A brand new recording in excellent sound and a Sou-Chong to challenge even the great tenors on other sets … well worth consideration.

After Franz Lehár’s initial success with Die lustige Witwe in 1905 – an operetta that harked back to the jolly 19th century works of Johann Strauss II, Millöcker and Suppé – he gradually changed direction. For him there were to be new dramaturgical models including the “lyric operetta” where the focus is on the ‘inner world of the figures’ as Doris Sennefelder puts it in her perspective building notes to this issue. Paganini, Der Zarewitsch and Friederike are all in this mould and in Das Land des Lächelns a further aspect comes to the fore, the cultural clash between East and West. The Viennese Lisa falls in love with the Chinese Prince Sou-Chong but she can’t accept the demands of Chinese values. As in every operetta of the traditional kind act 2 ends in bitter conflict. So does Die lustige Witwe but there everything is sorted out in the third act as Hanna and Danilo dance away to eternal happiness – or so we believe. In Das Land des Lächelns the conflict is resolved insofar as Sou-Chong allows Lisa to leave China and return to Vienna. He displays some humanity after all but this does not really lead to increased understanding.

The Chinese or ‘Oriental’ setting was by no means unique to opera and operetta of the late 19th and the early 20th century. Massenet’s Le roi de Lahore and Delibes’ Lakmé are well-known examples. Mascagni’s Iris and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly are others and even Gilbert and Sullivan went Asian in The Mikado. Later Lehár and Puccini actually worked in parallel on Chinese projects, Puccini with Turandot and Lehár with Die gelbe Jacke which was premiered in 1923. It was later revised and presented in new guise in 1929 with Richard Tauber in the main lead. Then it was a tremendous success. This was Das Land des Lächelns.

There is no denying that Lehár was a tremendously skilful composer. The Chinese allusions in the score are no less striking than corresponding music in Turandot. The procession with chorus at the beginning of act 2 could just as well have been written by Puccini. It is followed by a highly attractive Chinese ballet suite. Towards the end of the act the wedding procession is colourful and powerful, also incorporating quotations from Sou-Chong’s first act song Von Apfelblüten einen Kranz.

This recording is the fourth of a Lehár operetta from CPO to have come my way the last couple of years and it is in the main very successful. Ulf Schirmer, who also conducted Schön ist die Welt (review), secures excellent playing from the Munich Radio Orchestra. His choices of tempo seem unerringly right. He is very close to Otto Ackermann in the historical 1953 recording now on Naxos (review) and that is my benchmark. The long overture, with quotations from the music that follows, very clearly prepares the listener for a largely serious, even tragic play and the ballet suite in act 2 is excellently played. The chorus is also splendid. For once in a recording with spoken dialogue between the musical numbers the balance is such that one need not turn up the volume every time to hear the dialogue properly. Recorded at three live performances the technicians have succeeded in finding the best of both worlds and there is hardly any evidence of an audience. There is quite a lot of dialogue but it is separately tracked and for repeated listening this leaves the choice open for those who want to hear only the music numbers.

There is a delightful but small-voiced second couple with Julia Bauer’s Mi, who sings a charming dancing song in act 2, and Alexander Kaimbacher’s Gustl, who is agreeably lyrical in the duet with Mi in the same act. Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund as Lisa is a bit uneven and her uppermost notes tend to be rather hard and strained. She can also be lyrically appealing, not least in duet, and in the dark-tinted and operatic finale to act 2 she delivers strong dramatic singing. Prince Sou-Chong is sung by Polish tenor Piotr Beczala and he is plainly superb with a good ring in the more outgoing music. Most of all though he impresses through delicious lyric singing with carefully judged nuances that cannot be taken for granted in operetta.

I have complained in the past about sloppy presentation from CPO but in this respect they have made amends. They give us both a detailed track-list and a fairly good synopsis in three languages. I still think that a full libretto would be useful – even for German speakers.

