Classical Live is changing its tune

[Ein Heldenleben]

More risk of obscurity if the discussion(which I have found interesting, although no fan of Delius) stays under this thread title I would have thought. Those looking for Delius are not going to choose Classical Live as a source of enlightenment. Or perhaps choose a clickbait thread title - "Paradise Garden - brothel or pub?"
As a matter of interest does anyone listen to the CL output? I am stymied by the combination of the running order and schedules being totally useless and Sounds not working on my PC. I assume no-one listens "live" to the radio broadcast, but does anyone pick any of it it up on Sounds?

Yes I’m listening at the moment to the RAI orchestra playing the Pastoral. There’s also been a good Liszt A major from Piemontesi and interspersed rather bizarrely some very good Schoenberg from P-L Aimard

No Delius though

[Roger Webb]

Yes I’m listening at the moment to the RAI orchestra playing the Pastoral. There’s also been a good Liszt A major from Piemontesi and interspersed rather bizarrely some very good Schoenberg from P-L Aimard

No Delius though

Yes enjoyed the Pastoral too....and the Korngold....the Aimard too, but not publishing the running order means I flit in and out and miss bits of things.......mainly making trips to my Delius library to check facts before my posts!

[Master Jacques]

I have a recording of the Wexford Koanga, but I didn't see it. It's been said to be the most stageworthy , but I wonder if that depends on pre-conceptions of staging. Tippett's operas have taught us that more can be done on stage than we may have thoight.

I think Fennimore and Gerda should work on stage, perhaps not Irmelin. But here, for those who caught the BBC Legends CD of Beecham conducting an orchestral arangement of some of the music at a 1950s Prom, we have what for me is the best bits. The Magic Fountain, glorious music , but maybe dificult to stage, as is any opera where there's a prominent river !

Fennimore and Gerda does indeed work best of the Delius operas I've seen on stage, and Koanga is, rather counterintuitively, the most conventional, though with wonderful passages. The beautiful Czech film of A Village Romeo and Juliet (with the Mackerras recording as soundtrack) shows it to best advantage.

[Master Jacques]

I like AND AGREE WITH, most OF this paragraph, Master Jacques, but take exception to DELIUS IS ONE OF THE GREAT OPERA COMPOSERS. He isn’t and, maybe THE WALK TO THE PARADISE GARDEN is key to his weakness: his vocal soloists are 2-dimensional and convey insufficient psychological insight into their characters and motivation. THE WALK with its subtle allusions to three bleeding chunks of Wagner, isn’t a late interlude to cover scene changes but an apotheosis and explanation of what the vocal parts have failed to convey in the preceding acts. Yes, Delius has big concerns which his wonderful and allusive orchestral scores capture fully, but hus vocal lines are bland and incapable of conveying the full message and meaning that the character and situation demand. The entr’acte is the real deal and can stand alone, without it the Opera is demeaned. No, for me. Delius joins Franck and Fauré in the also rans of operatic history.

Sorry to have set another hare going! Your observations are quite true; but my perspective is different, as I don't believe they are the best criteria for judging his operas, any more than judging them by their libretti, which are pretty much "of their time".

What Delius is doing, is working towards a new kind of opera, where the visual images and music create the drama. You choose a perfect example in 'The Walk' which is, as you hint, the most staggeringly dramatic part of the entire work - as the Czech film of it proves in spades. Oddly enough I'd name Franck's Hulda as an opera pointing in the same direction: its most dramatic scene is the musical interlude describing a fjord. I disagree about Penelope, though, which is I feel very cogent and tight dramatically with a superb text and music (though alas, I've never seen it in the theatre).

I think the true heir of Delius the opera composer is, oddly enough, Philip Glass, whose Einstein, Satyagraha and Akhnaten dispense with words pretty much completely, and rely on pure imagery and music.

[Master Jacques]

IWhat’s Koanga like live ? It seems fairly lurid on the page which is a good start. But would it pass the thought police these days ?

