Schubert composed his three sublimely alluring Sonatas for Violin and Piano in the spring of 1816, though they had to wait until 1836 for posthumous publication by Diabelli, who re-named them ‘sonatinas’. With their sometimes subordinate role for the violin and deceptively uncomplicated style, these pieces sidestep the influence of Beethoven and return more to the world of Mozart’s later violin sonatas, particularly with the Sonata D 384. The minor-key works develop Schubert’s gift for drama and vocal melody further, including hints of his famous song Erlkönig from the previous year.

When the 21 year old Rimsky-Korsakov’s Symphony No.1 in E minor was premièred in December 1865 it was hailed in some quarters as the first truly Russian symphony. The leader of ‘The Five’, Balakirev, favoured the use of eastern themes in the search for a personal symphonic path for national music and Rimsky seemed to signal an alternative to the German-influenced music of Anton Rubinstein. He completed Symphony No.3 in C major in 1874. Again it was cast in a thoroughly Russian manner, full of vivacious romanticism and revealing significant technical advances on the earlier work.

The Royal Ballet’s The Nutcracker is the quintessential Christmas ballet. When her nutcracker toy comes to life, young Clara is transported by the magician Drosselmeyer to a magical world of excitement and delight. Lauren Cuthbertson and Federico Bonelli dance the exquisite Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince; Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell take the roles of Clara and the Nutcracker; and Gary Avis is the mysterious, kindly Drosselmeyer. This performance celebrated Peter Wright’s 90th birthday and a production that has been in The Royal Ballet’s repertory for more than thirty years. With sumptuous period designs, spellbinding stage effects and of course Tchaikovsky’s iconic score, The Nutcracker continues to enchant audiences of all ages. Filmed in High Definition and recorded in true SS. "fresh and reinvigorated - Nutcrackers come and Nutcrackers go but the Royal Ballet's version is a hardy perennial. " (The Stage) "The Royal Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker, always handsomely traditional, has become a tradition of its own." (The Independent) "Francesca Hayward and Alexander Campbell make an enchanting couple, " (The Daily Telegraph)

DETAILS:

Format: NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: None
Dubbed: None
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Since their revival in the latter portion of the twentieth century, these pieces have been performed a number of times. This particular recording, however, stands apart from the rest due to its impeccable attention to the performance practices of Mendelssohn’s time. These works are performed on a replica of an 1815 six-octave Streicher grand piano, which is very close to what was actually used by the young child prodigy. These musicians also follow Mendelssohn’s practice of utilizing the keyboard in the concerto tuttis as well as the solo part. The orchestra plays on gut strings with Tourte-style bows. The Piano Concerto in A minor was written for Mendelssohn’s sister, Fanny in 1822. The Sextet was written two years later, and is the first foreshadowing of the vigorous energy and shimmering textures which would soon mark Mendelssohn’s unique personal style.

SPOHR: String Quintet No. 7 / String Sextet, Op. 140 / Potpo

Lohengrin is staged by the enfant terrible Hans Neuenfels, and offers a thought-provoking production of brilliant visual clarity. The performance with Klaus Florian Vogt in the title role is staggering and impressive. There is beauty and purity in his voice, but in this role in particular, one truly senses something other-worldly, which fits superlatively both with the work and the production. Conductor Andris Nelsons brings out the best in the festival chorus and orchestra. It is a Lohengrin one does not easily forget and puts Bayreuth back in the vanguard of Wagner interpretation. "Great Wagner performances such as this give the sensation of looking down at the world from a sadly omniscient height... Vogt...gave a dreamlike performance... Dasch... was sweetly impassioned throughout. Petra Lang was a properly searing Ortrud... Andris Nelsons... conducted with blazing intensity." (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) ‘‘A magic moment of music theatre.’’ (Handelsblatt) ‘‘Bayreuth's incomparable chorus really deserves a medal for its performance here.’’ (International Record Review) ‘‘All six solo singers are musically excellent and dramatically persuasive, with Petra Lang's excoriating Ortrud and George Zeppenfeld's grave yet warm-toned King Henry particularly memorable...’’ (Gramophone)

Classical Music

The ''sheer visual sophistication'' of Annabel Arden's Barbiere serves ''a triumphant celebration of Rossini's musical genius'', featuring de Niese's ''powerfully sung'' Rosina, Burger's ''gale-force'' Figaro and Stayton's ''pure and mellifluous'' Almaviva - a leading trio ''musically and dramatically beyond compare'' (The Independet - 5 stars). Contributing to the ''ensemble precision'', the rest of the cast includes a ''scene-stealing'' Berta in Kelly, a ''suavely unctuous'' Basilio from Stamboglis and Corbelli's Bartolo, ''an object lesson in comic understatement'' (The Guardian). With Enrique Mazzola at the helm of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, ''the score bubbles along on a Puckish current of merry mischief'' (The Telegraph).

