Robert Fürstenthal's story is an extraordinary one, a kind of "fairy-tale" of the twentieth century. Born in 1920, when Germany invaded, Fürstenthal took the path of many Viennese Jews and fled to the United States where he made his living as an accountant. The fact that he had written a few songs in his youth was forgotten but after 35 years, he rediscovered the woman who had been his first love, it rekindled both the flame of love as well as the urge to compose. Hundreds of songs - achingly lovely songs, laden with an autumnal sense of loss - flowed from Fürstenthal's pen from that moment on, preserving the spirit of fin-de-siecle Vienna under the Californian sun. Just before Fürstenthal died in November, 2016, at the age of 96, he had the satisfaction of hearing his songs in these wonderful performances - a last-minute vindication by two young musicians carrying his music into the future.

RAVEL: BOLERO, LA VALSE, ETC

Also available on Blu-ray

Jacques Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène (1864) has always been one of its composer’s most successful works.

• Its first, slightly scandalizing performance in Paris was quickly followed by productions in Vienna, Berlin, London, Milan and New York.

• A satire of middle-class values, this opéra bouffe – told through the story of Paris and Helen, and her abduction by the Trojan prince disguised as a shepherd – pillories narrow-mindedness in society.

• Adopting a pro-active stance, director Renaud Doucet and designer André Barbe treat the piece as a “great show” with numerous choreographic elements, relocating the action of Offenbach's classical spoof and setting it on a cruise ship in the 1960s, when Flower Power, love and drugs were all the rage.

• “La Belle Hélène is a firework display for ears and eyes...” (Hamburger Morgenpost), “opulent and amusing” (Bild), and, in the title role, Jennifer Larmore convinces with her “fantastic vocal performance.” (Das Opernglas)

Subtitles: French (orig.), English, German, Spanish, Chinese Korean
Booklet: English, German, French
No. of Discs: 1
Run time: 117 minutes
Picture Format: NTSC, 16:9
Audio Format: PCM Stereo, PCM 5.1
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

2021 release. The Lumineers co-founder, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jeremiah Fraites' solo debut album Piano Piano. A collection of songs that's been in the works for the better part of a decade, Piano Piano features gorgeous, intimate piano-centric instrumental songs capturing Fraites' reflective moments from his Denver home.

Born out of a meeting between Philip Glass and flutist James Strauss in 2011, Venezuelan Elegy is a celebration of the artistic sprit. Despite being a flutist by training, Glass has not written extensively for 'his' instrument. Strauss always wanted to perform Glass's music, so he wrote his own arrangements of several Glass compositions. Strauss moved to Venezuela right as political troubles were coming to a head. For him, this recording was a chance showcase great musicians who found themselves in the midst of a collapsing government.

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 10. TCHAIKOVSKY The Snow Maiden: Melodrama. RIMSKY-KORSAKOV The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh: Hymn to Nature; The Battle of Kerzhenets • Yevgeny Svetlanov, cond; USSR St SO • ICA ICAC 5036 (62:17) Live: London 08/21–30/1968


As mentioned in my review elsewhere of the Dvo?ák Cello Concerto in a three-CD set of live Mstislav Rostropovich performances issued by BBC Music, this recording is the other half of the famous—or perhaps notorious—Royal Albert Hall concert of August 21, 1968. Hours before, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring effort to advance “socialism with a human face” that threatened to crack the solidarity of the Iron Curtain. Consequently, the contents of the program—the celebrated concerto masterpiece by the iconic master of Czech music, and the profoundly brooding symphony of the Soviet Union’s greatest composer—could not possibly have been more ironic choices. The irony is further compounded for us by subsequent knowledge that the symphony’s scherzo is Shostakovich’s musical depiction of the brutal dictator Josef Stalin, who imposed upon the Eastern bloc the repressive tyranny that the invasion was now enforcing anew.


