Lalos Fiesque

Jacek Blaszkiewicz
Notes, Volume 70, Number 3, March 2014, pp. 525-529 (Article)
Published by Music Library Association
DOI: 10.1353/not.2014.0025
For additional information about this article
Access provided by University of Rochester (5 Mar 2014 10:49 GMT)
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/not/summary/v070/70.3.blaszkiewicz.html
Music Reviews 525
LALOS FIESQUE
douard Lalo. Fiesque: Grand opra en trois actes. dition de Hugh
Macdonald. dition du livret de Vincent Giroud et Paul Prvost.
(Lopra franais.) Kassel: Brenreiter, 2012. [Foreword in Fre., Eng.,
Ger., p. viiviii; introd. in Fre., Eng., Ger., p. ixxx; libretto, p. xxixxxiv;
table des morceaux, p. 1; personnages/orchestre, p. 2; score, p. 3581;
three beamed eighth-notes, printed as dot-
ted quarter followed by a single agged
eighth-note plus two beamed eighthsmay
be disconcerting to readers familiar with
Brahmss score. In the arrangement of the
Second Serenade, the removal of redun-
dant dynamic indications (acknowledged,
however, in the critical notes) fails to recog-
nize their role as signals of a newly entering
instrumental voice. Brahmss arrangements
of ensemble works also include such multi-
ple indications.
What this reviewer wished for most when
examining this volume was a more compre-
hensive reading of the musical texts of the
principal sources. We learn, for example,
that the autograph of the Second Serenade
arrangement contains Numerous correc-
tions in black ink and pencil throughout
(source description, p. 87), but it is not
possible to tell whether the earlier read-
ings transcribed in the critical notes were
emended in pencil or in ink, in one pass or
several, and by whom. Kregor draws atten-
tion to changes in mm. 6466 of the rst
movement that he suspects are by Brahms
(see pp. xvixvii and example 7); he de-
scribes these as in blue pencil, but they are
in regular lead pencil. But he seems not to
have developed a reading of this manuscript
that would allow him to differentiate be-
tween markings by Schumann and sugges-
tions by Brahms or possibly others. On
page 9 of the autograph, shown in plate 3,
an alternative reading in pencil for mm.
9093 of the second movement is written
on blank staves below the last line of score.
Kregor identies this hand as belonging to
someone other than Clara Schumann (p. xix,
n. 50), and hints obliquely that it might be
Brahmssa suggestion with which this re-
viewer is inclined to agree. But given that
there are other pencil entries in the manu-
script, even in the passage immediately pre-
ceding the alternative reading on page 9
(mm. 8389)a number of them consist-
ing of cross-outs and other markings that
would be difcult to assign on their own
merits to any particular personit is cru-
cial that the editor develop and communi-
cate to the reader an interpretation of the
manuscript evidence as a whole that serves
as a framework for his editorial decisions.
These concerns do not take away from
the fact that this volume is a fascinating ad-
dition to the literature on piano arrange-
ments, and contains much that will be new
even to scholars specializing in closely re-
lated areas. That Clara Schumann ac-
quainted herself with Brahmss new music
through his four-hand arrangements,
played them both inside and outside the
home with Brahms or family members or
friends, and included some of his virtuosic
solo arrangements in her programs is fairly
well known. Now it is possible to study and
play her own solo renditions of several of
his orchestral movements. Kregors discus-
sion (p. xv) of the verse in Plattdeutsch that
Schumann wrote into her autograph of the
arrangement of the Menuetto I/II from
the First Serenade (presumably at the time
she wrote out the manuscript) opens a
fresh perspective on her view of Brahmss
music that may reward further investiga-
tion. The lieder arrangements constitute a
largely unfamiliar effort on her part to
shape Roberts legacy. In this respect they
can be examined alongside her judicious
programing of his compositions in her con-
certs and her work on the collected edi-
tion, another collaboration with Brahms.
The present volume illustrates the role of
her arrangements as music for perfor-
mance, honoring a colleague, winning new
audiences to her husbands compositions,
personal study, and playing in the home.
Above all it gives us a sense of the tactile
and sonic experience Clara Schumann en-
joyed as she re-created this music at the
keyboard. And it allows us to bring the
music to life, too.
