Music Views and Reviews Bykatbywolfe

Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 19, Number 48, December 4, 1992

Music Views and Reviews byKatbyWolfe

'Messiah' and 'The types; one whole step below, at E for in Italian opera. Klemperer's conduct mezzo-sopranos; and so forth. ing is also far the mJre powerful. Creation'for Christmas Thus the mezzo-soprano aria in E Handel, "Messiah," conducted fiat, "He Was Despised," from "Mes by Martin Pearlman, Telarc CD siah," uses the E-natural register shift Man and Cre�tion 80322 to convey the meaning of the text. The Handel, "Messiah," conducted tonic E-fiat and its leading tone, D, "The Creation," as telarc's intelligent by Otto Klemperer, EMf CDMC drop into the low register for emphasis notespoint out, was �spired by Haydn's 63621 on the word "rejected." This results in hearing of Handelrs "Messiah" in Haydn, "The Creation," conduct a line which rises out of, and falls back London, and is beautifully conducted ed by Robert Shaw, Telarc CD 80298 into, the first register, for tragic em by Robert Shaw, ofl the Furtwiingler Haydn, "The Creation," conduct phasis: "He was despised, despised Klemperer school. If you want the En ed by Karl Munchinger, London OSA and rejected." glish version of "Tije Creation," this 1271 is the one to buy. Yet to educated ears, the modem A=440 pitch and English These two beloved oratorios always Modern pitch distortion words create some R�oblems. help reconnect us to the spiritual basis The tenor ange1.Uriel's aria "Mit of the Christmas season, oftenforgot The modem A=440 distorts this, be Wurd' und Hohh'tit" ("In Native ten in today's paganized world. They cause in the higher tuning, a well Worth") is an exalnple. "The Cre also demonstrate the scientific rigor trained mezzo-soprano will tend to ation" (1798) celebtates the transfor which characterized all classical mu place each E-fiat,which belongs in the mation of the universe by God's cre sic and which was accepted by both first register, up into the second: "He ation of man. At A =1'430,Haydn uses Handel and Haydn as in harmony with was despised, despised and rejected" the tenor's dramatic �hift into the third their religious faith. (for musical figures, see A Manual on register to express �is change. After Telarc's new "Messiah" by the Tuning and Registration, p. 70, Fig a series of high F-na�urals, at the top of Boston Baroque on original instru ures 4.10 and 4.11). the second register, Haydn interjects a ments is pitched low, at about A= 415 Boston Baroque's mezzo-soprano key change at the ppint when man is cycles per second (Hz)-more than a Catherine Robbin's beautiful voice created, and the teI)or shifts into the half-tone below A=440 Hz, today's makes the voice registers richly clear third register on F-sJtarp on "und Ko freakishly high InternationalStandard in this aria. Luckily, there is little dif nig der Natur!" (For musical figures, Pitch. While Handel's "A" was ference-in the essential registral see A Manual on Tuning p. 97, Figure around 430, the disc does bring out points just mentioned-between E 6.5). The A=440 tuning forces the a scientific point: Handel composed fiat and D, the key into which Boston F's into the high register, so there is "Messiah" (1742) around the princi Baroque's A=415 pitch has effective no difference at thdse crucial words, ple of human vocal registers. ly transposed the aria. The too-low and indeed, tenor Jon Humphrey does As the Schiller Institute's 1992 tuning does create problems for other not differentiate. . book, A Manual on Tuning and Regis voices, such as the soprano. While only slightly lower at tration, shows, the lower, middle, First-time buyers of "Messiah" A=435, Karl Mqnchinger's 1968 and upper ranges of each trained voice would do best overall with Otto London recording iln German is first are produced by different technical Klemperer's 1963 EMI Angel re choice. Munchinget's soloists have a means and are heard as having a dif cording with the voices of Elisabeth better command of; the Italian round ferent timbre or vocal "color." These Schwarzkopf, Grace Hoffman, Nico sound than Shaw's;. Further, Haydn registers poetically suggest many lai Gedda, and Jerome Hines, all good wrote his music no� to the English li voices, or polyphony, from one voice. bel canto artists of the Italian school, bretto (by a friend of Handel's), but to At A=43O-corresponding to pitched at A=435. Boston Baroque's the German translation by Baron van C= 256 in older physics texts-the singers and chorus do not live up to Swieten. Haydn took care to set the " " note at which a voice species shifts Robbin's level. Affecting the "uni rounder vowels "uf' and 0 on the from one register to the next, is set sex" prepubescent sound popular in high notes, where tI1eyfavor the regis at geometrically defined points in the Britain today, they ignore the fact that ter shift. "Und Kopig" on the cited scale: namely, F-sharp for sopranos Handel himself, and much of the mu high passage turns: into the harsher and tenors, the commonest voice sic in London in his day, was rooted "and king" in Engli�h.

EIR December 4, 1992 National 69