Salieri and Mozart
Mar. 15th, 2020 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI have been listening to a Lot of Salieri and Mozart over the last couple of months, as a direct result of selenak reviewing Amadeus, and I promised her I'd write up my thoughts on them. As usual, I am only about a couple of months late :P (But this let me listen to a lot more Mozart, I guess...)
As for Salieri: I listened to Les Horaces, Tarare (the one that is featured in Amadeus, leading to Shaffer!Mozart's immortal line (at least, it's immortal in our household) "One hears such sounds, and what can one say, but -- Salieri!"), and La Scuola de' Gelosi. I liked the former two a lot, and I started out liking the third but in the end got kinda bored. I did not watch any of these, so I have no idea how they stack up as visual drama.
Horaces and Tarare remind me a lot of late Gluck.selenak informed historically-challenged me that Gluck was Salieri's teacher, so guess that makes sense! There is something about the musical texture that very much appeals to me, in the same way that late Gluck operas appeal to me (although when I went back and listened to some Gluck, it seems to me that Gluck has the more beautiful melodies). And I read somewhere (probably a combo of wikipedia and selenak) that Salieri and Gluck were both interested in the words taking primacy, which I very much approve of -- it's evident in the recordings even though I can't understand most of the words. I honestly think there's a lot to like in these operas.
My overall verdict is that Shaffer!Mozart is much too hard on Salieri :P As he should be, when I thought about it some more: Shaffer!Mozart isn't really acting as historical!Mozart in the movie (as far as I can tell from browsing articles on the interwebs, historical!Mozart liked Salieri's work). Of course, Shaffer!Mozart is the vehicle for Shaffer's ideas about genius and how it interacts with mediocrity and so on, but in addition Shaffer!Mozart is also acting a little here, I think, as a twentieth-century voice of musicality. We've all grown up with Mozart's music; we know what it can do, and we know Salieri wasn't quite doing it. Not because he wasn't a good composer, which I actually think he was! But he wasn't pushing the boundaries of things like Mozart was. It doesn't surprise me at all that Salieri's operas gradually went out of style; they were very good examples of their own time, but by the time Salieri got old, that time was past.
I also fiiiiinally listened to Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which has been on my to-listen list for... probably at least a year now. I listened to the Sung in English version first, and then the Gardiner version (John Eliot Gardiner is my gateway drug to opera in general, see also Mozart and Gluck), and I reactivated my Met on Demand subscription (more on this on some subsequent post) partially because I was going to watch it before writing it up but the Met does not have a video of this at all, boooooo. This turns out to be OK, in the sense that I like to watch operas before talking about them partially because I always miss stuff when I'm listening, but the plot of Serail is extremely simple, so I'm pretty confident I didn't miss an entire subplot someplace (which has happened before in more complicated operas).
(But seriously, the plot is reeeeally simple. Pasha Selim has captured the sopranos and one of the tenors, and the other tenor comes to rescue them. That's pretty much it, that's the plot, except for a bit at the end which I really liked (and which I was unspoiled for). )
The way I feel about Serail is that -- well, I enjoyed it! A lot! It's very cute! but as Mozart, it's rather minor compared to his major works. If he had been remembered based on this, people would have thought he was pleasant, but I don't think he wouldn't have been considered the genius he is today. The arias seem a little more dependent on whizzing scales or simple progressions rather than the gorgeous melodies that Mozart is famous for. (And I can't help but feel that Emperor Joseph II had a point when he said "Too many notes." Am I being a Philistine again? :) ) That being said, there are bits and pieces where you can see what will come later -- like "Welcher Wechsel herrscht in meiner Seele / Traurigkeit ward mir zum Losw" which -- if I knew more musicology maybe I could analyze and describe a little better what I like about it, but since I don't, I will just say, parts of this aria made my brain stop working from sheer loveliness, in the same way that my brain stops during the entirety of "Ach, ich fuhls" or "Porgi, amor." Salieri, bless him, doesn't ever do that to my brain.
But honestly, if I had to choose one of Serail and Tarare and give up the other, I'd probably choose Tarare. (Only in my best of all possible worlds I'd make Gardiner record it, lol.)
