Favorites of 2025: Books

It's time for my annual survey of favorite books that were first read in the previous 12 months. They are listed below by category in the order in which they were read:

Favorite Fiction of 2025

	Emma Donoghue: Slammerkin "Slammerkin" is an 18th-century term with a double meaning, both "a loose gown" and "a slovenly [with the additional implication of unchaste] woman." The novel is based on an actual 1764 trial of a maid and seamstress accused of murdering her mistress, and is like a version of William Hogarth's The Harlot's Progress from the perspective of its doomed heroine Moll Hackabout. A scholar of literature by women as well as lesbian culture, Emma Donoghue writes with all the fierce energy of her 14-year-old protagonist's yearnings, and brings both 18th-century London and her flawed heroine to vivid, visceral life. She shows us that Mary Saunders is not only a victim; she has agency and makes choices, even if many of them are unwise, or bring harm to herself or others. Be forewarned: Mary's world, and her fate, are hard and grim. For more, please see "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know: Three historical novels."
	Margaret Oliphant: The Rector and The Doctor's Family Margaret Oliphant, one of the most prolific Victorian writers, published 98 novels before her death in 1897 at age 69. Oliphant's writing supported two brothers, two nieces, a nephew, and her two adult sons, all of whom lived off her earnings from publication, and all of whom predeceased her. So perhaps it's no surprise that the contrast between capable women and weak, ineffectual, vacillating, indolent, selfish, or just plain helpless men is a recurring theme in Oliphant's fiction. As Nettie Underwood says in The Doctor's Family, "a woman is, of course, twenty times the use a man is, in most things." The Rector and The Doctor's Family brings together two works in Oliphant's Chronicles of Carlingford series. Morley Proctor, the title character of the 35-page The Rector, has only recently taken up his post as the new Rector of Carlingford. He is suddenly called to the deathbed of one of his parishioners, who begs for some spiritual ease in her final moments. But Proctor, a socially awkward bachelor scholar who has taken his new post primarily to provide for his widowed mother, has no idea how to provide it. In The Doctor's Family, Edward Rider is a young doctor struggling to establish a medical practice in Carlingford. His precarious situation is made catastrophically worse by the arrival in town of his brother Fred, an alcoholic and a gambler, who is quickly followed by his wife, children, and his wife's pretty younger sister Nettie. The doctor, smitten with Nettie, is given pause by the prospect of Fred and his family hanging on as his dependents for the rest of their lives, and of Fred's deservedly poor reputation besmirching his own. The stories brought together in The Rector and The Doctor's Family span nearly the full range of tone that Oliphant commands in the Chronicles of Carlingford, from the appalling horror of death to the familiar comedy of acute social discomfiture. For more, please see "Twenty times the use a man is": Two Chronicles of Carlingford
	Sarah Waters: Fingersmith "Finger-smith" is 19th-century slang for pickpocket or petty thief, but it has the broader connotation of someone adept with their fingers, which can also be interpreted sexually (as Waters, whose first novel also had a Victorian slang title with a sexual meaning, Tipping the Velvet (1998), surely intended). Drawing on novels by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Fingersmith is told from the points of view of two 17-year-old orphans. Sue Trinker has been raised in Mrs. Sucksby's Lant Street lodging-house in London's gritty Southwark and trained in thievery. Maud Lilly is an heiress who lives on the country estate of her rich uncle, a connoisseur of pornography who gets an erotic charge out of having Maud read rare volumes from his collection aloud to him and his friends. Sue joins a plot conceived by a thief nicknamed "Gentleman": she will seek employment as Maud's lady's maid, and convince her of the sincerity of Gentleman's professions of love. In return, Sue will receive a share of the spoils once Gentleman elopes with Maud, locks her in a madhouse and seizes control of her fortune. Only, who is betraying whom? For more on the novel and the 2005 BBC television adaptation, please see "Fingersmith." Waters' novel was also the basis of Park Chan-wook's 2016 film The Handmaiden.
	Sarah Waters: Affinity Set in late-Victorian London and suffused with an atmosphere of psychic dread, Affinity is reminiscent of Henry James' Turn of the Screw. Margaret Prior is well-to-do, unmarried, and is recovering from devastating emotional losses. In order to find a sense of purpose, she begins regular visits to a women's prison. She finds herself becoming inexorably drawn to one of the inmates, Selina Dawes. Selina is a spiritualist who held séances where she summoned a sometimes playful, sometimes malevolent spirit called Peter Quick. She has been imprisoned because at one of her séances a woman died under mysterious circumstances. Although initially doubting of Selina's supernatural powers, Margaret soon experiences otherwise inexplicable occurrences. Could Selina really be a medium between our world and the spirit world of Peter Quick? Affinity was adapted for ITV by renowned screenwriter Andrew Davies (Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Wives and Daughters, and Waters' Tipping the Velvet among many others). It's high on my watch list for 2026.

Honorable mention

David Lodge: Changing Places A roman à clef with no need for a clef, David Lodge's Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses takes place in the late 1960s at a very thinly disguised University of Birmingham ("Rummidge") and UC Berkeley ("Euphoric State," situated in the town of "Plotinus"). If you have any familiarity with the Berkeley campus and the Bay Area, you'll instantly identify Howl Plaza (Sproul Plaza, site of many demonstrations), Mather Gate (Sather Gate), Dealer Hall (Wheeler Hall), Cable Avenue (Telegraph Avenue), Pythagoras Drive (Euclid Avenue), Ashland (Oakland), Esseph (San Francisco), Modern Times Bookshop (City Lights Books), etc. etc. Two academics—Rummidge's socially awkward, emotionally repressed, and academically undistinguished English lecturer Philip Swallow, and Euphoric's star literary theorist Morris Zapp—take part in a six-month exchange program, leaving their wives (in Zapp's case, soon to be ex-wife) behind. As you may anticipate, more gets swapped than their campus offices. And as you also may expect, Zapp's arrival galvanizes the inert English Department at Rummidge, while Swallow is transformed by the academic openness, political ferment and sexual freedom that he encounters at Euphoric State. Soon he finds himself jailed after being caught up in the protests over the People's Garden (People's Park), and then having a very uncomfortable conversation with his wife while on the air during a student radio call-in show. The novel is like a Rossinian farce, where confusion reigns for most of the duration, but everyone finds happiness (or at least consolation) in the end. Like a Rossini comedy, it's lively and fun; also like a Rossini comedy, it's pretty clear from the outset where these characters are heading—thus the honorable mention.

Biggest disappointment

Ariel Dorfman: Allegro Ariel Dorfman's Allegro seemed as though it had been written especially for me and those very much like me: lovers of Mozart's operas with a keen interest in late-18th century music and culture. But as Dorfman's over-expository narrative, clunky language, and all-too-fathomable mystery unfolded, I felt instead as though I were reading a prequel to Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. Like Amadeus, Dorfman's Allegro is factitious and anachronistic, and I found myself increasingly dismayed as the novel progressed. The main redeeming feature of the novel comes after its end: a "Playlist Companion to Allegro" of the music that "inspired the author as he wrote and that accompanied the characters as they lived their real and fictional lives" (Author's Note). As I wrote in my full-length review, "any opportunity to explore (or renew acquaintance with) the music of Mozart, Handel, J.S. Bach, J.C. Bach, and Carl Friedrich Abel is recommendable; if only Dorfman's novel were more so."

