This never-before-released-in-any-format, newly re-mastered, 1960 live performance of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman features the soprano Anja Silja (b. 1940) as Senta in her electrifying Bayreuth Festival debut. +Ms. Silja was a sensational presence on the Bayreuth stage throughout the 1960’s. + Conducted by the eminent Wolfgang Sawallisch, this recording also features tenors Franz Crass and Fritz Uhl, and bass Josef Greindl, noted Wagnerians all, in leading roles.

Ravel orchestrated his piano pieces Alborada del gracioso and Pavane pour une infante défunte to great effect; the former gains in suggestive colour, and the latter evokes nostalgic pathos. Another orchestrated work is the Menuet antique, which is redolent of old French dance forms Rapsodie espagnole, Ravel’s first major orchestral work, shimmers with expectancy and bursts into Spanish dance rhythms, themes he pursued in Pièce en forme de habanera. His earliest orchestral work, the ‘fairy overture’ Shéhérazade, is all that remains of a planned opera based on The Thousand and One Nights. The famous Boléro, an ‘orchestrated crescendo’ of undimmed power, has proved one of the most popular works in all classical music.

An eclectic collection, colourful and often arresting.

Mussorgsky’s Pictures were originally composed for the piano. In that form he created a spacious canvas necessitating something of a symphonic sound from the piano. This proved exquisitely demanding and only a few brave pianists, including Prokofiev, dared to scale its fearsome crags. Maurice Ravel, to whom we owe its renown, was paid 10,000 francs to orchestrate it for Serge Koussevitzky. But as one might look at and interpret a picture in many different ways so then different sonic paint brushes might offer alternative views and insights? Thus Leonard Slatkin’s notion to bring together an eclectic selection of arrangements, some quite outlandish, might seem fresh and appealing?

D. Wilson-Ochoa is the Nashville Symphony’s Principal Music Librarian and former horn player. His neat opening ‘Promenade’ [1] was arranged, using woodwinds, at first, then pizzicato strings. This walking bass/cello line leads into the orchestral build-up, to give the impression of the visitor arriving at the gallery with mounting excitement and anticipation of seeing its treasures. Sergey Gorchakov’s portrait of Gnomus [2] is simpler, more sober and menacing than Ravel’s; his colours darker. Walter Goehr’s ‘Promenade’ [3] is calmly introspective as the visitor passes thoughtfully on; it features sensitive use of solo strings, double woodwind and muted brass. Emile Naoumoff’s entrancing arrangement of Il vecchio castello [4] has, at its heart, a glistening piano solo with woodwinds and cellos sounding the lilting Italian Sicilienne – absolutely gorgeous. Van Keulen’s ‘Promenade’ [5] is a much grander walk while his Tuileries [6] is a perky arrangement full of childish mischief and high spirits. Wind and brass are delicately mixed - woodwinds supported by muted trombones and trumpet – to create an appealing pastel. Conductor/pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy makes an impact with four horns in unison. Low strings and heavy percussion are used to underline the heaviness of Bydlo his picture of the Polish cart on enormous wheels [7].

Carl Simpson’s ‘Promenade’ [8] is brief and straightforward but with an unexpected cheeky cheep anticipating – Ballet of the unhatched chicks [9]. Lucien Cailliet was a student of Vincent D’Indy, His arrangement exerts his imaginative faculties to the full, out Ravel-ing Ravel. He makes exuberant use of wood-block, rattle and a flutter-tonguing blast from the trumpet. Sir Henry Wood’s vision of the Two Jews … [10] markedly underlines the differences between the two: the rich one glowering and overwhelming and the cowering pauper. The next ‘Promenade’ [11] (and the one that Ravel left out) is by Lawrence Leonard. It’s grand too , in terms of its rich harmonies and orchestrations; carrying on the self-regarded magnificence - one might say - of the rich Jew. Leo Funtek’s picture of French women arguing around a market square in Limoges, Le marché [12] makes for a snappy riot of colour. Funtek surmounts its challenges of articulation through its brief 1:26 of presto writing. The Catacombae [13] of John Boyd, demonstrates his experience with wind, brass and percussion. It is a haunted subterranean vision and is more menacing than Ravel’s portrait. It leads seamlessly into Ravel’s own arrangement of Con mortuis in lingua mortua [14]. As David Nice says, “the French master’s subtle halos and shadows remain uniquely evocative.’ That wonderful orchestrator, Leopold Stokowski, adds his characteristically vivid colouring to The hut on fowl’s legs (Baba-Yaga) [15]. This is a satanic portrait using four trumpets and eight horns supported by shrill whistling upper woods, to evoke Baba-Yaga’s terror-filling flight.

