Kalinnikov: Symphony No. 2 - Overture Tsar Boris - The Cedar

Kodály's orchestral output was relatively limited. Best known for his educational material, he wrote only nine works for orchestra. On hearing Kodály's orchestral music, one cannot help but notice similarities to Bartók in the use of Hungarian folk melodies, rhythms and dance forms, as well as his application of quartal harmonies, that is, harmony using the interval of the perfect fourth as its basic unit, instead of the third or fifth. Though overshadowed by Bartók as a serious composer, Kodály's music is neither derivative nor insignificant. Bartók was more of a modernist with respect to form, using mathematical and architectural strategies to generate new forms. Kodály strove to frame Hungarian music with classical and baroque forms, as in his Concerto for Orchestra.
This is a good overview of Kodály's orchestral music. Yan Pascal Tortelier metes out a steady tempo without being too rigid to accommodate the fluid exoticism of the 'Dances of Marosszek.' The BBC Philharmonic is a tight rhythmic ensemble, essential to a good performance of the dance rhythms found in Kodály, Bartók, or Stravinsky. This is particularly evident in the woodwinds' nimble performance at the end of the Allegro con brio from 'Marosszek.'

Franz Schreker's early 20th Century compositions pushed him to the forefront of modernism. His ability to work on a large scale as well as with more intimate orchestrations makes this collection a particularly varied and enjoyable experience.
The pieces here range from symphonic overtures to small chamber orchestra pieces. The title composition, 'Prelude to a Drama,' billows in its immensity. This work, which Schreker later shortened and used in his opera 'Die Gezeichneten,' achieves its grandiose scale with sweeping melodies with a minimal focus on the underlying rhythms. Conversely, 'Valse lente' is a subtle, tightly scored piece full of bright color and delightful patterns. Written to be a dance score, it is unobtrusively pleasant. Most of the pieces included in this collection, however, are of a more symphonic nature, given to the soaring energy of the late Romantics. Like a Liszt or a Wagner, Schreker put power in his music.
REVIEWS:
International Record Review (4/00, p.41) - "...Schreker had a wonderful sense of fantasy, a feeling for colour and impressive mastery of the orchestra. Sinaisky and his fine orchestra are expertly served by the recording team, and whole disc serves to advance Schreker's cause..."

REVIEWS:
International Record Review (5/00, pp.74-75) - "Here, surely, is the Hummel disc we've been waiting for....it would be difficult to imagine these performances being improved upon; everything is ideally shaped, phrased, articulated and coloured..."

Recorded in: Orchestra Hall, Detroit 8 & 9 November 1991 (Three Essays for Orchestra), 24 & 25 April 1993 (Excerpts from Vanessa and Music for a Scene from Shelley, 16 January 1994 (Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance) Producer(s) Brian Couzens (Executive) Charles Greenwell (Three Essays for Orchestra) Ralph Couzens (Excerpts from Vanessa; Music for a Scene from Shelley and Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance) Charles Greenwell (as for Ralph Couzens) Leslie B. Dunner (Associate) Sound Engineer(s) Dan Dene Robert Shafer

Chandos continues its most enjoyable film music series with a disc devoted to Sir Arthur Bliss, whose score for Things To Come (1934-5) was the first important contribution to cinema by an established composer. It remains one of the medium’s finest scores. Bliss’s screen work also embraced both more functional cinematic fare such as the weekly Pathe Pictorial newsreel (featured here a Welcome March marking the return of the Queen from a Commonwealth tour in 1954) and television documentary – represented on this disc by War in the Air and 1966’s The Royal Palaces Suite. In all this music, played with fervour and flair by the well-proven Rumon Gamba- BBC Philharmonic partnership, the vigour and vitality of the composer’s musical invention shines through.

If occasionally Bliss’s melodic line isn’t as overtly tuneful as that of his near contemporary Walton, his dazzling orchestration, dramatic and highly coloured sense of drama, and pungent rhythmic flair are uniquely his own. In these slighter pieces listen out for the unbuttoned start to Welcome the Queen and, at the other end of the scale, the piquantly scored wind interlude in the brief War in the Air. The picturesque tuneful waltz, ‘The Ballroom in Buckingham Palace’ from The Royal Palaces Suite, reminds us of the composer’s earlier credits for the ballet and Bliss, the conjurer of magical orchestral effects, runs through the spooky dark alleyways of Holyrood House, where Rizzio the confidante of Mary Queen of Scots was murdered, to evocative effect.

