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reiner_torheit
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« on: 11:03:44, 16-02-2007 » |
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I'd like to follow-up on a question asked by Catherine Bott on the EMS two weeks ago. Her program contrasted two different recordings of Cavalli's CALISTO - the Leppard recording of the mid-70's, and a Rene Jacobs recording from 20 years later.
The underlying point whilst listening to both of these recordings is that a massive amount of the performance is conjectural. CALISTO survives in one edition only, which appears to be a performer's version, and has only the top vocal line (or all the vocal lines when more than one singer is performing - which is not too often in this genre) and the bass line (and the figured-bass numbering for realising the continuo part).
Both recordings - in wildly different ways, so different that it's hard to believe it's the same opera sometimes - have orchestrated the piece (Leppard for a string ensemble plus some recorders, and played in a very neo-romantic style; Jacobs for a monster ensemble of period instruments which can't be justified on the basis of what we know about the size and budget of the opera orchestra in Naples). Jacobs has also added music from other Monteverdi pieces, and from other contemporaries of Monteverdi, to provide intermezzi, dances, music for scenery changes etc, and there is nearly 45 minutes more music in Jacobs' version than Leppard's.
At the end of the program, Catherine Bott threw out the following question - which seems to me to hit the nub of almost everything we do in any performances of "Early Music"....
... "How far should we stick to merely what is written, and how far should we fill-out conjecturally from our own entirely subjective feelings to "make a decent performance out of this stuff"??
Where do you draw YOUR line? At providing an entirely orchestrated version? (We know that Cavalli had an orchestra, of course - but we don't have the orchestral lines or score for CALISTO). At adding other music to fill "gaps"? Even when the gaps exist only in the mind of the conductor? Or when the stage-director needs some more music for a dance, or to cover a scenery-change... and there isn't any?
What are your views on this?
Personally I own the Leppard recording, but I can't stand to listen to it because it's so at variance with the way I imagine this music sounding. The Jacobs clips broadcast on the EMS sound much more appealing and clearly they concur with my idea of what Cavalli "ought to sound like"... but to what extent are we restoring music into something we "want", rather than what it actually might have been?
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They say travel broadens the mind - but in many cases travel has made the mind not exactly broader, but thicker.
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John W
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« Reply #1 on: 11:38:38, 16-02-2007 » |
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reiner,
I have the preference that we should hear, as close as possible, what was heard at the time of the original performances. Where we lack all the score, however, makes that impossible. If music has to be added to make a worthwhile performance then I prefer use of contemporary music by the same composer composed recently before the work in question. Many composers often borrowed their own earlier compositions to fill out performances of new works, so we can create a possible performance rather than an impossible one (using a score composed today).
That's what I prefer, but then again when I heard the 'new' Pomp & Circumstance March last year I had no objections, and enjoyed it.
Regarding editions of Calisto, there were significant extracts of the Jane Glover edition issued on a BBCMM CD No 51 (1996), 29 vocal tracks supported by seven string players and harpsichord. I don't have the magazine which might have said more about instrumental-only parts of the edition which were not included in the CD.
John W
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richard barrett
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« Reply #2 on: 12:19:50, 16-02-2007 » |
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The thing is, René Jacobs is in many ways comparably intrusive to Raymond Leppard in his own way, and so perhaps isn't a terribly good example of reconstructive performance. His "Calisto" uses far more instruments than Cavalli would have been used to (except in his "Ercole amante", an extravagant work written for the French court), on the grounds that a larger ensemble was in use at the court opera in Vienna at the time, where Italian opera was also performed, and using the accompaniments of Cesti's richly scored "Il pomo d'oro" (written for Vienna) as a model. Jacobs also transposes vocal parts as he feels it appropriate, and also gives the part of "Jove disguised as Diana" to the singer playing Jove, who then switches from baritone to falsetto, rather than to the singer playing Diana, as Jacobs admits would probably have originally been done.
As regards realisations of mid-17th-century Italian opera, I think there's some distance to go before realisations are both instrumentally and vocally convincing. But I haven't heard everything, nor am I an expert of course.
