There is no doubt that the present album has ane specially personal meaning for Juliane Banse, because it celebrates her many years of association with all three composers, Wolfgang Rihm, Aribert Reimann and Hans Werner Henze. Juliane Banse met these composers at the beginning of ther career and still enjoys a close friendship with them. A close collaboration has led over the years to the premiere of many of their works. It is not surprising that Reimann's "Drei Gedicht der Sappho" and Rihm's "Aria/Ariadne" are dedicated to her and the Munich Chamber Orchestra; Although Juliane Banse did not have regular contact with the composers during the period when these works were written, she says she had complete confidence that the pieces would be composed with her in minda nd appropriate for her voice. The finished works justified this confidence. The third piece on this album was written before Juliane Banse was born, but she does have a connection to Hans-Werner Henze: in the opera "L'Upupa und der Triuph der Sohnesliebe", from 2003, Henze wrote a role especially for her voice, and she was intensely involved in the compositional process.

Another album presenting achievements of Pawel Lukaszewski (DUX Lukaszewski Collection). The characteristic stylistic language of Lukaszewski is close to artists such as Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, and Mikolaj Górecki, and at the same time it strongly refers to the pre-modern traditions of Renaissance vocal music and Gregorian chant. The key feature of this release is the cycle titled Beatus vir, composed in 1996-2007. It consists of eight songs recalling - successively in this recording - the following characters: Saint Adalbert, Saint Martin, Saint Stanislaus, Saint John of Dukla, Saint Paul, Saint Anthony, Saint Zygmunt Szczesny-Felinski, and the Venerable Servant of God Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski.

Everything I undertake misfires immediately. I produce dirty rubbish and that will accomplish nothing. So wrote Erik Satie in 1903 during a period of transition that saw him produce the last of his Rose + Croix style music in Verset laique & somptueux, but in making a living writing for the music halls, he also created hugely popular songs such as Je te veux. The works on this fourth volume of Satie's complete solo piano music were written between 1897 and 1906. They include rare theater music and tender waltzes that contrast with jaunty ragtime and pantomime dances. Nicolas Horvath began his music studies at the Academie de Musique et de Theatre Prince Rainier III, and at the age of 16 he caught the attention of the American conductor Lawrence Foster. His other mentors include a number of distinguished international pianists, including Liszt specialist Leslie Howard. He is the holder of a number of awards, including First Prize of the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions. He has become noted for hosting concerts of unusual length, sometimes lasting over twelve hours, such as the performance of the complete piano music of Erik Satie at the Paris Philharmonie before an audience of 14,000 people and recently played together with Philip Glass also at the Paris Philharmonie.

The third disc in The Sixteen's acclaimed series of Polish music, conducted by Associate Conductor Eamonn Dougan, explores the work of Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki (1665-1734). Regarded as the outstanding Polish composer of the high baroque, Gorczycki studied in Prague and Vienna in his early years, and returned to Kraków where he was appointed Magister Capellae at Wawel Cathedral in 1698. Like his predecessor Bartlomiej Pekiel (featured on CRO 16110), Gorczycki wrote in both stile antico and stile moderno; the works featured on this recording display his skill in both genres. As the last great talent of the Polish Baroque era, Gorczycki is certainly deserving of a wider audience.

Kevin Puts is one of America’s most exciting and important composers. His first opera, Silent Night, with a libretto by Mark Campbell, was commissioned by Minnesota Opera. It premiered in 2011 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. A work profound and sweeping emotional power, it has since entered the modern operatic repertoire with remarkable speed, enjoying world-wide performances. The opera is based on Christian Carion’s screen-play for the 2005 French war film Joyeux Noël, and its fictionalized subject is the series of Christmas truces on the Western Front in 1914.

REVIEWS:

American composer Kevin Puts’ first opera, Silent Night, with a libretto by Mark Campbell, was commissioned by Minnesota Opera, the house where this live recording was made. The opera's subject is the Christmas truce on the Western Front in 1914.

Various languages are used in the opera, German, French, English, Italian, and even Latin.

