There was a time when Arturo Toscanini was likely the most famous conductor in the United States. In fact, he was one of the most celebrated conductors of the 20th century. His intensity, perfectionism, and alleged fidelity to the score have been enshrined in legend. And when the legend becomes fact, I print the legend.
Toscanini served as music director of La Scala, Milan, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He conducted first performances of Puccini’s “La bohème,” Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci,” Respighi’s “Feste Romane,” and Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” As a cellist, he played in the world premiere of Verdi’s “Otello.”
From 1937 to 1954, he reached millions of Americans via his weekly broadcast concerts on NBC radio. These originated at Rockefeller Center’s Studio 8-H, now the home of “Saturday Night Live.”
Toscanini was vehemently anti-fascist. He despised Hitler, and vowed never to conduct in Germany as long as “the Führer” remained in power. In Italy, he was beaten up by brownshirts and had his passport confiscated for refusing to conduct “Giovinezza,” the fascist anthem. He also worked closely with violinist Bronislaw Huberman in support of the Palestine Orchestra, made up of Jewish exiles from fascist Europe. He once confided to a friend, “If I were capable of killing a man, I would kill Mussolini.”
Il Duce really caught a break when Toscanini emigrated to America. It sounds to me as if the Maestro could have been borderline more than once. Ironically, for someone who hated dictators, he sure could dish out an autocratic tirade.
Happy birthday, Arturo Toscanini.
Conducting Verdi, “La Forza del Destino Overture” (on film, 1944)
Can one of the great masters of modern music really have been born 144 years ago? I can remember hearing Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, his most popular work, on the first Philadelphia Orchestra concert I ever attended, at the Mann Music Center in the summer of 1984, and at the time, he was dead not even 40 years. He was still regarded by many as a “contemporary” composer.
But I’m not really here to talk about that. Instead I’m going to talk about his ballets.
Of the two, “The Miraculous Mandarin” (1918-24) enjoys all the notoriety, for its decadent scenario and harrowing music. After all, the story essentially involves two hoods who coerce a young woman into luring men to an abandoned room so they can beat and rob them. One of these is the mandarin of the title, who they attempt to suffocate, stab, and hang, but Rasputin-like he stubbornly refuses to die. He finds release only in the woman’s embrace. At last, his wounds begin to bleed, and he passes. This was pretty scandalous stuff, back in the day, and the work was banned on moral grounds. Now it’s one of Bartók’s most-frequently programmed works, though generally shorn of its action.
For the weak of heart, I offer as an alternative the composer’s other, earlier essay in the form, the ballet-pantomime “The Wooden Prince” (1914-17). This time instead of going for the jugular, Bartók opts to anesthetize everyone with a ponderous fairy tale about true love deferred. Not that I don’t enjoy ponderous fairy tales.
An ill-natured fairy throws up impediments to the fulfillment of the love of a prince for a princess, turning forest and stream against him and ultimately animating a wooden effigy of the prince the young man has constructed, complete with crown and locks of his own hair, to attract the princess’ attention. When the princess falls for the wooden prince, his flesh-and-blood counterpart falls into despair. The fairy takes pity on him as he sleeps, sets everything to right, and they all live happily ever after.
Much less frequently performed than Bartók’s subsequent succès de scandale, this fantastic tale for large orchestra bears the influences of Debussy and Strauss, and yes, Wagner too. Never understood why it’s not heard more often. Just because it doesn’t have quite the bite of the composer’s mature masterworks doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile.
On the eve of the centenary of the birth of Pierre Boulez, here he is, at the links, conducting both ballets. I cut my teeth on Boulez’s earlier recording of “The Wooden Prince,” with the New York Philharmonic, but there’s no question the sonics on his remake with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are superior.
“The Miraculous Mandarin” (Boulez live)
“The Wooden Prince” (DG recording)
Happy 100th (almost), Pierre Boulez, and happy 144th, Béla Bartók!
1937 production of “The Wooden Prince,” with Gyula Harangozó and Karola Szalay0
If you missed the opening credits of “Il Boemo” (“The Bohemian”), you would be forgiven for wondering if you had just walked into a remake of “The Phantom of the Opera.” The 18th century Czech composer Josef Mysliveček (pronounced MISS-leave-a-check), depicted at the far end of a dissolute life, removes his unnerving doll’s mask to reveal the physical wear-and-tear on a ravaged face. The only thing missing is the organ music and a shrieking maiden. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying so, any more than I would be if I mention Signor Salieri’s suicide attempt at the beginning of “Amadeus.” After all, this is biographical drama, and not a jump-scare horror movie.
