This image does make me feel the intensity of beauty. It is a moment from long ago. Via a small vague picture from a CD cover. Seconds after the sound of music is fading.
This post is short of words. The feeling is so intense, that I can’t find them, the right words. When I do have found them, I’m back.
Mstislav Rostropovich and Emerson String Quartet Schubert String Quintet
I’m always listening to classical music or opera in a certain mood. Or I listen to a composer for days. Always playlists in my head and piles of CD’s next to me. Not the usual playlists. More like Lifelong Love, Nostalgia, Curiosity, and so on. I’ll try to made them public. Starting slowly. With additions and extensions in the course of time. And references to CD’s, DVD’s, Spotify, YouTube, books, even performances from the past. Maybe some explanation, reasons, feelings.
However, be warned. I’m not very disciplined at sitting down and writing. I rather listen to music. If you write, you can’t listen. Instead of 1 hour writing a day, you can listen to about 3000 Lieder, 600 pieces of chamber music, 300 symphonies or 100 operas a year.
I’ll try to show links to CD’s and DVD’s and to Amazon and YouTube.
Dies ist eine fantastische CD. Die Miniaturen sind hervorragend gespielt. Die Töne sind bezaubernd. Durch die Wahl wird es zu einer Reise durch eine erstaunliche Fülle von Klänge. Besonders liebe ich Dukas/Staub L’Apprenti sorcier, Saint-Saëns/Liszt/Horowitz Danse macabre und Scriabin Poème.
Und natürlich das wunderschöne Gretchen am Spinnrade von Schubert/Liszt. “Ich liebe dieses Drama, erzählt sie, denn es steckt so viel Menschliches darin.”
Aber alle Miniaturen sind fantastisch.
Es gibt eine ausgezeichnete Erklärung in das CD Büchlein.
Versuchen Sie Yuja Wang im Konzertsaal zu hören.
Und hören Sie diese CD.
No chapter from a novel describes the delight of the opera lover
as beautifully as the above section from Der Zauberberg.
Nobody has written about opera as beautifully as Thomas Mann:
‘Ein international Chor gefeierter Sänger und Sängerinnen setzte, begleitet von diskret zurücktretendem Orchester, die hochgeschulte Gottesgabe seiner Stimmen ein zur Ausführung von Arien, Duetten, ganzen Ensembleszenen aus den verschiedenen Gegenden und Epochen des musikalischen Theaters:der südlichen Schönheitssphäre einer zugleich hoch-und leichtherzigen Hingerissenheit, einer deutsch-volkhaften Welt von Schalkheit und Dämonie, der französischen Grossen und Komischen Oper.’
Der Zauberberg is a ‘Bildungsroman’. The protagonist Hans Castorp, a young engineer, travels to Davos to visit his cousin Joachim, who remains a long period in a sanatorium. Soon Hans forgets to return home. He is intrigued by life in the small community. The following years, he learns much about life, love, friendship, world views and opera.
It is in the chapter about music, Fülle des Wohllauts, that we see Hans Castorp reveling in the most beautiful opera arias. Hans gets access to a beautiful gramophone with the brand name ‘Polyhymnia’.
He makes sure he is alone in the music room and starts listening to famous opera arias for hours.
Below, some of the arias Thomas Mann and his protagonist listened frequently to, with quotations from Fülle des Wohllauts:
Aida:
‘Der unvergleichliche Tenor, der fürstliche Alt mit dem herrlichen Stimmbruch in der Mitte seines Umfanges und der silberne Sopran…’
‘..nun öffne sich der Himmel und ihrem Sehnen erstrahlte das Licht der Ewigkeit.’
Enrico Caruso and Johanna Gadski: O Terra Addio 1909
Aureliano Pertile Dusolina Giannini Carlo Sabajno: O Terra Addio 1928
Carmen:
‘Der Soldat sang von der Blume, die Carmen ihm am Anfang ihrer Bekanntschaft zugeworfen, und die im schweren Arrest, worein er um ihretwillen geraten, sein ein und alles gewesen sei.’
‘Und ewig dir gehör ich an, liess danach die Stimme um zehn Töne sinken und bekannte erschüttert sein Carmen, ich liebe dich.’
Alfred Piccaver: Blumenarie Hier an dem Herzen treu geborgen 1920
Faust:
Hans Castorp feels particularly sympathetic to Valentin, who reminds him of his recently
deceased cousin Joachim, who had served in the army.
‘Jemand trat auf, jemand Erz-Sympatisches, der Valentin hiess, den aber Hans Castorp im Stillen anders nannte…’
Hans Nissen: Da ich nun verlassen soll
Der Lindenbaum:
At the end of the story we find Hans Castorp back in the mud of the battlefields of WWI, singing:
‘Ich schnitt in seiner Rinde so manches liebe Wort …’
‘Und sei-ne Zweige rau-uschten, als rie-fen sie mir zu-‘
Richard Tauber: Der Lindenbaum 1927
Der Zauberberg is one of my favorite novels. I read and re-read it in different stages of my life, or sometimes only out of love for it. It is not only the story, which is holding my attention. It is also the enchanting narrative style.
