Classical Music

Classical Music

Ferenc Fricsay was seen as an exponent of modern, detailed and precise music-making, and as a leading Mozart conductor alongside Bruno Walter and Karl Böhm. Two live recordings and one studio production from the early Fifties document the collaboration between Fricsay and "his" RIAS Symphony Orchestra which, after becoming its chief conductor in 1948, he had made into an elite ensemble. These recordings also document his esteem for Mozart's music which was characterised by a deep seriousness. Fricsay's devotion to sculpting the melodic line fi nds a precise and supple medium in the meticulous and stylish RIAS Symphony Orchestra who display an astonishing quality, particularly in the live recordings.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Handel, G.: Water Music (Complete)

Messiaen, O.: Quartet for the End of Time / Bartok, B.: Cont

Brahms, J.: Clarinet Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 / Schumann, R.: Fa

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667-1752) was probably something of a child prodigy and Ernst Ludwig Gerber records that he received an appointment as harpsichordist to the Prussian Court at Berlin by the age of 14. Regardless of this and other successes in the theatre, Pepusch was most highly esteemed in his own lifetime as a composer of concertos. Georg Philipp Telemann considered him as one of the best six German composers. As with Handel, later Germans and Britons both claimed Pepusch as their own. Pepusch is best remembered today for his contribution to The Beggar's Opera (1728), for which he composed a fine overture. Apart from that overture, none of his other pieces had received commercial recordings until today. It is our hope that this CD goes some distance to remind audiences why Pepusch was once so highly regarded across Europe as a fine composer of inventive and dramatic concertos.

Classical Music

Jenufa was Janácek’s third opera, based on the play Její pastorkyna “Her Stepdaughter”, by Gabriela Preissová. The libretto is a grim tale of complicated relationships in a village context, with violence and tragedy driving the drama. More importantly, this is the opera in which Janácek’s distinctive musical voice became more established after the folk-influenced Romanticism of his earlier period.

There are quite a few recordings of Jenufa around these days, and I pulled out my copy of the classic 1977 Supraphon recording conducted by František Jílek by way of orientation. I had forgotten quite how good this is, and still sounding very fresh despite its vintage. I was glad to have it to hand, since the libretto in the booklet for this Graz recording is given only in Czech and German, the Supraphon edition helping us out with both English and French as well.

The Graz cast is good, with the main characters all strong enough and mostly well characterised. There are a few weaker moments, but I’m reluctant to point out any names in particular since voices I’d marked up as being weaker links tended to redeem themselves further along. Recorded live, this Graz recording is very much a theatre version as you would expect, so if you are used to more opulent versions such as the EMI, now Warner Classics Prague recording with Libuse Domaninská conducted by Bohumil Gregor this might seem a step backwards. There are advantages to be heard however. The vocal balance is much more natural in the Oper Graz, and while the scale is less grand the orchestral detail is more direct, the impact of the drama less extravagantly ‘operatic’, if you follow my meaning. If language is an issue then Chandos’s version in English might be of interest, but you still need the libretto to hand to really be able to follow what is going on. With Janácek’s specific connections with the setting of his native language to music this always sounds like a distortion too far for me – even with the authoritative conducting of Sir Charles Mackerras.

This Graz production is not the last word on Jenufa. That honour probably has to go to Elisabeth Söderström and Sir Charles Mackerras with the Vienna Philharmonic on Decca, but this Oehms Classics recording is a version which will grow on you. Personally, I have to admit finding it hard to avoid being drawn back to the special character brought to the title role by Gabriela Benacková in that Supraphon recording. There is no denying that the strength of an all-Czech cast and orchestra is very compelling in this opera. Gal James is very good as well though, and deeply affecting in crucial moments such as Scene 6 in Act 2 where, all alone, Jenufa sings of her baby as yet oblivious to the unfolding tragedy. The Stepmother’s anguished cry towards the end is truly chilling, and stands as an emblem for the admirably realistic approach in this production – one you can add to your collection with confidence.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Samuel Hazo has composed for professional, university and public school ensembles, as well as original scores for television, radio and the stage. Many of the compositions on this release are used around the world for educational purposes and are included in the series Teaching Music Through Performance in Band.

Haydn: Paris Symphonies Nos. 82-84

The title cut's a favorite among listeners of public radio, one of 17 Baroque favorites by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Pachelbel performed by James Galway, Pinchas Zuckerman, the English Chamber Orchestra and others on this superb collection.

These quintets come from a set of six in a Madrid manuscript with an attribution to Boccherini: they are not in Boccherini’s own catalogue of his works, which doesn’t necessarily exclude their authenticity (he noted in it most of his true chamber music, though not the cello sonatas or the keyboard ones); they sound as if they date from the 1780s, and the presence of an obbligato cello part does of course imply at least some link with him. This is claimed as their world premiere recording.

