relatively small number of compositions he made forays into classical repertoire. There was no Mrs Composer, although he became close to Kay Swift, an American composer whom he would consult about his own works. Did she flap her wings for him? It would appear so. Here’s Mr Composer playing one of his own pieces. It’s the last of three in a set.

9.
Herr Komponist became Mr Composer when he left Germany in 1933 to pursue an application for US citizenship, which he was granted ten years later. During his lifetime, Mr Composer became associated mostly with the voice of Mrs Composer and one stage work in particular. Here’s an extract from his latterly rediscovered theatrical extravaganza which was a sensation of the 1937 New York season. Mr Composer died of a heart attack, aged 50. Being ill, we revised our perception of him.

10.
Mr Composer was one of the principal Italian composers of the late 16th century, whose style was taken as a model by later generations. The extract we’ve chosen is from a work he wrote to try and convince the Roman Catholic Church’s Council of Trent that there was still a place for polyphony in musical performances of the liturgy. Can you supply the missing words from the title of the music you hear? It identifies the Pope of the time who had expressed an intention to reform church music so that the words could easily be heard and understood. And can you reveal the composer by applying a ripe slant on his name?

Missa _____  _____

Answers

1.
Elgar.
Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands (8.570541).

2.
Gesualdo.
Ave Regina Coelorum (8.550742).

3.
Smetana.
Piano Trio in G minor (8.553415).

4.
Dame Ethel Smyth.
Violin Sonata in A minor (8.572291).

5.
Bernstein.
Chichester Psalms (8.559456).

6.
Roussel.
Bacchus et Ariane (8.570245).

7.
Saint-Saëns.
Tarantelle (8.570964).

8.
Gershwin.
Prelude No. 3 in E flat minor (8.120510).

9.
Weill.
The Eternal Road (8.559402).

10.
Palestrina.
Missa Papae Marcelli (8.550573).

The post A ram sang? appeared first on The Naxos Blog.

Gesualdo left us 6 Books of Madrigals. We’ll dip into them in this week’s blog, by the end of which I hope that any readers who are new to the composer will have savoured some ear-popping experiences, featuring harmonies, textures and modes of expression that often hit with intensity, sounding both out of orbit and ahead of their time.

Books 1 and 2 were published in 1594, shortly after Gesualdo married his second wife, an occasion which involved all kinds of merrymaking, including a joust and a grand, twenty-three-course banquet. From Book 1 (8.570548), here’s Danzan le ninfe oneste (Dance of the honest nymphs), the second part of Felice primavera (Happy Spring), that describes the home of his new bride, Leonora d’Este, with its references to the flowery banks of the River Po.

Book 2 continued in much the same vein as Book 1; it’s not until the following two books that Gesualdo’s revolution in musical style took place. With that in mind, we’ll take the opportunity to hear one of only two instrumental pieces that Gesualdo wrote, which are included at the end of the Naxos recording of his Second Book of Madrigals (8.570549). Here’s an extract from Gagliarda, which gives a foretaste of the composer’s quicksilver harmonies that were soon to hallmark his later madrigals.

Gesualdo revels in a noticeable change of style in Book 3 (8.572136). It was published in 1595, only a year after the first two. There’s a striking intensity of contrasts, however, plus new and arresting dissonances and depictions of elements and images that are seemingly irreconcilable. This tells us that Gesualdo, as a rich man, was writing for himself and didn’t have to pander to the tastes of people who might otherwise have been setting the tones of acceptability in their commissions. Was he the first composer in history to have had the luxury of pursuing art for art’s sake? Quite possibly. The opening of Se piange, ohime (If, alas, the lady of my heart weeps) is striking for its unpredictability in harmony and expression and takes us decidedly into Gesualdo’s unique sound-world.

Published in 1596, Book 4 (8.572137) followed hot on the heels of the first three. What’s interesting is that it was reprinted three times, the last occasion (in 1613, the year of Gesualdo’s death) appearing in score form, as opposed to just the usual set of separate parts for the individual singers, often five of them. This enabled people to study how those engaging Gesualdo harmonies were stacked up. The opening of O sempre crudo amore (O love ever cruel) seems to go beyond adventurous harmony, verging on tonal clusters, well ahead of their due date!

Fifteen years separated this music and the madrigals in Books 5 and 6 (8.573147-49). During this time, Gesualdo continued to be tormented by the memory of the murder of his first wife and her lover. Justification for a crime of passion wasn’t acceptable to many in society at the time, and his past deeds gnawed continuously at him. In that context, the haunting sounds of the opening of Se la mia morte brami (If you long for my death) from Book 6 are perhaps unsurprising.

We’ll end with another extract from a madrigal from Book 6, the opening of Moro, lasso, al mio duolo (I am dying, alas, of sorrow). As music that never fails to sear itself onto modern-day listeners, scholars and newcomers alike, one can only begin to imagine what effect it had on Gesualdo’s contemporaries.

Moro, lasso, al mio duolo
Moro, lasso, al mio duolo:
e chi mi può dar vita?
Ahi, che m’ancide e non vuol darmi aita.

[I am dying, alas, of sorrow
I am dying, alas, of sorrow:
and the one who might save me,
alas, is killing me and will not help me.]

The post Carlo Gesualdo. A chromatic scale of life. appeared first on The Naxos Blog.