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Joachim Raff: Chamber Music, Vol. 1 / Leipzig String Quartet
$23.99CDMDG
Jan 15, 20213072187-2 -
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On SaleJohansen: Piano Concerto Op. 29; Pan; Symphonic Vatiations / Triendl, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra
CD$18.99$13.99CPO
Jul 03, 2020555246-2 -
R. STRAUSS: ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA TILL
$35.49VinylWARNER CLASSICS
Jan 13, 2023WCL619828.1 -
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On SaleOvertures from Finland / Gamba, Oulu Symphony
SACD$21.99$16.99Chandos
Aug 11, 2023CHSA 5336 -
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On SaleWilliam Steinberg & The BSO - The Complete RCA Victor Recordings
CD$39.98$29.99Sony Masterworks
Apr 05, 202419658829882 -
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On SaleDel Adalid, Arriola & Duran: String Quartets / Cuarteto Novecento
CD$16.99$12.99Brilliant Classics
Jan 27, 2023BRI96661 -
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Rontgen: Wind Serenades / Linos Ensemble
$18.99CDCPO
Mar 27, 2012777127-2 -
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On SaleMahler: Symphony No. 2 / Vänskä, Minnesota Orchestra
SACD$21.99$15.99BIS
Feb 01, 2019BIS-2296 -
On SaleBruckner, Dvorak, Puccini & Mahler: Ich leb’ allein in meinem Himmel - The Singer Gunther Groissbock
$38.99$29.99Gramola Records
May 03, 2024GRAM20005 -
Oboe Concerto, Le Bourgeois Ge
$22.99CDKontrapunkt
Jan 01, 1990KON 32039 -
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On SaleBerlin Stories / Trio Gaspard
CD$21.99$10.99Chandos
Jun 23, 2023CHAN 20271 -
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On SaleDvořák: 2 Serenades / Vavřínek, Mardirossian, Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice
CD$13.99$10.99Brilliant Classics
Feb 16, 2024BRI97030 -
Alwyn Conducts Alwyn - Symphonies No 1 & 4
$20.99CDLyrita
Sep 01, 2006SRCD227 -
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On SaleKrenek: Music For Chamber Orchestra / Kovacic, Leopoldinum Orchestra
CD$20.99$10.49Toccata
Oct 30, 2012TOCC0125 -
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STRAUSS: EIN HELDENLEBEN - BURLESKE
$17.49CDWARNER CLASSICS
Jul 09, 2021WCL502845.2 -
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On SaleElgar: Cello Concerto / Arlia, Sollima, Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria
CD$13.99$6.99Brilliant Classics
Oct 22, 2021BRI96039 -
R. STRAUSS: ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
$19.99CDWARNER CLASSICS
Jul 31, 2020WCL547227.2 -
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Strauss Ii: Rosen Aus Dem Suden / Accelerationen / Schatz-Wa
$10.99CDBella Musica
Jan 01, 1995BM312050 -
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On SaleNepomuceno: Orchestral Works / Mechetti, Minas Gerais Philharmonic
CD$19.99$13.99Naxos
Feb 08, 20198574067 -
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![Lehar: Zigeunerliebe [Operetta] / NDR Radiophilharmonie](//arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/734496.jpg?v=1785746065&width=800)
On SaleLehar: Zigeunerliebe [Operetta] / NDR Radiophilharmonie
CD$36.99$25.99CPO
Jun 21, 2005999842-2
Joachim Raff: Chamber Music, Vol. 1 / Leipzig String Quartet
Joachim Raff was an autodidact. Having grown up in Switzerland, he first tried his hand with moderate success in numerous places as a composer of salon pieces. Franz Liszt became aware of the young man's talents and hired him as a kind of private secretary. In Weimar Raff orchestrated some of Liszt's early symphonic poems and gained his appreciation. This first recording by the Leipzig String Quartet shows that this was no accident. Raff's first two quartets are large-format works which reveal great ambitions. By the time Raff composed his first quartet in 1855, he was already beginning to emancipate himself from Liszt and the narrow circle of his friends. The "Neudeutsche Verein" had just been founded when Raff left him for Wiesbaden, in financially uncertain circumstances but artistic independence. And indeed, Raff's music cannot be pigeonholed either in the "New German" or the "Brahmsian" category - perhaps the reason why he was admired by such diverse colleagues as Richard Strauss, Peter Tchaikovsky or even Franz Liszt. His first quartet op. 77 was premiered by the famous Hellmesberger Quartet, who had already offered the podium to Franz Schubert and the late Beethoven. The second quartet op. 90 was also quickly adopted by the Viennese. The turning away from a harmonically fixed formal scheme is a trend-setting move; chromaticism and free harmony gain the upper hand over schoolmasterly counterpoint. Self-marketing was not Raff's thing. Rather prim in his private life, he rarely performed publicly, though he was an excellent pianist. He also gave his work away rather than negotiate reasonable fees. As founding director of the Hoch'sche Conservatory in Frankfurt he nevertheless enjoyed great recognition among his contemporaries. To rekindle this in our time, the new recording of the Leipzig String Quartet is a highly welcome beginning.