It works well live, albeit as the most "conventionally operatic" of his stage works. And with a black cast I don't think there's anything to worry the thought police these days. I recently unearthed a good story about Beecham's pre-war production in London, where his Palmyra (Oda Slobodskaya, no less) came on in full blackface and wearing a ludicrously ornate turban. Beecham stopped conducting and fell about laughing, before shouting to his diva, "you don't intend to come on like that, do you?" Oda fled the stage in a huff, but come the night she duly appeared sans blackface, and sans turban.

[Ein Heldenleben]

It works well live, albeit as the most "conventionally operatic" of his stage works. And with a black cast I don't think there's anything to worry the thought police these days. I recently unearthed a good story about Beecham's pre-war production in London, where his Palmyra (Oda Slobodskaya, no less) came on in full blackface and wearing a ludicrously ornate turban. Beecham stopped conducting and fell about laughing, before shouting to his diva, "you don't intend to come on like that, do you?" Oda fled the stage in a huff, but come the night she duly appeared sans blackface, and sans turban.

Yes Roger’s info that it was performed in Jamaica in 1995 indicates that it might be a valuable part of that very narrow repertoire that includes Porgy and some of the more recent Met commissions.

But performances are few and far between : Wexford , and one in London a few years back .

As for more recent performances it featured in excerpt in Graz Oper’s New Year concert which has a programme that looks eclectic , intriguing and refreshingly un Straussy

https://www.operabase.com/productions/neujahrskonzert-happy-new-year-305937/en

it’s all English and US music including the Lark Ascending !

Graz’s opera programme looks very intriguing : Silk Stockings and A Midsummer’s Nights Dream. And a population of under 300,000 …

[Roger Webb]

Yes Roger’s info that it was performed in Jamaica in 1995 indicates that it might be a valuable part of that very narrow repertoire that includes Porgy and some of the more recent Met commissions.

…

.....not to forget Scott Joplin's Treemonisha (1911) a bit of a cause célèbre when the DG recording first appeared...there have been live perfs since incl. the Houston Grand Opera one which was televised by (if I remember correctly) Arte.

[Ein Heldenleben]

.....not to forget Scott Joplin's Treemonisha (1911) a bit of a cause célèbre when the DG recording first appeared...there have been live perfs since incl. the Houston Grand Opera one which was televised by (if I remember correctly) Arte.

Thanks that was the one I was racking my brains for!

[Master Jacques]

.....not to forget Scott Joplin's Treemonisha (1911) a bit of a cause célèbre when the DG recording first appeared...there have been live perfs since incl. the Houston Grand Opera one which was televised by (if I remember correctly) Arte.

There's another, very powerful opera which shouldn't be forgotten: Ernst Hermann Meyer's Reiter der Nacht, based on the The Path of Thunder, a miscegenist Romeo and Juliet set in a South African township by the Jamaican novelist Peter Abrahams. It's an angry denunciation of apartheid, written with controlled, terse lyricism. The African ritual scenes are breathtaking. A staple of the old East German repertoire, it has been forgotten (along with much of this excellent composer's output) since reunification.

(There's a classic recording of his Violin Concerto, played by its dedicatee David Oistrakh, but not much else in the current catalogue. Plenty to hear on YouTube, fortunately, of his string quartets and some symphonies and concertos. I had the pleasure of researching and writing about Meyer's important "English decade" a while ago.)

[oddoneout]

Yes enjoyed the Pastoral too....and the Korngold....the Aimard too, but not publishing the running order means I flit in and out and miss bits of things.......mainly making trips to my Delius library to check facts before my posts!

Which is why I've given up on it. That approach I can take(or could, even Breakfast is now almost entirely off my list) for the morning schedules, but not for a slot that supposedly has a more grown up approach to 'classical' music.
I've been making use of BR-Klassik recently when I have the PC on. It may be random, but at least the items are complete, and often unfamiliar or lesser known(to me) material. It isn't ideal, but at least I can hear it, and the online playlist info is better and keeps up with the broadcast. Don't think it's improving my German language abilities, but at least brain cells get activated on occasion trying to make sense of what is read or heard. I didn't like German lessons at school, but even though it was such a long time ago I was very thoroughly taught(by a German national who fitted the stereotype to a T) and a small amount seems to have stuck.

[Roger Webb]

.....I've been making use of BR-Klassik recently.......

