The works on this disc were arranged by Hiro Fujikake.

VIVALDI: 6 CONCERTOS GALWAY,

The partnership between James Galway and Monica Huggett, playing at modern pitch, may raise the odd eyebrow, but it is one that contributes strongly to the excellence of this recording: her tone lacks something of its usual warmth but the lovely phrasing is much in evidence, and their musical minds meet on the best of terms. Galway has adapted well to baroque style, with which his colleagues are well acquainted, and his wife, making her debut on record, is neither overawed nor outshone in BWV 1039. In BWV 1013 Galway plays the second-half repeat only in the Sarabande, which he takes very slowly indeed, though there is ample playing time for those in the other movements. Philip Moll rises to proper prominence in BWV 1032 but for most of the rest it requires acute hearing to detect his presence, though happily not that of Sarah Cunningham. However, the disc is very recommendable to anyone who doesn't insist on period instruments.

-- Gramophone [8/1997]

BRAHMS: PIANO CONCERTO NO 1 A

Over the years Ifor James (1931-2004) has played with numerous orchestras and many famous composers have written and dedicated works to him. He was also one of the world’s most successful teachers, having put over 100 people into the profession. On his latest release he plays horn sonatas together with Jennifer Partridge. Especially Beethoven’s horn sonata stands out of the programme, since it’s the only sonata that Beethoven wrote for a wind instrument. Ifor James was known for his incredible agility and secure high range, but also a broad spectrum of tone color. Philip Jones once said of him: “What fascinated me about Ifor was his ability to play all over the instrument with enormous panache and great momentum.” Ifor left a legacy of recordings, many successful students, and a gift for humor and friendship.

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

Vivaldi (Dallapiccola): Cellosonaten

This excellently engineered recital showcases an immensely talented pianist with something to say, and I look forward to hearing more.

The title, the photos, and the booklet notes aim to position 34-year-old James Rhodes as classical music's answer to Sid Vicious or Iggy Pop, an impression fueled by this pianist's past struggles with drug abuse and self-mutilation, together with his determinedly "unclassical" platform manner. But listen without looking and you'll discover a sensitive and imaginative artist with a lyrical gift and a bell-like keyboard touch. The Bach G major French Suite's quicker movements evoke a fuller-bodied manifestation of Glenn Gould's hair-trigger articulation, while the opening Allemande boasts inventive ornamentation in the repeats, and the slow-moving Sarabande oozes concentration and sustaining power. The Bach/Busoni Chaconne stands out for Rhodes' steady deliberation and an insidious cumulative arc.

Conversely Rhodes' flexible pulse throughout the Beethoven E minor sonata underscores the first movement's points of tension and the second movement's almost Schubertian melodic trajectory. Also note Rhodes' uncommonly clear articulation of the first movement's difficult, rapid rotary figurations.

The Moszkowski and Bach/Siloti encores exude old-school charm and mastery. My only quibble concerns Chopin's Fourth Ballade, where Rhodes' broad tempos and slightly discursive rubatos cause the music to ramble, in contrast to similarly subjective yet more cogently structured interpretations by Ivan Moravec and Claudio Arrau. All in all, this excellently engineered recital showcases an immensely talented pianist with something to say, and I look forward to hearing more.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Classical Music

This album was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental
Soloist(s) Performance with Orchestra.

Classical Music

The role of Fides calls for a Brünnhilde range with an Amneris-type voice, requiring extraordinary vocal flexibility and dramatic punch -- Marilyn Horne has them all, and she brings out the pathos of the part without sentimentalizing it.

...Whenever Marilyn Horne's Fides holds the stage, it matches the energy of the piece itself. The role calls for a Brünnhilde range with an Amneris-type voice: the vocal flexibility and dramatic punch needed are extraordinary. Miss Horne, as she has shown in her Decca discs of the character's most famous passages (SXL6149, 5/65 and SET309-10, 5/66), has them all, and she brings out the pathos of the part without sentimentalizing it. She opts for all the more difficult alternatives and executes them with a supreme confidence. In brief, I found hers a thrilling performance.

