Charles Villiers Stanford

[Pengelli]

I keep badgering them about 'The Perfect Fool', too,although I'm not such a musicologist as you, it just seems plain daft to only be able to hear the ballet music. Chandos do 'seem' to be coming around,after years of disinterest.
The 'Travelling Companion' sounds VERY intriguing. I know my Hans Anderson from my mothers old copy,(NOT Danny Kaye!) It's one of his best stories,if I remember correctly,although Newboldt's version is obviously a little different!
Oh well, I'm going to get to hear another Humperdinck opera,aren't I?

Okay,back to the main thread........

[JimL]

I'm not sure of the plot of The Perfect Fool, but something about the title suggests Arthurian legend (perhaps because it was Sir Percival who found the Holy Grail, and 'Percival' is derived from 'Parsifal' which translates from the Arabic as 'Perfect Fool').  Am I barking up the right tree?

[Josh]

"mythological figures"
"Nothing 'supernatural' about it"

I'm so confused.  I thought I remembered it being about gods and stuff.  That's about as supernatural as it can possibly be.  So I can't understand how that would be a mark against Stanford.  What would be in his opera that's more supernatural than a pantheon of deities??!

[albion]

I'm not sure of the plot of The Perfect Fool, but something about the title suggests Arthurian legend (perhaps because it was Sir Percival who found the Holy Grail, and 'Percival' is derived from 'Parsifal' which translates from the Arabic as 'Perfect Fool').  Am I barking up the right tree?

"The action, such as it is, turns on the inability or unwillingness of the Fool to take any interest in wooing a Princess, despite the prompting of his Mother and competition from a Wizard, and in the final scene the fool yawns and falls asleep from sheer apathy, to the consternation of everyone, not least the audience" (Michael Short, Gustav Holst, OUP, 1990, p.211).

[Pengelli]

The libretto appears very similair in spirit  to 'The Poisoned Kiss'. According to Wikipedia Holst wrote it himself,after Clifford Bax declined?
Two English opera's about Wizards,with 'ballet music' (?) 

Holst 'The Perfect Fool' (1918-22)
Holbrooke 'The Enchanter' (1914/15?

And an alchemist:

Scott 'The Alchemist' (1917-18)

V-W's 'The Poisoned Kiss' is of course from a few years later.

Interesting! Of course there was allot of interest in esoteric stuff like that at the time, eg Blavatsky,Crowley,The Golden Dawn,Spiritualism,etc,although VW wouldn't have been  interested. He just wanted a libretto for an operetta.

I'm not sure if Ethel Smyth did't write an opera with a fantastical subject too? Maybe not!

[JimL]

Isn't that around the time that Conan Doyle took up a belief in the reality of fairies due to some doctored photos?  Or do I have my literary figures conflated?

[Pengelli]

That's it,JimL. One of them confessed on her deathbed,apparently,that they were faked,but her sister continued to insist that the photo's were genuine. Remember the fairies all had twenties hair do's? But then again,perhaps they like to keep up with the Jones's too!
  I always feel a bit sorry for Doyle. He lost his son and,ok he was VERY gullible,but I think their cynical manipulation of his grief was rather cruel. It was all about them!
Anyway,before I get moderated for turning this forum into the 'Fortean Times'........

 

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Back to Josh (and maybe an unimportant tangent).

First, there's nothing in my point above that "counts against" Stanford. I hold him to be a great composer - and I've had the knuckles rapped for admitting I find him more satisfying than Elgar.

Second, and in an attempt to sort out conceptual confusions (and to appeal to the dubious standard of 'ordinary usage'), I do think there's a distinction between 'supernatural' and 'mythological'. Many operas and other musical works are based upon myths, legends, ancient sagas and so on. So that includes things as various as Wagner's Ring, Strauss' Daphne, some Handel oratorios and many many others. They are based on such things as Nordic sagas, Greek mythology, Biblical texts and so forth, and these texts at least purport to be representations of characters or events that are 'real'.

In contrast the 'supernatural' surely deals with characters who aren't 'real' (whatever that tricky word 'real' might mean) and events that are not explicable by reference to established natural laws but whose occurrance could only be explained through the workings of non-natural (or supernatural) agencies. Thus we're talking fairies, ghosts, spirits, magic bullets, things that go bump in the night.

