Sena Jurinac 1921-2011

[teamsaint]

Thanks, ts. My Westminster Legacy boxset arrived today - a treasure trove of goodies! Delighted to see that Sena Jurinac is also in the cast of Scherchen's recording of the Mozart Requiem, CD 34. I can piece out any sound imperfections with my thoughts when I hear such a glorious voice.

Hope you enjoy the box, Stanley. There are indeed some real treasures in there IMO. i hadn't got as far as the Mozart Requiem , but just also spotted that Jurinac is on there, so thats popping up the order a bit.
Having a little spend myself, just picked up a copy of Gui's Glyndebourne Figaro for a good price, on spec. Seems to have good reviews.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Having a little spend myself, just picked up a copy of Gui's Glyndebourne Figaro for a good price, on spec. Seems to have good reviews.

[Prommer]

My first opera recording purchase, the Gui Figaro... Fabulous. Only wish there were a live recording of the Glyndebourne forces, and Basilio's Act IV aria...Hugues Cuenod.

[aeolium]

My first opera recording purchase, the Gui Figaro... Fabulous. Only wish there were a live recording of the Glyndebourne forces, and Basilio's Act IV aria...Hugues Cuenod.

Hugues Cuenod...presumably the same as one of the singers in this wonderful performance of Monteverdi's Zefiro Torna (not HIPP but who cares when it sounds as good as this?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyigIcK8bwk

He lived to the age of 108, too.

Sorry for being OT.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I thought he was an opera by Massenet?

[Stanley Stewart]

An enjoyable extended reading session before listening to Jurinac's recording of Frauenliebe und leben & Liederkreis, Op 39, as the time taken enhances my understanding of the nuances in the work as well as providing a basis for seeking emotional truth. Decided to use The Fischer-Dieskau Book of Lieder (Gollancz, 1976); indeed, for the first time in many years I also re-read his eloquent 18 page into the world of German song, concluding...

"Music and poetry have a common domain, from which they draw inspiration and in which they operate: the landscape of the soul. Together, they have the power to lend intellectual form to what is sensed and felt, to transmute both into a language that no other art can express. The magic power that dwells in music and poetry has the ability ceaselessly to transform us."

I also wanted to seek reviews on other performances of the two Schumann works - I have at least 2/3 alternative recordings on the shelves - and opted for Song on Record, Vol I, Lieder, (1986), edited by Alan Blyth, and reliable contributions from Robin Holloway, Andrew Clements, Hilary Finch, Graham Johnson, Michael Kennedy, Jeremy Sams and John Steane.

The 1954 recording of F und Leben is a revelation throughout and sung by Sena Jurinac with a deeply sensitive expression which makes the last song a bit of a shock, Liederkreis, Op 39 follows and is performed with an endearing
ever-responsive tone - desolate, tender and predatory. The final item Respighi's Il tramonto (The sunset) - a gem, accompanied by the Barylli Quartet, with a text after Percy Bysshe Shelley!, now demands a bit of research.

[teamsaint]

the final song certainly comes as a shocker, Stanley.

Is there a hint of what is to come in the long pause before the last part of the previous song, and is it my imagination, or is there a rather manic edge to the performance of last part of " An Mainem Herzen" ? A kind of over assertive declamation which has glimpsed the future?

seems slightly odd too, to finish in the major, in the final song. Minor would have been a more obvious and easier choice, perhaps.But it is unbelievably beautiful, simple (?!) and poignant end to the cycle, performed with stunning style.

Like you, I ought to investigate the Respighi further.

[Stanley Stewart]

Thanks, ts! The plot thickens as I pondered over your comments during supper. I'm not a musician but my training and 15 years as a thesp had a basis in the teaching of Stanislavsky and, to an extent, I still use the 'building of a character' as a codification of ideas which I also adapted to musical/arts appreciation; perhaps more a matter of spiritual proquintity than empathy.

I've had a look at the F und L text, in particular the last couple of stanzas - we're now discussing the 'shock' factor, of course, and the emotional reaction by the listener. At the same time, I looked at the text in my well-worn Penguin Book of Lieder - 1£ when I bought it in 1964+6d for a separate see-through plastic cover, still in place - and took a close look at the text in The Essential Leontyne Price, before returning to the DF-D Book of lieder.

The penultimate text in chapter 8 in the first two has been translated as:

"Left all alone I gaze before me;
the world is empty.
I have loved, I have lived,
and now I have no more life."

However, I saw that the DF-D translation substituted 'void' for 'empty' and the meaning becomes bleaker IMV. I've also browsed The Songs of Robert Schumann/ Eric Sams, (Faber, 1969); Gerald Moore contributes the Foreword and, fortuitously he discusses the last song of F u-l: and perhaps the listeners 'spiritual proquintity' too!

"...Wolf, be it understood, is far too precious to me to disparage his genius. Yet (magician though he unquestionably is) I fancy one is able to perceive, not infrequently, how he arrives at his breathtaking denouements. We are not perhaps so mystified as we should be. Whereas, hearing Der Leirmann or Der du von dem Himmel bist we kiss Schubert's hand, and not only because these songs are close to God: their simplicity and purity defeat us and hold us, eternally hold us, through our inability to explain why or how they are so sublime.

Robert Schumann has something of this mysterious quality. It can be seen in the last song of F und-L. The writing is bare and attenuated, the two pages look commonplace; yet, in some inexplicable way, they catch at the heart..."

I hope these words connect with you. I quit the acting profession, not through any lack of work which is the norm but because in the practice of my craft, I became aware that I was being deprived of a much wider engagement in all the arts and spent the next twenty years in an indulgent spree in Lunnon! :devil

l

[teamsaint]

Thanks for your thoughts and observations , Stanley.
i have been listening again to Leiderkreis tonight, with your thoughts, as well as those of others in mind.
You are right about the mystery of Schumann's song writing. The there is so much to contemplate.
In Zweilicht, for instance, you feel Schumann right in the middle of a tradition that stretches far into the past, and into the future too. An extraordinary experience.

Anyway,20 years IS rather indulgent.. But if not now,,then when?!ncidentally, I doubt if anybody has considered my words over their supper since my kids were getting school reports...and probably not even then, on reflection.