Puts and Campbell have packed the serious theme into a complex score, very colorful and modern in style, with painfully dissonant and wonderfully lyrical moments. Overall, the opera is good for an impressive musical experience, though the question is whether the visuals of the theatrical experience are missing from the audio recording. On the other hand, with just the audio there is more focus on the music, and it is, after all, quite expressive and convincingly performed in this live recording.

-- Pizzicato

As we have already heard in his orchestral works, Puts is a highly compelling and innovative orchestrator, and here he is equally compelling in the field of opera where he works within the conventions of solos, duets and choruses. They are then brought together by the British-born conductor, Courtney Lewis. It is not the type of story you can enjoy, but the opera, which takes two hours, must rank amongst the most outstanding staged in recent times. Add to this the ideally balanced recording, and it becomes self-recommending. The twin disc comes with English. This, and the slim two disc jewel case with notes on the artists, is then presented in a cardboard box.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Also available in DVD!

Rameau’s first opera Hippolyte et Aricie delivered a lyrical tragedy of such extraordinary intensity it changed the course of French music, stunning and overwhelming its audiences. This breathtaking spectacle involves prince Hippolyte, who asks his mother-in-law Queen Phédre for help in wooing the beautiful Aricie, little knowing that Phèdre secretly wants Hippolyte for herself. In a single work Rameau re-invented tragédie en musique with dramatic expressiveness and shocking harmonic innovations. It is seen here in an acclaimed Opéra Comique production that personifies Rameau’s assertion that ‘music must speak to the soul, its true aim must be to express thoughts, feelings, and passions’.

