For the last couple of weeks, Joshua and I have been listening to three discs of music featuring two seminal 19th-Century stage works, both noted exemplars of Early Romanticism: Gioacchino Rossini’s 1813 opera seria, “Tancredi”; and Adolphe Adam’s 1841 ballet, “Giselle”.
We selected the discs for a very specific reason: we shall attend performances of both works in coming weeks.
“Tancredi” and “Giselle” have much in common: both works instantly created a vogue for similar works in the same genre, a vogue that was to last for years; both works made their respective composers’ names known throughout Europe and North America; both works were associated with (and, in the case of “Giselle”, specifically created for) legendary performing artists of the era; both works were created in great haste; and both works contain reams and reams of formulaic writing amid much that is noble.
We shall keep these discs in our player until Thursday, on which day the discs shall be retired. My middle brother will arrive in Boston next weekend for a visit, and we cannot subject him to “Tancredi” and “Giselle”, neither of which he would enjoy.
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In late October, Opera Boston will present “Tancredi”. Josh and I plan to attend one of the performances.
We attended a performance by Opera Boston last season—a frighteningly awful “Der Freischutz” that sent us packing after Act II—and we swore that we would never return to another Opera Boston presentation.
However, the best intentions sometimes go awry, and we intend to give Opera Boston another try.
The lure is “Tancredi”, not often staged.
I have never attended a performance of “Tancredi”. I doubt another opportunity shall arise anytime soon, so I plan not to miss the Boston presentation.
“Tancredi” is the Rossini work that sent Stendhal into raptures. There is a unity—a purity and concentration—in the score lacking in Rossini’s many opera seria that were to follow. It is a unique and beautiful gem, rediscovered and newly admired in the late 20th Century after more than a century of neglect.
We have been listening to the Naxos recording of “Tancredi”. The recording’s Tancredi is Ewa Podles, who is scheduled to sing the role in Boston.
The Naxos “Tancredi” is the only Tancredi recording I own. The Sony recording under Ralf Weikert (with Marilyn Horne as Tancredi) is unknown to me, as is the RCA recording under Roberto Abbado (with Vesselina Kasarova as Tancredi). I plan to pick up the latter one day, as I admire Kasarova immensely.
The Naxos recording is acceptable, but it is far from perfect.
The conductor, Alberto Zedda, offers an academic reading of the score, without much fire, without much plasticity of tempo, without much rhythmic flexibility, without much specificity of emotion, and without much orchestral color. Zedda sets the tempo for each number, at which point he tends to become unyielding (as well as literal to an annoying degree). Zedda’s rigid approach does not allow the drama to develop.
Zedda does not do much with Rossini’s imaginative orchestral writing, either. Rossini’s mastery of the orchestra in “Tancredi” is uniformly acknowledged, even by German scholars. Rossini’s orchestra in Zedda’s hands, however, is gray and monotonous. The brilliance of the writing does not register.
The orchestra on the recording is Collegium Instrumentale Brugense. Collegium Instrumentale Brugense is NOT a period-instrument ensemble, a point that needs to be emphasized, since countless commentators have described the orchestra on this recording as a period-instrument ensemble. It most assuredly is not. Collegium Instrumentale Brugense is a chamber orchestra using modern instruments, which is readily apparent to anyone with ears from the very first bar of the overture.
Capella Brugensis serves as the chorus for the recording.
Both orchestra and chorus are tidy but unremarkable. The forces, while capable, are colorless and bland.
Sumi Jo offers a cleanly-sung Amenaide. I have never found Jo to be a particularly interesting singer, and she does little more than sing the notes of Amenaide. A more expressive and deeply musical singer might have done more with the role, I believe. Jo’s singing, professional to a fault, is more than a little generic.
Stanford Olsen, Pietro Spagnoli, Anna Maria De Micco and Lucretia Lendi complete the cast.
The success of the recording is due to Podles, who offers an extraordinary account of the title role. Gifted with a contralto voice of unmatched richness and flexibility, Podles knows how to hold the listener spellbound, whether in recitative, cantabile, declamation, coloratura—or ensemble, which she most assuredly dominates (and not in a bad sense). This is grand singing by any standard.
Podles possessed an innate understanding of Rossini style by the time she made this recording (the discs were recorded in France in 1994). I have no idea how and when she acquired her mastery of Rossini, but Podles can sing Rossini at least as well as any active singer.
Josh and I have heard Podles sing Rossini. In 2006, we attended a Minnesota Opera presentation of Rossini’s “La Donna Del Lago” in a production mounted especially for Podles. She was undeniably imposing that day—and the only pleasure to be had from that particular Minnesota Opera presentation, which otherwise was a trial to endure.
The Naxos recording uses Rossini’s original “Tancredi” ending, a so-called “happy” ending in which Tancredi survives at the opera’s close.
Opera Boston will use Rossini’s second “Tancredi” ending, an alternate ending in which Tancredi dies before the opera’s conclusion.
Marilyn Horne always preferred the so-called “tragic” ending whenever she sang “Tancredi”, and I believe that all major U.S. stagings of the opera—Houston in 1977, San Francisco in 1979, Chicago in 1989—have used the alternate ending. Boston will continue that tradition.
Opera Boston’s production of “Tancredi” will be set in 1930’s Spain.
Resetting operas to Civil War Spain has become a cliché over the last twenty years, but Opera Boston’s upcoming “Tancredi” cannot possibly be worse than the company’s “Der Freischutz” from last October. The company’s ruination of “Freischutz” may have been the single worst opera performance I have ever attended.
If next month’s “Tancredi” is equally frightful, Josh and I plan to burn down the Boston Opera House as a gesture of good will toward the citizens of the city.
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Two weekends from now, Josh and I will attend a performance of “Giselle”, presented by Boston Ballet. The production, by Maina Gielgud, is supposed to be very fine.
My parents will be in town that weekend, visiting us over Columbus Day Weekend, and Josh and I will take them to one of the “Giselle” performances.
My parents—especially my mother—like to attend ballet performances. Since Minneapolis is not home to a major dance troupe, the visit to Boston will give my parents an opportunity to see some high-quality ballet.
One year ago, when my parents visited us for a weekend, we took them to a Boston Ballet performance of Prokofiev’s “Cinderella”. My parents enjoyed that performance very much—and so did Josh and I—and we hope to strike pay dirt a second time.
All four of us most recently attended a performance of “Giselle” in March 2008, when The State Ballet Of Georgia (Tbilisi) offered “Giselle” in Minneapolis as part of its lengthy 2008 U.S. tour. Even though the title role in Minneapolis had been portrayed by Nina Ananiashvili, perhaps the most celebrated Giselle of the day, that production had been uninspiring, even wan. It became lost in the vast spaces of Northrop Auditorium. That canned music was used during the performance did not help matters.
Boston Ballet’s “Giselle” will utilize a full orchestra. As the company’s “Giselle” is one of its most acclaimed full-length productions, and as it will be presented in an appropriate performing space, we are looking forward to seeing “Giselle” again.
The recording of “Giselle” Josh and I brought with us to Boston is the single-disc version of the ballet score recorded by Michael Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra for Sony.
Recorded in 1986 (but not issued until 1990), this particular recording of “Giselle” purports to represent the “complete” version of the score used by American Ballet Theatre in its then-current production of the ballet (a Baryshnikov-supervised production that was retired some years ago).
If the recording’s claim about “completeness” is correct, Adam’s complete score was obviously not in use by American Ballet Theatre during the 1980’s. This is so because the disc contains fewer than 80 minutes of music.
Obviously the corrupt interpolations of music by Minkus, Pugni and Drigo have been omitted from the disc, and that is all to the good. However, additions by Burgmuller ARE included, as ABT has always used the corrupt interpolations by Burgmuller.
Shorn of all but the Burgmuller interpolations, Adam’s complete score nonetheless requires more than 77 minutes to perform, and this is so even if all repeats are omitted. Consequently, I believe that this disc’s claim to “completeness” may be specious.
Either ABT used a much-trimmed score of “Giselle” while Baryshnikov was in charge of the company or Sony was not being forthcoming in its claim that the Tilson Thomas disc represented a “complete” version of the “Giselle” score.
Myself, I am indifferent to such matters. Seventy-seven minutes of “Giselle” is more than enough for me. I cannot imagine buying a two-disc version of “Giselle” in order to hear every last note. All of the ballet’s principal numbers are represented on the Sony disc, and this surely is enough for most listeners.
Adam’s score is effective to the extent it is well-constructed and well-orchestrated, but “Giselle” is not a masterpiece of stage music that rewards repeated stand-alone listening. Adam has a couple of feeble tunes he works to death; other than those faded tunes, the score is lackluster and not-at-all inspired. “Giselle” is the most insipid of all the “great” ballet scores.
The performance on the Sony disc sounds precisely like the quick run-through that it was.
The disc remains in print (at budget price), probably because dance students buy it in some quantity.
I have no idea how the Tilson Thomas recording compares to either of the Bonynge recordings of the score . . .or the Fistoulari . . .or the Karajan . . .or the Mogrelia . . .or any of the many others.
I hope never to find out.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
And We Get Stiffed Yet Again By The Boston Symphony . . .
