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Brahms: Academic Festival Overture - Violin Concerto - Symph
Belvedere Edition · Sep 2018DVD$32.99 -
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Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 35, 39, 40 / Szell, Cleveland Orchestra
Sony Masterworks · Apr 2011CD$11.98 -
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Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-4, Paganini Rhapsody / Vondráček, Brauner, Prague Symphony
Supraphon · May 2023CD$35.99 -
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Thomas Jensen Legacy, Vol. 4 / Jensen, Danish National Symphony Orchestra
Danacord · Nov 2021CD$18.99 -
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Mahler: Symphony No. 3; Debussy: La Mer / Mitropoulos, Cologne Rso
ICA Classics · May 2011CD$26.99 -
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SaleProkofiev: Symphony No. 6 & Waltz Suite / Alsop, Sao Paulo Symphony
Naxos · Aug 2016CD$19.99$9.99 -
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SaleBruckner: Symphony No. 5 / Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic
Sony Masterworks · Sep 2022CD$11.98$5.99 -
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Tabakov: Complete Symphonies, Vol. 3 / Bulgarian National Radio Symphony
Toccata · Sep 2018CD$20.99 -
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Mahler: Symphony No. 1; Wagner: Faust Overture; Siegfried Idyll
Music and Arts Programs of America · Jul 2012CD$18.99 -
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture - Violin Concerto - Symph
Belvedere Edition
DVD
$32.99
Sep 14, 2018
The Cleveland Orchestra is the “aristocrat among American orchestras” (The Telegraph) and its sovereign, Franz Welser-Möst, rules his subjects with a velvet glove. Indeed, velvet and silk keep showing up in descriptions of the Clevelanders’ sound under its principal conductor. It is Welser-Möst’s nimble alternation between smoothness and a sound that’s as “sharp-edged as a skyscraper” (The Telegraph after the Brahms’ First at the orchestra’s London Proms concert). That keeps the ensemble and the audience figuratively on its toes. Brahms’ Fourth and last Symphony could be said to glow with autumnal colors. Endowed with a strong undercurrent of subdued melancholy, it seems to pine for an irretrievable past. Franz Welser-Möst offers a “lean, propulsive performance” (The Plain Dealer) of this work with his highly concentrated Cleveland Orchestra. The swift pace of the symphony in Welser-Möst’s hands reflects the conductor’s quest for a distinctive, far-from-the-mainstream interpretation. Written nearly contemporaneously in the late 1870s, Johannes Brahms’ rousing Academic Festival Overture and Violin Concerto op. 77 bear witness to a composer at the height of his abilities, a mature master of large-scale masterpieces. The Violin Concerto demands extreme technical proficiency. As if to exemplify this, violinist Julia Fischer gears herself from the very start of this emotionally searing work to maintaining a restrained yet passionate tone.
Symphony 8
Naxos
CD
$19.99
May 01, 2004
Diamond dedicated his Symphony No. 8 to his friend and mentor, composer Aaron Copland on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. The work was completed in November 1960 and received it's première with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic on 27th October, 1961. While essentially tonal in harmonic language, Diamond incorporated highly chromatic elements and even a twelve-note tone row, not unlike what the Symphony's dedicatee was doing during this same period in his Connotations, though Diamond's work is far less aggressively dissonant in overall sound. The composer provided these notes for the première performance: I. Moderato-Adagio-Allegro vivo. The basic row is proclaimed in the very opening bars of the introduction; it is in two halves. The first, a forceful rhythmic theme of five notes (4/4), is thundered out by the orchestra tutti. The second, a more lyric theme of seven notes (3/4), is sung softly by a single clarinet. Thematically, the second phrase is destined to be the more important; in fact, the row is immediately rearranged and presented by a solo horn, which starts with this second phrase in an even more lyric version, and concludes with a lyric transformation of the thundering five-note opening. The fast body of the movement, a free sonata-allegro structure, starts with a heavily syncopated version of the row as presented by the French horn. This is the principal theme; a contrasting second theme is presented at a more relaxed tempo by a solo clarinet, ben cantando, over a soft counterpart of strings. Both themes are developed, and return in very nearly their original form during the course of this long but highly concentrated movement. The conclusion is a stunning climax compounded of the essence of both themes. II. Theme (Adagio), Variations and Double Fugue. After a two-measure introduction, which turns into a sequential accompaniment, the first violins begin a high, flowing melody that is the theme (3/4). Soon the orchestral basses and cellos enter with this same melody, while the violins continue the forty-measure theme. Variation No. 1 is a canon, in which the violins lead and cellos follow with the same melody, always at a distance of one measure. There are seven variations in all, the last of which repeats a long section from No. 1, and then leads without pause into the lively double-fugue. The first principal theme of this is derived from the principal theme of the first movement. Other themes from the first movement make their appearance, too, as the Symphony moves on to it's climax and conclusion.
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos 1 & 4 / Kubelik
PENTATONE
SACD
$21.99
Sep 15, 2017
The latest release in the Remastered Classics series from PENTATONE is Rafael Kubelik’s sprited and acclaimed reading from the 1970s of Beethoven’s first and fourth symphonies, performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Delightful, infectious and witty, Beethoven’s first symphony is a paean to the classical symphonies of Haydn and Mozart shot through with very Beethovenian touches, such as the opening Adagio which starts in the wrong key and the final movement which struggles to get started at all. These peculiarities taken with the felicity and inventiveness of his writing make this a happy and evergreen work. Overshadowed by the monumental third and the dramatic fifth symphonies, Beethoven’s cheerful and optimistic fourth has been described as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” for its mix of engaging melodies, lurching rhythms, pungent dissonances and its vigorous orchestral writing. While structurally and harmonically more complex than the first symphony, it too is cast in the classical mould with a palpable nod to Haydn in the rousing final movement. Rafael Kubelik recorded his acclaimed cycle of Beethoven symphonies in the 1970s for Deutsche Grammophon, each with a different orchestra to dazzling effect. Although recorded in multi-channel sound, these unmissable performances have previously been available only in the conventional two-channel stereo format. Using state of the art technology which avoids the need for re-mixing, PENTATONE’s engineers have remastered the original studio tapes to bring the performances to life as originally intended: in compelling and pristine multi-channel sound. Further releases from this memorable cycle are planned this year in the Remastered Classics series: Symphonies 2 & 5 (October) and Symphonies 6, 7 & 8 (November).
Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 35, 39, 40 / Szell, Cleveland Orchestra
Sony Masterworks
CD
$11.98
Apr 05, 2011
Szell and his Clevelanders are shown at their finest here. The sparkling account of the Haffner is exhilarating, and the performance of the last symphon[y is] equally polished and strong. Yet there is a tranquil feeling to both Andantes that show Szell as a Mozartian of striking sensibility and finesse"
-- Penguin Guide [2003/4 Edition]
-- Penguin Guide [2003/4 Edition]
Haydn, J.: Symphonies, Vol. 4 - Nos. 55-69
Nimbus
CD
$37.99
Apr 01, 2005
Christopher Tyler Nickel's contemporary classical compositions pack a bracing and emotional punch. His award-winning works for the concert hall, stage and screen have been heard in over 160 countries by audiences in the tens of thousands. His experience as an oboist instills a confidence to compose with an exhilarating freedom to explore the vast expressive range of the instrument, from lyrical and plaintive to acerbic and brittle. The world-premiere recordings of these three concertos for oboe and it's lower-pitched siblings the oboe d'amore and bass oboe receive dazzling performances by Mary Lynch, principal oboe of the Seattle Symphony, and Harrison Linsey, oboist with the Washington D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra. Grammy Award-winning David Sabee, a tireless advocate of contemporary classical music, conducts the Seattle-based Northwest Sinfonia.
