PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

Toscanini's remains one of the half a dozen greatest opera sets ever recorded. Whether it is the clarity of the ensembles, the extraordinary care taken over orchestral detail or the alert control of dynamics, Toscanini is supreme.

The Falstaff remains, as it always has been, one of the half a dozen greatest opera sets ever recorded. The Requiem is certainly among the three or four most satisfying accounts of that work ever put on disc. As each has here been remastered on CD to give clearer, more immediate sound than I have ever heard before from the originals on LP, joy at the reissue is doubled. With the Aida some caveats have to be entered. In spite of the conductor's vital contribution, this set suffers both from an indifferent cast and a less successful recording and, in this case, the transfer to digital sound seems to have added an unwanted edge to voices and instruments. Even so, here is further evidence of Toscanini's complete understanding of a composer with whom he had worked and whom he understood better than any of his successors.

Toscanini's Falstaff is, and will probably remain, unsurpassed. It is a miracle in every respect. How he loved Verdi and how he strained every sinew to fulfil this amazing score's variety in line, feeling and colour. Whether it is the clarity and discipline of the ensembles, the extraordinary care taken over orchestral detail (most arresting in the whole of the final act's first scene) or the alert control of dynamics, Toscanini is supreme, yet nothing is done for effect's sake; everything seems natural, inevitable, unforced, as though the score was being created anew before us with chamber music finesse – and the atmosphere of a live performance, caught at a 1950 broadcast, adds to the feeling of immediacy. Nobody dares, or seems to want to interrupt the magic being laid before them. Toscanini in his old age is matching the subtlety and vitality of the composer's own Indian summer – or one might say spring, so delicate and effervescent does the scoring sound.

The other overriding impression of Toscanini's reading is the perfect relationship of tempos, not always precisely Verdi's, and the way he accommodates his singers, quite putting to flight any idea of him as a strict taskmaster. If, vocally, the main glory is the wonderful sense of ensemble gained through hours of hard rehearsals (now to be heard on non-commercial discs), individual contributions are almost all rewarding. Indeed, Valdengo's Falstaff, under Toscanini's tutelage, has not been surpassed on disc even by Gobbi. Flexibility, charm, exactness, refinement inform his beautifully and wisely sung portrayal (extraordinary for a singer in his mid thirties) – listen to the whole of the monologue at the start of Act 3 and you'll hear what a great singer working with a great conductor can make of a great role – mainly by observing what the composer has written. He is no less pointed and subtle in his encounter with Frank Guarrera's imposing Ford, and Guarrera himself, again with Toscanini's help, reminds us how much the writing in the Jealousy aria relates to Otello's music. Another great joy of the set is the women's ensemble, their contribution the very epitome of smiling chatter. The Alice, Meg and Nannetta (Stich-Randall – none better) all sound, as they were, fresh and youthful, and Cloe Elmo's Quickly is as rich and ripe of voice and diction as any on disc, though a trifle coarse at times. The Fenton is sweet and Italianate in tone, but not as stylish as others. The smaller roles are all very much part of the team. ...I have no space to dwell further on the sheer pleasures to be found in these sets. They are a repository of the very best in Verdi conducting, worthy of study by aspiring (or established) conductors. More important than that, they should be a source of revelation to a new generation of collectors who may have a dim and/or wrongheaded view of what Toscanini was about.

-- Gramophone [5/1990]

Even toward the end of her career Christa Ludwig was in lustrous voice and sang with an innate understanding of these songs.

