Meeting in Music

Berg: 3 Orchesterstücke Op. 6, Lulu-Suite - Efraty, Gatti (2008)

2012-01-30T20:30:00.002Z

Alban Berg

Drei Orchesterstücke Op. 6

Symphonische Stücke aus der Oper "Lulu"

Anat Efraty

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Daniele Gatti

RCO Live 8004

„Meinem Lehrer und Freunde Arnold Schönberg in unermeßlicher
Dankbarkeit und Liebe“

- reads Alban Berg's dedication of his Three Pieces for Orchestra Op. 6, the pinnacle of the late romantic orchestral output; according to some. "Mahler's 11th", as I sometimes call it, or rather the first mature work of a genial innovator? Berg's music always defies labels and speaks to us with its unmistakable fondness and unsurpassed sensuality.

And where sensuality itself becomes "music", then we are in the magic world of Lulu...

One of the highest dramatic masterpieces of the last century, combining perfect complex musical structures with the most natural, sweet and human listening experience.

Some 20 years after Berg had composed his Pieces Op. 6, and at the end of his brief life, the Viennese master adapted some magnificent symphonic excerpts from his second drama into a famous Suite.

Opening with the tragic, lustful and desperate Alwa's love hymn in the magic first piece, and ending with the eternal love's vow from the dying Countess Geschwitz - both, like the many fallen heroes of Pandora's Box, Lulu's victims and executioners alike.

In this RCO release, our beloved Milanese Maestro, Daniele Gatti is leading the glowing Concertgebouw not only with heart but also with precision, as a true apostle of Berg's music (I still recall his touching Lulu at La Scala back in 2010), joined by the Israeli soprano Anat Efraty (Lulu at the Massimo of Palermo in 2001), who shines in the fiendish Lied, and also takes on Geschwitz's final lines, although she certainly is no match for the divine Margaret Price in Abbado's classic recording from 1970.

FLACs and Cover (Front Cover is all I got 4 years ago from a very mean, world renowned digital store... sorry!)

Wassenaer: Concerti Armonici 1-6 - ASMF, Neville Marriner

2012-01-29T20:54:00.002Z

Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer
Concerti Armonici 1-6
Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner
Argo 410 205-2

Marriner and the ASMF give the impression of having sought, and found, the music's special vein of nobility and spaciousness, and its exalted poetic nature.

A reminder about the background of these magnificent concertos, whose mystery was cleared up two years ago by the Dutch scholar Albert Dunning, might be in order. They were published anonymously in the eighteenth century, with a dedication to Count Bentinck by Carlo Bacciccia Ricciotti, which says they were the work of "an illustrious hand." Those familiar with the period have always suspected that the authorship of a nobleman was implied, but various composers have been nominated, on circumstantial or stylistic grounds, or sometimes on no grounds at all--certainly this last applies to the best-known attribution, to Pergolesi (on the strength of a manuscript note on a late copy in Washington). Others nominated include Handel, J. A. Birkenstock, Fortunato Chelleri, Willem de Fesch and Ricciotti himself. Dr. Dunning has solved the problem in the best possible way, by finding the autograph, which is the work of Unico Wilhelm, Count van Wassenaer. Here and there a clumsy progression betrays the hand of an amateur contrapuntist, but set against the originality, the textural richness and the nobility of diction of these fine works it scarcely matters... Michael Talbot...rightly points out that they belong not in the Vivaldian, north Italian tradition but in a Roman and southern one of four-movement works with fuller textures and fugal writing--there are several formal fugues, and contrapuntal thinking permeates the music. The style is conservative for the date, as one usually finds with an amateur composer (the concertos belong to the years 1725-40).

I hope someone will record them before long on authentic instruments. For these sumptuous textures and expressive lines and harmonies seem to invite vibrato-laden playing and strong emotional feeling--and by goodness they receive them from Neville Marriner's superb group, who play them as warmly and tenderly as they would Siegfried Idyll. The result is in its way marvellous, a tour de force of supple, expressive and euphonious string playing; but I do not think it very closely corresponds to what the composer is likely to have intended... Yet the ASMF do seem to me to make much more of the particular character of these works. I Musici approach them just as they would Vivaldi or Albinoni or anyone else; the ASMF however give the impression of having sought, and found, the music's special vein of nobility and spaciousness, and its exalted poetic nature. This is reflected in their softer, warmer textures, their perhaps more careful selection of the tempo of each movement, their readiness not simply to play the music through at face value but to think a little deeper about its character. Listen for example to the richness of feeling in the Largo affettuoso of the second G major, or the management of the dynamics in those high repeated triplets in the finale of the F minor--I Musici make it a big climax, but the ASMF give it an altogether subtler shape and much more point, though they do take it very fast... Although this isn't really quite how I want to hear these concertos--I am curious to discover how a closer approximation to Wassenaer's intended sound would affect their expressive nature--it would take an austerer spirit than mine not to take delight in what is offered here.

Stanley Sadie, Gramophone Magazine

Schumann: Symphony No.2, Manfred Overture - Sinopoli, Wiener Philharmoniker

2012-01-28T03:42:00.006Z

Robert Schumann
Symphony No.2, Manfred Overture
Giuseppe Sinopoli, Wiener Philharmoniker
I Grandi Interpreti della Musica Classica - DeAgostini (out of print)

This is a great Schumann 2nd. It is the first version of it I ever owned and I still love this febrile performance, which I think can stand up with dignity against any competitor. I loved this recording so much that I even provide complete scans. An effort that will undoubtedly earn me a place in heaven.

Torelli: Sonate, Sinfonie e Concerti - Ens. Seicentonovecento

2012-01-27T09:49:00.005Z

Giuseppe Torelli
Sonate, Sinfonie e Concerti
Sandro Verzari, Ensemble Seicentonovecento, Flavio Colusso
Bongiovanni GB 10008-2

Considering the unexplainable and undeserved shortage of recordings of Torellis concertos and symphonies, this one belongs in any proper collection of baroque instrumental music. Enjoy!

Dvorak: Cello Concerto; Tchaikovskij: Rococo Variations - Rostropovich, Karajan, Berliner Phil.

2012-01-26T06:43:00.004Z

Antonin Dvorak: Cello Concerto;
Petr Tchaikovskij: Rococo Variations
Mstislav Rostropovich, Herbert Von Karajan,
Berliner Philharmoniker
Deutsche Grammophon CD

.ape + .cue + .log

Another great classic, with my favorite cello concerto. I'm sure there's plenty of reviews around, but I'll try to check later if I can found one. For the time being: just the music and the cover. I doubt you'd rather have it the other way around...

Musorgskij: Pictures at an Exhibition, Night on the Bald Mountain,... - Abbado, Berliner Phil.

2012-01-25T05:00:00.000Z

Modest Musorgskij
Pictures at an Exhibition, Night on the Bald Mountain,
Sennacherib (Sankerib), Salamnbo, Oedipus, Joshua
Claudio Abbado, Berliner Philharmoniker
Deutsche Grammophon CD

.ape + .cue + .log

This recording was recently chosen by BBC Radio 3 as the chosen version for a library of classical recordings. The program is aptly called "Building a Library", and the few times I listened to it, I found their choices agreeable. There's even a piece dedicated to our beloved MIMIC's founder by Musorgskij the visionary, who must have had a premonition while on one of his zapoj's (запой).

Muffat: Armonico Tributo - Ensemble 415, Banchini, Christensen

2012-01-24T07:56:00.002Z

Georg Muffat
Armonico Tributo
Ensemble 415, Chiara Banchini, Jesper Christensen
HMC901581

Excellent take on Armonico Tributo, the highlight of Georg Muffats composing career performed by baroque superstar Chiara Banchini and with always solid Jesper Christensen on Harpsichord. Enjoy!

Mozart: Piano Concertos No. 20 & No. 21 - Tipo, Chailly, LPO (1983)

2012-01-22T15:19:00.012Z

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Piano Concertos K. 466 & K. 467

Maria Tipo

London Philharmonic Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly

BMG Ricordi 74321 923972

Naples, city of contrasts, bliss and anguish, cultural cradle of music back in 1770 when Mozart stayed in town and got hooked on the works of Paisiello and Traetta.

Naples - renowned for its musical heritage and its piano school (Thalberg and Vitale, mainly).

So... here's the great Maria Tipo!

Magnificent interpreter of the Neapolitan school, born in 1931, maverick, elegant pianist. Of course Tipo is famous for her prize-winning Clementi, Scarlatti and Bach discographic efforts, but here she shows out in Mozart with all of her immense class, clarity, articulation, sound and nobility in this 1983 recording of the 2 great Concertos (D Minor and C Major).

A rare CD, recorded in superb early digital sound by the supple London Philharmonic conducted by the young Riccardo Chailly.

FLACs & Covers

Zavateri: Concerti da Chiesa e da Camera - Freiburger BO, Goltz

2012-01-19T19:50:00.004Z

Lorenzo Gaetano Zavateri
Concerti da Chiesa e da Camera
Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz
DHM 05472 77352 2

Music with a well-refined intelligence
from a forgotten Baroque master.

Now here is a name that will almost certainly be new to every collector of baroque music on CD. Lorenzo Zavateri was a Bolognese composer and one-time pupil of Giuseppe Torelli. Zavateri became elected a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica in 1717 and joined the almost equally esteemed orchestra of San Petronio in Bologna during the mid 1720s. Little of his music was published, but among that which was is his set of 12 Concerti da chiesa e da camera, Op. 1. The set was issued in 1735 and was praised by the celebrated Padre Martini for “a well-refined intelligence”.

There is less differentiation here between ‘church’ and ‘chamber’ styles than occurs in Corelli’s Op. 6, for instance, though several of Zavateri’s concertos contain illustrative or quasi-illustrative titles. Concertos Nos. 7 and 9, for example, are termed “Teatrale” – his almost exact contemporary, Locatelli, published six Introduttioni Teatrali in the same year, which are, like Zavateri’s pieces, concerti grossi in the three-movement form of the Italian opera sinfonia – while the tenth Concerto is “a Pastorale” and the twelfth “a Tempesta di mare”; the first work is perhaps rather unnecessarily subtitled “Introducione”, though via the heading Zavateri declares a cohesive purpose.

Dedicated to his pupil and patron, Count Cornelio Pepoli Musotti, the 12 concertos contain enough individual gestures and a sufficient diversity of ideas to hold our attention without difficulty. But perhaps it is those readers with a taste for stylistic pluralism, whose ears savour that Janus-like stance characteristic of vocabulary which draws upon the obsolescent and the new, who will derive the most constant pleasure from the music. There is little in the way of set formulae.

Four of the works are ripieno concertos while two others, as I have mentioned, are opera sinfonias in character and layout. The remaining six occupy a middle ground between concerto grosso and solo violin concerto – one of them, No. 10, is for two violins – and it is these which, on balance, make a deeper impression. There is frequently a contrapuntal interest in Zavateri’s concertos, sometimes an element of dazzling, if short-winded virtuosity, and at other times an affecting expressive intimacy. Like so many Italian composers of his generation and earlier, Zavateri embraces a tradition of including a 12/8 “Pastorale” movement within the set. Perhaps the tradition began with his teacher Torelli who included such a movement among the concertos of his Op. 8 (1709). Yet though not at that time published, it may have been Corelli’s well-known Christmas Concerto (Op. 6 No. 8) which set the trend. Zavateri’s “Pastorale” is an altogether more galant affair than those of his fellow Italians, airier in character, with trio episodes for two solo violins and continuo, and containing some striking key shifts. Of a completely different character is the splendidly vibrant Tempesta di mare which concludes the set. There are some telling contrasts here with rhythmically undulating passages juxtaposed with thrashing waves depicted chordally. Following a lyrical binary Adagio – the boat in calm waters – the tempest is unleashed with only modest ferocity.

Almost all is played with imagination and finesse by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under their leader and solo violinist Gottfried von der Goltz. A fascinating release and one to which I am eager to return.

Nicholas Anderson, Gramophone

Mahler: Symphony No.1 - Abbado, Berliner Philharmoniker

2012-01-18T07:14:00.000Z

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No.1
Claudio Abbado, Berliner Philharmoniker
Deutsche Grammophon CD

.flac + .cue + .log

No Bubba Hurwitz ain't ever gonna have me believe the BPO and Abbado ain't worth my buck on Mahler. Sorry Bubba.

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde - Jerusalem, Norman, Levine (1998)

2012-01-17T21:46:00.015Z

Gustav Mahler
"Das Lied von der Erde"
Siegfried Jerusalem
Jessye Norman
Berliner Philharmoniker
James Levine
DGG 439 948-2

FLACs & Covers

"Die liebe Erde allüberall
blüht auf im Lenz und grünt
Aufs neu! Allüberall und ewig
blauen licht die Fernen!
Ewig... ewig...".

... what could we add to those last lines? Mahler's sublime vocal farewell to life (the symphonic only being of course His 9th) is here presented in a rare DG output, generally thought to be one of the best in our libraries. How many "Lied von der Erde" would I love to share? More than a few... I'll make sure the Giulini BP (and WP for Orfeo), the old Davis (Vickers & Norman), the Maazel in Munich and a very rare one in Venice I've got (with singers Richard Lewis and Kerstine Meyer), the Oue Minnesota and the Salonen, the Sinopoli of course will find some day pride of place on these friendly pages.

But now it's Jimmy Levine and the Berlin Philharmonic, with our beloved Siegfried Jerusalem's most inspired singing, and Jessye Norman, adding her glorious vocal art to those peonies redolent, wistful otherworldly chant of Love which "Der Abschied" is.

Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit, Sonatine, Valses Nobles... - Argerich

2012-01-16T08:04:00.000Z

Maurice Ravel
Gaspard de la Nuit, Sonatine, Valses Nobles et Sentimentales
Martha Argerich
I Grandi Interpreti della Musica Classica - DeAgostini (out of print)

I picked this one up during my last trip back home. It's part of the first classical collection on CD I ever purchased (my first classical recordings were on LP). DeAgostini made a terrific job back then, assembling a collection of not-so-obvious masterpieces by first-rate performers. Their being not-so-obvious made me look at the collection with some suspicion back then. My appreciation of Ravel's piano works has only blossomed now, approximately 20 years after purchasing the CD in question. And together with it, I have come to a better appreciation of that wonderful collection.
This is a milestone of Ravel's and Martha Argerich's discography, with the Argentinian still at the apex of her virtuosity, so there's no need for an endorsement review.

Locatelli: Concerti a 4, Op.7 - Ensemble Baroque de Nice, Bezzina

2012-01-15T11:52:00.000Z

Pietro Locatelli
Concerti a Quattro Op.7 (complete)
Ensemble Baroque de Nice, Gilbert Bezzina
ADDA 581118

Pretty rare recording though recommendable for it's high quality far more than for its rarity. May you all enjoy it as much as I have.
- Sankerib

Brahms: Klavierstuecke Op.116-119 - Angelich

2012-01-14T09:53:00.003Z

Johannes Brahms:
Klavierstuecke Op.116-119
Nicholas Angelich
Virgin Classics CD
.flac + .cue + .log

I didn't have time to find a suitable review. Although maybe not the very best, it is indeed pretty good.
Update: Rana provided a review (she actually provided three of them, but I only post the most enthusiastic among them hehehe!)
Update 2: the Maestro Sank has also provided another review

BBC Music Magazine, 03/2007, performance: *****, sound: *****
"Steering a balanced course between imaginative vitality and warmth on one side and resigned melancholy on the other can be difficult, but Nicholas Angelich manages it with a kind of panache. He takes you to the brink of inconsolable sadness one moment, only to put a refreshing spring in the step of a dance movement the next. The balancing extends in other directions. Brahms's piano writing can sound thrick and heavy-booted on modern pianos, but Angelich manages to keep the melody lines fluid and shapely, and brings light to the textures without emasculating that rich bass sound so typical of Brahms. The climax of the E flat minor Intermezzo (No. 6 of op. 118) sounds as deep and sonorous as Rachmaninov, yet how quickly Angelich recovers the piece's original delicacy in the music that follows - beautiful pedalling, too. For all his respect for tone weight, Angelich can also make Brahms sound deliciously light and transparent; the E major Intermezzo (No. 4 of op. 116) is virtually a sustained demonstration of this 'gossamer' Brahms, yet at no point does it feel as though Angelich has imposed a partisan view on the music - the colours and textures all seem to emerge quite naturally from the printed notes. The recording is round-toned and very clear, full and ripe in fortissimos, and just attentive enough to lead the ear inside the most fragile pianissimo. Very impressive all round."
- Stephen Johnson

Musicweb-International
Nicholas Angelich pulled a fast one on Virgin here. Or rather, a slow one. Let me explain. Brahms’s wonderful farewell to the piano, the twenty pieces making up his opp.116-119, were too long for a single disc in the LP era, but on CD the habit has grown of grouping them all together. A record purporting to be by Joyce Hatto takes a comfortable 72:40. A few minor repeats are omitted, but I doubt if they’d have added more than a couple of minutes to the length. On Brilliant, the slightly more expansive Håkon Austbø nevertheless comes in at 77:09 (see review). I have the famous Julius Katchen performances on LP, but his opp.117-119 take about ten minutes less than Angelich’s so there is plenty of space left for op.116 on CD. I note that DG have issued Wilhelm Kempff’s performances of all twenty pieces on a single disc. So when Virgin booked Angelich to record the series, no doubt they reckoned on getting a CD’s worth. The trouble is, his performances spread to 85 minutes …

Their solution is to issue a “twofer”, in which the short CD dedicated to just op.116 is described as a “bonus disc”. This brings the issue in line with other full price single-disc competitors. The trouble is, from Brilliant you get another “twofer”, with opp.116-119 on one disc and the other containing opp.10, 76 and 79. However, for reasons I will explain later, I personally wouldn’t consider Austbø acceptable at any price.

There’s always the risk, when a disc presents unusual features, of “reviewing” it before hearing it. When requesting these records from our Webmaster I added some such phrase as “with misgivings about the two CDs since one should be enough if the music is played at the proper tempo”. But of course, you can’t really pre-review musical performances in accordance with some mathematical principle. My misgivings were pretty well allayed as soon as the record started playing – I started from op.117, by the way. It’s true that in virtually every case Angelich opts for the slowest possible interpretation of Brahms’s directions. But only the slowest possible one. I found no case where he actually goes below the bottom line. By this I mean that there is no case where his tempo is so slow that his combination of clear phrasing and naturally warm tone cannot hold the listener. The music never falls apart, as it sometimes could in Glenn Gould’s curious takes on a selection of these pieces. He came closest to losing me in the F major Romance (op.118/5), but several of his competitors are rather heavy here too. I heard some appallingly personalized Brahms from Alexander Mogilevsky a while back (EMI CDM 5 67934 2) and was a little afraid I might be getting more of the same. But in terms of phrasing and dynamics these performances are generally faithful to the score and free of exaggerations.

What the cumulative effect of Angelich’s slowish tempi does do is to explore quite specifically – but never sentimentally – the more melancholy, tragic aspects of the slower pieces, and the more stoic aspects of the faster ones. If you turn to “Joyce Hatto” you will find in opp.117-119 a warmer-hearted, more equably tempered Brahms. One can imagine that this is how Clara Schumann might have illustrated these pieces to her pupils. In a centrally satisfying way, the pianist concerned plays these pieces rather as Sir Adrian Boult conducted the symphonies. As basic Brahms, you can hardly go wrong.

I should perhaps say that I began this review some time ago since I was sent a white label advance copy of the records. The Hatto scandal had not yet burst. I was partially tempted to expunge all references to this recording – which you will obviously not be able to obtain in that form – from the present review. On the other hand, when the pianist has been identified the comparisons will remain valid (see review). Note that I say opp.117-119, though. Listening to op.116, I get the idea it’s a composite version. No. 5 receives just about the most exquisitely poised performance you can imagine, sheer perfection. No.6 is out of line with the rest of the disc in being extraordinarily slow – slower than Angelich, though there is a rugged conviction to it. No.7 is tossed off almighty fast, and all three have a different acoustic. Rereading my original review was a little disconcerting. I find that I had duly noted all these signals, yet was unable or unwilling to see where they led.

To take up the threads from the paragraph above, just as I recognize that there are some listeners for whom Boult’s search for an ideal architectural balance swept some of the composer’s more troubled aspects under the carpet, so there will be listeners who find “Hatto” too comfortable. They might turn to Julius Katchen for a riveting exploration of Brahms’s exposed nerve-ends. When I first heard these performances years ago I resisted them, feeling they were so personalized as to be almost anarchic. In general, strongly personalized performances tend to lose their spell with repeated hearings, but in this case I have shifted my ground over the years. Every time I hear these performances I marvel anew at the way Katchen seemingly invents the works on the spot, while at the same time displaying such total sympathy with Brahms’s world that what would be aberrations in other hands sound like pure magic.

Other listeners again may well find Angelich’s deeply considered, expansive but not indulgent, performances their own point of entry into the world of late Brahms. At present the “Hatto” only proves that there are some more fine performances out there when we’ve found them. So Angelich can be warmly recommended, especially to those looking for sound a bit more modern than Katchen’s – or Kempff’s – early analogue stereo. I picked up the Austbø, encouraged by the very low price and also thinking, well you never know, it might be …. but it isn’t. Unfortunately he has a habit of playing chords slightly arpeggiated which I found quite intolerable. Its not just a question of left-hand-before-right, as many pianists of the old school used to do, quite often he seems to be playing a banjo not a piano. I didn’t get used to this as the disc went on, indeed, I found myself just waiting for each chord and asking “will he arpeggiate it or will he play it together?”. After a while, since I was not expected to review the disc, I gave up and just sampled here and there. If you don’t think this mannerism will worry you, his tempi and colouring are usually well chosen, though I did note a fast and rather insensitive op.116/6. And I must say I noted a few pieces, such as op.118/4, which perhaps do not lend themselves to his particular mannerism except occasionally, and emerge rather impressively.

I would like to offer now a few fairly random considerations.

I have already mentioned the beautiful “Hatto” performance of op.116/5. In op.118/4 the pianist attains a towering passion on the last page which I find unmatched elsewhere. His/her fierce steadiness in op.118/3 is also exceptional and I would rate him/her supreme in these three pieces.

In op.118/5 Julius Katchen attains a transparency of voicing and a liquid beauty which makes all the others sound a little lumpy. This Romance seems to belong to him alone.

In op.116/7 it is Angelich’s turn to stand above the others - but I haven’t heard Katchen in op.116 - with a massive, black, seething passion. He makes a real epic out of it and I hope to hear him in the op.79 Rhapsodies before too long.

Sviatoslav Richter’s op.119 is as intensely personal as Katchen’s, yet is achieved without the noddings and nudgings which make Katchen an acquired taste. If Katchen is exploratory, I would describe Richter as visionary. As ever, he is an artist of extremes, slower than anybody in nos. 1 and 3, faster than anybody in 2 and 4. The Richter recorded legacy of these three Brahms sets is the usual mix of abundance and frustration. Op.117 seems not to have interested him at all; scattered performances, some more official than others, exist of op.118 nos. 1, 3 and 6, plus all of op.119, usually singly, occasionally as a group. I personally listened to op.119 in an off-air taping of a broadcast recital he gave in Milan in 1965. This does not appear to have been published – maybe one of the several companies interested in Richter should be negotiating with RAI. The recital brings nothing new to the Richter discography – the other items are Beethoven op.31/3, Ravel Miroirs 2 and 3 and the Prokofiev 2nd Sonata – but neither of the other two complete performances of op.119 known to exist, both also from 1965, is available at the moment so it would fill a gap.

Staying with the Russians, Gilels’ op.116 (DGG) is famous, but I know his interpretation only from an off-the-air version of a live performance he gave in Milan at about the same time as the recording. Assuming the interpretation remained broadly similar, he has a noble simplicity in the first four which leaves all the others standing, but I am a little puzzled by his treatment of the remaining three.

The young Hélène Grimaud’s op.118 (Brilliant 92117 – 5 CDs but cheap ones - see review) is not wholly outclassed by all this competition. Basically hers is a homely approach closest to “Hatto” - it isn’t the “Hatto” in case anybody’s wondering - with occasional hints that she has been listening to Katchen. Surprisingly I liked her more than anybody in no.6 – surprisingly because such an intensely introspective piece would logically be furthest from the grasp of a teenager. I hope she will return to this repertoire on disc ere long.

One of my own teachers, Ilonka Deckers-Küszler, trained in an early 20th century Central Europe where Brahms was still a living memory. She would have the Rhapsodie op.119/4 go no faster than Angelich’s broadly majestic account. This may provide some authority for his tempo. On the other hand, she had the op.119/3 Intermezzo skip along in a way none of the pianists discussed so far do. Interestingly, this interpretation is provided by two other pianists whose roots went back at least as far. Moiseiwitsch makes a real charmer of the piece. If he seems too capricious for Brahms, Kempff’s Schubertian lilt is less easily dismissed and for me his is the outstanding interpretation of this particular intermezzo. I am speaking now about a BBC Legends release which includes this and op.119/1. Unfortunately I don’t know his DG recording which, on this showing, ought to have a great deal to offer. In op.119/1 he is alone among the pianists here to believe that, since the time signature is 3/8 not 3/4, Brahms’s Adagio refers to the bar not the single three beats within it. He therefore provides a more free-flowing version, and logically he is right.

The debate on how to perform these inexhaustible pieces could go on for ever. No performance can embrace everything that is in this music but it should be clear by now that anyone seeking a version in fine modern sound will find in Angelich a consistent and powerful interpreter. By emphasizing the bleak, tragic aspects of the music he causes it to look forward towards Mahler rather backwards towards Schubert. A distinctive achievement.

Christopher Howell

Beethoven: Concerto for violin op61, Romanze op40, 50 - Accardo, Giulini, La Scala PO (1994)

2012-01-13T09:00:00.002Z

Today's offering from Davide:

Here's the Violin Concerto, where Giulini is joined by our beloved virtuoso Salvatore Accardo (1994).

FLACs and covers

Elgar: Symphony Nº 1 in A flat - Davis, BBC Symphony Orch (1985)

2012-01-12T10:00:00.002Z

About this LP rip, Davide says:

Colin Davis's first recording of Elgar's 1st Symphony was in a 1985 rare LP that I recently found in my favourite shop in London. It's a first rate recording and performance, taken at the Royal Albert Hall in a gala event to raise funds for the Oxfam Aid of Famine Relief in Ethiopia and Sudan. The BBC Symphony simply glows in the splendour of the Albert Hall.

