This release is centered around four cantatas taken from the composer's Harmonischer Gottesdienst ('Music for Religious Services'), a collection of cantatas for solo voice, flute, oboe or violin, and harpsichord that, on account of it's idiomatic writing for voice, it's relation to the instrumental parts and the many indications concerning interpretation, rests among the great achievements of the period. One of Telemann's characteristic skills was his ability to imbue the arias with the sort of brilliance that we normally associate with solo concertos (consider the radiance of the initial aria in Deine Toten werden leben), and this extends to his often virtuosic use of the recorder in the works - an instrument with which he was obviously familiar. Indeed, that Telemann was a more than competent player himself can be seen from the quality and quantity of music that he wrote for the recorder, and it is two of his lesser-known creations for the instrument - the E minor Partita and the Trio Sonata in G minor - which form the remainder of this highly engaging disc. Gemma Bertagnolli is widely considered to be one of the leading sopranos in Early Music. She is a favoured soloist of such celebrities as Rene Jacobs, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Fabio Biondi, Diego Fasolis, Trevor Pinnock, Ton Koopman, Ottavio Dantone and many others. Her voice is powerful, lyrical and passionate, always conveying the emotional message of the text. On this new recording (2012) Gemma joins the Early Music group of Stefano Bagliano, also a specialist in the field, in Cantatas for solo soprano, recorder and continuo, drawn from Die Harmonische Gottesdienst, brilliant works displaying vocal and instrumental virtuosity of a high level.

Lonely Motel: Music from Slide

The 18th century French writer, Charles de Brosses described Pergolesi' Stabat Mater, completed as the composer lay dying, as 'the master work of Latin music'.

The French composer Ange Flégier (1846-1927) enjoyed considerable frame in his own time but has now been completely lost from view. The extraordinary reception of his song Le Cor points to the predominant place held by the Melodie in his catalogue of more than 350 works. Flégier's songs, composed for his colleagues at the Opera de Paris, are large-scale and orchestrally conceived, sitting stylistically close to Faure in their unassertive dignity and to Duparc in their sense of scale. Many of them receive their first recordings or first modern recordings here.

Arnold Schönberg founded the Society for Musical Private Performances in November 1918 “to give Arnold Schoenberg the opportunity personally to carry out his intention of providing artists and art lovers with a veritable and precise knowledge of Modern Music”, as Alban Berg described in a leaflet in 1919. Chamber music, solo pieces and songs saw performance, and to a great extent, properly arranged for the available means, original large-scale orchestral works of topical and artistic high-quality were also produced. In the autumn of 1921, Schönberg embarked on an arrangement of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, which, however, he broke off in the middle of the first movement. The continuation was to be taken over by Webern, but this did not happen, evidently as a consequence of the end of the society. It was only in 1982/83 that the German composer, conductor and musicologist Rainer Riehn (b. 1941) was prepared to continue what had been begun.

Although Marilyn Horne was 58 years old at the time of this concert, no weakness clouded the beauty of her voice. Among the recordings over the course of Horne's career, there are many Rossini operas. This all-Rossini program shows that she could convincingly dominate the smaller forms as well.

REVIEW:

Little needs be said about Marilyn Horne, one of the greatest singers of all time, with a highly distinctive voice, immediately recognizable and colorful, a deep sense of musicality, and a vocal technique that is awe-inspiring. No ornamentation, no roulade, no trill, not the longest phrase, were beyond her phenomenal breath control. Add to this her almost magical personality.

Liederabend does need a word of explanation. The Liederbands (Liederabenden) were an extensive series of vocal recitals (over 60 years) performed at the Schwetzingen South- West Radio (Germany) Festivals. For all its touting as a Liederabend Horne’s program is all-Italian, all-Rossini (a Horne specialty). 19 songs, early and late, familiar and unfamiliar; all musical delights. Among the better known are ‘La pastorella’, ‘Bolero’, ‘La molinara’, the arias ‘Cruda sorte!’ (Italiana in Algeri and ‘Di tanti palpiti’ Tancredi. A few from ‘Sins of my Old Age’ are included.

Here is a great singer at the top of her form with most entertaining music. No texts, but a biography of Horne and a history of the Festival are included.

-- American Record Guide

This fairytale melodrama was adapted from a book by Algernon Blackwood A Prisoner in Fairyland for a West End theatre production staged during World War 1 with music by Elgar. Based on a new score which has been adapted by Sir Andrew Davis who also here conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra this is the most comprehensive recorded version to date. The two-disc set includes the incidental music with narrative by Simon Callow and an extended suite of freestanding orchestral movements and songs.

