Gustav Mahler was already very close to the after-world when he ceased work on the 9th Symphony. So, the work is permeated by a permanent presentiment of death. At the same time, Mahler’s music vibrates full of vital energy, putting the listener in a melancholic, yet optimistic mood simultaneously. The result is a harrowing work with moving passages and violent explosions, mirroring Mahler’s personal drama between life and death. The present recording from the Essen Philharmonie (April 2018) is a perfect proof of all these facts. Tomas Netopil took up the position of General Music Director of the Aalto Theatre and Philharmonie Essen at the start of the 2013/14 season. Netopil made his debut with Sachsische Staatsoper Dresden in 2008. An inspirational force in Czech music, Tomas Netopil is one of the two Principal Guest Conductors of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.



MAHLER Symphony No. 5 • Markus Stenz, cond; Cologne Gürzenich O • OEHMS 650 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 68:03)


This release inaugurates a new Mahler symphony series. Whatever the relative merits of the completed cycle, there is ample justification for a recording of the Fifth from these forces: Mahler conducted the premiere of the Symphony in Cologne with this orchestra in October of 1905. The premiere generated an unusual amount of critical comment, most of it negative: Mahler had arrived, but surely not in the way he would have preferred. This Symphony had caused him considerable difficulty, and he was revising the orchestration in his last year. Even now, there is disagreement about the nature and tempo of the Adagietto and the proper way to conduct the last note of the first movement.


After a suitably commanding opening, Stenz wastes no time in the funeral march. This is a stern, dry-eyed march characterized by grim determination. There is nobility, however, in the implacable forward momentum of the interpretation—no nostalgic backward glances here, but perhaps a note of regret. The sudden accelerando is almost hair-raisingly fast, but is soon moderated by an impressive chorale, presaging the even more devastating “collapse.” Altogether, this is a very convincing version of Mahler’s preamble. (Incidentally, the last note is underplayed very effectively.)


Stenz storms in with the second, more substantial movement of part 1, and the tumultuous energy of the orchestra is indeed impressive. When the funeral march appears again, it possesses a nicely gauged satiric edge that sharpens the melancholy. This sense is deepened by a cello cantilena that halts the proceedings with playing of refinement and feeling. The quacking winds and schmaltzy violins soon cast doubt on the sincerity of all of that angst, however—Mahler at his most ambivalent. Stenz is most impressive at conveying the contradictions that made for so much consternation and confusion among Mahler’s first audiences: is he serious, making a mockery of the heroics of the Wunderhorn symphonies with that falsely triumphant chorale near the end of this movement?


All of that ambiguity is dissolved with the jolly Scherzo. Stenz points up the rhythmic variety while allowing the dance element its primacy. This is hardly a courtly waltz, though: there is too much gear shifting for such a characterization; here, truly, is Wagner’s “apotheosis of the dance.” The Gürzenich principals take the spotlight: though the horn is putatively the star, the strings and winds are just as impressive.


After the bumptious energy of the Scherzo, the calm of the Adagietto is indeed welcome. Stenz is an adherent of the Mengelberg/Kaplan school, so his is a swiftly flowing love note. This relative brevity only serves to heighten the sense of anticipation, and the ardor of the playing is palpable: it is performances such as this that convince one that Leonard Bernstein was simply wrong about this movement.


The rhythmic excitement of the Scherzo returns in the enormously animated Rondo-Finale. This is surely Mahler’s most life-affirming symphonic movement, at least among the instrument-only finales, and Stenz and his Cologne contingent invest the music with élan and sheer instrumental muscle. At a timing of less than 15 minutes, the music fairly flies along, but one feels only exuberance, never just speed for speed’s sake.


To echo my opening statement, whatever befalls the eventual series as a whole, this first installment makes for an auspicious beginning. From this unanticipated source comes a Mahler Fifth worthy to rank with SACDs by Zander (Telarc) and Jansons (RSO Live), and it receives my highest recommendation.