(Tangentially, the most hilarious part of listening to Tarare was that in "Martern aller Arten," when Konstanze sings, "Lärme, tobe, wüthe!" my whole brain suddenly flashed back to the part in Amadeus where Caterina Cavalieri sings that line. I don't think I do that with any other Mozart pieces -- oh, okay, fine, I do it with "Confutatis" too but I now have enough independent history with the Requiem that it's not my only association -- and I didn't do it with Tarare either. I suppose it's at least partially because it's such a dramatic cinematic moment in the movie -- which -- is another testament to how good the movie is; it's a dramatic soprano line, sure, but to make it a high point of tension and drama in the movie, unrelated to the drama in the opera, is pretty amazing.)
But then I had to go listen to Die Zauberflöte again, of course. I wrote about a whole bunch of different recordings/a couple of DVDs a while back, and I was pleased by my consistency -- I still feel the same way about all these recordings. :) (I like the Gardiner more than I did then, and Solti a little less, perhaps. I will also note that at the time Gerald Finley's Papageno in the Gardiner production didn't ping me at all; now, having seen and heard and loved Finley in a couple of things since then, it's cool to hear him here too!) I love Zauberflöte so much that I can't really talk rationally or analytically about it, nor can I really honestly compare it to Serail. But I do think that Zauberflöte is a Great Work, and Serail is not, not really. (Also! The Gardiner video production of Zauberflote, a somewhat stylized and choreographed version (but not quite as wacko as the Taymor production) is on Youtube! I haven't finished watching it yet, though. Will report back!)
selenak reviewing Amadeus, and I promised her I'd write up my thoughts on them. As usual, I am only about a couple of months late :P (But this let me listen to a lot more Mozart, I guess...)As for Salieri: I listened to Les Horaces, Tarare (the one that is featured in Amadeus, leading to Shaffer!Mozart's immortal line (at least, it's immortal in our household) "One hears such sounds, and what can one say, but -- Salieri!"), and La Scuola de' Gelosi. I liked the former two a lot, and I started out liking the third but in the end got kinda bored. I did not watch any of these, so I have no idea how they stack up as visual drama.
Horaces and Tarare remind me a lot of late Gluck.
selenak informed historically-challenged me that Gluck was Salieri's teacher, so guess that makes sense! There is something about the musical texture that very much appeals to me, in the same way that late Gluck operas appeal to me (although when I went back and listened to some Gluck, it seems to me that Gluck has the more beautiful melodies). And I read somewhere (probably a combo of wikipedia and selenak) that Salieri and Gluck were both interested in the words taking primacy, which I very much approve of -- it's evident in the recordings even though I can't understand most of the words. I honestly think there's a lot to like in these operas.My overall verdict is that Shaffer!Mozart is much too hard on Salieri :P As he should be, when I thought about it some more: Shaffer!Mozart isn't really acting as historical!Mozart in the movie (as far as I can tell from browsing articles on the interwebs, historical!Mozart liked Salieri's work). Of course, Shaffer!Mozart is the vehicle for Shaffer's ideas about genius and how it interacts with mediocrity and so on, but in addition Shaffer!Mozart is also acting a little here, I think, as a twentieth-century voice of musicality. We've all grown up with Mozart's music; we know what it can do, and we know Salieri wasn't quite doing it. Not because he wasn't a good composer, which I actually think he was! But he wasn't pushing the boundaries of things like Mozart was. It doesn't surprise me at all that Salieri's operas gradually went out of style; they were very good examples of their own time, but by the time Salieri got old, that time was past.
I also fiiiiinally listened to Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which has been on my to-listen list for... probably at least a year now. I listened to the Sung in English version first, and then the Gardiner version (John Eliot Gardiner is my gateway drug to opera in general, see also Mozart and Gluck), and I reactivated my Met on Demand subscription (more on this on some subsequent post) partially because I was going to watch it before writing it up but the Met does not have a video of this at all, boooooo. This turns out to be OK, in the sense that I like to watch operas before talking about them partially because I always miss stuff when I'm listening, but the plot of Serail is extremely simple, so I'm pretty confident I didn't miss an entire subplot someplace (which has happened before in more complicated operas).
