Christmas? not! Braunfels Verkündigung medieval mystery for modern times

Christmas music ? Not ! Walter Braunfels  Verkündigung op 50 a medieval mystery play for modern times.  Angels, stars, snow, happy peasants and quaintly volkisch sounds. But no tinsel here, and no false sentiment. Braunfels was writing during the Third Reich.  Hitler loved kitsch medievalism, so Braunfels quietly turned it against him.  Braunfels's Verkündigung is subversion, the composer a resistance fighter in Gothic guise.  A miracle happens at Christmas but this is not religious music.  In this Nativity, the baby is stillborn, brought back from the dead by a mortal woman. God doesn't figure directly and the message isn't redemption.

The text is a loose adaptation of a play by Paul Claudel, an ultra-conservative Catholic and nationalist whose sympathies weren't far off from the Nazis.  Claudel was writing about a period before the emergence of Joan of Arc.  As an icon, Joan is as political as she is saintly. She's a saviour who gets martyred. Braunfels, who was radicalized by his experiences in the First World War, was passionately anti-war and despised dictators and charlatans.  Later, as Europe was again on the verge of war, Braunfels began to write Jeanne d'Arc, Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna . Please read more about that HERE.  So don't assume Braunfels didn't know what he was doing.   Verkündigung is an allegory which makes many potent points. 
Peter von Ulm is an architect who raises money from believers to build cathedrals, symbols of power and unquestioning faith.  Hitler wanted to build whole cities to glorify his 1000 year Reich, seducing architects like Albert Speer.  Although Claudel's translator - not Braunfels himself -  shifted the action in the play from France to the early medieval German city of Speyer, the irony wasn't lost on the composer. Speyer = Speer, and Peter the rock on which grand Churches are built,  Peter von Ulm has a secret: he's a leper and he's infectious.  An angelus rings from Marienberg Tower.  Inspired by the idea of sacrifice, thinking that God will protect her, Violane kisses Peter to comfort him, and contracts his disease.  Violane's family and her fiancé, Jakobäus, think she's been unchaste and throw her out.

Years pass. It's Christmas Eve in Rothestein.  A cathedral is being built.  It's snowing and the peasants are celebrating the coming of the King, in every sense.  Braunfels’s writing is vivid.  Robust mock medieval instrumentation and jolly peasant dance, fuelled  by too much Pfälzerwein. "Weihnacht, tralla, Weihnacht tralla...... der Starmetz friert, brrrr, brrrr, brrrr!". Meanwhile, Violane is a hermit, having caught leprosy from Peter, and blind.  Her sister Mara's baby is dead.  Though Mara had betrayed Violane years before, now she wants Violaneto resurrect   the corpse.  Though Violane doesn't have supernatural powers, she hears the sounds of Christmas bells, though her sister can't.   Braunfels writes Violane’s part so the voice shimmers, as if the woman were being beatified by the orchestra around her. Fascinating music, pulsating with obssessive rhythms, the trumpets swathed by a celestial choir. Violane's voice soars upwards, in ecstasy, the choirs swirling round her.  Magnificent! 

A miracle happens. But the dead child is reborn with blue eyes like Violane, not brown eyes like Mara !  So Mara throws Violane down a cliff, where she dies.  Peter von Ulm carries her body: Having been cured by Violane's kiss, he is now immune to catching the disease again. Violane is returned to her father's home, but that's not much help, since she's dead herself.  Nobody gets out of this well, except perhaps Peter von Ulm, who has learned by Violane's selfless example. Although parallels are often drawn between Verkündigung and Hindemith Mathis der Maler,  (artists and architects) there are also parallels with Parsifal . "Durch Mitglied wissen...."   Is Violane an artist, too, her art the art of self-transcending compassion ? 

The recording to get is the one made for BR Klassik, with Ulf Schirmer conducting the Münchner Rundfunksorkester. Juliane Banse sings a rapturous Violane. I've been listening to her for years, and this is outstanding. Janina Baenchle sings Mara, Matthias Klink sings Peter von Ulm and Robert Holl sings Andreas Gradherz.  When this BR Klassik performance was mooted, the long-deleted recording from 1992. conducted by Russell Davies in Cologne, was re-issued. Though the singers on that are good, orchestrally it's less focused, the sound quality isn't conducive to concentrated listening. Schirmer and his forces bring out so much depth that their recording is the one to go for. 



Please read my many other posts on Walter Braunfels and composers of this period.

Dante the opera, Palazzetto Bru Zane

Benjamin Godard's opera Dante rarely heard but causing quite a sensation.  In January this year, it was heard at the Prinzregententheater, Munich, and later at the Opéra Royal de Versailles, Paris, and broadcast throughout Europe.  What a delight!  This was the first performance odf a modern edition of the orchestral score, produced by the  Palazetto Bru Zane.

Godard (1849-1895), like many French composers, resisted Wagner and the cult of Bayreuth.  Dante (1890) is lyrical drama in the French tradition,  a fin de siècle descendant of Massenet, Thomas  and Gounod, though not  a precursor of Debussy, whose Pelléas et Mélisande was to premiere only seven years after Godard's early death 12 years later.   Dante and The Divine Comedy are so well known, there's no point rehashing them here. Godard's Dante , though,  is also interesting because it suggests a connection between Dante and Goethe's Faust.  In this Dante we can hear echoes of Gounod's Faust, of Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust and even of Boito's Mefistofele: All are part of an interest in the Gothic Imagination and its fascination for the demonic and macabre beneath-surface lushness.  One might also consider Baudelaire Les Fleurs du Mal and the etchings of Gustav Doré, which I've used here.

While Godard certainly can whip up a beautiful storm, helped by the exceptionally good performance,  Véronique Gens is easily the finest specialist in late French Romantic repertoire,and brings the very tricky role of Béatrice to life with the lustrous timbre of her voice, and the poise with which she negotiates the range in the part.  No wonder Dante would go through hell for her!  Béatrice (and Gens) so dominate this opera that it would be hard to imagine a performance without the beauty of Gens's singing.  The rest of the cast is superb too. Edgaras Montvidas sings Dante, Rachel Frankel sings Gemma (Béatrice's friend), and Andrew Foster Williams sings the Shade of Virgil.  Ulf Schirmer conducts the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. All too often rarities like Dante are spoiled by mediocre, lacklustre performances  by conductors who rely on the fact that audiences don't have a point of reference, and fall for the safe and bland, which doesn't do the music justice. Godard isn't a genius, which is all the more why this performance is so good. Ulf Schirmer isn't the kind of conductor who gets away with things because he has no competition.  Everything I've heard him conduct is geared towards the specifics that make a composer individual.  Not all that many condutors have that gift. Palazzetto Bru Zane is to be congratulated on going for the best, without compromise.  This Godard Dante is being released on CD, An essential purchase, I think.

Please read the notes prepared by the Palazzetto Bru Zane, HERE. probably the best source so far on the composer and on the opera. I quote "Godard’s opera, composed in 1890, skilfully juxtaposes political developments – crowd scenes in Florence and the feud between Guelphs and Ghibellines – and the expression of medieval courtly love. In the opera Gemma, a young girl married to the protagonist out of duty and then abandoned, becomes the close friend of the beloved woman, Beatrice, of whom she is also the secret rival. The most remarkable aspect of this opera, though, is the insertion of a ‘Vision’, a kind of synthesis of the Divine Comedy set to music. Act three thus ranges between an imaginary Hell and Paradise, with sections bearing titles such as Apparition de Virgile Chœur des Damnés, Tourbillon infernal, Divine Clarté, and Apothéose de Béatrice . Godard here appears at the peak of his melodic inspiration and his overall compositional mastery, in a style that swings between Gounod and Massenet. The vocal quintet called for in the opera perfectly captures all the heroic and expressive potential of singers well-versed in Wagner and Verdi."