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Brahms: Arranged by Busoni & Reger
$16.99CDMusicaphon
Feb 28, 2025M59014 -
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On SaleHenze: Das verratene Meer / Young, Vienna State Opera Orchestra
CD$29.99$22.99Capriccio
Oct 01, 2021C5460 -
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On SaleZemlinsky: A Florentine Tragedy / Hahn, Munich Radio Orchestra
CD$19.99$15.99BR Klassik
Apr 19, 2024BRK900347 -
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On SaleHindemith: Cardillac / Soltész, Munich Radio Orchestra
CD$29.99$23.99BR Klassik
Jul 07, 2023BRK900345 -
AN ALPINE SYMPHONY / DANCE OF THE SEVEN VEILS
$17.99CDLPO
Jun 01, 2018LPOR106.2 -
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On SaleImagination / Raphaela Gromes
CD$11.98$8.99Sony Masterworks
Oct 08, 202119439913882 -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 & R. Strauss: E
$20.99CDSOMM Recordings
Feb 20, 2026SOMM-BEECHAM 33 -
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On SaleMassenet: Ballet Music / Gallois, Barcelona
CD$19.99$13.99Naxos
Nov 19, 20138573123 -
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On SaleMahler: Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" / Rouvali, Philharmonia Orchestra
CD$27.99$20.99Signum Classics
Sep 22, 2023SIGCD760 -
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On SaleJongen: Preludes for Piano / Ivan Ilić
CD$21.99$16.99Chandos
Jan 06, 2023CHAN 20264 -
On SaleGrechaninov: String Quartets / Utrecht String Quartet
CD$23.99$17.99MDG
Mar 01, 20066031388-2 -
Hans Von Bulow: Ballade, Carnavale Di Milano, La Certa / Mark Anderson
$20.99CDNimbus
Nov 01, 2011NI5876 -
MORGEN
$17.28CDERATO
Jan 31, 2020EAO531948.2 -
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Goossens: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 / Davis, Melbourne Symphony
$21.99SACDChandos
Mar 26, 2013CHSA 5119 -
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Beach: Piano Music / Martina Frezzotti
$21.99CDPiano Classics
Nov 17, 2023PCL10277 -
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On SalePiano Classics Explorer Set: Slavic Edition
CD$48.99$36.99Piano Classics
Sep 22, 2023PCL10281 -
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On SaleSzymanowski: Concert Overture, Sinfonia Concertante, etc. / Steffens, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie
CD$21.99$16.99Capriccio
Nov 18, 2016C5280 -
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Jan Van Gilse: Symphony No. 4 / Porcelijn, Netherlands Symphony Orchestra
$18.99CDCPO
Oct 30, 2012777689-2 -
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On SaleSchmidt: Symphony No. 4; The Book with Seven Seals
CD$32.99$24.99SOMM Recordings
Apr 19, 2024ARIADNE 5026-2 -
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On SaleJúlia Várady - The Orfeo Recordings
CD$53.99$40.99Orfeo
Aug 20, 2021ORF-C210086
Brahms: Arranged by Busoni & Reger
Henze: Das verratene Meer / Young, Vienna State Opera Orchestra
‘I find myself increasingly occupied with matters of the human soul, its sublimation and spiritual abyss. Certainly my opera The Ocean Betrayed betrays this preoccupation. This music has been to Hades and back, with Monteverdi and myself.’ Hans-Werner Henze. Henze originated this storyline by following his fascination that he had of the work of the enfant terrible of post-war Japanese literature, Yukio Mishima (1925 - 1970), whose novel “Gogo no Eiko” forms the basis of the opera. This novel, like almost all of the author's creations, sketches a suffocating scenario of hopelessness in which the struggle for normality is doomed to failure. Henzes free-tonal score ties in with musically-dramatic principles of composition following the tradition of Richard Strauss. In symphonic interludes, the luxurious orchestra gives the eponymous hero a voice: the angry “betrayed sea.”
REVIEW:
Despite his stylistic adventurousness and position as a political outsider, Henze was the last composer in the German operatic tradition (think of it as Late, Late German Romanticism), and his score beautifully exploits the lush forces of the Vienna Philharmonic. Since, as he noted, “Mishima’s novel is teeming with references to all things French”, he adopts a French musical style, mixed with Japanese elements of rhythm and exotic percussion. The vocal lines are compelling, and conductor Simone Young reveals both the work’s dense beauty and the sustained, gut-wrenching brutality of the final scenes.
Josh Lovell’s sweetly smooth lyric tenor establishes a chilling contrast between Noboru’s youth and his malevolent nature and explains Ryuji’s easy affinity with the boy. Erik Van Heyningen’s powerful bass voice is a bit mature for the gang leader (“Number One”), but Henze’s writing demands it, and his vocal authority reflects his power over the others. Vera-Lotte Boecker is a magnificent singing actress; her lean and supple sound is perfect for the sensuous Fusako, and she glides effortlessly through the coloratura of the 13th scene, as Fusako imagines a happy future for the newly formed family. Bo Skovhus shouts a bit on fortes, but his singing in the gentler sections is appropriately ingratiating.
-- American Record Guide
Zemlinsky: A Florentine Tragedy / Hahn, Munich Radio Orchestra
Guido Bardi, the son of the Duke of Florence, kneels before Bianca, the wife of the rich merchant Simone, and holds her hands. Simone, who has returned early from a business trip, then enters the room. The very beginning of Alexander Zemlinsky's one-act opera "A Florentine Tragedy", based on Oscar Wilde's play of the same name in the German translation by Max Meyerfeld, presents the conflict from which the tragedy arises. This stage work by the Austrian composer, who was forgotten for many decades, had its world premiere on January 30, 1917, in Stuttgart and was not performed again until 1977. This CD from BR-KLASSIK documents the Munich premiere on November 27, 2022, with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester conducted by Patrick Hahn, recorded live at the city’s Prinzregententheater.