The concluding The Bogatyr Gate at Kiev [16] is the most substantial picture. Douglas Gamley paints this massive gate in resplendent colours using to fine effect the chorus of the Nashville Symphony and an organ. What magnificence - magnificence to rival 1812!

Liszt’s first surviving piano concerto was sketched out in 1832, when the composer was 21. It was only orchestrated 17 years later, with the help of the young composer Joachim Raff. Its first performance in 1853 at Weimar was conducted by Berlioz. Revisions followed in 1857. Its three movements are cyclically connected. This striking live recording of Peng Peng’s articulate and polished reading is sturdy in the portentous episodes and sensitively shaded in the quieter and more introspective passages. Slatkin gives sterling support.

Rob Mathes’s arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Leonard Slatkin. It was conceived as a eulogy on the tragedy of 9/11. This performance - part grandiloquent, part restrained - is affecting.

Instead of the familiar Ravel orchestrations of Mussorgsky’s Pictures here is an eclectic collection of alternatives, always colourful and often arresting.

-- Ian Lace, MusicWeb International

After Amelia goes to the ball was staged in 1937 at the Metropolitan Opera with acclaim, Gian Carlo Menotti became hot property. Two further radio operas were comparative failures but it was with The Medium that Menotti really hit his stride. A tragedy in two acts for five singers, a dance-mime role and a chamber orchestra of 14 players, Menotti’s opera is both dramatically astute in the Puccini tradition and composed with an acute ear for mood and mystery: the score, often quite dissonant, conveys an eerie, morbid atmosphere. According to the composer, “The Medium is actually a play of ideas. It describes the tragedy of a woman caught between two worlds, a world of reality which she cannot wholly comprehend, and a supernatural world in which she cannot believe.” Premiered in 1945, The Medium received its first Broadway staging two years later, with a hugely successful run of 212 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway. As a curtain-raiser for these performances (and a striking contrast), Menotti wrote a light one-act comedy in the opera buffa tradition, The Telephone, which he sub-titled L’amour à trois. The opera’s central role of Lucy became a huge success for its first interpreter, Marilyn Cotlow, and now the young American soprano Elizabeth Hertzberg steps into her shoes with an assured portrayal. Made under studio conditions in Modena in 2018, these recordings took place in association with semi-staged performances given by artists on the distinguished Raina Kabaivanska Masterclass programme. According to the Giornale della Musica, Hertzberg was ‘excellent’ as Lucy, and more critical praise was directed towards the fluent and insightful conducting of Scogna. There are comparatively few modern recordings to rival the classic 1947 recording; an essential acquisition for avid listeners of 20th century music theatre.

In the third installment in their acclaimed series, Harry Christophers and the Handel and Haydn Society present a new live recording devoted to the master of the symphony – Joseph Haydn. This release showcases Haydn’s Symphony No. 8 Le soir, which completes the trilogy written for Prince Paul Anton Esterházy. Also included is the later Symphony No. 84 which shows just how much Haydn’s symphonies had transformed from those early years. Not only is it an incredible fusion of grace, brilliance and warmth but it also contains one of the most striking wind band solos in all of his Paris symphonies. Completing the programme is the Violin Concerto in A major performed by H+H’s fiery and expressive Concertmaster, Aisslinn Nosky.