I am not fully au fait with all existing alternative versions. Ackermann’s recording, mentioned above, with Schwarzkopf, Gedda, Loose and Kunz is a classic and at Naxos price unbeatable. Gedda’s stereo remake with Anneliese Rothenberger as Lisa is a splendid alternative and EMI’s third offer, Boskovsky’s recording with Jerusalem and Helen Donath, also has much to commend it. Robert Stolz with Rudolf Schock and Margit Schramm will certainly give pleasure, though I haven’t heard it, but for a brand new recording in excellent sound and a Sou-Chong to challenge even the great tenors on the other sets, this is well worth consideration.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

BUXTEHUDE Benedicam Dominum. Gott hilf mir. Wie wird erneuet. Wo soll ich fliehen hin? Mein Gemüt erfreuet sich. Herr ich lasse dich nicht. Ihr lieben Christen • Roland Wilson, cond; La Capella Ducale; Cologne Musica Fiata • cpo 777318 (78:18 Text and Translation)


This collection of unfamiliar cantatas of Dietrich Buxtehude includes two first recordings, Benedicam Dominum and Wo soll ich fliehen hin? ; the program concludes with the most familiar one of the group, recorded five times before. (With reference to first recordings, colleague Brian Robins in 30:6 overlooked previous recordings of BuxWV 82 on Vox, Hungaroton, and Ricercar, and of BuxWV 25 on Metronome, neither included here.) If the familiar Ihr lieben Christen concludes the program, the first recording of the stunning Benedicam Dominum opens it. Perhaps it has been neglected because of the required forces, six choirs to be placed in the six balconies of the Lübeck church. The text from Psalm 33 (34) lends itself to a festive treatment using trumpets and drums, and the composer takes full advantage of the sonorities of the instruments. This is a real addition to the composer’s discography, and it’s worth noting that two other recordings of the piece were made at almost the same time, the sort of thing that happens in an anniversary year such as this.


Gott hilf mir , on a German text from Psalm 68 (69), is superior to older recordings under Günter Graulich and Martha Johnson, while Wie wird erneuet , a non-Scriptural poem, can be heard in Ton Koopman’s three-disc box (11:4). Wo soll ich fliehen hin? is the other first recording, a poetic text in the same style as the previous piece. Mein Gemüt erfreuet sich is also in Koopman’s box, and Herr ich lasse dich nicht has been recorded with Helmut Rilling’s group and the Ricercar Consort. Among those who have given us the concluding work, Koopman stands out for the boxed set.


The comparison of three of these performances with those duplicated by Koopman is instructive. Wie wird erneuet is more brilliant, more jubilant here than Koopman rendered it, his trumpets more restrained, his singers more subdued. Mein Gemüt erfreuet sich is a similar expression of rejoicing that Wilson, with a more forceful bass soloist, captures more effectively than Koopman. Ihr lieben Christen , like the other two duplicated here, uses the verb “rejoice” with trumpets and trombones in the first line, but Koopman again finds less to rejoice about, and he is slower in all three of these works. Wilson’s superiority in these works makes me eager to hear his new Das jüngste Gericht on Sony, not issued over here yet but a work that contrasts in mood with these pieces. This generous collection is well worth hearing, a splendid contribution to the anniversary.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

Classical Music

This 2-CD set contains Middelschulte's organ transcription of the complete Bach Goldberg Variations.

FRANÇAIX L’horlage de flore. 1,4 Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano. 2 English Horn Quartet. 1,3 String Quartet 3 • Lajos Lencsés (ob, Eh); 1 Françaix Trio; 2 Parisii Qt; 3 Uri Segal, cond; 4 Stuttgart RSO 4 • cpo 999 779 (60:19)


The main reason to get this album is L’horlage de flore . It’s a seven-movement suite based on an eminently 18th-century concept by the famous Swedish naturalist Linnaeus, mixing scientific inquiry and fancy: that a clock could easily be built to tell the hours of day and night through the blossoming of different flowers. Thus, Françaix set the day jessamine ( galant de jour ) first, as it opens at 3 a.m., the cupid’s dart ( cupidone bleue ) at 5 a.m., etc. Not everything is as abstruse, at least to us non-Gauls; night-flowering jasmine, moonflower, and the geranium all figure into Françaix’s master plan. It’s a graceful work that brings out more inherent lyricism than is usually the case with this composer, sometimes dismissed for his easygoing, loquacious humor.


This is only the third recording of the work that I can recall. The earliest featured oboist John de Lancie, who commissioned the work in 1959, with André Previn and the LSO (now on Boston 1045). It remains an excellent performance, in good analog sound. The second, with Pamela Pecha, Paul Freeman, and the Czech NSO (Kleos Classics 5104), can be quickly dismissed for its slack conducting and enervated orchestral playing, but this new version is as good in its own way as the original. Lencsés makes no effort to reproduce de Lancie’s wonderfully round tone, but offers a more pungent sound. Segal and his Stuttgart musicians similarly focus on Françaix’s harmonic bite.