(But seriously, the plot is reeeeally simple. Pasha Selim has captured the sopranos and one of the tenors, and the other tenor comes to rescue them. That's pretty much it, that's the plot, except for a bit at the end which I really liked (and which I was unspoiled for). )
The way I feel about Serail is that -- well, I enjoyed it! A lot! It's very cute! but as Mozart, it's rather minor compared to his major works. If he had been remembered based on this, people would have thought he was pleasant, but I don't think he wouldn't have been considered the genius he is today. The arias seem a little more dependent on whizzing scales or simple progressions rather than the gorgeous melodies that Mozart is famous for. (And I can't help but feel that Emperor Joseph II had a point when he said "Too many notes." Am I being a Philistine again? :) ) That being said, there are bits and pieces where you can see what will come later -- like "Welcher Wechsel herrscht in meiner Seele / Traurigkeit ward mir zum Losw" which -- if I knew more musicology maybe I could analyze and describe a little better what I like about it, but since I don't, I will just say, parts of this aria made my brain stop working from sheer loveliness, in the same way that my brain stops during the entirety of "Ach, ich fuhls" or "Porgi, amor." Salieri, bless him, doesn't ever do that to my brain.
But honestly, if I had to choose one of Serail and Tarare and give up the other, I'd probably choose Tarare. (Only in my best of all possible worlds I'd make Gardiner record it, lol.)
(Tangentially, the most hilarious part of listening to Tarare was that in "Martern aller Arten," when Konstanze sings, "Lärme, tobe, wüthe!" my whole brain suddenly flashed back to the part in Amadeus where Caterina Cavalieri sings that line. I don't think I do that with any other Mozart pieces -- oh, okay, fine, I do it with "Confutatis" too but I now have enough independent history with the Requiem that it's not my only association -- and I didn't do it with Tarare either. I suppose it's at least partially because it's such a dramatic cinematic moment in the movie -- which -- is another testament to how good the movie is; it's a dramatic soprano line, sure, but to make it a high point of tension and drama in the movie, unrelated to the drama in the opera, is pretty amazing.)
But then I had to go listen to Die Zauberflöte again, of course. I wrote about a whole bunch of different recordings/a couple of DVDs a while back, and I was pleased by my consistency -- I still feel the same way about all these recordings. :) (I like the Gardiner more than I did then, and Solti a little less, perhaps. I will also note that at the time Gerald Finley's Papageno in the Gardiner production didn't ping me at all; now, having seen and heard and loved Finley in a couple of things since then, it's cool to hear him here too!) I love Zauberflöte so much that I can't really talk rationally or analytically about it, nor can I really honestly compare it to Serail. But I do think that Zauberflöte is a Great Work, and Serail is not, not really. (Also! The Gardiner video production of Zauberflote, a somewhat stylized and choreographed version (but not quite as wacko as the Taymor production) is on Youtube! I haven't finished watching it yet, though. Will report back!)
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Date: 2020-03-16 10:34 am (UTC)the singers were often just a trifle too soft for the orchestra, and occasionally I had a hard time hearing the lines coming out from the orchestra to combine with the singers, which is one of the gorgeous things about listening to Mozart. I assume it is because of the live recording
I felt the same way -- it seemed to be something about the mike placements. Sometimes the solo instruments/singers entwining sounded perfect, and other times it was drowned out.
(Altho since I studied it in a music class, every time they do NOT keep the long pause in "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön" after "Was würde ich?" a little part of me goes >:-( But the voices are GLORIOUS.)
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Date: 2020-03-17 02:00 am (UTC)ohhhhh, I got out my score and haha, look right there at that whole measure rest after "Was würde ich?" :) I... did not know that, I am pretty sure none of the recordings I most reliably listen to don't do it!
The ROH version I mentioned in that other post is also on youtube Act I here and Act II here. Generally I don't love the singing as much as the Gardiner (although Keenlyside is amazing, watch for his flying leap during "Pa - pa - gena!" and Röschmann is always great), but the staging is much less weird :) (It's still a little weird -- it postulates this sort of odd mashup of fairy-tale and Age of Enlightenment, and the Queen of the Night's costume is kind of terrible -- but I really love how human they made it <3)
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Date: 2020-03-17 04:51 pm (UTC)It is just about my fave opera (it kind of alternates with Don Giovanni). It's SO gorgeous and allegorical and every time I listen to it I get the feeling there's so much more going on under the surface, like it's a myth or a fable.
