Classical Music

The “Songs from the Chinese”, a cycle of six songs on poems translated from the original Chinese by Arthur Waley (1889–1966), were written in 1957 and premiered the following year by the duo of Pears and Bream. By the late 50s Bream was a lutenist and guitarist of great renown and had accompanied Pears in works by Dowland and other early music of the British Isles, concerts that inspired Britten to write for the duo some music of his own. His cycle naturally invited comparison with another great set of songs from the Chinese, Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde”, and the reception at the time was favourable: “as a whole, they make a statement about life (and particularly the transience of youth and beauty) as poignant and personal as Mahler’s” (critic Jeremy Noble in Tempo,1959). The sixth instalment of Britten’s lifelong project of folksong arrangements was published in November of 1961 in a second wave along with volumes four and five, which followed some 12 years after the first three volumes were issued in the 1940s. Volume Six contains six English folksongs and is the only one of the sets that he scored for voice and guitar. These folksong arrangements are as much a product of Britten’s admiration for Bream as are the “Songs from the Chinese”. In fact, when Pears and Bream premiered Britten’s song cycle at the Aldeburgh Festival (17 June 1958), they performed three of these folksongs on the same concert. Britten wrote the guitar solo “Nocturnal” after John Dowland in 1963 for Bream, who premiered it the following year (12 June 1964). The nine movements of the work are a “variations & theme”, progressing opposite to the usual order of a theme and variations. The model, “Come, Heavy Sleep” from the First Book of Songs by John Dowland (1563–1626), is only revealed at the end, with the variations leading up to it hinting at the song with treatments of various thematic fragments. Marcello Nardis and Duilio Meucci complete this album with three additional works by Dowland including the original “Come, Heavy Sleep” on which Britten based his Nocturnal, another well-known song, “Flow my tears”, and the lute solo “A Dream”.

Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) continues a celebrated project to record Mozart’s complete works for keyboard and orchestra, with this tenth volume of the series. Together with renowned scholar-pianist Robert Levin, and directed by Laurence Cummings and Bojan Cicic, AAM presents the Church Sonata No. 17 alongside the Piano Concerto No. 5 – Mozart’s first original keyboard concerto – both for orchestra and organ. The three K107 concertos are joined
by a concerto movement from the music book of Mozart’s sister, Nannerl, believed to have been drafted by Mozart as a young child, and completed here by Robert Levin. The hardback CD package is accompanied by comprehensive notes commissioned specially for the album.

The next-to-last album in our complete recording of Johann Kuhnau’s cantatas once again presents outstanding examples of German Lutheran church music. “They reinforce the positive impression created by the previous volumes. The singers very much know their way around Kuhnau, and this knowledge is rendered audible. The instrumental parts are perfectly executed” (musicweb international of Vol. 6). Kuhnau’s magnificent cantata “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern” for five-part choir, two corni grandi, two recorders, five-part strings (with divided violas), and basso continuo is certainly an outstanding composition within his oeuvre and a special highlight on Vol. 7. This work has been transmitted in a copy made by the renowned Weimar city organist and lexicographer Johann Gottfried Walther, who is known to have engaged in personal dialogue with Kuhnau. The cantata is framed by Philipp Nicolai’s sacred hymn of the same name and traces its origins to an anonymous poet, and in it Kuhnau lives up in every way to the outstanding reputation that he enjoyed among his contemporaries as a vocal composer in the devotional church style. The opening chorus clothes the chorale in a musical fabric of great sonority consisting of imitations, in anticipation, in repetition, and of motet character, such as only a few composers of his generation could have committed to paper.

PROKOFIEV On Guard for Peace. 1 The Queen of Spades: Suite (elab. Berkeley) • Neeme Järvi, cond; Irina Tchistjakova (mez, nar); 1 Niall Docherty (boy sop); 1 Royal Scottish Natl O, Junior Ch, 1 Ch 1 • CHANDOS 10519 (66:05 Text and Translation)


Neeme Järvi has made a considerable reputation by conducting and recording music that is peripheral to the mainstream repertoire. In so doing, he does not have to compete with A-list conductors and makes listeners interested in this seldom performed music happy at the same time. When he ventures into the standard repertoire, the results are frequently mediocre at best (his Chandos Brahms symphonies are a case in point). Järvi can legitimately be called a Prokofiev specialist. His Chandos cycle of the complete Prokofiev symphonies was generally well received despite some pretty fierce high frequency harshness from a sonic standpoint. In keeping with his reputation, Järvi also recorded many obscure Prokofiev works as fillers, in addition to important albums featuring orchestral suites from The Stone Flower and War and Peace , among others. So, a CD containing The Queen of Spades Suite and the oratorio, On Guard for Peace , is hardly surprising.


