Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Put on this 1954 all-Paganini recital from the Library of Congress and you'll be awestruck at the sheer musicality, proportion, and taste behind Zino Francescatti's staggering technical command of his violin. His intense vibrato never veers off the correct intonational mark, and even the fleetest scales, runs, and roulades are purposefully articulated, never sketchy. Then there's his amazing palette of bow strokes and slides, effortless double-stops, skips, and arpeggios. In the D major concerto's third movement, for example, as you listen to the double-stop harmonics you sense that Francescatti knew exactly how they would sound before he played them. Although the violinist follows the now-antiquated practice of adding piano accompaniments to both the concerto and the selection of Caprices, Artur Balsam's full-bodied, bedrock support proves much more than mere accompanying. In short, Paganini's music seldom has been so lovingly and intelligently served, and the archival recording boasts ample bloom and presence for its time and place. An absolute must for violin fans.--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

The BBC Singers and conductor David Hill join with one of the world´s oldest continuously running orchestras, The Norwegian Wind Ensemble (NWE), to present this major new arrangement of George Frideric Handel’s most celebrated oratorio – Messiah. Arranged for wind ensemble by NWE member Stian Aareskjold, this version here receives its world premiere recording with a stellar cast of soloists who bring this visionary re-scoring of this famous work vividly to life. The BBC Singers hold a unique position in British musical life. The choir’s virtuosity sees it performing everything from Byrd to Birtwistle, Tallis to Takemitsu. Its expertise in contemporary music has brought about creative relationships with some of the most important composers and conductors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including Britten, Maxwell Davies, Poulenc and Judith Weir, Associate Composer of the BBC Singers and Master of the Queen’s Music. The Norwegian Wind Ensemble is a unique institution in Norway’s cultural life. The orchestra’s eventful history stretches back to 1734 and the ‘First Brigade Band’ or ‘Division Band’ of Fredriksten Fortress in Halden. It is the oldest orchestra in Norway as well as the oldest cultural institution of any kind with an unbroken history.

Classical Music

Russian Revolutionaries: Ewald & Böhme' marks both the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the launch of period instrument ensemble The Prince Regent’s Band’s survey of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Russian brass chamber music. PRB perform two of the revolutionary Victor Ewald Quintets in their original instrumentation along with works by the versatile composer and cornettist Oskar Böhme, a German emigrant to Russia who was caught up in the turmoil of the fall out of the revolution and executed by the Soviet regime. The Prince Regent’s Band was formed to explore the wealth of historic chamber music for brass and wind instruments from a period roughly defined as between the French Revolution of 1789 and the end of First World War in 1918. Members of the current The Prince Regent’s Band are specialists in the period performance field and perform with regular with internationally renowned specialist ensembles.

Classical Music

None of the material on this compilation has circulated beyond the scope of Japanese and Russian imports. Disc One's centerpiece is a 1945 broadcast of the Beethoven Concerto, reproduced in dry yet full-bodied sound. Lacking the rapt introspection coloring Menuhin's 1947 commercial recording with Furtwängler, the performance still remains one of the violinist's most eloquent and cleanly played versions of a work that was with him throughout his career. Three movements from Lalo's Symphonie Espagnol follow, impressively reproduced and played with fire and brimstone by the San Francisco Symphony under Pierre Monteux's expert baton. The second disc is less persuasive. While Menuhin and fellow violin legend David Oistrakh sensitively merge in a 1958 Bach D minor Concerto (BWV 1043), one has to listen past George Georgescu's slightly plodding Enescu Philharmonic. Poor sound, however, mars an inspired 1947 Lucerne Festival pairing of Menuhin with conductor Ernest Ansermet, who leads his L'Orchestre de La Suisse Romande in Bartok's Second Violin Concerto. Fortunately, Menuhin recorded the work four times, the best of which is his first stereo version (Dorati/Minneapolis/Mercury). Disc two closes with an interview excerpt where Menuhin speaks to Frederic Maroth about Bartok as both man and musician. The booklet notes reprint Allan Kozinn's comprehensive and frank obituary on Menuhin published in the New York Times.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

