Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), younger sister of the more famous Nadia Boulanger, was a brilliant and precocious French composer who dazzled the world of European music at the beginning of the 20th century. At age 19, Lili Boulanger became the first woman to win France's Prix de Rome. In her short career, Boulanger advanced the impressionism of her era, finding her own voice in music that's expressive and luminous, moving and enchanting. Debussy descriptively described her music as "undulating with grace."

To place Boulanger's music in context, the CD offers songs by prominent French composers who had a connection to her music: Fauré, Ravel, Debussy, Messiaen, and Honegger.

Includes work(s) by Richard Wagner (Composer). Conductor: Leonard Bernstein.

Of Gods and Demons

Songs of Madeleine Dring

MAHLER Des Knaben Wunderhorn • Markus Stenz, cond; Christiane Oelze (sop); Michael Volle (bar); Cologne Gürzenich O • OEHMS OC 657 (SACD: 61:28 & no trans)


This recording of the Wunderhorn songs was made simultaneously with that of Symphony No. 4 (reviewed last issue), which not coincidentally features Christiane Oelze as soloist. The song that constitutes the symphony’s finale, “Das himmlische Leben,” is also included in this program, placed last and, appropriately enough, after its earthly predecessor, “Das irdische Leben.” The two performances are so similar that one would assume them to be the same, but there are subtle differences in timing and execution that prove them to be different. It is evidence of the care invested in this project that this extra effort was expended; Stenz’s symphony cycle is thus both extended and enriched.


As in the classic set on EMI featuring Schwartzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau, several of the songs here are presented as duets, a practice condemned by Donald Mitchell: “Mahler, I am sure, did not have this possibility in mind. He would have expected a capable singer to have been able to characterize each role sufficiently, without recourse to a partner.” ( The Wunderhorn Years, p. 260 n. 34). Be that as it may, the device can be justified from a dramatic standpoint, and I find the added variety refreshing. The pairing is only applied to three songs—“Trost im Unglück,” “Lied des Verfolgten im Turm,” and “Verlor’ne Müh”—and each one consists of pure dialogue (the last stanza of “Trost im Unglück” is written for both protagonists) so it hardly seems far-fetched to characterize the songs through the use of two voices. The voices of these particular singers, youthful and unaffected, produce versions of the songs that should please all but the Mitchellian purist.


Volle and Stenz give “Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt” a somewhat slow and dark reading, which adds just the right touch of irony to this familiar piece. The two later songs, “Revelge” and “Der Tamboursg’sell,” find Volle in martial mode, his delivery falling somewhere between the declamatory and lyric, but always dramatically true. “Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen,” sung by Oelze alone, is quite moving, her pure tone adding the appropriate touch of pathos.


Oelze offers a moving “Urlicht,” for which she manages the darker mezzo timbre very convincingly (she recorded the soprano part of the “Resurrection” Symphony with Fabio Luisi, reviewed in Fanfare 31: 5). The song is given a very close audio perspective—this is almost an intimate setting, highlighting the simple sincerity of the words and setting it apart from the lighter vein or martial theme of the preceding songs. Another notable vocal achievement occurs with “Das irdische Leben,” which is sung by Volle—if not actually unique, certainly exceptionally rare. One might have expected Oelze to take this song, thus providing the finale of a mini-drama with “Das himmlische Leben.” Volle also begins the program with a charming “Rheinlegendchen,” another song more characteristically taken by the soprano when the vocal duties are shared by two singers.


Two classics, the EMI previously alluded to and the more recent DG set featuring Thomas Quasthoff and Anne Sofie von Otter, accompanied by Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic, provide stiff competition for any newcomer. I have no qualms about placing this new set in such august company. Stenz and his Cologne orchestra produce accompaniment of subtlety, humor, and power by turns, never content to simply play along. The sound production is spacious, detailed, and grounded with solid lows. I recommend this inspired set to Mahlerites and Lieder-lovers without reservation. (There is one minor blemish: The songs come with no translations.)


FANFARE: Christopher Abbot

Shakespeare's Music

This selection is a High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) recording.

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

In conjunction with the Orchestra's 30th Anniversary Season, Music Director Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra announce the launch of the ensemble's own recording label, Philharmonia Baroque Productions. The label's d�but release showcases the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in a live 1995 recording of Berlioz's Les Nuits d �t� and a live 1991 recording of arias from Handel's Giulio Cesare, Ottone, Arianna, Radamisto, and Agrippina. Hunt Lieberson had a long and fruitful relationship with McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque. The Berlioz is the last of seven acclaimed recordings she made with the orchestra and the first time she ever sang the full Berlioz song cycle in performance. Lorraine was in her element, and the result was splendid. These incredibly moving performances are now available to a wide audience for the first time.

DINNER FOR TWO

2007 issued double CD anthology of recordings by one the most influential classical composers of the 20th Century commemorating his 70th birthday.

