Originally posted by Serial_Apologist
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Arnold Schoenberg: 02–05.01.2017; 09–13.09.2024
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Heldenleben's remark about Facade reminds me of a friend's reaction to Pierrot Lunaire: 'It would have been all right without that caterwauling woman all the time.' And I admit that when I came to know Schoenberg's work this was the most difficult piece to get to like. Hans Keller once mounted a broadcast without the speaker , to encourage people to listen to the music.
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Originally posted by smittims View PostHeldenleben's remark about Facade reminds me of a friend's reaction to Pierrot Lunaire: 'It would have been all right without that caterwauling woman all the time.' And I admit that when I came to know Schoenberg's work this was the most difficult piece to get to like. Hans Keller once mounted a broadcast without the speaker , to encourage people to listen to the music.
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Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
To many recent recordings and performances of late I find err too much on the side of singing the Sprechstimme part, as opposed to touching on the stated pitches and immediately quitting them in the, I think, intended manner of heightened speech. I think I was lucky in having first heard Pierrot Lunaire on the cheap mid-60s Saga recording; unfortunately I can't now recall the vocalist.
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Yes, I think it's a mistake to choose a 'famous actor' to do Facade . The classic recording is the old Decca 78s with a younger Edith Sitwell and the inimitable Constant Lambert, though the Decca LP with an older Sitwell and Peter Pears is also excellent . I liked the English Pierrot with Cleo Laine , conducted I think, by Elgar Howarth; there were hopes that would find a new audience for the work.
The soloist on the Saga recording was Alice Howland, with an American ensemble coducted by someon called 'Zipper' (a surname, presumably!). The Penguin Guide gave it a good review.
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Originally posted by smittims View PostYes, I think it's a mistake to choose a 'famous actor' to do Facade . The classic recording is the old Decca 78s with a younger Edith Sitwell and the inimitable Constant Lambert, though the Decca LP with an older Sitwell and Peter Pears is also excellent . I liked the English Pierrot with Cleo Laine , conducted I think, by Elgar Howarth; there were hopes that would find a new audience for the work.
The soloist on the Saga recording was Alice Howland, with an American ensemble coducted by someon called 'Zipper' (a surname, presumably!). The Penguin Guide gave it a good review.
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Originally posted by smittims View PostYes, I think it's a mistake to choose a 'famous actor' to do Facade . The classic recording is the old Decca 78s with a younger Edith Sitwell and the inimitable Constant Lambert, though the Decca LP with an older Sitwell and Peter Pears is also excellent . I liked the English Pierrot with Cleo Laine , conducted I think, by Elgar Howarth; there were hopes that would find a new audience for the work.
The Laine Pierrot is magnificent. My German is pretty decent after twenty years here but I have to admit that hearing the things in English brings them much closer to home.
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Originally posted by Ein Heldenleben View PostIs there a forumite expert who can opine on whether Giraud’s poetry is better than the Sitwells’? Edith is of course not taken that seriously as a poet in academia though she seems to have had a Betjeman style popularity once.
There's already a bit of a difference between Giraud's poetry (which is nice and elegant in a very strict rondel form) and Hartleben's translation (which is a bit more expressionistically free-floating and the rhymes fall by the wayside).
I was practically addicted to Façade as a lad but nowadays it seems to me that neither the words nor the music completely stand up on their own (although I do enjoy the poems' experiments in sonority up to a point), and yet in combination they manage to get frustratingly in each other's way.
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Originally posted by oliver sudden View Post
Expert I am not but since when did that ever stop anyone opining?
There's already a bit of a difference between Giraud's poetry (which is nice and elegant in a very strict rondel form) and Hartleben's translation (which is a bit more expressionistically free-floating and the rhymes fall by the wayside).
I was practically addicted to Façade as a lad but nowadays it seems to me that neither the words nor the music completely stand up on their own (although I do enjoy the poems' experiments in sonority up to a point), and yet in combination they manage to get frustratingly in each other's way.
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Originally posted by oliver sudden View Post
I heartily agree with all of this. Sitwell is fine on the later recording but audibly getting on a bit. One might get the impression that her relatively neutral delivery in the later recording is somehow the desired effect but the earlier Long Steel Grass, for example, is much more nuanced and brilliantly effective. And Lambert is irreplaceable.
The Laine Pierrot is magnificent. My German is pretty decent after twenty years here but I have to admit that hearing the things in English brings them much closer to home.
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Originally posted by Ein Heldenleben View Post
Thanks. I had a look on Google for the French poems but to little luck. My German isn’t up to the translation nit it seems like fairly simple fare.
…although of course Schönberg (as he then was) didn’t set them all or keep the original order.
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Originally posted by oliver sudden View Post
Rien n’est plus simple…
…although of course Schönberg (as he then was) didn’t set them all or keep the original order.
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