Day 72: Heaven's Gait

Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 72!

For today I listened to two operatic excerpts and an overture that was based on music from an opera. I also watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. Today was a good day.


Gluck: Overture from Iphigenia in Aulis - November 22nd, 1952

Fail.

I take a very protective attitude towards this overture, as the middle school orchestra version of it I played in 6th grade was what first attracted me to the music of Gluck. I read obsessively about the composer and badgered my parents to buy me recordings of all of his mature operas. I may have been an unusual kid, but darn it I had an appreciation for late 18th century operatic reforms! I tried to play that card on the playground, but somehow I kept getting beaten up. Moving right along...

Toscanini uses the Wagner arrangement of this overture, which in itself is no great sin (though a moderate one), except that he also interprets it in a massive, bloated Wagnerian manner that prevents the musical line from making any sense. This is music of extraordinary, sublime beauty, but you wouldn't know it from this recording. I shouldn't take it personally, but then this music mean a lot to me personally.

Gluck: Act II from Orfeo ed Euridice - November 22nd, 1952

Orfeo was the oldest opera Toscanini ever conducted. The only other 18th century operas the maestro ever conducted were Armide, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute. I don't know if that's necessarily indicative of a general lack of interest in the music of that century (though I think it is). But it does suggest that Toscanini did not lead this music with enough frequency to really have a fluent way with it, and this Gluck recording puts that on uncomfortable display.

Rather like the Iphigenia overture (taken from the same broadcast), Orfeo is afflicted by a bloated, slow-moving pulse that prevents any continuity of line and (more importantly) completely ruins the work's dramatic impact. The sleeve note writer for the RCA CD somehow makes a virtue of this, but noting that Toscanini's "expansiveness made the music seem less trivial and more terrifying." To this I say "uh, what?" I hear no terror in these Furies; only a lumbering, bored gait.

Perhaps this is appropriate. This being the story of Orpheus in the underworld, I guess you might say he had reached the Gaits of Heaven.

Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture - January 19th, 1953

Much better.

Toscanini was an outstanding Berlioz conductor at a time when little of that composer's music was being performed. Here he leads this fabulous overture with brilliantly flowing line and extraordinary vitality. Why couldn't Toscanini achieve the same thing with the Gluck?

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That's it for Day 72!

Check back tomorrow for two overtures, a Haydn symphony, and pictures from an exhibitionist.

Happy Friday!