Bérénice

Loyal readers of this blog will remember that I think the music of the French composer Albéric Magnard is more estimable than his obscurity warrants. Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra, who have done so much for the cause of French music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, will be performing Magnard's third, and final, opera, Bérénice, in concert on Sunday, January 30, at Carnegie Hall, and I will be there! (More details here.) I do not believe that this opera has been performed in North America--I am not even sure if it has been performed anywhere since its premiere at the Opéra-Comique in 1911.

If you're interested in boning up before the concert, the score can be found at the IMSLP. Gaston Carraud's biography of Magnard can be downloaded from the collection of the University of Ottawa via archive.org.

Knowing his music only from scores and recordings, I am looking forward to what will be the first time that I will have the opportunity to hear it performed live.

Alberic Magnard

Today is the birthday of the great, underappreciated French composer Alberic Magnard (1865-1914). A good deal of his music has been recorded--there are no fewer than four complete sets of his four symphonies--and is available through the various online music retailers. It is well worth seeking out. Magnard's music has the reputation for being somewhat "learned," as he took a highly intellectual approach to composition; he was a champion of absolute music in a time when programmatic music was all the rage.

For all that, his music isn’t as bloodless as it may seem; it seems to come out of a deep and sincere font of emotion. An astute critic in the Figaro, writing of Magnard’s Fourth Symphony, said that, despite what the composer may have expressed in his pronouncements, the music was highly dramatic, and in some ways not unlike Bruckner’s Eighth. I’m not sure if I see the comparison, but I think the point is there is more of a human, and humane, element to the music than some may want to credit.

Bon anniversaire, Magnard!

Prescription for Valentine's Day

Find a recording of Magnard's Hymne a Venus (this is a good one) and play it, at full volume, preferably with the one you love. Magnard wrote it as a paean to his wife. But it's suitable for any "other of significance."

A New Approach to Thematic Programming

I've been enjoying a biography of the French composer Alberic Magnard, who flourished at a time when enmity between France and Germany was high, and felt not only by the people but by artists as well. Romain Rolland, the writer, music lover, pacifist, popularizer of Indian mysticism, and Stalin-boosting communist--and also acquaintance of Magnard--had a brilliant suggestion for dealing with nationalism on concert programs. In speaking out against a decision at the 1905 Strasbourg festival to schedule a small piece of Charpentier before a concert performance of the last scene of Meistersinger--in effect marginalizing the French composition--he wrote: "If one wants to have a joust between German and French music, let it be on equal terms: oppose Berlioz to Wagner, Debussy to Strauss, and Dukas or Magnard to Mahler." (quoted in: Perret, Simon-Pierre and Harry Halbreich: Alberic Magnard. Paris: Fayard, 2001, p. 259)

I like the idea of dueling pieces on concert programs. It might be more instructive than some of the anemic thematic programming that is so fashionable these days.