María del Carmen was Enrique Granados' first great operatic success and the stage work he held in highest regard. It was received with great acclaim at its premiere in 1898, admired for its refined and brilliant orchestral writing and for its prfound lyricism. Using the folklore, language and sounds of Murcia in south-eastern Spain alongside the influence of Wagnerian thematic techniques, the opera is set in a rural village where a water shortage and a love triangle inflame the mutual hatred between the peasant farmer Pencho and his wealthy rival Javier.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

REVIEW:

Flemming Dreisig is the organist of Copenhagen Cathedral, and thus is enrolled in the “royal succession” of Danish organists. He has been a pioneer in performing Langgaard’s organ works, and made the first recording of Messis on the Ronna organ for Danacord in 1997-8. His new performance can be regarded as authoritative. Given the huge resources of the five-manual 1995 Marcussen organ of Copenhagen Cathedral and DaCapo’s technically excellent multichannel recording on SA-CD, this 2-disc set is another valuable item in the current reinstatement of Langgaard’s music.

There is no doubt that although Messis might be off-putting on account of its length and complexity, it really does grow on you. A fearsome challenge to organists, it is certainly an experience which organ-lovers should have, although I would not advise newcomers to Langgaard’s music to start with Messis, its seminal status notwithstanding. But clear some space in your diary and schedule a three night organ marathon at home; you could not have a better organ and organist to convert you.

– SA-CD.net

1. O helga natt / Cantique de Noël 3:56
2. Rauhaa, vain rauhaa/Peace, Perfect Peace 2:13
3. En etsi valtaa, loistoa/We Ask for Nothing Rich or Rare 3:56
4. Jo joutuu ilta/O'er Hill and Dale 2:06
5. Dies est laetitae/Herraa kaikki kiittäkää 2:05
6. Hiljaa, hiljaa helkkyellen/Softly, Softly Ringing 2:31
7. Sylvian joululaulu/Sylvia's Carol 3:50
8. Hiljainen joululaulu/The Peace of Christmas 3:51
9. Maa on niin kaunis/Schönter Herr Jesu 2:43
10. Jouluyö, juhlayö/Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht 4:13
11. On hanget korkeat nietokset/The Shining Snows are Driven High 3:07
12. Arkihuolesi kaikki heitä/Cast Off All Care 2:05
13. Enkelien joululaulu/The Angel's Carol 2:12
14. Mökit nukkuu lumiset/The Snowbound Cabins Sleep 3:27
15. Kun joulu valkeneepi/Now Christmas Is Come 1:37
16. Puer natus in Bethlehem/Synnytti piltin Beetlehem 1:02
17. Panis Angelicus/Leivästä enkelten 3:39
18. O, Jesulein süß/Oi, Jeesus, lapsi armainen 2:09
19. Santa Lucia/Pyhä Lucia 3:43
20. O Tannenbaum/Oi kuusipuu 2:32
21. White Christmas/Valkea joulu 3:45

Ritva-Liisa Korhonen, soprano
Eeva-Liisa Saarinen, mezzo soprano
Raimo Sirkiä, tenor
Jorma Silvasti, tenor
Peter Lindroos, tenor
Jorma Hynninen, baritone
Esa Ruuttunen, baritone
Matti Salminen, bass
Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra
Savonlinna Opera Festival Chorus

Kyösti Haatanen, conductor

This release is a unique opportunity for the listener who has interest in historical performance. This four-disc set contains virtually the entire 1928 Elgar studio sessions of the Cello Concerto, as well as several unused takes of major orchestral works and miniatures- pressings which have hitherto been unheard. These pressings are from Elgar’s own private library by way of Arthur Reynolds, a keen collector of original Elgar photographs and recordings. The only person to whom Arthur Reynolds granted access to this treasure trove was master recording engineer, Lani Spahr. In his work, Lani Spahr was able to synchronize the various sides into a stereo image through hours of painstaking effort. This provides insight into the sessions themselves, along with astonishing sound quality.

*** This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD or HD DVD players. ***

Pietro Mascagni
CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA

Santuzza – Violeta Urmana
Turiddu – Vincenzo La Scola
Lola – Dragana Jugovic
Mamma Lucia – Viorica Cortez
Alfio – Marco di Felice

Ruggero Leoncavallo
PAGLIACCI

Canio – Vladimir Galouzine
Nedda – María Bayo
Tonio – Carlo Guelfi
Beppe – Antonio Gandía
Silvio – Ángel Ódena

Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real, Madrid
Jesús López Cobos, conductor

Giancarlo del Monaco, stage director

Recorded live at the Teatro Real, Madrid, in February and March 2007.