Things to Come, with its compelling warning for mankind’s future, has lost none of its power to enthrall. In an opening maestoso modal theme interrupted by call signs indicating an outside presence, Bliss powerfully captures the potent compound of HG Wells’s hopes and fears. ‘The Ballet for Children’, a gem of fleet-footed scoring and counterpoint with a trumpet tune foreshadowing to uncanny effect the one in Copland’s Billy The Kid, is followed by a series of bleak landscapes rent asunder by war-like noises. The optimistic note sounded in ‘Building of the New World’ is affirmed by the surging tune in the ‘Epilogue’. Congratulations are due to Philip Lane who arranged and reconstructed this concert music from the film, a story told in detail by Giles Easterbrook in his booklet-notes.

Given its first recording here, Caesar and Cleopatra was an unhappy experience for Bliss. He walked out on the project after meeting the Hungarian producer Gabriel Pascal, who by most accounts was as mad as a hatter, a fact recorded by Alan Jay Lerner during his acquisition of the musical rights to Pygmalion. At the time Bliss had completed over 80 pages of fully scored music including some enchanting, luminously conceived dance episodes. Studio 7 in New Broadcasting House, Manchester makes an ideal recording venue for this kind of music with a dry acoustic that is able to absorb the large battery of percussion evident in Things to Come, as well as offering an appropriately wide view of the sound stage.

GRAMOPHONE

Classical Music

Bax, who died in 1953, is now enjoying something of a renaissance and featuring in more concert programmes and record listings than ever before. His popularity is largely due to Chandos. These chamber works are new to the catalogue and to my ear, although Max Harrison in his review of the LP has reminded us that the tuneful String Quartet No. 1 was available on 78s. Here they are all recorded quite distantly in a decidedly non-chamber acoustic but nicely balanced and very listenable, it being easily possible to follow any of the instrumentalists at will.

-- Gramophone [4/1987]

Recorded in: Mosfilm Studio, Moscow April 1999 Producer(s) Vadim Ivanov Sound Engineer(s) Vladimir Schuster

Felicity Lott's radiant singing has a glistening purity and brightness of tone. Her diction is immaculate and the sheer rapture of her phrasing is glorious to hear.

A distinguished Strauss disc, and how good to find it sponsored by a Scottish commercial firm. The SNO made many fine recordings under Sir Alexander Gibson and this achievement is obviously being prolonged by his successor Neeme Järvi, who has imparted his own precision to the playing. The orchestra now play with a smouldering intensity that can and does, when required, erupt with volcanic force. Em Heldenleben is just the work for this kind of corporate artistic personality and the best tribute I can pay to this performance is that it can stand comparison with Karajan's latest Berlin/DG recording; and Chandos offer better value for money by including the Four Last Songs.

The sound on the LP version is admirable. Recording balance is excellent and even the most complex and forceful sections of the score, such as the Battle scene, never sound congested. .15rvi is kinder to the Adversaries (music critics) than some of his colleagues: the SNO woodwind lack some of the spitefulness that this passage ideally requires. Edwin Paling's playing of the long violin solo depicting Strauss's wife, Pauline, is vividly characterized and technically beyond cavil. I was deeply moved by Jdrvi's interpretation of the final section, where the solo violin and solo horn contribute to his creation of a-truly noble tranquillity. One feature—unique among Ein Heldenleben recordings to the best of my knowledge—is that each of the work's six sections is banded, a very welcome idea.

Those fortunate enough to attend Glyndebourne know how well Felicity Lott sings operatic Strauss, so it is particularly pleasing that wider and larger audiences enjoy her outstanding performance of the Four Last Songs and can now have it on record. I have no hesitation in preferring it to Jessye Norman's over-praised Philips recording; for one thing, Järvi's tempos avoid Masur's ponderous treatment of this score. For another, the songs are sung in the order of the 1950 first performance, with "Beim schlafengehen" first (as on the Delia Casa/13611m classic 1953 Decca disc—nla). Emotionally this seems to me an improvement on the published sequence. Lott's radiant singing reminds me of Sena Jurinac in this music. It has a comparable glistening purity and brightness of tone. Her diction is immaculate and the sheer rapture of her phrasing–in a line like "Sommer lachelt erstaunt" and especially her profoundly moving delivery of "So tief im Abendrot" in the final song—is glorious to hear. The orchestral playing is luminous and rich in detail.

-- Gramophone [10/1987]

First issued here for the centenary of Ives's birth, this performance, with its sound quality somewhat improved, is welcome back. Symphony No. 4 is among the great works of American music and one of the most remarkable things that Ives ever did. Serebrier, born in Uruguay of Russian and Polish parents, understands this music well, especially the last two movements where much of the symphony's weight lies. He was, of course, one of Stokowski's assistant conductors at the New York first performance in 1965.

This interpretation, however, is by no means an echo of Stokowski's (CBS 77424, 9/74—part of a four-LP set). For example, and as MM pointed out when Serebrier's recording first appeared, the second movement's representation of chaos resolves quite differently. It is reassuring that this performance is at its most impressive in the visionary last movement, although on a more mundane level one has to point out that at 32'44" the overall playing time is not generous.

-- Gramophone [9/1985, reviewing the LP release, Chandos 1118]

Composed between 1865 and 1868, Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem has become a repertoire staple for choirs around the world, amateur and professional alike, possibly because it relies so much more on the choir than it's soloists to convey the texts than other works. Brahms chose not to set the Requiem Mass, but rather a collection of biblical texts of his own selection, taken from the Lutheran Bible (hence the 'deutsches'). Rather than a prayer for the dead, Brahms's concern is much more with offering comfort to the bereaved, still on earth. When challenged about the lack of a single reference to Christ in the entire work, Brahms responded, 'I would gladly omit even the word German and simply put Human'. This adds credence to the view that he saw the work in an entirely humanist way, and that the religious overtones of the title and text selection are much more a result of the avowedly Christian culture of his times than a specific decision to express personal belief. Edward Gardner and his Bergen forces are joined by the soloists Johanna Wallroth and Brian Mulligan in this exciting new recording.

Praised by BBC Music magazine for his 'lucid, velvety tenor and pop-star charisma', the Lebanese-American Karim Sulayman has garnered international attention as a sophisticated and versatile artist. He joins the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective for this album of works by Reynaldo Hahn. The founder members Tom Poster and Elena Urioste write: 'Kaleidoscope has championed many unjustly neglected composers, but in the case of Reynaldo Hahn the neglect seems particularly puzzling to us. His music is immediately approachable, soaringly beautiful, and speaks directly to the heart; audiences, on the rare occasions that they get to hear it, seem to adore it. His life story is fascinating, too: born in Caracas, to a Jewish-German father and a Catholic-Venezuelan mother of Spanish / Basque origin, the handsome and urbane Hahn charmed high-society Paris, enjoying great success as composer, conductor, singer, writer-lecturer, and music critic. The Piano Quintet had been on our programming wish list for some time: it was lauded as Hahn's greatest work at it's 1922 premiere, and the powerful intensity of it's first two movements in particular acts as a firm rejoinder to those who criticised Hahn as a lightweight salon composer. By the time he finished his Piano Quartet, in 1946, Hahn was a man out of place in the world; this is music which bears no trace of modernism, instead looking back nostalgically to Hahn's heyday in la belle epoque. A number of years ago, our dear friend Karim Sulayman joined Tom in several performances of a set of Hahn songs, and a shared love for the music led to a discussion about how beautifully some of the piano parts could work in chamber arrangements. Karim had first discovered Hahn through the touching recordings on which the composer simultaneously sings and plays his own songs; and we, in turn, have always been deeply touched by the direct channel which Karim seems to have to Hahn's heartfelt expressive world. For all of us, it has been a profound joy to put these new song arrangements down on disc for the first time.'

STENHAMMAR / HEISE / LANGE-MULLER / MALLING / NIELSEN / GRIE

Peter Donohoe's first album devoted to Busoni was enthusiastically received by the critics, and nominated for a BBC Music Magazine award. This second volume offers playing and musicality of the same high standards. His programme opens with two of Busoni's finest Bach transcriptions, widely seen as a pinnacle of the repertoire for pianistic virtuosity, and much more widely played than Busoni's own compositions. This is followed by the Variations on Chopin's Prelude in C minor - a work in which Busoni demonstrates his innate skill of re-interpretation, and his mastery of counterpoint, and a piece he reworked several times. The following works are 'all Busoni' - the first and second sonatinas, and the Fantasia contrappuntistica, in the composer's later adaptation for two pianos. The first Steinway Artist of Indian origin, Karl Lutchmayer is equally renowned as a concert pianist, a lecturer, and a broadcaster. He joins Peter Donohoe in the Fantasia, and also performs the Second Sonatina.