'A lush, intricate success - meaningful for Messiaen enthusiasts and enjoyable for those new to his work. I highly recommend it.' This review from Fanfare magazine is one of several in the international press to have recognised the achievement of Ciro Longobardi while in the midst of recording the complete piano music of Olivier Messiaen, in a cycle which is now issued complete for the first time, and at budget price. The piano music of Messiaen spans times and idioms ranging from the Debussyan Préludes of 1928-9, written when the composer was barely out of his teens, through to the jewel-like Petites Esquisses d'Oiseaux from 1985-one of his last works before his death in 1992. While every bar of the music is distinctively and instantly 'Messiaen', that idiom evolved a good deal over the years, and came to a kind of peak as well as a crisis in the Catalogue d'Oiseaux from the late 1950s. This 13-movement cycle is the only one of Messiaen's major works to end in darkness and despair, with the lonely song of the warbler piercing a pitch-black Brittany seascape, accompanied only by the mournful boom of a lighthouse and the endless rolling of waves against a stony shore. Messiaen could 'paint' such pictures in sound as vividly as a Debussy or a Richard Strauss before him, but he could also lift his gaze towards a heaven which was as real for him as the earth below. Hence both the all-encompassing power and tender sincerity of the Vingt Regards, composed during the depths of the Second World War, which retains enduring popularity even among musicians and audiences who are challenged either by musical complexity or by direct appeal to the emotions. This set is thus the fruit of years of living with the music, as well as the years spent recording it. Ciro Longobardi has performed Messiaen in recital and at festivals across Europe, throughout a career spanning three decades, which began with his prize-winning appearance at the International Gaudeamus Competition in Rotterdam in 1994.

Classical Music

Classical Music

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SIBELIUS Songs (complete) • Helena Juntunen (sop); Anne Sofie von Otter (mez); Monica Groop (mez); Dan Karlström (ten); Gabriel Suovanen (bar); Jorma Hynninen (bar); Bengt Forsberg (pn); Love Derwinger (pn); Folke Gräsbeck (pn) • BIS 1918 (5 CDs: 356:21 Text and Translation)


The foldout box housing this set bears the block letter “I” on its spine, signifying the exact midpoint of BIS’s Sibelius Edition; this is Volume 7, and the arrayed volumes, which also continue to unfold the gorgeous nature photo shown as a wrap-around on each box, now spell out “JEAN SI” on the shelf. As we have come to expect from the Edition, this volume of songs with piano can almost be described as “more than complete.” Sibelius published about 100 songs altogether: 84 in 16 opus-numbered groups, and another 16 or so without opus number. In addition, BIS also includes Sibelius’s own arrangements for voice and piano of a number of works originally written for voice and orchestra, as well as fragments of early songs not completed, unpublished songs recently discovered, and, as an Appendix to the volume (disc 5), alternative or preliminary versions of over a dozen others. The core of the collection consists of the contents of three previously issued BIS CDs: BIS 457 and 757, with von Otter and Forsberg, recorded in 1989 and 1994–95; and, BIS 657, with Groop and Derwinger, recorded in 1994. Almost all of the remaining items were recorded in 2008, and are making their first appearance here.


The great majority of Sibelius’s songs are set to Swedish poems; not only did Sweden have a much greater literary tradition than Finland did, but Swedish was also the composer’s first language. Sibelius’s favorite poet, judging by his choice of texts, was Johan Ludvig Runeberg, a nature poet whom Barnett calls “Finland’s national poet”; about a quarter of the songs are Runeberg settings. Sibelius did not begin writing songs until 1887 or 1888, toward the end of his student years, so this volume does not include the large number of student works and exercises found in the Chamber Music, Piano Music, and Violin and Piano volumes (Vols. 2, 4, and 6, respectively). He tended to write songs sporadically in groups through much of his career: after the initial burst of 1888–92, periods of activity in song composition included the years around the turn of the century, when Sibelius produced the last few of the Seven Songs, op. 17, and all of opp. 36–38, about 20 songs in all, including most of his best-known; and, the years 1908–11, the time of the Fourth Symphony, and a period in which Sibelius endured repeated surgeries resulting from an incorrect diagnosis of throat cancer. The last major group of songs comes from the World War I years, when he and his family faced great financial difficulties and of necessity he wrote mostly miniatures. Among these are the four groups of six songs each, opp. 72 (the first two of which are lost), 86, 88, and 90, his last bearing an opus number.


In all, von Otter sings about half the songs, including the two sets of Runeberg songs, opp. 13 and 90, that form bookends of Sibelius’s “official” song canon. Her warm, rich mezzo suits well many of the “Romantic” songs of opp. 17, 36, and 37, but she is also appropriately animated in the lighter, salonish German songs of op. 50, and in complete control in the op. 3 Arioso , a work of 1911 that Sibelius had to pass off as an early composition when he offered it to a local publisher instead of Breitkopf und Härtel, his usual publisher. BIS gives no word on why von Otter was not entrusted with the remaining items.


