Schmidt, a cellist of the Vienna Philharmonic, let hte orchestra premiere his symphony in 1913, which since then belongs to their main repertoire. With Semyon Bychkov they are a proven team to champion Schmidt's Symphony. The Second Symphony is the most brilliant and extroverted one with the biggest instrumentation. "It remains that rare combination, a work of tremendous immediate appeal and a compositional tour de force." (Gramophone Magazine) The recording features the famous intermezzo from the same-named opera by Strauss. It's full of Straussian yearning and lyricism performed by The Strauss Orchestra.

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REVIEW:

It's apparent here the amount of affection with which conductor and orchestra approach this work. The symphony is an essentially sunny and pastoral work of shifting, beautifully dappled colors. There are disparate hints of Strauss, Reger, and Bruckner, and others, as well as a couple of passages that look forward to future Schmidt work.

The performance here determinedly lets the music develop at its own pace; Bychkov is not a conductor to seek out cheap thrills. One admires what the conductor achieves with the variations in the second movement, for example, and the slow-burn momentum of the initally underwhelming finale.

A persuasive case is made here for a work of considerable beauty. A gentle, tender account of Strauss' most famous Intermezzo interlude makes a charming coupling.

– Gramophone

Captivating verismo intermezzi. The focus [of this CD] is occupied by intermezzi from the famous operas of Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, and Ruggero Leoncavallo and their masterfully instrumented music rich in emotions and ideas. Here three verismo works by these composers merit special mention: According to some music historians, the Rome premiere of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana on 17 May 1890 signaled the birth of this special stylistic current. Ever since its Milan premiere on 21 May 1892 Leoncavallo’s two-act Pagliacci has become the perfect counterpart to the one-act opera by Puccini, who was six years his junior. Italo Montemezzi’s L’amore dei tre re (The Love of the Three Kings) developed the fundamental verismo concept in phenomenal fashion and into three gripping acts. This lesser-known opera was staged at the Teatro alla Scala considerably later, on 10 April 1913, when its composer was thirty-eight-years old. - cpo (Translated from German text.)

This set includes 3 CDs and 1 DVD.



RACHMANINOFF Vespers . Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom 1 & • Georgi Robev, cond; Miroslav Popsavov, cond; 1 Bulgarian Natl Ch; Sofia Orthodox Ch 1 • CAPRICCIO 7010 (3 CDs: 173:21)


& DVD, “Mystery of the East” (75:00)


This Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom was hailed as the longest version on records (18:6, where I misspelled the conductor’s name) and the Vigil (Vespers) was warmly received when new (20:1), so this makes a valuable coupling. The Liturgy has been offered in varying lengths because the litanies are repetitive but often abbreviated. The recently reissued Martin Best version (32:4) offered as much as could be fitted onto one CD. Popsavov, like Polyansky (16:6), Milkov (16:6), Kocsis (19:6), and Bruffy (20:4), requires two discs in order to extend the litanies and the Cherubic Hymn, which are drastically (some would say mercifully) abbreviated in the single-disc versions. Yet here Popsavov is 12 to 20 minutes longer than any of the other two-disc versions, so it is the logical choice if you want more than Best offers. Another reason to go for this one is the rich Slavic voices of the choir, so satisfying in this music. Best’s choir was as good as the non-Slavic choirs get, but this is extraordinary.


Robev’s Vespers was rated right next to the classic Sveshnikov version, high praise indeed. Like the Liturgy , it was issued without texts or translations, and it had the minor fault of titling the work “Russian Easter Vesper Mass,” both Easter and Mass being incorrect terms. In a box that costs little more than one full-priced single CD, it is no surprise that the texts are still lacking. If you are unfamiliar with the Orthodox liturgy, this is a serious lack, but if you can supply for the lack of texts, this has a claim on your attention for the extended length of the Divine Liturgy.


The DVD included here arrived more recently as a separate issue but never received a review. The two sections of the program were made in Tomsk (Siberia) and Sofia (Bulgaria) in May 2002, but the notes, which are abridged from the original booklet, write only about Tomsk. The city was built in 1604 and the monastery of Our Lady and St. Alexei was built at once. The city also has the tomb of Tsar Alexander I, who, after his reputed death in 1825, is widely believed to have lived in Tomsk as Feodor Kusmich. He died in 1864 (the Britannica of 1911 called him Fomich and gave his date of death incorrectly as 1870) and was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1984. The documentary 45-minute segment on Easter at Tomsk is narrated with a generic background of liturgical singing, while the 30-minute concert in Sofia (Hristov, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Kedrov) has the camera moving from the choir to the church interiors in familiar fashion. The Tomsk segment is expertly done, giving a real understanding of life in a Siberian city where the Orthodox faith appears to be strong. At the price, this is quite a generous offering.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

GÁL Cello Concerto. ELGAR Cello Concerto • Antonio Meneses (vc); Claudio Cruz, cond; Northern Sinf • AVIE 2237 (61:48)

Receiving two very fine recordings of my favorite cello concerto, the Elgar, two issues in a row (see Fanfare 36:1 for review of Paul Watkins’s Chandos release) is enough treat in itself. But the real news here is the first-ever recording of Hans Gál’s Cello Concerto, composed in 1944 under very trying circumstances.