Classical Music

Verdi: Il trovatore (Live)

This is a very important recording, as it is the first time the original piano quartet version of the Eroica Symphony has been recorded. (it should not be confused with the arrangement by Ferdinand Ries published 50 years later). This anonymous arrangement was made at Beethoven's insistence (though he had requested a string quintet) and published in 1807, three years after the orchestral premiere. The writing is far superior to that of Ries in the later version, and this work stands as a fine and magisterial piano quartet in it's own right.

Classical Music

This is a new installment of SWR CLASSIC-series dedicated to Hans Rosbaud. It contains all the recordings the Austrian conductor made for the SWR, some of them being for the first time released on modern recording technology. The recordings were made shortly (days!) before his death. Both Piano Concertos are interpreted by famous pianists of the 20th century: Walter Gieseking and Géza Anda, Gramophone recently remarked that Rosbaud "was one of the unsung heroes of mid-20th-century music, who ... gave thoroughly rehearsed and assimilated performances and premieres of the widest possible range of music". In Fanfare, Peter J. Rabinowitz pointed to range of his sympathies, claiming it was "greater than that of just about any of his contemporaries except perhaps Bernstein, Scherchen, and Stokowski. Rosbaud is best remembered, probably, for his Mahler, his Bruckner, his work with the Second Vienna School ... and especially his commitment to the post-war avant-garde…”

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Verdi: Rigoletto (Recorded Live 1961)

Classical Music

This is a re-release of an SWRmusic bestseller. The recording was the very first one of the original version of Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle, realized using the critical new edition based on Rossini’s autograph score published in 1991 by Carus. Gioachino Rossini's Petite messe solennelle (Little solemn mass) was written in 1863, possibly at the request of Count Alexis Pillet-Will for his wife Louise to whom it is dedicated. The composer, who had retired from composing operas more than 30 years before, described it as "the last of my péchés de vieillesse" (sins of old age). The extended work is a missa solemnis, but Rossini labeled it, not without irony, petite (little). He scored it originally for twelve singers, four of them soloists, two pianos and harmonium. The mass was first performed on 14 March 1864 at the couple's new home in Paris. Rossini later produced an orchestral version, including an additional movement, a setting of the hymn "O salutaris hostia" as a soprano aria. This version of the mass was not performed during his lifetime because he could not obtain permission to perform it with female singers in a church. It was first performed three months after his death, at the Salle Ventadour in Paris by the company of the Théâtre-Italien on 24 February 1869.

Classical Music

This disc is just a peach. Jules Massenet’s ballet music brings together all the most charming musical trends of the 19th century: the new French ballet tradition, the lightness of Offenbach’s operettas, the lush tunes of Strauss’s Vienna, the big splashy orchestration of late-century “exotic” potboilers. The music keeps getting better and better as the CD goes along.

First I listened out of order and decided the opener, Bacchus, was my least favourite. Then I went in order and, mid-Bacchus, wondered what I had been complaining about. Yes, “Chasseresses et Bacchantes” has an early role for a percussion instrument so wimpily played that I’m not sure what it is, but then the most glorious Johann Strauss parody waltz breaks out and all is forgiven. Yes, the final bacchanale isn’t as crazy as Saint-Säens’ or Roussel’s, but what music is?

Hérodiade is an opera about Herod, where he’s the central character, in contrast with Richard Strauss’s Salome. The ballet music comes from a banquet where Herod entertains guests with dances by exotic slave girls from various foreign lands. It’s the shortest selection here.

Then we have big suites from Thaïs and Le Cid, each over 20 minutes, the highlights of the disc. Those who know Thaïs only for its “Meditation” will be happy to hear that the rest of the opera is also jam-packed with beautiful music. It’s varied, too, from the stern timpani roll of the opening andante to the perky Pierné-like flute and piccolo solos of the sixth movement, to the unexpected two-minute church-like organ solo. Le Cid is a festival of Spanish tropes, tunes and clichés from the very start. The inevitable cor anglais solo, in ‘Madrilène’, is just gorgeous. It’s as tuneful and colourful as the Spanish pastiches of Chabrier and Debussy, which is to say it’s a ton of fun.

