Show 113 Finally

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 13.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show113.  For instance, the July 4^th show for this year will be numbered numbered Show201, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]

Show 13 did finally air, but there were enormous technical errors, mostly centering around the automatic crossfading that the Master Program had been set to do.  This is a setting in which each music track is faded out and the next track is faded in, in an overlapping way.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all well for speech, as it does for music.  Normally, crossfading is set for about two seconds of overlap, but I suspect that last night it was set for more.  It effectively shortened the 2-hour broadcast to an hour and twenty minutes.  It is frustrating, but I take it on the bump as we used to say (a saying that derives from the game of Cricket, which I have not really played.)

Anyway, here we are with the podcast.  I don't do a podcast for the actual broadcast because that doesn't allow me to put the performer and the album information into the metadata (the stuff that shows up on your car radio while the music is playing.  Actually, I have an older car, and the stuff doesn't show up, anyway.)

Part A (28 minutes, more or less): Handel, Bach, Mozart

Handel: Overture to The Watermusic.  Handel was initially the court composer of the court of Elector Georg of Hanover.  He was a rising musical star in his youth, and managed to get leave of his master to travel in Italy.  He kept extending his leave, and eventually landed in Britain, where his music was so appreciated that he stayed on for several years.  To his horror, on the death of the British monarch, Georg of Hanover ascended to the British Throne, and Handel was in the awkward position of having played hooky from his job in Germany for several years.  But the resourceful Handel arranged to accompany a water party on the Thames given by George, and play music specially composed for the occasion from a barge (or barges), and regained favor with His Majesty.  Anyway, that's the story.  This overture is the first movement of the music composed for that occasion.  [Raymond Leppard, English Chamber Orchestra]

Some centuries later, Sir Hamilton Harty, who was one of the principal organizers of the London Proms, arranged extracts from the Watermusic into a more Victorian, sumptuous romantic score, which was immensely popular in the 2oth Century, but in the Sixties, the original work regained popularity, with the rediscovery of Baroque orchestras and instruments.

Bach: Overture to Suite No. 1 in C major.  This is a grand piece for large orchestra from the time of Bach's stay in the Ducal court of Weimar.  The entire orchestral suite is lovely.  [Akademie fur Alte Music, Berlin]

Handel: Overture to Messiah.  Notice the characteristic dotted rhythms of the slow introduction, which is followed by a faster contrapuntal section, after which the slow section returns.  This ABA form is often expanded by repetition into an ABABA form, with greater ornamentation in the later repeats.  [London Philharmonic Orchestra, John Alldis]

Mozart: Overture to The Marriage of Figaro.  The overture, which was composed at the last minute, is one of the best-known works of Mozart, and is an exciting romp of just about 5 minutes.  While musically it is hardly remarkable, it is all elegance and style, and manages to focus all the attention on the play itself, and not on the music.  [Origin uncertain!  Could be any one of a number of my personal collection of recordings...]

Part B (28 minutes): Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Beethoven

Mozart: Overture to The Magic Flute.  The Magic Flute was composed as a singspiel, which literally means musical play.  It was a deliberate attempt to depart from the Italian-dominated opera tradition towards a more folk-centered German theatrical tradition which was gaining popularity with the people.  As mentioned earlier, it had a strong masonic flavor, though ultimately the masonic elements are of greater interest to the Freemasons and historians than to music-lovers.

The overture is a marvel of construction, in utter contrast to the previous one.  The heavy brass in the trombones is a huge contrast to the light, fluffy orchestration of Figaro.  [Staatskapelle, Dresden; Colin Davis]

Beethoven:  Overture to Fidelio.  Beethoven wrote just one opera, Fidelio, and he labored over an appropriate overture to it.  (Presumably Mozart was a tough act to follow.)  The opera is highly regarded, at least by Beethoven fanatics.  Beethoven wrote a total of four overtures to the opera, and this one is the most frequently performed with the opera, at least that's what I understand.  I was seriously underwhelmed by the piece, and I apologize for cutting it short.  [Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell]

Mendelssohn: Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream.  The Mendelssohn family loved Shakespeare to pieces, and in his youth, young Felix wrote this amazing overture, as well as incidental music to accompany the play.  I am not sure of the details, but there is enough incidental music to suggest that the play was performed with the music in Mendelssohn's lifetime.  The family was very well off, and Felix and his sister and friends often put on various plays and performances in the house, which were attended by a large circle of friends.  [London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado]

Handel:  Air from Watermusic.  This was a centerpiece of the Hamilton Harty arrangement.  It is a lovely horn tune, which found its way into easy pieces for piano and practically every conceivable instrument. [Raymond Leppard, English Chamber Orchestra]



Part C (28 minutes): Mendelssohn, Wagner, Frederick Loewe

Mendelssohn: Fingal's Cave Overture.  Written to commemorate a visit to Fingal's Cave in the Hebrides, in Scotland.  [London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado]

Brahms: Academic Festival Overture.  Written in response to being awarded an honorary doctorate at Breslau U.  [BBC Philharmonic Orchestra]

Wagner: Overture to Die Meistersinger.  Most of the overture, with voice-over identifying the various themes.  I did not remember to point out that after the famous triple counterpoint towards the end, the Rules and Regulations theme is played to generate a little more excitement, before the big cadenza.  [Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan]

Frederic Loewe: Overture to My Fair Lady.  This would be hard to guess for a younger audience which hasn't heard the tunes from the musical or movie ad nauseam.  You should be able to identify: "You did it", "On the street where you live", "Wouldn't it be loverly", and a couple more.  [Andre Previn]

Part D (28 minutes)

Wagner: Overture to Tannhauser.  This opens with the Pilgrim's Chorus (horns and trombones, later with strings joining in), then after the Pilgrims go off into the distance, we hear the seductive music of Venusburg, and Venus herself, represented by the clarinet.  Our hero enters and sings a paean of praise to the goddess, and just as things are getting out of hand, the Pilgrims are heard returning, this time joined by a huge marching band they have linked up with somewhere.  (Believe it or not, the Pilgrim's Chorus is the very first tune I tried to harmonize by myself.  It turned out mostly pretty close to the original, but I later heard some really amazing chromatic details I had missed as a 13-year-old.)  [Festival Orchestra of London]

Hammerstein: Overture to The Sound of Music.  This was puzzle for you to guess.  The overture leads straight into the Nun's Chorus.  [Original Soundtrack Recording (Irwin Kostal?)]

Wagner: Prelude to Tristan and Isolde.  This sad story ends with the suicide of the young lovers.  The movie of a couple of years ago captures the mood very well.  [RSO, Ljublana]
 
Bernstein: Overture to Candide.  [New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein]

Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture.  This version has a full chorus singing the first theme, which is a hymn.  This is a later addition (see here) by Igor Buketoff.  The Russian Orthodox hymn is to the words "O Lord save Thy People".  [Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Jarvi]

Archie