11 Dec 2005
On Christmas Day
Tastes in music for Christmas are quite personal. One individual’s beloved tradition may be another’s annoying jangling that just won’t go away.
Recently in Recordings
Adding Movie Magic to The Magic Flute
What better way for Masonic brothers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emmanuel Shikaneder to disseminate Masonic virtues, than through the most popular musical entertainment of their age, a happy ending folktale that features a dragon, enchanting flutes and bells, mixed-up parentage, and a beautiful young princess in distress?
L’Incoronazione di Poppea from Virgin Classics
Since its first performance at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo during Venice’s 1643 Carnevale, Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea has been one of the most important milestones in the genesis of modern opera despite its 250 years of unmerited obscurity.
Saverio Mercadante: I due Figaro
Though 2013 is the bicentennial of the births of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, the releases of Cecilia Bartoli’s recording of Bellini’s Norma on DECCA, a new studio recording of Donizetti’s Caterina Cornaro from Opera Rara, and this première recording of Saverio Mercadante’s forgotten I due Figaro, suggest that this is the start of a summer of bel canto.
Christian Thielemann’s Der Ring des Nibelungen
Recording Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is for a record label equivalent to a climber reaching the summit of Mount Everest: it is the zenith from which a label surveys its position among its rivals and appreciates an achievement that can define its reputation for a generation.
Cecilia Bartoli as Norma
Few people who love opera in general and bel canto in particular have never heard the comment made by Lilli Lehmann, veteran of the inaugural Ring at Bayreuth in 1876, that singing all three of Wagner’s Brünnhildes—in Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung, respectively, all of which she sang to great acclaim—pales in comparison with singing the title rôle in Bellini’s Norma.
Ariane et Barbe-Bleue on Blu-Ray
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.
Kaufmann Wagner
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.
Mahler: Symphony No. 8
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.
Songs by Zemlinsky
While not unknown, the songs of Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942) deserve to be heard more frequently.
Gustav Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder.
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.
Kathleen Ferrier: A Film by Diane Perelsztejn
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.
1612 Italian Vespers
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: Songs and Dances for the Soul
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.
Mahler: Symphony no. 3 / Kindertotenlieder
Michael Tilson Thomas’s recording of Mahler’s Third Symphony is an outstanding contribution to the composer’s discography.
Oliver Knussen’s Symphonies from NMC
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.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio
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: Flis
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).
Stanisław Moniuszko: Pieśni Songs
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.
Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge: Serate Musicali
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.
Richard Strauss: Salome
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.
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Recordings
For many amateur choirs, the musically sophisticated director’s attempt to introduce something satisfyingly novel in the form of contemporary music, or even contemporary arrangements of very old music, becomes the bane of the choir members’ existence as they desperately try to hear the music in the strange vocal lines and harmonies that they are asked to sing, often to unfamiliar texts in Latin or some earlier version of English. And yet music is such an integral part of the celebration of Christmas, that we seek new pieces that will somehow speak the language of the season to us, even as we enjoy rehearing the standards, be they “Silent Night” or Handel’s Messiah, that recall Christmas Past, either our own past or the imagined past of our culture. And we can be sure that, while at some point we will find ourselves sitting and listening to a presentation of “Christmas Music” in a holiday program or church service, there will be other times when the music will be in the background, at best gently reviving our warm feelings of the season, but possibly simply annoying us, as we go about the many tasks that the season brings with it.
My own collection of favorite Christmas music is eclectic, but heavily favors classical music, and I am a member of a reasonably adventurous church choir, so I listened with interest to this collection of carols that have been commissioned, one each year since 1983, from major contemporary composers, by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, for their annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. One impression emerged very quickly: while this music is expertly performed by a choir whose stock in trade is a very pure, beautiful sound, most of this music is challenging enough that only for a party of the most sophisticated contemporary music lovers would you consider using this as background music. Even in the meditative atmosphere of the service for which they were written, they presumably provided a modern contrast with the more traditional music that surrounded them. On first listening, I would say the most readily accessible carols are Arvo Pärt’s folklike setting of part of the Orthodox Liturgy, the Bob Chilcott “Shepherd’s Carol”, written for the 2000 Carols from Kings televised service, and “What Sweeter Music”, commissioned in 1987 from that mainstay of the modern church choir, John Rutter. But I think most of the music could be appreciated by the listener who is willing to spend some meditative time with the twenty-two works presented on two discs. It is very helpful to follow the texts which, while mostly in English, are in many cases settings of medieval or 17th-century metaphysical poetry, and some include interpolations in Latin or Hebrew.
The carols are largely performed a capella by the choir of men’s and boys’ voices, with organ accompanying a few, or a flute providing a winter wind and birdsong in Giles Swayne’s “Winter Solstice Carol”. In many cases the composers worked with the choir and director in rehearsal, even taking into consideration the altered sound quality of the chapel when filled to capacity for the service. The roster of composers includes some very distinguished names (not being someone who spends a lot of time with contemporary music, I figure they are very distinguished names if I’ve heard of them) such as Pärt, Richard Rodney Bennett, Lennox Berkeley, and Peter Maxwell Davies, but since each composer is represented only once, and there are twenty-two tracks in all, this CD can also serve as an introduction to a wide range of contemporary composers. For true contemporary music lovers, this release may well be important in that, from what I could tell from composers’ web pages that I checked to learn more about them, many of these carols do not appear among the composers’ published works.
The carols are presented in an order calculated to provide an interesting and varied program, rather than chronologically. The track listing in the booklet provides the year of first performance for each carol, along with texts (and translations of foreign phrases and footnotes for obsolete English words, although a little familiarity with Middle English will probably make the texts a bit easier to grasp), and an informative essay by choir director Stephen Cleobury describing how he came to commission these works for the choir, and how it has worked over the years.
Barbara Miller