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Grandi: Vulnerasti Cor Meum / Jacobs, Schola Cantorum Basel
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi · Jun 2008CD$17.99 -
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SaleThe Sweetest Songs: Music From The Baldwin Partbooks III / Rees, Contrapunctus
Signum Classics · Feb 2021CD$19.99$9.99 -
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SaleElgar & Bruch: Violin Concertos / Pine, Litton, BBC Symphony
Avie Records · Jan 2018CD$19.99$9.99 -
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Mozart: Divertimentos, Adagios & Fugues & Grande sestetto concertante / L'Archibudelli
Sony Masterworks · Jun 2016CD$21.98 -
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Britten: Beggar's Opera / Curnyn, Bickley, White, Jones, Randle
Chandos
CD
$43.99
Oct 27, 2009
This Chandos production must now be first choice for this work.
Welcome to John Gay’s and Benjamin Britten’s romp through some seamy but also colourful and vibrant elements of 18 th century London. This work established the ballad opera in which spoken dialogue alternated with musical items. Gay’s satirical words were set to well-known traditional and popular tunes. Two hundred and twenty years later Britten added 20 th century accompaniments.
What’s entirely Britten here is the fresh caterwauling Overture (tr. 2) in which the various characters are given brief sound-portraits. There’s an oboe of sinuous sweetness for Polly (0:40), a cavorting clarinet for Macheath (1:29), suave strings and a jocular bassoon for the highwaymen (2:35) and a bantering circus-like master of ceremonies style for Mr Peachum (3:25). It’s all terrifically realized by the City of London Sinfonia who play marvellously throughout.
But what of the songs? Filch’s ‘’Tis woman that seduces all Mankind’ (tr. 5) is a good example of Britten allowing an original tune free rein while giving it modern dress with balmy woodwind and harp. The heroine Polly comes in (tr.12) to strains of her first song over which there are snatches of dialogue. This, like the melodrama which shortly follows (tr. 20), is Britten’s neat way of subverting the claim in the opening dialogue that this opera will have no “unnatural” recitative. Polly’s first song, ‘Virgins are like the fair flower in its lustre’ has as its tune Purcell’s ‘What shall I do to show how much I love him?’ from Dioclesian. Like its original, it is shown by Leah-Marian Jones to be at once wistful and coy. Her duet with Susan Bickley’s Mrs Peachum, ’O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed’ (tr. 15) catches well a cosy lullaby make-believe, aided by the gently rocking strings’ accompaniment. It’s lovely but only fleeting. Another notable accompaniment is the flutter-tonguing flute illustrating Polly’s ‘The Turtle thus with plaintive crying’ (tr. 19).
The highwayman hero Macheath enters and Tom Randle proves courteous enough to Jones’ simpering. The duet between Macheath and Polly, ’Were I laid on Greenland’s coast’ (tr. 22) is sweetly done but I felt the singers were over-conscious of the need to match the flowing orchestration and then the addition of chorus and drum. Some of the natural freshness is lost that’s present in the 1963 Aldeburgh Festival staging on DVD (Decca 074 3329). In this Chandos CD ‘The Miser thus a shilling sees’ (tr. 24) responds better to the typical careful attention of conductor Christian Curnyn’s approach. The disciplined emphasis of rhythm in its thorny progression matches the text’s poetic expression of loss. A pity, however, the second appearance of “Till home and friends are lost at last” (1:54) isn’t, as marked in the score ‘(in the distance)’ as the lovers go their separate ways. It’s an effect achieved in the BBC broadcast recording of the original 1948 production conducted by Britten (Pearl GEM 0225).
The highwaymen’s ’Fill ev’ry glass’ (tr. 26) is a drinking song of the sturdy, resolute variety in 2009 where a lustier abandon was shown in 1948. ‘Let us take the road’ (tr. 28) is infused with eagerness because of the excitement Britten and Curnyn convey in sketching the approach of the coach. Tom Randle’s Macheath has a too cultivated spoken voice but his singing is virile enough. You can hear this in ‘If the heart of a man is depressed with cares’ (tr. 29), marked as a caressing Andante backed by sweetly musing violin solo and rocking clarinet. Again I felt the line was held back a little in deference to the detail of the accompaniment. At this point Macheath is visited by a parade of prostitutes and what’s entertaining in the Decca DVD is rather curious here. With no sounds incorporated of women moving around, squealing and the like , you might think Macheath is imagining it all. I guess this is so as not to detract from Britten’s own variety parade of instruments, a kind of ‘Young Person’s Guide to Women’. There’s a superb tambourine to enliven the headiness of ‘Youth’s the season made for joys’. Randle sings with sunny freedom the ad libitum ‘Ah’s above the chorus repeat, though the top C final phrase is left to a soprano. Now betrayed by the women, his ‘At the Tree I shall suffer with pleasure’ has a disciplined testiness but less venom than Decca’s Kenneth McKellar.
Again more telling in this Chandos production is the more meditative material. The opening song of Act 2, ‘Man may escape from rope and gun’ (CD2, tr. 2), where Randle shows how transfixed Macheath is in his repetition of ‘woman’, savours past joys even while aware they’re the cause of present pain. Sarah Fox, as Lucy Lockit, is scarily efficient in her spite in ‘Thus when a good Housewife sees a rat’ (tr. 3). Polly’s response is the more sensitively elegiac ‘Thus when the Swallow seeking prey’ (tr. 10) and here Leah-Marian Jones is rich, smooth and eloquent. For me, however, Macheath’s ‘How happy could I be with either’ (tr. 11) is taken so fast it becomes too much a tongue-twister virtuoso piece losing some of its whimsy. In 1948 Peter Pears’ lighter touch was more effective. Polly has the easier task of rising above all this with ‘Cease your funning’ (tr.12), whose merging into the chorus and distancing of perspective are successfully achieved before we’re brought back to earth with a vengeance by Lucy’s crisp, snappy ‘Why how now, Madam Flirt!’ (tr. 13). The finale begins with Lucy and Polly showing great resolve. ‘No power on earth can e’er divide’ (tr. 14) is well progressed by Curnyn to an exciting ‘Horay’ trio response from Macheath, Lockit and Peachum. The there’s then increasing speed with a backing chorus in Sullivanesque abandon.
The opening song of Act 3, Lucy’s ‘When young at the bar’ (tr. 16) should be familiar as the tune is Purcell’s ‘If love’s a sweet passion’ from The Fairy Queen. Fox invests it with its original sad yearning while Curnyn points the claustrophobic cloying nature of Britten’s rich scoring of the wry accompaniment. Of a different order and part of the score’s kaleidoscopic variety is the relished archness of Frances McCafferty as Mrs Trapes delivering ‘In the days of my youth I could bill like a dove’ (tr. 21) with relished archness. To this is added the raucous carousing of Lockit and Peachum. Shortly there’s also the poignancy of Lucy and Polly’s ‘A curse attends a woman’s love’ (tr. 25). The paradox that these two candidates for Macheath’s affection can at one moment be united in their shared sense of rejection and understanding of the impossibility of their situation and at the next daggers drawn as rivals and eager still to court Macheath with warm affection at ‘Hither, dear husband, turn your eyes’ (tr. 28) is exploited dramatically. Fox’s pleading for Macheath’s life with ‘When he holds up his hand’ (tr. 31) ought to be the more persuasive, aided by Britten’s obbligato oboe accompaniment. ‘The Charge is prepared’ is a stock, formal chorus considerably pepped up by Mrs Peachum’s triumphant ‘Ah’s and glissando shrieks over its orchestral postlude.
Britten creates a closing scena (tr. 34) with Macheath in the condemned cell at first extolling the virtues of drink when about to die, then recalling pretty women. This gives way to the questioning protest ‘must I die?’. This is well sung by Randle but doesn’t quite have Pears’ grasp of the torment of ever-fluctuating contrasts of mood. Polly and Lucy offer a moving show of support, ‘Would I might be hanged’ to the heavily insistent backdrop of the funeral knell. In 1948 Britten’s knell is less weighty but more searing. Macheath realistically confesses ‘my courage is out’. The spoken dialogue wipes this all away. The highwaymen begin an address directly to the audience to demand the playwright provides a reprieve and all the players join in so the work can end with a dance. This bit of trickery and the rejection of the moral that vice must be punished works better in sound alone than the quicker and tamer removal of justice in the DVD. So you finish the Chandos sound recording remembering the company’s lusty tra-las and Fox’s top C.
This Chandos is the fullest version of the three currently available in the UK, playing at 117:52 in comparison with Decca’s 93:50 and Pearl’s 79:03. The differences are largely down to the Chandos including more of Gay’s spoken dialogue with alterations and additions by Tyrone Guthrie though even here I’d guess about a quarter of the dialogue published in the full and vocal scores has been cut. I don’t think this is a disadvantage because there’s a good deal of repetition in the text anyway. However, some musical numbers are also cut in the other recordings: Mrs Peachum’s ‘If Love the Virgin’s Heart invade’ (CD1 tr. 9) can only be heard here. To see the piece staged is a benefit. On the DVD the dialogue generally has a touch more pace and life, being less self-conscious in delivery. In the same vein the switch from dialogue to music flows more seamlessly and the folksong origins of many of the tunes are delivered with a more disarmingly innocent directness. The feeling between the characters is clearer in the ensemble numbers. The 1948 recording is striking for the verve of Britten’s direction, the charm of Pears’ light heroic manner and the lovely unforced upper register of Nancy Evans as Polly. Listen to her in ‘The Miser thus a shilling sees’. On the other hand it also at times adopts an over-romantic style, as in ‘O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed’ or is too patrician as in ‘Virgins are like the fair flower’.
