Lalo’s Fiesque

Jacek Blaszkiewicz

Notes, Volume 70, Number 3, March 2014, pp. 525-529 (Article)

Published by Music Library AssociationDOI: 10.1353/not.2014.0025

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Music Reviews 525

LALO’S FIESQUE

Édouard Lalo. Fiesque: Grand opéra en trois actes. Édition de HughMacdonald. Édition du livret de Vincent Giroud et Paul Prévost.(L’opéra français.) Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2012. [Foreword in Fre., Eng.,Ger., p. vii–viii; introd. in Fre., Eng., Ger., p. ix–xx; libretto, p. xxi–xxxiv;table des morceaux, p. 1; personnages/orchestre, p. 2; score, p. 3–581;

three beamed eighth-notes, printed as dot-ted quarter followed by a single flaggedeighth-note plus two beamed eighths—maybe disconcerting to readers familiar withBrahms’s score. In the arrangement of theSecond Serenade, the removal of “redun-dant” dynamic indications (acknowledged,however, in the critical notes) fails to recog-nize their role as signals of a newly enteringinstrumental voice. Brahms’s arrangementsof ensemble works also include such multi-ple indications.

What this reviewer wished for most whenexamining this volume was a more compre-hensive reading of the musical texts of theprincipal sources. We learn, for example,that the autograph of the Second Serenadearrangement contains “Numerous correc-tions in black ink and pencil throughout”(source description, p. 87), but it is notpossible to tell whether the “earlier read-ings” transcribed in the critical notes wereemended in pencil or in ink, in one pass orseveral, and by whom. Kregor draws atten-tion to changes in mm. 64–66 of the firstmovement that he suspects are by Brahms(see pp. xvi–xvii and example 7); he de-scribes these as in blue pencil, but they arein regular lead pencil. But he seems not tohave developed a reading of this manuscriptthat would allow him to differentiate be-tween markings by Schumann and sugges-tions by Brahms or possibly others. Onpage 9 of the autograph, shown in plate 3,an alternative reading in pencil for mm.90–93 of the second movement is writtenon blank staves below the last line of score.Kregor identifies this hand as belonging tosomeone other than Clara Schumann (p. xix,n. 50), and hints obliquely that it might beBrahms’s—a suggestion with which this re-viewer is inclined to agree. But given thatthere are other pencil entries in the manu-script, even in the passage immediately pre-ceding the alternative reading on page 9(mm. 83–89)—a number of them consist-ing of cross-outs and other markings thatwould be difficult to assign on their own

merits to any particular person—it is cru-cial that the editor develop and communi-cate to the reader an interpretation of themanuscript evidence as a whole that servesas a framework for his editorial decisions.

These concerns do not take away fromthe fact that this volume is a fascinating ad-dition to the literature on piano arrange-ments, and contains much that will be neweven to scholars specializing in closely re-lated areas. That Clara Schumann ac-quainted herself with Brahms’s new musicthrough his four-hand arrangements,played them both inside and outside thehome with Brahms or family members orfriends, and included some of his virtuosicsolo arrangements in her programs is fairlywell known. Now it is possible to study andplay her own solo renditions of several ofhis orchestral movements. Kregor’s discus-sion (p. xv) of the verse in Plattdeutsch thatSchumann wrote into her autograph of thearrangement of the Menuetto I/II from the First Serenade (presumably at the timeshe wrote out the manuscript) opens afresh perspective on her view of Brahms’smusic that may reward further investiga-tion. The lieder arrangements constitute alargely unfamiliar effort on her part toshape Robert’s legacy. In this respect theycan be examined alongside her judiciousprograming of his compositions in her con-certs and her work on the collected edi-tion, another collaboration with Brahms.The present volume illustrates the role ofher arrangements as music for perfor-mance, honoring a colleague, winning newaudiences to her husband’s compositions,personal study, and playing in the home.Above all it gives us a sense of the tactileand sonic experience Clara Schumann en-joyed as she re-created this music at thekeyboard. And it allows us to bring the music to life, too.

