Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

DVORÁK Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” SUK Pohádka, op. 16 • Bertrand de Billy, cond; Vienna RSO • OEHMS 745 (72:09)

There seems to be a never-ending river of recordings of Antonin Dvorák’s Symphony “From the New World.” This particular stream flows down the Danube from Vienna to upset my notion that I’d heard all that might be done with a work deservedly known as this composer’s masterpiece. I have accumulated more than a few recordings of it: LPs by Arturo Toscanini with the NBC SO and Rafael Kubelík and the VP; CDs by Alexander Titov and St. Petersburg’s O “New Philharmony,” Pavel Urbanek and the PFO, and Marin Alsop and the BSO. These recordings span over a half-century, exposing the diligent listener to shifts in orchestral styles and gradual improvement in recording technique. The most recent, by the Vienna RSO under Bertrand de Billy, is either the culmination of these trends and developments, or merely the most recent (an Oblomovian paradox, depending on how you look at it). De Billy’s reading has its own fascinations.

For some time I had come to view Urbanek and the PFO’s traditional reading my fave, until Alsop’s version, also in the grand tradition, with the BSO took the top spot on my list. This reranking was mostly owing to improvements in recording sophistication. Now, along comes Billy—pronounced Bee-Yee, as in Puilly (or Pwee-Yee) Fuissé—who is willing to take some unorthodox risks in his interpretation, and I find myself weakening. Fickle is the heart of the record reviewer (Ovid).

Surfing quotables in my volume of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music , I came upon a doozie. “Dvorák’s music is a particularly happy result of the major influences on his art: Wagner, Brahms, and folk music.” It encapsulates in one sentence a perhaps century-long conflict between the followers of Brahms and Wagner—an argument between Brahms’s pure music for its own sake and Wagner’s nationalistic music in service of the state. Or, in other terms, it highlights Brahms’s adherence to the classical forms vs. Wagner’s insistence upon totally new forms. Pardon this reduction to an oversimplified view, but to give both sides their due would take volumes. De Billy has a knack for bringing out the best in both points of view, to mine the series of big emotional moments and to honor adherence to form.

In the slow second movement’s second theme (4:40 in), there are passages that remind me of Wagner’s “Forest Murmurs,” and others of his original orchestral inventions. And then (8:00 in) the horns blare forth, not with the sustained force of Siegfried’s funeral music, but with enough force to prepossess one and call Wagner to mind. Shortly (at 9:30), there is a passage that reminds me of Brahms in its precise delicacy of the woodwinds. So, listening closely, one can hear Brahms and Wagner in this Dvorák Symphony. All through the work, de Billy uses subtle reversals of emphasis, bringing from background to foreground, or playing loudly what is usually played softly. Here, I must emphasize that de Billy does not choose to make such reversals each and every time the possibility arises. He is not slavishly doctrinaire about it; rather, he seems to decide on an ad hoc basis. All of the score’s notes are represented in performance, but their presentation is subtly changed, perhaps to be ironic and introduce a postmodern flair to the performance. He’s not telling.

Which brings to mind the following notion: certain music would retain its coherence even if parts were played in reverse. In Terry Riley’s In C , any musician may enter a bar and stay as long as he/she wishes by inventing variations on the notes in the score before moving on to the next bar as long as he/she remains in the key of C; and in certain of Bach’s pieces that were written for one instrument and then adapted ( by Bach ) to suit another, and owing to the qualities of one or the other (say, the slow organ instead of a quick harpsichord, with its faster action) can require more playing time to stretch out the score, and actually wind up much slower in performance though composed of the same notes. These are just two examples of music that is so formally strong the idiosyncrasies of performance can only add to its ambiance, hence interpretation, and give the music wider emotional scope to the listener and more opportunity for playfulness to the conductor.

By playing Dvorák’s very familiar “New World” Symphony with his personal vision of how some loud passages might be better if played softly, of how with the woodwinds “backing up” the strings, some passages might be bettered by emphasizing the winds and letting the strings serve as “back up.” Employing such stratagems, de Billy brings a new spotlight to the bas-relief of the score. By shining his spotlight at slightly different angles, he creates new relationships among the shadows. It is still the same Symphony, but with slightly different emphases in the presentation, de Billy has made it new. He has traded in a tired, if venerable, old warhorse for a high-spirited young one. To add to this, the recording engineering is very, very clear and crisp. On a high-resolution system, say a good headphones rig, you can hear every damned thing; and such a recording will bring out the best in nearly all stereo rigs.

I’m only familiar with one other recording of Josef Suk’s (Dvorák’s son-in-law) symphonic suite, Fairy Tale , and that one is played by Jirí Bêlohlávek and the Czech PO (1992) for Chandos. De Billy’s elapsed time for this piece is about 29:30, and Belohlávek’s is about 30:00. This makes the difference in elapsed times about 1.5 percent and pretty indistinguishable. De Billy’s version was recorded in 2008, and, owing to whatever technological advances, profits by each individual instrument’s better definition and the complete ensemble’s better balance. Suk was a very solid composer; though it was hard for him to step outside the shadow of his father-in-law, he does. Fairy Tale has considerable charm, and de Billy, aided by the ORF (Austrian National Radio) engineers, brings it to the fore more than his predecessor managed to do.

If you are the kind of record collector who is always on alert for the analogy to a very unique wine, like an Australian Rosé made from rich Shiraz grapes, you might like this album. It contains a richly flavored Dvorák Symphony “From the New World” at its best, and a zesty and charming Pohádka , both benefitting from very fine recording engineering. Highly recommended.

FANFARE: Ilya Oblomov

Classical Music

SLAVONIC DANCES

This recording by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Marin Alsop is the first of three discs of Dvorak symphonies taken from live performances at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

Mackerras unseated? This magical version from Australia comes close

Chandos certainly has guts, going toe-to-toe with Mackerras’s Gramophone Award-winning set. Hickox’s Australian forces need not fear the comparison. Cheryl Barker may not have the refulgent tones of Renée Fleming on Decca (who has?) but she is even more moving in conveying Rusalka’s desperation. Mackerras is still my must-own, but this runs it close.

-- Gramophone [3/2008]

Overtures and Finales

Selection includes Reminiscences of Václav Talich.
Selection includes Václav Talich rehearsing Dvorák's Cello Concerto.
Selection includes Speech by Václav Talich on his name day.
Selection includes Václav Talich rehearsing Dvorák's "New World" Symphony.
All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.

R. STRAUSS Serenade for Winds. Symphonie for Winds. DVO?ÁK Serenade for Winds • Sabine Meyer Wind Ens • CAVI-MUSIC 553014 (70:14)


In the relatively insular world of classical music for wind ensemble, Mozart’s Serenade No. 10, “Gran Partita” is the towering colossus that profoundly influenced nearly all of the similar works that followed, though it must be stated that the literature for combinations of wind instruments is certainly limited. This is not a phenomenon on the level of the effect of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde on virtually every subsequent composer who was forced to deal with it in one way or another. The three pieces on this CD are important pillars of the wind-ensemble literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The music of Strauss and Dvo?ák reflects the influence of Mozart, but in their own highly personal and individual ways. The Strauss pieces essentially apply bookends to his career. The Serenade, op. 7, written at the age of 16, displays the expected rich, romantic, harmonic textures and a flowing melodic line, but there are also hints of Mozart’s “Gran Partita.” Strauss was apparently not completely satisfied with the scoring of his youthful Serenade for four horns and nine other wind instruments. Following the completion of his last opera Capriccio , he returned to the wind ensemble near the end of his life and produced the unconventionally large-scaled Symphonie for Wind Instruments (also known as “Cheerful Workshops”). It is elaborately scored for 12 winds, in addition to the same four horns utilized in his youthful Serenade . The Symphonie explores many of the brilliant and characteristic wind effects that appeared in many of his major orchestral works and operas throughout his career.


Dvo?ák’s well-known Serenade is filled with references to various Bohemian dances, but the influence of Mozart is also there. This is especially apparent in the Andante, where he ingeniously metamorphoses the melodic contours and bass line of the Adagio from the “Gran Partita” into something that is all his own, as an apparent homage to Mozart. The Sabine Meyer Wind Ensemble plays the music nearly flawlessly in an affectionate but low-key sort of way. The effect is augmented by sound that is quite different from the Eastman Wind Ensemble’s demonstration recording that includes Mozart’s “Gran Partita” and Strauss’s early Serenade . As expected, Mercury gives us analytical clarity with an up front aural perspective that clearly emphasizes the subtle timbral nuances and colorations of the different wind combinations. This approach also presents a lot of clicking and clacking that will be annoying to some listeners.


This Cavi-Music CD is recorded with a more distant mid-hall perspective in what sounds like a larger hall with a darker tonal color. The instruments sound more congealed and at times slightly muffled, but there is little or no audible clicking. I prefer the Mercury approach because of its tonal and timbral accuracy, immediacy, and presence, but that is also a matter of taste. The response of many listeners to what is undoubtedly great wind music, played excellently, will be about sonority. The sound of a wind ensemble is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. If you like it, you will undoubtedly enjoy this well-chosen and well-performed concert.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by various composers, Henry Thacker Burleigh, Henry Holden Huss. Soloists: Rachel Barton Pine, Matthew Hagle.

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Antonín Dvorák.

DVORAK, A.: Rusalka (Trotschel, H. Schindler, Keilberth) (19

Experience the lush sound of the Dresden Piano Trio performing classic trios by composers Antonín Dvořák, Leoš Janáček, and Josef Suk. This recording evokes the passionate nature of the repertoire, creating a memorable musical journey for the listener.

The Dresden Piano Trio, comprised of Roglit Ishay, piano, Kai Vogler, violin and Peter Burns, violoncello, was founded following a cooperation between Kai Vogler and Roglit Ishay at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. The ensemble debuted in 1990 in the Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie. The trio has given many concerts throughout Germany and the rest of Europe. The repertoire includes all the major works for piano trio from the late Romantic era to the early 20th century.

Classical Music

Classical Music

REVIEW:

This is the world premiere recording of Hindemith’s Piano Music with Orchestra (piano left hand), commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein in 1922 and completed within six months. Wittgenstein—a musical reactionary—never played it; the commissioning contract gave him exclusive performance rights for his lifetime, and he prohibited anyone else from doing so. After his death in 1961, his estate ignored all requests about the piece; in fact, it had lost the score. A flawed copy of the original manuscript turned up in a Pennsylvania farmhouse in 2002 and was successfully coordinated with sketches in the Hindemith archives. Fleisher gave the first performance with the Berlin Philharmonic in December 2004. Hindemith was just emerging from his avant-garde youth at that time. The radical firebrand still shows up in three of the four movements, which are played without pause.

The introduction is aggressive, loud, and brassy, but it does suggest the more staid Hindemith to come. The second movement is filled with outbursts from a large percussion group. A mysterious slow movement features a long duet between piano and English horn, which later gives way to a flute; it is reminiscent of the aborted love scene in the composer’s 1926 opera Cardillac. Fleisher believes that the movement’s basso continuo, which consists of 12 quarter notes (repeated) and uses 11 of the 12 tones, was poking fun at Schoenberg’s recently devised dodecaphonic system. The finale returns to the wild, nose-thumbing style of Hindemith’s 1920 opera Das Nusch-Nuschi.

Fleisher “owns” the left-hand repertoire, and is in this case the unique interpreter. He convinces one listener that this is exactly how the piece should go, revealing everything it has to say. The Curtis orchestra supplies solid, reliable accompaniment. If a few solos are not quite as beautiful as those from the New York Philharmonic, Eschenbach’s views of the music seem more sensitive than Maazel’s and the students more comfortable with the 85-year-old music than the New Yorkers.

Dvorak’s “New World” is played to top professional standards—the strings are gorgeous, as is Rebekah Daley’s first-desk French horn—but I don’t find the reading very interesting. The recorded sound is merely decent and a bit congested, far from the brilliance Ondine achieved for Martinu’s Memorial to Lidice, also a live performance, but admittedly an SACD. The booklet lists every player but oddly gives no credit for English horn, despite that instrument’s important solos in both works. The program writers for both the New York Philharmonic and this disc may have had no opportunity to study Hindemith’s score or hear his music, as they concentrate on its fascinating history.

--James H. North, Fanfare

Classical Music

Classical Music

DVORAK : Slavonic Dances and Rhapsodies

Classical Music

“Bohemian Stories" encapsulates an intimate introspection of some "musical tales" from the Bohemian Romantic chamber music repertoire for violin and piano. In the 19th century we are spectators to an awakening of national consciousness that spreads to literary salons and theaters through the tendency of musicians to want to emancipate themselves from the ways of the hegemonic musical art, through a revaluation of popular heritage, highlighting characters of different historical-musical traditions. Freedom, independence, political autonomy, love of country and the security of one's own identity are the main driving forces of this era. The intent of the musicians of this era is to create a style that will elevate the country's musical language to a musical language of art, infusing it with new elements and an authentic national "character." In Bohemia, then included in the Habsburg Empire, this nationalist movement has a particular intensity, and by the late nineteenth century one can speak of a true "Czech style."

Among the earliest composers devoted to the exaltation of the particular pitch of the Czech melody we have Bedrich Smetana: a style of descriptive music writing in which he tells stories inspired by national legends, very remote historical events, natural landscapes, folk motifs, and rhythms of village dances. The other distinguished representative of Czech music of the second half of the 19th century is Antonín Dvorák, who enriched his vast musical output with elements drawn from the folk heritage not only of the Czech but also of other Slavic peoples (of Slovakia, Moravia, Ukraine, Russia). Leoš Janácek, that poor professor of music in the Moravian province, with a life without any great adventures or illustrious acquaintances, without too much travel and without recognition until the age of sixty where he totally identified with his inner self and his worldview. And the long story of this life of artistic struggles is told by him through his musical work. A hereditary prince of A. Dvorák, Josef Suk is a proponent of a particular nuance of late Bohemian Romanticism that is distinctly coloristic, stretching harmony to the utmost to create a more creative and personal style. Unlike his compatriots, he does not include too many references to traditional Czech music in his compositions.