Classical Music

Just a few repeat listening sessions leave me with the indelible impression that we are dealing with some of the most agreeable music of its kind and of its time—all the more notable given the truly great string quartets that have been written and published by his much more famous contemporaries. -- Jens F. Laurson, FANFARE [reviewing Volume 2 of this series]

Classical Music

Classical Music

Great conductors often bring out the universality of music with particular clarity, a gift especially present in Klaus Tennstedt. Particularly known for his singular interpretations of the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler, this recording reveals that Tennstedt was an equally adept interpreter of the symphonies of Haydn and the music of Mozart.

Classical Music

Brahms’s friend Carl Goldmark completed Merlin in 1886, when it was premiered at the Vienna Hofoper. Fairly successful on both sides of the Atlantic before the Great War but hardly heard since, it’s representative of an almost-forgotten genre of 19th-century operas on aspects of the Arthurian mythos. (Chausson’s Le Roi Arthus and Albéniz’s Merlin are other examples).

The libretto by Siegfried Lipiner concentrates on Merlin’s fatal love for the wild child Viviane, which dims the magical powers with which he had served King Arthur, so that he falls victim to the Demon he had previously enslaved.

This spirited revival reveals a beautifully-scored and theatrically quite sure-footed piece fascinatingly poised between Brahms and Wagner: chromatic, Tristan-esque motifs contrast with choral writing more out of Rinaldo and the Triumphlied.

Between these extremes there is a supple, late-Romantic middle-ground where Goldmark’s declamatory vocal writing rises to occasional eloquence, with some noble orchestral passages that seem to anticipate Elgar.

The piece was certainly worth revival, but actual greatness eludes it. Luckily this production is vocally strong, with Robert Künzli as a noble-voiced Merlin, Frank van Hove as the scheming Demon and Anna Gabler a touching Viviane being the clear stars of the show.

-- Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine

This new release presents Mozart´s “Haydn“ Quartets & “Prussian“ Quartets. "In the maturity of their musical disposition, the melancholy beauty of their melody and the absolute facility in the handling of the part-writing" (Dietmar Holland), the three "Prussian" Quartets surely constitute the most important chamber music of Mozart's final years. There were many different opinions heard about the “Haydn“ Quartets - the most beautiful probably being that of Joseph Haydn himself, to whom the six quartets were dedicated. Speaking to Leopold Mozart after a performance in February 1785, he summarized his impressions as follows: “I tell you in the sight of God, as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer I know in person or by name: he not only has good taste but the greatest compositional knowledge as well.” The works are brilliantly presented here by the Klenke Quartett.

When he became music director in Cologne after the war at the age of thirty-three, Günter Wand insisted from the start on the inclusion of contemporary music in order to restore musical life amid the material and intellectual ruins. Among others, he championed composers as diverse as Walter Braunfels and Tadeusz Baird. This recording is typical of a program – with the added bonus of renowned horn soloist Dennis Brain and oboist Lothar Faber.

Martha Argerich was born in Buenos Aires in 1941 and in the course of her career has risen to become the best-known female pianist in the world. She attracted attention at the early age of three at a school performance. Her formal musical education began when she was five years old, and in 1949 she publicly performed piano concertos by Mozart and Beethoven in Buenos Aires. She was able to attend concerts given by the great pianists of that era and was very impressed with their skill. Friedrich Gulda accepted her as a student in 1955 and she went to Vienna to study with him, although he freely admitted that he did not know what he could teach her. In 1957 she won first prizes at piano competitions in Bolzano and Geneva. Her early recordings made in Buenos Aires (1955) and Geneva (1957) form an interesting part of this collection. These were followed by performances at radio stations in Hamburg and Cologne and then by her first official vinyl recordings. She gained early international recognition in 1961 thanks to a concert in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, where Martha Argerich performed together with the brilliant violinist Ruggiero Ricci. An example of that historic performance is included in this first audio documentation of the beginnings of this exceptional pianist’s career.



REVIEW:

This is young Argerich, sometimes errant Argerich, but mostly thrilling and thoroughly compelling Argerich. While her pacing can sometimes push limits, she is excellent most of the time; put simply, you are far more likely to be astounded than dismayed.

– MusicWeb International

This extensive release features all of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s opera recordings live from the Bolshoi Theater. Made between 1936 and 1963, these recordings showcase not only one of the finest venues in the world, but one of the world’s finest composers. Tchaikovsky wrote his first opera, The Voyevoda, in 1867. After a disastrous premiere, the self-critical composer burnt the entire manuscript of the work. Luckily, most of the score has been reconstructed from the individual parts. It is included in the first portion of this release for modern listeners to make up their own minds about the music. Luckily, his feelings about his first opera didn’t stop him from pursuing more within the genre. As a composer of opera, Tchaikovsky could seek inspiration in centuries of operatic tradition in Western Europe, but the history of the opera in Russia had only just begun a few years before he was born. While Tchaikovsky welcomed the ideas of Western Europe, he faced rivalry from “The Mighty Handful” of nationalist Russian composers. Despite a rocky first few operas, Tchaikovsky went on to find later success as he walked a middle-road between operatic tradition and Russian nationalism. While his operas never found the success that his ballets did, this release proves that they are the works of a brilliant mind.

