Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Charles Davidson. Ensemble: Finchley Children's Music Group. Conductors: Nicholas Wilks, Bradley Lubman. Soloists: Douglas Webster, Amy Goldstein.

Three of The Sixteen's celebrated Bach recordings in one stylish boxed set. Weihnachts Oratorium (COR16017) - The Christmas Oratorio is one of Bach's greatest masterpieces and this recording is one of The Sixteen's finest. Mark Padmore is one of today's greatest 'Evangelist's', and this recording shows him at his very best. Cantatas 34, 50, 147 (COR16039) - During his years as Leipzig's Director Musices, Bach supplied at least three complete annual cycles of Cantatas for the church year. The rich variety of his writing for solo voices and orchestra along with thrilling choral textures is well represented in the three cantatas on this disc. Mass in B minor (COR16044) - Bach's Mass in B minor displays all the ingredients that contribute to his supreme ranking amongst his peers of any age, and also demonstrates the breadth of compositional skills amassed during his lifetime. It demands choral singing of blistering athleticism but also sensitive, responsive and, at times, majestic orchestral playing coupled with virtuosic obligato. "All hail the über-choir" The Independent

When, in 1922, Charles Ives published a volume entitled 114 Songs, he was indirectly drawing attention to the fact that the genre had played a central part in his output. 85 years on and, for all that his wider reputation may now rest on his orchestral, chamber and piano music, songs represent the heart of his creative thinking. Nor was that initial volume comprehensive; Ives having written almost 200 songs, of which this present edition includes all those he completed. The expressive variety encountered is accordingly vast: indeed, the gradual evolution of Ives's songwriting, from those drawing overtly on the Austro-German Lieder and English parlor-song traditions to ones that evince anarchic humor as keenly as others do a profound vision, is analogous to the evolution of American music over the last quarter of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries. Although it would be possible to collate Ives's songs according to type, the alphabetic approach adopted by this edition ensures each volume (of which this is the sixth and last) contains a representative cross section of his achievement. A wide range of poets is set (Ives could be highly interventionist when it suited his purpose), including (mainly early) German settings as well as forays into French and Italian writers. Moreover, the temporal distance (1887-1926) traversed by the songs is as little compared to their stylistic diversity or their emotional range. The extent to which Ives reworked songs throughout his career is considerable, whether substituting a text or reworking the actual music. To this end, songs with a musical or textual connection are cross linked accordingly (i.e. in brackets at the end of the relevant paragraph). The setting of Rudyard Kipling's Tarrant Moss (1902) uses just two verses, treated in a peremptory fashion as if to suggest that the text was merely the nearest one to hand (see also Volume 5, track 27, Naxos 8.559273). Set to an anonymous text, There is a Certain Garden (1897) has a tripping and irregular piano part against which the vocal line unfolds a little awkwardly, though the charm of the song is undoubted. A revision of an earlier German song, now to Ives's own text, There is a Lane (1902) is a brief but winsome setting; the fond nostalgia of it's vocal line underscored by the piano (see also below, track 27). A late addition to his song canon, They are There! (1942) was Ives's contribution to the American war effort; setting his own (updated) text with a conviction aptly summed up by the subtitle 'Fighting for the People's New Free World'. It can be performed (as here) by unison voices, and with a lively ad lib instrumental part. Ives left a memorable, breathlessly enthusiastic recording.

"There is nothing like Songs of Innocence and of Experience in all of American music...the score is a multicultural stew of idioms, from rigorous modernism to Mahler-like Romanticism, Appalachian folk songs, madrigals, country, ragtime, show music, rock, soul and reggae...Monstrous, indeed...an influential landmark in both the development of Bolcom's eclectic aesthetic and recent American musical history, documenting the liberating shift from high-modernist orthodoxy to an all-embracing post-modern collage of styles...In a coup for UMS and U-M, the feisty classical label Naxos has agreed to issue the first recording of the piece. Naxos engineers will tape Thursday's performance, along with follow-up sessions Friday and Saturday. Despite ecstatic reviews and cult status, the piece has never been commercially recorded...Naxos is covering engineering, production, conductor, soloist, copyright and other fees related to recording. " -- Mark Stryker, Detroit Free Press, April 6th, 2004

