S2.E98. Richard Strauss, Sunrise, Ponchielli La Gioconda, Tchaikovsky April, Bruch Violin Concerto 1

We would love to hear from you, wherever you are! Drop us a review

www.perfectpitchreviews.com 

Win a night at The Royal Festival Hall

http://www.perfectpitchreviews.com/giveaway 

Know someone who would love the show?

http://www.perfectpitchreviews.com/referral 

Logo design by Robbie Mailer Howat @robbiemailerhowat

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome back to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson and his fresh approach to the world of classical music. Whether you're an expert or a beginner, old or young, Perfect Pitch has something for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Whether you know the rest of the piece or not, the whole thing is about 35 minutes. Almost everybody will be familiar with the opening passage of Ricardo Strauss's bra as our tone poem composed at the end of the nineteenth century and based on Nietzsche's four-volume fictional work of the same name. Those one and a half minutes alone titled Sunrise became almost immortalized in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 of Space Odyssey. And that was a mightily supreme statement by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Herbert von Karrier. There are periods and places in the development of classical music which are almost defined by a few individuals. A couple of obvious examples are Bach and Handel in early 18th century Germany, Mozart, and then Beethoven in mid-18th century Austria. There are plenty of others, of course. But there's no denying that it must have been pretty tough to get noticed with such competition. The same can be said for early 19th century Italian opera, a scene dominated by the likes of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini. Into such an environment was born Amilcari Pocchielli, certainly no slouch in his field and actually very popular in his lifetime. But regrettably just not popular enough to pass the endurance test against those three, not to mention the impending arrivals of Verdi and Puccini. He's now known for just one opera, La Jocanda, which means a ballad singer, and we never get to learn her name. It's a completely typical plot of several people pining after unattainable targets, and these things never end well, especially when poison is one of our props. The opera is very rarely staged these days, one of the rather strange reasons being that it has two principal ladies. And that can bring its own complications, which may not necessarily be artistically focused. But it does have a couple of glorious arias, as well as its most famous number, the dance of the hours. Music set to a ballet scene within the opera. So we'll listen to one of those arias from the end of Act Two, which I suspect may well be new to many of you. Grimaldo is a band nobleman who is awaiting the arrival of his great love Laura. And you don't have to understand a single word of this to know what the guy is feeling. Weak at the knees and gooey with anticipation. Mario Lanza was an American actor with ideal looks for the small screen until they discovered that he could sing as well, enabling him to be cast in the biopic of the great Caruso, with whose voice his own was frequently compared. Unfortunately, at the very point it was coming to fruition, an excess of booze and food brought him to an untimely end at just thirty-eight years old. But what a voice he had. We will follow it with the dance of the hours at the end of Act Three, played by the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andros Korodi. Now a piece which is frequently played on its own, and I'm afraid almost consigns Ponchielli into the one-hit category nowadays. This one titled Snowdrop to herald and depict the arrival of blooming flowers. Vladimir Ashkenazi is once more on the keyboard. His first, and now one of the most Loved in the whole repertoire. Joseph Joachim, one of the great violinists of the 19th century, was the one to coin the phrase the big four, referring to what he believed were the great German Austrian violin concertos Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Brook. All of them, although having some similarities, were nevertheless quite individual in scale and style. The Brook is the shortest of the four, and possibly the most intimate. Sadly, the composer did not himself earn anything from the work, having sold it everyone off last time. And he died without realizing its widespread popularity. Although he definitely got a whiff of it, because he rather resented how much it was paid at the expense of his other two, both of which he thought were infinitely better. History has judged otherwise. It's one of those pieces which every violinist has recorded, so singly add one which stands above all others, is nigh on impossible. And I'm not saying that this recording is necessarily that. But the threefold combination of Kung Wa Chong with a London Philharmonic Orchestra and a cloud attached to it was never going to disappoint. The slow movement is very much at the heart of the whole piece. And this account, which I've listened to several times, is so beautifully expressive. It's amazing how much you can make out of three pairs of cascading minutes. The finale which follows it comprises a few minutes of virtuosic fun. Just like the Mendel, this is a piece which sometimes is a victim of its own popularity. But when you get a recording like this, or when you hear, as I was lucky enough doing last week, a live performance given by Nicholas Schneider in the same orchestra, you can appreciate it whatever the beauty that it is. Regardless of the composer's protestations.