MONTEVERDI: SELVA MORALE E SPI

Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps; Firebird Suite

Few pianists can equal Charles Rosen for sheer lucidity of thought... the playing is big and confident (nothing frail about Rosen's vision of Chopin). Then, too, his fastidious attention to detail—especially his rhythmic acuity and his scrupulous inner lines—often lights up the music in revealing ways (note how he puts into relief the dotted gestures in the Polonaise-fantaisie). And his sympathy for the avant-garde carries over to the finale of the Second Sonata, which has rarely had its modernistic spirit so persuasively conveyed.

-- Peter J. Rabinowitz, FANFARE [1/1991]

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

"Rubinstein's readings of the two finest Sonatas are unsurpassed, with a poetic impulse that springs directly from the music and a control of rubato to bring many moments of magic... [T]he addition of the Barcarolle and Berceuse make this reissue all the more desirable." -- The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs & DVDs [2003/4 edition]

The music of William Wordsworth (1908-88) - a great-great-grandson of the poet's brother Christopher - lies downstream from that of Vaughan Williams and Sibelius; like that of his contemporary Edmund Rubbra, Wordsworth's music unfolds spontaneously, as a natural process. This second volume brings two concertos, both major works - though long forgotten, and strongly contrasted in their approach: the gritty and muscular Piano Concerto is cast in a single, tightly argued span, whereas the lyrical Violin Concerto is expansive and unhurried - and deeply touching. They are complemented by the Three Pastoral Sketches, which grow gently from understated autumnal hues to a dignified and moving climax. All three scores show an extraordinary command of orchestral color.

In 1926 Hindemith encouraged the composition of a new kind of original music for wind ensemble (military band) for chamber music performances at Donaueschingen and helped raise the genre to a level of achievement which continues today. Three of these works from 1926 are published on this CD, together with Hindemith's famous masterpiece Symphony in B flat and Ernst Krenek's Dream Sequence.

Classical Music

Selections recorded at Air Studios, London, England in July 1997, and at EMI Abbey Road Studios, London, England on August 31 and November 23, 1997.
Operatic baritones often wind up playing villains and incidental characters--the tenor's companion, the guy who gets bumped out of the love triangle at the end, the ones who stand by and sing through the ensembles that make the plot work out for other people--but at times there's relief. Bo Skovhus has selected nine good-guy baritone characters. They may not be the leading men, but they're not the bad guys either.
Skovhus' way with this music is entirely winning. As in his lieder recitals for Sony, he is in gloriously rich voice, bringing a warm tone and an apt interpretation to each piece. The romantic rapture of Korngold's "Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen" sounds as easy to him as the put-on jollity of the drinking song from 'Hamlet.' The selections in this recital run the gamut of situations in four languages, and Skovhus shows himself to be completely at home in all. James Conlon and the English National Opera Orchestra provide ample support for this talented young singer.

A while ago, when commenting on Michael Nyman's "The Piano," I spoke (or pontificated, rather) to some colleagues regarding my dismay over Nyman's 'art.' I mention guilty pleasures on occasion, but a greater potential irrationality of criticism is the personal determination of whether one should praise certain scores or composers for daring to be abstract, or lambaste them for not getting their points across. I have done both, with disliked emphasis on the latter, when listening to Nyman's compositions. It is with "The End of the Affair," performed by the Michael Nyman Orchestra, that I realize I ought to place my views firmly, diplomatically in the middle.

The music really depends on how the listener feels, as opposed to being the sort of film score that alters how he feels. Reliant on the mood and the focus of attention, the score delights as confidently as it bores. It stands precariously on the divide between art and self-importance. Its incessant, top heavy strings play ad nauseam -- will they never end? -- but the themes they play indulge in the attention. It is exceedingly predictable, just as a fair deal of minimalist music is. And compared to the film scores of minimalist Philip Glass it is neither technically brilliant nor dramatically solid. It is challenging primarily to the amplitude of one's attempt to fall in love with its tedium. Cinematic evolution gets thrown out of the window for a beginning, middle, and end that are practically unidentifiable from one another. As I am not a huge supporter of the minimalist music movement I may be missing some key thought, others may see this score far differently, but to my ears it reaches a point of despotic annoyance. Call me unfashionable. Yet I cannot help praising "The End of the Affair" for its abstract grandeur. The scope, though minimal, gets the most out of the repeating elements, and the cues, taken individually as small concert works rather than part of a theatrical whole, become fascinating essays in contemporary classical music. Nyman has an unconventional way with counterpoint (and lack thereof) that is lush and thoroughly amazing, and the themes are memorable and inhabit the soundscape aggressively well. When these ideas stick out from the common backdrop, it is mesmerizing.

What fascinates me most personally is that this is one of the few soundtracks I know of featuring such a strong dichotomy... I am not sure I appreciate it...

-- Jeffrey Wheeler, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

The third eagerly awaited volume of the masses by Johann Nepomuk Hummel. The first volume featuring the celebrated period performance ensemble Collegium Musicum 90 under the inspired direction of Richard Hickox scooped 'best choral recording' at the Gramophone Awards. Both works on this disc are premiere recordings. The CD features an impressive line-up of soloists, including Susan Gritton who constantly receives rave reviews.

For its very first album on Chandos, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain devotes its characteristic energy and musical mastery to an explosive program that transcends daily life and earthly experience. It is helped by the enthusiastic, encouraging and experienced baton of Edward Gardner as well as by the sumptuous yet detailed acoustic of Symphony Hall, Birmingham, all fully revealed in this surround-sound recording. Their performance of Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra and Holst's The Planets is already a point of reference in the UK after the immensely successful Prom concert that preceded the recording. The concert's five-star review in The Daily Telegraph praised in particular the orchestra's "great attack and complete absence of anything routine", while The Guardian emphasized the great performance of the orchestra in this "graceful and evocative programme", especially the "depth and richness of sound that belied their youth". This unique album is a first milestone in what promises to be a superb discography for the NYO.

The unjustly neglected and often dissident music of Ruth Gipps is with this album finding all the resonance it deserves by Rumon Gamba and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, having already championed many British composers from the twentieth century with their series devoted to British Tone Poems and Overtures from the British Isles. While, not surprisingly, there are echoes of the most popular composers of the time – Sibelius, Walton, and Vaughan Williams – the music is notable for its personal voice, confident conception, and vivid writing for the orchestra. Gipps herself actually felt her best works were those for orchestra. In a programme of contrasting impressions and emotions, Symphonies Nos 2 and 4, the former inspired by the Second World War, offer an approachable tuneful idiom. They are complemented by the lyrical, shorter Song for Orchestra and the early tone poem Knight in Armour, premiered at the last Night of the Proms in 1942.

Includes sonata(s) for cello and basso continuo by Antonio Vivaldi. Soloists: Anner Bylsma, Jacques Ogg, Hidemi Suzuki.

DVORÁK: STRING QUARTET AMERICA

Casals directed Mozart with regimented authority... Of the piano concertos, however, the hitherto unreleased K466 proves unexpectedly serviceable, although Serkin's account of K482, exultant and miraculous, utterly transcends Yvonne Lefebure in the other work.

-- Michael Jameson, BBC Music Magazine

Includes such famous works as the Greensleeves and Tallis Fantasias as well as The Lark Ascending.

THE JOY OF CHRISTMAS NEWMAN,

12.99

Music for Queen Mary

Classical Music

Kodály's orchestral output was relatively limited. Best known for his educational material, he wrote only nine works for orchestra. On hearing Kodály's orchestral music, one cannot help but notice similarities to Bartók in the use of Hungarian folk melodies, rhythms and dance forms, as well as his application of quartal harmonies, that is, harmony using the interval of the perfect fourth as its basic unit, instead of the third or fifth. Though overshadowed by Bartók as a serious composer, Kodály's music is neither derivative nor insignificant. Bartók was more of a modernist with respect to form, using mathematical and architectural strategies to generate new forms. Kodály strove to frame Hungarian music with classical and baroque forms, as in his Concerto for Orchestra.
This is a good overview of Kodály's orchestral music. Yan Pascal Tortelier metes out a steady tempo without being too rigid to accommodate the fluid exoticism of the 'Dances of Marosszek.' The BBC Philharmonic is a tight rhythmic ensemble, essential to a good performance of the dance rhythms found in Kodály, Bartók, or Stravinsky. This is particularly evident in the woodwinds' nimble performance at the end of the Allegro con brio from 'Marosszek.'

John Wilson’s first album in a series of recordings of the orchestral works of Eric Coates, using his own definitive editions of the scores. includes the suites The Jester at the Wedding and London, and the miniature overture The Merrymakers. Infectiously idiomatic playing from the BBC Philharmonic! Eric Coates was born on August 27th, 1886, at Hucknall. Coates showed an interest in music at an early age, studying first the violin and then the viola with George Ellenberger, a pupil of Joachim, and harmony with Dr Ralph Horner in Nottingham. At the age of twenty he arrived in London determined to make a career in music despite some family misgivings. He won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music where he studied viola with Lionel Tertis and composition with Frederick Corder. Eventually, in 1919, when neuritis in his left hand made playing the viola more and more difficult, Eric Coates turned exclusively to composition. Eric Coates' work is in the tradition of polished melodic light music started by Sir Arthur Sullivan and continued by Edward German.

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REVIEWS:

Wilson is relishing every second of the music. The BBC Phil is in great nick, and Stephen Rinker’s engineering brings sound of clarity and fidelity, every detail, dynamic, and subtlety captured perfectly.

– ClassicalSource.com

Volume 1 implies we are to get more like this and they can’t come soon enough. Eric Coates is surprisingly undervalued, even with the resurgence of interest in light music. There are some very familiar pieces here – The Merrymakers, By a Sleepy Lagoon, London Suite – alongside the ballet The Jester at the Wedding and two symphonic rhapsodies. All engaging and here splendidly played by the BBC Phil under one of the real champions of light music, John Wilson.

– Lark Reviews

This re-release of The Canterbury Pilgrims forms part of the new Hickox Legacy commemorative series on Chandos Records, leading up to (and continuing beyond) the fifth anniversary, in November 2013, of the conductor's untimely death. The two-disc set is issued for the price of 1 CD. The pioneering account of The Canterbury Pilgrims, a colorful but neglected work by Sir George Dyson, brilliantly depicts assorted characters from the prologues of Chaucer’s famous Canterbury Tales, while highlighting key aspects of Hickox’s recorded legacy: the championing of neglected repertoire in general, and British repertoire in particular, as well as his special affinity with choral music. ‘Chaucer’s amusingly ironic depictions and Dyson’s memorable tunes and imaginative orchestration are a winning combination. If you like Gerontius, Vaughan Williams and Ireland, you’ll like Dyson. Go out and buy this disc *****’. - BBC Music Magazine ‘This is a very fine recording… Every layer in the texture is exceptionally well defined and integrated, which is no mean feat when such elaborate forces – soloists, choir, and orchestra – are involved’ – Gramophone Magazine