Favorite Nonfiction of 2025

	Charles King: Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah In 1741 Handel was facing a crisis. In the winter season he had witnessed the failure of his Italian opera, Deidamia, which received only three performances before being ignominiously pulled from the stage. The disaster of Deidamia brought Handel's career as an opera composer to an end. At this low point, two serendipitous events provided Handel with an opportunity to rescue his fortunes. He received an invitation to put on a concert series in Dublin for the 1741–42 season, and he was sent a new libretto by his cantankerous collaborator Charles Jennens. Jennens had previously provided the word books for the English-language oratorios Saul (1739) and L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (The Active Man, the Pensive Man, and the Moderate Man, 1740). His new libretto consisted of excerpts from the King James Bible and Apocrypha about the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. Jennens wrote to his friend Edward Holdsworth on 10 July 1741 about the new work, "I hope he will lay out his whole Genius & Skill upon it, that the Composition will excell all his former Compositions, as the Subject excells every other Subject. The Subject is Messiah." The story of Messiah's composition in just three weeks; the near-cancellation of its first performances due to an edict from Jonathan Swift (yes, that Jonathan Swift); and the scandal of the notorious adulteress Susannah Cibber, who, while trying to escape from her abusive husband, wound up in Dublin and sang in Messiah's Holy Week première, are vividly retold in Charles King's Every Valley. For more, please see "Every Valley: Handel's Messiah."
	Susan Ford: What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why) In What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why), Persuasions editor Susan Allen Ford examines the reading preferences of Austen's characters as a key to understanding them more deeply. In my post series devoted to her book I looked at each of Austen's canonical novels to see what Ford's perspective could tell us about her heroines. Of course, the Gothic novels that obsess Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, and the Romantic poets passionately read by Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, are obvious inspirations of their imaginative lives. But I was surprised to learn of the significance of conduct books, including the derided Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women, to Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice; the play Lover's Vows, which was thought indecent, to demure Fanny Price in Mansfield Park; Madame de Genlis' Adelaide and Theodore, a novel about moral education, to the title character in Emma; and the poems of Byron and Scott, as well as Matthew Prior's Henry and Emma, in sustaining Anne Elliot's steadfast love over the eight long years of estrangement from Captain Wentworth in Persuasion. For more, please see "So rapturous a delight" (Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey), "I am not a great reader" (Pride and Prejudice), "To be a renter, a chuser of books!" (Mansfield Park), "Meaning to read more" (Emma), and "I will not allow books to prove anything" (Persuasion).
	Ashley Kahn: Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece The Miles Davis sextet's Kind of Blue regularly tops listener's and critic's polls of the greatest jazz albums of all time. Ashley Kahn's book is a deep dive into the recording sessions, held on March 2 and April 22, 1959, and the long and continuing afterlife of the album. Kahn shows that three key legends about Kind of Blue—that the album comprises only first takes, that none of the musicians had seen any of the music before, and that Davis composed all the music—are false. He also notes the many errors that plagued the production of the album: the first side was mastered at the wrong speed, John Coltrane's volume level is changed mid-solo on one track, and on the cover the musicians were mis-credited and the track listing frequently mis-ordered. But despite the false legends, credit controversies and production errors, the album that Davis and his brilliant collaborators produced together remains one of the greatest achievements in jazz. For more, please see "Kind of Blue: The Making of a Jazz Masterpiece."

Honorable mention

Errol Morris: The Ashtray (Or the Man Who Denied Reality) This book is a coffee-table book of philosophy: beautifully produced, copiously illustrated, and heavily annotated in the margins (the best place for a note to be). The title comes from an incident in Morris's career as a graduate student at Princeton: his Ph.D. advisor, the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, once threw a full, "massive" cut-glass ashtray at Morris during an argument in Kuhn's office. The book is Morris's delayed (and for Kuhn, posthumous) response, an attack on the basis of Kuhn's influential 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. That work is a distillation and generalization of Kuhn's earlier book, The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought. In examining the replacement of the earth-centered Ptolemaic universe by the Copernican heliocentric system, Kuhn identified features that did not fit the typical picture of steady, incremental scientific progress through observation and experiment. Instead, Kuhn posited that scientific observations were carried out within a conceptual framework Kuhn called a "paradigm," which not only determined how scientists interpreted their data, but what questions could be asked. Such periods of "normal science" can last for centuries, even as anomalies—observations not well accounted for under the reigning paradigm—accumulate. The Ptolemaic system lasted for over a thousand years, growing ever more complex as astronomical observations became more precise. [1] Kuhn thought that during scientific revolutions, a "paradigm shift" occurs, in which one conceptual framework is replaced by another. Paradigm shifts are rarely instantaneous, as they would be if science were a dispassionate seeking after incontrovertible truths. Instead, the scientific consensus has to change, which sometimes requires the fiercely committed advocates of the older paradigm to die before the new paradigm is generally accepted. And sometimes social, political or religious forces slow a paradigm shift. Copernicus published his treatise on the heliocentric universe in 1543; ninety years later, in 1633, Galileo was forced by the Roman Inquisition to recant his defense of heliocentrism published in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. It wasn't until a further half-century after Galileo's trial that the idea that the Earth revolved around the sun attained widespread acceptance. For Morris, Kuhn's picture of science as deeply embedded in consensus mental frameworks—that is, his view of the scientific system as a culture—denies objective reality. And he contests Kuhn's claim that new paradigms are "incommensurable" with the paradigms that they have replaced, pointing out that Einstein's relativity equations are reduced to Newtonian mechanics at human spatial and temporal scales. If Einstein's theory contains Newton's, they can't be incommensurable. But they are—from the perspective of Newtonian physics. Newtonian mass is a fixed and inherent property of an object; Einsteinian mass varies with an object's velocity, which is different for observers in different frames of reference. So in Einsteinian physics mass can have different values at the same instant for observers in different relative motion with respect to an object (thus "relativity"). In Newtonian physics, gravity is an inherent property of an object with mass; in Einsteinian physics, gravity is the result of the distortion of space-time caused by an object with mass. So in the two systems the concepts of mass and gravity are radically different (or, as we might say, incommensurable), even if on a human scale their effects look the same. I haven't yet finished The Ashtray. It's a dense book with notes on virtually every page, and will take some more time to work through. It does seem to me, though, at the halfway point, that Morris is particularly focussed on some issues in the philosophy of language, and has not yet engaged with some of Kuhn's central ideas about the nature of science and scientific change. More to come, probably, as I continue reading. Many thanks to the friend who gave me this book, and to the friend who helped me understand more concretely some of the difficulties I was encountering with it.