Hanson's opera Merry Mount has been something of a speciality for Naxos. The suite from the opera is one of the companions to the First Symphony as recorded by the Nashville Symphony and Kenneth Schermerhorn on 8.559012 (see review) . The whole opera was issued from acetates of the 1934 Serafin-conducted Met broadcasts (see review) in 1998 as part of the Naxos historic opera series. Now Naxos is the host to the digital recording of the Seattle 1996 revival. The suite was also recorded recently by Telarc with Kunzel, by the composer at least twice, by Schwarz and by others. Extracts from the opera were issued on a Mercury LP with the composer conducting; that really should be reissued.

In 1932 Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novella ‘The Maypole of Merry Mount’ became the subject of a published poem by Richard Stokes. The poem caught the attention of the Nebraskan composer Howard Hanson who at that time had two distinctively romantic symphonies to his name. He had completed his signature work - Symphony No. 2 Romantic - only two years earlier and suggestions of that work can be heard in the grandiloquent love music of the resulting opera.

In this opera the sensual delights and torments of puritan Pastor Wrestling Bradford are played out against the backdrop of a New England community in the 1600s. A ship arrives from England with a contingent of dissolute Cavaliers. With them is the beautiful Lady Marigold Sandys who becomes the centre of Bradford’s obsession. On Merry Mount, with the maypole at the centre of the open-air dancing ground, Sandys is to be married to Gower Lackland. Bradford intervenes and carries her off. Finally alone with her Bradford unveils his love for Marigold. Lackland appears, there is struggle and Lackland is killed by Bradford. Act II scene 3 is a vision of hell but because this is in the similitude of Bradford’s dream it is an erotic vision in which amid the sensuality he replays his killing of Gower who appears as Lucifer. Bradford wakes as the RedIndians - who have been treated abysmally throughout the opera – sack the village and begin to kill and scalp the setters. The village burns as Bradford and Sandys return. The settlers put the Indians to flight but Bradford, conscious of the condemnation awaiting Marigold and himself, sweeps her up into his arms and strides into the furnace flames of his blazing church – a suitably Puccinian end to a superheated opera.

No wonder the subject appealed so strongly to Hanson. Harking back to the First Symphony the mood is brooding and fiercely devotional. This couples well with the Old Testament ferocity of the words. Early on in the first act the choral writing ascends to typically long-breathed nobility which is wonderfully contrasted with baritonal string writing. The Sibelian element is also present. Listen to the Pohjolan harp underpinning at 7:20 on tr. 2 for the women's voices. Attenmd also to the stertorous stentor of the horns on tr. 3 1:23. Schwarz gives Hanson's opera the dolcissima it clamantly demands and receives from orchestra and chorus, from Bradford and from the delightfully named Plentiful Tewke. Listen to Flanigan’s limning of the melodic pulse in tr. 7 when she is alone with Zeller’s Bradford. The rapturous romantic cantilena of Bradford and Lady Marigold Sandys in tr. 12 is positively symphonic in its stride. The hymnal and romantic meet in tense adversity - sacred and profane. It’s a potent mix. This contributes to the Mussorgskian glowering choral grandeur of end of act I. It is excitable and noble writing in line with Ireland’s These Things Shall Be and Hanson’s own masterwork Lament of Beowulf. At the end of each Act – thankfully not each scene - we are reminded by the applause that this is a recording of a live event. There is the occasional and rare cough as at start of tr. 4. CD1. In Act II we encounter playful zephyrs with these breezy gestures developing into a full-blown Borodin-like climax preceded by jazzy syncopations. The clapping rhythmic song rises to Prince Igor abandon. The Merry Mount scene of the wedding of Lady Marigold and Gower is carefully set but the Puritans enter and brutally end the merrymaking. The innocent maypole dances will be familiar if you know The Merry Mount suite from its many versions. Bradford's dream includes the most atmospheric of the music. In tr. 11 aggressively edgy rhythmic material is emphasised and accented by the brass with more ruthlessness than lilt - more hysteria than loving kindness. This is the Hanson equivalent of Night on the Bare Mountain. Scene 2 of Act III has it all: the brutality of the Indian attack and its repulse. The villagers turn against Lady Marigold and superstitiously blame her for the destruction. Bradford is tormented by passion and guilt and the music echoes this in climactic Puccinian ascent as he strides with the hapless Lady Marigold into the flames of the church.

