The three sonatas on this recording were written at the behest of violinist Cho-Liang Lin, who worked closely with each composer at their premiere performance. Paul Schoenfeld's Violin Sonata references literary influences and the composer's past as well as his Jewish heritage in the work's final Freilach or 'joyous dance.' Steven Stucky acknowledged Debussy as the source of inspiration in his work, while the alchemy of John Harbison's style creates music that is simultaneously abstract and narrative. Wryly introduced as "crazy modern music," Bernstein's brief Canon for Aaron was composed for Copland's 70th birthday celebrations.

Award-winning and much decorated composer Claude Baker here entwines his evocative soundworld with the powerful imagery of two great poets. Recorded in its premiere performance with Marc-Andre Hamelin as soloist, the Piano Concerto ‘From Noon to Starry Night’ draws on and amplifies the structures and meanings of five poems by Walt Whitman, expressing the heroism and darkness of war, exuberant celebrations of nature and a wistful ‘remembrance of things past.’ Aus Schwanengesang is a memorial piece that expands and ‘re-composes’ the poignant Heine Lieder from Schubert’s song cycle with oblique and multi-layered references.

Famed for his operatic music, Jake Heggie has always been a devoted and prolific songwriter. Three early song cycles for soprano and piano feature in this release, each cycle exploring the many varied facets of the three women depicted, who include Ophelia and Eve. Each was written for a specific singer and they all reflect Heggie’s very personal and exciting lexicon of musical influences, which range from folk and jazz to art song and music theatre.

The world-premiere recording of Richard Danielpour's Toward a Season of Peace offers a dynamic performance that impresses with its immense forces and energetic playing and compels an emotional response with its pacifist sentiments and beautiful lyricism. Danielpour's style is instantly accessible by virtue of its rich tonality and poignant melodies, and the flow of the music gives his oratorio a traditional appeal, with the right balance of dramatic tension and comforting release. The setting of excerpts from the Masoretic text of the Bible, the Persian verses of Rumi (in an English translation), and an Arabic poem by Al Mutanabbi brings languages into a convergence somewhat reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein's mixing of Latin, English, and Hebrew in his Mass (1971), and the ecumenical nature of Toward a Season of Peace also brings that theater piece to mind. Unlike Bernstein, and to Danielpour's credit, he doesn't mingle elements of popular music with his neo-Romantic choruses, and he avoids the trendiness that dates Mass, aiming instead for a more universal and timeless prayer for peace. At many points, the mystical choruses of Vaughan Williams and Holst spring to mind, and feel stronger than any modern influence. Perhaps this oratorio is more inspirational than motivational, and it may join other works earnestly dedicated to world peace that have fallen by the wayside, but the performers aren't to blame if that happens. Soprano Hila Plitmann, the Pacific Chorale, and the Pacific Symphony, conducted by Carl St. Clair, give a lovely and reverent performance that is gorgeous in its harmonies and textures, and ultimately moving because of its simplicity and directness.

-- All Music Guide

Musicians ranging from Leonard Bernstein to the Emerson String Quartet have championed award-winning composer Richard Danielpour. Lacrimae Beati owes its origin to Mozart’s Requiem and was conceived after a perilous flight in 2002. Darkness in the Ancient Valley, a symphony in five movements inspired by recent events in Iran, utilizes a wide range of Persian folk-melodies and Sufi rhythms. A Woman’s Life, a cycle of poems by Maya Angelou, charts a moving trajectory from childhood to old age.

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REVIEW:

The program closes with A Woman’s Life (2007), based on a cycle of poems on that topic by Maya Angelou, who read the cycle, apparently unforgettably, to Danielpour and his wife in 2006. These songs are pitch perfect and memorably touching. I was enthralled from the start—a childhood poem of devastating innocence cloaked with an aura usually reserved for the likes of Barber—and if you love his music and American song repertoire in general you must hear this cycle. The finale is unspeakably beautiful. Ms Brown sings with loving understanding. The Nashville players sound great, as is usual these days.

–American Record Guide

Morton Gould's music is the quintessential definition of the American sound. Along with composers like Aaron Copland, he was remarkably influential in producing homegrown American musical works. Composing in a wide variety of musical idioms, Gould was brought to international recognition by his easy-listening melodies and vivid orchestral works.
This Naxos release celebrates several works that brought Gould to critical acclaim, beginning with 'American Ballads' composed in 1976. Including such notable themes as the "Star Spangled Overture" and "Amber Waves," the six-movement work captures tender themes and melodies close to the soul of any patriot. The 'Stephen Foster Gallery' suite also represents those uniquely American themes in an exquisite arrangement of songs. Gould's most famous work, 'American Salute' (based on the melody "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"), shows Gould's unmatched ability to create a synthesis between concert and popular music. Militaristic percussion and brass are accented by the soft, weaving harmonies of the woodwinds and strings.
Under the direction of conductor Theodore Kuchar, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine offers a sensible, yet light-hearted rendering of the music. Firmly grasping the essence of Gould's American spirit, the orchestra communicates the music's strong nationalism with great skill and plausibility.

