Classical Music

REBEL La Terpsichore. Les caractères de la danse. Caprice. Les plaisirs champêtres. La fantaisie. Les élémens • Daniel Cuiller, cond; Arion (period instruments) • early-music.com 7765 (63:00)


Recordings of Jean-Féry Rebel’s Les élémens have been appearing with increasing frequency of late. Three showed up on my desk last year, for a total of five in print. Only one of these, however, moved beyond the composer’s most thematically distinctive ballet to give us a broader sample of his art: the conductorless Pratum Integrum Orchestra on Caro Mitis 52005, in an unfortunately stiff, monochrome series of readings that did these technically proficient musicians little credit. A release of Rebel’s Les caractères de la danse by Bernardini/Harmony of Nations (Raumklang 2704) was considerably better, though the rest of the album was devoted to a range of Baroque composers. The disc under review is the first to compete directly with the PIO in an all-Rebel concert, with only one difference of content between the two: Boutade on the earlier album is replaced here by La Terpsichore.


The first of Rebel’s ballets, Caprice , was composed in 1711 for the celebrated danseuse seule of the Paris Opera, Françoise Prévost. (They collaborated repeatedly. So did their children, for Rebel’s son, the composer François, and La Prévost’s daughter, Anne, married in 1733.) It was a very short work, under four minutes in performance, skillfully employing a playful imitation of the Flamenco folk style. It was also experimental in its way, as an attempt to divorce dance on the official stage from the larger, literarily driven plot concerns of comic and tragic opera. Within a few years, the efforts of Rebel and other composers bore fruit, leading to the creation of a new, recognized art form: the ballet-pantomime or ballet d’action , in which a narrative and its emotional context were conveyed through dance steps, gestures, costuming, and music. At the other end of the time scale from Caprice stands Rebel’s final work, the well-known Les élémens , a 23-minute ballet composed when he was over 70, and a depiction of the elemental world defined by Empedocles—air, fire, water, and earth—forming out of chaos. Between these, the most interesting is Les caractères de la danse , an uninterrupted, kaleidoscopic series of 14 short dances that deliberately emphasizes its joints through regular shifts in rhythm, tempo, texture, meter, and orchestral color. If Les élémens hadn’t grabbed musical attention with its introductory depiction of primordial Chaos as an octave-based tonal cluster, I suspect we’d have heard from Les caractères a lot sooner than we have. It is the finer of the two works, more rhythmically and thematically inventive, and more harmonically daring overall.


A comparison of this version of Les caractères with Bernardini/Harmony of Nations reveals some interesting distinctions in approach. Bernardini pursues slower tempos in slow dances, and faster tempos in fast ones, than does Cuiller. He also accents rhythms more aggressively. There is no lack of well-defined rhythms in Cuiller’s performances, but there is a slightly stolid, non-theatrical air about the proceedings, despite some superb playing by Arion. On the other hand, though of approximately the same ensemble size—20 members—Arion has the richer, more full-bodied sound. Harmony of Nations, with fewer winds but one more violinist and violist, produces a lighter, narrower tone. This accounts at least in part for the greater range of orchestral color Arion evokes in its performances, from the delicacy of the Sarabande in Les caractères to the frenetic brightness of the Tamborin from La fantaisie , to the pungent horns of the Loure marked “La chasse” in Les élémens.


If you want just Les caractères , then, the matter is a tossup between Bernardini and Cuiller, though I incline slightly to the latter. For Les élémens , I still prefer Gaigg/L’Orfeo Baroque O (Phoenix Edition 110; reviewed in Fanfare 32:3). Their playing is crisp, and rich in character. But if you want a very good version on one album of more Rebel than just these two ballets, the only good choice is Cuiller. It’s a very good choice indeed; and despite minor reservations, I have no hesitancy in recommending it for both the playing and the music.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

SCHOENBERG: Verklarte Nacht / Chamber Symphony No. 2

HAYDN Symphonies: No. 41 in C; No. 49 in f, “La passione”; No. 44 in e, “Trauer” • Gary Cooper, cond; Arion Baroque O (period instruments) • EARLY MUSIC 7769 (70:22)


