Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 - Mendelssohn: The

Born in Buenos Aires in 1916, Alberto Ginastera lived to become unquestionably the most significant figure in Argentine music in the 20th century. This CD combines Ginastera's deep interest in the authentic folk music of his country alongside the more radical compositional techniques which gave his music such individual personality. Commissioned in 1941 for Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Caravan, the 1943 Suite made from Estancia became the piece that launched Ginastera's international fame - the spectacular Danza Final is perhaps Ginastera's most celebrated essay in the style of the Malambo - an exhilarating explosion of kinetic energy. Also in 1943, Ginastera composed his Overture to the Creole Faust, and it is, in a way an appendix to the Estancia dances, since it again deals with the life of the gauchos. Ollantay is nearly a symphony. Composed in 1947 for Erich Kleiber, the three movement work takes its inspiration from a poem from the early Incan period. Pampeana No. 3 is even closer to the symphony that Ginastera never wrote. Pampeana No. 3, like Ollantay, is also in three movements. The title recalls rhythms and melodies of the Argentine pampas, and the second movement contains one of the most extraordinary rhythmic tours-de-force in all of Ginastera's output. The Odense Symphony Orchestra continues their new series on Bridge with this outstanding recording. Bridge discs which also feature the Odense Symphony Orchestra include: Bridge 9129 (Villa-Lobos Symphonic Music), Bridge 9122 (Poul Ruders Edition, Vol. 3) and Bridge 9100 (Nielsen Violin Concerto).

Track Listing
1. Any Place I Hang My Hat / It's A Grand Night For Singing / Good Morning / It's A Lovely Day Today
2. I'm Shadowing You
3. Crazy Rhythm
4. Primrose Colour Blue
5. We Are the Music Makers
6. You Spotted Snakes
7. Methuselah
8. When I Was One and Twenty
9. Sing Me No Song
10. Triboro Fair
11. You've Got to Do What You've Got to Do
12. He Was Beautiful
13. Turkish Delight
14. Never Let Me Go
15. Hoagy Carmichael Medley: Georgia On My Mind / Lazy Bones / The Nearness Of You / I Get Along Without You Very Well / My Resistance Is Low / Stardust
16. I Want to Be Happy

Personnel includes: Cleo Laine (vocals); John Dankworth (alto saxophone).

Good set celebrating the 10th anniversary of the sensational 1973 Carnegie Hall concert that was an acclaimed two-album set. Laine is a dynamic, versatile entertainer who isn't a jazz singer in strictest sense, but does possess incredible timing and a remarkable ear. Her diction and enunication are admirable, and her stylistic range includes theatrical songs, pre-rock pop, English and Scottish folk tunes, and more. ~ Ron Wynn

"•The Rodin Quartet often present works outside the standard repertoire, but these four Music Academy, Munich alumni have much to say as well about the standard repertory. • On their label AMATI, they present the two string quartet masterpieces, op. 51, of Johannes Brahms. • Adopting their name from the great 19th century French sculptor Auguste Rodin, this young and internationally admired quartet have often appeared on disc, radio and TV, and embrace a wide and diverse repertoire."

MAHLER Symphony No. 1. WAGNER Faust Overture . Siegfried Idyll • Bruno Walter, cond; NBC SO • MUSIC & ARTS 1241, mono (77:25) Live: New York 4/8/1939


This important release brings together Walter’s complete final concert from the series of five he did at NBC in 1939. The Faust Overture appeared in a previous Music & Arts Walter collection; otherwise I’m not aware of any previous CD release of the material. The sound is excellent: full-bodied with great clarity and immediacy (capturing many of Walter’s exhortations and strenuous vocalizations)—interestingly, Walter seemed to hold a minority (high) opinion of the notorious Studio 8H.


