A Singer’s Guide to the Great Composers: Beethoven Pt2
In Part 1 I wrote at some length about the difficulties of singing Beethoven, and the immense concentration needed for performance of his greatest works, notably the Ninth Symphony. The Ninth is indeed tricky, and takes the singers into the stratosphere, but at least it is reasonably short in terms of the actual time you have to sing.
With the Missa Solemnis we are presented with a work lasting well over an hour, in which you cannot relax, even for a nano-second. As soloists, Beethoven writes for the entire range of all the voices, and we have to cope with great leaps, and sections which explore every facet of the voice.
I have complained vociferously to my friends and colleagues about the awful tendency of contemporary 21st century composers to write on the very edge (usually the upper one) of their singers’ voices, defeating any possibility of the audience understanding the words, even in their own language. It does seem a particularly stupid way of writing and is one reason I have rather avoided the worst examples of this modern scourge, unless especially well-paid! I was involved relatively recently in a production of one of these new operas, and remember, at a press conference, the composer was asked why he wrote such excruciatingly high roles for his sopranos. His reply was both informative and ghastly at the same time. ”I write like this because I like the extreme and as a composer I can do what I like.” Asked further why he wrote in such a way that no words could be heard or understood, he explained that this didn’t matter to him, and that he wanted it to be at the very limit. Self indulgent twaddle, say I. However, this composer is hugely admired and feted.
Meanwhile back with Beethoven, this accusation cannot be aimed at him, as his music came from his very soul, and if the difficulty factor is high, well we just need to get on with it and make it work. In Part 1 I wrote about the reasons for Beethoven’s extreme complexity and high tessitura, especially for the sopranos, both solo and chorus, but there was no self-indulgence involved. He wrote this way because his inner ear told him so, and that was that!
The Missa Solemnis, so called because it was written for a particular purpose, a festive setting of the Ordinary Mass hugely more complicated than the normal everyday Catholic service, was a device used by several composers, but Beethoven’s setting explores levels never before considered. It was originally conceived as a work for the installation of the Archduke Rudolph, half-brother of the Austrian Emperor, as Archbishop of Olmütz (present day Olomouc in Moravia in the Czech Republic), but when the installation took place in 1820, it was nowhere near finished. It eventually saw the light of day, extraordinarily, in 1824 in St Petersburg, organised by the Russian Prince Gallitzin, another of Beethoven’s noble supporters, and some of it was given a Viennese premiere the following year.
A quick aside here reminds me that my wife and I found ourselves in Olomouc, towards the end of the 1980s, on a driving holiday behind the Iron Curtain. There were many extraordinary moments on that trip, including a visit to Jihlava, Mahler’s hometown, but Olomouc stands out as exceptional. We arrived there in mid- afternoon and found our hotel. Now, you must understand that this was still in the Communist era, although Glasnost and Perestroika were beginning to soften the regime’s fiercely anti-Western policies, and so we were a very rare sight, a right-hand drive Audi and two young tourists from Scotland. Olomouc was an extremely important baroque town, a garrison town with grand buildings and splendid civic architecture. As there was virtually no tourist trade, all the buildings were easy to visit but in appalling condition, dusty and unpainted. We wandered through this splendid architecture and imagined the grandeur that must have greeted Archduke Rudolph on his investiture. Having inquired at the hotel where we might dine that evening, we were instructed to head for a wine bar under one of the old palaces. Our experience so far in Czechoslovakia, as it then was, had warned us that Western comforts and cuisine might be in short supply, but we were pleasantly surprised to find rather good food, albeit pork and dumpling-based, and extremely good Moravian wine. After sampling both, we were chatting over a leisurely dessert when a whole group of people entered the cellar, which previously had been quite empty, and proceeded to order extensively and noisily. It transpired that this was the local choral society after their weekly rehearsal, doing what choral societies the world over do after a practice – go to the pub! Soon they were singing one of their party pieces and getting quite jolly. Much to my wife’s embarrassment, I went over and, knowing no Czech but recognising that some older members might speak German, told them in that language, that I was a visiting opera singer from Scotland and would like to sing them a song from my homeland. Well, obviously (?!), this was hugely successful, and for the next hour, we went back and forth with me singing Scots songs and operatic arias and the choir singing Czech and Moravian songs. It was one of the most heart-warming evenings of our life, two young Scots in the heart of what Ronald Reagan had just described as the Evil Empire, communicating entirely by music and a shared language which had been spoken by enemies of both our countries 40 years before. More Moravian wine was consumed, and a jolly evening was had. There was a surreal coda to the evening as, when we returned to our hotel, we were woken in the middle of the night by hundreds of helicopters flying overhead. In the morning, we found out that it had been the Russian garrison leaving, in the expectation that Czechoslovakia would soon be easing itself out of the Communist grip. Unlike previous Russian leaders, President Gorbachev saw no future in fighting to keep the Czechs in line. I’m told that Olomouc now has been restored to much of its former baroque glory, and I am sure it is magnificent, but I will always treasure that extraordinary night in the wine cellar!