Opening the shrink-wrap, I think, “Oh, no; not another ensemble doing Haydn symphonies. Two minutes later I am whooping with glee. How is it possible that performances of Haydn symphonies keep getting better and better? If there were any doubt that 15 period instruments can raise the roof, this CD settles it. The Montreal ensemble, led by Gary Cooper (yup) from the harpsichord, plays with staggering virtuosity and winning panache; there is a delicious crunch to its f attacks and an appealing buzz to its sf . Arion has a horn-player (or two!) who outdoes even Anthony Halstead on the natural horn, and its period oboes are unusually warm and solid, free of squeals or honks. Cooper uses an (authenticated) alternate version of the score of the C-Major Symphony: in place of the trumpets, normal horns, and timpani listed in the published score—used by Max Goberman, Derek Solomons, and Thomas Fey—it features a pair of high horns in C-alt, in addition to the normal oboes and strings, plus a solo transverse flute in the Andante. The fanfares in the opening Allegro con spirito are far more exciting on these horns than on trumpets; this is a wonderful performance throughout, one that reveals various lacks and excesses in the other three recordings. Cooper takes both repeats in sonata-form movements, but not the second one in the Andante or those in the Menuet da capo.


Cooper’s readings of the minor-key symphonies are sensitive and beautifully played, but he downplays their Sturm-und-Drang character. Violins in “La passione” are effectively damped to reduce their sheen. Cooper, like Solomons, plays both repeats in the opening Adagio, but Fey, who does not play the second repeat, achieves greater power and depth with much slower tempos and longer rests. It’s difficult to believe that Fey’s strings, with their aching tang, are not gut. As I reported in Fanfare 30: 3, Fey nearly equals the classic Scherchen performance, which is blemished by messy execution and poor monaural sound. In “La passione,” Fey’s artistry triumphs over Solomons’s and Cooper’s political correctness.


The laurels revert to Cooper in the E-Minor Symphony. His opening Allegro con brio bursts with an unmatched vitality; his Presto finale is fast and furious, but just enough slower than Fey’s (31:5) to avoid the sense of panic that creeps in there. Neither performance suggests the spirit of mourning implied by the symphony’s title (for that one must return to Scherchen), but Arion’s playing is so spectacular that I prefer its “Trauer” to all others. Cooper’s Montrealers also produce richer tone than Fey’s Heidelbergers, due in part to the gorgeous recorded sound captured in Quebec’s Saint-Augustin de Mirabel.


Many recent discs of Haydn symphonies have included one superior performance along with one or two lesser outings, which makes for a lot of duplication in one’s collection. At least Cooper hits two out of three.


FANFARE: James H. North

BERG, A.: Violin Concerto / 3 Pieces from the Lyric Suite /

REVIEW:

It's a mystery why David Diamond has not been generally acclaimed as one of the top handful of American symphonists. His Third Symphony has everything: good tunes, terrific orchestration, tight construction, and a satisfying form. Its beauties are numerous and immediately appealing, from the zesty rhythmic kick of its first and third movements to the lovely writing for harp and piano in the second movement, all grounded in a slow finale of ineffable purity and gentleness. Of course, it's that slow finale that probably seals the symphony's doom in terms of its chances for live performance, but there's no reason we can't enjoy it at home in this excellently played and recorded performance (here getting new lease on life from Naxos after its first appearance on Delos).

The two couplings at first might look to have a certain outward resemblance in that they both enshrine spiritual subjects, but they couldn't sound more different. Psalm (1936) is vintage early Diamond, a slow-fast-slow piece that bespeaks a certain French flavor (Ravel is never far away from Diamond's quiet music). Kaddish (1987), on the other hand, is an elegiac apotheosis of the modes of synagogue chant. It's beautifully played by Janos Starker, and altogether this collection represents a fine tribute to a still underrated major composer.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

"If you want to show people how fine a conductor in the old style Litton is, this version of The Isle of the Dead will do nicely, since it offers little to distract by way of surface brilliance. There’s an attention to structure, a matter not only of the tone poem’s all-important dynamic arch, but of carefully teasing out thematic cross-references in the orchestral texture. Inner lines are clarified, but not at the expense of vitality, momentum, or expressive power. As much can be said of this version of The Rock. It is in some respects a study for The Isle of the Dead, and Litton turns in a performance every bit as detailed and authoritative."

