Sunday, 3.30.08, 5:06 pm
New Releases: CDs
Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 4)
"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.
This continues the review of Brilliant’s complete “Beethoven Edition”.
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Earlier this month, the great Alfred Brendel (pronounced Brendl, not Brendélle) gave his farewell performance at Strathmore Hall. In Anne Midgette’s review for the Washington Post, she states that Brendel “won renown fairly early in his career as the first-ever pianist to record all 32 Beethoven sonatas.” (A mistake promptly parroted by Ben Roe during a conversation with Brendel sponsored by WPAS at the Embassy of Austria.)
I assume an overzealous editor decided to replace “all 32 Beethoven sonatas” for “complete piano works”, because an experienced music critic like Mme. Midgette would hardly commit the blunder of giving Artur Schnabel short shrift, who finished recording the first Beethoven Sonata cycle when little Alfred was but four years old, and almost thirty years before Brendel finished his own cycle for Vox-Turnabout in 1964. (The alternate explanation is that the words “in stereo” got dropped*.)
What distinguished Brendel’s recordings on Vox from the other complete sonata cycles that came before them (Wilhelm Kempff, Wilhelm Backhaus, Friedrich Gulda, and Yves Nat all got to that in the 50 and early 60s) was the inclusion of all the Bagatelles and (almost) all the Variations. It is that part of the thin, but perfectly pleasant and clear sounding Vox LP-set (since re-issued on CD) that Brilliant chose to license for their complete Beethoven set.
If you are going to listen to these (largely) obscure works of Beethoven, it might as well be a master Beethovenian like Alfred Brendel to bring them to you and do them justice. The collection includes major works like the massive “Eroica Variations” on an original theme from The Creatures of Prometheus op.35, the Diabelli Variations, and the Six Bagatelles op.126, but also 13 Variations on the Dittersdorf Air “It was once an old man” WoO66 and yet more variations – eight – on Süssmayr’s theme “Flirting and Joking” WoO76.
Not all Beethoven works are created equal, and there are some rather light or insubstantial pieces on these five Variation and Bagatelle CDs – but many, probably most, surprise by how good and pleasant they turn out to be and how neglected they are. Interestingly, Brilliant didn’t bother to remove Sonata no.20, op.49/2 from Variation-disc no.1 – which is where it was placed in the Vox re-issue. Whether the placement amid the miscellaneous piano pieces, rather than the sonatas, originally was an expression of the slight nature of this sonatina, or simply due to space constraints, I can’t determine. But now the Brilliant set offers two accounts of it – Brendel and, as part of the complete sonatas, Friedrich Gulda.
Back then, Brendel elected not record the three “Electoral Sonatas”, which Beethoven wrote at the age of eleven. They may not be considered part of the canon of the 32, but are no less slight (if perhaps a tad more awkward in some transitions) than the two (‘accidentally’ published?) op.49 pieces. I don’t propose renumbering the sonatas in the canon, but inclusion of these three short pieces would behoove any new sonata cycle. Ulrich Staerk takes to that task in original recordings for Brilliant, just like Georg Fridrich Schenck takes on the other various piano pieces that Brendel missed. (Notable among them only the two short Preludes op.39 and the Fantasia in g-minor op.77.) The piano duo Frank Zabel – Stefan Thomas works through 4-handed piano œuvre – which includes the op.6 sonata in d-minor, three marches op.45, yet more variations and – very interestingly – the Beethoven arrangement for piano 4-hands of the Große Fuge op.135.
Now to the 32 Piano Sonatas. Every traversal of this sonata cycle is daunting and, just for the very achievement of it, impressive. Because it is so impressive, I rarely encounter a negative review of any complete cycle. Even more obscure and perhaps even lesser pianists that tackle this monumental task get an “A for effort”. Still, there really is only a good handful of wholly recommendable cycles. Artur Schnabel is a must for many connoisseurs but the sound quality prohibitively bad for newcomers or casual listeners. Alfred Brendel (who, together with Daniel Barenboim, is the only pianists to have recorded the entire cycle three times**) manages excellence every time, is safe, and uneventful.
To this day, the mono (1951-56) and stereo (1962-64/65) cycles of Wilhelm Kempff are reference recordings. Even more somber, impressing through immense clarity and understatement, are the Backhaus readings, the later stereo cycle of which is a much cherished favorite of mine. Paul Badura-Skoda has a quintessentially Viennese cycle on a Bösendorfer (Gramola) from the late 60s and one on fortepianos (Astrée/Naïve, oop). Claudio Arrau’s very temperate, musical readings (Philips 1962-1966 and again in the 80s) continue to stand the test of time, though they will leave impatient listeners frustrated.
Among modern cycles, especially Richard Goode (Nonesuch) and possibly Stephen (Bishop-) Kovacevic (EMI) stand out, and recent additions come from Gerhard Oppitz (Haenssler), Paul Lewis (Harmonia Mundi), András Schiff (ECM), and Maurizio Pollini (DG) who, with the release of the op.2 sonatas, is only one disc away from finishing his cycle that started more than three decades ago with his unparalleled recording of the last Beethoven sonatas.
Amid all this competition, the second cycle of Friedrich Gulda from 1968 – originally recorded for Amadeo Records, Austria and soon incorporated into the Decca family – stands out for me as the most consistently satisfying. Without any false humility, Gulda said about these recordings in an interview with Austrian Broadcasting’s Kurt Hofmann:
“In these recordings I can detect, with a good deal of benevolent interest, my own development. I would not record Beethoven like that anymore, were I to do it again, but it is quite listenable. A few things are a little bit extreme in the tempi, or borderline… Still, I have to admit, I admire it… this completely coherent achievement, namely to play all the Beethoven sonatas so that they come across with an incredible perfection – I have to say, with the distance of twenty years now, that I understand why this recording became a bestseller and why it still is one.”