The Barcelona Symphony plays excellently throughout, that one wimpy percussion issue confined to a single track. They seem to especially enjoy the Le Cid music, but who wouldn’t? Patrick Gallois continues to prove himself an extremely skilled, sensitive conductor of ballet music. You could imagine people dancing to this album. Given how good the music is, it’s extremely rare to have it collected on disc without the full operas alongside. Frémaux and Marriner have recorded Le Cid but for sound, panache and comprehensiveness, it’s hard to beat this. What fun.

– Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International

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

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.

“The Paganini violin concertos are above all else an exhibition of artistic effects. But when they are played, as Ingolf Turban does, with all piquant bravado and wit and taste, then they are musical fun … He played the concertos with a very taut and steely tone which was able to elicit a smile, even considering the indescribable wizardry of technique. One could not miss hearing how Paganini understood Rossini´s artistry with song He had fused some of this artistry into the parts for violin, as was brought out by Ingolf Turban through his ever elegant, glitteringly clear, and supremely singing production of tone. And to top it all, Turban´s playing of Paganini lacked neither a drew-like fresh fantasy of sound nor an extraordinarily playful vigor. And thus one could enjoy these concertos of that satanic violinist enveloped by legend.” We naturally listen to music today differently from the public of Paganini´s time. But we must be aware of the circumstances of that time, and have an ear for relationships. The need is all the more for a rational stance that is equally joyful and anxious. Smiling is only one aspect of Paganini. When our senses fade while facing the bravura, so do our hearing and sight dim before the tremendous plunges that this music conceals within itself, from heaven to earth and then out again to the infinite. The only comparison can be with Chopin at the piano. He performed such plunges, from so soft as to be barely audible to abrupt change of touch. There is eloquent testimony that bears this out. Ingolf Turban, in his attempt to revive the characteristics of happening for the Paganini concertos wants to do justice to both of these dimensions.

PAGANINI: String Quartets (Complete)

Especially with Beethoven Idil Biret proved herself a great artist with breathtaking depth of expression and dramatic performing power... The big applause was fully deserved. KURIER "Biret grasps the size of Beethoven' style.

For the first time, the complete Beyreuth Ring from 1962 is being released on this magnificent 4-volume collection. This legendary performance is conducted by Rudolf Kempe, and features Hans Hopf as Siegfried, Gottlob Frick as Hagen, and Birgit Nilsson as Brunnhilde. Gotterdammerung is the fourth of Wagner’s four music dramas that make up his epic Der Ring des Nibelungen.

For the first time, the complete Beyreuth Ring from 1962 is being released on this magnificent 4-volume collection. This legendary performance is conducted by Rudolf Kempe, and features Otto Wiener as Wotan, Grace Hoffmann as Fricka, Gottlieb Frick as Hundig, Fritz Uhl as Siegmund, and Astrid Varnay as Brunnhilde. Die Walkure is the second of Wagner’s four music dramas that make up his epic Der Ring des Nibelungen.

It was a debut that will long be remembered. It was in October 2006 that Yannick Nezet-Seguin first conducted the Dresden Staatskapelle, which with its invitations to younger conductors in particular was increasingly emerging “as a talent scout for the next generation of baton-wielders” (German daily Die Welt). The 31-year-old newcoming, whose very name was a tonguetwister for most, had hitherto attracted the most attention in his native Canada; since 2000 he had been directing the Orchestre Metropolitain, little brother of the Orchestre Symphonique in his birthplace of Montreal. After debuts with orchestras in Toulouse, Goteborg and Birmingham, he was now in the Semperoper, standing for the first time in his life before one of Europe’s long-established, tradition-steeped orchestras. Nezet-Seguin was no disappointment. In fact, he was just the opposite. Straight away at rehearsals, it was obvious that this young man knew exactly what he wanted in works by Britten, Ravel and Shostakovich; in concerts, he was in full command of musicians and audience alike with his energetic and precise conducting manner, his sens of sound and rhythmic structures. Word soon got around that news of “the Great Canadian Conductor for whom this country’s classical music buffs have been waiting” (Toronto Star) was more than a mere marketing device. And people believed him when he admitted that conducting had been “like a vocation” for him ever since he was ten years old. “Today I have the feeling that I am living the dream I had as a little boy,” he confessed.

REVIEW:

Making a major mark in this repertoire isn’t the easiest thing for any conductor to do, not with so many distinctive performances already on disc. But Alsop has a genuine affinity for the composer’s music, and can clearly deliver the goods. Alsop holds her own in terms of the big picture, leading a performance of the Seventh that ultimately carries substantial expressive weight. It is the same for Symphony No. 8, which emerges with lots of character and warmth. In both works, the BSO produces a vivid, disciplined sound.

– Baltimore Sun