Thursday 22 November 2012

A fish-sermon transmogrified



With apologies to Veronese for the acidification of his St Anthony preaching to the fish

Praise be to the BBC Symphony Orchestra for programming Mahler’s Second Symphony and Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia less than a week apart in December, and making our life on the City Lit BBCSO course that much more fun. Famously, or infamously, the giddying centrepiece of Berio’s 1968-9 experiment takes the carcase of Mahler’s Scherzo and allows other music from Bach to Boulez to batten on it, against a barrage of song and speech from the eight vocalists (originally the Swingle Singers). Mahler's tempo indication, In ruhig fließender Bewegung (With quietly flowing movement), is also used by Berio.


Refreshingly, and rare in a composer who as a Darmstadt terror in the 1950s declared war on the past, Berio’s care in never letting the Mahler movement go under for long through his 11-minute movement makes us think even more of the original's extraordinary modernism. Herrgott, to think it was composed in 1893 (and last night in a stunning LPO concert which I’ve eulogized over on The Arts Desk, we had further food for wonder in how much of the mature Schoenberg Strauss pre-empts in the fabulous labyrinth of Don Quixote, premiered only three years after the Resurrection Symphony).


It seems that by 1893, when he gave shape to three of the Second Symphony's five movements, Mahler had already written the song from the folk-anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn which the symphonic scherzo daringly expands. St Anthony of Padua’s sermon to the fish for voice and piano needed working up instrumentally, which Mahler did alongside the scherzo in the fertile summer preceding his ‘flash of inspiration’ that the Second Symphony should be crowned by Klopstock’s 'Resurrection' chorale-text.

The gist of this slithery satire is that the piscean congregation listens open mouthed to the sermon, only to go on and behave as before – surely a connection with the human hurly-burly suggested in the symphony, against which a ‘cry of disgust’ proves powerless. Here's the song, which happily precipitates a belated tribute to the late, great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Have patience with the delayed start and the background buzz.


The futility of action seems to be part of Berio’s point, too, and there's an aqueous undertow which seems to refer both to Mahler's song and the first-movement quotations from Claude Levi-Strauss's Le cru et le cuit, which relates water-myths to musical forms. If Berio is dissing the waltz-crazy decadence of the 19th and early 20th centuries, it has to be said that his multiple references sound marvellous. I only picked up some of them on a first hearing: several waves of Debussy’s La Mer, the Part One conclusion to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and a bit of woodwind dancing from Agon, Strauss’s Rosenkavalier morphing into Ravel’s La Valse, a bar of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, the drowning in Berg's Wozzeck. But here too are Schoenberg’s Peripetaia from the Five Orchestral Pieces, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, the idée fixe from Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (still can’t hear it), Webern, Hindemith, Boulez’s Pli selon pli…that’s by no means the full list.

Meanwhile the amplified voices pick up Mahler’s tunes or recite Beckett (The Unnamable), student slogans from ’68, Joyce, lines from Berio’s notebooks. Sometimes the text is pertinent (‘Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on'; ‘there was even, for a second, hope of resurrection, or almost’), more often it just sounds like radio interference. The head spins with so much going on at once, which is surely the point. I can’t wait to hear it live at the Barbican on 7 December. Jiří Bělohlávek's long term Mahler cycle with the BBCSO has been one of the best so far, so his Resurrection on 1 December should be remarkable, too. In the meantime, here's the Berio centrepiece from Pappano with Swinglers at the Proms.

23 comments:

Howard Lane said...

I had no idea there were quite so many musical references as well as Mahler in the Sinfonia, another absolute favourite seminal 20th C work for me, and another in my collection of old radio broadcast recordings with Electric Phoenix and Simon Rattle (and the CBSO I suppose). This one is sadly not surviving so well due to excessive play, although I prefer it to the Jard van Nes CD version I have. Perhaps the yuletide holiday is the time to get around to digitising these? (been saying that for a decade or so).

"Bishop" was Bunyan's nickname for the unlicensed preaching which got him jailed.

Have your blog images been infused with magic mushrooms? They've become quite psychedelic, not unpleasingly so.

David said...

I thought the psychedelising of Veronese, Mahler and Berio was in line with the hallucinatory quality Berio brings to what is already a very weird piece. Glad you approve. And thanks for the clarification re 'Bishop' Bunyan.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I love your psychedlic treatments!

Laurent said...

