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.
It is somewhat ironic that until recent years Italy has generally been slow to take a leading role in the historical performance movement: ironic in that historically Italy both dominates and defines the early baroque style and ironic in that that style enshrines the primacy of text— the Italian text.
One might have suspected that on grounds of national pride, to say nothing of the advantage of native fluency with the language, Italians would have been in the forefront of the “early music revival,” where early baroque repertory has been foundational. Yet, for whatever reason—the strength of the modern opera tradition, perhaps—Italy’s robust participation in the world of historical performance has developed later than others. However, the brilliant work of Concerto Italiano, under the direction of Rinaldo Alessandrini, amply and welcomingly shows how robust! With a large discography that includes eleven recordings of the works of Monteverdi already, this present recording of pieces from the Sixth Book of Madrigals is, like its predecessors, one that overwhelms with the naturalness of the performing idiom and the sensitivity of the performers.
Monteverdi’s Sixth Book of Madrigals was published in 1614, shortly after his appointment as maestro di capella at the Basilica of St. Mark’s in Venice, but the madrigals are in the main (if not totally) from Mantua, and poignantly so. Several events lend a tragic hue to Monteverdi’s later years at the Gonzaga court. In September, 1607 he suffered the loss of his wife, the singer Claudia Cattaneo, and in the next year he faced the death of the young singer Caterina Martinelli. In 1603 Martinelli had come to Mantua as a young teen, and had lived in Monteverdi’s house for several years, perhaps studying with Claudia. She died suddenly of small pox in 1608 amid preparations for the opera, Arianna, in which she was to have sung the title role.
Almost inescapably then, we tend to interpret the lamentative bent of Book Six autobiographically. Much of the volume is devoted to two large-scale works, an ensemble arrangement of the famous Lamento d’Arianna, and a Sestina (“Lagrime d”Amante al Sepolcro dell’Amata”). The first is an arrangement of the only music that survives from “Martinelli’s” opera, and the latter is a memorial work for her, requested by the Duke. In the wake of Monteverdi’s deep personal losses, these works (and others in the volume) compel us to find in them echoes of the composer’s grief.
The ensemble version of Arianna’s lament is an interesting trope of the surviving monodic version. In both forms, Arianna’s abandonment by Theseus becomes the trigger for affective music of the highest order, be it born of her despair, anger, love, or inner ambivalence. In the ensemble arrangement, however, because of the independence of the individual lines, Monteverdi’s dissonances have stronger substance than that of a single voice against the basso continuo, and this gives striking weight to a work already heavy laden. In the monodic version, however, we not only hear the vocal line as the character “Arianna,”—and thus hear things dramatically—but the solo line can claim a performance flexibility that well serves the emotional contours of the text. Concerto Italiano’s ensemble remarkably manages to sing the lament as a group with all the power, expression, and flexibility of a soloist. In fact, in hearing the ensemble, one has no doubt but that each of the singers would render the solo version with great command, and they clearly bring this understanding to a cohesive ensemble performance, wonderfully exemplified in the explosively angry sections of the fourth stanza.
Lamento d’Arianna, of course, echoes the opera. Some of the madrigals here well show the potential closeness of the madrigal and the stage, as well. “Misero Alceo,” “Batto, qui pianse Ergasto,” and :Presso un fiume tranquillo” all present scenes where the ensemble offers a narrative frame while solo or duo textures render dialogue, sometimes at great length. The degree to which the madrigal is becoming soloistic shows its continuing response to an increasingly operatic world, as does the adoption of dramatic structures. And tellingly, this development may seem to bring Monteverdi’s output into a closer unity.
It is an output that Concerto Italiano performs with stunning fluency and dramatic flair. Their sound is forward, flexible and lithe, their skill unflaggingly impressive, and their results most sensitive, dynamic and memorable.
Steven Plank
Oberlin College