W. F. BACH Sonatas: in Eb, F 5; in Bb, F 9; in C, F 2; in D, F 4. Suite in g, F 24 • Julia Brown (hpd) • NAXOS 8.572814 (75:58)


This is the third volume in Naxos’s projected series of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s keyboard works. Like the previous two, it features Julia Brown, music director and organist of the First United Methodist Church in Eugene, Oregon. (The previous volumes featured organ works, 8.570571, and Fantasias and Fugues, 8.570530.) Although the previous harpsichord disc received good reviews, there was a caveat that Brown tended to play too slowly. That certainly isn’t the case on this disc. If anything, the consistently upbeat tempos of these pieces tend to sound quite jaunty, and Brown’s penchant for introducing obvious moments of rubato in her phrasing creates the same kind of stutter-step in the music that one hears in the keyboard works of Dietrich Buxtehude.


My issue is not so much with Brown’s playing, which is sparkling and lively, as it is with Bach’s music. It’s exceptionally well crafted but lacks imagination. Yes, there are moments here and there which grab one’s attention—he was, after all, a Bach—but even when compared with his younger brother Johann Christian’s piano sonatas, they lack charm. When one lacks both inventiveness and charm, one is left with very little save energy. The liner notes, written by Brown herself, claim otherwise; she hears “sudden contrasts and surprising changes” in the Bb-Major Sonata, but to my ears such changes are quite mild compared to any of his brother Carl Philipp Emanuel’s keyboard pieces. Generally, what I hear is the older style of his father reworked and retreaded so often that the tire tracks show. Nearly every piece has the same bright, perky quality. To my ears, the most original and imaginative movement in the entire recital is the second movement ( Grave ) of the Sonata in C Major. If you hear W.F. Bach’s music differently, however, there is no question that this is an outstanding disc to get.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

When Kodály constructed a suite of music from his opera Háry János, he further immortalised the braggart soldier of the title. Dreamlike and fantastic, the six scenes are imbued with imaginative writing of sweeping intensity, embracing a love-duet, a mock-epic battle, a folk song, and a vigorous recruiting dance. In the Dances of Galánta he again employed the Hungarian verbunkos recruiting dance tradition to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society. The Konzertstück of his compatriot and nearcontemporary Ern? Dohnányi is a full-scale cello concerto of considerable lyric beauty.

Another re-release from Hickox’s classic recordings finds us knee-deep in lesser-known and widely varied works of Gustav Holst. The Suite de Ballet is one of Holst’s lighter orchestral pieces, worked colorfully with a slightly French flair. Song of the Night for solo violin shows the composer in a confident and imaginative Romantic frame of mind. Finally, the comic chamber opera The Wandering Scholar was one of Holst’s latest works, stripped down to only the barest necessities. Hickox’s lively performance was hailed as inspiring “full-blooded music-making” throughout.

Sergey Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet was completed after the composer's final repatriation to Soviet Russia after a period abroad. It was written for the Kirov Ballet but early productions faltered, and Prokofiev soon adapted his music to the concert hall. The Suites avoid narrative sequence, selecting crucial moments such as the famous "balcony scene", and dramatic climaxes such as the Death of Tybalt. Composed to celebrate the famous author's 150th anniversary, the Pushkin Waltzes are relaxed, easygoing, and with a typically witty edge.

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Lohengrin is staged by the enfant terrible Hans Neuenfels, and offers a thought-provoking production of brilliant visual clarity. The performance by Klaus Florian Vogt in the title role is staggering and impressive. There is beauty and purity in his voice, but in this role in particular, one truly senses something unheimlich, other-worldly, which fits superlatively both with work and production. Conductor Andris Nelsons brings out the best in the festival chorus and orchestra. It is a Lohengrin one does not easily forget and puts Bayreuth back in the vanguard of Wagner interpretation.

