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.
Although few composers have been so closely associated with a single work, Johann Pachelbel, whose canon for three violins has achieved canonical ubiquity, was a prolific composer with a number of vocal works to his credit.
This present recording brings together a number of them written for both devotional use and secular occasions, such as weddings, name days, and salutes to patrons and teachers. Most are strophic airs for one or two singers and strings, the latter providing interludes that serve to punctuate and articulate the structural boundaries of the vocal setting. Occasionally the interludes are particularly rich in sonority—“Mein Leben, dessen Kreutz” and “Augen, streuet Perlen Tränen” use four violas, for instance—and often they are engagingly rollicking.
The concertos on the recording are through-composed works, affording more expressive range for singer and instrumentalist alike, intertwining both in equal measure of soloistic writing. In some instances the concertos are cantata-like with multiple sections, including triple-meter lilting airs, as in “Ach Herr, wie ist meiner Feinde so viel,” and the instrumental writing can be floridly soloistic, as in the scordatura violin part to “Christ ist erstanden.” Here, and in “Ach Herr, wie ist meiner Feinde so viel,” the unflaggingly stylish playing of Ingrid Seifert of London Baroque is impressively on display.
Somewhat singular among the arias and concertos is the aria “Mœcenas lebet noch,” a salute to a person whose likely high rank elicited the scoring for obligatto trumpet. Michael Maisch performs this part with a compelling degree of vocality, and the tunefulness of the aria has a gratifying lilt, a lilt captured with animated relish in many of the arias in the collection. If “Mœcenas lebet noch” is singular, nevertheless most of the arias are cut of the same cloth, and the similarity is underscored here by the repetition of the strophic form. Some of the arias survive with only one stanza of text, and given the uniformity of the style, one might wonder at their inclusion; fragments, they are of necessity brief, but in their brevity they also contribute little that is new. Archivally it is welcome to have them recorded, but programmatically they seem a bit anomalous.
The performers are an impressive assembly. Emma Kirkby continues to command the amazingly clear articulation that has characterized her singing for many decades, and the rapid passage work here is wonderfully fluent. Tenor Jan Kobow is strong and intense, though he also has some fine expressive forays into the soft range in “Wie nichtig, ach wie flüchtig.” The most memorable singing is from bass Klaus Mertens, whose rounded tone and flexible agility offers much to savor.
The collection Arien & Concerti provides many rewarding moments. Programmatically the generic similarity between the arias may suggest it is more a recording to sample than to listen to straight through, but the sampling (or the larger serving) will not fail to gratify.
Steven Plank