On ClassicsToday: Major Discovery - Orff’s Surprising Gisei

Major Discovery: Orff’s Surprising Gisei

by Jens F. Laurson

Carl Orff is–just behind Johann Pachelbel, who dominated my unscientific Twitter poll on the topic–the quintessential one-hit composer. It’s Carmina-or-bust with him. He hits all the criteria: His one hit is very famous and the fame-disparity between that hit and his next-best-known work (Die Kluge?... Continue Reading

FYI: Here's Charles' review of this release: Briefly Noted: Orff's 'Gisei' Lives Again

Orff: Gisei - The Sacrifice ("Das Opfer"), Vorspiel

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At Washington Classical Review: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Charles T. Downey, Alsop, BSO have uneven night with Orff and Stravinsky
Washington Classical Review, September 30

Briefly Noted: Orff's 'Gisei' Lives Again

C. Orff, Gisei — das Opfer, R. McKinny, U. Helzel, Berlin Deutsche Oper, J. Lacombe (released on February 12, 2016) cpo 777819-2 | 60'26"

The precocious Carl Orff completed an opera in 1913, when he was only 18 years old, but he never allowed it to be performed. This was long before the composer fell in with the National Socialists in Germany, an association that is enough to make my skin crawl when hearing his most popular work, Carmina Burana. The opera, Gisei — das Opfer (Gisei, the victim), did not see the light of day until 2010, in a world premiere performance at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. Orff was fascinated by Japanese theater from an even younger age, and he made this adaptation of a section from the Japanese play Terakoya (The Temple School), using a translation by Karl Florenz. This was less than a decade after the premiere of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, in 1904; there is even a humming women's chorus in the prelude to Orff's opera.

The play concerns an episode from the complex world of 9th-century Japanese politics. One of the two chancellors at the time is murdered by the other, his rival. Matsuo, an official devoted to the murdered man, hides away his master's son, Kwan Shusai, in the temple school in Seryo, where the schoolmaster, Genzo, adopts him as his own. Years later, when Matsuo and his wife, Chiyo, have also enrolled his their own son, Kotaro, who is the same age, in the school, imperial officials arrive to take away the chancellor's son. Bound by the code of honor to his dead master, the schoolmaster delivers the head of Matsuo's son to the emperor's men. Matsuo, who has the charge of confirming the identity of the severed head as that of the dead chancellor's son, looks on his own son's dead face and agrees that it is the head of the dead chancellor's son. When the schoolmaster goes to kill the dead boy's mother, to keep her silent, he learns that she gave up her son to the school, knowing that he would take the place of the chancellor's son.

This is a decade before the premiere of Stravinsky's Les Noces, which had a strong influence on Orff's mature style, heard in the rhythmically charged choruses of Carmina Burana. Here Orff sounds keenly interested in Debussy, especially his settings of texts by Maeterlinck, and draws forth all sorts of delicate sounds from the amassed orchestra — yes, that is the sound of a glass harmonica you hear as the stars begin to twinkle at the end of the prelude, and there is are some striking solos from what sounds like a contrabass clarinet — to create a heavily charged atmosphere of raised eyebrows and coded betrayals. As heard in this recording, broadcast on Deutschlandradio from a performance at the Deutsche Opera in Berlin in 2012, the young Orff should not have been so harsh on his early work, which he disavowed. Mezzo-soprano Ulrike Helzel is magnificent as Tonami (the schoolteacher's wife), and soprano Kathryn Lewek is just as exceptional as Kwan Shusai (the Chancellor's son). Markus Brück thunders as Matsuo, the father of the murdered boy, while Ryan McKinny has the same limitations heard in his Gunther in Washington National Opera's Götterdämmerung last month. Jacques Lacombe leads the massive orchestra with a clear hand.

