www.glossamusic.com
It is related that
a military band once passed below the
window of the Scottish composer Sir
Alexander Mackenzie, playing a selection
from a recent operetta of his. Evidently
struck by a familiar turn of phrase,
the composer paused to remark, "You
know, that chap Sullivan does write
some good tunes".
Poor Beethoven, aurally
challenged as he was by the time Sedlak’s
arrangement of a selection from his
only opera was published around 1815,
would have had other reasons for not
recognizing his own music had it been
played under his window by a passing
band. In any case, the themes from this
work are not such as to be easily confused.
All the same, the work is sufficiently
transformed in its character to deceive
a casual listener.
It is interesting to
reflect what sort of idea we might have
of this music if we knew it only
in this form; in Beethoven’s own
time access to a major work like Fidelio
was to be had, unless you lived in one
of the great musical centres, only by
means of domestic arrangements for piano
with maybe an extra instrument or two,
or else these once popular arrangements
for wind band; mindful of this Beethoven
gladly gave his consent to the operation,
though there is no evidence that he
actually gave his assistance.
My own childhood was
sufficiently sheltered, in a boarding
school in rural Kent with a somewhat
limited LP collection, for my first
experiences of some of the great masterworks
to have been in my own heavy-handed
renditions on the piano, either alone
or with an even heavier-handed partner,
and I formed some quite definite ideas
about how I thought these works would
sound on the orchestra – ideas which
were sometimes so wrong that it took
some time to adjust to the reality when
I finally knew it. The hands-on experience
is always to be recommended, but I daresay
it would be almost impossible now for
someone to have his hands-on experience
of a standard work without the
sound of the original orchestration
in his ears.
I think we must be
grateful to Nachtmusique, which Eric
Hoeprich leads from the clarinet, for
not attempting to create with
their slender resources the sort of
ethos, drama and moral fervour which
we all know will be created by even
a middling good performance of Fidelio
in the opera house. Instead they take
it at face value, as players might have
in 1815 who knew it in only this form
and maybe knew nothing of what the opera
was about. So what did these innocents
find?
Well, Sedlak presents
the first act fairly complete and then
becomes progressively more selective.
He wisely does not attempt to transcribe
Pizarro’s ravings to this medium, and
he similarly ignores the finale, concluding
his section with the duet for Leonore
and Florestan. Florestan’s great aria
is shorn of its introduction (which
could never have worked); the last part
is transformed quite amazingly as a
result of having it played comfortably
on the oboe instead of sung by a tenor
reduced to extremes by the cruel tessitura.
It sounds jaunty, good-humoured and
rather charming. And here is the rub;
not only the selection but the general
tone of the arrangement and its performance
give the idea that this must be a delightful,
melodious and listener-friendly opera
without any great pretensions towards
profundity. Whatever did those who knew
it in this form think when they actually
heard a real performance in the theatre?
Another oddity is that
the balance between the instruments
doesn’t always correspond to what we
know to be the correct balance when
the music is sung with an orchestra.
In particular, Sedlak’s habit of giving
the male parts to the bassoon (what
else could he have done?) means that
they sometimes disappear entirely. I
am thinking in particular of the faster
sections of Rocco’s aria where anyone
would think the main point was the flurrying
semiquavers (originally on the violins).
Here again, I would say Nachtmusique
have made the right choice. It would
have been a temptation to have the bassoonist
going flat out and the higher instruments
a tiny pianissimo, and maybe even have
the engineers help out, but here again,
the innocent players of 1815 might just
have supposed that the flurrying semiquavers
were the main point.
So, while I hope this
disc will not fall into the hands of
someone who has never heard Fidelio
in its original form, it offers some
illuminating thoughts for well practised
music lovers.
And it is, in whatever
form, greater music than the early works,
genuinely written for the medium, which
complete the disc. The Sextet has little
but a pleasing mellifluousness to recommend
it and I wondered if the players might
have given it rather more guts. But
on the other hand, the Rondino boasts
an extremely attractive main theme and
here the performance is not found wanting
so perhaps they were right not to try
to find anything extra in the Sextet.
My copy had a few clicks
and pops, though maybe a good clean
is all it needed. Check when you buy
just in case. The recording as such
is good and the helpful notes are in
English, French, German and Spanish
(despite the Dutch players and location,
Glossa is a Spanish-based company).
Christopher Howell
Nachtmusique/Eric Hoeprich 