The duet repertoire for two basses is hardly extensive in the field of opera, let alone in the world of Lieder. One might therefore expect an album titled Romantic Bass Duets to feature a collection of rare works by second- or third-rate song composers. This release, however, presents a first-class repertoire in rather unfamiliar arrangements. What is needed here are two singers and a pianist who fit the bill in terms of imagination and creativity. The idea of this album, the first edition of which appeared as a limited edition in 1986 and can now be obtained only from second-hand sources (if at all), was conceived by the pianist Wilhelm von Grunelius. Born in Berlin in 1942, von Grunelius was the pianist of choice for the recitals sung by the distinguished singer Harald Stamm. Born in Frankfurt am Main in 1938, this bass was a friend of Kurt Moll (1938-2017), a fellow bass of the same age. Samm once recalled in conversation that the idea first arose at a social meeting with Moll and his wife, prompting von Grunelius, a short time later, to go and research the repertoire. The result is this spectacular recording.

Franz Xaver Gebel’s biographer Ernst Stöckl reported that while there were at least three Gebel string quartets, he was familiar with but one, the published Quartet in D major. Despite persistent research in Russian libraries, he was unable to find the others mentioned in contemporary discussions about concerts. Recently however, the sheet music for the Quartet in E-flat major, printed in Moscow around 1840, where Gebel spent the remainder of his life after 1817, was found in a German library. The Hoffmeister Quartet performs these rarely heard, little-known early-Romantic gems.

The irresistible Boulanger Trio, composed of pianist Karla Haltenwanger, violinist Birgit Erz, and cellist Ilona Kindt have won a number of prizes worldwide and built an excellent reputation in the chamber music community. In addition to their traditional repertoire like the Shostakovich here presented, the Trio are in demand as interpreters of modern composers like Peteris Vasks, whose "Episodi e Canto perpetuo" grace this disc.

As a tribute to guitar legend Andres Segovia, Profil has compiled performances by the master himself as well as up and coming guitarist Friedemann Wuttke. The works are focused on favorites and evergreens from Segovia's repertoire, works of Albeniz, Sor, Vivaldi, Carulli, Paganini, and more, played intimately and soulfully in this beautiful 2 disc set. A fitting homage to a giant.

Classical Music

After the “flood of the century” the Semperoper resumed limited activities towards the end of 2002. Light was appearing on the horizon, life was going on! The first events took place at the beginning of December, with symphony concerts in which the Staatskapelle performed Anton Bruckner's Eighth Symphony conducted by Bernard Haitink. Expectant audiences were again able to assemble in the opera. The concert of December 3 was broadcast live by MDR; the single recording made of that broadcast forms the basis of this CD.

MARTHA MÖDL: THE PORTAIT OF A LEGEND • Martha Mödl (sop, ms); various vocalists; various conductors; various orchestras • PROFIL 12006 (2 CDs: 158:17) Live: 1950–82


WAGNER Rienzi: Gerechter Gott! Tristan und Isolde: Doch nun von Tristan; Begehrt, Herrin was ihr wünscht; War Morold dir so wert; Nicht Hörnerschall tönt so hold; Dein Werk? O tör’ge Magd! So stürben wir, um ungetrennt; Mild und leise. Wesendonck Lieder. Die Walküre: Der Männer sippe; Du bist der Lenz. Götterdämmerung: Starke Scheite … Grane, mein Ross, sei mir gegrüsst. R. STRAUSS Elektra: Was willst du? Seht doch dort! FORTNER Bluthochzeit: Nachbarinnen! Mit einem Messer. REIMANN Melusine: Heut, hier und jetzt wird es entschieden. TCHAIKOVSKY Pique Dame: Schweigt doch endlich! BEETHOVEN Bitten. Die liebe des Nächsten. Vom Tode. Die ehre Gottes aus der Natur. Gottes Macht und Vorsehung. Bußlied


I can’t claim to be an expert on the recordings of Martha Mödl, but to the best of my knowledge Profil has issued all of these for the very first time. At least, the company claims so on the CD insert, and I for one have never seen commercial recordings by her of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder or any of the Beethoven songs.


