SEASON 3 EPISODE 5
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Good afternoon and thanks for tuning in to Little Rock Public Radio and Classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I'm Eric Harrison, I write about arts and culture at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and I’ll be your host for the next two hours.
You're listening to ‘Major and Minor Masterpieces,’ where we will focus each week on a broad range of classical music, from chamber music to choral works to full symphonies and maybe even a touch or two of opera.
This week’s theme: “All roads lead to Rome.” We’ll look at a number of musical works by 19th and 20th century composers set in or depicting the eternal city.
Italian composer Ottorino Respighi composed a trio of great tone poems set in Rome, known as Respighi’s “Roman Triptych”: “Roman Festivals,” “The Fountains of Rome” and “The Pines of Rome.”
You’ll hear the other two pieces later in the show, but let’s start with “Roman Festivals,” which the composer opens with a raucous, almost brutal, musical depiction of the an imperial Roman circus. The second movement, “Jubilee,” shows medieval pilgrims on the long journey to Rome. “October Festivals” captures a harvest celebration. And the finale, “Epiphany,” depicts a rowdy celebration in Piazza Navona, one of Rome’s central squares.
Enrique Batiz conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
(OTTORINO RESPIGHI’S “ROMAN FESTIVALS”)
Enrique Batiz conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Ottorino Repighi’s “Roman Festivals.”
Camille Saint-Saens is generally credited with having written three symphonies, of which the third, the “warhorse” known familiarly as the “Organ” Symphony, is the only one regularly performed. However, in 1856, when he was 21 years old, he composed a four-movement symphony in F major that was the winning submission in a performance competition. It was not published in the composer’s lifetime — indeed, it wasn’t published until 1974 and is rarely performed or recorded, so you can be forgiven for not having heard it before. The first movement opens with a grand, serious and slow theme; the second movement is a scherzo, the third a somber funeral march and the fourth a theme and multiple variations.
Jean-Jacques Kantorow conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de LIege.
(SAINT-SAENS’ “URBS ROMA”)
You’ve heard Jean-Jacques Kantorow conduct the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Llege in the “Urbs Roma” symphony by Camille Saint-Saens.
For weeks we’ve been promising at least a touch or two of opera. We’re making good on that promise today with these two arias from Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca.”
“Tosca” is one of the most frequently performed operas in the catalog, and the first entire opera I ever attended, as a teenager — a touring production by the Metropolitan Opera to Philadelphia, back in the glory days when the Met still toured.
Set in Rome in 1800, it focuses on three main characters — jealous opera diva Floria Tosca; her lover, Mario Cavaradossi, a painter with small-r republican political sentiments; and the corrupt chief of police, bass-baritone Baron Scarpia.
Scarpia, who has long lusted after Tosca, imprisons Cavaradossi on a charge of assisting an escaped political prisoner, and cruelly uses the situation, first to manipulate Tosca into revealing the prisoner’s hiding place and then, threatening that if she does not yield to Scarpia’s lust, he’ll execute her lover.
The opera contains innumerable moments of passion and drama, not least of which is Puccini’s magnificent orchestration, but there are two very famous showcase arias, one for the soprano —“Vissi d’arte” (“I lived for art, I lived for love”), which Tosca sings in the second act, pleading with God to answer why, in her blameless life, she should face this unbearable choice, and one for the tenor — “E lucevan e Stella,” in which a despairing Cavaradossi, facing execution at dawn, laments the pending loss of life and love.
The opera has another Roman connection: It premiered there in January 1900.
Famed soprano-of-the-moment Anna Netrebko sings “Vissi d’arte.” The late, legendary tenor Luciano Pavarotti sings “E lucevan e Stella.”
(GIACOMO PUCCINI’S “TOSCA”)
You’ve heard soprano Anna Netrebko singing “Vissi d’arte” and tenor Luciano Pavarotti singing “E lucevan e Stella” from Puccini’s “Tosca” on today’s edition of Major and Minor Masterpieces” on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.
The translations —
“Vissi d’arte”
“I have lived for art, I have lived for love,
“I have never harmed a living soul,
“In secret I have helped any unfortunate people I have known.
“With sincere faith, my prayers have always risen to the holy tabernacles,
“With sincere faith, I have always given flowers for the altars.
“In my hour of grief, why, my Lord, do you repay me like this?
“I gave jewels for the cloak of Our Lady
“And offered my song to the stars, and to Heaven, and made them more beautiful.