Bonus:
- Interviews with Giancarlo del Monaco, Jesús López Cobos, Violeta Urmana, Vincenzo La Scola, Vladimir Galouzine and María Bayo.
- Cast gallery.

Picture format: 1080i High Definition, NTSC 16:9 Sound format: PCM 2.0 and 5.0
Region code: 0 (all regions)
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian
Menu Language: English
Running time: 201 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray BD50 disc)

Fritz Kreisler poured forth a steady stream of transcriptions of popular songs, like The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise, of those that would sometime become popular songs, like Dawes’s Melody, as well as of tunes that entered the public consciousness without ever quite achieving popular status. All these are in addition to his soon-to-become beloved original compositions, like the “Lanner waltzes” Liebesleid, Liebesfreud, and Schön Rosmarin. Nicolas Koeckert and Milana Chernyavska have collected Transcriptions of the Third Kind with Slavic flavoring in an anthology of almost popular (at least, recognizable) favorites by Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, and Dvo?ák. These he plays with a combination of tonal warmth and technical alertness that wins him a place among violinists who play Kreisler’s works, if not quite as Kreisler himself did, at least as convincing in their own way. The number of violinists in this category will, of course, vary from listener to listener. Surely, Elman must belong there, although he sounds nothing like Kreisler, and so does Francescatti, whose dashing style and biting clarity hardly recall Kreisler’s Gemütlichkeit. Yet, since even so aristocratic and individual a violinist as Milstein can fail to make his point in some of these works, it’s clear that a strong personality and redoubtable technique don’t suffice. While Koeckert glories in the rich tonal possibilities of such pieces as Rimsky-Korsakov’s Hymn to the Sun, he never becomes smarmy, taking, for example, a brisk tempo where he might bog down in Dvo?ák’s Humoresque. Hearing Kreisler’s recordings for the first time may offer a jolting surprise to those who had experienced his pieces only in performances by other violinists. (The number of such listeners may be greater than anyone might estimate: I once encountered a recent master’s degree recipient from a well-known music school—in violin performance, no less—who mused about how wonderful it would be if we could actually hear the way Kreisler played his own pieces. O tempora, O mores!) Kreisler’s playing sounds vibrant yet expressive, and, of course, authoritative and convincing. But it’s not sentimental in the popular sense. Even in Ethelbert Nevin’s songs, The Rosary and Mighty lak’ a Rose (both of which he recorded twice, the latter for its first time with Geraldine Farrar in 1915), he never wallowed. He may have addressed his audiences in the vernacular, but he refused to condescend. Koeckert also walks this fine line, although his chosen material doesn’t bring him so close to the abyss. And he sparkles with the required brilliance in pieces like Tchaikovsky’s Humoresque. Whatever composer Kreisler transcribed always emerged from the process sounding a bit like Kreisler, or at least, Viennese, like Kreisler himself (think of his reworking of Paganini’s First Violin Concerto). He infused some of this personal element into his piano parts, which, like Heifetz’s, give the distinct, if not distracting, impression of being well crafted. And Milana Chernyavska plays them that way. These pieces would be hard to come by, at least in one place, outside RCA’s 10-CD Kreisler collection, 19:4. All the more, then, do they deserve an enthusiastic welcome in Koeckert’s idiomatic and ingratiating collection, in reverberant yet revealing recorded sound that Kreisler himself could only have envied. Recommended.

FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Pianist Ekaterina Livintseva writes of this new release of Rachmaninov works: “Sometimes we are afraid to grasp something that exists deep within ourselves. Human beings are afraid of revealing their emotions, they are scared of hurting themselves and becoming defenseless. That is how the unspoken emerges: a secret, a depth which accompanies us throughout our lives. The most important thing about Rachmaninov’s music for me is the fact that is exposes the soul. The emotions in his oeuvre are so clear and true- there is no way of disguising oneself there. When you play Rachmaninov you have to answer questions that you would not normally have dared to pose. In that situation a musician needs to be brave and, in a way, “pure of heart.” Only then does the music make sense. A depth emerges. The depth of the unspoken.” Ekaterina Livintseva is called “The Pianist of The Arctic Circle.” She began playing piano when she was four years old, and began her education at the Children’s Music School in Anadyr. She later studied at the Maimonides Classical Piano Academy, the College of Music and Dance in Cologne, and the College of Music in Wurzburg. She performs across the globe, and her prior recordings have received gleaming reviews.