Mödl’s strengths as a singer were, ironically, her defects as well. Although she had a superb voice that was well trained, once she was onstage singing she let herself go in a way that was as exciting as it was harrowing. With no thought of technique, she threw herself into the music, often sacrificing tonal security or beauty for a complete identification with the character or words she was singing. The liner notes compare her to Callas, and that is a fair assessment, but I find it ironic to remember that she was not always considered a legend when she was still alive. I still recall, when Furtwängler’s RAI Ring cycle was issued on Seraphim LPs, how many critics who shall remain nameless actually apologized for Mödl’s contribution, although, to be fair, they usually added that when you saw her in person you overlooked the explosive, blown-out high notes because of the intensity of her interpretations. I also heard from an acquaintance of mine that once, in a performance of Elektra with Astrid Varnay in the title role and Mödl as Klytemnestra (which she sings in the excerpt on this set), Varnay got so caught up listening to Mödl that she almost forgot to re-enter.


From a strictly vocal standpoint, her voice is under better control on CD 2 than it is on CD 1. So many of the high notes on the first disc are attacked with such vehemence that you are almost afraid that she is going to blow the voice out, then and there, especially the two high Cs (feared by Flagstad, but apparently not by Mödl) in Isolde’s act I curse. Ludwig Suthaus was a fine singer, but not necessarily for Tristan, which lay very uncomfortably in his range, but he gives it the old college try and, sparked by Mödl, is far more intense here than in his 1952 commercial recording with Flagstad and Furtwängler. The Tristan excerpts go back and forth between two different venues and three different performances (the love duet excerpt with Wolfgang Windgassen was performed at London’s Royal Festival Hall, but not, apparently, with the Royal Philharmonic), and the singers sound rather off-mike in the 1958 Munich performance, but regardless of time or place Mödl is locked into the character with an almost psychic intensity. It’s interesting to hear such an intense vocal actress performing the Wesendonck Lieder , but this is where her high notes are more out of control than anywhere else in the set.


Turning to CD 2, we hear at the outset a much more in-control Mödl, her voice intense but warm and well placed for Sieglinde’s two act I excerpts and a phenomenal Immolation Scene from Götterdämmerung conducted by Georges Sebastian. Mödl often said that this was her favorite role of all, and she certainly makes you think the world is coming to an end! Following this, we jump a decade to a 1967 performance as Klytemnestra (unfortunately, not with Varnay) in which she is appropriately intense, but by now the voice has a wobble. The two excerpts from modern operas, Wolfgang Fortner’s Bluthochzeit and Aribert Reimann’s Melusine, are not really my kind of music (this is from the Ugly 12-Tone Era), but they do show that Mödl was not only a great stage actress but an excellent musician, capable of learning any style of music and infusing it with dramatic energy. The liner notes indicate that Reimann composed this scene especially for Mödl.


More interesting is her fascinating performance as the old Countess in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades. Though sung in German (I hadn’t realized that Germany was still performing foreign operas in the vernacular as late as 1982), she delineates the character of the old woman with perfect feeling and a meaning for the text.


Oddly, this survey of Mödl’s career ends with the earliest performances on the set, a series of Beethoven Lieder from 1950. Her voice is at its freshest here (perhaps Profil wanted to leave us with that sound in our ears), her interpretations are all excellent and not all over the top, and it’s interesting that her accompanist is Michael Raucheisen, who had recorded a large group of Lieder performances with the legendary tenor Leo Slezak back around 1928. They make an excellent pair, and these readings are exceptionally fine in every respect.


Despite the flaws, this set is absolutely indispensable for Mödl fans (and I’m certainly one), for Wagner lovers, and for anyone who wants to hear one of the most intense artists of the 20th century. We’ve had so many cookie-cutter Wagner sopranos in recent years that it’s nice to remember a time when, for some of them at least, performing this music was more than a job. It was almost a matter of life and death.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Great artists are usually individuals solely dedicated to their artistic fulfillment throughout the course of their life; some of them even seem to live in another world. Daniel Barenboim, born in Buenos Aires in 1942, is the supreme example in our time of an exception to this rule. As pianist, conductor and opera director he is a cosmopolitan in music, but at the same time he is a humanist who sees himself as a politically aware contemporary citizen active above all in the search for solutions to religious and national problems. His parents were music teachers, moving first to Israel, then to Europe. Daniel Barenboim gave his first concert when he was seven, and was giving piano recitals in Vienna and Salzburg at the age of ten; he sought advice as a pianist from Edwin Fischer, and as a conductor from Igor Markevitch; his London concert debut of 1955 was conducted by Josef Krips. Six years later he was standing on the conductor’s rostrum himself. As successor to Georg Solti in 1975, he assumed the position- which he held till 1989- of Director of the Orchestre de Paris and in 1981, he celebrated the first of his many Bayreuth triumphs with his Tristan premiere. He took the Berlin Philharmonic on their first tour of Israel in 1990 and since 1992 he has been General Music Director of Berlin’s Staatsoper unter den Linden and its orchestra, the Staatskapelle. The recordings on the present album were made in 1959, at the beginning of a great career.

