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Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro - Currentzis - Kleiber - Gardiner

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88883 70926-2. MOZART Le nozze di Figaro. Teodor Currentzis
Figaro - Christian Van Horn 
Susanna - Fanie Antonelou
Count Almaviva - Andrei Bondarenko
Countess Almaviva - Simone Kermes
Cherubino - Mary-Ellen Nesi
Marcellina - Maria Forsström
Bartolo - Nikolai Loskutkin
Don Basilio - Krystian Adam
Don Curzio - James Elliott
Antonio - Garry Agadzhanian
Teodor Currentzis, MusicAeterna
(The Chorus and Orchestra of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre)
Sony 2012
Digital download, flac HD, cover


Teodor Currentzis is the artistic director of the opera house in Perm, on the edge of Siberia. As reported in the January Gramophone, he is recording all three of the Mozart/da Ponte operas: Così fan tutte will appear next autumn, Don Giovanni a year later. The publicity material accompanying the new Figaro talks up the project in a big way, and Currentzis makes some astonishing claims. Modern performances don’t ‘approach the levels of precision and depth which are necessary to reveal the full richness of Mozart’s genius’. Really? In ‘Non più andrai’ the ‘crisp dotted rhythm…is usually “smeared” into triplets’? Not true, in my experience. The sparing use of vibrato, the inclusion of vocal embellishments, a prominent continuo: we are led to infer that Currentzis is first in the field. If it’s unreasonable to cite performances of this very opera in 1965 by Roger Norrington and the Chelsea Opera Group, or Charles Mackerras at Sadler’s Wells, let me at least point to the recording by René Jacobs.
That said, this is a lively performance, decently sung and conducted. Currentzis is much concerned with dynamic contrast, and there are many instances where the instruments are splendidly prominent: the horns in Figaro’s ‘Se vuol ballare’, for instance, and their pedal-point in the C major section of the Act 2 Finale. Elsewhere, as in the Count’s accompanied recitative after the fandango in Act 3, the effect can be noisily manic. Another of the conductor’s preoccupations is that ‘the vocal technique of the 20th century…lost all notion of the voices as a palette of tonal colours’. Here the Count is almost whispering as he makes his assignation with Susanna, and the Countess’s ‘Dove sono’ is a true soliloquy. Most effective of all is the Sextet, where all the characters – Marcellina especially – sound appropriately stunned at the revelation of Figaro’s parentage. The tempi are mostly well judged, ‘Porgi amor’ and ‘Deh vieni’ flowing nicely. But like most conductors, Jacobs excepted, Currentzis takes Susanna’s emergence from the closet much too slowly. Three cheers for the appoggiaturas, cadenzas and embellishments – the decorations in ‘Dove sono’ are charming – but Currentzis has missed the opportunity of adopting the variants to the Count’s aria that were probably composed for the Vienna revival in 1789.
The orchestra play on period instruments, the pitch – as on the Jacobs – nearly a semitone below the standard of today: this helps Maria Forsström, billed as a mezzo, to sing her aria without transposition. The multinational cast is led by the sturdy bass of Christian van Horn’s Figaro and Fanie Antonelou’s rounded, knowing characterisation of Susanna. What will, I fear, pall on repetition – and this is equally true of the Jacobs – is the hyperactive continuo. Flourishes before, during and at the end of secco recitatives (including a silly pun that glosses Susanna’s ‘Ecco!’ – ‘There you are’ – as an echo), and right-hand twiddly bits in the arias and ensembles; there’s no end to it. The recording is definitely worth hearing. But revelatory, groundbreaking, indispensable? Nah. (Grammophone Review)                                         

                                                      
                                                      
Alfred Poell - Il Conte di Almaviva
Lisa Della Casa - La Contessa
Hilde Güden - Susanna
Cesare Siepi - Figaro
Suzanne Danco - Cherubino
Hilde Rössl-Majdan - Marcellina
Fernando Corena - Bartolo
Murray Dickie - Don Basilio
Hugo Meyer-Welfing - Don Curzio
Anny Felbermayer - Barbarina
Harald Pröglhof - Antonio

