Classical Music

A real bargain and the best way to have these symphonies at very affordable cost.

This release is in many ways even more attractive than volume 1, containing the Symphonies Nos. 1 and 6 and reviewed here earlier. For those who do not know Nielsen’s music, this would be the perfect place to start.

Both of these symphonies represent the composer at the height of his maturity and both contain many memorable tunes. They are also very well orchestrated and contain both power and poetry. There is not a dull moment in either symphony. Highlights include the Allegro comodo e flemmatico second movement of the Second Symphony and the Andante pastorale second movement of the Third Symphony with its ethereal vocalise by tenor and soprano. But then there is also the Third’s first movement with its great waltz and the symphony’s noble finale. Likewise, the Second has one of the most joyous finales I know of.

Schønwandt and his Danish forces have the measure of both symphonies and for my money beat out the competition in both. The main rival for these works, as with the symphonies in volume 1, is Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony on Decca. I did an A/B comparison and feel that the balance is just tipped in Schønwandt’s favor. There is a certain rightness, a natural pace, that’s hard to explain, but is definitely there in these accounts. Furthermore, the warmth of the Danish Radio Concert Hall is a real advantage in these particular works — not as crucial in the Sixth Symphony, though. At the same time, there is a clarity and lightness that allows all the detail to register. Blomstedt’s accounts tend to be more brilliant, as is Decca’s sound, and at times can seem a little relentless. For example, his faster tempo for the Second Symphony’s finale pushes the music a little harder than Schønwandt’s slightly slower, but clearer version. Also, the sound as recorded in San Francisco’s Davies Hall can get muddy in the bass and make the textures clotted. Schønwandt sets an ideal tempo in this movement and there is a real feeling of joy in this Allegro sanguineo. I still like the Blomstedt performances of these works for their power and the brilliance of the orchestra. For example, those horns in the waltz climax of the Third Symphony’s first movement are pretty spectacular, even if Schønwandt’s more backwardly balanced ones (at 6:09) allow the rest of the orchestra to come through better. Schønwandt also achieves a perfect placement with his vocal soloists in this symphony. They are treated as instruments and blend well with the rest of the orchestra, creating a feeling of distance. Nonetheless, I would not want to be without either recording of these works. Then there is Myung-Whun Chung’s highly regarded BIS recording of the Second Symphony (see review) coupled with the Aladdin Suite to be considered. I haven’t heard that one for a number of years, but it was also high in my affections.

A couple of extra-musical details should be mentioned. First, the order of the works as listed above is the order on the disc. Why they placed the Symphony No. 3 ahead of No. 2 is a mystery. However, it also followed this order on the original Dacapo CD. It really does not matter as the player can be programmed to play in either order, if one were wanting to hear the works in the sequence in which they were composed. Second, as in the earlier Naxos disc mentioned above, the notes in the booklet are briefer and less detailed than on the original release — but very good all the same. Finally, since I have a copy of the Dacapo disc, I was able to do a sound comparison. I heard no difference between the original and the new budget release.

This, then, is a real bargain and the best way to have these symphonies at a very affordable cost. Indeed, I would recommend them at any price!

-- Leslie Wright, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

"A magnificent compilation of music of one of the truly great cinema composers, Max Steiner, opening with the sublime Now Voyager love theme and continuing with a suite from King Kong. For many the highlight will be the suites from two of Steiner's finest scores, The Big Sleep and The Fountainhead." - Robert Benson, Classical CD Review

"Once again, as for this album's acclaimed predecessor, The Sea Hawk, producer George Korngold and conductor Charles Gerhardt have collaborated and approached the project with love and enthusiasm alsong with a thorough knowledge of Max Steiner's scores. The repertoire was carefully researched and selected to provide the listener with a proper cross selection and some of the highlights - within space limitations - of the composer's film career prior to 1950

The National Philharmonic Orchestra, consisting of 92 of the best musicians from London's five symphony orchestras, was again used, as was the acoustically superb Kinsway Hall. The augmented orchestra - necessary for the optimum re-creation of the Steiner sound - included two vibraphones, marimba, xylophone, gongs, chimes, organ, celesta, tom-toms, orchestra bells, two pianos, two harps and a further assortment of percussion instruments." -- Rudy Behlmer (from the liner notes)

Produced by George Korngold

Recording Engineer: K.E. Wilkinson Recorded on September 6 & 7, 1973 Remastered in BMG Studio D on August 18, 1989

"One of the most popular recordings of the series, this opens with an extended suite -- with big orchestra treatment -- of Max Steiner's music from Casablanca including of course "As Time Goes By" Equally memorable are the excerpts from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Two Mrs.Carrolls." - Robert Benson, Classical CD Review

There are times when a disk drops through my letterbox and, after tearing the wrapping off the parcel, I look at the CD and despair, wondering do we really need yet another, in this case, recording of Debussy’s popular orchestral works? Then I play the disk and am pleasantly surprised. So it is with this disk. Märkl’s up against very stiff competition – Ansermet, Barbirolli, Boulez and Martinon to name but a few – but he’s his own man and gives us his own view of the music.

The Prélude is very well done. The solo flute is suitably sensuous, and is ably complemented by the solo oboe. Also, I have never heard the two solo violins, at the end, sound quite as winsome as they do here. The big tune in the middle is allowed to expand as it should and the delicate final pages, with slightly too reticent antique cymbals, is well controlled.

