Trios For Flute, Cello And Pia

Classical Music

WEBER: TEN SCOTTISH MELODIES,

WEBER: SYMPHONY NO 1 MENDELS

Composed in the early 19th century, the four grand piano sonatas by Carl Maria von Weber round out the Classical age and herald in the Romantic style. All four of these sonatas are featured on this two-disc set, as well as Weber’s Rondo brilliante in E flat major, Op. 62, and Aufforderung zum Tanz, Op 65. +Pianist Michelangelo Carbonara studied at Lake Como Academy under such pianists as Dimitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, and Alicia de Larrocha. He has won several international competitions, including the Schubert International Piano Competition.

THE ROYAL EDITION - OPERA OVER

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The German tradition of Lieder accompanied by guitar is overlooked but surprisingly rich. Several of the great Lieder singers have recorded Schubert songs with guitar (Christoph Pregardien and Peter Schreier principal among them), and to highly expressive effect. In many ways the change of instrument draws back these songs to their medieval heritage, to the Minnesänger (minstrels, or troubadours) who fulfilled courtly functions, or at a more humble level travelled from town to town, lute slung over the back, entertaining nobles and commoners alike with tales of love and war.

It is this tradition that Patrizia Cigna and Adriano Sebastiani have tapped into with the first complete recording of the Lieder composed by Carl Maria von Weber for which he had a guitar in mind. In fact Weber, more than most of his native contemporaries, nurtured a great affection for the instrument while it was more celebrated abroad – notably in the Classical tradition by Mauro Giuliani, and we should not forget that the guitar was the first instrument of Hector Berlioz. Weber would accompany himself like a early-Romantic troubadour in his own songs, and he scored for the guitar in several of his stage-works such as Abu Hassan.

The Op.25 Lieder bring together these two strands, written as incidental music for August von Kotzebue’s one-act play Der arme Minnesänger (The Poor Minstrel). Some of the songs here such as the Op.13 set and the Op.29 Canzonettas were written with either keyboard or guitar accompaniment in mind, for obvious, commercially attractive reasons, but the standalone Mayenblümelein was only ever intended for the guitar, as was the lovely, polyphonic Sagt, woher stammt Liebeslust which calls for two sopranos, a three-voice female choir, and a guitar accompaniment. These, like several other songs on this recording, have no rivals in the current catalogue, making this a new recording an essential acquisition for all lovers of Romantic Lieder.

-----

REVIEW:

The songs are utterly charming, lyrical and dramatic, on a par with Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and early Schubert songs. The guitar freely and independently interacts with the melodic lines, never being a mere accompaniment.

– Records International

Despite the (mainly traditional) cuts, this 1955 BBC broadcast is treasurable. Not only does it feature Joan Sutherland’s touchingly pure and limpid Euryanthe – a role she only sang this once – but it also extends the small discography of Frans Vroons, in a lyric-heroic role which could have been written for him. Marianne Schech and Otakar Kraus are matchless villains, Kurt Bohme a comfortable King. Yet perhaps the performance’s prime virtue is the candescent conducting of Fritz Stiedry. His visionary readings of the familiar Overture and the desolate Prelude to Act 3 are heightened by unusually good broadcast sound, captured by the late Richard Itter on state-of-the-art equipment. This thrilling Euryanthe fully vindicates Weber’s – and Chezy’s –achievement.

-----

REVIEW:

Despite big cuts (including around 20 minutes’ worth of Act 3), this is a well-prepared performance of considerable merits. Not the least of these is the proof that Joan Sutherland could indeed have made a serious career in the dramatic German Fach: she sounds an outstandingly fluent and natural exponent of the titlerole. Conductor Fritz Stiedry’s preserved Wagner performances are often a little spotty but here he seems in well-ordered control of everything. All the other major roles are on committed top form.

– Gramophone

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.


