Most of the pieces on this album have been designated ‘WoO’ (Works without Opus Number) or bear the numbering from the Hess catalogue of unpublished or unfinished pieces. These include the piano transcription of the topically programmatic Battle Symphony (Wellington’s Victory or The Battle of Vitoria) and the genial variations on Rule Britannia and God Save the King. The Marches, Menuets and Ecossaises derive from a variety of sources, while there is a strangely tragic aspect to the Waltz in C minor.

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The Seven Last Words of Christ refers to the seven short phrases uttered by Jesus on the cross, as gathered from the New Testament. Over the centuries the crucifixion has served as inspiration to countless composers, and settings of these utterances have become something of a subgenre, beginning in the Renaissance with early motets and continuing into our own time. By way of Cesar Franck and Sofia Gubaidulina, composers ranging from Heinrich Schutz to Tristan Murail have contributed versions using various combinations of voice and/or instruments. One of the best known of these settings is probably the one by Joseph Haydn. The one – or rather the four… A rather complicated story begins in 1785, when Haydn received a commission from Cadiz in Spain, at the other end of Europe. He was asked to compose seven slow movements, each ca 10 minutes long, to be played by an orchestra in alternation with the priest expounding on each of the seven words. Relishing this unusual challenge, Haydn accepted and ended up so pleased with the result that he immediately made a version for string quartet as well as authorising another one for keyboard. The work became so popular across Europe that ten years later the music was used one final time, in an oratorio for choir and orchestra. The work is here heard in the version for keyboard, performed by the French pianist Nicolas Stavy. He closes the disc with another unusual work in Haydn’s oeuvre, the Andante con variazioni, Hob. XVII/6, which has been described as ‘the deepest and most profound set of variations for piano composed between Bach and Beethoven’.

Christian Gottlob Neefe flourished as the Baroque was giving way to the Classical period. These Twelve Sonatas represent important steps in this transition, each having a uniquely individual character and showing a mixture of styles. Neefe is remembered today as Beethoven's first main teacher in Bonn, the Dressler Variations being young Ludwig's first published composition. Susan Kagan, a pianist, author, and educator, has explored the music of composers associated with Beethoven and his Milieu.

Michael Collins combines the roles of clarinet soloist and conductor as he leads the Swedish Chamber Orchestra in three works that chart the journey of the clarinet from Mozart’s late eighteenth-century Europe, via Aaron Copland’s 1940s America, to today’s classical scene with a piece written, for Michael Collins, in 2007 by the Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin.

Mozart composed his Clarinet Concerto, just weeks before his death in 1791, for Anton Stadler, the first great clarinet virtuoso. Stadler performed the work on what today is known as the basset clarinet, which features additional low notes without compromising the higher register. Unfortunately, Mozart’s manuscript score has been lost. In recent years, however, editors and performers have made several attempts to determine Mozart’s original intentions, and the version recorded here represents one such reconstruction. The concerto has a quality of serene and resigned beauty, recognisable from Die Zauberflöte, and from Mozart’s Requiem.

Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto was commissioned in 1947 by Benny Goodman, the most famous band leader of the swing era, who has been credited with having made jazz ‘respectable’. Goodman also had a second career as a classical clarinettist. He was eager to enrich the repertoire by inviting major composers to write for him, and Copland was happy to take on the challenge.

Elena Kats-Chernin is one of Australia’s leading composers. Her Ornamental Air was written in 2007 in response to a commission from a group of orchestras including the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, with Michael Collins as the intended soloist. The score is modelled closely on the Clarinet Concerto by Mozart. Not only are the orchestral forces identical – two flutes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings – but the solo instrument is the basset clarinet, for which Mozart also wrote his concerto. Kats-Chernin’s writing here takes full advantage of the exceptionally wide range of the instrument, as well as its potential for both virtuosity and lyricism.

- Chandos

Mozart was not yet seventeen when Lucio Silla was created in Milan one December evening of 1772, yet we can still distinguish in this youthful composition some of the elements that established the exceptionally-gifted child musician as the greatest composer of all times. Indeed, with Lucio Silla, although a neoclassical "opera seria" in every way, it seems that Mozart was already learning to deconstruct and to free the traditional forms of musical drama from archaic conventions. We can also identify in this work an aesthetic premise that Mozart didn't formulate until ten years later: it falls to music only to express and to reveal the psychological depths of the characters; and the poetry in the libretto should only be it's "obedient daughter". The opera is centered around the love Roman dictator Lucio Silla bears for his enemy's daughter Giunia, who favors the exiled senator Cecilio as the object of her affection. After many twists and turns, the lovers are united in marriage and Silla renounces his crown. Tenor Kurt Streit is Lucio Silla, and soprano Patricia Petibon is Giunia for the last time, after having gained international recognition thanks to her numerous performances in this role, while mezzo-soprano Silvia Tro Santafe is the ardent Cecilio. In this monumental production, Claus Guth finds a way to respect both the classical setting and the formal innovations that make the opera so interesting. Ivor Bolton conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Real.