La Mer is almost as fine a performance. Starting very mysteriously, Märkl builds up the tension until the music bursts forth with animation. It’s a fine achievement. However, when the second part of the first movement begins, with cellos in eight parts, it’s too reticent and lacks the momentum required to push the music forwards. When Satie first heard this movement, From Dawn to Midday on the Sea, he quipped that he especially enjoyed the bit at a quarter to eleven. Strange as this may seem I think I know the moment he means – at four bars after rehearsal number 13 there is a static section where cor anglais and two solo cellos play a long breathed theme over sustained chords, it’s a magical moment which prepares us for the build up to the climactic final bars. Märkl makes these few bars quite magical and the calm is quite stunning. The coda is well built but the final three chords – which should beat us about the head with their power – fail to completely satisfy. The scherzo, Play of the Waves, is too heavy handed and the important colouristic glockenspiel part all but inaudible. The tension and suspense of the final movement, Dialogue between the Wind and the Sea, is very well done. The climaxes are well developed and the changes of mood and tempo very well handled. There is one strange moment – at rehearsal number 53 the horns play a triplet, followed, in the next bar, by two minim chords. In this recording we are treated to an extra triplet chord! I’ve played this moment several times, thinking my ears were deceiving me, but no, it’s there, an extra triplet beat. As it’s an exact repeat of what they played six bars earlier I’m mystified by what happens. Why is this extra chord there and what is the purpose? I doubt it’s an editing error so the conductor must have heard it as the horns played the passage. Curiouser and curiouser. Better news is that four bars after rehearsal number 59, under the big chords for winds and strings, Märkl plays the brass fanfares which, more often than not, are ignored by conductors as not being in a real Debussy style. Perhaps they are somewhat unsubtle for Debussy, and for this moment, but without them the music suddenly stops dead, it seems empty, something has to be played there and if these fanfares are all we have then we have to have them. It’s a good performance but it lacks that final insight, that ultimate injection of energy which makes the Hallé/Barbirolli recording so memorable and compelling.

Jeux is one of Debussy’s most elusive scores (it was his last orchestral work). It’s a ballet which concerns a lost tennis ball and a boy and two girls who look for it, as they play hide and seek, try to catch one another, quarrel and sulk without cause. Their games are interrupted when another tennis ball is mischievously thrown in by an unknown hand which surprises and alarms them and they disappear into the nocturnal depths of the garden. The story isn’t important. Debussy’s music is. It receives an excellent performance here – Märkl fully understands what is going on in the music and leads his players through the myriad tempo changes, keeps the ever changing orchestral colouring alive and generally makes clear music which so often sounds confused and muddled. You’d be hard pressed to find a finer performance on disk.

André Caplet was a close friend of Debussy and worked on the orchestration of the latter’s incidental music for Gabriele D’Annunzio’s play Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien and the ballet La Boîte à joujou. He also made two, superb, reductions for two pianos, four hands and six hands, of La Mer, and made orchestral transcriptions of several piano works. Children’s Corner is a delightful six movement suite for solo piano; it’s light hearted, full of fun and several of the movements have become popular independently of the suite – The Little Shepherd and Golliwog’s Cake-walk in particular. Caplet’s orchestration has always struck me as being rather heavy handed – odd for so skilful an orchestrator – but here he has met his match with perfect piano music which does not lend itself to orchestration. Märkl does his best but, ultimately, it’s still too heavy and much of the humour is lost.

Apart from Jeux, which is superb, I would not put these performances of La Mer and the Prélude ahead of other recordings which are currently available - those conductors listed above - but they are very serviceable and if you’re on a tight budget, or just wanting to dip your toes in the Debussian water for the first time, then at the bargain price you’ll get much from these atmospheric readings.

-- Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International

Excellent program serves as recording debut of a new wind band.

The excellent Wind Band Classics series from Naxos continues here with the recording debut of the Lone Star Wind Orchestra, under the baton of Eugene Corporon, best known for his work at the University of North Texas. This recording could have been titled “American Optimist” or something similar, as the excellent program is dominated by cheery major-key music, balancing shorter and longer works in an excellent flow. Indeed, the selection and pacing of repertoire is one of the highlights of the disc.

Among the older pieces, the Hanson is the least likely to be familiar to band aficionados, and the band’s performance of this work is possibly the finest on the disc. It’s thoroughly convincing, and rewards repeated listens.

Donald Hunsberger’s arrangement of the Gershwin is excellent, and the piece is a natural for winds. There weren’t many places where I really missed the strings, though the arrangement does highlight some aspects of the score which tend to get buried in other recordings, lending the performance a unique sound. Overall, the interpretation is slower and more leisurely than other performances I’m familiar with. In the light of so many other excellent available recordings, I can’t see myself returning to this performance too often – it’s more of a curiosity than anything else, though not without merit.

Steven Bryant’s “Radiant Joy” struck me as the most successful of the newer repertoire; an accessible piece in the post-John Adams mold which somehow manages to feature the hi-hat cymbals without sounding inane. The appeal of the piece is primarily rhythmic, as it owes a clear debt to the complex syncopations of funk or jazz fusion. Catchy melodic ideas and extensive use of some less-common colors (piano, vibraphone, and soprano and baritone saxophones) add to the interest as well.

There are points where I wish the recorded sound was just a bit closer. Some of the vigor of the playing sometimes gets lost, as if the band is coming from a bit too far of a distance, especially on the Bennett. However it’s a subtle complaint, and the overall balance is excellent, including on the Gershwin.

The occasional discrepancies in intonation or ensemble are so minimal that only the most critical ear would know from the aural evidence that this is an all-volunteer ensemble. Their accomplishment is completely stunning when you keep that in mind. I look forward to hearing more from this group, which had only been together for a year when this recording was made.

Benn Martin, MusicWeb International

Sinfonía a Granada never less than colourful, Cantos des alma genuinely moving.

