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Weber: Euryanthe / Sutherland, Vroons, Stiedry, BBC Symphony

Prima Voce

Available as CD

$20.99

Jul 05, 2019

Despite the (mainly traditional) cuts, this 1955 BBC broadcast is treasurable. Not only does it feature Joan Sutherland’s touchingly pure and limpid Euryanthe – a role she only sang this once – but it also extends the small discography of Frans Vroons, in a lyric-heroic role which could have been written for him. Marianne Schech and Otakar Kraus are matchless villains, Kurt Bohme a comfortable King. Yet perhaps the performance’s prime virtue is the candescent conducting of Fritz Stiedry. His visionary readings of the familiar Overture and the desolate Prelude to Act 3 are heightened by unusually good broadcast sound, captured by the late Richard Itter on state-of-the-art equipment. This thrilling Euryanthe fully vindicates Weber’s – and Chezy’s –achievement.

-----

REVIEW:

Despite big cuts (including around 20 minutes’ worth of Act 3), this is a well-prepared performance of considerable merits. Not the least of these is the proof that Joan Sutherland could indeed have made a serious career in the dramatic German Fach: she sounds an outstandingly fluent and natural exponent of the titlerole. Conductor Fritz Stiedry’s preserved Wagner performances are often a little spotty but here he seems in well-ordered control of everything. All the other major roles are on committed top form.

– Gramophone

Weber: Euryanthe / Sutherland, Vroons, Stiedry, BBC Symphony

$20.99
CD

Prima Voce

Jul 05, 2019

NI7969

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 (Recorded Live 2009)

Opus Arte

Available as CD

~~$41.99~~ $31.99

Jun 22, 2018

Katharina Wagner, the great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner, is currently director of the Bayreuth Festival, making this recording even more special.. Tristan und Isolde was first performed in 1865 and provided inspiration to many composers including Mahler, Strauss, Szymanowski and Berg. It is widely acknowledged as one of the peaks of the operatic repertoire, and has been performed regularly since it's premiere. This production, by renowned director Christoph Marthaler, stars leading Wagner exponents Robert Dean Smith and Iréne Theorin in the title roles, supported by the Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Peter Schneider. The press had only good things to say about this performance: "It's hard to know where to point the awards finger first in such a complete ensemble performance... Musically everything is fine under the super-experienced Peter Schneider... Despite the ferocious competition, absolutely unmissable.' (Gramophone) 'Peter Schneider conducted with real feeling for the score and the prelude to the first act stole upon the ear with the magic of Bayreuth's amazing acoustics.' (The Stage)

On Sale

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 (Recorded Live 2009)

~~$41.99~~ $31.99
CD

Opus Arte

Jun 22, 2018

OA CD9033D

Millöcker: Walzes, Marches & Polkas / Simonis, Nurnberger Symphoniker

CPO

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $13.99

Nov 03, 2017

Previous albums have featured electrifying marches, sparkling polkas, and yearning waltzes by Benjamin Bilse and Richard Ellenberg, the conductor Christian Simonis – this time with the Nuremberg Symphony – now presents peppy popular pieces by Carl Millöcker, who was born in Vienna in 1842. In the context of the Viennese operetta of the nineteenth century, the composer and theater conductor Millöcker is usually mentioned together with the younger Johann Strauss and Franz von Suppé, and he certainly numbers among the most important creative personalities of the »Golden Years« of the Viennese operetta era. His musical oeuvre comprises some 110 stage works (operettas, singspiels, music for farcical comedies – and more), numerous piano compositions, some ninety songs, music for orchestra (waltzes, polkas, marches), choral works, and chamber music. At the time the customary practice was to arrange the best and most beloved melodies from stage works as dance music, as waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and marches, and such was also the case with Millöcker’s music, including the “Sonntagskind-Walzer.” Its formal design is like the one known to us from the Strauss waltzes of this period. After a lavish introduction a series of four waltzes is presented; then a lengthy coda follows in the manner of a reminiscence.

On Sale

Millöcker: Walzes, Marches & Polkas / Simonis, Nurnberger Symphoniker

~~$18.99~~ $13.99
CD

CPO

Nov 03, 2017

555004-2

Wagenaar: Summer Of Life, Taming Of The Shrew Overture / Hermus, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie

CPO

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $13.99

Nov 17, 2009

WAGENAAR De getemde feeks: Overture. Levenszomer. Saul en David. Romantisch Intermezzo. Frithjofs Meerfahrt • Antony Hermus, cond; NW German Phil • CPO 777 479-2 (50:16)

Outside of the Netherlands, the music of Johan Wagenaar (1862–1941) is not well known. Its most prominent bid for worldwide dissemination, conductor Riccardo Chailly’s Decca CD with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, was issued almost 20 years ago. (It seems like it was almost yesterday.) Of course it was deleted during the previous decade’s Great Cultural Purge, but those who want it badly enough might be able to find a used copy, or an ArkivMusic CD-R reincarnation. (It is not currently listed on their Web site, but it may well be cycled back into circulation if enough people request it.) It overlaps the present CD in the overture to De getemde feeks (The Taming of the Shrew) and Saul en David . An earlier recording of Frithjofs Meerfahrt (“Frithiof’s Sea Voyage”) can be found on a disc of Dutch overtures in which the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Jac van Steen, but that has become scarce as well. Those who are interested in exploring Wagenaar’s music probably will gravitate to the present release, then, unless money is no object, or unless they are particularly persistent.

I was curious about Wagenaar back in the early 1990s because I mistakenly thought that he had been the composition and harmony teacher of Bernard Herrmann. Actually, that was Bernard Wagenaar, who was no relation to Johan! I was glad to discover Johan Wagenaar’s music, however, for its (Richard) Straussian opulence and its salubrious affect. Those qualities are expressed most strongly in the concert overture, dating from 1909, which opens this CD—a good example of putting one’s best foot forward. Wagenaar doesn’t try to translate Shakespeare’s play into music. Instead, he contents himself with creating a positive, masculine mood, and his success in doing so is appealing enough.

Strauss often is cited as Wagenaar’s strongest influence, and then Berlioz, but it takes only a little imagination to hear his indebtedness to Brahms, and perhaps even a glance or two eastward at Glazunov. Elgar, who composed his own virtual tribute to Strauss in his orchestral work In the South , also can be compared to Wagenaar … or rather, the other way around, since Wagenaar’s music lacks the creativity of Elgar’s, to say nothing of Strauss’s. Still, one can argue that there can never be too much late-Romantic music, and Wagenaar’s works, while not revolutionary, are very satisfying when they are judged on their own terms. Levenszomer (“Summer of Life”) is a voluble expression of human happiness—perhaps the composer’s own, having found success after an impecunious childhood. Frithjofs Meerfahrt lacks many of the musical cues composers generally use to suggest Fahr ting on the Meer , or the Meer itself, and an episode involving two sea monsters is hardly impressive, so perhaps it is best to hear it as absolute music—it succeeds rather well as that. The same is true for the Intermezzo , which is more Romantisch stylistically than in the sense of amorousness. Saul and David naturally features an important part for the harp. Its inspiration was a painting by Rembrandt—no longer thought to be authentic, however. Again, Wagenaar’s skilled but generalized response encourages one to hear the score as accomplished absolute music, and to leave it at that.