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1. A more recent example of normal science in operation: Einstein's equations of general relativity predicted that the universe was expanding, a prediction confirmed by the observations of William Hubble. In the late 1980s the general assumption among cosmologists was that gravitational attraction between all the bodies in the universe was slowing its expansion. Eventually gravity would bring the expansion to a halt, and then reverse it. Ultimately the contracting universe would end in a Big Crunch, in which all matter collapsed together into a singularity. Another Big Bang could then occur, creating a new universe, and this cycle might repeat infinitely.
   
   Astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter had the key insight that the redshift of the light from a certain type of supernova that reached a consistent peak brightness could be used to determine the rate of the universe's expansion. But when he was ready to make his observations, Perlmutter could not find an observatory with large, advanced telescopes that was willing to allow him to book time. Supernovae are relatively rare and random phenomena, and Perlmutter's proposed method was untested. So the gatekeepers of highly desirable telescope time simply gave priority to other, less fundamental projects that they assumed had a greater likelihood of success.
   
   When, over about a decade of scrounging scattered nights of telescope time, Perlmutter was finally able to gather enough data for a statistically significant sample, his calculations produced a shocking result: the universe's rate of expansion was increasing with time, not constant or slowing. The first implication of this result is that there will be no Big Crunch; the universe will simply continue to expand infinitely. The second implication is that either there is another previously unknown constituent of the universe beyond matter and radiation, or that Einstein's equations do not apply on the scale of the universe and need to be modified. For this work Perlmutter (and two members of another team that reached the same conclusion at the same time) received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.
   
   One theory is that the accelerating expansion is caused by "dark energy," a form of energy that produces a repulsive force. If so, dark energy must make up two-thirds of the total mass-energy of the universe, and ordinary observable matter—all the interstellar dust, asteroids, comets, moons, planets, stars, black holes, galaxies, etc.—only 5%. The remaining 27% of the universe is largely made up of "dark matter," which is not directly observable and exerts a countervailing attractive force to the repulsive force of dark energy. All this sounds a bit like the convoluted epicycles needed to make the Ptolemaic model of the universe correspond with observation; we may be in need of yet another cosmological paradigm shift.

Hercules in love: Antonia Bembo and Ars Minerva

Ars Minerva founder, Executive Artistic Director and stage director Céline Ricci. Photo: Martin Lacey Photography. Image source: sfgate.com

For each year of the past decade (excepting the shutdown year of 2020), the visionary artistic director Céline Ricci of Ars Minerva has produced and directed the fully-staged modern première of a Baroque opera unperformed for centuries. All have featured powerful women from history or myth. The operas have centered on goddesses, sorceresses, Amazons, empresses, queens, princesses, and noblewomen, and featured roles taken by great singers from the past, such as the first Black diva Vittoria Tesi. For its eagerly-awaited tenth production this year, for the first time Ars Minerva staged an opera not only focused on women, but composed by one: Antonia Bembo.

The only child of a Venetian doctor, Antonia trained as a singer and composer with Francesco Cavalli, a former chorister and student of Claudio Monteverdi, and the most important Italian opera composer in the years after Monteverdi's death. Antonia was also associated with the guitarist Francesco Corbetta; a 1654 letter from the Mantuan envoy in Venice speculates that the 14-year-old Antonia is to be married to him.

But five years later, she was married instead to the nobleman Lorenzo Bembo. Her marriage probably brought an end to her studies with Cavalli, but if not, they would have ceased on his departure the following year for the court of the young Louis XIV to stage his wedding opera, Ercole amante (Hercules in love). Cavalli did not return to Venice until 1662, bitter over the difficulties that had delayed the production of his opera at the highly factionalized French court. It's not known whether Antonia was able to resume her studies with him after his return.

Francesco Corbetta. Image source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library.

Antonia's marriage was an unhappy one. After giving birth to three children, in 1672 Antonia filed for divorce on the grounds of her husband's unfaithfulness, profligacy, and physical abuse. These were evidently not sufficient reasons to grant a wife a divorce: Antonia lost the case. She did not finally escape Lorenzo until 1677, when she fled Venice with Corbetta and traveled with him (but without her children) to Paris.

There she began singing and composing again, performing for Louis XIV and being granted a pension that enabled her to live in the convent of the Filles de Saint Chaumont. For the rest of her long life she continued to compose. She lived to be around 80 years old, dying about 1720. Six manuscript volumes of her compositions are now held in the Bibliothéque National de France, and include Italian arias, cantatas, and serenatas, Latin masses, and French airs, petit and grand motets. Antonia composed a single opera: Ercole amante.

Title page of the manuscript score of Antonia Bembo's L'Ercole amante (1707). Image source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

Dated 1707 (Antonia would have been in her late 60s), Ercole amante is a setting of the very same libretto by Francesco Buti that Cavalli had set nearly five decades previously for the royal wedding. Although Antonia incorporates elements of French opera such as choruses and dances, and the vocal types are typical of French opera (no roles for castrati), the libretto is in Italian. The musical and dramatic forms are also those of Italian opera of the 17th century, and would have been considered somewhat old-fashioned by 1707. The arias are generally short, don't have repeating sections, and flow out of and back into the arioso recitative. The libretto pulls out all the Baroque stops: it includes a sleep scene, a descent to the underworld, a tempest, and dei ex machina. In addition to goddesses, demigods and princesses, the characters include a comic page; the developing conventions of Italian opera seria would soon banish comic characters to the emerging genre of opera buffa.

The story is a curious one for a wedding opera, since the onstage wedding proves fatal to the (anti)hero. The backstory is that Ercole (Hercules) has fallen in love with Iole, the daughter of King Eutiro (Eurytus). The king had promised Iole's hand in marriage to the man who could best his sons in an archery competition. Ercole won the contest, but when he attempted to claim his prize the king reneged on his promise. The enraged Ercole killed the king, together with his sons, and abducted Iole.

Hercules abducting Iole, relief ca. second century CE, Archaeological Museum of Piraeus, Greece. Image source: David Stanley (flickr.com) CC-BY 2.0

As the opera begins we learn that Iole was and remains in love with Ercole's son Hyllo (Hyllus), and he with her, but both are powerless to defy Ercole. And at home Ercole already has a wife, Deianira (Dejanira). Ercole's plan to break his vows to Deianira outrages the goddess of marriage, Giunone (Juno), who was already angered because Ercole was born of her husband Jove's adultery with a mortal woman. Giunone is opposed by Venere (Venus), who uses her powers to further Ercole's desires.

Ercole banishes Hyllo and prepares to marry Iole. Iole is repelled by the thought of marrying her father's murderer, while both Deianira and Hyllo despair. Deianira asks her servant Licco (Lichas) to help her die, but he refuses. Hyllo throws himself from his prison tower into the sea, only to be rescued by Neptune at Juno's urging. It seems that both characters will be forced to live to witness their beloveds marry one another.

