Strauss: Ein Straussfest (UltraHD review)

Music of Johann
Strauss Sr., Johann Strauss Jr., Eduard Strauss, and Josef Strauss. Erich
Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. LIM UHD 064.

Maestro Erich Kunzel may have made more recordings than
almost any conductor in history, but when it came to the music of the Strauss
family, he didn’t quite project the delight of a Willi Boskovsky, the glamor of
a Herbert von Karajan, the energy of an Antal Dorati, the elegance of a Josef
Krips, the warmth of a Eugene Ormandy, the high spirits of a Lorin Maazel, or
the Viennese charm of a Fritz Reiner or Zubin Mehta or Jascha Horenstein.
Instead, Kunzel’s readings are more exhilarating than illuminating. That said,
when the sound comes across as impressively as it does here in this LIM
audiophile remaster of a 1985 Telarc release, it probably doesn’t matter. The
sonics rather overwhelm the notes and carry us along, making us marvel anew at
the creative genius of the Strauss family.

The program begins with a bang, with a real explosion at
the start of the Explosions Polka.
Then, we get three more quick-paced polkas and galops, again with sound effects
such as, literally, various bells and whistles, popping corks, pistol shots,
and thunderclaps in the Im Krapfenwald’l
Polka, the Champagne Polka, and the Banditen
Galop. Some purists may feel Telarc indulged in too many such aural
effects, but one should keep in mind that when the Strausses wrote this music,
audiences enjoyed and expected a degree of extravagance.

The first big waltz comes with On the Beautiful Blue Danube, in which Kunzel seems at first a
little earthbound and mundane; however he soon warms up to the piece, even if
he never quite gets the full measure of the waltz rhythms involved. Likewise,
his handling of Tales from the Vienna
Woods never exactly catches fire until well underway. It’s as though the
conductor were holding something back for as long as he could and then still
wasn’t entirely sure how to cope with the pulses of a waltz. There follow the Radetzky March, the Feuerfest Polka, the Auf der Jagd
Polka, the Bahn Frei Polka, the Pizzicato Polka, and the Unter Donner und Blitz Polka, numbers
that come off best.

If I have any reservations about the album, they include
the short playing time (48:10) and the preponderance of fast tunes on the
program, with only two waltzes (The Blue
Danube and the Tales from the Vienna
Woods). So it’s more of showpiece than I’d like. Still, with the inclusion
of an outstanding Radetzky March,
it’s hard not to enjoy the selections.

Although there is a certain lack of subtlety in Kunzel’s
conducting and although the Cincinnati Pops lack the plush precision of a
Vienna Philharmonic, the conductor and orchestra are clearly having a good
time, and their enthusiasm shows.

Telarc recorded the album in 1984 at Music Hall,
Cincinnati, Ohio, releasing it the following year, and LIM (Lasting Impression
Music, a division of FIM, First Impression Music) remastered it in 2012 in
their UltraHD 32-bit mastering process. Engineer Michael Bishop, who helped
with the original recording, supervised the remastering, and the meticulous
UltraHD system did the rest. The sound is very dynamic, with a slightly
improved transient impact over the original Telarc product. Yet we also hear a
very smooth, warm, lifelike response, without a trace of brightness or edge,
which is probably the best quality of the remastering. Music Hall imparts a
pleasant resonant glow around the sonics that some audiophiles may think
detracts from the disc’s midrange transparency and others may feel adds to the
album’s overall realism. Adding further to the natural-sounding effect of the
acoustic is a good measure of depth to the orchestra; it’s easy to listen
“into” the players and distinguish their relative distances from one another.
Thus, imaging, always a hallmark of Telarc, is better than ever. Finally,
you’ll of course find the big Telarc bass drum in evidence throughout. This
remastering is all about big, room-filling sound, which you get in spades.

As always, LIM dress up the disc with an attractive,
high-gloss foldout container, the disc itself enclosed in an inner paper sleeve
and a static-free liner. It’s a handsome package.



To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:





JJP

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 (CD review)

Valery Gergiev, Vienna Philharmonic. Philips B0004113-2.

Following up on his
highly acclaimed account of the Tchaikovsky Fifth,
released in 1999, came his rendition of the Fourth
Symphony, recorded in 2002 but unaccountably waiting until 2005 to see the light
of day. Anyway, if you are familiar with Gergiev’s way with Tchaikovsky, that
is, no holds barred, you will surely like his interpretation of the Fourth.

The lengthy first
movement is practically a mini symphony in itself, most of it bluster, and Gergiev
plays it that way, with plenty of gusto and excitement by the close. The
second, slow movement has never struck me as memorable, and not even Gergiev
can do much with it except hope to get it out of the way, although he does so
with a graceful hand. Gergiev could have taken the pizzicato Scherzo more playfully, but it comes
through fine, especially with the Vienna Philharmonic playing with such
finesse. The Finale, one of
Tchaikovsky’s biggest showstoppers, gets the full-bore, hell-for-leather
treatment, starting strong and ending in an appropriately thrilling ride.

The thing that
undermines the performance, however, is Philips’s sound, which the company
recorded live, with all its attendant problems. No matter how loud the music
gets, it always seems reticent, held back, distanced, and muted. Thus, much of
the animation Gergiev attempts to generate rather evaporates within the softly
shrouded sonics. The recording is also available on a hybrid SACD in
multichannel surround, however, and for those of you with the appropriate
playback equipment it may effect an improvement in the sound.

By comparison, the
studio recordings of Szell (Decca), Jansons (Chandos), and Haitink (Philips)
sound better and more open, while Monteux (JVC) may be best of all. In fact, a
side-by-side comparison of Gergiev and Monteux was such a night-and-day
difference sonically as to take my breath away. Considering that the Monteux
recording is over four decades older than Gergiev’s, that’s quite an
accomplishment, even if you have to pay double for the JVC audiophile edition
to get it. And, incidentally, I like Monteux’s performance better as well.

JJP

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9 (CD review)

Michael Halasz,
Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and Failoni Orchestra. Naxos 8.572939.

There was a time in the old vinyl era when record
companies would barely fit Schubert’s Ninth
Symphony on a single LP. Now, it’s commonplace to find not only the Ninth but an accompanying Schubert
symphony on the same disc, in the case of this Naxos reissue, the Unfinished Symphony. Admittedly, the
companion piece is only two movements long, but that’s not the point. It’s just
an amazing world we take for granted these days.

Anyway, Hungarian conductor Michael Halasz gets the album
started with the Symphony No. 8 in B
minor, D759 “Unfinished,” which
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) began writing around 1822 but never finished before
moving along to other things. Halasz leads the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in
a sympathetic performance.

I especially liked what Maestro Halasz does with the
opening of the Eighth, beginning with
a more than usually dark opening and moving on to a sweetly casual lilt,
turning as it should into alternately light and heavy sections. Halasz
maintains an exceptionally airy tone in the more lyrical passages, particularly
in the second-movement Andante, that
is most pleasant.

The history of Schubert’s last numbered symphony, the Symphony No. 9 in C major, D944, the
“Great,” is somewhat odd because while the composer dated it 1828, the year of
his death, he probably didn’t actually write it in 1828. In fact, it may not
have even been his last symphony. The odds are he wrote it earlier than 1828,
maybe 1826, which makes little difference since, as with the rest of Schubert’s
orchestral music, he never published any of it, anyway. The public didn’t hear
the Ninth until 1839, eleven years
after the composer died. Anymore, audiences consider it one of the staples of
the classical music world.