Colorful, original, whimsical, and adventuresome, this collection of musical short stories from one of America’s most diverse composers has something to please every ear.



SCHICKELE A Year in the Catskills. Gardens 1. What Did You Do Today at Jeffrey’s House 2. Dream Dances 3. Diversions • Blair Wind Qnt members; 1,2 Melissa Rose (pn); 3 Felix Wang (vc) • NAXOS 8.559687 (52:03)


The Blair Wind Quintet is a faculty ensemble of the Blair School of Music of Vanderbilt University. Though a woodwind player myself, I am not familiar with their work, so this release, the second on which this ensemble appears, is a pleasant introduction to these fine musicians. Their performances here are mostly solo and in smaller groupings, with only the title work, A Year in the Catskills, played by the whole quintet. This last is one of a trio of works for resident ensembles funded by the Blair Commissioning Project. Peter Schickele’s quintet was joined by a piano trio from Susan Botti and a string quartet by György Kurtág; one can but imagine what a wildly incongruent faculty recital that could have made.


Schickele is, of course, best known in his persona of the researcher and exhumer of works by “the youngest and oddest of J. S. Bach’s 20-odd children.” Since 1965, the year of his first public concert, he has created a body of entertaining musical parodies of familiar musical forms for his fictional P. D. Q. Bach. There is another aspect of the composer, though, as many will know. Under his own name, he composes concert works for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, and vocalists, as well as scores for film, theater, and television. This disc presents a nice sampling of pieces for wind instruments, written over a 46-year period. They cross boundaries of genre and style with consummate skill, and are uniformly clever, lightweight, and charming. Even when fleetingly serious, they are never more than melancholy. They are more often humorous. In fact, minus the more obvious burlesquing that goes on in a P. D. Q. Bach pastiche, his serious works sound remarkably akin to his comedic bread and butter. The unexpected instrumental colors are a bit more subdued, the odd cadence more integrated, and the stylistic incongruities less outrageous. What is played for laughs when acting The Professor is quirky and playful in the realm of the serious composer, but the singular identity can never be in question.


Consider the four seasonal portraits of A Year in the Catskills (2009), presented in Baroque canons and a fantasy, and rounded out with a fifth movement called “Fast Driving,” which bebops the listener back to more modern urban surroundings. Or What Did You Do Today at Jeffrey’s House? (1988) for horn and piano, which remembers childhood games (one is relieved to learn, given his compositional credits for O! Calcutta! ) with a piano-stride parade and a boogie-woogie carnival with dancing bears framing a very brief compulsory nap. Finally, there is Dream Dances (1988), a suite for flute, oboe, and cello, which juxtaposes a not very Baroque minuet and sarabande with a jitterbug, a demented French gallop, and a waltz that only needs John Ferrante and some silly lyrics to become one of the Diverse Ayres on Sundrie Notions.


The two remaining earlier works give some idea of where Schickele might have headed if the fictional “minimeister of Wein-am-Rhein” had not been such a huge success. In these we hear a composer still working in academia, creating works that reflect seriously (well, all right, more seriously) on relatively contemporary styles. Gardens (1968) for oboe and piano is an atmospheric triptych with overtones of Messiaen, though this is more obvious in New York Philharmonic oboist Joseph Robinson’s recording on Cala. Diversions (1963) for oboe, clarinet, and bassoon channels neoclassical Stravinsky in portraits of the bath, a game of billiards, and a New York bar. It is all very engaging, and wonderfully presented by musicians and engineers. Naxos has a winner here, and I hope we hear more from the Blair Wind Quintet. Meanwhile, woodwind fanciers are hereby alerted to a must-buy release.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames


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It is a good and joyful thing to see a nice collection of Peter Schickele’s concert music. Not that he is unduly famous for his P.D.Q. Bach character, but as a composer of serious music he shines as one of the most original voices of his generation. Schickele has not invented a new wheel, rather he has managed to take traditional musical gestures and season them with his own invention with the skill of a master chef. This collection of chamber music, deftly rendered by members of the faculty of Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music, is a showcase of the composer’s unique wit and creativity.

Commissioned by the Blair Quintet, A Year in the Catskills was brand new at the time of this recording. It is a picturesque work; full of the kind of interesting twists of melody that make Schickele’s music so fascinating. He is prone to shifting one or two notes in a tune by a semitone here or a semitone there to make what could sound quite ordinary into something that is unique and quirky.

