Episode 349. Lenten Melody
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SUBSCRIPTION PLATFORM
I’ve already done a Lententide episode devoted to contraltos singing the music of Bach, but it seemed to me that in the upheaval of today’s vengeful and war-hungry world, we could use another contemplative episode to provide us with meditative (and even tuneful!) music to calm our spirits. The tunefulness comes especially from recordings of favorite religious music by Gounod, Franck, and other 19th-century French composers sung by Camille Maurane, Marcel Journet, Richard Verreau, and Françoise Pollet. Also included are a live excerpt from Parsifal with Jon Vickers and Hans Knappertsbusch; the miraculous yet voiceless Hugues Cuénod performing an excerpt from the first of Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres; the unsung German-British soprano Ilse Wolf in a live performance of the Bach Johannes-Passion conducted by Pablo Casals; Gundula Janowitz in a searing but brief aria from Mendelssohn’s Paulus; excerpts from settings of the Stabat Maters of Haydn and Dvorák, sung by Alfreda Hodgson, Sena Jurinac, and Heinz Hoppe; the original version of Hendrik Andriessen’s exquisite Miroir de Peine cycle for voice and organ featuring our beloved Elly Ameling; and Jennie Tourel in an excerpt from her ultra-rare recording of Hindemith’s Das Marienleben preceded by Lotte Lehmanns’s recitation of the same Rilke poem. The episode begins and ends with realizations by Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett of Baroque masters Henry Purcell and Pelham Humfrey sung, respectively, by Peter Pears and John Shirley-Quirk.
RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE
Henry Purcell, William Fuller (realized Benjamin Britten): In the black dismal dungeon of despair. Peter Pears, Benjamin Britten [live Hannover 10.XII.1960]
François Couperin, Le Grand: Première Leçon de Ténèbres pour le Mercredy Saint (excerpt). Incipit lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae; Heth; Facti sunt hostes; Parvuti; Jerusalem. Hugues Cuénod, Daniel Pinkham, Alfred Zighera [1950]
Johann Sebastian Bach, Picander: Ich folge dir gleichfalls (Johannes-Passion, BWV 245-9). Ilse Wolf, Pablo Casals, Prades Festival Orchestra [live Prades 11.VII.59]
Hendrik Andriessen, Henri Ghéon: Miroir de Peine [version for voice and organ]: I. Agonie au jardin; II. Flagellation; III. Couronnement d’épines; IV. Portement de Croix; V. Crucifixion. Elly Ameling, Albert de Klerk [1981]
Felix Mendelssohn: Jerusalem! Die du tötest die Propheten (Paulus, Op. 36). Gundula Janowitz, Kurt Masur, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig [1986]
Richard Wagner: Nein! Nein! Nicht die Wunde ist es! (Parsifal). Jon Vickers, Hans Knappertsbusch, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra [live Bayreuth 13.VIII.64]
Rainer Maria Rilke: Vor der Passion (Das Marienleben). Lotte Lehmann [1958]
Paul Hindemith, Rainer Maria Rilke: Vor der Passion (Das Marienleben, Op. 27/10 [revised version]). Jennie Tourel, Erich Itor Kahn [1954]
Joseph Haydn, Jacopone da Todi: Fac me vere tecum flere (Stabat Mater, Hob.XXa:1:9). Alfreda Hodgson, Laszlo Heltay, Argo Chamber Orchestra [1980]
Antonín Dvorák, Jacopone da Todi: Fac ut portem (Stabat Mater, Op. 58). Sena Jurinac, Heinz Hoppe, Rafael Kubelik, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks [live München 20.III.1964]
César Franck, Thomas Aquinas: Panis angelicus [Messe à trois voix, Op. 12]. Camille Maurane, Marie-Claire Alain [ca. 1958]
Henri Büsser: Notre père qui êtes au cieux. Richard Verreau, Jeanne Martin [1959]
Jean Luce, Thomas Aquinas: O Salutaris. Marcel Journet. [Three recordings: 1916, 1925, 1933]
Charles Gounod: Repentir, CG 434. Françoise Pollet, Jacques Mercier, Orchestre National de l’Île de France [1996]
Pelham Humfrey, John Donne [realized Michael Tippett, Walter Bergmann]: A Hymne to God the Father. John Shirley-Quirk, Martin Isepp, Ambrose Gauntlett [1966]
