Post by erik on Jan 7, 2023 22:59:01 GMT -5
The first Classical Works Spotlight of 2023 looks at an arrangement of music from a famous Richard Wagner opera that was made in the 1930's by the controversial but nevertheless innovative musical genius Leopold Stokowski.
Wagner: LOVE NIGHT AND TRANSFIGURATION FROM “TRISTAN AND ISOLDE”
Even setting aside his famous “Ring” tetralogy of music dramas, there is absolutely nothing subtle about the operas of Richard Wagner. The more operative word is “Teutonic”. His operas are Epic in every sense of the word, several of them running upwards of four to five hours. But what is also very apparent today is that Wagner’s orchestrations were extremely radical for the middle to late 19th century, thus setting the stage not only for future composers like Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg, but also a fair amount of Hollywood film music in the 20th century. This was extremely evident when it came to his 1865 opera “Tristan And Isolde”. The most popular orchestral excerpt from the opera was the famous “Prelude And Love Death”, which was arranged by Franz Liszt; but ironically enough, considering the friendship between Liszt and Wagner, it was an arrangement that Wagner himself never approved of. Seven decades later, in 1935, while the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Leopold Stokowski, known for his many transcriptions and arrangements of past composers’ works, fashioned his own arrangement of Wagner’s orchestral music, using the Night Hunt Music and, at the opera’s end, music that is not really “Love Death” but “Transfiguration”, as the doomed lovers find love only at the moment of their death. Stokowski’s arrangement was not as popular in concert halls as Liszt’s was, and it was, unsurprisingly, quite controversial. Over time, however, through several re-recordings, the last being in 1966, that version did attract greater attention; and with only minor edits, conductor John Mauceri made his recording of it with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, a more recent iteration of the orchestra that Stokowski conducted during the summer of 1945 and by which he gave his Tristan arrangement its world premiere.
Hollywood Bowl Orchestra/JOHN MAUCERI (London/Decca)
Included (Songs Of The Earth):
Ravel: DAWN/FROM “DAPHNIS AND CHLOE” (Los Angeles Master Chorale)
Grieg: MORNING MOOD/FROM “PEER GYNT”
Carl Nielsen: HELIOS OVERTURE
Debussy: PRELUDE TO THE AFTERNOON OF A FAUN” (Flute: LOUISE DITULLIO)
Franz Waxman: DUSK/FROM “NIGHT INTO NIGHT” (Electric Violin: BRUCE DUKOV)
Schoenberg: SUNRISE/FROM “GURRELIEDER” (Los Angeles Master Chorale)
Wagner: LOVE NIGHT AND TRANSFIGURATION FROM “TRISTAN AND ISOLDE”
Even setting aside his famous “Ring” tetralogy of music dramas, there is absolutely nothing subtle about the operas of Richard Wagner. The more operative word is “Teutonic”. His operas are Epic in every sense of the word, several of them running upwards of four to five hours. But what is also very apparent today is that Wagner’s orchestrations were extremely radical for the middle to late 19th century, thus setting the stage not only for future composers like Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg, but also a fair amount of Hollywood film music in the 20th century. This was extremely evident when it came to his 1865 opera “Tristan And Isolde”. The most popular orchestral excerpt from the opera was the famous “Prelude And Love Death”, which was arranged by Franz Liszt; but ironically enough, considering the friendship between Liszt and Wagner, it was an arrangement that Wagner himself never approved of. Seven decades later, in 1935, while the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Leopold Stokowski, known for his many transcriptions and arrangements of past composers’ works, fashioned his own arrangement of Wagner’s orchestral music, using the Night Hunt Music and, at the opera’s end, music that is not really “Love Death” but “Transfiguration”, as the doomed lovers find love only at the moment of their death. Stokowski’s arrangement was not as popular in concert halls as Liszt’s was, and it was, unsurprisingly, quite controversial. Over time, however, through several re-recordings, the last being in 1966, that version did attract greater attention; and with only minor edits, conductor John Mauceri made his recording of it with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, a more recent iteration of the orchestra that Stokowski conducted during the summer of 1945 and by which he gave his Tristan arrangement its world premiere.
Hollywood Bowl Orchestra/JOHN MAUCERI (London/Decca)
Included (Songs Of The Earth):
Ravel: DAWN/FROM “DAPHNIS AND CHLOE” (Los Angeles Master Chorale)
Grieg: MORNING MOOD/FROM “PEER GYNT”
Carl Nielsen: HELIOS OVERTURE
Debussy: PRELUDE TO THE AFTERNOON OF A FAUN” (Flute: LOUISE DITULLIO)
Franz Waxman: DUSK/FROM “NIGHT INTO NIGHT” (Electric Violin: BRUCE DUKOV)
Schoenberg: SUNRISE/FROM “GURRELIEDER” (Los Angeles Master Chorale)