Saturday, December 28, 2024

Favorites of 2024: Books

Fiction Favorites of 2024

This week LitHub published a list of its editors' favorite stories of the past year. The first entry on the list was Bradford Morrow's "In Search of the Rarest Book in American Literature." You might suspect that first editions of Walt Whitman's self-published Leaves of Grass (1855), Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; or The Whale (1851), L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), or F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1928) in dust jacket would top the list of the rarest volumes in American letters, but no. While they are all extremely desirable (and costly), the rarest book in American literature is Edgar Allan Poe's 40-page-long first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), published in an edition of perhaps 50 copies when Poe was only 18.

Cover of Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe

Cover of Susan Jaffe Tane's copy of Edgar Allan Poe's Tamerlane (Calvin Thomas, 1827). Image source: Wikimedia Commons (erroneously identified there as the Cornell University Library copy)

Only eleven copies are known to have survived; a twelfth was stolen from the McGregor Room rare-book collection in the University of Virginia's Alderman Library in 1973 and may never be found.

One of the two known copies of Tamerlane in private hands recently came up for auction at Sotheby's. At the sale in June of this year Tamerlane was bought by the premier Poe collector today, Susan Jaffe Tane, who already owned the only other copy of Tamerlane in a private collection; she told Morrow that she plans to donate one of the two copies to "the right home."

The auction was the subject of Morrow's follow-up story, "What's worth more than the rarest book in American literature? The answer may (not) surprise you." As the title of Morrow's piece implies, Tamerlane, despite its rarity, did not sell for the highest price. In fact, though astronomically expensive, it was a relative bargain: when this copy had come up for auction in 2009 it had been bought by Dr. Rodney P. Swantko for $682,000 (the equivalent today of U.S. $1 million). But another item from Swantko's library sold for

a higher price than Poe’s Tamerlane ($420,000), a first edition of Melville’s Moby-Dick in the rare blue first binding ($21,600), a first issue of Leaves of Grass ($132,000), Lolita inscribed by Nabokov to Graham Greene with a butterfly drawing ($264,000), Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol inscribed to his close friend Walter Savage Landor in the year of publication ($228,000), The Great Gatsby in its rare and iconic dust jacket, gifted to Zelda’s sister and brother-in-law ($336,000), an inscribed first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ($108,000), Kerouac’s On the Road inscribed to [his lover] Joyce Johnson ($120,000), and the earliest known Poe autograph manuscript in private hands, "In an Album—to a River" ($216,000) combined.

The priciest item? Thomas Taylor's original cover art for the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Bloomsbury, 1997), which sold for $1,920,000.

Original cover illustration for Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone by Thomas Taylor

Thomas Taylor’s original cover illustration for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Courtesy of Sotheby’s Books & Manuscripts Department. Image source: LitHub

I bring up Morrow's LitHub pieces because in them he mentions that he first met Tane while researching his 2020 novel The Forger's Daughter, "which centers on a complex scheme to counterfeit a thirteenth Tamerlane. . .[and] involves in-the-weeds details about Tamerlane's printing and hand-stitched binding."

Cover of The Forgers Daughter by Bradford Morrow

Cover of Bradford Morrow's The Forger's Daughter (Mysterious Press, 2020). Image source: BradfordMorrow.com

This, I instantly thought, is a novel that I have to read. But The Forger's Daughter is the sequel to The Forgers (Mysterious Press, 2014), and so I thought I should read the series in order (the third and final volume, The Forger's Requiem, will come out in 2025).

Biggest disappointment

I picked up The Forgers in a state of high anticipation, and at the very first sentence was immediately dismayed. The book opens with a description of a gruesome murder scene: the victim, book collector Adam Diehl, has had his head crushed with a marble rolling pin and his hands severed. It's a graphic introduction to the bibliographic mystery I was expecting, and I felt my heart sinking at its generic conventionality. The novel also ends with a violent and bloody scene, and—although this doesn't necessarily destroy my enjoyment of a mystery—I was pretty sure I'd guessed the murderer on page 4. I turned out to be right.

Cover of The Forgers by Bradford Morrow

Cover of Bradford Morrow's The Forgers (Mysterious Press, 2014). Image source: BradfordMorrow.com

But even more disappointing than the generic elements of the plot, the brutal but undermotivated violence, and an occasional "because the plot requires it" implausibility is the quality of the prose. Perhaps this was a deliberate attempt on Morrow's part to make his narrator sound like a real person, but I don't know anyone who speaks or writes like this, with one cliché thudding after another:

Once we're dead, secrets that we so carefully nurtured, like so many black flowers in a veiled garden, are often brought out in to the light where they can flourish. Cultivated by truth, fertilized by rumor, they blossom into florets and sprays that are toxic to those who would sniff their poisonous perfumes. While I did my best to shelter Meghan from certain unsavory discoveries that were made about her brother's life. . .some damning details would soon enough vine their strangling way into the light. Details that, as fate would have it, I had already surmised about Adam but could not before his death practically or honorably reveal to her. Details that I myself was duty bound to help transit from that darkness of secrecy into truth's awkward glare. Salt on the wound, I know, and yet it would prove to be an unavoidable seasoning. (p. 13)

So are secrets poisonous flowers, strangling vines, or salt on wounds? And should "vine" ever be used as a verb? And this is hardly the only passage of metaphor run wild. From just a few pages later:

. . .as in any vocation, those who truly love their work would embrace it with every fiber of their being even if there were nothing but a plug nickel at the rainbow's end. For me, the pot of gold was in the act itself, even if the act produced but fool's gold. (p. 25)

And yet the narrator is someone who is supposed to be able to produce forged inscriptions and letters by well-known and stylistically distinctive writers—in The Forger's Daughter he names "Henry James, Arthur Conan Doyle, W.B. Yeats" as his specialties—that are accepted as genuine by experts.

He also sprinkles his text with technical terms such as "holograph manuscript" (one in the author's handwriting) and "eidetic memory" (which before Photoshop commonly used to be called photographic memory). But here's his description of his parents' house in Irvington, New York:

A classic brick Tudor whose upper story was fashioned of white stucco with traditional wooden crisscross decoration. . . (p. 154)

Does our super-sophisticated narrator really not know the standard architectural term "half-timbered"?

Although The Forgers improves a bit when it focuses on the details of rare book collecting and dealing, it feels emblematic of the disappointing year it's been for me in fiction reading. So my apologies that the list of favorite fiction that follows is shorter than in some past years. In alphabetical order by author:

Alasdair Gray: Poor Things (1992)

Cover of Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

Cover of the paperback of Alasdair Gray's Poor Things (Harcourt Brace, 1994).

