Somm Recordings is delighted to present a revelatory collection of orchestral songs by Sir Edward Elgar performed by two of today’s most exciting young singers – mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge and baritone Henk Neven – accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth. The Hills of Dreamland takes its title from a line in Elgar’s well-known setting, beautifully still and beseeching, of Arthur L Salmon’s Pleading. Historically the least regarded part of Elgar’s output, his songs contain a treasure-trove of vocal gems and here receive performances of insight, imagination and emotional directness. The Op.59 Song Cycle is an exemplary case in point, by turns quietly radiant, touchingly nostalgic and achingly melancholic. Two settings of poems by Elgar’s wife – the richly orchestrated The Wind at Dawn and celebratory The King’s Way– show Elgar at his most evocative and ebullient. Sombre and powerful, The Pipes of Pan boasts colorful imagery and driving rhythmic energy, The River and The Torch wholly Elgarian in their wonderful sonorities. A first recording of the orchestral version of the marching song Follow the Colours shows Elgar at his most patriotic. The complete incidental music for a 1901 staging of WB Yeats’ Grania and Diarmid offers a rare opportunity to experience the full gamut of Elgar’s moving and dramatic evocation of a timeless tale of love in the ancient Irish myth. A bonus album of recordings made under the auspices of the Elgar Society showcases soprano Nathalie de Montmollin and pianist Barry Collett in a collection of piano-accompanied songs. It includes first recordings of the piano version of ‘Winter’ from The Mill Wheel and the world-weary tread of Muleteer’s Serenade, setting words from Cervantes’ Don Quixote.

Grammy-nominated violinist Jennifer Koh and virtuoso pianist Shai Wosner play 20th century works by three remarkable Central European composers who intertwine folkloric influences with their own unmistakable originality. The album includes Leoš Janáček’s Moravian influenced Sonata for violin and piano, Béla Bartók’s impassioned Violin Sonata No. 1, and compelling miniatures by György Kurtág, including Tre Pezzi for violin and piano and selections from Signs, Games and Messages.

REVIEW:

Jennifer Koh studied with Felix Galimir at the Marlboro School and Jaime Laredo at the Curtis Institute; she won a silver medal at the 1994 International Tchaikovsky Competition (a year in which no gold was awarded) and has appeared with all the major American orchestras and many abroad. One may see her in action on YouTube, performing Paganini with the Chicago Symphony, displaying amazing aplomb and panache for an 11-year old, or for any age. She has tended to avoid the warhorses of the repertory, as her recordings—from Bach to Zorn—show.

In a brief discussion of this disc (also seen on YouTube), pianist Shai Wosner says “it’s intense music; we wanted to milk the most out of every bar.” Yet the Janá?ek performance strikes me as just the opposite: A silky violin and a gentle piano—in a warm, reverberant acoustic setting—emphasize the inherent beauty of this music rather than its intensity or its connections to folk music. Janá?ek’s spiky harmonies and jumpy, stabbing attacks are played down. Many listeners may prefer this Romantic-era approach, but it soft-pedals the composer’s essence, the character that makes him unique. For a more vibrant performance, try Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich on DG, which John Wiser nailed (Fanfare 16:4) as having “a touch of Gypsy exoticism.”

György Kurtág has written what we call full-length works, but our attention has been focused on his many sets of miniatures. Signs, Games, and Messages (also the title of this disc) and Játékok (also “Games”) are both large collections of small pieces composed over many years. Are they completed? Only the composer could answer that question. The former are for “vn, va, vc, db in various combinations, as solos, duos, trios, qts.” (The New Grove II); these four are played here by the solo violin. Játékok are for piano, some with vocal additions—momentary noises rather than song or poetry. Tre Pezzi are for violin and piano; they are played together, as a three-movement work, whereas the other pieces are more or less randomly distributed around them (at the artists’ pleasure, of course), providing instrumental variety to these 27 minutes. But this variety may disrupt the accumulated effect of a Kurtág collection: a Mode CD has 24 Signs, Games, and Messages played by violist Maurizio Barbetti, and it is stunning—perhaps it is his magnificent performance, capturing every mood, every wry twist, that makes such a difference.

Koh and Wosner are superb in Bartók’s First Sonata. She expresses the full measure of the music without ever producing a single ugly or even awkward note; he is a powerhouse as well as a subtle presence. They do “milk the music” to its fullest intensity. It is astonishing that Koh’s elegant, liquid tones can be so assertive, matching Wosner at every step. There have been so many recordings of the Bartók sonatas, seemingly half of them by Gidon Kremer, often partnered, again, by Martha Argerich. Kremer takes a lighter view of the First Sonata than Koh—I am particularly partial to his 1972 Hungaroton recording with Yury Smirnov. Kremer’s playing has more edge than Koh, in two senses: He finds a special relish in the music, at the cost of some less than silky tones. I like the result, but listeners who prefer a purely beautiful violin should snap up this Cedille disc.

FANFARE: James H. North

YL Male Voice Choir was founded in 1883 - 125 years ago - under the auspices of the Helsinki University. Two years later Jean Sibelius became a student at the conservatory in Helsinki, and soon what would become a long and fruitful collaboration began. The present programme includes both a cappella works and works for male choir and orchestra, in which YL is supported by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä. It takes us through a variety of moods and themes: from the brief and very moving 'Sydämeni laulu' - a lullaby for a dead child - to 'Tulen synty' (The Origin of Fire), a re-telling of the ancient Kalevala legend of how fire came into the world, as well as the patriotic sentiments of 'Vapautettu kuningatar' (The Captive Queen) and, of course, the hymn from 'Finlandia', probably Sibelius's most famous composition, here in a choral version.

