Search results: Search results

67 results

Products

Guarneri Quartet - The Complete RCA Victor Album Collection

Sony Masterworks

Available as CD

~~$199.98~~ $149.99

Mar 28, 2025

In the early 1960s, four young musicians who had been playing chamber music at Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro School and Festival in Vermont were encouraged to form a string quartet. In July 1964, the Guarneri Quartet gave its first concert and less than a year later made its first recordings under contract to RCA Victor. For the next 45 years, with only one change of personnel, the Guarneris performed all over the world and amassed a large, wide-ranging, prize-winning discography. Sony Classical now presents, for the first time in a single collection, all the recordings made by the Guarneri Quartet for RCA between 1965 and 2005.

When the announcement came of its retirement at the end of the 2008–09 season, the eminent British critic Rob Cowan wrote a perceptive, affectionate tribute to the Guarneri Quartet in Gramophone, comparing it to the Juilliard Quartet, the other superb ensemble that had dominated the American quartet catalogue for so many years. Using their respective Bartók recordings as an example, he contrasted the “cut-glass precision” of the Juilliard’s early-60s set to the Guarneri’s “volatile, free-spirited, generously expressive and tonally rich” performing style in its RCA cycle from the mid-70s.

That characterization of the Guarneri Quartet’s playing runs through virtually all the reviews garnered in their long recording career, a story that began with the 1966 release of two of Mozart’s late “Prussian” Quartets and an album coupling Dvořák and Smetana. HiFi Stereo Review wrote that “not since the Juilliard String Quartet set the New York music world on its collective ear some 25 years ago has a new chamber group created such a furor as the Guarneri Quartet on the occasion of its New York début in February, 1965. This pair of discs demonstrates eloquently what all the shouting was about, for these players – Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree, and David Soyer – blend precision with flexibility of phrasing and rhythm in a way not often encountered in contemporary American string groups. Here, indeed, is the influence of the seed bed from which the quartet stems – the Marlboro of Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider, and Pablo Casals … To the Smetana [‘From My Life’] the Guarneri Quartet brings blazing intensity and fierce rhythmic verve, while the wonderful slow movement of the Dvořák [Op. 105] comes forth from the stereo speakers with an almost orchestral lushness, yet with inner voices flawlessly balanced.”

Other critics concurred in their reviews of these two LPs: “The foursome produces an unfailingly luscious tone, plays with letter-perfect intonation, and displays all sorts of felicitous pinpoint balances and coloristic effects. And how these gentlemen stay together … even in the most wayward of tempo changes. In short, this is ensemble work of a transcendental variety … The Guarneri Quartet is the most gifted group of its kind I have heard in years” (High Fidelity). “This is distinguished Mozart playing indeed. Its technical excellence needs little comment: as with the Dvořák/Smetana record … last month, with this team you take technical mastery for granted as soon as you hear the first phrase, and straightaway it's the intensely musical quality of the playing which strikes you. Theirs is Mozart played with the classical virtues, above all with firm line, poise and sensibility. The surface of the music is polished, but how much the Guarneri Quartet find beneath” (Gramophone).

Arthur Rubinstein was the quartet’s longtime keyboard partner. In 1966, they recorded the Piano Quintets of Schumann and Brahms: “Rubinstein and the Guarneris search out to equally convincing effect the flowingly lyrical aspects of the music, and this yields special rewards in a ravishing slow movement [the Brahms]” (HiFi Stereo Review). Dvořák’s followed in 1971: “The performance is beautifully balanced between the gentleman at the keyboard and the gentlemen with strings, and the sense of give and take comes from the experience of many collaborations” (High Fidelity).

They also recorded the piano quartet literature, beginning in 1967 with “beautiful performances” (High Fidelity) of Brahms. Their reading of Fauré’s Op. 25 in C minor was judged (also by High Fidelity) to be “beautifully played and exquisitely well reproduced. The instrumental lines are wonderfully clear in this highly directional recording … Rubinstein displays his regal style.” And in a disc containing both of Mozart’s piano quartets, “the playing throughout both sides is extremely beautiful … and superbly integrated – at once expressive and elegant, making all of Mozart’s points with clarity, straightforwardness, and the exalted give-and-take that is the life’s breath of real chamber music. The recorded sound, too, is exceptional for its richness, balance, and clarity” (HiFi Stereo Review).

One of many other composers who feature prominently in Sony’s Guarneri collection is Haydn. About the ensemble’s 1977 recording of the two Op.77 quartets, HiFi Stereo Review wrote that “these spirited, attractive performances of Haydn's two greatest string quartets are marked by a sense of real involvement. Articulation is crisp, ensemble is impeccable, and there is an organic flow from the first phrase to the last in each work”, while Gramophone praised their “deeply thoughtful, powerfully paced” 1986 reading of Haydn’s Seven Last Words.

With reinforcement from the Budapest Quartet in 1965, the Guarneris produced an “absolutely stunning performance (HiFi Stereo Review) of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence sextet. In 1966, they recorded quartets by Mendelssohn and Grieg (the latter receiving its CD première in this set): “The Guarneri ensemble does itself proud throughout this disc – most notably in the Mendelssohn, in which they display a tonal homogeneity and a warmth of phrasing that are truly striking. It is as though one instrument, not four, were producing the lovely sound that emerges from the speakers. Happily, the RCA recording staff has come up here with a string quartet sonority of the utmost intimacy, yet endowed with just enough room tone to enhance the naturally warm tone of the Guarneris” (HiFi Stereo Review).

But the heart of any string quartet’s repertoire is inevitably the Beethoven cycle, and it is with these works that the Guarneris were most closely associated. They made their complete recording for RCA between 1966 and 1969. Gramophone described the Early Quartets as “elegant and buoyant, with well-chosen tempos, subtle bowing, crisp articulation, telling contrasts between staccato and legato, and a consistent sense of style.” HiFi Stereo Review enumerated the virtues of their Middle Quartets: “(1) excellent intonation; (2) glowing tone; (3) ensemble that is balanced and accurate but always flexible and natural; (4) superb phrasing and line-building; (5) good feeling for a high Beethoven style. These are strong and expressive readings that often achieve great poetic insight and a powerful dynamic impulse.” The HiFi Stereo Review’s critic rhapsodized over their Late Quartets: “If I had to make the choice of a very few records to take with me to a desert island, I’d choose recordings of the last five Beethoven string quartets. Now, with the arrival of this new album (complete with the Grosse Fuge) by the Guarneri Quartet, I’ve got my island package. All I need is the island. The Guarneri is, without a doubt, one of the most extraordinary string quartets before the public these days: the group has an absolutely stunning sense of both soloistic and ensemble color. Indeed, I can’t think of another string quartet that can match them for sheer sensuous appeal.”

SUMMARY:

• With the first release of the Guarneri Quartet’ recording of Mendelssohn’s Quartet No. 3, transferred and edited from the session reels using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology

• 9 quartet recordings for the first time on CD, transferred and mastered from the original analog tapes, 3 quartets remastered, using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology

• Includes collaborations with Arthur Rubinstein, Leonard Rose, Mischa Schneider, Pinchas Zukerman, Walter Trampler, Ida Kavafian, and more

• Original LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes

On Sale

Guarneri Quartet - The Complete RCA Victor Album Collection

~~$199.98~~ $149.99
CD

Sony Masterworks

Mar 28, 2025

19658886002

Life With Czech Music - Dvorak, Smetana / Charles Mackerras

Supraphon

Available as CD

~~$88.99~~ $66.99

Oct 15, 2010

Also available: Life with Czech Music - Janácek, Martinu / Sir Charles Mackerras

-----

Reviews:

Symphonic Variations, Legends, Scherzo capriccioso

Charles Mackerras recorded all of this music in London for EMI's "Eminence" series, but those discs may be very difficult to find, and in any case they fail to stand up to these marvelous remakes. What makes so many Mackerras performances special is the conductor's buoyant sense of rhythm, and when he's working the Czech Philharmonic in top form that result can be (and in this case is) exquisite. There's no need to go on at length about the virtues of these performances. A few examples suffice to illustrate the point: there's the wonderful lightness of touch Mackerras brings to the waltz episode in the Symphonic Variations and its dazzling final fugue; the care with which he balances the percussion in the Scherzo capriccioso so that its rhythmic contributions tell without ever becoming overbearing; and in the Legends, the snap he brings to the quicker pieces (such as No. 3) and the wonderfully subtle way he sets up the appearance (in No. 6) of that gorgeous tune from the Third Symphony's slow movement. Sonically this disc is equally fine. Note the perfect balances between winds and strings throughout and the gorgeous contribution of the harp in the Legends that call for it. Totally great!

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Symphony no 6, Golden Spinning Wheel

In his equally laudatory review of this fantastic new release, my colleague Christophe Huss salutes Supraphon for managing to remain true to its dedication to Czech music while at the same time upholding the highest standards of performance quality. To this observation I can only add "Amen!" The label already has a couple of noteworthy versions of Dvorák's luminous Sixth Symphony with the incomparable (in this music anyway) Czech Philharmonic--a very good one by Neumann and a classic account by Ancerl. In fact, this symphony has been very well-served on disc, with excellent recordings by Kubelik, Rowicki, and Suitner, to name three of the best that come immediately to mind. Nevertheless, this newcomer bids fair to move right to the top of the available discography.

Recorded live, the rapport in evidence between Charles Mackerras and the orchestra really is the stuff of legends. There are so many outstanding moments that it's hard to settle on just a few, but consider the fortissimo counterstatement of the opening tune, just a touch "pesante" for added emphasis, or the gorgeously natural rubato between phrases of the same movement's second subject, and the way the coda really takes off and builds in energy straight through to the final climax. Then there's the usual gorgeous wind playing from the orchestra, so evident in the Adagio. Mackerras drives the scherzo with exhilarating abandon, and although he never bears down on the rhythm too heavily (always maintaining the lilt of the dance), the clarity of texture allows such characterful touches as the offbeat timpani in the reprise to register with full impact. I also love the extra punch he brings to the principal section's return after the trio.

Best of all, Mackerras treats us to what must be the most thrilling account of the finale yet captured on disc. It takes off like the wind and never looks back, simply accumulating energy as it goes. The great string fugato that initiates the coda flies by as if on mighty wings, and the grandiosity of the closing pages never loses that vital rhythmic impulse that gives the music its inner life. I wish that Supraphon had not included the applause at the end, but when you consider that all of this, and so much else besides, is happening in real time you will understand that anyone who believes that the era of "great" conductors is past simply hasn't been listening. If this sort of artistic communion between conductor and orchestra in the service of a brilliant interpretation isn't greatness, then we need to ask whether the term has any meaning at all.

The Golden Spinning Wheel (a studio recording this time) also receives what is arguably its finest performance on disc, even considering Harnoncourt's outstanding recent version. The opening, usually a blur of muddy rhythms in the lower strings and indifferently played percussion, here sounds as crisp and clean as a spring morning. I have never understood why some performances cut the central episode wherein the holy hermit gets back the heroine's various body parts (so he can patch her together again) in exchange for the components of the golden spinning wheel. The threefold musical repetition is not literal, and the orchestration is enchanting. The section is, in effect, the slow movement following the scherzo in which poor Dornicka gets hacked to bits in the first place, and it's a necessary four minutes of contrast. Finally, this is the moment where we encounter most of the "spinning wheel" music of the title. Mackerras rightly doesn't delete it, and hearing those deliciously chubby brass chorales and lovely wind solos alongside such characterful phrasing, you can't imagine why anyone would. The last few minutes offer as pure an expression of joy as you'll ever hear.

Supraphon's engineering is outstanding in both works, a touch warmer in the symphony (perhaps as a result of the presence of an audience), but in all respects as fine as any from this source. That audience, by the way, is absolutely silent, and with music-making of such spellbinding quality going on it's no wonder. Coming hard on the heels of his sensational Janácek double CD a few months ago, it's clear that Mackerras' Supraphon recordings will comprise a small but outstanding legacy worthy to stand beside the great recordings of such legends as Talich or Ancerl, and that the great Czech tradition is very much alive both in Prague and at Supraphon. Buy a few of these: they make terrific gifts for special occasions, and you can be sure to get a hearty "Thank you!" from the lucky objects of your affection. But first, treat yourself.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Symphonies 8 & 9

At 80 years young, Charles Mackerras remains one of the great conductors of our era, not to mention one of the most unheralded. His unfailing musicality, intelligence, and sheer joy in performing communicates vividly in these two glorious performances, beautifully recorded live in September, 2005. They are the kind of interpretations that make you listen as if for the first time to music you probably know well. This isn't just because Mackerras opts for the Urtext editions of both scores, most noticeable in the finale of the Eighth Symphony, where after the central climax he has the cellos play the variant of the main theme contained in Dvorák's autograph (Harnoncourt and a few others do similarly). What really distinguishes these performances is their sheer excitement and vital sense of flow, a function of rhythmically characterful phrasing allied to ideally transparent textures.

This is as true of the bucolic first two movements of the Eighth Symphony, where the woodwinds are especially delightful, as it is in the tremendously physical and passionate initial allegro of the Ninth. Has this movement's coda ever sounded more stormily agitated? And notice how marvellously Mackerras judges the tempo of the ensuing Largo, perfectly poised between rapt contemplation and easeful forward motion. Rhythmic acuity is the hallmark of both scherzos: a deliciously pointed waltz in the Eighth, and a swiftly vivacious Slavonic dance in the Ninth.

