Josephine Veasey was an excellent British soprano from Peckham, virtually unknown in mid-career beyond the UK circuit, when a summons came from Herbert von Karajan to sing Fricka in his Ring cycle at Salzburg, La Scala and the New York Met.
It made her name but never made her happy. As Rochard Osborne relates in his Karajan biography, she hated working with Karajan and had hardly a good word to say for him. Jo was a formidable presence on the Covent Garden and Coliseum stages.
Beethoven: Cantatas on the death of Emperor Joseph II (WoO88) and on the accession of Leopold II, WoO89 (1790)
Beethoven advocated human brotherhood and hated tyranny. This has led many to assume that the composer lived in a state of hostility with the hereditary powers that governed Europe in his time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Beethoven did not hate the aristocracy; on the contrary, he wanted to be part of it. There is evidence showing that, in the custody battle for his nephew, he claimed to be himself of noble birth, arguing before a Viennese judge on December 11, 1818 that the ‘van’ in his surname was the Dutch equivalent of the German ‘von’ and that he was decended from the ruling classes and therefore a fit and proper person to be trusted with bringing up an unruly boy. On another occasion, he declared loudly ‘I, too, am a King!’
Beethoven was not an egalitarian. He grew up in the court of the Archbishop-Elector of Bonn, where his father was a tenor in the chapel. The Elector, Maximilian Franz, was a brother of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, head of the Holy Roman Empire. At 13 years old Beethoven went into service for a couple of years as deputy organist in the Elector’s chapel. He learned to bend the knee, doff his cap and act in every way deferentially towards the ruling classes, knowing that they held all of the keys to his success and, indeed, survival.
When he came to Vienna he obtained introductions to young aristocrats, men his own age, who would sponsor his composing career by paying his living expenses. Prince Karl von Lichnowsky offered him 600 guilders a year, a stipend that continued until 1806 when Beethoven refused a summons to play for the Prince’s guests, a group of French officers.
Others who helped Beethoven financially were Count Ferdinand Waldstein, the Russian Ambassador Prince Andre Razumovsky and the Emperor Leopold’s youngest son Archduke Rudolph. It was not just money he needed but palaces and guest lists for his concerts and a good buffet afterwards. All these worthies got their names perpetuated in his scores. Rudolph, who was his long-term student, received no fewer than 14 dedications. In 1809 Rudolph organised a cartel of aristocrats to pay Beethoven a salary until Napoleon’s entry into Vienna caused a mass flight of bluebloods. Later, Rudolph ordered a piece from Beethoven for enthronement as archbishop of Olmütz, a work that became known as the Missa Solemnis . Genius that he was, Beethoven could not afford to affront the aristocracy. He was every bit as servile as the capricious and self-destructive Mozart, and perhaps more so. That said, he never courted royal patronage. Nor did he intrigue with or against the court composer Antonio Salieri in order to catch the Emperor’s ear. Early on, he took counterpoint lessons from Salieri; afterwards, he maintained a distant collegial relationship with him.
The only works that connect him to the ruling dynasty are two that he wrote in Bonn when he was 19 years old, and which were never performed. The first cantata mourned the death of Emperor Joseph II, aged 48, in February 1790. Joseph Haydn is said to have read the score and given his approval; it could easily be mistaken for something he wrote, ticking all the boxes for a solemn occasion. No-one knows exactly why it was never performed but the wind players are supposed to have found their parts too difficult and the young Beethoven was not prepared to compromise.
The score was found in Vienna among Beethoven’s legacy in November 1884 and given a respectable premiere. It is a mature simulation of official solemnity with very little by way of Beethoven’s personal style. The opening and closing choruses, ‘Todt! Todt, stöhnt es durch die öde Nacht (death, groan through the barren night)’ are impressive not so much for any originality as for the absence of strong emotion.
