PentaTone presents the World Premiere recording of Gordon Getty's 'Plump Jack'. Following the pattern of literary inspiration in his song cycle 'White Election' which features the poetry of Emily Dickenson, Getty now uses as his muse Shakespeare's beloved character, Falstaff.

German-Canadian international soloist Johannes Moser recently signed an exclusive recording contract with Pentatone. For his debut Pentatone recording, he chose to record the pinnacle of repertoire for cello and orchestra, Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor. In this monumental work Dvorak explores the entire spectrum of human emotion, very much inspired by his own experiences, ranging from exhilarating bursts of life in New York City to the devastating tragedy of his unfulfilled love. Moser completes his debut album with the Cello Concerto by Edouard Lalo. It is a work of great verve that fully embodies Spanish flair combined with romantic spirit.

A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month

This SACD from Pentatone showcases the Aeolian Op. 1785 of Duke University Chapel, built between 1931 and 1932. It boasts four manuals, 81 stops, 102 ranks and, as Mike Foley points out in his absorbing booklet essay, some of the largest-scaled pipes ever to leave the firm’s factory in Garwood, New Jersey. This was Aeolian’s last independent project – they were taken over by rivals Skinner in 1932 – but the Op. 1785 saga doesn’t end there. Thanks to a public outcry the organ was saved from replacement in the 1980s and restored by Foley-Baker Inc. in 2008.

Listening to this disc I can only say it would have been a tragedy to lose an instrument of this calibre. It’s played here by Christopher Jacobson FRCO, chapel organist and a widely travelled recitalist. The recording is by Soundmirror, the Boston-based company that’s become something of a byword for engineering excellence. Among their high-profile projects are the Rachmaninov All-Night Vigil with Charles Bruffy and his fine choirs (Chandos) and several well-reviewed recordings with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony (Reference Recordings). John Newton is the recording engineer on this release, with Mark Donahue responsible for mixing and mastering.

There’s no better curtain raiser than Finlandia, Sibelius’s stirring hymn to nascent nationhood. It’s given here in an arrangement by H. A. Fricker, who took over from William Spark as Civic Organist at Leeds Town Hall in 1898. He gave twice-weekly recitals on the hall’s Gray & Davison – free downstairs, 6d in the gallery – which, if his arrangement of this Sibelian showstopper is anything to go by, must have been hugely entertaining.

Jacobson’s account of the piece is huge too, but his playing is very well judged in terms of scale, articulation, rhythm and colour. As for the sound of this mighty beast it’s simply stupendous; the pedals – skull and rafter rattling – are probably as close to ‘being there’ as one’s ever likely to get, and the rest of the instrument’s range is just as well caught. Happily there’s no detail-obscuring echo and the wide, deep soundstage avoids the fatiguing ‘wall of sound’ that afflicts so many organ recordings. In any event this is a demonstration-quality track that’s will give your woofers a workout, impress your friends and annoy the neighbours.

That’s all very well, but albums such as this work best when the programme is varied in terms of scale, mood and style, each piece illuminating a different aspect of the organ’s character. The glorious surge and swell of Howells’ Rhapsody has never sounded so thrilling, its quieter passages so radiant. Then again this organ speaks with a warm, honest voice that suits this music very nicely. The ensuing excerpt from French composer-organist André Fleury’s Organ Symphony No. 2 shows just how clean-limbed this Aeolian is. What a delightful performance, brimming with quiet brilliance and firm but gentle rhythms.

The British composer-organist Edwin Lemare is probably best known for his transcriptions. Among the most popular and poignant of these is the Irish Tune from County Derry, immortalised as Danny Boy. My go-to version of the piece is on Warner-EMI’s Unforgettable Organ Classics, with Noel Rawsthorne at the organ of Coventry Cathedral. Poised, cleanly articulated and not at all sentimentalised that performance is hard to beat. As it happens heartfelt playing, apt registrations and a superb recording make Jacobson’s version very special too.