Iole visits the tomb of her father to try to win the acceptance by his spirit of her imminent marriage to his killer. When she learns of Hyllo's apparent death, Iole also contemplates suicide. But then Licco reminds Deianira that when the centaur Nessus tried to carry her off, Ercole shot him with an arrow that had been dipped in the poisonous blood of the Hydra (the slaying of the Hydra was the second of his Twelve Labors). As Nessus lay dying, he gave Deianira a cloak soaked with his blood, telling her that if Ercole wore it, it would ensure that he would never be unfaithful. Iole and Deianira give the robe to Ercole at the temple just before the marriage ceremony. But to the stunned horror of the onlookers, when Ercole dons the robe the poisoned blood of Nessus burns him and he dies in agony. Juno, her anger against Ercole finally placated, grants him immortality.

The occasion for which Antonia's opera was composed is not known, and it was probably never performed; Italian opera had not been staged at the French court for several decades. In addition, operas composed by women were a rarity then (and now): works by Francesca Caccini, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, and Maria Teresa Agnesi are known, the last probably also never staged. However, Antonia may have been drawn to a personal parallel with Iole's plight: both were forcibly parted from the men they loved and compelled to undergo marriage to more powerful and violent men they didn't. And both ultimately escaped and were reunited with their first loves.

Ars Minerva's production of Ercole amante (seen November 16 at ODC Theater in San Francisco) was one of its most accomplished yet. As Ercole, Zachary Gordin possessed both the strong baritone and impressive physique required by the role; Ercole's bare-chested preening at the opening of the opera told us all we needed to know about the character's self-regard.

Zachary Gordin as Ercole in Ars Minerva's production of Antonia Bembo's Ercole amante. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Aura Veruni's thrilling coloratura as the fierce Giunone provided a lightning-like jolt of energy from her first entrance, a descent from the heavens in costume designer Marina Polakoff's lit-from-within thundercloud dress. It was one of Polakoff's many spectacular creations for this production.

Aura Veruni as Giunone. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich movingly portrayed Deianira's emotional fluctuations between jealousy and despair.

Kindra Scharich as Deianira. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

In her Ars Minerva debut soprano Lila Khazoum convincingly portrayed Iole's anguish, while as Hyllo tenor Maxwell Ary (seen previously with Ars Minerva in last year's La Flora) coped well with the high tessitura of his role.

Maxwell Ary as Hyllo and Lila Khazoum as Iole. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Baritone Nick Volkert ably distinguished the characters of Sonno (Somnus), Mercurio (Mercury), and Nettuno (Neptune); he was especially effective as the enraged spirit of Eutiro summoning the restless ghosts of Ercole's victims to wreak revenge.

Nick Volkert as the spirit of Eutiro. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Melissa Sondhi's alluring voice and person were perfect for the love-goddess Venere; she also portrayed Sonno's wife Pasithea.

Melissa Sondhi as Venere. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

As Licco, mezzo-soprano Nina Jones was highly convincing; it's no wonder that this singer has made trouser roles something of a specialty. And as the comic Paggio (Page), rich-voiced contralto Sara Couden elicited laughter even as her character was being swept away by the raging sea.

Sara Couden as Paggio and Nina Jones as Licco. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Speaking of that raging sea, it was wonderfully depicted by Entropy's projections, which brilliantly set every scene from the heavens to Hades. Her projections have always been a striking and highly effective feature of Ars Minerva's productions, and she surpassed herself in her work for Ercole amante.

The tomb of Eutiro. Image credit: Entropy. Image source: San Francisco Classical Voice

Ricci's assured direction deftly blended the opera's comic and tragic elements, and included many telling dramatic touches. As an example, Juno's lightning-bolt hairpin doubles as a dagger that she gives to Iole when urging her to stab the sleeping Ercole. (Hyllo bursts in and prevents Iole from carrying out Juno's plan, disarming her. But when Ercole awakes and sees Hyllo standing over him holding the dagger, he thinks his son is his intended assassin rather than his rescuer.)

Conductor and harpsichordist Matthew Dirst, together with concertmaster Cynthia Keiko Black (who also portrayed Antonia in a pre-curtain sequence) ably led the six additional musicians of the onstage period-instrument ensemble through the constantly shifting score.

Once again, Ars Minerva has pioneered the revival of a forgotten Baroque opera and proved it to be highly stageworthy when approached with creativity, flair and respect. For a taste of the production, see News Up Now's Gleidson Martins' preview, including rehearsal scenes and interviews with Ricci, Polakoff, Dirst, and translator Joe McClinton (who also has a fascinating essay in the program about creating the supertitles):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOEX1bRso6o

Biographical information in this post was drawn principally from Dr. Paul V. Miller's program notes for Ercole amante, and from Laury Gutiérrez's essay "Antonia Bembo: The Resistant Exile." Gutiérrez is a gambist and founding director of La Donna Musicale, a group devoted to early music by women composers. There are surely more discoveries awaiting in the archives, and we are fortunate that artists like Ricci and Gutiérrez are dedicated to giving them new life. I'm eager to see what Ricci and Ars Minerva will do next; future plans will be announced on the Ars Minerva website.

A Grand Tour: American Bach Soloists

British gentlemen in Rome by Katherine Read, c. 1750. Image source: Yale Center for British Art

The Grand Tour was a rite of passage for young aristocratic British men in the 18th century: a months- or years-long trip to the Continent to increase their knowledge of the classical past; educate them in current European mores, fashions, politics, art, and music; and enable them to sample some of Europe's decadent pleasures before returning home, more worldly-wise, to settle down and produce an heir.

A typical route would begin in London, where before setting out the Grand Tourists (in the 18th century they were mostly men) would be outfitted for the rigors of 18th-century travel. Embarking from Dover they would cross the Channel (a sometimes rough voyage), and then travel by stagecoach to Paris. After acquiring a personal carriage in Paris, the travelers would often continue on southeast to Geneva, and then make the hazardous crossing of the Alps to their ultimate destination: Italy. As the Earl of Darmouth wrote to his son Lord Lewisham on a Grand Tour: "Having passed the Alps like Hannibal. . .you have nothing to do, but, like him, to enjoy the Luxurious sweets of Italy." [1]

Perhaps stopping first in Turin or Milan, they would travel east through Verona (location of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) to the fabled city of Venice. After a sojourn in Venice that might include the festive Carnival season (which ran from the day after Christmas until the dawn of Ash Wednesday), they would head south through Bologna and Florence to Rome. After some time in Rome examining ancient ruins and artifacts, they would travel further south to Naples to view the ruins of Herculaneum and, after its mid-century discovery, Pompeii, and climb Mount Vesuvius. Returning, they might head north into Austria (Vienna), Bohemia (Prague), and Germany before heading west to the Low Countries (Amsterdam). Then the Grand Tourist would sail back to Britain, laden with art, books, manuscripts, antiquities, and other luxuries or curiosities acquired on the journey.

Piazza San Marco, Venice, by Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto), c. 1730–1734. Image source: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum

For the inaugural concert of American Bach's 37th season, "A Grand Tour" (seen October 26 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco), artistic director Jeffrey Thomas used the Grand Tour as the selection principal for four Baroque masterworks: Handel's Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, "Eternal Source of Light Divine" (1713), representing London; Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major (c. 1725), representing Leipzig; Vivaldi's Gloria in D major (c. 1715), representing Venice; and Handel's Dixit Dominus (1707), representing Rome.