SALUT D’AMOUR • Chuanyun Li (vn); Robert Koenig (pn) • HÄNSSLER 98.278 (67:08)


DVO?ÁK Slavonic Dance, op. 72/2. KROLL Banjo and Fiddle. ELGAR Salut d’amour. BAZZINI La ronde des lutins. GLAZUNOV Raymonda: Intermezzo. SARASATE Zapateado. GLUCK Orfeo ed Euridice: Melody. PAGANINI Introduction and Variations on “Nel cor più non mi sento.” GERSHWIN (arr. Heifetz) It Ain’t Necessarily So. R. STRAUSS Violin Sonata


In how many programs does the obligatory sonata follow the encores (the jewel box lists the sonata first)? Chuanyun Li mixes simple and expressive numbers like Elgar’s Salut d’amour with virtuoso showstoppers like Paganini’s Variations on “Nel cor più non mi sento,” Bazzini’s Dance of the Goblins , and Sarasate’s Zapateado as an appetizer for the main course, Strauss’s concerto-like Violin Sonata. Those not familiar with Li from his playing on the soundtrack for the Chinese-produced movie, Together (and his appearance in the movie as a student emerging into the professional world playing Vieuxtemps’s Fifth Concerto), or from his video recordings produced by Bein and Fushi (both in a Ruggiero Ricci lesson and as a participant in a festival of Chinese violin music), should be struck in Hänssler’s issue of a 1999 recording he made at the Cincinnati Conservatory, by his soaring tone, his brilliant technical command, and his grasp of the many styles he’s assembled in his program. Idiomatic Elgar rubs shoulders with Slavonic Dvo?ák, darkly glowing Glazunov, and steamy Gershwin. Bazzini’s Ronde des lutins might as well have been retired for decades after Heifetz’s first recording of it in 1917; later recordings may have included all the notes but not the sizzle. Some, even as recent as Gil Shaham’s (24:3), seemed almost somber in comparison to the young Heifetz’s. Those who might not have heard that earlier recording might come to the end of Li’s with a very similar impression of overwhelming virtuosity coupled with heroic dash and élan. For example, at the section of notes repeated on each of four strings, some violinists simply struggle to play solidly, while Li manages to add tangy nuances. Glazunov’s Intermezzo offers many opportunities for portamentos, and violinists of earlier generations would have taken them with relish. So does Li, but never to the detriment of the music’s lyrical flow, which he builds in waves to a powerful climax. When the music settles to its quiet conclusion, he draws a pure tone from both strings in the final double-stops, a feat perhaps as difficult as the left-hand pizzicato in Bazzini’s Ronde . Li introduces stronger accents than Sarasate did into the Zapateado , and he adds some twangy timbral graces of his own. His performance goes beyond the heavier Russian style that became common in readings of the mercurial Sarasate; but, taken on its own terms, it’s a heady sprint to the finish. Heifetz and Milstein both played Gluck’s Melody, which Fritz Kreisler had arranged for violin and piano. Li’s performance matches theirs in elegance and warmth, and his special personal touches make it his own rather than a copy of theirs. Paganini’s Variations fare well in Li’s reading, sweetly lyrical in the manner of Rossini as devilish in the style of Locatelli. His gift for sumptuous melody alternates in this violinist’s compendium with his knack for brash pyrotechnics (which he fires off with surprising sweetness), and those mount to the conclusion in an unstoppable juggernaut.


Strauss’s early Sonata has been taken almost as a Concerto for Violin and Piano, and Heifetz (who reputedly tried to commission such a Concerto from Prokofiev) seemed always on the lookout for pieces he could play that way, like this one, Saint-Saëns’s First Sonata in D Minor, and Respighi’s. Memory of Heifetz remains strong, but Li manages to create his own forceful identity from the bold first movement. Arguably the slow movement of the Sonata makes a more glowing musical statement than does the slow movement of the (also youthful) Violin Concerto, and Li warms not only to its initial sentiment but also to its more agitated central section. He also seems comfortably at home in the finale’s broad rhetoric.


