BaL 27.04.13 - Tchaikovsky's Hamlet Fantasy Overture Op.67

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't think the New Philharmonia/ Markevitch is available either. I'm listening to it now,score in hand.

Perhaps I shouldn't ask, but ... what are you typing with?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Just the omission of Tchaikovsky's works alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a CD in it.”

― 'vinteuil'

That's at least two people who think like that. V. & Boulez. Both jolly good musicians, but...
Even Rattle came round in the end.

[BBMmk2]

Well, I thought I had this overture, and I think I have it with Pappano and his gang, but methinks I mightve been mistaken!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Perhaps I shouldn't ask, but ... what are you typing with?

I knew as I was posting that my message was flawed. I The tense was incorrect. I listened to it after posting, with score.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Dorati's Double Decca set had a very good Hamlet, but is nla, though there are copies on Amazon.

[Barbirollians]

Mark Twain did write some terrible tripe sometimes, didn't he?

He was right about golf though.

[seabright]

There are quite a few versions on You Tube, plus Pletnev conducting the Incidental Music to a St. Petersburg production of the play that begins with a cut-down version of the Fantasy Overture. Pity that Pletnev omits the vocal numbers for Ophelia and the Gravedigger, though ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h75OLXDTSBI

[Nick Armstrong]

Mark Twain did write some terrible tripe sometimes, didn't he?

Whereas I warm to vinteuil....

[Sir Velo]

“Just the omission of Tchaikovsky's works alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a CD in it.”

― 'vinteuil'

Well, if anyone wants to hear Shakespeare's magnum opus condensed into orchestral form, I would take Liszt, or indeed, Frank Bridge's take, over the Russian bear.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The love theme is marked with a fairly brisk metronome mark on the score, but I think it's just a little too fast. It may suggest passion, but there's little tenderness, and this is where it loses out to the similar parts of "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Tempest" by the same composer.

[verismissimo]

... but there's little tenderness, and this is where it loses out to the similar parts of "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Tempest" by the same composer.

Ah. So that's it.

[cloughie]

Well, if anyone wants to hear Shakespeare's magnum opus condensed into orchestral form, I would take Liszt, or indeed, Frank Bridge's take, over the Russian bear.

I'll stick with the Tchaik - Stokowski, Bernstein, Maazel, Dorati amongst others. Perhaps hasn't got the punch of Francesca but a good bash nevertheless!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The love theme is marked with a fairly brisk metronome mark on the score, but I think it's just a little too fast. It may suggest passion, but there's little tenderness, and this is where it loses out to the similar parts of "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Tempest" by the same composer.

I think you're right - if by "losing out" you mean "in terms of audience popularity". As part of the structure of the work and as a representation of the passions in the Play, the mood is exactly right: there is "little tenderness" (not "none" as is true with Tchaikovsky's re-presentation of it) between Hamlet and Ophelia or, (if you prefer the Olivier/Jones interpretation) between Hamlet and Gertrude.

But the muted strings and the gently whistful opening of the Second Group melody! These do show what Hamlet's yearnings might have been had he not been thrown into the role of avenger - which made him use Ophelia (with astonishing callousness) as a tool to get at Polonius and Claudius - just as they, with equal cynicism, use her to get at Hamlet. They're not nice people in this play!

[aeolium]

there is "little tenderness" (not "none" as is true with Tchaikovsky's re-presentation of it) between Hamlet and Ophelia

But surely there is passion, for instance when as Ophelia tells Polonius "He raised a sigh so piteous and profound/That it did seem to shatter all his bulk/And end his being", and when he says on her grave "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/Could not, with all their quantity of love,/Make up my sum."

But it would make an interesting thread to compare the ways in which composers have set literary works and to what extent these settings reflect their own preoccupations (and those of the age) rather than those of the author - difficult, obviously, with such an abstract art such as music.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But surely there is passion

Yes - as there is in the Tchaikovsky, surely? (Right from the very start (timp roll cresc leading to yearning 'cello theme accompanied by low, reedy woodwind chords - pretty close to "a sigh so piteous and profound"?) And the Second Group gets pretty heated, too (the string apotheosis of the oboe melody from the Transition).

But it would make an interesting thread to compare the ways in which composers have set literary works and to what extent these settings reflect their own preoccupations (and those of the age) rather than those of the author - difficult, obviously, with such an abstract art such as music.