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Hans Gal: Violin Concerto, Concertino, Triptych / Annette-barbara Vogel
Avie Records · Jul 2010CD$19.99 -
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- Mozart: Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra No. 10 in E flat, K365
- Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466
- Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, S124
- Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
- Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
- Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
- Chambers, J C: All American
- Gould, M: Symphonette No. 4 'Latin-American'
- Reddick: Espanharlem
- Iturbi: Soliloquy
- Mozart: Sonata for 2 pianos in D major, K448
- Chabrier: Trois Valses Romantiques
- Iturbi: Spanish Dance
- Debussy: En blanc et noir
- Milhaud: Scaramouche, suite for two pianos, Op. 165b
- Nepomuceno: La siesta
- Infante: Guadalquivir
- Infante: Sevillana
- Debussy: Suite bergamasque: Clair de lune
- Liszt: Liebestraum, S541 No. 3 (Nocturne in A flat major)
- Debussy: Rêverie
- Beethoven: Für Elise (Bagatelle in A minor, WoO59)
- Schumann: Arabeske in C major, Op. 18
- Debussy: Deux arabesques, L. 66
- Falla: Dance of Terror (from El amor brujo)
- Rachmaninoff: Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 in C sharp minor
- Liszt: Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este, S. 163 No. 4)
- Falla: Ritual Fire Dance (from El amor brujo)
- Saint-Saëns: Allegro appassionato, Op. 70
- Albéniz: Malagueña (No. 3 from Espana, Op. 165)
- Chopin: Étude Op. 10 No. 12 in C minor ‘Revolutionary'
- Chopin: Polonaise No. 6 in A flat major, Op. 53 'Héroïque'
- Debussy: Estampe No. 3 - Jardins sous la pluie
- Schumann: Romance in F sharp major, Op. 28 No. 2
- Chopin: Prelude Op. 28 No. 9 in E major
- Chopin: Prelude Op. 28 No. 10 in C sharp minor
- Chopin: Prelude Op. 28 No. 15 in D flat major ‘Raindrop'
- Chopin: Nocturne No. 9 in B major, Op. 32 No. 1
- López-Chavarri: El viejo castillo moro
- Iturbi: Cancion de cuna
- Granados: Orientale (No. 2 from 12 Danzas españolas)
- Chopin: Mazurka No. 6 in A minor, Op. 7 No. 2
- Chopin: Mazurka No. 7 in F minor, Op. 7 No. 3
- Chopin: Mazurka No. 24 in C major, Op. 33 No. 3
- Chopin: Mazurka No. 27 in E minor, Op. 41 No. 2
- Chopin: Mazurka No. 25 in B minor, Op. 33 No. 4
- Chopin: Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 31
- Debussy: Children's Corner
- Ravel: Jeux d'eau
- Guastavino: Gato
- Mozart: Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra No. 10 in E flat, K365
- Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466
- Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
- Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
- Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
- Bach, J S: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV582
- Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K331 'Alla Turca'
- Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 12 in F major, K332
- Chopin: Impromptu No. 4 in C sharp minor, Op. 66 'Fantaisie-Impromptu'
- Chopin: Waltz No. 6 in D flat major, Op. 64 No. 1 'Minute Waltz'
- Chopin: Waltz No. 7 in C sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2
- Chopin: Mazurka No. 5 in B flat major, Op. 7 No. 1
- Albéniz: Sevilla (from Suite Española, Op. 47)
- Granados: Goyescas: Quejas ó La Maja y el Ruiseñor
- Scarlatti, D: Keyboard Sonata K27 in B minor
- Scarlatti, D: Keyboard Sonata K159 in C major 'La caccia'
- Paradies: Toccata in A
- Iturbi: Pequena danza espanola
- Beethoven: Andante Favori in F, WoO 57
- Albéniz: Cantos de España (5), Op. 232, No. 4
- Lazăr, F: Piano Sonata No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 15: III Tempo di Marcia funebre
- Saint-Saëns: Caprice arabe, Op. 96
- Debussy: L'isle joyeuse
- Infante: Danze andaluse (for 2 pianos): No. 2 Sentimento
- Debussy: Deux arabesques, L. 66
- Bach, J S: Fantasia in C minor, BWV906
- Granados: Danza española, Op. 37 No. 10 'Melancólica'
- Gould, M: Boogie Woogie Etude
- Gould, M: Blues
- Falla: Ritual Fire Dance (from El amor brujo)
- Falla: Dance of Terror (from El amor brujo)
- Debussy: Suite bergamasque: Clair de lune
- Liszt: Liebestraum, S541 No. 3 (Nocturne in A flat major)
- Chopin: Polonaise No. 6 in A flat major, Op. 53 'Héroïque'
- Schumann: Arabeske in C major, Op. 18
- Debussy: Rêverie
- Haydn: Theme and Variations in C major, Hob.XVII:5
- Paderewski: Minuet in G major, Op. 14 No. 1
- Beethoven: Für Elise (Bagatelle in A minor, WoO59)
- Schumann: Träumerei (from Kinderszenen, Op. 15)
- Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte
- Rachmaninoff: Humoresque in G major, Op. 10 No. 5
- Infante: Danses andalouses
- Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37b: June (Barcarolle)
- Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37b: November (Troika)
- Mussorgsky: Une Larme (A Tear)
- Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 'Scottish'
- Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 'From the New World'
- Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody, S244 No. 14 in F minor
- Falla: El sombrero de tres picos: Dance of the Neighbours (Seguidillas)
- Falla: El sombrero de tres picos: Danza del molinero (farruca)
- Falla: El sombrero de tres picos: Final Dance (Jota)
- Palau Boix: Marche burlesque
- Palau Boix: Hommage a Debussy
- Iturbi: Seguidillas
- Cuesta: Danza valenciana in A major
- Falla: Siete Canciones populares españolas
- Turina: Homenaje a Lope de Vega, Op. 90: I. Cuando tan hermosa os miro
- Granados: Danza española, Op. 37 No. 8 'Sardana'
- Granados: Danza española, Op. 37 No. 12 'Arabesca'
- Granados: Danza española, Op. 37 No. 9 'Romántica'
- Turina: Mujeres Españolas, Series 1, Op. 17: 2. La andaluza sentimental
- Turina: Mujeres Españolas, Series 1, Op. 17: 3. La morena coqueta
- Infante: Pochades andalouses: Canto flamenco
- Infante: ochades andalouses: Danse gitane
- Infante: Pochades andalouses: Aniers sur la route de Seville
- Infante: Pochades andalouses: Tientos
- Albéniz: Granada (from Suite española No. 1, Op. 47)
- Albéniz: Córdoba (No. 4 from Cantos de España, Op. 232)
- Cuesta: Danza valenciana in G major
- Lecuona: Malagueña
- Griffes: The White Peacock
- Infante: Guadalquivir
- Infante: Pochades andalouses: Ritmo
- Mozart: Sonata for 2 pianos in D major, K448: Allegro molto
- Granados: El Pelele
- Granados: Goyescas (piano suite)
- Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales
- Chabrier: Scherzo-valse (No. 10 from Pièces pittoresques)
- Chabrier: Idylle (No. 6 from Pièces pittoresques)
- Chabrier: Bourrée Fantasque
- Schubert: Valses Sentimentales, D 779 Op. 50 (Excerpts)
- Schubert: 12 Valses Nobles, D 969 Op. 77: selection
- López-Chavarri: Danza de las labradoras Valencianas
- Shostakovich: Prelude for piano, Op. 34 No. 2 in A minor
- Shostakovich: Prelude for piano, Op. 34 No. 14 in E flat minor
- Shostakovich: Prelude for piano, Op. 34 No. 24 in D minor
- Fauré: Impromptu No. 3 in A flat major Op. 34
- Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 13 in B flat major, K333
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Reinhardt Winkler: Flying Home / Allen, di Martino, Douglas, Kopmajer
Challenge Records · Sep 2022CD$18.99 -
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Take Good Care Of My Heart
BANG GOES MY HEART
SINGERS THE SONGS / VARIOUS
I'LL TAKE ROMANCE
ULTIMATE COLLECTION
1953-1954
The Year That Never Was - Piano Music / Matei Varga
Matei Varga writes: “To paraphrase Tolstoy, all happy memories feel more or less the same; but the unhappy times are experienced differently by each one of us. We’ve all had some really tough weeks, which sometimes turned into months, and (with a bit of bad luck) into years… I like to think that “off” years help us grow and prepare for the beautiful things that will undoubtedly come our way (I am an optimist at heart), but living through dark times is a complicated process.
The year 2020 was complicated indeed. The world was put on hold and we hardly remember what we did in February, or May, or September… Many suffered from isolation and the inability to socialize - and they probably prefer to think back to 2020 as a year that never happened… I, on the other hand, felt liberated by the lack of schedules, appointments and the pressure to be productive - that horrid word which is killing our souls, slowly but surely. Instead I embraced seclusion and enjoyed the time off which was forced upon us. Yes, I did miss performing in front of a live audience and traveling to beautiful places, but I found that staying home, with my piano, offered me a better view towards my inner self and a chance to experience the joy of a new discovery. That was for me the Cuban master Ernesto Lecuona…Two years later, the pandemic isn’t over and neither is the collective anxiety- but at least I can offer you this very personal recording, which I hope will take your mind away from current realities. This is music’s most phenomenal power- to bring joy when we really need it!...”
