Benjamin Zander conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in Mahler’s hugely popular ‘Resurrection’ Symphony in a GRAMMY-nominated recording. Exceptionally challenging and thrillingly powerful it is the perfect showcase for Zander’s distinctive balance of insightful musicianship and emotional intensity. With London’s famed Philharmonia Orchestra, he is recording the complete cycle of Mahler symphonies, recordings which have been received with extraordinary critical acclaim and several awards. Zander’s recordings of Mahler symphonies have inspired critics worldwide to use superlatives such as ‘revelatory’, ‘exhilarating’, ‘illuminating’ and ‘remarkable’. The featured soloists are Sarah Connolly, one of the foremost British mezzo-sopranos who has impressed at La Scala and Glyndebourne, and Swedish soprano Miah Persson, who is in great demand with the major opera houses including Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera New York.
I have no criticism whatsoever about the excellence of these performances. No one plays neo-classical and late Stravinsky as well as Robert Craft, and whether in his energetic and witty account of Jeu de cartes, or the nicely "sec" articulation he uses to characterize the Danses and Scènes, these performances are as fine as any available, and they are very well recorded. Mark Wait also is a fine piano soloist in the Capriccio, giving a swift and uncommonly high-spirited rendition. The Variations belongs among Stravinsky's most uncompromisingly arid compositions. Craft delivers the piece with his usual clarity and focus, but like some Webern, the fact that you can listen to this brief work multiple times to try to "get it" doesn't mean that you will want to or that it's time well spent. Indeed my only qualm about this disc, one that prevents my giving it the highest rating, is that if you enjoy neo-classical Stravinsky you likely won't want the Variations. Still, it's only a bit more than five minutes of music and you can always ignore it. If the coupling suits, then don't hesitate.
The operatic overture is the composers “hook” to enthrall the audience immediately as the house lights dim and the first notes sound from the orchestra pit. Some of the most popular overtures are featured here, and come from powerhouse composers like Strauss, Smetana, and Verdi. William Boughton conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra for this recording. He has been with the ESO since he founded the ensemble in 1980. Since its inception, the ensemble has built an extensive discography with Nimbus Records.
The music of John Jeffreys is an absolute delight - overtly Romantic and non-modernist, very much in the tradition of Delius, Warlock and Vaughan Williams. Here a number of delicious orchestral works of stunning beauty are accompanied by fine dramatic vocal works and a Suite of Variations for piano. This CD is essential for anyone interested in the English pastoral tradition - or just in exquisite music.
Holst: The Planets; The Perfect Fool (Ballet Music)
Nimbus
CD
$16.99Apr 01, 2005
At the time of the first performance of The Planets, Holst was suffering severely from the neuritis in his hands which plagued him all his life. Much of the actual writing out of the massive score had to be undertaken by his pupils at St Paul’s School under the composer’s supervision. As a result the score presented a considerable number of problems for performers because of missing dynamic markings although it is invariably clear what these should be. The score was newly edited by Colin Matthews and Imogen Holst in 1979 to supply these and to correct various other misprints in earlier editions. Even so The Planets is not a work that could ever be easy to play. It presents many problems not only of technique but also of balance to inexperienced players. One of these occurs almost immediately in Mars where Holst introduces a solo for the “tenor tuba” which is usually nowadays played on the euphonium. I suspect this to be a mistake; the euphonium, a brass band instrument approximating in that medium to the cello, is rather too soft-edged to make the right sort of impact. Karajan in his 1960 Vienna recording employed a tenor “Wagner tuba” which produced a more incisive effect but stood out from the orchestral balance uncomfortably at other points in the score; I do not know what instrument William Boughton uses here, but it sounds sharper-edged than a euphonium and is pretty well ideal. I suspect however that it may have been assisted by microphone placement, since later in the movement it recedes into the orchestral mix. Its duet with the trumpet towards the end (at 4.59) does not sound ideally matched. Also rather backwardly balanced is the Albert Hall organ which does not assert itself through the texture in the same way as in the superbly engineered and ideally balanced recording Charles Dutoit made in Montreal for Decca. Better that, I suppose, than the horribly electronic effect which Karajan achieved in his later Berlin recording for DG; considerably toned down in later re-masterings.
