by Stephen Fry
Both, however, gave birth to concertos in 1868, and both concertos can still claim to be among the most popular in the field - Grieg's by dint of a stunning first movement and mesmeric slow movement, and Bruch's by way of a delicious slow movement and a breathtaking finale. Both are fine examples of how MASSIVE popularity cannot ruin truly great works. Both as delectable a couple of concertos as you're ever likely to come across in a dark alley on a Friday night. Gorgeous. Now, it's over to our man in Russia, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
BRING ME THE HEAD OF PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY!
T
he Tchaikovsky Mini-Quiz: Before we get on to Russia, where is Tchaikovsky? I don't mean geographically, I mean in the general scheme of things? (a) Where does he fit in? (b) Why did he write what he did? (c) Who were his mentors? (d) And did he really think his head was going to fall off?
Well, let me see if I can answer all those. Award yourself ten points each if you gave the answers, (a) sort of in-between, (b) er, why not? (?) oh, a bunch of people, really (I'll accept 'a number of people, actually') and (d) yes, apparenriy. Good. Quizette over. Now, let me magnify.
A litde overview, first. Wagner… is still HUGE. Gi-NORmous, with a capital NOR. So much so that a lot of composers are under his spell - Bruckner, for example. Many, though, aren't. One of many in the 'aren't' camp is Brahms, a very 'classical' romantic, shall we say? In fact, Brahms did everything that Wagner didn't, when you think about it. Brahms did chamber music, concertos, variations and symphonies, all without the huge, what he considered to be 'over the top', excesses of the real Wagnerian 'high romantics'. Beyond Wagner, though, the big thing is still 'nationalism' in music - that is to say, putting the sounds, smells, ideas and even tunes of your own country into your music. It's no longer just a 'colour', as it once was. It's now everything. Well, it would be - these are revolutionary times, still, and it is almost the done thiijig, de rigueur, to reflect your country's roots and traditions in your music. In the Russia of 1869, compos;rs divided straight down the middle. There were die Nationalists, led by the five composers whom Russian critic, Vlad Stasov, had dubbed 'The Mighty Handful', namely… On the other side, there were the 'Europeans', shall we say, who preferred to write in the western tradition. In this group, there was… er… Tchaikovsky. Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. As you can see, Tchaikovsky was the only significant member of the latter group. His music was much more a case of what HE, Pyotr Uyich Tchaikovsky, was all about, not what Russia was all about. By 1869, he had already lost the mother he doted on, and was living in the house of Nicholas Rubinstein, the pianist and composer, brother of Anton Rubinstein, the pianist and composer. (Musical lot, the Rubinsteins.) He was making his living as a teacher of harmony^ at the Moscow Conservatory. He had also been on the verge of marrying a Belgian soprano, Desiree Artot, which would have been somewhat disastrous for three reasons. Firsdy, he was gay. Secondly, Desiree was as famous for her sexual flings as she was for her voice. Thirdly, it's not good for a composer to be married to someone named after a potato. They parted company with no real harm done to the very sensitive Mr Tchaikovsky, although it was immediately following this episode that he produced his overture to Romeo and Juliet. Ironically, it was Balakirev who had put the idea of writing an R amp;J overture into his head, and it was to him that Tchaikovsky turned for help and advice as he was completing it. Tchaikovsky called the finished work a 'fantasy overture', which basically means it's not an overture in the strict sense of the word - with all the 'overture rules', etc - but more a flight of fancy in music. An overture where the composer is allowed to go off on one, whenever he wants. It has that gorgeous, lush tune in the middle, which has been used, ever since, when a film director has been in need of portraying something ULTRA romantic.
And that final question. Did Tchaikovsky really think his head was going to fall off? Well, yes, actually, he did. Tchaik was afflicted with several all-consuming neuroses, one of which was that his head was going to fall off if he conducted an orchestra too energetically. It's as true as I'm standing here! And - and this is no word of a lie - he was often to be seen, when he did conduct, witii one hand holding the baton, and the other holding on to his chin, for fear it would fall off. Honest!