The Swiss Piano Trio's sixth and final release featuring works for piano trio by Ludwig van Beethoven presents two early masterworks and real rarities: adaptations for piano trio of Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 and his String Quintet Op. 4, based on his Octet Op. 103 and reworked by the composer himself (this piano trio is therefore a double adaptation of the octet). Both piano trio adaptations were published by Artaria in Vienna in 1806. Whilst it is not documented who arranged the string quintet for piano trio, the Second Symphony was adapted by Beethoven's pupil Ferdinand Ries in collaboration with Carl Czerny and under the supervision of the composer. The result is a resplendent realization of an ingenious orchestral work which greatly astonished contemporary audiences. The magnificent version for piano trio facilitates a renewed encounter with a work which is still unjustly overshadowed by the Eroica Symphony.

As is well known, Liszt wrote transcriptions of all nine Beethoven Symphonies. Here Frederic Chiu gives brilliant performances of Nos. 5 and 7. With a vibrant concert schedule, a legacy of 27 albums, and a stream of accolades from around the globe, pianist Frederic Chiu occupies a special place in the world of classical music. His non-traditional approach including interdisciplinary collaborations, integration of new technologies and emphasis on audience engagement distinguish Mr. Chiu as a maverick and innovator, a 21st Century artist.

Gluck Opera Gala is a 2-album compilation of highlights from seven previously released albums on the ORFEO label. It contains excerpts from Gluck's semi seria opera Alceste (album 1, tracks 1-7); his reformist operas Iphigénie en Tauride (album 1, tracks 8-14), Orfeo ed Euridice (album 2, tracks 1-9) and Paride ed Elena (album 2, tracks 10-16); and two works in a more light-hearted vein, Le Cinesi (album 1, tracks 15-16) and Les Pélegrins de la Mecque (album 2, tracks 17-23). All of the recordings are star-studded, featuring performances by legendary artists such as Jessye Norman, Nicolai Gedda, Thomas Moser, Ileana Cotrubas, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Franco Bonisolli and Julia Kaufmann.

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A new treasure from the archives of the Southwest German Radio! Hänssler Classic is proud to present a rare historical recording of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra with Lorin Maazel from 1958. Lorin Maazel is one of the most famous conductors in the world. Born in 1930, he received early lessons on the piano and violin at the age of seven and soon thereafter began to conduct. His program includes Beethoven's often neglected Second Symphony, which has always been in the shadow of it's "bigger brothers", especially the "Eroica" Symphony. Also included is the Coriolan Overture and Bartók's "Concerto for Orchestra". It is an extraordinary experience to hear how Maazel builds the suspense and consistency in these interpretations from early in his career. An important recording both for Maazel fans and those who want to become one. - Hanssler Classic

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In a series of 3 albums, the Beethoven Trio Bonn explores the confrontation between one of Beethoven’s standard works for piano trio with a further “house music” arrangement of one of his orchestral works. More than providing an interesting pairing, the Beethoven Trio Bonn was keen on interpreting an original work for piano trio alongside an arrangement of an orchestral work “downsized” to piano trio format. Here the very well-known Piano Trio No. 4 (Gassenhauer) with his enormous witty playfulness (we listen to the version with the violin instead of the clarinet) and his three (!) movements is partnered with the Symphony No. 6, in an arrangement of the Brahms friend Christian Gottlieb Belcke.

“I see the future of Baroque orchestral music in the hands of modern ensembles – the fetish of the ‘original instrument’ has had its day, but not the profoundly trained professional who guides an orchestra into the deeper dimensions of the composition. For it isn’t the instrument that makes the music, but the head!“ (Reinhard Goebel) The Süddeutsche Zeitung reveres him as an ‘icon of early music’, and the New York Times applauds him as a ‘light in a sea of mediocrity’. Reinhard Goebel specializes in the repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries; As an expounder of period performance practice for both early music ensembles and modern orchestras, and as an endless fount of knowledge about gems of the repertoire, he is a world-renowned specialist. In May 2018 he was named artistic director of the Berliner Barock Solisten with whom he pursued an intensive artistic collaboration for years.