After buying tickets to hear Daniele Gatti conduct the Boston Symphony in music of Brahms (Symphony No. 3), Hindemith (Concert Music For Strings And Brass) and Richard Strauss (“Der Rosencavalier” Waltz Sequence) next month at Symphony Hall, Joshua and I noticed tonight that the Boston Symphony website now lists a different program and a different conductor for that weekend’s concerts.
Daniele Gatti has morphed into Vasily Petrenko, and Brahms, Hindemith and R. Strauss have morphed into Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich.
There is no explanation—or even mention—of the changes of program and conductor on the concert calendar of the Boston Symphony's website.
What was there one week is gone the next, like a conjuring trick.
Perhaps the Boston Symphony believes that its patrons will not even notice such changes?
Josh and I searched online for some kind of announcement, alerting the public to the change of conductor and the change of program. Our search came up empty.
Finally, in exasperation, we plowed through the Boston Symphony’s press releases.
Inserted into a very lengthy, multi-page press release dated August 31, and placed at the very end of an endless paragraph containing 272 words, were three sentences:
Young Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko will lead the BSO in a program featuring works by Russian composers Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich, October 8-10. BSO assistant conductor Julian Kuerti will conduct the program on October 13. This program conducted by Mr. Petrenko and Mr. Kuerti will replace the program that was originally scheduled to be conducted by Daniele Gatti.
I cannot believe that this has happened yet again—and I cannot believe that the orchestra did not make some reasonable effort to inform its patrons of these significant changes. There’s a big difference between Gatti and Petrenko, and there’s a big difference between a Central European program and a Russian program. They are not interchangeable.
The Boston Symphony has become a bush-league organization, and is in desperate need of new management.
Of course, I had to call my parents and give them the bad news. One of the reasons my parents had planned a trip to Boston over Columbus Day Weekend was to hear Gatti in the Brahms-Hindemith-R. Strauss program.
Airfares have already been purchased. Concert tickets, theater tickets, ballet tickets have already been purchased. Plans have already been made.
“Not again? I can’t believe it!” were my father’s words into the telephone. “The orchestra might just as well announce appearances by Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer. That wouldn’t be any more fictitious than what the orchestra already announces.”
When top-line conductors walk away from Boston Symphony engagements over and over and over, that signifies that something is seriously wrong with the organization.
It also signifies—among other things—that top-line conductors have no respect for the orchestra, no respect for the organization, and no respect for the management.
And neither do I.
Daniele Gatti has morphed into Vasily Petrenko, and Brahms, Hindemith and R. Strauss have morphed into Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich.
There is no explanation—or even mention—of the changes of program and conductor on the concert calendar of the Boston Symphony's website.
What was there one week is gone the next, like a conjuring trick.
Perhaps the Boston Symphony believes that its patrons will not even notice such changes?
Josh and I searched online for some kind of announcement, alerting the public to the change of conductor and the change of program. Our search came up empty.
Finally, in exasperation, we plowed through the Boston Symphony’s press releases.
Inserted into a very lengthy, multi-page press release dated August 31, and placed at the very end of an endless paragraph containing 272 words, were three sentences:
Young Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko will lead the BSO in a program featuring works by Russian composers Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich, October 8-10. BSO assistant conductor Julian Kuerti will conduct the program on October 13. This program conducted by Mr. Petrenko and Mr. Kuerti will replace the program that was originally scheduled to be conducted by Daniele Gatti.
I cannot believe that this has happened yet again—and I cannot believe that the orchestra did not make some reasonable effort to inform its patrons of these significant changes. There’s a big difference between Gatti and Petrenko, and there’s a big difference between a Central European program and a Russian program. They are not interchangeable.
The Boston Symphony has become a bush-league organization, and is in desperate need of new management.
Of course, I had to call my parents and give them the bad news. One of the reasons my parents had planned a trip to Boston over Columbus Day Weekend was to hear Gatti in the Brahms-Hindemith-R. Strauss program.
Airfares have already been purchased. Concert tickets, theater tickets, ballet tickets have already been purchased. Plans have already been made.
“Not again? I can’t believe it!” were my father’s words into the telephone. “The orchestra might just as well announce appearances by Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer. That wouldn’t be any more fictitious than what the orchestra already announces.”
When top-line conductors walk away from Boston Symphony engagements over and over and over, that signifies that something is seriously wrong with the organization.
It also signifies—among other things—that top-line conductors have no respect for the orchestra, no respect for the organization, and no respect for the management.
And neither do I.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Bach, Falla, Respighi And French Masters
Since we returned to Boston, Joshua and I have been listening to four discs of music, music we found to be exceptionally fitting for late summer/early autumn listening.
Bach Motets, performed by The Stockholm Bach Choir and Concentus Musicus Wien under Nikolas Harnoncourt, on the Teldec label
“French Clarinet Art”, performed by Paul Meyer and Eric Le Sage, on the Denon label
Falla’s “La Vida Breve”, performed by The Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and Schola Cantorum De Caracas under Eduardo Mata, on the Dorian label
Respighi’s “Ancient Airs And Dances”, performed by Philharmonia Hungarica under Antal Dorati, on the Mercury Living Presence label
The Bach disc promised profound music, providing us with substance (and sustenance), while the other discs offered colorful—even light—repertory, repertory offering significant pleasures of another sort.
It was a delightful listening program.
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Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s recording of Bach’s Motets, BWV 225-230, was considered to be ne plus ultra in Bach performance in 1979, the year this recording was first issued. The recording was originally published on the old Telefunken label, reissued later on the Teldec label, and more recently remastered and re-released on the Elektra label. The recording is currently out of print, but it is reasonable to expect that it will be issued at some point on the Warner label.
It is believed that Bach’s Motets were composed, upon commission, for funeral services of noted Leipzigers.
The six Motets were never intended to be performed as a unified set. Today’s fairly common practice of performing the Motets in a group is a legacy of the recording medium. The advent of the 60-minute LP allowed all six motets to be accommodated on a single disc, and the Motets have been recorded and performed as a set with some frequency ever since.
The authorship of BWV 230 is a matter of dispute. Some scholars believe that BWV 230 was written, not by Bach, but by another composer familiar with Bach’s style. BWV 230, nevertheless, is generally performed (and recorded) along with the other five Motets.
The Motets contain some of Bach’s most glorious music. They are among Bach’s very finest works. Many lovers of Bach consider the Motets to be Bach’s choral masterpieces.
The Motets are notoriously difficult to perform. The contrapuntal writing is very dense and very complex, and most choruses cannot do the works justice. As a general rule, only the very finest professional choirs can realize the counterpoint effectively while maintaining balance, purity of intonation and purity of tone.
The Harnoncourt recording is cherished primarily because of the singing of the Stockholm Bach Choir, whose work is stupendous on this recording. The singing preempts anything on disc that came before—and much that came after. The Choir offers a textbook example of exemplary Bach choral performance.
Harnoncourt did not prepare the chorus for this recording, and that probably was a good thing—the choral work has a freedom and an expression and a beauty otherwise unknown in Harnoncourt’s work.
Some wags have insisted that this recording is magnificent, not because of Harnoncourt, but in spite of Harnoncourt. They very well may be right. Harnoncourt, in a half-century of toil in the recording studio, never produced anything finer than this disc.
Josh and I have spent more time listening to the Bach disc than to the other three discs combined.
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“French Clarinet Art” was issued in 1993. The disc remains in print—and widely available—sixteen years later, a remarkable state of affairs in light of the collapse of the recording industry.
The disc’s widespread availability is made more remarkable still because the original label, Denon, went out of business several years ago. Whatever successor organization now controls the old Denon catalog keeps this disc in print for some reason—and this is one of relatively few original Denon recordings that remain available on the original Denon label (and not outsourced to some budget label such as Brilliant Classics).
That this disc, issued by a now-defunct company, has remained in continuous print for such an extended period of time is testament, I suspect, to the number of copies sold worldwide to clarinet players year after year. I can think of no other reason why this particular Denon recording remains in the active catalog while countless other distinguished Denon releases languish in obscurity, available from no sources other than second-hand markets.
The disc is not bad. Paul Meyer is a fine player, and a favorite of clarinetists throughout Europe, North America and Asia.
The repertory is about what one might expect: clarinet works by Saint-Saens, Chausson, Debussy, Milhaud, Poulenc and Honegger.
The Saint-Saens Clarinet Sonata in E-Flat, Opus 167, is not out of place among its 20th-Century counterparts on the disc because it was one of the composer’s very last works, completed in 1921, the year of the composer’s death (at age 86).
The Saint-Saens Sonata is a major work, a masterpiece of the woodwind literature. In four movements, the Sonata is an extraordinary melding of form and content, free of a single superfluous gesture. I have no doubt that the aging composer was inspired by the model of late Brahms, specifically Brahms’s Opus 120, Number 1.
I recognize the work’s undeniable craftsmanship and brilliance—but I dislike the piece intensely.
I know the work well. I’ve played the piano part several times with clarinet students, I’ve studied the composition with a piano teacher of great skill, and I’ve been coached in the work by a notable musician—and nonetheless I detest the Saint-Saens Clarinet Sonata. I cannot explain why; my dislike of the piece is instinctive.
Aside from the Saint-Saens Sonata, the most important works on the disc are the Poulenc Sonata and Debussy’s Rhapsodie (shorn of its familiar orchestral support). The Chausson piece, an Andante Et Allegro, is a mere curiosity (and the only 19th-Century work on the disc). The Honegger composition, a Sonatine (for clarinet or cello), struck me as weak. A wan Debussy piece and three Milhaud works, mildly amusing but of no genuine consequence, rounded out the program.