While there is no question about the quality of these four works, they don't all fit comfortably into a Grand Tour framework. And it's curious that there was no work included by a French composer to represent Paris. But any doubts about how closely the works reflected the concert's title were swept away by the superb performances of the vocalists and the American Bach Soloists orchestra and Cantorei chorus. To take the works in the order of performance (and geographically from north to south):

Handel's Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne: The concert's gorgeous opening work was probably never performed publicly in Handel's lifetime, and so would not have been heard by Grand Tourists on the eve of their journey. Queen Anne was severely ill on her birthday on 6 February 1713 and 1714, and so it's unlikely that a concert including this work was ever held. However, the first stanza of this Ode has become one of Handel's most-performed works.

Queen Anne by Michael Dahl, c. 1702. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG 6187

I only had a single hesitation about the ABS performance. The music for the opening stanza was originally intended to be performed by Queen Anne's favorite singer from her Chapel Royal, the high tenor Richard Elford. Thomas followed a common practice in having the opening stanza sung by a countertenor, the pleasant-timbred Kyle Sanchez Tingzon. Although he acquitted himself honorably, unlike Queen Anne I prefer to hear a female soprano or alto sing this exquisite, ethereal music.

As in this performance by Kathrin Hottiger, soprano; Dominic Wunderli, baroque trumpet; Jonathan Pesek, violoncello; and Frédéric Champion, organ:

https://youtu.be/RNj0lI7j6pE

Eternal source of light divine With double warmth thy beams display, And with distinguished glory shine, To add a lustre to this day.

After Tingzon, the other excellent soloists for the ABS concert were the bright-toned soprano Julie Bosworth; Morgan Balfour, whose warm soprano revealed both a lovely high extension and a mezzo-like lower register; the rich-voiced contralto Agnes Vojtkó; and the solid baritone Jesse Blumberg. Bosworth, Votjkó and Blumberg were soloists in last season's performance of Bach's St. John Passion by ABS, one of my favorite live performances of 2024; Blumberg has regularly performed and recorded with early music groups in the Bay Area and Boston. Balfour, an alumna of San Francisco Conservatory of Music, also appeared in ABS's 2023 concert performance of Rameau's Pygmalion, a favorite from our year of French Baroque opera.

The libretto by Ambrose Philips in praise of Queen Anne's virtues is exceedingly fulsome, but Handel's music is ravishing, and was ravishingly performed. This is the first time I'd heard the full Ode, with different soloists or combinations of soloists singing each stanza, all of which were concluded by the choral refrain "The day that gave great Anna birth/Who fix'd a lasting peace on earth." The peace, alas, was fleeting—Britain would go to war again in Europe just four years after the Treaty of Utrecht ended the War of the Spanish Succession—but Handel's music has proved to be far more lasting.

Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major: Joseph Sargent writes in his informative program notes that "we imagine that Leipzig—home of the great Johann Sebastian Bach—and Venice—a focal point of Italian music—were high on the list of hotspots" for the Grand Tour. He is certainly right about the latter, with its opera, gambling, art, churches, canals, Carnival, and courtesans—but probably not the former.

Thomaskirche, Leipzig, 18th century. Image source: JS Bach Biografie Online

J.S. Bach was not well-known outside of Germany; significantly more famous were George Philip Telemann and Christoph Graupner, both of whom were offered the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig before Bach, and both of whom turned it down. On hiring Bach the Leipzig town council grumbled, "Since the best could not be obtained, a mediocre candidate would have to be accepted." [2]

Fewer than two dozen of Bach's hundreds of compositions were published during his lifetime, primarily keyboard works, and he was mainly known as an organ virtuoso. In addition, the severe Lutheran town of Leipzig did not possess many attractions for a Grand Tourist. Dresden, capital of Saxony and a center of porcelain manufacture; Berlin, capital of Prussia; and Hamburg, with its Gänsemarkt (Goose-market) opera house, were more likely Grand Tour destinations. [3]

Despite the improbability of a Grand Tourist actually hearing a Bach orchestral suite, the concert performance highlighted the virtuosity of the ABS instrumentalists, particularly oboists Stephen Bard and Curtis Foster and bassoonist Georgeanne Banker. Their fingers were kept flying through Bach's series of dance movements, fluently conducted by Thomas.

The overture to Orchestral Suite No. 1, performed by the English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BURErcLxHi4

Vivaldi's Gloria in D major: In the early decades of the 1700s Vivaldi was employed by Venice's renowned Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage just to the east of the Piazza San Marco where young women were trained as musicians and singers. Travelers from Britain and across Europe attended performances by the all-female orchestra and choir of the Pietà, where the women performed behind latticed screens erected to shield them from the lustful gaze of men. So there's no question that a Grand Tourist might have heard this work, or one of the many others Vivaldi wrote to be performed by these highly skilled musicians and singers. [4]

The church of Santa Maria della Pietà (tallest building on the left) and the Ospedale della Pietà (immediately to the right of the church and to the left of the bridge), Venice, c. 1760. Image source: Venecísima

The ABS Cantorei is a mixed-gender choir, and they truly sounded glorious in this work, justly one of Vivaldi's most well-known. "Et in terra pax homínibus bonæ voluntatis" (And on earth, peace to men of good will), performed by the English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock; listen for the amazingly modern-sounding dissonance on the word "voluntatis" between about 3:20 and 3:48:

https://youtu.be/IS0Qz3SlN98

Handel's Dixit Dominus: It may seem odd that a work by Handel (rather than, say, a work by Corelli or Scarlatti) was chosen in this program to represent Rome; after all, he was born in Germany and spent most of his working life in Britain. But the 21-year-old Handel traveled to Italy in 1706 and composed there in Florence, Venice, Naples and Rome until 1710. In his program notes Thomas calls Handel's Italian years "the most important journey of his life." It was there that he absorbed Italian musical style and gained experience composing vocal works on both intimate and large scales, including Italian opera.

The psalm setting Dixit Dominus may have been commissioned by the wealthy Cardinal Carlo Colonna for the second Vespers service of the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel celebrated on 16 July 1707 in the Church of Santa Maria di Monte Santo in Rome.

Piazza del Popolo, Rome, by Gaspar (or Caspar) van Wittel, 1718. The church of Santa Maria di Monte Santo is the domed building to the left; the one to the right is its sister church, Santa Maria dei Miracoli. Image source: ArtsLife

The words of Dixit Dominus are taken from the Latin Vulgate Bible, and depict a wrathful Old Testament God. One verse reads, "Judicabit in nationibus implebit ruinas: conquissabit capita in terra multorum" (in the words of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, "He shall judge among the heathen; he shall fill the places with the dead bodies: and smite in sunder the heads over divers countries"). On the word "conquissabit" the choir percussively illustrates the blows smiting heads asunder (at around 5:35 in the following clip, which begins at 5:02):

https://youtu.be/H2i8dk8kMXY?t=302

The performers are Les Musiciens & Choeur du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski.