Johansen: Piano Concerto Op. 29; Pan; Symphonic Vatiations / Triendl, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra
David Monrad Johansen’s catalogue of works displays a mere thirty-six opus numbers as well as a dozen unnumbered compositions from periods. The Epigrams on Norwegian motifs form his last lengthier composition as well as one that is more clearly related to Norwegian folk music than the other works recorded here. Monrad Johansen harmonized the given melodies in his characteristic manner while above all ennobling them with the tender colors and sumptuous fireworks of his detailed orchestration. However, it is first and foremost in his successful Pan op. 22 symphonic music that he exhibits his mastery in orchestral coloration, which in part may have its model in Richard Strauss but also follows the French impressionists, so that it stands at the intersection of the influences and imprints in his oeuvre. The Symphonic Variations and Fugue op. 23 (1944-46; rev. 1959 and 1964), more than Pan and its equal portions of German and French influence, are related to Monrad Johansen’s German education and exhibit many neoclassical elements, so that here Max Reger and Franz Schmidt come to mind, in whose music great variation works with fugues stand out for their tradition-forming function. Already at the beginning of his artistic career Monrad Johansen distinguished himself as an outstanding pianist, and at the latest since his Paris stay in 1927 he was drawn to the idea of composing a concerto, but nearly three decades would pass before this plan became a reality. In its general outline the concerto displays the traditional three-movement structure and classical formal models. However, what particularly stands out is the dramatic alternation between the piano part, which is maintained in virtuosic style throughout, and the contributions by the orchestra.
R. STRAUSS: ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA TILL
Overtures from Finland / Gamba, Oulu Symphony
From the middle of the nineteenth century there was a blossoming of nationalism within the creative arts – very notably in music – in Finland that reflected the political mood in the country. From an international perspective, the dominant stature of Sibelius can often overshadow the wide-ranging works of his peers – something that this album goes some way to redressing.
Robert Kajanus was the leading figure in Finnish music before Sibelius became established. His Overtura sinfonica is a late work, from 1926, which epitomizes his style. Armas Järnefelt was a friend and fellow student of Sibelius, and eventually became his brother-in-law. Erkki Melartin wrote his incidental music for Prinsessa Ruusunen (Sleeping Beauty) for a production of Zachris Topelius’s fairy-tale play at the Finnish Theatre. Ernst Mielck (who cruelly died aged twenty-one) was mentored by Robert Kajanus, who also conducted the première of Mielck’s Dramatische Ouvertüre in Helsinki. Selim Palmgren was an acclaimed pianist and composer, and was eventually appointed Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music. The overture from his Tuhkimo-Sarja (Cinderella Suite) is particularly exotic. Another pianist-composer, Heino Kaski, spent his career as a teacher, leaving little time for composition. His Prélude is an orchestration of one of his most popular piano miniatures. The work of Uuno Klami is closer to European modernism, reflecting his studies in Paris and Vienna. Leevi Madetoja was perhaps the most talented of Sibelius’s small number of private pupils. His Comedy Overture is an orchestral tour-de-force, with echoes of Richard Strauss. He was a native of Oulu, the home of the Oulu Sinfonia, conducted here by its chief conductor, Rumon Gamba.
William Steinberg & The BSO - The Complete RCA Victor Recordings
When William Steinberg was appointed music director of the Boston Symphony in 1969 as successor to Erich Leinsdorf, he attained the pinnacle of his career. No previous conductor had headed two top-ten US orchestras simultaneously. It was a condition of his Boston position that he could continue to work in Pittsburgh with the orchestra that he had headed since 1952.
