Sibelius: Complete Works for Mixed Choir / Seppänen, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Ondine
CD
$36.99Mar 10, 2015
The fourth album on Ondine by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir is dedicated to the composer’s complete works for mixed choir. The award-winning choir, one of the finest of its kind internationally, is conducted here by leading Finnish choir director Heikki Seppänen. Choral music was a genre in which Sibelius showed interest from his student days to the near close of his life. This double-disc set includes patriotic works, works closely connected to the Finnish national epic Kalevala, student works, Christmas songs, works based on Finnish poetry, works written for school (including Three Songs for American Schools) as well as works written for academic promotions, inauguration ceremonies and different official occasions. It also includes two versions of the famous Finlandia Hymn. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir’s first Ondine release was given an ‘Editor’s Choice’ by the Gramophone Magazine and ‘Disc of the Year’ by German weekly Die Zeit.
REVIEW:
The Finnish choral tradition was rich and active when Sibelius came of age as a composer in the late 1880s, and he wrote choral works all his life. The pieces on this rewarding recording range from folk songs suffused with Finnish character to enigmatic works with sometimes dark lyrics. There are festival and school songs, patriotic anthems, a cantata for an academic degree ceremony and, inevitably, two versions of “Finlandia.” Most of the pieces are a cappella. Many unfold in clear, block-chord settings of the texts. If you want to stump friends with a guessing game, play the beguiling, slightly strange “Glade of Tuoni” from this recording and ask them to identify the composer. You’ll win, as you will by picking up this album.
Wolf-ferrari: Complete Wind Concertos / Ciacci, Hamar
CPO
CD
$18.99Sep 25, 2007
WOLF-FERRARI Concertino in A, “Idillio.” Suite-Concertino in F.1 Concertino in A? • Zsolt Hamar, cond; Diego Dini Ciacci (ob, hn); Paolo Carlini (bn);1 Padova and Veneto O • cpo 777 157 (70:07)
Considering this album’s genial, melodic music, it really is amazing how Wolf-Ferrari has, until comparatively recently, been represented in the catalogs only with recordings of his operatic overtures and intermezzos, especially those of The Jewels of the Madonna, Susanna’s Secret, and The School for Fathers. Thankfully, the situation is now changing; cpo, for example, has already released his Violin Concerto in D and Serenade for Strings (cpo 777 271), and his Cello Concerto with the Sinfonia brevis (cpo 777 278). This new release follows the rival 2006 Talent recording of all three works with Hans Rotman conducting the Westsächisches Symphonie Orchester with Piet Van Bockstal (oboe and English horn) and Luc Loubry (bassoon). This Talent recording so enthused one reviewer that he placed it (elsewhere) as one of his recordings of the year.
Wolf-Ferrari (1876–1948) was born in Venice, Italy, the son of a German father and an Italian mother. He enjoyed early success with his operas and he also distinguished himself in the genres of chamber music and concertante wind music. The three works on this album, all cast in four short movements, are scored for small orchestras. All are comparatively late works. In each, soloists and orchestra are equal partners. The “Idillio” Concertino, premiered in 1933, is written in a light late-Romantic vein with string orchestra augmented by two horns imparting something of a bucolic character. It is reminiscent of the neo-Classical style of Respighi, especially in the Scherzo, where staccato chords from the oboe and answering strings are reminiscent of Respighi’s hen from The Birds. Both Dini Ciacci and Van Bockstal please with the latter just that bit snappier and more extroverted in the jolly outer movements. The hauntingly beautiful Adagio, taken at a much slower pace by Dini Ciacci and Hamar, is distinguished by some delectable string phrasing. The cpo players also make magic of the atmospheric Notturno opening movement of the Suite-Concertino for bassoon and small orchestra (1933), Hamar drawing lovely limpid music from his strings; and if you thought a bassoon could never be romantic, then you should listen to Carlini’s tender love song that is the Canzone (Andante cantabile). Loubry, on Talent, is more bubbly in the presto Strimpellata movement
Wolf-Ferrari’s Concertino for English horn, strings, and two horns was premiered posthumously in Salzburg in 1955. Listening to the Capriccio second movement, and the Finale, one might imagine commedia dell’arte characters, the English horn’s buffoonery, sometimes encouraged by prankish horns, contrasts with the strings’ frequent censorious tones; Stravinsky’s Pulcinella comes to mind. Once again, the affecting melancholy of Carlini’s English horn solo, combined with misty, atmospheric strings, lifts another exquisite Wolf-Ferrari Adagio, the horns adding perspective and heightening the elegiac mood.