This is an absolutely wonderful disc in every way. Weber's clarinet music is delightful, and it's hard to imagine it being better played or recorded. Martin Fröst has such a supple, liquid timbre that at times you could almost swear there were words behind the notes, especially in the slow movements of all four works. And few soloists manage to bring such an irrepressible feeling of joy to the virtuoso passages that you can hear, say, in the finale of the Second concerto.

Kantorow and the Tapiola Sinfonietta also offer perfect accompaniments: swift, sensitive, texturally transparent, and rhythmically snappy. The F minor concerto in particular has plenty of passion and drama. The conductor's own transcription of the Clarinet Quintet for string orchestra works beautifully and fills out the disc generously, while the engineering in all formats couldn't be better balanced or fall more easily on the ear. There's no need to go on at length: this is now the reference recording for this music. It defines "state of the art."

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Maestro Marek Janowski leads a sensational cast — including star vocalists Lise Davidsen and Andreas Schager — on this new recording of Der Freischütz, the German Romantic opera par excellence. In the years after its 1821 premiere, the catchy melodies, picturesque charm and spooky scenes of Der Freischütz thrilled audiences throughout Europe. Janowski’s inspired reading lifts out the symphonic qualities of Carl Maria von Weber’s masterpiece, and makes clear why colleagues such as Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner raved about the work. The excellent cast consists of Lise Davidsen (Agathe), Andreas Schager (Max), Sofia Fomina (Ännchen), Alan Held (Kaspar), Markus Eiche (Ottokar) and Franz-Josef Selig (Eremit). Janowski conducts the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and MDR Radio Choir. For this recording, the original spoken dialogues have been replaced by short narrations, written by Katharina Wagner and Daniel Weber and recited by Corinna Kirchhoff and Peter Simonischeck. Marek Janowski is one of the most celebrated conductors of our times, and enjoys a vast PENTATONE discography, including complete recordings of Bruckner’s symphonies and Wagner’s mature operas. Frankfurt Radio Symphony has also released multiple albums on PENTATONE, including a recording of Richard Strauss’s Salome (2017).

-----

REVIEW:

Lise Davidsen gives her finest performance to date, with both her arias sung with a big, radiant voice, but always lyrically. She is well matched by Sofia Fomina’s perky Ännchen. Janowski conducts Weber’s masterly score with atmosphere and the choir are thrilling in the Huntsmen’s Chorus.

– Sunday Times (UK)

Although celebrated as the father of German Romantic opera, Carl Maria von Weber is today generally known for one opera alone: Der Freischütz. Most of his other works for the stage - including the incidental music for several plays - are nowadays rarely performed. But their overtures have survived the test of time and are popular fillers at orchestral concerts, imbued as they are with Weber's particular mix of Romantic drama and lyricism and Classical lightness of touch. Striking is also the inimitable, colourful instrumentation, which is given free reins in these scores for librettos and plays that are set in China and Arabia, and among Spanish gypsies and knights in 12th-century France. The present disc includes ten of these gems, from the overture to Weber's first surviving opera Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn - composed at the age of fifteen - to that of Oberon, written in London for Covent Garden less than two months before his death from tuberculosis, aged 39. The team of Jean-Jacques Kantorow and the Tapiola Sinfonietta have recorded numerous discs for BIS, by composers as diverse as Saint-Saëns, Mozart, Shostakovich and Rautavaara. Acclaimed releases have also been dedicated to the music of Weber, most recently his symphonies on a disc which was described as 'without doubt among the finest additions to the Weber discography in recent years' by the reviewer of the German magazine Fono Forum. His French colleague in Diapason was equally enthusiastic, remarking upon the dramatic qualities of the recording: 'Kantorow stages a theatre of sounds in which each instrument is an actor...'

Clarinet Music - MOZART, W.A. / WEBER, C.M. von / SPOHR, L.