Born as Hans Wilhelm Steinberg in Cologne on 1 August 1899, he studied at the local conservatory with the conductor Hermann Abendroth and the pianist Lazzaro Uzielli, a Clara Schumann pupil. On graduating in 1920 he became Otto Klemperer’s assistant at the Cologne opera house. In 1929 he was appointed music director in Frankfurt. Relieved of his post by the Nazis in 1933, he conducted concerts in Frankfurt and Berlin under the auspices of the Jewish Cultural League before emigrating to Palestine in 1936 to take over the Palestine Orchestra (now Israel Philharmonic Orchestra). At Toscanini’s invitation he went to the United States in 1938 to assist in forming and training the new NBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1945, he assumed the music directorship of the Buffalo Philharmonic, where he liked to refer to himself as “Buffalo Bill”.
The Steinberg/Boston collaboration with RCA was unfortunately ill-fated and short-lived. Not because of the repertoire, but plummeting sales and spiraling costs plaguing the American recording industry in general persuaded RCA to let its contract with the Boston Symphony lapse after 52 years’ association. Gramophone magazine’s Peter Quantrill claimed in 2018 that Steinberg was “the most under-recorded of great conductors in the second half of the last century.”
In 2004, the critic Richard Freed wrote of the Schubert Ninth (CD 1) and Bruckner Sixth (CD 2) Symphonies: “Both [are] vital and inspiring performances, free of the monumentalizing all too often inflicted on such music: they are among the best entries in his discography and among the finest recordings of the works.” According to John L. Holmes in Conductors on Record, they were also Steinberg’s favorites among his own recordings. Mendelssohn’s own orchestration of the Scherzo from his Octet and Stravinsky’s Scherzo fantastique and Scherzo à la russe, coupled on CD 3 with formidable virtuoso renderings of orchestral showpieces by Dukas, Richard Strauss and Saint-Saëns, were originally prepared for release on LP LSC-3155 but remained unpublished – until now.
This survey of RCA Boston Symphony recordings during the Steinberg era is rounded off with 1970 tapings of Dvorák’s “New World” Symphony and Carnival Overture (CD 4) from the same recording period by Arthur Fiedler, former BSO violinist and longstanding conductor of the Boston Pops. His recordings of mainly light repertoire for RCA generated total sales of well over 50 million. Nevertheless, it was his ambition to record a major symphony, and here RCA belatedly granted his wish, placing the full Boston Symphony Orchestra at his disposal for the first and only time.
All recordings in the set have been newly transferred and remastered from the 3-track (CD 1), 4-track (CDs 2, 3 [1-6], 4) and 2-track (CD 3 [7-9]) analog tapes using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology.
Del Adalid, Arriola & Duran: String Quartets / Cuarteto Novecento
This recording showcases 3 string quartets by 3 Galician composers from 3 consecutive centuries. Each composer represents the experiences of their respective lifetimes in Galicia, a place with a true vocation for universality. Marcial del Adalid (1826–1881) was born into a family with a great musical tradition. After studying in London with Ignaz Moscheles, one of Beethoven’s disciples, Adalid became one of the main representatives of the ‘Rexurdimento’, a Romantic nationalist movement in Galicia. The String Quartet in G Op.16 was the author's only foray into this genre. The four movements follow the pathway set by Beethoven, and echoes of his Sonata Pathétique can be heard; later, the final section recalls the transparent classicism of the Haydnian rondos.
José Arriola (1895–1954), was a famous pianist and composer. A child prodigy, he was sponsored by the Queen Regent María Cristina who gave him a scholarship to study in Germany with Richard Strauss. Arriola's String Quartet in C, dedicated to the memory of his mother, presents writing imbued with Germanic post-romanticism, the legacy of Strauss’s teachings. A work of great depth, Arriola creates a dense polyphonic framework while eliminating ornaments, giving the piece great lyrical intensity.
Juan Durán (b.1960) is one of the most representative composers of the current generation of Galician artists. He has written many pieces for chamber, symphonic, vocal and stage genres, as well as orchestrations of Galician music. The most striking aspect of his String Quartet is, without a doubt, the choice of the three movements that make it up: a pasodoble, a blues and a samba. Durán wanted to heighten the classical form through maintaining its sonata structure. Therefore, the pasodoble acts as the exposition section, the blues is the development, and the energetic final samba is structured around the recurring rondo.