In the two finales, so often turned into stop-and-start affairs by less adept conductors, Mackerras creates an irresistible feeling of culmination, choosing rousing initial tempos and then for the most part sticking to them. The Eighth's concluding variations seldom have come across more cogently, particularly the lazy last three, which never bog down in excessive Romantic reverie. The Prague Symphony Orchestra responds to Mackerras' direction with amazing gusto, as if it doesn't already know the music backwards and forwards, and the audience is admirably silent. There are other wonderful performances of this music out there, but this truly is as good as it gets.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Slavonic Dances

It's been along time since Supraphon made a great new recording of Dvorák's delicious Slavonic Dances, but it's been worth the wait. Charles Mackerras is one of the two or three finest conductors alive at present, and he knows this music, loves it, and makes the orchestra play it as if it were as fresh as the day it was written. This is no mean feat, since the Czech Philharmonic knows these pieces blindfolded; or at least they think that they do. It's amazing how many seemingly new details Mackerras reveals (particularly in his characterful treatment of the percussion parts, and the careful dynamic balances involving the brass section) that on closer examination turn out to have been exactly what the composer wrote all along. He's particularly crisp and attentive to rhythm in the waltz-like dances (Op. 46 No. 6 and Op. 72 No. 8), where he catches the music's lilt to perfection. But then, he doesn't really put a foot wrong anywhere. The great recordings of these pieces are by Kubelik (DG), Dorati (Mercury), Szell (Sony), Talich (Supraphon), and Sejna (Supraphon). This newcomer, warmly recorded with fine inner detail, belongs in their august company.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Symphonic Poems

"You won't find better conducting in this music anywhere. Charles Mackerras finds so many wonderful details in these pieces that it's impossible to list them all, and he does it at all tempos and dynamic levels. Listen to his subtle underlining of rhythm in The Wood Dove's opening funeral march, and compare it to the unrivaled glitter of its central party music. Bask in the woodwind timbres at the opening of The Noonday Witch, and marvel at just how much music Mackerras finds even in the stormy climax of The Water Goblin. It's an unalloyed delight from the first note to the last.

Of course, the Czech Philharmonic plays these pieces magnificently. The sonics, however, are not as brilliant as the performances, and that's not unusual from this venue, with its somewhat cavernous acoustic. Slightly recessed brass and percussion lessen the impact of the climaxes somewhat, but it's awfully hard to quibble when the interpretations are this strong. Self-recommending."

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Ma Vlast
Taken down live at the 1999 Prague Spring Festival, Charles Mackerras' performance offers a typically fresh, vital look at Smetana's masterpiece. With the Czech Philharmonic in fine form, the result is completely recommendable, even if it doesn't have quite the personality of Kubelik's emotional return performance of 1990, or that special orchestral sonority that Talich or Ancerl enjoyed. Mackerras' interpretive insights are subtle, but fans of this music will find plenty to enjoy, such as the correctly played (for once!) trumpet rhythms at the climax of "Vltava", the carefully balanced brass and string sonorities at the opening of "From Bohemia's Woods and Fields", and the propulsive thrust that cleverly disguises the monothematic repetitiousness of "Tábor" and "Blaník". The up-close, live recording manages to minimize most audience noises but necessarily spotlights certain instruments (harps right at the beginning) in a way that precludes a truly expansive soundstage. On the other hand, the notorious reverberation of the Rudolfinum has been successfully tamed, thanks in part to the presence of the public. We're not exactly dying for another recording of this work, but it's impossible not to welcome music making of this enthusiasm and idiomatic security with anything less than open arms.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

On Sale

Life With Czech Music - Dvorak, Smetana / Charles Mackerras

~~$88.99~~ $66.99
CD

Supraphon

Oct 15, 2010

SU4041-2

Janáček - Brahms - Bartók / Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Fazil Say

Alpha

Available as CD

~~$20.99~~ $15.99

Jan 13, 2023

There is no piece of music that the Patricia Kopatchinskaja cannot play in a way that unwinds your expectations and forces you to hear it anew.

This new recording marks the reformation of the legendary duo of Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Fazil Say. The Moldovan violinist says the Turkish pianist ‘is a volcano, with an indomitable strength and energy’, while he emphasizes the ‘freedom’ that her ‘spontaneous playing’ exudes: ‘At each concert, she creates a different character and tells a new story.’ The explosive duo presents a program devoted to Bartók’s Violin Sonata no.1 (‘a marvel from start to finish, one of his finest works’, says Patkop), Brahms’s D minor Sonata (‘I imagine a feather in flight at the opening of the sonata’) and Janáček’s Sonata, ‘an extreme work, wounded and heart-rending’.

REVIEW:

There is no piece of music — works by Tchaikovsky or Schoenberg, or an old folk tune — that the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja cannot play in a way that unwinds your expectations and forces you to hear it anew. So it is with the latest chapter in her partnership with the intrepid Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say. The Janacek sonata that opens this recording and the Bartok Sonata No. 1 that closes it clearly play to the duo’s strengths: curiosity, an impatience with convention and exceptional technique. They pounce, almost too eagerly, on each of the Janacek’s lightning-quick mood changes; and in the Bartok, a piece in which the two instruments work virtually at cross purposes, they achieve an ESP-like mutual responsiveness.

Their rendition of Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, however, is the paramount achievement here. Resisting the urge to swath this wistful music in a big luxuriant tone, Kopatchinskaja adopts a timbre that’s sometimes bristly, sometimes gossamer-light. She and Say push the music to extremes: The quiet moments seethe and the outbursts approach violence, but it’s all done with impeccable control. The piece sounds bereft and heartbroken even as it avoids the clichés of Romanticism. It’s not the way I’d want to hear it played every time, but it’s invaluable for offering a glimpse deep into a work you might have thought predictable, which is exactly what these imaginative musicians are after.

-- New York Times (David Weininger)

On Sale

Janáček - Brahms - Bartók / Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Fazil Say

~~$20.99~~ $15.99
CD

Alpha

Jan 13, 2023

ALPHA885

Malipiero: The String Quartets Complete Edition / Quartetto di Venezia

Dynamic

Available as CD

~~$24.99~~ $18.99

Jan 20, 2023

The eight string quartets that Malipiero wrote between 1920 and 1964 constitute a major body of Italian chamber music and reflect his successive musical affiliations. The first two form a linked unit and espouse his radical anti-Romanticism in the early 1920s. Nos. 3 and 4 share structural similarities and act as a kind of laboratory for his symphonies of the time. Quartet No. 5 was inspired by Malipiero’s theatrical work, whilst No. 6 explores a new-found narrative dimension. With the two late quartets Malipiero moves into a world of chromaticism, where tone-color freedom reaches the apex of imagination and achievement.

REVIEW:

Malipiero’s eight string quartets were composed over a period of 44 years and show a remarkably consonant stylistic development.

The First Quartet, composed in 1920 and showing the impressionist influence of Debussy and folk textures alike, is his most extended quartet at (here) 22 minutes. Its partition points are clear as are the ritornello figures. Malipiero’s way is not development, more successive panels of light, color or contrast but he ensures that the work ends with a reflection on the Italian baroque so close to his musical heart, cadences of almost ecclesiastical beauty and refinement. The Second Quartet is related to the First in several structurally important ways but is more compressed and in some ways even more lyrical. It generates real propulsion and sonority and this malleable movement alternates with light textures.

The athleticism of Malipiero’s conception is a distinguishing feature of the quartets; tightly constructed single-movement works that bring a heavy quotient of Venetian energy, myriad in effect, constantly referencing, briefly but adroitly, Italian Baroque and his rich folkloric storehouse. That’s certainly the procedure in String Quartet No.3 ‘Cantàri alla madrigalesca’ (1931) by which time impressionism has been lightly dispersed. A greater sense of fluidity and metrical flexibility enters with the Fourth Quartet of 1934. The occasional eruptive material seems more organic than in previous quartets where paragraphical points could impede and threaten to destabilize the music.

The wartime Fifth Quartet was written concurrently with an operatic project and here a greater sense of textural clarity infiltrates itself into the music. In part lyrically effusive this is an effective work that reflects cross-pollination of influence but also an increasing tightening of procedure, so that incidental elements are more clearly subsumed into the musical argument. No.6, though once again in a single movement, is in three ‘parts’, two Allegros surrounding a central quasi-improvised section which has catchy, playful elements.

The last two quartets show an increasing enthusiasm for chromaticism, and this means a moving away from the mid-period clarity established earlier in the cycle. If you welcome clotted textures and thickening of the quartet sonority, you’ll enjoy No.7 where livelier music includes a clarifying lyricism alongside that sense of effortful skirling dynamism. In 1964 he wrote his final quartet, the tautest yet, in which the material is foregrounded and saturated in chromaticism. The fugal elements that also motor the music are eloquent tribute to his command of the quartet medium and his skill in introducing disparate material without ever becoming academic.

Suitably, these recordings are played by the Quartetto di Venezia, city of Malipiero’s birth. They play with fulsome commitment and the booklet notes, reprised from that earlier appearance, will tell you all you need to know.

-- MusicWeb International

On Sale

Malipiero: The String Quartets Complete Edition / Quartetto di Venezia

~~$24.99~~ $18.99
CD

Dynamic

Jan 20, 2023

DYN-CDS7976.02

SINGLES AND ALBUMS COLLECTION 1958-62

ACROBAT

Available as CD

$20.04

Jan 20, 2023

The Impressions were one of the R&B vocal groups that heralded the transition from doowop to the more pop-oriented styles of the late '50s, and were notable for bringing to the fore two of the great soul voices of the era, Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield. They made their first records in 1958, when Butler and Mayfield were still in their teens, and immediately had hits, with Butler starting to pursue a solo career with a year or two, as both The Impressions, led by Mayfield, and Butler as a solo artist continued parallel hit careers. This 57-track 2-CD set comprises Impressions A & B sides from these years, featuring Curtis Mayfield, and including some featuring Jerry Butler, on the Abner and ABC-Paramount labels, plus Jerry Butler solo A & B sides on Veejay. It also includes the titles not otherwise featured on singles from the Veejay album "He Will Break Your Heart" and the Abner album "Jerry Butler Esq." It features the Impressions' four hits from these years, including the R&B No. 2 "Gypsy Woman" and No. 3 "For Your Precious Love", and Jerry Butler's ten hits from this era, including the R&B No. 1 "He Will Break Your Heart", plus the Top 20 entries "Lost", "Find Another Girl", "I'm A Telling You", "Moon River" and "Make It Easy On Yourself". It's a great showcase both for the Impressions' distinctive style as a vocal group and for Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield's notable talents as singers and writers, underlining their importance as key influences in the genre.

SINGLES AND ALBUMS COLLECTION 1958-62

$20.04
CD

ACROBAT

Jan 20, 2023

ACBT3453.2

BASIE JAM

ANALOGUE PROD.

Available as Vinyl

$59.99

Aug 09, 2024

Basie Jam is two sides of some of the best swing ever recorded. This record was produced by Norman Granz and Pablo Records. Granz, responsible for one of the greatest jazz labels ever - Verve - knew what he was doing in a studio. The Big Band sound of Count Basie and the other orchestra leaders dominated dance halls and the airwaves for almost two decades. This late 1973 session features the Count with an eight-piece band. As the title indicates, this recording is like a jam session, so all the tracks are based around the blues. After a classic Basie Piano intro the first track 'Doubling Blues' swings like mad, but then you notice there's something different going on when the solos start. What's different is that Basie is playing Organ for most of the rest of the track and the difference is amazing. The little Piano phrases that we're all so used to hearing Basie play aren't there. Then after six minutes the piano comes back in and we finish track with Basie as we started. For more of Basie's organ playing have a listen to 'One-Nighter' - a lovely medium tempo number on which he plays a restrained introductory solo, before Zoot Sims plays the opening tenor sax solo. The running time is just under 50 minutes, and with only five tracks on the album that tells you that the musicians were given plenty of opportunity to stretch out. They do, and it's well worth getting a copy of this album. Cut from metal parts mastered by Doug Sax from the original analog master tape. Pressed at Quality Record Pressings for superior sound quality, and housed in a handsome Stoughton Printing tip-on gatefold jacket. 180-gram vinyl Cut from parts mastered by Doug Sax from the original analog master tape Pressed at Quality Record Pressings Housed in Stoughton Printing tip-on gatefold jacket Tracklist: Side 1 1. Doubling Blues (6:57) 2. Hanging Out (9:23) 3. Red Bank Blues (8:50) Side 2 1. One-Nighter (11:30) 2. Freeport Blues (9:44)

BASIE JAM

$59.99
Vinyl

ANALOGUE PROD.

Aug 09, 2024

AGUE155.1

Falling In Love With Duke Ellington

RCA

Available as CD

$17.99

Jan 18, 2013

Track Listing
1. In a Sentimental Mood
2. I Didn't Know About You
3. Every Hour on the Hour
4. Lotus Blossom
5. Ghost of a Chance (With You), (I Don't Stand A)
6. Pretty Woman
7. Lover Man
8. Solitude
9. Wonder of You, The
10. Mood Indigo
11. My Heart Sings, (All of a Sudden)
12. I've Got It Bad and That Ain't Good
13. Tell Ya What I'm Gonna Do
14. Creole Love Call
15. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart
16. You Don't Love Me No More

Personnel includes: Duke Ellington (arranger, piano); Joya Sherrill, Al Hibbler, Ida Cox (vocals); Johnny Hodges (alto saxophone); Duke Ellington & His Famous Orchestra.

