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.
Since his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1971, conductor James Levine has come to represent the house’s commitment to artistic excellence — reliable, professional, and immaculately presented.
Among the outstanding interpreters of Mahler’s music, Pierre Boulez stands out for his recent recordings of the composer’s symphonies. Having worked with various international orchestras, Boulez has been preserving on CD some finely shaped performances, and if he intends to create a cycle akin to those of other conductors, he is wisely recording the works one by one and not necessarily in the order in which they were composed.
Thus, after releasing his performances of various works of Mahler, Boulez has turned to the Second in a 2006 release of performances made in June 2005 with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Boulez brings to this and other recordings of Mahler’s symphonies a sense of clarity and precision that is evident from the start. With the incisive gesture that is reminiscent the opening scene of Wagner’s Die Walküre, Boulez presents an interpretation of the first movement that is faithful to the score and lacking the affectations that some conductors make. While his tempos cannot be mistake as impetuous, Boulez never paints himself into an interpretative corner that forces him to resort to unconventional means of relating one section to another, in the extended sonata form of the first movement. Likewise, Boulez balances sonorities and in doing so does avoids compromising timbres. In the rich string textures he evokes from the Vienna Philharmonic, Boulez does not overemphasize that timbre at the expense of the brass sonorities. Likewise, his command of the brass and winds never allows their sound to overshadow the generally balanced tone of the orchestra. As conservative as this may sound, such judgment is effective in allowing the work to speak for itself. For those who might prefer a recording that has excessively contrasting tempos and an extremely wide choice of dynamic ranges, such scene-chewing is absent from this recording. When Mahler uses percussion in the dramatic gestures at the center of the movement, the sudden contrast that Boulez creates introduces a moment of genuine drama.
Likewise, Boulez offers a clarity in the string textures at the opening of the second movement that give the effect of chamber music, albeit on the scale that Mahler would introduce to his orchestral scoring of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet. The distinctions of tempo in this movement are effective in rendering Mahler’s musical narrative. This is a movement full of subtleties that emerge from the attention that Boulez brings to the details. It is by no means a conventional slow movement or intermezzo, but a more dynamic form that embodies both the sectional organization of its ternary structure and the kind of developing variations that Mahler would bring to near-perfection in the penultimate movement of the Fourth Symphony. Boulez offers a fine reading of this movement, which is cleanly played and, to a degree austere. The portamento sonorities are evident, but subdued, thus giving the sound a modern slant.
The third movement is noteworthy for its use of the song "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" as the basis for the Scherzo, and in transforming the song into an instrumental milieu, Mahler found a way to introduce yet another text implicitly into the Symphony. Without sacrificing lyricism, Boulez offers a reading that is somewhat brisker than some conductors take the movement. Such tempos are useful in conveying the character of the symphonic movement and effecting the transformation of the song into the orchestral idiom. Thus, the trio, which echoes the Scherzo theme from Mahler’s academic colleague Hans Rott, is approached in a less jarring manner. The deft hand of Boulez keeps the musical ideas flowing one to the other. It is a reading of the Scherzo that deserves attention for its clearly delineated form. The architecture of the movement is evident in the execution which relies, no doubt, from Boulez’s clear understanding of the structure of the movement.
With the fourth movement, the setting of the text “Urlicht,” from the anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Mahler created a vocal prelude to the choral Finale. The mezzo-soprano Michelle de Young offers a fine reading of the song, which is a critical link to the thematic content of the concluding movement. Some of the darker sounds of de Young’s voice contribute to the timbre of the movement, with its stronger reliance on winds and brass colors. In the second section of the song, where the text concerns the implicit narrator’s confrontation with the angel, de Young brings a dramatic sense to the song that suggests the inner struggle that must precede the resolution of ideas that ultimately occurs in the movement that follows.
Yet the Finale of the Second Symphony may be regarded one of Mahler’s more challenging conceptions as he combines somewhat programmatic ideas with a structure that involves several interconnected sections that are held together by text. It is difficult not to recall some of the more highly charged interpretations of this movement by conductors like Leonard Bernstein, but Boulez maintain the integrity of the score in a reading that maintains some restraint and, if it can be inferred, a degree of objectivity. It is difficult to encounter a performance of this work that is not compelling. Yet if Boulez exhibited restraint earlier in the Symphony, the concluding section is powerful in its aggressive tone and full textures. With such a highly integrated chorus as that of the Wiener Singverein, the powerful conclusion emerges with a strength and precision that the work deserves. In leading the Finale Boulez refrains from introducing mannerisms that detract from the score as Mahler left it. No scene-chewing histrionics mar the dignity that Boulez brings to his reading, which stands well with his other recent recordings of Mahler’s symphonies.
Christine Schäfer is notable for her solid performance of the relatively short part that Mahler conceived for the soprano, as well as in her duet with de Young. The part is hardly challenging for Schäfer, as she delivers the text clearly and, as elsewhere in this recording, without affectation. Both solo voices are a foil for the choral forces that convey the ultimate message of the text that gives the work its epithet of “Auferstehung.” This is a fine addition to the existing discography of a Symphony that has become quite familiar in recent years not only through some prominent concert performances, but also solid recordings like this one. Boulez achieves a convincing reading of the work that is first of all symphonic, and this helps to put the recording into the context of his other recent performances of Mahler’s works.
James L. Zychowicz