Giovanni Battista Sammartini (St. Martini, San Martini, etc.) is another of those almost countless composers whose names have more or less fallen into the cracks in the floor of music history. Born in late 1700 or early 1701 in Milan, Sammartini?an oboist?spent all his life in the city. He was the seventh of eight children born to a French father, Alexis St. Martin, an oboist who emigrated to Italy, and an Italian mother.


Sammartini was well established in his hometown by the time he was 25. His Christmas oratorio, Gesu bambino adorato dall? pastori , was composed in 1726 and performed to unanimous critical and public acclaim, although the German flutist and composer J. J. Quantz wrote in less than complimentary terms of Sammartini?s musical gifts; apparently Quantz had been possessed by the proverbial Green-Eyed Monster.


The 1730s saw a steady stream of well-written symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and dramatic works from Sammartini?s pen. His music also began to receive recognition outside of Italy; his initial foray into the genre of opera, Memet , was performed in Lodi in 1732 and possibly in Vienna the same year. It wasn?t long before Sammartini had become the leading figure in the earliest symphonic school in Europe. It included such now-obscure names as Brioschi, Galimberti, Giulini, Lampugnani, and Chiesa.


In spite of his reputation in Italy, Sammartini?s music was better known beyond its borders. Publishers such as Leclerc (Paris) and Walsh (London) engraved Sammartini?s music, and one of his symphonies was performed in Amsterdam in 1738. In Paris, the Concert Spirituel performed a Sammartini symphony in 1751; his music was equally popular in England, being admired and praised by the Duke of Cumberland, brother of George III.


Sammartini?s 67 surviving symphonies exhibit the gradual but dramatic stylistic shift from the Baroque to the Classical idiom; the six recorded here stem from his early period (1724?39) to around 1750. In addition to the obvious and expected stylistic progression, Sammartini also increased and strengthened the orchestra in his later symphonies by adding parts for oboes, horns, and trumpets. Most of the early symphonies omit violas; the middle symphonies employ trumpets and horns, and the late symphonies?none of which are offered here?include independent parts for oboes.


Kevin Mallon and his exceptional little band have a string of fine recordings on Naxos, including instrumental music by Boyce, Wassenaer, and Boismortier; there are also recordings of choral and vocal music by Caldara and Wanhal. Furthermore, they have begun a cycle of Vivaldi?s sacred music. Mallon?s musicians are well tuned to the repertoire they have recorded, and in each and every CD from Naxos they demonstrate an exceptional command of their period instruments. Stylistic idiosyncrasies are bypassed; instead, Mallon opts for sound musical judgment, resulting in a release that is leisurely paced, but never lacking in vitality, excitement, or commitment. The running time of the disc?just over an hour?is somewhat stingy and could have allowed for the inclusion of one of the later symphonies and a broader picture of Sammartini?s work in the genre, but I won?t complain in excess, for what is here has delighted this auditor repeatedly.


FANFARE: Michael Carter

Back from the wilderness of Sony's Essential Classics series, and remastered in nice, clear stereo along with Bernstein's set of Paris Symphonies for this same label, Szell's recordings of the first six London Symphonies represent the ultimate in big-band Haydn. And late Haydn should always be played with a big band: his own ensemble in London numbered some 60 players in a room that held 800. In other words, for one of today's typical concert halls he would have expected a full-sized, modern symphony orchestra, and that's just what he gets here.

Of course this is Szell, so the size of the ensemble doesn't entail any sacrifice of clarity. Indeed, these performances are miracles of balance and precision, but never at the expense of Haydn's energy and humor. Consider the slow movement of Symphony No. 93, which features the most obscene bassoon belch in recorded history, or Szell's uplifting handling of the minuets. The famous "Surprise" movement sounds like it was composed yesterday, and the symphony's finale blazes with excitement. There are delights everywhere, from the amazingly detailed counterpoint in the finale of No. 95 to the Mozartean grace of No. 98's slow movement. Just buy this while you can--it's a true classic.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

CHOPIN GREATEST HITS

Zemlinsky: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2

CDs 1 and 2 
"This is very much - though not exclusively - Tilson Thomas's Ives and predominantly from the 1980s. The exceptions include a single straggler conducted by Stokowski (the Fugue movement from symphony 4) though his name is not mentioned in the booklet listing. In any event it’s the version in which Jose Serebrier collaborated as assistant. There’s also Stokie's Robert Browning Overture and Ormandy's America Variations.
 