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-4, Paganini Rhapsody / Vondráček, Brauner, Prague Symphony
Supraphon
CD
$35.99
May 05, 2023
Lukáš Vondráček and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Scarcely do we encounter a connection between a musician and a composer so close, strong and energizing. When, at the age of 15, Vondráček was invited by Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Czech Philharmonic to perform Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 1, he had garnered international acclaim at numerous concerts and competitions. Just a year later, the pianist toured the USA and appeared at Carnegie Hall. At the age of 29, he triumphed at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels (2016), performing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3, conducted by Marin Alsop. Love at first listen, Rachmaninoff has become his flagship composer: “Besides affording the opportunity to showcase one’s technique, his music impresses by being contrastive and having an immense dynamic range ... What more could a person keen on tone color wish? It’s sheer beauty!”
Lukáš Vondráček has been invited to perform Rachmaninoff’s concertos by the most prominent orchestras and conductors worldwide. The present album is one of the few sweet fruits of the Covid pandemic, which cleared the soloist’s otherwise jam-packed diary and afforded him peaceful time for recording. The booklet contains an interview with Lukáš Vondráček, within which he provides an account of his ample experience of and great affinity to Rachmaninoff. Yet the most powerful confession is the recording itself, made with the superb Prague Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Tomáš Brauner, capturing performances rendering every detail, teeming with emotion, colour and contrast. Sheer beauty indeed! Rachmaninoff in Lukáš Vondráček’s hands. A lavish musical feast.
H. Andriessen: Symphonic Works, Vol. 4 / Porcelijn, Netherlands Symphony
CPO
CD
$18.99
Jun 23, 2017
Today Hendrik Andriessen is primarily known as the composer of some magnificent works for the organ, a few choral works mainly performed by amateur choirs, and some masses for the Roman Catholic service. In reality, Andriessen was for many decades a driving force in the Netherlands, as a versatile composer, a performing musician, a much loved teacher, the author of articles and books on music, the director of the Conservatories of Ultrecht and The Hague, and finally as a professor of musicology at the Catholic Univeristy in Nijmegen. Within a time span of some seventy years he has written a large oeuvre of instrumental and vocal works, from symphonies to songs, from masses to operas, from chamber music to organ works. The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra is the symphonic orchestra of the Province of Overijssel. This orchestra from Enschede performs with passionate dedication and virtuosity, and its broad, varied, and always exciting programs have earned it a firm place in this region and beyond. With its employmen tof historical instruments instead of modern ones in the performance of classical works, the ensemble has distinguished itself both in its immediate environment, throughout the Netherlands, and in foreign countries as a unique cultural ambassador on behalf of the Province of Overijssel.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
BR Klassik
CD
$19.99
Nov 15, 2019
A recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Ninth" is always a great event, especially because the symphony's final chorus, Schiller's "Ode to Joy", is understood around the world as a plea for peace and international understanding. It was no coincidence that the catchy melody to the text "Joy, beautiful spark of divinity" was chosen as the Hymn of the European Union. This recording of Beethoven's great choral symphony under the direction of Bernard Haitink and with excellent instrumental and vocal soloists is not only an outstanding interpretation of the work but also very much an event in itself -because these recordings document Haitink's last ever concerts with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Only a few months after his two Munich concerts on February 21 and 22, 2019, the great Dutch conductor -who celebrated his 90thbirthday on March 4 -announced the end of his career.
Thomas Jensen Legacy, Vol. 4 / Jensen, Danish National Symphony Orchestra
Danacord
CD
$18.99
Nov 19, 2021
Both in his native Denmark and around the world, Thomas Jensen became known for his uniquely authoritative interpretations of Carl Nielsen’s music. His postwar Decca and HMV studio recordings of the first two symphonies are inflected with unrivalled sweep and passion. They are coupled here with previously unpublished broadcasts of music by four Danish composers from the generation after Nielsen, including the brooding Largo which set the scene for Carl Th. Dreyer’s cinematic masterpiece, Ordet (The Word). Thomas Jensen studied at the Danish Conservatory of Music. Jensen led several Danish ensembles, including the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (from 1957) and the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra (then known as the Aarhus Civic Orchestra). In Aarhus he built the small orchestra up through broadcasts and tours within Denmark and later to Germany and the Netherlands. He also conducted the Tivoli Concert Hall Orchestra.
Mahler: Symphony No. 3; Debussy: La Mer / Mitropoulos, Cologne Rso
ICA Classics
CD
$26.99
May 31, 2011
The first official release of Mitropoulos’s mighty vision of Mahler’s Third.
This release is an extremely important one for admirers of Dimitri Mitropoulos. It contains, released officially for the first time, his only recording of the complete Mahler Third Symphony. There is another recording, made in New York in 1956 and that has just reappeared in a fascinating boxed set of Mahler performances by this conductor - reviewed by me recently. Unfortunately, that New York reading is compromised by cuts in the first and last movements and by some eccentrically fast speeds. As I said in commenting on that box, the New York performance shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand; however this Cologne performance surely gives us the best representation of Mitropoulos’s view of the symphony.
The Cologne performance is notable in several ways, one of which is the overall distinction of the interpretation. In addition it is the conductor’s very last performance: just two days later, while rehearsing the same symphony in Milan, Mitropoulos collapsed, felled by a massive heart attack, and died. But, it seems, we are even more fortunate to have this recording because, incredible though it seems, according to Michael Schwalb’s booklet note, the conductor actually suffered a heart attack during the performance of the first movement. There was a scheduled interval after that movement and Mitropoulos insisted on returning to the podium and completing the concert. This was news to me: in his authoritative biography, Priest of Music. The life of Dimitri Mitropoulos (1995) William R Trotter merely states that the conductor’s “physical state was so alarming” at the interval that he was begged to curtail the performance. If Mr Schwalb’s account is accurate it is truly amazing that a conductor could direct such a full-on performance of so taxing and lengthy a work under such circumstances.
No allowances need be made for Mitropoulos’s health when you listen to this performance for it carries all the hallmarks of his conducting, not least the intensity and energy that invariably marked his music making. William Trotter asserts that this Cologne performance is “much superior” to the New York reading. I’m not sure I entirely agree. There are flaws in the playing on both recordings – after all, these are both live readings – but it seems to me that the Cologne orchestra, though they give of their considerable best for Mitropoulos, can’t quite match the overall standard of the New Yorkers. That said, no one buying this set is going to feel seriously short changed by the quality of the playing, I think one can forgive fluffs and the inevitable technical shortcomings of a radio recording made over fifty years ago, when confronted by an interpretation of such intensity and one in which the conductor so evidently believes in the score.