Valerie Woodring Goertzen
Loyola University New Orleans
526 Notes, March 2014
douard Lalos Fiesque is an opera in
three acts, composed between 1866 and
1868, but never performed in the com-
posers lifetime. In fact, Fiesque had its
world premiere only in 2006, in a concert
performance with Roberto Alagna in the ti-
tle role and Alain Altinoglu conducting;
the performance was recorded and issued
in 2011 by Deutsche Grammophon, and to
date remains the sole recording of the work
(DG 476 454-7). Although Lalo is perhaps
best known for his virtuosic Cello Concerto
and the Symphonie espagnole, this earlier dra-
matic work laid the foundation for the vig-
orous rhythmic drive pervading his later
compositions. The operas long journey
from a scandal-ensuing third-place nish in
an 1869 competition to Hugh Macdonalds
elegant critical edition for Brenreiters
Lopra franais series is worth briey re-
counting here.
Lalo was forty-three when his second wife
Julie-Marie-Victoire Bernier de Maligny,
herself a singer, seems to have persuaded
her husband to compose a stage work. Lalo
chose Charles Beauquier, an anti-Imperial
politician and writer, as the librettist. As
Macdonald notes in the editions introduc-
tion, it was probably Beauquiers and Lalos
shared republican leanings that drew them
to Schillers Die Verschwrung des Fiesco zu
Genua (178283) as the material for an
opera.
Schillers tragedy is based on the conspir-
acy led by Giovanni Luigi di Fieschi, Count
of Lavagna, against the Genoese ruling
family of Doria in 1547. Beauquier reduced
the main action of the opera to three con-
icts: the republican Fiesque and his col-
leagues are determined to overthrow the
ruling Dorias, although the actual reasons
for the overthrow are only briey stated at
the onset of the opera (p. xvi). Verrina, a
zealous republican one generation older
than Fiesque, distrusts his younger compa-
triots motives and is determined to prevent
his rise to power. Finally, Lonore,
Fiesques wife, is jealous of her husbands
involvement with Julie, daughter of Andrea
Doria. The Moor Hassan, a basso buffo, ap-
pears as the comic character in both
Schillers tragedy and Beauquiers libretto.
Hassan is ready to do anyones bidding for
money, changing allegiance at the toss of a
seguin. As Macdonald observes in an
earlier publication entitled A Fiasco
Remembered: Fiesque Dismembered (in
Slavonic and Western Music: Essays for Gerald
Abraham, ed. Malcolm Hamrick Brown and
Roland John Wiley [Ann Arbor, MI: UMI
Research Press; Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1985], 16385), Lalo characterizes
Hassan through a staccato vocal line in
6
8 or
3
4, over a lightly textured accompaniment
(see for instance, act 2, pp. 33444). His
rapid-re syllabic declamations recall those
of Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia, orto
mention an exotic precedentthose of
Osmin in Die Entfhrung aus dem Serail.
Political revolution served as operatic
subject matter even before the Second
Empire, in such successful, albeit contro-
versial, works as Rossinis Guillaume Tell and
Aubers La muette de Portici. However, poli-
tics could not have been the only determin-
ing factor for Beauquiers and Lalos
choice of story; Macdonald notes that in
1864 Jules Barbier had written a Fiesque li-
bretto for Charles Gounod that was never
set to music (p. xiii). Lalo was friendly with
the older composer, even calling upon him
to vouch for a production of Fiesque in
Brussels. However, nothing came of
Gounods interventions; in a letter to Lalos
mother-in-law Gounod explained that a
theatre director is in a way constrained to
bet on a sure thing; instead of having faith
in the public, he caters to them. In other
words, it is no longer the operator who con-
trols the machinery, but the machinery that
controls the operator (douard Lalo,
Correspondance, ed. Jol-Marie Fauquet
[Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1989], 200;
my translation). Despite this connection
with Gounod, the relationship between the
two Fiesque librettos is left unexplored in
Macdonalds introduction.
Lalo was a year into composing Fiesque
when Camille Doucet, an administrator of
Parisian theaters, announced an opera
competition for the three subsidized opera
houses. As Lalo had already begun an
opera, he chose the Thtre-Lyrique, which
allowed a free choice of libretto. Fiesque n-
ished third, while the second and rst
prizes went to Gustave Canobys ve-act La
appendix, p. 585601; crit. report, p. 60315; facsims., p. 61921. ISMN
979-0-006-53046-5; pub. no. BA 8703. i623.]