Meyer is one of the world’s great clarinet virtuosos, and a native Frenchman to boot, but I thought his playing in these quintessential French works to be wanting in Gallic elegance and flair. He ripped through the Saint-Saens like a house afire, and he missed the wit, insouciance and deep melancholy of the Poulenc. His readings of the other works made no impression at all.
Oddly, I have always found Meyer to be more satisfying in Central European repertory than in music of his native land.
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“La Vida Breve” receives very few performances.
The opera is too short to constitute a stand-alone work—its two acts take only 60 minutes to perform—and its plot is skeletal, allowing no time for development of character or situation. The opera is, in essence, a potted version of the ballet “Giselle”, transplanted to Granada.
The work’s brevity certainly contributes to the work’s neglect, as does the difficulty of settling upon a suitable companion work. Some persons insist that there is no ideal coupling for the work.
I disagree. Ravel’s “L’Heure Espagnole” or one of the Falla ballets would make ideal pairings for “La Vida Breve”—but those works seldom seem to acquire stage performances, either.
However, I think a stronger reason for the work’s failure to obtain a place in the repertory is that Falla was not a natural opera composer. Simply put, Falla was unable to define character through music, the sine qua non of a stage composer. His characters are given well-crafted, highly-polished music to sing, but the music is impersonal and the characters remain cardboard, lacking individuality, specificity and nuance.
“La Vida Breve” is a very early Falla work. Falla’s first large-scale composition, “La Vida Breve” was written in 1904 and 1905, before the composer had turned thirty. He was to develop significantly over the following ten years, and write much better and much more interesting music.
The most intriguing aspect of the opera is that Falla had already gained a mastery of the orchestra by the time he embarked upon “La Vida Breve”. The orchestra writing sparkles—and is much more interesting than the vocal writing.
The Eduardo Mata recording, made in Venezuela, is a fine one. The orchestra is capable, and Mata’s handling of the score is entitled to nothing but praise. “La Vida Breve” was one of Mata’s specialties. He conducted the piece, in concert form, all over the world.
The cast is the weak link in this recording. None of the singers makes much of an impression.
All but one member of the cast was totally unknown to me. The singer whose name was familiar, Marta Senn, was a minor artist, with a minor but honorable career. She sang in American houses for a few years in the 1980’s. Her Salud, the Giselle figure in the opera, did not come to life in the recording. Senn’s portrayal was not helped by the fact that her voice sounded weathered, lacking freshness and gleam. I suspect Senn may have been too old for the assignment at the time this recording was made.
This disc was recorded in 1993 and issued in 1994. The sound engineering is excellent. The sound has richness, clarity and definition. However, the volume needs to be boosted for the disc to acquire maximum presence, something I have often found to be necessary for other Dorian recordings, too.
The disc remains available through online merchants, but I believe the original Dorian issue is now technically out of print. The performance is now officially available, recently re-published, in a multi-disc compilation on the Brilliant Classics label.
I have heard three other recordings of “La Vida Breve”, none recently. My recollections are that the Rafael Fruhbeck De Burgos and Garcia Navarro recordings offered more dramatic readings than the Mata, and offered superior vocalists—but were not necessarily superior overall to the Mata. My recollection is that the Jesus Lopez-Cobos recording, beautifully performed, resolutely failed to come to life.
Of the following, I am certain: all four “La Vida Breve” recordings were definitely worth hearing. All four recordings had much to recommend them. This is an opera that has been very lucky on disc.
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Respighi’s “Ancient Airs And Dances” have been lucky on disc, too, but no recording supersedes Antal Dorati’s classic recording with the Philharmonia Hungarica, made in Vienna in 1958.
The performances remain fresh as paint. No other recording of these works offers performances of equal vitality, charm, expression or commitment.
The sound is exceptional, a lasting testament to the work of the Mercury engineering team of the 1950’s.
I can fully understand why this disc is so popular, still available (and still selling) after the passing of more than half a century.
Josh loved “Ancient Airs And Dances”.
Josh had never heard these suites, adopted from Renaissance lute music, before we listened to the Dorati disc. Josh found the music to be entirely captivating.
We shall have to listen to more Respighi.
Bach Motets, performed by The Stockholm Bach Choir and Concentus Musicus Wien under Nikolas Harnoncourt, on the Teldec label
“French Clarinet Art”, performed by Paul Meyer and Eric Le Sage, on the Denon label
Falla’s “La Vida Breve”, performed by The Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and Schola Cantorum De Caracas under Eduardo Mata, on the Dorian label
Respighi’s “Ancient Airs And Dances”, performed by Philharmonia Hungarica under Antal Dorati, on the Mercury Living Presence label
The Bach disc promised profound music, providing us with substance (and sustenance), while the other discs offered colorful—even light—repertory, repertory offering significant pleasures of another sort.
It was a delightful listening program.
________________________________________________
Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s recording of Bach’s Motets, BWV 225-230, was considered to be ne plus ultra in Bach performance in 1979, the year this recording was first issued. The recording was originally published on the old Telefunken label, reissued later on the Teldec label, and more recently remastered and re-released on the Elektra label. The recording is currently out of print, but it is reasonable to expect that it will be issued at some point on the Warner label.
It is believed that Bach’s Motets were composed, upon commission, for funeral services of noted Leipzigers.
The six Motets were never intended to be performed as a unified set. Today’s fairly common practice of performing the Motets in a group is a legacy of the recording medium. The advent of the 60-minute LP allowed all six motets to be accommodated on a single disc, and the Motets have been recorded and performed as a set with some frequency ever since.
The authorship of BWV 230 is a matter of dispute. Some scholars believe that BWV 230 was written, not by Bach, but by another composer familiar with Bach’s style. BWV 230, nevertheless, is generally performed (and recorded) along with the other five Motets.
The Motets contain some of Bach’s most glorious music. They are among Bach’s very finest works. Many lovers of Bach consider the Motets to be Bach’s choral masterpieces.
The Motets are notoriously difficult to perform. The contrapuntal writing is very dense and very complex, and most choruses cannot do the works justice. As a general rule, only the very finest professional choirs can realize the counterpoint effectively while maintaining balance, purity of intonation and purity of tone.
The Harnoncourt recording is cherished primarily because of the singing of the Stockholm Bach Choir, whose work is stupendous on this recording. The singing preempts anything on disc that came before—and much that came after. The Choir offers a textbook example of exemplary Bach choral performance.
Harnoncourt did not prepare the chorus for this recording, and that probably was a good thing—the choral work has a freedom and an expression and a beauty otherwise unknown in Harnoncourt’s work.
Some wags have insisted that this recording is magnificent, not because of Harnoncourt, but in spite of Harnoncourt. They very well may be right. Harnoncourt, in a half-century of toil in the recording studio, never produced anything finer than this disc.
Josh and I have spent more time listening to the Bach disc than to the other three discs combined.
________________________________________________
“French Clarinet Art” was issued in 1993. The disc remains in print—and widely available—sixteen years later, a remarkable state of affairs in light of the collapse of the recording industry.
The disc’s widespread availability is made more remarkable still because the original label, Denon, went out of business several years ago. Whatever successor organization now controls the old Denon catalog keeps this disc in print for some reason—and this is one of relatively few original Denon recordings that remain available on the original Denon label (and not outsourced to some budget label such as Brilliant Classics).
That this disc, issued by a now-defunct company, has remained in continuous print for such an extended period of time is testament, I suspect, to the number of copies sold worldwide to clarinet players year after year. I can think of no other reason why this particular Denon recording remains in the active catalog while countless other distinguished Denon releases languish in obscurity, available from no sources other than second-hand markets.
The disc is not bad. Paul Meyer is a fine player, and a favorite of clarinetists throughout Europe, North America and Asia.
The repertory is about what one might expect: clarinet works by Saint-Saens, Chausson, Debussy, Milhaud, Poulenc and Honegger.
The Saint-Saens Clarinet Sonata in E-Flat, Opus 167, is not out of place among its 20th-Century counterparts on the disc because it was one of the composer’s very last works, completed in 1921, the year of the composer’s death (at age 86).
The Saint-Saens Sonata is a major work, a masterpiece of the woodwind literature. In four movements, the Sonata is an extraordinary melding of form and content, free of a single superfluous gesture. I have no doubt that the aging composer was inspired by the model of late Brahms, specifically Brahms’s Opus 120, Number 1.
I recognize the work’s undeniable craftsmanship and brilliance—but I dislike the piece intensely.
I know the work well. I’ve played the piano part several times with clarinet students, I’ve studied the composition with a piano teacher of great skill, and I’ve been coached in the work by a notable musician—and nonetheless I detest the Saint-Saens Clarinet Sonata. I cannot explain why; my dislike of the piece is instinctive.
Aside from the Saint-Saens Sonata, the most important works on the disc are the Poulenc Sonata and Debussy’s Rhapsodie (shorn of its familiar orchestral support). The Chausson piece, an Andante Et Allegro, is a mere curiosity (and the only 19th-Century work on the disc). The Honegger composition, a Sonatine (for clarinet or cello), struck me as weak. A wan Debussy piece and three Milhaud works, mildly amusing but of no genuine consequence, rounded out the program.
