"What nonsense”, grumbled Otto Dessoff after a read-through (to determine its repertoire-worthiness for the Vienna Philharmonic) of Bruckner’s Second Symphony. This doomed the work to a life of revision. The first version was written in 1871 when the Second was still the Third Symphony because the Zeroëth, then still the Second, hadn’t been annulled yet. Despite Bruckner managing a well-enough regarded premiere of this version, he set about to rework it during his period of revision in 1877 where he and his eager helpers set about to radically trim any perceived fat. The result, which we know as the second version, changed most in the Finale, where a full 193 bars were pruned. This version follows Bruckner’s cuts unflinchingly which cannot, however, alter the Symphony’s expansive proto-Brucknerian structure first heard here. And then that marvelous Adagio in this lyrical sister of the First Symphony!

Théodore Géricault’s larger-than-life painting The Raft of the Medusa has stimulated a great many artists ever since its creation in 1819. Hans Werner Henze and his Librettist Ernst Schnabel were inspired by Géricault and wrote a political oratorio on the painting’s tragic historical subject in 1967. Notable for its harsh and bright sounds, tender depiction of suffering, scathing irony, and gripping dramaturgy, the agitation at the failed premiere lifted the work into the canon of great classical scandals.

The more of Pancho Vladigerov’s work becomes widely accessible, the clearer it becomes that he is the most important Bulgarian composer – well beyond the 20th century. Revered in his lifetime, he was in a position to continue his work largely unaffected by the ideological demands of the Communist regime, although his musical diction, tonal and grounded in late Romantic tradition, wouldn’t likely have provoked any reprisals. In these works for the stage, meanwhile, Vladigerov shows a cosmopolitan side, easily slipping into the world of Strindberg for his Scandinavian Suite, chinoiserie for Klabund’s Chalk Circle, and exoticism for Shaw’s Cesar and Cleopatra.

Although he had famous students (i.e. Szymanowski) and teachers (Moniuszko), few listeners know much, if anything, about Zygmunt Noskowski (1846–1909). And yet, for most of the 19th century, he was the primary exponent of modern symphonic music in Poland. As a conductor and concert organizer, he had himself championed the causes of forgotten Polish composers. Now it is Antoni Wit, Noskowski’s successor at the helm of the Warsaw Philharmonic at a distance of 94, who helps out his late-romantic colleague – just as he has already done with the music Zygmunt Stojowski on a previous Capriccio recording (C5464).

REVIEW:

When you listen to the music of Zygmunt Noskowski, you can’t help but notice that all of the elemental characteristics of late 19th century orchestral music are present. The intense seriousness of Brahms, the romantic idealism of Schumann, as well as the folk-influenced melodic writing of Dvorák. And within its overall sunny disposition, it even points to some of Bruckner’s more lighthearted scherzo movements.

There’s a heartwarming ease and charm to the inner slow movements of these symphonies, as well as dramatic and rhythmic fervor to the outer movements. All aspects that Polish conductor Antoni Wit brings to the forefront. The members of the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz perform this music with enthusiasm and the same attention to expressive details they would apply to any and all repertoire standbys and warhorses. Makes you wonder why Zygmunt Noskowski’s name doesn’t come up to the surface more often.

-- Classical Music Sentinel

The score of The Prophets, intended as the last act of The Eternal Road, was the last that Kurt Weill composed in Europe and his last extensive setting in German, before he personally and professionally adopted the language of his new home, America. Musically, he drew on all his previous great works, from Mahagonny and the Seven Deadly Sins to his Second Symphony. At the same time, he foreshadowed some of his soon-to-be-written works for Broadway.

In 1998 David Drew devised the concert adaptation of this act, of which this is the premiere’s recording. The Four Walt Whitman Songs, meanwhile, were a product of the war years and reveal Weill at his most touchingly American, fusing American theater song with the German Lied, Berlin with Brooklyn.