The three remaining works on the album do reinforce the old stereotypes of the composer, with their droll but repetitious humor in faster movements, and light melancholy in slow ones. The best of the lot is the Trio, where Françaix’s desire to provide each of the three instruments with good material results in rather more genuine interplay than either of the quartets. It is also one of very few important works I’ve heard that allows the bassoon to function lyrically as well as humorously—in other words, to take on the role often assigned in orchestral works to the clarinet. The performance is a distinguished one, with the Françaix Trio coming by its name naturally: the pianist, Claude Françaix, is the composer’s son.


All in all, an attractive release, especially worth the purchase for L’horlage de flore.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Classical Music

HUMMEL Der Durchzug durchs Rote Meer • Hermann Max, cond; Simone Kermes (sop); Veronika Winter (sop); Hans Jörg Mammel (ten); Ekkehard Abele (bs); Wolf Matthias Friedrich (bs); Rheinische Kantorei; Das Kleine Konzert • cpo 777 220 (50:45 & ) Live: Klosterbasilike Knechtsteden 9/22/2004


Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s piano music, particularly his concertos, are gems that are hidden from view far more than they deserve to be. Occasional performances and recordings remind us of Hummel’s inventiveness and imagination, as well as his solid craft.


This oratorio, The Passage through the Red Sea , is further proof of those qualities. While this may not be an undiscovered masterpiece, it is a work capable of providing a great deal of pleasure, even on repeated hearings. The writing is at times inspired, powerful, and even rather original. Almost all solo arias have choral sections inserted in their midst, a quite unusual and effective touch. The work may not have been performed during Hummel’s lifetime, and this is certainly its first recording, and may well be the work’s first performance ever. The autograph was in the British Library, and the work has been presumed lost until its discovery there.


If Hummel’s music appeals to you—or if other early-Romantic music resonates with you—the chances are that you will enjoy this recording as much as I did. The singing ranges from the adequate to excellent, the chorus sings with clarity and purity of tone, and the orchestral playing is quite good as well. Hermann Max conducts this music like he believes in it, and that helps to bring it to life. The recorded sound is warm, well balanced, and natural—and there are helpful notes as well as complete text and translation. A very worthwhile release from cpo.


FANFARE: Henry Fogel

Classical Music

ONSLOW Nonet in a, op. 77. String Quintet No. 19 in c, op. 44 • Ma’alot Qnt; Mandelring Qrt • cpo 777 151 (65:41)


“Their emotional coolness and blandness created few problems of interpretation or emotional response, and this seems to have enhanced their appeal to the amateur.” Thus wrote Benedict Sarnaker in my New Grove about Onslow’s chamber music. You can almost visualize the sneer on his face with the utterance of that last word. Amateurs! What do they know about music-making, anyway? Don’t they understand that music, like that other great art form, love, should only be made by skilled professionals?


But then we find Martin Anderson ( Fanfare 27:1) remarking, “There’s something enormously satisfying about the music of George Onslow,” and Colin Anderson ( Fanfare 28:1) evidently agrees in reviewing a pair of string quintets: “This lyrical, unpretentious, and skillfully written music is beautifully played and recorded.”


I find myself coming down firmly on the side of Fanfare ’s other reviewers over this one. Though I can’t claim to have followed Onslow from his earliest efforts (written before his brief tutelage with Reicha, when he was still a piano student of Cramer), his mature chamber works display personality, taste, and a technical mastery that can lead to some inventive surprises. Perhaps Sarnaker approached his composer with unwarranted expectations—not unlike those of a person who listens for the first time to The Art of the Fugue expecting great melody. Regardless, if this album is anything to judge by, then Onslow wasn’t dull, and his “amateurs” would have been very fine musicians, indeed.


Consider the Nonet, dedicated to Albert von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, otherwise known as Victoria’s Prince Albert. (The royal composer had sent a luxuriously bound copy of his own music to Onslow. The latter was too much a gentleman not to reply in kind.) Its Scherzo is a breathless piece playing a game of misplaced beats, chattering themes, and contrapuntal ingenuity. The central trio gives an attractively spacious and Romantic melody first to the French horn, then to the first violin. The set of variations that take the place of the usual andante are exquisitely idiomatic for each instrument, though only in the last pair of variations do they reveal the transformative potential of the theme. The first movement does seem a bit bland, at least until the development section kicks in; but then I can’t help thinking that both the finale and it suffer from an unvarying sweetness of approach from the performers, not completely appropriate to the material at hand.


