Shostakovich’s Fourth presents the elements that were to burst upon the Soviet scene in his next symphony, but without the Fifth’s tidier, simpler form, emotional unity, and morally uplifting finale to act as a buffer between the composer and the Composer’s Union. The enormous first movement alone, lasting nearly a half-an-hour in performance, offers both delicately spectral and crudely overblown waltzes, lyrical recitatives of intense beauty, parodies of ceremonial marches and polkas, learned counterpoint, violently dissonant climaxes, gentle solos, and brass riding the percussion like the Czar’s galloping army carving down a field of peaceful protestors without mercy. This is Shostakovich come into his own full, focused symphonic power for the first time, and reveling in it.

To complaints of sectionalism, both in the first and final movements, Boreyko’s reply might well be, “Your point?” He doesn’t downplay any of it. Instead, he uses its often dissociative blocks of content to deliberately create juxtapositions that shock, moments of quiet melancholy followed by instrumental screams or taunts. It’s as if he were shouting (with Shostakovich) at the audience to pay closer attention, to consider each panel in the triptych of brutality, mockery, and sullenness that he’s placed upon display. When the time is right, nothing is held back, and this becomes among the most uninhibited of available Fourths. At other moments, Boreyko reminds me occasionally of Jansons (Avie 2096) in the silken beauty he coaxes from the Stuttgart strings. But where Jansons makes that sound an end in itself, this conductor uses it to better conjure those points of relative emotional stability that Shostakovich repeatedly creates, and quickly destroys.

If I have a criticism, it is that the Scherzo is too deadpan. The coarse sarcasm of the winds and brass are taken straight, and the dissonances in the subsequent string fugue are slightly downplayed. The conductor builds an impressive climax to the movement, but he clearly views it as an emotional intermission between two lengthy, harrowing events. While sympathetic to the need to interject some ray of hope into the proceedings, I don’t find that this treatment works especially well. In the coda to the third movement, certainly; and Boreyko makes something powerful out of the side glance Shostakovich takes there at Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. But the Scherzo requires something darker and more incisive, in my opinion.

The rest of the album is given over to a short three-movement orchestral suite drawn from the composer’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. It is described on the jewel box cover as the world premiere recording of the original version, but nowhere inside is this discussed; and it’s the same suite present on Deutsche Grammophon 650702, issued last year. I find these three tiny excerpts tell us far less about the work than the lengthier conductor-arranged suites of Conlon and Runnicles. Still, as filler goes, they make light-hearted listening. Boreyko makes more of the score’s spikiness than Thomas Sanderling, and the Stuttgart RSO runs rings around the Russian PO.

Despite my expressed reservations, Boreyko’s Fourth moves in among my favorites. There it joins Kondrashin/Moscow PO, Rozhdestvensky/Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, and Sinaisky/BBC PO, all currently out of print. I find it slightly superior to Gergiev/Kirov Orchestra (Philips 470 842), where momentum trumps detail, but these are matters of personal taste. Both treatments are in excellent sound, and either will do for the modern Shostakovich collector looking for a first-rate performance of this fascinating work.

-- Barry Brenesal, FANFARE [11/2007]

BERLIOZ: Requiem, Op. 5

The two-compositions featured here, the Trio, op. 8 and the Sonata, op. 65, rank among the very few chamber music pieces Chopin left behind. Whilst predominantly piano-focused, those few occasions when Chopin did explore other idioms always prominently featured the cello, so naturally this disc is a feast of musical riches for young cellist Johannes Moser. The needed ability to draw out every emotion and nuance from these works, from the noble to the pathetic, from soaring lyricism to sober solemnity, are known and admired characteristics of Mr. Moser and his esteemed ensemble partners.

The great soprano Martina Arroyo enjoyed on an unparalleled career on the international stages of opera houses that lasted from the 1960s to the 1980s. Coming from a mixed African-American and Puerto Rican background, she was one of the early singers in the opera world to cross the racial line. Her youthful, dramatic soprano made her an ideal Verdi and Puccini heroine but she could also draw upon the lyrical mezzo qualities of her voice to beautifully interpret intimate songs. In this Schwetzingen Festival recital she was at the height of her vocal abilities.