I'm glad that I wasn't imagining things about the balance, though! :)
Yeah, I think unfortunately that can just happen in live performances that aren't All About The Mikes, and with opera it's especially difficult because the singers are moving around and interacting and in a big echoing wooden space. The brass seemed to be outweighing the strings, too, but it seemed like the same kind of thing.
ohhhhh, I got out my score and haha, look right there at that whole measure rest after "Was würde ich?" :) I... did not know that, I am pretty sure none of the recordings I most reliably listen to don't do it!
The teacher I studied it with was a musician and a composer, and he pointed it out specifically to us and said it added so much to the moment -- I think I have one recording that honours it, it might be the Abbado? I can see why they cut it, because audiences get nervous at long pauses and it really depends on people understanding the German. But it's a very Mozartian moment.
The ROH version I mentioned in that other post is also on youtube Act I here and Act II here. Generally I don't love the singing as much as the Gardiner (although Keenlyside is amazing, watch for his flying leap during "Pa - pa - gena!" and Röschmann is always great), but the staging is much less weird :)
If that's the one with Diana Damrau I have that on DVD, because DAAAAAAAMN. A friend who is a total Queen of the Night fangirl recommended that to me as the best recording she knew. It's great but I don't know if I'd go that far, but Damrau is absolutely mesmerizing.
(OMG that giant headpiece though. It made her look like a Star Trek alien.)
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Date: 2020-03-19 03:39 am (UTC)And yes it's the one with Damrau, and how did I forget to mention her in my comment, she is great! Also I can't get behind what they did with her staging, yes, she looks like an alien, and it also reminded me of Galadriel in the LOTR movies (where I burst out laughing, though I am pretty sure I was not supposed to). But I love basically everything else about that production, it's my favorite of all the ones I have watched (which, okay, is like 4? so if you know of one you like better, let me know)
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Date: 2020-03-19 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-21 04:48 am (UTC)Gerald Finley isn't half bad either!
I have the Met Magic Flute in English but for some reason I just can't stand Nathan Gunn's voice -- it's a nice voice, but for some reason I can't deal with it. I've had this problem with the other two things I've listened to with him in it too. My 5-year-old likes his Papageno, though :P
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Date: 2020-03-22 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-23 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-17 05:01 pm (UTC)Glockenspiel aria - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEItEuT1H7E
Final Duet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULihXz-MHH8 (this piece NEVER fails to make me really happy)
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Date: 2020-03-19 02:21 am (UTC)The bit where he goes "O, so ein sanftes Tauben" is just so sweet -- I'd never had that line stick out to me before <3
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Date: 2020-03-16 07:23 pm (UTC)Re: Joseph's famous critique: actually, to quote wikip pointing out a most consquential German-English mistranslation:
he complexity of Mozart's work noted by Goethe also plays a role in a well-known tale about the opera which appeared in the early (1798) biography of Mozart by Franz Xaver Niemetschek. In the version of the anecdote printed in Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes, a reference work, the story is told like this:
The Emperor Joseph II commissioned the creation of The Abduction from the Seraglio, but when he heard it, he complained to Mozart, "That is too fine for my ears – there are too many notes." Mozart replied, "There are just as many notes as there should be."
The authenticity of this story is not accepted by all scholars. Moreover, the version given by the Bartlett reference (and many other places) includes a translation of the original German that is dubious. The original reads as follows:[
Zu schön für unsere Ohren, und gewaltig viel Noten, lieber Mozart!
"Too many notes" is not a plausible translation of the German phrase "gewaltig viel Noten".
Quite. "Too beautiful for our years, and a lot of notes, dear Mozart!" would be my version. But be that as it may, Shaffer made the English version of that quote popular in German, too.
re: Salieri - would you start with Les Horaces or Tarare?
It doesn't surprise me at all that Salieri's operas gradually went out of style; they were very good examples of their own time, but by the time Salieri got old, that time was past.