Bruckner’s frantic revisions of his symphonies Nos. 3, 4, and 8 were borne out of his disappointment with Hermann Levi rejecting the original version of the 8th symphony. Helping in this large-scale revamping effort were former Bruckner-students Franz and Joseph Schalk, Ferdinand Löwe, Max von Oberleithner, and Cyrill Hynai, which resulted in these versions’ reputation – and especially that of the last version of the 4th – being varnished as something not quite Echt-Bruckner.

It wasn’t until the discovery of photographs of the 1888 version’s manuscript score and the subsequent publication of Benjamin Korstvedt’s edition thereof that it became clear: This late edition really did reflect Bruckner’s intentions. To ears familiar with the still better-known 1881 version, the result might sound mystifying, even troubling, but it also surprises with many particularly exquisite passages!

Krzysztof Penderecki’s works for (string) quartet neatly encapsulate the stylistic breadth and trace the development of Poland’s most important modern composer throughout his six-decade-long career. From the avantgarde rhythmical study that is Quartet No.1, via an ode to Webern, to the neo-romantic elder Penderecki’s Schubertian Clarinet Quartet, this collection covers all his chamber music for three and four strings, even the early neo-baroque outlier of his Three Pieces adapted from his film music for the steamy 1964 movie, The Saragossa Manuscript.

REVIEW:

From wild child of the experimental avant-garde to luscious neo-Romantic, Krzysztof Penderecki had an unusually profound stylistic transformation across his career. When his string quartets neatly encapsulate that trajectory, written as they were between 1960 and 2016, it’s no mean feat to pull off the entire cycle in consistently convincing and compelling fashion. Yet, that is what the Meccore Quartet has done here.

-- The Strad

As the Staatskapelle Berlin begins to look for its next music director (only the fourth since 1955!), this release finds the band’s own winds turning to Richard Strauss, who held the job some 110+ years ago. Together, they recorded their old chief conductors’ complete music for winds, including rarities like the Sonatinas “From an Invalid’s Workshop” and “The Happy Workshop” which Strauss dedicated to Mozart. Covering Strauss’ very early and very late creative output, the four pieces (plus the Eulenspiegel arrangement), give a fascinating insight into the development of Strauss, a horn player’s son.

REVIEW:

More Richard Strauss here in this comprehensive release which shows a range of different music for different combinations of wind. There are moments of lightness and drama here, the juxtaposition of which is highlighted for me in the 3rd movement of the Suite in B flat major for 13 wind instruments – light, playful flutes sit alongside the more demonstrative brass with its repeated downward motive which has a slightly sinister feel. Music that should be more widely heard.

-- Lark Reviews

If you know the cellist-professor-composer Georg Goltermann (1824-1898) and his eight (!) cello concertos, you’re either a cellist or married to one. In his lifetime and for a while thereafter, the instrumental virtuoso-cum-composer was popular and well-liked enough to have the Cantilena of his Cello Concerto recorded by Pablo Casals – but not much since. That’s a shame because that lyrical-melancholic, never gratuitously virtuosic op.10 is a picture-perfect, delightful romantic cello concert. The symphony, then well received and Goltermann’s pride, too, goes down nicely in a post-Brahms vain rather à la Bruch or Gernsheim, especially the exquisite, lively hunting Scherzo with its sweeping Trio.

REVIEW:

The Symphony, the third of the works in the key of A minor, is receiving its first recording here. It was premiered in Leipzig, and I think that is quite significant, because it owes much to the memory of the recently deceased Felix Mendelssohn, in particular his Scottish Symphony. It was very well-received by public and reviewers. I was amused by a quote in the notes from a newspaper report of the premiere, which stated that even in 1851, critics were bemoaning that the quality of melody was no longer being adequately appreciated by composers (but Goltermann was excused from this criticism).

I’d not heard of Turkish cellist Jamal Aliyev before, but he has performed at the Proms and won a number of prizes at international competitions. It is not hard to see why; he is very good, giving these little-known works his fullest efforts. Under the assured direction of Howard Griffiths, such a champion of the unsung composer, the ORF Vienna orchestra sound superb. My only quibble with the sound quality was the occasional sharp intake of breath from Aliyev (but hey, he’s got to breathe).