Wiener Philharmoniker
Erich Kleiber
DECCA 1955
Digital download, flac HD, cover

Since this legendary recording of Le nozze di Figaro was first issued as part of the Mozart year 1956 celebrations it has more or less continually been available in one shape or another. Its latest incarnation appeared ten years ago in the Legends series, and that version is still in the catalogue. Where they differ is in the presentation. The issues in this new Heritage Masters series have a cast-list, a track-list and recording dates, nothing else: no notes, no libretto. Collectors who know their Figaro only need the discs; librettos can be found on the net. This is a great opportunity to get hold of classics at modest costs whether you are a newcomer to recorded opera or have worn out the old LPs.
 I belong to that latter category. It was through excerpts from this recording that I got to know Le nozze di Figaro. Every time I listen to this marvellous opera I have the voices of Siepi, Güden, Della Casa and Danco ringing in my head. When I bought my next Figaro – Karl Böhm’s DG version from the late 1960s – I couldn’t avoid comparing Prey, Mathis, Janowitz and Troyanos with their somewhat older colleagues, and for some reason they always tended to come second best. And this has continued through the decades. It is still the old Kleiber that stands supreme.
This doesn’t mean that I am uncritical. When the present set arrived I decided to start from scratch with no preconceptions. It wasn’t easy but here is my evaluation, warts and all:
Sound: Recorded almost 55 years ago it can’t compete with Böhm or some even younger rivals. The string tone is somewhat undernourished and it is a bit bass heavy but it is atmospheric and warm, the stereo spread is OK, balance impeccable and taken on its own it is more than acceptable. Victor Olof and Peter Andry were producers and James Brown and Cyril Windebank engineered.
Completeness: I haven’t checked if there are cuts in the recitatives but the music numbers are all here, including Don Basilio’s and Marcellina’s arias in the last act. The curious thing is that Hilde Güden, Susanna on this recording, sings Marcellina’s aria. It is not a drawback musically, since Güden sings just as wonderfully as she does her own role, but dramatically it feels wrong to hear the bright and charming Susanna voice when one expects Hilde Rössl-Majdan’s fruity contralto.
Orchestra: The Vienna Philharmonic were in wonderful shape in June 1955. They knew their Mozart and were also recording Don Giovanni under Josef Krips and Così fan tutte and Die Zauberflöte under Karl Böhm at about the same time.
Conductor: Erich Kleiber, the father of Carlos Kleiber, was born in Vienna and had Viennese music in his veins – not only the classics; he conducted the world premiere of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck – and he was an experienced opera conductor. Like Böhm and Colin Davis he had the ability to let the music unfold and breathe naturally. There isn’t a single tempo on this set that doesn’t sound right.
Soloists: Siepi’s, Güden’s and Della Casa’s assumptions of their respective roles have never been surpassed - possibly equalled a couple of times. No Figaro has more humour and more black wrath than Siepi’s, no Countess has a creamier voice or a more noble bearing than Della Casa, no Susanna is more lovely and warmer than Güden. Suzanne Danco is a very good Cherubino but she hasn’t quite the nervous boyishness of Frederica von Stade. Fernando Corena, often accused of being too coarse and too parodical, is on his best behaviour and sings with an elegance that few other Bartolos have achieved. The weakest link is Alfred Poell’s Count Almaviva. There is nothing particularly wrong with his voice, though he was no youngster when the recording was made, and he characterises well – but it is the wrong character. Almaviva may be a boor, but he is a nobleman and knows how to behave. Here he seems to come from the lower ranks of society. Harald Pröglhof, who makes a good portrait of Antonio, might even have been a better choice. Hilde Rössl-Majdan is a splendid Marcellina and Murray Dickie is a more heroic Don Basilio than most. This Scottish-born tenor is probably best known for singing the tenor part in Das Lied von der Erde under Paul Kletzki with Fischer-Dieskau taking the baritone part. Hugues Cuénod on Vittorio Gui’s almost contemporaneous recording is even more oily but Dickie’s is a refreshing reading. Hugo Meyer-Welfing, who used to sing Don Ottavio and Hoffmann, is luxury casting for Don Curzio and Anny Felbermayer is a pretty Barbarina.
Alfred Poell’s Almaviva apart – and others may well like him better than I do – this old warhorse still holds its own against the keen competition. Readers who want to botanise among other vintage recordings of Figaro should try Böhm, who has Fischer-Dieskau as an inimitable Almaviva (DG), Colin Davis with Ingvar Wixell a superb Almaviva and sterling contributions from Jessye Norman and Mirella Freni (Philips). Both these sets win hands down when it comes to sound quality. Vittorio Gui’s EMI version has surprisingly good sound and also sports one of the outstanding Figaros, Sesto Bruscantini, together with Sena Jurinac and Graziella Sciutti. There are also Fricsay (DG, Fischer-Dieskau again Almaviva and Irmgard Seefried a charming Susanna) and Giulini (EMI) with Giuseppe Taddei’s idiomatic Figaro, Eberhard Wächter’s hot-tempered Almaviva and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf’s noble and dignified Countess. There are riches aplenty and for those who love this opera as much as I do it can never be enough with only one recording. From the last decades there are good recordings under Karajan (quirky conducting but great soloists), Solti, Östman, Barenboim, Mackerras, Marriner … Need I say more? My final verdict is: Don’t you have a Figaro at all? Buy this Kleiber set. Do you have one and want an alternative? Buy Kleiber! Are your shelves sagging with Figaros? Buy new shelves and add Kleiber to the collection.