Here’s an old-fashioned violin recital with a Sonata thrown in to please everyone (the reverse of the usual procedure), and only those with almost unreasonably strong preferences should complain. It’s individual, brilliant, and musically both protean and probing—a substantial accomplishment for anyone, and certainly so for a 19-year-old. As Mischa Elman supposedly remarked to his accompanist, Joseph Seiger, when he heard Michael Rabin’s recording of Wieniawski’s First Concerto, that’s the way the violin should be played. Robert Koenig remains an insightful supporter through the many changes in style, and the lifelike recorded sound makes both players almost bodily present. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

1629 was a remarkable year for new music in Venice. Heinrich Schutz, came to the city to learn of the latest music from Claudio Monteverdi and his contemporaries, publishing the seminal first volume of his 'Symphoniae Sacrae' during his visit. With the publication of further landmark collections from Dario Castello, Alessandro Grandi and Biagio Marini, this particular year provided a key moment in the development of the Italian Baroque style. Acclaimed period ensemble The Gonzaga Band makes its Resonus debut with a fascinating programme of works from this period that chart the journey through this incredible year for music. The Gonzaga Band was formed by cornettist Jamie Savan in 1997, with a mission to explore the intimate relationship between vocal and instrumental performance practice in the early Modern period. The ensemble takes its name from the ducal family of Mantua: the Gonzagas were powerful and influential patrons of the arts in the late Renaissance, who employed Claudio Monteverdi as their maestro della musica at the turn of the seventeenth century. Monteverdi wrote some of his most innovative music for the Gonzagas: his third, fouth and fifth books of madrigals, the operas Orfeo and Arianna, and the Vespers of 1610.

Classical Music

This is, hands down, the best version of these remarkable pieces yet recorded. Wolfram Christ, famous as a solo violist and principal in the Berlin Philharmonic, whips the strings of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra into a frenzy in the quick movements, and wrings every drop of expressive angst from the more brooding slow movements. Consider, for example, the Adagio of Symphony No. 3, ostensibly in C major, with its tritonal shrieks and desolate, almost expressionist harmonies (sound clip). It’s an amazing work, and this recording does it full justice.

The performance style is what you might call “modified period practice.” Vibrato is used minimally–a mistake, of course, but not too serious a one in this context because all other aspects of the playing are so good. More importantly, the continuo part is finally played on C.P.E. Bach’s preferred instrument in lieu of the clavichord: the fortepiano. Truth be told, we have no evidence historically that these symphonies were ever performed with a fortepiano, but then, we have no evidence of how they were performed at all.

What these interpretations reveal, though, is what Tovey said nearly a century ago: that a fortepiano is even better than a harpsichord as an accompanying instrument for the same reason it’s better than a harpsichord at everything else. The variety of touch, articulation, and above all, dynamics makes it possible to accompany the strings without suddenly turning the music into a harpsichord concerto or, on the other hand, forcing the strings to restrict their own dynamics in order to accommodate the limitations of the continuo instrument.

These considerations are particularly valid today when, first, continuo players simply can’t resist embellishing their parts in a way which is wholly inauthentic and, as often as not, unstylish, and second, recording engineers invariably mike the continuo too loudly on the theory that everything the instrument does ought to be heard on the same plane as the folks who have the tune. At least with a fortepiano, sensitively played as here, the embellishments and balance issues never get in the way of the string ensemble. It blends harmoniously and mellifluously at all times. The result is simply wonderful, and surely closer to Bach’s intentions than more avowedly “authentic” versions if only because it’s so much more musical.