David Zinman, one of today’s most versatile and enterprising conductors, renowned for his interpretations of Beethoven and the music of his American compatriots, has recorded the major works of Richard Strauss with his venerable Swiss orchestra. These excellent performances are reissued here in a single box. ClassicsToday: “There’s much to savor over the course of these seven discs … Zinman’s clear-headed, intelligent interpretations are well worth getting to know.” MusicWeb International: “Zinman has the measure of the scope and scale” of Strauss’s music. “Throughout the project there is no question that the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra play particularly well, while the Arte Nova engineers have produced an atmospheric acoustic and a suitably opulent sound quality … Undoubtedly a major collection.”

REVIEW:

As a Strauss conductor, David Zinman's interests lie more with making sense of the composer's complex linear strands than reveling in his dazzling sonorities and dynamic extremes. In other words, Zinman's a line guy, while Straussians like Kempe and Karajan are chord guys (Strauss is a chord guy disguised as a line guy). There's much to savor over the course of these seven discs.

Zinman's Alpine Symphony mirrors the rounded elegance of Karajan's early digital DG recording, but with more accomplished first-desk playing and better-balanced sonics. He also surpasses the venerable Böhm traversal of the garish Festival Prelude (perhaps the worst orchestral composition by a major composer). Zinman leads a disciplined Sinfonia Domestica that proves more genial and less regimented than Szell/Cleveland, even if we've long been spoiled by Neeme Järvi's stunning brass section. Although Zinman's Metamorphosen doesn't match Karajan's uniform tonal beauty or Kempe's surging climaxes, he takes uncommon care to place the solo and ensemble lines in proper perspective.

All of the works with soloists are played well, especially Simon Fuchs' supple, rich-toned traversal of the Oboe Concerto and Roland Pöntinen's incisive, frighteningly assured left-hand work in the Parergon. While Kempe/Dresden reigns as the Strauss collection of reference, Zinman's clear-headed, intelligent interpretations are well worth getting to know.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com (reviewing a previous release of this music on Arte Nova)

Suor Angelica is one of the three one-act operas that comprise Puccini’s Il Trittico. Of the three, it’s the most lyrical and tragic; it also features an all female cast. Set in a 17th-century convent near Florence, it tells the tragic tale of a noblewoman who is forced to become a nun to repent the sin of having had a child outside wedlock, thus causing a huge scandal in her social circle. The baby is immediately taken from her, and Angelica is left with no news about him, nor her family, for seven long years. Although seemingly adjusted to the convent’s daily routine – she has become an expert in herbal remedies – Angelica is desperate to hear from her family, but when an aunt finally visits her, Suor Angelica is coldly informed that her son died from an incurable disease two years earlier. The aria Senza mamma (Without Mama) is the tragic peak of both this moment and the whole opera. In her distress, Angelica resolves there is only one option left to be reunited with her child: she proceeds to prepare some poison and drink it. On the verge of death she asks for forgiveness, which the Virgin Mary grants her, appearing with a young boy by her side. “Anna Maria Chiuri, who plays the character of the Princess, has a beautifully projected and even contralto voice, a monumental fraseggio which well suits the character’s elusiveness… Valerio Galli directs the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with great self assurance. The performance is excellent, the sound is homogeneous, round and sparkling with energy. Suor Angelica’s intimate religious sense flows naturally into the colors and shades of the finale.”

Leoš Janácek composed the song cycle The Diary Of One Who Disappeared at a time when many people already considered him on a par with the other two masters of Czech national music, Smetana and Dvorák. The inspiration for the autobiographical ‘Diary’ came from a few enigmatic lines of poetry in two editions of the “Lidove noviny” (People’s Newspaper) of May 1916. Although this work is Janácek’s most important original song cycle, his keen interest in the folk songs and dances of his Moravian homeland resulted in a plethora of arrangements, making this music also accessible to the classical concert hall. These include the Six Folk Songs Eva Gabel Sang (Šest národních písní jež zpívala Gabel Eva) and the Songs from Detva (Písne detvanské). Quite unlike the songs of the ‘Diary’, which chiefly make reference to the Moravian dialect, the arrangements evince the typically ethnic-sounding music Janácek refined, so to speak, by adding to adaptations of the existing song lines a sophisticated piano part in the tradition of the great song compositions of the 19th century.

REVIEW:

The Diary of One Who Disappeared, written in 1921, is one of Janáček’s finest yet strangest song cycles. It is not, as the title would suggest, about secret police or undercover spies, but about a young man who falls in love with a dark gypsy woman who lives in the woods, has an affair with her that produces a child, and eventually runs away from home to go and live with her. Because of this, it is not sung just the tenor but also by a mezzo or contralto who does the part of the gypsy woman Zelka. Moreover, there is also a small chorus of three female voices who also sing in two of the songs. This, I think, must be the only reason why it is seldom performed, because the music is simply wonderful.

Young tenor Pavol Breslik has a very fine voice marred only by a prominent vibrato, albeit a steady and well-controlled one. He sings with energy and tosses out a few excellent high notes near the end of the cycle. Mezzo-soprano Ester Pavlu is also an excellent singer; she, too has a vibrato, but a more regular and contained one, and her vocal timbre puts you in mind of a gypsy singer. The three ladies who perform in the chorus all have pure, lovely voices, and pianist Robert Pechanec is also very fine.

This is an excellent representation of wonderful music.

-- The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)