After this digression, it behoves me to write a little about singing the Missa Solemnis. As I have said, this work is really hard and complicated. I have only ever sung it once or twice in my career, as most choral societies find it too difficult and too exhausting, particularly for the sopranos and tenors. Sadly, Covid scuppered a performance I had lined up for 2020 in Northampton, but I am hopeful that I can sing at least one more in the future.
It really is a most amazing work. The soloists are integrated into the whole, singing in a quartet. There are no arias or lengthy solos, but certain moments highlight each singer. I love the Benedictus, one of Beethoven’s most innovative and sublime movements. The Sanctus starts with hushed solo voices and dark instruments, bursting into life with the chorus on “Pleni sunt coeli” and setting off like a rocket on ‘Osanna’, only to subside into a long and ethereal praeludium. This mirrors the moment in the mass when there is an interval between Sanctus and the consecration of the Mass, often covered in the church by the organist improvising. Here Beethoven as it were clears the air before a solo violin, with flutes in tow, strikes up a long and utterly beautiful melody, preparing us for the Benedictus (‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’), initially muttered by the chorus basses and then thrillingly coming to life with the bass and the alto at the top of their range. For the singers, this is both beautiful and terrifying, as we suddenly find ourselves singing really quite high, almost for the first time in the piece. It’s another example of Beethoven’s lack of understanding about the voice, but you just have to grit your teeth and strengthen your diaphragm support to take you up to a couple of top Es on difficult vowels. As the other voices come in, you can relax (sort of) into the middle of the voice, and the movement continues for some time, with the violin soaring above everything. I remember one performance years ago, when the normal orchestra leader was unavailable for the concert, and the management had brought in a deputy leader. All was well until the Benedictus, when the poor bloke suddenly found himself playing, basically, the slow movement of a violin concerto, of which he had been blissfully ignorant. It lies at the very top of the violin’s range, and stays up there for ages, and, having realised in the earlier rehearsal that he was not up to it, the unfortunate fellow had to scrape away in the concert, as exposed as a nude model in a painting, with nowhere to hide.
The Agnus Dei which follows next, is perhaps the most extraordinary movement of all. It starts with a dark solo for the bass, one of the most sublime passages that we get to sing anywhere, and, as the other voices come in, Beethoven works up to a great climax in cries of ‘Have Mercy on us’. Suddenly, the mood changes as trumpets and drums evoke memories of all the wars that Beethoven had experienced in his life, and he conjures up a response to the martial sounds in pleas of ‘Dona nobis Pacem’ (Give us peace). What an extraordinary way to end a mass and what an innovation. Eventually, the sounds of warfare dissipate, and we are left hoping for peace, but unsure of the future.
That a profoundly deaf person could imagine this ending is one of the miracles of art, as indeed is the whole Missa Solemnis, a work that for me sits at the very pinnacle of masterpieces of music. Bloody hard, but bloody wonderful!
Finally I come to ‘Fidelio’, Beethoven’s only opera, a piece which attracts love and dislike in equal amounts. “It’s not really an opera”, “It doesn’t hang together”, “It has no plot, it has no characterisation, it goes nowhere, how does no one recognise that Leonora is a woman” competes with “It is a sublime reflection on liberty, freedom and love” and “It is the deepest expression in music of love and devotion!”
