Lost in the City of Waters
Sunday 27 January 2008 22:15-0:00 (Radio 3)
Jeremy Irons and Anna Massey explore the splendour and decadence of Venice through the poetry and prose of Longfellow, Browning, Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust. With music by Luigi Nono, Gounod, Vivaldi, Hahn, Liszt and Gabrieli.
Duration:
1 hour 45 minutes
Lost in the City of Waters
Anna Massey (reader)
Jeremy Irons (reader)
Producer's note
This week's Words and Music explores Venice as it has captured the imagination of writers and composers. The city conjures up images of late Romantic decadence (Proust/Mann/James) as well as early Romantic revolt against the Napoleonic yoke (Platen/Wordsworth/Gounod/Shelley), Baroque persiflage (Galuppi/Vivaldi) and Renaissance grandeur (Gabrieli/Ruskin).
Running through the sequence are readings from Thomas Mann's Death in Venice which revels in the over-ripe voluptuousness of Venice, intoxicating the senses and threatening reason: the dark-underbelly beneath the glittering surface. This was a theme that inspired Benjamin Britten to write his final opera (2nd piece of music) and his final string quartet (last piece of music).
Salvatore Sciarrino composed his piano piece Lost in the Waters of Venice after he had been to visit the dying Venetian composer Luigi Nono. Death and Venice seem somehow inextricably linked in the imagination. Wagner, having earlier written much of the love music for Tristan in Venice, died there. Britten went on a valedictory last visit when he knew he was about to die.
Venice was also a place for Northern Europeans like Marcel Proust, Henry James and Thomas Mann to venture south in search of wider perspectives and broader horizons. The cliche of slightly-stiff northerners coming to terms with red-hot Italy is captured by the famous 1960s guidebook by J.G Links Venice for Pleasure; a tradition that stretches back to Gilbert and Sullivan (Gondoliers)
Composers wanting to represent La Serenissima in music had 2 "sound effects" to play with: bells and water. The programme starts with the great bell of St Marks. And you can hear it tolling in Schubert's part-song Gondelfahrer. Water is suggested in the lilting 6/8 rhythm of the barcarolles, the songs that the gondoliers supposedly sang as their oars plashed against the waters of the canal. As Gustav von Aschenbach, the narrator of Death in Venice, finally sinks back into the soft black cushions of his gondola, Faure's barcarolle conjures up the swaying motion of his boat. And there is more than one barcarolle in the programme: Faure, Hahn, Gounod and Offenbach. The penultimate piece of music, Le gatorigole is an original 18th century Canzone di Battello (in Venetian dialect) which would have been sung to an amorous couple during a nocturnal outing on the canal.
Clive Portbury (producer)
Playlist
00:00:00
Lo Sposalizio
Bell of San Marco
HYPERION CDA 67048
00:00:23
GABRIELI
Kyrie (1st part)
The KING'S CONSORT
Robert KING - Director
HYPERION CDA 67048
00:02:41
Lo Sposalizio
Bells of Venice
HYPERION CDA 67048
00:02:59
PLATEN
Venice
Anna Massey (reader)
00:03:58
BRITTEN
Death in Venice Act 1 Scene 2/Departure for Venice and arrival in Venice
Peter Pears (Aschenbach)
English Chamber Orchestra
Steuart Bedford - Conductor
LONDON 425 669-2
00:09:24
Thomas MANN
Death in Venice 1 (Arrival by sea and gondola)