The present selection sticks to music composed before 1910, so a second volume might be in the works. (Knowing cpo’s habits, that actually seems likely.) The Northwest German Philharmonia can’t compete with the Royal Concertgebouw’s tonal allure, but there’s nothing at all embarrassing about these performances. Antony Hermus knows his way around the music and keeps it from stagnating, although Chailly believes in it too, and almost succeeds in hiding the moments—not very many, mind you—when Wagenaar’s inspiration flags. In the absence of Chailly, though, this cpo disc makes Wagenaar’s case well enough.

FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

On Sale

Wagenaar: Summer Of Life, Taming Of The Shrew Overture / Hermus, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie

~~$18.99~~ $13.99
CD

CPO

Nov 17, 2009

777479-2

The King And I / 1964 Lincoln Center Cast Recording

Sony Masterworks

Available as CD

$17.99

Apr 20, 2009

* The King and I - The 1964 Music Theater of Lincoln Center revival recording!
* Richard Rodgers oversaw this production, which stars Risë Stevens and TV perennial Darren McGavin.
* Includes the first complete version of the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ballet sequence.

The King and I, one of the most appealing, tender and completely delightful musicals by the unparalleled collaborators Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, was the ideal choice as the first production of the Music Theater of Lincoln Center.

Based on Margaret Landon’s best-selling novel Anna and the King of Siam, the musical, first produced in 1951, tells the story of Anna Leonowens, an attractive mid-Victorian English widow, who has come to Bangkok at the request of the King of Siam to tutor his 67 children and palace of many wives through exposure to Western culture.

This 1964 production starred international opera singer Risë Stevens as Anna and Darren McGavin as the King. Others in the great cast include Lee Venora, Patricia Neway and Frank Porretta.

Risë Stevens, a Juilliard graduate, had established herself with many outstanding performances including that of Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and she later became the Met's leading mezzo-soprano. She sang with an equal commitment to beauty and excellence in serious opera, Hollywood film scores and Broadway musicals.

Darren McGavin, best known to TV viewers for his role in the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and his delightful portrayal as the grumpy Hoosier Dad and in the Jean Shepard classic film A Christmas Story, also appeared on Broadway stages in several noted productions including this one before returning more heavily into film and TV. His portrayal of the King of Siam is regal and commanding.

On the delightful bonus tracks, offered only on this CD there are performances of some of the memorable songs from this musical sung by Dinah Shore, Robert Merrill and Richard Kiley. The bonus tracks were actually recorded a few days before the show’s 1951 premiere at the St James Theater. Dinah Shore’s “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” Robert Merrill’s “A Puzzlement” and the version of “I Have Dreamed” that partners Patrice Munsel and Tony Martin come from an RCA Victor studio recording with Al Goodman and Henri Rene conducting. Shore and Martin were top-selling pop singers, and Munsel and Merriill crossed over from the opera stage. Their performances are a souvenir of another era, when Broadway musicals were the source of top-40 pop hits. Richard Kiley’s bonus tracks come from the singer/actor’s 1959 RCA Victor studio recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, recorded in the wake of Kiley’s Tony Award winning performance in Redhead.

These bonus tracks, all cover versions, present arrangements that are fascinatingly different from the great songs within the context of the original show. Being pop arrangements, they were designed to appeal to casual listeners yet they also remain a part of the pop-culture legacy of The King and I.

- Excerpted and based on the liner notes.

The King and I - Music Theater of Lincoln Center revival recording.
Music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein.
Principal cast includes: Risë Stevens, Darren McGavin, Lee Venora, Frank Porretta, and Patricia Neway.
Franz Allers, conductor.

Bonus tracks include tracks by Richard Kiley, Dinah Shore and Robert Merrill.
Recorded 1964, in the Music Theater of Lincoln Center, New York, NY.
Directed by: Edward M. Greenberg.

Orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett Tracks:
Act I:
1. The King and I - Overture / Franz Allers
2. I Whistle A Happy Tune / Risë Stevens; James Harvey
3. My Lord And Master / Lee Venora
4. Hello, Young Lovers / Risë Stevens
5. March Of The Siamese Children / Franz Allers
6. A Puzzlement / Darren McGavin
7. Getting To Know You / Risë Stevens
8. We Kiss In A Shadow / Lee Venora; Frank Porretta
9. Shall I Tell You What I Think Of You? / Risë Stevens
10. Something Wonderful / Patricia Neway
Act II:v 11. Western People Funny / Patricia Neway
12. I Have Dreamed / Lee Venora;Frank Porretta
13. The Small House Of Uncle Thomas / Lee Venora
14. Shall We Dance? / Risë Stevens;Darren McGavin
15. Something Wonderful (reprise)

The King And I / 1964 Lincoln Center Cast Recording

$17.99
CD

Sony Masterworks

Apr 20, 2009

SONY50134

Kálmán: Die Csárdásfürstin / Bonynge, Et Al

Naxos

Available as CD

$29.99

Jan 18, 2005

R E V I E W S

As the important, influential Viennese operetta Die Csárdásfürstin has not been captured on many complete recorded versions, it’s particularly nice to welcome this beguiling new one...The music very craftily fuses Vienna with Budapest in a way that hadn’t been heard since Johann Strauss’s 1885 Zigeunerbaron, and was not heard again until Kálmán’s own Gräfin Mariza in 1924...Operetta maven Richard Bonynge has a close connection with Kálmán, having conducted this score in Australia and elsewhere. His enthusiasm for its riches is manifest in this robust yet finely-detailed recording, in which the vaguely klezmer-like Gypsy string and wind underpinnings come through clearly, as played by the Slovak Radio orchestra, which gets the hot-pepper and tokay accentuation stylishly right...Yvonne Kenny sings prettily as Sylva Varescu...Mojca Erdmann is a delightful Countess Stasi...Naxos adds some Kálmán extras at the end and includes a brief speaking cameo by the composer’s daughter, Yvonne." -- Opera News, April 2005

This is by no means the first good recording of Emmerich Kálmán’s operetta masterpiece The Gypsy Princess. That honor probably goes to the classic EMI, with Anneliese Rothenberger and Nicolai Gedda...But if you are fond of the Viennese operetta idiom and you don’t know this work or lack a recording of it, this new set is a must.

One of its attributes is the sound quality—and while I don’t have four-channel sound, I do have both two and three-channel setups, and in both of those incarnations this hybrid SACD was a stunning audio achievement. Even played as a standard two-channel CD the sound is warm, richly colored, highly detailed without ever seeming clinical. Naxos indicates that this disc contains three versions of the same music: a 5.1 multichannel DSD surround-sound version, a two-channel DSD version, and a standard two-channel stereo version.