Boughton’s speed for Mars is nicely judged, not too hectic but with plenty of power; and one can for once clearly hear the col legno strings tapping away in the opening bars. This is a work which the Philharmonia could play in their sleep, and the technical difficulties pose no problems for them. The opening of Venus restores calm, with a poised horn solo provoking a dreamy response from the woodwind, and Bradley Cresswick produces a beautifully recessed violin solo at 2.08. This is indeed Venus as “the bringer of peace” and not the erotic goddess of love with which we are all too often presented. Perhaps the celesta at 7.50 could be more clearly audible and defined, but it is marked pianissimo in the score, and better that than an over-amplified sound. The same instrument comes through nicely in Mercury¸ which is taken at a steady speed which enables plenty of detail to be heard. Then again at 1.15 where its part is marked “solo” in the score, it does not balance either the flute which precedes it with the melody or the clarinet which follows. Here is a case where some discreet spotlighting really is needed. There is one passage at 2.34 (returning later) which never really comes off in performance – the strings and woodwind who have been playing a two-beat rhythm in 6/8 are suddenly instructed for two bars to play with a three-beat rhythm, indicated by forte accents. At Holst’s Vivace marking it is extremely difficult for the players to make this distinction clear, and the performance here succeeds no better than any others that I have heard.
Jupiter bustles along with plenty of jollity, but Boughton does not observe the ritenuto at 1.34 which Holst indicates as leading into the molto pesante tune on the horns – no more than do many of his rivals, including Sir Adrian Boult who gave the first performance. Oddly enough when this passage returns later on, Holst omits the ritenuto marking, and since the passages are otherwise identical one wonders whether the first marking might be a simple error which has remained uncorrected. Boughton treats the central ‘big tune’ as a country dance and not as a patriotic hymn, which is quite correct, but properly allows a slight broadening towards the end of the passage which is marked maestoso. When the tune occurs at the very end Holst indicates that a single crochet of the new speed should be the equivalent of a full bar of the previous one; Boughton observes this precisely, but many conductors make a further broadening to match Holst’s new tempo marking Lento maestoso – I think this is probably needed to give the ‘big tune’ is full breadth, but what Boughton does here is what Holst indicates.
The opening of Saturn is nicely poised, and for once the low bass oboe solo at 1.24 is properly piano as marked – it must be very difficult to achieve this dynamic level in the extreme low register of the instrument, and the Philharmonia player here does better than Dutoit’s rather more fruity oboist in Montreal. As the music rises to a climax, Holst marks the score Animato and indicates that the bells should be played “with metal striker”. In a footnote to the new edition of the score the player is advised to use a rawhide mallet “to avoid damaging the bells”. This is what we are given here although the sound is clearly not what the composer had in mind. Many conductors turn the Animato into a violent acceleration - Holst gives no metronome marks in his score, but in his very fast recorded performance of the movement as a whole does lend this interpretation some credence. Boughton here keeps the two tempi closely balanced, to the considerable advantage of the music. When the music dies down again the bells return, marked pianissimo and to be played with a “soft felt striker” – but here they recede too far into the background as a consequence. They are clearer even on Holst’s old 78s, although what we hear there does not sound at all like a “felt striker”. The organ pedal which underpins the music could also be more palpable. Dutoit in Montreal gets this passage just right, and the result makes more of what could otherwise be regarded as an over-extended “dying fall”.
The Albert Hall acoustic suits Uranus perfectly, with the timpani passages which can frequently be obscured in a halo of reverberation sounding ideally precise. The xylophone solo which is so often highlighted - with grotesque results in Adrian Boult’s 1954 reading - is properly balanced with the rest of the orchestra. The timpani could however be more defined at 2.49 (the part is marked “solo”) although they are better eleven bars later and thereafter. The notorious organ glissando at the catastrophic climax also blends into the background slightly too much, and the timpani solo at 4.40 is not really distinct enough either. The tempo of Neptune, shown as Andante in the score, is all too often taken by conductors to read Largo molto, but Boughton keeps the music flowing. However the recording here does not give any definition to Holst’s subtle orchestral effects; the tremolos in the highest register of the harps are almost inaudible and the subtle interplay of the harps with celesta and muted violins is more clearly evident in the superb engineering that Decca provide for Dutoit. Holst may have required that the orchestra should play pianissimo and with “dead tone” throughout, but he devoted considerable ingenuity to the provision of variety in the texture, and it would be nice to hear more of this. The unnamed chorus, set at a distance as Holst requires, could also be slightly more palpable, and their internal tuning sounds slightly insecure at the admittedly extremely difficult chromatic passage at 6.16. At the end they fade nicely if rather rapidly into the distance.
