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Albert Herring

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Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra . Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith 's Cardillac (1926). Earlier small-scale operas such as Pergolesi 's La serva padrona (1733) are sometimes known as chamber operas.

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38-523: Albert Herring , Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten . Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera The Rape of Lucretia . The libretto , by Eric Crozier , was based on Guy de Maupassant 's novella Le Rosier de Madame Husson , with the action transposed to an English setting. After having composed and staged The Rape of Lucretia , Britten decided he should attempt

76-470: A "Big White Something" has been found in a well, and the village worthies file in to break the news en masse that Albert's crown of flowers has been discovered, crushed by a cart. A lengthy threnody of grief follows, but is interrupted by the surprise return of Albert. He thanks the Festival Committee for funding his night out. They, in turn, are outraged by his tale of drunken debauchery and leave in

114-475: A "wandering chord [vagierender Akkord]... it can come from anywhere". After summarizing the above analyses Nattiez asserts that the context of the Tristan chord is A minor, and that analyses which say the key is E major or E ♭ minor are " wrong ". He privileges analyses of the chord as on the second degree (II). He then supplies a Wagner-approved analysis, that of Czech professor Carl Mayrberger who "places

152-459: A Madman (1958) is scored for four voices and an orchestra of single strings , woodwind and brass , with two percussionists . An electronic tape is also specified to produce particular sound effects . Judith Weir 's King Harald's Saga (1979) is for a single soprano voice. This article about an opera or opera-related subject is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Tristan chord The original Tristan chord

190-539: A Schenkerian perspective, does not see the G ♯ as an appoggiatura because the melodic line (G ♯ –A–A ♯ –B) ascends to B, making the A a passing note . This ascent by minor third is mirrored by the descending line (F–E–D ♯ –D), a descent by minor third, making the D ♯ , like A ♯ , an appoggiatura. This makes the chord a diminished seventh chord (G ♯ –B–D–F). Serge Gut argues that, "if one focuses essentially on melodic motion, one sees how its dynamic force creates

228-668: A comedy, preferably set in England. Crozier suggested adapting the Maupassant short story Le rosier de Madame Husson and transplanting it to the Suffolk landscape already familiar to Britten from his home in Snape. Britten composed Albert Herring at his home, The Old Mill at Snape, in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947. He scored the opera for the same instrumental forces he had used in his first chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia , intending it like

266-500: A common half-diminished seventh chord . What distinguishes the Tristan chord is its unusual relationship to the implied key of its surroundings. This motif also appears in measures 6, 10, and 12, several times later in the work, and at the end of the last act. Martin Vogel  [ de ] points out the "chord" in earlier works by Guillaume de Machaut , Carlo Gesualdo , J. S. Bach , Mozart , Beethoven , or Louis Spohr as in

304-588: A composition based on the Tristan chord. The work, for harmonica and piano was recorded on the CD Especiaria , released in Brazil by the Biscoito Fino label. Additionally, New York-based composer Dalit Warshaw 's narrative concerto for piano and orchestra, Conjuring Tristan , employs the Tristan chord in exploring the themes of Thomas Mann 's novella Tristan through Wagner's music. The prelude of Wagner's opera

342-528: A huff. Albert finally stands up to his mother and invites the village children into the shop to enjoy some fruit at his expense. Albert Herring is a musically complex work, despite its somewhat light-hearted subject matter. The text is genuinely humorous, and the score, while matching the text in character, includes myriad musical quotations as well as some complex forms. Like Peter Grimes and other works by Britten, this opera explores society's reaction to an odd individual, although, in this case at least, it

380-429: A sense of an appoggiatura each time, that is, at the beginning of each measure, creating a mood both feverish and tense ... thus in the soprano motif, the G ♯ and the A ♯ are heard as appoggiaturas, as the F and D ♯ in the initial motif." The chord is thus a minor chord with an added sixth (D–F–A–B) on the fourth degree (IV), though it is engendered by melodic waves. Allen first identifies

418-417: A tonal organization". Much has been written about the Tristan chord's possible harmonic functions or voice leading and the motif has been interpreted in various ways. Though enharmonically equivalent to the half-diminished seventh chord F (F–A ♭ –C ♭ –E ♭ ), the Tristan chord can also be interpreted in many ways. Nattiez distinguishes between functional and nonfunctional analyses of

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456-423: A young man in town who is as certainly virginal as the girls are not: Albert Herring. Working at the greengrocer's, Albert is teased for his timidity by the easygoing butcher Sid. Sid's girlfriend Nancy comes in to do some shopping, and the couple shares a tender moment while Albert looks on. The lovers leave, and Albert reflects on his miserable existence under his mother's thumb. The Festival Committee arrives with

494-449: Is from a generally humorous and lighthearted perspective. Some of Britten's contemporaries saw in the title character a satirical self-portrait of the composer. There are five audio recordings of Albert Herring and one DVD recording, with the following artists: Notes Additional sources Chamber opera Other 20th-century examples include Gustav Holst 's Savitri (1916). Benjamin Britten wrote works in this category in