The brief triptych Gardens, for oboe and piano is a study in colors. One of Schickele’s outstanding features is his ability to say so much in a very short time. I wouldn’t call him a miniaturist, but he can get his point across with little fuss. Such are these elegant little pieces that depict a garden at the three parts of the day. Jared Hauser plays with a sweet unforced tone, and is sensitively accompanied by pianist Melissa Rose.

What Did You Do Today at Jeffrey’s House? is a bit of nostalgia based on memories of the composer’s playtime with a childhood friend. These are whimsical pieces, pulling from a number of styles including a rollicking boogie-woogie ending. Scored for horn and piano, Leslie Norton and Melissa Rose find all the charm of these brief episodes. I can’t say that I was completely in love with the pieces themselves, as they came across to these ears as a bit contrived.

The outstanding work in this recital is the lovely set of Dream Dances. Scored for flute, oboe and cello, Schickele combines the old and the new by creating a suite that is reminiscent of a Baroque partita, but just for fun he throws in the semi-modern by replacing the Courrant with a Jitterbug and the Allemande with a Waltz. It is pretty much genius really, and Jane Kirschner, Jared Hauser and Felix Wang deliver an elegant performance full of wit.

Diversions, scored for oboe, clarinet and bassoon are again whimsical, and depict three specific scenes, a hot bath, a billiard game, and a New York bar. Although I felt that the composer captured his scenes well, I can’t say that I was particularly moved by these little snapshots, in spite of their being very well played.

Peter Schickele is reported to be one of the most performed composers in America, and it is easy to see why. The term accessible gets too much airplay, but his music is almost always captivating, mainly due to his double ability to color within the lines while choosing shades that don’t come from just any box of crayons. A good listen.

Colorful, original, whimsical, and adventuresome, this collection of musical short stories from one of America’s most diverse composers has something to please every ear.


-- Kevin Sutton, MusicWeb International

Remembered today for the Olympic Anthem, Spyridon Samaras was the most distinguished Greek composer of his day and the first to gain international recognition. By the time Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle was produced, Samaras was a well-established and much-admired opera composer in the Italian Romantic style. The narrative of the opera sees the mischievous plans of the Duke of Richelieu descending into a complex tangle of amorous deceptions, tests of faithfulness and the perils of dueling. The score for this world premiere recording has been painstakingly restored by Byron Fidetzis.

Fragmentary, kaleidoscopic, hallucinatory … creates a wonderfully atmospheric sense of colliding realities.

REVIEWS:

3411070.az_CORIGLIANO_Violin_Concerto.html

CORIGLIANO Violin Concerto, “The Red Violin 1.” Phantasmagoria: Suite from The Ghosts of Versailles • JoAnn Falletta, cond; Buffalo Phil O; 1 Michael Ludwig (vn) • NAXOS 8559671 (61:02)

John Corigliano composed the score to The Red Violin, which turned out to be a masterpiece in its own right. Then, in 1997, with work on the score already completed while shooting on the film continued, Corigliano composed a new, 17-minute piece he called The Red Violin: Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra based on the chaconne progression he’d written for the film. But Corigliano wasn’t done with his Chaconne. Not wishing it to remain a stand-alone piece like Chausson’s Poème , Ravel’s Tzigane , or Beethoven’s Romances, he decided to write three new movements, using the Chaconne as the first movement of a substantive, nearly 40-minute-long violin concerto. And that is what we have here on this disc.

The violin the soloist here, Michael Ludwig, plays, is an 18th-century Lorenzo Storioni, from which the violinist draws a tone that is both liquid and penetrating. One could argue that Corigliano’s concerto is owned by Joshua Bell, for he has been more closely associated with it and more directly involved with the composer than Ludwig, or, for that matter, anyone else. Still, much as I appreciate Bell’s playing in general, I feel there are moments in this piece where he applies the schmaltz a little too thickly. Ludwig resists that temptation, and I think the concerto emerges the better for it.

From the opening of Corigliano’s Phantasmagoria , a suite extracted from the composer’s largely successful opera The Ghosts of Versailles , you’d never guess that this creepy, slithery music sets the stage for what is essentially a “comedy.” As a work detached from its literary references and stage setting, Phantasmagoria becomes a virtuoso showpiece for orchestra. The piece seems to divide into two approximately equal halves. Much of the first half is busy, bustling, noisy, and nutty; the second half, from 13:03 to the end, is calmer, more lyrical, and takes on the feeling of fate accepted, which it is in the opera as Marie is beheaded a second time and reunited with Beaumarchais in Paradise.

