The scenario of the Don
Juan ballet by Gluck is roughly the same story as Mozart’s
Don Giovanni with Donna Elvira and Donna Anna conflated
into a single character. The choreographer Angiolini produced
a “ballet d’action” where music, drama, choreography and staging
were fused into a serious dramatic form; the result was huge
success at its premiere in Vienna in 1761. Spain was an Austrian
“province” and there was much artistic as well as political
communication. Besides Gluck, Johann Christoff Mann wrote
Spanish dances into his works at the time.
This music has been one
of my favorite classical pieces from when I first got to know
it fifty years ago on the mono Westminster recording with Rudolf Moralt. Naturally I bought
this Neville Marriner recording at once when it came out on
LP and am delighted to see it available on CD. Nothing else
by Gluck has been able to interest me so much.
Stage action featured demons
carrying real torches flying through the air and real fireworks
on stage! At the end of the third act, the banquet scene,
the statue of the Commandant departs. In the fourth act the
Don appears in the cemetery to “dine” with the Commandant.
Struggling in the statue’s stony grip, the Don refuses to
repent and flying demons catch him up and jump with him into
the fiery pit. At the time Beethoven wrote Creatures of
Prometheus, this Gluck work must have been the greatest
ballet ever written.
The ballet score is divided
into 31 numbers. No. 29 is an exact repeat of No. 26, and
is omitted in this recording; but you can’t program your player
to play No. 26 again in the correct sequence because No. 26
is not put in a separate track of its own. The numbers are
arranged into four acts, the last of which is very short consisting
only of Don Juan’s “devil” music. This music was so popular
in its time that it was frankly copied into Boccherini’s Symphony
in d, Op 12, No. 4, “La Casa del Diavolo” and works by other
composers as well. My generation of listeners remember it
used in the soundtracks of many old “B” movies and radio programs
as background music for the villains’ silently and stealthily
creeping up on the unsuspecting heroes.
The Handel pieces are here
as fillers, very welcome ones indeed. The Ariodante
excerpts feature vigorous dance rhythms, with wind instruments
joining the strings. Handel also used some of this music in
his Trio Sonatas. The Pastor Fido excerpt features
brilliant hunting horn calls. As usual with these Eloquence
releases the sound is exceptionally clear, rich, and wide
range. There is no clue that this recording is forty years
old!
Paul Shoemaker
see also
Review
by Göran Forsling
AVAILABILITY
Buywell
Just Classical
Simon Preston and Colin Tilney, harpsichord continuo