The opening of the B minor Symphony (No. 5 in the set) offers an excellent example of how attractive, how modern, the music sounds when performed in this fashion (sound clip). These symphonies were commissioned by Gottfried van Swieten (librettist of Haydn’s late oratorios) in 1773. He told Bach to write whatever he wanted, without regard for conventional stylistic or technical limitations. The result is an astounding series of passionate, spontaneous, and timeless pieces that finally sound that way. Surely you will want to own this gripping, even thrilling disc.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The only reservation that attaches to this excellent complete survey of Ernesto Halffter's piano music lies in a certain sameness that naturally colors a disc containing nearly 80 minutes of mostly short piano works. Halffter's musical influences are clear: Falla, Ravel, and in the two single-movement sonatas, Scarlatti. You can hear Falla's influence most clearly in the two delightful dances from the ballet Sonatina (the complete work has been recorded by ASV). Ravel (of Miroirs fame) makes an appearance in the haunting triptych entitled Crepúsculos, particularly the first ("The Castle's Old Clock"). Like Falla, Halffter also composed a set of Hommages, in this case paying gentle tribute to the memories of Turina, Mompou, and his own brother Rodolfo. Elsewhere, as in the spiky Marche joyeuse, or the poignant Lament for Ricardo Viñes, a more personal idiom emerges, demonstrating that the derivative quality of much of the music stems quite reasonably from its intentional references to the music and musicians that the composer loved most.


Adam Kent has made a careful study of these works, and he plays them with the confidence that comes with familiarity. He's especially good at creating a solid rhythmic foundation with his left hand while allowing the right the necessary freedom to gracefully phrase Halffter's winsome melodies. This quality pays handsome dividends not just in the numerous dance-inspired pieces such as Preludio y danza, Dos piezas cubanas, and L'espagnolade, but in the thicker-textured sonatas as well. Bridge gives Kent warm and clear recorded sound, perhaps a shade lacking in sparkle in the piano's upper octaves, though this seems to be more a quality of the instrument itself. Like so many Spanish composers, Halffter composed comparatively little, but always with a high standard of craftsmanship. You may not want to play this entire disc at a sitting, but wherever and whenever you dip into it, you're likely to find a gem, and happily Kent's performances are as consistently polished as the music itself.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

DVORÁK Cypresses: 18 Songs for Voices and Piano (original version, 1865 1 ). Cypresses: 12 Songs for String Quartet (from original version, arr. Dvorák 2 ). Cypresses: 6 Songs for String Quartet (from original version, arr. Hans-Peter Dott 2 ) • 1 Marcus Ullmann (ten); 1 Martin Bruns (bar); 1 Andreas Frese (pn); 2 Bennewitz Qrt • HÄNSSLER 98641 (2 CDs: 81:05 Text and Translation)


Let me begin with just one swipe at Hänssler Classic, a label whose marketing practices I’ve questioned before. This entire program could fit onto a single CD. Discs of over 80 minutes, once rare, are now fairly common. A saving grace, however, is that as of now, mid-October 2012, ArkivMusic is selling the two-disc set for $26.99, which places it in the mid-price category on a per-disc basis. Hänssler is to be commended, however, for coming up with the idea of presenting Dvorák’s Cypresses complete in its original scoring as a song cycle for voices and piano, plus in its partial arrangement of 12 of the 18 songs for string quartet by the composer himself, and, in addition, in arrangements of the remaining six songs for string quartet by German composer Hans-Peter Dott (b. 1952). If anyone has done this before, it’s not reflected in any of the current listings I found. In fact, Dvorak’s string quartet arrangements far outnumber recordings of the song cycle.


Details of the song cycle’s path from composition to publication still remain a bit sketchy and open to some dispute. This much is known: Dvorák set the songs down on paper in 17 days between the 10th and 27th of July 1865. The 24-year-old composer was lovesick over one of his young pupils who didn’t share his feelings. So, like Mozart, Dvorák ended up settling for the girl’s younger sister, whom he eventually married. It’s hardly surprising then that the texts of the songs, taken from Cypresses: A Collection of Lyric and Epic Poems by Gustav Pfleger-Moravský, tell of unrequited love. Also generally agreed upon is that Dvorák intended eight of the songs—Nos. 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, and 15—to be sung by a tenor, while the remaining 10 songs—Nos. 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, and 18—were intended to be taken by a baritone, which is the way they’re divvied up on the disc.