MTT directs orchestras from Chicago, the Concertgebouw and San Francisco. the recordings sound a lot better being more recent than those for Bernstein, Barber and Copland.
 
The Second Symphony and the Variations on America have solid Brahmsian ‘bottom’ to them even if the Second does end with American brashness and that innovative iconoclastic discord.
 
MTT’s From Steeple and Mountains does justice to the inventive Ives who pushes magically at the boundaries of the spidery decay of tonality. The piece has some of the mystique of the trumpet solos in Schmidt's Fourth Symphony yet with a wonderful spareness. The Browning Overture is out there at the edge as well with a dissonant devilry. The webby canvas returns in the subtleties of the Holiday Symphony’s Decoration Day which sound rather lichen-hung as if having escaped from the dank worlds created by Frank Bridge in the 1920s.
 
Two ballads sung by Thomas Hampson with MTT at the piano show how predictive Ives was of the wit of Bernstein. In Things our Father Taught Us the drawing-room melts away as modernity’s refractory imagination infiltrates the room.
 
The Circus Band is brazen and pastiche. General William Booth enters Heaven is a phantasmagoria which bawls with tin tabernacle wildness. Ives cuts this already heady mixture with gospel hymn cross-currents. The challenge thrown down by the choir in Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb is taken up in the long string sampler hymnals of the Fugue from the Fourth Symphony.
 
CD 3
The Third Symphony is smoothly Brahmsian yet with unusual touches. The Children's Day chatter is full of earnestly playful Allegro power. It is an affectionate portrait that ends in a impressionistic fragile mist - infinitely touching and uncertain of itself. Those bells might well have inspired Hovhaness who was a close co-worker of Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison; the latter revived the Third Symphony in 1947 winning for the work a Pulitzer Prize.
 
Three Places in New England is another Frank Bridge-style confection - clammy, lichen-draped and Gothic-romantic. There are times when you could morph this score into Bridge's There is a Willow. The orchestral piano chips in part way through The St Gaudens across the sweetest tender string writing. Putnam’s Camp is full of good-hearted discord and moonlit Pierrot play. The famous Housatonic at Stockbridge is in part Delian as in Appalachia with the gently twinkling discord of the piano across the choir which is only heard in this movement. It ends, not in honeyed reaffirmation, but in a boiling discord.
 
In The Unanswered Question the tension is superbly sustained by MTT and the Chicagoans. It ends with flittering and discordant birdsong and that silkily sighing attenuated violin sound here redolent of the Tallis Fantasia. The Scriabin-like solo trumpet of Adolph Herseth is part enigmatic and part elegiac as in the Schmidt Fourth Symphony.
 
We end with Central Park in the Dark which takes us into much the same world as The Unanswered Question. There’s an evolutionary up-welling rising to a jazzily discordant convulsion. All power dissipated, the music sinks into an uneasy free-floating dimension. It’s incredibly imaginative and not at all difficult to take on board."

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Aaron Copland created maybe the most distinctively “American” sound in 20th-century music, with his exuberant ballet scores Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo – works that caught, as never before, the vastness and rugged beauty of the American landscape, and the hope-filled spirit of the people. Copland’s music is a virtual signature of the mythic American heartland. At the same time, he was a native New Yorker whose ambitious modernism was refined and transformed by his studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger in the 1920s. This set includes the three great ballet scores, Fanfare for the Common Man, the Clarinet Concerto (heard throughout Ken Burns’ “The War”), Lincoln Portrait (Henry Fonda narrating) and a selection of Copland’s own film music. Many of the performances are conducted by Copland himself, but also feature Leonard Bernstein, Benny Goodman, Michael Tilson Thomas and John Williams.