When the Russian orchestra—whose members (unlike Rostropovich) most likely had no inkling of what had occurred—came on stage, instead of being greeted with the usual round of applause, they encountered an uproar of shouted political slogans by protestors seeking to disrupt the concert. The yelling and scuffling persist through the first several measures of the symphony’s first movement, almost obscuring the quiet, somber opening on the lower strings, before coming to a sudden halt. However unnerving the uproar may have been to the players, they show no signs of it in any loss of steadiness of musical execution. Much the same can be said of conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov, who I presume was cognizant of the situation. However fairly or unfairly—the matter is a subject of dispute—Svetlanov is often characterized as being something of a Soviet party hack; while his real musical abilities cannot be denied, it is sometimes asserted that he rose to his prominent positions in part through political intrigues, and was regarded by apparatchiks as being more politically reliable than figures such as Kondrashin, Mravinsky, or Rozhdestvensky. In any case, he too rises to the occasion. Long on visceral emotional impact but short on subtlety, as was his wont, Svetlanov here produces a powerful musical juggernaut that, akin to the army tanks then rolling into Prague, moves forward with an inexorable, implacable power that upon its close is rewarded with a tumultuous, roaring ovation from the audience. While not my favorite version of this, my favorite post-Sibelius 20th-century symphony—my two top choices remain live performances by Yevgeny Mravinsky with the Leningrad Philharmonic from March 31, 1976, and Herbert von Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic (in Moscow) from May 29, 1969—it belongs in the upper echelons of recordings of the work, and should not be missed by anyone who values it.


The brief filler pieces of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov concert-hall rarities are likewise given committed, heartfelt performances. The sound quality is a bit murky in spots and has some background tape hiss but is generally quite fine for a live recording of this vintage. The Rimsky-Korsakov excerpts are asserted to be in stereo, though I can’t hear any real difference between those and the monaurally recorded pieces. One wishes that the Shostakovich presented here and the Dvo?ák concerto published by BBC Music were issued as an intact concert in a single two-CD set on a single label; as it is, we can be grateful for the opportunity to acquire them as presently available. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: James A. Altena


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How’s this for a page ripped from history? On the night of 20-21 August 1968 tanks from the Warsaw Pact rolled into Czechoslovakia, bringing the ‘Prague Spring’ to an end. In that raw, angry atmosphere it’s no surprise that Svetlanov and his Soviet orchestra were given a rough reception at the BBC Proms just hours later. Indeed, the opening bars of the symphony emerge from what sounds like a near riot in the hall, the music growing in strength as the clamour subsides. What irony that this symphony - written in the year of Stalin’s death - should be the curtain-raiser for another age of repression. And the cover photograph of Svetlanov - finger to his lips - is a strong visual metaphor for the day’s momentous events.
 
There’s no way of knowing what went through the minds of this conductor and his players that night, but there’s little doubt that these extra-musical tensions - added to the purely musical ones - spawned a gaunt, hard-driven performance of this great work that’s impossible to forget. Extraordinary circumstances aside, does this recording rank alongside those of Kondrashin, Järvi, Karajan et al? Emphatically, yes; unsparing and idiomatically rough-edged, it will grab you by the scruff and pin you to the wall for fifty relentless minutes.
 
The BBC sound isn’t bad either - I imagine ICA remastered it for this release - the martial second movement as lacerating as I’ve ever heard it; indeed, this music can so easily be heard as a grim accompaniment to the newsreel footage of the day. The darkly menacing bass drum in the next movement is especially well caught, as are the wobblesome winds. One can only imagine the tension in the hall that night, and no one could have known how the audience would react at the end. As it happens, the sheer guts and cathartic power of this performance silence all criticism, the hardy Prommers - not easily won over - responding with cheers and applause.
 
The fillers are barely that; signposted as ‘bonus’ items they’re pleasing enough. Blink and you’ll miss the Tchaikovsky, but the excerpts from Kitezh are most enjoyable; no evidence of extra-musical tensions in the band’s easeful playing. As I was reminded when listening to Svetlanov’s Rimsky box, this is natural territory for him. One could have wished for more, but the symphony takes centre-stage - and rightly so.
 
ICA must be congratulated for issuing so much intriguing, good-quality material in the short time they’ve been in business. I was very impressed by the Rozhdestvensky Tchaikovsky Fourth and look forward to more of the same. Indeed, their very active Twitter feed suggests we won’t have long to wait.
 
Taut Shostakovich, stretched to breaking point by contemporary events.
 