With the "Florentine Tragedy", albeit rather belatedly, Zemlinsky followed the fashion for Renaissance and one-act works at the turn of the century. Richard Strauss had made his mark in that genre with "Salome" and "Elektra" – and the literary basis for the former had also been provided by Oscar Wilde. In the very first notes, seemingly aware of this similarity with Strauss’s work, Zemlinsky goes on the offensive with an "upbeat fanfare" – as the prelude to an orchestral introduction that can easily be interpreted as a musical representation of the main romantic relationship. At the transition to the actual stage action, however, Zemlinsky switches to a somber minor-key atmosphere. When Simone appears, the music already makes it clear that the plot cannot end otherwise than tragically. For whom, we do not yet know…
In the Munich premiere of Zemlinsky's "A Florentine Tragedy", Rachael Wilson (mezzo-soprano) sang the part of Bianca, Benjamin Bruns (tenor) was Prince Guido Bardi, and Christopher Maltman (baritone) portrayed the merchant Simone. The Münchner Rundfunkorchester performed under the young conductor Patrick Hahn. Last year, the 27-year-old Austrian – who since 2021 in Wuppertal has been the youngest Generalmusikdirektor in the German-speaking world – was engaged as the Münchner Rundfunkorchester’s Principal Guest Conductor.
Hindemith: Cardillac / Soltész, Munich Radio Orchestra
BR-KLASSIK presents the live recording of a concert performance of Hindemith's opera "Cardillac" from the Prinzregententheater in Munich on October 13, 2013, in memory of the great conductor Stefan Soltész. Soltész died unexpectedly on July 22, 2022 - exactly one year ago - after collapsing while conducting Richard Strauss' "Die schweigsame Frau" at the Munich National Theatre. The Hungarian-born Austrian conductor was General Music Director of the Essen Philharmonic and Artistic Director of the Essen Aalto Music Theatre from 1997 to 2013. Both institutions were decisively shaped by him and received several awards during his era. He was a welcome guest conductor with the orchestras in Munich. In addition to the standard works from Mozart to Strauss, an important focus of his opera repertoire was Classical modernism.
Paul Hindemith's three-act opera "Cardillac", composed in 1925/26, was the composer's long-awaited first full-length stage work, and was based on E. T. A. Hoffmann's novella "Das Fräulein von Scuderi". Hindemith’s librettist Ferdinand Lion created a large-scale opera that focused primarily on the goldsmith Cardillac and on the madness that leads him to murder. Any logically structured plot was replaced by individual, self-contained scenes, resembling isolated snapshots. The premiere took place on November 9, 1926 at the Dresden State Opera under the baton of Fritz Busch, who thus spectacularly continued his series of important world premieres. Although the opera's radical style was perceived as highly unusual, it was nevertheless well received. After 1933, the work disappeared from German-language repertoires, but it promptly returned in 1946. Hindemith undertook a fundamental revision, and it was premiered in Zurich in 1952 - combined with a performance ban on the first version. As early as 1960, however, the release of the 1926 version was achieved – and it went on to supplant its revised version almost completely. This recording also features the original, first version of the opera.
AN ALPINE SYMPHONY / DANCE OF THE SEVEN VEILS
Imagination / Raphaela Gromes
Raphaela Gromes has received acclaim for her highly virtuoso, brilliant and passionately expressive cello playing. What also distinguishes this exceptional musician is her enjoyment of the musical treasure hunt. With her last Sony Classical releases, she delighted critics and audiences with world premiere recordings of pieces by Richard Strauss and Julius Klengel. Her "Offenbach" album received the Opus Klassik Award 2020. For her new album “Imagination”, Raphaela chose imaginative music, music based on stories, on fairy tales. The wide selection includes a waltz from Tchaikovsky's ballet music "Sleeping Beauty," a "Fairy Tale Narration" by Robert Schumann, the "Evening Prayer" from Humperdinck's popular fairy tale opera "Hansel and Gretel", Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" and other dreamy, magical and highly poetic pieces by Claude Debussy (1862-1918), Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847), Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) and Franz Liszt (1811-1886). "Imagination" also presents less-known works by David Popper, Paul Juon, and rarities like "Märchenstunde" by the composer Margarete Schweikert, and "Forgotten Fairy Tales" by the New Yorker Edward McDowell.
Most of the pieces are newly arranged by Raphaela's duo-partner Julian Riem for violoncello and piano, but also for piano trio and for complementary harp and saxophone quartet. Raphaela Gromes recorded the arrangements with Julian Riem and musician friends such as Daniels Dodds (violin), Arcis Saxophone Quartet and Anaïs Gaudemard (harp). Raphaela Gromes came up with the idea for this album during a hike in the spring of 2020 - when she came across a particularly enchanted place in a forest at dusk. "The sky was reflected in the pond, and the backlighting caused a magic glow to emerge around the reeds and flowers, as if elves and fairies were floating in the light above the water", Gromes says: "The "Dance of the Elves" by David Popper came into my mind. I was immediately inspired and full of energy, and when I got home, I immediately went in search of more music that would take me into the world of magic and fantasy." The album ends with "The Shire" from "Lord of the Rings" and "Leia's theme" from Star Wars are both recorded in a new cover version for cello and piano.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 & R. Strauss: E
Massenet: Ballet Music / Gallois, Barcelona
First I listened out of order and decided the opener, Bacchus, was my least favourite. Then I went in order and, mid-Bacchus, wondered what I had been complaining about. Yes, “Chasseresses et Bacchantes” has an early role for a percussion instrument so wimpily played that I’m not sure what it is, but then the most glorious Johann Strauss parody waltz breaks out and all is forgiven. Yes, the final bacchanale isn’t as crazy as Saint-Säens’ or Roussel’s, but what music is?
