Buy Bach Operas

Review by L. Mountford:

You already know going in that this will be funny. PDQ Bach (Peter Schickele) has a long history of very clever musical satire. I mean, who else can write music in the style of Bach, Mozart, and Handel, and call it something like “Fanfare for the Common Cold,” “The Seasonings,” “Chorale Prelude On An American Hymn For The Last Sunday Before The Fourth Day Of The Seventh Month After New Year’s Eve,” and dedicate a piece to “A nobleman, Count Pointercount”? At last, we have one of Schickele’s major works on video, in a fully staged production by The Minnesota Opera. The principals are quite good, and the chorus is excellent.Peter Schickele clearly loves Mozart’s operas. There are numerous “jokes” based on Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte, Abduction from the Seraglio, and The Magic Flute. Like Mozart’s operas, Abduction has a convoluted plot: Susanna Susannadanna’s husband, Figaro, is dying (“Stay With Me”). However, before he can die, he is abducted by Captain Kadd (“My Name is Captain Kadd, and I Am Very Very Very Very Very Very Bad”). Well, actually before he is abducted, Susanna is visited by Dona Donna who is searching for Donald Giovanni (“Perfidy, Thy Name is Donald, Although They Call Thee Don for Short”), who loved her and left her (Donna, that is, not Susanna). There is a rescue attempted by the men (Donald and his mute companion, Schleporello), who are shipwrecked, who are then followed by the ladies who end up in the Pasha Shaboom’s harem. Well, you get the picture.There are subtle and not-so-subtle parodies of specific Mozart arias (“Batti, batti” becomes “Macho, macho, That’s How All Men Are,” and is followed immediately by “You Can Beat Me,” for example), but you don’t need to know the Mozart works to appreciate the humor. While some of the bits are perhaps a tad too broad, the clever lyrics and well-written music more than compensate. One of the funniest bits in the entire work is the “Caribbean Ballet” in the style of Swan Lake, complete with pineapple headdresses in place of the usual feathers for the “corps de ballet,” and a “Carmen Miranda”-style Odile.This is definitely worth seeing if you’re already a fan of PDQ Bach. It’s definitely worth seeing even if you’re not yet a fan.

Review by :

We first saw “The Abduction of Figaro” on PBS at least ten years ago, and vowed that someday we’d own a copy. This is Peter Schickele’s humor at its best. (For those unfamiliar with Professor Schickele’s works, he is a musician who possesses genuine talent and a warped sense of the bizarre.) Over two hours long, this is not a tape for the squeamish or those with a short attention span, and it helps to have some classical music background. Even so, don’t worry; most people will appreciate the juxtaposition of honest-to-goodness opera with snatches of popular songs. The things this man blends together are just plain wrong and yet somehow they fit. Schickele also spoofs all of the cliches of opera itself, from the pompous hero to the drippy heroine, with a cast of superb musicians who have the ability to sing wrongfully on command. The scenery is cheap and gaudy, the staging awkward and painfully funny, and the result is an evening of pomposity skewered by a sick mind. One of the best parts is the PBS-style host wearing a flannel shirt and workboots. Highly recommended for serious and not-so-serious musicians, and for anyone who finds opera annoying. Enjoy with a glass of really cheap wine or, better yet, a can of beer.

Review by Mike Birman:

Bach’s majestically beautiful, deeply moving Mass in B Minor began life during the early months of 1733 as a 2 movement five-part Missa containing only a Kyrie and Gloria; often called “a Lutheran Mass” because Luther had reduced the Mass Ordinary to just those 2 sections for the Protestant service. The Missa was intended to enhance his authority with the Leipzig town council with whom he had been engaged in a ten-year long cold war regarding his conditions of service and his method of conducting his duties (not least of which was the onerous responsibility for teaching Latin, a task Bach despised and relegated to others). These 2 movements lasted nearly an hour in performance. Thus, they were far too long for performance in Protestant Leipzig but they were perfect for a festival service performance at the Catholic court in Dresden. There is no evidence they were performed there, however. Bach, ever the practical composer, later extracted 3 movements from the Gloria for a Latin cantata BWV 191, probably first performed Christmas Day 1745. Still later, and for no specific purpose in mind, Bach conceived the idea of expanding his 2 movement Missa into a full Mass. He added a six-part Sanctus that he had written for the Christmas Day service in Leipzig in 1724 for the third section. He expanded the Credo turning it into the much longer Nicene Creed and created a vast second section. Lastly, he combined the Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and Dona nobis pacem to create a fourth section. By creating the Mass via this long-term accretion, many abrupt changes in choral and instrumental writing characterize the piece. Resultant textures can sound somewhat odd. The bass varies from section-to-section; Bach sometimes indicates the double bass, other times the organ and cello. Choral textures vary from four to five to six then eight-part writing. In the Benedictus it is unclear as to what instrument should play the solos. Ultimately, the music is not new but an expertly chosen combination of reused sacred and secular cantatas and instrumental concertos.