-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

Anton Rubinstein was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century music, a great piano virtuoso, conductor and influential teacher. The fifth of his six Symphonies is thoroughly Russian in it's melodies, and is often compared to his student Tchaikovsky's First Symphony. The overture to Rubinstein's first opera Dmitry Donsky is based on a similarly national Russian theme, while Faust, written in Leipzig in 1854, is the sole surviving movement of an abandoned Faust symphony. Rubinstein's Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 can be heard on Naxos 8.555590 and 8.555979.

Following the international success of PLANET and LETTER, pianist Sofiane Pamart presents his third solo album, NOCHE. His first work was a trip around the world, the second was a love letter addressed directly to his audience, and this third project will plunge you into the depths of the night. Always nomadic by nature, always keen to cherish the strong bond he has forged with his audience, Sofiane Pamart is back this time after an adventure of several months spent in Latin America, where he composed the entirety of this new album. Now firmly established as a star pianist, he delivers 15 new compositions featuring all the ingredients that have forged his universe: travel, poetry, melancholy, romance, snarls and mystery.

Harmonie & Turcherie: around the year 1800, Western music was experiencing a merging of two phenomena. On one hand was the success of a particular ensemble of wind instruments, boosted by the foundation of the royal and imperial Harmonie by Emperor Joseph himself in Vienna in 1782, the core of it's repertoire being arrangements of famous opera arias; on the other, the fashion for orientalism, reflected in different expressions of the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture and music. The typical octet of the Harmonie, consisting of pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons, was therefore reinforced by louder wind instruments such as trumpets, trombones, a contrabassoon or a cimbasso, as well as an array of percussion instruments - together, they could evoke the military bands of the highly feared Janissaries. That sound fascinated the most eminent composers of the time, including Haydn (Joseph and his younger brother Michael), Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti (Gaetano and his elder brother Giuseppe, active at the Ottoman court), Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Spohr, all of whom wrote small, little-known masterpieces for this particular band. Zefiro presents us with a varied program by these composers, alternating Turkish marches with chamber music works in a more operatic and deeper vein, thus revealing the versatility and colors of period wind instruments.

Rozhdestvensky is considered to be one of the greatest Tchaikovsky conductors today. Given his Russian background and his outstanding leadership of the Bolshoi in the past, it is not surprising that his performances of the composer's works are entirely idiomatic. This live performance of Tchaikovsky's popular Symphony No.5 comes from the 1978 Flanders Festival in Belgium and has been recorded in excellent stereo. It is both exciting and poetic, and it confirmed Rozhdestvensky's new appointment as music director of the BBC Symphony the same year. The fill-up consists of Jan+�cek's rhapsody Taras Bulba recorded at the 1981 Proms. This work is a new addition to Rozhdestvensky's discography. Taras Bulba is arguably Janacek's most powerful and dramatic work. Here, it is given a searing performance in superb stereo, which fully captures the large orchestra used, complete with organ, brass and percussion.

GRAMMY� Award winning Yarlung Records celebrates it's 10th Anniversary and continues to bring fresh musicians to the classical music world using minimalist audiophile recording techniques to deliver sound as close to living performance as possible, engineering these albums in concert halls famous for their acoustics such as Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Yarlung uses analog tape and high resolution digital media for CDs made with special alloys, high resolution digital downloads, and 180 Gram vinyl LPs, mastered by Steve Hoffman and Bernie Grundman. The label's philosophy is to present the music like a clean window, which does not distract from the beautiful "view" on the other side. Among it's greatest successes featured on this compilation was Antonio Lysy at The Broad: Music from Argentina, which won the label's first GRAMMY Award and was ranked in The Absolute Sound as one of the 40 Best recordings of all time.

The Danish composer Anders Koppel's musical collaboration with his son, saxophonist Benjamin Koppel, forms the background for these two unusual concerts with a quite unique soloist configuration, now released for the first time on CD. In the double concerto the saxophonist meets the classical recorder virtuoso Michala Petri in a fantastic interplay of tradition, improvisation and tonal diversity, while the triple concerto features the warm sound of the mezzo saxophone as framed by cello and harp, played here by the soloists Eugene Hye-Knudsen and Tine Rehling.

a first-class collection which (was) obscure only because it's virtues had not been 'trumpeted'... Neunecker is a musician of outstanding musicality and technical brilliance. Snap it up while it is available (MusicWeb Rob Barnett)

As well as for EMI and DG, the two labels harboring the lion’s share of his discography, Herbert von Karajan also worked and recorded for Decca for a time in the 1950s and 1960s, exclusively with the Vienna Philharmonic, bringing the orchestra to a peak in performance following the inflicted personnel ravages that dimmed its luster. The unforgettable Brahms First Symphony was recorded in 1960, the Tragic Overture in 1964. The very sensitive and gentle performance of the Haydn Variations was realized in 1955 with the Philharmonia Orchestra. All recordings were newly re-mastered in 2015.

Mieczyslaw Karlowicz was a significant talent, and his early death in 1909 (at age 33) was a serious loss to 20th century Polish music. His symphonic poems are typically refulgent late-Romantic works, full of ambition and, to be frank, pretension. Consider the three parts of Op. 10 (Eternal Songs): Song of Everlasting Yearning; Song of Love and Death; Song of Eternal Being. Heavy-duty stuff, and there's no point in pretending that Karlowicz, talented as he was, did full justice to the program, but the point is that he tried, tried hard, and produced gobs of richly entertaining music in the process.

Antoni Wit's first disc of tone poems was exceptional, and this one is excellent as well, if a hair less outstanding than previously. What problems there are stem from having the New Zealand orchestra rather than Wit's own Warsaw forces. Of course the New Zealanders play very well, and are well recorded, but their string section lacks the luxuriance that the music ideally requires, and while some listeners may prefer a leaner basic sonority, what Karlowicz really asks for is Strauss on steroids (i.e. Korngold and that crowd). Still, you won't find better performances of this music than Naxos' edition, and you can purchase this second volume with complete confidence.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Having visited in recent times many new countries, many diverse sites, many places hallowed by history and poetry, having felt that the various aspects of nature and of related scenes did not pass before my eyes as vain images.

Italian composer Niccolo Piccinni, despite his obscurity today, was one of the most popular opera composers of his day, especially in the genre of Neapolitan opera buffa. This release focuses on Piccinni’s Pater Noster, which has been passed down in rare transcriptions. The long, virtuosic work is composed in typical Neapolitan fashion. Also included is Piccinni’s Creed. The work is believed to be from Piccinni’s early days of composing.

SONETTI ROMANI - VIACHESLAV IVANOV IN MUSIC

TISHCHENKO: PIANO SONATAS NOS. 6 & 7

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.

Following the success of The Dream of Gerontius in 1900 and The Apostles in 1903, Edward Elgar was commissioned to produce another large oratorio for a 1906 music festival. + The Kingdom continues the narrative of the lives of Jesus’ disciples, depicting the community of the early church, Pentecost, and the events of the next few days. + The Kingdom is considered one of his greatest choral works, fully deserving its ranking alongside Gerontius. + Recorded in 1989, and also featuring Sursum Corda and Sospiri, this Chandos re-release honors the legacy of the late English conductor Sir Richard Hickox.

Classical Music

Classical Music

A likely masterpiece from Finland joins new music from scintillating Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho is the Finnish composer, alongside Magnus Lindberg, who most excites me at present. Like her fellow countryman, she finds textures that feel absolutely fresh, vibrant and full of colour. Her journeys of imagination here are gripping. And it’s good to see such high-profile performers in new music – perhaps especially the sublime Karita Mattila.

-- Gramophone [11/2008]

SAARIAHO Notes on Light.1 Orion. Mirage1,2 • Christopher Eschenbach, cond; Anssi Karttunen (vc);1 Karita Mattila (sop);2 O de Paris • ONDINE 1130 (63:22)

Kaija Saariaho writes exciting music. At one time associated with the spectral school of composition, in which spectra, the harmonic fingerprints of sound, were used to generate new works, she’s been able to assimilate and then transcend such a purely analytical approach to arrive at her present individual, communicative language. In the past, she’s also broadened her palette with electronics. Her vivid music is characterized by an acute sense of color and texture, allied to a sure feeling for form and pacing. Melody, too, plays an important part. Although there are no big tunes to whistle, the musical flow can be lyrical, even rhapsodic. At times, an almost oriental melisma wafts through the music: at others, what I would call “proto-melodies” (four or five note phrases) accrete to form larger modules, most notably in Orion.

Notes on Light, Saariaho’s cello concerto, often projects a mysterious mood. Glissandos of varying lengths in cello and orchestra, and a line that sways and sighs as it evolves and devolves suggest a yearning, or questing aspiration. The evocative title comes from T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, and inspired Saariaho’s vision of the cello as a source of light. The energetic second movement stands apart from the rest, with swift, downward cascades in tuned percussion and flute mirrored by exuberant, upward-winging piccolo flurries. These effects, plus the churning cello, create a drive and momentum distinct from the slower, exploratory nature of the other four movements. That’s not to say that the rest of the concerto is placid, or without internal drama. Throughout, Saariaho skillfully deploys her “transparent” orchestra in often-delicate counterpoint to the soloist.

Orion finds Saariaho reveling in larger forces, with more brass (there are no trumpets and trombones in the concerto) and even organ: some of the climactic moments must be quite overwhelming in person. Unifying thematic elements link the three movements. A subtle pulse as Orion begins arrests the attention, drawing the listener into this “constellation” of sound. Gradually, ideas and images coalesce, until the orchestra achieves a monumental presence worthy of the young god. The volume waxes and wanes, but the overall impression is massive. The second movement’s texture is primarily diaphanous, although heavier “clouds” of sound arise before the ethereal conclusion. A piccolo plays a pastoral tune over a dreamily shimmering background, ushering in a violin solo that could be a distant cousin to Shéhérazade. This gives way to an exotic, sinuous clarinet and oboe, and so it goes, one colorful episode succeeding another. The third movement starts out like Notes on Light’s second, but becomes even more wild and tempestuous. Trumpets, swirling winds, and scintillating strings fluoresce, illuminating the orchestral landscape. The storm eventually subsides, its mass floating away, the last note struck by a single triangle.

Mirage is a passionate setting of the “song” of a Mexican woman, shaman, and healer who, in this ecstatic musical incarnation, affirms her being while summoning the forces that pass through her to effect her cures. Karita Mattila brings Saariaho’s hypnotic score to vibrant life, swooping and gliding effortlessly, imparting a palpable exaltation. From the first half-whispered “I am” one is swept up and riveted by this spellbinding performance. The cello is an equal partner in Mirage, probing at the opening, acquiring confidence, and increasing in strength until it joins with the voice in its voyage of discovery. The two dip and soar in tandem, although the melodic outline is not identical.

Mattila and Karttunen are superb musicians who are perfectly attuned to Saariaho’s style. Their long friendship with the composer guarantees informed, sympathetic performances, and it would be difficult to imagine better ones. Eschenbach and the orchestra support the soloists beautifully in Notes on Light and Mirage, and contribute stunning playing in Orion. Saariaho’s many admirers will enjoy these latest additions to her discography, while anyone who’s been afraid to dip a toe into contemporary waters should consider taking the plunge, for while undeniably “modern,” the music’s range of expression, melodic flexibility, invention, and pervasive color make it immediately accessible. While not neo-Romantic by any means, it’s nonetheless music that manifests beauty and feeling in every note.

FANFARE: ROBERT SCHULSLAPER

How composers draw their creative lives to a close continues to fascinate. Are their final works the culmination of all that has gone before or suggest what might have come next? Did illness enhance their profundity or diminish their powers? Can we listen to such pieces without thinking of them as some kind of message from beyond the grave? The music featured on this fascinating program from violinist Sophie Rosa and pianist Ian Buckle each suggest different answers to these questions and challenges some preconceptions. In their last years, Robert Schumann (1810-1856) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) both continued to be inspired by musicians around them. Schumann in post-revolutionary Germany and Schoenberg in post-war America looked back to classical models, to reinvigorate, even lighten, their compositional approach. That sense of playing with history is also evident in the music of Ukrainian composer Valentyn Silvestrov (b. 1937), who has claimed: "I do not write new music. My music is a response to, and an echo of what already exists."