Search results: Search results
800 results
Products
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Price: Symphony No. 3 - The Mississippi River - Ethiopia's Shadow in America / Jeter, ORF VRSO
Naxos · Nov 2021CD$19.99 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
Gangi: Complete Music For 2 Guitars / Duo Pace Poli Cappelli
Brilliant Classics · Feb 2021CD$13.99 -
-
Rameau: Gavotte, Etc; Scarlatti, Mozart, Haydn / Robert Casadesus
Sony Masterworks · Aug 2007CD$17.99 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Penderecki: Horn & Violin Concertos, Etc / Kelemen, Vlatkovic, Dworzynski, LPO
LPO · Feb 2020CD$15.99 -
-
-
-
-
SaleMozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 / Steinbacher, Dodds, Lucerne Festival Strings
PENTATONE · Oct 2021CD$19.99$14.99 -
-
-
-
SaleHaydn: Symphonies No 57, 67, 68 / McGegan, Philharmonia Baroque
Philharmonia Baroque Productions · Sep 2015CD$19.99$9.99 -
Ariosti: Stockholm Sonatas Vol 3 / Georgi, Harris, Yamahiro Brinkmann, Kirkby
BIS · Dec 2008CD$21.99
Geminiani: Sonatas Vol 1 / Mosca, Pianca, Paronuzzi
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
Dalberg: The String Quartets / Nordic String Quartet
Nancy Dalberg (1881-1949) completed three string quartets, and they hold a place of their own among her compositions. No. 1 in D minor was the very first instrumental work that she presented at a public concert (1915). No. 2 in G minor, op. 14 (1922), was the first work that was published and played outside Denmark, while No. 3, op. 20 (1927), which is dedicated to her teacher, Carl Nielsen, was not published during her lifetime. The present release of the three quartets features two world premiere recordings. Nancy Dalberg is considered one of the first female composers in Denmark, and she was the first woman in Denmark to compose a symphony. This release sheds new light on one of the world’s finest female composers, who due to her lifetime never got the acknowledgement she deserved.
-----
REVIEW:
This is a genuinely exciting release, and not only for the devotee of Scandinavian music. These are string quartets of genuine quality, revealing a distinctive compositional voice, here in very fine performances and transparent recording. The music is serious, often very muscular, both strong and rewarding, tonal and assured.
Nancy Dalberg is not well-represented on record, though there is an interesting compilation from 1999 (Da Capo 8224138) which contains orchestral pieces, including Capriccio for orchestra, Scherzo for String Orchestra ,eight selected songs, Fantasy Piece for Violin and Piano, and a performance of String Quartet No. 2 by the esteemed Carl Nielsen Quartet. Interestingly, the second quartet is something of a staple for Nordic and—especially—Danish quartets, yet the other two, no less worthy, are here receiving world premiere recordings. The earlier performance has many delights, is generally swifter than the new, yet the Nordic Quartet lose nothing in urgency while being served by superior sound. The new recording has the extra merit of being heard in the context of the other two, and my preference is for the new one.
Nancy Dalberg’s output was relatively small, consisting largely of songs and these quartets. Her orchestral works, mentioned above, also included a symphony—the first written by a Danish woman. Contemporaries commented that her symphony had nothing specifically feminine about it (why should it?). It would be good to have a modern recording—a cursory search revealed no sign of one.
The First Quartet was performed privately—among the players was Carl Nielsen, her friend and teacher. It follows the usual four movements with a cheery scherzo in second place. A strong sense of rhythm is evident in all three faster movements. The cello-led Adagio is both dark and intense, despite its brevity. Though written when Dalberg was still Nielsen’s pupil, this is no prentice work but a significant contribution to the medium.
The more familiar Second Quartet is very spirited, more instantly attractive, but the slow movement, Andante con moto e cantabile, again in third place, touches many depths in stern elegance.
The final quartet is in only three movements and is musically the most advanced and tightly constructed. There is no slow movement, but an intensity of feeling and some sense of sadness is evident throughout. Instruments often appear in high pitches (most notably the cello) and there is confident handling of the most complex polyphonic forms.
Recording quality is as fine as we might expect from this source, and my recommendation is unreserved.
– MusicWeb International (Michael Wilkinson)
Latin Winds / Rundell, Heron / RNCM Wind Orchestra
From Spain to Mexico and Brazil, the RNCM Wind Orchestra, under the conductors Clark Rundell and Mark Heron, here celebrates the strong Latin tradition of wind bands in an exhilarating programme. The album prominently features works by one of the most iconic composers for winds, the Brazilian Villa-Lobos. Their liveliness, freely changing modalities, ease of flow, and likeable sonorities are a striking compositional signature, the unusual Concerto Grosso exploring a unique sound world with concertante discussion among the four wind soloists and the wind band. Also heard are the tender wind Adagio by Rodrigo and his arrangement for band of his first major symphonic work, Per la flor del lliri blau, which in dreamily evoking the age of mediaeval tales inspired his Concierto de Aranjuez. We are brought to Mexico with a stunning work by one of the country’s most popular composers, Carlos Chávez, celebrating a range of popular national genres: the march, waltz, and song.
Leonard Bernstein - A Total Embrace - The Composer
Kodály: Music For Cello Vol 2 / Kliegel, Preucil, Jandó
Grandes Pièces Symphoniques / Ian Tracey
The CD opens with a display piece which is much more than just display: the whole disc might well have been devised to demonstrate that there is much more to the great French organ tradition than just a mighty sound. Much of the music is quiet and reflective and the bravura works, like this Tournemire improvisation, have more to offer than glorious sound.
This is one of the improvisations which Tournemire recorded and which were subsequently transcribed by Duruflé. Tournemire insisted that improvisations could not and should not be recaptured but this Improvisation on the Te Deum is a fine piece, worthy of preservation. The CD notes attribute this work to L’Orgue mystique, a cycle of 51 pieces on Gregorian themes for the major festivals of the liturgical year but, whereas that work consists of improvisation-like pieces which Tournemire actually wrote down, the Te Deum improvisation was not written down until Duruflé’s labour of love in transcribing it 28 years later.
Duruflé’s transcription in Ian Tracey’s hands almost persuades one that one is hearing the actual process of improvisation, yet at the same time the playing is totally assured. The Liverpool organ may not be a Cavaillé-Coll, but it is a fine instrument.
Only careful listening identifies the plainsong tune of the Te Deum but that is part of the art of composing such pieces. Bach sometimes buries his chorale melodies fairly deeply in his preludes and Duruflé’s own music based on plainsong themes sometimes requires a deal of detective work. Try his Four motets on Gregorian themes, coupled with his own performance of his gorgeous, Fauré-inspired Requiem and his Mass Cum jubilo on Apex 2564 61139 2, a budget-price distillation of two Erato CDs which have long been in my collection.
The two short pieces by Bonnet which follow are fairly insubstantial but they make an excellent bridge between the display of the Tournemire and the Saint-Saëns improvisation, itself an exercise in virtuosity which receives a glorious free-wheeling performance from Tracey. There is very little Saint-Saëns organ music in the record catalogues; a performance like this reminds us that there is much more to him than The Carnival of the Animals, as I have pointed out in my recent review of two of his Piano Concertos. (Jean-Yves Thibaudet with the OSR under Charles Dutoit on Decca 475 8764).