More importantly, perhaps, the resultant “Catholic” portions of the B Minor Mass make it unsuitable for a Protestant service. And the Mass is liturgically unacceptable to the Church of Rome. The unavoidable conclusion is that Bach never intended this Mass to be performed at all. He wrote it through some inner compulsion because he COULD write it, perhaps as some vast compendium of knowledge he meant to bequeath to the world. A great summation of his life-long involvement in Church music. A “specimen book” or teaching tool meant to be studied free from all practical issues as a pure example of musical thought, a contemplative masterpiece. In this, Bach’s motives are reminiscent of those that drove Mozart to create his final 3 symphonies over six weeks during the Summer of 1788; symphonies also created for no known practical consideration. The pressure on genius is to create and to do so for it’s own sake!

Karl Richter provides a lovely interpretation of the Mass. Using modern instruments but some of the nascent “authentic performance practices”, he also incorporates the choral tradition of the great oratorio choirs in upper Germany in his disposition of vocal forces. His disposition of instrumental forces are likewise idiosyncratic. What Richter creates is a unique and hybrid Bach performance: neither traditional nor “period performance” but highly musical, deeply devotional, immensely entertaining and often thrilling. His Munchener Bach-Chor and Orchester are fine performers. They sound quite good, though they will not supplant, for example, John Eliot Gardiner’s splendid recording of the B Minor Mass on Arkiv more than 20 years ago. Rather, this performance will occupy a niche. Bach’s music is so great that many interpretations can coexist. In that light, this performance recorded 12-28 September 1969 in the Klosterkirche in Diessen am Ammersee can easily be recommended.

Richter’s soloists are splendid, including soprano Gundula Janowitz, contralto Hertha Topper, tenor Horst Laubenthal and bass Herman Prey. This DVD is worthwhile for their performance alone. The singing is old-school in many ways, but beautiful. We are not used to such emotional Bach these days. Perhaps, a more emotive style will eventually merge with the somewhat colder and analytical period performance style, creating Bach much closer to the real devotional Baroque sound. I’ve always believed that what Bach heard in his day was more emotional than what today’s period performers have been presenting, a depth of feeling operatic in nature. Perhaps that is why Bach never felt compelled to compose opera: his vocal scores were already as dramatically and emotionally charged as the finest operas of his day! Religious belief had an even greater immediacy and force in those long-ago days of ever-present death. This hypothetical performance hybrid is similar to Richter’s style. His performance of the B Minor Mass is idiosyncratic in it’s sound, in his choice of choral voices and in the nature of his interpretation. Nonetheless, it is musical and entertaining. I will return to listen to it often.

This DVD has a picture format of NTSC color shot full-screen 4:3 with a region code of 0 worldwide. The picture appears digitally remastered and is quite clear. Sound is recorded in PCM stereo and DTS 5.1 Digital Surround Sound. The sound is slightly thinner than modern recordings but still nicely present and immediate. DTS 5.1 Surround provides good spatial localization so that voices and instruments are easily visualized in space, imperative in a work of such polyphonic complexity. Menus are in English. Subtitles are in Latin (!), English, German, French, Spanish and Chinese. Total time of the disc is 129 minutes. There are no extras.

This is a splendid disc, enjoyable (and educational) as a window into an older world of Bach interpretation. It is not only musical and entertaining but ultimately deeply moving. Bach’s B Minor Mass is a profound and devotional masterpiece and this disc emphasizes those aspects of the Mass. Most highly recommended.

Mike Birman