Mozart/Strauss: Oboe Concertos (CD review)

Cristina Gomez Godoy, oboe; Daniel Barenboim, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. Warner Classics 0190295077600.

By John J. Puccio

It’s true the oboe takes something of a backseat when it comes to being the featured instrument in a concerto, but there have been a surprising number of such concertos since the introduction of the oboe in the mid seventeenth century. Composers like Albinoni, Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Telemann, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, R. Strauss, plus a perhaps surprising plethora of more-modern composers have all contributed to the genre. On the current disc, oboist Cristina Gomez Godoy, conductor Daniel Barenboim, and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra offer two popular examples of their kind, one from Mozart and a later one from Richard Strauss.

First, though, a word about the performers. Ms. Godoy is a Spanish oboist who made her recital debut at Carnegie Hall, New York and Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin in 2019. According to her Web site, “for the season 2020/21 she has been selected as ECHO Rising Star 2020/21 nominated by L’Auditori Barcelona, which will bring her to perform as a recitalist and chamber musician at the main European venues.” The present disc represents Ms. Godoy’s debut album for Warner Classics. Maestro Barenboim (b. 1943) hardly needs introduction. He is a concert pianist and conductor with citizenships in Argentina, Israel, Palestine, and Spain, with countless personal appearances and as many recordings. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is one that Barenboim and Edward Said founded in 1999 “to promote understanding between Israelis and Palestinians and pave the way for a peaceful and fair solution of the Arab–Israeli conflict.”

The first selection on the album is the earliest, the Oboe Concerto in C, K.314, written by a relatively young Mozart in 1777. Typical of the composer, it has an alert, bouncy style in the opening Allegro, a lovely Adagio, and a delightfully bouyant Rondo finale. This is met with some equally perky playing from Ms. Godoy and her partners. Mozart never seemed to run out of beguiling tunes, but if these particular melodies sound familiar, it’s because he used them again a year or so later in his Flute Concerto. Whatever, Ms. Godoy’s playing is sweet and light, charming throughout.

The second selection is the Concerto in D for Oboe and Small Orchestra, TrV 292, one of Richard Strauss’s last works, written in 1945. Now, you might think it odd to pair two such diverse composers as Mozart and Strauss on the same program, yet when you hear the two compositions for oboe side-by-side you can’t help hear the influence of the former on the latter. Of course, it’s  propitious that Ms. Godoy plays both of them with the same gentle, mellifluous touch. The honeyed charm of her instrument and the alluring fascination of her performances cannot help but persuade us like what she does.

Strauss may not have been in the modern fashion of the times with his throwback oboe concerto, but one cannot deny the appeal of Strauss’s Classical decisiveness and succinctness, along with the score’s Romantic flowering and emotionalism. The music spirals forward in each of tis traditional three movements from several tiny fragments in the beginning, culminating in a jazzy, snazzy final movement that Ms. Godoy seems to enjoy as much as the listener. Maestro Barenboim also appears to be as saucy in his direction of both the Mozart and Strauss as he was fifty-odd years earlier with the English Chamber Orchestra in some of the finest recordings of Mozart symphonies and piano concertos around. So, it’s a double pleasure to have a new, young friend with us in Ms. Godoy and an older friend back in such fine form.

Producer Friedemann Engelbrecht and engineer Julian Schwenkner recorded the concertos at Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin, Germany in July and August 2019. The miking is slightly farther back than I’ve heard in a while, but it opens up the orchestra to some realistic depth and imaging. The tonal balance does tend to favor the top half of the spectrum over the bottom half, so it’s a bit bright on occasion.

JJP

Strauss, R.: The Happy Workshop (CD review)

Also, Serenade, Op. 7. George Vosburgh, Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble. Reference Recordings FR-745.

By John J. Puccio

The German composer Richard Strauss died in 1949. Among his last half dozen or so works was the Sonatina No 2 in E-flat major, “The Happy Workshop,” written for 16 wind instruments. His publishers later changed the title to Symphony for Winds thinking that since it was fairly long and in several movements, it more closely resembled a symphony than a sonata. Or maybe they figured it would sell better if given the more imposing designation of “symphony.” Whatever, it also bears the listing “posthumous,” even though Strauss wrote it in 1945-46 and was very much alive (and in attendance) for its first public performance. Go figure.

In any case, Strauss is probably most famous today for his having written a whole string of Romantic tone poems (Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, Ein Heldenleben, Symphonia Domestica, An Alpine Symphony), and then pretty much abandoning the genre for the last three or more decades of his life. After the tone poems, he shifted to operas, songs, concertos, and various short works in a more modern style. But “The Happy Workshop” was one of the exceptions, returning to his roots, so to speak. On the present disc, we find conductor and trumpeter George Vosburgh leading the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble on a Reference Recordings CD.

So, why the subtitle “The Happy Workshop”? Strauss gives us a clue with his dedication on the work’s title page: “To the spirit of the divine Mozart at the end of a life full of gratitude.” Certainly, Strauss shows an allegiance to Mozart in references throughout the music and perhaps empathized with Mozart’s struggles toward the end of his life. Then, too, Strauss had spent the years before the composition living in Nazi Germany as a “non-person” and was ill for much of the time. The work preceding the “The Happy Workshop,” the Sonatina No. 1,  he had dubbed “From an Invalid’s Workshop.” Maybe feeling better physically and being out from under the yoke of Nazism prompted him to add the optimistic caption to the second work.

Anyway, the music opens with a fairly lengthy (about fifteen minutes) Allegro con brio (quick, lively, with great energy). That’s followed by two relatively short middle sections (a little over four minutes each), an Andantino, sehr gemachlich (a little faster than an andante, but still slowly, leisurely); and a Minuet, etwas lebhaft (a stately court dance, in a lively fashion). The piece concludes with a movement he called Enlietung, (Andante) und Allegro, which begins somewhat gloomily but soon gives way to more energetic and hopeful themes.

Of course, the Carnegie Mellon players do the piece justice, as we might expect from an ensemble that has been around since 1908. Maestro Vosburgh has been their Director since 2011. They dance through the music with a smooth, graceful, subtle, yet expressive agility. It was fun listening to them move effortlessly from Strauss’s more serious passages to his light, witty ones. They handle the two, brief central movements especially well, too, the Andantino willowy and supple, with some charming little interludes, and the Minuet elegant and refined. The finale movement is a tad problematic, moving as it does from one mood swing to another, yet here they also manage the transition with the utmost poise, ending on the sweetest of notes.

Coupled with “The Happy Workshop” is the Serenade, Op. 7 (for 13 wind instruments), one of Strauss’s early works, written in 1882 when he was still in his teens. Strauss wrote a ton of music in his youth, only a few of which later got opus numbers, this one significantly. The album pairs the Serenade with the Sonatina No 2 as bookends to Strauss’s career, showing how in the composer’s later life he returned to his early, more Classical-Romantic origins. Under Maestro Vosburgh’s direction, the tone of the Serenade is remarkably similar to that of the “The Happy Workshop,” and it makes a fitting finale to the album.