The second cantata, celebrating Leopold’s coronation, presents his calling card to the new regime. It’s heroic, flattering, drearily competent. It does not sound like Beethoven was trying very hard and it’s not surprising that neither of these cantatas is frequently performed.
Emperor Joseph II with brother Leopold II
The earliest recording of the Joseph cantata, conducted in 1950 Vienna by Clemens Krauss, leads the field with delicious wind solos from the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The chorus is flawless and vocalists Ilona Steingruber and Alfred Poell excellent. Among a half-dozen recordings, Christian Thielemann’s 1997 attempt at the Deutsche Oper Berlin is easily the weightiest.
There are even fewer recordings of the Leopold cantata with Thielemann, at the head of a limited field, making the finale sound like a dry run for the Missa Solemnis. Two 2020 recordings by the Finnish conductor Leif Segerstam with theTurku Philharmonic Orchestra are well turned out and free of presumption. Segerstam is a lusty character, unmistakable for his mountainous girth, amazonian beard and general absence of decorum. His lack of social niceties has a certain Beethovenian aptitude and his musicality is profound. His Naxos recordings make an urgent case for these half-hearted scores that the young Beethoven coughed up to the men in power.
Opferlied opus 121b
I would turn first to Segerstam again in this ‘Sacrificial Song’ that Beethoven tinkered with intermittently from 1794 to 1825 without ever being satisfied with the final result. Reminiscent in its airy way of the Priest’s Chorus in Mozart’s Magic Flute, it lasts barely five minutes and has a lovely soprano part (sung here by Johanna Lehesvuori). Other recordings attempted by Michael Tilson Thomas, Marcus Bosch and Matthew Best are no better than adequate. The closing words ‘Das Schöne zu dem Guten! (the beautiful to the good)’ is a favourite slogan of Beethoven’s a kind of self-entitlement.
Tremate, opus 116 (1801)
A Mozartian terzetto for three voices and orchestra, Tremate is hardly ever heard in concert and scarcely recorded. Aside from a decent effort by Segerstam and his Turku crew, there’s some serenely operatic singing on Arthur Apelt’s 1971 recording with the Staatskapelle Berlin and soloists Hanne-Lore Kuhse, Eberhard Büchner and Siegfried Vogel. A 2020 production by the Beethoven Philharmonie with Condcutor Thomas Rösner does not match the quality of the ensemble that Berlin could assemble half a century ago.
The Galicia Symphony Orchestra in Spain has announced the death of its American principal trumpet, John Aigi Hurn.
He had been with the orchestra since its formation in 1992.
There has been an outpouring of tributes for Pinkie Mtshali, a singer and impresario who has died at 50 of an unknown cause.
Trained as an opera singer, she formed the Durban Divas, a group which looked after all aspects of stage production. She also starred at the Durban International Film festival, where she played several characters in the movie ‘The Sunflower.’ She won national awards for her role as Mrs Matshinga in ABBA MANIACS, a show that toured South Africa for three years.
He’s doing it with his third orchestra, the one that’s local to his home.
Montréal, July 9, 2020 – The Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal (OM), their conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label are proud to be on the new DG Stage online portal this summer. Joining an impressive roster of internationally renowned artists, the OM will stream Beethoven’s first 8 symphonies, recorded at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’s Bourgie Hall.
The BBC has confirmed that Dalia Stasevska will conduct the Last Night of the BBC Proms, despite having only made her Proms debut last year – and to mixed reviews.
This has all to do with show and little to do with substance.
Stasevska, 35, said: ‘Of course I’m tremendously happy that the Last Night is going ahead this year and that we will have two weeks of live music at the Prom. We all need music in our lives again and glimpses of light in challenging times. It will naturally be a very different Last Night from the past, but I do know that it will have terrific power to bring people together, not only in the UK but around the world too. I’m delighted that we’re able to make this happen.’
photo: BBC/Christodoulou
The culture secretary has announced that outdoor theatres can reopen from this Saturday, indoor performances will follow a little later, subject to pilot trials and safety checks.
