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.
Based on performances given on 18 and 21 October 2008 and 16 and 17 January 2009, this recording of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra offers its latest release of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a work associated with the group since the composer’s lifetime.
Mahler himself worked with Willem Mengelberg, whose annotated score contains markings that stem from conversations with the composition. This is the source for the information about the familiar Adagietto being a love letter to the composer’s wife Alma, and other details about the piece. That stated, the association of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is borne out in various recordings during the century since the premiere of what is, perhaps, one of Mahler’s best-known symphonies.
This recording gives a fine sense of the textured sound of the Concertgebouw, with its uniformly strong sections and cohesive sound. This is readily apparent in the Scherzo, which is probably Mariss Jansons’ most successful movement in this recording. Here Jansons manages to navigate well between the shifting timbres of the score, which intersect the various sections of this multi-layered movement. The driving rhythms of the concluding sections underscore the dynamic changes which, in turn, reveal other changes in scoring. At times Jansons’s tempos are somewhat slower than some conductors choose, and this is useful in the Scherzo, where it allows the details become easily audible, particularly in the latter part of the movement. One of the pleasures of this recording is the clarity of the woodwind textures, not only in the Scherzo, but elsewhere. The figuration of the woodwinds in the second movement is effective, especially in the passages that Jansons takes at a somewhat slow tempo.
Likewise, the harp in the Adagietto helps to reinforce the chord changes in the strings and conveys a sense of a strummed aubade. Here, though, the rich textures of the lower strings are not strong enough to balance the treble sounds, which tend to dominate this movement. This is nonetheless a solid performance of this famous movement. It is never self-indulgent, but flows nicely to allow the vocal qualities of the structural model of the movement, Mahler’s Rückert setting “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekomment” (“I am lost to the world”) to guide the interpretation.
In general, Jansons offers a reading of the Fifth that lacks some of the frenetic qualities that other interpreters sometimes bring to the work. Jansons lingers at time, and while he does not fail to bring the works to satisfying conclusions, it is never at the expense of sacrificing clarity or allowing figuration to become sound effects. In this sense, the pacing offers something that lends itself to the strengths of the Concertgebouw in presenting a uniformly solid sound and allowing it to blend nicely in this reading of Mahler’s score.
This kind of approach makes it possible to appreciate the interpretation of the Rondo-Finale, which is not as driven to reach the ending, as much as it revels in the means of getting to that point. Just as the chorale at the climax of the second movement ends rings nicely in this recording, Jansons sustains that effect in the last movement. The orchestral sonorities match the melodic and motive content to good effect. This is a thoughtful interpretation of this familiar work, which bears attention for the ways in which it offers a distinctive sense of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, even with the interpretive distance implicit in the recording.
James L. Zychowicz