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Thread: Songs with orchestra worth exploring

  1. Default Songs with orchestra worth exploring

    I took my first steps into classical music in my mid teens. Slightly eccentrically, my father would record items off the radio on a Ferguson reel to reel, by placing the detachable mic in front of the radio’s speaker. That way I got to know Nielsen symphonies and Shostakovich string quartets, which were quite rare in the sixties. I frequented the local record library and got to know Mahler, Bruckner and much else. But my tastes were definitely no earlier than Bruckner – none of your Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and the rest.

    When I was at college, Elvira Madigan came out with its insistent use (abuse?) of the Mozart C major piano concerto K467. I liked the music so much I was forced to buy an album. Although it sounds odd to me now, I recognise that the following may resonate with some forum members. I played track 2 of side 1 (the bit in the film), but made sure I lifted the stylus at the end of that movement. I was quite nervous of playing the whole work, but one day I plucked up the courage and played it all the way through. I loved it. With a bit more courage, I turned over the LP and played the concerto on the other side. That was a bit harder going (but it was Mozart’s last piano concerto), but I made it to the end of the side!

    So I get where one forum member is coming from when he says classical songs in foreign languages are a closed book to him. I’d like to suggest that, if you like classical orchestral music, then you are missing a lot by not embracing songs. So here are some solid recommendations which I would be amazed if you didn’t like them.

    (Incidentally, one problem with songs in foreign languages is that the record companies save money by not printing the words in the booklet, and this is often not apparent unless you have it in your hand and have opened it. This is particularly true of the cheap reissues which understandably people unsure of the repertoire are going to be attracted towards.)

    Wagner: Wesendoncklieder
    [5 songs to poems by Mathilde Wesendonck]

    The first ever set of orchestral songs which kicked off the genre in the mid nineteenth century. Think Romanticism, think German, think a certain amount of pathos. So we’re talking primarily slow and reflective. Luckily these songs don’t go on all evening, like the operas do. Two of the songs are melodically related to Tristan und Isolde.

    35 recordings are available from MDT, but the one I grew up with, Janet Baker’s excellent account with Barbirolli (EMI), appears to be unavailable. I’ll suggest Christa Ludwig’s performance with Klemperer on EMI ‘Great recordings of the century’, or Jessye Norman’s version on Philips.

    Mahler: Lieder aus 'Des Knaben Wunderhorn' [Songs to poems from 'The youth’s magic horn'].

    There is such a strong interrelation between Mahler’s first four or five symphonies and the book of folk poems, Des knaben Wunderhorn, that you really don’t get the full message of the symphonies without knowing the songs. Mahler set 12 of them under the title (Lieder aus) 'Des knaben Wunderhorn' for a male and a female voice and orchestra. One of these songs turns up in symphony 2 (fourth movement) without the singer. And the fifth movement of symphony 3, and the last of symphony 4, are also settings of poems from DKW which are only elaborated because of their standing in a symphony. However, it goes much deeper than that. As soon as you hear the opening of the first song, you’re immediately in a familiar world of military marches. As the songs unfold, all the other aspects of the symphonies reveal where they came from. It is essential to know the words here because via the songs, they tell you what the symphonies ‘mean’ (at one level).

    No apologies for recommending a classic recording of these songs by Schwarzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau on EMI ‘Great recordings of the century’.

    Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
    [Songs on the death of children]
    Mahler: Rückertlieder [ Songs to poems by Friedrich Rückert]

    These sets of four and five songs respectively bear the same relationship to Mahler’s symphonies 5-7 as Des Knaben Wunderhorn does to the earlier symphonies. The songs are intense, whether grieving or ecstatic, and show why any composer would write songs as well as larger works. At best they are distilled, like poems, compared to the symphonies which can be like blousy novels.

    Again a lot of recordings to choose from. Janet Baker on EMI ‘Great recordings of the century’ couples both, and adds Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen [Songs of a wayfarer] which is a precursor of Symphony 1.

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    Last edited by Jeremy Marchant; 20-07-2009 at 22:30.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jeremy Marchant View Post
    .

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    Yes please Jeremy - I for one enjoy the way you write about music - most of the pieces you write about I would previously have considered elitist highbrow 'rubbish' (because I couldn't appreciate it) but with background info such as you provide I am at least tempted to listen to it - something that I would previously have avoided.
    Looking forward to the next 'lesson'
    Cheers,
    DaveK.

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  3. #3
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    Likewise I found classical songs hard to get into, save for the odd excerpt of opera, but was converted by Strauss' Four Last Songs (Vier letzte Lieder) after hearing Im Abendrot (At Sunset) in a film score - I think it might've been something by David Lynch, possibly Wild at Heart, but I digress. Anyway, got myself a cassette of Jessye Norman singing them and wow... so that would be one of my starting recommendations..

    Jason
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    Quote Originally Posted by DaveC View Post
    Yes please Jeremy - I for one enjoy the way you write about music
    Many thanks: I aim to please.
    Anyway, got myself a cassette of Jessye Norman singing them [Four last songs] and wow...
    And Jason, you beat me to it!

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    I am deliberately not entering into a discussion of which performances are better than others: it’s more important to concentrate on the music for people who don’t know it, I believe. Minutiae of interpretation can come later. Also I am only recommending what I believe to be available. If my recommendations have focussed on older recordings, they leave nothing to be desired technically, they’re less expensive and, most importantly, I know them and can recommend in confidence.