Producers George Vosburgh and Stephen Story and engineers Sean Royce Martin, Keith O. Johnson, and Riccardo Schulz recorded the music a Kresge Theatre, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Like most Reference Recordings, this one is quite natural, both in its perspective and its frequency balance. The room is always present in a medium-distanced miking scheme, with a fair amount of ambient bloom. The overall effect is warm and inviting, a touch soft, and always listenable.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

R. Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie (SACD review)

Vladimir Jurowski, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin. Pentatone PTC 5186 802.

By John J. Puccio

When German composer Richard Strauss (1864-1949) premiered Eine Alpensinfonie (“An Alpine Symphony”) in 1915, anticipation ran high among classical-music enthusiasts. After all, it was Richard Strauss who had almost single-handedly resurrected and then developed the genre of the tone poem with such profound works as Also Sprach Zarathustra, Death and Transfiguration, Ein Heldenleben, Symfonia Domestica, Don Juan, and Don Quixote. All the same, what audiences wanted and what they got turned out to be two different things, with some critics describing An Alpine Symphony as picture-postcard fluff and others as “cinema music.”

This has not stopped the greatest conductors of the modern era from recording Eine Alpensinfonie, though, with people like Karl Bohm, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Hans Knapperbusch, Evgeny Svetlanov, Yvgeny Mravinsky, Rudolf Kempe, Zubin Mehta, Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, Bernard Haitink, Herbert Blomstedt, Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, and a host of others giving it a shot. Still, the picture-postcard business remains stuck in people’s minds, so in the present recording Russian-British conductor Vladimir Jurowski aims to help people take it more seriously.

Why doesn’t everyone appreciate Strauss’s Alpine Symphony? Maybe because of the program notes the composer provided, which describe the score’s musical ascent of an alpine peak and down again, each segment a tiny musical picture of the journey. Here are Strauss’s program notes, from the opening pages to the closing: Night, Sunrise, The Ascent, Entry into the Forest, Wandering by the Brook, At the Waterfall, Apparition, On Flowering Meadows, On the Alpine Pasture, Through Thickets and Undergrowth on the Wrong Path, On the Glacier, Dangerous Moments, On the Summit, Vision, Mists Rise, The Sun Gradually Becomes Obscured, Elegy, Calm Before the Storm, Thunder and Tempest, Descent, Sunset, Quiet Settles, and Night.

Moreover, even though Strauss called it a “symphony,” it’s clearly not a symphony in the traditional sense. It’s more akin to the composer’s other big tone poems in being episodic and descriptive. I suppose Strauss’s aim was to follow the example of Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony. Certainly, there was an effort to capture the beauty and importance of Nature in the music. Yet it wasn’t enough to satisfy every listener’s hunger for deep philosophical insights into the nature of Man.

For this new disc (the conductor’s second recording of The Alpine Symphony within a few years), Maestro Jurowski suggests that people got it all wrong. He tells us that, yes, the symphony does on the surface recall the climbing of a mountain but that it’s more than that. In a booklet note he explains that “...underneath that ‘structured but un-structural picture-postcard’ lie the deeper layers of a philosophical musical experiment.” He reminds us that “Strauss originally called the work ‘The Antichrist’ (after Nietzsche’s book of the same title), stating that it ‘represents moral purification through one’s own strength, liberation through work, (and) worship of eternal, magnificent nature.’”

Fair enough: Jurowski here attempts to return to Strauss’s original intentions, although I’m not entirely sure how he thought he was doing it. His is a big, bold, grand interpretation in the big, bold, grand tradition of Romantic music (Strauss’s score calls for something like 125 players), yet the result is not particularly revealing of any new or suppressed meaning. It’s impressive and highly suggestive of the segment titles without imparting much that we haven’t heard before. Which is not a bad thing, mind you; it’s a solid and satisfying rendition of the music. It’s just maybe that Jurowski’s reading doesn’t quite live up to the high expectations he sets up for himself.

Anyway, Jurowski starts us off on the right foot with a nicely hushed introduction leading to a well-judged ascent of the mountain. The “Entry into the Forest,” too, is well taken, providing a kind of fairy-tale quality to the music. Under Jurowski’s direction, the “Brook” and the “Waterfall” are appropriately picturesque and expressive, sections that probably gave rise to the “picture postcard” reproaches. Still, the conductor handles them with a serious composure, lending them added strength and credibility. By the time the protagonist crosses the glacier and reaches the mountain’s summit (and the score’s apex) in “Vision,” Jurowski is in complete command. The majesty of the music does, indeed, match the majesty of Nature.

It’s from this point on (down the mountain) that I found Jurowski losing intensity. It’s as though he had put everything into the climb up and wanted to slide back down as effortlessly as possible. Not even the storm comes off with as much tumult or turmoil as I’ve heard from other conductors. Frankly, it seemed a little hurried and the orchestra a little underpowered.

As Mark Twain wrote in “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras Country”: “I don't see no p’ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.” Jurowski’s rendering of Strauss’s music is good, at least in the first half, but doesn’t displace my favored recordings, especially not the two made by Rudolf Kempe (RCA/Testament and EMI/JVC). I suppose a lot of folks will be tempted to buy the Pentatone album because it is presented in the SACD format, and that’s fine, too. They won’t be disappointed. However, I advise considering the alternatives as well.

Producers Florian B. Schmidt, Stefan Lang, and Renaud Loranger and engineers Jorg Peter Urbach and Calvin B. Cooper recorded the music live at the Konzerthaus Berlin in February 2019. They made it for hybrid SACD playback, a two-channel stereo and multichannel SACD layer playable only on an SACD player and a regular two-channel stereo layer playable on any regular CD player. I listened in two-channel SACD.

Despite its being recorded live, with an audience present, the sound is pretty good. It’s miked at a moderate distance rather than being too close up, and the perspective is realistic. The sound is not entirely transparent at this range, particularly with an audience to consider, but it is fairly lifelike, with just enough hall ambience to help it come alive in a warmly natural manner. Dynamics are also good, although because of the difference in volume between the softest and loudest levels, it does need a little gain boost at first. Nevertheless, the sonics still seemed a bit tame compared to several other ordinary stereo versions I own. Maybe I expected a bit too much of SACD, or maybe it only comes to full fruition in multichannel playback.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

R. Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (CD review)

Also, Burleske. Bertrand Chamayou, piano; Antonio
Pappano, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Warner Classics
190295028459.

By John J. Puccio

Richard Strauss (1864-1949), the German composer and
conductor of so many lengthy symphonic tone poems wrote Ein Heldenleben
(“A Hero’s Life”) in 1898 or thereabouts as a tongue-in-cheek autobiography, a
semi-serious portrait of himself. Strauss was only thirty-four years old at the
time, so you can see what self-confidence he must have had by writing so
whimsical a life story at so early an age. He seems to have written it
primarily, though, to get in a few digs at his critics, whom he convincingly
silences through the music. Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell’Accademia
Nazionale di Santa Cecilia give it their all in a big, robustly imposing live
performance.

