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.
Johann Theile is best known for his significant body of church music and his reputation as “the father of contrapuntists.” It is easy to summon the image of a learned graybeard, well-practiced in contrapuntal art (especially invertible counterpoint, it would seem). This recent recording from Ludger Rémy, however, shows us a less well-known and very congenial side of Theile: the composer of student love songs.
As a young man, Theile began law studies at the University of Leipzig in 1666, and while a student he was a member of the Collegium Musicum, the same ensemble that J. S. Bach would lead in the eighteenth century. Anthologies of student song must have been common enough in Leipzig—there are surviving collections by Adam Krieger, Sebastian Knüpfer, and Johann Pezel—and in 1667, Theile published his own: Weltlichen Arien und Canzonetten.
The songs are strophic airs for one or two voices with basso continuo and instrumental ritornelli, and their texts unsurprisingly treat the themes of unrequited love, the pain of departure and separation, the pleasures of the bed, and the difficulties of malicious women. One song even offers a philosophy of student life: “It’s good to wake up with the Muses/ and consult one’s books for their uses./ But one also has to have some fun/ instead of studying from early to late./ Frequent kisses and a little reading:/ it offers a fine change of pace.” The songs are naturally varied in their tone and mood, but throughout they are the fruits of a careful and inventive hand. Where the text leads, the music can be rollicking or serious, even poignant, in response, but in any event, these seem “student” works in venue and chronology only.
The performances are unflaggingly first-rate. All four singers command period style with notable ease, and with their lithe and flexible voices imbue the songs with ornamental grace and character. The instrumentalists of Les Amis Philippe make a substantial contribution here with richly textured, contoured playing. Though relegated largely to ritornelli, these are not ancilliary “throw aways.” Rather, they occasion some of the most expressive music making on the disc, and powerfully add dimensionality to the strophic forms.
Rémy has sought to maximize the flexibility of seventeenth-century music making in his approach to his program. The continuo ensemble is a varied one and the ritornelli similarly employ a range of instrumental color. Duets are rendered in various ways: both parts sung or one part sung, the other one played, following the lead of Theile’s teacher, Heinrich Schütz. And, unsurprisingly, the singers employ ornamentation as one way of keeping the strophic forms alive and in motion. In only one instance did I find the variability unsuccessful. The performance of the aria “Gehab dich wohl, o Schönste” divided the stanzas between tenor and soprano. Inevitably the octave disposition invites us to hear this as a gendered dialogue—the man sings, now the woman—and yet, the text is continuously one voice, not a dialogue. In other instances where the stanzas are divided between two singers, it is a division between soprano and alto in the same octave, and thus a more unified sense is maintained.
There is great delight in these songs and in these very accomplished performances. That in itself might be a sufficient conclusion here. But it is important to note, as well, that in bringing these songs to life, Rémy and his colleagues have also substantially enlarged our sense of student music-making--both its quality and its nature. And ultimately, given the roots of these songs in Leipzig’s Collegium Musicum, they have helped us better to understand the world of J.S Bach, too.
Steven Plank
Oberlin College