Meyer is one of the world’s great clarinet virtuosos, and a native Frenchman to boot, but I thought his playing in these quintessential French works to be wanting in Gallic elegance and flair. He ripped through the Saint-Saens like a house afire, and he missed the wit, insouciance and deep melancholy of the Poulenc. His readings of the other works made no impression at all.
Oddly, I have always found Meyer to be more satisfying in Central European repertory than in music of his native land.
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“La Vida Breve” receives very few performances.
The opera is too short to constitute a stand-alone work—its two acts take only 60 minutes to perform—and its plot is skeletal, allowing no time for development of character or situation. The opera is, in essence, a potted version of the ballet “Giselle”, transplanted to Granada.
The work’s brevity certainly contributes to the work’s neglect, as does the difficulty of settling upon a suitable companion work. Some persons insist that there is no ideal coupling for the work.
I disagree. Ravel’s “L’Heure Espagnole” or one of the Falla ballets would make ideal pairings for “La Vida Breve”—but those works seldom seem to acquire stage performances, either.
However, I think a stronger reason for the work’s failure to obtain a place in the repertory is that Falla was not a natural opera composer. Simply put, Falla was unable to define character through music, the sine qua non of a stage composer. His characters are given well-crafted, highly-polished music to sing, but the music is impersonal and the characters remain cardboard, lacking individuality, specificity and nuance.
“La Vida Breve” is a very early Falla work. Falla’s first large-scale composition, “La Vida Breve” was written in 1904 and 1905, before the composer had turned thirty. He was to develop significantly over the following ten years, and write much better and much more interesting music.
The most intriguing aspect of the opera is that Falla had already gained a mastery of the orchestra by the time he embarked upon “La Vida Breve”. The orchestra writing sparkles—and is much more interesting than the vocal writing.
The Eduardo Mata recording, made in Venezuela, is a fine one. The orchestra is capable, and Mata’s handling of the score is entitled to nothing but praise. “La Vida Breve” was one of Mata’s specialties. He conducted the piece, in concert form, all over the world.
The cast is the weak link in this recording. None of the singers makes much of an impression.
All but one member of the cast was totally unknown to me. The singer whose name was familiar, Marta Senn, was a minor artist, with a minor but honorable career. She sang in American houses for a few years in the 1980’s. Her Salud, the Giselle figure in the opera, did not come to life in the recording. Senn’s portrayal was not helped by the fact that her voice sounded weathered, lacking freshness and gleam. I suspect Senn may have been too old for the assignment at the time this recording was made.
This disc was recorded in 1993 and issued in 1994. The sound engineering is excellent. The sound has richness, clarity and definition. However, the volume needs to be boosted for the disc to acquire maximum presence, something I have often found to be necessary for other Dorian recordings, too.
The disc remains available through online merchants, but I believe the original Dorian issue is now technically out of print. The performance is now officially available, recently re-published, in a multi-disc compilation on the Brilliant Classics label.
I have heard three other recordings of “La Vida Breve”, none recently. My recollections are that the Rafael Fruhbeck De Burgos and Garcia Navarro recordings offered more dramatic readings than the Mata, and offered superior vocalists—but were not necessarily superior overall to the Mata. My recollection is that the Jesus Lopez-Cobos recording, beautifully performed, resolutely failed to come to life.
Of the following, I am certain: all four “La Vida Breve” recordings were definitely worth hearing. All four recordings had much to recommend them. This is an opera that has been very lucky on disc.
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Respighi’s “Ancient Airs And Dances” have been lucky on disc, too, but no recording supersedes Antal Dorati’s classic recording with the Philharmonia Hungarica, made in Vienna in 1958.
The performances remain fresh as paint. No other recording of these works offers performances of equal vitality, charm, expression or commitment.
The sound is exceptional, a lasting testament to the work of the Mercury engineering team of the 1950’s.
I can fully understand why this disc is so popular, still available (and still selling) after the passing of more than half a century.
Josh loved “Ancient Airs And Dances”.
Josh had never heard these suites, adopted from Renaissance lute music, before we listened to the Dorati disc. Josh found the music to be entirely captivating.
We shall have to listen to more Respighi.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Ludwig Von Mises On History
It is not the task of history to project the hatreds and disagreements of the present back into the past and to draw from battles fought long ago weapons for the disputes of one’s own time.
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Neither as judges allotting praise and blame nor as avengers seeking out the guilty should we face the past. We seek truth, not guilt; we want to know how things came about to understand them, not to issue condemnations.
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History should teach us to recognize causes and to understand driving forces; and when we understand everything, we will forgive everything.
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Neither as judges allotting praise and blame nor as avengers seeking out the guilty should we face the past. We seek truth, not guilt; we want to know how things came about to understand them, not to issue condemnations.
________________________________________________
History should teach us to recognize causes and to understand driving forces; and when we understand everything, we will forgive everything.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Wineries, Knick-Knacks, Tea Cozies And Cakes
Joshua and I were sort of disappointed in Niagara-On-The-Lake, and we were sort of disappointed in The Shaw Festival.
As a vacation destination, Niagara-On-The-Lake is probably an ideal spot for those who are interested in wineries.
We are not.
Niagara-On-The-Lake is also an ideal destination for those who are interested in a quaint assortment of little craft shops and tiny tea shops.
We are not.
“Wineries, knick-knacks, tea cozies and cakes”: that was Josh’s characterization of Niagara-On-The-Lake, and Josh was not far wrong in his assessment.
That left, for us, The Shaw Festival, and I am not confident that The Shaw Festival merits its high reputation.
Josh and I attended five Shaw Festival presentations, and the level of performance and production was pure regional theater, nothing more.
None of the plays we attended was particularly strong. Perhaps better material would have revealed The Shaw Festival in better light, but Josh and I saw nothing that made us want to return to The Shaw Festival anytime soon.
Shaw’s “The Devil’s Disciple” was the best of the plays we attended, and “The Devil’s Disciple” also received the finest production. Nonetheless, “The Devil’s Disciple” is not one of Shaw’s stronger plays. The play is tolerable, no more, and The Shaw Festival production was competent, no more.
Kanin’s “Born Yesterday” is a very old-fashioned play, written to formula, and probably requires a cast of stars to warrant revival. The Shaw Festival “Born Yesterday” cast was not a cast of stars. The production and performance were flat as a pancake.
I had forgotten how boring O’Neill’s “A Moon For The Misbegotten” can be in anything less than an exceptional production, but The Shaw Festival presentation proved a potent reminder.
The Sondheim musical, “Sunday In The Park With George”, received a low-budget production, and the performance was precisely at the level of a university theater department staging. In the hands of a good director and a good cast, I believe the first act of “Sunday” might be salvaged, but I doubt whether even Tyrone Guthrie or Giorgio Strehler could do anything with the musical’s gruesome if not frightening second act. The most enjoyable aspect of The Shaw Festival’s presentation of “Sunday” was its very lameness—the production had a rustic kind of charm.
The seldom-staged “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days” was a curiosity. Shaw’s final significant play, premiered less than three weeks before Britain embarked upon war with Germany in late summer 1939, “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days” is—literally—Shaw’s version of a Restoration comedy. The play addresses the court and courtiers—and hangers-on—of Charles II, installed upon the throne at the end of the Cromwell Protectorate, and involves a discussion of the nature of power and leadership. The play has a few splendid moments, moments in which the dialogue not only flows but positively sparkles. However, The Shaw Festival production did not reveal the work to be a strong one, let alone worthy of revival. I can understand why “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days” has never been able to secure a place in the repertory.
Apparently The Shaw Festival has been suffering from attendance problems. Ticket sales in 2009 have been thirteen per cent lower than 2008. 2008 sales were lower than 2007, and 2007 sales were lower than 2006. In fact, attendance has been falling at both Canadian theater festivals since the 2001 season, no doubt the result of a post-9/11 world.
An article I read in The Globe And Mail noted that Americans typically constitute forty per cent of the audience for both Canadian festivals—and Americans have been staying away in droves in recent seasons. Earlier this year, to spark American tourism, the Canadian government gave $3,000,000 in stimulus funds to The Shakespeare Festival to advertise in American newspapers, and $2,000,000 in stimulus funds to The Shaw Festival to advertise in American newspapers. I have no idea whether this scheme has been successful.
That same Globe and Mail article stated that the majority of Americans that travel to Canada to attend one or both festivals are from the American Midwest, and not from the Northeast. I found this particular claim to be very surprising, given how close the Northeast is to Stratford and Niagara-On-The-Lake and given the Northeast’s population density. Without seeing subscriber lists, I find the assertion hard to accept. Over Labor Day Weekend, Josh and I did not encounter any persons from the Midwest.
We thought that Niagara-On-The-Lake might be crowded over Labor Day Weekend, but the town was not crowded in the least. It was very easy to get around, and nothing—cafes, restaurants, hotels—appeared to be overbooked.
We enjoyed our hotel. Since prices at hotels in Niagara-On-The-Lake were quite uniform, all within a very narrow range, we elected to stay at the best hotel in town (or at least what was reputed to be the best hotel in town). It was a fine hotel, excellently situated, with full amenities and distinguished service. We were very happy there for three days and three nights.
On Saturday morning, we visited Fort George. We explored the entire grounds and facilities, which are quite large, and we enjoyed the Canadian perspective on The War Of 1812.
On Monday, Josh and I visited Niagara Falls. The Falls are quite beautiful—and awesomely loud!
