Aria WoO90 mp3

[Peter]

This aria is now available on the rare Beethoven page.
www.kingsbarn.freeserve.co.uk/selected.html

I don't know the work so it will be very interesting to hear it (hopefully later today) - also interesting to see if it provokes as much comment as our last selected work!

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'Man know thyself'

[Chris]

I'll give it two thumbs up! This is a delightful piece. (Or I may just be in a good mood, because I was able to download the file in less than 30 seconds ) If you haven't been downloading these things, this would be a good one to start with. So get downloading

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chris:
I'll give it two thumbs up! This is a delightful piece. (Or I may just be in a good mood, because I was able to download the file in less than 30 seconds ) If you haven't been downloading these things, this would be a good one to start with. So get downloading

Those who haven't been downloading have been missing out big time! There's plenty more where this came from (ie first rate Beethoven stuff that the establishment deems is unworthy of performance). If you had my collection Chris, you would understand more easily my polarised attachment (the genius of Handel aside) to Beethoven.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Chris]

No matter how great my Beethoven collection, there would always be room for others.

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chris:
No matter how great my Beethoven collection, there would always be room for others.

Yes you are correct, there is always room for Handel.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Peter]

Originally posted by Chris:
I'll give it two thumbs up! This is a delightful piece. (Or I may just be in a good mood, because I was able to download the file in less than 30 seconds ) If you haven't been downloading these things, this would be a good one to start with. So get downloading

You're right - it is a charming piece, as was the other concert aria we featured earlier WoO92. Why on earth these pieces aren't better known is quite a mystery. Of course if more singers were to bother to include them in their repertoire they wouldn't languish in such obscurity.

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'Man know thyself'

[Claudie MICAULT]

If Beethoven is not a lot included in singers programs it is because he wrote for people with a real good technic. I myself sing a lot of B. and am always in big trouble with people who write or say that B. did not respected voices : he wrote carefully and very nicely for voices, but coming from a family of GOOD singers he was expecting a lot from his interpreters. As he did for other instruments like piano, cello, violin, etc.... But singers are fellows who does not like to study a lot... so for them it is easier to sing Puccini than Beethoven or Haendel !!!

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Claudie

[Michael]

Another problem with Beethoven, as I see it, is the necessity to hear some of his unfamiliar music a number of times before it makes its full impact. (Obviously, there are numerous exceptions: you cannot generalise about this guy!)
When I bought my first full set of the lieder, six or seven years ago, I remember being initially disappointed at the melodic content, but I should have known better. I suggest that B needs more time than most composers for his works to seep into ones psych, if that doesn't sound pretentious. Or put it this way, a lot of Beethoven should never be heard for the first time!
B's bass aria "Mit Madeln ... (Getting on with Girls)" and its companion, "Profung des Kussens (Test of Kissing)" show an amazing and unlikely side of his genius - what I call his "light operetta" music. Other pieces which could be included in that group, are two arias he wrote for Umlauf's Singspiel "The Beautiful Shoemaker's Wife". The first one "Oh, What a Life" is actually a very Mozartian arrangement for singer and orchestra of one of his lieder, while the last one "If a Shoe is not to Pinch"" could be straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan.
(But then G & S were always sending up the classical composers).

Michael

[Chris]

Originally posted by Michael:
Another problem with Beethoven, as I see it, is the necessity to hear some of his unfamiliar music a number of times before it makes its full impact. (Obviously, there are numerous exceptions: you cannot generalise about this guy!)

I agree. When I first heard certain works, I didn't really like them that much. But after subsequent listenings, they grew on me. Of course, other works (like the 4th symphony) had their full impact on me right away.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Claudie MICAULT:
But singers are fellows who does not like to study a lot... so for them it is easier to sing Puccini than Beethoven or Haendel !!!

I think you're right - they're a lazy lot! (with some exceptions of course!). What would you say Claudie is the most difficult Beethoven you have sung?

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'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Michael:
Another problem with Beethoven, as I see it, is the necessity to hear some of his unfamiliar music a number of times before it makes its full impact. (Obviously, there are numerous exceptions: you cannot generalise about this guy!)
When I bought my first full set of the lieder, six or seven years ago, I remember being initially disappointed at the melodic content, but I should have known better. I suggest that B needs more time than most composers for his works to seep into ones psych, if that doesn't sound pretentious. Or put it this way, a lot of Beethoven should never be heard for the first time!
B's bass aria "Mit Madeln ... (Getting on with Girls)" and its companion, "Profung des Kussens (Test of Kissing)" show an amazing and unlikely side of his genius - what I call his "light operetta" music. Other pieces which could be included in that group, are two arias he wrote for Umlauf's Singspiel "The Beautiful Shoemaker's Wife". The first one "Oh, What a Life" is actually a very Mozartian arrangement for singer and orchestra of one of his lieder, while the last one "If a Shoe is not to Pinch"" could be straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan.
(But then G & S were always sending up the classical composers).

Michael

The problem with Beethoven lieder from my experience is that they are usually sung by 'heroic' tenors, as opposed to 'lyric' tenors. We do not need bombast in these works. Of course use of the fortepiano adds much to the overall colour. I have the complete leider from the Deutche Gramphpon Complete Edition which is very good value, but the singing is often too heavy for my taste. But the same songs on another disk of mine using the fp and a singer more practised in the Baroque style produces a quite different effect.

The 'kissing' and 'what a life' are on the same CD as the current mp3, the latter being probably the most 'feel good' Beethoven recording I've ever heard, its title is most appropriate. The arrangment is indeed light and 'Mozartian', like the other aria pieces from this period, nevertheless on listening it is easy to deduce that only B could have composed these works.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 09-20-2001).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Claudie MICAULT:
But singers are fellows who does not like to study a lot... so for them it is easier to sing Puccini than Beethoven or Haendel !!!

As with some of B's vocal pieces, I've read that in the past many commentators thought that much of Handel's music was impossible to sing.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Claudie MICAULT]

the most difficult piece I have sung of B. is the great aria of Leonora from Fidelio.
That is a piece. Of course Ah Perfido is also difficult but personnally I cope very well with it. My training as a young singer was made with a lot of Haendel and maybe it is for that reason I fell good with B. s way of writing for voice !
I agree with the fact some pieces ask a few listening before to please really the listener... I can see this reaction with my own students. But once they just take time to really HEAR B.s music he wins all the hearts.
The trouble is also that a lot of people know B. through bad recordings.... with bad singers.
The one in the recording you advise here is pretty good !
Thank you for this nice moment of music which show what B. could do with voices.
Naturally, when one understand german it is really great, full of spirit...

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Claudie

[Rod]

Originally posted by Claudie MICAULT:
If Beethoven is not a lot included in singers programs it is because he wrote for people with a real good technic. I myself sing a lot of B. and am always in big trouble with people who write or say that B. did not respected voices : he wrote carefully and very nicely for voices, but coming from a family of GOOD singers he was expecting a lot from his interpreters. As he did for other instruments like piano, cello, violin, etc.... But singers are fellows who does not like to study a lot... so for them it is easier to sing Puccini than Beethoven or Haendel !!!

I agree absolutely, it's one of the many Beethoven myths passed down by generations of inept proffessors and teachers over many years! There are other myths...such as the apparent impossibility of B's metronome marks, or the impossibility of his piano music being performed on the pianos of his day, or the musical errors of judgement due to his deafness..etc etc... All ludicrous and illogical. I never believed any of it. But not believing has got me into trouble as well!! If one could commit an assassination over the internet, I would have been murdered long ago!!


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 09-21-2001).]

[Claudie MICAULT]

Not by me Rod, not by me !!!

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Claudie