S2.E43. Mood Music - Delius Walk into The Paradise Garden, and Schubert Unfinished in full.

SPEAKER_02 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 0:24

Composed at the beginning of the 20th century, Dealers' opera A Village, Romeo and Juliet, didn't get its first showing in New York until 1972. One critic observed that he wasn't surprised it didn't get performed very often, because apart from the difficulties it presented with staging, it was basically two hours of mood music. That's an understandable obstacle to visual enjoyment, but it doesn't stop us appreciating one of its famous interludes, Walk into the Paradise Garden, which does indeed epitomize that definition of mood music. As the title of the opera suggests, it has a rather dark plot. But the only common factor with the Shakespeare version, apart from a fateful ending, is that there are two families that lock their heads with each other. In this case, over a piece of land, the ownership of which nobody can agree, and which causes financial ruin for both sides. Vraine is the daughter of one farmer, Sally the son of the other. They've known each other since childhood and have since become lovers. But when Vraini's dad, who disapproves of the match, sees them together, he loses that plot. And Sally texts him is not good because the injury causes him to lose his senses. Seeing no way out, the two lovers take a boat onto a lake where they remove its plug with inevitable and disastrous consequences. Don't try too hard if you're not familiar with it. Just let it take you away. Trust me. Trust yourself. Patience will be rewarded, especially with a recording like this. An arrangement by his greatest champion Thomas Beecham and played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Barbirolli. Scholars have exercised themselves for nearly two centuries about why the symphony with its two movements was left as we now know it. I'll talk about those briefly in a moment. But his other first diagnosis in 1822, when he was working on the symphony, seems a plausible and reasonable explanation for putting it to one's eye. There are good grounds for suggesting that he did actually start to sketch out another movement. But in the end, I really don't think it matters. Because the unfinished product never leaves you wondering what next. It's very much a work which stands on its own merits. Not only that, it takes symphonic form into a new direction, even with his hero Beethoven still around, and has become one of the most beloved in the entire repertoire. Why so? The main reason, I think, is that it's profoundly biographical in its musical content. And is definitely original, a far departure from his early symphonies, and a voice quite independent of Beethoven too. Right from the opening bars on the double basses and a shimmering violin we're being led into something eerie, haunting, unsettling, and mysterious. A solo clarinet enters and enhances the melancholy. And then, as only Schubert can, he introduces a perfectly lovely theme on the cello just when we're getting comfortable, matches our relief with an outpouring of anger. It's almost the musical precursor to Dylan Thomas's line about a hundred years later. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And that leaves us at the end of the first movement in a state of some despair. He was baptized as a Catholic, but we don't have much to go on. The conductor Nicholas Arnuncourt, who was certainly an authority on Schubert's music, was convinced that he had some kind of inner faith. And who could have failed to be persuaded otherwise when you listen to the second movement? We move into the realms of the ethereal, the celestial grace. But unlike the first movement where hopelessness prevails, we are instead brought tranquility and rest. And when the strident moments do come, they are more majestic in tone and our passages of affirmation have gone on a bit. But this is such a familiar piece that I think it deserves a proper context and a real appreciation of its position in the symphonic repertoire. As you can imagine, every conductor you've ever heard of has recorded this. So you could be forgiven for thinking they would all be much of a much nice. But then you stumble on an interpretation which fulfills so perfectly the contrast I've been talking about, as well as some exquisite playing in the woodwinds, brass, and strings, and you set up and realize this is head and shoulders above everything else. Oh, and the pace of it is perfect too. So this live performance by the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Johan Fisher of a much loved work is truly one to sing.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

That's it for this week. Nick will be back again soon. Please rate and comment on any of the previous episodes, and if you like what you hear, take a moment to press the follow button, as it helps to spread the word.