ALFONSO X: Cantigas

The Covid pandemic caused the cancellation of the performances of Pelléas et Mélisande at the Opéra National de Bordeaux, which approached Alpha in order to make an audio recording of this masterpiece. So here is that unexpected but highly anticipated new version, with an exceptional cast and a young conductor, Pierre Dumoussaud, whose calling card it is fast becoming, since he has already conducted it in many houses. ‘His conducting calls for nothing but praise, striking a fine balance between analytical clarity and theatrical life, while at the same time bringing out the extraordinary modernity of this intoxicating music’, wrote Christian Merlin in Le Figaro of one of his staged performances. The ‘disarming sincerity’ of Pelléas (Stanislas de Barbeyrac), the ‘constant emotion’ of Mélisande (Chiara Skerath), the ‘bitingly intense singing’ of Golaud (Alexandre Duhamel) – these are some of the comments elicited by the 2018 performances in the staging of Philippe Béziat and Florent Siaud, the intended revival of which this year was prevented by the health emergency. The album cover features a photo from that memorable production.

Reinoud Van Mechelen and his ensemble A Nocte Temporis continue their ‘Haute-Contre Trilogy’ with Rameau’s favourite singer, Pierre de Jéliote, probably the finest haute-contre in history. (Reminder: this is a high tenor voice, not to be confused with the countertenor!) Rameau wrote an enormous amount of music for Jéliote, who was not only a singer but also a guitarist, a cellist and even a composer. The album pays tribute to this native of the Béarn region, who was born in 1713 and died at the ripe old age of eighty-four, with a selection of airs by Rameau (from Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Fêtes d’Hébé, Platée, Castor et Pollux, Les Boréades) but also by Dauvergne, Colin de Blamont, Mondonville, Rebel and Francoeur. Though some are well known, others are much more rarely performed today.

200 years ago, on May 26th 1821, today's Berlin Concert Hall was inaugurated as “Königliches Schauspielhaus”. Destroyed as “Preußisches Staatstheater” during World War II, the building, located in eastern Berlin, was rebuilt during GDR times and reopened as “Konzerthaus” in 1984. The premiere of Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz on June 18th 1821 was a highlight of the opening year. The work became his most popular opera and one of the key works of the 19th century. A few days later, the composer (who died at the age of only 40 in 1826), had another piece premiered at the “Königliches Schauspielhaus”: his brilliant Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra op.79.

This year the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, with its principal conductor Christoph Eschenbach, will be celebrating these historic events. Weber holds a special place in the life of the great German conductor and pianist, as Der Freischütz was the first opera he saw at the age of ten. Eschenbach is being joined in this program, which combines overtures, arias and the famous concert piece, by two artists who reside at the Konzerthaus Berlin and are also Alpha artists: soprano Anna Prohaska and pianist Martin Helmchen.

REVIEW:

Martin Helmchen gives real substance to the Konzertstück by incorporating the profusion of flashy runs and roulades into long-breathed, expressive phrases, and also in the way he renders details exquisitely yet without exaggeration. Eschenbach and the orchestra deserve credit, too, for they match Helmchen's deft touch and broad colour palette. Note, too, how the strings' spectral tone immediately sets the frightful scene Aennchen paints in her Act 3 Romanze. Soprano Anna Prohaska is a marvellous storyteller, although it's her viscous legato that impresses most.

– Gramophone

Here are two works composed by Schubert at the very end of his short life. Schwanengesang (Swansong) was written in Vienna in the autumn of 1828. He died on 19 November at the age of thirty-one, and Die Taubenpost (Pigeon post), which closes the collection, is said to be his very last composition. The fourteen songs, by turns light-hearted, somber and melancholy, are settings of poems by Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine and Johann Gabriel Seidl. In the summer of the same year he composed his String Quintet in C major, scored for two cellos, which was not premiered until 1850, at the Vienna Musikverein. The power and orchestral dimensions of the work make it a pinnacle of nineteenth-century chamber music. We could not have dreamt of a finer line-up of musicians to record these two Schubert monuments. Fanny Mendelssohn's Schwanenlied (also to words by Heinrich Heine) completes the programme, along with Felix Mendelssohn's Song Without Words no.1 for solo piano, composed a year after Schubert's death and Schubert's own setting of an unrelated Schwanengesang (D 744, on a poem by Johann Senn).

