Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Johann Christoph Pez. Ensemble: Les Muffatti. Conductor: Peter Van Heyghen.

Classical Music

REVIEWS:
American Record Guide (11-12/97, p.226) - "...Of the nine individual visions, the most rousing, rich, and flavorful are by Copland, Bernstein, Nelson, and McDonald. These are full of the zest, the tang and feel of the regions depicted....[Keith Lockhart's] work is deft, vigorous, and joyous. It is basically a lovely and loving portrait he has assembled, well crafted, well played, and well recorded."

The partnership between James Galway and Monica Huggett, playing at modern pitch, may raise the odd eyebrow, but it is one that contributes strongly to the excellence of this recording: her tone lacks something of its usual warmth but the lovely phrasing is much in evidence, and their musical minds meet on the best of terms. Galway has adapted well to baroque style, with which his colleagues are well acquainted, and his wife, making her debut on record, is neither overawed nor outshone in BWV 1039. In BWV 1013 Galway plays the second-half repeat only in the Sarabande, which he takes very slowly indeed, though there is ample playing time for those in the other movements. Philip Moll rises to proper prominence in BWV 1032 but for most of the rest it requires acute hearing to detect his presence, though happily not that of Sarah Cunningham. However, the disc is very recommendable to anyone who doesn't insist on period instruments.

-- Gramophone [8/1997]

Classical Music

NANCARROW: STUDIES INGO METZM

Janácek's most popular orchestral work, Sinfonietta, comes vividly to life in the hands of František Jílek and the Brno Philharmonic, who ideally capture the pagan splendor of the raucous brass fanfares in the outer movements while projecting the magical combination of mystery and playfulness in the remainder. There's a limpid, impulsive quality to the playing that perfectly suits the composer's somewhat frenetic style, and you could argue that this quality lends a certain authenticity to the performances. The woodwinds play with lively energy and tart tone, while the strings are lean and limber.


These orchestral attributes effectively serve the remaining works as well. The Danube Symphony is a beautiful, phantasmagoric work that recreates the world of Janácek's late operas (with affecting vocal contributions from soprano Karolina Dvorakova), while the tender Violin Concerto requires the soloist to be just as adept at meditative musing as virtuoso display (a requirement that Ivan Zenaty fills handsomely). Finally, the incidental music to Schluck und Jau ends the program in Janácek's singular dramatic style. Supraphon's recording presents the performances in naturally spacious, vibrant sound. An excellent addition to anyone's Janácek collection.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

MENDELSSOHN String Symphonies • Michael Hofstetter, cond; Stuttgart CO • ORFEO C 763093 D (3 CDs: 221:27)


The well-publicized childhood musical genius of Mozart and Schubert was surpassed by that of Mendelssohn, as witnessed by the 13 string symphonies he completed by age 15. The third of these string symphonies already shows mastery, by this mere child, of the art of contrapuntal writing. This and other signs of precocious musical genius increased as the composer matured through each of the succeeding 10 string symphonies. The first six are imitative of Schubert and Beethoven, but in the Seventh String Symphony in D Minor, Mendelssohn begins to express his individuality. From the Ninth on, Mendelssohn moves forward at a galloping pace, with glorious fugal movements and fugal passages proliferating. The 11th String Symphony, in F Major/F Minor, is my favorite. Mendelssohn augments the second movement, marked Commodo (Schweizerlied) , with percussion at its conclusion. The 13th String Symphony is incomplete, consisting of only a single movement that shows further mastery of contrapuntal writing.