Rontgen: Wind Serenades / Linos Ensemble
RÖNTGEN Serenade (Wind Quintet). Serenade (Wind Septet). Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Bassoon • Linos Ens • CPO 777 127-2 (60:15)
As Jerry Dubins reviewed this disc at some length in Fanfare 36:1, I will make this relatively brief, wanting only to register some degree of dissent from his overall negative judgments. Basically, Dubins liked the rather Brahmsian early Serenade, op. 14, but dismissed the later wind quintet Serenade as a “frivolous, frothy fluff piece” and called the Trio “a work of modest means and even flimsier substance.” He concluded, “If you’re new to Röntgen ... I’d strongly suggest that you start with almost anything else by him than the disc at hand.” I must beg to differ with him regarding the latter two works. While these are indeed occasional pieces rather than major masterworks, they are all ingratiating and provide charming and rewarding listening. While the major influence on the late serenade is indeed, as Dubins notes, Richard Strauss—the clarinet at the opening is reminiscent of that in Till Eulenspiegel , and the end of the third movement sounds much like the music for the little Moorish servant boy from the final bars of Der Rosenkavalier —it also follows in the footsteps of Nielsen’s Quintet. Adjectives that spring to mind are saucy, insouciant, cheeky, and mischievous. It is constructed in a cyclic pattern with a return in the last movement to material from the first movement. The Trio is even closer to Nielsen’s ambit in the more craggy melodic contours and unexpected harmonic twists of its three brief movements. The connection is not surprising; not only was Röntgen an enthusiast for Scandinavian culture, who wrote a biography of his friend Edvard Grieg, but he also played in a string quartet with Carl Nielsen in 1892. It would be interesting to know of any further connections between them. I do admit to being less fond of this piece than of the two serenades, as the slow movement is uningratiating.
I do agree with Dubins regarding the high caliber of the playing of the Linos Ensemble, although in the Trio I do find the oboe to be a bit harsh and off in intonation (perhaps the instrument simply needed to be swabbed out). The recorded sound and booklet notes meet CPO’s usual excellent standards. For those who are particularly fond of the genre of wind serenades, this disc is a welcome addition to its not very sizeable repertoire.
FANFARE: James A. Altena
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 / Vänskä, Minnesota Orchestra
Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony started life as a single-movement tone poem called Todtenfeier (‘Funeral Rites’). Completed in 1888 – one year before Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration – it echoed the composer's vision of seeing himself lying dead in a funeral bier surrounded by flowers. Deciding to use it as his opening movement, Mahler didn't finish the complete five-movement symphony until more than six years later, the longest time he spent on any work. The huge scale of the work apart, its weighty subject matter may well have contributed to the slow progress: Mahler himself outlined a scenario making references to the ultimate meaning of life and death (first movement), recollections of lost innocence and the desperation of unbelief (second and third movements), the return to naïve faith (fourth movement) and final redemption from the last judgement (finale). To convey this he took recourse to the human voice: incorporating a solo alto in the 4th movement Urlicht, he went on in the finale to risk comparison with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony by introducing a choir, as well as a soprano and alto soloist.
Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä have received praise for their previous Mahler recordings (‘Vänskä and the orchestra are among the finest exponents of Mahler’s music...’, allmusic.com). The team is here joined by soloists Ruby Hughes and Sasha Cooke and the Minnesota Chorale in the deeply moving close to the vast and tumultuous panorama that is his Second Symphony.
REVIEW:
[Vänskä] adopts a nicely relaxed approach – and pace – for the second movement. The strings play very stylishly and the recording differentiates very well indeed between the various string parts. The third movement is also largely a success; the sardonic humour comes across quite well – as is in keeping with the original Knaben Wunderhorn song on which the movement is based. The orchestra points the music very effectively with special praise for the woodwind in this regard. The wild premonition of the finale (8:03) is projected with dramatic force and urgency. Sasha Cooke sings "Urlicht" very well indeed.
The huge finale is unleashed in dramatic fashion and the vivid impact of the bass drum stroke is typical of the quality of the BIS recording. Vänskä handles this vast musical fresco pretty well. The drama is projected strongly, not least in the huge march episode that follows those two apocalyptic percussion crescendi (9:21). The grosse Appell is impressive (17:16): the distant brass is very well handled in the recording and the solo piccolo and flute distinguish themselves. When the choir begins to sing (20:01) their sound is hushed but distinct, which is as it should be. Ruby Hughes’ silvery voice rises gently and sweetly from the midst of the singers at the end of the first long phrase. Miss Hughes does very well, too, in the ‘O Glaube’ duet with Sasha Cooke.
