You can tune an orchestra, but you can’t tun-a fish.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we put the “cat” in Catalan music with selections from Xavier Montsalvatge’s one-act opera “Puss in Boots.”
“Puss in Boots,” Montsalvatge’s first opera, was composed in 1947. We all know the story. The tale, in its best-known guise, was published by Charles Perrault in 1695 as one of the “Tales of Mother Goose.”
A poor miller laments his inheritance. Most of the family property – the mill and the mules – goes to his elder brothers, and all that’s left for him is an unprepossessing cat. He wonders of what use to him a cat could possibly be. He contemplates eating it, perhaps using the skin to make a hat. The cat, however, promptly endears himself, and offers to gain his master a fortune, a kingdom, and the hand of a beautiful princess. All he asks in exchange is a pair of boots to spare his feet, a stylish hat with a plume, a cape, and a sword fashioned out of bone.
Since the cat presents him with a ring from the hand of the princess, the Miller considers it a fair deal, and sets about getting, by hook or by crook, whatever the cat desires.
Throughout the course of the story, with his cunning and superior wits, the cat is able to deliver on everything he promises.
We’ll heard selections from a 2004 recording on the Columna Musica label, with Argentine mezzo-soprano Marisa Martins as Puss (an unusual take on the traditional “trouser role”) and tenor Antonio Comas as the Miller. The Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu is conducted by Antoni Ros Marba.
Listen for charming cat-like touches in the strings and the use of piano throughout to emulate the decorative style of 18th century recitative.
That’s “Fur Love and Valor” – highlights from Xavier Montsalvatge’s “Puss in Boots” – on “The Lost Chord, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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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
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu
Tag: Catalan
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Pablo Casals Bach Cello Suites Birthday
It’s Pablo Casals’ birthday. Enjoy a beautiful Saturday morning with his pioneering traversal of the Bach cello suites, still sounding great after 80 years.
It’s hard to believe that these cornerstones of the cello repertoire were once commonly regarded as little more than etudes. The truth is, before the 20th century they were not widely known, much less understood. It is Casals who is credited with having rehabilitated them, following his discovery of the music in a Catalan bookshop at the age of 13. He cherished the suites for the rest of his life, not only playing them in public but delving into them privately every morning after a walk and a smoke. There must have been something to it: Casals died in 1973, two months shy of his 97th birthday.
He was the first cellist to record all six suites, already 60 by the time he first played Bach before a microphone.
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