REVIEW:
The Year That Never Was in Romanian pianist Matei Varga’s title here is 2020; he writes of how he came to embrace the COVID-era isolation and explored the work of Ernesto Lecuona, a composer about whom he had previously known little. The output of Cuban composer Lecuona is sometimes categorized as salon music, and while it includes a few classical hits like the opening Andalucía (from the Suite española), much of his large production of some 600 works remains little explored. Here, the excerpts from the Danzas cubanas del siglo XIX and Danzas Afro-Cubanas will be worth the price of admission for Lecuona fans. He wants to expand the notion of salon music to include some of its predecessors, not only Chopin but going back as far as Domenico Scarlatti. That pandemic seems to have produced a boomlet in recordings of salon music, which is probably understandable, and Varga’s release is a novel take on the idea.
-- AllMuic.com (James Manheim)
Hans Gal: Violin Concerto, Concertino, Triptych / Annette-barbara Vogel
It’s especially interesting for me to be listening to and reviewing this disc as I have just been ‘doing’ Egon Wellesz who, like Gál was an émigré as a result of World War II. Gál’s situation was, if anything, even worse as in March 1933, at a time when he had a role of some eminence in German musical life and also a little in Austria, he was forced out of his position on account of his Jewish background. He fled to England. After many vicissitudes he ended up working and living for the rest of his life in Edinburgh.
The Violin Concerto comes from the period 1931-2 when Gál was at his most successful in Germany. It is in many ways quite an untroubled work. Throughout it I kept pinching myself that this was not a British concerto as it seems to bear little relationship with the Austro-Germanic tradition of the late Romantics or early moderns prevalent at the time. The ‘Fantasia’ opening movement and the second movement marked ‘Arioso’ begin with a very English-sounding pastoral melody on the oboe. The only vicious and angry writing comes in the cadenzas which Gál himself wrote. The piece was written for Georg Kulenkampff and Fritz Busch and is in three movements. The finale, a Rondo, is quite lively and the brightest of the three but the opening is a Fantasia with four or five contrasting ideas. The work as a whole hangs together in a most satisfactory manner. Annette-Barbara Vogel tells us in a brief essay that recording this work and indeed the entire disc has been her dream for many years. She can be triply proud of her efforts, those of the orchestra and of Kenneth Woods who enables the orchestration to breath with such clarity. The recording engineers must also take a bow.
It’s interesting that despite all of the difficulties thrown at Gál and his family in 1934 he wrote the genial, easy-going yet masterful ‘Improvisation, Variations and Finale on a Theme of Mozart’ for string quartet (Meridian CDE84557 - Edinburgh Quartet). In 1939 he wrote an equally lyrical ‘Concertino’ which, ironically is, if anything, more virtuosic than the concerto. Its opening Andante tranquillo is fecund with ideas, almost Fantasia-like. Its melody on cellos is almost Korngold and even more so when the soloist takes it up. But the second subject is strident and dotted. The work is in just two movements linked by a challenging bridge-cadenza before hustling in a ‘Rigaudon’. This was a melody which Gál noted down, apparently from a British Museum Manuscript dated 1716; in contrast there is a more romantic second subject. A nice touch is created by this idea melting away into another, briefer cadenza before the opening melody of the first movement returns with a sense of sadness and nostalgia. The dance tune is suddenly re-invigorated for a final fling in the orchestral strings and then by all, leading to a light-hearted ending.
The CD places ‘Triptych’ between these two concertante works. It dates from around Gál’s 80 th year when he was experiencing a late burst of creative activity. The excellent booklet notes by Eva Gál tell us that this was the time of Third Quartet in 1969, the Fourth of 1971, the Fourth Symphony of 1973 and a Clarinet Quintet of 1977. One is therefore reminded of late-flowering composers such as Berthold Goldschmidt and Havergal Brian. The Triptych is intractably conservative for its time. Indeed in the clarinet writing of the slow, middle movement - called a ‘Lament’ - and in the lyrical second subject of the third movement marked ‘Comedy’, one may well be reminded of autumnal Brahms. There are times anywhere in the work when other composers might come to mind. My wife, who really took to this “warm-hearted old man”, at one moment shouted out ‘Glazunov’ in the first movement (marked romantically, ‘Impromptu’). There’s even a hint of Elgar at one point. But this music is not shackled to any particular time and like its composer is related to no particular place. It has a serious sense of purpose without dourness. It has harmonic variety without abstruseness. It has rhythmic vitality without being overly complex. It has an immediate impact but is worthy of greater study.
The presentation is exemplary with photos and examples of Gál’s neat manuscript work and wonderful performances. If from my descriptions the music seems to have an appeal then search out this CD out because if successful then I suspect more Gál might appear in the next few years.
-- Gary Higginson, MusicWeb International
Noel / Angele Dubeau, La Pieta
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Silent night! Holy night! Hearing just a few notes of this eternal carol is enough to envelop us in a sweet tranquility and inner peace that goes well beyond the meaning of the words written by Joseph Mohr and music famous song by Franz Xaver Gruber. Jumbled memories arise of snow-covered countryside, crackling fires, delicious aromas filling the house, the joyful shouts of excited children unwrapping presents. Has Christmas turned into mere nostalgia, or can we rediscover the true meaning of this celebration? Angèle Dubeau thinks we can and, through both popular songs and carols works associated with the Nativity, she offers here a voyage through a world with diverse origins and traditions. This musical tour and celebration of the Nativity will take you to Finland, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Russia, and, closer to home, Mexico and Canada, with the Huron Carol.
God Jul!
In Scandinavia, Christmas celebrations begin on December 13, the feast day of Saint Lucy, when a young girl is chosen in each village to represent her. Clothed in white and a crown of candles, she goes from house to house—along with a retinue of girls in white dresses and boys with pointy, star-spangled hats—bringing light, the symbol of life and renewal, for the coming year. In Finland, the official festivities begin with a declaration of “Christmas Peace” broadcast live on December 24 from Turku Cathedral. A few moments later, Christmas bells ring out across the country, as conveyed by Joulun Kellot (“Christmas Bells”), an interpretation written by Armas Toivo Valdemar Maasalo. Juleniss, the Finnish equivalent of Santa Claus, rewards good children during the night that follows; one wonders if he is tempted to hum the song Julvisa (“Christmas Song”, subtitled Give me no Splendour, Gold or Pomp), written by a young Jean Sibelius.
Buon Natale!
While Christmas in Italy might first bring to mind panettone, a Christmas sweet bread invented in Milan around 1490 that is served stuffed with cream, topped with a sauce or covered in chocolate, the country is above all the cradle of the Nativity scene. Indeed, Francis of Assisi created one of the first “living” nativity scenes in 1223, with villagers playing various character roles. Whether miniature or almost life size, these reproductions of the manger scene quickly became a tradition, with Italian families setting them up nine days before Christ’s birthday. It is not surprising, then, that two of Italy’s most well-known Baroque composers, Antonio Vivaldi and Guiseppe Torelli, dedicated idyllic concertos to “the holy birth.”
Joyeux Noël!
In France, cantiques de Noël remain the most important part of popular celebrations of the Nativity. By the 16th century, numerous versions of these carols existed in a variety of regional dialects, and they were distributed by door-to-door salesmen who also carried “Christmas Bibles” and engraved prints (often with a carol on the back). Here, Angèle Dubeau performs Noël nouvelet, Laissez paître vos bêtes and La Vierge à la crèche, set to a text by Alphonse Daudet.
Fröhliche Weihnachten!
In Germany, Christmas is Weihnachten (holy nights), and this is where the tradition of the Christmas tree originates. Legend has it that Saint Boniface (ca. 680–754) used the triangular shape of the evergreen tree to explain the concept of the Trinity to the pagans. The first mention of the modern Christmas tree dates back to 1521 in the Alsatian town of Sélestat. Even before this, however, the Christmas mystery plays performed in church squares frequently made use of trees decorated with fruit, offerings, decorations and candles (the candle tradition being attributed to Martin Luther). Two centuries later, Johann Melchior Molter wrote a delicate concerto grosso, inspired by the scene of the adoration of the shepherds.
¡Féliz Navidad!
In central America, Mexicans celebrate Las Posadas (the inns) which, starting December 16, commemorates Joseph and Mary’s search for lodging. As night falls, a procession sets off, led by children carrying a small decorated platform bearing statues of Joseph and Mary, who is riding a donkey. As the procession of villagers winds through the streets singing litanies, they knock at various doors along the route. Each time they are turned away with the cruel words “There is no room,” until the procession arrives at the appointed house or church. Then, the doors are flung wide in the open spirit of Christmas and the celebration begins, concluding with the breaking of a piñata, refreshments and dancing. The lullaby performed here, entitled “Sleep, Holy Infant”, comes from Dave Brubeck’s Christmas cantata, “La Fiesta de la Posada”, written to a text by his wife, Iola Brubeck and arranged by Russell Gloyd especially for Angèle Dubeau. Upon hearing the recording, Mr. Brubeck’s reaction was: “This is fantastic. She is playing from her heart.”
Hristos Razdajetsja!
Orthodox Russians have always liked to transform religious events into celebrations, hence the string quartet Jour de Fête by Alexander Glazunov, which evokes the festivities held on the night of January 6 to 7, Christ’s birthday on the Julian calendar. After the church service, everyone sits down to “Holy Supper,” which cannot be started until the first star appears in the sky, an homage to the star that guided the Magi. After the feast, tradition dictates that a plate of braided bread called kalach is left on the table between two candles, in honour of deceased members of the family. Angèle Dubeau offers here one of the rare recordings of this work.
Merry Christmas!
