Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, first heard in 1907, once seemed important. Arturo Toscanini conducted the Met premiere in 1911 with Farrar and later arranged some of its music for a 1947 recording with his NBC Symphony.
The economics of the recording companies dictate much that is not ideal. Wagner’s operas were not composed as they were in order to permit the extraction of bleeding chunks, even on those occasions when strophic song forms do occur.
Among the recent recordings of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, Valery Gergiev’s release on the LSO Live label is an excellent addition to the discography of this work.
While not unknown, the songs of Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942) deserve to be heard more frequently.
Recorded on 5 and 6 May 2008 and 17 and 18 January 2009 at the Lisztzentrum (Raiding, Austria), this recent Bridge release makes available the piano-vocal versions of three song cycles by Gustav Mahler, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Rückert-Lieder, and Kindertotenlieder performed by mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck, accompanied by Russell Ryan.
Contraltos rarely achieve the acclaim and renown of sopranos. Assigned few leading roles in opera, they are condemned to playing the villain or the grandmother, or to stealing the castrati’s trousers in en travesti roles.
Following their 2011 Decca recording of Striggio’s Mass in 40 Parts (1566), I Fagiolini continue their quest to unearth lost treasures of the High Renaissance and early Baroque, with this collection of world-premiere recordings, ‘reconstructions’ and ‘reconstitutions’ of music by Giovanni and Andrea Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Palestrina, and their less well-known compatriots Viadana, Barbarino and Soriano.
Eternal Echoes is an album of khazones [Jewish cantorial music] for cantorial soloist, solo violin and a blended instrumental ensemble comprising a small orchestra and the Klezmer Conservatory Band.
Michael Tilson Thomas’s recording of Mahler’s Third Symphony is an outstanding contribution to the composer’s discography.
Oliver Knussen burst into British music with an unprecedented flourish. In 1967, the London Symphony Orchestra premiered Knussen’s First Symphony, with István Kertész scheduled to conduct.
Based on performances given in Summer 2010 at the Lucerne Festival, this recording of Beethoven’s Fidelio is an admirable recording that captures the vitality of the work as conducted by Claudio Abbado.
Stanisław Moniuszko (1819-1872) was one of the most popular composers of his day in Poland, and of the many works he wrote for the stage, two are performed from time to time, Halka (1848) and Strazny dwór [The Haunted Manor] (1865).
The Polish alto Jadwiga Rappé is a familiar voice in various stage and concert works, and the recent release of a selection of songs by Stanisław Moniuszko (1819-1872) is an opportunity to hear her performing artsongs.
Originally released on multiple discs in 1981 this reissue on two CDs is a comprehensive collection of art songs by Italian and French composers from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
An exciting contribution to the discography of this popular opera, the live performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome from the Festspielhaus at Baden-Baden is a compelling DVD.
Released in late 2011, Deutsche Grammophon’s DVD of the new staging of Berg’s Lulu at the Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona is an excellent contribution to the discography of this fascinating opera.
A recent release by the Metropolitan Opera, this two-disc set makes available on DVD the famous performance of Berg’s Lulu that was broadcast on 20 December 1980 as part of the PBS series “Live from the Met.”
The novels of Sinclair Lewis once shot across the American literary skies like comets, alarming and fascinating readers of that era, but their tails didn’t extend far behind them.
Once the province of only the most dedicated opera fanatics, mid-20th century recordings of privately taped live performances have become more widely available.
Flute players in opera orchestra around the world must look forward to the frequent appearances of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, knowing that while the stage spotlight in the mad scene will be on the soprano, the orchestral spotlight will be on their instrument.
This anthology, a twentieth-anniversary commemoration of Aled Jones’ first recording for the Welsh company, Sain, is a re-issue of that 1983 recording, “Diolch â Chân,” along with several other tracks from the mid-1980’s. Jones stepped out of the choir stalls at Bangor Cathedral to become a highly marketed treble, and his relative celebrity, as attested here, was well deserved.
The recording’s program is wide ranging, and includes classics like Mendelssohn’s demanding “Hear My Prayer,” Mozart’s “Laudate Dominum,” and the “Pie Jesu” from Faure’s Requiem, chestnuts like Malotte’s “Lord’s Prayer,” Franck’s “Panis Angelicus,” and Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” a number of lesser known works like Michael Head’s Christmas jewel, “The Little Road to Bethlehem,” or Fred Cowan’s “The Children’s Home”--Victoriana at its most Victorian--and even a pop song or two, for good measure. The program is an old-fashioned one, decidedly lacking in musical sophistication, but remarkably well suited to display the musical gift of a then remarkable young boy.
Jones’ sound is an engaging one, more soloistic than choral, with a vibrato that surprises at first hearing, but that grows increasingly congenial with repeated hearings. He sings with commanding confidence, expressive flair, and a mature sense of line and contoured phrasing, all of which underscore his giftedness. Particularly memorable here is his exquisite rendition of the Faure “Pie Jesu” (unusual in a Welsh translation) and his “Hear My Prayer,” a performance that is dramatic and dynamic, as well as a considerable test of endurance . . . a test he amply survives.
There are problems here and there. Most notable perhaps is that all of the pieces tend to sound stylistically the same—the style is uniformly “Aled.” And that, as I have noted, is engaging and impressive, but the uniformity of style seems to underscore the youthfulness of the endeavor. Two of the pieces, the title anthem and the Mozart “Laudate Dominum” are with choir and organ. And here, ensemble coordination is problematic, with the organ conspicuously out of synch on occasion, and the choir from time to time overly robust in its enthusiasm.
Today Jones is prominent in the UK as both a singer and a broadcaster with the BBC. His days of cassock and ruff and the first row of the choir are long past, but one can only suspect that they have served him well. Certainly he was a boy treble of great distinction.
Steven Plank
Oberlin College