One notices the greater sense of space in the Cologne performance right at the start where I calculate the beat in the great horn call at about 102 beats per minute – by contrast, the New York performance is at about 122 beats per minute. This sets the tone for a really gripping reading of the great first movement. One might quibble with the odd interpretative detail here and there but overall the vision that Mitropoulos has of the music is powerfully conveyed. I’d describe quite a lot of the music as sturdy in Mitropoulos’s hands – there’s never quite the hedonistic rush that one gets at times in Bernstein’s 1961 New York recording, still one of my favourites. But I found myself thoroughly convinced.
Though the many dramatic passages in the first movement make the full effect that you’d expect with this conductor he’s good too in the more delicate passages. In the second movement, where delicacy is called for to a much greater extent, I felt there were too many instances where the tempo either surges a little or is slowed momentarily. The effect is fussy and it rather marred my enjoyment. Much of III has a good, earthy feel but I was rather disappointed by the treatment of the nostalgic post horn passages, where I didn’t feel Mitropoulos gave the music sufficient space; these episodes sound rather perfunctory, almost as if the conductor found them embarrassing.
Lucretia West is a rich-toned, expressive soloist in IV. However, the exposed quiet passages for the brass find the players a little bit over-exposed. I felt that V was rather serious in tone, though the music is lively enough. I missed a touch of lightness but this may not be a problem for other listeners. ICA get something of a black mark for the layout of the discs, I’m afraid. The last three movements should follow each other seamlessly but, instead, you have to change discs for the finale. It would have been perfectly possible to have had La Mer and the first movement of the symphony on disc one with the remaining five movements of the symphony comfortably accommodated on disc two. The way the symphony is split by ICA is nothing short of crass.
Actually, the reading of the finale is the big disappointment for me. In the first place it starts off far too loud – mf, I’d guess. The start of the finale in the New York reading is much more subdued. The last time I heard this music was in a live performance at the Three Choirs Festival just a few days before auditioning this disc. There Susanna Mälkki and the Philharmonia achieved just the hushed intensity that this present performance lacks. In addition the tempo is too swift. I calculate that Mitropoulos takes the opening at about 56 beats per minute. Actually, that’s not much swifter than the pace in New York in 1956 – ca 51 bpm – but it feels fast. As the movement unfolds one feels there’s not quite the same gravity and mystery that one experiences in the very best accounts. And, for my money, the Cologne players, though they play well, aren’t in the same league as the New York Philharmonic or several other orchestras that have featured in recordings of this symphony. The booklet notes reveal that around this time Mitropoulos had agreed in principle to become chief conductor of this orchestra and one wonders how much he might have improved them, given time to work with them on an extended basis, if that appointment had ever come about.
So this account of the finale of the Third isn’t as spacious as I’d like. One might call the reading urgent – or, perhaps apply Tony Duggan’s description, elsewhere, of this conductor’s ‘edgy’ style.
This, then, is a flawed reading of Mahler’s Third but it’s still one that commands – nay, demands – attention for throughout the ninety-five minute span of the piece one constantly has the sense of a great conductor at work and nothing about this reading is routine.
The reading of La Mer is somewhat unconventional in that you will look in vain here for washes of impressionist colouring or for Mediterranean warmth. This is a taut, urgent and dramatic reading. Sometimes, as in the short, quicker passage in ‘De l’aube à midi sur la mer’ (from 4:22), the very urgency of Mitropoulos’s interpretation seems to have the orchestra audibly scrambling to keep up. At times, the end of this same movement being one example, the sound is rather fierce. In ‘Dialogue du vent et de la mer’ one feels that the wind blows rather fiercely and it’s something of a chill wind. Often, during the piece as a whole, one senses that the sea which Mitropoulos is depicting is pretty foam flecked. None of the foregoing should be interpreted as an implicit verdict that the interpretation is an unsatisfactory one. I find it bracing but it may startle some listeners used to the approach of other conductors.
At the end of the second disc we hear a few short remarks made by Mitropoulos during a rehearsal with this orchestra sometime in the 1950s. He speaks in German so I can’t tell you what he says but it’s evident from the orchestra’s reaction both before and after he speaks that he was highly regarded by them.
The recorded sound can be a bit boxy at times and the balances aren’t always ideal – the percussion is too prominent on several occasions. However, these are fifty-year-old recordings so one must make allowances. They’ve been transferred pretty well and there’s nothing to mar ones appreciation of the performances.
This is an important set and I’m thrilled in particular that ICA have brought about the first official release of Mitropoulos’s mighty vision of Mahler’s Third. This is an essential appendix to the Music & Arts box of New York performances and all admirers of this great conductor should snap it up as a matter of urgency.
-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International
This release is an extremely important one for admirers of Dimitri Mitropoulos. It contains, released officially for the first time, his only recording of the complete Mahler Third Symphony. There is another recording, made in New York in 1956 and that has just reappeared in a fascinating boxed set of Mahler performances by this conductor - reviewed by me recently. Unfortunately, that New York reading is compromised by cuts in the first and last movements and by some eccentrically fast speeds. As I said in commenting on that box, the New York performance shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand; however this Cologne performance surely gives us the best representation of Mitropoulos’s view of the symphony.
The Cologne performance is notable in several ways, one of which is the overall distinction of the interpretation. In addition it is the conductor’s very last performance: just two days later, while rehearsing the same symphony in Milan, Mitropoulos collapsed, felled by a massive heart attack, and died. But, it seems, we are even more fortunate to have this recording because, incredible though it seems, according to Michael Schwalb’s booklet note, the conductor actually suffered a heart attack during the performance of the first movement. There was a scheduled interval after that movement and Mitropoulos insisted on returning to the podium and completing the concert. This was news to me: in his authoritative biography, Priest of Music. The life of Dimitri Mitropoulos (1995) William R Trotter merely states that the conductor’s “physical state was so alarming” at the interval that he was begged to curtail the performance. If Mr Schwalb’s account is accurate it is truly amazing that a conductor could direct such a full-on performance of so taxing and lengthy a work under such circumstances.
No allowances need be made for Mitropoulos’s health when you listen to this performance for it carries all the hallmarks of his conducting, not least the intensity and energy that invariably marked his music making. William Trotter asserts that this Cologne performance is “much superior” to the New York reading. I’m not sure I entirely agree. There are flaws in the playing on both recordings – after all, these are both live readings – but it seems to me that the Cologne orchestra, though they give of their considerable best for Mitropoulos, can’t quite match the overall standard of the New Yorkers. That said, no one buying this set is going to feel seriously short changed by the quality of the playing, I think one can forgive fluffs and the inevitable technical shortcomings of a radio recording made over fifty years ago, when confronted by an interpretation of such intensity and one in which the conductor so evidently believes in the score.