Tracks:
1. GLASS, PHILIP - LIGHTING
2. GLASS, PHILIP - FACADES
3. GLASS, PHILIP - EVENING SONG
4. GLASS, PHILIP - A GENTLEMAN'S HONOR
5. GLASS, PHILIP - HYMN TO THE SUN
6. GLASS, PHILIP - METAMORPHOSIS FOUR
7. GLASS, PHILIP - OPEN THE KINGDOM
8. GLASS, PHILIP - DANCE II
9. GLASS, PHILIP - GLASSPIECE NO. 1
10. GLASS, PHILIP - CHANGING OPINION
11. GLASS, PHILIP - OPENING
12. GLASS, PHILIP - FLOE
13. GLASS, PHILIP - KNEE PLAY
14. GLASS, PHILIP - FUNERAL FO AMENHOTEP
15. GLASS, PHILIP - WICHITA SUTRA VORTEX
16. GLASS, PHILIP - FORGETTING
17. GLASS, PHILIP - DANCE IX
18. GLASS, PHILIP - DAM

The story goes that Sony had to twist Angelika Kirchschlager’s arm pretty hard to persuade her to record this compilation: after all, she has hitherto been known for rather more rigorous programming both in live recital and on disc. With pictures of herself and her baby enfolded in a bath towel, the packaging may be soft-focus, but Kirchschlager proves herself no soft touch. She takes it all seriously enough to use a Welsh, Provencal and Portuguese language coach where necessary; and to include songs which go darker and deeper than the (itals)Wiegenlieder(end itals) of Schubert and Brahms which frame this recital. For here, too, is Brahms’s ‘Gestille Sehnsucht’, revealing the shadowy yearnings of the distinctly adult soul; and Weber’s ‘Lass mich schlummern’, its latent agitation trembling through John Williams’s guitar accompaniment. The breadth of idiom within this ostensibly single-mood recital is matched by the variety of accompaniment: as well as Williams’s guitar, Yuri Bashmet’s viola puts in an appearance for Brahms, and Roger Vignoles joins the chamber-musical soloists who accompany Haydn’s arrangement of ‘Ar hyd y nos’. Kirchschlager’s kid-gloves Welsh is as nicely attuned to Haydn’s prettification of the folksong as her English is to lullabies by Menotti and Copland, and to the surprising re-invention of ‘Edelweiss’ as folksong manque.

-- Hilary Finch, BBC Music Magazine

Holst: The Planets, Op. 32 - Walton: Façade

Welcoming the Sabbath

Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne

New French Song has created a whole new repertoire of songs by British composers. The artists commissioned twenty exceptional British composers, some of whom were well established, others of whom were yet to receive the recognition they deserve. The composers were asked to set French literature of their choice from the past two hundred years. The result is a fascinating rainbow work covering all the major literary movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, overlapping into the twenty-first century - Romanticism, Symbolism, Surrealism, Cubism, Modernism and post-Modernism.

Classical Music

Includes song(s) by Hermann Reutter. Soloists: Doris Soffel, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Axel Bauni, Aribert Reimann.

The four orchestral compositions by Hans Werner Henze which are assembled on this CD combine works from the time of his third opera "King Stag" of the middle of the 50s with e.g. "La selva incantata", in which Henze refers directly to that opera - an almost unique procedure in his list of works. A comprehensive interview (Peter Ruzicka with Hans Werner Henze) in the booklet describes that the score of "King Stag" marked something like a very important "attempt to free himself from the twelve-tone system", the dogmatic chains of the Darmstadt School.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The BBC Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena focus here on the orchestral works of Joaquín Turina, one of the two leading Spanish composers of the twentieth century, the other being Manuel de Falla. Turina was a prolific composer, who in his sixty-seven years wrote more than one hundred works, in which he explored a wide range of classical genres, from symphonic music, solo piano pieces, and vocal works to ballet scores and chamber music. Most of these show the influences of traditional Andalusian music – often conveying feelings of rapture and immense exaltation – while also owing a debt to a range of French composers. - Chandos

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a translation by Edward Fitzgerald of a selection of poems which were originally written in Persian and are attributed to Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. There are about a thousand poems in the complete volume. British composer Granville Bantock composed this choral setting of the works. Part 1 premiered in 1906, Part 2 in 1907, Part 3 in 1909, and the complete works were performed in 1910 at Queen’s Hall. This four disc set is the only complete recording ever made of the work, and is made up of original BBC Broadcasts from 1968 and 1979.

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REVIEWS:

Those who want to hear Omar Khayyam in all its glorious monumentality will need to buy the Lyrita set. it’s one of the monuments in British music that needs to be heard.

– The Guardian

Del Mar’s soloists sing with urgency and passion. A hugely enterprising addition to Lyrita’s ever-growing catalogue.

– Gramophone

This lively 1979 revival of the complete work is well coupled with other less rare Bantock, especially Fifine at the Fair. Del Mar, an eminent Strauss scholar, has a sure feel for the orchestral writing of this era, well paced and translucent rather than weighty.

– BBC Music Magazine

Classical Music