CLARINET CONCERTOS 1 & 2 GRAN

Nearly every music lover is acquainted with Der Freischutz, but the fewest are aware of Euryanthe. In the light of the musical quality of the opera, the disdain for it does not seem fitting. Euryanthe was Carl Maria von Weber’s most ambitious project, one that anything but backfired. The composition may certainly be termed ground-breaking and truly deserves more attention. “A chain of glittering jewels from the beginning to the end. All witty and ingenious,” (Robert Schumann in his critic about Euryanthe.) The present release features a live recording of the work, which was taken in December of 2018 and features the Arnold Schoenberg Chor and the Orf Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as a group of brilliant soloists.

WEBER: Euryanthe

CARL MARIA VON WEBER: Elena Prokina, soprano; JOlana Fogasova, soprano; Yikun chung, tenor; Andreas Scheibner, bass-baritone; Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari/Gerard Korsten; 169 mins; NTSC; Subtitles in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish; DTS, Dolby Digital 5+ CARL MARIA VON WEBER: Euryanthe (Sung in German).

Delicate contrasts of mood and bright clear recording.

Of particular interest in this collection of Weber’s uplifting overtures are those from Der Beherrscher der Geister, Turandot, Jubel and Silvana. Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and Oberon need little introduction.
 
Those overtures from the forgotten Weber operas have shed their obscurity in the opera house for favourite status in the concert hall. Following Beethoven and Mozart, Weber’s works for the stage were considered fresh, and seen to carry a blend of strong orchestral craftsmanship, coupled with inspired lyricism and this is evident from the overtures.
 
In the various recordings of popular Weber overtures one is often aware of the presence of either a ‘robustly mechanical’ or ‘sensitive’ reading. Here, the New Zealand orchestra under Wit engage in delicate contrasts of mood coupled with a bright and clear recording. This puts them in the same league as some of the more prestigious recordings.
 
This is the first time I have heard Abu Hassan played with such vitality and speed. This approach certainly adds spice to Weber’s bustling score. The warm wind section in a fine acoustic - against subtly balanced shimmering strings - provides real appeal in their rendering of Der Freischütz. The Turandot music was completely unknown to me. Its simple pipe opening comes across as particularly British yet it was written for Stuttgart in 1809. I find from the notes that the ‘folk music’ opening was Weber’s interpretation of the Chinese idiom!
 
The elegance of Preciosa is charming with contrast provided by the sedate introduction and the energetically dynamic central section with crisply defined first violins.
 
One may be surprised that the Jubel Overture ends with the British National Anthem. This work however was composed after the Battle of Waterloo and celebrated the 50 ^th anniversary of the then King’s accession. Its majestic opening gives the necessary pomp and splendour.
 
Antoni Wit is an accomplished conductor who studied in Krakôw and works with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and with Polish Television and Radio. We remember his excellent interpretation of the Prokofiev piano concertos and later of the Messiaen Turangalila symphony in 2002.
 
The notes in English are fairly generous and give more than adequate background to the overtures.
 
--Raymond J Walker, MusicWeb Intenational
 

Also available on Blu-ray

Weber was at the forefront of the rise of German Romantic opera and sought to dethrone Rossini from his position as the leading operatic composer in Europe. In his breakthrough and most popular opera Der Freischütz (‘The Marksman’) composed in 1821, he succeeded in his aim of establishing a truly German form. Turning to the folklore and folk songs of his native land he took a story of a marksman who makes a pact with the Devil, vesting it with powerful intensity – not least in the famous Wolf’s Glen scene – and an astonishing control of orchestral color and atmosphere.

-----

REVIEW:

Goodness, but Der Freischütz is a problematic opera for today! You can’t ignore it because it’s instrumental in the development of German musical Romanticism; several scholars would even call it its progenitor. Schumann, Mendelssohn, Wagner and Strauss would have been unthinkable without it, and even Beethoven, who was no friend of Weber’s, was impressed. However, it poses an all but insoluble problem in staging it for modern audiences. Its setting is so grounded in the Romantic German Forest that any attempts to remove it from there or to update its setting invariably fall flat or seem reductive (or simply indulgent). However, staging it in its original setting risks seeming like a parody of blood-and-soil National Socialism. This dilemma means that, more often than not, it’s one of those works where you’re far better to retreat into the pictures of your own mind’s eye, and happily we have lots of good CD recordings to help us do that, most notably those from Keilberth, Kleiber, Harnoncourt and Davis.

