Magical operas: Magic Flute and Rhinegold

It is significant that three of my favourite - the most enduringly interesting, as a whole - operas should share an archetypal and 'Jungian' feel. These are Mozart's The Magic Flue [I mean Flute]; Wagner's Das Rhinegold (Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage is another, albeit musically inferior*). 

Perhaps this is because these are dramatically (situationally, as regards plot) is as high as opera can reach as an art form? 

After all, most operas are dramatic contrivances to produces scenes of strong and essentially 'populist' emotion - love at first sight, a love affair or the start of a marriage, the misery of broken love, pathos at loss, anger and vengefulness. Perhaps Verdi did this better than anyone - and his operas are composed of primary colours, black and white. 

It is the music which sometimes (and there are very few really successful operas - a couple of dozen perhaps) raises an opera above farce and melodrama and sometimes to sublimity. The plots of Mozart's Da Ponte-written operas -The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and (especially) Cosi Fan Tutte - are essentially horrible, shallow, facetious comedies of manners; which I would find intolerable as plays. It is the music of Mozart which raises these stock situations to the Heavens. 

The Magic Flute is my favourite opera, perhaps my favourite music. And this has to do with the fairy tale and archetypal aspects; but also the Masonic symbolism. Now, of course, Freemasonry is ultimately an enemy of Christianity and indeed probably an instrument of strategic evil. Yet here it is, structuring perhaps the greatest music ever written!

This is not uncommon in the arts; including the arts of genius. We are all sinners, including geniuses; and the greatest human creations are tainted with sin. But it is not the sin tow which we most deeply respond in the music of the Magic Flute - it is the Good. 

Because, after all, all evil contains some Good - and early Freemasonry (at the time and place of Mozart) had many good aspects - which rendered it a suitable and effective vehicle for the Magic Flute.  

Das Rhinegold has an extraordinary grandeur and symmetry - really marvelous orchestral writing and effects; and in general Rhinegold is a convincing and enchanting example of world building in opera. 

We feel we are inside the Teutonic legends - living in the heightened reality of gods, nymphs, dwarves, giants - indeed I merely need to think about the opera to get a halo effect on my lived experience. 

Yet, the 'message' of the work is again dubious. The plot is permeated with deception, greed, resentment, lust... and these are not really balanced by any great Goodness or nobility of purpose. It is, of course, the music - and not so much the singing (which is pretty arbitrary) but the orchestral part of the score - that makes the difference. 

In opera it is the music - not the play - which may reach the heights; and the music which can go beyond both the limitations and the explicit intentions of the composer. 

The lesson can be applied to other art forms, and other periods - even nowadays when the evil intent of art, literature and even music is very evident. 

When any artist (and artists nowadays are almost-never genuises, not even minor ones) taps into genuine creativity - he expresses the divine. Which is why there is good that may (with proper intent) be derived even from evil works - and most works (and all modern works) have a far greater admixture of evil than these three operas. 

* The Midsummer Marriage by Michael Tippett is another symbolic and magical opera - indeed, probably the last such to be written in a way that is (just about!) potentially accessible to the intelligent layman (rather than the professional musician). 

While the Wagner and Mozart are susceptible to Jungian analysis (as performed by Robert Donington) - Tippet actually wrote his opera from an explicit and deliberate Jungian schema.  

I would have to regard this Jungian schema as ultimately evil! - because it regards good and evil as light and dark sides of a personality; and aims not to acknowledge and repent sin, but it integrate it in the 'whole' Man. 

Yet, there is enough positive value in Jung to make it an effective basis for a Good opera. In particular - it addresses the problems of alienation and divided mind (the mundane and the enchanted worlds, materialism and spiritual); and the protagonists attain a kind of healing which is a positive outcome. 

With the Midsummer Marriage it is the music which (in parts of the score) raises the whole to greater heights than its flawed plot, clumsy language and (mostly) unmelodic vocal writing; and even than its explicit (wrong) intent. And, as with Rhinegold, it is the orchestra (not the singers) that has most of the musical good stuff.  

Music as Life?

In the first three years I was at medical school I spent much of each day learning to be a doctor; but my other major activity was music - mainly classical, but some folk. 