Well, now. We're about to hit the '70s. But don't worry - your flares are safe in the wardrobe. This is the 1870s. Before we do, though, let's catch up witli Litde Richard and Big Joe. fl What a shame we don't have a non-musical job called 'teacher of harmony' ~ someone who just teaches people to love one another, and spread love. OK, I'll get down off my hippie soapbox.
THE SEVENTIES FLARES AND FALLIBILITY
imagine die 1870s were little like the 1970s. OK, OK, specialist subject the bleeding obvious, yes, I know. But that's not to say there weren't some similarities. In the 1970s, you had love and peace - in the 1870s, Mahatma Gandhi was born! Eh!? Need I say more? I need to? OK, well, in the 1970s, you had Abba. In the 1870s you had the Pope, just having been declared infallible, courtesy of Vat. I! Eh!? Spooky, huh? You want more? You do. Right, OK. Well, in the 1970s you had saucy postcards, in the 1870s you had the very BIRTH of the postcard. In the 1970s you had a ride of your Raleigh Chopper, in the 1870s you had a Ride of the Valkyries. In the 1970s, YOU HAD THE WORZELS, in the 1870s… OK, the cod similarities end there. Sorry. Can't match the Worzels (as Melvin Bragg once said).
Let me just spool back a bit. 'The Ride of the Valkyries'. Yes, that was 1870 - OK, actually it was premiered in 1869, but it was 'the big thing' in 1870 and beyond. Just as the Suez Canal opened, Wagner gave the world the music of the nine daughters of Wotan; the music of the weird and wonderful horsewomen of the air; the music of napalm, depending on your generation. It was the fourth in his bladder-testing cycle of operas, The Ring, or to give it its full kennel name, The Ring of Lady Benedictine-Trixibelle, the Third.® OK, that's a lie. Its full name is only The Ring of the Nibelung, but personally I think mine sounds better. If the Rinjf were an American Football match, then, with The Valkyries, we're in the third quarter. Not long before, he'd wandered off again for some light relief from the Ring, much like he did with Tristan and Isolde, a little earlier. It was in 1867 that he'd premiered his comedy, The Mastersingrers of Nuremberg. The word 'comedy' is applied a little loosely, here, as you might be beginning to guess. In fact, the word should be applied so loosely that it becomes free to roam off and never contact The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, ever again, save for the occasional postcard. Just how UNFUNNY this 'comedy'1' is can be gleaned from this sentence: 'Set in sixteenth-century Nuremberg…' fl In inverted commas, italicized, ironically underlined, complete with the accompanying disclaimer 'Notice: this "comedy* will not make you laugh. Any experience bearing any resemblance to any other amusing experience, either living or dead, as a result of this "comedy^" is entirely unintentional. fi fl All hail the great Ronnie of Hazelhurst. Sorry, just wanted to see his name in the book alongside the great Wagner. In fact, stop there. That's captured it, I think. 'Set in sixteenth-century Nuremberg.' It's hardly the cue for a light, knockabout half-hour, accompanied by the strains of a Ronnie Hazelhurst^?" theme tune, starring the guy off 'Alio 'Alio, is it? No. I'm glad you agree.
To Wagner, comedy meant 'the human comedy', only comedy in so far as the subject matter does not make you want to reach for your revolver. Well, usually. It concerns the (apparently true) story of a Mastersingers contest. The 'meistersinger' tradition is one which goes way back, and was also called 'minnesinger'. This story concerns one of the most famous, Hans Sach, who offered his daughter's hand in marriage to the winner of one such 'meistersinger' competition. There's a great baddie, Beckmesser, and a rather pompous goodie, Walther the Franconian knight. Sounds a hoot, doesn't it? Anyway, I said we'd catch up with Big Joe, too, so get your period Y-fronts on and don the foppish 'What's that over there?' stance of a John Collier catalogue - it's the 1870s proper, and we're going in. FASCINATING A'l'DA 1871, it is, to be precise. The year of the Paris Commune - more or less the firs
t socialist government in history, running from March to May of that year, a lifespan that was to set the standard for all socialist governments of the future, until Tony Blair's. It was the year the French also ceded Alsace Lorraine to Germany, along with an 'indemnity' of FIVE BILLION francs. FIVE BILLION francs. Sorry, my needle got stuck. FIVE BILLION francs, though. Sorry, there I go again, repeating myself. No doubt it was doppels all round for William I, the first being the very first Emperor of the new Germany. It appears to have been an unusually - and no doubt temporarily -peaceful time, too, with the Treaty of Washington settling up all the existing niggles between the USA and Britain. How lovely. Add to that the fact that the FA Cup was started, bank holidays came into being and Stanley met Livingstone at Ujiji and, well, God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. 1871 also had a couple of particularly good book launches to keep the literati happy - Lewis Carroll followed up with Through the Looking Glass (good canapes) and George Eliot with Middkmarch (particularly impressive dips). Gosh - pseudonyms everywhere. Amazing. Come to think of it, I've always though of using one myself.