Strauss divided Ein Heldenleben into seven parts
that describe seven stages in the artist’s life. The first segment, “The Hero,”
obviously describes Strauss himself and does so on a large, swashbuckling
scale. Here, the music is dashing and needs to be presented with plenty of
panache. Next, the music turns to “The Hero’s Adversaries,” his critics, where
we hear them squabbling among themselves in amusing fashion, their
trivialities, to be sure, yet their possibly sinister nature as well. Following
that is “The Hero’s Companion,” his wife, whom the violinist sweetly defines in
solo. Then in the ensuing “Love Scene” we find not only a loving, harmonious
wife but an apparently complex one.

Maestro Pappano takes the big sections, like the opening,
in a grand, full-blooded manner. It loses subtlety but makes up for it in
grandeur. The Hero’s wife, played by solo violin, is nicely done, with fine
inflection and feeling. While I’d like to single out this solo violinist, the
booklet notes don’t indicate who it is. I will assume it was the concertmaster,
Roberto Gonzalez-Monjas. Well done, sir.

“The Hero’s Battlefield” is the centerpiece of the work,
where Strauss engages in all-out war with his critics, reminding them
(musically) of his accomplishments with bits from his own Don Juan and Also
sprach Zarathustra, as well as a few horns from Beethoven’s Eroica
Symphony. It’s music filled with urgency and excitement but should not be
hectic or bombastic. Here, I would have liked more impetus, even more energy
from Pappano. Still, the recording makes up for any lack of muscularity in the
performance with plenty of bite and impact in the sound.

“The Hero’s Works of Peace” is another slow movement,
again a remembrance of the composer’s previous tone poems as an almost-final
rebuke of his foes. After that, the work closes with “The Hero’s Retirement
from the World and His Fulfillment,” the longest movement, a concluding note of
possible contentment and repose for a life of art well spent. Remember, this is
coming from a fellow who at the time was relatively young, so Strauss no doubt
meant it more than a bit ironically, maybe sarcastically. I liked these final
sections in Maestro Pappano’s hands more than I did his treatment of the first
parts. He seems more in the spirit of the proceedings as things go along.

Coupled with Heldenleben Maestro Pappano has chosen
another Strauss work, the shorter Burleske in D minor for piano and
orchestra (1885-86), with pianist Bertrand Chamayou. It’s an early work,
written by Strauss when he was twenty-one. Originally, Strauss had written it
for pianist and conductor Hans von Bulow, who thought it a “complicated piece
of nonsense,” with an unplayable piano part, and refused to perform it. Well,
the title translates into “farce” or “mockery,” so what did he expect? It
eventually became one of Strauss’s personal favorite works. Chamayou handles
the solo piano with appropriate flair, and Pappano’s accompaniment follows in a
like manner. The music is fun, and Chamayou and Pappano seem to be enjoying
themselves.

Producer and engineer Giacomo De Caterini recorded Ein
Heldenleben live at the Auditorium Parco della musica, Rome in January 2018
and Burleske in October 2020. Because the engineer recorded Heldenleben
live, it’s rather close-up and without much orchestral depth. It also appears
slightly dull for some reason. There are, however, compensating dynamic and
frequency ranges of strength and width that help Strauss’s heroic music come
alive. The Burleske comes off much better sonically. It sounds more
robust and a little more dimensional.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Recent New Releases (CD mini-reviews)

By
Karl W. Nehring

Hilary
Hahn: Paris
Chausson:
Poème; Prokofiev: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1;
Rautavaara: Deux Sérénades. Hilary Hahn, violin; Mikko Franck, Orchestre
Philharmonique de Radio France. Deutsche Grammophon  483 9847.

This
new release from the talented American violinist Hilary Hahn is a delight from
start to finish. Although the album title and orchestra might lead you to
assume a program featuring all French composers, that is not the case here, for
in addition to the French composer Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) we have also
music by the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) and the Finnish
composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016). Hahn reveals her deep affection for
and kinship with the City of Light in an essay in which she explains that in
addition to her many other connections with Paris, her violin was made in Paris
way back in 1865 by a famed luthier whose shop has in the 21st century been
replaced by a convenience store. On a brighter note, she also reveals that she
had long desired to record the Prokofiev, one of her favorite and
most-performed pieces, but was waiting for the right combination of time,
place, orchestra, and conductor, which she realized in Paris with Franck and
the OPRF in June of 2019. The end result is truly lovely, well worth the wait
both for her and for us. Those who might associate Prokofiev with spiky,
boisterous music would do well to listen to this performance of his Violin
Concerto No. 1, which is lyrical, lively, and lovely. Hahn describes the
Chausson Poème with which she opens the program as “raw, lush,
heartbreakingly beautiful… it takes my breath away.” Although I have in the
past owned recordings of this piece, and enjoyed them, I had not heard the
piece in many years until I auditioned this new recording, and yes, I found it
to be much as she described. It truly is a marvelous work, well worth seeking
out if you have not yet encountered it. The background story behind the Deux
Sérénades by Rautavaara that complete this release is told in the liner
notes, a tale that I will not relate here but will rather leave for those who
might be interested to seek out for themselves. The music is quite enjoyable,
but in truth, does not quite sound complete, which a reading of the liner notes
will explain. All in all, Paris is a heartfelt and satisfying release
from some consummate musicians.

Parallels:
Shellac Reworks by Christian Löffler
Wagner:
Parsifal: Closing Scene (Arr. for Orchestra). Max von Schillings,
Staatskapelle Berlin (1926-27); Smetana: The Moldau (excerpt). Erich
Kleiber, Staatskapelle Berlin (1928); J.S. Bach: Dir, dir Jehova, will ich
singen BWV 452. Karl Straube, Thomanerchor Leipzig; Helmut Walcha, organ
(1927); J.S. Bach: Gavotte from English Suite No. 6, BWV 811. Alfred
Grunfeld, piano (1911); Chopin: Nocturne No. 2 in E flat Major Op. 9 No. 2 (arr.
De Sarasate). Charles Cerne, piano; Vasa Prihoda, violin (1929); Bizet: Nadir’s
Aria from Les pecheurs des perles. Koloman von Pataky, tenor; unknown
orchestra (1928); excerpts from four works by Beethoven: Symphony No. 6.
Hans Pfitzner, Staatskapelle Berlin (1930); Symphony No. 5, 2. Satz.
Richard Strauss, Staatskapelle Berlin (1928); Egmont Overture. Otto
Klemperer, Staatskapelle Berlin (1927); Symphony No. 3, 2. Marcia funebre.
Hans Pfitzner, Berliner Philharmoniker (1929). Christian Löffler, electronics.
Deutsche Grammophon 4839660.