-- Barry Brenesal, Fanfare

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.


This is an absolutely wonderful disc in every way. Weber's clarinet music is delightful, and it's hard to imagine it being better played or recorded. Martin Fröst has such a supple, liquid timbre that at times you could almost swear there were words behind the notes, especially in the slow movements of all four works. And few soloists manage to bring such an irrepressible feeling of joy to the virtuoso passages that you can hear, say, in the finale of the Second concerto.

Kantorow and the Tapiola Sinfonietta also offer perfect accompaniments: swift, sensitive, texturally transparent, and rhythmically snappy. The F minor concerto in particular has plenty of passion and drama. The conductor's own transcription of the Clarinet Quintet for string orchestra works beautifully and fills out the disc generously, while the engineering in all formats couldn't be better balanced or fall more easily on the ear. There's no need to go on at length: this is now the reference recording for this music. It defines "state of the art."

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

WEBER, MOZART & TCHAIKOVSKY

SYMPHONY NO. 3, SYMPHONY NO. 2

Ottorino Respighi is most celebrated for his vividly colourful symphonic poems, and above all the brilliantly orchestrated trilogy celebrating the landmarks and history of Rome: The Fountains of Rome, The Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals. Impressioni brasiliane, another triptych in a similar vein - although on a smaller scale - communicates Respighi's impressions from the summer of 1927, which he spent in Rio de Janeiro. The composer was fascinated by the popular music of Brazil, but also by the nature (the rain forests in the Rio area inspired the first part of the triptych, Notte Tropicale), animal life (a visit to the famous Butantan collection of poisonous snakes and spiders gave him material for the sinuous second part) and, naturally, the carnival, with Canzone e Danza painting a picture of riotous and colourful street festivities. Respighi's greatness as an orchestrator is evident not only in his original works, but also in his adaptations of music by other composers. One such work is La Boutique fantasque (The Fantastic Toyshop), composed in 1918 for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and performed more than 1000 times during the following few years. Respighi's score was based on piano pieces by Rossini, and it accompanies a plot centred on the love of two marionettes, the creations of a toymaker specializing in beautiful dancing dolls. In his shop the dolls perform various dances to attract customers - a tarantella, a Cossack dance, a can-can ... - providing Respighi with the opportunity to use every colour on his orchestral palette. On the present disc we hear the complete ballet score, performed by the fine Liège Royal Philharmonic making their first appearance on BIS. Conductor John Neschling, on the other hand, is a BIS veteran, with superb credentials in things Brazilian (including the complete Choros by Villa-Lobos) and a recording of Respighi's Roman Trilogy placed firmly 'among the great versions of this music' by the web site ClassicsToday.com.

Orchestral Music (German) - Graun, J.G. / Bach, W.F. / Bach,

VIVALDI: CHAMBER MUSIC WITH WI

MISSA SOLEMNIS

This album was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Awards for Best Classical
Album and Best Orchestral Performance.

Koppel, A.: Concerto for Violin and Accordion / Concerto for

Classical Music

Bruckner: Symphony No. 4

Classical Music

2 discs for the price of 1: included on a separate DVD is an hour-long film by David Lindberg about Allan Pettersson’s First Symphony and the preparation of the score.