STEPHEN FRY'S
INCOMPLETE
amp;UTTER HISTORY
OF CLASSICAL MUSIC
AS TOLD?? KEITH SALMONWHACKER
Mmm. I think I'll sleep on that. Anyway, now to the music of 1871, and if it isn't Big Joe. Our man Green. Giuseppe Verdi was by now a very sprightly fifty-eight-year-old, and was loved by the Italians only a smidgeon less than Parmesan cheese. Anyone who could wander round virtually ANY Italian town and expect to see his name graffitied across the walls in virtually every backstreet piazza knows he has made it. To be fair, Verdi's name had become synonymous with the now successful nationalist movement, in part due to Verdi's own nationalist leanings and subsequent use of nationalist plots in his operas, but also, in part, down to a quirk of fate with his name.
The words 'Viva Verdi' were to be seen in backstreet piazzas because of a serendipitous piece of luck. The then incoming King of Italy was one Vittorio Emmanuel. As a result, the letters VERDI were used as an acronym of Victor Emmanuel, Re D'ltalia - or Victor Emmanuel, King Of Italy - and, in long form, Viva VERDI. In other words, Long Live Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy. It's an oft told but nevertheless beautiful bit of serendipity, one which wouldn't have worked half as well if Verdi had been either (a) not a nationalist or (b) a crap composer.
In 1871, though, Mr V received a very nice letter from the Khedive of Egypt. Khedive… I think it's some sort of root vegetable. Whatever. Anyway, he was writing to ask Verdi for a nice BIG opera to open up his nice BIG opera house, the brand new Cairo Opera. He'd like it nice and BIG, please, preferably hummably tuneful, and could he have it ready Thursday? Well, the way I see it, Verdi probably didn't want the gig. Cairo? I mean, it was miles away, and he was doing perfectly well here in Italy, thank you very much. Name in every back-street piazza, the works. So, Big Joe sends a letter back saying he'll gladly do the opera, but he would have to charge $20,000. $20,000! (that's in bold, you know?) $20,000.4 Just so's you know, that was in bold, italics too, and with an extra exclamation mark! Well, just think how much that was then. Absolutely STAGGERING amount of money, in those days. In these days, too, even. Anyway, much to his surprise, the Khedive (actually I think it might be a small canape or something) agrees the fee and stumps up the twenty grand. So, Verdi duly supplies the opera and the rest is his story, as it were.
Oddly enough, the opera had originally been conceived as a celebration of not just the brand-new 'Italian Opera' House, but by way of a general party for the opening of the Suez Canal, in 1869. It has an amazing lineage, commissioned, as it was, by an Egyptian Khedive (I think it's possibly, literally, a funnel-ended vessel), with a plot by a French Egyptologist, a libretto written, in French, by Camille de Lock, and then the whole thing translated into Italian by fellow librettist Antonio Ghislanzoni, and the odd 'crossing-out' by Mr Verdi himself. The whole thing was then shipped out to Egypt -composer not included - along with scenery and costumes, ordered from Paris, all to be then held up in the Siege of Paris.
Eventually, it was premiered, though, and it - Ai'da - became one of the most successful operas in history. Again, if you get a chance, go and see it live, because it really is worth it. Try one of those huge, popular productions, with a cast of thousands, performed in the round, at the Millennium Stadium, or somewhere like. It really is a fantastic spectacle.
Verdi himself refused to attend the premiere. Refused point blank. Said he didn't like all the glitz and glamour, and was not fond of sea travel: and besides, he couldn't do a thing with his hair. He did, however, receive a telegram from the Khedive (literally, a mollusc of the species Phylum mollusca) to say that Aida had gone down a storm. Fascinating, huh?
