Classical Music

Classical Music

"...frenetic, unending applause for his dramatically accented performance, his daredevil cadenza in the first movement, the eloquent large and the urgency of the concluding rondo. He had to take one bow after another.“ -Piano News Alexej Gorlatch was the winner in the piano category at the 60th annual ARD Music Competition in 2011. His interpretation of Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto not only convinced the high-ranking jury, but also the audience, bringing him both a first prize and the audience prize. At the age of twelve, Alexej Gorlatch became a junior student at the University of the Arts in Berlin where he studied with Martin Hughes; from 2002 to 2007 he studied with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in Hanover. After graduating from secondary school, he now continues his music studies there

Classical Music

American composer Judith Lang Zaimont' music is dynamic and palpably emotional. These four orchestral works employ nuanced palettes of instrumental colors and center on her lifelong engagement with memory.

HASSE Requiem in C. Miserere in c • Hans-Christoph Rademann, cond; Johanna Winkel, Marie Luise Werneburg (sop); Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Marlen Herzog (alt); Colin Balzer (ten); Cornelius Uhle (bs); Dresden C Ch; Dresden Baroque O (period instruments) • CARUS 83.349 (70:15 Text and Translation)


Carus Verlag of Stuttgart has an interesting dual purpose to its business by releasing discs such as this based upon its latest scores and parts. In general, this has been quite interesting, even given that the recording arm is now owned by Naxos, but the result has been a concentrated effort on composers whose names were mostly well known but whose works were little performed. I can say that the scores are generally quite nicely edited, and it is good to have such works as the two pieces performed here available in the series Music from Dresden . Johann Adolph Hasse is one of the pivotal figures of the 18th century. Married to soprano Faustina Bordoni and heir to George Frederick Handel’s title of “Il caro sassone,” he was a principal figure in opera and church music in Dresden, where he was Hofkapellmeister , but also in Italy, where he was commissioned to write up through his late-70s, as well as functioning as maestro di cappella at the Ospedale degli Incurabili. One might expect a vast amount of music to have been written during this time, and indeed this is the case, for he composed frequently and eloquently at the drop of the proverbial hat for any occasion. Like Telemann, he had no qualms about fulfilling any commission that was given him, no matter how large or trivial, and his style conformed to whatever the tastes were at that moment.


Hasse composed two Requiem Masses for Dresden, one in E?-Major (also recorded by Carus and the Dresden Baroque Orchestra) and this one in C Major. Both works seem to have been written in 1763 within a few weeks of each other, this one for Frederick August II and the other for his successor who kicked off only a couple of weeks later. Because Frederick August was a beloved leader, his obsequies seem to have been celebrated annually for almost a century, and Hasse’s music became a fixture in Dresden, even though it had long since gone out of fashion stylistically. The work is sprawling, with the text subdivided into numerous smaller movements and scored for a large ensemble. C Major may have been a rather odd key for a Requiem, but Hasse found that path between mourning and celebration of his ruler’s life that avoided a more maudlin setting in a minor key. Besides, he seems to have been less interested in an integrated work than one which would accompany a grand public event. In any case, the result is rather a mixed bag. For me, the opening presents one of the most suspenseful of the period, with a slow tattoo of tonic and dominant confusing the issue of key. Is it C Major, or is it C Minor? When the oboes enter, the major key becomes apparent, but at the words “et lux perpetua,” the shift to minor mode is both funereal and emotional. This captures the attention immediately, but expectations rise and fall during the course of the work. The Te decet hymnus is an old-fashioned paean with Baroque walking bass, and while the Kyrie is worthy of any major-key Mass by Joseph Haydn, the following highly contrapuntal Christe eleison with its strange harmonic twists seems anachronistic, even as it foils expectations. One might expect the Dies irae to have grist for a powerful image of the Last Judgment, but instead it is a rather weak homophonic chorus over dotted rhythms. There is nice woodwind writing in the Inter oves , reminding one of C. P. E. Bach, and the Lacrymosa ’s heavy, minor-key, ponderous tread is less gentle tears than weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. There are operatic moments, such as the delightful alto solo in the Recordare , and when Hasse pairs his women’s voices, such as the lyrical Hostias et preces , or the Sanctus with its pair of sopranos at the beginning and at the Hosanna in excelsis , we are more in the heavenly realm than heading in the opposite direction (musically speaking, of course). The final Lux aeterna , followed by a recap of the opening Requiem aeternam , is brief and to the point, with an all-male chorus.


The Requiem itself is too long to be paired with a similar work but too short for a single disc, and therefore Carus has opted to include a Miserere written originally for Venice. This apparently survives in a copy for Dresden with a four-part chorus, as opposed to the first version, which was for women’s voices only, in deference to the Ospedale forces. It is a competently composed but rather more pedestrian work. The tone is lighter, such as the operatic Tibi soli or the Quoniam si voluisses , and the chorus more homophonic (though there is a bit of counterpoint as required at the final Amen ).