The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Alpha extend their series of recordings of the Mozart operas conducted by Jérémie Rhorer. After Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which received excellent international reviews (including FFFF in Télérama), here now is La clemenza di Tito.

Gilles Macassar wrote in Télérama late in 2014 of ‘divinatory conducting, a cast close to the ideal . . . The last opera Mozart composed, long undervalued, closes the chapter of the Baroque and looks into the future, blazing a new trail that looks forward to the nineteenth century.’

That outstanding interpretation is now available in this two-CD set, featuring a high-powered cast – Kurt Streit (Tito), Karina Gauvin (Vitellia), Julie Fuchs (Servilia), Julie Boulianne (Annio), Robert Gleadow (Publio) and, in the role of Sextus, a singer who enjoyed triumphal acclaim from the audience at each performance: Kate Lindsey.

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Kurt Streit convincingly embodies both the Emperor’s innate goodness and his agonies over the conflicting duties of office. Julie Fuchs's exquisite shaping of Servilia’s ‘S’altro che lagrime’ — music poised between Zerlina’s ‘Vedrai carino’ and the Adagio of the Clarinet Concerto — makes this aria the true Mozartian moment of redemptive grace. While Rene Jacobs’s thrilling performance — too eccentric for some, I know — would still be my first choice, Rhorer’s is a vivid, dramatically compelling addition to the impressive Tito discography.

– Gramophone

After a boxed set devoted to nineteenth-century French music (Alpha, 2015) and another containing Beethoven’s symphonies and overtures (Alpha, 2018), Jos Van Immerseel and his period-instrument ensemble Anima Eterna present an anthology of seven albums including recordings of major nineteenth- and twentieth-century composers of many nationalities. Whether it is Liszt with his symphonic poems, Orff with his Carmina Burana or Gershwin with his Rhapsody in Blue, all of them seem to be driven by a deep-seated urge to push back the formal limits of orchestral music by confronting it with other traditions and musical horizons, thus giving it a universal resonance.

Corruption? Betrayal? Persecution? Tyranny? These subjects resonate with the current events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They also provide the subject matter of many seventeenth-century musical works. Kate Lindsey has chosen to devote this second Baroque recital with the English ensemble Arcangelo directed by Jonathan Cohen (following Arianna in 2020, ALPHA576) to the figure of Nero. Scarlatti, Handel and Monteverdi wrote works focusing on this tragic protagonist and his entourage, including his mother Agrippina and his wives (Poppaea and Octavia). Interpreted with incredible intensity by the American mezzo-soprano, the programme features world premiere recordings of two cantatas: Alessandro Scarlatti’s La morte di Nerone (c.1690) and Bartolomeo Monari’s La Poppea (1685). Tenor Andrew Staples and soprano Nardus Williams join Kate Lindsey for duets from L’incoronazione di Poppea, including the sensual ‘Pur ti miro’

The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Mikko Franck continue their collaboration with Alpha and here invite one of the label’s flagship pianists, Nelson Goerner. The programme is devoted to Richard Strauss, coupling several of the German composer’s early works. The Burleske for piano and orchestra, written at the age of twenty, is brimming with lyricism and Romantic ardour; its tone colours herald Strauss’s operas, while the orchestration anticipates his symphonic poems. The piano part is exceptionally virtuosic: Hans von Bülow, for whom Strauss wrote it, called it unplayable! The Serenade for thirteen wind instruments harks back to Mozart’s Gran Partita K361 for similar forces. This brief work in a single movement begins in a nocturnal colouring, as befits a serenade, before growing more animated and finally returning to the contemplative atmosphere of the opening. The symphonic poem for large orchestra Tod und Verklärung depicts the last hour of an artist’s life: the listener is gripped from the very first bars, which evoke the breathing and heartbeats of a dying man. Strauss allows us to experience his final moments and the transfiguration of his soul in one of the most glorious moments in the symphonic repertoire.

REVIEW:

Goerner opens the Burleske with blistering energy. The opening salvos (abetted by some driving timpani interjections) are dispatched with thrilling urgency, but he also brings a lovely wistful gentleness to the more lyrical episodes and delicacy to Strauss’s more playful moments. Mikko Franck and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France offer dramatic and characterful support.