Lorenzo Palomo, a native of Córdoba, is a composer in whose music the traditions of Andalusia are never very far to seek – though he now lives in Berlin. His work has been fairly extensively performed in Spain and elsewhere; his Canciones españolas had its first performance, by Montserrat Caballé in 1987 at Carnegie Hall, for example, and his Dulcinea was premiered in May of 2006 in the Berlin Konzerthaus, with the chorus and orchestra of the Berlin Deutsche Oper. This is the second CD devoted to his work in the Naxos series of Spanish Classics: see the review by Göran Forsling and the review by Evan Dickerson.

Cantos del alma sets four poems by Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958), a fellow Andalusian, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956. The four texts chosen concentrate on Jiménez’ poetic skill in the evocation of landscape and object, but the selection also allows Palomo to respond to the poet’s sense of the interaction between the human soul and its surroundings, this being essentially the poetry of a kind of belated romanticism. In his settings, Palomo’s writing for the clarinet is particularly fine, not least at the beginning and end of the sequence. In the last song, ‘Los palacios blancos’, setting lines on the death of a child, the interweaving of soprano and clarinet achieves a poignant beauty, in music which is simultaneously elegiac and expressive of a sense of transfiguration, as the soul of the child enters the ‘white palaces’ of heaven. The four poems are symmetrically separated by an orchestral interlude which carries the title ‘Serenata antillana’. The reference to the Antilles evokes Jiménez’ much loved wife and inspiration, Zenobia Camprubí, whose family came from Puerto Rico – the island coming to be very valuable to the poet. Unfortunately on my copy, this track was faulty, though I could hear enough to find the piece richly evocative. Cantos del alma is the more substantial of the two works on this disc, the poems of Jiménez stimulating Palomo to the composition of music of considerable emotional depth and beauty.

The second work here, Sinfonía a Granada is a little more lightweight. The work was commissioned by the Regional Government of Granada and, though one doesn’t doubt the sincerity of the composer’s fascination with that wonderful city and its surrounding area, there are times when the music doesn’t entirely rise above the level of vivid local colour, when it settles for being a kind of high-class musical tourist brochure. Clarinet and soprano voice are replaced by guitar and soprano, poems by Juan Ramón Jiménez are, as it were, replaced by (lesser) poems by Luis García Montero. Again there are four songs and an instrumental interlude – though this time the interlude occurs after the third song rather than after the second. Montero himself is heard as a narrator. The writing for guitar – played with fluent idiomatic control by Vicente Coves – is steeped in the musical gestures of flamenco, especially the rhythmic patterns of the bulerías. ‘Subiendo a la Alhanbra’ is a kind of musical aubade, and the rhythm of the bulería again dominates in ‘La tierra y el mar’, where affinities with Rodrigo are perhaps most noticeable. ‘Danza del Sacromonte’ was, the composer tells us, inspired by a specific experience: “A couple of years ago I was spending the night in the company of the great flamenco singer, Enrique Morente, and other friends in the narrow streets of Sacromonte. A gipsy girl came out if a cave some distance from us. She was very graceful with long hair, and carrying a guitar. The tapping of her shoes resonated loudly in my ears. Her silhouette, lit up by the moon, stood out marvellously in the night. That image fascinated me”. The result is a striking piece, a miniature tone poem full of vivid colours and rhythmic patterns. It is a piece which might surely find its way into programmes, on disc or in the concert hall, independent of the rest of the Sinfonía a Granada. And perhaps in that suggestion lies the problem. The very title ‘Sinfonia’ perhaps encourages one to expect more unity than one encounters here. The work tends to fragment into five sections; in truth it would have been better described as a suite. As such, it contains - with its echoes of flamenco and gipsy rhythms, of Rodrigo, of the remembered melismata of much older musical traditions, some pleasantly attractive and colourful music, but feels a little lightweight after the powerful songs of the Cantos del alma.

Palomo has been very well served by his performers here. The two instrumental soloists are excellent and any Spanish composer (one is tempted to say any composer) who has his music sung by Maria Bayo is on to a very good thing. The City of Granada Orchestra play with discipline and colour under the direction of Jean-Jacques Kantorow. The whole makes a useful addition to a valuable series.

-- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International



PALOMO Cantos del Alma. 1 Sinfonía a Granada 2 • Maria Bayo (sop); José Luis Estellés (cl); 1 Vicente Coves (gtr); 2 Luis García Montero (nar); 2 Jean-Jacques Kantorow, cond; City of Granada O • NAXOS 8.570420 (57:59)


This is the third Naxos disc of Lorenzo Palomo’s music I have reviewed for Fanfare , and in many ways it is the most integrated. It consists of two substantial song cycles for soprano and orchestra, each employing a different concertante instrument: clarinet in the Cantos del Alma (Songs of the Soul) and guitar in the Sinfonía a Granada.


The first of these was premiered in Barcelona under Jesús López Cobos in 2002. Setting four evocative poems by Juan Ramón Jiménez, the composer makes telling use of the clarinet. In the first song the instrument represents the water bird (which in the poem is an object of fascination for a young girl), and later it contributes staccato rhythmic figures to the “Antillen Serenade.” This, the third song, is the longest movement of the work, beginning in lively style with its catchy instrumental dance before relaxing into a languid conclusion. It celebrates the soul of Puerto Rico, the birthplace of the poet’s wife.


A short march, beginning dramatically, leads to the brief and lyrical final song, “The White Palaces,” in which the singer mourns the death of an angel. (Aside: Can angels die? I would have thought it unlikely.) This cycle is not only beautifully written for the voice and the solo instrument, it also exudes a genuine atmosphere of deep calm. While the second movement (“Dawn Tientos”) reveals a Sephardic influence, overall there is none of the overt Spanish stamp of Palomo’s other works.