The most substantial work on this disc are the Trois Préludes et Fugues by the great French composer, organist and improviser Marcel Dupré. I’m more used to hearing these virtuoso pieces on a Cavaillé-Coll, but this awesome Aeolian certainly gives M. Aristide’s behemoths a run for their money. The contrapuntal writing is clear and well focused, as are those magnificent panoplies of sound. Perhaps others play the Op. 7 with a little more panache – daring, even – but Jacobson’s steady, thoughtful progress has its own rewards. Most important, perhaps, is that he scales and paces this music with great authority and skill.

After all that showmanship the lovely cadences of Vaughan Williams’ Rhosymedre (Lovely), based on a Welsh hymn tune by John David Edwards (1805-1885), find the organ at its full, open-hearted best. What a lovely, embraceable instrument this is, and how impeccably behaved. Even in ceremonial mode, as in Gloucester Cathedral organist and composer Herbert Brewer’s Marche Héroïque, this Aeolian processes with a quiet dignity that’s so utterly British. Once again the recording team capture all the fanfare and unfettered dynamics of this extraordinary instrument.

That’s followed by something very different: Jesus Loves Me, US composer William Bolcom’s spare but rather affecting take on the well-known children’s hymn. But this recital ends as it began with a guaranteed crowd-pleaser; it’s the French master Eugène Gigout’s Grand Chœur Dialogué in Scott McIntosh’s bold, bracing arrangement for organ and brass. The steel and sting of the Amalgam Ensemble makes for a thrilling contrast with the warm, weighty organ. What a knock-out; indeed, if an audience were present this spirited sign-off would surely elicit a spontaneous roar of approbation.

Goodness, I haven’t enjoyed an organ recital so much since Reference Recordings’ Organ Polychrome. A fabulous instrument, superbly played and recorded; an absolute must for organ fans.

– MusicWeb International (Dan Morgan)

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

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A very nice coupling, this. Martin Helmchen's natural phrasing and lightness of touch serves both pieces very well. He shapes the fluid lines in Schumann's first movement effortlessly, and Marc Albrecht goads the orchestra to a fiery response that makes the work a real dialog between two distinct characters. The Intermezzo has plenty of charm without ever turning coy, while the finale's surging rhythms are confidently projected but never rushed. The only negative point (in both works) concerns the timidity of the orchestral brass and timpani, slightly at odds with the energy of the interpretations themselves.

It's so good to see Dvorák's lovely concerto getting more attention these days--a great work that never deserved its neglect. Like many pianists, Helmchen plays a cross between the original piano part and Kurz's revision, but to his credit he abjures much of the thickened chordal writing that supposedly better balances the solo against the orchestra (nonsense!). This proves a considerable advantage, particularly in the Andante. Perhaps the finale slows down a touch too much in the middle, before the final return to Tempo I, but otherwise, and like the Schumann, this is a winning performance in just about all respects. The engineering is very good too. Recommended.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi interprets Schubert’s last three piano sonatas (D958-D960) on his PENTATONE debut album, after years of engagement with these extraordinary works. These sonatas continue to fascinate pianists and listeners until this very day. They are arguably among the most existential music ever written for the piano, full of beauty and sadness, celebrating life and at the same time anticipating the composer’s untimely death. Even if Schubert was barely thirty years old when he wrote these works, they reveal the otherworldly and detached nature of what is often described as “late style”, while the music remains highly expressive and personal.

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REVIEW:

Piemontesi’s instinctive good taste means he never indulges in histrionics, and operates on the principle that understatement can carry more emotional power than its converse. This performance of D958 is the best I have ever heard. His D959 exhibits the same virtue. The D960, recorded live and technically immaculate, is glorious.

– BBC Music Magazine

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



BEETHOVEN Symphonies: No. 5; No. 8 • Philippe Herreweghe, cond; Royal Flemish P • PENTATONE 5186 316 (Multichannel hybrid SACD: 54:16)


This disc represents Volume 2 of a set of the complete Beethoven symphonies currently in progress (the first volume, on the Talent label, included Symphonies 4 and 7 and was reviewed by Colin Anderson in 29:2). In a clumsily translated note Herreweghe refers to “nature” trumpets and “Baroque kettle drums with modern tuning”; these would appear to be the only concessions to period practice—by all accounts, the Royal Flemish orchestra employs modern instruments. This series would appear, then, to be comparable to the latest set conducted by Roger Norrington, with the orchestra of the Stuttgart Radio, on Hänssler.


