REVIEWS:

[Photoptosis] is usually considered Zimmermann's defining work but never has it sounded so raw-boned and unrelenting: kudos to the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and Karl-Heinz Steffens for pulling off such a chancy, intrepid performance.

– Gramophone

The symphony is impressively taut and compact...Karl-Heinz Steffens's performance of Stille und Umkehr, Zimmermann's final orchestral work, reveals it to be a haunting and obsessive miniature masterpiece that is hard to forget.

– Guardian (UK)

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Believe it or not, this is at least the third recording of this particular coupling. Aside from the Dausgaard listed above, there's also a set with James Conlon on EMI (probably out of print), and all of them are generally very good. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra hasn't quite the polish of Dausgaard's Danish forces, and in the Sinfonietta greater familiarity with the music might have led to a more nuanced handling of Zemlinsky's very detailed dynamic markings, but there's very little here to criticize. James Judd usually does well in music of this period, and in The Mermaid he has the orchestra sounding larger and more lush than usual, with surprisingly rich strings and a suitably dense, saturated sonority. The work itself does go on a bit too long, and one of its main themes sounds stolen from Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, but that's hardly the fault of the performance, and the engineering is also quite good, without the oddities of balance that sometimes afflict productions from this source. A fine disc, and a very nice introduction to the composer generally.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

There has been no shortage of good versions of the Concierto de Aranjuez, a tribute to its unique charms in this virtually impossible concerto genre. John Williams himself has already made one of the finest, yet if possible even more conclusively this new one must be counted a winner, irresistible from first to last. The differences in interpretation are relatively minor but add up significantly. Broadly speaking Williams allows himself mole rhythmic freedom this time, more expressive rubato in the slow movement (taken a fraction slower), more infectious pointing in the outer movements. Quite simply it may be a question of Williams nowadays enjoying himself more in the recording studio, tensing-up a fraction less. The first movement is more carefree than before, and there the comparison with Bream is interesting. Bream has his lilting manner all right, but he is fiercer, less relaxed than the latter-day Williams. Williams before showed himself the most formidable technician, rigorously precise: now he shows himself as that and more, giving Rodrigo's haunting but trivial ideas extra flair and imagination.

The recording this time still puts the solo instrument well to the fore (how else can you balance a guitar concerto?) but there is more light and shade. Compare for example the passage in the first movement where the solo cello enters. The Philadelphia playing under Ormandy is marvellously well drilled, but the EGO under Barenboim matches the delicacy of Williams more subtly, helped by the recording.

Maybe it is my imagination but the balance in the Villa-Lobos Concerto on the reverse seems to balance the soloist closer still. In the first movement the closeness gives extra emphasis. The more natural balance given to Bream on his RCA version exposes the flimsiness of the argument—not difficult, I fear, in this work. In the last movement it is rather the other way about with Bream finding far more charm and fantasy, where Williams's fine playing is not helped by the closeness, the relative absence of light and shade. In any case comparisons are largely academic, when the couplings are so different. Anyone wanting the most delightful of guitar concertos—I refer to the Rodrigo— coupled with a different concerto from last time will be well satisfied with the new disc. Williams has rarely projected his musical personality more positively on record. Quite apart from balances, the recording is sweeter and clearer than last time.

– Gramophone [1/1975], reviewing the original LP

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Otto Klemperer is, to this day, still considered one of the great Bruckner conductors. His EMI studio recordings made in the 1960's remain benchmark reference recordings. This 3CD collection of live Bruckner recordings from the 1950's and 1960's, a welcome addition to his famed studio recordings, finds Klemperer leading three of the finest European orchestras. Newly remastered.

Classical Music

Classical Music

A marvelously vivid recording that matches the freshness and immediacy of the music.

The King's strength as a performer is said to have been in Adagios (though there is evidence enough that this did not betoken lack of finger dexterity), and his own piece on this pleasant record is well able to hold its own with many another wind concerto of the day. This may tell us something about what was then a genuine musical vernacular; but such arguments aside, one can take pleasure in observing the contrast, one at the same time separating and unifying, between Frederick and his two companion composers. Quantz's Concerto is a nice, brisk piece with no nonsense about it. Rampal, with his particular gift for eighteenth-century flute music, deals with it admirably, pointing its highlights, touching on its bright rhythms without affectation, gracefully outlining the slow movement's melody without overstating claims. However, Benda's work shows what the differences are between a gifted amateur, a gifted professional and a composer of real individuality all working within the same idiom. The opening Allegro con brio has real brio, with an undercurrent of tensions that are present in another way in the warm, heartfelt Adagio un poco Andante; the finale is a little more conventional, but makes a bright ending to a most attractive work. No wonder poor Fritz preferred this civilized and humane discourse to the military ravings of his tyrannical father.

The recording matches the freshness and immediacy of the music. Rampal is set close, but the sound is marvellously vivid, and the subtle range of his tonguings in particular is caught as an expressive part of the music. The accompaniments are doubtless influenced by Rampal's own long experience in music of this period: they are as crisp and intelligent as his own playing.

-- Gramophone [3/1987]

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

All recordings [of Harold in Italy] stand to be judged by the famous mono recording by Primrose and Beecham which had a unique incandescent warmth.

-- Gramophone [10/1978]

There is a surprise here. After the folksy charm of Alfvén and Grieg, the familiar strains of Sibelius, the salon sentimentality of Järnefelt, and the muscular drive of Nielsen, we meet a totally fascinating composer from Iceland in the person of Jon Lief s, who had a whole disc devoted to his extraordinary music in the last issue. Geysir, like much of Liefs's mature work, starts in darkness, and works its way up to a vast climax in an idiom consisting almost entirely of primal, organ-like, parallel fifths, before subsiding into darkness. Amidst all of this charm and frivolity, it comes as something of a shock, but it is typical of Salonen, one of our most talented young conductors, to include it. His devotion to contemporary music of all sorts makes this a collection of uncommon interest, and sets it well above the ordinary for this sort of thing. All of the performances are excellent, as is the sound. Recommended, therefore, with enthusiasm despite the inevitable duplications of repertoire.

– David Hurwitz, FANFARE

TCHAIKOVSKY: SYMPHONY NO 5, TH

Classical Music

The Isaac Stern Collection: The Early Concerto Recordings, V

SCH?NBERG, SIBELIUS, FAURÈ: PE

Iberia

Over 500 of Schubert’s songs, recorded between 1966 and 1972 by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore, are reissued here on CD. It is a well-packaged, value-for-money set (the three volumes are also available individually), with each volume in a sturdy box and the individual CDs in slip-covers, to minimise bulk. There are no details of contents on these plain, numbered slip-covers but the booklets are well laid out with translations of all the songs. An alphabetical listing of this massive collection would have been very useful. Vol. 1 begins with some of the earliest songs and has over 100 settings from Schubert’s most prolific year, 1815. Fischer-Dieskau’s technical mastery of effortless long phrases and his expressive delivery of dynamic details ensure that many of the most basic strophic songs yield delightful moments. ‘Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren’ is taken at pitch in A flat, which lies quite high for Fischer-Dieskau; some other songs are transposed, but never more than a third. Just when one feels nearly overwhelmed by the rather morbid Matthisson and Mayrhofer settings, along come some gems like Schlegel’s ‘Der Schmetterling’ or Hölty’s ‘Seligkeit’ – ‘Bliss’ in translation and in execution. Although the order of the songs in Vol. 2 is basically chronological, there are small deviations which provide coherence and contrast and give many of these nine CDs the feel of a recital programme. The vocal risks taken by Fischer-Dieskau to achieve intensity and depth of characterisation afford immense insights, thus minimising any reservations. The contrast and drama of ‘Prometheus’, the insistent ardour of ‘An Sylvia’, then his disarmingly simple delivery of the Seidl ‘Wiegenlied’ – this is a feast of versatility and artistry. The partnership of these two great Lieder exponents – Gerald Moore’s contribution as a musically onomatopoeic piano partner (one brief example, the chiming of the bell in ‘Das Zügenglöcklein’) cannot be considered mere accompaniment – continues through to profoundly moving performances of the song-cycles in Vol. 3. These recordings are refreshingly unreverberant, and both performers are in good perspective. Each of the Vol. 3 song-cycles is already available separately and now there is even a new Fischer-Dieskau Winterreise available on Sony Classical. This is his seventh commercial recording of the work, made in 1990 accompanied by Murray Perahia. At 65, Fischer-Dieskau’s voice no longer maintains its unique seamless sheen but, though he cannot consistently guarantee the quality of his baritone sound, through his extraordinary mental and physical techniques he gives a gripping performance of mature reflection, aided by Perahia’s positive, interactive playing. This is surely Fischer-Dieskau’s last word on the cycle.

-- Elisse McDougall, BBC Music Magazine

Bach, Mozart, Telemann & Vivaldi: The Great Flute Concertos

Schnittke: Cello Concerto No. 2 & In memoriam