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reiner_torheit
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« Reply #3 on: 12:37:46, 16-02-2007 » |
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Hi John
I'm very much of one mind with you on this.
Although Jane Glover didn't court Jacobs-style popularity with a version for just 7 string players, that's hugely closer to what Cavalli had available (according to historic records about the size of the pit and budget available for orchestral players).
Regrettably much "early music" prior to 1650 still feels the need to wheel-out a Barnum & Bailey-style parade of freakish instruments. The fact that instruments were described by either Praetorius or Mersenne (who were encyclopaedists, and obliged to cover everything - no matter how rare or recondite) doesn't mean one has to put those instruments to use in every composition prior to Vivaldi!
The reality of opera of Cavalli's period - which Parsifal here has mentioned before - is that most of it was continuo-accompanied solo and duet singing. Orchestral moments are a lot rarer, and no impresario with half a financial brain is going to keep a full symphony-sized string section (like Leppard's) sitting idle in the pit, waiting for their next number and telling dirty jokes sotto voce the meanwhile. My own feeling is that a large percentage of any available budget would have been spent on augmenting the variety of available continuo instruments (which might have been harpsichord, chamber organ, theorbo and chittarone, harp, etc) to vary the timbres which account for nearly half the music in the piece.
Of course, all musicians of the era were expected to be polyinstrumentalists, and almost certainly the lutenist and harpist would have taken-up violins and violas for dances, intermezzi, overtures and sinfonii, etc. The idea of the single-instrument specialist player didn't arise until a lot later. (For example, we know that JS Bach played the organ, harpsichord and allied instruments, the violin, viola, and most probably the viola da gamba as well - and this was not at all unusual).
Modern players - even of historic instruments - are often not this versatile, although wind players can usually play multiple instruments. (Harnoncourt's baroque oboists are all expected to play the recorder too, for example). So some broadening of the size of the band for modern performances is probably justifiable... provided the total number performing at any one time doesn't exceed the number of players Cavalli might have had on hand?
I'm going to the ENO AGRIPPINA tomorrow - it will be interesting to see how this issue is dealt with in Handel there? Of course, they have an added problem... theatres of Cavalli's era might have seated from 600 to 1000. The Coli has the biggest (and deepest) stage in Europe, and the largest auditorium (2206 seats, or it used to be before the rebuild anyhow)... so you have to flex a bit with that!
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They say travel broadens the mind - but in many cases travel has made the mind not exactly broader, but thicker.
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #4 on: 16:43:43, 20-02-2007 » |
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It is such a difficult question. I would answer a short time ago with no hesitation: opera should be as close as possible to the original version.
However, Mozart wrote some numbers for other composer's operas. Some times composers themselves change (revise) their music.
Boris Godunov is often done in R-K version. What about Musirgsky Chovanschina?
I still think it is better to keep it as close as possible to the original.
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David Samuels
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« Reply #5 on: 16:56:37, 20-02-2007 » |
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I actually have all three recordings here discussed and I prefer both the Glover and the Jacobs for their clearer textures which -- to my mind -- complememt the voices rather better than the Leppard. That said, when the Leppard was all you could get, it was wonderful and as for Janet Baker, well words aren't adequate.
However, there's no doubt that the later recordings are more exciting and I think that Jacobs has the best of it. I wouldn't throw any away and I find them all immensly satisfying when listening.
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #6 on: 16:45:12, 22-02-2007 » |
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as for Janet Baker, well words aren't adequate.
And young James Bowman, surely, as Endimione. Lucidissima face is lovely. I would have thought that the sex of the singer of Jove as Diana makes far more difference to the effect of the work than the size of the band. Musically of course it means more of Dame Janet, here showing she can do sophisticated comedy effortlessly. She was nothing like as serious as her popular reputation would indicate. Although a real male can make a girl happy for ever (as a star), it takes another girl to show her what she has been missing in the first place. Do the new versions have females singing Linfea? |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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David Samuels
Posts: 9
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« Reply #7 on: 19:59:17, 22-02-2007 » |
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'Fraid I can't tell you about the Glover because it's out on loan and I don't remember the personnel well enough. The Jacobs has a tenor -- Gilles Ragon.
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