Here, Maestro Halasz leads the Failoni Chamber Orchestra
of the Hungarian State Opera in a reading that impressed me less than his Eighth. With a relatively small group,
around a third the size of the Slovak Philharmonic, Halasz exhibits less power
than I would have liked in this work and less dynamic punch. I can understand
using a small period-instruments band for historical reasons and perhaps a
small ensemble for greater transparency, but the Ninth is a big work that usually benefits from a bigger orchestra.
With the Failoni Orchestra it sounds rather lightweight.

Halasz’s leisurely pace doesn’t do a lot to drum up much
enthusiasm, either. Instead, the piece just seems to drift aimlessly along,
without much spirit. Even the conductor’s sudden tempo shifts do little to
generate much excitement. A steady but rigid Andante march and a fleet-footed but cheerless Scherzo hardly help the situation. The fact is, the whole
performance appears more than a tad bland. Fortunately, it ends in a reasonably
joyful Finale, although it’s probably
a matter of too little too late.

Naxos recorded the Symphony
No. 8 at the Moyzes Hall, Bratislava, in 1988 and the Symphony No. 9 at the Italian Institute in Budapest in 1994. The
company initially released the two recordings separately, with different
couplings, and then together in this 2012 rerelease. In the Eighth, we hear very good sonics with
more than adequate body and size. Dynamics are fine, too, and the midrange
sounds warm and smooth. While the stereo spread seems slightly constricted,
there is a realistic sense of depth involved. In the Ninth the smaller orchestra does, indeed, afford a greater clarity
throughout, although the hall imparts a bit too much reflective resonance,
nullifying some of the benefits of the smaller ensemble. I preferred the more
natural acoustic of the Eighth to the
inordinately reverberant setting of the Ninth.
Still, both recordings make for comfortable, easy, if somewhat dull, listening.

Here’s the thing, though: Unless you’re a dedicated
collector of everything ever recorded or just a die-hard Schubert fan, you may
find better recordings of the Eighth
from Otto Klemperer (EMI), Giuseppe Sinopoli (DG), Eugen Jochum (DG), Charles
Munch (RCA), or Charles Mackerras (Virgin) and of the Ninth from Josef Krips (Decca/HDTT), Otto Klemperer (EMI) and
Charles Mackerras again (Virgin or Telarc), Georg Solti (Decca), George Szell
(Sony), or Gunther Wand (RCA).



To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:





JJP

Advent at Ephesus (CD review)

Benedictines of
Mary, Queen of Apostles. Decca B0017837-02.

Because recorded liturgical music like chant has largely
been the province of monks over the years, record companies have given rather
short shrift to their female counterparts. The folks at De Montfort Music,
Decca Records, and the Sisters at the Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus (the
Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, a monastic community located in rural
Missouri) hope the present disc may help rectify that situation.

The Sisters’ voices are sweet and pure. There are no
outstanding virtuosos among them, perhaps, yet as a group they sing like
angels, their voices harmonizing with a celestial precision.

The Sisters sing sixteen selections that celebrate various
Feasts, Meditations, Offices, Masses, and Holy Days of the Church. With these
selections, we find some songs in Latin, some in English, some Gregorian chant,
some traditional, some anonymous, some dating as far back as the Fifth Century,
most from Medieval and Renaissance times.

Among the hymns you’ll hear are “Come thou Redeemer of the
Earth,” “Angelus Ad Virginem,” “Gabriel’s Message,” “Hayl Mary,” “O Come, O
Come Emmanuel,” “Benedixisti Domine,” “Maria Walks Among the Thorn,” “O Come
Divine Messiah,” “Vox Clara,” “Like the Dawning,” and other such numbers.

It’s a wide and surprisingly diverse collection of
devotional psalms and anthems the Sisters sing, with one thing in common: a
single purpose in praising the Lord. Although the individual tracks are
relatively brief (two-to-three minutes apiece) and the disc’s total playing
time of just over forty-eight minutes may seem short measure, the songs do tend
to have a similar spirit and feeling throughout, despite their variety, so
maybe the album’s length is just about right for optimum listening pleasure.

The main thing is that the Sisters maintain a high musical
standard, and the performances are the very ideal of serene contemplation. It’s
all quite beautiful; you might even say heavenly.

According to the accompanying booklet, Decca and De
Montfort Music recorded the disc at the Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus in
October of 2012, which seems remarkable given that I received the product in
November, the very next month. The acoustic is appropriately reverberant for a
liturgical setting, so expect the room reflections to amplify and smooth out
the voices somewhat. Given the dozen or so persons involved, the stereo spread
sounds a bit constricted left to right, affording them plenty of distance from
the listener yet without sacrificing much in the way of clarity. The distancing
tends, instead, to add to the resonant nature of the presentation, increasing
the realism.

And to hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:





JJP

Britten: The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (XRCD24 review)

Also, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. Benjamin Britten; London
Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra. JVC XRCD 0226-2.

While upgrading to
new and better hardware is always fun and most often rewarding, if one can
afford it, the struggle to find suitable software--like audiophile LPs, tapes, CDs,
or DVDs--to do the new equipment justice has long haunted the audiophile.
Open-reel master tapes would seem to be the ideal answer but obviously
impractical. Direct-to-disc and half-speed remastered LP recordings took up
some of the slack in the old vinyl days, with gold discs taking their place
early on in the compact-disc era. But now that the gold disc has pretty much
gone the way of the dodo, one has fewer choices. 

Understand, during
all the time I reviewed gold discs from Mobile Fidelity, Sheffield Labs, DCC,
Chesky, Compact Classics, and the like, I often found improvements in the sound
of the gold over their silver counterparts; but as I said time and again, they
never convinced me it was actually the gold-foil that contributed to the
sound’s betterment so much as it was their superior transfer engineering. The
gold, I always figured, might have just added to the discs’ allure and
justified their high price. Careful, expert, and time-consuming engineering of
the tape to disc is where I considered the improvements to have come. This is
where JVC, the Victor Corporation of Japan, entered the scene some years ago,
followed by other companies like FIM/LIM and Hi-Q. The folks at JVC have
eschewed the gold-plating route and gone with the best possible transference to
silver disc, first remastering some of RCA’s best “Living Stereo” recordings
and then doing some of Decca’s older product, such as here in their XRCD24
processing system.

Most of JVC’s choices
have been consensus classics, and in the comparisons I’ve made with dozens of
discs, I have found improvements--some slight, to be sure--in JVC’s product
over the conventional equivalent. The folks at JVC have also packaged the
product handsomely in Digipak-type foldout albums. Unfortunately, JVC have not
eschewed the gold-disc price. They have been issuing exactly the same content
as on the original LPs--no more, no less--and at a price almost double the cost
of the conventional compact disc. Worth it? Not for most people, and, in fact,
not for me if I didn’t already own the things I’ve gotten so far and didn’t
already love each and every one of them. Let me just say I have not been
entirely disappointed. The sonic improvements have ranged from barely audible,
maybe not audible at all and only imagined, to clearly audible and extremely
worthwhile. In most cases, the improvements have usually been in all-around
smoothness, often in definition, and sometimes in dynamic impact, bass
extension, and general tautness.