The title of Franck’s Grande Pièce Symphonique, which is used as the generic name of the CD as a whole, implies employment of the big guns but, in fact, the dominant mood of this piece is restrained, with frequent markings of dolce, pp and even ppp. The opening andante serioso is subdued and reflective: Tracey captures the serioso mood here as well as the mood of the succeeding allegro section, faster but still no troppo e maestoso. The notes in the booklet compare the opening section to a processional but I was put more in mind of a hushed and expectant congregation awaiting the start of Vespers.
In the quiet and reflective andante opening of the second movement, too, the image conjured up is of the preparation for an important service – a role which Tracey, in his capacity at Liverpool Cathedral, will have performed many times. He captures all these quiet passages extremely effectively, especially in those sections marked cantando, and the recording registers every detail, with individual manual- and pedal-parts coming over very clearly. The Liverpool reverberation is kept to a minimum.
The finale also opens pp, but with a hint of a storm to come. When those bigger guns finally arrive, in the wonderful fugue and the concluding outburst of joy, they are all the more effective for having been kept so long in reserve – and for Franck’s retaining a considerable degree of restraint even when they do fire. This is certainly not a showpiece for the sake of mere show and Tracey shows admirable restraint where a lesser organist might well have gone overboard. These grander moments are also very well captured by the engineers, even in normal stereo. One is again aware of the resonance of the building without its ever interfering with the clarity of the recording.
Those seeking to expand their knowledge of Franck’s organ music will inevitably reduplicate the Grande pièce, albeit at bargain price and on French organs. Either Jennifer Bate on the Beauvais organ (Regis RRC2054) or Marie-Claire Alain on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Caen (Apex 2564 61428 2) will do very nicely. Both are 2-CD sets selling for around £9 in the UK.
The Gigout Scherzo provides a lighter, capricious moment before the Widor: delicacy of touch is paramount here and this Tracey very ably provides.
The Widor Symphony is not the one with the Toccata: that is No.5, already recorded in full by Tracey on CHAN9271. Listeners may welcome the chance to get away from that ubiquitous piece and at the same time hear another of his symphonies in its entirety: the Fourth Symphony is as good a piece as any to choose. Don’t expect these works, despite their title, to sound too symphonic: they are more like a suite than a symphony. Again Tracey’s chief rival in this work is Marie-Claire Alain’s authoritative account on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint Germain (Warner Elatus 2564 60341 2, at mid-price).
Franck left his big guns till the end of his Grande Pièce; the Widor Symphony does the opposite, starting with a fff marking at the beginning of the opening Toccata. This is a big movement – by definition a Toccata is designed to show off the player’s expertise in ‘touching’ the keys. (From Italian toccare, to touch.) Tracey makes the Toccata sound big without being entirely overwhelming and without setting off too much reverberation: if anything, I might have wanted him to sound just a little more ferocious. The Fugue begins quietly with the 16’ pedal tone which the score calls for held in restraint; the effect is ethereal.
The third movement, marked dolce, opens even more ethereally, with the pp organ barely audible. This is the best-known movement, often played as a separate piece. The booklet compares it to Daquin’s Noëls but, having recently reviewed an excellent Hyperion Helios reissue of the Noëls (CDH 55319) I have to say that the relationship is a distant one apart from the cantabile nature of the music, excellently captured by Tracey. The central section, written in four staves – i.e. with two sets of pedal parts – is fiendishly difficult but Tracey, with art that conceals art, makes it sound effortless.
The Scherzo and Adagio are again gentle movements, the pp opening of each setting the tone. The mood of the Adagio anticipates that of Fauré’s Requiem by twenty-one years. Tracey’s nimble playing in the Scherzo, his lighter touch in the Adagio and the recording are once more absolutely first class.
It is a mark of a fine recording not only that it captures the loudest moments without distortion but that it makes an equally good job of registering music on the threshold of hearing. The Chandos engineers score in both respects on this CD – just don’t try to play it in the car: the volume required for the quieter movements to register would place you in the head-bangers’ league in the louder movements.
The Finale begins fff, a marking which recurs at several points in the movement. The big guns are unleashed at the start but Widor is careful again not to make the effect too overwhelming and Tracey’s playing contributes to the comparative restraint, especially in the central part of this movement. The closing bars bring a confident conclusion to the work, confidently executed.
I have already indicated that the recording is first-class even in stereo. In SACD surround-format I am sure that the ambience of Liverpool Cathedral is perfectly captured, albeit without too much of the reverberation of this building.
I’m going for broke and nominating this my Recording of the Month. I cannot imagine a better place to start to get to know the French organ repertoire – unless it should be one of Ian Tracey’s other recordings in this series. Lovers of the genre should place their orders at once.
-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International
Mozart: Piano Works / Leonhardt
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was famous from an early age as a pianist, utilizing the sophisticated Viennese instruments that were developed from the 1770's by builders such as Anton Walter and Andreas Stein. On this companion album to MO0409, distinguished fortepianist, Trudelies Leonhardt, presents another programme of Mozart's solo sonatas from Salzburg, Mannheim and Vienna, as well as the Rondo in D major, K. 485 and the sublime Adagio in B minor, K. 540. Leonhardt performs ona fortepiano built by Paul McNulty, a replica of an instrument by Mozart's favorite maker, Anton Walter.
Shostakovich: Works Unveiled / Nicolas Stavy
This release is the fruit of the French pianist Nicolas Stavy’s efforts to uncover unknown works by Dmitri Shostakovich. Spanning some fifty years of the composer’s career, these rarities include early piano pieces influenced by Chopin and the fragment of an unfinished violin sonata, but is bookended by arrangements of symphonic music, by Shostakovich himself and by Mahler, a constant influence.
The album opens with the most substantial work on the disc, Shostakovich’s arrangement of his late, great Fourteenth Symphony (1969) for soprano, bass, string orchestra and percussion. With texts by poets including Guillaume Apollinaire, Federico García Lorca and Rainer Maria Rilke, the work evokes death, reaching great emotional depths. Rather than ‘just’ making a piano transcription for rehearsal purposes, Shostakovich included a percussion part as well as one for celesta, in order to reproduce sounds that would be impossible to imitate on the piano alone. This is followed by the substantial fragment of a sonata for violin and piano dated 1945 and four short piano pieces composed around 1917-1919, which reveal a very young composer and demonstrate his surprising individuality and maturity. The final work on the disc is an arrangement of the opening 95 bars of Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony which Shostakovich probably made during the 1920s for personal study purposes and to demonstrate the work to his fellow members in one of Leningrad’s two Mahler Societies. In Shostakovich’s transcription for piano four hands, Stavy is joined by Cédric Tiberghien.