Antonio Salieri’s (1750-1825) catalog of instrumental music is not particularly extensive. +The symphonic works known from available recordings include two symphonies, several concerti, serenades and the like. +There is, also, a small body of chamber works, including those present on this disc. +Oboist Paolo Pollastri (b. 1960) has been first oboe of numerous orchestras and performs often as a soloist. +The Canadian Amati Quartet made its international debut in 2005 and indulges in a diverse repertoire.

The starting-point for this unique recital is a true Mozart rarity, the Sonata for bassoon and cello K292 which Mozart wrote in 1775, pairing the bass members of string and wind families not to comic effect but rather demonstrating their expressive versatility and contrasting tone-colors, in the hands of sufficiently practiced performers; the Sonata is accessible by only the most skilled amateur performers such as its original dedicatee, the nobleman, pianist and occasional bassoonist Thaddaus Wolfgang von Dürnitz. The count’s considerable musical gifts may be judged from the teenaged Mozart’s dedication of the Piano Sonata K284 in the same year: one of the composer’s first works of absolute genius, notably in the extraordinary landscape of its long theme-and-variation finale. The bassoon-and-cello sonata may not rival K284 for lightly worn profundity, but in its Andante we may still hear the teenaged composer attaining an idiom of sublime gravity which anticipates masterpieces such as the Sinfonia Concertante K364. Rarer still on album is the creative output of Dürnitz himself, represented here by four sonatas for bassoon and keyboard from a collection of six. He evidently cultivated a particular facility at the top of the intrument’s range, notably in the elegiac introduction to Sonata No.3. Dürnitz was no dilettante musician, to judge from his ready assimilation of Classical-era convention and the kind of virtuoso writing in the quick movements that challenges conceptions of the bassoon as a sturdy accompaniment to more agile musical companions. Between these two composers in the register of fame falls the French composer Francois Devienne, four years younger than Mozart and author of six Duos Concertants Op.3 for two bassoons in around 1782; Carmen Mainer Martin presents two of them here, with the second part arranged for cello in the same disposition as Mozart’s sonata.

The Handel and Haydn Society continues it's acclaimed Haydn exploration on CORO with one of the composer's last major works - the dramatic and sumptuous Mass in B-flat major more commonly known as the 'Harmoniemesse' because of it's use of a full wind band. It is accompanied on this album by the Symphony No. 99 in E-flat major - one of Haydn's twelve 'London' symphonies composed between 1791 and 1795 when London was the indisputable musical capital of Europe. Handel and Haydn Society is America's oldest continuously operating arts organisation. Harry Christophers has been Artistic Director since 2008 during which time the Society has released 12 recordings on CORO including Haydn's Creation, all six of his 'Paris' Symphonies, Mozart's Requiem and Handel's Messiah, and a Christmas album - 'Joy to the World' - celebrating America's favourite festive tunes.

While Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was above all else a dazzlingly accomplished harpsichordist, his considerable output for flute can easily be explained by the milieu in which he worked for nearly thirty years. The Berlin court of Frederick II was in fact governed by two flautists: the king himself, and his teacher and accredited and exclusive composer, the famous Johann Joachim Quantz. His five flute concertos were derived from a group of seven concertos for harpsichord written between 1747 and 1755. It is very likely that Emanuel Bach himself made all these transcriptions. The versions for flute nearly always date from the same year as the corresponding harpsichord concerto, which suggests virtually simultaneous conceptions. The three concertos selected for this recording have survived in versions for both flute and cello, now in the libraries of the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and the Royal College of Music in London.

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In the garden of a Baroque villa, a chamber orchestra is playing Mozart’s wonderful quartets and quintets, and everywhere is pervaded with echoes and references to the composer’s world. As if by magic or conjured by the imagination, figures emerge from the shadows of the labyrinthine garden: they are Mozart’s characters, and they play with – or perhaps make fun of – the guests at the party, embroiling them in their well-known amorous dalliances. With lightness and irony, this journey into the universe of Mozart tips its hat to the 1700s also with the scenery and costumes, and fills the garden with fun and passionate virtuoso dances, which follow each other dynamically and quickly with constant changes in the mood. Like in a dream where everything is jumbled together, where reality and illusion merge.

