Distinguished Bach specialist Sir András Schiff returned to the BBC Proms in 2018 to present Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Extending the variety already evident in Book I (available on 2.110653), Bach's effortless brilliance and new-found sonorities push harmony and counterpoint further than ever with a combination of ancient and modern styles, church austerity and gallant lightness. Schiff has said that 'no-one combines the sacred and the secular as Bach does', and this is comprehensively demonstrated in Bach's fascinating and challenging sequence. This performance in the Royal Albert Hall was described as 'a musical meditation for our troubled times' by the Independent.

MUSICAL JOURNEY - ITALY: A Musical Tour of the Southern Tyrol

The Places
The Southern Tyrol was in earlier times part of the Habsburg Empire, governed from Vienna, and ceded to Italy in 1919. The region remains largely German-speaking and enjoys a considerable degree of autonomy. Of particular interest are the rock-formations of the Dolomites and the many castles and fortified houses of the province. The tour shows two historic buildings, Scholss Velthurns and Schloss Runkelstein.

The Music Music for thebr> tour is by Mozart, born in Salzburg in 1756. With his father, Leopold Mozart, Vice-Kapellmeister in Salzburg, he made three notable visits to Italy, and on various occasions broke his journey at Bozen (Bolzano) and visited Brixen (Bressanone). The music heard here is the Posthorn Serenade, written in Salzburg in 1779, and the Notturno, another serenade, written there in the winter of 1776–77.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0 / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 59 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

The All-Star Orchestra gives you a front row seat to the world's greatest music, performed by top players chosen from over 30 great American orchestras. The programs feature complete performances of popular masterpieces and world premieres of new works by leading American composers. Filmed in High-Definition with 19 cameras during a once-a-year 'summit' in New York's historic Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center, the All-Star Orchestra celebrates the symphonic experience in the 21st century. Program #5 Relationships in Music Robert Schumann's wife Clara was herself a gifted pianist and composer. She became a lifelong friend and source of inspiration for Schumann's protégé Johannes Brahms. This program will explore the turbulent musical and emotional relationships between these three, and the masterpieces that they produced. Program #6 the Living Art Form This program explores the creation of new concertos and the artistic process. Outstanding young soloists and leading American composers are featured in performance and in interviews.

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

Also available on standard DVD

Haydn’s oratorio ‘The Creation’ is one of the greatest masterpieces in the repertoire. Its libretto was constructed by Gottfried von Swieten who took texts from the Book of Genesis, the Psalms, and who employed his own original poetry. In this radical and compelling staging by the ground-breaking Catalan theatre collective, La Fura dels Baus, and internationally acclaimed stage director Carlus Padrissa, the oratorio is seen through the prism of a stream of refugees expelled from Paradise. Stunning light projections encapsulate the stage space and incorporated philosophical and scientific perspectives make this truly an oratorio for our time.

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REVIEW:

Many productions these days use video as part of the design but this is the first I can recall which is so wonderfully—often breathtakingly—effective.

– Lark Reviews

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



CORIGLIANO Symphony No. 3, “Circus Maximus.” Gazebo Dances • Jerry Junkin, cond; U Texas Wind Ens • NAXOS NBD0008 (Music-only Blu-ray disc: 52:54)


This program is the first music-only Blu-ray release from Naxos; when the busiest classical record label on the planet decides to take a particular technical direction, it behooves us to take note. Naxos has previously issued both SACDs and DVD-Audio discs but has fallen silent for some time, as far as a high-resolution product is concerned. DVD-Audio is gone and SACD, despite the fierce loyalty of a relatively small base of enthusiasts (like me), hasn’t moved beyond the category of a niche product. Blu-ray movies, of course, have been selling like hotcakes to a wide audience and it follows that there are a hell of a lot of Blu-ray players out there. The technology also provides a medium for state-of-the-art music reproduction, and Naxos now joins a number of more obscure labels including 2L, AIX, and Surround Records to provide us with a specimen of what could become the dominant physical carrier of high-resolution digital music.