Valerie Woodring GoertzenLoyola University New Orleans

526 Notes, March 2014

Édouard Lalo’s Fiesque is an opera inthree acts, composed between 1866 and1868, but never performed in the com-poser’s lifetime. In fact, Fiesque had itsworld premiere only in 2006, in a concertperformance with Roberto Alagna in the ti-tle role and Alain Altinoglu conducting;the performance was recorded and issuedin 2011 by Deutsche Grammophon, and todate remains the sole recording of the work(DG 476 454-7). Although Lalo is perhapsbest known for his virtuosic Cello Concertoand the Symphonie espagnole, this earlier dra-matic work laid the foundation for the vig-orous rhythmic drive pervading his latercompositions. The opera’s long journeyfrom a scandal-ensuing third-place finish inan 1869 competition to Hugh Macdonald’selegant critical edition for Bärenreiter’sL’opéra français series is worth briefly re-counting here.

Lalo was forty-three when his second wifeJulie-Marie-Victoire Bernier de Maligny,herself a singer, seems to have persuadedher husband to compose a stage work. Lalochose Charles Beauquier, an anti-Imperialpolitician and writer, as the librettist. AsMacdonald notes in the edition’s introduc-tion, it was probably Beauquier’s and Lalo’sshared republican leanings that drew themto Schiller’s Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zuGenua (1782–83) as the material for anopera.

Schiller’s tragedy is based on the conspir-acy led by Giovanni Luigi di Fieschi, Countof Lavagna, against the Genoese rulingfamily of Doria in 1547. Beauquier reducedthe main action of the opera to three con-flicts: the republican Fiesque and his col-leagues are determined to overthrow theruling Dorias, although the actual reasonsfor the overthrow are only briefly stated atthe onset of the opera (p. xvi). Verrina, azealous republican one generation olderthan Fiesque, distrusts his younger compa-triot’s motives and is determined to preventhis rise to power. Finally, Léonore,Fiesque’s wife, is jealous of her husband’sinvolvement with Julie, daughter of AndreaDoria. The Moor Hassan, a basso buffo, ap-pears as the comic character in bothSchiller’s tragedy and Beauquier’s libretto.Hassan is ready to do anyone’s bidding for

money, changing allegiance at the toss of aseguin. As Macdonald observes in an earlier publication entitled “A FiascoRemembered: Fiesque Dismembered” (inSlavonic and Western Music: Essays for GeraldAbraham, ed. Malcolm Hamrick Brown andRoland John Wiley [Ann Arbor, MI: UMIResearch Press; Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1985], 163–85), Lalo characterizesHassan through a staccato vocal line in 68 or34, over a lightly textured accompaniment(see for instance, act 2, pp. 334–44). Hisrapid-fire syllabic declamations recall thoseof Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia, or—tomention an exotic precedent—those ofOsmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

Political revolution served as operaticsubject matter even before the SecondEmpire, in such successful, albeit contro-versial, works as Rossini’s Guillaume Tell andAuber’s La muette de Portici. However, poli-tics could not have been the only determin-ing factor for Beauquier’s and Lalo’schoice of story; Macdonald notes that in1864 Jules Barbier had written a Fiesque li-bretto for Charles Gounod that was neverset to music (p. xiii). Lalo was friendly withthe older composer, even calling upon himto vouch for a production of Fiesque inBrussels. However, nothing came ofGounod’s interventions; in a letter to Lalo’smother-in-law Gounod explained that “atheatre director is in a way constrained tobet on a sure thing; instead of having faithin the public, he caters to them. In otherwords, it is no longer the operator who con-trols the machinery, but the machinery thatcontrols the operator” (Édouard Lalo,Correspondance, ed. Joël-Marie Fauquet[Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1989], 200;my translation). Despite this connectionwith Gounod, the relationship between thetwo Fiesque librettos is left unexplored inMacdonald’s introduction.

Lalo was a year into composing Fiesquewhen Camille Doucet, an administrator ofParisian theaters, announced an operacompetition for the three subsidized operahouses. As Lalo had already begun anopera, he chose the Théâtre-Lyrique, whichallowed a free choice of libretto. Fiesque fin-ished third, while the second and firstprizes went to Gustave Canoby’s five-act La

appendix, p. 585–601; crit. report, p. 603–15; facsims., p. 619–21. ISMN979-0-006-53046-5; pub. no. BA 8703. i623.]