The Queen of Spades is described on the album cover as a symphonic suite containing rediscovered music from an unrealized film score arranged and elaborated by Michael Berkeley. Clearly, from that description, this is not all pure Prokofiev. The lengthy but somewhat nebulous program notes confirm that Berkeley actually composed some of the music, and a portion of Prokofiev’s original material actually appeared elsewhere (for example, the second section is built on a melody also heard in the third movement of the composer’s Fifth Symphony). Not to worry. There is more than enough here to satisfy Prokofiev lovers, even if it is a bit of a pastiche that does not contain much of his most personally individual music. Berkeley succeeds in arranging all of it into a dramatically effective orchestral suite. This happens to be very appropriate because of the fact that Prokofiev is probably first and foremost a suite writer (as opposed to a natural symphonist like Shostakovich).


In the context of the political propaganda emerging from Russia at the time, the title On Guard for Peace does not sound promising. The orchestral contribution is fine and has Prokofiev’s unmistakable sound, but the fairly extensive narration (in Russian) is not very listener friendly. The vocal soloists aren’t much better, including a wobbly mezzo-soprano (who doubles as the narrator) and a boy soprano desperately searching for the correct pitch. The text is blatant propaganda (there is nothing like a children’s chorus to proclaim the party line joyfully). Some of it does sound a little bit like Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible , but the level of inspiration is infinitely lower. Järvi is quite ideal as a conductor of obscure Prokofiev, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra seems to have those typical sonorities in their blood. The sound is typical for Chandos with a little haziness and high frequency harshness. Anyone who values Järvi’s Prokofiev series should enjoy this release.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Operetta enthusiast Barrie Kosky has landed a gigantic success with Offenbach’s subversive and hilarious reversion of the Orpheus myth at the Salzburg Festival. Kosky created a magically precise and witty staging with numerous extravagant costumes in a glittering opulent scenery and a literally devilish choreography. For the dialogues he has found an impressively ingenious solution as they are not spoken by the singers. Rather they are performed by the brilliant German actor Max Hopp as John Styx “who performs a true vocal miracle” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) in a slapstick-like manner. The superb cast impresses with virtuoso singing as well as ravishingly comedic acting, first and foremost the American coloratura soprano Kathryn Lewek as Eurydice “with crystal clear coloraturas and sovereign top tones” (Salzburger Nachrichten), the Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter as severe L’Opinion publique or the Austrian bass baritone Martin Winkler as foolish father of the gods Jupiter. Under the Italian conductor Enrique Mazzola’s precise conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker provide an exquisite “sparkling orchestral sound” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). “A frantic and fabulous show” (New York Times)

Lovers and Mourners: Variations and Sonatas from 17th-century Germany, offers a comprehensive glimpse into the lives of virtuoso composer-performers Johann Jakob Walther, Heinrich Biber, and Johann Georg Pisendel. The Composers featured on Lovers and Mourners drew upon the “stylus phantasticus,” a 17th-century Italian idiom whose features were marked by jagged shifts of affect and intended to display the player’s technical command and expressive abilities.

Bandy nimbly guides the listener through a labyrinth of variation sets and themes, simultaneously reproducing faithful interpretations of the music while injecting his own unique touch. Lovers and Mourners boasts a brief, yet intense survey of one of the richest chapters in the history of the virtuoso composer-performer.

Works by three of the greatest French composers of the late 19th and 20th Centuries.

A true Platti Renaissance was initiated with the first two CDs that Sebastian Hess recorded for OehmsClassics. This CD, made as a co-production with BR Klassik, was recorded on August 2012 at St. Jacobus Kirche in Grosslangheim. Axel Wolf accompanies Sebastian Hess on the lute. Volume 3 is supplemented with solo sonatas by Antonio Vivaldi.

Clarinetist Stephan Siegenthaler brings Max Reger's complete works for clarinet back to life, 100 years after his death. Reger barely had 20 productive years of composition however you'd never know it looking at his vast oeuvre, comprised of all genres with the exception of opera. Siegenthaler, born in Switzerland has studied music and performed all throughout Europe including Germany, Geneva and Bratislava.

 

REVIEW:

 

All chamber works of Max Reger for clarinet, one with string quartet, the others with piano, are comprised in this compilation. The music is not easy and one has to listen carefully until getting the point, even though the artists on this CD come up with very fine performances.