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

This OehmsClassics release of Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony coupled with sole Mahler-completed movement (Adagio) from the Tenth signals the completion of the Markus Stenz led Mahler cycle with the Gürzenich Orchestra, Köln. Critical acclaim for this cycle has been outstanding, with the Third and Seventh Symphonies in particular being singled out as among the finest recordings currently available. 2013-14 marked Mr. Stenz’s tenth and final season as Principal Conductor of the Gürzenich Orchestra.

MAHLER Des Knaben Wunderhorn • Markus Stenz, cond; Christiane Oelze (sop); Michael Volle (bar); Cologne Gürzenich O • OEHMS OC 657 (SACD: 61:28 & no trans)


This recording of the Wunderhorn songs was made simultaneously with that of Symphony No. 4 (reviewed last issue), which not coincidentally features Christiane Oelze as soloist. The song that constitutes the symphony’s finale, “Das himmlische Leben,” is also included in this program, placed last and, appropriately enough, after its earthly predecessor, “Das irdische Leben.” The two performances are so similar that one would assume them to be the same, but there are subtle differences in timing and execution that prove them to be different. It is evidence of the care invested in this project that this extra effort was expended; Stenz’s symphony cycle is thus both extended and enriched.


As in the classic set on EMI featuring Schwartzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau, several of the songs here are presented as duets, a practice condemned by Donald Mitchell: “Mahler, I am sure, did not have this possibility in mind. He would have expected a capable singer to have been able to characterize each role sufficiently, without recourse to a partner.” ( The Wunderhorn Years, p. 260 n. 34). Be that as it may, the device can be justified from a dramatic standpoint, and I find the added variety refreshing. The pairing is only applied to three songs—“Trost im Unglück,” “Lied des Verfolgten im Turm,” and “Verlor’ne Müh”—and each one consists of pure dialogue (the last stanza of “Trost im Unglück” is written for both protagonists) so it hardly seems far-fetched to characterize the songs through the use of two voices. The voices of these particular singers, youthful and unaffected, produce versions of the songs that should please all but the Mitchellian purist.


Volle and Stenz give “Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt” a somewhat slow and dark reading, which adds just the right touch of irony to this familiar piece. The two later songs, “Revelge” and “Der Tamboursg’sell,” find Volle in martial mode, his delivery falling somewhere between the declamatory and lyric, but always dramatically true. “Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen,” sung by Oelze alone, is quite moving, her pure tone adding the appropriate touch of pathos.


Oelze offers a moving “Urlicht,” for which she manages the darker mezzo timbre very convincingly (she recorded the soprano part of the “Resurrection” Symphony with Fabio Luisi, reviewed in Fanfare 31: 5). The song is given a very close audio perspective—this is almost an intimate setting, highlighting the simple sincerity of the words and setting it apart from the lighter vein or martial theme of the preceding songs. Another notable vocal achievement occurs with “Das irdische Leben,” which is sung by Volle—if not actually unique, certainly exceptionally rare. One might have expected Oelze to take this song, thus providing the finale of a mini-drama with “Das himmlische Leben.” Volle also begins the program with a charming “Rheinlegendchen,” another song more characteristically taken by the soprano when the vocal duties are shared by two singers.


Two classics, the EMI previously alluded to and the more recent DG set featuring Thomas Quasthoff and Anne Sofie von Otter, accompanied by Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic, provide stiff competition for any newcomer. I have no qualms about placing this new set in such august company. Stenz and his Cologne orchestra produce accompaniment of subtlety, humor, and power by turns, never content to simply play along. The sound production is spacious, detailed, and grounded with solid lows. I recommend this inspired set to Mahlerites and Lieder-lovers without reservation. (There is one minor blemish: The songs come with no translations.)


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

The cathedral of Tournai in Belgium is one of the most impressive and significant in Europe and has been designated by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage. Music history was written here: the cathedral library contains the manuscript of a polyphonic mass ordinary compiled around the year 1300 which unites movements by various composers and written in different styles. This makes it the direct predecessor of the first masses written by single composers, such as the Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut.

René Clemencic, the great music researcher and interpreter of medieval music, performs the Messe de Tournai along with additional one-voice and polyphonic pieces from the Spanish Codex Musical de las Huelgas. The musicians of the Clemencic Consort bring to life a musical epoch which still fascinates us today with its wealth of stylistic variety and delightful discoveries.