Pergolesi: Symphonies - Orch. da Camera di Santa Cecilia, Vlad

2012-01-11T08:49:00.007Z

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Symphonies
Orchestra da Camera di Santa Cecilia, Alessio Vlad
Arts 47347-2

I would not want to be without this unique recording of Pergolesi's little known symphonies so I thought... Why should you? Enjoy!
- Sankerib

Beethoven: Symphonies nº 1 & 7 - Giulini, La Scala PO (1992)

2012-01-10T13:03:00.009Z

From Davide, who says:

One very beautiful recording of the Giulini Scala Beethoven cycle, 1st and 7th (1992). Highly recommended for all the fans of the distinguished Italian Maestro, with his unique tempi and phrasing.

Bartók: Kossuth, Concerto for Orchestra - Blomstedt, San Francisco Sym (1995)

2012-01-07T16:31:00.005Z

Davide's first treat for 2012:

The first and last orchestral masterpieces by our beloved Béla Bartók in a splendid 1995 release from the Blomstedt decade at the wonderful, warm-toned San Francisco Symphony. The Swedish Maestro keeps the right approach through these two very different works of the Hungarian genius' immense art. A Gramophone reference.

Reviews at Gramophone
http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/July%201995//732992/CD+Bart6k+Concerto+for+Orchestra,+Szl+16.+Kossuth+(1903).+San+Francisco+Symphony+Orchestra+Herbert+ftlornstedt
and ClassicsToday
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=11810

FLACS and covers

Bruckner: Symphony nº 5 - C von Dohnányi/Cleveland Orch (1993)

2011-12-23T09:00:00.002Z

This was Davide's Christmas rip for Chamaeleo (and all the rest of us have a chance to hear it as well).

Hommage à Scott Ross (orgue et clavecin)

2011-12-22T14:06:00.002Z

Time here for some earlier music again, I think.

These are part of the French Institut National de l'Audiovisuel's INA/mèmoire vive series, released from their incredibly rich recording archive. They're beginning to disappear from the catalogue; hope to find a few more before they're introuvable.

Ross plays Bull, Blow, de Cabezón, Correa de Arauxo, P de Araujo, Frescobaldi, Scheidt, JS Bach and d'Anglebert on the first CD (organ; recorded 1974-75), and Forqueray, Duphly and JS Bach on the second (harpsichord; recorded in several sessions in 1979, 1981 and 1983). The set was issued in 1999.

Out of print, as far as I can tell. One file per disc, .flac+cue (small covers and a tracklist in the first folder; scans in a separate link -- see comments).

Rachmaninov: Piano concerto nº 3 in D minor Op30 - Sgouros/Simonov, Berlin Phil (1983)

2011-12-22T09:00:00.006Z

From Davide:

This one is a favourite lost recording of mine. Greek forgotten mega-virtuoso Dimitris Sgouros was 15 and at the peak of a promising career which alas didn't last for the same obscure reasons which brought to unexpected oblivion the name of too many pianists... pressure? Sudden fame when still too young to cope with lots of engagements in the concert halls of the world instead of - say - playing football in the courtyard with your pals? Who knows....

Sure enough, this stunning recording from 1983 (here ripped from the Japan CD of the time) shows a superb technique, an intense musicality, paired with a youthful energy which has the Berliner Philharmoniker (no less) struggling to catch up with! The Karajan orchestra, here conducted by Yuri Simonov, is a pleasure to listen to, displaying a full tone warmer sound than in the DG recordings of the same golden years. My Neapolitan friend Giorgia Tomassi, who won the Rubinstein Competition back in 1992 with this very piece, loved it too! Enjoy!

Granados: Goyescas/La Maja dolorosa - Berthold, Medina (1992)

2011-12-21T09:00:00.003Z

One more from Davide's library of "extinct" recordings.

His comment:
A true masterpiece of the Spanish piano literature – Granados’ Goyescas. This is indeed a most beautiful ultra-rare CD by the German virtuoso Beate Berthold. Born in 1964, we know very little of her. She put out three albums in the early 90s for EMI (1 Rachmaninov/Tchaikovsky solo works and 1 Chopin) and this one here. She was, and I guess still is, a beautiful woman and a superb musician, and well worth listening to before she's forgotten. None of her albums (boasting a stunning recorded sound too) have ever been re-published by EMI. So here's a good chance from 1992 to have her playing for us all the sublime piano suite by the Catalan Maestro. The disc is even more precious as it features the three tonadillas of the Maja dolorosa, where Berthold is joined by Argentinian soprano Graciela Medina - Here’s the APEs and scans…

Brahms: Symphony nº 1 - Abbado/Wiener Philharmoniker (1973)

2011-12-20T09:00:00.002Z

The next of Davide's LPs:

Here's the agile and passionate Brahms 1st with the young Abbado and the Vienna Philharmonic from 1973 (DG).

Tchaikovsky: Symphony nº 4 - Barenboim/New York Philharmonic (1979)

2011-12-19T09:00:00.001Z

A recommended LP rip from Davide, who says:

Another "introuvable" for the lovers of the New York Philharmonic. I transfered a CBS LP from 1979 with a stunning performance of Tchaikovsky's 4th under Daniel Barenboim. The orchestra had just passed from Boulez's to Mehta's tenure, and showcases its beautiful rich string section, the natural affinity with Tchaikovsky's music, and of course the flexible and legendary brass section, powerful yet always in full control of the dynamics. A beautiful disc, gone completely missing after this 1979 issue (this one I bought in an old English countryside bookshop). Try the 4th movement, hope you'll love it as I do.

(FLACs and label)

Brahms: Symphony nº 3, Haydn Variations - Abbado/Staatskapelle Dresden (1973)

2011-12-18T09:00:00.000Z

This LP was transferred by Davide in response to a request from visitor Katamarano.

Davide said:
What a pleasure to listen to this glorious recording again!

Prokofiev: The War Sonatas - Rare LP recordings (Toradze, Szidon, Zeltser)

2011-12-17T10:00:00.003Z

The next in the series of LP rips from Davide.

Davide's comment:
Prokofiev's sublime War Sonatas (#6, 7, 8) in my transfers from rare nowhere-to-be-found LPs by three stunning pianists showing similar approaches in their early performances here. No. 6, by Brazilian virtuoso Roberto Szidon from his 1975 DGG début album; No. 7 from Alexander Toradze's 1986 EMI début album; No. 8 played by Russian virtuoso Mark Zeltser, in his 1978 CBS début LP. Such beautiful music...

The file includes the LP rips (one sonata per track; .flac), a cover for Toradze and a Gramophone review each for Szidon and Zeltser.

R Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra - Prêtre/Philharmonia Orchestra (1983)

2011-12-16T09:00:00.002Z

Another LP transfer from Davide:

So, here's another gem, another lost treasure: Georges Prêtre conducting the wonderful Philharmonia Orchestra in 1983, in an awesome early digital recording for RCA Red Seal of Strauss' immortal Also sprach Zarathustra. Enjoy the spaciousness and colourful sound of this great London orchestra (recorded at the Walthamstow Town Hall) and the passionate approach by the French Maestro, with his unmistakable tempo changes (e.g., in "Of the great Longing"') and luscious and dynamic sound...

LP rip (.flac) + covers

Sibelius: Symphonies Nos.2 & 6 - Helsinki Phil. Orchestra, Segerstam

2011-12-15T11:42:00.005Z

Jean Sibelius

Symphonies Nos.2 & 6
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Leif Segerstam
Ondine CD

No comment from me.
They liked it over at classicstoday.com ('course they did: after all, it doesn't go against any of their dogmas, and neither the Helsinki Phil. or Segerstam are on their 'enemy-of-the-people list').

Classics Today Rating: 9/10

Leif Segerstam's new Sibelius cycle continues in strength with this fine pairing. Symphony No. 2 receives a first-rate performance that offers biting energy and taut rhythms despite the generally relaxed tempos. In fact Segerstam's natural and idiomatic phrasing and the fulsome sound he draws from the Helsinki Philharmonic gives the music a special vitality, whether in the first movement's climactic development (where the strings soar sweetly and the brass offer golden-toned declamations), in the andante's somber drama, or in the finale's grandly sweeping rhetoric. The great performances of this symphony remain those of conductors such as Barbirolli, Bernstein, and Szell, but Segerstam's handsomely played rendition stands as a fine modern alternative, worthy to take its place beside them.

The Sixth is an outright marvel. Again, Segerstam employs relatively slow tempos, but such is the beauty of sound and rhythmic vibrancy that the music maintains a fluidity that defies the pacing. Segerstam's careful rendering of Sibelius' precisely calculated balances draws you irresistibly into this symphony's special sound world. The tranquil slow movement achieves a near-hypnotic effect through the exceptionally vivd woodwind detail. The gently dancing scherzo here suggests Debussy, while the slightly relaxed finale evokes a uniquely refined euphoria and gentle melancholy. This Sixth is a triumph, one of the finest available. Ondine's realistic recording perfectly complements Segerstam's ravishing sound concept.

--Victor Carr Jr

Stravinsky: Petrouchka -- Levine/Chicago SO (1977)

2011-12-15T09:18:00.011Z

MIMIC is pleased to welcome a new contributor -- Davide recently began posting links in the c-box to out-of-print recordings of performances he treasures and recommends.

Davide's comment on this one:
A stunning LP, out-of-print from 1977, transferred here for you all. James Levine conducts the Chicago Symphony in Petrushka. A rare album, a superb recording, used in the old days by Gramophone (no less) as a reference performance for this wonderful Stravinsky ballet score.

If you need more than that, David Hurwitz also liked it (!!):
"James Levine's Petrushka is amazing, one of the most brilliant, hard-hitting, rhythmically sharp performances that you are ever likely to hear. The crowd scenes in the two outer tableaux sizzle with energy, while the more intimate moments feature some stunning solo work from the CSO principals, flute and trumpet especially."

LP rip, includes front and back covers.

Schumann: Symphonies Nos.2 & 3 - London Philharmonic Orchestra, Masur

2011-11-04T12:06:00.002Z

Robert Schumann
Symphonies Nos.2 & 3
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Kurt Masur
Teldec CD

As someone said in a comment to Schumann's symphonies by Bernstein. There is never enough Schumann.

Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra, Don Juan - Berliner Philharmoniker, Karajan

2011-10-31T11:33:00.002Z

Richard Strauss
Also Sprach Zarathustra, Don Juan
Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Von Karajan
Deutsche Grammophon CD (out of print)

Today Mr. 7.000.000.000 should be born. I think Zarathustra could be a nice birthday present for Mr. 7 billion (or mister 7KKK). And maybe some contemporary Don Juan has also played a small-not-completely-irrelevant role in all this...so....: a classic, if there ever was one.
Nowadays it has almost become fashionable to dismiss Karajan, af if he was more a marketing/commercial phenomenon rather than a great conductor. Not that fashion should ever be taken too seriously, but a recording of this stature should suffice to shed any doubts.

Brahms: Symphony No.4 - NDR Sinfonieorchester, Wand

2011-10-30T10:14:00.000Z

Johannes Brahms
Symphony No.4
NDR Sinfonieorchester, Guenter Wand
RCA CD (out of print)

For me, Wand's last Brahms cycle is possibly the best currently (un)available.
This closes the cycle.

Brahms: Symphony No.1 - NDR Sinfonieorchester, Wand

2011-10-28T07:12:00.000+01:00

Johannes Brahms
Symphony No.1
NDR Sinfonieorchester, Guenter Wand
RCA CD (out of print)

For me, Wand's last Brahms cycle is possibly the best currently (un)available.
No reviews. But don't say you like Brahms aloud if you don't try this one.

Mozart: Requiem - Berliner Philharmoniker, Abbado

2011-10-27T07:50:00.001+01:00

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Requiem
Berliner Philharmoniker, Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon 463 1812 6 GH

No review. Just music. Sorry to disappoint those who'd prefer it the other way around. Life is tough. And I'm 100% sober. Therefore life is very tough....

Dvorak: Symphony No.6, The Golden Spinning-Wheel - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Mackerras

2011-10-24T13:24:00.000+01:00

Antonin Dvorak
Symphony No.6, The Golden Spinning-Wheel
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras
Supraphon- SU 3771-2 031(CD)

Classics Today Rating: 10/10

In his equally laudatory review of this fantastic new release, my colleague Christophe Huss salutes Supraphon for managing to remain true to its dedication to Czech music while at the same time upholding the highest standards of performance quality. To this observation I can only add "Amen!" The label already has a couple of noteworthy versions of Dvorák's luminous Sixth Symphony with the incomparable (in this music anyway) Czech Philharmonic--a very good one by Neumann and a classic account by Ancerl. In fact, this symphony has been very well-served on disc, with excellent recordings by Kubelik, Rowicki, and Suitner, to name three of the best that come immediately to mind. Nevertheless, this newcomer bids fair to move right to the top of the available discography.

Recorded live, the rapport in evidence between Charles Mackerras and the orchestra really is the stuff of legends. There are so many outstanding moments that it's hard to settle on just a few, but consider the fortissimo counterstatement of the opening tune, just a touch "pesante" for added emphasis, or the gorgeously natural rubato between phrases of the same movement's second subject, and the way the coda really takes off and builds in energy straight through to the final climax. Then there's the usual gorgeous wind playing from the orchestra, so evident in the Adagio. Mackerras drives the scherzo with exhilarating abandon, and although he never bears down on the rhythm too heavily (always maintaining the lilt of the dance), the clarity of texture allows such characterful touches as the offbeat timpani in the reprise to register with full impact. I also love the extra punch he brings to the principal section's return after the trio.

Best of all, Mackerras treats us to what must be the most thrilling account of the finale yet captured on disc. It takes off like the wind and never looks back, simply accumulating energy as it goes. The great string fugato that initiates the coda flies by as if on mighty wings, and the grandiosity of the closing pages never loses that vital rhythmic impulse that gives the music its inner life. I wish that Supraphon had not included the applause at the end, but when you consider that all of this, and so much else besides, is happening in real time you will understand that anyone who believes that the era of "great" conductors is past simply hasn't been listening. If this sort of artistic communion between conductor and orchestra in the service of a brilliant interpretation isn't greatness, then we need to ask whether the term has any meaning at all.

The Golden Spinning Wheel (a studio recording this time) also receives what is arguably its finest performance on disc, even considering Harnoncourt's outstanding recent version. The opening, usually a blur of muddy rhythms in the lower strings and indifferently played percussion, here sounds as crisp and clean as a spring morning. I have never understood why some performances cut the central episode wherein the holy hermit gets back the heroine's various body parts (so he can patch her together again) in exchange for the components of the golden spinning wheel. The threefold musical repetition is not literal, and the orchestration is enchanting. The section is, in effect, the slow movement following the scherzo in which poor Dornicka gets hacked to bits in the first place, and it's a necessary four minutes of contrast. Finally, this is the moment where we encounter most of the "spinning wheel" music of the title. Mackerras rightly doesn't delete it, and hearing those deliciously chubby brass chorales and lovely wind solos alongside such characterful phrasing, you can't imagine why anyone would. The last few minutes offer as pure an expression of joy as you'll ever hear.

Supraphon's engineering is outstanding in both works, a touch warmer in the symphony (perhaps as a result of the presence of an audience), but in all respects as fine as any from this source. That audience, by the way, is absolutely silent, and with music-making of such spellbinding quality going on it's no wonder. Coming hard on the heels of his sensational Janácek double CD a few months ago, it's clear that Mackerras' Supraphon recordings will comprise a small but outstanding legacy worthy to stand beside the great recordings of such legends as Talich or Ancerl, and that the great Czech tradition is very much alive both in Prague and at Supraphon. Buy a few of these: they make terrific gifts for special occasions, and you can be sure to get a hearty "Thank you!" from the lucky objects of your affection. But first, treat yourself. [6/11/2004]

--David Hurwitz

Brahms: Symphonies Nos.2 & 3 - NDR Sinfonieorchester, Wand

2011-10-21T23:24:00.006+01:00

Johannes Brahms
Symphonies Nos.2 & 3
NDR Sinfonieorchester, Guenter Wand
RCA CD (out of print)

For me, Wand's last Brahms cycle is possibly the best currently (un)available.
No reviews. Austerity. And laziness. Expressed in bytes.

Good news for opera fans

2011-10-16T20:50:00.006+01:00

Belgium's La Monnaie/De Munt, recently named "Opera House of the Year" by Opernwelt magazine, has announced they'll be streaming all their operas this season (from after the performance, for three weeks). Free.

Announcement on La Monnaie's website: http://www.lamonnaie.be/en/402/Free-Online-Streaming

They'll be doing Oedipe (Enescu), Cendrillon (Massenet), Salome (R Strauss), Rusalka (Dvorak), Theodora (Handel), Thanks to my eyes (Bianchi), Orlando (Handel again), Otello (Rossini), and Il Trovatore (Verdi).

Check the program for directors and casts: http://www.lamonnaie.be/en/opera/

Dvorak: Symphony No.7, Suite in A major ('American') - Budapest Festival Orchestra, Fischer

2011-10-15T20:40:00.000+01:00

Antonin Dvorak
Symphony No.7, Suite in A major ('American')
Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer
Channel Classics- 30010(SACD)

Classics Today Rating: 9/9
Unlike the release of the Eighth and Ninth symphonies, which are reissues of earlier Philips recordings, these performances are new, and quite beautiful. The Suite never has been done better; its melodic freshness and rhythmic verve leap from the speakers, and like all of Dvorák's supposedly "light" music it proves rather more substantial than you might at first suspect, especially when it's this well-played. As the title suggests, this is a late work, dating from the composer's stint in New York, and it's full of the same kind of tuneful, possibly African-American inspiration that we find in the "New World" Symphony, the Cello Concerto, the "American" Quartet, and the contemporaneous String Quintet.

There's a great deal of competition in the symphony, and Ivan Fischer does particularly well in two particular ways. First, he doesn't monkey with the orchestration in the powerful coda of the finale or in the fortissimo counterstatement of the first movement's opening theme. Amazingly, in this latter passage the winds cut through the texture with perfect clarity, bespeaking the performers' thorough preparation and attention to details of ensemble balance. Second, his scherzo is amazing: fleet, gorgeously light on its feet, and (at the return after the trio) simply exciting as hell. Only in the first movement does Fischer sometimes sound a touch stiff (though again, the climax toward the end is powerful).

Sonically, there's plenty of warmth and depth (particularly in SACD multichannel format), but the loud tuttis turn a touch opaque. A bit more presence from the trombones and timpani could have turned an otherwise very fine performance into a great one. Still, this is awfully good, and if the coupling interests you then by all means enjoy this release without qualms. [6/15/2010]

--David Hurwitz

Dvorak: Symphonies Nos.8&9 - Prague Symphony Orch., Mackerras

2011-10-14T09:05:00.002+01:00

Antonin Dvorak
Symphonies Nos. 8 & 9
Prague Symphony Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras
Supraphon- SU 3848-2(CD)

No comment from me.
I didn't even get get a chance to listen to this one yet...

Classics Today Rating: 10/10

At 80 years young, Charles Mackerras remains one of the great conductors of our era, not to mention one of the most unheralded. His unfailing musicality, intelligence, and sheer joy in performing communicates vividly in these two glorious performances, beautifully recorded live in September, 2005. They are the kind of interpretations that make you listen as if for the first time to music you probably know well. This isn't just because Mackerras opts for the Urtext editions of both scores, most noticeable in the finale of the Eighth Symphony, where after the central climax he has the cellos play the variant of the main theme contained in Dvorák's autograph (Harnoncourt and a few others do similarly). What really distinguishes these performances is their sheer excitement and vital sense of flow, a function of rhythmically characterful phrasing allied to ideally transparent textures.

This is as true of the bucolic first two movements of the Eighth Symphony, where the woodwinds are especially delightful, as it is in the tremendously physical and passionate initial allegro of the Ninth. Has this movement's coda ever sounded more stormily agitated? And notice how marvellously Mackerras judges the tempo of the ensuing Largo, perfectly poised between rapt contemplation and easeful forward motion. Rhythmic acuity is the hallmark of both scherzos: a deliciously pointed waltz in the Eighth, and a swiftly vivacious Slavonic dance in the Ninth.

In the two finales, so often turned into stop-and-start affairs by less adept conductors, Mackerras creates an irresistible feeling of culmination, choosing rousing initial tempos and then for the most part sticking to them. The Eighth's concluding variations seldom have come across more cogently, particularly the lazy last three, which never bog down in excessive Romantic reverie. The Prague Symphony Orchestra responds to Mackerras' direction with amazing gusto, as if it doesn't already know the music backwards and forwards, and the audience is admirably silent. There are other wonderful performances of this music out there, but this truly is as good as it gets. [12/01/2005]

--David Hurwitz

Hindemith: Mathis der Mahler, Symphonische Metamorphosen, Nobilissima Visione -Berliner Philharmoniker, Abbado

2011-10-11T13:27:00.001+01:00

Paul Hindemith
Mathis der Mahler - Symphonie, Symphonische Metamorphosen, Nobilissima Visione, Berliner Philharmoniker, Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon 447 389-2

.flac+.cue+.log

Sank decided to cut on the scans. This time I'm cutting on the reviews. Fiscal austerity is making itself felt...

Vivaldi: L'Estro Armonico - L'Arte dell'Arco, Hogwood

2011-09-22T18:00:00.000+01:00

Anotnio Vivaldi
L'Estro Armonico
Federico Guglielmo, L'Arte dell'Arco, Christopher Hogwood
Chandos CHAN 0689(2)

Veracini: Sonate Accademiche - The Locatelli Trio, Wallfisch

2011-09-19T20:57:00.001+01:00

Francesco Maria Veracini
Sonate Accademiche
The Locatelli Trio, Elisabeth Wallfisch
Hyperion CDS44241-3

Fascinating inventive works, showing their little-known composer as a great deal more than a historical figure. The recording is vividly real and immediate. - The Penguin guide to Compact Discs

This ambitious and beautifully realized set is certainly going to be met with the same enthusiasm as has their previous work...clearly a must for collectors of Baroque music. - Fanfare USA

The performances by the Locatelli Trio respond with spontaneity and expressive warmth to the wide-ranging affects, sometimes playful, at others sober and occasionally harmonically idiosyncratic of these fascinating pieces. Violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch articulates Veracini's melodic line with clarity and communicative charm. - BBC Music Magazine

JS Bach: Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 2 - Angela Hewitt

2011-09-17T08:45:00.001+01:00

Johann Sebastian Bach
Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 2
Angela Hewitt
Hyperion CDA67303-4

'The first recorded performances by a pianist of Book I that have made me want to hear them many times over. Strongly recommended' (Gramophone)

“Admirers of Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt's lightly articulated and elegantly phrased Bach playing won't be disappointed by this recording.

These qualities characterise the playing of each and every one of these profoundly didactic yet sublimely poetic pieces. Her restrained use of the sustaining pedal, her consequently clearly spoken articulation, and the resultant lucidity of musical thought, bring to mind the recorded performances of Edwin Fischer. Hewitt certainly sounds more comfortable in a studio than Fischer ever did, and her technique is more consistently disciplined than his was under these circumstances. Her reflective view of the more inward-looking fugues, such as the lyrical one in E flat minor, is most attractive. Taut, but with a suppleness that's entirely devoid of stiffness, this is indeed cogent and gracefully beautiful playing of a high order. You may sense, from time to time, an overtly intense element of subjective thought in her understanding of the music, a quality which seems to be endorsed by occasional references in her lively, illuminating and detailed introduction, to Bach's 'sense of inner peace', and so on. However, to conclude on a thoroughly positive and enthusiastic note, these are performances of Book 1 that you'll want to hear many times over. The recording and instrument sound well, too.

Hewitt's Book 2 is a delight to both ear and mind. Everything is in the best taste and free of exhibitionism. There are subtle tonal nuances, natural rises and falls of dynamics, well-defined differentiation of contrapuntal lines and appreciation of the expressive implications of Bach's chromaticisms. Throughout her playing of these preludes and fugues – several longer, more mature and more demanding than those of Book 1 – there's a sense of unhurried poise, with flowing rhythm. The air of tranquillity is underlined by her frequent adoption of very quiet openings, many of which then take on a warmer tone towards the end – even the E major Fugue, which Landowska labelled 'combative', is handled quietly, yet she's able to sound contemplative (as in the E major Fugue) without lapsing into Tureckian reverentiality.

Just occasionally Bach's more intense movements tempt her into emotional rubatos which, though musically affecting, take Bach out of his century, and not everyone will care for the big allargandos she makes at the ends of some of the earlier movements. Otherwise these are musicianly and imaginative performances.”

Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

JS Bach: Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 1 - Angela Hewitt

2011-09-15T20:04:00.010+01:00

Johann Sebastian Bach
Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 1
Angela Hewitt
Hyperion CDA67301-2

'The first recorded performances by a pianist of Book I that have made me want to hear them many times over. Strongly recommended' (Gramophone)

“Admirers of Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt's lightly articulated and elegantly phrased Bach playing won't be disappointed by this recording.

These qualities characterise the playing of each and every one of these profoundly didactic yet sublimely poetic pieces. Her restrained use of the sustaining pedal, her consequently clearly spoken articulation, and the resultant lucidity of musical thought, bring to mind the recorded performances of Edwin Fischer. Hewitt certainly sounds more comfortable in a studio than Fischer ever did, and her technique is more consistently disciplined than his was under these circumstances. Her reflective view of the more inward-looking fugues, such as the lyrical one in E flat minor, is most attractive. Taut, but with a suppleness that's entirely devoid of stiffness, this is indeed cogent and gracefully beautiful playing of a high order. You may sense, from time to time, an overtly intense element of subjective thought in her understanding of the music, a quality which seems to be endorsed by occasional references in her lively, illuminating and detailed introduction, to Bach's 'sense of inner peace', and so on. However, to conclude on a thoroughly positive and enthusiastic note, these are performances of Book 1 that you'll want to hear many times over. The recording and instrument sound well, too.

Hewitt's Book 2 is a delight to both ear and mind. Everything is in the best taste and free of exhibitionism. There are subtle tonal nuances, natural rises and falls of dynamics, well-defined differentiation of contrapuntal lines and appreciation of the expressive implications of Bach's chromaticisms. Throughout her playing of these preludes and fugues – several longer, more mature and more demanding than those of Book 1 – there's a sense of unhurried poise, with flowing rhythm. The air of tranquillity is underlined by her frequent adoption of very quiet openings, many of which then take on a warmer tone towards the end – even the E major Fugue, which Landowska labelled 'combative', is handled quietly, yet she's able to sound contemplative (as in the E major Fugue) without lapsing into Tureckian reverentiality.

Just occasionally Bach's more intense movements tempt her into emotional rubatos which, though musically affecting, take Bach out of his century, and not everyone will care for the big allargandos she makes at the ends of some of the earlier movements. Otherwise these are musicianly and imaginative performances.”

Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Stanley: Concertos for Strings, Op.2 - CM90, Simon Standage

2011-09-09T16:25:00.004+01:00

John Stanley
Concertos for Strings, Op.2
Collegium Musicum 90, Simon Standage
Chandos CHAN 0638

Leclair: Violin Concertos V3 - Collegium Musicum 90, Standage

2011-09-04T14:59:00.001+01:00

Jean-Marie Leclair
Violin Concertos - Volume 3
Collegium Musicum 90, Simon Standage
Chandos CHAN 0589

Leclair: Violin Concertos V2 - Collegium Musicum 90, Standage

2011-09-03T13:14:00.002+01:00

Jean-Marie Leclair
Violin Concertos - Volume 2
Collegium Musicum 90, Simon Standage
Chandos CHAN 0564

Leclair: Violin Concertos V1 - Collegium Musicum 90, Standage

2011-09-02T18:51:00.006+01:00

Jean-Marie Leclair
Violin Concertos - Volume 1
Collegium Musicum 90, Simon Standage
Chandos CHAN 0551

Marin Marais (1656-1728) - The 250th Commemoration

2011-08-29T13:22:00.012+01:00

If the analogy can be made that the contributions of Marais to the literature and technique of the viol are in some way similar to Chopin's contributions to the piano, then this recording must reflect the interpretation of these works by the "Rubinsteins" and "Horowitzes" of the viol. Most of us are familiar with the reputation of August Wenzinger as a performer on the viol for more than fifty years, as a teacher at some of the world's most prestigious institutions, as a first-class scholar, and as director of many recordings for Deutsche Gramophon's Arkiv series. Appearing with Wenzinger on this recording is harpsichordist James Weaver, Director of Concerts in the Music Division of the Smithsonian; and Oberlin Baroque Ensemble members Marilyn McDonald (baroque violin), Robert Willoughby (baroque flute), James Caldwell (viola da gamba), Catharina Meints (viola da gamba), and Lisa Goode Crawford (harpsichord). The performers have all served as faculty members at the distinguished Baroque Performance Institute held at the Oberlin Conservatory each summer since 1972. The contents of the recording are the Pieces a trois violes in G major from Livre IV, Pieces a une et trois violes (1717); two Pieces de viole d'un gout Etranger (Livre IV), the Pieces en trio in E minor of 1692, and the Sonnerie de Ste. Genevieve du Mont de Paris (1723).

This reviewer can only think of superlatives to describe the playing of this music. There are several points which deserve special mention. The performance of the many ornaments seems completely effortless, allowing them to take on their true role as ornaments and not to sound forced or overly virtuosic or to obscure the melodic line. The performers' tasteful use of limited vibrato is likely to satisfy all but the most radical on either side of the vibrato controversy. The tempos are very convincing-neither too fast nor too slow. This is especially in evidence in the Sonnerie, which is here performed slightly faster than in other recordings, resulting in an entrancing, hypnotic performance of this ostinato piece which could, in less able hands, easily become boring. Catharina Meints extracts a very good bell effect from the bass viol in this piece. In the Pieces en trio in E minor, Wenzinger displays his mastery of the treble viol by producing an unusual richness of tone in the lower register of the instrument, and by frequently matching the tone quality of Willoughby's flute.

In addition to the fine performances, the disc itself is a wellmade product. The copy received for review is a flawless pressing, an item becoming increasingly rare these days. The balance is good, although perhaps a bit more volume would be welcome from the harpsichord. The tone quality is rich and satisfying, leading one to speculate that the recording engineers may have taken the time to grasp a basic concept of the ideal sound of the viols. This product of a small new company compares favorably with those of the major European and American recording companies.
John A Whisler in J Viola Gamba Soc 1979; XVI, 76-78 (from his review of the 1978 LP)

Smetana: Ma Vlast - Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Kubelik

2011-08-23T20:28:00.003+01:00

Bedrich Smetana
Ma Vlast
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Rafael Kubelik
Supraphon 11 1208-2 031 CDC

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Some more Czech music.

Musicweb-International
As so often with live performances, the freedom of pulse and moments of pointed emphasis are hallmarks of a great occasion, and the sort of thing one seldom finds (or which seldom work) in studio recordings. Subtlety is the order of the day: there’s drama in plenty, but no bombast! So the weaker moments (and let’s not pretend that there aren’t any) often emerge with real strength, and the patriotic shouting (at the end of Blaník, say) is never marred by noisy over-statement.

As I commented in my review of the Ančerl recording (11 1925-2 011: same label, same orchestra), our familiarity with the timbre of the great ‘Western’ orchestras often leads us to question the sonorities of the great East European and Russian orchestras. And yet the extraordinarily distinctive colours of the Czech Philharmonic are precisely what Smetana would have heard and wanted. Their range of colour (from the moonlight scene of Vltava to the dark introduction to Tábor) is to be wondered at. And throughout, the playing is wonderfully secure and committed, with distinguished and characterful solos far too numerous to mention.

The recording is digital, but you may nevertheless find that it lacks the bloom, warmth and depth that this music of all music needs and deserves, and which Supraphon have commonly been able to deliver in other issues of similar vintage – such as the Mackerras recording of Má Vlast on Supraphon 3465-2 031. Regrettably, both audience and ambience are intrusive, sometimes when least welcome (such as in the delicate opening of Vltava, where coughing and shuffling mask all the musical detail), and applause – which is (unsurprisingly) rapturous! – is not edited out.

The booklet notes are unhelpfully brief, including as they do nothing about the music itself. Black marks here, I’m afraid.

At the end of the proverbial day, no recording of music so varied and so vital as this deserves to be singled out as a ‘winner’. So I hope no one’s wanting me to declare this the ‘best recording’, or not, as the case may be. But it is, literally, incomparable. Buy it, whether or not you have a Má Vlast already on your shelves!

Peter J Lawson

Dvorak: Symphonies Nos. 7, 8, 9 - Neumann, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra

2011-08-23T06:00:00.000+01:00

Antonin Dvorak
Symphonies Nos. 7, 8, 9
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Vaclav Neumann
Supraphon- SU 3705-2 032(CD)

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Filling and embarassing Dvorak vacuum here at MIMIC. Even Hurwitz agrees it's a goody! We can now safely aim for unanimity.

Classics Today Rating: 10/10
Václav Neumann concludes his remarkable Dvorák symphony cycle on a high note, turning in what is arguably the finest and most consistent set of the last three symphonies since George Szell. All of the competition in this area has problems: Kubelik's Seventh isn't fabulous, and neither is Kertesz's (who did a better "New World" in his earlier VPO rendition). Rowicki, also less good in the Seventh than in the later two works, like Kertesz has an LSO whose playing is no match for that of the Czech Philharmonic. Colin Davis and the Concertgebouw offer a stunning Seventh and a decent "New World", but an unremarkable Eighth. Järvi turns in fine accounts of Nos. 8 and 9, but makes heavy going of the Seventh, and he's cavernously recorded too. Neumann, by contrast, shines in the Seventh, perhaps Dvorák's greatest symphony. His attack on the first movement's climax remains unrivaled, and he milks the finale's tragic foreboding for all it's worth but never lets the music bog down (those marvelous Czech winds help a lot too).

The Eighth is noteworthy for its effortless sense of flow, and also for a finale that, in the Czech tradition of Talich, takes the scherzo variations in tempo yet still has sufficient rhythmic kick to provide an exciting conclusion. Neumann recorded the "New World" Symphony more times than I care to count, his last efforts revealing sadly diminished capacity. This is his best version, a "traditional" performance in the sense that it doesn't bring new revelations to this oft-played symphony, but it's also one whose feeling of "rightness" (note the beautifully relaxed yet seemingly self-propelled Largo and the trenchantly argued finale) married to superb playing places it among the handful of great accounts. Supraphon's first-rate sonics also distinguish this, the most consistently excellent of all complete Dvorák symphony cycles, from the rest of the pack. Supraphon's happy decision to offer the nine symphonies in sets of three also means that you don't have to commit to the whole production until you've had a chance to sample--but sample you certainly should. [3/22/2003]

--David Hurwitz

Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 2 - Claudio Abbado

2011-07-31T22:00:00.003+01:00

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No.4*, Symphony No.2 "Resurrection"^
*Frederica von Stade, *Wiener Philharmoniker,
^Eteri Gvazava, ^Anna Larsson, ^Orfeon Donostiarra, ^Lucerne Festival Orchestra,
Claudio Abbado

La Musica di Repubblica-L'Espresso

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I'm on vacation, so I'll look for suitable reviews when I'm back. I hope you enjoy it anyhow. After all, it's Abbado on Mahler: if you don't like it, it's OK. Just a tad eccentric.
If you think you could do better yourself, you probably are Dave "Abbado's-too-damn-good-for-me-to-like-him" Hurwitz's clone. Consider sueing your irony teacher for theft.
Update: now we even have an enthusiastic review, courtesy of our good friend Anchusa:

Fanfare
The Mahler symphony sounds terrific, too—the bass is deep and well defined, while there is a clarity and depth to the soundstage that greatly enhances Abbado’s dramatic conception of the piece. The engineers have provided another vivid experience, which places the listener very close to the action without sounding in the least bit cramped or artificial.

The performance will offer few surprises to admirers of Abbado’s previous Mahler recordings. As before, the lyrical and melodic are given high priority, while Mahler’s dramatic contrast is fully in evidence. In the first movement, Michael Tilson Thomas, in his own recent recording, brings more depth of feeling to the peaceful second theme in the development, and thereby provides even more contrast to the tense first theme material of the exposition. Abbado’s Andante movement proceeds at a free-flowing tempo that certainly evokes the hurly-burly of life but sacrifices some of the Viennese warmth that others (Bernstein, Tennstedt, Thomas) have found here; he does find the gentle humor in the pizzicato section. Where Tilson Thomas contrasted an expansive Andante with a brisk Scherzo, Abbado reverses this, taking the third movement at a moderate tempo that highlights its clumsiness; MTT was able to get more contrast out of the dreamy E-Major interlude. Abbado’s “outcry” section is suitably, convincingly dramatic.

Anna Larsson sings a very sensitively phrased “Urlicht,” equal parts nobility and melancholy. The finale arrives with lightning speed, yet isn’t quite the startling explosion I would have expected—the sound has just a bit less impact here. The episodes that follow comprise a dramatically coherent whole; the off-stage instruments are effectively distanced, especially the “Great Call,” wherein the entire dramatic scenario is marvelously evocative. After the entrance of the chorus, the focus of the recording grows just a little gauzy, with less sharpness and clarity in the orchestra; at the same time, possibly to enhance the more importunate nature of the drama at this point, the tension slackens. But the momentum soon returns, and the “Aufersteh’n” comes to a rousing close. The audience is heard to give its clamorous approval.

Christopher Abbot

Allegri, F Scarlatti, Viadana, Leo: Miserere - O'Reilly, Ensemble Wm Byrd

2011-07-24T18:49:00.001+01:00

The Allegri Miserere, yes, but not the way you know it. And have you ever even heard the Misereres of Francesco Scarlatti, Giovanni Moro da Viadana or Leonardo Leo?

A splendid CD, and marginally still in print, so buy a copy soon. Worth every penny (cent, fillér, grosz, Rappen, ban, haléř, øre, whatever...).

Reviewed at ClassicsToday by the other David (Vernier):
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=4776

The man who made music for the eyes

2011-07-23T22:49:00.011+01:00

Alex Steinweiss (24 March 1917 - 18 July 2011)

Not quite about music, but a facet that's almost indivisible from its recorded form for many of us -- the cover art.

Alex Steinweiss, graphic artist and album cover designer par excellence, died last week at 94.

A couple of obituary notices:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/business/media/alex-steinweiss-originator-of-artistic-album-covers-dies-at-94.html
http://jazztimes.com/articles/28200-alex-steinweiss-album-cover-art-pioneer-dead-at-94

Visit his website:
http://www.alexsteinweiss.com/as_index.html

Even if you don't have €500 for the book on his work, you can page through it at Taschen Verlag:
http://www.taschen.com/lookinside/05039/index.htm
http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/design/all/05039/facts.alex_steinweiss_the_inventor_of_the_modern_album_cover.htm

Mahler: Symphony No.3 - Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Haitink

2011-07-20T20:48:00.005+01:00

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 3
Michelle DeYoung, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Women of the Chicago
Bernard Haitink
CSO Resound - CSO 901 701

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Am I entitled to comment on this one? Not really. No matter how hard I've tried, the 3rd is still on the list of works with which I still have to develop a satisfactory acquaintance.
So I'll let Dave Hurwitz talk, hoping that his reserves will provide the sufficient motivation for you, more competent Mahler listeners, to give it a try. One reason I really hate critics for is that once you've gotten hold of a hard earned CD, you just stumble into a review telling you it wasn't actually worth bothering...

Classics Today Rating: 7/8
The Chicago Symphony under the leadership of Henry Fogel started the trend of releasing its own recordings, initially as a fundraising opportunity, so it was only a matter of time before the orchestra launched its own label more formally. While I certainly welcome the initiative, this first title represents a mixed success. On the surface, the orchestra is leading from strength: both it and Haitink have excellent Mahlerian credentials. But let's face it--the CSO already has one excellent Mahler 3 (Levine's; Solti's was dreadful), and so does Haitink (his first Concertgebouw recording; his Berlin remake was dreadful). Actually, if you throw in Haitink's live Amsterdam recordings and his Berlin video, this is his fifth Mahler Third, which, coming from a conductor often heard to moan about the excesses of the recording industry in this regard, seems little short of bizarre.

Unquestionably Haitink knows the work, and so does the Chicago Symphony, and the orchestra's legendary brass section certainly lives up to its collective reputation, particularly in the closing chorale of the finale. But this is a symphony that thrives on color, and here Haitink is at his weakest. His first recording featured an orchestra (the Concertgebouw) that at the time had such an individual timbral profile, and was so steeped in the Mahler tradition, that he couldn't help but take credit for the excellent results. That performance remains a favorite, if only because it has the most glowing, organ-like final chord ever captured. Here, in the first movement, Haitink misses those touches of color at lower dynamic levels from the percussion and the harps that help lend the work its special character.

There's also a certain staidness to the tempos, a lack of contrast in such places as the vulgar eruption of winds and brass before the first movement's recapitulation, and throughout the scherzo, that risks turning into dullness despite the excellent playing everywhere in evidence. Furthermore, the fifth movement simply lacks the picture-postcard brightness that Mahler builds into his scoring and that creates the atmosphere of brittle unreality that so brilliantly sets up the finale's serene opening (Bernstein I on Sony has never been equaled here). Mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung's voice also has developed what comes very close to a wobble, and this makes her work in both the fourth and fifth movements less than ideal. The engineering is clear and vivid, but also a bit flat in perspective, with the brass at times overbearing (not that fans of these players, who are legion, will care).

In sum, this is a good if flawed performance, but more to the point, a redundant one. If you want Chicago in this music, seek out Levine (particularly the Japanese RCA reissue), which also has a very significant asset in Marilyn Horne in the vocal bits. If you want Haitink, Philips has recently reissued his first and best Concertgebouw recording, coupled with a fine Das Klagende Lied. And if you must have Haitink and Chicago together, then you may want to consider this, but only if the identity of the artists is far more important than the actual musical results.

--David Hurwitz

Live video webcasts from this summer's classical music festivals

2011-07-18T12:01:00.003+01:00

Much of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence is on liveweb.arte.tv.

Some of the Festival de Beaune is on also on liveweb.arte.tv.

Much of the Verbier Festival is on medici.tv.

Some of the BBC Proms will be on the iPlayer.

Six concerts from the Festival de Saint-Denis are still available on liveweb.arte.tv.

Pretty much all concerts are available on demand for a while (between a week and several months) after the event.

Please add other video webcasts of classical music festivals in the comments.

Mahler: Symphony No.6 - Wiener Philharmoniker, Boulez

2011-07-17T20:32:00.004+01:00

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 6
Wiener Philharmoniker, Pierre Boulez
Deutsche Grammophon 445 835-2GH

Say whatever you like. This is my favorite version of my favorite Mahler symphony.

Gramophone
There are inescapable comparisons to be made here between Boulez and Bernstein. Two composer-conducting former directors of the New York Philharmonic, latterly granted carte blanche by the same record company to re-record the music that made them famous (and let's not forget it was sometimes the other way round). Boulez may not be everyone's idea of the perfect Mahlerian, but it is splendid to see DG's ambitious series starting to embrace repertoire he has not previously committed to disc. Conveniently, the yellow label has been responsible for almost every great recording of the Sixth — "the only Sixth despite the Pastoral" according to Alban Berg (and Boulez has not recorded much Beethoven). So Boulez the conductor is in safe hands, the more so since he has the Vienna Philharmonic to offset any tendency to cerebral introspection. The results are fascinating if not exactly compulsive and those sympathetic to his interpretative approach will find plenty to enjoy.
Returning to performing the symphony after a gap of more than15 years, Boulez launches the first movement at a pace slightly slower than the latter-day norm, though he does not seek to emulate Barbirolli's world-weary trudge (now available on CD — to be reviewed shortly). He has the same orchestra as Bernstein in his live 1988 DG version, but at once you notice the different quality of ensemble, adequately precise but softer-grained, lacking the hysterical precision (some would say overwrought quality) of his rival. One might expect parallels with Sinopoli in that Boulez too is concerned to ensure that as much as possible of the score be made audible to the listener. The difference is that he does not see it as his role to choose between competing musical ideas, never spotlighting one significant detail at the expense of another, so that a certain coolness prevails. Nor does he swing into the so-called Alma theme to the manner born — compare the instinctive emotional thrust of a Bernstein or, more surprisingly, a Karajan. It is only the development's interlude of idyllic, cowbell-encrusted calm that finds him at a loss. Seemingly embarrassed by such naïve nature symbolism he puts on the blinkers and keeps going.
The slow movement is placed third. Having been alerted to the prospect of a relatively rapid tempo, I was expecting something unorthodox. True. Boulez disregards Karajan's Brucknerian revivification, but the lighter intermezzo-like quality of his own account is by no means implausible and works beautifully in its own way. The finale will be more of a problem for some listeners. Boulez's structural imperatives do seem to preclude an appreciable sense that there are elemental forces at work here. One would not expect him to identify with romantic notions that limit the scope of the music by presenting it as the ravings of a hero-protagonist-conductor felled by the malign workings of Fate. That said, my own preference is definitely for something more searingly intense. Speeds as such are well chosen, on the fast side but uncontroversially so: l was puzzled only by his unsteady reading of the 'heavy' brass chorale at fig. 106 (23811).
For all the care devoted to problems of balance and articulation, the questions remain. How important is the lack of 'idiomatic' rubato? Is this Mahler limpid or merely limp in its avoidance of 'imprudent ecstasy'? Let's side-step the issue and end on a positive note: DG have managed to squeeze the performance on to one disc — Sony might have done so with the earlier Bernstein but didn't — and there are copious notes by Henry Louis de la Grange. The International Mahler Society Edition (1963) suggests a running time in the region of 80 minutes. In this respect, Boulez is spot on. DSG (David Gutman)

Mahler: Symphony No. 4 - Boston Symphony Orchestra, Ozawa

2011-07-15T09:00:00.005+01:00

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 4
Kiri Te Kanawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa
Philips 422 072-2PH

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Can't find neither the details of this recording, nor reviews of it. But I hope this doesn't diminish the listening pleasure you'll derive from listening to it...ooopppss! I found a partial endorsement by David "samurai's'r'cool" Hurwitz whose en-passant endorsement should suffice to fill our bosoms with infinite delight for this performance...
...and now we even have a review from the Gramophone.

Classics Today:
Extract from the review of Ozawa's 'Resurrection' with the Saito Kinen
Seiji Ozawa's credentials as a Mahlerian have not received the recognition that they deserve (the same holds true of his Bruckner). His complete symphony cycle recorded in Boston includes two excellent versions of the First Symphony (the one for Deutsche Grammophon slightly better than the later one for Philips), equally superb performances of the Third, Fourth, and Ninth Symphonies, and fine efforts in Nos. 2, 5, 7, and 8. The Sixth would have been very good also had it not been compromised by wretchedly dull recorded sound....

Gramophone
There are aspects of Ozawa's Fourth that I enjoyed greatly. He would seem to be temperamentally better suited to this particular piece, to what Deryck Cooke described as its "neo-rococo" stylizations, than to any other Mahler that I've heard him conduct. Even so, by no stretch of the imagination could Ozawa be described as a natural Mahlerian. He is all too inclined to tidy up the awkwardnesses, temper the extremes, and generally somehow rationalize the music's inherent neuroses (that was especially true recently of his disappointing Second). Take the first movement of this Fourth; there is poise, charm and grace from the very outset, the lower strings tripping lightly over their staccato semi-quavers just after
Tempo I; the phrasing generally is elegant and unfussy, the rubato well-mannered. But what Ozawa fails to catch (and for this you must look to Bernstein/DG—would that he had recorded the piece as written, with a soprano, and not a treble--or Maazel/CBS) is the playful, quixotic nature of this movement. One needs to point-up more the sudden and mischievous shifts in mood and movement, the excitable bursts of energy, those characteristically abrupt Mahlerian 'commas'. Similarly, a higher profile is called for in the wry country dance of the second movement. Ozawa's rustic hobgoblins are rather too lovable; there must be more of 'Death, the friendly fiddler' about the movement with spikier and more acidic woodwinds for one thing.
The slow movement is very lovely, and here Ozawa has caught the equivocal nature of the music; the underlying darkness. Off-setting the warmth and luminosity of those rapt string lines is a profound sense of sadness and disquiet with baleful sounds from low-register horns exceptionally telling at each abortive climax. The climax is certainly thrilling, Ozawa throwing open 'Heaven's Gate' with a truly breath-catching luftpause and ever-assertive Boston trumpets providing the blinding light (the recording is first rate, warm and naturally ambient with an impressive bass extension). And I have nothing but admiration for Ozawa's serene way with those hearteasing final pages: the Boston strings at their very best.
Which leaves Dame Kin. And to my surprise, I find myself more, not less convinced, than I did when she recorded the piece with Solti (Decca). The naturally plushy tones have once more been discreetly pared down, the delivery is fresh and appropriately wide-eyed with only one or two phrases betraying a self-conscious 'girlishness' in the characterization. Technically, this is actually better singing than that provided by Judith Raskin for Szell in his famous Cleveland version of 1966. Many collectors, like myself, will have been waiting in anticipation of its re-appearance on CD—and they will not be disappointed. CBS have come through with a pristine digital remastering of the open and exceptionally well-balanced Columbia original. Some hardening of tone under pressure was always a problem, even on LP, but on the whole you would never credit that this was a 1960s recording. As to the performance, the assurance and precision of its execution is something quite remarkable—an orchestra in the very peak of condition: ensemble absolutely unanimous, rubato finely-turned to a man, not a blemish in earshot. There is no better tribute to Szell's achievements in Cleveland. If I'm absolutely honest, though, it's been some time since I sat down and listened to the performance and this time round I must say it struck me as far more dispassionate and calculated in effect than I had remembered. I'd willingly sacrifice some of the precision for a greater sense of spontaneity at the moment of performance (Szell was always at his best in the concert hall). It's a very subjective reaction, of course, but when I compare the cool, pellucid beauty of Szell's Cleveland strings in the slow movement with the home-spun sweetness of their Vienna Philharmonic counterparts in the CBS recording under Maazel, I know instinctively which reading I would choose to live with. In my opinion, Maazel has put few finer performances on disc.
- Edward Seckerson

JS Bach: Goldberg Variations BWV 988 - Charles Rosen, piano

2011-07-08T13:17:00.010+01:00

This one won't be everyone's front runner, but certainly worth a hearing. Some think it's a penetrating view, others say it lacks warmth; some that the lines are beautifully defined, others that he's fussy and overly meticulous. Restrained and rational vs. unexpressive. Intellectual vs. boring...
You get the idea. Only way to find out is to listen to it yourself.

JS Bach Goldberg Variations BWV 988
Charles Rosen, piano
Sony; recorded in 1967 (out of print)

Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussions..., the Miracolous Mandarin - suite, Divertimento - Chicago Symphony Orch., Solti

2011-07-02T12:18:00.008+01:00

Bela Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussions and Celesta, The Miracolous Mandarin - suite, Divertimento
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti
Decca - 430 352-2

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I decided to fill a gap in our collection with one of the greatest of works of the 20th century. The present recording has been repackaged in "The Originals", and later in the "Double Decca" collection to also include the Concerto for Orchestra, thus providing a small collection of Bartok's greatest orchestral works.
A review of the "Double Decca" is reported below.

Classics Today Rating: 8/9
These performances by the Chicago Symphony under Georg Solti are of exceptional quality, fusing phenomenal orchestral virtuosity with the conductor's famous authority in this repertoire, in radiant, resonant Decca recordings. The Concerto For Orchestra, Solti's 1980 Orchestra Hall reading, lacks something of the dry humour he injected into the Shostakovich parody section of the "Intermezzo" in his own earlier London Symphony version (generally less well played), but otherwise this is marvelous on all counts. The Miraculous Mandarin suite sounds almost too highly polished at times--trombones near the start haven't the required slithering vulgarity, and the brilliantly executed fugal section led off by the violas near the climax glosses over the music's intended lurid pictorialism. The Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta also brings some incredible playing, with every dynamic detail and nuance in place. But the piano sounds too remote and Solti's clinical precision sometimes robs the music of the raw-nerved vitality that Bartók clearly desires. For that you can always have Ferenc Fricsay's Berlin Radio performances from the mid-1950s (available on DG) on your shelves--but beyond that, you'll find nothing lacking in the rest of this excellent program (the Dance Suite is especially brilliant). [9/23/2002]

--Michael Jameson

Schubert: Piano Sonata D960, Ländler D790 - Leon Fleisher

2011-07-01T10:28:00.001+01:00

More post-baroque...
Get it while it lasts -- counterpoint, thorough bass and Affekte could return at any time!

Schubert: Piano Sonata D 960, Ländler D 790
Leon Fleisher, piano (recorded in 1956)

Fleisher's approach to the Romantic repertoire was mature right from this first album given his intepretive options and his sense of drama that nevertheless remained free of pathos. In the Andante sostenuto, each note of the melody resonates as though it were meant to be the last without ever affecting the clarity of line or the precision of the median voices. As for the Allegro vivace con delicatezza, it is played with an irony that verges on mockery whilst consistently maintaining rhythmical rigour, a rich palette and inventiveness.

Finally, and better than most, Fleisher knew how to perform a simple section with simplicity whilst maintaining incredible presence. Even at moments that appear trifling, we are surprised with a feeling of renewed pleasure; the falsely superficial Ländler D.790 intelligently complete the difficult choice of repertoire that this 28-year-old musician had to make.
from the notes by Eric Guillemaud (trans. Christophe Evans)

Schoenberg: Ein Ueberlebender aus Warschau / Webern: Orchestral Works - Wiener Phil., Abbado

2011-06-30T09:33:00.003+01:00

Arnold Schoenberg: Ein Ueberlebender aus Warschau*
Anton Webern: Orchestral Works
*Gottfied Hornik, *Wien State Opera Chorus,
Wiener Philharmoniker, Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon - 431 774-2

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This release could actually stake a partial claim at being (partially late baroque, due to Webern's arrangement of the Maestro Bach's Ricercar a 6 from the "Musikalische Opfer".
The rest is your usual, trite, overly popular repertoire, of MIMIC's "Low Empire".

Dvořák: Piano Quintet Op81, Piano Quartet Op87 - Schiff, Panocha Quartet

2011-06-29T10:24:00.022+01:00

To entertain these fair well-spoken days...
...we shall continue our series The Late Post-Baroque, or What Happened After 1760?

András Schiff, Panocha Quartet: Jiří Panocha (violin), Pavel Zejfart (violin), Miroslav Sehnoutka (viola), Jaroslav Kulhan (cello)

recorded in Berlin, 1997
(Elatus reissue out of print; the Teldec original still pops up from time to time)

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 - Sinopoli

2011-06-26T12:16:00.002+01:00

Franz Schubert
Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9
Staatskapelle Dresden, Giuseppe Sinopoli
Deutsche Grammophon 437 669-2

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Sinopoli was a great conductor. But, influenced by some negative reviews, I once almost sold this CD. Fortunately I didn't, and came to appreciate it again when I realized one should make up his own mind. Sinopoli's readings are clear, with the risk of becoming "dry". But no sense of drama gets lost in this "surgical" approach (Sinopoli was also a physician - a psychiatrist to be precise -, as well as an archeologist). Maybe not the top pick on these works, but worth listening to.

Mahler: Symphony No.2, Adagio from Symphony No. 10 - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Levi

2011-06-23T09:08:00.001+01:00

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No.2, Adagio from Symphony No. 10
Barbara Bonney, Mary Philips, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Yoel Levi
Telarc - 80548(CD)

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The Adagio of the 10th symphony is the reason of today's post. I think we are getting close to being all set with Mahler's basics.
We are still missing the Lied von der Erde and the Kindertotenlieder at least, but we are getting there.

I know you're waiting for it, so I won't disappoint you...my Hurwitz-jab-of-the-day is...(drumroll and trumpets, Maestro):
"Another recording which proves Hurwitz's value as an insightful sniper...ooops critic. Why else in the world would I have considered purchasing Yoel Levi and the Atlanta Symphony on Mahler's 2nd? 1) The Atlanta Symphony would not be the first Mahler orchestra you'd think of would it? 2) The Gramophone spoke of this recording as 'Mahler-lite' 3) Apart from Hurwitz, no one else ever cared much for this recording".

Classics Today Rating: 10/10
Yoel Levi's Mahler has been a mixed bag: marvelous versions of Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6, a good but not great No. 1, and a dull 5 and 7. The Second is one of the great ones, though, a performance of the type that Bruno Walter or George Szell would have appreciated. It will not appeal to those who need their Mahler to sweat blood, and Levi is not the kind of conductor who makes his interpretive points through attention-getting tempo adjustments and exaggerated string portamentos. Rather, his personal touch reveals itself in scrupulous attention to dynamics, care with instrumental balances, and finely honed ensemble. Such an approach always risks blandness, if only because the result can sound effortless just when the music needs to express tension and a sense of strain; but when it works, as here, it can offer more sheer musical satisfaction and staying power than many more demonstrative efforts.

In order for Levi's approach to succeed, the orchestral playing must be uniformly stunning, and about that there can be no question. The lower strings really dig into their opening riffs, the brass sound full but never coarse, and the winds play with gorgeous smoothness and attention to the niceties of phrasing and dynamics. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the first movement (and much of the performance as a whole) is the top-to-bottom transparency of texture, even during the climaxes. This permits all of Mahler's coloristic detail (the quiet tam-tam strokes, low harp notes, mysterious suspended cymbal sounds) to make the most atmospheric contribution possible, and it helps Levi sustain the music's tension over the long spans of calmer music. Nor does he underplay the climaxes: the actual point of arrival at the first-movement recapitulation is overwhelmingly powerful, even if a bit more emphasis on those "pesante" brass chords wouldn't have hurt.

The second movement features wonderfully cultured string playing, beautifully phrased and perfectly nuanced. There's no attempt to make more of this charming movement than appears on the surface: it's a lovely interlude. The scherzo features incredible ensemble work by the winds, which pass the music's kaleidoscopic phrases off between instruments with impressive seamlessness. A little more schmaltz would have added character to the trumpet-led trio, but you can only admire the way Levi manages the ensuing transition back to the initial tempo of the scherzo: it's an object lesson in how such things should be done. Telarc correctly places the symphony's last three movements on the second disc, thereby permitting them to be played as Mahler requests, without a break.

Mary Phillips sings her fourth-movement solo sensitively, and how much better the brass playing sounds here than in Chailly's recent recording, with its awful "stick 'em off stage" experiment. The finale erupts with tremendous force, and the purely orchestral episodes have plenty of tension and mystery. Levi doesn't stint on the big percussion crescendos leading to the "dead march", which in turn has real bite and an inexorable forward thrust. The next episode places the offstage trumpets and percussion very far away, exactly as Mahler requests in fact (their sound "scarcely audible as though borne on the wind"), and they actually do come much closer, again as specified, before the next big climax. It's smooth sailing from then on: the Atlanta Symphony Chorus has few if any peers today; Barbara Bonney sounds radiant in her solos; and Levi allows the final climax to develop with a wholly natural, unforced grandeur that's never rushed. The final pages, with crashing tam-tams and excellently balanced organ, set the seal on a superbly musical experience.

If anything, the performance of the Adagio from the Tenth (Ratz edition) is even better. There's nowhere to hide in this music, no special effects or coloristic devices to deflect the attention from the movement's pure Mahlerian polyphony. Levi's performance demonstrates just how superb his Atlanta players are in all departments (how gorgeously those strings play!), and how effortlessly they sustain his very slow (27 minutes) tempo. It all culminates in the single most hair-raisingly intense central climax that this music has ever received, in any performance or edition. Telarc has captured both performances in ideally warm, detailed sound of demonstration quality. There are other ways to play this music, for sure, but of its type this comes about as close to perfection as we're likely to hear.

--David Hurwitz

Mahler: Symphony No.9 - Bamberger Symphoniker, Nott

2011-06-22T08:17:00.002+01:00

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 9
Bamberger Symphoniker, Jonathan Nott
Tudor - 7162(SACD)

I include three reviews. Two are very positive, one (by Hurwitz) isn't.
He has excellent reasons for this:
1) The Orchestra is European
2) The Gramophone liked the performance a lot
3) Almost everyone else (apart from Hurwitz) liked this performance a lot

Audiophile Audition Rating: *****
The Mahler 9th is a symphonic universe, a summation of that form initiated by Haydn and sculpted by Beethoven and Bruckner. Listener involvement in the 9th is heady stuff. The work deals with the trials associated with living with always the nearness of death. If, as Keats puts it, “death is life’s high mead, then life’s journey is the story. As did Stauss in Ein Heldenleben (1898), the 9th Symphony cites Mahler’s earlier works. But these references, rather than heroic, are invariably ironic. The visceral joy found in the second movement Landler becomes progressively bitter and farcical. The third movement Burlesk reaches an ultimate whirligig of ironic energy. The final movement Adagio initially emulates Bruckner, but becomes increasingly unadorned until it is an empty shell, skeletal, bereft of life. The first movement Andante Comoto summarizes Mahler’s life journey. It is a treatise upon the ebb and flow of human existence, the ups and downs of the body and spirit, an overview of the movements to come.

Familiar with recordings by Walter (two), Szell, Giulini, Bernstein, Dohnanyi, Gielen, Barbirolli and Karajan, I find this new version by Jonathan Nott and The Bamberg Symphony comparable or surpassing those recordings in interpretation and sound quality. Nott reveals a consistently coherent view of the 9th from the opening three notes of Andante Comoto through the terminal hushed string phrases of the final Adagio. He takes great risk with extreme dynamics and tempi to achieve the correct dramatic emphasis . Very fine playing is drawn from The Bambergers. The winds bray and crackle with energy. In the final movement the string section does indeed play stets grossen ton, yet are never strident. They glow throughout the performance.

Tudor’s multichannel SACD recording becomes the ideal vehicle to deliver this magnificent work to the listener. Hall ambience, orchestral placement, depth and balance are magically provided. Only the spontaneity of witnessing the live performance is missing. I cannot praise this recording highly enough. It presents the majesty of the Mahler 9th with near perfection.

-- Ronald Legum

Musicweb-International
Jonathan Nott’s Mahler cycle has now reached the fourth instalment. Recoridngs have already been issued of the First Symphony (see review and review), the Fifth Symphony (see review) and the Fourth (see review). This is the first in the series to come my way.

Before considering the performance I think a few words about the recording itself may be helpful – I listened to these hybrid SACDs as conventional CDs. When I first started listening I thought that the sound appeared almost too close. In fact, I found that my ears soon adjusted as the performance continued and that I didn’t find the closeness to be as much of an issue on further hearings. I suppose the effect is rather akin to sitting just a few rows back from the stage in the concert hall. The orchestra sounds very ‘present’. There certainly seems to be a good spread of sound from one side of the platform, as it were, to the other but I’m less sure that there’s adequate front-to-back perspective. Another feature of the recording is that Nott has divided his violins left and right – of which I heartily approve. However, until the finale, where the strings dominate the scoring for much of the time, I couldn’t hear much of the viola, cello or double bass lines. In fact the strings as a whole are too easily swamped by the wind and brass sections in the first three movements.

For comparison I put on Simon Rattle’s Berliner Philharmoniker recording, which I so much admired in 2008 (see review by Tony Duggan). Here too the recording is fairly close but much more inner string detail is evident. I strongly suspect that the Tudor engineers have used a limited microphone array in an effort to present a truthful concert hall sound image whereas the EMI team have probably used multiple microphones placed within or above the orchestra in order to capture much more detail. I think the Tudor sound does indeed present the sort of sound that you’d hear in a concert hall – and Mahler’s scoring is very often wind- and brass-heavy – and it depends whether you want a recording for home listening to give you a concert hall perspective or whether you want as much detail as possible.

So you might want to sample the recording before purchasing. However, even if the sound is not quite your ideal – and, as I say, my ears adjusted quite quickly – sonic considerations aren’t everything here for Nott leads a fine performance of this magnificent, complex symphony.

He takes a fairly spacious view of I. In fact, at 29:46 his is one of the longest performances I know. Rattle is slightly quicker overall (28:56) but it’s interesting to note that some, though by no means all, conductors of the previous generation have taken less time over this movement. Barbirolli, for example, took 26:53 in his famous EMI Berlin recording, while Kubelik’s live 1975 reading (Audite) took 26:44. The celebrated 1938 Bruno Walter recording flashes by in 24:47. Have Mahler performances broadened over the years?

Nott may be spacious but throughout the movement his control and concentration are impressive. His reading isn’t as passionate as Rattle can be at times; it’s more patient. There were one or two occasions when I thought his speeds were just a little bit too measured but as a whole his reading is impressive. The climaxes are thrust home – at these points one has the impression that the orchestra is playing flat out – but the quiet passages often impress. For example the ghostly passage between 8: 01 and 9:47 is imaginatively presented with lots of good detail – I like the distanced muted horns, for instance. I think it would be fair to say that sometimes the violins sound just a little thin in alt and the string bass line is certainly underpowered – no doubt because one is so used, with many other conductors, to hearing the cellos and basses prominently through the right hand speaker. But, set against that I must say straightaway that much of the playing is vivid, the orchestra’s response is totally committed and there’s a lot of fine solo playing to admire. I have heard more dramatic, angst-ridden accounts of this amazingly rich movement but drama isn’t the whole story by any means and Nott’s account is very convincing and never less than wholly musical. He seems to see the whole movement in one long sweep and I admire his way with it very much.

The two inner movements go very well. There’s a good deal of sharply etched, piquant playing in II. Nott paces the music very well and he judges the many tempo modifications expertly. His reading of III is dynamic and thrusting. He and the engineers bring out a great deal of the teeming contrapuntal detail in the score. The trio (from 5:55) is taken at a suitably relaxed pace. This is nostalgic music but I like the fact that Nott never wallows in the sentiment; on the contrary, forward momentum is nicely maintained – and praise too for the solo trumpeter, whose silvery tone is just right. When the Rondo resumes (10:23) the music is turbulent and exciting right to the last bar.

The strings come into their own in the finale. The opening paragraphs are full-toned but the emotion is not overdone – Nott doesn’t play his cards too soon. The string playing is very good, the tone just weighty enough - and now we do hear a satisfyingly strong bass line. One rather special moment occurs between 4:05 and 4:54 where Nott obtains the most atmospheric playing imaginable from his strings. At this point the bass line is spectral with a wafer-thin violin line on top.

Nott unfolds the finale compellingly and the Bamberg strings and horn section in particular do him proud. Once again, this isn’t perhaps the most overtly emotional reading I’ve heard but the patience – perhaps even a degree of reserve? – brings its own rewards. Nott’s ability to take the long view and to build the movement incrementally means that when we reach the sustained ardent passage that lies at the heart of the movement (14:18 – 17:03) the effect is all the greater. The closing pages of this movement are always a huge test for players and conductor alike. Here the test is passed very successfully. During the last four minutes or so, starting with the second violin entry at 21:07, the music gradually winds down, all passion spent.

This Mahler Ninth is a very fine achievement. A host of great conductors and leading orchestras have essayed this symphony on disc over the years and though the seventeen versions on my own shelves don’t quite go from A to Z they do go from Barbirolli to Walter. This new version can certainly contend with the best of them and it’s one to which I’m sure I shall be returning frequently in the future.

John Quinn

Classics Today Rating: 6/7
There was a time when it was difficult to find a mediocre performance of this symphony, but no longer. Jonathan Nott's interpretation has many personal touches, but they are all of the same type. Briefly, he emphasizes clarity of texture to the point where he loses sight not just of the long musical line, but also of the passionate intensity of Mahler's tragic vision. There are basically two problems with pursuing transparency at all costs. The first, and most serious, concerns the fact that the kind of control that Nott requires means that all of his climaxes sound inhibited. "With the utmost power", Mahler urges at the climax of the first movement, but this is nowhere near what Nott and his players achieve. They are at their best in the quiet moments between the loud bits, where the texture is less complicated--but then anyone can play the game of "bring out the subordinate part".

Similarly, Nott's subdued opening of the finale is very beautiful, its restraint emphasizing the passion simmering below the music's surface. Unfortunately, that is where it stays, and so the contrast between the main theme and those "without expression" interludes fails to tell as it should, and the coda comes across as expressively bland. Nott's handling of the second movement doesn't come close to doing justice to the first dance's rustic clumsiness (the waltz goes much better), and while the opening of the Rondo:Burleske is a marvel of contrapuntal clarity, Nott's obsessive attention to vertical detail quickly lets the music degenerate into a mere mechanical exercise, choppy and unconvincing.

The second problem with Nott's approach is that he's only partially successful at his own game. Again, it's the tuttis that spell his downfall. Where are the horns (with the "bell" motive) at the forte counterstatement of the first movement's opening theme? Where is the trumpet at that theoretical "with the utmost power" climax? There are other misjudgments as well. Nott's handling of transitions is particularly fallible. Check out the lame trumpet and timpani fanfares and stiff accelerando leading into the opening movement's second "collapse" episode, or the awkward return to the Rondo after the calm central episode. And why does Nott accelerate so obviously and so soon before the point where Mahler actually asks him to?

Finally, there are the sonics. It may be that the diffuse engineering accounts to some extent for the lack of impact at the big moments, never mind the balances that favor the strings (not very flatteringly) at the expense of the high brass and woodwinds. But the fact remains that Nott's interpretation signally fails to inspire the players to surpass themselves. So he must take responsibility for their comparative timidity. I have no doubt that they are better at what they do than he is, and could be more impressive if he would simply get out of the way and turn them loose where the music demands it. In short, this performance has all the hallmarks of being carefully rehearsed in many of its less important details, and neglected in the areas that truly matter.

--David Hurwitz

Respighi: Pini di Roma, Fontane di Roma, Feste Romane - Philadelphia Orchestra, Muti

2011-06-21T09:15:00.002+01:00

Ottorino Respighi
Pini di Roma, Fontane di Roma, Feste Romane
the Philadelphia Orchestra
Riccardo Muti
EMI- 47316(CD)

Some more late baroque Russian music: the famous "Moscow Triptych": "Pines of Moscow", "Fountains of Moscow", "Moscow Holidays"...or am getting something wrong???

Classics Today Rating: 10/9
This trio of sumptuous orchestral travelogues would seem to be natural candidates for high-definition multi-track recording, but as of this writing it hasn't happened. Until then, we can be grateful to Arkivmusic.com's on-demand CD production for restoring to the catalog one of the best standard digital recordings of Pines, Fountains, and Festivals. Among discs providing all three symphonic poems, Riccardo Muti's 1984 Philadelphia production is at or near the top in all criteria: the performance is passionate and fully Italianate throughout, the orchestra has the special luster that comes with world-class ranking, the wind solos are the most ravishing on disc, and the sound is wide-ranging and natural. Readers should not let the sound's slight tendency to get splashy in the thickly-scored sections prevent enjoyment of this, the best all-around "Roman Trilogy" available.

For those who insist that sound be without reservations, Massimo Freccia's well-regarded 1968 account is superbly remastered on Chesky, and the Philharmonia Orchestra comes close to that elusive world-class quality. Tortelier (Chandos) has stunning sound and is about on a par with Muti, although his version just misses the latter's Italian flair. For top picks for the individual works, see the reference recordings, with this caveat: Avoid Maazel's Sony recordings of Respighi, and if Mata's Dorian stunner reappears, put it on your list. [1/30/2008]

--Joseph Stevenson

Stravinsky: Petrouchka, le Sacre du Printemps - Cleveland Orchestra, Boulez

2011-06-20T10:02:00.003+01:00

Igor Stravinsky: Petrouchka, le Sacre du Printemps
the Cleveland Orchestra, Pierre Boulez
Deutsche Grammophon - 435 769-2

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The next masterpieces of the late baroque :-). I've always liked the cover of this CD, with Boulez who wants to tell you: "why don't you just shut up and listen to me?" I did and and am very happy with the results.

Musicweb International (see CD2 concerning this particular CD)

Until reading Stephen Walsh’s excellent biography of Stravinsky, I hadn’t realised quite the involvement there had been between him and Pierre Boulez. This ranged from the uneasy anti-neoclassical stance of the younger composer against Stravinsky and his ally Nadia Boulanger in the early 1950s, their symbiotic relationship across the Atlantic, through and beyond the success of a 1963 celebratory concert of which Pierre Souvtchinsky said of Boulez, “... anyone who starts conducting like that will soon stop composing.” Whatever you think of Boulez as a conductor or composer, what you are getting here are top class recordings from someone who forms a bridge back to the time that Stravinsky, though already an establishment figure, was still a source of debate and controversy amongst members of the creative melting pots in the western world.

This new box set from Deutsche Grammophon brings together all of their Stravinsky recordings directed by Boulez, made over a period of about 15 years between 1980 and 1996, into one slimline package. The chances of your having one, more or all of these discs in your collection is fairly large, so I’ve included the cover art of the originals discs to jog your memory and provide an at-a-glance reference to current stocks. If you keep score, it will soon become clear if purchasing this budget re-issue will be worth your while.

Looking through my own collection, I know there are lamentably few of these classic discs in residence. I would normally plead poverty, and in this regard can join in with the celebrations that go with seeing the arrival of this new budget collection. My main reason for coming fresh to most of these recordings is however that they have long been overtaken by other labels that offer similar quality at bargain price, and the need for them has been diminishing on fairly constant downward curve over the decades since they were first released. The Naxos Robert Craft edition for instance, which has drawn on the Koch and MusicMasters labels’ back catalogue as well as producing their own frequently magnificent recordings of this repertoire. Boulez’s own 1969 recording of the Symphony of Psalms still competes with the DG version in its Sony incarnation, and my own principal reference has more often than not been Sony’s formerly expensive and coveted Complete Edition, now available in a big bargain box which may not always deliver the utmost in refinement, but invariably delivers a flavour of the times from which the music originates, and often exceeds expectations in terms of quality given the vintage of some of the recordings. Coming to these Boulez recordings more or less fresh and finding them all at once jostling for attention in the lowlier budget sections, we can brush off their perceived elevated value and status, and judge them with their new 21st century face.

Interpretative aspects aside, what you are guaranteed with these recordings is top class playing, and Boulez’s famously intense and critical ear for intonation and detail. DG’s recordings are all pretty stunning as well. This account of The Firebird may not be the most atmospheric or exotic on record, but each moment carries the emotional weight communicated by performers who are giving their all - within strictly given parameters of refinement of course. Boulez manages to strike a balance with the segmented nature of the score, which actually suits his sense of accuracy and ability to stop and turn on a dime, along with a sense of the wide balletic arc which is also a strength of the piece as a concert work. The emotional focus reaches its climax with that Infernal Dance, which is of demonstration quality on this recording, followed immediately by the dolorous Berceuse. The sense of dark and light is presented powerfully, bittersweet sonorities dragging the warmer orchestrational style of Rimsky-Korsakov into the colder light of a revolutionary period in which social and political turmoil were constantly close at hand. This is a work Stravinsky himself conducted regularly, and his 1961 CBC Symphony Orchestra recording shows how a much more secretive atmosphere can be created in this music, how much greater the quicksilver extremes of wit and dagger-sharp violence can be conjured. Boulez is good, but not great in this regard, a worthy but overdone feeling of technical security hanging over a piece which should create a sense of passion and danger.

Another early work, the coupling with Fireworks is a logical one, and the orchestral dynamic and colour is magnificent in Boulez’s recording. Stravinsky comes in a few seconds under Boulez’s timing, creating a more desperately urgent feel of energy and spark, but with the brass sometimes barely coping with its swings and roundabouts. With the greater modernity of Quatre Études Boulez is in his element, certainly more so than the CBC players in 1962, who perform well but with an air of cautiousness, feeling their way from section to section. Familiarity with Stravinsky’s sonorities and rhythmic idiom create a greater space for Boulez to develop this music’s expressive qualities as well as its modernist if still ritualistic impact, resulting in a very fine recording indeed.

CD 2 brings us to two works which, if you haven’t heard them, you really need to consider having your musical world altered significantly by taking them into your experience. Both of these works are central to the 20th century’s orchestral canon, and Pétrouchka has left its stamp on a wide range of music since its composition, including some of Tom and Jerry’s best soundtracks. Le Sacre du printemps created a riot on its first performance, and like Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, helped push the world of the arts kicking and screaming into the hot and bloody machinery of the 20th century. Boulez once again gives us such a focus of accuracy that, familiar with the pieces, one can have a real sense of vertigo, gazing into each musical moment with both microscopic detail and a grand feel of scale and occasion. The burlesque of Pétrouchka is portrayed in an almost cinematically spectacular style in this recording, and the music responds well to such a succulently delicious recording. Rawness and energy characterise Stravinsky’s own 1960 recording, and if you can live with a less refined orchestra and occasionally slightly overloaded old analogue tape - congested rather than distorting - then the old original will probably impress just as much. There are some marvellously luminous benefits from modern technology of course. That glorious Shrovetide Fair rarely sounded so good, and as ever The Cleveland Orchestra displays its sheer class at every turn of the page. This recording of Le Sacre du printemps under Boulez has been criticised in the past for its rather leisurely tempi, and once again that undertow of threat and danger which makes this music so potent is more of a latent undertone than a direct assault on the senses. Boulez does have an authentic sense of the elemental however, and as with The Firebird builds his performance with a wider sense of architecture, saving the main impact of the musical message for true climaxes. This makes Stravinsky’s 1960 Columbia Symphony experience a good deal more gritty and intense from start to finish, but doesn’t mean that Boulez can’t pack a punch when the score demands. The question is one of believability - of conviction that you can imagine all those primeval rituals and games, or someone literally dancing themselves to death. The sheer genius of the score will always bring a tear to my eye, and does in both cases. With Stravinsky’s old recording I still however have that sense of surprise, the feeling that things might go off the rails and end differently to the last time I listened. It’s like that story of the book which never tells the same tale twice, though you can’t exactly put your finger on where the narrative alters course and brings you to a disconcertingly different place each time. Boulez has more that feel of an established pattern, of a tradition which has grown around the music, teaching us what to expect, giving us that ‘wow’ factor but never quite tearing out our own inner fears and shaking them in front of our terrified faces in a fist full of mud and sweat. It’s a personal thing I suspect, and this is still a tremendous performance and very much worth having, but the elation at having survived beyond the end of the performance is still very much Stravinsky’s own reward to us.
Re-discovering great music is one of the true benefits of reviewing, and disc 3 of this set is a genuine highlight. The programme is a bit of a mixture, but this is one of Stravinsky’s characteristics, eclectic and extreme, but instantly recognisable. With no criticism of what is an as good as perfect disc, there is just room for a few agreeable comments. The Scherzo fantastique is a brilliant youthful work, full of shimmer and shine, and this is just the way Boulez presents it - energetic and lively, effervescent, out to impress but with a romantic core which harks back to earlier times. Le Roi des étoiles is a strange and tricky piece to bring off well, the intonation of the male voices in the major/minor tonalities sounding strange even when pitched well as they are here. The sonorities are deep and affecting in this recording, and I for one hear things that must have had their effect on Olivier Messiaen. This is one of those pieces which resonates for far longer than its brief duration, and this performance rivals all comers. Le Chant du Rossignol is a blockbuster symphonic poem, and to my mind Boulez gets the balance of impact and subtle detail exactly right. Just hear the interaction of winds and those gorgeous solos, the touches of colour in the string sound, all helped with a width of spectrum in the recorded sound which is almost obscenely eloquent. L’Histoire du Soldat in its concert-suite form still breathes both a swanky jazziness and the crisp Swiss mountain air in which it was written. Boulez has this music so well under his skin that it flows with almost careless effortlessness. Such an effect is the result of meticulous preparation, but with an absolute trust in his musicians one can sense relaxed enjoyment as well as a fascinatingly intense sense of narrative. The clarinet and bassoon duo which opens and closes the Pastorale suspends time, and the deceptive simplicity in the music is carried with supremely appropriate expression, shape and sheer fun by all of the musicians involved - dig that bass as well in the final Marche triomphale du Diable - phwoaar.

Boulez: waving, or drowning? It’s a shame we lose that striking cover design with this kind of re-issue, but you can’t have everything. CD 4 is entirely symphonic, though with Stravinsky it is rarely to be expected that even the conventionally titled should follow convention. The Symphonies d’instruments à vent does what it says on the tin, the word ‘symphony’ in this case more strongly associated with its original Greek derivation, meaning a ‘concord’ or ‘harmoniousness of sound’. Strangely, Boulez again sounds slow, though his 9:16 timing barely differs from Stravinsky’s own at 9:10. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks, but I seem to recall a great deal more energy and colour from Charles Dutoit with his Montreal forces on Decca. This is a fine performance, but didn’t stir me as I might have hoped. The Symphonie de psaumes is one of the last century’s true masterpieces, combining Stravinsky’s fascination with antique contrapuntal techniques, his religious faith and sheer sense of vision. This is one of the pieces Robert Craft has conducted very effectively, available on Naxos 8.557504. Neither versions will disappoint, nor do they differ in particularly significant ways. With a marginally warmer choral sound and the Berlin Philharmonic as a rock-solid platform over which the singers can flourish I would however pick the Boulez over Craft’s recording, though I do like the way Craft allows the horns and other brass to whoop in the final Alleluia movement. The Symphony in Three Movements is a piece I used to like best on the swinging recording James Conlon made with the Rotterdam Philharmonic on the Erato label. I don’t see this available anywhere now which is a shame, but Boulez does bring us a highly effective performance. Once again, 1961 Stravinsky himself undercuts Boulez in terms of timings, particularly in the first movement at 9:23 to Boulez at 9:56. Half a minute may not seem much, but in terms of sheer visceral excitement it is very telling, and switching back to Boulez after Stravinsky and the former does seem rather leaden-footed. The second movement Andante is also rather over-intellectualised in my book, orbiting at a mythological 6:37 to Stravinsky’s more earth-bound 5:59. As you might expect, we get fine playing and gorgeous sound on DG, and there are some striking moments such as those low clarinets 1:50 into the final Con moto, the best of the three movements from Boulez in any case. This is however not really a piece to which one should be able to put up slippered feet, and I didn’t find myself climbing the walls and frightening the cat in throes of appreciative ecstasy with this one.

The cover here is the coupling with the Alban Berg Chamber Concerto, but is where the majority of the pieces on CD 5 of this set were to be found in the past. This is one disc I have lived with for many years, and is another case in which I feel the Boulez/Stravinsky combination works best. Filled with masses of striking colours and little instrumental touches which are hidden in many other recordings, the plucked strings and nervy percussion of the Ebony Concerto are clear and present in this marvellous recording, and the energy and vibe which go with it make this one of my all-time favourite recordings of this stunning piece. The Ensemble Intercontemporain and the recording location, advanced electronic music laboratory IRCAM are both very much Boulez’s babies, and marvellous solos make this something of a showcase for clarinettists Michel Arrignon in the Ebony Concerto and Alain Damiens in a superb performance of the Three Pieces, and including an eloquently moving Élégie from viola player Gérard Causse. Fine, lively playing also characterises the Eight Instrumental Miniatures and the Concertino for string quartet, its rhythms reminding one of part of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments - logically, as it was the work Stravinsky wrote immediately preceding the latter. This is given a suitably hard-driven and biting performance by the players here. The Concerto in E flat major for Chamber Orchestra better known as‘Dumbarton Oaks’ is taken more briskly by Stravinsky in his 1964 recording, but here it is the composer who lacks the advantage, sounding a bit rushed, as if he had a flight to catch after the session. Boulez benefits from a more open sound, and provides the music with more ample space in which to develop its intricacies of counterpoint and playfulness of thematic treatment. Late serial works by a Stravinsky exploring atonality and engaging with the avant-garde, the Ensemble Intercontemporain players’ supreme accuracy in the miniature Epitaphium and Double Canon are exemplary.

Now thirty years old, this recording of Stravinsky’s vocal music brings us some of his most tender musical moments. Unlike more demanding pieces such as Les Noces, many of the songs here are early works and most are little gems. All of the soloists are of the very highest quality and all at the top of their game. If you don’t know Stravinsky’s songs, the youthful vocalise Pastorale introduces us very gently indeed. Highlights are a personal choice, but the pointillist morsels which are the Trois Poésies de la lyrique japonaise are breathtaking musical moments. Stravinsky in pictorial mood can be enjoyed to the full in the birds which inhabit the Three Little Songs, and the confluence of urbane French and stern Russian idioms is rarely closer than in some moments of Pribaoutki. Even cycles with more modernistic elements such as the Berceuses du chat and Four Songs are filled with delightfully descriptive wit, and Stravinsky’s restless search for new combinations of sonority in his instrumental accompaniments is a voyage of discovery in itself. Two versions of Tilim-bom back to back, the first with flute and plucked strings and the second with chamber orchestra including timpani, illustrate this perfectly. The final tracks reach into Stravinsky’s later period, exploring regions atonal, but maintaining sympathetically idiomatic vocal writing, eschewing extremes of angularity in the expressive Three Songs from William Shakespeare. Two of the pieces which mourn the loss of two prominent figures who appeared briefly in Stravinsky’s life are given beautiful performances here, the instrumental ensemble’s restrained accompaniment a counterpoint to the Elegy for J.F.K., and Dylan Thomas’s text “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”. Stravinsky re-instrumentated Bach and others constantly during his lifetime, and the Two Sacred Songs which close this disc are beautifully crafted arrangements of songs for Hugo Wolf’s Spanisches Liederbuch.

Competition for this box from the conductor himself exists in the Sony Boulez Edition, but this only contains two discs of Stravinsky including The Rite of Spring, Petrouchka and suites The Firebird and Pulchinella. In general terms and taken as a whole, this 6 CD box has to be seen as a bargain, and a fine place to discover some of the most important music of the 20th century. The low price is reflected in the presentation however, and it is a shame that the original booklet notes for each disc have been replaced with an essay, ‘Nothing Stays the Same’ by Wolfgang Stähr which, while throwing some light on Boulez’s shifting attitude to Stravinsky’s music and status, is generalised and by its nature subjective. While I find myself left cold by Boulez’s conducting of a few of these pieces, taken in isolation they do create their own atmosphere and will certainly grab newcomers with an impressively powerful grip. There are no weak performances here, just others to be found which whip up a greater sense of danger and excitement. This is the best of times to treat yourself or a favoured friend or relative to some top-notch music, and this little box contains marvels enough for all.

Dominy Clements

Strauss: Metamorphosen, Tod und Verklaerung - Berliner Philharmoniker, Karajan

2011-06-19T10:02:00.001+01:00

Richard Strauss
Metamorphosen, Tod und Verklaerung
Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert von Karajan
Deutsche Grammophon- 410 892-2

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Metamorphosen is, to me, Strauss's greatest orchestral masterpiece. A requiem to western civilization and to western music. The end of an entire world. No review for this one but, if you decide to trust me only once, do it this time.

Hindemith: Mathis der Mahler, Symphonische Metamorphosen, Trauermusik - S. Francisco Symph., Blomstedt

2011-06-18T12:40:00.006+01:00

Paul Hindemith
Mathis der Mahler, Symphonic Metamorphosis, *Trauermusik
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
Herbert Blomstedt, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, *Geraldine Walther (viola)
Decca 421 523 2 DH

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Some of the most famous works of one of the most neglected among the great composers.

Classics Today Rating (for the set of 3 CD's with Hindemith's symphonic works): 9/9

Much great music making happened in San Francisco well before Michael Tilson Thomas arrived on the scene. Herbert Blomstedt's individual discs of Hindemith's major orchestral works were among the highlights of his decade-long, highly musical tenure there (along with his Nielsen and Strauss), a trend that continued on his arrival in Leipzig. After a brief stint in the all-too-familiar "now out-of-print" category, these performances have made their much deserved reappearance on this handy-dandy Trio set. Can better recordings of some of the individual works be had? Perhaps, but certainly not by much. San Francisco's illustrious brass section gets put through its paces to maximum effect in the glorious Konzertmusik, as well as in the "Alleluia" brass chorale coda to the Temptation of St. Anthony (Mathis der Maler).

The nearly Concertgebouw-like acoustics of the Gewandhaus help to clarify the dense and busy textures of Hindemith's over-the-top Die Harmonie der Welt (with the equally super-sounding Leipzig orchestra), a work that certainly deserves and rewards repeated listening. And speaking of deserving works, the almost completely unknown yet sunny Symphonia Serena earns the attention of even the most novice listeners, as well those suffering from modern-music-phobia--it's that good. Viola fans will receive quite a treat from super-virtuoso Geraldine Walther on Der Schwanendreher, Hindemith's somewhat subdued yet attractive viola concerto. It's hard to imagine that a better performance of it is even possible, and Decca's sound quality is top-notch throughout. In sum, this is a hugely satisfying set: great works, great conducting, great playing. Yes, it's just that simple.

--Barry Guerrero

Franck: Symphony in D Min./ Chausson: Symphony Op.20 - Janowski, Orch. de la Suisse Romande

2011-06-14T08:05:00.006+01:00

Cesar Franck
Symphony in D Minor
Ernest Chausson
Symphony in B-flat, Op.20
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Marek Janowski
Pentatone Classics PTC5186078

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MusicWeb International

The Franck Symphony was one of my adolescent loves. I listened to it over and again in the school music room. The performance which fixed the work into my consciousness was contained in a Readers’ Digest album and was conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. As I grew up, if that’s what one really does, the work tended to lose its freshness. But I also came to feel that none of the performances I heard captured the same conviction and ardour as that Boult performance, no longer accessible to me. They seemed slow and heavy, Germanic and often lost their way amidst the meandering structures. Or was I just seeing the past through rose-tinted spectacles? I missed an RCA issue of the performance on LP but picked it up many years later on Chesky. It was also included in the Boult volume of “Great Conductors of the 20th Century” (7243 5 75459 2 1). Hearing it again rekindled my love of the symphony.

I have since read that as a young man Boult had heard Franck’s pupil Pierné conduct the symphony and modelled his own reading on that performance, so his Franck can claim authenticity no less than his Elgar. I know of two other conductors who took a similarly virile, impassioned view: Toscanini and Mario Rossi. Toscanini may have heard Pierné, too, but he was unlikely to model himself on anybody and presumably worked out from the score that this was how it should go. I imagine Rossi was well acquainted with Toscanini’s interpretation. I have also found much to appreciate in Munch’s recording. This is a little broader and freer, perhaps less structurally sound, but it also has much of his inimitable verve and the unmistakably French sound of the Boston orchestra.

Having encountered Janowski previously only in a thoroughly German-sounding Brahms cycle I feared something heavy and Teutonic. I got quite a surprise. After an expectant, mobile opening the following tremolando string passages move forward strongly, with flexible paragraph-shaping and an acute sense of orchestral colour. In the Allegro sections Janowski is closer to Munch than Boult in his wider range of tempi, yet his control of the structure is magnificent. No less than Boult, he succeeds in making each climax more overwhelming than the last, rising to a triumphant conclusion.

The Allegretto is again fairly mobile – not so much as to rob the famous cor anglais melody of its grave charm, but enough to give a certain volatility to the scherzo sections Franck has built into the movement. The Finale is a notable success. Janowski is a shade broader than Boult and succeeds in welding the whole into a developing argument. He never gets stuck, even when the second movement melody is recalled. The moment where this theme comes back as a thumping climax rung out on the trumpet has embarrassed some commentators. Boult is terrific here; he takes it at face value, letting the trumpet play his heart out with a rallentando at the end. Janowski skilfully integrates it into the general flow – an original and effective solution. Incidentally, Janowski takes one second (!) longer than Boult over the symphony, though in detail he is a little faster in the first two movements and a little slower in the last. Munch takes slightly longer over all three.

The Boult recording sounds extraordinarily well for 1959, but it is nearly fifty years old and there is no doubt that the new SACD recording - which I heard as a plain CD - has added depth, range and detail. Janowski also shares with Munch a very French-sounding orchestra, with wonderful braying brass. The Suisse Romande has had a number of conductors since Ansermet who were not exactly cultivators of the French sound – Sawallisch for example – so it’s heartening to hear that they can still produce these timbres when required.

I shall no more jettison Boult than I shall abandon hearth and home, but for those who have no sentimental attachment to it, or who wish to have superb modern sound, or who find it easier to relate to living artists, I’m delighted to be able to recommend a version of this much maligned and often maltreated work that matches the great versions of the past. It’ll be a toss-up whether I get out this or Boult myself for future listening.

The Franck Symphony made an enormous impression on French musicians and spawned a number of imitations, of which Chausson’s – of just two years later – is generally considered the most important. Some have even rated it above the Franck, though I find its themes lack the sheer “stickability” which Franck attained in every one of his themes in his Symphony. In a sense more subtle, it is also more cluttered. But this is not to deny that it can still offer both excitement and magic. Moreover, Chausson is very much his own man. Though it’s a cyclical work in three movements, like the Franck, it has none of the latter’s religious fervour, combining hedonism, Hellenism and sultry decadence in fairly equal proportions. And, while many a lesser work opens with a wonderful surge of inspiration that gradually peters out, Chausson reserves his finest cards for the end. Janowski plays it with total conviction, mixing the colours with a sure hand and never letting it get sticky.

I’m sorry I didn’t have the Ansermet versions of these works to hand, to compare the orchestra then and now, but I think the great Swiss maestro would have been proud of his old band.

Christopher Howell

Hagen: Sonate à liuto solo - Robert Barto

2011-06-13T12:52:00.001+01:00

In Bernhard Joachim Hagen [1720–1787] we find a worthy exponent of the lute in its last days. His music is full of surprises. At times moving, spirited, brilliant or humorous, it is always elegant and expertly crafted. Although the occasional lute piece is still found into the beginning of the 19th century, Hagen's works are the last substantial contributions to the lute repertoire. He can truly be called the last great lute virtuoso.
Robert Barto (from the album notes)

Although Hagen was employed at the Bayreuth court as a violinist, he was a virtuoso lute performer and his respectable output of compositions for the instrument includes those on this recording plus a number of chamber works and concertos. When I heard the opening of the first piece, the Sonata in B-flat major, I knew I'd heard it before somewhere. I still don't know where, but Hagen's music has that effect: it's so easy to listen to, so perfectly proportioned and harmonically well-developed, that it sounds familiar--the musical equivalent of a pair of shoes that fit the first time you try them on. The Locatelli Variations are Hagen's own transcription of some selections from a piece for violin written by the Italian master, with an additional original variation by Hagen. Lutenist Robert Barto really captures the style of this ardent, graceful, often eloquent music. His technique, his richly resonant instrument, and the fine sound engineering bring clarity to the melodic lines and a glowing warmth to the lower registers, while allowing the top notes to ring.
David Vernier, ClassicsToday

Barto plays an Andrew Rutherford lute (1988, after Jauck)
Symphonia SY98164 (1999) out of print

Mahler: Symphony No.1 - Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra,

2011-06-12T13:16:00.009+01:00

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 1
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Manfred Honeck
Exton EXCL00026

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I don't share all of David "American-orchestras-do-it-better" Hurwitz's enthusiasm on this. And vehemently disagree with the Berliner/Wiener Philharmoniker nonsense at the beginning (excellent counter-examples from the tip of my fingers are Karajan's, Abbado's and Rattle's recordings with the Berliner and selected recordings by Abbado, Bernstein, Boulez with the Wiener). The playing and the sonics are first rate, although it might be a bit too glossy a performance for my taste. Maybe I haven't listened to the present recording enough in order to fully appreciate it.

Classics Today Rating: 10/10
In case you haven't noticed, Allegro now distributes Exton, an exciting prospect for American collectors tired of ordering direct from Japan and paying crazy prices for shipping. Conductor Manfred Honeck's credentials include a stint as a violist with the Vienna Philharmonic, not necessarily a good prospect given the fact that the orchestra only woke up to the value of Mahler when it realized it could make a quick buck playing him abroad, and otherwise has turned in more lousy and unidiomatic performances of Mahler's music than any orchestra aside from the Berlin Philharmonic. How delightful, then, to be able to report that this is unquestionably one of the great Mahler Firsts, a performance that has abundant character, ideas that work, and astounding playing, particularly from the Pittsburgh horn section.

Honeck claims that he has tried to emphasize the music's debt to Austro-Bohemian folk music, and to bring out (even exaggerate) its brilliant orchestral colors. That's exactly what he does, and it's surely the right way to go. The first movement "wakes up" naturally, atmospherically (great offstage trumpets), by imperceptible degrees, rising to a crushing climax leading to a raucous coda. The scherzo is a rustic, heavily accented, foot-stomping frenzy, while the trio has enough schmaltz to cause cardiac arrest. It works, though, because both here, in the central melody of the (splendidly parodistic) funeral march, and in the lyrical second theme of the finale, Honeck gets the strings to "float" their melodies with such gentleness, such seductively sweet vibrato (Roger Norrington please note), that the massive rubatos and hesitations work beautifully.

And speaking of the finale, the opening shriek is hair-raising, with the brass and percussion playing like demons. But it doesn't end there. If you really want to hear what a totally committed performance of this music ought to sound like, check out the entire passage after the second subject (beginning with the two tam-tam crashes), culminating in the false climax that leads back to the music of the first movement. It's insane. So too is the concluding chorale, with horns blazing--and an extra cymbal crash or two for good measure. The otherwise very quiet audience gives a rousing cheer at the end, and you will too for a fabulously recorded live performance that truly captures the freshness and daring of this work as few other versions have. If you want "you are there" sonic realism, and an interpretation that hits you right in the gut, then you must hear this. Bravo! [11/23/2009]

--David Hurwitz

Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 5&9 - Kreizberg, Russian National Orchestra

2011-06-10T23:44:00.006+01:00

Dmitrij Shostakovich
Symphonies Nos. 5&9
Russian National Orchestra, Yakov Kreizberg
PentaTone- 5186 096(SACD)

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Shostakovich's 5th is probably the first work of the 20th century I ever fell in love with (after what still is the most memorable concert of my life, conducted by Kreizberg's brother, Semen Bychkov).

Classics Today Rating: 10/10
Kreizberg, like Sanderling, is absolutely convinced that the finale does not represent a "happy" ending. After an impressively portentous opening and a brooding central interlude, he grinds out the coda with as much relentless menace as the music can take, and then some. By the time the movement heaves its lacerated carcass through the final bars, the cessation of sound comes as a positive relief. Throughout, the Russian National Orchestra plays with 100 percent conviction, and PentaTone's sonics, whether in stereo or SACD surround, are extremely natural and well-balanced.

What makes this disc even more special is the fact that the Ninth Symphony is every bit as good. The first movement's deadpan humor comes across with perfect clarity and point. The ghostly waltz that follows has the same quiet intensity as the Fifth Symphony's Largo, while the scherzo demonstrates just how well Kreizberg has the orchestra on its collective toes. His account of the finale just might be the best on disc: he goes completely nuts in the recapitulation, with a freedom of tempo that the composer surely would have applauded, and the coda breezes by at a truly startling clip. It's at once the most hilarious as well as the most satisfying account of this movement to have appeared yet. Do not miss this release. [4/11/2007]

--David Hurwitz

Brahms: Symphony No.3, Haydn Variations - Alsop, London Philhamonic Orchestra

2011-06-08T06:48:00.009+01:00

Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 3, Variations on a Theme by Haydn "St. Anthony Chorale"
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Marin Alsop
Naxos- 8.557430(CD)

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Brahms's third is probably my personal favourite among his symphonies. I love them all, but the third holds a special place for me, which is odd, since it's probably the least popular of the four.
This is a great version of it. It sings beautifully, with great clarity of lines and a sense of natural flow I have rarely heard in this work. Once again, David "one-caustic-review-a-day-keeps-the-doctor-away" Hurwitz proved right.

Classics Today Rating: 10/10
Marin Alsop's recordings of Brahms' first two symphonies were good, at times very good, but not great. In particular, for all her basic musicality, the performances lacked a certain element of excitement, never mind actual risk-taking. So my expectations for this Third, the toughest of them all to conduct, were not that high. After all, some really great Brahmsians, including Toscanini and Furtwängler, have really screwed up this symphony. The latter's performances especially constitute some of the most hideously embarrassing documents ever left by a theoretically great artist. Indeed, in the entire history of the work on disc, there have been perhaps seven or eight truly great performances: Walter (Sony, stereo), Levine (RCA), Wand (his first one with NDR, on RCA), Klemperer (EMI), Jochum (EMI, with this orchestra), Dohnanyi (Warner/Teldec), and perhaps most surprisingly, Solti (Decca).

To this select list, add Alsop. This is not a judgment made lightly, but this is one hell of a fine performance of this most elusive symphony, perhaps closest in character to Dohnanyi's Cleveland version. It's interesting to note the dearth of German or central European orchestras in the above list, and this fact holds a clue to Alsop's success: her ability to keep the textures from becoming too heavy, and to keep Brahms' bass lines moving. Ordinarily, and particularly in the First and Fourth Symphonies, the typically dark, rich German bass is just the ticket, but not here. This symphony, with its obvious homage to Dvorák's Fifth in the same key, and its frequent recourse to syncopated rhythms in the middle registers of the orchestra, needs as much space around the notes as is consistent with lively tempos and well-sprung rhythms.

Part of the problem is of Brahms' own making. While the last three movements offer some of his finest orchestral writing, especially for the woodwinds, the first movement often comes across as a clogged-up mess. Conductors overcompensate for the lack of audible detail by playing the music too slowly. Alsop keeps the music moving, but also clarifies the underlying rhythm quite splendidly. As an example, consider the transition from the first to the second subject, and later on, the triplet accompaniments to the finale's heroic second subject. This is very good Brahms conducting: the tension never sags, no important details go unobserved (note the nicely touched-in contrabassoon just before the recapitulation), and nothing detracts from the evolving symphonic argument.

The Andante features beautifully blended wind playing in its serene outer sections and just the right touch of mystery in the central chorale. Alsop takes great care to observe the written dynamics, a big plus in the ensuing Poco Allegretto, which sounds so much better minus the usual excess of espressivo. Best of all, the finale is spectacular: swiftly exciting, with very present timpani and a tremendously explosive (but remarkably transparent) central climax. The coda captures that special, autumnal glow that Brahms builds into the scoring, but without sacrificing sufficient momentum to bring the work to a fulfilling (as opposed to a merely exhausted) conclusion.

The Haydn Variations makes an excellent coupling, and is equally well done. Alsop's excellent command of rhythm once again is very much in evidence, particularly in the Vivace fifth variation, and even without those darker, heavier bass lines the final passacaglia builds quite effortlessly to a joyous conclusion. Vividly detailed sonics seal the deal. The truth is that very few conductors manage to do all of the Brahms symphonies equally well, which is why the modern tendency to do them in fours is such a pity. This effort bodes well for the conclusion of Alsop's cycle, but at the same time it will be a tough act to follow. I hope she can do it; in the meantime, I'm more than happy to recommend this superb new recording as strongly as possible. [1/22/2007]

--David Hurwitz

Berg: 7 Fruhe Lieder, 3 Orchesterstuecke Op.6, Der Wein - Otter, Abbado, VPO etc.

2011-06-06T08:05:00.001+01:00

Alban Berg
3 Orchesterstuecke Op.6, 7 fruehe Lieder, Der Wein
Anne Sofie von Otter, Wiener Philharmoniker, Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon Stereo 445 846-2 GH

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I couldn't find a suitable review for this beautiful CD. I can't even say that I know it that well myself, apart from the 7 fruehe Lieder (7 Early Songs). Berg, Schoenberg and Webern are hard nuts to crack, for listeners (like me) without a professional training in music.
The 7 fruehe Lieder have proven, since the first time I listened to them, not only surprisingly easy to digest, but also stunningly beautiful. I'd really love it if this little bit proved as revelatory for someone else as it was for me, disclosing some of the beauties of the music of the 20th century.

Mahler: Symphony No.9 - Berliner Philharmoniker, Abbado

2011-06-03T07:10:00.001+01:00

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 9
Berliner Philharmoniker, Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon- 471 624-2(CD)

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To me, this is an outstanding performance of (possibly) Mahler's greatest symphony. Up to you to make up your mind.

Musicweb-International

This is the last and the best of the three new Mahler recordings by Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra that have been released by DG in 2002. I have already reviewed the Third Symphony:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/July02/Mahler3_abbado.htm

and the Seventh:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Oct02/Mahler7_Abbado.htm

and now here is the Ninth. Whilst all three came out in quick succession and in uniform livery their provenance is very different. The Ninth under review was recorded from two concert performances at the Berlin Festival in September 1999. The Third came from a single concert performance in London one month later and was produced by the BBC. Both of these stayed in the DG vaults for three years before their release this year. The Seventh, on the other hand, was recorded from performances in Berlin in May 2001 towards the end of Abbado’s tenure as BPO Chief Conductor. What they all have in common, however, is that they are Abbado’s second recordings of these works. I had a lot to say about conductors revisiting earlier works on record in my review of the Seventh and in that case could see no reason why it was felt necessary for Abbado to re-record that piece. Where the Third Symphony was concerned I enjoyed and much preferred the new to the old and in the case of this Ninth I feel much the same, though it is more marginal.

Abbado has always been a fine interpreter of this symphony, itself a lucky one on record, but in this second recording I prefer a greater sense of pressing forward in strategic passages of the first and third movements especially. It makes for a slightly tougher and rather more astringent view of a work too often taken to be a long farewell and very little else. His earlier Vienna Philharmonic recording was unique in his first Mahler recordings in that it too was taken from "live" performance. However this time I think I can hear a greater sense of the "live" experience coming across and this will always find favour with me and I suspect many others. There is a price to pay for this, though. The engineers in the Philharmonie in Berlin are less sure of themselves than their predecessors were in Vienna’s Musikverein. The Berlin acoustic is very different too: less warm, more analytical, though not entirely lacking in atmosphere. The result this time brings some quirks of balance, most especially in the first movement where there is highlighting of solo instruments – harp and cor anglais especially – and what appears to be some "limiting" at climaxes where clinching fortissimos shy away a little where they should punch home. So this is a much more manipulated sound picture all through. Overall it’s a close-in balance and the feeling is that you are sitting in the stalls quite close to the platform. Yet, as the performance went on, I found that I came to value this sound picture as so much of Mahler’s inner detail is plain for all to hear with enough air behind the instruments to give perspective. So I found this sound balance surprisingly good for home listening with the caveats mentioned.

The first movement impresses with a fine unity of purpose from first bar to last and as such I think counts as a fine achievement repaying repeated listening. Even in passages where the music is just a series of fragmentary daubs you are aware of the strong symphonic undertow beneath it. So, in all, Abbado’s intellectual grasp is formidable, but I’m aware that some Mahlerites might complain that this is at the expense of emotional power to be found in recordings by other conductors like Bernstein (DG D 201182), for example, with the same orchestra, also "live" in the same hall. I would counsel caution in taking this as a minus point, though. There is a tradition in the performance of this movement that maintains a stoic face is just as valid. Klemperer is the best representative of this approach in his great EMI recording (EMI 5 67036 2) though it must be said that Klemperer’s more austere, plainer sound palette reinforces this idea and his overall tempo is slower than Abbado’s basic andante comodo. Though I think Abbado is closer to what Mahler intended. Abbado’s ability to extract a degree of sweetness in some the passages of repose, the lebwohl passages of the movement, as we might call them, make a fine counterpoise to the tougher, harsher passages where the brass snarl and the strings dig in vividly. In these passages Abbado does soften his tone, but it may take you until the end of the movement before you quite realise it has taken place, as this conductor is always careful with his contrasts which are never too sharply delineated. You have to listen hard to an Abbado performance as there is never the instant gratification of a Bernstein or a Rattle, but the dividends are maybe even greater. In the recapitulation after the great central crisis in this first movement listen to as good a summation of what has gone before as any you will hear in other recordings - beautifully argued, shorn of seedy sentimentality, very satisfying. What wonderful solo horn playing in the great duet between that instrument and the flute too. They may be highlighted by the sound balance, as indicated earlier, but with playing like this it hardly matters.

The two central movements are firstly remarkable for the stunning, virtuoso playing of the orchestra. This may be "live" but there are very few examples of insecurity in this playing. But this virtuosity is never just for its own sake. It always serves the music and Claudio Abbado’s purpose for it. The second movement scherzo reflects every colour Mahler paints it in with the close recording rendering every detail clear, woodwind especially good. Abbado observes but doesn’t force on us the three tempi markings that Mahler indicates and this may disappoint some who, as with the first movement, prefer their contrasts sharper, therefore pushing home a more emotional approach. However, after the first movement’s understatement of contrasts, this corresponding approach here fits and is another example of "through-thinking" on the conductor’s part that demands attention from the listener and therefore engages more. The listener must also do some work in Mahler too, remember. Because, just as in the first movement, where Abbado marked up a sweetness where appropriate, here in the second movement too he is aware of a gentle world-weary quality in those falling lebwohl phrases once again. Likewise in the third movement Rondo-Burleske the close recording allows for Mahler’s crucially important counterpoint to be followed accurately and so this then contrasts with the nostalgic tone of the central interlude. Abbado delivers this sweetly and simply, linking it with the lebwohl moments in the first two movements and looking forward to great elegy of the last. But it’s in the final section of the third movement where I believe Abbado justifies himself triumphantly. If this movement is ultimately about depicting a sweet world seen to be self-destructing then Abbado pulls that effect off in the way that, like Horenstein used to do, he slowly increases the tempo until at the end you are on the edge of your seat.

The last movement reflects and justifies Abbado’s overall approach in again subtly matching stoicism with a world-weariness that never descends anywhere near sentimentality. There is a deep and rich string sound that can swell out to a glorious mass and then ebb down to gossamer threads when needed. The latter especially in the intimate passages that have about them the air of chamber music with all the players listening to each other carefully. Notice also the excellent use of portamenti in the string playing here. The main climax is a paean to the entire symphony but it stays, characteristically for Abbado, within any overt grandiloquence and seems to come from within the texture. The coda is sustained beautifully too. It is never stretched on the rack as it sometimes is, always it maintains this conductor’s sharpness of focus and, I think, is unusually aware of the link to Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder.

For reference versions you must turn first to studio recordings by Haitink (Philips 50 464 714), Barbirolli (EMI 7 63115 2), Walter (Sony SM2K 64452), Klemperer (EMI 5 67036 2) and perhaps Boulez (DG 289 457 581-2). Comparable, though very different as a live recording, is Bruno Walter's first recording in 1938 (Dutton CDBP 9708) which is of equal stature to ones by Horenstein (BBC Legends BBCL 4075-2).

For me this is the best of the three new Mahler recordings from Abbado in 2002. In playing and interpretation it takes its place among the finest and I recommend it warmly.

--Tony Duggan

Classics Today Rating: 9/7

Claudio Abbado's new recording of Mahler's Ninth Symphony is at once mesmerizing and frustrating. As a performance (recorded live in Berlin in September 1999), it holds its own among the greats in the ever-growing discography of this work, with absolutely riveting, visceral playing from the orchestra in the inner movements, a conscientious eye to structural balance, and pinpoint detail in the dynamics. In a sentence, this performance has it all--except good sound.

For the most part, DG's engineers have turned a spectacular performance on stage into an uneven experience for the home. The first movement in particular suffers from what seems like "live" experimentation with balances, starting with the first three measures, when the open sound (slight hiss and all) collapses with the appearance of the harp and then re-opens with the sighing entrance in the violins.

Throughout the movement DG's predilection for close-up miking (a feature of Abbado's other DG-produced Ninth with the Vienna Philharmonic) creates an unnatural soundstage that emphasizes harp and English horn at the expense of the principal trumpet, which often is drowned out (see instances at measures 38, 232, 365, and 374, and in other places--measure 294--where it is just not prominent enough). Trombones and horns are exaggerated to the point of garishness: the apocalyptic trombone blasts at 314 peal with the force of air horns atop 18-wheelers, and the horns' raw outbursts would make for another good Maxell ad. Even the orchestra seems as if it's feeling the piece out: the "Schattenhaft" section is handled too tentatively and the slight ensemble hiccup just before the final large climax disrupts the flow of energy.

After the first-movement trial balloon, the sonic situation improves measurably in the next three movements. In the second and third, the Berliners simply play with stunning drive, and the tight miking here brings out all of Mahler's creative contrapuntal nuances. The basses barbarically growl out their staccato passages, the trombones and tuba (at 147) thrill with their crude, wild motif, and the bumptious bassoons toward the end of the movement provide great comic relief. The waltz episodes are all appropriately vulgar, and with each repeat Abbado keeps pushing the tempo, as he should. The third movement belongs to Abbado, who tailors the final section (at 522, at the tempo subito) with just the right amount of acceleration so that by the end the orchestra sounds as if it's ablaze.

Abbado's conception of the fourth movement--which some conductors have interpreted as a solemn farewell (and thus drag to the point of stasis)--nicely balances the first movement, with almost identical timings (25 minutes). He treats the final movement as a true finale, not as a symphonic fragment, and thus ties the whole of this work into a massive coherent statement. The Berliners do struggle ever so slightly with the pianissimo sections--the flute is too breathy and the strings are undernourished and a touch strident--but on the whole they deliver a passionate performance that never sounds overly sentimental or mushy. There are very few poor performances of Mahler's Ninth and many excellent ones. This is among the best. Would that it sounded better!

--Michael Liebowitz

Mahler: Symphony No.4, Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Levi

2011-06-02T07:00:00.003+01:00

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 4, Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen
Frederica von Stade, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Yoel Levi
Telarc CD80499

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Whether this is the best performance of Mahler's 4th I've ever heard, I wouldn't really know. But I bought it (influenced by David "gimme-a-period-instrument" Hurwitz) and didn't return it to the shop, give it away as a present, feed it to the neighbor's dog, or play frisbee with it.

Classics Today Rating: 10/10

There is a tendency, among both serious critics and normal listeners, to prejudge recordings of basic repertoire works when they are recorded by so-called "second tier" ensembles. The cynical inclination to dismiss such releases is only heightened by the extravagant claims sometimes made by partisans on behalf of these organizations, prime examples being the English press' flogging of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle, or closer to home, Atlanta's endless string of Grammy wins under the competent but often dull Robert Shaw. Atlanta under Levi is another matter altogether. This partnership has been responsible for a superb series of recordings that has not received the recognition it deserves, in some part for the reasons just mentioned. This is a pity, because on any reasonably objective listen, not only is this Mahler Fourth a jewel in Telarc's series of Atlanta recordings as a whole, it's quite possibly the best-played, and definitely the best-recorded Mahler Fourth currently available. I played this disc "blind" to some European colleagues of mine, and they all agreed that this was the finest performance they had ever heard. Ever. Levi simply gets everything right: perfect tempos, incredible clarity of textures, and most importantly, a totally idiomatic response to the music itself. And what playing! From the spectacular solo winds (French horn, take a bow!), to the warmly cultured strings (save for a wonderfully nasal solo violin in the Scherzo), to the immaculately judged percussion, this is an ideal Mahler sound. Frederica von Stade's voice has deepened and darkened since she last recorded this symphony and the songs, some two decades ago, but her artistry remains undiminished. This is greatness, folks, sheer unadulterated greatness. And that's a fact!

--David Hurwitz

The Victoria Collection - The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

2011-06-01T09:18:00.003+01:00

Tomás Luis de Victoria
The Victoria Collection
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Gimell GIMBX 304

The box contains 3 CDs and the 3 original CD booklets with notes and sung texts in English, French and German. The Download includes a digital booklet with notes and sung texts in English, French and German.

Victoria's Requiem Mass (as we now call it) has for many decades and for many people typified Spanish Renaissance music. Its mystical intensity of expression, achieved by the simplest musical means, obviously sets it apart from contemporary English and Italian music, and has led to comparisons of it with the equally intense religious paintings of Velázquez and El Greco. There is no doubt that this masterpiece conveys much of the highly individual Spanish view of religion and death, and this is the more valuable since their vision is largely unfamiliar outside Spain herself.

In fact Victoria was just one of a very substantial school of Spanish Renaissance composers; and one of the least prolific among them. Many of these deserve to be considered along with Victoria, though none wrote a Mass quite as mature as this. One possible reason for their collective lack of fame is that they travelled very little, unless it were to the New World, unlike their Netherlandish contemporaries. Victoria was lucky in this respect. Having been born in Avila in 1548 and brought up there in the tradition of Morales, Espinar and Ribera, he went to Rome, probably in 1565, to study at the Jesuit Collegio Germanico. Once there he must surely have met Palestrina, and was possibly taught by him. The subtleties of Palestrina's polyphonic idiom are regularly to be found in Victoria's music, unlike that of his Spanish contemporaries, and it gave him an extra dimension of technique when it suited him. In fact, in this Requiem there is very little imitative polyphony and the lack of it allows its Spanish flavour to speak all the more strongly. Victoria stayed in Rome until 1587 at the latest, by which time he had been ordained priest (by Bishop Thomas Goldwell, the last surviving member of the pre-Reformation English Catholic hierarchy in Rome) and had published several anthologies of his work. By the end of his life he had succeeded in publishing just about his entire output in eleven sets, most in luxurious format - a great deal more than Palestrina ever did. This six-part Requiem appeared by itself in 1605 and was the last of the series.

From 1587 until his death in 1611 Victoria was employed in Madrid, initially as chaplain to the sister of Philip II: the Dowager Empress Maria, daughter of Charles V, wife of Maximilian II and mother of two emperors. It was for her funeral in 1603 that this Requiem was written. After her death Victoria became organist to the convent where the Empress had lived. Since he was by profession almost as much a priest as a musician, it will be understood why Victoria only wrote sacred music, though it should not be assumed that it is all sombre. By his contemporaries Victoria was held to be an essentially joyful composer and there are many motets to prove this, some of them in polychoral style. In addition much of his music has quite strongly madrigalian features, with liberal use of accidentals, diminished intervals, and word-painting (witness the rising scales on 'surge' in the motet Nigra sum sed formosa, see CDGIM 003).

This recording of the six-part Requiem follows the edition prepared by Bruno Turner, published by Mapa Mundi. In his preface to this edition Mr Turner explains that the 1605 print of the music carried some extra motets and liturgical items, as was customary at that time, which would have been added in performance to the Missa pro defunctis proper. These were the four-part Taedet animam meam (the second lesson of Matins of the Dead), which has been moved to the very beginning to serve as a simple introduction; the motet Versa est in luctum, which may well have been sung as the dignitaries and clergy assembled at the catafalque before the Absolution; and the Absolution itself, for which Victoria wrote the full Responsorium, 'Libera me, Domine', with its final 'Kyrie eleison'. The only peculiarity of this print is the omission of a setting of the usual verse 'Hostias et preces' and the consequent repeat of 'Quam olim Abrahae' in the Offertorium. Although it may be possible to find a suitable chant setting of these words, and thus satisfy full liturgical demands, it is not musically convincing to do so and these words are omitted here.

All the music of this setting, except the initial Taedet animam meam, is scored for SSATTB. The second soprano part unusually carries the cantus firmus, though it very often disappears into the surrounding part-writing since the chant does not move as slowly as most cantus firmus parts and the polyphony does not generally move very fast. Victoria himself printed most of the unaccompanied chant incipits, though the editor has provided the short second 'Agnus Dei' and the final 'Requiescant in pace'. This scoring also holds true for Alonso Lobo's beautiful setting of Versa est in luctum, which was written for the funeral of Philip II of Spain, the brother of the recipient of Victoria's own setting. Lobo (1555-1617) was widely held to be the finest composer in Spain during his lifetime, and there is evidence that Victoria thought so too.
© 1987 Peter Phillips

The Lamentations of Jeremiah

The Spanishness of Spanish polyphony is often invoked. There is an impression that in their worship the Spanish have a fierceness, coupled to a mysticism, which sets them apart. This way of thinking was current a long time ago: Michelangelo, when asked by the Florentine painter Pontormo how he could best please a Spanish patron, replied that he should 'show much blood and nails'. Such rawness has readily been attributed to their music, too.

My experience is that only Victoria's music has quite this special intensity of feeling to it, and then only in his six-voice Requiem and music for Holy Week. But it is this intensity, in the end, which makes him so distinctive, not only in the wider European context but also amongst his compatriots. Of all the great High Renaissance composers, Victoria's writing can have the most immediately identifiable atmosphere. And in the purely Spanish context his greatest achievements cannot easily be confused with those of Lobo, Guerrero, Vivanco, de las Infantas, Esquivel, Navarro, even Morales, though the works of these men may be confused with each other. The question is how he achieved this unique atmosphere.

The irony is that Victoria, like Morales before him, spent many of his formative years (from 1565 to about 1587) in Rome studying the international style which the Flemish had brought there, and which Palestrina was in the process of bringing to new heights of perfection just at that time. In general his compositions from this period do not show anything very unusual - for example his wonderfully sonorous six-voice motets often sound like very good Palestrina. The opening of his Vidi speciosam is so like the opening of the older master's Tu es Petrus as to seem like a deliberate act of homage. They both set Dum complerentur in a similar idiom. Yet the story of the Lamentations is suggestive: they were finally published in 1585, right at the end of Victoria's time in Rome; but there is an earlier manuscript copy of them in the Sistine Chapel Library (I-Rvat 186) which contains them in an earlier version. In this they are longer, less carefully organized harmonically, and less poignant in their setting of the texts. Before he allowed them to be published, Victoria had carefully revised every phrase. His 'Spanish' style was worked out in Rome.

The 1585 publication, known as the Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae, included all Victoria's music for Holy Week: these nine Lamentations, the eighteen Responsories, two Passions and a number of other pieces. It is all of a plangent austerity which, when put alongside his six-voice Requiem of 1605, has long been held to represent Victoria and his Spanishness at its most typical and best. In fact it is only part of the story, since even when he had returned to Spain to become a priest (by 1587 at the latest) he wrote music in other idioms - including one of the most outward-going compositions of the period, the Missa Pro Victoria, based on battle noises - which was just as typical of him and perhaps Spain. But the style of the Holy Week music is particularly telling, almost defying analysis. For example much of it is not properly polyphonic. The underlying harmony is still as simple as it always was in sixteenth-century music, yet seems to have gained a new tension in the way Victoria used it. And the melodies that come from it are elemental, wrapped round the words, striding up and down with incredible purpose. There is not a note wasted - and yet this is still art music, not pared down for congregational use. Victoria had achieved his own match of function and expressivity.

Since the Holy Week services were the most dramatic and darkest in the Church's year, Victoria's expressivity was given full range. The nine Lamentations were composed for the first Nocturn at Matins on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this seminal week, three for each service. The famous Responsories were written for the second and third Nocturns of each service. Each of these three services had three Nocturns in which three Lessons and three Responses were interwined. For some reason, possibly because there would simply have been too much music, Victoria set the Lessons (the Lamentations) for the first Nocturn and the Responses for the second and third Nocturns, but not both.

Victoria clearly intended his nine Laments to be heard as an overall musical experience which, however effective across three days of liturgy, makes them ideal for a recording. As they proceed the number of voices gradually increases, with the final 'Jerusalem' section always expanding the scoring, so that there is a crescendo not only within each Lament but within each set of three, and then over the nine. Most of the nine start with a four-voice section, normally leading to a five-voice 'Jerusalem'. However the third Lament on both Thursday and Friday starts in five and ends in six; and the third Lament on Saturday starts in six and ends in eight. A feature of this process is that the amount of counterpoint does not increase, so Victoria's chords simply become more monumental. By the time we reach the eight-voice section, which is partly for double choir, the effect is deeply impressive.

The 'Jerusalems' are a culmination of every section and sub-section, with the slightly unusual detail that in some of the Laments (but not all) Victoria has set these words twice, the second version scored for more voices than the first. Arguably they should not both be sung, but since there is no firm evidence as to why the composer provided two, we decided not to leave anything out. I also specifically asked the singers to produce a more forthright tone for the body of the text - where the prophet complains so bitterly about the fate of the holy city - as compared with the 'Incipits', the Hebrew letters and the 'Jerusalems' themselves.

Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla (c.1590-1664) is the best-known representative of the Spanish school of composers in Mexico. Born in Málaga, he was employed as a church musician firstly in Jerez de la Frontera and then in Cádiz before moving to New Spain no later than the autumn of 1622. On 11 October he was named cantor and assistant Maestro at Puebla Cathedral with an annual salary of 500 pesos, at a time when this Cathedral boasted a musical establishment on a par with the best in Europe. In 1629 Padilla became Maestro de Capilla, a post he retained until his death. His six-voice setting of the Lamentations is one of his finest achievements, employing an impassioned musical language which is spiced up with the augmented intervals beloved of every Iberian composer of note in the early seventeenth century, Portuguese as much as Spanish. The reduced-voice section at 'Ghimel', followed by the verse 'Migravit Judas', is a classic case of this. I have never elsewhere come across the astonishing harmonic move he makes at 'inter gentes'. The fact that this set is scored for SSATTB points to the influence of Victoria and other Spaniards, who tended to favour this line-up in six parts. Victoria's seminal setting of the Requiem is scored like this. Quite why it was thought appropriate to use such a potentially bright sound for Requiems and Laments is one of the many mysteries of the Spanish school.
© 2010 Peter Phillips

The Tenebrae Responsories, along with the six-voice Requiem, are responsible for setting the modern impression of Victoria as a composer. The introverted, spiritually intense mood of both these masterpieces has appealed to modern ears, promoting the almost indelible association between Victoria, St Teresa (who, like Victoria, was born in Avila), Velazquez and El Greco. Although Victoria was capable of other moods, shown for instance in his 'battle' Mass Pro victoria, the joyful double-choir Psalm-settings and settings of the sensuous love poetry of the Song of Songs texts, the Responsories encapsulate something uniquely valuable in his art. This has much to do with an extreme simplicity and directness of style.

The publication which contains these eighteen Responsories first appeared in Rome in 1585 under the official title, as it then was, of Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae. It consists of considerably more than the Responsories, since Victoria set not only the nine Lessons from the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet but hymns, motets, the Reproaches, the two sets of Passion choruses and other music from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday. Taken together, these pieces represent the most complete cycle of music for Holy Week by any leading Renaissance composer. Gesualdo set all the Responsories (at considerably greater length than Victoria), but none of the Lamentations. Lassus set the same Responsories and the nine Lamentations, and Palestrina composed five sets of Lamentations but no Responsories. It is interesting to observe that settings of the Lamentations have received more concert performances than have settings of the Responsory texts. This must have something to do with the strict liturgical structure of the latter and the resulting impression that a concert is not quite the right place for them. They are well represented in recordings, however, where one may listen to them as they were intended to be heard, in three separate groups, one each for Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Holy Week.

Originally, on these seminal days of the Church's year, the Responsories were sung early in the morning during Matins which was followed by Lauds. Later, these Offices together became called Tenebrae and were performed during the evening of the preceding day. In this service, the only light in the church came from a triangular stand holding fifteen candles (representing the eleven faithful apostles, the three Marys, and Christ), and from six candles on the altar. As each Psalm was chanted, a candle was extinguished, so that after the fourteenth Psalm only the highest candle (which represented Christ) was still burning. During the concluding recitation (the Canticle of Zachary) the six candles on the altar were also put out one by one until, as the Office of Lauds drew to a close, the only candle which was still burning was concealed behind the altar; thus the church was left in tenebris - in darkness. The rite symbolized both the darkness which covered the earth as Christ was crucified, and his burial. After the closing prayers the worshippers made a certain amount of noise to represent nature in turmoil at the death of Christ. Once the noise had died away, the remaining candle was brought out from behind the altar (a sign of the resurrection), returned to the stand and extinguished.

The Tenebrae Matins was divided, on each day, into three Nocturns, each of which required the singing or reciting of three Lessons alternated with three Responsories. The Lessons for the First Nocturn on each day are from the Lamentations. Victoria set these but not the Responsories. In the Second and Third Nocturns of each day Victoria did the opposite and set the Responsories, leaving the Lessons to be chanted by a deacon. Since Victoria wrote the music to adorn the Liturgy, he kept strictly to the repeats prescribed by tradition, which this recording preserves: a repetition of the second section of the opening four-part music after the reduced-voice passage, giving a kind of da capo shape: ABCB. This happens in all eighteen pieces. In addition, in the third of each set, the opening section is repeated again at the end: ABCBAB. In this scheme the A and B passages are invariably scored for four voices, while section C is always for fewer voice-parts, and sung by soloists. The detail of the scoring shows how carefully Victoria kept to a plan. The first and third of each group of three Responsories are set for SATB, the second for SSAT (we do not follow the unauthorized modern habit of singing some of these with men's voices only). The reduced-voice passages are scarcely less ordered, all being for three voices, except the first one which is a duet. In almost every case the solo group in the first Responsory of each set of three is scored for SAT, the third is scored for ATB and the second makes use of the extra soprano part in the full choir, resulting in SSA or SST. This precise scheme serves as a simple framework for the emotional variety in the music.

Part of the clue as to how Victoria achieved this variety lies in the details of the Passion narrative. For a late Renaissance composer, albeit one who never wrote any madrigals, the story gives unlimited opportunities for different kinds of word-painting, as well as describing states of mind which vary from the supremely tragic to the contemplative. How Victoria encompassed these differences in an idiom so straightforward that it scarcely touches on imitative counterpoint is one of the great miracles of musical thought. With complete assurance, he describes the innocence of the lamb at the beginning of 'Eram quasi agnus'; the swords and clubs of 'Seniores populi'; the lugubrious darkness of 'Tenebrae factae sunt'; the lion during 'Animam meam dilectam'; the intense distress in 'O vos omnes'. At the same time he is capable of writing passages of the most inspired music, without any obvious help from the text: consider the solo section of 'Iesum tradidit impius' which does no more than mark time in the narrative yet, with its two answering soprano parts, is perhaps the most memorable section of all.

The power of Victoria's Tenebrae Responsories lies in the balance between the words and his setting of them. The text has its own impact, which may be discovered by reading it aloud. Victoria started from this point, being careful to capture the natural speech rhythms, keeping to syllabic setting (and so never indulging in the early Renaissance delight of music for its own sake); and then heightened the meaning of a verbal phrase with the right turn of harmony or fragment of melody. This pared-down musical idiom, unfamiliar to composers before the late sixteenth century, was lost again during the Baroque period. It has become once again a goal for composers during the twentieth century; but, attractive as the idea of an elemental style has proved to be for many, to express oneself clearly requires complete certainty about what one has to say. Victoria remains a model for them all.

Peter Phillip 1990

Palestrina - The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

2011-05-31T18:56:00.001+01:00

The Tallis Scholars sing Palestrina
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Gimell CDGIM 204

Palestrina is the composer The Tallis Scholars have sung and recorded most frequently. There need be no surprise in this: the quality of his music merits all the fame it has been accorded over the centuries, making him probably the most talked-about writer in the history of Western classical music (Beethoven, Mozart and Wagner are possible rivals in this, but with them the process hasn't been going on for so long).

But there is more to Palestrina than his ability to write a masterpiece every time he sat down to compose: his style makes demands of its performers which no other composer quite made. We have come to realize that if a group can sing Palestrina well it can sing any choral music well, for in his music there is no hiding-place. The sonorities are so clear, the logic of the writing so compelling, that one sound out of place is immediately detectable; and a blemish is more serious in music which depends on sheer sound for its impact than in more pictorial or rhetorical compositional styles. With Lassus and Byrd, for example, interpretation through the words alone will go a long way to producing a convincing performance; Palestrina requires his performers to think more carefully about the sound itself. The nearest comparison is with the passage-work in Mozart's piano music, which is equally so clearly and logically conceived that a stray note can acquire a disproportionate influence. Just as a pianist must rehearse scales and arpeggios to play Mozart well, so a vocal ensemble must work on blend and tuning to sing Palestrina well. There is no better or more rewarding way of learning how to sing Renaissance polyphony.

These two discs contain some of the best of our view of Palestrina, from the very first record we made commercially (in 1980), to one of the most recent (entitled ‘Lamenta' and released in 1998). In general we have concentrated on his Mass settings - there are three more in our catalogue as well as another version of Papae Marcelli - not least because they make such effective concert music. Palestrina had an unusual ability to write positive, outward-going, major-key music which, over the length of a Mass-setting, is a great strength: penitential writing tends to be more effective in shorter bursts. Three of the four settings in this collection rely on bright sonorities; the fourth - Sicut lilium - is more subdued and sensuous, as the words of the motet require. The Lamentations, on the other hand, show a completely different side of Palestrina's art. By dividing the text into short movements (and leaving out the Hebrew letters which are traditionally set as part of the whole) he was able to deliver a series of plangent statements worlds away from the mood of Papae Marcelli and Assumpta est Maria.

The Missa Assumpta est Maria, based on his own motet of that name which in turn is based on a short phrase of chant, is a classic example of sonorous Palestrina, its excitement achieved in large part by doubling the sopranos and tenors. The brighter sound this high-scored six-voice (SSATTB) choir produces is then emphasized in the style of the writing, which is more chordal than usual. The parody motet Assumpta est Maria shows the way in its opening bars: the three upper voices are grouped against the three lower ones in easily audible antiphony. This late-Renaissance method is then transferred to the Mass, most obviously in the Gloria and Credo but also in the first Kyrie, where greater elaboration was more customary. The sheer verve of this music has ensured that, along with Papae Marcelli, Assumpta est Maria has remained the most performed of all Palestrina's 107 Mass-settings.

Sicut lilium by contrast is an early work, based on a motet which was published in the composer's First Book of Motets in 1569. By contrast with the trumpet-like writing of Assumpta est Maria, the musical style here is more for string quartet, or viol consort: lucid, the working of the counterpoint at times very elaborate indeed. This can be heard at the beginning of the motet, where the point is treated to two complete expositions, from where it is transferred to the first Kyrie. Eventually all the movements except the Gloria open with imitative counterpoint. But underlying all this finely crafted polyphony is the perfumed atmosphere which the words of the motet (from the Song of Songs) originally inspired in Palestrina, and which, despite the long sentences of the Gloria and Creed, he managed to transfer to every corner of the Mass itself.

The second disc opens with a six-voice (SSATTB) set of Lamentations, originally the third lesson on the Saturday of Holy Week. Palestrina obviously felt drawn to the Book of Lamentations: he left nearly sixty individual verse-settings from it. Standardly each of these would begin with the initial Hebrew letter preserved in the Bible, but in this set they are missing. However the customary opening words are retained, as are the deeply emotive final ones: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn to the Lord your God'. It seems that no matter how many times Palestrina set these words he found something new to say through them.

The Missa Brevis (for four voices SATB), although relatively ‘short' and straightforward in musical style, shows Palestrina's idiom at its most accessible. It was a success from the start, being first published in 1570 and reprinted repeatedly up to 1620, since when there have been countless modern editions. Despite this, no one has been able to say what gave the music its starting-point. The most likely candidate is chant, rather than a polyphonic model as the other Masses in this set have; but if it was chant, the melodies are not applied very consistently. In fact the title ‘Brevis' may indicate that there was no pre-existing material - rare in Palestrina's Masses - this title filling in for the missing name of the original. The music is anyway not that short, being conceived in a fluent idiom which seems to glide effortlessly through the longer texts, until it culminates in the second Agnus. Here Palestrina abandoned any pretence at being straightforward and wrote a canonic movement which is a model of the form. The canon (a tune sung first by one voice and then by another some beats apart) is between the two soprano parts (a new one having been added to the ensemble just for this movement), making it as audible as anyone could wish. As with the best canons it seems as though it can never end.

The Missa Papae Marcelli also culminates in a canonic second Agnus, but here both the build-up and the canon itself are very different. This is the Mass which was said to have ‘saved church music' by proving to the cardinals at the Council of Trent that words set to music could be audible even in polyphony. Dedicated to Pope Marcellus II, who had reigned for three weeks in 1555, it was probably written in 1556 and therefore dates from the years when that argument was raging. However it is hard to believe in this story entirely. Although the style of the music is syllabic at times, especially in the Gloria and Credo, it is not the case that the words are consistently more audible than in other settings of the period, something anyway made harder by using six voices (SATTBB) rather than four. Indeed the canonic second Agnus (now for seven voices SSAATBB) is one of the most complex movements of the High Renaissance, its mathematical density unequalled elsewhere in Palestrina's output. What one can say, however, is that the setting as a whole is an unparalleled masterpiece, of the kind one returns to again and again over the years. The Tallis Scholars gave their first performance of it in March 1977 and their 75th in June 2004. I hope there will be countless more.

Peter Phillips 2004

Thomas Tallis - The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

2011-05-31T09:16:00.001+01:00

The Tallis Scholars sing Thomas Tallis
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Gimell CDGIM 203

A specially-priced selection of previously-issued recordings. This recording of Tallis's Spem in alium was featured in "Soul Music" on BBC Radio 4.

The supposed birth of Thomas Tallis in 1505 - the date is largely conjectural - gives us the last opportunity to celebrate him for many years. By 2035 - the 450th anniversary of his death in 1585 - one guesses the scene may be rather different. So I feel encouraged to feature our eponymous composer's work in the concerts we shall give during the 2004/5 season, and to release an anthology of the music we have recorded. It is perhaps worth recalling that The Tallis Scholars launched their career in London with four all-Tallis concerts in 1977/8; and made their English Anthems recording, much of which is included here, in 1985, alongside anniversary concerts in the Wigmore Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Utrecht Early Music Festival.

My view of Tallis's genius has only deepened with time. Not only was he the arch-survivor but also, unlike those who trim and so build their monuments on shifting sands, he had the ability to create masterpieces in whatever style was the currency of the day. This should not be underestimated, because those styles changed out of recognition during his eighty-or-so years. First it was the traditional Catholic style of Henry VIII's reign; then it was the most severely chordal Protestant style of Edward VI's reign; then it was back to Latin and Catholic writing again under Mary, though this time in a more mature idiom than in Henry's reign - Tallis was by now turning fifty; then it was the compromise style for Elizabeth whom he served for twenty-six years and who left him sufficiently alone for him to produce some of his greatest music.

It was not considered desirable on these two discs to present Tallis's music according to any chronological sequence, but the four styles outlined above can be followed clearly enough. Disc 1 starts with the exception to every rule - indeed so outstanding is Spem in alium that it still seems impossible that one mind without a computer could have managed it. To write for forty voices which do not repeat themselves in consecutive motion and not to lose control of the whole colossal edifice, is to set a challenge which even the Art of Fugue scarcely rivals. The actual compositional style of it is slightly blurred between those characteristics implied by stages three and four above - sometimes imitative between (some of) the parts, sometimes setting the text syllabically, never dealing in the unrestrained melismas of much of his purest Catholic music - and so it is not fully established whether Tallis wrote it for Mary or Elizabeth (both of whom celebrated their fortieth birthdays whilst on the throne) or for some more abstract reason, perhaps to do with the Biblical number 40. But for us in our modern terms, as for Tallis himself, Spem remains the ultimate technical challenge - supremely difficult to bring off, supremely rewarding when one comes near.

Sancte Deus is a classic example of Tallis's first style, illustrating what I mean above by ‘unrestrained melismas'. A melisma is a melodic line which only uses one syllable, like the ‘A' of Amen, allowing the composer's imagination to fly free of text-setting. This essentially abstract way of thinking was admired by the pre-Reformation Catholics, and needless to say was particularly objected to by the Protestants. The Salvator mundi settings (the second much less famous than the first) were Elizabethan and so more compact; but Gaude gloriosa is one of the most elaborate Catholic compositions of the entire period. Unlike Spem it is colossal in length rather than height, using the nine exclamations of ‘Gaude' in the text to work up a construction which is essentially architectural. The music flows from one scoring to another to yet another, never using more than six voices at any given moment, but with such an exquisite control of melody and sense of overall direction, that the final pages feel as if the listener has just completed the journey of a lifetime. It comes as no surprise that Gaude gloriosa was influential - William Mundy based his Vox patris caelestis on it - and would have been more so if the Catholic style hadn't been so soon overturned by Elizabeth's accession.

The seven-voice Miserere nostril is both a demonstration of technical skill, and, in its music of the spheres way, possessed of an unearthly beauty. It is a canon six in two with a free tenor, which is to say there are two canonic melodies, one sung by the two top parts which is easily audible, while the other is shared between four of the other voices. This second canon has its four contributors starting at the same time, but going off at different speeds (the first countertenor has the model melody which the second countertenor sings in double augmentation, the second bass sings this melody inverted and augmented and the first bass has it inverted and in triple augmentation). Both this piece and Loquebantur variis linguis are scored for SSAATBB and are probably Elizabethan.

All the remaining pieces on the first disc were written in Tallis's second period - for the Protestants of Edward VI's reign. Nothing could be further removed from the glories of Spem or Gaude gloriosa. Gone are the melismas, the Latin texts, the interweaving of the lines in polyphony. The accent was now on simplicity and comprehension - hence the English texts and the chordal style, which was designed to make the words audible. One may think one knows what Tallis must have thought of this clipping of his wings, but at least he was not a man to sulk. His craftsmanship enabled him to adapt swiftly to the new realities and in a matter of a year or two he wrote some of the best-known and best-loved Anglican music there has ever been. Not all these tiny masterpieces are as famous as If ye love me, but they all bear repetition, as Vaughan Williams thought when he based his Fantasy on a Theme of Thomas Tallis on the third Tune for Archbishop Parker (part of track 15).

Disc 2 is made up entirely of Latin-texted music from the first and last periods listed above - from the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I - apprentice works in the style of Tallis's immediate predecessors alongside some of his maturest thoughts in old age. Tracks 1 to 5 are from Elizabeth's reign, tracks 6 to 8 from Henry's.

Nowhere is Tallis's mature style more perfectly on display than in his two sets of Lamentations, which in modern times have been the yardstick by which every set of Lamentations of the period is judged, whether English or from the Continent. As was standard, Tallis divided his settings between the Hebrew letters which preface each verse of the text in the Bible, and the lament itself. Although Tallis's Lamentations I and II are stylistically identical they are in different modes, which strongly suggests they were not intended to be sung together. The next three pieces are beautiful examples of Tallis's late style, with O sacrum convivium perhaps the most renowned. In each case he took the prevailing Flemish technique of imitative entries between the voices, built up a full sonority as each voice joined in, and then moved on to the next phrase of words and the next set of entries. It is a transparent idiom in which the words are set more or less syllabically - thus fulfilling the Protestant need for clarity - yet the music is allowed to expand and breathe.

The last three pieces show Tallis learning his trade. The obvious influence here is John Taverner, though in the background one can hear the music of Robert Fayrfax, John Browne and William Cornysh. Salve intemerata is Tallis's longest single-movement piece. Though it lacks the contrasts and sheer verve of Gaude gloriosa, it shows the same instinctive grasp of musical architecture, whose bricks are melodic lines of memorable fluency and grace. Of all the Tudor composers, one comes away from a big Tallis piece humming the tunes. By keeping strictly to the Phrygian mode throughout this colossus (except once in the ‘Amen'), Tallis gave himself no harmonic place to hide, and so was obliged to develop his melodic sense. The same is true of the very early Magnificat (which does creak a bit here and there - Tallis never revisited such banal moments as the downward scale at ‘et sanctum nomen eius') and Ave, Dei patris filia, which was probably written in the 1530s. The obvious influence on this piece is Robert Fayrfax, whose own setting of the text formed a model for Tallis. Indeed, so closely did Tallis follow Fayrfax that David Skinner, who recently discovered enough new source material to make the piece reconstructable, was able to decide where to add missing parts by copying the layout of Fayrfax's piece. Even if Tallis was no more than thirty when he wrote Ave, Dei patris filia, it includes some of his finest phrases, for example ‘semper virgo Maria' just before the ‘Amen'. To go from this to the stark directness of If ye love me, to the soaring phrases of Gaude gloriosa, to the compact, refined world of the Lamentations and O sacrum convivium, to the simply incredible sonorities of Spem in alium is to travel as far as one man can ever have taken his listeners. Living a long time does not in itself explain how Tallis did it.

Peter Phillips 2004

Josquin - The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

2011-05-30T21:36:00.001+01:00

The Tallis Scholars sing Josquin
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Gimell CDGIM 206

‘In his unprecedented stature and his undisputed pre-eminence in the eyes of his contemporaries and posterity, Josquin has never failed to remind recent historians of Beethoven, who was similarly regarded 300 years later, and who retains a similar quasi-legendary aura' (Richard Taruskin).

If one were looking for a superstar among Renaissance composers - and identifying such people does no harm to the subject as a whole - Josquin is unquestionably the front runner. He was a star in his lifetime, travelling more widely, being paid better and having more desirable employment than anyone else; and he has become a star again more recently. It is true that in the centuries in between it has been Palestrina and Tallis who were performed more consistently, where Josquin was forgotten, but this was on account of their simple music, which choirs of any ability could sing. Josquin didn't write any simple music. All his music is complex, intellectually and vocally, posing problems which have only recently been found to represent a supreme challenge. As with Beethoven it is now recognized that facing up to Josquin's message can bring unparalleled rewards; and, more than anywhere else, it is now clear it was in his Mass settings that he expressed that message at its most fluent.

There are perhaps fifteen Mass settings by Josquin, all of which are essentially scored for four voices. This scoring in itself distinguishes them from much of his other writing, since elsewhere he could delight in fuller sonorities. Praeter rerum seriem (track 12 on the first disc of this collection) proves the point. Here is a motet for six voices whose opening bars have the sonority of an entire string section in a Romantic orchestra (this passage always makes me think of the funeral march in Mahler's first symphony). Such richness is rarely to be found in the Mass music, where instead Josquin concentrated on sparse detail, intense dialogue between the voices, the working and reworking of tiny melodic ideas: more string quartet intimacy than string section grandeur. For this, four wide-ranging voices were the ideal medium, able to be used in duets and trios as much as all together, without forcing too great a change in the impact of the sound. The one proviso was that the ranges should be wide, so that the musical meetings could take place, as it were, anywhere: high, low, at the unison or octave at will. These ranges are part of the challenge for modern groups - no conservatoire will train its singers to have the lightness of touch Josquin demands over nearly two octaves - but the challenge has been found to be worth shaping up to, and a modern solution to it has increasingly been found both in Europe and America.

The process of searching out such a method was significantly advanced when the two Masses included on the first disc of this collection won the Gramophone Record of the Year Award in 1987 and were widely played. It helped also that they were two of the finest of all Josquin's compositions. The Missa Pange lingua may have been his last Mass setting, even his swan-song, and it was not published until after his death, in 1539. Certainly it shows some of the characteristics associated with ‘late period' compositions, not least by Beethoven: the relaxing of purely mathematical ways of writing in favour of freer ideas, often in the style of a fantasy. The Missa Pange lingua has been called ‘a fantasy on a plainsong' (by Gustave Reese), in which Josquin broke the Pange lingua melody up into smaller phrases, motifs and rhythmic units, which the voices explore in just the kind of polyphonic dialogue I mentioned above. Nowhere else in the repertoire is this endlessly supple style managed so perfectly. After spending almost the entire setting being pulled to pieces and examined from different perspectives, the chant melody - which was originally sung as a hymn for the feast of Corpus Christi - can finally be heard complete, for the first time, in the soprano part of the third Agnus Dei: a true culmination of the whole work.

The Missa La sol fa re mi was published in 1502, making it a relatively early work. Here Josquin seems to have been fascinated by what could be achieved with the most restricted kind of mathematical framework, though that was not unusual for him at that time as will be seen below. Virtually the whole Mass is derived from the single five-note phrase which the medieval notes la, sol, fa, re and mi yield in the modern scale: A, G, F, D and E. This motif may be heard in different note-lengths and occasionally in different pitches in one or other of the parts, though it is mostly to be found in the tenor. In all there are perhaps two hundred repetitions of this melodic idea, culminating this time in the first and third of the Agnus Dei settings where its note-lengths get shorter and shorter, intensifying the mood of other-worldly experience which the music has gradually built up.

Of the two motets which make up the remainder of the first disc, the Ave Maria comes closer to the sparse musical style of the Masses. This simple but enormously influential setting of one of the central texts of the Catholic faith is scored for four voices, but unlike the Masses does not adopt an argumentative musical idiom. Instead, much of the writing is for duets and trios, made up of spacious musical phrases and uncomplicated sequences. Here the culmination of the piece is not an intensifying of anything musical, but an exceptionally long-breathed final passage, made up of some of the least hurried chords imaginable (to the words ‘O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen' - ‘O Mother of God, remember me. Amen'). By contrast Praeter rerum seriem is a six-voice Christmas motet, of arresting sonorities and intricate musical detail. It is based around the melody of a devotional song. For much of the piece the polyphony is presented antiphonally between the three upper voices, when the song is in the first soprano, and the three lower voices, when it is in the tenor. The second half of the motet is less dependent on this melody than the first, becoming a more consistently six-part texture, eventually breaking into triple-time where the text makes reference to the mystery of the Trinity.

The two L'homme armé Masses of Josquin, which make up the second disc of this set, at first sight seem to be worlds apart: one might guess that Super voces musicales was a medieval composition and Sexti toni a mature Renaissance one. In fact the manuscript evidence suggests that they were roughly coeval; and they were published together by Petrucci in 1502 (in the same collection as the Missa La sol fa re mi). In choosing to paraphrase the popular L'homme armé melody, Josquin was contributing to a tradition which was already several decades old, which would continue for many more, and which would finally yield thirty-one settings by composers across the whole of Europe.

The title Super voces musicales indicates that the melody is quoted in turn on every note of the hexachord, almost always in the tenor part. The complications inherent in this are fascinating to follow. The ascent starts on C in the Kyrie, proceeds to D in the Gloria, to E in the Credo, F in the Sanctus (given again, complete, in both ‘Osannas'), G in the first Agnus Dei (incomplete) and A in the third (by which time it has at last become too high for the ‘tenors' to sing and has been transferred to the top part). The only sections to be completely free of it are ‘Pleni sunt caeli' in the Sanctus, the Benedictus and the second Agnus Dei, of which the two latter are mensuration canons for two and three voices respectively. The second Agnus Dei is made particularly complicated in that the top part is given the canon in triple time against the different duples of the two parts beneath it. The second halves of the Gloria and Credo (beginning at ‘Qui tollis' and ‘Et incarnatus est') are based on the melody in strict retrograde, with the Credo containing one more statement of the melody, the right way round, from ‘Confiteor' in a syncopated rhythm. This kind of mathematical framework for a four-voice Mass is what calls medieval compositional practice to mind; such things were much rarer in the sixteenth century, and are not found in the same way in Josquin's Sexti toni setting.

His Mass Sexti toni (‘in the sixth mode') is so called because he has transposed the melody to make its final note F (as opposed to the more normal G), giving it a major-key tonality. Much of this music has a more relaxed air than the other Masses in this set, though en route Josquin can be heard trying out new speeds, new rhythms and new scorings for the tune, now complete, now with a few notes used as the basis for an ostinato pattern or a canon. However the wide overall range of the four voice-parts brings to the writing the kind of sonority which is associated with Palestrina and the High Renaissance, rather than the more cramped textures of Dufay and Ockeghem, and the general impression is one of a broader sweep. The only exception is the final Agnus Dei which not only adds two new voice-parts, making six in total, but adopts a compositional method which certainly harks back to the ‘medieval' world of Super voces musicales. Taking an idea he used in that setting - of quoting the L'homme armé melody forwards and backwards in consecutive statements - Josquin here quotes it forwards and backwards at the same time. These statements form the lowest two parts of a six-voice texture, above which the upper voices revolve in two paired canons at the unison. This creates a sound-world all of its own - which since this recording was originally released in 1989 has been much discussed - reminding listeners not only of Josquin and the nascent sixteenth century but also of the methods of such modern minimalist composers as Philip Glass. It is a definition of super-stars that they are not only profoundly of their time, but through that profundity acquire a relevance for all time. In the last Agnus of his Missa Sexti toni Josquin proves that maxim gloriously.

Peter Phillips 2006

William Byrd - The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

2011-05-30T08:00:00.001+01:00

The Tallis Scholars sing William Byrd
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Gimell CDGIM 208

England has never produced a greater composer than William Byrd. For range of expression he towered above his contemporaries, with only Tallis, already middle-aged when Byrd was born, in the same category of achievement. It stands to reason therefore that for a group such as The Tallis Scholars, dedicated to exploring Renaissance polyphony, Byrd's music has been central. We have made two discs entirely devoted to him; included his Tribue, Domine on our Live in Oxford collection; included his Lullaby on our Christmas Carols and Motets anthology; and made a BBC TV programme exploring his life and work, recently released as a DVD-Video. His music has featured in over a third of our 1,500 concerts. This double CD has been put together from the best of our recordings.

Anyone listening to this survey of Byrd's church music will be struck by the fundamental difference in outlook between his Protestant and his Catholic writing. The former has English words and a style which, at least in theory, was simple enough to ensure that those words could be heard; the latter has Latin words coupled to an elaborate compositional method which referred back to the kind of music the Reformation had hoped to put a stop to.

Although it is true that this division between simple and complex was not as firmly maintained by Byrd's time as it has been in Tallis's (Queen Elizabeth was less doctrinaire than her predecessors), it still explains why the two repertoires do not resemble each other. The message of the Latin-texted Masses, for example, seems to be directed inwards, towards contemplation through melody, suitable for a family circle; which contrasts with the manner of the Anglican Great Service, where the lines push outwards through studied declamation of the texts, suitable for performance before a big crowd.

The first disc in this set is devoted entirely to Byrd's Catholic output, beginning with perhaps the most significant, and the most daring, pieces he ever wrote. Nothing is more essentially Catholic than settings of the Mass, a point which would not have been lost on Elizabeth I's secret police, dedicated as they were to tracking down and harassing believers in the old religion. No one had set these texts in England since Queen Mary's reign some decades before (and would not do so again for three hundred years), so Byrd's trilogy stands isolated in time. But the really daring part of the story is that he published this music, admittedly in small volumes without title-pages, but with his name clearly given. Having taken such risks it is not surprising to find that the music itself is deeply expressive. The four-part Mass is perhaps the most personal as well as the earliest of the set, almost certainly written in 1592. It retains some techniques from the distant past, such as blurring the boundaries between the tenor and alto parts, yet there are moments of intensity - like the ‘dona nobis pacem' - which Byrd never surpassed in all his later music. The three-part Mass seems to have come next, using just alto, tenor and bass voices, an unusually restricted ensemble even for someone who was writing for small recusant choirs. Clearly Byrd relished the technical challenge involved, while fulfilling the scheme of three-, four- and five-part settings. The five-part was written last, probably by 1595. It seems the most mature of the three, both in the confidence with which Byrd handled his texts and in remaining within ever more focused boundaries: the Kyrie and Gloria are shorter than in the four-part. But this concision means that when Byrd does repeat a word, as at ‘Agnus Dei', the impact is unforgettable. Of the two motets which conclude the first disc Ave verum corpus belongs to the world of the Masses, having been published in the 1605 Gradualia but probably written in the 1590s. Like the Masses it was written for recusant choirs to sing, and similarly aims for deep expression of a fundamental text while creating a rapt, almost mystical atmosphere. Infelix ego, by contrast, is an earlier work which deliberately explores older techniques. Here Byrd is reaching back to the votive antiphon method of Taverner and Tallis, which he was too young to practise when it was standard. The long melodies, the duets and trios, and above all the use of the high treble voice, show him trying his hand at a great but lost art.

The second disc begins with three Catholic motets and an Anglican anthem which were included on the BBC television programme made in 2002 about Byrd's life (which also includes a filmed version of the four-part Mass different from that included on disc 1). All three of the motets were published in Byrd's 1589 Cantiones Sacrae, which indicates that they were written before he left the Queen's service to live with his recusant community, and its few singers, in the countryside. These motets are written on a much grander scale than those on disc 1, probably for the much larger choir of the Chapel Royal, where Elizabeth allowed Latin to be used. Vigilate is an essay in madrigalian word-painting, one of the most exhilarating there is. Tristitia et anxietas and Ne irascaris, Domine are elaborately penitential pieces, both reckoned to be expressing a deep longing for the country to return to Catholicism but in sufficiently veiled terms for the court to be able to swallow it. There are passages in both these pieces which have become almost iconic in recent years, of which ‘Jerusalem desolata est' at the end of Ne irascaris, Domine is perhaps the best known.

With Prevent us, O Lord we abruptly enter the world of Byrd's Anglican music. Here is music which evidently has a functional purpose: to tie like-minded people together in unaffected, down-to-earth expressions of piety. So that the words may be heard, much of the writing is chordal. The mood is no longer mystical, nor nostalgic for a lost past. This analysis also holds for O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth, ‘A prayer for the Queen' as the manuscript source puts it. Affectionate and beautifully crafted, it lacks the one-to-one intimacy of the Masses.

This can also be said of the remaining pieces on disc 2. Even though they cultivate a more elaborated musical style, one has the feeling that O God, the proud are risen, Sing joyfully unto God and The Great Service are public gestures, built on the same principles of straightforward, non-tactile worship as the chordal prayers. In this company O God, the proud are risen is relatively little known, setting verses from Psalm 86: on stylistic grounds it may date from the late 1580s. Sing joyfully unto God, Byrd's most popular anthem both in his lifetime and today, is a work of full maturity from the 1590s. However there is little even in this substantial work to prepare us for The Great Service, Byrd's largest single composition.

This most impressive of all service settings thrills the listener as much by its rich scoring as by its sheer length or craftsmanship. Perhaps the first four of the six movements show Byrd coming to terms with his broad canvas, with his chosen ten voices (with no fewer than four altos) divided into two five-part choirs. But by the Magnificat the style is splendidly set, each section typically beginning with ‘Protestant' chordal writing before shaking free into ever more intricate imitation. Every verse of these six movements is set with its own scoring and its own character: one which always sticks in my memory begins at ‘as he promised to our forefather Abraham' in the Magnificat, wonderfully scored for AAATB.

Many people have said that Byrd did not really engage with these Anglican texts; yet he engaged with them enough for his English-language settings always to have found favour with the general public. No doubt he sympathized deeply with the Catholic texts at a personal level - he was a fervent believer - but such a reaction does not guarantee effective communication. Our ears are different from those of his original listeners. But one thing is certain: in these Anglican masterpieces he joined Tallis, Sheppard and eventually Weelkes, Gibbons and Tomkins in fashioning a new repertoire which has proved more durable and been more loved than anything else from the entire period.

Peter Phillips 2007

Requiem - The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

2011-05-29T21:00:00.001+01:00

Requiem
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Gimell CDGIM 205

Settings of the Requiem Mass are among the most frequent requests for concert music. This may seem unlikely, given the subject matter, but in fact it is just that subject matter which makes them so compelling. There is a drama inherent in the text which never fails to move audiences, having, in the first place, brought out the best in the composer. It is not a modern kind of drama such as we are used to seeing in the cinema or on television, but rather of the opposite: of the light which is shining on the deceased (whose body would have been present in the original performances), of the immediacy of heaven, of the peace which death will bring. Put in words this may sound a bit far-fetched, but from the split second that the opening ‘Requiem aeternam' chant is heard, every listener is inevitably transported. It is a classic instance of the power of music over every other art-form to communicate without reserve.

This drama gradually moves through different stages as the music proceeds. The essential mood is the one of the opening - long-held chords inviting the contemplation of eternal rest. This is the Requiem's alternative to the atmosphere of desperation, noise and betrayal which underpins so many television thrillers. It returns at regular intervals - in the Gradual, the Sanctus and Agnus Dei, through the promise of perpetual light in the Communion - but is interrupted in the Offertory and the Responsory by the thought of what will happen if Christ does not deliver the departed soul from the pains of hell. In every setting the ‘essential mood' becomes unbearably intensified in these passages, though the musical style may not change very much. One recoils from the ‘poenis inferni' (the ‘pains of hell'), the ‘ore leonis' (the ‘lion's mouth'), the ‘dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae' (the ‘day of wrath, calamity and woe'). Indeed the Responsory represents a mini-drama within the whole, piling agony on agony as the pace of the music quickens by alternating brief chant passages with abbreviated polyphony. But in both the Offertory and the Responsory calm is restored by the idea of light: ‘let Saint Michael bring them forth into Thy holy light' in the Offertory, and ‘lux perpetua' (‘light perpetual') in the Responsory.

The main reason why Victoria's six-voice Requiem is one of the greatest masterpieces of the entire renaissance period is that this mood perfectly summed up the composer's view of life and death. There was no better text for a committed Catholic priest to set. In doing so Victoria created a sound-world which, although it was not original, gained a dimension not imagined before. In fact the Requiem (or Missa pro defunctis) had long been a favourite text of Iberian composers, from the late fifteenth-century setting of Pedro de Escobar onwards. This continued through the sixteenth century with, in particular, two versions by Morales, through to the High Renaissance and the setting by Guerrero amongst others. By the early years of the seventeenth century the school of composers based in Evora, Portugal, were making their own contribution, which seems to me in various ways to take up the possibilities inherent in the Victoria. Having recorded the Victoria, it seemed logical for us to continue with the best of the Portuguese settings, which eventually led us to make discs of the Cardoso Requiem and the six-voice version by Duarte Lôbo. There remain quite a few more, in particular the six-voice setting by Felipe de Magalhães and the eight-voice of Lôbo. This set represents the first time the fruits of this mini-project have been made available together.

Victoria wrote his Requiem for the funeral in 1603 of the Dowager Empress Maria, daughter of Charles V, wife of Maximilian II, mother of two emperors and sister of Philip II of Spain. For some years Victoria had been her chaplain. The music was published in 1605 in a print which contained nothing other than the movements associated with the funeral service, though some of these were extra to the normal sequence. In particular Victoria included the four-voice Taedet animam meam and the six-voice Versa est in luctum, though no one is entirely sure when these would have been sung. We omit the Taedet here not least because its style is very different from that of the Requiem proper, but include the Versa est in luctum as a postlude.

It is the six-voice texture (SSATTB) of the Victoria, used in long sustained chords which hide a plainchant melody in one of the soprano parts, that sets the scene for the Evora compositions. Both the Cardoso and the Lôbo apparently begin as carbon copies of the Victoria, the music expanding from the plainchant ‘requiem aeternam' as it were from a single point with infinite spaciousness. In fact the musical language of these Portuguese writers is not entirely derivative. The Cardoso in particular stakes out its own harmonic territory in that first phrase, making towards an augmented chord which suggests a date of composition well after Victoria's time. It was this chord which so struck listeners when the original disc of this music was released by Gimell in 1990, establishing Cardoso (c.1566-1650) for the first time as a major figure of the period. This Requiem was published in 1625, but it is not known for whose obsequies it was written. The Requiem proper follows Victoria in being scored for six voices (SSAATB in this case); the concluding Responsory Libera me however reduces to four (SATB).

Duarte Lôbo (c.1565-1646) was an exact contemporary of Cardoso, who must therefore have been a close colleague in both Evora and Lisbon. His penchant was for full sonority, as shown in both of his Requiem settings: the eight-voice (not recorded here) technically follows the trendy double choir baroque format of the time, but in fact proceeds for much of its length in eight-part counterpoint. His six-voice Requiem is apparently a later work - published in 1639 as opposed to the 1621 of the eight-voice - but simply continues the dense and sonorous idiom of his earlier years. His six-voice choir is SAATTB, which emphasizes the denseness, though he continued to put the chant in the single soprano part, instead of the more usual tenor, as both Victoria and Cardoso had done before him. The final Responsory, to different words, again sees a reduction to four voices.

To fill out the Iberian picture of these two discs, we have included four motets each by Cardoso and the Spanish composer Alonso Lobo (1555-1617, not related to Duarte). Two of the Cardoso motets, Non mortui and Sitivit anima mea, originally appeared in the same publication as his Requiem (1625) and therefore, since that book only contained Mass-settings, were obviously viewed as an integral part of the funeral rite. The other two Cardoso motets have more general texts, though Nos autem gloriari would not be out of place at the conclusion of a funeral or memorial service. Similarly two of the Alonso Lobo items are associated with the Requiem, most obviously his magnificent Versa est in luctum which may be compared with that of Victoria. Lobo's setting does not appear to have belonged to a Missa pro defunctis proper, though his Credo quod redemptor is also associated with the service of Matins for the Dead. Vivo ego is a more general text within the period of Lent. Lobo's Ave Maria is a masterpiece of a rather different kind, being based on a complex canon 8 in 4 at the upper fifth. Although the eight voices are divided into two choirs and the bottom part of each choir sings the same music, the other three voices are rearranged: the top part of the choir which begins becomes the third part in the choir which responds, the second part of choir I becomes the top part of choir II and the third part of choir I becomes the second part of choir II. Yet despite the mathematical intricacies the resulting music seems artlessly serene, as befits the text. It culminates in the most perfect ‘Amen', where the beauty inherent in these canons is particularly telling.

Peter Phillips 2005

Tudor Church Music Vol. 2 - The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

2011-05-29T06:42:00.002+01:00

Tudor Church Music - Volume 2
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Gimell CDGIM 210

English sacred music of the sixteenth century has formed the backbone of everything The Tallis Scholars have done, right from the beginning. The original reason why we chose to have ten core singers in the group was because the English composers of this period had developed a choir with five basic voice-ranges, instead of the more normal four, and I had decided that the dazzling sonorities inherent in their writing benefitted from having two singers on each part. This dazzle is emphasized if the music is sung at a high pitch, which led us increasingly to perform with four sopranos - two high and two lower - above two countertenors, two tenors and two basses. Thus was born the classic Tallis Scholars line-up, which later could be adapted to sing much mainland European renaissance music as well. Such a line-up sounds almost inevitable now, but it wasn't in 1973.

This second volume of The Tallis Scholars sing Tudor Church Music brings the story of English sonority to the middle years of the sixteenth century, when the gap between it and what was being written on the continent of Europe was just as wide as in the time of Browne, Cornysh and Taverner who are featured in Volume One (CDGIM 209). Instead of the densely packed texures of Gombert and Willaert there is the gothic spaciousness of Sheppard. Instead of the relentlessly argued imitative counterpoint of Clemens and Manchicourt there is the fluency and sheer beauty of melody of Tallis and White. Where Palestrina strove to perfect his sound world, Thomas Tallis set about experimenting with every imaginable combination of voices, from the forty in Spem in alium, to the miniature If ye love me, and from the low choir of In ieiunio et fletu (Track 13) to the high choir of O salutaris hostia and O nata lux (Tracks 14 and 15). This story of the way English sonority developed is amplified and brought to a conclusion in The Tallis Scholars sing Thomas Tallis (CDGIM 203, which does not contain the three tracks issued here) and The Tallis Scholars sing William Byrd (CDGIM 208).

John Sheppard (c1515-December 1558) ranks as one of the most original, if not wide-ranging, composers to come from Britain. Media vita is his masterpiece, unrivalled for its breadth of phrase and expressive power, summing up everything about Sheppard and the creative world which surrounded him: the high treble part leading to breath-taking sonorities, the doubled altos, the old-fashioned reliance on a chant cantus firmus, the persistent, quirky use of a certain kind of dissonance. This is also the formula which underlies Reges Tharsis and Verbum caro, though worked out more concisely than in Media vita. But take away the treble part and you have Christe Redemptor omnium and In manus tuas I; take away the treble and mean parts and you have In manus tuas II. Early in his career Sheppard must have found a basic method which pleased him, for he rarely adapted it. The only exception here is to be found in Sacris solemniis, where his search for sonority took him into new territory. In this masterpiece he divided the altos, means and trebles to create, with the tenors and basses, an eight-part texture. Apart from his own Libera nos settings I know of no other example of this scoring. Certainly there were plenty of contemporary examples of eight-part writing from Europe - from Crecquillon's Pater peccavi to Lassus's double-choir music - but they only point up how different the English were. Lassus, cosmopolitan as he was, would have scarcely been able to believe his ears had he ever heard Media vita or Sacris solemniis.

Sheppard's Western Wind Mass is the third and last of the three settings based on this melody (the Taverner and Tye are included on The Tallis Scholars sing Tudor Church Music - Volume One, CDGIM 209). This is the shortest of them, in number of bars nearly half the length of the Taverner, involving twenty-four repetitions of the melody which are to be found in every part except the mean. This relative brevity can be explained by Sheppard's musical language, so different from that just discussed. Although there are passages which pay homage to the melismatic, rhythmically complex style of the early sixteenth century, this much more syllabic style must come from near the end of the composer's life when he, like everyone else, was influenced consciously or unconsciously by the new Protestant ideals of textual clarity. Nor is the brevity without creative impact: each movement has a drive through it which does not characterize either Tye's or Taverner's setting.

Robert White (c1538-November 1574) was arguably the leading figure in that lost generation of English composers, including Robert Parsons and William Mundy, which came to maturity between Tallis and Byrd in the third quarter of the sixteenth century. White as it were formed a school within a school, whose musical instincts were to look back to the Catholic style of Tallis's youth (a style he had missed) while putting that style to the service of Elizabeth I's Protestant Church. The result is a fascinating hybrid: the lines unwind slowly, much of the old sonority is still there, the cadences in particular can sound deliciously archaic. Yet the expressive power is more modern, more direct. There is no more thrilling example of that power than in the ‘Amen' of Exaudiat te Dominus.

The six-voice Magnificat is the most archaic-sounding of the pieces included here, making use of Taverner's choir of treble, mean, two countertenors, tenor and bass, and even dividing into a triple gimell (divided trebles, means and basses) at ‘Esurientes'. It is monumental and impressive rather than supple, in the way Regina caeli and Exaudiat te Dominus are. Another side of White's treble writing can be heard in the two settings of the Compline hymn Christe qui lux es, where the part-writing is so perfectly crafted round the chant - especially in the last verse of the fourth setting - that White seems to defy gravity.

But perhaps the most modern pieces - by which I mean most obviously caught between old and new - are the Lamentations (two sets joined together). There is in fact little pure polyphony in this music, but rather parallel movements between the parts, organized in blocks. It makes for a mesmerizing effect, and I am not alone in thinking so. The scribe who wrote the music out for the first time, added in Latin at the end: ‘Not even the words of the gloomy prophet sound so sad as the sad music of my composer.'

Peter Phillips 2008

Tudor Church Music Vol.1 - The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

2011-05-28T10:00:00.002+01:00

Tudor Church Music - Volume 1
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Gimell CDGIM 209

English sacred music of the sixteenth century has formed the backbone of everything The Tallis Scholars have done, right from the beginning. The original reason why we chose to have ten core singers in the group was because the English composers of this period had developed a choir with five basic voice-ranges, instead of the more normal four, and I had decided that the dazzling sonorities inherent in their writing benefited from having two singers on each part. This dazzle is emphasized if the music is sung at a high pitch, which led us increasingly to perform with four sopranos - two high and two lower - above two countertenors, two tenors and two basses. Thus was born the classic Tallis Scholars line-up, which later could be adapted to sing much mainland European renaissance music as well. Such a line-up sounds almost inevitable now, but it wasn't in 1973.

This volume contain some of the most substantial music written anywhere in Europe in the early years of the renaissance; and it shows just how different English music was from what the Franco-Flemish composers had developed on the Continent. Instead of an inward-looking, contemplative mood, there is extrovert, brilliant writing. Instead of melodic lines which tend to move by step, chant-like, there are leaps and jumps so virtuosic that they rival the coloratura writing of solo vocal music from centuries later. Where Josquin has a reliably developing harmonic background, Browne sets down massive chords which change slowly, allowing the upper voices to festoon them with ornaments. Looked at historically the English composers of this period can almost be classified as ‘late medieval' for their archaic compositional practices and quirky scorings, yet the sound world they created is one of the most identifiable and compelling of all time. Once the listener is hooked on these sonorities nothing else ever seems quite so good. The second volume of The Tallis Scholars sing Tudor Church Music (CDGIM 210) shows how this characteristically English sound developed in the high renaissance, a picture which is amplified and brought to a conclusion in The Tallis Scholars sing Thomas Tallis (CDGIM 203) and The Tallis Scholars sing William Byrd (CDGIM 208).

There is no better place to start in illustrating pure sonority than with the music of John Browne (d.1505). The sheer length of these five antiphons shows that something unusual is happening; and then one notices the scorings, each different from the last. It seems that once Browne felt he had squeezed every last nuance from a sonority, it was time to try a new one. The largest in every sense is the eight-voice O Maria salvatoris (TrMAATTBB). This is backed up by three six-voice compositions, all for different groupings: Stabat iuxta (TTTTBB), O regina mundi clara (ATTTBarB), and the Stabat mater (TrMAATB). The most ‘normal' is the five-voice Salve regina (TrMATB). All the pieces come from the Eton Choirbook, in which Browne was given pre-eminence: O Maria salvatoris, the only eight-voice composition in the volume, opens it.

The Salve regina and the Stabat mater are the pieces which for years have maintained Browne's reputation as a composer. They are both highly expressive, though for many commentators the Stabat mater is the supreme masterpiece of the period, contrasting dramatic writing with contemplative passages in an emotional world of contrasts thought to have surfaced first with Monteverdi. This drama famously breaks through the surface at the word ‘Crucifige', which Browne hammers into place before turning inwards again with the phrases which follow: ‘O quam gravis illa poena' (‘O how bitter was your anguish'). For me, however, the piece which sums Browne up most perfectly is the Stabat iuxta. Its scoring (TTTTBB) has probably militated against frequent performances, but it is just that scoring which makes such an impact. With six voices operating within a compass of less than two octaves the opportunities for dense, almost cluster chords are unrivalled. The use of low thirds in chordal spacing is not encouraged by text-books of correct polyphonic procedure, but Browne simply couldn't avoid them with this scoring, and they are thrilling. Density of sonority leads to other delights, like false relations and other dissonances, which characterize much of the piece and culminate in the final bars.

William Cornysh's four-voice Gaude virgo mater Christi (AATB), also in the Eton Choirbook, is a brief example of the genius of a very different composer, a kind of alter ego to John Browne. Where Browne was inward and at times mystical in mood, Cornysh (d.1523) was typically extrovert and clear-textured. In Gaude virgo he sends his four low voices rushing around with characteristic verve, towards the end employing strict imitation between them at the resonant words ‘Mortis in periculo'. Later in this volume there are two more pieces by Cornysh: the ineffable Salve regina, one of his grandest and at times most theatrical conceptions, and the more modest and purely beautiful Ave Maria, mater Dei, a concert favourite of ours. The miracle of the Salve regina is how Cornysh never lets the momentum sag over such a broad canvas, constantly alternating powerful trios between the lower voices with more luminous sections involving the higher ones. All this culminates in a rhapsodic passage in praise of the Virgin, building unforgettably to the final word ‘Salve'. Never was Cornysh's dramatic sense more tellingly on display.

The remainder of the music in this volume is made up of two of the three Western Wind Masses - those by John Taverner (c1490-18 October 1545) and Christopher Tye (c1505-before 15 March 1573). The third one - by Sheppard - is included on The Tallis Scholars sing Tudor Church Music - Volume Two (CDGIM 210). Together these three Western Wind Masses make a unique set. Not only was there no other example in English renaissance music of a linked series of Mass compositions by different composers, there was also no precedent in English composition for a Mass based on a secular tune. If Taverner's was the first of this set to be written, it was breaking important new ground, probably deliberately emulating the justly famed continental Mass-settings on such popular songs as L'homme armé and Mille regretz. Tye and Sheppard then took up the challenge of turning Taverner's initiative into a Continental-style series. From the listener's point of view the linking is both obvious and satisfying since the three settings use the same unusual four-part scoring of treble, mean, tenor and bass; and the Western Wind melody, beautifully tuneful in itself, is almost always audible within the polyphony.

It is always assumed that Taverner's setting was the earliest, and that the other two were written to complement it. Certainly it is the most inventive, using the melody thirty-six times in all and treating it as the scaffolding for a set of variations. These variations were written without any free passages in between the quotations of the melody, nine variations in each of the four movements. Twenty-one of the statements are in the top part (where they are at their most audible), ten in the tenor and five in the bass. The melody is never used as a traditional cantus firmus. The end result is that the Taverner version is the most varied and the most sectional of the three, the beginning of a quotation almost always bringing with it a new scoring and new figuration. It is for this reason that tribute is paid to Taverner's resourcefulness in inventing these figurations and their counterpoints - he came up with well over thirty of them, each one adding something to one's appreciation of the melody itself.

The one thing Taverner did not do was put the melody in the second voice down - the mean. It was surely to fill out the scheme, and to pay a kind of homage, that Tye put the melody in the mean only. Keeping it in one part made it easier for him to elide the quotations, as happens at the very beginning where three statements run into each other. This in turn means that Tye's setting is more homogeneous than Taverner's, though also more virtuosic, for example at ‘Benedictus'. In this, and in some truly bizarre harmonies elsewhere, one has the sense that Tye, like his contemporaries White and Sheppard, was searching for new expressive options. They did not look to Europe to find them.

Peter Phillips 2008

Flemish Masters - The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

2011-05-27T19:45:00.002+01:00

The Tallis Scholars sing Flemish Masters
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Gimell CDGIM 211

Just as the Flemish school of composers was central to every aspect of Renaissance music, so these composers have been central to the work of The Tallis Scholars. At regular intervals we have dedicated whole albums - as well as whole concerts - to their compositions, and particularly to their Mass-settings. Here one finds the essence of their art, the showcase in which they displayed their most sophisticated techniques.

This selection contains five of the greatest examples of Flemish Mass-composition. They were written in the hundred years between about 1475 (the Ockeghem) and 1575 (the Lassus), in which time the scope of such music had expanded enormously. The time-line is instructive. The earliest - the Ockeghem - is for four voices. Next came the Isaac, for six voices, followed by the Rore, for seven, and the Brumel, for twelve. The sequence is rounded off by the Lassus for eight voices, disposed in the late-Renaissance manner of double choir. Interestingly the greatest of all the Flemish writers - Josquin des Prez (whose Masses we have recorded elsewhere, intending eventually to record them all) - kept to four voices in all his Mass-settings. For him the Mass was a vehicle for the most subtle chamber music; for the composers represented here it was more an opportunity for grandeur, which meant increasingly polychoral sonorities.

Other techniques link these settings, proving that they were the products of a school of training which passed its techniques from one generation to the next. For example they are all based on pre-existing material: three on polyphonic models (all of Flemish provenance) and two on chant. This means that each composer had to find a way of quoting his model while surrounding it with his own inventions. Typically for Flemish writers these inventions tended to be motivic and imitative, the melodic lines pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle of interlocking fragments. This could lead to extreme contrapuntal ingenuity - much beloved of the Flemish more generally - in such devices as canon. Only by the time of Lassus did these national techniques begin to become genuinely international and proto-Baroque, harmony taking over from the more linear thought of the earlier writers.

The Missa De Apostolis of Heinrich Isaac (c.1450-1517) is unusual in being an alternatim setting. This means that by constantly alternating between chant and polyphony many of the polyphonic sections are contained within a single phrase. Isaac met the challenge of brevity by intensifying his part-writing and using sonority to spectacular effect: a six-voice texture was a rarity around 1500, and only the English at that period could dream up quite such thickly dissonant cadential formulas. This Mass was based on a selection of Gregorian chants taken from the repertoire of the Feast of the Apostles, and must have been written for court use in Vienna, where Isaac was employed and where it was customary not to include the Credo as part of the Ordinary.

By contrast the Missa Au travail suis by Johannes Ockeghem (c.1425-1497) was based on a secular model - a chanson either by Ockeghem himself or the unknown ‘Barbingant'. In fact Ockeghem only quoted the tenor from this three-part model (at that time the tenor was often held to be the ‘tune'), doing so infrequently but obviously: the first ten notes of it may be clearly heard at the beginning of each movement as a head-motif. After that references are hard to identify and the music settles into a pattern of gentle, undemonstrative chamber-music, the second Agnus Dei summing up the stillness of Ockeghem's conception. The reason why this music sounds earlier than anything else on these discs is that it lacks High Renaissance sonority. As was customary in the fifteenth century, Ockeghem kept his four voices within a narrow compass (except in the extreme case of the second Agnus) and regularly scored down to duets and trios.

From the other end of the historical spectrum comes the Missa Osculetur me of Orlandus Lassus (1532-1594). Here everything is sonority: brilliant sounds created by using eight voices in the ‘Venetian' double-choir arrangement, replete with high soprano parts and wide overall tessituras. In this, as in much else, he had effectively ceased to be a Flemish composer, his long years in Italy having taught him a more avant-garde style.

In fact Lassus's three double-choir Masses - the other two are the Missa Vinum bonum and the Missa Bell' Amfitrit' altera - represented an important step in the general advance towards Baroque music. Andrea Gabrieli visited Lassus in Munich in the 1560s after Lassus himself had made repeated visits to Venice. Clearly he was influential in the development of the new idiom, and there is a certain irony in the fact that it was a Flemish composer, whose training was in techniques antipathetic to everything Baroque, who led the way. Nonetheless one admires how he instinctively avoided the tedium which later would beset so much polychoral writing and its too-obvious effects. Here his alternating phrases are quite long, so that simple imitation between the parts is possible; and he was careful to make a strong difference in sonority between passages for one choir and those for both choirs together. The result is an early, but genuinely virtuosic, exercise in an idiom which would last for at least another two hundred years.

The Missa Praeter rerum seriem by Cipriano de Rore (c.1515-1565) was probably written only a decade or two before the Lassus - Rore was an older contemporary of Lassus but died considerably younger; and if the exact date of the Lassus is not known, the Rore must come from the period (1547-58) when he was employed by Duke Ercole II d'Este of Ferrara, whose name he invokes throughout the composition. Yet despite this temporal proximity to Lassus, and the fact that Rore spent an unhappy year (1563) as maestro di cappella at St Mark's in Venice, this Mass is a trenchant example of Flemish writing. It is based on one of Josquin's greatest motets, already in six voices, to which Rore had the skill to add an extra soprano part. He then turned the first alto part into a long-note cantus firmus, perpetually quoting the words ‘Hercules secundus dux Ferrarie quartus vivit et vivet' to the devotional song melody used by Josquin. Much of the power of this wonderful music derives from the Josquin motet, but close inspection shows how resourceful Rore was in his use of it. New counterpoints abound, and the extra soprano part adds a brilliance to the sound which is patently of the High Renaissance.

Much of what I have talked about here is summed up in the astonishing Missa Et ecce terrae motus by Antoine Brumel (c.1460-c.1520). Clearly this is a composition of an earlier period than the Rore and Lassus, yet it is the most sonorous of all. Since twelve-part writing was extremely rare in the period before 1520 Brumel was effectively making up the idiom as he went along. That he was successful is shown by how famous both he and this music became in the sixteenth century: the only surviving source was copied in Munich under the direct supervision of Lassus, who himself sang tenor II in an early performance; and only Josquin received more laments from his fellow composers on his death.

This idiom is quintessentially Flemish, blown up to vast proportions. Many of the twelve-voice sections are underpinned by a canon, quoted in long notes between the first bass and the first two tenor parts, using the first seven notes of the Easter plainsong antiphon at Lauds, Et ecce terrae motus. The purpose of this scaffolding was to give Brumel huge harmonic pillars, which move slowly. At first hearing this measured harmonic turn-over may seem disappointing, but soon the logic of it becomes apparent: Brumel needed to move slowly in order to work out all the motifs he has invented. In doing so he effectively abandoned polyphony in the sense of independent yet interrelated melodic lines, and resorted to sequences and figurations of the kind Josquin was exploring with no more than four voices.

Yet despite its fame, Brumel's masterpiece remained an isolated achievement, an unforgettable one-off. It is a tribute to his genius, and the vibrancy of the Flemish cultural scene, that such a glorious experiment could ever have been commissioned, written and performed.

Peter Phillips 2009