Born on 19th September 1911, Allan Pettersson was a singular voice in Swedish, and indeed European, 20th-century music. Raised in a poor neighbourhood in Stockholm, his first instrument was a fiddle made by one of his brothers from a tin box and some strings, and Pettersson immediately realized that music was his calling. In 1939 he won a place as viola player in what is today the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, but at this time he also began to compose – at first his Barfotasånger (Barefoot Songs) and chamber works. It was towards the very end of the 1940s, while he was working up the courage to leave his steady position, that he began to compose his Symphony No.1. In a letter he recounted how the symphony was growing and growing, and even threatened to swallow him up whole. Perhaps as a result of a study visit to Paris, where he had lessons with René Leibowitz and Arthur Honegger, Pettersson laid the work aside, but during the following years – and possibly as late as in the 1970s – he kept returning to the sketches. He certainly never abandoned the symphony, and in 1953 when he completed a second symphony, he insisted on calling that work his 'No.2'. On two previous discs, Christian Lindberg has conducted Pettersson's Three Concertos for String Orchestra as well as the orchestral versions of the Barefoot Songs. These were released to great acclaim, for instance in Fono Forum, whose reviewer dubbed Lindberg and the Nordic Chamber Orchestra 'more than ideal interpreters of Pettersson's music, which is as stark as it is fascinating'. Entrusted with the manuscript material – some 240 pages – of Symphony No.1, Lindberg was able to prepare a performable version and gave the work its world première in May 2010, conducting the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. His recording of the work – and of Symphony No.2 – is accompanied by a DVD with an hour-long film by David Lindberg about Allan Pettersson's First Symphony documenting its genesis, the preparation of the performance edition and the path to the work's first performance and subsequent recording.

Baldr is Jon Leifs' richest and longest single work, and like most of his larger pieces he never heard it performed. Its two acts last about 90 minutes, and fans of this expert at composing musical natural disasters will be delighted to learn that it contains both a hurricane and a volcanic eruption. Subtitled a "choreographic drama", it would make quite an impression on stage, assuming it ever could be staged as the composer intended; but until then we have this superb second recording (the first, by Paul Zukofsky and a talented band of Icelandic students and "ringers", was very good but no match for this fully professional effort).


The story, such as it is, begins with the creation of life itself, and of man. Baldr, one of those typical Norse hero types, is a favorite of Odin, and thus hated by Loki. In part one, Baldr meets and marries his beloved Nanna despite Loki's attempts to thwart their union (he has the hots for Nanna too) by summoning up a hurricane. In part two, Odin demands that all things on earth, both living and dead, swear not to harm Baldr, and they all do except (there's always a catch) for the lowly mistletoe. In "The Throwing Game", the Gods check out the efficacy of Baldr's protection by throwing all manner of deadly objects at him, and Loki naturally gets someone to hurl the mistletoe at Baldr, who promptly falls to the ground and dies. After his cremation, there's a huge volcanic eruption after which Odin and the chorus pronounce a final benediction.


Leifs conceived the work in the mid-1940s in part as a protest against the Nazi appropriation of Norse mythology for political and racial ends (he was living in Germany with his Jewish first wife for much of World War II), and very consciously wished to reclaim these stories in what he saw as their original form. Aside from using the old Icelandic texts for the brief sung passages, in Baldr Leifs perfected his mature musical style based on the irregular rhythms and primitive parallel harmonies of Icelandic folk music. The addition of hammers, rocks, chains, gunshots, and other such noise-making instruments to the percussion section gives his output a hard, brutal, primal quality unmatched in 20th century music, and conductor Kari Kropsu and the Iceland Symphony have a field day (as do BIS' engineers) bringing this richly evocative score to deafening life. Turn it way up: if you don't risk your speakers, it isn't an authentic Leifs experience.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

“Everything that is included is substantial… the hugely impressive Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy is dark, brooding and intricately wrought. It's invaluable to have these works available in such lucid, well-played and committed performances.” – The Guardian (UK)

REGER Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart, op. 132. Symphonic Prolog to a Tragedy, op. 108. Piano Concerto 1. Suite in Olden Style, op. 93. Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Beethoven, op. 86. A Ballet Suite, op. 130. Four Tone Poems after Arnold Böcklin, op. 128 • Leif Segerstam, cond; 1 Love Derwinger (pn); Norrköping SO • BIS 9047 (3 CDs: 203:54)

This new compilation of Leif Segerstam’s Reger recordings, originally issued on three separate CDs in the 1990s, makes an outstanding introduction to the work of a composer still largely known by many classical lovers for his organ music and one song, Maria Wiegenlied. When I reviewed the 2-CD Guild set of historic Reger recordings ( Fanfare 37:6), I said how much I liked the works presented there. I can say much the same thing of this set, despite Segerstam’s penchant for slower tempos, simply because as a composer himself he approaches each work from a structural standpoint and brings out many subtleties.

