Nielsen: Saul and David
Soloists
Danish National Sympbony Orchestra and Choir
Neeme Jarvi
This is the 100th opera in this project. When I started I set myself the task of listening to 100 operas during the year. I didn’t really know how long it would take to get to no 100 but I certainly didn’t expect to arrive at this point by early August. It has been a fascinating experience so far and I will continue the project through to the end of the year and see where I get to = there are plenty of other composers waiting in the wings and I won’t be short of material.
Last year Nielsen’s Maskarade https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/search/label/Nielsen was one of the highlights of my 365 project so I was looking forward to hearing his other opera this time round. I was not disappointed. This was another very impressive work. The two operas are very different. Maskarade is light and airy and fully of delightful folk-inspired music. This opera by contrast is intense and serious. It packs quite a punch from beginning to end and has some impressive climaxes at the end of each act. Perhaps most notable is the choral writing which is thrilling in a way that in some ways in reminiscent (though the styles are quite different) of the chordal music in 19th century Russian Opera. There are some long orchestral interludes and I suspect that on stage the piece might be rather static - the big fugual section is exciting to listen to but might hold up the stage action. But judged purely as an aural experience the opera had me griped from beginning to end.
This is the end of this block of nationalist operas with emphasis on Scandinavian music. I’ve enjoyed exploring a repertoire I knew very little about but it is time to move on. As I look back at the first 100 operas I find that my coverage of 19th century operas had dominated my listening. That is not a great surprised as that a real area of interest for me, but I want to more away from that century for a while. SO for the next block I will look at filling in some of the gaps in 18th century opera.