Perhaps this was an interpretative decision of the Ma’alot Quintet, or a reflection of the way both ensembles viewed that particular work. Certainly the opening movement of the Quintet No. 19, which shares a tempo indication with the similarly placed movement in the Nonet (Allegro spirituoso), lacked nothing in energy and contrapuntal severity. The same qualities prevail in the Scherzo, while Onslow’s interjection of a very Italianate central section in 6/8 was a masterstroke. Here, I think the Mandelring players could have adapted a slightly slower tempo than in the Scherzo proper. The third movement inverted the ordering of the second: a curiously light and hesitant pair of outer sections encompassing a furiously driven middle section. That same fury dominated the finale, a movement of dramatic power and eloquence. Emotionally cool? Not a chance.


Technically, both ensembles are up to par. I was impressed in particular by the Mandelring players’ precise attacks and intimate ensemble work in the Quintet’s opening movement and finale. They demonstrate a genuine affection for these pieces, and a belief in their ability to impress modern listeners. Factor in cpo’s lifelike sound, as well, and I think you will be impressed too.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Classical Music

Kurt Atterberg's music is instantly lovable and so stereotypically "romantic"-sounding that it sometimes threatens to cross over the line into caricature. This happens, for example, in his Piano Concerto, but the Violin Concerto is another matter entirely. I had previously lumped the two together in the wake of singularly disappointing performances released on Sterling a couple of years back, but now it seems that in a fine rendition such as this one, the music really does repay attentive listening.

At nearly 40 minutes, it's still a long haul, especially for the soloist, but Ulf Wallin has matters well in hand and gives an intense, passionate account of the score. My only criticism is that the finale, which is marked Allegro molto and shares a thematic relationship to the "storm" music of the Third Symphony, could have been conducted by Roger Epple with still greater abandon. But I strongly doubt that the composer's fans will be disappointed.

The two shorter works are typically appealing. If the Overture in A minor--an early piece already clearly revealing the composer's mature idiom--arguably outstays its welcome by a minute or two, the folk-inspired Värmlands Rhapsody is just plain gorgeous, and beautifully made in all respects. It makes an enticing disc-opener, and given the extremely high quality of the orchestral playing and typically fine German radio sound, anyone who has been collecting this series will need no further urging from me.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

George Antheil wrote wonderfully crazy, uninhibited, and sometimes-prophetic music. Listen to the recently unearthed First piano concerto, where the soloist's bare-boned unison lines play against fast moving orchestral color chords, and you'll think, "Aha! Messiaen!" Except that Antheil came first. However, much of this one-movement work's remainder begs, borrows, and steals from Stravinsky's Petrouchka. The Second concerto is characterized by energetic bitonal counterpoint, hiccupping syncopations, and the kind of chugging, stuck-in-the-mud Baroque-ish continuity you often get from Milhaud or Villa-Lobos. The Jazz Symphony is a miniature piano concerto whose discontinuous shifts of style and mood foretell the wacky accompaniments Carl Stalling fashioned for Bugs Bunny cartoons. It gathers a palpable momentum and sense of forward urgency absent from the longer concertos. This comment also applies to the short, virtuosic solo pieces that fill out the disc.

I'm sure every pianist within Markus Becker's reach will line up to rent his octaves after hearing him sail through the brief Jazz Sonata with wrists and arms intact. And compared to the First concerto's premiere recording featuring pianist Michael Rische with Christoph Poppen and the Bamberg Symphony, Becker's added rhythmic alacrity joined with the more innately "swinging" NDR Radiophilharmonie under Eiji Oue pays sharper dividends. Incidentally, the Jazz Symphony is played in its shorter 1955 revision (as is the harder-edged performance with H. K. Gruber leading the Ensemble Modern on RCA), as opposed to the slightly longer 1925 score recorded for RCA by Michael Tilson-Thomas and the New World Symphony. Needless to say, this is a must for Antheil acolytes.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Alas, cpo’s otherwise detailed and informative liner notes on the music itself offer nothing by way of biographical data on its composer other than his birth and death dates. I was, however, able to find a Web site dedicated to Wetz’s life and career (Len@musicweb-international.com). The following biographical sketch is based on the essay by Eric Schissel found there.