It is, however, musical qualities that most strongly recommend this set, and chief among those is Richard Bonynge’s conducting. I should make clear that I have never been a Bonynge enthusiast, and find that in the classic bel canto operas he recorded with his wife Joan Sutherland his conducting lacked incisiveness, rhythmic spine, and momentum. For that very reason, this performance is astonishing—those are precisely the qualities he brings to Kálmán’s delightful score, along with an affectionate warmth that is in evidence from the first notes of the Prelude. It is hard to imagine a more engaging and involving performance of the score than Bonynge gives here. The two leads, Yvonne Kenny and Michael Roider, sound as if they were born to sing this music, even though one of them (Kenny) is Australian. Roider, born in Salzburg, has a lovely lyric tenor voice and the style in his blood. Kenny’s lyric soprano has long been known to us in Mozart and other “serious” repertoire, but she shows a lovely comedic flair and a natural feel for the line of Kálmán’s music. The rest of the cast is splendid, and the entire thing is a treat. It has the feel of a real performance, despite being a studio recording (made in 2002). The second disc is filled with orchestral excerpts from other Kálmán works, which are well worth hearing, and are conducted with the same skill.

Naxos should have gone to the expense of supplying a full libretto. Their detailed synopsis is very helpful, and probably enough for a work that doesn’t deal in dramatic complexity, but we still miss some of the wit and some of the charm of the piece without having a full text available. Nonetheless, this is a highly recommendable set.

Henry Fogel, FANFARE

Kálmán: Die Csárdásfürstin / Bonynge, Et Al

$29.99
CD

Naxos

Jan 18, 2005

8660105-06

Alwyn: Miss Julie / Oramo, BBC Symphony

Chandos

Available as SACD

~~$43.99~~ $21.98

Jul 03, 2020

‘Why has this intense, brilliantly orchestrated, claustrophobically gripping masterpiece been so neglected since its 1977 premiere?’ asked Richard Morrison in The Times of the concert performance in the Barbican that preceded this recording.

Miss Julie is Alwyn’s last large-scale work, written in 1973-76. Alwyn set his own libretto, based on Strindberg’s 1888 play of the same title. The naturalistic drama and lifelike characters of that play appealed to Alwyn from an early age – in fact, he previously attempted to compose an opera on Miss Julie in the 1950s. That attempt failed because of differences with his then-librettist, Christopher Hassall. Alwyn believed that in opera, the action should be self-explanatory, arias should serve a dramatic purpose (as opposed to sheer vocal display), characters should sing to each other and not to the audience, ensembles should be minimized and the text should be set to vocal lines that reflect natural speech patterns. These views were distilled over his extensive career as a film composer, which taught him that music could do more than establish characterization, suggest mood, and heighten atmosphere: in some cases it could also communicate the unspoken thoughts of an onscreen character even when these were at odds with what he or she was presenting visually.

Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra support an outstanding cast featuring Anna Patalong in the title role in this acclaimed revival of Alwyn’s neglected masterpiece.

REVIEW:

Alwyn’s orchestral writing is always characterful, his vocal lines are unfailingly singable. Though his richly coloured writing reveals a whole range of 20th-century influences – Strauss, Janácek, and Ravel especially – it’s the world of Puccini that’s most strongly evoked at the work’s dramatic flashpoints. Anna Patalong as Julie nailed her character’s dangerously unhinged brittleness from the start. Benedict Nelson as Jean, the valet with whom she is so desperate to run away, sings the role with tremendous verve.

– The Guardian (UK)

On Sale

Alwyn: Miss Julie / Oramo, BBC Symphony

~~$43.99~~ $21.98
SACD

Chandos

Jul 03, 2020

CHSA 5253(2)

Fahrbach: Waltzes; Marches; Polkas / Simonis, Nürnberger Symphoniker

CPO

Available as CD

$18.99

Aug 06, 2021

Following marches, polkas, and waltzes by Benjamin Bilse, Richard Eilenberg, Josef Gung’l, and Carl Millöcker, this new release is now the fifth cpo album with the conductor Christian Simonis. This time he turns to two members of the Fahrbach family of musicians: to Philipp Fahrbach the Younger and Philipp Fahrbach the Elder. In mere numbers the members of the Fahrbach family by far surpassed the members of the Strauss family. Like the Strausses, the Fahrbachs also composed superb dances and marches. Moreover, in the Vienna and Austria of those times the Fahrbach dynasty of musicians contributed enormously to the music culture and development of popular music not only in the capital city’s region but also beyond it. The titles of the works, the occasions of their composition and performance, and not least the music itself with all its allusions are in the oeuvre of the Fahrbachs just as much »history in music« as they are in the compositions by the Strauss family. The Fahrbachs are no longer so famous today simply because of the poor state of the surviving source documentation. Like his father, Philipp Fahrbach the Younger was a conductor of military and private orchestras and in this capacity of course also a composer. The waltzes of father and son in particular enjoyed great favor among the public and music critics. The musical oeuvre of Philipp Fahrbach the Younger comprises more than five hundred compositions, most of which can be assigned to the genres of Viennese dance and march music. His most successful and most famous work is also heard on this album: the brilliant polka française “Im Kahlenbergerdörfel” op. 340.

