MAHLER Symphony No. 4 • Phillipe Herreweghe, cond; Rosemary Joshua (sop); Champs-Elysée O • OUTHERE LPH 001 (53:28)


Mahler’s symphonies are a relative newcomer to the period-instrument movement: Roger Norrington’s Hänssler disc is the only alternative to this new one. The main divergence between these historically informed versions and all of the others is the issue of vibrato, particularly in the strings: Both of the orchestras employ little if any; Herreweghe’s string players also use gut strings.


Some listeners may feel, as I do, that there is an astringent tone in the string sound (though that is a positive boon in the second movement’s scordatura passages); this is partially offset by the clarity and directness of the sound as a whole, both instrumentally and in the audio production (provided by the masterly Andreas Neubronner). Detail is exemplary and natural, surpassing most of the competition, SACDs included.


Herreweghe, while happy to enumerate the differences in sound provided by his period orchestra, rightly notes that “we are only too aware of one blatant fact: the essential is elsewhere.” Quite so. In matters of tempo, I have no argument. The first three movements are crisply articulated, with care taken to observe the sometimes deceptively complex tempo changes. The third movement is particularly successful, where the natural balance between winds and strings that Herreweghe mentions in his program note is especially effective. There is enough warmth in the string tone to establish the peaceful opening feeling, while there is ample power in the winds to negotiate the minor-mode darkness and the arrival at heaven’s gates.


The printed timing of the last movement—6: 41—sent up a red flag. Mahler’s own piano roll of the movement was timed at 7:19, and Yvonne Kenny’s recording (once available on Pickwick) is breathless in the extreme; most recordings time out between eight and 10 minutes (Norrington’s is 8:37). Luckily, this proved to be a typo, and Herreweghe accompanies the fresh-sounding and exquisitely characterful Rosemary Joshua at a sensible 8:41 (the total time, as listed in the headnote, is correct).


All together, this is an excellent recording. I prefer it to the Norrington, mostly due to the latter’s characteristically over-hasty tempos and to the less ingratiating sound of his orchestra. Herreweghe’s own attention to Mahler’s sound world (his Wunderhorn disc was reviewed in Fanfare 30:3) has once again paid a handsome dividend.


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

The pairing of the two works on this album is unique in that one comes from the dawn, the other from the dusk of Ludwig van Beethoven’s career. Indeed, whereas the composer wrote the Quintet for winds and piano, Op. 16 when he was only 26- the talented young man also excelled as a successful pianist- he did not finish his String Quartet Op. 130 until a year before his death. The Edding quartet proposes here the original version of the work, with the Grosse Fuge, op.130, as final. The direct comparison of these two works on the same disc intelligently sheds light on the fantastic distance the composer covered between these two points in time. Two years after their successful Schubert album, which was warmly received by the press and public, the Edding Quartet and Northernlight felicitously join together once again on the same album to give new readings of these masterpieces of the chamber music repertoire. Having become major interpreters of the Classical and Romantic repertoires, the two ensembles offer expert performances, refined and precise, of two of the German composer’s finest scores.

Inspired by his discovery of Handel's Messiah, Joseph Haydn spent two years composing his oratorio Die Sch�pfung (The Creation). The revered conductor, Philippe Herreweghe continues his exploration of Haydn's vocal works with the Collegium Vocale Gent and Orchestre des Champs-�lys�es investing the oratorio with an abundance of tone and color that makes this enduring masterpiece a transporting experience. Featuring the soloists Christina Landshamer, Maximilian Schmitt and Rudolf Rosen.

While Igor Stravinsky is known for his exciting and ground-breaking words The Rite of Spring and The Firebird, it would be reductive to view him solely through the prism of those works. Threi is his longest, most ambitious and complex score and probably one of the peaks of his career. A work like the Requiem Canticles goes even further in this direction: the composer's last masterpiece, summarizing in itself the evolution of an entire lifetime. In this album, Philippe Herreweghe reveals with conviction his love for the composer's music and under his sure, inspired direction, the Collegium Vocale Gent and the Royal Flemish Philharmonic reveal their pure poetry.

Impressed by the Handel works that he heard in London, Haydn felt the need to compose oratorios. First came Die Schöpfung (‘The Creation’), which met with resounding success; then Baron Gottfried van Swieten proposed to Haydn an arrangement of James Thomson’s poem ‘The Seasons’. Initially, Haydn was little attracted by the text, which deviates from the classic oratorio based on a religious text, but subsequently let himself be convinced. The result, for three soloists, chorus and orchestra, is a vast pictorial fresco of Nature that describes landscapes and the feelings that they arouse. For the first time, Philippe Herreweghe gives us his own vision of an oratorium by Haydn. This recording is also the first in a Haydn cycle with Philippe Herreweghe for Phi.

