I wasn’t able to get this column finished in time last week, but I found the time to contribute a Midnight Jukebox to Fernandez’ column.
D’Errico’s Pearl Jam feature kicks all kinds of ass.
Mathan’s holiday shopping guide is a little different to mine, but both are fueled by the love of music.
Cameron gets a pimp for referencing Manjulah Nahasapeemapetilon in this week’s column.
I wonder if Gloomchen hates the kind of Christmas music I’m talking about below.
CHRISTMAS MUSIC TO HELP YOU SCORE WITH SMART PEOPLE
There are few better feelings than opening up a thin, square-shaped gift to find a CD that you really wanted to add to your collection. On the other hand, few things are more disappointing than opening a similar package only to find a CD from a band that you hate. Well-meaning friends and relatives, knowing that I am crazy about Classical Music, sometimes buy me cheesy recordings of popular compositions played in a half hearted style by an ad hoc orchestra. I find it all but impossible to hide my true feelings when that happens.
If you’ve been thinking about buying some Classical Music for one of the special people in your life, I hope you’ll take my advice and get them one of the following recordings. They are sure winners.
Arcangelo Corelli: Christmas Concerto – Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert
For about a fifty-year period at the end of the 1600s and beginning of the 1700s, Rome was one of the great musical centres of the world. There were plenty of rich aristocrats to pay the musicians, several academies and institutions to provide training and opportunities to make connections, and an endless stream of official visits and festivals, which were always a great excuse to hold a concert. Corelli was by all accounts the greatest of the Italian violinists that came to prominence during this golden period of the city’s musical history.
His Opus 6 comprises twelve Concerti Grossi (for an explanation of what that means, check out this review). Each concerto is broken up into several brief movements, each of which is different from but related to each of the others. For example, they might be organized in a slow-fast-slow-fast-slow-fast-fast pattern, with different tunes for each movement, but all in the same key and keeping certain rhythmic elements constant throughout the piece. The individual movements are structured so that a larger group (violins, violas, cellos, double bass, theorbo (bass lute), organ, and harpsichord) alternates with a smaller trio (two violins and a cello) and much of their musical interest comes directly out of the interplay and contrast between the two groups.
The most popular of Corelli’s Concerti Grossi is Concerto no. 8 in G minor, often referred to as The Christmas Concerto. One quick listen should be enough to demonstrate why the piece is so popular. Quite simply, it’s one of the prettiest and liveliest pieces of music ever written. Op. 6 no. 8 is the Stacey Keibler of Italian Baroque music!
The Pinnock version gets my highest recommendation because the English Concert produce some of the most gorgeous sounds possible on their period instruments (instruments that were either built in Corelli’s time or are painstakingly constructed copies of such instruments). They also manage to play with both fire and polish, which is hard to do but it’s just what this music needs to be truly appreciated.
I was lucky enough to find a 2 CD set of all 12 Concerti on DG Archiv. It is pretty common for Classical labels to release two CDs for the price of one, and very many genuinely great recordings have been released this way. It is almost never a good idea to pay full price for a classical recording, since if you are patient enough almost everything will get released at a cheaper price eventually. If you can find the Corelli set at single-disc price, I would definitely snap it up. There was, for a while, a single disc of Pinnock’s versions available containing Concerti no. 1, 3, 7, and 8, also at bargain price. If you can’t find either of those, or if they have gone back to full price, the excellent budget label Naxos has a version by Slovakia’s Capella Istropolitana that isn’t a bad second choice.
George Frideric Handel: The Messiah – Sir Thomas Beecham, or Sir John Elliot Gardiner
The Messiah, and especially The Halleluiah chorus, are pretty much associated with Christmas in most people’s minds. In fact, only the first third of the piece is concerned with the Christmas story. The halleluiahs come at the end of the second act, and it would perhaps make more sense to perform the piece at Easter.
Nitpicking aside, this is simultaneously one of the most moving and one of the most entertaining pieces of music ever created, which is exactly as Handel intended it. George Frideric made his reputation as the greatest opera composer of the German Baroque, but in the late 1730s he finally had to admit that the audience for his operas had dried up. Much like Hulk Hogan turning heel in WCW, Handel revived his career by swerving everybody and turning to the form known as oratorio. Oratorios combine music, singing, poetry, and drama to tell Biblical stories. They were cheaper to produce than operas, and more popular with the middle class British audience. The Messiah was written in the amazingly brief span of twenty-four days for a charity concert in Dublin. There are those who claim that writing such an incredible work in such a short time could only have been possible under the influence of Divine inspiration, and listening to any great recording of the piece makes it seem reasonable to contemplate that possibility.
Much Like Trevor Pinnock’s English Concert, Sir John Elliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir are scholar/musicians who specialize in recreating music the way it might have sounded when it was originally composed. The period instruments tend to allow for clearer textures than you get with a modern orchestra, and the playing tends to be brighter and more rhythmic. Phillips have released a couple of single disc of highlights from the recording at a very reasonable price. Be sure and get the one with the Halleluiah chorus, though.
On the other end of the spectrum is the magnificent 1959 recording by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of Sir Thomas Beecham. This is a dramatic and flamboyant performance, and the orchestral textures are deep and rich, the singing heroic. The three-disc set is quite a serious investment of both money and time, but the reward is significant.
There are several very good middle of the road performances available at bargain prices. The single disc highlight sets excerpted from performances conducted by Sir Colin Davis or Sir Charles Mackerras are both recommendable, but it’s worth the extra effort to seek out Gardiner or Beecham’s very special recordings.