It’s not surprising, I suppose, that the booklet cover that displays through the jewel case’s front window lists the Elgar first, no doubt a lure based on name recognition. But it’s the Gál that comes first on the disc and is so confirmed by the booklet’s backplate that displays through the rear window.

Hans Gál (1890–1987) lived a long life but one filled with tragedy for a good part of it. An Austrian Jew, he was caught up in the Nazi vise, believing he’d be safe back in Austria after being dismissed from his post as director of the Mainz Conservatory in Germany. But the Anschluss soon brought Hitler’s storm troopers to Austria to round up and deport the Jews there as well. Gál and his immediate family were able to escape to the U.K. in 1938 before they were conveyed to a concentration camp, but trouble followed them across the Channel.

At first, Gál’s prospects brightened. Francis Donald Tovey invited him to Edinburgh to work as an archivist cataloging the Reid Music Library. But when Tovey was suddenly incapacitated by a stroke, Gál returned to London just in time for the outbreak of the war. Citing national security concerns, the Brits began rounding up German and Austrian nationals and sequestering them in detention camps. Gál was caught up in the sweeps and found himself interned in a camp on the Isle of Man, perversely incarcerated side by side with those from whom he’d fled. Upon his release four months later, he returned to Edinburgh. But by now, Hitler’s death camps, mostly in Poland, were working overtime, and members of Gál’s extended family who were still in Germany were at grave risk.

Gál’s mother, thankfully for her, died on her own in 1942, but in Weimar his sister and an aunt took their own lives to avoid deportation to Auschwitz, and that same year, Gál’s youngest son, Peter, who was physically out of harm’s way with the family in Edinburgh, committed suicide at the age of 18. Gál remained in Edinburgh where he was appointed lecturer at the city’s university, founded the Edinburgh Festival, and was eventually awarded the Order of the British Empire. He was also honored by the nations that would almost certainly have killed him had he remained. His cantata De Profundis was premiered in Wiesbaden, and he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Mainz and the Literis et Artibus medal by Austria.

Gál’s Cello Concerto is a work purely of the heart and soul, for no commission or even remote prospect of performance prompted it. Six years would pass before the work was first heard at a concert by the Göteborg Orchestra in 1950 with cellist Guido Vecchi playing the solo part.

Despite its 1944 date of composition, the concerto is as romantic a score as anyone could have made to order. Considering the circumstances under which it was written, it’s not as dark a work as Elgar’s World War I Cello Concerto. There are passages, however, of lament and exquisite, soaring lyrical beauty, and from time to time an exotic Middle Eastern element in the music comes to the surface that distantly echoes Bloch’s Schelomo and Voice in the Wilderness. The solo part in Gál’s concerto requires a good deal of virtuosic skill, but the work is not what you would call a virtuoso showpiece. For much of the score’s first two movements, the cello plays an almost obbligato role, dialoging with instruments in the orchestra in a pretty much equal engagement. It’s not until the concluding movement, in which the cello has an extended and technically challenging cadenza, that the writing highlights the soloist in a more traditional virtuoso concerto role.

This is a most magnificent addition to the cello repertoire, a work that, in my opinion, deserves to take its place beside the Schumann, Dvo?ák, and Elgar concertos as one of the cello’s great repertoire works. Antonio Meneses, unquestionably one of the instrument’s great players on the world stage, performs Gál’s concerto with breathtaking sweep.

Elgar’s Cello Concerto is well known and has been covered extensively in these pages. Therefore, I will restrict myself to telling you that Meneses’s deeply penetrating, intensely passionate, throbbing reading, supported by some of the most sympathetic orchestral playing from Claudio Cruz and the Northern Sinfonia I’ve heard in this score, goes straight to my 2012 Want List without passing GO.

This is an absolutely must-have disc, assuredly for the Gál, but also for one of the most beautiful performances of the Elgar you may ever hear.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

This release ably serves two purposes—to display the virtues of the new Caivillé-Coll-style Goll organ recently installed in St. Martin’s Church, Memmingen, and to showcase the talents of organist Jane Parker-Smith. The repertoire has been selected for its accessibility and its potential for virtuoso display. Composers Marcel Lanquetuit (1894–1985), Joseph Boulnois (1884–1918), Henri Mulet (1878–1967), and Joseph Jongen (1873–1953) are squarely in the Franco-Belgian tradition of Franck, Widor, and Vierne. Jeanne Demessieux (1921–1968), a student of Marcel Dupré, enters the world of Messiaen, and English composers Percy Whitlock (1903–1946) and York Bowen (1884–1961) present a parallel English ecclesiastical tradition, while German composer Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943) is in the Bach-Busoni orb. This selection allows Jane Parker-Smith to show, at one extreme, her prowess in a series of pastel-colored works requiring sustained slow tempos and concomitantly revealing registrations (Boulnois’s Choral in F??Minor, Mulet’s Rosace), and, at the other, her ability to tackle the large-scale Lisztian utterances of Jongen’s Sonata eroica and Middelschulte’s stunning Passacaglia.