Unlike Norrington, Herreweghe is unhampered by a tendency toward extreme tempos or self-conscious gestures. Though the tempos of the Fifth Symphony are analogous in swiftness to those of Benjamin Zander on his splendid Telarc recording, there is no sense of the kind of schizoid recklessness that marred Norrington’s Fifth, in which a furious first-movement exposition followed a more sensibly paced opening motto. What we hear instead is a superbly performed and exciting rendering of Beethoven’s war-horse. Orchestral execution is everything one could wish for, with crisp phrasing and spirited ensemble. The conducting illuminates the genius of the conception without in any way calling attention to itself.


In the slow movement, Herreweghe expertly conveys the sense of forward momentum without scrimping on the lyrical richness of Beethoven’s melodic invention. There is no sense of bombast in the triumphant finale, just a very satisfying feeling of rightness—for Beethoven’s creation and for this recreation of it. Herreweghe includes the first movement exposition repeat but follows Beethoven’s revision and eliminates the one in the Scherzo. The sound is resonant yet precise, antiphonal violins aiding in the natural balance. The listener’s perspective is intimate but not airless, allowing for atmosphere and impact. One interesting anomaly: the oboe extends the cadenza in the first movement recapitulation, replacing the one Beethoven wrote, but I found this to be an interesting and idiomatic gesture.


Herreweghe injects a muscular element, propelled by the timpani, into the Eighth Symphony, invigorating what has sometimes in the past been simply a lighthearted romp; there is lightness here, too, but the overall feeling is of vitality. Norrington, by contrast, tends to lurch through the first movement, so that whatever humor there is seems heavy-handed. The sound production he received possesses less resonant fullness than that on the PentaTone disc; strings, for one example, often sound thin and scrappy on the Hänssler CD.


The elegant little Allegretto, under Herreweghe’s hands, verges on the slightly pompous, while the third movement minuet becomes, for all intents and purposes, a scherzo, full of badly placed accents and miscues—all of which, in the words of annotator Tom Janssesns, “indicated that the Classical symphony now truly belonged to the past.” We are then propelled into the finale and its sprightly touches that clearly point to the future, and especially to Mendelssohn. Herreweghe and his Belgian colleagues dispatch the piece with panache.


This is a delightful and highly entertaining disc containing two fine performances of music that never sounds tired or routine. I look forward to the next installment with keen anticipation.


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

SCHUMANN Waldszenen, Op. 82; Symphonische Etüden, Op. 13; Arabeske, Op. 18 • Martin Helmchen (pn) • PENTATONE 5186 452 (SACD: 60:52)


Martin Helmchen is a name which is probably new to no one: He has won numerous awards (including first prize in the Clara Haskil Competition in 2001), has worked with numerous illustrious orchestras, among them the Deutsche Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, and various chamber orchestras around Europe, with such master conductors as Marek Janowski, Philippe Herreweghe, Valery Gergiev, and Bernhard Klee. He has partnered in chamber music recitals with Boris Pergamenschikow, Heinrich Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Daniel Hope, and Lars Vogt, among many others. He is, in other words, a fabulous instrumentalist. And that is clear from the current recital.