Best Recordings of 2015 (#7)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2014 . My lists for the previous years: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

# 7 - New Release

C.Orff, Carmina Burana, Thomas E. Bauer, Yves Saelens, Yeree Suh (soloists), Anima Eterna Brugge, Collegium Vocale Gent, Jos van Immerseel, Zig Zag

Carl Orff, Carmina Burana Soloists / Anima Eterna Brugge, Collegium Vocale Gent / Jos van Immerseel (Zig Zag)

I didn’t think that a version, another version, any version among already so many versions of Carmina Burana would ever make this list. I’ve heard the piece a few too many times to get particularly excited about it anymore. But almost predictably, Jos van Immerseel (who already had the No.1 pick last year) do something to it that makes it worth listening to it all over again. This is a punchy, lean, driving account, far from just doing the usual for the umpteenth time, with an orchestra that is as punchy as it is transparent. The singers – Thomas Bauer, Yves Saelens, and Yeree Suh are very good, but the precise chorus Collegium Vocale Gent (Philippe Herreweghe’s well-trained bunch) and said orchestra – vividly tone painting their way through the score – are the star of this release that positively reinvigorates an old classic.

# 7 – Reissue

L.v.Beethoven, Violin Concerto & Romances, Christian Tetzlaff (violin), David Zinman, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Brilliant

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Lutosławski's 'Trois poèmes d'Henri Michaux'

Charles T. Downey, At Strathmore, National Philharmonic’s Lutoslawski benefits from lacking Orff
Washington Post, June 11, 2013

Orff, Carmina Burana, G. Wand

The National Philharmonic marked the 100th anniversary of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski’s birth by giving what was billed as the local premiere of one of his landmark works, “Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux,” on Sunday at Strathmore.

It is a puzzling work, requiring two conductors to coordinate masses of semi-improvised sound from, on one side of the stage, an instrumental wing of winds, brass, two pianos and percussion, and, on the other, a whispering, moaning, keening and shouting small chorus, combined in a technique the composer called “aleatory counterpoint.” This may sound like chaos, and it was at times, but the music is carefully constructed to follow the tragic contour of Michaux’s hallucinogenic poetry, a story of troubled thoughts, a surreal battle punctuated with neologisms and melancholy resignation. [Continue reading]

National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorale
Lutosławski, Trois poèmes d'Henri Michaux
Orff, Carmina Burana
Music Center at Strathmore

SEE ALSO:
Richard Taruskin, Orff's Musical And Moral Failings (New York Times, May 6, 2001)

Martin Kettle, Secret of the White Rose (The Guardian, January 1, 2009)

NSO Opens Season with a Bang

See my review of the first subscription concert from the National Symphony Orchestra:

National Symphony Orchestra Season Opener (The Washingtonian, September 30):

Orff, Carmina Burana (inter alia), L. Popp, New Philharmonia Orchestra, R. Frühbeck de Burgos [MP3]

After a gala celebration with music director Christoph Eschenbach on Sunday night, the National Symphony Orchestra went back to work this week. The first subscription concert reunited the orchestra with an old friend, frequent guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, returning to the podium of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for the first time since 2010. The Spanish conductor has had a journeyman sort of career, distinguishing himself with guest appearances and chief conductor stints with many orchestras around the world: Musical America recognized his accomplishments this year by naming him conductor of the year. The NSO musicians always seem at ease under his baton (Frühbeck de Burgos was principal guest conductor of the NSO in the 1980s and has been a regular ever since), and he led interpretations of two orchestral staples -- Beethoven’s slender, vivacious eighth symphony and Carl Orff’s salacious, bubbly Carmina Burana -- that were polished and full of surprises.

Of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, the modest eighth is low on the totem pole in terms of popularity, and this was the NSO’s first performance of the work since 2002. Frühbeck de Burgos led an assured performance that highlighted much of the work’s appeal, especially in the first movement, with well-paced rallentandi helping to elucidate the formal structure, and the timpani and brass adding brash highlights in loud passages. The second movement, Allegro scherzando, had a pleasing, relaxed tempo, but always with a solid internal pulse and elegant dynamic shaping. Only in the third movement did the impetus droop slightly, with some strident sounds from the high woodwinds; and some unsettled tempo disagreements across the orchestra addled the slightly manic fourth movement. [Continue reading]

SEE ALSO:
Philip L. Kennicott, NSO review: Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana,’ Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 (Washington Post, September 30)

Carmina Burana vs. the Composition of the 20th Century

I have been looking forward to The Washington Chorus’s concert on Sunday at the Kennedy Center for a while. Just like most in the audience I was interested in one work of the presented double bill; and gladly willing to sit through the other one for it. One work was named the composition of the 20th century by Time Magazine; the other, in contrast, is one of the most popular works of the 20th century. Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms was performed first, and then Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Needless to say, my weird ears came for the Stravinsky.

