ZIEHRER: Selected Dances and Marches, Vol. 3

2 discs for the price of 1!


There is no other set of Haydn overtures at this level of comprehensiveness, nor does there need to be. This one is sensational. The 22 pieces included here span Haydn's entire career, from the early 1760s right up to the prelude to "Winter" from The Seasons (1801). In them we hear him move from the late-Baroque/early-Classical style to nascent Romanticism. It is the greatest stylistic evolution in the history of music because Haydn was not just a passive observer, but its prime mover. In addition to the overtures from all of the operas that survive, some of which wound up in the symphonies of the same period--most notably the one to La fedeltà premiata, which became the finale to "The Hunt" (La chasse) Symphony--you also get the introduction to The Seven Last Words and the overtures to the oratorios Il ritorno di Tobia and The Creation.

One of the things that makes Manfred Huss' performances so desirable is that he is one of the very few conductors who doesn't destroy ensemble balances by making the (unwritten) continuo part too prominent. The harpsichord gives a little extra rhythmic definition to the bass--but it doesn't overwhelm the strings or winds or become an independent solo voice. The fortepiano is, correctly, almost entirely inaudible. I'm still not convinced that conducting "from the keyboard" required anything like as much participation as we routinely hear today, but if you're going to do it at all then this is surely the right way. Bottom line: lively tempos, gutsy brass and timpani, perky winds, and stunning music make this former Koch release a huge two-for-the-price-of-one bargain on BIS.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

LUMBYE: Orchestral Works, Vol. 5

Classical Music

The innovative Baroque style that served as the primary livelihood in establishing Les Arts Florissants' impeccable reputation is portrayed again in this release of Handel's Acis and Galatea. Conducted by the ensemble's founder, William Christie, Gramophone notes that his new version is "a polished and strongly characterized performance, finely recorded", being the first recording anyone should try.

For this album, renowned classical guitarist Christoph Denoth joins with the London Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jesus Lopez Cobos to bring us a beautiful recording of compositions by Lorenzo Palomo (b. 1938), Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999), and Joquin Malats (1872-1912). The title track of the album, Palomo's Nocturnos de Andalucia, was composed for Pepe Romero. The full suite for guitar and orchestra was premiered in Berlin on January 27, 1996, with Romero performing. Christoph Denoth began his concert career at age 15. He regularly performs with chamber ensembles, such as the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain and the Offenburger Streichtrio. He also performs solo concerts internationally. Joquin Malats' Serenata Espanola is arranged for this recording by Christoph Denoth and Jonathan Rathbone, and is the world premiere recording.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 10 CDS: DE

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Not too many listeners are Dybbuk admirers, and even Bernstein's supporters find this music less interesting than much else that he wrote. The fact that the music resorts to some dodecaphonic and numerological compositional techniques isn't a point in its favor, though in actual sonority it's entirely characteristic of Bernstein, and at this late date it's easy to hear that his personality inhabits every bar. If there's a problem with the piece, it likely stems from the fact that the overall impression it makes is a bit glum, lacking in that special snap that makes his best work so memorable. Certainly the supernatural subject is a dark one, and it calls forth plenty of eerie, atmospheric scoring; but the actual musical material seems stretched thinly over the work's 45 minutes (48, if you're the composer). Bernstein recorded the complete work for Sony, but broke it up into a pair of suites for his DG remakes. I do prefer the original; the music is what it is, and over time it has grown on me--and might well do so for you too.


Fancy Free of course is delightful, and often recorded, but this performance holds its own with the best--and I frankly prefer Andrew Mogrelia to the composer in Dybbuk. He's just that much livelier, and the Nashville Symphony sounds as inside the idiom as the New York Philharmonic of several decades' past. This newcomer also is better recorded than Bernstein's performances either on Sony or DG, and the excellent version of "Hot Stuff" that opens Fancy Free also is a plus. If you're a Bernstein fan, you will certainly want this.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

D'Arcy Philip Gray brings authoritative performances of Cage's works for solo percussionist. He worked with Cage in 1992 and extensively with David Tudor between 1995-96. Gray was also a musician in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (1993-95).