The coupling with the ballet music from The perfect fool is a well-conceived one, since the music of the two scores has much in common. This again is music that is not easy to play, but Boughton is nicely forthright in the Dance of the spirits of the earth even if the following Dance of the spirits of water could be more gracefully romantic and the final Dance of the spirits of fire is a bit brash. In the booklet note written in 1988 Geoffrey Crankshaw makes a plea for “some act of rescue” for the complete score of the opera – over twenty years later we are still waiting. At the time he was writing there had only been a BBC recording from the mid-1960s, where Imogen Holst had laid violent hands on the score, abridging some passages and introducing a spoken narration to clarify points of the plot. In her book on her father’s music she was very rude about the “intolerable” libretto (written by the composer) and Crankshaw also adduces the “poor” text as a reason for the score’s neglect. This really does the composer an injustice. Although at the time of its first performance critics suspected allegory, the plot is really a light-hearted satire on opera in general, and a very funny one at that. What it really requires is a production that takes the music extremely seriously, thus making the contrast between the vocal writing and the nonsensical words even funnier. The BBC recording of 1997 (currently available on the internet) did that, with the exception of the miscasting of Richard Suart - a very good comic baritone in the Savoy operas - in the central role of the Wizard, giving a G&S slant to music which really demands a Wagnerian singer in the Hunding/Hagen mould. Vernon Handley does take the score seriously, obtaining superb performances elsewhere and giving us every note of the score as Holst wrote it. Could somebody now please take another look at the score, giving us a properly high-class Verdian tenor for the Troubadour and a Wagnerian bass-baritone as the Traveller? Holst’s parodies of Verdi and Wagner are not only first-class satire, but are also uncomfortably convincing when they are given full weight.
There are a great many extremely good performances of The Planets in the catalogues – and this is an extremely good one. There are also a few which give us exactly this coupling with the Perfect fool ballet music, including a very good one by Sir Charles Mackerras with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; recordings by Solti and Mehta, both available coupled with Boult’s early 1960s Perfect fool, are rather superficial by comparison. The minor imperfections in balance - largely the result of the natural problems in Holst’s own scoring - in this Nimbus recording are not serious enough to prevent a strong endorsement for Boughton’s performance. On a purely personal level I stand by Dutoit’s Decca version, both for its more individual view on the score and its superlative if less natural engineering.
Can the dualism of life, nature and art be expressed in pure music? This is the question the multi-talented composer Flint Juventino Beppe - formerly known as Fred Jonny Berg - has set out to answer. The album Remote Galaxy is a journey in time and space, a journey given meaning by the album's music and philosophy. The music is uncompromisingly honest, with a genuine power of it's own. Using well-known acoustic technology, the composer takes US to some unusual and, for most of us, unknown places. Remote Galaxy continues the journey of 2L's Grammy nominated album Flute Mystery, and again the Philharmonia Orchestra is conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy to interpret these adventurous scores. The composer's deep spiritual interest in nature, philosophy and space is as central in the universe of Remote Galaxy as it was in Flute Mystery. Beppe's music leaves a unique fingerprint in the artistic world: there is quite simply nothing like it. The individual and inventive nature of his orchestral works demands a rich palette of instruments and an extended use of woodwinds, brass and organ. As solo instruments, the intense but delicate sound of the clarinet, the scope of the flute's range of expression and the special characteristics of the rarely used viola da gamba make for an inimitable atmosphere captured in 2L's innovative surround sound technology. With the introduction of height channels, acoustic reflections create a natural sound presence originating from both around and above the listener.
These four recordings were made from 1994 to 1998, when Craft’s Schoenberg series was being recorded by Koch. At least two of them—Herzgewächse and Pierrot lunaire—appeared on Koch CDs. The former is written for “high soprano,” which is an understatement; I don’t have a score, but it seems to probe the entire octave above high C (well above, say, the Queen of the Night), as well as exploiting the normal soprano range. Hulse makes smooth, well-rounded sounds at the top end, but they sound more instrumental than vocal. That effect may be merely the listener’s aural experience: we are not prepared to recognize a voice at such heights.
