Verdi’s Messa da Requiem – an “opera in ecclestiastical robes”, as conductor Hans von Bülow called it – recorded in October 1980 at Stiftskirche Herzogenburg with Julia Varady, Alexandrina Milcheva, Alberto Cupido, Nicola Ghiuselev, ORF Choir and ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leif Segerstam. The Messa da Requiem is a musical setting of the Catholic funeral mass (Requiem) for four soloists, double choir and orchestra by Giuseppe Verdi. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist whom Verdi admired. The first performance, at the San Marco church in Milan on 22 May 1874, marked the first anniversary of Manzoni's death. The work was at one time referred to as the Manzoni Requiem. Considered too operatic to be performed in a liturgical setting, it is usually given in concert form of around 90 minutes in length. Musicologist David Rosen calls it 'probably the most frequently performed major choral work composed since the compilation of Mozart's Requiem'.

Alexander Zemlinsky composed his Lyric Symphony op. 18 for soprano, baritone and orchestra during his time as musical director of the New German Theatre in Prague, where he had moved in 1911 from Vienna. It was generally regarded as his corresponding equivalent to Mahler’s Lied von der Erde (C210021) and is based on Nobel Prize laureate and most important representative of modern Indian literature Rabindranath Tagore. The work is combined with the befriended and three years older ‘phantasmogorist’ Franz Schreker’s Prelude to a Drama, which is a version of the overture of his Die Gezeichneten. It might be considered symptomatic for the most notable characteristic of Schreker’s music: the dominance of chordal sounds over the melodic element.

REVIEW:

Zemlinsky’s seven-movement Lyric Symphony lays claim to being his best-known work and is certainly the only one to attract a significant number of prominent conductors. This live account from Vienna in 1989 was Gielen’s second recording of the work, and it finds him in prime form. He leads a powerful orchestral reading that is all the more impressive because Vienna’s proficient Radio Symphony was the last orchestra I expected to be virtuosic. Every section is totally committed to the score’s voluptuous passions, however, and the recorded sound from Austrian Radio is wonderfully clear and vivid, no small achievement where Zemlinsky’s dense orchestration is concerned.

In the soprano part the choice has typically been big, dramatic voices on the order of Deborah Voigt and Alessandra Marc. Karen Armstrong can’t compete in that league, and wisely she doesn’t try to. By not pushing her voice, singing the chromatic lines accurately, and paying attention to the verse, she delivers a more than respectable performance. But realistically neither singer has the most beautiful or distinctive voice. Orfeo supplies no texts or translations, which means that this recording can only be supplementary to one that does. There are enough drawbacks, despite Gielen’s outstanding conducting, to place this release somewhere in the middle of the pack.

The pairing of Franz Schreker’s 20-minute Prelude to a Drama from 1914 isn’t a new addition to Gielen’s discography, since it also served as the filler to his Mahler Fourth Symphony. The Prelude is rich in themes and incidents, and so skillfully structured that it can be analyzed as a sonata movement. Schreker was a colorist, as he described himself: “I am a sound artist, a phantasmagorist of sound, a sound-aesthete, and there’s not a trace of melody in me.”

The music is lovely, and Gielen’s performance glows with ardent feeling, not a mode I associate with him.

For me the evocation of history hangs heavily over this release, but it holds considerable musical rewards, too, especially for aficionados of an aesthetic doomed to be wiped out through political denunciation.

-- Fanfare (Huntley Dent)

When the Court Opera Director Wilhelm Jahn commissioned the by no means unvain Johann Strauss Jr. to write a ‘genuine’ opera, he readily accepted. So, he wrote Ritter Pásmán, a work the Waltz King himself regarded as his only one in this genre, although the plot is basically like an operetta. The source was the narrative Pázmán lovag by the Hungarian writer János Aranyi (1817-1882). It deals with jealousy and a kind of tit-for-tat. The premiere of the comic opera at the Vienna Court Opera on New Year’s Day 1892 was a major society event, but its artistic success lagged somewhat behind. The reviewers of the premiere were distanced towards the work. On the one hand, they unanimously elevated the ballet music at the beginning of Act III to the status of an absolute masterpiece. (By the way, this was the first time that a cimbalom could be heard in the orchestra of the Court Opera). The present live recording was captured at the Vienna Musikverein on 27 October 1975, with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Heinz Wallberg, Eberhard Waechter as Ritter Pásmàn, Sona Ghazarian as Queen, Josef Hopfwieser as Hungarian King, and Truedeliese Schmidt as Eva as main cast. The recording includes the complete ballet music as bonus tracks, performed by the Slovac State Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Alfred Walter.