Me too! I use the playfi app to stream radio to my Quad preamplifier. Not only the really excellent BR-Klassik, but YLE (it's on now instead of the Butler of Waffling Hall currently huffing and puffing on Radio3!), NPO4 (excellent Dutch station), WDR3, France Musique (but they have very poor sound for live concerts, with ridiculous dynamic range management), SWR Kultur, RBB3, and several more.

BTW I can receive just about every classical music station in the world using the above....but not BBC radio stations!! Quite unbelievably the bean-counters have decided to force us to use Sounds app....I only do that in extremis!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Me too! I use the playfi app to stream radio to my Quad preamplifier. Not only the really excellent BR-Klassik, but YLE (it's on now instead of the Butler of Waffling Hall currently huffing and puffing on Radio3!), NPO4 (excellent Dutch station), WDR3, France Musique (but they have very poor sound for live concerts, with ridiculous dynamic range management), SWR Kultur, RBB3, and several more.

BTW I can receive just about every classical music station in the world using the above....but not BBC radio stations!! Quite unbelievably the bean-counters have decided to force us to use Sounds app....I only do that in extremis!

The reason for that is to stop any non UK listening. Radio 3 , in common with the rest of the BBC , can only afford to clear rights in the UK. I suspect other broadcasters aren’t as scrupulous or have negotiated much more favourable terms with copyright owners probably because their audiences are tiny . At least if you listen to the BBC you have the satisfaction of knowing that rights holders are fairly compensated.

[oddoneout]

The reason for that is to stop any non UK listening. Radio 3 , in common with the rest of the BBC , can only afford to clear rights in the UK. I suspect other broadcasters aren’t as scrupulous or have negotiated much more favourable terms with copyright owners probably because their audiences are tiny . At least if you listen to the BBC you have the satisfaction of knowing that rights holders are fairly compensated.

Might the EU broadcasters have arrangements done under the EU umbrella, in the same way that things like food standards, export regulations etc are managed? An individual organisation fulfills requirements which then apply across the board, instead of needing to be negotiated for each circumstance.
And listening only through Sounds wouldn't bother me if I could actually do it!

[Roger Webb]

The reason for that is to stop any non UK listening. Radio 3 , in common with the rest of the BBC , can only afford to clear rights in the UK. I suspect other broadcasters aren’t as scrupulous or have negotiated much more favourable terms with copyright owners probably because their audiences are tiny . At least if you listen to the BBC you have the satisfaction of knowing that rights holders are fairly compensated.

I know a way round that EH! But I'm not saying....in fact the method I use when abroad - and in this country when not using my streamer - uses a website that is the best I've come across - and has a record function!

It's strange that all the respectable stations I list above should be available though, my gripe is that I've already junked (well sold on eBay) one streamer (Marantz using Heos/TuneIn app.) that became useless. For BBC on those rare occasions, I have a tablet next to the preamp and feed the USB C output straight into the USB input to the DAC in the Quad, the resulting sound is very good at 320kbts....but much less convenient than using the streamer section.

BTW I heard that BBC severed its links with TuneIn because it wouldn't count the people listening to the BBC stations, and give those figures to the corporation....hence my comment about 'bean-counters'. If true, the consequence of this policy is that fewer people listen to the BBC than otherwise might.

[LMcD]

I know a way round that EH! But I'm not saying....in fact the method I use when abroad - and in this country when not using my streamer - uses a website that is the best I've come across - and has a record function!

It's strange that all the respectable stations I list above should be available though, my gripe is that I've already junked (well sold on eBay) one streamer (Marantz using Heos/TuneIn app.) that became useless. For BBC on those rare occasions, I have a tablet next to the preamp and feed the USB C output straight into the USB input to the DAC in the Quad, the resulting sound is very good at 320kbts....but much less convenient than using the streamer section.

BTW I heard that BBC severed its links with TuneIn because it wouldn't count the people listening to the BBC stations, and give those figures to the corporation....hence my comment about 'bean-counters'. If true, the consequence of this policy is that fewer people listen to the BBC than otherwise might.

Tablet > preamp > USB C output > USB input > DAC > Quad. Sounds straightforward enough.