We also drove around Buffalo for a couple of hours on Monday, as we had time to kill before our return flight was due to depart.
I don’t think I would want to live in Buffalo.
As a vacation destination, Niagara-On-The-Lake is probably an ideal spot for those who are interested in wineries.
We are not.
Niagara-On-The-Lake is also an ideal destination for those who are interested in a quaint assortment of little craft shops and tiny tea shops.
We are not.
“Wineries, knick-knacks, tea cozies and cakes”: that was Josh’s characterization of Niagara-On-The-Lake, and Josh was not far wrong in his assessment.
That left, for us, The Shaw Festival, and I am not confident that The Shaw Festival merits its high reputation.
Josh and I attended five Shaw Festival presentations, and the level of performance and production was pure regional theater, nothing more.
None of the plays we attended was particularly strong. Perhaps better material would have revealed The Shaw Festival in better light, but Josh and I saw nothing that made us want to return to The Shaw Festival anytime soon.
Shaw’s “The Devil’s Disciple” was the best of the plays we attended, and “The Devil’s Disciple” also received the finest production. Nonetheless, “The Devil’s Disciple” is not one of Shaw’s stronger plays. The play is tolerable, no more, and The Shaw Festival production was competent, no more.
Kanin’s “Born Yesterday” is a very old-fashioned play, written to formula, and probably requires a cast of stars to warrant revival. The Shaw Festival “Born Yesterday” cast was not a cast of stars. The production and performance were flat as a pancake.
I had forgotten how boring O’Neill’s “A Moon For The Misbegotten” can be in anything less than an exceptional production, but The Shaw Festival presentation proved a potent reminder.
The Sondheim musical, “Sunday In The Park With George”, received a low-budget production, and the performance was precisely at the level of a university theater department staging. In the hands of a good director and a good cast, I believe the first act of “Sunday” might be salvaged, but I doubt whether even Tyrone Guthrie or Giorgio Strehler could do anything with the musical’s gruesome if not frightening second act. The most enjoyable aspect of The Shaw Festival’s presentation of “Sunday” was its very lameness—the production had a rustic kind of charm.
The seldom-staged “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days” was a curiosity. Shaw’s final significant play, premiered less than three weeks before Britain embarked upon war with Germany in late summer 1939, “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days” is—literally—Shaw’s version of a Restoration comedy. The play addresses the court and courtiers—and hangers-on—of Charles II, installed upon the throne at the end of the Cromwell Protectorate, and involves a discussion of the nature of power and leadership. The play has a few splendid moments, moments in which the dialogue not only flows but positively sparkles. However, The Shaw Festival production did not reveal the work to be a strong one, let alone worthy of revival. I can understand why “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days” has never been able to secure a place in the repertory.
Apparently The Shaw Festival has been suffering from attendance problems. Ticket sales in 2009 have been thirteen per cent lower than 2008. 2008 sales were lower than 2007, and 2007 sales were lower than 2006. In fact, attendance has been falling at both Canadian theater festivals since the 2001 season, no doubt the result of a post-9/11 world.
An article I read in The Globe And Mail noted that Americans typically constitute forty per cent of the audience for both Canadian festivals—and Americans have been staying away in droves in recent seasons. Earlier this year, to spark American tourism, the Canadian government gave $3,000,000 in stimulus funds to The Shakespeare Festival to advertise in American newspapers, and $2,000,000 in stimulus funds to The Shaw Festival to advertise in American newspapers. I have no idea whether this scheme has been successful.
That same Globe and Mail article stated that the majority of Americans that travel to Canada to attend one or both festivals are from the American Midwest, and not from the Northeast. I found this particular claim to be very surprising, given how close the Northeast is to Stratford and Niagara-On-The-Lake and given the Northeast’s population density. Without seeing subscriber lists, I find the assertion hard to accept. Over Labor Day Weekend, Josh and I did not encounter any persons from the Midwest.
We thought that Niagara-On-The-Lake might be crowded over Labor Day Weekend, but the town was not crowded in the least. It was very easy to get around, and nothing—cafes, restaurants, hotels—appeared to be overbooked.
We enjoyed our hotel. Since prices at hotels in Niagara-On-The-Lake were quite uniform, all within a very narrow range, we elected to stay at the best hotel in town (or at least what was reputed to be the best hotel in town). It was a fine hotel, excellently situated, with full amenities and distinguished service. We were very happy there for three days and three nights.
On Saturday morning, we visited Fort George. We explored the entire grounds and facilities, which are quite large, and we enjoyed the Canadian perspective on The War Of 1812.
On Monday, Josh and I visited Niagara Falls. The Falls are quite beautiful—and awesomely loud!
We also drove around Buffalo for a couple of hours on Monday, as we had time to kill before our return flight was due to depart.
I don’t think I would want to live in Buffalo.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Niagara-On-The-Lake
Early tomorrow morning, Joshua and I will head to Niagara-On-The-Lake, where we will spend Labor Day Weekend.
The purpose of our visit is to attend performances at The Shaw Festival. Josh and I will attend five Shaw Festival performances over the weekend—which very well may turn out to be too many performances over such a short period of time—and do a little sightseeing in the area.
I have always wanted to attend The Shaw Festival, and I may never have a better opportunity than this coming weekend.
We will fly into Buffalo, rent a car, and drive across the border. We intend to visit Niagara Falls on this trip—which neither of us has ever seen—as well as visit historic Fort George in Niagara-On-The-Lake, which played an important role in The War Of 1812.
Otherwise, we will be occupying ourselves by attending theater performances on Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening.
The program for this year’s Shaw Festival is not particularly appealing, at least on paper. The Festival’s focus this season is the presentation of all ten of Noel Coward’s one-act plays, which sounds frightfully boring to us. Consequently, we shall skip all of the Coward plays.
We will attend performances of two George Bernard Shaw plays: “The Devil’s Disciple”, Shaw’s first significant play (from 1897); and the seldom-performed “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days”, Shaw’s last significant play (from 1939).
We will also attend a performance of Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon For The Misbegotten” and a performance of Garson Kanin’s “Born Yesterday”. This year’s Shaw Festival musical is Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday In The Park With George”, for which we also have tickets.
This is not a particularly stimulating program—in fact, it is not stimulating in the least—but at least it will give Josh and me something new and different to do over the long holiday weekend and it will get us out of Boston, where nothing whatsoever is going on this weekend. We’ve booked a nice hotel in downtown Niagara-On-The-Lake, and we plan to have a slow-paced, low-key weekend.
My parents have ordered brochures from The Shaw Festival and The Shakespeare Festival for years and years and years, and have talked endlessly about attending one or both of the Canadian theater festivals, yet they have never attended a single performance at Stratford or Niagara-On-The-Lake.
I suggested to my parents that they join Josh and me this weekend, but my parents said it was not manageable—there are no convenient flights between Minneapolis and Buffalo, and my parents did not want to kill a full day traveling each way—and my parents are sticking with their original Labor Day Weekend plans: spending the final weekend of summer up at the lake, with everyone else in the family present, and closing down the lake house for the year late Monday afternoon.
It’s not easy to tear my parents away from their grandchildren!
The purpose of our visit is to attend performances at The Shaw Festival. Josh and I will attend five Shaw Festival performances over the weekend—which very well may turn out to be too many performances over such a short period of time—and do a little sightseeing in the area.
I have always wanted to attend The Shaw Festival, and I may never have a better opportunity than this coming weekend.
We will fly into Buffalo, rent a car, and drive across the border. We intend to visit Niagara Falls on this trip—which neither of us has ever seen—as well as visit historic Fort George in Niagara-On-The-Lake, which played an important role in The War Of 1812.
Otherwise, we will be occupying ourselves by attending theater performances on Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening.
The program for this year’s Shaw Festival is not particularly appealing, at least on paper. The Festival’s focus this season is the presentation of all ten of Noel Coward’s one-act plays, which sounds frightfully boring to us. Consequently, we shall skip all of the Coward plays.
We will attend performances of two George Bernard Shaw plays: “The Devil’s Disciple”, Shaw’s first significant play (from 1897); and the seldom-performed “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days”, Shaw’s last significant play (from 1939).
We will also attend a performance of Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon For The Misbegotten” and a performance of Garson Kanin’s “Born Yesterday”. This year’s Shaw Festival musical is Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday In The Park With George”, for which we also have tickets.
This is not a particularly stimulating program—in fact, it is not stimulating in the least—but at least it will give Josh and me something new and different to do over the long holiday weekend and it will get us out of Boston, where nothing whatsoever is going on this weekend. We’ve booked a nice hotel in downtown Niagara-On-The-Lake, and we plan to have a slow-paced, low-key weekend.
My parents have ordered brochures from The Shaw Festival and The Shakespeare Festival for years and years and years, and have talked endlessly about attending one or both of the Canadian theater festivals, yet they have never attended a single performance at Stratford or Niagara-On-The-Lake.
I suggested to my parents that they join Josh and me this weekend, but my parents said it was not manageable—there are no convenient flights between Minneapolis and Buffalo, and my parents did not want to kill a full day traveling each way—and my parents are sticking with their original Labor Day Weekend plans: spending the final weekend of summer up at the lake, with everyone else in the family present, and closing down the lake house for the year late Monday afternoon.
It’s not easy to tear my parents away from their grandchildren!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
"The Farm At Laken"
I never appreciated Peter Paul Rubens until 2003, when my middle brother and I visited Munich’s Alte Pinakothek for the first time.
