This is one of four special APEX releases of (mostly) music from Hungary performed by Hungarian artists.

Includes work(s) by various composers.

Brahms: Symphony No. 1, Variations on a Theme by Haydn & 5 H

The recital discs of Christian Gerhaher are all excellent – and the latest addition is a collection of Schubert songs worthy falling in love with. Abendbilder (“Evensongs” or more literally: “Evening Images”) is a collection of the nocturnal explorations in song with his accompanist Gerold Huber who shines with his often delicate, always appropriate and delightful contribution.

There is a rarefied quality about Gerhaher’s Lied-interpretations… an aching beauty, sincerity, and correctness that permeates every song. His tone is finer, more sensitive than most – but never stylized. Natural, but not in a nonchalant way. What you hear on record goes well with the impression he makes in person. Friendly but somewhat impenetrable, courteous but distant, very humble but with the slightly intimidating aura of confident authority. There is purpose to what he does and how he does it – but while these are intellectual readings, they are never rarified or pedantic as not to charm the Lieder-lover without reservation.

-- Jens F. Laurson, WETA

This release, seeing the light of day for the first time in this mid-priced series (the actual recording date isn't given), contains a selection of music from Grieg's Peer Gynt culled by Temirkanov from the complete score. You get all of the music from the two suites, plus such rarely heard numbers as Peer Gynt and the Woman in Green, Peer Gynt at the Statue of Memnon, the Whitsun Hymn (with chorus), and The Dance of the Mountain King's Daughter. The performances are very persuasive, with Termirkanov adopting some unusually expansive tempos (in Morning Mood) but also not stinting on the excitement (Peer Gynt's Homecoming and In the Hall of the Mountain King). The chorus sings very well and makes some effort to characterize its part, while Inger Dam-Jensen is something of a Solveig specialist. She sounds lovely.


Making this release even more attractive, Temirkanov includes lively and colorful performances of the four Norwegian Dances Op. 35, in the rarely heard contemporary orchestration by Danish composer Robert Henriques (Hans Sitt's are more commonly chosen). Per Dreier also used this edition in his pioneering recording of the complete Peer Gynt, but of course only included the first three, which found their way into subsequent productions. Having the complete set here is entirely apt and welcome. Johan Halvorsen's orchestration of the Bridal Procession from the piano solo Scenes from Country Life Op. 19 (No. 2) also partakes of the same spirit, making this disc an enjoyable and in some ways unique proposition. The sound also is very good, perhaps a touch studio-bound, but easy on the ear and well-suited to the music. No texts or translations are included--a cheap move, but one that does not detract from the disc's purely musical appeal. [6/28/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Conducted by Philippe Jordan, this recording of Ravel's complete score for Daphnis et Chlo� followed performances of the ballet at Op�ra Bastille in Paris. The staging evoked the heady days of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes as it brought together Jordan, the choreographer Benjamin Millepied and the designer Daniel Buren. Jordan had never conducted a ballet production before: "When I work on a symphony, it's different," he said, "Here, the sense of phrasing, the physicality that dancers bring, make it something else. "Completing the CD is another work by Ravel that was originally conceived for Diaghilev's Ballets Russe, the intoxicating and haunting La Valse. Famously, Diaghilev rejected the score after it was first played to him in a two-piano reduction; the performers were Ravel himself and the legendary Marcelle Meyer.

Columbia Symphony Orchestra/Bruno Walter. Sony Classical SMK 64460 [Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2, with Coriolan Overture]; 64461 [Nos. 3 (Eroica) and 8]; 64462 [Nos. 4 and 6 (Pastorale)]; 64463 [Nos. 5 and 7]; and 64464 [No. 9]