"William Bolcom's gigantic, well-more-than-two-hour setting of William Blake's complete "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" poetic cycle is enormously difficult and expensive to perform. Looking down at the forces assembled for the University of Michigan performance in Hill Auditorium here on Thursday night was a mega-Mahlerian experience, with a stage extension needed to accommodate the nearly 500 musicians (bigger than the forces of any Mahler "Symphony of a Thousand" I have encountered). All that was missing were lighting effects and projections of Blake's engravings, suggested in the score. But they were on display in the lobby. So visually it was awesome, and musically it was pretty awesome, too. Mr. Bolcom, who is now 65, has taught at the University of Michigan since 1973. He first became interested in Blake's visionary poems - written in the late 18th century and full of Christian mysticism and a horror of modern life and human cruelty - in 1956, from when his first sketches date. Composed sporadically, the piece received its world and American premieres in 1984 and has been performed intermittently since. At its second appearance in New York, with Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 1992, Edward Rothstein ended the first paragraph of his review in The New York Times with the words, "It should be recorded." Now, at long last, it has been. Thursday's performance was again conducted by Mr. Slatkin and, with patching sessions, will be released on the Naxos label."

-- John Rockwell, New York Times, April 11, 2004

Classical Music

Amy Beach's songs are pleasant enough, and certainly well-crafted, with smartly chosen texts--Burns, Longfellow, Browning, Shelley, and some lesser-known poets, including Beach herself. But most of their appeal lies with the composer's deftness in borrowing from and incorporating the styles of major artists such as Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, Richard Strauss, and Debussy into her writing. She even takes directly from Beethoven in her quite lovely song "The Rainy Day". In other words, there's nothing really original here, but melodically and in terms of overall accessibility and singability, Beach understood the genre and knew how to create music that nearly everyone--singers as well as listeners--could enjoy. There are lullabies, German lied, and French chansons, as well as a nod or two to English and American parlor-song. And we're fortunate to have as our interpreter a singer who is one of the world's experts in this repertoire: mezzo-soprano Katherine Kelton did her doctoral dissertation on Beach's songs. She exhibits a voice of rich color and easy, inviting expressiveness, and her technique effortlessly conveys the varied moods and cleverly imitative styles so that we can just sit back and appreciate each one of these charming if not particularly profound works. Beach's piano accompaniments are carefully thought-out and add essential, characterful aspects of tone, color, and texture that are often very technically challenging. Catherine Bringerud is completely at home with this music and at one with Kelton's vocal interpretations. The sound is complementary to vocal and instrumental timbres and presents the performances in realistic perspective. Fans of American song--and especially of Amy Beach (who did much of her writing just down the road from where I'm writing this review, at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH)--shouldn't miss this interpretively considerate, solidly performed recital.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Taking its title from a poem by the sixteenth-century Jesuit martyr Robert Southwell, Times go by Turns comprises three masses composed during a period when the conditions for English Catholics – and Catholic composers – underwent radical change. Active at a time – the 15th century – when the Catholic Church flourished in England, John Plummer’s death roughly coincided with the ascension of the Tudors, a dynasty that would irreversibly alter religious traditions. As a consequence, the bulk of Plummer’s music was destroyed during the Reformation, the remainder surviving almost exclusively in sources from the continent. Born a century later than Plummer, Tallis witnessed the separation of England from the Catholic Church and his Mass for Four Voices displays a simple lyricism and economic use of polyphony which may well have been driven by liturgical necessity. Such constraints had grown even stronger by the end of the century, when his student and colleague William Byrd composed his own four-part Mass, intended for clandestine worship at a time when dissidents were dealt with by cruel means. The vocal quartet New York Polyphony released endBeginning (BIS-1949) in 2012, a disc which focused on Franco-Flemish polyphony. Meeting with international acclaim, the ensemble’s first collaboration with BIS received top marks on website ClassicsToday.com and in the French magazine Diapason, as well as being included on the Best-of-2012 lists in The New Yorker and Time Out New York. While dedicated to the works of the great age of polyphony, New York Polyphony is also noted for its performances of contemporary music. For this disc the ensemble has commissioned two modern works, with Andrew Smith contributing a Kyrie – the movement which Tallis’ mass leaves out – and Gabriel Jackson providing the closing Ite missa est (‘The mass is ended’). The programme also includes one of the last compositions by Richard Rodney Bennett (1936–2012). A Colloquy with God, the setting of a poem by Sir Thomas Browne for four male voices, was dedicated to New York Polyphony.

