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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 SaleSmyth: The Prison / Burton, Brailey, Blachly, Experiential Orchestra
SACD$21.99$10.99Chandos
Aug 07, 2020CHSA 5279 -
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On SaleA Due / Kari Krikku, Anssi Karttunen
CD$18.99$14.99Ondine
Apr 30, 2003ODE 1102-2 -
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Kaija Saariaho: D'om Le Vrai Sens; Laterna Magica
$18.99CDOndine
Sep 27, 2011ODE 1173-2 -
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Smyth: Mass in D & The Wreckers Overture / Oramo, BBC Symphony
$21.99SACDChandos
Oct 04, 2019CHSA 5240 -
![Wayne Mcgregor: Chroma, Infra, Limen / Royal Ballet [blu-ray]](//arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/1826146.jpg?v=1785763634&width=800)
Wayne Mcgregor: Chroma, Infra, Limen / Royal Ballet [blu-ray]
$42.99Blu-RayOpus Arte
Apr 26, 2011OA BD7083D -
ONLY THE SOUND REMAINS
$21.78Blu-RayERATO
Nov 10, 2017EAO565173BR
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)
Smyth: The Prison / Burton, Brailey, Blachly, Experiential Orchestra
The 2020 GRAMMY Award winner for Best Classical Solo Vocal Performance, honoring Sarah Brailey and Dashon Burton!
August 18th marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Constitutional Amendment, granting women in the US the right to vote. A fitting time then for our release of the World Premier Recording of Ethel Smyth’s late masterpiece The Prison. Smyth left home at nineteen to study composition in Leipzig. In the company of Clara Schumann and her teacher Heinrich von Herzogenberg, she met and won the admiration of composers such as Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvorák, and Grieg. Smyth was the first woman to have an opera performed at the Met, in 1903. (The second was Kaija Saariaho, whose L'Amour de loin appeared there in 2016!) Smyth later became central to the Suffragette movement in England, writing the March of the Women. Her gender politics and sexuality were cause for attacks by critics, and she famously went to prison herself for throwing a stone through an MP’s window. Composed in 1930 and premiered in 1931 in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, The Prison is a Symphony in two parts, ‘Close on Freedom’ and ‘The Deliverance’, set for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus, and full orchestra. The text is taken from a philosophical work by Henry Bennet Brewster and concerns the writings of a prisoner in solitary confinement, his reflections on life and his preparations for death.
REVIEWS:
Ethyl Smyh's late work, The Prison (1929-30), is uncategorizable. The 64-minute “vocal symphony” for bass-baritone (The Prisoner) and soprano (his Soul), with chorus (philosophical commentary) is in two parts: Close To Freedom and The Deliverance. The heavy-ish text, by Smyth’s dear friend (and perhaps lover, though her relationships tended otherwise to be lesbian) Henry Bennet Brewster centers on the gloomy ruminations of a prisoner considering the end of his life, and his soul, which is guiding him toward peace. In Part 1, He, for instance speaks of his anxiety and inability to sleep, and wonders about immortality and if he will be emancipated; in Part 2, the Soul tells him the end of his struggle is near and he learns to “disband his ego”. The chorus has a further calming effect: immortality is everywhere, human passions remain. He finally finds peace. As you can see, a regular Offenbachian satire–not.
From the very opening moments – “I awoke in the middle of the night” – the mood is weighty with disquiet. The bass-baritone voice of Dashon Burton has both substance and gentleness, his attention to the text that of a Lieder singer. Violin and harp circle his words. Sarah Brailey’s Soul, from the start, sings with subtlety and a type of fleeting loveliness. She opens the second part with a solo on the words “the struggle is over”, intoning much of her words on one note while first a trio of winds, then a solo violin, then the full body of strings and chorus–all pianissimo–join her above and below. Chant? Hymn? Both, really. Smyth layers the orchestra; a brass choir during a passage about immortality makes a grand effect. Later, a painfully beautiful pastoral section precedes the Prisoner’s feeling of metaphysical freedom.
While much of it is gripping, its slow pacing and didacticism can dehumanize the story that the Prisoner and Soul are stuck in. The Prisoner’s “prison”, both metaphorical and real, is presented with such humanity and openness by Burton that his eventual spiritual freedom makes a glorious sound, despite–rather than due to–the orchestrally and chorally weighted underpinnings. Some Elgar shows up, and is not very welcome.
The performance, I suspect, could not be bettered. The New York City-based Experiential Orchestra and Chorus both perform with luscious tone and poise. James Blachly’s leadership brings the work’s lyricism to the forefront; it would be easy to over-emphasize passages but he works best within the dramatic arc of the narrative. Much of The Prison is gorgeous and unexpected – who does Smyth sound like? And while some moments seem inert, they are few and far between.