When I first went Beethoven Sonata cycle shopping, both of Gulda’s recordings were out of print in North America, so I discovered his interpretations fairly late – when Brilliant Classics re-issued it three, four years ago. As one of the least expensive sets available, I didn’t resist it for long – and what a surprise it turned out to be. Despite the alleged exaggerations (which aren’t all that wild, in retrospect), Gulda brings us what I consider the most consistently satisfying, ever pleasing integral recording of these works. I continue to have other favorites in individual sonatas – but my go-to set and reference has become Gulda. More intense (with that extra wee bit of spunk) than either of Kempff’s readings, never lumbering like Anton Kuerti (Analekta) nor professorially sincere like Schiff, consistently more engaging and probing in the late Sonatas than Ashkenazy (Decca), more flexible than Backhaus, not as patricianly flowing (borderline plodding) as Arrau, Gulda somehow manages to combine a highly personal reading with a compromising stance that appeals to the many rather than offending most. (Which is more or less what he ended up doing in his late career, when he forced jazz upon unwilling classical audiences and classical music upon displeased Jazz audiences.)
That Brilliant managed to snatch the re-issue rights from Universal is astounding. (I’ve heard that the person in Hamburg that said “Yes” didn’t quite know what he was doing, in the process undermining Decca’s plans to re-issue the same set on their Eloquence Edition.) While there cannot be a “best” complete set to all ears, there is no doubt that among the 60-plus extant complete cycles, Gulda’s second can be safely ranked in the very top group, with sound, technical facility, and interpretation at a level that should satisfy most of one’s needs. My personal predilection for the understated Beethoven of Backhaus means that I’d probably part with Gulda before that of his elder German colleague, but as a primary complete cycle I recommend the Austrian, not the stoic German. Whether as part of this complete box or as a stand-alone set, Gulda should grace every better Beethoven collection.
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* Kempff’s third cycle (1962-65) – in stereo – came hard on the heels of Brendel’s Vox/Turnabout cycle (1958?/61-64). In 1956 EMI began a projected complete Beethoven cycle with Walter Gieseking, but after ten sonatas were recorded, Gieseking passed away. Friedrich Gulda’s first Decca cycle (1954-58) was only partially in stereo. Barenboim’s EMI cycle was recorded between 1965 and 69.
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** Wilhelm Kempff started recording Beethoven in 1926 and nearly had a cycle finished by 1945, but with op.2/3; op.22; op.27/1; op.28; op.31 #2; and op.101 still missing.
Sunday, 3.23.08, 6:00 am
New Releases: CDs
Get Your Paws on Hoof
"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.
Unless I miss something very obvious, Joseph Jongen is the most famous Belgian composer I know of.* Obscure stuff to most, but if you like the string quartets of Debussy and Ravel, you owe yourself hearing Jongen’s quartets. The Pavane recording of these two works might be another “Chamber Music You Didn’t Know You Love” column, but for now I want to direct your attention to an even less prominent Belgian composer, Jef van Hoof.
Jef van Hoof, about whom I know little more than the fine and very nicely printed liner notes tell me, was born in Antwerp in 1886 and died there, 73 years later. To say he is “best known” for his songs and three short operas would be an overstatement – perhaps he is ‘least forgotten’ for them. His idiom is solidly of the late, harmlessly-romantic kind, with few chromatic twists but chock full of beauty and sumptuousness.
Phaedra Records dedicates itself to Belgian / Flemish composers and in volume 51 (!) of their “In Flanders’ Fields” series they turn again to van Hoof, with his orchestrated songs and the Third Symphony in E-flat major at the center.
The music and performance are superb – one of those happy surprises in unknown repertoire I always hope for, but rarely come across. Ann De Renais is the soprano and her clear, fresh voice – an instrument that is round and very pleasant on the ears – navigates through the 11 songs with ease, accompanied by the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra under Zsolt Hamar. The orchestra hasn’t all that much to do when they support the all-important voice part in these songs, but they prove themselves empathetically capable in the May-Fire Suite (from the opera of the same name), the short trombone concerto (“Divertimento for Trombone and Orchestra), and the symphony.
Hoof’s fondness for brass instruments – he was the founder of the all-brass Antwerp Koperenensemble – comes out in his orchestral writing where they are employed in wonderfully melodic ways rather than the brass-tastic fanfares and blaring, contrasting brass chorales to which they are all-too-often relegated.
That’s certainly true of the four movement symphony in the “Eroica” key of E♭ (with heroic postures and a second movement in “Tempo di Marcia Funebre” to make the daring parallels even more obvious). It’s a rather merry work from a difficult time in the composer’s life (1944-45) when his appointment as director of the Royal Flemish Conservatory under Nazi occupation came back to haunt him. Even with a somewhat aimless Scherzo it makes for a terrific symphony in the old-fashioned, romantic vain.
The songs show the simplicity necessary to give the folksong character of Drei Lieder im Volkston (to German text) its due, while otherwise reaching a near-Straussian bloom. In “The Garland Has Been Hung” (De Crans es uutgehahnghen), the lamenting quality and melodic flow has a distinctly Russian tinge. This is repertoire well worth looking into, even for non-Belgian sopranos. I, meanwhile, want to hear if Hoof’s Symphonies 1 & 4 (“In Flanders’ Fields” v.13), 5 & 6 (v.44), or his String Quartet (v.1) are of similar merit.
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In North America, Phaedra recordings can be attained at www.recordsinternational.com.
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(* Of course I did: César Franck, Henri Vieuxtemps, Eugéne Ysaÿe, and François Joseph Gossec – not counting pre-Belgium-as-a-country Ockeghem, Josquin, and Jacob Clemens non Papa.)
Thursday, 3.20.08, 7:09 am
Classical Performances
Easter Pilgrimage
There is value in tradition itself and while I would not want to have to justify how, much less why, I know it to be so when I revel in a decorating a tree in late December or not eating Bavarian white sausage after the bells have struck noon, or walk on the street-side of the sidewalk. There are no compelling reasons – spiritual, gastro-hygienic, safety related – to any of these, yet I cherish and value them.
Listening to music for certain occasions, too, is a tradition for me. Some are simply private or regional ‘habits’: Baroque on Sunday morning, Die Fledermaus for New Year’s Eve. Others are contextually related. Among those is listening to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion or Wagner’s Parsfial for Easter. I cherish the music on it’s own, of course, but I especially relish the sense of occasion and the tradition. This is something possible to experience whether you consider Easter’s significance to rest chiefly on the presence of Easter bunnies and marshmallow chicks or the Passion of the Christ.
