Vor Hundert Jahren (100 years ago) and other matters

Vor Hundert Jahren (100 Years Ago) by Franz Liszt

YES I REALISE THIS A RATHER BORING TITLE BUT PLEASE READ ON…

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra usually kick off their winter season with a substantial piece, often involving choral or other large scale works.  I particularly remember a fantastic staging of Strauss’s Salome, but Mahler, and Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem’ were wonderful too.  On this occasion, the opening work was a little performed piece; correction, unperformed piece at least since its first outing, until rescued from the mouldering shelves of a Weimar library by the BSO’s principal conductor, Kirill Karabits.  General opinion, at least among my learned and not so learned friends (we may not be that learned but we all love classical music and are BSO season ticket holders) was that Kirill should have left in on the shelf in Weimar.  The piece was a musical and declamatory work by Liszt and the Austrian dramatist Friedrich Halm.

Let’s deal with the music first.  Even the Telegraph correspondent who heard the work two days later at the Cadogan Hall admits that Liszt’s work could be a bit patchy.  Most of the work consists of Liszt cobbling together some other music which was guaranteed to go down well in Weimar in 1859, and probably did so earlier this year at the same venue.  These consist of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from the 9^th symphony (words by Schiller of course); Gaudeamus Igitur (the German student drinking song, most memorably quoted by Brahms in his Academic Festival overture); bizarrely the school song of my late lamented Grammar School in Haverfordwest (motto Patriae Prodesse Paratus – or Ready to Serve One’s Country – pace Wilfred Owen); and another German soldier song dating from the Napoleonic Wars.  There are a few Straussian moments with horn calls and alpine symphony type sounds – a sort of Ranz des Vaches, but the whole effect is of a little original music tacked onto the patriotic stuff.  Ivan Hewett (Telegraph) says ‘I could see the superb overture taking on an independent life in the concert hall.’  Hmm…  perhaps.  I’d better listen again to it.

Against this background we might expect a little lad in lederhosen to get up and sing ‘Tomorrow belongs to me’, but no.  Far from the stunning choral stuff we usually get from the BSO chorus, we had two distinguished actresses, Sara Kestelman and Jemma Redgrave intoning (beautifully it’s true) the English translation of a Tableau work by Friedrich Halm.  Up at the back, the three fates (or in Wagnerian terms the Three Norns) lingered expectantly.  I was hoping they’d sing, but they didn’t.

And what was the nature of this tableau, or Festspiele?  Liszt composed the work in 1859 to celebrate the work of Friedrich Schiller, born 100 years previously, and to publicise the philosophical idea that Germany should be one nation of German speaking states.  Does that sound familiar to you?  Unfortunately, 160 years later, the idea seems to have come back to haunt us, even if many of the audience aren’t too familiar with the events over the channel between 1933 and 1945.  The basic idea of the recitation is a dialogue, or duologue, between Germania, the spirit of Germany, Poesie, the muse and far seeing spirit of poetry, about the rather patchy state of affairs in Germany and its hopes for a better world to come.  It’s worth noting that the event came only 11 years after the ’Year of Revolutions’, but the 39 German States involved in the confederation or Deutscher Bund were not well organised, and within another seven years Prussia and Austria were again at war (Prussia 1 Austria nil).  The move towards abolition of serfdom, greater democracy, and confederation ended with a German military state and an emperor (Kaiser) in charge.  The story didn’t end well as we know.  Dramatis personae in the recitative include Mary Stuart, Joan of Arc and William Tell.  As the final tableau unfolds both Germania and Poesie are off to Stuttgart to lay wreaths at the newly created Schiller monument.  The final orchestral bars peal out the patriotic song Wo ist des Deutschen vaterland? (Doesn’t need translating).  Fortunately we weren’t treated to the lyrics which were unashamedly from Cabaret, ‘Is it Prussia, is it Swabia?  Is it where the vines bloom on the Rhine, Where the gull moves above the Baltic straits?  No! No! No!  Our Fatherland must be bigger!

