Classical Music

WAGNER Symphonies: in C, WWV 29; in E, WWV 35. Huldigungsmarsch. Rienzi: Overture. Kaisermarsch • Neeme Järvi, cond; Royal Scottish Natl O • CHANDOS 5097 (SACD: 79:14)


Here’s a milestone of sorts for me. In my nearly 10 years with Fanfare , this is my first time reviewing anything by Wagner. Mainly, the reason, I suppose, is that I don’t do opera, and what else is there, really, by Wagner that isn’t opera? Well, quite a lot, actually. Prior to his earliest completed stage works dating from between 1833 and 1838— Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot , and Die hohe Braut —Wagner wrote a goodly number of works, including several piano sonatas, a string quartet, concert overtures and overtures to plays, study fugues, songs, a considerable volume of miscellaneous piano pieces, and the two symphonies on this disc. And even after he threw himself into music drama with a passion, he continued to compose in other genres throughout his life.


Thus, the Huldigungsmarsch of 1864 was written right smack in the middle of Wagner’s work on Die Meistersinger , and the Kaisermarsch of 1871 comes dead-center during work on Parsifal . Still, the composer’s non-operatic music on record—I count the large numbers of collections of just the orchestral overtures, excerpts, and fragments from the operas as operatic music—seems to be an endangered species.


Wagner’s two symphonies have received one review each in these pages. The more recent appeared in Fanfare 31:2. That review by James Miller dealt with a two-CD Decca Eloquence Wagner collection of opera overtures and preludes performed by a host of orchestras and conductors. Buried among the familiar nuggets was the C-Major Symphony with Edo de Waart leading the San Francisco Symphony. Miller hears influences of Beethoven and, even more strongly, strains of Schubert in the work, and I wouldn’t disagree with him. Wagner was 19 when he wrote the piece in 1832, so it can’t be said that he was a precocious genius on the order of Mozart, Schubert, or Mendelssohn. It’s a pretty formulaic score, strongly redolent of some of Beethoven’s overtures and, curiously, Schubert’s Ninth, which Wagner could not have heard, since its first public performance was given by Mendelssohn in 1839.


A review of the E-Major Symphony goes back even further, to issue 20:4. Submitted by William Youngren, it covers an EMI recording by Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. Wagner’s second attempt at a symphony dates from 1834, but he never completed it. An Allegro con spirito first movement and 30 bars of an Adagio cantabile second movement are all he wrote. Moreover, Wagner didn’t orchestrate it. That task fell to the conductor Felix Mottl when Cosima Wagner enlisted him for the job. The symphony opens with a gesture startlingly reminiscent of the overture to Beethoven’s Fidelio.


Those recordings are still available. I’m afraid I don’t have either of them, but I do have a fine 1992 Denon CD containing both scores with Hiroshi Wakasugi leading the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, a disc you’ll find listed by Amazon but not by ArkivMusic. This new Chandos SACD, however, with Neeme Järvi’s tight grip on the reins and the recording’s deep stage and phenomenal spotting of instruments, is definitely the way to go, if these early works by Wagner interest you.


The Huldigungsmarsch is another item Wagner didn’t orchestrate himself, at least not completely. Purely out of a need for money, Wagner wrote the piece to pleasure the mad king of Bavaria, Ludwig II, originally scoring it for military band. He then began orchestrating the march for symphony orchestra but deferred to the advice of conductor Hans von Bülow to allow Joachim Raff to complete the task. One can’t help but wonder what this says about von Bülow’s opinion of Wagner’s abilities. Raff, you will recall, is the composer who also assisted Liszt with orchestrating some of his works.


Genesis of the Kaisermarsch is a little more complicated. In 1871, the Peters publishing house commissioned Wagner to write something upbeat and patriotic to cheer the troops and boost German morale during the Franco-Prussian war. Like the Huldigungsmarsch , the Kaisermarsch was originally scored for military band, but barely two months later, to celebrate the German victory and the coronation of the Prussian king as emperor of the newly founded German Reich, Wagner rescored the piece for symphony orchestra and added to the end of it a kind of community sing-along set to a sacred text for a strictly secular ceremonial occasion. As note author Emanuel Overbecke points out, “Wagner proved himself ever the political pragmatist, for only four years earlier he had dismissed the same monarch as feeble and ineffectual.” The choral finale is not included on the current recording.


Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen , or just Rienzi as it’s commonly known, was Wagner’s first real stage hit after a string of operatic works that were either left unfinished or that were completed and mounted but with little success. First produced in Dresden in 1842, Rienzi would also be Wagner’s last opera in which the Italian influence is strongly felt. Even before Rienzi premiered, Wagner had completed his next opera, The Flying Dutchman , in 1841. Rienzi’s overture is a staple of recorded collections featuring the overtures, preludes, and orchestral music from Wagner’s operas. Beginning at around 2:45, the slow-moving, chorale-like intoning of the brass, overlaid by striding, leaping figurations in the strings, anticipates the same technique Wagner used for similar effect in the overture to Tannhäuser two years later.


All of the works on this disc, with the exception of the Rienzi overture, have relatively few recorded listings and, to my knowledge, this is their first in surround sound. If you’re a Wagner fan, and your interest in his music extends beyond his operas, I can think of no reason for you not to be thrilled by this release. Neeme Järvi, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Chandos have teamed up countless times over the years to bring us many truly outstanding recordings, and this is another of them.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

BOWEN Clarinet Sonata 1. Rhapsody Trio . Piano Trio in d. Phantasy Quintet. 2 Piano Trio in e • Robert Plane ( 1 cl, 2 bs cl); Gould Pn Tr; 1 Benjamin Frith (pn); 2 Mia Cooper (vn); 2 David Adams (va) • CHANDOS 10805 (78:29)

The superbly crafted and imaginative music of York Bowen is given lively and imaginative performances here by the Gould Piano Trio (whose individual members are also heard separately in the various other pieces on this disc) with clarinetist Robert Plane. I was previously familiar with the Rhapsody Trio and Phantasy Quintet, but not with the clarinet sonata or the other two piano trios given here (one with an opus number of 118, the other an early, unfinished sketch from 1900 when the composer was only 16 years old). For those who have heard Bowen’s music—and like it (not necessarily the same people)—the excellence of his scores will need little introduction. For those who have not yet heard him, his music, though resolutely tonal and in a pre-Stravinsky and pre-serial style, is highly imaginative and extremely well developed. Bowen seemed incapable of writing anything banal, a quality that attracted even the normally churlish Kaikhosru Sorabji, who hailed his writing for piano as being among the very finest of his time (this was in the 1930s and 40s, by which point most of the world had stopped paying attention to Bowen). His music is “out there” in terms of sheer invention and imagination; he could create superb moods, and was often much better than such contemporaries as Vaughan Williams in sustaining them. I think that, perhaps, one reason why Bowen was marginalized (aside from his penchant for tonality) was the fact that he only wrote for piano, either alone or in chamber music situations and three concertos.

Despite Chandos’s penchant for overly roomy sonics, this is a splendid disc, and in fact the piano is (thankfully, since it is the dominant voice in all of these works) well miked. This gives these performances bite and drive when called for, yet the spaciousness is there when atmosphere is required. And, frankly, I cannot say enough about the Gould Trio or their performances of this music. They are exultant, soaring, absolutely committed to bringing out the best in these scores and usually succeeding. I especially liked the “bite” of Lucy Gould’s violin in the Rhapsody Trio ; she manages to plunge the very soul of the music, and yet her tone never becomes shrill but, rather, sinks into a plangent mid-range beauty much like the playing of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Just listen, for instance, to the way this trio ebbs and flows in their presentation of the music; it practically takes wing and flies. Truthfully, it’s even better than the groundbreaking recording (on the Dutton label) by violinist Krysia Osostowicz, cellist Jane Salmon, and pianist Michael Dussek, and no, that is not intended as a slur on the latter trio’s abilities. The Gould Trio quite simply blows them away, but only because there is now a tradition for playing York Bowen while, in Osostowicz’s time, it was fairly new material to younger musicians.

As it turns out, the early, unfinished piano trio from 1900 (of which this is the premiere recording) is a very fine piece. You’d have a difficult time guessing that it was written by a 16-year-old composition/piano student, so strong is its form and imaginative in scope, and once again the Gould Trio plays it with verve and style. As excellent as the performance of the Rhapsody Trio was, this version of the Phantasy Quintet is nearly as good, with bass clarinetist Plane digging deep into the sound of his instrument to contrast with and complement the four strings (Lucy Gould and Alice Neary from the trio along with guest violinist Mia Cooper and violist David Adams), creating tremendous atmosphere. In the second half of the piece, when the music becomes more energetic, this group is more than adequate for the challenge. They are, again, transcendent in their playing. The late (1946) piano trio is one of his greatest works, a subtly interwoven and tightly organic piece that repays close attention, and here the Gould Trio manages to combine lyrical subtlety with their usual exuberant energy.