The best edition is the Grosse Kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe from S.Fischer Verlag, from which the quotations are. However, I think each edition will be good.
Many opera lovers will share the feelings of Thomas Mann and his protagonist, and me, for the enchantment of opera. Attending a live performance is beautiful. Listening to records or CDs of the great arias at home has its own delight.
Wikipedia The Magic Mountain
DVD with Christoph Eichhorn as Hans Castorp
Thomas Mann Der Zauberberg Grosse Kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe
Recently I listened to Ferruccio Busoni Doktor Faust. The opera was waiting on my recorder. Mezzo.tv broadcasted it nearly 2 years ago. The performance was by Opernhaus Zürich from 2006. Thomas Hampson as Doktor Faust impressed me greatly. I immediately bought the Blu-ray disc. In the past, I have read, re-read and seen several times the play by Goethe. I read the play by Marlowe. I have seen the Faust opera of Gounod. However, never the story of Faust had such an effect on me. I will try to explain.
During the second prologue, Doktor Faust opens a book about black magic. According to the guidelines, he conjures up six spirits and chooses the sixth one Mephistopheles as his servant. He asks him to help him with all his wishes, especially for knowledge. In return, Mephistopheles asks him to serve him after death. First Faust shrinks back. Then he surrenders.
It was at this moment of transition from good to power, that Thomas Hampson as Doktor Faust took me into his mind, his thoughts, his hesitation, his weighing up the pros and cons of having power over other people. I was going with him into the life of Faust, and into my life.
Great art is great because it takes you into your own life, your mind and your thoughts. It gives you another way of thinking about life.
In this performance, the creation of many people is converging: The legend of Faust, the libretto and music of Busoni, and Philipp Jarnach, the co-workers of the Zürich Opernhaus. The cast, the conductor, the orchestra, the direction, all are exceptional, even on a recording, certainly on a Blu-ray disc. The music is beautiful, stirring, impressive, fascinating.
However, it is the opera singer, who can bring these reflections on life into your mind.
Thomas Hampson is Faust for the moment. You can go along with him.
If you are susceptible to this kind of experience, listen to it.
The passage is from Prologue II:
Faust: Töte sie.
Mephistopheles: Es ist geschehn. Möchtet Ihr das Übrige abwarten?
Faust: Kaum! – Ich geb mich dir. Aber jetzt – verlass mich.
Mephistopheles: Nur noch ein Geringes.
Faust: Fort, fort, fort! Ich kann dich nicht ertragen!
Mephistophels: Du musst es lernen.
I will ask Arthaus Musik for uploading a part of this section on YouTube.
Thomas Hampson at the end of the opera, stunning:
Naxos Videos Channel:
Doktor Faust Wikipedia
Doktor Faust Blu-ray Disc
Doktor Faust Libretto Stanford
When I am listening to music, looking at a painting or a sculpture or reading a book, I know instantaneously that something is happening to me, a kind of flash. Sometimes a memory of an event in the past, sometimes a memory of a friend, but often an indistinct feeling of happiness, of “je ne sais quoi” or even of melancholy. These moments make a deep impression, I never forget. I don’t know if they are influencing my daily life. But I do know they are remaining in my memory and in my thoughts. They can change with time, mood, ageing or personal development. They never fall out of favour.
For instance, when at the age of twelve first reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace, I looked at Pierre and Andrei as grown-up men. Young, my greatest admiration was for Pierre with his more deviating way of life. Older, I appreciated more Andrei’s social attitude. Yet each time I reread the novel, I feel involved with both and with Natasha of course.
The same, in some other way, is happening with music like the first time I heard Beethoven’s Eroica on a small recorder or the Violin Concerto by Yehudi Menuhin live.
Or when I am looking at a sculpture by Lehmbruck or a painting by Malevich or a .
Earlier I always tried to understand why some works had such an effect on me. Nowadays, I am just happy with the old familiar memories and the future, not yet known, events. They are like old and new friends. They are part of me.
In this blog I’ll write about my favorite music, art and books.
What I hear, see, read, feel, think and love.
A little child, six years old, I was going to a fair. My mother told me about a kind of water organ with music. Full of expectations I was sitting at the front row inside a very large tent. Suddenly the organ was spraying water streams in all sorts of color. The fountains were waving from left to right and up and down. All in harmony with the music.
I liked the show with all these magnificent colors. But moving me most was the music. I never liked the usual children songs. Now I was sitting upright, absorbed by the music.
The slow beginning, the tempi, the waltz. The mildness and then the unexpected loudness of the orchestra. The violins, the flutes, the brass. The melancholy of the violoncello. Sounds I never sensed before.
Life got a new and heavenly dimension. I have never forgotten this first conscious hearing of music. This enchantment of music.