The opening Waldszenen is for me the highlight of the disc. Here Helmchen is calm and reserved for the most part: The Eintritt here acts as not just an entranceway into the piece, but into the program as a whole. Oddly, when comparing it to Volodos’s version on his live recital from Vienna, Volodos seems to shade more sweetly than does Helmchen, but Helmchen does not see the piece in the same way: Here he captures an amazing simplicity akin to the C-Major Prelude in Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book I. His continuity of sound is entrancing. Verrufene Stelle evokes perfectly the odd, almost twisted quality of those ill-reputed places which Schumann musically describes so perfectly. Of course the highlight for most people is the strange and enigmatic Vogel als Prophet . While there is hardly a pianist out there capable of attaining the magical atmosphere of this piece as well as Alfred Cortot did, Helmchen does as admirable a job as many. The chorale-like middle section sounds as odd in this performance as it should, stopping the piece in midtrack, appearing and then disappearing just as quickly. The Symphonische Etüden, performed here with the five Anhang variations interspersed throughout the cycle, works well: The extra variations seem as though they truly belong to the cycle. It is far more satisfying to hear them this way than performed together at the conclusion of the opus proper. Here Helmchen alters his sound to fit his conception of the work. This is no longer light-hearted fare. This is as heavy and brooding as Schumann gets. And perhaps Helmchen here plays the work a bit too poised, too “normal” for my tastes. I tend to like my Schumann ever more schizophrenic in its rhythmic intricacies and eccentric in its numerous sforzandi . Helmchen plays the work a bit lighter than I would like, making it sound almost like Mendelssohn, yet there are moments when this works beautifully: Etude III and even Variation V sound as though they are lost parts of Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses here. The C-Major Arabeske brings us back to the light-hearted world of the opening, acting as both conclusion and encore. The pianist plays it simply: smooth, flowing, and tender. With bonus SACD quality sound, PentaTone has done it again. This one’s a keeper.


FANFARE: Scott Noriega

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

The sacred space of Winchester Cathedral has echoed to music every day for almost a thousand years, inspiring worshippers and visitors alike. Winchester Cathedral is home to a Cathedral Choir which, under the leadership of Martin Neary, was internationally regarded as one of the greatest choirs of England.

in 1973, Philips Classics brought out an album of Christmas carols in its series of quadraphonic recordings with the Winchester Cathedral Choir directed by Neary. PentaTone has digitally remastered this essential recording using DSD technology and is now releasing it in superb surround sound, as part of its RQR series.

Violinist Arabella Steinbacher and pianist Robert Kulek continue their vital collaboration together with a new Pentatone release: César Franck’s Sonata for Piano and Violin in A coupled with Richard Strauss’ Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat, Op. 18. While Franck’s violin sonata is epic in character, Strauss’ work is full of jovial energy, hope and anticipation, a stimulating fusion of elements for these musicians. Both artists possess superb technique. Ms. Steinbacher often demonstrates a delicate yet fiery touch in her playing, while Mr. Kulek’s resolute intonation, steadfast tempi and broad dynamics are his trademarks. As has often been heard in their recital performances, this synergistic duo is a partnership of equals at the service of the music they play.

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



TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4. Romeo and Juliet • Mikhail Pletnev, cond; Russian Natl O • PENTATONE 5186 384 (SACD: 60:19)


This is not a reissue from the mid-1990s cycle on DG (recently repackaged in a bargain box), but a brand new recording. I don’t know if it portends a second complete cycle from Pletnev, but on this evidence that would be most welcome.


His overall conception of the symphony has not changed radically since DG in 1995, with many of the same distinctive interpretive touches. But everything is now in sharper focus, more acutely characterized, more subtle in nuance. Tempos are significantly faster in all four movements, and the DG now leaves a comparatively flat, bland impression.


Having said that, the reading will still not be to all tastes—Karajanesque in its extreme refinement, with legato suaveness of style, smoothed-out attacks, and rounding of staccato articulations. At the same time there is a balletic grace and an aristocratic quality reminiscent of Mravinsky. To a surprising degree, Pletnev’s conception of the first movement minimizes contrast between the first and second themes—the former phrased with wondrous subtlety, the latter taken very fast and smoothly. In the B-Major third theme the dead-center tuning of the soft timpani is a real (and rare) pleasure. The development is played for transparency, the buildup into the recapitulation tightly controlled, but projecting a remarkable sense of simmering power under the surface. The coda has an extraordinary feathery beauty, sinuously shaped even in the fff affirmations of the last page. Of the Old School Russian sound there is barely any hint, though a subtle trace of the old trademark horn vibrato remains in the recapitulation of the second theme. In Pletnev’s hands the Andante is a cool study in understated blue-grays; the pizzicato scherzo velvet in tone, shaped with exquisite subtlety. In the finale he radically downplays the bombast, with light, transparent balancing of the massive textures, and graceful, shapely phrasing.