"How did Ludwig van Beethoven become a great symphonist? A milestone on his way there is marked by the Septet, which he composed in 1799, on the threshold of a new century, for this large-scale chamber work, with its mixed instrumentation of winds and strings, already assembles an orchestra ""en miniature"". At the same time, however, Beethoven thus founded a new genre of ensemble music, which was to be followed by numerous composers from Franz Schubert to Johannes Brahms and Jean Françaix with nonets, octets, sextets or quintets. Beethoven's radiant and entertaining septet combines logic with catchiness and offers a spiritual musical conversation. And it is in this discipline that the soloists of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, who are dedicated to making music in friendship, are masters. They also prove this in the Nannerl Septet, which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart probably created in 1776 for the name day of his sister Maria Anna: artfully playful music of the best festive and champagne mood."

REVIEW:

Mozart’s Divertimento in D (K 251) is buoyant and fortunately classical all the way, with no attempt to ramp it up and make it loud or romantic. This is pleasant music, hardly world-shattering, but it is played with obvious respect and affection. The Lucerne soloists make a good case for Beethoven’s Septet, emphasizing its Mozartean qualities. The theme and variations (IV) are the high point, as the musicians patiently and gracefully explore the melodies. In V and VI the horn passages are handled with aplomb by Stefan Dohr, and the concert concludes without any applause. The packaging is simple yet in good taste, and the notes add considerable context to the music with stories of the Mozart family’s informal chamber music sessions.

– American Record Guide

Experience two grand classics, alive with all the excitement and verve of their very first performances. Thrill to one of Haydn’s masterful ‘London’ symphonies that wowed England’s capital – the smash hit ‘Military’, so-called for intense depictions of the clash of arms and ferocious roar of war. In the epic Nelson Mass Handel and Haydn Society's magnificent chorus and soloists join the orchestra in this homage to the heroic admiral who helped to vanquish Napoleon. Of conductor Harry Christophers, BBC Radio 3 Record Review wrote: “What Harry is particularly good at is nurturing the natural beauty of the instruments and voices and, indeed, acoustic that are in front of him. It’s very handsome.”

After a first recording of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations acclaimed by the critics (Diapason d'Or, BBC, Guardian, Le Monde) Filippo Gorini, a student of Alfred Brendel and winner of the first Prize and Audience Prize of the Bonn Beethoven Competition in 2015, pursues a fast-growing career. His concert appearances have drawn unanimous acclaim on many prestigious stages such as the Berlin Konzerthaus, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Munich Herkulessaal, Società del Quartetto di Milano and the Samsung Concert Hall in Seoul. Here he returns to Beethoven and tackles the perilous Sonata no.29, known as the 'Hammerklavier', which the composer himself said would pose a challenge for future generations, along with the Sonata no.32, which according to Thomas Mann represents the supreme accomplishment of and 'farewell' to sonata form.

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The Great Live Concerts

MOZART Le nozze di Figaro & • Sylvain Cambreling, cond; Peter Mattei (Count Almaviva); Lorenzo Regazzo (Figaro); Heidi Grant Murphy (Susanna); Christine Schäfer (Cherubino); Roland Bracht (Dr. Bartolo); Burkhard Ulrich (Don Basilio); Helene Schneiderman (Marcellina); Eberhard Francesco Lorenz (Don Curzio); Cassandra Berthon (Barbarina); Jürg Kienberger (Recitativist); Op National de Paris O & Ch • OPUS ARTE 6004 (2 DVDs: 250:00 + 59:43) Live: Paris 2006

& Bonus: A Day of Real Madness, documentary by Reiner E. Moritz

This splendid performance of Le nozze di Figaro was originally issued on DVD in 2006, and is here making its reappearance in Opus Arte’s “Essential Opera Collection.” As in the case of the Rigoletto from 2001, reviewed elsewhere, this designation is well deserved. Since this disc was fully reviewed by Christopher Williams in these pages when it was first released, I won’t retread the excellent detail of his review but only make some observations of my own.

First, the production by Christoph Marthaler is whimsical and truly funny. Back in the 1980s, I complained bitterly of Peter Sellars’s ridiculous updating and setting of this opera in a New York penthouse (like the Trump Tower) because so much of what was in the libretto—not only the stage directions, which for better or worse are very explicit because this was based on a play that had equally specific instructions, but also in the words of the recitatives and arias—was either ignored or completely contradicted by his almost consistently asinine setting. Marthaler has set nearly the entire opera in front of a marriage bureau, which has a certain relationship to the subtext of the opera (it is, after all, about marriage, fidelity, and whether or not one should ever marry for convenience or just for love), but even here there are moments, such as the riotous conclusion of act II or the final scene which is supposed to take place in the garden outside the Count’s abode, that just don’t work. Marthaler, in collaboration with conductor Cambreling, has come up with an amusing alternative to playing the secco recitatives on a harpsichord. They have invented a character called the “Recitativist,” a comedian-musician (Jürg Kienberger) who whimsically plays the recitative accompaniment on any number of instruments, including (at one point) a balloon with air escaping from it and, at another, by tooting on beer bottles that he drinks from to continually lower their pitch, sometimes humming along with them. This creates a very funny diversion to these otherwise dull moments, which is fortunate since Cambreling insisted on keeping all of them because they realized that this is where the real drama takes place, that the arias are just moments of reflection that stop the action.