 

– Pizzicato

OehmsClassics is delighted to announce the future cooperation with Andres Orozco-Estrada and his Tonkunstler-Orchestra Niederosterreich. This recording of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 with the Tonkunstler Orchestra is the first CD being issued.

he music of the Stift Heiligenkreuz in the Vienna woods became known throughout the world a few years ago: the CD “Chant – Music for Paradise”, on which Cistercian monks from the monastery sang Gregorian chorals, became an international chart success. On this CD, the esoteric aspect of contemplative sacred vocal music is less prominent; the focus is rather on the power of the vocal and instrumental works of the baroque age that are linked liturgically. In fact, a brother of the monastery wrote some extremely important compositions as early as the 17th century; one of the places in which he published them was the collection “Cultus Harmonicus”. From the works of Father Alberich Mazak, the musical form of a baroque liturgical mass at the Stift Heiligenkreuz can also be reconstructed and this has been complemented on the CD by pieces from other composers of the 17th century. Leading the way here is the ensemble dolce risonanza, the founder and conductor of which, Florian Wieninger, reconstructed the vespers for Holy Cross Day (Exaltatione Sanctae Crucis, 14 September). The CD therefore offers a variety of ways of approaching the music: celebrate solemn vespers in the company of the dolce risonanza ensemble and the monks of the Stift Heiligenkreuz while you discover the works of an Austrian composer that were almost unknown until now and which have been preserved in the library of the Stift Heiligenkreuz.

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



REGER Fantasy and Fugues: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme; Wie schön leucht uns der Morgenstern. Chorale Preludes: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland; Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich; Nun freut euch, liebe Christen; Vom Himmel hoch. Kyrie eleison. Gloria in excelsis Deo . Benedictus. Ave Maria. Pastorale. Weihnachten • Harald Feller (org) • OEHMS 644 (77:37)


By the quantity of his output—some 147 opus numbers, some containing more than 50 individual movements—one would hardly assume that Max Reger lived for only the short span of 43 years. Considering the amount of notes per piece, it seems even less likely. To interpret his music, one must first come to master the considerable technical pitfalls of his oeuvre . Just a glance over the Fantasy and Fugue on Wachet auf is enough to make the faint of heart quiver. Often accused of mere note-spinning for much of his career—and indeed, there are moments that seem to go on without end—there are many pieces that show the composer at his creative best: the individual sets of variations and fugues on themes by Bach, Hiller, Telemann, Mozart, and Beethoven; the Ballet Suite for orchestra; and the 100th Psalm all come to mind. It was, however, the organ that was Reger’s instrument, the one for which he wrote and played—and loved—above all others.


The present recital begins with, perhaps, the most technically challenging of all of the works on the recording, the aforementioned Wachet auf Fantasy. Harald Feller, a former student of both Franz Lehrndorfer and Marie Claire Alain, certainly possesses the required technical abilities to play this music well. More importantly, he also brings with him the requisite ability to make the most of the music. He plays here on the Max-Reger-Gedächtnisorgel (Max Reger Commemorative Organ) in St. Michael’s in Weiden, Germany, the same church in which the composer himself played in the earlier part of his career. Built just recently, it is, as the organist says, “the ideal instrument for this program. It unites the color and dynamic spectrum of late German Romanticism with the technical achievements of modern organ construction.” And, indeed, Feller certainly uses these to his advantage. Per Reger’s instructions, Feller creates a dark, brooding sound—gloomy and ominous even—at the opening of the piece. He later lightens this at the entrance of the chorale tune, which at first is just faintly audible. This builds, through all types of menacing variations, to a grand chordal conclusion—one in which the chorale tune is revealed in its full glory. In his hands, this work becomes a veritable tone poem for the organ, as rich in color as any orchestral work by Richard Strauss. Feller handles the other major work on the recording—the Morgenstern Fantasy and Fugue—with equal gusto and bravura, bringing with him an intimacy, refinement of detail, and ability to delineate the many strands of music that make Reger’s music so very rich and complex. The smaller pieces are handled with particular care, from the gentle yet harmonically wandering Ave Maria to the boisterous and lively Vom Himmel hoch chorale prelude.


Though planned as a recital of Christmas organ works, this is some of the best of what Reger has to offer as a composer for the instrument, played in a way that truly brings out the compelling nature of this music. If one has not yet experienced the glory of this side of the composer, this recording makes a wonderful introduction; if one knows this music, then this will make a very fine addition to one’s collection. Regardless of which, get it and enjoy!


FANFARE: Scott Noriega

Suddeutsche Orgelmeister, Vol. 4

Classical Music