This is an imaginative coupling of two major figures in Black American music. A modern recording of the Still is a real discovery which ought to bring this first Afro-American symphony to a wide audience. The style is accessible, the scoring sophisticated and colourful and, although there are blue notes and syncopated rhythms, the work is not under the shadow of Gershwin even though the symphony's construction is similarly episodic rather than developmental. Each of the four movements is related to fragments of poetry by Paul Laurence Dunbar, quoted in the score, and the whole work is inscribed by the composer "with humble thanks to God, the source of inspiration".

The orchestra is a large one, with a prominent part, right at the start of the first movement, for cor anglais and later on bass clarinet. The slow movement, which comes second, evokes Mahler with added blue notes, although the harp in places supports impressionist harmony, used more like Delius than Debussy. The snappy scherzo, a kind of hallelujah, even has a part for tenor banjo and the finale is introduced by a slow spiritual with characteristic dignity. A bassoon solo in the middle gets lost in an otherwise faithfully balanced recording. The ending is nobly cast, reflecting Afro-American idealism of the 1920s. Altogether there is no reason why this symphony should not become as popular as Gershwin's concert works.

Ellington wrote his ballet score, The River, for American Ballet Theatre in 1970—long after his prime, as many would say. Ron Collier's orchestration is mostly Hollywood with occasional glimpses of better things which suggest the arrangements of Nelson Riddle. But fragments of the Duke survive, which is surely justification enough.

-- Gramophone [4/1993]

One of the most important Parry issues for many years, this is a credit to all the performers, not least the warmly committed conductor, Neeme Järvi, drawing the whole ensemble together.

– Gramophone [12/2012]

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A moving tribute to one of Britain great composers.

When I showed this CD to a friend they responded by suggesting that it would be right up my street. Unfortunately, this comment was barbed. ‘My street’ in this case meant ‘over-blown’ ceremonial music of the kind that uncritically lauded Empire, glorified war and insisted that the ‘rich man [was] in his castle, The poor man at his gate’. Before the reader runs off with the idea that I am politically slightly to the right of Sir Oswald Mosley, I wish to make three comments. Firstly, Parry and Elgar were men of their time so their choice of poems to set and ideas to compose were different to someone living in the post-Colonial, ‘liberal’ and cosmopolitan society of the early part of the 21 ^st century. Secondly, not all ‘ceremonial’ music is bad. For example, while I have never been a fan of Elgar’s The Crown of India, I do love Walton’s coronation marches. By definition, this style of music tends to celebrate the life and times of the Royal Family or matters of ‘state’. However, it need not be ‘tub-thumping’ or ‘jingoistic’. Often it can be reflective and contain profound thoughts on mankind’s adventure. One need only consider the ‘Cortege’ by Cecil Coles - ideal for Remembrance Sunday yet full of the ‘horror of war’.

Thirdly, there is a tendency to present Parry as a caricature of a ‘Tory’ squire who was into all the trappings of the feudal society. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is not the place to analyse the composer’s political or moral views, however it is fair to say that he was liberal - possibly even a ‘radical’. His religious views were typically agnostic in spite of Delius’ suggestion that if he lived long enough he would have set the entire Bible! H.R.H. Charles, Prince of Wales has noted in his introduction to the CD liner-notes that Parry, in spite of his ‘hugely energetic personality’ revealed a ‘nervous, melancholy, even depressive temperament which infuses the inspiring and noble sentiment of much of his music with a darker, complex hue.’

The listener to this CD will be surprised. In spite of the cover photograph of a grand royal procession, much of this music is introverted and deeply moving. Some of it may have been written to celebrate national or royal events - but all of it has a thoughtful disposition. There is nothing here for the ‘jingoist’ expects possibly the Prom favourite Jerusalem. However, this hymn setting has been accepted by people of all political persuasions and none as a great national treasure.

A good place to start is the setting of John O’ Gaunt’s verse England. This song has occasionally been mentioned in the same breath as the well-known Jerusalem yet they could not be more different in their musical nature.

