The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
The voices of six women composers are celebrated by baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and soprano Yunah Lee on this characteristically ambitious and valuable release by Lontano Records Ltd (Lorelt).
As Paul Spicer, conductor of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, observes, the worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is as ‘old as Christianity itself’, and programmes devoted to settings of texts which venerate the Virgin Mary are commonplace.
Ethel Smyth’s last large-scale work, written in 1930 by the then 72-year-old composer who was increasingly afflicted and depressed by her worsening deafness, was The Prison – a ‘symphony’ for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra.
‘Hamilton Harty is Irish to the core, but he is not a musical nationalist.’
‘After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.’ Aldous Huxley’s words have inspired VOCES8’s new disc, After Silence, a ‘double album in four chapters’ which marks the ensemble’s 15th anniversary.
A song-cycle is a narrative, a journey, not necessarily literal or linear, but one which carries performer and listener through time and across an emotional terrain. Through complement and contrast, poetry and music crystallise diverse sentiments and somehow cohere variability into an aesthetic unity.
One of the nicest things about being lucky enough to enjoy opera, music and theatre, week in week out, in London’s fringe theatres, music conservatoires, and international concert halls and opera houses, is the opportunity to encounter striking performances by young talented musicians and then watch with pleasure as they fulfil those sparks of promise.
“It’s forbidden, and where’s the art in that?”
Dublin-born John F. Larchet (1884-1967) might well be described as the father of post-Independence Irish music, given the immense influenced that he had upon Irish musical life during the first half of the 20th century - as a composer, musician, administrator and teacher.
The English Civil War is raging. The daughter of a Puritan aristocrat has fallen in love with the son of a Royalist supporter of the House of Stuart. Will love triumph over political expediency and religious dogma?
Beethoven Symphony no 9 (the Choral Symphony) in D minor, Op. 125, and the Choral Fantasy in C minor, Op. 80 with soloist Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester, new from Harmonia Mundi.
A Louise Brooks look-a-like, in bobbed black wig and floor-sweeping leather trench-coat, cheeks purple-rouged and eyes shadowed in black, Barbara Hannigan issues taut gestures which elicit fire-cracker punch from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
‘Signor Piatti in a fantasia on themes from Beatrice di Tenda had also his triumph. Difficulties, declared to be insuperable, were vanquished by him with consummate skill and precision. He certainly is amazing, his tone magnificent, and his style excellent. His resources appear to be inexhaustible; and altogether for variety, it is the greatest specimen of violoncello playing that has been heard in this country.’
Baritone Roderick Williams seems to have been a pretty constant ‘companion’, on my laptop screen and through my stereo speakers, during the past few ‘lock-down’ months.
Melodramas can be a difficult genre for composers. Before Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden the concept of the melodrama was its compact size – Weber’s Wolf’s Glen scene in Der Freischütz, Georg Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea or even Leonore’s grave scene in Beethoven’s Fidelio.
I have long been accustomed to the grumblings of my German and Italian colleagues concerning the pronunciation and expression of musical works in their native languages by English-native singers and choirs. I had chalked it up to benevolent xenophobia, but this beautiful recording gives me new insight into their perspective.
George Frederic Handel, Athalia HWV 52
Simone Kermes, Olga Pasichnyk, Trine Wilsberg Lund, sopranos; Martin Oro, counter-tenor; Thomas Cooley, tenor; Wolf Matthias Friedrich, bass.
Kölner Kammerchor and Collegium Carthusianum, conducted by Peter Neumann.
MDG 332 1276-2 [2CDs]
I have long been accustomed to the grumblings of my German and Italian colleagues concerning the pronunciation and expression of musical works in their native languages by English-native singers and choirs. I had chalked it up to benevolent xenophobia, but this beautiful recording gives me new insight into their perspective.
I should first start with pointing out that this is an inherently valuable project since it is one of a very few recordings of Athalia available (though an extraordinary Academy of Ancient music performance released more than two decades ago, with Dame Joan Sutherland in the title role, is still available) — and it is arguably the best recording yet. Given the proliferation of Messiah and Jephtha CDs, it is great to have this gem available to complement the plentiful offerings of more well-known oratorios. This early example of the genre is all the more interesting to those of us who know Handel's later choral works, since it is so clearly indebted to the English anthem tradition on which Handel drew self-consciously in his invention of the "English Oratorio". Choruses from his later and more famous oratorios contain large and elaborate polyphonic passages, as Handel brought to bear his chops as Lutheran sacred composer; here the choruses are for the most part lighter and more homophonic (but equally grand) in the style of the anthems of Purcell and Blow. In these passages, the ensemble brings out the wonderful subtleties of texture, and the crispness and flexibility is as remarkable as the apparently effortless beauty of tone and tuning.
The soloists also have spectacular voices, and the recording space chosen absolutely brings out the resonance and individual color of each voice (with three sopranos as leading roles, this is important to follow the interaction between the parts). But here is where I join the curmudgeonly perspective of my German and Italian friends: the English pronunciation is uniformly quite stilted, and the singers (with the exception, interestingly, of native-English speaking Cooley) seem to revel in their tone quality to the point of sacrificing enunciation and clarity of text. Martin Oro, in particular, has a delightful counter-tenor, but does not seem too concerned with the fact that the words he is singing have consonants as well as vowels. Granted, the stereotype of "the early music sound" as requiring complete subservience to enunciation, to the detriment of beauty of tone, is fortunately a thing of the past. Still, especially in the recitatives, this reviewer might have wished not to rely on the printed libretto in order to understand the words.
In any case, the linguistic awkwardness does not in any way take away from the supreme beauty of the soundscapes that Neumann and his ensembles — and the silver-voiced soloists — create. Each of them has a marvelous sound, and the contrast in dramatic character between the evil queen Athalia and the pure Joas and Joad are conveyed with great expression. But if the listener's native language is English, there should be no expectation of being able to follow the story without reliance on the booklet (which is very well prepared, with great background on Athalia and some thoughtful comments on performance practice). Of course, that doesn't generally bother us when we sit down to enjoy a recording in a language that we don't know well, so perhaps this is proper payback for the self-assuredness with which English singers have butchered other European languages for a very long time.
All in all, a beautiful and much-recommended recording, a great companion to a CD of Messiah or Jephtha to bookend a Handel-lover's collection of the remarkable genre of English Oratorio.
Andrew Dell'Antonio
The University of Texas at Austin
[Editor's Note: Click here for a discography of Athalia and other oratorios by Handel. No claim is made regarding its completeness.]