Also includes: Quiet City, An Outdoor Overture, The Promise of Living from The Tender Land, The Red Pony Film Suite for Orchestra, Old American Songs (Set One), Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and music from the movies The City, Our Town and Of Mice and Men.

Reviews of some of the original recordings that make up this set"

"let’s not kid ourselves: there was no finer 20th century Haydn conductor than Leonard Bernstein. He has the same affinity for the composer that he did for Mahler: the music’s energy, humor, and sheer emotional range played to the conductor’s strengths, and no amount of foolishness about “period this” or “authentic that” can diminish idiomatic results that penetrate far deeper into the music’s expressive essence than issues of performance practice ever can."

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

"The competition is strong in the “London” symphonies, but Bernstein’s performances of Haydn are always among the most intriguing, the most dynamic and intense. The “Surprise” Symphony’s opening Vivace assai is played slowly, with a unique gravitas, a seemingly odd approach that—through some Bernstein magic—produces a tender, sensitive result. The surprise chord in the Andante doesn’t sneak up on us; it is just plain ff. The repeated ff chords in the rest of the movement thunder with a towering rage, and the Menuet stomps heavily. The Allegro di molto finale boils along at terrific pace, bursting with joy. This is a wildly unconventional performance of this warhorse, yet one that thrills and satisfies.

Max Goberman recorded a superb No. 98, including the violin/cembalo duet in the finale, but his Vienna State Opera Orchestra (like Scherchen’s, third-string leftovers from the Vienna Philharmonic) cannot match the New Yorkers’ power and panache. This “Military” is a lovely performance, with especially enticing wind solos; the Janissary music (triangle, cymbals, bass drum) is not overplayed, as with Scherchen. The triangle rings its own miniature cadenza in the finale’s penultimate measure. The Andante of “The Clock” ticks sweetly and gently, interrupted by thundering fortissimos. Trumpets are prominent throughout the performance, so the wrong-note joke in the (very slow) Menuet’s Trio jars the ear as never before—or since. No.102, perhaps Haydn’s greatest symphony, receives it finest performance, beginning with an almost motionless Largo and ending with a lightning-fast, spectacularly executed Presto. "

-- James H. North, Fanfare

At least one of these performances (No. 104) goes back to the Fifties, and the Paris Symphonies came out about a quarter-of-a-century ago. For some reason they caused a tremendous row in the New York press when they were issued. Part of it was my defending the performances (in a magazine called High Fidelity), saying among other things that Bernstein had gone to great pains to get his trills right, ie in strict tempo and starting on the upper note. In those days, a lot of snobs did not take Bernstein seriously – how wrong they were. Bernstein has a natural affinity for Haydn, though some of his tempi will be judged too slow: first movements of Nos. 82, 93 and 98 (an old legacy from Sir Thomas Beecham, especially in the case of No. 82), the intolerably slow minuets of some works (eg Nos. 93 and 101, also a Beecham legacy but not much better in the Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic recordings), and the slow movement of The Clock (No. 101). But when Bernstein gets it right, it is glorious. The slow movement of the Surprise (No. 94) is nowadays taken far too quickly: it is only andante, not allegretto, and Bernstein’s reading is poetic and masculine, by turns. The first movement of the great C minor Symphony No. 95 is the best reading of it that I know – listen to that hair-raising timpani part at the end: it is extraordinary, as is the ferociously slow Minuet in the same work. And while on the subject of timpani, there are splendid timpani solos in the Minuet of No. 97, the slow movement of which is also a revelation – note the careful adherence to Haydn’s markings of ‘ponticello’, on the bridge of the violins, a nasty, spiky sound which must have stunned London in 1792. If you want one perfect Haydn/Bernstein sampler, try the finale of No. 99 in E flat, the first time Haydn ever used clarinets in a symphony. The tempo and the pace are perfect. And what civilised works these are: witty, profound, dramatic, touching – there is something for everybody in them.

