It’s not certifiably a seasonal shot, but you can well
imagine the Russian equivalent of a Boxing Day scenario with Slava bowing or strumming while Galina sang
– and the kids turned out OK, didn’t they? With Vishnevskaya’s departure
earlier this month, virtually all of a great Russian musical generation are no
more (though the slightly younger Rozhdestvensky and Temirkanov remain).
True, Russia’s
number one diva could be prickly and egotistical - playing endless videos of
herself to students at her Aldeburgh course, trying to organize a national uprising
against Dmitri Tcherniakov’s ‘desecration’ of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. And she carried on
singing roles well past their (ie her) sell-by date, only to astonish everyone with her low-key
portrayal of a bewildered grandmother in Sokurov’s haunting film Alexandra.
When Vishnevskaya was good, she was great, at least up until the end of the 1960s. I reproduced on The Arts Desk an interview with her, made in 1988, about her role in Britten’s War Requiem, with a few YouTube clips. I think my favourite, though, is her later recording of Musorgsky’s ‘Where are you, little star?’ This earlier version has a rather oversophisticated orchestration by Igor Markevitch, but the artistry is unmistakable.
When Vishnevskaya was good, she was great, at least up until the end of the 1960s. I reproduced on The Arts Desk an interview with her, made in 1988, about her role in Britten’s War Requiem, with a few YouTube clips. I think my favourite, though, is her later recording of Musorgsky’s ‘Where are you, little star?’ This earlier version has a rather oversophisticated orchestration by Igor Markevitch, but the artistry is unmistakable.
Here's an approximate translation for the text, written (it's presumed) by the composer in the style of a Russian folksong, which of course the music evokes:
Vishnevskaya’s was the musical death of 2012 that resonated with me most. I always had reservations about Lisa Della Casa in Strauss - a certain tension in the technique stopped hers being the ideal floaty soprano in his music. And there was a diva in the less good sense, reading about the conflicts with Hilde Gueden on the Solti recording of Arabella (though that's still my favourite). Thinking about writing something on Henze for The Arts Desk, I really couldn’t drum up enough of an all-round portrait, much as I admire a couple of his operas (the symphonies remain unexamined territory). Elliott Carter remains musical anathema – great craft, plenty to comment on there, but it doesn’t communicate to me at all.
Jonathan Harvey’s music I need to get to know – and will do, with the opera Wagner Dream being performed next year (though I do remember talking to him at a Glyndebourne rehearsal of Tristan, which he said thoughtfully had to be the richest score of all, didn’t it?). And now we hear of Richard Rodney Bennett’s departure. Shame the radio tribute had to lead with the pastiche-y waltz from the film Murder on the Orient Express, though that’s the only tune of his I can hum. I loved his duo appearances with sassy Marion Montgomery, too.
(28/12) And Brubeck? How could I have forgotten mighty Dave? I was hoping to find on YouTube the wonderfully bitter-sweet third movement of brother Howard's rather inspired Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra, pitting the Dave Brubeck Quartet against Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, but it's not to be found. So we'll have to make do with the original cover of Time Out, which I nearly wore out in my university years; I owned it in a double set with Time Further Out the second LP.
(29/12) Howard, in the comments below, reminded me of Ravi Shankar too. So I dug out my Ravi Shankar: The Sounds of India disc, in which he gives modest introductions to the melas and the instrumental combinations of ragas. There's also a useful sleeve note by composer Alan Hovhaness. I like the sound of the sitar against the tabla and tambura, of course; I marvel at the rhythmic variations; but my western ear still can't get attuned in the long term to drone-fixed music that never modulates. My fault entirely.
(30/12) There's also the enormous omission here of colossus Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, though I did pay homage in A Fish-Sermon Transmogrified. DFD was the only western classical musician mentioned in the BBC Arts and Entertainment's photo-narrative of great departed. That's right, none of the above composers was included. Hurrumph.
As for the Guardian obits I’ve stockpiled, most of the subjects have defied mortality so far, and may they continue to do so.
Where are you, little star, where are you, bright one?
Perhaps you've been dimmed by a black cloud,
A black cloud, a threatening cloud?
Where are you, maiden, where are you, fair one?
Have you deserted your dear friend,
Your dear friend, your beloved?
The black cloud hid the little star,
The cold earth took the maiden.
Vishnevskaya’s was the musical death of 2012 that resonated with me most. I always had reservations about Lisa Della Casa in Strauss - a certain tension in the technique stopped hers being the ideal floaty soprano in his music. And there was a diva in the less good sense, reading about the conflicts with Hilde Gueden on the Solti recording of Arabella (though that's still my favourite). Thinking about writing something on Henze for The Arts Desk, I really couldn’t drum up enough of an all-round portrait, much as I admire a couple of his operas (the symphonies remain unexamined territory). Elliott Carter remains musical anathema – great craft, plenty to comment on there, but it doesn’t communicate to me at all.
Jonathan Harvey’s music I need to get to know – and will do, with the opera Wagner Dream being performed next year (though I do remember talking to him at a Glyndebourne rehearsal of Tristan, which he said thoughtfully had to be the richest score of all, didn’t it?). And now we hear of Richard Rodney Bennett’s departure. Shame the radio tribute had to lead with the pastiche-y waltz from the film Murder on the Orient Express, though that’s the only tune of his I can hum. I loved his duo appearances with sassy Marion Montgomery, too.
(28/12) And Brubeck? How could I have forgotten mighty Dave? I was hoping to find on YouTube the wonderfully bitter-sweet third movement of brother Howard's rather inspired Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra, pitting the Dave Brubeck Quartet against Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, but it's not to be found. So we'll have to make do with the original cover of Time Out, which I nearly wore out in my university years; I owned it in a double set with Time Further Out the second LP.
(29/12) Howard, in the comments below, reminded me of Ravi Shankar too. So I dug out my Ravi Shankar: The Sounds of India disc, in which he gives modest introductions to the melas and the instrumental combinations of ragas. There's also a useful sleeve note by composer Alan Hovhaness. I like the sound of the sitar against the tabla and tambura, of course; I marvel at the rhythmic variations; but my western ear still can't get attuned in the long term to drone-fixed music that never modulates. My fault entirely.
(30/12) There's also the enormous omission here of colossus Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, though I did pay homage in A Fish-Sermon Transmogrified. DFD was the only western classical musician mentioned in the BBC Arts and Entertainment's photo-narrative of great departed. That's right, none of the above composers was included. Hurrumph.
As for the Guardian obits I’ve stockpiled, most of the subjects have defied mortality so far, and may they continue to do so.
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