The story goes that after the success of the Blake setting, Gilbert Murray, the classicist and Ernest Walker, the composer, asked Parry to make a setting of John O’ Gaunt’s famous monologue from Act II of Shakespeare’s play Richard II. (This royal throne of Kings, this sceptred island). There is nothing bombastic about this beautiful unison song. If anything it is undemonstrative and reflective, with a greater emphasis being on the final words ‘Grant, Lord, that England … May be renown’d through all recorded ages / For Christian service and true Chivalry’. Jeremy Dibble has noted that England is about more than just flying the flag - ‘its rousing tune expresses a sense of vision, self-sacrifice and hope, typical of Parry’s own outlook.’

Jerusalem is given a largely thoughtful performance here. This song, beloved by the vast majority of the nation, is usually heard in the opulent Elgar orchestration. The original Parry song has slightly fewer grand aspirations. The composer suggested that the first verse ought to be sung by a soprano solo with the second sung by ‘all available voices’. Formerly composed as a ‘choral song’ with only a piano accompaniment, Parry orchestrated it right at the end of his life for a Suffrage Demonstration Concert on 13 March 1918 at the Queen’s Hall. My only complaint is the excessive length of the final word (Land) sung by the choir. This is at variance with my score of the work.

The nation collectively heard the Wedding March from Parry’s incidental music to the Greek comedy, The Birds by Aristophanes at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge; it was played just before the arrival of Her Majesty the Queen. For Parry enthusiasts this extract had been available on Lyrita featuring Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. As far as I know, until now there has been no recording of the entire score. The present performing edition has been prepared for performance by Philip Brookes.

The Birds was produced by the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club in November 1893. Jeremy Dibble has suggested that this music is full of ‘humour and light-heartedness’ and notes that the score is ‘rich in artifice and invention’. I enjoyed it. I guess that knowledge of the Aristophanes play may be of some help to listeners but all these numbers stand well on their own account. I was especially attracted to the gentle Entr’acte, the cheeky waltz, and the beautiful Intermezzo. All these display Parry’s skills at musical design and orchestration at their best.

The piece that gave my friend the greatest cause for concern about political correctness was the short ode entitled The Glories of Blood and State. He must have imagined Parry indulging in some idealist ‘Brooke-ian’ ‘pro patria mori’ sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is an early work dating from 1883, written some three years after the composer broke the mould of dissipation in English music with his Wagnerian cantata Prometheus Unbound. This ground-breaking work probably does not represent the ‘renaissance’ of British music - just the realisation that it was equal to the German hegemony. The present work is a setting of a poem by the English author James Shirley (1596-1666). Charles Lamb summed up this writer’s career with ‘[he] claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly the same language and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common.’ The funeral dirge from his play ‘The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses’ was regarded as a meditation on the fact that death is a leveller - kings and peasants are subject to the same laws of nature - ‘There is no armour against fate.’ The exposition of the music is excellent. There is a Brahmsian feel to this music that reflects Parry’s love of the Deutsches Requiem: Wagner’s ghost has (almost) been laid to rest. Perhaps anyone still worried about Parry and his ‘tub-thumping’ should meditate on the last line of the poem - ‘Only the actions of the just/Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust’.

Sir Henry Wood wrote in his fascinating My Life of Music (1938) that ‘one work we produced I thought was going to live - Parry’s Magnificat - but it has now dropped out of the concert repertoire. I have never been able to understand why’. It is a sentiment with which I strongly concur: I believe that the Magnificat is a masterpiece. It was composed for the 1897 Three Choirs Festival and was duly performed there on 15 September. It has one primary exemplar: Bach’s Magnificat of 1732-35; however, the listener will feel that much of the strength of this music is similar to the massive contrapuntal constructions of Blest Pair of Sirens which was completed ten years earlier. They may also consider that there are hints of Brahms. The work is conceived in five sections: the first and last being composed for soprano, chorus and orchestra, the second and fourth for soloists alone with the middle section being composed for chorus.

