Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Viktor Ullmann Music From Terezin
Even under the most unspeakable circumstances, he continued to be Viktor.

Viktor Ullmann was one of the best-known composers to be interned in Terezin, or Theresienstadt, the “model camp” set up by the Nazis to deceive the foreign press and the International Red Cross.

There, concert orchestras, chamber groups and jazz ensembles were formed, operas were staged, and the Verdi Requiem was mounted no less than fourteen times. At Terezin, composers continued to create, until deportation to Auschwitz.

Ullmann wrote in 1944, “…that musically I have been challenged not hindered by Theriesenstadt, that we did not just sit by Babylon’s rivers bewailing our fate, and that our will to create culture was as strong as our will to live.”

We’ll be listening to a cross-section of Ullmann’s music written in the camp, including a piano sonata (performed by Terezin survivor Edith Kraus, who died in 2013 at the age of 100), a concert overture, and a song cycle; also, a piano concerto written shortly before his arrest, a period of hardship for the composer, as he began to be stripped of his rights and his options to make a living. He never heard the concerto performed in his lifetime. Ullmann died at Auschwitz in 1944.

Ironically, most of his unpublished works dating from before his internment are now lost. It is his music written at Terezin, for the most part, which survives. The music written during his confinement, then, becomes a metaphor for the indomitable spirit of the artist.

The composer lives on through his creations, on “Ullmann Victorious,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

To enhance your appreciation of Ullmann’s “Der Mensch und sein Tag” (“Man and His Day”), I am posting English translations of the aphoristic texts below, so that they may be read while listening to the music.

“DER MENSCH UND SEIN TAG” (MAN AND HIS DAY), Op. 47

12 Portraits by Hans-Günter Adler
1. WALK INTO MORNING
  Sight. Hands in front of eyebrows
  and maternal light. Meadowland.
  A blade of grass. A step. Dew on the flowers.
2. SONG
  So much. So much and still more.
  A great ocean, surging and pounding –
  flutes lightly, horns heavily.
3. HOME
  In the ground, the cool ground. So colourful.
  Billowing fields and meadows around.
  In the ground – hidden heart and mouth.
4. TO THE BELOVED
  With you, in smiles and tears.
  Nearness of hand and mouth. Longing
  fades. With you no blind fancy.
5. FLOWERS
  Inward, buried deep and warm.
  Breath – singing to life.
  Bright goblets, lips, tongues.
6. IN THE PARLOUR
  Tightly pressed to one another.
  Planted with care and trouble.
  Animate and inanimate. Mute and loud.
7. THE NEIGHBOUR
  Help is good. Hand in hand.
  Door to door and wall to wall:
  quite united. Bond and band.
8. PRAYERS
  Scattered in the chalice of piety
  ripe corn offered
  to the gladdened protector and creator.
9. IN THE FOREST
  Dappled, close and far and scent.
  The sun dreams, the air slumbers.
  Crepitation. Calcification. Trees. Scent.
10. FADE
  Down, down. The bell tolls.
  Clouds glow. Evening glimmers.
  Down, down. The moon-breath shimmers.
11. NIGHT
  Come, gentle sleep! Come, sweet night!
  The ground relaxes in muted glory.
  Lone thoughts sink to earth.
12. SILENCE
  Stillness. Silence. Looking and watching.
  Tranquil in blessed reflection.
  Sleep before the divine.
January 23, 2022
Russian Literature Movie Music for Winter Nights

Long winter’s nights are made for reading.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” you’ll find plenty of inspiration in music from movies adapted from Russian literature.

Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” one of the most revered novels of the 19th century, has been filmed at least twice. A seven-hour Soviet adaptation, begun in 1965, is generally regarded as the superior of the two. The other, released in 1956, was a big-budget Italian-American venture, supervised by Dino di Laurentiis, with an all-star, international cast, including Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer, Vittorio Gassman, Herbert Lom, and Anita Ekberg. It was directed by King Vidor, the cinematography was by Jack Cardiff, and the music was by Nino Rota.

Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” has also been adapted several times. A 1948 British production stars Vivian Leigh, Ralph Richardson, and Kieron Moore. The score is by Constant Lambert, also well-respected for his concert music, though perhaps even better recognized as conductor of the Vic-Wells (later the Sadler-Wells) Ballet.

