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.
Sandrine Piau and Le Concert de la Loge (Julien Chauvin), Si j’ai aimé, an eclectic collection of mélodies demonstrating the riches of French orchestral song. Berlioz, Duparc and Massenet are included, but also Saint-Saëns, Charles Bordes, Gabriel Pierné, Théodore Dubois, Louis Vierne and Benjamin Godard.
Sponsored by Palazetto Bru Zane, Alpha Classics produced the ground breaking Saint-Saëns Mélodies avec orchestre with Yann Beuron and Tassis Christoyannis (please read more) which has been described as the “opening of a Pandora’s box ......(on) dozens, if not hundreds, of mélodies sublimely arrayed in sparkling orchestral colours (which) were slumbering on library shelves”.
These mélodies reflect the renaissance of French poetry in the Romantic period, and of contemporary poets like Hugo, Gautier, Banville, Régnier and Verlaine. The enhancement of verse by music created a new genre, taking art song from the confines of private salons to the concert hall. Although grand opéra took centre stage, many composers found, in mélodie an expression of more subtle sensibility. Given the predominance of grand opéra and of singers trained in that tradition, the vocal parts are more elaborate than they would be in a more inward form like German Lieder but are exquisitely refined. These settings focus on voice, eschewing brass and percussion. “But how many nuances these composers could obtain from this palette”, writes Hélène Cao in her notes. “There is no oboe in Aimons-nous (Saint-Saëns) or Ce que dit le silence (Guilmant)…the arpeggios of Saint-Saëns’ Extase are provided by the harp, thus preserving the lightness of a pianistic texture that would have been weighed down by the use of bowed strings”. Indeed, the harp is a distinctive feature in many of these mélodies, more lustrous and liquid, closer to the human voice, and particularly to the female voice.
The delicacy of Piau’s timbre in Saint-Saëns’ Extase (Victor Hugo) is exquisite, almost trembling with ecstasy, the moment of intimacy in the text living vividly on in memory. Her voice is agile, capturing the fluttering fragility in Papillons (Renée de Léché) where a pair of flutes duet, darker winds and strings adding texture. the song ends abruptly, for butterflies die, once the summer is over. In Charles Bordes’s Promenade matinale (Paul Verlaine), the pace is leisurely, evoking a stroll in the morning sunshine. A horn is heard, illustrating “un chemin de gazonque bordant devieux aulnes”, introducing shade, for the dreamer has lost the one he or she had loved. This connects neatly with the well-known Berlioz Au cimetière from Les nuits d’été. In Jules Massenet’s Le Poète et Le Fantôme, to an anonymous text, the vocal line stretches languidly, as the poet addresses a phantom, the soul of the poet’s smiles, ie a memory of the past. The voice of the harp mirroring the voice of the singer. The poem is strophic, its repeating patterns suggesting there will be no resolution. Gabriel Pierné’s Chanson d’autrefois, for chamber ensemble, is like a folk air, being based on the composer’s set of children’s pieces Album pour mes petits amis. Théodore Dubois’ Si j’ai parlé....si j’ai aimé (Henri de Régnier) is poised, “c’est ton ombre que je cherche”.
The upbeat rhythms of Berlioz’s Villanelle from Les nuits d’été mark a transition from songs of lost love to songs of desire and seduction. Théodore Dubois’ Promenade à l’etang (Albert Semain) alternates restraint with exuberant outbursts, intensifying the tension of passion, the pond representing, perhaps, hidden depths. More butterflies in Louis Vierne’s Beaux papillons blancs from Trois Mélodies op 11, this time fluttering happily in warm breezes, the vocal line circulating smoothly as the strings dance and sparkle. In contrast, the sensuous promise of Henry Duparc’s Aux étoiles where violin and flute soar over a background of dark timbred strings. In Alexandre Guilmant’s Ce que dit le silence (Charles Barthélemy), the contrast lies between the sweeping vocal part and the understated orchestral line with its quiet interjections. “Sans bruit, nous permet d’écouter ce que dit le silence”.
The repose of Saint-Saëns’ Aimons-nous (Théodore de Banville) merges into the serenity of Massenet’s Valse très lente, originally for piano, here scored for lyrical winds and strings. Saint-Saëns’ L’Enlèvement (Hugo) was written when the composer was only 13 years of age, but the woodwind melody has finesse. The grave movement from Benjamin Godard’s Symphonie gothique op 23 is followed by the famous Plaisir d’amour, in a transcription by Hector Berlioz after a romance from the 1780’s by Jean-Paul-Ègide Martini.
Anne Ozorio