Music by Oscar Winner Alexandre Desplat (The Shape of Water, The Grand Budapest Hotel)Starring Joe Alwyn, Golden Globe Winner Oscar Isaac, Mélanie Laurent & Oscar Winner Ben Kingsley MGM’s razor-sharp thriller, Operation Finale, brings to life one of the most daring covert operations in modern history. Starring Golden Globe® winner Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Ex Machina) and Academy Award® winner Sir Ben Kingsley (Gandhi, Schindler’s List), and the film vividly captures the ingenious and brilliantly executed mission to capture Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust.Fifteen years after the end of World War II, acting on irrefutable evidence, a top-secret team of Israeli agents travel to Argentina where Eichmann (Kingsley) has been in hiding together with his family under the alias “Ricardo Klement” and execute an extremely dangerous abduction. In attempting to sneak him out of Argentina to stand trial in Israel while being pursued by the country’s right-wing forces, agent Peter Malkin (Isaac) is forced to engage Eichmann in an intense and gripping game of cat-and-mouse with life-and-death stakes.Operation Finale is directed by Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Twilight Saga: New Moon) from a screenplay by Matthew Orton. Oscar Isaac is also a producer, along with Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger under their Automatik company and Jason Spire’s Inspire Entertainment.Alexandre Desplat says about the soundtrack: “Writing a score for the abduction of Adolf Eichmann has been a tremendous challenge. Chris and I tried to bring the audience into the mind of the Mossad squad, struggling to succeed in one of the most famous chases of a Nazi official; a criminal with no regrets or remorse whatsoever, hidden in Argentina. Organizing the train transports of Jews throughout Europe and supervising their systematic killings in villages or forests were some of Eichmann’s tasks. The music I composed tries to modestly capture these elements of tragedy and madness. A group of 10 percussionists leads the London Symphony Orchestra into a Mephistophelian dance.”ABOUT ALEXANDRE DESPLATComposer, orchestrator and conductor Alexandre Desplat is a two-time Academy Award® winner, nine-time Academy Award® Nominee, with over hundred scores and numerous awards to his credit and is one of the most worthy heirs of the French film scoring masters.A true cinephile, his approach to film composition is not only based on his strong musicality but also on his understanding of film which allows him to intimately communicate with directors. Inspired by the works of Maurice Jarre, Bernard Herrmann, Nino Rota or Georges Delerue, he expressed his desire to compose for film early on but really made his decision after listening to John Williams’ score to Star Wars.After scoring 50 European films, with legendary French directors such as Philippe de Broca and Francis Girod, he burst in 2003 onto the Hollywood scene with his evocative score to Peter Webber’s Girl With A Pearl Earring earning him nominations at the Golden Globe Awards®, BAFTAs and European Film Awards.His singular and remarkable scores for the films of Jacques Audiard showed a new musical voice and his composition for The Beat That My Heart Skipped in 2005 earned him the Silver Bear at the Berlinale as well as his first César.Alexandre Desplat then started to expand his U.S. career keeping his European collaborations.In 2007 he received his first Academy Award® nomination for Stephen Frears’ The Queen which earned him his first European Film Award. The same year he won the Golden Globe, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award and the World Soundtrack Award for his score to John Curran’s The Painted Veil, performed by Lang Lang.He composed in 2008 for Florent Siri’s Intimate Enemy, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, and David Fincher’s The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, which earned him a second Oscar nomination and a fourth BAFTA and Golden Globe® nomination.With his score for Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer in 2010, starting an inspiring relationship, he won a second César and a second European Film Award. The same year, he wrote the music for Twilight-New Moon by Chris Weitz, a platinum record, Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel and for Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech for which he won the BAFTA, the Grammy Award and receives his fourth Academy Award® nomination and his fifth Golden Globe® nomination. In 2010-2011 Alexandre Desplat scored David Yates’ films Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2, which became the third most successful movie of all time.As eclectic as prolific, he wrote nine scores in 2011 including Terence Malik’s Tree Of Life, Roman Polanski’s Carnage, Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, Daniel Auteuil’s The Wells Digger’s Daughter and George Clooney’s The Ides of March.In 2012, keeping his artistic exchange with European directors, Alexandre Desplat collaborated with Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty, Matteo Garrone for Reality, Gilles Bourdos for Renoir, Jérôme Salle for Zulu, Wes Anderson for Moonrise Kingdom and Jacques Audiard for Rust And Bone, the latter of which he won a third César. He also scored Argo by Ben Affleck, which was awarded the Oscar for best film and earned Alexandre Desplat a sixth nomination at BAFTA, as well as a fifth nomination at the Golden Globes® and the Academy Awards®.In 2013 he scored George Clooney’s The Monuments Men, Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur and Stephen Frears’ Philomena, for which he received his seventh BAFTA and his fifth Oscar nominations.In 2014, he scored Gareth Edwards’s blockbuster Godzilla and received a rare double Academy Award® nomination for his scores of Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which earned him a BAFTA, a Grammy Award® and his first Academy Award win.In 2018, Alexandre Desplat won his second Academy Award®, second Golden Globe® Award and third BAFTA for Guillermo del Toro's The Shape Of Water. ​​​​​​​TRACKLIST: 1. Operation Finale2. Sacrificed Children3. Nazis Rising4. Malkin's Memories5. Setting Up Operations6. Stakeout7. Death8. Killing in the Woods9. Race to Airport10. Solingen Blade11. Number 4532612. The Monster13. Lost Children14. Air Control15. To Israel16. Operation Finale (Orchestral)17. Sorrow

Nii Okai Tagoe was born into a family of master drummers and dancers in Accra, Ghana. This new album, West to West, follows his successful debut, African Roots. Tagoe has toured worldwide as a singer, percussionist and artist with artists such as Baka Beyond, ADF Soundsystem, and Lorraine Ayensu. This release reflects his extensive international travels, and features musicians from Ghana, Venezuela, Wales, Nigeria, the Carribean, and France. “…We seek to benefit the world in exploring a side to music and culture people don’t always see- music as health, music as discipline, music for life.” (Nii Tagoe)

Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem was initially conceived as a 'cantata of grief' - it was the death of his mother and the desire to create a memorial to his friend Robert Schumann that makes this music so intensely personal. With it's radiant messages of humanity, consolation and comfort, the Requiem caused a sensation and made Brahms famous virtually overnight. The work is heard here with it's 'ad libitum' organ and contrabassoon reinstated, enormously intensifying the depth of tone colors and lower sonorities. For the conductor Ralf Otto flexibility, diversity and transparency of sound have always been essential for his work with orchestras and choirs. Otto believes that understanding the compositional structure of a piece of music is an indispensable prerequisite to achieving intensely emotional expression. The conductor's reputation is based on his gift for interpreting different musical styles, from the Renaissance to the music of today. Since the beginning of his career, he has been a strong advocate for the performance of early music according to historically informed performance practices. His numerous recordings and broadcasts are a testament to his artistic achievements.

MAHLER Das Lied von der Erde • Hans Graf, cond; Jane Henschel (mez); Gregory Kunde (tenor); Houston SO • NAXOS 8.572498 (62:46) Live: Houston 11/19–22/2009


Just as I noted with some dismay the relative dearth of recordings of the original version of Das Lied for full orchestra ( Fanfare 35:4), this new CD arrives from Naxos. It’s also encouraging to see an American orchestra and its music director featured on a major label, since new recordings of orchestras in the U.S. increasingly originate from in-house labels like SFS Media and CSO Resound (though the lack of the former necessitated the latter).


Any performance of Das Lied lives or dies by its soloists, and taste in voices is a particularly individual foible. I’ve found that I have no tolerance for the type of ripe, chocolate-thick mezzo or contralto common to many recordings (and that, alas, includes such greats as Maureen Forrester and Kathleen Ferrier). Given those constraints, I find this performance to be one of the best I’ve heard.


Gregory Kunde is described in the bio included in the notes as a bel canto singer, but he proves more than adequate in the Heldentenor demands of “Der Trinklied” (hard to fake in a live concert recording). His sensitivity to the text, however, may be his strongest quality; the reiterations of “dunkel ist das Leben, ist der Tod” are each sung with a slight diminuendo and a touch of melancholy that are truly heartfelt. His lyrical side is heard to salubrious effect in “Von der Jugend,” while the two styles combine to make “Der Trunkene” a rousing, tipsy delight.


Jane Henschel, the voice of Maria Aegyptiaca for Eliahu Inbal, Simon Rattle, and Bertrand DeBilly in their respective recordings of Mahler’s Eighth, is a fine Mahler interpreter. Her performance of “Der Abschied” will stand up to most of the competition, but I am also taken with her handling of the fast section describing the handsome youths in “Von der Schönheit”: In a manner approaching Sprechstimme , she navigates the treacherous waters with aplomb, then immediately regains the more stately composure of the rest of the narrative. In “Der Einsame” she combines melancholy and resignation with quiet effectiveness.


Hans Graf accompanies with sensitivity and well-gauged tempos that neither drag nor rush; he allows Henschel the breathing room in “Von der Schönheit” while charging “Der Trinklied” with the kind of momentum needed to convey the angst of the narrator. The Houston Symphony plays as to the manner born. I haven’t heard too much Mahler from this source, but on the strength of this recording, I’d like to hear more. The sound production is another sterling effort by Michael Fine, placing the soloists front and center without undue spotlighting, and revealing plenty of inner voice detailing from the orchestra. Altogether, this is a real bargain at reduced price (texts and translation are available on the Naxos website). Highly recommended.


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot


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Time was when Naxos recordings of core repertoire would be considered cheap and cheerful, but hardly designed to compete with the best in the catalogue. That has long since changed, with a growing number of discs that, while still sold at the super-budget price point, are every bit as desirable as established or more expensive performances. Certainly, Antoni Wit’s Mahler Eight must be at or near the top of the list of recommendations for that work, proof that great Mahler recordings don’t all emanate from Vienna, Berlin or Lucerne.
 
The Houston Symphony Orchestra and their Linz-born music director Hans Graf are both unfamiliar to me, as are the soloists, but as I’ve already hinted that’s hardly an issue where this label is concerned. Indeed, listening to a number of more illustrious recordings in preparation for this review I was reminded of just how difficult it is to alight on an ideal – or near ideal – version of this elusive score. Either the mezzo isn’t up to the sustained demands of that long goodbye or the tenor is overstretched by Mahler’s taxing tessitura; and even if the soloists are up to snuff, the articulation and pacing of the music itself may be problematic. And then there’s the recording quality which, while not the key issue, plays an important part in one’s perception of – and response to - this multi-hued score.
 