"Slightly the audience remember that I'm - as a descendant of writing tonal music - still alive and continue composing." (Walter Braunfels, 1946) Walter Braunfels is a composer whose music died twice: Once when the Nazis declared his music "degenerate art". Then again when post-war Germany had little use for the various schools of tonal music; when the arbiters of taste considered any form of romantic music - almost the whole pre-war aesthetic - to be tainted. This 9th release of Capriccio's Braunfels Edition shows us also an open-minded composer who experimented with Jazz elements in his Divertimento for radio-orchestra in 1929.

REVIEWS:

This is light and delightful music, far from offering even the hint of banality or boredom. The music of Walter Braunfels can hardly be stylistically determined, as he is said to have references to all the great composers around him, though Braunfels always kept his music on his personal path. Conductor Gregor Bühl is among some who are again paying attention to this composer. He gives this positively upbeat music the affection and care that makes its special character shine, modeling both the clean craftsmanship and the warmth of the music’s content. The airiness, as in Ariel’s singing, becomes just as clear as the heart beating in the Serenade, without any unnecessary display of individual compositional elements.

– Pizzicato

That Divertimento is the real discovery here: an absolutely delicious bon-bon evocatively scored for a small orchestra including two saxophones, used with effortless freshness and not a shred of fin-de-siècle decadence (fun though that can be). Both the Serenade and Ariel’s Song date from 1910, fairly early in Braunfels’ career, and if they lack the individuality we find in his more ambitious later pieces, they certainly fall gratefully on the ear and deliver exactly what they promise – a bit of light relaxation. The “song,” by the way, is a lyrical orchestral piece, and not a not a vocal work. The Don Gil prelude offers six minutes of comic opera fun. Apparently the opera itself, composed in 1921-23, was a failure, but from such failures have come many appealing concert works, and here is one. As with previous releases in this series, the fine performances under conductor Gregor Bühl have all of the conviction and commitment of a true believer in the cause, and the sonics are excellent. This disc will appeal to music lovers of all ages. Strongly recommended.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Bohuslav Martinů has suffered the fate of not enjoying the same popularity and wide appeal like Bedrich Smetana, Antonín Dvorák und Leoš Janácek on the podium. This often goes so far that his singular skill is referred to, but that the wealth of his oeuvre in all the salient genres is hardly familiar. For decades, Martinu had shied away from composing a symphony. The first one was finally to be written in the USA in 1942, followed by another one every year until 1946 (the sixth was only added to the work catalogue in 1953). For this reason, there is sometimes talk of the ‘American’ symphonies. The symphonies do mirror the events of the time, but at the same time long passages must be regarded as absolute music. Cornelius Meister is regarded as one of the finest young conductors of our day and age, and here he fantastically interprets these six symphonies with transparency, emotion, and aplomb.

REVIEWS:

It is always good to discover new recordings of Martinů’s symphonies, a sequence all the more remarkable for the short period, in which the first five symphonies were composed. Cornelius Meister, with the ORF Orchestra, provides us with a distinctive vision of Martinů’s symphonies. These performances sit very much in the Austro-German traditions of interpretation. Some moments are almost Brahmsian, phrasing is weighty, structure is emphasized.

Cornelius Meister is one of the most interesting of the younger conductors around. He has a superb rapport with his orchestra, whose playing is very fine throughout.

