'The subject of Mazeppa has inspired Mme Cl�mence de Grandval to write a truly remarkable score, the success of which will cause a stir in the musical world.' It was with these flattering words that the press greeted the premiere of the five-act opera by one of the women composers most frequently performed in late nineteenth-century France. For her career was regularly marked by flattering reviews and lasting successes, spanning all genres, from chamber music to oratorio and opera. Yet Mazeppa, though regarded as her testamentary work, did not enjoy the honour of a premiere at the Paris Op�ra and had to fall back on Bordeaux to reap the rewards of glory. A model of concision, this powerful, dramatic opera relates in a little over two hours the apotheosis and fall of the Cossack general Ivan Mazeppa, a fugitive in war-torn Ukraine. It was predicted that the work would enjoy a long career, but the subsequent evolution of the musical language of the Belle �poque, followed by the composer's death, meant that Mazeppa sank into oblivion for more than a century. It was high time for it's hero to get back in the saddle.

SONDHEIM Sweeney Todd • Ulf Schirmer, cond; Mark Stone ( Sweeney Todd ); Jane Henschel ( Mrs. Lovett ); Gregg Baker ( Anthony Hope ); Rebecca Bottone ( Johanna ); Jonathan Best ( Judge Turpin ); Adrian Dwyer ( Beadle Bamford ); Diana DiMarzio ( Beggar Woman ); Ronald Samm ( Pirelli ); Pascal Charbonneau ( Tobias ); Bavarian R Ch; Munich R O • BR 900316 (2 CDs: 123:59) Live: Munich 5/6/2012


Composer-librettist Stephen Sondheim maintains that Sweeney Todd is not an opera, and so does the annotator for the present release. Nevertheless, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (its full title), since it premiered on Broadway in 1979, has been revived by several opera companies, including the New York City Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, and the Chicago Lyric Opera. Why? Musically, it is highly sophisticated, and operatic voices are not wasted on it. Furthermore, with its larger-than-life dramatic themes, including mistaken identity, lust, vengeance, obsession, madness, and murder, how more operatic could a theatrical work be?


There have been several recordings of this work, including the unforgettable original cast recording on RCA with Len Cariou in the title role, and Angela Lansbury in the role of Mrs. Lovett, his cheerfully amoral partner in crime. That version will never be eclipsed, but each new recording adds a welcome new perspective. The one reviewed here, recorded in the Munich’s Prinzregententheater, is the most operatic yet, even more than the one with the New York Philharmonic which features singers such as Heidi Grant Murphy (Johanna), John Aler (Beadle Bamford), and Paul Plishka (Judge Turpin). This time around, we have legitimate operatic singers in all of the main roles; only DiMarzio appears not to be a “classical” musician per se. In other words, here we have an ensemble of acting singers, as opposed to singing actors such as Cariou, Lansbury, George Hearn, Patti LuPone, and Michael Cerveris, who all have made major contributions to this opera’s . . . I mean, musical’s performance history.


It turns out fairly well. I was immediately pulled in by Ulf Schirmer’s conducting, which is tense, taut, and stylish. In fact, you might not hear a better conducted Sweeney Todd anywhere. The Bavarian Radio Choir also adds much to the success of this performance. Although their diction is less clear than that of English-speaking ensembles who have recorded this music, their dramatic involvement is high, as is their musicianship.


This is an actual performance. Apparently the time, funds, or energy to correct the inevitable live lapses was unavailable, and thus we have oddities such as Henschel at one point rechristening Beadle Bamford as “Beadle Rumford.” A few memory lapses are covered professionally, but will leave those who know the show well asking, “What did (s)he just sing?” These issues are minor, though.


I’m more concerned about two other points. One is the lack of (black, very black) humor in this production. For example, I can’t understand why, in “A Little Priest,” the wonderfully uncomfortable pun about a meat pie made from a general (“With or without his privates?”) has been removed. This is a grim show, still there is much about it that can be very funny, and allowing it to be so makes the gore and horror even more effective. As the original Mrs. Lovett, Angela Lansbury was charming and endearing; she might bake you into a meat pie, but you couldn’t stay angry with her for long! Henschel can’t inspire that kind of affection, and she makes it clear that her murderous instincts were present even before opportunity allowed them to come out. The other thing that concerns me is the way in which some of the big dramatic moments are almost thrown away. Todd’s aborted murder of Judge Turpin (interrupted by Anthony’s untimely arrival) should be a big moment, but it isn’t. Similarly, soon after, in Todd’s “Epiphany,” we should feel his mind crack and his murderous rage insanely swell to encompass all of mankind, not just the Judge, but Mark Stone is not that fine an actor, the direction is too hurried, and one of the show’s most Brechtian moments doesn’t come off. The last segment of the show, with its string of murders and its Grand Guignol effects, moves forward jerkily, sometimes grinding to a halt, and sometimes not pausing long enough to make its points. On Broadway, Harold Prince would have fixed these miscalculations, but, at least as I am hearing them on CD, they were not addressed in Munich’s Prinzregententheater.