Dixit Dominus is a startlingly dramatic composition with a lot of antiphonal interplay. It is a supreme test of a chorus, and Cantorei (as in the other choral works, supplemented by the soloists) met every challenge of this demanding work. It was both a thrilling conclusion to the concert, and a sobering one: in recent years we have seen far too many places filled with dead bodies.

After the violence of "Judicabit," the final section before the "Gloria Patri" and Amen is a depiction of serenity and peace: "De torrente in via bibet" (He shall drink of of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up his head), beautifully sung in concert by Julie Bosworth and Morgan Balfour, here sung by Annick Massis and Magdalena Kožená:

https://youtu.be/XJ42ApWadwA

"A Grand Tour" will undoubtedly be among my favorite live performances of 2025. Information about the remaining concerts in American Bach's 37th season can be found on the American Bach website.

---

1. Quoted in Mark Bridge, "Eighteenth century Grand Tours fueled by art—and adrenaline," The Times, 22 December 2020, a review of Sarah Goldsmith, Masculinity and Danger on the Eighteenth-Century Grand Tour, University of London Press, 2020. Instead of hazarding the dangerous Alps, some Grand Tourists would instead hazard the dangerous seas by boarding a ship and sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar to Genoa, south of Milan, or Livorno (Leghorn), west of Florence, on Italy's northwest coast.
2. Jörg Jacobi, "Rediscovery of a youthful masterpiece," booklet essay, Antiochus and Stratonica, Boston Early Music Festival recording, CPO 555369-2, 2020.
3. Although the extant manuscript of the Orchestral Suite No. 1 in a copyist's hand dates from Bach's early Leipzig years, there has been speculation that it and at least one of the other Orchestral Suites was actually written while he was Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen from 1717–1723. Köthen lies 60 km northwest of Leipzig.
4. You can watch a full performance of Gloria by all-female forces in the highly recommended BBC Four film Antonio Vivaldi: Gloria.

Kind of Blue: The Making of a Jazz Masterpiece

Cover of Kind of Blue (Columbia CS 8163). Photo credit: Jay Maisel. Image source: HMV.com

The Miles Davis sextet's Kind of Blue regularly tops listener's and critic's polls of the greatest jazz albums of all time. It was certainly an ear-opening experience for me when I encountered it for the first time in the record collection of my then-girlfriend and current life partner four decades ago. It became a gateway to further exploration of jazz, especially from the mid-1940s through the mid-1960s. The players on the album were a remarkable and never-to-be-repeated group. Each was a bandleader in his own right: apart from Davis himself on trumpet, they included John Coltrane on tenor sax, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on alto sax, Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums. [1]

Ashley Kahn's Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (second edition with a new afterword by the author, Da Capo, 2007; originally published in 2000) is a deep dive into the recording sessions, held on March 2 and April 22, 1959. The book is essentially 200 pages of detailed liner notes; if you love this album it's a fascinating read, even if Kahn occasionally lapses into empty critics' shorthand (calling Kind of Blue "the height of hip" (p. 16) in his introduction, for example).

Cover of Ashley Kahn's Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (Da Capo, 2007). Cover photo: Chuck Stewart. Image source: Bookshop.org

The year 1959 was a remarkable moment in the evolution of jazz. Among the albums released that year were the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Time Out, Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come, João Gilberto's Chega de Saudade, Abbey Lincoln's Abbey Is Blue, Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um, Thelonious Monk's 5 by Monk by 5, Oliver Nelson's debut Meet Oliver Nelson, and Nina Simone's debut Little Girl Blue. It was also the year John Coltrane recorded Giant Steps, which was released in early 1960; six of its seven tracks were recorded on May 4 & 5, 1959, just two weeks after the second and final Kind of Blue session.

Kind of Blue crystallizes both the artistic ferment of the era and the mastery of the players in the Davis sextet. Its special atmosphere is apparent from the first moments of the opening track, "So What":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXk1LBvIqU

Bill Evans played piano on "So What," "Blue in Green," "All Blues," and "Flamenco Sketches." Wynton Kelly replaced Evans on piano for the second track on Side 1, "Freddie Freeloader." The track titles were all added by Davis after the sessions; when they were recorded they were simply assigned project and song numbers by the engineers.

Kind of Blue achieved greatness despite a host of errors, small and large, that marred the original issue of the album. Most consequentially, the first side was mastered at the wrong speed, and so the music sounded a little faster than it was played in the studio and about a quarter-step sharp (something a generation of musicians discovered when they tried to play along). My partner noticed this immediately when I put on the 1997 CD reissue—amazingly, the first issue of this album on which the playback speed was corrected. "It's slower than on the album," she said, perceptively. The running time of the corrected version of "So What" is 9:22, versus the original album's 8:57. [2]

There's also the moment in "Freddie Freeloader" (the second track on Side 1, but the first song to be recorded), where, on Coltrane's emphatic entrance for his solo, you can hear engineer Fred Plaut frantically turning down the volume level on his mic. As Kahn writes, "As precise a balance as Plaut may have achieved by arranging the band in the studio, he was unprepared for the startling power of Coltrane's tenor" (p. 106).

From left: John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, and Bill Evans during the Kind of Blue recording sessions. Photo credit: Don Hunstein. Image source: Simon Schreyer

In some versions of the album, the order of the tracks on Side 2 was switched on the back cover, with "Flamenco Sketches" erroneously listed as coming first (in some pressings this is true of the listing on the Side 2 record label as well). Additionally, Adderley's name was misspelled on the cover (the second "e" was dropped); the drummer, who was known professionally as Jimmy Cobb, was credited as James Cobb; Wynton Kelly, who went by his full name professionally, was listed as Wyn Kelly; and the producer Irving Townsend was uncredited. As with the mastering speed of Side 1, the crediting errors were corrected for the first time on the 1997 CD reissue, 38 years after the album was first released.

Back cover of a 1959 issue of Kind of Blue, with the reversed Side 2 track listing and misspelled/misnamed credits. Image source: Discogs.com [3]

There are three key legends about Kind of Blue that, although false, continue to cling to it. The truth about how the album was created is miraculous enough to need no embellishment. It has been claimed that the music on Kind of Blue is:

• Unrehearsed: Bill Evans' original liner notes say that "Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates," and the implication is that none of the musicians had seen any of the music before. However, Kahn reports that drummer Jimmy Cobb remembers of "So What" that "we had played it once or twice on gigs" before the recording sessions, and Miles stated in an interview at the time with jazz critic Ralph Gleason that "All Blues," the opening track on Side 2, had been played live and developed over several months (p. 96). Evans had left the band in November 1958 and had only rejoined them for the recording sessions several months later; he may not have known about music the band had been playing since his departure.
  
  And in 1991 Miles said of "All Blues" that "it's just 'Milestones' in 3/4" (p. 143); it's a similar chord progression, although the chords in "Milestones" are played staccato, at twice the speed, and with a different time signature (4/4). The title track of Davis' 1958 album Milestones was his first modal composition, a way of basing chord changes on specific scales, or modes, rather than melodies; it's a framework that structures all the tracks on Kind of Blue. Bassist Paul Chambers and saxophonists Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane had played on Milestones.
  