Andalusian fingerprints appear in the Granada Symphony , commissioned specifically to celebrate the variety of peoples inhabiting the province of Granada and premiered by these artists in 2007. The cycle begins with solo guitar and a recitation by the poet himself, Luis García Montero. The poetry in this work is more of the picture postcard variety—understandably, considering the specific brief of the commission—to which Palomo has added an all-purpose Andalusian sheen, using the cadences of flamenco as well as themes of a Herbraic and Arabic turn. These are obvious in the instrumental movement “Dance of Sacromonte,” a stomping rhythmic piece that would make a highly satisfying finale to a straightforward guitar concerto.


The symphony is a more public work than the Cantos del Alma , but it still contains moments of gentle lyricism, notably in the closing measures of the central poem, “The Land and the Sea,” and the final poem, “A Snow-Painted Sky.” The latter begins with soprano and guitar alone, and only by degrees does the orchestral backdrop steal in, a very effective moment of musical impressionism.


Performances, as in the other issues of this series, are first-rate. Bayo sings with authority and expression, and the other soloists are likewise excellent. I was greatly impressed with the tone of Estellés’s clarinet. Sound is clear, even though the soloists are placed unnaturally upfront in the balance (especially the guitar in the Granada Symphony ).


Highly recommended: the Cantos del Alma is definitely a keeper. Texts and translations of the poems are accessible on the Naxos Web site.


FANFARE: Phillip Scott

Classical Music

Tres piezas españolas (Three Spanish Pieces), dedicated to Andrés Segovia, were composed in 1954, the same year as Rodrigo’s second guitar concerto, Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasia for a Gentleman). Fandango, with its ‘wrong note’ beginning, contains fine moments of lyricism accompanied by colourful chords, as well as many brilliant passages of triplets in which the player’s dexterity is exploited to the full. The composer wrote about this piece:

The fandango was a very popular dance in the eighteenth century; it was the dance both of the nobility and the masses...The fandango is a slow dance and sometimes includes ballads which are sung. Its origin is uncertain though many experts claim the fandango is of Arabian descent. Except in the trio of this central section, this Fandango does not employ popular themes, but it is inspired by the sevillanas, an extremely intricate folk-dance. The melodic style reflects the gallantry and pomp of the eighteenth century in Spain and especially in Madrid.

The second movement, Passacaglia, more introspective in character, reveals how resonant a single line can be on the guitar, especially on the bass strings. Gradually the figurations over the repeated ground become more complex through succeeding sections until a chordal rasgueado (strumming) takes us into the atmosphere of the indigenous guitar of Spain, but with slightly altered chords from what might be expected. The harp-like brilliance of the following section precedes a fugato coda in fandango rhythm. The transition from the pensive opening to the vigorous finale is a masterly piece of composing requiring a fine judge of pace and shading from the performer. Zapateado is a virtuoso demonstration of the rhythms of the flamenco dance famed for its skilful footwork. Its perpetual motion, inventive modulation and subtle rhythms create not only picturesque images of vigorous choreography but also provide a dramatic climax to the triptych.

Sonata giocosa, Rodrigo’s first sonata for the guitar, was composed in 1958 and dedicated to Renata Tarragó, an earlier editor of the Concierto de Aranjuez. The work is naturally good-humoured, following concepts of the ‘sonatina’ rather than the weightier precedents implied by ‘sonata’. The opening Allegro moderato contains several echoes and associations from other works, such as the ‘wrong note’ and dissonant chord concepts of Fandango from Tres piezas españolas, the downward triple runs reminiscent of the Concierto de Aranjuez, and rapid scale passages in quasi-flamenco mode. The slow movement, Andante moderato, relies on a lightly dotted rhythm interspersed with firm chords, the key of E minor here contrasting with the A major of the outer sections. A composer can hardly be giocoso (Italian for ‘jocose, playful, jesting’) at a more leisurely tempo but this Andante moderato has charm and elegance and the thematic implications of its opening bars are fully explored. The Spanish writer, Sergio Fernández Bravo, described the piece as ‘like a pavana, lento, solemn, full of reveries and references to a past steeped in history’. The final Allegro is a vigorous zapateado dance in six/eight time, with strummed chords, and a strong flamenco flavour, reinforcing the predominant mood of wit and gaiety.

Por los campos de España (In the Spanish Countryside) is a group of impressionistic pieces written over several years. The first of these, En los trigales (In the Wheatfields) was composed during a short summer visit to northern Spain in 1938 after Rodrigo had spent several years abroad. It can be viewed both as a stimulating portrait of the Spanish landscape and as a song of joyous homecoming after long absence.

Junto al Generalife (Close by the Generalife) (c.1955), was dedicated to the eminent German guitarist, Siegfried Behrend. The Generalife was the pleasure palace, with beautiful gardens, of the former kings of Granada, its name derived from the Arabic, Gennat-Alarif – ‘the gardens of the architect’. Situated on the slopes of the Cerro del Sol, the Generalife overlooks the city. The composition is in two parts. The introduction is a gentle lento e cantabile, with fast scale passages in quasi-improvisatory style punctuated by full chords. An Allegro follows, reminiscent of the malagueña. The middle section consists of the melodic tremolo recalling the themes of the granadinas, the flamenco form originating among the gypsies of Granada. The final pages present the recapitulation and a coda which includes passages of fiery descending triplets.

Bajando de la meseta (Coming Down from the Plateau) was completed in 1954, and dedicated to Nicolás Alfonso, Professor of Guitar at the Brussels Conservatoire. Rodrigo explained the background to the work:

The plateau (meseta) referred to is the one that forms the region of Castilla la Nueva; coming down from this plateau we reach Andalusia and in this imaginary and musical journey we are suddenly confronted by loud singing that echoes out to the wide horizon and then changes into a quick, trembling dance. It is the real, bewitching Andalusia, with its pulsing rhythms, which rewards the traveller after the long journey.

