Sony Classical announces a further batch of complete recordings from the CBS/Sony and RCA Victor catalogues. The newest installment of this popular series features some unusual repertoire as well as documents of the New York Metropolitan Opera in its postwar heyday. In Rome in 1965, RCA produced a benchmark set of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, with an outstanding all-American cast led by Shirley Verrett as Orpheus and Renato Fasano conducting the Virtuosi di Roma. “This is undoubtedly the best performance and recording of the opera we have had,” wrote the Gramophone reviewer. Penguin Guide concurred: “If you have a mezzo as firm and sensitive as Shirley Verrett, then everything is in favour of your using the original Italian version. Fasano also uses the right-sized orchestra … and adopts an appropriately classical style. Anna Moffo and Judith Raskin match Verrett in clean, strong singing … The recording is vivid and atmospheric.”

-----

Excerpt from a review of the set's previous CD release:

Shirley Verrett makes a deeply impressive Orfeo, firm and pure in sound, classically restrained in expression; and her ''Che faro'', at a moderate, beautifully judged speed, is very finely sung, poised and quietly moving. The many other good moments include ''Che puro ciel'', done with a real sense of wonderment, to sounds of delicious refinement from the orchestra. Anna Moffo provides a competent, not specially interesting Euridice and there is an Amor of real charm and style from the late Judith Raskin.

The set is conducted by Renato Fasano, whose pacing of the score shows a very sure touch. The orchestra's playing is first-rate; in its long-breathed phrasing, this performance is of its time and represents its time persuasively. There is an excellent chorus; singing in their native tongue—a real advantage.

– Gramophone

GERSHWIN: RHAPSODY IN BLUE AN

This is a seminal score, and the Act 2 finale is quite simply one of the best sustained ensemble passages in Italian opera.

The new Poliuto is older in its origins than the Latham-König one on Nuova Era taken from performances given at Rome in 1988 and reviewed last year. That had certain textual advantages, most notably the inclusion of Poliuto's solo "Fu macchiato" following the recitative "Veleno e l'aura" in Act 2, where for the first time the hero's character has some musical life. In other respects this version, recorded in the Vienna Konzerthaus in 1986, is distinctly preferable. Even in textual matters, such as the inclusion of the fine trio for Poliuto, Paolina and Nearco, it can offer reasonable competition.

The recording is also said to be live, though apart from cheers and applause at the end of acts, one would not know it. The Rome recording was altogether too live, with clatter and chatter, comings and goings and various other customary and tiresome signs of life. Recorded sound was an updated version of the kind of thing older collectors probably remember from the so-called "Golden Age of Opera" series on the 'private' EJS label. That is to say, it was sometimes startlingly vivid and sometimes frustratingly remote. The singers of the Rome performances gained some respect but, as recorded, rarely gave pleasure. In short, the Nuova Era issue was welcome for want of a better, and now a better has come.

The sound is clear and well-balanced, orchestral and choral work have some refinement and the soloists vary from adequate to distinguished; the best is Ricciarelli. Memories of Elizabeth Connell in the Nuova Era recording caused quite unnecessary alarm and despondency; Ricciarelli softens the role, turns it inward, imparts an anxious tenderness. Notes that are loud and high are fewer than remembered. Passages such as the Act 1 aria ("Di quai soayi lagrime") and "Ah! fuggi da morte" in the Prison scene become exceptionally beautiful. The baritone and bass, too, are remarkably good, Juan Pons and the noteworthy Laszlo Polgar both singing with finely concentrated tone and plenty of authority. As for Carreras (this was before his illness), the performance is interesting principally as it shows, still more clearly than other recordings did, the direction his career was taking. His recent Eleazar in La juive shows him still pursuing this, with broad passage-notes, the heroic forte varied with a separate head-voice for piano, a tendency to lose quality when the higher notes are under pressure. Characterization seems not to go much beyond a generalized sincerity, but that may also be a limitation of the role itself: I have never quite understood why tenors have found it so attractive.

On the other hand, it becomes ever more easy to see why the opera survives. Despite some banalities, it's a seminal score: Verdi, for instance, must have known it and had it working inside him from (at least) Il trovatore to Aida. There are many fine things in it, and the Act 2 finale is quite simply one of the best sustained ensemble passages in Italian opera.

-- Gramophone [3/1990]

In 1998, Sir Charles Mackerras, one of the last century’s most versatile and enterprising opera conductors, made a new recording of Lucia di Lammermoor, following Donizetti's original autograph score and offering a reading in keeping with performance practice in the composer’s time. Acclaim for the set included the review of MusicWeb International.com: “In the eponymous role the Hungarian soprano Andrea Rost is distinctly in the leggiero tradition of light flexible voices… Bruce Ford is his usual dependable self, singing ardently and expressively… The recording quality in this version is outstanding and well balanced. Adherents of period bands will find much to enjoy under Sir Charles Mackerras’s ever idiomatic and sympathetic baton.” And Classic CD, hailing it as “Disc of the Month” gave it 5 stars and declared it the “preferred version” of Lucia.

For the first time on CD, this rare recording of Chopin’s piano concerto is one of Grigory Sokolov’s only productions in a concerto role, accompanied by an orchestra. This original Eurodisc session recording with Münchner Philharmoniker has been newly remastered from the original tapes. Grigory Sokolov is regarded as one of the world’s leading pianists, dedicated to his art, and adored by his audience in sold-out concerts. Few pianists of recent years have become quite such a legend in their own lifetime. Sokolov created a huge worldwide fanbase solely by playing concerts, as he refused do studio recordings. The only recordings available are live recording of concerts.

-----

REVIEW:

An extraordinary document, with Sokolov’s integrity and humanity illuminating every bar.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

Classical Music

The cellist Jan Vogler, who lives in New York and Dresden, has recorded three Double concertos for violin, cello and orchestra with his wife, the outstanding violinist Mira Wang, with the renowned Royal Scottish National Orchestra under direction of Peter Oundjian. Brahms' famous Double concerto captivates with wonderfully sweeping melodies, romantic sounds, eloquent solos and great orchestral sound. The English press wrote about one of the previous concerts: "Vogler, in particular, treated his solo sections like an operatic recitative, even in the faster Vivace sections of the finale, and Wang, his wife, matched him both in virtuosity and in beauty of tone. The highlight, however, was the opening of the slow movement, which produced sensational legato tone, soloists and orchestra slotting into one another like concentric circles, and creating a sound like molten chocolate.” The American composer John Harbison (born 1938), whose cello concerto premiered by Yo-Yo Ma has already caused a sensation, composed the Double concerto for the Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned by the Friends of the Dresden Festival. The highly praised world premiere with Jan Vogler and Mira Wang took place on April 8th 2010 in Boston under the direction of Carlos Kalmar. Now this colorful, dynamic work full of glittering virtuosity can be heard for the first time in a recording. The German composer Wolfgang Rihm (born 1953) is considered one of the most important composers of our time. His "Duo Concerto", performed at Carnegie Hall in New York by Jan Vogler and Mira Wang with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2015, completes this fascinating new recording of three Double concerts with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Libretto not included.

Drawn from the incomparable RCA Victor catalog and remastered from the original tapes, now sounding better than ever, comes this 1973 recording features Montserrat Caballé in one of her most commanding roles, the heroine of Bellini’s Norma.

This is a reading to live with.

- MusicWeb International

Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, which includes both the Columbia/CBS and RCA Victor label imprints, the SONY Classical Originals, SONY Classical Masters Singles and Box Sets, and SONY Opera House series offer an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible EU (Germany) pressed import editions, smartly-designed and graphically-pleasing, featuring the most sought-after recordings by the world’s preeminent, legendary artists both past and present, with many titles newly re-mastered in 24bit High Resolution Audio.

Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, which includes both the Columbia/CBS and RCA Victor label imprints, the SONY Classical Originals, SONY Classical Masters Singles and Box Sets, and SONY Opera House series offer an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible EU (Germany) pressed import editions, smartly-designed and graphically-pleasing, featuring the most sought-after recordings by the world’s preeminent, legendary artists both past and present, with many titles newly re-mastered in 24bit High Resolution Audio.

Classical Music

REVIEW:

Altmeyer's exchanges with Jerusalem's stalwart Florestan are highly charged and the dialogue catches fire as never before. Siegmund Nimsgern's villain keeps temperatures boiling.

– BBC Music Magazine

Recordings of some of the original recordings that make up this set:

Cantatas Bwv 207a & 206

Neither of these fine occasional pieces has received as much attention from recording companies as many other of Bach's secular cantatas. Auf, schmeiternde Tone der mun tern Trompeten dates from 1735 when it was evidently performed to celebrate the name day of the Elector Frederick Augustus II on August 3rd. All the material but three secco recitatives and a Marche, which does not form an integral part of the work but which was probably played during a procession, originate in an earlier cantata (No. 207) dating from 1726. On that occasion the fortunate recipient of Bach's genius was a Leipzig university professor. The opening movement will at once be familiar though not, perhaps, in its present form; it's an ingenious adaptation of the third movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. I in F major. Here the key becomes D major, the horns of the concerto now supplanted by trumpets and drums. The three oboes are joined by a pair of flutes and a four-part chorus occupies the principal stands of the original composition. Yet another inspired gesture lies in Bach's addition of an initial quaver up-beat, both accommodating the metre of the text and at the same time transforming the character of the piece which now strikes an altogether more overtly celebratory note. And Bach has a further surprise in store for anyone familiar with the same Brandenburg Concerto in as much as he introduces a robust instrumental ritornello after the soprano-bass duet borrowed from its second Trio but now scored for trumpets, oboes d'amore, oboe da caccia and pizzicato strings.

Soloists, choir and orchestra give a first-rate account of this captivating score. Michael Chance is on splendid form offering gratitude, fulsome and obsequious, to the reigning monarch, Augustus. And the others, too, seem to find little wrong with their Arcadian landscape, flowing it would seem with milk and honey. The director, Frieder Bernius, keeps the choruses and recitatives moving at a brisk pace, punctuating the music stylishly and effectively. The other cantata, Schleicht, spielende We//en, dates from 1736 when it was performed as part of the birthday of the selfsame Augustus. This dramma per ,nusica takes as its libretto a singularly inconsequential dispute between the principal rivers of the countries united under Augustus's rule. Each river competes with the other for the special affection of the monarch. I would unquestionably lavish mine on the Vistula (bass) which flows through Warsaw. He praises Augustus in a swaggering A major polonaise accompanied by strings. Its melody and rhythm haunt the memory and the bass Peter Kooy makes the most of it. Thereafter each river has its say before the Pleisse (soprano)—she flows through Leipzig and, since Augustus and his consort are at present resident there, she claims a "special relationship" with the sovereign—in the single accompanied recitative of the work proposes a chorus of praise. In addition to these solo numbers are two outstandingly effective choruses framing the cantata; and they are superbly sung, light of tread, well focused and admirably declaimed.

In short I have no serious reservations about this release. It is musically satisfying and the recorded sound is excellent. Some 66 minutes of uninterrupted pleasure—strongly commended but I regret the omission of the Marche appended to No. 207a; it's a splendid piece.

-- Gramophone [9/1991]

Cantatas BWV 27, 34 & 41

"The confluence of artistic endeavour on this new Sony disc of Bach cantatas recalls triumphs of yesteryear...The performances are stylistically assured, full of deep insights and subtle expressive nuance...some beautifully sustained woodwind playing here..."

-- Nicholas Anderson, Gramophone [1/1997]

Cantatas BWV 56 & 82

"The baritone Max van Egmond recorded these two solo cantatas just over 20 years ago, when his voice was at a peak. His intonation is excellent, his gently articulated inflections expressive, and the colour of his voice subtly varied but always evenly produced. Frans Brüggen’s Baroque Orchestra – which was shortly to become the now well-established Orchestra of the 18th Century – was still in its infancy...the performances are stylish throughout with a welcome consensus of opinion among singer and players in respect of phrasing and articulation."

-- Nicholas Anderson, BBC Music Magazine

Motets

Unlike so many recordings of Bach's motets that have been recorded over the past few years, this new one fully endorses the notion of colla pane instrumental accompaniment as opposed to the continuo support favoured by the Hilliard Ensemble (EMI, 4/88), Trinity College Choir, Cambridge (Conifer, 12/88), Christ Church, Oxford (ASV, 11/90), and The Sixteen (Hyperion, 11/90). Thus it sides with similarly based performances by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Stockholm Bach Choir and the Vienna Concentus Musicus (Teldec—still temporarily unavailable); and Philippe Herreweghe, the Collegium Vocale and La Chapelle Royale Chorus and Orchestra (Harmonia Mundi). All three field mixed choirs of women's and men's voices, while Bernius's ensemble consists of strings with oboe, oboe d'amore, oboe da caccia, bassoon and organ.

The director of the Stuttgart Chamber Choir, Frieder Bernius has chosen five of Bach's seven motets omitting the little 0 Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht (BWV1I8), and Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden (BWV230). It seems an odd decision since there is plenty of room for them on the disc and BWV118 with its obligatory instrumental support is surely ideal for a group such as this. What Bernius realizes in his performances is the wonderful variety that exists between and within each of these profoundly satisfying works. Bach's terms of reference seem almost infinite, and the means by which he draws them together masterly and virtuosic.

The singing is of a high order with beautifully balanced textures, disciplined ensemble and mainly dependable intonation. Phrasing is well thought out and articulate in performance though every now and again I felt the need for a crisper approach. Simple choral statements, where they occur, are inclined to be spongy and selfconscious but set against this is an admirable attention paid to the texts themselves. The great chromatic fugue which occupies the second half of Fiirehte dich nicht is lucid, though countertenors are inclined to hoot, and I liked the sense of purpose and direction. Perhaps the most successful performances here are of Singel dem Herrn and Jesu, meine Freude, both of which are relaxed; unhurried but with a strong pulse and a comfortable feeling of latent energy.

To sum up, here are performances which provide strong competition with Harnoncourt and Herreweghe. Only in the lack of BWV230 should it be considered a lesser candidate for consideration than the others. If you do not have a recording of these extraordinarily affecting works and feel that the inclusion of an instrumental ensemble is for you then the new issue is well worth considering. The recorded sound is lively and spacious.

-- N.A., Gramophone

Sony Classical pays tribute to Artur Schnabel – one of the 20th century’s most influential pianists and musical thinkers. Artur Schnabel – The RCA Victor Recordings brings together all of the pianist’s sessions for RCA Victor, recorded within an intense two months of activity in 1942. Beethoven’s G major and “Emperor” Concertos with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (conducted by its long time music director Frederick Stock) first appeared on 78s. Two late Beethoven Sonatas, No. 30 in E major op. 109 and No. 32 in C minor op. 111 were issued for the first time in 1976, inviting comparisons alongside Schnabel’s much imitated early 1930s versions. Also from the 1942 sessions are the previously unpublished Schubert Impromptus D 899, a significant addition to Schnabel’s discography.

-----

REVIEW:

Not a single note is on automatic pilot. At every moment, you feel him having a living conversation with the music, deeply felt or deeply playful.

– NPR