Christmas is celebrated enthusiastically in the United Kingdom. Houses are decorated with bright lights, children sing Christmas carols (such as “Holy Boy” by John Ireland) in the street, collecting spare change for the poor, and Christmas pudding is the traditional post-Christmas-dinner dessert. Another important tradition began here: the sending of Christmas cards, a custom that began in the 15th century and expanded significantly in the 18th century with the development of lithography.
Jesous Ahatonhia
The Huron carol Jesous Ahatonhia (Jesus is born) was written by the Jesuit Jean de Brébeuf in 1641. Hoping to better convey the meaning of Christmas, the priest adapted the text to the reality of the First Nations people. Hence, Jesus is wrapped in rabbit skins, he sleeps in a bark lodge, the adoring shepherds are replaced with hunters, and three Indian chiefs take the place of the Magi. Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy based her work Huron Carol Interlude on the carol. The interlude of the title refers to the third movement of her string quintet Dance Me Through the Panic, from which she borrowed shimmering colours and a sense of melancholy, imbuing the carol melody with a very particular mood and evoking, in her own words, an “imagery of ice, snow, solitude and prayer.” When she heard this Angèle Dubeau’s rendition of her work, the composer wrote: “This is a wonderfully performed and produced interpretation of Huron Carol Interlude. There is a rich, full sound, with a perfect sense of pacing and colour. It expresses my ideas beautifully. Heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Angèle Dubeau!”
© Lucie Renaud
Translation: Peter Christensen
There I Long to Be
Shades of Mourning
Mahler: Symphony No. 9 / Rattle, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Named Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice for December 2022!
For the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the performances on November 26 and 27, 2021 in the Isarphilharmonie marked the beginning of a new chapter in its Mahler interpretation: with its designated new principal conductor Simon Rattle, the orchestra is now headed by a Mahler admirer every bit as ardent as his predecessors Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel, and Rafael Kubelík. The musicians dedicated the benefit concert on November 26 to the memory of conductor Bernard Haitink, who died in October 2021 and was associated with the renowned orchestra for 61 years. The very long silence after the final chord was one of those “goosebumps moments” that one goes to concerts for – and for which music is made in the first place.
Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, in particular, is understood as the composer’s reaction to a heart ailment that was diagnosed shortly before he wrote the first drafts in the summer of 1908. He was in deep despair, but still scarcely aware of how few years he actually had left to live. With Mahler, it was always in and through music that he tried to come to terms with his life experiences and such topics as farewell, the meaning of existence, death, redemption, life after death and love. He wrote his Ninth Symphony in Dobbiaco, in a kind of creative frenzy, between 1909 and 1910. Its premiere took place in Vienna on June 26, 1912, when the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra performed the work under Bruno Walter. Mahler did not witness the premiere of his last completed work – he had already died on May 18, 1911.
REVIEW:
I would rank Rattle's performance here with the best of the competition and would add that even the classic recordings of Bernstein, Giulini, and Karajan have no significant advantage over Rattle's. In the end Rattle would be my top choice among newer versions and probably the equal of the classic performances on disc.
-- MusicWeb International (Robert Cummings)
If he has always shown very sensitive affinities with Symphony No. 9, Simon Rattle delivers his most accomplished recording to the Bavarian Radio. Recorded live between November 24 and 27, 2021, at the Isarphilharmonie im Gasteig in Munich by Winfried Messmer, [this] powerful orchestral mass presents both great volume and precise definition of timbre and range.
-- Diapason (citation for a Diapason d'or)
The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and its designated principal conductor dedicated one of the two concerts used for this recording to the conductor Bernard Haitink, who died in October 2021. It is a great tribute to this outstanding Mahler conductor, and Rattle once again proves what a major Mahler interpreter he is as well.
Right in the first movement, he succeeds in drawing the whole Mahler world in its gripping originality with magnificent breath. Rising and collapse are always close together, and the exciting alternation between tension and release is maintained throughout the symphony. At the same time, this reading is not lacking in sensuality. There is both lyrical beauty, full of abyss, and the light-hearted (and artfully illuminated) play of sound and movement. The three-movement back-and-forth of emotions leads to the Adagio finale, which Rattle conducts thoughtfully and in moderate tempo. The music dies away in a deeply moving 24 minutes with nostalgia, sadness and also some thoughts of hope.
The orchestra is brilliantly disposed and fascinates with both differentiated coloration and the greatest possible transparency. Under Rattle’s direction, Mahler, the orchestral musicians, and he himself merge into a single instrument.
-- Pizzicato
Superbly played and recorded, from November last year (Isarphilharmonie im Gasteig), a memorial concert for Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon’s third recording (following Birmingham and Vienna, both EMI/Warner) of Mahler Nine sports a first movement, if not without a few cosmetic touches, that is a flowing and feisty affair, defiant, better to be alive than not, with impassioned fortissimos, and only in the concluding few minutes does the music issue calmness as well as bittersweet sentiments, although it seems too sudden as well as much too soon – bearing in mind how the Symphony will end, spare and fading to nothingness. The second movement, with its competing waltz and ländler, has its tempo contrasts well-managed, but is perhaps a little too manicured – it needs to be rougher, more rustic and pesante. Poker-faced sophistication suits the ensuing ‘Rondo-Burleske’, its counterpoint wonderfully clear (antiphonal violins swirl either side of the podium) albeit greater bite is sometimes required, and it’s a surprise that Rattle doesn’t linger more in the central section (his is a tempo-related ‘trio’), and the conclusion is thrillingly fast and rendered with A+ virtuosity – the abyss awaits. The final Adagio follows more or less attacca (I can vouch for such a joining from an LSO concert years ago) and is a dignified if intense leave-taking, powerful (vibrant strings, eloquent woodwinds) and ethereal, with a cathartic climax and a hypnotically controlled paring down of resources as expression becomes more and more off the radar.
-- Colin's Column
Korngold, Goldschmidt, Bloch: Cello Concertos / Steckel, Raiskin
This is the concerto debut disc by the young – not yet thirty – German cellist Julian Steckel. Let me say right away I like everything about this disc – a lot! Intelligently programmed, very well engineered and stunningly played by both the orchestra and all importantly the soloist. Clearly there are many fine cellists competing for the attention of the classical music world. Most have bravura techniques that were the reserve of the super-elite barely a generation ago but all too often this can be at the expense of musicality or sensitivity. What impresses and indeed thrills me about Steckel’s playing is the range of colour and emotion he finds in this trio of rather wonderful scores.
It was an excellent idea to bring together on a single disc three cello concertos by three Jewish composers of the last century. Two, Korngold and Goldschmidt, were displaced from their native lands by the rise of the Nazis whilst Bloch, although Swiss-born and thereby protected from the horrors of the final solution at first hand, also left his native land to settle in America. None of the works presented here are ‘rare’ in recording terms and Bloch’s Schelomo is that composer’s most popular concert work. Admirers of the other two composers are almost certain to have these works in their collections too so why buy this disc? The answer is because it is simply that good. The disc opens with the Korngold Cello Concerto in C Op.37. The genesis of the work is well-known; for the Bette Davis film Deception the key love triangle consisted of a musician, a composer and Davis. At a crucial point in the film the cellist/musician plays in concert the composer’s concerto. For this sequence Korngold wrote a six minute mini-concerto which was expanded into the ‘full-scale’ work we have here. Even then it lasts a bare twelve minutes. Korngold had a unique clause in his Warner Brothers contract allowing him to retain intellectual ownership of the music he wrote for their films hence themes from film scores appear in concert works and vice versa. This is a work where the boundary between celluloid and stage blurs to nothing. By having to cram the entire concept of a concerto into such a short time-frame there is a danger that it will appear as all gesture and little content – Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto is surely the ultimate example of that appealing failing. Korngold’s genius – and I am sure he was a genius – is that it works and is satisfying both as music and formally. The first thirty seconds of the performance here tells you that you are in for something rather special. The orchestral introduction is alert; lean and motile but with the sharp tang of nostalgia that is uniquely Korngold. Steckel’s entry is confident, ardent, articulate and superbly projected. At the same time the engineering and production allows conductor Daniel Raiskin to bring out so many telling details in Korngold’s brilliant scoring. The more you hear of Korngold the more you realise what a unique sound-world he created characterised by halos of brilliant harps, keyboards and tuned percussion enveloping lyrical lines of heart-breaking beauty. Listen to Steckel’s handling of the second subject; [track 1 1:20] – this is head-turningly, heart-stoppingly, lump-in-throat-makingly beautiful. As I said, there have been several other versions of this work; I still have a great affection for the first version I knew on the RCA Classic Films scores series played by Francisco Gabarro (RCA GD80185 recently reissued as Sony RCA Red Seal 88697 81266 2), but Steckel is better. Likewise Peter Dixon on Chandos (CHAN9508 or more recently CHAN10433X) and Julius Berger on CPO (999 077 or as part of set of 4 CPO 999150-2) are perfectly good just not this good. For Korngold completists the Naxos version of the film score played by Alexander Zagorinsky is of interest because it is the compact film-score version (Naxos 8.570110-11). There is one last version worth hearing but hard to find because it was on a BBC Music Magazine cover disc played by Frederick Zlotkin conducted by Leonard Slatkin (BBC MM234, 2003). [Not to forget Zuill Bailey on ASV] They are the sons of the cellist Eleanor Aller who played the solo part on the soundtrack and Zlotkin plays her cello.