“Il Boemo” does not pull any punches as it follows Mysliveček’s Hogarthian trajectory, which is to say morally downward, even as this struggling artist from the provinces (he was born in Prague, coincidentally where Casanova lived out his later years) rises to the pinnacle of Italian opera.
It’s all the more tragic, really, because, as played by the likeable Vojtěch Dyk, Mysliveček’s not really a bad guy. He’s not cutthroat or particularly calculating. He makes some questionable decisions, but he isn’t trying to hurt anyone. At worst, he’s passive when convenient, allowing the influential ladies in his life to do all the heavy lifting. And maybe he’s a little self-absorbed. He makes one trip home and he’s guilted by his twin brother (also played by Dyk) for not being more involved with the family. But come on, it’s a long trip. Back then, travel was really TRAVEL. Okay, and perhaps he’s a little libidinous. After all, he’s only flesh and blood! One thing’s for certain: on his climb to becoming one of the most successful composers in Europe, and certainly Italy, he walks a narrow, often claustrophobic path.
If the film is anything to go by, life in Venice is a perpetual masquerade. Is it always Carnival there? If so, why is there no joy or festivity? Everyone is cloaked in black and veiled in forbidding masks. They traverse miasmic canals in lugubrious gondolas. Chambers are shadowy and adorned with heavy oil paintings. Women are trapped and stifled in loveless marriages. The aristocracy is twisted and its whims must be navigated with care.
To make such a picturesque world seem so confining is a pretty neat trick. The use of handheld cameras for certain scenes contributes to a sense of being boxed in. The sets and costumes are luxurious without ever attracting undue attention to themselves. The film was shot in historical locations in the Czech Republic (as was “Amadeus”), but the focus is always on the characters as human beings. There’s no ogling the scenery, no distracting awareness that these are 21st century actors playing at fancy dress, pitfalls of too many historical dramas.
Nor is this a film strictly for pointy heads. It’s an absorbing, human story that just so happens to be set in the world of classical music. The 143-minute running time goes by very quickly. Yes, it’s subtitled (most of the film is in Italian), but it is never less than thoroughly engrossing. I would think this would be the case anyway, regardless of a viewer’s musical knowledge or interests.
But if you ARE a classical music lover, there is a bonus in Mysliveček’s undeservedly neglected music. On the soundtrack, countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and sopranos Emöke Baráth, Raffaella Milanesi, and Simona Šaturová join the Baroque orchestra Collegium 1704, conducted by Václav Luks. You’ll also hear music by Baldassare Galuppi, Franz Joseph Haydn, Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi, Johann Adolph Hasse, Antonio Vivaldi, and Luigi Boccherini’s famous “Minuet.”
By and large, Mysliveček is a name, I suspect, that is still unknown to many (and unpronounceable to more). In fact, it’s a miracle that the film, an international co-production made possible by at least a dozen Czech, Italian, and Slovakian sources, was even made. Why it was not accepted as a foreign film entry in 2022’s Academy Awards is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was an exceptionally competitive batch of applicants.
A lot of the film is necessarily speculation. We don’t know much about Mysliveček’s love affairs, but we know he had them, and on a prodigious scale. But the story is dramatically convincing without ever overplaying its hand.
Its depiction of the boy Mozart (for a time, Mysliveček was a close family friend) is more historically believable than Tom Hulce’s glam-rock free-spirit in “Amadeus” (for as much as I love the movie). “Il Boemo” takes a different approach, and Mozart’s “cameo” is one of the film’s highlights. “Amadeus” excels as popular entertainment that manages to float larger questions about human nature and the mystery of art, while transcending slavish adherence to plodding historical fact. “Il Boemo” too shakes off the dust of the research library, but with quite different results.
One thing the film really gets right is the historical reality of what a night at the opera was in those days, with people shouting, jeering, eating, playing cards, attempting suicide, and otherwise behaving badly. And the nobles perhaps worst of all. It’s good to be the king!
I hasten to add, for as good as it is, there are a few moments that are definitely not safe for work and could be a mite disturbing, or at least unsettling, as they are no doubt meant to be. It’s not exactly a movie for family night. There’s some pretty gruesome make-up, at least one orgy, and a very strange scene in which a king engages in some private business in the middle of a conversation in a singer’s dressing room. If you want to introduce the kids to classical music, I’d advise you to stick with Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
For many, the use of “Bohemian” in the title might suggest artistic or even iconoclastic associations, as in “bohemian lifestyle” or “La bohème.” But to those with a sense of history, it might also indicate someone who is from what is now the Czech Republic. (Think Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story “A Scandal in Bohemia.”) You see, the Italians couldn’t pronounce Mysliveček either. Hence the nickname “Il Boemo.”
The director, Petr Václav, also made a Mysliveček documentary in 2015, “Confession of the Vanished,” which I’ll be adding to my watch list. I see it’s available for streaming here.
