SCHOENBERG Herzgewächse. 1 Pierrot lunaire. 2 4 Orchestral Songs. 3 Chamber Symphony No. 1 4 • Robert Craft, cond; 1 Eileen Hulse (sop); London SO; 1 Anya Silja (Sprechstimme); 2 Twentieth-Century Classics Ens; 2,4 Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mez); Philharmonia O 3 • NAXOS 8.557523 (73:51)


These four recordings were made from 1994 to 1998, when Craft’s Schoenberg series was being recorded by Koch. At least two of them— Herzgewächse and Pierrot lunaire —appeared on Koch CDs. The former is written for “high soprano,” which is an understatement; I don’t have a score, but it seems to probe the entire octave above high C (well above, say, the Queen of the Night), as well as exploiting the normal soprano range. Hulse makes smooth, well-rounded sounds at the top end, but they sound more instrumental than vocal. That effect may be merely the listener’s aural experience: we are not prepared to recognize a voice at such heights.


Silja brings a surprisingly fresh voice to Pierrot lunaire (I saw her Salome at the Vienna Staastoper in 1967). In the spoken/sung conundrum that is Sprechstimme , she tilts toward singing. The Twentieth-Century Classics Ensemble is loaded with stars: for Pierrot : Christopher Oldfather, piano; Michael Parloff, flute/piccolo; Charle Neidlich, clarinet/bass clarinet; Rolf Scholte, violin/viola; and Fred Sherry, cello. The playing is superb, instrument by instrument, but the whole is too smooth, too steady; the slashing wit and the terror of this extraordinary work do not come through. There are places where it’s more appropriate for strings to screech and winds to squawk.


The Four Orchestral Songs are rarities on or off disc; I know them only from Yvonne Minton’s recording with Boulez, and I don’t believe they appeared in Craft’s early “The Music of Arnold Schoenberg” for Columbia. Composed in 1916, these songs are surprisingly harmonious for music lacking a tonal center. The differences between the two recordings are primarily in the accompaniments: Craft’s Philharmonia plays the music in a strict, forthright manner, whereas Boulez’s BBC Symphony is mellifluous and distant, more closely matching the poems of loneliness and memories. My preferences seem to depend on my mood of the moment.


Freed from having to support a vocalist, Craft loosens up in the Chamber Symphony, and his ensemble of stars delivers vital, exhilarating playing. The lush, sweet acoustics of the Recital Hall at the SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center in Purchase, New York, smooth out Schoenberg’s 15 individual lines, making the ensemble sound more like a conventional orchestra. It’s pleasant to hear but belies the composer’s revolutionary one-instrument-on-a-part scoring. Nevertheless, a great performance.


The downside of this disc is its lack of vocal texts,* so important for Pierrot lunaire and the little-known songs. Naxos’s program notes go on for eight-and-a-half pages, so space is not the problem. One simply must have texts here, as does the Minton/Boulez Four Songs on Sony. Of the many available Pierrot lunaire recordings which offer German/English texts, I recommend Jan DeGaetani on Nonesuch or Lucy Shelton on Bridge, a disc which also includes Hergewächse.


* Music Editor’s note: Texts are available on the Naxos Web site, but in German only; search for catalog no. 8.557523 and click on the Lyrics link.




FANFARE: James H. North

"This debut marks Blue Heron as a leading new actor in the field of early Renaissance music, both for studying the sources and bringing them to life. Altogether, this is one of the finest Dufay collections to come out in recent years."

- Fanfare

Music by Guillaume Du Fay (1397-1474)
Blue Heron’s first CD offers an entrancing selection of music by one of the greatest composers of the 15th century. The program includes three isorhythmic motets (Apostolo glorioso, Rite majorem Jacobum canamus, and Ecclesie militantis), the glorious, large-scale Sanctus “Papale” in its first recording in three decades, two hymns with alternatim plainchant verses, and a generous sampling of secular songs. While the disc is mostly devoted to the music of Du Fay, it also includes a song by Du Fay’s contemporary Hugo de Lantins (Mon doulx espoir), and a marvelous motet-chanson by his friend and colleague of the next generation, Johannes Ockeghem (Permanent vierge). The music was recorded in September 2006 at the Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, MA and the CD was released in March 2007 on the Blue Heron label as BHCD 1001.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: The Swingle Singers.

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Classical Music

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A thoroughly enjoyable conspectus of lute songs and lute solos from Renaissance Europe, mixing familiar and unfamiliar and played by two modern masters of these forms. There’s music here from England, Italy, Germany, France and Poland. Of course the composers concerned were, in many respects, more ‘international’ than ‘national’. Their persons – and their music – crossed many boundaries and many musical exchanges were effected in this period.