At times it was almost as if I lived 'in' music. It was not just that I listened (with intense attention) to a great deal of music; and sang in Gilbert and Sullivan shows and two choirs (one large, the other of twelve singers) -- but more than this, I was seeking something spiritually absorbing from music. 

In a way, I was expecting to find in music some-thing that would be the main thing in life; would 'solve' the problems of life. 

When I was working on learning something like Beethoven's Piano Concertos, or Sonatas; Bach performed by Glenn Gould; Wagner's Ring operas; Richard Strauss's tone poems; or the works of Michael Tippett (which was as modern as I got) -- I was seeking for something that I felt lacking.

Several times, I seemed to be close to getting it. For example; the four consecutive days spent listing to The Ring while reading the musical scores - and talking or reading about The Ring when I was not listening - were so intense and immersive that the effect lasted for weeks. I seemed to be (wanted to be) living inside Wagner's world, and everything reminded me of some aspect.    

Or the music of Michael Tippet (by my evaluation, the best living English composer) which began with buying his Double String Concerto (as an accidental pairing with Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia), then reading his Moving Into Aquarius essays (found in a shop in Athens!); and ended with being taken through everything of his that had been recorded up to 1980 by a music-student friend who had also known Tippett somewhat, since he was a neighbour in Wiltshire. 

The culmination was meeting Tippett himself, outside his house, to hand over a 75th Birthday card; and again at the birthday concert in his honour - at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. 

As I came back from this concert on the train, travelling from midnight to 05:00 (to attend ward rounds the next morning); while reading the newly published short biography and analysis by David Matthews -- the combination of excitement and lack of sleep probably raised my 'life in music' to about as high and sustained a level as was possible... 

Which was not all that complete or sustained - if 'life' was the true objective! Music never quite delivered on my hopes, even at its best; and I always felt the need for other things - my medical work, literature, and (of course) human society. Yet even when all this were put-together, it did not answer. Always there was a lack - hence the continual hoping and searching. 

While it is true that I continued to pin (unrealistically) great hopes on music for another several years (one way or another) - as much for lack of any better alternative as because the life-strategy was working well - I never reached so broad and deep an involvement as at around that time.

Looking back I regard my quest in music as a recapitulation of something that happened more generally in post-Christian Western society - the impulse of non-Christian Romanticism which sought to replace and supersede religion with art. This is the core meaning of 'art of art's sake'. 

Beethoven or Wagner could serve as good musical examples - not least because towards the end of his life Wagner  

Beatrix Potter stories with songs on EP (vinyl) and songs by Cyril Ornadel

Perhaps the favourite records of our small collection of vinyl as young children were the HMV versions of Beatrix Potter's stories with superb songs. There was inspired music by Cyril Ornadel and first-rate lyrics by David Croft; and were narrated by Vivien Leigh. 

Everything about these EP records is still perfectly memorable (both tunes and words) several decades later. 

(EPs were 'extended play' records; they looked like singles, and spun at 45 revolutions per minute like a single, but each side lasted about twice as long as a single - presumably at the cost of lower sound quality, although that was not evident on the kind of record player we possessed!)  

In Squirrel Nutkin there is the immortal 'I've got a tail' sung by Nutkin/ Graham Stark - which often pops into my head whenever the subject of 'tails' comes-up. Also Nutkin's strange 'riddles' - which are of the same type as those in the Hobbit - and come to mind on country walks. 

Or Old Mr Brown (the owl) and his recipe song 'Take one mole...' which has very amusing lyrics (as might be expected from the co-author of Dad's Army). It was always a scare when kindly Old Brown was provoked into attacking Nutkin, and inflicting the the 'karmic' punishment of biting-off most of the tail about which Nutkin had been so conceited. 

There were six stories in the collection - and we had all of them. The dark side of Beatrix Potter's world is nearly always evident, with the cute characters in danger of being caught and eaten by predators - whether sly or stupid. Still, as with all the best stories, 'All's well that ends well'. 

All the Tales, except Mrs Tiggy Winkle, therefore have sinister aspects which used to frighten me (still do!); such as the cat in Johnny Town Mouse, and Mr Macgregor the gardener in Peter Rabbit and the Flopsy Bunnies. 