Strongly recommended.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

The Buffalo Philharmonic plays throughout with confident assurance under JoAnn Falletta’s baton. Assuming these are live performances ensemble and accuracy in these highly complex scores is excellent. In the spirit of even-handed fairness I should say I have read reviews of this disc elsewhere which make a point of praising the engineering reckoning it to be of award-winning standard. I cannot share that view but as with so many aspects of music; it is all a matter of taste. The Concerto is a very impressive work and one written with a great deal of care and love by John Corigliano – a wonderful tribute to his father. This Corigliano Concerto is right up there and hopefully its appearance on the Naxos with the benefits of distribution and affordability that brings will ensure many more music-lovers will get to hear this powerful and compelling work.

-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International

Another wonderful disc from Ilya Kaler.

Ilya Kaler’s new recording of the Brahms concerto on Naxos is eminently recommendable. When reviewing his recent recording of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto (see review) I remarked that Kaler’s performance was one “of elegance as well as brilliance” that “wears it war-horse status lightly, impressing itself upon the listener by virtue of its freshness and natural feeling”. Those comments are equally applicable to this recording.

Kaler’s conception of Brahms’ score is one that rejoices in its beauties. Ably supported by the warm sounds exhaled by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Kaler’s violin sings with a golden tone and sweetly inflected phrasing. He takes his time over the first movement, but maintains his rhythmic control and sense of the music’s overall architecture. In this his performance succeeds where, as Jonathan Woolf points out, Julia Fischer’s similarly conceived account fails. Kaler also lingers lovingly over the gorgeous slow movement – taking over 10 minutes. His pacing is more conventional in the Hungarian finale, which smiles more than it swaggers here.

The coupling of Brahms and Schumann is astute. Firstly it makes programmatic sense. Both concertos share the tonality of D – Brahms in the glowing major, Schumann in the dramatic minor. Both were written for Joachim, and the bond between Schumann and Brahms themselves is as well known as it is complicated.

Secondly, the coupling is an attractive addition to the Naxos catalogue. It complements an earlier disc (Naxos 8.550938), on which Kaler joins cellist Maria Kliegel in Brahms’ double concerto, offered as a coupling for Kliegel’s performance of the Schumann cello concerto. Buy these two discs, and you have the complete Schumann and Brahms string concertos at one fell swoop.

The coupling of the Schumann and Brahms concertos is also fairly unusual in the broader catalogue. While recordings of the Brahms proliferate, there are few recordings of the Schumann concerto and when they do appear they tend to be lumped together with more Schumann. Only Joshua Bell, to my knowledge, has coupled these two concertos on disc before. That disc now forms half of a mid-price twofer in the price bracket above this release (Decca – The Joshua Bell Edition – 4756703). Bell's recording is also available at bargain basement price on Australian Eloquence, but sundered from its Brahms coupling.

Schumann wrote his violin concerto very quickly in the autumn of 1853. Joseph Joachim and Clara Schumann had reservations about the piece. In happier times Schumann would probably have revised the piece, but the rapid decline in his mental health prevented this and the score languished unplayed and unknown until the 1930s. It is an attractive piece, constructed along classical lines, and deserves more attention and respect than it is usually accorded. The first movement has a symphonic seriousness and integrity, contrasting the wild, surging argument of its first subject with a gentle, sensitive second subject. The central movement is quietly beautiful. The finale, in the form of a polonaise and with prominent wind writing, brings the concerto dancing to a close.

Kaler's performance is successful and offers collectors a distinct choice. Bell's recording has a straight forward brilliance and Kremer's EMI recording with Muti, like Menuhin's electric premiere recording of the uncut score, emphasises the drama of the work. Kaler takes a different view. Again favouring spacious tempi – his first movement at 14:28 takes a minute longer than Bell's and two minutes longer than Menuhin's – he presents the concerto very much as the classical conception of a poetic soul. Where the other interpreters listed above play for Florestan, Kaler takes Eusebius' part.

The balance favours the violin in both concertos, but there is air enough around the soloist, and the warm Lighthouse Concert Hall acoustic gives the orchestral sound a lovely glow. Listening through earphones can be disconcerting in the Schumann where either Kaler's or the conductor’s breathing is quite prominent. I did not notice this so much when listening through speakers.

Keith Anderson's liner-notes live up to his usual high standard, but gloss over the circumstances of the Schumann concerto's rediscovery by Joachim's great-niece and avoid entirely discussion of the political wrangling over the concerto's premiere performances.

Another wonderful disc from Ilya Kaler and a bargain of the month.