They are very agreeable and on the whole deftly written pieces, but to my mind don’t quite have the ring of his style: their formal regularity, their sometimes motivic writing (the first movement of the G major work, for example), and the frequent spells of rather routine invention argue against his authorship, as does the three-movement form (he preferred, oddly, two-movement opere piccole or four-movement opere grande), the absence of minuets (a movement type he patently relished) and the presence of three very schematic variation finales (a type he avoided). The compiler of the Boccherini thematic catalogue thought that they had “formulas and turns of style which are characteristic of him”, on reading through the parts, but since he evidently didn’t notice that they were for flute, violin, viola and two cellos (as opposed to flute and string quartet) I am inclined to think the reading-through wasn’t too rigorous.

By Boccherini or not, they make pleasant listening. They don’t demand that special affection for detail or feeling for texture that the most characteristic Boccherini needs, and respond well to these direct, modern performances, neatly phrased, the dialogues gracefully executed. The first cellist, who has several flights into the upper reaches of his instrument, is very assured, and there is also the particular pleasure of Jean-Pierre Rampal’s flute playing, as urbane as ever.

-- Stanley Sadie. Gramophone [8/1998]

Recorded in: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea 4-5 January 1996 Producer(s) Mike George Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Richard Smoker (Assistant)

This disc includes both ADD and DDD recordings.

Avoiding the tendency toward nationalist spirit that motivated his Polish colleagues, Mieczyslaw Karlowicz's music cleaves to the lush late-Romantic orchestral sound world and heavy-handed philosophical references essayed by Strauss and others. Bruckner, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Scriabin also ostensibly influenced Karlowicz (1876-1909), as his preferences for sweeping extended themes, massive climactic brass pronouncements, and swirling chromaticism are the dominant characteristics of these sprawling works.


The three-movement Eternal Songs substitutes Schopenhauer for Nietzsche as the inspiration for this Zarathustra-like tone poem. Peppered with "meaning of life" motives and headings but with no explicit program, Eternal Songs is anchored by powerful low brass climaxes (perfect intervals that mark the so-called "Eternity" theme) in both the first and final movement (the latter a giant self-contained Bruckner coda) and will remind listeners not only of Strauss' famous work but also of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy. The central movement comprises the inevitable twin themes of Love and Death, and, befitting the lofty subjects embodied in this work, they are sumptuous and overwrought, replete with tam-tam and cymbal crashes, soaring horns, and trumpet flourishes.


Described as a "travesty" of Romeo and Juliet, the next work deals with the incestuous and ultimately forbidden love of siblings Stanislaw and Anna Oswiecim. Again, Strauss is the model (an unlikely mix of Don Juan, Der Rosenkavalier, and Symphonia Domestica), featuring a yielding, limpid melody ("Anna") juxtaposed with a more forceful high-spirited theme denoting Stanislaw. The music becomes more turbulent and tumultuous (their unrequited love?) only to culminate in the couple's ineluctable death, the clear highlight of the work. At 13:44, the music changes dramatically with the ominous entry of the bass clarinet, builds slowly into an impressive funeral march, and finally explodes into an awesome orchestral tutti at 18:42 that would do Siegfried justice. Chandos captures the BBC Philharmonic in all its glory (the brass section is really on its game) and thus provides a fitting farewell to Yan Pascal Tortelier as the orchestra's principal conductor.


After all this orchestral bombast, the gentler Lithuanian Rhapsody seems an odd way to end the disc. Remarkable only for the fact that it is the one tone poem by Karlowicz to be based on folksong, this coloristic work simply plods along, suffering from a dull main theme that can barely support its 17-minute length. Nonetheless, the rest of the music, however indebted it may be to other better-known composers, is thrilling, involving, and well-crafted. Complementing a two-disc complete set of tone poems from Dux (issued October, 2000) this disc is a highly worthwhile and sonically spectacular remnant of the late Romantic age from an unlikely source.
--Michael Liebowitz, ClassicsToday.com

This release features the overtures of the Barber of Seville, Semiramide, William Tell, Il Turco in Italia, Tancredi, and more.

An artist with a penchant for seeking out the new, Radek Baborak has joined forces with other outstanding musicians so as to interpret the pieces as arranged for horn and string quartet. "I liked the idea of presenting the concertos in the form they may have been heard when Mr. Leutgeb would visit the Mozart's home, get together with Mr. Michael Haydn and Mr. Sussmayr, and make music."

Casals directed Mozart with regimented authority... Of the piano concertos, however, the hitherto unreleased K466 proves unexpectedly serviceable, although Serkin's account of K482, exultant and miraculous, utterly transcends Yvonne Lefebure in the other work.

-- Michael Jameson, BBC Music Magazine