It had been many years since I'd read Scottish writer Alasdair Gray's Poor Things, and so when I re-read it after seeing the Yorgos Lanthimos film it was like reading it anew. Poor Things is narrated by a Glaswegian doctor who describes reanimating a pregnant suicide victim by giving her a transplant of her own unborn baby's brain. He then describes "Bella"'s rapid mental development from infant to adult woman, and her traumatic encounters with exploitation, injustice, and man's inhumanity to man. It's a brilliant twist on the coming-of-age novel.

A minor caveat is necessary: the novel has one metafictional frame too many. Gray's "editorial" Notes Critical and Historical at the end of the book, after Bella/Victoria's own version of her story, are distinctly anticlimactic. Also, there is nothing in the text to indicate when there is an associated note, so if you read straight through you encounter the notes as a block. If Gray felt the notes were integral to the novel, they would have worked better as footnotes placed throughout the text than in their own 30-page section as endnotes.

Haruki Murakami: Manga Stories, Volume 1, adapted by Jean-Christophe Deveney, illustrations by PMGL (2021/2023)

Cover of Haruki Murakami's Manga Stories, Volume 1 (Tuttle, 2023).

Despite the title, these adaptations are actually bandes dessinées (French/Belgian comics) rather than manga (Japanese comics). Adapted by writer Jean-Christophe Deveney and artist PMGL (Pierre-Marie Grille-Liou), the stories contained in Volume 1 include "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" (from after the quake, 2000/2002) and "Where I'm Likely To Find It," "Birthday Girl," and "Seventh Man" from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2009/2006).

Panels from "The Seventh Man."

As I wrote in my full review of Manga Stories, "Comics are a perfect medium for representing the sudden shifts in Murakami's fiction between everyday life and an alternate reality."

Volume 2, containing the stories "The Second Bakery Attack" (from The Elephant Vanishes, 2005/1993), "Samsa in Love" (Men Without Women, 2014/2017), and "Thailand" (after the quake), was issued this year. Volume 3, with "Scheherezade" (Men Without Women) and "Sleep" (The Elephant Vanishes) is scheduled for publication this spring. "Scheherezade" is one of the stories on which Ryūsuke Hamaguchi's film Drive My Car (2021) was based.

Zadie Smith: The Fraud (2023)

Cover of Zadie Smith's The Fraud (Penguin Random House, 2023).

The case of the Tichborne Claimant, a man who presented himself as the long-lost heir Roger Tichborne, fascinated 19th-century London. As I wrote in my full review of The Fraud, Zadie Smith "explores the idea of fraudulence as it relates to multiple characters, on stages both public and private. If you're wondering which character the title refers to, the answer is pretty much all of them."

The Tichborne Claimant, c. 1872. Photo credit: Maull & Co. Image source: National Portrait Gallery, Australia

The review went on, "The Fraud is almost compulsively readable. Its short chapters of, at most, a few pages—very un-Victorian—jump back and forth in time over the nineteenth century, and take place in both England and Jamaica. As expected and hoped-for from Zadie Smith, the novel is very much alive to the class, racial, and sexual dynamics of that time, and ours."

Fiction: Honorable mention

Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book Two (2024)

Cover of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris

Cover of Emil Ferris's My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two (Fantagraphics, 2024). Image source: Bookshop.org

Book One of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters came out in 2017, seven years after Ferris started working on it. Its long gestation was due in large part to the intricacy of its story and artwork, rendered as the sketchbook of its 10-year-old narrator Karen growing up in 1960s Chicago. Its many layers include Karen's own coming-of-age story, her homage to the horror comics that constitute her main reading, a diary of her mother's decline from cancer, and the slow uncovering of the mystery of the violent death of her Holocaust-survivor neighbor Anka.

As I wrote in my full review of Book One, "To encompass such a wide range of narrative registers and tones Ferris deploys an equally wide range of drawing styles: highly detailed and finely cross-hatched realism, comic-book fantasy, corrosive Weimar-style expressionism, dashed-off sketches, and renderings of famous artworks." The latter derive from her trips with her older brother Deez to the "art castle," the Art Institute of Chicago. Deez is hiding his own secrets, including his possible involvement in the events surrounding Anka's death.

Book Two was originally and optimistically scheduled for publication in October 2017. The publication date kept getting pushed back, and for some time no expected date was given at all. (It turned out that Ferris and her publisher Fantagraphics were involved in a lengthy legal dispute.) Finally issued last spring, Book Two picks up where Book One left off. It's 1968, and Karen is experiencing an awakening of both her sexual identity and her political consciousness. She participates in the tumultuous protests at the Democratic National Convention that are violently attacked by the Chicago police, and continues her investigation into Anka's death.

Panels from My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two. Image source: Cărturești Carusel

The artwork is as rich and varied as in Book One. However, the storytelling felt less taut to me. The narrator keeps breaking off various subplots and saying that she'll return to give more detail later, and never does. Despite its 400-plus pages the book ends without any major new revelations, and with Deez and Karen planning a road trip. So clearly we can await My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Three. Let's hope it doesn't take seven more years to appear; given the transitional nature of this volume and the success of the series so far, there's a good chance that there's also a Book Four on the distant horizon.

Nonfiction Favorites of 2024

Jane Glover, Mozart in Italy (2023)

Cover of Mozart in Italy by Jane Glover

Jane Glover, Mozart in Italy: Coming of Age in the Land of Opera (Picador, 2023). Image source: The Hanbury Agency

Between the ages of 13 and 17 Mozart made three journeys to Italy with his father Leopold, and sought permanent employment there. Although during these journeys he composed his early operatic masterpieces Mitridate, re di Ponto (1770), Ascanio in Alba (1771), Lucio Silla (1772), and the sacred motet "Exsultate, Jubilate" (1773), all for Milan, he ultimately failed to find the court appointment he sought. Had he succeeded, the history of music would be profoundly different.

"Al destin che la minaccia" (From the fate that threatens me / Free, O God, my oppressed heart) sung by Yvonne Kenny accompanied by the Concentus Musicus Wien conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, from the 1986 film of Mitridate directed by Jean-Pierre Ponelle:

https://youtu.be/s_gHjv3jZJ4

(For more on the opera and film, please see "'The insane frenzy of an illicit love': Mitridate, re di Ponto.")