-- Gramophone [5/1977]

--------------------------------

...Of great voices the present recording can offer at least one. Marilyn Horne, even at this date (1976), was no longer singing with the firmness of earlier years, as is clear if this performance of "Ah, mon fils" and the Prison scene is compared with that included in her magnificent first LP recitals. Even so, much of the richness remains and the majestic virtuosity is unimpaired... The Royal Philharmonic under Henry Lewis play well, colourful orchestration being among the score's most attractive features...

-- Gramophone [10/1989]

In this historic release, the great lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello! shares with musical theater fans 53 of his "hidden treasures" - rarely heard songs from 17 musicals, with many songs performed by Harnick himself and his late composer-partner Jerry Bock.

Three cuts feature Harnick as recorded just last year for this special collection, and other archival recordings star three-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald, Brian d'Arcy James, Hugh Martin, Charlotte Rae, and more. This 2-CD set is a grand celebration of Harnick's 90th birthday on April 30th and the 50th anniversary of Fiddler on the Roof. That musical's iconic "Sunrise, Sunset" is being released for the first time in its original demo recording by Bock and Harnick.

The deluxe package includes a 60-page booklet with extensive notes by Harnick and a foreword by famed Broadway producer Harold Prince, who comments: “This magnificent set is testimony to Sheldon’s extraordinary gifts, and to his place in the pantheon of Broadway musical creators.”

REVIEW:

The current offering by James Sedares and the New Zealand Symphony is the best [Thomson recording] yet, with a big, clear sound and some virtuoso work from several sections, for example, the brass. As a bonus, the New Zealanders include Pilgrims and Pioneers, here recorded for the first time. (Thomson wrote this in 1964 for John Houseman's Journey to America, a one-reel film that was shown four times an hour in the U.S. Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.) Finally, this recording's fine liner notes by Marina and Victor Ledin include Thomson's own program notes from the first performances of these works.

-- American Music (Michael Meackna) Fall 2000

Sedares's generally fine performance with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra shows why the Symphony on a Hymn Tune has enjoyed the most popularity of Thomson's works...the Allegretto's rhythms are pointed incisively and with great flair, and Sedares builds the finale quite successfully with ardor and warmth, the bizarre repeated hammer chords of the coda aptly unsettling.

It's a grand idea to offer all three of Virgil Thomson's symphonies on one disc - at budget price no less-so obvious one wonders why no one has done it before...the playing of the New Zealand symphony is most impressive throughout, and the recorded sound is first-class. This disc neatly plugs a gap in the Thomson discography. Highly recommended.

-- Fanfare (Lawrence A. Johnson)

Don't let the brevity of this review lead to the incorrect conclusion that there isn't plenty to enjoy, for James Judd and his New Zealand orchestra offer a pair of terrific Copland performances. Billy the Kid gets a shapely, dramatic interpretation: the initial and closing evocations of the West's wide open spaces offer grandeur without bombast, while the ensuing episodes follow seamlessly, including a very exciting gunfight. In the symphony, Judd is very much his own man. He catches the simple dignity of the first movement very well, then turns in the most dynamic scherzo since the composer's own Everest recording. The Andantino, taken at a daringly slow (but never slack) pace, sets up the blazing finale with particular effectiveness. Here, Judd and his players pull out all the stops, with nicely differentiated brass timbres in the opening fanfare and some really tight, rhythmic playing in the buildup to the central development's crunching climax. The closing pages once again provide the right feeling of triumph without the excess pomposity that has bothered so many critics and performers (even Bernstein) over the years. Naxos gets good, natural sound, though some of the percussion (snare drum rim shots, woodblock, and bass drum) seems a bit too backwardly placed--not a major point. This is a very fine release indeed. [2/14/2002] --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Peter Breiner. Ensemble: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: James Judd. Soloist: Takako Nishizaki.