"Those who love this score as much as Elgar did - and I do - will welcome this new recording. ... All Elgarians must hear this superb set." – Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb International

"Performance: ***** Recording: **** This is a very valuable addition to the Elgar discography.” – Calum MacDonald, BBC Music [1/2012]

“[L]ovingly played by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and features the excellent baritone soloist Roderick Williams.” – Andrew Clark, Financial Times [12/8-9/2012]

“Elgar’s score is enchanting – and Davis and the SCO deliver it with evident affection.” – Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times (Culture Magazine) [11/11/2012]

“Davis secures absolutely first-rate results from the Scottish CO. Elin Manahan Thomas’s light silvery soprano could hardly be more suited to the parts of the laughter and Jane-Anne, while Roderick Williams is in glorious voice throughout. Everything has been captured by the microphones with ingratiating amplitude, bloom and glow.” – Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone [11/2012]

"[T]he songs are delivered with just the right lightness of touch by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and baritone Roderick Williams. ***" – Andrew Clements, The Guardian [10/26/2012]

This production of Britten's most important song cycles for guitar and voice is released on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Britten wrote all these works for his longtime partner, Peter Pears, and the exceptionally talented guitarist Julian Bream. The works are heard here in a superb interpretation on this recording.

Classical Music

Benjamin Britten was throughout his life drawn to folk-song, possessing a special gift for wordsetting and vocal writing. This second disc of the complete folk song arrangements focuses on the orchestral versions and the volumes for guitar and harp.

The first recording by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra for BIS centred on Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, a work which stands squarely on the threshold between Classicism and Romanticism. Nézet-Séguin's interpretation brilliantly demonstrated this ambivalence, as the reviewer in CD Review on BBC Radio 3 remarked: 'A Fantastic Symphony that relishes in the transparency and the delicacy of Berlioz's scoring while remaining true to its vivid imagination and dramatic punch'. On the follow-up to that exciting release is another work that straddles a musical divide, namely Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs. Composed in 1948, these late blooms of an unabashed Romanticism stood in the midst of a musical landscape which featured the twelve-tone serialism of the Darmstadt School, John Cage's prepared piano and the first examples of musique concrète. In accordance with Strauss's wish, it was the dramatic soprano Kirsten Flagstad who first performed the songs, but they also became closely associated with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. On the present recording, it is Dorothea Röschmann, one of today's foremost Mozart sopranos who lends her voice to what is often regarded as an expression of the composer's acceptance of death's inevitability, at the age of eighty-four. We meet Strauss in a completely different mood in the disc's opening work - the large-scale symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life) composed fifty years before the songs. By casting himself in the role of the Hero, Strauss managed to provoke generations of music-lovers for years to come. A study of aggressive egotism, the work has been called, as well as the most conceited piece of music ever written. But it is also widely regarded as one of the most brilliant, and virtuosic, orchestral scores in the history of music, displaying the possibilities of a large symphony orchestra to the fullest.

Die inn're Welt

An outstanding violinist of the 20th century - Wolfgang Schneiderhan, born in Vienna in 1915, was concert master of the Vienna Philharmonic for many years before turning to his solo career entirely. Although Schneiderhan possessed enormous technical prowess, he never entered the territory of pure virtuoso concertos or sensational solo pieces. Instead, his dexterity always underpinned a well-articulated tone, a cultivated breath of modulation and a highly differentiated dynamic pallette. The natural and genuine nature of his playing was, justifiably, praised again and again. The range of Schneiderhan's repertoire is also displayed in these three Lucerne live recordings, now released for the first time. His commitment for the music of his time becomes particularly evident: he performs Henze's highly virtuosic First Violin Concerto alongside Martin's Magnificat.

‘I am an EU singer’, Hermann Prey always said about himself. However, by that he did not mean so much his citizenship of a European Union country as the fact that he felt at home in the fields of ‘E’ and ‘U’, i.e. in ‘serious’ and entertainment music alike. For Prey, this distinction never existed, but only the issue of the quality of music, and he found this not only in opera and Lied, but also in operetta, the musical and the well-made hit. For forty-six years Prey convinced audiences; this five-disc collection reveals his fascinatingly wide-ranging repertoire and interpretative skill.

American tenor and actor Mario Lanza (1921-1959) is the featured star on this two-disc set of newly re-mastered recordings from 1940-50, encompassing a time prior, on the whole, to his becoming a famed Hollywood star. +Features a varied menu of music from the Italian, French and American operatic and stage repertoire, including previously non-published recordings and rarities such as “Hallowen Suite”, “In A Persian Garden” and more.

Classical Music

Franco-American singer Rosemary Standley tackles Baroque repertory with sobriety and elegance. Accompanied by the ensemble of Bruno Helstroffer, a guitarist and lutenist at the crossroads between ‘early’ and ‘modern’ worlds, Helstroffer’s Band is made up of musicians specializing in early instruments. The evocatively titled Love, I Obey is a poignant tribute to ballads that seem to warp time. The in-depth research pursued by the group’s harpsichordist Elisabeth Geiger restores to life pieces forgotten for 400 years, such as the title song by William Lawes.

A most remarkable CD, demonstrating the real avant-garde in vocal music, requiring phenomenal levels of vocal virtuosity. The performance by Clare Lesser is awesome and an object lesson in how to interpret challenging material.

