Pratté: Works for Harp / Constantin-Reznik, Musca, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra
BIS
SACD
$21.99Oct 01, 2021
It was when Delphine Constantin-Reznik took up the post as harpist in the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra that she first came across the name Anton Pratté, well-known in his lifetime as a harpist and composer. Her research into the music and activities of this forgotten master has now resulted in the very first recording of any of his numerous compositions for the harp. Anton Edvard Pratté was born in Bohemia into a family that ran a touring puppet theatre. He came to Sweden as an adolescent, and soon made a name for himself, performing music of his own as well as by others.
Pratté gave concerts across Sweden, as well as in Norway and Finland, and in the 1840s even went on an extensive tour of Europe, performing in Berlin (where members of the Prussian royal family were in the audience), Vienna and Prague. But much of his life was spent in the area around Norrköping where he taught the daughters of wealthy landowners and for a while conducted the local orchestra society – the forerunner of the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra heard in the Grand Concert which opens the present disc. This is followed by two works for solo harp, both making use of traditional tunes from Sweden and Norway respectively.
Beal: House of Cards Symphony / Bezaly, Vieaux, Norrkoping Symphony
BIS
SACD
$17.49$34.99Save 50%Aug 24, 2018
This release grew out of the fascination of Robert von Bahr, founder and managing director of BIS Records, for the television series House of Cards. It wasn’t only – or even primarily – the script or the acting that grabbed him, however, but just as much the music. Said and done – Jeff Beal, the composer of the House of Cards soundtrack, was contacted and it was soon decided that he should compose a Flute Concerto for the virtuosic Sharon Bezaly. To complement the concerto a selection of music from the series was agreed upon, but with five seasons worth of installments to choose from, this quickly grew into a large-scale House of Cards Symphony which at 83 minutes takes up an album all on its own. So now the decision was made to record and present a lavish release, with three further works: Six Sixteen for guitar and orchestra (performed by Grammy winner Jason Vieaux), Canticle for strings and a brand new House of Cards Fantasy for flute and orchestra. The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra has received international acclaim for its recordings of the hyper-intense music of modernist Allan Pettersson, but here, under the direction of the composer himself, it has taken to the new idiom and welcomes the additional instruments necessary to bring out that House of Cards feeling: electric guitar and bass guitar, drum kit, piano and flugelhorn.
Since 2010, Christian Lindberg and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra have embarked on a unique and ambitious project: a complete performance and recording cycle of the orchestral works of Allan Pettersson, the Swedish master symphonist renowned for his deeply personal and emotionally charged compositions. Premiered in 1956, Symphony No. 3 is distinctive within Pettersson's extensive symphonic output as his only symphony in four movements, adhering to a more traditional structure. While an early work reflecting influences of Shostakovich, Sibelius, and Mahler, it is far from a minor achievement. Though the lyrical passages that would later define his style are not yet fully developed, the symphony offers a concise and sharply etched musical landscape, both impressive and strikingly original. Symphony No. 8, premiered in 1972, is arguably Pettersson's most celebrated and frequently performed symphony. It's extended, often described as "free" or "never-ending," melodies create an impression of boundless continuation, yet the work is far from tranquil. As is characteristic of Pettersson, the symphony possesses a strong autobiographical element. In his own words: "The work I am working on is my own life, the one that is blessed, the one that is cursed: I devote myself to it in order to rediscover the song that the soul once sang."
Anton Bruckner's Eighth Symphony stands among the largest and most ambitious works in the orchestral repertoire. Completed after the success of his Seventh Symphony and extensively revised before it's eventual premiere in 1892, it unfolds on an epic scale, combining monumental architecture with moments of profound introspection. Recorded by the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Karl-Heinz Steffens, this new album presents the 1890 Nowak edition of the symphony, and continues Steffens' exploration of the Austro-German symphonic tradition with one of Bruckner's most expansive and richly scored works.
In terms of genre, Allan Pettersson was uniquely single-minded: during his entire career as a composer (1953–80) he produced only a dozen or so works that were not symphonies. By name, Violin Concerto No. 2 is one of these, but it is fair to say that it straddles the divide. Pettersson himself remarked: ‘In reality my work was a Symphony for violin and orchestra. From this results the fact that the solo violin is incorporated into the orchestra like any other instrument.’ It should therefore not come as a surprise that Christian Lindberg has chosen to include this massive 53-minute work in his acclaimed and award-winning series of Pettersson’s symphonies, realized in collaboration with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. The concerto was written in 1977, 28 years after its predecessor, the Concerto for Violin and String Quartet (1949). In that work, written while Pettersson was still studying, the composer was experimenting with radical ideas that are not to be found in his later compositions. Concerto No. 2 is rather characterized by the central role given to one of Pettersson’s Barefoot Songs – a trait that appears in several other mature works. Throughout the score, the song ‘The Lord walks in the meadow’ provides motivic material but is also quoted extensively. The hugely challenging solo part was first performed by Ida Haendel in 1980, and is here taken up by Ulf Wallin, who with an extensive discography has already proved himself to be one of the most intrepid violinists of today. The album closes with Pettersson’s last musical thoughts: a 207-bar long fragment generally regarded and referred to as a sketch for the composer’s Seventeenth Symphony. The fragment has been performed in public on one or two occasions, but it is only now that a wider public is given the opportunity to hear it.