The success of an organ recording depends both on the prowess of the performer and on the interface between the instrument and its surrounding space. In this case, it is a felicitous marriage. The results are warm, transparent, and, where need be, highly resonant without blurring any details. The quality of the recording rivals that of the Loft label’s best production.

The advent of the CD freed organ recordings of the limitations imposed by the LP tape to disc transfer. A 16 Herz C organ pedal could not be cut at all, let alone at a realistic level. Only its upper harmonics had to suffice. Early organ CDs reveled in their ability to produce woofer-damaging lower frequencies at the expense of any realistic musical balance. Bit by bit, however, musical intelligence finally prevailed, and here it is eloquently made manifest.
Jane Parker-Smith studied at the Royal College of Music in London. She subsequently took instruction with Jean Langlais in Paris. Her performances have the clarity and guisto tempi of those of Keven Boyer and Christopher Herrick. In her readings, she successfully balances the demands for exactitude and linear coherence with that of her need to actually interpret (pardon my split infinitive) these largely post-Romantic pieces. In other words, to personalize them and thus make them really communicate with the contemporary listener. Her success is striking and immediately made manifest in track 1, Marcel Lanquetuit’s Toccata, a kinder and gentler version of the Toccata that closes Widor’s Organ Symphony No. 5.

Igor Stravinsky, an excellent writer for wind instruments once said of the organ, and I paraphrase: “It’s unnatural . . . it never breathes.” Here Jane Parker-Smith makes it breathe. That this is only Volume 1 delights me. I hope that she will continue to explore these still largely musicological byways and illuminate them as beautifully as she has done here.
Preaching to the converted has never been particularly satisfying to me. The result in this case is an illuminating, and in terms of repertoire, essential recording that will delight aficionados, but, most important, will appeal to those just discovering this literature. Full organ specs are provided. If you haven’t gotten the message by now, this one is most warmly recommended.
--William Zagorski, FANFARE

Simply unmissable for any fans of this opera, Anglophone or not, Mackerras balances the songful and the sinister with absolute sureness. There is not a weak link in the cast, with Rebecca Evans in particular showing how her voice has bloomed in recent years. Jane Henschel is a frighteningly credible witch: she could be your smiling next-door neighbour.

-- Gramophone [9/2007]


This new Opera-in-English set of Engelbert Humperdinck's wonderful Hansel and Gretel goes straight to the top of the list of recorded performances, along with the Schwarzkopf/Karajan. Charles Mackerras leads a most beautiful reading, fully aware of Humperdinck's debt to and love for Wagner but with a warmth that makes the glorious orchestrations and easy, lovely, folksy melodies flow naturally and gracefully. This is not to say that there isn't excitement--the "Witch's Ride" is thrillingly lumpy and aggressive. Mackerras offers a terrific piece of storytelling in music, and the big burst when the Witch is pushed into the oven is a fine cataclysm, handsomely captured by Chandos' engineers.

David Pountney's translation is always comfortable and mostly understandable, and the cast is blessed with natural actors. Jennifer Larmore at times has been faulted for her hard-edged tone; here, as Hansel--sure of himself, boyish, and charming--she's just right. Rebecca Evans sounds nothing like Larmore and portrays a Gretel both spunky and spooked out. If the children's Evening Prayer ever has been sung more beautifully I certainly don't remember it; absolute obedience to dynamics and an ideal blend of voices make it a few moments of sheer bliss. Jane Henschel's Witch is the tour de force this role had better be, and while she may not be the absolute best on CD (that honor goes to Christa Ludwig on an old RCA recording, a set marred only by Anna Moffo's weird Hansel), she's a master of altering her tone, from cajoling to menacing to utter loathing.

I prefer a lighter-toned Sandman, but Diana Montague cannot be faulted vocally or for her gentle singing, and Sarah Tynan's Dew Fairy is lovely. Rosalind Plowright's Mother is strong (she might have made a good Witch) and Robert Hayward sings the Father's music brightly (Mackerras leads his entrance "Tra-la-la-las" nice and quickly). Orchestra and chorus are superb. This set is a pleasure--the ideal Hansel in English, and perhaps in any language.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

The 150th birthday of the Danish iconoclastic composer Carl Nielsen is celebrated with the second volume of his works for violin featuring one of Sweden's brightest new violinists, Cecilia Zilliacus joined by the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Blendulf.