English born conductor F. Charles Adler was a student of Gustav Mahler and a devoted Bruckner enthusiast. Presented here on this 5 CD Music & Arts release are the fabled SPA and Unicorn studio recordings of 1952-56 as well as a live broadcast performance of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 6. These works have been expertly restored and re-mastered in 2014 by Aaron Z. Snyder. At least two previously Music & Arts releases devoted to Mr. Adler, one exclusively Mahler, the other given over to both Mahler and Bruckner, have been warmly welcomed back to the catalog, resurrecting the important recordings of an ardent, early supporter of these once controversial, now universally-admired composers.

The central intention of the edition Haendeliana Hallensis is to preserve and present the richness and variety of the music culture and tradition at and around the Handel place of Halle. Volume 2 of this edition demonstrates the capacity of treasures selected from the collection of historical keyboard instruments at the Handel House. The double CD brings in relation the keyboard work of three composers affiliated to Halle, who spent around 1800 an important period of their lifes in the city and thus each distinctly formed regional music culture. Daniel Gottlob Türk and Johann Friedrich Reichardt resided till the end of their days. Within Türk's oeuvre keyboard music fills an important place; while keyboard compositions by his contemporary Reichardt or his student Carl Loewe mark a kind of curiosities. During their life times and long after their aesthetic value have been underestimated. Only through a gradual understanding that these works should not be compared with those of Beethoven, but instead regarded as specimens of an independent genre which arose during the same period in Central and Northern Germany, can they be appreciated and enjoyed for their beauty, melodic invention, rhythmic sophistication and certain interesting harmonic developments. This CD intends to propose new impulses to this discovery.

Franz Hauk and the Simon Mayr Chorus and Ensemble have spearheaded the revival of themusic of Johann Simon Mayr who was born in Bavaria but lived in Italy. In the latestinstalment of their critically acclaimed recordings they turn to Il sogno di Partenope, anallegorical staged cantata composed to mark the rebuilding of the Teatro San Carlo in Naplesfollowing a fire in February 1816. Mayr’s significance as an intermediary between the operaseria of the late eighteenth-century and the melodrama of the early-nineteenth is reflected inthis important work, a unique kind of ‘cantata opera’ of which only the second act survives.

Vol. 2 features Gebel’s Cantatas from the 1747-48 cycle that he wrote for church services on New Year's Day and the 1st Sunday after Epiphany. These large-scale Christmas cantatas appear for the 1st time on CD. Once again, as in the St John Passion (also released by CPO), we admire the unparalleled harmonies, modern melodies and artfully intricate counterpoint of Gebel's distinctive and novel idiom.

Charles Adler, a student of Mahler himself, provides emotional truth and scrupulous attention to dynamics in this pioneering first ever commercial recording of Mahler's 6th Symphony.

These are 'historic recordings', but you won't have to listen through a sea of crackles to appreciate them. It is astonishing to consider that Mahler's Sixth, long recognized as one of the century's seminal works, had to wait until 1952 for this, its first commercial recording. Its reappearance reminds us just how recent a phenomenon is the Mahler boom. The conductor may be unfamiliar. A refugee from the Nazis, Charles Adler settled in the USA and married into money, using it to subsidize his own record label, SPA. Which is not to decry the venture: SPA issued records of many new and unknown works, while Adler's own musical credentials were impressive enough — he had been a pupil of Felix Mottl and Mahler himself. That said, he wasn't a man to worry too much about fraudulent marketing. On the original LPs, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra masqueraded variously as the 'Vienna Orchestra' and 'Vienna Philharmonia'. Interested readers should note that an article in the winter issue of Gramophone's sister publication, ICRC, provides further useful background. Whatever may be wrong with Adler's Mahler performances, their emotional truth and scrupulous attention to dynamics goes a long way to compensate for indifferent intonation and some rather rough-and-ready orchestral playing. The timpani are the most persistent offenders and brass tuning often slips under pressure.

Adler's pioneering Sixth is said to have been set down in only 11 hours. Writing in these pages, Deryck Cooke was much taken with it, but then he always saw the first movement as a world-weary trudge rather than the brutal, authoritarian march conceived by Bernstein and emulated by most subsequent interpreters (including Karajan whose own recording is due for reissue). Adler is nothing if not direct. Having chosen his tempo, he sticks to it right through the chorale, the 'Alma' theme and even (no exposition repeat) the pastoral interlude. Mahler warns against undue 'dragging' but Adler's cowbells are anything but distant and quiet - the herd is close by and frisky. By contrast, the beginning of the coda is surely too slow. The Andante is placed second (the documentation by Gerald Fox of the Gustav Mahler Society of New York - is exceptionally strong on the composer's vacillations regarding the order of the middle movements). Cooke thought Adler sluggish here and the deliberate speed does rather draw attention to the thinness of the string sound. Notated portamentos, here as elsewhere, are too reticent. On the other hand, the narrow-bore horn produces a slightly 'stopped' tone which seems just right in context: this is clearly some sort of Viennese orchestra. Sadly, brass intonation again slips at the climax. The Scherzo fares least well. Timpani tuning is fairly wretched, and, despite a slowish tempo, orchestral ensemble and intonation leave much to be desired. Adler's finale is also on the slow side (the whole movement lasts over 33 minutes) but convincingly so, as if recognizing at the outset that the battle has been lost. It's a pity that the second hammer blow (18'55") wasn't retaken as the tam-tam is late. But the closing page is remarkable, the fate motif hammered out in very measured quavers, the finality of the strings' pizzicato emphasized by a lengthy, rhetorical pause.