One element of great art is that it taps into that “oceanic feeling” (Romain Rolland), our resonance to matters spiritual – whether dye-in-the-wool secularist, incense-wafting mysticist, or someone of (traditional) faith.
I don’t mind repeating myself when I say that Bach, more than any other composer, does that for me as well as many, maybe most, of those familiar with him. (Wagner: not so much… he seems rather to evoke a sort of cultism – which is related, but not as rarified.) So my trip to and through five European cities, chasing Matthew Passions (and Parsifals, more of which later), really is a Bachian pilgrimage for me.
Admittedly conveniently train-bound, with the musical pit-stops at its heart, rather than a distant shrine of a goal. But the route has always been an important part of any pilgrimage. Indeed, the words “roam”, “saunter”, and “canter” are derived from describing people on their pilgrimages to Rome, Sainte Terre, and Canterbury, respectively. At the end of it is not necessarily a cathedral, or temple, or menhir, or Stratford-upon-Avon, but renewed life or, more modestly, revitalized hope, rejuvenation. So priketh me nature in my courage and I longëd to go on this pilgrimage.
The little Dutch medieval fortress town of Naarden, completely surrounded by a wall and moat, was the first stop, a highlight unlikely to be topped by successive Matthew Passions this year. Since 1921 the Matthew Passion is performed at the Grote Kerk (“Great”, or “Large Church”) in Naarden. The Nederlandse Bachvereniging is responsible for the performance. That name and their current director Jos van Veldhoven are familiar to me from their recordings on Channel Classics. Their Mass in B-minor from last year not only made it onto my best-of-2007 list but has quickly become a favorite version.
High expectations were hardly disappointed. While I was not as moved and grabbed as I always hoped for, that might have been due to recent overexposure. It was in any case so good – so exceptionally good – that the delight it brought made up fully for this.
From the first notes on, Veldhoven and his forces (two orchestras with altogether ten violins, each, a viola, one cello, one double bass, two traverse flutes, two oboes, a recorder, continuo organ, and bassoon each, and a theorbo, viola da gamba, and harpsichord) established this rendition as superior. The ensemble work was perfect with all six violins of the first orchestra playing, breathing, and living the music as one. The tone of this HIP (Historically Informed Performance) group sweet and sonorous like one could hardly expect from an indulgently romantic Viennese group, much less an original instrument band.
Johannes Leertouwer’s violin solo (“Erbarme Dich…”) was filled with warmth, a light vibrato on held notes, perfectly in tune and proved altogether better and more accurate than anything I have ever heard, say: Pinchas Zukerman do lately. The following duo with alto Matthew White (pleasantly masculine sounding, near his limits in the upper register but never of that whiney, namby-pamby quality that turns so many ears off counter tenors) had me in awe of the musical excellence. Antoinette Lohman’s solo for the opposing camp of violins was a study in contrast to Leertouwer’s mellifluous, sweet sound: Very engaged, wiry, agile, and energetic.
The boys’ choir employed for the chorals consisted of but three trebles. They may have been nervous, but either need not have been – or perhaps that nervousness actually aided their pinpoint accuracy. I have had my share of exposure to boys’ choir singing – active and passively – and I don’t think I heard three voices so together and accurate. In the generous but appropriately dry acoustic of the Grote Kerk they produced a sonorous, even voluptuous sound that I would not have thought possible. The fact that even the tiniest inaccuracies in their presentation were immediately audible only assured that the achievement was all theirs, not due to some unique acoustic phenomenon of the venue or their placement in front of conductor and orchestra, vis-à-vis the pulpit.
There were three, four very minor quibbles with the whole performance not worth the time or space to mention, since the overall excellence of Veldhoven’s and the Netherlands Bach Association’s achievement cannot be overstated. Of course the soloists had their part in this too: All were at least good, but next to Gerd Türk’s evangelist, Dorthee Mileds and Maria Keohane (sopranos), Matthew White and Williams Towers (countertenors), Julian Podger and Charles Daniels (tenors), and Wolf Matthias Friedrich (bass), it was Andrew Foster-Williams whose Jesus stood out for his very impressive, indeed: ideal rendition.
Towers could not quite match White’s performance, but he came close in the unrestrained and unconstrained, beautifully shaped aria “Können Tränen meiner Wangen…”. Türk had a few rough patches, his singing somewhere between lovely and routine, maybe both. Charles Daniels, recently heard in Koopman’s Mass in B-minor, was at the same high level of accomplishment without going beyond it – his colleague Podger rather excitedly sang the recitative “O Schmerz!” and found himself near his limits before the absolutely phenomenal, pitch-perfect oboe solo interrupted him. Dorothee Mields’ vibrato was a little heavier than I would have expected, but it was still clear and uncommonly beautiful, strong, and secure.
Ripienist Marjon Strijk’s Uxor Pilati, with an angelic ring to her strong soprano, proved on behalf of all her colleagues the high quality of the choir which sang the chorales together with the soloists. Together, they made for a group of 24 singers that sounded very sizeable in this venue and yet retained the clarity and precision rightly cherished in good HIP performances. Gerd Türk joined in as the finale chorale – “Wir setzten uns mit Tränen nieder” (“We sat down with tears…“) let us back out into the clear night in Naarden, journeying back to nearby Amsterdam. A conspicuous beginning of the Easter Pilgrimage, indeed.
Impressive – or frustrating – in their own way were two performances at Amsterdam’s Concert-Gebouw. National Symphony Orchestra principal guest conductor Iván Fischer steered the – obviously reduced – forces of the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest through a performance that was long on beauty and short on excitement. The performance made no pretensions of being authentic in any way, but even traditional performance did not escape the HIP trend: The strings were out in nearly twice the numbers that Veldhoven used, larger but still modest. The choirs boasted 42 throats and 27 trebles altogether. The soloists sang in a style cut from a more romantic cloth, more liberal with their vibrato and dramatic delivery.
This will either please or annoy. For me the sense of – and familiarity with – the occasion as such, made it pleasing. To sit in the Concert Gebouw early on a Sunday and to revel in the smoothed sounds of Bach, delivered with sheen and humble pleasantry, gave a sense of civilization being a wonderful thing… as if there was something fundamentally right with humanity, after all. This sense of gathering at a temple of the arts, of mimosas, of mothers using their heavy perfume, of the children hardly fidgeting for two hours: it’s a sort of Lake Wobegone idyll, except with culture instead of ice-fishing at its center.
