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.
This new release of John Taverner’s virtuosic and florid Missa Corona spinea (produced by Gimell Records) comes two years after The Tallis Scholars’ critically esteemed recording of the composer’s Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas, which topped the UK Specialist Classical Album Chart for 6 weeks, and with which the ensemble celebrated their 40th anniversary. The recording also includes Taverner’s two settings of Dum transisset Sabbatum.
Like its predecessor, this recording of the Missa Corona spinea (recorded in Merton College Chapel, Oxford) showcases The Tallis Scholars’ musical and technical strengths. The music makes enormous technical demands on the singers; not least the trebles whose lines (sung by Janet Coxwell and Amy Haworth) push unremittingly upwards — as if striving for celestial heights: indeed, the treble lines sometimes seem to have floated free from their ensemble moorings, so stratospheric are their meanderings. There is certainly a sense of the thrill of a communion with heavenly realms as Phillips generates tremendous dynamism and excitement, rippling through the six vocal lines. Taverner’s invention is seemingly infinite: the melodic effusions spin and swirl, and The Tallis Scholars combine clarity and precision with the ability to sustain the musical narrative of the elongated, elaborate vocal phrases — through extensive sequences, ornamental decoration and passages of antiphony. Characteristically, intonation and blend are superlative. Impressive, too, is the way Phillips shapes the phrases and structures — the sequences and canons which impose ‘order’ on the melodic extravagance — with an ear and eye to their function within the liturgical context, but also injects interpretative freedom.
The circumstances of the first performance of the Mass are unknown, but in a succinct, informative liner-article Peter Phillips speculates that it may have been written for performance in Thomas Wolsey's gigantic new foundation of Cardinal College, Oxford — an institution where Taverner was Informator between 1526 and 1530. There is apparently evidence that Henry VIII visited Cardinal College in 1527, with his new queen, Catherine of Aragon. Moreover, Phillips relates Hugh Benham’s appealing conjecture that since Catherine was a known devotee to the cult of Christ’s passion, one of whose emblems was the Crown of Thorns, the Mass may have been written for her; after all, the queen’s own emblem was the pomegranate — whose prickly appearance may resemble a crown, and her motto as ‘Not for my crown’.
Whatever its origins, this is a truly magnificent and extravagant festal mass for 6 voices (TMATBB). The first silvery phrases of the ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ emerge fluently from the tenor’s chant, and as the trebles’ crystalline threads are gradually fused with the voices below it is as if light from the heavens is gradually steeping the earth. The ‘Qui tollis’ reverses this transference; here the open-textured, slow-moving bass and tenor parts, earnest and solemn in tone, are joined by upper voices whose lines aspire aloft. The long-breathed imitation pushes ever onwards, the motifs evolving and the voices entwining. The more homophonic passages are warm and focused, conveying an assurance and faith.
The meticulous clarity of the recording is evident in passages such as the opening of the ‘Credo in unum Deo’ where the pairs of voices are astonishingly pristine. Phillips generates compelling forward momentum in this movement, effecting an uplifting crescendo as the texture thickens; after such excitement, the subsequent ‘Et incarnatus est’ offers quieter consolations.
Throughout the Mass, the contrasts of timbre are wonderfully defined, and the second ‘Agnus Dei’ offers a particularly ravishing arrange of vocal textures and colours, from the rich low resonance of the opening to translucent brilliance of the higher lying episodes. When the two strata converge the result is a thrilling rainbow of sound. ‘Dona nobis pacem’ is bright and spirited, a wonderfully joyous conclusion.
The Tallis Scholars reveal and relish the ‘medievalism’ of this Mass: its unconstrained profuseness suggests a decorative rather than an expressive splendour, but the sheer grandeur of the architecture and its embellishment — and the infinite variety of texture — makes a heady impact. There is immense vigour within and between the vocal lines, and the vocal sound is one of utmost beauty. The constant fountain of elaborate sound might be overwhelming, were it not for Phillips’ discerning craftsmanship.
The CD is also be available from iTunes in their ‘Mastered for iTunes’ format and in a variety of high resolution stereo and surround-sound downloads from the Gimell website at www.gimell.com.
Claire Seymour
The Tallis Scholars. Director, Peter Phillips. Gimell CDGIM 046, CD (1:02:07)