True, some of the events in the Ring sure aren't everyday events (folk walking up a bridge to Valhalla, a chap summoning up fire or thunderclouds by striking a hammer, a mechanism for changing one's appearance into a toad, a lump of gold whose possession gives mastery over the world, going to sleep for a very long time on a rock, slaying a dragon or two etc etc). But it would seem very odd to say the Ring deals with the 'supernatural' - the ancient texts and Wagner's own libretto present these characters and events as having really existed. Same with operas based on Biblical texts. In contrast, to take but one example, Weber's Freischutz deals with things that can't possibly be explained within naturalistic terms and hence deals with the 'supernatural'?

Admittedly the distinction is a bit thin in some cases, but it is one perhaps worth making. And the main point: the validity of the distinction has no bearing at all on the worth of the music or our enjoyment of it. End of tangent?

Now, rubbing the hands in glee, I get back to Helene Raff - which I'm finding a hugely absorbing book!

Peter

[JimL]

Well, when you deal with such operas as Der Freischutz, or, say, Der Vampyr, or Robert le Diable, what then?  Remember that all these 'supernatural' phenomena are more-or-less associated with Satan, who is a religious/mythological figure, at least in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic world.  I'm not so sure about Vampyr, but I believe that he is actually depicted as Samiel, the Black Huntsman in Freischutz, and may even make a cameo appearance in Robert.  In any event, the point is that this shouldn't be an obstacle to production of Stanford's opera.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Yes, JimL, that's just why I said the distinction between the mythological and the supernatural is a bit 'thin' at times. Nonetheless it is a generally useful distinction, just like the distinction between wet and dry weather - though sometimes in damp and drizzly weather when there are no puddles to step into it isn't quite clear whether its correct to say it is raining or not!

Nonetheless I rule my posting both a red herring and a damp squib (I was just reacting to what seemed to me a confusion) and the hair-splitting isn't any kind of obstacle at all to a performance or recording of the Stanford opera. If that took place, then, wow, it would be an event to really celebrate!

Peter

[Alan Howe]

And so back to the subject of the thread, perchance...?

[albion]

A 1991 performance of the Overture to Stanford's opera The Canterbury Pilgrims (1884) can now be found in Folder 3 of British Music Broadcasts.

The opera, to a libretto by Gilbert A Beckett, was first performed by the Carl Rosa Company on 28th April 1884 at Drury Lane Theatre, receiving four performances in London before being taken on tour. Stanford failed in his attempt to have the opera performed in Vienna under Richter, and there have been no revivals since the original production. In 1885 Joachim conducted the Overture in Berlin, and it was also heard at a Philharmonnic Society concert on 21st April 1887.

A brief synopsis: The first act is set in the courtyard of the Tabard Inn in Southwark at five in the morning one day around the close of the fourteenth century. The apprentice Hubert leads a small group of colleagues in a birthday madrigal addressed to Cicely, daughter of the innkeeper Geoffrey, with whom he has an understanding. Geoffrey drives them away but Hubert sneaks back. Cicely tells him her father is sending her on the pilgrimage to Canterbury with her maiden aunt to break their relationship. The pilgrims duly arrive and are served. Meanwhile the elderly Sir Christopher and his follower Hal o' the Chepe arrive. Sir Christopher lusts after Cicely, and Hal has a plan to abduct her on the road. Little realising their relationship, he invites Hubert to help them. As they arrange to meet at Sidenbourne, Sir Christopher's wife Dame Margery arrives, suspiciously following her husband. Her questioning of Geoffrey provokes his suspicions also, and at the end of the act all set out for Sidenbourne, either intent on amorous schemes or on foiling them. That night at Sidenbourne confusion reigns. Hubert, dressed as a holy friar, manages to send Geoffrey off on a wild-goose chase, while Dame Margery hides her face whilst keeping a close eye on her husband. With Margery's blessing, Hubert and Cicely run off together and the abduction attempt is foiled. In the final act, Hubert is tried for decoying a maiden by the local judge — Sir Christopher — and condemned to six years in prison, but Dame Margery's intervention on Hubert's side carries the day, and she finally persuades Geoffrey to accept young Hubert's suit.

[Mark Thomas]

Further thanks are due, Albion, for the Overture recording. Very thoughtful.

[albion]

As one confirmed Stanfordian to another, this will have to do in lieu of the complete opera! 

[albion]

This evening (as a break from Holbrooke and Rootham) I've been revisiting Stanford's Requiem (1897) and Stabat mater (1907). I've been struck once again by the extraordinarily high quality of the music - even to a confirmed atheist, the third movement of the Requiem ('Requiem eternam') and the close of the Stabat mater ('Paradisi gloria') surely have to be some of the most sublime and moving settings ever penned.

Stanford was a composer of the highest calibre - if any members have not yet heard them, I'd strongly recommend the Naxos (Requiem) and Chandos (Stabat mater) recordings.