An Embarrassment of Musical Riches

After having roamed the classical music on YouTube for weeks, it is high time that I write about my favourites again.

On the oft-quoted principle that a million monkeys sitting at a million typewriters for a very long time may produce a great novel, there must be a masterpiece among the myriad films of the "Moonlight Sonata," but I haven't been curious or patient enough to search it.

Anyway, the works of Bach are particularly well represented on YouTube. Today I found Glenn Gould's rendition of the toccata of Partita No. 6. It represents the complexity and grandeur and earnestness that I like about the composer, though works like the Brandenburg Concertos are a better example. I've tried to play the partita myself, and, though I can't say that Gould's interpretation has much in common with my ideal, I admired his take on it. For the beauty of Bach, I turn to "Erbarme dich" (Yehudi Menuhin). The fugue from his violin sonata BWV 1001 is beautiful too (though I think that Henryk Szeryng's concentration is a little off in this film), but too sad, I think. I used to listen to a recording by Nathan Milstein of Bach's sonatas and partitas for the violin, but I thought its atmosphere would be more fitting after the annihilation of the whole human species. I think that Bach can be more unbearably desolate and sad and even hard than any other composer. It was, at any rate, a relief to come across Julian Breams playing the fugue with the warmer tones of the guitar.

That guitar recording led to others with the same instrument. Besides roaming recordings by Julian Bream, John Williams, and Andrés Segovia, I also listened to ones by Li Jie. Li Jie has greater tranquillity and cleaner notes than the others, I think, and though she might not contribute any striking novelty or drama to the realm of guitar-playing, I liked everything she played. Take, for instance, the Serenata Española by Joaquin Malats. Here is Segovia playing five short pieces by Purcell, including one that Mama used to play on the piano.

Then I've also listened to many recordings of Schubert. Besides the fourth movement of the piano sonata D 959, I hear D958, D960 and the rest of D959 often, as played by Alfred Brendel. His playing is nice and clever and lucid, and not unfeeling, but he sometimes seems oblivious to the emotional depths. I think that he is sensitive rather than impassioned, and that he feels uncomfortable with any feeling that is not regulated by a clear mind. So Mozart seems more suitable repertoire for him. Anyway, I've also listened to Maria Callas's "Ave Maria," and like its beautiful clarity very much.

And that brings me to singing. I started out with Joan Sutherland's clips. I can't decide whether her "Tornami a vagheggiar" from Alcina is agreeable or not -- her voice has a strong Australian twang, I think -- but T. and I both like to hum the song now. The best interpretations are, I think, the ones where the listener becomes fond of and remembers the music. Besides, I enjoy her self-caricaturing(?) grande dame presence. Apart from "Tornami," there are arias from Norma, I Puritani, etc. in plenty, but someone has also uploaded the entirety of a pleasant recording of Acis and Galatea, where she sings Galatea. A singer whose darker -- if that is the right term -- voice I like unequivocally is Janet Baker. There is, for example, "When I am laid in earth" from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (dramatic, and the costume makes her look as if stalagmites were growing from her head). Then I've watched endless Mozart, Rossini, etc. videos with Maria Callas, Cecilia Bartoli, Anna Netrebko, Kiri te Kanawa, etc., but I'm still at the stage where one aria usually sounds much like the last, so I haven't more favourites. On the other hand, I have come to cherish a grudge against the facile flair and common catchiness that the "Habanera" from Carmen possesses, or appears to possess after one has heard it ninety-nine times too often. As for male singers, I will return from opera to Schubert lieder, and say that I like Giovanni di Stefano's rendition of Schubert's "Ständchen" (Schwanengesang No.4), though the film looks hellishly irritating.

Speaking of films that feature musicians, one of my earliest favourite clips is from a 1939 film where Jascha Heifetz plays the Mendelssohn violin concerto in e minor (3rd Mvt.). It's hilarious how much undiluted zeitgeist one can pack into 7 min. 29 sec. Another recording of Heifetz that I particularly like is his Wieniawski Polonaise No. 1, which I listen to when I feel gloomy, because the beginning is so funny that it makes me smile.

On the whole, I do make forays into modern music. But, except for isolated instances, I haven't caught up even to the twentieth century yet. My knowledge of Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Scriabin, Mussorgsky, etc., is still small. From what I have heard of Rachmaninoff's and Tchaikovsky's piano concertos, they seem "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" (though "fury" is too strong a word); I am fond of other music by them, for instance the Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 (Josef Hofmann). As for non-classical modern music, I think I will allow myself to discover it over time. But I believe that genres of music are like languages; classical music is my mother tongue, and my most natural mode of expression.

P.S.: I should note that every one of the videos I've linked to most likely violates copyright. So if you have a better conscience than I, you may not want to click on the links after all.