Groop, also a mezzo, has a less seductive sound than von Otter; then again, she is given relatively less rewarding repertoire: the Five Christmas Songs , op. 1 (again a misleading opus number), the bleak op. 57 songs of 1909, the extant four from op. 72—a polyglot mixture of the usual Swedish with one Finnish and one German setting—and, probably the finest of the batch, the six songs of op. 86. Most of these are rarely performed, and while I prefer von Otter’s singing, Groop’s performances are certainly more than adequate.


The two singers recently recorded in the remaining sets are a treat. Soprano Juntunen expresses a wide range of moods in the demanding Five Songs , op. 38, the darkest and most ambitious of the turn-of-the-century songs; she also impressively reprises her Volume 1 performance of Luonnotar in Sibelius’s own voice-and-piano arrangement. She shares with baritone Suovanen the Two Songs , op. 35, of 1908, perhaps the most musically radical of Sibelius’s works in this format. Suovanen sings both versions of the two songs from 12th Night , op. 60, the original with guitar and Sibelius’s arrangement with piano, and is most impressive in the Eight Songs , op. 61, of 1910. These are small tone-pictures with elaborate piano parts that do much to set the mostly dark moods; Suovanen easily manages the songs’ difficult tessitura, sometimes bringing to mind the young Fischer-Dieskau. He is also brilliant in Sibelius’s voice-piano version of The Rapids-Rider’s Brides . BIS has introduced other terrific new baritones, notably Tommi Hakala, but Suovanen is definitely one to watch! Tenor Karlström makes only three brief appearances, but acquits himself well; Hynninen, a veteran of the Edition, makes a cameo appearance in the preliminary versions of three of the op. 13 songs.


There should have been an elephant in the room, in the person of Tom Krause, whose complete set of the “canonical” Sibelius songs was issued on a five-LP set by Argo in the early 1980s, and appeared again on Decca CDs in 2004. To my shock, I found that this set is no longer available. Krause, whose musicianship had grown immeasurably since his 1963 single disc of Sibelius songs, would be a formidable rival in a number of these songs, several of which are really better suited to male voice because of the texts; and, the clearly “female” songs in the set were done by the imposing team of Elisabeth Söderström and Vladimir Ashkenazy. If you have, or can find, the Decca, odds are that, like me, you will prefer Krause in some items and von Otter in others.


As in previous volumes, BIS gives an insightful essay by Barnett (in five languages); texts in the original language and English translation; and, the five discs for the price of three. Owners of the Decca set may still want this if they’re really serious about Sibelius’s songs; both sets offer many beauties and many insightful performances. Hard-core Sibelians will want this for the material that is not included in the earlier set—mostly because the manuscripts had not yet come to light. Collectors who have been acquiring volumes of The Sibelius Edition all along need no further urging at this stage.


FANFARE: Richard A. Kaplan

In spite of the fact that Sibelius’ chamber music is far less well-known than his orchestral works, it forms a large and important part of his production. In terms of numbers of discs it makes up a fourth of the complete recorded edition being brought out on BIS. Already released are the complete quartets and piano trios [BIS-CD-1903/05] and the works for violin and piano [BIS-CD-1915/17]; the present set focuses on his chamber music for other instrumental combinations and includes a number of world première recordings and previously unreleased material. A substantial chapter is the music for cello (solo and with piano accompaniment), much of which was written for Sibelius’ brother Christian. It is here performed by Torleif Thedéen, with the support of Folke Gräsbeck on the piano. There are also a number of duos and trios for strings, including the brief Vattendroppar (Water Drops) for violin and cello pizzicato, which is often claimed to be Sibelius’ earliest surviving composition, dated to around 1875. Another, more sizeable, rarity is the music to the play Ödlan (The Lizard), scored for string ensemble. Composed in 1909, half way between the Third and Fourth Symphonies, it was once described by Sibelius as ‘one of the most exquisite works that I have written’. This volume also includes Sibelius only work for viola and piano (‘Rondo in D minor’), as well as the world première recordings of two pieces for solo kantele, the traditional Finnish plucked-string instrument which appears in the Kalevala, the Finnish national epos that served as such an inspiration to Sibelius. Another group of works with a specifically Finnish background, are the pieces for ‘torviseitsikko’, a particular combination of seven brass instruments and percussion. These are here performed by members of the eminent German ensemble brasspartout. A varied programme then on this ninth instalment of the acclaimed Sibelius Edition, about which a reviewer in Fanfare has already predicted that it ‘will certainly be considered a landmark in the history of recording’.