Christa Ludwig was one of the leading operatic and recital singers of the post war generation... The disc devoted to lieder makes for very rewarding listening. The groups by Strauss and Mahler strike me as being particularly fine. Even towards the end of her long career Ludwig was able to call upon the resources of tone which these songs so often demand. This is not to imply that the offerings of Schumann or Brahms are in any way inferior. In these, too, she is in lustrous voice and sings with an innate understanding of the idiom. The programme is artfully chosen not only to present composers with whose music Ludwig had a particular affinity but also, just as importantly, with regard to the inevitable limitations the years may have placed upon her vocal resources. Suffice to say there is little or nor hint that we are listening to a singer aged 65. ...[T]he whole lieder recital is taken from a disc entitled ‘Farewell to Salzburg’ and comprises the programme which she chose for her final recital in that city in August 1993. The recordings themselves were made in the previous January during performances in the Schloss Grafenegg in Haitzendorf, Austria... The discs will give much pleasure for they are full of high quality artistry and all admirers of this great singer will want to snap up these recordings.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International [reviewing the box set RCA 84597]

Superlative Wagnerian singing - Toscanini keeps the music swiftly and taut, while giving the soloists plenty of room for the most telling, eloquent turns of phrase.

The Walküre Act I excerpt was not published until several years after Toscanini's death, when it was partnered by Götterdämmerung excerpts taken from the same 1941 concert. It would have made this disc still more attractive if both had been included, but as it is we have here a glorious example of superlative Wagnerian singing. Melchior was 51 years old at the time of the broadcast, although you would never guess this from his marvellously youthful, ardent tones, and Traubel was in superb form, too. Toscanini moves the music on quite swiftly and the orchestral phrasing is fairly taut, but neither soloist seems under the slightest pressure, and each has plenty of room for the most telling, eloquent turns of phrase. The balance favours the singers, and I rather fancy that background noise has been suppressed a little too much, but the sound is not at all bad for its date.

I liked the Siegfried Idyll performance very much, for it has an attractive sense of repose and gentle affection, with some very poetic contributions from the solo woodwind. The sound here is pretty good, as it is in the Tristan Prelude and Liebestod, which are played in a lean, clean fashion, beautifully balanced, but rather lacking in passion and atmosphere. There is a slightly cramped sound in the Ride of the Valkyries, but better that it should be here than in the most important items. A most desirable disc, which offers many rewards.

-- A. S., Gramophone [12/1991]

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: I Salonisti.

The great inner strength and glories of this music are revealed here by fabulously eloquent playing. This performance of the Fifth Symphony is the pinnacle of Previn’s Vaughan Williams cycle - a major achievement.

The major offering is the seraphic Fifth Symphony. This is a supreme work, packed with thematic references to RVW’s opera (or ‘Morality’ as he called it), Pilgrim’s Progress, which at the time the symphony was written was still very much work in progress.

The long lines of the first movement are most lovingly shaped by Previn. The strings sing and soar marvellously and the horns contribute burnished tone. It seems to me that everything about the account of this movement, pacing, dynamic control and contrast, and sympathetic playing is just ‘right’. Later, when the tempo picks up the strings are dexterous and light and the interjections of the wind and brass introduce a suitable note of foreboding, which will be familiar to anyone who knows Pilgrim. The brief climax is convincingly built before the return of the luminous material with which the movement began (Track 1, 7’58")

The scherzo is brilliantly poised and gossamer light. This music always seems to me to be suggestive of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That’s certainly the case here. Then comes the glorious Romanza. A featherbed of hushed strings is the foundation for the beautiful melody, heard first on the cor anglais. In Pilgrim’s Progress (Act 1, scene 2) this theme movingly sets the words "He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death", sung by Pilgrim himself. This movement is, surely, one of the most moving creations in English music and Previn and the LSO do it full justice. The music, though beautiful, also has great inner strength and its glories are revealed here by some fabulously eloquent playing. If the performance of this symphony is a highlight of Previn’s cycle (which I believe it is) then the performance of this slow movement must be counted the pinnacle of the entire set. Here is just over twelve minutes of balm for the soul. Then the quietly radiant finale is a delight. This is RVW at his most outgoing and beneficent. The whole performance is a major achievement.

The Three Portraits from "The England of Elizabeth" consist of music extracted by Muir Matheson from a score that RVW had been invited to compose in 1955 by British Transport Films. The company had produced a short documentary about [16th century] Elizabethan England in order to promote tourism in Shakespeare country. Matheson’s three movement suite doesn’t contain vintage Vaughan Williams but it’s enjoyable and so far as I know there is no other recording.