Allan Pettersson’s Symphony No. 15 is characterized by a high degree of tension right from the striking opening: brief, emphatic chords from horns and trombones above the tremolo of a side drum. Soon an expressive melodic subject is heard from the first violins, followed by contrasting rapid scales – at which point Pettersson has presented the greater part of the symphony’s building blocks. Like so many of the composer’s symphonies, the 15th is in one movement, but with clearly defined sections. It was completed in 1978, two years before Pettersson’s death, and was followed in 1979, by the sixteenth symphony, the last work that the composer submitted for performance. Only later did it become known that Pettersson had also been working on a Viola Concerto – a work that, if not fully completed, was so far advanced that it has been accepted as part of his œuvre. It is presented here by the Swedish violist Ellen Nisbeth, who also performs one of Pettersson’s very earliest compositions – a Fantaisie pour alto seul, dated June 1936, when the composer himself was about to embark on a career as violist. On this the tenth disc in their acclaimed Pettersson cycle, the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Christian Lindberg bring their combined expertise to bear on the orchestral scores.
Alongside Einojuhani Rautavaara, Aulis Sallinen is undoubtedly one of the most important classical figures in contemporary Finnish music. In addition to his symphonic works, it was above all his operas The Horseman and The Red Line that brought him international acclaim. His music is free of modern dogma and speaks directly to the listener through it's honest intensity. A firm grounding in tonality, simple thematic ideas, and clarity of formal design, combined with powerful inner tension, are the keys to his enduring popularity.
Aho: Concerto For Contrabassoon, Concerto For Tuba / Lipnick, Baadsvik, Litton, Rondin
BIS
CD
$21.99Feb 01, 2007
Being a composer and a sub-contrabass flute player, I do know a little about extreme instruments and the problems and challenges which exist in writing for them. I believe the gauntlet is still waiting to be picked up when it comes to a concerto for my instrument, but tuba concertos have been increasingly a part of concert programmes since Ralph Vaughan Williams’ pioneering work in the genre from 1954. There have been a few good examples since, including some recorded by two of my former teachers Edward Gregson and Roger Steptoe. Given the opportunity and the technical challenge, players will rise to the demands of such works, and the standards expected of new generations of professionals increase as a result.
One aspect of the tuba concerto is, in general, a tendency to brevity when it comes to their composition. This may have something to do with sympathy for the soloist, who might be expected to stagger from the stage, barely having survived such a heavy blow – another reason being the difficulty in creating a sustained serious work for something which is often perceived as a ‘comedy’ instrument. Kalevi Aho’s approach involved close collaboration with a seasoned professional, and the work actually begins and ends on notes chosen by Harri Lidsle, tuba player with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. In his own notes, Aho reminds us that “by nature, the tuba is a very songful instrument”, and indeed there are many highly lyrical lines, themes and passages which explore the expressive upper ranges of the instrument. The instrument’s surprising agility is also given free rein, and sensitive orchestration means that the low tessitura and resulting limitations of the instrument’s projection through heavy textures are avoided. This is not to say that the orchestra is in any way restricted either. The tidal waves of sound in the final movement, with brass, strings and a battery of percussion in full flow are truly symphonic in character, fulfilling the promise of a grand scale which can be assumed from the half-hour timing of this work.
Most of the writing for the soloist is conventional, but as the third and final movement draws to a close, the player sings at the same time as playing, as well as grunting and snorting like some kind of strange animal – combining with the orchestra to magical effect. With the lyrical writing of the second movement’s cadenza the tuba actually sounds like a smaller instrument on occasion, but far from being the slower middle movement one might expect, the second begins with high, almost cinematic drama. Øystein Baadsvik’s playing is truly excellent, employing subtle vibrato here and there, tonsil rattling low notes and stunning technique when it comes to articulation. The combination of powerful orchestral writing and genuine musicianship from all concerned is an unbeatable one, and this work deserves to be taken up globally.