The listener will find this setting extremely satisfying for Parry has managed to balance his forces in a near-perfect manner. The ‘aggressive’ parts of the text are balanced with exquisite introspective moments. Lyrical music is counterpoised with ‘contrapuntal fertility and rich choral textures’. Some of the soprano soloist’s music is reminiscent of Brahms’ German Requiem and certain passages have more of an operatic, rather than a liturgical, mood to them.

It is interesting that Parry drew the text from the Vulgate Latin Bible rather than use an English translation such as the Book of Common Prayer. It would be instructive to know why. After the first performance, Parry dedicated the work to Queen Victoria.

In 1911, Hubert Parry was commissioned to compose a liturgical Te Deum for the Coronation of King George V. This was in addition to the well-known anthem I was Glad. This work displays the ‘pageantry, ceremony and grandeur’ of an important national occasion. This mood was reinforced by the use of the same six trumpets that were required for the anthem. Yet throughout, a more serious note is struck: tenderness and solemnity are never far away. Parry seems to be well-aware of the more profound and numinous qualities of the Coronation Service. He weaves the well-known tunes St Anne and Old 100 ^th into the texture. This is now a ‘concert’ piece: I do not believe that it could be used in the context of a religious ceremony - no matter how ‘high.’ It is worthy and I find it both exhilarating and moving.

The CD is an ideal production. From the highly imaginative and packed programme eloquently communicated through superb performances. The sound quality is excellent. The liner-notes are exemplary, however that is only to be expected from the champion of Parry and Stanford, Professor Jeremy Dibble of Durham University.

When I look at the catalogue of Parry’s music and encounter works like the great Fourth Symphony, the delightful evocation of childhood in the Shulbrede Tunes and the celebration of the composer’s yacht in the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasia and Fugue for organ, I see a composer, who, far from revelling in any false ‘my country right or wrong’ attitude was a thoughtful man: The Prince of Wales notes that he took ‘a wide interest in politics, the Arts, science and the most current philosophical discussion of his time…’ Parry was a complex character: this complexity is revealed in this CD.

Finally, my friend was wrong. This is not a CD of ‘jingoistic’ music: there is no sense of ‘tub-thumping’ or what current-day political correctness would find abhorrent. It stand as a moving tribute to one of Britain great composers. It is good that we are now beginning to appreciate that fact again.

-- John France , MusicWeb International

Felicity Lott's radiant singing has a glistening purity and brightness of tone. Her diction is immaculate and the sheer rapture of her phrasing is glorious to hear.

A distinguished Strauss disc, and how good to find it sponsored by a Scottish commercial firm. The SNO made many fine recordings under Sir Alexander Gibson and this achievement is obviously being prolonged by his successor Neeme Järvi, who has imparted his own precision to the playing. The orchestra now play with a smouldering intensity that can and does, when required, erupt with volcanic force. Em Heldenleben is just the work for this kind of corporate artistic personality and the best tribute I can pay to this performance is that it can stand comparison with Karajan's latest Berlin/DG recording; and Chandos offer better value for money by including the Four Last Songs.

The sound on the LP version is admirable. Recording balance is excellent and even the most complex and forceful sections of the score, such as the Battle scene, never sound congested. .15rvi is kinder to the Adversaries (music critics) than some of his colleagues: the SNO woodwind lack some of the spitefulness that this passage ideally requires. Edwin Paling's playing of the long violin solo depicting Strauss's wife, Pauline, is vividly characterized and technically beyond cavil. I was deeply moved by Jdrvi's interpretation of the final section, where the solo violin and solo horn contribute to his creation of a-truly noble tranquillity. One feature—unique among Ein Heldenleben recordings to the best of my knowledge—is that each of the work's six sections is banded, a very welcome idea.