To conclude, then, although sometimes more studied and deliberate than it might be, including careful points of emphasis within the dialogue, this Chandos production must now be first choice for this work. It also offers you in most luxuriant detail the colour and density of Britten’s orchestration.
-- Michael Greenhalgh, MusicWeb International
Welcome to John Gay’s and Benjamin Britten’s romp through some seamy but also colourful and vibrant elements of 18 th century London. This work established the ballad opera in which spoken dialogue alternated with musical items. Gay’s satirical words were set to well-known traditional and popular tunes. Two hundred and twenty years later Britten added 20 th century accompaniments.
What’s entirely Britten here is the fresh caterwauling Overture (tr. 2) in which the various characters are given brief sound-portraits. There’s an oboe of sinuous sweetness for Polly (0:40), a cavorting clarinet for Macheath (1:29), suave strings and a jocular bassoon for the highwaymen (2:35) and a bantering circus-like master of ceremonies style for Mr Peachum (3:25). It’s all terrifically realized by the City of London Sinfonia who play marvellously throughout.
But what of the songs? Filch’s ‘’Tis woman that seduces all Mankind’ (tr. 5) is a good example of Britten allowing an original tune free rein while giving it modern dress with balmy woodwind and harp. The heroine Polly comes in (tr.12) to strains of her first song over which there are snatches of dialogue. This, like the melodrama which shortly follows (tr. 20), is Britten’s neat way of subverting the claim in the opening dialogue that this opera will have no “unnatural” recitative. Polly’s first song, ‘Virgins are like the fair flower in its lustre’ has as its tune Purcell’s ‘What shall I do to show how much I love him?’ from Dioclesian. Like its original, it is shown by Leah-Marian Jones to be at once wistful and coy. Her duet with Susan Bickley’s Mrs Peachum, ’O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed’ (tr. 15) catches well a cosy lullaby make-believe, aided by the gently rocking strings’ accompaniment. It’s lovely but only fleeting. Another notable accompaniment is the flutter-tonguing flute illustrating Polly’s ‘The Turtle thus with plaintive crying’ (tr. 19).
The highwayman hero Macheath enters and Tom Randle proves courteous enough to Jones’ simpering. The duet between Macheath and Polly, ’Were I laid on Greenland’s coast’ (tr. 22) is sweetly done but I felt the singers were over-conscious of the need to match the flowing orchestration and then the addition of chorus and drum. Some of the natural freshness is lost that’s present in the 1963 Aldeburgh Festival staging on DVD (Decca 074 3329). In this Chandos CD ‘The Miser thus a shilling sees’ (tr. 24) responds better to the typical careful attention of conductor Christian Curnyn’s approach. The disciplined emphasis of rhythm in its thorny progression matches the text’s poetic expression of loss. A pity, however, the second appearance of “Till home and friends are lost at last” (1:54) isn’t, as marked in the score ‘(in the distance)’ as the lovers go their separate ways. It’s an effect achieved in the BBC broadcast recording of the original 1948 production conducted by Britten (Pearl GEM 0225).
The highwaymen’s ’Fill ev’ry glass’ (tr. 26) is a drinking song of the sturdy, resolute variety in 2009 where a lustier abandon was shown in 1948. ‘Let us take the road’ (tr. 28) is infused with eagerness because of the excitement Britten and Curnyn convey in sketching the approach of the coach. Tom Randle’s Macheath has a too cultivated spoken voice but his singing is virile enough. You can hear this in ‘If the heart of a man is depressed with cares’ (tr. 29), marked as a caressing Andante backed by sweetly musing violin solo and rocking clarinet. Again I felt the line was held back a little in deference to the detail of the accompaniment. At this point Macheath is visited by a parade of prostitutes and what’s entertaining in the Decca DVD is rather curious here. With no sounds incorporated of women moving around, squealing and the like , you might think Macheath is imagining it all. I guess this is so as not to detract from Britten’s own variety parade of instruments, a kind of ‘Young Person’s Guide to Women’. There’s a superb tambourine to enliven the headiness of ‘Youth’s the season made for joys’. Randle sings with sunny freedom the ad libitum ‘Ah’s above the chorus repeat, though the top C final phrase is left to a soprano. Now betrayed by the women, his ‘At the Tree I shall suffer with pleasure’ has a disciplined testiness but less venom than Decca’s Kenneth McKellar.
Again more telling in this Chandos production is the more meditative material. The opening song of Act 2, ‘Man may escape from rope and gun’ (CD2, tr. 2), where Randle shows how transfixed Macheath is in his repetition of ‘woman’, savours past joys even while aware they’re the cause of present pain. Sarah Fox, as Lucy Lockit, is scarily efficient in her spite in ‘Thus when a good Housewife sees a rat’ (tr. 3). Polly’s response is the more sensitively elegiac ‘Thus when the Swallow seeking prey’ (tr. 10) and here Leah-Marian Jones is rich, smooth and eloquent. For me, however, Macheath’s ‘How happy could I be with either’ (tr. 11) is taken so fast it becomes too much a tongue-twister virtuoso piece losing some of its whimsy. In 1948 Peter Pears’ lighter touch was more effective. Polly has the easier task of rising above all this with ‘Cease your funning’ (tr.12), whose merging into the chorus and distancing of perspective are successfully achieved before we’re brought back to earth with a vengeance by Lucy’s crisp, snappy ‘Why how now, Madam Flirt!’ (tr. 13). The finale begins with Lucy and Polly showing great resolve. ‘No power on earth can e’er divide’ (tr. 14) is well progressed by Curnyn to an exciting ‘Horay’ trio response from Macheath, Lockit and Peachum. The there’s then increasing speed with a backing chorus in Sullivanesque abandon.
The opening song of Act 3, Lucy’s ‘When young at the bar’ (tr. 16) should be familiar as the tune is Purcell’s ‘If love’s a sweet passion’ from The Fairy Queen. Fox invests it with its original sad yearning while Curnyn points the claustrophobic cloying nature of Britten’s rich scoring of the wry accompaniment. Of a different order and part of the score’s kaleidoscopic variety is the relished archness of Frances McCafferty as Mrs Trapes delivering ‘In the days of my youth I could bill like a dove’ (tr. 21) with relished archness. To this is added the raucous carousing of Lockit and Peachum. Shortly there’s also the poignancy of Lucy and Polly’s ‘A curse attends a woman’s love’ (tr. 25). The paradox that these two candidates for Macheath’s affection can at one moment be united in their shared sense of rejection and understanding of the impossibility of their situation and at the next daggers drawn as rivals and eager still to court Macheath with warm affection at ‘Hither, dear husband, turn your eyes’ (tr. 28) is exploited dramatically. Fox’s pleading for Macheath’s life with ‘When he holds up his hand’ (tr. 31) ought to be the more persuasive, aided by Britten’s obbligato oboe accompaniment. ‘The Charge is prepared’ is a stock, formal chorus considerably pepped up by Mrs Peachum’s triumphant ‘Ah’s and glissando shrieks over its orchestral postlude.
Britten creates a closing scena (tr. 34) with Macheath in the condemned cell at first extolling the virtues of drink when about to die, then recalling pretty women. This gives way to the questioning protest ‘must I die?’. This is well sung by Randle but doesn’t quite have Pears’ grasp of the torment of ever-fluctuating contrasts of mood. Polly and Lucy offer a moving show of support, ‘Would I might be hanged’ to the heavily insistent backdrop of the funeral knell. In 1948 Britten’s knell is less weighty but more searing. Macheath realistically confesses ‘my courage is out’. The spoken dialogue wipes this all away. The highwaymen begin an address directly to the audience to demand the playwright provides a reprieve and all the players join in so the work can end with a dance. This bit of trickery and the rejection of the moral that vice must be punished works better in sound alone than the quicker and tamer removal of justice in the DVD. So you finish the Chandos sound recording remembering the company’s lusty tra-las and Fox’s top C.
This Chandos is the fullest version of the three currently available in the UK, playing at 117:52 in comparison with Decca’s 93:50 and Pearl’s 79:03. The differences are largely down to the Chandos including more of Gay’s spoken dialogue with alterations and additions by Tyrone Guthrie though even here I’d guess about a quarter of the dialogue published in the full and vocal scores has been cut. I don’t think this is a disadvantage because there’s a good deal of repetition in the text anyway. However, some musical numbers are also cut in the other recordings: Mrs Peachum’s ‘If Love the Virgin’s Heart invade’ (CD1 tr. 9) can only be heard here. To see the piece staged is a benefit. On the DVD the dialogue generally has a touch more pace and life, being less self-conscious in delivery. In the same vein the switch from dialogue to music flows more seamlessly and the folksong origins of many of the tunes are delivered with a more disarmingly innocent directness. The feeling between the characters is clearer in the ensemble numbers. The 1948 recording is striking for the verve of Britten’s direction, the charm of Pears’ light heroic manner and the lovely unforced upper register of Nancy Evans as Polly. Listen to her in ‘The Miser thus a shilling sees’. On the other hand it also at times adopts an over-romantic style, as in ‘O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed’ or is too patrician as in ‘Virgins are like the fair flower’.
To conclude, then, although sometimes more studied and deliberate than it might be, including careful points of emphasis within the dialogue, this Chandos production must now be first choice for this work. It also offers you in most luxuriant detail the colour and density of Britten’s orchestration.
-- Michael Greenhalgh, MusicWeb International
Grandi: Vulnerasti Cor Meum / Jacobs, Schola Cantorum Basel
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi
CD
$17.99
Jun 30, 2008
All the items on this CD are gems. Grandi, who may have been a pupil of Giovanni Gabrieli, had great melodic gifts and good ear for dramatic presentation of his texts.