If you have ever wondered about Bowen’s music but never previously taken the plunge, or if you have heard Bowen’s music previously and wondered what all the fuss was about, this is the disc that will “sell” you on it. Ten stars, easily.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Recorded in: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea 13,14 February 1994 Producer(s) Mike George Ralph Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Richard Smoker (assistant)

Over the years the Brodsky Quartet has undertaken numerous performances of the complete cycle of quartets by several composers. It is, however, the complete Shostakovich cycle that has become synonymous with its name: its 2012 London performance of the cycle resulted in its taking the prestigious title of ‘Artist in Residence’ at the city’s Kings Place. One of the most rewarding aspects of performing the cycle is the way in which it seems to pan out so naturally and perfectly. To be aware that Shostakovich had intended to write twenty-four quartets, one in every key, but ended up with these fifteen thereby creating a unique musical journey that feels predestined and all-encompassing, makes one think that there really must be a greater force at work. The Quartet now adds to its famed discography this remarkable release, recorded live at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw.

Recorded in: All Saints' Church, Tooting, London 18-19 October 1990 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Jeffrey Ginn (Assistant)

Classical Music

Classical Music

NIELSEN Aladdin • Gennady Rozhdestvensky, cond; Mette Ejsing (alt); Guido Paevatalu (bar); Danish Natl SO & CCh • CHANDOS 10498 (79:34)


“It took some time for Nielsen to enter in the spirit of the oriental world in order to be able to compose original, suggestive music and not only imitations of folkloristic motifs,” writes Sussie Grevsen, in the liner notes to this release. There may be something in that to explain why the entirety of Aladdin —all 31 pieces, lasting a generous 79:34—is moderately underwhelming. Nielsen appears to have focused much of his efforts on providing musical backdrops; and while 13 of these cuts understandably have a low profile so as not to detract from text being recited in performance (omitted here), they don’t make for memorable listening. As much can be written, as well, of the Genie’s three separate minute-long utterances; a men’s chorus intoning a written text in unison on one note over a few spare, uninteresting chords adds little to the work. The incidental music is at its best, I think, in much of act III, which functions as exotically colored ballet music. Not coincidentally, it also furnished five out of the seven pieces included in the orchestral suite of excerpts Nielsen created. Elsewhere, however, the work usually fails to sustain interest on its own, and the sense of mystery and fantasy that underlies J. P. E. Hartmann’s score on the same subject is largely lacking.


That noted, if you do want all of Aladdin , this disc is the only way to currently acquire it. Rozhdestvensky and the Danish Natl SO recorded this back in 1993, and it’s been available ever since. There’s excellent pacing, and plenty of color when it’s required—though I still find Friedel/Aarhus SO (MSR Classics 1150; suite only) superior in creating organized chaos during the “Marketplace in Ispahan” sequence. Mette Ejsing is suave and affecting in her few selections, as is Guido Paevatalu, whom I liked so well in the eponymous role of Børresen’s The Royal Guest (dacapo 8.226020).


The new release is labeled “digitally remastered,” but I really can’t find any audio differences between this re-release and my original copy. The sound in any case is good, while Chandos provides full texts and translations. The price is lower, too, so this is the one to get, if you want it all.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Classical Music

Under the leadership of its Artistic Director, Adam Walker, the Orsino Ensemble is a chamber group of flexible formation with five outstanding wind players at its core. Each is a leader in his or her field, the group’s members committed to showcasing the depth and versatility of the wind chamber repertoire. They expand and reduce the Ensemble’s format as needed across their different programmes. This flexible approach is clearly demonstrated on this their début recording for Chandos, programming works for solo instrument through to the full wind quintet and piano needed for Albert Roussel’s Divertissement. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries bore witness to significant advances in the design and manufacture of wind instruments, much of the development driven by French makers. At the same time, the rapidly expanding Paris Conservatoire supported not only performance study, but also a vast output of original compositions by their teaching staff for the student body. The varied programme on this album captures the spirit of the age – a Belle Époque indeed!

