Concert Scenes, lyric scenes, dramatic scenas, concert arias etc. for men?

[Guido]

Sibelius' Luonnater, Barber's Knoxville and Andromache's Farewell, Britten's Phaedra, Bliss' The Enchantress, Berg's Der Wein, not to mention those by Mozart - the repertoire of concert scenas/arias for soprano and orchestra is rich with truly great examples, but I can't seem to find any for male voices - what am I missing, and is it a rarer genre? I'm not really talking about song cycles, or multi-movement cantatas - lot's of those for male voice and orchestra, but pieces of the type listed above.

[pjme]

Dietrich Fischer Dieskau in

Karl Amadeus Hartmann : Gesangsszene - a masterpiece IMO.

Frank Martin : Trois fragments de l'opéra "Der Sturm" (1952-1954) Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau (baryton), Berliner Philharmoniker/composer and Sechs Monologue aus Jedermann (1943) - just beautiful and deeply moving!

Charles Koechlin : Le chant de Kala Nag from Junglebook - a stunning heroic "aria" for tenor & orchestra!

P.

[Guido]

Thank you so much! I thought no one was going to answer/there weren't any!

I do in fact have the Hartmann already but amazingly have never heard it (I adore the symphonies). Cheers for the heads up.

I'll look for the others too.

[knight66]

Try Diepenbrock:

Wenige wissen das Geheimnis der Liebe
Composed by Alphons Diepenbrock
Performed by Hague Philharmonic Orchestra
with Christoph Homberger
Conducted by Hans Vonk


Im grossen Schweigen
Composed by Alphons Diepenbrock
Performed by Hague Philharmonic Orchestra
with Robert Holl
Conducted by Hans Vonk

I think these major orchestral songs, scenes if you like, are available on a Chandos double CD recently issued. The original disc consisted of four songs, two sung by a contralto.

They are gravely beautiful.

Lelio by Berlioz is a bit of a hybrid piece, he was always experimenting with form. The tenor is the only soloist, backed by chorus and orchestra.

I am sure there are others, I will have a think. But you are right, no dramatic scenes for Rob Roy or Hercules; dozens for any old Lucretia or Phaedra.

Mike

[zamyrabyrd]

Sibelius' Luonnater, Barber's Knoxville...but I can't seem to find any for male voices...

"Knoxville", interesting, the words originally written by James Agee, so why can't a tenor do this? After all, the alto part in "Lied von der Erde" is sung at times by baritone. Just a thought...

Zb

[Egebedieff]

Guido, I had attempted to respond to your earlier request, but I hadn't used the chat feature, so it looks as if what I typed wasn't received. The only things that came to mind for me were the Schoenberg Survivor from Warsaw/Ode to Napoleon (but that doesn't exactly fit the bill) and  Henze's  El Cimarrón and Essay on Pigs, but both are not quite concert arias either.

"Knoxville", interesting, the words originally written by James Agee, so why can't a tenor do this? After all, the alto part in "Lied von der Erde" is sung at times by baritone. Just a thought...

Zb

That was my thought too about 25 years ago.

I had mentioned my transposition (piano, not orch) of Knoxville for baritone in the Steber thread. There are only a few spots that I felt weren't optimal for baritone, but when I transposed it, I didn't attempt to alter any of those passages. After my son's voice is a little further on, I'm hoping he'll take an interest in it, but he needs a good deal more technique.
'

[Wendell_E]

"Knoxville", interesting, the words originally written by James Agee, so why can't a tenor do this? After all, the alto part in "Lied von der Erde" is sung at times by baritone. Just a thought...

Zb

Anthony Dean Griffey has sung Knoxville, and according to his website was the first tenor to do so (in 2004).  I notice that the Wikipedia article on the piece says that Anthony Rolfe Johnson has done it, but I'm guessing they've confused their tenor Anthonys.

[Drasko]

Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Airs sur les Stances du Cid

Settings of three stanzas from Corneille's Le Cid for haute-contre (french high tenor) and basso continuo.

[Anne]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PYt2HlBuyI


The Pearl Fishers' Duet here sung by Jussi Bjorling and Robert Merrill is quite famous.

[pjme]

There's more frank Martin: the early (ca 1910) Poèmes païens for bar. & large orch. Jose Van dam recorded it for Forlane - but that Cd will be OOP.

Alexander Goehr's Death of Mozes has an important baritone part..I think, but I've never heard the piece.

Both Ravel and Ibert wrote chansons inspired by Don Quichotte et Dulcinée ( orchestra and piano versions)

André Jolivet :  Les trois complaintes du soldat (1940) for "middle voice" and orchestra or piano . recorded by Pierre Bernac and Charles Munch. ( Cascavelle)
Zoltan Kodaly : a ca 10 min scene for bar. and orch . "Katie kadar" ( used to be availble on Hungaroton/ coupled with The spinning room)
Britten's Illuminations can be sung by a tenor
RVW's Five mystical songs
Ernest Bloch Psalm 22 for baritone and orchestra

P.

[Gabriel]

There are two delightful arias by Beethoven on texts by Goethe's Claudine von Villa Bella: Prüfung des Küssens, WoO 89, and Mit Mädeln sich vertragen, WoO 90. Both are very enjoyable works.

[jochanaan]

Benjamin Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.

Slightly different "scene:" Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait.  Not a singing part, but a very effective men's speaking part, best when done by a black man with a deep bass voice like William Warfield or James Earl Jones.

Along the same lines: Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, an impressive sprechstimme part.  Boulez has recorded it with the BBC Symphony and speaker Gunther Reich, and I suspect there are several other recordings out there somewhere...