Alessandro Grandi might have been a pupil of Giovanni Gabrieli. He spent the initial part of his musical career singing (falsetto soprano) and directing music at establishments in Ferrara, culminating in his appointment as director of music at Ferrara cathedral in 1616. In 1617 he moved to Venice and became a singer, under Monteverdi's direction, at St. Mark's, going on to become Monteverdi's deputy in 1620. He and Monteverdi are reputed to have been in open rivalry and Monteverdi is supposed to have prevented Grandi from presenting large-scale works of his own. Grandi seems to have made a virtue of necessity and produced a ravishing string of solo motets and concerti spirituali. In 1627 he moved on to become director of music in Bergamo. He published 11 volumes of motets, many of them very popular, 3 volumes of psalms and 5 masses. His motets with symphonies, involving obbligato violins, had an influence on Schütz.
In the 1620's sacred music underwent a significant change, out went the polychoral techniques of the Gabrielis and in came the new concerted style. A more intimate style with a few solo voices and instruments, with a greater emphasis on virtuosity. Monteverdi used this style in his later church music, but it was fully developed by his colleagues and followers such as Alessandro Grandi.
Grandi had an advantage over colleagues such as Monteverdi and Gabrieli in that he was a singer. His art revolves around the expression of the text, using the music to bring out the prosody of the words. His earliest motets were published in 1610 and they are admirably lacking in youthful inexperience. 'O quam pulchra es' uses three voices in an almost madrigalian setting of words from the Song of Songs.
Grandi's works crop up in the catalogue mainly in surveys of Monteverdi's contemporaries. Despite his importance in early 17th century Italian music, record companies have mainly cast him in Monteverdi's shadow, so it is pleasant to welcome this CD back. It has an enviable line up of singers with the young Andreas and Elisabeth Scholl alongside René Jacobs and Maria Cristina Kiehr.
The motets all receive fine performances. This vocal chamber music requires a good interplay between performers and those on this record are generally admirable. Jacobs sings two of the solo motets, 'Salve Regina' with its cornet obliggati and 'O quam tu pulchra est'. Whilst I was able to admire his artistry greatly, not everyone will like his distinctive resinous tone. But these are two of the most affecting motets on the record and Jacobs' way with the words is hauntingly persuasive. Though all the artists on the disc are excellent, Jacobs proves to be the most penetratingly responsive to the text.
The admirable cornettists are Jean Tubery, and William Dongois and their playing combines discretion and subtlety along with virtuoso effect. They appear on two further tracks. 'Transfige', a solo motet well sung by Gerd Türk with his mellifluous, bright, if slightly unvarying tenor voice and 'Bone Jesu verbum patris', a lovely duet charmingly sung by Elisabeth and Andreas Scholl, who blend exquisitely. The two cornets beautifully balance the two vocalists and show off Grandi's expertise with the new structural developments in sacred music.
Dramatic and structural interest are rarely absent from these lovely works. Solo voices are counterbalanced by two violins in three of the motets. 'Osculetur me', in which Andreas Scholl brings to bear his creamy alto voice; 'Virgo prudentissima' sung with a brilliant urgency by Elisabeth Scholl; 'Vulnerasti cor meum' sung by the bright toned Maria Cristina Kiehr who gets the bulk of the soprano solos.
In the multi-voiced motets, some are in the more traditional style of the late 16th century, like the 5-voiced setting of Job's lament, 'Versa est'. But others reflect Grandi's more recent concerns. 'Heu mihi! - Quid ploras?' is a conversation between the despairing sinner (hauntingly sung by Gerd Türk) and God (sung by Andreas Scholl, Otto Rastbichler and Ulrich Messthaler). 'Quemadmodum desiderat' is another dialogue, this time between two voices (Maria Christina Kiehr and Ulrich Messthaler). a lover and beloved, which ends with a hymn to the Virgin!
The motet 'Plorabo die ac nocte' uses a text which links the lamentations of Jeremiah with a pain-filled Marian lament. The text is sung by each soloist in turn. But, in an effect reminiscent of a Greek chorus, all soloists join together at the end of each solo. But the most remarkable is possibly 'Missus est Gabriel'. This setting of the annunciation uses St. Luke's Gospel, allocated to Evangelist (Ulrich Messthaler, singing with a wonderfully dark tone), Angel (Gerd Türk) and Virgin (Andreas Scholl). But this mini-oratorio increases the drama by adding an off-stage chorus (sopranos Maria Cristina Kiehr and Elisabeth Scholl) who constantly sing the praises of the virgin, providing a chorus which comments on and interrupts the main dialogue.
All the items on this CD are gems. Grandi had great melodic gifts and good ear for dramatic presentation of his texts. A singer himself, his vocal lines are always effective and grateful. All the singers on this recording are admirable and it manages to showcase the talents of a remarkable group of young singers and instrumentalists.
Grandi's motets deserve to be better known, but his works have been difficult to come by in performing editions. This seems to be the only CD in the catalogue devoted solely Grandi's works, so it is pleasing to see its return and the artists are also to be commended for their musicological research. It is a shame that the CD booklet does not manage to print the texts of the motets. Grandi was such a text based composer that one misses the opportunity of following the words in translation. Not all of these texts are well known and not everyone has the requisite Latin.
This is a lovely CD to listen to in one sitting or simply to dip into. I can highly recommend it.
-- Robert Hugill, MusicWeb International
reviewing this title reissued as DHM 77857
Alessandro Grandi might have been a pupil of Giovanni Gabrieli. He spent the initial part of his musical career singing (falsetto soprano) and directing music at establishments in Ferrara, culminating in his appointment as director of music at Ferrara cathedral in 1616. In 1617 he moved to Venice and became a singer, under Monteverdi's direction, at St. Mark's, going on to become Monteverdi's deputy in 1620. He and Monteverdi are reputed to have been in open rivalry and Monteverdi is supposed to have prevented Grandi from presenting large-scale works of his own. Grandi seems to have made a virtue of necessity and produced a ravishing string of solo motets and concerti spirituali. In 1627 he moved on to become director of music in Bergamo. He published 11 volumes of motets, many of them very popular, 3 volumes of psalms and 5 masses. His motets with symphonies, involving obbligato violins, had an influence on Schütz.
In the 1620's sacred music underwent a significant change, out went the polychoral techniques of the Gabrielis and in came the new concerted style. A more intimate style with a few solo voices and instruments, with a greater emphasis on virtuosity. Monteverdi used this style in his later church music, but it was fully developed by his colleagues and followers such as Alessandro Grandi.
Grandi had an advantage over colleagues such as Monteverdi and Gabrieli in that he was a singer. His art revolves around the expression of the text, using the music to bring out the prosody of the words. His earliest motets were published in 1610 and they are admirably lacking in youthful inexperience. 'O quam pulchra es' uses three voices in an almost madrigalian setting of words from the Song of Songs.
Grandi's works crop up in the catalogue mainly in surveys of Monteverdi's contemporaries. Despite his importance in early 17th century Italian music, record companies have mainly cast him in Monteverdi's shadow, so it is pleasant to welcome this CD back. It has an enviable line up of singers with the young Andreas and Elisabeth Scholl alongside René Jacobs and Maria Cristina Kiehr.
The motets all receive fine performances. This vocal chamber music requires a good interplay between performers and those on this record are generally admirable. Jacobs sings two of the solo motets, 'Salve Regina' with its cornet obliggati and 'O quam tu pulchra est'. Whilst I was able to admire his artistry greatly, not everyone will like his distinctive resinous tone. But these are two of the most affecting motets on the record and Jacobs' way with the words is hauntingly persuasive. Though all the artists on the disc are excellent, Jacobs proves to be the most penetratingly responsive to the text.
The admirable cornettists are Jean Tubery, and William Dongois and their playing combines discretion and subtlety along with virtuoso effect. They appear on two further tracks. 'Transfige', a solo motet well sung by Gerd Türk with his mellifluous, bright, if slightly unvarying tenor voice and 'Bone Jesu verbum patris', a lovely duet charmingly sung by Elisabeth and Andreas Scholl, who blend exquisitely. The two cornets beautifully balance the two vocalists and show off Grandi's expertise with the new structural developments in sacred music.
Dramatic and structural interest are rarely absent from these lovely works. Solo voices are counterbalanced by two violins in three of the motets. 'Osculetur me', in which Andreas Scholl brings to bear his creamy alto voice; 'Virgo prudentissima' sung with a brilliant urgency by Elisabeth Scholl; 'Vulnerasti cor meum' sung by the bright toned Maria Cristina Kiehr who gets the bulk of the soprano solos.
In the multi-voiced motets, some are in the more traditional style of the late 16th century, like the 5-voiced setting of Job's lament, 'Versa est'. But others reflect Grandi's more recent concerns. 'Heu mihi! - Quid ploras?' is a conversation between the despairing sinner (hauntingly sung by Gerd Türk) and God (sung by Andreas Scholl, Otto Rastbichler and Ulrich Messthaler). 'Quemadmodum desiderat' is another dialogue, this time between two voices (Maria Christina Kiehr and Ulrich Messthaler). a lover and beloved, which ends with a hymn to the Virgin!
The motet 'Plorabo die ac nocte' uses a text which links the lamentations of Jeremiah with a pain-filled Marian lament. The text is sung by each soloist in turn. But, in an effect reminiscent of a Greek chorus, all soloists join together at the end of each solo. But the most remarkable is possibly 'Missus est Gabriel'. This setting of the annunciation uses St. Luke's Gospel, allocated to Evangelist (Ulrich Messthaler, singing with a wonderfully dark tone), Angel (Gerd Türk) and Virgin (Andreas Scholl). But this mini-oratorio increases the drama by adding an off-stage chorus (sopranos Maria Cristina Kiehr and Elisabeth Scholl) who constantly sing the praises of the virgin, providing a chorus which comments on and interrupts the main dialogue.