Four cantatas written for services during April 1725 make up the programme on this disc. Just before Easter that same year, Bach had put an end to his projected chorale cantata cycle, originally planned to span the entire church year. These particular cantatas did hot have a direct association with the gospel passage for the days in question; instead they used specific hymns as their starting point. All four cantatas on the present disc deal with the interplay between the resurrected Christ and his disciples. Among the soloists, Yukari Nonshita and Robin Blaze are well-known to the followers of this series, while James Gilchrist and Domink Wörner both appear in it for the second time. For this particular disc, Bach Collegium Japan are visited by Dan Laurin, who performs the virtuosic flauto piccolo part in BWV 103, and Dmitry Badiarov, who plays his own, unique reconstruction of a violoncello piccolo in BWV6.

A charming disc full of charming music, these light Elgar works seem to come and go in the catalog, undeservedly so. Like most great composers Elgar lavished as much care on his miniatures as he did on his large-scale productions, and some listeners may well prefer to enjoy his lyrical gifts and vivid orchestration in this easily digestible form. The performances are uniformly excellent, offering both lightness ("Fairy Pipers", "Little Bells", "The Merry Doll") and rambunctious high spirits ("The Wild Bears", "The Wagon (Passes)") where appropriate. James Judd's tempos tend to be a little slower than, say, Charles Mackerras' on his otherwise excellent Argo disc containing much of the same repertoire, but the music never drags and it's all easeful good fun. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra plays with obvious care and affection, and the recorded sound lives up to the current high standards coming from this source. The Judd/New Zealand partnership has given Naxos some of its best discs, and this one is no exception. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Fantasias / Norfolk Rhapsody / In the Fen

Also available on standard DVD

Countess Almaviva: Dorothea Röschmann
Marcellina: Graciela Araya
Barbarina: Ana James
Cherubino: Rinat Shaham

The Royal Opera Chorus
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Conductor: Antonio Pappano
Stage Director: David McVicar

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 10th, 13th and 17th February 2006.

Plus
The Magic of Mozart: Interviews with Antonio Pappano, David McVicar and principal cast.
Cast gallery and illustrated synopsis.

Reviews ‘This sexy, raunchy, romp of an opera is a triumph. Director David McVicar has searched for the essence of the composer and found it; fun filled, sensitive, romantic and serious by turns, all reflected in this production.This is a 'Must See' opera! ...You'll regret it if you don't!’ Musical Opinion

Awards & Accolades:
'BEST OF THE YEAR' 2008 - Opera News (January 2009)
BEST DVD OF THE YEAR The Metropolitan Opera (January 2009)DVD OF THE YEAR 2008 Classic FM Gramophone Awards (September 2008)

REGIONS: All Regions
PICTURE FORMAT: 1080i
LENGTH: 202 Mins
SOUND: 2.0 & 5.0 PCM
SUBTITLES: ENGLISH/FRENCH/GERMAN/SPANISH/ITALIAN
NO OF DISCS: 2



MOZART Le nozze di Figaro & • Antonio Pappano, cond; Erwin Schrott ( Figaro ); Miah Persson ( Susanna ); Gerald Finley ( Count Almaviva ); Dorothea Röschmann ( Countess Almaviva ); Rinat Shaham ( Cherubino ); Jonathan Veira ( Dr. Bartolo ); Graciela Araya ( Marcellina ); Philip Langridge ( Don Basilio ); Jeremy White ( Antonio ); Francis Egerton ( Don Curzio ); Ana James ( Barbarina ); Royal Op House Covent Garden O & Ch • OPUS ARTE 7033 (2 Blu-ray Discs: 202:00) Live: London 2/10,13,17/2006


& “The Magic of Mozart”: interviews with performers and director. Cast gallery and synopsis


Reviewing the DVD version of this performance, Lynn René Bayley called it “fabulous,” and claimed that “if not definitive, [it is] at least a touchstone against which all future performances can be judged” (32:1). In his companion review in the same issue, Barry Brenesal was slightly less giddy, pointing to a number of flaws but nonetheless concluding with high praise: while “not everything works,” he said, “more than enough does to invest this Le nozze with a distinctive energy and a level of interaction beyond most DVD versions.” I’m more in Brenesal’s camp here—this is an exceptional release, but it doesn’t quite erase the very considerable competition.