The contrabassoon is an altogether different, and to my ears more uncontrollable beast than the tuba. Lewis Lipnick writes his own note for the piece, having commissioned it, and subsequently confronted with “the most challenging work ever written for the contrabassoon.” Aho’s concerto in fact took the instrument a whole octave above its recognised range, and it was the designs and construction of an acoustically superior instrument “by luck or fate” in the U.S. which ultimately made the work playable. The recording here is made up from two live performances with the Bergen Phil. conducted by Andrew Litton, and the performance certainly has plenty of concert-hall vibrancy although I detected no audience noise at all.
The composer’s notes tell us that the first ever contrabassoon concerto was also written for Lewis Lipnick in 1978, the composer in this case being Gunther Schuller. Other examples are virtually non-existent however, and Aho again consulted extensively with specialists before writing this incredible work. Like the tuba, and in fact many other ostensibly subterranean instruments, the contrabassoon can have a very cantabile character, and while the whole range of the instrument is explored, its lyrical nature comes through remarkably well. Again, imaginative orchestration is very much part of Aho’s successful negotiation with his unusual solo instrument, and trios with the contrabassoon, heckelphone and alto saxophone provide some of the more intriguing moments.
The Contrabassoon Concerto is, in the composer’s own words, “the most monumental of my instrumental concertos – in essence [ ] almost a symphony for contrabassoon and orchestra.” I do note however, that one of the aspects both of these works share is that neither out-stays their welcome, and neither really gives the impression of being ‘long’. Both kept me on the edge of my seat, and Lipnick’s playing is an inspiration. Aho’s musical voice is highly individual, but if you want some references, then one or two woodwind passages reminded me of a wild kind of Nielsen, you might get a whiff of Shostakovich here and there, the occasional Sibelian inflection in the richness of the orchestration. Aho’s symphonic work is recognised as having a kind of Mahlerian power, and on the strength of the Contrabassoon Concerto I can well believe it: the opening six minutes or so of the work is like entering some kind of breathtaking temple or vast undiscovered inner space, and the climax of the final movement from about 5:00, even including the dropping of heavy chains; is something which may do damage to your dentures, such is the jaw-clenching tension which develops.
The recordings are superb, and well up to BIS’s own high standards. Collectors of this label’s ongoing range of releases by this composer will already have this disc on their wish-list, and will most certainly not be disappointed. Former non-initiates like me will have had an entirely new world opened for them, which, for the price of a CD, has to be something of a bargain.
Pettersson: Symphonies No 1 & 2 / Lindberg, Norrkoping Symphony
BIS
CD + DVD
$29.99Aug 01, 2011
2 discs for the price of 1: included on a separate DVD is an hour-long film by David Lindberg about Allan Pettersson’s First Symphony and the preparation of the score.
Born on 19th September 1911, Allan Pettersson was a singular voice in Swedish, and indeed European, 20th-century music. Raised in a poor neighbourhood in Stockholm, his first instrument was a fiddle made by one of his brothers from a tin box and some strings, and Pettersson immediately realized that music was his calling. In 1939 he won a place as viola player in what is today the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, but at this time he also began to compose – at first his Barfotasånger (Barefoot Songs) and chamber works. It was towards the very end of the 1940s, while he was working up the courage to leave his steady position, that he began to compose his Symphony No.1. In a letter he recounted how the symphony was growing and growing, and even threatened to swallow him up whole. Perhaps as a result of a study visit to Paris, where he had lessons with René Leibowitz and Arthur Honegger, Pettersson laid the work aside, but during the following years – and possibly as late as in the 1970s – he kept returning to the sketches. He certainly never abandoned the symphony, and in 1953 when he completed a second symphony, he insisted on calling that work his 'No.2'. On two previous discs, Christian Lindberg has conducted Pettersson's Three Concertos for String Orchestra as well as the orchestral versions of the Barefoot Songs. These were released to great acclaim, for instance in Fono Forum, whose reviewer dubbed Lindberg and the Nordic Chamber Orchestra 'more than ideal interpreters of Pettersson's music, which is as stark as it is fascinating'. Entrusted with the manuscript material – some 240 pages – of Symphony No.1, Lindberg was able to prepare a performable version and gave the work its world première in May 2010, conducting the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. His recording of the work – and of Symphony No.2 – is accompanied by a DVD with an hour-long film by David Lindberg about Allan Pettersson's First Symphony documenting its genesis, the preparation of the performance edition and the path to the work's first performance and subsequent recording.