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REVIEW:

American soprano Martina Arroyo is much acclaimed as an opera singer, especially in the Verdi repertory. Here is a rare opportunity to hear her in recital at the 1968 Schwetzingen Festival.

– American Record Guide

REVIEW:

Hungarian virtuoso Géza Anda (1921-1976) opens a recital derived from radio broadcasts from SWR Stuttgart with Haydn’s perky F Major Sonata (17 April 1950), given a sparkling bravura rendition. Anda’s pearly play and deft touch make themselves felt in every concerted bar, and the runaway Presto finale might be a minor meteor. Schumann ever maintained Anda’s devotion, and he often programmed Symphonic Etudes, including the free interpolation of the five posthumous variations. The rendition included here (2 October 1951) includes two of the posthumous etudes, nos. 4 and 5, inserted after the sixth and eighth of the traditional studies. The first exploits sweeping arpeggios and glissandi techniques; the latter opens a jeweled music-box filled with nectar crystals. The serenity yields to the following Etude, a staccato study in syncopations that becomes quite frantic. Etude X, for want of a better term, has always struck me as “Brahmsian” for its double octaves. The agitato mysteries of Etude XI have rarely been so rarified in their mist contours, except perhaps from Cherkassky. The Etude XII finale, besides its obvious, heroic bravura, exudes the Innigkeit requisite...

The Ravel waltzes, in their sturdy percussion, date from 19 May 1951. Anda does not spare the fortissimos nor the pedal, moving to extremes in the first two waltzes, from aggression to erotic insinuation. The dance marked “Presque lent--dans un sentiment intime” has its perfect executor in Anda, which rivals the classically-chiseled entry by Robert Casadesus. Lithe and sensuously nimble, the last two waltzes--Moins vif et Epilogue--combine Vienna glitter and Schubert’s intimate suggestiveness in Ravel’s idiosyncratic kaleidoscopic panoply. Rolf Liebermann’s 1951 Sonata (2 October 1951) marks one of the few pieces Anda programmed that post-date World War II. His “modern” repertory ceased, for the most part, with the 1945 Third Concerto of Bartok. Liebermann (1910-1999) begins his nine-minute work with a toccata-style Vivace with periodic moments of pointillist staccati. The heart of the piece is the Andante espessivo, rather angular and reminiscent of Ravel, Gershwin, and modal Poulenc.

The second disc is devoted to the 1955 (May 21) recital at Ludwigsburg, a venue frequented by Anda’s esteemed colleague, Clara Haskil. Anda opens with the First Ballade of Chopin, a reading of balanced intensities, gothic and introspective at once. The music’s fierce Neapolitan harmonies and inner tumult manage to find a noble repose in the course of its poetic declamation mid-way, only to yield to the Dionysiac dramaturgy of its late pages with a passionate abandon that belies Anda’s repute for “objectivity.”

Anda recorded the Op. 25 set of Chopin Etudes for EMI, and he often featured the complete ensemble as a concert staple. He plays the A-flat Major for its serene beauty, and thus sets the tone for the remainder, to be played in the classic style of Backhaus, for poetry and strength of form.

The Brahms E-flat Major intermezzo, a simple, nostalgic folk song evocation, makes the perfect commentary to all of the “learned” counterpoint of this evening’s colossal recital at Ludwigsburg, where the spirit of colleague Clara Haskil must have lingered nigh.

-- Audiophile Edition

Classical Music

Sir Roger Norrington has been chief conductor of the former Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra RSO (today SWR Symphonieorchester) for thirteen years. During this time he caused internationally quite a stir with what got to be called "The Stuttgart Sound", a synthesis between historically informed performance and technical capabilities of a modern orchestra. Whether Mozart or Haydn, Bruckner or Brahms, Norrington's main focus laid on quick tempi, a "pure ton" (that is, vibratoless), articulation, seating plan and orchestra size as experienced by the composers themselves back in their time. With the present re-issue of his Bruckner SWR-recordings, Norrington sought to render the "human face" of Bruckner, not just the quasi-religious abstraction the public is sometimes given instead. His symphonies are secular works written with the Musikverein Vienna in mind. They contain descriptive music (journeys, nature, birds), dance music and humor, unexpected dramatic passages, and pauses. In his entirely individual style (culled from Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Wagner, but rarely sounding like any of them), Bruckner echoes memories of his own violin playing as a youth at village weddings, quite as much as those of the St. Florian organ loft.

Classical Music

Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3

Gulda's “Symphony in G“, presented on this album, was discovered in the SWR archive in the course of research for the release of all the recordings the Austrian pianist made for the German Southwest Broadcasting Corporation (SWR). Until now nobody actually knew that this work existed for there are no indications of Gulda being commissioned or of a specific occasion for which he might have composed this symphony. Therefore, one listens here to the world première of a piece which – apart from being recorded in the studio on 20 November 1970 – has never been performed in public. At the beginning of the 1970s Gulda gave concerts that exclusively featured his own compositions. This also applies to his performance at the Heidelberger Jazztage in 1971, released here for the first time digitally and on album. Almost all of Gulda's jazz works, though often based on classical forms, cannot be played without knowledge of improvisation so as to “keep them away from bunglers” (as the pianist himself put it). One of Gulda’s few compositions without improvisation to be heard here is No. IV from the ten-part piano cycle “Play Piano Play”. “Prelude and Fugue" was probably Gulda’s favourite work and was the last piece of Gulda’s performance in Heidelberg. An exception on this album is Fritz Pauer's "Etude.” In 1966 Fritz Pauer won a prize in the jazz competition Gulda had initiated and so Gulda decided to include this work in the Heidelberg concert from 1971.

Zbigniew Seifert (1946-1979) had studied violin in his hometown of Krakow, was converted to woodwinds on the way to jazz, only then to devote himself again increasingly to the strings in the late sixties. The big three of Coltrane, Coleman and Ayler had blazed a path along which legions of saxophone epigones trudged. But hardly any violinists dared this uncompromisingly energetic form of expression and possessed the playing skills to pull it off. Seifert was therefore a pioneer, unintentionally so, because he was not interested in revolutionizing his instrument. He wanted rather to discover the secrets of the heroes of his time and understand, for example, how Coltrane managed to convey impressions of texture without having to forego linear melodies. It helped that he knew how a saxophone behaves musically. With this attitude he was ahead of his contemporaries, who were still working their way through structure and aesthetics. That was probably one of the reasons, in combination with his early death from cancer, that Seifert was forgotten for so long by the jazz world. The recordings in the SWR archive are therefore all the more exciting. Angel Wings is from 1973, a stimulating time for Seifert, when he left Poland and settled in West Germany. The sextet at the New Jazz Meeting in Baden-Baden gave him room to prove himself in the fusion context, with a touch of Mahavishnu in the aura, but above all a document of exuberant jazz-rock power. The duo recordings that were made three years later in Donaueschingen are real gems. There Seifert had in Albert Mangelsdorff a partner who understood him. Like Seifert, the trombonist Mangelsdorff had fought battles to liberate his instrument from the brass section and, by simultaneously overblowing and singing, had fetched it into polyphony.

Two well-known and two less-familiar orchestral works by Debussy • A new recording from the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and Heinz Holliger, following up on their globally acclaimed Koechlin series • A continuation of the orchestra’s exploration of the French orchestral repertoire that began with their CDs of the music of Koechlin • May 21st 2014: Heinz Holliger’s 75th birthday The "Afternoon of a Faun“ together with the orchestral "Images" are among Claude Debussy’s best known and most popular compositions. Both works show different side of the composer: "Afternoon of a Faun" is a textbook example of musical impressionism, while about the "Images", the composer himself said that his goal was to “try to achieve something different – an effect of reality”. The scores contrast well with the two Rhapsodies: the one for clarinet, called the "first" Rhapsody, was sketched out within a few weeks at the end of 1909, while the "second" Rhapsody for saxophone was only completed and orchestrated after the death of its author. The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and conductor Heinz Holliger manage to bring out the evocative, dynamic colors and peculiarities to be found in all of these works with precision.

Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 1-4

Mahler: Symphony No. 1

Classical Music

Sir Roger Norrington's approach to adapting historical performance practice for a modern symphony orchestra has yielded excellent results. This recording features the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra performing Schubert's most famous work, Symphony No. 8.

More than just a collection of delightful tunes, the track list of Kings of Swing Opus 2 takes us on a journey through the golden age of swing. After the positive reception of Kings of Swing Opus 1, the SWR Big Band presents a new list of classics, including Satin Doll, Love Me or Leave Me, One O’Clock Jump, and many more. Under the direction of Pierre Paquette, the SWR Big Band is one of the most acclaimed big bands in Germany. Vocalist Fola Dada is featured on this album, and is widely recognized as one of the most versatile vocalists of our time.

KURTAG: Choral Works

British conductor Sir Roger Norrington lends impressive insight into three masterpieces by the great British composer Edward Elgar. The programme comprises Elgar's ever-popular "Enigma Variations", the thrilling overture "In the South,” and the refined sounds of his Introduction and Allegro for string quartet and string orchestra. Roger Norrington’s work on scores, on sound, on orchestra size, seating and playing style, has had a profound effect on the way 19th century music is now perceived and, not surprisingly, he is in great demand by symphony orchestras world-wide. He works regularly with orchestras in Berlin, Vienna, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and London. He is Chief Conductor of the Radio Sinfonie Orchester in Stuttgart and of the Camerata Academica in Salzburg. He is closely associated with the London Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment which has, since January 1997, taken over the work of the London Classical Players.

This is the first album of Pietari Inkinen as chief conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie. Inkinen, as well as Lise Lindstrom and Stefan Vinke who are already known as highly experienced Wagner performers. Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen took up his position as Principal Conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie in September 2017. He is also the principal conductor of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, and the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele. As guest conductor he has been on the podium with many well-known orchestras, including the Berlin Staatskapelle, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and others. Inkinen is not only a successful conductor, but also a successful violinist. He studied under Zakhar Bron at Cologne Music College before continuing his education as a conductor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

Classical Music

A singer with an exciting presence and a voice to immerse yourself in. A band that lit up with high wattage a repertoire including both standards and popular songs. A band leader who had his ensemble under control through proven discipline and could, when needed, take the lead as a soloist, but tended to hold back amidst his all-stars. The result a mixture that whisked the concert hall in Freiburg (Germany) for one evening in October 1959 into a wonderful world of successful jazz entertainment and sent the audience out into the night with an earworm.

KAGEL: Rrrrrrr... / Anagrama / Mitternachtsstuk

Tanja Becker-Bender, one of Germany's most distinguished violinists, already has a number of critically acclaimed CDs of absorbing repertoire to her credit. Her collaboration with the Hungarian pianist Peter Nagy over many years has borne musical fruits of remarkable quality, as this Bartok recording so impressively demonstrates.

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REVIEW:

These players don’t seem to be among those who conceive Bartók’s music primarily as a rigorous exploration of dissonance; and their moving it from center stage, though hardly underplaying its jagged power (as in the Solo Violin Sonata), allows it to speak naturally and, in general, cogently. Highly recommended to admirers of the composer’s paradigm-shattering synthesis.

– Fanfare

This third volume of our Michael Gielen Edition is devoted to music by Johannes Brahms, with all the recordigns taken from the archives of the Southwest German Radio. These recordings were made between April 1989 and January 2005. Michael Gielen enjoyed a felicitous involvement with Brahms' chamber music, particularly the late piano works where, in Schoenberg's words, the "progressive Brahms" is most evident. Maybe that's why Brahms' first piano quartet, orchestrated by Arnold Shcoenberg, sounds so ravishingly sharp under Gielen's direction. The solemnity of Schicksaslied calls for sincere commitment on the part of the conductor. Working as one, the Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden and Freiburg and Michael Gielen achieve an interpretation of this work that is both balanced and comforting.

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REVIEW:

Gielen proposes we listen to Brahms for the sake of his musical arguments rather than for the lustrous sounds that he's capable of conjuring, an approach that seems eminently sensible, and a valid alternative to various fleshier interpretive options.

– Gramophone