The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.
In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.
Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.
If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.
The voices of six women composers are celebrated by baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and soprano Yunah Lee on this characteristically ambitious and valuable release by Lontano Records Ltd (Lorelt).
As Paul Spicer, conductor of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, observes, the worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is as ‘old as Christianity itself’, and programmes devoted to settings of texts which venerate the Virgin Mary are commonplace.
Ethel Smyth’s last large-scale work, written in 1930 by the then 72-year-old composer who was increasingly afflicted and depressed by her worsening deafness, was The Prison – a ‘symphony’ for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra.
‘Hamilton Harty is Irish to the core, but he is not a musical nationalist.’
‘After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.’ Aldous Huxley’s words have inspired VOCES8’s new disc, After Silence, a ‘double album in four chapters’ which marks the ensemble’s 15th anniversary.
A song-cycle is a narrative, a journey, not necessarily literal or linear, but one which carries performer and listener through time and across an emotional terrain. Through complement and contrast, poetry and music crystallise diverse sentiments and somehow cohere variability into an aesthetic unity.
One of the nicest things about being lucky enough to enjoy opera, music and theatre, week in week out, in London’s fringe theatres, music conservatoires, and international concert halls and opera houses, is the opportunity to encounter striking performances by young talented musicians and then watch with pleasure as they fulfil those sparks of promise.
“It’s forbidden, and where’s the art in that?”
Dublin-born John F. Larchet (1884-1967) might well be described as the father of post-Independence Irish music, given the immense influenced that he had upon Irish musical life during the first half of the 20th century - as a composer, musician, administrator and teacher.
The English Civil War is raging. The daughter of a Puritan aristocrat has fallen in love with the son of a Royalist supporter of the House of Stuart. Will love triumph over political expediency and religious dogma?
Beethoven Symphony no 9 (the Choral Symphony) in D minor, Op. 125, and the Choral Fantasy in C minor, Op. 80 with soloist Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester, new from Harmonia Mundi.
A Louise Brooks look-a-like, in bobbed black wig and floor-sweeping leather trench-coat, cheeks purple-rouged and eyes shadowed in black, Barbara Hannigan issues taut gestures which elicit fire-cracker punch from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
‘Signor Piatti in a fantasia on themes from Beatrice di Tenda had also his triumph. Difficulties, declared to be insuperable, were vanquished by him with consummate skill and precision. He certainly is amazing, his tone magnificent, and his style excellent. His resources appear to be inexhaustible; and altogether for variety, it is the greatest specimen of violoncello playing that has been heard in this country.’
Baritone Roderick Williams seems to have been a pretty constant ‘companion’, on my laptop screen and through my stereo speakers, during the past few ‘lock-down’ months.
Melodramas can be a difficult genre for composers. Before Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden the concept of the melodrama was its compact size – Weber’s Wolf’s Glen scene in Der Freischütz, Georg Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea or even Leonore’s grave scene in Beethoven’s Fidelio.
This 1959 recording is one where the whole is bigger and better than the separate parts. It is the German equivalent to the Cetra recordings of the fifties. Those were maybe not the greatest recording of an opera but one felt that everybody was steeped in the Italian tradition. The same is happening here.
This was the last recording of the work with an all German-speaking cast before Swedish, American, Mexican, Finnish tenors and sopranos of international standing took over some of those roles as they were thought to be better sellers (granted, Carlos Kleiber once more had an all German male cast in 1973 but he had the horrible idea to ask theatre actors for the speaking parts).
Not all of these singers were still at the top of their career or even excellently suited to their roles, but all of them had known the opera all their lives, even before they started an opera career and this shows in the flow of the recording, the pacing and the ease in the dialogues. Der Freischütz with its rather naïve story was immensely popular in the broad sense of the word (“volkstümlich the Germans say) and up till the sixties there would have been no German, Austrian or Swiss who didn’t know the hunter’s chorus while most Germans thought the bridesmaids chorus to be a folk tune. Though the recording firms still kept up the pace, performances of Weber’s masterpiece slowly declined in Germany but it would never leave the repertoire as did most of Albert Lorzing’s fine Spielopern.
The recording has some strong points. First, there is the warm sound so typically for DG at the time. How we detested those magnificent stereo Decca recordings of Bohème (Bergonzi, Tebaldi), Lucia (Sutherland, Cioni) etc. because most people got a kind of hollow sound which improved definitely when one turned the volume a few notches up. But when one lived between paper thin walled houses or small apartments one could only try this for a few minutes before an angry knock asked you to calm down and as people still had some politeness and consideration for each other in those days….The DG recordings didn’t neglect the orchestra, but they placed the singers a bit more to the front; they didn’t have Culshaw extravaganzas and were far more easier to listen to in cramped surroundings.
I have fond memories of Eugen Jochum conducting a top notch orchestra (which was Celibidache’s after all). Apart from the Berliner in those days most German top orchestras belonged to a big public radio network as these organisations offered year long contracts in contrast to the opera houses and thus recruited the best players. On rehearing I was surprised at the very slow start of the overture and feared for a moment that my memories had played me false and that Jochum was suffering from a bad case of Furtwänglerism. But soon the conductor speeds things up and succeeds in building the tension that results in a chilling Wolfsschluchtscene. The best vocal performance comes from Rita Streich who would sadly die in 1987, only 56 years of age. She was one of that remarkable trio of light sopranos (the other two being Erika Köth and Anneliese Rothenberger), all born between 1920 and 1925, who still sang a lot of French and Italian roles in German with a fine legato, good top notes and easily distinguishable voices. Streich is sure and light-footed in her solos and has no difficulty at all of being heard in the ensembles though her voice was small. But she brings with her the joy and frivolity and the rock-sure vocal technique needed for someone who recorded a lot of waltzes and operetta though she was foremost an opera and lieder singer.
Next to her Irmgard Seefried is not on the same level. The soprano had a very beautiful voice in her youth and she was a far more popular figure at Salzburg than Schwarzkopf as she unstintingly gave of her best. But she paid a price for her lack of formal training. She was only 20 and still studying when she accepted an offer from the Generalmusikdirektor of Aachen’s small opera, Karajan. As the war was on maybe she was glad to earn a few Reichsmark. By the mid-sixties, only 45, she was spent and she cut short her operatic career and concentrated for many years on lieder before dying at 69. When she made this recording there are already hints of trouble. The warm personal middle voice is still there but the sound becomes thin at the top and one feels her reticence in giving her all as she cannot get away in the studio with flat notes which still passed on the scene. Therefore her Agathe is too tentative, too restrained as the voice no longer can respond to the character’s needs. Richard Holm was a fine Mozartean, a good Tamino though more a Pedrillo than a Belmonte. The voice is beautiful, smooth and well-projected with a good clear diction but the role is a size too big for him and he sometimes has to force in ensembles. Bass Kurt Böhme has more than the size. With a big booming voice he is a fine devil often too much relying on exclamations and Sprechgesang and some people will probably prefer the more smooth interpretation of Gottlob Frick or Karl Ridderbusch in later recordings. Eberhard Waechter in the small role of Ottokar is cast from strength and so is Walter Kreppel as Samuel.
There is no libretto included with this budget issue.
Jan Neckers