To witness a performance of Delius’s A Mass of Life, arguably his supreme creative achievement, is to look into the heart of the composer and his Nietzsche-inspired world. Moreover, this ravishing music, written between 1898 and 1905, represents Delius at the height of his powers, when musical ideas seemed to pour out of him at a time when he had finally learned to assimilate, in an entirely individual, not to say maverick manner, a confluence of modernist styles embracing Grieg, Wagner, Strauss, Charpentier and Debussy.

There is no doubt from the vivid opening choruses of Parts 1 and 2 of this recording (and what openings!) that the message of the work is a life-affirming one. There is a dynamic momentum to the tempi which perfectly evokes Zarathustra’s ruling passion, the Will of Man, and there is a richness to the orchestral sound which adds to the sense of muscularity. The chorus negotiate Delius’s often awkward vocal intervals with great skill and the intonation is virtually flawless. Just occasionally the sheer weight of the orchestral sound, which is quite forward on this recording (more so than Hickox), is apt to overwhelm the voices but this is a minor distraction.

Hill brings energy and élan to the third section, ‘In deine Auge’ (for me perhaps the most exhilarating section of Part 1), where the parallel with the end of Act 2 of Die Meistersinger is almost palpable and where the most unusual example of a Delius fugue (!) is given life, vigour and meaning.

Alan Opie, who has the lion’s share of the solo music in the work, is almost Wotan-like in his performances. From his first Nietzschean dance he is majestic and brings out of the score that vibrant, heady, Teutonic contemporaneity with which Delius had clearly become enthralled at this point in his career. Opie’s singing of what is effectively the role of Zarathustra has immense authority and his impressive range (up to high G) is ideal for Delius’s onerous vocal demands.

Andrew Kennedy, Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Janice Watson also offer fine lyrical interpretations of their solo parts and the choral accompaniments are allowed to intermingle subtly as an extension of the orchestra. The BSO are on fine form too, and special mention needs to be made of the haunting horn-playing in the introduction to Part 2 (‘On the Mountains’), a sound which sums up so much of Delius’s nature music.

This is a must for any Delius Liebhaber and, with the added bonus of the late Prelude and Idyll, a marvellous starting point for anyone new to Delius’s unique but compelling art.

-- Jeremy Dibble, Gramophone


DELIUS A Mass of Life. Prelude and Idyll1 • David Hill, Cond; 1Janice Watson (sop); Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mez); Andrew Kennedy (ten); 1Alan Opie (bar); Bach Ch; 1Bournemouth SO • NAXOS 8.572861-62 (2 CDs: 118:19 Text and Translation)

A Mass of Life is quintessential Delius, musically and existentially, composed over 1904–05 in the first great rush of his maturity. From the bounding affirmative choruses to the breathtakingly sustained nature contemplations, from the melancholy to the ecstatic, the Mass of Life traces and forecasts the gamut of Delian affect with a concision, fullness, and abundance he might rival but never achieve so comprehensively again. Unless I’ve missed something, this is but the fourth recording of the work since Beecham’s nonpareil 1952 account. Though its musical demands are daunting—if nowhere near as challenging as those of Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand,” with which it invites comparison—the primary bar to frequent performance is its text, drawn by Delius’s friend Ernst Cassirier largely from the Dance Songs of Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra. For those coming in late, one recalls the oft-quoted passage in Eric Fenby’s Delius as I Knew Him: “When, one wet day … he was looking for something to read in the library of a Norwegian friend … and had taken down a book, Thus Spake Zarathustra—a book for all and none—by one Friedrich Nietzsche, he was ripe for it. The book, he told me, never left his hands until he had devoured it from cover to cover. It was the very book he had been seeking all along, and finding that book he declared to be one of the most important events of his life. Nor did he rest content until he had read every work of Nietzsche that he could lay his hands on”—to which Fenby, a devout Catholic, adds—“and the poison entered his soul.” For listeners and performers today it may still be something of a jolt to find, in place of the supplicating Kyrie that the unfortunate term “Mass” leads one to expect, a glowingly charged hymn to the Will, “dispeller of need, my own necessity,” followed by Zarathustra’s brief praise of laughter (“My own laughter I pronounced holy”), succeeded by Zarathustra’s love duet with Life in a meadow filled with dancing girls, an archetypal encounter transpiring in a mythical dimension “beyond good and evil,” beyond place and time, crowned by the first, murmured, utterance of the Bell Song, the work’s central mystery. A Mass of Life may, of course, be enjoyed for its power and sensuous magic without reference to its text, but only to those nurtured on Nietzsche will it reveal its full import. Shrugging incomprehension of the text renders Benjamin Luxon’s Zarathustra, for Charles Groves (with the London Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra), merely mellifluous, while Peter Coleman-Wright’s deadpan delivery for the late Richard Hickox—with the Waynflete Singers directed by today’s conductor, David Hill, and the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra—proves anesthetically workmanlike. When it appeared in 1997, I rated that reading, on Chandos, the best since Beecham’s (Fanfare 20:6). That honor goes now to the present offering. While Alan Opie does not efface memories of Bruce Boyce, for Beecham—whose delivery resonated from the nexus of Delius’s realization of Nietzsche—he teases the text gingerly, making a credible Zarathustra. In some numbers, Delius asks the soloists to share parts, with some of Zarathustra’s lines persuasively taken by Andrew Kennedy, and a portion of Life’s happily rendered by Janice Watson, though Catherine Wyn-Rogers’s beguiling, seductive Life recalls Monica Sinclair’s divinatory geste for Beecham. The choral work is beyond praise, though in Hill’s brisk approach the melting lyricism heard chez Beecham tautens and leaps.

Idyll is a late reworking of music from Margot la Rouge, composed in 1902 for the new opera competition offered by the music publisher Sanzogno. Though it failed to score and was not heard in Delius’s lifetime, it comes from the composer’s ripest years and contains gorgeous swaths of his richest utterance, which he salvaged in 1932, recomposing it to words by Whitman and making an extended love duet of it. Idyll has not lacked for vocally lustrous, persuasive performances submerging Whitman’s quaintness (“Behold me when I pass, hear my voice, approach, draw close, but speak not. Be not afraid of me”) in absolute conviction. Of major interest, the lovingly lingering 1981 account led by Eric Fenby—who took down the score from dictation by the blind, paralyzed Delius—features Felicity Lott and Thomas Allen (deleted Unicorn-Kanchana UKCD 2073). Meredith Davies’s still-available 1968 tilt at Idyll, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, is made memorable by the divinatory partnership of Heather Harper and John Shirley-Quirk. In keeping with his go at the Mass of Life, Hill pushes the work a bit, spurring the impassioned moments to escalate from the pervasive tone of wistful elegy. Opie, as the anonymous man, is authoritatively resonant, in response to Janice Watson’s brightly edged soprano (touched by a bit of vibrato), with its gloriously amber lower register, buxomly filling the part of the nameless woman.

One caveat: In the headnote the title of the work is given per the album, but you will search the catalog of Delius’s works in vain for an orchestral Prelude. The work so designated is simply the first three minutes—an orchestral prelude, to be sure—of Idyll and has never, until now, been listed separately. The fake title generates a phantom work to bedevil buyers, scholars, and connoisseurs, and detracts from—rather than adding to—the program’s generosity.

Sound packs an immediate wallop making for occasional congestion. In the opening chorus, for instance, the leaping underlining of trombones and tubas becomes indistinct, overwhelmed by choral mass, and while one can pick out the glockenspiel, its function of festive accentuation is lost. In quieter passages, and in the capture of the vocalists, on the other hand, this upfront take is gratifyingly welcome. In German, Zarathustra’s pronouncements recall and parody the Lutheran Bible, in light of which the ostensibly stilted thee-ing and thou-ing of William Wallace’s singing translation—made for Beecham and used by him for all of his public performances (according to notes by Delius aficionado Lyndon Jenkins)—fall into place, if not quite into King James English. Whitman’s text is included.

In sum, a superb production and the grandest addition to the Delius discography in many years. Highest recommendation.

FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

Ian Watson and Susanna Ogata's acclaimed series on Coro Connections continues with the third album in their exploration of Beethoven's Sonatas for fortepiano and violin. Written at a time when the composer was struggling to accept his growing deafness, the three sonatas on this volume were published together in 1803 as his Opus 30 and provide a remarkable trilogy - a collection of incredible variety and sophistication. The wide compositional range of this set demonstrates Beethoven's prowess in creating bucolic, even humorous moments, contrasted with deep intensity, pathos and the truly sublime. Susanna Ogata has been praised for her ''totally convincing, spontaneous and free-flowing playing'' (The Berkshire Review) and is a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society where she was appointed Assistant Concertmaster of the orchestra in 2014. Ian Watson has been described by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as ''a conductor of formidable ability'', and by The Times in London as a keyboard performer with ''virtuosic panache and brilliantly articulated playing'' and ''a world-class soloist.'' He was appointed Associate Conductor of Boston's Handel and Haydn Society in 2016.

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Also available on standard DVD

Following his delightful full-length ballet Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Christopher Wheeldon continues his highly successful collaboration with designer Bob Crowley and composer Joby Talbot to create his first ballet based on a Shakespeare play, the late romance The Winter’s Tale. The story follows the destruction of marriage through consuming jealousy, the abandonment of a child, and a seemingly hopeless love. Yet through remorse and regret–and after a statue comes miraculously to life–the ending is one of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is powerful material for ballet, with a story that allows for the portrayal of intense emotions between and within the characters, and the opportunity for the Company to create not just new central characters, but the whole world around them.

ACCLAIM
“Steven McRae and Sarah Lamb lead the company in flurries of joyful movement in a buoyant Act II, as the plot turns into a hugely enjoyable caper. By the time they’re in a chase across the high seas, you’ll be hooked.” - Evening Standard

“‘A game-changer for Wheeldon’ – Christopher Wheeldon rises to the challenge of translating Shakespeare into dance, creating one of most fully achieved story ballets to be staged at Covent Garden in years. Yet Christopher Wheeldon has turned these challenges into inspiration. Together with composer Joby Talbot and designer Bob Crowley (whose mix of video, light and set design vividly illuminates the story), Wheeldon has used this play to develop the most expressive and inventive dance language we’ve yet seen from him.” - The Guardian

This album is a retrospective that is a must-have for all lovers of musical theater. Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt first won fame as the creators of The Fantasticks- the longest-running musical in the history of the world, with more than 21,000 performances given in New York over a period of 58 years. But the Jones & Schmidt musicals also include Broadway classics such as "I Do! I Do!," "110 in the Shade," and "Celebration." Selections from these and 12 other shows are included in this deluxe release, which features many previously unreleased "demos" by the songwriters themselves. Jones & Schmidt worked closely with Producer Bill Rudman for over two years to ensure that this album would best represent their legacy. "The purpose of theater is always to reveal us to ourselves. To help us perceive the 'poetry' beneath the prose and the minutiae of our lives. To make us exalt. To make us feel. And not least of all, to make us laugh." (Tom Jones)

Vespers is the ancient office of prayer, celebrated every evening throughout Christendom as the sun goes down. This beautiful and reflective music, plainsong chants sung in praise and contemplation contrast with the magnificent organ works of Marcel Dupré and the splendor of choral music by David Bevan, John Sheppard and John Duggan. David Bevan (b.1951) has worked as a singer, organist, composer and music teacher since 1980 and has held Master of Music, Director of Music and organist positions at churches in England and America. John Sheppard was a 16th c. composer, working in the time of Tallis, Taverner, and the like. His only recent rehabilitation is uncovering a composer of distinction despite the lack of hard knowledge about him. Composer and singer John Duggan has written for a number of choirs, received a number of commissions and is co-founder of Oxford-based choir Sospiri.

In April, the United Kingdom celebrated the birthday of the longest serving monarch in British history. This release is the perfect soundtrack to the celebrations. Some of Britain’s most popular artists and ensembles have gathered together for this two-disc set, which includes patriotic anthems and popular tunes. Musicians include Russell Watson, Jonathan and Charlotte, The Band of H.M. Royal Marines, The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Classical Music

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"For its first staging of a Rameau opera, the Glyndebourne Festival in England went big: a riotous yet sophisticated production, by Jonathan Kent, that captures both the frigidity and the passions of human relations, and that has the leadership of the French Baroque master William Christie, conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Ed Lyon, Christiane Karg, Sarah Connolly, and Stéphane Degout all give standout performances." – Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times

In Glyndebourne's first-ever staging of a opera by Rameau, director Jonathan Kent presents a production which, in his own words, strives to appeal to every sense and show audiences how engrossing and musically ravishing French Baroque opera can be. Rameau's inventive take on Racine's great tragedy Phèdre is brought to life by Paul Browns colourful and elegant designs and Ashley Pages playful choreography. Ed Lyon and Christiane Karg give captivating performances as the titular young lovers, while Sarah Connolly, making a welcome return to Glyndebourne, invests Phaedra with both grandeur and a desperately human vulnerability (The Independent). Leading exponent of early music William Christie sets an exhilarating pace, galvanising the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to playing of tremendous panache (The DailyTelegraph).

Jonathan Kent, stage director
Paul Brown, set and costume designer
Mark Henderson, lighting designer

Recorded live at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Lewes, June 2013

Bonus: -
An opera to surprise and delight
- Cast gallery

• Picture format: NTSC 16:9
• Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
• Region code: 0 (worldwide)
• Subtitles: English, French, German, Dutch, Japanese, Korean
• Running time: 187 mins
• of DVDs: 2
• of Blu-ray discs: 1

REVIEW:

It could be argued that the loose-limbed structure of Hippolyte et Aricie strays too widely from Phèdre, though its major excursions are drawn from the mythological variants Racine himself discusses in the play’s preface. Its controlled extravagance makes it one of the great French Baroque entertainments, though Rameau’s insights into Phèdre’s emotional and moral torment form a real heart of darkness. Christie conducted a superb Glyndebourne cast in 2013.

-- Gramophone

American Originals: 1918 is the newest release from the Cincinnati Pops conducted by John Morris Russell and features iconic American songs interpreted by a diverse array of acclaimed musical collaborators including MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Rhiannon Giddens, Grammy-winning Steep Canyon Rangers, Americana artist Pokey LaFarge, and tap dancer Robyn Watson. The follow-up to the Pops’ innovative American Originals album, American Originals: 1918 reimagines songs first brought to life in the first third of the 20th century as well as American popular standards from World War I and some of the first well-known tunes from the advent of jazz. The 95th Cincinnati Pops album includes fresh new renditions of “Over There,” “God Bless America,” “Swing Along,” “Memphis Blues,” “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm,” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” among many other classic tunes. In addition, the collection includes the world premiere of Grammy-nominated composer Peter Boyer’s “In the Cause of the Free,” commissioned by the Pops to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the end of World War I.

To celebrate 30 years of the Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet pays homage to the French musical patrimony of the 17th and 18th centuries, to whose exploration he remains passionately devoted. In close collaboration with Benoit Dratwicki and the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles – which also celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2018 –they have devised an intriguingly unconventional programme idea. Following the example of Louis XIV, who in 1671 asked Lully to create a Ballet of ballets consisting of extracts from the thirty or so ballets that the composer had put on at court, they have conceived ‘An Imaginary Opera,’ a veritable ‘Opera of Operas’: around thirty extracts, with well-known repertoire alongside rarities – some completely unknown and unpublished – have been put together to create a plot centered around three dramatic archetypes of the period: a princess in love, a witch queen (her rival) and a courageous prince. All the themes of French baroque opera are illustrated in turn, according to the rules of the genre: battle, tempest, sorcery, love duets, religious invocations, and sleep. The virtuoso arias, dazzling ballets and imposing ceremonial choruses are by Lully and Rameau, naturally – but also by Campra, Marais, Bertin de La Doué, Destouches, Stück, Gervais, Colin de Blamont, Rebel, Francœur, Montéclair, Leclair and Dauvergne. Brilliantly brought to life by the very finest of today’s baroque lyric artists, this recording was made at the Opéra Royal de Versailles.

Ian Watson and Susanna Ogata's acclaimed series on Coro Connections continues with the fourth album in their exploration of Beethoven's Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin. The Opus 12 Sonatas that are explored on this final volume are among the most Mozartian of the sonatas. They are, however, filled with Beethoven's inimitable voice, from the assertive Sonata No. 1, in the violin's most brilliant and sonorous key of D major, to the pianistically brilliant No. 3 in E flat with it's cascades of triplets and sextuplets. Unmistakably Beethoven! Susanna Ogata has been praised for her "totally convincing, spontaneous and free-flowing playing" (The Berkshire Review) and is a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society where she was appointed Assistant Concertmaster of the orchestra in 2014. Ian Watson has been described by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as "a conductor of formidable ability," and by The Times in London as a keyboard performer with "virtuosic panache and brilliantly articulated playing" and "a world-class soloist." He was appointed Associate Conductor of Boston's Handel and Haydn Society in 2016.

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Joby Talbot
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

Ballet in 2 Acts

Alice – Lauren Cuthbertson
Jack / Knave of Hearts – Sergei Polunin
Lewis Carroll / White Rabbit – Edward Watson
Mother / Queen of Hearts – Zenaida Yanowsky
Father / King of Hearts – Christopher Saunders
Magician / Mad Hatter – Steven McRae
Duchess – Simon Russell Beale

Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House Orchestra
Barry Wordsworth, conductor
Christopher Wheeldon, choreography

Bob Crowley, designs
Nicholas Wright, scenario
Natasha Katz, lighting design

Recorded live from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 9 March 2011.

Bonus:
- Cast Gallery
- Documentary – Being Alice

Picture format: NTSC 16:9 anamorphic
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 120 mins (ballet) + 30 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

R E V I E W:

A stimulating production.

It is a brave company that is prepared to take such a surrealist novel and turn it into a stage show. Where film can provide the visual trickery necessary to give visual magic, theatre machinery is cumbersome and pedantic in comparison. Yet the development of technical resources and video projection can help. With ballet, a large part of the stage must be kept free of obstructions to allow ballet routines to progress unimpeded.
To then faithfully transfer to a video medium without high level on-line visual trickery may not ideally help the viewer. So how then has Covent Garden fared in bringing about a stimulating production?

Very well, in fact. The prologue where Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) is taking photographs of the family group works excellently. It is set in a realistic deanery garden. Bob Crowley’s backdrop painting in faded Victorian hues is in keeping. In this opening scene we are introduced to the personalities that later appear as stereotypes in the fantasy world Alice uncovers. The only odd thing in a private deanery garden is having a nurse wheel a perambulator across the stage as if in a busy street.

Some of the settings contain more subtlety than might at first sight be noticed. Monotone backdrops, the Cheshire Cat and a paper boat are styled on the engravings found in Carroll’s first edition book. As the ballet progresses the settings become more flamboyant and graphically modern.

Particularly stunning is the Playing Cards scene. Choreography and costumes strike just the right note. A clever routine with a segmented Cheshire Cat allows believable animation.

As one might expect, the dancing is up to the exacting standards of the corps with a Covent Garden reputation. The problem of having Alice change size was well contrived and Lauren Cuthbertson’s acting is excellent. The character of the White Rabbit is extremely officious throughout I noticed, yet pales before the bombastic pomp of the Queen of Hearts (Zenaida Yanowsky).

The orchestra plays well under the secure direction of Barry Wordsworth, a conductor not seen enough of nowadays. Talbot’s music has facets of talent and although classical harmony is mainly maintained, it is heavy, strongly percussive and is often reminiscent of the fight scene of West Side Story. One could hardly call the music melodious which is a pity as it misses out in appealing to the younger generation for whom the story is intended. I find the scoring unnecessarily heavy and is an ill fit with the elegance of classical ballet choreography.

The DVD is divided into play chapters, and contains a gallery photographs of the key dancers. It has the bonus of a well compiled and informative BBC documentary ‘Being Alice’. In it we see the planning, realisation and execution of the staging through the eyes of the principal dancer, Lauren Cuthbertson. Subtitles are provided in English, French, German and Spanish. In-depth background production notes with synopsis by David Nice are written in English, French and German.

-- Raymond J Walker, MusicWeb International

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This first reissue in 25 years of a classic Original Cast Recording is a must-have for discriminating lovers of musical theater. Written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt (THE FANTASTICKS, 110 IN THE SHADE and I DO! I DO!), CELEBRATION was produced on Broadway in 1969 and is considered one of the most provocative and entertaining musicals of the decade. Says Jones (now 92 and still writing for the stage): “CELEBRATION, along with HAIR, was one of the 1960s shows that sought to reinvent our musical theater...The score is rich and varied, the premise interesting and the characters and scenes funny and touching. I’m so grateful to Harbinger Records for wanting to share it with at least three generations!” In this battle between the Old Year and the New, Jones & Schmidt mixed symbolic figures with then-current prototypes. “Thus the Old Man typifies all the misgivings that the youth culture of the time had about the previous generation,” says Jones. “The Young Boy is the ultimate flower child. The Narrator is a sixties dropout who’s into booze and drugs. And the Girl is a teenybopper dreaming of being a celebrity.” The package contains a 24-album booklet with extensive notes by author Tom Jones; memories from two original-cast members, Susan Watson and Michael Glenn-Smith; and many recently unearthed photos of the original production. The album has been remastered by multiple Grammy Award winner Alan Silverman.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Così fan tutte is Mozart's third opera to a Da Ponte libretto. It is in opera buffa style and has only six characters, two couples and an elderly philosopher and a trusted maid. In this recording Lesley Garrett sings the part of the maid, Despina, and the celebrated veteran Sir Thomas Allen the philosopher, Don Alfonso. Despite the somewhat cynical storyline this opera contains some of Mozart's most memorable and sublime music. The conductor, Sir Charles Mackerras, has spent many years researching performance practice of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and is a noted authority on Mozart's operas. He writes of this recording, 'it is indeed a pleasure having the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment lending its expertise in tonal colour, phrasing and rhythmic impulse to Mozart's wonderful score...I have chosen to record this English version of Così fan tutte with the traditional cuts, thus making it closer to a staged performance'. The English translation, by the Rev. Browne, was first used in London at a performance conducted by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford in 1890.

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, CORO Connections is delighted to present Ian Watson and Susanna Ogata’s acclaimed complete exploration of the Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin in one stunning boxed-set edition. All 10 sonatas, performed exclusively on period instruments, from the epic ‘Kreutzer’ to the sublime ‘Spring’ feature in this four volume set. “The music's moody outbursts and vivacity come fully alive in elegant readings that are attentive to quicksilver changes in dynamics and articulation...the Sonata No. 4 in A minor is darkly played, their 'Kreutzer' Sonata brilliant and stormy.” (The New York Times) “There's something positively gleeful about the way the pair deliver the opening gambit of Op. 30 No. 3, and the same sonata's Haydnesque finale practically swings.” (Gramophone) “Their trim, alert reading of Op.24 arguably provides their most effective and expansive vehicle yet...it combines an appropriate sense of idiom with an abundance of vitality, sensitivity and insight, and furnishes Beethoven’s textures with a clarity rarely achieved.” (The Strad)

Talbot: The Winter's Tale

Classical Music