This 2017 La Scala production is a game-changer, however, and it does the best job I’ve yet seen of putting the opera on stage in a way that is neither daft nor wilfully obstructive. Matthias Hartmann goes for a mixture of the specific and the abstract. There are plenty of trees to put us in the forest, but well-placed strips of lighting suggest the church, the hut and the mountainscape behind. The costumes are a quirky mix of national dresses – ranging from Scotland to the Balkans – but, more importantly, Hartmann also gets into the work’s dark psychological possibilities, wondering whether Max’s obsession with the magic bullets is a mirror for his wider insecurities. He doesn’t shun the supernatural, however: various devils appear to direct Kaspar’s actions, and occasionally we see demonic creatures that might have been lifted out of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Importantly, this eclecticism works. It poses many questions and gives every facet of the opera its due without getting trapped in any of them, and that alone makes this the opera’s most successful outing on film to date.

The musical performances are excellent too. Who would have thought that the La Scala orchestra would be so good at this cornerstone of the German repertoire? Their playing of the overture is one of the best you’ll hear, with dark, suggestive strings at the opening, a heart-stopping quartet of horns, and a crackling sense of drama in the main Allegro. Myung-Whun Chung is a natural with the whole score, too, shaping the unfolding drama with an unfailingly right sense of where it is going and how it is going to get there.

The singers are top-notch. Julia Kleiter is radiant, luxuriously beautiful in her two big arias without a hint of simpering, and Eva Liebau’s Ännchen is a delightfully light-hearted contrast. Both are fully comfortable in the tessitura and are a joy to listen to as well as to watch. Michael König has a tiny touch of abrasion in his Heldentenor voice, but I could forgive him for his heroic tone, and Stephen Milling does a wonderful deus ex machina as the Hermit. Best of all, though, is Günther Groissböck, whose Kaspar sets the stage alight, almost literally so in the Wolf’s Glen scene. He’s a powerhouse to watch, and he uses his big bass voice with agility and athleticism to bring the part to life.

I approached this with a good degree of scepticism, but I found it completely compelling and was totally won over. To my great surprise, it solves the problems of staging Der Freischütz for our time. With its compelling production and its brilliant musicianship, it is now a clear first choice for Der Freischütz on film, and it’s by some margin the best opera film I’ve seen in 2019 so far.

– MusicWeb International (Simon Thompson)

It Was in Frankfurt Am Main on 16 September 1810 That Carl Maria Von Weber's Opera Silvana Was First Performed. A Box-Office Hit, Silvana Is Practically Forgotten Today, Even Though It Enjoyed a Very Respectable Performance History. CPO Is Now Releasing the First Recording of the Original Version of Weber's Heroic Opera. The Present Recording Now for the First Time Relies on the Materials for the Critical Scholarly Edition of the Work, Including the Dialogues, As Well As Many Changes Weber Made for the Work's Premiere. The Positive Final Result Is Can Now Be Heard on This Release.

6 Violin Sonatas, Op. 10b

Classical Music

Axel K�hler's production of Der Freisch�tz at the Dresden State Opera was described by Die Presse as "a minor miracle in Dresden". In the words of the Salzburger Nachrichten, K�hler "scored a bulleye" with his sombre and satanic interpretation of Weber's Romantic opera about love, temptation, souls sold to the Devil, obsession and faith. According to the Financial Times, Christian Thielemann and the Dresden Staatskapelle conjured up a sense of "mortal terror from the orchestra pit. [...] Thielemann is in command of every detail. That makes for utterly gripping listening."