What a beaufitul voice that of the late Fisher-Diskau.
As I was reading your post, news came on the radio that Justin Bieber had received the Jubilee Medal from our PM. Another photo op, I thought. But a strange coincidence. Not in the same league.

Susan Scheid said...

The seemingly endless meal that is Thanksgiving over here has put me behind in essential reading, so I’ve only got here for the first time today. And what a feast (of a different kind, to be sure)—enough music here to keep me occupied for at least a month! I’ll confess that I’ve so far shied away from Berio (it’s that Darmstadt ethos), but, as always, you pique my curiosity. Yet I’ll have to say the piece I most want to pursue is Strauss’s Don Quixote, another piece I know of but haven’t heard. (It’s not for the first time I am the remedial student here.) You’ve often commented on the prescience of 19th-early 20th C masters vis-a-vis more recent classical music (your Arts Desk piece on Shostakovich Symphony 4-Zev Gordon comes to mind), so I am particularly eager to go through Strauss’s “lunatic looking glass.”

(A side note: I’m so sorry you had trouble posting comments over my way—if it happens again and you’d prefer to send comments by email, I’d be glad to post them for you. I appreciate your persistence and value enormously our ongoing conversations both here and over there.)

David Damant said...

One cannot think of Berio without thinking of his Un Re in Ascolto - "highly charged" says Kobbe (P)- and I find it one of the most artistically gripping of recent operas. A magnificent 90 minutes (to be followed by a magnificent dinner of course) though if I remember correctly the RoH disgracefully had an interval - no doubt for the bar profits

Can I put in a word against Fischer-Dieskau - not his voice of course, but his inability to act. His Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro was cringingly middle class and embarrasing. OK sound-wise, but one cannot watch it. Gielgud said that young men today cannot play princes and F-D certainly could not

David said...

Anon. - I had fun with Picasa, though the Mahler is one of several treatments done rather more artistically by my other half.

Laurent - DFD has such character, though I find that the voice quickly lost its beauty and became a bit barky later on. Yours (anyone's) fresh reactions to the Berio movement would be welcome - do try it! A student's daughter found it 'weird': that's an understatement!

Sue - I forgot to wish you Happy Thanksgiving (another student, American, brought cakes to the class in advance, so we were at least reminded of it).I've loved Strauss's most elaborate score since my teens, when I was rather obsessed by it. One of the few cases where hearing a piece made me read the book, which I've now done twice and should revisit every decade. Alongside War and Peace, it's probably my favourite (the book, that is, and though I have such a soft spot for Sinfonia Domestica, DQ is probably Strauss's orchestral masterpiece. But then again there's Till Eulenspiegel, the purple passages of Zarathustra etc etc).

As for comments, sorry if that sounded tetchy, but neither the iPad nor the PC like loading Wordpress...

Sir D - I don't remember a great deal about Un Re in Ascolto, though one flyaway passage has lodged in my brain, not bad for one hearing only. Poor old DFD - not patrician enough for you? I love his Count on that Ponnelle film, which is the performance to which I suspect you're referring.

Susan Scheid said...

David: So excited I had to come back and leave a note as I start my listening tour. Last night, I set up playlists for myself of the music you've written about here and on the Arts Desk. I've just finished listening to Mahler's "fish" song (Quasthoff), then the Scherzo from S2, and finally the Berio movement that quotes it. Wonderful to listen to all three in sequence like that. In the Berio, I recognized Der Rosenkav, but must go back to hear La Valse (and so much more!).

Now I’m on to Don Quixote, and almost the first thing I thought is, well, that does it, I've got to read this book—and here you are reminding me that it's essential re-reading for you. (War and Peace is one of a very few books I've re-read and likely will again. It has everything, doesn't it?) Thank you so much for yet another marvelous gift of a post that keeps on giving!

PS: I hope you'll always let us know when you have an Arts Desk piece up. I subscribe, but I can't seem to subscribe just to the classical bit and have not so far been successful in spotting your pieces when they come up. I hate to miss a one, for I always enjoy them, as I hope you know.

David Damant said...

Yes I was referring to the Ponelle film. In fact all the performers overplayed their roles in a childish way, like a pantomime. I suppose they wanted to sell the production. Pity
At the RoH production of Dido, Aeneas walked onto the stage like another singer. No body language by him or the chorus etc. One might as well have a concert performance. They should think - how would we act if suddenly the Queen or the US President was in the room ?

David said...

And I'm excited because you are: the ideal listener as ever (dear folk, if you find this too much of a love-in, you can always join the dialogue).

