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.
In the modern performance of seventeenth-century French music, the ensemble Les Arts Florissants holds a special place, both for its longevity and the striking stylistic fluency it brings to performances — performances that have come to define our very sense of French Baroque style.
This present recording of liturgical music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier is no exception in this regard, for what impresses most is the naturalness of the performance idiom. The intricacies of French ornamentation, the timbral richness of French Latin, the shapely contours of line, the elegant embodiments of dance all prove second nature to Christie and his ensemble, elevating manner and artifice to true eloquence.
The opening “Te Deum,” one of several by Charpentier, is well-known, at least for its opening Marche en rondeau, a rousing bit of splendor out of which we moderns have constructed a musical icon of Louis XIV’s France. In its diverse aspects—alternately martial, dance-like, and intimate—the “Te Deum” evokes the close unity of church and state, often impressively so. And the variety makes for interesting listening. If the straight-ahead D major gloire is the brightest hue, there are also shimmering dissonant mixtures in luxuriant moments that underscore the richness of Charpentier’s harmonic palette—luxuriant moments to which Christie remains ever sensitive.
The “Grand Office des Morts” brings together a funeral mass, the Requiem sequence (“Dies irae”) and a motet on a purgatorial theme, all of which share proximity in Charpentier’s “Méslanges autographes,” the composer’s extensive collection of compositions in his own hand. There is little to suggest the pieces were composed or performed as a unified work, although the present performance amply demonstrates how effective that can be. Like the Te Deum, this “Grand Office” is also varied, but its prominent hue is often a dark one, as in the quietly controlled tristesse of the opening “Kyrie” or the pronounced languish of the harmonically rich “Agnus Dei.” The most memorable instance of this lamentative darkness is the instrumental prelude and final refrain of the motet. Low strings and hushed vocal dynamics cloak the plea for mercy in sepulchral shadows whose darkness is sublimely affective. Rapture is also close at hand in the chain of suspensions that begin the “Pie Jesu,” reminding of the formidable influence of Italianism in Charpentier’s works.
The recording is of a live concert given in Paris at the Cité de la Musique in 2004. On occasion the balance seems askew, with solo parts disproportionately loud relative to a somewhat distant sounding tutti, surely the result of the challenges of live recording in public venues. A regret, to be sure, but a small one relative to the many pleasures the performance affords.
Steven Plank
Oberlin College