Tracks recorded in New York, New York and Hollywood, California between 1944 and 1967. Includes liner notes by Joshua Sherman.

Digitally remastered by James Nichols (BMG Studios, New York, New York).

This is part of RCA Victor's Falling In Love With series.

The smoothly seductive, low-key, sophisticated sounds of the multi-faceted Duke Ellington at his most romantic provide an intimate listening experience on this entry in RCA's FALLING IN LOVE series. In a well-chosen set, Ellington favorites like "Mood Indigo" accompany less well-known tunes like "My Heart Sings (All of a Sudden)" and gorgeous melodies like "Solitude" and "Creole Love Call." The mood couldn't be more relaxed, and the music is provided by one of the 20th century's most celebrated jazz composers: the rest is up to you.

Falling In Love With Duke Ellington

$17.99
CD

RCA

Jan 18, 2013

RCA63622

Bach: 6 Cello Suites / Carmine Miranda

Centaur Records

Available as CD

$22.99

Mar 26, 2013

BACH Six Cello Suites • Carmine Miranda (vc) • CENTAUR 3263/4 (2 CDs: 130:10)

Since reviewing Truls Mørk’s version of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites in 29:5, no fewer than six more accounts have crossed my desk. In chronological order, they were Jean-Guihen Queyras (31:4), Sara Sant’Ambrogio (33:3), Luigi Piovano (34:5), Hekun Wu (34:6), Tanya Tomkins (35:1), and Richard Tuncliffe (36:1). Some of the cellists used conventional cellos, others period instruments. All but two, however, had one thing in common: They were uniformly awful, though each in its own way, ranging from barely tolerable to downright execrable. The one I kept coming back to as my preferred and strongly recommended set throughout those reviews was the first on this list, the one by Jean-Guihen Queyras, with Hekun Wu being a close runner-up. Both, by the way, performed the suites on cellos in modern configuration.

Bach’s six cello suites are like a Siren’s call to cellists of all persuasions, luring many of them to ruin. And the thing is there’s no reason for it. Was it a singular achievement for Bach to write such technically challenging works for an instrument that was relatively new at the time, and a melody instrument to boot, one that takes even more kindly to intensive double-stopping than the violin? Yes. But are the cello suites comparable on levels of musical scope and intellectual depth to the unaccompanied violin sonatas and partitas? Not even close. There are no massive fugues in the cello suites and nothing that approaches the dimensions of the D-Minor Violin Partita’s Chaconne. The cello suites are exactly what their title tells us they are—six sets of relatively short, stylized baroque dances. Yet for cellists—and for some listeners, I think—they’ve taken on an import that may be beyond their actual significance in Bach’s output, virtually becoming every cellist’s initiation rite.

So, how does the young Venezuelan cellist, Carmine Miranda (b. 1988), fare in his initiation into cellodom’s manhood? Well, first a few words about this young artist, who is likely unknown to readers, as this is his recording debut; he was 22 when he recorded the Bach suites for Centaur in 2011–12. Miranda’s early training took place in his native country, where he studied at the Carabobo State Music Conservatory, then in the Latin-American Academy of Violoncello, and finally at the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music (the institution that spawned the famous “El Sistema”). Miranda then traveled to the States to study with Ross Harbaugh at the University of Miami, followed by further coaching under Yehuda Hanani at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where Miranda obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and is a candidate for a doctorate.

In the U.S., he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Bowdoin Music Festival, the Bach Annalia Festival in Cincinnati, the Young People’s Festival in Chatham, N.Y., and is on the artist’s roster for the Close Encounters with Music Series in Great Barrington, N.Y., both under the direction of Yehuda Hanani and others.

Among Miranda’s awards are first prize at the 2005 Alhambra Music Competition, the National Prize for best soloist from the FMEA (Florida Music Educators Association), and the 2008–09 University of Cincinnati Cello Competition. He has collaborated with recognized international artists such as Yehuda Hanani, Awadagin Pratt, Rodolfo Saglimbeni and performed as a soloist with several chamber ensembles and orchestras, recently including the Caracas Municipal Symphony Orchestra. He is also the founder and member of the Troika Piano Trio comprised of violinist Joshua Ulrich and pianist Assaf Sommer.

Miranda, who authored his own album note, makes no mention of the instrument(s) he uses for these performances, how he handles the scordatura tuning of the Fifth Suite—does he retune his cello according to the original manuscript or use the modern standard-tuning edition?—or what he does to accommodate the Sixth Suite, believed to have been originally written for a five-string violoncello piccolo. His note speaks only of his personal impressions of, and responses to, the emotional and spiritual character and quality of each of the pieces. At one point, in fact, I was quite taken aback to read, “Interpretation of the suites has nothing to do with what is correct, accurate, and historical, but it rather has to do with going deep within the soul of the writing…” That raised a red flag for me, not to mention an eyebrow. I couldn’t help but think to myself that only the immodesty of youth could be so callow and cavalier with respect to the years of serious musicological research that have attempted to ascertain what is “correct, accurate, and historical,” and to the many veteran cellists who have spent more years studying these works than Miranda has been alive. But the proof, as they say, is in the hearing. And so I decided not to allow my annoyance with Miranda’s words to influence my judgment of his playing.

Instantly, from the very first bar of the G-Major Suite, the cellist that came to mind was Pablo Casals, a comparison that elicits no higher compliment. In my above-mentioned review of Tanya Tomkins’s Bach suites, I noted how slow and super-romanticized her readings were; she takes 3:16 for the opening Prelude, a full half-minute longer than Jacqueline du Pré, who, at 2:35, is hardly fast. So, I went back to Casals’s 1950s recording and found that he dispatched the Prelude in two minutes flat and without any rhythmic distensions or distortions. What about Carmine Miranda? 2:09. I don’t know if Miranda studied Casals’s recordings, but if he didn’t, it’s truly uncanny how closely he channels both the letter and the spirit of the great cellist’s example.

It’s really difficult to express in words the beauty of Miranda’s performances. His cello is a modern instrument, or at least one updated with modern fittings and tuned to modern pitch, but the tone it emits is lighter in weight than that which we often hear in versions played on modern cellos. Of course, much of that can be attributed to Miranda’s bowing. He doesn’t dig into the strings to produce guttural sounds. The tone is clean and clear and intonation perfect. But one expects more than technical proficiency, dexterity, and finesse; and more—much more than that—is what one gets from Miranda’s readings.

Alluded to above is the fact that these are suites of dances, and time and again, in extolling the virtues of Jean-Guihen Queyras’s performances, I’ve remarked on the way in which he manages to capture the essence of each dance step. Miranda, it seems to me, goes one step further (no pun intended). He hears, and allows us to hear, the historical roots of each dance and whence it comes, which is pretty funny when you try to square that with his comment that interpretation of the suites has nothing to do with the historical. Yet listen to Miranda’s courantes, and you will hear not just rapid tempos, but the very definition of the Renaissance dance as described by Thoinot Arbeau, the 16th-century French theorist who tells us that the courante was danced with fast running and jumping steps. If Miranda didn’t learn this from reading music history, he knows it intuitively, for it’s not just his accelerated tempos but the effect of rhythmic arrest you would observe in a dance that involved running forward several steps, then making a sudden jump, hop, or jerk to stop short the forward motion. In Miranda’s hands, the suites don’t just sound dance-like , as in stylized baroque refinements, they sound like actual Renaissance dances.

Likewise, Miranda’s sarabandes are played with the stately gravitas that would have been à la mode for a processional court dance in 17th-century France. Interestingly, the sarabande had its origins as a fairly fast dance a century earlier and quite likely in Mexico or Central America. When Spanish colonists brought the dance back to Spain with them, it was banned in 1583 for being obscene. It wasn’t until the sarabande made its way to Italy and then France that it became the slow, triple-meter dance that was widely adopted into the baroque suite.

I’ve never heard Bach’s cello suites played in quite this way, and while I wouldn’t want to be without the versions by Queyras, Hekun Wu, Casals, and János Starker, Carmine Miranda’s will not only join them, it will stand out as perhaps the most original and imaginative interpretations of the suites I’ve heard.

Centaur’s recording, too, is outstanding, capturing Miranda’s cello fairly close up but with sufficient air around it to allow for a natural sounding bloom, yet without any annoying echo effect. An album note states that the recording was made without any editing. This is a definite buy recommendation for both connoisseurs of Bach’s cello suites and those who appreciate cello playing at its best. I’d have to say that Carmine Miranda has passed his initiation with flying colors. Welcome to the ranks of the world class players.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Bach: 6 Cello Suites / Carmine Miranda

$22.99
CD

Centaur Records

Mar 26, 2013

CRC3263/3264

Dvorak: Cypresses - Song Cycle & String Quartet / Ullmann, Bruns

Haenssler Classic

Available as CD

$24.99

Sep 25, 2012

DVORÁK Cypresses: 18 Songs for Voices and Piano (original version, 1865 1 ). Cypresses: 12 Songs for String Quartet (from original version, arr. Dvorák 2 ). Cypresses: 6 Songs for String Quartet (from original version, arr. Hans-Peter Dott 2 ) • 1 Marcus Ullmann (ten); 1 Martin Bruns (bar); 1 Andreas Frese (pn); 2 Bennewitz Qrt • HÄNSSLER 98641 (2 CDs: 81:05 Text and Translation)

Let me begin with just one swipe at Hänssler Classic, a label whose marketing practices I’ve questioned before. This entire program could fit onto a single CD. Discs of over 80 minutes, once rare, are now fairly common. A saving grace, however, is that as of now, mid-October 2012, ArkivMusic is selling the two-disc set for $26.99, which places it in the mid-price category on a per-disc basis. Hänssler is to be commended, however, for coming up with the idea of presenting Dvorák’s Cypresses complete in its original scoring as a song cycle for voices and piano, plus in its partial arrangement of 12 of the 18 songs for string quartet by the composer himself, and, in addition, in arrangements of the remaining six songs for string quartet by German composer Hans-Peter Dott (b. 1952). If anyone has done this before, it’s not reflected in any of the current listings I found. In fact, Dvorak’s string quartet arrangements far outnumber recordings of the song cycle.

Details of the song cycle’s path from composition to publication still remain a bit sketchy and open to some dispute. This much is known: Dvorák set the songs down on paper in 17 days between the 10th and 27th of July 1865. The 24-year-old composer was lovesick over one of his young pupils who didn’t share his feelings. So, like Mozart, Dvorák ended up settling for the girl’s younger sister, whom he eventually married. It’s hardly surprising then that the texts of the songs, taken from Cypresses: A Collection of Lyric and Epic Poems by Gustav Pfleger-Moravský, tell of unrequited love. Also generally agreed upon is that Dvorák intended eight of the songs—Nos. 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, and 15—to be sung by a tenor, while the remaining 10 songs—Nos. 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, and 18—were intended to be taken by a baritone, which is the way they’re divvied up on the disc.

But here’s where things get a bit dicey. It took Dvorák another 23 years, during which he arranged, rearranged, and otherwise tinkered with the songs, before he sent them to Simrock for publication in 1888 with the title, not Cypresses , but Love Songs , to which the opus number 83 was assigned. Yet a 2012 program note from the Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg unequivocally states that “Dvorák chose never to publish the songs in their original form, but material from several of the songs cropped up in his first two symphonies and in his operas and other vocal works.” Clearly, the songs were published in 1888, but I’m guessing that the discrepancy hinges on the words “in their original form,” for according to the imslp.org catalog of Dvorák’s complete works, the songs that were actually published were all third and fourth revisions of the originals. Meanwhile, a year earlier the composer selected 12 of the songs—Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 18— and began reworking them for string quartet, keeping close to the original models. He made only some minor rhythmic adjustments, and only in one case did he change the key. He did, however, reorder the pieces in a different sequence from the original song cycle—6, 3, 2, 8, 12, 7, 9, 14, 4, 16, 17, 18—and titled his collection of quartet arrangements Echo of Songs . These were not published, however, until 1921, 17 years after Dvorák’s death.

This brings up another misunderstanding that has been perpetuated regarding Dvorák’s titling of both the published song cycle and the string quartet arrangements that remained unpublished in his lifetime. All Music Guide states that it was the composer himself who named the song cycle Cypresses , but as noted above, he didn’t. He titled it Love Songs . And as for the composer’s quartet arrangements of 12 of the songs, he called them, again as noted above, Echo of Songs . The only Cypresses Dvorák was familiar with, other than the trees, was the collection of poems so titled by Pfleger-Moravský. The Cypresses title was conferred upon the string quartet arrangements—and then only retroactively and by association with the songs—by the publisher of the string quartet cycle, Hudební matice umrlecké besedy, and/or the cycle’s editor, composer Josef Suk. Hans-Peter Dott surmises there are reasons Dvorák omitted the six songs—1, 5, 10, 11, 13, and 15—from his own quartet arrangements, but Dott doesn’t tells us what those reasons might have been. Instead, he decided to arrange them himself anyway, and they’re included as the last six tracks on disc 2, after Dvorák’s 12.

So, there you have it: the complete song cycle, published in 1888 as Love Songs , Dvorák’s own string quartet arrangements he titled Echo of Song , published in 1921, and a recent arrangement by Dott of the remaining six songs—all on a two-disc set boldly titled “Cypresses,” with a stand of cypress trees pictured on the cover, a title Dvorák never gave to any of these pieces. I’m not sure he’d be amused. For millennia, the cypress tree has been associated with death and mourning—which is why it’s often found planted around cemeteries—not with the pain of rejected love, the subject of these songs. The music can be quite lovely, if a bit overly sentimental, but the singers and players exercise care not to succumb to some of its more self-pitying moments. While tenor Marcus Ullmann and baritone Martin Bruns deliver their respective songs with warmth of feeling and a good measure of tonal bloom, their voices are of a similarity of timbre and character that sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish which singer is performing which song without referring to the designated numbers in the notes.