Reger: Orchestral Works / Segerstam, Norrkoping Symphony
BIS
CD
$39.99Mar 25, 2014
“Everything that is included is substantial… the hugely impressive Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy is dark, brooding and intricately wrought. It's invaluable to have these works available in such lucid, well-played and committed performances.” – The Guardian (UK)
REGER Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart, op. 132. Symphonic Prolog to a Tragedy, op. 108. Piano Concerto1. Suite in Olden Style, op. 93. Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Beethoven, op. 86. A Ballet Suite, op. 130. Four Tone Poems after Arnold Böcklin, op. 128 • Leif Segerstam, cond; 1Love Derwinger (pn); Norrköping SO • BIS 9047 (3 CDs: 203:54)
This new compilation of Leif Segerstam’s Reger recordings, originally issued on three separate CDs in the 1990s, makes an outstanding introduction to the work of a composer still largely known by many classical lovers for his organ music and one song, Maria Wiegenlied. When I reviewed the 2-CD Guild set of historic Reger recordings (Fanfare 37:6), I said how much I liked the works presented there. I can say much the same thing of this set, despite Segerstam’s penchant for slower tempos, simply because as a composer himself he approaches each work from a structural standpoint and brings out many subtleties.
Surprisingly, only two works are duplicated in the two sets, the Mozart Variations and the Ballet Suite. The Guild collection also included the Lustpielouvertüre, Serenade in G, Romantic Suite, and Eine vaterländische Ouverture. Possibly one may also want to hear Reger’s Violin Concerto, Sinfonietta, and the Variations on a Theme of Hiller, but otherwise, between these two sets, you have the bulk of Reger’s orchestral oeuvre. Early on in life, Reger became infatuated with both Bach and Wagner, and from these twin fonts of Teutonic culture he created remarkably interesting structures in music. And, surprisingly, his music is not only interesting but also fun to listen to, a point I made in regards to the Guild set.
Of the music new to me via this release, I was particularly impressed with the Symphonic Prelude to a Tragedy (which one might describe as a more modern, and more tragic, incarnation of Brahms’s Tragic Overture), the piano concerto, and the Beethoven Variations and Fugue. My sole complaint of the recordings, and this probably has more to do with the engineering than with Segerstam, is that in quiet passages the music sometimes fades out of earshot. Unless you are listening with your ears very close to the speakers or, on headphones, with the volume turned up high, you will miss some of those softer passages. Other than that, however, I was very pleased overall with Segerstam’s readings. As usual with this conductor, transparency of texture is paramount, often revealing details that go unnoticed in others’ readings, and his subtle plasticity of phrasing keeps the music fluid and moving forward. Thus in a work like the Mozart Variations, one may prefer the more straightforward conducting of Eduard van Beinum in the Guild set, but one will find much more to hear in the Segerstam performance.
I was not particularly impressed by the Suite in Olden Style, which just toodled along and sounded nice but not much else. The Variations on a Theme of Beethoven is based on the last of the op. 119 Bagatelles. He originally wrote it for two pianos, but when preparing the orchestral score he eliminated four of the 12 variations and, according to the notes, changed both the playing order and the arrangement of keys. When he finished this score in August 1915, he had less than a year to live. In this case, I felt that Segerstam’s performance was a bit too airy for my taste, making the music sound less energetic that it might have, but the Ballet Suite came off pretty well. Segerstam’s problem, like the famous criticism of Bruno Walter, is that “when he comes to something beautiful, he melts.”
The liner notes suggest that the reason Reger’s Piano Concerto has failed to gain a place in the standard repertoire is that it is technically demanding but does not allow the soloist to “show off.” I would also suggest that the dark, brooding quality of the music is another reason. Most people like their piano concertos to sound cheerful or dramatic or, if somewhat brooding, then brooding in a Romantic Russian (read: Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff) sort of way, neither of which Reger gives us. This is a very complex piece, too, continually evolving yet knitting together its various sections within each movement with consummate mastery. (I would particularly commend this concerto to many modern American composers who write “clever” music that does not develop properly.) Derwinger is a committed interpreter, throwing himself into this complex score with emotional fervor, and Segerstam, too, is particularly dramatic here.
What makes this packaging even more attractive is that BIS is selling the 3-CD box at a special price. I found it listed for $32.75 at Presto Classical and $38.49 at ArkivMusic, an excellent bargain considering BIS’s normal price tag for single discs, which run around $21.
Gustav Mahler wrote a number of songs of singular beauty, some re-used in his orchestral works, including settings of poems from the Romantic anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn), Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) and Rückert’s Kindertotenlieder (Songs of the Death of Children). These songs have for a long time been in the concert repertoire of baritone Peter Mattei, one of the most sought-after singers of his generation, who is heard here singing these very Mahler songs with the Norrköping Symphony under the baton of Jochen Rieder.