The performance by the Dresden early-instrument ensemble seems competent enough. The individual soloists for each movement are not enumerated on the track list, though one can probably intuit who sings which part. The voices in general blend well together, particularly sopranos Johanna Winkel and Marie Luise Werneburg, while Wiebke Lehmkuhl has a nice rich tone to her voice. Colin Balzer’s tenor can be a bit light at times, but his tone likewise is clear and unambiguous. Cornelius Uhle’s bass also fits in quite well, and in the Tibi soli he handles the part with ease. Hans-Christoph Rademann keeps his ensemble’s tempos moving along at a respectful pace, but he avoids any breakneck speeds and so allows the music to emerge well. I would have loved a bit more life in the Miserere , but Hasse’s conventionality probably prevents any real moments of brilliant light in the interpretation. My only qualm is the recorded sound, in which the strings are often a bit strident and one can hear the scraping of bows. The trumpets, too, could be more secure. You’ll probably want this disc if you are a fan of Requiems, and certainly the work would appeal to those interested in 18th-century music. It is certainly a decent recording, and brooks comparison with Hasse’s other Requiem.


FANFARE: Bertil van Boer

Classical Music

For me the main attraction in this fascinating batch of discs is the magnificent Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution. It is here presented in its unbowdlerised version including Stalin's speeches towards the end. Kondrashin was forced to elide them in his first recording. However let's not confuse politics with musical worth troubling though the process of separating one from the other in a cantata of this type may be. The forces used are massive and they are used to huge effect. Loudness and awe are not of course enough. In fact this music has a dizzying concentration that is bound to impress and some poetry too.

The performance history of the piece is fascinating. Completed in 1937, it was buried by the denunciations of that era until 1966 when it was performed and then recorded -against the conductor's wishes - minus two crucial substantial episodes which set words by Stalin. This Chandos recording which is complete, faithful to the original schema as to instrumentation and has all sections as written was performed in this form for the first time anywhere outside Eastern Europe by Järvi at the RFH in 1992.

The choir is large and subdivided into two section - eight parts. There is a super-augmented orchestra with quadruple woodwind and eight horns alongside three augmentary instrumental groups: six accordions or bayans, a seventeen strong windband including six further trumpets to add to the four already in the orchestra and a percussion ensemble with alarm bells, cannon-shot, sirens (9:22 in Revolution tr. 6) and the kitchen sink. In the wild fervent rumpus that is Revolution the voice of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky rings out through a megaphone orating the words of Lenin. One can somehow see the smoke of insurrection, feel its sting, the howls of heightened awareness and hysteria and the bloody fervour of the words. This is the same movement in which the Bayan band appear. The bayans return for The Oath: Stalin's pledge in his speech at Lenin's bierside. It too burns with conviction - faithful to the original sentiments of the extension of the Communist International into a spreading worldwide alliance. It is greatly to the credit of the Philharmonia chorus and Simon Halsey that the flame burns bright, steady and intense. The final and tenth movement, The Constitution, again sets Stalin's words

There are no soloists except for Rozhdestvensky and his spoken cameo - the voice of the people speaking the words of their hortators into the dazzling sun. Overdose on grandiloquence and blazing fervour. In case you think this is all unremitting grandstanding the quietly intimate silvery sheen of the strings in Victory shines forth.

The notes are by Christopher Palmer and all the words are there in the booklet: transliterated Russian alongside French, German and English translations.

When this disc was first released in 1992 while not impossible to track down full recordings of Prokofiev's third Soviet ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower were difficult to come by. CPO and Chandos have put that right in style since. Even so there is a place for this twenty-five minute sequence from Prokofiev's full-length ballet: whooping brass, gypsy flavour, echoes of Romeo and Juliet (how could he escape it), dark clouded tension, shrieking tangy woodwind, the swayingly touching solo of the gypsy girl (tr.17) and stamping, crashing fury.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Bruges la morte – The Dead City: This was the name of the novel published in 1892 that the young Erich Wolfgang Korngold used in 1920 as the basis for his first and most successful opera. The music of Tote Stadt, composed during the turbulent yet wildly creative time of nascent atonality, holds steadfastly to the operatic forms and tonal world of Puccini. Korngold‘s enormous richness of musical colors are irresistible, as are his harmonies – which go to the outermost bounds of the expected – and impressionistic tone-painting.

Included is a 43 page color booklet with notes on the performance, musicians and sung texts.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Hector Berlioz was a great admirer of German music, relishing in particular the intellectual depth he found in Beethoven’s symphonies. + Carl Maria von Weber provided Berlioz with an equal level of inspiration, his orchestration of von Weber’s Aufforderung zum Tanz directly expressing his reverence of the German composer. + Combining Beethoven’s wealth of ideas with the innovative and “characteristic” sound effects he encountered in von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz, Berlioz created in the Symphonie Fantastique an eminently personal work clearly departing from his musical role models.