Music Reviews 527
coupe et les lvres and Jules Philipots one-act
Le magnique, respectively. Thinking this re-
sult dubious, the composer Paul Lacme
wrote a critique of the competition in Lart
musical. But Lacmes article was nothing
compared to Beauquiers virulent open let-
ter to the competitions director. In it he
complained that the director of the
Thtre-Lyrique chose Philipots one-act
opera because he desired to draw the cur-
tain only once during the production,
rather than choose a larger, more expen-
sive production. The letter was widely dis-
cussed in the press (Macdonald cites rele-
vant articles in footnotes on p. xiv), but
Beauquier had written it without Lalos
consentand to his chagrin.
Lalo failed to secure productions of
Fiesque in Paris, Hamburg, and Brussels,
and instead oversaw performances of the
overture and selected scenes. In 1872 Lalo
published the vocal score out-of-pocket
(source C in Macdonalds edition), which
included a German translation by Arthur
Levysohn that was, in the end, never used
in performance. In 1880 Lalo gave Durand
the rights to the vocal score, who printed a
reissue under the Durand, Schoenewerke
& Cie imprint (available on International
Music Score Library Project, http://www
.imslp.org; Macdonald does not consider it
separately from the originally published vo-
cal score). Durand had also published the
overture in score and parts in 1875, along
with a four-hand transcription (source B in
Macdonalds edition).
Lalo eventually gave up prospects of see-
ing Fiesque on stage; in 1887 he wrote to
dIndy stating that Fiesque belongs to me
and will never be performed because I
dont like the opera (p. xvi). Nonetheless,
Fiesque was a central node in Lalos compo-
sitional output: the composer drew on ear-
lier composed works while writing it, while
he reused sections of the opera in many
later compositions. This borrowing and re-
cycling of musical material was the main
project of Macdonalds aforementioned
Fiesque Dismembered article. Much of this
articles content was reworked into the in-
troduction to the present edition. Nonethe -
less, the interested reader is encouraged to
have a look at the earlier study, which fea-
tures a scene-by-scene dismemberment
detailing where musical material originates,
how it functions in Fiesque, and where it ap-
pears in the composers subsequent output.
The most substantial borrowings, Macdonald
notes, are found in the choral pantomime
Nron and in the unnished opera La
jacquerie. However, I wish to highlight the
one number that links Lalos rst opera
with his more familiar theater work, Le roi
dYs.
In act 2, scene 2, of Fiesque, the epony-
mous hero, alone, recalls his love for his
wife Lonore. He then recounts how a vi-
sion of glory has red his ambition; he
dreams of power and of becoming doge,
acclaimed in triumph by the people. Lalo
biographer Georges Servires has noted
that Le rve de Fiesque is dramaturgically
similar to Jean de Leydes dream of glory in
act 2 of Meyerbeers Le prophte (Georges
Servires, douard Lalo, Les musiciens
clbres [Paris: Henri Laurens, 1925], 28).
But neither Macdonald nor this reviewer
nd any musical ideas that were borrowed
from Meyerbeer.
Macdonald has located two full-score ver-
sions of Fiesques monologue; the earlier
version is reproduced in the volumes ap-
pendix. Additionally, Lalo produced two
transposed versions of this scene, one for
contralto (!) and one for bass (sources
AC[Rve]1 and AC[Rve]2). These latter
two sources exist only as unpublished auto-
graph vocal scores. As Fiesques act 2
monologue is one of the truly remarkable
numbers of the opera, one would have
wished to see at least one of these versions
among the facsimiles at end of the volume.