Hérodiade is an opera about Herod, where he’s the central character, in contrast with Richard Strauss’s Salome. The ballet music comes from a banquet where Herod entertains guests with dances by exotic slave girls from various foreign lands. It’s the shortest selection here.
Then we have big suites from Thaïs and Le Cid, each over 20 minutes, the highlights of the disc. Those who know Thaïs only for its “Meditation” will be happy to hear that the rest of the opera is also jam-packed with beautiful music. It’s varied, too, from the stern timpani roll of the opening andante to the perky Pierné-like flute and piccolo solos of the sixth movement, to the unexpected two-minute church-like organ solo. Le Cid is a festival of Spanish tropes, tunes and clichés from the very start. The inevitable cor anglais solo, in ‘Madrilène’, is just gorgeous. It’s as tuneful and colourful as the Spanish pastiches of Chabrier and Debussy, which is to say it’s a ton of fun.
The Barcelona Symphony plays excellently throughout, that one wimpy percussion issue confined to a single track. They seem to especially enjoy the Le Cid music, but who wouldn’t? Patrick Gallois continues to prove himself an extremely skilled, sensitive conductor of ballet music. You could imagine people dancing to this album. Given how good the music is, it’s extremely rare to have it collected on disc without the full operas alongside. Frémaux and Marriner have recorded Le Cid but for sound, panache and comprehensiveness, it’s hard to beat this. What fun.
– Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" / Rouvali, Philharmonia Orchestra
Mahler 2 is the second album from Philharmonia Records; following their first album - Santtu conducts Strauss. “[Also sprach Zarathustra] Rouvali’s conducting of both is certainly interesting and personal... impressive; an expansive reading that sees the work whole...[An Alpine Symphony] undeniably picturesque; vivid and dramatically projected...top-notch playing; and this extravagant score also enjoys notable recorded sound... lingering lyricism; invariably heartfelt and; in conclusion; cathartic”; Founded in 1945; The Philharmonia Orchestra creates thrilling performances for a global audience and has premiered works by Richard Strauss; Sir Peter Maxwell Davies; Errollyn Wallen; Kaija Saariaho and many others. The Philharmonia has an extraordinary 77-year recording legacy; and has recorded around 150 soundtracks; with film credits stretching back to 1947. In the 2021/22 season the Orchestra performs in Romania; Spain; Finland; Greece and Germany.
Santtu-Matias Rouvali is a Finnish conductor and percussionist; and is currently principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra. Rouvali continues his relationships with orchestras across Europe; including with the Berlin Philharmonic; New York Philharmonic; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Munich Phillharmonic and the the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
REVIEW:
In the first movement Rouvali is animated and engaged, using a lighter hand than most other conductors. Such a natural lyrical bent would seem to run counter to music that Mahler originally conceived as a funeral rite (Totenfeier), and it’s certainly unusual for a conductor to have such a relaxed grip on the drama and still make the first movement work.
The point is underscored in the minuet-like second movement, usually a throwaway, which is captivating in Rouvali’s hands, a nostalgic poem. The Scherzo is taken at quite a clip, divorcing the music from the gently satiric song in Des Knaben Wunderhorn about St. Anthony preaching to a school of transfixed fish. Rouvali sharpens the edges and makes the movement rambunctiously exciting—I can’t remember any other conductor leading this music one beat to a bar.
As the soloist in the raptly reverent “Urlicht,” mezzo Jennifer Johnston is sensitive and sincere, but Rouvali leads such an eloquent orchestral part that one wishes he had a singer of the highest caliber. Johnston’s German is more than a shade too basic for the poetry. The thunder and brass that open the fifth movement display excellent balance, bringing forward this conductor’s ability to extract beautiful playing for which the word “burnished” was invented. The many solos and ensemble passages in the final half hour of the “Resurrection” Symphony come off with unforced gorgeousness, needing no shred of rhetoric to make an impact.
Rouvali has held his fire to some extent, making it all the more thrilling when he unleashes the full power of the finale in moments of blazing climax. He must have had the audience on the edge of their seats. Against this tumult, the sudden whispered quiet of the chorus is doubly effective. Soprano Mari Eriksmoen emerges with melting lyricism, and yet you are aware that Rouvali milks nothing for effect—his eye is fixed on the musicality of every measure. You also notice how even the softest passages retain a restrained intensity that keeps the moving line tensile and alive. This is particularly helpful in the duets for mezzo and soprano, where the momentum is most likely to sag. Here, not a single transition is awkward or faltering.
The final apotheosis is so magnificently handled that I can’t blame the producers for including a minute of excited applause from the audience in Royal Festival Hall. For anyone who has harbored doubts about Rouvali’s meteoric rise, a performance as imaginative and beautifully shaped as this one should dispel them. I’m convinced that he has a special gift. I cannot wait to see how it will unfold in the coming years.
-- Fanfare (Huntley Dent)
Jongen: Preludes for Piano / Ivan Ilić
Born in Liège, Belgium, in 1873, Joseph Jongen showed an outstanding precocity for music from a very early age, and was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven. He won a First Prize for fugue in 1895 and honors diplomas in piano and organ the next year. In 1897, he won the Belgian Prix de Rome, which allowed him to travel to Italy, Germany, and France, where he experienced the music of Brahms and Richard Strauss, Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel, all of which would exert an influence on the young composer. Although he composed in numerous genres, including the symphony and concerto, as well as chamber music, instrumental pieces, and choral works, it is his output for the organ for which he is now best known.
The Serbian-American pianist Ivan Ilić helps to redress the balance with this new recording of two of Jongen’s substantial sets of Préludes for piano. The 13 Préludes, Op. 69 are expansive in nature and extremely poetic – each bears an evocative title. They are dedicated to Émile Bosquet who gave their première, in 1923. The 24 Petits Préludes dans tous les tons were begun in 1940 and (like Bach’s preludes and fugues) circle through each and every key, major and minor. Arranged in twelve pairs, the minor key following the major on the same tonic note, these works reflect Jongen’s affinity for (and mastery of) their free form, as well as demonstrating his mature compositional style.
REVIEW:
The reputation of Belgian composer, organist, and educator Joseph Jongen (1873-1953) basically rests upon one work, his Symphonie concertante for organ and orchestra. However, he composed prolifically in many genres. His solo piano works fall between Franck’s burnished chromaticism and young Scriabin’s sensuous textures while flirting with Debussy and Ravel. Such a style works best when served up in small doses, such as in the Preludes Op. 69.
Jongen may not be a memorable tunesmith, and his phraseology tends to be square, but his exquisite harmonic sense and idiomatic, well-crafted handling of the keyboard more than compensates. In the Op. 60 group, you have, on one hand, Eau tranquille’s gently persistent double notes that contrast to Appassionato’s hammered-out chords that step right out of the finale of Scriabin’s Third sonata.
The 24 Petits Preludes in all of the major and minor keys are less ambitious technically and more conservative, even academic in style. The purity of the contrapuntal writing in slower pieces like Preludes Nos. 10 and 20 smacks of organ technique, while No. 22’s imitative writing suggests a Passepied from a Bach suite in slightly updated modern dress. The pieces fuse charm and seriousness in equal portions, and say what they need to say without overstaying their welcome.
The music’s workmanship mirrors Ivan Ilić’s caringly detailed interpretations. For example, he shapes No. 18’s cascading patterns into cogent melodic arcs, while imparting subtle shadings of timbre to No. 11’s unassumingly beautiful chords. He scales Op. 69 No. 13’s dynamics with care, ensuring that the motoric build-ups do not get too loud too soon, and thereby generating steady momentum. Tempo choices similarly appear to be judicious.
While one might prefer Diane Andersen’s gaunter and more scintillating reading of Papillons noirs (Op. 69 No. 11) in her complete Jongen piano music cycle for the Pavane label, Ilić’s deliberation better allows you to absorb the harmonic motion, together with extra breathing room for the dancing right-hand triplets. In short, Ilić’s mindful virtuosity serves the music first and foremost throughout this highly recommendable and well-engineered release.
-- ClassicsToday.com
Grechaninov: String Quartets / Utrecht String Quartet
GRECHANINOV String Quartets: in c, op. 75; in F , op. 124 ? Utrecht Str Qrt ? MDG 603 1388 (68: 40)
Grechaninov is commonly thought of as a composer whose works are somewhat conservative and hark back to the style of his teachers, above all Rimsky-Korsakov; but the two quartets given here amply demonstrate the extent to which he fell under modern Western influences. Debussy, Scriabin, Richard Strauss, and Wagner all left their subtle imprint upon the C-Minor Quartet, the fabric of which is a fine construct of emotion and restraint in which the influences are balanced by a clear understanding of form and structure. Iosif Raiskin?s fine booklet note aptly terms this ?New ideas in old words,? which goes some way to explain the compositional aims of Grechaninov in his later years. For all this, his own voice comes across as unfailingly vital and soulful within the music.
It is the Fourth String Quartet in F that most clearly articulates Grechaninov?s vision of what a string quartet might be. Composed at the age of 65 during his self-imposed exile in Paris, the work looks back with some clarity of vision to Borodin in particular, and Beethoven, too, in his quotation and metamorphosis of themes drawn from the latter?s Fifth Symphony. Grechaninov?s lyrical gifts are displayed to the full in the second movement, within which the central section is a notable aria for violin solo with trio accompaniment. The work is worth hearing for the sensitivity of this passage alone.
The Utrecht String Quartet?s performances project confidence, musical handling of individual lines and care with the shaping of phrases that never suggests an over-studying of the score, though these works have undoubtedly been lived with. Recorded with immediacy, the individual instruments relate well to each other and integrate pleasingly within the sound picture. There is a slight bias towards the bass register, which allows the 1680 Medard cello to project its rich tone with ample fullness, though the other three instruments also possess warmth of tone that in no small measure contributes to these enjoyable readings.
The third quartet receives a performance by the Dante Quartet on the Dutton label that was welcomed in Fanfare 28:3. With the only competing version of both works from the Moyzes Quartet on Marco Polo currently unavailable, the present release holds the field. A rewarding journey into all too-neglected repertoire.
FANFARE: Evan Dickerson
Hans Von Bulow: Ballade, Carnavale Di Milano, La Certa / Mark Anderson
This is a lovely disc, and one that also plugs some important gaps in the repertoire. Hans von Bülow is known as an historical figure of some import, mainly as conductor. Piano pupil of Friedrich Wieck (Clara Schumann’s father) and Liszt, friend of Raff, teacher of Richard Strauss, Bülow was assisted by Wagner, no less, in his conducting career. He’s also known as the guy who lost his wife, Cosima, to Wagner.
The recital begins with the doleful Ballade, replete with Wagnerian chordal progressions. The piece becomes freer in discourse as it progresses, more quasi-improvised. There is a nice full-bodied sound, both from the pianist and from the recording. Anderson is a master of delineation, and there is some lovely balancing of strands - try the right-hand filigree around 3:40. Certainly it is a long piece, but Anderson somehow pulls it off. There are some distinctly Lisztian gestures around 6:40 - spread right-hand chords as part of a long cantabile line, for example. The impression is of superb pianism.
The Carnavale di Milano, subtitled “Ballabili e Intermezzi”, was inspired by the ballerina Elvira Salvioni, and the ten movements portray aspects of the dedicatee’s persona. There are ten dances and intermezzi, within which one (“Quadriglia”) is divided into six subsections. This piece lasts three-quarters of an hour, but is most appealing. The opening Polacca is Chopinesque and suave with some truly lovely shadings from Anderson. It is followed by a delightful Valse with a grand ending. This could be hammy if one is not careful - Anderson brings it off brilliantly. The Intermezzo is nicely exploratory - hesitant and teasing. If the six Quadriglia all seem much of a muchness, Anderson plays charmingly. The Mazurka is more interesting, more varied, and the Intermezzo lirico that follows is simply beautiful - it is subtitled “dancing sighs”. The Tarantella is properly virtuoso.
The short La Certa (The Lizard) is a Schubertian Impromptu that has been here gorgeously played and recorded. There is a wonderfully serene coda before the lizard scampers off. And to finish, the fun Marche héroïque on a theme by Erkel, from Hunyady László. Anderson teases the hiatuses in lines very pleasingly and there is an excellent drum - timpani roll - evocation. Great stuff, undemanding and pleasing.
There does not seem to be that much Bülow in the catalogues currently. It may be possible to find a disc on Marco Polo of Bülow’s transcriptions. This is played by Daniel Blumenthal on Marco Polo 8.223421. There’s also a disc on Oehms Classics OC 808 of songs by great conductors - Bruno Walter and Clemens Krauss being the others. Von Bülow’s tone poem Nirvana appears alongside orchestral works by Heger, Szell and Weingartner on Arabesque Z6752 (National Philharmonic of Lithuania/Leon Botstein).
-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International
MORGEN
Goossens: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 / Davis, Melbourne Symphony
GOOSSENS Kaleidoscope. Tam O’Shanter. Three Greek Dances. Concert Piece 1. Four Conceits. Variations on “Cadet Rouselle.” Two Nature Poems. Don Juan de Mañara: Intermezzo • Andrew Davis, cond; Melbourne SO; 1 Jeff Crellin (ob, Eh); 1 Marshall Maguire (hp); 1 Alannah Guthrie-Jones (hp) • CHANDOS 5119 (SACD: 74:16)
Chandos’s Goossens series began promisingly under Richard Hickox with a recording of the First Symphony and Phantasy Concerto for piano and orchestra, but stalled after the conductor’s unexpected death in November 2008. Andrew Davis has since taken over as the company’s house conductor of English music. Having given us fine recordings of Delius, Elgar, and Holst, he now turns his attention to Goossens in this second volume of the series. Unlike the first it concentrates on shorter pieces.
Eugene Goossens (1893-1962) came from a musical family; both his father and grandfather were conductors. He studied composition with Stanford, and as a conductor was mentored by Beecham. (Later he himself was mentor to Richard Bonynge.) Young Eugene played violin in Beecham’s Queens Hall Orchestra during the years of the First World War, and may well have been a part of that orchestra when they premiered Holst’s Planets in 1918. Certainly Goossens’s orchestral finesse recalls Holst’s masterpiece in respect of clarity and sonority. The short tone poem Tam O’Shanter is the earliest orchestral work in this collection: Vigorous and deftly scored, it predates Malcolm Arnold’s better-known overture of the same name by 36 years. The sprightly children’s suite Kaleidoscope (so reminiscent of the work of another composer/conductor, Gabriel Pierné) and the Four Conceits were originally written for piano in 1918 and orchestrated much later. The Three Greek Dances , the Nature Poems , the Variations on the French folk song “Cadet Rousselle,” and the Intermezzo from his opera Don Juan de Mañara all date from the decade 1927-1938 when Goossens was a resident conductor in America, first with the Eastman Orchestra, then from 1931 on as successor to Fritz Reiner in Cincinnati. The composer’s handling of orchestral forces is even more assured here. The effects he achieves in the second of the Nature Poems (entitled “Bacchanal”) are so striking it is hard to imagine this work started life as a piano piece. (In this, he recalls another major influence: Maurice Ravel.) Interestingly, the folk-song variations are one of those collaborative hybrids that turn up every so often in 20th-century music. Orchestrated by Goossens, who composed the finale, the piece also contains variations by Arnold Bax, Frank Bridge, and John Ireland.
The longest work here is the three-movement Concert Piece for oboe, two harps, and orchestra, lasting just under 22 minutes. It dates from 1957, a year after Goossens had returned to London in disgrace following a sex and pornography scandal in Australia. It could be that he wrote this work for his highly respected siblings Leon (oboist), Sidonie and Marie (harpists) in order to help salvage his reputation. The piece is mellow, especially in the Delian slow movement, and is notable for introducing quotations from other composers, such as Debussy and Richard Strauss in the finale. Shades of Berio’s Sinfonia.
Covering approximately 40 years, the program on this disc displays Goossens’s strengths: exquisite craftsmanship—especially in scoring—piquant but not ‘difficult’ harmony, and economy. What he lacks compared to several of his peers is a distinctive melodic profile, but that does not prevent an appreciation of this adroitly realized music. Three of these works have appeared in a three-CD set from ABC Australia, conducted by Vernon Handley with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra ( Tam O’Shanter and the Concert Piece ) and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra ( Kaleidoscope ). Handley is livelier than Davis. Concert Piece in particular sounds like a stronger work in his hands. However, the magnificent Chandos sound trumps the perfectly acceptable 17-year-old Australian recordings. The Davis disc is in a class of its own in terms of sonics, and his excellent soloists Crellin, Maguire, and Guthrie-Jones in Concert Piece seem better attuned to 20th-century English style. (I can only report on the Chandos disc in regular stereo.) While the first release in this series contained works of greater significance, this follow-up is fully enjoyable in its own right. The Second Symphony should be next up.
FANFARE: Phillip Scott
Beach: Piano Music / Martina Frezzotti
Piano Classics Explorer Set: Slavic Edition
A budget-priced box of critically acclaimed piano albums exploring the rich diversity of Slavic piano music: an ideal introduction to the Romantic and post-Romantic world of Slavic pianism beyond the canon of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.
The notable feature of this set dedicated to piano music by composers from Slavic nations is its sheer diversity. It would be possible to trace their writing for the keyboard back variously to Chopin and Schumann, but the same could be said of any other group of composers around Europe from the late 19th century onwards. What the set does illustrate is the rise of pianists, trained in a system that became known as the ‘Russian Piano School’, who could take on such formidably demanding scores as Lyapunov’s Transcendental Studies and Medtner’s ‘Winter Wind’ Sonata.
Pianist-composers such as Bortkeiwicz, Blumenfeld and Medtner flourished across Europe in the first decades of the last century, and so did piano manufacturers, producing ever more reliable and tonally sophisticated instruments that could cope with the rigours of these scores. A generation before them, Viteslav Novak in the Czech Republic and Dora Pejacevic in Croatia were writing less prodigiously demanding music which took its expressive cue from the tone-pictures of Schumann rather than the broader canvases of Liszt. In Ukraine, Viktor Kosenko was one of several composers here to use old church modes in his narmony, lending it both a patina of antiquity and at times an other-worldly novelty. In Romania, George Enescu pursued this path still further in finding a new world for the piano hardly less distinctive than Scriabin’s.
Back in Ukraine, the music of Ihor Shamo embodies a kind of melancholy yearning that is both a natural inheritance from Rachmaninoff and perhaps the nearest to a ‘Slavic’ expressive trait. All the performances here were recorded within the last decade and received with critical enthusiasm on their release.
This budget reissue includes all the original sleeve notes, making it a worthwhile investment for collectors and newcomers alike.
Past praise of previously released volumes included in this set:
Blumenfeld: Préludes (24) / Mark Viner
A welcome disc that adds two substantial Etudes in addition to the Preludes. Felix Blumenfeld (1863–1931), was a celebrated pianist, conductor, and teacher whose pupils included Horowitz and Barere. That is certainly worth boasting about. Of his own compositions, there is certainly plenty of craftsmanship at hand, if maybe not the ultimate in originality. Would I recommend this? Definitely.
-- American Record Guide
Pejačević: Piano Music / Ekaterina Litvintseva
Ekaterina Litvintseva’s new anthology covering about half of Dora Pejačević's piano music seriously raises her profile. Moving chronologically from her early salonesque trifles to her powerful Second Sonata, a work clearly preparing the way for an abandonment of tonality, it features exceptional playing from the supremely gifted pianist.
-- Fanfare
Novák: Pan / Tobias Borsboom
Inspired by the idea of the Greek god Pan, the work is a sprawling and ambitious one that evokes impressionist uses of tone color and Richard Strauss’s tone poems. There are lovely movements, especially in the blossoming melodies in `Mountains’. `Sea’ has some rippling melodies and lush harmonies. Borsboom offers useful liner notes to illuminate the use of thematic material in the work, especially how the `Prologue’ presents a theme and melodies that appear in the rest of the movements. It is a bit hard to hear the cyclical unity, though, and this music might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Borsboom’s playing is very capable.
-- American Record Guide
Enescu: Suite, Op. 18; Piano Sonata No. 3 / Saskia Giorgini
Saskia Giorgini’s idiomatic virtuosity is completely at one with Enescu’s sound world. By holding the first-movement of the Third Sonata's Vivace con brio ever-so-slightly back, Giorgini secures steadier rhythm throughout and conveys greater differentiation between detached and sustained passages. She keeps the long Andantino cantabile hauntingly afloat as she contours the music’s melodic, accompanimental and purely decorative elements in three-dimensional perspective. The same can be said regarding the Allegro con spirito’s conversational counterpoint and appropriately muted left-hand repeated-note ostinatos; here is where the Bösendorfer’s ‘fortepiano in the body of a concert grand’ timbre particularly speaks. In short, Giorgini has truly internalized this elusive, oddly gripping music, whetting the appetite for an eventual Enescu cycle. Recommended.
-- Gramophone
Szymanowski: Concert Overture, Sinfonia Concertante, etc. / Steffens, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie
The trouble with describing the music of an unfamiliar composer is that one reverts to comparisons with better-known ones – as if originality of voice is given only to those whose music has crossed the fickle threshold of popular taste.
With the Concert Overture which opens the disc, one can possibly be excused this, for if any music ever sounded like a Richard Strauss tone poem, this does. From its boisterous opening to its triumphal conclusion, it is a feast of Straussian gestures and ideas, a wonderful orchestral romp and a stirring musical journey. And this is what Szymanowski intended, for in 1904 when he wrote it, Richard Strauss was the dominant figure. If the booklet notes are to be believed, Szymanowski deliberately aped the style of Strauss “as a provocation to the, in his view, completely fossilized structures of Polish music”.
At this point we must break off to mention those booklet notes, tightly compressed into a distinctly unappealing booklet which seems designed to put off potential buyers. Christian Heindl’s German text is dense enough, striving to place Szymanowksi in some sort of context with Polish music at the start of the last century. But the English translation (claiming to be the work of one Ian Mansfield) is a disgrace. Seeming to have done little more than run the original German through a free online translator, and not even having made the effort to check the spelling afterwards, Mansfield comes up with such incoherent nonsense as; “he ranks as one of the many tone wolves and practically outsiders in music”, “the composer instrumented the cycle for chamber orchestra”, and “meaningful for the concert hall and fathoming it to the depths”.
Soprano Marisol Montalvo is, thankfully, infinitely more eloquent in the cycle of five songs, Slopiewnie, which bears the same opus number as Szymanowski’s great opera, King Roger but is otherwise unconnected. Exotic, sometimes harmonically brittle, sparsely orchestrated but highly effective, these are a world away from the lush world of Strauss’s orchestral songs and present a musical voice which is both distinctive and accomplished. There is nothing identifiably Polish about these settings of Polish texts by Julian Tuwim, but the booklet note suggests the musical idiom is derived from Gorals, an ethnic group which “has its area of distribution in the Polish Tatra and the Beskids, but also in parts of Slovakia”. It also observes some stylistic parallels with Stravinsky and Les Noces. Montalvo has a pure, shining vocal quality with an innately focused sense of pitch.
The major work on the disc is the Fourth Symphony, subtitled Sinfonia Concertante, but which is, to all intents and purposes, a fully-fledged piano concerto. Szymanowski wrote the work for himself to play (although he dedicated it to Artur Rubinstein) and called it a Symphony to disguise his shortcomings as a concerto soloist. Ewa Kupiec is the fleet-fingered soloist, delivering the almost Ravelian delicacy of the first movement with a refreshingly light touch supported by the kind of clear-textured orchestration which seems such a feature of Szymanowski. Even as the movement builds up to its great climax, the feeling of delicacy and suppleness Kupiec brings to the performance is never lost, and Karl-Heinz Steffens seems to have an instinctive feel for the balance which comes across even when the recording engineers have done little to assist. A gentle, fluttering second movement introduces all manner of magical orchestral effects, much in the manner of a Bartók night-music movement but built around Polish rather than Hungarian folk songs. And in the final movement it is the spirit of Polish dances which seems to dominate in music that sounds like Ravel and Bartók holding hands but is, in reality, uniquely the voice of Szymanowski – stunning orchestral writing, impeccably crafted moments of climax and repose and an exotic musical language which is utterly enthralling. Steffens maintains a wonderfully incisive rhythmic momentum which his German players throw themselves into with great gusto.
The Nocturne and Tarantella is an orchestration, made two years after Szymanowski’s death by Grzegorz Fitelberg, of a work originally written for violin and piano. It draws attention to Szymanowski’s fondness for the exotic, combining Spanish and Italian elements in a scintillating dance-like display, where only the final cadence seems indicative of a composer not quite of the very first rank, but with a voice all his own.
– MusicWeb International (Marc Rochester)
Jan Van Gilse: Symphony No. 4 / Porcelijn, Netherlands Symphony Orchestra
GILSE Symphony No. 4 in A. Funeral Music on the Death of Uilenspiegel. Concert Overture in c • David Porcelijn, cond; Netherlands SO • CPO 777689 (62:33)
CPO here continues apace with its survey of Jan van Gilse’s symphonies. Details of the composer’s life and descriptions of his music can be found in reviews of his first three symphonies in 32:2 and 36:2. The Fourth Symphony in A Major occupied Gilse from 1910 to 1915, and appears to be his last fully completed symphony; only a fragment of a Fifth exists, dating from 1922, and since the composer lived for another 22 years after that, it has to be assumed that it wasn’t death that prevented him from completing it. The Concert Overture in C Minor has received a previous recording by Jac van Steen conducting the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra on an NM CD. It was reviewed in 31:5.
If you acquired one or both of David Porcelijn’s CPO recordings of Gilse’s first three symphonies, you’ll know what to expect of the Fourth, and there’s really not a lot to add. This is well-made music in high romantic style. Commenting on the First Symphony in 32:2, David H. North pegged it as Dvo?ák’s No. 4-1/3. Gilse has advanced considerably beyond Dvo?ák in his Fourth Symphony, but considering its date of composition, it’s still a decade or so behind its time. The most pervasive influence on the score, even more so than on Gilse’s Third Symphony, is Richard Strauss. The music is shot through with much of the same orchestral busyness—the flashes, splashes, and dashes of luminous colors—and the long-arching passages of melodic and harmonic nostalgia familiar from Strauss’s tone poems. If Gilse’s First Symphony was Dvo?ák’s No. 4-1/3, his Fourth Symphony is Strauss’s Don Juanenspiegel.