Music Reviews 527

coupe et les lèvres and Jules Philipot’s one-actLe magnifique, respectively. Thinking this re-sult dubious, the composer Paul Lacômewrote a critique of the competition in L’artmusical. But Lacôme’s article was nothingcompared to Beauquier’s virulent open let-ter to the competition’s director. In it hecomplained that the director of theThéâtre-Lyrique chose Philipot’s one-actopera because he “desired to draw the cur-tain only once during the production,”rather than choose a larger, more expen-sive production. The letter was widely dis-cussed in the press (Macdonald cites rele-vant articles in footnotes on p. xiv), butBeauquier had written it without Lalo’sconsent—and to his chagrin.

Lalo failed to secure productions ofFiesque in Paris, Hamburg, and Brussels,and instead oversaw performances of theoverture and selected scenes. In 1872 Lalopublished the vocal score out-of-pocket(source C in Macdonald’s edition), whichincluded a German translation by ArthurLevysohn that was, in the end, never usedin performance. In 1880 Lalo gave Durandthe rights to the vocal score, who printed areissue under the Durand, Schoenewerke& Cie imprint (available on InternationalMusic Score Library Project, http://www.imslp.org; Macdonald does not consider itseparately from the originally published vo-cal score). Durand had also published theoverture in score and parts in 1875, alongwith a four-hand transcription (source B inMacdonald’s edition).

Lalo eventually gave up prospects of see-ing Fiesque on stage; in 1887 he wrote tod’Indy stating that “Fiesque belongs to meand will never be performed because Idon’t like the opera” (p. xvi). Nonetheless,Fiesque was a central node in Lalo’s compo-sitional output: the composer drew on ear-lier composed works while writing it, whilehe reused sections of the opera in manylater compositions. This borrowing and re-cycling of musical material was the mainproject of Macdonald’s aforementioned“Fiesque Dismembered” article. Much of thisarticle’s content was reworked into the in-troduction to the present edition. Nonethe -less, the interested reader is encouraged tohave a look at the earlier study, which fea-tures a scene-by-scene “dismemberment”detailing where musical material originates,how it functions in Fiesque, and where it ap-

pears in the composer’s subsequent output.The most substantial borrowings, Macdonaldnotes, are found in the choral pantomimeNéron and in the unfinished opera Lajacquerie. However, I wish to highlight theone number that links Lalo’s first operawith his more familiar theater work, Le roid’Ys.

In act 2, scene 2, of Fiesque, the epony-mous hero, alone, recalls his love for hiswife Léonore. He then recounts how a vi-sion of glory has fired his ambition; hedreams of power and of becoming doge,acclaimed in triumph by the people. Lalobiographer Georges Servières has notedthat “Le rêve de Fiesque” is dramaturgicallysimilar to Jean de Leyde’s dream of glory inact 2 of Meyerbeer’s Le prophète (GeorgesServières, Édouard Lalo, Les musicienscélèbres [Paris: Henri Laurens, 1925], 28).But neither Macdonald nor this reviewerfind any musical ideas that were borrowedfrom Meyerbeer.

Macdonald has located two full-score ver-sions of Fiesque’s monologue; the earlierversion is reproduced in the volume’s ap-pendix. Additionally, Lalo produced twotransposed versions of this scene, one forcontralto (!) and one for bass (sourcesAC[Rêve]1 and AC[Rêve]2). These lattertwo sources exist only as unpublished auto-graph vocal scores. As Fiesque’s act 2monologue is one of the truly remarkablenumbers of the opera, one would havewished to see at least one of these versionsamong the facsimiles at end of the volume.

Lalo later reworked the first part of themonologue (beginning on p. 296, m. 38)into act 3 of Le roi d’Ys as a marital duet for Rozenn and Mylio. In a letter to A. B. Marcel from May 1889, Lalo explainshis decision to recycle material from his firstopera: “I agreed to insert a duet . . . buttime was short; I was tired, irritated, andunable to compose a single note, so I tooka passage from Fiesque. It is the only conces-sion I made to the singers and I regret it tothis day, since the duet serves no purpose”(p. xv). This recycling of musical materialbegs an old question: does a composer’sreuse of an earlier written fragment of mu-sic undermine that composer’s integrity, orshould we allow the fragment to speak foritself in its newly adopted context? Lalomight have claimed to borrow from himselfout of convenience, but he used the

528 Notes, March 2014

melody in a fundamentally distinct dra-matic situation in his later opera. In Fiesque,the G-major melody appears as a soliloquy;the hero recounts a dream he had thenight before (“Dans le livre de mesamours”). In Le roi d’Ys, the melody ap-pears, also in G major, during Rozenn andMylio’s duet, but here the two lovers are ex-changing vows; they take turns singing themelody, as if it represented the exchangeof marital bands (“À l’autel j’allais rayon-nant!”). This instance of melodic borrow-ing suggests that in opera, the efficacy of amusical passage is intimately related to itsdramaturgical context.

Macdonald’s introduction (given inFrench, English, and German) offers athorough, if brief (four-page) exposition ofLalo’s Fiesque in gratifying detail. Then fol-lows the libretto, only in French, which wasrestored based on the sung text accordingto the score. The lines are numbered foreasy reference. Space likely prevented theprinting of the libretto in translation, butthe reader may turn to the liner notes ofthe Deutsche Grammophon recording foran English translation by John Tyler Tuttle.Macdonald retains the scene divisions fromthe Durand vocal score: acts, tableaux, andArabic numerals for each scene (overture =no. 1, etc.), making it easy to compare thiscritical edition with the earlier vocal score.The critical edition’s score layout is elegantand readable, and can as easily sit on a con-ductor’s podium as on a library table. Thepage never looks cluttered, even in the mosttexturally dense moments in the opera(e.g., the final chorus of act 2, pp. 401–3).There are no variants or footnotes in the ac-tual body of the score, perhaps to stream-line the score’s presentation for perfor-mance needs (Bärenreiter has partsavailable on hire). Corrections and alterna-tions, of which there are few of major sig-nificance, are instead found in the criticalnotes.

Macdonald does not categorize his criti-cal notes by emendations, ambiguities, orsketch discrepancies, as he has previouslydone in the New Berlioz Edition as the editor-in-chief. Nevertheless, the critical notes arelogically presented and intuitively orga-nized. Four pages detail the various sourcesthat were consulted (most of which werefound in Stockholm at the StiftelsenMusikkulturens Framjände, Nyadahl

Collection). Macdonald organizes thenotes using the aforementioned numeralsystem of scenes, while the presence ofmeasure numbers and score excerpts makejumping from the commentary to the scoreeasy. Three facsimiles follow these notes,but as they are uncaptioned, it is unclearwhy these three leaves were chosen overothers.

The student or music lover may wonderif one can easily follow Macdonald’s scorealong with the Deutsche Grammophonrecording. The answer is, unfortunately,no. There are many cuts in the recording(at least twenty-five), ranging from a fewmeasures to entire scenes. For example, thesecond tableau, no. 5a (“Choeur dansé,”pp. 88–112) is entirely omitted from therecording. Lalo does have a tendency todwell on scene-setting choral numbers suchas no. 5a, which merely serves to set thescene of the masquerade where Léonorewill confront Fiesque. Other substantialcuts, however, are more pertinent to thedramatic action and musical development.In act 3, scene 1 (no. 17, p. 453), Fiesque,Verrina, and three groups of conspiratorsare preparing for combat. Léonore sud-denly appears, and all fall silent. Fiesque,seeing her, orders all the conspirators to leave them alone. He tries to calmLéonore, who is alarmed by the prepara-tions, and tells her to hide, as anotherwoman is due to arrive shortly. Lalo writesthe scene as accompanied recitative, inwhich diminished-seventh tremolo chordspervade in the strings. In no. 18 (p. 455),Léonore, alone, guesses that it must be herrival Julie who is due to arrive. Her aria, ina tranquil C major, expresses her longingfor her husband’s love. Lalo later trans-posed this aria for a concert performancegiven on 1872 at the Société nationale(Macdonald’s Source A[Air]). This aria,along with the entire episode betweenFiesque and his wife, is cut from the record-ing without any explanation in the compactdisc’s liner notes.

But these cuts are of no fault of the pres -ent edition. Macdonald’s dedication to re-covering this obscure opera is formidable,beginning with his 1985 article on musicalborrowing in Fiesque, and culminating inthis handsome volume. In placing this edi-tion within the larger context of Bären -reiter’s proposed thirty-five volume L’opéra

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In April and October 1927 Sam Morgan’sJazz Band recorded eight tracks in NewOrleans. These were the band’s only record-ings. Even in jazz circles, Sam Morgan is nota household name, like Louis Armstrong orSidney Bechet or Jelly Roll Morton. But forthose who love jazz, the two Morgan ses-sions are highly regarded as rare and cru-cial representations of how AfricanAmerican jazz continued in New Orleansafter these more famous players left.

This transcription of the completerecorded works of Sam Morgan’s Jazz Bandis a model of how the musicological tradi-tion of scholarly critical editions might beapplied to jazz. In the 1970s, scholars in-volved in the emerging intersection of mu-sicology and jazz were hopeful that eventu-ally there would be many such volumesfunctioning as parallels to editions ofWestern art music, whether completeworks, anthologies of study scores, or criti-cal analyses of particular works. The hope-

ful thinking was wishful thinking. AsAnthony Cummings notes in his preface,the Morgan volume constitutes a major addition to a very small body of such publi-cations: James Dapogny’s edition of thecomplete piano works of Jelly Roll Morton( Jelly Roll Morton, The Collected Piano Mu -sic, ed. James Dapogny [Washington, DC:Smithsonian Institution Press; New York: G. Schirmer, 1982]); Joscelyn Godwin’s edi-tion of the Louis Armstrong and Earl Hinesduo “Weatherbird” from 1928 (SchirmerScores: A Repertory of Western Music, ed.Joscelyn Godwin [New York: SchirmerBooks, 1975], 414–22); three Duke Elling -ton pieces in the Smithsonian Jazz Master -works series edited by Gunther Schuller(Daybreak Express: 1933, Jazz MasterworksEditions, 1 [Washington, DC: SmithsonianInstitution, 1993], Take the “A” Train, JazzMasterworks Editions, 2 [Washington, DC:Smithsonian Institution, 1993], and Sepia Panorama: 1940, Jazz Masterworks

TRANSCRIPTIONS OF EARLY RECORDED JAZZ

Sam Morgan’s Jazz Band. Complete Recorded Works in Transcription.Edited by John J. Joyce Jr., Bruce Boyd Raeburn, and Anthony M.Cummings. (Recent Researches in American Music, 73.) (Music of theUnited States of America, 24.) Middleton, WI: Published for theAmerican Musicological Society by A-R Editions, 2012. [Foreword, p. vii;pref. and acknowledgments, p. ix–xiii; “New Orleans Jazz Styles of the1920s: Sam Morgan’s Jazz Band,” by Bruce Boyd Raeburn, p. xv–xxxiv;apparatus, p. xxxv–li; score, p. 5–255; crit. notes, p. 256; bibliog., p. 257–60. ISBN 978-0-89579-724-7. $160.00.]

français project, of which Fiesque is the second completed publication, we maywonder: “for whom is this series meant?”According to the foreword, written by edi-torial director Paul Prévost, the series is“based on the model of the great anthologi-cal collections,” and it proposes “criticaleditions of operas composed between the[French] Revolution and the First WorldWar. It includes works that are importantfrom a musical and theatrical point of view,or characteristic of a style or genre. Thevolumes meet both the scholarly standardsof a critical edition and the practical needsof theaters and performers.” Prévost con-cludes by claiming that “works nearly for-gotten today owing to the lack of available

editions will be published in company withmasterpieces of French opera whose textshave often been altered over the years” (p. vii). Indeed a wide range of familiarand not-so-familiar operas will be issued;the first published opera in the series wasAdolphe Adam’s Le toréador ; future projectsinclude Carmen, Samson et Dalila, and Faust.If we are to take Macdonald’s edition ofFiesque as an example of the scholarly cal-iber of Bärenreiter’s L’opéra français proj -ect, then conductors, scholars, singers, andlovers of French opera should eagerly antic-ipate the publication of each volume.

Jacek BlaszkiewiczEastman School of Music