The Missa Cellensis was Haydn' first Mass setting for his new employers at EszterhAza. In common with his Stabat Mater, Haydn draws upon the wealth of musical styles and traditions associated with the Viennese Mass. Scored for strings, oboes, bassoon.

Poulenc wrote his "Stabat Mater," a hauntingly passionate work, after visiting the sacred shrine of the Black Madonna of Rocamadour. He made a pilgrimage to her remote chapel in the south of France after a good friend of his was hilled in a car accident.

I came away from hearing this version with renewed enthusiasm for the work.

Studies in Rome equipped Francisco António de Almeida for high musical standing at the court of the Portuguese King, João V. Here he wrote a series of admired operas but also embarked on serenades', court spectacles of a more private nature. Il Trionfo d'Amore, a scherzo pastoral, was written to celebrate the King's name-day. Ranging from intimacy to ceremonial splendor, with several sublime arias, not least the beautiful In queste lacrime, as well as dramatic passages, it reveals de Almeida to be one of the outstanding Portuguese composers of the eighteenth century.

Well-known for spearheading a general revival of interest in, and modernizing the performance practices of Baroque music, especially Bach, after WWII, Karl Richter (1926-81) also conducted works by composers other than Bach, including Handel and Mozart. Heard here conducting the choral and orchestral forces he founded in mid-20th c., the Munchener Bach-Chor and Munchener Bach-Orchester, this performance of Mozart's Requiem, KV626 features a stellar company of soloists, including sopranos Maria Stader, Hertha Toepper and the fine Dutch-born lyric tenor John van Kesteren.

Track Listing: 1) Pater Noster; 2) Ave Maria; 3) Tota Pulchra es Maria; 4) Verbum caro factum est; 5) Adeste Fideles / O Come, All Ye Faithful; 6) Once in Royal David's City; 7) Quem pastores laudavere; 8) O magnum mysterium; 9) O Little Town of Bethlehem; 10) There is no Rose of such vertu; 11) Once as I Remember; 12) Es ist ein Ros; 13) Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day; 14) The Lamb; 15) Jesus Christ the Apple Tree; 16) There Will Be Rest; 17) A Merry Christmas

HASSE Requiem in C. Miserere in c • Hans-Christoph Rademann, cond; Johanna Winkel, Marie Luise Werneburg (sop); Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Marlen Herzog (alt); Colin Balzer (ten); Cornelius Uhle (bs); Dresden C Ch; Dresden Baroque O (period instruments) • CARUS 83.349 (70:15 Text and Translation)


Carus Verlag of Stuttgart has an interesting dual purpose to its business by releasing discs such as this based upon its latest scores and parts. In general, this has been quite interesting, even given that the recording arm is now owned by Naxos, but the result has been a concentrated effort on composers whose names were mostly well known but whose works were little performed. I can say that the scores are generally quite nicely edited, and it is good to have such works as the two pieces performed here available in the series Music from Dresden . Johann Adolph Hasse is one of the pivotal figures of the 18th century. Married to soprano Faustina Bordoni and heir to George Frederick Handel’s title of “Il caro sassone,” he was a principal figure in opera and church music in Dresden, where he was Hofkapellmeister , but also in Italy, where he was commissioned to write up through his late-70s, as well as functioning as maestro di cappella at the Ospedale degli Incurabili. One might expect a vast amount of music to have been written during this time, and indeed this is the case, for he composed frequently and eloquently at the drop of the proverbial hat for any occasion. Like Telemann, he had no qualms about fulfilling any commission that was given him, no matter how large or trivial, and his style conformed to whatever the tastes were at that moment.


Hasse composed two Requiem Masses for Dresden, one in E?-Major (also recorded by Carus and the Dresden Baroque Orchestra) and this one in C Major. Both works seem to have been written in 1763 within a few weeks of each other, this one for Frederick August II and the other for his successor who kicked off only a couple of weeks later. Because Frederick August was a beloved leader, his obsequies seem to have been celebrated annually for almost a century, and Hasse’s music became a fixture in Dresden, even though it had long since gone out of fashion stylistically. The work is sprawling, with the text subdivided into numerous smaller movements and scored for a large ensemble. C Major may have been a rather odd key for a Requiem, but Hasse found that path between mourning and celebration of his ruler’s life that avoided a more maudlin setting in a minor key. Besides, he seems to have been less interested in an integrated work than one which would accompany a grand public event. In any case, the result is rather a mixed bag. For me, the opening presents one of the most suspenseful of the period, with a slow tattoo of tonic and dominant confusing the issue of key. Is it C Major, or is it C Minor? When the oboes enter, the major key becomes apparent, but at the words “et lux perpetua,” the shift to minor mode is both funereal and emotional. This captures the attention immediately, but expectations rise and fall during the course of the work. The Te decet hymnus is an old-fashioned paean with Baroque walking bass, and while the Kyrie is worthy of any major-key Mass by Joseph Haydn, the following highly contrapuntal Christe eleison with its strange harmonic twists seems anachronistic, even as it foils expectations. One might expect the Dies irae to have grist for a powerful image of the Last Judgment, but instead it is a rather weak homophonic chorus over dotted rhythms. There is nice woodwind writing in the Inter oves , reminding one of C. P. E. Bach, and the Lacrymosa ’s heavy, minor-key, ponderous tread is less gentle tears than weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. There are operatic moments, such as the delightful alto solo in the Recordare , and when Hasse pairs his women’s voices, such as the lyrical Hostias et preces , or the Sanctus with its pair of sopranos at the beginning and at the Hosanna in excelsis , we are more in the heavenly realm than heading in the opposite direction (musically speaking, of course). The final Lux aeterna , followed by a recap of the opening Requiem aeternam , is brief and to the point, with an all-male chorus.