Richard Wagner
LOHENGRIN

König Heinrich – Georg Zeppenfeld
Lohengrin – Klaus Florian Vogt
Elsa Von Brabant – Annette Dasch
Friedrich Von Telramund – Jukka Rasilainen
Ortrud – Petra Lang
Der Heerrufer Des Königs – Samuel Youn

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and Chorus
Andris Nelsons, conductor

Hans Neuenfels, stage director

Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival, 14 August 2011

bonus
- Cast gallery
- Interviews with Katharina Wagner, Hans Neuenfels, Klaus Florian Vogt & Annette Dasch
- Animations

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 209 mins + 25 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 50)

R E V I E W:


WAGNER Lohengrin • Andris Nelsons, cond; Klaus Florian Vogt ( Lohengrin ); Annette Dasch ( Elsa ); Jukka Rasilainen ( Friedrich von Telramund ); Petra Lang ( Ortrud ); Georg Zeppenfeld ( Heinrich ); Samuel Youn ( Herald ); Bayreuth Fest O & Ch • OPUS ARTE OAA BD7103 D (Blu-ray: 209:00) Live: Bayreuth 8/14/2011


& Interviews with Katharina Wagner, Hans Neuenfels, Klaus Florian Vogt, and Annette Dasch. Animations


I saw this vastly entertaining Lohengrin at Bayrueth in August 2011, six days before it was filmed with the same cast for this Blu-ray release, and can attest that it was as enthusiastically received as it appears to be on its video representation. Yes, a few boos can be heard at the close of each act, but this is easily the most successful Bayreuth production since “the girls” (as Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, the composer’s great-granddaughters, are known to the locals) officially took over the festival from the long-lived Wolfgang Wagner.


The director Hans Neuenfels, and those who designed the production, imagine Lohengrin as a kind of bio-psychological scientific experiment and the set evokes a “Skinner Box,” the apparatus used for operant conditioning testing. The good people of Brabant are, indeed, rats with cartoon-like hands, feet, tails, and large mesh heads with glowing rodent eyes. A briskly efficient crew of men in blue hazard suits supervises them periodically. These are, it should be noted, rats with a real sense of style, and the stage picture at the end of act II is stunning. The element of fantasy (and, yes, humor) is entirely in keeping with the conception of Lohengrin as a “fairy tale opera.” It’s magical, but there’s plenty of darkness lurking below the surface as well, as there has always been in fairy tales from the Grimm Brothers to Maurice Sendak.


The scientific issue being considered here centers on Elsa, of course: will she or won’t she? Remarkably, these Bayreuth performances represent the German soprano Annette Dasch’s first go at the role and she gives a richly complex realization. Her opening lines in act II (“Euch Lüften, die mein Klagen”) are anything but chaste, a quasi-erotic reverie that concludes with her kissing a swan with a phallicly elongated neck. On the other hand, Dasch makes it clear early on in the act III bedroom scene that Elsa has something else on her mind other than connubial bliss, that is, her obsession with her new husband’s identity.


As opposed to Dasch, Klaus Florian Vogt is the world’s most sought-after Lohengrin, a veteran of many esteemed productions and two video representations—this one in addition to an estimable Lohengrin directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff and conducted by Kent Nagano— plus an SACD version (with Annette Dasch) on PentaTone. Vogt doesn’t disappoint—his voice is so well suited to the part and his musical instincts so good, how could he?—but his interpretation is by no means fixed. (Says Dasch in her interview feature: “He wasn’t just reeling off his standard Lohengrin!”) Vogt, himself, reports that he learned a lot from the director and feels that the character has been more “humanized,” in this production. But irrespective of a director’s interpretation of the story, the dramatic power of the work rides squarely on the shoulders of the singer in the title role and here Vogt delivers as surely as ever. From his act I entrance right through “In fernem Land,” he holds Elsa, the people of Brabant, and us in his thrall.