This was all happening around the same time that Wagner was preparing a Christmas present to his new wife, Cosima - the daughter of Franz Liszt and previous wife of his 'dear friend', Hans von Bulow. Prior to marriage, Wagner had been conducting an open affair with Cosima for some years/ As much by way of relief from his??? he rearranged as a love token some of the tunes from his opera, Siegfried, into a cute little piece called the Siegfried Idyll, and had it played to her outside her bedroom, with a bunch of musicians squeezed on to the landing. Awwww. Now that's what I call High Romantic, Volume 7! (Not a huge-selling album.) So that's that. Cosima has her Idyll, the Khedive had his opera. Actually, let me quickly look up the word 'khedive' while you wait. Key, khaki, khalifa, khamsin, khan khidmutgar. Mmm. No 'khedive'. Mm. Sorry, can't tell you what it means. I can tell you, however, that, according to my dictionary, a 'khilifat' is 'a caliphate'. Very useful.
I V 1874
1874. Not a bad year, I suggest. And imagine, if you did one of those ubiquitous seven-hour-long schedule-filler TV programmes recalling the year, with various talking heads popping up (the same ones who popped up last week, and seemed to have exacdy the same opinion of a completely different year) and full of clips of music, and items you'd forgotten from the year - well, how would it sound? Nothing like the following, I can guarantee.
First up in the clips stakes is Verdi's Requiem. This is one truly amazing work - not an opera, obviously, and yet very operatic in style. In fact it was labelled, by conductor Hans von Bulow - he of the flighty baton and even flightier wife - as 'an opera in church vestments'. And you can see what he meant - this is very much a Requiem in the line of Berlioz rather than Bach or Mozart. It's a very theatrical, dramatic piece. More importandy, though, it was to Verdi what William Tell was to Rossini. By that I don't mean it cost a fortune in flit's amazing that despite Wagner and Cosima's infedelities, von Bulow remained a dedicated Wagner fan all his life. apples - I mean it was the last piece he wrote before retiring for a while. In Verdi's case, it wasn't the full, 'Rossinian' thirty-four years, but he did shut up shop for the next thirteen. Thirteen years! A long time for the people of Italy, no doubt. He just… moved to the country. Wrote nothing, 'Do not Disturb' sign up, everything. (Wipes tear from eye.)
So that was Verdi and his 'operatic' style of 1874. His Italian sound is very different, too, to the German operatic sound of Wagner. It's not just that you don't have to shave twice and bring a change of clothes to get through an Italian opera, it was just, well, different. Very different. Italian opera and German opera had taken different turns on the road, and were travelling different paths. Verdi's stuff was still pushing at the limits, somewhat - I mean, just listen to Aida and La Forza del Destine: these were both really stretching it compared with where Verdi started in Nabucco, for instance. And so it would be - the two were nearly thirty years apart. And thirty years, musically, in that - and this - day and age means a hell of a lot.
Anyway, that's Verdi's Italy, and Wagner's Germany, but where is France? And who is France, as it were? Well, come with me, to the next line but one, and I'll tell you. But bring your hankies - it's a weepy.
THE BIDET BELONGING TO GEORGE
T
o the composer Georges Biz
et, now, whom my computer spell-check wants to call George's bidet. No lie - honest. But don't worry - we have people to check for that sort of thing.
George's bidet was born in 1838 in Paris and was every bit the classic child prodigy composer. He was already enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire by the age of nine and had won Paris's biggest composition prize by the age of nineteen. His compositions were STAGGERINGLY mature and it soon became apparent that the name bidet was going to live forever. But then things took a turn for the worse.
Bidet's situation was, I've always thought, not unlike that of some actors today. I'm thinking about the ones who sample early success. What often happens is that offers flood in and it becomes very hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. This seems to have happened to George's and soon, well, it looked like bidet had hit the bottom, all washed up.
But things did get better. Bidet married the daughter of his composition professor and life began to inspire him more. Due to the high regard in which his earlier works were held, he won a commission for a new opera - an opera that was to be staged in the March of 1875.