-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

The six Cello Suites represent J.S. Bach’s genius at its most distilled, with the composer confronting the enigma of writing counterpoint for a monophonic instrument at its core. Jeffrey McFadden’s arrangement for guitar enhances the music, adding a harmonic dimension and making the implied interaction of voices explicit. The Suites contain some of the most fascinating and beautiful movements in all of Bach's oeuvre, and remain one of the most important works in the history of Western music. ‘Jeffrey McFadden not only is an extraordinary guitarist – he’s also an inspired musician’ (ClassicsToday.com on Naxos 8.554354, works by Napoléon Coste).

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REVIEW:

McFadden avoids the result coming too close to a version for harpsichord, though the guitar can never equate to the range of tonal colours available from a solo cello, nor, for that matter the dynamic range of the instrument. Though we do hear fingers moving around the fret, let me conclude this short review by admiring the clean-cut playing of this world famous Canadian guitarist. We can now look forward to the second disc.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Schoenberg' polyphonic tone poem Pelleas und Melisande is often compared to Debussy' opera based on the same text by Maurice Maeterlinck. According to the composer, "The first performance, 1905, in Vienna, under my own direction, provoked riots amo.

Includes pavan(s) by William Byrd.
Includes work(s) by various composers.

Tomas Breton's distinguished career as an opera composer and leading figure in Madrid's musical life at the turn of the 20th century has tended to overshadow the significant contribution he made to Spanish chamber music. He remained true to the historic roots of the string quartet genre- his First String Quartet being a tribute to the Viennese tradition in it's Classical poise. The Third String Quartet exudes Mendelssohnian inspiration in it's first movement with overtly Spanish idiom, the Allegro no mucho third movement also having been turned into a version for piano trio as the Scherzo andalou. This is the first of two albums of the complete string quartets.

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

I sure hope the folks in Buffalo know what a prize they have in JoAnn Falletta. Her Naxos discography has few peers in terms of imaginative programming and quality of results. The city couldn’t ask for a more positive or alluring cultural calling card, and the present release offers a case in point. There have been many fine recordings of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, but this one stands with the best: for clarity, elegance, distinguished solo work (superb oboe, William Preucil’s solo violin), you name it. Although scored for a chamber orchestra, it’s amazing how congested and fussy so many performances sound. Not here. Just listen to the opening processional of “The Dinner,” with its bold horns and transparent textures. Great stuff.

However, the real item of interest is the “Symphony-Suite” arranged by D. Wilson Ochoa from Ariadne auf Naxos, the original companion work to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Arranging suites from Strauss’ operas is a trend that can only be encouraged. Strauss did it himself, of course, but mostly without much enthusiasm or imagination. So here’s a case where the intervention of more caring hands is clearly called for.

This suite, forty minutes in all, contains three chunks from the prologue and four from the opera itself. It is gorgeous. Even those who know the opera well may be surprised at how much lovely material slips by without notice in stage performances, such as the “Intermezzo” music on the second to last track here (sound clip). You do get some of the more famous bits (“Es gibt ein Reich,” for example, and the closing scene), but it really is astonishing how much care Strauss lavished on sections that flit by as mere accompaniment–never mind the thematic interest that they contain. Here, thanks to Falletta and the folks in Buffalo, in this luminously played and recorded performance, we can savor them afresh. So what are you waiting for? Go for it.

- ClassicsToday

Remember Soyeon Kate Lee’s 2008 Zankel Hall recital, where she appeared in a concert gown constructed from 6000 recycled grape juice containers? Not surprisingly her outfit got more press than her actual music making, but the fact is that Lee is a splendid pianist who doesn’t need gimmicks. Her first appearance in Naxos’ complete Liszt piano music cycle attests to this.

Lee’s shapely and sonorous handling of the thick pianistic hurdles throughout Liszt’s transcription of the Sarabande and Chaconne from Handel’s Singspiel Almira holds interest in terms of technique and stamina, although the music is deadly dull. By contrast, Liszt’s paraphrase based on Gounod’s Hymne a Sainte Cecile thoroughly improves upon the original composition, where Lee’s contouring of the multi-thematic textural layers proves more pliable and forward moving than in Leslie Howard’s comparatively square (though no less sensitive) rendition.