Highly recommended, this new cpo release, by virtue of the beauty of its slow movements, eclipses its rival Talent recording.
Rachmaninoff: Monna Vanna, Act I Songs / Isokoski, Ashkenazy
Ondine
CD
$18.99Jul 08, 2014
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s (1873-1943) rarely heard, unfinished opera Monna Vanna was the only major score he took with him into exile in the USA after the 1917 revolution. + This new recording is based on Gennadi Belov’s new edition and conducted by an iconic artist and Russian music expert Vladimir Ashkenazy. The second part of this disc features Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski singing seven Rachmaninov songs (including the hauntingly beautiful Vocalise), accompanied on the piano by Mr. Ashkenazy.
Ludwig Thuille: Violin Sonatas; Cello Sonata; Trio For Violin, Viola & Piano
CPO
CD
$36.99Jun 09, 2015
For quite some time the composer and music educator Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907) seemed to stand in the shadow of his friend Richard Strauss, three years his junior. Nevertheless, in the end their friendship and the exchange between them contributed to artistic development on both sides. Thuille's chamber music, including mature contributions representing the high point of his composing, occupies a very great place in his overall oeuvre. Here we find tonally beautiful works full of swing and rich in thematic invention guaranteed to enthrall listeners even today.
Reger: Piano Concerto Op 114; Bach/Busoni: Piano Concerto Bwv 1052 / Korstick, Schirmer, Et Al
CPO
CD
$18.99Apr 28, 2009
REGER Piano Concerto. BACH-BUSONI Keyboard Concerto in d, BWV 1052 • Michael Korstick (pn); Ulf Schirmer, cond; Munich RO • cpo 777 373 (63:12)
So many factors go into the making of a successful recording! One would think that great artists, committed to the music, would be primary. The classic recording of Reger’s Piano Concerto is by Rudolf Serkin, a committed Regerite if ever there was one, accompanied by no less than the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, on a Columbia stereo LP, later a CBS Masterworks Portrait CD. When that recording proved underwhelming, one’s natural reaction was to give up on the music, and later performances supported that decision. Korstick, Schirmer, and Munich do not suggest comparable levels of quality—or at least of fame; yet right from the opening bars the music grabs our attention, holds it, and satisfies on every count.
So, what happened? First off, spectacular recorded sound brings Reger’s Concerto to life as never before. One’s auditory senses, and that means more than just hearing, immediately leap to attention. I envision ears standing up, hairs on the back of the neck rising, like our dog when a deer appears in the yard. Of course, sheer sound is not enough, and the artists whom I so unthinkingly dissed perform at a high level. The orchestral introduction sings with a white-hot passion not previously realized, and the piano’s entrance bursts upon us like a thunderclap. In Fanfare 32:3, Peter Burwasser admired Korstick’s “muscular virtuosity” in Beethoven sonatas, but decried his “lack of grace.” That sounds like a prescription for Reger’s mighty finger buster, and Korstick delivers big time, maintaining golden tone with no apparent strain, which Serkin—one of my favorite artists—was not able to do. But this Concerto is not all bluff and bluster; it has its tender moments, even in the pugnacious opening Allegro moderato (the moderato is an indication of tempo, not of character). Korstick is reasonably convincing in the brief, calm second theme and its reoccurrences. Although Reger’s notorious harmonic progressions keep this music from sounding like Brahms, that master’s impetuous First Concerto is an obvious influence on this movement.
Korstick is less at home with the second movement, Largo con gran espressione; a few passages become just a series of separate notes, rather than one continuous line. But that happens with Serkin, too, suggesting that we should blame the composer. When the inevitable climaxes arrive, Korstick is back in his element, pouring out cascades of tone. Serkin finds an elfin humor in the Allegretto con spirito finale, which Korstick and Schirmer—at a much slower tempo—miss. They seem to be revisiting the spirit of the opening movement, whereas Serkin is exploring another of Reger’s many facets. If the quality of recorded sound were anywhere near equal, one might prefer Serkin/Ormandy in this movement; but it is not, so it may be best to fall into step with the cpo team and wallow in Korstick’s potent pianism. All of this is not enough to bring Reger’s Concerto up to the level of Brahms, or even Rachmaninoff, but it does turn it into a fascinating, absorbing work.