All the items on this CD are gems. Grandi had great melodic gifts and good ear for dramatic presentation of his texts. A singer himself, his vocal lines are always effective and grateful. All the singers on this recording are admirable and it manages to showcase the talents of a remarkable group of young singers and instrumentalists.
Grandi's motets deserve to be better known, but his works have been difficult to come by in performing editions. This seems to be the only CD in the catalogue devoted solely Grandi's works, so it is pleasing to see its return and the artists are also to be commended for their musicological research. It is a shame that the CD booklet does not manage to print the texts of the motets. Grandi was such a text based composer that one misses the opportunity of following the words in translation. Not all of these texts are well known and not everyone has the requisite Latin.
This is a lovely CD to listen to in one sitting or simply to dip into. I can highly recommend it.
-- Robert Hugill, MusicWeb International
reviewing this title reissued as DHM 77857
Bruckner: Symphony No 3 / Wildner, Westphalia New Po
Naxos
CD
$14.99
$29.99
Save 50%
Jan 01, 2004
With this new release the Naxos catalog now includes all extant versions of Bruckner's much massaged Symphony No. 3. Georg Tintner's imposing account of the 1873 original made a powerful and seemingly irrefutable case for Bruckner's first thoughts. But Johannes Wildner is equally persuasive in his compelling rendition of the second version from 1877. Here Bruckner tamed the sometimes discursive quality of his original inspiration, giving it a tighter and more or less conventional structure--at least as defined by Brucknerian standards. Though this came at a sacrifice of some of the music's more radical passages, the symphony remains a powerful and affecting work.
Wildner's conviction is immediately apparent in the first movement: Listen as he builds the opening's two great climaxes with arresting force, then infuses the following lyrical second subject with an ingratiating warmth. Fine as the first movement is, it's actually the Adagio and Finale that benefit most from Wildner's probing conducting, as both movements sound with a rare formal coherence married to dramatic impact. As a bonus, the first disc of this double set also includes the composer's intermediate version (1876) of the Adagio.
Bruckner's 1889 revision of the symphony is controversial for its sometimes ungainly melding of his early and late styles, as well as for the cuts--reportedly influenced by Franz Schalk--that gouge out large portions of the finale. However, Wildner miraculously smooths out the symphony's rough edges by adopting swift tempos (the first movement now has lost nearly four minutes), streamlined phrasing, and light textures; he also imparts an early-romantic, almost Mendelssohnian feel that makes this last version sound paradoxically like the earliest, contemporaneous with the Second Symphony.
The Westphalia New Philharmonic members perform with the same enthusiasm and expertise they displayed in their recording of the Ninth Symphony. And though the strings still don't match the richness of their world-class competition, the brass project more boldly and surely than before, and the orchestra as a whole cultivates an authentic yet distinctive Bruckner sound. Naxos' recording offers impressive clarity and dynamic range, though the dry hall acoustic doesn't provide much warmth. No matter--the heat generated by Wildner and his players more than compensates. [2/21/2004]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com
Wildner's conviction is immediately apparent in the first movement: Listen as he builds the opening's two great climaxes with arresting force, then infuses the following lyrical second subject with an ingratiating warmth. Fine as the first movement is, it's actually the Adagio and Finale that benefit most from Wildner's probing conducting, as both movements sound with a rare formal coherence married to dramatic impact. As a bonus, the first disc of this double set also includes the composer's intermediate version (1876) of the Adagio.
Bruckner's 1889 revision of the symphony is controversial for its sometimes ungainly melding of his early and late styles, as well as for the cuts--reportedly influenced by Franz Schalk--that gouge out large portions of the finale. However, Wildner miraculously smooths out the symphony's rough edges by adopting swift tempos (the first movement now has lost nearly four minutes), streamlined phrasing, and light textures; he also imparts an early-romantic, almost Mendelssohnian feel that makes this last version sound paradoxically like the earliest, contemporaneous with the Second Symphony.
The Westphalia New Philharmonic members perform with the same enthusiasm and expertise they displayed in their recording of the Ninth Symphony. And though the strings still don't match the richness of their world-class competition, the brass project more boldly and surely than before, and the orchestra as a whole cultivates an authentic yet distinctive Bruckner sound. Naxos' recording offers impressive clarity and dynamic range, though the dry hall acoustic doesn't provide much warmth. No matter--the heat generated by Wildner and his players more than compensates. [2/21/2004]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com
Babel - Schumann, Shaw, Shostakovich / Calidore String Quartet
Signum Classics
CD
$19.99
Oct 23, 2020
The desire to explore the innate human drive for communication is the focus of Babel. For this recording the Calidore String Quartet gathered music which transmits ideas by imitating language; its rhythms, cadences and intentions. But it also explores what happens when music substitutes for language. When it fills the void of forbidden speech or even how it carries on when language has been exhausted. The result, a compilation of quartets by Schumann, Shostakovich, and Caroline Shaw, demonstrates the visceral forms of expression that exist at the intersection of music and language. The Calidore String Quartet has been praised by The New York Times for its “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct” and the Los Angeles Times for its balance of “intellect and expression.” Recipient of a 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, the Calidore String Quartet first made international headlines as winner of the inaugural $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition. The quartet was the first North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and is currently in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two).
REVIEW:
The Schumann comes across beautifully, with plenty of tender, intimate inner dialogue and a fine feeling for Schumann’s left-field attitude to conventional form. Maybe there could be more subversive humour, but it’s still refreshing to hear this marvellous, still under-appreciated music treated with such understanding and obvious affection.
Like many contemporary pieces, Caroline Shaw’s Three Essays comes with a detailed programme, but it’s perfectly possible to enjoy it just as abstract music: playful, heartfelt, exuberant and always surprising enough to hold the attention. The playing is as strong and persuasive here as in the Schumann.
As for the Shostakovich, the overall conception is very impressive, each of the linked movements growing out of the previous one with a powerful sense of inevitability. The control of the two/three-in-a-bar rhythmic games in the finale is particularly well brought off. Where it’s slightly weaker – strange, given the disc’s declared intentions – is in that urgent, impassioned directness that characterises the finest Shostakovich quartet performances. Expressive and shapely as they are, the solo lines don’t sound as though they’re burning, aching to confide in you.
This is quality quartet playing, sympathetically recorded, but in the Shostakovich it just falls a couple of inches short of excellent.
-- BBC Music Magazine
Bach: 6 Cello Suites / Carmine Miranda
Centaur Records
CD
$22.99
Mar 26, 2013
BACH Six Cello Suites • Carmine Miranda (vc) • CENTAUR 3263/4 (2 CDs: 130:10)
Since reviewing Truls Mørk’s version of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites in 29:5, no fewer than six more accounts have crossed my desk. In chronological order, they were Jean-Guihen Queyras (31:4), Sara Sant’Ambrogio (33:3), Luigi Piovano (34:5), Hekun Wu (34:6), Tanya Tomkins (35:1), and Richard Tuncliffe (36:1). Some of the cellists used conventional cellos, others period instruments. All but two, however, had one thing in common: They were uniformly awful, though each in its own way, ranging from barely tolerable to downright execrable. The one I kept coming back to as my preferred and strongly recommended set throughout those reviews was the first on this list, the one by Jean-Guihen Queyras, with Hekun Wu being a close runner-up. Both, by the way, performed the suites on cellos in modern configuration.
Bach’s six cello suites are like a Siren’s call to cellists of all persuasions, luring many of them to ruin. And the thing is there’s no reason for it. Was it a singular achievement for Bach to write such technically challenging works for an instrument that was relatively new at the time, and a melody instrument to boot, one that takes even more kindly to intensive double-stopping than the violin? Yes. But are the cello suites comparable on levels of musical scope and intellectual depth to the unaccompanied violin sonatas and partitas? Not even close. There are no massive fugues in the cello suites and nothing that approaches the dimensions of the D-Minor Violin Partita’s Chaconne. The cello suites are exactly what their title tells us they are—six sets of relatively short, stylized baroque dances. Yet for cellists—and for some listeners, I think—they’ve taken on an import that may be beyond their actual significance in Bach’s output, virtually becoming every cellist’s initiation rite.
So, how does the young Venezuelan cellist, Carmine Miranda (b. 1988), fare in his initiation into cellodom’s manhood? Well, first a few words about this young artist, who is likely unknown to readers, as this is his recording debut; he was 22 when he recorded the Bach suites for Centaur in 2011–12. Miranda’s early training took place in his native country, where he studied at the Carabobo State Music Conservatory, then in the Latin-American Academy of Violoncello, and finally at the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music (the institution that spawned the famous “El Sistema”). Miranda then traveled to the States to study with Ross Harbaugh at the University of Miami, followed by further coaching under Yehuda Hanani at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where Miranda obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and is a candidate for a doctorate.
In the U.S., he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Bowdoin Music Festival, the Bach Annalia Festival in Cincinnati, the Young People’s Festival in Chatham, N.Y., and is on the artist’s roster for the Close Encounters with Music Series in Great Barrington, N.Y., both under the direction of Yehuda Hanani and others.
Among Miranda’s awards are first prize at the 2005 Alhambra Music Competition, the National Prize for best soloist from the FMEA (Florida Music Educators Association), and the 2008–09 University of Cincinnati Cello Competition. He has collaborated with recognized international artists such as Yehuda Hanani, Awadagin Pratt, Rodolfo Saglimbeni and performed as a soloist with several chamber ensembles and orchestras, recently including the Caracas Municipal Symphony Orchestra. He is also the founder and member of the Troika Piano Trio comprised of violinist Joshua Ulrich and pianist Assaf Sommer.