When it comes to the string quartet arrangements, at least of the 12 made by the composer, there’s a good deal more in the way of competition, among which is a very fine reading by the Emerson Quartet. But not being familiar with every recording of the quartet versions listed, I can’t say whether any ensemble has previously included the additional six arrangements made by Dott, and Hänssler’s album note is not forthcoming on when Dott made them. If it was very recently, perhaps even for the Bennewitz Quartet and this recording, then this could be a first.

Neither the songs nor the quartet arrangements of them represent Dvorák at his best. One might even say that musically they are Dvorák before he blossomed into the Dvorák we know and love. All of the pieces are of sameness in tempo and mood, without much in the way of Dvorák’s later melodic inspiration or harmonic inventiveness to make any one of them particularly memorable. For that, of course, the singers and players are not to blame. So, recommended on the grounds that this may be the most complete recording of Dvorák’s “cypress”-based compositions collected together in a single set.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Dvorak: Cypresses - Song Cycle & String Quartet / Ullmann, Bruns

$24.99
CD

Haenssler Classic

Sep 25, 2012

98641

Braunfels: Phantastische Erscheinungen, Serenade / Davies, Vienna Radio SO

CPO

Available as CD

$18.99

Nov 15, 2005

A popular composer in Germany prior to World War II, Walter Braunfels (1882-1954) will be best known to music lovers thanks to Decca's recording of his very beautiful opera The Birds. This release builds on that favorable impression, and then some. Phantastische Erscheinungen eines Themas von Hector Berlioz (Fantastic Appearances of a Theme by Hector Berlioz) is a giant set of variations on Mephistopheles' "Song of the Flea" from The Damnation of Faust. And if this fact alone isn't enough to whet your appetite, then I'm not sure what will. Structurally the work has something in common with Strauss' Don Quixote--on LSD. The orchestral technique also is quite similar, recognizably German school, with luscious writing for violins and horns, occasional outbursts of extreme virtuosity all around, and a discerning but minimal use of additional percussion.

However, it's clear that Braunfels has given a good deal of thought to both the composer and the source of his theme. There's a healthy touch of humor, real grotesquerie in the quicker movements (No. 11 and the finale particularly), and the woodwinds frequently have the chance to snap and chatter in a recognizably Berliozian manner. Braunfels also includes an absolutely terrifying funeral march (third movement), followed by something that approaches Korngold in melodious luxury. He composed 12 "Erscheinungen" in all, though this performance omits No. 9, which the booklet tells us was standard practice back when the work was played (though it strikes me as something of a pity to leave it out on a recording). They are genuinely delightful, one and all, and the better you know your Berlioz (and Tchaikovsky, and Strauss), the more fun you'll have.

Certainly at nearly 49 minutes, there's plenty of musical invention on display, sumptuously scored and very capably played by Dennis Russell Davies and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Special credit has to go to the orchestra's comedians, the contrabassoon and tuba, who have a lot of work to do and who not only play extremely well, but who have a conductor who is not afraid to give them the prominence that they deserve. As a coupling, the Serenade is more than a make-weight filler. It's a very attractive piece that once again demonstrates Braunfels' skill in writing what is without question very beautiful music, obviously of its time and place, but without sounding quite like anyone else. Like the music of his contemporary Emil von Reznicek, which CPO is exploring with similar success, this is music that ought never to have vanished from the concert stage, and I can't recommend this powerfully recorded, evocative release highly enough. Wonderful! [1/3/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Braunfels: Phantastische Erscheinungen, Serenade / Davies, Vienna Radio SO

$18.99
CD

CPO

Nov 15, 2005

999882-2

Schumann: Hermann & Dorothea Overture; Overture, Scherzo & Finale; Violin Concerto

Artek

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $14.99

Feb 26, 2013

SCHUMANN Hermann and Dorothea Overture, Op. 136. Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, Op. 52. Violin Concerto in d, WoO 1 1 & • Stewart Robertson, cond; Elmar Oliveira (vn); Atlantic Classical O • ARTEK 0059 (79:08) Live: Boca Raton, FL 3/5/2012

& A conversation on the Schumann Violin Concerto with Elmar Oliveira and Stewart Robertson

In March of last year, a Boca Raton, Florida, audience was treated to this unusual all-Schumann program—unusual in that the works performed are not that often heard on record let alone live in concert. The highlight was Schumann’s ill-fated Violin Concerto, about which I’ve already had my say in the above interview. I first came to know the piece from Henryk Szeryng’s Mercury recording with Antal Doráti conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. That recording, coupled with Szeryng’s Mendelssohn Concerto was made in 1964, and I acquired it as an LP. I didn’t think much of the Schumann concerto then, and after a parade of others that followed—including Thomas Zehetmair, Joshua Bell, and Christian Tetzlaff—I still don’t think much of the piece now. Or, I didn’t, until I heard Elmar Oliveira play it on this CD. I wasn’t just trying to flatter him in our interview when I said I found his performance of the work the most persuasive I’ve heard.

I think there are some artists who play a piece for the same reason that some mountaineers climb a particular mountain—because it’s there. Then there are those artists who really believe in a piece and commit themselves to it body, mind, and soul in an effort to bring it to life in a way that no one else has before. I can’t, and won’t, say that I’m ready to accord Schumann’s violin concerto a place on high among the Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius concertos, but I can, and will, say that Oliveira, Robertson, and the ACO’s performance of the score made more sense to me than it ever has, and has convinced me that the work deserves at least second-tier status among the likes of the Dvo?ák, Glazunov, Goldmark, and Bruch concertos—and that’s not bad company to be in. It’s certainly several steps above where Schumann’s concerto has long languished, and Oliveira and Robertson can take credit for its rehabilitation.

Schumann composed a trivet of concert overtures based on literary works. I use the word “trivet” rather than trilogy, because though the three scores were composed in the same year, 1851, they are not related, and they were assigned non-contiguous opus numbers. The first of them, Braut von Messina , op. 100, is based on Schiller’s tragic play of the same name. The second overture, Julius Caesar , op. 128, was inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedy. And last, the overture performed here, Hermann and Dorothea , op. 136, was inspired by Goethe’s epic poem telling of the tragic fate of two lovers during the French Revolution. Tchaikovsky, it seems, was not the first composer to use the Marseillaise when he incorporated it into his 1812 Overture ; Schumann uses it here to set the time and place for his score. In works such as these, the lines between concert overture and tone poem are blurred. The question is not merely academic: If an orchestral piece of music takes its inspiration from a literary work, and it purports to depict the work’s characters and/or to outline its story, how does that differ from a tone poem?

It’s a question that spills over into the other orchestral work on this program, the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, op. 52. What is its musical taxonomy? Even Schumann didn’t seem to know, at one time referring to it as his “Symphony No. 2,” at another time as a “suite,” and at still another time as a “sinfonietta.” Reducing it to its component parts, one could say it’s a symphony without a slow movement. Perhaps because of confusion over its classification, the work was long neglected for most of the 19th century, but it has been dusted off in the 20th and taken up by a number of famous conductors in the modern recording era, from Kletzki, Schuricht, and Konwitschny, to Karajan, Solti, Sawallisch, Marriner, Gardiner, and Thielemann.

The two orchestral works are presented in highly polished performances by conductor Robertson and the Atlantic Classical Orchestra, but of course, it’s Schumann’s violin concerto with soloist Oliveira that is the main fare on the menu and the reason for you to purchase this disc. As mentioned earlier, a 20-minute bonus track at the end includes a fascinating conversation on the concerto between Oliveira and Robertson.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

On Sale

Schumann: Hermann & Dorothea Overture; Overture, Scherzo & Finale; Violin Concerto

~~$18.99~~ $14.99
CD

Artek

Feb 26, 2013

AR-0059-2

Wagner: Parsifal / Haenchen, Richards, Larsson, Rootering, Mayer, Tomasso

BelAir Classiques

Available as DVD

$32.99

Jan 28, 2014

A mythical performance from la Monnaie - Bruxelles.
Parsifal is a strange and enigmatic work. At the end of his life, did Wagner wish to celebrate asceticism, which he himself had never practised? Did he fall upon his knees before the Cross, as claimed by Nietzsche? And what does the secret society of knights based on pure blood signify, desperately waiting for the saviour to regenerate it? What is the true nature of the opposition between the worlds of Klingsor and the Grail? What can Parsifal tell us today? In his artistic will and testament, Wagner condenses his moral idea of the world and returns to the roots of love and religion - to the very heart of art according to him.
With the participation of conductor Hartmut Haenchen who is passionated by the score, Italian stage director Romeo Castellucci proposes an original reading of this brilliant work and explores the essence of Wagnerian ‘Kunstreligion’ in a different light.

“Thanks to the telling contributions of Mr. Castellucci and Mr. Haenchen, the Monnaie’s ‘Parsifal’ casts new light on a difficult opera.” NY TIMES

Parsifal: Andrew Richards
Kundry: Anna Larsson
Gurnemanz: Jan-Hendrik Rootering
Amfortas: Thomas Johannes Mayer
Klingsor: Tómas Tómasson
Titurel: Victor von Halem

Orchestre symphonique de la Monnaie
Hartmut Haenchen

Stage direction: Romeo Castellucci
Choreography: Cindy Van Acker
Set & costume designs, lighting: Romeo Castellucci
Dramaturgy: Piersandra di Matteo
Recording: La Monnaie / De Munt, Bruxelles - 20/02/2011

R E V I E W: 3763560.az_WAGNER_Parsifal_Hartmut_Haenchen.html
WAGNER Parsifal • Hartmut Haenchen, cond; Andrew Richards (Parsifal); Anna Larsson (Kundry); Jan-Hendrick Rootering (Gurnemanz); Thomas Johannes Mayer (Amfortas); Tómas Tómasson (Klingsor); Victor von Halem (Titurel); O symphonique de la Monnaie; Ch de la Monnaie; Ch de jeunes de la Monnaie • BELAIR (DVD: 239:00) Live: Brussels 2/20/2011

The Parisian daily Le Monde called this 2011 Le Monnaie production “un Parsifal hallucinaire.” That’s putting it mildly. Wagner’s operas have long inspired “extreme” treatments and this is one of the most extreme I’ve encountered. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t. It’s not for the faint of heart. And I wouldn’t want to be without it.

Parsifal is the first operatic undertaking for the Italian playwright and stage director Romeo Castellucci, well known for his avant-garde tendencies. In the hyperbolic language sometimes employed by men and women devoted to dramaturgy, Castelluci explains his method in the liner notes. “As I approached Parsifal, I tried to forget everything I knew. I put myself in the shoes of someone who knew nothing. I closed my eyes, and I listened once, twenty times, and then a hundred times to the music, this thing. Then I slept. I reworked the whole of Parsifal in a state of amnesia, from the beginning to the end. A work like this needs a vision coming from one’s deepest places … not just an illustrative approach.” OK, that’s a little over the top. But there truly is a dreamlike quality to what you witness here. One remembers images rather than scenes when it’s all over. Act I’s setting is a dense and dark forest in which one can, at first, barely make out the principal singers. (Gurnemanz’s costume covers him from head to toe in leaves, so he fits right in.) Act II is borderline pornographic, as Castelluci dispenses with singing Flowermaidens on stage and, with the vocalists out of sight, has Parsifal tempted by platinum-wigged nude dancers (and, as the credits acknowledge, “Shibari bondage performers” and “contortionists.”) One dancer lies down on a pedestal and aims her external genitalia at the audience for a good 20 minutes. Kundry’s and Amfortas’s act of sexual congress, barely alluded to as a historical event in run-of-the-mill Parsifals, is graphically projected as a hologram. Act III is a complete change of gears, with the chorus joined by a large crowd of non-singing supernumeraries in modern-day dress that, from the Transformation Scene onward, are seen to be slowly striding forward, presumably to a better future world. There are clichés, to be sure—the face paint, Kundry’s application of a few words, graffiti-style, to a blank wall, etc.—and some familiar visual theatrical features are missing: there’s no spear, no non-healing wound, no sign of the Cross when Klingsor’s realm is vanquished. But for contemplative Wagnerians, this will be a very rich experience indeed.

It helps enormously that the musical values are first-rate. Hartmut Haenchen is an experienced and insightful Wagner conductor and, as with his excellent Ring cycle for Etcetera (Fanfare 31:3), he consults the notes of Wagner’s assistants and other artists involved in the first Bayreuth performances. Haenchen definitely eschews the draggy tempos that have become common, but this Parsifal is not the least bit rushed. (For the record, the timing is a half-hour longer than Pierre Boulez’s famously brisk 1970 Bayreuth recording.) Castellucci is not alone in finding Kundry to be the central character in Parsifal—she’s alive and well when the curtain comes down at the close of act III—and Anne Larsson does a terrific job with the wide-ranging dramatic requirements of her role. Jan-Hendrick Rootering is a magisterial Gurnemanz and the American tenor Andrew Richards has a pleasing, well-supported voice well suited to Parsifal. This is Richards’s first Wagner role and, from the sounds of it, Siegmund and Walther, at least, should be on his radar. Thomas Johannes Mayer appears and sounds agonized without scenery chewing. (Remember, he’s got no wound to show off.) Tómas Tómasson is an excellent singer, though perhaps his Klingsor should be a bit less robust to contrast better with the other male characters that still have their “equipment” intact.

