Classical Music

Toscanini's 1953 performance of the Missa solemnis has always been a subject of controversy. When the old Record Guide (Collins: 1955) discussed the set, its two distinguished authors agreed to disagree. Edward Sackville-West found it "a thing of violent contrasts, feverish energy and a surface passion vociferously proclaimed", while Desmond Shawe-Taylor felt that "for sheer incandescence and drama the performance can seldom have been equalled". Looking at those views today, one could say that they aren't mutually exclusive. Both speak of the intense, subjective, edge-of-your-seat quality that informs the whole of this highly dramatic interpretation. Toscanini almost makes a virtue of those recalcitrant elements that all conductors have to cope with in this work. The awkward corners are negotiated with purpose. The strivings for effects almost beyond the power of even music to express, the visionary, the serene components of the massive work are all incomparably expressed in Toscanini's reading.

Speeds can be controversially slow or fast: what matters is that they work within the context of the conductor's concept because he chooses a tempo for a special purpose, for a stark contrast, say, or to emphasize a detail. But, as so often with this conductor, particularly in relation to Beethoven, he often seems to be seeking some ideal that's in his head and which he knows he may never achieve in reality. In fact, some believe he did manage to come close to it in his 1940 account with the same orchestra but a different chorus, intermittently available (now I see on a Music and Arts CD).

His chorus here is the Robert Shaw Chorale. We tend to forget it was a professional chorus, which explains its virtuoso and tireless response to Toscanini's stringent requirements. When he insists, as so often here, on strict obedience to Beethoven's dynamic requirements-even noting the single triple forte in the Gloria at "omnipotens"-his singers respond, and the NBC Symphony is just as adept at providing a double piano when that's needed. The solo team is unfortunately not a patch on the 1940 lineup (Milanov, Castagna, Bjeirling and Kipnis): the singers are a shade anonymous and sound more so placed too far from the microphone, a disadvantage remastering can't correct. In every other respect the performance, although inevitably somewhat confined in effect, is an improvement over its LP manifestations.

-- Gramophone [3/1991, reviewing the Missa Solemnis]

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[I]n the Ninth Symphony Toscanini achieves great heights. The first movement occasionally finds the octagenarian conductor impatiently rough-riding his basic rhythmic pulse, but the scherzo is tremendously virile, the slow movement exquisitely tender and powerful in turn, and the finale, with a good group of soloists and an excellent chorus, fervent and uplifting.

-- Gramophone [5/1990, reviewing the Ninth Symphony]

BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONIES NO 1, 2,

Beethoven: Complete Works for Cello & Piano

Beethoven, L.: Symphony No. 9, Op. 125, "Choral" / Missa Sol

Margarita Hohenrieder and Julius Berger have known it all their lives: the elucidations of Carl Czerny or Rudolf Kolisch, the latest Urtext editions that will lead them to "faithfulness to the text", the disquisitions from Romain Rolland to Eleonore Buning - they read, they discuss, it all seems helpful and necessary. At the end of the day it is the mature individual, the serious exponent, who makes the decision led by the promptings of conscience, and who simultaneously senses this "growing" of which Zagajewski speaks. Both climb a steep path, in order to approach Beethoven more closely. The summit of this path is visible, but not attainable. That is why the artists keep returning to this path, endless as it is. Beethoven lives in us, as he changes, as we change. Life aspires to art, art is a way forward, life is our way forward. Beethoven changes us through his "growth". We grow with him!