Yet it’s here that
we run into the old audiophile vs. sceptic argument: The audiophile will argue
that if you cannot hear the differences, it is because your equipment is not
good enough to reveal them. Conversely, the sceptic will argue that if you hear
differences, it’s because you want to hear the differences, especially if
you’ve just laid out a chunk of cash for the new product.

My advice: Try one
of these audiophile discs for yourself. Compare it to your old disc. If you
hear no difference, take it back and never buy another one. It’s that simple.
Here are a few JVC remasterings in which I have personally found some sonic
improvement: Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto
with Van Cliburn (JMXR24004); Stravinsky’s Rite
of Spring with Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony (JVCXR-0225-2);
Offenbach’s Gaite Parisienne with
Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops (JVCXR-0224-2); and Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Scheherazade (JMCXR-0015), Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony (JMCXR-0020), Bartok’s
Concerto for Orchestra (JMCXR-0007),
Respighi’s Pines of Rome (JMCXR-0008),
and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an
Exhibition (JMCXR-0016), all with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony.

Now to the subject
at hand, Britten’s Young Person’s Guide
to the Orchestra:

Benjamin Britten
wrote what he initially called The
Instruments of the Orchestra for a school children’s film in 1946, basing
his music on a hornpipe theme by Henry Purcell. The idea was to highlight and
showcase each family of instruments in the symphony orchestra. It may seem
overly simple to some listeners and perhaps even clumsily constructed, but it
hit a chord with the public and continues to make for delightful listening,
especially when presented so felicitously by the composer himself and the
London Symphony Orchestra in this 1964 recording. Britten conducts the piece at
a rather quick but enlivening pace, and it’s done without narration so you can
better enjoy the music. Also on the disc we find Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (Bridge being his mentor),
played by the English Chamber Orchestra and recorded in 1968. The Decca disc’s
inclusion of the Simple Symphony was
not a part of the original Decca LP and is, therefore, absent on this JVC
edition.

So how is JVC’s
remastering of these Britten chestnuts? First, although I’d had the Decca disc
for a very long  time, I had never
really thought of it as an audiophile favorite before. It was always a
good-sounding disc but nothing especially transparent or realistic in any audiophile
way. Anyhow, when listening to an A-B comparison of the Decca with the JVC, the
most noticeable differences showed up during the Young Person’s Guide in terms of the JVC’s very slightly greater
smoothness. Whereas the original Decca disc sounded a tad glassy, steely, and
hard, the JVC remastering seemed a touch softer, the edges delicately smoother,
rounder, and easier on the ear. Other differences sounded more subtle, with the
JVC remastering being perhaps a touch more dynamic overall and firmer in the
bass.

Here’s the thing,
though: My listening did not settle the matter of which disc was “best”; that
is, which disc sounded more like the master tape. Usually, one can tell when a
difference in sound is an improvement; it usually manifests itself, as I’ve
said, in an increased clarity, resolution, dynamic contrast, bass tautness,
etc., often along with increased smoothness. But without access to the master
tape and direct A-B testing of the remastered product, one can never be sure.
It is always possible, for instance, that in this case the JVC engineers simply
softened the sound, either by intent or by accident, making it appear smoother
and easier on the ear; or that they may have gotten it exactly right,
duplicating the actual sound of the master tape. As I say, without my having
access to the master tape, I can never know for sure. Therefore, “best” in this
instance becomes a matter of which disc appears to a listener as preferable
according to taste, not which one is more accurate, and for me that was the JVC
by a slim margin.

The accompanying Frank Bridge Variations, however, reveal
much less of a difference, indeed, practically none at all, and I daresay in a
blind test I wouldn’t be able to tell the JVC remaster from the Decca original.
Sonically, then, the disc’s coupling becomes moot.

So, would I recommend the JVC disc to anyone? No; it’s
still too much an open question for me, the differences being too small on
which to build a case. Besides, the disc is costly; it excludes the Simple Symphony found on the Decca disc;
and the small, admittedly controversial sonic improvements I heard show up only
in the Young Person’s Guide. Yes, I
did enjoy the smoother sound of the JVC, but perhaps not enough to recommend
one’s paying double the Decca disc’s price for it.



To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:





JJP

Drama Queens (CD review)

Joyce DiDonato,
mezzo-soprano; Alan Curtis, Il Complesso Barocco. Virgin Classics
5099960265425.

I have to admit I know next to nothing about opera,
notwithstanding my having heard a ton of it live and on record over the years.
For my taste, most operas are too long, too slow, too melodramatic. That said,
it’s hard not to like the best of them and doubly hard to resist a good
operatic singer. Which brings me to the disc at hand. Young tenors and sopranos
come along by the dozens it seems, each one the next big thing. Most of them
disappear from view before long, leaving only a select few to survive. American
mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato is one of the survivors, a woman who has proved
her worth over the past decade or so, becoming one of the world’s truly great
singers. Gramophone magazine awarded
her “Artist of the Year” status in 2010, and one can understand why after
listening to her latest album, Drama
Queens.

Ms. DiDonato specializes in vocal music of the Baroque
period, and accordingly the album comprises thirteen arias from the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, with Maestro Alan Curtis and the European Baroque
ensemble Il Complesso Barocco in accompaniment. The selections are as follows:

1. “Da torbida procella” from Berenice by Giuseppe Maria Orlandini (1676-1760)

2. “Madre diletta” from Ifigenia in Aulide by Giovanni Porta (c. 1675-1755)

3. “Ma quando tornerai” from Alcina by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

4. “Lasciami piangere” from Fredegunda by Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739)

5. “Morte, col fiero aspetto” from Antonio e Cleopatra by Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783)

6. “Piangerò la sorte mia” from Giulio Cesare in Egitto by Handel

7. “Intorno all'idol mio” from Orontea by Antonio Cesti (1623-1669)

8. “Brilla nell'alma” from Alessandro by Handel

9. “Geloso, sospetto” from Octavia by Keiser

10. “Disprezzata regina” from L'incoronazione di Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

11. “Sposa, son disprezzata” from Merope by Geminiano Giacomelli (c. 1692-1740)

12. “Col versar, barbaro, il sangue” from Berenice by Orlandini

13. “Vedi, se t'amo... Odio, furor, dispetto” from Armida by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Ms. DiDonato writes, “Why do we adore these queens of the
drama? The answer, for me, lies at the heart of why we have opera: we yearn to
open hidden doors to the richest, most complex, utterly human and profoundly
moving emotions that we may not be able to access when left to our own devices.
The crazy plots and extreme circumstances of the operatic universe give us
permission to unleash our often too-idle imaginations.” Fair enough. And
certainly the queens, princesses, empresses, and sorceresses of the album’s
music provide Ms. DiDonato ample opportunity to exercise her own imaginative
vocal skills.

The orchestra delivers a lively complement to Ms.
DiDonato’s vocals, creating energetic, enthusiastic performances. In the
biggest, most melodramatic numbers, Ms. DiDonato lets go with a commendable
dynamism. She isn’t afraid to let her emotions show in these most-emotional of
Baroque showpieces. There is nothing of the stuffy scholar here but, rather,
full-blown theatrical interpretations.

Ms. DiDonato possesses a robust soprano voice, with a good
deal of flexibility, which she demonstrates as the occasion arises. Whether the
situation demands a display of love, pain, joy, anger, or sorrow, Ms. DiDonato
is ready with the appropriate vocal gesture in a tone so pure, it kept even
this non-opera fan in rapt attention. In short, she is able to do anything with
her voice, exhibiting a remarkably wide vocal and emotional range.