Miranda, who authored his own album note, makes no mention of the instrument(s) he uses for these performances, how he handles the scordatura tuning of the Fifth Suite—does he retune his cello according to the original manuscript or use the modern standard-tuning edition?—or what he does to accommodate the Sixth Suite, believed to have been originally written for a five-string violoncello piccolo. His note speaks only of his personal impressions of, and responses to, the emotional and spiritual character and quality of each of the pieces. At one point, in fact, I was quite taken aback to read, “Interpretation of the suites has nothing to do with what is correct, accurate, and historical, but it rather has to do with going deep within the soul of the writing…” That raised a red flag for me, not to mention an eyebrow. I couldn’t help but think to myself that only the immodesty of youth could be so callow and cavalier with respect to the years of serious musicological research that have attempted to ascertain what is “correct, accurate, and historical,” and to the many veteran cellists who have spent more years studying these works than Miranda has been alive. But the proof, as they say, is in the hearing. And so I decided not to allow my annoyance with Miranda’s words to influence my judgment of his playing.
Instantly, from the very first bar of the G-Major Suite, the cellist that came to mind was Pablo Casals, a comparison that elicits no higher compliment. In my above-mentioned review of Tanya Tomkins’s Bach suites, I noted how slow and super-romanticized her readings were; she takes 3:16 for the opening Prelude, a full half-minute longer than Jacqueline du Pré, who, at 2:35, is hardly fast. So, I went back to Casals’s 1950s recording and found that he dispatched the Prelude in two minutes flat and without any rhythmic distensions or distortions. What about Carmine Miranda? 2:09. I don’t know if Miranda studied Casals’s recordings, but if he didn’t, it’s truly uncanny how closely he channels both the letter and the spirit of the great cellist’s example.
It’s really difficult to express in words the beauty of Miranda’s performances. His cello is a modern instrument, or at least one updated with modern fittings and tuned to modern pitch, but the tone it emits is lighter in weight than that which we often hear in versions played on modern cellos. Of course, much of that can be attributed to Miranda’s bowing. He doesn’t dig into the strings to produce guttural sounds. The tone is clean and clear and intonation perfect. But one expects more than technical proficiency, dexterity, and finesse; and more—much more than that—is what one gets from Miranda’s readings.
Alluded to above is the fact that these are suites of dances, and time and again, in extolling the virtues of Jean-Guihen Queyras’s performances, I’ve remarked on the way in which he manages to capture the essence of each dance step. Miranda, it seems to me, goes one step further (no pun intended). He hears, and allows us to hear, the historical roots of each dance and whence it comes, which is pretty funny when you try to square that with his comment that interpretation of the suites has nothing to do with the historical. Yet listen to Miranda’s courantes, and you will hear not just rapid tempos, but the very definition of the Renaissance dance as described by Thoinot Arbeau, the 16th-century French theorist who tells us that the courante was danced with fast running and jumping steps. If Miranda didn’t learn this from reading music history, he knows it intuitively, for it’s not just his accelerated tempos but the effect of rhythmic arrest you would observe in a dance that involved running forward several steps, then making a sudden jump, hop, or jerk to stop short the forward motion. In Miranda’s hands, the suites don’t just sound dance-like , as in stylized baroque refinements, they sound like actual Renaissance dances.
Likewise, Miranda’s sarabandes are played with the stately gravitas that would have been à la mode for a processional court dance in 17th-century France. Interestingly, the sarabande had its origins as a fairly fast dance a century earlier and quite likely in Mexico or Central America. When Spanish colonists brought the dance back to Spain with them, it was banned in 1583 for being obscene. It wasn’t until the sarabande made its way to Italy and then France that it became the slow, triple-meter dance that was widely adopted into the baroque suite.
I’ve never heard Bach’s cello suites played in quite this way, and while I wouldn’t want to be without the versions by Queyras, Hekun Wu, Casals, and János Starker, Carmine Miranda’s will not only join them, it will stand out as perhaps the most original and imaginative interpretations of the suites I’ve heard.
Centaur’s recording, too, is outstanding, capturing Miranda’s cello fairly close up but with sufficient air around it to allow for a natural sounding bloom, yet without any annoying echo effect. An album note states that the recording was made without any editing. This is a definite buy recommendation for both connoisseurs of Bach’s cello suites and those who appreciate cello playing at its best. I’d have to say that Carmine Miranda has passed his initiation with flying colors. Welcome to the ranks of the world class players.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Weinberg: Complete Violin Sonatas, Vol. 3 / Csányi-Wills, Kalnits
Toccata
CD
$20.99
Mar 05, 2021
If Mieczyslaw Weinberg had lived for another decade or so after his death in 1996, he would have seen his status change from poorly known outlier to general acceptance as one of the major twentieth-century composers. His violin works have likewise been recognized as major additions to the repertoire. Since Yuri Kalnits and Michael Csányi-Wills began what will be a four-volume survey of Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s music for violin and piano, other musicians have discovered and recorded many of these masterworks, but on its completion this cycle will still be the first to record all of Weinberg’s works for solo violin and violin and piano.
REVIEW:
The most ingratiating music comes right at the start, with the first movement Allegro moderato of the Violin Sonata No.3 from 1947. Its four minutes begin with a lyrical theme of varying phrase lengths which the players keep flowing as it were “in one breath”. The fugato style second subject is a perkier counterweight and the sonata form progression is coherently delivered, and the lowish emotional temperature feels just right as there are two movements each twice the length of this one to come. The Andantino is cooler still, and David Fanning’s booklet note informs us that the additional phrase for that marking molto rubato and all other expression marks were removed by Weinberg, so that the players could find their own way of presenting the flexibility he wanted. He could certainly trust this pair whose interpretation makes much of the movement sound questing and improvisatory.
The Allegretto cantabile finale has clear Shostakovich chamber music echoes, as Fanning mentions, specifically the klezmer elements. In fact, in his book on Weinberg, Fanning cites this work of being “one of the comparatively few…that bear out the criticism that (Weinberg) occasionally sought shelter in the shadow of Shostakovich” and mentions “near-literal borrowings”. Nonetheless most of it is still quite individual, not least the slow violin cadenza that closes the work, in which Yuri Kalnits is very commanding.
The other violin and piano sonata here, Weinberg’s sixth and last, was discovered only in 2007, twenty years after the composer’s death, and given the opus number 136bis. Its fifteen-minute single movement, on the template Moderato - Allegro – Moderato – Allegro, opens with a long violin solo. David Fanning notes its similarity to the bell theme in the finale of Rachmaninov’s First Suite for Two Pianos, and although bells often resound in Russian music from Boris Godunov to Stravinsky’s late Requiem Canticles, not many are found in a violin solo! The piano does not enter until two minutes in, and then has its own long solo at the end of this opening Moderato. This is almost texture as three-part form – solo violin, piano and violin duo, then solo piano. Whether playing together or alone, Kalnits and Csanyi-Wills hold the attention throughout this spare and haunting piece.
Arguably the most important work on the disc is the one-movement Sonata No. 3 for Solo Violin from 1979, dedicated to Weinberg’s father. Its nearly twenty-four minute continuous span make for a demanding listen, but Kalnits’s excellent performance makes a persuasive case.
-- MusicWeb International
Geminiani: Sonatas Vol 1 / Mosca, Pianca, Paronuzzi
Stradivarius
CD
$18.99
Feb 01, 2012
GEMINIANI Violin sonatas, op. 4/1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 12 • Liana Mosca (vn); Antonio Mosca (vc); Luca Pianca (archlute); Giorgio Paronuzzi (hpd) (period instruments) • STRADIVARIUS 33853 (67:41)
William S. Newman, in his massive study of the Baroque sonata, listed Francesco Geminiani’s sonatas for violin and continuo (op. 1 from 1716 and op. 4 from two decades later) and for violin and cello (op. 5) and judged Geminiani’s knowledge of the violin to equal that of Giuseppe Tartini or Pietro Locatelli (the latter of whom, like Geminiani, had been a pupil of Arcangelo Corelli, though a more technically adventurous one), but considered his style to be more conservative. Of the six sonatas presented by Liana Mosca, Antonio Mosca (her father), Luca Pianca, and Georgio Paronuzzi, all but two consist of four movements (the others numbering three); none of the movements’ titles give a hint of their dance-like elements or rondo forms. Almost all the sonatas have been cast in major keys. Geminiani would later rework six of the 12 sonatas of op. 4 (including No. 1 and No. 7 from Stradivarius’s collection) as concerti grossi. While Mosca remarks in a personal note in the booklet that Geminani’s sonatas from op. 4 haven’t received a great deal of attention, Rüdiger Lotter included the First, Eighth, Ninth, and 10th (two from Mosca’s selection) in a program released on Oehms 356 that also included several sonatas from Antonio Maria Veracini’s op. 1 ( Fanfare 29:1).
Geminiani revised the sonatas of his op. 1 at about the same time as he published op. 4 and included in the new edition of op. 1 the kinds of ornaments that make so striking an impression in Mosca’s performance of op. 4, as in the First Sonata’s Adagio (and also that of the Third Sonata). In that movement, she also displays a rhythmic and dynamic flexibility to create a capricious expressive sensibility that apparently suits not only the works themselves but Geminiani’s reputation as an expressive performer (among some: Tartini called him il furibondo , while John Hawkins thought he lacked the fire of the later violinists of his era). The sonata’s second movement isn’t fugal; it depends for its effect on the piquancy of its homophonic lines, of which Mosca gives a tangy account. The continuo provides an ingratiating strumming accompaniment in the Largo, a backdrop against which Mosca makes at times startling adjustments to the solo’s dynamic level; the finale includes surprises after dramatic pauses, and Mosca times them with the acute sensibility of a persuasive rhetorician. In general, she produces a twangy though by no means sharp-edged tone from her violin (and a perhaps surprisingly full one from its lower registers), described as a Venetian instrument from about 1750.