  And finally, motifs on two of the tracks seem similar to music that Evans had recorded several months earlier, in one case with Chambers (see below). So both the general musical approach and perhaps elements of specific pieces were familiar to at least some of the musicians when they walked into the studio.
• First takes: A statement frequently made about the album is that it consists entirely of first takes. However, this isn't quite true even if the statement is modified as "first complete takes": the version of the closing track "Flamenco Sketches" that was selected for the album is the second complete take, and the sixth take overall. (The first take was issued for the first time as a bonus track on the 1997 CD reissue.) "So What" had multiple false starts before the first complete run-through on the fourth take; "Freddie Freeloader"'s first complete take was also Take Four; "Blue in Green"'s first complete take was Take Five; and "All Blues" is the second take after a false start. It's still remarkable that the five tracks on the album were selected from only six complete takes, but it was also how Davis often preferred to record. Keyboardist Herbie Hancock, who was in his band from 1963 to 1968 and continued to record with him for several years afterward, said "Everything was a first take unless we screwed up the melody, so what you hear on the record is the first full take. The five-and-a-half years I was with him that's the way Miles worked" (p. 105).
• Solely composed by Davis: The album cover states "All compositions by Miles Davis." However, Evans later said that he wrote the opening chords of "Blue in Green" (the closing track of Side 1) in late 1958 based on a suggestion from Davis.
  
  
  
  
  https://youtu.be/TLDflhhdPCg
  
  And indeed the chords can be heard in modified form in Evans' accompaniment to Chet Baker's instrumental version of "Alone Together" (Dietz/Schwartz), recorded in December 1958 and released on the album Chet in early 1959. [4]
  
  An even closer match with an Evans composition, to my ears, are the opening chords for "Flamenco Sketches," which sound very much as though they are derived from Evans' "Peace Piece" from the album Everybody Digs Bill Evans, also recorded in December 1958. Although Kahn reports that Evans expressed some bitterness about the lack of composing co-credit, he never challenged Davis's copyright to "Blue in Green" or "Flamenco Sketches." Davis repeatedly credited Evans for his contributions to the sound of the album, and in 1986 said in an interview with his biographer Quincy Troupe, "'Blue in Green'—we wrote that together" (quoted in Kahn, p. 98). Nonetheless, the composing credits remain Davis's alone.

Of course, jazz is by its very nature improvisational and collaborative, and Kind of Blue is the sum of all of the contributions of the brilliant musicians who played on it. This is not to take anything from Davis' role as leader: he assembled the band, chose the numbers, sketched the chord progressions, and gave each musician instructions about how and when they should play. But within his conception he left them free to choose what they played; Kahn reports Cannonball Adderley as saying "He never told anyone what to play but would say 'Man, you don't need to do that.' Miles really told everyone what NOT to do" (p. 106). The album these men produced together remains one of the greatest achievements in jazz.

---

1. Kelly, Chambers and Cobb would continue to play live and in the studio as a part of Davis's group until 1963. Coltrane would leave in early 1960 after the release of Giant Steps, and Adderley departed in the fall of 1959 to form his own quintet. The group as it appears on Kind of Blue never recorded together again.
2. You can hear the difference by listening to the original album version of "So What" and comparing it to the version above.
3. The variant versions of the early pressings and their matrix numbers are listed on Discogs.com.
4. Apart from Evans and Baker, the musicians on "Alone Together" are Herbie Mann (alto flute), Pepper Adams (baritone saxophone), Paul Chambers (bass), and Connie Kay (drums).

Anne Sofie von Otter: Swan Song

Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano. Photo credit: Ewa Marie Rundquist. Image source: Cal Performances

The Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter turned 70 this year. She has had a long and illustrious career in concert, in opera, and on recordings. If her concert in Berkeley's Hertz Hall two Sundays ago was her last public appearance in the Bay Area, it was a fitting farewell: a performance of Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang (Swan Song, 1829).

Schwanengesang is a collection of fourteen of the last lieder Schubert wrote before his death at age 31 in November 1828. The songs are settings of texts by two poets, Ludwig Rellstab and Heinrich Heine, plus a final song that sets a poem by Johann Gabriel Seidl. The songs were not intended as a cycle by the composer, but probably instead conceived as two separate collections, each devoted to a single poet. As a result, the collection lacks coherence of subject and tone. Their grouping as a set was the decision of Schubert's publisher Tobias Haslinger, who also provided the title. (Schubert wrote two earlier songs with the title "Schwanengesang"; neither is included in Schwanengesang.) Von Otter performed the songs in their published order without an intermission, accompanied on a period-appropriate fortepiano by Kristian Bezuidenhout. 

With their short metrical lines and regular rhyme schemes, Rellstab's poems work better as song lyrics than they read on the page. Perhaps the best-known of the seven Rellstab songs in Schwanengesang is "Ständchen" (Serenade), here performed by contralto Nathalie Stutzmann accompanied by Inger Södergren:

https://youtu.be/3smT4FX-9fs

Leise flehen meine Lieder Durch die Nacht zu Dir; In den stillen Hain hernieder, Liebchen, komm' zu mir! Flüsternd schlanke Wipfel rauschen In des Mondes Licht; Des Verräthers feindlich Lauschen Fürchte, Holde, nicht. Hörst die Nachtigallen schlagen? Ach! sie flehen Dich, Mit der Töne süßen Klagen Flehen sie für mich. Sie verstehn des Busens Sehnen, Kennen Liebesschmerz, Rühren mit den Silbertönen Jedes weiche Herz. Laß auch Dir die Brust bewegen, Liebchen, höre mich! Bebend harr' ich Dir entgegen; Komm', beglücke mich!

My melodies plead softly through the night to you; down within the silent grove, beloved, come to me! Whispering slender treetops rustle in the moon's pale light; That a betrayer will eavesdrop There's no need to fear. Do you not hear the nightingales calling? Ah, you they implore; with their voices sweetly singing they send my entreaties to you. They understand the heart’s keen yearning, they know the pain of love; with their notes so silvery they touch every tender heart. Let your heart, too, be moved, beloved, hearken to me! Trembling, I await your coming! Come, bring me happiness!

To provide von Otter with some respite, Bezuidenhout performed two solos. The first, Schubert's Impromptu in C minor, D 899 No. 1 (1827), came after the first group of six of the seven Rellstab songs, ending with "In der Ferne" (Far Away).

Kristian Bezuidenhout. Image credit: Marco Borggreve. Image source: Festival Ghent

After the second group of four songs, which began with Rellstab's "Abschied: Ade, du muntre, du fröhliche Stadt, Ade!" (Farewell, you lively, you cheerful town!) and ended with Heine's "Das Fischermädchen" (The Fisher-Maiden), Bezuidenhout performed the Andante from Schubert's Sonata No. 13 in A major (1819). The Andante flowed almost imperceptibly into the first song of the final group of four, "Die Stadt" (The City), without a pause for applause.