Classical Music

Classical Music

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 • Jan Willem de Vriend, cond; Annemarie Kremer (sop); Wilke te Brummelstroete (mez); Marcel Reijans (ten); Geert Smits (bar); Consensus Vocalis; Netherlands SO • CHALLENGE CC72532 (SACD: 63:14)

Jan Willem de Vriend completes his survey of the Beethoven symphonies with this exciting new Ninth. His excellent orchestra is a modern ensemble with the addition of period brass (I presume from the sound that natural horns are employed). This cycle is the latest addition to the relatively small number of sets available in SACD multichannel sound; for that reason alone it deserves some attention.

The performance begins with a dramatic, emphatic opening with timpani pounding home the punctuation. Vriend creates excellent tension through the contrasting major and minor modes, the former theme especially poignant. Philip Herreweghe, in the Ninth included in his own compendium of the symphonies, isn’t as intensely dramatic, and his touch is lighter in the percussion. I prefer Vriend, who is closer in spirit to Paavo Järvi (RCA), though Järvi employs a brisker tempo, and his orchestra hasn’t got the punch of Vriend’s full-size outfit.

The exuberant energy of the Scherzo is manifest in this performance, and the timpanist is once again an impressive presence. Repeats are observed, and the tempo seems perfect, the Trio not too fast but still providing contrast with the Scherzo theme. Vriend allows the Adagio to take its time without any sense of drag; Herreweghe is about 30 seconds quicker but doesn’t inject quite the same level of cantabile phrasing as is heard in this new account.

The clamorous opening of the finale is fast and furious; the basses and cellos then have their say—Vriend has his cellos up front to the right, with basses behind, so this episode is especially vivid. Baritone Geert Smits has the timbre of a bass-baritone, and his delivery is heroic but never brusque. The Consensus Vocalis sounds like a medium-size choir, numerous enough to add heft to their contributions. Vriend’s Turkish March allows Marcel Reijans the space to hold forth with spirit (and breath). The double fugue is truly joyful, while the four soloists are exemplary in their subsequent quartet. Vriend guides the symphony to a triumphant close with a presto that is coherent but exhilarating.

The sound is excellent, though some may prefer an aural perspective that is closer. I initially felt that the production was bass-shy, but within this mid-hall perspective, the orchestral balance is actually truer than productions that feature a booming bass sound, and the amount of instrumental detail is also notable.

With this release, Vriend’s entire cycle is enhanced, so that I would now place it on par with that of Herreweghe on PentaTone (though this Challenge set now consists of six discs to the five of Herreweghe). Given the overall excellence of the performances and sound, I can recommend this new Ninth as worthy of even the more fully stocked Beethoven collection.

FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

World premiere recordings of major orchestral works by leading Dutch composer Willem Jeths! Two world-famous conductors - Edo de Waart and Markus Stenz - have been chief advocates of these new pieces. The recording also includes the great virtuoso Erik Bosgraaf playing Jeths' Recorder Concerto, and features the lovely mezzo-soprano Karin Strobos.

Classical Music

This sixteenth volume in Marco Polo' ongoing Johann Strauss I Edition includes dances that reflect topical events, obsessions and the ever ubiquitous cult of the personality.

Three of Alan Hovhaness' six symphonies for wind ensemble are included on this Naxos release. After hearing these, I'm eagerly waiting for the label to get to the other three. All of the ensemble playing is flawless, the many solos are ravishingly beautiful, and conductor Keith Brion's grasp of the music results in performances I can't imagine being bettered, surpassing even the classic Mercury Living Presence recording by the late Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble.


The symphonies are separated by two of the composer's works for trumpet and band, the solo part played by Scotland's great trumpeter John Wallace. He soars ecstatically above his colleagues in the Prayer of Saint Gregory, and his more varied part in Return and Rebuild the Desolate Places (the most aggressive music on the disc) achieves a threatening quality without ever losing beauty of tone.


Hovhaness' style is so distinctive, and his oeuvre so vast, that it's easy to tag him as having written the same piece over and over. And it is true that these works share many of the same elements: long, arching modal melodies, rich triadic harmonies laced with non-harmonic chiming notes, "spirit murmurs", and fluent, noble fugues. But there is enough difference in the inspiration of these works, and enough stylistic development, that you don't really get an impression of sameness. And there are many passages that haunt the memory: the flowing oboe and harp duet at the heart of the Fourth Symphony; the crossing trombone portamentos in the same work; the gorgeous fugue for all of the bell-like instruments in "Star Dawn"; the emergence from the frightening eruption that represents the "Desolate Places".