Mosca and the ensemble bring vivacious wit to the second movement of the Seventh Sonata and its jaunty subject (do these suggest the stolidity for which Geminiani has sometimes been condemned?) and spice to the ornamentation of the sonata’s third movement, Moderato. The Adagio of the Third Sonata showcases, as well as the encrustations of ornamentation mentioned earlier, the sudden gestures that make the sonatas sound inventive, at least from an expressive point of view (that sense of invention, continues, reaching almost to the level of improvisation, in the ensuing Allegro). The Sixth Sonata, again in D Major, at first seems almost somber compared to the three that precede it on the program, until Mosca dispels whatever gloom might have enshrouded it with her bright gaiety in the second movement; similarly, she shifts from the almost romantic sensibility of the sonata’s Andante to crisp Gallic sprightliness (Geminiani spent time in Paris) in the final movement, recalling a similar vein in the works of Jean-Marie Leclair (also a musical descendent of Corelli, this time through Giovanni Battista Somis). The two three-movement sonatas omit the slow movement; what they lose in affetuoso they gain in starchiness (although the last Allegro of the 10th Sonata includes a slow episode that almost replaces the missing movement). A multisectional fantasy serves as the first movement of the 12th Sonata’s three.
Lotter deploys a more astringent tone in his recording but he hardly stints on ornamental or expressive detail. Still, Mosca’s unaffected geniality, dramatic Luftpausen , and rhetorical sensibility breathe extra life into her performances.
With its clean recorded sound, its imaginative performances, and its ingratiating literature, Mosca’s selection of Geminiani’s sonatas might serve either as a favorable introduction to the works of the composer for those who aren’t familiar with him or an enjoyable reminder for those who know him that he brought more than Corelli’s teachings to London. Strongly recommended to all types of listeners.
FANFARE: Robert Maxham
STEPPING OUT (JUSTIN TIME ESSENTIALS COLLECTION)
JUSTIN TIME RECORDS
CD
$14.99
Nov 23, 2018
Diana Krall - Stepping Out (Justin Time Essentials Collection) Stepping Out launched the career of one of our generation's greatest Jazz artists. "Peaking at #3 on Billboard's Jazz Chart, Diana Krall's 1993 debut shows that she had the goods right from the get-go. Krall sings with honesty, subtlety, and persuasion while playing the piano with head-shaking authority, both as accompanist - she offers amazing asides in between vocal phrases - and as an absolutely A-one improviser." (Zan Stewart). The Justin Time Essentials Collection introduces the album (now certified Gold) to a new generation of fans, but this time with an added bonus track from the original sessions - Diana's incredible arrangement of "Summertime".
The Sweetest Songs: Music From The Baldwin Partbooks III / Rees, Contrapunctus
Signum Classics
CD
$9.99
$19.99
Save 50%
Feb 12, 2021
The richest single source of Tudor polyphony, preserving almost 170 works many of which survive nowhere else, is a set of manuscript partbooks copied between about 1575 and 1581 by John Baldwin, a lay clerk at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. This album is the third and final installment in a series of recordings by Contrapunctus exploring contrasting aspects of this remarkable treasure house of sacred music covering much of the sixteenth century. Owen Rees is both performer and scholar, his scholarship consistently informing his performances. Through his extensive work as a choral director, he has brought to the concert hall and recording studio substantial repertories of magnificent Renaissance and Baroque music, including many previously unknown or little-known works from Portugal and Spain. His interpretations of these repertories have been acclaimed as ‘rare examples of scholarship and musicianship combining to result in performances that are both impressive and immediately attractive to the listener’, and he has been described as ‘one of the most energetic and persuasive voices’ in this field.
Bach: Keyboard Works / Jacob Katsnelson
Quartz Music
CD
$18.99
Jan 01, 2011
BACH Suite in a, BWV 818a. Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother, BWV 992. 3-Part Sinfonias, BWV 787–801. Prelude and Fugue in b, BWV 544 (arr. Liszt) • Jacob Katsnelson (pn) • QUARTZ 2084 (59:40)
At first I couldn’t place him, but I knew that somewhere I’d met Jacob Katsnelson before. Then it hit me. He was the pianist who accompanied Maxim Rysanov in a couple of numbers on a two-disc Onyx set of Brahms’s chamber works in viola transcriptions, reviewed in Fanfare 32: 5. Frankly, my focus was so centered on Rysanov that I didn’t pay much attention to Katsnelson at the time.
He was born in Moscow in 1976, entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1993, and since 2001 has taught at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He has soloed throughout Russia, as well as in Austria, Germany, Spain, and France, done the competition thing, won prizes, participated in festivals, and yada yada. By now it’s an old and familiar story: Gifted youngster enters conservatory, wows competition judges and talent scout, lands recording contract, and makes it big on the international concert scene.
Sometimes, the big splash dissipates in receding ripples on the pond; other times, not. I can’t say what will happen with Katsnelson in the long term; I can only register my reaction to his playing in the here and now, and that reaction is overwhelmingly positive. This is one of the most satisfying Bach recitals on piano to come my way in a long time.
To begin with, as I’ve made clear in the past, when I listen to Bach on piano, I don’t want the artist to apologize for the instrument by playing it as if it were a harpsichord. There’s no hint of that with Katsnelson. He uses the full range of the piano’s dynamic, sustaining, and expressive potential. And his instrument, amusingly credited in the booklet as “a regular piano”—I presume to distinguish it from a fortepiano—is a concert grand, model E-272, from Bayreuth maker Steingraeber & Son, a magnificent specimen if I may say so.
Further research on the company’s website reveals a number of interesting details and specifications about this new instrument: “Unique features include the unusual shape of the sound-reflecting rims, the combined star-shaped and half-timbered braces, and the ‘incredibly agreeable’ (Cyprien Katsaris) touch. The most uncommon feature, however, is the shape of the soundboard in the treble. The resonating space was newly reconstructed, based on the classical relationship between [short] string length and resonating space. Steingraeber strings have 27 percent less wood mass to penetrate than comparable instruments by other piano builders! The result is a tone that is present and singing, even in softer passages.”
The part about softer passages is true. Katsnelson’s pianissimos diminuendo to a whisper. But there’s no compromise in fullness of tone, resonance, or raw power. The recording, made in 2009 at the Steingraeber studio, could serve as a standard against which recorded reproduction of piano sound is measured. Intimate, as in a private music room, yet acoustically alive and vibrant, every subtlety of the instrument’s complex palette is captured and projected with amazing lifelike presence. It stands to reason, of course, that a piano manufacturing firm would design and engineer a perfect acoustic space in which to conduct painstaking measurements and tests of its products. This is the high-tech world of attaching scopes and computers to the sounding board and of analyzing streams of ones and zeros. In this case, it worked wonders.
All would be for naught, of course, if Katsnelson didn’t know his way around Bach, but he does. There are some performance idiosyncrasies, like the tendency to roll chords at cadences, that purists may find objectionable, but in general Katsnelson’s approach is not of the romantic persuasion. He avoids grand ritards and other sins of exaggerated point-making. He does, however, as noted, make full use of the piano’s dynamic range and sustaining power, which means that he crescendos and decrescendos and applies pedals where it makes musical sense to do so. The result is a transparency of voicing that allows every strand of Bach’s counterpoint to be heard with pellucid precision.
For lack of a better term, I’d describe Katsnelson’s tempos as temperate. Fast movements are set within sane ranges of the metronome’s upper regions, an indication that Katnelson is not interested in promoting himself as a virtuosic marvel at the expense of Bach. And slow movements are not pondered and pestered to the point of prostration, an indication that Katnelson does not approach Bach with an attitude of affected reverence that can come across as so much pious posturing. No, Katsnelson’s Bach is refreshingly straightforward and superbly executed. This gets a very strong recommendation.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
MERCURY MASTERS: THE MONO RECORDINGS
ELOQUENCE AUSTRALIA
CD
$177.90
Jun 16, 2023
Limited Edition · Original Jackets Collection. A tour de force of thrilling orchestral playing and brilliant audio engineering, Antal Dorati's mono recordings are collected for the first time. Newly remastered, this collection comprehensively documents a golden era in American classical recording and most of these vividly characterized recordings appear on CD for the first time. The Hungarian conductor Antal Dorati joined the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra as it's music director in 1949, and immediately began making it into one of the orchestral powerhouses of the post-war United States. Mercury began recording the ensemble in 1952 and continued to do so until his departure in 1960. Dorati's 51 albums (24 mono, 27 stereo) are a testament to what he achieved with the orchestra during his eleven years there. They reveal a musical personality centered on dynamism, intensity, and an exceptional ability to persuasively articulate rhythms. Eloquence presents the most complete ever reissue of the Dorati/Minneapolis legacy in two 'original jackets' boxes, faithfully representing the contents of the albums as they were first issued. New remastering made or supervised by Thomas Fine, son of Mercury's long-time chief engineer and producer, as well as original remastering for CD by Wilma Cozart Fine, bring this legacy to life as never before. Thomas Fine contributes a 'sessionography' to each box detailing the technical facets of the Mercury Living Presence recordings, and Dennis D. Rooney is the author of authoritative booklet notes surveying the history of the partnership on record as well as his personal memoirs of the period. The mono box begins with a blistering Firebird Suite of Stravinsky and ends with a contemporary Hungarian pairing of unrivalled idiomatic flair, brilliance (Kodaly's Peacock Variations) and lurid, controlled violence (Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin). Further highlights include the three Tchaikovsky ballets, in versions that quickly became gramophone classics and 'library choices' and stayed that way for decades. Particularly noteworthy is the first CD release of Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty recordings requested time and again for reissue. Dorati's feeling for dance is further underlined by more landmark Ballets Russes scores - Sacre, Petrouchka, Daphnis - and Viennese waltzes. The legendary 1812 Overture recording is reissued with the original 'Making Of' commentary by Deems Taylor. Taylor also narrates versions of Britten's Young Person's Guide and the Nutcracker Suite. Even rarer are the three musical stories originally released on Mercury's subsidiary 'Wing' label and narrated affectionately by Jerry Terheyden. 'Sonic spectacular' scores by Rimsky-Korsakov, Respighi and Richard Strauss leap from the speakers in Mercury's Living Presence sound, remarkably vivid even in mono. Dorati's firm sense of rhythm and form gives strong contours to symphonies from Mozart to Copland. The last two albums on the set are devoted to the two LPs Dorati recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As sequels to the Eloquence boxes dedicated to Kubelik in Chicago and Paray in Detroit, these Dorati collections comprehensively document a golden era in American classical recording.