Significantly, Naxos has not chosen a “sonic spectacular” warhorse to introduce the new format—another Planets, Carmina Burana, or 1812 —but instead offers the first recording of a major work by an important contemporary composer. John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 3 for large wind ensemble, “Circus Maximus,” composed in 2004, is certainly the right stuff to show off the possibilities of an audiophile medium. The piece considers the similarities between the appetite in ancient Rome for spectacle of ever-increasing extremity and the media-driven, lowest-common-denominator reality-show entertainment culture of our own day. The composer observes in his liner note: “Many of us have become as bemused by the violence and humiliation that flood the 500-plus channels of our television screens as the mobs of imperial Rome, who considered the devouring of human beings by starving lions just another Sunday show.”


Corigliano’s technique involves settling on an “architecture” for a piece before actually developing specific musical materials. The Circus Maximus was, of course, Rome’s enormous outdoor public entertainment venue and the composer wanted his work to “justify the encirclement of the audience by musicians, so that they were in the center of an arena.” His “Circus Maximus” is scored for a typical concert wind ensemble positioned onstage, in front of the listener, plus a substantial “surround band” deployed quite specifically around the hall. (The notes reproduce a diagram for positioning the instruments as published in the G. Schirmer score.)


The 35-minute composition consists of eight sections that run continuously. “Introitus” opens with fanfares from 11 trumpets located around the perimeter of the auditorium’s first tier, soon joined by the onstage players. This attention-grabbing movement leads to “Screen/Siren”—a quartet of saxophones plus string bass placed distantly and emitting plaintive, beckoning cries, a song sung in a tritone-laden harmonic milieu. This is rudely interrupted by “Channel Surfing,” as hyperactive music seems to come from every direction. In the manner of Mahler’s Seventh, there are two contrasted “Night Music” sections, one evoking a dangerous backwoods—wild animals howl—and the second an energetic nocturnal urban environment. Then comes the “Circus Maximus” itself: “Exuberant voices merge into chaos and a frenzy of overstatement,” in the words of the composer. Relief follows in the form of a “Prayer” that possesses a degree of harmonic uncertainty but always seems to have a IV to I resolution as the favored destination. “Coda: Veritas” reprises the first section’s fanfares, building to an almost unbearably intense unison note for all the trumpets, terminated by the firing of a 12-gauge shotgun. (Thoughtfully, Corigliano suggests in the printed score that a performing organization may want to hire “a licensed pyrotechnician,” rather than entrust the operation of the firearm to an everyday percussionist.)


The multichannel audio program, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, is virtually mandatory for a full appreciation of a work in which the spatial deployment of the performers is critical. (In the “Circus Maximus” section, a marching band actually moves through the cacophony produced by the other considerable forces.) Producer Stephen Epstein and engineer Richard King—both have worked for Sony Classical—have created an incredible sonic experience that may change your outlook in terms of the level of visceral excitement achievable with large-scale repertoire in a home listening environment.


Corigliano’s Gazebo Dances, composed originally for piano four-hands, is a much earlier work. There have actually been six previous recordings of the version for band. The four brief movements are inspired by a turn-of-the-last-century concert-band-in-the-park ethos. The composer describes the opening Overture as “Rossini-like”—I hear the Bernstein of Candide. There’s an off-kilter Waltz and a wistful Adagio that reaches a troubled climax. An exuberant Tarantella ends this affable piece, which is surely within the capabilities of most college bands and maybe even a few ambitious high school groups. Delightful stuff.


FANFARE: Andrew Quint


There are two distinct issues with this disc: the music and the recording. Readers of MusicWeb International want to know what to expect from two unknown works by a rarely heard composer. Your reviewer would however be failing in his duty if he did not herald the arrival of a 'new' format for music.
 
