Webern

[LeMartinPecheur]

A few decades ago, quite possibly somewhere around the same time as your Atherton concert, Radio 3 presented a "Complete Webern" series which included some very obscure items indeed. Some of them were omitted from the more recent Radio 3 Webern event as they had since been identified as arrangements of others' work. I have some of the earlier broadcasts on cassette. Not tonight, but I will see what I can to re. digitizing them when I get the time.

Bryn: I too have some of these on long-unplayed cassettes. Would you like to know what I've got in case they fill any of your gaps? If so I can probably post the tapes to you. PM me if interested.

[Pulcinella]

Roslynmuse:
Have you considered contacting the RLPO direct?
Several years ago, I did so to be reminded of the name of the composer of a Requiem they performed in the late 1960s in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, together with Job (we all jumped out of our skins when full organ came in in that!). I have since forgotten again whose Requiem it was (Andriessen?), but they were able to help.
Good luck.

[verismissimo]

Listening to the wonderful, very brief pair of songs op 8. But where can I find the Rilke texts?

[verismissimo]

Listening to the wonderful, very brief pair of songs op 8. But where can I find the Rilke texts?

Found in The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive (of course).

[verismissimo]

One of the great joys of this Sony set of Webern is the singing of Heather Harper. Precise but intensely musical.

She seemed to me to be the ubiquitous British soprano from the late fifties to the late seventies, but I'm ashamed to say I never paid much attention to her work. Perhaps most famously she stepped in to replace Vishnevskaya at short notice in the 1962 premiere of Britten's War Requiem when the Soviet authorities did not allow her to travel.

I'll see what else I have in my 'library'.

[Roehre]

One of the great joys of this Sony set of Webern is the singing of Heather Harper. Precise but intensely musical.

She seemed to me to be the ubiquitous British soprano from the late fifties to the late seventies, but I'm ashamed to say I never paid much attention to her work. Perhaps most famously she stepped in to replace Vishnevskaya at short notice in the 1962 premiere of Britten's War Requiem when the Soviet authorities did not allow her to travel.

I'll see what else I have in my 'library'.

And almost always in impeccable German too

[verismissimo]

I really get that there’s no immediate relationship in Webern between the sung line and the instrumental accompaniment. But there also seems also to be no relationship in his songs between the music and the meaning of the words.
Am I missing the point entirely?

[Richard Barrett]

I really get that there’s no immediate relationship in Webern between the sung line and the instrumental accompaniment. But there also seems also to be no relationship in his songs between the music and the meaning of the words.

I don't know about that "also" - the vocal line relates to the instrumental parts in the same sort of way as the instrumental parts relate to one another. As for the relationship between music and text, your observation begs the question of what kind of relationship there "ought" to be. Surely it could be said that Webern's vocal parts actually reflect rather precisely the kinds of poetic texts he was setting, and that any more traditionally madrigalian "word-painting" would achieve little more thancreating a stylistic hiatus between voice and accompaniment...

[verismissimo]

I don't know about that "also" - the vocal line relates to the instrumental parts in the same sort of way as the instrumental parts relate to one another. As for the relationship between music and text, your observation begs the question of what kind of relationship there "ought" to be. Surely it could be said that Webern's vocal parts actually reflect rather precisely the kinds of poetic texts he was setting, and that any more traditionally madrigalian "word-painting" would achieve little more thancreating a stylistic hiatus between voice and accompaniment...

Sorry, too many alsos, Richard. Thanks for yours. I shall listen and ponder and listen.

[verismissimo]

Sorry, too many alsos, Richard. Thanks for yours. I shall listen and ponder and listen.

I don't have this feeling with either Schoenberg or Berg. Just with Webern...

[Richard Barrett]

I don't have this feeling with either Schoenberg or Berg. Just with Webern...

That's quite understandable, since Schoenberg and Berg retained in their music many more "historical" features, while Webern (as the postwar generation recognised of course) was on the way to a much more radically rethought mode of expression, which you might say puts musical sounds and text in counterpoint with one another, rather than in unison.

[antongould]

Martin Handley sort of did the thing this morning started with Webern - Im Sommerwind - but told us not to worry ......

[teamsaint]

Martin Handley sort of did the thing this morning started with Webern - Im Sommerwind - but told us not to worry ......

Even for non 2VS fans, seems a funny thing to worry about..........

[cloughie]

Even for non 2VS fans, seems a funny thing to worry about..........

It's not as though most of his works last very long. Mind you Sommerwind is a lovely work!

[antongould]

It's not as though most of his works last very long. Mind you Sommerwind is a lovely work!

..... it is indeed cloughers ...........