Eberl: Piano Sonata Op. 27; Variations / Marie-luise Hinrichs
CPO
CD
$18.99
Feb 25, 2014
EBERL Piano Sonata in g, op. 27 . 12 Variations in D. 10 Variations in E? • Marie-Luise Hinrichs (pn) • CPO 7776052 (53:27)
Present-day appreciation of the music of the prolific Viennese composer Anton Eberl (1765–1807) probably lags behind our awareness of his friendship and musical association with Mozart, and, for a time, his public rivalry with Beethoven. Eberl’s Symphony in E? was favorably compared by at least one Vienna critic to the “Eroica,” which was composed around the same time, and premiered on the same concert.
Eberl’s Grand Sonata in G Minor, op. 27, was published in 1805, a few months prior to Beethoven’s “Waldstein,” and dedicated to Cherubini. It’s an ambitious work whose first movement sounds almost nothing like Mozart‘s keyboard music—though its key and dramatic mood show the influence of the 40th Symphony—and not essentially like Beethoven’s, though each movement’s large dimensions may reflect his influence. Rather, the sonata’s textures, which are thicker than Mozart’s, along with its frequent, quick changes between major and minor, and its overall lyrical impulse, remind me a great deal of Schubert’s early piano sonatas, which it predates, as well as the more harmonically experimental passages in some of Dussek’s. In fact, it’s a better piece than the sonatas that Schubert composed before 1817, operating on a grander scale, and holding consistent interest throughout its three movements. The second movement operates like an early Beethoven slow movement, with florid lines that look toward Weber. The work’s high quality is maintained in its third movement, a large form, one of whose motives echoes the Haydn B-Minor Sonata, but whose sweep looks forward to Mendelssohn, with a dose of Beethovenian humor at the close. This is not to say that the music feels derivative. Repeated hearing of the piece has increased my respect for it, and especially in the first movement, Eberl is a composer with something of emotional import to impart, in a voice that’s his own.
The Variations recorded here are a set of 12 in D, based on an appealing theme by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, the Arietta Freudin sanfter Herzenstriebe , and a set of 10 in E? based on a similarly good-natured theme by the Singspiel composer Ignaz Umlauf, Zu Steffen sprach im Traume , the latter set supposedly held in great esteem by Mozart, and attributed to him many early editions. Here Eberl’s assured keyboard writing might be mistaken for Beethoven’s in many of his early variation sets. Eberl’s variations stick close to the original themes. The music is cheerful, workmanlike, but not terribly interesting. (Come to think of it, that description fits most of Haydn’s keyboard variations, excepting the F-Minor set, the majority of Mozart’s, and Beethoven’s, before he began to experiment with thematic transformation.)
The advocacy of a pianist who plays as well as Marie-Luise Hinrichs is just what is needed to elevate a second-rank composer like Eberl into the category of one whose music should be heard. Her playing is flexible, sensitive, tasteful, and persuasive in every way. She has the ability to communicate warmth of feeling, and if there are other Eberl works that are on the same high level as the G-Minor Sonata, I would enjoy hearing her play them. There’s a 3-CD set of Eberl’s keyboard music that includes the G-Minor Sonata, played by John Khouri on Music and Arts, the recorded sound of whose fortepiano does the music no favors. CPO provides Hinrichs’s modern instrument with flattering sound.
FANFARE: Paul Orgel
Boccherini: String Quartets Op 32 No 3-6 /Quartetto Borciani
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Feb 01, 2002
This delightful disc presents absolutely first-rate performances of chamber music that deserves to be much better known. There are two reasons that Boccherini's music hasn't worn as well as Haydn's or Mozart's. First, his prevailing mode of gentle graciousness precludes the kind of emotional depth and drama that the two Viennese masters routinely write into their instrumental music. Second (and related to the first point), Boccherini writes marvelously varied expositions--witness the C major (Op. 32 No. 4) quartet's opening Allegro bizzarro--but uneventful developments. In short, his music isn't as well sustained or as purposeful as Haydn's or Mozart's, but it's also not as lengthy or ambitious, so within its given parameters there's some wonderful writing, and the Quartetto Borciani plays these quartets for all they're worth. In particular, they characterize the opening movements with as much gusto as the music can take. Even the initial Allegro comodo of the tepidly genial G minor quartet (Op. 32 No. 5) moves purposefully forward, while the same work's final Capriccio ad libitum captures the players (and the composer) in full fantastic flight. By contrast, slow movements are marvelously sustained and possess a genuinely Italianate singing tone--as in the heavenly and impressively large-scale Adagio from the D major quartet (Op. 32 No. 3). In sum, you won't easily hear a more persuasive case being made for this music, and Naxos' sonics are top-drawer. Come and explore! --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Dvořák: Der Jakobiner / Albrecht, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
Orfeo
CD
$48.99
Dec 08, 2004
REVIEW:
Orfeo's ongoing series of major Dvorák operas and choral works constitutes a genuinely important contribution to the history of recordings, and I hope that it will continue as successfully as it has to this point. There is no other way to get fully acceptable, modern performances of masterworks such as Vanda, or St. Ludmila, and this new recording of The Jacobin, the first in many decades, may be the best of all. There's no other opera quite like it. As a comedy with serious elements, you really would have to go back to Mozart to find anything similar, even though the rustic village setting and plot remain very different from anything that you would have found in an 18th-century setting.
The story is simple, but quite moving. Count Harasov has disowned his only son Bohus as a result of his pro-revolutionary (French) sympathies, which have been exaggerated and distorted by the presciently-named Adolf, the count's nephew and now his presumptive heir. With the death of his wife the count wishes to retire and leave Adolf in charge, along with his pompous henchman, the Burgomaster Filip, who has his sights set on the lively and luscious Terinka, daughter of the village music master Benda. Terinka wanted to marry Jirí, a young hothead and (not incidentally) Benda's prized tenor. Into this situation step Bohus and his French wife Julia, refugees who in fact have a price on their heads arising from their opposition to the atrocities committed in the name of the Revolution.
The ultimate reconciliation between father and son is the primary theme of the opera, but it also has important sub-themes: love of one's country, the love of Benda for his daughter, the conflict between generations, the triumph of egalitarian ideals, and everyone's love of music. It is in fact music, in the form of the dead countess' lullaby sung by Julia to the embittered count, that brings about the happy ending. There's also a brilliant set-piece rehearsal (at the beginning of Act 2) of a homage cantata composed by Benda. It's fabulous. All of the characters, save for the evil Adolph, are fully fleshed out human beings, and the music follows the twists and turns of the plot with the sure hand of a master. The distribution of voices also is very effective: Filip is a bass; the Count, Bohus, and Adolph are baritones; Jirí and Benda are tenors, while Julia and Terinka are sopranos. This makes for some wonderful ensemble writing both with and without the chorus. It is simply impossible to listen to this piece and not conclude that Dvorák was as fine a composer of opera as he was at just about everything else that he touched.
With only a single (but excellent) previous recording available on Supraphon, there's not much competition in this piece, but this newcomer is every bit as fine as its predecessor. Among the women, Andrea Danková's Julia stands out for her beautiful tone and the conviction she brings to her Act 3 confrontation with the count, also very well sung by Christoph Stephinger. Marcin Bronikowski brings virility and intelligence to his portrait of Bohus, and his singing (along with Danková) of the big Act 2 duet "We have wandered in foreign lands" is both moving and impassioned. Michal Lehotsky and Lívia Ághová make a lively pair of young lovers, and Peter Mikulás makes Filip sound aptly bombastic without hamming it up too much.
Gerd Albrecht leads the entire cast, choirs, and orchestra in as vital and persuasive an account of the score as did his counterpart on Supraphon, Jirí Pinkas, and he has much better sonics and the excellent Cologne Radio Orchestra at his disposal. The libretto includes a full English translation and excellent notes. The only problem I can see is that at three CDs, this is an expensive set. Lasting two and a half hours, the work just barely fits on two discs, which is how Supraphon presents it (the timings are virtually identical in comparison), but the quality of the results here justifies the premium price. After all, until the rest of the world wakes up to just how great this work is and starts producing it as often as we see Rusalka, we're not exactly spoiled for choice, and I feel confident that you will fall in love with the music and play it often. So go ahead: treat yourself. This is what recordings are for.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com (10/10)
The Wagner Edition
Opus Arte
DVD
$266.99
Nov 13, 2012
Presented here are all of Wagner's mature operas from seven leading European opera houses recorded during the last decade. Featuring many acclaimed Wagner singers of our age these productions exult in the force of Ezra Pound's dictum 'Great art is news that stays news'. The directors Harry Kupfer Nikolaus Lehnhoff David McVicar and others heed Wagner's own persuasive plea 'Children make it new' in staging's employing modern technology within grand designs that face up to the breadth of Wagner's dramatic genius and the social and political implications.