Fahrbach: Waltzes; Marches; Polkas / Simonis, Nürnberger Symphoniker

$18.99
CD

CPO

Aug 06, 2021

555179-2

David Matthews: Anna: Symphonic Diptych; Symphony No. 11; Fl

SOMM Recordings

Available as CD

$20.99

Oct 17, 2025

SOMM Recordings is proud to present an album devoted to works by David Matthews, hailed as one of the leading symphonists of our time. His diverse output is superbly represented here by a Symphonic Diptych from his opera, Anna; his Symphony No. 11; and his Flute Concerto. The release features Dutch conductor Jac van Steen and the Ulster Orchestra, of which he is Honorary Principal Guest Conductor. Both are frequent SOMM collaborators, most recently on Manuel de Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat, Nights in the Gardens of Spain & Seven Spanish Folk Songs, SOMMCD 0694, about which Gramophone magazine wrote, "when van Steen unleashes the full orchestra... The tone is big and generous." They are joined by flautist Emma Halnan, winner of the BBC Young Musician Competition in 2010 in the woodwind category. She was also elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in the Academy's 2024 Honours, recognizing alumni of the Academy who have distinguished themselves in the music profession. Emma enjoys commissioning new works, and composers who have written for her include Sir Karl Jenkins, James Francis Brown, and, as here, David Matthews. David Matthews' first opera Anna had it's concert premiere at The Grange Hampshire in July 2023, conducted by Jac van Steen. Shortly afterwards, Jac suggested that David should make an orchestral reduction, as Strauss had done for his Intermezzo and Die Frau ohne Schatten. So, in this Symphonic Diptych, David has compressed the opera into two movements, one for each act-I. Anna in Love and II. Lament for Anna-which tell the story in purely orchestral terms about a brother (Peter) and sister (Anna) and their different reactions to the revolution that has just taken place in their country. In transferring all the vocal parts to instruments, David has slightly increased the opera's orchestra. In 2022, at the Presteigne Festival, David Matthews heard some striking trumpet playing at an orchestral concert. The next day, he wrote a few bars of quiet trumpet solo over a string chord. At first, he did not know what to do with this idea, until he thought it might be the beginning of a symphony, and so his single-movement Symphony No. 11 was conceived. He decided to preface it with an allegro D major/d minor theme, beginning on violas and moving to first violins, and these two ideas form the basis for a set of free variations. Considering the flute to be, essentially, a melodic instrument, David Matthews composed his Flute Concerto as alternating song and dance. The first movement combines a gentle allegretto with a fast waltz. The slow middle movement evokes a dance celebrating Pan, while the finale begins with a little tune that he wrote for his wife, Jenifer, at Christmas 2019, which has something of an Irish flavour. Siegfried Wagner was named for the young hero in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle and immortalized in the Siegfried Idyll, included on this release. He was born to Richard Wagner and his future wife, Cosima (nee Liszt), on 6 June 1869. Although Siegfried considered following a profession outside music (and, as a youth, studied architecture in Berlin and in Karlsruhe), it was inevitable that he would follow a career in music given the lineage of both his parents and his grandfather, Franz Liszt. In addition to receiving instruction in music from Liszt, the thirteen-year-old Siegfried began his advanced musical studies in Frankfurt with Engelbert Humperdinck, a true disciple of Richard Wagner. Siegfried became an assistant at Bayreuth in 1892, immersing himself in his father's music under the strong influence of Cosima Wagner and the conductor Hans Richter. In 1895, he made his debut at Bayreuth conducting a complete Ring cycle. The debut was a considerable artistic success, and Siegfried's future as the true guardian of the Wagner inheritance was assured, as he took a greater share in the direction of the Bayreuth Festival. With Cosima's full endorsement, Siegfried assumed the general directorship from his mother in 1908. Siegfried's busy professional life was devoted in the main to Bayreuth in the 1920s, but it was also during this time that he began a recording career devoted almost exclusively to his father's and his own works. Apart from his evident qualities as a conductor of his father's music-heard here in the recorded legacy he left of his performances at Bayreuth and in Berlin and London-he was equally keen to establish himself as a composer. The first of his twelve completed operas, Der Barenhauter (Bearskin) inspired by the German fairytale, met with public and critical acclaim when it was produced in 1899. The acoustic recording of the overture is heard here. Among the Richard Wagner works conducted by Siegfried Wagner on this historic release are well-known selections from Das Rheingold and Die Walkure from the Ring Cycle. Also included are a suite from Parsifal and selections from Tannhauser, Lohengrin, and Tristan und Isolde.

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David Matthews: Anna: Symphonic Diptych; Symphony No. 11; Fl

$20.99
CD

SOMM Recordings

Oct 17, 2025

SOMMCD 0710

Kornauth: Piano Music Vol. 1 / Powell

Toccata

Available as CD

~~$20.99~~ $10.49

Mar 26, 2013

The music of the Czech-born Viennese composer Kornauth (1891-1959) was once a staple of Austrian concert-halls. It has been largely forgotten in the half-century since his death. In this pioneering recording, British pianist Jonathan owell uncovers the many strands that fed into Kornauth’s rich and full-bodied compositions.

REVIEW:

This is the first full disc of piano music by Egon Kornauth, a composer born in what is now Olomouc in the Czech Republic (and was then Olmütz) who studied with Robert Fuchs in Vienna and then later with Schreker and Franz Schmidt.

Jonathan Powell is one of the most eloquent commentators on the music he plays I have come across, whether that be Sorabji or Kornauth, and his booklet note is a source of great interest. The angular, active Fantasy (1915) contains distinctly Richard Straussian turns of harmony and phrase in the sweet contrasting themes (that influence is less obvious in the more Schwung sections); the overt lush Straussian gestures sound more like a reduction of an orchestral tone poem. The op. 25 Klavierstücke (1920) are more modernist, probably because of his experiences of Schreker. The first is decidedly Bergian (think the op. 1 Piano Sonata), while the central Improvisation sounds exactly like that. Most fascinating is the final “Walzer,” a very sprightly evocation of Viennese dance, a bit like an Austro-Germanic Ravel La Valse in places.

The Kleine Suite (1923) has fewer ambitions than the other works on the disc and receives another fantastic performance from Powell. The Barcarolle (third movement) sums the suite up in essence, reflecting the less demanding demeanor of the piece, while the penultimate “Walzer” elicits a phenomenally light touch from Powell before the cheekily scampering Finale rounds things off with a smile.

The Präludium und Passacaglia offers maximal contrast, the B♭-Minor twilight of Bachian rigor and severity of the Prelude meeting the storm clouds of Chopin’s finest turbulence; the Passacaglia continues the gloominess. Powell paces it superbly: The close is truly crushing before the final surprise major-key end. The op. 44 Klavierstücke of 1940 is also sometimes known as the Second Suite. It is shot through with sweet nostalgia. The five pieces (“Präludium”; “Intermezzo”; “Capriccio”; “Mährische Ballade”; “Walzer”) speak of sweet nostalgia. Powell lavishes them with an attention to detail that almost makes them sparkle (in a retrospective sort of way). The “Mährische Ballade” (Moravian Ballad) is the highlight. Its almost folkish mode of discourse hides a strong compositional rudder steering the work perfectly; the final “Walzer” is the suite’s longest movement, and drips with charm.

This is a fascinating disc (as we are beginning to expect from Toccata Classics). The recording (made at Durham University, U.K.) is excellent.

-- Fanfare

On Sale

Kornauth: Piano Music Vol. 1 / Powell

~~$20.99~~ $10.49
CD

Toccata

Mar 26, 2013

TOCC0159

Herrmann: Souvenirs de voyage; Tredici: Magyar Madness / Lethiec, Fine Arts Quartet

Naxos

Available as CD

~~$19.99~~ $13.99

Nov 11, 2016

The iciness and drama of his great film scores contrasts powerfully with the reserved and lyrical beauty of Bernard Herrmann’s chamber music. Souvenir de Voyage was his final concert work, each of the three movements having roots in a different work of art – A.E. Houseman’s On Wenlock Edge, Synge’s novel Riders to the Sea and the Venetian watercolours of J.M.W. Turner. This rhythmically sinuous clarinet quintet is both vivid and graceful. David Del Tredici’s Magyar Madness fuses ardency with playful wit, its long finale a vast and wild ‘Hungarian frenzy’.

REVIEW:

Written in 1967, Herrmann's Souvenirs de Voyage for clarinet quintet was his final concert composition, and it's a beauty. Clarinetist Michel Lethiec prefers tonal variety to uniformity, and he is not afraid to bring an occasional astringent edge to a curvaceous melody or extra heft to low sustained notes in support of string solos.

By way of stylistic contrast, David Del Tredici's brand of hyper-romanticism holds nothing back. Magyar Madness's first movement serves up heaps of counterpoint, accelerated repeat phrases, wild runs, and Richard Straussian harmonic tricks. Overall however, he deftly balances the work by providing enough moments of calm before each successive storm.

