The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
The voices of six women composers are celebrated by baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and soprano Yunah Lee on this characteristically ambitious and valuable release by Lontano Records Ltd (Lorelt).
As Paul Spicer, conductor of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, observes, the worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is as ‘old as Christianity itself’, and programmes devoted to settings of texts which venerate the Virgin Mary are commonplace.
Ethel Smyth’s last large-scale work, written in 1930 by the then 72-year-old composer who was increasingly afflicted and depressed by her worsening deafness, was The Prison – a ‘symphony’ for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra.
‘Hamilton Harty is Irish to the core, but he is not a musical nationalist.’
‘After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.’ Aldous Huxley’s words have inspired VOCES8’s new disc, After Silence, a ‘double album in four chapters’ which marks the ensemble’s 15th anniversary.
A song-cycle is a narrative, a journey, not necessarily literal or linear, but one which carries performer and listener through time and across an emotional terrain. Through complement and contrast, poetry and music crystallise diverse sentiments and somehow cohere variability into an aesthetic unity.
One of the nicest things about being lucky enough to enjoy opera, music and theatre, week in week out, in London’s fringe theatres, music conservatoires, and international concert halls and opera houses, is the opportunity to encounter striking performances by young talented musicians and then watch with pleasure as they fulfil those sparks of promise.
“It’s forbidden, and where’s the art in that?”
Dublin-born John F. Larchet (1884-1967) might well be described as the father of post-Independence Irish music, given the immense influenced that he had upon Irish musical life during the first half of the 20th century - as a composer, musician, administrator and teacher.
The English Civil War is raging. The daughter of a Puritan aristocrat has fallen in love with the son of a Royalist supporter of the House of Stuart. Will love triumph over political expediency and religious dogma?
Beethoven Symphony no 9 (the Choral Symphony) in D minor, Op. 125, and the Choral Fantasy in C minor, Op. 80 with soloist Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester, new from Harmonia Mundi.
A Louise Brooks look-a-like, in bobbed black wig and floor-sweeping leather trench-coat, cheeks purple-rouged and eyes shadowed in black, Barbara Hannigan issues taut gestures which elicit fire-cracker punch from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
‘Signor Piatti in a fantasia on themes from Beatrice di Tenda had also his triumph. Difficulties, declared to be insuperable, were vanquished by him with consummate skill and precision. He certainly is amazing, his tone magnificent, and his style excellent. His resources appear to be inexhaustible; and altogether for variety, it is the greatest specimen of violoncello playing that has been heard in this country.’
Baritone Roderick Williams seems to have been a pretty constant ‘companion’, on my laptop screen and through my stereo speakers, during the past few ‘lock-down’ months.
Melodramas can be a difficult genre for composers. Before Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden the concept of the melodrama was its compact size – Weber’s Wolf’s Glen scene in Der Freischütz, Georg Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea or even Leonore’s grave scene in Beethoven’s Fidelio.
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.