Walter recorded the Beethoven symphonies in stereo for Columbia in 1958-59, taping No. 9 in New York and Nos. 1-8 in Los Angeles with orchestras of freelance and studio musicians who rose magnificently to the occasion. Walter was in his eighties, but that didn’t stop him from grabbing these works by the throat; there is no mincing around, no effusive lingering over phrases, no ponderous trudging either. The even-numbered symphonies are sunny and outgoing, full of the warmth the conductor exuded during his Indian-summer years in the studio. Yet the drama of the odd-numbered works is not slighted. Walter’s account of the Fifth, for example, is an intensely expressive one in which lyricism and thrust are in perfect balance, an evocation of stormy Romanticism at its best. The recordings have held up extremely well; the sound on these 20-bit CDs is spacious yet detailed, with amazing presence and solidity. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection, reviewing Bruno Walter's recordings of Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2, with Coriolan Overture]; 64461 [Nos. 3 (Eroica) and 8]; 64462 [Nos. 4 and 6 (Pastorale)]; 64463 [Nos. 5 - reissued as Sony 93012, and 7]; and 64464 [No. 9].

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

This recording also includes a lecture by Leonard Bernstein on the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, entitled "How a Great Symphony Was Written". Leonard Bernstein recorded the lecture in four different languages including English. To listen to a desired language, the stereo balance has to be turned to favor one of the audio speakers. On some players a mono button can be pressed to make the selected channel signal balance in both speakers.

As with the Stravinsky CD I reviewed recently, this issue contains music conducted by Leonard Bernstein followed by a talk discussing aspects of that music. This time it’s Beethoven, and the most celebrated of the symphonies, the fifth. In fact, the illustrated talk was recorded some five years before the symphony, at a time when Bernstein was giving full rein to his educational pursuits.

The talk is quite brief, and, a little frustratingly, discusses only the first movement of the symphony. It’s well worth hearing, though, for Bernstein gives a fascinating insight into the composer’s working processes. As a creative artist himself, he understood these processes well, and he drives home how the apparent inevitability of the way one idea follows another in the symphonic argument was in fact the outcome of a detailed and lengthy sifting and rejection of material and treatment. This applies even to details of the orchestration, and it is revealing to hear, for example, the famous opening with the addition, as Beethoven originally intended, of flutes to the strings. It sounds most peculiar, and one has to agree with Bernstein that the final version that we know today has far greater power of utterance.

I suppose that Beethoven is not a composer one immediately associates with Bernstein, as one does Mahler, Stravinsky or Copland for example. But his music meant an enormous amount to the American maestro, and one of his very last public musical acts was, famously, to conduct Beethoven’s 9th in Berlin soon after the destruction of the Wall. This 5th, though it will not be to everyone’s taste, is a performance of enormous character and commitment. For me, the first movement is the least convincing; it has a breadth and a seeming lack of urgency which is almost perverse. It is, as a performance, the diametric opposite to the Harnoncourt/Norrington school; nonetheless, on its own terms, it works, for the surge of energy which occurs in the coda has the sense of a dam bursting, of pent-up energy surging forth. There are some telling details, too, with, for example, the oboe emerging from the texture before its solo cadenza (track 1, around 5:10).

The Andante is beautifully done, at a serenely flowing tempo, and with flexible, expressive playing from wind and strings, despite a surprising split note from 2nd trumpet (track 2 around 3:12). The scherzo, interestingly, is on the quick side, and Bernstein emphasises the light and shade, giving the music a suitably furtive feel. And as you might expect from this most theatrical (in the best sense!) of conductors, the tense transition to the fourth movement is magnificently done, with the great crescendo held back to the very last moment carrying us into the triumphant blaze of the finale’s opening theme. And once more, Bernstein’s sheer commitment and energy keeps the momentum of this movement up to the very end, particularly impressive when – as the disc’s liner notes proudly announce – this is a performance with all the repeats in place. Well, that’s not rare these days, though it is surprising how many conductors still do omit the exposition repeat in the finale. All told, a highly successful performance, typical of the conductor in its expressive power and dynamism, but completely free of his less admirable mannerisms.

- Gwyn Parry-Jones, MusicWeb International

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

George Szell wasn't known for his Tchaikovsky, and he didn't record all that much of him. There's a very good Fourth Symphony on Decca (with the LSO), and of course he played the major concertos when necessary, but this release constitutes his outstanding contribution to the Russian composer's discography. There's certainly value in scarcity, for this Fifth Symphony is one of the great ones: magnificently played (of course), urgent and dynamic in the first movement, passionate but always flowing in the second, elegant in the waltz, and triumphant but never needlessly bombastic in the finale. Listeners who view Szell as a "strictly by the score" interpreter, largely on account of his treatment of tempo, will be surprised to hear an added cymbal crash in the finale's coda. It's all good, clean fun.