-- H.C. Robbins Landon, BBC Music Magazine

Miss Verrett...comes into her own in the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov songs. Her essentially lovely voice warms to these and I found them all most enjoyable... I hope Miss Verrett...will some day give us a recital of Russian songs, including some by Borodin and Mussorgsky, for she responds so sympathetically to those included on this disc...

-- Gramophone [6/1968]
reviewing the original LP release

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...I enjoyed hearing the immense sincerity she already brought to An die Musik and to Die Allmacht, a song calling for the dramatic power of an opera singer. The Russian items, sung in the original, are also deeply felt and here the unaffected style is very welcome. Needless to say the spirituals are superbly done, particularly Oh, Glory!, which I used, not long ago, for a radio profile of this artist. Witness shows off her excellent rhythmic sense and diction in English. Alleluia is technically secure, but the piece calls for a brighter voice. The accompanist is no great asset and as recorded sounds clangy. I do hope RCA will soon give us a new recital from this rich-voiced mezzo; she deserves as much.

-- Gramophone [6/1973]
reviewing an LP reissue of this recording

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“I believe in working and in being good.” - Shirley Verrett

"On stage Miss Verrett presents both a stunning physical appearance and a stunning voice. Vocally her range is large, and her voice is exceptionally expressive and memorable. She works on dramatics – conveying the meaning of the words – and strives equally hard, and equally successfully, to sustain a flowing musical line. She has mastered the subtlety of Schubert songs and the coloratura of Mozart’s “Alleluia.” The hymns and spirituals which she has been singing since childhood, and which she still loves to do, she obviously sings from the heart."

- Mary Campbell
quoted from the program notes for this album. 1965

Of Georg Solti’s two recordings of the Verdi Requiem, I slightly prefer this later one, though I realize that this isn’t received wisdom. The Decca recording, after all, features Sutherland, Horne, Pavarotti, and Talvela as soloists, and while Sutherland arguably is not the right voice for the part, everyone else is very good indeed. On the other hand, Leontyne Price, even toward the end of her career, certainly does have the right voice, as does Veriano Luchetti, while Baker and Van Dam are very intelligent singers by any measure, and they do a good job here. Besides, it’s hard not to raise an eyebrow at the generic complaint that “singer X lacks a true Italianate timbre” when the words being sung are in Latin and the drama (such as it is) occurs entirely within a devotional framework. The music certainly can take many different approaches, particularly when there’s so little actual agreement on what a “true Italianate timbre” is.

Also compared to the Decca recording, Solti here has the finer chorus, a better orchestra (for this work at least), and strangely enough, better (meaning less gimmicky) sound. Solti’s interpretation remains consistent, exciting, and direct, with a particularly thrilling account of the brief Sanctus and a Dies Irae chorus that is as violent as anyone could want without ever turning merely brutal or hysterical. A work as rich as this one always excites a wide range of opinions, and personal preferences tend to vary substantially. My personal favorite, all things considered, is the first Muti on EMI, with Scotto, Baltsa, Luchetti, Nesterenko, and the Philharmonia Orchestra; but either of Solti’s recordings are definitely among the select few. [12/17/2004]

– Classics Today (David Hurwitz)

German bass-baritone Theo Adam sings the role of the generous philosopher-poet Hans Sachs in this dazzling performance at the Metropolitan Opera from January 15, 1972 of Wagner’s only comedy, with Spanish soprano Pilar Lorengar as Eva and American tenor James King as the young hero Walther von Stolzing.

Thomas Schippers conducts the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus with a cast that includes the famous German character singer Benno Kusche (as the pathetic villain Beckmesser) and a host of much-admired American singers including Shirley Love (Magdalene), Loren Driscoll (David), Ezio Flagello (Pogner), Donald Gramm (Kothner) and – in a small role, early in his career – the Met’s current (2011) Hans Sachs, James Morris (Schwarz).

