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.
This new Naxos recording offers a rare opportunity to hear three little-known works by one of the 20th century's greatest composers - The Execution of Stepan Razin op. 119, October op. 131, and Five Fragments for orchestra op. 42, by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75).
The works, recorded over the last decade, are performed by the Seattle Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz; Stepan Razin also utilizes the Seattle Symphony Chorale under the direction of Abraham Kaplan, with Charles Robert Austin as the soloist.
All three pieces seem to have suffered neglect over the years, not because of their unquestionable quality, but rather for the sake of ideological expediency. The Fragments, a series of aphoristic gems composed in 1935 as experimental sketches to the ill-fated 4th symphony, might have shared the symphony's fortunes then and are still rarely heard today. Which is unfortunate: this is a fabulously quirky little suite, and a wind lover's paradise. The opening moderato is written exclusively for the woodwinds, while the following andante combines their crisp, whimsical lines with an energetic double bass solo; no. 4, another moderato, is a contemplative fugue for a wind trio. The strings take the lead in a pensive, moody, lyrical Largo (no. 3) - a beauty even by the standards of a spoiled Shostakovich fan. The Allegretto finale opens with a tongue-in-cheek duet for a solo violin and a snare drum, followed by a violin-double bass duet - both combinations straight out of Histoire du soldat, although the violin sounds more like a Mahler scherzo than a Stravinsky "fiddle."
The other two pieces on the CD belong to a later period in Shostakovich's career - the 1960s. The 1967 symphonic poem October, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, is unlikely to be found on concert programs today, both Western and post-Soviet orchestras evidently embarrassed by the obvious ideological connotations. October is a high quality symphonic work, although perhaps lacking in either the biting irony or the gut-wrenching depth of its composer's greatest masterpieces. The main theme is an appropriate quotation of a so-called "partisan song" that Shostakovich appropriated from his own early film score, Volochayevskie Dni. Yet the overall mood of the piece is dark and somehow hollow - not at all appropriate for a laudatory offering the subject should have inspired and the reason for the composition's lack of popularity when it first appeared. It may not prove to be anyone's favorite, but it is an intriguing piece of a Shostakovich legacy, and the Seattle Symphony should be commended for resurrecting it.
The title track of the recording is the monumental 1964 Execution of Stepan Razin - an unusual and conceptually difficult work, billed by the composer himself as a "symphonic poem" for a baritone soloist, mixed chorus, and orchestra. Conceived as a sort of companion piece to the 13th symphony, it shares many characteristics of the earlier work: both set the edgy poetry of Yevgeni Yevtushenko; both include a solo male voice and a chorus; both confront the themes of victimization, indifference, and sacrifice. Yet the approach to those themes taken in Stepan Razin is arguably more complex than in the symphony, due to the ambiguous nature of the protagonist - for some, a terrorist, for others, a freedom fighter who kills for a just cause and sacrifices his life for the people who scorn him. Shostakovich himself reportedly struggled with his character's image, and repeatedly asked the poet if, in his opinion, Razin was a good man.
The composer's setting may best be described as, in his own words, "the Russian style" typical of several compositions of the early 1960s, in which elements of pseudo-folksiness (such as the use of plagal cadences and natural minor characteristic of the Russian folk tradition) combine with a more recognizable Shostakovich idiom - flat-degree scales, dark orchestral hues with much use of low register and sharp high/low contrasts. Frequently dry instrumentation with an emphasis on winds and percussion is reminiscent of Stravinsky (an open homage to Histoire is recognizable in an orchestral interlude that illustrates the text "even the skomorokhi fell silent"). More evidently perhaps, the treatment of vocal declamation, the powerful choral scenes, and the overall structure of this unstaged "folk drama" suggests a pervasive influence of Mussorgsky whose opera Khovanshchina and song cycle Songs and Dances of Death Shostakovich was studying and orchestrating in the years immediately prior to composing Stepan Razin.
The Execution of Stepan Razin is an emotionally compelling and intellectually complex work that ought to be much better known than it has been to date. Hopefully, this recording will help change that. The only drawback perhaps is a sorely inadequate booklet that provides next to no help to the listener. I therefore direct my readers wishing more information on the composer and the pieces to Laurel Fay's excellent biography and other examples of first-rate Shostakovich scholarship of recent years.
Olga Haldey
University of Maryland — College Park