-- MusicWeb International

The appearance of this complete set of six symphonies on three CDs, recorded live in Vienna from 2011 to 2017, serves to reinforce the essential importance of Martinů as a 20th century orchestral composer. Although it doesn’t supplant the splendid Belohlávek Onyx set, it's nonetheless a very fine cycle. The sound is clear and lifelike, with most of the advantages of live recording, a sense of occasion and excitement and a more organic and natural arc to the performance, without too many of the disadvantages. The audience is mainly well-behaved and the applause is edited out.

-- Music for Several Instruments

Paul Hindemith’s life was dominated by the events of the two world wars. In 1917, his discovery of contemporary Expressionist poetry and drama transformed him from a talented student to Germany’s leading new composer. His one-act operas Sancta Susanna and Das Nusch-Nuschi date from this period. Sancta Susanna – Hindemith’s first masterpiece – combines religious and erotic symbolism into an eerie narrative that was shocking for its time, whereas the dance suite from Das Nusch-Nuschi emphasises the plot’s origin as a Burmese comedy. The three symphonic movements from the opera Mathis der Maler refer to the three panels of the Isenheim Altarpiece by Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald, but also graphically reflect Hindemith’s own artistic struggles in Nazi Germany.

Who would assume today that after its premiere in 1910 Ernst von Dohnányi’s dance pantomime spread like a wildfire over the stages of the world. The ‘Wedding Waltz’ from Der Schleier der Pierrette could regularly be heard on musical request programmes on the radio, enjoying similar popularity to the waltz sequence from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. Dohnanyi’s choice of the genre of pantomime was entirely in keeping with the spirit of the age that, following the large-scale, plot-laden ballets of late Romanticism, sought to find in pantomime a more intimate and more naturalistic form of expression. It may come as a surprise that the source for Dohnányi derived from none other than Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931), one of the salient representatives of fin-de-siècle Austria. With this first complete recording again an important gap is closed in the knowledge of repertoire of this fascinating epochal time of musical history.

Having joined the ensemble of Deutsche Oper Berlin at the age of 22 and the ensemble of Wiener Staatsoper in 2013, Israeli-born Hila Fahima presents a mix of well-known selections and rediscovered treasures on her debut album: Donizetti’s Lucia, Norina, Linda di Chamounix, Adina, Marie from La fille du regiment, plus Verdi’s Gilda – she will be starring in this role at this year’s Bregenz Festival – and also Amalia from his I masnadieri, as well as arias from Donizetti’s little-known operas Rosmonda d’Inghilterra and Emilia di Liverpool.

Bruckner’s Second Symphony is a rare enough encounter in its 1877 version, but it’s virtually unperformed in the 1872 original version. This is not owing to some deficiency of the earlier ideas compared to the later alterations. It’s mainly habit and convenience because to get new parts and re-learn something ostensibly known, that differs in a great many details, means an extra expense of effort and resources. That’s a shame, really, because it is decidedly worth discovering the original, not-yet-ironed-out rawness of Bruckner’s early masterpiece, which was something unheard of at the time – but needn’t remain unheard now.

“Since Beethoven, nothing has been written that even comes close!”

The great conductor Arthur Nikisch made this remark to Bruckner’s former student, Joseph Schalk and also his fellow conductor, Hermann Levi, described the piece as “the most significant symphonic work since Beethoven’s death.”

Arthur Nikisch conducted the first performance in the Stadttheater, Leipzig, on 30 December 1884, with Bruckner in the audience. While the performance was not a total triumph, it brought the sixty-year-old composer significant international recognition for the first time. During the composer’s lifetime, the Seventh, especially its Adagio, was his most popular symphony, and it remains among his most beloved and frequently performed works.

Bruckner’s frantic revisions of his symphonies Nos. 3, 4, and 8 were borne out of his disappointment with Hermann Levi rejecting the original version of the 8th symphony. Helping in this large-scale revamping effort were former Bruckner-students Franz and Joseph Schalk, Ferdinand Löwe, Max von Oberleithner, and Cyrill Hynai, which resulted in these versions’ reputation – and especially that of the last version of the 4th – being varnished as something not quite Echt-Bruckner.