LA MESSE DE TOURNAI
CODEX MUSICAL DE LAS HUELGAS

This recording reconstructs an office of the mass from the first half of the 14th century. Its primary focus is on that polyphonic mass ordinary from circa 1300 preserved in a manuscript in the cathedral of Tournai in Belgium. The copyist retained by the cathedral seven centuries ago took pieces by various composers, even from different epochs and styles, and included them in one manuscript, a procedure which seems to correspond to the slowly developing consciousness for the necessity of a complete polyphonic mass ordinary. This tendency didn’t prevail, however, until the first half of the 15th century. At the end of the 14th century, one composer, Guillaume de Machault, seems to have aspired to such compositional unity, but his successors did not continue consequently in this vein.

Stylistically, the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus of the Mass of Tournai appear to have been written at the end of the 13th century, as they use the modal rhythms typical for that time. The syllabic Credo is very reminiscent of conductus. The freely moving Gloria uses some principles of the motet without really being one. Its Amen includes hocket, the “hiccup” technique which splits up melodic lines among various voices. The three-voice Ite missa est is a bilingual motet; a late Medieval amalgamation of contradictions, a union of the heterogeneous, acoustic synchronicity of completely different worlds. The triplum, or top voice, sings a French love song, the motetus, or middle voice, sings a moralizing Latin text, and the tenor cites a fragment of a Gregorian melody using the isorhythmic technique, in which a rhythmic model is repeated once (as here) or sometimes a number of times.

In addition to the polyphonic mass ordinary, we also bring one-voice Gregorian melodies of the mass proper to life as well as a series of oneor more-voice sacred works, performing them both vocally and instrumentally as they were once played in ceremonial worship services.

With the exception of the motet by Philippe de Vitry, all pieces come from the Codex Musical de las Huelgas. Compiled around 1300 in Spain, this collection is an important source of European polyphonic music from the beginning of the 14th century.

The manuscript contains a number of compositions from the Notre Dame school and its successors. In addition to three-part organum and conductus, we also find here two- and three-voice motets, one- and two-voice prose settings as well as sequence-like pieces with melodic repetitions of various lines.

-- René Clemencic (Translation: Elizabeth Gahbler)

KRENEK Piano Sonatas: No. 2, op. 59; No. 3, op. 94/2; No. 7, op. 240; Little Suite, op.13a; Fünf Klavierstücke, op. 39; Echoes from Austria, op.166 • Stanislav Khristenko (pn) • OEHMS CLASSICS OC 422 (74:16)


As much as I enjoy his music, I should start by saying that Ernst Krenek (1900-1991) will never be a popular composer with most listeners. That is a shame because there is such a variety of styles present in his compositions that there always seems to be at least a few works by the composer that would appeal to just about everyone’s tastes: some moments inspired by jazz, other moments inspired by past composers or by folk-music, passages of simplicity and tunefulness, others of complex atonal counterpoint. Throughout, however, no matter the composition, there always seems to be a vital recognition of the listener. From the obvious traditional idiom of Echoes from Austria , op. 166 (miniature piano works inspired by Austrian folk-tunes, lasting anywhere from a little under a minute to a little over two) to the more complex and densely written third piano sonata (1943), Stanislav Khristenko proves to be an invaluable guide. His acute sense of rhythm in the second piano sonata (1928)—though seen by the composer as a confusing mixture of different styles, a student work of sorts—helps to bring a sense of not only propulsion and movement, but also a sense of the dance to it. This contrasts greatly in his interpretation of the third piano sonata. In Khristenko’s hands it is a rather mellow composition, from its improvisatory-like opening to its sublime and muted closing pages. The Little Suite of 1922 is a strange work: While most of its six movements (Allemande, Sarabande, Gavotte, Waltz, Fugue, Foxtrot) inhabit quite different sound worlds, they come together admirably to form a cohesive whole. It should not be lost on the listener that Krenek wrote the work as a birthday gift for Irene Erdmann (wife of the pianist Eduard Erdmann) in a single night. Above all else, Krenek said that “the suite was meant to be funny.” Khristenko certainly brings that light-hearted character to the fore. The seventh and final piano sonata (1988), written at the ripe old age of 88, shows Krenek to still be an explorer of musical possibilities. I miss the sense of improvisation in the composition’s opening pages—Krenek is careful to notate his intentions through his use of curved arrows, showing the interpreter where to push the tempo and where to pull it back. It is odd that the same pianist who brought a sense of the improvisatory to the aforementioned third sonata, here seems to lack just that quality. It is, however, a rather remarkable performance of a late and austere work. Though it may pose obstacles to the listener, its rewards are numerous. With very fine performances in detailed and spacious sound, this makes a very fine addition to those looking to expand their horizons, or to those who relish this music already. In addition, I would not want to be without Glenn Gould’s inspired performance of the third sonata (available on Sony 52661 along with the Berg Sonata, the Webern Concerto and Variations, and works by Debussy and Ravel). Recommended.