Who on this planet has never seen KING KONG and heard Max Steiner’s powerful innovative music more than once? Here’s a treasure trove of classic scary music that these 20th-century composers gave their best and probably never thought would ever be heard again and especially newly recorded! Film fans and scholars in every future century will continue to discover and study this music art form and give the composers their unexpected and rightful immortality!
— Craig Spaulding, Screen Archives Entertainment

A festive concert of great voices, this Volkslied-Edition offers on 5 CDs the most famous and most beloved German folksongs, performed by well known singers like Hermann Prey, Peter Schreier, and famous choirs, especially boys choirs, such as the Dresden Kreuzchor, Thomanerchor Leipzig and the Regensburger Domspatzen. A well done edition for all friends of choir music offered for a verys special price!

Schubert set the verse of more than 115 poets to music, producing around 650 songs. He selected biblical texts and poetry from classical Greece, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the early Romantic era, the poets including Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Petrarca and Heine as well as his Austrian contemporaries and friends. The Complete Lieder includes all the solo songs and part songs with piano, grouped according to the poets who inspired him. Ulrich Eisenlohr, pianist and artistic director of the edition, selected native German singers and used Bärenreiter’s Neue Schubert-Ausgabe as a basis for the recordings, producing a stirring cycle of particular integrity. All the sung texts are included online with English translations.

HOVDA Onyx. Song in High Grasses. Snapdragon. Leaning Into and Away. Ariadne Music. Coastal Traces Tidepools 1. Shenai Sky. Record of an Ocean Cliff. Crossings in a Mountain Dream. Glacier Track. Glosses Glacier. Beginnings. Coastal Traces Tidepools 2. Borealis Music. Boundaries. Cymbalmusic: Centerflow/Trail II. Journey Music. Lemniscates. Regions. Jo Ha Kyu. Ikima. Breathing The Proclamation: excepts. Dancing in Place. Spring Music with Wind. 40 Million Gallons of Music • Prism Players; Libby Van Cleve (ob, English horn, shenai); Jack Vees (el gtr, b gtr); Eleanor Hovda (pn, cymbals, shakuhachi); Relache; Cassatt Qrt; California EAR Unit; Jan Weller, David Gilbert (fl); Elizabeth Panzer (hp); Lee Humphries (pn); et al. • INNOVA 808 (4 CDs: 4:20:03)


I’ve written about Eleanor Hovda (1940–2009) in these pages before; indeed, in the program notes for this release I’m quoted at length. For that I’m honored, because I feel she is a major composer in need of a certain rescue now. She died of cancer far too young; she forsook positions in the Ivy League and New York artistic life for grassroots arts administering in her native and beloved Minnesota; she wrote music that, despite genuine complexity, often looked simple or naïve in score. In short, by life and aesthetic choices she herself made, and by the cards dealt her over which she had no control, she was marginalized in the broader culture of American music. But we still need her.


Parts of this comprehensive collection were originally released by O.O. Discs and I reviewed some of it in Fanfare 22:4; I’d urge interested readers to check this review out in the online archive, as it goes into much more technical detail about the music than I will here. The second disc, Coastal Traces , is more of an extended collective improvisation for dance featuring Libby Van Cleve, double reeds; Jack Vees, guitars; and Hovda on piano interior. But the other three discs consist of more clearly defined pieces, even though they still have the composer’s trademark openness.


I now think of Hovda to some degree as the American Scelsi. By that I mean there’s an emphasis on pure sound as an expressive medium, shaped at the macro and micro level to bring out what Wallace Stevens called “the beauty of inflections.” There’s also a mystical/spiritual bent, but it’s never overbearing. Unlike Scelsi’s, Hovda’s music is often fragile, gentle, and delicate. As a result, when it really rips loose, it carries a shocking impact. I now feel that she’s an example of what I call “sonic charisma,” a capacity to take basic sonic materials that should be simplistic, facile, messy, and then imbue them with such authenticity that you can’t resist them. (Christian Wolff is another such composer in my book.)


The performances are consistently imaginative and committed, and make the case for the music persuasively. Some of the recordings are more “archival” than others, but I’d never for a second preclude their inclusion because of some hiss or ambient noise. The works range from the exceptional oboe work Jo Ha Kyu (thrillingly performed by Libby Van Cleve) to the Cassatt Quartet’s glasslike rendition of Lemniscates to what sounds like a vast Tibetan tantric ritual in 40 Million Gallons of Music (in fact the real story is just as wild, as the piece is a sonic exploration of a giant underground water storage tank in Fayetteville, Arkansas, recorded just after 9/11). Hopefully that gives some idea of the range. As a grand bonus, the scores for works on three of the four discs are viewable on your computer as pdfs (as are extended program notes for the entire set). One senses both how free and how precise the composer was; her craft is evident in these striking scores in her own hand. Though there is one score, Cymbalmusic, whose graphic approach is incredibly beautiful and imaginatively focused, in all the scores one sees a magical touch at work, mixing scribbling doodles with more traditional notation.