J.S. BACH: BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS BWV 1046-51
ALTO
CD
$12.99
Feb 22, 2019
Ledger has the advantage of fresh and detailed digital recording. He directs resilient, well-paced readings of all 6 concertos on modern instruments, lively, yet never over-forced. The slow movements in particular are most beautifully done, persuasively and without mannerism. Flutes rather than recorders are used in No.4. (Penguin Guide 3 stars) "I suggested this as the best of the budget-price CD versions - a commendation it now retains. All the soloists (listed inside) play with accuracy and sensitivity, Garcia earning an honourable mention for the fleet-fingered dispatch in Concerto No.4. There are many good things in this set, not least the expressively played slow movements" (Gramophone)
Elgar & Bruch: Violin Concertos / Pine, Litton, BBC Symphony
Avie Records
CD
$9.99
$19.99
Save 50%
Jan 05, 2018
Billboard chart-topping violinist Rachel Barton Pine releases her 36th album and fourth for AVIE with her first recordings of two repertory staples, violin concertos by Edward Elgar and Max Bruch. The two works – Elgar’s only concerto for violin and Bruch’s first – straddle the turn of the 20th century but have in common a Romantic hue which Rachel probes with her rich, soulful tone.
The album is dedicated to “the memory of a musical hero and generous friend, Sir Neville Marriner,” who was to have reunited with Rachel on this album. She was fortunate to work with him on the scores, with Sir Neville vividly relating accounts of his teacher Billy Reed, former leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, who collaborated with Elgar on the creation of his violin concerto. Grammy Award-winning conductor Andrew Litton brings his own Romantic pedigree to the recording, as does the BBC Symphony Orchestra and celebrated producer Andrew Keener who himself has overseen award winning versions of the Elgar and Bruch concertos.
-----
REVIEW:
Pine’s interpretation of the Elgar is as emotionally satisfying as it is dazzling. The slow movement is mysteriously veiled and luminous, providing a palpable sense of the music’s darker undercurrents. She is most impressive, perhaps, in the finale, where her easy virtuosity sends sparks flying, though never at the expense of the long line.
Her performance of the Bruch is wholly persuasive in its mittel-European heartiness. The outer movements abound with snap and spice, and the Adagio has a warm solemnity that, one might argue, offers a foretaste of Elgarian nobilmente. The recorded sound is glorious, with a near-ideal balance between soloist and orchestra.
– Gramophone
The album is dedicated to “the memory of a musical hero and generous friend, Sir Neville Marriner,” who was to have reunited with Rachel on this album. She was fortunate to work with him on the scores, with Sir Neville vividly relating accounts of his teacher Billy Reed, former leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, who collaborated with Elgar on the creation of his violin concerto. Grammy Award-winning conductor Andrew Litton brings his own Romantic pedigree to the recording, as does the BBC Symphony Orchestra and celebrated producer Andrew Keener who himself has overseen award winning versions of the Elgar and Bruch concertos.
-----
REVIEW:
Pine’s interpretation of the Elgar is as emotionally satisfying as it is dazzling. The slow movement is mysteriously veiled and luminous, providing a palpable sense of the music’s darker undercurrents. She is most impressive, perhaps, in the finale, where her easy virtuosity sends sparks flying, though never at the expense of the long line.
Her performance of the Bruch is wholly persuasive in its mittel-European heartiness. The outer movements abound with snap and spice, and the Adagio has a warm solemnity that, one might argue, offers a foretaste of Elgarian nobilmente. The recorded sound is glorious, with a near-ideal balance between soloist and orchestra.
– Gramophone
Beethoven: Symphonies, Vol. 1 / Uys, Schoeman
SOMM Recordings
CD
$15.99
$20.99
Save 25%
Jul 30, 2021
| SOMM Recordings announces the launch of a major six-volume series of Franz Xaver Scharwenka’s transcriptions of Beethoven Symphonies featuring the label debut of the Tessa Uys and Ben Schoeman Piano Duo. Formed in 2010, the Duo began their in-concert exploration of Scharwenka’s four-hand Beethoven transcriptions in 2015 and now bring that experience to disc for the first time. Volume 1 includes the premiere recording of Scharwenka’s piano duet transcription of Symphony No.3, the ever-popular Eroica, and Debussy’s two-piano arrangement of Robert Schumann’s Six Studies in Canonic Form. As Robert Matthew-Walker’s booklet notes reveal, Scharwenka had a direct line to Beethoven, having been taught by Franz Kullak, who was tutored by Carl Czerny whose own teacher, in turn, had been Beethoven himself. A composer of no mean stature in his own right, Scharwenka’s transcriptions were once widely admired, making masterpiece symphonies available to every home with a piano. Possessing, says Matthew-Walker, “significant qualities which are often overlooked today”, his Eroica transcription receives ardent, eloquently persuasive championing by Schoeman and Uys. Scharwenka wasn’t alone in exploiting new developments in piano technology. Robert Schumann’s Six Studies in Canonic Form made use of the then novel ‘pedal-piano’ (a standard piano with an additional bass pedal-board) even as he was looking back stylistically towards his idol, Bach. Debussy’s arrangement for two pianos adroitly accommodates Schumann’s original to “rescue this fine music from the obscurity of the pedal-piano repertoire.” Born in Cape Town and a Royal Academy of Music Associate, Tessa Uys has an impressive reputation as a concert and broadcasting performer, appearing at major venues throughout the world. Her multi-prize-winning South African compatriot Ben Schoeman also has a busy international profile and is currently a senior lecturer in piano and musicology at the University of Pretoria. |
BAROQUE BOHEMIA & BEYOND VIII (STAMIC RICHTER)
ALTO
CD
$11.01
Jun 11, 2021
[Myslivecek] "She is a charming, persuasive advocate... The ECO, too, offer fine support and with a range of tone colours, match de la Vega's recreative imagination. Pentatone has captured these performances in particularly clear sound... de la Vega offers the first recording of a Concerto in D by Myslivecek, one that displays the utmost craftsmanship and appeal... her fine performance renders it memorable" (Gramophone). [Richter etc] "authentic instrument ensemble The New Dutch Academy has an international reputation, formed of well-established early music specialists... string symphonies by the 18th Century 'Mannheim school' composers... Vibrant, energetic and wonderfully secure playing is supported by a sumptuous recording... yet there is no loss of detail in the fast music" (Gramophone)
Mozart: Divertimentos, Adagios & Fugues & Grande sestetto concertante / L'Archibudelli
Sony Masterworks
CD
$21.98
Jun 10, 2016
The two duos are, of course, the real thing. These readings are the first on original instruments to have come my way; and very persuasive they are too. So often in recordings of these works the violinist, usually an international virtuoso, is much the more assertive player, hardly encouraging his partner to shake off the violist's natural reticence. Here, though, Vera Beths and Jurgen Kussmaul are beautifully matched, enabling one to savour fully Mozart's wonderful ingenuity in overcoming the medium's potential monotony of texture. Listen, for instance, to the duo's raillery in the variation finale of K424, or in the first movement development of K423, with its sequences of arpeggios tossed gleefully between the voices (from 3'41"). These are essentially gentle, intimate readings, with generally leisurely tempos that allow room for much delicately expressive detail; and I enjoyed the touches of rhythmic flexibility in movements like the opening of K423 and the Andante of K424. Occasionally, as in the finale of K424, flexibility can verge on waywardness; and to my ears the coda theme of K423's Adagio (from 2'41") sounds halting and selfconscious rather than expressively intense, as the players presumably intended. But these are rare misjudgements. Beths and Kussmaul form a true, selfless partnership and are recorded in an intimate, natural acoustic.
– Gramophone [4/1992]
– Gramophone [4/1992]
Libera Nos - The Cry Of The Oppressed / Rees, Contrapunctus
Signum Classics
CD
$20.99
Aug 27, 2013
Coupling powerful interpretations with path-breaking scholarship, the choir Contrapunctus presents music by the best-known composers as well as unfamiliar masterpieces. Directed by Owen Rees, a specialist in music of the 16th and 17th centuries, the group presents imaginative programmes revealing previously undiscovered musical treasures and throwing new light on familiar works.
This recording explores the musical 'cries of the oppressed' from opposite ends of Europe, which include some of the most powerful works composed in England and Portugal during this period by Byrd, Tallis, de Monte and Cardoso. The highlight perhaps is the first recording of a newly reconstructed vocal work by Thomas Tallis, 'Libera nos'. This has long been thought to be an instrumental work, and has been recorded as such, but there's persuasive historical evidence for us to be confident that this is in fact a choral setting of the antiphon 'Libera nos', and it is performed here with the relevant text restored to the five vocal parts.
This recording explores the musical 'cries of the oppressed' from opposite ends of Europe, which include some of the most powerful works composed in England and Portugal during this period by Byrd, Tallis, de Monte and Cardoso. The highlight perhaps is the first recording of a newly reconstructed vocal work by Thomas Tallis, 'Libera nos'. This has long been thought to be an instrumental work, and has been recorded as such, but there's persuasive historical evidence for us to be confident that this is in fact a choral setting of the antiphon 'Libera nos', and it is performed here with the relevant text restored to the five vocal parts.