FANFARE: Scott Noriega

The prolific and eclectic 20th century composer Charles Koechlin is known to many as the composer of the Seven Stars Symphony and the Jungle Book. The heralded oboist Stefan Schilli together with his numerous guests presents chamber side of Koechlin with this release.

Jenufa was Janácek’s third opera, based on the play Její pastorkyna “Her Stepdaughter”, by Gabriela Preissová. The libretto is a grim tale of complicated relationships in a village context, with violence and tragedy driving the drama. More importantly, this is the opera in which Janácek’s distinctive musical voice became more established after the folk-influenced Romanticism of his earlier period.

There are quite a few recordings of Jenufa around these days, and I pulled out my copy of the classic 1977 Supraphon recording conducted by František Jílek by way of orientation. I had forgotten quite how good this is, and still sounding very fresh despite its vintage. I was glad to have it to hand, since the libretto in the booklet for this Graz recording is given only in Czech and German, the Supraphon edition helping us out with both English and French as well.

The Graz cast is good, with the main characters all strong enough and mostly well characterised. There are a few weaker moments, but I’m reluctant to point out any names in particular since voices I’d marked up as being weaker links tended to redeem themselves further along. Recorded live, this Graz recording is very much a theatre version as you would expect, so if you are used to more opulent versions such as the EMI, now Warner Classics Prague recording with Libuse Domaninská conducted by Bohumil Gregor this might seem a step backwards. There are advantages to be heard however. The vocal balance is much more natural in the Oper Graz, and while the scale is less grand the orchestral detail is more direct, the impact of the drama less extravagantly ‘operatic’, if you follow my meaning. If language is an issue then Chandos’s version in English might be of interest, but you still need the libretto to hand to really be able to follow what is going on. With Janácek’s specific connections with the setting of his native language to music this always sounds like a distortion too far for me – even with the authoritative conducting of Sir Charles Mackerras.

This Graz production is not the last word on Jenufa. That honour probably has to go to Elisabeth Söderström and Sir Charles Mackerras with the Vienna Philharmonic on Decca, but this Oehms Classics recording is a version which will grow on you. Personally, I have to admit finding it hard to avoid being drawn back to the special character brought to the title role by Gabriela Benacková in that Supraphon recording. There is no denying that the strength of an all-Czech cast and orchestra is very compelling in this opera. Gal James is very good as well though, and deeply affecting in crucial moments such as Scene 6 in Act 2 where, all alone, Jenufa sings of her baby as yet oblivious to the unfolding tragedy. The Stepmother’s anguished cry towards the end is truly chilling, and stands as an emblem for the admirably realistic approach in this production – one you can add to your collection with confidence.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

HUMPERDINCK Königskinder • Sebastian Weigle, cond; Daniel Behle ( The King’s Son ); Amanda Majeski ( The Goose Girl ); Nikolay Borchev ( The Musician ); Julia Juon ( Witch ); Magnus Baldvinsson ( Woodchopper ); Martin Mitterutzner ( Broom-maker ); Franz Mayer ( Councillor ); Dietrich Volle ( Innkeeper ); Chiara Bäumi ( Innkeeper’s Daughter ); Frankfurt Op Ch; Frankfurt Op & Museum O • OEHMS 943 (3 CDs: 166:00 & German only) Live: Frankfurt 9–10/2012


