MOZART: SERENADES, HORN CONCER

MUSIK IN DEUTSCHLAND 1950-2000

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 3 DE WAAR

MUSIK IN DEUTSCHLAND 1950-2000

JAZZ TRIBUNE NO. 59/ THE INDIS

VANOCE - CHRISTMAS PRAGUE CHI

When the producer and director of the 1925 silent film of Flaubert's Salammbo asked Florent Schmitt to provide a two-hour score for it, they may well have had in mind, besides his acknowledged reputation as a creator of exotic, opulently barbaric scores (La tragedie de Salome, Les Dionysiaques and the saxophone Legende, for example), his extraordinary facility: besides his work as a critic and, for a time, director of the Lyon Conservatoire, he already had to his credit a vast output of large-scale works conceived and elaborated with the utmost seriousness and skill. Schmitt did not skimp this time or adopt short cuts like the ostinatos or plain repetitions to which less conscientious film-music composers resort (though because of the pressure of time he felt obliged to incorporate short passages from previous works of his); and he thought well enough of his score, after well-deserved oblivion had fallen on the film, to extract three orchestral suites from it. The story, of a Carthaginian priestess who falls in love with Matho, leader of the mercenaries attacking the city, who steals the sacred veil from the temple—with fatal consequences for them both—offered plenty of opportunity for colour; and the suite, recorded here, again demonstrates Schmitt's mastery in handling a very large orchestra and his imaginative creation of atmosphere.

The opening pages, depicting a silent palace, are already remarkably evocative (though you'll need to turn the volume up in order to hear them properly), and one could scarcely have more voluptuous music (with quite simple means) than the scene where Salammbo lies asleep. Both these movements are in the first suite, arguably the best of the three able to lead an independent concert existence. A chorus is employed only in the third suite: its words here are not clear and are not given, but perhaps they are not of great importance. In view of Schmitt's vivid writing (especially in the impressive musical scene of Matho's death) it is a pity that he never wrote a score for sound films except for a documentary on trains: he would have rivalled the existing masters of the genre. Meanwhile it is a matter of regret, and indeed of reproach, that none of these three sumptuous scores is in the repertoire of any of our major orchestras; but the splendid performance here by the Ile de France orchestra (founded only 20 years ago) could well act as a stimulus to their adoption. Cordially recommended to all those with an appreciation of virtuoso orchestral writing and playing.'

Lionel Salter, Gramophone 6/1994 Reviewing Accord 20359

Italian Orchestral Music

Dimension Vol. 18: Holst - The Planets

In May 1977 Karajan returned to the Vienna State Opera like a king returning from exile, and was greeted with 'unbounded adulation', as Gottfried Kraus here affirms in his notes, for the conductor's Trovatore, with Leontyne Price, Ludwig, Pavarotti, Cappuccilli and Van Dam as his superb cast. A year later he returned for a revival of the same work, this time with a television broadcast as an added incentive. Cappuccilli and van Dam remained from the previous cast, Kabaivanska, Bonisolli and Cossotto were the scheduled newcomers, but at the dress rehearsal Bonisolli, annoyed that an audience was present, chucked his sword at the conductor during Manrico's Act 3 aria. Consternation all round. Luckily by the first night on May 1st Domingo, no less, had been engaged as a replacement.

None the less, Viennese critics thought the cast less admirable than its predecessor. On the strength of this evidence and a video I possess of the TV transmission, they may have been wrong. It would be hard at that time, let alone since, to find singers more suited to their roles. To my mind, Kabaivanska is a subtler Leonora than Price (heard on the 1962 Salzburg/DG set under Karajan and in his faulty 1977 studio recording), even if her actual tone is not as rich as Price's. This regrettably under-recorded soprano sings with vigour, feeling, refinement and technical assurance, all displayed affectingly in her Act 4 aria, the very picture of the wronged, desperate Leonora. Cossotto, sometimes coarse in tone (and not quite the equal of the subtler Simionato in 1962 or Barbieri in 1956) remains an undoubted presence.

Domingo has never been the ideal tenor for Di quella pira' (as is Corelli in 1962), but every other part of Manrico's role is very much his territory as be once again shows, singing it in his absolute prime - try his introductory serenade. Cappuccilli as ever is a strong presence as Luna and, like his colleagues, gives his all for Karajan. Van Dam, singing formidably, is in his element as Ferrando. Karajan himself seems rejuvenated by the occasion, presenting the work with the raw, emotional drive it calls for. You are definitely present at a memorable evening at the Staatsoper.