Those fortunate enough to attend Glyndebourne know how well Felicity Lott sings operatic Strauss, so it is particularly pleasing that wider and larger audiences enjoy her outstanding performance of the Four Last Songs and can now have it on record. I have no hesitation in preferring it to Jessye Norman's over-praised Philips recording; for one thing, Järvi's tempos avoid Masur's ponderous treatment of this score. For another, the songs are sung in the order of the 1950 first performance, with "Beim schlafengehen" first (as on the Delia Casa/13611m classic 1953 Decca disc—nla). Emotionally this seems to me an improvement on the published sequence. Lott's radiant singing reminds me of Sena Jurinac in this music. It has a comparable glistening purity and brightness of tone. Her diction is immaculate and the sheer rapture of her phrasing–in a line like "Sommer lachelt erstaunt" and especially her profoundly moving delivery of "So tief im Abendrot" in the final song—is glorious to hear. The orchestral playing is luminous and rich in detail.

-- Gramophone [10/1987]

Thirty years after having recorded Dvorák’s complete Symphonies on Chandos, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and its laureate conductor, Neeme Järvi, tackle another romantic Czech composer, Julius Fucík, famous for his more than 400 polkas, marches, and waltzes, a mouth-watering selection of which is featured here.

Fucík studied violin in his early years, switching later to the bassoon, with a subsidiary in percussion and timpani. Playing in Austro-Hungarian regiments, he gained invaluable experience of writing for military band and became a very prolific composer of marches. The most famous of these is of course Entry of the Gladiators, completed in 1899 and soon performed throughout the world. Full of energetic, effervescent Bohemian cross-rhythms, tuneful brass melodies (often now associated with a circus atmosphere), but also more lyrical expressions, this album is a festival in itself. - Chandos

Joachim Raff’s symphonies have a reputation as being diffuse, bloated, and just not terribly interesting. On the basis of some of his programmatic works in the form, perhaps this is true, at least some of the time, but his Second is a lively, compact, formally shapely and melodically rich work that does not deserve its neglect. Maybe the first movement, which is based on a triadic theme not terribly susceptible to development, lacks drama, but it certainly moves well, as does the entire symphony for that matter. The finale in particular maintains its momentum from start to finish, unlike so many other romantic symphonies. At only 33 minutes (in this performance), you can’t say that the piece outstays its welcome. Järvi typically does not see profundity where none exists, but leads the orchestra in a joyful romp through the piece that proves consistently entertaining.

The four Shakespeare preludes also prove to be lots of fun. All are relatively short but well-orchestrated and atmospheric. Perhaps Romeo and Juliet is the tamest–it’s only nine minutes long and it’s not Tchaikovsky, but Othello is punchy and tense (and even shorter); The Tempest opens with an effective storm and features music that challenges you to figure out who the characters are that Raff illustrates; and Macbeth, possibly the best of all, spends a lot of time focused on the witches and, seemingly, the final battle. It’s great to have this music recorded, and terrifying to realize that the symphony is Raff’s Op. 140 and the preludes his WoO 49-52. My but that man could churn it out, couldn’t he? Fine playing and excellent sonics round out a release that deserves your attention.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

WAGNER Symphonies: in C, WWV 29; in E, WWV 35. Huldigungsmarsch. Rienzi: Overture. Kaisermarsch • Neeme Järvi, cond; Royal Scottish Natl O • CHANDOS 5097 (SACD: 79:14)


Here’s a milestone of sorts for me. In my nearly 10 years with Fanfare , this is my first time reviewing anything by Wagner. Mainly, the reason, I suppose, is that I don’t do opera, and what else is there, really, by Wagner that isn’t opera? Well, quite a lot, actually. Prior to his earliest completed stage works dating from between 1833 and 1838— Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot , and Die hohe Braut —Wagner wrote a goodly number of works, including several piano sonatas, a string quartet, concert overtures and overtures to plays, study fugues, songs, a considerable volume of miscellaneous piano pieces, and the two symphonies on this disc. And even after he threw himself into music drama with a passion, he continued to compose in other genres throughout his life.


Thus, the Huldigungsmarsch of 1864 was written right smack in the middle of Wagner’s work on Die Meistersinger , and the Kaisermarsch of 1871 comes dead-center during work on Parsifal . Still, the composer’s non-operatic music on record—I count the large numbers of collections of just the orchestral overtures, excerpts, and fragments from the operas as operatic music—seems to be an endangered species.