Mark Padmore’s evangelist was in excellent voice, as were alto Bernada Fink, countertenor Wilte te Brummelstroete, and soprano Johanette Zomer. Kristinn Sigmundsson, who filled in as Jesus, was a wooly disappointment, his bass colleague Zeert Smits did better, but came close to belting with his huge voice.
All were very dramatic and employing a vibrato that will strike unrepentant HIPsters as inevitably inappropriate, but then the purpose of this performance was not to strive to an alleged ideal of authenticity but to aim for maximizing beauty. Where someone like Veldhoven can combine the two – absolute beauty as well as HIP explosiveness – that combination is always going to win out over just one. When excitement and beauty are an either/or proposition, the preference is subjective. The very gentle and genteel way this Passion was performed by choir and orchestra, with the corners rounded off and edges smoothed, appealed more to me than the performance later that Sunday, where the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, the Nederlands Kamerkoor, and the Roder Jongenskoor under Jan Willem de Vriend presented the other alternative: More passion in the Passion, but a cast of soloists that was not terribly satisfactory, and orchestral forces that were enthusiastically engaged, but not precise.
I might have enjoyed this sweetly likeable performance more on any other day had I had fewer St. Matthew Passions preceding it and with less importance attached to the traditional element on the occasion. Especially so if Carolyn Sampson had not bowed out and if any other alto than the pseudo-operatic Ewa Wolak had taken those parts. Alas, that Sunday I was not inclined to appreciate freshness over smooth beauty.
From this dose of Dutch Bach, the pilgrimage went to Paris, where Parsifal under Hartmut Haenchen awaited at L’Opéra national de Paris – more about which I’ll get to write next week.
WETA will broadcast the complete Veldhoven St.Matthew Passion at 9pm on Good Friday, March 21st – part of an all-weekend Bach Birthday Bash.
Sunday, 3.16.08, 8:33 am
Classical Performances
Bleak & Beautiful: Christine Schäfer’s Winterreise
“Come, come thou bleak December wind,
And blow the dry leaves from the tree!
Flash, like a Love-thought, thro’ me, Death
And take a Life that wearies me.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A singer who combines the necessary virtues for George Crumb and Purcell, the interest to sing (Richard) Strauss bonbons and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, who leaves an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon on her own account (to move to the classical indie-label Onyx), a soprano who sings Bach Passions as naturally as Schumann Lieder, Mahler Symphonies, and Mozart Operas – and all at the very highest level – is something truly remarkable. Christine Schäfer is that soprano, and she is truly remarkable.
Her Cherubino in Harnoncourt’s Le Nozze di Figaro from the 2006 Salzburg Festival manages to out-act (and out-sing, anyway) Anna Netrebko and Dorothea Röschmann. Hers is one of the most bafflingly successful performances of that role I have seen – disturbingly true to life, whatever that life in Mozart’s operas might have been like. (The DVD was one of my favorite things in 2007.)
Daring and typical was her release of Die Winterreise on Onyx in 2006. I am solidly in the camp of those who prefer a bass or baritone in this song cycle over a tenor, much less a soprano. I have respect for the better recordings of Die Winterreise for female voice, but neither Lotte Lehmann’s, nor Brigitte Fassbaender’s, nor Natalie Stutzmann’s – to name only the truly successful ones – convince me, or appeal to me much.
Christine Schäfer’s perhaps least of all: the icy clarity and monochromatic delivery – somewhere above these musical fields of snow and despair – was listened to once and then dismissed on my part. But in a recent conversation with the owner of Vienna’s oldest record shop and youngest record label – Gramola – the issue of Die Winterreise came up and Mr. Winter not only volunteered Schäfer’s as his favorite modern recording (the appropriately gruesome, terrifically terrifying, and utterly Viennese Julius Patzak being his personal favorite overall), he also gave his reasoning. Since I cannot resist any passionate, well formulated opinion – much less argument – about any music, I resolved to scratch my opinion of Schäfer’s Winterreise and re-form it upon a new hearing.
The chance presented itself soon: Concerto Winderstein organized a recital with her singing Die Winterreise at the Herkulessaal in Munich in late February, about a month after the Vocal Arts Society had presented her at the Austrian Embassy. I attended eager to listen precisely for the appropriateness of that monochromatic approach, that bleak white that not only marks the CD cover of her recording but also her interpretation. That clarion voice that is hardly immune to warmth, but can excise every trace of it – seemingly at will.
In a simple dress of contrasting penitents’ black, she began “Gute Nacht” unsettlingly fast. As her voice meet with my ingrained expectations, almost every new entrance took getting used to – but Schäfer also got me used to it every time, within seconds. At the line “The Girl, she spoke of Love”, “love” was touched most tenderly first, then ‘well considered’ the second time around. The Moon’s shadow cast its light very “dolce”. Instead of contained (or outright) anger in: “Love does love to wander / For God has made her so – / From one person to the next / Dear Darling, well, Good Night!”, she sang it with emotional moderation, to an eerily calm ritardando. After the protagonists writes his farewell on his would-be sweetheart’s door, her musical partner Eric Schneider had the piano walk away from the song in stubborn steps through the snow.
That this was – as expected – going to be a nuanced reading was noticeable right away. But the fast tempos, lack of obvious anger, and very subtle touches of crescendos, ritardandos, or an occasional fermata did not seem enough to make this as moving as I had hoped. Moments of delight did not make up for a grander total, even though there were many: “Den Tag des ersten Grußes” in Auf dem Flusse delicately set apart, the dreamily appropriate Rast, or the contemplative gentle Frühlingstraum (with stunning stop-and-go touches by Schneider that rang through the song like an afterthought), the ambiguity imbued in Einsamkeit. The surprising infiltration of color in Die Post, how Der Greise Kopf was suddenly drained of all momentum before moving right into Die Krähe where the piano’s voicing was once again wonderful, floating above the fray. Or the Chanson-like quality in Im Dorfe, and how Täuschung struck as a disenchanted ballet dance… all parts that were more than the sum of the whole.