Surprisingly, only two works are duplicated in the two sets, the Mozart Variations and the Ballet Suite . The Guild collection also included the Lustpielouvertüre, Serenade in G, Romantic Suite, and Eine vaterländische Ouverture. Possibly one may also want to hear Reger’s Violin Concerto, Sinfonietta, and the Variations on a Theme of Hiller, but otherwise, between these two sets, you have the bulk of Reger’s orchestral oeuvre . Early on in life, Reger became infatuated with both Bach and Wagner, and from these twin fonts of Teutonic culture he created remarkably interesting structures in music. And, surprisingly, his music is not only interesting but also fun to listen to, a point I made in regards to the Guild set.

Of the music new to me via this release, I was particularly impressed with the Symphonic Prelude to a Tragedy (which one might describe as a more modern, and more tragic, incarnation of Brahms’s Tragic Overture ), the piano concerto, and the Beethoven Variations and Fugue. My sole complaint of the recordings, and this probably has more to do with the engineering than with Segerstam, is that in quiet passages the music sometimes fades out of earshot. Unless you are listening with your ears very close to the speakers or, on headphones, with the volume turned up high, you will miss some of those softer passages. Other than that, however, I was very pleased overall with Segerstam’s readings. As usual with this conductor, transparency of texture is paramount, often revealing details that go unnoticed in others’ readings, and his subtle plasticity of phrasing keeps the music fluid and moving forward. Thus in a work like the Mozart Variations, one may prefer the more straightforward conducting of Eduard van Beinum in the Guild set, but one will find much more to hear in the Segerstam performance.

I was not particularly impressed by the Suite in Olden Style, which just toodled along and sounded nice but not much else. The Variations on a Theme of Beethoven is based on the last of the op. 119 Bagatelles. He originally wrote it for two pianos, but when preparing the orchestral score he eliminated four of the 12 variations and, according to the notes, changed both the playing order and the arrangement of keys. When he finished this score in August 1915, he had less than a year to live. In this case, I felt that Segerstam’s performance was a bit too airy for my taste, making the music sound less energetic that it might have, but the Ballet Suite came off pretty well. Segerstam’s problem, like the famous criticism of Bruno Walter, is that “when he comes to something beautiful, he melts.”

The liner notes suggest that the reason Reger’s Piano Concerto has failed to gain a place in the standard repertoire is that it is technically demanding but does not allow the soloist to “show off.” I would also suggest that the dark, brooding quality of the music is another reason. Most people like their piano concertos to sound cheerful or dramatic or, if somewhat brooding, then brooding in a Romantic Russian (read: Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff) sort of way, neither of which Reger gives us. This is a very complex piece, too, continually evolving yet knitting together its various sections within each movement with consummate mastery. (I would particularly commend this concerto to many modern American composers who write “clever” music that does not develop properly.) Derwinger is a committed interpreter, throwing himself into this complex score with emotional fervor, and Segerstam, too, is particularly dramatic here.

What makes this packaging even more attractive is that BIS is selling the 3-CD box at a special price. I found it listed for $32.75 at Presto Classical and $38.49 at ArkivMusic, an excellent bargain considering BIS’s normal price tag for single discs, which run around $21.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Classical Music

This seventeenth volume in Marco Polo' popular Johann Strauss I Edition celebrates the internationally adulated Viennese composer' unflagging ability to create dance music for all occasions and to stimulate a public avid for ever-new entertainment.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.