Perhaps the most chilling was Jemima Puddle Duck; with the annoyingly foolish Jemima ('a simpleton') being seduced (almost to her death) by the kind-seeming, seductive foxy gentleman (who ambiguously sings 'I'll have you for dinner'). This tale features a virtuoso performance of Jemima by the famous Cicely Courtneidge. 

As a kid aged about four, I was particularly impressed by her song 'I can fly'; which gave instructions on how-to-do-it. Naturally, I went outside to try this for myself - I can still picture the incident. In the event, I didn't manage to fly - but did not give up hope.

The special appeal of Mrs Tiggy Winkle was much related to the thrillingly-magical final comments when the author tells us that the story was real, where it all happened, and that she is herself 'very well acquainted' with Mrs TW.  

Nowadays, this comes to mind whenever I look out on 'Owl Island' on Derwentwater, across at Cat Bells mountain, or pass through the delightful village where Lucy lived. 

Owl (St Herbert's) Island by Keswick

The 'impossible' tenor high F (above high C) in Bellini's The Puritans

 

I first heard this aria sung, as above, by Luciano Pavarotti - and this is, for me, the greatest performance overall. But the role was clearly Not written for a tenor of Pavarotti's type - with such a full, ringing and loud voice. (This is indeed known from multiple other sources of evidence.) 

Therefore, despite that Pavarotti sings every other note with his usual, perfectly even and glorious tone, he cannot reach the high F without switching to a falsetto (head-voice) voice production which marks a qualitative break in tonal quality. The run-in to this note is from 4:25. He does the high F beautifully - yet it sounds like someone else is singing that particular note. 

Pavarotti had probably the best high C of any full-voiced Italianate tenor - and what is more he possessed equally fine high C-sharp and even D - as may be heard in this aria; yet there are extremely few tenors of his type that can manage these notes using the same mode of vocal production as the high C. 

But the high F is three semitone above D - and that is a long way when singers are being judged by exact standards - and way beyond what any big-voiced tenor could produce in his normal vocal tone. 

You can hear this from a compilation of recordings of this notorious note - which is, I think, by far the highest note in the mainstream operatic tenor repertoire - since it is very seldom any tenor is required to go above high C at most - and that only once or twice per opera. 

Ignore the drivel in the comments! - What you can hear is that any tenor who has the kind of loud, ringing tone of a Pavarotti - someone like Gedda - must change to a qualitatively different tone for the high F. 

This is because all tenors have a 'break' in the voice, above which the tone must become falsetto; this break can be raised by training - but it is because of this that full-voiced tenors will sometimes 'crack' on high notes. This is like a yodel, and for the same reason - the voice suddenly, but uncontrolled because accidentally, flips into falsetto. 

(Yodeling is a controlled flipping back and forth between falsetto and the ordinary voice.) 

So, is the high F 'impossible'? 

There are tenors who, instead of having an abrupt break, gradually introduce more and more falsetto - their voice gradually and evenly changes from normal to falsetto as the notes get higher. (I have a friend with a naturally deep and sweet-toned voice, who does this spontaneously - and who has been able successfully to sing bass, baritone and tenor roles in Gilbert and Sullivan!) For such tenors, this high F may have more, or less, falsetto according to how high the break occurs. Some tenors have a very high break, and therefore the high F has less falsetto. 

However, these tenors invariably have a 'lighter', quieter and less ringing kind of tenor voice than the likes of Pavarotti and Gedda (or other greats of Italian Opera such as Caruso or Gigli) - they are, in essence, a different kind of voice (leggiero or tenore de grazia are some of the terms) - and such tenors are nowadays most often seen in Rossini, because only lighter voices can manage rapid coloratura (decorative passages of many quick notes). Luigi Alva was of this type.    

It seems certain that Bellini was writing for a just this type of leggiero, ligh-voliced singer, who used falsetto-flavoured production for the high notes. However, the tenor plays a man in nearly all operas, what is more the hero; and so he needs to sound masculine in vocal quality. 

This need for a heroic quality can be a problem for most high-voiced tenors, including who can best manage the high F with the minimum of falsetto. For perfection, the tenor should be able to integrate the high F with the whole of the rest of his voice - so that there is a completely-seamless transition in vocal quality. 