Michael Hofstetter, the principal conductor of the renowned Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and follower of a line of succession that started with the orchestra’s founder, Karl Münchinger, gives us a commendable set of these early Mendelssohn masterpieces. But the playing is relatively subdued and the conducting is characterized by too weak a beat for my taste. Other listeners may prefer this approach, which uses a small chamber orchestra, to my favored version by Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra with its fuller string complement. In terms of the era, Hofstetter’s approach is Baroque in character—small ensemble with restrained vibrato—whereas Masur’s is contemporary and closer to late 19th century. The latter seems to me to be more in line with what Mendelssohn meant to convey, closer to Beethoven than to Bach, but who really knows? In the first movement of the 11th Symphony, Hofstetter fails to take the very important exposition repeat, whereas Masur wisely observes it. This is the only textual difference that I found.


This disc is a very good Baroque-style alternative to Masur’s exceptionally fine modern performances. On that basis, it is recommended.


FANFARE: Burton Rothleder

15.99

"Like his mentor Mariss Jansons, Andris Nelsons has developed a special affinity with the music of Richard Strauss, in which his conducting combines a thrilling impulse with an appreciation of the finer points of instrumental detail and evocative atmosphere. In a mammoth work such as Also sprach Zarathustra, Strauss does lay traps for interpreters who maybe have less finely honed instincts of taste, pacing and orchestral texture than Nelsons does, but his vision of this half-hour, Nietzsche-inspired score is of such clarity and integrity as to cast aside the accusations of posturing and garishness that are sometimes levelled against it." - Geoffrey Norris, The Telegraph

Classical Music

V8: COMPLETE WORKS FOR ORGAN

The Concerto is a strong and compelling work. . . . The Scherzo is a brilliant affair and the slow movement is placed last, poetic and passionate, resolving some of the cogently argued conflicts of the first movement. Wallfisch's playing is first-rate throughout. . . . [The Third Symphony] is more of an orchestral song cycle than a symphony, although there is certainly a symphonic breadth and logic in the music. . . . The central setting of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem about Pan discovering how to make music from a reed is a brilliant achievement, with Neil Mackie an excellent soloist. . . . If you don't know [Leighton's] music, make a start with this disc. It is strongly recommended. -- Gramophone

Voices From The Morning Of The Earth: A Cycle of American Songs from North and South, East and West (2008) is the sixth of seven American Songbooks that occupied George Crumb for most of the millennium’s opening decade. This recording (Volume 17 of Bridge's Crumb Edition) completes Bridge's cycle of Crumb's American Songbooks. The seven songbooks are approximately five hours in length, and constitute George Crumb's magnum opus. Also on this CD is Crumb's Idyll for the Misbegotten. The composer writes that “flute and drum are to me those instruments which most powerfully evoke the voice of nature. I have suggested that ideally (even if impractically) my Idyll should be “heard from afar, over a lake, on a moonlit evening in August.” The Sleeper with words by Edgar Allan Poe, transforms Poe's lugubrious meditation on a dead beloved (“Soft may the worms about her creep!”) into a haunting ode to a woman slumbering beneath the “mystic moon.”

In that same year - the last before the opening of the new "Great" Festspielhaus - Leonard Bernstein came as a guest with the New York Philharmonic, of which he was chief conductor. Thus one of the most impressive musical personalities of the age arrived together with one of the American orchestras richest in tradition. Bernstein's own work The Age of Anxiety, his Second Symphony for Piano and Orchestra (with Seymour Lipkin as piano soloist, negotiating agilely a musical language that ranged from Romanticism to jazz), impressed the public as much as did Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, in which Bernstein realized brilliantly its grandiose climaxes and plumbed its musical depths.

In exile in London during World War I, Joseph Jongen (Li�ge, 1873 - Sart-lez-Spa, 1953) composed there numerous works. This CD brings together some of his pieces for orchestra, whose masters are called Franck, Wagner, Debussy and Ravel. His symphonic works from the Great War period compel recognition as the last vestiges of a world on which the language of late romanticism had still left a reassuring mark.

Classical Music

• General Music Director Marcus Bosch leads the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg. • Second release in the complete recording cycle of the Dvořák symphonies. • First release: Dvořák Symphonies No. 3/7 (COV 31212) • Live-recording

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music