The Tuba Concerto is a delightful piece, even if it too is not top-drawer RVW. As the notes point out the composer took a good deal of trouble to learn the capabilities of the tuba which he then exploited to the full. John Fletcher is a splendid soloist. He’s athletic in the outer movements and in the central Romanza he displays a poetic vein to the tuba which may surprise some listeners.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

KAZUHITO & NAOKO YAMASHITA- GU

PIERRE BOULEZ EDITION - MESSIA

In the anniversary year of the Leipzig Thomaskantorats Hans Christoph Rademann presented with the Dresden Chamber Choir also recorded all of the collection "Israelsbrünnlein" by Johann Hermann Schein, surely the greatest cantor of St. Thomas before Johann Sebastian Bach. The Israelsbrünnlein is probably the most important collection of motets in German music of the 17th century. The motets in the "Italian-Madrigalische Manir" were composed on Old Testament texts and these are what gave the collection its name. Originally created for ceremonial occasions such as weddings, funerals or graduations, they unite the secular madrigal style with the art of sacred polyphonic motet. - Carus Records

The Dresden Chamber Choir is known for the great intensity and clarity of its performances. It was established in 1985 by Hans-Christoph Rademann and students of the Dresden Carl Maria von Weber Musikhochschule. The repertoire of the choir ranges from music of the Renaissance to the contemporary, with interpretations of romantic choral works awarded special prizes in international competitions, and first performances of contemporary works encouraged by an award from the Ernst-von-Siemens Foundation. In addition to a cappella work the choir works together with the Dresden Baroque Orchestra and the Dresden Early Music Ensemble, and plays an important part in the promotion of early music in Saxony. The versatility of the ensemble is demonstrated in numerous broadcasts and recordings. - Naxos

Ravel: Boléro - La Valse - Rapsodie espagnole - Debussy: Ima

The famous pastoral music in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and in Handel’s Messiah are central parts of a development which spans two hundred years, from about the second half of the seventeenth century until well into the nineteenth. Connoisseurs and experts still disagree on whether the stimulus came from the secular pastoral music of the Renaissance, or whether the Shepherds In Adoration provided the initial inspiration for the composers.

Arcangelo Corelli’s (1653—1713) Christmas Concerto is the oldest of the works. His concerto op. VI No. 8 fatto per la notte di Natale appeared in 1714 a year after the master’s death, in Amsterdam. It undoubtedly belongs to the last period of Corelli’s work and is among his most famous — not only by virtue of its festive Christmas spirit, but more specifically because it constitutes one of the most impressive and accomplished examples of the Concerto grosso. The balanced beauty of the many movements of the ecclesiastical work is in happy concordance, as can be felt in the depth of the sentiment, the vigour of expression, the enchanting sounds of the strings, the supreme virtuosity of the arrangement of the solo parts, and the classical harmony. The Pastorale exhibits in its unique perfection the combined stylistic features of pastoral music: the swaying Sicilian rhythm, the tender, peaceful interval of the thirds and the imitation of the bagpipe’s drone. As J. N. Forkel understands it, Corelli in composing this work had a vision of the Angel on High over Bethlehem. Whatever the case may be, one readily agrees with Einstein who called this Pastorale "the musical companion-piece to Sandro Boticelli’s Nativity".

Johann Christoph Pez (1664—1716) was a contemporary of Corelli. Despite his studies in Rome, his whole professional life was spent in South and West Germany, in Munich, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf. Pez underlines the festive and pastoral character of his Concerto through the treble parts which are intended for the two flutes. He acquires a delightful textural contrast by his masterly juxtaposition of violin with two viols or violas.