The performance is highly accomplished. Vänskä has a good choir at his disposal and two excellent soloists. As for his orchestra, they play the music marvellously. There are many idiomatic touches such as string portamenti while accents – so crucial in Mahler – and dynamics are scrupulously observed.
– MusicWeb International
Bruckner, Dvorak, Puccini & Mahler: Ich leb’ allein in meinem Himmel - The Singer Gunther Groissbock
He makes you feel what it feels like to be alone at the top. Whoever sees and hears him suddenly knows more about the search for the right path that drives every serious person. His stage characters touch the heart. The bass Günther Groissböck embodies kings, scholars, philosophers in the great opera houses of the world; he plays priests, mythical creatures, gods. You could say he specializes in solitary figures.
At first glance, however, Günther Groissböck does not seem like someone who has personal experience with the subject of loneliness. The singer stands, works, acts on and off stage in intensive contact with people. He is married, father of a daughter, in the middle of life or, as conductor Philippe Jordan puts it: “He burns for many things in life, not only for art”. Can you play what you don’t know? How does he shape his stage characters? What are the building blocks for the play? When does the instrument, his voice, touch the audience? How much public spirit, how much individuality does an opera singer need today? And where does Günther Groissböck get the incredible energy he radiates on stage?
For two years we accompanied the artist from Waidhofen an der Ybbs (Lower Austria) with our camera, on night journeys and day trips. At rehearsals, sports, and performances. We filmed him as the black-robed Kaspar, as the powerful King Philip, or as a searcher in the villa of Richard Strauss. The result is a film portrait that tells of a special attitude to life; of loneliness as a source of artistic strength; of a man who can fill his voice with content from within. The film about Günther Groissböck tells of two lines from a Rückert poem, set to music by Gustav Mahler: “I live alone in my heaven, in my loving, in my song.”
Oboe Concerto, Le Bourgeois Ge
Berlin Stories / Trio Gaspard
Berlin Stories is the first in a new series of recordings by the Trio Gaspard, based on different cultural capitals and composers associated with them. The album features three composers who lived and worked in Berlin for a period of their lives – for different reasons and in varying circumstances.
Mendelssohn’s grandfather, Moses, was a philosopher and leader of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, establishing a pre-eminent position for the family in Berlin, and creating the opportunities for both Felix and Fanny to realize their musical potential. The second piano trio is a perfects example of Mendelssohn’s style, combining a total mastery of classical structure and counterpoint with romantic sensibility. Moscow-born, but of Swiss parentage, Paul Juon came to Berlin in 1894 to study composition at the city’s foremost Conservatory, and remained in the city until he retired to Switzerland in 1934. Litaniae, his fourth piano trio, is unlike anything else in the piano trio repertoire. It is cast as a single movement and resembles Richard Strauss’s tone poems in scale and ambition. Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas, arrived in Berlin in 1921, and stayed until 1933. He studied composition with a number of leading tutors, before spending 5 years studying with Arnold Schoenberg. His eight variations exemplify his ability to combine serial composition with his native folk music. All the members of Trio Gaspard have lived or still live in Berlin and Berlin Stories expresses their love and admiration for this endlessly fascinating and invigorating metropolis.
REVIEW:
The playing in Mendelssohn’s Second Piano Trio is of quicksilver clarity but the musicians are equally alive to its stormy turbulence. Trio Gaspard highlights the surging, epic qualities in Juon’s Litaniae, and is fully committed to the piece’s almost unabating intensity.
-- The Strad
Dvořák: 2 Serenades / Vavřínek, Mardirossian, Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice
New Czech recordings of perennially popular serenades from the pen of Dvorak at a turning point in his career, full of freshness, Bohemian charm and flowing melodies. The Serenades for Strings and Winds never get old, and never lose their appeal, especially in the hands of musicians who feel this music in their bones. The opening of the Serenade for Strings issues the warmest welcome to a world poised between the 18th and 19th centuries, looking back in terms of its reassuring character as music for nocturnal entertainment, yet also unmistakably belonging to the Czech composer’s own place and time – Prague, 1875 – with its Bohemian turn of harmony and yearning cantabile. Composed three years later as a counterpart, the Serenade for Winds marks a development in the composer’s technique – more elegant handling of counterpoint and melodic development – from the earlier work. At the same time, the Mozartian air of good-natured humour is even stronger. Both serenades relax into slow movements of poetry without pathos, and each of them was composed within less than a fortnight’s work, testifying to the inspiration felt by the composer as he worked at his material. The melodies seem to come, as Richard Strauss later said of himself, as easily as a cow giving milk.
The Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra Pardubice has made several albums of Czech repertoire for Brilliant Classics and Piano Classics, most recently the neglected Piano Concerto of Dvorak (PCL10272), as well as the complete piano concertante works of Chopin with Ekaterina Litvinseva, and the Cello Concerto of Dvorak (95696). The recording was made under studio conditions in the orchestra’s home concert hall, yielding a warm, transparent sound which is ideally suited to these intimate pieces.
Alwyn Conducts Alwyn - Symphonies No 1 & 4
The First Symphony was dedicated to Sir John Barbirolli and was composed in 1949. The first movement reveals a sure structural grasp (the music is always directional, always sure of where it is going); the second movement is a mercurial Scherzo revealing the LPO on magnificent, quixotic form. Accents are perfectly highlighted and there is a real sense of life coming from within. The Trio is an oasis away from the rhythmic verve of the Scherzo, making the rhythmic life the more effective when it bursts back upon the scene.
The hushed lyricism of the cello line towards the start of the Adagio ma con moto is a marvel here, phrasally tender and tonally lush. Surely this is the symphony’s peak, for it is here that Alwyn’s invention is at its most unforced. The finale, despite its ‘allegro jubilante’ marking, includes a fair few shadows that seem determined to rain on the music’s parade – things are not as clear-cut in Alwyn the symphonist as may be assumed from Alwyn the miniaturist.
The Fourth Symphony dates from a decade later. It begins in a gentle and undemanding fashion – the tonally-ambiguous melodic lines give the music a fluidity that is certainly most appealing. Climaxes are impressive (as in the First Symphony, there is no doubt as to the LPO’s dedication); the extended Scherzo (longer than the first movement, in fact) is marvellously sprightly. This gives way to the tranquillity of the finale, a tripartite Adagio-Allegro-Adagio structure, the final Adagio section of which contains the most moving music on the disc. Well worth exploring.
Booklet notes by the composer (for Symphony No. 1 only) are enlightening. Alwyn lists as his influences here as Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Richard Strauss’s Don Juan as well as Schoenberg, Szymanowski and Scriabin (the latter in particular Prometheus and the Poem of Ecstasy). Actually for all its fluidity of invention, the music is not quite as exciting as that heady list might imply – but it is tremendously involving taken on its own terms. At its best it can seem an exhilarating and rewarding journey.
-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International
Krenek: Music For Chamber Orchestra / Kovacic, Leopoldinum Orchestra
5 works for chamber orchestra by Krenek were written between 1931 and 1979 – both before and long after Krenek abandoned Hitler’s Austria for California. The emotions embraced here range from translucent lyricism, via powerful dramatic utterance, to uneasy existentialist humour – and much of it is very beautiful.
REVIEW:
This disc is titled Music for Chamber Orchestra, but Krenek uses large forces; the orchestra personnel list includes a string complement of 6/5/5/4/2, plus multiple woodwinds, trumpet, trombones, four percussionists, harp, celesta, piano, and guitar. Warsaw’s Chamber Orchestra Leopoldinum will need neither recommendation nor resumé for those who hear this disc; the musicians, their instruments, and their ensemble are perfection. Ernst Kovacic is an Austrian violinist as well as conductor; he has been director of the Leopoldinum since 2007 and has a marvelous feel for Krenek’s idiom.