An example of musically-desirable seamless integration is Bruce Brewer (from 4:20):

However; Brewer sounds too-much like a female contralto - and not at all heroic!

So there is a problem. In a purist and strictly musical sense the tenor role in The Puritans must be a trade-off between heroic qualities in the voice, including the capacity to produce thrilling - rather than merely sweet - top notes; and the ability to sing the highest notes without a break in the voice. And, realistically, this can only be done by sacrificing the high F! - i.e. by singing it in (more or less) the different falsetto tone, as done by Pavarotti and Gedda. 

Or else there ill be a 'compromise' between heroic qualities and the vocal production. To my ear, an example of a good compromise is William Matteuzzi (who is also included in the compilation video above). Start at 3:20 - but the high F comes shortly after 4:25.

Matteuzzi - who I only recently discovered - was a very remarkable singer in many ways, although he never made it 'to the top' for whatever reason (e.g. he seems to be a poor actor and to lack charisma, in the YouTube examples I have found). 

His voice is light but it has that thrilling, masculine 'ring' (sometimes termed squillo) which is so valued by opera-goers - especially in the hero tenor roles. And this includes his highest notes which, although they are flavoured with falsetto production, have a genuinely heroic and exciting quality. 

His high F is very nearly, albeit not quite, tonally-integrated with the rest of his range - but as soon as he steps down one, then two, notes down from the F (E-flat, D-flat), his full 'normal' thrilling tone returns - and the effect of this passage of three notes is excellent. 

In the end, I would be forced to say that Bellini made a mistake by including the high F in this role - because it is actually impossible to sing in a wholly-satisfactory way. But it has certainly led to a lot of enjoyable fun and games for tenors trying to cope with it - one way or another.   

Folk song, dance and music - and Romanticism

Folk song, dance and music are a product of Romanticism, including the Romantic Nationalism which swept Europe in the 19th century. That is, Folk is a modern concept for something that was not previously a distinct category. 

(It being, presumably, whatever ordinary people, however defined; would do, in whatever time and place; in terms of singing, dancing and playing music.) 

But it was of great potency because - by means of Folk - a modern person could (for a while, to some extent) feel and experience that deep and Original Participation by which we were vertically rooted-in a spirit of people, and horizontally connected directly with other people. 

This was (originally) spontaneous and unconscious. What was once just a 'part of life' became for modern people something consciously chosen, learned, 'performed'. It still 'worked' (for a while) but must be sought and worked-on.  

But for people like me it was potent; because from adolescence the modern Man feels himself being crushed by the The System - and all meaning, purpose and participation being squeezed out of life. Folk represents a way of re-introducing some of these. 

As such, Folk had great importance to me in the mid teens of my life. It was a dream, but it could be a living-dream. 

Some of my best memories of those days are myself playing and singing folk music (often for myself, also performing a little), attending folk clubs and concerts, and especially dancing in Barn Dances/ Ceilidhs. Actually doing these dances could create a feeling of being a part of something bigger and more deeply rooted than normal life. 

These gave me a taste of participation - I felt (for a while, to some extent) a part of the world, a part of 'a people'. 

Yet I get a distinct impression that such feelings are both weaker and less common since the millennium transition (which seems to have been a further stage in the evolution of consciousness away-from the possibility of spontaneous and unconscious participation). 

Folk is now both less widespread, and more professional - hence more Ahrimanic and more a part of The System. 

Folk music always had politically-motivated nationalists and communists who tried to politicize it by equating 'the folk' with (for example) the Irish 'struggle' for 'freedom' or the Marxist 'proletariat'. As with all institutions; this surface and social aspect spread with the New Left victimology of women, races, sexuality etc. 

The consequent politics of resentment goes exactly counter to the Romantic participation which was originally sought from this music; it reduces the magic to the mundane. 

But what were we, what was I, supposed to do with Romantic Folk experiences? 

What actually happened was either that people tried and failed to return 'society' (as a whole) to the Folk-type, to an 'organic community', to Medieval-style villages or idealistic self-sufficient communes... To a neo-pagan inspired (intended to be) unconscious and spontaneous 'original' participation in living nature. 