This Bach-Busoni Concerto is the score that the otherwise incomparable Dinu Lipatti (and many other pianist of his era) played, heard in a 1947 live-performance recording with the Concertgebouw under van Beinum (Fanfare 24:5, p. 277). Busoni’s concept was the exact opposite of today’s period practice: he added color, fistfuls of extra notes, and much ornamentation to the keyboard part (think Horowitz playing Mussorgsky), and he cut freely, particularly in the finale. Korstick’s interest in the Busoni version comes from his studies at Juilliard, where he met Edward Weiss, a Busoni pupil who played the Concerto under Busoni’s baton. The structure and the familiar themes may be Bach, but this is Busoni we are hearing; given Korstick’s qualities (the good and the bad) that may be just as well. Comparison with Lipatti is difficult: that recording was an amateur one, so distorted that one barely notices that he and van Beinum somehow restored Busoni’s cuts. Lipatti plays with more consistent tempos and a semblance of taste—his Adagio is deeply moving—but he is still far from Bach.
This disc is urgently recommended to Reger fanciers. Others will not care, and probably will not be convinced if they do try it.
Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos 2 & 3 / Trpceski, Petrenko
Avie Records
CD
$19.99Mar 01, 2010
Simon Trpceski and Vasily Petrenko bring a certain lightness and refinement to Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2, while at the same revealing the work's deep emotions and inherent melancholy. Trpceski's playing effuses romantic bravura in the rapid finger passages of the outer movements, while cultivating a classical elegance in the hauntingly beautiful slow movement, here sounding so similar in mood and style to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 that I wonder if Rachmaninov wasn't inspired by it.
Listening to Petrenko's conducting in Concerto No. 3, I was reminded of how Rachmaninov was greatly impressed at Gustav Mahler's meticulous preparation of this concerto's orchestral accompaniment for the New York premiere. Petrenko plays up the music's emotional grandeur and symphonic utterance (a few passages bring to mind the composer's Symphony No. 2), producing a real Rachmaninov sound with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which plays wonderfully. My only complaint comes in the finale, where the trumpet's important statement of the main theme is barely audible.
For his part Trpceski thankfully resists the temptation to treat the formidable solo part as mere "piano competition" music (as so many others have done). His playing has that rare combination of power, passion, and precision (his first-movement cadenza--the long original one--is magnificent) which, combined with his rich tone and singing line, make this one of the most moving and musical Rachmaninov Third's on disc. The recording gives the usual prominence to the piano so that we hear every note, but the orchestra has a sufficient presence as well (it doesn't exactly sound "realistic"--then again, few concerto recordings do). An excellent disc, one that will likely spend much time in your CD player.
Walter Braunfels studied law and economics at the university of Munich until, after seeing a performance of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, he decided to shift his focus to music. He went on to study with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna before returning to Munich to study composition with Felix Mottl and Ludwig Thuille. His earliest success came with the opera Die Vogel. With the rise of the Nazis to power, however, he was dismissed from his positions and listed as being half-Jewish. Luckily, the war passed peacefully for his family, he returned to the public eye after the war was over. On this release, the Munchner Rundfunkorchester with violinist Henry Raudales, violist Norbert Merkl, and hornists Karl Reitmayer and Marc Ostertag present Braunfel’s String Quintet in F sharp minor in its version for String Orchestra, and his Sinfonia Concertante op. 68 for violin, viola, 2 horns, and string orchestra. These are world premiere recordings.
Sibelius: Kullervo / Lintu, Finnish Radio Symphony
Ondine
SACD
$18.99Oct 04, 2019
A fresh new recording of Jean Sibelius’ early breakthrough work by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Hannu Lintu. This recording with two male choirs, the Estonian National Male Choir and the Polytech Choir, brings up the full drama of this gigantic 70-minute work which during Sibelius’ lifetime was often referred to as a “symphony”.