532-465: Is heard in the opening phrase of Richard Wagner 's opera Tristan und Isolde as part of the leitmotif relating to Tristan. It is made up of the notes F, B, D ♯ , and G ♯ : More generally, the term refers to any chord that consists of the same intervals : augmented fourth , augmented sixth , and augmented ninth above a bass note . The notes of the Tristan chord are not unusual; they could be respelled enharmonically to form

570-421: Is in its move away from traditional tonal harmony , and even toward atonality . With this chord, Wagner actually provoked the sound or structure of musical harmony to become more predominant than its function , a notion that was soon explored by Debussy and others. In the words of Robert Erickson , "The Tristan chord is, among other things, an identifiable sound, an entity beyond its functional qualities in

608-477: Is run ragged. Her mistress Lady Billows is organising the annual May Day festival and has gathered all the important people of the village to elect the May Queen . But Florence has dug up dirt on every single girl nominated, proving that none is worthy to wear the once-much-coveted crown. Lady Billows is depressed. Superintendent Budd suggests that the solution may be to select, this year, a May King instead. He knows of

646-805: The 1940s when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small performance spaces. The Rape of Lucretia (1946) was his first example in the genre, and Britten followed it with Albert Herring (1947), The Turn of the Screw (1954) and Curlew River (1964). Other composers, including Hans Werner Henze , Harrison Birtwistle , Thomas Adès , George Benjamin , William Walton , and Philip Glass have written in this genre. Instrumentation for chamber operas vary: Britten scored The Rape of Lucretia for eight singers with single strings and wind with piano, harp and percussion. Humphrey Searle 's The Diary of

684-891: The Opéra de Normandie in Rouen (2009);and, for 2010, at the Landestheater in Linz, the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki and the Santa Fe Opera . The Santa Fe production was given by the Los Angeles Opera in 2011. Vancouver Opera presented the work, in a co-production with Pacific Opera Victoria, in 2013. Australian television aired a live performance in 1959. This was at a time when Australian TV productions were rare. Housekeeper Florence Pike

722-552: The Tristan motive, as either i ii ♯ 643 [French sixth: F–B–D ♯ –A] V7 or as VI (iv) (vii ♯ 64 ♯ 2) [ altered pre-dominant : F–B–D ♯ –G ♯ ] V7, both in A minor, concluding that while both interpretations have strong expectation or attraction, that the version with G ♯ is the stronger progression. Nonfunctional analyses are based on structure (rather than function), and are characterized as vertical characterizations or linear analyses. Vertical characterizations include interpreting

760-749: The century" and in 1983 staged Albert Herring as part of the December Nights Festival at Moscow's Pushkin Museum . The opera was performed at Buenos Aires's Teatro Colón in 1972. The Chicago premiere was given by Chicago Opera Theater in 1979. In 2008–2010, over 55 performances were given by companies such as those at Glyndebourne and the Portland Opera in Oregon (2008 season); the Opéra-Comique in Paris and

798-500: The chord as an atonal set, 4–27 ( half-diminished seventh chord ), then "elect[s] to place that consideration in a secondary, even tertiary position compared to the most dynamic aspect of the opening music, which is clearly the large-scale ascending motion that develops in the upper voice, in its entirety a linear projection of the Tristan Chord transposed to level three, g ♯ ′–b′–d″–f ♯ ″. Schoenberg describes it as

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836-541: The chord in his scores for Vertigo (1958) and Tender is the Night (1962). Christian Thielemann , the music director of the Bayreuth Festival from 2015–20, discussed the Tristan chord in his book, My Life with Wagner : the chord "is the password, the cipher for all modern music. It is a chord that does not conform to any key, a chord on the verge of dissonance", and "The Tristan chord does not seek to be resolved in

874-404: The chord on the second degree, and interprets the G ♯ as an appoggiatura . But above all, Mayrberger considers the attraction between the E and the real bass F to be paramount, and calls the Tristan chord a Zwitterakkord (an ambiguous, hybrid, or possibly bisexual or androgynous, chord), whose F is controlled by the key of A minor, and D ♯ by the key of E minor". The chord and

912-410: The chord's root as on the seventh degree (VII), of F ♯ minor. Linear analyses include that of Noske and Schenker was the first to analyze the motif entirely through melodic concerns. Schenker and later Mitchell compare the Tristan chord to a dissonant contrapuntal gesture from the E minor fugue of The Well-Tempered Clavier , Book I. William Mitchell, viewing the Tristan chord from

950-409: The chord. Functional analyses have interpreted the chord in the key of A minor in many ways: Vincent d'Indy analyses the chord as a IV chord after Riemann's transcendent principle (as phrased by Serge Gut : "the most classic succession in the world: Tonic, Predominant, Dominant" ) and rejects the idea of an added "lowered seventh", eliminates "all artificial, dissonant notes, arising solely from

988-494: The closest consonance, as the classic theory of harmony requires; [it] is sufficient unto itself, just as Tristan and Isolde are sufficient unto themselves and know only their love." More recently, American composer and humorist Peter Schickele crafted a tango around the Tristan prelude, a chamber work for four bassoons entitled Last Tango in Bayreuth . The Brazilian conductor and composer Flavio Chamis wrote Tristan Blues ,

1026-425: The earlier opera for performance by the English Opera Group . The opera premiered on 20 June 1947 at Glyndebourne , conducted by the composer. According to one writer, the owner and founder of Glyndebourne, John Christie , "disliked it intensely and is said to have greeted members of the first night audience with the words: 'This isn't our kind of thing, you know'." Some 38 years later Glyndebourne's 1985 production

1064-412: The figure surrounding it is well enough known to have been parodied and quoted by a number of later musicians. Debussy includes the chord in a setting of the phrase je suis triste in his opera Pelléas et Mélisande . Debussy also jokingly quotes the opening bars of Wagner's opera several times in "Golliwogg's Cakewalk" from his piano suite Children's Corner . Benjamin Britten slyly invokes it at

1102-559: The following example from the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18 : The chord is found in several works by Chopin , from as early as 1828, in the Sonata in C minor, Op. 4 and his Scherzo No. 1 , composed in 1830. It is only in late works where tonal ambiguities similar to Wagner's arise, as in the Prelude in A minor, Op. 28, No. 2 , and the posthumously published Mazurka in F minor, Op. 68, No. 4 . The Tristan chord's significance

1140-476: The gruesome but improving Foxe's The Book of Martyrs , Albert is awarded twenty-five pounds in prize money. Asked to make a speech, he is tongue-tied and becomes an object of pity at the feast in his honour, but after draining his lemonade glass (which Britten satirically underlines with a Tristan chord , alluding to the philter in that opera ). and having a fit of hiccups he manages a few hip-hip, hurrahs. That night, Albert arrives home alone and quite drunk. In

1178-465: The melodic motion of the voices, and therefore foreign to the chord," finding that the Tristan chord is "no more than a predominant in the key of A, collapsed in upon itself melodically, the harmonic progression represented thus: Célestin Deliège  [ fr ] , independently, sees the G ♯ as an appoggiatura to A, describing that in the end only one resolution is acceptable, one that takes

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1216-542: The moment in Albert Herring when Sid and Nancy spike Albert's lemonade and then, when he drinks it, the chord "runs riot through the orchestra and recurs irreverently to accompany his hiccups". Paul Lansky based the harmonic content of his first electronic piece, mild und leise (1973), on the Tristan chord. This piece is best known from being sampled in the Radiohead song " Idioteque ". Bernard Herrmann incorporated

1254-403: The news of his selection as May King. Mrs. Herring is thrilled by the prize of £25, but Albert balks at being paraded in swan-white and mother and son quarrel to the mocking commentary of the village children. It is the day of the festival. Sid and Nancy are preparing the banquet tent, and they take the opportunity to slip some rum into Albert's lemonade glass. Together with a crown of flowers and

1292-487: The normal way". Thus, in this view it is not a chord but an anticipation of the dominant chord in measure three. Chailley did once write: Tristan' s chromaticism , grounded in appoggiaturas and passing notes, technically and spiritually represents an apogee of tension . I have never been able to understand how the preposterous idea that Tristan could be made the prototype of an atonality grounded in destruction of all tension could possibly have gained credence. This

1330-437: The street, Sid keeps a rendezvous with Nancy, and the two discuss their sympathetic pity for Albert before going off together. This is the breaking point for Albert, who has overheard. He takes the prize money and heads out looking for adventure. The next morning Albert has not returned, and the village is in a panic. Superintendent Budd is leading the search, while the guilt-stricken Nancy tends to Mrs. Herring. A boy shouts that

1368-578: The subdominant degree as the root of the chord, which gives us, as far as tonal logic is concerned, the most plausible interpretation ... this interpretation of the chord is confirmed by its subsequent appearances in the Prelude's first period: the IV chord remains constant; notes foreign to that chord vary. According to Jacques , discussing Dommel-Diény and Gut, "it is rooted in a simple dominant chord of A minor [E major], which includes two appoggiaturas resolved in

1406-597: Was "one of the most successful the opera has had". The opera received its U.S. premiere on 8 August 1949 at the Tanglewood Music Festival . In 1949, Britten's English Opera Group toured with both Rape of Lucretia and Albert Herring , giving ten performances between 12 and 23 September in Copenhagen and Oslo. An almost complete recording of one of the Copenhagen performances has been released commercially. Sviatoslav Richter called it "the greatest comic opera of

1444-744: Was an idea that was disseminated under the (hardly disinterested) authority of Schoenberg , to the point where Alban Berg could cite the Tristan Chord in the Lyric Suite , as a kind of homage to a precursor of atonality. This curious conception could not have been made except as the consequence of a destruction of normal analytical reflexes leading to an artificial isolation of an aggregate in part made up of foreign notes, and to consider it—an abstraction out of context—as an organic whole. After this, it becomes easy to convince naive readers that such an aggregation escapes classification in terms of harmony textbooks. Fred Lerdahl presents alternate interpretations of

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