S2.E106. Jollity, Passion, Pathos and Menace. Albinoni Trumpet Concerto Bb, Handel Theodora, Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique finale.

Welcome back to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson and his fresh approach to the world of classical music. Whether you're an expert or a beginner, old or young, Perfect Pitch has something for everyone.

Sometimes it's nice to start off with some fresh Baroque music. It can help to break the ice, especially if it's of the Italian variety, which tends, I think, to be slightly fresher than its German counterpart. Albinoni was born in Venice in 1761 and produced quite a substantial output. Most of his music is a cherby and can certainly stand alongside the likes of Corelli Big Hardy. We've listened to one of his Ober concertos in the past. So here is one of his trumpet concertos, the one in the B-flat, played with a sort of panache a young player can bring like a Ben Stumke with a WDR folk house orchestra conducted by Johannes Fit. So I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I hope Master Strumpke has a very bright future ahead of him. Despite her father's determination to prevent the marriage, Claudia Vieck and Robert Schumann only had eyes for each other. But perhaps he shouldn't have been so careless as to let her be anywhere other than in her own room doing her homework. Or in later years just out with her mother while he was giving Robert Schumann piano lessons downstairs. Robert and Clara met first in the Big Household when she was nine and he eighteen. So it's not hard to imagine how the young man's affection blossomed at the same time she was doing exactly the same. Always going to be a better pianist than her husband. And in 1842, the man did his attention away from the piano and embarked by a chamber music of the songs. But it has its own mark as well. And something should be said about the key flat. This was a favourite key of 18th century composer. And then a bigger than a quarter. It's a key which has a very particular warmth in it, as well as an extra element of grandeur. And it had another dimension needed in the century because it was viewed as the key which represented a much needed stability. And it used to have three flats. Three minutes of what I would call typical Tchaikovsky. In other words, plenty of flourish, a little harmonic introspection, concluding with an even greater flourish. I heard what we're about to listen to next recently, and I was rather surprised to see that it's nearly four years since I shared it with you on here. But having dug a bit more, I saw that the soloist, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, had died almost exactly 20 years ago. So I make no apology for playing it again. Besides which, many new listeners may well not have heard that episode. By the way, they are all there. And all can get too much of it anyway. As with Rosie, Steps of the Mall is a heart-wrenching melody from Handel's Oratorio Theodora. Aunt Liberson plays the part of Irene, who in this aria is attempting to provide courage to Christians while suffering persecution in the fourth century anti-house. One critic in 2005 simply said that her singing of Handel was hold down the blinds, unplug the telephone, can't talk now beautiful. That certainly gives you a feel that it just has to be listened to. Having nursed her sister through a terminal breast cancer. She did herself to come to exactly the same thing only or three years later. And in that context, the singing is almost unbearably poignant. So what word would I choose? None of the typical ones that I seem as appropriate. The best I can come up with after lengthy deliberation and synonym search might seem a little odd at first. Is pristine. It's funny how often certain nouns are always preceded by the same adjective. Regardless of whether or not it's used as appropriate. I'm looking forward to the day when somebody well known in the public eye is described as having a meteoric fall from grace rather than a meteoric rise to fame. Meteors, after all, do not go in the other direction. And I've always wondered why rogues are invariably described as lovable. And I'm fairly certain that most of them are thoroughly detestable. But the nourish always follows pristine does make sense of the adjective, namely condition. And yet we get so used to the combination that we begin to question its use elsewhere because it just sounds strangely out of place. But its definition is of a word which encompasses original purity as well as something that is both uncorrupted and undecided. This was simply a voice of the most pristine quality. This is from the Glimeborne staging of the Oratorium 1996, where she's accompanied by the orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment and directed by Harry Bigger. I noticed somewhere that a fellow cast member accommodated how she had been on the stage with her every performance. And that every single night she put it, it was always like this. So for the next few minutes, this is definitely I can't talk now about it. As we raised Steps and Morning from Handel's Oratory of Theodora is sung by the late Marine, I can't believe this. So let's finish today with a final moment of that piece. Just a very brief recap of what it's all about. Unless anybody be in any doubt, Berlioz had written on the title page of the work that it was an episode in the life of an artist in five parts. He might have added perhaps a bit more usefully, focusing on the obsession of another woman. So there weren't any ends there. But it's a symphony which focuses solely on his unrequited love of the Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, who we'd first seen playing Ophelia in 1827. There were two slightly tricky hurdles to overcome. The first is that he didn't speak a word of English. And the second was that she didn't speak a word of French. So despite showering her with letters for a couple of years, she professed to be literally unaware and refused to believe that the symphony could have anything to do with her. Maybe they're translated, but they're in spinning on the text. Whatever the reason, she did not attend the symphony's last performance in 1830. I didn't get to listen to it until 1832. And only then, we didn't program the penny. So I suppose the person who has an strategy actually work. His own funeral, surrounded by all manner of horrific monsters, witches and remnants. The opening is certainly foreboding. Even if the famous tune which has run throughout the symphony gets briefly trivialized with a clarinet before much darker forces take over for the rest of the movement from all sections of the orchestra. I have to admit that the first time I heard that particular moment on the clarinet, I followed soon afterwards in the second clarinet, and the biggest the image of which immediately entered my head was one of a sheep leaping over a style to be followed by a whole floor very quickly afterwards. And now that I planted that in your brain, I'm afraid you'll probably be left with it forever. But it's just a wonderful demonic whole thing. Don't forget to check out the links. And please do get in touch wherever you are. I really enjoyed it. And I would think you're all surprised I replied. Because I always do.