The recording was made in a church in Paisley, Scotland, and the venue contributes just the right mixture of spaciousness and intimacy to suit the music. If you are the sort of record collector who keeps alert for good new releases of unusual repertoire, this is a disc with the musical values and production quality that you always are hoping for. [1/4/2006]
--Joseph Stevenson, ClassicsToday.com

Charles Tomlinson Griffes only lived 35 years; his death in 1920 cut short one of the most promising careers in American music. During his short life span he created a collection of short, rhapsodic works that are full of color and romantic adventure.

The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla-Khan is best known in its orchestrated version, expanded and altered somewhat from the original piano composition. It is a lush, lyrical, and dramatic work whose exotic melodies exude Middle-Eastern and Oriental influences. Of the other compositions, the Piece in D minor, from 1915, stands out. Elegant, impassioned impressionism reigns in this engaging work, and it certainly deserves wider recognition.

Though the rest of the pieces on the CD are all worth hearing, the early transcription for two pianos of the Hansel and Gretel overture is most impressive.

As performed here, it is one of the most charming duo-piano pieces in the repertoire. Michael Lewin plays the rest of the program with passion and precision, though his interpretations lack that last measure of urgency given by James Tocco on Gasparo.  The recorded sound is exemplary, using 24-bit technology for the highest resolution.

--Rad Bennett, ClassicsToday.com

"Nicolas Flagello is one among many worthy 20th-century American composers to have fallen between the cracks. His language is post-Romantic in the manner of Barber and Menotti, but that only provides certain jumping off points. He is also rigorously neo-Classical, an adept orchestrator, and a master of the rhetorical gesture. Both the point and pithiness of his Symphony No. 1 and his Theme, Variations, and Fugue would have made Brahms and Roussel, among others, smile."
"David Amos is an old hand at producing effective performances of pieces that don't as yet have a performing tradition. Here he elicits inspired playing from the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. The recording is fine by current standards, and the liner notes by Fanfare's Walter Simmons are concise and informative. This is a wholly meritorious addition to Naxos's ongoing 'American Classics' series." -- William Zagorski, FANFARE

"Naxos's sound is couched in an ideal balance of spaciousness, presence, and detail, with climactic moments packing a startlingly gutsy wallop. The timing claimed on the cover is 10 minutes short of the actual disc duration: one is getting even greater value for very little money, and at Naxos's price it would amount to self-defeating, criminal neglect to pass this by." - Adrian Corleonis, FANFARE

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

REVIEW:

The current offering by James Sedares and the New Zealand Symphony is the best [Thomson recording] yet, with a big, clear sound and some virtuoso work from several sections, for example, the brass. As a bonus, the New Zealanders include Pilgrims and Pioneers, here recorded for the first time. (Thomson wrote this in 1964 for John Houseman's Journey to America, a one-reel film that was shown four times an hour in the U.S. Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.) Finally, this recording's fine liner notes by Marina and Victor Ledin include Thomson's own program notes from the first performances of these works.

-- American Music (Michael Meackna) Fall 2000

Sedares's generally fine performance with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra shows why the Symphony on a Hymn Tune has enjoyed the most popularity of Thomson's works...the Allegretto's rhythms are pointed incisively and with great flair, and Sedares builds the finale quite successfully with ardor and warmth, the bizarre repeated hammer chords of the coda aptly unsettling.

It's a grand idea to offer all three of Virgil Thomson's symphonies on one disc - at budget price no less-so obvious one wonders why no one has done it before...the playing of the New Zealand symphony is most impressive throughout, and the recorded sound is first-class. This disc neatly plugs a gap in the Thomson discography. Highly recommended.

-- Fanfare (Lawrence A. Johnson)

Classical Music

"The two symphonies on this latest release from the superb American Classics series, infused with characteristic, deliciously pastoral, lyricism, show off Harris at his most colourful. The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine brings to the fore some intricate instrumentation in its adept performance under the guiding hand of Theodore Kuchar."

- Tarik O'Regan, The Observer

"Arghamanyan's playing is compulsive, emotional yet remarkably 'complete' for such a young musician – sensitive, unaffected, genuine." - Jessica Duchen, The Independent, U.K.