The work tells the story of Kullervo, a tragic hero drawn from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. While a student in Vienna, Sibelius started planning to write a large work that would crystallize the rising Finnish national feeling in music. It was in the cosmopolitan surroundings of Vienna where Sibelius finally discovered the Finnish sound for his orchestral works to follow. Until that moment the art music of his country, even works based on folklore characters such as found in the Kalevala poetry, had been largely influenced and dominated by German Romanticism. For his work Sibelius drew inspiration from traditional Finnish folk music and by studying the Kalevala epic on his own. From the 50 songs of the Kalevala, Sibelius chose passages from the most tragic sections of the work telling the story of Kullervo, an ill-fated young man. With the premiere of this work in Helsinki in 1892, Sibelius became a national hero – and also won the favour of his future father-in-law. Although the work was not performed never again in Sibelius’ lifetime after the following year, the work was a milestone for Sibelius himself in his development as a composer and a symphonist. It was the composer’s first serious attempt in composing a large-scale orchestral work. Kullervo is work by a young composer filled with inspiration, ideas, and drama.
Conductor Hannu Lintu recently won the Gramophone Award and ICMA Award for his recording of the Bartók Violin Concertos together with Christian Tetzlaff and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Although the "golden age" of operetta has come and gone, composer Franz Lehár isn't in any real danger of being neglected so long as The Merry Widow continues to tread the boards of the world's stages. But as his first major "hit," and as an operetta stylistically limited by the constraints of contemporary fashion and tradition, The Merry Widow does not provide a full measure of the extent of Lehár's mastery as a composer. Zigeunerliebe (Gypsy Love) is a far better candidate for that qualification, and its first complete recording, now available from CPO, is reason for operetta fans to celebrate. Premiered in 1910, this three-act operetta is closer to being an opera and draws into the musical texture an odd admixture of influences ranging from Wagner to Richard Strauss to pop-styled Hungarian Romani music. Although no one would give credit to Lehár the distinction of being an "experimental composer," he does nonetheless present an experimentally conceived blend of styles here, confirming his own otherwise bewildering comment that "I have always experimented, reached out to something new, often enough against the intentions of directors and publishers." That the middle act is set out in the form of a dream, and that Lehár matches the story to a musico-stylistic pastiche that progresses in the same manner as a dream, shows how far Lehár was willing to go with his experimental ideas.
The music is ravishing, challenging, and extraordinary in every way, and we can be thankful that CPO's recording of Zigeunerliebe is close to ideal. The male singers are the weakest element, but these men are coming from a different tradition of singing related to grand opera and are not comfortable with the less forceful and vibrant requirements of operetta. The women are much better, with Dagmar Schellenberger, in the secondary role of Ilona, being excellent in particular, but Johanna Stojkovic is well more than just adequate in the important lead part of Zarika. The NDR Radiophilharmonie under Frank Beermann is splendid in every bar of this music, and this is important as Lehár's orchestration is in this case particularly ambitious and colorful. True operetta fans will so love Zigeunerliebe that even the relatively minor shortcomings of this set will not matter a great deal. If you have an operetta fan in your family who "has everything," CPO's Zigeunerliebe should probably move to top of one's potential gift list.
Choruses For Male Voices And Orchestra / Lund Student Singers, Malmo Opera Orchestra
Naxos
CD
$19.99Oct 30, 2012
Drawing on the romantic spirit in music, Schubert’s moving setting is of a poem by Goethe which compares a rushing waterfall to the soul of man, while Strauss’s gorgeous Mittagsruhe depicts the peace of a summer noontide. Narrative vocal traditions are heard in Sibelius’s nationalist Vapautettu kuningatar, Bruckner’s heroic Helgoland, and Grieg’s Landkjenning, which tells of the 10th-century Norwegian king Oleg Tryggvason. Das Liebesmahl der Apostel anticipates the religious ecstasies of Wagner’s Parsifal, while Debussy’s early cantata Invocation resonates with Gallic sparkle.
Herald Serafin; Margarita de Arellano; Mathia Hausmann; Elisabeth Starzinger; Marwan Shamiyeh; Daniel Serafin; Alexander Klinger; Ernst Konarek; Bernd Ander; Doris Nitsch; Peter Branoff; Johanna Hohloch; Peter Lidner; Mirjana Irosch; Claudio Hiller.
![Lehar: Zigeunerliebe [Operetta] / NDR Radiophilharmonie](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/734496.jpg?v=1786764472&width=800)
![Lehar: Zigeunerliebe [Operetta] / NDR Radiophilharmonie](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/0761203984220.jpg?v=1786764471&width=800)
![Lehar: Zigeunerliebe [Operetta] / NDR Radiophilharmonie](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/734496.jpg?v=1786764472&width=400)