Two of the movements are designated as Pastorale; the others (with the exception of the Chaconne) are called Aria by the composer, who thus freely concedes a secular and in parts popular character. Francesco Manfredini‘s (ca. 1680—1748) opus III appeared in Bologna in 1718, where the composer had finished his apprenticeship under Torelli. Manfredini too designated his three-movement Concerto fatto per la notte di Natale,that is, for performance at the Christmas Mass. The transition from the Concerto grosso to the purely instrumental concerto can be traced in this work. In some sections the two solo violins have to master tasks which can be attributed to a solo violin in a violin concerto. In style too, this late Baroque composition foreshadows a possible future gallantry and sensitivity of expression, without meanwhile sacrificing the gravity and elevation of an authentic sonata da chiesa to the sweetness and pleasance of the sound.

Giuseppe Tartini’s life (1692 1770) reads rather like a novel. Throughout his life he was very closely connected with the Franciscans; his teacher was the famous Bohemian master, Cernohorsky, a Franciscan monk from Prague who lived a long time in Assisi. It seems almost inconceivable that the same master who envisaged “the devil’s trill” in a hell-like vision, could also have composed simple Franciscan church music. In this three-movement symphony for strings, the transition from Rococo to true Classicism can already be noted.

Carl de Nys

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is the third volume of the Froberger Edition, and completes the set. Containing the complete Libro Quarto and the suites XV and XVII, this album showcases these mature works. For this recording, harpsichordist Bob van Asperen performs on a historic French harpsichord of an unknown maker, dating around 1700. The works were recorded in the incredible acoustics of the “sala nobile” of the Villa Medici, Rome. This release includes a 48 page booklet in which Bob van Asperen comments on works recently ascribed to Froberger.

I cannot remember having enjoyed this music more. Petri Sakari’s performance is totally unaffected, plain and full of enthusiasm; the players sound as if they are enjoying this score and communicate their pleasure.

– Gramophone, reviewing original release

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This reissue features performances of incidental music by Jean Sibelius, recorded in 1992 by Petri Sakari and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Sakari’s recordings with this orchestra during the 1990s made a significant contribution to the discography of Scandinavian music, notably of works by Grieg, Sibelius, and Madetoja.

Sibelius composed the score for King Christian II, a play by his friend Adolf Paul, in 1898 and it anticipates the richly romantic sound of the First Symphony. Here the usual suite is expanded by the inclusion of two movements from the incidental music not usually heard: the Menuetto and "The Fool’s Song."

Maurice Maeterlinck’s much-performed yet complex psychological drama Pelléas et Mélisande inspired works by Debussy, Fauré, Schoenberg, and Sibelius, whose incidental music consists mainly of interludes in a uniquely dark, subdued, and typically Nordic vein.

Altogether sweeter is the delicate and poetic score for Swanwhite, August Strindberg's "idealistic play of pure beauty." Sibelius condensed the original music into a charming concert suite of seven movements, five of which are recorded here.

The ability of record companies to spring surprises on the public is always pleasant, and here Toccata Classics gives us the opportunity to hear what must be one of the very first American symphonies. Leopold Damrosch is almost unknown nowadays, but his son Walter was for many years the principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and the father himself also conducted that body giving the American premières of the Brahms First Symphony and the Berlioz Requiem. Damrosch left Germany for the USA in 1871 and remained there for the remaining thirteen years of his life, during which time he wrote this four-movement symphony; but he never heard it played, and it remained unpublished and in manuscript until 2005 when it was finally edited for performance. This recording was made immediately following the première on 8 February 2015, and it reveals a fascinating if uneven work.

It is unfortunate that the disc begins with the Festival Overture written immediately before Damrosch’s departure for America and dedicated to Georg II, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. The booklet note discerns some influences of Wagner, especially Die Meistersinger; but any Wagnerian overtones are less than immediately apparent, bearing comparison (if at all) to some of the overblown marches that Wagner wrote for cash towards the end of his career. The tone is unremittingly loud and overblown; and that impression is reinforced by a closely observed recording in a claustrophobic acoustic which serves only to emphasize the thick brass writing and Damrosch’s reliance on busy string figuration which sometimes fails to achieve an ideal balance, shading into pure decoration. After the symphony the disc concludes with Damrosch’s orchestration of Schubert, a piece which the booklet informs us was popular with American audiences during the composer’s lifetime, but which rarely rises about the workaday.