Most opera videos released nowadays are carefully planned, with a film director assigned to the project; this video, we are told, is “purely an archive.” No apologies are necessary. The camera work is skillful and editor didn’t feel obliged to always show us who was singing at the moment. (How long can you watch Gurnemanz explaining the back-story, anyway?) The medium was clearly analog film. The sound is good and even though the resolution of Dolby Digital is lower than the stereo PCM option on a DVD, the surround sound program here is sonically very satisfactory. Subtitle choices are English, French, Dutch, and German.

Clearly, this shouldn’t be anyone’s introduction to Parsifal. But for those who want to explore new levels of meaning and emotional power in Wagner’s final work, BelAir’s release deserves the strongest consideration.

FANFARE: Andrew Quint

Wagner: Parsifal / Haenchen, Richards, Larsson, Rootering, Mayer, Tomasso

$32.99
DVD

BelAir Classiques

Jan 28, 2014

BAC097

Wuorinen: Music Of Two Decades Vol 3 / Miller, Fine Arts Quartet

Music and Arts Programs of America

Available as CD

$19.99

Aug 07, 2013

Like Volumes 1 and 2, Volume 3 of Charles Wuorinen: Music of Two Decades consists in large part of recordings that appeared first as LPs. One doesn't drape terms like invaluable as bunting. For exotic example, the Concerto for Amplified Violin and Orchestra (Volume 2) appeared first on University of Iowa Press vinyl. Not exactly your household name. (I refer to the label. Were Wuorinen's to become such, I'm sure he'd begin wondering where he went wrong. Another performance by violinist Paul Zukovsky, Inbal conducting the Orchestra of the Hessian Radio, may some day be released.) As an instance of nlh degree rarity, Easley Blackwood's own recording of his live performance of Wuorinen's Piano Variations dwelt prior to Volume l's appearance as a 7'/2-i.p.s. tape on Charles Wuorinen's library shelves. Volume 2's Grand Bamboula, Chamber Concerto, and Ringing Changes got good distribution as Nonesuch LPs which, as a format the label has long since abandoned, have been long out of print. As further reason to applaud these Music & Arts Wuorinen discs, a succession of solid performances rates soundwise from adequate to excellent. In other words, the bad news simply isn't. So, to put conclusions first, as gratifyingly large as a “difficult“ living composer's CDiscography already is, the collector with an interest in the music of his time and place cannot afford to ignore these good resurrections. (Of all the one-man operations I admire—I offer the term as an alternative to “little“ label, which in terms of long catalogs many are not—Fred Maroth's Music & Arts Programs of America, Inc., remains among the more endearingly hydra-headed.)

It's a lot easier to tell you what the electronic piece, Time's Encomium, isn't: it isn't imitative of nature or acoustic musical instruments. If the point seems inappropriate or trivial, I remind the reader that a great deal of synthesized sound appears to exist for these kitsch aspirations. So then, while Times's Encomium in this narrow regard falls on the ear as abstraction pure but far from simple, I urge the reader not to conflate abstract with offputting. The piece abounds with playful energies. When disparate sounds interact as friskily as they do here, play of one kind or another, whether or not one knows the game's name, is obviously the thing, Wuorinen is the kind of cerebral practitioner who requires one's attention in a state of openness. We do not hear Time's Encomium transpiring toward a direction. The logic is rather that of extraordinary fireflies of various heft, hue, and gravitas. As anyone who's spent a country night outdoors, a lightshow's enjoyment need not connect with those forces that stage it. The listener is content (if he's wise) to perceive the co.nposer as firefly or, better yet, the firefly's First Mover. Wuorinen composed the work between 1968-69 at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center In New York.“ . . . The RCA synthesizer . . . is prejudiced by design toward 12-tone equal temperament . . . [I]f one accepts the limitation as a boundary condition . . . it ceases to be a problem. . . . Afterwards, I made the large-scale structure by processing the synthesized materials in one of the [center's] analog studios. Thus the work consists of a core of synthesized music, most of which appears in Part I, surrounded and interlarded with analog-studio transformations of that music. The synthesized [can be] identified by its clarity of pitch. . . . The processed almost always contains reverberation. Thus metaphorically, the listener stands in the midst of the synthesized music, which presents itself . . . with maximal clarity; and stretching away from him, becoming more and more blurred in detail, the various transformations . . .“ I assume that Wuorinen speaks in “standing] in the midst“ of the four-channel original, which one hears to his regret as a two-channel mixdown. We are back on my Fanfare hobby horse.

In no way strange to say, Wuorinen's Piano Sonata (No. 1, 1969) appears on its surface to share in those compositional impulses and schemata that yielded Time's Encomium. This seems to me especially true of the music's fast-paced, angular energies. Of particular interest is the sonata's performer, the late Robert Black. As others have for David Tudor, Wuorinen composed an obviously difficult work in large measure as a tribute to Black's strengths and sympathies. (Because music absorbs its background, we tend to overlook an executant's sometime part in a work's conception, no less its successful performance—which Black's certainly sounds to be.)

Wuorinen's comments about his here handsomely performed First String Quartet have the ring of a manifesto. “The [quartet of 1971] reflects fundamental concerns . . . with questions of large-scale form, in particular the issue of an appropriate developmental—or 'directed'—structure suited to a non tonal environment. I had already become . . . impatient with [much of new music's directionlessness] and wanted to establish formal procedures that would allow local flexibility while solidly undergirding a musical progress analogous to the very powerfully directed structure of tonality [my italics].“ Wuorinen then gives a summary of his solution, which need not detain us here. Enough to know what was then on the mind that remains aloof from a world, in too large part, of half-baked juvenalia. The String Quartet (No. 1) plays vis-à-vis the electronic and solo-piano work a tad richer in lyrical interest, in acknowledgement perhaps of a four-string ensemble's native soulfulness. The insert mentions an earlier Music & Arts CD of this Wuorinen quartet, with one of Milton Babbitt's, as an inferior transfer. While I haven't that disc to compare, the present digitization of an analog master sounds very good indeed. Again, the three volumes of this Wuorinen edition—there are no immediate plans for a fourth—address a need. All three volumes heartily recommended.

-- Mike Silverton, FANFARE [3/1997]

Wuorinen: Music Of Two Decades Vol 3 / Miller, Fine Arts Quartet

$19.99
CD

Music and Arts Programs of America

Aug 07, 2013

MUA932

Forqueray: Works For Harpsichord / Michael Borgstede

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

$17.99

May 31, 2011

Possibly, like me, the first time you may ever have met the name of Forqueray was when you first discovered the ‘Pièces de Clavecin en concerts’ by Rameau. In those chamber works, enlargements of solo harpsichord pieces, Rameau invariably pays tribute to some of his most interesting contemporaries. Amongst them were names which I thought I would never get to know further including ‘La Marais’ (Marin Marais), ‘La Laborde’ who features in the opening piece of Forqueray’s first Suite and ‘La Forqueray’ found in Rameau’s Fifth Suite, a Fugue in D minor composed apparently on the occasion of the wedding of Jean-Baptiste Forqueray. It’s intriguing that the movement ‘La Forqueray’ in the first suite here is also in D minor. It’s probably a character description of his viol-playing virtuoso father. Little did I know, until this CD emerged, that there were two Forquerays, father and son and both are featured on this disc. This also indicates how Brilliant Classics are imaginatively moving out from standard repertoire and re-issues.

The booklet essay, fascinatingly compiled by Lucy Robinson and entitled ‘A Case of Double Misattribution’ gives us some family background, which is useful and explains the music. It seems that in 1747 Jean-Baptiste had published pieces for viol composed by “M. Forqueray le père’. It seems however that they may not have been by him. The style, which is harmonically adventurous does not quite fit. Scholars now believe these pieces had been “thoroughly reworked” by the son. Jean-Baptiste tells us that he did write the bass line, “adding fingering and adding three pieces of his own”. Also the dedications are to the son’s contemporaries: Rameau, Leclair and one Buisson his brother-in-law and his solicitor Bourron!

In the same year he then brought out his own harpsichord transcriptions of his father’s pieces which made excellent financial sense.

According to the notes Antoine appears to have been a bit of a beast of a father, having his son incarcerated and then exiled for a number of years for some apparently minor thieving activities. It’s rather surprising then that his son took care to prepare the music for ‘clavecin’ so meticulously and brilliantly. He probably realized that many of these pieces are so fecund in imagination, so full of life and so original and sometimes so eccentric that by putting his own mark on them he wasn’t doing himself any harm. Anyway, his father’s fame had been widespread. He had been recognized as one of the greatest virtuosos whose music is even more difficult and extraordinary than that of the great Marais. In truth however Jean-Baptiste made very few alterations to the viol originals and where changes have been made it was not just to simplify or clarify but for purely musical reasons. Three of the pieces are by him, including ‘La Du Vaucel’, a rather pastoral piece to a man described as a “fermier généraux”.

I managed to secure a photocopy of the Fifth Suite in C minor; the same published running order of pieces is retained in both versions. I assume this is so in all the suites. Several things immediately struck me. First, the clear fingerings and the figured bass as mentioned. Then the fact that the viol music is written on two staves: a bass and a C clef. Often the two move suddenly to bass clefs obviously giving a low tessitura mirrored by Jean-Baptiste. The suite begins with a serious homage to Rameau, returning the compliment, possibly. The most curious movement is the one reproduced in the booklet, ‘Le Leon’, which is notated in white notes because of its 3/2 time signature or as it is in the original 2/3. There are also instructions, which I’m not sure Michael Borgstede completely adheres to. They translate “In order to play this piece in the way I intended it, one must observe the placing of the notes; the upper part hardly ever coincides with the bass.”

A standard form regularly found here and popular with French composers of this period is the Rondo. This is fine where the opening ‘A’ is arresting, as in ‘La Montiginio’ in Suite Five but on occasions as in ‘La Sainscy’ in the first suite, it can be a little irritating and tedious.

Michael Borgstede’s playing is technically superb and he is a fine and experienced performer both as a soloist and as a member of the ensemble ‘Musica ad Rhenum’, a prolific recording group founded twenty years ago. Even so, I am not sure that he quite captures the composer’s intention. In the first suite for example does he really play La Clement ‘Noble et détaché’ or Le Carillon de Passy ‘Légérement sans vitesse’ as marked by the composers?

In all there are thirty-two pieces and the quality is not always consistent. Most are intriguing and often incredibly exciting. Three which stand out for me are, for sheer joy of living, ‘La Eynaud’ in the third suite and in the fifth ‘La Sylva’ which is melancholy and solemn in an alla breve time signature sensitively handled by Borgstede. The last piece of all, another Rondo ‘Jupiter’ is pure harpsichord music, using the full range of the instrument in a dramatic and spectacular way.

I’m not mad keen on the recording … or is it possibly the instrument. It is a copy of a double manual French harpsichord after Pascal Taskin (1723-1793). In so many pieces, which are pitched constantly in the lower section of the instrument even with octaves in the left hand, there is sometimes a lack of sharpness, which obscures the harmony. I have heard the tracks not only on my own stereo, but also in the car and on a friend’s fine equipment. I retain the same view although the bass does need to be turned down more than usual.

Even so this is a fine set. The famous names of harpsichord composers have some competition here. These are pieces to which I will certainly return.

-- Gary Higginson, MusicWeb International

Forqueray: Works For Harpsichord / Michael Borgstede

$17.99
CD

Brilliant Classics

May 31, 2011

BRI94108

Britten: Beggar's Opera / Curnyn, Bickley, White, Jones, Randle

Chandos

Available as CD

$43.99

Oct 27, 2009

This Chandos production must now be first choice for this work.

Welcome to John Gay’s and Benjamin Britten’s romp through some seamy but also colourful and vibrant elements of 18 ^th century London. This work established the ballad opera in which spoken dialogue alternated with musical items. Gay’s satirical words were set to well-known traditional and popular tunes. Two hundred and twenty years later Britten added 20 ^th century accompaniments.

What’s entirely Britten here is the fresh caterwauling Overture (tr. 2) in which the various characters are given brief sound-portraits. There’s an oboe of sinuous sweetness for Polly (0:40), a cavorting clarinet for Macheath (1:29), suave strings and a jocular bassoon for the highwaymen (2:35) and a bantering circus-like master of ceremonies style for Mr Peachum (3:25). It’s all terrifically realized by the City of London Sinfonia who play marvellously throughout.

But what of the songs? Filch’s ‘’Tis woman that seduces all Mankind’ (tr. 5) is a good example of Britten allowing an original tune free rein while giving it modern dress with balmy woodwind and harp. The heroine Polly comes in (tr.12) to strains of her first song over which there are snatches of dialogue. This, like the melodrama which shortly follows (tr. 20), is Britten’s neat way of subverting the claim in the opening dialogue that this opera will have no “unnatural” recitative. Polly’s first song, ‘Virgins are like the fair flower in its lustre’ has as its tune Purcell’s ‘What shall I do to show how much I love him?’ from Dioclesian. Like its original, it is shown by Leah-Marian Jones to be at once wistful and coy. Her duet with Susan Bickley’s Mrs Peachum, ’O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed’ (tr. 15) catches well a cosy lullaby make-believe, aided by the gently rocking strings’ accompaniment. It’s lovely but only fleeting. Another notable accompaniment is the flutter-tonguing flute illustrating Polly’s ‘The Turtle thus with plaintive crying’ (tr. 19).