In my review in Part 5 of my series Mozart in Italy, based on my reading of her book (and other sources), I wrote that although Glover sometimes opts for a simpler version of events rather than a more complex one, she "knows how to tell a good story, and Mozart in Italy—in which we see a teenaged musical genius trying to make his way in an adult world of politics, money, favoritism, and social and artistic hierarchies—is packed full of them."

Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin' (2002)

Cover of Jane Austens Outlandish Cousin by Deirdre Le Faye

Cover of Deirdre Le Faye's Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin': The Life and Letters of Eliza de Feuillide (British Library, 2002). Image source: Abebooks.com

Eliza Hancock, later de Feuillide, later Austen, was Jane Austen's cousin and sister-in-law: Eliza (after much hesitation) married Jane's brother Henry. She was born in India as the result of her mother's adulterous affair with Warren Hastings, who was the East India Company's Governor-General. Eliza was a flirtatious, pleasure-seeking, harp-playing, and theatrical-loving woman who lived a "gay," "dissipated," "racketing" life. She may have served as a model for several Austen characters, including the foundling Eliza of "Henry and Eliza" (ca. 1787), the attractive but self-interested and manipulative Lady Susan of Lady Susan (ca. 1794), the attractive but self-interested and manipulative Isabella Thorpe of Northanger Abbey (completed 1803, revised and published 1817), and especially the flirtatious, pleasure-seeking, harp-playing, theatrical-loving but self-interested Mary Crawford of Mansfield Park (1814).

Eliza never stopped flirting, even after her marriage to Henry Austen, then a militia officer. As she wrote to her cousin Philly Walter,

I have not yet given you any account of my brother officers of whom I wish you could judge in person for there are some with whom I think you would not dislike a flirtation—I have of course entirely left off trade but I can however discover that Captn. Tilson is remarkably handsome, and that Messrs. Perrott & Edwardes may be chatted with very satisfactorily, but as to my Colonel Lord Charles Spencer if I was married to my third husband instead of my second I should still be in love with him—He is a most charming creature[,] so mild, so well bred, so good, but alas he is married as well as myself and what is worse he is absent and will not return to us in less than a month.

As I wrote in my review of Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin,' "Le Faye's book draws heavily on Eliza's letters to Philly Walter (as well as other sources) to tell the story of her life and its many intersections with the Austen family. As I hope the excerpts I've included show, Eliza's letters are thoroughly delightful and just a little bit wicked, as she must have been in life." And as I also wrote, Eliza lived to see the publication of Jane Austen's second novel, Pride and Prejudice (1813): "That novel features Jane's liveliest, wittiest, and most resolute heroine. Her name, of course, is Elizabeth."

Lucy Worsley, Jane Austen at Home (2018)

Cover of Jane Austen at Home 250th Birthday Edition by Lucy Worsley

Cover of Lucy Worsley's Jane Austen at Home: A Biography, 250th Birthday Edition (Hodder & Stoughton, 2024). Image source: Jane Austen Centre, Bath

In my review of Jane Austen at Home I wrote that it is a "highly entertaining, vividly written, and deeply researched biography. . .one of the best biographies of Austen I've read. Her emphasis on Austen's different homes over the course of her itinerant life is a fascinating framework through which to view her experiences and her fiction. Worsley's book also silently corrects some errors in Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen: A Life, which on its publication in 1997 was widely regarded as the definitive Austen biography. Even if you've read Tomalin's excellent book, Worsley's Jane Austen at Home will provide many additional insights and pleasures."

Lucy Worsley: Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court (2010)

Cover of Lucy Worsley's Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court (Faber, 2010). Image source: Historic Royal Palaces

The King's Grand Staircase at Kensington Palace in London is lined with murals depicting 45 men, women, and children looking down over a railing at anyone climbing or descending the stairs. The mural's figures, painted by William Kent in the mid-1720s, are all thought to depict actual members of the royal households of George I and George II (Kent even included himself and his mistress, the actress Elizabeth Butler). In Courtiers Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, provides the stories of sixteen courtiers. These include Peter the Wild Boy, an autistic feral child captured in the woods near Hanover, Germany, and his guardian, the physician and writer Dr. John Arbuthnot; two of George I's most trusted servants, Mustapha and Mohammed; the pretty Mrs. Elizabeth Tempest, milliner to Princess Caroline, and, hanging off the painted balcony railing, a mischievous page boy of George II's mistress Henrietta Howard.

It's a fascinating glimpse of the society that developed in and around the Georgian court. Since each courtier's life intersected with those of many others, Worsley is able to give a cross-section of court life, from the servant's quarters to the King's Gallery. Because she focusses on particular courtiers in turn, a certain amount of repetition is inevitable—but also helpful, as there's a large cast of characters. The book is thoroughly researched but Worsley's style is engaging and unacademic.

https://youtu.be/-9IwJus6ESQ

Nonfiction: Honorable Mention

Lucy Worsley, The Art of the English Murder (2014)

Cover of The Art of the English Murder by Lucy Worsley

Cover of Lucy Worsley's The Art of the English Murder (Pegasus Crime, 2014). Image source: Simon and Schuster

I haven't yet found a subject that Lucy Worsley can't write a highly entertaining book about. The Art of the English Murder is a companion volume to her BBC series A Very British Murder. Bookended by two essays, Thomas De Quincey's "On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts" (1827) and George Orwell's "Decline of the British Murder" (1946), Worsley's survey covers the continuing public fascination with murders, murderers and detectives both factual and fictional, such as:

  • the Ratcliffe Highway Murders, which inspired De Quincey's essay;
  • the Elstree Murder, whose sites were visited by "murder tourists" including Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton;
  • the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's Waxworks, a hugely popular display of historical and contemporary murderers (Dr. Crippen remains on display to this day);
  • the Bermondsley Horror, whose married perpetrators were hung at one of the last public executions in Britain;
  • the development of crime, detective, and sensation fiction by writers such as Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Arthur Conan Doyle;
  • the Golden Age of crime fiction created in the 1920s and 30s by women writers such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh;
  • and the early films of Alfred Hitchcock such as The Lodger (1927), Blackmail (1929), and Murder! (1930).

Given its 150-year span, both real-life and fictional scope, episodic structure and intended audience, Worsley's book can't go into great depth on any particular topic. But it's a lively and very enjoyable survey of the place of British crime in the collective imagination, as I'm sure is true of the television series as well:

https://youtu.be/aT2vrK6bPDU

My Favorites of 2024:

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Favorites of 2024: Live performances

We saw a lot of great live performances this year, so it was difficult to narrow my choice of favorites to just eight. In chronological order of performance:

Premier Ensemble of the SF Girls Chorus

Premier Ensemble of the San Francisco Girls Chorus with musical director Valerie Sainte-Agathe. Image source: San Francisco Girls Chorus

Antonio Vivaldi, Juditha Triumphans (Judith triumphant, 1716), libretto by Iacopo Cassetti.