A final word of thanks and recognition to Philip Blackburn and the entire Innova organization, as this is yet another of the incredibly important rescue operations they’re performing for composers who might otherwise slip through the cracks (I think of their great Henry Brant series, for example). Every music library in America, for example, should have this collection. Bravo; it gives us all a little faith in lean times. And this is unquestionably on the next Want List.


FANFARE: Robert Carl

GREAT RUSSIAN SYMPHONIES (10-CD Box Set)

The word ‘symphony’ is used to describe an extended orchestral composition in Western classical music. By the eighteenth century the Italianate opera sinfonia—musical interludes between operas or concertos—had assumed the structure of three contrasting movements, and it is this form that is often considered as the direct forerunner of the orchestral symphony. With the rise of established professional orchestras, the symphony assumed a more prominent place in concert life between 1790 and 1820 until it eventually came to be regarded by many as the yardstick by which one would measure a composer’s achievement.

The symphony came late to Russia. The first attempts at a Russian Nationalist symphony were made in the late nineteenth-century by Balakirev and his acolytes, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov as well as by Tchaikovsky, whose symphonies (despite his European leanings) have a distinctly Russian flavour. In their wake followed numerous composers, from Glazunov to Myaskovsky, similarly instilling their music with the melodies of their homeland. In the years that followed Russian politics had an unmistakable impact on the Russian symphonists, as Rachmaninov and Prokofiev (among others) went into exile whilst composers such as Shostakovich vented their political frustrations through the medium of music—his Leningrad Symphony being a prime example.

R E V I E W:

The most important works here also tend to get the best performances. So let’s proceed in order of overall quality. Best are Shostakovich’s Fifth with Petrenko, Borodin’s Second and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade with Schwarz, Kuchar’s Prokofiev First and Fifth, and Kalinnikov’s First, and Antoni Wit in Tchaikovsky’s Fifth and Sixth. All the rest are fair to good. These include Glazunov’s Sixth and Rachmaninov’s Second (and The Rock) with Anissimov, Shostakovich’s Seventh and Miaskovsky’s 25th (Yablonsky), Tchaikovsky’s Fourth and assorted short works (1812 Overture, Romeo and Juliet) with Adrian Leaper, and Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy and Third Symphony with Golovschin. Topping it all off is a pretty respectable Antar Symphony conducted by André Anichanov. Yes, you can do better in most of this music, but this 10-disc set is well-chosen and an easy way to get a big pile of popular and unfairly neglected Russian symphonies, so who’s complaining?

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

You can have too much of a good thing, but Mendelssohn wrote a lot of music that deserves to be better known, and if you’re a hard core Mendelssohnian or are just curious to learn what you’ve been missing, this attractively priced 11-disc set deserves your consideration. The performances of the five standard symphonies with Litton and the Bergen Philharmonic are uniformly fine: very well played, and intelligently paced. Once example that all fans of the composer will appreciate is the ideal tempo that Litton chooses for the coda of the Scottish Symphony (sound clip)–grand but fluid, so that the music never sounds as though it should have stopped a few minutes before it actually does.

The twelve string symphonies, early though they are, contain a great deal of masterful music, and the later ones are in fact quite substantial. This set is both the most complete, as well as on balance the most desirable yet recorded. You get both versions of No. 8 (with and without winds), plus the single movement No. 13, and also the scherzo from the Octet in its string orchestra arrangement (later on in the box). Lev Markiz leads the Amsterdam Sinfonietta in performances that respect the music’s classical roots without sacrificing warmth or beauty of tone. Rhythms are sharp, tempos lively, and the string ensemble consistently well balanced.

There are four discs of concertos here, including Isabelle van Keulen’s excellent original version of the famous E minor Violin Concerto (second sample). Everyone will have favorite performances of this music, or at least the more famous works, but with Markiz once again in charge of the accompaniments, these versions with chamber orchestra are all of a piece. There’s a welcome intimacy between solo(s) and orchestra that makes these recordings quite distinctive and appealing. The solo piano concertos have plenty of sparkle in Brautigam’s hands, while Roland Pöntinen and Love Derwinger play the two double piano concertos with unaffected brilliance.

Some of this music (the lesser known concertos) is not always easy to find in top-knotch performances, so even if you wind up duplicating the standard pieces, this may well be worth considering. With fabulous sonics, you really can’t go wrong at mid to budget price.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Spanning 6 CDs and featuring many a consummate performance, this release celebrates the genius of Schubert through detailing all of his late chamber music. The compilation begins with the two piano trios, works of immense virtuosity whose fluent melodies betray the composer's affinity for song. Moving on to the quartets, we encounter expressive depth, melancholy and drama; while the Quartettsatz movement in C minor displays all the hallmarks of Schubert's late style - including dark lyricism and shifting chromaticism - D810 'Der Tod und das Mädchen' takes the idea of tragedy to a whole new level, it's second movement's melody lifted directly from the identically titled song. The String Quintet follows, a work written just two months before Schubert's death and which replaces the conventional second viola part with that of a cello. Last, but by no means least, the Octet; composed in 1826, this piece was conceived in a response to a commission by the renowned clarinetist Ferdinand Troyer. Recorded 1995-2009. In his last years (though he was only in his late twenties...) Schubert achieved a unique musical form in which structure and content fuse into an inseparable unity. His later works present a soul in anguish, darkness and light alternate, terror and happiness go hand in hand. The three late string quartets (counting among the best and most famous quartets ever written), the two piano trios, the string quintet of heavenly proportions and the octet all reveal grand musical structures, laden with a depth of feeling which belies the comparative youth of the composer. Excellent performances from the Klaviertrio Amsterdam (Spanish classical magazine Scherzo: "The best recording available"), the German Brandis Quartet and the famous Berlin Philharmonic Octet.

Collectors and admirers of Dvorak’s music bearing the hallmark of the Czech performance tradition can now add another comprehensive album to put alongside the previous complete Supraphon CDs mapping his chamber, piano, and symphonic works. The acclaimed recording of the symphonies, conducted by Vaclav Neumann, is now followed by Supraphon’s 8-CD box set featuring Dvorak’s orchestral pieces and concertos. In addition to the celebrated Slavonic Dances, it contains a number of rarely recorded symphonic works (the Hussite Overture, My Home, A Hero’s Song), as well as splendid compositions for chamber and string orchestras. Besides recordings made under the baton of Neumann, it provides scope to other great Dvorak conductors – Mackerras, Belohlavek and the rising star Jakub Hruša. The set of orchestral works is rounded off by recordings of concertos, ranging from the virtually unknown Cello Concerto in A major, written by the young Dvorak, to the most frequently performed, the Cello Concerto in B minor. Supraphon has again carefully put together top-quality and time-honoured recordings of works performed by world-renowned soloists.

Complete Symphonies and Selected Overtures, from the legendary October-December 1939 NBC cycle. CD 1: Symphony No 1 in C Major, Op. 21 & Symphony No 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 "Eroica" (Studio 8H, 28 Oct. 1939. CD 2: Symphony No 2 in D Major, Op. 36; Symphony No 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60 & Leonore Overture No. 3 (Studio 8H, 4 Nov. 1939). CD 3: Symphony No 6 in F Major, Op. 68 "Pastorale" & Symphony No 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 (Studio 8H, 11 Nov. 1939). CD 4: Egmont Overture & Symphony No 7 in A Major, Op. 92 (Studio 8H, 18 Nov. 1939); Leonore Overture No. 1 & Symphony No 8 in F Major, Op. 93 (Studio 8H, 25 Nov. 1939). CD 5: Leonore Overture No. 2 (Studio 8H, 25 Nov. 1939}; Symphony No 9 in D Minor, Op. 1(Jarmila Novotna, Kerstin Thorborg, Jan Peerce, Nicola Moscona, Westminster Choir, Carnegie Hall, 2 Dec. 1939). New 2013 digital transfers by Aaron Z. Snyder using the revolutionary harmonic balancing process. Notes: Christopher Dyment. Total time: 6 hrs 12 min. BUZZ: "With Chris Dyment's uncommonly informative notes, this release is essential for anyone who cares about Beethoven or Toscanini" --Mortimer H. Frank in Fanfare [on the previous edition] "a must for every experienced music lover... 5.0 out of 5 stars " --Peter Dietrich, amazon.com customer reviews [on the previous edition] "These are superb transfers... They give a great cycle its best sonic shout to date." --Rob Cowan, Gramophone [on the previous edition] "The NBC Orchestra is in fine form and the great conductor's sometimes controversial genius combines with that of Beethoven to produce dazzling and memorable performances." -- www.new-classics.co.uk [on the previous edition]

WAGNER Götterdämmerung • Marek Janowski, cond; Lance Ryan ( Siegfried ); Petra Lang ( Brünnhilde ); Matti Salminen ( Hagen ); Markus Brück ( Gunther ); Edith Haller ( Gutrune ); Jochen Schmeckenbecher ( Alberich ); Marina Prudenskaya ( Waltraute ); Julia Borchert ( Woglinde ); Katherine Kammerloher ( Wellgunde ); Kismara Pessatti ( Flosshilde ); Susanne Resmark ( First Norn ); Christa Mayer ( Second Norn ); Jacquelyn Wagner ( Third Norn ); Berlin R Ch & SO • PENTATONE 5186 409 (4 SACDs: 243:42 Text and Translation) Live: Berlin 3/15/2013


In the fall of 2010, PentaTone announced plans to release new concert recordings of Wagner’s 10 mature operas—all with the same conductor, orchestra, and chorus plus top Wagnerian singers—by the end of the composer’s 200th birthday year. A given was that, as with all PentaTone releases, these would be hybrid multichannel SACDs featuring the best possible sound that the Polyhymnia engineering team could muster. Well, they did it. My copy of Götterdämmerung , recorded in May of last year, arrived on my doorstep on December 11, 2013. Almost three weeks to spare. It’s a successful conclusion to an ambitious undertaking, even if a couple of key singers here were not in top form.


Marek Janowski, as usual, favors brisk tempos. He brings in this Götterdämmerung in about 4:04:00; a quick check of five other audio-only versions of the work, of various vintages, revealed a range of 4: 17:00 (Keilberth, 1955) to 4:34:00 (Thielemann, 2010). Sometimes, this penchant for speed is quite evident, as with a third act Funeral March that’s something other than a dirge. Mostly, Janowski’s tempo choices translate into an increased sense of dramatic urgency rather than seeming rushed or perfunctory.


As signaled above, two key performers were not at the top of their game. Lance Ryan sang Siegfried for Zubin Mehta in the Valencia Ring —my favored video version—and, as I noted there, while no Melchior, he gave a dramatically effective account of the misguided hero. Here, his voice seems closed-in, pinched, sometimes even a little nasal in character—though his softer singing, as when he remembers his history to Hagen’s men right before he’s murdered, is better. Petra Lang is a top-tier Wagnerian who always brings intelligence and strong sense of character to her portrayals. Best here is her scene with Waltraute (capably sung by Marina Prudenskaya) where she begins with the same aura of radiant happiness she manifested when she waved goodbye to Siegfried in the Prologue—and then evolves into defiant fury. Lang’s Brünnhilde is set up perfectly for the gigantic disappointment in the form of Siegfried-as-Gunther who is the next visitor to her rock. “Verrat!”—“Betrayed!”—she cries out, and really sounds like she means it. In the last act, though, Lang’s vocal instrument does show some wear in more demanding passages: The voice is a little rough on top with some imperfect intonation. Violeta Urmana was the Brünnhilde for PentaTone’s Siegfried and she’s more technically secure—but, of course, the role in Götterdämmerung makes very different and more extreme demands on a vocalist than does the earlier drama.


But then there’s Hagen. Give me a choice between a grade B-plus Brünnhilde/Siegfried combination with a grade B Hagen, and a B-minus Brünnhilde/Siegfried with an A Hagen, and I’ll take the latter deal every time. And Matti Salminen is an A-plus Hagen: As Peter Rabinowitz noted in a review of the Valencia Ring in Fanfare 34:2, “he virtually owns the part these days.” Salminen’s act I monolog “Hier Stiz’ ich zur Wacht” is darkly horrifying, dripping with contempt not just for Siegfried but for the rest of humanity as well. Janowski backs him up with tritone-laden brass declamations of crushing power.


Markus Brück and Edith Haller capably sing Gunther and Gutrune. At least vocally, there’s no obvious attempt to make the former into a puffed-up fop and the latter into a floozy, as is so often the case in staged productions. They are there to function mechanistically in the scheme Alberich and Hagen have devised to recover the ring and there’s really no need to vilify them further. The trios of Norns and Rhine Maidens are dramatically and musically effective as well.


The choral work in act II is thrilling—and the recording lets you hear everything. Orchestral sonorities are wonderfully warm and richly textured: Listen to the blend of the eight horns in the music between scenes 1 and 2 of the second act (after Alberich and Hagen’s exchange), or to the glowing majesty of the work’s closing pages. The packaging is in the same luxuriant mode as the preceding nine releases: PentaTone provides a 320-page bound booklet that holds the four hybrid multichannel SACDs as well as a German/English libretto, another lengthy essay from Steffen Georgi, and plenty of information on the cast. By the way, I did it. I managed to hang onto the vouchers that came with the nine earlier releases in the series, so I’m entitled to a “special CD collection box.”


As the final D? chord so handsomely recorded by the Polyhymnia engineering team fades away, one is left marveling at the achievement of Marek Janowski and the many top-notch singers who joined him for PentaTone’s project. But mostly, one is left in awe at the remarkable staying power of the music penned by one Wilhelm Richard Wagner.


FANFARE: Andrew Quint

This 6 CD set contains a wealth of chamber music and songs. Bohemian composer Georg Benda achieved great fame in his time but is little remembered today, hence ripe for rediscovery. The booklet contains detailed notes, biographies and a full track list. The song texts are available via the Brilliant Classics website.

Choices, choices! Ole Kristian Ruud’s superb Grieg box on BIS was and remains a reference for this music, and it is just a smidgen more technically polished than these otherwise excellent performances. However, Engeset has a couple of points in his favor that may weigh significantly with collectors who don’t want to lay out the funds for both eight-CD sets (I did, and I don’t regret it). First, Engeset features even more orchestral music than Grieg actually wrote. To be fair, everyone does. The Norwegian Dances, for example, were orchestrated by Hans Sitt, and there are other short works scored by everyone from Anton Seidl to Johan Halvorsen.

Engeset, however, offers two welcome novelties: three of the Slatter orchestrated by Oistein Sommerfeldt, and most interesting of all, the massive Ballade for piano arranged for large orchestra by 20th century Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt. This massively scored transcription really brings out the music’s tragic power, and it’s very intensely performed by Engeset and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The other advantage that Engeset has over Ruud is a finer soloist for the piano concerto in Havard Gimse. Noriko Ogawa, on BIS, is perfectly fine as far as she goes, but Gimse goes quite a bit farther in terms of imaginative phrasing and tone color.

Otherwise, the two sets are very equally matched. Both conductors sound equally at home in the music, with versions of the Symphony, Norwegian Dances, Old Norwegian Romance with Variations, and Symphonic Dances that are equally persuasive and equally well performed. The Peer Gynt incidental music comes complete on both sets, and is played, sung, and spoken to the hilt. Vocal soloists (Inger Dam-Jensen in the Six Orchestral Songs) are fully involved and fully comparable. In most of the shorter pieces, direct comparison often reveals timings within a few seconds of each other (Bell Ringing is an exception, with Engeset notably slower than Ruud). What the heck, just get both.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Presenting the major singers of today and the stars of tomorrow, the Rosenblatt Recitals are London’s only world-class season of opera recitals. This set of CDs from the partnership with Opus Arte are based predominantly on studio recordings with occasional bonus live tracks.

A 4 CD extravaganza of John Williams’ soundtrack and film score music joins the 12th batch of box sets released as a part of the Sony Classical Masters Series and provides a colossal reminder of Williams’ prodigious breadth and ubiquity of his works in some of the most culture defining films of the recent Hollywood era. With a disc devoted to his Star War scores, and another to his orchestral works and Olympics inspired works; the collection also features popular orchestras and soloists including Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic and more.

The Concerto Grosso is a popular Baroque form, in which two instrumental groups complete against each other: a small group of soloists and the tutti of the orchestral group. It is the forerunner of the solo concerto form, which features only one solo instrument. This set present the complete Concerti Grossi by Pietro Antonio Locatelli, modelled on the popular concerti grossi of his teacher Corelli. The writing, as might be expected from Locatelli the devil violinist, is highly virtuosic and brilliant, inventive in harmony and counterpoint, written to impress and entertain. This set is part IV of the Locatelli Edition, the complete works by Locatelli, as performed by Igor Ruhadze and his early music band Violini Capricciosi, playing with great gusto, zest and dazzling virtuosity. Virtuosity, showy improvisation and stratospherically high violin playing are the characteristics of Baroque composer Pietro Antonio Locatelli's theatrical concerti grossi for soloists and ripieno. While concerti grossi from this time could usually be divided into two types, 'da camera' and 'da chiesa' - with the former containing more dance movements - Locatelli went down his own distinct path, creating a new model more like that of Torelli. His ripieno section was larger than the traditional accompanying group, and his slow movements contained drawn-out notes over which the first violinist or harpsichordist was free to improvise. Indeed, one harpsichord passage in Op.7 is so extraordinarily virtuosic that Locatelli labelled it 'ad libitum', presumably to avoid frightening the amateur musician. Only the most consummate and accomplished musicians can perform works of this calibre. Igor Ruhadze and his ensemble Violini Capricciosi have spent years recording Locatelli's works, having previously released his violin concertos and trio sonatas, described by Gramophone magazine as 'brilliantly and at times breathtakingly performed'. They bring their expertise to this release once more, with a tight and supple ripieno section supporting the sumptuous, virtuosic solo playing.

Messiaen’s artistic mission was to invent new musical languages to explore and portray the mysteries of the Christian faith. These “languages” employed many compositional techniques, including modes of limited transposition, Hindu rhythms, Greek rhythms, plainsong, birdsong, “communicable language,’ and serialism. Born in Avignon to Pierre Messiaen, a Shakespeare scholar, and the poet Cecile Sauvage, Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) exhibited a rare musical talent from an early age. He was admitted to the Paris Conservatory at age eleven, where he won five First Prizes- notably in classes with Marcel Dupre, Maurice Emmanuel, and Paul Dukas. In 1930, he was appointed Organiste Titulaire of Sainte Trinite Church in Paris, a position he held until the early 1970s. At the outbreak of WWII, he became a French army hospital attendance, and in 1941 was taken prisoner and held in a POW camp in Silesia (where he composed Quartet for the End of Time). Upon his repatriation in 1942, he was appointed professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatory. During his lifetime, Messiaen was famed as an organist and pianist and frequently performed his own difficult compositions in concerts around the world. Colin Andrews is an internationally famous concert artist, with extensive experience in the music of Messiaen. One of only four organists to have recorded Messiaen’s complete organ works, Andrews was recently named “Membre d’Honneur” of the Association Grand Orgue Trinite Messiaen, based at Messiaen’s church in Paris.

Also available on Blu-ray

Alongside those with Simone Young and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, OehmsClassics is now offering the third Bruckner cycle here with Ivor Bolton. This time it includes ''only'' the Symphonies Nos. 1 and 9. In its April 2017 issue, the renowned Gramophone Magazine wrote the following about the Second Symphony: ''The overall impression is one of vividness and transparency, aided by the exemplary recording...Among single-disc offerings of the 1872 edition, Bolton's recording is hard to beat.''

Past praise of previously issued recordings included in this set:

Bruckner: Symphony No 3 / Bolton, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra:

There is a compelling sweep to Bolton’s interpretation, replete with an atmospheric and detailed recording. And the ending could hardly be more final, more unequivocal, just as Bruckner surely intended.

– MusicWeb International

Bruckner: Symphony No 6 / Ivor Bolton, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg

An excellent recording overall. The focus on detail really justifies many of Bruckner's compositional decisions. More grandiose recordings make the work out to be more like the monumental Eighth or Ninth. It is always going to suffer by comparison with them, so in many ways Bolton's approach - to treat the often delicate textures with more care and attention - better represents its more modest aspirations.

– MusicWeb International

On May 8, 1373, 30-year-old Julian of Norwich, sick and near death, had a series of visions of Christ. In these 16 visions she learnt about God's loving nature. God in Julian's visions was not angry and wrathful. Instead, the three properties of God were presented as life, love and light, and all of His creation was good, including his servant, man. In Julian’s version, Man is not to blame for his sin; instead it is something that he must experience and overcome in his spiritual journey with God. The version of Christian theology presented in Revelations of Divine Love – the first published book in English attributed to a woman – was highly liberal and incredibly progressive for its time. The book contains some of the most profound spiritual writing ever written and remains a perennial favourite among Christians.

Sony Classical is pleased to announce the first release of Alexander Brailowsky’s complete RCA Victor recordings, many of them never before available in the digital medium.

Born in 1896 in Kiev, Brailowsky studied at the conservatory in his native city, then part of the Russian empire. In 1911, he went to Vienna to become a pupil of the legendary Theodor Leschetizky, who taught many of the 20th century’s outstanding pianists. During World War I Brailowsky also studied with Busoni in Switzerland, and in 1919 made his debut in Paris. Five years later came his first appearance in New York where he settled, then making regular coast-to-coast tours of North America while continuing to visit Europe.

There was one composer with whom Alexander Brailowsky was associated throughout his career – and has remained associated through recordings since his death in 1976: Frederic Chopin. Brailowsky was the first pianist to present Chopin’s entire 169 solo works as a cycle, performing this feat before capacity audiences in New York, Brussels, Zurich, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Paris. At the end of his 1938 Chopin series in New York, one reviewer noted that “there are few enough pianists who have the prodigious memory, the physical strength, the comprehensive technique required for such an undertaking; there are far fewer who have – plus all these – the requisite musicianship. Mr. Brailowsky is one of these latter few.”

Not surprisingly, Sony Classical’s new comprehensive reissue of Brailowsky’s RCA albums largely comprises music by Chopin. Both piano concertos are included – No. 1 with William Steinberg conducting the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra in 1949 and No. 2 with Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1954. High Fidelity later wrote of these two performances: “Brailowsky’s energetically contoured, sharply etched clarity represents an emerging modernity of outlook that points to present-day Chopin players.” The set also features Brailowsky’s two traversals of the Waltzes, as well as his complete recordings of the Etudes, Preludes, and Nocturnes, plus Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, the Ecossaises, and Berceuse. Of Brailowsky’s Nocturnes recording, Gramophone’s reviewer wrote: “He could sing beautifully at the keyboard. His nocturnes as a whole have a touching humanity and simplicity … The mono RCA sound is quite velvety.”