The same holds true for the Capriccio, a bubbly performance given additional brilliance thanks to Szell's willingness to let the trumpets strut their stuff (also true in the symphony) and to the orchestra's hair-trigger rhythmic precision. Szell may not have let his hair down often, but there's a difference between discipline and inhibition. His best performances, as here, offer plenty of the former with no trace of the latter. The sonics show their age in a high level of hiss and a certain want of timbral richness, but better this than a remastering that chops off the treble and robs the music of its natural brilliance. That, thank God, you can still hear in abundance. This is a release that Szell fans will surely want to acquire, assuming of course that you don't already own one of its prior incarnations.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

There's no such thing as a "definitive" recording, but if there were, this one would come close to that imagined ideal. Its special qualities haven't dimmed a bit in the four decades since it was recorded, and every interpretive decision comes across with the inevitability of fate itself. First, you get the first-movement exposition repeat (very unusual for its time), then there's the very slow (but still very flowing) Largo, gorgeously played and far from the trudge-fest that Bernstein would make of it in his lousy later recording for DG. The scherzo goes like the wind, the fastest ever, and the finale offers simply the last word in excitement. If you don't own this performance in some form, then you don't know the "New World".

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

PIANO CONCERTOS

This second volume of early Mozart symphonies features a really biting, vivid performance of the "little G minor" K. 183, with its prominent writing for four horns very well realized. The other treat comes in the form of the massive (more than seven minutes) Minuet K. 409, a magnificent work for trumpets and drums whose existence is often overlooked. The other major work here is the vibrant Symphony in G K. 199, a large piece in three movements lasting more than 20 minutes, composed in 1773. The remaining pieces are less consequential, and three of the symphonies here were fashioned from opera overtures: Ascanio in Alba, Il sogno di Scipione, and La finta giardiniera. As you might expect, they are all charming, and immaculately crafted.


Harnoncourt conducts all of this music with evident affection and a welcome absence of affectation. It's fun to hear how he treats minuets: you never know how the trio will relate to its surroundings, but somehow whatever Harnoncourt does always sounds right. It almost goes without saying that the playing of the Concentus Musicus Wien is excellent; the rich, fruity quality of the woodwinds sounds particularly fine in this music, and the sonics are terrific. In short, this is a very appealing release, and it's nice to see these early symphonies coming in a two-disc-per-set format rather than a single big box. This gives you the opportunity to savor each work without feeling obligated to wade through a ton of similar-sounding stuff in one shot.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

