Of Georg Solti’s two recordings of the Verdi Requiem, I slightly prefer this later one, though I realize that this isn’t received wisdom. The Decca recording, after all, features Sutherland, Horne, Pavarotti, and Talvela as soloists, and while Sutherland arguably is not the right voice for the part, everyone else is very good indeed. On the other hand, Leontyne Price, even toward the end of her career, certainly does have the right voice, as does Veriano Luchetti, while Baker and Van Dam are very intelligent singers by any measure, and they do a good job here. Besides, it’s hard not to raise an eyebrow at the generic complaint that “singer X lacks a true Italianate timbre” when the words being sung are in Latin and the drama (such as it is) occurs entirely within a devotional framework. The music certainly can take many different approaches, particularly when there’s so little actual agreement on what a “true Italianate timbre” is.

Also compared to the Decca recording, Solti here has the finer chorus, a better orchestra (for this work at least), and strangely enough, better (meaning less gimmicky) sound. Solti’s interpretation remains consistent, exciting, and direct, with a particularly thrilling account of the brief Sanctus and a Dies Irae chorus that is as violent as anyone could want without ever turning merely brutal or hysterical. A work as rich as this one always excites a wide range of opinions, and personal preferences tend to vary substantially. My personal favorite, all things considered, is the first Muti on EMI, with Scotto, Baltsa, Luchetti, Nesterenko, and the Philharmonia Orchestra; but either of Solti’s recordings are definitely among the select few. [12/17/2004]

– Classics Today (David Hurwitz)

Murray Perahia’s interpretations of Beethoven sonatas, collected in a new 5-CD box set, have been compared to “viewing a famous painting after it’s been cleaned and restored” (ClassicsToday.com). Gramophone’s reviewer found them “stimulating and fresh … the sense of an invigorating energy being released in the act of performance comes across strongly; and I’m sure Beethoven would have loved it … It’s all done with such ease and naturalness of expression.” Penguin Guide wrote that “Perahia is as authoritative and sensitive an interpreter of Beethoven as he is of Mozart … All these readings have the blend of authority, finesse and poetry that distinguishes this great artist at his best.”

The original release of this album was named Stereo Review's 1988 Record of the Year.

This release combines a pair of Beethoven performances by conductor Leonard Bernstein, in his prime, with the New York Philharmonic; the Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, was recorded in 1961, and the Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1958. Both have been digitally remastered, and the earlier recording actually comes out a bit better; by 1961 Columbia's engineers had figured out how to use the backdrop of LP sound to accent orchestral strings, an effect difficult to reproduce on CD. Charismatic, gifted, and genre-crossing, Bernstein was on top of the American musical world during this period, and these recordings remained strong sellers for some years. Hearing them half a century on reminds listeners (or apprises them anew) of several things. The first is that the New York Philharmonic, though certainly more than competent, did not have a trademark strength like its chief competitors in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, and Boston. You hope for brilliance that is not there. But you're also reminded that Bernstein was a subtler conductor than he is sometimes given credit for being. His histrionic style on the podium belied a well-considered, detailed approach to these works, for which he was confronted by decades (or more) of established tradition. The Symphony No. 5 is broad rather than exceptionally violent, with a lovely free space for the oboe cadenza in the first movement; Bernstein has it expand beyond its structural significance into a moment of sudden and profound personal reflection in the midst of societal tumult. In the Symphony No. 7 Bernstein is deliberate and persistent in the first movement's slow introduction and never really turns up the voltage until the finale, which thus acquires its proper bacchanalian mood. As with other albums in this Sony reissue series, the CD version includes both photographic reproductions of the original artwork and booklet reprints of the jacket text, with added French and German translations.

-- James Manheim, AllMusic.com

To music lovers throughout the world, the Marlboro Music festival represents a unique gathering place for some of the most distinguished and gifted musicians of our time. founded in 195I, Marlboro has come to be recognized as perhaps the world’s only fully professional center for advanced musical studies. Located at the end of a country road in the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont, Marlboro is a place where the young professional and the master artist rehearse and perform together on an equal basis. There, everyone can get away from normal routines and pressures to explore together new repertoire, exchange ideas, and cultivate the art of chamber music. In the words of one critic, this extraordinary community of artists has become “perhaps the highest concentration of artistic activity, of whatever kind, that takes place anywhere, anytime, in the U.S. and possibly the world.”

Lauren Bacall might have been the unlikeliest candidate ever for Broadway-diva musical stardom - you had to love her to love her singing - but she absolutely nailed it. And twice. Her first musical, Applause (1970), had given her glorious second act to a film career that was as uneven as it was memorable. Her second, Woman of the Year, only reaffirmed that triumph when it opened at the Palace Theater on March 29, 1981. Based on the classic Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn film, Woman of the Year features music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb with an all-star cast including Harry Guardino and scene stealer Marilyn Cooper. The New York critics loved not only Bacall and Cooper but also Kander and Ebb's songs. In the New York Post, Clive Barnes wrote that the "melodious score by John Kander and the witty lyrics by Fred Ebb mark their best collaboration yet for the musical theater, and that includesCabaret." The New York Times's Frank Rich wrote, "From the moment we hear the cheering overture ... it's clear that the score is flush with melodic ballads and show-biz brio." The show won Tonys® for Bacall, Cooper, Kander and Ebb and Peter Stone, who wrote the book.

Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb

TRACKS:
1 OVERTURE 3:00 Orchestra & Company
2 WOMAN OF THE YEAR 3:47 Lauren Bacall, Ensemble
3 THE POKER GAME 2:41 Harry Guardino, Ensemble
4 SEE YOU IN THE FUNNY PAPERS 2:41 Harry Guardino
5 WHEN YOU’RE RIGHT; YOU’RE RIGHT 4:54 Lauren Bacall, Roderick Cook
6 SHUT UP GERALD 1:27 Lauren Bacall, Roderick Cook, Harry Guardino
7 SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW? 2:36 Harry Guardino, Ensemble
8 ONE OF THE BOYS 4:10 Lauren Bacall, Rex Everhart, Ensemble
9 TABLE TALK 2:46 Lauren Bacall, Harry Guardino
10 IT ISN’T WORKING 3:51 Roderick Cook, Daren Kelly, Grace Keagy, Ensemble
11 I TOLD YOU SO 2:10 Daren Kelly, Grace Keagy
12 I WROTE THE BOOK 3:48 Lauren Bacall, Ensemble
13 HAPPY IN THE MORNING 2:52 Lauren Bacall, Eivind Harum, Ensemble
14 SOMETIMES A DAY GOES BY 4:06 Harry Guardino, Ensemble
15 THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER 5:26 Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Cooper
16 WE’RE GONNA WORK IT OUT 2:21 Lauren Bacall, Harry Guardino

To describe Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica in all of its incredible detail would be the work of a graduate seminar in counterpoint. Busoni begins with a setting, divided into several variations, of the Lutheran chorale “Ehre sei Gott in der Ho?he” He goes on to develop, and eventually combine, all three of Bach’s subjects from the unfinished fugue. Then, after the connecting cadenza, he ventures beyond Bach’s original plan by writing a quadruple fugue that combines the chorale melody with the three original subjects. None of this, of course, need concern the general listener. It is enough that the Fantasia contrappuntistica is a work of exhilarating and beautiful power.

Reger was fond of the cello and wrote some of his best music for it. The Fourth Cello Sonata, Op. 116 (published in 1911), is an example of his mature cham- ber music style, and makes a better display of his undeniable powers than many of his more ambitious scores.

Founded in 1950 as a chamber music workshop for professional musicians, the Marlboro Festival has attracted outstanding concert and chamber music artists who have come to Vermont at their own expense to exchange musical ideas and to play chamber music. Away from the routine pressures of professional activity, they are free to explore the vast literature combining piano, strings, woodwinds, brass and voice, with concern only for the music itself. Weekend Festival concerts have been described by Time magazine as “the most exciting chamber music in the U.S.”

Classical Music

Sony brings to Naxos of America exclusively, the original motion picture soundtrack from the upcoming feature film, "My All American," which tells the true story of UT's 1969 national championship-winning football team heroes, Coach Darrell Royal and defensive back Freddie Steinmark.," and Paramount Pictures' forthcoming "Same Kind of Different As Me", based on the New York Times bestselling novel. TRACK LISTING 1. Coach Remembers 2. High School 3. Freddie And 4. Lakewood 5. Mr. Outside 6. University 7. Full Ride 8. First Practice 9. Second Practice 10. Texas Vs 11. New Quaterback 12. Freddie Consoles 13. Visit From 14. Arkansas 15. Steinmark 16. Coach's Halftime 17. Freddie Caught 18. Texas Wins 19. Bad News 20. Coach Tells 21. Linda Sees 22. Freddie Is Up 23. Welcome Back 24. My All American

HE NAMED ME MALALA

The authentic Horowitz magic revived.

Pianophiles who share an affinity for the legacy of Vladimir Horowitz will find this latest Sony release hard to resist. For the younger generation, this is one of those recitals the “Horowitz sensation” can still be fully appreciated as if it took place just yesterday. Following the release of Deutsche Grammophon’s ‘Horowitz in Hamburg - the Last Concert’ (21 June 1987), Sony has unveiled this legendary Berlin Concert from its archive. It takes us back a year before the Hamburg concert. Captured live and released on digital media for the first time, this is a recital that has both historical and musical values.

Horowitz made his solo début in the Atlantic Hotel in Hamburg on 19 January 1926. According to historical accounts, this event was nothing short of spectacular. The featured programme included Liszt’s B Minor Sonata, the Figaro-Fantasia, plus the Barcarolle and a number of Chopin Études and Mazurkas. Between this time until the early part of the1930s, Horowitz gave performances in Hamburg and Berlin. These included the Second Piano Concertos of both Brahms and Liszt (with Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Berlin Philharmonic), Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 (under Oskar Fried, and later, with Eugen Pabst, also with the BPO). He made his only surviving gramophone recording from that era in Berlin on 9 June 1931 at the Philharmonie’s Beethovensaal, with Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G Minor, Op.23 No.5. Anti-Semitic sentiment and political unrest limited Horowitz’s activities in Germany. His absence was further compounded by his notorious “withdrawal” and “returns” from the public concert-stage during the ensuing years. As a result, Horowitz did not again tread on German soil for 54 years until 1986. Three intriguing accounts by Dr. Norbert Ely, Jürgen Kesting, and Dr.Elmar Weingarten in the accompanying liner-notes recollect the experiences each of these writers had with Horowitz, focusing on how the fulfilment of the Berlin and Hamburg recitals in the latter years of the pianist’s life came to be. It was Dr. Weingarten’s first-hand memories as the Head of the music department of the Berlin Festival (1985-1990) that provided the most vivid account. He recalled how Horowitz spontaneously decided to offer an additional concert to the Berlin public at very short notice, by scribbling on the ‘dining menu of Hotel Kempinski’ the programme of what ultimately constituted his recital on 24 May 1986. Perhaps this later recital will be the topic of a future release from Sony Music, but in the present recording, listeners witness the reunion of a lost bond - the one between Horowitz and his German audience - a bond that had been severed for more than 54 years.

The first sounds on the first disc are of the audience applauding and applauding as Horowitz enters the Grosser Saal of the Berlin Philharmonie. Every recital since the pianist’s return to public performance in 1985 was a world wonder, synonymous with the acclaim received by pop-stars.

Then follows a series of three Sonatas from Scarlatti, a composer to whose works Horowitz brought ample delight and a fabled delicacy of colour on his infamous Steinway D instrument. Horowitz was however at his ideal best with the works of the Romantic composers, particularly those of Schumann, Liszt and Chopin. Kreisleriana evinces finesse and playful elegance - allusions to the world of E.T.A. Hoffmann. This masterly interpretation is both pliable and alive. The lilting dance at the centre of Liszt’s Soirée de Vienne No.6 was a favourite of Horowitz’s. Her it is played with virtuosic delight that even at the age of 83 shows that he remained in command of his fingers. This combines with a radiant and complementary youthfulness. The Sonetto del Petrarca 104 is delivered with a myriad colours and such intimacy that the fading final notes literally took the listeners’ breaths away. It was an experience that seemed almost spiritual.

CD 2 opens with groups of Russian pieces, two each of the Preludes of Rachmaninoff and Études of Scriabin. A glimpse of Horowitz’s love for the Polish dances was represented in two of Chopin’s Mazurkas preparing the ground for an elegantly majestic account of the A Flat Polonaise with its vociferous moments during the notorious left-hand octaves. Unexpectedly, the most impressive readings were saved for the very end of the recital in two of the three encores. These pieces were by far his most beloved: Schumann’s Träumerei and Moszkowski’s Etincelles. In the Träumerei, one can hear the poetic delicacy that washed away all technical impurities, while in the Etincelles, the delicate passages were equipped with a buoyancy and a tenderness that one might not have envisioned possible from the pianoforte.

Those who were able to afford the unprecedented ticket price of more than 300 marks apiece (or the discounted student price at 25 marks) to attend this recital must certainly have their own fantastic recollections to share, but to reiterate one such example from Dr. Norbert Ely who was the radio presenter during this Berlin concert, he described the recital experience as one that ‘revealed a lot of his [Horowitz’s] soul, exposing the inner conflicts of a century. One could hear that an era was coming to an end.’ The authentic Horowitz magic has been revived thanks to Sony who have captured a musician whose artistry was mellowed by age and experience.

-- Patrick P.L. Lam, MusicWeb International

EVERYBODY'S GONE TO THE RAPTUR

NEW WORLDS • Eric Jacobsen, cond; Jan Vogler (vc1); The Knights • SONY 88697599782 (58:28)

IVES The Unanswered Question. G.L. FRANK Leyendas—An Andean Walkabout. 1DVO?ÁK Silent Woods. GOLIJOV Last Round. COPLAND Appalachian Spring

"Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972) counts Peruvian among a heritage as mixed as Osvaldo Golijov’s. A student of South American myths and cultures, she incorporates local instruments in a classical chamber orchestra: percussion, panpipes, and a “heavy wooden duct flute” that is blown harshly to produce double-stopping overtones. Leyendas is as captivating as it is unique, its three highly varied movements providing a convincingly more authentic Andes atmosphere than do either Villa-Lobos or Ginastera.

Despite his always recognizable Latino and/or Jewish elements, Golijov never writes less than fascinating music and never repeats himself. Combined with the existence of major masterpieces—Ainadamar remains this century’s defining work, and the 1998 La Pasión según San Marcos just missed the cut—this makes him one of the greats. Last Round opens with typically wild, not quite tamed Golijovian energy. Its two movement titles tell the full story: I Movido, Urgente—Macho, Cool and Dangerous, and II (attacca) Lentissimo—Death of Angels.

This performance of Appalachian Spring is exacting and fine, spirited yet lucid...the disc is a must for both Frank and Golijov."

FANFARE: James H. North

YO-YO MA: THE NEW YORK ALBUM

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