Cool transparency is again the watchword in the slow introduction to Romeo and Juliet —though for all the avoidance of old-style Russian excess, the players’ national ancestry still seems to come through in an intensely characterful, nasal quality to the string sound at bars 11 ff. The Allegro giusto memorably combines silky refinement and rhythmic snap; the love theme has an icy tonal purity to the strings, with a concentrated, highly individual shaping of the line that really is quite special. The theme’s climactic reprise similarly demonstrates a remarkable balance of aristocratic poise and impulsive surge, again with a suggestive hint (but no more) of old-style Russian brass vibrato.


The recording balances a realistic concert hall perspective with exemplary sharp focus of detail (I can’t comment on the surround sound). Altogether superbly distinctive, and well worth adding to your collection even if you already own the DG versions.


FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy

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

What is there to say? The playing, as usual from this group, is terrific, and of course the tunes are great. The only issue is whether or not wind arrangements of famous melodies from these two operas appeals to you in the first place. They were created, obviously, as background music, the sort of thing you might hear at an aristocratic soirée, or in a kiosk stuck in the middle of a park—music for a more gracious age. The remastered sound is fine, but I never listen to quad-turned-into-multichannel productions in surround sound. Experience has taught me that they come across far more naturally in regular stereo. You can’t go wrong here if the repertoire appeals to you.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Precocious Addie Mills is smart and energetic, just like the mother she never knew. Addie has no idea why her father resents the holidays so intensely, refusing even to allow a Christmas tree in the house. But when she brings home a tree she won in a school contest, it paves the way for a miracle of sorts—her father’s broken soul is transformed. The House without a Christmas Tree, a new opera by Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek that premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 2017, is based on the book by Gail Rock and the beloved 1972 television movie of the same name. Ricky Ian Gordon (b. 1956 in Oceanside, NY) studied piano, composition and acting, at Carnegie Mellon University. After moving to New York City, he quickly emerged as a leading writer of vocal music that spans art song, opera, and musical theater. Mr. Gordon’s songs have been performed and or recorded by such internationally renowned singers as Renee Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Judy Collins, Kelli O’Hara, Audra MacDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Andrea Marcovicci, and the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, among many others. Royce Vavrek is a Canada-born, Brooklyn-based librettist and lyricist who has been called “the indie Hofmannsthal” (The New Yorker) a “Metastasio of the downtown opera scene” (The Washington Post), “an exemplary creator of operatic prose” (The New York Times), and “one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world” (CBC Radio). His opera “Angel’s Bone” with composer Du Yun was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Gentle and haunting spirits from distant spheres meet in a surging world of dreams and lullabies in 'The Girl and the Angel, a musical narrative'. This work interweaves a new story by bestselling author Cornelia Funke with expressive new compositions by Luna Pearl Woolf and familiar and popular songs by Irving Berlin, Lennon / McCartney, Jake Heggie, Engelbert Humperdinck, Gordon Getty and others. Cornelia Funke herself captures her story with rousing songs by Frederica von Stade, Daniel Taylor, Lisa Delan and Zhen Cao, accompanied by the lush cellos of Matt Haimovitz and his Uccello ensemble. Exquisite images from the award-winning creative studio Mirada visually shine the story. The Girl and the Angel was originally released in 2013 under the title Angel Heart with accompanying concerts in Los Angeles and New York's Carnegie Hall, first released internationally in 2018, and now appears in a German-language version. The New York Times described The Girl and the Angel as 'a story that penetrates directly into the imagination of young people, with the simplicity and dark pull of a fairytale.'

It is hard to escape the incredible pull of Symphony No. 7, knowing the background to its composition and its general significance. Shostakovich began to work on the actual composition in July 1941 in Leningrad, where he wrote the first three movements under constant attack from the enemy; and after his evacuation from the city besieged by German troops, he completed the Finale and the instrumentation in Kuibyschev in December 1941.

Reviews:

Paavo Järvi's Leningrad is the opposite of his father's 1988 epic with the Scottish National Orchestra - light, laconic and sonically lean where Neeme's recording was spectacularly big in every way.

