Category: Recordings

In a richly Bohemian folk-style, the Czech poet Karel JaromÌr Erben produced a collection of enchanted poetry that inspired AntonÌn Dvo?·k to compose his expressive array of hauntingly dark tone poems. Ultimately, the main character of each poem suffers a tragic consequence for their transgressions, ranging from the thoughtless utterances of a frustrated mother, to disobeying a parent, to murder.

In recent years orchestras like the London Symphony have begun to release their own CDs, in lieu of pursing contracts recording firms. While the implications of this are best left to another discussion, it is significant to see that Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra now has its own label, and among its recordings is a fine live performance of Anton Brucknerís Symphony no. 8 in C minor, led by its conductor laureate, Bernard Haitink. This recording is actually made from performances given on 18 and 20 February 2005, and preserves an outstanding recent interpretation of this enduring work by Bruckner.

Das walisische Label SAIN (das walisische Wort f¸r “Sound”), gegr¸ndet 1969 von Dafydd Iwan, Huw Jones und Brian Morgan Edwards, hat einen starken sozialen und politischen Anspruch und ist darauf spezialisiert, CD’s mit jungen S‰ngern und Liedern aus Wales und in walisischer Sprache herauszubringen.

SAIN (the Welsh word for ‘sound’, and pronounced like the English word ‘sign’) is Wales’ leading recording company, founded in 1969 in Cardiff by Dafydd Iwan, Huw Jones and Brian Morgan Edwards. The label has a strong social and political message, and for the first few years, SAIN specialised in songs by young singers, many of them concerning the national and linguistic resurgence of Wales, which had begun in the 60’s.

You may never have heard of Lennox Berkeley. But his music was admired by many of the most notable composers of the mid-20th centuryóBritten and Poulenc were close personal friends, and he has a dedicated band of admirers today (there is a Lennox Berkeley Society). Yet, for one reason or another, Berkeley has never become a household name.

The ìXLî of the title of this recording is, as the program book notes, a double reference. First, read as Roman numerals, it points to the extraordinary number of voice parts in Thomas Tallisí famous ìSpem in aliumî and its modern analogue here, Antony Pittsí ìXL,î a forty-voice setting of text from Psalm 40.

This Dynamic set spills over with rewards for opera lovers, especially those looking for something a little (or a lot) off the beaten path.

One can divide these recordings into two groups of two compact discs each. Much of the music of the two Mass settings offered here was composed in the mid 1770s. We have a young Mozartótwenty years old and in the employ of Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg when he composed this Credo Massóand the veteran Franz Joseph Haydn, twice Mozartís age and firmly settled at the Esterhazy court, when he completed the Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei movements of the Missa Cellensis, a work he had begun in 1766 with the Kyrie and Gloria movements.

The genre of grand opera is not traditionally associated with Jacques Offenbachís posthumous reputation. Yet as demonstrated by the performances documented in the present recording and essays in the accompanying notes, a revision of our assessment of Offenbachís strengths is long overdue.

ìTeseoî is one of those ìmight have beenî Handel operas that for one reason or another has never quite made the big time in a high profile, major house performance during our current period of baroque revival. However, this is not something that worries the enterprising likes of the Lautten Compagney Berlin and its Music Director Wolfgang Katschner nor the countertenor-turned-stage director Axel Kohler: for them this rather rare oddity of Handelís genius is simply too good a chance to miss.