The highwayman hero Macheath enters and Tom Randle proves courteous enough to Jones’ simpering. The duet between Macheath and Polly, ’Were I laid on Greenland’s coast’ (tr. 22) is sweetly done but I felt the singers were over-conscious of the need to match the flowing orchestration and then the addition of chorus and drum. Some of the natural freshness is lost that’s present in the 1963 Aldeburgh Festival staging on DVD (Decca 074 3329). In this Chandos CD ‘The Miser thus a shilling sees’ (tr. 24) responds better to the typical careful attention of conductor Christian Curnyn’s approach. The disciplined emphasis of rhythm in its thorny progression matches the text’s poetic expression of loss. A pity, however, the second appearance of “Till home and friends are lost at last” (1:54) isn’t, as marked in the score ‘(in the distance)’ as the lovers go their separate ways. It’s an effect achieved in the BBC broadcast recording of the original 1948 production conducted by Britten (Pearl GEM 0225).

The highwaymen’s ’Fill ev’ry glass’ (tr. 26) is a drinking song of the sturdy, resolute variety in 2009 where a lustier abandon was shown in 1948. ‘Let us take the road’ (tr. 28) is infused with eagerness because of the excitement Britten and Curnyn convey in sketching the approach of the coach. Tom Randle’s Macheath has a too cultivated spoken voice but his singing is virile enough. You can hear this in ‘If the heart of a man is depressed with cares’ (tr. 29), marked as a caressing Andante backed by sweetly musing violin solo and rocking clarinet. Again I felt the line was held back a little in deference to the detail of the accompaniment. At this point Macheath is visited by a parade of prostitutes and what’s entertaining in the Decca DVD is rather curious here. With no sounds incorporated of women moving around, squealing and the like , you might think Macheath is imagining it all. I guess this is so as not to detract from Britten’s own variety parade of instruments, a kind of ‘Young Person’s Guide to Women’. There’s a superb tambourine to enliven the headiness of ‘Youth’s the season made for joys’. Randle sings with sunny freedom the ad libitum ‘Ah’s above the chorus repeat, though the top C final phrase is left to a soprano. Now betrayed by the women, his ‘At the Tree I shall suffer with pleasure’ has a disciplined testiness but less venom than Decca’s Kenneth McKellar.

Again more telling in this Chandos production is the more meditative material. The opening song of Act 2, ‘Man may escape from rope and gun’ (CD2, tr. 2), where Randle shows how transfixed Macheath is in his repetition of ‘woman’, savours past joys even while aware they’re the cause of present pain. Sarah Fox, as Lucy Lockit, is scarily efficient in her spite in ‘Thus when a good Housewife sees a rat’ (tr. 3). Polly’s response is the more sensitively elegiac ‘Thus when the Swallow seeking prey’ (tr. 10) and here Leah-Marian Jones is rich, smooth and eloquent. For me, however, Macheath’s ‘How happy could I be with either’ (tr. 11) is taken so fast it becomes too much a tongue-twister virtuoso piece losing some of its whimsy. In 1948 Peter Pears’ lighter touch was more effective. Polly has the easier task of rising above all this with ‘Cease your funning’ (tr.12), whose merging into the chorus and distancing of perspective are successfully achieved before we’re brought back to earth with a vengeance by Lucy’s crisp, snappy ‘Why how now, Madam Flirt!’ (tr. 13). The finale begins with Lucy and Polly showing great resolve. ‘No power on earth can e’er divide’ (tr. 14) is well progressed by Curnyn to an exciting ‘Horay’ trio response from Macheath, Lockit and Peachum. The there’s then increasing speed with a backing chorus in Sullivanesque abandon.

The opening song of Act 3, Lucy’s ‘When young at the bar’ (tr. 16) should be familiar as the tune is Purcell’s ‘If love’s a sweet passion’ from The Fairy Queen. Fox invests it with its original sad yearning while Curnyn points the claustrophobic cloying nature of Britten’s rich scoring of the wry accompaniment. Of a different order and part of the score’s kaleidoscopic variety is the relished archness of Frances McCafferty as Mrs Trapes delivering ‘In the days of my youth I could bill like a dove’ (tr. 21) with relished archness. To this is added the raucous carousing of Lockit and Peachum. Shortly there’s also the poignancy of Lucy and Polly’s ‘A curse attends a woman’s love’ (tr. 25). The paradox that these two candidates for Macheath’s affection can at one moment be united in their shared sense of rejection and understanding of the impossibility of their situation and at the next daggers drawn as rivals and eager still to court Macheath with warm affection at ‘Hither, dear husband, turn your eyes’ (tr. 28) is exploited dramatically. Fox’s pleading for Macheath’s life with ‘When he holds up his hand’ (tr. 31) ought to be the more persuasive, aided by Britten’s obbligato oboe accompaniment. ‘The Charge is prepared’ is a stock, formal chorus considerably pepped up by Mrs Peachum’s triumphant ‘Ah’s and glissando shrieks over its orchestral postlude.

Britten creates a closing scena (tr. 34) with Macheath in the condemned cell at first extolling the virtues of drink when about to die, then recalling pretty women. This gives way to the questioning protest ‘must I die?’. This is well sung by Randle but doesn’t quite have Pears’ grasp of the torment of ever-fluctuating contrasts of mood. Polly and Lucy offer a moving show of support, ‘Would I might be hanged’ to the heavily insistent backdrop of the funeral knell. In 1948 Britten’s knell is less weighty but more searing. Macheath realistically confesses ‘my courage is out’. The spoken dialogue wipes this all away. The highwaymen begin an address directly to the audience to demand the playwright provides a reprieve and all the players join in so the work can end with a dance. This bit of trickery and the rejection of the moral that vice must be punished works better in sound alone than the quicker and tamer removal of justice in the DVD. So you finish the Chandos sound recording remembering the company’s lusty tra-las and Fox’s top C.

This Chandos is the fullest version of the three currently available in the UK, playing at 117:52 in comparison with Decca’s 93:50 and Pearl’s 79:03. The differences are largely down to the Chandos including more of Gay’s spoken dialogue with alterations and additions by Tyrone Guthrie though even here I’d guess about a quarter of the dialogue published in the full and vocal scores has been cut. I don’t think this is a disadvantage because there’s a good deal of repetition in the text anyway. However, some musical numbers are also cut in the other recordings: Mrs Peachum’s ‘If Love the Virgin’s Heart invade’ (CD1 tr. 9) can only be heard here. To see the piece staged is a benefit. On the DVD the dialogue generally has a touch more pace and life, being less self-conscious in delivery. In the same vein the switch from dialogue to music flows more seamlessly and the folksong origins of many of the tunes are delivered with a more disarmingly innocent directness. The feeling between the characters is clearer in the ensemble numbers. The 1948 recording is striking for the verve of Britten’s direction, the charm of Pears’ light heroic manner and the lovely unforced upper register of Nancy Evans as Polly. Listen to her in ‘The Miser thus a shilling sees’. On the other hand it also at times adopts an over-romantic style, as in ‘O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed’ or is too patrician as in ‘Virgins are like the fair flower’.

To conclude, then, although sometimes more studied and deliberate than it might be, including careful points of emphasis within the dialogue, this Chandos production must now be first choice for this work. It also offers you in most luxuriant detail the colour and density of Britten’s orchestration.

-- Michael Greenhalgh, MusicWeb International

Britten: Beggar's Opera / Curnyn, Bickley, White, Jones, Randle

$43.99
CD

Chandos

Oct 27, 2009

CHAN 10548(2)

Fairouz: Native Informant / Pine, Imani Winds

Naxos

Available as CD

~~$19.99~~ $9.99

Mar 26, 2013

FAIROUZ Tahwidah. 4 Chorale Fantasy. 2 Native Informant: Sonata for Solo Violin 3. Posh. 4 For Victims. 2,5 Jebel Lebnan 6 • 1 Mellissa Hughes (sop); 1 David Krakauer (cl); 2 Borromeo Str Qrt; 3 Rachel Barton Pine (vn); 4 Christopher Thompson (baritenor); 4 Steven Spooner (pn); 5 David Kravitz (bar); 6 Imani Winds • NAXOS 8.559744 (78:22 Text and Translation)

This exceptionally varied and complex album features five first recordings of works by young American-Arabic composer Mohammed Fairouz (b. 1985), whose Piano Sonata impressed me when I reviewed the DVD by pianist Steven Spooner. I bristled, as I always do, to read the dreaded and hackneyed words on the CD insert that Fairouz “is one of the most frequently performed, commissioned, and recorded composers of his generation ” (italics mine). Well, what the heck generation could he possibly be part of but his own? Did you expect him to be the most frequently performed and recorded composers of his father’s generation?

But promotional semantics aside, Fairouz is a remarkably talented and highly original composer—no more so than some others nowadays who, living in America, combine the music of their ethnic cultures with European and/or American classical structures, but certainly one of the most interesting and communicative of such composers, which I suppose is what moves him to the top of his profession. Certainly, any CD that displays the combined talents of such well-known and/or outstanding talents as the Borromeo Quartet, Rachel Barton Pine, Steven Spooner, and the Imani Winds—all of whom, incidentally, are on my short list of favorite performers whose recordings I try to seek out for review—is testimony enough to the high quality of Fairouz’s music.

We begin this journey with Tahwidah, the setting of a poem by Mahmoud Darwish for soprano and clarinet. The text—which, surprisingly, is actually included in the booklet (along with all the other sung texts on this disc)—concerns the lullaby of a mother to her son, only to discover at the end that she is singing this at his funeral. The music is thus lyrical but strangely dissonant, beginning with exotic and difficult runs and trills on the clarinet, into which the soprano voice intermixes in a surprising and interesting fashion. Thank heavens, Mellissa Hughes has a pure, radiant voice, devoid of unsteadiness or wobble, and her singing is extraordinarily well phrased and emotionally moving. As in the case of so many modern-day sopranos, however, her English diction is exceedingly poor. Without the text to follow, you won’t be able to make out a single word. A small but important criticism, not meant in a mean-spirited way, but Mellissa, please work on your diction!

This is followed by Chorale Fantasy, which the composer describes as a song that combines the Arabic mode maqam “with gentle counterpoint,” leading from a songlike melody to a whirling dance. It was commissioned by the Borromeo Quartet, which plays it here. Perhaps not so curiously, the Solo Violin Sonata—commissioned by and played by Rachel Barton Pine—almost sounds, in its first movement, like an extension of the quartet, so lyrical and songlike is its melodic structure.

I was stunned here by the extraordinary range of colors that Pine extracts from her instrument, ranging from bright, sharply pointed passages reminiscent of Heifetz to warm, rich playing in the mid and lower ranges that sounded like Oistrakh. The second movement, “Rounds,” is a vigorous Arabic round dance (as per the composer’s notes), played with tremendous passion and energy, following which is a lament for the civilian victims of the Egyptian Revolution. This movement, which begins and ends very high up in the violin’s range, moves down to mid-range chordal passages which later incorporate microtonal slides (probably Arabic influenced) and, as in so much of Fairouz’s music, an exceptional singing quality that I feel is related to the song tradition of such composers as Ned Rorem. The composer describes the fourth movement as “just plain fun,” based on “the retro spirit of New York’s cabaret music,” supposedly emulating Gershwin and Porter, but I heard this music as oddly related to Eastern European folk-dance music and Eastern European-American forms, yet with an Arabic accent. At one point, Pine is required to play pizzicato counterpoint to her own top line on the violin. The final movement, which combines the feeling of both a lullaby and a lament, is titled “Lullaby of the ex-Soldat.” Fairouz says that he also conceived this movement as a tribute to Pine’s baby daughter Sylvia Michelle as a “celebration of birth and renewal.” With the possible exception of the first movement, I’d say that Fairouz has accomplished a Herculean task here, writing a sonata for unaccompanied violin that doesn’t owe much to the solo violin sonatas and partitas of Bach. I can only hope that it becomes a staple of the violin repertoire. This is, by the way, also the longest work on this disc.

Following this is Posh, a short song cycle (three pieces totaling 8:22) based on poems by Wayne Koestenbaum. These poems are not intended to “tell a story,” but merely to give an indication of a life: one song (poem) of a baby and his inability to cope with life without help, of “deadbeat dads” and dreams of the future; the second of a hapless adolescent searching for Ned Rorem songs; and third of an adult whose father “brings to mind the self-slaughtered Walter Benjamin.” This cycle is sung by “baritenor” Christopher Thompson, who has an unusual velvety timbre and, yes, qualities of both baritone and tenor. His diction is also superb, in sharp contrast to Hughes, and in the second song he makes one smile with his unusual way of bringing humor out when he sings. As usual, Spooner’s playing is also excellent, albeit subdued in this particular role as accompanist. Fairouz’s scoring for the piano here is primarily that of gently rocking notes and/or soft chime chords.

For Victims is described as “a dramatic scene for baritone and string quartet” based on two poems of David Shapiro, but although there are two movements only the second includes the sung poems. Here the Borromeo Quartet plays with a sense of sadness combined with drama, the music in the first movement vacillating between Eastern and Western modes, occasionally juxtaposing themes rather than engaging in actual development. As it turns out Shapiro’s poems, like many similar works, are about the Holocaust, the first a memorial to its victims and the second a personal memory of his grandfather emerging “in a synagogue” with his “sweet tenor coloratura” while he wonders if the dead are “permitted to sing.” Here the quartet’s role is more subdued and subservient to the vocal line. Baritone David Kravitz, unfortunately, has a woofy and tremulous voice, and his diction is only occasionally clear, which is very unfortunate as the music is exceptionally interesting and well written.