So far as Liszt’s transcription from Joachim Raff’s forgotten opera König Alfred, Lee does not differentiate the opening Andante finale’s foreground and background material with Leslie Howard’s variety, yet she’s more animated and energetic in the subsequent Marsch. Lee also plays the Gounod transcriptions from Romeo et Juliette and La reine de Saba with a lovely lyrical sensitivity. The better known Valse from Gounod’s Faust paraphrase features scrupulous and crisply dispatched fingerwork, but the interpretation is a bit cut and dried, falling short of Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s glittery panache or the dynamic and rhythmic heft of Earl Wild and Egon Petri. However, she takes the opening section of Liszt’s transcription of Spohr’s Die Rose Romanze at a faster clip and with more vocally oriented phrasing than in Howard’s slower, more static traversal, heightening the music’s rich harmonic invention in the process. Annotations and engineering are first rate. In all, a strong entry in Naxos’ ongoing Liszt series.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Brian’s Sixth Symphony, subtitled “Sinfonia Tragica,” makes an ideal introduction to his music. It’s full of evocative sounds and unusually (for him) arresting thematic ideas, and its single movement takes less than twenty minutes. The last few minutes are a Mahlerian phantasmagoria of march and dance tunes not unlike the wild outburst in the development section of the first movement of the German composer’s Third Symphony, but the final bars are hauntingly elegiac. Very well recorded once before for Lyrita, this newcomer is also quite well done, and has enough differences in tone and texture to justify duplication.

Symphonies Nos. 28 and 29 both date from 1967, and both have four movements that play without pause, more or less. No. 28 is only fourteen minutes long in total. Late Brian is an acquired taste, largely because of the music’s relentlessly contrapuntal textures, heavy orchestration with lots of low brass and percussion, and lack of simple repetition to permit listeners to get their bearings. Indeed, these pieces, and the brief, single-movement No. 31 for that matter, sound as though Brian simply chopped off hunks of music from some larger overall blob of material. And yet, the opening of No. 28 has an innocent simplicity of tone and texture that the composer never lost, and all of this music sounds like no one else. That is why it retains its peculiar fascination. It may not be “easy” or “friendly,” but it is distinctive, and the work of a strong musical personality with a definite message.

As with No. 6, the performances under Alexander Walker sound remarkably assured given the unfamiliarity of the material, and they are very well recorded. The Havergal Brian Society and Mr. Godfrey Berry underwrote this production, and they definitely got their money’s worth.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Musicologist Adrian Thomas considered Grazyna Bacewicz’s string quartets “unrivalled in 20th-century Polish music and… one of the century’s most significant contributions to the genre”. Her folk-music infused First Quartet dates from student days at the Paris Conservatoire, while exceptional polyphonic skill, intense emotion and playful, high spirits characterize the Third Quartet. Both the Sixth and Seventh Quartets unite tradition with a strikingly effective and highly personal exploration of progressive contemporary techniques. As Lutoslawski observed, in the “rapidly changing artistic currents” of the times, “it was [Bacewicz’s] music which helped create that atmosphere.”

MAYR Gioas • Franz Hauk, cond; Andrea Lauren Brown (sop); Robert Sellier (ten); Cornel Frey (ten); Andreas Burkhart (bs); Bavarian St Op Ch; Simon Mayr Ch & Ens • NAXOS 8.572710-11 (2 CDs: 111:22)


Only two issues ago (36:2), I had my first taste of music by Simon Mayr, on a Naxos CD featuring three of the composer’s concertos led, as here, by Franz Hauk, who seems to be somewhat of a Mayr specialist. In that review, I was forced to admit that I was not previously familiar with Mayr, most likely because his main area of endeavor was opera, a field in which I claim no particular expertise. The review concluded by wondering if, as mainly a composer of opera, Mayr was best represented by a disc of his concertos, and with a promise to get back to the reader with an answer once I gained more familiarity with his work.


The wait wasn’t a long one. Here we have Mayr’s Gioas (Joash, King of Judea), designated a “parody oratorio,” so-called because it draws upon Mayr’s opera, I misteri eleusini for its material. I gather that the work bears certain similarities to the composer’s David in the Cave of Engedi , reviewed by Patrick Rucker in 32:4, and Samuele , both previously recorded for Naxos by Hauk. A parody oratorio, as I understand it, involves the practice of adapting popular operatic works to religious texts so they could be performed during Holy Week while his Holiness looked the other way.


Gioas dates from 1823 and is set to a libretto by an unknown author (or one who preferred to remain anonymous) that tells a story of internecine blood-letting over rights to the throne, treachery, and retribution, all of which through self-sacrifice and appeasement of various gods, goddesses, and priests—that’s the religious aspect—culminates in a happy ending. The work is appropriately referred to in the program note as “pseudo-sacred,” or, to call it what it is, a barely disguised excuse to present an unstaged opera in the guise of an oratorio. Mayr was not alone in fashioning such Church-sanctioned entertainments. The tradition persisted, mainly in Italy, through much of the 19th century, with Emilio Cianchi’s Giudetta , composed in 1854, being performed as late as 1912. Knowing this, it’s a bit difficult to follow the intrigues of the plot and to listen to the impassioned arias, the pattering recitatives, and the solemn and celebratory choruses without a smile and a smirk. No matter how much holy water you sprinkle on it, the opera that’s inside this oratorio won’t be exorcised. Considering that Gioas was written in the same year as Rossini’s Semiramide , Mayr’s work sounds rather dated for its time. But having been born in 1763, Mayr was almost 30 years Rossini’s senior. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that Mayr’s style should more closely resemble Mozart’s than it does Rossini’s.