One notices the greater sense of space in the Cologne performance right at the start where I calculate the beat in the great horn call at about 102 beats per minute – by contrast, the New York performance is at about 122 beats per minute. This sets the tone for a really gripping reading of the great first movement. One might quibble with the odd interpretative detail here and there but overall the vision that Mitropoulos has of the music is powerfully conveyed. I’d describe quite a lot of the music as sturdy in Mitropoulos’s hands – there’s never quite the hedonistic rush that one gets at times in Bernstein’s 1961 New York recording, still one of my favourites. But I found myself thoroughly convinced.
Though the many dramatic passages in the first movement make the full effect that you’d expect with this conductor he’s good too in the more delicate passages. In the second movement, where delicacy is called for to a much greater extent, I felt there were too many instances where the tempo either surges a little or is slowed momentarily. The effect is fussy and it rather marred my enjoyment. Much of III has a good, earthy feel but I was rather disappointed by the treatment of the nostalgic post horn passages, where I didn’t feel Mitropoulos gave the music sufficient space; these episodes sound rather perfunctory, almost as if the conductor found them embarrassing.
Lucretia West is a rich-toned, expressive soloist in IV. However, the exposed quiet passages for the brass find the players a little bit over-exposed. I felt that V was rather serious in tone, though the music is lively enough. I missed a touch of lightness but this may not be a problem for other listeners. ICA get something of a black mark for the layout of the discs, I’m afraid. The last three movements should follow each other seamlessly but, instead, you have to change discs for the finale. It would have been perfectly possible to have had La Mer and the first movement of the symphony on disc one with the remaining five movements of the symphony comfortably accommodated on disc two. The way the symphony is split by ICA is nothing short of crass.
Actually, the reading of the finale is the big disappointment for me. In the first place it starts off far too loud – mf, I’d guess. The start of the finale in the New York reading is much more subdued. The last time I heard this music was in a live performance at the Three Choirs Festival just a few days before auditioning this disc. There Susanna Mälkki and the Philharmonia achieved just the hushed intensity that this present performance lacks. In addition the tempo is too swift. I calculate that Mitropoulos takes the opening at about 56 beats per minute. Actually, that’s not much swifter than the pace in New York in 1956 – ca 51 bpm – but it feels fast. As the movement unfolds one feels there’s not quite the same gravity and mystery that one experiences in the very best accounts. And, for my money, the Cologne players, though they play well, aren’t in the same league as the New York Philharmonic or several other orchestras that have featured in recordings of this symphony. The booklet notes reveal that around this time Mitropoulos had agreed in principle to become chief conductor of this orchestra and one wonders how much he might have improved them, given time to work with them on an extended basis, if that appointment had ever come about.
So this account of the finale of the Third isn’t as spacious as I’d like. One might call the reading urgent – or, perhaps apply Tony Duggan’s description, elsewhere, of this conductor’s ‘edgy’ style.
This, then, is a flawed reading of Mahler’s Third but it’s still one that commands – nay, demands – attention for throughout the ninety-five minute span of the piece one constantly has the sense of a great conductor at work and nothing about this reading is routine.
The reading of La Mer is somewhat unconventional in that you will look in vain here for washes of impressionist colouring or for Mediterranean warmth. This is a taut, urgent and dramatic reading. Sometimes, as in the short, quicker passage in ‘De l’aube à midi sur la mer’ (from 4:22), the very urgency of Mitropoulos’s interpretation seems to have the orchestra audibly scrambling to keep up. At times, the end of this same movement being one example, the sound is rather fierce. In ‘Dialogue du vent et de la mer’ one feels that the wind blows rather fiercely and it’s something of a chill wind. Often, during the piece as a whole, one senses that the sea which Mitropoulos is depicting is pretty foam flecked. None of the foregoing should be interpreted as an implicit verdict that the interpretation is an unsatisfactory one. I find it bracing but it may startle some listeners used to the approach of other conductors.
At the end of the second disc we hear a few short remarks made by Mitropoulos during a rehearsal with this orchestra sometime in the 1950s. He speaks in German so I can’t tell you what he says but it’s evident from the orchestra’s reaction both before and after he speaks that he was highly regarded by them.
The recorded sound can be a bit boxy at times and the balances aren’t always ideal – the percussion is too prominent on several occasions. However, these are fifty-year-old recordings so one must make allowances. They’ve been transferred pretty well and there’s nothing to mar ones appreciation of the performances.
This is an important set and I’m thrilled in particular that ICA have brought about the first official release of Mitropoulos’s mighty vision of Mahler’s Third. This is an essential appendix to the Music & Arts box of New York performances and all admirers of this great conductor should snap it up as a matter of urgency.
-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 5; Beethoven / Leinsdorf
ICA Classics
DVD
$20.99
$26.99
Save 20%
Feb 28, 2012
Leinsdorf belatedly enters the select list of the greatest Tchaikovsky performances on record.
The previous Leinsdorf offering in this series had a very good-to-fine Schubert 9, an even finer Schumann 4 and a wonderful Wagner “Good Friday Music”. However much you enjoyed it, I should think that only those present in the Boston Symphony Hall on 15 April 1969 could be fully prepared for the impact of the present resuscitation.
The first pleasant surprise that the material is in colour, even if definition is not up to modern standards. The second is that Leinsdorf, who was usually seen – before and after 1969 – without a baton and said in a late interview that he felt freer to mould the music expressively with just his hands – marches on with a longish baton and seems accustomed to wielding it. Richard Dyer, whose eye-witness notes continue to be such a valuable feature of this series, makes no mention of this. It would be interesting to know more about Leinsdorf’s use and non-use of the baton.
But all this pales before the fact that this sometimes austere and pedantic conductor is on truly inspired and inspiring form, conducting with total involvement. This doesn’t mean that it’s all fast and loud: the Beethoven goes at a good but not excessive pace and there is plenty of expressive weight to the introduction. The wind phrases in the allegro are beautifully turned and the coda truly blazes.
Leinsdorf’s Beethoven is a known factor. If it wasn’t always this good, I suppose it doesn’t need a lot of imagination to see that, on the right day, it could be. But his Tchaikovsky?
Leinsdorf only recorded one Tchaikovsky Symphony commercially, the Sixth with the Los Angeles Philharmonic some years before his Boston appointment. I’ve never heard this, nor have I ever seen it spoken of with bated breath. Whereas the internet grapevine has been shouting excitedly about this Fifth ever since somebody posted an incomplete sound-only version, as Richard Dyer relates. I can well understand those internet commentators who say they’ll never listen to their other discs of the work now this is available, or one who actually heard it at the time and has been unable to find a performance to match it – not even Mravinsky – ever since.
On the face of it, Leinsdorf doesn’t “do” anything particular with the music. The introduction is brooding but also purposeful – he notes that it is “andante” not “adagio” and one senses a great latent power behind waiting to be unleashed. His “Allegro con anima” does not sidle in slowly, gaining speed later, he sets an up-front tempo straight away. It will sound very fast to some listeners. But this is his tempo, so the first crescendo is not accompanied by an accelerando and the hammering passages go at about the “normal” speed. Nor does he deviate from this tempo, except where Tchaikovsky actually requests a slower pace for the second subject. Leinsdorf plays this with great tenderness and free rubato, even risking some less precise ensemble. On paper, this might sound like one of Leinsdorf’s dogmatic demonstrations, and if he had subsequently taken the performance into the studio I fear it might have turned into just that. I must emphasize that here everything is white-hot and convinces as a free expression of emotions.
