REVIEWS:

The appearance of this rarity has been eagerly awaited and now enthusiastically discussed on the Operetta website. Although there is a certain amount of doubling up of characters, this does not detract from the enjoyment of the work.

The operetta opens with an atmospheric introduction. Trembling upper octave notes on piano and violins give a simple yet appropriate sound-picture of the heavens. It serves as texture for Kitty's opening number and Franz's ballad, A summer's day on the shining sea where it obviously depicts the shimmering sea.

The story is slight and takes place in a girls' finishing school. A school ball with a Damselfly dance is an occasion for the girls to parade their charm to prospective admirers. One of the girls, Lily, is engaged but already her fiancé has his eyes on a girl in the opera! The commonsense Lily decides that he must find her another man if they are to break off the engagement. So commences an involved yet trivial plot. An innocent Franz becomes involved with Lily. Kitty's father, an astronomer, considers that Franz is a stargazer who needs to wake up to the realities of life, hence the title.

Quite a few musical numbers are set in waltz time, but one in particular appears with regular monotony throughout the operetta.

The performance has merit. The singers are confident in their roles and sing with true tenderness in their lovey-dovey relationships. This is a 'Surround Sound' disc and the effect of enhanced realism works successfully. The recording is superb with mellow orchestra and voices not too forwardly positioned. The bonus track is the Overture from a one act Viennese singspiel love story. Here Lehár contrasts Alpine mountain tones with a dab of exotic colour.

The booklet is provided in German, English and French with good background notes by Stefan Frey as well as a synopsis for each of the vocal numbers to help you follow the plot.

-- MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Includes sym(s) by Leopold Mozart.

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Includes work(s) by Antonio Caldara. Ensemble: Parnassi musici.

We badly need a complete set of Zelenka's orchestra works, as Arkiv's edition has long vanished into the remainder bins, and this one (previously issued as three separate CDs) fits the bill nicely. Although the players use "authentic instruments", their sound is comparatively warm and gentle, though this doesn't mean that they don't handle with aplomb the insanely virtuosic horn parts in the Capriccios, or the bubbling wind writing in the Concerto. The inclusion of the overture from Melodrama de S. Wenceslao makes an interesting bonus, with its fascinating opposition of simultaneous duple and triple rhythms. If you haven't heard this music, let's just say that Zelenka wrote some of the most enjoyable and colorful music of the Baroque era, and he is supremely well served by CPO's engineers, conductor Sonnentheil, and his New-Eröffnete Orchestre.--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The symphonies of Georges Onslow (1784-1853), rather than following the path blazed by countryman Hector Berlioz, instead adopt the German romantic style epitomized by Schumann and Mendelssohn. For example, the high-spirited Symphony No. 2, a smart and finely crafted work continuously self-propelled by busy string writing, presents a very Schumannesque profile (explicitly so in the scherzo), while the orchestration, with its bucolic woodwind writing, owes much to Mendelssohn. Symphony No. 4 immediately announces its weightier countenance with a powerfully portentous introduction reminiscent of Schubert. Onslow enlivens both the first movement and finale with skillful pacing and an unerring sense of dramatic timing, but it's the spiritually elevated adagio--the emotional center of the work--that remains most in the memory.


Johannes Goritzki's vibrant, enlivened conducting, and the Hanover Radio Philharmonic's enthusiastic playing certainly make a strong case for reviving this music, which lost its hold on concert programs in the wake of Beethoven's and Schubert's posthumous popularity. CPO's full-bodied, well balanced, and dynamically true recording impressively replicates the performers' joy of discovery. All devotees of late classicism/early romanticism should hear this disc.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

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Richard Wetz's ultra-conservative Third Symphony, like his second, resembles sort of a cross between Bruckner and Max Bruch. Not that this explains anything useful. One thing's for sure, though: Wetz writes beautiful music. His themes sing, stay with you when listening, and offer clearly contrasting moods and images. While never calling attention to itself in an ostentatious manner, Wetz's orchestration elucidates his musical arguments with perfect clarity and efficiency. His harmony, both diatonic and tastefully chromatic, is gorgeous. There's more than a touch of Schubert in his mixture of major and minor modes, and he knows how to use both discrete dissonance and fluid rhythms to carry his melodies across the bar lines. In short, the guy knows how to write symphonically, and if he now appears to have been born a generation or more too late (the piece dates from 1922 but sounds more like 1872), that need not concern us now.


Highlights of this work include an impressively argued opening, a truly noble slow movement that packs a Brucknerian sense of timeless spirituality into a mere 11 minutes, a scherzo full of gentle humor (with a lovely and lyrical trio), and a passionate, wholly satisfying finale that never overstays its welcome despite being more than 14 minutes long. This last, in particular, represents no small achievement in a late-Romantic symphony, and the closing pages, where Wetz decides to explore (so earnestly and so well) "The Greatest Hits from the Coda of Bruckner's Fifth", will bring a smile to the lips of every music lover. The coupling, Gesang des Lebens for chorus and orchestra, really does sound like an eight-minute-long Max Bruch wannabe (terrifying thought!), and in this case offers nothing at all memorable. However, if you're interested in music that expresses the best in the conservative German tradition, you'll find much to enjoy in this authoritatively paced, well-played, richly recorded, genuine "sleeper" of a symphony. Listen to it with respect. It really grows on you.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com