Joseph Story

This delightful "dramma eroicomico" ("heroic-comic drama"–-a made-up phrase brimming with irony) tells the story of the noble knight Orlando, who goes mad being torn between duty and love, his love, Angelica, who actually wants Medoro, and Alcina, an evil sorceress out to get Orlando, and turns it into a type of farce, with great results. There is some lovely music, mostly for Angelica and Medoro, but most of it is fun and light, with characters whistling, trying to impress people with how well they sing, etc. The scoring wittily underlines their foibles.

Those familiar with The Lindsays’ recent Haydn recordings will need little encouragement to sample this set. Haydn demands close attention from his listeners; as with a wellconstructed story‚ each event has significance‚ and it’s a measure of The Lindsays’ knowledge and appreciation of the music that they are able to bring each episode to life in a way that illuminates its position in the overall plan.

Haydn's Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze (The Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross) is unique in his output. Commissioned in 1785 as an orchestral work for Good Friday by a church in Cádiz, Spain, it posed Haydn considerable problems as he tried to reconcile the general structural principles of the Classical era with a commission that required him, in effect, to write seven slow movements in a row – and, at a deeper level, to write a really somber work in a musical language made for humor and sunny lyricism. The seven movements, plus opening and central introductions and a final "Terremoto" or earthquake, stand in contrast with one another in both texture and tonality, although all are indeed dark in hue. Haydn apparently was pleased with his solution, for he arranged the work for string quartet and gave permission to Hummel to create a piano version.

Haydn’s late masterpiece, The Creation/Die Schöpfung has always existed in two versions, one in English and one in German. Loosely based on Milton’s Paradise Lost version of the creation story, the libretto had actually been offered to Handel, who never got around to setting it. Johann Salomon, the impresario, passed it to Haydn in 1794. Haydn was interested but apparently did not feel confident enough in his English to set the work in its original format.

Although Haydn’s place in the history of the oratorio has been secured by his great vocal masterpieces The Creation and The Seasons, his first oratorio, Il ritorno di Tobia (The Return of Tobias), is among the better-kept secrets of music history. The Italian libretto deals with the return of Tobias and the curing of his blind father, an exceptionally popular story in eighteenth century Vienna. With its vivid portrayal of the protagonists’ emotional turmoil, achieved largely through wide-ranging arias of great virtuosity, Il ritorno di Tobia is a work of considerable beauty and dramatic impact. This recording includes the two magnificent choruses Ah gran Dio! and Svanisce in un momento written for a performance of Tobia in 1784.

A surprising fact from the musicological realm is that Haydn wrote about the same number of operas as Mozart–though it's true that some of them were written for the marionette theater at Esterhaza, rather than the opera house. In other words, old "Gius[eppe] Haydn"–as the title page of this opera refers to him–was a master. Better known to some by its alternate title, L'anima del filosofo, Haydn's Orfeo ed Euridice was written in 1791 for the King's Theater, Haymarket, during the composer's first English sojourn, but went unperformed there or anywhere else until 1950. The libretto, by Carlo Francesco Badini, is based on Ovid's Metamorphoses, with its decidedly unhappy ending to the story (Euridice dies a second time, Orpheus is poisoned, and the Bacchantes perish in a storm).

Fud Livingston - The Story Of Joseph "Fud" Livingston (2009) {Jazz Oracle BDW8060 rec 1924-1939}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 194 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 171 Mb
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© 1924-39, 2009 Jazz Oracle | BDW8060
Jazz / Early Jazz / Hot Jazz / Big Band / Hot Dance / Clarinet

A compilation of important recordings by clarinettist Fud Livingston, a neglected jazzman of the 1920s and 1930s who recorded with Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols, Ben Pollack, Jimmy Dorsey and other luminaries. Extensive liner notes by Brad Kay tell the tragic but, at the same time, joyful story of Fud's life and music. Includes a previously-unreleased recording by Ben Pollack from 1924.