It wasn’t until the discovery of photographs of the 1888 version’s manuscript score and the subsequent publication of Benjamin Korstvedt’s edition thereof that it became clear: This late edition really did reflect Bruckner’s intentions. To ears familiar with the still better-known 1881 version, the result might sound mystifying, even troubling, but it also surprises with many particularly exquisite passages!

This world premiere recording of British composer Nigel Clarke’s symphony for violin and orchestra The Prophecies of Merlin is inspired by the 12th-century text De gestis Britonum by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and it casts the soloist as the maddened Merlin, in a score brimming with rhythmic drive and bravura orchestration. Clarke's music can aso be heard on 8.570429 (Samurai • Black Fire • The Miraculous Violin) and 8.574097 (Mysteries of the Horizon).

If you know the cellist-professor-composer Georg Goltermann (1824-1898) and his eight (!) cello concertos, you’re either a cellist or married to one. In his lifetime and for a while thereafter, the instrumental virtuoso-cum-composer was popular and well-liked enough to have the Cantilena of his Cello Concerto recorded by Pablo Casals – but not much since. That’s a shame because that lyrical-melancholic, never gratuitously virtuosic op.10 is a picture-perfect, delightful romantic cello concert. The symphony, then well received and Goltermann’s pride, too, goes down nicely in a post-Brahms vain rather à la Bruch or Gernsheim, especially the exquisite, lively hunting Scherzo with its sweeping Trio.

REVIEW:

The Symphony, the third of the works in the key of A minor, is receiving its first recording here. It was premiered in Leipzig, and I think that is quite significant, because it owes much to the memory of the recently deceased Felix Mendelssohn, in particular his Scottish Symphony. It was very well-received by public and reviewers. I was amused by a quote in the notes from a newspaper report of the premiere, which stated that even in 1851, critics were bemoaning that the quality of melody was no longer being adequately appreciated by composers (but Goltermann was excused from this criticism).

I’d not heard of Turkish cellist Jamal Aliyev before, but he has performed at the Proms and won a number of prizes at international competitions. It is not hard to see why; he is very good, giving these little-known works his fullest efforts. Under the assured direction of Howard Griffiths, such a champion of the unsung composer, the ORF Vienna orchestra sound superb. My only quibble with the sound quality was the occasional sharp intake of breath from Aliyev (but hey, he’s got to breathe).

This is one of those unsung composer discs that really does “sing”. Goltermann might not have had the most original of compositional voices, but he knew how to write concentrated, melodic pieces, and now we know that even in the mid-19th century, melody was in short supply (what would those critics have thought of the 20th century, I wonder?).

-- MusicWeb International

This recording brings together two of the biggest sacred works written by Mozart and Haydn, the friends and contemporaries caught at opposite ends of their musical lives. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the substantial Mass in C minor (K. 139) for the consecration of the Waisenhaus (Orphanage) Church in the Rennweg when he was just twelve years old. The Mass received its first performance on 7 December 1768. While Mozart was overseeing the consecration of the Waisenhaus, Joseph Haydn was in the third year of his promotion to Kapellmeister at the palace of Esterházy, under Prince Nikolaus I. It was a post to which he returned in 1795, serving under Nikolaus II on a part time basis. This second term saw the composition of six Masses, with the penultimate – nicknamed the ‘Nelson Mass’ – widely regarded as his finest setting.

The story of the discovery and resurrection of Britten's Double Concerto for Violin and Viola is one of those rare moments of musicological spice that can capture the interest of even the more casual music lover. Unlike it, the Violin Concerto Op. 15 found itself thrust onto the world stage of music right away, its genesis having been rather straightforward – if hardly smooth.

Winner of the first prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition (2001) Baiba Skride displays a natural approach to music-making that has endeared her to many of today’s most prestigious conductors and orchestras worldwide. She performs the Double Concerto with violist Ivan Vukcevic, who has appeared in some of the most important venues and festivals in Europe. They are accompanied by the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop, whose performances won her many Gramophone Awards.