Presentational issues: The two discs are in a single width case. Sadly there is no libretto. There's no Naxos site for downloading the libretto. We do get Keith Anderson's meticulously detailed synopsis which is pretty good. This keys in with the detailed tracking - 12 for CD1 and 19 for CD2.

It is a surprise it has not made more headway in opera houses. As it is it remains in the same category as Sessions Montezuma. Sure it is weakened by an excessive number of characters and generally by its jejune rocking horse name. However Hanson's singing and lyrical impulse is heard at full stretch in this opera. This splendidly representative red-blooded recording should win the work new admirers.

-- Rob Barnett, Musicweb International, June 2007

2006 Grammy nominee for Best Classical Crossover Album.

By the end of his life, the fame of Dietrich Buxtehude as an organist was so great that in 1706 the young J.S. Bach took four weeks' leave from his employment at Arnstadt and travelled on foot over 200 miles to Lübeck to hear him perform in concert. Ironically, the meteoric rise of the career of Bach himself as a composer meant that, until very recently, Buxtehude was primarily known simply as a forerunner to the great man, when in fact he was a major composer in his own right. These Trio Sonatas for violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord are remarkable examples of Buxtehude's beautiful chamber music, and anyone expecting them to follow a set of pre-established procedures will be surprised. Inventive and full of life, each of the sonatas is different from the others, ranging from dance-like pieces and little fugues to variation sets with some dynamic duets between the violin and viola da gamba, and slow, airy pieces too. The recording complements CHAN 0766 (Trio Sonatas, Op. 1) of which Early Music Today wrote: 'The Purcell Quartet brings its customary virtues to these perceptive period-instrument interpretations: incisiveness, tonal transparency and excellent rapport and blend.' Through twenty-nine years and nearly fifty recordings of a huge range of repertoire, The Purcell Quartet has established itself as a leader in the area of baroque chamber music, not shrinking away from taking on fully staged productions of Purcell'sDido and Aeneas and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea and Orfeo. The Quartet has toured the world, including the USA, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Japan, Turkey, and all the countries of Europe, and collaborated with the very finest singers, among them Susan Gritton, Nancy Argenta, Catherine Bott, Emma Kirkby, Julia Gooding, Michael Chance, Dominique Visse, Guy de Mey, Mark Padmore, Charles Daniels, Peter Harvey, and Richard Wistreich. The Purcell Quartet has recorded exclusively for Chandos Records since 1987, its discography now numbering more than forty discs.

Now in his nineties, Herbert Blomstedt, former conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, is still a powerful interpreter of the symphonic repertoire. His program with the Wiener Philharmoniker is straightforward: it begins with Honegger’s brilliant Third Symphony and ends with Brahms’ Fourth. The eminent maestro, one of the orchestra’s favorites since his debut at the 2011 Salzburg Mozart Week, continues to enchant audiences with his enormous presence, verve and artistic drive. “A stirring, long-lasting listening experience. At the end, standing ovations and boundless cheers.” (br-klassik.de) / “Fortunately, they still exist, the magical moments when time stands still, when music reaches and touches people.” (Die Presse)

The ARC Ensemble (Artists of The Royal Conservatory) is among Canada’s most distinguished cultural ambassadors. It focuses on researching and recovering music suppressed under the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century and marginalized thereafter. Exile is generally associated with geographical displacement, but the idea of ‘internal exile’ has long had currency. There was a protracted variety of this exile in the Soviet Union: State oversight of musical style and substance began in the 1920s and persisted until well after Stalin’s death, in 1953. Unlike the Central European composers who were murdered or exiled under National Socialism, and whose music is now being assessed and revived, a great number of the musical casualties of the Soviet era still await serious attention. The Ukrainian-Jewish composer Dmitri Klebanov was something of a prodigy but fell foul of the authorities with his first symphony, of 1945 (based, like Shostakovich’s Thirteenth, on the slaughter of Jews at Babi Yar). His professional rehabilitation began during the Khrushchev era when, in 1960, the Kharkiv Institute appointed him associate professor. In addition to the works recorded here, Klebanov’s legacy includes nine symphonies, two concertos each for violin and for cello, various works for violin and piano, several operas and ballets, around a hundred songs (most of which remain in manuscript), and nearly two dozen film scores.