Reviews of original LPs

This is an attractive performance of a work that remains astonishingly fresh and delightful. I don't suppose it will please the purists—some continuo bits filled in with strings, not enough harpsichord anyway, and no doubt somebody will complain about ornamentation—but at this price the record is obviously intended for a wide public and the important thing is that Brusilow and the Philadelphia strings present the music in a most engaging way.
Anshel Brusilow is a new name to me. He is a most accomplished player and, with Ormandy, gives a vivid and musical performance, very well recorded. The lively movements are robust, the slow ones are beautifully played.
In case any reader hasn't yet heard these extraordinarily delightful concertos and is the sort who isn't normally attracted by early eighteenth-century music anyway, I do urge him to risk so small a sum on a record of The Four Seasons.

-- F. T.H., Gramophone [7/1962]

"We are so accustomed nowadays to Vivaldi being played by specialist groups such as the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the ECO, I Musici and others that we have almost forgotten how the music was played before the Vivaldi revival really gathered momentum. There is no lack of panache and virtuosity in these accounts recorded by Stern and Oistrakh whose playing roused Denis Stevens's enthusiasm on the disc's first appearance. "It really does make a difference when violinists of the calibre of Oistrakh and Stern combine to play a double concerto... The performances are so fluent and musical that one's attention is held from the first groove to the last". Indeed the violin playing as such will excite the admiration of all aficionados for there is superb brilliance in the outer movements and expressive playing in the inner movements."

-- R.L., Gramophone [10/1975]

ESSENTIAL:RUBINSTEIN

"• Exclusive to Naxos! • All titles never before available in the U.S.! • Incredible value; budget prices! • German pressings of the immense Sony Classical Masters Catalog in smart, desirable and collectible multi-disc editions • The Sony catalog is replete with legendary artists and many of the greatest recordings of the classical repertoire • Box fronts feature large, prominently displayed photo of the featured artist • Slender, shelf-friendly boxes; CD's housed in space-saving slipsleeves"

GOULD PLAYS BEETHOVEN: 32 VARI

A vibrant selection of pictorial-impressionist exotica.

This disc made little impression when first issued and the undertow caused by the fall of Conifer delivered the coup de grace. It certainly deserves better if you have a taste for Russian nationalism.

Mtzyri is a nice piece of Russo-Oriental pictorial-impressionist exotica. Its elements include a Sheherazade-sinuous song for solo violin and the minaret and the muezzin are never far away. Think in terms of a more lucidly orchestrated brother of Balakirev's Tamara and the tragic-tormented aspects of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred. It’s all done with real conviction and soprano Barainsky (13:20) holds an impressive high note with throbbing invincibility.

The Symphony is lively enough and wends its way between Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov - nearer to Tchaikovsky. The quiet shuddering footfall in the third movement recalls the Capriccio Italien.

The booklet notes - now standard in ArkivMusic licensed discs - are by Toccata's Martin Anderson and are therefore a rewarding read in their own right. They are in English, French and German. They paint in the details of the life and music with a fine brush.

A minor gripe is that despite there being plenty of space we have only one attractive segment of the Caucasian Sketches - the composer's only claim to popularity. There was room for the whole suite.

This is a handsome offering and something to tantalise until we can hear his other works. There are six operas including The Last Barricade (1933-34) which has as its subject the Paris Commune. We would do well in our safety and superiority not to hold against him that, as the times dictated, ‘patriotic’ pieces were required and were delivered: Song of Stalin, Hymn to Work, Voroshilov March, The Year 1917. Further afield there is a Catalan Suite and a four movement work, Karelia - possibly intended as his Second Symphony. Other folk-influenced material include An Evening in Georgia, Musical Pictures of Uzbekistan, On the Steppes of Turkmenistan and Turkish Fragments.

If you would like to delve beyond this disc try Naxos 8.553405 (Caucasian Sketches – suites 1 and 2), Marco Polo 8.223629 (Yar-Khmel, Ossian Tableaux, Jubilee March and Episode from life of Schubert etc) and Marco Polo 8.220217 (Symphony 1 and Turkish Fragments).