This is one of those unsung composer discs that really does “sing”. Goltermann might not have had the most original of compositional voices, but he knew how to write concentrated, melodic pieces, and now we know that even in the mid-19th century, melody was in short supply (what would those critics have thought of the 20th century, I wonder?).

-- MusicWeb International

"Look, when they tell me that in my music I am mainly concerned about bringing a bit of nostalgia and lots of good humor and optimism, well, I think that’s exactly how I’d like to be remembered: With a bit of nostalgia, lots of optimism, and good humor."

If only we listen to enough of his music (and not just his film music), Nino Rota’s wish should well come true. Not the least, if we lend our ears to his third (of ten) and most popular opera, the snappy Florentine Straw Hat (Il cappello di paglia di Firenze), which Rota wrote in Bari, after the War ended, and orchestrated a decade later for its premiere in Palermo.

REVIEW:

The whole cast works hard under Daniele Squeo’s direction, which has verve. The recorded sound is clear. The opera is fun, the performance excellent and there is a feel-good factor to enterprise.

-- Opera Now

When Toscanini encouraged Nino Rota to study at the Curtis Institute, where instructions by Fritz Reiner and a friendship with Aaron Copland awaited the precocious composer, it was already clear he would have a massive career. Only the direction wasn’t certain yet. It turned out to be classical music and film music, the former informing the latter. Notable when you listen to the delicious waltz Rota from War & Peace or the darkly humorous snippets from the very apropos Orchestra Rehearsal. And while the de-facto horn concertino Castel del Monte, inspired by King Frederick II’s famous medieval castle in southern Italy, isn’t technically film music, it very much sounds like music to a fantasy film of Rota’s imagining.

REVIEW:

As a sampler of the range and effectiveness of the music he wrote, this new disc from Capriccio is excellent. The orchestra play this presumably unfamiliar music with great skill and real flair, aided by a very immediate and lush recording. Add a total playing time of just under 84 minutes for this single disc and the appeal is clear.

I would encourage curious collectors to seek out more of Rota’s orchestral and symphonic works. For all the qualities of his film scores he is much more than just the composer of music for Fellini or The Godfather. This disc provides a valuable overview of his range and style – excitingly played and boldly recorded.

-- MusicWeb International (Nick Barnard)

When the music of Nikolai Kapustin was discovered by a wider audience in the West, it was positively shocking: Who was this Soviet (!) composer, whose music sounded more like an Oscar Peterson improvisation than anything else – but who wrote detailed scores, black with notes?! As we discover more and more of his music (and there’s so much more yet to discover!), a very distinct, always wholly charming voice emerges, whether in a freewheeling outright-jazzy work like his Concerto for 2 Pianos and Percussion, the more symphonic Fifth Piano Concerto, or the frisky Sinfonietta which transports us into a smoky 1940s bar in Manhattan.

REVIEWS:

Pianist Frank Dupree, with his stupendous pianistic bravura, his glowing personal commitment, and ultimately his standard-setting recordings, allows us to understand Kapustin's genius in all its stylistic range.

The Fifth Piano Concerto Op. 72, written in 1993 for the pianist Nikolai Petrov, is characterized by incredible virtuosity. The stylistic parallels to the US music tradition and in particular to George Gershwin, are emphasized again and again.

Second on the album is a later work by the composer, namely the Concerto for 2 Pianos and Percussion Op. 104 from 2002. Is it presumptuous to interpret this glittering, entertaining, exuberantly celebrating life and yet formally quite concise piece as a hymn to freedom. From a purely musical point of view, a real event can be reported: Frank Dupree and the equally young Adrian Brendle form Kapustin's exuberant concert session in swirling concordance with the percussionists Meinhard 'Obi' Jenne and Franz Bach under the musical direction of Dominik Beykirch and the stylish Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra to an impasto big band sound full of wispy shooting star sounds.

The album concludes with the Sinfonietta for Piano Four Hands Op. 49 with the movements Overture, Allegro; Slow Waltz, Larghetto; Intermezzo, Allegretto and Rondo, Presto. Commissioned by the Soviet Ministry of Culture in 1987, the “little symphony” was first set for an orchestral version, and is performed here in an arrangement by the composer for piano four hands. The two mood cannons Dupree and Brendle swept across the keyboard like a roaring whirlwind, doing bella figura in the languid three-four bar slow waltz, before escorting us out of the album into the silence with intricate rhythms and a furious finale.

-- Merker Online (Germany)

Was it a sign of conductors’ general satisfaction with Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony or editorial foot-dragging, that the work’s original 1887 version wasn’t published and performed until 1972? It certainly was Hermann Levi’s dissatisfaction or at least discombobulation with it, so shortly after his very successful Munich performance of the Seventh, that made Bruckner revise the work in the first place. It is this elaborate, raw earlier version that Markus Poschner performs here, in the latest edition by Paul Hawkshaw for the New Anton Bruckner Complete Edition. More ornate, brassier, and with more economically employed woodwinds, this version doesn’t smoothen edges and doesn’t round corners: An interesting insight into emboldened Bruckner at his unadulterated self.

The loss of one sense, it is said, makes the other keener. What the concert pianist, organist, and composer Josef Labor lost in eyesight when smallpox left him blind at age three, must have been added to his ears. Although roughly a Brahmsian (and a friend of the composer), Labor wrote in an original style, informed by his knowledge of and love for early music. As a piano teacher, he taught Arnold Schoenberg, Alma Schindler, and Paul Wittgenstein. The connection to the Wittgenstein family explains his many works for piano left hand, including the two Clarinet Trios on this set (the clarinet was Ludwig Wittgenstein’s instrument) which are coupled with his Clarinet- and his Wind Quintets.

REVIEW:

From the evidence here, there is no question that Labor had studied Brahms well and produced startlingly effective facsimiles. Sample the finale of the Trio in G minor for clarinet, viola, and piano left hand; it could easily be taken for a forgotten Brahms work. Labor did not manage Brahms' exquisite combination of limpid tunes with dizzying structural complexity, but at times, he came very close. All but one of the pieces here receive their world premieres. A few other pieces by Labor have surfaced, but these are fortunate to receive the fluent performances with which they're favored here. This release is certainly of interest to lovers of pre-WWI Vienna and those interested in the Wittgenstein family, but also to those beyond.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

Lortzing’s Der Waffenschmied is a lighthearted and superbly crafted opera that bridges Mozart’s Singspiele and early Wagner. Despite its relative popularity, there are surprisingly few complete recordings of it around. How lovely to change that with this new recording from the very place for which the opera was written and where it was premiered in 1846: Vienna’s Theater an der Wien – and a wonderful cast that includes the stalwart Günther Groissböck and the supremely promising Miriam Kutrowatz to boot!

REVIEW:

Lortzing’s operetta The Armorer of Worms (Waffenschmied, 1846) is a transitional work that led to the beginnings of the Viennese comic operetta. This new recording only includes the music, recorded in a performance in October 2021 at the Theatre an der Wien. The dialog sequences (which would have been appreciated) probably included much more of the Stadinger character usually performed by a leading and robust comic actor (much like Falstaff). The detailed booklet includes texts and translations.

The music, in general, is very enjoyable. It seems to be a blend of late-Mozart and Haydn, heavily influenced by Beethoven. Sometimes it is chamber-like, with recitatives accompanied by the orchestra. After a rather slow and somber Overture, each character is introduced with a separate solo. These are pleasant, but without the dialog I had a difficult time understanding character connections. The music in Act 2, however, is lively and the pace really picks up. There are some bright solos and choruses, the chorus comments on events, and at the reconciliation of Stadinger, the Count, and Marie there is general rejoicing and flag waving. If it weren’t for Act II I would be dissuaded from listening to this again, but the music and characterizations are effective.

The cast lends the proper tone to all this nonsense. The chorus is hearty and the orchestra plays well. The sound is good and the excisions of dialog and audience noise are skillfully done.

-- American Record Guide (Elliot Fisch)