Göran Forsling

  
Rodney Gilfry Almaviva
Alison Hagley Susanna
Susan McCulloch Marcellina
Carlos Feller Bartolo
Bryn Terfel Figaro
Hillevi Martinpelto Contessa
Francis Egerton Basilio
Julian Clarkson Antonio
Constanze Backes Barbarina
Pamela Helen Stephen Cherubino

                                                                                                        John Eliot Gardiner 
English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir
Archiv 1994 
flac, cue, logs, partial scans


Mozart’s operas are so all-embracing in their concerns that no single conductor is able, it seems, to do equal justice to each. I found John Eliot Gardiner’s recent Così rather bland and uninspired. This new Figaro – a more ambivalent, indeed more cynical work in so many ways – is on a higher level altogether, an enlightening (one hesitates to apply the over-used epiphet ‘revelatory’) period performance galvanised by a palpably sure sense of dramatic wherewithal.
In common with others these days (though not Arnold Östman on the only other currently available period-instrument account), and with good musicological reasons, Gardiner re-jigs the ordering of Act III, positioning ‘Dove sono’ somewhat earlier than usual. He departs more radically from tradition by offering, in addition, a reordered version of Act IV. This is convincing as scholarship as well as drama – two qualities which inform the whole of this sparkling yet searching performance, a team effort which nonetheless permits plenty of sharply etched characterisation as well as some exceptionally fine singing.
Indeed the casting can hardly be faulted: a dark, even menacing Figaro (Bryn Terfel), a vixenish, knowing Susanna (Alison Hagley), a suave yet incisive Count (Rodney Gilfry), a radiant but far from droopy Countess (Hillevi Martinpelto) and an ardent, hyper-sexed Cherubino (Pamela Helen Stephen). Excellent cameo support too. Perhaps this is the near-perfect Figaro we’ve all been waiting for...

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)
-- Antony Bye, BBC Music Magazine



























































































Eggner Trio: Beethoven Ghost and Archduke Piano Trios

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Live Classics  LCL806
Ludwig van Beethoven:

01. - 03. Piano Trio in D major, op.70 no.1 'Ghost'  [28'20]
04. - 07. Piano Trio in B-flat major, op.97 'Archduke' [40'54]

Eggner Trio (Georg Eggner- violin, Florian Eggner- cello and Christoph Eggner- piano)

Live Classics  LCL806  (recorded December 2006; CD released in 2008)

(digital download; flacs, cover and inlay scans, no booklet)

Recording venue: Steppenwolf Studio, Betuwe, Netherlands
Recording engineer: Slava Poprugin; Producer: unknown

Despite the record label's name, these are actually studio recordings with excellent sound quality.

Some 10 years ago, I experienced two of the finest chamber music concerts that I have ever attended, given at our fine local concert hall here in the remote far north of New Zealand, when these three Austrian brothers Eggner, of the eponymous trio, toured the country. In one of the concerts, they played the other Beethoven op.70 piano trio and brought out the genial humour of the work as I have never heard before or since. It's the only chamber music concert that I have attended where the audience broke out into spontaneous laughter at the end of a movement.

Unfortunately the Eggners haven't recorded op.70 no.2, but here they perform the two most popular Beethoven trios with equal aplomb. If given the impossible task of itemising my very favourite pieces of music, the Archduke Trio would be very high on the list and this recording, whilst not quite supplanting the Storioni Trio's recording on period instruments (for Challenge Classics) comes quite close, along with the van Baerle Trio's recording (also for Challenge Classics). Isabelle Faust and friends recording with period instruments for Harmonia Mundi would have also been on the list if it hadn't been for the coupling - an impossibly drab and dour performance of op.70 no.2. Interesting that both period instrument recordings omit the lengthy repeat in the Scherzo of the Archduke.

Download from MEGA.

Cilea - Adriana Lecouvreur - Magda Olivero

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Francesco Cilea ( 1866 - 1950)
Magda Olivero, Ferrando Ferrari, Renato Capecchi
Mimi Aarden, Franco Ventriglia, Mario Carlin

Groot Omroepkoor / Omroeporkest
dir: Fulvio Vernizzi

Opera Fanatic (BelCanto Society) -2014- Stereo  2 CDs
Concert live recording in Amsterdam , 1965
(Excellent sound)


[flac & cue; cover, inlays, track list, disc scans]

Review:

"The opera with which Magda Olivero is most identified is Adriana Lecouvreur, Francesco Cilea’s 1902, verismo classic. Cilea himself so admired Olivero’s performance of his heroine, which she first sang in 1938, that he thanked her for her interpretation: Olivero’s approach to the end of Adriana’s entrance aria,”Io son l’umile ancella,” was sanctioned by the composer as the way it should be done. Adriana, in fact, was the role that brought the soprano back to the stage–at the request of its dying composer–in 1951, after a decade of premature retirement. But the fact that Olivero studied the role of Adriana with Cilea would count for little were it not for the fact that the soprano is, as Adriana describes herself, the humble servant of the creator’s genius. Olivero is Adriana and vice-versa.

“Having seen Olivero as Adriana in the late 1960s, this writer can attest to the glory of her singing and acting, the total identification she brought to the role and her absolute rock-solid control of her voice, including an eerie pianissimo used–but never overused–to haunting effect. When it comes to interpretation on this level, subjectivity will dictate one’s favorite–all available Olivero Adrianas are worth having. But this Adriana is arguably her most vocally secure, beautifully measured reading. The many vocal effects aimed for by Olivero, then fifty-five, are all achieved in this concert performance, without cheating the drama in any way: the Act III Phédremonologue and all of Act IV, from “Poveri fiori” on, are perfection.

“The balance of the cast lends more than adeqate support. Tenor Ferrando Ferrari’s Maurizio is a bit too lyric in weight but idiomatic and elegant in delivery. Renato Capecchi is a terrific, nuanced Michonnet, Mimi Aarden a fiery, fearless rival as the Principessa and Mario Carlin the quintessential oily Abate di Chazeuil. Fulvio Vernizzi conducts lovingly, and the Broadcast Orchestra plays superbly.The recorded sound rivals good commercial recordings of the era."Ira Siff- Opera News

Bach: 2 Harpsichords -- Sempé, Fortin

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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Skip Sempé (harpsichord after 18th c. French models; B Kennedy)
Olivier Fortin (harpsichord after Mietke; B Kennedy)

From Bach’s instrumental works for organ, solo violin and cello, and his arrangements of concerti and sonatas by contemporaries; transcribed and arranged for two harpsichords by Sempé & Fortin.

Recorded 1998
Paradizo PA0014 (1998, remastered 2015) (out of print)



XLD rip     .flac image + cue, webcovers, booklet, tracklist
429 MB
1fichier     https://1fichier.com/?n36vzrsi89tnu5pxejs1
WeTransfer (for 7 days)     https://we.tl/t-uO0DBsupXd

Tracklist
1 Prelude in C BWV545
2 Fugue in C BWV545
3 Largo in C BWV1005
4 Adagio in d minor (Marcello/Bach) BWV974
5 Adagio in G BWV968
6 Prelude in G BWV541
7 Fugue in G BWV541
8 Larghetto in D (Vivaldi/Bach) BWV972
9 Concerto in G (Ernst/Bach) BWV592a - Allegro
10 - Grave
11 - Presto
12 Prelude in E-flat BWV1010
13 Praeludium in C (Reinken/Bach) BWV966
14 Prelude in C BWV547
15 Fugue in C BWV547
16 Allegro in C (Ernst/Bach) BWV595
17 Adagio in a minor (Reinken/Bach) BWV965
18 Concerto in a minor (Vivaldi/Bach) BWV593 - Allegro
19 - Adagio
20 - Allegro
21 Preludio in A BWV1006

Koechlin - Grainger - The Jungle Book

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Charles KOECHLIN (1867-1950)

Le Livre de la jungle 
1. La Loi de la jungle
2. Les Bandar-Log
3. Berceuse phoque
4. Chanson de nuit dans la jungle
5. Chant de Kala Nag
6. La Méditation de Purun Bhagat
7. La Course de printemps
Iris Vermillion (mezzo)
Jacque Trussel (ten)
Vincent le Texier (bar)
Choeur des Opéras de Montpellier
Orchestra Philharmonique de Languedoc-Roussillon/Steuart Bedford
rec. live, 22 July 1998, Opéra Berlioz-Le Corum ADD
ACTES SUD 2000

The valuable series of CDs from the enlightened French publishing house Actes Sud is beginning to makes its way beyond France. The notes in the present case are entirely in French with no translations. The jewel box is forgotten for a change and instead, and this is becoming something of a French hallmark, we get a stiff card folder into which the booklet notes are glued and two CD mounting stems on fold-outs. The poems are printed in the booklet - again only in French. The cover and end designs are drawn from details of Henri Rousseau's 'Nègre attaqué par un jaguar'.
It is bizarre to see that this set is sourced from an analogue tape - perhaps a peculiarity of Radio France tape stock or equipment in Montpellier at the time (only four years ago!).
This set is up against forbidding competition in the shape of a BMG double (two CDs for the price of one) - Radio SO, Berlin/Zinman. Segerstam's recording of the Livre (Marco Polo 8.223484, rec. 1985 - a single CD at 72.47) is not directly comparable as it excludes the three vocal movements. Zinman on BMG 74321 84596-2 is an all-digital effort (rec. 1993) which includes all seven movements of the Livre plus James Judd conducting the Seven Stars Symphony (only symphonic in the same strained pictorial sense as Rubinstean's Ocean symphony!) and two slighter works. The BMG is difficult to pass up as a bargain in face of Actes-Sud's two CD set offering only the Livre. The Zinman Livre minus the Seven Stars was previously RCA 09026 61955 2. Zinman presents the tone poems in strict opus number order while both Bedford and Segerstam seems to have given some thought to shaping the seven pieces into a cogent narrative. Of course you can programme the pieces in any order you wish. The sense of rounded cogency comes across very well with the sequence starting with the Loi and ending with the Night movement of La Course de printemps - a pattern followed by Segerstam and Bedford.
Loi de la Jongle: With the tempo of a priestly march and rough-toned brass and imposing tam-tam strokes this music calls up images of some cavernous stone temple festooned in lianas. Bedford is the quickest of the three at 6.40 compared with the 9.51 of Segerstam and 9.14 of Zinman. Bedford does not seem unduly rushed despite shaving one third of the time off the competition.
Les Bandar-Log is about the same length (16 mins) in each of the three versions. Its depiction of the gibbering chaotic monkey race is an opportunity for Koechlin to cock a snook at the then trendiness of the 12-tone school and the atonalists. The depiction of the inarticulate, dysjunct and chattering is preceded by music clearly related to the Loi movement. I was intrigued to hear, among the intimations of ‘modernism’, music that seemed to be the mine from which Messiaen drew inspiration for his Turangalila Symphony (5.15). At the close the music dissolves into a quiet niente in which the orchestra's high violins seem slightly insecure; less so with Zinman’s Berlin orchestra. By comparison with the Actes-Sud, the BMG recording is in noticeably closer perspective and hints of Stravinsky (solo winds from Le Sacre) first caught in wispy form in Loi are now much more concrete. The Segerstam is slightly less well recorded than the Zinman and lacks its consistent animation. The music was written at a time coinciding with the invasion of France and while it lacks overtly tragic overtones I wonder whether any of this laceratingly sardonic music was aimed at the awful pomp of the Wehrmacht. I cannot imagine this music finding favour with the Vichy authorities; its lampooning of ‘degenerate’ styles is a mite too convincing..
The three poems Op. 18 are the earliest works in the cycle. The first two poems include a prominent part for mezzo soprano. Iris Vermillion seems to have cornered the market as she is the singer in both the Actes-Sud and BMG sets. Berceuse Phoque has the sort of quiet cyclical piano filigree you hear in Canteloube over which Vermillion's operatically-fit voice gently undulates in prophecy of Gershwin's Summertime. Although more closely recorded by BMG she is in better voice in the Bedford version - the digital ‘floodlighting’ did not suit her voice quite so well as the analogue treated it in Montpellier. This track has to be a natural for any Classic FM style radio station looking to freshen its playlist. Put it in a similar artlessly lovely category as Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileira No. 5, Rachmaninov''s Vocalise, Sibelius's Luonnotar and any of the more somnolent Canteloube arrangements.
The Chanson de Nuit is a quick and hunted brevity. Here Ralf Lukas (Zinman) is to be preferred over Vincent Le Texier. Lukas is in much better voice and Vermillion seems on top of the role. The downside is that the BMG sound lacks mystery. The long Chant de Kala Nag (the tame elephant who sings from captivity his lament of yearning for the forests) is sung by Jan Botha - a dark toned tenor with a real coffee-baritonal quality and an urgency to his singing. Bedford has the pastel shaded Jacque Trussel and the quickly caught triumphs at 1.50 are better caught in the Bedford version. These three poems date from the turn of the century and are of a decidedly exotic-romantic mode not so very far removed from Delibes and Massenet. The chorus touches in the colours of these three pieces.
After the Op. 18 excursion to the opulent French Orient the Meditation brings us back to 1936. Purun-Bhagat, by the way, is a devout pilgrim once a holder of high power who now contemplates solitary serenity (is it any surprise that this music was written amid the Chamounix mountains?). The work is kith and kin to Delius's Song of the High Hills and Novak's In the Tatras (there are no avant-garde infractions this time). Those long held pp high notes again cause the Montpellier strings some slight strain which is better handled by the Berliners even though they are recorded more analytically - lacking the analogue mystery of the Radio France tape. Both versions link seamlessly back to the Loi and the introduction of Bandar-Log. Segerstam's recording team make a better job of catching the half-lit secrets and serene contemplative leanings of the piece although here too they must give place to Bedford's performance.
The Spring Running (La Course) was written between 1911 and 1929. It is the longest of all seven of the pieces and finishes the Bedford and Segerstam versions: Bedford 29.19 (about 28.12, shorn of applause), Zinman 31.54, Segerstam 31.21. Its mood range encompasses festivity found in Ravel and Markevich, as well as serenity. In this respect Segerstam is less convincing than Bedford. The pell-mell rush reads across to another headlong vernal work of the 1920s: Frank Bridge's Enter Spring (and the second of his Two Jefferies Poems) as well as John Foulds' April-England. The score is in four segments (not separately tracked on Actes-Sud or Marco Polo): Spring in the Forest, Mowgli, The Running, Night. There are discreet parts for organ and piano. This portrayal of the irresistible rush of spring tells of Mowgli's sorrowing departure from forest childhood to manhood and his separation from Bagheera and Baloo. The Running is the last desperate and doomed attempt to drive out from Mowgli's bloodstream the stirrings of adult emotions and inhibition. Segerstam handles this all very well. The feathery analogue gauze of the Bedford set helps with the mystery and his Mowgli is preferable especially to Zinman who eludes the rapturous intensity of abandon found in Bedford and Segerstam.
Allowing for the minor fallibilities of the Montpellier orchestra and of a live concert with audience participation of various sorts, this French analogue version is sensitive and mysterious and has the glorious Ms Vermillion in imperious voice. The BMG double is difficult not to prefer given its generous coupling and studio perfection. If however you are captivated by the Koechlin work you will need to have this Bedford version which is informed by the imaginative energy of a conductor whose sympathy for Kipling's ‘Jungle Book’ has already been amply demonstrated by various concert performances of Percy Grainger's own quite different Jungle Book cycle.

Rob Barnett

Percy Grainger

Shallow Brown
Jungle Book *
Good-Bye to Love (arr. Alan Gibbs)
Died for Love *
The Power of Love *
The Rival Brothers *
Six Dukes Went Afishin'
The Sprig of Thyme (arr. Dana Paul Perna)
Willow, Willow
Recessional *
Lord Maxwell's Goodnight (arr. David Tall)
The Three Ravens
The Running of Shindand *
Early One Morning (arr. David Tall)
The Love Song of Har Dyal *
My Love's in Germanie *
* CD premières
Libby Crabtree, soprano
Lesley Jane Rogers, soprano
John Mark Ainsley, tenor
James Gilchrist, tenor
David Wilson-Johnson, baritone
Polyphony
The Polyphony Orchestra/Stephen Layton
Hyperion 1998

After years of neglect, Grainger's music seems finally to come into its own. For those of you drawn to British music, give Grainger a try. He sounds like nobody else, and his music alternately jumps with raw physical energy and pines with great longing and sweetness. He packs his pieces full of surprises. Very few go on longer than 6 minutes, so if you don't like a work, something else will come along shortly. Some of the works repeat other discs, but a good number of pieces count as discoveries certainly to me. Even some of the repeats appear here in alternate versions (Grainger almost obsessively re-arranged his own work for various combinations). The major find on the program has to be the first complete recording of Grainger's cycle from The Jungle Book.
Grainger, a composer of many instrumental works, including his "imaginary ballet," The Warriors, considered himself primarily a choral composer and his favorite work in the genre his Jungle Book cycle, here recorded for the first time in its entirety, so this CD has great importance for Grainger fans. I've heard some pieces before, but I'm mad for Grainger's music and seek it out. Grainger did not write all eleven parts in one go but produced them over a span of nearly fifty years. In fact, the first settings come from his teens. Like most of Grainger, the cycle's a bit of a grab-bag. For me, the individual pieces never quite coalesce as a cycle, but that impression could well arise from the order in which they are performed here. The forces vary from piece to piece – from a cappella male choir to dramatic scenas ("The Only Son," for example) with soloists, large instrumental ensembles, and chorus – and some parts exist in several arrangements, most bearing the mark of an individual, virtuosic orchestrator. Grainger maven Barry Peter Ould thoughtfully provides liner notes that include the instrumentation used for each track. Beware, however. Not all the arrangements come from Grainger's pen, and those that don't – although well-crafted – lack Grainger's characteristic daffy audacity. Grainger's music, if nothing else, comes unmistakably from a very unusual musical mind.
"Good-Bye to Love" represents Grainger at his most sentimental. He wrote it originally as a piano miniature for his former mistress on the occasion of her marriage to someone else. The arrangement by Allan Gibbs – for tenor soloist, 6-part chorus, strings, and harp – lays an additional heavy dollop of treacle over everything, supplying words taken from Grainger's comments on the piece (Grainger's dead, of course, and can't defend his work from well-intentioned tampering) and, generally speaking, tarting up a modest original. The graceful turns on the solo piano become plummy swoops and scoops in the chorus and harp – Liberace music. Fortunately, this remains the only significant blemish (and a mere four minutes, at that).on the program.
"Shallow Brown" makes yet another appearance on a recent CD, and I can't seem to get enough of it. It tells the story of a friend about to go "away accrost the ocean," at a time before convenient and mostly safe transportation when "going away" meant "going away for good," one way or another. Its structure is bone-simple: solo lines alternating with choral refrain. Grainger stretches it out to over six minutes and creates a dramatic lament that moves you to the pain and, in a funny way, the nurture of sorrow. The orchestra sounds like a mandolin symphony, full of gigantic thrumming. In addition to choir and soloist, the instrumental group calls for four guitars, two mandolas, two mandolins, two ukuleles, strings and piano usually in tremolo, saturating the texture with an intense shimmer. Grainger also tosses in piccolo, three clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, two alto saxophones, and French horn, with harmonium as a fill-in color. It's all a Turner seascape, with the strumming instruments imitating the constant lap of wind and wave and the woodwinds providing the cries of the wild birds. I consider Layton's and David Wilson-Johnson's performance the finest on this CD – indeed, one of the work's best on record, fully equal to Britten's and John Shirley-Quirk's classic account – searingly, heartbreakingly beautiful.
