Operatic suites

[lordlance]

I strongly dislike vocal music but I am well aware of how glorious the orchestral music can be (Wagner is simply beautiful) and I am also aware that there's an entire industry of arranging operatic music into purely orchestral suites (a large one for Janacek too apparently as Dave pointed out.) So to discover all composers whose perhaps best music was written in operas which I would never otherwise hear (like Janacek actually), what are some discs that you recommend for people like me? I didn't know for example just how fervent the music of Elektra was before hearing Honeck and Pittsburgh perform the orchestral suite.

I've made a Spotify playlist of operatic suites: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/12pd5rwfAeq1m23JsKwf8m?si=c8af4ee826ef4930

There's a YouTube playlist of LPs of operatic suites that I don't believe have been issued on CD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkgB4abdeVc&list=PL1gAgJIplj-nQTi1K1ZxC3-I1tcOUvxbY&index=1

[Spotted Horses]

I find myself interested when a composer forms a symphonic work from his or her own stage work. These can be excerpts, suites, or even symphonies constructed from themes in a stage work. I'm not so interested in works adapted from stage works by others.

[Jo498]

I'd start with the suites that have been commonly extracted for a long time, namely Bizet: Carmen and several by Rimsky-Korsakov (Tsar Saltan, Invisible city of Kitesh, Christmas Eve, Snow maiden...)

Otherwise, I'd recommend getting used to vocal classical music; it's plausible that many people nowadays struggle with it because they have been conditioned by different vocal styles since their earliest childhood but one can come to like and appreciate it.

[Roasted Swan]

I find myself interested when a composer forms a symphonic work from his or her own stage work. These can be excerpts, suites, or even symphonies constructed from themes in a stage work. I'm not so interested in works adapted from stage works by others.

I understand that the concern mght be that in some way this is not "authentic" music by the composer but worth remembering that a lot of the time these suites were arranged by friends/colleagues in collaboration - so there is the well-known Rosenkavalier Suite that is not by Strauss' 'hand' but with his consent.  Robert Russell-Bennett's Porgy & Bess is another (although of course Gershwin preferred his own Catfish Row suite.....).  There are many fine suites that the composer had nothing to do with so there is a risk of depriving yourself of hearing great music by on overly strict application of that "rule" I think.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I love this 2-CD set (also available as a DVD) of Janacek's music.  It includes some of his incidental music as well as pieces like the overture to Jealousy and also non-vocal works like Taras Bulba.

https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-10333/

PD

[Florestan]

I'd recommend getting used to vocal classical music

This. Opera is first and foremost about singing.

[Florestan]

to discover all composers whose perhaps best music was written in operas which I would never otherwise hear

I'm afraid there are no symphonic suites extracted from, say, Cimarosa, Mozart, Weber, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Massenet, Gounod, Tchaikovsky, Glinka...

[Pohjolas Daughter]

There are various recordings which are kind of synopses of Wagner's Ring Cycle which might be a nice way for you to start exploring them.  Perhaps others here could recommend their favorites?  I know that Klemperer did one (found it on youtube).

PD

[lordlance]

This. Opera is first and foremost about singing.

A decade of trying to enjoy vocal music is enough for me to throw my hat in. Better ways to spend my time - better music to listen to than trying music I find intolerable. Besides opera suites exists for many pieces and Liszt's transcriptions are also fun.

[Mandryka]

Check Marc Minkowski -- there's a Rameau suite and maybe others. La symphonie Imaginaire.

For Wagner the old one, highly regarded, is Stokowski -- things he called "symphonic syntheses"

In Alton Towers there used to be an unforgettable dancing fountains feature with coloured lights etc, and this sort of music playing.

[Florestan]

A decade of trying to enjoy vocal music is enough for me to throw my hat in. Better ways to spend my time - better music to listen to than trying music I find intolerable.

Of course. We all like what we like, period.

[Spotted Horses]

I understand that the concern mght be that in some way this is not "authentic" music by the composer but worth remembering that a lot of the time these suites were arranged by friends/colleagues in collaboration - so there is the well-known Rosenkavalier Suite that is not by Strauss' 'hand' but with his consent.  Robert Russell-Bennett's Porgy & Bess is another (although of course Gershwin preferred his own Catfish Row suite.....).  There are many fine suites that the composer had nothing to do with so there is a risk of depriving yourself of hearing great music by on overly strict application of that "rule" I think.

It is not so much a concern for authenticity. It's mostly experience - I have not found orchestral excerpts from stage works terribly satisfying, the exception being when the piece is a self-contained interlude (Britten's sea interludes) or when the composer has woven the music into a self-contained new work (Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony). Probably this is related to the fact that I am mainly attracted to thematic development in classical music, rather than melodies.

[DavidW]

I had a student that had such intolerance for vocal music... until he discovered Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and then the door was opened!  So you never know what will open the door.  No matter how much you think you dislike something, keep an open mind.

[Spotted Horses]

I had a student that had such intolerance for vocal music... until he discovered Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and then the door was opened!  So you never know what will open the door.  No matter how much you think you dislike something, keep an open mind.

I always have found the operatic singing style to be unattractive. Generally the vocal music that I enjoy involves a small scale ensemble, Bach, Mozart, neoclassical modern works. In Wagner I tolerate the singing because I have no choice if I want to hear the music.

[Mapman]

I'm afraid there are no symphonic suites extracted from, say, Cimarosa, Mozart, Weber, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Massenet, Gounod, Tchaikovsky, Glinka...

But for some composers (like Mozart), there is Harmoniemusik (wind octets) from the operas. I've recently been enjoying this CD:

[Mandryka]

There are tons of these things.  I suppose they're not very hard to do and popular too.

Rosenkavelier suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxrmLsG7dPY&ab_channel=hr-Sinfonieorchester%E2%80%93FrankfurtRadioSymphony

Carmen suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFccAm9C8hk&ab_channel=miljkmi

Boheme Suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFccAm9C8hk&ab_channel=miljkmi


Pelleas suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpl_kIpKLzU&ab_channel=WDRKlassik

Parsifal Suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXcsEPAmFRM&ab_channel=AndrewGourlay

New Age Fusion Cosi fan Tutte suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRxFWdxWhUQ&ab_channel=Mozart2you

[Florestan]

a small scale ensemble, Bach, Mozart

Well, I'm puzzled. Matthaeus-Passion, Christmas Oratorio, Mass in B minor are not exactly small scale; nor are Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte or Le nozze di Figaro. 

[Florestan]

Carmen suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFccAm9C8hk&ab_channel=miljkmi

Boheme Suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFccAm9C8hk&ab_channel=miljkmi

Both are abominations. Listening to them is like smelling a rose while wearing a gas mask. 

[Florestan]

But for some composers (like Mozart), there is Harmoniemusik (wind octets) from the operas. I've recently been enjoying this CD:

Sure, that was common practice back then* and a very practical one: for some people it was either the only way to hear operatic music or a way to foretaste it. Ditto for the countless operatic fantasies and variations of the early to middle Romantic era, Liszt and Thalberg first and foremost.

I enormously enjoy this kind of stuff myself.

The title of that CD is misleading, though: AFAIK, the wind band arrangements of Mozart's operas were not his own work.

*and not only back then, I vividly remember that as a child my parents took me on Sunday strolls in the oldest Bucharest public garden (opened 1854) where a wind band always played operatic pot-pourris (not that at the time I had any idea what they were playing, but in retrospect I'm positively sure that's exactly what they were playing, alongside waltzes, marches and polkas). 

[Mandryka]

Both are abominations. Listening to them is like smelling a rose while wearing a gas mask. 

What a party pooper you are! Imagine the music playing with dancing fountains like these.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6-FzFhclPc&ab_channel=zephyrgoose