This
is a recording that truly blends the old and the new. Deutsche Grammophon has
one of the oldest sound archives in the world, having taken great care to store
their recorded material ever since the label’s foundation in 1898. Shellac
discs (78s) that held about four minutes of music per side were the dominant
recording format until the 1940s. A number of these historic recordings have
now been digitized and restored, and DG recently teamed with German DJ and
producer Christian Löffler, who hand-picked from this collection of digitized
shellac recordings a set for modern reworking. Löffler is a self-taught
musician whose productions combine elements of dancefloor techno and ambient
electronica. He says that his music “is often described as nostalgic, it’s just
part of my musical world. Sad music – if you want to call it that – has always been
more appealing to me than happy music… I’m quite nerdy when it comes to trendy
music production techniques. I’m very forward thinking and always interested in
new technologies. But many of my trademark sounds come from vintage
synthesizers and old effects devices. I’m just trying to catch the best of any
time period to get the best possible result. My aspiration with this project
was to handle the music with all due respect. That is something I always do
when I work with other people’s music, be it a remix or collaboration. My aim
for Parallels was to bring the soul of my own music into these original
pieces. I also wanted to keep some parts of the original music almost
untouched, to give the listener a better understanding of the original material
in the context of its new ‘home’.” Yes, his description sounds a bit bizarre,
but the end result is fascinating, hypnotic, and haunting. Electronic sounds,
acoustic sounds, voices from nearly a century ago rising from the mix -- this
is a recording that can be enjoyed both in casual and concentrated listening
modes.

Refraction
Alexander
Woods, violin; Rex Woods, piano; Aubrey Smith Woods, violin. MSR Classics MS
1689.

As
you might guess from the names of the performers, this album of music for
violin is a family affair, presented by violinist Alexander Woods along with
his pianist father, Rex Woods, and his violinist wife, Aubrey Smith Woods.
(Perhaps I am being overly sensitive, but I did find it rather odd that on both
the front and back covers the three names are printed in three distinctly
rank-ordered font styles: ALEXANDER WOODS, REX WOODS, Aubrey Smith
Woods. Hmmmm…)  The four composers are a
mix of the familiar and unfamiliar: Dvorak, Asplund, Mozart, and Thorndock. As
the liner notes explain, “although the violin itself has remained virtually
unchanged for centuries, music composed for the instrument has undergone
numerous and vivid transformations, shaped and developed by varied
circumstances, styles and innovations. Like a light beam passing through a prism.
Works written for the violin have, over time, refracted into a broad stylistic
array of vibrant compositional perspectives. This album mingles canonic violin
works from the past with recent compositions that explore this variegated play,
engaging with the rich history of violin music and performance through myriad
lenses.” The album opens with Four Romantic Pieces from Dvorak for
violin and piano, which are played here most romantically and enjoyably, a fine
way to start the program. Unfortunately, the next composition, One Eternal
Round for two violins by Canadian-American composer Christian Asplund (b.
1964), does not fall nearly as naturally on the ear as the others included in
this set. Although it is not aggressively harsh or dissonant as some contemporary
music can be, to these ears at least, it simply lacked any real appeal. YMMV.
But then the players move back to familiar ground with Mozart’s Violin
Sonata No. 26, a refreshing drink of cool, clear water after the dryness of
the Asplund. The final composition, A Crust of Azure by American
composer Neil Thorndock (b. 1977), is said in the liner notes to be “influenced
by the impression of music coming down from the sky, ringing like
reverberations from a bell tower. The evocative movement titles [I. Tremulous
Whirl, II. Refraction of Sky, III. Lavender Shroud] allude to the atmospheric
colors, light effects and sensations that descend from the sky’s ‘crust of
azure.’”  It truly is a colorful piece,
lively and imaginative, well worth an audition for fans of the violin who are
seeking interesting new repertoire. With excellent engineering and helpful
liner notes, MSR Classics has done a first-class job with this release.    

Max
Richter: Voices 2
Max
Richter, piano, keyboards, organ, synthesizer; Mari Samuelsson, solo violin;
Ian Burdge, solo cello; Camilla Pay, harp; Robert Ziegler, conductor; Tenebrae
Choir; various sopranos and altos plus a number of violin, viola, cello, and
double bass players. Decca B00332480-02.

Although Richter’s previous release, Voices (reviewed ) spotlighted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including spoken recitations of the text, Voices 2 is exclusively musical, with no textual recitations. According to Richter, Voices 2 “opens up a meditative instrumental musical space to consider the ideas raised by the first record. The music is less about the world we know already and more about the hope for the future we have yet to write.” Those familiar with Richter’s music will know what to expect: music that is on the one hand relatively simple and straightforward in terms of its melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic construction, yet on the other hand, rich and evocative in terms of its instrumentation, sonority, and emotional resonance. There are some striking sounds to be heard from Richter’s various keyboard instruments both acoustic and electronic, plus some particularly notable musical contributions by Mari Samuelsson on violin and Ian Burdge on cello. And no, you need not have listened to Voices to enjoy its successor, which is quite enjoyable on its own terms. 

Lento
Religioso
Berg:
Piano Sonata op. 1 (arr. Wijnand van Klaveren); Korngold: Lento
Religioso from Symphonic Serenade; Bruckner; Adagio from String Quintet;
Bridge: Lament for string orchestra (for Catherine, aged 9, “Lusitania”
1915); Lekeu: Adagio pour quatuor d’orchestre; Wagner: Prelude
from Tristan und Isolde; Strauss; Prelude from Capriccio. Candida
Thompson, Amsterdam Sinfonietta. Channel Classics CCS 36620.

As a
glance at the titles of the works included in this generously filled (77:41)
disc should suggest, this release features music from the more serious, somber
pages of the classical music catalog. That is not to say, however, that
listening to it is an emotional downer, as this is music of great depth and
exquisite beauty, played with sensitivity by this relatively small string
orchestra. Some of the selections are scaled down (e.g., the Wagner), some are
scaled up (e.g., the Berg and the Bruckner), and some were originally intended
for an ensemble of about this size. The engineering is first-rate, with clean
string tone and a believable soundfield. All in all, an interesting program of
some works a bit off the beaten path that should be especially appealing to
those who appreciate music of a serious, reflective, but nonetheless
aesthetically engaging nature.

Lindberg:
The Waves of Wollongong
Also,
Liverpool Lullabies; 2017. The New Trombone Collective; Evelyn
Glennie, percussion; Christian Lindberg, trombone and conductor, Antwerp
Symphony Orchestra. BIS-2148 SACD.

If I
had to come up with a one-word description of this release by the Swedish
composer, trombonist, and conductor Christian Lindberg (b. 1958) it would be
“robust.” Or maybe “outgoing.” Or possibly even “swaggering.” It most certainly
would not be “reticent” or “tentative.” The opening piece, The Waves of
Wollongong (the title refers to waves the composer had experienced in
Wollongong, Australia) features the nine trombones (three each alto, tenor, and
bass) of The New Trombone Collective making mighty waves of sound along with
the orchestra, while the second piece, Liverpool Lullabies, seems hardly
the sort of music to little ones to sleep as Lindberg on trombone and the
amazing Ms. Glennie on percussion give off plenty of sparks with their
energetic playing. The final piece, 2017, was composed by Lindberg
during that turbulent, discouraging, frightening year as a reaction to the 2016
U.S. presidential election and its disturbing aftermath, and is dedicated to
the journalist Rachel Maddow. Needless to say, it is not a cheerful piece, but
it is musically engaging. As per their usual standard, the BIS engineering team
has captured this robust music in robust, dynamic, swaggering sound that will
tickle your tweeters and waggle your woofers.