Engelbert Humperdinck’s Königskinder, like Auber’s Muette de Portici and Weber’s Euryanthe, was one of those operas on my “bucket list”—works I had heard about, and perhaps knew one or two excerpts from, but had never heard complete. As it turned out, I loved the Auber opera but found the Weber interminably dull except for the famous Overture, the latter an opinion (I learned) shared by legendary opera critic Herman Klein. As for Königskinder, which despite its translation as King’s Children is better known as “The Goose Girl” (anyone who has seen them will never forget the photos of Geraldine Farrar leading her geese across the Metropolitan Opera stage), it has often been described as dull music or, at the very best, not half as good as Hänsel und Gretel. I beg to differ. The music is entirely different—more fully developed, at some points almost symphonically, longer of course, and a bit darker as the opera progresses since, unlike Hänsel, it doesn’t have a happy ending—but I found it a work of excellent quality. To my non-child-like mind, in fact, I found it superior as a musical and dramatic experience to Hänsel und Gretel.


But I am only discussing the music here. Reading the booklet, and looking at the photos of this production, given in Frankfurt during September and October 2012, one is horrified by what one sees. The plot, for those who don’t know it, is this: The goose girl is really a princess under the spell of a witch, with whom she lives. The witch forces the goose girl to bake cursed, deadly bread daily, but the latter puts a blessing on it so that whoever eats it will not die but see beautiful visions. A king’s son (a prince) suddenly appears: he has left his father’s castle to learn about people and the world. The pair meet and fall in love, but after he leaves the witch, sensing that a man has been in her house, locks the goose girl up. She escapes. There is a sub-plot in which a minstrel, a woodchopper and a broom-maker ask the witch to help them find a king, but that need not concern us. The goose girl enters the town square at noon with a crown on her head; when the prince arrives, she puts the crown on his head; but the people, thinking they have been made fools of, angrily chase them out of town (and accidentally break the minstrel’s leg). Later, it is winter; the prince and goose girl, cold and hungry, eventually arrive at the witch’s hut. They discover that the witch was burned at the stake and the minstrel lives there now. The prince gives the woodchopper his crown in return for some old bread to eat. They don’t realize that this is one of the pieces of cursed bread; they eat it, and die in the snow.


Well, so far, so good. But if you flip the booklet back a few pages, you’ll see pictures of a threadbare stage with young people, dressed almost in rags, either starving or on the verge of death. In one picture, the word “Hellawald” is written in large chalk letters across the front of the stage; in another, decapitated, angry pigs’ heads surround two men in black uniforms with the words “Hölle Stadt” (Hell City) painted on the backdrop. This isn’t a fairy tale any more. Flip back a few more pages, and they explain this to you. Fairy tales are for saps, and the non-happy ending of this one indicates, to the director of this production, a dark, surreal quality based on Freud’s references to “the world of imagination of the fairytale” which “framed the agony of the genre.” Some people “even said that the fairytale died long ago … buried somewhere, perhaps in a mass grave.” Further reference is made to Brundibár, Hans Krása’s fairytale-children’s opera, “performed over 50 times by Jewish children in the Theresienstadt concentration camp,” thus becoming the memorial work for “all children who died in the Holocaust….The children were deported to the east after the performance and gassed; so was the composer.” Thus we now have poor Humperdinck’s opera made an example of the horrors of the Holocaust he never lived to witness (he died in 1921). Say goodbye to Gerry Farrar’s jolly little goose girl costume. This is now pretty gritty stuff.