The second project of Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe for the Phi label to focus on Renaissance music is devoted to one of the most remarkable of all composers: Carlo Gesualdo. Both his life, characterised by extravagant and excessive behaviour, and his compositions left their mark on the history of music. Although best known for his secular music, he also wrote an almost equivalent number of sacred works that demonstrate his fervent faith. The Tenebrae Responsories comprise a set of pieces for Holy Week, in all twenty-seven motets for six voices, a psalm, and a hymn, published under his own supervision in 1611. As in his madrigals, the music is underpinned by many unexpected chromatic variations that create expressive images evoking tears, the earthquake, the despair of Christ on the cross, etc. The acoustics of the church of the village of Asciano in Tuscany, where the programme was recorded in 2011, create the perfect soundscape for this music.

R E V I E W S:

Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent are masters of Renaissance polyphony, having produced go-to titles of this repertoire in their two-decade discography for Harmonia Mundi. Now recording for their own imprint, Herreweghe and company present a double-disc set of Carlo Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories. Infamously, the Italian nobleman had his wife killed after catching her in flagrante delicto with another; his works thereafter have a penitential dissonance that gives the music a modernist feel. If not as chromatic as his late madrigals, Gesualdo’s works for Tenebrae are more harmonically and rhythmically daring than those of, say, Lassus or Victoria. As atmospheric as a candle-lit ceremony, Herreweghe’s account of these richly textured works is beautifully sung and perfectly recorded.

-- Bradley Bambager, Listen Magazine

Synchronicity strikes again. Here, on the heels of Marco Longhini’s beautifully boxed set of Gesualdo’s secular madrigals (see my review above), is a release of the composer’s sacred music. As annotator Glenn Watkins puts it in the booklet, Gesualdo’s sacred music fell completely into oblivion. Watkins surmises that part of this may have been due to the fact that very few copies have survived, indicating (to him) that the print run may have been very small to begin with. Yet there may also be the barrier to non-religious listeners who simply do not respond to this type of music. As always, it depends on the quality of the music and the quality of the performances.

Watkins’s liner notes do not indicate whether or not the published copies of these scores call for the number of voices used here, which range between 13 and 19. (Herreweghe’s choir includes six female singers.) Nevertheless, the group is splendid. It has that rare combination of good vocal blend, transparency of texture and excellent diction that made Longhini’s madrigal performances equally exceptional. Moreover, as Longhini’s high male voices blended perfectly with the lower ones, so do Herreweghe’s female voices blend perfectly with the male, including four countertenors (two designated as “altus” and two as “quintus”) with equally exceptional voices.

What Watkins does indicate, however, is that the religious music is not as harmonically daring as the last two books of madrigals: “the moderation of their most extreme harmonic language in the sacred works cannot fail to be noted. Yet while the insistent contrast between fast (diatonic) and slow (chromatic) music found in the madrigals is less obvious here, the sacred texts offer abundant images for an inflected musical response.” In addition, as the performances unfolded, I heard quite a bit here that was considerably more advanced than any other liturgical music of its time; and, more to the point, not only the music but its performance here was considerably more emotional and powerful than the Gregorian chant and/or Palestrina music used at that time. Again, to quote Watkins, “Gesualdo’s introduction of such a powerful musical language into the ritual of Holy Week has been debated as a potentially disturbing contravention of the rules of post-Tridentine liturgical practice….We need only consider Gesualdo’s setting of Tristis est anima mea from the Maundy Thursday cycle to note the difference….The flight at the beginning is flurried and quickly cut off by a rhythmic snap; the offering of his soul and body that follows is embraced by one of the most affective and passionately chromatic passages in the entire cycle….In the Holy Saturday cycle, Aestimatus sum … is drama of a high order and of a kind rarely attained in the world of sacred music before or after.”

Watkins’s dry but accurate description of this music says as much as I could, thus I will allow his words to stand for mine here. From whatever viewpoint you approach this remarkable set of discs, however, it is a gem to be cherished.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

For its second vinyl release, PHI has chosen to reissue one of Philippe Herreweghe’s most masterly interpretations: Antonín Dvorak’s ineffable Stabat Mater, for which the conductor and his ensembles, the Collegium Vocale Gent and the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, were praised by public and press alike – Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, 4F Telerama, 4 stars in Classica, Le Choix de France Musique, and 10 in Luister and Klara, to name but a few of the distinctions it earned. "With the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, [Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent] rid this rarely recorded work of all Romantic excess. The result is a spiritual journey... highlighting the universal greatness of this major work of sacred music.” (CHOIX de France Musique) "All of Herreweghe’s performers clearly love this ravishing music, relishing every detail of this beautifully nuanced score... This new release must be the top choice." (Gramophone Editor’s Choice, Recording of the Month) "The serenity Dvorak succeeded in reclaiming is particularly present in the movements reserved for the choir, and especially so here with the interventions of Collegium Vocale Gent, possibly the only European ensemble . . . that currently offers such purity of timbre, perfection of intonation and accuracy of expression." (4F Teleram)

Antonín Dvorak's daughter Josefa died on 21 September 1875. In response to this bereavement, Dvorak composed the initial version of his Stabat Mater - for four soloists, choir, and piano -between 19 February and 7 May 1876. He then set the work aside without orchestrating it. Soon after this, he lost his other two children in the space of a few weeks, his daughter Ruzena on 13 August and his son Otokar on 8 September 1877. At this point he returned to the manuscript abandoned the previous year. The virtually overnight success of his Stabat Mater for soloists, large chorus, and orchestra raised him to the rank of one of the world's leading composers of sacred music and established him notably in Great Britain, where his reputation was to remain firm for the rest of his life. This rarely recorded masterpiece has also inspired Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent. Along with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, they strip the work of all Romantic excess. The result is a spiritual journey from the sombre opening bars to the final Amen, underlining the universal grandeur of this major work of sacred music.

The Collegium Vocale Gent, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic and Philippe Herreweghe join forces once again for a monument of the sacred choral repertoire: Antonín Dvorák’s Requiem, Op. 89. This work, dating from 1890, is one of those that marked a new phase in the composer’s musical creation, in which he recognized himself ‘as much a poet as well as a musician’. In addition, this reveals the veritable nature of a composer without constraint, probably being neither a commission nor an occasional work.

A personality has who provoked considerable controversy over the centuries, Carlo Gesualdo (1566- 1613), aristocrat, musician and murderer of his first wife, is no less a composer whose music is marked by subtlety and refinement. His innovative Sixth Book of Madrigals, written two years before his death, exploits all harmonic, chromatic, and textural possibilities to meet the texts’ expressive requirements and proves to be a veritable masterpiece of the genre. After a first release devoted to the Italian composer’s sacred works, the Tenebrae Responsoria, Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent invite us to (re)discover his secular music for the 450th anniversary of his birth. In masterful fashion, they propose a delicate, expressive reading of this complex music, doing justice to the modernity of the musical language of the Prince of Venosa. The acoustics of the church in the little Tuscan village of Asciano, where the programme was recorded in 2015, provides an ideal sound setting for this music.

William Byrd’s motet Infelix ego is featured in the album offering several of the great English composer's sacred motets, performed by the outstanding Collegium Vocale Gent, directed by Philippe Herreweghe. The text of Infelix ego by the Dominica Girolamo Savonarola, is a contemplation of guilt and anger leading eventually to the gift of deliverance upon acceptance of Christ. Byrd's setting musically reflects the powerful emotions.

The Collegium Vocale Gent also presents Byrd's Mass for 5 Voices and additional motets, as well as Alfonso Ferrabosco’s Peccantem me quotidie a5 and Philippus de Monte’s Miserere mei a5. - Phi

For his 3rd album on Phi, Philippe Herreweghe has brought together a splendid set of artists in the Lutoslawski hall in Warsaw. Ann Hallenberg, whose voice won over the public of some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, takes on the Rhapsody for contralto solo and men's chorus by Brahms while the rest of the programme leads the listener through his essential works for chorus and orchestra. Herreweghe’s long-time affinity with the composer of A German Requiem has enabled him to provide a coherent and personal vision of those musical pages in which Brahms gave free course to his most intimate thoughts. Collegium Vocale Gent is joined in this endeavour by the members of the Accademia Chigiana of Sienna with whom it formed a European ensemble that was officially recognised as Cultural Ambassador of the European Union just a few months ago. Together with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and its authentic instrumentarium, this great choir interprets the Burial Song, the Song of Destiny, the Song of the Fates and the motet Warum ist das Licht gegeben. A great moment for all admirers of Brahms and fans of choral singing at its very best!

The Collegium Vocale Gent and Orchestre des Champs-Elysées interpret Beethoven's Missa Solemnis for PHI. This major work of the sacred repertoire, high on the list alongside Bach's Mass in B minor and the Mozart Requiem, is Beethoven's longest work and assuredly the one that demanded the most work. The composer even considered the Mass his finest work. Philippe Herreweghe shares this opinion and judges the Missa Solemnis to be one of the apogees in the history of classical music. With four superb soloists, a refined chorus and orchestra, Philippe Herreweghe invites us to a thoroughly transcendental experience.

Over the past 40 years Philippe Herreweghe has been working with some extraordinary soloists with whom he has had very fertile and stimulating dialogues, both musically and personally. Philippe Herreweghe: "It seems important to give these musicians the opportunity to express themselves on the label PHI in works they are particularly fond of." This is the case of the present recording. Christine Busch, leader of the orchestra of Collegium Vocale Gent, recorded the Sonatas & Partitas for solo violin by J. S. Bach - a work she admires, and she has been playing since her childhood. Philippe Herreweghe: "Christine Busch inspires by her technical perfection, her strength, her humility, her sense for poetry, as well as by her qualities needed to serve the greatest of all composer." " "Sales Inventory

To launch Philippe Herreweghe's birthday year, we turn the spotlight once more on one of his most accomplished recordings: Bach's Motets BWV 225-230. Recorded in 2011, in the splendid acoustics of the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin, this interpretation is accompanied by period instruments and is the result of intense reflection concerning the performing forces: Philippe Herreweghe sometimes uses a small number of singers per part, sometimes a larger group, according to the needs of the motet in question. He sees these pieces in terms of continuous research, in which "several approaches are possible and even necessary if one wishes to make this marvellous music sound it's best, and especially for a recording". for the greater pleasure of the eyes and ears of turntable lovers, these masterpieces by the Kantor of Leipzig now appear in a novel incarnation, subtly combining the label's new and modern graphic line with the timeless style of the vinyl format.