Performers: Premier Ensemble of the San Francisco Girls Chorus, musical direction by Valerie Sainte-Agathe, stage direction by Céline Ricci, score arranged by Adam Cockerham.

Co-presenters and venue: San Francisco Girls Chorus and Ars Minerva; Z Space at Project Artaud, San Francisco; seen 9 March.

Antonio Vivaldi wrote many of his works for the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice. The Pietà was one of four orphanages that took in abandoned girls and provided musical training to those who showed talent; at various times Vivaldi was a teacher, music director and composer there.

So it's entirely fitting that the sacred oratorio Juditha Triumphans, written for the highly skilled women of the Pietà, was performed by the Premier Ensemble of the San Francisco Girls Chorus. The oratorio tells the Apocryphal story of the beautiful Bethulian widow Judith, who, when her city is beseiged by an Assyrian army commanded by Holofernes, goes to his camp and pretends to betray her people. But when she and her maid are left alone with Holofernes in his tent, she plies him with wine until he falls asleep, beheads him with his own sword, and escapes back to her city.

Judith beheading Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi

Judith beheading Holofernes, by Artemisia Gentileschi, ca. 1612. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The score of the oratorio was arranged for a small instrumental ensemble and the arias were judiciously trimmed by theorbist Adam Cockerham. Stage director Céline Ricci assigned the role of Judith in turn to different members of the Premier Ensemble, suggesting that all women possess Judith's courage and strength. The singers were dressed in contemporary clothes, with each Judith being strapped by her compatriots into a breastplate symbolic of her warrior status. The transformation from one Judith to the next was often effected through a magic box onstage; one Judith would enter the box and after a few moments the next would emerge. Sharing the part of Judith was a meaningful way to distribute the taxing role among multiple young singers, who each fully embodied the heroine dramatically and vocally.

From Juditha Triumphans, the song of the Assyrians welcoming Juditha to their camp, "O quam Vaga," sung by members of the Premier Ensemble accompanied by Corey Jamason on harpsichord:

https://youtu.be/d1WP3N-dEzI?t=3218

After their excellent performance of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Voices of Music at the 2018 Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, the San Francisco Girls Chorus did full justice to another great Baroque work written for young women with Juditha Triumphans. More, please! Next, might I suggest John Blow's Venus and Adonis (the other opera that we know was performed in the 1680s at Josias Priest's boarding school in Chelsea for "young gentlewomen"), or more music composed for the Ospedali? For more information on their upcoming projects please visit the SFGC website.

Soloists in the St. John Passion

Clockwise from top left: Gregório Taniguchi, Mischa Bouvier, Julie Bosworth, Jesse Blumberg, Steven Brennfleck, and Agnes Vojtkó. Image source: American Bach Soloists

Johann Sebastian Bach, St. John Passion (1724), librettist unknown (possibly Bach himself).

Performers: Gregório Taniguchi (Evangelist), Mischa Bouvier (Jesus), Jesse Blumberg (Pilate), Daniel Yoder (Peter), Julie Bosworth (soprano), Agnes Vojtkó (mezzo-soprano), and other soloists, with American Bach Soloists conducted by Jeffrey Thomas.

Presenter and venue: American Bach Soloists; St. Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco; seen 10 March.

Bach's Johannes-Passion was written for his first Good Friday in Leipzig in 1724. Just a few weeks shy of its 300th anniversary, Jeffrey Thomas conducted a taut, compelling performance of the drama of Christ's condemnation and crucifixion. His soloists were uniformly excellent, but I must make a special mention of mezzo-soprano Agnes Vojtkó's moving rendition of "Es ist vollbracht!" The indefatigable tenor Gregório Taniguchi as the Evangelist and the bright-voiced soprano Julie Bosworth were both late substitutes in their roles and performed admirably. For information about the remaining concerts in ABS's 2024–25 season, please visit the ABS website.

Jory Vinikour and Rachel Barton Pine

Jory Vinikour and Rachel Barton Pine. Image source: Early Music in Columbus

Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonatas and Partitas (1717–23)

Performers: Rachel Barton Pine, Baroque violin, with Jory Vinikour, harpsichord.

Presenter and venue: San Francisco Early Music Society; St. Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco; seen 7 April.

This concert featured two of Bach's Sonatas for violin and harpsichord (No. 1 in B minor and No. 3 in E major), along with the great Partita for solo violin in D minor. All were written by Bach during his years in Cöthen, before he took the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig. Rachel Barton Pine gave bold, extroverted interpretations of these works, particularly the monumental, 13-minute-long Chaconne of the Partita. It's the supreme test of any violinist, and she met its challenges with flawless technique. Although this was not as searching or inward an interpretation as some I've heard, Barton Pine's bravura performance was an equally valid reading and a stunning achievement. The 2024–25 San Francisco Early Music Society season continues; details can be found on the SFEMS website, where pay-what-you-can tickets are available.

Soprano Amanda Forsythe

Amanda Forsythe. Image source: Helen Sykes Artist Management

Awake, Sweet Love: English music for voice and viols (late 16th–early 17th century)

Performers: Amanda Forsythe, soprano, with Voice of the Viol, Elizabeth Reed, director.

Presenter and venue: San Francisco Early Music Society Berkeley Festival and Exhibition; Berkeley City Club; seen 11 June.

Amanda Forsythe is a pure-toned soprano who can manage astonishing flights of coloratura with apparent ease. This program called on a different talent: conveying deep emotion through deceptively simple means. Accompanied by the consort Voice of the Viol led by Elizabeth Reed, Forsythe performed love songs by English composers such as John Dowland, William Byrd, and John Wilbye, who bridged the time of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. The Julia Morgan-designed Berkeley City Club ballroom, with its wood panelling and bright acoustic, was the perfect venue for this concert. If ultimately I think I prefer Forsythe in 17th- and 18th-century opera, it was still wonderful to hear her in this intimate repertory. This is the second of three entries in this list presented by the San Francisco Early Music Society, which seems to be going from strength to strength under the leadership of director Derek Tam (himself a well-regarded early music performer).

The Fortune Teller and the Death of Dido

The Fortune Teller, Jean Frederic Bazille, 1869; The Death of Dido, Joseph Stallaert, c. 1872. Image source: The Handel Opera Project

Antonio Caldara: The Card Game (Il giuoco del Quadriglio, 1734), librettist unknown (possibly Pietro Metastasio).