I’m not sure if a DVD of this production has been released—at least, I haven’t seen one yet—but personally, I’d recommend getting this audio-only recording, ripping out the photos in the booklet referencing the harshness and gritty reality of gassed children, and take it on its own merits. Because this is an absolutely splendid performance of the music, and that, in essence, is what carries the story, not storm trooper-directed pigs’ heads or starving children in “Hell City.” Sebastian Weigle is quite obviously a master conductor; he moves things at a splendid pace, shaping and enlivening the music with so much pointing, and a tremendous range of orchestral colors that alternately lighten and darken the mood of the music, that in the end I found it as miraculous a conducting job as that of Rudolf Kempe in his 1956 recording of Meistersinger. Moreover, he has an absolutely splendid cast to work with. Soprano Majewski as the goose girl has a splendidly youthful, bright-sounding voice, almost like Geraldine Farrar but with a piquant flicker-vibrato that I found to be extremely attractive. Tenor Behle has one of those light tenor voices that one hears as extremely fine but quintessentially German, like the similar voices of Georg Maikl or Peter Schreier. One might not ideally want to hear Behle sing Italian opera, regardless of the suitability to his vocal size, but in anything German he sounds ideal. Borschev, as the musician, has an equally lovely baritone voice, sounding a bit like a younger, lighter-voiced Bernd Weikl.


Another point in this recording’s favor is the excellent vocal acting if the principals. I, like a few other critics at Fanfare, have complained of the modern tendency of singers to sing everything correctly as per the score but give almost nothing in terms of characterization. This tendency, by the way, is not accidental; it is often bred into singers as a way of making them more versatile for whatever kind of production a crackpot director can come up with; but here, despite our Pigs ‘n’ Nazis Holocaust stage settings, the singers all act out their music with wonderful attention to the words. I only wish that Oehms Classics had provided an English translation of the libretto; but nowadays we should be happy they give us any words at all.


But best of all is the way the music simply tumbles out of your speakers. It is as if no effort whatsoever went into the rehearsals, as if everyone—principal singers, secondary singers, the orchestra, even the children’s chorus—had simply learned this music so well that they could play and sing it in their sleep. The flow of the opera is continuous; you are never bored for so much as one minute. It all keeps moving, and flowing, and changing in mood and color, and you as a listener are completely swept away by it. Yes, Virginia, there are good fairy-tale operas!


The only other recording of this work I’ve heard, at least in part, is the 2008 one with Juliane Banse as the goose girl, Klaus Florian Vogt as the prince, and Ingo Metzmacher conducting. Vogt has one of the most remarkably beautiful voices of our time, but is not much of an interpreter. Banse has a very nice voice, but one with just a touch of dryness in her tone which Majewski avoids; more to the point, conductor Ingo Metzmacher is merely routine, whereas Weigle is spectacular in his range of colors and moods. There is also a 2005 recording conducted by Fabio Luisi on Profil, with soprano Dagmar Schellenberger and tenor Thomas Moser, and a 1952 radio broadcast on Gala 530 with a young Fischer-Dieskau as the musician, Peter Anders as the prince, Käthe Möller-Siepermann as the goose girl, and the excellent conductor Richard Kraus, but I haven’t heard them. (A 1976 Helen Donath-Adolf Dallapozza-Hermann Prey-Heinz Wallberg recording was also available once on EMI CDs, but I couldn’t find it still listed as available online.) The great tenor Jonas Kaufman also has a DVD performance available on Decca 1744909, but even though he still has Tamino in his repertoire, both roles are too light for his present-day voice (he started out in lighter roles, but by the mid-2000s had moved into Florestan and other bigger parts), and Metzmacher is again the conductor.


You can’t go wrong with this recording; it is, quite simply, one of the greatest I’ve ever heard of any opera, regardless of genre. Another point in its favor: perhaps because the singers were generally motionless onstage, either dying or being tortured by concentration camp guards (and their pigs), there is almost no stage noise to be heard in this performance. Forget the dreary photos of Hellawald and Hölle Stadt—just put the CDs on and enjoy!


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

HOLST The Planets • Hansjörg Albrecht (org) • OEHMS 683 (SACD: 60:08)


The story of this organ transcription of Gustav Holst’s iconic orchestral masterwork starts with the duo-piano score—and perhaps an organ version of Neptune, the last movement—created by the composer to assist with orchestration. The keyboard original—a recording is available on Delos Facet—retains a surprising degree of the character of the eventual orchestral suite, and inspired, we are told, this organ version by renowned organist and period keyboard artist Peter Sykes. The transcription is extraordinary, conjuring up all of the color and intensity of Holst’s huge orchestral forces, and Sykes’s 1996 recording on Raven Records leaves one incredulous that anyone could surmount the many daunting technical challenges with just 10 fingers and two feet, and still create a compellingly musical performance of the work. And yet he does so, with little or no evidence of the compromises of pacing and flow usually associated with the sheer physical complexity of fingering, changing registration, adjusting the swell shades, and moving from one manual to another. The relative downside of the Sykes recording is the engineering with which, in truth, I have happily lived for years. It is very likely an accurate representation of the sound of the 100-plus-rank 1933 Ernest M. Skinner organ midway back in its Girard College, Philadelphia hall, but the (glorious) wash of sound produced in the louder sections does leave one guessing at the details.


