Antony Choudens News
French composer (1849-1902)
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2024-03-28
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2020-06-06 08:47:14
A fascinating conundrum - Les contes d'Hoffmann: with its troubled genesis & editorial confusion, Offenbach's final opera seems unique, yet it developed out ideas from the composer's lesser-known late period
[…] opera's raison d'etre. By the early 20th century, the unsatisfactory nature of the piece was apparent and for performances in Monaco the impresario Raoul Gunsbourg commissioned the composer André Bloch to remedy things. So Dapertutto acquired a new solo "Scintille, diamant", based on a tune from the overture to Offenbach's operetta A Journey to the Moon, and the Guilietta act acquired a new conclusion, a Septet based on the 'Barcarolle'. This crystallised in the 1907 Choudens score, and for much of the 20th century you had to perform this version because, if you dropped the Septet then there was no viable alternative conclusion to the Giulietta act, as Offenbach's original intentions were not known. Ilona Domnich as Stella - Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, English Touring Opera, 2015 © Richard Hubert Smith The manuscript of the opera as left by Offenbach seems to have been split […]
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Faces of classical music
2018-10-31 07:57:00
Nikolai Lugansky plays Claude Debussy: Suite bergamasque, Deux Arabesques, and οther works for solo piano (Audio video)
[…] d'un faune or his first hearing of a mass by Palestrina, à propos of which he described the emotion produced by "melodic arabesques... intersecting to produce... melodic harmonies". When Debussy achieved fame in 1902, the first Arabesque was to become one of his most popular pieces, as may be seen from the number of copies it sold.The Suite bergamasque, which is contemporary with the Arabesques, has an odd history. Though sold to the firm of Choudens in February 1891, the work was finally not published. It was not to appear until 1905, issued by Fromont, following a negotiation with Debussy in order to settle a complex accounting situation. Although the autograph manuscript has unfortunately not been located, there is a surviving set of proofs showing the revisions Debussy made to it, as he wrote to Madame Fromont on 21 April 1905: "You will have the Suite bergamasque next Tuesday; to […]
2016-09-25 15:00:37
The upper depths
[…] In the second act the tenor and soprano take turns climbing up to the top of the giant stone head on stage to sing their showcase moments—hardly inventive—and the chorus behaves like a flock of geese with a hive mind. The costumes of Alessandra Torella show a real eye for both color and texture for the men and women. The narrow range of silhouettes, though, suggests there’s only one sari seamstress in town. The standard Choudens edition of the score is used in spite of some not so recent discoveries regarding the transposition and ending of the tenor/baritone duet. We also get the spurious trio towards the close of the last act, not written by Bizet, that the Met didn’t even detain us with. Picture and sound are crisp with only the miking of the chorus a little on the muddy side. Sound options are standard PCM and DTS 5.1 […]
2016-02-20 20:55:57
[…] given similar-sounding treatment in their introductory passagework. Even the ubiquitous French horns, featured prominently in Leila’s Act II solo from Pêcheurs, may kindle fond memories in listeners of Micaela’s “Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante,” from Act III of Carmen. Unfortunately, there was no complete orchestral score for Les Pêcheurs, only the surviving vocal score. Written when Bizet was 24, the version that went into circulation after his death, and that was subsequently published by Choudens, is many times removed from the original. In addition, other editorial hands have altered and rearranged the opera’s music (i.e., Benjamin Godard, who inserted a new trio at the end). Why, even the work’s most famous and best-loved number, the duet “Au fond du temple saint,” had a much different ending (this one, by Bizet’s own hand) that contrasted radically with the familiar main theme. I couldn’t help noticing that this same theme, sung […]
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