Mahler, G.: Symphony No. 4

Classical Music

ROMEO AND JULIET FANTASY OVERT

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

February 2012

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It's a good thing people buy the disc before they read the notes. What sane person buys a CD, even one of contemporary music, in order to digest an essay called "Universality, Time and Phenomenology in the Oeuvre of Erkki-Sven Tüür"? Really, life is too short for such garbage, and if Tüür himself believes in this stuff then perhaps most normal listeners should look elsewhere. Happily, we can ignore the pompous twaddle and focus on the music itself, which is quite attractive.

To be sure, the vocal works try very, very hard to be "deep". Awakening mixes liturgical texts with words by various Estonian poets, but happily (for non-Estonian-speaking listeners anyway) we can ignore the words and just concentrate on the emotional ambience of the music itself. Like much contemporary music today, dissonant textures alternate with more consonant harmonies. The general pacing is slow, and Tüür makes an obvious effort to be "transcendental"--but there's little sense of strain and the work's 36 minutes pass without trying the listener's patience. It's quite beautiful.

Tüür's sensitivity to texture is everywhere in evidence in the a cappella setting The Wanderer's Evening Song. Modern choral writing often requires a virtuoso response, and this work is no exception, but the effort proves to be worth it. The text, drawn from poems by Ernst Enno (d. 1934), is yet another super profound concatenation of transcendental imagery, and I have no patience for it. But then, I feel the same way about Wagner's librettos--you may feel differently, and the setting is stunning. Insula deserta, for string orchestra, is a simple work in alternating sections rich in textural contrast. The performances are all splendid, and so is the sound. I do think that Tüür needs to lighten up a bit, but there's no question that he's a composer of real quality, phenomenology be damned.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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Starting out in the world of progressive rock music and becoming a professional composer in the mid-1980s, Erkki-Sven Tüür’s music has been becoming ever more widely recognised, and ever more refined and luminous. This recording stands as a triumphant representative of this progression.

The most recent piece, Awakening, for mixed choir and chamber orchestra, was written as part of Tallinn’s multitudinous activity as European Capital of Culture 2011. The texts are a mixture of Estonian poetry and Latin liturgical words related to Easter. This is a highly approachable score, full of colourful harmonies and transparent textures, as well as having mysterious depths to go along with the more overtly joyful gestures. Some moments are comparable to the kinds of open musical expression of Americans such as John Adams and Steve Reich, and with the strong Estonian choral tradition pushing the piece onwards like wind in the sails of a galleon. This makes for compulsive listening from beginning to end. Tüür himself views awakening as a life-long process. “While composing this piece I lingered deep on the level of instincts and senses... From a musical perspective, this composition can also be viewed as an awakening to the light.” You can’t have an awakening to light without first experiencing the dark, and there are some central minutes of nocturnal chills before we make the final journey. There is no really well defined moment of awakening as such, as Tüür’s impressionistic writing keeps us guessing if we’re looking for a point of climax. The final coda in the last few minutes has some of the most sublime choral writing you could ever wish to hear. By avoiding corny stereotypes and going back in onto the resources of his own past work, Tüür has created a work which is tremendous in its effect.

The Wanderer’s Evening Song for mixed choir was written for the 20 ^th anniversary of the Estonian Philharmonic Choir and its founder, Toñu Kaljuste. This is a narrative of the wanderer who, to quote Gerhard Lock’s booklet notes, “is bewitched by the sombre silence of the northern woods [and is] longing for home.” This piece is also concerned with a fascination with light and an approach towards blissful ecstasy, using a mixed combination of the romantic poetry of Ernst Enno to create a remarkable journey. Close harmonies, dramatic dissonance and beautifully ethereal atmosphere make this another very special work.

Going backwards in time the final work is the oldest: Insula deserta, which is the string orchestra piece which marked Tüür’s international breakthrough. This has appeared on CD before, including as part of the Virgin Classics ‘Searching for Roots’ series, in this case with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paavo Järvi (Virgin Classics 7243 5 61993-2, 2002). There is little to choose between this version and Daniel Reuss’s as both are excellent, though the Sinfonietta Riga has a closer, more detailed and intimate feel. Exploring “the relationship between fragility and power” is a driving force in the piece, which unites and fragments the orchestra in a variety of ways, punching dramatically or giving voice to the different sections and individual voices within fields of sound.

This release represents a genuine cross-section of Erkki-Sven Tüür’s work, but is by no means a catch-all compilation. If you are new to his expressive and compelling work then I would hope it might be a springboard for discovering more of his pieces, such as the Architectonics series, and an extensive catalogue to be found on the ECM label.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

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

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The first and upcoming album by Levi. Sct aka Levi Schechtmann on the Neue Meister label presents a distinctive fusion of classical piano and modern hip-hop elements?. The album seamlessly blends classical piano compositions with contemporary hip-hop rhythms, showcasing Schechtmann's unique approach to music?. This release marks a significant milestone in Schechtmann's career, reflecting his growth as a composer and pianist who transcends traditional genre boundaries?. Levi. Sct is a piano influencer with more than 1. 8 Mio followers on his social media channels?

Classical Music

Classical Music

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Classical Music