The music is delightful, often touching, and artfully crafted for the voice. It’s no wonder that Mayr was so celebrated for his operas. The four soloists are all very convincing in their roles and well matched vocally. Add to that enlivened playing from Hauk’s instrumental forces, and you have a winning performance. Unfortunately, Naxos has not provided a text or translation, but the album note gives a pretty good synopsis of the mishmash that calls itself a plot. If you can pretend while listening to Mayr’s Gioas that it’s not just an opera masquerading as a sacred oratorio, you will find much in the work and in this recording of it to enjoy.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

This second volume of Septura’s brass chamber music series takes us back to the 17th century and the music of Baroque opera, in four contrasting works by Rameau, Blow, Purcell and Handel. The astounding variety in content, colour and character of the originals demands especially inventive arrangements, and these pieces are vividly brought to life by incorporating stylistic elements from ‘period performance’. The exhilarating result is a stunningly virtuosic set of new Baroque works for brass.

Rossini drew a line under his hugely successful operatic career at the age of 37 and wrote little until his final years in Paris, where he became renowned for his musical salons. For these he wrote numerous short piano pieces which he jokingly called Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age): sometimes experimental miniatures that can raise a smile or touch the heart, blurring boundaries between the irreverent and the serious. Rossini’s publisher Antonio Pacini considered the composer’s late works as his most illustrious period: ‘what he composes daily is a series of masterpieces that seems as though it will never end.’ Including songs and fascinating novelties, this acclaimed complete edition contains a myriad of rarities and numerous world premiere recordings.

Includes work(s) by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Hedos Ensemble. Conductor: Bernhard Böhm.

Leopold Stokowski's transcriptions have been getting a lot of attention on disc lately. Most particularly, DG reluctantly released an excellent disc of Mussorgsky pieces featuring Oliver Knussen and the Cleveland Orchestra, magnificently played and very different in conception from Stokowski's own. That disc vindicated his work by showing convincingly that these arrangements can have a successful existence independently of the great old wizard himself. José Serebrier's interpretations, while not quite so radical in their emphasis on laser-like clarity of texture, achieve much the same sort of validation while preserving more of the physical excitement and cinematic flamboyance of the original recordings.


This isn't just a question of the exceptionally splashy and colorful use of heavy percussion at the end of A Night on Bare Mountain or Pictures at an Exhibition, impressive (and necessary) though that is. Serebrier, who worked as Stoki's assistant conductor at the American Symphony Orchestra for about five years, brings a keen ear for those luscious string sonorities that also give these editions much of their magic at lower dynamic levels. I'm thinking, for example, of the shimmering closing pages of the Boris Godunov Symphonic Synthesis, among other places. Serebrier also captures the tragic intensity of the Khovanshchina Entr'acte as well as Stokowski ever did: he's slower, darker, and heavier than Knussen, more raw and "Russian" sounding, as he also is in the terrifying Catacombs section of Pictures at an Exhibition.


There's further icing on the cake that you won't find on the Knussen disc: the two lovely Tchaikovsky transcriptions (the Humoresque will be familiar to knowledgeable listeners from its use in Stravinsky's The Fairy's Kiss), and Stokowski's own Traditional Slavic Christmas Music, a setting where once again Serebrier shows himself able to conjure a truly authentic "Stokowski sound". Mind you, these aren't mere imitations. Serebrier's flexible approach to tempo and willingness to inject a jolt of extra electricity make something quite special out of the climaxes in A Night on Bare Mountain, and it's very clear that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is having as much fun playing this music as you will have listening to it. The engineering stands among the best from this source as well. Spectacular, sensational, skirting the boundaries of "good taste"--this is the real deal. [6/17/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

D’ALBERT Aschenputtel Suite. Overtures: Esther; Der Rubin; Die Abreise. Preludes: Die toten Augen; Gernot. Das Seejungfräulein 1 • Jun Märkl, cond; 1 Viktorija Kaminskaite (sop); MDR Leipzig RSO • NAXOS 8.573110 (75:11)

The extravagantly gifted pianist and composer Eugen d’Albert had one of those improbably full, cosmopolitan lives spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. Born to a family of French and Italian origin in 1864, the same year as Richard Strauss, he grew up in Scotland. Taking on German nationality as a young adult, d’Albert studied with Liszt, who called him “Albertus Magnus,” and had a significant association with Brahms. A leading pianist of his time, he later turned to composition and was a prominent figure in Berlin’s extraordinary musical flowering in the 1920s.