Lalo later reworked the rst part of the
monologue (beginning on p. 296, m. 38)
into act 3 of Le roi dYs as a marital duet
for Rozenn and Mylio. In a letter to
A. B. Marcel from May 1889, Lalo explains
his decision to recycle material from his rst
opera: I agreed to insert a duet . . . but
time was short; I was tired, irritated, and
unable to compose a single note, so I took
a passage from Fiesque. It is the only conces-
sion I made to the singers and I regret it to
this day, since the duet serves no purpose
(p. xv). This recycling of musical material
begs an old question: does a composers
reuse of an earlier written fragment of mu-
sic undermine that composers integrity, or
should we allow the fragment to speak for
itself in its newly adopted context? Lalo
might have claimed to borrow from himself
out of convenience, but he used the
528 Notes, March 2014
melody in a fundamentally distinct dra-
matic situation in his later opera. In Fiesque,
the G-major melody appears as a soliloquy;
the hero recounts a dream he had the
night before (Dans le livre de mes
amours). In Le roi dYs, the melody ap-
pears, also in G major, during Rozenn and
Mylios duet, but here the two lovers are ex-
changing vows; they take turns singing the
melody, as if it represented the exchange
of marital bands ( lautel jallais rayon-
nant!). This instance of melodic borrow-
ing suggests that in opera, the efcacy of a
musical passage is intimately related to its
dramaturgical context.
Macdonalds introduction (given in
French, English, and German) offers a
thorough, if brief (four-page) exposition of
Lalos Fiesque in gratifying detail. Then fol-
lows the libretto, only in French, which was
restored based on the sung text according
to the score. The lines are numbered for
easy reference. Space likely prevented the
printing of the libretto in translation, but
the reader may turn to the liner notes of
the Deutsche Grammophon recording for
an English translation by John Tyler Tuttle.
Macdonald retains the scene divisions from
the Durand vocal score: acts, tableaux, and
Arabic numerals for each scene (overture =
no. 1, etc.), making it easy to compare this
critical edition with the earlier vocal score.
The critical editions score layout is elegant
and readable, and can as easily sit on a con-
ductors podium as on a library table. The
page never looks cluttered, even in the most
texturally dense moments in the opera
(e.g., the nal chorus of act 2, pp. 4013).
There are no variants or footnotes in the ac-
tual body of the score, perhaps to stream-
line the scores presentation for perfor-
mance needs (Brenreiter has parts
available on hire). Corrections and alterna-
tions, of which there are few of major sig-
nicance, are instead found in the critical
notes.
Macdonald does not categorize his criti-
cal notes by emendations, ambiguities, or
sketch discrepancies, as he has previously
done in the New Berlioz Edition as the editor-
in-chief. Nevertheless, the critical notes are
logically presented and intuitively orga-
nized. Four pages detail the various sources
that were consulted (most of which were
found in Stockholm at the Stiftelsen
Musikkulturens Framjnde, Nyadahl
Collection). Macdonald organizes the
notes using the aforementioned numeral
system of scenes, while the presence of
measure numbers and score excerpts make
jumping from the commentary to the score
easy. Three facsimiles follow these notes,
but as they are uncaptioned, it is unclear
why these three leaves were chosen over
others.
The student or music lover may wonder
if one can easily follow Macdonalds score
along with the Deutsche Grammophon
recording. The answer is, unfortunately,
no. There are many cuts in the recording
(at least twenty-ve), ranging from a few
measures to entire scenes. For example, the
second tableau, no. 5a (Choeur dans,
pp. 88112) is entirely omitted from the
recording. Lalo does have a tendency to
dwell on scene-setting choral numbers such
as no. 5a, which merely serves to set the
scene of the masquerade where Lonore
will confront Fiesque. Other substantial
cuts, however, are more pertinent to the
dramatic action and musical development.
In act 3, scene 1 (no. 17, p. 453), Fiesque,
Verrina, and three groups of conspirators
are preparing for combat. Lonore sud-
denly appears, and all fall silent. Fiesque,
seeing her, orders all the conspirators
to leave them alone. He tries to calm
Lonore, who is alarmed by the prepara-
tions, and tells her to hide, as another
woman is due to arrive shortly. Lalo writes
the scene as accompanied recitative, in
which diminished-seventh tremolo chords
pervade in the strings. In no. 18 (p. 455),
Lonore, alone, guesses that it must be her
rival Julie who is due to arrive. Her aria, in
a tranquil C major, expresses her longing
for her husbands love. Lalo later trans-
posed this aria for a concert performance
given on 1872 at the Socit nationale
(Macdonalds Source A[Air]). This aria,
along with the entire episode between
Fiesque and his wife, is cut from the record-
ing without any explanation in the compact
discs liner notes.