Turning to Schelomo competition is if anything even fiercer. Liner-note writer Norbert Ely describes it as “a deeply pessimistic work” which I suppose it is although I must admit I had never thought of it as such. Another valid point Ely makes is how Bloch forged a musical language which he describes as coming from an “imaginary folklore”. Indeed Schelomo is soaked in music that seems to echo with archaic ritualistic chants whilst actually being original themes. As with the Korngold it is a work where the cello-cantor-protagonist has to play with an extraordinarily wide range of tonal colour and musical flexibility. Here, as throughout the entire programme, Steckel displays his chamber-music loving roots with playing of rapt concentration and pared-back beauty. I have heard performances which emphasise the virtuosic elements more but if you buy into Ely’s concept of “ecstatic pessimism” then this performance is a revelation. Again elsewhere I have occasionally found the rhapsodic form of the work can give it a loose and discursive feel. With Steckel the sense of directed movement and controlled development is unmistakable. As ever, he is helped in this enormously by the excellent Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie with Raiskin’s unerring sense of pace. Time and again I found myself hearing little flecks of orchestral colour and nuance that I have not noticed before. Perhaps this does not displace my other favourite versions but that has more to do with them presenting valid alternatives. The passage that resonates here for me is the broken lament on the cello after the main central climax of the work [track 2 14:10] – playing of profound beauty and poignancy; “why hast thou forsaken me” in music. Part of Steckel’s particular skill is matching his tone, both bow speed and pressure, to his vibrato – at times febrile and fast and at others wider and slower. It might seem like an obvious way to vary one’s palette but it is rarely used with such carefully considered sophistication as here.
After a brief reassessment in the mid-nineties it seems that the music of Berthold Goldschmidt is sinking back into obscurity. The relative lack of interest is marked by the fact that the recoding of his cello concerto here – just its third by my reckoning – makes it his most recorded work. Steckel is again in powerful company with David Geringas on CPO (an all-Goldschmidt orchestral works disc: 999 277-2 ) and no less than Yo-Yo Ma on Decca (a Goldschmidt concertos disc: 0289 455 5862 2 DM). But he has nothing to fear from either. This work was written in 1953/4 as an evolution of a lost piano and cello work written for Emanuel Feuermann in 1932. The reason it fits so well in the programme here is the way it can be heard as springing from much of the same cultural and aesthetic heritage as the other two works yet ultimately pursuing a more abstract and ‘pure music’ path than the emotional Schelomo or literally cinematic Korngold. The orchestration is sterner, more cerebral than the other two; by no means lacking in colour or beauty but less luxuriant. Likewise the soloist leads a rigorous musical debate rather than riding the passionate wave. All of the earlier virtues of the disc are again evident – beautifully secure yet flexible playing from all departments of the orchestra and the transparent recording allowing the contrapuntal detail of the score to register with natural ease.
I have not mentioned before that I like very much the balance that has been achieved between soloist and orchestra. Given that the three works were recorded at different sessions spread over four months the consistency of the sound is exceptional. After the hot-house emotions of Bloch and Korngold, Goldschmidt can seem to be relatively staid although the second movement Caprice mélancolique is powerful and terse. The inspiration for the work is neo-baroque with an expressionist element that must have seemed terribly contrary to the mood of the times in which it was written. With the benefit of more than fifty years hindsight it can be seen that Goldschmidt forged a very individual musical personality from pre-existing materials and forms. Therein lies another unifying link with these three works and composers. None of them was revolutionary but neither were they anything like as reactionary as they were considered during their compositional lifetimes. The closing Tarantella of Goldschmidt’s concerto has a rather take-it-or-leave-it feel which I rather like – a sense of following one’s own path without compromise.
The format of the packaging is the increasingly popular cardboard gatefold with the liner booklet tucked into a slot of the cover. The liner is in German and English only. Norbert Ely’s notes are brief but good.
This looks like it is a self-promoted disc by Steckel. If so, knowing the time effort and cost of mounting such a project, I hope it has the success and gains the attention playing of this calibre richly deserves. Increasingly players are having to self-promote and I am always sorry if I cannot be as enthusiastic about the results as that kind of dedication and effort merits. But here we have a disc that would grace the release schedule of any major international company and playing worthy of comparison with the very finest. The tiniest caveat is the short playing time at 54:04 but as a tailor would say, “never mind the cost, feel the quality”. Here on a single disc we have the finest version of the Korngold and performances of major works by Bloch and Goldschmidt more than equal to any other. Julian Steckel – remember that name – Bravo!
-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International
Warlock - Collected 78rpm Recordings 1925-1951
This is a vital set for Warlock enthusiasts. A number of these recordings were made before Warlock’s death in 1930 not that this in itself is any guarantee of authenticity of approach but there is fascination in hearing these contemporaneous accounts.
Anthony Bernard's Capriol is not taken at a dawdle. The sound is a little boxy but vivid and even brusque in a way that, inthe finale, recalled Bartók. The Delian Serenade for Strings is taken by Barbirolli at a dry-eyed speed but one can still feel the minute attention to dynamic and pace by the instant more so than with Bernard in Capriol. Unsentimental stuff. It’s unnerving to hear Capriol in a version played by Szigeti as transcribed by him for violin and piano. The pianist is none other than Nikita Magaloff. A shame that each movement is not separately tracked. It is played with greatly accentuated emphasis and fierce tone. Lambert's 1937 Serenade also sounds fast by latter-day standards. It’s 40 seconds shorter than Barbirolli in 1928. The sound is more agreeable in this case with heightened fullness of tone. Lambert continued that same year with a Capriol also with his own string orchestra. Though overall only 14 seconds longer than Bernard it sounds less hectoring - more modern. The tone is very nicely rendered and it's quite pleasing to the ear overall. The 1935 recording of Warlock's version of the Purcell fantaisie no. 3 is sedate and stately in a version played Casals-style by the Pasquier Trio. Ten years later the Griller take Warlock's arrangement of Purcell Four Part fantasia. This is seriously done again with stately concentration and gravity of expression.
Sounding best of all and for me Warlock's masterwork is The Curlew here heard in a 1950 version by René Soames, Leon Goossens and the Aeolian String Quartet. The influence of that cor anglais can be heard to this day - as late as 1979 in Howard Blake's score from the film of Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands. Soames is passionate but his accent may seem rather outdated and twee to some. The Curlew is a melancholy score and there is quintessential beauty in its melancholy. The curlew-call intertwines with the words and with wild-eyed witchery. There is romance here but Warlock will let in not even a shred of sentimentality. The work makes an indelible impact yet for me the versions by James Griffett (Pearl and ASV) and Ian Partridge (EMI Classics - just reissued again) take some beating. Soames is good though, for example in his way with the words: “The roads are unending and there is no place to my mind”. He sings the words “Because I have told them my dreams” where Partridge chillingly speaks them in hushed tones. After all the witchery hearts melt in the face of the images conjured by the words “I know a sleepy country where swans fly round coupled with golden chains … and sing as they fly / A king and a queen are wandering there and the sound has made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind with wisdom they wander till all the years have gone by.”
The second disc is full to the brim with 35 songs. The Dawson Captain Stratton's Fancy is sung with boozy character. It’s full of life and expression and still works. John Goss, a good friend and close associate of the composer lays into Oh Good Ale with the Cathedral Male Voice Quartet. Flow not fast ye fountains sounds rather stilted though Diana Pulton plucks away at the lute with an emphatic will as she also does in There is a garden, O Eyes and Come My Celia. Goss does little in the way of expression but he is very clear in his enunciation. These January 1928 recordings are a valuable sliver of history. The English Singers are recorded in the Corpus Christi Carol the year before the Goss recordings - it’s quiet and fast. The recording was on the, for me, little heard of Royston label. The baritone John Armstrong sings Sleep and Chopcherry with the International String Quartet for a National Gramophone Society disc in 1931. A quick pace is in evidence again; the results seem unfeeling. The Fox is sung eerily and ruthlessly by Parry Jones - very impressive and even slightly gothic-macabre - in 1934. He is more honeyed in Come Sleep and sunset warm though warbly-lachrymose in Take O take Those Lips away. Sweet and Kind is better. As ever I saw again finds Parry Jones in good stalwart form yet sensitive to the word-setting as he also is in The Passionate Shepherd. Thankfully Leslie Woodgate's BBC Chorus, recorded in 1936, are so much better than the English Singers in the Corpus Christi Carol. Peter Pears even sounds good, in springheel form, well before a sollipsistically beloved bray had become part of his stock-in-vocal-trade.
From the same disc we hear a surgingly lusty Cornish Christmas Carol. It's to the tune we now know as Nowell! Nowell!. In 1941 Cecil Cope recorded the six nursery jingles for the BBC Transcription Service. This is silently surfaced and sounds wonderfully alive and clean for these little charming trivialities. In 1941 and 1943 Roy Henderson recorded some eight Warlock songs - all here. Milkmaids and Captain Stratton's Fancy Henderson is accompanied by Eric “Griffen” in 1943 but otherwise it’s Gerald Moore. Surely the accompanist for the first two is in fact Eric Gritton? Henderson's tight tone ensures clarity of enunciation - very sharp uptight diction. He relaxes somewhat for Passing By but he seems to miss the tenderness. There’s too much of the Captain Stratton about this. I had fears for My Own Country - one of my favourite songs among the Warlock solo items. In fact he does this very well indeed, assisted by the wonderfully sensitive Gerald Moore. Fair and True comes off less well, despite the strange tonal world of the initial piano notes. Piggesnie skips along in sprightly fashion and Henderson does here take the hint. The three songs by Nancy Evans are again taken with Moore but there is a dearth of feeling in Sweet and Twenty. Consider is not a song I recall hearing before. In fact it works well in its swirling aspirational scena style. Evans tackles Come Sleep very well. Rest sweet nymphs transports us to Truro County Girls school choir in 1946 where the pupils are conducted by the attentive Miss Sanders. It's very lovely and is lovingly done. The First Mercy is hauntingly sung by boy soprano Master Billy Neeley. Again a wonderful Corpus Christi, this time taking 4.45 against the 1936 BBC Chorus version and The English Singers 3.03 in 1927. This 1950 HMV version is conducted by Woodgate with The Festival Singers and with Flora Nielsen. It’s a master-work. Wonderful stuff but sounds even older than its 1950 vintage and making that Cecil Cope BBC transcription job all the more miraculous in its superbly preserved clarity. Dennis Noble and Moore, again totally reliable yet full of blazing imagination, tackle the mystical Frostbound Wood in 1951. They are accorded fine sound. The Fox is as nicely macabre - even melodramatic - as Parry Jones in 1934. In fact Parry Jones does it with less grease-paint. Oscar Natzke has been celebrated in various sets over the years and here he does a rather populist Captain Stratton's Fancy with Graingerian ‘chuckles’ in the orchestra and the piano solo. Dawson is non pareil but Natzke is pretty good and he does have the benefit of the orchestra.
All the transfers are by Andrew Rose of Pristine Audio. The originals were painstakingly collected by John Bishop - he of Thames Publishing fame. Bishop did so much for the music of Warlock and many other British composers. By the way, Boydells - a successor to Thames - are offering all four volumes of the Warlock letters at a very attractive price - just contact them for further details.
An item 'missing' from this collection is a recording of The Curlew by John Armstrong with the International String Quartet. Its inclusion would have necessitated a third CD - the recording is available as a download via Pristine Audio. I could happily have done without the two Purcell arrangements if we had conveniently had that other version of The Curlew there.
Thanks to Divine and to the funders for the set, the Peter Warlock Society. This single-width 2-CD set is smartly presented. There are some nice pictures of the soloists and everything is fully documented with lots of local colour. Full discographical detailing is supplied. The wonderfully extensive notes are by Stephen Sutton and Giles Davies; no words though.
-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
Berg: Wozzeck / Weigle, Hawlata, Denoke, Tierney
David: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 / Wildner, ORF Radio-Sinfonieorchester Wien
I can only reiterate my colleague’s enthusiasm for David’s symphonies. On paper, an expectation of ersatz Hindemith or Hartmann would be quite understandable. Descriptions of David’s music have often suggested dry, competent academicism – the reality seems very different. There is a clutch of stylistic allusions and comparisons one could make, but there is a great deal that is fresh, inspired and enjoyable about these works. Above all, they don’t meander; they appear to be really coherent and well-formed. This was my abiding impression of the first disc, and it applies here too. Indeed, the splendid Second Symphony on this disc lasts almost three-quarters of an hour – and I would argue that is not a moment too long.
Scored for a big orchestra, this work was completed by David in the summer of 1938 while he was holidaying in the upper Austrian highlands. It begins with a mysterious, chromatic theme played on a solo flute, before other solo woodwind instruments take on the melody and the sound and structure begin to fill out. These understated chamber-like wind textures belie what is to come. There are a lot of exposed solo lines in this work, which hint at a hibernal solitude. However, frenetic strings eventually join the fray, projecting a virility which certainly evokes Hindemith. The material evolves naturally from the original theme (indeed David embraces monothematicism throughout his symphonic corpus) and is developed most skilfully. Vibrant colours are achieved via judicious washes of tuned and untuned percussion which sporadically perforate the fuller orchestral textures. The mood of this music seems untouched by the date and place of its provenance – although it’s neither ecstatic nor joyful, it instead projects a sense of cautious optimism. One passage at 9’13 strongly evokes Hindemith’s great Harmonie der Welt symphony - David’s work pre-dates it by 13 years! As the movement heads toward its conclusion, with more adroitly played solo clarinet and bassoon, the mood briefly becomes more melancholy and terse. But this is a momentary reflection; the busy string gestures soon return and see us to the movement’s energetic, meaty conclusion which, in turn, suggests this composer’s true hero, Bruckner. Notwithstanding David’s fiercely twentieth century idiom the spirit of the Linz master is rarely far away in this music.
The two central movements, largo e cantabile and scherzo, are both relatively brief. The note quotes a contemporary critic as detecting a hint of Pfitzner’s operatic masterpiece Palestrina in the slow movement. Adopting an arch-like structure, it is an enigmatic, ambiguous essay which generates an uneasy calm. The string writing at its centre is glowingly beautiful. Rhythmically speaking the Scherzo is even more Brucknerian; here I detect something approaching bucolic joy, albeit one that’s oddly claustrophobic. The central trio section delights in strummed string effects. Some of the wind writing is almost jazzy and certainly gloriously sophisticated. The main theme soon gets under one’s skin. It ends abruptly - seemingly a David trademark.
The finale is a massive and ambitious passacaglia. I found it deeply impressive, but it requires effort on the part of the listener. It portentously reconstitutes the main theme from the first movement, initially stated in lower strings, and presents 31 superbly contrasting and interesting variations, seamlessly woven together with richly imaginative orchestration and plenty of opportunity for the principals of the ORF band to show off. There is a suppressed and not necessarily benign power at work in this compelling and measured movement. The ORF orchestra may lack the weight and sheen of their better- known Viennese counterparts but they invest this strange music with real passion and exceptional commitment. I suspect it would require a cold heart for a keen listener not to be moved by it. While I certainly found David’s Symphonies 1 and 6 to be technically accomplished and compelling, I believe this Second Symphony trumps them both. Needless to say, one cannot help but repeat the oft-asked question: where has this music been all my life?
The Symphony No 4 is harder work; it is effectively David’s ‘War’ Symphony. He made three attempts at writing it: the second draft was destroyed with his home in Leipzig during an air-raid in 1944. In fact, according to the booklet note, David rushed back into his burning house and rescued his son’s parakeets and what he thought was the almost-completed symphony. As it turned out it wasn’t – he thus reconstructed it from memory in a third and final draft which he completed in 1948. The opening dirge-like theme emerges gradually in winds and strings in the opening, brief slow movement. The brass provide more ominous colours which add to the prevailing solemnity - given the circumstances of the work’s gestation, this material seems more than apt. Gary Higginson mentioned Rubbra in his review of the earlier disc and there is again a hint of that composer’s controlled power in this movement. The pent-up energy is released in the following Allegro moderato, a terrific and compelling fugue. It builds inexorably with ripe timpani rolls and imaginative counterpoint towards a brass-dominated conclusion which again ends abruptly. Another Brucknerian Scherzo follows. The first half of this is oddly wistful and as light as air, suspended by what the note describes as “…impressionistically shimmering sonic ornaments…”. The orchestration in the middle section thickens momentarily before serene harp figurations puncture the flowing strings and winds. The movement concludes with a mercurial sense of urgency. At the outset of the fugal finale, the material heard at the opening of the work returns, somewhat shorn of any residual sentiment. It generates a somewhat muted, but not unappealing momentum. The orchestration throughout the finale is both transparent and vivid although its ending is somewhat troubled and ambiguous.
David’s Fourth Symphony then is a terse and rather compressed affair. It doesn’t disclose its qualities immediately and is the archetypal tough nut to crack. I’ve given it a few listens now and although I am beginning to like it, I feel it lacks some of the easier-going charm of its coupling here. Wildner leads the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra in searching and committed accounts of both works, although I didn’t find their efforts here quite as polished as those on their previous David disc. As mentioned, that was recorded three years later and I suspect the orchestra by then had better found their way with this composer’s distinctive idiom. The recording is faithful without being spectacular and I am happy to report that CPO’s documentation is first-class – there is a wonderfully detailed introduction to these works by Dr Bernhard A. Kohn (the keeper of the David archive) which has been translated into perfectly comprehensible English (not always the case with CPO). As with the previous volume it includes several musical examples of David’s thematic material. I hope we aren’t kept waiting too long for the next instalment in this fascinating series.
– MusicWeb International (Richard Hanlon)
Rudolf Kempe Conducts Dvorak & Strauss
STRAUSS Ein Heldenleben 1. DVO?ÁK Symphony No. 9, “From the New World 2” • Rudolf Kempe, cond; 1 Royal PO; 2 BBC SO • ICA 5009, mono (DVD: 89:22) Live: Royal Albert Hall, London 1 8/28/1974; 2 8/29/1975
How absolutely wonderful it is to see Rudolf Kempe, looking hale and fit, ascend the podium and direct an absolutely magical performance of Ein Heldenleben with his usual minimum of podium fuss, his face mirroring both the music’s changes and his obvious pleasure at hearing it emerge the way he wants, the Royal Philharmonic members playing their little hearts out for him. This is exactly the way I always imagined Kempe in performance, as close to Toscanini’s podium style as any conductor who outlived him, eliciting that magical, transparent sound, ignoring nothing in rhythmic acuity and liveliness, and now we have the pleasure of seeing how he did it.
The sound is still mono but the images are in color. The members of the orchestra look completely rapt in concentration; everything in this performance is focused on the music, nothing on how they look to the audience. A bit dull to watch? Perhaps. But, like watching such similar conductors as Toscanini, Doráti, and Böhm, it amazes one that such exuberance of spirit and a rich palette of colors can emanate from such outward calm and control. For make no mistake, Kempe was a master of coloration. He knew how to make an orchestra “speak.” He knew the secret, now lost to a modern generation of conductors, of how to play music like this so that it sounded not only beautiful but noble, eschewing bombast in favor of the long line, the gradual ebb and flow of suspense, and—I reiterate—that unbelievable palette of colors he had at his disposal. Kempe’s strings had the sound of a choir singing.
In my experience there was only one performance of Ein Heldenleben I really loved prior to hearing this performance, and that was Willem Mengelberg’s 1941 broadcast with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The Concertgebouw of that time was by no means the technically precise instrument that the New York Philharmonic of 1928 was, in his Victor recording, but there is so much more detail and drama in the later performance that I forgave the roughly played passages. Kempe’s Heldenleben is an entirely different animal. The contrasts are all musical, not as dramatic, but with a flow and coloristic quality that make the score sound more akin to the upward spiral of ascending angels than to Mengelberg’s explosive reading (though they join hands in “The Hero’s Deeds of War”). There is nothing like it in my experience, not even Kempe’s studio recording for EMI, because the studio recording adds the goop of mid 1960s reverb to a performance that doesn’t need it. Here we have, if you will, Kempe urtext, and the result is simply mind-boggling. Listen, for instance, to the way he makes the low bass passage resound with great depth without sounding heavy or ponderous. His legato flow is seamless, the accuracy and crispness of his attacks and releases flawless. It was exactly moments like these that took your breath away when listening to a Kempe performance.
Yet he resented EMI’s pushing him as a Wagner and Strauss specialist. Kempe conducted a great deal more than that, Schubert, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Dvo?ák, Shostakovich, and Bruckner among them, and all of them well (he’s one of the few conductors besides Furtwängler who, to me, made some sense of Bruckner’s succession of endings in his symphonies), and here he follows Heldenleben with the “New World” Symphony of Dvo?ák. Unexpectedly, his performance of this symphony is startlingly dramatic, having almost the punch and drama of Toscanini’s excellent 1953 recording, only with Kempe’s patented transparency. The orchestra swells and ebbs flawlessly and naturally under his guiding hands; an unexpected rubato after the brief flute solo is picked up with tremendous force when the brass and high strings erupt again. Dozens of little details—clipped rhythmic accents here, buoyant legato bridges there—mark this interpretation as unique.
Kempe uses a fairly small baton, even a little smaller than Toscanini’s but not as tiny as the toothpicks that Strauss and Reiner used. His arms are a little further apart than Toscanini’s, but he is only slightly more animated on the podium, his arms moving in graceful arcs. Only a few months after the Dvo?ák performance came the shocking announcement that Kempe had died. I can remember that moment as if it were yesterday; it grieved me more than you can imagine. He had a very special gift, sought by many but bestowed on few, and we are all the poorer for his untimely passing.
FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley
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In a letter to his friend, the distinguished French man of letters Romain Rolland, Richard Strauss categorically denied that he was the model for Ein Heldenleben: “I am not a hero. I have not got the necessary strength; I am not cut out for battle; I prefer to withdraw, to be quiet, to have peace.”
Some commentators may have refused to take Strauss at his word, but the uncredited director of this BBC transmission of a 1974 Proms concert is clearly not among them. His view of things is crystal clear for, throughout the whole of the work’s first section, a musical depiction of Der Held (The Hero), he resolutely directs his cameras at the conductor. There is, in fact, not a single second of that opening 4:59 of music when Rudolf Kempe is not pictured on-screen, whether in close-up, middle distance or in long-shot. The corollary of that fact is that as soon as we begin the work’s second section, Des Helden Widersacher (The Hero’s Adversaries), we start to see the orchestra members on their own – but maybe I am now stretching my theory of the supposed relationship between the visual images and the “text” just a little too far.
Even though Kempe’s widow Cordula records in the DVD booklet notes that her husband “thoroughly resented” being pigeonholed as a Strauss (and Wagner) specialist, his affinity with Strauss’s music was well recognised at the time. His record company EMI persuaded him to set down the complete orchestral works on disc. No less a personage than the Queen Mother reportedly gushed “Oh, Mr Kempe, when will you do the Alpine Symphony again?” (rather a surprise, given recent revelations of the sort of music she listened to at home). And, as evidenced in this performance taken from the conductor’s very last concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the 1974 Promenaders were quite over the moon with this Ein Heldenleben; critic Joan Chissell reported that this performance elicited “a hero’s ovation and rightly”.
Having never seen Kempe conduct live or on film before, the first thing that struck me was just how physically charismatic and animated he was on the podium. By fastidious, very precise gestures with both his baton and the fingers of his left hand, he coaxes some exquisite sonorities that we can fully appreciate thanks to his scrupulous care for orchestral balance - and to the installation of fibre-glass acoustic diffusing discs on the Royal Albert Hall’s ceiling just five years earlier, successfully reducing its notorious echo.
The outstanding characteristic of Kempe’s interpretation is that, by the application of both sensitivity and sensibility, he gives Strauss’s score the opportunity to breathe. This is, indeed, anything but a brash, bombastic account: the orchestra plays with notable and carefully controlled intensity and Erich Gruenberg’s substantial violin solos are especially affecting - he justifiably gets a special roar of approval from the Promenaders as he takes his bow.
If the Strauss is very fine indeed, the Dvorák is, however, outstanding. Edward Greenfield’s booklet notes suggest that its distinguishing feature is the wide range of dynamics that Kempe applies. What struck me most, however, was the interpretation itself. In contrast to performances that emphasise the score’s elements of cheery Bohemian bonhomie, Kempe’s is a deeply serious account.
The opening movement is characterised by fierce attack and precision - wonderful playing from the BBC orchestra - and Kempe minimises the elements of lyricism in favour high drama. In a similar vein, the second movement’s sentimentality is entirely played down. Its well-known “big tune” ( Goin’ home, Goin’ home, I’m a goin’ home / Quiet like, still some day, I’m just goin’ home) is moved purposefully along and the fervent manner in which its central section is played communicates, to this listener at least, a distinctly uneasy feeling of agitation and unrest.
Kempe’s interpretation is nothing if not consistently of a piece for the scherzo and the allegro con fuoco finale are similarly driven powerfully forward. The formers elements of bucolic rusticism are given short shrift and the latter, right from its opening bars, emerges as a real daredevil ride and is terribly exciting - while still very skilfully controlled and crafted.
This New World is one that emerges as a real eye-opener and a very different work from the one that we’re usually presented with. It justifiably receives a huge ovation from the audience.
This new DVD, then, preserves some superb performances. The direction – originally for BBC TV - is expert and thus almost entirely unobtrusive, the visual image - in colour throughout - is sharp and pleasing and the sound is more than acceptable. It offers an opportunity to acquaint or reacquaint oneself with a conductor of the highest calibre, performing live and at the peak of his abilities.
-- Rob Maynard, MusicWeb International
The Rediscovered RCA Victor Recordings / José Iturbi
This collection stands as a valuable time capsule from which one comes away with a fuller understanding of Iturbi’s prominence in American wartime and postwar culture.
The complete RCA Victor Recordings by José Iturbi from 1933 to 1953, include his piano duo recordings with sister Amparo Iturbi as well as Amparo Iturbi’s solo recordings on 16 CDs, restored and remastered from the original lacquer discs and analogue tapes using high-resolution 24 bit/192 kHz mastering technology with about 95% of the recordings appearing on CD for the first time and 23 pieces previously unreleased. As well as a new, captivating essay by Grammy-nominated singer, pianist, and music anthropologist Michael Feinstein on the life and work of José Iturbi and a photo book with previously unseen photos and facsimiles from the Iturbi Archives in Hollywood.
There was a time when classical music was a natural part of Hollywood. From the moments with Jascha Heifetz in They Shall Have Music (1939) to the unrivaled performances of Oscar Levant and Isaac Stern in Humoresque (1946). In its Golden Era, Hollywood adorned itself with the Who's Who of classical music. Today, alongside icons such as Marylin Monroe and James Dean, the names of Leonard Bernstein, Maria Callas and Arturo Toscanini, as well as Rudolf Serkin, Joseph Szigeti, or José Iturbi were immortalized on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. This edition is a loving homage to Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, made possible through the generous support of the José Iturbi Foundation and the Hollywood Museum Board of Directors, who contributed to the lavish restoration of many previously lost unpublished recordings. The publication was also made possible by contributions of singer, pianist, and music archivist Michael Feinstein, the Ambassador for the Great American Songbook.
REVIEW:
During the 1940s and 1950s the “World’s Most Popular Classical Pianist” mantle fell comfortably upon José Iturbi (1895-1980). His recognition as a radio personality led to a movie career that yielded ten feature films between 1943 and 1951 where the pianist mostly starred as himself. Yet for all of Iturbi’s renown, he was hardly a poseur. He worked with Wanda Landowska in Paris, and gave Stravinsky’s Piano Rag Music its world premiere, as well as the first complete Carnegie Hall performance of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes.
He also conducted. When Eugene Ormandy assumed the Philadelphia Orchestra’s music directorship in 1936, his chief rival for the position was Iturbi, who wound up taking charge of the Rochester Philharmonic that same year. Once Hollywood beckoned, however, Iturbi became the brunt of intellectual critics, who basically wrote him off as a sell-out and an artistic lightweight.
Time, of course, brings perspective, and Sony/BMG’s lavishly produced 16-CD collection containing Iturbi’s complete RCA Victor recordings invites a fairly thorough examination of the musician behind the personality, plus an opportunity to reassess a largely forgotten body of recorded work. A 188-page coffee table book contains photos in abundance, with all original-jacket artwork represented, including the most politically incorrect cover art ever to grace Dvorák’s “New World” symphony. We get complete session and release discographies, an Iturbi filmography, plus a brilliant in-depth biographical essay by Michael Feinstein, who co-produced this collection with Robert Russ.
It’s a pity that the session discography is not cross-referenced to corresponding CD tracks, not to mention the absence of a discography by composer. This makes it difficult to navigate the contents with ease, especially in works that Iturbi recorded more than once. For example, it took some sleuthing on my part to discover that Discs 5 and 11 each contained the Liszt Liebestraum No. 3, Schumann Arabeske, Debussy Reverie, and Chopin Polonaise in A-flat Op. 53, and that the performances were not identical.
With few notable exceptions, Iturbi’s solo recordings mostly consist of short, encore-length pieces. He’s especially at home in Spanish music: Iturbi’s accentuation, phrasing, and timing throughout Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance define perfection, while he shapes Granados’ Spanish Dance No. 2 (“Oriental’) with sensitivity and tenderness. Classical selections also stand out for Iturbi’s bracing articulation. True, the outer movements of his Mozart K. 331 and 332 sonata recordings are overly facile and insufficiently inflected when measured alongside contemporaneous Mozartean rivals like Schnabel, Gieseking, Fischer, and Haskil. Yet the sheer evenness and poised symmetry of Iturbi’s finger-work easily explains why pianists like Julius Katchen and William Kapell praised his Mozart.
Iturbi also revels in the Haydn C major Theme and Variations’ sly wit. By contrast, introspection and sobriety characterize Iturbi’s measured unfolding of Beethoven’s Andante favori. Similar gravitas elevates Paderewski’s Minuet in G to near-masterpiece status. Iturbi’s virtuosic glitter befits his dashing Saint-Saëns Allegro appassionato more than in his glib Liszt Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este.
Iturbi’s Chopin hits and misses. His Mazurkas lack the ardency and rhythmic snap that distinguishes a Second Scherzo that gets better as it progresses. Also note the pianist’s dotting the duple rhythms in the A-flat Polonaise’s main theme that Horowitz, Rubinstein, and Lhevinne play straight on their rival RCA versions.
The later recordings reveal Iturbi’s pianism losing some of its erstwhile luster and subtlety, possibly exaggerated by the close microphone placement and twangy patina typical of late 1940s/early 1950s piano recordings stemming from RCA’s Hollywood recording studio. For example, the two Debussy Arabesques recorded in New York in 1939 have a supple elegance missing in their glassy-sounding 1950 Hollywood counterparts (sound clips). The blustery, hard-toned, and harshly engineered Liszt Concerto No. 1, Mendelssohn Concerto No. 1, and Beethoven Concerto No. 3 were non-starters in their day, with the piano way up in the mix, relegating the crackerjack RCA Symphony musicians to doormat status. Still, the Mendelssohn’s outer movements feature some of Iturbi’s most scintillating pianism on disc.
While Iturbi’s two-piano distribution of the solo part of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is surprisingly effective and discreet, he and his pianist sister Amparo turn in a crass, alternately whipped up, and sappily sentimentalized interpretation. Works of Mozart, Debussy, and Milhaud better represent their dazzling ensemble rapport, but again, the boxy, claustrophobic engineering undermines their efforts. Similar dryness typifies Amparo’s idiomatic solo recordings of Spanish repertoire. Still, it’s nice to have her rare 1954 Granados Goyescas back in circulation, although it pales alongside Alicia de Larrocha’s far more nuanced and texturally differentiated interpretation from the following year.
The collection also showcases Iturbi’s work on the podium. His 1940 Rochester Philharmonic versions of the Mozart D minor and Beethoven C minor concertos are more judiciously balanced than his orchestrally superior 1952 RCA Victor Symphony remakes. Each contains lively and engaging outer movements that flank wooden, hard-toned slow movements.
Iturbi’s 1951 Liszt Hungarian Fantasy with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra has a snarling rawness that differs from the sheen and suavity of the 1952 Arrau/Ormandy and late 1940s Solomon and Moiseiwitsch editions. As with many second-tier American orchestras in the 1940s, the Rochester Philharmonic boasted strong strings but less proficient winds and brass. Consequently, Iturbi’s Mendelssohn “Scottish” Symphony took a back seat to Mitropoulos’ powerful 1941 Minneapolis version, while the aforementioned Dvorák New World lacked the Szell/Czech Philharmonic recording’s flavorful ensemble discipline.
The prize of Iturbi’s Rochester discography is a snazzy and brilliantly turned-out Morton Gould “Latin American” Symphonette, which is surprisingly well-engineered for its 1944 vintage. Another delightful curiosity is William J. Reddick’s Espanharlem, a brief orchestral work whose quick changing moods and jazzy underpinnings wouldn’t be out of place in a Carl Stalling Bugs Bunny cartoon soundtrack. There’s also a previously unpublished recording conducted by Werner Janssen of Iturbi’s orchestral composition Soliloquy. The piece amounts to 14 and a half minutes’ worth of rambling 1940s film music clichés filtered through third-rate Lecuona. Why Iturbi is credited as piano soloist when there’s no piano to be heard is anyone’s guess!
Notwithstanding the artistic unevenness of Iturbi’s recorded output he always had the self-respect to keep his technique in world-class repair, unlike his rival classical pianist turned media personality Oscar Levant. Still, music lovers who don’t want to go the whole hog, so to speak, are directed to APR’s 2016 three-disc solo Iturbi compilation. I also hope to see Iturbi’s post-cinema EMI recordings restored. However, beyond purely musical considerations, Sony/BMG’s collection stands as a valuable time capsule from which one comes away with a fuller understanding of Iturbi’s prominence in American wartime and postwar culture.
-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)
CONTENTS:
Reinhardt Winkler: Flying Home / Allen, di Martino, Douglas, Kopmajer
This new release features famous standards played by a remarkable ensemble lead by drummer Reinhardt Winkler. The recording features Harry Allen on tenor saxophone, John di Martino on piano, Boris Kozlov on bass. “I’ve selected each song on the album because it speaks to my heart in a very personal way. Making music takes my mind to a special place, filling me with an awareness of being a link in a chain; a chain of ideas and musical approaches that I’m treating with great care while trying to keep them going.” (Reinhardt Winkler)
Irmgard Seefried Edition
"We all envied her, because all that we had to struggle so hard to achieve seemed so natural and self-evident to her because she knew how to sing from the heart" said Elisabeth Schwarzkopf of her colleague Irmgard Seefried. Collected here are Seefried's complete recital recordings for Deutsche Grammophon as well as highlights from her recordings of opera and sacred music for the label and includes material both unpublished and new to CD.
Irmgard Seefried was a revered artist among lovers of natural singing, wrote the critic Alan Blyth. 'The emotions, grave or gay, are expressed directly, unfussily, genuinely, in that peculiarly outgoing manner that was this artist's supreme gift.' This gift illuminates song repertoire from Bach to Bartók and beyond in a newly compiled and remastered set of her recital albums recorded by Deutsche Grammophon in the 1950s and 60s. 'If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers,' wrote Blyth on another occasion (a reissue of the 1953 'Liederabend' anthology of concert performances). 'If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or to cry I would find her the perfect companion.'
The core of the set is formed by several albums of Romantic Lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf. As well as an imaginative collection of Goethe settings, there is an album of Heine and Schumann, poetry and song, in which the recited portions are reissued on CD for the first time. The set includes two appendices, both also new to CD: Seefried's contribution to the DG audio documentary series 'Erzähltes Leben', and 'Erik Werba Accompanies You', in which the soprano's regular recital partner plays the piano part for famous Lieder (with the idea that the listener at home will take the sung line for themselves).
Seefried also made several opera recordings as well as sacred music for Deutsche Grammophon. Generous excerpts from these - often including entire scenes, not just arias - are included as newly-compiled anthologies across five CDs.
Seefried's voice was renowned for it's beauty and tonally purity, with minimal vibrato. Her diction was exquisite, as were her phrasing and legato in Schumann's cycle of Mary, Queen of Scots Lieder. Especially in folksong repertoire such as the Liebeslieder-Walzer of Brahms, she contrived to give the impression that her art came easily to her, and that it's expression was an inevitable extension of her personality, devoid of any suggestion of imposing her will upon the music. But this impression was the essence of Seefried's greatness, and it transferred to modern song repertoire, too: not only the opulent romanticism of Respighi's Il tramonto but Werner Egk's German-Mediterranean Quattro canzoni, and a selection of sacred solo motets by Paul Hindemith that surprised and delighted many critics on it's first issue.
All the material in this Original Covers collection has been newly remastered, and the set is richly illustrated and accompanied by a new essay on Seefried's art by Tully Potter as well as an English translation of Ein Selbstporträt by Fer van Campen.
Guarneri Quartet - The Complete RCA Victor Album Collection
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
Ravel: Complete Piano Works / Alice Ader
Alice Ader’s first Debussy disc (Erato) won all the awards in the specialist press on its release twenty years ago and is still regarded as an unequalled benchmark. Now this unconventional pianist at last unveils her recording of the complete Ravel piano works. And what better moment could there be than Debussy Year to present these two hours or so of music in dialogue, en Miroirs as it were, with the œuvre of ‘Claude de France’? Ravel, the hot-blooded Swiss watchmaker, the discreet Lisztian, the mediocre pianist who made such extreme demands on his colleagues, the man of so many sublime paradoxes, deserves only the finest interpreters: those who take the time to explore his deepest recesses. Alice Ader, light-years away from the flashy gestures often encountered in this music, takes us to the very heart of one of the most secretive composers of his time.
Mendelssohn: String Symphony No. 10; Widmann: Ikarische Klag
As I Love You - The Complete Shirley Bassey 1956-1962
Victorious Love - Purcell / Sampson, Cummings, Kenny, Et Al
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More Sampson and delight: first-class Purcell like this is much too rare
-- Gramophone [12/2007]
A fine flowing line, great virtuoso technique yet also expressive feeling.
Purcell’s song output is extensive. Zimmerman, in his analytical catalogue of his music, the Z numbers in the heading, identifies five categories. All are represented in the nineteen songs of this anthology from Carolyn Sampson.
The fullest coverage is of the seven songs from Purcell’s semi-operas, four from The Fairy Queen. ‘Now the night is chas’d away’ (tr. 9), the first song in Act 4, is given pacy, gleeful treatment by Sampson and, while there’s no chorus on hand to supply the choral repeats, the concluding instrumental ritornello has matching verve. The first song in Act 5, ‘Thrice happy lovers’ (tr. 11), Juno’s blessing, is delivered smilingly yet with enough virtuoso display to impress, the aria section, “Be to one another true” (1:40) quieter as befits its more serious manner yet still with pleasingly varied, regal application of ornamentation in repeated phrases. Sampson’s style throughout has absolute assurance. The first song in Act 3 (tr. 17), is of a more philosophic nature, with an instrumental version as prelude so you can admire its courtly progress, climax and gentle falling away. The music and performance perfectly mirrors the bittersweet ambivalence of the text exemplified in the opening line, ‘If love’s a sweet passion, why does it torment?’. Lastly ‘O let me weep’, the Plaint (tr. 4), a self-contained little scena added to Act 5 in the 1693 revival where the mourning for the departed lover and isolation of the singer is echoed by obbligato solo violin. Sampson and violinist Sarah Sexton maintain a delicate balance between stark plainness, as in the violin’s first echo of the singer’s “sighs” and the naturally florid embellishment of the melodic line, in particular at cadences. So after a display of this kind by the violin from 4:21 the quiet voice entry is more affecting and the sotto voce pathos of the closing section, “He’s gone”, punctuated from 6:30 by one note violin sighs, are the more effective. Emma Kirkby’s 1982 recording in her Purcell song anthology (L’Oiseau-Lyre 475 9109), timing at 6:32 in comparison with Sampson’s 7:23, is more urgent and plangent against which the steady ground bass makes for tension through contrast. Sampson presents a more savoured, Italianate outpouring of grief.
There are three other semi-opera items. From Act 3 of The Indian Queen ‘I attempt from love’s sickness to fly in vain’ (tr. 13) is treated by Sampson as a light, soubrettish sort of song, comely enough, with a fluent, airy delivery, graceful ornamentation and an effective pause at the beginning of the final refrain, enjoying mulling over the experience. However, the animation of ‘They tell us that you might powers above’ (tr. 5) from Act 4 is, I feel, overdone for this more serious song whose second strain seems thrust forward so that its closing semiquaver clusters, however delicately delivered by Sampson, seem breathless. The instrumental version which follows, timing at 1:15 against the comparable opening verse’s 1:04, has more suitable breadth. Nancy Argenta’s opening verse in 1995 in her Purcell song anthology (Virgin 5 61866 2) is 6 seconds slower than Sampson’s, which gives it a somewhat more intent nature. Sampson’s last semi-opera item, from Act 5 of King Arthur, is ‘Fairest isle’ (tr. 15), Venus’ song with a nicely graced instrumental prelude that sets the tone for the luxuriant smooth, flowing, serene singing with intimate continuo and more elaborate ornamentation for the second verse tempered by quieter delivery. I find the effect beautifully jewel-like though some might feel it excessive.
Another Zimmerman category is songs in incidental music for the theatre of which there are three on this SACD. The disc takes its title from the upbeat concluding section (tr. 1 2:30) of ‘Sweeter than roses’, exuberantly delivered after the soft opulence of the vocal opening enhanced by sultry theorbo and expressive bass viol, all finely controlled with vivid “trembling” and focus on the keyword “kiss”. ‘Music for a while’ (tr. 8) also begins softly, the tone here notably clean, opening out at “wond’ring” and with sensitively added ornamentation for the repetitions of “eas’d” so that very addition seems part of the relaxation expressed. ‘Man is for the woman made’ (tr. 6) is performed by Sampson as a party piece, including a tipsy rising glissando on “liquor” and an outrageous but terrific virtuoso roulade on “serenade”.
Of the category songs in odes comes just ‘The bashful Thames’ (tr. 12) from the Yorkshire Feast Song. Two violins take the original obbligato accompaniment for two recorders here which makes for a more refined backing to which Sampson provides a stylish front, making the contrast tell between the cowed descents of “drooping” and confident ascents of “tow’ring”.
Sampson sings six of Purcell’s secular solo songs. The second, more elaborate setting of ‘If music be the food of love’ (tr. 10) is one of contemplative virtuosity, taking in thrumming demisemiquavers to illustrate “joy”. ‘O solitude’ (tr. 16) is plainer but kept flowing and intense because of its remorseless ground bass. Sampson’s soft close is movingly evocative of the title and subject of the song’s veneration. But Argenta’s 1992 recording here is calmer, with a little more space, timing at 5:26 against Sampson’s 5:18, with just archlute accompaniment more inward and contemplative, a quieter, plainer delivery, the wide vocal range from middle C to high G effective enough without further emphasis. Sampson’s account has bass viol too, making the ground bass more prominent while Sampson makes the text more dramatic, partly through more ornamentation which shows both more imagination and artifice. ‘From silent shades’ (tr. 7) is the mad song of Bess of Bedlam with contrasting tempi mirroring mood swings, slowing at the vision of the dead loved one, then from Sampson a display of warbling elegy with an electrifying octave glissando rising at “forth”, but in the main coming across as a crafted, almost documentary study of a sad state. She isn’t as wonderfully direct or has such touchingly naïve brightness of tone and simplicity of presentation as Emma Kirkby who is pacier, 3:43 against Sampson’s 4:31, lighter yet more dramatic. Sampson offers us a more lingering experience with fine shaping of line and more contrasted sections. ‘The fatal hour’ (tr. 2) begins in elaborate declamation but after Sampson’s poised and tender “Sure when you go, my heart will break” is transformed into a more flowing love song. ‘Oh! fair Cedaria’ (tr. 14) is supremely crafted and sung as it moves from an opening section of swooning admiration, through a central happy contemplation of the loved one’s beauty and charms to a closing “pity me” appeal. Based on a jig, ‘When first Amintas sued for a kiss’ (tr. 3) is a jolly, racy piece allowing singer and harpsichord to let their hair down with tempi artfully varied to point the story. Sampson is more forthright and dramatic, with denser and busier accompaniment than Emma Kirkby’s lute alone. Kirkby is quieter but with a very knowing manner and subtler variation of pace.
Finally Sampson gives us two of Purcell’s sacred songs. ‘Tell me, some pitying angel’, the Blessed Virgin’s expostulation (tr. 18) is a scena tracing Mary’s emotions when the 12-year-old Jesus goes missing. Sampson’s opening well conveys the initial flood of anxiety soon tempered by a more contemplative hoping he is safe. Then there’s a more intimate manner of tender care questioning why he disappeared. But I felt Sampson’s repeated calls to Gabriel a touch too swift for full dramatic and anguished impact. Sampson makes the second section, “Me Judah’s daughters once caress’d” a happy recollection and the contrast at the close of trusting the God but fearing for the child is finely poised. Nancy Argenta’s 1992 recording isn’t as varied and tender early on as Sampson’s but does give the calls to Gabriel more urgency and space, more contrast to the third section, “Now fatal change” and a more vivid questioning perplexity to the fourth, “How shall my soul its motions guide”. Lastly from Sampson, an Evening Hymn, ‘Now that the sun hath veil’d his light’ (tr. 19), with just theorbo accompaniment, is presented as an intimate nocturne, the voice softly complementing, smooth yet flowing, the presentation much plainer than hitherto with not a trill in sight, a refreshing close which shows Sampson and her accomplices still have the capacity to surprise.
To sum up, this is a well varied selection, as stylishly sung as those by Argenta and Kirkby. The inclusion of the ‘authentic’ instrumental versions of some songs is a welcome bonus. The SACD recording brings both intimacy and spaciousness, placing you in vivid proximity to the singer and players. Moreover, in a fascinating booklet note Elizabeth Kenny refers to an intention to make the disc different with flexibility in interpretation and use of instruments reflecting the way Purcell’s music was transmitted in the half century after his death rather than seeking a more chaste, urtext manner. As I’ve noted above, where Sampson is at her most daring she’s most striking. Not everything comes off: in ‘They tell us that you mighty powers’ and the Blessed Virgin’s expostulation I feel the momentum sometimes impairs the emotive impact. But mostly there’s a fine flowing line, great virtuoso technique yet also expressive feeling fully revealing Purcell is one of the greatest English song writers.
-- Michael Greenhalgh, MusicWeb International