Virtues first. While this cast may not quite knock out Böhm’s all-star assemblage (Freni, Te Kanawa, Ewing, Prey, and Fischer-Dieskau), it’s as solid, from top to bottom, as any group of singers you’re realistically likely to assemble today. Miah Persson, whose radiant Zerlina was a highpoint in Mackerras’s Don Giovanni (33:2), is even more impressive here, where her voice is equally lustrous and dexterous, and where there’s even more opportunity to demonstrate psychological nuance. As but one example, try her act III duet with the Count, where she just manages to hide (from him, although not from us) her palpable disgust (especially when he kisses her) under a veneer of flirtation. Until now, my favorite modern Susanna has been Alison Hagley, but Persson is just as winning.


Finley is a magnificent foil. From the beginning, he seems a more intellectual Count than most, a man of learning driven less by animal lust than by a kind of intellectual challenge and love of life. At first, I wondered: was I listening to this Figaro through the experience of Finley as Figaro (on the Haitink DVD) and as Robert Oppenheimer in Adams’s Doctor Atomic (33:2)? Perhaps I was. But the opening of act III—where the Count, in glasses, studies a mechanical contraption that screams out Enlightenment and Scientific Progress—shows that stage director David McVicar, too, was thinking of Almaviva in similar terms. He’s a surprisingly sympathetic character, one who seems truly transformed (although for how long?) in the final minutes.


Brenesal found Röschmann a bit too uncontrolled as the Countess, but I rather like the variety of moods she expresses: less youthful, perhaps, than Annette Dash on Jacobs’ DVD, she nonetheless does remind us (as the regal Te Kanawa, for all her virtues, does not) that Rosina is not yet the Marschallin, but is rather an inexperienced post-teen still learning how to become a great lady. Schrott’s Figaro is immensely attractive, and Shaham is a bundle of nerves as Cherubino; the minor singers are first-rate, too. Brenesal complained that the old guard folks were treated as caricatures—I, in contrast, found them less slapsticky and more vocally attractive than is usually the case. Figaro depends, of course, more on ensembles than on arias—and the voices fit together exceptionally well, whether in the blend of Susanna and the Countess toward the end of act III or in the balance of the largest scenes.


The staging is generally first-rate. Yes, having two doors into Susanna and Figaro’s bedroom makes hash of the plot complications in act I; and—like so many other directors—McVicar has to abandon his impressively detailed realism (down to cracks in the plaster) in act IV, where, even so, it’s just as hard as usual to figure out why neither Figaro nor the Count can see what’s going on. (Generally speaking, the more abstract the production, the less silly the final act seems.) The performers are all skilled actors—and McVicar has drawn the best from them.


So what keeps this Figaro from first place? Well, perhaps I’ve been swayed by the period-performance crowd, but Pappano’s conducting—“witty,” “spry,” and “sensitive to his singers” as Brenesal rightly claims it is—still seems just a bit too deliberate to me. It’s not really a matter of tempo by the clock (although Gardiner’s DVD is generally quicker); but the string-dominated sonority, the lack of acid in the winds, the slightly burnished articulation, and the sweetness of the phrasing all serve to suck up energy, particularly in the last act—where the inclusion of both Marcellina’s and Bartolo’s arias only adds to the sense that this Figaro is simply taking too long to wind up.


So my first choices remain: Jacobs’ SACD for an audio Figaro , Gardiner’s DVD (with Terfel, Hagley, and Gilfrey in excellent form) for a video version, and Böhm’s DVD as a supplement. Still, those who opt for this version will have little to complain about—especially on Blu-ray, where technical matters are, quite simply, spectacular.


FANFARE: Peter J. Rabinowitz

SCH¸TZ: PSALMS OF DAVID MARLO

J.S. Bach: St. John Passion

A selection of 40 scenes and speeches performed in live Royal Shakespeare Company productions from 1959 to thre present day. Performers include Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds, Ian Holm, Derek Jacobi, Alan Rickman, Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, Anton Lesser, Paul Robeson, Laurence Olivier, Sinead Cusack, and more. (Opus Arte)