I won't say that the performance surpasses his 1962 Salzburg rendering, let alone the classic 1956 recording on EMI with Callas et al in the cast, but as yet another revelation from the Vienna archives, and one for which no allowances have to be made in terms of sound quality (the earlier sets are in mono), this must now come into the reckoning as a favoured version, not least because it appears at mid price, though it suffers from the omission of Leonora's Act 4 cabaletta 'Tu vedrai'. There's also a short, interesting bonus with Karajan talking about the work with Marcel Prawy. A translation is included in the accompanying booklet but, as with all this series, no libretto or translation is provided.

-- Gramophone [8/1999]

This recording includes a radio interview with Herbert von Karajan.
Libretto is not included.

This is the tenth time that Lorin Maazel has conducted the New Year’s Concert in Vienna, more often than anyone since Willi Boskovsky. What is always endearing is that Maazel, unlike any maestro since that former concert-master, boldly takes up his solo violin, entering into the fun in a way that lightens his once-severe image. He sets the right atmosphere with his two concertante items, the Scherz-Polka of Johann Strauss II and the Walzer a la Paganini of Strauss I, both arranged for him by Michael Rot, and what does it matter if most of the violin section of the Vienna Philharmonic could play them just as well?

The distinctive point about this year’s concert is that it marked the centenary of the death of the younger Johann and the 150th of his father. Aptly the programme starts with the very first of his hundreds of opuses, the ‘Epigram Waltz’, Sinngedichte, precisely setting out the pattern he always favoured in waltzes, just as winningly lyrical as the many later favourites. Some New Year’s Concerts take you by storm with their bite and energy, and at least one – Karajan’s single appearance not long before he died (11/87) – conveyed a valedictory quality amid the sparkle. This one makes its points above all by charming.

The seductive languor of the introduction to G’schichten aus dem Wienerwald (‘Tales from the Vienna Woods’), with its haunting zither solo, sets the pattern, followed by such rarities as the late Donauweibchen Waltz (‘Little Woman of the Danube’) on themes from the operetta, Simplicius, and the Hopser-Polka, insinuating rather than thrusting. The uproarious Banditen-Galopp, with its police-whistles and gunshots, then raises the temperature, and the well-known sequence of favourites at the end sparkles as brightly as ever, even if the audience’s clapping in the inevitable encore, the Radetzky March, is no better disciplined than usual. As ever, a winning disc.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [4/1999]

As if in answer to last month’s Singertalk, a major company issues a recital by this admirable tenor – and not before time. It is eight years since his debut recital was recorded on Claves (11/92), and despite his notable successes in the world’s leading opera houses (not to mention a warm recommendation in these columns) this long and precious span of youth in a tenor’s career has been allowed to pass without another recital as follow-up. Happily the voice as recorded has changed little, the fresh bloom of 1991 being only slightly affected by its steady but judicious usage, which in turn has brought experience and authority.

The earlier disc confined itself to Rossini and Donizetti, while the new one has a wider scope and includes at least one surprise in Lensky’s aria from Eugene Onegin, sung in Russian. The performance is a good one but, though a welcome extension, it suggests a limitation that is felt in some degree when he sings in Italian too. He has not yet the art of infusing the voice with emotions: he can express but not quite ‘be’. Still, his gifts and achievements are real enough. The voice is a clear, unforced lyric tenor, singing, in this programme, exactly what is right for it. Flexible and capable of softness, it is put scrupulously to the service of the music, guided by a well-schooled feeling for phrase and carry-over (for instance, in the lovely ‘linkage’ of the reprise in ‘Angelo casto e bel’). His French is good, and the Dream Song from Manon is a particularly skilled and tasteful piece of singing. To Roberto Devereux’s cabaletta and in declamatory recitative he brings spirit and energy without bluster, and the aria from Un ballo in maschera shows something of what may lie in him for the future, both in expressive capability and in the voice itself.

He is working here with the same conductor as in the still-available and recommended recital on Claves. The orchestra is different, with playing less refined than that of the English Chamber Orchestra, but still alert and responsive. The recorded sound is slightly more reverberant but clear and well balanced.

-- Gramophone

...two artists to be reckoned with: Sonia Wieder Atherton and Imogen Cooper... For the first time, we can rightfully speak of "the cello's diction"... The slow movement draws tears from our eyes as if the cello has imposed its own words to the music... Schubert has been resuscitated!

-- Crescendo [4/1999]

DUOS FOR VIOLIN AND CELLO SO

TRUMPET RHAPSODY TIMOFEI DOKS