The last work, Jebel Lebnan, translates as Mount Lebanon, and is a lament for the lives lost at the massacres at the Sabra and Shatilla Refugee Camps caused by Phalange Party chief Bashir Gemayel. An interlude for flute is followed by a funeral march entitled “Ariel’s Song,” then a “reawakening” musically described by a celebratory dance to the resilience of the Lebanese people. The final movement, “Mar Charbel’s Dabkeh,” is yet another Arabic round dance. Since I am a huge fan of the Imani Winds, perhaps I am prejudiced in favor of nearly all their performances, which I always find to be rhythmically incisive, colorful in their manipulation of timbre and accent, and emotionally involved in every respect, thus I was immediately rapt by their extraordinary treatment of the opening passage, described by the composer as “a wild scream” for clarinet and piccolo. The music here, punctuated by interjections from the horn and clarinet, is continually underscored by a staccato ostinato figure played by the bassoon. The solo flute interlude is lyrical, yet with telling pauses in the musical line possibly indicating thought or meditation on the part of the flutist. It has a particularly forlorn sound that, to me, indicates such emotions. Interestingly, the solo bassoon line which opens “Ariel’s Song” sounds like a continuation of the flute lament. The other instruments of the quintet enter and exit, either singly or in pairs, but the bassoon generally dominates this lament. (I would also like to point out, for the benefit of those who don’t know, that the Imani Winds are four-fifths women musicians, which I believe is somewhat unique in the classical world.) The dance movement, surprisingly, also starts out slowly, only gradually increasing the tempo within the first dozen or so bars. It’s a cheerful little piece but not terribly uptempo—more of a relaxed dance than a frenetic one. After a short pause in the middle, Fairouz switches gears to his “little song,” which is more meditative and reflective than celebratory. This, in turn, leads into the “Dabkeh” or round dance, which begins with meditative passages played by the flute but then moves into a very sprightly dance rhythm. An Arabic round dance this may indeed be, but to my ears it has a great similarity to a horah!

Despite my small reservations on the diction of two of the singers and the singing voice of a third, I consider this one of the most interesting, varied, and engaging classical albums of the year so far, and one I shall undoubtedly be putting on my Want List.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

On Sale

Fairouz: Native Informant / Pine, Imani Winds

~~$19.99~~ $9.99
CD

Naxos

Mar 26, 2013

8559744

KING SIZE PAPA: THE JULIA LEE COLLECTION 1927-52

ACROBAT

Available as CD

$23.85

Jul 07, 2023

Julia Lee - King Size Papa: The Julia Lee Collection 1927-52 / it is a thoroughly enjoyable showcase for her very personal brand of R&B. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1902, pianist and singer Julia Lee grew up singing and playing in the musical hotbed of that city's jazz scene in the '20s and '30s, developing a style that featured "the songs my mother taught me not to sing" - risque material with unsubtle double entendres - and in 1944 signed to the fledgling, but already successful Capitol label. This great-value 72-track 3-CD collection comprises early recordings with the orchestra of her brother George Lee and then with Jay McShann, followed by most of her A & B sides with Her Boy Friends on Premier/Mercury and Capitol from this era. It features all her career hits, including her R&B No. 1s "Snatch It And Grab It" and "King Size Papa", and her Top 10 hits "Gotta Gimme Watcha Got", I'll Get Long Somehow", "Tell Me Daddy", "That's What I Like", "You Ain't Git It No More" and "I Didn't Like It The First Time". She was a highly distinctive performer, and hugely entertaining, and this collection, as well as being a substantial and reasonably comprehensive overview of the primary era of her recording career, is a thoroughly enjoyable showcase for her very personal brand of R&B.

KING SIZE PAPA: THE JULIA LEE COLLECTION 1927-52

$23.85
CD

ACROBAT

Jul 07, 2023

ACBT9134.2

Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur / Levine, Scotto, Domingo

CBS Masterworks

Available as CD

$39.99

Jul 30, 2008

If Maurizio Arena's lively and sympathetic account of Adriana Lecouvreur for RCA demonstrates that the opera still has stageworthy potential, and not just as a vehicle for an old-fashioned prima donna (for to tell the truth his donna, Raina Kabaivanska, is a rather small-scale Adriana, the voice not always under perfect control), James Levine's sumptuous CBS reading makes an even stronger case for it, and his donna is decidedly prima. It is Levine's Adriana Lecouvreur as much as Renata Scotto's, indeed, and some listeners may find his affectionate moulding of the score, his underlining of its every expressive detail and his leisurely speeds (he adds a full 15 minutes to Arena's timing) rather over-done.

His approach strikes me as an admirable one, rooted in a real love for the score (he has a distinct talent for making you think again about supposedly second-rate Italian operas: he is a first-rate conductor of Zandonai, for example) and in great consideration for his singers. I suspect that Kabaivanska would have made more of the title-role with support from Levine's supple phrasing, so well attuned to the way Cilea's phrases lie for the voice and to a singer's need to breathe, to approach a climactic note at the voice's own pace. Scotto certainly responds to this, and makes a part that might have seemed a size too large for her (there are one or two brief moments of strain) thoroughly her own, with a range that extends from caressed murmur to splendidly melodramatic hauteur.

Domingo is in ardent voice and fills out the rather thinly sketched Maurizio admirably (Arena's elegant tenor, Alberto Cupido, is rather over-parted) and both baritones, Milnes for Levine and Arena's Attilio d'Orazi make a sympathetic figure of the soft-hearted Michonnet. Obraztsova's fans will not mind too much that she makes the haughty Princesse de Bouillon sound like Azucena or Ulrica (one quite expects her to offer balefully to tell Adriana's fortune) but Arena's Alexandrina Milcheva, a very similar Slavonic voice, does much the same. nut this opera stands or falls on whether the soprano can convince you that she is both a grande dame and touchingly vulnerable, and on whether the conductor realizes how much more than an accompanist he needs to be (Cilea was a cunning builder of dramatic tension, and an imaginative orchestrator). On both counts this set succeeds finely, and it is beautifully recorded.

-- Gramophone [3/1990]

Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur / Levine, Scotto, Domingo

$39.99
CD

CBS Masterworks

Jul 30, 2008

SONY34588

Leonid Desyatnikov: The Leaden Echo

Quartz Music

Available as CD

$18.99

Jan 01, 2011

DESYATNIKOV Return 1. Du côté de chez Swan 2. Variations on the Obtaining of a Dwelling 3. Wie der alte Leiermann 4. The Leaden Echo 5. Moscow Nights: Theme 6 • 1 Dmitri Bulgakov (ob); 1 Anton Dressler (cl); 1,4,5,6 Roman Mints, 1,6 Anna Panina (vn); 1 Maxim Rysanov, 5 Serj Poltavsky (va); 1 Kristine Blaumane, 3 Boris Andrianov, 5 Evgeny Rumyantsev, 5 Petr Kondrashin (vc); 2,3 Alexei Goribol, 2 Leonid Desyatnikov, 4 Jacob Katsnelson (pn); 5 William Purefoy (ct); 5 Pavel Stepin (db); 5 Fedor Lednev, cond; 6 Homecoming Strings • QUARTZ QTZ 2087 (63:23 Text and Translation)

Don’t take this as gospel, but I remember reading some years ago that of all the musicians who ever lived, half are alive now. That must hold true for composers, too, because, despite my having heard music by more than 10,000 of them, here is yet another who is new to me. Leonid Desyatnikov is quite prolific, having written a symphony, four operas, several cantatas, as well as numerous vocal and instrumental compositions. He has also been quite active in the film world, where he has won several awards.

Desyatnikov seeks the impossible ideal of uniting ages, traditions, and cultures into an integral worldview. To that end, one hears influences from many musical traditions, some as far afield as those of India and Japan. He describes his style as “the emancipation of consonance, the transformation of the banal, minimalism with a human face.” I concur with this assessment, especially if he means by “minimalism with a human face” that his repetition stops well short of the ad nauseam repetition that curses most Minimalists. Desyatnikov knows the musically effective limits of repetition, and rarely exceeds those limits. As a consequence, I enjoyed this CD far more than most others that have even a hint of Minimalism attending them. He enjoys contrasting simple melodic lines with more static and dissonant interludes. There is often an icy “northern” feeling to his music that reminds me of the music of certain Finnish composers, such as Rautavaara and Sallinen. At other times, there is a sense of nostalgia, akin to a longing to return home. Indeed, mood-setting seems to be paramount in importance to this composer (surely a sine qua non for anyone writing film music).

The CD opens with one of Desyatnikov’s more recent (2006) works, Return. It is based upon several ostinati, and meshed with the melancholy that pervades much Russian and Soviet music. In this work, there is an evolution of thematic material toward a final statement based on gagaku , the ancient ceremonial music of Japan. This is done through expounding a particular note sequence in the tempered scale (via the Western oboe, clarinet, and strings) that finds its resolution in the untempered gagaku source.

Du côté de chez Swan for two pianos is based on “The Swan” from Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals. It begins with an ostinato in the upper register of one of the pianos, below which a series of rhythmically complex figures is heard. All of this gradually transmogrifies into the well-known tune. Thereafter, fragments of the tune or its accompaniment are heard in various guises, along with new material. The whole effect might be described as what one might obtain if one were to somehow assemble two different jigsaw puzzles together in a random fashion and view the resulting picture. The composer admits to “traces of fascination” with Ligeti, and indeed, the structure of the work does seem to owe something to the Austro-Hungarian master. I hasten to say that the piece works much better than my description might imply.

Variations on the Obtaining of a Dwelling for cello and piano is based, according to the notes, on the music of Joseph Haydn, specifically his “Farewell” Symphony. However, I also hear influence of Bach in this piece, especially in its opening, which evokes memories of his cello suites. Part of my perception might derive from the utterly pure sound and intonation produced by cellist Boris Andrianov, who approaches the work’s opening in a “period” performance style. Indeed, I would be delighted to hear this cellist perform the Bach solo suites. The simple, unaffected opening of the work eventually yields to more impassioned lines in the cello, culminating in some impressive climaxes, where the soloist floats on a sea of arpeggios. Along the way, the composer imitates the Indian tabla through pizzicati in the cello. The title of the piece suggests its program, that the composer has a place whence to go out into the world, and a place to come back home.

Wie der alte Leiermann was commissioned by Gidon Kremer for the Schubert Today project. Desyatnikov defines the genre of the piece as “not variations, not a fantasia, not a paraphrase. This is a commentary.” The commentary comes on the closing Lied of Schubert’s Winterreise, “Der Leiermann,” which is itself a static and rather proto-minimalist piece in its masterly depiction of the chill of winter. The composer invites the auditors of this piece to guess his reference therein “to Kremer’s exclusive repertoire.” I have no idea to what in particular he is referring here, but I can tell you that there are strong overtones of the D-Minor Partita of Bach, even down to the opening triad of its famous Chaconne. However, I cannot imagine that anyone could claim the Bach sonatas and partitas as his “exclusive repertoire.” I certainly don’t believe that Kremer would, despite the fact that his recording of these works ranks among the best.

The Leaden Echo is a product of 1991. It is a setting for countertenor and instruments of the eponymous poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and is dedicated to the St. Petersburg art scholar Arkady Ippolitov. Employing simple melodic lines and static underpinnings, the work maintains a Pre-Raphaelite aestheticism with its cult of beauty. Soloist William Purefoy has a beautiful vocal instrument, although it has more of a mezzo-soprano quality than what I usually envision to be the countertenor sound.

Balancing the opening work on the CD, the closing main theme from the film Moscow Nights evokes a sense of nostalgia and melancholy throughout its brief duration.

All the performances on this disc are exemplary and present the music in splendid fashion. Leonid Desyatnikov has something remarkable to say in his music, and I hope that many will afford themselves the opportunity to hear him say it.

FANFARE: David DeBoor Canfield

Leonid Desyatnikov: The Leaden Echo

$18.99
CD

Quartz Music

Jan 01, 2011

QTZ2087

Premieres And Encores - Rawsthorne, Morgan, Warlock

Lyrita

Available as CD

$20.99

Nov 01, 2007

The welcome bouquet of this motley crew of premieres and encores from the Lyrita stable.

Pierson's discursive Macbeth tone poem has no specifically Scottish accent although there is the occasional bagpipe skirl. A memorable piece, it has lashings of bel canto and an overall idiom that relates it to Beethoven (symphonies 4 and 8), Ries and Weber. It is no surprise to read that Pierson spent much of his life in Germany. Like Holbrooke and d’Albert he even changed his name to make it more Teutonic. I'd like to hear more Pierson. In this era of recorded revivals there is surely no reason, apart from performing materials issues, why we should not also hear his Hamlet and the overtures As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet.

Handley's reading of the Alan Rawsthorne's Fantasy Overture: Cortèges shows a composer of broader and more varied palette than we might have presumed from the Symphonic Studies and Symphony No.1. This work is about processions of various sorts from grand and sombre to carnival cavalcades. While there are plenty of Rawsthorne hallmarks much of the music is surprisingly varied and delightful. There is also an element familiar from the macabre King Pest mood of Rawsthorne's friend Constant Lambert. In length it is closer to a tone poem than the typical concert overture. A bristlingly inventive score it holds a few surprises for people like me who think they know their Rawsthorne. The piece ends with a quiet tarantella impudence before the street revellers curl up to sleep.