As an overall production I much preferred David McVicar's contemporary staging given at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Here, the opera was updated to 1830s post-Revolution France where “the inexorable unraveling of an old order has produced acute feelings of loss.” More to the point, the costumes are closer to the era of Beaumarchais’s play and the stage settings equally funny due to McVicar's sharp wit. The differences lie in the quality of the casts and of the recorded sound. In the Royal Opera video (Opus Arte 990), we are given strong vocal and acting performances by Erwin Schrott (Figaro), Miah Persson (Susanna), the Count (Gerald Finley), and Don Basilio (Philip Langridge). Dorothea Röschmann’s Countess is extremely well acted, but she doesn’t have the steadiest or most beautiful voice for the role, and the singing of our Cherubino (Rinat Shaham), Dr. Bartolo (Jonathan Veira), and Marcellina (Graciela Araya) is substandard. The recorded sound, however, is terrific, the microphone picking up orchestra and soloists with crisp, lifelike fidelity. In this Paris production, every single role from top to bottom is sung splendidly. Williams had a niggling complaint about the fact that Christine Schäfer, the Cherubino, is a soprano, and thus does not add variety to the ensembles but sounds a bit too much like the Susanna and Countess. This is true, but except for the very low notes in “Voi che sapete,” Schäfer sings and acts brilliantly, really looking like an adolescent, sex-drawn boy. My complaints about the cast here are small, mostly of baritone Regazzo as an almost consistently scowling, over-macho Figaro with a gorgeous voice but almost no inflection in his use of it, and of soprano Heidi Grant Murphy as Susanna, who sings beautifully but looks rather dowdy, something like Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote.

More to the point, the sound recording and mix by Radio France is not consistently clear. The microphones seem to be a little high or a bit away from both soloists and orchestra, with the result that everyone sounds a little reverberant most of the time. Once in a while, the principals walk right under the microphone—it seems to have been set up a little to stage left of center—and then sound marvelous, but at moments the sonics are a little off. This is a shame, as Cambreling conducts here a shade better than Antonio Pappano on the Royal Opera DVD, the differences being in the Countess’s two arias. Having played these pieces for a soprano friend of mine many years ago, I can assure you that they are written in cut time, 2/2, and so are not to be performed as slowly as they so often are. Pappano, then, conducts them in the conventional way which is wrong; Cambreling at a brisker pace which is right. Christiane Oelze cannot match Röschmann as an actress, thus her overall presentation (visual as well as aural) is not as strong, but strictly from a singing perspective Oelse’s voice is radiant and exquisite (I have previously described her as having a voice of pure crystal) whereas Röschmann’s is plain-sounding and a bit fluttery.

What makes Marthaler’s conception work is his zany, Marx Brothers-style sense of humor, which (thankfully) is tasteful and never overdone. In brief, this is a great singing and conducting performance set to a clever but not always convincing stage production. An opera like Rossini’s La pietra del paragone benefits from this kind of surreal zaniness because it isn’t really a stage plot that one takes the least bit seriously, but Beaumarchais’s comedy of manners, though requiring some good slapstick moments, needs a bit more structure in order to make sense of it. Therefore I recommend this DVD for its many good points while still preferring the Royal Opera version as a visual representation of the work.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Soler was music master to the princes of Bourbon in El Escorial, the palace of the King of Spain. It’s probable that most of his keyboard sonatas were written for Prince Gabriel and these essentially private works—around 150 have survived—bear comparison with the works of Domenico Scarlatti and C.P.E. Bach. Soler was fond of dance rhythms and guitar imitations, as well as infectious and delightful modulations. These fifteen sonatas are heard here in the order proposed by Rubio’s catalogue. Pianist Martina Filjak—“brilliance, sensitivity and imagination” (New York Times)—is a much admired international artist.

Beethoven: Fidelio, Op. 72

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