The Nightingale was written in 1931, when Krenek was 31; the other works came to fruition in his 8th decade, from 1971 to 1979. The 10-minute Von Vorn Herein is “a mixture of freely invented sections and those based on a twelve-tone row” (from the penetrating program notes by Krenek scholar Peter Tregear). Its opening measures have a distinct flavor of Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony, and it then pursues its own “old-fashioned expressionistic” (Krenek) path, closing with a loud yawp from the trombones—a far cry from what we think of as a chamber orchestra work. Im Tal der Zeit includes references to Krenek’s earlier, tonal works but comes across as a colorful, gentle gloss on Schoenberg’s Five Pieces, op. 16. Krenek had an unparalleled ability to make atonal music graceful and pleasing. Static and Ecstatic consists of 10 short movements, half of them serial and half freely composed. In his Ernst Kernek, The Man and His Music, John L. Stewart writes “The music is so sensual, so eloquent, and so immediately enticing that one is inclined to regret the years Krenek spent on the stark, obdurate serial works…” The Dissembler is an odd combination of the playful and the serious, a monologue (in English) about acting by an actor, touching on metaphysics (“But—what is truth?”), with quotes ranging from Euripides and Goethe to the Bible and Krenek’s own writings—each in its original language. The solo line varies from speech to Sprechstimme to song. The serial music suits the concept, as does a bass drum joining a chamber ensemble. Tregear again: “A dissembler is also someone who plays against convention and authority, a jester who resides inside the cloak of a sober classicist.” Krenek indeed!
Amid all this fascinating semi-serialism comes a magical orchestral song, a setting of Karl Kraus’s poem The Nightingale. The high-soprano vocal line has the luxurious golden ease of Richard Strauss’s writing for Sophie or Daphne, backed by a delicate, Mahlerian accompaniment. It is sung with stunning grace and lucidity by Agata Zubel, who is also a composer teaching at Warsaw’s Academy of Music. If Want Lists consisted of individual works, these eight minutes would be a sure bet. This Toccata Classics CD is a model of fine production values. Magisterial performances and honest, well-balanced sound aid Krenek’s eloquent music; the booklet includes complete texts and translations, plus artist bios and a list of orchestra personnel. It is an absolute must for Krenek fanciers, and everyone should hear The Nightingale.
-- Fanfare
STRAUSS: EIN HELDENLEBEN - BURLESKE
Elgar: Cello Concerto / Arlia, Sollima, Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria
From Arturo Toscanini and Sir John Barbirolli to Riccardo Muti and Antonio Pappano in our own time, Italian-heritage performers have often brought special qualities of sympathy and understanding to Edward Elgar’s (1857-1934) music. Now comes a new recording made in the ‘boot’ of southern Italy, lending Mediterranean warmth and passion to a trio of Elgarian masterpieces. The Sicilian-born cellist Giovanni Sollima has made well-received albums for Brilliant Classics of music by Offenbach (94475) and by his father Eliodoro Sollima (96287). His latest recording, made at the Teatro Politeama in the one-time ‘lace capital’ of Europe, Catanzaro, illuminates one of the core works of the cello literature with an affecting sense of line and sensitivity to the melancholy introversion which colors every bar of the Concerto composed by Elgar in the wake of the First World War. Twenty years earlier, Elgar’s reputation was secured with audiences across Europe and America through the whirlwind success of his “Enigma” Variations. The stoic beauty of ‘Nimrod’, the gentle wit of ‘Dorabella’ and the nervous excitement and pride of the autobiographical finale spoke directly to listeners who would never know the composer or his ‘friends pictured within’. The agitated, impassioned voice of Elgar in the Variations belonged to its end-of-Empire time and place, orchestrated with a mastery which would soon draw the admiration of Richard Strauss and many more musicians on the other side of the English Channel. Even that quintessential expression of Englishness, the first of five marches which Elgar collected under the Shakesperean banner of “Pomp and Circumstance” and later repurposed to set ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ for the finale of his Coronation Ode, won the composer standing ovations when he conducted it in concerts across mainland Europe. Under the affectionate baton of their music director Filippo Arlia, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria interpret Elgar’s music with a sensitivity and extroversion worthy of the composer.
R. STRAUSS: ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Strauss Ii: Rosen Aus Dem Suden / Accelerationen / Schatz-Wa
Nepomuceno: Orchestral Works / Mechetti, Minas Gerais Philharmonic
Alberto Nepomuceno was a herald of Brazilian musical nationalism. He was one of the first composers in his country to employ elements of folklore in his compositions, he encouraged younger composers such as Villa-Lobos, and his music was conducted by Richard Strauss. The Prelude to O Garatuja, an incomplete opera, is one of his best-known works and an example of a truly Brazilian lyric comedy. Serie Brasileira is a vivacious suite that employs maxixe rhythms and ends with the feverish batuque dance, while the Symphony in G minor is one of the earliest such examples by a Brazilian, a heroic and lyric structure revealing the influence of Brahms.
REVIEW:
Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920) was a major force in the development of Brazilian music at the turn of the twentieth century. He worked as a composer, conductor, and educator, tirelessly promoting Brazilian music and the use of Portuguese as an “art language.” The three orchestral works presented here are typical of his work. The Prelude to O Garatuja (1904), an incomplete lyric comedy, uses obvious national themes and offers nine minutes of high-spirited fun as well as a lightness and elegance found in all of the pieces on this disc.
The Brazilian Suite of 1891 had me immediately thinking “Grieg,” and it came as no surprise to learn that Nepomuceno befriended the Norwegian composer during his studies in Europe and saw him as a model. All the same, the work is beautifully scored and in several places quite personal in expression–its four movements representing “Dawn at the Mountains,” a gentle Brazilian dance intermezzo, “Napping in a Hammock,” and a gutsy concluding “Batuque” with a notable part for some native percussion (a reco-reco, or guiro).
Nepomuceno’s Symphony in G minor dates from 1893, the same year as Dvorák’s “New World.” It’s a much more conservative piece than that, although the opening movement has a nice rhythmic swing to it, and both the slow movement and scherzo feature characterful melodic ideas. The scherzo, in particular, mixes a sort of Mendelssohnian delicacy with sudden military interjections from the trumpets and timpani that are very effective. The finale, though, as with so many late romantic symphonies, disappoints. It’s based on the rhythm of the first allegro in Schumann’s “Spring” Symphony, repeated endlessly. Despite a charming second subject, the movement never really gets off the ground, and the ending, with piccolo, cymbals and triangle making a predictable entrance, is unmotivated and ineffective. A good effort, in other words, but a true symphonist Nepomuceno evidently was not, and that’s no crime.
The Minas Gerais Philharmonic, a relatively new group founded only in 2008, plays all of this music very well under Fabio Mechetti. The ensemble has good discipline, and reveals some fine players occupying the principal woodwind and brass chairs. They are also quite well recorded in what sounds like a flattering acoustic space, the Sala Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte. I look forward to further releases from these forces. Minas Gerais is a region perhaps best known as a source of gems and minerals for collectors, and I’m happy to report that the region’s jewels include more than just the rocky kind. Nepomuceno’s output may have been uneven, but his music is worth getting to know, and a disc like this offers an ideal introduction.
– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)
Lehar: Zigeunerliebe [Operetta] / NDR Radiophilharmonie
REVIEW:
Although the "golden age" of operetta has come and gone, composer Franz Lehár isn't in any real danger of being neglected so long as The Merry Widow continues to tread the boards of the world's stages. But as his first major "hit," and as an operetta stylistically limited by the constraints of contemporary fashion and tradition, The Merry Widow does not provide a full measure of the extent of Lehár's mastery as a composer. Zigeunerliebe (Gypsy Love) is a far better candidate for that qualification, and its first complete recording, now available from CPO, is reason for operetta fans to celebrate. Premiered in 1910, this three-act operetta is closer to being an opera and draws into the musical texture an odd admixture of influences ranging from Wagner to Richard Strauss to pop-styled Hungarian Romani music. Although no one would give credit to Lehár the distinction of being an "experimental composer," he does nonetheless present an experimentally conceived blend of styles here, confirming his own otherwise bewildering comment that "I have always experimented, reached out to something new, often enough against the intentions of directors and publishers." That the middle act is set out in the form of a dream, and that Lehár matches the story to a musico-stylistic pastiche that progresses in the same manner as a dream, shows how far Lehár was willing to go with his experimental ideas.
The music is ravishing, challenging, and extraordinary in every way, and we can be thankful that CPO's recording of Zigeunerliebe is close to ideal. The male singers are the weakest element, but these men are coming from a different tradition of singing related to grand opera and are not comfortable with the less forceful and vibrant requirements of operetta. The women are much better, with Dagmar Schellenberger, in the secondary role of Ilona, being excellent in particular, but Johanna Stojkovic is well more than just adequate in the important lead part of Zarika. The NDR Radiophilharmonie under Frank Beermann is splendid in every bar of this music, and this is important as Lehár's orchestration is in this case particularly ambitious and colorful. True operetta fans will so love Zigeunerliebe that even the relatively minor shortcomings of this set will not matter a great deal. If you have an operetta fan in your family who "has everything," CPO's Zigeunerliebe should probably move to top of one's potential gift list.
-- AllMusic
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