But then came Der Wegweiser – The Signpost – and it was not just the finest Wegweiser I have heard, it was some of the best singing these ears have ever witnessed. Clear like a freezing cold and bright, sunny winter day’s air. Still. As if suspended. Every word, here as elsewhere, audible. It was one of those – rare – moments where going to all those concerts seemed to make sense again, a moment I felt genuinely lucky to have heard. It wasn’t just me who felt like that: No coughs after this one!
From hereon, the recital was an event of the kind that makes you actually believe in the ‘glory of the human voice’ again. Das Wirtshaus started gentilissimo-tenderissimo, Schäfer displaying incredulous control over her ø, π, ∆, and all shades between. A gentle increase in desperate confidence before resignation and anger set in gave the preantepenultimate song of Die Winterreise a nice dramatic arc. Die Nebensonnen continued this elated, truly ethereal quality before the performance came full circle, after an hour, in Der Leiermann, as monochromatic and bleak as the beginning.
I know lovers of this song-cycle even more rigorous in their insistence that a woman (or countertenor, I suppose) has no business whatsoever singing this most civilized way of acquiring a depression. Christine Schäfer proved beyond any and all doubt that they are wrong. That’s what they are.
Thursday, 3.13.08, 11:58 am
New Releases: CDs
Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 3)
"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.
This continues the review of Brilliant’s complete “Beethoven Edition”.
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Beethoven’s music, various Minuets and Contradances for orchestra, the clarinet and bassoon duos, the Wind Octet and Sextet didn’t make it into the canon of “Great Works” – arguably for a reason. But for the Beethoven enthusiast the chance is here to hear them all – and especially the dances in particularly fine performances from the 70s with the Berlin Chamber Orchestra. The Chamber Music for Flute is presented by none less than Jean-Pierre Rampal (Vox). (Enjoy these in small doses, because both discs in one setting can be a most tiresome experience.)
Chandos is the source for the Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Ensemble recording of the Septet op.20 – much and well recorded by many groups (Gaudier and Nash Ensembles, Gil Shaham, Yefim Bronfman, Truls Mørk, and friends, Vienna Octet, for example), and this version needs not hide from them. Another gem among the lesser known chamber works is the Clarinet Trio op.11, played by Kálmán Berkes, Miklós Perény, and Zoltán Kocsis. (A 1980 Hungarton recording.) Of lesser quality are the Piano Quartets which, with the Cummings Trio and Anthony Goldstone, really do sound like minor works.
The Piano Trios with the Borodin Trio, including the Allegretto WoO38 and the Variations on an original theme op.44, but not – sadly – Beethoven’s transcription of the Second Symphony for Piano Trio, have some ‘individualized’ moments more concerned with expression than flow – but they are played with dedication, all repeats, and yield only to the Florestan on Hyperion and possibly the routinely beautiful Beaux Arts on Philips. (If you bought that full price 4-CD set of these recordings, apparently still in the catalog, it would run you almost as much as the complete Beethoven Box.)
On to the Cello and Violin Sonatas. Till Fellner and Heinrich Schiff (Philips) made their recording in 1998 and it went – inexplicably – out of print soon thereafter, despite good reviews. Why this set did not sell is a mystery to me… perhaps Till Fellner was not famous enough before ECM issued his Well Tempered Clavier to such great success. Amid all the great competition (Richter/Rostropovich – Philips, Gulda/Fournier -DG, Schiff/Perény – ECM, Brendel père et fils – Philips), this set is an absolute equal and it is a coup for Brilliant to have it thus revived. Only op.64, the arrangement of the op.3 String Trio, is nowhere to be found.
For the Violin Sonatas went back more than fifty years to come back with a true classic: Arthur Grumiaux and Clara Haskil who recorded these works in 1956/57. Whoever licensed these gems to Brilliant may have been the same generous (or ignorant or foolish) heart that licensed the Friedrich Gulda recordings of the Piano Sonatas (more of which later) – but we can be thankful in any case to them available again in Decca’s sleek re-issue, on three Brilliant CDs, and now in this box.
The sound is not marvelous. It isn’t even particularly good for the time. And as such I would recommend a different recording as the ‘only’ or ‘first’ recording to have. Already the 1962 David Oistrakh / Lev Oborin recordings (Philips) sound better, but the choice for a modern recording should probably be between Augustin Dumay / Maria-Joao Pires (DG), Gidon Kremer / Martha Argerich (DG) and Itzhak Perlman / Vladimir Ashkenazy (Decca). Among historical recordings, Grumiaux / Haskil are at least as desirable than regal Joseph Szigeti / Claudio Arrau (live from the Library of Congress – Vanguard), sweetly lilting Wolfgang Schneiderhan / Wilhelm Kempff (DG, oop), or stormy Zino Francescatti / Robert Casadesus (Sony via ArkivMusic). This is an example of old-world music making in the best sense, a collaboration among two full-blood musicians.
The String Trios are works I have so far dismissed, but Roger Tapping recently talked me into giving them more careful consideration. Not via Brilliant’s Zurich String Trio performances, though, which I found tedious on record and rather modest live – but instead the Leopold Trio’s performances on Hyperion (Tapping’s recommendation) or the Mutter-Rostropovich-Giuranna combination (DG). Not to denigrate the efforts of the very fine Livschitz brothers and Mikael Hahnazarian – but the string trios just need that little bit more help to convince my ears, and that little bit of extra engagement and skill on each of the players.
The String Quartets are an essential element in a Beethoven collection and Brilliant go again to Universal Classics – Philips – to bring us the second string quartet cycle of the Guarneri Quartet, recorded between 1987 and 1992. Unlike the group’s earlier cycle on RCA, this one has not been in print for quite a while before Brilliant re-issued it in a separate box and ArkivMusic made the individual CDs available on demand as “Arkiv-CDs”. That’s not necessarily because the Philips cycle is not as good. It sounds less ‘generous’ than the 1960’s effort, and more precise in return. This benefits the later more than the earlier quartets, which are not as agile (Quatuor Mosaïques) or enthusiastically energetic (Takács) as could be.
Currently I am also listening to the second Vegh cycle (naïve – a particular favorite of mine), Tokyo on RCA (the first cycle I owned), and the Quartetto Italiano’s Philips set re-released by EMI. While the Guarneri can’t touch the Vegh on emotional content, they certainly don’t suffer from comparison to the Italian and Japanese-American competition. In short: A cycle that might never elicit raves and passionate defense as “the best” in anyone, but one that won’t let you down, either.