So, too, does the slow movement. The tempo is pretty steady but there is a sense of free-soaring passion which completely effaces any sense of the four-square. The waltz has an elegance which does not prevent exploitation of its darker moments while the finale carries all before it. The coda has an air of crude triumph presaging Mahler. Audience reaction is rightly rapturous and even Leinsdorf manages some smiles. It looks as though the Bostonians learnt to love Leinsdorf just as he was on his way out.
I haven’t ventured to compare this with other favourites. Once the initial impact has worn off I cannot believe that performance by such as Mravinsky or Markevich, which have provided inspiration to generations (and to me) can be wholly and eternally eclipsed. The case still remains for a cooler, more brooding approach, notably provided – in very primitive sound – by Landon Ronald. At the opposite extreme, the capacity of late Celibidache to bend your internal clock and suspend disbelief at his time-dilations is not to be dismissed either. What I am quite sure of is that Leinsdorf has belatedly entered the select list of the greatest Tchaikovsky performances on record.
Back to batonless Leinsdorf in black and white for the Mozart bonus. He puts on an incredibly autocratic face with black looks all round. Those used to modern Mozart will gasp at the fullness of the first attack, yet there is lilt as well as majesty, and delicacy later on, Leinsdorf shaping the music with crisp finger-movements.
An interesting filler, perhaps. But don’t miss the Tchaikovsky on any account.
-- Christopher Howell, MusicWeb International
LEINSDORF CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN AND TCHAIKOVSKY
Ludwig van Beethoven: Egmont, Op. 84: Overture
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Erich Leinsdorf, conductor
Recorded at Symphony Hall, Boston, 15 April 1969
Bonus:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Serenade No. 9 in D major, K. 320, "Posthorn": II. Menuetto: Allegretto
Recorded at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, 15 January 1963
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Enhanced Mono
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Booklet notes: English, French, German
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
The previous Leinsdorf offering in this series had a very good-to-fine Schubert 9, an even finer Schumann 4 and a wonderful Wagner “Good Friday Music”. However much you enjoyed it, I should think that only those present in the Boston Symphony Hall on 15 April 1969 could be fully prepared for the impact of the present resuscitation.
The first pleasant surprise that the material is in colour, even if definition is not up to modern standards. The second is that Leinsdorf, who was usually seen – before and after 1969 – without a baton and said in a late interview that he felt freer to mould the music expressively with just his hands – marches on with a longish baton and seems accustomed to wielding it. Richard Dyer, whose eye-witness notes continue to be such a valuable feature of this series, makes no mention of this. It would be interesting to know more about Leinsdorf’s use and non-use of the baton.
But all this pales before the fact that this sometimes austere and pedantic conductor is on truly inspired and inspiring form, conducting with total involvement. This doesn’t mean that it’s all fast and loud: the Beethoven goes at a good but not excessive pace and there is plenty of expressive weight to the introduction. The wind phrases in the allegro are beautifully turned and the coda truly blazes.
Leinsdorf’s Beethoven is a known factor. If it wasn’t always this good, I suppose it doesn’t need a lot of imagination to see that, on the right day, it could be. But his Tchaikovsky?
Leinsdorf only recorded one Tchaikovsky Symphony commercially, the Sixth with the Los Angeles Philharmonic some years before his Boston appointment. I’ve never heard this, nor have I ever seen it spoken of with bated breath. Whereas the internet grapevine has been shouting excitedly about this Fifth ever since somebody posted an incomplete sound-only version, as Richard Dyer relates. I can well understand those internet commentators who say they’ll never listen to their other discs of the work now this is available, or one who actually heard it at the time and has been unable to find a performance to match it – not even Mravinsky – ever since.
On the face of it, Leinsdorf doesn’t “do” anything particular with the music. The introduction is brooding but also purposeful – he notes that it is “andante” not “adagio” and one senses a great latent power behind waiting to be unleashed. His “Allegro con anima” does not sidle in slowly, gaining speed later, he sets an up-front tempo straight away. It will sound very fast to some listeners. But this is his tempo, so the first crescendo is not accompanied by an accelerando and the hammering passages go at about the “normal” speed. Nor does he deviate from this tempo, except where Tchaikovsky actually requests a slower pace for the second subject. Leinsdorf plays this with great tenderness and free rubato, even risking some less precise ensemble. On paper, this might sound like one of Leinsdorf’s dogmatic demonstrations, and if he had subsequently taken the performance into the studio I fear it might have turned into just that. I must emphasize that here everything is white-hot and convinces as a free expression of emotions.
So, too, does the slow movement. The tempo is pretty steady but there is a sense of free-soaring passion which completely effaces any sense of the four-square. The waltz has an elegance which does not prevent exploitation of its darker moments while the finale carries all before it. The coda has an air of crude triumph presaging Mahler. Audience reaction is rightly rapturous and even Leinsdorf manages some smiles. It looks as though the Bostonians learnt to love Leinsdorf just as he was on his way out.
I haven’t ventured to compare this with other favourites. Once the initial impact has worn off I cannot believe that performance by such as Mravinsky or Markevich, which have provided inspiration to generations (and to me) can be wholly and eternally eclipsed. The case still remains for a cooler, more brooding approach, notably provided – in very primitive sound – by Landon Ronald. At the opposite extreme, the capacity of late Celibidache to bend your internal clock and suspend disbelief at his time-dilations is not to be dismissed either. What I am quite sure of is that Leinsdorf has belatedly entered the select list of the greatest Tchaikovsky performances on record.
Back to batonless Leinsdorf in black and white for the Mozart bonus. He puts on an incredibly autocratic face with black looks all round. Those used to modern Mozart will gasp at the fullness of the first attack, yet there is lilt as well as majesty, and delicacy later on, Leinsdorf shaping the music with crisp finger-movements.
An interesting filler, perhaps. But don’t miss the Tchaikovsky on any account.
-- Christopher Howell, MusicWeb International
LEINSDORF CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN AND TCHAIKOVSKY
Ludwig van Beethoven: Egmont, Op. 84: Overture
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Erich Leinsdorf, conductor
Recorded at Symphony Hall, Boston, 15 April 1969
Bonus:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Serenade No. 9 in D major, K. 320, "Posthorn": II. Menuetto: Allegretto
Recorded at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, 15 January 1963
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: Enhanced Mono
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Menu language: English
Booklet notes: English, French, German
Running time: 57 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6 & Waltz Suite / Alsop, Sao Paulo Symphony
Naxos
CD
$9.99
$19.99
Save 50%
Aug 12, 2016
This fifth volume of the Prokofiev’s complete symphonies joins a series of acclaimed recordings from the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra with its principal conductor and music director Marin Alsop. Critics have warmly welcomed each release of this edition, from volume 1 with the Fifth Symphony from 2010, which “comes up trumps in a dramatic yet highly polished performance… an outstanding achievement” (BBC Music Magazine), to the “unfailingly good string playing, often more sensitively nuanced than that of her rivals…” (Gramophone) of volume 4’s Third Symphony.