– BBC Music Magazine

Järvi and his engineers offer ruthless clarity and precision, exposing a rogue E flat clarinet with a flash of the theme at one point (never heard that before) and lacerating flutter-tongued trumpets as the shock and awe peaks…there is no denying the excellence of the playing.

– Gramophone

Bulgarian violinist Vesko Eschkenazy is one of the very good guys of the classical music world and much loved in The Netherlands, from where I am currently writing my reviews. The team of performers brought together for this Pentatone recording is highly promising, with support from leading soloist Tjeerd Top in the Double Concerto, someone I remember from his time as a student at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, and oboist Alexei Ogrintchouk who now teaches there, as well as having increasing numbers of distinguished recordings under his belt, including more Bach from BIS.
 
There is very little to criticise here, and these are all very fine performances. The sound is pretty crisp supporting an historically informed approach with brisk tempi, a discretely balanced harpsichord helping things along and admirable transparency of texture and articulation. Perhaps the orchestral sound could be a little better defined, with the strings behind the soloists sounding a bit generalised even in SACD mode, but this is a minor point. Brisk tempi means we don’t have the same kind of profundity in the beautiful Largo, ma non tanto second movement of the Double Concerto, but we’ve moved on from the kinds of romantic atmosphere beloved of David and Igor Oistrakh. This is a kind of mixture between worlds, with fairly rich vibrato in the solo lines to go along with the early-music flavour of the general approach. Comparing with Monica Huggett and Alison Bury with Ton Koopman on the Erato label shows very similar timings but a far lighter, chamber-music sonority and a reluctance to play with legato lines. Tighter rhythms and a livelier sonic picture can be found on the BIS label, where Masaaki Suzuki’s Bach Collegium Japan make a superb job of these concertos on BIS-CD-961, showing how the orchestra can play a more pro-active role while almost turning the soloists into consort members rather than giving them their more usual prominence.
 
So much of what will turn you on in such recordings is a question of taste, and to my ears there is nothing which offends in this Pentatone Bach recording. BWV 1043 doesn’t quite bring a tear to the eye as it can do with some versions, but I still like it a great deal. The solo violin concertos BWV 1041 and BWV 1042 move along decently, though the rhythms might have been a bit more bouncy in the outer movements. The first movement of BWV 1041 for instance, has an intensely narrative feel which Suzuki obtains in his BIS recording, but which is a touch soggy here - a sensation which comes from that rather generalised backing to the soloist. Timings are a little longer, but not in any extreme way. I love Eschkenazy’s restraint in the Andante of BWV 1041, and his gorgeously humane solo lines are ultimately the main selling point of this particular set.
 
The final D minor concerto BWV 1060, the one reconstructed from a C minor concerto for two harpsichords works well in this recording, with Ogrintchouk’s rich oboe tone mixing very nicely with the strings and Eschkenazy’s partnering solo, brought down a little in the balance to combine on an equal footing and keep a realistic balance with the orchestra.
 
To conclude, this is a highly desirable recording of the Bach violin concertos, but alas won’t become my all-time favourite. I enjoy the period sound and all of the solo playing, but the somewhat anonymous orchestral backing detracts a little from the overall effect. It’s a different prospect, but Masaaki Suzuki’s more inclusive ensemble is more satisfying to my ears, though admittedly fitting less into conventional expectations of the ‘concerto’ format. In the end, there is no real problem with this recording other than that there are so many others jostling for our attention. The SACD aspect is an attraction, but doesn’t solve that mildly beige orchestral tapestry which prevents me from making this a list of purely admiring superlatives.
 
-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

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



WAGNER Der fliegende Holländer • Marek Janowski, cond; Albert Dohman ( Dutchman ); Matti Salminen ( Daland ); Ricarda Merbeth ( Senta ); Robert Dean Smith ( Erik ); Silvia Hablowetz ( Mary ); Steve Davislim ( Steersman ); Berlin RSO & Ch • PENTATONE PTC 5186 400 (2 SACDs: 126:30 Text and Translation) Live: Berlin 11/13/2010


This release marks the beginning of an SACD traversal from PentaTone of the 10 frequently performed Wagner operas. In a charmingly old-fashioned gesture, PentaTone will provide with each of the first nine sets a voucher that, if you collect them all, entitles you to a 50-percent price reduction for the final item ( Götterdämmerung, due in November 2013) or—for free—a “special CD collection box.” A cool marketing idea. I wonder if other Wagnerian promotion schemes were kicked around: “Collect them all, kids, and get a free Tarnhelm!”


