On Horsing Around

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Ol’ Robbo awoke to a serving of Franz von Suppé’s “Light Cavalry” Overture on the radio this morning.  I’ve always enjoyed this piece (as I do all the von Suppé overtures current in the repertoire).  It may not be technically brilliant or musickally “deep” (whatever that means), but it’s fun.

At any rate, as I lay there listening to the familiar strains and collecting what pass in my brain as thoughts, it suddenly occurred to me that the conductor, Charles Dutoit in this case, evidently has never ridden a horse, and certainly appears entirely ignorant of the 19th Century hussar mentality.  (The opera to which this overture belongs actually involves a ballet troupe known as the “light cavalry,” but the equestrian nature of the musick is, of course, unmistakable.)

The main theme that everybody knows (da-da-DUH da-duh, da-da-DUH da-duh, da-da-DUH duh-yut da da DAAA duh – well, I can’t sing electronically very well) is meant to represent a canter, the most elegant of all equestrian gates.  And not just any canter, but rayther the canter of a squadron of light cavalry on parade.  Hussars were traditionally among the vainest soldiers in European armies and had an absolute passion for putting on dog, both in their persons and in their performance.  Think of Harry Flashman.  (The image to the right is of an officer of the 11th Hussars, Flashy’s regiment.)  Think of Brigadier Gerard.  (You don’t know him?  Buy this book right now.)  Their parade drill combined absolute perfection with a kind of nothing-to-it swaggering bravado.

So the musick should capture this spirit.  Not too fast – How can the ladies get the proper eye-full if the troops go thundering by at the gallop?  Not too slow – no plodding farm horses here.  Instead, a kind of a lusty prancing gate, the better to show off one’s fine horse, one’s fine uniform, one’s fine regimental esprit.   Dutoit had them at a fast clip on a short rein, which seemed to me to be quite wrong – more like a squad making a bee-line for the latrines.

Just keep this in mind, I suppose, if you ever find yourself conducting the piece.