The music first. The symphony is scored for a large wind-band which is detailed in the insert giving not only instrumentation but a diagram of its distribution around the large auditorium at the University of Texas. As it is the composer’s intention that we are surrounded by the players and impacted from all angles, the DTS Master soundtrack is the one to hear. The opening leaps out from behind the listener and much of the first three movements come from discrete groups of musicians placed behind and to the sides. The work fully deserves the title 'symphony' because the themes announced in the early stages are developed extensively in proper symphonic style culminating in recalls of earlier music near the end. Corigliano writes about his wish to draw parallels between the shows at the Ancient Roman Circus Maximus and the current preoccupation with an increasingly intrusive media pandering to the lowest common denominator through 'reality' shows. Whilst we may not feed the religious to the lions, we do seem to watch public humiliation with greater and greater relish. The idea also gave him the excuse he sought to surround his audience with performers. For me the music works quite well and is certainly not hard to enjoy even if it is a bit nerve-racking awaiting the next unexpectedly angled assault. The two Night Music movements are reminiscent of Mahler's pairing in the Seventh Symphony with their fierce activity but here the two nights are of nature and of the city. Night Music 1 is atmospheric but more than just sound-effects because it is thematically linked to what has gone before, particularly the 'primitive calls' heard in the Introitus. Night Music 2 serves as a scherzo for his Symphony, full of dance rhythms and punctuated by fierce outbursts culminating in a climax of quite devastating impact. This is followed by the reflective Prayer and a short but dramatic coda Veritas. The work closes with a gun-shot for which detailed instructions are given in the score, just in case anyone should try to use the 'wrong' gun! The Gazebo Dances are orchestrated from a set of piano four-hand pieces and scored for a more normal wind-band. They are very agreeable with the easy charm of Malcolm Arnold's light music and as beautifully recorded as the main work.
 
To focus on the recording and the medium. This is not the first music issue on Blu-Ray but it is the first from mass-market leaders Naxos and they have announced several more including four Dvorák symphonies. Clearly they are seriously testing out the market for a medium which will not play on anything except a Blu-Ray-capable player, thus the notice on the packaging about it not working on a CD or standard DVD player. Given that the classical market is a tiny fraction of the CD market, that modern classical music is a fraction of that fraction, and finally that Blu-Ray is a fraction of the DVD market, Naxos have set themselves a huge task to sell more than a handful of any one disc in this series. This 2006 recording was made in 24-bit 88.2 kHz and this fact is emblazoned across the top of the cover as if it mattered. What you hear is not 24-bit / 88.2 kHz, that was the digital format for the failed DVD-Audio market, but DTS High Definition Master Audio and that provides 24-bit 96 kHz in 6 channels: 5 surround and one for the subwoofer if you have one. Naxos made a series of DVD-A discs a few years back, thus the present recording format; then they tried out SACD - yet another format. Both failed because few people had the equipment to play the discs and Naxos withdrew from that market. Blu-Ray is different because it is possible to play these music-only discs on any Blu-Ray video equipped home cinema system. How many people will purchase both the latest Hollywood blockbuster and John Corigliano's latest symphony remains to be seen! This particular issue is very well recorded indeed. I would go so far as to say it is one of the best I've ever heard. Since the music demands actual surround distribution of forces the use of the extra channels is not merely self indulgence by the engineers. The dynamic range on the disc is little short of frightening. If you do not jump when the music starts you have not turned the volume up far enough and you will not hear the quietest passages, of which there are plenty. Why the disc requests contact with the internet I do not know. I tried saying yes and no for two playings and detected no change in facilities. Maybe someone somewhere in Naxos marketing has noted the fact that I played the disc. I will be very interested to hear the Dvorák symphonies which make very different, much subtler, demands on a surround recording.  

-- Dave Billinge, MusicWeb International

Also available on Blu-ray

A performer of fierce integrity and dazzling communicative power, young French pianist Lucas Debargue became the most talked-about artist of the fifteenth International Tchaikovsky Competition. Placed Fourth in the final round, he was however awarded the coveted Moscow Music Critic’s Prize as a player whose ‘incredible gift, artistic vision, and creative freedom have impressed the critics as well as the audience.’ This film offers unique insights into Debargue’s life as a musician at the beginning of a remarkable career, with rehearsals and concerts from Moscow to Chicago via Weimar and Salerno, revealing talents as a composer and jazz improvisor and his first-time entry into a world of recording studios, touring and fame, in a crucial year of discoveries.

The tour visits the Tin Soldier Museum at Kulmbach, the National Army Museum, the Wellington Memorial, and St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and the Bavarian Army Museum at Ingolstadt, with it's relics of the Thirty Years War and of conflicts with the Ottoma Empire. The tour brings Beethoven's musical celebration of Wellington's victorious campaign in Spain, Liszt's Battle of the Huns and a Georgian war march by Ippolitov-Ivanov. The tour ends with two military works by Rimsky-Korsakov, King Dodon on the Battlefield, from his last opera, The Golden Cockerel, and the Massacre at Kerzhenets from The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh.