As Ortrud, Petra Lang is about as malignantly evil as Wagner’s villains get, sneering, leering, and glaring pretty much every second she’s on camera and offering up some venomous vocalism. Jukka Rasilainen is no weak pawn of his consort—he doesn’t invoke nearly as much pity as some Telramunds, and that’s fine. Georg Zeppenfeld has a strong bass instrument but his relatively slight physical presence matches well Wagner’s implication of a weak and insecure monarch. Samuel Youn, an experienced Wagnerian, makes the Herald into something more than a talking head. His wild hair and air of efficiency suggest a mad scientist, maybe the one in charge of this experiment.


The chorus, as always at Bayreuth, is phenomenal and Andris Nelsons leads with a sure hand (impressing me far more than he did on a Blu-ray release of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 8, reviewed last issue). This is the fourth Blu-ray release from Bayreuth on the Opus Arte label, and these discs, especially when played back in multichannel, get you as close to the reach-out-and-touch-it acoustic experience of the Festspielhaus as any previous recording. At the end of the evening, when the crowd stomps its approval on the old wooden floor of the raked amphitheater, the sense of a large space being acoustically energized is uncanny. The cinematography is superb and the imaginative animations that are projected onstage at various points throughout the opera can be ideally viewed in the Extra section along with interviews of Katharina Wagner (vacuous), Klaus Florian Vogt and Annette Dasch (interesting), and Hans Neuenfels (profound.) And which of Vogt’s three commercial, high-resolution Lohengrin s should you get—the Blu-ray led by Nagano, the PentaTone SACD, or this one? Sorry. If you’re a true Wagnerite, you need all three.


FANFARE: Andrew Quint

WAGNER Lohengrin • Andris Nelsons, cond; Klaus Florian Vogt (Lohengrin); Annette Dasch (Elsa); Jukka Rasilainen (Friedrich von Telramund); Petra Lang (Ortrud); Georg Zeppenfeld (Heinrich); Samuel Youn (Herald); Bayreuth Fest O & Ch • OPUS ARTE OAA BD7103 D (Blu-ray: 209:00) Live: Bayreuth 8/14/2011

& Interviews with Katharina Wagner, Hans Neuenfels, Klaus Florian Vogt, and Annette Dasch. Animations

I saw this vastly entertaining Lohengrin at Bayrueth in August 2011, six days before it was filmed with the same cast for this Blu-ray release, and can attest that it was as enthusiastically received as it appears to be on its video representation. Yes, a few boos can be heard at the close of each act, but this is easily the most successful Bayreuth production since “the girls” (as Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, the composer’s great-granddaughters, are known to the locals) officially took over the festival from the long-lived Wolfgang Wagner.

The director Hans Neuenfels, and those who designed the production, imagine Lohengrin as a kind of bio-psychological scientific experiment and the set evokes a “Skinner Box,” the apparatus used for operant conditioning testing. The good people of Brabant are, indeed, rats with cartoon-like hands, feet, tails, and large mesh heads with glowing rodent eyes. A briskly efficient crew of men in blue hazard suits supervises them periodically. These are, it should be noted, rats with a real sense of style, and the stage picture at the end of act II is stunning. The element of fantasy (and, yes, humor) is entirely in keeping with the conception of Lohengrin as a “fairy tale opera.” It’s magical, but there’s plenty of darkness lurking below the surface as well, as there has always been in fairy tales from the Grimm Brothers to Maurice Sendak.

The scientific issue being considered here centers on Elsa, of course: will she or won’t she? Remarkably, these Bayreuth performances represent the German soprano Annette Dasch’s first go at the role and she gives a richly complex realization. Her opening lines in act II (“Euch Lüften, die mein Klagen”) are anything but chaste, a quasi-erotic reverie that concludes with her kissing a swan with a phallicly elongated neck. On the other hand, Dasch makes it clear early on in the act III bedroom scene that Elsa has something else on her mind other than connubial bliss, that is, her obsession with her new husband’s identity.