Gary Brain is a sensitive and confident advocate for this largely unknown music. It is to his credit that he continues to champion the wilder periphery. His discography includes the Truscott Symphony (Marco Polo) and a cycle of orchestral discs presenting music by Polish-Swiss composer, Czeslaw Marek (Koch International).

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

As electronic music matured during the latter half of the 20th century, composers such as these created bold new worlds with genuinely new sounds.

BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 9, WAB 109

The most beautiful music from the world's greatest ballets (Swan Lake, Spartacus, Copp�lia, Masquerade, The Nutcracker, Sylvia, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Giselle). The word 'ballet' is French; it was adopted by the English sometime in the seventeenth century. It was during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the genre really started to develop into the art form that we recognize on the stage today. A fusion of dance, music, drama, sets and lighting, ballet is one of the ultimate arts. Following are the stories of some of the world's greatest ballets, so the listener may enjoy more fully the collection presented here.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s colourful Capriccio espagnol reflects a Russian fascination with distant lands, evoking sunny climes and exotic dancing in one of the composer’s most popular and uplifting scores. Steeped in the cultural nationalism of the ‘Mighty Handful’, the Overtures are linked to deeply Russian themes and tales, portraying dramatic life amongst the Tsars with brilliant orchestration and inspired use of folk or liturgical melodies. This release follows the multi-GRAMMY®-nominated and Emmy Award-winning Seattle Symphony ‘spectacular’ (MusicWeb International) recording of Sheherazade (8.572693).

RODRIGO: Per la flor del lliri blau / A la busca del mas all

GOULD GREATEST HITS

From the colorful theatricality of Crumb to the feedback noise of Cage's Feed, this CD displays the wide palette that was new music during the latter 20th century.

The All-Star Orchestra gives you a front row seat to the world's greatest music, performed by top players chosen from over 30 great American orchestras. The programs feature complete performances of popular masterpieces and world premieres of new works by leading American composers. Filmed in High-Definition with 19 cameras during a once-a-year 'summit' in New York's historic Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center, the All-Star Orchestra celebrates the symphonic experience in the 21st century. Program #3 the New World and It's Music Inspired by American dreams and legends, Dvor�k created some of his greatest works while living in the United States, above all the 'New World' Symphony. This program illuminates the multiple stories and influences Native American, African-American and Czech that Dvor�k transformed in his most beloved work. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Avanti! Offers a contemporary interpretation of the American archetype of 'moving on.' Program #4 Politics and Art Music has sometimes reflected, and at other times challenged repressive ideologies. Shostakovich abandoned the premiere of his challenging 4th symphony for fear of reprisals from the Stalinist government. His triumphant 5th Symphony was next, and the authorities were pleased. To this day the 5th is Shostakovich's most popular symphony. What is it's message? What does 'political music' mean today?

"Brahms, a splendid pianist, had a special diffidence regarding chamber music for strings alone. He fussed endlessly with the string quartet medium and said in later years that he had written twenty before producing one good enough to publish – and at that, he published only three. He was forty by the time he allowed the first two to see the light of day, and they had occupied him for some eight years.
Perhaps Beethoven’s shadow, of which he was acutely conscious, loomed too heavily in this area. Brahms felt less hesitant writing for a medium Beethoven had never touched: he turned out two string sextets in his late twenties and early thirties.

All this puts a special focus on the two String Quintets. By the time Brahms wrote them (Op. 88 in 1882 and Op. 111 in 1890) he was at the peak of his powers. Whatever internal dilemmas he had faced had been successfully resolved, and also he had learned that a string quintet with two cellos – so memorably employed by Schubert – was not to his liking. But Brahms was always partial to dark coloring, and it seems natural that he would be strongly drawn to the dark-hued viola quintet."

— Excerpt from the original liner notes from ARC1-4849 by Shirley Fleming

Glazunov: Seasons (The) / Scenes De Ballet