I put up an Arts Desk review last night, of a concert in which you're sure to be interested because there was an often compelling new piece by pianist-composer Rolf Hind. I think you'd especially relish its connection to some wonderful poems by Rumi and Kabir. The piece is here. I suppose you could always bookmark TAD and take a quick look every day - I find it treasurable for the other arts, and usually quick off the mark, too.

David Damant said...

Did you know that Rumi was Madonna's favourite poet - and (if I remember correctly) America's biggest selling poet (maybe as a result)?

David said...

Inserted that message before Sir David's second response - with which I disagree heartily re the Ponnelle Figaro; I love that film, and even enjoy Maria Ewing's Cherubino. Interesting that they do the recits in the studio, but mime to the arias and ensembles.

Susan Scheid said...

David: Thanks for the tip-off on Arts Desk review & the Hinds piece. Now the question is how to get a listen. (I've written Hinds to see about that.) The Don Quixote is a beauty--you have definitely filled up my listening list for today!

Enjoyed all the comments as well, as always. As to that, I think David Damant's speculation is bound to be right. Over here, without Madonna, would Rumi even be "on the screen"? I wonder.

David said...

Sue - the answer is there in the Arts Desk review: the concert will be broadcast on Radio 3 on the afternoon of Sunday 2 December (with all the audience participation I mentioned edited out).

Did you have a guide to the variation-episodes of Don Q as you listened? I agree it has to work first just as music; its themes and their workings out are magnificent. But just how well Strauss visualises his Cervantes is also worth knowing about.

I didn't know about the Madonna connection re Rumi, but I'd heard about her interest in Sufism. Ah well, whatever it takes.

David Damant said...

When I was President of the Omar Khayyam Society I made some research into other Persian poets - Rumi, Hafiz etc. They were I understand greater poets than Omar, though he was in addition a very considerable mathematician, and found how to solve equations in x-cubed ( equations in x-squared having already been solved).What civilisation lost through the failure of Persian/Arabic culture to survive.....

David said...

I was very touched to see the reverence with which Iranians treated the tomb of Hafez/Hafiz in its rosy garden when we visited Shiraz. I believe there's a similar memorial to Rumi, though we didn't see it.

Now, Sir D, do YOU make anything of Berio's melange?

Susan Scheid said...

David: Thanks yet again, as the broadcast information got by me. Now I have it noted (though am hoping they'll allow for replays, if I can't catch it live). I did also locate the program guide for Don Quixote. (I'm still getting used to the fact that program guides are available on line.) I'm pleased you prompted me on that and look forward to a listen with the guide in hand.

I do also hope David Damant will comment on the Berio!

David said...

Yes, the broadcast will be available to hear again for seven days after the 2nd, which I believe you said works in the US.

As I'm sure you know, you can even follow online/download the Don Q score on the Petrucci Library - it's Public Domain in the US, though not in the EU. The score should have headings at the top of each variation roughly outlining what's going on. This was the first miniature score I ever bought, in my mid-teens, I think, and I loved the way you had to turn the score sideways to accommodate all the lines in the big moments.

David Damant said...

The tomb of Omar Khayyam also has a rose tree dropping its petals on the grave, echoing the verse in the poem. A cutting from the rose tree over Omar's tomb was brought back to be planted over Fitzgerald's grave in East Anglia

I will listen to the Berio !!

Laurent said...

Well Berio, very confusing. It reminds me of a dinner conversation where everyone speaks at once and you are aware of the din of the music in the background. No I do not dislike it but it is very distracting.

Susan Scheid said...

I've just begun to dip in to your newest post, but stopped by here to say: lest you think I'm not pursuing DQ, I did indeed make a note to self (even before you wrote, for once), have downloaded the score, and am reading the Grossman translation. Moving slowly (I am all too easily distracted), but find it thoroughly enjoyable so far.

On other fronts, too bad the Berio isn't available on public domain—I would love to see that score! I had the thought that it works as well as it does because of what you say: he never lets “the Mahler movement go under for long.”

David Damant said...

I have listened to the Berio Symphonia ( and read a little). Not sure I am qualified to make a comment. I like the music but not the structure - a "melange" ( David's word) in more ways than one. But when the structure of a Berio piece is better - Un re in Ascolto to my knowledge - then he is in my list of goodies

David said...

But the structure is Mahler's (since Berio never leaves his scherzo for long). I can't make out any perceptible structure in the surrounding movements at all.