En tierras de Jerez (In the Lands of Jerez), written for the famous Austrian guitarist, Luise Walker, was published originally in Antologia per Chitarra (Ricordi, 1973), along with compositions such as Poulenc’s Sarabande (his only work for guitar) and Petrassi’s Suoni notturni. Jerez is the sherry producing area of Spain around Jerez de la Frontera, some sixty kilometres from Seville on the way to Cádiz. Sherry was first exported to England from there in the reign of Henry VII. Originally the town was the Roman settlement called Asido Caesaris, so the word ‘sherry’ may distantly evoke the name of Caesar. Later Jerez became a Moorish settlement until recaptured in 1264 by Alfonso X. The composition offers a variety of moods and some exquisite melodic moments. The quiet opening, in six/eight time, deploys once again the single line concept culminating in tersely rhythmic chords. The theme returns (after the chords), stated an octave higher, ending in a rapid scale run. An intriguing section with strummed six-string chords follows, conjuring up images of the Andalusian guitar glimpsed from afar. After a melody in the bass accompanied by treble chords, an intricate arpeggio episode (broken into by further chords) is introduced. This part also ends with a virtuosic scale across the length of the fingerboard. The climax consists of strummed chords, a repeat of the bass melody section, and a further hearing of the original theme.

Entre olivares (Among Olive Groves), dedicated to Manuel López Ramos, was first published by Ediciones Musicales Madrid (1958) in company with En los trigales (edited by Narciso Yepes). It begins with discordant triplet chords (such as a chord of G major set against an augmented fourth, the C sharp). The energy of the piece, a rapid allegro, suggests that Entre olivares is less a serene amble through twisted little trees on Spanish hillsides than a boisterous peasant dance. The middle section presents a characteristic device of Rodrigo – a melodic line articulated on the bass strings contrasted against allegro gracioso quaver passages featuring the use of alternating pedal notes and rapid movement on the treble strings. The opening theme returns, with a frenetic coda, the last bars marked accelerando and siempre accelerando.

In 1960 Rodrigo composed Tonadilla for two guitars, a work which demonstrates the composer’s mastery of guitar idioms. Dedicated to the esteemed Presti-Lagoya Duo, the perfect appropriateness of the duo writing, the high level of virtuosity demanded, and the breadth of the sonata-like structure, reveal Rodrigo at full creative stretch. Rodrigo, in a short note, observed how the tonadilla is related to the Italian intermezzo, a musical interlude played between acts of a theatrical presentation, whether burlesque or tragedy, and thus a flexible form capable of expressing many diverse moods. Tonadilla is made up of brief themes developing in the style of a sonata as the three movements conjure up individual scenes according to the listener’s imagination. The language of Tonadilla is lucid and logical, inspired by the music of Scarlatti but absorbing within the first movement bitonal passages representative of both the twentieth-century and the traditional influence of Scarlatti’s harmonic writing.

Fandango del ventorrillo (Fandango of the Little Tavern) was originally a piano piece written in 1938, dedicated to Emile Trépard, a Parisian friend of the composer, and included in the suite Cuatro piezas para piano (Four Pieces for Piano). Emilio Pujol, guitarist and scholar, arranged this for two guitars and it was first published in Paris by Max Eschig in 1965. A subsequent arrangement by Pepe Romero was published by Ediciones Joaquín Rodrigo, Madrid, in 1993.

The pianists, Gregory Allen and Linton Powell, described this as ‘another of Rodrigo’s masterly exercises in two-part counterpoint...full of unexpected quirks such as off-beat accents, overlapping phrases, vehement interruptions, mercurial harmonic twists – and a diabolical little drumroll’. The piece certainly displays considerable indebtedness to the late Baroque, exploring harpsichord figurations with implications of the toccata style in dexterity and lightness of mood. Moreover, the repeated notes of the opening theme have various similarities with the melodic vitality of En los trigales, composed the same year. The transferring of Fandango del ventorrillo from pianoforte to plucked strings seems entirely natural, enhancing the piece by bringing it closer to the timbres and spirit of the eighteenth-century keyboard.

Graham Wade

David Earl is a fine British composer whose music is at once traditional in it's tonality but also absolutely individual and distinctive. This is the first recording of his Cello Sonata, played by cellist George Corbett with James Sherlock (piano); the composer himself performs his exotic Piano Suite no. 3, a musical representation of Buddhist mandalas. JOINT BEST PIANO CD OF 2007 - INTERNATIONAL PIANO.

Intriguing; the Harrison and the Bloch are outstanding.

This is a very miscellaneous collection, but then followers of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road project will have come to expect nothing less. This particular CD was recorded as the climax of the Project’s year-long association with the city of Chicago. During that year Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road ensemble interacted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This involved a series of events which celebrated and explored many kinds of intercultural musical exchange, going beyond the specific cultural meetings and transferences which the Silk Road itself facilitated.

Here we have a sampling of such interactions, some rather more familiar and ‘mainstream’ than others. Of Jewish background, born in Switzerland, and a student in Belgium, Germany and France and resident in the USA from 1916 until his death - bar a return to Europe in the 1930s - Ernest Bloch was something of a one-man intercultural ‘event’ in himself and his music was always open to a variety of influences. Subtitled a ‘Hebraic Rhapsody for cello and orchestra’, Schelomo (Solomon) was written between December 1915 and February 1916. Bloch’s own programme notes for the piece spoke of the cello as “the reincarnated voice of King Solomon” and suggested that the orchestra was “the voice of his age … his world … his experience”. The languorous dances and slow, meditative music of much of the work’s first section are well and expressively played by Ma and the CSO under Harth-Bedova, the note of despair, of the all-embracing sentiments of Ecclesiastes (of which Solomon was, traditionally, the author) – “Vanity of vanities, all is Vanity” – never far from the surface. But perhaps this performance doesn’t quite do justice to what Bloch called the “complete negation” which characteries the work’s conclusion, where the playing seems a bit too ready to settle for rhetorical effect rather than substance. But, overall, this is a performance which puts a good case for the work and is well worth hearing.