The Places
The visit to the Czech Republic starts with Hluboká Castle, a massive building that for over three hundred years belonged to the Schwarzenberg family. The present building is modelled in part on England's Windsor Castle. Other sites visited include Konopiště Castle, the picturesque town of Telč, and Vranov Castle.

The Music
Music for the visit is by Mozart and consists of his four Horn Concertos, written during the last decade of his life, when he was in Vienna. They were intended for his old Salzburg friend Ignaz Leutgeb, who had also settled in Vienna, prudently married there, and, in tandem with his musical activities, had become the owner of a small cheese-shop. The concertos, one of them unfinished at the time of Mozart's death, represent his work at its height.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 53 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Also available on Blu-ray

Stefano Landi was an influential early opera composer, and La morte d’Orfeo is regarded as a milestone in the development of the genre. The narrative starts where Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo ends, taking us through the remaining adventures of Orpheus in the underworld. Beaten to death and torn apart by the fearsome maenads, Orpheus survives as a wandering soul and is finally reincarnated as a star in the sky. Landi succeeded in turning Greek tragedy into timeless music-drama, the starting point of all opera, and Seen and Heard International declared that it had ‘never before encountered such technical perfection’ in Pierre Audi’s Amsterdam production.

Also available on standard DVD

Rossini wrote L’equivoco stravagante (‘The Curious Misunderstanding’), his first full-length opera, when he was only 19 years old. As its title suggests, the plot of this dramma giocoso offers a panoply of absurdist stagecraft with one character being led to believe that the work’s heroine is in fact a castrato trying to avoid military service. Full of his trademark buffo humour, melodious and musically buoyant, the opera ran foul of the censors and was swiftly banned, which accounts for its rarity in performances and recordings. The new edition of the score used in this production corrects numerous previous errors.

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Silvestre Revueltas’ score for the 1935 film Redes (“Nets”) remains one of his greatest works, full of captivating rhythms, vivid instrumental color, and characteristic melodic inspiration. It is splendidly performed here by the PostClassical Ensemble conducted by Angel Gil-Ordóñez, newly synchronized to a lovely restored version of the original film. The movie itself isn’t much. Although cinematographer Paul Strand’s work is gorgeous as visual art, the story is a leftist morality play at its most primitive.

Villagers in small Mexican fishing community vainly struggle against the evil rich guy (complete with waxed mustache). At the start, the poor fisherman Miro begs for money to take his sick son to the hospital. Evil rich guy refuses. The child dies and is buried in a lavishly decorated coffin that makes one wonder why they didn’t invest the funeral funds in medical care in the first place. The grieving dad organizes the villagers and they go fishing, determined to resist the exploitation of the town’s wealthy business class. They catch fish. As they return with their catch there’s a rumble with the rich guy’s team. Soldiers are called in and the villagers flee, but Miro gets shot in the scuffle. He nobly ignores the pain, but dies anyway. End of story.

The entire film takes about an hour. There are fabulous shots of the Mexican seaside, lots of macho posing, and of course, fishing sequences. Thrilling it is not, but Revueltas’ score is sensational. Not being terribly into visuals, I would hope that Naxos will release a complete soundtrack album. The music is certainly worth hearing beyond the already familiar suite. Indeed, the film is scored almost throughout. Dialogue is minimal. For the last fifteen minutes or so in this new version the dialogue had to be abandoned in favor of the new soundtrack’s continuous music (English subtitles remain). If you want to hear the (few) spoken bits, the original film with its original soundtrack is thoughtfully included.