Silja brings a surprisingly fresh voice to Pierrot lunaire (I saw her Salome at the Vienna Staastoper in 1967). In the spoken/sung conundrum that is Sprechstimme, she tilts toward singing. The Twentieth-Century Classics Ensemble is loaded with stars: for Pierrot: Christopher Oldfather, piano; Michael Parloff, flute/piccolo; Charle Neidlich, clarinet/bass clarinet; Rolf Scholte, violin/viola; and Fred Sherry, cello. The playing is superb, instrument by instrument, but the whole is too smooth, too steady; the slashing wit and the terror of this extraordinary work do not come through. There are places where it’s more appropriate for strings to screech and winds to squawk.
The Four Orchestral Songs are rarities on or off disc; I know them only from Yvonne Minton’s recording with Boulez, and I don’t believe they appeared in Craft’s early “The Music of Arnold Schoenberg” for Columbia. Composed in 1916, these songs are surprisingly harmonious for music lacking a tonal center. The differences between the two recordings are primarily in the accompaniments: Craft’s Philharmonia plays the music in a strict, forthright manner, whereas Boulez’s BBC Symphony is mellifluous and distant, more closely matching the poems of loneliness and memories. My preferences seem to depend on my mood of the moment.
Freed from having to support a vocalist, Craft loosens up in the Chamber Symphony, and his ensemble of stars delivers vital, exhilarating playing. The lush, sweet acoustics of the Recital Hall at the SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center in Purchase, New York, smooth out Schoenberg’s 15 individual lines, making the ensemble sound more like a conventional orchestra. It’s pleasant to hear but belies the composer’s revolutionary one-instrument-on-a-part scoring. Nevertheless, a great performance.
The downside of this disc is its lack of vocal texts,* so important for Pierrot lunaire and the little-known songs. Naxos’s program notes go on for eight-and-a-half pages, so space is not the problem. One simply must have texts here, as does the Minton/Boulez Four Songs on Sony. Of the many available Pierrot lunaire recordings which offer German/English texts, I recommend Jan DeGaetani on Nonesuch or Lucy Shelton on Bridge, a disc which also includes Hergewächse.
* Music Editor’s note: Texts are available on the Naxos Web site, but in German only; search for catalog no. 8.557523 and click on the Lyrics link.
Sir Adrian Boult began his long association with the music of Vaughan Williams in 1918 when he conducted A London Symphony, earning praise from the composer. Boult's commitment to the symphony, which he described as very near to his heart, never wavered, and he conducted it over 60 times from the 1918 concerts right through to 1973. The Daily Telegraph described Boult's conducting of this performance from the 1971 Proms as 'quietly authoritative.. which held one's attention throughout'. Martin Cotton, in his booklet note, states that the performance is closer to his 1952 recording when the composer was present with a greater sense of flow than his EMI recording of the same year. The fill-ups of Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad from 1971 and Moeran's Sinfonietta from 1963 are testimony to Boult's deep engagement with British music, which remained strong throughout his career.
This historical release from First Hand features two major English orchestras and two acclaimed conductors in stereo recordings from the late 1950s, offered here for the first time on CD and for the first time ever in stereo. The recordings were transferred using original analogue session and master tapes from the EMI archive. The program includes American conductor Thomas Schippers leading the Philharmonia Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, and English conductor Sir Eugene Goossens leading the orchestra in Scriabin's Reverie in the first recording of a Scriabin work ever made by a British orchestra. To conclude the disc, Goossens leads the Pro Arte Orchestra in Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1.
The score for Kon-Tiki was written by Swedish film composer Johan Söderqvist, who is amongst the most renowned film composers in the Scandinavian region.
Born in 1966 in Täby outside the capital, Söderqvist studied composition and arranging at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. He wrote his debut film score in 1991 (Agnes Cecilia), and the same year wrote his first score for Danish director Susanne Bier (Freud Leaving Home). The soundtrack CD featuring both scores earned a Swedish Grammy for the composer. Bier remains a valuable colleague for Söderqvist, who has written the scores for most of her films, including Brothers (which won him the UCMF Film Music Award at the Cannes Film Festival), along with the Academy Award® nominated After the Wedding and In a Better World, winner of the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film in 2011.
Söderqvist’s signature scores also include the acclaimed 2008 vampire thriller Let the Right One In by director Tomas Alfredson, for which So?derqvist was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Score and won the Bernard Hermann Award, and Effi Briest, the touching 2009 adaptation of Theodor Fontane’s popular novel.
