At last, the truth can be told: from the back of this year’s lavish Bard program book. The sleeping giant of Czech music stirs! ALL HAIL MARTINU.
Category: Daily Dispatch
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T-Shirt Style at Fisher Center Bard
I’m not really a t-shirt guy, but today I’m stylin.’
Fisher Center at Bard
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Bard Music Festival Berlioz Finale
I’ve got a full day of travel ahead, so again, I’m afraid I will have to postpone sharing my most favorable impressions of the charming Sing for Hope production of Pauline Viardot’s fairy tale opera “Le dernier sorcier” (“The Last Sorcerer”) that capped the first weekend of this year’s Bard Music Festival, “Berlioz and His World,” with a performance at Bard College’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts last Sunday. I got a good start on it this morning, but I want to make sure to do it justice. So watch for my reminiscences and assessments tomorrow!
As a singer, pianist, collaborator, friend, and confidante, Viardot was a major contributor to the artistic milieu of Berlioz’s time. I can’t wait to write more about her.
In the meantime, all good things must come to an end. Today is the final day of the festival. Program Ten, “Berlioz’s Transformation of the World of Sound,” including works ranging from Berlioz to Steve Reich (!), will be presented at the campus’ Olin Hall at 11:30 this morning (with a pre-concert talk at 11:00).
The festival will conclude with Program Eleven, “Faust and the Spirit of the 19th Century,” featuring Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust,” at 3:00 this afternoon (with a pre-concert talk at 2:00). The latter performance will also be available for streaming.
To learn more, visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/whats-on/programs/bard-music-festival/
Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my personal ride to the abyss!
Fisher Center at Bard
Delacroix, “Faust and Mephistopheles Galloping through the Night of the Witches’ Sabbath” (1828)
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Amadeus Turns 40 New Miniseries Arrives
I had been holding off until Antonio Salieri’s birthday (Salieri born on this date in 1750) to share two bits of news, which, because of my self-imposed delay, you may have already heard by now.
First, Milos Forman’s highly entertaining and Academy Award winning film of Peter Shaffer’s play is coming to 4K UHD Blu-ray for its 40th anniversary. (The film was released in September 1984.) This is the theatrical cut, as opposed to the more widely-circulated-in-recent-years director’s cut. (Stop with these directors’ cuts supplanting the versions we originally fell in love with, please!) Forman’s revision adds 20 minutes and hardens the original PG rating to an R. Interesting to see once, in my opinion, but it should be treated as a curiosity and consigned to the bonus features. I have no firm information as to whether or not it will be included in the new set, however. If you want to devote the time to doing a more intensive search, you may be able to find out more.
The other bit of news – again, perhaps old news at this point, but the first I am mentioning it – is that “Amadeus” has been adapted into a new miniseries, projected to stream later this year. For his source material, screenwriter Joe Barton is apparently sidestepping Shaffer (and perhaps his copyright?) by going back to the Alexander Pushkin play “Mozart and Salieri” of 1830, which cemented the legend of Salieri’s enmity for Mozart. The play was previously adapted as an opera of the same name by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
In the latest version, Will Sharp will play Wolfie and Paul Bettany will assume the role of Salieri. They’ll have some big buckled shoes to fill, as both Forman’s leads – Tom Hulce as Mozart and F. Murray Abraham as Salieri – were nominated for Best Actor, and Abraham took home the Academy Award – as, for that matter, did Forman’s film, which was honored as Best Picture, among its total eight-Oscar haul.
That said, any popular entertainment that takes classical music seriously can’t be a bad thing. If nothing else, it will remind audiences of, and perhaps attract new viewers to, the 1984 classic.
Happy birthday, Antonio Salieri!
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Czech Neoclassical Music on The Lost Chord
Neoclassicism in music was a reaction against what was perceived as the garish effusiveness and gooey excesses of late Romanticism.
Contemporary composers, in search of a new lucidity, turned their attention to the 18th century, revisiting its musical processes, though reinterpreting them through a distinctly 20th century prism. Stravinsky was the master, but neoclassicism swept the world.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have three cheery examples of Czech neoclassicism, including works by Ilja Hurník (his “Sonata da Camera”), Iša Krejči (his “Serenade for Orchestra,” conducted by Karel Ančerl) and Bohuslav Martinu (his Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra).
These composers – well, Krejči and Martinu, anyway – manage to balance the clarity of the Enlightenment with an unmistakably Czech national sound.
Hurník’s work is perhaps the purest, in terms of looking back. The term “Sonata da Camera” recalls music of the Baroque and Classical eras, as does the clarity of its instrumentation, involving flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord. Each movement begins as if it were ripped from the pages of history and then gradually squeezed like a lemon, leaving a tangy, contemporary aftertaste.
All of this music is calculated to lift your spirits. I do hope you’ll join me for “Balanced Czechs,” 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 – ALL NEW! – 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
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
Tightrope walker by Jiří Sliva
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