REVIEWS:
Marin Alsop turns up with an excellent reading of the Sixth almost in spite of herself. Something in the work speaks, if not to her, then to the orchestra, which plays with fervor and intensity fully befitting the music and with considerable sensitivity to the many shades of darkness that Prokofiev here puts on display. Alsop seems more to be carried along with the music than to shape it—her overly fast finale, indeed, almost derails the movement’s effectiveness. But the performance as a whole turns out to be very successful indeed, with the gradations of Prokofiev’s anti-triumphalist writing coming through clearly and the sectional stability of the orchestra allowing the symphony’s many themes and unusual balances to emerge to fine effect. The reality must be that Alsop is responsible for shaping this very fine performance, but it almost feels as if the orchestra is playing without a conductor, with suppleness and sectional sensitivity that bring forth, all in all, a very impressive reading.
Alsop seems a stronger presence in the six-movement and altogether lighter Waltz Suite, in which Prokofiev recycled three pieces from Cinderella, two from War and Peace and one from an abandoned film project, Lermontov, into a half-hour suite that explores three-quarter time from a wide variety of angles and with numerous emotional high and low points. Again the orchestra delivers first-rate playing, and the result is a highly interesting juxtaposition of a 1945–47 symphony that is very serious indeed with a 1946–47 suite that remains determinedly on the frothy side.
– Infodad.com
Marin Alsop and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra continue their Prokofiev series for Naxos with his sixth symphony, written as an elegy for the victims of the second world war but condemned as anti-Soviet and banned in 1948, a year after its completion. Alsop and her players handle the great climactic moments with elan but the central threnody lacks the compassion of, for example, Sakari Oramo’s recording with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The vibrant Waltz Suite, however, really swings, with some stylish solo playing in all sections of the orchestra.
– Guardian
Shostakovich: Symphony No 11 / Petrenko, Royal Liverpool PO
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Mar 31, 2009
Billed as the start of a new complete Shostakovich symphony cycle, this initial entry holds a great deal of promise. The Eleventh Symphony has more the character of a film score than a traditional symphonic work: it thrives on atmosphere, color, and the repetition of simple tunes and motives rather than drama created by development and tonal contrast. Conductor Vasily Petrenko certainly understands this, whether in capturing the ghostly string timbres of the opening (reinforced by celesta on its many subsequent returns), in the crushing massacre sequence in the second movement, or in the splashy ending, with cymbals, bells, and tam-tam making cinematic contributions.
Petrenko's also very sensible in his handling of tempo. The first and third movements don't drag; the second and fourth have plenty of excitement with rhythms that never turn mechanical (as they have a tendency to do, what with so much militaristic march music). The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic plays very well, with distinguished contributions from all departments. My only quibble concerns the slightly backward positioning and lack of clarity afforded the timpanist, who carries much of the thematic substance of the first movement and presides over the massacre's percussion fusillades. Otherwise, this is pretty terrific on all counts. I recommend it accordingly, and look forward to the continuation of the cycle. [4/2/2009]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicssToday.com
Petrenko's also very sensible in his handling of tempo. The first and third movements don't drag; the second and fourth have plenty of excitement with rhythms that never turn mechanical (as they have a tendency to do, what with so much militaristic march music). The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic plays very well, with distinguished contributions from all departments. My only quibble concerns the slightly backward positioning and lack of clarity afforded the timpanist, who carries much of the thematic substance of the first movement and presides over the massacre's percussion fusillades. Otherwise, this is pretty terrific on all counts. I recommend it accordingly, and look forward to the continuation of the cycle. [4/2/2009]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicssToday.com
Lutoslawski: Concerto for Orchestra, Little Suite & Symphony
Alpha
CD
$20.99
Mar 25, 2016
Since 2015 young conductor Krzysztof Urbanski has been the principal guest conductor of one of Germany’s leading orchestras, the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg. He is also music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and principal guest conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. For this album, Urbanski conducts works of Lutoslawski. The tracklist includes his Concerto for Orchestra, Little Suite (Mala Suita), and Symphony No. 4. Lutoslawski was one of the great composers of the twentieth century. Like Stravinsky and Shostakovich, Lutoslawski reveled in the sound and textures of the full orchestra.
Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 / Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic
Sony Masterworks
CD
$5.99
$11.98
Save 50%
Sep 02, 2022
Sony presents the next installment of Christian Thielemann’s complete cycle of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic - the orchestra’s first Bruckner cycle under a single conductor.
The Vienna Philharmonic premiered four of Anton Bruckner’s nine symphonies, including No. 4 in 1881 and has enjoyed a unique relationship with the Austrian composer’s music since 1873. Christian Thielemann, Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival since 2013 and Music Director of the Bayreuth Festival, is his generation’s most esteemed interpreter of the Romantic Austro-German repertoire. In the midst of a mutually stimulating relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic, he conducted his first New Year’s Concert with the orchestra in 2019.
REVIEW:
From expectant pizzicatos and hallowed strings to the blazing brass at the finish, for eighty-two minutes Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic engage and illuminate us with this majestic, sonorous and deeply expressive account of the mighty Fifth (Nowak’s edition), captured during March last year in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein, resplendently and with focus within the generous acoustic.
It’s an eloquent and powerful performance, detailed, dynamic, as capable of cathedral hush and awe as being sonically magnificent in Heaven-reaching fortissimos, the latter avoiding coarseness and brass-heavy balances. Drama, too, in the way Thielemann adjusts tempos without losing the movements’ threads and invests such as a quiet bass line with significance.
-- Colin's Column
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 "Eroica", - Mendelssohn Symphony
Tafelmusik
CD
$14.99
$18.99
Save 20%
Oct 30, 2012
Tafelmusik presents Beethoven's landmark Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" - an heroic and monumental symphony originally dedicated to Napoleon - and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 "Italian." with historical performances Maestro Weil and his players may yet convince you that "Beethoven can sound as radical in 21st century as he must have in the 19th" (Gramophone).
Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 1-4
Coviello
CD
$32.99
Mar 25, 2014
• Karl-Heinz Steffens conducts the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz in the complete symphonies of Robert Schumann. Mr. Steffens, until 2007 Principal Clarinetist of the Berlin Philharmonic, has been Music Director of the Rheinland-Pfalz Staatsphilharmonie since the 2009/10 concert season. Complete on 2 SACD's.
Tabakov: Complete Symphonies, Vol. 3 / Bulgarian National Radio Symphony
Toccata
CD
$20.99
Sep 07, 2018
The Bulgarian Emil Tabakov (b. 1947) follows in the footsteps of such musicians as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, being active as both composer and conductor. Like Mahler, he prefers to write for large forces and now has ten symphonies to his name. Again like Mahler, Tabakov’s symphonies explore the darker side of the human spirit in epic scores as austere as they are powerful. Behind the plain title of Tabakov’s Concert Piece for Orchestra (1985) lurks an extraordinary explosion of violence and anger. The Fourth Symphony (1997) sandwiches a wild Bulgarian dance between two glacial slow movements, the second with an episode of Tchaikovskian lyricism at its centre; the finale is a dark, whirling moto perpetuo- a ride through hell. This is the third volume of a projected series of all ten Tabakov symphonies, most of them receiving their first recordings.