Enter this new recording from the recording wizards at Oehms Classical. Recorded in the resonant spaces of the restored medieval Church of St. Nicholas in Kiel, Germany, it manages to be hugely powerful in the largest climaxes, while remaining transparent, detailed, and present in both the loudest and softest sections. This is particularly impressive as it can be assumed, since specifications for both are included in the notes, that both of the church’s two organs, located at opposite ends of the nave and playable from a single console, are being used. The 48-rank 1965 Detlef Kleuker organ is surely the lead instrument in the recording, as the 17-rank Aristide Cavaillé-Coll/Charles Mutin organ clearly does not have the pipes to produce such power. Currently lacking surround-sound reproduction, I cannot know if the engineers have clarified the issue of usage by placing the multichannel listener between the organs front and back as they did with the earlier Oehms Wagner: Der Ring—An Organ Transcription SACD produced in this venue. Yet in the end it does not matter, as the sound even in SACD stereo is so impressive and the organs are so well integrated that the effect is of a single instrument with breathtaking French symphonic articulation.


This new release pales in comparison to the earlier Sykes release only in matters of style. Hanjörg Albrecht, the organist in the aforementioned Wagner, as well as in a Poulenc release I lavishly praised in these pages (33:6), is in every way Sykes’s technical peer. What Sykes offers more consistently than Albrecht is not only the essential steak-and-kidney-pie Britishness of the thing, and its moments of wry humor, but also a telling subtlety of voicing. Albrecht is inclined to be a bit too stiff, as in the big tune of “Jupiter,” a bit too obvious in the misty domains of “Venus,” and to linger too long in the reflective passages of “Saturn” and “Neptune.” Still, absent the comparison, I suspect I would have overlooked it for the sheer brilliance of the playing.


And then, what a glorious sound he and his engineers produce. What a rush it must be to create these massive waves of sound, or these complex layers of counterpoint, from a single instrument. What a thrill it is to hear them so clearly. Sykes’s instrument is not so distinctly defined in space as this, though I was happy enough until I heard the new release. I would probably still choose Sykes’s recording if I could have only one. But I have both, and that is the best solution I can offer. Enjoy the sonic feast, and don’t leave it for just the organ buffs.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames

To have the Romanian-German pianist Herbert Schuch’s complete Oehms discography collected into a single box set provides a valuable overview of this brilliantly talented performer who balances superb technique with the ability to find the essence of the composition. With a primary emphasis on the Romantic era, Schuch never falls into sentimental tropes in his interpretations. As noted in the Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung ,“The bright young Romanian-German pianist Herbert Schuch is building his career with marvellous consistency. This is demonstrated less by vain, flashy solo appearances than an ever deeper fathoming of individual works.”

Johann Wilhelm Hassler (1747-1822) gained his fame during the early 19th century as a worthy successor of the “Bach Tradition”. He is also the founder of the ‘Russian piano school’. Hassler’s works for piano are a long-standing part of the repertoire, and his Grand Gigue, Sonata Fantasia, and Fantasia in C minor are only a few of the works featured on this album. Anthony Spiri is not only a renowned soloist, he is also well-known for his lied accompaniment and his chamber music. He has studied with Erika Frieser, Hans Leygraf, Rudolf Firkusny, Erik Werba and Nikaolaus Harnoncourt.

Whilst the concert and opera business continues to repeat Wagner‘s operas in ever new facets, Christoph Spering is interested in different aspects during the Gluck and Wagner years 2013/14._x000D_ His serendipity led him to early Wagner and his adaptation of Iphigenia in Aulis, from which Wagner formed an almost new opera. Wagner conducted the world premiere of his version at the Royal Court Opera in Dresden on 24 Feb 1847 – now Christoph Spering has made a new recording of it with an outstanding ensemble.