“Il Boemo” might not be a feel-good romp along the lines of Tony Richardson’s “Tom Jones,” but neither does it leave you feeling grim like “Dangerous Liaisons.” I suppose it’s a little bit of the “Barry Lyndon” school, except “Il Boemo” involves, rather than distances.
The film streams free on Kanopy with a library card. Or at least that’s the case where I am. Maybe it depends on the library. You can find out more at the links.
I’m in the middle of typing up my thoughts about “Il Boemo” – “The Bohemian” – an international production about the 18th century Czech composer Josef Mysliveček, which I finally just got around to watching last night. Unfortunately, I’m out of time, as I have to be in New York today for a concert by the American Symphony Orchestra (an irresistible program of music from the 1920s, including John Alden Carpenter’s “Skyscrapers,” Erwin Schulhoff’s Concerto for Piano and Small Orchestra, Edgard Varèse’s “Arcana,” and William Grant Still’s “Afro-American Symphony”). So I’ll have to put off posting the film review until tomorrow.
In the meantime, if it’s a lazy Sunday for you and you’re interested in checking it out, the film streams free on Kanopy if you’ve got a library card. Or at least that’s the case where I am. Maybe it depends on the library. You’ll find more information, including links to Kanopy and to the film’s trailer, in this post I wrote earlier in the month. “The Bohemian” is definitely worth seeing, and not just for culture vultures. The scene with a young Mozart alone is worth the price of (the hopefully free) admission!
Whether or not you are crazy about Boulez as a composer or a conductor, he certainly had a knack for casting music in a fresh light. No romantic indulgence or fuzzy thinking to be found in his interpretations of Debussy and Ravel. Instead, a kind of neoclassical elegance prevails.
A similar sense of discipline informs his recordings of the Mahler symphonies (of all things). He transforms what under Leonard Bernstein, for instance, became the ne plus ultra of Romantic excess, into presentiments of the Modern Age – which to some extent actually makes sense. After all, didn’t Mahler himself once declare, “My time will come!”
As concerns his own music, he actually thought Arnold Schoenberg didn’t take his 12-tone experiments far enough. Boulez was a radical who out-radicaled the radicals. He redrew the boundaries of integral serialism, controlled chance, and electronic music. An aggressive push to the avant-garde earned him a reputation as an enfant terrible.
Ironically, by the time Boulez died on January 5, 2016, at the age of 90, his brand of dogma had long come to seem old-fashioned, as pluralism and a new acceptance of tonality have come to dominate the contemporary music scene.
And now, here we are, already poised to mark the centenary of his birth on March 26…
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll remember Boulez with two of his recordings for voice and somewhat intimate ensembles, imaginatively employed.
We’ll begin with his keystone composition, “Le Marteau sans maître” (“The Hammer without a Master”), composed between 1953 and 1957. The piece consists of three cycles, instrumental and vocal, after poems by René Char – one surreal and fantastical; another somber and existentialist; and a third romantic and utopian. The individual movements of the cycles are shuffled and integrated. The titles of the poems: “The Furious Craftsman,” “Stately Building and Presentiments,” and “Hangmen of Solitude.”
There is a further fascination to be found in the work’s instrumentation, which includes a colorful assortment of percussion, and the use of the instruments, which suggests Southeast Asian and African influences.
The piece was lauded by Igor Stravinsky as “the only significant work of this new age,” and by György Ligeti as “the chief work of the 1950s.” Furthermore, it is surprisingly listenable, with a kind of hypnotic allure.
We’ll round out the hour with Maurice Ravel’s evocations of a distant land, his “Chansons madécasses” (“Madegascan Songs”), of 1925/1926, on texts of Evariste-Desiréa de Parny.
Again, there are three of them: “Nahandove,” the name of the narrator’s beloved, the arrival of whom he anticipates on a sticky, languorous night; “Aoua!,” a violent outcry against white imperialism; and “Il est doux” (“How pleasant to lie”), a portrait of a lazy day, passed beneath a palm tree, waiting for the cool of night.
If anything, Ravel’s songs are even more sparsely scored than Boulez’s, for voice, flute, cello, and piano. Yet the composer manages to convey a certain lushness, or at any rate sensuousness, that boils over into violence as the music skirts atonality.
I thought it an ideal complement to “Le Marteau sans maître,” with Boulez conducting, of course.
If there’s one thing Boulez did well it was to force everyone to think – about music, about progress and about the reasons we value the things we hold sacred.
He once proclaimed, “A civilization that conserves is one that will decay!” Even so, we are very lucky to have his recordings, and music is the healthier for his provocations.
I hope you’ll join me for “Modern Romance” – Pierre Boulez in poetry and song – on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