– ClassicsToday.com (10/10; Robert Levine)
Smyth’s haunting music, given here in conductor James Blachly’s new edition, is beautifully constructed and highly evocative (with quotes or allusions to earlier Smyth scores). Her orchestration is limpid and masterly, rendered lovingly here by Blachly with the Experiential Orchestra. The choral contribution is relatively minor, the focus rightly on the two soloists, but again superbly performed. The only miscalculation is Smyth’s use of ‘The Last Post’ in the concluding pages, adding a martial resonance that may jar to modern ears; to Smyth, a major-general’s daughter, it may just have been an echo of (her) youth which she wanted at this point. Magnificent sound from Chandos, too. Very strongly recommended.
– Gramophone
A Due / Kari Krikku, Anssi Karttunen
A DUE • Kari Krikku (cl, 1 b cl 2 ); Anssi Karttunen (vc) • ONDINE 1102 (72:13)
TIENSUU Plus II. 1 KORTEKANGAS Iscrizione. 1 SAARIAHO Oi kuu. 2 M. LINDBERG Steamboat Bill, Jr. 1 MERILÄINEN Unes. 1 JOKINEN Pros. 1 BERGMAN Karanssi. 1,2 LÄNSIÖ A Due. 2 HEININEN Short I. 1 HAKOLA Capriole 2
Recorded over a 13-year time span (1992–2005), this is a remarkable disc. On first glance, it screams “specialist.” A whole hour-plus of music by territory-specific composers for clarinet or bass clarinet and cello may send many prospective purchasers heading in the opposite direction. But they would be forgetting the innate musicality of the Finns.
The partnership of Krikku and Karttunen has resulted in a small library of commissions. Jukka Tiensuu (b. 1948) has been writing a series of works sharing the title Plus for some years now, for differing combinations of instruments. Plus II dates from 1992 (there is also a version for bass clarinet called Plus IIb ). There is more than a hint of music theater in the way the soloists shadow each other (sometimes microtonally). This shadowing generates tremendous energy. The (wonderful) recording is, appropriately for the intimacy of this disc, close and involving, although without being claustrophobic. The playing is simply stunning, true chamber music in a late 20th-century context.
Suddenly the sky darkens for Iscrizione (1990) by Olli Kortekangas (b. 1955). The piece is ultra-compact (it lasts just a touch over three minutes) yet makes a lasting impression, not least in the depth of utterance of its deep initial gesture.
The name of Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) is well known internationally. IRCAM-trained, she boasts prestigious commissions from around the world, plus a discography that is graced by the names of Gidon Kremer, Sir Simon Rattle, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. The piece Oi Kuu (“O Moon”) explores multiphonics and timbral points of contact between the two instruments. Sonically, the piece sounds as if it is frozen. Expression in the traditional sense only sporadically breaks through (notably around the 2:40 mark); for the rest of the time, this is a stuck, almost painful moment in time.
Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is another well-known contributor here. Steamboat Bill, Jr. , premiered in 1990 in Warsaw, was inspired both by a performance of Stravinsky’s Italian Suite (by Heifetz and Piatigorsky) and by the film Steamboat Bill, Jr. of 1928 (starring Buster Keaton). Lindberg refers to his “kaleidoscopic way of writing,” including spectralism and minimalism. The result is a canvas of much beauty, especially the glacial stasis of around five or six minutes in, while the silent-film accompaniment element to the final pages is good, simple fun.
Usko Merilaïnen is one of only two composers on this disc that is no longer with us (he died in 2004; Erik Bergman died in 2006). The accompanying notes would have us believe this is a work in which all is not what it seems. What it seems to this commentator to be is a stream of consciousness where ambiguity is all. Erkki Jokinen (b. 1941) includes wit and charm in his Pros of 1990. His compositional hand is a sure and steady one, one so sure of itself that it can comfortably ensure that serialism and minimalism can coexist in a relatively short timespan.
The only multimovement work in this recital is Erik Bergman’s Karanssi (the title shunts together the first names of the two soloists on this recording!). Grunts and key noises are used to maximum effect to create an atmosphere of exquisite tension; the more rarified moments tend to enhance rather than dissipate this sense of strain. Tapani Länsiö (b. 1953) is the one who wrote the piece that gives this disc its name. A Due dates from 1991 and is scored for bass clarinet and cello. During the piece, as the composer puts it, “the instruments do not really want to meet but cannot avoid it.”