Dowland, for example, spent some four years in Paris as a young man, visited and performed (and listened to others perform) at such important musical courts as those of Heinrich Julius, Duke of Brunswick, at Wolfenbüttel, and Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse, at Kassel. He travelled in Italy, with spells in Venice (where he met Giovanni Croce), Padua, Genoa, Ferrara, and Florence. From 1598 to 1606 he was lutenist at the court of Christian IV of Denmark. Or, to take two more examples, Giovanni Kapsberger was born Johann(es) Hieronymus Kapsberger, supposedly born in Venice, son of a German gentleman; the Polish lutenist and composer, Wojchiech (Albertus) D?ugoraj had his music published in France by Jean-Baptiste Brossard and lived most of his mature life outside his native Poland. So, though it makes some sense to talk of national styles in this period, it also makes sense to create an anthology such as this which stresses the internationalism of the prevailing musical idioms.

On this CD, Lindberg plays a restored lute of c.1590, identified as the work of Sixtus Rauwolf, a lute-maker of Augsburg, claimed, quite plausibly, to be the oldest surviving lute in playable condition, still retaining its original soundboard. The instrument’s lovely sound is quite beautifully captured in this recording, both in solo pieces – not least the quite ravishing Fantasia by Gregory Huwet (who was born in Antwerp, worked at Wolfenbüttel and was held in high regard by Dowland) – and as accompaniment to the voice of Emma Kirkby.

Most readers of MusicWeb have presumably long since made up their mind about Kirkby. If, like me, you find her voice, and the intelligence with which she uses it, one of the great joys to be had in hearing this repertoire, then this, you will want to know, is another excellent CD, on which the voice seems yet to have lost very little and the intelligence (or musical experience) is even greater than on her youthful recordings. If you never fell under Kirkby’s musical spell than this is not, I imagine, a recital likely to effect any kind of sudden conversion.

The subtlety of interpretation on offer here is remarkable, but entirely unostentatious. Listen, for example, to Kirkby’s phrasing in Heinrich Schütz’s ‘Eile mich, Gott, zu erreten’ – few singers, in whatever style, can so wonderfully give equal weight to the demands of text and music; or listen to the marvellous interplay between singer and accompanist in Sigismondo d’India’s beautiful ‘Quella vermiglia rosa’; or to Lindberg’s exquisite presentation of three short pieces for lute by Michelangelo Galilei (another ‘international’ figure, born in Italy, who worked in Poland and Bavaria). These are jewels indeed.

The recorded sound is perfect; intimate but not over-close. Full texts and translations are provided.

-- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

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Kinkel: An Imaginary Voyage Through Europe — 32 Songs

Favourite songs and carols a beautiful compilation of Christmas music - from orchestral to instrumental, from carols to songs, from medieval to 'Messiah'. Great variety - something for all the family round the tree on Christmas Eve.

Lovely rich, dark tone, exquisite enunciation … glorious songs brilliantly performed.

Roderick Williams has already recorded the Finzi song-cycles I Said to Love, Let Us Garlands Bring, and Before and After Summer on Naxos. Here he continues the sterling work.

English solo song is a deceptive genre. Although the songs often appear simple, in actual fact they are not easy to pull off effectively. For them to work, every nuance must be brought out, every slightly inflection must be spot-on, every word invested with the right emotion. Williams is no stranger to English solo song and always gets to the heart of the work. Here he is, as always, beautifully sympathetic, awake to all nuances of the text – listen to wonderful shades of light and dark in When I set out for Lyonesse, to the poignancy in Lizbie Brown and the chilling intensity in Clock of the Years. He demonstrates excellent versatility – from the rumbustious Rollicum-Rorum, scintillatingly performed – through to the intense and serious (Ode on the Rejection of St. Cecilia), or the beautifully tender – The Birthnight.

This is the only version of By Footpath and Stile currently available. It was Finzi’s earliest Hardy setting, written in 1921-22, and was later withdrawn by the composer, whose plans to revise it were not fully seen through. The work was abandoned until Finzi’s friend, the composer Howard Ferguson edited it for republication. Although not as convincing as Finzi’s later Hardy settings, it nonetheless demonstrates the composer in the process of finding his own “voice”. The songs are deftly crafted, and often deeply moving. It is scored for string quartet accompaniment, sensitively performed here by the Sacconi Quartet.

Williams has a lovely rich, dark tone, and exquisite enunciation that facilitates his excellent communication of the words and the meaning. He is well accompanied by Iain Burnside. Glorious songs, and brilliantly performed.

-- Em Marshall, MusicWeb International

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BACH, J.S. / HOFFMANN / TELEMANN: Alto and Tenor Cantatas, B

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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'.

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This set contains Stereo and Mono recordings.
Selections recorded in the 1940s and 1950s. This set contains both stereo and monaural recordings. It also includes a lecture on just intonation by Harry Partch and some conversations with the composer.

Includes work(s) by Henry Brant.

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Classical Music

Classical Music

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Classical Music