At which point you may need to sprint across to your CD player to avoid launching into the opening of the Third Symphony. Back in August 1962 (its first release in the UK), Cooke was less enthusiastic about this, eagerly anticipating Bernstein's more professional CBS set. On its own terms, however, I found myself enjoying Adler's reading a good deal. The orchestral playing is better, presumably on account of the symphony being easier to play, and Adler's direct and unaffected approach seems well suited to the vernal, 'outdoors' mood of the work. The second and third movements respond particularly well to his unfussy direction, though again intonation can be poor, especially noticeable when flutes, E flat clarinets or horns are supporting the 'posthorn'. The mezzo gives a notably eloquent account of the fourth movement. Inevitably, there are weaknesses too. Cooke pointed out the excruciating wrong entry by the second violins in the finale (9.01ff. -why was this allowed to stand?) and the symphony's peroration is torpedoed by the sour tuning of the wind choir and a curiously abrupt last note. Adler is not the only conductor unsure how to pace the first movement. He has summer march in at a noticeably slower tempo (against Mahler's instructions) at 2304" and the transition to the recapitulation is awkward. The Fafner-like glissandos in horn and bassoon at the outset are strongly characterized, but those seismic runs in the basses are nowhere near distinct enough. Tension is allowed to dissipate.

Conifer find room for Adler's textually suspect torso of the Tenth (the first movement plus the "Purgatorio"). The violas cope well in the rarefied atmosphere of the opening, but the violins struggle later on. For once, Adler and/or his recording team do not make quite enough of dynamic markings and you may feel that a basic tempo is never adequately established. Still, the closing pages are as affecting as ever, notwithstanding a peculiarly 'twangy' and close-miked harp. All in all, this is a set of undoubted historical interest, if not quite on a par with the 'classic' Mahler recordings of, say, Bruno Walter. Those constitute essential purchases for the general collector. Adler's Mahler on the other hand will appeal primarily to Mahler completists who will scarcely believe their luck. Despite the difficulties encountered in preparing the present release, the remastering has been well handled and the notes are excellent.

-- Gramophone [2/1998]

This Milken Archive disc presents five works by Frederick Jacobi (1891-1952), one of the first 20th-century American composers to successfully unite authentic Jewish melodic and harmonic materials with the European classical-romantic tradition. Championed by such conductors as Koussevitzky, Stokowski, and Monteux, his compositions reflect two principal ethnic-historical musical sources: the motifs, rhythms and sonorities of American Indian culture and the biblical, liturgical and rabbinical wellsprings of his Judaic heritage, which would eventually dominate his creative life.

Included on this CD are three instrumental works of Jewish inspiration: the Cello Concerto, an introspective work inspired by the Book of Psalms; Hagiographa: Three Biblical Narratives for Piano and String Quartet, a rhapsodic evocation of three major biblical personalities; and Two Pieces in Sabbath Mood, an orchestral tone poem that depicts the spiritual qualities of the Sabbath in Jewish life and tradition. Also heard are two liturgical pieces: excerpts from the Sabbath Evening Service, a restrained setting for baritone and a cappella chorus that was commissioned by New York’s Temple Emanu-El; and Ahavat Olam, an independent setting of the Sabbath evening prayer for cantor and choir that is infused with echoes of traditional cantorial chant.

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

R E V I E W S:

Fanfare:
The opening of Frederick Jacobi’s Cello Concerto will take your breath away. It is one of those instantly memorable, drop-dead gorgeous beginnings—like Fauré’s Elégie for cello and orchestra—that will have you asking yourself, “Who is this composer and where has he been all my life?” Well, it turns out that for the last several years of my life, Jacobi has been hiding on a shelf in my own library. His 1932 Cello Concerto, aka “Three Psalms for Cello and Orchestra,” has been filed away in my personal collection on a CRI disc containing a program of other works by Jacobi, including the here-recorded Hagiographa. Which leads to the inevitable question, “How memorable can it be if I didn’t remember I had it?”