After two albums devoted to Italian music from the 17th and 18th centuries (BIS-2585 and BIS-2645), male soprano Nicolo Balducci now offers us a recital devoted to the greatest representatives of Viennese Classicism - Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven - in the company of the fortepianist Anna Paradiso, whom we recently heard in a recording devoted to the work of Caroline Ridderstolpe together with mezzo-soprano Kristina Hammarstrom (BIS-2675). The vocal compositions gathered here, which include such rarities as two songs in French by Beethoven, are performed by a male soprano - in many cases the first time they have been recorded by this voice type. This original approach by the two performers makes it possible 'to explore unusual nuances, both in the interpretation and in the "soundscape" of this music, and to find new angles of inspiration in our interpretations' (Balducci). The combination of high voice and fortepiano emphasises the link between sound and words, with a dimension closer to chamber music, inspired by the specific timbre of the instruments. 'One of the fascinating aspects of the pieces on this recording is the power of their rhetorical expression', writes Paradiso. Balducci and Paradiso invite us here to be entertained and moved and to discover 'glimpses of intimate connections and shared secrets'.

Pianist Helen Davies is the daughter of a Bohemian mother and Anglo-German father and her family has always been acutely aware of their European heritage. Connections was conceived during the COVID-19 UK lockdown in March 2020. Much of the music on this recording was created by German composers, hence the decision to focus on that link, recording music which they felt connected them back to some of their familial roots. Music is an international language, unaffected by boundaries and this is celebrated in this recording. The inclusion of the little Rondo by the British composer Arnold Cooke embodies this continental link: Cooke studied composition with the German composer Paul Hindemith who had a strong influence on his style and whose musical language can be clearly heard in Cooke's short composition. In keeping with the connections theme, Laurence Davies uses a German horn, an Alexander model 103 made in Mainz for this recording.

SYMPHONY NO. 2 & NO. 6 ('PASTO

The second CD out of 4 with the complete Concertos for piano and orchestra by L. van Beethoven with the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Joachim Gustafsson. On this disc there is also the Egmont Ouverture.

Celebrated pianist-composer Julian Jacobson, acclaimed for the colour, vitality and insight he brings to his performances, presents three of Beethoven's most iconic piano sonatas in this recording. Julian is well know for his Beethoven "marathons", performing all 32 of his sonatas from memory in a day, most recently in November 2022 in celebration of his 75th birthday. "It soon became clear that the pianist's mastery of Beethoven's idiom was such he could easily have improvised himself out of any momentary difficulty" was how one critic described one of his marathon performances.

What is lost in terms of orchestral colors is gained in clarity of texture, chamber-music like dialogue and perhaps more importantly an occasion to showcase aspects of string playing (articulation, portamento) as described by the likes of Louis Spohr, who closely worked with Beethoven. It is also the perfect medium to accompany the wonderful instruments generously put at our disposal by Robert A. Brown. Often discussed and a subject of many controversies when tackling the Baroque repertoire, the debate regarding temperament is often cut short in Classical and Early Romantic performance. We do know of Beethoven's preference for Kirnberger III, which we have used for the Fourth Concerto, whilst Young proved a better fit for the tonal discrepancies in the Third Concerto.

As much as the now popular sentence naming Shostakovich "the Beethoven of the 20th Century" is debatable, nobody can deny an amount of contact points between the two composers: above all, the favorite musical mediums and the engagement in historical and political coeval affairs. However, we think that nothing like their Late String Quartets can offer material for a comparative listening and analysis. In both cases we can easily detect what Edward Said defined and discussed as the "Late Style". And in both cases we are in front of a complex and vibrant dialectic between a process of abstraction and a moral imperative to stick to the "hic et nunc". Such an intellectual and existential confrontation is fruitfully without solution and offers a never-ending space to insights and interpretations. Here we propose Alma Quartet's outlook first instalment.

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, Op. 101 & 106

This boxed set of fifteen CDs brings together all the recordings made by the Belcea Quartet for Outhere Music. This anthology features benchmark performances of works by eight different composers, plus prestigious guests such as Tabea Zimmermann, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Till Fellner and Piotr Anderszewski. 'Marked out from the beginning as a group of outstanding potential by it's teachers, the Belcea Quartet has fully realised it's early promise, rising to become one of the leading quartets of it's time,' writes Jean-Michel Molkhou in the booklet accompanying the set.