For those who love brevity of explanation from their composers, Paavo Heininen (b. 1938) must be a dream. Of Short I , he merely wrote, “ Short is a short piece. Savonlinna 1990 is history. I no longer explain.” Period. (The Savonlinna reference refers to the controversial performance of his opera The Knife at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 1990.) The two lines sometimes interact, sometimes pursue independent lines of thought.
Finally, Capriole (1993) by Kimmo Hakola (b. 1958). Antti Häyrynen’s booklet notes speak of the interruption of the hectic moto perpetuo by quasi-Mongolian folk music (Mongolian folk music is my most recent musical discovery, by the way, via the 2003 film The Story of the Weeping Camel and also a folk music festival this Summer in ?ervený Kostelec in the Czech Republic: some of the most powerfully moving music I have ever heard). The sound of Mongolia is unmistakable, its whining, slithery nostalgia unforgettable, and Hakola uses this expressivity to unforgettable effect. This alone makes the purchase of this disc worthwhile.
A fantastically stimulating disc, performed by two consummate virtuosos clearly dedicated to their task.
FANFARE: Colin Clarke
Kaija Saariaho: D'om Le Vrai Sens; Laterna Magica
SAARIAHO Clarinet Concerto, “D’Om le vrai sens.” Laterna Magica. Leino Songs • Sakari Oramo, cond; Finnish RSO; Kari Kriikku, (cl); Anu Komsi (s) • ONDINE 1173-2 (67:31 Text and Translation)
Over the years my admiration for Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) has only grown. From early in her career she’s had an identifiable voice, one that comes from the intersection of a certain Nordic directness with a very French taste for refinement of timbre and texture (she’s Finnish, but worked at IRCAM and has lived for decades in Paris). The result is music that pleases on multiple levels: It’s highly lyrical, explores new sonorities with experimental rigor, and is never afraid of sensuality.
The three works on this program (basically hot off the press) all partake of the above-described aesthetic. The Clarinet Concerto (2010) is a suite of six movements inspired by the famous medieval “Unicorn” tapestries at the Cluny Museum in Paris, which in turn represent the senses (the final movement evokes a culminatory “sixth sense”). It’s truly haunting, in that the clarinet often uses noise and multiphonics (though always scrupulously) to suggest a sort of ghost-like keening and shrieking. Saariaho is very much in the spectralist school, which develops its harmonic practice from precise analysis of sounds in their microscopic realm, and from their correspondence to the overtone series. As a result, even her most dissonant sound masses have a spaciousness that always sounds natural and open, and that’s the case throughout this piece.
Laterna Magica (2008) is a tone poem evoking the life and work of film director Ingmar Bergman, though it never falls into any film-music cliché. It has an interesting dialectic between rich clouds of sound and more rhythmically pulsating textures (film threading through a projector’s sprockets?), and a passage where the orchestral players whisper various words (in German) relating to light is particularly striking. It falls a little more into what feel to me certain standard gestures and sonorities of this style and era, but it remains consistently appealing and mysterious. And the 2007 Leino Songs are four settings from one of Finland’s greatest poets, Eino Leino (1878–1926). This is technically the most conservative work, in that the voice is used for a traditionally beautiful melody; the instruments provide an aura about it that sometimes is more distorted, but never at the expense of the vocal line’s beauty. All this is not a surprise, since the composer has established one of the few successful track records for innovative and beautiful opera.
All these are exceptional performances, but by now would we expect less from anything coming out of Finland, perhaps the world’s most advanced musical culture (at least for what we call “classical”)? If you’ve not heard Saariaho before, this is an excellent introduction.
FANFARE: Robert Carl
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Susanna Välimäki’s booklet notes sum up the music of Kaija Saariaho remarkably succinctly: “Saariaho may be regarded as a philosophical composer of mysteries … her music seems to suggest an invisible yet tangible ‘other world’ that can be sensed in the translucent sonorities, echoes, overtones, harmonics, shadow tones and reflections of her music ... [It] conjures up a sense of infinite space and multimodality.” The colours of the orchestration in a work like the Clarinet Concerto are almost as elusive as the tonalities and harmonic language used, but at the same time the ear is granted access into a world which is infinitely fascinating - subsumed at times with an icy northern chill, but also irrigated by the magnetic shifting patterns of an aurora borealis.
As the subtitle suggests, the Clarinet Concerto “D’OM LE VRAI SENS” refers to the human senses, each inspired by the panels of a medieval tapestry called The Lady and the Unicorn. These physical aspects are suggested with instrumental symbolism and meditations rather than literal descriptive elements easily divined by an audience, but the atmosphere of mystic other-worldliness brings us into a state of wonder which can perhaps be interpreted as comparable with that of the medieval lay person confronted by inexplicable worlds beyond experience, expressed by an almost equally inexplicable miracle of craftsmanship in the tapestries. Kari Kriikku’s remarkable clarinet playing is a real treat in this work, sometimes imitating animal sounds, at times sounding like declamatory speech, and always filled with drama and intensity which equals that conjured by the entire orchestra.
Laterna Magica is titled after the memoirs of film director Ingmar Bergman, and refers to the earliest of image projectors, the magic lantern. This transfers into music in a series of ‘mirages in sound‘, creating spaces into which the imagination can project its own images. This again is more than a merely literal conjuring and teasing of our pictorial senses, and the mystic symbolism of passing time and the universal questions of existence are powerful elements in the score. Machine-like noises and quasi-spoken whisperings express the intangibility of images which seem real, and challenge perceptions of permanency and reality.
The Leino Songs use poems by Eino Leino, considered one of the most important of all Finnish poets. Reading the texts in the booklet, and it is immediately apparent as to why these texts would appeal to Saariaho, as their themes and content can easily be interpreted as expressing the very essence of her compositions. Beautifully sung by Anu Komsi, each song is compact, the words used directly and without distortion of the original poem. Each song creates its own world, reflecting the themes of love and violence, fragrant serenity and death.
This is a superbly produced recording from the Ondine label, which has been championing Saariaho’s music for some time now. Justly celebrated as one of the leading composers of our time, this varied and deeply fascinating programme is as good a place as any to become acquainted with her remarkable universe of expressive sonority and mystical depth. This isn’t Bach or Beethoven of course, but neither is it work which will turn you off with impenetrable intellectual challenges. The deeper you look the more you can reveal, but what you find is more often one or other revelation about yourself as much as an understanding of music which is of its very nature a kind of tuning fork held up to the harmonies and dissonances of existence.
-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International
Smyth: Mass in D & The Wreckers Overture / Oramo, BBC Symphony
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REVIEW:
With all the awareness of the need to promote female composers it is surprising that no national opera company has taken up Ethel Smyth’s masterpiece The Wreckers. This new recording of the overture reminds us of just what a splendid work it is.
The bulk of the new recording is given over to the Mass in D, which is an exultant outpouring, here given its head by the BBC forces under a conductor who seems to have an innate understanding of the British musical temperament.
– Lark Reviews
![Wayne Mcgregor: Chroma, Infra, Limen / Royal Ballet [blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/1826146.jpg?v=1785763634&width=1200)
Wayne Mcgregor: Chroma, Infra, Limen / Royal Ballet [blu-ray]
Also available on standard DVD
The diversity of Wayne McGregor’s astonishing talent is demonstrated through Chroma, Infra and Limen, each created for The Royal Ballet, for whom he is resident choreographer. Intimate yet universal, light yet dark, frenetic yet lyrical, McGregor pursues his passion for exploring the inner workings of the human body and mind, his many-layered and beautiful dances providing visual, sensual and kinaesthetic stimulus for the viewer.
"…Wayne McGregor's Infra: sumptuous beauty and shimmering possibility" The Telegraph
Chroma
Federico Bonelli, Ricardo Cervera, Tamara Rojo
Mara GaleazzI, Sarah Lamb, Steven Mcrae, Laura Morera
Ludovic Ondiviela, Eric Underwood, Jonathan Watkins
Edward Watson
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Conductor: Daniel Capps
Music: Joby Talbot , Jack White III
Infra
Leanne Benjamin, Ricardo Cervera, Yuhui Choe
Lauren Cuthbertson, Mara Galeazzi, Melissa Hamilton
Ryoichi Hirano, Paul Kay, Marianela Nuñez, Eric Underwood
Jonathan Watkins, Edward Watson
The Max Richter Quintet
Director: Jonathan Haswell
Music: Max Richter
Limen
Leanne Benjamin, Yuhui Choe, Mara Galeazzi, Melissa Hamilton, Sarah Lamb, Marianela Nuñez Leticia Stock, Akane Takada, Tristan Dyer, Paul Kay Brian Maloney, Steven Mcrae, Ludovic Ondiviela, Eric Underwood, Edward Watson
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Director: Barry Wordsworth
Music: Kaija Saariaho
Recorded live from the Royal Opera House
Infra: 13th & 14th November 2008
Chroma: 10th & 11th June 2010
Limen: 13th & 17th November 2009
Duration: 01:38:00
Regions: All Regions
Picture Format: 16:9 Anamorphic
Sound Type: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS
Subtitles: French/German/Spanish
![Wayne Mcgregor: Chroma, Infra, Limen / Royal Ballet [blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/1826146.jpg?v=1785763634&width=800)