He said: ‘This is an important milestone to our performing artists, who have been waiting in the wings for months.’
UPDATE: Test events will include the London Symphony Orchestra at its St Luke’s chamber venue, as well as performances at the London Palladium and Butlin’s holiday parks.
We reported earlier that a Festival staffer had tested positive with Covid-19 and five others had been confined in 14-day quarantine.
The Festival has sent us this update:
The temporary employee of the Salzburg Festival who took up her position on 18 June 2020, after a negative initial test, was unfortunately tested positive for coronavirus yesterday. So far, she has only exhibited light symptoms, such as a scratchy throat. Since she had been keeping a health and contact diary, as required by the Salzburg Festival’s prevention plan, the health authorities could immediately be informed of all Category I contact persons.
By way of explanation, a Category I contact person is any person who has spent more than 15 minutes at a distance of less than 2 metres in the same room with an infected person.
Those Festival employees who are Category I contact persons are now into quarantine for 14 days. Preferring to err on the side of caution, however, the Festival is also testing persons beyond Category I (i.e. those who were in contact with the employee in question for a shorter period of time, or at a greater distance). In the meantime, all tests of the five Category I contact persons of the employee have come back negative, but they will remain in quarantine for the full 14 days.
Regrettably, the prevention concept thereby had to prove its practicability for the first time, which it fortunately did. The prescribed procedures and measures, for example the health and contact diary, ensured that the first rule of rapid containment, i.e. immediate traceability, was adhered to.
Preparations for the Festival are not endangered by this regrettable case.
The French-Lebanese trumpeter and composer Ibrahm Maalouf has been cleared on appeal of sexual offences against a minor. He was sentenced in 2018 to four months’ jail and a 20,000 euro for kissing a 14 year-old intern in 2013.
Maalouf denied any criminal act. The girl’s family said the incident had caused her to suffer an eating disorder.
Richard Bratby has written a wonderful Spectator panegyric about the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the oldest in Britain and, in Richard’s estimation, the ballsiest.
… the news that the RLPO has appointed a new chief conductor feels personal. How could it not? The RLPO was the first orchestra I ever heard — at that point, in the 1980s, reinventing itself under the dapper Czech Libor Pesek. Even then, the conductor of the RLPO was a public figure on Merseyside, whether he liked it or not (a regional TV presenter asked Pesek what he did on his days off. ‘I think.’ ‘What about?’ ‘Death’). Since 2006 Vasily Petrenko has been repeating the trick, cheerfully brandishing football anecdotes while hoovering up international awards for his recordings of Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky…. (read on here)
I have been meaning to write a piece like this ever since I first visited the orchestra – in 1987 I think – and was gobsmacked by its utterly ballsy and in-your-face interaction with a city of the most unexpected extremes, a city where a nighclub bouncer starts a conversation about Mahler’s 9th and a chief conductor writes a football column.
There’s only one Liverpool, and Richard’s got in first, dammit. Mind you, he grew up round there.
I’d better save my stories for the memoirs. Some of the protagonists are still alive.
The Putin propaganda pianist Denis Matsuev has announced the reopening of Moscow concert halls from August 1. They will be allowed to play to a 50 percent audience.
Covid is still raging in the city.
Поздравляю всех с потрясающей новостью! С 1 августа в Москве открываются концертные залы. Можно будет проводить концерты классической музыки, в зале сможет присутствовать 50% слушателей от общей наполняемости зала. Конечно же, с соблюдением всех предписаний и рекомендаций Роспотребнадзора. Это огромное счастье для всех, кто ждал этого момента, как для публики, так и для артистов, которым смерти подобно было существовать без возможности выходить на сцену. Для нас отсутствие сцены – это как отсутствие воздуха. Вперёд к новым концертам, новым афишам, новым именам. Сегодня один из самых лучших дней для всех, кому сцена небезразлична. Вам всем большой привет из Петербурга. Скоро на сцену!