You will probably not be enormously surprised to learn that my view is the more positive one! I have only sung in it once, at Scottish Opera with Alexander Gibson, as Don Fernando, the King’s Minister. I was booked to sing Rocco, the jailer, one of my most wanted roles, three years ago in Victoria, BC with Pacific Opera Victoria but, sadly, my pesky mitral valve chose that time to start leaking, and I had to have open heart surgery to fix it, thus causing me to withdraw. It was to have been my swansong at POV, after La Roche, Falstaff and Bottom, and the realisation of a great ambition, but it was not to be.
‘Fidelio’ was both a triumph and a burden to Beethoven, and mainly the latter, as its composition history caused him to declare, accurately, that he would never write another.
Initially conceived as a completely different opera, ‘Vestas Feuer’, after being contracted by Emanuel Schikaneder (he of Magic Flute fame), Beethoven became obsessed with a French libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, ‘Leonore, ou l’amour conjugal’, translated into German by Joseph Sonnleithner, and produced a three-act version in 1805. Revised into a two-act piece the following year, more editing and revisions took place, until the final revised version was premiered at the Kärtnertortheater on 22nd May 1814. The 17-year old Franz Schubert attended this final version, and was highly impressed by the original Pizarro, Johan Michael Vogl, for whom he went on to write ‘Winterreise’.
While recognising the brilliance of “Fidelio”, people ever since have struggled with its lack of theatricality, and its demands made on the principals. I love the quote by Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1948 – “Certainly, ‘Fidelio’ is not an opera in the sense we are used to, nor is Beethoven a musician for the theatre. He is quite a bit more, a whole musician, and beyond that a saint and a visionary.” Heady stuff, but in my humble opinion true!
The opera opens with an overture over which Beethoven spent many years making revisions and starts quite conventionally with a domestic scene. With the arrival of the famous quartet (‘Mir ist so wunderbar’), it moves swiftly into the realm of genius, as time seems to stand still while the characters muse about their feelings, in sublime music. Opera plots can be difficult to deal with, and the main problem with ‘Fidelio’ is the willing suspension of disbelief that anyone could be fooled by the appearance of Leonore (wife of the political prisoner, Florestan), disguised as a boy. The dramatic nature of Leonore’s music has made the possibility of the singer playing Leonore/Fidelio being able seriously to disguise herself (to the acceptance of Marzelline as a potential husband and Rocco as a potential son-in-law) as a teenage boy somewhat unlikely. However, the convention of women playing boys in operas (trouser roles) was relatively strong, and it shouldn’t be utterly impossible to disguise her. For me, what is most interesting in this opera is the manifest evil of the Governor, Pizarro, the decent qualities of Rocco the jailer, compromised by his jobsworth attitude (‘well, it’s prison, we must expect to murder inmates’ etc), the awful conditions of the prisoners tempered by the permission given by Rocco, spurred on by Fidelio, to be allowed a look at the sunlight, and the heart-warming love of Florestan and Leonore, which shines throughout the work. The arias of the two lovers test the stamina and techniques of the singers, especially Florestan, who has to sing heroically and very high, a great test for the tenor. The main section of the second act, when Leonore finally reveals her true identity, is wonderful, and, although the arrival of Don Fernando, the king’s minister, is a modern version of the ‘Deus ex Machina’ convention of older drama, the finale never fails to move me. This was the role I sang in my late 20’s at Scottish Opera in a wonderful old production, starring Kathryn Harries and John Treleavan. Beethoven’s lack of theatricality and my rookie’s woeful acting must have tested the audience at the end, but it did produce one of my favourite reviews - “Excellent was the shimmering, electric voice of Brian Bannatyne-Scott….”
I leave you with that vocal image to contemplate, as you go in search of the ideal recording of ‘Fidelio’, which is hard to recommend. My favourite is the 1962 Klemperer recording with Ludwig, Vickers, Berry and Frick, as you would expect from me, but there are several other great versions to choose from, including Karajan, Bőhm and Bernstein, with Ludwig, Gwyneth Jones and James King. You pays your money etc.