Vaughan
Williams: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6
Sir
Antonio Pappano, London Symphony Orchestra. LSO Live SACD LSO0867.

Vaughan
Williams may well be the most underrated symphonic composer. For my money, his
nine rank right up there with the best, and when it comes to the heart of his
symphonic output, Symphonies Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 6, I can’t think of any
composer whose 4-6 I would rate above RVW’s – not Mahler, not Bruckner, not
Sibelius, and no, not even the immortal Beethoven. Of those four RVW
symphonies, the odd-numbered are primarily lyrical and peaceful, while the two
even-numbered symphonies, especially No.4, are much more brash and
assertive. Pappano and the LSO hold nothing back, with the opening notes of No.
4 bursting forth with startling ferocity. This bold beginning sets the tone
for the entire disc, which presents both symphonies forcefully and
energetically. My only quibble is with some harshness in the upper strings; to
be honest, I am not sure how much is the engineering or how much can be
attributed to the vigor of the performance. My first choice in both symphonies has been the Slatkin recordings from his RCA boxed set (now distributed by Sony Music at a bargain price), but for those looking for a single disc of these two remarkable 20th century masterpieces, this new release from Pappano and the LSO is a top choice. Highly recommended.

KWN

Strauss, R.: Thus Spake Zarathustra (CD review)

Also Holst: The Planets. Andrew Litton, Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Delos DE 3225 (2-disc set).



This double album is titled "Dallas Space Spectacular," a designation based on a tenuous connection between Richard Strauss's Thus Spake Zarathustra and the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Because director Stanley Kubrick used Strauss's "Sunrise" Introduction to Zarathustra several times in his 1968 film, I suppose the piece will forevermore be referred to by the general public as "space" music. So be it.



In any event, on the set under review I preferred Andrew Litton's interpretation of Zarathustra to his more hurried performance of Gustav Holst's The Planets. His Zarathustra has real weight and body to it, with the big dramatic climaxes resounding with emotion. Most of Litton's Planets, however, seem like they're spinning crazily out of orbit. Maybe they're rushing to face some unknown cosmic appointment that we don't know about, or maybe Litton himself was rushing to keep a dinner date.

Andrew Litton

Delos recorded the sound in what they called at the time (1998) "Virtual Reality," actually Dolby Pro Logic. It sounds just fine in normal two-channel stereo, but played over a surround-sound system with a center and rear speakers, it is supposed to exhibit enhanced spatial qualities. I tried it in both of my sound systems--in my main, living room system, which uses two, large bi-amplified speakers and in my home theater system located in an adjacent room, which uses seven smaller speakers, a bass woofer, and a Denon 7.1 receiver. The recording sounded best in two channel, not just because the living room speakers are better but because with 7.1 speakers the Dolby Pro Logic matrix fed too much information to the center and rear channels. Frankly, I wasn't about to readjust the levels of the center and rear speakers to accommodate the recording, as a matter of principle. I have yet to hear one of these surround-sound recordings that didn't need some sort of volume adjustment in one or more speakers, and even then I have never been fully satisfied with the sound. I know some people say that Pro Logic was meant only for movie soundtracks, not for the reproduction of music, and I see their point.



Anyway, in two-channel, as I say, it sounded fine. Compared to several other Zarathustra recordings (EMI, Newport Classic Auricle, Philips, DG, and JVC/RCA), however, the Delos sound had less depth, less transparency, and less deep bass. My reference Planets (Hi-Q/EMI), also sounded better than the Delos, with greater depth and clarity. My conclusion, therefore, is that the comparison recordings are better, even if a couple of them are costlier.



Still, you will find nothing to dislike about Delos's sound, either, and Litton's performance of The Planets may even grow on you. So if the set's combination of titles appeals you, there is no serious need to hesitate.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Strauss, R.: Don Quixote (CD review)

Also, works for cello. Ophelie Gaillard, cello; Julien Masmondet, Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Aparte Music AP174.



Quixote. You remember him: the guy with the impossible dream.



Long before the stage musical and film Man of La Mancha, Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) created Don Quixote, the famous elderly gentleman who fancied himself a knight of high ideals, and his sidekick Sancho Panza. Then came German composer Richard Strauss (1864-1949) with his tone poem describing some of Quixote's adventures. Strauss composed the piece in 1896, just a couple of years after Also Sprach Zarathustra and while he was making a name for himself with his highly descriptive, impressionistic musical sketches.



Strauss's Don Quixote is a work for cello, viola, and orchestra. He subtitled it "Phantastische Variationen über ein Thema ritterlichen Charakters" ("Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character") and based the music on episodes from Cervantes's novel Don Quixote de la Mancha. Strauss wrote the score in the form of a theme and variations, with a solo cello depicting Don Quixote, and a solo viola, among other instruments, portraying his squire Sancho Panza. Of the ten variations within the piece, perhaps the most famous is the first one, the Don's "Adventures at the Windmill." The second variation, too, is quite evocative, a section in which Quixote encounters a herd of sheep and sees them as an approaching army. Here, Strauss uses a flutter-tonguing in the brass to represent the bleating of the sheep. It's all quite colorful and fun.



Of course, the question with any new recording of a well-known and oft-recorded piece of music is how well it compares to older, favored performances. For me, some old favorites would include Herbert von Karajan's lush, ripe presentation with Mstislav Rostropovich and the Berlin Philharmonic (EMI); Rudolf Kempe's leaner, tauter interpretation with Paul Tortelier and the Dresden Staatskapelle (EMI); Fritz Reiner's more energetic reading with Antonio Janigro and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (RCA); and Andre Previn's better recorded but more straightforward account with Franz Bartolomey the Vienna Philharmonic (Telarc). The answer to whether this new Aparte recording with Maestro Julien Masmondet, Ms. Ophelie Gaillard, and the Czech National Symphony is any better than the rest is a definite sort of, or maybe, or maybe not.

Ophelie Gaillard

The reason I can't be more enthusiastic about the soloist or interpretation is that it never struck me as being as colorful as it could be. Certainly, Ms. Gaillard's playing is technically beyond reproach, as is the violin work by Alexandra Conunova and the expertise of the Czech orchestra. But the performance itself seems rather reticent. I don't hear much of the old Don's eccentricities, and his adventures seem more than a little mundane rather than sad, humorous, peculiar, stimulating, pathetic, satiric, biting, or inspiring. In other words, I wasn't sure just how Ms. Gaillard and company wanted to represent their Quixote.