But these cuts are of no fault of the pres -
ent edition. Macdonalds dedication to re-
covering this obscure opera is formidable,
beginning with his 1985 article on musical
borrowing in Fiesque, and culminating in
this handsome volume. In placing this edi-
tion within the larger context of Bren -
reiters proposed thirty-ve volume Lopra
Music Reviews 529
In April and October 1927 Sam Morgans
Jazz Band recorded eight tracks in New
Orleans. These were the bands only record-
ings. Even in jazz circles, Sam Morgan is not
a household name, like Louis Armstrong or
Sidney Bechet or Jelly Roll Morton. But for
those who love jazz, the two Morgan ses-
sions are highly regarded as rare and cru-
cial representations of how African
American jazz continued in New Orleans
after these more famous players left.
This transcription of the complete
recorded works of Sam Morgans Jazz Band
is a model of how the musicological tradi-
tion of scholarly critical editions might be
applied to jazz. In the 1970s, scholars in-
volved in the emerging intersection of mu-
sicology and jazz were hopeful that eventu-
ally there would be many such volumes
functioning as parallels to editions of
Western art music, whether complete
works, anthologies of study scores, or criti-
cal analyses of particular works. The hope-
ful thinking was wishful thinking. As
Anthony Cummings notes in his preface,
the Morgan volume constitutes a major
addition to a very small body of such publi-
cations: James Dapognys edition of the
complete piano works of Jelly Roll Morton
( Jelly Roll Morton, The Collected Piano Mu -
sic, ed. James Dapogny [Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution Press; New York:
G. Schirmer, 1982]); Joscelyn Godwins edi-
tion of the Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines
duo Weatherbird from 1928 (Schirmer
Scores: A Repertory of Western Music, ed.
Joscelyn Godwin [New York: Schirmer
Books, 1975], 41422); three Duke Elling -
ton pieces in the Smithsonian Jazz Master -
works series edited by Gunther Schuller
(Daybreak Express: 1933, Jazz Masterworks
Editions, 1 [Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution, 1993], Take the A Train, Jazz
Masterworks Editions, 2 [Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution, 1993], and
Sepia Panorama: 1940, Jazz Masterworks
TRANSCRIPTIONS OF EARLY RECORDED JAZZ
Sam Morgans Jazz Band. Complete Recorded Works in Transcription.
Edited by John J. Joyce Jr., Bruce Boyd Raeburn, and Anthony M.
Cummings. (Recent Researches in American Music, 73.) (Music of the
United States of America, 24.) Middleton, WI: Published for the
American Musicological Society by A-R Editions, 2012. [Foreword, p. vii;
pref. and acknowledgments, p. ixxiii; New Orleans Jazz Styles of the
1920s: Sam Morgans Jazz Band, by Bruce Boyd Raeburn, p. xvxxxiv;
apparatus, p. xxxvli; score, p. 5255; crit. notes, p. 256; bibliog.,
p. 25760. ISBN 978-0-89579-724-7. $160.00.]
franais project, of which Fiesque is the
second completed publication, we may
wonder: for whom is this series meant?
According to the foreword, written by edi-
torial director Paul Prvost, the series is
based on the model of the great anthologi-
cal collections, and it proposes critical
editions of operas composed between the
[French] Revolution and the First World
War. It includes works that are important
from a musical and theatrical point of view,
or characteristic of a style or genre. The
volumes meet both the scholarly standards
of a critical edition and the practical needs
of theaters and performers. Prvost con-
cludes by claiming that works nearly for-
gotten today owing to the lack of available
editions will be published in company with
masterpieces of French opera whose texts
have often been altered over the years
(p. vii). Indeed a wide range of familiar
and not-so-familiar operas will be issued;
the rst published opera in the series was
Adolphe Adams Le torador ; future projects
include Carmen, Samson et Dalila, and Faust.
If we are to take Macdonalds edition of
Fiesque as an example of the scholarly cal-
iber of Brenreiters Lopra franais proj -
ect, then conductors, scholars, singers, and
lovers of French opera should eagerly antic-
ipate the publication of each volume.
Jacek Blaszkiewicz
Eastman School of Music