Adagietto | Gluck - Melody "Orfeo Ed Euridice" | Dance of the Blessed Spirits, Orfeo's Death | Alexandre Tharaud @Adagietto | Uploaded August 2014 | Updated October 2024, 1 minute ago.
Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice (Orphée et Eurydice), Opera, 1762. "Dance of the Blessed Spirits", Orfeo's Death. Alexander Tharaud, piano. (A. Siloti Transcription)
Erato/Virgin Classics, WMG, 2013.
Orpheu's Death Theme from "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" Glück's Melodie "Orfeo ed Eurydice" | Glück Mort d'Orphee de l'Opera Oprhee et Eurydice Melodie "Ballet des Ombres Heureuses"
Live Version: youtu.be/63j3ssQu_X8
The gently pastoral Dance of the Blessed Spirits beautifully exemplifies Glück's revolutionary principle that in opera, music and poetry should never overstate their message. In other words, any complexity - verbal or musical - needs to be justified by essential dramatic content. Listeners will perhaps be astonished to hear this tranquil music in an opera about Orpheus' journey to Hades, the realm of the dead, in search of his departed wife Eurydice. In fact, in Act II of Gluck's great opera Orfeo ed Euridice, the Dance of the Blessed Spirits immediately follows the Dance of Furies, the vengeful spirits of Hades. Indeed, Greek mythology located Elysium, the world of the blessed, far from Hades. Gluck, however, follows the Homeric tradition, which places Elysium in the Underworld. Written for solo flute with string accompaniment, this piece is in simple ternary form (ABA), the first part an elegant, stately melody that conjures up images of pastoral tranquility under resplendent azure skies. It would be profoundly startling to encounter Death in this pastoral abode of the eternally blessed. The contrasting minore part, like a sudden zephyr disturbing the profound calm of a summer's afternoon, introduces, with its muted passion still within the confines of classical simplicity, an element of anguish that is perhaps an echo of the protagonist's earlier dialogue with the Furies. However, as the A section is reiterated, the idyllic landscape reappears, perhaps suggesting that Orpheus' quest will be successful. Of course, Gluck's vision of Greece was idealistic and in harmony with contemporary scholarship; nevertheless, this vision inspired music of great beauty and dramatic power. The Dance of the Blessed Spirits composition, which has appeared in many popular arrangements, truly embodies Gluck's classical genius.
Orfeo ed Euridice was one of three operas composed by Gluck in an attempt to reform the Italian opera seria. The opera seria had many dramatic drawbacks, among them a stiff libretto full of contrivances and formal musical patterns that were given precedence over dramatic flow.
Gluck had an admirable dramatic imagination that balked at all this regimentation. After he had come into contact with the librettist and poet Ranieri de' Calzabigi, he began to imagine a new form of dramatic opera. Calzabigi wanted to bring French influences to the Italian opera, and his libretti are monumental poetic works in an Italian rhetorical style. The libretto for Orfeo ed Euridice is noble and grand, and the ending employs a typical deus ex machina to bring about a happy ending for the lovers.
The grandeur of the libretto must have inspired Gluck, for his approach to the score is also monumental, as well as essentially orchestral in nature. The opera opens after the death of Euridice to a funereal choral tableau which is pierced by the cries of the anguished Orfeo. Huge dramatic choruses of shades and furies contrast starkly with the solo recitatives and arias of Orfeo as he searches for Euridice. Music of the Elysian Fields offers another contrast. Orfeo's aria here features a myriad of solo instruments.
The entire scene is radiant and heavenly. The third act is particularly beautiful, as Gluck and Calzabigi turn the shade of Euridice into a complex lover and wife, unwilling to follow her husband blindly out of Hades, even though she has been called back to life. Her arguments and pleadings, her passion and confusion, create the torment in Orfeo that results in her being sent back to hell.
Twelve years later, while Gluck was visiting Paris, he undertook to revise Orfeo, bringing it in line with French tastes. First, of course, he changed the language from Calzabigi's Italian to a French translation and adaptation by Moline, thereby changing the name of the work to Orfee et Eurydice. Second, he changed the title character from a castrato soprano to a fully male tenor, thereby changing the keys as well personality of Orpheus. Third, he changed much of the music, thereby adding some darkly colored beautiful music, The revised score was a success in the French capital - Marie Antoinette, the work's dedicatee, awarded him an annual pension for his efforts.
The premiere of 1762 was a great success. Orfeo ed Euridice achieved international renown and is still widely performed. In 1859 Berlioz made a third version of Orfeo which combined the French and Italian scores. The most celebrated excerpt from it is not an aria, but the orchestral Dance of the Blessed Spirits.
Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice (Orphée et Eurydice), Opera, 1762. "Dance of the Blessed Spirits", Orfeo's Death. Alexander Tharaud, piano. (A. Siloti Transcription)
Erato/Virgin Classics, WMG, 2013.
Orpheu's Death Theme from "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" Glück's Melodie "Orfeo ed Eurydice" | Glück Mort d'Orphee de l'Opera Oprhee et Eurydice Melodie "Ballet des Ombres Heureuses"
Live Version: youtu.be/63j3ssQu_X8
The gently pastoral Dance of the Blessed Spirits beautifully exemplifies Glück's revolutionary principle that in opera, music and poetry should never overstate their message. In other words, any complexity - verbal or musical - needs to be justified by essential dramatic content. Listeners will perhaps be astonished to hear this tranquil music in an opera about Orpheus' journey to Hades, the realm of the dead, in search of his departed wife Eurydice. In fact, in Act II of Gluck's great opera Orfeo ed Euridice, the Dance of the Blessed Spirits immediately follows the Dance of Furies, the vengeful spirits of Hades. Indeed, Greek mythology located Elysium, the world of the blessed, far from Hades. Gluck, however, follows the Homeric tradition, which places Elysium in the Underworld. Written for solo flute with string accompaniment, this piece is in simple ternary form (ABA), the first part an elegant, stately melody that conjures up images of pastoral tranquility under resplendent azure skies. It would be profoundly startling to encounter Death in this pastoral abode of the eternally blessed. The contrasting minore part, like a sudden zephyr disturbing the profound calm of a summer's afternoon, introduces, with its muted passion still within the confines of classical simplicity, an element of anguish that is perhaps an echo of the protagonist's earlier dialogue with the Furies. However, as the A section is reiterated, the idyllic landscape reappears, perhaps suggesting that Orpheus' quest will be successful. Of course, Gluck's vision of Greece was idealistic and in harmony with contemporary scholarship; nevertheless, this vision inspired music of great beauty and dramatic power. The Dance of the Blessed Spirits composition, which has appeared in many popular arrangements, truly embodies Gluck's classical genius.
Orfeo ed Euridice was one of three operas composed by Gluck in an attempt to reform the Italian opera seria. The opera seria had many dramatic drawbacks, among them a stiff libretto full of contrivances and formal musical patterns that were given precedence over dramatic flow.
Gluck had an admirable dramatic imagination that balked at all this regimentation. After he had come into contact with the librettist and poet Ranieri de' Calzabigi, he began to imagine a new form of dramatic opera. Calzabigi wanted to bring French influences to the Italian opera, and his libretti are monumental poetic works in an Italian rhetorical style. The libretto for Orfeo ed Euridice is noble and grand, and the ending employs a typical deus ex machina to bring about a happy ending for the lovers.
The grandeur of the libretto must have inspired Gluck, for his approach to the score is also monumental, as well as essentially orchestral in nature. The opera opens after the death of Euridice to a funereal choral tableau which is pierced by the cries of the anguished Orfeo. Huge dramatic choruses of shades and furies contrast starkly with the solo recitatives and arias of Orfeo as he searches for Euridice. Music of the Elysian Fields offers another contrast. Orfeo's aria here features a myriad of solo instruments.
The entire scene is radiant and heavenly. The third act is particularly beautiful, as Gluck and Calzabigi turn the shade of Euridice into a complex lover and wife, unwilling to follow her husband blindly out of Hades, even though she has been called back to life. Her arguments and pleadings, her passion and confusion, create the torment in Orfeo that results in her being sent back to hell.
Twelve years later, while Gluck was visiting Paris, he undertook to revise Orfeo, bringing it in line with French tastes. First, of course, he changed the language from Calzabigi's Italian to a French translation and adaptation by Moline, thereby changing the name of the work to Orfee et Eurydice. Second, he changed the title character from a castrato soprano to a fully male tenor, thereby changing the keys as well personality of Orpheus. Third, he changed much of the music, thereby adding some darkly colored beautiful music, The revised score was a success in the French capital - Marie Antoinette, the work's dedicatee, awarded him an annual pension for his efforts.
The premiere of 1762 was a great success. Orfeo ed Euridice achieved international renown and is still widely performed. In 1859 Berlioz made a third version of Orfeo which combined the French and Italian scores. The most celebrated excerpt from it is not an aria, but the orchestral Dance of the Blessed Spirits.
![Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs | Jessye Norman, Wolfgang Sawallisch [HD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RdRq7ynfkHs/hqdefault.jpg "Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs | Jessye Norman, Wolfgang Sawallisch [HD]
Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs | Quatre Derniers Lieder | Quattro Ultimi Lieder | Cuatro Últimas Canciones | Quatro Últimas Canções, o.Op. 150, 1948.
Orchestre de La Suisse Romande conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch. Jessye Norman.
Geneve, Victoria Hall, 19.IX.1979.
Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs:
00:00 I. Frühling | Spring | Printemps
03:58 II. September | September | Septembre
09:25 III. Beim Schlafengehen | When Falling Asleep | Lheure Du Sommeil
15:00 IV. Im Abendrot | At Sunset | Au Soleil Couchant
Jessye Norman talks about Richard Strauss Vier Letzte Lieder | Four Last Songs | http://youtu.be/o9tx41cP4P8?t=8m05s
Studio Recording | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDoqnjB7Um4
Do you still sing Four Last Songs?
Jessye Norman - I only do them with conducters who really understand whats happening with them. I dont want to say this condescendingly, but so many regional orchestras feel that if I show up, were sound like Sergiu Celibidache in Munich. But thats not quite the way it works. There was one bright, lovely man who was conducting Four Last Songs for the first time, and he had a vision the night before that it would be slower. And I said, I really appreciate that youre having an artistic moment, but its marked Allegretto
How long will you continue to sing?
J.N. - As long as it make sense.
Jessye Norman Interview to Gramophone IX.2010, p.39
Strauss Four Last Songs. For the profundity that is achieved not by complexity but by clarity and simplicity. For the purity of the sentiment about death and parting and loss. For the long melodic line spinning out and the female voice soaring and soaring. For the repose and composure and gracefulness and the intense beauty of the soaring. For the ways one is drawn into the tremendous arc of heartbreak. The composer drops all masks and, at the age of eighty-two, stands before you naked. And you dissolve.
Philip Roth
Strauss Vier letzte Lieder is a set of four songs for soprano and orchestra, composed between 1946 and 1948. The texts for the songs are Im Abendrot by Joseph von Eichendorff, followed by three texts by Hermann Hesse, Frühling, Beim Schlafengehen, and September. For many, these songs are regarded as the pinnacle of Strauss output as a composer of lieder. For the most part, Strauss had composed his earlier lieder with piano accompaniment and refrained from writing orchestral songs, like those Gustav Mahler composed earlier in the century. In terms of style, the music itself continues in the idiom that Strauss used for his later operas, especially Capriccio. The melodies are long and sinuous, with subtle, chromatic harmonies which support nuances in the text. For one, Im Abendrot, Strauss even quotes from Tod und Verklärung when the narrator of the poem expresses intimations of death. In all the settings of the Vier letzte Lieder, Strauss composed subtle music.
Richard Strauss extraordinarily beautiful Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) (1948) for voice and orchestra are among the last music the composer ever wrote. Actually, Strauss did not intend to place the songs into this grouping in which they are best known. The title Four Last Songs was provided posthumously by Strausss friend Ernst Roth, who published the four songs as a single unit after Strausss death. Three of the settings are on texts by Hermann Hesse; the last in the group, Im Abendrot (At Dusk), is a separate setting of a poem by Joseph Eichendorff. (Strauss also left behind another unfinished Hesse setting, Nacht.) Still, given the themes of the Hesse songs - Frühling (Spring), September, and Beim Schlafengehen (Time to Sleep) - the inclusion of the Eichendorff song seems a natural extension of and appropriate end to the cycle.
The Four Last Songs are virtually indistinguishable in technique and musical language from the fine songs Strauss wrote 50 years earlier. They are, in short, rich and fully Romantic, expressive in feeling and symphonic in sound. As such, they might well be thought of as the final masterpieces of the line of German Romantic Lieder that began with Beethovens An die ferne Geliebter. The final words of Im Abendrot are Is this really Death? Here, Strauss inserts the famous yearning theme from his own Death and Transfiguration, providing what can only be regarded as a most fitting epitaph to his own life and work.
Towards the end of Im Abendrot, exactly as the sopranos final intonation of der Tod (death) ceases, Strauss musically quotes his own tone poem Death and Transfiguration, written 60 years earlier. As in that piece, the quoted six-note phrase (known as the transfiguration theme) symbolizes the fulfillment of the soul into death.
Strauss died in September 1949. The premiere was given posthumously at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 22 May 1950 by soprano Kirsten Flagstad and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler.")