Virgin Classics recorded the music at Villa San Fermo,
Lonigo, Italy, in 2012. The acoustic is lightly, pleasantly, reverberant,
flattering Ms. DiDonato’s voice nicely. The overall sound, however, is a trifle
bright and sharp, giving the instruments and vocals a slight edge. There is a
modest air and depth to the sound, though, with a good integration of vocals
and orchestral support. It’s certainly a clear, clean sonic presentation, given
a modest nod in the direction of a natural, realistic atmosphere. While played
too loudly it can get a bit severe, played at a comfortable level it can be
quite enjoyable.

JJP

Rossini: Complete Overtures, Volume 1 (CD review)

Christian Benda,
Prague Philharmonic Choir and Prague Sinfonia Orchestra. Naxos 8.570933.

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) wrote a slew of popular
operas, but today most people probably know him best for his overtures. The
present disc from Christian Benda and the Prague Sinfonia Orchestra (of which
Benda is the Chief Conductor) and the Prague Philharmonic Choir is the first of
four volumes of the composer’s overtures from Maestro Benda.

Choice is good, and Benda gives us yet another good
choice. Yet before considering any new Rossini release, you should remember
that there are already quite a few excellent discs out there, not the least of
which is Neville Marriner’s complete, three-disc set from Philips, a long-gone
label but one still available new and used for a reasonable (sometimes absurdly
low) price. And if it’s only a single disc of the most-popular overtures you’re
interested in, you can find excellent bargains on-line from the likes of,
again, Marriner (Philips, PentaTone, or EMI), the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
(DG), Fritz Reiner (RCA), Piero Gamba (Decca or JVC), Peter Maag (HDTT),
Riccardo Muti (EMI), Claudio Abbado (DG), Riccardo Chailly (Decca), Carlo Maria
Giulini (EMI), Sir Roger Norrington (EMI), and others.

Yes, there is a lot of Rossini out there. Nevertheless, if
you’ve sampled all of the above or simply want to hear everything that’s
available, certainly you’ll want to check out this first volume of overtures
from Benda because they’re really quite good.

The program begins with three of Rossini’s most well-known
overtures. The first is La gazza ladra
(“The Thieving Magpie”), which Benda infuses with a stately elegance, going on
to develop a reasonable amount of tension and excitement. What’s more, Benda
handles the more lyrical interludes with a quick-paced grace.

Next, we find Semiramide,
in which Benda exploits both the urgency and the serenity nicely. Then, we get Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra
(“Elizabeth, Queen of England”), about which you are probably saying,
“Huh?  I’ve never heard of that.” No,
but Rossini reused the same overture later for the far more-famous opera Il barbierre de Siviglia (“The Barber of
Seville”). Anyway, Benda’s fleet-footed performance serves it well.

After those items, Benda serves up four more overtures
that are only slightly less popular. Here, we find Otello, Rossini’s recounting of Shakespeare’s play, the music
typical of the composer’s work.  Benda
gives it a lively, dramatic reading. Following that is Le Siege de Cornithe (“The Siege of Corinth”), a story “of love and
duty.” Benda and his players treat it with appropriate attention to the duty
part perhaps more than to the love element. Regardless, it moves along at a
healthy clip. Moving on, there’s the odd little Sinfonia in D “al Conventello” Overture, in which you’ll recognize
the first theme from Signor Bushino.
Rossini was not above borrowing from himself. Again, Benda puts all his energy
into it.

The album closes with Ermione
(“Hermione”), from one of Rossini’s less-successful operas. The overture is of
little consequence except for a few sections taken by a chorus. I had only
heard it once before and have to admit that Benda’s rendition impressed me more
than before.

Naxos recorded the music at the Kulturni Dum Barikadniku,
Prague, Czech Republic, in 2011, and it’s one of the label’s best efforts of
late. It displays a commendable dynamic range and impact, with a fairly clean,
clear midrange and more-than-adequate bass and treble extension. The sound is
not quite in the Orpheus (DG) or Maag (HDTT) league, but it’s good and on a par
with most of the best. The smaller forces of the Prague Sinfonia help to
produce more lucid sonics than we might get from an ensemble twice its size,
and the Naxos engineers do their part to ensure a wide stereo spread and a
decent sense of depth and air.

JJP

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos (CD review)

Helmuth Rilling,
Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra. Hanssler Classic CD94.615.

With so many praiseworthy sets of Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos on the market from
people like Pinnock (Avie and Archiv), Marriner (Philips), Lamon (Tafelmusik or
Sony), Leppard (Philips), Savall (Astree), Hogwood (L’Oiseau-Lyre), Apollo’s
Fire (Avie), and Leonhardt (Sony), is there any reason to sample yet another
one? Obviously, while people can only determine that question for themselves,
there is no question that a mid-priced set such as this reissue from Helmuth
Rilling on Hanssler Classic has a special appeal to budget-conscious buyers.

I wasn’t very familiar with Maestro Rilling’s work, so I
found this note about him in the disc’s accompanying booklet: “Helmuth Rilling,
born in 1933, has for decades been intimately involved in musical life, as
founder of the ‘Gachinger Kontorel’ (a famous choir) and of the ‘International
Bachakademie Stuttgart.’ In addition to his complete recording of J.S. Bach’s
cantatas, issued in 1985, and the CD edition of all Bach’s works, of which he
was the director, he has behind him an immense discography in a wide
repertoire.” Fair enough; I guess I just don’t get around enough. In 1970 he
organized the Oregon Bach Festival, which in 2013 takes place in Eugene,
Ashland, Astoria, Bend, Corvallis, Lincoln City, and Portland. The Bach
Festival Chamber Orchestra comprises members from American and European
ensembles and from the music faculty of the University of Oregon.

OK, now, you’ll recall that Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos sound different from one another because the
composer never meant them to be a cohesive group. In 1719 Margrave Christian
Ludwig of Brandenburg commissioned Bach to write several pieces for him, and
what he got a couple of years later was a collection of six works for
various-sized ensembles and various solo instruments that the composer had
probably written at various times for various other occasions.

Maestro Rilling leads an ensemble of players on modern
instruments in generally straightforward, non-affected performances. Although
it’s a somewhat middle-of-the-road offering, it’s affable and entertaining
enough.

The Concerto No. 1
is one of the longest of the concertos and arranged for the biggest ensemble.
It is also my least favorite, no matter who’s performing it. Be that as it may,
Rilling’s interpretation sounds very relaxed and easygoing, without its losing
much in the way of spirit or vitality. Unlike so many of today’s
period-instrument bands and modern groups trying to emulate period styles, the
Oregon Bach players don’t rush headlong through things. Rilling takes the outer
movements at a moderately slow pace and the slower, inner movements a tad
quicker than usual. It works fine.

Concerto No. 2
is among the most popular of the pieces and highlights the oboe, recorder,
violin, and trumpet, the latter getting in the major part of the playing time.
Here, Rilling’s tempos are lively and the atmosphere invigorating.

Listeners probably know
Concerto No. 3 as well as they know No.
2, maybe even more so; thus, it’s important not to upset their
expectations. The conductor communicates a refined dignity above all, the music
moving along at a healthy pace yet projecting a stately grace, too.