Jeremy Irons (reader)
00:14:06
FAURE
Barcarolle for piano no. 4 (Op.44) in A flat major
Kathryn STOTT - Piano
HYPERION CDA 66911
00:17:51
WORDSWORTH
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic, 1802
Anna Massey (reader)
00:18:58
HAHN
Venezia: La barchetta
Anthony ROLFE-JOHNSON - Tenor
Graham JOHNSON - Piano
HYPERION CDA 66112
00:22:11
PROUST
The Fugitive (extract)
Jeremy Irons (reader)
00:25:20
GOUNOD
Venise (Musset)
Felicity LOTT - Soprano
Graham JOHNSON - Piano
HYPERION CDA 66801
00:29:50
"Venice for Pleasure" 1
Anna Massey (reader)
00:31:43
SULLIVAN
The Gondoliers
Act 1 no.2; We're called Gondolieri
NEW S O OF LONDON
D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY
Isidore GODFREY - Conductor
LONDON 425 177-2
00:33:51
"Venice for Pleasure" 2
Anna Massey (reader)
00:35:53
VIVALDI
Concerto for mandolin and orchestra (RV.425) in C major
1st movement
Duilio GALFETTI - Mandolin
Il GIARDINO ARMONICO
Giovanni ANTONINI - Conductor
TELDEC 4509 91182-2
00:38:32
Thomas MANN
Death in Venice (sickness in the air)
Jeremy Irons (reader)
00:41:01
CROCE
Mascarata da Lenguazi
I FAGIOLINI
Chandos CHAN0665
00:43:40
BROWNING
A Toccata of Galuppi's
Anna Massey (reader)
00:47:52
GALUPPI
Arripe alpestri ad vallem - motet for alto and strings
iii - Sereni affectus mei
Gerard LESNE - Counter-tenor
Il SEMINARIO MUSICALE
VIRGIN CLASSICS VC 5 45030 2
00:52:51
RUSKIN
The Stones of Venice (extract)
Jeremy Irons (reader)
00:54:13
OFFENBACH
Tales of Hofmann
Act 4; Barcarolle (Belle nuit, o nuit d'amour)
Ann MURRAY - Mezzo-soprano (Nicklausse)
Jessye NORMAN - Soprano (Giulietta)
THEATRE ROYAL DE LA MONNAIE Orchestra
Sylvain CAMBRELING - Conductor
EMI CDC 7 54322 2
00:57:47
Charles TOMLINSON
Venice
Jeremy Irons (reader)
00:58:35
Salvatore SCIARRINO
Perduto in una citta d'acque (extract)
Massimiliano DAMERINI - Piano
DYNAMIC S 2015
01:01:18
SHELLEY
Written Among the Euganean Hills
Anna Massey (reader)
01:06:12
SCHUBERT
Gondelfahrer for male voices and piano (D.809)
John Mark AINSLEY - Tenor
Jamie MACDOUGALL - Tenor
Simon KEENLYSIDE - Baritone
Michael GEORGE - Bass
Graham JOHNSON - Piano
SCHUBERT CHORALE OF LONDON
Stephen LAYTON - Conductor
HYPERION CDJ 33035
01:09:40
Henry JAMES
The Aspern Papers (extract)
Jeremy Irons (reader)
01:10:18
WAGNER
Wagner e Venezia
Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (arrangement)
URI CAINE ENSEMBLE
WINTER WINTER 910 013-2
01:17:52
LONGFELLOW
Venice
Anna Massey (reader)
01:18:46
SCHUMANN
Op 25 no.17; Venetianische Lied 1 (Leis' rudern hier)
Bryn TERFEL - Baritone
Malcolm MARTINEAU - Piano
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 447 042-2
01:20:38
SCHUMANN
Op 25 no.18; Venetianische Lied 2 (Wenn durch die Piazzetta)
Bryn TERFEL - Baritone
Malcolm MARTINEAU - Piano
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 447 042-2
01:21:46
BYRON
Letter to Thomas Moore
Anna Massey (reader)
01:24:17
ANON (C17 Venetian Canzoni da Battello)
Le gatorigole (in Venetian dialect)
Christina MIATELLO - Soprano
Enrico GATTI - Violin
Massimo LONARDI - Theorbo
Ugo NASTRUCCI - Guitar
Guido MORINI - Harpsichord
TACTUS TC 70010201
01:27:44
Thomas MANN
Death in Venice 3 (pursuing Tadzio through Venice)
Jeremy Irons (reader)
01:31:43
BRITTEN
Quartet for strings no. 3 (Op.94)
5th movement; Recitative and passacaglia (La serenissima)
ENDELLION STRING QUARTET - Quartet - string
EMI 5 65115 2 3