Wagner’s two symphonies have received one review each in these pages. The more recent appeared in Fanfare 31:2. That review by James Miller dealt with a two-CD Decca Eloquence Wagner collection of opera overtures and preludes performed by a host of orchestras and conductors. Buried among the familiar nuggets was the C-Major Symphony with Edo de Waart leading the San Francisco Symphony. Miller hears influences of Beethoven and, even more strongly, strains of Schubert in the work, and I wouldn’t disagree with him. Wagner was 19 when he wrote the piece in 1832, so it can’t be said that he was a precocious genius on the order of Mozart, Schubert, or Mendelssohn. It’s a pretty formulaic score, strongly redolent of some of Beethoven’s overtures and, curiously, Schubert’s Ninth, which Wagner could not have heard, since its first public performance was given by Mendelssohn in 1839.


A review of the E-Major Symphony goes back even further, to issue 20:4. Submitted by William Youngren, it covers an EMI recording by Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. Wagner’s second attempt at a symphony dates from 1834, but he never completed it. An Allegro con spirito first movement and 30 bars of an Adagio cantabile second movement are all he wrote. Moreover, Wagner didn’t orchestrate it. That task fell to the conductor Felix Mottl when Cosima Wagner enlisted him for the job. The symphony opens with a gesture startlingly reminiscent of the overture to Beethoven’s Fidelio.


Those recordings are still available. I’m afraid I don’t have either of them, but I do have a fine 1992 Denon CD containing both scores with Hiroshi Wakasugi leading the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, a disc you’ll find listed by Amazon but not by ArkivMusic. This new Chandos SACD, however, with Neeme Järvi’s tight grip on the reins and the recording’s deep stage and phenomenal spotting of instruments, is definitely the way to go, if these early works by Wagner interest you.


The Huldigungsmarsch is another item Wagner didn’t orchestrate himself, at least not completely. Purely out of a need for money, Wagner wrote the piece to pleasure the mad king of Bavaria, Ludwig II, originally scoring it for military band. He then began orchestrating the march for symphony orchestra but deferred to the advice of conductor Hans von Bülow to allow Joachim Raff to complete the task. One can’t help but wonder what this says about von Bülow’s opinion of Wagner’s abilities. Raff, you will recall, is the composer who also assisted Liszt with orchestrating some of his works.


Genesis of the Kaisermarsch is a little more complicated. In 1871, the Peters publishing house commissioned Wagner to write something upbeat and patriotic to cheer the troops and boost German morale during the Franco-Prussian war. Like the Huldigungsmarsch , the Kaisermarsch was originally scored for military band, but barely two months later, to celebrate the German victory and the coronation of the Prussian king as emperor of the newly founded German Reich, Wagner rescored the piece for symphony orchestra and added to the end of it a kind of community sing-along set to a sacred text for a strictly secular ceremonial occasion. As note author Emanuel Overbecke points out, “Wagner proved himself ever the political pragmatist, for only four years earlier he had dismissed the same monarch as feeble and ineffectual.” The choral finale is not included on the current recording.


Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen , or just Rienzi as it’s commonly known, was Wagner’s first real stage hit after a string of operatic works that were either left unfinished or that were completed and mounted but with little success. First produced in Dresden in 1842, Rienzi would also be Wagner’s last opera in which the Italian influence is strongly felt. Even before Rienzi premiered, Wagner had completed his next opera, The Flying Dutchman , in 1841. Rienzi’s overture is a staple of recorded collections featuring the overtures, preludes, and orchestral music from Wagner’s operas. Beginning at around 2:45, the slow-moving, chorale-like intoning of the brass, overlaid by striding, leaping figurations in the strings, anticipates the same technique Wagner used for similar effect in the overture to Tannhäuser two years later.


