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 dedicating much of his creative life to the Thomaskirche, the German musician Günther Ramin left his mark on the musical life of Leipzig, and his legacy includes a fine recording of Johannes Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, op. 45.
Recorded live on 1 April 1954, this previously unreleased performance makes Ramin’s efforts available half a century after his death in 1956.
Those familiar with some modern performances of this work should notice the somewhat meditative tempos that Ramin used in this work. The opening conveys, for example, a more atmospheric approach to the work, which is borne out in the choral textures that are evident in this recording. Monaural by nature, the orchestral forces seem subdued, with the choral forces more prominent than usual. It is not an unwelcome result, since the chorus is remarkably nuanced, with the boys’ voices evincing a pure and solid tone that uniquely colors the performance.
Ramin’s tempos with the first movement tend to be slower than usual, with the pacing of the second movement seeming more marchlike in character. The quiet opening of the movement conveys a sense of emotional distance that Ramin brings into his interpretation of this work. The austere sonorities offer a different perspective than some give the work, thus reflecting the more classically oriented side of Brahms, even within this less-than-traditional treatment of a Requiem, with its idiosyncratic texts chosen from Scripture in lieu of the conventional Latin Mass.
The third movement is particularly revealing for the interplay between textures, with the solo parts taken by the baritone Gerhard Niese. Niese’s performance is laudable, but sometimes overshadowed by the choral forces that weave around the baritone part in this concerto-like movement in which the text of Psalm 39 resolves, as it were in the verse from the book of Wisdom, with its assurance of salvation for the just soul. In this movement, the counterpoint is nicely clear, and it is in such places that the weaknesses of the original recording medium are apparent. For some reason the sound improves with “Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen,” perhaps the best-known section of Brahms’ Requiem, and quite effective in Ramin’s treatment of the music. Near the end of the work, in the sixth movement, the concluding section “Herr, du bist würdig” is contrastingly more extroverted, with Ramin bringing out the spiritual assurances implicit in Brahms work.
As a live performance, some ambient sounds are part of the recording, most from the activity on or near the podium. Audience noise is rare, with the clicking of a baton emerging from time to time to punctuate the choral timbres. A performance like this may never supplant the famous one by Klemperer, but Ramin’s stands well on its own merits. Given the fame of the Thomaskirche and the historically important role of its cantor, this recording offers a fine glimpse into the musical traditions there in the mid-twentieth century.
James Zychowicz