The Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, after suffering a calamitous fire in the early 1990s, reopened in 1999, lovingly restored. TDK has released a series of DVDs from the Liceu since that date, providing ample evidence of the world...
Premiered posthumously, the symphonic song-cycle Das Lied von der Erde by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) remains one of his defining works because of its synthesis of song and symphony, two genres he pursued throughout his career.
In 1851 during his first season as music director in Düsseldorf, Robert Schumann presented a performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, and unsurprisingly adapted the score both to nineteenth-century taste and nineteenth-century practicalities.
The centrality of dance at the French court helped bring grace, order, and political allegory into the characteristic prominence they enjoyed during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV; theatre presentations of all stripes were infused with choreographic diversions.
In tandem with the recently released set of Sir Simon Rattle’s recordings of Mahler’s symphonies on EMI Classics, the set of the complete symphonies by Jean Sibelius merits attention.
As much as Richard Wagner espoused opera reform in his theoretical writings by bringing to his works for the stage a closer unity between music and text, his actual means of doing so at times involved the use of orchestral forces that sometimes overwhelmed the sung word.
The budget label Gala purveys live performances both historic and relatively recent; of the three discussed here, the La Scala Fedora dates back to 1931, while the Attila comes from a 1987 La Fenice performance.
National styles of music in the seventeenth century were often distinctive, and in the case of French and Italian music, famously so.
With its recent release of Mahler’s symphonies conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, EMI Classics makes available in a single place an outstanding contribution to the composer’s discography.
This DVD records and commemorates a 1981 production of Parsifal in its Bayreuth lair, and the singers of 1981 are as fine as recollection might paint them.
Once the custom of the world's opera houses was to translate great operas into the language of each respective country.
Repackaging older recordings having become the primary focus of a classical recording company's business, Deutsche Grammophon budgeted some funds for art direction for its budget series called "Opera House" (although that appellation only appears in a link found on the back inside cover of the sets' booklets).
Of Rosenkavaliers on DVD, the classics tend to be lovingly detailed productions, going back to the film of Herbert von Karajan leading an exemplary cast, with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf's iconic Marschallin.
Despite an unsurprising degree of conservatism in liturgical music, devotional life in Rome often found ways of taking advantage of modern musical style.
“Her fioritura is priceless, breathtaking, and effortless.”
The English composer Nicholas Maw has been a major voice since the 1960's, with a wide range of works that include the 2002 opera, "Sophie’s Choice," a violin concerto for Joshua Bell (1993), and the monumentally-scaled orchestral work, "Odyssey" (1972-87).
As is often the case, last works that remain incomplete at the time of a composer’s death, are quick to invoke controversy and conspiracy theories.
This is a valuable new recording of a work that is only rarely heard, but was widely influential and wildly popular during the eighteenth century. Philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote both the libretto and the music, with mixed success.
This disc is well worth the price for the first track alone: the opening measures of Jean-Féry Rebel’s “Cahos,” (Chaos), written in 1737 or 1738, may cause you to wonder if you accidentally left a Stockhausen or Ligeti disc in the changer.
This recording made half a century ago will not be anyone’s first choice unless one is a die-hard fan of one of the principal singers; neither of them belonging to the absolute top in their profession.
For whom is this fine CD? It is published by Hänssler Verlag; a publishing house that specializes in Christian literature and that has a classical record branch as well.
Still, the older collector will probably have the originals, the Preiser LP’s or the 2 Preiser CD’s with most of Schwarz’s output on Parlophone and Gramophone. As far as I know no one has ever put young Schwarz’s records on Zonophone (2), Edison (1) or Pathé (12) on CD. The CD under review gives us 18 tracks, all recorded for Gramophone and is very much duplicated by the Preiser CD’s. Therefore this is meant for either the new collector or for someone who doesn’t need to have the complete recorded output of a particular singer. Not that Schwarz doesn’t deserve to be remembered by every note he ever sang for the horn. In his magnum opus German critic Jürgen Kesting (Die Grossen Sänger, 3 vols., 2089 pp.) writes: “ though he never recorded electrically his recordings show us the best German baritone of the century.”1 High praise indeed though probably well-deserved. Kesting still tells us that Schwarz died at the early age of 46 due to kidney insufficiency. However the sleeve notes on this latest issue bluntly say the baritone was an alcoholic who by the time of his death had become a sad wreck. Therefore it was Schwarz’s own behaviour that caused the tragedy which resulted in us having no electric recordings.
Still, these acoustics give a formidable portrait of the singer and we can understand British publisher Victor Gollanz who put Schwarz’s Rigoletto on the same height as Caruso’s Duca. As Schwarz was Jewish, his records were not available in Germany for a whole generation and this may be one of the reasons he is less well remembered than he deserves.
All of the transfers on this CD were recorded during the baritone’s best years between 1916 and 1918. It strikes me that in those exceedingly lean years when elementary conditions of living had so badly deteriorated in Germany (due to the Allied blockade) singers still made records. It strikes me still more that Schwarz sang a few of them in the war’s last year in somewhat unidiomatic Italian, a language he probably didn’t know because everything was sung in German in those days and his brief international career didn’t start until three years later. I have an inkling that by 1918, when all international imports had long dried up and Germany was at war with Italy since 1915, there was some need for the international version.
These recordings are not among Schwarz’s best as he is clearly somewhat less incisive in Zaza than he is when singing in German and the recording of “Solenne in quest’ora” is severely handicapped by the pinched sounds of Jadlowker, lost in territory foreign to his voice. But all other records show Schwarz’s mastery of bel canto, which almost immediately makes you forget he is singing in translation. There is much to enjoy here. There is the easy top, common to many golden age baritones, easily sailing to G and even A. Then there is the rich and homogenous sound of the middle voice which he can colour at will. At the lower end there is some weakness, one of the reasons he probably avoided the later Wagner roles, which ask for more bottom. Schwarz’s legato is impeccable and the few sobs he introduces in “Cortigiani” are sung as a means of expression and not meant to break the line to take a breath. On top of all this is the imaginative phrasing from an artist who had carefully listened to Mattia Bastianini as can clearly be heard in both singers “Di Provenza”. Some of these recordings are pure magic, maybe the best being the “Scintille diamant” where he decorates the high G sharp and then finishes with a heavenly diminuendo on a long final E. Indeed he often uses pianissimo in places where the common baritone roars away like “Eri tu”; therefore impressing his listeners all the more with strong endings on high F.
The sound of these transfers is clear and I have no complaints with pitching decisions.
Jan Neckers
1 Translation by author.