    Richard Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder [Four last songs]

    Along with Metamorphosen, these songs are masterpieces from the pen of a very old master. Suffused with poignancy, but also with acceptance for a full life well enough lived. Although written in the mid 1940s, there is little, if anything, that would have surprised Wagner a century earlier, but the payback from this conservatism is complete assuredness as the harmony shifts and slides magically all over the place. With the right singer, the whole experience is positively sensual.

    Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, once more on EMI ‘Great recordings of the century’, is justifiably called ‘great’ and you get more orchestral songs by Strauss on the B side, including the exquisite Morgen!.
    Jessye Norman is also much renowned – her version on Philips comes with the Wesendoncklieder mentioned earlier. And a more recent version by Soile Isokoski (Ondine) has received widespread excellent reviews. More orchestral songs by Strauss on her album.

    Changing countries…

    Berlioz: Les nuits d’été
    [Summer nights]

    Very roughly contemporaneous with the Wesendoncklieder, Les nuits d’été is a completely different kettle of fish. I only have to hear a few bars of anything by Berlioz and the whole Austro-Germanic tradition of classical music can evaporate as far as I am concerned. This is the Real McCoy! Berlioz’s superb empathy with every instrument of the orchestra, as well as with the voice, and his uncanny ability to realise the dramatic potential of words, all make these songs intensely rewarding. Even the light and bouncy first song repays careful listening. Yet Berlioz is never weighty or ponderous: poignant, sad in places, but all suffused with a Gallic sensibility which I find completely compelling.

    Janet Baker’s very fine version on EMI is these days a filler for the lengthy (but glorious) Roméo et Juliette – still less than £9 for 2CDs. For a single CD, modern recording, Véronique Gens (Virgin Classics) is very well reviewed (the couplings are possibly not as interesting as R&J which is episodic and which you can get to know in stages)

    Ravel: Shéhérazade

    More exquisite French songs from the turn of the previous century, so roughly contemporaneous with Mahler. These are clearly more modern than the Berlioz, but still instantly identifiable as French. Based on 1001 nights, these three songs are evocations of the Mysterious East, a subject which fascinated Ravel and his contemporaries.

    For just £15, you can get a 5CD set of Debussy and Ravel conducted by Simon Rattle (EMI) , which includes an excellent Shéhérazade sung by Maria Ewing, and much much more wonderful music.
    Or the Naxos version sung by Julie Boulianne, which I haven’t heard, is well received. It comes with Ravel’s 45 minute opera L’enfant et les sortilèges, utterly delightful and literally spellbinding (sortilèges are spells).

    Changing countries…

    Britten: Serenade
    Britten: Nocturne

    Some songs in English at last! Britten was one of the best setters of poems in English music of any age. Serenade and Nocturne are two collections of English poems. Listening to Ian Bostridge sing Britten’s settings of well known poets like Tennyson in Serenade last night, I was struck by how totally Britten is on the ball with the meaning of the text. I really felt these poems made more sense sung, than recited. There’s wit, imagination, pathos, every emotion is instantly deployed by Britten who never misses a trick. Yet in Serenade, Britten restricts himself to a singer, a french horn soloist and a string orchestra; in Nocturne, the string orchestra supports a different soloist in each song, all the soloists come together for the last song. Neat and clever. And great tunes – fresh and original. Listen to either set of songs a few times and I guarantee you’ll be whistling them down the street.

    Ian Bostridge (EMI) is perfect in Serenade; I didn’t realise he had recorded Nocturne but I see both, plus Les illuminations (another set of Britten songs) is on one EMI CD. One must mention Peter Pears’ recordings of both conducted by his partner, Britten, which also includes Les illuminations (on Decca).

    ---

    Apart from Das Knaben Wunderhorn, which I put in for people who are familiar with Mahler’s early symphonies, above you have eight absolutely top drawer sets of orchestral songs. None lasts more than 25 minutes and all offer intense pleasure. If you try and don’t get it, think if yourself as a radio receiver, and retune yourself to a new station. Don’t judge – be curious. At worst, you might have to be a bit persistent – but the effort will be hugely rewarded.
    Last edited by Jeremy Marchant; 21-07-2009 at 19:20.

  6. #6
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    Nico's 'Chelsea Girls' has some nice orchestral backing.

    I'll get me coat.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe View Post
    Nico's 'Chelsea Girls' has some nice orchestral backing.
    No problem with that. I find orchestral backing to popular songs fascinating; and I've done it myself. But I bet the person who made the arrangement had a classical training.

    One example: compare the song Timewatching as it appears, arranged by Neil Hannon, on the Divine Comedy's album Liberation with the second version, on A short album about love, arranged by Joby Talbot.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jeremy Marchant View Post
    No problem with that. I find orchestral backing to popular songs fascinating; and I've done it myself. But I bet the person who made the arrangement had a classical training.
    He was one Larry Fallon, who also did the arrangements on 'Astral Weeks', one of the best albums ever made. No idea whether he was classically trained (most of his work was in jazz/musicals rather than rock) but he co-wrote an orchestral piece with Leonard Bernstein, so was clearly no slouch.

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