But here’s where things get a bit dicey. It took Dvorák another 23 years, during which he arranged, rearranged, and otherwise tinkered with the songs, before he sent them to Simrock for publication in 1888 with the title, not Cypresses , but Love Songs , to which the opus number 83 was assigned. Yet a 2012 program note from the Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg unequivocally states that “Dvorák chose never to publish the songs in their original form, but material from several of the songs cropped up in his first two symphonies and in his operas and other vocal works.” Clearly, the songs were published in 1888, but I’m guessing that the discrepancy hinges on the words “in their original form,” for according to the imslp.org catalog of Dvorák’s complete works, the songs that were actually published were all third and fourth revisions of the originals. Meanwhile, a year earlier the composer selected 12 of the songs—Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 18— and began reworking them for string quartet, keeping close to the original models. He made only some minor rhythmic adjustments, and only in one case did he change the key. He did, however, reorder the pieces in a different sequence from the original song cycle—6, 3, 2, 8, 12, 7, 9, 14, 4, 16, 17, 18—and titled his collection of quartet arrangements Echo of Songs . These were not published, however, until 1921, 17 years after Dvorák’s death.


This brings up another misunderstanding that has been perpetuated regarding Dvorák’s titling of both the published song cycle and the string quartet arrangements that remained unpublished in his lifetime. All Music Guide states that it was the composer himself who named the song cycle Cypresses , but as noted above, he didn’t. He titled it Love Songs . And as for the composer’s quartet arrangements of 12 of the songs, he called them, again as noted above, Echo of Songs . The only Cypresses Dvorák was familiar with, other than the trees, was the collection of poems so titled by Pfleger-Moravský. The Cypresses title was conferred upon the string quartet arrangements—and then only retroactively and by association with the songs—by the publisher of the string quartet cycle, Hudební matice umrlecké besedy, and/or the cycle’s editor, composer Josef Suk. Hans-Peter Dott surmises there are reasons Dvorák omitted the six songs—1, 5, 10, 11, 13, and 15—from his own quartet arrangements, but Dott doesn’t tells us what those reasons might have been. Instead, he decided to arrange them himself anyway, and they’re included as the last six tracks on disc 2, after Dvorák’s 12.


So, there you have it: the complete song cycle, published in 1888 as Love Songs , Dvorák’s own string quartet arrangements he titled Echo of Song , published in 1921, and a recent arrangement by Dott of the remaining six songs—all on a two-disc set boldly titled “Cypresses,” with a stand of cypress trees pictured on the cover, a title Dvorák never gave to any of these pieces. I’m not sure he’d be amused. For millennia, the cypress tree has been associated with death and mourning—which is why it’s often found planted around cemeteries—not with the pain of rejected love, the subject of these songs. The music can be quite lovely, if a bit overly sentimental, but the singers and players exercise care not to succumb to some of its more self-pitying moments. While tenor Marcus Ullmann and baritone Martin Bruns deliver their respective songs with warmth of feeling and a good measure of tonal bloom, their voices are of a similarity of timbre and character that sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish which singer is performing which song without referring to the designated numbers in the notes.


When it comes to the string quartet arrangements, at least of the 12 made by the composer, there’s a good deal more in the way of competition, among which is a very fine reading by the Emerson Quartet. But not being familiar with every recording of the quartet versions listed, I can’t say whether any ensemble has previously included the additional six arrangements made by Dott, and Hänssler’s album note is not forthcoming on when Dott made them. If it was very recently, perhaps even for the Bennewitz Quartet and this recording, then this could be a first.