Something can be said for concert performances of Wagner’s operas. (Studio recordings, for economic reasons, are largely a thing of the past.) There’s no possibility of directorial malpractice, something that these works seem to attract. I just returned from the 100th Bayreuth Festival where I encountered, among much else of questionable merit, a Lohengrin where the good citizens of Brabant were all laboratory rats, a Parsifal with a transvestite Klingsor sporting black fishnet stockings, and a Tannhäuser set in a chemical plant for no good reason. The focus in concert, by default, is on the music, and this inaugural release has got the goods. Marek Janowski provides dramatic impetus to the proceedings but also assures that the orchestra’s role is never slighted. He lingers appealingly as he plays the excerpt from Senta’s Ballad heard in the overture, and there’s a joyous swing to the Entr’acte leading into Holländer ’s final two scenes. Janowski makes the most of the Italianate aspects of the score, including a lovely, lyrical Steersman’s Lied in act I (courtesy of the excellent Australian singer Steve Davislim) and, of course, the very Verdian finale of act II. The chorus, prepared by Eberhart Friedrich, director of the Bayreuth Festival Chorus since 2000, does its job with an incredible precision that would be impossible in the context of a staged production.


An excellent cast was assembled for this live recording that documents a single performance at the Berlin Philharmonie on November 13, 2010. Leading the charge are Albert Dohman, highly regarded for his Wotan (as heard on Et’Cetera SACDs with Harmut Haenchen, and on Opus Arte with Christian Thielemann from Bayreuth) and Matti Salminen, one of the world’s go-to basses for Gurnemanz, Marke, Hagan, and Hunding. Salminen sings a hearty Daland and makes the most of Wagner’s songful passages. His aria toward the end of act II (“Mögst du, mein Kind”) has a Mozartean grace and fluidity. Dohman’s performance is equally impressive. His voice, like Salminen’s, is inherently appealing yet imbued with the tortured quality the role demands; we sense the same anguish that Wotan radiates in act II of Die Walküre or the beginning of Siegfried ’s last act. The Dutchman’s bitterness and sorrow are powerfully portrayed without scenery-chewing.


To my taste, Ricarda Merbeth’s soprano is a bit squally and insufficiently youthful-sounding. There could be more of a sense of “ever-increasing agitation” (“immer zunehmender Aufregung fort”) as she progresses through the three stanzas of Senta’s Ballad. On the other hand, Kansas-born Robert Dean Smith’s handsome Heldentenor instrument—he’s been Bayreuth’s Tristan since 2005—assures that Erik is a more compelling character than is often the case.


As usual, PentaTone’s high-resolution sonics are superb. Multichannel makes clear a mid-hall audience perspective that still provides plenty of involving impact, but places offstage horns way off in the distance. (Spatially, the sound is still more than satisfactory in stereo.) PentaTone’s 140-page booklet is bound into the cardboard package and there are heavy paper sleeves attached as well to hold the two discs. There’s a German/English libretto that, unfortunately, isn’t indexed to the tracks on the discs. The booklet also includes substantial liner notes by Steffen Georgi, the dramaturge for the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, which is to say that he gives lectures before many of the ensemble’s concerts. Recommended—and don’t lose that voucher!


FANFARE: Andrew Quint

Classical Music

Award-winning conductor Kazuki Yamada leads Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in an all French program of highly melodious music. Most recently Kazuki Yamada was the winner at the 51st Besancon International Competition for young conductors in 2009, receiving the audience award as well as the Grand Prize.

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

Bold, turbulent defiance sits alongside pained introspection and bittersweet reverie in this penetrating recital of Brahms piano works by the acclaimed young Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin in his eagerly awaited second recording for Pentatone.

The seven pieces comprising the Fantasias, Op. 116 are quite different in mood but are nevertheless intricately constructed to produce poetic miniatures of great depth and sonority, requiring sensitive artistry to convey their sense of unity and poignancy.

Brahms is in a more full-bloodied and demonstrative mood with the four character pieces in the much earlier Ballades, Op. 10, but these too show moments of transcendent beauty. And in the rarely heard Theme and Variations, Op. 18b, Brahms's sumptuous and instantly seductive arrangement of the second movement of his String Sextet, he produces an arresting and magisterial work with exquisite tone coloration and a hushed, sublime ending.

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These are masterfully crafted renditions, expressive and passionate, perfect in their timing, phrasing, and dynamic structure, as well as grandly conceived in scope.

– Opus Klassiek (Netherlands)

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

Aspects of America presents a fascinating collection of 20th- and 21st-century American orchestral music, ranging from “good old” Samuel Barber’s Souvenirs to pieces by esteemed living composers such as Sean Shepherd (Magiya), Sebastian Currier (Microsymph) and Christopher Rouse (Supplica). The centerpiece of this album is Portland-based composer Kenji Bunch’s Aspects of an Elephant, inspired by the timeless parable of six men who try to discern the traits of an elephant in a pitch-dark room, eventually discovering that only the sum of their perceptions encompasses the full truth. In a similar way, the pieces featured on this album constitute a rich panorama of the dynamism and diversity of contemporary American composition. Bunch’s piece is dedicated to the members of the Oregon Symphony, who release their fifth album with Pentatone, after Music for a Time of War (2011), This England (2012), Spirit of the American Range (2015) and Haydn Symphonies 53, 64 & 96 (2017). On Aspects of America, they again play under the spirited leadership of music director Carlos Kalmar.

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REVIEW:

This is a superbly played and astutely programmed disc covering just over sixty-five years of music from the tonal end of the spectrum, and all world-premiere recordings but one.

– The Arts Fuse (J. Blumhofer)

With it's combination of three instrumental movements, followed by a cantata with three soloists and chorus, Mendelssohn's Second Symphony "Lobgesang [Hymn of Praise]" is highly original from a conceptual point of view. The piece is a milestone in the history of the symphonic form, stretching the seams of the symphony genre even further than Beethoven had dared with his "Choral" Ninth. In his Lobgesang, Mendelssohn achieved nothing less than the artistic destruction of the conceptual opposition of vocal and instrumental music. Here they enter into a relationship of constructive, mutual support in the service of music. Moreover, the Biblical lyrics express Mendelssohn's deeply-felt religiosity. This album completes Pentatone's Mendelssohn Symphonies series with the NDR Radiophilharmonie and conductor Andrew Manze. After winning the Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2017 for their recording of Symphonies 1 & 3 and the positive reception of Symphonies 4 & 5, expectations are high for this final piece of the puzzle. On this album, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and Andrew Manze join forces with the NDR Chor and WDR Rundfunkchor, as well as with an excellent cast of soloists: sopranos Anna Lucia Richter and Esther Dierkes and tenor Robin Tritschler.

The spirit of Gustav Mahler looms over the pages of Shostakovich’s turbulent, sprawling and enigmatic Symphony No. 4, a work so uncompromising that for many years he suppressed its performance, fearing public censure. Mixing bombast with banality, savagery with sarcasm, this baffling yet profound work is also one of his most startlingly original. It’s paired with his ever popular Symphony No. 10, a brooding and lyrical masterpiece which is said to contain a musical portrait of Joseph Stalin in the impetuous second movement and in whose third and fourth movements Shostakovich artfully weaves a musical motif based on his own name which emerges resplendent in the spirited finale. This triumphant release is the latest in a series of recordings for Pentatone by the Russian National Orchestra. Their Shostakovich cycle was widely acclaimed as “the most exciting cycle of the Shostakovich symphonies to be put down…and easily the best recorded.” (SACD.net). The Symphony No. 7, conducted by Paavo Järvi, won the Diapason d’Or de l’annee 2015 and was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award for Best Suurpund Sound recording.