Even more highly-regarded was Arthur Honegger, who wrote five symphonies, nine ballets, and a number of large-scale choral and theatrical works. His best-known piece is probably the symphonic movement “Pacific 231,” which famously emulates the sound of a steam locomotive.

Perhaps the most “serious” of the composers that made up the group known as Les Six, Honegger nonetheless enjoyed a sideline working in film over a period of three decades. His scores include those for Abel Gance’s “Napoléon” and a 1934 French version of “Les Misérables.” He was also a mentor to Miklós Rózsa, the Hungarian émigré he met in Paris, who went on to great success writing film music, first for the Korda brothers in England, then in Hollywood.

Honegger’s score for a 1935 version of Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” includes a part for the ondes martenot, an electronic keyboard instrument with an uncanny, otherworldly timbre.

Finally, we’ll turn to what some regard as the greatest Russian novel of the past century, “The Master and Margarita.” Mikhail Bulgakov began his book in 1928, but destroyed it in despair over the state of things as he saw them in the Soviet Union. He restarted it in 1931, and the manuscript went through multiple drafts until his death in 1940. It’s only since the late ‘60s that uncensored editions of the novel found their way into print. The first complete version was published in 1973, with an even more authoritative edition following in 1989.

In one particularly meta episode in this multi-layered tale, the author burns his own manuscript! Faustian imagery abounds: Satan figures prominently, the Master’s love is named Margarita, and there are elements of intellectual curiosity and redemption.

A film version, released in 1994, attracted one of the biggest names in, by then, post-Soviet music, Alfred Schnittke, a composer noted for his “polystylism.” In one particularly grotesque passage, he alludes to Ravel’s “Bolero.”

Pull a chair up to the fire and say “Da” to Russian literary classics on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

January 22, 2022
Abominable Snowman Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner

“The Abominable Snowman” (1957) was warmly received on last night’s “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.” Forrest Tucker and Peter Cushing may be like chalk and cheese, but they each bring their particular strengths to bear on this atmospheric thriller, even as they defy common sense by sharing a smoke in the Himalayas. As a side note, I’m happy to report I was able to figure out where I can purchase some more skunk ape t-shirts. You can watch the archived show here:

For next time, we’ll be throwing it back to you, as it will be another viewer’s choice episode. Leave your suggestions under the post over on Roy’s page as soon as you can, as we’ll have to decide on the topic early in the week. If your movie is chosen, we’re also extending the option for you to join us as our guest, if you’d like to talk with us about your selection.

Three’s our lucky number, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. The choice is yours, when we livestream on Facebook, next Friday evening at 7:00 EST!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

January 22, 2022
Pavarotti Meat Loaf Unexpected Duet

When you’re Luciano Pavarotti, and you can’t get Domingo or Carreras, who you gonna call? Why, Meat Loaf, of course!

January 22, 2022
Vaughan Williams 150th Anniversary Celebration

2022 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams (on October 12, 1872). Following up on yesterday’s post about the composer’s connections to the Day Lewis family, here’s some additional RVW material to brighten the weekend of any musical Anglophile.

I transcribed the text of C. Day Lewis’ encomium, on the occasion of RVW’s 85th birthday, from this first-rate radio documentary, which also includes abundant commentary by Vaughan Williams himself, his wife Ursula, Sir Adrian Boult, Sir John Barbirolli, and others. I highly recommend it.

Then enjoy two concert performances of Vaughan Williams symphonies led by two of his most notable American interpreters. André Previn conducts the Houston Symphony at Carnegie Hall in the Symphony No. 4, from 1969, and Leonard Slatkin conducts the Chicago Symphony in the Symphony No. 5, from 1988. Both conductors went on to record acclaimed cycles of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies.

You don’t have to purchase the recordings at the link. Just click on any of the arrows and allow them to play through. The tracks will play continuously, from one into another.

https://crqeditions.bandcamp.com/album/crq-498-vaughan-williams-from-america-previn-and-slatkin-conduct-the-fourth-and-fifth-symphonies-live-in-the-usa?fbclid=IwAR3Y57HRD6wjgYpiP2beRiiFlP-YUirz9qxqlqhF5EULUcbG54en83a4pxQ

These works – which couldn’t be more different – should be in the repertoire of every American orchestra. Sadly, it looks as if we’re in for another year of “Tallis Fantasias,” if that. If anyone happens to hear of a Vaughan Williams symphony being performed live on the East Coast, PLEASE let me know!

January 21, 2022

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