Performers: Eliza O'Malley (Livia), Courtnee Rhone (Clarice), Daphne Touchais (Camilla), Katherine Gray (Ottavia); stage director Olivia Freidenreich.

Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (1688?), libretto by Nahum Tate.

Performers: Sara Couden (Dido), Wayne D. Wong (Aeneas), Daphne Touchais (Belinda), Katherine Gray (2nd Lady), Don Hoffman (Sorcerer), Eliza O'Malley, Ellen St. Thomas and Reuben Zellman (Witches); stage director Ellen St. Thomas.

Presenter and venue: The Handel Opera Project; First Church of Christ Scientist, Berkeley; seen 15 June.

I'm of the school that Henry Purcell's 50-minute-long Dido and Aeneas is a full program all by itself, on stage or record, and needs no pairing (with the possible exception of John Blow's Venus and Adonis, the opera that Dido and Aeneas was clearly modelled on). So I approached this double bill with a bit of trepidation. That trepidation was only heightened when I noticed a banjo and electric bass player (Ryan Danley) listed among the instrumentalists, and that the Sorceress in Dido had become a Sorcerer (in the oldest surviving score the role is in the alto range).

And, in fact, apart from the vocal and instrumental forces required, there isn't really any connecting thread that I could discern between Caldara's witty comedy and Purcell's profound tragedy. The Card Game portrays a hand of quadrille played by four argumentative friends (the program helpfully included a reproduction of an 18th-century guide to the game). As one character sings, "card playing reveals your real character, whether you're winning or losing," and each player sings an aria illustrative of her personality—blithe, impatient, competitive, moralizing—until they all become frustrated and quit the game with a final chorus and invitation to dance.

It's a soufflé-light entertainment originally written for the Habsburg Archduchess Maria Theresa to perform in on her 17th birthday (she sang Clarice, while her sister Maria Anna sang Livia), and it was given a charming staging by Olivia Freidenreich. Perhaps a more closely related companion piece would have been Caldara's Le cinesi (The Chinese women, 1735), written for Maria Theresa to perform in on her 18th birthday, or Gluck's version of two decades later, which was Vittoria Tesi's final opera performance.

But we were there for Dido, and weren't disappointed. Sara Couden gave a magnificent performance in the title role, her deep, powerful alto conveying all the sorrow of the wronged queen. Daphne Touchais was an excellent Belinda, at first urging her queen to love the hero Aeneas (Wayne D. Wong) and too late realizing that her counsel has brought disaster.

There were subtle touches throughout Ellen St. Thomas's staging, which made good use of the unusual space in the beautiful Bernard Maybeck-designed church. And Danley's electric bass provided some eerie rumbling sound effects at the change of scene from Dido's court to the cave of the sinister Sorcerer (Don Hoffman) and his trio of witches (Eliza O'Malley, Ellen St. Thomas and Reuben Zellman). It was a production that made the most of its strengths, particularly Couden's memorable assumption of the title role. For current and future projects see The Handel Opera Project's website.

Donghoon Kang as Leporello and Hyungjin Koon as Don Giovanni in the Merola Opera Program production

The servant Leporello (Donghoon Kang) clings to his master Don Giovanni (Hyungjin Son) in the Merola Opera Program's production of Don Giovanni. Photo credit: Kristen Loken; image source: SF Classical Voice

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Don Giovanni (1787)

Performers: Hyungjin Son (Don Giovanni), Donghoon Kang (Leporello), Lydia Grindatto (Donna Anna), Viviana Aurelia Goodwin (Donna Elvira), Moriah Berry (Zerlina), Justice Yates (Masetto), Benjamin R. Sokol (Commendatore), and Michael John Butler (Don Ottavio), with the San Francisco Opera Center Orchestra conducted by Stefano Sarzani; stage direction by Patricia Racette.

Presenter and venue: Merola Opera Program; Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music; seen 3 August.

As I wrote in my full review, "the inspiration for director Patricia Racette's production of Don Giovanni was the neorealist film movement in postwar Italy." But "her focus was less on the concept and more on helping the performers create fully fleshed-out characterizations. Interactions among the characters were also carefully thought through. As a result, this seemed more like a true ensemble work than merely a showcase for Hyungjin Son's excellently-sung Don Giovanni. . .Many a major opera company would love to be able to produce a Don Giovanni so well-performed and -directed." For future productions and showcases, see the Merola Opera Program website.

Mezzo-sopranno Ambroisine Bré

Ambroisine Bré. Image source: Olyrix.com

The Sound of Music in Versailles (late 17th–early 18th century)

Performers: Ambroisine Bré (mezzo-soprano), with Les Talens Lyriques directed by Christophe Rousset.

Presenter and venue: San Francisco Early Music Society; First Church UCC, Berkeley; seen 12 November.

What a privilege to see the renowned Christophe Rousset and musicians from his ensemble Les Talens Lyriques. They appeared twice on my Favorites of 2021: Recordings list, and could have appeared again this year with Lully's Acis et Galatée (Aparté AP269), in which Ambroisine Bré sang Galatea. She also sang Climene in Francesco Cavalli's L'Egisto (Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS 076), another candidate for my favorites list that was cut (for reasons of space, not quality).

The program was French music primarily from the time of Louis XIV by Lambert and Lully, with two rarely performed cantates by Montéclair that were first published in 1728, during the reign of Louis XV, but may have been written earlier. Lambert's music was simpler and each song tended to focus on a single feeling or state of mind, while the Lully and Montéclair selections were more like miniature operas, calling on Bré to express a wide range of emotions. Her voice is lovely, with an appealing richness in its lower range. As Christophe Rousset says in the preview video below, this is music of intimacy and refinement, and Bré and Les Talens Lyriques were its ideal exponents.

https://youtu.be/op0TH9lSd9c

For more information about the remaining concerts in the 2024–25 season, please see the SFEMS website.

Soprano Alexa Anderson as Flora

Alexa Anderson as the title character in La Flora. Image source: Ars Minerva

Antonio Sartorio and Marc'Antonio Ziani: La Flora (1681), libretto by Novello Bonis.

Performers: Alexa Anderson (Flora), Jasmine Johnson (Pompeo), Wayne Wong (Silla), Aura Veruni (Emilia), Sara Couden (Servio), Nina Jones (Geminio), and others; stage director Céline Ricci.

Presenter and venue: Ars Minerva; ODC Theater, San Francisco; seen 17 November.

