22 Dec 2011
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Cantatas
In Wilhelm Weitsch’s well-known painting of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the eldest son of Johann Sebastian seems far distant from the cantorial world of his father.
Recently in Recordings
Henry Purcell, Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II Vol. III: The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
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.
Anima Rara: Ermonela Jaho
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.
Requiem pour les temps futurs: An AI requiem for a post-modern society
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.
Ádám Fischer’s 1991 MahlerFest Kassel ‘Resurrection’ issued for the first time
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.
Max Lorenz: Tristan und Isolde, Hamburg 1949
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.
Women's Voices: a sung celebration of six eloquent and confident voices
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).
Rosa mystica: Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir
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.
The Prison: Ethel Smyth
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.
Songs by Sir Hamilton Harty: Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn
‘Hamilton Harty is Irish to the core, but he is not a musical nationalist.’
After Silence: VOCES8
‘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.
Beethoven's Songs and Folksongs: Bostridge and Pappano
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.
Flax and Fire: a terrific debut recital-disc from tenor Stuart Jackson
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.
Carlisle Floyd's Prince of Players: a world premiere recording
“It’s forbidden, and where’s the art in that?”
John F. Larchet's Complete Songs and Airs: in conversation with Niall Kinsella
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.
Haddon Hall: 'Sullivan sans Gilbert' does not disappoint thanks to the BBC Concert Orchestra and John Andrews
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’s Choral Symphony and Choral Fantasy from Harmonia Mundi
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.
Taking Risks with Barbara Hannigan
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.
Alfredo Piatti: The Operatic Fantasies (Vol.2) - in conversation with Adrian Bradbury
‘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.’
Those Blue Remembered Hills: Roderick Williams sings Gurney and Howells
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.
Bruno Ganz and Kirill Gerstein almost rescue Strauss’s Enoch Arden
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.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Recordings
His hat and fur-lined coat suggest a degree of fashionability, his posture is relaxed and at ease, his eyes seem soft and his smile is warm—perhaps even inwardly amused. Little of this suggests the earnestness of his father’s Lutheran orthodoxy nor the serious striving of his father’s musical endeavors. Yet, if personalities differed—and scholars now acknowledge that later accounts of the son’s life are prone to exaggeration—there is much that nevertheless allows us to see the father in the son. Vocationally, Friedemann spent close to twenty years in the employ of Halle’s Liebfrauenkirche, and in that capacity produced a significant number of church cantatas, the genre that his father had brought to new expressive and formal heights. This brilliant DVD presents four of these cantatas—“Wohl dem, der den Herren fürchtet,” “O Wunder, wer kann dieses fassen,” “Ach, dass du den Himmel zerrissest,” and “Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen”—in stunning performances by the Bachchor Mainz with the baroque orchestra, L’arpa festante, under the direction of Ralf Otto.
The tutti movements for choir and orchestra tend to reveal Friedemann’s musical formation at his father’s hand, with a substantial fugal component deftly on display. And these movements, such as the first chorus of “Wohl dem” or “Gott fähret,” are performed with highly effective choral articulation and sensitively shaped vocal phrasing. Other instances reveal an engaging programmatic touch, as in the first movement of “Ach, dass du den Himmel zerrissest,” where the rending of heaven is dramatic, heightened by the tension of choral unisons. (The movement is formally interesting, as well, fashioned as a composite movement with chorus, accompanied recitative, and arioso all in one fluid section.)
Of the soloists, Klaus Mertens, well-known for his Bach collaborations with Ton Koopman, is especially fine. He possesses the rare ability to sing with an easy lightness of tone that is nevertheless wonderfully resonant; this serves him well in both recitative and virtuosic arias, of which those with obbligato trumpets and horns are especially fine here. The wind playing of L’arpa festante—prominently paired flutes, paired horns, and paired trumpets—is highly accomplished and brings a richness of color and dynamism to the cantatas’ more affective moments. The recording also includes an instrumental Sinfonia in d minor that is partly an exercise in moody darkness and partly an exercise in spirited counterpoint. The affective vividness and the interplay of emotional contrasts are dramatically compelling, with the orchestra performing with notable elegance.
Filmed amid the decorative richness of the Augustinerkirche in Mainz, this concert of music by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach offers performances of high polish in a contemporaneous setting that beckons to the eye, much as the music beckons to the ear. Surely this is something else about which Friedemann might smile!
Steven Plank