The Mahler is Walter’s earliest preserved performance of the work (indeed, the earliest by any conductor I’m aware of; Mitropoulos’s Minneapolis premiere recording dates from 1940). It is a reading of thrilling spontaneity, a combustible meeting of Walter’s totally idiomatic Mahler style with the distinctively bright, tightly focused expressive intensity of the NBC orchestra, which responds with total commitment. The first movement is lithe, supple, with a very flexible pulse; hear his impulsive pressing ahead in response to the music’s having modulated one key too far in the sharpward direction (E Major, Rehearsal 6 + 8). The beginning of the slow movement brings a real surprise: what sounds like Mahler’s original conception of solo cello doubling the customary bass in unison—an experiment Walter seems not to have repeated in any of his later extant performances. The finale is intensely dramatic, working to a dénouement of overwhelming emotional force and, ultimately, saturated splendor.


Other available Walter performances give a fascinating picture of the gradual transformation of his interpretation over the years: A live 1947 version with the LPO (Testament) is similar in conception to NBC: swift, light-toned, characterful, and spontaneous, but preserved in problematic sound. A Concertgebouw performance from the same year (Tahra r RCO Live) is sharp and pungent, with a memorably old-world string style. A 1950 performance with the Bavarian State Orchestra (Orfeo) is darker, smoother, less pointed; the 1954 NYPO studio recording weightier, straighter, more severe. By comparison, the final Columbia Symphony version (1961) represents very much an old man’s view—mellow, deliberate, soft-focused, and comparatively uninflected.


Walter conducts a memorable performance of Wagner’s Faust Overture, of seething intensity and swashbuckling drama, on a looser rein than Toscanini’s with the same orchestra two years later (Naxos). Siegfried Idyll was a great Walter specialty, and the NBC version is distinguished by its swift pacing, expressive freedom, and highly nuanced execution, with a pp conclusion of truly heart-stopping beauty. Again, comparisons are instructive: the 1935 studio recording with the VPO (Opus Kura) transparent, lean, surprisingly ascetic with very little string vibrato. A live Los Angeles PO performance from 1949 (Music & Arts) is similar in conception to NBC, but less refined, heavier in expression. Two NYP versions—the 1953 studio recording (United Archives) and a live one from 1957 (Music & Arts)—are more symphonically imposing, less intimate; the final Columbia Symphony recording (1959) slower, less flexible, of muted shades and a decidedly autumnal feeling.


All in all, a major new addition to the Walter discography, one that shows the conductor at his formidable best, and preserved in lifelike, vivid sound. Riches indeed!


FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy

LIONEL HAMPTON - REUNION AT NE

BENIAMINO GIGLI - DONIZETTI, P

Besides various intangible elements - a balance of physical and metaphysical properties of Saed Haddad "good music" needs. The former he counts beauty, power, magic, power, virtuosity, etc.; in the second category are elusive concepts: the existential, the spiritual and the transcendental. The works on this CD come from two different marked by compositional practice periods. In the first period from 2004 to 2006 Haddad sought a synthesis of Arabic and Western music - without the usual Western mesh as tourism, exoticism or some form of abstraction. The aim was a real, existential and transcendental integration, not a juxtaposition or even constraints of a tradition on the other. More recently, since 2007, prefers to always questioning composers continued increasingly from a direct, existential contact with Arab culture.

This selection contains both ADD and DDD recordings.

MAHLER/BERIO, STRAUSS: ORCHEST

This Living Stereo release is considered one of the finest orchestral recordings of traditional Western songs and folk melodies ever made. “Pops” Fiedler leads the band in spirited tunes of the American West including “Home on the Range,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “Riders in the Sky,” “Don’t Fence Me In,” and “Shenandoah.” (Altissimo)

Although there have been many fine and some thrilling performances of Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony since it first appeared on record, there are only two that really count—and this is one of them. The other is the perfectly proportioned and beautifully played Karajan (DG, 1/93). Of course, there are many more modern and better recorded versions that can be recommended but (to put an unwelcome scenario) were the bomb about to drop, and one had only time to play one version of the Fifth, for me it would be this one. Unaccountably it was never released in this country on 78s after the war, although numbers in HMV's DB series were allotted to it. In those days duplication was the exception rather than the rule and this symphony had not established the popular following it now enjoys. Perhaps it was felt that its release would impair the success of the now deleted rival set with Artur Rodzinski and the New York Philharmonic (Columbia, 2/49).

