Among the musical selections at church this afternoon for today’s Good Friday observance: Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings!
Category: Daily Dispatch
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Syberberg’s Parsifal A Hilarious Opera Odyssey
It was sometime around 1983 or ’84 that my best buddy from high school and I determined to catch a screening of Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s “Parsifal” at Lehigh University. Neither of us knew much about the opera at that point, but we both loved the film “Excalibur” and were at the very least familiar with the mystical prelude Wagner had composed.
As my friend climbed into the car, he enthused, “I think we’re in for a real treat. Listen to this!” Then he read to me the synopsis from Milton Cross’ “Complete Stories of the Great Operas.” When he reached the part where Parsifal snatches Klingsor’s spear out of midair, destroying his power, we were both like, “Whoaaa.” We were primed for some serious action!
When we arrived, we learned that the film was being presented in an auditorium with a raked floor. I remember it was raked, because at some point during the screening, an empty bottle of spirits rolled past our feet, clanking against the chair legs.
The film was shown the old-fashioned way, employing a 1970s-style high school movie projector, so that periodically the tail leader would run out and the lights would have to be switched on, so that the reels could be changed. Along the way, there were also a few technical difficulties, significantly padding the film’s already four-hour-plus running time.
Anyway, it was excruciating – which is to say, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. There was so much to laugh at and groan through. The actor who played Klingsor was totally out of shape. When he raised his spear, he must have had an aneurysm or something, because instead of hurling it like a javelin, as described by Milton Cross, he simply tumbled into a ravine. We were especially amused by the revelation toward the end that the entire production was supposed to have taken place inside a gigantic bust of Wagner. Or more accurately, his death mask.
Otherwise, Syberberg’s was a fairly straightforward interpretation, though curiously he chose to have actors stand in for the singers on the film’s soundtrack, a decision I can’t say made it any less silly. Oh yeah, there was also a passage, just before the death mask revelation, that had knights processing down a long stone hallway, lined with swastika flags (???). Obviously, this was a work of genius.
By the time it finally ended, and someone switched on the lights for probably the sixth or seventh time, we staggered out of the building, wearing conspiratorial grins, only to discover a fog had rolled in. It was now ludicrously late. Driving back on Route 22 was like crossing the North Sea in a dragon boat.
I arrived home around 2:00 in the morning, and my mother was on pins and needles. What happened? What had we gotten up to? I shared a mercifully abridged account of our Wagnerian adventure. We were not dead in a ditch. Nor were we rotting in a jail cell. We were watching “Parsifal.”
I think of this every year on Good Friday, since the Good Friday Spell of Act III is one of the high points of the opera and frequently excerpted. Naturally, this entails a Google search to see if the film has been posted online. In previous years, I’ve come up with only a stray clip, but this year the angels are with me, as I find someone has posted the entire film on YouTube in two parts.
Of course, last year, I finally broke down and purchased the rare, out-of-print DVD from eBay.
This Good Friday is very good indeed.
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Joseph Ryelandt Composer of Faith
It seems only appropriate that Joseph Ryelandt’s birthday anniversary would fall around Holy Week – this year on Good Friday, as a matter of fact – as he was an artist whose devout beliefs were central to every aspect of his existence and creativity.
Born in Bruges in 1870, Ryelandt was raised to value culture, tradition, and faith. He was unhindered by financial concerns for the first half of his very long life. World War I, however, badly affected his finances. The father of eight children himself, he took up teaching out of necessity at the age of 54. He did so with some hesitation, but was relieved to find it truly rewarding. He was appointed director of the Bruges Conservatory in 1924.
While his academic and creative work evidently brought him enormous satisfaction, life at home was saddened by the gradual decline of his wife’s health. She died in 1939. Ryelandt composed very little during the Second World War. A few chamber works followed, and then he abandoned composition altogether. He devoted his retirement to literature – writing poetry and reading the world’s classics. He died, following a brief illness, in 1965, at the age of 95.
Of all of his works, he considered his five oratorios the most important, though he composed much else, including six symphonies (the first of which he destroyed). None of the symphonies were performed until 1960. It was then that the Symphony No. 4 received its belated premiere, on a concert in celebration of the composer’s 90th birthday.
Ryelandt’s Fourth Symphony was composed in 1912-1913, on the very eve of World War I. Like nearly everything he wrote, the symphony is an outgrowth of his personal faith. The text of the triumphant chorus that concludes the work is from the Credo, as heard in the traditional Catholic Mass. Earlier in the piece, a choir of tenors sings a text from Thomas à Kempis’ “The Imitation of Christ.”
