There was controversy when Alessandro Taverna won bronze at the Leeds International Competition in 2005 - many people thought he should have been awarded the gold. Since then, he's gone from strength to strength, as amply proved by this Medtner album on Somm, which features three of the composer's 14 sonatas - the Reminiscenza, the Romantica and the Minacciosa. The Reminiscenza and Romantica are both exemplary in their dynamic, emotional and architectural control. The Minacciosa's climactic fugue is breathtaking.'' (The Guardian, February 2015) The Guardian's was one of many warm reviews for Alessandro Taverna's debut album on SOMM. His playing on this second album attests to Taverna's close affinity to the music of Debussy and Ravel. He possesses a mesmerising palette of colors ranging from a seductive, ethereal touch in Ondine to ferocity and thrust in Scarbo - and what great brilliance and dynamism he brings to La Valse and I'isle Joyeuse!

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REVIEW:

The Debussy Images are beautifully paced. This is utterly unshowy playing too, which suites the Images well. His L'isle joyeuse is impressive, his technique again utterly in service of the music, resulting in playing that is both lithe and transparent. His Ravel La valse makes a fine finale, full of shimmering delicacy and filigree (with some fantastic glissandos), alive to the darkness of this corrupted dance.

– Gramophone

BRITISH OPERA OVERTURES: English Opera in the Nineteenth Century • Richard Bonynge, cond; Victorian Opera O • SOMM 0123 (74:36)


BENEDICT The Lily of Killarny. BARNETT The Mountain Sylph. BALFE The Siege of Rochelle. Le Puits d’amour. LODER The Night Dancers. WALLACE Lurline. The Amber Witch. Love’s Triumph Prelude. MACFARREN She Stoops to Conquer. THOMAS The Golden Web


For the most part, these are pleasant, skillfully wrought pieces, though some may deride them as a mere parade of pleasant tunes. I imagine the annotator makes a valid point in blaming the librettos of the operas they precede for the music’s demise in popularity. If you’re really curious, a few of them have made their way to recordings. John Barnett’s opera The Mountain Sylph is based on the same story that resulted in the venerable ballet La Sylphide (1836), composed by Herman Løvenskiold with choreography by August Bournonville. Like Rossini, Duparc, and Sibelius, Barnett severely curtailed or stopped his composing, in his case, from 1841 until his death in 1890. During his long life, he met Beethoven and studied with Weber. On the other hand, Edward Loder’s The Night Dancers uses some of the same plot as another venerable ballet, Giselle (1841), and Puccini’s opera Le villi, but no unfaithful bridegrooms have to dance to their deaths—it all turns out to have been a bad dream. Unlike Barnett, Loder attempts a few spooky effects in his Overture. Probably the most successful of these Victorian composers was Michael William Balfe, who is represented by two overtures, those to The Siege of Rochelle and Le Puits d’amour (“The Well of Love”—it’s also a French pastry with a hollow center). The latter work, with a libretto by Scribe, was first presented in Paris. His first London success was The Siege of Rochelle , his fourth opera. He went on to compose 24 more, of which the most successful was The Bohemian Girl . Unlike most of these operas, William Wallace’s Lurline , based on the Lorelei legend, has actually been recorded. Both the Overture and that to his The Amber Witch seem more engaged by the story than some of the overtures I have mentioned. George Macfarren’s She Stoops to Conquer is, as expected, based on Oliver Goldsmith’s 1773 play. Some composers have continued to create even after they became deaf, or nearly so; Macfarren wrote She Stoops to Conquer after he had gone blind. It has not been recorded but there is a recording of another of his operas, Robin Hood . I am grateful to Richard Bonynge for his interest in obscure vocal and dance music which has resulted in some delightful recordings—in fact, I’m interested in almost anything he chooses to record. One can enrich the catalog without adding another Beethoven symphony cycle to it.


FANFARE: James Miller

1947 recording transferred from 78 RPM masters and digitally remastered using 24 bit technology.

Paul Spicer and his excellent Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir have been responsible for several fine discs already (review ~ review ~ review ~ review). I’m delighted to find their attention now turning to the choral music of Samuel Barber. This distinguished American composer had a great affinity for the human voice – he was a very decent baritone himself – and a discerning selector of texts. Those traits come out repeatedly in his art-songs and they are much in evidence in this collection of choral pieces.

Spicer has trained his young choir well. There are 26 singers in the group (9/5/6/6) and they sing with great commitment and no little skill. Occasionally the basses sound a little short of tonal depth – these are young voices, after all – but the only real concern I have is that, to my ears at least, there is some evidence of edge in the soprano tone, especially at higher volumes. However, there’s a great deal to admire in these performances, as I’ve found from previous experience of this choir on disc.

A few of the pieces were new to me. I don’t recall hearing Ad Bibinem cum me Rogaret ad Cenam previously. Like the Reincarnations trilogy it’s believed to date from the late 1930s. Whilst it’s good to hear it I don’t think it’s an especially memorable piece. Much more interesting, I find, are the three Motteto, which are settings of texts from the Book of Job. In his useful notes Daniel Galbreath observes that this set of pieces “is clearly a young composer’s exploration of styles.” I wouldn’t disagree but the writing is expressive and already the responsiveness to words, which was to be such a Barber hallmark, is well in evidence.

A few of the pieces that Paul Spicer has chosen are Barber’s own re-workings of earlier solo songs. The Monk and his Cat is one of the Hermit Songs, Op. 29, which Barber wrote in 1952/53. The music itself is thoroughly engaging. However, despite the skill with which it’s performed here I don’t really think it works in this format. In this arrangement one vocal part is assigned the melodic line at any given time while the other parts ornament it and fill out the texture. Sometimes they do so wordlessly, sometimes they articulate the same words as we’re hearing sung to the main melody. Frankly, it’s cluttered, especially since Barber retains the piano accompaniment. Much the same can be said of Sure on this Shining Night and that’s even more of a pity since that is one of the very greatest art songs of the twentieth century. Just to reassure myself I went back to the splendid DG anthology of all the Barber songs, curated by John Browning and sung by Cheryl Studer and Thomas Hampson. As it happens, it was Studer who sang both of these songs in that set. What a joy it is to hear Barber’s marvelous original inspirations sung without the regrettable accretions of his choral arrangements.

However, Barber’s arrangement of a third song, Heaven-Haven (A Nun Takes the Veil) seems to be the exception that proves the rule. This, like Sure on this Shining Night, comes from the Four Songs, Op. 13, composed between 1937 and 1940. The music lends itself much better to a choral arrangement; it’s suited to the homophonic treatment that Barber gives it and perhaps it’s not without significance that this is the only one of the three arrangements in which Barber dispensed with the piano accompaniment. The Birmingham Conservatoire singers make a splendid job of it.

His most celebrated choral arrangement of an earlier work is the re-imagining of the Adagio for Strings as Agnus Dei. Once again, I strongly prefer the original but a good performance, such as this present one, can often weaken my resolve.

The standout performance on this disc is the account of Barber’s extraordinary A Stopwatch and an Ordinance Map. This mundane, even prosaic title – the title of Stephen Spender’s original poem – belies the intensity of the subject, a poem describing the death of a combatant in the Spanish Civil War. And what a masterstroke on Barber’s part to use timpani to accompany the singers! Here the singing is first class and the timpani playing of Matthew Firkins is marvelously incisive – and recorded with tremendous presence by the engineer, Paul Arden-Taylor. This is a gripping performance.

The excellence of that performance is closely matched by the choir’s rendition of Let down the bars, O Death! This solemn, melancholy Emily Dickinson setting, which was sung at Barber’s own funeral, is sung with great feeling by Spicer’s choir.

Barber extracted some choral pieces from his operas. Under the Willow Tree comes from his 1958 opera Vanessa while two other choruses were rescued from the much less successful opera Antony and Cleopatra. The first of these, On the Death of Antony is for female voices. It features a prominent solo soprano part and I’m sorry that the soloist isn’t credited for she sings with great accomplishment. On the Death of Cleopatra is for full chorus. This is a tragic, grief-stricken piece and it’s sung intensely.

Most of the music on the program is unaccompanied but six pieces require a piano and the accompaniments by Ben Kennedy are stylish. The Birmingham Conservatoire Brass Ensemble makes a sonorous contribution to Easter Chorale. Here Barber holds back the brass until near the end of the piece and that’s well judged because the brass thereby have much greater impact when they join in.

This is another most welcome disc from Paul Spicer and the Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir. As I’ve already indicated, the singing is very good and the repertoire choice is enterprising. Somm’s documentation is right up to the mark and the recorded sound is clear and present. More please.

– MusicWeb International (John Quinn)

Christmas

For the recording of the Mignone Concerto Clelia has used the new edition of the Academia Brasileira de Musica. This is a first recording of the newly revised and corrected score authorised by Mignone's widow, pianist Maria Josephina Mignone, who had given performances of the work in years gone by. Also on this disc is the dazzling Concierto Fantastico by Isaac Albeniz - the great Spanish composer, perhaps best known for his ever-popular music for guitar, but in this work showing his equal mastery of orchestral colour and the full range of the modern concert grand piano. Albeniz dedicated the Concierto Fantastico to his friend and pupil Jose Tragó, who in turn taught the piano to Falla and Turina.

A winning combination: the sunniest [piece] pieces, charmingly performed and superbly recorded.

After Mozart, it is the 20th-century French school of woodwind writing that holds the palm for sheer felicity, just as English orchestral players, with their individuality of style and personality, can often upstage their French colleagues for affectionately subtle characterisation in its performance. The present three soloists are as expert individually as they are perfectly blended as a group, and the result here (with absolutely truthful recording) is very entertaining indeed.

The wit and charm of Ibert's Cinq pieces have long made them favourites of the wind trio repertoire, with the perky Poulenc Sonata with its dolorous central 'Nocturne' (tres doux) not far behind. Milhaud's Pastorale is more audaciously prolix, but his Suite d'apres Corrette has a disarming simplicity, yet brings delicious passing dissonances in its 'Menuet', before 'Le coucou' carols us back into spring. Tomasi's rustic Concert champetre is hardly less engaging, with its wry 'Nocturne' interrupting the geniality before the folksy closing Vif.

Villa-Lobos's Trio is the most substantial piece here, and the most fascinatingly complex in its rhythmic and harmonic texture. Its bouncing, interweaving ostinatos surely suggest the exotic, ever-present sounds of the Brazilian jungle - the haunting central Languissamente, for example, makes a dark, tropical nocturne, while the backgound energy is always left unsubdued. It cannot be easy to play, yet it is presented here with great assurance and total identity with its vivid colouring and atmosphere. A splendid collection, highly recommended.'

-- Ivan March, Gramophone [4/2000]

SOMM RECORDINGS celebrates the mastery of a 20th-century original with superb new recordings of Kurt Weill’s Violin Concerto and Second Symphony by Tomás Kocsis and the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Jac van Steen. Although Weill found fame in theatre-focused collaborations with Bertolt Brecht that produced the era-defining The Threepenny Opera, the onetime pupil of Ferruccio Busoni straddled the worlds of music-theatre, jazz and the concert hall with music of daring aplomb and dazzling achievement. Dedicated to Joseph Szigeti, his five-movement Violin Concerto of 1924 also pays tribute to the ailing Busoni and sports discernible allusions to Stravinsky, Mahler and the potent popular music of Weimar Berlin’s cabaret clubs. A unique blend, as Robert Matthew-Walker comments in his authoritative booklet notes: “No comparable work had appeared before from any composer”. Composed a decade later, the Second Symphony was premiered by Bruno Walter and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. In three movements, “Weill’s contrapuntal mastery and his equally unselfconscious command of instrumentation present us with genuinely symphonic music, such as a 20th-century Haydn would have appreciated and enjoyed”. Jac van Steen’s previous SOMM releases include acclaimed recordings of Mozart piano concertos with Peter Donohoe, Valerie Tryon and Mishka Rushdie Momen (SOMMCD 278-2), The Deeper the Blue, an intriguing exploration of color and timbre in music featuring Vaughan Williams, Ravel, Dutilleux and Kenneth Hesketh (SOMMCD 275), and the International Classical Music Awards-nominated pairing of concertos by Albeniz and Mignone with Clélia Iruzun (SOMMCD 265). The Ulster Orchestra has released world premiere recordings of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra and two piano concertos by William Matthias with pianist Mark Bebbington (SOMMCD 246).

SOMM RECORDINGS celebrates the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ birth with definitive, newly remastered performances by Lani Spahr of his ever-popular The Wasps Overture and two symphonies – the startling Sixth and, in its world premiere performance, the valedictorian Ninth – with Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. As Simon Heffer comments in his authoritative booklet notes, this major new release is notable for containing historical performances (from 1957, 1958 and 1964), for Spahr’s meticulous restorations, and for offering “a clear indication of the genius of” Sargent. From the 1957 BBC Proms, The Wasps Overture blends Ravelian influences with English folk songs to produce a vivaciously genial impression of RVW at his most distinctively infectious. Recorded in 1964 and again for the BBC Proms, the Sixth Symphony – a ‘war symphony’ in all but name – is, as Heffer notes, “rich in orchestral experiment, more innovative than perhaps any other work in the composer’s canon, and whose enigmas and mysteries still remain to be deciphered”. RVW’s final, Ninth Symphony, “a work of beauty and grandeur, and a magisterial signing off”, says Heffer, is heard here in splendidly remastered audio in its very first performance in April 1958, four months before the composer’s death, by Sargent and the RPO. SOMM’s previous Vaughan Williams recordings include Symphony No.5 and Dona Nobis Pacem with the BBCSO (SOMMCD 071), “a mandatory purchase for all lovers of Vaughan Williams’s music and, frankly, a priceless document” (MusicWeb International). And the “compelling” (International Piano) The Piano Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams by Mark Bebbington and Rebecca Omordia (SOMMCD 0164). Lani Spahr’s previous, universally acclaimed SOMM restorations include Elgar Rediscovered (SOMMCD 0167) and the four-album set Elgar Remastered (SOMMCD 261-4) hailed by Audiophilia as “a fascinating achievement which will have you wishing for more”.

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce a thrilling first collaboration between long-time SOMM stablemates, baritone Roderick Williams and the Coull Quartet, joined by tenor James Gilchrist and soprano Sophie Bevan. With six world premiere recordings, On This Shining Night is a ravishing recital focusing revealingly on a 20th-century phenomenon: works for voice and string quartet. It takes its title from a James Agate setting by Samuel Barber (whose masterly "Dover Beach" is also heard), here in a sublime arrangement by Roderick Williams. Williams also provides arrangements of Barber’s "Sleep Now" and three Frederick Delius pieces from his Seven Songs from the Norwegian: the evocative "Twilight Fancies," vivacious "Young Venevil" and exotic "I-Brasil." They serve, as Robert Matthew-Walker’s erudite booklet notes observe, as companions to 11 songs by Delius’s close friend and associate, Peter Warlock, including the gentle intimacy of "Corpus Christi," the “mini-cantata” "Sorrow’s Lullaby," and unique free-recitative of "My gostly vader."

Composed for Williams and the Coull Quartet, Sally Beamish’s five-part Tree Carols offer striking, variegated settings of poems by Fiona Sampson in their premiere recording. Roderick Williams’ SOMM catalogue include the acclaimed three-volume Twelve Sets of English Lyrics by Hubert Parry (SOMMCD 257, 270, 272), Sally Beamish’s Four Songs from Hafez (Birdsong, SOMMCD 0633), and the classic English song cycles A Shropshire Lad and Maud (SOMMCD 0615), which MusicWeb International declared a “game changer… in terms of our appreciation of Arthur Somervell’s songs”. The Coull Quartet has recorded a wide repertoire for SOMM. Their recording of Nicholas Maw and Benjamin Britten quartets (SOMMCD 065) was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice and a BBC Music Magazine Benchmark Recording. Gramophone declared their recent SOMM release with Clélia Iruzun, Treasures from the New World, featuring piano quintets by Amy Beach and Henrique Oswald (SOMMCD 0609), “a delight”.

SOMM Recordings announces the exciting label debut of the trio Voice with Hildegard Portraits, marking the tenth anniversary of the canonization of the 12th-century spiritual leader, theologian, mystic, scientist and composer, St. Hildegard of Bingen. Hailed by Gramophone as inheritors of “the slot left by the dissolution of Anonymous 4”, Voice – Emily Burn, Victoria Couper and Clemmie Franks – formed in 2006. Singing together since their early teens in the Oxford Girls’ Choir, and as members of Stevie Wishart’s Sinfonye, they have toured throughout the UK, USA and Europe.

Hildegard Portraits draws on close relationships between Voice and the featured composers. It takes its title from the first recording of Laura Moody’s seven-part setting of Hildegard’s letters forming a portrait, Moody says, of “not so much a saint, seer or symbol, but a woman who lived and loved”. Their collaboration with “friend and mentor” Stevie Wishart continues with first recordings of Aseruz trium vocum and O choruscans lux (choir version), responses to what Voice describe as “the soaring, melismatic lines, the flourishes and ornamentation, and mesmerizing unison sound” of St. Hildegard’s own music, heard to sublime effect in six pieces, including O clarissima mater, O virtus sapientie and Nunc gaudeant. Other exclusive/first recordings include Marcus Davidson’s Musical Harmony and O Boundless Ecclesia, Emily Levy’s compelling blend of folk-inspired melody and Hildegardian ornamentation, How Sweetly You Burn, and Tim Lea Young’s Three Wings: pt.1 (all composed, like Moody’s title work, for Voice). Ivan Moody’s O quam mirabilis exquisitely sets Hildegard’s own text “expressing to perfection awe at the mystery of the Creator God.”

SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce the release of Eclogue. British Chamber Music, a collection of British chamber music from the 19th to the 21st centuries including nine first recordings featuring the label debut of the Chamber Ensemble of London in their 25th anniversary year with director Peter Fisher. Illustrious guest artists – Margaret Fingerhut (piano), Gabriella Dall’Olio (harp), Peter Cigleris (clarinet), Judith Hall (flute) and Michael Stowe (oboe) – join the ensemble for a wide-ranging survey that includes Gerald Finzi’s masterpiece, Eclogue. Receiving first recordings are two works by Clive Jenkins – his Piano Concertino of 2018, performed by its dedicatee, Margaret Fingerhut; and Three Pieces for Oboe especially arranged by the composer for this recital – and the recently deceased Joseph Horovitz’s Concertante for Clarinet and Strings. Also new to album are Alan Ridout’s three-part Concertino for Flute and Strings, Cecilia McDowall’s Y deryn pur (‘the gentle dove’), two extracts from Don Shearman’s Eine Kleine Leichtmusik (‘A Little Lightmusic’) and a new arrangement by Peter Cigleris of ‘Frensham Pond’ from William Lloyd Webber’s Country Impressions. Among the rarities featured are the Romance from Elias Parish Alvars’ Concertino for Harp and Orchestra, and Robin Milford’s Mr John Peel Passes By, alongside Ronald Binge’s ever-popular The Watermill, familiar to television viewers as the theme for a BBC adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. Formed by violinist and director Peter Fisher in 1997, the Chamber Ensemble of London consists of handpicked players from leading London-based orchestras and chamber music ensembles and performs widely throughout the capital.

SOMM Recordings announces a major addition to the Richard Strauss catalogue with new recordings of his settings of two era-defining melodramas: the epic poem Enoch Arden by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, England’s revered and longest-serving Poet Laureate, and German poet Ludwig Uhland’s atmospheric interrogation of a traveler returning from a mysterious mediaeval fortress, The Castle by the Sea. Making their SOMM Recordings debuts are actor Christopher Kent and pianist Gamal Khamis. Both works were composed for the distinguished German actor and director, Ernst von Possart. A powerful, potent and timeless tale of honor, love and sacrifice within a love triangle, Enoch Arden is one of Strauss’s most evocative and emotional scores. The Castle by the Sea – here in its first recording of Christopher Kent’s translation – is a miniature gothic masterpiece. Christopher Kent has appeared widely on stage (alongside Robert Lindsay and Timothy Spall), screen and radio. One of the UK’s best-known voice actors, he is also known for his extensive collaborations with leading musicians, and has been a regular recital partner of Gamal Khamis since 2016.Gamal Khamis is a multi-award-winning pianist with a flourishing international career hailed by The Times for his “formidable keyboard skills”. He made his Wigmore Hall debut aged 10, is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3, and a member of Lipatti Piano Quartet. The booklet includes an authoritative introduction by Andrew Neill, with Christopher Kent and Gamal Khamis providing additional illuminating commentary.

SOMM Recordings announces the perfect escape from Lockdown Blues with a collection of appealing piano miniatures compiled and performed by Peter Dickinson to chase all your cares away. Lockdown Blues includes soothing masterpieces by Erik Satie (Trois Gnossiennes, Trois Gymnopédies), Francis Poulenc (Bal fantôme, Pastourelle) and Edward MacDowell (To a Wild Rose), alongside Eugene Goossens' melancholic Lament for a Departed Doll and Samuel Barber's valedictory Canzonetta. There is whimsy in George Gershwin's Three-Quarter Blues (familiar to British audiences as the theme to radio and television's After Henry) and Who Cares? from the musical Of Thee I Sing. Of interest are 12 iconic jazz tunes by Duke Ellington. Heard here in their original sheet-music versions, they are pure Ellington, the product of a sophisticated composer. Among featured classic songs are Solitude, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, Mood Indigo and It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got That Swing). In his introduction, renowned broadcaster and writer Humphrey Burton describes Lockdown Blues as 'a delightful hour of discovery', hailing the Ellington selections as 'a real find that will surely be much anthologized long after Lockdown has been forgotten'. The disc is completed by three pieces by Dickinson - the titular Lockdown Blues, Freda's Blues and Blue Rose, a take on MacDowell's To a Wild Rose - together with Constant Lambert's Elegiac Blues, Lennox Berkeley's Prelude VI and John Cage's Satie-influenced In a Landscape. Peter Dickinson's career as a pianist has largely been in recitals, broadcasts and recordings with his sister, mezzo Meriel Dickinson, and he has worked with many other performers. Dickinson's Paraphrase II is included on Nathan Williamson's 20th-century British piano music collection, Colour and Light (SOMMCD 0196) and was praised by the British Music Society as 'a Theme with six hugely contrasting variations exploring the outer edges of tonality in a brilliant, structurally refined way'.

SOMM Recordings announces the release of The Reeds by Severn Side, a ravishing collection of choral works by Edward Elgar, sung by the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, led by director William Vann, accompanied by organist Joshua Ryan. Of the 18 featured works, six are first recordings. They traverse Elgar’s remarkable ascension from lowly lawyer’s clerk to self-taught composer to Master of the King’s Musick. And chart the impeccable fusing of his Roman Catholic heritage with the Anglican church tradition to which he contributed several masterpieces. They also reveal what Vaughan Williams described as the “mystery and [the] miracle” of Elgar’s flowering into the music laureate of Edwardian England, as Andrew Neill, former Chairman of the Elgar Society, observes in his authoritative booklet notes.

Alongside juvenilia such as the 16-year-old Elgar’s Credo on Themes from Symphonies 5, 7 and 9 by Beethoven (in James Olsen’s completion) and Drake’s Broughton, to which the 73-year-old composer would return in his Nursery Suite, are diverse works that reveal growing confidence, including early settings of the Mass and first recordings (in English) of the Op.2 trilogy: Jesu, word of God Incarnate; Jesu, Lord of Life and Glory; Jesu, Meek and Lowly. The masterpiece bitonal setting of Tennyson, There is Sweet Music, one of Elgar’s self-described “choral songs”, is a highlight, alongside twin peaks of his anthem writing: O Hearken Thou (heard as the Latin motet, Intende voci orationis meae) and substantial Give Unto the Lord. William Vann and the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea’s previous SOMM releases include In Remembrance, described by Gramophone as “almost unbearably moving”, and as “an album that will have enduring value into the future” by MusicWeb International. Carols from Chelsea was a Best Classical Christmas Release, praised for its “model singing”, in The Guardian.