Still: Symphonies 2 & 3, Wood Notes / Jeter, Fort Smith Symphony
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Dec 13, 2011
Committed recordings of works by a “golden age” American finally coming into his own on disc.
3553320.az_STILL_Symphony_2.html
STILL Symphony No. 2, “Song of a New Race.” Symphony No. 3, “Sunday Symphony.” Wood Notes • John Jeter, cond; Fort Smith S • NAXOS 8.559676 (61:39)
With this disc, Naxos and the present performers conclude their three-CD series of William Grant Still’s symphonies, plus other orchestral works. I reviewed the second volume (Symphonies 4 and 5, and the Poem for Orchestra— Naxos 8.559603) for another publication, and was quite beguiled. I feel the same way this time around. This music is impossible not to like, and conductor John Jeter and his orchestra from Arkansas, the state in which the young composer spent part of his childhood, are effective advocates.
Wood Notes , a work from 1947 that is receiving its first recording here, is a suite of four movements: “Singing River,” “Autumn Night,” “Moon Dusk,” and “Whippoorwill’s Shoes.” The titles suggest that the music will be picturesque, and, in the best sense of the word, simple, and indeed it is. If there is such a thing as an American Pastoral school of composers, Still would be its dean. The Currier and Ives prints that have adorned the booklet covers in this series have been very appropriate, as they project an innocence that is also one of the strongest characteristics of Still’s music. Imagine Delius at his least Impressionistic, Dvo?ák at his least academic, and Jerome Kern at his most classical, and that might give you an idea of what Still’s music sounds like. (Nevertheless, Varèse was one of his teachers!)
The Second Symphony, premiered with great success by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1937, is “a vision of an integrated society.” In terms of form, this is a bit more ambitious than Wood Notes , but Still’s writing is so unpretentious, tuneful, and relaxed that one can’t help asking what makes this work more symphonic than the other. The mood is sometimes wistful and often hopeful, and Still, when he is not embracing the listener outright, is at least holding his hand, or throwing his arm around his shoulder. Not surprisingly, African-American elements, both traditional and more popular (jazzy), are prominent in this work.
The “Sunday Symphony” dates from 1958. Again, naming its movements will give the reader an idea of what the music sounds like: “Awakening,” “Prayer,” “Relaxation,” and “Day’s End and a New Beginning.” Only 18 minutes long, this symphony is as suitelike as its predecessor, every bit as ingratiating, and even more uncomplicated. Appropriately, “Prayer” is the longest movement, and it builds to a soulful climax. “Awakening” and “Relaxation” both chatter away companionably, and the last movement brings the symphony to its resolute and affirmative conclusion.
I don’t get the feeling that this music makes exorbitant demands on an orchestra. The Fort Smith Symphony, a lean-sounding ensemble in the manner of Howard Hanson’s Eastman-Rochester group, puts Still’s music across capably and with sympathy. (I would have liked to have heard Stokowski and the Philadelphians play the Second Symphony, though!)
It is tempting to call this music naive, but I think to do so would say more about our lack of innocence as listeners, than about any lack of sophistication on the part of William Grant Still.
FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle
------
For much of his life William Grant Still was invariably referred an army going into battle with a lovely central section describing t to as the “Dean of African-American Composers”. Though his music partakes of many African-American elements, it also demonstrates his varied training under Chadwick and Varese and the many years he spent writing music for jazz bands, radio, music and television. Today Still can be seen simply as one of that number of American nationalist composers who came to maturity between the wars.
In the late 1920s Still began a musical trilogy that would portray the African-American experience in the U.S.: Africa, a tone poem describing the original homeland; the Symphony No. 1 ( African-American) describing the years leading to the Emancipation Proclamation; and the Symphony No. 2 ( Song of a New Race) describing a future where African-Americans would take equal part in the destiny of their country.
The Symphony No. 2 is a major work, blending jazz, blues and gospel elements with a nationalist feeling akin to that of the Eastman School. All of the movements are relatively slow (cf. Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 3). The slow movement proper is the most beautiful and expressive, while the “moderately slow” finale shows Still’s great technical skill as he joins thematic elements of all four movements into an emotionally satisfying conclusion.
Wood Notes is a suite evocative of nature in the American South. Each of the four pieces begins with simple, almost trivial material, which Still then transforms into something far more poignant than one would have expected.
While numbered as the third, The Sunday Symphony was the last of Still’s five symphonies to be written. It describes the typical Sunday of a churchgoer (Still was quite devout) and while not as profound as the Symphony No. 2 it is equally sincere and more compact in expression. The opening movement is full of energy, somewhat reminiscent of Gershwin, but with modal elements and scoring reminiscent of the Big Bands. In the Prayer movement Still develops the main melody for English horn to a poetic coda in his best style. Relaxation is very simple, while the last movement alternates resolution worthy of wilight and the thoughts of the worshipper as he prepares for th e coming day.
The key to performing Still’s music is to concentrate on his obvious sincerity and technical ability, while not letting his tendency towards sentimentality to overwhelm all else. John Jeter realizes this and wisely brings out the positive elements, demonstrating complete control of his players (especially regarding rhythm) and deriving enthusiastic performances. The Fort Smith (Arkansas) Symphony has some troubles with ensemble, but the overall sound is lush, as much of the music requires. This disc completes the Naxos series of the Still symphonies. While there are other impressive recordings of the first two symphonies, Jeter faces no real competition with the last three, and the entire set can be recommended to all fans of American music.
-- William Kreindler , MusicWeb International
STILL Symphony No. 2, “Song of a New Race.” Symphony No. 3, “Sunday Symphony.” Wood Notes • John Jeter, cond; Fort Smith S • NAXOS 8.559676 (61:39)
With this disc, Naxos and the present performers conclude their three-CD series of William Grant Still’s symphonies, plus other orchestral works. I reviewed the second volume (Symphonies 4 and 5, and the Poem for Orchestra— Naxos 8.559603) for another publication, and was quite beguiled. I feel the same way this time around. This music is impossible not to like, and conductor John Jeter and his orchestra from Arkansas, the state in which the young composer spent part of his childhood, are effective advocates.
Wood Notes , a work from 1947 that is receiving its first recording here, is a suite of four movements: “Singing River,” “Autumn Night,” “Moon Dusk,” and “Whippoorwill’s Shoes.” The titles suggest that the music will be picturesque, and, in the best sense of the word, simple, and indeed it is. If there is such a thing as an American Pastoral school of composers, Still would be its dean. The Currier and Ives prints that have adorned the booklet covers in this series have been very appropriate, as they project an innocence that is also one of the strongest characteristics of Still’s music. Imagine Delius at his least Impressionistic, Dvo?ák at his least academic, and Jerome Kern at his most classical, and that might give you an idea of what Still’s music sounds like. (Nevertheless, Varèse was one of his teachers!)