The other familiar work is Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite - in which the CSO is conducted by Alan Gilbert - which grew from the young composer’s fascination with the nomads of the steppes, without too much in the way of direct borrowings from the music of such tribes. The modern listener is most likely to find in it a slightly politer, more westernied version of The Rite of Spring and indeed this work, like Stravinsky’s, was grounded in the composer’s collaboration with Diaghilev. Prokofiev’s rhythms are less complex and fierce than Stravinsky’s, the sense of ritualistic violence less intense, though the orchestration is brilliant and striking. The reeds of the CSO are particularly impressive in ‘The Adoration of Veles and Ala’, the first movement, while there is disciplined orchestral power galore in the opening of the second movement, ‘The Enemy God and the Dance of the Black Spirits’. Somehow, though, the performance doesn’t quite do full justice to the ominous, distinctly ‘Russian’ music of this movement, lacking the ultimate in intensity and drive. The dark evocativeness of the first part of ‘Night’ is more convincing and the final movement, ‘’Lolly’s Glorious Departure and the Ceremonial Procession of the Sun’ catches fire in the closing imagery of the rising sun. For all the efforts of orchestra and conductor, it is hard to see Prokofiev’s ballet music - striking as much of it is - as more than superficially involving any real cultural interaction.

From that point of view, Lou Harrison’s Pipa Concerto is more richly suggestive. The pipa is, to put it crudely but briefly, a kind of Chinese lute, with a pear-shaped wooden body. Harrison’s ‘concerto’ is very obviously the work of a man who, by the date of its composition, was steeped in oriental musical traditions and had given real thought to how they might exist creatively alongside western instruments and conventions. For Harrison the interface between oriental and occidental musics is familiar territory, a territory in which he can be unaffectedly and unpretentiously creative. As a result there is an ease and certainty of purpose to this concerto, which is beautifully played by Wu Man – some will have heard some of her other collaborations with, inter alia, Kronos Quartet and Yuri Bashmet. The concerto – which is perhaps better described as a suite than as a concerto if one insists on using western terminology – is various in mood and a thing of considerable beauty. In four movements - though one of them consists of four more or less distinct sections - the opening allegro balances eastern and western formality in a dialogue that has dignity and substance, while the fertility of Harrison’s eclectic imagination is evident in much of what follows. In ‘Troika’ the pipa sounds almost like a balalaika and in the brief ‘Neapolitan’ there are, perhaps unsurprisingly, but quite delightfully, echoes of the Italian mandolin tradition. In ‘Three Sharing’ the orchestra drops out and we are treated to a percussive conversation between the pipa of Wu Man, the cello of John Sharp and the double bass of Joseph Guastafeste. The most conventionally oriental episode comes in ‘Wind and Plum’, where the pipa’s cadences, against a lush orchestral background, are incisive and evocative. The penultimate movement is a lament, a ‘Threnody for Richard Locke’, a five minute elegy, powerfully melodic and exquisitely grave. By contrast the ‘concerto ends with an ‘Estampie’, in which medieval and renaissance dance rhythms meet (very fruitfully) the sounds of one of the lute’s ancestors. This whole concerto – the last of Harrison’s large-scale works – is the high spot of this disc.

In ‘Legend of Herlen’ the Mongolian composer Byambasuren Sharav draws on both native Mongolian traditions and instruments and on Western music. Western brass, in the shape of three trombones, and percussion - along with a piano - sit alongside the morin khuur, a two stringed fiddle and the sound of Khongorzul Ganbaatar, an exponent of the Mongolian tradition of ‘long song’, full of sustained and richly ornamented phrases. The results are intriguing and at times very beautiful, but perhaps most satisfying when Ganbaatar’s voice is accompanied solely by the morin khuur; the writing for western instruments is relatively pedestrian and predictable and actually seems to add very little to the Mongolian essence of the piece.

How far the Silk Road project has really succeeded – with anything like consistency – in uniting disparate musical traditions is a matter for debate. What is surely undeniable is that all their recordings have, at the very least, been stimulating, engaging and challenging. This new recording is no exception.

-- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International

Some hallmark performances in this array of Trinity cantatas

As ever, John Eliot Gardiner’s magnificent Bach Cantatas series eschews the big-boned, monumental approach to this composer of yesteryear. Here, in a really tremendous volume, is spiritual reflection paced to the fast-moving ebb and flow of life today. As such, it always feels relevant and vital. And much of that stems from the fact that Gardiner’s players and singers sound so utterly involved through every bar. Even if it doesn’t approach the polish of some versions, and one or two of the singers are not quite of the vocal quality of rivals, still they perform as if in response to some higher call. Among conductors, of course, few rank higher than Gardiner. And, as ever, the tempi and textures are warm and above all channel a sense of the humane. Woven into the whole are countless magical virtuoso moments – these may be great shared experiences, but the space for individual expression constantly keeps it personal. When the big collective moments do arrive, as at the end of Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, they do so with great force. And, as the marvellous Monteverdi Choir beseech Jesus for mercy, for the strength to resist temptation, there is no question as to the cumulative power of these readings.

-- Gramophone [5/2008]

This indispensable series goes from strength to strength.

This is the release in the series for which I’ve been waiting most keenly. That’s because it includes a concert which I was lucky enough to attend. In July 2000, as part of the Cheltenham Music Festival, Sir John led his pilgrims into the magnificent medieval surroundings of Tewkesbury Abbey for a late Sunday afternoon concert. I was among the capacity audience, accompanied by two Bach-loving friends, both of whom have since died. I’m sure they would have shared my pleasure at reliving the event through the medium of CD. I had completely forgotten that the previous evening Gardiner and the Pilgrims had been at London’s Royal Albert Hall when they’d performed two of these cantatas as part of a Henry Wood Promenade Concert. Sir John comments how pleased they all were to get back to the more intimate feel of a Pilgrimage concert.

Proceedings at Tewkesbury began with BWV 24. The cantata opens with the words “Ein ungefärbt Gemüte von deutscher Treu und Güte macht uns vor Gott und Menschen schön.” (“An unstained mind of German truth and goodness makes us beloved of God and men.”) There’s a calm assurance and confidence about the music to which Bach sets this very Lutheran sentiment. The stately aria that results is sung with great poise by Nathalie Stutzmann. Later there’s a vigorous chorus, which is far from easy to pull off – and which gave even Gardiner’s forces a little trouble in rehearsal, we are told. In performance, however, it’s completely successful. The other especially persuasive feature of this cantata is the plangent tone that Paul Agnew brings to the tenor aria, ‘Treu und Wahrheit sei der Grund’. His approach is ideally suited to the music.

Alfred Dürr states that when Bach first performed BWV 24 in Leipzig he had, on the preceding three Sundays, given the Leipzig congregations much longer and more elaborate bi-partite cantatas, BWV 75, 76 and 21. In order to keep his offering for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity in similar scale he performed two cantatas that day, one either side of the sermon, and the second cantata was BWV 185. This is a much earlier piece but one that contains a good deal of admirable music. It opens with a lovely soprano/tenor duet and here we find the voices of Magdalena Kožená and Paul Agnew intertwining languorously. Miss Kožená’s tone is particularly melting. Added interest comes from Bach’s use of a clarion, which, as Gardiner puts it, we hear “hovering above the two amorous vocal lines.” Further into the cantata there’s another treat in the form of the alto aria ‘Sei bemüht in dieser Zeit’. It’s an enchanting aria and, as Gardiner says, Nathalie Stutzmann’s “sumptuous yet transparent contralto seemed just right for this aria, especially in the glowing afternoon light of Tewkesbury Abbey.” Later comes a bass aria but I’m afraid I don’t find Bach’s music all that appealing on this occasion, nor is the timbre of Nicholas Teste’s voice as ingratiating as I’d like.

The final Tewkesbury offering is BWV 177. This cantata is based on a hymn and Bach, setting five verses, eschews recitative. There’s a substantial and elaborate opening chorus in which the Monteverdi Choir excels. In the alto aria Nathalie Stutzmann once again produces beautifully communicative singing. Her aria is sparsely accompanied by continuo only. The soprano aria is a more elaborate affair with a very decorated vocal line. Magdalena Kožená gives it a fine, fluent reading. The remaining aria is for tenor and it’s mainly jaunty in tone. Agnew sings excellently. Of special note in this aria is the chattering double obbligato, provided by a violin and a bucolic, soft-grained bassoon.

The next stop on the journey was a city with very direct Bachian links. Mühlhausen was the city where Bach worked for just a year (1708-08) before moving on to Weimar, though he appears to have maintained cordial links with Mühlhausen after his departure.

Only two cantatas for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity have come down to us. This relative paucity gave Gardiner the chance to perform at Mühlhausen two highly appropriate cantatas, written for the city but for other occasions. BWV 71 was composed for the inauguration of the town council in February 1708. The splendour of this civic occasion prompted Bach to write for pretty extravagant forces. Four solo voices (SATB) are augmented by an optional ripieno choir (also SATB) and no less than four separate instrumental choirs are specified: three trumpets and drums; two recorders and cello; two oboes and bassoon; two violins, viola, and violone. However, Gardiner points out that the cantata has its weaknesses and he says that it is “somewhat disjointed and short-winded”, a verdict from which it is hard to dissent. However, he very rightly singles out for praise the penultimate movement, the chorus ‘Du wollest dem Feinde” The gentle, expressive music in this movement is a cut above the rest of the score. As Dürr comments, it’s “the most original and captivating movement in the whole cantata.” It’s splendidly done here.

Gardiner fields a strong team of soloists, who blend together most effectively in the third movement, a quartet. This concert introduces us to a soloist not previously encountered on the Pilgrimage, the South African tenor Kobie van Rensburg. His voice was completely new to me but he makes a most favourable impression with a strong, ringing tone and clear articulation and diction. This is heard to good advantage almost immediately in the aria ‘Ich bin nun achtzig Jahr’.

The next cantata, BWV 131 is a much stronger and more rounded composition. Perhaps it helps that Bach had a much more unified text to set in the shape of verses from Psalm 130. The opening chorus is quite superb. The keenly felt slow music with which it opens is most eloquently performed and no less impressive is the account of the lighter, more rapid music that follows. Gardiner dovetails the contrasting textures of solo quartet and main choir most effectively. The fugal chorus, ‘Ich harre des Herrn’, is marvellously balanced, both in musical and emotional terms. I enjoyed van Rensburg’s shaping of the long expressive lines in the following aria, ‘Meine Seele wartet auf den Herrn von einer’ and the impressive chorus with which the cantata ends is splendidly articulated by all concerned. This whole performance is a tremendous success.

Then we hear two later cantatas, specifically written for the Fifth Sunday, where the Gospel for the day tells the story of Peter fishing all night without success yet, letting out his net one more time at the command of Jesus, he then hauls in a munificent catch (Luke, chapter 5 vv1-11). First comes BWV 93. The libretto avoids a specific reference to the gospel story until the tenor recitative (movement V). The extended opening chorus incorporates important contributions from the quartet of soloists. Kobie van Rensburg again attracts favourable attention in his aria ‘Man halte nur ein wenig stille’ (‘Remain silent for a while’). This aria is well described by Gardiner as an “elegant passepied” and I appreciate the touch of steel at the heart of van Rensburg’s plangent voice. Later, he has an important recitative and it’s good to find that he can bring a sense of drama and some effective word painting to a passage such as this. I also liked very much the alert, bright singing of Joanne Lunn in her aria ‘Ich will auf den Herren schaun’, where the oboe obbligato is an equal source of delight.

Finally comes BWV 88. This opens with a pretty unusual bass aria. At the start the libretto refers to God sending fishermen (“Behold, I will send out many fishermen, says the Lord”) and Bach responds with a wonderfully easeful, lilting barcarolle in 6/8 time. The grateful, elevated vocal line is meat and drink to Peter Harvey, who delivers it quite beautifully. Abruptly the mood changes (“And thereafter I will send out many hunters”), the pace quickens appreciably and Bach deploys, in Gardiner’s words, “a rampaging pair of high horns” in the orchestra. Harvey is impressive throughout.

There’s another chance to enjoy van Rensburg’s singing in this cantata. He makes a very good job of the aria ‘Nein, Gott ist allezeit geflissen’ (No, God is always eager that we be on the right path’) Later Joanne Lunn and William Towers blend most effectively in their duet. Gardiner tells us that the audience for this concert was “attentive and rapturous even by the standards of this pilgrimage” and no wonder, for on the evidence of these recordings the good people of Mühlhausen were treated to a splendid and most stimulating concert.

Yet again the standard of performance in these recordings is extremely high and the music is wonderful. Bach’s stream of invention and inspiration is a never-ending source of wonder. I’m also filled with renewed admiration for Sir John, who seems to have an inexhaustible capacity to say something fresh about this marvellous music each time he picks up either his pen to write the notes or his baton to direct the performances. This indispensable series goes from strength to strength.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

A beautiful production of this charming ballet with a wonderfully melodic score by Delibes.

Sylvia was first produced at the Palais Garnier, Paris on 14 June 1876, four years after Delibes other big success, Coppélia. Of Delibes’s Sylvia music, Tchaikovsky, who saw the ballet in Vienna in 1877, enthused, “It is the first ballet in which the music constitutes not just the main but the only interest. What charm and elegance, what riches in the melody, the rhythm, the harmony. I was ashamed. If I had known this music before, I would not have written Swan Lake.”. Praise indeed, but Tchaikovsky is being very hard on the other elements of this charming ballet based on classical mythology.

Frederick Ashton choreographed the production, featured on this DVD, first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 3 September 1952. Ashton was not completely satisfied with it, however, and it was put aside. The production languished for forty years or so; and by now Ashton had died. The realization and staging of this 2005 production is the work of Christopher Newton who had danced under the direction of Ashton and was aware of the sort of refinements the great choreographer had in mind. Newton is interviewed about all this in the interviews before Act III of the ballet.

The sets and lighting are sumptuous and atmospheric, the costumes gorgeous and colourful. Delibes’ music is full of melody, one memorable tune succeeding another right through the ballet. Darcey Bussell enchants as the warrior nymph, Sylvia; arrogant in her taunting of the statue of the god Eros who repays her by shooting her with an arrow of love so that she falls for the enamored, shepherd, Aminta (Roberto Bolle). She is gracefully athletic especially in her dances with her two male leads: Bolle and Thiago Soares as the evil Orion who lusts after Sylvia and kidnaps the nymph, carrying her off to his island lair. Here, in Act II Darcey has to dance seductively to divert the attentions of Orion, to make him drunk so that she might escape - an escape made possible by a disguised Eros. Arguably Bussell does not have the figure for seductive dancing, she is also too graceful and stately, so the dance is sinuous rather than seductive. The two male leads are strong and acrobatic, displaying tremendous leaps. The corps de ballet impress throughout with beautiful ensemble dancing and the speciality dancers – the orientals in Act II and the goats in Act III - are quite charming.

The DVD includes interviews with Christopher Newton and Peter Farmer who added his special design talents to the original sets of Robin and Christopher Ironside. Before each act Darcy Bussell comments on the ballet and we see her and others in rehearsal and behind the scenes and between acts during the performance. Illustrated synopses of the action in each of the ballet’s three acts are also enclosed.

David Nice’s erudite note details Delibes music as applied to the dances and shows how the composer was influenced by Berlioz and Wagner. Elgar, as a young man, Nice reminds us, played the violin in a Birmingham performance of the Sylvia Suite and later conducted it himself. Moreover, Nice claims, Delibes’s broad ‘Bacchus’ theme, influenced Elgar’s First Pomp and Circumstance March.

A beautiful production of this charming ballet with a wonderfully melodic score by Delibes.

-- Ian Lace, MusicWeb International

Leo DELIBES (1836-1891)
Sylvia - ballet in three acts with choreography by Frederick Ashton (1876)
Sylvia … Darcey Bussell
Aminta … Roberto Bolle
Orion … Thiago Soares
Eros … Martin Harvey
Diana … Mara Galeazzi
The Royal Ballet
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/Graham Bond
Rec. The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, 1, 5 December 2005

FORMAT: All Formats
REGIONS: All Regions
PICTURE FORMAT: 16:9
LENGTH: 117 Mins
SOUND: DTS SURROUND 5.1 / LPCM STEREO
SUBTITLES: EN/FR/DE/ES/IT
NO OF DISCS: 1