I remember that day vividly. It had been a beautiful Sunday morning. My brother and I had attended early service. Our plan for the rest of the day was to spend the morning at the Alte Pinakothek and the afternoon at the Bavarian National Museum.
We never made it to the Bavarian National Museum that day.
My brother and I had anticipated, inaccurately, that our visit to the Alte Pinakothek would be complete by 1:00 p.m. Our belief had been a reasonable one, since the main galleries of the Alte Pinakothek consist only of nine large exhibition rooms, alongside which are a series of smaller exhibition rooms. Anyone looking at the floor plan of the museum might easily conclude that a half-day would provide more than ample time in which to view the permanent collection.
It does not. Virtually every painting in the collection is a top-tier masterpiece, and it requires a full day to get through the collection, as my brother and I were to learn.
By the fourth room of the Alte Pinakothek (which is the second of the nine large exhibition rooms), my brother and I were falling to the floor, gasping for breath. We were encountering so many major masterpieces, one after another, in succession, that our heads were spinning.
My brother and I made it through half of the collection before we were overwhelmed and had to stop for lunch. We went downstairs to the museum restaurant and ordered a full lunch, excitedly discussing what we had just witnessed. After lunch, we returned upstairs and resumed our visit to the collection, picking up where we had left off.
The first room we visited in the afternoon was the large exhibition room lined with Rubens and Rembrandt paintings, all oversized, with one or two Van Dyck paintings thrown in for good measure. This was the room in which hangs “Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle”. My brother and I fell in love with the painting instantly.
Until I encountered “Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle”, I had never liked Rubens’s work. At the time, I had always viewed Rubens as a painter prone to Baroque excess. For me, Rubens was typified by his giant allegorical paintings, such as the twenty-four massive canvases (now in the Louvre) commissioned by Marie De Medicis for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, canvases that never appealed to me because I saw them only as overstuffed, overdone, overwrought conceits. (And, in my defense, I must note that the Marie De Medicis paintings were created not by Rubens himself but by craftsmen in Rubens’s workshop—although the craftsmen had worked from Rubens’s own oil sketches.)
Seeing the affecting double portrait of Rubens and his bride at the Alte Pinakothek that Sunday afternoon in 2003, I was able fully to appreciate Rubens for the first time. That single painting made me look at Rubens in a new light, and to begin to appreciate his limitless genius.
It was after that visit to the Alte Pinakothek that I engaged in some serious reading about Rubens the man and Rubens the artist. From my reading, I learned, among many other things, that paintings in Rubens’s own hand were entirely different in quality from paintings created in Rubens’s workshop.
The men working in Rubens’s workshop painted to order. They were, more or less, in the commodity business, albeit an up-market commodity business.
Whenever Rubens himself picked up a brush, he worked for his own pleasure and satisfaction.
He was an artist.
Among things I have learned in the past six years, I have learned never to be disappointed in a painting in Rubens’s own hand.
In 2007, when we visited The Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace, we examined another great Rubens masterpiece, entirely in his own hand, and in a genre mostly unassociated with the great Flemish master: landscape painting.
Rubens was a great landscape painter, but there is very little evidence of this in the U.S. Few Americans even realize that Rubens was a master of the genre, and this is because there are few, if any, first-rate examples of Rubens landscape paintings in American public collections. Most Rubens landscape paintings remain in Europe—and in private collections, no less, seldom seen by the public.
The Royal Collection owns several Rubens landscape paintings, but the only one on view during the 2007 Summer Opening at Buckingham Palace was “Milkmaid With Cattle In A Landscape”, now more often known as “The Farm At Laken”.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Milkmaid With Cattle In A Landscape (“The Farm At Laken”)
1618
The Royal Collection, London
Oil On Canvas
34 3/8 Inches By 50 3/4 Inches
“The Farm At Laken” is generally considered to be the prize among Rubens landscape paintings in The Royal Collection.
It is one of Rubens’s earliest works in the genre, but also one of his finest. It provides evidence that, once Rubens embarked upon a new genre, he was able to master it fully and immediately.
Rubens painted landscapes for his own pleasure. Indeed, in the very last years of his life, excepting a few family paintings, Rubens painted landscapes and nothing but landscapes—and always for his own pleasure.
Rubens’s landscape paintings were not commissioned, and they were not sold. Rubens generally kept his landscape paintings for himself, or offered them as highly-prized gifts to his closest personal friends. All Rubens landscape paintings are entirely in the artist’s own hand, which cannot be said of any other genre of his work. Even Rubens family paintings were sometimes farmed out, in whole or in part, to assistants.
Based upon ancient correspondence, there is some evidence that “The Farm At Laken” hung in the Rubens family dining room during the artist’s lifetime. Such would suggest that the painting was one of Rubens’s very favorite examples of his own work.
A remarkable degree of activity is portrayed in the painting without the canvas appearing in the least overcrowded. The painting is appealing at first glance—yet prolonged examination offers multiple rewards not apparent unless one spends time with the work. A wealth of interesting detail emerges, from the Classical poses of the two female figures in the foreground—borrowed from one of the artist’s own contemporaneous Classical paintings—to the farmer plowing in the distant field. Incident is everywhere.
The artist’s theme is the bounteous nature of the seasons. Fruits and vegetables are being gathered for the winter, while at the same time a distant field is being prepared for spring planting, on which occasion the whole cycle will begin anew.
Scholars have ascertained that the topography and church portrayed in the painting were painted from life. It is now known that Rubens painted this canvas immediately outside the Belgian village today known as Laken (which is how the painting acquired its modern name).
While the church in the background no longer stands, it survived into the 20th Century. It was a critical piece of evidence in permitting scholars to identify the particular landscape that inspired Rubens.
As an example of landscape painting, “The Farm At Laken” is fully worthy of the pure landscape painter. It is the equal of anything by Claude Lorrain or John Constable.
I remember that day vividly. It had been a beautiful Sunday morning. My brother and I had attended early service. Our plan for the rest of the day was to spend the morning at the Alte Pinakothek and the afternoon at the Bavarian National Museum.
We never made it to the Bavarian National Museum that day.
My brother and I had anticipated, inaccurately, that our visit to the Alte Pinakothek would be complete by 1:00 p.m. Our belief had been a reasonable one, since the main galleries of the Alte Pinakothek consist only of nine large exhibition rooms, alongside which are a series of smaller exhibition rooms. Anyone looking at the floor plan of the museum might easily conclude that a half-day would provide more than ample time in which to view the permanent collection.
It does not. Virtually every painting in the collection is a top-tier masterpiece, and it requires a full day to get through the collection, as my brother and I were to learn.
By the fourth room of the Alte Pinakothek (which is the second of the nine large exhibition rooms), my brother and I were falling to the floor, gasping for breath. We were encountering so many major masterpieces, one after another, in succession, that our heads were spinning.
My brother and I made it through half of the collection before we were overwhelmed and had to stop for lunch. We went downstairs to the museum restaurant and ordered a full lunch, excitedly discussing what we had just witnessed. After lunch, we returned upstairs and resumed our visit to the collection, picking up where we had left off.
The first room we visited in the afternoon was the large exhibition room lined with Rubens and Rembrandt paintings, all oversized, with one or two Van Dyck paintings thrown in for good measure. This was the room in which hangs “Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle”. My brother and I fell in love with the painting instantly.
Until I encountered “Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle”, I had never liked Rubens’s work. At the time, I had always viewed Rubens as a painter prone to Baroque excess. For me, Rubens was typified by his giant allegorical paintings, such as the twenty-four massive canvases (now in the Louvre) commissioned by Marie De Medicis for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, canvases that never appealed to me because I saw them only as overstuffed, overdone, overwrought conceits. (And, in my defense, I must note that the Marie De Medicis paintings were created not by Rubens himself but by craftsmen in Rubens’s workshop—although the craftsmen had worked from Rubens’s own oil sketches.)
Seeing the affecting double portrait of Rubens and his bride at the Alte Pinakothek that Sunday afternoon in 2003, I was able fully to appreciate Rubens for the first time. That single painting made me look at Rubens in a new light, and to begin to appreciate his limitless genius.
It was after that visit to the Alte Pinakothek that I engaged in some serious reading about Rubens the man and Rubens the artist. From my reading, I learned, among many other things, that paintings in Rubens’s own hand were entirely different in quality from paintings created in Rubens’s workshop.
The men working in Rubens’s workshop painted to order. They were, more or less, in the commodity business, albeit an up-market commodity business.
Whenever Rubens himself picked up a brush, he worked for his own pleasure and satisfaction.
He was an artist.
Among things I have learned in the past six years, I have learned never to be disappointed in a painting in Rubens’s own hand.
In 2007, when we visited The Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace, we examined another great Rubens masterpiece, entirely in his own hand, and in a genre mostly unassociated with the great Flemish master: landscape painting.
Rubens was a great landscape painter, but there is very little evidence of this in the U.S. Few Americans even realize that Rubens was a master of the genre, and this is because there are few, if any, first-rate examples of Rubens landscape paintings in American public collections. Most Rubens landscape paintings remain in Europe—and in private collections, no less, seldom seen by the public.
The Royal Collection owns several Rubens landscape paintings, but the only one on view during the 2007 Summer Opening at Buckingham Palace was “Milkmaid With Cattle In A Landscape”, now more often known as “The Farm At Laken”.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Milkmaid With Cattle In A Landscape (“The Farm At Laken”)
1618
The Royal Collection, London
Oil On Canvas
34 3/8 Inches By 50 3/4 Inches
“The Farm At Laken” is generally considered to be the prize among Rubens landscape paintings in The Royal Collection.
It is one of Rubens’s earliest works in the genre, but also one of his finest. It provides evidence that, once Rubens embarked upon a new genre, he was able to master it fully and immediately.
Rubens painted landscapes for his own pleasure. Indeed, in the very last years of his life, excepting a few family paintings, Rubens painted landscapes and nothing but landscapes—and always for his own pleasure.
Rubens’s landscape paintings were not commissioned, and they were not sold. Rubens generally kept his landscape paintings for himself, or offered them as highly-prized gifts to his closest personal friends. All Rubens landscape paintings are entirely in the artist’s own hand, which cannot be said of any other genre of his work. Even Rubens family paintings were sometimes farmed out, in whole or in part, to assistants.
Based upon ancient correspondence, there is some evidence that “The Farm At Laken” hung in the Rubens family dining room during the artist’s lifetime. Such would suggest that the painting was one of Rubens’s very favorite examples of his own work.
A remarkable degree of activity is portrayed in the painting without the canvas appearing in the least overcrowded. The painting is appealing at first glance—yet prolonged examination offers multiple rewards not apparent unless one spends time with the work. A wealth of interesting detail emerges, from the Classical poses of the two female figures in the foreground—borrowed from one of the artist’s own contemporaneous Classical paintings—to the farmer plowing in the distant field. Incident is everywhere.
The artist’s theme is the bounteous nature of the seasons. Fruits and vegetables are being gathered for the winter, while at the same time a distant field is being prepared for spring planting, on which occasion the whole cycle will begin anew.
Scholars have ascertained that the topography and church portrayed in the painting were painted from life. It is now known that Rubens painted this canvas immediately outside the Belgian village today known as Laken (which is how the painting acquired its modern name).
While the church in the background no longer stands, it survived into the 20th Century. It was a critical piece of evidence in permitting scholars to identify the particular landscape that inspired Rubens.
As an example of landscape painting, “The Farm At Laken” is fully worthy of the pure landscape painter. It is the equal of anything by Claude Lorrain or John Constable.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
"The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder"
Perhaps the most restrained of all paintings by Peter Paul Rubens—and another painting known to have been painted entirely in Rubens’s own hand—is “The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder”. Rubens created the painting as a gift for his close friend, one of Antwerp’s most successful artists.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder
1615
The Courtauld Institute Of Art, London
Oil On Canvas
50 Inches By 38 Inches
The date of the painting is a source of some dispute. The current owner of the painting, The Courtauld Institute Of Art in London, suggests that the painting was completed in 1613, which is surely an inaccurate date.
Since the painting portrays Brueghel, his second wife, Catherina Van Marienberghe, and their two oldest offspring, the painting may be dated by the apparent ages of the children. Elisabeth and Peter appear to be five and six years old, respectively, so the painting must certainly date from 1615.
“The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder” is one of the greatest treasures to be seen at The Courtauld. The painting overwhelms anything else displayed in the same room.
When we last saw the painting, in 2007, it overwhelmed nearby paintings by, among others, Giovanni Bellini, Anthony Van Dyck and Rembrandt Van Rijn. Nothing else in the room could compete for the viewer’s attention with “The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder”.
Brueghel and his family are portrayed, deliberately, as members of Antwerp’s prosperous and respectable middle class. In the painting, Rubens intended to demonstrate that artists were the social and professional equals of physicians, lawyers, notaries and courtiers—and that they were entitled to the same level of respect.
Brueghel and Catherina are attired in black, demonstrating grave dignity and respectability about their persons. In contrast, the couple’s children are dressed much more colorfully.
Brueghel hovers over his family at the back of the canvas, wearing a solemn black hat; the suggestion is that he is enveloping his family in fatherly kindness. Catherina has one hand around Peter, while her other hand meets one hand of Peter and both hands of Elisabeth. This meeting of hands occurs in the very center of the canvas and is meant to portray familial love and devotion, a parallel with “Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle”.
Each member of the family is shown wearing a completely different ruff, and each member of the family is shown to possess an individual personality. Even five-year-old Elisabeth, known in life for her shyness, is portrayed as unique, the only sitter afraid to look out from the canvas, with both small hands reaching out for the protective hands of her mother.
Rubens’s portrait of this warm and loving family does more than provide posterity with its best-known image of one of the great painters of the day—it has come to represent the familial ideal of 17th-Century Flanders, a time and place known for its embrace of close family ties.
The devoted family portrayed so nobly in “The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder” was not to last.
A cholera epidemic struck Antwerp in 1625. Of the four Brueghel family members portrayed in Rubens’s great painting, only Catherina was to survive the outbreak.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder
1615
The Courtauld Institute Of Art, London
Oil On Canvas
50 Inches By 38 Inches
The date of the painting is a source of some dispute. The current owner of the painting, The Courtauld Institute Of Art in London, suggests that the painting was completed in 1613, which is surely an inaccurate date.
Since the painting portrays Brueghel, his second wife, Catherina Van Marienberghe, and their two oldest offspring, the painting may be dated by the apparent ages of the children. Elisabeth and Peter appear to be five and six years old, respectively, so the painting must certainly date from 1615.
“The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder” is one of the greatest treasures to be seen at The Courtauld. The painting overwhelms anything else displayed in the same room.
When we last saw the painting, in 2007, it overwhelmed nearby paintings by, among others, Giovanni Bellini, Anthony Van Dyck and Rembrandt Van Rijn. Nothing else in the room could compete for the viewer’s attention with “The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder”.
Brueghel and his family are portrayed, deliberately, as members of Antwerp’s prosperous and respectable middle class. In the painting, Rubens intended to demonstrate that artists were the social and professional equals of physicians, lawyers, notaries and courtiers—and that they were entitled to the same level of respect.
Brueghel and Catherina are attired in black, demonstrating grave dignity and respectability about their persons. In contrast, the couple’s children are dressed much more colorfully.
Brueghel hovers over his family at the back of the canvas, wearing a solemn black hat; the suggestion is that he is enveloping his family in fatherly kindness. Catherina has one hand around Peter, while her other hand meets one hand of Peter and both hands of Elisabeth. This meeting of hands occurs in the very center of the canvas and is meant to portray familial love and devotion, a parallel with “Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle”.
Each member of the family is shown wearing a completely different ruff, and each member of the family is shown to possess an individual personality. Even five-year-old Elisabeth, known in life for her shyness, is portrayed as unique, the only sitter afraid to look out from the canvas, with both small hands reaching out for the protective hands of her mother.
Rubens’s portrait of this warm and loving family does more than provide posterity with its best-known image of one of the great painters of the day—it has come to represent the familial ideal of 17th-Century Flanders, a time and place known for its embrace of close family ties.
The devoted family portrayed so nobly in “The Family Of Jan Brueghel The Elder” was not to last.
A cholera epidemic struck Antwerp in 1625. Of the four Brueghel family members portrayed in Rubens’s great painting, only Catherina was to survive the outbreak.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
"Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle"
Perhaps my favorite Peter Paul Rubens painting anywhere is “Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle”, a painting I was able to see again while we were in Munich.
The clarity of the painting comes across fully in the photograph above.
The richness of the painting comes across fully in the photograph at the end of this post.
“Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle” is one of countless Rubens paintings on display in Munich’s Alte Pinakothek, which owns one of the world’s largest caches of Rubens masterpieces.
The painting is one of the most charming and irresistible paintings ever created. Painted in 1609, the year of Rubens’s marriage to Brant, the painting is a full-length double portrait of the young couple, probably created immediately before the marriage. Some scholars have speculated that the portrait was intended as a gift for Brant’s parents.
Aside from the honeysuckle, which may have been painted by Jan Brueghel The Elder, a master of flower painting and a close friend of Rubens, the painting is entirely in Rubens’s own hand.
Most Rubens paintings in the U.S. are not in Rubens’s hand. Most such paintings were created in Rubens’s workshop by his army of assistants, to whom Rubens would issue general instructions. When the assistants were done with their work, Rubens would add finishing touches himself.
Paintings created by Rubens’s assistants are much more variable in quality than paintings in Rubens’s hand alone.
Paintings in Rubens’s own hand are—invariably—stunning. They carry an individuality and a flourish that his workshop paintings could not possibly match. The richness and subtlety of color in Rubens's own paintings could never be duplicated by assistants. Moreover, owing to his virtuoso brush technique, Rubens was able to provide his own canvases with a level of finish that was much more sophisticated than assistants could ever learn to render.
Paintings in Ruben’s own hand are among the greatest paintings ever set on canvas. They are the works of a genius of the highest order.
I am privileged to have seen many of these masterpieces in different museums and galleries throughout Europe. Rubens was surely the greatest of all masters of the oil medium.
In “Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle”, the devotion of the young couple is immediately apparent, capturing the viewer’s attention in an instant.
In life, the couple’s devotion was equally genuine and deep. They were to live happily and peaceably together for seventeen fulfilling years.
Isabella’s premature death in 1626 ended the marital bliss. In grief, Rubens ceased painting for almost one full year.