I'm sure Strauss intended his musical depiction of the addled old Don to offer some particular point of view on him without actually specifying that point of view, so the choices of approach are boundless. Nevertheless, under the direction of Masmondet and playing of Gaillard, the music simply appears beautiful and well performed, with a little less in the way of secondary responses than one might expect.



Regardless, there's a lot to be said for the beauty of Ms. Gaillard's playing, and the performance makes a charming listening experience. She is especially effectual in the softer, more introspective, more melancholy moments of the score, and one can hardly complain about the serenity of some sections.



Coupled with the main tone poem we find three additional Strauss pieces for cello: the Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 6, with Vassilis Varvaresos, piano; the Romance for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 13; and "Morgan," the final section of Four Songs, Op. 27, arranged for cello, piano, and soprano, with Beatrice Uria Monzon, soprano. Because Strauss probably didn't mean for the listener to ascribe too much literal meaning to these pieces, I found them more effective as pure music.



Artistic Director Nicolas Bartholomee and engineers Nicolas Bartholomee, Maximilien Ciup, and Clement Rousset in conjunction with Little Tribeca recorded the music at the studio of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Prague in 2017 and in Paris, January 2018. The sound they obtained is as good as almost anything I've heard for a while. The solo cello is fairly well balanced with the orchestra; the stereo spread is wide; the highs are sparkling; the dynamic range is strong without being overwhelming, and the impact is good. What's more, the clarity and detailing are very fine, indeed.



My only minor caveats with the sound are that it's a tad closer than I usually like; it doesn't provide a lot of depth, front-to-back perspective; and there is some spotlighting of instruments, with the cello and violin in particular seeming to move closer to the audience at times and then recede into the distance. Fortunately, these issues are relatively small and should not distract most listeners from enjoying the sonics.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" (SACD review)

Also, Richard Strauss: Horn Concerto No. 1. William Caballero, horn; Manfred Honeck, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Reference Recordings FR-728SACD.



Dynamic. That's the best word to describe Manfred Honeck's performance of the Beethoven Third. It's dynamic in terms of Honeck's interpretation and in terms of Soundmirror/Reference Recordings' sonics. Of course, if "dynamic" is not the first thing you want from a Beethoven symphony, you might not appreciate Honeck's way with it. But there is no questioning the excitement the recording generates.



Anyway, you'll recall that in 1804 Beethoven originally wrote his Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" to honor Napoleon Bonaparte, whom the composer greatly admired. However, just before Beethoven premiered the piece in 1805, he learned that Bonaparte had declared himself "Emperor," corrupting the ideals of the French Revolution, so he removed the man's name from the manuscript, inscribing it, instead, "to celebrate the memory of a great man." More important, the symphony marked a turning point in Beethoven's artistic output with its daring length, range, and emotional commitment, marking something of a new beginning in the development of symphonic structure and prompting endless discussions among critics about what it all meant.



The first movement Allegro con brio contains the usual complement of rhythms and harmonies we expect of Beethoven. The opening chords set the tone. Under Honeck, they are decisive, forceful, impactful. However, this is not to suggest that Maestro Honeck takes anything too fast. The speeds may sometimes be brisk, sometimes less so, but they are pretty well judged, the rhythms firm but not erratic. So it's a movement of considerable shifts in emphasis--from heroic to downhearted--just as the composer no doubt intended.



Nevertheless, it is in the second-movement funeral march that conductors must prove their worth. Too slow and it becomes a monumental drag; too fast and it no longer sounds like a funeral march. Here, Honeck adopts a pace about midway between the extremes. He doesn't follow Beethoven's original crazy-fast tempo markings (as most period-instrument and historically informed performances do) nor does he allow it to drag on endlessly. Instead, it sounds appropriately solemn and elegiac, opening up beautifully in the second half with dauntless propulsion before returning to earth.



The third-movement Scherzo is quite lively, even by Beethoven's standards. Honeck attacks it with vigor, in truth outpacing Roger Norrington in his period performance. However, I found it a little too relentless and without much requisite charm.

Manfred Honeck

As a conclusion, Beethoven's Finale is both regal and triumphant, a folklike summing up of the whole piece. Honeck begins with a tremendous flourish of passion before settling into Beethoven's joyous cadences. Again, though, Honeck's relentlessly forward momentum almost does him in, the music seeming in parts almost chaotic rather than flowing.



So, what we get from Maestro Honeck is a performance that stresses what the conductor calls "the novelties" of the symphony. It is certainly not a traditional approach, and it is one that a listener might find taking a little getting used to. Yet it is not so out of the mainstream that one could call it eccentric. Given the quality of the Pittsburgh Symphony's playing as an added bonus, I have a feeling most listeners will enjoy it.



As a coupling, Honeck offers Richard Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 1, Op. 11, with William Caballero, horn. Strauss was only eighteen when he wrote it in 1882-83 while a philosophy student at Munich University. It has since become one of the most-popular horn concertos in the classical repertoire, an interesting feat considering the range (and difficulty) of the piece. I suspect the conductor chose it to accompany the Beethoven because it is more directly related to the earlier composer than to Strauss's own later work. Honeck, Caballero, and the Pittsburgh players give it a good workout.



Producer Dirk Sobotka and engineers Mark Donahue (Beethoven) and John Newton (Strauss) of Soundmirror, Boston recorded the music live at Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts, Pittsburgh, PA in October 2017 (Beethoven) and September 2012 (Strauss). They present the recordings on disc in hybrid SACD, meaning you can play it in 5.0 multichannel sound or 2.0 stereo from an SACD player or 2.0 stereo from a regular CD player. I listened in 2-channel stereo from the SACD layer.



Despite its being a live recording, the sound in the Beethoven is not as close-up as it is in most such enterprises, thus ensuring a fairly natural perspective. The Strauss, recorded some five years earlier appears slightly closer but is still good. There is a nice ambient glow around the instruments in the Beethoven, too, and a realistic sense of the concert hall. There is a mild background noise, but it is hardly troubling, and, of course, the dynamic range and impact are excellent. The overall sonic effect is warm, smooth, and comfortable. The producers have thankfully removed all traces of applause.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Strauss, R.: Ein Heldenleben (SACD review)

Also, Burleske. Denis Kozhukhin, piano; Marc Albrecht, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra. Pentatone PTC 5186 617.



I've said this before many times but it bears repeating: I don't think it's such big leap from the heroic swagger of Franz Liszt's Les Preludes to the heroic swagger of Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben. Or from Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben to Erich Wolfgang Korngold's The Sea Hawk. Or from The Sea Hawk to John Williams's Star Wars. All composers owe something to those who went before them, and Strauss's Ein Heldenleben ("A Hero's Life") was a natural step in the progression of the tone poem.



Richard Strauss (1864-1949), German composer and conductor, wrote Ein Heldenleben in 1899 as a mock autobiography, a tongue-in-cheek self-portrait. The composer was only thirty-four years old when he wrote it, proving his self-confidence in writing a musical autobiography at so early an age. Mostly, however, he seems to have composed it to defend himself against his critics, whom he silences through the music. In response, many of Strauss's critics continued their attacks on Strauss, saying his music was indulgent and narcissistic.