The early Serenade receives a big and generous performance in the Karajan mould (and clocking in at over 26 minutes) which offers many stirring moments in sound that is pleasingly rounded and blended.

– Gramophone

A leading authority on the fortepiano, Jos Van Immerseel has devised a programme focusing on the music Beethoven composed for a Viennese piano with a range of five octaves. This includes the finest keyboard music from Beethoven’s early Viennese period, more specifically works written between 1795 and 1804. For this recording, the Flemish pianist has used the composer’s extant autograph manuscripts or the first editions published shortly after composition, as well as the latest critical edition by Jonathan Del Mar (Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 2017-18). The writings of Carl Czerny, one of Beethoven’s most important ‘pupils’, were also a significant source of information. With his customary attention to the instrumentarium, Jos Van Immerseel has opted for a five-octave Viennese grand fortepiano by Christopher Clarke, a masterly replica, built in 1988, of an instrument by Walter, whom Beethoven himself selected in 1802 from among the sixty or so Viennese piano makers of the time.

Paavo Järvi, Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich since October 2019, here launches a complete recording of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, the first in both his rich discography and that of the Swiss orchestra: ‘When I think of the Fifth Symphony, I think of vulnerability and hope. It looks directly into our soul. It is perhaps the finest of his symphonies. The famous horn solo moves me and enriches me every time I hear it… Unlike the Sixth, the Fifth still holds out hope for life.’ The symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini op. 32 completes the programme. This dark and violent ‘symphonic fantasy after Dante,’ a drama of jealousy, was premiered in 1877, at the same time as Swan Lake.

Franco-American singer Rosemary Standley tackles Baroque repertory with sobriety and elegance. Accompanied by the ensemble of Bruno Helstroffer, a guitarist and lutenist at the crossroads between ‘early’ and ‘modern’ worlds, Helstroffer’s Band is made up of musicians specializing in early instruments. The evocatively titled Love, I Obey is a poignant tribute to ballads that seem to warp time. The in-depth research pursued by the group’s harpsichordist Elisabeth Geiger restores to life pieces forgotten for 400 years, such as the title song by William Lawes.

Alexander Lonquich performs worldwide in Japan, United States, Australia as well as at the most important European music centers. He is regular guest of prestigious Festivals, such as Salzburg Festival, "Mozartwoche Salzburg", Piano-Festival Ruhr, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, and Lucerne Festival. Alexander Lonquich's performances as soloist & conductor are hailed by the international media and audiences. He regularly appears with the Camerata Salzburg, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, M�nchener Kammerorchester, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Stuttgart Chamber, the Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt and others. He is also profoundly committed to chamber music. His recordings with oeuvres of Mozart and Schubert for EMI received outstanding reviews and were awarded with prizes, such as "Diapason d'Or" in France, "Premio Abbiati" in Italy and "Premio Edison" in Holland. For this release with Alpha he has chosen works by Schubert, a composer with whom he is extraordinarily comfortable.

"After Debussy and Schumann, Nelson Goerner comes back to the composer who revealed him to the great audience of recorded music: Chopin. His first Chopin recordings won him high praise and countless distinctions (3 Diapasons d’Or!): ‘Everything he touches seems 'right’ wrote Gramophone in a recent issue. Nicknamed ‘the great poet of the piano’, he now attacks Chopin’s 24 Préludes, which he chose to record live, in a single go, in Poland where he is particularly appreciated and considered an essential pillar of the Chopin Institute. As a complement, Nelson Goerner opts for the Barcarolle Op. 60, the Polonaise Op. 44 and the Berceuse op.57.

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REVIEW:

This is a disc that can only solidify Goerner's reputation as one of the outstanding Chopin exponents of his generation. His interpretations are never less than original, deeply considered, and filled with characteristic detail. That they also exhibit rare qualities of wisdom and discernment make him someone to return to, again and again.

– Gramophone

German pianist Martin Helmchen continues his journey through Beethoven’s piano concertos with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Andrew Manze. In the Third Concerto, published in 1804, Beethoven seems to be moving away from the Mozartian model and inaugurates his ‘middle period,’ using the minor mode to depict a distress and heartache that are certainly not unconnected with the famous ‘Heiligenstadt Testament,’ which he wrote in 1802 to record his growing deafness. Martin Helmchem is joined by two partners with whom he performs a great deal of chamber music- violinist Antje Weithaas and cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker- to record the Triple Concerto, also written during the composer’s so-called ‘heroic’ period.

Four musicians among the most talented of their generation join forces to play unknown manuscripts containing unpublished sonatas by Young, Abell and anonymous composers-all this plus the complicity of Thomas Dunford and Jerome van Waerbeke.

Like the paintings of the Flemish Baroque painters, the ‘vanities’ presented here can be approached in two ways: on the one hand, as manifestations of doubts and anxieties at the fragility of human life; on the other, as delights to be savored without moderation, celebrating earthly life through the senses and the pleasure that human beings can derive from them. After two critically acclaimed recordings each for alpha, the baritone Georg Nigl and the pianist Olga Pashchenko explore the tortuous meanders of the human soul with vocal works by Schubert (an ‘existentialist’ composer if ever there was one), Beethoven (whose torments hardly need stressing) and the contemporary composer Wolfgang Rihm, whose highly expressionistic Jakob Lenz Nigl performed on stage in 2019. His piece Vermischter Traum, here given its world premiere, is dedicated to the Austrian singer.

An emblematic figure of her time, Nadia Boulanger taught and inspired several generations of musicians, from Igor Stravinsky to Quincy Jones. Her musical and pedagogical philosophy, demanding yet highly stimulating, influenced the entire twentieth century. Astrig Siranossian, a rising star of the cello who now joins Alpha for several recordings, is fascinated by this musical personality whom everyone respectfully called ‘Mademoiselle.’ She met some of her most illustrious students, including the late Michel Legrand, and Daniel Barenboim who has agreed to accompany her in a piece on the album. With the pianist Nathanael Gouin, she has devised a very eclectic programme, including the three pieces for cello and piano written by Nadia Boulanger in 1915, three years before the death of her sister Lili. A wide-ranging album, featuring Igor Stravinsky’s Suite italienne, Elliott Carter’s Cello Sonata, Astor Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango, Tissue No. 7 by Philip Glass, Soul Bossa Nova by Quincy Jones, and music by Michel Legrand and others. Merci, Dear Mademoiselle!

Duets from thousand years of musical history for young people from 0-100 years. Patricia Kopatchinskaja invites us to join her for a musical experience that mixes composers spanning the eleventh century to present day. This album and book tell the story of this utterly crazy recording with the help of a rich selection of photos by Marco Borggreve. The barefoot violin player is joined by many musician friends including a clarinet player, playing the ocarina, an improvisatory harpsichordist, an electro musician, a toy piano player, and even her daughter, Alice. Take Two includes compositions from Bach, Miljaud, Cage, Sanchez-Chiong, and many more. It is said that Patricia Kopatchinskaja is as irresistible as a force of nature: passionate, challenging and totally original in her approach; (RPS Music Awards) a statement that is ever apparent on this album!

For it's eighth volume, Haydn2032 invites us on a musical journey that takes the Balkan route. Of all the 'Viennese Classical School', Joseph Haydn is certainly the composer closest to folk music, first because he spent his early years in the countryside and also because, unlike his colleagues who worked in the urban centres of the Habsburg monarchy, Haydn was in contact with Croats, Roma and Hungarians throughout his life. These influences were omnipresent in his music, to the delight of Prince Nikolaus I Esterh�zy and his guests, but by some accounts were not to the taste of many music theorists in Germany. Haydn gave his Symphony no.63 in C major the title of 'La Roxolana', from the famous sixteenth-century sultana who was the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent after having been his slave. As usual, Giovanni Antonini, who is reunited here with Il Giardino Armonico, juxtaposes Haydn's music with that of another composer. The natural choice here was B�la Bart�k, who is represented by his Romanian Folk Dances, composed in 1917.

Classical Music

MOZART Symphonie concertante, K 297b. 1 Quintet for Piano and Winds, K 452. 2 Oboe Concerto, K 314. 3 Dans un bois solitaire. 4 An Chloe. 5 Die Verschweigung 6 • Fernand Oubradous, cond; 1 Arthur Goldschmidt, cond; 3 O des Concerts Lamoureux; 1,3 Pierre Pierlot (ob); 1,2,3 Pierre Lefebvre (cl); 1 Jean Devémy (hn); 1,2 Maurice Allard (bn); 1,2 Irène Joachim (sop); 4,5,6 Yvette Grimaud (pn); 2 Ludwig Bergmann (pn); 4,5 Jean Germain (pn) 6 • ALPHA 800 (75:23)


Behind this imposing stack of headnotes is a historic collection of Mozart performances, made between 1938 (the first two songs) and 1951, and taken from the archives of Radio France. As must be clear, those were difficult years for music, and for life itself, in France. In the notes, Yvette Grimaud remembers that the Quintet recording was made (in 1948) when she was eating one meal a day. No one quite knew how the music they were making was going to be issued, and no one spoke about money. No one in fact spoke; they communicated through music, and seemed otherwise dumfounded.


So this is a holy recording to her. It is also eloquent, though not perfect. One hears in the first movement of the Piano Quintet the elegance of the winds, the sensitivity of the pianist, but one also hears Grimaud rush through several phrases, perhaps to give the sense of lightness, but disconcerting nonetheless. And one hears a prominent fluff by the usually impeccable horn, Jean Devémy. (There was of course no possibility of fixing such minor gaffes.) I find those problems more than compensated for by the beauty of the slow movement, in which horns and piano play with what Grimaud calls “serene amplitude.”


The Oboe Concerto and Symphonie concertante, featuring many of the same musicians, are similarly satisfying, though the sound of the concerto seems unnecessarily distant for a recording made, even on 78s, in 1951. I am less taken with the tremulous singing of Irène Joachim: she sounds a bit like the oboists of old, wavering and Victorian.


This is a collection for wind enthusiasts, I conclude, and as such, historically interesting as well as musically satisfying.


FANFARE: Michael Ullman

Philippe Gaubert: an all-round artist! The true calibre of Philippe Gaubert - a man who was a close friend of Honegger, Caplet, Lubin, Cortot, Thibaud, Paul Valéry, Barthou, Giraudoux and Tristan Bernard, to name but those - can only be fully appreciated when he is set in his historical and cultural context. His musical activities were multiple, but his teacher Paul Taffanel described him as 'the greatest flautist of his time'. The pieces presented on this recording show the ease and boldness of his playing and his wonderfully mellow tone. Of his interpretation of Madrigal, Edward Blakeman wrote: 'This is a highly individual performance with supple control of legato phrasing and changes of tempo. The warm flute tone displays an effective but very discreet use of vibrato.' Through Paul Taffanel Gaubert was engaged to stand in for musicians of the Orchestra of the Paris Opéra (violin and later, when he was only sixteen, principal flute). In 1905 Philippe Gaubert became assistant conductor to Messager at the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, and succeeded him in 1919. In 1922, he gave up playing the flute as a virtuoso because his lips were too sensitive. The recordings presented on this CD show the qualities that made him one of the great conductors of the French school. We notice, amongst other features, the perfect melodic line and admirable clarity (he guides the musicians firmly but without constraint); the absolute control (no trace of immoderation); the fine rendering of dynamics; the excellent balance between the different groups of instruments - quite a feat, considering recording conditions at that time!; and it is clear that he had a perfect overall view of each work. He also devoted a considerable part of his life to composition. Undertaking so many different activities concurrently meant that he had to be not only exceptionally healthy, but also very well organised in his working life. After winning the Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1905, he went on to compose almost eighty (unnumbered) works, including music for three films, a 'drame lyrique' (Sonia, 1912), two ballets and an 'épopée chorégraphique', chamber works, and a large quantity of orchestral music, some of which is presented on this recording. As a composer, conductor, instrumentalist and teacher, Gaubert was a fine example of the all-round artist. Indeed, specialisation was uncommon at that time. The change came about after the Second World War, with the arrival of LPs, and the subsequent glorification of conductors, Herbert von Karajan being a prime example. Exceptions, such as Leonard Bernstein or Esa Pekka-Salonen, nevertheless show that a great conductor can also be a first-rate composer. Gaubert's orchestral pieces show a perfect mastery of the instruments, fine melodic inspiration, a bold use of harmony, sparkling rhythms, and a well thought-out overall structure. It is high time that he - like many other French musicians whose reputations as composers have been eclipsed by their activities as conductors, Inghelbrecht, for example, or Martinon, to name but two - was given the credit he deserves as a composer.

Classical Music

Classical Music