Neither the songs nor the quartet arrangements of them represent Dvorák at his best. One might even say that musically they are Dvorák before he blossomed into the Dvorák we know and love. All of the pieces are of sameness in tempo and mood, without much in the way of Dvorák’s later melodic inspiration or harmonic inventiveness to make any one of them particularly memorable. For that, of course, the singers and players are not to blame. So, recommended on the grounds that this may be the most complete recording of Dvorák’s “cypress”-based compositions collected together in a single set.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

Milton Babbitt remains a controversial figure on today's musical scene, with his ideas more frequently discussed than his music is actually listened to. This recording contains the premiere recordings of five Babbitt works that span a quarter of a century. The CD opens with a performance of Babbitt's exquisite Quatrains, sung by the brilliant young American soprano, Tony Arnold. Set to a text by a Babbitt favorite - John Hollander - Quatrains is a work of great delicacy and subtlety. Manifold Music shows Babbitt adapting his language to the organ in a most original manner. Exploiting the instrument's potential for colorful registration, Babbitt's demanding score is a spectacular workout for the hands and feet of organ virtuoso, Gregory D'Agostino. My Ends Are My Beginnings has, since its composition in 1978, been regarded by many as one of the most difficult to play works for a solo woodwind instrument. The work's dedicatee, Allen Blustine (long-time clarinetist for Speculum Musicae), gives a heroic reading of this 17 minute solo. Soli e Duettini is one of three works with this title. This work, for two guitars, is played by dedicatees William Anderson and Oren Fader. (This premiere recording was previously issued on Bridge 9042). The final work is Babbitt's just completed Swan Song No. 1. It is a remarkable composition for the unusual combination of flute, oboe, mandolin, guitar, violin and cello. CD annotator Matthias Kriesberg writes: "The experience of hearing Milton Babbitt, who for so long played off the boundaries of musical dimensions against one another, now rein in the extremes so dramatically as to focus the ear on the centered drama of calm voices interacting, is certainly extraordinary. But should we really be surprised? After all, there is a long, rich history of composers who, having definitively proven their ability to wrest music in an entirely new direction, turned their attention inward, ever inward, to contemplate that place, in the words of W.B. Yeats, "where all the ladders start."

Classical Music

SPIRITUAL RESISTANCE—MUSIC FROM THERESIENSTADT • Wolfgang Holzmair (bar); 1 Russell Ryan (pn) • BRIDGE 9280 (75:08)


ULLMANN Der Mensch und sein Tag. Der müde Soldat. 3 Songs, op. 37. 1 K. BERMAN 6 Reminiscences. HAAS 4 Songs after Words of Chinese Poetry. 1 KLEIN 3 Songs. 1 Lullaby. Z. SCHUL What Never Was. 1 KRÁSA 5 Songs, op. 4. 1 I. WEBER I Wander through Theresienstadt 1


The music of the composers who were imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt (Terezín in Czech)—Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, and several others—tends to be programmed together in concerts and recordings. Since each composer produced music under uniquely horrible shared circumstances, it seems fair to link the pieces composed at Theresienstadt together, but on the other hand, it is worth getting to know their individual styles separately. In any case, it is almost impossible to listen to any of their songs without interpreting the choice of texts, if not the music, for clues as to the composers’ suffering.


Overall, there are few overt references to the Holocaust. Most of the texts are poetic or philosophical, and the music is most likely what these composers would have written in any circumstance. It was the act itself of composing that represented their remarkable self-assertion. The title of this recital by baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and pianist Russell Ryan, “Spritual Resistance,” refers to this and consists mostly of songs composed in Theresienstadt.   


