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.
Interesting recordings continue to be produced in the classical music business by smaller labels with particular niche markets. For the label Timpani, their specialty tends to be rarer French repertoire.
A defining example of this specialty can be found in Timpani’s release of Le Couer du Moulin, a short opera by one Déodat de Séverac. Jacques Tchamkerten’s booklet essay (as translated into somewhat cumbersome English prose by Jeremy Drake) offers the expected testament to the composer (“…one of France’s…most naturally musical composers…”) to be found in a recording that a company has deemed worthy of producing. However, Tchamkerten is also refreshingly blunt about the work’s limitations, especially the unfortunate libretto, pointing out “the artificiality of its language”, the “fairly ill-defined” characters, and the “unconvincing” supernatural voices. Once past these negative comments, Tchamkerten’s embarks on a more detailed analysis of the score, relating the perceived felicities of Séverac’s compositional style — a blend of traditional harmony and the expanding orchestral palette of his countryman and contemporary, Claude Debussy.
Indeed, the essay begins with a quotation from Debussy, passing along — second-hand — a rather anodyne compliment about Séverac’s score (it “smells good”!). Even a casual listener will quickly pick up an aural sense of deja vu, as both the mood of the piece and many orchestral details sound very much like the master’s contemporaneous work, Pelléas et Mélisande. Tchamkerten points out that Debussy's opera had not premiered at the time of Séverac’s first version of his own opera, but that claim alone doesn’t prevent anyone from believing that Debussy’s work made a great impression on Séverac, an impression now heard in the final version of his work. In fact, for many listeners who lose patience with the free-floating ambience of Debussy masterwork, Séverac’s opera may strike them as a work that captures the best of Pelléas’s spectral beauty while being easier to follow and more superficially tuneful.
Ultimately, however, Le Coeur du Moulin is a rather slight work. The story is a tedious rural love triangle, encumbered with overly poetic language and devices, and with a story that promises conflict but never produces any. Jacques had loved Marie and then went away to serve as a soldier. His delayed return led Marie to believe herself abandoned, and she married Pierre. Jacques returns, whereupon he and Marie discover their love still beats on. However, the voices of nature and wise folk of the town manage to help Jacques realize he cannot interfere in Marie’s married life, and he leaves. By comparison, Pelléas et Mélisande comes off as red-blooded and rambunctious as Cavalleria Rusticana.
Listeners might do well then to skip or barely skim the provided English translation of the libretto and just enjoy the fine performance by the Tours company forces under the experienced baton of Jean-Yves Ossonce. The soloists are all effective, and the recorded sound clear and atmospheric. If one keeps one’s expectations modest, anyone who enjoys French music of the first half of the twentieth century — and why wouldn’t one? — will find this Timpani release a pleasant experience.
Chris Mullins