As opposed to Dasch, Klaus Florian Vogt is the world’s most sought-after Lohengrin, a veteran of many esteemed productions and two video representations—this one in addition to an estimable Lohengrin directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff and conducted by Kent Nagano—plus an SACD version (with Annette Dasch) on PentaTone. Vogt doesn’t disappoint—his voice is so well suited to the part and his musical instincts so good, how could he?—but his interpretation is by no means fixed. (Says Dasch in her interview feature: “He wasn’t just reeling off his standard Lohengrin!”) Vogt, himself, reports that he learned a lot from the director and feels that the character has been more “humanized,” in this production. But irrespective of a director’s interpretation of the story, the dramatic power of the work rides squarely on the shoulders of the singer in the title role and here Vogt delivers as surely as ever. From his act I entrance right through “In fernem Land,” he holds Elsa, the people of Brabant, and us in his thrall.

As Ortrud, Petra Lang is about as malignantly evil as Wagner’s villains get, sneering, leering, and glaring pretty much every second she’s on camera and offering up some venomous vocalism. Jukka Rasilainen is no weak pawn of his consort—he doesn’t invoke nearly as much pity as some Telramunds, and that’s fine. Georg Zeppenfeld has a strong bass instrument but his relatively slight physical presence matches well Wagner’s implication of a weak and insecure monarch. Samuel Youn, an experienced Wagnerian, makes the Herald into something more than a talking head. His wild hair and air of efficiency suggest a mad scientist, maybe the one in charge of this experiment.

The chorus, as always at Bayreuth, is phenomenal and Andris Nelsons leads with a sure hand (impressing me far more than he did on a Blu-ray release of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 8, reviewed last issue). This is the fourth Blu-ray release from Bayreuth on the Opus Arte label, and these discs, especially when played back in multichannel, get you as close to the reach-out-and-touch-it acoustic experience of the Festspielhaus as any previous recording. At the end of the evening, when the crowd stomps its approval on the old wooden floor of the raked amphitheater, the sense of a large space being acoustically energized is uncanny. The cinematography is superb and the imaginative animations that are projected onstage at various points throughout the opera can be ideally viewed in the Extra section along with interviews of Katharina Wagner (vacuous), Klaus Florian Vogt and Annette Dasch (interesting), and Hans Neuenfels (profound.) And which of Vogt’s three commercial, high-resolution Lohengrins should you get—the Blu-ray led by Nagano, the PentaTone SACD, or this one? Sorry. If you’re a true Wagnerite, you need all three.

FANFARE: Andrew Quint

Also available on Blu-ray

Gloriously affirming the Salzburg Festival’s long-standing reputation as a supreme musical event, this concert honours one of its founding fathers, Richard Strauss. Renée Fleming, Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra unite for a programme of song, opera and tone poem, genres central to the composer’s extraordinarily fruitful career. Fleming interprets four of his songs with orchestra, including the deeply moving Befreit, and provides a substantial taste of perhaps her finest operatic role, Arabella. New vistas then open as Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic take the spectacular mountain journey mapped by the composer in his titanic Alpine Symphony.

Richard Strauss:
Befreit, Op. 39, No. 4
Winterliebe, Op. 48, No. 5
Traum durch die Dämmerung, Op. 29, No. 1
Gesang der Apollopriesterin, Op. 33, No. 2
Arabella: Mein Elemer!
Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64

Renée Fleming, soprano
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Recorded live at the Salzburg Festival, August 2011

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format; LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 84 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

R E V I E W:

R. STRAUSS An Alpine Symphony. Befreit. Winterliebe. Traum durch die Dämmerung. Gesang der Apollopriesterin. Arabella: act I concluding scene • Christian Thielemann, cond; Renée Fleming (sop); Vienna PO • OPUS ARTE 7101 (Blu-ray: 84:00) Live: Salzburg 8/2011


Renée Fleming, Christian Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra giving a Richard Straus concert at Salzburg would seem to be a no-brainer for Richard Strauss fans. Put it on your Blu-ray machine, turn off the lights, and surrender to Strauss’s beloved soprano voice and luscious orchestration. Fleming has stated that his music is ideal for her voice. And so it is. Strauss was seemingly addicted to the soprano voice, but you have to wonder if he ever heard an instrument like Fleming’s singing his music. Her rich, creamy tone blends so perfectly with Strauss’s lush orchestration that you have to forgive her when she sometimes tends to over-interpret these songs. Her lovely tone and wistful mood are perfect for the concluding scene from Arabella. Yes, she owns the part with a voice that is even more innately suited to this music than Kiri Te Kanawa’s. Gesang der Apollopriesterin is overwhelming in the hands of Fleming, Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic. Despite sometimes seemingly getting lost in the sheer beauty of the sound of her voice as it relates to this music (who can blame her?), Befreit also shows why Fleming is a great Straussian. The magnificent Vienna Philharmonic plays an equal role in the songs, as it should.


For some, An Alpine Symphony will never be more than a monstrous exercise in musical megalomania (sometimes I wonder whether those critics are afraid to allow themselves to actually enjoy music, rather than view it as a painful academic exercise). After all, orchestration and melody are in many cases just as important as counterpoint and structure (which is not to say that Strauss could not write structurally sound music, even if he was not a symphonist). Anyway, Thielemann seems content to let the orchestra do its thing with just the right amount of control, and the video director discreetly gives us a helpful view of all the soloists within Strauss’s gigantic orchestra, especially the woodwinds. What a pleasure it is to hear the trumpets playing effortlessly without sounding annoying or inappropriately piercing through the instrumental fabric. And those trombone fanfares are stunning. Thielemann’s tempos are generally slow, but he presses forward in the climactic “At the Summit,” thus assuring that his interpretation does not bog down or sound over-indulgent. On the other hand, he slows too much to the point of micro-managing without enhancing the music’s atmosphere for the “Vision,” “Elegy,” and “Calm Before the Storm.” For Thielemann, the true climax appears to be “Sunset,” where he broadens the tempo and unleashes a torrent of luxurious sound. The organ is too subdued in the “Storm,” but blends nicely with the orchestra elsewhere.


The DTS surround sound is ideal for the Alpine Symphony, and the video direction shows plenty of detail without being choppy. My one quibble would be that you never get a complete view of the important percussion section. There are extreme close-ups of drum sticks (but not the timpanist) and the wind and thunder machines, but not the rest of the players. Subtitles are available in English, French, German, and Spanish. What more can I say? It is hard to imagine a better audio-visual feast for Straussians.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

Written in 1944, Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony is one of his greatest and most complete symphonic statements. At its première he himself called it “a symphony of the grandeur of the human spirit”. The first movement couples considerable strength with unexpected yet highly characteristic twists of melody. After a violent scherzo followed by a slow movement of sustained lyricism, with a fiercely dramatic middle section, the finale blazes with barely suppressed passion. The Year 1941 is another wartime work, a symphonic suite written in response to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. This is the first volume a of complete cycle of the Prokofiev Symphonies with the OSESP and Marin Alsop, the orchestra’s newly appointed principal conductor.

REVIEW:

Alsop is evidently a sympathetic interpreter of Prokofiev, because the tempo and pacing always feel spot-on, and the character of the music rings true. Naxos offers exceptional reproduction of the vivid instrumental colors with appropriately resonant acoustics, so this series starts off brilliantly, with worthy performances that sound terrific.

– AllMusicGuide.com

Classical Music

Registering a wide emotional range, Gatti makes very familiar material seem fresh and compelling without being willfully "different."

This pair of Romeo and Juliets from Daniele Gatti and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is the conductor's fourth CD for BMG Conifer. Others include a Bartók disc, Respighi 's "Roman Trilogy," and a very effective Mahler Symphony No .5. With the Prokofiev, the trend in recent years has been for conductors to fashion their own series of selections from the compete work and to eschew the three suites the composer produced that may be musically satisfying but that ignore entirely the narrative flow of the ballet. A spectacularly successful example is a 1996 RCA disc from Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony which, at 78 minutes, presents a bit more than half of the ballet—perhaps all you really need outside the context of a staged performance. Gatti takes a middle ground. He plays most of the movements from the "official" Suites Nos. 1 and 2 (op. 64b and op. 64c) but reorders them to make more dramatic sense. Gatti states in the notes, "I have chosen to present the individual pieces as a series of colorful contrasts, as Prokofiev did, whilst retaining a semblance of the original story line."

The conductor succeeds considerably. Gatti registers a wide emotional range, rendering aptly both the most tender music and the crudest moments. He captures both the Neoclassical spirit of the work, as in his graceful, spontaneous-sounding "Juliet, the young girl," and the overtly Romantic gestures. The "Balcony Scene" has moments of exquisite delicacy, rising to a fervent tenderness; the closing "Romeo at Juliet's Tomb" is powerful, with an acutely agonized sense of grief. Those who love this music will have (at least) one of the several versions of the complete score—Maazel's, on a bargain-priced London "Double Decker" set, fills the bill nicely—and I find Tilson Thomas's balletic, well-played program indispensable. There's also still a place for the traditional, composer-approved suites: Muti's early 1980s readings of the first two, for instance.

In Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Gatti makes very familiar material seem fresh and compelling without being willfully "different." The opening minutes are permeated with a sense of longing, and when the Big Theme comes, while Gatti doesn't wallow, his performance is certainly quite stirring. From Intersound's budget-priced "Royal Philharmonic Orchestra" series, we know this venerable ensemble plays well for any good conductor; they play exceptionally well for their young Music Director. The recording is billed as having "EDR"—"Extended Dynamic Range"—and, indeed, you'd better adjust the volume level with care. The opening chord of "Montagues and Capulets" starts at a modest level, but Crescendos to a cataclysmic roar that had me diving for the gain control the first time out. The sound, generally, is nonfatiguing, with imaging and depth that are very good, if not quite state-of-the-art. The conductor's respiratory exertions are episodically audible.

There are close to 100 listings for the Tchaikovsky in Schwann Opus and dozens of Prokofiev's R & J, in various forms. Do you really want another version of these perennial favorites? You may want Gatti's.

-- Andrew Quint, FANFARE [7/1999]

This fabulous recording features lesser known violin repertoire played with a keen advocacy.

This fabulous recording features lesser known violin repertoire, played with a keen advocacy by soloist Henning Kraggerud and Dalasinfoniettan. Excepting the works of Ole Bull, the remaining pieces were composed between 1910 and 1930. However, none of this music embraces the radically dissonant sounds found in Austrian-Germanic music of this period. Anyone with a love of Holst and Vaughan Williams, Grieg and J.P.E. Hartmann will positively revel in this repertoire.

The CD opens with six modestly arranged Norwegian folksongs by Carl Olsen. The first movement begins with violin alone, played here with great sensitivity and refinement. Olsen ensure that even when the orchestra enters, the melody always stands out, keeping the harmonic writing fairly simple so that it compliments, rather than competes, with the melody. Throughout these songs, Kraggerud’s sound is burnished and rich, varying his vibrato to give greater shape and ardor to his phrasing, while the orchestra led by Bjarte Engeset, prove to be equally sensitive partners.

Atterberg’s Suite No. 3 was originally intended for a violin and viola soloist; this arrangement, for two violins, is its premiere recording. Both solo parts are played by Kraggerud, and while there is nothing to fault in his playing or in the engineer’s dubbing, I found myself resistant to this idea, as I would have liked to hear him interact with another player. Nevertheless, the playing is stunningly beautiful, the forlorn atmosphere of the first two movements gently dispelled by the final movement’s more uplifting waltz.

The Two Sentimental Romances very much reminded me of Vaughan Williams, in both their use of modes and constantly shifting textures. The first Romance, in A Major, is bright and inviting, a perfect evocation of a beautiful summer day, while the second F-minor Romance, marked Allegro patetico, brings greater intensity and a return to that forlorn atmosphere that many Nordic composers easily inhabit.

Ole Bull was considered the “Nordic Paganini”, well known not only for his great virtuosity but also his improvisational abilities. Memories of Havana was composed during Bull’s 1844 tour of Cuba. The score and solo part are lost, but a complete set of orchestral parts survives, so Kraggerud has reconstructed the solo part. The work’s structure is similar to Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsodies: several sections based on a national folk tune, connected by interlude material that is meant to give the listener (and performers) a break between moments of virtuosic writing. Mountain Vision features a tune by Bull that became incredibly popular in Norway, so much so that a text was written for the tune, called “The Herdgirl’s Sunday.” Similarly structured, the work includes not only includes Bull’s melody, but four other folk tunes. Both are performed with plenty of fire and beauty, without ever becoming over sentimentalized.

The final selections feature the music by the better known composers, Halvorsen, Sibelius and Sinding. Halvorsen’s Norwegian Dance No. 3, as the title suggests, is predominantly light-hearted and joyful in its outer sections, though the middle section features gentler, less rhythmic music that features a long-breathed, arching melody. Sibelius’s Six Humoresques express what the composer called “the sadness of living a life that was only occasionally illuminated by the sun”. These are performances of great sophistication and delicate beauty, more affecting that the rather heavy-handed treatment they receive in the Mutter/Staatskappelle/Previn 1996 DG recording.

Evening Mood clearly shows the influence of Sinding’s four years of study in Leipzig, featuring warmth of color that gently dispels the somewhat despondent mood of the previous Sibelius set, making for a satisfying hour plus of gorgeous music-making.

The recording itself is truly excellent, the soloist well integrated into the sound-picture. The engineers have fully captured the room’s warm ambience without any loss of clarity and there is a good front to back perspective. Notes are excellent and informative, but printed in a font size that might actually be in negative numbers. I look forward to more recordings from these performers.

David A. McConnell , MusicWeb International

Aaron Copland's suite from the ballet Appalachian Spring won him a Pulitzer Prize and global recognition. The famous Quaker song 'Simple Gifts' and the American ambience of this suite contrast with the more modernist Symphonic Ode, which conveys rugged grandeur through an uncompromising structural unity. Neglected since the late 1960s, Paul Creston's music was once amongst the most frequently performed of any American composer. His poetic Symphony No. 3 is an orchestral Life of Christ, movingly expressed through themes inspired by Gregorian chant.

SCHUMANN Symphonies: No. 2; No. 4 • Christian Zacharias, cond; Lausanne CO • MDG MGD 940 1745-6 (SACD: 64:51)


This is the first time I have ever heard these symphonies played gracefully by a chamber orchestra. What makes them so beautiful is that Christian Zacharias does not employ his orchestra’s limitation of size as an excuse for delivering spiky phrasing and rude noises. (Roger Norrington! Beware of Dog!) What I encounter instead in these performances is the delicacy of Schumann’s piano suites and the fine ear of a pianist who knows this music must dance. In fairness, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra is not that small—perhaps 50-strong here—but usually the temptation would be to overcompensate with smaller-dog tensile energy.


Happily we find instead kinder, gentler versions of big-orchestra Schumann. This approach works best in the inner movements of both symphonies, but also especially well in the danceable opening allegro of the Fourth. Taken a bit faster than usual, the Adagio of the Second Symphony could actually propel a couple gracefully around the room. In the outer movements we get similar tea-dance spirit, but at the slight expense of something larger and more exciting. This is such smooth, euphonious cozy Schumann; it is almost Dvo?ák.


Schumann, of course, was obsessed by the sound of disembodied trumpets during the composition of his Second Symphony. And there is more metaphysical fear and Wagnerian mystery to be captured in its introduction than heard here. Christoph Eschenbach evoked this hauntingly in his Bamberg cycle for Virgin in the early ’90s. And Ernest Ansermet, just up the road in Geneva, didn’t do badly with it, either. Small forces have difficulty with the stasis of mood and mystery. In particular, tremoli with a large complement of strings can evoke the infinite nature of things. But in reduced numbers, they demystify and can pester like flies at a picnic.


So I shall not argue that Zacharias has exhausted the possibilities found in these symphonies, just that the beauty of his approach will surprise you, in delicious but unobtrusive surround sound. If there is perhaps more grit, force, and sheer amorous passion to be found in the Second Symphony, well, Clara Schumann would certainly have thought so. As a small symbol in her diaries reveals, she and Schumann had sex virtually every day for 10 years! I always suspected girls loved Schumann!


FANFARE: Steven Kruger

Leoš Janáček was an authority on his native folk-music, and the Lachian and Moravian Dances preserve and celebrate culture and traditions which were vanishing even in his own lifetime. Based on Gogol’s historical novel, Janáček’s inspired orchestral rhapsody on Taras Bulba depicts three moving and dramatic episodes in the violent life of the Cossack leader, climaxing in his stirring and triumphant prophecy of liberation. This release follows Antoni Wit’s acclaimed Warsaw recording of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass and Sinfonietta (8.572639). Antoni Wit, one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors, studied conducting with Henryk Czyz and composition with Krzysztof Penderecki at the Academy of Music in Kraków, subsequently continuing his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 2002 he became managing and artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

REVIEWS:

Everything about this disc is fabulous: the performances, the coupling, and the sonics. Antoni Wit’s Taras Bulba sounds like no other. It’s full of details that you won’t have heard before, particularly in the layering of textures and shades of woodwind color. This is particularly obvious in the second movement, “The Death of Ostap”, but these personal touches never get in the way of an idiomatic, indeed visceral response to the music’s high drama. Wit builds the tension in the first movement’s successive episodes as well as anyone ever has, and releases it in a truly menacing battle sequence, with vicious contributions from the low brass. In the finale the Naxos engineers balance the organ and orchestra uncannily in the concluding apotheosis, which Wit conducts with a wholly individual combination of grandeur and serenity. It’s just plain wonderful.

Wit’s first Janácek disc contained the Glagolitic Mass and the Sinfonietta, and finding appropriate couplings for the composer’s scant orchestral output is never easy. There are the two other symphonic poems (The Ballad of Blaník and The Fiddler’s Child), some assorted overtures, the Schluck und Jau incidental music, the early works for string orchestra, and very little else. Wit’s choice of the two dance suites turns out to be an inspired decision, since they offer music that marries very well with Taras Bulba. The Lachian Dances are somewhat well known from recordings, though still a rarity in concert, but the Moravian Dances of 1891, a five-movement suite lasting about nine minutes, remains the preserve of Janácek specialists. They are delightful, and I offer a sample of No. 2 (“Kalamajka”). For the record, Wit omits the optional organ part in the Lachian Dances (the score refers to it as “inobligato”), a smart idea as the orchestration is already somewhat thick. Strongest recommendation.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Seattle Symphony Orchestra & *Chorus/Gerard Schwarz. Delos DE 3083 [*The Miraculous Mandarin (complete ballet) and Kodály: Háry Janos Suite and Dances of Galánta] (recorded 1988-89)

The Seattle Symphony and conductor Gerard Schwarz give a lighter, leaner, more episodic reading of The Miraculous Mandarin, but one not lacking in energy or brilliance. As is usual with Delos, the recorded sound is superb, naturally balanced and almost palpably solid. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection, reviewing a previous issue on Delos 3083 now reissued on Naxos 8571201.