Richard Wetz was born in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, on February 26, 1875. At first a self taught musician, he ultimately enrolled in the Leipzig Conservatory and, apparently finding it uncongenial, left that august institution after a mere six weeks. From that point, his career was lackluster at best. After seeking private instruction both in Leipzig and Munich, one of his early advocates, Felix Weingartner, secured a conductor’s post for him in Stralsund. He lasted only a few months. He tried another post in Wuppertal with, apparently, similar results. Returning to Leipzig, he steeped himself in the music of Bruckner, Wagner, and Liszt, ultimately writing a book on Liszt in 1925.

In 1906, Wetz received the post of director of the Erfurt Music Society. By that time he had composed two operas to his own librettos, the second of which was a failure. Two years later, his Kleist Overture, op. 16 was premiered in Berlin under Nikisch (not a bad advocate!). Unfortunately, Wetz’s overture was upstaged by its concert mate, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and garnered only tepid reviews.

Wetz’s career finally took off in 1917 with the premiere of his first symphony. Other works that established him in the German-speaking world include his Gesang des Lebens, op. 29, Hyperion (on texts by Holderlin) for baritone, mixed chorus, and orchestra (op. 32, 1912), and his violin sonata, op. 33.

No date of composition is provided for his Requiem, op. 50. The high opus number, however, indicates that it was produced near the end of his life. He died in Erfurt on January 16, 1935. This release’s liner notes state that the work was last performed in Erfurt on Good Friday, 1943.

By the evidence before me, Wetz is a post-Romantic composer of considerable imagination, skill, and refinement. This requiem is indeed haunted by the ghost of Bruckner, but in its underlying message of consolation for the living, it brings Brahms to mind, and given some of its pastel orchestral shadings and its harmonically chromatic moments, it, especially in its Kyrie, evokes Fauré’s most gentle of requiems. Its Dies Irae gets as close to theatricality as one is to find in this work, but it closes with a sense of resignation, and then consolation. Its final pages are among the finest in this piece. I find it ironic that Lisztian chromaticism, which pops up repeatedly, becomes so similar to that of Fauré, but then, Fauré has often been likened to the French Brahms. Is it a case of cultural diffusion, or merely parallel development?

Without getting into a moment-to-moment analysis of this piece, suffice it to say that throughout this heartfelt work Wetz steers judiciously between the darkness and light inherent in the text. Does this obscure offering by an obscure composer belong in the international standard repertoire? After listening to this fine and illuminating performance, I can answer that question in a single word: absolutely.

FANFARE: William Zagorski

Reznicek's Symphony No. 5, subtitled "Dance Symphony", is a hoot. Its four movements comprise a polonaise, czardas, ländler, and tarantella--but don't think for a minute that they trip along lightly. Like Rachmaninov in his Symphonic Dances, Reznicek evidently had in mind a sort of "dance of death" program (indeed, the piece was choreographed as a ballet). Imagine a huge orchestral fresco on the order of Strauss' Elektra, only without the voices, and you'll get the picture.

The Second Symphony, the "Ironic", couldn't be more different. It's perky jeu d'esprit scored for classical orchestra--light and almost inconsequential, but full of sly humor that may take a couple of hearings in order to come across clearly. In a sense this is musician's music, the sort of thing a very experienced composer would write to amuse himself, and perhaps his colleagues, and it won't be to all tastes, though it's certainly not difficult to listen to. Indeed, the most ironic thing about it, like Mahler's Fourth, which it resembles in some respects, is its false naivety.

The performance of the Fifth Symphony is big, gutsy, and colorful, as the score demands, but the Second's chamber-like textures and reduced orchestration clearly tests the mettle of the Bern Symphony players, principal winds especially. It's one thing to make a big noise, with massed strings, brass, and percussion all blasting away with abandon, and quite another to project a work consisting largely of delicate, solo melodic threads. The players cannot have known this music all that well, and the outer movements of the "Ironic" strike the ear as frankly under-rehearsed--under-tempo and lacking in the requisite sparkle. Absent a score I can't say exactly by how much the performance fails to realize Reznicek's evident intentions, but that at least is how it sounds. So while the Fifth Symphony deserves your attention, the Second requires a bit more indulgence, although I am still happy to recommend this disc as yet further evidence of the composer's talent and undeserved neglect. The engineering is very good too.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com