You also get several bonus features: discussions of Revueltas, his work in film, his politics, and the music, all produced by PostClassical Ensemble Executive Director Joseph Horowitz. I didn’t watch these, as I general ignore all such things. As a matter of principal, I believe that musical works stand or fall on their own merits, as entertainment, and nothing bores me more than being preached at or having the pleasure of listening turned into an academic symposium. I do recognize, however, that there is a time and place for such things, and other listeners/viewers may feel very differently. To see how Revueltas’ music enhances this visually beautiful film is worth experiencing just for itself, and requires no special pleading.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

FRANCE: A Musical Tour of the South of France

The Places
The tour opens with views of the Camargue, the marshy region near Arles with its wild life. Views of the Côte d’Azur are intercut with glimpses of the Munich Glyptothek with its collections of Roman and Greek statuary. Near Arles is the ancient Abbey of Montmajour and the fortified monastery and Abbey on Saint-Honorat, one of the Iles de Lérins. In Arles we see the Roman theatre and necropolis and, at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, the remains of the ancient Gallo-Greek town of Glanum.

The Music
Music for the tour includes Debussy’s evocative Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, two Gymnopédies by Erik Satie and Ravel’s two suites from his ballet Daphnis et Chloé, followed by his Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet.

Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Drawing on the adventures of Byron’s Childe Harold and the composer’s own Italian experiences as a Prix de Rome winner, Harold en Italie was intended for the great violinist Paganini who, having initially rejected the work, later repented, giving it his highest praise. + The brilliant concert overtures Benvenuto Cellini and Le carnaval romain are among Berlioz’s most popular works. + Quickly taken up by several celebrated violinists of the time, the elegant Rêverie et Caprice is his only work for solo violin and orchestra. + Leonard Slatkin’s Lyon recording of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (8.572886) has been acclaimed as “quite simply one of the best on disc” by MusicWeb International.

A performer of fierce integrity and dazzling communicative power, young French pianist Lucas Debargue became the most talked-about artist of the fifteenth International Tchaikovsky Competition. Placed Fourth in the final round, he was however awarded the coveted Moscow Music Critic's Prize as a player whose 'incredible gift, artistic vision, and creative freedom have impressed the critics as well as the audience.' This film offers unique insights into Debargue's life as a musician at the beginning of a remarkable career, with rehearsals and concerts from Moscow to Chicago via Weimar and Salerno, revealing talents as a composer and jazz improvisor and his first-time entry into a world of recording studios, touring and fame, in a crucial year of discoveries. TRACKS on Blu-ray - 1.   Lucas Debargue - To Music 2.   Caravan 3.   Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 5 (excerpts)

This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

Using the new Polish National Chopin Edition, acclaimed pianist Eldar Nebolsin and Poland’s national orchestra conducted by the renowned Polish conductor Antoni Wit, here present fresh interpretations of Chopin’s great works for piano and orchestra. The Second Piano Concerto was written before the first and completed in 1830, the year in which the composer set out for Vienna and then Paris. Chopin’s Variations on Là ci darem la mano, bear witness to his admiration for Mozart, instilled by his earliest teacher, the Bohemian Wojciech ?ywny. The Grande Polonaise brillante in E flat, Op. 22, was written in Vienna, and later augmented with the introductory Andante spianato.

Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Also available on Blu-ray

Haydn’s oratorio ‘The Creation’ is one of the greatest masterpieces in the repertoire. Its libretto was constructed by Gottfried von Swieten who took texts from the Book of Genesis, the Psalms, and who employed his own original poetry. In this radical and compelling staging by the ground-breaking Catalan theatre collective, La Fura dels Baus, and internationally acclaimed stage director Carlus Padrissa, the oratorio is seen through the prism of a stream of refugees expelled from Paradise. Stunning light projections encapsulate the stage space and incorporated philosophical and scientific perspectives make this truly an oratorio for our time.

-----

REVIEW:

Many productions these days use video as part of the design but this is the first I can recall which is so wonderfully—often breathtakingly—effective.

– Lark Reviews

Also available in Blu-ray!

Rameau’s first opera Hippolyte et Aricie delivered a lyrical tragedy of such extraordinary intensity it changed the course of French music, stunning and overwhelming its audiences. This breathtaking spectacle involves prince Hippolyte, who asks his mother-in-law Queen Phédre for help in wooing the beautiful Aricie, little knowing that Phèdre secretly wants Hippolyte for herself. In a single work Rameau re-invented tragédie en musique with dramatic expressiveness and shocking harmonic innovations. It is seen here in an acclaimed Opéra Comique production that personifies Rameau’s assertion that ‘music must speak to the soul, its true aim must be to express thoughts, feelings, and passions’.