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.
Klaus-Edgar Wichmann, in the booklet essay to this Capriccio recording from 2002 of Otto Nicolai's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, describes the work as having "asserted itself in the opera repertoire for more than a hundred years."
Well, it needs to reassert itself. In the US, at least, and probably anywhere outside the German-speaking world, Nicolai's vibrant, tuneful score has taken a very distant backseat to Verdi's late masterpiece Falstaff, adapted from the same Shakespeare play (not one of his most admired, either).
By putting the focus on Sir John from the first scene, Verdi and Boito loosened an undercurrent of human frailty that deepens the sometimes rough comedy of Shakespeare's original. Nicolai worked with librettist Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, and they start and end with the merry wives, with Falstaff making a grand entrance late in act one. In its way, this makes the comedy palatable, as the sheer outsize humanity of Verdi and Boito's Falstaff can evoke — as it does in your reviewer — feelings of antipathy for the bougie hausfraus who dump a foolish old man in a river and conspire to assault him with sticks. The German rendition focuses on good-hearted hijinks, in a lighter comic vein.
Nicolai's score has met a fate not unlike many of Rossini's early comedies — it is best known for its overture, which sparkles with the opera's most melodic material, tunes that reappear in act three, giving a nice balance to the composition. Falstaff gets a rousing drinking song, Fenton a most delightful romanza, and the whole opera is tastefully peppered with duets, trios, and other ensembles. In other words, the music elicits smiles as much as the story. This opera needs to be staged more often.
Capriccio's recording has a fine cast. Juliane Banse, Andrea Bönig, and Regina Klepper sing the title roles with good humor, and the fine bass Franz Hawlata does a lusty take on Sir John. Dietrich Henschel, a solid if unexciting baritone, sings Herr Fluth (Ford, in the Verdi opera). As the young lover of Herr Fluth's daughter Anna, Jörg Dürmüller makes no particular impression.
The problem for this worthy set? The existence of a 1963 recording on EMI, with a cast including Gottlob Frick, Edith Mathis, and most damaging to the Capriccio set in the field of comparison, Fritz Wunderlich as Fenton. Just to hear his exquisite "Horch, die Lerche singt im Hain!" makes this older set eternally fresh.
The EMI set also includes the spoken dialogue, separately tracked for easy skipping for the dialogue-phobic. Capriccio spares such souls the effort by omitting the dialogue altogether, shaving about 10 minutes from each disc's running time. Helmuth Froschauer leads the Cologne Radio orchestra on the Capriccio set, and ably, but not quite with the verve of Robert Heger and the Munich ensemble on the EMI.
So go for the EMI set if the opera appeals, but if can't be found, the Capriccio recording certainly offers a commendable version of this regrettably under-performed work.
Chris Mullins
Los Angeles Unified School District, Secondary Literacy