Whilst writing the score for Kon-Tiki, Söderqvist worked primarily with Tormod Ringnes, one of Norway’s most prominent sound designers, with whom he had collaborated on Together (2009) and King of Devil’s Island (2010), along with Patrik Andre?n (Söderqvist’s assistant). The team worked together to create a soundtrack, a combination of music and sound effects that function as an emotional unit, with the aim of the audience not knowing where one starts and the other ends. Using Skype for daily discussions, they collaborated on cues and sound design concepts before Ringnes would show the sketches to the two directors in Oslo, Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg. Andre?n also provided additional music for the process.
A trademark of Söderqvist’s scores, Kon-Tiki is characterised by a unique atmosphere based on many exotic and unusual instruments recorded especially for this score.
“The first thing that came to my mind” says Söderqvist, “was the sound of the conch horn for Tiki, the God of the Sun in ancient Polynesian mythology. Tiki is omnipresent in the score; even the opening that still plays in Norway has a foreboding episode with the conch horn playing over the frozen lake. I looked high and low for a conch horn soloist, looking up websites in Polynesia and France, then I happened to find the best soloist right here in Stockholm! His name is Tommy Adolfsson. We scheduled a recording session where Tommy brought in his conch horns of all sizes. We mostly made use of the smaller and medium conch horns and found a way to play the instrument with much more air, a more ‘leaking’ sound a bit similar to the Armenian instrument called ‘Duduk’. In the end I think we found a very significant sound with an ‘ancient’ quality to it.”
There were also two major pre-recording sessions of percussion with three players playing on the largest drums they could find. This material was used to create initial sketches to find the tone of the film score.
“You never know if a recording is going to stand all the way to the final mix but in this case, both the conch and the drums helped us to set the tone of the film. When some of the first sketches were made, I sent them confidentially to Tormod and asked him not to show anything to the directors just yet, all I wanted was a little check through his fine ears... Apparently Tormod didn’t follow my orders and showed the sketches to the filmmakers who luckily loved the half-finished work. We had a direction and everyone was happy. The track on the album called ‘Tiki’ is an early recording of the conch horn, and to conclude the project it is also the last thing you hear on the album.”
Tracks: 1. Kon-Tiki (Opening Credits) 2:09 2. Thor and Liv 1:20 3. Fatu Hiva 1:10 4. The Shaman 2:22 5. Kon-tiki is On Course 3:06 6. Into Space 2:18 7. Thor Meets Herman 1:12 8. the flight To Peru 0:56 9. Calling Liv 1:41 10. Thor’s Failure 0:52 11. Following the Sun 1:47 12. The Crab 1:25 13. Tiki 2:16 14. Building the Raft 1:59 15. The Whale Shark 2:35 16. The Journey Begins 0:35 17. The Swede 0:51 18. Luminescent Creatures 0:52 19. lorita The Parrot 1:52 20. The Letter 1:57 21. Herman Is Afraid 0:56 22. Shark Attack 2:11 23. Thor Is Sad 2:06 24. The Seagull 1:00 25. The Raroia Reef 2:14 26. The 13th Wave 0:56 27. Reaching Land 1:59 28. Thor Laughs 1:12 29. Kon-Tiki (End Credits) 5:04 30. Epilogue 5:15
IDIS continues in its mission of reviving some of the most extraordinary Karajan recordings made during the Fifties and Sixties with this Karajan Spectacular VI volume. This album presents some extraordinary Beethoven and Wagner works of which Karajan has been an insurmountable interpreter, becoming obligatory point of reference for the two composers’ discography. Beethoven Symphony Overtures recorded by Karajan with D.G. during the Sixties were one of the milestones of their discography; but in the Fifties the great conductor created with EMI records an incredible series with the legendary Philharmonia Orchestra. During the Sixties Wagner’s recordings with the Berliner Philarmoniker were no less valid and culminated with the incredible Tetralogy; after Wagner’s rhetorical and heavy interpretation during the Nazi period, Karajan’s performance and interpretation has been rightly received as a complete rediscovery of a composer used only for propaganda purposes. This is a real do not miss album recorded in high quality.
Lorin Maazel and the Philharmonia Orchestra perform Mahler’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.
This four-disc box is the second set in a series that will encompass Mahler’s Nine Symphonies, featuring live orchestral recordings from London’s Royal Festival Hall of Maazel and the Philharmonia’s much-lauded Mahler Cycle.
