Sunday, 12.30.07, 7:36 am
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things – 2007, Part VI
2007 won’t see a “Best of” list – but instead I’ll simply point to a few artists and works that have brought me particularly joy or particularly content listening-hours this year. I have randomly assigned them the categories Bach, Chamber, Choral/Vocal, Concerto, Contemporary, Crossover, DVD, Keyboard, Opera, Obscure Composer/Work Rescued, and Orchestral.
Orchestral
R.Strauss, Joseph’s Legende, Iván Fischer, Budapest Festival Orchestra Channel Classics SA 24507
This lusty and lush hour of opera-meets-dance-meets-tone poem sends Straussian climaxes through the over-sized orchestra by the minute. Even vigorous repeat listening has not yet turned me off Josephs Legende. I’ve been enjoying, alternatingly, the Giuseppe Sinopoli / Dresden Staatskapelle recording (DG, available as an “Arkiv-CD”) and the new SACD recording of Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra (Channel Classics).
Both are excellent and Fisher, who treats this more as a ballet than tone-poem, is fleet without missing the broad grandeur, sumptuous expanse, and gravitas. He brings out all the voices wonderfully… in an orchestra among the biggest that Strauss ever summoned. Josephs Legende really is underrated Strauss and deserves your ear. I gave it a more thorough review earlier this year.
Shostakovich / B.Tchaikovsky, Symphony No.15/Theme & Eight Variations, op.141, Kyrill Kondrashin, Staatskappelle Dresden, Profil CD PH06065
“Profil – Edition Günter Hänssler” has been issuing more and more CDs from (old) German radio tapes that vie for a spot in the limelight of the mainstream. Especially some of the more recent performances of the Staatskapelle Dresden are immensely impressive. Bernhard Haitink’s Bruckner 6 has already been mentioned earlier this year, a Mahler 9th with Guiseppe Sinopoli awaits a review, and Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony with Kyrill Kondrashin makes this list.
On January 23rd, 1974 – just a little over a year before Shostakovich died – Kondrashin conducted his favorite German orchestra in a concert celebrating the 425th anniversary of the orchestra, the 50th anniversary of the christening of St. Petersburg as Leningrad, and the 30th anniversary of the break of the German siege of Leningrad.
The latest and last symphony of the great composer from St. Petersburg was a logical choice for this, but it wouldn’t have escaped Kondrashin, or the Dresden audience, that it is uniquely unsuited to venerate the Soviet—or any communist—regime. After vocal symphonies 13 and 14, Shostakovich, fatally ill and well aware of it, returned to an almost classical form of the symphony.
In the essay that accompanied the recording of Maxim Shostakovich (said to be the best performance of Shostakovich’s son on record – but to my knowledge not available on CD) Shostakovich spoke of the first movement Adagietto as a “toy-shop with plenty of knick-knacks and trinkets – absolutely cheerful”. No listener will get away from the first movement without doubting the composer’s own words. If it is a toy-shop at all, it’s one that sells little tanks, toy-guns, and junior’s first torture-kit. It’s a romp with its share of plink and delicate chirping, but this collection of trivialities amid intensity, with crashing marching bands and ballerinas, sounds like a sugarplum fairy-cum-guerilla fighter. There are moments that remind of the 2nd and 9th Symphony, and it’s always interrupted by the seemingly random William Tell overture excerpt that all American audiences can identify as the “Lone Ranger” theme.
It’s not impossible that Shostakovich knew the Lone Ranger and his heroic deeds (or his appeal to children, which would go with the toy-shop story) – but it’s more likely the Rossini original that inspired him. And that’s telling enough: A story about a man who is coerced to use his skill (archery, in Tell’s case) according to the bidding of a despot – who then uses that skill to fight against tyranny. If anything it seems that Shostakovich, in the hospital while composing this movement, had dispensed with being subtle in his political statements.
The strange giddiness of the first movement is immediately subdued by the grave brass chorale that opens the dark second movement. Phases of rest and answer and the cello’s lamenting song lead into trombone and violin statements that are everything but “absolutely cheerful”. Trombone glissandi (the ones that enraged Stalin in Lady Macbeth) are employed and eventually the subdued movement wakens and rises slowly to a big orchestral thrashing-about. It’s much like the Shostakovich from Symphonies 4, 7, 8, and 11 – but with an incredible efficiency of means, almost chamber-like in proportion and scoring.
The little, friendly third movement (Allegretto) has moments that are nearly Haydnesque before the fourth movement takes over with another blatant musical quotation – this time Wagner’s ‘ensuing death’ (or “fate”) motif from the Ring, already foreshadowed in the Adagio of the second movement. The yearning opening of Tristan & Isolde also appears several times, completing the atmosphere of resignation and departure. More difficult to hear, if you don’t know about them, are references or quotations of a Glinka song, twelve-tone rows (“bourgeois decadence!”), Strauss’ Heldenleben (the “adversaries” phrase, third movement), and many others that I will have missed completely. In this fourth, as in the second movement and in so many of his other symphonies, there is the gathering of momentum, the orchestral outbreak, the swoop up… here leading to a Passacaglia – and then the symphony dithers away in a morose mood over ghastly tic-tocs of a clock and a last, faint glimmer of percussive hope.
Especially the Wagner quotations, himself once Hofkapellmeister in Dresden, would not have escaped the sophisticated Dresden audience at this performance, the last together with Kondrashin. And what an extraordinary performance it is. It is better in every regard than Kondrashin’s earlier recording (Melodiya / Aulos): The playing is finer, indeed flawless. The sound, with a little artificial reverb, is excellent from the GDR’s radio-broadcast recording crew. Lasting 41:15, the tempi are marginally more relaxed than in the Moscow recording, but still very much on the fast side which means that no moments are allowed to sag or lumber along. I have not heard the mythical first Maxim Shostakovich performance (and I doubt many who sing its praises have, either), but among the interpretations I know (Barshai, Caetani, Haitink, Järvi, Kitajenko, Kondrashin/Moscow, Ormandy, Sanderling/Cleveland), this one goes to the very top.
After hearing this, it is imperative that I get the Kondrashin/Dresden recording of the ‘outside-the-USSR’ premiere of the Fourth Symphony from 1963 which was also broadcast by GDR radio and issued on Profil Hänssler. The Theme & Eight Variations by Boris Tchaikovsky (not related) was written for this concert and are heard in their world premiere. The work has only reinforced my curiosity about -and appreciation of- a composer that my friend and colleague Bob McQuiston has long been recommending to me.
Sibelius, Incidental Music & Tone Poems, Paavo Berglund, EMI Gemini 3-97689-2
EMI has been busy re-issuing Sibelius CDs in for the 50th anniversary of his death. (It is always oddly surprising to be reminded, by Damian Thompson for example, that Sibelius outlived James Dean.) The Birmingham Sibelius Symphonies of Simon Rattle were re-issued (well done and a particularly pleasing 4th Symphony), for example. Now at budget price, it’s actually a contender against the many other fine cycles of Ashkenazy, Berglund, Blomstedt, Davis, Gibson, Maazel, Segerstam, and Vänskä – to mention only the really good ones.
The aforementioned Paavo Berglund is probably an underrated conductor – or at least underrated outside of Sibelius. Sibelius is the composer that Berglund made a name for himself and his Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, well before Simon Rattle took them to further heights. He has recorded the symphonies three times (for EMI with the Bournemouth and Helsinki orchestras each, for Finlandia with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe) – and he may well get to add a fourth cycle with the London Philharmonic Orchestra on their own label.
He had his 1970’s recordings of some of the lesser (known) tone poems and incidental music re-issued on a super-budget EMI “Gemini” double CD. These two discs with The Bard op.64, Pelléas et Mélisande op.46, Swanwhite op.54, Kuolema op.44, the Spring Song op.16, the Lemminkaïnen Legends op.22, En saga op.9, Pohjola’s Daugther op.49, King Christian II op.27, and Luonnotar op.70 will complement his set of the more famous tone poems and Kullervo (formerly on the EMI “double forte” line – and soon to be reissued as a “Gemini”) and his violin concerto recording with the splendid Ida Haendel (on a budget EMI “encore”).
It’s not terribly interesting for me to determine if any or all of these works are given in “definitive” recordings. Chances are that Osmo Vänskä has recorded them all for BIS in interpretations at least the equal of Berglund’s. But what does interest me is the excellence of every piece that is on here, the convenience to get them all in one place, and the low price that invites to explore some of the off-the-beaten-path Sibelius.
To the other parts:
I – Crossover
II – Concerto
III – DVD
IV – Keyboard
V – Choral/Vocal
VII – Chamber
VIII – Obscure Composer/Work Rescued
IX – Bach
X – Opera
XI – Contemporary
Thursday, 12.27.07, 9:05 pm
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things – 2007, Part V
2007 won’t see a “Best of” list – but instead I’ll simply point to a few artists and works that have brought me particularly joy or a few particularly content listening-hours this year. I have randomly assigned them the categories Bach, Chamber, Choral/Vocal, Concerto, Contemporary, Crossover, DVD, Keyboard, Opera, Obscure Composer/Work Rescued, and Orchestral.
Choral/Vocal
Transcriptions 2, accentus, Laurence Equilbey, naïve V5048
Anything that sounds like chant-meets-Vivaldi but smacks of Arvo Pärt will intrigue me. That’s what the first track on a disc called “transcriptions 2″ sounds like. It turns out to be “Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in Franck Krawczyk’s transcription for double choir and continuo. Set to the words of a Requiem Mass (Requiem, Benedictus, Lux aeterna) it emerges as a new work with a new meaning – genial!
Then comes the piano accompanied choral version of Litanei D.343 (“Ruh’n in Frieden alle Seelen”), a Schubert song so haunting already in itself that I always hit the repeat button and get moist eyes. In Clytus Gottwald’s transcription it becomes so powerfully moving that I have found in it another piece of music where I invariably and involuntarily start weeping by the 3rd bar. It is difficult not just to fall on ones’ knees in this musical prayer for All Souls’ Day.
This opening salvo of “transcriptions 2” is so overwhelming that the memory and impression of the subsequent 12 works suffers… but also so overpowering that it alone merits inclusion in this end-of-year list. There is much beauty in other Schubert transcriptions (”Grablied”, “Der Wegweiser”, “Nacht und Träume”) or Mahler (”Die zwei blauen Augen”, “Scheiden und Meiden”), Bach, Wagner, Prokofiev, Scriabin, Ravel, and especially Debussy (“Des pas sur la neige”), but ultimately it is the Schubert “Litanei” and the Vivaldi reworking that make this CD a brilliant musical experience. As I said in my original review: 13 minutes that can conjure sunlight, inspire faith, move to tears.
Schubert, Abendbilder, Christian Gerhaher, Gerold Huber, RCA 77716
The recital discs of Christian Gerhaher are all excellent – and the latest addition is a collection of Schubert songs worthy falling in love with. Abendbilder (“Evensongs” or more literally: “Evening Images”) is a collection of the nocturnal explorations in song with his accompanist Gerold Huber who shines with his often delicate, always appropriate and delightful contribution.
There is a rarefied quality about Gerhaher’s Lied-interpretations… an aching beauty, sincerity, and correctness that permeates every song. His tone is finer, more sensitive than most – but never stylized. Natural, but not in a nonchalant way. What you hear on record goes well with the impression he makes in person. Friendly but somewhat impenetrable, courteous but distant, very humble but with the slightly intimidating aura of confident authority. There is purpose to what he does and how he does it – but while these are intellectual readings, they are never rarified or pedantic and charm the Lieder-lover without reservation.
Grieg, Choir Music, Det Norske Solistkor, Grete Pedersen, BIS-SACD-1661
There were a few CDs I considered for inclusion here and surely Gerald Finley’s recital of Samuel Barber songs would have been a deserving choice – as would have been the re-issue of Kim Borg’s Sibelius Lieder.
But I have been particularly, err… enchanted by a disc of Grieg’s choral music – both original and arranged for choir. It starts with an arrangement of the popular “At Rondane”, op.33, No.2 (originally for voice and piano) which is plain gorgeous in its moody way and resonant, full bodied choral guise. Two religious songs were arranged for mixed choir by Grieg himself of which “Withered, Fallen – At the Bier of a Young Wife” sounds a bit predictable but touching in its cathedral-like piety. In this song, as in “Ave, Maris Stella” or indeed most of the other works on this glorious sounding (multi-channel/stereo) hybrid SACD the songs, the non-Norwegian ear will always pick up a certain preciousness, that silver-voiced, Christmas-choir touch with scents and touches of mulled wine, snow boots, and blond locks under a woolen hat.
“Margaret’s Cradle Song” op.15, No.1, a short gem some 90 seconds long, was written in appreciation of the birth of his daughter Alexandra in 1868. It is set to the Ibsen poem of the same name and hauntingly beautiful. Alexandra, however, never got to appreciate her song, because she died shortly after it was written. Which is tragic and yet, given that it was set to something by Ibsen, also so terribly appropriate.
Grete Pedersen, who conducts the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir also sets the first of the Lyric Pieces op.71 “Det var engang” for mixed choir. It might be the only miscalculation in that the result sounds nice and pleasant but also — in its dum-de-dum new-agey way — cheap.
Norway was already an independent nation when Grieg composed the 1907 Four Psalms op.74, his last work. It’s a somber end to his musical output – with especially “Jesus Christ is Risen” being an austere, if moving, setting of this Hans Adolf Brorson text. The four psalm settings are based on a collection of Norwegian “newer and older mountain tunes” that Grieg wanted to help preserve with his musical adoption. He has achieved that all over again by having them included in this very fine reminder that Grieg is so much more than the Grieg of a certain mountain king’s hall, or of lyric pieces, or a piano concerto.
Cherubini, Missa solemnis in E, Bavarian Radio Choir & Symphony Orchestra, Riccardo Muti, EMI 3-9316-2
I have to add one more release to this list: Riccardo Muti’s championing of Luigi Cherubini on disc continues to take the listener to lesser and little known sacred works of, to quote Beethoven, the “greatest composer“.
I would not spend my time arguing that this Missa is necessarily “great” music or on par with Cherubini’s c-minor Requiem. But it is good music extraordinarily well performed and with the Agnus Dei it ends on a real emotional high-point. I recentlz had the pleasure to see and hear in concert how the Bavarian Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra respond to Riccardo Muti as well as to no one, save ‘their own’ Mariss Jansons. And given the clean, faultlessly articulated and musically sung choral parts, it is little wonder that this recording is nominated for two Grammys (”Best Classical Album” and “Best Choral Performance”). Anyone to whom sacred music appeals – the Masses of Mozart or Haydn, for example – will undoubtedly much cherish this disc, too.
To the other parts:
I – Crossover
II – Concerto
III – DVD
IV – Keyboard
VI – Orchestral
VII – Chamber
VIII – Obscure Composer/Work Rescued
IX – Bach
X – Opera
XI – Contemporary
Tuesday, 12.25.07, 9:52 pm
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things – 2007, Part IV
2007 won’t see a “Best of” list – but instead I’ll simply point to a few artists and works that have brought me particularly joy or a few particularly content listening-hours this year. I have randomly assigned them the categories Bach, Chamber, Choral/Vocal, Concerto, Contemporary, Crossover, DVD, Keyboard, Opera, Obscure Composer/Work Rescued, and Orchestral.
Keyboard (solo)
Couperin, Tic Toc Choc, Alexandre Tharaud, Harmonia Mundi HMC 901956
For two consecutive years Alexandre Tharaud has issued a recording that merited inclusion on, or near, the top of my “Best of the Year” lists. Maybe nothing will ever quite match the magic of his 2005 Concertos Italiens Bach recital again, but that’s no matter because anything slightly less than that is still going to be very, very special. So was his Chopin in 2006 and so is this year’s Couperin disc.
Not all of Couperin’s works for harpsichord can or should be transcribed for the modern grand piano – but there are plenty among them that not only have merit thus transformed but indeed offer a whole lot of new, perhaps even better, sides to them when played on the piano.
Angela Hewitt, in a lovely 3-disc survey of Couperin, picked more or less all the transcribable, pianistic works from the various Pièces de clavecin. Tharaud does the same thing, more selectively and more perhaps more focused on those little gems that come out lighthearted, cheerily bright and with a romantic heart. The disc is a candy-box of Couperin and the combination of Tharaud’s choice of pieces and his empathetic playing give this the air of modernity that Scarlatti often attains on the piano… which should be the highest praise. To speak with 18th century musicologist Charles Burney (who was referring to Scarlatti Sonatas), they are indeed “Happy Freaks”.
Michael Sheppard plays American Composers, Michael Sheppard, Harmonia Mundi HMU 907475
I’m not much a fan of compilations of small pieces by a hand full of composers. But then it is good to ignore this irrational attitude (mostly related to how I collect and organize CDs) every once in a while, because you might just be rewarded with a marvelous surprise. Harmonia Mundi, for example, has a knack of picking extraordinary young talent and showcase them on such debut CDs. So much was evident when they included the very excellent mezzo Ekaterina Sementchuk in their Les Nouveaux Musiciens series. With Michael Sheppard, a former Leon Fleisher student, they have proven that skill again.
The recital of American piano pieces and transcriptions includes three Samuel Barber songs (transcribed by the pianist), William Bolcom’s Graceful Ghost, George Crumb’s Dream Images (from “Makrokosmos”), and opens with the spectacularly fun half-hour Fantasy on Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess by Earl Wild. If it didn’t seem so inappropriate given the Porgy & Bess location and idiom, I’d say that Sheppard is delivering an echt-Viennese rendition, full of unbridled music making unconcerned with anything else. There’s a bit of schmaltz, Kreisleresque pulling and stretching of music and rhythms, remarkable musicality… and then Sheppard unleashes his inner speed-demon, out-wilding Wild himself. It’s difficult… nay: impossible to keep a dour face during this infectious tour-de-force of Porgying and Bessing.
At the center of the recital are two Stephen Hough arrangements of Richard Rodgers that also get this injection of bounciness. Here, especially, Sheppard gives off the impression of a happy puppy at work on the keyboard – except with incredibly capable paws! When I heard “My Favorite Things”, I immediately thought: What a great take on this John Coltrane Classic. (It was kindly pointed out to me that the piece actually originates from the ‘skipping-along-to-tuneful-songs-and-occasional-Nazis’ epitome of camp, “The Sound of Music”.)
The disc ends on the more somber note with the five studies of the John Corigliano Etude Fantasy from 1976 – not primarily a showy, much less funhouse work, but an opportunity to present depth and sensitivity with darker colors. If this didn’t already amount to generous 72 minutes of playing time, I’d say that some of Richard Danielpour’s Preludes might have fit perfectly into the mix. Even so, this disc, issued in cooperation with the American Pianists Association, is my favorite Americanism of 2007.
Scriabin, Sonatas, Études, et al., Yevgeny Sudbin, BIS SACD-1568
“I create the world through the play of my moods,
With my smiles, my sighs, my caresses,
My anger, my hopes, my doubts.”
What Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin said about himself applies in equal measure to Yevgeny Sudbin. I first heard his premiere recording of Scarlatti sonatas and was most impressed. (Anyone who can hold a candle to Mikhail Pletnev’s supreme Scarlatti earns my immediate respect and admiration.) Now Mr. Sudbin has arrived at Scriabin and he convinces again at both intellectual and emotional levels.
All the pieces on this disc – the smaller and larger alike – are outstanding. The best known work included is probably the Ninth Sonata, Messe Noire. At 8’09 Sudbin is nowhere near as fast as the appropriately banging Michael Ponti (VOX, 7’05) nor as tempered as Alexei Lubimov in his reading sated with insightful calm and relaxed muscularity (ECM, 8’45 – one of the finest piano recordings I know of). Bold and powerful playing is combined with frequent Messiaen-like touches here, though perhaps not achieving the fleeting ‘light and shadow-sodden’ atmosphere of Håkon Austbö (Brilliant, 8’20), or the disquieting storm that Sviatoslav Richter conjures (Richter, BBC Legends). Sudbin, who leaves a little trail of sulfur in this sonata, lets it run out in the most inconclusive of ways, which might well be the only appropriate way to end this piece.
Fans of Scriabin will find this rich sounding hybrid SACD an essential addition to their collection alongside Horowitz, Pogorelich, Austbö and Pletnev. Newcomers to Scriabin are encouraged to start here.
Mozart, Variations on Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman et al., Prokofiev, Six Pieces from Romeo & Juliet et al., Lise de la Salle, naïve 5080
“Piano-doll” is invariably what comes to mind looking at any of the pictures on the covers of Lise de la Salle’s CDs. They are enchanting, borderline creepy. But as if to shatter once and for all any notions of baby-face pianism, her first international release on the naïve label was a stunning recital of demanding, finger-twisting Liszt works, including the second of the Légendes for Piano, S 175 (St. Francis). The recording – Mlle. de la Salle was 16 when she made it – was very well received and so I kept my ears open for her new release of Prokofiev and Mozart.
I’m glad I did, too – because after a few times listening to her latest disc it became clear that it’s a little gem to behold. Mozart’s Rondo in A-minor K511 and the D-major Sonata K284 with its variation movement are very well played and perfectly enjoyable. But the Twelve Variations in C-major on “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman” are really the true marvel. There is no shortage of recordings (I count some 15 versions worthy of note) – but the combination of simplicity and elegance, playfulness and sense of purpose makes Lise de la Salle’s confidently stand up to András Schiff, Walter Gieseking, Jénö Jandó, Ingrid Haebler, and Clara Haskil.
Meanwhile you shouldn’t let “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” or the Tweetybird-faced pianist mislead you into thinking there’s no heft or darkness to her palette. Prokofiev’s Toccata op.11 and Sonata No.3 op.28 are given muscular and profound, slightly introverted readings. Six pieces from Romeo & Juliet op.78 have all those qualities and – where apt – the lightheartedness of the Mozart. Thoughtful, not flashy, pianism, this recital makes one look forward to her next recording venture. The Shostakovich concerto No.1, of which the accompanying DVD shows excerpts from a concert and recording sessions with Lawrence Foster, might well be part of what is bound to be another thoughtfully put together release.
Fazil Say, Haydn, Sonatas Nos. 10, 31, 35, 37, and 43, naïve 5070
Few composers have more wit and grace than Haydn; consequently Haydn can absorb quite a bit of ‘external character’. His piano sonatas are music to have fun with. Glenn Gould had fun with them and produced a marvelous recording of the last Haydn sonatas (48-52, Sony). Fazil Say now has brought us a disc of Haydn piano sonatas, too. They are charmed and charming, they are quirky and delightful. And if Say can’t quite draw the same attention to himself in the recording studio as in live performance, it’s not for lack of trying.
His playing reminds a little bit of Mikhail Pletnev’s. Odd accents, changes of meter on a whim, impetuous all the way. No harm done to Haydn (although the best of all Haydn interpreters on disc, Alfred Brendel, does none of this and still makes these works sparkle with wit and life), and the added twinkle had me listen again and again. I could have been bothered by Say’s humming, I could have been bothered by the rambunctious style. But heck, I enjoyed this disc too much – and the line between irreverence and unbridled joy ceases to matter here. (Reviewed earlier in the year on ionarts.)
To the other parts:
I – Crossover
II – Concerto
III – DVD
V – Choral/Vocal
VI – Orchestral
VII – Chamber
VIII – Obscure Composer/Work Rescued
IX – Bach
X – Opera
XI – Contemporary
Sunday, 12.23.07, 9:05 pm
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things – 2007, Part III
2007 won’t see a “Best of” list — instead I’ll simply point to a few artists and works that have brought me particularly joy or aparticularly content listening-hours this year.
I have randomly assigned them the categories Bach, Chamber, Choral/Vocal, Concerto, Contemporary, Crossover, DVD, Keyboard, Opera, Obscure Composer/Work Rescued, Orchestral.
Last year there were two DVDs that towered above all others I have seen. One was the riveting, spectacular, gorgeous Franz Schreker opera “Die Gezeichneten” in a sick, sick, beautiful, equally enthralling and mesmerizing performance at the Salzburg Felsenreitschule conducted by Kent Nagano. I would love to get into this Strauss/Debussy story of seduction, depravity, and redemption by way of aesthetics more, but I should have last year.
The other great DVD in 2006 was the feted, touted Salzburg Summer Hit of 2005 – the Netrebko-Villazon-Hampson Traviata. The music was hardly the discovery here (as in Schreker). Nor did the performance make for a great CD issue. But the DVD with the set of Willi Decker’s – a minimal yet lush pink and light gray masterpiece – turns it into a little wonder. More touching than anything I’ve seen or could imagine be done with or to this opera.
Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, Harnoncourt, Netrebko, D’Arcangelo, etc., DG DVD, 073-4245
Deutsche Grammophon has a new Netrebko Opera on DVD out this year – and they market it similarly to the Traviata. Full opera on CD followed by the DVD followed by the high highlights on CD.It’s also from Salzburg and it’s also a controversial production. Claus Guth is responsible for the direction of this Marriage of Figaro – conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and issued as part of the M22 series: All of Mozart’s operas performed in the Mozart anniversary in Salzburg on DVD.
It offers an intense direction and features an added non-speaking role. The added figure adds and subtracts from the opera and its presentation – to me in equal measures… others might find it rather more distracting or perhaps more of an insightful addition. This seems to be a popular director’s touch these days: Willy Decker thus employs Death in his Traviata, Konwitschny a ‘Senta-archetype’ in his Flying Dutchman from Munich. Guth’s addition is a young – but hardly diminutive – male dancer who takes the part of ‘Cherub’ — related to, but not identical with Cherubino.
His presentation offers Le Nozze’s dark side, short on comedy, long on moral ambivalence. Susanna is hardly an angel, her affair with Skovhus’ strapping Count is plenty real and troubling to her not so much for reasons of coercion but temptation. Dorothea Röschmann as the countess ads her intense dramatic ability to the shallow but captivating and arresting stage presence of Netrebko’s for a cast strong on the singing and stronger, still, on the acting.
Most captivating, despite the dashing and authentically troubled Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, is Christine Schäfer’s Cherubino. There’s almost an irritating realism in her portrayal of the lusty little boy exploring the edges of his sexual urges: playing and being played with in equal measure, and not quite being able to discern the difference, yet. Like René Jacob’s in the liner notes to his Don Giovanni (a great new recording on HMU), the Harnoncourt/Guth team speculates on Don Giovanni being the grown up Cherubino. (It’s an interesting theory – but it doesn’t go nearly as far as my own hypothesis that Cherubino-cum-Don Giovanni really goes back all the way to one of the three boys in the Magic Flute. [The one on the left, in case you wondered.])
There will be plenty of surprises with Harnoncourt manipulating the tempi in ways that are notably different, even to many causal listeners – but there is little that does not add to the performance as part of this particular production. Even if you harbor conflicted feelings about actress-singer Netrebko, the rest of the crew — Schäfer, Röschmann, D’Arcangelo, and Skovhus — are all and each worth watching this DVD for.
Mahler, Symphony No. 2, Boulez, EuroArts DVD 2054418
I am, as a rule, not terribly interested in DVDs of orchestral performances. There is little that the visual element does that improves the experience over listening to a CD (except for Leonard Bernstein’s conducting gymnastics). Rehearsals are more interesting, and Opera DVDs add an obvious element that can’t otherwise be had – save for the live experience. But every once in a while there is either a performance so wonderful, or so rare, or with such special moments that it stands out. Diana Damrau’s performance in Mahler’s Second Symphony at the concert in honor of the 80th Birthday of Pierre Boulez might just be one such moment. Framed in an expert performance, conducted by the birthday-boy himself, her “Aufersteh’n, ja aufersteh’n” might not, on its own, merit purchase of this DVD (especially given the plethora of fine CD and SACD recordings of the symphony), but it was a moment I greatly enjoyed.
Leonard Bernstein, The Gift of Music, DG DVD 073-4336
“Bernstein, The Gift of Music – An Intimate Portrait” is a wonderful collection of archive material from all stages of Leonard Bernstein’s career put together by Horant H. Holfield for Unitel. The German original and the English version (narrated by Bernstein friend Lauren Bacall) show 85 minutes of Bernstein in all his facets – the quirky, the funny, the idiosyncratic, diplomatic, odd, the happily chain-smoking – and over and over again as the great communicator that he was. All with a charm that may not translate as easily anymore so many years later, but a presence and enthusiasm that remains equally captivating. How, at 80, he unwittingly scares stiff a gangly, pimpled conducting student at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival is just one of quite a few priceless moments. A touching tribute.
Wagner, Lohengrin, Nagano, K.F.Vogt, W.Meier, R.Trekel, T.Fox, Opus Arte DVD 964
From January this year comes the most interesting Lohengrin on DVD I have yet seen. The narcissistic ‘choir-boy’ Lohengrin of Klaus Florian Vogt takes a little getting used to, but is ultimately a triumph of great – but never stentorian – Wagner singing. Listening to Vogt and the immediate reaction might be akin to the first reactions that the voice of Wolfgang Windgassen received: clarion, astonishingly light and effortless, without artificial gravitas.
Waltraud Meier is the most fearsome, earthy, deliciously evil Ortrud since Astrid Varnay – it’s a role that suits her and her audibly mature voice perfectly. The rest of the cast splendid without fail. Kent Nagano conducts the score with as much clarity and direction as the Stephan Braunfels designed sets suggest. Anyone who approaches Wagner with an aesthetic sense instead of an ideology should find these coolly lit, stark sets of the architect-grandson of Walter Braunfels beautiful, perhaps even fascinating. As a whole, the production is inescapably compelling – one of the top Wagner-performances available on DVD.
To the other parts:
IV – Keyboard
V – Choral/Vocal
VI – Orchestral
VII – Chamber
VIII – Obscure Composer/Work Rescued
IX – Bach
X – Opera
XI – Contemporary
Saturday, 12.22.07, 6:42 am
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things – 2007, Part II
2007 won’t see a “Best of” list — instead I’ll simply point to a few artists and works that have brought me particularly joy or a few particularly content listening-hours this year.
I have randomly assigned them the categories Bach, Chamber, Choral/Vocal, Concerto, Contemporary, Crossover, DVD, Keyboard, Opera, Obscure Composer/Work Rescued, and Orchestral.
Beethoven, Piano Concertos 1 & 3, Mikhail Pletnev, Christian Gansch, Russian National Orchestra, DG 477 6415
How much can an interpreter say anew about a piece played by just about every pianist under the sun and of which there are well over 100 different recordings to choose from? Mikhail Pletnev shows us how. Sure enough, he does things just a bit different, from the first notes on. It’s little extra bold, a little extra fresh, capricious, insubordinate, and with the light and joyful touch that made his Mozart so oddly irresistible. Overly vigorous accents, syncopations, and the shifting of balances in the cadenza contribute rather than distract. It’s a release upon the strength of which I most eagerly anticipate the other installments as well as his about-to-be-issued Beethoven symphony cycle with the RNO.
Zeisl, Piano Concerto in C-major, Gottlieb Wallisch, Johannes Wildner, RSO Wien, cpo 777 226-2
This is a stunning discovery by a composer I’d heard very little from, before. A stray Harmonia Mundi disc of Joseph Marx-student Eric Zeisl’s chamber music that I picked up in the Cut-Out section of Tower Records more than five years ago had made my ears perk, but not permanently. Now CPO has brought us the 1951 Piano Concerto coupled with the 1929 ballet suite “Pierrot in the Bottle”. I will review this in more detail in the new year – but consider this very fine 20th century piano concerto even now… assuming you like Ravel’s concerto and the music of Korngold or Mahler. Zeisl is one of those Jewish-Austrian/German emigrant composers who found their way to America… but did not find their career continue or take off as much as the surviving music suggests it should have. Zeisl came late to composing for movies and did not achieve fame or wealth in that field (after films like “Lassie Come Home”, “The Invisible Man’s Revenge”, and “Money, Women, and Guns” it’s not surprising) – and before building a third career (after Vienna and New York) in L.A., a heart attack robbed him from the music scene at age 53. This concerto – and Mr. Wallisch’s interpretation – is good enough that it might make for a humble Zeisl renaissance.
Reinecke, Violin Concerto in G-minor op.141, Ingolf Turban, Johannes Moesus, Berner SO, cpo 777 105-2
Exaggerating just a tiny little bit I’ll say that the Reinecke Violin Concerto in G-minor, op.141 – which, unbelievably, has never been recorded before – deserves to stand next to the great romantic violin concertos. Or at least just behind them. Admittedly it lacks the greatness of the Beethoven, the craftsmanship of the Brahms, the refined seriousness of the Sibelius, and the sweeping popularity of the Tchaikovsky. But what do Bruch and Mendelssohn offer that Reinecke does not have? Carl Reinecke: born in 1824, teacher of Grieg (who didn’t think much of him), tutored by Mendelssohn and Schumann, principle conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, old-fashioned before he was even middle-aged, dead and forgotten (as a composer) by 1910.
Ingolf Turban takes to this work and the absolute gem of a Romance for Violin and Orchestra op.155 – and he plays with a sinewy and determined tone, a pleasant boxiness that suits the perpetual energy of what should by all means be a concert hall staple for pleasing the romantic concerto loving crowds. Symphony no.1 gets top billing on the disc – and it’s plenty pleasant and well played by the Bern Symphony Orchestra under Johannes Moesus. But it is the violin pieces that steal the show.
Szymanowksi, Violin Concertos nos. 1 & 2, Ilya Kaler, Antoni Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Naxos 8.557081
There are fewer recordings of Karol Szymanowski’s highly enjoyable Violin Concertos than I thought – but even if the field was more competitive and the benchmark with Thomas Zehetmair/Simon Rattle (EMI) not out of print, Ilya Kaler’s Naxos recording with Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra would more than deserve high praise. The two rather contrasting concertos of the Ukrainean-born Polish composer give you five movements of warm, colorful, fantastical, and lush music in op.35 from 1916 as well as a more Bartók-like, modern-lyrical approach in the 1933 op.61. Ilya Kaler, whose career moved somewhat laterally after winning Gold Medals at the Paganini, Sibelius, and Tchaikovsky competitions (!), shows off his fierce skill with Wit proving a superb orchestral accompanist.
And while on the topic of underrated eastern European concertos for the violin: Bohuslav Matoušek and his recording of the two Martinů concertos with Christopher Hogwood and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra should get a nod (and a detailed review soon). Martinů composed as much as his output was of varying quality – but this Hyperion release ought to be heard.
To the other parts:
I – Crossover
III – DVD
IV – Keyboard
V – Choral/Vocal
VI – Orchestral
VII – Chamber
VIII – Obscure Composer/Work Rescued
IX – Bach
X – Opera
XI – Contemporary
Thursday, 12.20.07, 12:21 pm
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things – 2007, Part I
For the last three years (2004, 2005, 2006) I have invested much time and effort into coming up with elaborate “Best of the Year” lists. And even if such lists are not much more than highly subjective reflections of one’s personal likes and exposures, I had listened to such an exhaustive amount of new releases and re-releases that there was some justification for the underlying presumptuous claim inherent in (all) such “Best of” lists.
2007 was a little more hectic for me – and I know I missed out on a good amount of recordings that I might at least have wanted to sample in order to make any sort of semi-definitive judgment. So I will restrict myself to a list of CDs with a more humble, more realistic claim: Instead of the ten best new issues and re-issues I’ll simply point to a few artists and works that have brought a particularly wide smile to my face or particularly content listening-hours this year and perhaps in 2008 I will be back with the more ambitious account.
These ‘most liked’ recordings are organized in random categories I made up on the spot: Bach, Chamber, Choral/Vocal, Concerto, Contemporary, Crossover, DVD, Keyboard, Opera, Obscure Composer/Work Rescued, Orchestral. (If you are shocked, surprised, or confused to see “crossover” amid these groups, be assured that I am not talking about the banalities and travesties à la Il Divo, “Bocelli and Friends” or the like, but simply music that crosses over from classical to another genre or vice versa.)
I start in equally random order with the least expected category:
Uri Caine plays Mozart, Uri Caine Ensemble, Winter & Winter 910 130-2
From the moment I heard Uri Caine’s Urlicht, an ethno-musicological exploration of Mahler that is full of spunk, avant-garde jazz, and heart-wrenching lyricism… a wild, but reverent and insightful, flimsy and dedicated declaration of love from the New York musician Caine to Mahler, I was hooked.
Caine is not out to make particularly pretty music, even though in Urlicht he achieves achingly beautiful moments with the simplest of means. Caine is special and dear to my heart because he makes music that is really like nothing you have heard before. Like the best of Tom Waits or Coldplay or Björk or Leonard Cohen, to name four completely different and unrelated artists, Caine is unique as a result of his creativity, not unique for its own sake.
Uniqueness by collage – like a Thomas Mann novel – which all lack of pretension but plenty of whimsy. Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, and Wagner have all gotten his (mis)treatment. Now it is Mozart’s turn. The first movement of Piano Sonata K545 in C-major starts out innocent enough under Caine’s hands. But just eight seconds into the music it derails and becomes an instant train-wreck. Except, no… it vividly seems to struggle against a jazz beat taking over. Caine is in constant conflict of finding a lovingly conventional jazzy groove in this work (that you’d never have expected to exist) and the actual sonata – unsuccessfully – trying to reclaim its primacy. The tension and instability caused in the cracks between these two musical ideas is unsettling and even unnerving. And yet, as I listen to this more often, it starts to attain that excellence of inevitability that ingenious musical ideas purvey.
Electric, ethnic, and avant-garde jazz influences imbue (others might unkindly say: rape) Mozart between those sections where the ensemble (piano, violin, clarinet, trumpet, electric guitar, turntables, double bass, drums) plays Mozart more or less straight. There are truly wild musical departures here that will strain many a listener’s benevolence or concept of what is a beautiful sound. And yet I think that all exploratory-minded ears will get to the end (were the third movement of the C-major sonata brings the Caine-Mozart experience full circle) and hit, both disturbed and intrigued, the play button again. And again.
re-issue: Jacques Loussier Trio Plays Bach – Encore!, Telarc 2CD-83671
There cannot be many classical music lovers who have not heard, or at least heard of, Jacques Loussier. Since he burst on the scene in the ‘50s with “Play Bach”, his brand of ruminating Bach-as-Jazz that the pianist Loussier, his bassist Pierre Michelot, and drummer Christian Garros brought to millions of titillated ears, he has successfully toured and recorded with this classical-jazz crossover from a time long before the word “crossover” even existed.
Indeed, Loussier’s work, whether solo, with his old trio, or his second trio with Vincent Charbonnier and André Arpinos (bass and drums, respectively), is of such consistent high quality that the phrase or category “crossover” doesn’t ever come to my mind. If I had to file his CDs in a record store, I’d file under Loussier in Jazz and in Classical under the respective composer he takes on. His sound is clearly that of Jazz and with his new trio it incorporates many more flavors and a rather more modern beat, too. But wherever the inspiration and basis of his playing is Bach, or Beethoven, or Chopin, or Debussy, or Handel, or Mozart, or Ravel, or Satie, or Vivaldi – and especially Bach! – it ought also be seen as a legitimate extension of classical music. (“Legitimate” is a rather silly word in this context – replace that with “enjoyable”, “wonderful”, or “capriciously fanciful”.)
I enjoyed his recent Chopin and equally so his latest Bach, where he took on the Brandenburg Concertos. And so the re-issue of his second trios’ early Bach recordings coupled with original compositions of Loussier is very welcome. In best hi-fi Telarc sound, the g-minor Fugue BWV 1056, the two concertos (for one and two harpsichords in f-minor and c-minor, BWV 1056 and BWV 1060), and the Partita in B-flat major BWV 825 sound fresh, invigoratingly accented, modern. Those already familiar with Loussier ought to give this a listen – those still skeptical about jazzifying Bach are better off with one of the early “Play Bach” releases.
Jacques Loussier’s own music may not be the primary reason for purchasing this 2-for-1 CD, but anyone who is intrigued how a classical concerto reminiscent of Jazz, Astor Piazzolla, Mark O’Connor, Mike Mower, Villa-Lobos, Fritz Kreisler, Porgy & Bess, tiny dashes of Mozart and Baroque, and a slew of other influences might sound like will listen with interest and be rewarded for it.
To the other parts:
II – Concerto
III – DVD
IV – Keyboard
V – Choral/Vocal
VI – Orchestral
VII – Chamber
VIII – Obscure Composer/Work Rescued
IX – Bach
X – Opera
XI – Contemporary
Tuesday, 12.18.07, 6:17 am
New Releases: CDs
Trevor Pinnock: Bach Again, at 61
"New Releases" posts are regular columns that feature reviews of new CDs that are, for one reason or another, truly outstanding among the many I come across every month.
Canterbury born Trevor Pinnock – who shares his birthday with Beethoven – turned 61 last Sunday. In his function as the founder and leader of The English Consort and a prolific harpsichordist he became one of the most important musicians in the early music movement. He recorded numerous CDs for the Archiv label – including all of Bach’s concertos. In 2003, after 30 years with The English Concert, he handed over his duties to the great violinist Andrew Manze who has, however, retired from the post that is now Harry Bicket’s.
After three decades with TEC, he wishd to move on to new – or perhaps old – things, focusing more on playing the harpsichord and, as he says, going “back to the rich English repertoire such as Tomkins, Byrd, Bull and Gibbons.”
Except that he was back on tour for a year of 60th birthday celebrations with a new ensemble he created for the celebration of that occasion. He and his European Brandenburg Ensemble, made up of players from many European countries and all ages played one set of works to audience around the world. There is only one composer who will allow a group of musicians’ sanity to withstand such repetition: Johann Sebastian Bach.
And so Pinnock traveled with the EBE through Europe and Asia for a year, playing on every stop – you might have guessed it – the Brandenburg Concertos. The birthday circuit ended with a concert at the Munich Herkulessaal in November (organized by Tonicale) where Trevor Pinnock and his “Birthday-band”, The European Brandenburg Ensemble” delighted – if in an unfulfilling way. After performing all six concertos five times in six nights, the spontaneous and improvisatory quality clearly wanted by Pinnock and his musicians (playing standing) might have given way to routine. At least some of the luster was off in several of the six concertos.
Not of Pinnock himself, mind you. The man who looks like 1/3 Ian McKellan, 1/3 boarding school headmaster, and 1/3 indefatigably happy elf played with zest and nimble accuracy throughout. In the D-major concerto (BWV 1050), that proto-keyboard concerto, Pinnock’s fleet and steady playing largely kept the ensemble together. The zenith of their Brandenburg-focus of 2007 meanwhile is likely to be their resultant recording of the concerto cycle.“There is such a variety of fine recordings of the Brandenburg Concertos that any new recording needs some justification.” Thus writes Trevor Pinnock in the liner notes to his new recording of the Brandenburg concertos on Avie. He succeeds on paper – whether he succeeds on record is more difficult to answer. At the very least he adds yet another very fine recording to the many fine recordings available, a quarter century after his recording with the English Consort on Archiv came out.
The reason for the EBE being made up of players of all ages and European countries was to to eschew any one particularly, nationally flavored style of baroque playing and to achieve the universality that makes Bach’s language so special. Pinnock certainly succeeds on that point: There is no particularly “British” (or other such) flavor to these Brandenburg concertos. He also succeeds in introducing a greater sense of spontaneity that comes close to spirit of (a good) live performance.
Many listeners, record clerks, and Bach-lovers still consider Pinnock’s 1982 recording of the Brandenburg Concertos as one of the top choices among HIP versions. I might have agreed with that myself, based on memory. But pulling these recordings out again proved that they have not aged not nearly as well as assumed. It also heightened my appreciation of the new Pinnock recording considerably.
The Archiv recording shows all too clearly how much Historical Performance Practice has improved. The natural trumpets should not (or need not) sound like that – and they don’t, in more modern recordings like the excellent Academy for Ancient Music Berlin’s (HMU 2901634) or Musica Antiqua Cologne’s under Reinhard Goebel (part of Archiv 471656). Similarly the unlovely string sound is perhaps authentic in the true sense of the word, but not appreciated , now that we can have better.
The strings of the EBE on the new recording are a delight, and not just in comparison. The natural horns and trumpets, however, continue to be a weak-spot just as they were in concert. That’s too bad – because where the earlier Pinnock recording manages to convey the architecture of the concertos with its steady paced, sturdy way, the new recording manages to go about things in a much more free-wheeling manner. Tempos are – except in the Fifth Concerto – ever so slightly sped up… but more importantly and decidedly unrelated: every movement sounds more alive, more energetic. This ‘new’ Bach is not as reverently worshiped, it is adored with coyness, sparkle, and a twinkle in its eye. Nothing limps, nothing lurches. Every concerto has a slightly different tone of voice, too, which makes listening to all six in a row a fairly stimulating – not tiring – affair. The atmosphere as a whole is quite light – partly a result of Pinnock opting for the cello (instead of bass) playing the bass part in four out of six concertos.
Anyone who especially likes the performances and interpretations of Trevor Pinnock will find this recording to be a delight and probably a distinct improvement over its predecessor. If, meanwhile, someone were to hunt for the (elusive) ‘definitive’ version of HIP Brandenburg Concertos, this beautifully packaged and presented CD set might be a contender – but there are at least a handful of other accounts that should not be overlooked at the expense of this.
Picture © Andrew Stepan Photography, published with kind permission .
Monday, 12.17.07, 7:07 am
Christmas Music (II)
As threatened last week, I am back with some ideas for Christmas music – most of which, I promise, does not contain sleigh bells. Or only minimal amounts.
For me, nothing beats Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, that collection of six cantatas for Christmas Day, Boxing Day, the third day of Christmas, New Years Day, the first Sunday of the new year, and for the eve of the Epiphany (‘Twelfth Night’). More so even than the Mass in B-minor, the Christmas Oratorio is cobbled together from choruses and arias of secular cantatas – and just like the Great Mass, it isn’t any less attractive for it. From the timpani and trumpet opening of the first cantata to the soaring trumpet, the organ, and the chorus “Now are you well avenged” of the sixth, this is such uplifting, wonderful music that I often listen to all six cantatas in one sitting, instead of spread over twelve days. Now this is music I could listen to every single year in concert. Alas, it is all-too rarely played in concert. At least you will have the chance to hear it on WETA this year.
Just re-issued on Philips we have the 1987 Peter Schreier “Weihnachts-Oratorium” from Dresden where he conducts Helen Donath, Andrea Ihle, Marjana Lipovšek, Eberhard Büchner, Robert Holl, and… himself, as the Evangelist. Old fashioned, heartwarming, somewhat fuzzy, and with vocal vibrato (Donath) that, in the current age of “HIP” performances, takes a good amount of getting used to. The highlight of the recording is the impeccable and glorious trumpeting of Ludwig Güttler and his ensemble. When it comes to this hearty, big-boned approach to Bach, I still find Karl Richter (Archiv) unbeatable. Their combination of heft with absolute clarity, vigor and spirit, and attention for detail while having a loving eye on the ‘bigger picture’ set them apart from the rest. Richter is so good, he really transcends the whole HIP-or-not dispute. The recording is available on Richter’s set of Bach’s Sacred Masterpieces (an extraordinary bargain) or as a download from the new on-line service of Deutsche Grammophon.
Other top choices are Helmut Rilling’s second recording of the Oratorio for the complete Bach Edition on Hänssler (combining the best of traditional and HIP performance to spectacular effect) and Jos van Veldhoven’s fully HIP, riveting, and most luxuriously presented recording for Channel Classics.
Also choral, gorgeous, and German are two Christmas works that are much less known. There is Josef Gabriel Rheinberger’s “Der Stern von Bethlehem”, op.164 – a short Christmas cantata and as great a piece as Rheinberger wrote. (His wife, the poet and scholar Fanny Romana Ursula von Hoffnaaß, who supplied the text, died just before he finished the work.) It has received at least two recordings, but the one on the Carus label with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, under Robert Heger and with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Rita Streich might well be one of the finest romantic choral recordings ever made. You need not take my word for it, though – this piece, too, will be broadcast on WETA on Christmas Day.
Hans Pfitzner didn’t make the reception of his music any easier by his confused and odious political utterances during the Third Reich. But anyone who listens to any (Heribert Ritter von) Karajan recording might as well listen to Pfitzner compositions – especially because at their best, they offer the finest central European late romantic music that can be had next to Richard Strauss.
Long before he composed his undisputed masterpiece Palestrina, a serious and moving opera of Wagnerian proportions and ambition, he had worked on “Das Christelflein” (The Little Christmas Elf), a work that might best be described as a music-for-fairy-tale (or Children’s-opera or simply “kitsch”) and bears a marked resemblance to the later “Radio Operas” of Hindemith and Eek. It’s set around a naïve story told in a mediocre libretto (Bruno Walter, his good friend, said that there wasn’t a child so childish nor a man so strange that they’d get anything from the story) and I’d prefer to listen to it without any dialogue between the numbers. Since both recordings (CPO, 2005 and Bavarian Radio / Orfeo 1979) use some (adapted) text, one would either have to skip the tracks, program the CD player accordingly, or – most conveniently – burn a backup copy of the Christelflein that doesn’t include the narration. A little effort – but worth it for the charming music that uniquely shows the sunny, lighter, and even childishly naïve side of Pfitzner.
Far away from the bold and lush orchestral and vocal offerings above is Liszt’s Weihnachtsbaum (“Christmas Tree”) and Weihnachtslied (Christmas Song). The Christmas tree is a twelve-partite mini cycle piano suite that Liszt wrote – over the course of ten years – for his granddaughter. They are delicate (for Liszt’s standards, at least) and joyful little pieces – the shortest a minute and half long, the longest just under six minutes. The first group of four is based on carols of which the fourth, Adeste fideles (“O Come, all ye faithful”) is immediately recognizable as such. The next four are to depict Christmas-impressions as seen through the eyes of a child and the last four Christmas-reminiscences and -reflections of an old(er) person.
Written for a child to play they don’t sound anything like child’s play to these ears. (The Scherzoso “Light the candles of the tree” sounds rather fiendish for the fingers, young and old alike.) Also included on this recording from Leslie Howard’s monumental “Liszt’s complete music for solo piano edition” for Hyperion is the one version of Weihnachtslied Liszt also set for piano, not just chorus. A sweet little seasonal piece before Howard moves on with Via Crucis, which is about a different season, and of a different mood, altogether. You can listen to “Der Weihnachtsbaum” some time Christmas Day on WETA.
Space prohibits me to go much further into what other high-quality, sleigh-bell-free Christmas music is out there (Charpentier’s Midnight Mass and the Saïnt-Saens Christmas Oratorio come to mind). One more recording must be mentioned, though:
The Baltimorian Christopher Rouse’s “Karolju” has been issued in a world premiere recording with former Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s music director David Zinman. Seventeen years (!) after conducting the premiere and trying to interest record companies in it (the Musician Union’s rules forbade distributing an available live recording) Sony BMG, the parent company of the Arte Nova label for which Zinman has recorded much and successfully, has come to the rescue and makes now available Rouse’s ingenious work. Consciously casting aside his musical language for the very purpose of coming up with a set of nine choral Christmas carols he created a wonderful work of about half an hour that manages to employ the most conventional, shamelessly beautiful musical language – but in such a fashion as never to suggest that this was a cheapening of his compositional standards.
It is difficult to say what makes for the difference between trite or hackneyed and upliftingly gorgeous. I suspect it has to do with the aim of the composer: To either seek out the lowest common denominator (resulting in the former) or risk arriving at beauty through one’s own voice (for achieving the latter). With these faux-national carols – the nonsensical texts, and vaguely the style of the carols, are in Latin (with a dose of Orff), Swedish, French, Spanish, Russian, Czech, German, and Italian – Rouse has written a modern American choral work that in terms of quality and accessibility has not been met or bettered, except for Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna. Coupling Rouse’s Karolju (a word Rouse made up; it’s root obvious) with Lutosławski’s Polish Christmas Carols only makes the disc all the more attractive. After listening to both of these pieces, I won’t even object to Rodrigo’s Retablo de Navidad rounding this selection out.
I admit having feared for the worst when putting this CD into my player. Turns out that the disc was a wonderful Christmas gift.
Friday, 12.14.07, 11:13 pm
Happy Birthday Beethoven
Beethoven’s Birthday is celebrated on the 16th of December – the day before he was baptized. Depending on how quickly his parents rushed to ensure his little unbaptized soul would not fall into devil’s hands in case of accidental infant death, that should be fairly accurate.
Turning 237 is a good enough cause to celebrate someone like Beethoven – and having already missed the centennial and quinquagenary of Grieg’s and Sibelius’ passing (I’ll write about them, yet), I won’t miss this opportunity. Neither will Classical WETA, by the way, with their Weekend Beethoven Birthday Bash from Friday to Sunday.
Beethoven is always considered and thought of as a, maybe even the, “great composer”. If forced to choose the ‘greatest’ composer (while not trying to be excessively smart by insisting on Orlando Gibbons), the majority of votes would be cast for either Beethoven or Bach. That’s fairly obvious and uncontroversial: both are what we think of as geniuses. Notable only the absence of Mozart, who in this imaginary study (based on informed conjecture, not research) came in a distant third. But ask who the most popular composer was, Mozart would win hands down. And for all I know, Tchaikovsky might beat Bach for third place. Stab at this discrepancy between how Mozart and Beethoven are perceived, thought of, and differently appreciated and you poke at the very fundamental assumptions, pretensions, misunderstanding, controversies, inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and contradictions that classical music (quotation marks optional) is embroiled in.
You never thought that being asked for your favorite composer might get you entangled in questions of the social politics of our day, huh?
Well, it doesn’t have to — assuming you listen to Beethoven decidedly for your own pleasure and so long as you don’t intend to save the world, or souls, through the promulgation of more Adagios. I will encapsulate in a few paragraphs an argument that underlies countless books on how to properly save or reanimate or kill classical music:
Enjoying classical music can be hugely rewarding, but it often involves effort or even ability.
The appreciation of Classical music is considered to relate to several ‘desirable qualities’. (If you think that this statement – not an endorsement – is controversial, just think of the “Mozart effect” craze for a moment.)
The question of how we treat classical music centers around whether we think that these ‘good qualities’ (patience, willpower, a particular aesthetic sense, endurance, goodwill…) are partly the prerequisite to enjoying some classical music, or caused by enjoying classical music. And, whether gaining joy from listening to classical music is the goal, or the qualities associated with enjoying classical music.
The distinction between ‘popular’ and ‘classical’ music may not be artificial anymore, but it is at least misleading. If classical music was not popular, it would forfeit any reason to be supported. When the only reason for listening to classical music is its entertainment value, often enough the only entertaining going on is its consumers entertaining notions of superiority for surrounding themselves with it.
Listening to Beethoven’s Andante scherzoso, più allegretto from Violin Sonata no.4 in a-minor op.23 (with Grumiaux and Haskil, as it were) does not make me a lick smarter – not even if I were to know what “Andante scherzoso, più allegretto” meant. Playing Orlando Gibbons every morning makes me no more civilized. And reveling in Stockhausen – may he rest in disharmonic and polyrhythmic peace – does not turn me into an intellectual.
If the idea of ‘betterment through high culture’ could be gotten rid of, it might cut out a lot of the sanctimonious palaver on how we absolutely must ensure that coming generations like classical music (or read Marlow or appreciate Tintoretto paintings).
The only good reason for more arts education is because the resultant early exposure lowers the enjoyment-thresholds of ‘difficult’ art. Arts that contain pleasures only offered at the price of admission of effort and repeated exposure.
Not all classical music needs effort to be enjoyed. Eine kleine Nachtmusik has no enjoyment-threshold. It’s brilliant because of that. And it is – our instinct tells us – not truly great because of that. On the other hand Beethoven’s Die grosse Fuge has an enormous enjoyment-threshold. In the entertainment sense it is miles from brilliant. But boy it sure is great!
I won’t even question that late Beethoven string quartets are greater than Mozart divertimentos and serenades. After all I, too, believe that qualitative differences can legitimately be made between two objects within one category. But purpose can’t be ignored in regards to orienting ourselves among arts and entertainment. If we listen to Beethoven to think ourselves better or to instill a sense of noble superiority in our consciousness, we may not only spectacularly miss Beethoven’s point – but we are also ill equipped in communicating a sense of awe and joy to those people that we also want to listen to Beethoven. (There is also the painful irony of those who ‘do’ classical music because it resembles an exclusive club of refinement, reveling in that very exclusivity… and then complain that classical music is no longer getting the popular attention and admiration it once did.)