REVIEW:
Nicolas Stavy’s painstaking trawl through the Shostakovich Archives has brought together some completely unknown works from the composer’s vast output with a major masterpiece recorded for the first time in a completely different guise. Admittedly, not everything here is of the highest quality. For instance, the earliest music, a collection of four short piano pieces composed during Shostakovich’s teenage years, is fluent but largely derivative.
Yet the rest of the album has much to offer. From the 1920s, we get a deftly scored arrangement of the first 95 bars to the Adagio of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony for piano duet, which is beautifully performed by Stavy and Cédric Tiberghien. Another tantalisingly brief fragment is the large-scale opening section of an unfinished Violin Sonata dating from 1945 which is given a powerfully committed performance by Stavy and Sueye Park.
However, the most substantial discovery is undoubtedly the composer’s reduction for piano and percussion of the orchestral score to his 14th Symphony. Whether or not Shostakovich conceived this arrangement as a viable performing alternative to the original, rather than a useful vehicle for helping the vocal soloists learn their parts, its intimate scoring works particularly effectively in the more reflective settings such as the opening ‘De profundis’, ‘O Delvig, Delvig!’ and ‘The Poet’s Death’. Elsewhere, despite Stavy’s phenomenal mastery of the enormously tricky piano writing, I miss some of the cut and thrust of Shostakovich’s pungent string writing, especially in the frenzied musical argument of ‘Loreley’ and in the furious outburst of anger unleashed at the end of ‘The Zaporozhian Cossacks’ Answer to the Sultan of Constantinople’.
-- BBC Music Magazine
Price: Symphony No. 3 - The Mississippi River - Ethiopia's Shadow in America / Jeter, ORF VRSO
Naxos continues its exploration of Florence Price’s unjustly neglected orchestral works with this latest album, which includes Symphony No. 3. The ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Price advocate, John Jeter, who received widespread praise for his album of Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 (8.559827), released in January 2019.
REVIEW:
Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3 (1940) may be her finest. Written in four well-proportioned movements, it begins with music of high seriousness—a slow introduction that sounds like the Adagio of Bruckner’s Seventh meets the Blues—and never looks back. The ensuring Andante is extremely beautiful, and in place of the usual scherzo Price gives us her customary “Juba,” a dance-like fantasy full of captivating sonorities, sultry melodies, and gently offbeat rhythms. As in the Fourth Symphony, Price calls the finale the actual Scherzo, offering her own imaginative slant on traditional symphonic form. It’s worth pointing out that as a graguate (with honors) from the New England Conservatory, Price was about as well trained as any American composer of her day, and entirely apart from the music’s characteristically personal expressive elements, her technical sophistication as a writer for the orchestra really shows. This is good stuff.
The Mississippi River, sometimes called a “suite,” is actually a tone poem containing nearly half an hour of continuous music. Price quotes American folk tunes and Negro spirituals (Get Along Little Doggies, Deep River, etc) as the river wends its way from north to south, but what impresses most is how well sustained the musical argument is, and how effectively this lengthy and colorful piece cheats the clock. Really, there’s no excuse for this music not being programmed regularly in American orchestra concerts. Finally, Ethiopia’s Shadow in America is a brief triptych tracing the arrival of the Black man to American as a slave, his resignation and faith, and finally, hopefully, his ultimate assimilation into American society in a fusion of African and “acquired impulses.” The work offers a useful commentary on the role of the individual in society in these racially polarized times.
John Jeter has already turned in very good performances of Price’s First and Fourth Symphonies with his own orchestra in Arkansas, but these recordings with the full-time ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra are both better played and better recorded. Price was an important and worthy voice in American classical music, quite apart from the challenges she faced as an African-American woman. Getting to know her is a genuine treat.
-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)
Mancinelli: Scene Veneziane / La Vecchia, Rome Symphony Orchestra
Scene veneziane supposedly also dates from 1877, but wasn’t performed until 1889. I have my doubts about the alleged date of composition, for even if correct the work reveals an amazingly advanced orchestral technique as compared to Cleopatra. The very opening strikingly anticipates the start of Respighi’s Three Botticelli Pictures of some 50 years later (1927), and timbral nuances such as using the harp as a melody instrument, doubling the winds, reveal Mancinelli as a highly sophisticated composer. The work tells a love story, beginning with a brilliant carnival and continuing with such moments as a declaration of love, a gondola ride, and concluding ceremonial music (amazingly like a Bruckner adagio) leading to a joyful dance. It’s great fun, and a real find.
Francesco La Vecchia, as usual in this series, leads a vivacious performance, perhaps a bit roughly played in spots by the Rome Symphony’s brass, but exciting and enjoyable nonetheless. The sonics are brightly lit and have a bit too much of the “empty hall” effect, but are in all other respects perfectly adequate. A very enjoyable disc from a composer who achieved quite a bit, and deserves a hearing.
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
--------
Even the most casual of Fanfare readers cannot fail to note the regularity with which even its most experienced contributors encounter composers they’ve never heard of before, many of them worthy of far more respect and recognition than they commonly get. Such a case faces this writer once again—an Italian by the name of Luigi Mancinelli. Discounting a couple of songs buried in large anthologies, the only previous Mancinelli music to be found in the Fanfare Archive was published 22 years ago, when David Johnson reviewed the complete incidental music to Cleopatra and the Romantic Overture (14:6).
Mancinelli is better known to posterity as a conductor than as a composer, including many years at Covent Garden and the Met, but he did leave a fairly substantial catalog of works that includes several operas. Johnson was not much taken with Mancinelli’s music, fairly damning it with faint praise, but I beg to differ. The opening bars of the Scene veneziane suggest nothing less than the Respighi of The Birds or The Pines of Rome —bright, sparkling sounds of a master orchestrator. Elsewhere we hear a grand, stately, and well-developed theme that could well have been a passage from an Elgar score marked with his trademark Nobilmente . Other moments have the touch of Glazunov. I have avoided mentioning Mancinelli’s dates (1845-1921) until now because the irony is that he preceded all the composers whose names I’ve just dropped. Also, as Johnson noted, Mancinelli, like Toscanini (also Italian), “began his musical life as a cellist and got his first big break by substituting at the podium for an indisposed conductor at a performance of Aida. ” Again, Mancinelli did not follow in Toscanini’s footsteps, but rather preceded the more famous maestro.
The present CD is billed as the world premiere recording of the complete Scene veneziane (Venetian Scenes, 1877). The five scenes, totaling 36 minutes, include the opening portrayal of a carnival; a love scene characterized by delicately intertwining woodwinds and a glowing, lyrical theme; the merry scurrying as indicated by the title “Flight of the Lovers to Chioggia” (again we find an anticipation of a later composer, here the Prokofiev of Romeo and Juliet ); an evocative gondola ride; and the final 13-minute scene depicting the processional wedding music, a return to the love scene and a rousing conclusion.
The Overture and “Battle of Actium” are two of the six symphonic interludes Mancinelli composed for a production of Pietro Cossa’s Cleopatra (also in 1877). The program notes describe the 10-minute Overture as “a fitting prelude to a tale of love, orgiastic excesses and the violence of war,” an assessment with which I fully concur. It has its share of bombast but also some stirring tunes; Wagner’s Rienzi might have served as its model. At 12 minutes, the “Battle of Actium” stands as a tone poem in its own right, a vivid depiction of that famous navel encounter complete with evocations of the sea, approaching rival fleets, the confusion of battle, and the love music that accompanies the flight of Anthony and Cleopatra. Through its use of recurring motifs, structural integrity and inspired orchestration, it is at least as good as most of Liszt’s tone poems.
Marta Marullo provides a fairly extensive biography of the composer as well as good, detailed program notes about the music in the inlay booklet, which is unfortunately rendered almost unreadable by the dense, tiny print. The Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma is a fine ensemble, conducted with verve and sensitivity by Francesco la Vecchia. If you need an obscure new composer in your life, I can heartily recommend Luigi Mancinelli.
FANFARE: Robert Markow
Beethoven for Harp
Gangi: Complete Music For 2 Guitars / Duo Pace Poli Cappelli
Mario Gangi (1923-2010) was among the pre-eminent Italian guitarists of his generation. Born in Rome to a professional jazz-musician father, Gangi graduated from the city’s Accademia della Santa Cecilia and soon followed in his father’s footsteps as both an orchestral bassist (with the local radio orchestra) and a guitarist. This latter career took off in the 50s: Gangi gave several important first performances of concertos by the likes of Petrassi and even the 19th-century Giuliani. His teaching method became an essential study for young guitarists, and he edited the music of Sor, Tarrega and J.S. Bach for modern guitar editions. With this recording, the Duo Pace Poli Cappelli present Gangi’s music for two guitars, comprising a trio of suites – the Suite Italiana, the Suite Spagnola and Suite Barocca – and a pair of standalone rhapsodies in a more contemporary idiom, the Fantas and Fabulae. The three suites evoke their titled points of inspiration. An Andalusa, Fandango and Sevillana capture the idiom of Spanish folk-music; a Saltarello, Adagio and whirling Tarantella present musical snapshots of Italy; and the Minuet and Gigue of the Suite Barocca return to the courtly world of the 18th century without parody. The Fantas and Fabulae plough a more modern furrow: still essentially lyrical in style, rhapsodic in form but more flecked with dissonance and less dependent than the suites on the specifics of a national idiom. The influence of modern popular styles imbues the Fantas in particular with sunshine and contemporary energy.
NORMA (1960)
Rameau: Gavotte, Etc; Scarlatti, Mozart, Haydn / Robert Casadesus
The second half of the recital jumps ahead to the Classical Period, and to the early 60s sonically speaking. The Haydn sonata sports an especially lovely central Adagio, and Casadesus catches its simple eloquence without a trace of affectation. He also takes Haydn at his word in the dazzling Presto finale, playing with a breezy velocity that enhances the music's good-humored sense of fun. The Mozart quintet unites Casadesus with some distinguished partners, including John de Lancie (oboe) and Mason Jones (horn). It's a sincere compliment to say that they play the music like Poulenc: in other words, the performance has pungent wit, urbanity, and a nicely modern, "sec" quality that perfectly marries classical poise with surprising touches of sentiment (in the last two movement particularly). Sony France's ongoing tribute to Casadesus has come up with another intelligently planned, essential installment.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Franck and Fauré Piano Quintets
Mannelli: Trio Sonatas, Op. 3
The forgotten art of a 17th-century Roman master, in the hands of a dynamic period ensemble with a string of acclaimed rarity albums to their credit.
The Baroque trio-sonata repertoire still yields up plenty of undiscovered treasure lying in libraries across Italy. The Ensemble Giardino di Delizie has been diving into it and coming up with polished gems on Brilliant Classics by Stradella (96079), Colista (96033) and Lonati (95590). Like Colista, Carlo Mannelli (1640-1697) was Roman by birth and training. He sang and played the violin for ensembles at both church and court, and was permitted to dedicate his Op.2 collection to Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj. Perhaps it was the patronage of this influential family that opened doors to his training with Michelangelo Rossi, and to distinguished musical societies in Rome. Another noble Roman family was the recipient of Mannelli’s Op.3 collection of trio sonatas, with its dedication to Prince Domenico Rospigliosi. Much of the composer’s output is now lost, and we can only surmise at the riches deprived to us by time, given the fresh melodic invention of what survives here. Compared to Stradella and co, Mannelli cuts an eccentric, highly individual figure, musically speaking, and he has no interest in the orderliness of Corelli. The arrangement of slow and fast movements is unpredictable: the four-movement No. 10 begins with three separate Adagios! The six-movement No.9 cuts a sequence of four slow movements in half with a fugue, and so on. Three of the twelve sonatas feature a ravishing aria for the violin, who takes on a soloist’s role. When Mannelli writes quick music, he pushes his musicians to the limits, as in the finale of the First Sonata. Counterpoint is subordinate to the kind of highly elaborate violin writing at which Ewa Anna Augustynowicz has already shown herself to excel in previous albums, making this new recording an essential acquisition for Baroque-music aficionados. Carlo Mannelli (Rome, 1640-1697) spent the major part of his life in Rome where he also worked during the opera performances and religious events. As a violinist nicknamed Carlo del Violino and Carluccio di Pamfili, he played the first violin in the most famous Roman musical ensembles of the period. Arcangelo Corelli, who often played under Mannelli, described him as one of his most influential teachers. For several years, Mannelli was leader of the famous Congregetione di S. Cecilia. The Trio Sonatas Op.3 consists of twelve Sonatas. Seven of them are in four movements, two are in six movements and only one (the last) is in three movements. They display a freshness of melodic invention and sometimes daring harmonic surprises, a great tonal richness and unexpected, highly expressive chromatic phrases. The ensemble Giardino di Delizie is a Roman female Baroque group, founded in 2014 by the violinist Ewa Anna Augustynowicz, researching and performing forgotten treasures from the Italian and Polish Baroque. They played in such ensembles as Europa Galante, Les Eléments, Quatuor Mosaïques and others. Their previous recordings of instrumental works by Lonati, Stradella, Colista and Leonarda met with enthusiast critical acclaim in the international press: ‘The performance sounds completely natural, full of spontaneity and bursting energy. It’s clear the group really likes this music and does not merely try and lecture it.’ (Lonati, 95590 theclassicreview.com). ‘Giardino di Delizie… take an energetic and imaginative approach to this fine music… playing with sensitivity and considerable musicality.’ (Colista, 96033, earlymusicreview.com). ‘A garden of delights, sensitively and beautifully performed, perfect for any lover of the Baroque.’ (Gems of the Polish Baroque, 95955, MusicWeb International).
Lotti, Zelenka, Bach / Hengelbrock, Balthasar Neumann Ensemble
This trilogy is based loosely on the Dresden connections between the Venetian Antonio Lotti, Bohemian Jan Dismas Zelenka and Thuringian Johann Sebastian Bach. Zelenka’s unconventional Miserere in C minor (Easter 1738) is a peculiar mixture of archaic music based on a ricercar by Frescobaldi and modern proto-classical movements. Hengelbrock leaps without reticence into the agitated music that opens and dramatically concludes the work (in comparison, Fiori Musicali’s performance seems coolly refined – Metronome, 3/08). The Balthasar-Neumann Ensemble and Choir perform with full-blooded tension; Hengelbrock makes the fullest possible use of the plangent oboes and pulsating string chords but also ensures that the music-making never loses its focused precision. The abrupt conclusion leads cleverly into the sinfonia of Bach’s Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen. The famous chaconne chorus that conveys weeping is tenderly phrased; solo voices are used for the first entries only and are soon joined by the full complement of 18 singers. This is by no means unpleasant but the sudden change of gears from streamlined intimacy to a larger choral texture feels odd (curiously, Hengelbrock eschews the policy in an entirely “choral” recapitulation).
The crowning glory is Lotti’s Missa a tre cori. As Hengelbrock has proved before with his outstanding recordings of Lotti’s Requiem (9/99) and Missa Sapientiae (3/04), the Venetian master’s chiaroscuro writing is certainly not run-of-the-mill. The contrapuntal first phrases of the “Kyrie” possess extraordinary expressive quality and accomplishment, whereas the first section of the “Gloria” is an irresistible, dance-like celebration with jaunty rhythms and bold trumpet. Lotti’s controlled and sublime setting of “Et in terra pax” reveals the harmonically adventurous talent and flair for unexpected effects that evidently fascinated Bach and Handel, and some surprising choral harmonies in the ardent “Qui tollis” lifted me from my chair in astonishment and admiration for both the composer and his modern-day interpreters. This is nothing short of revelatory.
– David Vickers, Gramophone
-----
Unearthing unknown masterworks, such as the Lotti and the Zelenka, is something of a speciality for Thomas Hengelbrock, and it is hard to imagine a more intense interpretation of the Miserere.
Bach, Zelenka and Lotti on one disc - that seems a little odd. Bach and Zelenka knew each other as they lived and worked not that far away from each other, in Leipzig and Dresden respectively. But what about Lotti?
Antonio Lotti made his career in Venice, but was born in Hanover where his father was Kapellmeister. In Venice he became a pupil of Legrenzi. He started out as an alto singer and organist in San Marco. In 1693 he wrote his first opera, and his growing reputation as an opera composer brought him the invitation to write an opera for Dresden. Here he lived and worked from 1717 to 1719. He wasn't only an opera composer, though. When he came to Dresden he took with him some religious works he had written in Venice, and in Dresden he composed some more.
Zelenka, who for many years worked in the court orchestra in Dresden as double-bass player, copied a number of works by Lotti. Among them was the Missa Sapientiae; a copy of this mass has also been found in Bach's library. It is quite possible that it was through Zelenka that Bach became acquainted with Lotti's oeuvre. Thomas Hengelbrock recorded Lotti's Missa Sapientiae in 2002, and it was released together with Bach's Magnificat by deutsche harmonia mundi.
But there are not only historical reasons bringing together these composers on one disc. There are also some stylistic similarities between the three compositions which Thomas Hengelbrock has recorded. The main feature they have in common is that they contain both traditional and modern elements. They link with the traditional stile antico in that they include polyphonic sections. And in all three pieces dissonances and chromaticism are used for expressive reasons linking with the sung words. At the same time they contain elements which reflect contemporary fashion.
Zelenka's setting of the penitential Psalm 50 (51), 'Miserere mei Deus', is a perfect example of the mixture of old and new. It starts with an extended setting of the first verse of this psalm, which is dominated by chords in the strings in a very agitated rhythm, which are relentlessly repeated. The amount of dissonance in this section is quite unusual for the time. Next the text of the whole psalm is sung in a strict polyphonic style. It is based on an organ ricercar by Girolamo Frescobaldi, from his 'Fiori Musicali' of 1635. It is likely this was the main reason that this Miserere was received negatively. A diary of the time says: "Mr. Zelenka performed a Miserere of excessive length". It is probably not the actual time the performance took that caused this comment but rather its old-fashioned style. For a performance in the following year Zelenka added an aria for soprano which was written in modern galant style. This is the third movement, the first half of the doxology. This part is then set again for the tutti, and this is followed by the second half of the doxology. Then Zelenka returns to the opening verse. It is not a repetition of the first section, although elements from it are reused.
The Balthasar-Neumann-Choir and -Ensemble give good performances, in which the text expression comes off very well. It is disappointing, though, that the dense polyphonic texture of the second section results in the words being practically inaudible. More attention should have been given to a clear delivery of the text. Tanya Aspelmeier gives a good account of the solo part.
The cantata 'Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen' is one of Bach's most famous cantatas. It inspired Franz Liszt to one of his best-known organ works. It seems Bach also liked it: he composed the cantata in 1714 in Weimar, and performed it again in 1724 in Leipzig. The mood of the work is best caught in the accompanied recitative, a quotation from the Bible (Acts of the Apostles): "We must pass through great sadness that we come into God's kingdom".
The cantata begins with an expressive sinfonia, marked 'adagio assai'. The opening chorus has a dacapo form, and the A section is a chaconne over a chromatic bass which is repeated twelve times. It is here that the tradition comes to the fore, as well as in the scoring with two independent viola parts. The B section doesn't contain independent instrumental parts: the instruments are supposed to play colla parte with the voices - another feature of the stile antico.
Much more in line with the fashion of the time is the inclusion of a dacapo aria, 'Kreuz und Kronen sind verbunden', scored for alto, with an obbligato part for the oboe. In the tenor aria 'Seid getrost', the slide trumpet plays the melody of the chorale 'Jesu, meine Freude'. The German Bach scholar Alfred Dürr suggests Bach could have had the last stanza in mind: "Begone, mournful spirits, for the master of my joys, Jesus, is now arriving".
The tutti parts receive good performances from the choir and the orchestra. None of Bach’s expressive devices passes unnoticed. The rhythm of the bass aria 'Ich folge Christo nach' is under-exposed, though. The contralto Marion Eckstein sings her part beautifully, and so does the tenor Julian Podger, although in his aria I would have liked stronger contrast between the A and B sections. The bass Marek Rzepka is a bit bland, and there is a slight tremolo in his voice which I have noticed in other recordings in which he participated. The obbligato parts are well executed by Emma Black (oboe) and Paolo Bacchin (slide trumpet).
Old and new elements are also present in Antonio Lotti's Missa a tre cori, written for three groups, as the title indicates. This mass belongs to the genre of the 'missa brevis', consisting of Kyrie and Gloria only. The stile antico is particularly present in the Kyrie and returns in some sections of the Gloria.
The first Kyrie is very reminiscent of the opening of Zelenka's Miserere, in particular harmonically. Even rhythmically there is some similarity, although Lotti's rhythms are less agitated. In the Christe eleison the name 'Christe' is singled out. The second Kyrie contrasts the descending line and an ascending figure on the words "eleison" in the upper voices.
The Gloria begins with a dancing movement in jubilant mood, in which the trumpet participates. The next section, 'Et in terra pax', takes more than five minutes and reverts to the same kind of chords in the strings and strong dissonances we heard in the first Kyrie. The 'Gratias agimus' also begins with great harmonic tension which is then released in the second half. In 'Qui tollis peccata mundi' Lotti again makes use of fiery chords and sharp dissonances.
The most modern sections are 'Domine Deus' and 'Qui sedes'. The former is a wonderful trio for soprano, violin and basso continuo. 'Qui sedes' is scored for alto and obbligato oboe, with the lower strings and basso continuo. In 'Quoniam tu solus sanctus' the trumpet returns. Through homophony and long notes the name 'Jesu Christe' is singled out. The mass ends with a fugal section on the text 'Cum Sancto Spiritu'.
This is probably the very first recording of this mass, and it is a beautiful and highly expressive work. It is easy to understand that Zelenka and Bach were interested in Lotti's music, and in particular Zelenka seems to have been influenced by Lotti. The qualities of Lotti's mass setting are fully explored by choir and orchestra, with excellent contributions of the vocal and instrumental soloists. Only Bernard Landauer is a little disappointing in 'Qui sedes'.
Unearthing unknown masterworks is something of a speciality for Thomas Hengelbrock. Both Lotti's Missa Sapientiae and the Missa a tre cori are masterpieces - evidence that Lotti's oeuvre is well worth further appraisal. Bach's cantata is available in a number of other recordings. The performance on this disc is good, but not the main reason to commend this CD.
It is both Lotti's mass and the Miserere by Zelenka which make this disc especially attractive. The Zelenka has been recorded before, and some time ago I reviewed a recording by Penelope Rapson. But Hengelbrock's interpretation is simply superior, and in fact it is hard to imagine a more intense interpretation of Zelenka's Miserere.
– Johan van Veen, MusicWeb International
Handel: Winged Hands - The Eight Great Suites & Overtures / Corti
After the album Bach, Little Books, harpsichordist Francesco Corti continues his collaboration with Arcana with a 2-album recording entirely dedicated to George Frideric Handel. At the center of the project are the eight “Great” suites. These masterpieces were the composer’s first published set, and are a clear testimony to his virtuosity at the keyboard. Their characteristically diversified styles reflect not only the mélange of national traditions assimilated by the young composer, but also his phenomenal improvisatory talent. Moreover, the attraction of these pieces lies in their melodic and rhythmic affinity to the world of singing and orchestral writing, Händel’s strongest interests. Arrangements of Handel’s operatic overtures and arias started circulating early in his career in England, and in his later years he was known to perform his overtures on the keyboard himself. Corti designs a program showcasing the composer’s brilliant treatment of the instrument, choosing to complement the “Great” Suites with a selection of transcriptions from Händel’s own hand and from his close musical circle.
REVIEWS:
It’s possible that Francesco Corti’s distinction as a conductor and a collaborative keyboard artist overshadows his considerable gifts as a harpsichord soloist. For example, whoever hears about his 2010 Bach Partitas released by Berlin Classics, a terrific “sleeper” edition if there ever was one? All this is to say that collectors looking for a reference-worthy harpsichord version of Handel’s eight “great” Suites should consider Corti. Although some listeners may take issue with the slightly distant and diffuse engineering, I find the sound quality attractively rounded, resonant, and warm, as if you’re hearing Corti’s 1738 Christian Vater model instrument in an intimate concert venue.
Certainly the sonics enhance Corti’s wonderfully freewheeling way with Suite No. 1’s improvisatory Prelude and excitingly boisterous Gigue. Suite No. 2’s opening Adagio and Suite No. 3’s concluding Air amount to a masterclass in how to organically integrate ornaments. Suite No. 4’s fugal opening Allegro attains bracing clarity due to Corti’s subtle agogic phrasings, while the ubiquitous Suite No. 5 “Harmonious Blacksmith” variations are more about cumulative build than facile virtuosity.
Despite Corti’s headlong pace for Suite No. 6’s Gigue finale, the rapid phrases have plenty of breathing room. And Suite No. 7 ‘s familiar Passacaille manages to convey both pomp and vulnerability at the same time.
Equally inspired performances of overture transcriptions flesh out this release. I especially love the imaginative registration shifts in Teseo’s Allegro section, plus Corti’s varied approaches to arpeggiating chords in Il pastor fido’s adagio opening section. For all of the thought and scholarship informing Corti’s interpretations, they consistently convey vitality, spontaneity, and forward sweep, without the least hint of self-awareness or pedanticism. Without a doubt, the title “Winged Hands” befits this fabulous release.
-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)
Advenio: New Trios for Horn, Violin and Piano
Penderecki: Horn & Violin Concertos, Etc / Kelemen, Vlatkovic, Dworzynski, LPO
“The LPO string-players vividly felt the music’s pain. They don’t write music like that anymore” - Classical Source on Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, 14 October 2015
This is the first release of works by Krzysztof Penderecki on the LPO Label. The Orchestra has had a long relationship with Krzysztof Penderecki as both a composer and a conductor, regularly performing his works at Royal Festival Hall.
The Adagio for Strings and Horn Concerto on this album, both conducted by the composer, are recordings of the UK premiere performances.
Krzysztof Penderecki wrote the Horn Concerto specifically for soloist Radovan Vlatkovic. The Guardian described this performance as impressive, and having a “disquieting, at times savage beauty,” while The Telegraph called it “fantastically fluent” with “genuinely entrancing [moments].”
This is also the first release on the LPO Label featuring conductor Micha? Dworzynski. He is renowned as a great champion of music by Polish composers. His interpretation of the Violin Concerto was praised by The Guardian for capturing “the work’s fraught, tightly bound texture and the imploded lyricism of its constantly evolving melodic material.”
Violinist Barnabás Kelemen’s performance in the Violin Concerto was widely praised. Bachtrack said he “[married] brilliant virtuosity to deep expressiveness. Whether racing through leaping runs or holding eye-wateringly high notes, his tone never faltered.”
The Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima is an iconic work by Penderecki which received the UNESCO Prize in 1961. On its dedication to Hiroshima, Penderecki wrote “May this threnody express my deep belief that the sacrifice of Hiroshima will never be forgotten and lost, and Hiroshima will become a symbol of brotherhood between people of good will.”
-----
REVIEW:
All the works here, except the First Violin Concerto, are conducted by Penderecki himself, so hearing them with the LPO in the Festival Hall immediately makes this a special document, and it is a fascinating compilation of the orchestra’s performances of his music in recent years. The LPO is consistently excellent throughout.
– Choir & Organ
Richard Strauss: Symphonia Domestica, Metamorphosen / Antoni Wit
This disc is a follow-up to the same team’s superb performance of Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie . I considered that disc to be possibly the single finest achievement in Naxos’s considerable crown - a performance both epic and humane aided by a superb recording and a magnificent orchestra steeped in Straussian tradition. So it was with considerable expectation that I listened to this performance of the Symphonia domestica. Strauss’s two big programme symphonies are the pieces most often dragged out by his detractors as the ultimate examples of his over-weening ego and penchant for excess. Certainly they are scored for huge orchestras and last over three quarters of an hour. The thing that jars for many people - particularly in the case of Symphonia Domestica - is the public flaunting of private, even intimate, details - some considering the passionate love music of the adagio voyeuristic and tasteless. I have always felt this is to miss the point - Strauss was a virtuoso of the orchestra in the way others are of the violin. Clearly he delighted in being able to bend it and the rules of form and composition to fit whatever musical plan he had in mind. I feel we as listeners should focus more on the Symphonia element and less on the Domestica. After all, we are quite happy to listen to the extended unconsummated passion of Tristan and Isolde which we accept because it is a story but reject the Strauss because it is considered reportage. This is all a red herring we have been thrown. If we knew nothing of the “programme” behind this piece we would be little worse off. This piece works symphonically better than many other works so labelled. It is down to Strauss’s brilliance that he creates a series of inter-related themes thereby showing a family relationship. These is then able to treat both dramatically and musically in a coherent manner which is logical to both creative strands. As I say, a virtuoso showing off! I absolutely adore this piece. For its unbridled passion and vigour and thrilling orchestration it has few equals; not all great music has to be profound.
So to the current performance, Many of the virtues that graced the earlier disc remain. The Weimar Staatskapelle is a magnificent orchestra. They have a rich burnished tone building on a resonant dark-hued bottom end that is ideal for this style of music. All solos are taken with great style and musicality. To my ear they combine the best of the warmth of the Berlin Philharmonic with the tonal personality of the Dresden Staatskapelle; this is an orchestra I would love to hear perform live. Wit’s approach to the work is essentially similar to that of the Alpine Symphony. He eschews passing drama in favour of a longer more epic stance. This paid dividends in the earlier recording - there was a cumulative power to his interpretation that felt absolutely right. Part of the explanation for that could be that that piece, in following one day in the mountains, could be seen as a metaphor for the traversal of life from birth to death. Symphonia domestica is about a single day and the hustle and bustle that is part of it. Hence there does need to be an urgency about much of the writing. Timings alone are never a good way to judge a performance but Wit, at nearly forty-seven minutes in length, is by some measure the slowest performance I have compared. Szell blazes his way through in just over forty-one - technically stunning - but a rather regimented household one can’t help but feel! Even that most affectionate of Straussians, Kempe, is a good couple of minutes faster.
Everything starts well with the character of the orchestra both corporately and individually immediately apparent. I see that this performance was recorded about two years after the earlier one - the Metamorphosen actually dates from the same group of sessions as the Alpine Symphony - with a different engineer. He has not quite caught the inner detail with such a miraculous combination of detail and beauty as his colleague. It is from the central portion of the symphony that the performance as a whole begins to lose its way. Somehow the music seems to become becalmed. This is in part due to the loss of some of the inner detail. The contrapuntal writing in this work is remarkable even by Strauss’s standards so that even when the tempo slows there is an inner energy driving the music forward. This piece was for me one of Järvi’s greater successes in his Chandos cycle. This was due in no small part to the engineers managing to delineate the numerous lines in the musical texture. The extended love-scene lies at the heart of the work and to succeed it does need to overwhelm the listener with a series of climaxes that sweep away reserve and reservations. Sadly, in this, Wit does not succeed - it is beautiful where I want passion and considered where I want wildness. The symphony’s final section with its curious double fugue - the use of such an intellectually rigorous form after the abandon of what has gone before has always mystified me - is in many ways the piece’s weakest element and works best when played with unbuttoned good humour. It features some of the most remarkable horn writing that even Strauss produced which whilst it does register here does not overwhelm as I wish it would; once again Järvi and his SNO horns have a field day here. So I would have to say a worthy performance and an ongoing delight to hear this orchestra but not the automatic first choice I had rather hoped it would be.
Metamorphosen is a very substantial filler. The key to the approach here - and I’m sure that Wit is absolutely correct - is that this is a piece for 23 solo strings. Hence it is in effect a piece of large-scale chamber music. Other performances such as those by Karajan and his Berlin players produce a wall of tone that is remarkable - to the point you wonder how 23 players can produce that much sound - but in doing so the personal nature, the individual character of the loss that is being mourned vanishes. There is a lean quality to the Weimar sound that allows each line to be clearly followed and this reinforces the genius of the contrapuntal writing. It is a sombre performance as befits a piece written as a musical oration for a lost city and culture. Wit again directs a performance that sits at the slower end of a range of timings. Interestingly no performance I have heard clocks in at the 30 minutes indicated in the score. Of those I possess Zinman is slowest at 28:57 with Wit second at 28:16. The broad lamenting approach pays dividends here. Also the recording is splendid, beautifully balanced across the sonic range but with a richness to the bass lines that lets this extraordinary music sit on an harmonic bedrock above which the multitudinous polyphonic lines swoop and intertwine. The hardest element of this work is sustaining the single arc from gentle opening through contorted climax to desolate resolution. Wit’s pacing is excellent; never once do you feel he has allowed the music to peak too soon or conversely to sag. Listen at the very end when finally the Eroica motif in the basses appears unadorned how the accompanying upper strings blanch away their tone and vibrato to produce a final descent into oblivion. Quite superb. There is a sustained intensity to the music-making here that belies it being “just another session”. Clearly the creative fires were burning brightly in Weimar in July 2005! Metamorphosen has been fortunate in receiving many fine performances so I think it quite impossible to single out one as being first amongst equals. However, to my ear this new version is worthy of being considered up there with the very best. Listening several times to both performances on this disc I have no doubt that the earlier engineering of the string work is finer than that accorded the symphony although the latter is by no means poor.
Worth mentioning at this point Keith Anderson’s typically fine liner-note which explains with concision and clarity the genesis of both works. He points out, among many interesting facts, that Metamorphosen was composed in less than one month first note to last (13 th March - 12 th April 1945) - an astonishing burst of creativity for any composer producing a work of such complexity let alone one some 77 years old.
All in all another powerful disc of Strauss from Wit and his Weimar orchestra. For a Domestica of sheer delight I would turn elsewhere but an excellent Metamorphosen is more than compensation and at the price a Naxos disc well worth the purchasing.
-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International
Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 / Steinbacher, Dodds, Lucerne Festival Strings
After having recorded Mozart’s last three violin concertos in 2014, Arabella Steinbacher, the Festival Strings Lucerne and its leader Daniel Dodds now complete the cycle by presenting Mozart’s less well-known, but equally enchanting Violin Concertos 1 & 2, together with his Adagio in E Major and Rondos in C Major and B-flat Major. Steinbacher plays the cadenzas by Wolfgang Schneiderhan, who co-founded the Festival Strings Lucerne in 1956. Another exciting aspect of this album is that she plays for the first time on the “Ex Benno Walter“ Strad from 1718. Arabella Steinbacher, a multiple award-winner with an extensive PENTATONE discography, is accompanied by the esteemed players of the Festival Strings Lucerne and their leader and artistic director Daniel Dodds.
Zani: Sonate a Violino e Basso / Rognoni, Ensemble L'Aura Soave
The ‘Sonate 12 a Violino e Basso intitolate "Pensieri armonici" Opus. 5’ clearly belongs to Andrea Zani's second post-Vivaldian style. Without a dedication, these sonatas are still stylistically tied to the baroque style, but there are hints of the gallant style in them, above all because of the frequent use of appoggiaturas and in the cantabile themes and their development. Each of them having three movements, in the initial and final Allegros the violin, the indisputable protagonist, giving vent, shows off with captivating virtuosity, supported by a precise and well constructed bass. The Adagios are superb, placed as a contrast between the two extreme quick movements where the cantabile nature of the writing for the violin is full of "melos" making these pages quite enjoyable. The quality of the composition of these sonatas makes one consider the unjust oblivion into which the musical work of Zani has fallen. It was previously so respected and is now practically unknown. Violinist Andrea Rognoni and the ensemble L’Aura Soave breathe new life into this forgotten work.
Haydn: Symphonies No 57, 67, 68 / McGegan, Philharmonia Baroque
This doesn’t mean that the music lacks anything in the way of interest. No. 67 is one of Haydn’s most original creations, with a slow movement that features a delicious coda played by the strings “col legno” (with the back of the bow), a trio of the minuet for two muted solo violins–one of them retuned–and a finale with a central “development” that starts as a string trio in an adagio tempo. It’s an amazing piece, and this performance relishes every striking detail.
Symphony No. 57 starts with a surprisingly unsettling slow introduction whose eerie grace notes return, purged of their unease, in the fleet main theme of the finale. No. 68 places the minuet second because the slow movement is probably the longest that Haydn ever wrote. It lasts more than twelve minutes in this performance (fourteen under Harnoncourt), but it’s so full of variety that the time passes without a thought. The finale is a “variation” rondo whose episodes constitute a veritable concerto for orchestra.
In short, each symphony has something special and characteristic to offer, and each gives McGegan and his ensemble an opportunity to display their individual and corporate musicianship and virtuosity. The strings play with precision and warmth. McGegan clearly knows when to sound “authentic,” and when to let his players sing. The solo winds and horns are excellent, ensemble balances invariably what they ought to be to let each work communicate vividly. The live sonics, a touch close and maybe very slightly edgy, actually suit the boldness and panache of the music. Haydn lovers rejoice.
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Ariosti: Stockholm Sonatas Vol 3 / Georgi, Harris, Yamahiro Brinkmann, Kirkby
ARIOSTI “Stockholm” Sonatas: No. 15 in f; No. 16 in G; No. 17 in B?; No. 18 in d; No. 19 in a; No. 20 in g; No. 21 in a. Pur alfin gentil viola 1 • Thomas Georgi (vda); Lucas Harris (lt, gtr); Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann (vdg); Emma Kirkby (sop) 1 (period instruments) • BIS 1675 (63:57 Text and Translation)
Attilio Malachia Ariosti (1666–1729) led an amazingly varied life, one that could only have played out amid the opulence of the Baroque era. He started out as an altar boy in Bologna and later took monastic vows, possibly also entering the priesthood. All along he assiduously pursued his musical studies, eventually assuming the post of organist at the basilica of Santa Maria dei Servi. There he attracted the attention of the Duke of Mantua, for whom he began composing operas. Ariosti’s first opera, Tirsi (1697), was such a success that the Duke was encouraged to lend him out to the Berlin court, whose ruler was Sophie Charlotte of Hanover, Electress of Brandenburg and sister of the future George I of England. Ariosti quickly became Sophie’s favorite court musician (Bononcini was employed at the court as well), and became friends with the great Gottfried Leibniz. After Sophie died in 1705, Ariosti declared his (reluctant) desire to return to his monastery, by way of Vienna. The Vienna sojourn at the court of Joseph I stretched to seven years, where he composed operas, oratorios, and cantatas. After Joseph’s widow, Wilhelmina, kicked him out of Vienna (for his ostentatious, non-ecclesiastical behavior) in 1711, Ariosti found employment at the court of the Duke of Anjou (the future Louis XV), in Munich, Württemberg, Durlach, Baden, Lorraine, and at the court of the Duke of Orléans. In 1716 Ariosti sailed for England, where his opera Almahide had been staged in 1708, albeit with two-thirds of the numbers replaced by arias of Bononcini. Ariosti’s first appearance on the London stage was on July 12, 1716, when he played his “New Symphony … upon a New Instrument call’d Viola D’Amour,” between the acts of a Handel opera. Subsequently, the Royal Academy was to commission several operas, but Ariosti was still preoccupied with his diplomatic intrigues and had trouble meeting the deadlines; only one of the operas, Caio Marzio Coriolana (1723), was an unmitigated success, thanks in part to the participation of Cuzzoni and Senesino.
Exactly 21 viola d’amore sonatas survive from the pen of Ariosti; 15 of them owe their existence to Ariosti’s contemporary Swedish musician Johan Helmich Roman, who copied them down while on a visit to London. These survive in manuscript form in a Swedish library, hence the designation. The concluding cantata, Pur alfin gentil viola , is a valedictory work that survives in manuscript in a Darmstadt library. Written in an idiom reminiscent of Handel, the sonatas are remarkable for their brevity. Most movements are less than two minutes; only two of the Adagios are more than three. The structure is usually simple bipartite: AABB, or even ABa (the lower case indicating a brief restatement of the opening theme). The suites typically consist of four movements, in the traditional slow-fast-slow-fast grouping of the Italian sonata da chiesa.
The viola d’amore is one of those colorful “accessory” instruments so popular with Baroque composers. Played under the chin like the violin, it has six or seven sympathetic strings running under the fingerboard that are responsible for the instrument’s characteristic silvery sound. Like the oboe d’amore and the voice flute, the viola d’amore was newly invented; it came into use during the second half of the 17th century, but never became a permanent member of the orchestra. Bach, Telemann, Vivaldi, and Quantz wrote sparingly for the viola d’amore, but it dropped out of sight during the Romantic era. Surprisingly, the instrument has persisted until the present day; composers as diverse as Strauss, Janá?ek, Hindemith, Martin, and Villa-Lobos have been attracted to its gentle, ethereal sound.
Thomas Georgi is an American who performed with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra of Australia for many years, and since 1989 has been a member of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra of Toronto. After joining that group he began to champion the viola d’amore, and has recorded two previous volumes of Ariosti for BIS. Apparently those CDs were never received by Fanfare for review. Georgi is joined by two excellent instrumentalists, lutenist Lucas Harris and gambist Mimi Yamahiro Brinkmann, and the renowned English soprano Dame Emma Kirkby. The performances are models of their kind, with colorful, expressive playing from Georgi, and first-rate contributions from the two continuo players. I applaud the decision to employ archlute (theorbo) and guitar as continuo instruments; a harpsichord would have overwhelmed the delicate sound of the viola d’amore. Of particular interest is the cantata—it demonstrates that Dame Emma’s voice is as beautiful and controlled as ever, even after nearly 40 years before the public.
When the pressures and madness of modern life press in, I can think of nothing better than to retreat into the delicate sound world of Ariosti for rejuvenation. Highly recommended.
FANFARE: Christopher Brodersen