All opera involves suspension of disbelief, but the lieto fine or "happy ending" of Baroque opera is a convention that can stretch credulity past the breaking point. After three hours of misunderstandings, reversals, threats, betrayals, and anguish, in the final scene all conflicts are abruptly resolved and the proper couples are united at last.

But in the end is everything always made right, and are the right couples always united? Sometimes (as in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea, 1642), or Handel's Agrippina, 1709) that question is raised explicitly, but even when it seems we're supposed to take the happy ending at face value we can feel a distinct unease.

In La Flora, director Céline Ricci brilliantly heightened that unease. The Roman ruler Silla (Wayne Wong) orders his son-in-law Servio (Sara Couden) to divorce Silla's daughter Emilia (Aura Veruni) so that she can be married instead to Pompeo (Jasmine Johnson). The new marriage is planned for Sulla's political advantage; the feelings of Emilia and Servio, who love each other, as well as those of Pompeo and Flora (Alexa Anderson), who are also a couple, are not consulted.

Servio obeys Silla's orders to divorce the stunned Emilia, but then dies when he attempts to lead a rebellion and kill Pompeo. Emilia is left bereft and in a state of shock, which was depicted with chilling verisimilitude by Ricci and Veruni. Her status as a sexual pawn in her father's political game is made wrenchingly clear to her, and to us. No happy ending is ever going to be possible for her, and indeed in the final scene Ricci imagines the opera's characters taking matters into their own hands to elude the dictator's calculated arrangements.

Once again, as she writes in her director's note, Ricci's staging of a centuries-old opera was "more than an exercise in musical archaeology." In La Flora, "the human cost of political machinations is illuminated—a reality as relevant today as it was in ancient Rome or 17th century Venice." On a budget several orders of magnitude smaller than that of our civic opera company, she brought together all the elements necessary for another incisive Ars Minerva production: a restored performing score by theorbist Adam Cockerham, an excellent period-instrument ensemble led by Matthew Dirst, a vocally and dramatically compelling cast, Entropy's scene-setting projections, Marina Polakoff's costumes (especially a series of glittering gowns for Flora), Joe McClinton's colloquial supertitles, and her own keenly intelligent direction.

As ever, Ricci's work brought us much pleasure this year. It's fitting that my list of favorite performances of 2024 begins and ends with her. For more on her past and future projects, please see the Ars Minerva website.

My Favorites of 2024:

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Favorites of 2024: Recorded music

Favorite recorded music of 2024

Opera

This was an especially rich year for new discoveries in opera. I limited myself to five choices, but my list could easily have been twice as long. In alphabetical order by composer:

CD cover of Fidelio by Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio (1814), libretto by Joseph Sonnleithner (1805), Stephan von Breuning (1806 revisions) and Georg Friedrich Treitschke (1814 revisions).

Performers: Gundula Janowitz (Leonore), René Kollo (Florestan), Lucia Popp (Marzellina), Manfred Jungwirth (Rocco), Hans Sotin (Don Pizarro), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Don Fernando), accompanied by Wiener Staatsopernchor and Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Recording: Deutsche Grammophon 474 420-2 (2 CDs); recorded 1978.

For regular readers of E&I this choice may cause some puzzlement. I'm on record as being ambivalent about Beethoven, about much 19th-century opera, and about the singspiel—with its spoken German dialogue—as a form. Also: it has a tenor hero, on this recording sung by René Kollo, whose voice sounds to my ears somewhat strained and constricted at the higher end of his range.

I would in no way claim that this is the best version of Fidelio available; I don't have a sufficient basis for comparison. But this version features two of my favorite singers: Gundula Janowitz (who gave definitive performances of Mozart's Pamina, Strauss's Four Last Songs, and his Orchestral Lieder) and Lucia Popp (a great Queen of Night, Susanna and Sophie).

Florestan (Kollo) has been condemned as a political prisoner by Don Pizarro (Hans Sotin), who spreads the rumor that Florestan has died. But Florestan's wife Leonore (Janowitz), disguised as a young man, "Fidelio" (the faithful one), goes to work in the prison to search for him. The warden Rocco (Manfred Jungwirth) is cheerfully corrupt but has occasional twinges of conscience. His good-hearted daughter Marzelline (Popp) falls in love with Fidelio, to the dismay of her would-be lover Jaquino (Adolf Dallapozza). But even if Fidelio can deflect Marzelline's impassioned attentions and locate Florestan in the dungeons of Don Pizarro, how can she win his freedom?

Fidelio is based on a French opera, Pierre Gaveaux's Léonore (1798), with a libretto by Jean Nicholas Bouilly. Winton Dean wrote of Léonore,

The compound of realism, low life and earthy humour on the one hand. . .and heroic endeavour, a last-minute rescue and an elevating moral on the other is typical of French opera in the revolutionary decade. [1]

It's also characteristic of two German operas well-known to Beethoven, Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Rescue from the Harem, 1783) and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1791); the sound-world of Fidelio is at times especially similar to the latter. As with Mozart, in Beethoven's opera the music of love and joy is supremely lovely, but not always unmixed with other emotions. In "Mir ist so wunderbar" (To me it is so wonderful), an ensemble from Act I, Marzelline sings of her love for Fidelio and her hope that he will love her in return, while Fidelio is fearful of exposure, Rocco looks on as the indulgent father, and Jaquino is wracked with jealousy:

https://youtu.be/A9l1wKCv9nE

In music writer Ralph Moore's survey of Fidelio recordings he says of Janowitz's Leonore that it is "a role not entirely suited to her lovely voice"; he thinks she sings too beautifully to be convincing as someone trying to pass as a young man. I think that on this recording she is a superb exponent of some of Beethoven's most lyrical music. Opera already requires a suspension of disbelief, and I can't be sorry that Janowitz does not have a more convincingly masculine sound. Instead I'm glad to be able to experience such beauty, most especially at this moment.

Cover of David et Jonathas

Marc-Antoine Charpentier: David et Jonathas (1688), libretto by François Bretonneau.

Performers: Reinoud Van Mechelen (David), Caroline Arnaud (Jonathas), David Witczal (Saul), Francois-Olivier Jean (La Pythonisse/Witch of Endor), Antonin Rondepierre (Joabel), Geoffroy Bufiere (Ghost of Samuel), accompanied by Ensemble Marguerite Louise conducted by Gaétan Jarry.

Recording: Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS102 (2 CDs + DVD/Blu-Ray); recorded 2022.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier had the bad luck to be a contemporary of Jean-Baptiste Lully. In 1672 Lully bought the privilege of the Opéra, essentially a lifetime monopoly on opera production in Paris and environs. Charpentier had to look elsewhere for employment.

