36. A Fairytale, Nostalgia, a Tour de Force for Strings.

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Do you think that classical music is not for you and you don't know where to start? Or maybe you're a fan already and would welcome a fresh approach. You've come to the right place. Perfect pitch is for everyone, beginners or experts, whatever your age. Lend Nick Healy Hutchinson your ears for his weekly dose of classical music that will enrich your life.

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You may remember from an earlier podcast that we listened to the touching duet of Hansel and Gretel from Engelbert Humperting's opera of the same name. It's really the only piece of which is known nowadays, but it was a tremendous success when Richard Strauss conducted it its opening night in 1893. So despite being something of a one-hit wonder, it manages to hold its own in the operatic repertoire today. And was actually the first opera to be turvised by the Royal Opera House Cotton Gardener. So his legacy is a small but significant one. And if the rest of his music has gone into a band, at least his name enjoyed something of a revival in the 1960s when the singer Arnold Delphi decided to change his name for marketing purposes to Engelbert Harpeting, a strategy which helped him to sell over 140 million records. We're going to start today with the overture to the opera. It opens with that lovely theme of the duet, but gradually unfolds into something more sprightly and richer in orchestration, with references to the darker forces in the fairy tale as well as the happy ones, where you can definitely see influences of Weber and Wagner at hand. Anyway, I hope you'll agree that it's a charming piece here played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by George Shalty. But I've never really understood the Brahms dissenters. I know that his music can be a bit moody at times, but I still don't get why some people are so dismissive of him. Benjamin Britton is supposed to have said that he plays with a whole of Brahms at intervals to see whether he's really as bad as he thought and ends up discovering that he's actually much worse. Well, if you fall into that category, we're going to have to differ. And you might just want to skip the next five minutes. But if you do, you're going to miss out on one of the most delightful of all piano miniatures. Brahms wrote three intermezzles in 1892, which he described as three lullabies to my sorrow. This first one is a very touching melody, oozing with nostalgia, with a slightly darker middle section. But it's hard to see how anyone could have an objection to this, especially when played by one of the great Brahms experts, Radu Lupu. I just leave it to you. But I rest my case does seem appropriate after that. Elgar, I'm sure, would be the first anyone would mention if asked to name a British composer. And yet I don't think his music can be in any way characterized as quintessentially British. As kind of, for example, the music of Vaughan Williams, Walton, D.S. Butterworth, and others. Elgar now has his place firmly establishing classical music, but the extent to which his music can be classed as British is only really down to the fact that he was the first British composer of any note to give the poem, but it's actually rather apt in this case, to Henry Purkle. That's not to categorize him as a nostalgic composer, but his affiliations were much more in line with some of his continental European contemporaries or near contemporaries, especially with the likes of the composer we just heard, Brahm. Elgar has its rightful place there, but I would argue that his music marked more of a culmination of the melodic romantic period than it does in any way pave a new path. And here's a perfect example. His introduction and allegory of strings written in 1905 to celebrate the founding of the London Symphony Orchestra. It's a complex piece of music written quite deliberately to demonstrate the skills of the different string sections of the orchestra, and as good a showcase of polyphony as you will find. Apparently, the principal tune came to Elgar on hearing a song in the Welsh Hills. Anyway, it's a lovely piece. Sometimes sensitive, other times apparently in conflict. But the whole is a mini symphonic Twitter four. Elgar's introduction and allegory strings is played here by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Pinker So Commons.

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That's it for now. Thank you for listening to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson. He'll be back again next week with some more treasures for you. So please do join in then. And you can subscribe to this podcast by clicking on the link below.