I don’t exactly know when or how the higher-purpose reason for classical music kicked in, but I suspect it has something to do with at least these two events:
The part of the population that, by force of consumption-habit, determines what is “popular” having increased manifold and now including the vast majority of citizens in all affluent societies. And (not unrelated) the idea of effort legitimately being a part of entertainment waning, fast.
But enjoyment through effort is precisely what some examples and incarnations of classical music represent. Enjoyment does not equate ‘effortlessness’. You can’t enjoy the elated rush of standing atop a mountain peak and overlooking hundreds of other peaks if you haven’t climbed the mountain in the first place. You won’t likely enjoy fresh truffles or casu marzu or even cilantro if your taste buds have not learned to be accustomed to it. You won’t feel the serenity and otherworldly perfection of a late Beethoven String Quartet without engaging yourself with it. Even a work like the Piano Sonata op.106 – the “Hammerklavier” sonata – will be daunting to most neophyte ears.
(Late) Beethoven, like any other composer that might not be accessible at first, or second, or even fifth try, will reward all efforts very, very generously. And if the “Moonlight Sonata” pleases, or the “Eroica Symphony” delights, it seems only fair to give the composer the benefit of the doubt that he had great things in mind, too, with his last piano sonatas or string quartets or his Missa Solemnis. (Even I have not yet found out the secret for wholly enjoying that work.) My point, perhaps clumsily made, is to listen to Beethoven – and all of classical music – for the right reason: for unabashed entertainment. And, at the same time, give him the courtesy, the good will, and the effort to understand him better. In most everything he had to say. Maybe that’s what makes him great. Try it – as a birthday present.
Meanwhile, I just wanted to list a few spectacular recordings of Beethoven’s works. Really. And now, having written twice as much as I should have, I’ll have to make that very brief:
Symphony No. 3 with Paavo Järvi and the German Chamber Philharmonic Bremen on RCA. Vigorously vivacious, forceful, brisk, and energetic. Packs a tough, but never heavy, punch and sounds great.
Symphony No. 4 with Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra on BIS. Never have I heard a more lively, joy-exuding, lightly danced – in short: better – Fourth.
Violin Concerto & Romances with Thomas Zehetmair and Frans Brüggen on Philips. Like hearing the concerto – nay: Beethoven – for the first time again. After this, you may insist on always hearing it with the composer’s own cadenza.
Piano Concertos with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Nikolaus Harnoncourt on Warner Classics. Baroque expert (Harnoncourt) and modern music specialist (Aimard) combine forces and excel, creating five splendid accounts of these concertos. Also: Mikhail Pletnev takes on Concertos 1 & 3 (DG) and says new things about them in musical ways that deserve listening.
Piano Sonatas (complete) with Friedrich Gulda (the 1968 Amadeo cycle – available from Brilliant Classics and/or Eloquence/Decca). He’s got rhythm. And spunk. And technique. And something to say about the composer in just about every sonata. My favorite cycle next to Backhaus.
Late Piano sonatas (28-32) with Maurizio Pollini on DG. Not that this classic needs more praise thrown its way – but this really is spectacularly ear-opening in ways no other interpretation is.
Early String Quartets with the Takács Quartet on Decca. Engagement, joy, a sense of attack – all amid technical perfection without ever sounding cold or glib. It’s what makes all the Takács’ Beethoven great and the op.18 set in particular. On period instruments the Quatuor Mosaïques – a revelation in Haydn – prove contenders with their just-finished cycle of op.18.
Middle String Quartets with the Végh Quartet on Naïve for warmth and expressiveness and that visceral joy that enhances these already beautiful works.
Late String Quartets – or at least opp.127 and 132 – with the Hagen Quartet on DG (or the Takács Quartet again). The Hagen Quartet seems to enhance everything that makes these late quartets so austere, but it also enhances the effect this austerity, this severe aesthetic, can have on the listener.
Monday, 12.10.07, 9:29 am
New Releases: CDs
Al Fresco
"New Releases" posts are regular columns that feature reviews of new CDs that are, for one reason or another, truly outstanding among the many I come across every month.
Archiv Produktion, the early-music label of Deutsche Grammophon (one of the first and perhaps the first such singularly devoted sub-label), contains countless treasures in its, err, archives of sixty years. Some of the great Archiv-recordings have already been re-issued as part of the DG-Originals series, but as far as I know Archiv itself has only had one series of re-issues so far, the short-lived “Archiv Blue” line.
Now they have a new (budget) line, celebrating Archiv’s 60th birthday: “al fresco”. It is, as advertised, a stylish and sleek edition of choice morsels, neatly presented in white digipaks but stripped of all liner notes or other extraneous information which can, instead, be found on the Archiv website if you type in a password (“archive60”). Whether the name of the series refers to anything taking place “outside” or ‘fresh air’ being brought into our listening habits (by re-issues of ‘old’ music, though?) or the ‘alfresco’ technique of painting on fresh plaster (the Matisse paintings that adorn the series do not suggest so much) I do not know.
But I do know that I am all for having more, easier, or less expensive access to the many gems in the Archiv catalogue. I would love to see (or hear, rather) the Beethoven chamber transcriptions of the Second Symphony and Fourth Piano Concerto (as written about last month) become available again. Or, in time for the holiday season, the sublime, invariably moving account of the Christmas Oratorio conducted by Karl Richter.
But while both of these Archiv recordings are unavailable on disc right now (in North America, at least), there’s good news from the brand new (also recently written about) “DG Webshop”. You can download either recording – as they are part of the out of print releases made available by DG. Robert Levin’s Beethoven is the fourth disc of the complete Gardiner/Levin concerto set (here), the Richter Christmas Oratorio with Gundula Janowitz, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, and Franz Crass – still my favorite, despite strong competition – is available online here. (Buyers in the US have the distinct advantage of DG applying a 1:1 exchange rate between Dollars and Euro – which amounts to a 33% discount these days.)
Of the discs that are available as regular CDs (a form I still prefer by far over downloaded and burnt CDs – printed liner notes, or not), I am very happy to greet Pierre Fournier’s recording of the Bach Cello Suites. Among all the accounts of Bach’s Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, this 1961 recording still stands out as the one by which to measure all others. Fournier does not play in a historically informed style—he is too grave and sometimes too slow for that—but the tension, the emotion, and the character with which he imbues these works make them eminently exciting. You are gripped from the first notes on, and you will want to listen all the way through to Suite No. 6. Particularly delightful, perhaps due to his predispositions to all things French, is every Allemande he puts his bow to.
There is Wispelwey on Channel Classics for a riveting “authentic” performance, there is Maisky (his later DG recording) for idiosyncratic Romanticism, and Yo Yo Ma for ‘impeccability’. But just as with Lady Bird and LBJ: amid all the competition and distraction, Fournier is the one to come back to. (Rostropovich’s version, as noted before, only elicits yawns from me, which, given my predilection for Bach, is an achievement of its own.)
Mozart’s piano quartets are well served by Malcolm Bilson, Elizabeth Wilcock, Jan Schlapp, and Timothy Mason. Underrated and beautiful pieces they will satisfy anyone who is not entirely allergic to the sound of the forte-piano which, in Bilson’s hands, is well rounded and pleasantly mellow, anyway. It’s the perfect complement to the Mozartean Players’ CD(s) of the Piano Trios on original instruments – also a performance so musical as to appeal to the Mozart-mainstream with ease. (The 2CD set has been luxuriously reissued as part of Harmonia Mundi’s Mozart Edition but should also still be available on two individual super-budget “Classical Express” discs [volume 1, volume 2].)
There is plenty more – including John Elliot Gardiner’s Fairy Queen (Purcell), Concertos for Four Violins and J.A. Hasse with Reinhard Goebel, Handel’s Dixit Dominus with Simon Preston, and performances by the Piffaro septet, the Orlando Concert, and Trevor Pinnock. To Pinnock’s recordings I will get back next week when we celebrate his – and Beethoven’s – Birthday on the 16th of December.