I.Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms, J.E.Gardiner / LSO, MtvCh DG

One of the advantages of a live concert is that, lacking obvious beauty for the casually musical ear, a work can still score on the account of sheer volume. If not everyone came away from the first half of the concert a newly converted Stravinsky-an, many were at least likely to have been impressed. The Symphony of Psalms, a 1930 commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Koussevitzky, is as intriguing and strange as it is unique and magnificent. With its violin/viola-free (yet large) orchestra, the choral parts are balanced to complement (not support or dominate) the naturally wind-heavy orchestration. Set to verses of three different psalms in Latin, the work may be an oddly catholic expression of an orthodox Christian, but its profound spiritual character pervades all of it. Its many different textures and neoclassical style, its lean grandeur and angular riffs are all contained in under 30 minutes. Despite being a brief affair, it is a tour de force for the winds and brass in particular. Although the players of the Washington Chorus Orchestra coped admirably, they were playing hard at their limit and sometimes beyond.

I.Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms, P.Boulez / BPh DG

The weather played its part, turning intermission on one of the most beautiful days of the year into something glorious, contrasting sunny warmth with the starker works on offer inside the Concert Hall. There are superficial similarities between Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and the contemporary Carmina Burana by the music pedagogue/composer Carl Orff – but not much more. Orff’s work based on medieval poems is not particularly profound, certainly not spiritual, and can hardly be accused of conciseness, either. It eschews complexity (which is only appropriate given its simple folk setting) and instead of refinement it opts for an almost ruthless boldness. That it impresses most ears more than the Stravinsky goes to show Orff’s genius in tapping into the audience’s primal sense of aesthetic appreciation.

His experience as an educator, his familiarity with percussion instruments, knowledge of the naïve elements that strike a chord with all of us at any age, are brought out to perfection in Carmina Burana, a work that appeals to almost every listener at once, regardless of education, musical background, creed, or ethnicity.

C.Orff, Trionfi, E.Jochum / Bavarian RSO&Ch DG C.Orff, Carmina Burana, C.Thielemann / Ch&OdDtOpBerlin DG

That enthusiasm clearly had spread among the performers as well: chorus and orchestra played and sang with passion and offered a consequently excellent performance that – as should be the case with Carmina – burst at the seams with vitality. An occasional craggy rawness can’t be considered a flaw in this work – and that some players were twitching like race horses in the stall (all too eager for their entry) could not do harm in music the total of which is so much more than the sum of its parts.

The soloists’ contributions were not of the first order but not inadequate, either. All three struggled a bit with their respective highest notes. Baritone Stephen Powell had a big, generous voice but was stretched on occasion. If tenor (and last-minute replacement) Christopher Pfund didn’t sound better, he certainly made up for it with his coy and humorous stage presence. The playing to the crowd may wrinkle purist noses, but then purists probably shouldn’t attend a Carmina in the first place. He was funny in his interpretive miming of the text (Cignus ustus cantat - the tenor’s sole contribution) and provided a jocular element that undoubtedly has its place in a work like this – singing the part of a roasted swan on the spit, after all, does not call for the gravitas that “Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen” demands. Soprano Máire O’Brian sang with her medium-sized voice in a most appropriate plain and natural way, thankfully resisting the temptation to go for operatic bombast where churlishness with such gifts is more called for.

The finale – having come full circle to the O Fortuna – had the genuinely excited audience cheering chorus master and conductor Robert Shafer, his crew, and the soloists with immediate and unanimous standing ovations. Nothing special in itself, no one took them as an excuse to make off early… and that was the most meaningful sign of appreciation on the part of a Washington audience.

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