Schubert's Heine songs have a darker sound than his Rellstab settings, and are filled with imagery of death and loss. From the final group of Heine songs, "Am Meer" (By the Sea), again performed by Stutzmann and Södergren:

https://youtu.be/Jp4k6hW7W-s

Das Meer erglänzte weit hinaus Im letzten Abendscheine; Wir sassen am einsamen Fischerhaus, Wir sassen stumm und alleine. Der Nebel stieg, das Wasser schwoll, Die Möwe flog hin und wieder; Aus deinen Augen liebevoll Fielen die Tränen nieder. Ich sah sie fallen auf deine Hand, Und bin aufs Knie gesunken; Ich hab’ von deiner weissen Hand Die Tränen fortgetrunken. Seit jener Stunde verzehrt sich mein Leib, Die Seele stirbt vor Sehnen; – Mich hat das unglücksel’ge Weib Vergiftet mit ihren Tränen.

The sea glittered wide before us in the last rays of the sun; we sat by the fisherman’s lonely house, we sat silent and alone. The mist thickened, the waters surged, a seagull soared back and forth. From your eyes, so filled with love, the tears flowed down. I watched them fall on your hand. I sank upon my knee; I, from your hand so white, Drank away the tears. Since that hour my body is yearning, My soul dies of longing; I have been poisoned forever by her disconsolate tears.

With the passage of time von Otter's voice has lost a touch of the purity of tone, perfection of intonation, and sustained breath support so evident in her earlier recordings. However, her communicative power as an artist remains undiminished. As the last chords of the last song in Schwanengesang—the incongruously sprightly "Die Taubenpost" (The Pigeon Post)—faded away, the audience responded with an extended standing ovation.

The artists generously offered an encore: Schubert's "Abschied von der Erde" (Farewell to the world), a poem spoken by the character Mechthild in her death scene from Adolf von Pratobevera's play Der Falke (The Falcon), for which Schubert wrote a keyboard accompaniment. The reading was a powerful reminder of the acting skill that von Otter brought to all of her operatic roles. Many thanks to Cal Performances for bringing her to Berkeley; if Schwanengesang was the last time we'll have the opportunity to see her in concert, she left us wanting more.

Anne Sofie von Otter: Three favorite performances

We first became aware of von Otter as a soloist on the recording of Handel's Messiah performed by the English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock. Her performance of "He was despisèd" remains our favorite, which is saying a great deal, since we also own recordings of this aria by Lorraine Hunt and Andreas Scholl.

After hearing her in Handel we sought out her other recordings. The very next one we found became a favorite that we still return to frequently, 30 years on: Opera Arias: Mozart, Haydn, Gluck (Arkiv Produktion, recorded 1995) in which she was again accompanied by The English Concert and Pinnock (themselves a recommendation; Pinnock always seems to choose the right tempo, and The English Concert was and remains among the premier period instrument orchestras).

Image source: Presto Music

The selections on the album are not the usual collection of standards. Of course she includes Cherubino's "Voi che sapete" (You who know what love is) from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, as an example of her excellence in trouser roles. She also performs arias of Donna Elvira and Zerlina from Don Giovanni. But there's nothing from Dorabella's role in the third Mozart-Da Ponte opera, Cosi fan tutte; instead, Otter and Pinnock include arias from the less-well-known Mozart operas Lucio Silla, La finta Giardiniera, and La clemenza di Tito, as well as from three Gluck and three Haydn operas. By itself this disc is an education in late 18th-century operatic styles, and was our introduction to the operas of Haydn as well as at least two of the three Gluck operas.

"O del mio dolce ardor bramato oggetto" (O beloved object of my sweet passion) from Gluck's rarely-performed opera Paride e Elena (Paris and Helen, 1770):

https://youtu.be/v3E4N2ZLAqk

The film A Late Quartet (2012, directed and co-written by Yaron Zilberman) brought von Otter to the attention of a broader audience. In the film she plays the deceased wife of the fictional Fugue Quartet's cellist Peter (Christopher Walken). To commune with her memory, he puts on her recording of "Mariettas Lied" from Erich Korngold's opera Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City, 1920). Here is a different recording of the aria, performed with a piano quintet (arrangement by pianist Bengt Forsberg) rather than full orchestra:

https://youtu.be/WN_vsAUEE8s

Glück, das mir verblieb, rück zu mir, mein treues Lieb. Abend sinkt im Haag bist mir Licht und Tag. Bange pochet Herz an Herz Hoffnung schwingt sich himmelwärts. Naht auch Sorge trüb, rück zu mir, mein treues Lieb. Neig dein blaß Gesicht Sterben trennt uns nicht. Mußt du einmal von mir gehn, glaub, es gibt ein Auferstehn.

Joy, stay with me. Come to me, my true love. Night falls now; You are my light and day. Our hearts beat as one; our hopes rise heavenward. Though sorrow darkens all, come to me, my true love. Bring your pale face close to mine. Death cannot separate us. If you must leave me one day, know that there is a life after this.

After the Berkeley concert, my partner and I wanted to hear more of von Otter. Usually we don't listen to music after a concert, wanting to give ourselves some time to absorb the experience. But in honor of what may have been our last opportunity to see her perform live, that night we watched scenes from the excellent 1994 Vienna production of Richard Strauss's opera Der Rosenkavalier (1911) directed by Otto Schenk and accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Carlos Kleiber. In that production von Otter is a superb Octavian, fully worthy of being mentioned in the company of other great Octavians such as Brigitte Fassbaender and Elina Garanča.

Here is the exquisite final love duet from Der Rosekavalier. Von Otter's Sophie is Barbara Bonney, Sophie's father Faninal is Gottfried Hornik, and the Marschallin is Felicity Lott:

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

Von Otter's recordings and our memories of her concert performances will be among our most treasured. Below I offer a list of posts on E&I that discuss her or that include linked or embedded performances:

• The songs of Erich Korngold and Reynaldo Hahn: Erich Korngold, "Mariettas Lied" (1 January 2009)
• Opera Guide 5: L'incoronazione di Poppea" Claudio Monteverdi, "Pur ti miro" (14 August 2009)
• Ten recordings you many not know—but should: Christoph Gluck, "O del mio dolce ardor" (13 April 2015) 
• Why we live in cities: Five exceptional musical performances: Concert by von Otter and Andreas Scholl accompanied by Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan (25 May 2016)
• Five songs: "Traumgekrönt" (Dream-crowned) from Alban Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder (Seven Early Songs, 1905-1908) with both orchestral and piano accompaniment, and "Liebesbriefchen" (Love-note) from Erich Korngold's Sechs einfache Lieder (Six simple songs, 1911-1913) (17 August 2017)
• The first Black prima donna: Vittoria Tesi: Final quartet from Gluck's Le cinesi  (9 April 2022)
• Every Valley: Handel's Messiah: Handel, "He was despisèd" (13 April 2025)
• A season of Handel operas, part 4: Ariodante: Handel, "Scherza infida" (7 June 2025)