The program opens with Pavel Haas’s Four Songs after Words of Chinese Poetry , set to Czech texts with a recurring theme of yearning for home. His fellow composers at Terezín successfully urged Haas, who was severely depressed, to try to compose, and these songs comprise the few results. Somewhat like his teacher, Janá?ek, Haas liked to use compact motives made up of very close intervals. The piano part in particular often moves in a repetitive, crab-like fashion that communicates a feeling of being trapped. The four songs form a true cycle, and are given a strong and understanding performance by Holzmair and Ryan. Holzmair’s Czech is good, and he darkens his light baritone to suit the range and mood of the music. Haas’s songs were premiered at Terezín by Karel Berman, an inmate who survived and became a leading singer at Prague’s National Theater after the war. If there is such a thing as a definitive performance, Berman’s recording of the Four Songs , released in 1993 on Channel Classics, qualifies. He not only survived the war but his bass baritone voice proved to be exceptionally durable, still rich and resonant decades after his first performance of Haas’s songs.


Berman turned to composition only twice, and it might have been interesting if Holzmair had included his song cycle Rosebuds on this disc. His other composition, for solo piano, was published in 1993 with the complicated title: Suite “Reminiscences” 1938–45. It is a kind of musical diary that originally consisted of three musical impressions of Terezín. After the war, Berman added five other movements to create a fuller portrait of his life’s events. (The late Joža Karas, author of Music in Terezín , once told me that it was at his suggestion that Berman added these movements.)The suite moves in an emotional arc from its folk-like, lyrical opening movements (“Youth” and “Home”) toward greater dissonance and discord in the movements concerning Terezín and Berman’s near death. Pieces like “Auschwitz—Corpse Factory” and “Typhus at the Kauffering Concentration Camp” are the only music on the disc that makes direct reference to the Holocaust, but they are like faint pencil sketches that only hint at the horrors. The final movement, “New Life,” contains a polka and quotes earlier lyrical material. Pianist Russell Ryan performs movements from the suite interspersed between groups of songs, but he omits two of the suite’s movements, the first, “Youth,” and the seventh, “Alone, Alone,” its happiest and most despairing sections respectively. Christopher Hailey’s otherwise thorough liner notes fail to mention these omissions. Programming these pieces as a series of interludes between songs may work well in concert, but here it lessens the impact of Berman’s suite, as does Ryan’s understated playing, which has too little flexibility in some of the lyrical passages and provides too little drama in the disturbing ones.


Hans Krása is best known as the composer of the children’s opera Brundibar . His sophisticated Five Songs , op. 4, composed before his imprisonment, have imaginative melodic lines and nimble word-setting, especially in the final song, set to a text by the clever German poet Christian Morgenstern, and is engagingly sung by Holzmair. Viktor Ullmann’s Der Mensch und sein Tag is a cycle of 12 songs set to aphoristic German texts by Hans Günther Adler, a Terezín inmate who survived and preserved Ullmann’s manuscripts in England. The poetry is contemplative, and Ullmann excelled at composing lyrical melodies in a free, atonal style. Holzmair is at his very best in introspective material and he sings them with great sensitivity. The Three Songs , op. 37, by Ullmann were revised at Terezín, and employ marching music in a sardonic Mahlerian manner. Gideon Klein’s Three Songs , op. 1 (in Czech), were composed in 1940 prior to his imprisonment, and they were already the work of a skilled composer. Klein (1919–1945) was a child prodigy and considered the composer from the Terezín group most likely to have had a major career, had he lived. The songs inhabit the same harmonic, expressive world as the music of Alban Berg. Along with Ullmann’s Der müde Soldat , they represent the disc’s most adventurous music. Klein’s moving version of a Hebrew lullaby sets a simple folk song against troubled, complex harmony. The little-known Zikmund Schul is represented by one touching German song. Ilse Weber was a children’s author, not a composer, and Holzmair recites her poem Ich Wandre Durch Theresienstadt.


All of these songs are composed with considerable craft and inspiration and they repay repeated listening. Much of the material has almost never been recorded before, making this an extremely valuable release. At this stage of his career, Holzmair is a consummate Lieder singer with impeccable phrasing and German diction. He reminds me of Ernst Haefliger or Gerard Souzay, master singers who compensated for somewhat unlovely vocal quality at times with good breath control, fine legato, and overall musical intelligence.