BUXTEHUDE Membra Jesu Nostri • Harry Christophers, dir; The Sixteen • CORO COR 16082 (61:23 Text and Translation)


After a thorough look at the extensive representation of this work on disc ( Fanfare 31:5), we get a reissue of an earlier version first reviewed by colleague Michael Carter (25:5), who described as “a smattering of recordings” a Buxtehude discography that has embraced more than 80 of the 120 cantatas stretching back to 1937, a count that is now up to 90, with more than a dozen versions of some of the more familiar works. This version’s performing forces were almost exactly replicated by Alexander Weimann in that recent disc, with five solo singers, nine string players, and organ (Weimann had eight Baroque string instruments). While Weimann delivered one of the two fastest performances in my collection, Harry Christophers hits the median timing, never a bad thing in ranking any competitive series. The recent solo-voice performances include René Jacobs (both versions), Konrad Junghänel, and Jos van Veldhoven in addition to these two, so that will narrow the field for purists. Otherwise, there are some fine performances among the more recent versions cited in the previous review. If I had to limit my choice to a single version, however, it would be Harry Christophers and his sterling group of soloists.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

This album is a unique collaboration between the young Danish composer Kasper Rofelt and accordionist Bjarke Mogensen, to whom all works on this premiere recording were dedicated. From the intimate Nightsongs to the colorful Light Falling, this CD offers both solo and chamber works with a variety of musical characters and idioms. "Bjarke Mogensen is an astonishment on record. Once heard, never forgotten" - the Arts Journal, New York 2011.

António Teixeira's extraordinary and grandly structured setting of the Te Deum was written for a New Year's Eve performance in 1734 in the Italian Church of his home city, Lisbon. Calling for eight soloists, five spaced choirs and a large orchestra, this lavish and ornate piece bubbles and sparkles through the text with an easy zest and breezy charm that is distinctively Portuguese, giving us a rare insight into musical life in Lisbon before the devastating earthquake of 1755.

The turbulent years of Reformation and religious change in England presented composers working for the church with the continual challenge of having to adapt to rapidly changing musical requirements. Although little is known about the personal religious affiliation of composers such as Christopher Tye, Robert Parsons and Robert White, their Latin music represents by far the most interesting and significant musical thought of its time.

This second volume of the series features 26 Ives's songs beginning alphabetically with "December" (1913) and concluding with "Grass" (1896). The performers include 14 singers, four pianists, and an organist. The organ appears on chronologically the earliest song on this CD, the hymn- like "Far From My Heav'nly Home" (1893). Ives's early and late, traditional and revolutionary are each represented. The highlight of this CD is Ives's 1914 setting of Vachel Lindsay's "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" a poem in it's character and enthusiasm made for Ives. Lindsay's poem and Ives's song capture the spirit of the founder of the Salvation Army as he ascends into heaven accompanied by the poor, the lost and the damned that Booth has brought to salvation. "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" the songs asks. In it's raw liveliness, enthusiasm, changes of mood, and transcendentalism, this song is one of Ives's greatest efforts in the form. The bass David Pittsinger gives a convincing performance accompanied by pianist Douglas Dickson.

Classical Music

Gustav Mahler wrote a number of songs of singular beauty, some re-used in his orchestral works, including settings of poems from the Romantic anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn), Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) and Rückert’s Kindertotenlieder (Songs of the Death of Children). These songs have for a long time been in the concert repertoire of baritone Peter Mattei, one of the most sought-after singers of his generation, who is heard here singing these very Mahler songs with the Norrköping Symphony under the baton of Jochen Rieder.

Includes song(s) by Toivo Kuula, Leevi Madetoja. Soloists: Kirsi Tiihonen, Satu Salminen.