The answer to that question may seem a bit of a cop-out, but I think it has to do with the fact that beautiful as this music is—and it is—it is also highly derivative of a number of other higher profile composers. The three-movement Cello Concerto, for example, though mostly a quiet, contemplative work, inevitably calls to mind associations with Bloch’s Schelomo (though it is nowhere near as cinematic), and even Dvo?ák’s Cello Concerto. Or, as the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music press release has it, “Jacobi’s style is marked by broad, melodic lyricism, often infused or contrasted with a sophisticated sense of drama that is personal and restrained, rather than overtly theatrical.” Not surprisingly, Jacobi studied with Bloch and Rubin Goldmark.

Frederick Jacobi (1891–1952) was a native San Franciscan of German-Jewish descent. Though not of a religious upbringing or traditional Jewish background, his interest in his cultural heritage was likely kindled by a commission he received in 1930 from Lazare Saminsky of New York’s Temple Emanu-El to provide a setting of the Sabbath Eve Service. He was also equally interested, however, in the authentic music of America’s southwest native tribes, and in the 1920s (like Bartók before him), Jacobi spent time among Pueblo and Navajo populations in Arizona and New Mexico, recording their indigenous rhythms, melodies, and sonorities. Much of this research found its way into his concert works.

Jacobi was an unapologetic and unrepentant romantic, and all of the pieces on this disc are marked by the broad, melodic lyricism noted above. “Mi khamokha” (the first of the four excerpts from the Sabbath Evening Service), an exquisitely simple yet intensely moving piece for baritone (Patrick Mason) surrounded by chorus, could be a not-too-distant cousin of the Sanctus from Berlioz’s Requiem. Hagiographa is, to all extents and purposes, a piano quintet. It can be listened to and appreciated as such without knowing that each of its three quite substantial movements is titled, respectively, “Job,” “Ruth,” and “Joshua.”

Ahavat olam is another of Cantor David Putterman’s commissions for liturgical music at New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue. Jacobi composed it in 1945. It is written in the style of traditional cantorial pieces for solo cantor and chorus. Brief as it is (just over three minutes), it ends with a most beautiful benedictory Amen. Two Pieces in Sabbath Mood, like Hagiographa, can be listened to as purely abstract music. Its two movements, “Kaddish” and “Oneg Shabbat,” are purely orchestral, and could be described as a tone poem.

If you love wonderfully rich romantic musical tapestries, tinged with ethnic (Jewish and native American) melodies and harmonies, Jacobi is a composer well worth exploring. I can recommend this Naxos release over the aforementioned CRI, not only because the performances and sound are better, but because the CRI contains only instrumental works, whereas the current release presents a nice cross-section and balance among instrumental, choral, and orchestral pieces. Very nice indeed.

Jerry Dubins, FANFARE

The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music is a vast recorded panorama of the rich body of Jewish music, both sacred and secular, that has developed over the course of American history. This abundant repertoire, in its remarkable breadth and diversity, not only reflects the history, evolution, and variety of the Jewish experience in America, but, by extension, attests to Jewish continuity and renewal through more than five millennia, revealing universal qualities that can speak to people of all faiths and cultures.

“To listen to its 19 selections...is to experience a sampling of the huge breadth of American Jewish music.” — Cantor Steven Blane, New Jersey Jewish Standard

“...provides a table of hors d’oeuvres for what is to come...Haskivenu...is particularly lovely. All of the performances here are top-notch.” — Jerry Dubins, Fanfare

“This will give you a taste - I underscore taste - of the works of 37 composers that are included in this marvelous collection of American Jewish music, a collection that is sure to become an important part of the recorded literature of all American music.” — Copley News Service

“It gives a good indication of the project’s production values: up-to-date engineering, full and scholarly notes by Neil W. Levin (the Archive’s Artistic Director), and translations...of sung material. The sampler also sketches out the aesthetic reach of the venture.” — Peter Rabinowitz, International Record Review

“The propulsive and dynamic Brubeck is powered along at full tilt crossed with a typically swaying Jewish accent. The down and dirty Hudl mint shtrudl is the equivalent of a racy song by George Formby—saucy and with a clarinet played scatty Chassidic for all it is worth as slippery as oil...[Milhaud’s Sacred Service] ...joyous...[Achron]...is music of the utmost inventive resource—full of colourful Technicolor rivalry among the instruments of the orchestra...[Weill’s The Etneral Road]...whispered serenity from the choir and a piannisimo solo violin rise to the disturbing suggestion of disillusion. Serenity reflects the God of the Israelites while the wilder beat reflects the followers of the golden calf. Eventually the joyous ‘calf tune’ is taken over by the Israelites to reflect an excited joy.” — Rob Barnett, MusicWeb-International.com

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.