S2.E22. Merriment with Nicolai; Seduction with Puccini; Reflection with Stevenson; and Optimism with 'Rach 3'. A bit of everything!

SPEAKER_01 0:09

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.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Pub Quiz question for the music category. What unenviable event do all of these great composers have in common? Gershwin, Mendelssohn, Bizet, Purcell, Mozart, Schubert, Schopper. The unfortunate answer is that along with Otto Nicolai, whose name is not quite as familiar as those, they all suffered premature deaths before the age of forty. Many, if not all, through exhaustion or overwork. If you had been around in early 19th century Vienna, you would in fact be very familiar with the name Otto Nicolai, as he was one of the top opera composers of the day. As well as being one of the founders of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. And at one point, more popular than Giuseppe Verdi himself. At that time, Italian was still the predominant language for opera until Carl Maria von Weber finally broke the mould. So all of Nicolai's operas were written in Italian, except for one in German, which no doubt explains why it's the one opera for which he is now most famous in Germany. The illiterary titled Die Lustige Viber von Windsor to give it its native title, the Merrywise of Windsor to the rest of us is a work based on a Shakespeare comedy, telling other rather hopeless courting exploits of Sir John Falstaff. The overture, which is now often played as a standalone concert piece, contains a number of the melodies in the opera, opening with a moonrise over Windsor, which is actually the closing part of the opera, but then slowly leads us to a far happier theme, offset temporarily by a reminder of the Dumpy Falstaff, before everyone joins in to round off a very uplifting passage. The overture is played here by the Leipzig Governhouse Orchestra conducted by quite a lot. And even with those brief Tutti moments, that's when everyone is together, with those cymbal participations a hint of the music to come from Arthur Sullivan, as in Gilbert Abbott, who didn't follow all that much later. I'm not quite sure how we get from that to this, but that's often how these podcasts go. There's definitely an emphasis on the ladies this week, as we'll see, and I for one am going to enjoy that, as I hope all you. At the beginning of Act Two, they're all in the local cafe when Rosetta rocks up with her new and much older admirer, of whom she's clearly bored. So she makes a very thinly disguised taunt in the background towards Marcello with this perfectly delicious tune. After which she's made it abundantly clear that he's still the man for her. His original frustration with a woman capitulates as he picks up her tune at the end, and the result is inevitable. Sometimes speaking your mind can get you into trouble. Other times, like this, it's exactly what's needed to get the right result. This wonderful recording comes from a live performance in 2016 from the Gran Teatro del Lesur in Barcelona. Olga Kuchinska makes Musetta's feeling known to Gabriel Bermudez as Marcello. The not-so-little scream towards the end, by the way, is not some kind of exaggerated swoon, but Musetta's way of pretending that her shoe is hurting and demanding that her older admirer makes himself scarce to go and get a new pair before she can concentrate properly, not on her foot, but on the matter in hand. It's time to come down to Earth after all that heady stuff. As we listen together today on Remembrance Weekend in the UK, it's impossible not to be mindful of the untold suffering being meted out by humanity and to humanity all around the world. One of the astonishing and rewarding things to me about this podcast is that I wake up to find people who have been listening in the strangest and most unlikely of places, including Ukraine and Israel. This is not the place nor ever will it be to pass comments on matters geopolitical or local to this country. But I hope these couple of minutes of music can convey what most decent people believe. In the stilly night is a Scottish air written by the Irishman Tom Moore. It has two verses. And I'm going to read you the words first, not by way of passing comment on the wonderful dictionary of the singer, so that you can subject yourself to the sound of the music in full knowledge of what it is conveying. In the stilly night. The cheerful heart is now broken. In the stilly night, ere slumber's chain hath bound me. Sad memory brings the light of other days around me. When I remember all the friends so linked together, I've seen around me fall, like leaves in wintry weather. I feel like one who treads alone in some banquet hall deserted, whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, and all but he departed. In the stilly night, as slumber's chain has bound me. Sad memory brings the light of other days around me. Now I hope that you have the idea of the sentiments within the text. Let's listen to them.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Like leaves in winter. I feel like war some more whose life suffered whose cards.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

We're going to go today with a very weight announcement of what widely recognized. It would be one of the most green kind of agendas I ever written off a recommended. And as a result, of the challenges you would demand of it over. It calls it on every single idea required of the pin. And many other single articles at all. But as you can imagine, there's still a large range of recording to use from the other. But it also requires a challenge. And when you try to follow the middle data or a time to take a free range, and then well-crafted not a data presenter. You will see that the photos here in the time. And the closing couple of minutes when the tool is prepared with a few bars, which to me, although sound like a horse gathering its hoes before a final charge, are completely riveting. It's also a fitting way to leave us feeling optimistic.