And because this is a complete set, Brilliant also found room for the Piano Sonata op.14/1 which Beethoven transcribed for string quartet in 1801. Previously I mentioned this oddity when I came across it in the Gewandhaus Quartett’s complete cycle. I found it “a fine semiprecious thing to enjoy, not just for completists. Beethoven took considerable pride in this transcription – and rightly so, because without altering the work much (it’s transposed up a semitone to F), he manages to make it sound as though it had always been a string quartet (especially the first movement). And for what would have been his first work in the genre, it’s a very fine specimen, too!” This has also been recorded by the Leipzig, Kodaly, Lindsay, and Ysaÿe Quartets. I have not (nor do I entertain plans to do so) reviewed and compared all of these, but there is nothing in the performance of Brilliant’s Suske Quartet (originally on Berlin Classics) that suggested to me that they are not up to the challenge.
Some time next week I will be looking at the solo piano works in this set.
The previous installments can be found here: Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 1), Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 2). Part four here: Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 4)
Sunday, 3.9.08, 6:00 am
Classical Performances
March on Ivory
If last month was “String Quartet February”, March might well be “Pianist Month” in the Washington region. Some of the finest pianists are stopping by at Strathmore, the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, and Shriver Hall in Baltimore. And all in the span of one busy week.
Ingrid Flitter made the start with her series of three concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra. On Tuesday the 11th, the most marketable pianist of his generation, Lang Lang, will be at the Kennedy Center, presented by WPAS.
Lang Lang has his share of detractors, to be sure – the accusations of flashiness coming at the expense of the art can ring true. But he would not hold himself in the lofty league of star pianists, nor have attained the confidence, support, and trust of some of the greatest conductors, were he all show, not substance. After a series of recording duds and a dull-as-dishwater recital (also at the Kennedy Center), I was ready to dismiss Lang Lang as a fad. Shortly thereafter he played Chopin’s Piano Concerto (Kennedy Center, again) so ravishingly well that he impressed the socks off Robert R. Reilly, whose critical judgment I trust (almost) completely. His recent recording of Beethoven concertos (Beethoven of all things, for which he had been singled out for awfulness in the FT not too long ago!) is good. Not just ‘surprisingly good’, it’s really good.
He even came close to premiering Jennifer Higdon’s Piano Concerto with the NSO – a stunt that would have increased his street-cred with hard core classical music fans infinitely. Instead (maybe not “instead” – but I would not be surprised if his pulling out of the Higdon concerto plan isn’t somehow related to it) he will give the world premiere of the Tan Dun Piano Concerto in New York in April under Leonard Slatkin. Even if that is almost a clichéd combination of two classical music ‘fashions of the day’ (substantive fashions, albeit), the dedication to contemporary music is laudable.
He will present a varied program of Schubert’s Sonata in A-Major, D. 959, Bartók’s Piano Sonata, Debussy Préludes and Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise in A-flat Major in his recital. An event of unpredictable musical merit – but with almost unlimited potential to delight.
From the same Cryogenic laboratory of Deutsche Grammophon seems to spring Yundi Li. He is the Ying to Lang’s Yang – the seriously dreamy, high-minded romantic to Lang Lang’s carefree happy-go-lucky romanticism and technical dazzle. Or so the marketing departments might want to have it. (Interestingly enough the reputation the two enjoyed in China in their early career-stages was – so I have been told – roughly the opposite: Yundi the showman, Lang the artist.) His recordings have underscored this impression. While Lang Lang recorded the warhorses of the romantic piano concerto repertoire, Yundi Li presented well received discs of challenging solo-piano literature: most successfully Liszt’s b-minor Sonata and Chopin Scherzos and Impromptus.
I had the chance to hear him a year ago with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra – and on March 12th the chance to hear him presents itself again at Strathmore Hall – thanks once more to WPAS. (He also played a recital at Strathmore in 2006.) His recital program is even more varied than Lang Lang’s: Chopin Mazurkas share the stage with a Liszt Ballade (b-minor), Alban Berg’s Sonata, Op.1 (!), Ravel’s Jeux d’eau, Ginastera’s Danza Argentina – and, dauntingly, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
His most recent disc is his second concerto recording for DG (after Liszt No.1 with Andrew Davis) and features Ravel’s G-major and Prokofiev’s Second concerto. Deutsche Grammophon put him together with the Berlin Philharmonic and Japan’s foremost conductor, Seiji Ozawa. A fine case of inevitably successful marketing to a particular, growing audience. The Ravel, one of the most beautiful romantic concertos of the 20th century and perhaps still underrated, was recorded in the studio in May of last year. (Ozawa also conducts what is still, to my ears, the definitive recording of the Ravel Concerto(s) with Krystian Zimerman and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.)
This recording won’t replace Zimerman or Michelangeli (EMI), but it is very well played, with the Berlin Philharmonic even showing something akin to orchestral character under Ozawa’s sinuous conducting. The gentle harp glissandos just before the pianists’ trill-enriched solo passage in the middle of the Allegramente are caught in as much detail as the shrill flute and snarling brass that interrupt the gentle atmosphere. The balance between soloist and orchestra is excellent, as it is in the live recording of the Prokofiev Concerto from the same month.
The recording is wonderful for the inclusion of the Prokofiev alone. Even if the concerto is not half as dark and brooding as made out to be, it doesn’t usually find the ears of the broad audience to which Yundi Li appeals. But it is music that will, eventually, be embraced when it is only heard often enough. Administered in small doses (i.e. not all five concertos at once and coupled with something more readily likable like the Ravel) from a sympathetic artist, it should find many new friends. With this disc, Yundi Li proves an ideal ambassador for Prokofiev.
Ignore the fawning, pandering, painfully straining-to-be-hip interview that replaces proper liner notes: Unless you need to know how Yundi Li enjoys accelerating in his Ferrari, or that he listens to Justin Timberlake on his iPod, or that he parties with Jay Chow… It’s all fluff, except Yundi’s making a connection between the Star Wars soundtrack and the Prokofiev concerto, which is surprisingly obvious once you read it being made.
Not anywhere near his Chinese colleagues in fame, Matthias Soucek is nonetheless an artist of extraordinary merit. His recital at the Austrian Embassy on the 15th of March is presented by the Embassy Series where he also presented his qualities two years ago. He records for Gramola, the record label of Vienna’s oldest record store which focuses on artists and musicians of the Viennese tradition and is going to be soon distributed in the United States. Appropriately, he will play works of Schubert, Mozart, and Beethoven. Tickets are available on-line and by calling (202) 271-7976.
Speaking of Ur-Viennese: Nothing says “Austrian Classicism” more than Alfred Brendel – unarguably one of the greatest pianists of our time. On his farewell tour from active piano duty he will stop at Strathmore Hall on Monday the 17th in yet another WPAS presented concert. I have admired Brendel since I grew up on his recordings of Beethoven and Mozart, but he has moved me much more, still, in concert (in 2005 at the Kennedy Center). As an artist whose subtleties, wit, and dedication come across much better on stage than vinyl or optical disc, his last concert in the region should be the highest priority for classical music lovers. He will once more present the composers with which he has become virtually synonymous: Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, and Haydn. I am a little surprised that he will tackle the great B-flat Major sonata by Schubert, but I know that Brendel would be the last to include a work in his repertoire that he is not convinced of being able to give full justice to.
If you don’t mind the trip to Baltimore, there has scarcely been a better reason this year to go than Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s recital at Shriver Hall on Sunday, March 16th. Freshly signed with Deutsche Grammophon which will issue his recording of The Art of the Fugue this Tuesday, Aimard will present the most intriguing, challenging program of these five artists. Next to eleven Contrapuncti from the severe Art of the Fugue, he will also play Beethoven’s penultimate Piano Sonata op.110 and Schoenberg’s Pieces op.23. Having had the pleasure of hearing Aimard earlier this year in a recital of the complete Kunst der Fuge (Winderstein Concerts), the prospect of variety and “Bach in context” in the Baltimore program has even more allure than the all-Bach alternative. As a fiercely intelligent and indubitably tasteful musician, Aimard’s recital will attract anyone in the region who is serious about their pianist-consumption.
Thursday, 3.6.08, 8:27 am
New Releases: CDs
Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 2)
"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.
This continues the review of Brilliant’s complete “Beethoven Edition”.
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Last week I started reviewing the Beethoven Edition on the Brilliant Classics label, an achievement of (surprisingly) exceptional quality. But it isn’t the only complete Beethoven set out there. Deutsche Grammophon made the start with their groundbreaking “Complete Beethoven Edition” in 1997, marking DG’s 100th anniversary. Exceptional performances and excellent liner notes make those individual volumes of this Edition that remain in print very attractive sets. (But even two of those 20 volumes would exceed the Brilliant box in price.)
For an exclusive ArkivMusic offer, DG has parsed the set into a 23 disc “Deutsche Grammophon’s Essential Beethoven Box”. That was perhaps too much of a cut – now you get the greatest hits in largely excellent, but not necessarily your favorite, versions, doubling and tripling up on many items, but missing out on too many fine, lesser known Beethoven works.
Recently EMI joined the frenzy with a 50 CD box set – “The Collector’s Edition”. At about $60, this set competes with super-budget labels like Brilliant. 50 discs are enough to include all essential and obscure but important works of Beethoven. This still takes away the lure of getting such a set precisely for the never-heard works, but for those who want a one-stop plug for all the major pieces they don’t yet have in their collection and can safely skip 100 some odd folksong arrangements, this is an attractive enough proposition.
Except that EMI dug deep into its (French) vaults and came up with some rather obscure – or historic – stuff that is in every instance eschewing the prime artists and recordings that EMI has in its catalog. Given the price, this is surely a deliberate decision not to let this box compete with its premium sets of, for example, Kovacevic’s (or Bareneboim’s) Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Simon Rattle’s Symphonies, the Alban Berg Quartet’s String Quartets. It’s Le Beethoven with Christian Ferras (violin), Paul Tortellier (cello), and Eric Heidsieck (piano) in the sonata cycles, André Cluytens (and the Berlin Philharmonic) in the Symphonies, and the 1960’s Hungarian Quartet recordings as highlights.
Sony brings us a box of 60 CDs – again everything that’s important, but hardly exhaustive – that might better be titled “Arte Nova’s Beethoven”. Arte Nova is Sony/BMG’s enterprising super budget label and has produced some terrific recordings – including David Zinman’s Beethoven recordings which are all, except perhaps the solid, un-special Overtures, highly recommendable. Kurt Masur’s Fidelio, the little known but highly regarded Alexander String Quartet cycle, and Olli Mustonen’s Diabelli Variations are top notch. The Piano Sonatas are a hodge-podge of six pianists, Anner Bylsma and Jos van Immerseel take the cello- and Pinchas Zukerman and Marc Neikrug the violin-sonatas. But even with Zinman’s inclusion, this is still more of a mixed bag than the Brilliant, while lacking completeness. An odd, but cheap (also below $60) compromise that I don’t know whom exactly it will appeal to.
Finally there is a truly complete set available on Cascade/Amado records. A European website advertises, in shoddy English: “instead of € 975,00… now only for € 49,95!”. Forty-nine cents would be too much for this: The worst production value (missing movements, missing bars of movements, spelling mistakes, mistakes in the tracking et cetera) is combined with consistently inferior performances and inferior sound. Don’t touch. Let’s instead turn back to the collection at hand now, starting with the Piano Concertos.
Here Brilliant has gone with the recordings of Friedrich Gulda and the Vienna Philharmonic under Horst Stein – 1970s recordings formerly (and again) available on Decca. Friedrich Gulda is not an uncontroversial pianist; he offended classical enthusiasts with his penchant for jazz (he worked with Chick Corea) and, later in life, with idiosyncrasies that struck many as willful or weird. But he is rightly regarded as one of the greatest pianists for the Viennese classics – together with his colleagues from that remarkable generation of Austrian pianists that Gulda (*1930 – 2000) forms together with the Edwin Fischer students Paul Badura-Skoda (*1927), Alfred Brendel (*1931), and Jörg Demus (*1928).
These piano concerto recordings are not must-haves, admittedly, but they are ‘good-to-haves’. Warm and generous readings in good sound quality and excellently played. The Piano Concerto in D-major op.61a – Beethoven’s arrangement of the Violin Concerto – is in good hands with Shoko Sugitani, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, and Gerard Oskamp – though those specifically looking for a great interpretation of it might want to get their hands on either the recording of Daniel Barenboim (with the English Chamber Orchestra) on DG or Boris Berezovsky’s (with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard) on Simax.
(My favorite set of the complete piano concertos is probably Uchida’s [Philips], except I’d hate to overlook Aimard [Warner] and Pollini [DG].)
The Piano Concerto in E-flat major WoO 4 and the Rondo for piano & orchestra WoO 6 with Martin Galling and Walter Klien (well performed; the sound of the former a little too soft, a little too bright the latter’s) come on a disc with the Triple Concerto played by Joseph Kalichstein, Jaime Laredo, and Sharon Robinson – and their chamber music expertise makes for a fine performance, indeed. Even if the soloists (Robinson, especially) are a little recessed in the sound Chandos (originally) gave this recording. Sir Alexander Gibson conducts the English Chamber Orchestra.
(My favorite version: Aimard-Zehetmair-Hagen under Harnoncourt on Warner.)
The Violin Concerto and the Romances for Violin & Orchestra are given to us by Henryk Szeryng with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink via Philips. This is Szeryng’s second go at recording op.61 and the two lovely, if comparatively slight, Romances. It is every bit as good or better than his first with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt and the Vienna Philharmonic. Clean and clear, romantic but far from lagging, and with the expressive Concertgebouw solidly in the passenger seat. Maybe not a classic account like Milstein’s – but up there with Szigety and Grumiaux.
(My favorite version, by a wide margin: Zehetmair’s with Frans Brüggen on Philips.)
The four Lenore Overtures, including the choral movement of “Consecration of the House”, the Corolian Overture, and three smaller pieces, are from 1980s Vox recordings of Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and the Minnesota Orchestra. Listening to them will make clear that the Minnesota Orchestra was in fine shape, even before Osmo Vänskä took over – and that Skrowaczewsi is a much underrated conductor, even as his Bruckner Symphonies (originally Arte Nova, now Oehms Classics) are much cherished by connoisseurs. These overtures (Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields adds “Wellington’s Victory”, replete with nature sounds!) are top notch and I enjoy them as much as Masur’s, Karajan’s and more than (the otherwise impeccable-in-Beethoven) David Zinman’s.
Next week I will look at the assorted chamber works that Brilliant offers.
The first installment can be found here: Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 1)
The third here: Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 3), and the fourth here: Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 4).
Sunday, 3.2.08, 11:22 pm
New Releases: CDs
Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 1)
"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.
Boxed sets of CDs are tempting to the collector for many reasons. The idea of “complete – anything” has near-irresistible appeal, as all of us afflicted with this collecting habit are only too aware of. And the price is usually so low that easy rationalization kicks in instantly. St.Augustine already wrote about this collecting urge when he spoke of false loves, urging us to resist. But then Augustine wasn’t faced with Brilliant’s box set of the Complete Beethoven Edition, so that may have been easy for him to say.
With every box-set of music comes the task of weighing their utility and the desire to ‘have’ against the necessary compromises of all such compilations. Not every – if any – performance in such large sets will hold up against the finest individual accounts. There are plenty collectors who would balk even at having only one group represented in all the Beethoven string quartets or having to listen to all nine symphonies by just one conductor. So the idea any one company issuing anything close to a ‘definitive’ collection is unrealistic, to say the least.
But once we accept that any larger collection is not enjoyed for offering the finest recording of each of Beethoven’s 138 numbered and roughly 160 numberless works and groups of works, we will look at the merit of adding good and perhaps excellent performances to our extant collections and – most importantly – filling every gap in in it with, at the very least, competent performances. Where, for example, is your recording of Beethoven’s last cantata Der Glorreiche Augenblick (“The Glorious Occasion/Moment”) op.136?
I have started – but not yet finished – thus parsing Brilliant’s lovely, half yard long 155-CD Bach Box. Now I sit before the Beethoven Box which is just half as voluminous. While the Bach Box contained almost as many original recordings by Brilliant (the complete cantatas, for example) as it did re-issues licensed from other labels, the Beethoven Box consists almost entirely of licensed recordings, except for the string trios, a few less familiar songs, the Scottish, Welsh, Irish song arrangements, and a few other rarities.
This is not necessarily a detriment because with licensing a company can, if it gets the necessary rights, do exactly the kind of picking and choosing that it would take to assemble a truly outstanding collection. That’s particularly important in Beethoven’s music where a dud of a recording would seem much less forgivable than an uninspired recording as part of a Bach collection. (I am not entirely sure as to why I feel this way, but I suspect it has to do with what Charles Bukowski said about Bach as being “the most difficult composer to play badly because he made so few spiritual mistakes.”)
So much up front: Brilliant’s Beethoven Edition is – with a few exceptions – a monument to inspired licensing. The performances are all good to very good, and a good lot of them are excellent and should be (or already are) in every good Beethoven collection, anyway.
I will, over the next few weeks, tackle the contents of this box in roughly the order offered, starting with the Symphonies: Brilliant has previously licensed Herbert Blomstedt’s Beethoven Cycle with the Staatskapelle Dresden. It’s as good a ‘standard issue’ cycle of these symphonies as you can have, standing up to Günter Wand’s traversal and Karajan’s classic 1960s cycle on DG. That’s the good news. The bad news: For reasons I cannot presume to know, Brilliant did not include that cycle in their box. Instead they included the Kurt Masur’s and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester’s first cycle from 1970s. (A second one from that team, also for the Philips label, followed in the 1990s.) The set was well regarded in its day, gently moved away from “Big Band Beethoven” by reducing the string sections a bit, and it is solidly played throughout. That it wasn’t issued in the US for many years probably helped its reputation. It has since become available on three Philips “DUOs” and from Pentatone in SACD recordings of the original “quadraphonic” masters. It’s not a bad cycle of the symphonies, just pedestrian.
If this is not the most promising start to this box, worry not: it gets better from hereon – already next week when I will look at the recordings of the Beethoven concertos and overtures.
The second installment can be found here: Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 2)
The third here: Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 3), and the fourth here: Put Your Beethoven in a Box (Part 4).