The American composer William Bolcom (b. 1938) is best-known for his large-scale setting of William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience," which is available on a 3-CD Naxos set. This new collection of Bolcom's songs also on Naxos shows the composers's lifelong fascination with Blake. It includes an early lyrical setting of Blake's poem, "Mary" which deals with a beautiful and intelligent young woman and her rejection by her society. In the several torch and cabaret-style works it includes, the collection also shows Bolcom's attempts to fuse classical with popular styles of music. Bolcom also has done so in his piano music, much of which is heavily influenced by ragtime. The songs on this CD are performed and selected by soprano Carole Farley with Bolcom himself at the piano.

Classical Music

Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets, and Heine.

Fine Traditional music from the farthest reaches of the Celtic lands. Authentic, atmospheric and relaxing melodies for harp, pipes and voice express tales of love, nature, home and heroic deeds.

BACH Cantatas: No. 51; No. 210: Spielet, ihr beseelten Lieder. Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn? ihn, BWV 1127 ? Masaaki Suzuki, cond; Carolyn Sampson (sop); Bach Collegium Japan (period instruments) ? BIS SACD-1471 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 71:17 & )


Volume 30 of Masaaki Suzuki?s highly regarded Bach cantata cycle is devoted mainly to Bach?s ?newest? work, the strophic aria ?Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn? ihn,? discovered in May 2005, and quickly authenticated and assigned the BWV number 1127 (thus, it?s separated from the cantatas, which occupy the first 200-plus spots in the catalog). Suzuki?s is the work?s first complete recording; abridged versions came first from Gardiner on his own Soli Deo Gratia label (12 minutes, combined with several other bits and pieces into a sort of cantate imaginaire ), and then from Koopman (17 minutes, in Volume 20 of his Challenge cantata series). Frankly, despite the beauty of Carolyn Sampson?s performance with Suzuki?s expert ensemble, Gardiner?s is the version of choice, simply because we don?t need to hear the same damn thing performed 12 times in a row over the course of 48 and a half minutes.


That?s what happens in a complete performance. In 1713, to celebrate the 53rd birthday of Bach?s early employer, Duke Wilhelm Ernst, a local town superintendent named Johann Anthon Mylius wrote 12 stanzas, each verse beginning with the German translation of the duke?s motto, ?Omnia deo et nihil sine eo? (?Everything with God and nothing without him?). The second line of each stanza and the following B section would change, but that second line would evolve in an odd way: only the third word would be replaced, and if you align the first letters of each of those third words you spell out the duke?s name. This is the sort of acrostic game that Bach loved, but it?s strange that he was assigned the task of setting the words to music. He was merely the Weimar court organist, and wouldn?t have any responsibility for writing cantatas until his promotion the following year. Perhaps more senior composers, including several in the Mylius family, had turned down the potentially tedious job. Perhaps the ambitious Bach lobbied for the assignment, hoping it would gain him the sort of attention that would result in the promotion he indeed received within a few months. At any rate, Bach merely wrote out the music for the first verse, intending it to be repeated as the text changed. To understand the acrostic, you need to see the entire text, but hearing the whole thing is hardly necessary. Bach provided an attractive, melismatic melody and an appealing instrumental accompaniment, but enough is enough.


To their credit, Suzuki and his elegant players do vary the instrumental bridges somewhat, and Sampson handles the melody with lovely grace, but it?s not enough to sustain interest for more than three quarters of an hour. All are heard to better effect in Cantata No. 51, a performance that floats and twirls, without losing its center of gravity in the weightier sections. For some reason, the aria ?Spielet, ihr beseelten Lieder? from BWV 210 is appended as a bonus track.


The 5.0 surround sound is, as expected from this source, outstanding in its balance and timbral fidelity, except that the important trumpet part in the outer movements of BWV 51 is too recessed, almost offstage. If you?re compulsively collecting the Suzuki series, there?s no reason to pass this up, but if all you want is BWV 1127, in this case there?s no merit to completism, and the Gardiner sampler is a more attractive option.


FANFARE: James Reel

Mendelssohn, Felix: Lieder Ohne Worte (Songs Without Words)