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2 CD -
CD 3086 - (c) & (p) 2009
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Claudio Monteverdi
(1567-1643) |
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L'Orfeo - Favola in
Musica, 1609
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94'
46"
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- Prologo (Toccata e
Ritornello) |
4' 57" |
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- Atto primo |
14' 07"
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- Atto secondo
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23' 22" |
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- Atto terzo
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24' 14"
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- Atto quarto |
13' 49"
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- Atto
quinto |
14' 17"
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Patricia
Brinton, La Musica |
Gino
Sinimberghi, Orfeo |
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Uta
Graf, Euridice
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Gertrud
Schretter, Speranza |
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Norman
Foster, Caronte |
Mona
Paulee, Proserpina |
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Frederick
Guthrie, Plutone |
Waldemar
Kmentt, Apollo |
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Ana
Maria Iriarte, Messaggiera
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Auguste
Schmoczer, Ninfa |
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Dagmar
Hermann, Pastore orimo |
Hans
Strohbauer, Pastore secondo |
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Wolfram
Mertz, Pastore terzo
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Die Wiener
Singakademie, Coro di Ninfe
e Pastori - Coro di Spiriti |
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Hans Gillesberger,
Einstudierung |
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Anton
Heiller, 1. Cembalo |
Hermann
Nordberg, 2. Cembalo und Regal
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Kurt
Lerpeger, Orgel |
Franz
Jelinek, Harfe |
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Karl
Scheit, Robert Brojer, Lauten |
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Paul Angerer, Kurt
Theiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt,
Hermann Höbarth, Beatrice Reichert,
Eduard Hruza, Streicher |
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Karl Trötzmüller,
David Hermges, Karl Mayerhofer,
Josef Koblinger, Josef Spindler,
Hans Kraus, Josef Jakl, Johann
Tschedemnig, Wilhelm Pasewald,
Bläser |
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Paul Hindemith,
Einrichtung und musikalische
Leitung |
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Luogo e data
di registrazione
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Grosser Saal, Wiener
Konzerthaus, Vienna (Austria) - 4 giugno
1954
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Registrazione
live / studio
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live at Wienet Festwochen 1954
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Producer / Engineer
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Bernhard Trebuch
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Prima Edizione
CD
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ORF "Alte Musik" - CD 3086 -
(2 cd) - 66' 40" + 28' 06" - (c) &
(p) 2009 - mono
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Prima
Edizione LP
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Alte
Instrumente oder Kopien
alter Instrumente
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Italienisches Regal von 1556
(Leihgabe des Stiftes Lambach,
Oberösterreich)
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Organo di legno (erbaut 1954
von Josef Mertin, Wien als
Kopie der Orgel der silbernen
Kapelle in Innsbruck)
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Positiv (Gottlieb Henckhe
1728)
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Cembali (Gebrüder Ammer,
Eisenberg, Thüringen)
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Doppelchörige Laute (Mathaeus
Stautinger, Würzburg 1750)
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Deutsche Kopie einer
italienischen Renaissancelaute
(doppelchörig)
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Flautini (Dolmetsch, England)
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Zwei Barockgeigen (18.
Jahrhundert)
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Violen und Gamben: (aus der
Sammling Harnoncourt, Wien)
von Antoine
Veron, Paris 1735 - Ludovicus
Guersan, Paris 1742 - Anonym,
Brescia um 1580 - Jakob
Precheisen, Wien 1760
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Fresh
tomatoes are not
enough to make good pasta
Claudio Monteverdi
about life and music
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Born
in Cremona, home of
violin-makerr; "Suonatore di
Viola" and later
distinguished composer at
the Gonzaga court in Mantua;
for thirty years until his
death "Maestro di cappella"
of St. Mark's, Venice, a
musical metropolis and Mecca
for musicians and in whose
basilica, Santa Maria
Gloriosa dei Frari, "Il
divino Claudio" lies buried.
Over
three hundried and sixty
years later, Claudio
Monteverdi's music has lost
none of its timeliness. Not
only do the subjects of his
madrigals, arias and opera -
despair, love, desire,
jealousy etc. - continue to
stir our feelings but
stylistically his music
seems to possess the
immediacy that today's
listeners long for. The
recical of this most
influential of Italian
comèpsers would have been
unthinkable without Nikolaus
Harnoncurt's exemplary
performances.
Harnoncourt
(at this time member of the
Wiener Symphoniker) played
in the first performance of
l'Orfeo "on original
instruments", conducted by
Paul Hindemith in 1954,
alongside pratically the
whole - as yet anonymous -
Concentus Musicus Wien,
making this their unofficial
debut. Nikolaus
Harnoncourt's 80th birthday
and the appearance of the
first edition of l'Orfeo
four hundred years ago are
reasons enough for an
interview with the composer
who, together with his
colleagues, altered the
course of music.
We
may justly call the time
around 1600 a period of
upheaval in music. You
took an important part in
these changes. How did the
"nuove musiche" come
about?
You
could say that we were
living at the end of an era.
The style known today as
"Palestrina style", which we
called "prima prattica", had
reached its perfection, even
passed its zenith. Of course
we too had acquired this
style with its severe rules.
In Rome I was able to study
carious codices containing
sacred music by selected
Renaissance composers. As
you may perhaps know, I paid
homage to Nicolas Gombert,
one of the most important
masters of finely-woven
polyphony (and sadly almost
forgotten today) in the
"Missa in illo tempore" from
my 1610 collection of sacred
music.
Didn't
you want first and
foremost to prove to Pope
Paul V, dedicatee of this
publication, that you too
could compose in the old
style, with a post at the
Vatican in mind?
Prove?
I never had to prove
anything to anybody in my
life, except perhaps to
myself. I enjoyed every
hour, of the good as well as
bad times. Only the future
can show us which way the
present is pointing to. But
I'm starting to
philisophise. In fact, I
want to say something more
about our new compositional
style, the "seconda
prattica". We had no idea at
the time that we had
pratically developed a basis
for music that would last
until today.
Of
course it caused quite a
stir; just think of Maestro
Artusi's memorandum
[Giovanni Artusi "L'Artusi,
overo Delle imperfettioni
della moderna musica
ragionamenti dui", Venedig
1600] when my colleagues and
I had theown all the rules
overboard: dissonances on
strong beats, wide intervals
in individual voices,
violent changes of affect
and so on. But I don't want
to bore you with technical
details. They aren't the
most important thing! As
usual, there was no
theoretical basis for our
new music. But I have to
laugh a bit when I think fo
my fellow composers on the
other side of the Alps,
accustomed to thoroughness,
who looked for theoretical
principles for our new music
and even found some in their
teachings, making them up
with hindsight as it were.
Yes, people seem to require
certainties, rules of
engagement if you like, even
in composition, to earn
recognition without risk of
losing face.
In
1607 your brother
announced a book of yours
in which you set out and
defend the new
compositional style
"seconda prattica". Did
you ever get to write is?
I've
read many books, always been
interested in research and
have done research myself
into different things: I
devoted myself to alchemy
for example )I can admit
that now without risk). But
let me explain why it's
irrelevant whether this book
was written or not. I
greatly admire colleagues
who have tried to put
something down in writing
that's hardly possible to
explain in words. You'll
find lots to read about note
values, different rhythms,
tempi, intervals, harmonies,
instruments and much more. I
too treid to give as many
details and performing
instructions as possible in
my printed works. Just think
of the scores of L'Orfeo or
Il Combattimento di Tancredi
e Clorinda.
It
sounds as if you preferred
making music to writing
about it...
Everything
is done publicly today,
"transparent" is the word, I
think. You can reas about
the things that interested
me and my colleagues in my
writings, letters or
prefaces. For instance, if I
say about the performance of
Il Combattimento di Tancredi
e Clorinda that the audience
was moved to tears, then
that shows that I am
concerned about the
emotional reaction of my
listeners. In music we can
only hope for positive
emotions, we can't prescribe
them. Of course we also had
set-pieces, such as the
ciaconna, or devices such as
melting thirds in the voices
or violins.
By
the way, the great "Giovanni
da Firenze" (Jean-Baptiste
Lully is meant here)
introduced the ciaconna
almost as a standard element
in Louis XIV opera. But
still these are not recipes
for good opera, any more
than tearjerking scenes
alone make a good film, and
fresh tomatoes are not
enough to make good pasta.
What could I say about the
closing duet in my Ulisse,
except that it is a dance
that never wants to end,
joyous and melancholy at the
same time, like the Danube
Waltz, mirroring the peaks
and troughs of human
existence.
"L'Orfeo",
a "favola in
musica", is particularly
importasnt
among your stage works,
not all of which,
sadly, have survived. On
the one hand, lt's your first
opera and on the other,
it's the only one to have
appeared
in print during
your own lifetime.
1607,
the year in whlch L'Orfeo
was first performed, was a
memorable yeur in my life.
The crucial date was the
253rd day of that year, the
10th September, a Monday; my
beloved wife Claudia,
daughter of my colleague
Giacomo Cattaneo (a
viola-player, like myself at
one timo) diod on this
terrible day. She was a
singer at the Mantua court
and had suffered the death
of our daughter. but she
also bore our two
magnificent sons.
L'0rfeo
was first performed for the
"Accademia degli lnvaghiti"
on 24th February - a few
weeks before my fortieth
birthday - to great acclaim.
You can't imagine how much
tlme and nervous energy the
rehearsals had cost. As is
stlll often the case today,
many changes were made
(including mine) right up
until the dress rehearsal.
The end of the opera was
particularly affected; in
the printed libretto of 1607
the god-like singer comes to
a tragic end, as in the
mythological version. We
only decided on the
conciliatory "lieto fine" as
printed in the score at the
very last moment. I worked
very closely with the
librettist Alessandro
Striqgio on this matter.
Talking
about the score: I assume
that a desire
to impress
was one of the reasons for
its publlcation
two years after the first
performance.
Getting
a score into print around
1600 was no easy task. A
real challenge for the
printer Riccardo Amadino ln
Venice. Just thlnk of the
layout of Oefeo's "Possente
Spirito" aria with its many
diminutions. Of course
getting the score into print
was a matter of prestige,
for Francesco Gonzaga too,
to whom I dedicated the work
on 22nd August 1609. But its
publlcatlon was also very
useful for me and certainly
helpul for my candidature in
Venice.
The
first edition of
the opera throws up a lot
of question for us today:
on the one hand
there are discrepancies
between the instruments
listed in the "tavola" and
those called for in the
score, and on the other,
we still puzzle over where
the two instrumental
ensembles were placed for
example.
Like
Heinrich Schütz after me, I
tried to give as many
performance directions as
possible. The printed
edition of the work
naturally reflects details
arising from the opera's
first performance, although
I can’t recall them all
exactly now. But these are
all only aids to allow an
interpretation of the music
from the notes which moves
the senses, metaphysically.
These directions can still
be useful to musicians
performing my music in the
2lst century.
I've
followed the renaissance of
L'Orfeo on so-called
original instruments in the
20th century with great
interest. Although the
results all sound very
different from each another,
they do all attempt to get
to the bottom of the music.
We could talk for hours just
about the declamation of the
text. I'm particularly
pleased that my composer
colleague Paul Hindemlth
(who I believe I even heard
playing the cornetto in
Georg Schünemann's "Historic
Concerts" in Berlin) was the
person to lead the first
scenic performance on old
instruments since my time.
Josef Mertin (l904-1988) -
an early music
pioneer
in Austria - even built an
Organo dl legno for it.
People nowadays still use
organs with stopped pipes
for Italian music far too
often!
It's
worth noting that for this
special occasion Nikolaus
Harnoncourt contributed not
only the instruments from
his collection, but also
brought in like-minded
musicians. Practically the
whole Concentus Muslcus Wien
played, albeit anonymously,
in this performance. The
music world owes a great
deal of thanks to this
ensemble and above all to
its founder and director
Nlkolaus Harnoncourt.
Hindemlth’s
speech to the public in 1954
also reflects a lot of the
pioneer spirit: "Today, we
want to attempt to perform
this opera again under the
original conditions. We have
reconstructed the orchestra
exactly as he prescribes it.
We have done everything
possible to recreate the
original sound. What we do
may sum somewhat unusual to
you at first, but don't
forget, that is indeed how
it sounded at the time."
By
the way, did you keep
hearing the prompter’s voice
on the radio recording? That
lady must have been very
enthusiastic about the
performance, just as I was.
If
you were given the chance
to compose again, what
would you choose to write
- an opera, madrigals,
songs, sacred music, or a
genre which you neglected,
such as instrumental
music?
That's
a hard question, maybe even
impossible to answer. I
achieved and experienced a
lot, both professionally and
in my so-called private
life: For example, the death
of my daughter, only a few
months old, and that of my
wife soon after, or seeing
one of my sons arrested by
the Inquisition. But I also
spent many happy moments in
Venice, survived the plague
in the city in the early
163O's, and made a mark as
"Reverendo" in taking the
cloth.
It
certainly can’t be easy
writing music for the 21st
century. Today's public has
to take in such a flood of
information and is
overwhelmed with music. It's
everywhere, sounding and
pounding all the time. Then
there are so many styles,
quite unlike anything I had
in Venice in those days.
And
yet I notice, not without
pride, just how much today’s
listeners long for "simple"
means of music-making. Like
Henry Purcell, it was
important for me to achieve
a maximum of expression with
a minimum of means. Just
think of the Messenger's
appearance in L'Orfeo for
example.
Of
course Man is a rational
being, wanting explanations
for things that are
inexplicable. As far as
music is concerned, you
actually want to know today
how my music sounded back
then.
To
finish, I'd like to answer
you with a quotation from
Giovannino Guareschi’s "Don
Camillo and Peppone": "It
doesn't matter how it’s
written, but rather what
it’s like in your heart...»
Bernhard
Trebuch
(Translation: Roderick Shaw)
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Nikolaus
Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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