Whether or not you find it appropriate for Good Friday, which after all is a somber observance, I leave it to you. The piece does conclude in a blaze of glory.
Happy birthday, Joseph Ryelandt, and a blessed Good Friday to those who observe it.
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Spock’s Brain Anniversary Livestream Tonight!
Don’t let the happy faces fool you. Roy and I return tonight to celebrate three years of Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, with a discussion of “Spock’s Brain.” One the looniest episodes of the original “Star Trek” television series, once seen it’s not easily forgotten. The Laurel and Hardy of sci-fi reunite for another gold-plated bull session. Make the trek to the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., at a special day and time, this Thursday evening at 7:00 EDT!
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Rediscovering Dett’s “Ordering of Moses”
There have been innumerable musical treatments of Moses and the Exodus story, reaching back to at least the Renaissance. On this first day of Passover, it’s time to give “The Ordering of Moses” its due.
R. Nathaniel Dett was born in what is now Niagara Falls, Ontario, the grandson of a refugee who fled slavery on the Underground Railroad. He became an important figure in American music of his time, but it’s not until comparatively recently that we’ve had many opportunities to hear much beyond “Juba,” the last movement of one of his piano suites, “In the Bottoms,” championed by Percy Grainger and others.
Though he is remembered primarily, if at all, for his exquisite keyboard works, Dett also composed a handful of pieces for more ambitious forces, none of them more so than “The Ordering of Moses.” Scored for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, the work was presented as his graduation thesis at the Eastman School of Music in 1932. It received its first public performance by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, at the Cincinnati May Festival, on a concert broadcast over NBC radio, in 1937. Three quarters of the way through, the work was interrupted, allegedly because of a scheduling conflict.
In 1956, the piece was revived and recorded, also at the Cincinnati May Festival, with Leontyne Price and William Warfield.
More recently, in 2014, James Conlon conducted it in Cincinnati. A follow-up performance at Carnegie Hall was documented by Bridge Records, Inc., a superb account that finally brought the music some of the notice it deserves. Astonished critics asked the obvious question: how is it possible that such a powerful work could have languished for so long?
Did NBC indeed run into a scheduling conflict during that first concert broadcast, or did those in charge cave to listener complaints? After all, this was one of the first works of classical music by a Black composer ever to have been given that kind of exposure, broadcast as it was over a national radio network.
Whatever the truth, now is the time not to deny the past but also to look to the future. In this third decade of the 21st century, can “The Ordering of Moses” finally be appreciated on its own merits?
This performance, from 1968, was captured in Mobile, AL, conducted by William Levi Dawson.
Dawson was born in Anniston, AL. He himself proved to be a remarkable composer. With the current, belated wave of music by composers of color on our concert programs, Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony,” after decades of neglect, is popping up everywhere. You won’t hear any complaints from me. This symphony is the real deal.
The work was given its premiere by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934. Dawson revisited the piece after a visit to West Africa in 1952. It is in this form that Stokowski recorded it. I own three recordings of it so far (Neeme Järvi’s being my preference), but I never dreamed I would ever have the opportunity hear it live!
Likely due to lack of demand for his orchestral music, Dawson carved out a career as a choral music composer. In particular, he became a prominent arranger of spirituals.
A shame that he didn’t meet with more success in the concert hall. With a little encouragement, perhaps there would have been a Symphony No. 2.
William Levi Dawson’s superlative “Negro Folk Symphony”
One of the world’s foremost authorities on Dett happens to live and work in our area. Clipper Erickson, on the faculty of Temple University and Westminster Conservatory, was the first to record Dett’s complete piano works, for Navona Records. Clipper walks the walk, and has done so for decades, often including Dett’s music in his rich and varied recitals.
Clipper Erickson, piano, plays the “Barcarolle” from the suite “In the Bottoms.”
“In the Bottoms” concludes with Dett’s most famous music, “Juba.”
Here’s “The Ordering of Moses,” in more up-to-date sound, in the performance released on Bridge Records. The movements are posted separately, so you’ll have to let them play through, skipping any ads along the way.
Passover is a time to celebrate freedom. It reminds us of hope and elation at the prospect of a brighter future. It is for the benefit of all to learn from the wrongs of the past and endeavor to do better.
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