This was the failed aspect of the post-war counter-culture - the deepest aspirations of both 'beats' and 'hippies' which got left-behind as all their agenda items were stripped of Romance, filleted into bureaucratic bullet-points, and embodied into managed systems.  

I think what we were supposed to do is to bring the Romantic Folk experience into conscious spiritual thinking; that is, retaining its Romantic power (based on the assumption that all of nature (including human society) is alive and a makes a continuum of direct knowing from-which we gradually separated-out, but to which we may return in our thinking. 

Nowadays this may not involve current experience of Folk singing, music or dancing - because such phenomena have been dwindling in power and popularity - even before in 2020 they were all suppressed and forbidden (for lying, 'healthist' fake-reasons).

Any (legal) future for such Folk activity seems to be one in which these activities are all closely-monitored and tightly-regulated as fully-assimilated System manifestations. 

So, what is required is that we each do for our-selves what we previously relied-upon live and communal singing, music and dance to do for us. 

The Romantic moves from the public and social realm to the private and conscious realm - and Folk (as part of the Romantic) likewise.

We are called-upon to be actively-creative in our own thinking - getting what assistance where and how we may; but ultimately engaging in a direct participation with creation. Any memories of past Folk experiences (or the Romantic essence thereof) can seamlessly be integrated into this spiritual activity.  

Instead of aiming to embody these Folk ideals into this mortal and transitory world, we should refocus on preparing our-selves for the immortal and permanent inclusion of the essence of Folk into the post-mortal and Heavenly world. 

Bach BWV 530 transcribed by The Herschel Trio

 

Bach Trio Sonata for treble recorder, treble viol and harpsichord, played by The Herschel* Trio. This piece begins at 48:17. 

This is a transcription of one of my absolute favourite pieces of music - the Vivace (first movement) from JS Bach's G Major Trio Sonata for Organ BWV 530. The whole thing is pure delight - but the three extended descending sequences are so absolutely delicious as to bring tears to the eyes. (The first of these begins at 49:09).

In the first version of this sequence the recorder does rapid semi-quavers while the viol does triplet quavers in syncopated support with the bass note coming on the first beat. The second sequence switches the lines with triplets in the recorder and semi-quavers on the viol. And the third sequence has both recorder and viol playing semi-quavers in mirror movement, with the bass note coming on the third ('off') beat.  

If you want to take a look at how the music 'works' - then the first part of this scrolling version of the original organ piece is very useful. 

If you want to watch the music being played (especially the bass line - articulated in beige socks...) then try this one:

*William Herschel started as a musician (composer, conducter, violinist) and for a while led the Durham militia band and Charles Avison's Newcastle Orchestra in my part of England. He then switched his efforts towards astronomy where he managed to discover Uranus, infrared, various planetary moons and much other stuff; to become the third most influential astronomer in history (ranked after Galileo and Kepler - according to Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment). Talented chap... 

Wunderbar Wunderlich!

Following yesterday's musical offering, here is Fritz Wunderlich again; in the deservedly famous 'Handel's Largo' aria

What makes Wunderlich's a supreme voice for me is the combination of thrilling masculine tone and strength, with an underlying pathos, an earnest quality. This was, no doubt, partly due to his youth - he died at only 35 years old (due to an accident - falling down stairs), which is barely reaching maturity for a male singer.

Technically, Wunderlich was noted for his breath control, giving him the ability to sing long phrases and (this is much more difficult than might be imagined) to increase or decrease volume while holding a high note - without either going-off that note (losing intonation) or breaking the continuity of vibrato.

This is shown to great effect in the notoriously tricky Il Mio Tesoro from Mozart's Don Giovanni, sung live. Listen for the long, single breath passages with rapid runs up and down the scale.

This aria demonstrates the 'heroic' quality of Wunderlich's voice - which is unusual in this type of lyric tenor.

Being a live performance; Wunderlich snatches very quick breath in the middle of the very longest passage, which enables him to slow down and expand the last part of it.

Below is have a studio recording of the same aria, sung in German translation, in which he sings the phrase right through with no trouble at all - but this is usually not possible in live performance where the singer is often tired by the stage movements and acting.

If you are impatient to hear it, jump straight to 1:45. It makes me feel a bit faint just listening...