The Poole audience provided what one might say was ‘Polite Applause.’  Having been present at many opening concerts over the last thirty or so years I can confidently say that the volume was muted in comparison with other openings.  In addition, there were empty seats which is most unusual at our first nights.  Sorry, Kirill.

I know that this is a complete non sequitur, but once started on a blog I usually feel I have to continue.  The Muse as it were, is with me.  And to be fair, this was originally intended as a letter to my close friend Mike Weaver, with whom I’ve enjoyed many remarkable theatre-going experiences over the years.  Poor Mike wrote to me recently to report that he had attended (much against his First Law of Theatre-Going: never go to a musical) a performance in Bristol of ‘Matilda’.  In true News of the World reporter style, he ‘left early.’  I riposted with a mistaken experience of recent weeks where I attended ‘School of Rock’ which I remembered had rave reviews when it first came out.  Music by Lloyd Webber, Book by Julian Fellowes; what could go wrong?  Of course the small print indicates that it is not original Lloyd Webber music, but his orchestration and the book is taken from an original source in an earlier movie.  The story is typically American cheesy schmaltz (useless ex-guitarist wangles a job as a school teacher where he is subversive, can’t teach, but helps the kids to enter a rock and roll competition).  Apart from four very talented children (lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums) there is little else to commend this work.  Perhaps the comparison was all the more marked because in the same weekend we saw the new play ‘Appropriate’ by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at the Donmar (fantastic; stand out performance from Monica Dolan); and the first night of Ian McKellen’s wonderful one man show at the Pinter theatre.

So it is an odd juxtaposition that within days of the BSO experience I was back at Lighthouse in Poole, this time for a filmed recording of the play (?) musical (?) ‘Wise Children.’  Now at least the music here was unimpeachable, being largely made up of superb standards, e.g. The Way You Look Tonight.  The acting was good and the dancing was remarkable.  But an odd story.  The plot summary of the book by Angela Carter which was published as her last novel in 1991 is even more complex than the stage realisation.  The quotations from Shakespeare throughout beef up the dialogue and are easily assimilated because of the theatrical setting of the principal character, Sir Melchior Hazard.  The child sexual abuse on stage came across as something of an ‘add on’, and although there is incest in the book, the overt nature of the act on stage seemed a nod to ‘#MeToo’ and witch hunts of historical sexual abuse, some of which are justified, but some as we have seen recently are The Plods getting the wool pulled over their eyes.  ‘He touched my thigh twenty years ago.’  Oh dear.  I had better not venture any further with that one.  After 10 minutes I glanced at Lindsay to see whether she was ready to leave the theatre, but she seemed to be enjoying it, and when the dancing started (especially the wonderful showgirls Nora and Dora – more cross dressing – did I mention that?) the whole production moved up a notch.  As we emerged I was heard to say to Lindsay – I don’t know how I am going to confess to Mike Weaver about that one.

If you’ve read this far, congratulations.  The time is out of joint, oh cursed spite…  I just read an interview with Bryn Terfel in which he says that Placido Domingo is a jolly nice chap and a true gentleman (allegations and investigations in New York are in progress and Placido has withdrawn from appearances at the Met).  The papers are trying to take our minds off Brexit by retailing the story of two footballer’s wives (or WAGS) who seem to have fallen out.  One of them, Colleen Rooney, has cleverly blocked all her Facebook friends except one, Rebekah Vardy, and planted fake stories which have appeared in the Sun newspaper.  QED it must be Rebekah!  She has been dubbed – of course – Wagatha Christie.

If I came back again I would love to be a headline writer for The Sun.

Surely you have to congratulate me for starting off with the BSO and ending up with The Sun?  And I'm rather pleased in the 'Labels' section of the blog to have the juxtaposition of Sir Ian McKellen, Colleen Rooney, and Rebekah Vardy.