When the work was first issued on LP, I wrote: ''Not even the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan can match the strings of the Boston Symphony in sheer power and eloquence under the baton of Koussevitzky. They possess a lyrical intensity matched by few others. Above the stave they sing with unerring purity of intonation: the sound is marvellously clean and their tone can only be called luminous.'' (Writing in another context Harris Goldsmith declared, ''the voluminous warmth of the Boston string section under Koussevitzky was one of the hedonistic delights of Western civilization''.) The wind and brass are of comparable excellence. This account dates from February 6th and 7th, 1946, yet the musicians sound as if they have known this music all their lives. As they do in an earlier performance I have on AS Disc (not available in the UK) from November 17th,1945, which must have been made very near the work's premiere.

To the Fifth Symphony and the four Romeo and Juliet excerpts (which were coupled on the LP) RCA have added two performances recorded during the orchestra's visit to New York in November 1947: the Classical Symphony and the ''Danse finale'' from Chout. I don't think the Classical is superior to the marvellous account on 78s recorded by Koussevitzky in the early 1930s (HMV, 10/31) which I hope will reappear in due course, but it is still both vivacious and enchanting. As I wrote of the Fifth and the four Romeo and Juliet excerpts first time round, these interpretations are totally unmannered yet of outsize personality, their virtuosity worn lightly. Superb performances, then, in a class of their own, which produce even better results now than they did on vinyl.'

Robert Layton, The Gramophone

Selections recorded 1908-1919.
Enrico Caruso is still considered the most famous operatic tenor of the 20th century. He was certainly the highest paid, and most adored singer of his time. In this fascinating recording, remastered, of course, from 78 rpms, Caruso is showcased in a series of short excerpts.
The power and beauty of his voice is evident even in these very early recordings. Spanning from 1908 through 1919, the disc captures Caruso in concert with other famous singers of the day, including Guiseppe de Luca, Luisa Tetrazzini, Geraldine Farrar, and Amelita Galli-Curci. Walter B. Rogers, Josep Pasternack, and Gaetano Sconamiglio conduct.
There are some unusual, rarely heard selections by Antonio Gomes and Friedrich Flotow, for example, as well as excerpts from the standard repertory. All in all, this is a fine compilation, a "blast from the past," as it were, that gives the listener much pleasure.

Experience an exhilarating live performance of Holst's "The Planets" and Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra" with Andrew Litton and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. This 2-for-1 priced 2-disc set offers a virtual reality recording, bringing you close to the music like never before. Recorded in the acoustically-perfect McDermott Hall in Dallas, Texas.

BRAHMS: PIANO CONCERTO NO 1 G

This CD commemorates the 100th birthday of the Norwegian composer and organist Leif Solberg (b. 1914). Solberg’s only symphony (1950–51) is a major discovery: it confirms the contrapuntal mastery evident in his magisterial organ works, investing it with a touch of sardonic humor and the dancing rhythms of Norwegian folk-music. The choral Good Friday Meditation, by contrast, points to the lyrical side of his muse. Conductors Paul Mann and Marit Tøndel Bodsberg, organist Tim Collins, the Liepāja Symphony and the Solberg Centenary Singers feature in this tribute to this long-lived composer.

Like his close friend and colleague Shostakovich Shebalin (1902-63) knew a life of both celebrity and hardship. He was condemned in the infamous '48 Party congress in Moscow and in later life he fought to overcome a series of crippling strokes. His personality remained undaunted by these tribulations as his music resolutely proves.

Andris Nelsons: Genius on Fire
52-minute documentary and bonus material, 3 excerpts (16 minutes)

Andris Nelsons has never 'done' indifference: as a child he practised the trumpet until his lips bled; as a youth he studied singing and learnt taekwondo; he became an orchestral trumpet player and at 24 was appointed the General Music Director of the Latvian National Opera in Riga. Seven years later he was elected Chief Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He thus stands today on the podium of the orchestra that Sir Simon Rattle moulded for almost 20 years. Their repertoire has acquired new, brilliant additions under Nelsons: highlights being, for example, his Tchaikovsky and Strauss [recorded for Orfeo]. He is also a regular guest conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and has conducted just about every great orchestra in the world. From the 2014/15 season onwards Nelsons will be the Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and will thus be at the head of one of the USA’s “big five” orchestras. Who is this man who has enjoyed such an astonishing career so early? This is the topic of the film “Genius on fire”. “He doesn’t do things by halves, not in rehearsals either. He is always full of intensity” says the trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger of the conductor. “Every single note in the score is turned into music. With him, everything is important”. During orchestral rehearsals, Andris Nelsons speaks or sings, in his trained bass voice, in an English-German onomatopoeic linguistic mishmash. To describe the basic atmosphere of a musical motive he constructs verbal pictures and tells stories, clever, witty stories. He uses his hands vigorously – his whole body in fact – in order to make clear to the orchestra what he wants. As a conductor without the affectations of a 'maestro', Andris Nelsons stands for a new generation whose leadership qualities lie in their ability to sweep people off their feet. For two years, the film director Astrid Bscher and her camera followed this exciting, young artist. She travelled with Andris Nelsons to his home city of Riga, met his parents, his friends, his partner Kristine Opolais and experienced the conductor on his worldwide search for a new home. The result is a 52-minute portrait that tells not just of music, but of how what we experience is reflected in it. It shows how a serious young man deals with the hype surrounding him, and how he grows and develops as a human being.

Classical Music

This recording combines Dowland lute selections with poetry of Shakespeare.

This recording was originally released in 1954.

TCHAIKOVSKY: SYMPHONY NO 6 JA

WILLIAM KAPELL PLAYS CHOPIN: T

Classical Music

An impressive performance, spacious, full-bodied, and last but not least, never forgetful of the warm human feeling prompting Mussorgsky's tribute to a recently and prematurely deceased friend.

After Barry Douglas's recent RCA concerto debut in the Tchaikovsky, now a solo recital—with Pictures at an Exhibition, long a cornerstone of his repertory, the principal work. It's an impressive performance, spacious, full-bodied, and last but not least, never forgetful of the warm human feeling prompting Mussorgsky's tribute to a recently and prematurely deceased friend. In view of Ashkenazy's own orchestration of the work, it is perhaps not surprising that he himself draws a wider range of colour from the keyboard, particularly its upper register glints; his characterization is just a shade more vivid, underpinned by a stronger sense of direction (Decca). But Douglas's tone is warmer—and full marks to the RCA engineers for reproduction so faithful.

Both artists use the Urtext edition, notably giving us an ff start to ''Bydlo''. Here I think douglas's slower tempo is a distinct advantage in evoking the ox-wagon's lumbering motion, just as his marginally brisker tempo for the finale is truer to the composer's allegro alla breve marking. But neither his quarrelling children in the Tuileries garden nor his gossiping market-women at Limoges have as much temperament as Ashkenazy's, nor is his witch as ferocious—or sinister in flight. Both players, in their different ways, rightly make the recurrent promenade episode very personal. But on its first reflective return I questioned Douglas's subdivision of each phrase into two, just as I wondered if the ensuing sad song of the troubador (here very much an unrequited lover at the castle gate) really needs his occasional yieldings of pulse. His exceptionally full, rich fortissimo, free of all edginess or clang, is of course a tremendous asset in the majestic finale—as it also is in the big climaxes of the Dante Sonata. Comparison with Brendel (Philips) in this work revealed Douglas less dramatically menacing, less intense. But in its less urgent way (and, incidentally, he allows himself all the time in the world for the middle section's bittersweet reflection), the reading is warmly romantic and expansive—with some ravishing softer sonority en route. You're certainly left in no doubt as to why Liszt included the word 'fantasia' in the title. If yielding phrasing in the Liebestod sometimes relaxes tension in pianissimo, textural strands are clearly defined and the climax itself is sumptuous.

-- Joan Chissell, Gramophone [5/1987]