All of the works on this disc, with the exception of the Rienzi overture, have relatively few recorded listings and, to my knowledge, this is their first in surround sound. If you’re a Wagner fan, and your interest in his music extends beyond his operas, I can think of no reason for you not to be thrilled by this release. Neeme Järvi, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Chandos have teamed up countless times over the years to bring us many truly outstanding recordings, and this is another of them.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

The legendary conductor Neeme Järvi celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday in the summer of 2022, in Tallinn, giving a series of concerts with his beloved Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. This album serves not just as a commemoration of those wonderful concerts, but also as a personal calling card for this remarkable musician. The concert overture Polonia, published in 1836, may well have been inspired by Wagner’s encounters with defeated Polish nationalists in Leipzig in 1832. Wagner wrote several concert overtures during this period – whilst plans for his revolutionary operatic output were developing – including Christoph Columbus and Rule Britannia!!

Max Reger composed the Serenade in G major in 1905 – 06; it demonstrates the style and talent of this too-little-heard composer. Brahms set Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, in two movements with chorus, but then added a third, an orchestral postlude. Ave verum corpus, possibly Mozart’s best-known setting for chorus, rounds off the program.

REVIEWS:

The quality of choral singing of the Latvian State Choir is rightly celebrated, and this is a beautifully shaped performance [of the Schicksalslied], with vocal warmth and blend, and the orchestral postlude bringing a radiant conclusion.

-- BBC Music Magazine

This is a marvellous recording...Although Brahms’s Schicksalslied enjoys numerous recordings, Järvi’s is distinguished by the radiance and depth of the first and last sections as well as the vehemence of the central allegro.

-- Gramophone

As well as being a thoroughly attractive concert conducted with characteristic élan by Chandos star conductor Neeme Järvi, this program represents for collectors a very useful way of acquiring a variety of pieces, some unfamiliar, some less so… this is a very tempting disc.

-- CDChoice.co.uk

For me the main attraction in this fascinating batch of discs is the magnificent Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution. It is here presented in its unbowdlerised version including Stalin's speeches towards the end. Kondrashin was forced to elide them in his first recording. However let's not confuse politics with musical worth troubling though the process of separating one from the other in a cantata of this type may be. The forces used are massive and they are used to huge effect. Loudness and awe are not of course enough. In fact this music has a dizzying concentration that is bound to impress and some poetry too.

The performance history of the piece is fascinating. Completed in 1937, it was buried by the denunciations of that era until 1966 when it was performed and then recorded -against the conductor's wishes - minus two crucial substantial episodes which set words by Stalin. This Chandos recording which is complete, faithful to the original schema as to instrumentation and has all sections as written was performed in this form for the first time anywhere outside Eastern Europe by Järvi at the RFH in 1992.

The choir is large and subdivided into two section - eight parts. There is a super-augmented orchestra with quadruple woodwind and eight horns alongside three augmentary instrumental groups: six accordions or bayans, a seventeen strong windband including six further trumpets to add to the four already in the orchestra and a percussion ensemble with alarm bells, cannon-shot, sirens (9:22 in Revolution tr. 6) and the kitchen sink. In the wild fervent rumpus that is Revolution the voice of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky rings out through a megaphone orating the words of Lenin. One can somehow see the smoke of insurrection, feel its sting, the howls of heightened awareness and hysteria and the bloody fervour of the words. This is the same movement in which the Bayan band appear. The bayans return for The Oath: Stalin's pledge in his speech at Lenin's bierside. It too burns with conviction - faithful to the original sentiments of the extension of the Communist International into a spreading worldwide alliance. It is greatly to the credit of the Philharmonia chorus and Simon Halsey that the flame burns bright, steady and intense. The final and tenth movement, The Constitution, again sets Stalin's words

There are no soloists except for Rozhdestvensky and his spoken cameo - the voice of the people speaking the words of their hortators into the dazzling sun. Overdose on grandiloquence and blazing fervour. In case you think this is all unremitting grandstanding the quietly intimate silvery sheen of the strings in Victory shines forth.

The notes are by Christopher Palmer and all the words are there in the booklet: transliterated Russian alongside French, German and English translations.

