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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Based on performances given on 18 and 21 October 2008 and 16 and 17 January 2009, this recording of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra offers its latest release of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a work associated with the group since the composer’s lifetime.
Mahler himself worked with Willem Mengelberg, whose annotated score contains markings that stem from conversations with the composition. This is the source for the information about the familiar Adagietto being a love letter to the composer’s wife Alma, and other details about the piece. That stated, the association of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is borne out in various recordings during the century since the premiere of what is, perhaps, one of Mahler’s best-known symphonies.
This recording gives a fine sense of the textured sound of the Concertgebouw, with its uniformly strong sections and cohesive sound. This is readily apparent in the Scherzo, which is probably Mariss Jansons’ most successful movement in this recording. Here Jansons manages to navigate well between the shifting timbres of the score, which intersect the various sections of this multi-layered movement. The driving rhythms of the concluding sections underscore the dynamic changes which, in turn, reveal other changes in scoring. At times Jansons’s tempos are somewhat slower than some conductors choose, and this is useful in the Scherzo, where it allows the details become easily audible, particularly in the latter part of the movement. One of the pleasures of this recording is the clarity of the woodwind textures, not only in the Scherzo, but elsewhere. The figuration of the woodwinds in the second movement is effective, especially in the passages that Jansons takes at a somewhat slow tempo.
Likewise, the harp in the Adagietto helps to reinforce the chord changes in the strings and conveys a sense of a strummed aubade. Here, though, the rich textures of the lower strings are not strong enough to balance the treble sounds, which tend to dominate this movement. This is nonetheless a solid performance of this famous movement. It is never self-indulgent, but flows nicely to allow the vocal qualities of the structural model of the movement, Mahler’s Rückert setting “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekomment” (“I am lost to the world”) to guide the interpretation.
In general, Jansons offers a reading of the Fifth that lacks some of the frenetic qualities that other interpreters sometimes bring to the work. Jansons lingers at time, and while he does not fail to bring the works to satisfying conclusions, it is never at the expense of sacrificing clarity or allowing figuration to become sound effects. In this sense, the pacing offers something that lends itself to the strengths of the Concertgebouw in presenting a uniformly solid sound and allowing it to blend nicely in this reading of Mahler’s score.
This kind of approach makes it possible to appreciate the interpretation of the Rondo-Finale, which is not as driven to reach the ending, as much as it revels in the means of getting to that point. Just as the chorale at the climax of the second movement ends rings nicely in this recording, Jansons sustains that effect in the last movement. The orchestral sonorities match the melodic and motive content to good effect. This is a thoughtful interpretation of this familiar work, which bears attention for the ways in which it offers a distinctive sense of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, even with the interpretive distance implicit in the recording.
James L. Zychowicz