Classical Music

'Brahms & Schumann: Lieder' sees Dame Ann Murray, one of the great vocal artists of the past decades, return to the recording studio to perform a personal selection of Lieder. 'Brahms & Schumann: Lieder', Ann's first solo album in over a decade, will be her final Lieder recording and a fitting way to draw her long and distinguished recording career to a close. Still a regular fixture on the opera circuit, Ann's voice remains impressive. Following a Brahms recital at Wigmore Hall in 2014, the Times stated: 'Her still-penetrating mezzo was the highlight of the evening. Murray really sings through Brahms's cantabile lines while losing nothing in theatrical awareness.' It is difficult to imagine a singer who inspires greater affection and admiration than Ann Murray DBE. With Malcolm Martineau at the piano, this beautifully balanced programme sees Ann perform some of her favourite works by Schumann and Brahms. The recording features Malcolm Martineau (piano) Benjamin Appl (baritone), John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Johnny Langridge (tenor & Ann's son) and Hester Dickson (piano & Malcolm's mother). Ann Murray has been acclaimed for her performances at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival. A founding member of Graham Johnson's organization, the Songmaker's Almanac and a Jury member for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2009 and Song Prize, Ann Murray is a lover of song and has been acclaimed worldwide for her own performances. In the 2002 Golden Jubilee Queen's Birthday Honours Murray was appointed an honorary Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. She is an Honorary Doctor of Music at the National University of Ireland and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.

Today’s conception of bel canto is mainly founded on the beautiful and brilliant virtuoso arias of La Sonnambula, L’Elisir d’Amore, and the like; this recording introduces another, much lesser-known facet: bel canto da camera. Ariettas by two Italian 19th c. composers Mauro Giuliani and Girolamo Crescentini, neither counted among ‘bel canto’ greats such as Bellini and Donizetti, reveal the “subtlety of the human soul much more deeply,” argue the artists, “than in the brightest operas arias.”

Anger produces menacing sounds. But the voice of tenderness is softer,' wrote French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and much the same could be said of the diverse music on this second volume of American percussion music. It ranges from Elliott Carter'

Including some of the most beautiful baroque Christmas music on offer, this programme makes for the perfect Christmas collection. 'This is period-instrument performance at its best', wrote American Record Guide on the CD's original release. It is re-issued here for the first time. Three popular favourites, Corelli's gorgeous concerto for Christmas Eve, an idyllic Christmas concerto by Vivaldi, and Manfredini's Concerto grosso are complemented by two little-known cantatas by Telemann and Scarlatti. Each of the Italian composers has his own voice, contrasting tremendously with the more rugged German style of Telemann. Susan Gritton is the soloist in Scarlatti's cantata, described by Classic CD as 'ravishing and ravishingly sung... worth anyone's CD token'. This is a disc of intimate Christmas music, which will make an ideal stocking filler. As Classic CD wrote at the time of the original release, 'This is a delightful addition to the Christmas market, and the careful selection of its items and superb recording ensure that, like the traditional puppy, it's not just for Christmas'.

REVIEW:

These Baroque concertos and cantatas are all associated with Christmas, although some only marginally. The Scarlatti and Telemann cantatas were written for Christmas. The Manfredini and Corelli concertos probably received their associations with Christmas because each contains a pastorale movement, shepherds’ music in 12/8 time that Italian folk tradition associated with Christmas (the “Pifa” from Handel’s Messiah is another example). The Vivaldi concerto, one of his typical string concertos, seems to have received its seasonal connection from Vivaldi’s practice of programming it at Christmas time.

All of this music is delightful to hear. Many of Fanfare’s readers will probably have one or more of these works already, especially the concertos. The two cantatas are less often encountered, especially the Telemann, from the first movement of which we get the English carol Good Christian Men Rejoice. The playing and singing are excellent in all respects. Susan Gritton makes a major contribution in the solos of the Scarlatti cantata. Members of Collegium 90’s choir are equally good as soloists in the Telemann. Presiding over all, Simon Standage directs lively performances that respect the score and never stray into extremes of tempo.

This collection was issued 10 years ago under the title “Per la notte di natale.” In this reissue, Chandos provides full notes along with texts and translations, for which I commend them. Anyone looking for an enjoyable collection of Baroque music associated with Christmas need look no further.

-- Fanfare

Classical Music

The Faerie Bride is a cantata for two singers and orchestra inspired by the Welsh myth of the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach. The Welsh 'lady of the lake' myths are just one of many 'watery wife' tales from northern Europe that include the Mermaids of Ireland, the Kelpie of Scotland, and the Selkie of the Shetlands and Scandinavia. However, in each of those the women are portrayed as either malevolent, has something magical stolen from them, or is captured by a man and kept in human form. The Faerie myths of Wales are unique in that the woman sets very clear conditions under which she agrees to marry the man (they shall not strike her three blows or hit her with clay) the breaking of which would result in her returning to the lake forever. The Welsh myths are empowering, with strong female characters who set their own agenda. There is no coercion, theft, or kidnap but rather misunderstandings and cultural differences. The Faerie Bride is about compromise and respect in relationships, suspicion and fear of the outsider, and the societal pressures to conform in insular communities, something this faerie refuses to do. © Gavin Higgins