-- Gramophone

On Sale

Herrmann: Souvenirs de voyage; Tredici: Magyar Madness / Lethiec, Fine Arts Quartet

~~$19.99~~ $13.99
CD

Naxos

Nov 11, 2016

8559796

Cerdanyenca / Prihodko, Korolionok

IBS Classical

Available as CD

$17.99

Jan 19, 2024

The hour-long emotional tour-de-force with cellist Mark Prihodko and pianist Viktoria Korolionok evokes a soul-searching journey that spans a century of romantic repertoire following the music-making traditions of Ysaye, Gershwin, and Rachmaninov. Cerdanyenca takes its title from the eponymous sonata, written by Catalan composer Marc Migo Cortes, who dedicated this masterwork to Prihodko, his great friend. Conceived at the Juilliard School in New York, where Prihodko held the prestigious Kovner Fellowship while completing his Bachelor’s Degree in the studio of Richard Aaron, and Migo Cortes was completing his Ph.D. in the studio of John Corigliano, Sonata Cerdanyenca continues the tradition of the grandiose twentieth-century masterworks for cello and piano. Cultivating the lifetime synergy between composer and cellist, Prihodko and Migo specifically drew inspiration from the artistic collaborations between Rostropovich and Britten, and Piatigorsky and Strauss. The newly commissioned and internationally premiered Sonata has won the prestigious Pau Casals Festival International Award in 2019. In this extremely demanding monumental piece, the composer portrays the legends of his home region of La Cerdanya, from the tales of La dona d’aigua (the seducing water-woman) to the echoing Sardana Dances of Catalonia. His use of folkloric elements contextualizes hundreds of years of storytelling in an engaging acoustical play, expertly guided by Korolionok and Prihodko.

Cerdanyenca / Prihodko, Korolionok

$17.99
CD

IBS Classical

Jan 19, 2024

IBS-152023

JOSEPH KRIPS EDITION: VOLUME 1

ELOQUENCE AUSTRALIA

Available as CD

$120.64

May 31, 2024

The apotheosis of Viennese style: Mozart, Strauss and more under the baton of JOSEF KRIPS. An Original Covers collection of classic Decca albums recorded between 1947 and 1955, including several recordings new to CD. Born and raised in Vienna, Josef Krips trained as a choirboy and studied with Felix Weingartner, who then hired him as a repetiteur at the Volksoper. He his debut there in 1921, before graduating to the Vienna State Opera in 1933. In the aftermath of the Second World War, it was Krips above all who reformed and re-trained the State Opera as a world-class ensemble, and in the most difficult conditions. His pragmatism and understated authority made him a model recording conductor, and Decca hired him to work with orchestras in several of their centers of activity. Mozart was forever Krips's hero: 'My maxim is that everything has to sound as though it were by Mozart, or it will be a bad performance. When you perform Mozart, everything has to be crystal clear, everything has to be in balance, and everything has to have a relaxed sound.' Compiled here for the first time, as one of a two-volume Krips edition, are the conductor's complete mono recordings for Decca beginning with Kingsway Hall sessions in October 1947. Mozart symphonies, concertos, overtures and arias appeared on 78s - newly transferred for this set by Andrew Hallifax. From the early LP era comes the first-ever complete recording of Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, with a cast entirely drawn from the Vienna State Opera company, and (also from 1950) a remarkably forward-looking account of the Requiem, recorded with a cathedral-style all-male chorus including boys on the top line, much closer to Mozart's world than contemporary, symphonic-style versions of the piece. Combined with Decca's famous 'ffrr' sound, these Mozartian qualities also illuminate Krips's mono recordings of symphonies by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert, concertos by Schumann and Dvorak, Johann Strauss waltzes and a version of Mendelssohn's Elijah which combines the best of the British oratorio tradition with an operatic momentum and a gently glowing orchestral palette. Distinguished soloists on these recordings include Clifford Curzon and Mischa Elman in Mozart; Zara Nelsova in Dvorak's Cello Concerto; and Hilde Gueden, Maria Reining, Anton Dermota and Richard Lewis singing opera arias (recorded on 78, several receiving their first CD transfer in this box). A companion volume from Eloquence is dedicated to Krips's Decca and Philips recordings from the stereo era (1955-72) and will be released next month. The booklet for each set contains session photos and an essay on Krips's life and legacy by Niek Nelissen.

JOSEPH KRIPS EDITION: VOLUME 1

$120.64
CD

ELOQUENCE AUSTRALIA

May 31, 2024

ELOA4844780.2

CARNAVAL

AMHERST RECORDS

Available as CD

$16.49

Jun 07, 1994

Carnaval album for sale by Spyro Gyra was released Jun 07, 1994 on the Amherst label. All songs written by members of Spyro Gyra. Carnaval songs Live Recording Recorded at Secret Sound Studio and Power Station, New York. Carnaval album for sale Producers: Jay Beckenstein, Richard Calandra (tracks 1-8). Carnaval CD music Engineers: Michael Barry, Jack Malken, Neil Dorfsman. Personnel: Hiram Bullock, John Tropea (guitar, electric guitar); Chet Catallo, Rick Strauss (guitar); Harold Kohon, Matthew Raimondi, Richard Sortomme (violin, strings); Peter Simitriades, Sanford Allen, Harry Lookofsky (violin); Lamar Alsop, Guy Lumia (viola, strings); Jonathan Abramowitz (cello, strings); David Darling, Jesse Levy (cello); Jay Levy, Allen W.

CARNAVAL

$16.49
CD

AMHERST RECORDS

Jun 07, 1994

AMH28003.2

Aribert Reimann: Melusine

Wergo

Available as CD

$26.99

Jul 01, 2010

REIMANN Melusine • Peter Hirsch, cond; Marlene Mild ( Melusine ); Teresa Erbe ( Pythia ); Gabriele May ( Madame Lapérouse ); Richard Kindley ( Max Oleander ); Song-Hu Liu ( Count Von Lusignan ); Nuremberg P • WERGO WER 6719 2 (2 CDs: 96:47 Text and Translation) Live: Nuremberg 5/12/2007

Aribert Reimann (b. 1936) has pursued a dual career as composer and pianist; he was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s accompanist for 20th-century repertoire. Reimann has written perhaps 50 major works in many forms, most of them including the voice. He is best known for his ambitious operas based on major literary works: The Trojan Women (Euripedes), A Dream Play and The Ghost Sonata (Strindberg), The Castle (Kafka), The House of Bernarda Alba (Lorca), Medea (after Franz Grillparzer), and—talk about ambitious—Shakespeare’s Lear , the latter written for Fischer-Dieskau, who suggested the subject and sang the 1978 premiere, recorded live by Deutsche Grammophon.

The 1971 Melusine , based on a play by Yvon Goll, is the “Pastoral” Symphony of Reimann’s dramas, a breath of fresh air amid all that heavy breathing. It is the classic story of a mermaid who loves a mortal, for which they both must pay with their lives— Rusalka moved to the big city, or at least to a park at the edge of town. Max’s former lover, Madame Lapérouse, has arranged his marriage to Melusine, who remains virginal despite his complaints. She in turn consorts with her magical friends in the woods; the fairy Pythia (her Ježibaba) gives her the fishtail, which “closes her loins but makes her irresistible to men,” some of whom die for her. Finally, she falls for the Count, and you know the rest.

As befits a fairy tale, the elegant music is lighter and easier than the dense, mostly serial expressionism of Lear and The Castle , and the spare, harsh melodrama of Bernarda Alba . But the most fascinating—astonishing—thing about Melusine is the title character’s vocal line, which makes the Queen of the Night sound like a basso profundo. It has easily the highest tessitura I have ever encountered, probably around a’’, with excursions up through the next octave. Even more amazing is the apparent ease with which Marlene Mild handles the range and the coloratura; there is no screeching or squeaking here, and—after the astonishment wears off—her singing comes to seem natural for this mythical, magical creature. Baritone Song-Hu Liu is also marvelous as the Count; they share a long, gorgeous duet in the final act, which is surrounded by two impressive orchestral interludes. The whole cast is eminently satisfactory, as is the orchestra. The opera is a bit slow to get started—scene 1 is a tedious debate between Max and Madame which brings us up to snuff on who’s who and what’s what—but it takes wing with Melusine’s entrance. The live recording is clear and clean, with no audience intrusions. German and English texts appear on facing pages. Unless you can’t abide any music beyond Strauss, this is definitely an opera worth getting to know.

FANFARE: James H. North

Aribert Reimann: Melusine

$26.99
CD

Wergo

Jul 01, 2010

WER67192

CHRISTMAS WITH THE KING'S SINGERS

WARNER CLASSICS

Available as CD

$12.49

Oct 06, 2017

Christmas with The King's Singers New music, old music, music from the Renaissance and Baroque, spirituals, folksongs, jazz and pop... The Beatles, David Bowie, swing, classical avantgarde, waltzes by Strauss, and musical theatre songs. Which genre of music are the King's Singers actually yet to interpret? Which style have they not yet captured within their unique global reach and within their transparent and intimate six-voiced sound world? One thing is for sure - when the King's Singers came together at the end of the 1960s in Cambridge, no one would have believed the success story that lay ahead of them. Some musical experts were scathing: a male-only vocal sextet was most likely to be found in the pop sector. But trained voices are surely better suited to a professional career either in the opera world or in mixed professional choirs. After all, the founding members came from the famous King's College Choir - one of the oldest surviving vocal institutions with nearly 500 years of history to it's name. It is with this tradition behind them that the King's Singers display the typical British musical virtues in which seriousness and humour, self-discipline, and a dash of satire all mix together so wonderfully. This is especially evident in their Christmas repertoire. Christmas carols are a special national treasure for Brits and are therefore the focus of festivities. The six voices' festive destinations also include the continent, such as Spain and Germany. "Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen" by the German early Baroque master composer Michael Praetorius has become a Christmas standard. The world famous carol "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" ("Silent Night") comes from the German-speaking world too, written for Christmas Eve in a village near Salzburg in 1818. The simple, classical melody radiates a little of the spirit of Mozart, who was born in Salzburg. What a pity there is no musical contribution to these Christmas festivities from Mozart, the King's Singers may have thought! Perhaps that's how they came up with the idea for an amusing and cheeky Christmas medley of melodies from the great classical composer, reinforced by the harpsichord playing of English conductor Richard Hickox and the singing of guest star Kiri Te Kanawa. © Oliver Buslau, 2017 Translation: texthouse

CHRISTMAS WITH THE KING'S SINGERS

$12.49
CD

WARNER CLASSICS

Oct 06, 2017

WCL564144.2

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Macbeth / Gerhard Markson, Et Al

Naxos

Available as CD

$19.99

Jul 01, 1999

STRAUSS, R.: Heldenleben (Ein) / Macbeth

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Macbeth / Gerhard Markson, Et Al

$19.99
CD

Naxos

Jul 01, 1999

8554417

Great Ballet

Naxos

Available as CD

$74.99

Apr 24, 2012

GREAT BALLET (10-CD Box Set)

Ballet was born from the late Renaissance movement in Europe, combining the classical skills of music, dance and drama. Its origins can be traced back to the dance traditions of the nobility in the French and Italian courts of the fifteenth century. The creation of classical ballet as we know it was developed under the auspices of Louis XIV, and was then further refined in France and Russia in the nineteenth century into the hugely influential and highly skilled concert dance form with which we are familiar today. Fittingly this collection starts in France, with one of the most haunting and memorable examples of the ballet form: Adam’s Giselle. We are then swept along in a whirlwind tour of some of the greatest Russian ballets by such great composers as Prokofiev, Khachaturian and Shostakovich, while no ballet anthology would be complete without Tchaikovsky’s three Romantic masterpieces Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. From Delibes to Stravinsky, this collection amply demonstrates why ballet remains one of the most loved musical genres.

Reviews of some of the original recordings that make up this set:

Swan Lake
"With Yablonsky's version of this great work we can enjoy it (if we choose) as a kind of Straussian (Richard) tone poem. The ‘plot’ is fundamentally about the striving of a 'superhero' against evil and allowing him to triumph through the power of love.

So how does Yablonsky’s version compare to the other recordings? Well, Bonynge is operatic in his conception rather than symphonic. Previn for me brings greater excitement than Yablonsky, but once again it is predicated on having sight as well as hearing stimulated. One mentally has to supply the dancing with Previn.

What we have in this Naxos recording is a fine concert performance that allows us to concentrate on the music without having to superimpose movement, colour and narrative. Although we can if we want to - and it is excellent too!"

-- John France, MusicWeb International

Raymonda
"If you want to be reminded just how great the three Tchaikovsky ballets really are - and why The Sleeping Beauty remains the best three-act ballet score of them all then listen to the complete Raymonda. Not that it's a bad piece of work by any means. Even the bottom line - which is that Tchaikovsky simply has inspired dance-melodies by the yard while Glazunov doesn't - is something turned to good use in Raymonda. For while Tchaikovsky finds a new idea or two for each of his characteristic dances, which only throws still more into relief the few truly symphonic stretches of his scores (of which the "Sleep" interlude in The Sleeping Beauty has to be the finest), Glazunov forges connections throughout. A waltz melody becomes a pizzicato variation; even a racy coda turns out to be a brilliant transformation of the grand "Pas de deux" with further themes appended. The three principal characters - sweet Raymonda, her chivalrous hero and the lovesick villain (a Saracen, naturally) - have their leitmotifs, but the plot remains uninterestingly confused. It serves only to provide Glazunov with every flavouring in the balletic hook: medievalism and moonshine in Act I, orientalia in Act 2, a Magyar divertissement in the last and weakest of the acts (poor stuff compared with the outer acts of Coppélia).

That makes for a feeble sense of unity, but few dull moments; and so welcome to a first-rate complete performance. Alexander Anissimov was a conductor unfamiliar to me. He keeps the Moscow Symphony Orchestra on their toes: the strings are keener of articulation than their Bolshoi or Kirov counterparts while balances and dynamics are all observed in an end result of greater sophistication than you might expect from this source (with handsome sound to match). Anissimov excels in the grand symphonic unfolding of the first two numbers and the two Entr'actes, over which he takes more time and care than Fedotov."

-- Gramophone [8/1996]

Le sacre du printemps
"Robert Craft's performance of The Rite of Spring, rescued from oblivion on Koch, proves that in the early ballets he can be both accurate as well as exciting. Extremely well played by the London Symphony, seldom have the complex textures in the Introduction to Part One or the Ritual of the Rival Tribes sounded so clear and natural. And yet, in the Dance of the Earth, or the concluding Sacrificial Dance, Craft pulls out all of the stops to really impressive effect."

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Great Ballet

$74.99
CD

Naxos

Apr 24, 2012

8501055

Lehár: Das Land De Lächelns / Schirmer, Et Al

CPO

Available as CD

~~$36.99~~ $25.99

Sep 25, 2007

A brand new recording in excellent sound and a Sou-Chong to challenge even the great tenors on other sets … well worth consideration.

After Franz Lehár’s initial success with Die lustige Witwe in 1905 – an operetta that harked back to the jolly 19th century works of Johann Strauss II, Millöcker and Suppé – he gradually changed direction. For him there were to be new dramaturgical models including the “lyric operetta” where the focus is on the ‘inner world of the figures’ as Doris Sennefelder puts it in her perspective building notes to this issue. Paganini, Der Zarewitsch and Friederike are all in this mould and in Das Land des Lächelns a further aspect comes to the fore, the cultural clash between East and West. The Viennese Lisa falls in love with the Chinese Prince Sou-Chong but she can’t accept the demands of Chinese values. As in every operetta of the traditional kind act 2 ends in bitter conflict. So does Die lustige Witwe but there everything is sorted out in the third act as Hanna and Danilo dance away to eternal happiness – or so we believe. In Das Land des Lächelns the conflict is resolved insofar as Sou-Chong allows Lisa to leave China and return to Vienna. He displays some humanity after all but this does not really lead to increased understanding.

The Chinese or ‘Oriental’ setting was by no means unique to opera and operetta of the late 19th and the early 20th century. Massenet’s Le roi de Lahore and Delibes’ Lakmé are well-known examples. Mascagni’s Iris and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly are others and even Gilbert and Sullivan went Asian in The Mikado. Later Lehár and Puccini actually worked in parallel on Chinese projects, Puccini with Turandot and Lehár with Die gelbe Jacke which was premiered in 1923. It was later revised and presented in new guise in 1929 with Richard Tauber in the main lead. Then it was a tremendous success. This was Das Land des Lächelns.

There is no denying that Lehár was a tremendously skilful composer. The Chinese allusions in the score are no less striking than corresponding music in Turandot. The procession with chorus at the beginning of act 2 could just as well have been written by Puccini. It is followed by a highly attractive Chinese ballet suite. Towards the end of the act the wedding procession is colourful and powerful, also incorporating quotations from Sou-Chong’s first act song Von Apfelblüten einen Kranz.

This recording is the fourth of a Lehár operetta from CPO to have come my way the last couple of years and it is in the main very successful. Ulf Schirmer, who also conducted Schön ist die Welt (review), secures excellent playing from the Munich Radio Orchestra. His choices of tempo seem unerringly right. He is very close to Otto Ackermann in the historical 1953 recording now on Naxos (review) and that is my benchmark. The long overture, with quotations from the music that follows, very clearly prepares the listener for a largely serious, even tragic play and the ballet suite in act 2 is excellently played. The chorus is also splendid. For once in a recording with spoken dialogue between the musical numbers the balance is such that one need not turn up the volume every time to hear the dialogue properly. Recorded at three live performances the technicians have succeeded in finding the best of both worlds and there is hardly any evidence of an audience. There is quite a lot of dialogue but it is separately tracked and for repeated listening this leaves the choice open for those who want to hear only the music numbers.

There is a delightful but small-voiced second couple with Julia Bauer’s Mi, who sings a charming dancing song in act 2, and Alexander Kaimbacher’s Gustl, who is agreeably lyrical in the duet with Mi in the same act. Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund as Lisa is a bit uneven and her uppermost notes tend to be rather hard and strained. She can also be lyrically appealing, not least in duet, and in the dark-tinted and operatic finale to act 2 she delivers strong dramatic singing. Prince Sou-Chong is sung by Polish tenor Piotr Beczala and he is plainly superb with a good ring in the more outgoing music. Most of all though he impresses through delicious lyric singing with carefully judged nuances that cannot be taken for granted in operetta.

I have complained in the past about sloppy presentation from CPO but in this respect they have made amends. They give us both a detailed track-list and a fairly good synopsis in three languages. I still think that a full libretto would be useful – even for German speakers.

I am not fully au fait with all existing alternative versions. Ackermann’s recording, mentioned above, with Schwarzkopf, Gedda, Loose and Kunz is a classic and at Naxos price unbeatable. Gedda’s stereo remake with Anneliese Rothenberger as Lisa is a splendid alternative and EMI’s third offer, Boskovsky’s recording with Jerusalem and Helen Donath, also has much to commend it. Robert Stolz with Rudolf Schock and Margit Schramm will certainly give pleasure, though I haven’t heard it, but for a brand new recording in excellent sound and a Sou-Chong to challenge even the great tenors on the other sets, this is well worth consideration.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

On Sale

Lehár: Das Land De Lächelns / Schirmer, Et Al

~~$36.99~~ $25.99
CD

CPO

Sep 25, 2007

777303-2

Delius: A Mass of Life, Idyll / Opie, Hill

Naxos

Available as CD

~~$29.99~~ $14.99

Jun 26, 2012

To witness a performance of Delius’s A Mass of Life, arguably his supreme creative achievement, is to look into the heart of the composer and his Nietzsche-inspired world. Moreover, this ravishing music, written between 1898 and 1905, represents Delius at the height of his powers, when musical ideas seemed to pour out of him at a time when he had finally learned to assimilate, in an entirely individual, not to say maverick manner, a confluence of modernist styles embracing Grieg, Wagner, Strauss, Charpentier and Debussy.

There is no doubt from the vivid opening choruses of Parts 1 and 2 of this recording (and what openings!) that the message of the work is a life-affirming one. There is a dynamic momentum to the tempi which perfectly evokes Zarathustra’s ruling passion, the Will of Man, and there is a richness to the orchestral sound which adds to the sense of muscularity. The chorus negotiate Delius’s often awkward vocal intervals with great skill and the intonation is virtually flawless. Just occasionally the sheer weight of the orchestral sound, which is quite forward on this recording (more so than Hickox), is apt to overwhelm the voices but this is a minor distraction.

Hill brings energy and élan to the third section, ‘In deine Auge’ (for me perhaps the most exhilarating section of Part 1), where the parallel with the end of Act 2 of Die Meistersinger is almost palpable and where the most unusual example of a Delius fugue (!) is given life, vigour and meaning.

Alan Opie, who has the lion’s share of the solo music in the work, is almost Wotan-like in his performances. From his first Nietzschean dance he is majestic and brings out of the score that vibrant, heady, Teutonic contemporaneity with which Delius had clearly become enthralled at this point in his career. Opie’s singing of what is effectively the role of Zarathustra has immense authority and his impressive range (up to high G) is ideal for Delius’s onerous vocal demands.

Andrew Kennedy, Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Janice Watson also offer fine lyrical interpretations of their solo parts and the choral accompaniments are allowed to intermingle subtly as an extension of the orchestra. The BSO are on fine form too, and special mention needs to be made of the haunting horn-playing in the introduction to Part 2 (‘On the Mountains’), a sound which sums up so much of Delius’s nature music.

This is a must for any Delius Liebhaber and, with the added bonus of the late Prelude and Idyll, a marvellous starting point for anyone new to Delius’s unique but compelling art.

-- Jeremy Dibble, Gramophone
3622320.az_DELIUS_Mass_Life_Prelude.html

DELIUS A Mass of Life. Prelude and Idyll1 • David Hill, Cond; 1Janice Watson (sop); Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mez); Andrew Kennedy (ten); 1Alan Opie (bar); Bach Ch; 1Bournemouth SO • NAXOS 8.572861-62 (2 CDs: 118:19 Text and Translation)

A Mass of Life is quintessential Delius, musically and existentially, composed over 1904–05 in the first great rush of his maturity. From the bounding affirmative choruses to the breathtakingly sustained nature contemplations, from the melancholy to the ecstatic, the Mass of Life traces and forecasts the gamut of Delian affect with a concision, fullness, and abundance he might rival but never achieve so comprehensively again. Unless I’ve missed something, this is but the fourth recording of the work since Beecham’s nonpareil 1952 account. Though its musical demands are daunting—if nowhere near as challenging as those of Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand,” with which it invites comparison—the primary bar to frequent performance is its text, drawn by Delius’s friend Ernst Cassirier largely from the Dance Songs of Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra. For those coming in late, one recalls the oft-quoted passage in Eric Fenby’s Delius as I Knew Him: “When, one wet day … he was looking for something to read in the library of a Norwegian friend … and had taken down a book, Thus Spake Zarathustra—a book for all and none—by one Friedrich Nietzsche, he was ripe for it. The book, he told me, never left his hands until he had devoured it from cover to cover. It was the very book he had been seeking all along, and finding that book he declared to be one of the most important events of his life. Nor did he rest content until he had read every work of Nietzsche that he could lay his hands on”—to which Fenby, a devout Catholic, adds—“and the poison entered his soul.” For listeners and performers today it may still be something of a jolt to find, in place of the supplicating Kyrie that the unfortunate term “Mass” leads one to expect, a glowingly charged hymn to the Will, “dispeller of need, my own necessity,” followed by Zarathustra’s brief praise of laughter (“My own laughter I pronounced holy”), succeeded by Zarathustra’s love duet with Life in a meadow filled with dancing girls, an archetypal encounter transpiring in a mythical dimension “beyond good and evil,” beyond place and time, crowned by the first, murmured, utterance of the Bell Song, the work’s central mystery. A Mass of Life may, of course, be enjoyed for its power and sensuous magic without reference to its text, but only to those nurtured on Nietzsche will it reveal its full import. Shrugging incomprehension of the text renders Benjamin Luxon’s Zarathustra, for Charles Groves (with the London Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra), merely mellifluous, while Peter Coleman-Wright’s deadpan delivery for the late Richard Hickox—with the Waynflete Singers directed by today’s conductor, David Hill, and the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra—proves anesthetically workmanlike. When it appeared in 1997, I rated that reading, on Chandos, the best since Beecham’s (Fanfare 20:6). That honor goes now to the present offering. While Alan Opie does not efface memories of Bruce Boyce, for Beecham—whose delivery resonated from the nexus of Delius’s realization of Nietzsche—he teases the text gingerly, making a credible Zarathustra. In some numbers, Delius asks the soloists to share parts, with some of Zarathustra’s lines persuasively taken by Andrew Kennedy, and a portion of Life’s happily rendered by Janice Watson, though Catherine Wyn-Rogers’s beguiling, seductive Life recalls Monica Sinclair’s divinatory geste for Beecham. The choral work is beyond praise, though in Hill’s brisk approach the melting lyricism heard chez Beecham tautens and leaps.

Idyll is a late reworking of music from Margot la Rouge, composed in 1902 for the new opera competition offered by the music publisher Sanzogno. Though it failed to score and was not heard in Delius’s lifetime, it comes from the composer’s ripest years and contains gorgeous swaths of his richest utterance, which he salvaged in 1932, recomposing it to words by Whitman and making an extended love duet of it. Idyll has not lacked for vocally lustrous, persuasive performances submerging Whitman’s quaintness (“Behold me when I pass, hear my voice, approach, draw close, but speak not. Be not afraid of me”) in absolute conviction. Of major interest, the lovingly lingering 1981 account led by Eric Fenby—who took down the score from dictation by the blind, paralyzed Delius—features Felicity Lott and Thomas Allen (deleted Unicorn-Kanchana UKCD 2073). Meredith Davies’s still-available 1968 tilt at Idyll, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, is made memorable by the divinatory partnership of Heather Harper and John Shirley-Quirk. In keeping with his go at the Mass of Life, Hill pushes the work a bit, spurring the impassioned moments to escalate from the pervasive tone of wistful elegy. Opie, as the anonymous man, is authoritatively resonant, in response to Janice Watson’s brightly edged soprano (touched by a bit of vibrato), with its gloriously amber lower register, buxomly filling the part of the nameless woman.

One caveat: In the headnote the title of the work is given per the album, but you will search the catalog of Delius’s works in vain for an orchestral Prelude. The work so designated is simply the first three minutes—an orchestral prelude, to be sure—of Idyll and has never, until now, been listed separately. The fake title generates a phantom work to bedevil buyers, scholars, and connoisseurs, and detracts from—rather than adding to—the program’s generosity.

Sound packs an immediate wallop making for occasional congestion. In the opening chorus, for instance, the leaping underlining of trombones and tubas becomes indistinct, overwhelmed by choral mass, and while one can pick out the glockenspiel, its function of festive accentuation is lost. In quieter passages, and in the capture of the vocalists, on the other hand, this upfront take is gratifyingly welcome. In German, Zarathustra’s pronouncements recall and parody the Lutheran Bible, in light of which the ostensibly stilted thee-ing and thou-ing of William Wallace’s singing translation—made for Beecham and used by him for all of his public performances (according to notes by Delius aficionado Lyndon Jenkins)—fall into place, if not quite into King James English. Whitman’s text is included.

In sum, a superb production and the grandest addition to the Delius discography in many years. Highest recommendation.

FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

On Sale

Delius: A Mass of Life, Idyll / Opie, Hill

~~$29.99~~ $14.99
CD

Naxos

Jun 26, 2012

8572861-62

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