When this disc was first released in 1992 while not impossible to track down full recordings of Prokofiev's third Soviet ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower were difficult to come by. CPO and Chandos have put that right in style since. Even so there is a place for this twenty-five minute sequence from Prokofiev's full-length ballet: whooping brass, gypsy flavour, echoes of Romeo and Juliet (how could he escape it), dark clouded tension, shrieking tangy woodwind, the swayingly touching solo of the gypsy girl (tr.17) and stamping, crashing fury.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Review:

The Estonian strings sing their hearts out…the woodwind solos are very lovely, too. Viola-player Mikhail Zemtsov impresses with the sheer beauty of tone.

– BBC Music Magazine

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This album with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and its artistic director, Neeme Järvi, features two mature works by Bohuslav Martinu, recorded in the splendid acoustic of the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn.

One of the most wide-ranging composers of music for the stage, Martinu was also enthusiastic about the theatrical possibilities of including new media in his operas. Špalícek in many ways belongs to this experimental tendency. Although it was published and billed at its first performance as a ballet, it might best be described as an opera-ballet, as alongside the many dances there are extensive roles for chorus as well as tenor, soprano, and bass soloists. Martinu described the work on his manuscript as deriving from folk games, customs, and fairytales.

The lyrical Rhapsody-Concerto was written in 1952, at a time when Martinu was fighting homesickness and depression, worsened by the political situation in his native Czechoslovakia. The work is a marked move toward a more romantic sound world. The soloist here is Mikhail Zemtsov, principal violist of the Residentie Orchestra The Hague since 2001 and a prize winner at the first International Viola Competition (Vienna) and the Elisa Meyer String Competition (Hamburg).

The exploration by Järvi and the ENSO of hidden gems from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has proved highly successful, their recent recording of works by Suchon awarded the Choc de Classica

SVENDSEN Norwegian Artists’ Carnival, Op. 14. Violin Concerto in A, Op. 61. Two Icelandic Melodies. Symphony No. 1 in D, Op. 4 • Neeme Järvi, cond; 1Marianne Thorsen (vn); Bergen PO • CHANDOS 10766 (74:10)

This is Volume 3 in a series of discs devoted to the orchestral works of a composer who, it’s believed, composed no more than 33 works with opus numbers, of which approximately 21 are orchestral scores, if you count the cantatas for chorus and orchestra. If you don’t count them, then the four works included on this latest installment, added to the 10 included on Volume 1 (see Fanfare 35:5), plus the four included on Volume 2 (Fanfare 36:4), should wrap up this survey, but with Neeme Järvi you never know.

The famous anecdote of the volatile relationship between Svendsen and his American wife ending with her tossing her husband’s manuscript of a Third Symphony into the fire is probably fictional, but it makes for colorful reading. Sketches, however, for what was probably on its way to becoming another symphony were expanded and orchestrated by Norwegian composer Bjørn Morten Christophersen and premiered by the Bergen Philharmonic as recently as 2011. Perhaps in a follow-up album, Järvi will give us Christophersen’s speculative score.

Meanwhile, what we have on the present disc are Svendsen’s First Symphony and a very ambitious Violin Concerto, plus the shorter programmatic pieces, Norwegian Artist’s Carnival and Two Icelandic Melodies. Svendsen is what I would characterize as a Scandinavian generalist. Like his close contemporaries, Grieg and Danish composer C. F. E. Horneman, Svendsen was yet another product of the Leipzig Conservatory, studying violin with Ferdinand David (of Mendelssohn Violin Concerto fame) and composition with Carl Reinecke. But Svendsen’s works that bear national or folkloristic titles, like Norwegian Artist’s Carnival, don’t sound Norwegian the way Grieg’s music does. In fact, in both style and content, there’s little difference between the boisterous, celebratory, dance-like character of the symphony and the Carnival; and listening to the Two Icelandic Melodies, I’m not sure you would know if you were in Iceland or Finland—there’s a hint of Sibelius in the air.