Concerto No. 4
is Bach’s most playful piece, with the soloists darting in and out of the
structure. It always reminds me of children’s music for some reason, Leopold
Mozart’s Toy Symphony or something
like that, and Rilling does nothing to dispel the feeling, offering up a sweet
and charming rendition, if a trifle fast in the opening movement for my taste.

Concerto No. 5
is another of my personal favorites, highlighting solos from the violin, flute,
and harpsichord. Because it requires a minimal ensemble, it ensures a greater
clarity of sound. For me, this was the best of Maestro Rilling’s work. There’s
a smooth, flowing rhythm here, with some excellent harpsichord contributions.
Very enjoyable.

While Concerto No. 6
sounds to me the least distinctive music in the set and uses the smallest
ensemble, it never actually feels small. In fact, its only real deficiency is
its similarity to Concerto No. 3, if
a little slower. In it, Rilling goes out very stylishly, an elegant conclusion
to the set, taken at an elegant pace.

Hanssler recorded the concertos in 1994 at Hult Center for
the Performing Arts, Eugene, Oregon. 
They obtained a pleasing sound, with a reasonably wide stereo spread; a
warm, natural response; and a fairly decent degree of depth and air. I suppose
the recording could have better defined the instrumental sound, yet the whole
thing is easy on the ear. For listeners who sometimes find Baroque music a bit
hard or bright (a good friend always called it “that tinkly-tinkly stuff”), the
recording’s sonics should satisfy them. While I would have liked to have heard
a better separation of instruments, greater midrange transparency, and more
extended highs in the larger concertos, what we get can be quite soothing.

Note, too, that the folks at Hanssler Classics have
re-released this set several times now on disc, and one can find used copies of
previous editions often for less than the cost of shipping. So, for any
listeners wanting to sample the wares, new or used, they’ll find a lot of
choice available.

JJP

Debussy: Prelude a l’Apres-midi (CD review)

Also, Nocturnes; La Mer; Berceuse heroique. Paavo Jarvi, Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra. Telarc CD-80617.

Under most other
circumstances I would have to say Telarc’s sound on this recording is too
ultrasmooth, but considering that it is serving the master impressionist Claude
Debussy, it probably complements the music properly. For those listeners who
fancy their impressionism mild and dreamy, this may be the best way to go.

My only concern with
Paavo Jarvi’s interpretations of the Prelude
a l'Apres-midi, Nocturnes, La Mer, and Berceuse heroique is that they seem more than a mite complacent.
Next to classic recordings by Previn (EMI), Reiner (RCA), Karajan (DG), and
Stokowski (London), Jarvi appears to lack some of their passion. Surely, in so
serene a piece as the Prelude, this
approach works perfectly well; but in something like the closing moments of La Mer, where the sea swells up and
dances a literal storm, one senses little of the dramatic tension, the
excitement and fervor, of the moment. There is, instead, a continued stream of
soft, languorous relaxation.

Let me put it
another way:  These readings may be easy
on the ear, and they may make for pleasant listening while driving along a busy
interstate, but they aren’t the most compelling performances for first-choice
listening in the home.

Telarc’s sound is,
as I say, ultrasmooth and somewhat soft, but it’s very broad and deep across
and through the stereo sound stage, with excellent dimensionality and a solid
bass line. In short, this is a pleasing but hardly earth-shattering release.

JJP

Orff: Carmina Burana (XRCD24 review)

Sheila Armstrong, Gerald English, Thomas Allen; Andre Previn, London
Symphony Orchestra and St. Clement Danes Grammar School Boys’ Choir. Hi-Q
Records HIQXRCD8.

I’m not a big fan of Orff's music, but audiences seem to love it and you hear it used in movies all
the time. Recorded in 1974, this performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana by Andre Previn and the
London Symphony Orchestra remains one of the best. EMI reissued it at mid price
in their “Great Recordings of the Century” line in 1998, then in their
“Masters” series in 2010, and now Hi-Q Records give us a JVC XRCD24 K2 audiophile
remaster in 2012.

For those few of you
who may not be familiar with the work, Carl Orff (1895-1982) based Carmina Burana on the collected songs
and poems of medieval minstrels. A booklet note tells us “Carmina Burana --‘Songs of Benedikbeuern’--was the title given to a
thirteenth-century manuscript collection of songs (mostly in Latin) found in a
monastery at Benedikbeuern in southern Bavaria in the 19th century, by J.A.
Schmeller, when he published it in 1847. Orff came across the collection in
1935, and was immediately struck by it, particularly by the illumination of the
Wheel of Fortune reproduced as a frontispiece, and conceived the idea of
setting the songs to music.”

The assemblage of
tunes contains several dozen short vocal pieces, plus orchestral accompaniment,
grouped together in four sections. The music is vivid and vibrant, especially
in Previn’s hands, and it speaks mainly of the yearnings and pleasures of the flesh.
For example, “Sweet, rosey-hued mouth, Come and make me well.” Or “Love flies
everywhere, He is seized by desire. Young men, young girls, Are rightly coupled
together.” Or “The girl without a lover, Does without any pleasure.” Or “If a
boy with a girl Tarries in a little room, Happy their mating.” And so on in its
earthy way; I think you get the idea. Ably supported by a boys’ choir, the
soloists have a field day with lyrics like these. Previn brings out the rustic
joy of the music with an obvious love for it, almost reveling in the vulgarity.

There were two
advantages of the 1998 and 2010 EMI discs over the company’s very first CD
mastering: Superior sonics and a cheaper price. The 1998 audio quality (the
same mastering repeated for the 2010 disc) was very slightly smoother and a
touch fuller than the first CD transfer. Being over three-and-a-half decades
old, the recording was analogue, of course, but the Abbey Road Technology (ART)
remastering from 1998 removed some of the edge one may have noticed in the
earlier full-priced CD; not all of it, but enough. Now, the sound is even
better in Hi-Q’s audiophile remastering, and it makes Previn’s interpretation,
full of love and lust and other sensual delights, an even greater delight.

EMI recorded the
music in Kingsway Hall, London, in December of 1974, and the sonic quality was
well up to EMI’s customary high standards of the day. Hi-Q use the JVC XRCD K2
disc processing system and had JVC remastered and manufacture the disc in Japan.
The XRCD K2 system is a meticulous technique that begins with the analogue
signal digitized directly into K2 24-bit, sent to JVC for playback via Digital
K2 to eliminate jitter and distortion, converted using K2 Super Coding to 16
bit, and encoded using a DVD K2 laser with JVC’s Extended Pit Cutting
Technology, the operation controlled by a K2 Rubidium Clock supposedly over
10,000 times more accurate than a conventional crystal clock. What all this
means is that the process is about as precise and accurate as you can get in
transferring an analogue tape signal to compact disc.

As usual, I put the
Hi-Q disc into one CD player and the latest EMI issue into another, changing
them out from time to time during my comparison to ensure I was listening to
the discs and not the players. What I heard did not surprise me, although it
was not a night-and-day difference, just a subtle improvement in the sound of
the Hi-Q product. The EMI appeared a tad forward and bright, especially during
the predominately vocal sections, while being a touch veiled, too. The Hi-Q was
just that much clearer and more dynamic. Remember, the differences I heard were
not the kind you might even notice except on direct A-B comparison. Impact,
transients, and bass were also tauter on the Hi-Q, and highs sounded better
extended.

This is not to
suggest that because the Hi-Q disc further clarifies the sound that it makes it
any less forward or bright; it’s just makes it a bit more open and transparent.
Surprisingly, perhaps, the biggest improvements I noticed were in the quieter moments
of the music, the wider dynamic range and greater lucidity of the Hi-Q product
effecting a better low-level response.

If you already own
one of the EMI Previn discs and like it well enough to think it warrants an
upgrade in sonics, the Hi-Q release may be just the thing you’re looking for.
Moreover, if you don’t already own the recording in any form, you might
consider Hi-Q if you have a really super playback system and very deep pockets
because the Hi-Q doesn’t come cheap.

The only other
recordings I can think of that compare favorably with Previn’s are Blomstedt’s
with the San Francisco Symphony (Decca), Ormandy’s with the Philadelphia
Orchestra (Sony), and Jochum’s with the German Opera Orchestra (DG). Yet Previn
has the definite advantage in sound if you go all the way with the Hi-Q
remaster. Besides, Hi-Q Records package the disc in a very substantial and
beautifully illustrated Digipak, with note pages fastened book-like inside. As
always, it’s a first-class presentation.

JJP

Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 (HQCD review)

Carl Schuricht,
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. HDTT HQCD265.

Patience.

For me, listening to a Bruckner symphony takes patience.
Plenty of it. In part, this is because Austrian organist and composer Anton
Bruckner (1824-1896) wrote long symphonies. Very long symphonies. And in part
it’s because beyond hewing to conventional four-movement structures, Bruckner
ventured into new harmonic, even dissonant styles. Sometimes, the listener must
sit and wait in vain for a major thematic element to manifest itself, and then
wait some more for Bruckner to develop it. Nevertheless, when performed by the
right people, Bruckner’s music can be quite satisfying, reaching heights of
spiritual ecstasy seldom attempted by other composers. Among conductors who
have brought joy to recorded Bruckner performances are Eugen Jochum, Otto
Klemperer, Herbert von Karajan, Karl Bohm, Bruno Walter, Gunter Wand, Herbert
Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Sir Roger Norrington, and the man under
consideration here, German conductor Carl Schuricht (1880-1967).

Schuricht never seemed to have gotten quite the credit he
deserves, perhaps because he made so few recordings for major record labels
compared to the conductors mentioned above, although to be fair he did a number
of things for EMI and Decca late in his career. HDTT, for instance, took this
Bruckner Third from a 1965 EMI
recording. For the listener new to Bruckner or for the old Bruckner hand,
Schuricht’s performances make a good starting point as he clarifies the
composer’s intentions so well. In effect, he simplifies Bruckner for us while
never diminishing the composer’s work.

Actually, none of Bruckner’s nine symphonies really took
off with the public until he premiered his Fourth
Symphony, maybe because the Fourth acquired a nickname, “Romantic,”
and because Bruckner gave each of its movements descriptive titles. He hadn’t
done it before and didn’t do it again. In any case, he wrote his Symphony No. 3 in D minor, WAB103, in
1873, revising it (as he was wont to do with all his works) in 1877, 1880,
1889, and beyond. What we get here is Schuricht’s interpretation of the final
revised version of 1889 in an edition published by Theodore Rattig in 1890. Whether
you agree that it’s the best version to perform, since it contains some major
changes, cuts, and additions, is beside the point; Bruckner himself never
seemed entirely satisfied with any of his compositions and often made revisions
on the advice of friends, whether those revisions were good for the music or
not.

The Third Symphony
is grand, heroic, and often majestic, yet under Schuricht we hear more of the
beauty, lilt, and lyricism of Beethoven and Schubert than of, say, the sublime,
melodramatic intensity of Bruckner’s contemporary, Richard Wagner. Schuricht
does not romanticize the music despite its being solidly grounded in the
Romantic tradition. What’s more, Schuricht ties the various musical strands
together as well as anybody. Bruckner tended to be a bit Raggedy Annie about
his themes, so seeing the connections is important.

The conductor maintains a no-nonsense approach throughout
the symphony yet still captures much of the work’s elusive beauty. The
performance has a fleet pace while ensuring a smooth, orderly flow of ideas.
This doesn’t make it any better a symphony--it’s still too long and too diffuse
for my taste--but it makes it a lot easier to listen to than most other
interpretations. Besides, the Vienna Philharmonic, always one of the world’s
great orchestras, never sounded richer, more luxurious, or more precise.

Of all the movements in the symphony, it’s the Adagio that for me fares best, a lovely,
rhapsodic set of melodies, which Schuricht handles delicately yet without
sentimentality. The Scherzo skips
along at a cheerily enlivening clip, followed by a truly moving finale. Anyone
interested in the Bruckner Third Symphony
might consider starting here.

EMI recorded the music at the Vienna Musikvereinssaal in
1965, where they obtained excellent results, transferred with loving care to
the HQCD product to which I listened. The sound is very transparent, with a
good sense of orchestral depth, a wide dynamic range, a broad stereo spread, a
strong impact, and a taut bass. It’s a tad forward in the lower treble, giving
it an additional clarity. Moreover, there’s just enough warmth, resonance, and
acoustical air to provide a realistic sense of occasion. In short, this may be
the best-sounding recording of any Bruckner symphony currently on the market.

For further information about HDTT discs and downloads,
you can check out their Web site at
http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/storefront.php.

JJP

Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (CD review)

Fabio Luisi, Vienna
Symphony. Wiener Symphonikor WS 001.

Maybe it’s just me, but there appears to be a slew of new
Mahler recordings every month. Is there any composer save Beethoven who gets as
much attention in the music world? I dunno. I suspect it’s in part because
Mahler’s music has so much variety that it appeals to all kinds of listeners
and because Mahler recordings have such a wide range of frequencies, contrasts,
and dynamics that they appeal to hi-fi enthusiasts.

Whatever, here’s another entry, a recording of the Mahler First that appears to be a part of a
cycle of Mahler symphonies from Italian Maestro Fabio Luisi, the Chief
Conductor of the Vienna Symphony and the newly named Principal Conductor of the
Metropolitan Opera. Although I was not familiar with Maestro Luisi’s work until
now, on this disc he impressed me with his precise yet passionate execution.
Certainly a conductor to watch.

Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
completed his Symphony No. 1 in D major in 1888 while still in his
twenties. Years later, fellow Austrian composer Arnold Schonberg suggested that
the First summed up everything that
Mahler would elaborate upon in his later music. Mahler said he was trying to
describe in the First Symphony a progression of his
protagonist facing life, beginning with the lighter moments of youth to the
darker years of maturity. Mahler even called it a tone poem at first rather
than a symphony, and he gave each movement a programmatic title (which he later
regretted). Maybe Schonberg was right because we do see the same thematic and
stylistic elements in the rest of Mahler’s symphonies.

In the first movement, “Spring without End,” Mahler
represents his youthful hero in the symbolic stirring of Nature before a long
spring. Luisi handles the long, lyrical opening sequence beautifully, evoking
the delicate longings of Spring with grace and beauty and, symbolically, the
humanity and culture that comes with it. We can hear in the music both the high
spirituality and the moralistic suffering that would befall the hero and
Mankind itself. Seldom do we find the music so carefully thought out,
structured, and presented as it is here.

In the second-movement Scherzo,
“With Full Sail,” we find Mahler in one of his early mock-sentimental moods,
displaying an exuberance that he may have meant as ironic. Again, we get both a
dramatic yet intellectual approach from the conductor. He emphasizes precise
outlines for the music, a little too deliberate, perhaps, but clearly
underlining the hero’s fullest entry into a complex world.

The third movement is an intentionally awkward funeral
march depicting a hunter’s fairy-tale burial, coming off as a typical Mahler
parody. It may represent the hero’s first glimpse of death or possibly Mahler’s
own recollection of a youthful encounter with the death of a loved one. This
movement has long been one of the Mahler’s most controversial, with audiences
still debating just what the composer was trying to suggest. Perhaps life is as
sardonic as the juxtaposition of the grotesque funeral march, the rustic music,
and the lovely ballad depict? Be that as it may, Luisi makes the distinctions
as obvious as possible for the listener.

In the finale, Mahler conveys the panic “of a deeply
wounded heart,” as his central figure faces the suffering of life and fate.
Nevertheless, Mahler, always the spiritual optimist, wanted Man to triumph in
the end, even though he left open to question how Man would succeed. In these
final twenty minutes or so, Mahler pulls out all the stops and puts the
orchestra into full swing, making it an audiophile favorite for home playback.
However, we must ask at this point in the symphony if life’s tumults truly come
to a resolution in the hero’s final victory over life’s ups and down, or if the
triumph is illusory, a temporary conquest, as ironic as the preceding funeral
march. Luisi wants us to be sure to see that as Mahler’s final question, and he
nicely pinpoints the final dualities. There is nothing easy here about the
music or our understanding of it. Life is not that simple say Mahler and Luisi:
Get used to it.

With the music’s questions so well framed, Luisi’s
interpretation is among the most satisfying I’ve heard in years. In a field
already overcrowded with names like Solti, Haitink, Bernstein, Horenstein,
Tennstedt, Mackerras, and the like, Luisi produces a distinctive mark of his
own.

The Vienna Symphony made the recording in the ORF Radio
Kulturhaus, Vienna, in 2012. I’m glad they chose to do it as a studio
performance and not live, since they got a better-sounding recording out of it,
free of extraneous audience noise. The sonics display an excellent sense of
depth, a wide frequency response, and a strong dynamic impact. The music comes
across as airy and open, with a bass that’s taut and well defined, if not
particularly deep. Because there is a wide dynamic response involved, the
general volume level is somewhat low, so handle the gain accordingly. Overall,
the sound is a tad lean, yet it is also quite smooth and natural, conveying a
realistic feeling of being in front an actual symphony orchestra.

JJP

Britten: Simple Symphony (CD review)

Also, Temporal Variations; A Charm of Lullabies; Lachrymae; Suite on
English Folk Tunes. Steuart Bedford, Northern Sinfonia. Naxos 8.557205.

There probably isn’t
another conductor alive who knows the works of Benjamin Britten better than
Steuart Bedford. A booklet note tells us that he was an occasional collaborator
with the composer and conducted Britten’s operas “throughout the world,
including the world première of Death in
Venice in 1973.” I don’t know if that qualifies Bedford’s interpretations
as the most definitive ones--Previn, Hickox, Handley, Marriner, Rattle, and the
composer himself being no slouches with the scores--but Bedford certainly makes
them enjoyable.

I have to admit,
though, that I liked the first and last of the five works on the disc best.
They would be the youthful Simple
Symphony (1934) and the far more mature but still enthusiastic Suite on English Folk Tunes (1974). The
three other pieces, Temporal Variations
(1936), A Charm of Lullabies (1947),
and Lachrymae (1976) are a bit too
serious and somber for my taste. Still, Bedford performs them all in an
obviously loving manner, with no excessive affectations to mar the naturalness
of the music.

The Naxos sound goes
a long way as well toward helping one enjoy the album. The Naxos engineers have
created a wonderfully clean, detailed soundstage, with instruments well defined
and frequency balances well gauged. As the Northern Sinfonia is a relatively
small group (Britten intended the music for chamber orchestras or even
quartets), the textures would presumably be more transparent, anyway, but the
Naxos sonics make a good thing even better. Well, actually, the relatively low
price probably makes it even better. I mean, what more could one ask for than
excellent performances in excellent sound at the such a reasonable price?

JJP

Tchaikovsky: 1812 (XRCD24 review)

Also, Marche Slave;
Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. Andre Previn, London Symphony Orchestra.
Hi-Q Records HIQSXR7.

After a successful musical career in Hollywood, pianist,
composer, and conductor Andre Previn became the Music Director of the Houston Symphony
Orchestra in 1967 and then the Principal Conductor of the London Symphony
Orchestra in 1968, serving in the latter post until 1979. Although he has gone
on to do more good work with various orchestras, it was during his tenure with
the LSO that he made some of his finest recordings, at first with RCA but
mostly with EMI. Indeed, it is with the LSO during the Seventies that Previn
made some now legendary EMI recordings, which are only just now seeing the
audiophile remasterings they deserve.

In 2002 JVC remastered Previn’s EMI recording of
Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream
on an XRCD, but that seemed to be the end of it. Until recently, as Hi-Q
Records have taken up the slack, using JVC’s XRCD24 K2 processing to do a
series of remasterings of material by Previn and others. It’s about time, I
say. Up until these releases, the best we could get from the EMI material were
the regular reissues from EMI Japan, with their very slightly better dynamics
and bass than the regular British product. Now, it’s Hi-Q and JVC to the rescue
again.

Anyway, Previn always seemed to me to have a somewhat
limited repertoire, yet what he did perform and record (mostly English,
American, and Russian material, with the aforementioned Mendelssohn thrown in)
was always among the best available. Certainly, that applies to the disc under
discussion, Tchaikovsky’s popular 1812
Overture.

Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) wrote the 1812 Overture in 1880 to celebrate
Russia's defense of Moscow against Napoleon's advancing army at the Battle of
Borodino in 1812. As usual with the composer, he didn’t like the work very
much. He complained that he was "not a conductor of festival pieces"
and that the Overture would be
"very loud and noisy, but without artistic merit because I wrote it without
warmth and without love.” Whatever, along with a couple of his ballets and
symphonies, it has become his most-famous and most often performed work.

Of the multitudinous recordings of the 1812, only a few truly stand out: Antal
Dorati’s old Mercury Living Presence version for its sheer excitement, Erich
Kunzel’s Telarc disc with its thrilling cannon fire, and Sian Edwards’s and
Fritz Reiner’s sane and sensible accounts for EMI and RCA respectively would be
on my own short list. But Previn’s EMI performance still tops the field, for me
the most imaginative and atmospheric interpretation of the bunch, the one that
holds my attention from beginning to end no matter how many times I listen to
it. And that’s no mean feat, given how hackneyed much of the 1812 has become through sheer
repetition. Apparently, I’m not the only one who likes what Previn did with the
work, either, considering that his recording has been continuously in the EMI
catalogue on LP and CD for over forty years.

In the 1812
Previn starts very slowly, building up the momentum incrementally rather than
going for broke in the first half. Then, when he does heighten the music’s
power, the piece really gets rolling. By the time Previn reaches the big
climactic moments toward the end, he has created a genuinely exciting
experience for the listener. The final five minutes are thrilling, indeed!

