d'Indy Fervaal

[Alan Howe]

I'm just opening this topic in the hope that in the coming few days friends might like to post their reactions to BerlinExpat's upload of d'Indy's opera - for which I am greatly in your debt, Colin. Many thanks. And so to the opera...

[Alan Howe]

...which strikes me on first hearing as possibly one of the great unlistenables of musical history - great because it is undoubtedly a compositional tour-de-force, but unlistenable because it lacks the sort of straightforward melodic memorability that is required. If it's supposed to be a French Parsifal, it's a heck of an effort on the part of d'Indy, but do I really want to listen to it?

I must give it another go, though...

[edurban]

I would give the 2nd act another try, but the others...

My reaction to Botstein's concert performance, with a sight-reading tenor, was very mixed.

"...It's a long evening, mostly of warmed over Wagner without (largely) the peculiar genius that weaves a bucket of leitmotives into a fabric of melodic and emotional power.  The exception was the 2nd act, iirc, with a lot of stirring stuff for the assembled clans...this falls into the realm of French grand opera (even Meyerbeer!) and D'Indy goes to town.  It was lots of fun...the endless sub-Tristan duets less so."

David

[Alan Howe]

That's very helpful, David, thanks. On to Act 2...

[Gauk]

I listened to it all today, and my first impressions were very favourable. I had rather been expecting something like "people bellowing slowly at each other in French", but the music is varied and full of pace, and it was interesting to hear the famous passage with the offstage saxophone quartet.

The problems are really with the libretto and clunky plot, espcially in Act 3. But if there were a good quality commercial recording available, I'd certainly snap it up.

[Alan Howe]

Oh, I'd snap it up too. But then I have certain masochistic tendencies - musically speaking.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Me too - but in my case purely hedonistic tendencies!

[Gauk]

At a slight tangent, does anyone know anything about performances of La légende de Saint-Christophe? I thought I read a long time ago that it was unperformable today because of its antisemitism, but I found a detailed synopsis at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=q2uq9Rp7-yIC&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=d%27indy++La+l%C3%A9gende+de+Saint+Christophe&source=bl&ots=SL8kwZmoCF&sig=bNz1jREC2qtpT-hXnPgdpz_vtao&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Fas5UdH2C4Od0QXh2oDwDA&ved=0CGUQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=d%27indy%20%20La%20l%C3%A9gende%20de%20Saint%20Christophe&f=false which does not confirm this.

[Alan Howe]

Well, the Premiereopera Italy version of the Berne performance of Fervaal is as good a recording as we're likely to get. The sound is very good indeed, the singing not quite top-notch but certainly enjoyable enough, and the playing and conducting extremely committed. But the piece itself is a problem: d'Indy obviously poured compositional heart and soul into what must have been (for 1889-93) a very advanced score and it certainly has its own, highly chromatic sound-world; but, my goodness, listening to it is exhausting in a way that listening to, say, Parsifal isn't. For all the length and slowness of Wagner's last masterpiece, there are memorable passages galore, as well as a wonderful sense of stillness and inevitability. By contrast, d'Indy's score often comes over as manic, overheated, over-complex and over-clever. It's a masterpiece of a sort, but do I really want to listen to it? I'm not so sure. But I'm glad I've had the opportunity and I urge all lovers of late-romantic opera to give it a try...

[Alan Howe]

Posted in a duplicate thread by member Richard Wagner and relocated here:

I have a much better quality recording of this performance, recorded using Replay AV when it was broadcast. I will upload it.

[Alan Howe]

That's very good of you. Thanks!