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 4, Piano Concerto Op. 61a / Parrott, Brautigam, Norrkoping Symphony
BIS
SACD
$21.99Nov 01, 2009
In 1806, Beethoven composed two concertos - the Fourth Piano Concerto followed by the Violin Concerto Op. 61. In both cases the composer soon returned to the works to produce new versions, and it is these later versions that are presented here. At the public première of the Fourth Piano Concerto in 1808, Beethoven performed the piano part very 'capriciously' according to his pupil Carl Czerny, playing many more notes than are to be found in the printed edition. A clear indication of what Beethoven played comes from his copyist's orchestral score, in which the outer movements contain annotations in the composer's hand. These have been transcribed by Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper who, in his insightful liner notes, describes this rarely recorded 1808 version as 'strikingly inventive' and 'more sparkling, virtuosic and sophisticated than the standard one'. In the case of the Opus 61 concerto, Beethoven succeeded in writing what many consider to be the quintessential violin concerto. Less well-known is the fact that soon after the first performance, Beethoven produced an arrangement of the solo part for piano, modifying the violin part slightly in the process. When the work was first published, it was as a concerto for violin or piano. Worth noting is that although Beethoven did not compose any cadenzas for the violin, he did so for the piano version. The one for the first movement is especially striking, in that it includes a part for timpani, reminding us of the timpani solo that begins the entire work. Ronald Brautigam and the Norrköping SO under Andrew Parrott have received acclaim for two previous discs of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra: 'These well-known works emerge as if freshly minted' wrote International Record Review about Concertos Nos. 1 and 3, while the German magazine Piano News hailed the release of No.2 and the youthful Concerto WoO4 as 'a magnificent recording in which Brautigam demonstrates his stylistic expertise, and which shows what a splendid pianist he is.'
Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 3 / Brautigam, Parrott, Norrköping SO
BIS
SACD
$21.99Apr 01, 2008
With five discs released so far in the cycle, Ronald Brautigam now takes on Beethoven's complete works for piano and orchestra, choosing to do so on a modern piano and with a modern instrument orchestra: the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, internationally acclaimed for its many fine recordings on BIS. Conducting the series is Andrew Parrott, and together with the soloist, he brings all his expertise in period performance practise to bear in interpretations that in many ways are as fresh and revolutionary as those of the sonata cycle. The present disc, with Concertos No.1 and No.3, is the first of a cycle of four, and was recorded with solo piano, without a lid, placed in the middle of the orchestra As Ronald Brautigam explains in the liner notes: 'I truly believe that what Beethoven wanted was chamber music rather than a battle between orchestra and soloist, and this makes for a wonderfully interactive set-up-, where individual players have far m ore contact with the pianist than in a regular concert set-up'.
Beethoven: Concerto No 5, Choral Fantasy / Brautigam
BIS
SACD
$21.99Jul 01, 2010
For the final instalment of his survey of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra, Ronald Brautigam has saved 'the final crowning glory of his concerto output', as Beethoven specialist Barry Cooper describes the Fifth Piano Concerto in his liner notes. The work has become known as the Emperor Concerto, as it shares its key (E flat major) as well as a certain sense of power and grandeur with the Third Symphony, the 'Eroica'. It is coupled on this disc with the Choral Fantasia - an intriguing work scored for piano, orchestra and chorus with vocal soloists. The explanation for this unusual combination is that Beethoven wanted to provide a fitting finale for one of his mammoth concerts in Vienna. The concert, which took place on 22 December 1808, included performances of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies as well as the Fourth Piano Concerto and two movements from the Mass in C major; the Choral Fantasia thus brought all of the evening's performers on stage once more before the end of the concert. The individual discs in Ronald Brautigam's series have received numerous distinctions, including a MIDEM Classical Award in 2010, and his performances have been weighed against classic recordings by legendary pianists. 'Brautigam's account [of Concerto No. 1] compares with Richter's for sparkle, with Pollini's for cleverness, and with Michelangeli's for liveliness... The performance of Beethoven's Third Concerto that follows is even better', wrote the reviewer on website All Music.com, while the one in Gramophone deemed that the recording of the Second Concerto was 'almost as good as Serkin's account with Ormandy, which is saying something!' In the review in International Record Review of the penultimate volume, finally, the series so far was summed up as follows: 'For my money, Brautigam and Parrott are setting a new bench-mark, and I eagerly await the final instalment.' It is of course a great pleasure to be able to announce the release of that longed-for disc, with Ronald Brautigam, the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Parrott in their usual top form, and with the brief but crucial appearance of the eminent Eric Ericson Chamber Choir in the Choral Fantasia.