Previn goes on to handle the two couplings equally well.
The Marche Slave, which I have
usually thought of as Tchaikovsky’s 1812
without the cannons, has presence and bite. What’s more, the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture is
supremely romantic:  lush, lyrical, and
rhapsodic. Previn has the measure of all these works and isn’t afraid to let
his emotions show. Maybe that comes from his Hollywood days.

EMI recorded the music in 1972 at Kingsway Hall, London,
and obviously did a good job. However, I always felt the LP sounded better on
the whole than the compact disc, the CD transfer seeming a little softer and
woolier to me. So how would this newly remastered audiophile edition sound?
After all, Hi-Q Records took the recording directly from the original master
tape and engineered it employing JVC’s XRCD K2 processing, a meticulous
technique that begins with the analogue signal digitized directly into K2 24-bit,
sent to JVC for playback via Digital K2 to eliminate jitter and distortion,
converted using K2 Super Coding to 16 bit, and encoded using a DVD K2 laser
with JVC’s Extended Pit Cutting Technology, the operation controlled by a K2
Rubidium Clock they claim is over 10,000 times more accurate than a
conventional crystal clock. I think what all this means is that the process
Hi-Q uses, much as companies like FIM/LIM and JVC themselves use, is about as
precise and accurate as one can get in transferring an analogue tape signal to
compact disc.

I put the Hi-Q disc in one player and the regular EMI
version in another and prepared to listen and compare, switching them out from
time to time ensure I was actually comparing discs and not CD players. The
first thing I noticed about the EMI disc, which I hadn’t listened to in a few
years, was that it was a tad fat and clouded. The Hi-Q was tauter, more
transparent, with a bit less upper and mid-bass overhang. In other words, there
was less veiling involved. Next, on the Hi-Q I heard more bite on the snare
drums, the overall transient quickness and dynamic impact better. High notes
were more open on the Hi-Q as well, better clarified.

Each time I went back to the EMI issue, I heard a distinct
muffling of the sound. Now, I know what you are really wondering: How do those
cannons come off in the Hi-Q 1812?
Just fine is the answer, tighter and better defined than on the EMI disc. Just
don’t expect Telarc cannon fire; they aren’t quite in that league. I’ve long
thought it odd, too, that the second bank of cannons on the EMI LP and CD never
sounded as deep as the first round; I don’t know why this is, but it’s the same
on the Hi-Q mastering.

Meanwhile, it is actually on the accompanying pieces that
the Hi-Q sounds best. For whatever reason, the Marche Slave and Romeo and
Juliet pieces seem even more transparent on the XRCD24 remastering. Again,
I don’t know why. Maybe I was just becoming more used to the sound of both
discs and better able to discern differences. In any event, I think the nature
of the source material is such that while neither disc displays quite as much
clarity, depth, impact, or air as it might, there is no doubt the Hi-Q
remastering is the superior of the two. Even if it’s not a day-and-night
difference, it’s plainly audible.

In addition to the precision processing, Hi-Q Records
package the disc in a very substantial, beautifully illustrated Digipak, with
note pages fastened book-like inside. It is a high-class product, although it
doesn’t come cheap. Unless you have very deep pockets, it’s the sort of product
you buy to replace a favored recording that you want to own and listen to in
the very best possible sound. Even if it’s only marginally better, it should be
worthwhile to dedicated audiophiles looking to obtain the last ounce of great
sound from their multi-buck playback systems.

JJP

Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 (HQCD review)

Also, Symphony No.
7. Pierre Monteux, London Symphony Orchestra; Lorin Maazel, Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra. HDTT HQCD266.

When I was very, very young in the early 1950’s, there
were three conductors’ names I recognized: 
Leopold Stokowski, Arturo Toscanini, and Pierre Monteux. Stokowski
because I had seen Fantasia and just
thought the name sounded important; Toscanini because, well, he was Toscanini,
the greatest conductor in the world for, like, forever; and Monteux because I
grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and he had been at that time the
conductor of the San Francisco Symphony for many years. So I’ve always had a
special place in my heart for these musicians, and I certainly welcome
Monteux’s Sibelius Second back into
the audiophile catalogue.

Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) wrote seven
symphonies, and of them his First and
Second are probably the most popular.
The thing is, there are so many great recordings available, it’s hard to have a
favorite. In the Second, I think
about the stereo recordings of Sir John Barbirolli (Chesky and EMI), the pair
from Sir Colin Davis (Philips and RCA), plus recordings from George Szell
(Philips), Herbert von Karajan (EMI), Osmo Vanska (BIS), and others. Still,
it’s hard not to like Monteux’s 1958 version, too, and given its excellent
sound in this HDTT remastering, I’d put it near the top of any list.

Sibelius wrote his Symphony
No. 2 in D major, Op. 43, in 1902, conducting the première the same year
and revising it a year later. Although the public quickly dubbed it his
“Symphony of Independence,” there is some debate as to whether the composer
actually intended any symbolic significance in the piece. Be that as it may, it
ends in a gloriously victorious finale that surely evokes a feeling of freedom
and self-reliance.

Monteux nicely develops the opening Allegretto without undue distorting, romanticizing, or glorifying
of the melodies or rhythms. There is both poetry and power here aplenty. The
conductor shapes the music well, starting gently and becoming dynamic and
exciting by turns, while keeping the work’s traditional Nordic roots intact.
The London Symphony Orchestra play it brilliantly, the engineers capturing a
remarkable clarity of tone.

In the second-movement Andante,
the longest section of the symphony, Monteux manages to hold our attention for
the duration, despite the somewhat repetitious introductory pizzicato pace the
composer demands. Following that, again we hear a powerful statement from the
orchestra, with Monteux showing only a hint of darkness in the music amidst a
veritable storm of passions, after which he ends it with an appropriate calm.

The third movement is an expected Scherzo, which Sibelius marks Vivacissimo
(very lively). Once more, Sibelius starts it with a repetition of notes,
and once more Monteux ensures that it doesn’t just become redundant. There’s a
good deal of vigor and vitality in the conductor’s reading. Then, without
pause, we find ourselves into the Finale,
where Monteux puts an energetic spirit into the heroic main theme, sustained
beautifully until the triumphant conclusion. Monteux makes grand statements of
Sibelius’s grand statements.

The disc’s coupling is Sibelius’s little Symphony No. 7, Op. 105, from 1925.
Here, we find Maestro Lorin Maazel and the Vienna Philharmonic doing another of
their finely polished, perfectly punctuated interpretations of the symphonies.
The performance is as smooth and suave as the recording quality.

Decca recorded the Symphony
No. 2 at Kingsway Hall, London, in 1958, and it remains one of their best
efforts of the period. The folks at HDTT have remastered the sound to excellent
effect, especially on the HQCD to which I listened, the sonics very full, very
open, very clean, and very rich. You’ll find good detail and transparency here
without the balance being too forward, glassy, or hard (although, to be fair,
there is a touch of that involved, a common quality in early Decca stereo
recordings). The stereo spread is wide, with a modest sense of orchestral
depth, reasonably quick transients, and good impact. Decca made the Symphony No. 7 recording in the
Sofiensaal, Vienna, in 1966, where they obtained a slightly smoother overall
response, with an even wider stereo spread, a bit more depth, and a tad more
distanced miking. If it’s not quite as transparent as the Symphony No. 2, it makes up for it with an easy listenability.

For further information about HDTT discs and downloads,
you can check out their Web site at
http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/storefront.php.

JJP