All of the singing itself is very fine. One curiosity is a baritone Anthony; Gregg Baker’s voice is darker than Mark Stone’s. Anthony is supposed to be an inexperienced sailor, newly arrived in London, and the early scenes between him and Todd feel strange, because the voice relationships have been inverted from the original production. I really missed hearing a tenor’s voice soar into “Johanna,” one of Sondheim’s most rapturous love songs. Also, the multinational cast presents a variety of accents. In 1979, Cariou had almost no accent at all, while Lansbury made the most of hers. Here, we have the reverse: a cockney Todd in Baker, and a Mrs. Lovett of no particular nationality or region in Henschel. Someday, there will be a production of this work in which everyone gets on the same page with dialects.


So, if you want an operatic Sweeney Todd , or a fresh look at it, this new recording will satisfy. It has many enjoyable moments, but a few unfortunate ones as well. If you do not know this show at all, however, the Broadway cast recording—still in print, thank goodness!—is the only place to begin. This show is one of the masterpieces of American musical theater, and absolutely needs to be heard.


FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

Three great choral and orchestral works of the 20th century are gathered together in outstanding interpretations on the new album from BR-KLASSIK: Arvo Pärt's "Berlin Mass" for choir and string orchestra from 1990, Francis Poulenc's "Stabat mater" for soprano, mixed choir and orchestra from 1950, and Igor Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms" for choir and orchestra from 1930. The soprano Genia Kühmeier, the incomparable Bavarian Radio Chorus and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra - two undisputedly world-class ensembles! - under the direction of Mariss Jansons guarantee the highest listening pleasure.

The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, famed for his magical sounds, created his "Berlin Mass" as a commission for the 90th German Catholic Convention in Berlin. It was premiered in 1990 for four mixed solo voices and organ. In 1997, Pärt reworked his Mass, written in the so-called "Tintinnabuli" style, for choir and string orchestra. Francis Poulenc wrote his "Stabat mater" in response to the unexpected death of his friend, the artist Christian Bérard. Like other sacred works written after his visit to the Black Madonna of Rocamadour, where he found his Catholic faith, this one ranks among his most important compositions. Igor Stravinsky's well-known "Symphony of Psalms", a three-movement symphonic work for choir and orchestra, was written in 1930 as a commission for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The unusual orchestration – with strong woodwind and brass, percussion instruments, two pianos and only the bass strings (violoncellos, double basses without violins or violas – gives the work its distinctive sound.

REVIEWS:

Just how much we miss Mariss Jansons is manifest in this Munich concert of three sacred works. Jansons, who died in November 2019, aged 76, was not principally noted for religiosity or choral masterpieces, but his shaping of this triptych is so masterful that one can hardly imagine them presented with greater coherence or sincerity.

This is altogether an outstanding record of the conductor’s art. Jansons was one of the greats. Happily, Bavarian Radio have more of his big nights coming out of their archives.

-- Ludwig van Toronto

Approaching these works with the great seriousness they deserve, Mariss Jansons and the choir create wonderous moods and make the music float in evocative fashion.

-- Pizzicato

‘It would be difficult to find a simpler and more poignant subject’, Massenet remarked during the composition of Ariane, a vast score in five acts premiered at the Paris Opéra in October 1906. The libretto by Catulle Mendès is part ancient drama, part symbolist poem, and sets Phaedra and Ariadne, two sisters in love with Theseus, in violent conflict with each other. This epic work does not shrink from relating the combat against the Minotaur, from showing a ship tossed by the raging billows, nor even from transporting the audience to the Underworld where Persephone reigns. Despite its flamboyant orchestration, its grandiose scenography and its triumphant premiere, Ariane remains one of the few Massenet operas never recorded until now. The young Egyptian soprano Amina Edris takes the title role with ardour and passion, surrounded by a cast well versed in the specificities of the French style. The Bavarian Radio Chorus provides dedicated support in the epic scenes, under the baton of Laurent Campellone, a great champion of Massenet.