Incidentally, Holzmair and Russell Ryan can be heard along with the exciting mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck on another recent Bridge release of songs by Schreker, and Haselböck is also featured on an excellent new Bridge CD of songs by Zemlinsky. Thanks to this fine American label for their commitment to making all of this obscure (and beautiful) German Lieder available in first-rate performances and excellent sound.


FANFARE: Paul Orgel

Classical Music

Classical Music

Hänssler CLASSIC is proud to present Helmuth Rilling's landmark recording of the complete Bach Cantatas in a new, specially-price collector's edition. Rilling was the first conductor to ever record the complete Bach cantatas and still, 25 years after they were first released in celebration of the Bach tercentennial in 1985, they remain the standard by which all other interpretations are judged.

Praise for some of the original recordings that make up this set:

Complete Cantatas
"There is no question as to the excellence and distinction of many of Rilling's soloists, which feature a number of famous Bach specialists of the last quartet of a century...Rilling has proved a pragmatist in matters of historical performance practice; he adopts brisk tempos and light accents at times, but allows himself considerable expressive and agogic freedom." – Penguin Guide [2003/4 Edition]

In particular, Rilling's unaffectedly musical, period-performance-influenced but undogmatic approach seems designed to sustain long-term listener satisfaction. He's so strong in the basic qualities that matter most. For example, he has the best soloists of any major series of Bach vocal works--names like Arlene Auger, Juliane Banse, Matthias Goerne, Christophe Prégardien, Christine Schäfer--the list reads like a "who's who" of major late-20th-century singers. The choral singing also is uniformly superb.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Christmas Cantatas
The intensity of colour and expression in these works is stunning – the surging, brass-capped elation of Unser Mund sei voll Lachens, so full of the simple joy of the Christian message, the searching meditation on temptation in Selig ist der Mann, the seemingly bottomless well of spiritual sustenance plumbed in the chorale conclusions. Rilling’s performances (on modern instruments) are neatly tailored and naturally benevolent in nature, buoyant with the wholesomeness and warmth that this great music so frequently emanates. There is simply no better way of celebrating a musical Christmas.

– Terry Blain, BBC Music Magazine

Secular Cantatas
I'm not sure whether Helmuth Rilling has acquired a reputation for seriousness, though his recorded legacy—crowned by his complete Bach sacred cantatas series—has tended toward music of high purpose; for a primarily choral conductor, it couldn't be otherwise. Nevertheless, he shows a light touch on this disc that is in keeping with this music's intent to entertain. Rilling continues to buck trends. His instruments are modern, and his choir is relatively large (49 voices) but always precise and flexible. He does not always forsake velocity, as collectors of the sacred cantatas series will recall: Pales's wonderful second aria and its appended instrumental interlude skip smartly along. "Sheep" obeys the speed limit, but just barely. As usual, Rilling has assembled a splendid set of young soloists, who not only sing well but also get with the action.

– George Chien, Fanfare

This well filled CD (79 minutes) contain the complete transcriptions for piano that Rachmaninoff made of compositions of various composers. Being a celebrated pianist and a genius composer, Rachmaninoff didn’t literally transcribe, but added his own unique pianistic and compositional features to them, creating as much his own masterwork as is the original. Ranging from Bach (3 movements from the Violin Partita in E), through transcriptions of his own and Tachikovsky’s songs, Mendelssohn’s Scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream of hair-raising difficulty, he ends with fashionable transcriptions of Kreisler’s Liebesleid and Liebesfreud, a pianistic tour de force and favourite encore.

As a substantial bonus Alexander Ghindin plays the complete Moments Musicaux Op. 16. Ghindin, one of Russia’s foremost young pianists, has the true Rachmaninoff feeling, a mix of melancholy and grandeur, playing with stunning virtuosity and panache. Alexander Korsantia, born in 1965 in Tiblisi, Georgia, won first prize at the prestigious Arthur Rubinstein Competition in 1995. He has an active international concert career, and is based in Boston, USA.

Classical Music