No, the real piece of interest on this disc is the unpublished and previously unperformed symphony, and I mean no disrespect to the young players here when I say that one can imagine a better case being made out for the work. I have already noted the claustrophobic acoustic — like a confined broadcasting studio. We should also note the questionable balances which bring out the heavy brass at the expenses of the strings (and especially the violins), although these are not as serious in the symphony as in the more stridently scored other items on the disc. The playing is not always impeccable — there appears to be a split horn note very near the opening of the first movement, or at least an appoggiatura which fails to sound convincing — and although one can hear that the violins are working hard and achieving commendable degrees of accuracy they remain overshadowed by the sonorous trumpets and trombones. The woodwind playing, on the other hand, is superbly executed and well observed by the recording. Add to this the committed conducting of Christopher Russell, and booklet notes which are both informative and substantial, and we have here an issue which is of rather more than purely documentary interest. I am amazed that the composer’s son failed to program the symphony with the New York Philharmonic when he was their conductor – maybe he was unaware of its existence – but its revival is decidedly welcome. Perhaps American professional orchestras might care to look at it now that Azusa Pacific have broken the trail.

The conductor’s own booklet essay makes much of the parallels between the music of Damrosch and that of Wagner and Brahms, but the echoes seem to me to be much closer to Bruckner especially in the more atmospheric pages. The opening quiet string tremolos conjure up a definitely Brucknerian feel, and the episodic construction of the rest of the movement also has traces of that composer — but would Damrosch have heard any of the symphonies? The short second-movement Intermezzo is charming; and the solemn march of the third movement builds to a tremendous climax, crowned by a stroke on the gong, and including some positively manic episodes. After this lengthy movement, the most extended in the symphony, the finale is comparatively brief and conventional. As I have already observed Christopher Russell, whose explorations of rare repertory have included first American performances of symphonies by Havergal Brian and Robert Simpson, clearly relishes the music and manages to make it cohere even when it is at its most waywardly rhapsodic.

One more minor cause for complaint in this disc is the ridiculously short breaks between individual tracks – not just between movements in the symphony, but at the beginning and end of that work as well. The result is that the atmospheric slow introduction sounds almost like an odd sort of continuation of the raucous Festival Overture; and even more seriously, the arrival of the Schubert arrangement comes as a real shock immediately after the closing bars of the symphony’s finale. The listener will need to stand by the pause button at these points, but otherwise Toccata’s presentation is impeccable. This label’s restless exploration of the outermost fringes of the repertory is always fascinating, and the Damrosch symphony here deserves rather more than polite intellectual interest.

– MusicWeb International (Paul Corfield Godfrey)

Chandos' latest release in its film music series features the film music of Sir Arnold Bax. Comprising two of the composer's most important film scores, Oliver Twist and Malta, GC. This disc features the first complete Oliver Twist, in an edition specially compiled for this release. Both these works are rare in the catalogue. Recorded in: Studio 7, New Broadcasting House, Manchester 24 & 25 September 2002 Producer(s) Brian Pidgeon (Executive) Mike George (Recording) Sound Engineer(s) Stephen Rinker

Four compositions for winds performed by a diverse assemblage of brass groups. Robert Spradling conducts. The well-known American composers Richard Danielpour and Eric Ewazen each contribute one work to this recording.

Giacinto Scelsi never saw himself as a traditional composer. In his later creative period he would sit at the piano, record his improvisations and then let others transcribe then. Scelsi's world view was grounded in the Eastern mysticism. His spiritual orientation is expressed in the subtitles of the piano suites performed here by Sabine Liebner. Suite No.9 "Ttai" is titled after the 11th symbol from the I Ching which signifies peace. Suite No.10 "Ka" is titled after a Sanskrit word that refers to something unnameable and unspeakable.

Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 30 November-2 December 1987, 11-13 October 1988, 30 January-1 February 1989 and 24-26 May 1989 Producer: Martin Compton Sound Engineer: Anthony Howell

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.