In the early 1680s he was appointed as music director at the Jesuit Collège de Louis-le-Grand and church of St. Louis. He composed sacred music dramas for the Jesuits that were performed between the acts of tragic plays on Biblical subjects. David et Jonathas (David and Jonathan) was written for the Collège and performed in conjunction with Pierre Chaillmart's Latin play Saül. Like the other plays and the music-dramas for the Jesuits, these were performed by all-male casts.

Not so this production, captured both on CD and in an excellent staged production on the included DVD/Blu-Ray, where the soprano role of Jonathas is sung by Caroline Arnaud (there are also women among the dancers and chorus). Apart from a moment's disorientation when watching the DVD at Jonathas' first entrance (Arnaud does not look very boyish, and for a few seconds we were unsure of who this new character was), this caused us no difficulties, and follows a common modern practice when performing this opera. The singers are all very fine and the production is well staged in the Royal Chapel of Versailles. Of particular note are the costumes by fashion designer Christian Lacroix; the bejeweled La Pythonisse (The Witch of Endor) is especially spectacular:

https://youtu.be/z68upAcfHBA

Be forewarned: as those of you familiar with the Old Testament may remember, it doesn't end well for Saul or Jonathas (or pretty much anyone else around David; he left quite the swath of destruction in his wake). But despite the horrors depicted onstage, the music of this dual tragedy is exquisite.

Cover of Cephale et Procris

Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Céphale et Procris (1693), libretto by Joseph-François Duché de Vancy.

Performers: Reinoud van Mechelen (Céphale), Déborah Cachet (Procris), Ema Nikolovska (L'Aurore), Samuel Namotte (Arcas), Lore Binon (Dorine), accompanied by a nocte temporis and the Choeur de Chambre de Namur conducted by van Mechelen.

Recording: Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS119; recorded 2023.

Céphale et Procris was Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre's first and only opera. As listeners of this recording can attest, it is filled with striking and beautiful music. Her contemporary Hilaire Rouillé du Coudray wrote, "I have great hopes for the new opera by la petite La Guerre. I have seen two rehearsals; it will be very good." However, the work was not well received and was only given a few performances. It's not clear why it failed, but it can't be ruled out that it was rejected by the public because its composer was a woman. It may not have helped that it was also the first opera written by its librettist, Joseph-François Duché de Vancy. Whatever the reason(s), Jacquet de La Guerre never attempted another drama for the stage.

Based on Ovid's Metamorphoses, Céphale et Procris tells a story of humans as the playthings of the gods. Céphale and Procris are about to celebrate their wedding, but the goddess Aurora desires Céphale for herself and sends a priestess to interrupt the festivities with the message that their union is forbidden by the gods. Instead, Procris is commanded to marry Prince Borée; later, Aurora will abduct Céphale and sow doubts in Procris' mind about his faithfulness.

From Act II, the farewell of Procris (Déborah Cachet) and Céphale (Reinould van Mechelen) after they have learned of the goddess's decree, "Le Ciel m'avait flatté de la vaine espérance" (The heavens have flattered me with a vain hope):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xet4wLiaPA4

Although in this opera Jacquet de La Guerre generally followed the conventions of Lullian tragedy, she departed from them in the stunning final scene. Aurora repents, assuages Procris' doubts and jealousies, and tells her that her marriage to Céphale can proceed. Overjoyed, Procris rushes to reunite with Céphale. However, Borée, enraged by the sudden reversal of his plans, attacks Céphale. In the melée Céphale shoots an arrow that strikes Procris, mortally wounding her. As her life ebbs, the music grows slower and quieter, and the phrases are separated by lengthening pauses; with Céphale we listen to her last breaths. In despair he vows to join her in the Underworld; at his final words marking his own death, the opera simply ends, without any final chorus or instrumental passage. [2]

Contemporary audiences may have been shocked by this innovation; perhaps it is another reason the opera was not accepted. Fortunately in this recording it has now received a performance that enables us to appreciate its many remarkable qualities.

Cover of Les Boreades

Jean-Philippe Rameau: Les Boréades (1763), libretto attributed to Louis de Cahusac.

Performers: Mathias Vidal (Abaris), Nicolas Brooymans (Borée), Déborah Cachet (Alphise), Caroline Weynants (Sémir), accompanied by Collegium 1704 conducted by Václav Luks.

Recording: Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS026; recorded 2020.

Les Boréades is a story of the defiance of the gods: Alphise (Déborah Cachet), queen of Bactria, loves Abaris (Mathias Vidal), a handsome stranger whose parentage is unknown (he has been raised by Adamas (Benoît Arnould), the High Priest of Apollo—perhaps that's a clue?). By time-honored custom, the Queen of Bactria must marry one of the descendants of Boréas (Nicolas Brooymans), the God of the North Wind. Queen Alphise decides instead to abdicate and marry Abaris, giving him a golden arrow bestowed on her by Amour (Helena Hozová). But before the rites can be concluded the angry Boréas sweeps in and abducts Alphise. He takes her to his realm, where his two sons vie for her hand. Brandishing the golden arrow, Abaris follows to attempt a rescue. A mortal cannot successfully oppose the will of the gods—but is Abaris truly a mere mortal, or does he have a certain powerful god on his side?

Rameau's final opera, written when he was 80 years old, Les Boréades was never publicly performed during his lifetime. Its first full staging actually didn't take place until 1982 at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with a largely British cast conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. After Gardiner's landmark first full recording came out in 1984 it was another 20 years until the staging of the opera directed by Robert Carsen and conducted by William Christie was released (to mixed reviews for the staging) on DVD. Since then Les Boréades has remained a rarity—at least until recently.

Like the proverbial buses, recordings of Les Boréades can take forever to arrive, but when they do there are three all at once. Sixteen years after Christie, Václav Luks' concert version was issued by Château de Versailles Spectacles. Just one year later the Komische Oper/Opéra de Dijon coproduction directed by Barrie Kosky and conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm came out on DVD. This year another recording of the complete opera has just been released, conducted by György Vashegyi, with the vocally stunning Sabine Devielhe as Alphise. We're spoiled for choice, and with its excellent cast Vashegyi's version is self-recommending.