Of my selected comparisons two – Raymond Leppard on BBC Radio Classics 9120 and Bernard Haitink on Philips 468 182-2 – feature the limpid tones of Dame Janet Baker. The clarity and directness of her vocal style is always pleasing, and while I don’t share Tony Duggan’s out-and-out enthusiasm for Baker/Leppard and the Alfreda Hodgson/Jascha Horenstein version on BBC Legends 4042-2, I like them rather more than my colleague Marc Bridle does. In particular, Baker’s Der Abschied with Leppard – recorded at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1977 – has a high goose-bump count, and while she sings with characteristic commitment for Haitink she lacks the intensity of feeling that makes the Leppard disc so memorable.
 
Kathleen Ferrier for Bruno Walter (Decca 466 576-2) and Christa Ludwig for Otto Klemperer (EMI 5 66892 2) are her main rivals, although Ferrier’s artless, somewhat old-fashioned, delivery doesn’t appeal to me. Heresy, I know, but I’ve often wondered whether Walter’s link to Mahler and Ferrier’s early death have given this recording a lustre it doesn’t always deserve. And among more recent recordings Cornelia Kallisch sounds warm but all-too-often uninvolved on Michael Gielen’s otherwise admirable version (Hänssler 93.269). Of the men, John Mitchinson – for Horenstein and Leppard – struggles with Mahler’s near-falsetto writing, while Haitink’s James King – placed quite far back - is rather more secure, if a little too generalised for my tastes. Walter’s tenor, Julius Patzak, is full-bodied but a trifle staid, heldentenor Siegfried Jerusalem and the agile Fritz Wunderlich – for Gielen and Klemperer respectively – both fresh and virile.
 
How does the Houston recording fare in this mixed company? In Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde Gregory Kunde sounds pleasing enough, although his voice is less appealing under pressure; at first I felt the orchestra was rather backwardly balanced, but it suits the intimate scale of this performance. The real revelation, though, is Graf, whose reading of the score is very impressive indeed, becoming more insightful as the piece unfolds. He can’t quite match Klemperer for sheer amplitude and nuance, but he does find an astonishing lucidity that works especially well in the trembling loveliness of ‘Der Einsame im Herbst’.
 
In that song mezzo Jane Henschel sings most hauntingly of the loneliness and the transience of life, her delivery discreet but always subtly inflected. In many ways she is the antithesis of Baker, who sometimes strives a little too hard for effect, notably in her recording for Haitink. And while Henschel doesn’t efface memories of Ludwig here, I was captivated by her glowing, unforced response to Bethge’s texts, notably Von der Schönheit. I particularly liked her honeyed lower registers, but again it’s Graf’s lightness of touch and natural rhythms that beguile the mind and ear.
 
Kunde may be overstretched as the drunkard but his delivery has a youthful charm that’s entirely apt; that said, Jerusalem and Wunderlich negotiate those treacherous vocal lines with aplomb, their innig moments more finely calibrated. In terms of sonics the Naxos disc may not be as weighty or tactile as Gielen’s, or as atmospheric as Leppard’s, but at least it isn’t as rough and ready as Horenstein’s. As for the much-lauded Philips sound for Haitink, it isn’t nearly as refulgent as I remember it. The EMI recording for Klemperer is big and bold and, in its GROC version at least, hardly shows its age at all.
 
And despite initial caveats about the Naxos soundstage I have to say the convulsive gong shudder at the start of Der Abschied is just electrifying, ushering in half-an-hour of sublime music and even more sublime singing. For me, Ludwig is sans pareil here, a perfect match for Klemperer’s stoicism, but I can assure you Henschel is just as commanding of mood and line. This is an abendrot like no other, the trembling air suffused with the scents of loveliness and decay. The Houstonians really do capture the evanescence of this music very well indeed; as for Graf, he maintains a sensible and steady pulse throughout, achieving a rare blend of poise and penetration as well. Thankfully the audience is very quiet, and there’s no applause at the end to break this deep, deep spell.
 
Is there an ideal recording of Das Lied von der Erde? Probably not, but as the talents of this newcomer are so prodigious and its faults so minor I’d say this one comes pretty close.
 
-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International