From chorales to folkloristic songs; classical lieder to large-scale oratorios, and embracing the secular and the sacred, the Christmas season vocal music has long been omnipresent within the musical traditions of the holiday season. Ensemble Vokalzeit presents a collection that highlights the multiplicity of traditions that are woven within this season of transformation and celebration.

If it's Hansel-in-English you're looking for, this set clearly is your choice...Here we get a lovely pair of kids in Suzanne Mentzer and Heidi Grant Murphy, their voices so utterly un-alike that the listening experience is vivid for that alone--but besides that, their interplay is credible and they both make wonderful sounds. Mentzer's dark-hued mezzo is suitably boyish, while Murphy's little-girl tone is charming. Judith Forst, hardly in the first bloom of her career, is a vicious Witch, smacking her lips and exuding spite and malice--and her diction is quite good too, unlike Murphy's, just to offer one comparison. Janice Taylor's portrayal of the mother is very fine, but her tone is wobbly; Robert Orth is a sympathetic, burly father; and Anna Christy's double-duty as Sandman and Dew Fairy is impressive. Conductor Andreas Delfs favors slowish tempos, bringing out the rich, symphonic aspects of the score and always making clear that Humperdinck was heavily influenced by Wagner. The Milwaukee Orchestra is excellent, with playing both atmospheric and grand from the brass section in this live performance (no audience is discernible). I guess it's nice to hear the opera in English even if much of it can't be understood, but--not to pick nits--why would a child say toil" when he can say "work"? The sound is better than good--rich and colorful." --Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

Soprano Theresa Nelles and cathedral organist Winfried Bönig invite us to an atmospheric Christmas Eve in Cologne Cathedral and present a varied programme of Romantic works from various countries: music for the feast that goes straight to the heart. The great acoustics of Cologne Cathedral have been deliberately captured on this audiophile SACD. Born in Cologne, Theresa Nelles has had close ties with Cologne Cathedral since childhood, not only emotionally but also musically. During her 10 years of choir membership in the girls' choir at Cologne Cathedral, she already received her first solo tasks, was also the singer of a jazz band of the so called Cathedral-music for a long time and, after her High school graduation, studied singing at the Cologne Academy of Music with Prof. Mechthild Georg and in Rome at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia. Engagements take the singer to festivals at home and abroad, such as the Festival Internazionale di Musica e Arte Sacra in Italy, Switzerland, South Tyrol, Russia, the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, the Beethoven Festival Bonn, the Brühl Castle Concerts, to opera houses such as Krefeld/ Mönchengladbach, Koblenz, Gelsenkirchen, the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, the Cologne and Essen Philharmonics and, last but not least, regularly to large churches, always particularly fond of the local cathedral.

Kenneth Woods writes: “Given that this programme was to be an exploration of childhood, the obvious place to start is with birth. Richard Wagner wrote his Siegfried Idyll as a birthday present for his wife, Cosima, just after the birth of their son, Siegfried. Nowhere else in music is there so tender an evocation of those fragile, precious and fraught first days and weeks of life. Engelbert Humperdinck’s great children’s opera, Hänsel und Gretel, a quasi-Wagnerian setting of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, tells the story of two children in peril… “Die Forelle” (“The Trout”) is one of Schubert’s simplest and most popular songs, composed in 1817,when Schubert was just 20, to words by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart… Gustav Mahler’s 100-minute Third symphony and his Fourth grew out of the musical material in the short, beautiful song which forms the final movement of the Fourth Symphony, “Das himmlische Leben” (“The Heavenly Life,”), and which concludes these Visions of Childhood. First, however, we hear his song “The Earthly Life” (“Das irdische Leben”) which forms a sort of bleak mirror image to that song. As with the Humperdinck, I have essentially stuck as closely as possible to Mahler’s own orchestration, which is a model of clarity and economy, but also full of extreme, even grotesque, colors. Finally, we come to another combination of song and variations by Schubert, both known as “Der Todund das Mädchen” (“Death and the Maiden”). The song is based on a poem by Matthias Claudius and was written in 1817, the same year as “The Trout.” It has only two verses – one in which the Maiden pleads with Death to pass her by, and one in which Death assures her that he is a friend.

Hansel and Gretel is a Fairy Tale Opera, which Engelbert Humperdinck brilliantly composed in 1892. The charming melodies make it an opera that children enjoy. However, it's wonderful music is for everyone. The libretto was written by Adelheid Wette, Humperdinck's sister, and is based on the famous Grimm brothers' fairy tale of the same name. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre created a fascinating production with renowned singers and highly skilled puppeteers. Established in 1913, the Salzburg Marionette Theatre is one of the oldest continuing marionette theaters in the world. The ensemble performs a large repertoire of operas, ballets, and other productions for both children and adults, exclusively using marionettes.

For many people Christmas time has come when the broadcasting stations start playing the specific music everybody knows and hears each year. However, not always music performed around Christmas has originally been composed for Christmas too. Especially our earliest and therefore most emotional memories are closely related to this festivity. The music we associate with these emotions does not necessarily have to be Christmassy, but should intensify and reflect those feelings. In December 2022 the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under chief conductor Pietari Inkinen performed a festive concert in the main broadcasting studio of the Saarländischer Rundfunk in Saarbrücken. Entitled "Festklänge" (Festive Sounds), the concerto was a compilation of Christmas music and music associated with Christmas, featuring the soprano Sarah Romberger and the mezzo-soprano Elsa Benoit as soloists. It contains next to Hely Hutchinson's excerpts from Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel as well from Tchaikovskys' The Nutcracker.

In 1908, Maurice Maeterlinck wrote his play The Blue Bird (L’Oiseau bleu). Having proved a good source of operatic subjects before (Pelléas et Mélisande, Ariane et Barbe-Bleue), it is no surprise that composers jumped at the opportunity to write music to this latest. The French composer Albert Wolff made an opera of it that, though premiered at the MET, has since been forgotten. But even before that, in 1912, Max Reinhardt put it on as an adapted Christmas play in Berlin and he had none less than Engelbert Humperdinck write the incidental music to it. The music was never published until Steffen Tast found the score and salvaged it for us to hear. A sweet story and sweeter still music by Humperdinck newly discovered? Why, that’s in and of itself as though it was Christmas!

REVIEW:

Steffen Tast really deserves credit for restoring this work to the repertoire and for giving such a fine and dedicated traversal of the music. One only has to listen to the stately but regretful theme as the children take leave of their grandparents in the land of memories to get a sense of Mr Tast’s rapport with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. This music bears a strong resemblance to Mahler, but just until the solo violin takes over with a sentimental theme that is lusciously played by the un-named concertmaster. Tast elegantly shapes the beautifully sketched musical themes for Bread, Fire, Water, and Milk, who all become characters in the play. The Rundfunkchor Berlin gets to briefly display their talents in a Christmas carol arranged in two parts, and then later in a wordless chorus for the expectant mothers welcoming their unborn children. Overall Tast skillfully reveals the richness of Humperdinck’s orchestration in an carefully judged reading of this important score.

-- MusicWeb International