The Requiem itself is too long to be paired with a similar work but too short for a single disc, and therefore Carus has opted to include a Miserere written originally for Venice. This apparently survives in a copy for Dresden with a four-part chorus, as opposed to the first version, which was for women’s voices only, in deference to the Ospedale forces. It is a competently composed but rather more pedestrian work. The tone is lighter, such as the operatic Tibi soli or the Quoniam si voluisses , and the chorus more homophonic (though there is a bit of counterpoint as required at the final Amen ).


The performance by the Dresden early-instrument ensemble seems competent enough. The individual soloists for each movement are not enumerated on the track list, though one can probably intuit who sings which part. The voices in general blend well together, particularly sopranos Johanna Winkel and Marie Luise Werneburg, while Wiebke Lehmkuhl has a nice rich tone to her voice. Colin Balzer’s tenor can be a bit light at times, but his tone likewise is clear and unambiguous. Cornelius Uhle’s bass also fits in quite well, and in the Tibi soli he handles the part with ease. Hans-Christoph Rademann keeps his ensemble’s tempos moving along at a respectful pace, but he avoids any breakneck speeds and so allows the music to emerge well. I would have loved a bit more life in the Miserere , but Hasse’s conventionality probably prevents any real moments of brilliant light in the interpretation. My only qualm is the recorded sound, in which the strings are often a bit strident and one can hear the scraping of bows. The trumpets, too, could be more secure. You’ll probably want this disc if you are a fan of Requiems, and certainly the work would appeal to those interested in 18th-century music. It is certainly a decent recording, and brooks comparison with Hasse’s other Requiem.


FANFARE: Bertil van Boer

For me the main attraction in this fascinating batch of discs is the magnificent Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution. It is here presented in its unbowdlerised version including Stalin's speeches towards the end. Kondrashin was forced to elide them in his first recording. However let's not confuse politics with musical worth troubling though the process of separating one from the other in a cantata of this type may be. The forces used are massive and they are used to huge effect. Loudness and awe are not of course enough. In fact this music has a dizzying concentration that is bound to impress and some poetry too.

The performance history of the piece is fascinating. Completed in 1937, it was buried by the denunciations of that era until 1966 when it was performed and then recorded -against the conductor's wishes - minus two crucial substantial episodes which set words by Stalin. This Chandos recording which is complete, faithful to the original schema as to instrumentation and has all sections as written was performed in this form for the first time anywhere outside Eastern Europe by Järvi at the RFH in 1992.

The choir is large and subdivided into two section - eight parts. There is a super-augmented orchestra with quadruple woodwind and eight horns alongside three augmentary instrumental groups: six accordions or bayans, a seventeen strong windband including six further trumpets to add to the four already in the orchestra and a percussion ensemble with alarm bells, cannon-shot, sirens (9:22 in Revolution tr. 6) and the kitchen sink. In the wild fervent rumpus that is Revolution the voice of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky rings out through a megaphone orating the words of Lenin. One can somehow see the smoke of insurrection, feel its sting, the howls of heightened awareness and hysteria and the bloody fervour of the words. This is the same movement in which the Bayan band appear. The bayans return for The Oath: Stalin's pledge in his speech at Lenin's bierside. It too burns with conviction - faithful to the original sentiments of the extension of the Communist International into a spreading worldwide alliance. It is greatly to the credit of the Philharmonia chorus and Simon Halsey that the flame burns bright, steady and intense. The final and tenth movement, The Constitution, again sets Stalin's words

There are no soloists except for Rozhdestvensky and his spoken cameo - the voice of the people speaking the words of their hortators into the dazzling sun. Overdose on grandiloquence and blazing fervour. In case you think this is all unremitting grandstanding the quietly intimate silvery sheen of the strings in Victory shines forth.

The notes are by Christopher Palmer and all the words are there in the booklet: transliterated Russian alongside French, German and English translations.

When this disc was first released in 1992 while not impossible to track down full recordings of Prokofiev's third Soviet ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower were difficult to come by. CPO and Chandos have put that right in style since. Even so there is a place for this twenty-five minute sequence from Prokofiev's full-length ballet: whooping brass, gypsy flavour, echoes of Romeo and Juliet (how could he escape it), dark clouded tension, shrieking tangy woodwind, the swayingly touching solo of the gypsy girl (tr.17) and stamping, crashing fury.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International