At the time of his marriage, Rubens was an impossibly dashing young man. His relaxed, confident pose and jaunty dress reveal him to be a man full of self-assurance and energy. However, there is not a whiff of swagger or arrogance in the young man in the portrait, despite his world-renowned talents—and Rubens certainly was entitled to display a degree of arrogance now and then, given that he was showered with enough artistic and non-artistic gifts to have been distributed among fifty men.
Isabella was a young, inexperienced woman at the time of her betrothal. She is portrayed as a sweet, gentle innocent, ready to devote her life to the handsome man that has captured her heart. In the painting, it is Isabella’s clothing that is perhaps more individual than Isabella the woman, and this is somehow fitting, given Isabella’s youth and sheltered upbringing.
The richness and finery of Isabella’s clothing are among the glories of the painting. Capturing contrasting textures of cloth was always a Rubens specialty, and this particular talent is nowhere more apparent than in this painting. Of special note, in the painting, the gold stripes on Isabella’s skirt look like gold appliqué, although Rubens used nothing but oils to capture the look and brilliance of gold.
The very center of the painting, purposefully, shows the young couple’s intertwined hands, a sign of their love and devotion.
It is an indescribably touching work of art.
It is also one of the great artistic treasures of our world.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Rubens And Isabella Brant In The Bower Of Honeysuckle
1609
Alte Pinakothek, Munich
Oil On Canvas
70 Inches By 54 Inches
Friday, August 21, 2009
The War Effort
But the fact was that the fall of Singapore had left [Churchill] angry and depressed. A force of 100,000 British soldiers had lain down their arms, despite outnumbering the Japanese invasion force four to one. “They should have done better,” he lamented.
What use was it, that he himself displayed a warrior's spirit before the world, if those who fought in Britain's name showed themselves incapable of matching his rhetoric?
He was not alone in his poor opinion of Britain's fighting men. The chief of the general staff, General Sir Alan Brooke, wrote in his diary: “If the Army cannot fight better than it is doing at the present, we shall deserve to lose our Empire.”
Nor was the judgment a new one. Back in 1941, following defeats in Greece, Crete and North Africa, Sir Alexander Cadogan of the Foreign Office wrote: “Our soldiers are the most pathetic amateurs, pitted against professionals. The Germans are magnificent fighters, veritable masters of warfare. We shall learn, but it will be a long and bloody business.”
A year had gone by since then and, with the fall of Singapore, Cadogan added: “Our Army is the mockery of the world!”
It was the absence of any scintilla of heroic endeavour at Singapore, any evidence of last-ditch sacrifice of the kind with which British armies through the centuries had so often redeemed the pain of defeats, that shocked Churchill.
There was no legend to match that of Rorke's Drift in Zululand or the defence of Mafeking in the Boer War, only abject defeat—surrender to a numerically inferior enemy who had proved themselves better and braver soldiers.
He was confident that America's recent entry into the war would enable Britain to survive. But how could the nation hold up its head in the world, be seen to have made a worthy contribution to victory, if the British Army covered itself with shame whenever exposed to a battle?
The bigger problem for Churchill was in the United States—the ally who had only just joined the war against Hitler but was crucial if victory was to be won. There, a perception was growing that Britain was too yellow to fight. This worried Churchill because he suspected it might be true.
________________________________________________
There were similar concerns voiced about the workings of the Home Front. If his fighting men were letting him down, then Churchill had reason to believe he was not getting the best out of the country's civilians either.
The majority of the British people remained staunch and united in their war effort. Yet class tensions ran deep. Few workers broke ranks during the Dunkirk and Battle of Britain periods, but as those crises receded, there was less urgency about the struggle for national survival.
In 1942, amid the continuing military defeats, a weariness and cynicism pervaded the country. Industrial unrest and strikes revealed fissures in the fabric of national unity which are seldom acknowledged.
To be fair, many wartime industries achieved remarkable results. The Labour politician and War Cabinet member, Ernest Bevin, mobilised the population, and especially the women, more effectively than any other belligerent nation, save possibly Russia. At the same time, some factories suffered from poor management, outdated production methods, lack of quality control and a recalcitrant work-force.
These were shortcomings that had hampered the nation's economic progress through the previous half-century, but they were not resolved by the war.
Strikes were officially outlawed, but the legislation failed to prevent wildcat stoppages in coal pits, shipyards and aircraft plants, often in support of absurd or avaricious demands. Some trades unionists adopted a shameless view that there was no better time to secure higher pay than during a national emergency, when the need for continuous production was compelling.
Nine thousand men at Vickers-Armstrong walked out in Barrow in a dispute over piecework rates. When a tribunal found against them, the strikers still refused to resume work and the dispute dragged on for weeks.
Lesser stoppages were over the use of women riveters, and refusal by management to allow collections for the Red Army during working hours.
In the engineering and shipbuilding industries in 1942, 526,000 working days were lost to strikes, rising to a million in 1944. In the aircraft industry, 1.8 million days were lost in 1943, rising to 3.7 million in 1944. All of this suggests a less than wholehearted commitment to the war effort in some factories.
Nor was it confined to labour relations. In dockyards, workers were guilty of systematic pilferage, including lifeboat rations. U.S. seamen arriving in Britain were shocked by the attitudes they encountered as trucks and tanks were damaged by reckless handling during offloading.
Max Hastings
The Finest Years: Churchill As Warlord 1940-1945
To Be Published In The United Kingdom On September 3, 2009
To Be Published In Canada On October 15, 2009
To Be Published In Australia On November 1, 2009
Publication In The United States Not Yet Arranged
What use was it, that he himself displayed a warrior's spirit before the world, if those who fought in Britain's name showed themselves incapable of matching his rhetoric?
He was not alone in his poor opinion of Britain's fighting men. The chief of the general staff, General Sir Alan Brooke, wrote in his diary: “If the Army cannot fight better than it is doing at the present, we shall deserve to lose our Empire.”
Nor was the judgment a new one. Back in 1941, following defeats in Greece, Crete and North Africa, Sir Alexander Cadogan of the Foreign Office wrote: “Our soldiers are the most pathetic amateurs, pitted against professionals. The Germans are magnificent fighters, veritable masters of warfare. We shall learn, but it will be a long and bloody business.”
A year had gone by since then and, with the fall of Singapore, Cadogan added: “Our Army is the mockery of the world!”
It was the absence of any scintilla of heroic endeavour at Singapore, any evidence of last-ditch sacrifice of the kind with which British armies through the centuries had so often redeemed the pain of defeats, that shocked Churchill.
There was no legend to match that of Rorke's Drift in Zululand or the defence of Mafeking in the Boer War, only abject defeat—surrender to a numerically inferior enemy who had proved themselves better and braver soldiers.
He was confident that America's recent entry into the war would enable Britain to survive. But how could the nation hold up its head in the world, be seen to have made a worthy contribution to victory, if the British Army covered itself with shame whenever exposed to a battle?
The bigger problem for Churchill was in the United States—the ally who had only just joined the war against Hitler but was crucial if victory was to be won. There, a perception was growing that Britain was too yellow to fight. This worried Churchill because he suspected it might be true.
________________________________________________
There were similar concerns voiced about the workings of the Home Front. If his fighting men were letting him down, then Churchill had reason to believe he was not getting the best out of the country's civilians either.
The majority of the British people remained staunch and united in their war effort. Yet class tensions ran deep. Few workers broke ranks during the Dunkirk and Battle of Britain periods, but as those crises receded, there was less urgency about the struggle for national survival.
In 1942, amid the continuing military defeats, a weariness and cynicism pervaded the country. Industrial unrest and strikes revealed fissures in the fabric of national unity which are seldom acknowledged.
To be fair, many wartime industries achieved remarkable results. The Labour politician and War Cabinet member, Ernest Bevin, mobilised the population, and especially the women, more effectively than any other belligerent nation, save possibly Russia. At the same time, some factories suffered from poor management, outdated production methods, lack of quality control and a recalcitrant work-force.
These were shortcomings that had hampered the nation's economic progress through the previous half-century, but they were not resolved by the war.
Strikes were officially outlawed, but the legislation failed to prevent wildcat stoppages in coal pits, shipyards and aircraft plants, often in support of absurd or avaricious demands. Some trades unionists adopted a shameless view that there was no better time to secure higher pay than during a national emergency, when the need for continuous production was compelling.
Nine thousand men at Vickers-Armstrong walked out in Barrow in a dispute over piecework rates. When a tribunal found against them, the strikers still refused to resume work and the dispute dragged on for weeks.
Lesser stoppages were over the use of women riveters, and refusal by management to allow collections for the Red Army during working hours.
In the engineering and shipbuilding industries in 1942, 526,000 working days were lost to strikes, rising to a million in 1944. In the aircraft industry, 1.8 million days were lost in 1943, rising to 3.7 million in 1944. All of this suggests a less than wholehearted commitment to the war effort in some factories.
Nor was it confined to labour relations. In dockyards, workers were guilty of systematic pilferage, including lifeboat rations. U.S. seamen arriving in Britain were shocked by the attitudes they encountered as trucks and tanks were damaged by reckless handling during offloading.
Max Hastings
The Finest Years: Churchill As Warlord 1940-1945
To Be Published In The United Kingdom On September 3, 2009
To Be Published In Canada On October 15, 2009
To Be Published In Australia On November 1, 2009
Publication In The United States Not Yet Arranged