David Morgan was a pupil of Alan Bush and Leighton Lucas at the RAM. He was accorded the honour of an LP from Lyrita coupling his Violin Concerto and the present piece in 1974. Lyrita must have plans for a different coupling for the Violin Concerto which was premiered in Prague in 1967. I see there is also an as yet unrecorded Sinfonia da Requiem which gives "a personal, not a political reaction to the events of August 1968". Its mood is seemingly reflected in the first movement of Contrasts. His Spring Carnival Overture (not on disc) is apparently akin to the music of the second movement. Contrasts is in two movements and is dedicated to the memory of Shostakovich. It's a work of subdued tones and intimations of darkness especially in the first movement. The subtle brilliance of this recording can be heard at tr. 3, 5.51 where the sustained resonance of a gong-stroke is grippingly put across - a delight. In the last movement wheeling and darting brilliance combines with a slightly Shostakovichian flavouring.

Chagrin was active in the worlds of concert music and film. His Helter Skelter overture bestrides the two being based on music he had written for the frothy 1949 film of the same name. Its not quite as pell-mell as you might expect from the title but the atmosphere is certainly as jaunty and uproarious as the cinema music of Auric. Peter Warlock's Serenade for Strings is given a rather pressed performance - more lilt and less impatience would have helped as it did when it was recorded for EMI Classics by Norman del Mar in the late 1960s. It is no surprise that it was written in 1922 for Delius's sixtieth birthday. While Braithwaite might well have miscalculated on the Warlock he is just confidently magnificent in Beckus the Dandipratt which needs and here gets flighted energy, a twist and a skirl as well as a rambunctious snarl and volatility. This is for me the best and most rewarding reading the overture has had even allowing for the composer's own and that of Vernon Handley. Every detail tells whether it is in Rowlandson-style street hurly-burly or Ealing era insouciance.

The notes are by the always thoughtful and invaluably reflective Paul Conway. More please.

The motley nature of this collection and the imperative to use recordings cut loose by other, usually composer-themed, collections does not stop this assemblage having its own very welcome bouquet.

Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Premieres And Encores - Rawsthorne, Morgan, Warlock

$20.99
CD

Lyrita

Nov 01, 2007

SRCD318

Haydn: Oratorios / Spering, Schuldt-Jensen

Naxos

Available as CD

~~$53.99~~ $37.99

Apr 28, 2009

Reviews of recordings in this set:

The Creation

Although The Creation is no stranger to period-instrument performance, two in particular spring to mind as particularly outstanding. The first of these is Christopher Hogwood's on L'Oiseau-Lyre, which is in English and remains the only version to assemble the huge forces for which Haydn actually wrote, with singularly thrilling results. Second, there is Hengelbrock on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, who demonstrated that at least on recordings the music can sound just as big and colorful, but without extensive doubling of instrumental parts. In his version of The Seasons, René Jacobs accomplished a similar feat, and so does this newcomer, even outdoing Hengelbrock in wringing every last drop of color from Haydn's perennially fresh orchestration. All of the other period performances, including Brüggen, Weil, Harnoncourt (twice), Kuijken, and Gardiner, stand at some remove from these three.

Andreas Spering has a lot going for him right from the beginning: crack vocal and instrumental forces, a strong lineup of soloists, and an excellent German radio production that sounds fabulous...This account of Chaos must stand as the most creepy and desolate on disc, the music still truly revolutionary and modern even at this late date. Spering takes time to make every detail tell: the sudden brass interjections, the startling clarinet run leading to the recapitulation, the muted strings and soloistic writing for timpani. Spering rightly treats the piece Romantically, allowing plenty of opportunities for rhetorical emphasis, as at the thrilling eruption of light and the ensuing recitative, taken a bit slower and more grandly than usual. But there's nothing mannered or unduly exaggerated: everything is dictated by the sense of the text. The chorus obviously relishes the words and sings as though they really mean something.

There are too many outstanding details to list completely. The concluding choruses of all three parts combine blazing brass with exceptional contrapuntal clarity. Sunhae Im and Hanno Müller-Brachmann make a charming Adam and Eve. The latter hasn't the steadiest of baritone voices, particularly in his lower register (as I noted in his recent recording of Bach's B minor Mass for Naxos), but he does surprisingly well in Raphael's big Part 2 aria "Nun scheint in vollem Glanze der Himmel", and tenor Jan Kobow turns in an excellent "In Native Worth" (as it's known in English). Spering somehow manages to play the living daylights out of the great duet with chorus at the center of Part 3, which Tovey called the greatest single movement that Haydn ever wrote, without making an anti-climax out of the following Adam and Eve duet and the big closing ensemble, with its dazzling coloratura "Amens". In short, from just about every possible standpoint, this is as fine a performance of this work as I hope to hear, one that at every turn reveals the miraculously undying youthfulness of Haydn's inspiration. Now on to the The Seasons, please!

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Il ritorno di Tobia (The Return of Tobias)

A welcome addition … worthy to set alongside the other great achievements of Haydn’s middle period.

This is a real find and a welcome addition to the Naxos catalogue. Haydn is justifiably famous for his oratorios The Seasons and The Creation. The latter has been recorded by these artists for Naxos to great acclaim. Now Andreas Spering and his Capella Augustina have unearthed Haydn’s first, all but forgotten oratorio, The Return of Tobias. The apocryphal subject of Tobias and the angel was extraordinarily popular in Haydn’s Vienna when he was composing this work, and he chose to home in on the section of the story when Tobias (Tobia) returns from his long absence from home and, with the help of his friend Asaria, aka the Archangel Raphael in disguise, cures his father’s blindness. Haydn takes this as an opportunity to create an oratorio which, while not as pacy or fast-moving as The Seasons and The Creation, contains much of beauty, and some very virtuosic singing for both chorus and soloists. Popular as the Tobias legend was in 1775, however, it quickly fell out of favour. It was furthermore felt that Haydn’s oratorio was too long (nearly 3 hours) and difficult to be easily revived so it fell out of favour and has barely been heard since. Length is less of an issue when you listen at home and, thankfully, the artists involved here make this difficult score seem all but effortless.

The first accolades have to go to the young soloists. We might hope that Nikolay Borchev would have sounded a little more weighty as Tobit, the blind father, but he brings pathos and sympathy to what could have seemed a dry character. His opening aria, Ah tu m’ascolta, oh Dio appropriately invokes sympathy for a man who seems to have lost all sympathisers on earth. Similarly Anders J. Dahlin is perhaps less forthcoming than we would expect from the hero of the story, but he brings a wonderfully mellifluous tone to the character of Tobias himself, from his first aria upon his return to his parental home, until the final miracle when his father is healed. The outstanding contributions, however, come from the three women soloists. Anna, Tobias’ aged mother, is characterfully sung by Ann Hallenberg. Her rich, fruity mezzo is perfect for the tone of despair the character needs at the opening, and she lightens her tone admirably when the mood of the piece turns more joyful in Part 2. Listen to her exciting opening aria (CD1, Track 4) and you will see how Haydn can create instant interest in the character, as well as how seemingly easily Hallenberg copes with it. Her nightmare aria is Part 2 is thrilling. Sophie Karthäuser tailors her tone to handle Tobias’ virtuous and dutiful wife, Sara. Most admirable of all, however, is Roberta Invernizzi, singing the role of Raphael. The angel is given appropriately difficult, often stratospheric music and Invernizzi sings it with flawless coloratura and effortless command of the technique.

The chorus seems totally convinced by this work and they throw themselves into their parts as if they were singing opera, which it often feels like they are. Two moments to watch out for: their fugal chorus that ends Part One is particularly exciting, and their stormy Part 2 chorus, Svanisce in un momento was resurrected by Haydn as his concert motet Insanae et vanae curae. The Capella Augustina, a period ensemble founded by Andreas Spering himself, plays this music as if it were written for it, and the chamber textures that Haydn is fond of using sound perfectly judged. Listen to Sarah’s Part 2 aria, Non parmi esser fra gl’uomini for a good example of how well orchestra and soloists blend. Spering holds the whole thing together with assured control, but also a sense of spontaneity, as if the music is unfolding in precisely the correct manner. This CD is a welcome addition to the catalogue, and something worthy to set alongside the other great achievements of Haydn’s middle period. Three cheers to Naxos for choosing to give it such a distinguished outing on CD. The booklet contains commentary, synopsis and Italian texts, but no translations.

-- Simon Thompson, MusicWeb International

On Sale

Haydn: Oratorios / Spering, Schuldt-Jensen

~~$53.99~~ $37.99
CD

Naxos

Apr 28, 2009

8507008

Wagner: Tannhäuser / Cluytens, Fischer-dieskau, Windgassen

Orfeo

Available as CD

$37.99

Jul 29, 2004

Another marvellous night at Bayreuth

This is a revelatory interpretation of a work which is not easy to bring off. André Cluytens had taken over the musical direction from Eugen Jochum at short notice, and he seems energised by the challenge. Contemporary reviews spoke of the bright, shining strings and the luminous texture of the orchestra, and of the ‘intoxicating magic’ of the whole concept – all of which is confirmed by this first release. It comes from the second year of what is still considered one of Wieland Wagner’s most elevating productions, and the photos in the booklet show us its moving simplicity and sense of dedication. Director and conductor seem to have persuaded a fine cast to give of their very best. Wolfgang Windgassen, who also takes the title-role in Wolfgang Sawallisch’s 1962 recording from Bayreuth, is here in fresher voice and is even more alternately elated and anguished in his delivery than seven years later. His paean to Venus in Act 1 is as heroically fervent as his narration in Act 3, telling of the Pope’s rejection of his appeal for pardon, and expressing his own terrible torment of the spirit.

His true love, Elisabeth, is sung with total commitment and vibrant, outgoing voice by Gré Brouwenstijn. Her radiance in ‘Dich teure Halle’ and her reverence in her Act 3 Prayer could hardly be better done, equalling if not surpassing Anja Silja’s rather different but just as valid approach in 1962. Just before the Prayer she sings ‘Er kehret nicht zurück’ – ‘he has not come back’ – with utter conviction. The young Fischer-Dieskau is a model Wolfram with a heart of gold and tone to match, each phrase benefiting from his eloquent approach. Josef Greindl, if you can excuse variable intonation, is an imposing Landgraf. Herta Wilfert, a little-known mezzo, is competent but perhaps a little staid as Venus, certainly when compared to the young Grace Bumbry in 1962.

Wieland, as later in 1962, opts for the Paris version in Act 1, the Dresden in Act 2. The latter restores Walther’s solo, a definite plus when it is sung with such beauty by Josef Traxel. The choral singing is up to the superb standard of Wilhelm Pitz during his long reign as Bayreuth’s chorus-master, and Cluytens draws playing of tremendous élan from what sounds like a vintage Bayreuth band. The mono sound is so good that you soon forget any limitations. This set enters the pantheon of great Bayreuth performances on disc.

Alan Blyth, The GRAMOPHONE

Wagner: Tannhäuser / Cluytens, Fischer-dieskau, Windgassen

$37.99
CD

Orfeo

Jul 29, 2004

ORF-C643043

Chopin: 4 Ballades / Murray Perahia

Sony Masterworks

Available as CD

$17.99

Apr 22, 2009

This is surely the greatest, certainly the richest, of all Murray Perahia's many and exemplary recordings.

This Chopin recital represents Murray Perahia's return to the Sony studios after a two-year absence due to serious injury. So may I start by saying that this is surely the greatest, certainly the richest, of all his many and exemplary recordings. Once again his performances are graced with rare and classic attributes and now, to supreme clarity, tonal elegance and musical perspective, he adds an even stronger poetic profile, a surer sense of the inflammatory rhetoric underpinning Chopin's surface equilibrium. In other words the vividness and immediacy are as remarkable as the finesse. And here, arguably, is the oblique but telling influence of Horowitz who Perahia befriended during the last months of the old wizard's life. Listen to the First Ballade's second subject and you will hear rubato like the most subtle pulsing or musical breathing. Try the opening of the Third and you will note an ideal poise and lucidity, something rarely achieved in these outwardly insouciant pages.

Then there is the glorious Fourth and final Ballade in a performance as subtly gauged as any on record. Here Perahia achieves a fluidity of line and impetus that never compromise or sacrifice his sense of superfine and exploratory detail; and what other pianist possesses such an acute aural and rhythmic sensitivity? From Perahia the waltzes are marvels of liquid brilliance and urbanity. You would have to return to 1950 and Lipatti (EMI, 7/89) for a comparable quality though, frankly, even he hardly achieved such an enchanting lilt or buoyancy, such a beguiling sense of light and shade. In the mazurkas, too, Perahia's tiptoe delicacy and tonal irridescence (particularly in Op. 7 No. 3 in F minor) make the music dance and spin as if caught in some magical hallucinatory haze.

Finally, two contrasting Etudes, and whether in ardent lyricism (Op. 10 No. 3) or shot-from-guns virtuosity (Op. 10 No. 4) Perahia's playing is sheer perfection. The recording beautifully captures his instantly recognizable, glistening sound world as well as the immense grandeur of his conceptions. Rarely in my experience has such a truly transcendental pianism (he has every tint and colour of the spectrum at his fingertips) and such innate poetry been so unforgettably combined. Welcome back Murray Perahia; you have been sorely missed.

-- Bryce Morrison, Gramophone [12/1994]

Chopin: 4 Ballades / Murray Perahia

$17.99
CD

Sony Masterworks

Apr 22, 2009

SONY64399

Liquid error (sections/main-search line 271): Could not find asset snippets/spurit_po2_collection_template_snippet.liquid