After getting off to a flying start with Igor Stravinsky, OehmsClassics is delighted to be continuing its partnership with the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Kitayenko – this time with the works of Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky and Alexander Glazunov. The Stravinsky recording was awarded with Pizzicato Supersonic immediately after release, and no doubt this album will be met with similar critical acclaim. Dimitri Kitaenko is one of the great maestros of our time. For decades now he has regularly conducted prestigious orchestras across Europe, America and Asia. Born in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Dimitri Kitaenko studied at the famous Glinka School of Music and the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory before leaving to study with Leo Ginzburg in Moscow as well as Hans Swarowsky and Karl Österreicher in Vienna. In 1969 he won a prize at the first International Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition and at the age of twenty-nine he was appointed principal conductor of the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow. In recognition of his life's work and outstanding recordings, including the complete symphonic works of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Scriabin and Tchaikovsky, Dimitri Kitaenko received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the ICMA (International Classical Music Awards) in March 2015.

Described by conductor Hansjörg Albrecht as a "Christmas Fantasia", this program (which he conceived and compiled) is thoughtfully organized not only to present the various parts of the Christmas story but also, by means of 20 carefully selected musical works, to honor and celebrate and recall the traditions of an earlier time--the 19th and early 20th centuries in the small villages in Germany--when Christmas knew nothing of "Jingle Bells" and non-stop shopping but rather was steeped in singing and family, church bells, Christmas treats, preparing for the arrival of Christ, the glow of candles, and the warmth of fires in the hearth. In other words, this is a program that truly glories in the promise of its title: German Romantic Christmas.

So we hear this marvelous German choir, the Munich Bach Choir, along with a very fine organist, Peter Kofler, and members of the brass section of the Bavarian Radio Symphony supplemented by another Munich group, the Brassensemble München, performing works by Wolf and Reger and Brahms, Rheinberger, Humperdinck, Karg-Elert, and Richard Strauss.

Albrecht also designed the program to take full advantage not only of the singers but of the superb organ--a "jewel of late-Romantic organ construction" known as the Odeon Organ--and the stunning acoustics of the cupola of Munich's St. Rupert Church, where the brass also shine with particularly brilliant resonance. And speaking of acoustics, this is the sort of space that you can "feel", even through your home speakers; and yet it's not of such size and configuration that it obscures or interferes with the ensemble sound of singers and instruments. The extended reverberation (9 seconds!) is agreeable and impressive and the engineers really allow us inside of it so that we do feel that we're there.

Much of this music will be unfamiliar to North American listeners--and some will be very familiar, but with English words rather than the German sung here. It's nice to hear Hark! The herald angels sing as "Hört! Die Engel singen"--and with the Willcocks descant, no less!; or Cornelius' Three Kings sung as "Drei Kön'ge wandern aus Morgenland". We also are treated to Karl Hoyer's organ tour de force (joined by brass and timpani) that opens the disc, Christi Geburt, followed by a perfectly executed a cappella piece by 19th-century composer Albert Becker and a beautifully atmospheric setting of Maria durch ein Dornwald ging (by Becker's grandson, 20th-century composer Günter Raphael), whose sound is eerily enhanced by the acoustic. Richard Strauss' Feierlicher Einzug (otherwise known as Solemn Entrance of the Knights of St. John) is another work whose scoring, for large brass ensemble, suits the space to rousing effect--another excellent programming choice.

In fact, there's not a dull moment nor ill-chosen selection on the program, and the musicianship is first rate by all concerned (the two vocal soloists in Humperdinck's "Evening Prayer" from Hansel and Gretel are notable examples of how everyone involved is focused and assured in technique and interpretation). My only disappointment is that there are no translations provided for the sung German texts; instead we get brief bios of the composers, which is at least useful in understanding the origin of the less familiar works. Nevertheless, the music and performances speak for themselves, and this definitely is one of the year's best new Christmas recordings. Highly recommended.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com