What poses the greater danger for a young violinist? Recording unusual repertoire that will appeal only to a few (unfamiliar showpieces by obscure composers, avant-garde repertoire, manuscript Baroque works, and on and on) or taking the plunge and recording the 198th and 206th (not actual numbers) versions of war-horses committed to disc in this decade alone that will, again, appeal to only a few? What?s a young man to do? Nicolaj Znaider has chosen to record Beethoven?s Violin Concerto and to couple it with Mendelssohn?s. The two concertos, he contends (in snippets from an interview that Eric Wen included in the booklet) call forth the essential qualities a violinist must possess. At one time, critics?reserving judgment to find out how they later met more substantive challenges?tended to give short shrift to violinists who initially recorded less than significant repertoire. Of course, the bold and the brave would then be mercilessly compared with Heifetz, Szigeti, Oistrakh, Milstein, Francescatti, and others. Znaider has strong partners in Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, who play with abundant nuance in Mendelssohn?s Concerto and with powerful solidity to Beethoven?s. Occasionally, even seemingly ordinary phrases in Mendelssohn?s Concerto benefit from their attention, which consistently sets Znaider in a warmly nurturing context. And the monumental opening tutti (as Mehta and the Orchestra make it) throws a strong spotlight on the soloist in its equally prepossessing entry. The engineers? balance of soloist and orchestra (Znaider?s far enough forward to be clearly prominent yet not unnaturally dominant) provides an ideal. Znaider plays the 1704 ex-Liebig Stradivari, on loan to him, with sleek elegance, producing an even response in all registers. His sound?s never quite lush, but it?s commanding and appropriately subtle. When he?s unaccompanied in Beethoven?s first movement, his flexible tone production doesn?t require an underlying blanket to convey harmonic meaning. If he doesn?t sound sprightly in Mendelssohn?s Concerto, he never forces the piece into the Procrustean bed of late-Romantic expressivity, either. His playing?s never supercharged, like Maxim Vengerov?s (which, of course, risks mannerism), and it just as seldom flows so naturally as did Anne-Sophie Mutter?s early interpretations. But his technique shows itself to advantage in Kreisler?s first-movement cadenza, which he strops to a keen technical edge but also graces with penetrating musical insight. Has he solved the problem he explicitly set himself in Beethoven?s Concerto?making the omnipresent scales and arpeggios assigned to the violinist serve structural ends? In collaboration with Mehta and the orchestra, he?s made a good stab at it. These readings seem undergirded by a strong partnership and, in themselves, display all the virtues. What could be missing? My grandmother told my father about how easily recognizable Kreisler?s manner had been. Vengerov and Mutter, though not so individual as Heifetz or Oistrakh, can still be picked out after careful listening. Some violinists seek to solve musical problems, believing that in their solution they will find the Holy Grail. Breughel?s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus portrays the small figure of Icarus falling in a vast landscape, with all the countryside simply going about its own business. Of course, Icarus hadn?t solved his technical problems; but if he had, and had continued to soar, would the folk be portrayed watching him? Heifetz could bolt everybody to attention with a few notes, and I?m not sure that he did so by dint of having solved intellectual problems. What will my son tell his children about Nicolaj Znaider?


For anyone seeking this particular partnership of great violin concertos (and it?s not the most common coupling?the last Schwann Opus lists only several examples, some of these in sets) Znaider?s offers such a wealth of musical and violinistic virtues, that nobody could withhold a recommendation. But still, some unfulfilled desire to discern a personality, a human face with recognizable features, prompts me to issue that recommendation with less enthusiasm than the musical merits of the performances might otherwise deserve.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

This celebrated recording of the almost-complete Gayne finally makes it to CD, and it's as fresh and exciting as you may remember. About 75 percent of the total score is here, as much as anyone really needs, arranged in optimal sequence for home listening. This makes perfect sense in a ballet whose plot hinges on the heroine ratting out her drunkard husband for sabotage of the collective farming effort (as if it needed any help to fail). There's also a thrilling sub-plot about a blind hunter who miraculously regains his sight in time to participate once again in the creation of the people's utopia.


Of course, the nicest thing about Khachaturian's music is that none of it pays the slightest heed to the above scenario: it's straight Romantic nationalism, and all of your favorite numbers, including the Saber Dance and the Lezghinka, come off brilliantly in impactful but somewhat glassy sonics. Loris Tjeknavorian and the National Philharmonic pick-up orchestra clearly are having a terrific time. The excerpts from Spartacus (Danse with Crotales, Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia, Bacchanale, Spartacus' Victory) and the Masquerade Suite have just as much oomph, and are even better engineered. Major league fun!
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Walter, C.J.: 4 Pieces Against Stagnation / Rihm, W.: Marsya

Included in Capriccio’s introductory 4-CD set, Liszt: Orchestral Pieces, released in honor of his 200th year in 2011, besides the famous Hungarian Rhapsodies Nos. 1-6 and Les Préludes are also less-frequently played Lisztian orchestral works such as the Dante-Symphony and the symphonic poems Hungaria and Orpheus. A trio of fine orchestras – the Vienna Philharmonic among them—and conductors add considerable luster to an already lustrous offering.

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 - Capriccio Italien: Classic Lib

MASKERADE (OPERN (GA),DEUTSCH)

V 6: SCOTTISH SONGS

CARMEN & L'ARLÉSIENNE SUITES