The Second Symphony, premiered with great success by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1937, is “a vision of an integrated society.” In terms of form, this is a bit more ambitious than Wood Notes , but Still’s writing is so unpretentious, tuneful, and relaxed that one can’t help asking what makes this work more symphonic than the other. The mood is sometimes wistful and often hopeful, and Still, when he is not embracing the listener outright, is at least holding his hand, or throwing his arm around his shoulder. Not surprisingly, African-American elements, both traditional and more popular (jazzy), are prominent in this work.
The “Sunday Symphony” dates from 1958. Again, naming its movements will give the reader an idea of what the music sounds like: “Awakening,” “Prayer,” “Relaxation,” and “Day’s End and a New Beginning.” Only 18 minutes long, this symphony is as suitelike as its predecessor, every bit as ingratiating, and even more uncomplicated. Appropriately, “Prayer” is the longest movement, and it builds to a soulful climax. “Awakening” and “Relaxation” both chatter away companionably, and the last movement brings the symphony to its resolute and affirmative conclusion.
I don’t get the feeling that this music makes exorbitant demands on an orchestra. The Fort Smith Symphony, a lean-sounding ensemble in the manner of Howard Hanson’s Eastman-Rochester group, puts Still’s music across capably and with sympathy. (I would have liked to have heard Stokowski and the Philadelphians play the Second Symphony, though!)
It is tempting to call this music naive, but I think to do so would say more about our lack of innocence as listeners, than about any lack of sophistication on the part of William Grant Still.
FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle
------
For much of his life William Grant Still was invariably referred an army going into battle with a lovely central section describing t to as the “Dean of African-American Composers”. Though his music partakes of many African-American elements, it also demonstrates his varied training under Chadwick and Varese and the many years he spent writing music for jazz bands, radio, music and television. Today Still can be seen simply as one of that number of American nationalist composers who came to maturity between the wars.
In the late 1920s Still began a musical trilogy that would portray the African-American experience in the U.S.: Africa, a tone poem describing the original homeland; the Symphony No. 1 ( African-American) describing the years leading to the Emancipation Proclamation; and the Symphony No. 2 ( Song of a New Race) describing a future where African-Americans would take equal part in the destiny of their country.
The Symphony No. 2 is a major work, blending jazz, blues and gospel elements with a nationalist feeling akin to that of the Eastman School. All of the movements are relatively slow (cf. Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 3). The slow movement proper is the most beautiful and expressive, while the “moderately slow” finale shows Still’s great technical skill as he joins thematic elements of all four movements into an emotionally satisfying conclusion.
Wood Notes is a suite evocative of nature in the American South. Each of the four pieces begins with simple, almost trivial material, which Still then transforms into something far more poignant than one would have expected.
While numbered as the third, The Sunday Symphony was the last of Still’s five symphonies to be written. It describes the typical Sunday of a churchgoer (Still was quite devout) and while not as profound as the Symphony No. 2 it is equally sincere and more compact in expression. The opening movement is full of energy, somewhat reminiscent of Gershwin, but with modal elements and scoring reminiscent of the Big Bands. In the Prayer movement Still develops the main melody for English horn to a poetic coda in his best style. Relaxation is very simple, while the last movement alternates resolution worthy of wilight and the thoughts of the worshipper as he prepares for th e coming day.
The key to performing Still’s music is to concentrate on his obvious sincerity and technical ability, while not letting his tendency towards sentimentality to overwhelm all else. John Jeter realizes this and wisely brings out the positive elements, demonstrating complete control of his players (especially regarding rhythm) and deriving enthusiastic performances. The Fort Smith (Arkansas) Symphony has some troubles with ensemble, but the overall sound is lush, as much of the music requires. This disc completes the Naxos series of the Still symphonies. While there are other impressive recordings of the first two symphonies, Jeter faces no real competition with the last three, and the entire set can be recommended to all fans of American music.
-- William Kreindler , MusicWeb International
Mahler: Symphony No. 1; Wagner: Faust Overture; Siegfried Idyll
Music and Arts Programs of America
CD
$18.99
Jul 10, 2012
MAHLER Symphony No. 1. WAGNER Faust Overture . Siegfried Idyll • Bruno Walter, cond; NBC SO • MUSIC & ARTS 1241, mono (77:25) Live: New York 4/8/1939
This important release brings together Walter’s complete final concert from the series of five he did at NBC in 1939. The Faust Overture appeared in a previous Music & Arts Walter collection; otherwise I’m not aware of any previous CD release of the material. The sound is excellent: full-bodied with great clarity and immediacy (capturing many of Walter’s exhortations and strenuous vocalizations)—interestingly, Walter seemed to hold a minority (high) opinion of the notorious Studio 8H.
The Mahler is Walter’s earliest preserved performance of the work (indeed, the earliest by any conductor I’m aware of; Mitropoulos’s Minneapolis premiere recording dates from 1940). It is a reading of thrilling spontaneity, a combustible meeting of Walter’s totally idiomatic Mahler style with the distinctively bright, tightly focused expressive intensity of the NBC orchestra, which responds with total commitment. The first movement is lithe, supple, with a very flexible pulse; hear his impulsive pressing ahead in response to the music’s having modulated one key too far in the sharpward direction (E Major, Rehearsal 6 + 8). The beginning of the slow movement brings a real surprise: what sounds like Mahler’s original conception of solo cello doubling the customary bass in unison—an experiment Walter seems not to have repeated in any of his later extant performances. The finale is intensely dramatic, working to a dénouement of overwhelming emotional force and, ultimately, saturated splendor.
Other available Walter performances give a fascinating picture of the gradual transformation of his interpretation over the years: A live 1947 version with the LPO (Testament) is similar in conception to NBC: swift, light-toned, characterful, and spontaneous, but preserved in problematic sound. A Concertgebouw performance from the same year (Tahra r RCO Live) is sharp and pungent, with a memorably old-world string style. A 1950 performance with the Bavarian State Orchestra (Orfeo) is darker, smoother, less pointed; the 1954 NYPO studio recording weightier, straighter, more severe. By comparison, the final Columbia Symphony version (1961) represents very much an old man’s view—mellow, deliberate, soft-focused, and comparatively uninflected.
Walter conducts a memorable performance of Wagner’s Faust Overture, of seething intensity and swashbuckling drama, on a looser rein than Toscanini’s with the same orchestra two years later (Naxos). Siegfried Idyll was a great Walter specialty, and the NBC version is distinguished by its swift pacing, expressive freedom, and highly nuanced execution, with a pp conclusion of truly heart-stopping beauty. Again, comparisons are instructive: the 1935 studio recording with the VPO (Opus Kura) transparent, lean, surprisingly ascetic with very little string vibrato. A live Los Angeles PO performance from 1949 (Music & Arts) is similar in conception to NBC, but less refined, heavier in expression. Two NYP versions—the 1953 studio recording (United Archives) and a live one from 1957 (Music & Arts)—are more symphonically imposing, less intimate; the final Columbia Symphony recording (1959) slower, less flexible, of muted shades and a decidedly autumnal feeling.
All in all, a major new addition to the Walter discography, one that shows the conductor at his formidable best, and preserved in lifelike, vivid sound. Riches indeed!
FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy
