The Fredösphere

Brahms' Nänie.  Painfully beautiful, which is to say, everything Mahler wanted to be, but became only 90% of, which is still saying a lot.  That opening three-chord gesture defines the emotional landscape with admirable economy.  So how did this classicist manage to get himself born into the Romantic era?

Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings.  I knew from Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Britten that the Serenade was a major work, but you never hear of recordings or performances of it, so I took forever to look it up.  I downloaded it last week from iTunes, and was stunned.  Here, Britten digs very deep emotionally, which is to say, he achieves the ideal of romantic art, which need have nothing to do with mush, or even lush.  Wow.  You've got to hear this music.

Richard Strauss' big works for a cappella choir.  Since I can claim to have heard the Deutsche Motette in live performance (Eric Ericson's choir once came to town and sang it) as well as in a recording, I feel confident to judge this piece.  My verdict:  an admirable failure.  Perhaps one can make an orchestra of voices, but not by this method.  Sixteen parts plus soloists make for confusion, especially if the parts are deployed somehow without creating a full, solid solid.  Very strange, hearing each vocal line elbowing its way past the others.  Strauss' other big choral pieces (Der Abend, Hymne, and Die Göttin im Putzzimmer) work better, but the extreme vocal ranges involved guarantee they will be rarely, and disappointingly, performed.  Ah well, he -- and we -- will always have Also Sprach Zarathustra.