The Strauss connection is literary as well as musical. In 1941, during the German occupation of Holland, Gilse composed his Funeral Music on the Death of Uilenspiegel , the flip side, if you will, of Strauss’s Till . This, for Gilse, was how things ended for the legendary merry prankster. The music now anticipates the Strauss of Metamorphosen of four years later. If this and previous reviews have not taken Gilse very seriously, his Funeral Music is a score that commands serious attention and perhaps a re-evaluation of his work as a whole. The piece actually was extracted from a section of Gilse’s opera Thijl and then expanded to stand as an independent orchestral work. The Concert Overture of 1900 is Gilse’s first attempt at a piece for orchestra and it, like the First Symphony, contains echoes of Dvo?ák.
Of the three CPO discs released so far in this series, I find myself most impressed by this one. Performance and recording standards remain very high, and this is music anyone who enjoys beautifully crafted and magnificently scored orchestral music of the type and style described will derive much pleasure from. Strongly recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Schmidt: Symphony No. 4; The Book with Seven Seals
Franz Schmidt 150 (1874-1939)
SOMM Recordings honors Franz Schmidt, one of the great symphonic composers of the 20th century, on the 150th anniversary of his birth with this double-disc set featuring two of his masterworks. Revered in his day in his native Austria as the nation’s leading composer and an elite teacher, cellist, and pianist, his name will not be known to many. This is due, at least in part, to a perceived association with the Third Reich (against which there is ample evidence). This first release on CD of two premiere recordings, meticulously produced and restored by Lani Spahr, showcases Schmidt’s unique harmonic language, exceptional contrapuntal skill, and mastery of form, qualities which prompted Hans Pfitzner to call Schmidt’s Symphony No. 4 “nearer perfection than Bruckner, more honest than Richard Strauss and more original than Reger”.
Born in Pressburg (Bratislava) in 1874, Schmidt’s teachers (piano) included his mother (herself a student of Liszt), Rudolf Mader, Ludwig Burger and Theodor Leschetizky; (cello) Karl Udel and Ferdinand Hellmesberger; and (theory) Felicián Moczik and Robert Fuchs. He was, for a time, principal cellist in the Vienna Philharmonic under Mahler. While his symphonic output is clearly in the structural mold of Schubert, Brahms, and Bruckner, his harmonic language, while showing influences of Strauss, Mahler, and early Schoenberg, is clearly his own.
A near fatal heart attack in the years following the success of his Fourth Symphony prompted the composer to put his efforts into a major religious work. His setting of eight chapters of the last book of the New Testament in Martin Luther’s German became The Book with Seven Seals (From the Revelation of St. John the Divine), not through-composed but constructed of clearly defined sections in the great 19th-century oratorio tradition.
The success of this summum opus and his stature in Austria drew the attention of the Nazis, who commissioned Schmidt to write a cantata on partisan texts (which he abandoned, only for it to be completed by a student and nevertheless performed under Schmidt’s name). With the fading of this unfortunate association a growing number of prominent conductors (the Järvis, Welser-Möst, Luisi, Bychkov) have begun to revive performances of his music in our time. Lani Spahr’s previous SOMM releases include the lauded four-volume sets Vaughan Williams Live (ARIADNE 5016, 5018-20) and Elgar Remastered (SOMMCD 261-4), as well as Elgar from America, Volume 3 (Ariadne 5015-2), which garnered a Gramophone Editor’s Choice for “superb audio restorations [bringing] performances fully to life”.
Júlia Várady - The Orfeo Recordings
Orfeo honors Júlia Várady as one of the most important sopranos of the second half of the 20th century with the release of this 10 album boxed set ‘The Orfeo Recordings’ on the occasion of her 80th Anniversary on 1st September 2021.
A significant number of opera lovers and connoisseurs maintain that Maria Callas’ mantle ought to have passed to Júlia Várady, and that the (now eighty-year-old) Romanian-Hungarian-German soprano actually should, in her day, have ascended the international throne of the prima donna assoluta. But as it is said, her loyalty to her two musical homes, the Bavarian State Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, prevented this. Nonetheless, she made guest appearances at all the world’s major opera theaters – but she was apparently not available to the market as unrestrictedly and ubiquitously as would have been necessary for her image, in order for her to be enthroned as the Várady (as the legitimate successor of the Callas). In addition to her loyalty to the two aforementioned opera houses, another reason seemed to be a natural modesty that prevented her from constantly drawing attention to herself (with a reputation, for example, of being the “difficult one,“ or even with scandals). Her marriage to the titan Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in 1977 may also have played a role, as she often and willingly stepped into his shadow.
Escerpts from reviews of previously released volumes included in this set:
Julia Varady sings Wagner
Varady's reading of the Wesendonck Lieder is remarkable, enthralling. There's nothing here of the slow, wallowing approach often favoured today. The feeling of the words is one of very present emotions. And transfiguration is a feature of Varady's concentrated, urgent Liebestod, her complete absorption with the text as much as with the music an object-lesson in great Wagner singing. The players of Fischer-Dieskau's Berlin orchestra cover themselves in glory. The recording is exemplary.
– Gramophone
Julia Varady sings Richard Strauss
The final scene of Salome, under the watchful eye of Varady's husband, Fischer-Dieskau, has the perfection of pitch and phrase one expects of this singer, as well as an expected acuity for the meaning of the text.
– Gramophone
Julia Varady - Puccini Arias
A lovely and somewhat surprising record by the most fascinating and patrician lyric soprano of the present age: 'surprising' because, though Varady is associated closely enough with Verdi, the Puccini connection is less readily made, 'lovely' because the voice is still so pure, the style so musical and the response so intelligent, immediate and full-hearted. She adjusts wonderfully well to the Italian idiom, lightening the vowels, freeing the upper range, allowing more portamento than she would probably do in other music, yet employing in its use the finest technical skill and artistic judgement.
– Gramophone