Idomeneo has long been one of Sir Simon Rattle's favourite works, and with good reason. Mozart's "dramma per musica" from 1781 completely revitalised the opera seria genre, which had previously been considered outmoded. It opens the series of operas from the composer's mature period. For this commissioned work for the excellent ensemble of the Munich Residenztheater, Mozart had unlimited musical resources at his disposal. It was his most extensive and ambitious stage work to date, featuring demanding arias, differentiated role portraits, a virtuoso orchestral part and several large choral scenes that rank among the most impressive in his oeuvre. - Mozart's first great opera gave Simon Rattle the opportunity to work intensively with the Chorus immediately after taking up his position as the new Chief Conductor of the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra in the autumn of 2023, further deepening his interest in historical performance practice in Munich. He was supported by an exceptional cast of singers, including British tenor Andrew Staples in the challenging title role, soprano Sabine Devieilhe and mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena as the tender lovers Ilia and Idamante, soprano Elsa Dreisig as the envious and distraught Elettra, and several other soloists and choral soloists. Howard Arman directs the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and Simon Rattle conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Ivan Repušić made his debut as Chief Conductor of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester on September 24, 2017 at the city’s Prinzregententheater with a concert performance of Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Luisa Miller". The Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka – the orchestra’s Artist in Residence during the 2017/18 season – was successfully engaged for the title role of the tragic opera, based on Friedrich Schiller's "Kabale und Liebe". This highlight of the Munich music scene has now been released by BR-KLASSIK. Verdi's masterpiece was written during the year 1849 in Paris and Busseto, completed in Naples, and first performed there on December 8, 1849 at the city's Teatro San Carlo. Schiller's tragedy tells the story of the calamitous love of the nobleman Ferdinand for the musician's daughter Luisa Miller, who falls victim to a terrible court intrigue that ultimately drives both to their deaths. To turn the play into an opera Verdi worked intensively with his librettist Salvadore Cammarano; both men were fascinated by Schiller's tableau-like dramaturgy, which matched their own ideas of an "epic drama". The tragedy was given three acts, entitled "Amore" (Love), "Intrigo" (Intrigue) and "Veleno" (Poison). After its successful premiere, the work soon established itself and has remained a fixed part of the international opera repertoire to this day. In this concert performance at Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Marina Rebeka made her role debut as Luisa Miller. Marina Rebeka sings the challenging role with technical perfection, giving it a sparkling vocal splendor.

REVIEW:

This recording can’t quite oust my personal favorite recording, Fausto Cleva’s RCA set with Moffo and Bergonzi, but Marina Rebeka is a much more dramatic Luisa and the recording is worth hearing for her contribution alone—and there is so much more to admire. Inveterate Verdians should definitely lend their ears to this latest Luisa Miller, and those contemplating their first recording of this hidden away masterpiece could do much worse than starting here.

–MusicWeb International

Classical Music

After the success of his introduction to the St. Matthew Passion, author Wieland Schmid takes US on a journey through the Christmas Oratorio with thrilling insights into Bach's creative process and background information on the composition. Outstanding narrators and the complete recording of the 2010 performance of the Christmas Oratorio with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Akademie fer alte Musik Berlin under the direction of Peter Dijkstra make this 4-CD set the ideal Christmas gift.

Written in 1782, Mozart's Mass in C minor - although incomplete – ranks as one of the outstanding Mass settings in European music history. The very recent reconstruction/completion of the Mass by Clemens Kemme in the spring of 2018 confines itself to the original sources, avoiding any arbitrary additions. The work was recorded in this critically acclaimed version for the Bayerischer Rundfunk during the summer of 2018, and conducted by Howard Arman. This album is thus the first recording of the definitive version of this new and intelligently edited reconstruction of Mozart's Mass in C minor. An introduction to the work is also included, enabling this masterpiece to be approached from new perspectives. In Vienna in the summer of 1782, Mozart started writing a new Mass despite having apparently received no commission to do so. On August 4, 1782 he married Constanze Mozart, and from his correspondence it appears that he had made himself a promise to “have a newly-composed mass performed in Salzburg if he brought her there as his wife.” The work may have been performed on October 26, 1783 in St. Peter's Church in Salzburg, with Constanze as the soprano soloist; concrete evidence of such a performance is however lacking. Nevertheless, the Mass can probably be seen as a kind of votive offering for Constanze. The fact that the work was not completed may be due to the church music reforms implemented by the Emperor Joseph II, who preferred sacred music to be performed on a smaller scale. In 1785, Mozart eventually reworked the “Kyrie" and "Gloria" from the mass for his cantata Davide penitente.

Christmas carols are indeed numerous, ranging from church hymns from the Middle Ages to naïve children’s songs, pastoral pieces and festive Lutheran chorales all the way to spirituals and even pop songs. The repertoire is vast and constantly expanding- as is also clear from the wealth of requests received every year by the Office for Christmas Carols in the city centre of Graz, Austria. During Advent, and for over 25 years now, the Styrian Centre for Folk Music has provided valuable support and advice, helping people fill gaps in texts or remember forgotten melodies, and providing information on all issues concerning Christmas customs. The current album, with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Munich Rundfunkorchester conducted by Howard Arman, is full of festive Christmas music. It contains a compilation of all kinds of different carols and songs from Poland, Greece, and Germany, as well as compositions by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Mendelssohn and Berlioz. Whether popular, traditional, sophisticated, or closer to pop music, the songs and the melodies radiate all the power and the charm of Advent and Christmas- bringing festive magic and a solemn grandeur to our modern, enlightened times.

For his ''Occasional Oratorio'', composed in 1746 in an age of personal and political upheaval, Handel made generous use of much of his own earlier material, and this resulted in something quite close to an anthology: a choice collection of his most beautiful and most famous pieces - as it were, a ''Best Of''. The ''Messiah'' librettist Charles Jennens complained loudly that the oratorio was ''a triumph for a victory not yet gain'd'', and that its libretto, by a certain Newburgh Hamilton, was an ''inconcevable jumble of John Milton and Edmund Spenser''. Nevertheless, the ''Occasional Oratorio'' offers the modern listener magnificent and largely familiar melodies, highly virtuosic Baroque arias, moving choruses and, above all, a magnificent Late Baroque sound that, in this extremely compact score, is quite unique. Audiences at the time probably considered this to be ''Handel at his best'', and today's public doubtlessly shares that opinion. This virtuoso and colorful interpretation, recorded recently on February 11, 2017 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz, was an exemplary success, delighting the audience and the trade press alike. Howard Arman conducted the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, teh Akademie fur Alte Music Berlin with its historically informed performance practice, and a line-up of highly talented English soloists.

Classical Music

Classical Music

To follow the Christmas Oratorio, the Bavarian Radio Choir under its artistic director Peter Dijkstra again present a major work by J.S. Bach, in a live recording on CD and DVD: the St. Matthew Passion. The choir's partner is the renowned period instrument group Concerto Köln, already heard together with the choir on several BR-KLASSIK CDs. Julian Prégardien sings the part of the Evangelist. The DVD edition of this live recording features highly atmospheric lighting effect

The Italian composer Gioachino Rossini is best known for his operas. Many of their overtures and arias were catchy tunes at the time and have remained so to this day. Although it is Rossini’s comic operas that are primarily performed today, more than half of his stage works are in fact based on serious themes. One veritable rarity is the stage work "Sigismondo", which premiered in 1814 at the famous Teatro La Fenice in Venice but was only ever rarely performed afterwards. Presumably, the story on which it was based had no appeal for the audience at that time, because musically, the work is hardly less impressive than the "Italian Girl in Algiers", written during the previous year, or the "Barber of Seville", which followed two years later. The subject of the opera is, however, based on a long tradition. Rossini shows his protagonist, the fictional King Sigismondo, in extreme states of mental distress. Confusion and insanity reveal inner feelings, and it is only delirium that finally brings the truth to light. This "madness opera" is highly topical, both in its subject matter and its musical language – after all, Rossini is among the top ten most-performed composers of our time. A concert performance of this little-known and unjustly neglected masterpiece was given at Munich’s Prinzregententheater on October 14, 2018 - in the original language, and by performers highly familiar with Rossini’s music, which seems so easy but is in fact extremely difficult to sing. This extraordinary opera event – a festival of singing that received tumultuous applause as well as great critical acclaim – is now being released on BR-KLASSIK as a live recording.

 

REVIEW:

 

It would appear at first glance that the release of this recording of one of Rossini’s more egregious operas has been primarily designed as a promotional exercise for the conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson. How else does one explain that hers is the only artist biography in the 36-page German-English booklet?

 

She is good. But the singers are good too: an exceptional cast to be assembled for a Sunday radio transmission. But that’s Germany for you, the one country in Europe which still has the desire and the wherewithal seriously to invest in opera.

 

Singing Rossini live under a skilled if sometimes hard-driving conductor is not without its perils, as is occasionally evident with the one soprano in the cast, the gifted Hera Hyesang Park, who sings the role of the exiled wife of the delusional Polish king Sigismondo. But she, too, generally acquits herself with distinction, not least in Aldimira’s striking Act 2 aria.

 

Sigismondo, an old-fashioned travesti role, is sung by Marianna Pizzolato. Both she and Kenneth Tarver as the king’s devious and sexually ambitious Prime Minister are class acts. It’s also good to hear the young Irish mezzo Rachel Kelly in the comprimario role of the minister’s sister, Anagilda.

 

Keri-Lynn Wilson — or Mrs Peter Gelb as one’s probably not allowed to call her — is an experienced conductor who has worked in leading houses across the world. Here the drive and authority of her conducting work wonders for the piece. I like the way she rescues the Overture from buffo banality by giving it a rumbustious, even dangerous feel. I also like the way the performance culminates in an electrifying account of the Act 2 quartet. Identifying and realising any work’s one true climax is a skill that eludes all too many stick-wavers.

 

Rossini wrote Sigismondo for Venice’s Teatro La Fenice in the autumn of 1814. He was 22 and on the cusp of a move to Naples and the second great phase of his career. The impresario of La Fenice warned him that the libretto wasn’t up to much and Rossini seems to have agreed. Still, he set to and came up with some vital and at times forward-looking music that had the singular merit of appeasing the first-night audience. Which is why it doesn’t perhaps matter that BR-Klassik has been negligent in its presentation—no text and translation, such as one has with Bongiovanni’s highly recommendable 1992 Rovigo theatre recording conducted by Richard Bonynge, nor the kind of track-by-track synopsis such as Naxos provides in its altogether less well-sung and less efficiently recorded 2016 Rossini in Wildbad performance.

 

 

– Gramophone

Arvo Pärt (b. 1935, Estonia) has succeeded in bringing sacred music back to a broader audience, and away from the confines of the church service, more than almost any other contemporary composer. The meditative character of his works, and his return to the simplest and most basic musical forms, convey moments of intense spirituality. Even before his emigration from the Soviet Union to Austria and then to Germany, Pärt had already invented what he termed the tintinnabuli style of composition (from the Latin word for a bell). He produced an early and important example of this style in 1977 with the "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten", scored for string orchestra and bell, and it is also a key feature of the three great choral works that form the greater part of this new BR-KLASSIK CD "Arvo Pärt: Live", namely the "Seven Magnificat Antiphons" for mixed choir a capella, the large-scale oratorio "Cecilia, vergine romana" for mixed choir and orchestra, and the vocal work „Litany – Prayers of St John Chrysostom for Each Hour of the Day and Night” for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra. Also included on this CD is the "Collage on B-A-C-H" for strings, oboe, harpsichord and piano. Composed in 1964, before Pärt's aesthetic reorientation, it is one of his most famous works.

-----

REVIEW:

Despite the 11-year span of these live recordings and four different churches used as locations, the album’s aural impression is uniform, the sound very good, and the singing crisp and up to the high standards of this phenomenal professional chorus.

– ClassicsToday

HANDEL Dixit Dominus. BACH Magnificat • Peter Dijkstra (cond); Christina Landshamer (sop); Diana Haller (mez); Maarten Engeltjes (ct); Maximilian Schmitt (ten); Konstantin Wolf (bs); Bayerischen Rundfunks Ch; Concerto Köln (period instruments) • BR 900504 (56:07 Text and Translation)


Handel composed his Dixit Dominus in 1707, the same year that Bach composed his first cantata, Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir (BWV 131). Both men were 22 years old and presumably intent on announcing to the world that they were ready to take it on—which both emphatically were. It’s interesting to compare the two works, both harbingers of things to come. Bach’s cantata is appropriately serious and introspective, given its somber text (“Out of the depths…”), whereas Handel’s Psalm, mirroring its text, is rife with fireworks, vocal and choral. Like many another emerging artist he obviously set out to toss everything he knew into the project. There’s nothing wrong with fireworks, as long as they are as skillfully executed as they are here. Peter Dijkstra fans the flame in this high-energy realization. The Gloria Patri , which ends the work, is done at break-neck speed and then some. To call it exhilarating is perhaps an understatement. Yet it’s sung with remarkable precision and gusto by the Bavarian Radio Choir. And it’s not all flash; the duet in the penultimate movement is especially touching, with Christina Landshamer’s soprano soaring ethereally over Diana Haller’s lovely mezzo.


Bach’s Magnificat, originally in E?, dates from 1723 but was later revised and transposed to D, probably some time between 1728 and 1731. Both Bach and Handel, in their early-40s, were at the height of their powers then. Bach was settling in at Leipzig. Handel, in London, was producing Italian operas for his English audiences: Ottone, Giulio Cesare, Rodelinda, Tolomeo . If anything, Bach’s Magnificat, with its high trumpets and kettle drums, is even more magnificent that Handel’s Dixit Dominus . Again maestro Dijkstra draws a vital performance from his talented forces. The choir, 33 strong by my count, is splendid throughout, as is their instrumental counterpart, Concerto Köln. The well-matched solo quintet, named above, is as near to flawless as one could reasonably expect: not a moment of weakness in either work. Overall, this is a deeply satisfying release. Competition for the Dixit Dominus is relatively sparse. Dijkstra’s would be hard to beat. There are many fine Magnificats out there. I’m currently carrying Richard Hickox’s version (Chandos) on my MP3 player. I may have to rethink that.


FANFARE: George Chien

The "Stabat mater" by the Bohemian composer Antonin Dvor�k, well-known in it's later orchestral version, was initially composed with piano accompaniment. This rarely-heard original version has now been recorded for BR-KLASSIK, featuring the excellent Bavarian Radio Chorus under the direction of Howard Arman, and accompanied by Julius Drake on the piano. The young Dvor�k was a well-studied and experienced church musician. Having graduated from the organ school in Prague, he spent three pious years as an organist in the city's St. Adalbert's Church. The search for a "truly sacred music" preoccupied him from the very start. The contemporary Caecilian Movement for church music reform led him, like many of his colleagues, to re-examine the Palestrina style, which represented a return to the more modest, less ostentatious and yet at the same time contrapuntally ingenious church music of a previous epoch. He duly composed a "Stabat mater" without orchestral splendour and with a simple piano accompaniment. Shortly before Dvor�k wrote down this first version of his "Stabat mater" between February 19 and May 7, 1876, a heavy blow had struck the young family. On December 19, 1875, his daughter Josefa died two days after she was born. Dvor�k did not set all the verses of the hymn to music, and chose an ensemble of four soloists, a choir and a piano. This original version from the spring of 1876, with it's seven-movement structure, is not a fragment, draft or piano reduction but an independent and self-contained work in it's own right. In the autumn of 1877, when he composed the missing four verses and scored his "Stabat mater" for a large orchestra, he effectively created a new and different work.

Classical Music

ORFF Antigonae • Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond; Martha Mödl ( Antigone ); Carlos Alexander ( Creon ); William Dooley ( Chorus Leader ); Fritz Uhl ( Haemon ); Marianne Radev ( Ismene ); Paul Kuen ( Guard ); Joseph Traxel ( Tiresias ); Kurt Böhme ( Messenger ); Lilian Benningsen ( Eurydice ); Bavarian RSO & Ch • PROFIL 09066 (2CDs: 143:06) Live: Munich 1958


Every collector knows Orff’s Carmina Burana . Many are acquainted with the Catulli Carmina . Fewer know that Orff, after World War II, produced three theater works that aimed to create a contemporary equivalent of the ancient performances of Greek tragedy, heightening the texts with his paradoxically archaic-sounding modern music, and with dance. Antigonae first in 1949 and then Oedipus der Tyrann in 1959 make use of the highly expressive 1804 German adaptations of the Sophocles plays by Friedrich Hölderlin. ( Prometheus , from 1968, sets Aeschylus’s Greek.)


As in the setting of Catullus poems, the orchestra is stripped of much of the color that makes Carmina Burana so popular, while retaining the visceral impact of a large ensemble. Antigonae requires six pianos, four harps, six each of flutes, oboes (three doubling English horn), and muted trumpets, nine double basses, and a large battery of percussion. The combination makes a wonderful noise in full cry, though Orff uses the whole orchestra sparingly and, much of the time, quite delicately. Opera singers of the first rank are required, but it is not an opera as such. The text is generally sung with little accompaniment, frequently at the extremes of the range, in an intensely rhythmic chant. Piano and tuned percussion are used to establish key, add color, and punctuate the line. Occasionally greater forces are used to amplify emotion, as in Creon’s and Antigone’s pivotal scenes, and to accompany the chorus. There are, however, lengthy stretches of heroically declaimed, sparsely accompanied German. This may sound monotonous, but throughout the many hours spent listening to three versions of the two-and-one-half hour work in review, plus a recording of the later Oedipus , I did not find it so.


I say this despite little German comprehension, and the recording’s lack of texts, or even a reasonable synopsis. One may secure a translation of Hölderlin’s verse, which Orff set line-for-line, but at more than half of the cost of the recording. Doing so will add to the appreciation of the work, yet in truth, with some knowledge of the story, Orff and the extraordinary performers make this a moving experience without translation. For those fluent in German, the wonderful diction and clear recording should make a libretto unnecessary.


If lack of text is a weakness—and in fairness, this is common to all releases—it is the only one. If one is going to issue a recording of such an obscure work, one best make it a superlative one, and that is just what Profil has done. On disc, the work has been almost exclusively the property of the Bavarian Radio. After the 1949 premiere at Salzburg, recorded but currently out of print, all but one CD release has been made in Munich either by the Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, or the State Opera. Georg Solti’s 1951 recording on Orfeo is distinguished by the incomparable Creon of Hermann Uhde, but is put out of contention for a general recommendation by some rather scrappy orchestral and choral execution. Ferdinand Leitner’s is a studio recording from 1961, notable for the conductor’s subtle and nuanced pacing, which gives a spiritual quality to a performance that emphasizes character delineation. Inge Borkh is a vulnerable Antigone, heartbreaking in her grief and moving in her preparation for death. The recording, which I admire greatly, is currently available only as a download, so the discovery and release of this Sawallisch live recording from 1958 is particularly welcome.


Sawallisch was recording a fair amount of Orff in this period: a 1956 monaural EMI Carmina Burana that rivals Jochum’s classic account (DG) for acute conducting, and splendid recordings of the two fairy tale operas, Der Mond and Die Kluge , also for EMI in 1956–57. He was therefore an old hand at Orff by the time he led this performance. He does not linger as much as Leitner—his performance is more than a quarter-hour faster—exchanging some poignancy and understatement for an implacable sense of impending doom. Martha Mödl’s imperious Antigone fits into this approach perfectly, as does Carlos Alexander’s pitiless Creon and Fritz Uhl’s desperate Haemon. Paul Kuen is a fine Mime-like Guard, but must give pride of place to Gerhard Stolze’s conspiratorial reading for Leitner. William Dooley sings the Chorus Leader movingly, and the men of the Bavarian Radio Choir are the finest group to record this music, even preferable to their subsequent outing three years later. The remaining singers are equally fine, with special mention necessary of Kurt Böhme’s sonorous Messenger.


The recording itself is a marvel, showing almost no sign of its age. It is monaural, but with subtle ambient processing that provides some sense of space without adding artificial reverberation. (The booklet is silent on the matter, but the effect is pleasantly audible, and visible when scoped.) The sound is detailed and immediate, with remarkable percussion transients, solid bass, and the voices placed naturally in relation to the instruments. (Leitner achieves some of his delicacy and intimacy through forward placement of the voices.) The audience is almost completely silent. In all, this is the most desirable of the recordings of this work, a superb introduction to Orff’s too-seldom explored Greek tragedies, and a gripping dramatic experience.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames

�Bruckner's last mass is a masterpiece. Rooted in the traditional Austrian mass, it also contains symphonic elements found only in Beethoven's Missa solemnis, although Mahler can be seen on the horizon. Premiered in Vienna in 1872 to immense acclaim, the work is now performed both in the liturgy and in concert, a permanent part of the repertoire. In contrast to the monumental symphonies, here we encounter a very special soundscape, reaching from soft ethereal sounds to jubilant surges

Das Fuerstenkind (The Prince’s Child) has always been an “insider’s tip” in Lehár’s oeuvre, and the composer himself regarded this robbers’ tale from Greece premiered in 1909 as one of his best works. It was also his problem child because it never became a sensational success. The reason may have been due to the works blurring of boundaries between opera and operetta.

Classical Music

Marina Rebeka is one of the most successful sopranos of her generation. To mark the occasion of the upcoming Rossini year of 2018, she and the Munchner Rundfunkorchester, conducted by Marco Armiliato, have recorded an album of highly dramatic opera arias that is now being released by BR-KLASSIK. The album "Amor fatale" offers the opportunity to reacquaint oneself with the great soprano arias from Rossini's less well-known but musically convincing tragic operas, in a fine interpretation.The concept album entitled "Amor fatal" focuses on powerful female roles from the operas Otello, Armida, La donna del lago (The Lady of the Lake), Maometto II, Semiramide (Semiramis), Moïse et Pharaon (Moses and Pharaoh) and Guillaume Tell (William Tell). The women are obliged to choose between love and duty, and frequently have to subordinate their personal fate to that of their family, nation or homeland.The Latvian soprano has quite some experience with roles in Rossini, above all from his great tragic operas: the role of Anna Erisso from Maometto II, which she performed in 2008 at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the composer’s birthplace, marked the very start of her career. She went on to attract international attention in 2009 when she debuted at the Salzburg Festival, as Anaï in Moïse et Pharaon. For her album she has worked through Rossini's original handwritten manuscripts and included this in her performance; she also developed her own coloratura, which not only suits her voice both musically and technically, but also best corresponds to the specific stage events and emotions encountered in her respective operatic roles.

Ivan Repusic, who made his debut as Principal Conductor of the Munchner Rundfunkorchester in the autumn of 2017 with Giuseppe Verdi's "Luisa Miller", now presents a further and lesser-known masterpiece by the famous Italian opera composer. The concert performance of Verdi's early stage work "I due Foscari" was recorded on November 25, 2018 at the Munich Prinzregententheater. Outstanding performers provide an authentic atmosphere and vocal magnificence, and no less a person than the multiple-award-winning Italian baritone Leo Nucci was successfully engaged for the role of the Doge of Venice. This highlight of the Munich music scene from late last year is now available from BR-KLASSIK as a double album. Verdi's early masterpiece "I due Foscari" was the first of the operas he wrote for the Teatro Argentina in Rome. He had already worked on the material (Lord Byron's drama "The Two Foscari"), and, after a first subject had been rejected by the Roman censors, Verdi returned to it and had the libretto written by Francesco Maria Piave. Although the opera's premiere on November 3, 1844 was only moderately successful and Verdi would even distance himself from it later on, the work was still frequently performed up to the 1870s. It was rediscovered during the early 1950s and has since become a fixed part of the international opera repertoire. The concert performance (sung in the Italian original) in Munich's Prinzregententheater received great acclaim from audience and critics alike, again justifying the Munchner Rundfunkorchester's strategy of successfully reviving underrated music-theatrical works by means of standard-setting performances. Ivan Repusic conducts a genuine theatrical Verdi here: vital, robust, fiery and extremely lively.

Fuoco di gioia -at the beginning of Verdi's "Otello", the compatriots of the victorious protagonist cheer his triumphant return to his home port with a vocal "fire of joy". The opera quote is also the title of this new album recently recorded by the Bavarian Radio Chorus, together with the M�nchner Rundfunkorchester under it's chief conductor Ivan Repu�ic. The opera chorus from "Otello" begins this selection of famous choruses and instrumental pieces from stage works of Italian belcanto (Verdi), Italian verismo (Leoncavallo, Puccini, Mascagni), Russian opera (Borodin, Glinka, Tchaikovsky), and the romantic operas of Richard Wagner. These very recent recordings from January, February and July 2019 contain well-known and enjoyable melodies that are perfect for singing along to (secretly or otherwise)!

At a time when the majority of German composers turned from the opera to the singspiel and its considerably smaller dimensions, Franz Lachner continued the tradition of the grand historical opera with Catharina Cornaro. Lachner’s once so very successful opera, last performed in Munich in 1903, was forgotten for many decades, but a few years ago the editor Volker Tosta of Stuttgart prepared a new edition of this work, its first published version, especially for the concert performance by the Munich Radio Orchestra. The action of the tragic opera is based on the true-life story of the Queen of Cyprus. Political intrigues and great passions distinguish the plot. It is difficult to believe that this musically so very appealing work, which captivated the audience at Munich’s Prince Regent Theater already with its highly atmospheric overture during the performance on which this album is based, ever could be forgotten. “With this opera the German school has been enriched with a dramatic work that has to be counted as one of the most genial and magnificent of the works belonging to it.” This is what the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung wrote after the premiere, and Max Zenger’s Geschichte der Münchner Oper of 1923 documents the pathbreaking effect of this opera when it states that Catharina Cornaro had “quite literally become Munich’s hallmark, like the two towers of the Cathedral of Our Lady.”

This 1999 recording of Marcello Viotti conducting La Favorite is the most recent of the reissued sets from Sony. This four act grand opera by Donizetti is based on the play Le comte de Comminges by Bacular d’Arnaud. The work which premiered in 1840 at the Academie Royale de Musique in Paris has a French libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaez. Ramon Vargas is a featured soloist, who has long been praised for his fluent, stylish arias. He meets the high range of these pieces with virtuosity. “(Marcello Viotti) gets the long lines of Donizetti’s melodies just right and holds the big ensembles together well. His Munich forces play and sing handsomely…” (ClassicsToday.com)

I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Bellini’s exquisitely lyrical treatment of Romeo and Juliet, has garnered renewed popularity in recent decades. The 1998 Munich recording reissued here is one of the catalogue’s most acclaimed, particularly for the vibrant, expressive Romeo of mezzo Vesselina Kasarova and the conducting of Roberto Abbado, who, wrote Gramophone, “has Bellini’s lyricism within him (hear the finale to Act 1, for instance). He elicits fine playing from the Munich orchestra.”

For Bach, the Mass in B minor marked the culmination and also the end point of his life’s work as a composer. This "great Catholic Mass," the only mass he composed, and in which he set to music the complete Ordinary of the Latin Mass, was his last great vocal work. The Mass, completed in 1748/49, is a musical masterpiece in which the Baroque musical splendor is always to the fore, though reflective moments and intense, heartfelt chorales are also very important elements. The Latin Ordinarium constitutes the silk thread along which all these musical pearls are strung. Even after almost three hundred years, the music of Bach's Mass in B minor is still animated, fresh, and a true Baroque delight – whether heard live in concert or recorded.

What makes this concert version of April 2016 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz so special that it should definitely be added to any audio collection? The fresh voices of the young but excellent vocal soloists: the regularly praised "astonishing three-dimensionality" and "crystalline clarity" of the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of Peter Dijkstra and of course of the renowned period instrument ensemble Concerto Köln; and last but not least, the exciting live atmosphere of a concert event that delighted the audiences, and even managed to coax the word “magical” from Munich’s music critics – rare praise, but in this case, richly deserved!

REVIEW

Dijkstra obtains remarkably sympathetic playing from the Concerto Köln. This engaging performance has plenty of vitality when needed, with the textures of the period instruments sounding clean and transparent. Up to its usual level of consistency, the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks gives a performance high on radiance and reverence.

Recorded at live performances in the renowned acoustic of the Herkulessaal, Munich, the BR Klassik sound engineers provide reasonably close sound that feels warmly atmospheric and seems to add to the sense of sacred awe. The clarity is pleasing and the balance between the soloists, chorus and orchestra is satisfyingly achieved. In the accompanying booklet, full texts of the Latin Mass with a German translation are provided.

Dijkstra’s compelling live performance, full of insights and detail, can take its place alongside the finest recordings.

--MusicWeb International