Which happens to most artists who do get old, I suppose. BTW, there's a wonderful blackly humorous Doctor Who audio story called "My Own Private Wolfgang" (not tv, so I can't link you to any excerpts) in which the Doctor and one of his Companions talk about Mozart... only not as we know him. To them, he's the equivalent of elevator music, some hack who had a few great years and then produced endless samey-ringalongs. Which is our first big clue of what the mystery of the episode is about. Remember, Doctor Who revolves around time travel. The Doctor and Evelyn (his friend) attend Mozart's hundredth birthday party where he tries, in vain, to commit suicide a la Salieri in Amadeus Turns out (supposedly) a big Mozart fan in the future travelled back in time (dressed up as the Comtur in black, with mask, naturally) and not only cured him of his tuberculosis but made him immortal, and now his inspiration has run dry, he's repeating himself and life has become torture to him. The Doctor starts to realise there's something wrong in this timeline. Old!Mozart begs him to go back and stop his younger self from accepting the cure/immortality deal and names the exact day the Man in Black showed up. When the Doctor stops the Man In The Mask, it turns out to be... no, not Salieri. It's actually a Mozart clone from the future. See, in the very first time line, a time traveller went back to clone Mozart and to introduce Mozart clones in the future. Where they ended up used and abused as musical pets. So one of the Clone!Mozarts travelled back to make the original immortal, reasoning that then he'd become like every other composer, which in turn would mean no one would want to clone him, which meant the Clones would be put out of their misery. By the end of the story, the restored time line has become the one we know; young Mozart decides to die young, the Doctor removes the last few pages of the Requiem which means it's never finished and for some plot reason I've forgotten, this ensures the Mozart Clones don't get mistreated, and Evelyn suddenly finds Mozart's music bearable after all. :)
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Date: 2020-03-17 02:16 am (UTC)"Too beautiful for our years, and a lot of notes, dear Mozart!"
Heeee! I should not at all be surprised that there is error in transmission and in translation, after the last few months :) Well, it is a lot of notes :P
Hmm. I started with Tarare and stuck with it at least partially because I thought it made an entertaining contrast to Entführung :) I think either would be OK? Perhaps Tarare to start, but I find them pretty similar. I seem to have forgotten in the post to talk about La Scuola de' Gelosi, but it's definitely Nozze di Figaro Lite -- it's domestic comedy, but for a population that knows Figaro, it's just flatly inferior (and thus disappointing to me), and Salieri doesn't even come close to any of the brilliant ensemble scenes Mozart fills Figaro with. But if one didn't know the da Ponte/Mozart operas I imagine it would be rather fun (and I suppose Mozart must have known Salieri's opera when he wrote Figaro, for that matter).
Which happens to most artists who do get old, I suppose.
Good point -- I understand it happened to, e.g., J.S. Bach, whose children's works crowded out his own old-fashioned ones, right? Until Mendelssohn brought him back... Although it seems like a bit of a renaissance is happening for Salieri himself (though Salieri is no J.S. Bach), due to Shaffer, ironically :) (I mean, it's the reason why I was listening to it...)
Heeeeee that's a really interesting Doctor Who story! I was not expecting the Mozart clones (nor any of the rest of it, really, but that's when I started laughing from the sheer complexity of it). It is an interesting question as to what would have happened if Mozart had lived longer -- I like to think he would have written more great music, but who really knows?
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Date: 2020-03-16 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-17 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-19 05:56 am (UTC)Also, IDK if I mentioned this, but the free Met Opera streams are one of the bright spots in my otherwise gloomy work from home experience rn. The Hvorostovksy Il Trovatore is on now and it is so excellent: https://players.brightcove.net/102076671001/ShNTDWXQ_default/index.html?videoId=6142430747001
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Date: 2020-03-21 03:25 am (UTC)ohhhhh yes I was going to ask you if you knew about the Met Opera streams :D I missed the Trovatore and the Traviata too, but I have my Met on Demand subscription so I'll catch up on them :) You probably know it's going to be Eugene Onegin pretty soon!
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Date: 2020-03-21 01:47 pm (UTC)I know, and I'm getting ready to cryyyyyyyy ;)
Seriously, Hvorostovsky was so brave and wonderful and you could see how the audience response to him really moved him, I spent half the opera clutching my heart <3