““In my hour of grief, why, my Lord, oh why, do you repay me like this?”
“E lucevan e Stella”:
“And the stars were shining,
“And the earth was smelling sweet,
“the garden gate would creak and a footstep skim the sand.
“She would come in, fragrant, and fall into my arms.
Oh, sweet kisses, languorous caresses, while I trembling,
“Would free her lovely limbs from their veils!
“My dream of love has vanished forever, the moment has fled,
“And I die in despair! And I die in despair!
“And I have never loved life so much, so much!”
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
—PROGRAM BREAK—
[EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
SARAH BUFORD, PRODUCER:
Hey listeners, welcome back to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I’m your producer, Sarah Buford, and it's time for our show’s little educational session, in which we break down some of the terminology we use when describing classical music and its history.
Today, let’s take a look at how composers express how loud they want performers to … well, perform. Tell us, Eric, how musicians figure out the volume.
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Well, Sarah, for at least the past 300 years, composers have provided instructions on how loud or how soft they want their notes to be performed. As with most musical instructions, the words they use are in Italian (at least until the mid-1800s, when German composers started using German equivalents).
“Forte” means “loud” (from the Italian word for “strong”), designated in musical notation by the letter “f.” If you want to tell the performer to play (or sing) even louder, or “fortissimo,” you add a second “f.” Some composers, wanting to turn the dial up to 11, as it were, write in three “fs,” though that’s pretty rare.
Composers who want the music to be only slightly loud, use the letters “mF,” which stands for “mezzo-forte,” or “half-loud.”
At the other end, there’s “piano” — not the instrument, but the Italian word meaning “soft,” designated by the letter “p.” Want the music to be really soft? Mark it with two “ps,” for “pianissimo,” or if you want the listener to really strain to hear it, three “ps.” Want it to be slightly loud but not loud enough to be mezzo-forte? Use “mP,” for mezzo-piano.
SARAH: Alright guys, you’re going to want to fortissimo this last half of the show! Let’s turn up the volume and get back to the rest of this week’s Major and Minor Masterpieces.
[END OF EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC: Otterino Respighi’s advice to listeners of "The Fountains of Rome”: “Take your umbrella and galoshes.” The composer explained in the preface to the score of the first of his “Roman Triptych” that he has endeavored to [quote] “give expression to the sentiments and visions suggested to him by four of Rome’s fountains, contemplated at the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or in which their beauty appears most impressive to the observer.” The first part depicts “The Fountain of Valle Giulia at Dawn”; the second, “The Triton Fountain at Morning.” The third, the “Trevi Fountain at Mid-day.” And the finale depicts the “Villa Medici at Sunset.”
Here again is Enrique Batiz conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
(OTTORINO RESPIGHI’S “THE FOUNTAINS OF ROME”)
Enrique Batiz conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Ottorino Respighi’s “The Fountains of Rome.”
One of the many outstanding aspects of the 1959 epic movie “Ben-Hur” was Miklos Rosza's epic Oscar-winning score. Among the most thrilling musical moments, preceding what is probably the film’s most memorable sequence, the chariot race. A wild trumpet fanfare kicks off “The Parade of the Charioteers,” which accompanies the dozen chariots taking a lap around the Great Circus in Rome before the race begins. Arthur Fiedler conducts the Boston Pops Orchestra.
(MIKLOS ROSZA’S “THE PARADE OF THE CHARIOTEERS”)
Arthur Fiedler conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra in “The Parade of the Charioteers” from Miklos Rosza's Oscar-winning score to the movie “Ben-Hur.”
And to end this program of epic music set in, or depicting, the eternal city of Rome, the third, and undoubtedly most epic, of Ottorino Respighi’s Roman Triptych, “The Pines of Rome.” Also in four movements, the tone poem depicts in turn “The Pines of the Villa Borghese,” “Pines Near a Catacomb,” “The Pines of the Janiculum” (including the recorded song of a nightingale) and “The Pines of the Appian Way,” which involves one of the repertoire’s greatest crescendos into what, at least in the concert hall, is one of the loudest and most thrilling finales in classical music.
Once again, Enrique Batiz leads the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
(OTTORINO RESPIGHI’S “THE PINES OF ROME”)
You’ve heard Enrique Batiz lead the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the “Pines of Rome” by Ottorino Respighi.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
Thanks for tuning in this week to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I've been your host, Eric Harrison, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Our producer is Sarah Buford. And our transition and credit music is by our friend Wojciech Chiselinski.
Tune in again next week for Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.