Whatever, Strauss divided Ein Heldenleben into several parts describing the various stages in the artist's life. The first segment, "The Hero," describes Strauss himself and does so on a big, swashbuckling scale. Maestro Marc Albrecht handles it in fine if slightly perfunctory style. In other words, I would have liked more swash in that buckle. If we see the opening movement as setting the tone for the composer lampooning himself and his critics, it could have benefited from more juice doing it.



Next, the music turns to "The Hero's Adversaries," obviously his critics, where we hear them squabbling among themselves in amusing fashion. Following that is "The Hero's Companion," his wife, defined by the violin. Under Albrecht the adversaries seem somewhat complacent, but the wife seems appropriately temperamental. Throughout these sections, the Netherlands Philharmonic and, I assume, first violinist Vadim Tsibulvsky as the wife, perform admirably, with a polished decorum.

Marc Albrecht

"The Hero's Battlefield" is where Strauss engages in all-out combat with his critics, reminding them of his (musical) accomplishments by throwing in bits from Don Juan and Zarathustra, as well as a few horns from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. Albrecht seems to be having a good time here, never rushing things and never overemphasizing the obvious. Yet the conducting also appears rather cautious, as though Albrecht didn't want to stick his neck out too far. I wish he had done so because we already have a plethora of conventional Heldenlebens; something a touch more vibrant might have been more interesting.



Albrecht wraps up the piece with the greater certainty that peace and love will prevail in the hero's life. It is here that the conductor's slightly conservative approach pays off best because the music needs such a light and tender touch as he provides.



Coupled with Ein Heldenleben (and preceding it on the program as a kind of warm-up act) is the Burleske in D minor, which Strauss wrote for piano and orchestra in 1885-86 when he was still young, about twenty-one. The work had a rocky beginning. He wrote it for the pianist and conductor Hans van Bulow, who proclaimed it a "complicated piece of nonsense" and refused to play it. The piece, slightly revised, wouldn't see a première until 1890 or a publication until 1894. Even revised, it still seems like a complicated work, full of satire, whimsy, playfulness, and youthful mischief and still a handful for the soloist, especially, to negotiate. Nevertheless, pianist Denis Kozhurkhin does a first-rate job with it, and the whole affair comes off with a splendid flair.



Producers Renaud Loranger and Wolfram Nehis and engineers Erdo Groot and Jean-Marie Geijsen recorded the music in hybrid SACD at the NedPhO-Koepel, Amsterdam in February (Burleske) and December 2017. You can play the disc in multichannel or two-channel SACD from an SACD player or in two-channel stereo from a regular CD player. I listened in the two-channel SACD mode.



It's a good, modern recording, smooth, warm, and wide ranging. Although it probably doesn't have enough completely outstanding qualities to qualify as a stereophile recording, it makes for good, relaxed listening and satisfactorily approaches the sound of a real orchestra in a real acoustic setting. A modest reverberation defines the hall, while stereo depth and spread remain more than acceptable. I would have expected a tad more dynamic range and impact from an SACD recording, yet such minor shortcomings fail to detract much from the disc's overall sense of realism.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

R. Strauss: Also sprach Zarathushtra (CD review)

Also, Rosenkavalier Suite; Don Juan. Lorin Maazel, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. RCA 09026-68225-2RE.

This disc is one of four RCA releases of orchestral works by German composer and conductor Richard Strauss (1864-1949) conducted by the late Lorin Maazel. RCA recorded the discs between 1995 and 1998, and they have made them available as separate CD's or in a boxed set. Maazel presents the pieces in his usual straightforward manner, always letting the music speak for itself. In this regard he is in the company of Bernard Haitink and Rudolf Kempe (as opposed to Herbert von Karajan and Georg Solti, who impart more of their own personality to the interpretations). However, being in the company of someone is not to say they are equals. Haitink and Kempe seem to me more magisterial, more authoritative, more commanding. What's more, as fine as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra plays, they cannot quite match the glorious richness of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, or the Staatskapelle Dresden.



Anyway, I found the accompanying Rosenkavalier Suite most attractive of all and the Don Juan tone poem adequate, if slightly underpowered. Maazel's Zarathushtra, though, seemed a little wanting in animation. It appears to me that as Strauss was one of the last of the great Romantics, his works ought to be played with a bit more fervor. Still, if more foursquare playing is your bent, Maazel is your man.

Lorin Maazel

RCA recorded the sound at Herkulessaal Der Münchner Residenz, Munich, Germany in February 1995. They did so in Dolby Pro Logic, and the best one can say for it is that it doesn't interfere much with regular two-channel stereo playback. I did find my ears unaccountably plugging up on occasion, but I cannot attest to its being a result of anything in the playback.



By and large, the sound is wide and full, somewhat congested in loudest passages and spotlighted like mad. Instruments will suddenly loom up out of nowhere, which makes for a striking effect but is not too realistic. I suspect that as more and more people buy surround-sound systems, which is obviously the direction the industry has been heading for quite some time, we will see more and more recordings made expressly for the medium. Of course, most people are buying surround sound to enhance their movie-watching experience, not necessarily to listen to music. As a number of readers indicated to me some years ago, not many of them sit down in the sweet spot to listen only to music for longer than a few minutes. So I'm not sure what effect all of this will have on the future of audiophile recordings.



For those of us who still treasure good, old-fashioned two-channel stereo, however, there is more reason than ever to appreciate the bargain and mid-price reissues that most companies continue to produce. In the matter of Richard Strauss, for instance, one can find the composer's complete orchestral music available on three sets of discs from Rudoph Kempe (EMI), and in bits and pieces on discs from Fritz Reiner (RCA) and Bernard Haitink (Philips), none of which will set you back too many coins.



JJP



To listen to a few brief excerpts from this album, click below:

R. Strauss: Elektra & Der Rosenkavalier Suites (SACD review)

Manfred Honeck, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Reference Recordings Fresh! FR-722SACD.



Over the past few years I've had the pleasure of listening to several recordings by Maestro Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony. While the performances have had strong competition in the catalogue, Honeck's interpretations have held their own; and while I have not always enjoyed the live sound from Pittsburgh as much as others have, it has always sounded better to me than most live recordings. With this Richard Strauss album, however, the performances seem stronger and the sound a bit more rounded and lifelike, making it clearly the best thing I've yet to hear from Honeck and company. It's worth a listen.



First up on the program is a symphonic suite from the opera Elektra by German composer Richard Strauss (1864-1949). Strauss collaborated with Austrian librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal to adapt the work from a 1902 drama and to premiere it in 1909. Here, we get the world premiere of a suite from the work, the suite conceptualized by Mr. Honeck and realized by Tomas Ille.