D’Albert’s style isn’t easily pinned down, since he adopted differing stylistic approaches in different works. All of his music that I have heard is very well crafted, and some of it is inspired. It tends to be lively, affirmative, and light, at times, more like Humperdinck (traditional) than Busoni (progressive), to mention two of his contemporaries. Harmonically, it’s usually less adventurous than that of Liszt or Strauss. One of d’Albert’s teaches was Arthur Sullivan, for whom he composed the Overture to Patience . The writing for female chorus in Tiefland reveals this unusual influence.

D’Albert composed 19 operas in all manner of genres, changing his style from work to work, as Mascagni also did, in the quest for popular success. He found it with Tiefland , which is sometimes called a German verismo work, and is still occasionally performed. (Recordings of the Jewish-themed Der Golem , and the brief domestic comedy Die Abreise , have been issued in recent years.) Musically, Tiefland is compelling, and in it, one hears that d’Albert’s text setting and writing for the voice are as confident as his orchestration. It’s a very satisfying work to listen to, and I can recommend the Janowski recording with Marton, Kollo, Weikl, and Moll.

There’s a lot of music in this collection, all of it unfamiliar, and some of it very impressive. D’Albert’s colorful, sumptuously orchestrated preludes and overtures aren’t brief, and not all of them make a strong individual impression, but two stand out. The overture to Grillparzer’s play Esther from 1888 resembles a fully developed symphonic movement, majestic, with contrastingly playful sections, and perhaps modeled on Brahms. The prelude and introduction to Die toten Augen (1916), a biblical tale, sounds completely different, an atmospheric combination of a Korngold movie score mixed together with La mer.

Das Seejungfräulein (The Mermaid), an extended scene for soprano and orchestra, after Hans Christian Andersen, was composed in 1897 for one of d’Albert’s six wives, the soprano Hermine Finck. (Another was the pianist Teresa Carreño.) This intensely chromatic, surging music certainly shows the influence of Wagner, but manages not to sound derivative. Though it maintains more traditional harmony, it reminds me a little of the soprano “songs” in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, and it’s the most impressive composition on the CD. In the strenuous vocal part that requires the power and range of an Isolde or Brünnhilde, the Lithuanian soprano Viktorija Kaminskaite has a warm, attractive voice, and a committed delivery, but she strains and loses tonal support on some sustained high notes.

Finally, the disc’s featured work, the 1924 Aschenputtel (Cinderella) Suite , after the Brothers Grimm, is a deftly scored set of five brief, programmatic dances. Keith Anderson’s notes don’t identify the suite as a ballet, but it would certainly lend itself to choreography. This tuneful, entrancing score is a masterpiece of its kind, and like Ravel in Ma mère l’oye —there’s a French feel to Aschenputtel —d’Albert had the gift of creating captivating, childlike music.

Jun Märkl leads lively, flexible performances, and the Leipzig Radio Symphony plays well, particularly in the Aschenputtel Suite , with its many solos. I highly recommend this disc for the chance to make the acquaintance of Die Seejungfräulein , although I hope that there will be future recordings of it with more technically assured singing, and especially Aschenputtel , a delightful find.

FANFARE: Paul Orgel

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Eugen D’Albert was a tremendously gifted musician, and even had he not been we would owe him respect for being married six times and inspiring his second wife, the also multiply married Venezuelan pianist Teresa Careño, to utter that immortal line, “Darling, your children and my children are quarreling with our children again!” Aside from multiple marriages, D’Albert composed multiple operas, nineteen at least, and the overtures and preludes contained on this disc are very enjoyable. They range from the moody prelude to Die toten Augen, to the the luscious The Ruby (his first opera), to the jolly comedy The Departure.

The Overture to Grillparzer’s Esther is actually a robust, early concert work, while the delightful Cinderella Suite has plenty of the requisite fairytale atmosphere. The Little Mermaid is a brilliant, post-Wagnerian scena for soprano and orchestra, and it’s quite beautifully sung by soprano Viktorija Kaminskaite. Her voice rides the orchestra effortlessly, while her tone remains consistently smooth and lovely throughout its range. Jun Märkl leads the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony with plenty of verve and a conviction often missing from his prior recordings of Debussy.

D’Albert’s style lacks the ultimate in individuality, but it’s unflaggingly attractive, and he clearly evolved from his Wagner/Liszt origins to something more contemporary, if not more personal. Anyway, the only way to find out is to listen, so let’s get to it.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com