Franz Xaver Gebel was born in Furstenau near Breslau in 1787 and received his musical education in Vienna, as did many of his Silesian peers. His list of teachers included Abbe Vogler and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger. In Vienna, Gebel was engaged at first as the director of music at the Theater in Leopoldstadt and published some compositions including the Great Sonata for pianoforte and violoncello. After working as a director of music in Vienna, Pest, Hermannstadt, and Lemberg, he ended up in Moscow in 1817, where he spent the rest of his life and gave private lessons for piano and compositions. Subscribers to Gebel’s evenings of chamber music had purchased tickets to what was probably the first public chamber concerts in Moscow, where they heard sophisticated pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven as well as quartets and quintets by Gebel himself. Almost 20 years after Gebel’s death, the String Quintet No. 8 and the Double Quintet Op. 28 were published at the Julius Schuberth publishing house in Leipzig. This release is a world premiere recording of the String Quintet No. 8 and the Cello Sonata.

The focus of this impressive release is not only the stunning performance by the Staatskapelle Dresden, but the audiophile-quality sound engineering: “Real live recording – without a safety net, so to speak, without sound engineers in dark horn-rimmed glasses and white coats – belongs to the days of direct cutting to cylinder in the early days of sound recording up to the introduction of magnetic tape after World War II. From that moment on, editing and manipulation became the order of the day – indeed, it is clearly audible on many LPs and may often cause some amusement ... In the short period during which the Direct-to-Disc process was in use, in the 1970s, the aim was to transfer purist recordings to LP without tape noise – mainly in the area of jazz – and this produced some recordings that are hailed even today as ground-breaking and legendary. Made using just one single microphone, these Electrola shellac recordings remain, after a process of careful and time-consuming restoration, a benchmark to this day when it comes to motivation, joy of musicmaking and a determination to give the best performance possible on the part of the musicians, the orchestra, the conductor and the sound engineers. This is perceptible on nearly all the tracks on this album. And the conductor Karl Böhm was surely seldom in such good spirits, so carefree – brisk in his tempi – and yet simultaneously so sensitive in imparting subtle messages. All in the hope that the crackling needle will leave some of the sound for the restoration process ...“ (Sound engineer Holger Siedler)

For Russian pianist Ekaterina Litvintseva’s first-ever live recording, this young, up-and-coming Russian pianist, together with conductor Heribert Beissel and the Klassische Philharmonie, Bonn produced a recording of two Mozart concerto masterpieces, the No.9 in E flat Major, K271 (“Jeunehomme”), arguably his first masterwork in this genre, and the No. 12 in A, K414. “(A) singing allegro, eloquence and staying power in the…minor middle movement and perfect motor skills in the Presto…” (Bielefeld Neue Westfälische, K271 concert review)

Frederic Chopin’s Piano Trio op. 8 is one of his fully fledged masterpieces, even though the composer completed it at the young age of 19. Chopin wrote it between 1828-1829, during his studies at The Royal University of Warsaw under the aegis of his instructor for composition, Joseph Elsner. As the musicologist Maciej Galub remarked, Chopin felt he had to face three challenges as debuting composer: Appropriating the great form, then contending with the “brilliant” style of the piano compositions by his contemporaries Hummel, Weber or Ries, and finally establishing a national Polish musical idiom, for instance by using folk dances. In his piano trio, Chopin overcame these three challenges masterfully. The Piano Trio in B-flat major by Joseph Elsner, which is included on this release, was published in Vienna under the title “Grande Sonate pour le Clavecin ou Forte-piano avec Accompagnement d’un Violon et Violoncelle oblige.” Formally it corresponds to the model with three movements for the piano trios from Haydn and Mozart. The first movement is an energetic sonata allegro. This is followed by a melodic imaginative larghetto. The finale consists of a bright rondo, whose theme has folk-like features.

A grand collection of the most popular operetta arias featuring the best of opera singers.

The viola does not play a leading role in the stereotyped notions of Hungarian music. Nor is the viola found in the "Gypsy music" still diligently practiced for tourists, in which violin and double bass are the leading instruments. The picture is not very different in classical music. Acting as a slight but necessary corrective, this disc of Hungarian viola music from composers including Liszt, Ferenc Farkas and Antal Dorati features Máté Szűcs, current first Principal Violist of the Berliner Philharmoniker who appears in concert throughout Europe as a soloist and chamber-music player.