The opera came at a time when the classical world was just beginning to embrace the atonality and dissonance so favored by modernist composers. As such, although Elektra may have found its roots in ancient Greek mythology, the music is decidedly modern and expressionist. In fact, the suite makes a striking contrast with the piece that follows it on the disc, a suite from Der Rosenkavalier, which more closely adheres to the Romantic traditions of the previous century.

Manfred Honeck

So, how does Honeck handle the score for Elektra, which he had a hand in writing? I have to admit here that Elektra is not among my favorite operas, and I had never heard just the orchestral music before. The suite under Maestro Honeck gives me a new appreciation for the piece. Although as a whole the piece sounds a tad disjointed, usual for a suite I suppose, there is a wonderful sense of ebb-and-flow to the score; and although Strauss was certainly experimenting with modern musical idioms, at least under Honeck it appears to take root in elements of the previous century as well. So the work swells with tensions without overflowing in discordances. In fact, Honeck is able to hold it all together for a little over half an hour in an amiable fashion. Conflicts and resolutions come and go, yet the score seems fairly cohesive, the conductor able to patch over any potential disconnects with admirable alacrity.



The second item on the program is a suite (arranged by conductor Artur Rodzinski in 1945) from Strauss's romantic opera Der Rosenkavalier, a piece that premiered in 1911. With its wealth of lush melodies and lavish waltzes, the music couldn't be more different from that of Elektra. Here, Honeck is as exuberant with the score as he was eloquent in Elektra. The music is justifiably popular, and Honeck presents it well; i.e., with unashamed enthusiasm for its late-flowering Romanticism. Moreover, the orchestra responds splendidly to both suites: disciplined, refined, keen, and glowing.



Producer Dirk Sobotka and engineer Mark Donahue of Soundmirror, Boston recorded the music live at the Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts, Pittsburgh, PA in May 2016. They made it for hybrid SACD playback, so one can listen to multichannel or two-channel stereo on an SACD player or two-channel stereo on a regular CD player. I listened in two-channel SACD.



There is an enormous dynamic range involved, which we might expect from this source and from the very slightly close-up live recording involved. Overall room ambience seems just a tad diminished, too, but the proximity of the microphones to the instruments definitely helps with clarity. Most important, things are not overly close, the sound is not at all bright or edgy, and there is a cozy warmth that accompanies it. One hardly notices the audience, and the engineers have thankfully removed any applause. The sonics are still not quite as realistic to my ears as most of Reference Recordings' studio projects, but they will undoubtedly satisfy and thrill most listeners.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

R. Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra (CD review)

Also, Don Juan; Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche. Herman Krebbers, violin; Bernard Haitink, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam. Philips UCCP-7034 (Japan).



When Philips released this recording in the early 1970's with Bernard Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra doing Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra, it was about the same time DG released their recording of Zarathustra by Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. I suppose one can forgive listeners in the day for going for the Karajan disc and rather forgetting about the Haitink. Karajan was, after all, probably the most-popular conductor in the world back then, producing glamorous music with a glamorous orchestra. Besides, it was Karajan who had brought new life to the score with his earlier, Vienna recording of the score for Decca when Stanley Kubrick featured it in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Still and all, it was the Haitink recording I found more involving, equally well performed, and better recorded; and it remains a favorite of mine to this day.



German composer and conductor Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote Also Sprach Zarathustra in 1896, his inspiration for the symphonic poem a philosophical novel by the German philosopher and poet Friedrich Nietzsche. Strauss divided his score into nine segments, naming the sections after various chapters of Nietzsche's book.



However, the listener should not put too much stock in the literal meanings of the music but instead enjoy each section for its figurative spirit. In fact, Strauss himself, whom some people criticized at the time for trying to put Nietzsche's philosophy into music, said, "I did not intend to write philosophical music, or to portray in music Nietzsche's great work. I meant to convey by means of music an idea of the development of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of its evolution, religious and scientific, up to Nietzsche's idea of the superman. The whole symphonic poem is intended as my homage to the genius of Nietzsche, which found its greatest exemplification in his book, Thus Spake Zarathustra." In other words, one should enjoy the music for itself and not as some sort of musical distillation of Nietzsche's ideas.



Anyway, the nine sections are "Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang" (Introduction, or Sunrise); "Von den Hinterweltlern" (Of Those in Backwaters); "Von der großen Sehnsucht" (Of the Great Longing); "Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften" (Of Joys and Passions); "Das Grablied" (The Song of the Grave); "Von der Wissenschaft" (Of Science and Learning); "Der Genesende" (The Convalescent); "Das Tanzlied" (The Dance Song); and "Nachtwandlerlied" (Song of the Night Wanderer).



And what does Haitink do with the music? He brings to it the same straightforward, unfussy approach he always does, an approach that has served him well for a remarkably long time. It is an approach that serves the music above all, with none of the grand gestures of a Karajan yet with an endearing and engaging simplicity that puts the score foremost. And as well as the Berlin Philharmonic played for Karajan, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra matched them in refinement, richness, sonority, and precision.



Haitink takes us gracefully from one extreme to the next, from the gentlest, most tender moments to the most massive of climaxes. It all sounds beautifully nuanced under this conductor--nothing forced and nothing left to chance. Even the "Science and Learning" section, which I find the least interesting, comes off with a greater degree of lyric passion with Haitink than with most anyone else, and there's a wonderful lilt in the dance number that follows. And so it goes.

Bernard Haitink

Maestro Haitink handles the couplings well, too, with plenty of flair but little of the sloppy melodrama we hear from some other conductors. Don Juan carries all the swagger you could want and reminds us again where Erich Wolfgang Korngold and John Williams probably got their inspiration, while Till Eulenspiegel maintains a playfully heady demeanor throughout.



Philips recorded Zarathustra and Don Juan in April 1973, and Till Eulenspiegel in December 1982, all three at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Although the recordings are still available on the now-defunct Philips label in a two-disc collection (442-281-2), the recording I reviewed was a single disc from Philips Japan, reissued in 2005. What's more, from what I understand, Decca Records have also rereleased the recordings on a single disc under their own label.



For me, the Seventies were a kind of Golden Age in recording, a bit like the Fifties with RCA "Living Stereo" and Mercury "Living Presence" but in the later decade with EMI and Philips. In the Seventies, while the folks at EMI were recording Andre Previn and the London Symphony and Louis Fremaux and the City of Birmingham Symphony with excellent transparency, balance, and range, the Philips engineers were recording Haitink and the Concertgebouw with a wonderful sense of ambience, depth, and spaciousness. The present recording displays these latter qualities to fine advantage, the Concertgebouw ensemble never sounding richer or more resplendent.



The sound has an all-enveloping sense of place, as though home listeners were actually in the concert hall with the orchestra. Yet there is never any distracting resonance or reverberation, just a natural, realistic response, with enough detail to satisfy the most-demanding audiophile. There is never any brightness, forwardness, or edginess; nor is there any undue softness to the sound. All of it, in fact, is nigh-well perfect, the excellence of the sonics complementing the excellence of the performance.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below: