Zemlinsky: The Mermaid
Schreker: The Birthday of the Infanta
Vasily Petrenko / Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Onyx)
(scroll down for English review)
V佩特連科本月有兩張新碟，第一張是和利物浦愛樂的兩首奧地利後浪漫管弦樂曲，都是取材自童話，寫於1900至1910年間。佔三分二篇幅是哲林斯基《美人魚》（軌一至三），它是三樂章接近50分鐘的交響詩，在演出三次後被哲林斯基撤回，沒有出版，後來手稿散失幾十年後，在1980年代尋回，至今已取代《抒情交響曲》成為哲林斯基最常演奏的作品。
哲林斯基本來想把安徒生童話的情節盡量以音樂表達，但愈寫就愈來愈自由，也沒有幾多劇情可以重構。若對哲林斯基感到陌生，抱着聽馬勒的心態或者是試聽此曲一個好藉口，不過聽下去你就會發覺又不怎像馬勒，但還是很浪漫的音樂。我覺得一種聽法，就是當它是剛與柔、衝突及濃情的兜兜轉轉。
現在我才知《美人魚》是和荀伯格《佩利雅斯與梅麗桑》（交響詩，德布西那齣是歌劇）一起首演。荀伯格那首作品我很喜歡，而它比《美人魚》長度相若，少幾分鐘而已。兩者相比，《佩》的劇力較強，又更巧妙地用幾個代表角色的主題動機或旋律，玩出一首四十分鐘的交響詩出來，不過《美人魚》是另一種聽法，絕少不美或遲滯的段落。
舒雷克爾《西班牙公主的生日》（軌四至15）則是三十分鐘的默劇，改編自王爾德的童話，是個癩蛤蟆食天鵝肉的故事。侏儒為十二歲的公主跳舞後再被邀請去表演，就以為被她愛上，結果他第一次照鏡見到自己的恐怖模樣，驚嚇／羞愧而死。無獨有偶，哲林斯基後來也把這個故事寫成歌劇《侏儒》。
相比起《美人魚》的四管大樂隊，《西班牙公主的生日》只是雙管編制，而且分成十來個樂章，每個兩三分鐘，所以比《美人魚》緊湊一點，曲風也有點預示了日後的新古典主義。野心明顯較低的音樂，亦有佳句，例如軌八「木偶」及軌13「公主的玫瑰」都有柔情的段落。
There are two releases from Vasily Petrenko this month. The first one is two Austrian post-Romantic orchestral pieces written in the 1900s. Both were based on fairy tales. Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid (tracks 1-3) is a three-movement symphonic poem lasting about 50 minutes. He retracted the score after three performances. The manuscript was thought lost, but it was rediscovered in the 1980s. Since then it has replaced the Lyric Symphony as the most-played Zemlinsky piece in this century.
Zemlinsky set out to compose music to correspond to sections of the story but the form eventually became looser, until Zemlinsky gave up following a programme. If you find it hard to follow such a long piece, I’d suggest listening to it as the ups and downs of power and tenderness, or confrontation and passion.
I didn’t know until now that The Mermaid was first performed on the same concert with Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande, a favourite of mine. I’m still amazed by Schoenberg’s ability to base a 40-minute dramatic-symphonic work on several leitmotifs. The Mermaid lacked such cohesiveness but it rarely had an ugly or sluggish moment.
Schreker’s The Birthday of the Infanta (tracks 4-15) is a pantomime based on Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale. Zemlinsky later wrote the opera The Dwarf, on the same story of a dwarf’s infatuation with a 12-year old princess.
While The Mermaid was written for a large orchestra of quadruple woodwinds, The Birthday of the Infanta only used a very modest orchestra of double woodwinds. It also has a tighter structure of roughly 12 movements in 30 minutes. It is less ambitious but still delightful, you may savour the tender moments of The Marionettes (track 8) or the White Rose of the Infanta (track 13)