REVIEW:

A delightful and thoughtful debut disc from the Orsino Ensemble. Supplemented by Pavel Kolesnikov’s insightful pianism, the Orsinos draw on its core quintet of leading wind players. The entire complement is heard only at the start of the disc in Roussel’s carefree Divertissement, the five wind players effortlessly interweaving, blending or stepping forward as appropriate.

– BBC Music Magazine

With this new volume, Barry Douglas once again weaves a magic web with Celtic tunes that have been handed down from generation to generation. His playing is entwined sometimes with new material composed by his musical companions, internationally renowned for their fearless explorations and interpretations of Scottish music. There is an old Irish proverb that translates into “There may be five versions of every story but there are twelve interpretations of each song.” This sentiment reflects an acknowledgement that each artist makes his or her own song out of material that has been handed down. The result is a beautiful, wistful celebration of melodic riches. Praise for Barry’s previous album of Celtic music includes: “Barry Douglas is to be applauded for these arrangements and his direct communication skills. This music means a lot to him and that shows in his performances… The playing, recording (clear and immediate) and musical content are all first class. It was probably a refreshing change for Mr. Douglas to move out of the highbrow arena for a short while and record something different from his usual fare. This is a lovely disc.” (musicweb-international.com)

Estonia, under the rule of the Russians, was slow to emerge on the musical scene. It was dependent on St. Petersburg for its musical heritage and though it always had a strong choral tradition, orchestral concerts of any regularity did not really get under way until the late 1890s. This disc documents the journey of Estonian music, from embryonic, romantic, early works of its spiritual father, Heino Eller, to the experimental music of Arvo Pärt.

Classical Music

Quirkily entertaining, here is Rota the clown on display with effervescent lampooning music.

Nino Rota’s quirky, eccentric Concerto soirée was written shortly after his film score for La dolce vita. Unsurprisingly the music is reminiscent of Rota’s comedy film scores. In fact the music of the concluding Can-can was used later in the film 8½. Gerald Larner, who contributes the notes to this album succinctly describes it as “a piano concerto written in the spirit of Rossini’s Soirée musicales”. Clearly this is not a Late-Romantic Concerto played in the grand manner but an informal playful work constructed as if it were almost an extemporisation. The opening movement marked, Valser-Fantasia is a waltz with Chopinesque figuration but lampooned by the orchestra. The central Romanza meanders introspectively with some Arabian-style woodwinds before the piano turns skittish; it’s all as if some sad clown is wandering across the musical landscape. A slapstick Quadrille follows and the music here reminds one of the insouciance of Poulenc. The Can-can taken at the gallop concludes this entertaining romp. Rota presents his interpreters challenges of sudden changes of mood, harmonic twists and rhythms all of which are surmounted with enthusiastic dexterity by Barry Douglas and the orchestra.

The quirky mood of the Concerto soirée is sustained, in the main, in Rota’s Divertimento concertante for double-bass and orchestra. Rota makes full expressive use of the instrument’s wide range covering nearly four octaves with harmonics extending its upper range even further. The opening movement is capricious in character now solemn, now asinine. The clowning continues into a comedic march that is the second movement with the soloist pompously trying to impose some sort of dignity on the surrounding chaos. The more serious central Andante has a calming influence with the double-bass in a more lyrical mood; the central section is reminiscent of a Tchaikovsky ballet. The concluding movement is back in sprightly, quirkiness again with a tussle between soloist and taunting woodwind.

Rota’s brief Third Symphony is less serious than its two predecessors (see review). Its lighter character is set in a neo-classical style. The opening Allegro is a brisk ‘open-air’ frolic. Written in the mid-1950s it is again reminiscent of film music although in this first movement one might detect a hint of Hitchcock in sardonic mood as well as broader hints of Italian film humour. The Adagio is altogether more serious and treads a rather darker path in personal introspection - possibly alluding to a personal loss? There is stormy passion and a depth of feeling here we have not encountered so far in this sunlit album. The third movement scherzo is cast in neo-classical style and lilts happily along to a lovely poignant Trio melody. A Vivace con spirito finale rounds off this symphony in comic style once more.

Quirkily entertaining, here is Rota the clown on display with effervescent lampooning music.

-- Ian Lace, MusicWeb International