Luks' version has not been put entirely into the shade, however. Luks' pacing of the opera is less frenzied than Vashegyi's, but still generates plenty of excitement, and his French and Belgian cast sing superbly.

https://youtu.be/_qqCWrWjExQ

One of the things about Les Boréades that has attracted conductors is the richness of its orchestration. As you might expect of an opera about the God of the North Wind, flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons are prominent. And when the rising of the wind is musically represented, the orchestra and chorus can whip up quite a storm (ends at 1:14:20). Rameau was also structurally innovative; the scenes linked in the previous sentence bridge Act III and Act IV without pause or the need for a change of scenery, sweeping the drama forward. Even at the very end of his long life, Rameau continued to perfect his art.

Cover of Orfeo by Antonio Sartorio

Antonio Sartorio: L'Orfeo (1672), libretto by by Aurelio Aureli.

Performers: Ellen Hargis (Orfeo), Suzie Le Blanc (Euridice), Ann Hallenberg (Aristeo), Anne Grimm (Autonoe), Josep Cabré (Chirone, Bacco), Harry van der Kamp (Esculapio, Pluto), accompanied by Teatro Lirico conducted by Stephen Stubbs.

Recording: Vanguard Classics 99194/Challenge Classics CC72020; recorded 1998.

This choice is a bit of a ringer, as this year is not the first time I've heard this recording. I've owned it for probably 20 years, but it had been more than a decade since I'd last listened to it. I was inspired to do so by Ars Minerva's production of Sartorio's La Flora (see Favorites of 2024: Live and streamed performances). And within moments of putting it on again, I discovered anew how wonderful this recording is. It was recorded live at the Early Music Festival Utrecht, but it sounds like a well-recorded studio version (applause has thankfully been edited out and there is no stage noise).

The opera is a highly elaborated retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice story. In this version Orfeo's brother Aristeo is a rival for Euridice's affections, and neglects his own lover Autonoe. Orfeo becomes so jealous that he sends a shepherd boy, Orillo, to murder Euridice (!). So the story is changed almost beyond recognition, including cameo appearances by the centaur Chiron, Achilles, and Hercules.

The libretto may be a mashup of mid-17th century opera conventions—a quartet of ill-matched lovers, a comically lustful nurse (Erinda) played by a male tenor in drag, a sage advisor (Esculapio) whose wisdom is ignored—but the music is absolutely gorgeous. When Orfeo (Ellen Hargis) learns of Euridice's death by snakebite, he sings a sorrowful lament—even though he'd sent Orillo to murder her!—and then sinks into sleep (sleep scenes being, of course, another Baroque opera convention). While unconscious he is visited by the spirit of Euridice (Suzie Le Blanc), who chastises him for not rescuing her from the Underworld in "Orfeo, tu dormi?" (Orfeo, are you sleeping?):

https://youtu.be/g6rqWlDNjGY

So many thanks once again to Ars Minerva for enabling me to rediscover this musical gem.

You will have noticed that three of my five favorite opera recordings this year were produced by Château de Versailles Spectacles. At a time when many labels are retreating from opera and, indeed, from physical media entirely, CVS continues to issue a stream of beautifully packaged recordings of superb performances of both acknowledged and underappreciated French Baroque masterpieces. It's no wonder it received 2022 Label of the Year from the International Classical Music Awards. In making the award the judges commended the label for "the attractiveness of the works (many of them world premiere recordings, and practically all of them recorded in the Palace of Versailles), the quality of the ensembles and artists, the excellent quality of the sound recordings and a presentation so luxurious that it can only be described as Versaillesque." Let us hope that they are able to continue long into the future.

Vocal music

Cover of An Die Musik

Franz Schubert: An Die Musik and A Bouquet of Schubert

Performers: Elly Ameling, soprano; Dalton Baldwin, piano.

Recordings: Philips 410 037-2, Etcetera 1009; recorded 1983 and 1984.

I was first alerted to the wonderful Dutch soprano Elly Ameling by the Bollywood blogger Memsaab, who, in the comments of my post on The songs of Erich Korngold and Reynaldo Hahn, recommended Ameling's album of Schubert and Schumann lieder with Jorg Demus (piano) and Hans Deinzer (clarinet) as a place to continue my exploration of art song. Not for the first time, I regret not following up sooner on one of her recommendations.

During Ameling's active career (she retired in 1995), she was primarily a recitalist, and she approaches these songs with refinement and elegance—I might almost say delicacy. She does not over-emote, and she and Baldwin choose tempi that seem just right. Her voice has a beauty and warmth that makes for highly pleasurable listening, as in the title song of An Die Musik (words by Franz Adolph Friedrich von Schober):

https://youtu.be/PPRXPVzqx9I

An die Musik

Du holde Kunst, in wie viel grauen Stunden,
Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
Hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb entzunden,
Hast mich in eine beßre Welt entrückt.

Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir,
Den Himmel bessrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür.
To music

Oh beautiful art, in so many dark hours,
When the wild circle of life has entangled me,
You have kindled my heart to a glowing love,
And have carried me away into a better world.

Often a sigh has flowed from your harp,
A sweet and sacred chord of yours,
Which opened up to me the heaven of better times.
Oh beautiful art, I thank you for that.
Cover of Alessandro Grandi Venetian Christmas Vespers 1630 by Voices of Music

Alessandro Grandi: Venetian Christmas Vespers 1630

Performers: Laura Heimes, soprano; Jennifer Ellis Kampani, soprano; John Taylor Ward, bass-baritone; accompanied by Voices of Music, directed by Hanneke van Proosdij and David Tayler.

Recording: Voices of Music CD; recorded 2013, issued 2017.

This recording is a reconstruction of the First Vespers on Christmas Eve as it might have been performed in 17th-century Venice. But despite the title, it's not a service that someone could have heard in 1630—it includes antiphons and additional music by other composers, such as Monteverdi, Frescobaldi, Merula and Marini, written both before and after that year. However, the lack of historical specificity makes no difference, because without exception the music in this performance is wonderful, and wonderfully performed. The opening Versicle & Response: "Deus in adjutorium meum intende" by Claudio Monteverdi, arranged by David Tayler:

https://youtu.be/ic8WFqApNP8 [ends at 1:56]

Alas, this disc is not available on the Voices of Music website. However, the recording is taken from the audio of the YouTube video of this program embedded above. The entire program has been made freely available by Voices of Music—I recommend watching the whole thing.

My Favorites of 2024:


  1. Winton Dean, "Beethoven and Opera," in Denis Arnold and Nigel Fortune, eds. The Beethoven Companion. London: Faber and Faber, 1971, p. 342.
  2. In the usual version of the myth, Cephalus is out hunting and, hearing a rustling in the undergrowth as Procris approaches, shoots an arrow or hurls a javelin that mortally wounds her.