The violin concerto betrays Svendsen’s training as a violinist under David in many places, but it’s not likely to find a niche among the great romantic concertos, firstly because it’s not really much of a virtuoso vehicle, and secondly, because the composer was so symphonically oriented in his approach that, as pointed out by the above Christopherson, who authored the album note, the work is more of a symphony with violin obbligato than it is a concerto, modeled along the lines of Berlioz’s Harold in Italy. It has, however, been recorded before, not that terribly long ago by Lars Bjørnkjær for Danacord, reviewed in 31:6, a disc I’m afraid I don’t have, but also by Arve Tellefsen with the Oslo Philharmonic on a 1990s Norsk Kulturrads Forlag (NKF) CD, which I do have. Though Tellefsen is every bit Marianne Thorsen’s match on the current Chandos release, unfortunately the NKF recording is a bit dull and recessed sounding.

With the exception of the Romance for Violin and Orchestra, the one work which has probably kept Svendsen from slipping below the horizon with the late-setting summer Scandinavian sun, all of the works on this third volume of his orchestral output are pleasant and attractive, and in the capable hands of Neeme Järvi, the Bergen Philharmonic, violinist Marianne Thorsen, and Chandos’s engineers, beautifully played and recorded; but—ah, the inevitable “but”—the musical nourishment Svendsen affords is probably not life-sustaining. Still, if you’re an obsessive collector, as I suspect many of Fanfare’s readers are, and you acquired Volumes 1 and 2 of this Svendsen survey, this third is obligatory.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

This is the fourth and final volume of colourful and highly appealing orchestral works by the Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen.

Based on the Passacaille (Chaconne) from the Harpsichord Suite No. 7 in G minor by Handel, Halvorsen’s Passacaglia is a virtuosic duo for solo violin and viola, later made world famous by artists such as Leopold Auer and Jascha Heifetz. It starts as a simple arrangement of Handel’s original score, but after the presentation of the theme and the first three variations it gradually differs more and more, until it finally frees itself entirely from the original and becomes pure ‘Halvorsen’.

Halvorsen wrote extensively for the stage, and his lifelong fascination with ‘exotic’ elements in music is evident in the ‘Dance Scene’ from the incidental music to Knut Hamsun’s Queen Tamara, a historical play set in the Caucasus. In contrast, the Symphonic Intermezzo from the music to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson’s The King is presented in the form of a tone poem, its language strongly influenced by the musical universe of Liszt and Wagner.

Also on this disc is Halvorsen’s orchestration of Grieg’s piano piece Norwegian Bridal Procession. Other orchestral versions exist, among others by Frederick Delius, but in Grieg’s eyes only a native Norwegian could portray rural Norway in music without becoming too romantic or picturesque. Halvorsen’s lush, but non-idealising orchestration proved an immediate success, and at concerts and in the theatre over the next twenty-six years Halvorsen conducted the work at least 140 times.

He considered his Norwegian Fairy Tale Pictures to be one of his best works. The suite is vividly programmatic, drawn from music that he had written for a children’s comedy: violins portray the fairy tale hero, the flute plays the part of the abducted princess, while the villainous troll is represented by a motif in the bass.

Johan Halvorsen spent most of his career writing for the theater, which is probably why his music sounds so effortless, colorful, and well, efficient. This isn't meant to be disparaging. Rather, all of these pieces get right to the point, and none outstays its welcome, not even the Second Symphony, which clocks in at a bit under half an hour. It's conservative, harmonically and formally, but the music really works--it's a pleasure from beginning to end, and wholly convincing. This performance also is the first to correct the zillion errors in the printed score that have gone a long way to preventing the work from entering the repertoire, where it surely belongs.

The other pieces are all, in one way or another, ostensibly Norwegian in sound in a manner quite similar to Grieg. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. What sane person dislikes Grieg? The Suite ancienne, to the memory of Holberg, has every bit as much charm and freshness as Grieg's Holberg Suite, while the other three pieces all feature solo violin. Marianne Thorsen plays splendidly, while Neeme Järvi leads his Bergen forces in performances that are graceful, vibrant, and in the Suite and the Symphony, the last word in impetuosity and excitement. With terrific sound, if you don't know this music, you're missing something special.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com