The present release features three great performances from Arena di Verona, featuring some of opera’s finest artists including Luca Salsi, Anna Netrebko, Yusif Eyvazov, Irina Lungu, Marko Mimica, and many more. Each of these recordings has garnered critical acclaim. Of Carlos Alvarez’s performance as Don Giovanni, GP Opera wrote that Alvarez is “of beautiful voice” and L’ape musicale is “presumably today’s best Don Giovanni.” Das Opernglas writes of Simon Boccanegra “top phrasing and articulation, his baritone with full and sonorous intonation and a unique timbre.”

Since 2017, one of Infusion Baroque’s primary initiatives has been The Virtuosa Project, a series of concerts, lectures, and web videos dedicated to women musicians of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. This project, which highlights over a dozen relatively unknown women who made substantial contributions to Western classical music, has generated a great amount of interest at a local and international level, resulting in requests from international presenters for the ensemble to tour the Virtuosa program in the United States, France and the U.K. The album includes a comprehensive booklet and companion website which includes stories, images, and archival material pertaining to the women featured in the recording. The objective is to provide cultural and socio-economic context for the women’s lives as well as for their music and to highlight their accomplishments in the face of adversity. Many of the featured women were pioneers in their field.

Haydn’s 30 Piano Trios were written at a time when the harpsichord was being replaced by the pianoforte and when a parallel change saw the emergence of sonata-allegro form. His earliest trios, such as the Trio in F major, Hob. XV: 40, were also known as Divertimentos or Partitas, whilst the Trio in G major, Hob. XV: 15, was part of a group that offers the performer the alternative scoring of flute over the more usual violin. They reflect the airy and nimble qualities that grace all of Haydn’s works in the genre.

Robert Docker was one of the giants of light music – a composer and arranger whose works graced stage, screen, radio and television. Two of his best pieces were written for piano and orchestra: Legend, which can rank alongside Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto (Naxos 8.554323); and the brilliantly witty inventions of the Pastiche Variations. Not only was Docker a distinguished orchestrator, he was also a rich melodist as his classic Scèneduba lillustrates, while the composer’s impish humor can be savored in Tabarinage. Docker’s early training as a classical violinist fully equipped him to explore the British pastoral tradition in the languid and beautiful Air.

Spanning landscapes from Mexico to Canada, the Pacific Crest Trail covers thousands of miles of natural beauty, creating a transformative journey captured in FROM WILDERNESS from Navona Records. Choral Arts Initiative, conducted by Brandon Elliott and joined by cellist Kevin Mills, paints these landscapes from composer Jeffery Derus with vibrant color, with vocal soloists giving identities to the spirit animals one may encounter on the trail. A concert-length work and meditation, the listener will hear a wash of sounds that allow for introspective reflection on the sacredness of nature, the profound text, and themselves.

REVIEWS:

A Textura Top 20 Album of 2022!

Jeffrey Derus is both a founding board member of Choral Arts Initiative and one of the esteemed ensemble's tenors. He's also, however, the composer of From Wilderness, a glorious choral work brought to magnificent realization by twenty-five CAI singers, eight crystal bowl players, and cellist Kevin Mills. The company earlier distinguished itself with the release How to Go On: The Choral Works of Dale Trumbore and now equals that achievement with a stellar realization of Derus's work. From Wilderness is a multi-hued meditation that lives up to its transformative billing: it's almost impossible to imagine someone hearing it and not being profoundly moved.

-- Textura