As a choral composer, Grainger puts heavy demands on his singers, especially on their ability to stay in tune from chord to chord, often in pretty thick textures. In "The Beaches of Lukannon"– here sung in a version for mixed chorus, strings, and harmonium – he makes the male choir take the first verse a cappella through some very tricky chord changes before he brings in the instruments, and the last chord of the men mostly matches the first chord of the ensemble (I hear a shift from major to minor, but that's it). Addicted to new orchestral colors, he also calls for unusual vocal colors: "yelps" in "Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack" to imitate a wolf pack; more wolf-baying in "Red Dog." The Brits seem to grow wonderful vocal ensembles like mushrooms. Their general standard – of tone, blend, intonation, diction, and all-round musicianship – I consider the highest in the world, although individual groups from other places may surpass a particular British choir. Polyphony meets the highest standards of British choirs. Grainger doesn't make things easy for them. His harmonic language is, to put it mildly, fluid, and, as I say, he likes rich (or "thick," depending on your fondness for it) textures. The ensemble runs the danger of creating a kind of harmonic haze rather than the sharply-defined chord progressions Grainger constructs. Grainger usually builds in some sort of harmonic conflict, not necessarily related to the level of dissonance. Sometimes he side-slips into distant keys through the most tenuous links, analogous (though not identical) to Prokofieff, as in the lovely and enigmatic "Morning Song in the Jungle." At other times, he makes the "home" tonality ambiguous – you seem to have your choice among two or three keys, also a feature of "Morning Song." These effects "destabilize" the music without calling attention to themselves. Grainger makes them relevant to the emotional point of the piece – usually the mystery of "primitive" nature or the evanescence of life.
Grainger's The Jungle Book, despite its idiosyncrasies, captures the essence of Kipling at his best. It sings with great sympathy for the victims of civilized man and with blazing energy of nature "red in tooth and claw." However, overall the cycle presents the impression of things passing away. Here, one sees the point of Grainger's view of his music as a "pilgrimage of sorrows."
Layton gives us a generous program. In addition to the cycle, we have more folk-song and Kipling settings. My favorites include "Died for Love," for soprano and string trio, in which a counter-melody derived from the final line of the tune, runs rhythmically against the folk-song's course; it lasts just over a minute. Libby Crabtree has a small, slightly constricted voice, but it's affecting in this folk tune, recalling a genuine folk singer. "Six Dukes Went Afishin'," normally found in its piano-vocal arrangement, is heard in Grainger's setting for mixed voices. It's an odd work, about six dukes who find the body of a seventh murdered in the stream, and goes on to talk of such things as embalming. The music is restrained and beautiful. Peter Pears and Britten did a classic "Willow, Willow" for their landmark CD in the version for tenor, solo violin, strings, and harp, also done here. Layton's tenor, John Mark Ainsley, has a fresher voice than Pears's, but he's not as accomplished a singer. In particular, he has difficulty with the short "i" sound. Thus, "Willow, willow" becomes "Wee-low, wee-low," a bit annoying, since the phrase repeats so many times. Grainger's setting of Kipling's "Recessional" sounds a cross between Protestant hymnody and Vaughan Williams (not necessarily incompatible), with the characteristic Grainger ambiguity of key center.
Overall, Gardiner seems to invest more energy in his recent Philips program (Philips 446657-2) and gets a bigger payoff than Layton. However, that comparison aside, Layton and Polyphony do a fine job with more essentially new repertoire. Hyperion's sound doesn't call attention to itself, one way or the other.

Steve Schwartz


Bonus disc (digital download)


The Jungle Book' was the last animated feature personally produced by Walt Disney. Initially released in 1967 the film received an Oscar nomination for the song 'The Bare Necessities'.This CD contains for the first time the entire original soundtrack plus an interview with Academy-award winning songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman. The interview segment features demo material and 2 rare songs; 'Baloo's Blues' and 'It's A Kick'.Original score composed by George Bruns. Original songs composed by Richard M. Sherman Robert B. Sherman and Terry Gilkyson.Originally recorded between February 1964 and June 1967. 
At the height of Beatlemania, the Disney folks were teaching kids how to really swing with this soundtrack to their adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. Of course, it's Phil Harris (the voice of everyone's favorite hipster bear Baloo) who steals the show with the original slacker anthem, "The Bare Necessities," but his scat match with an inspired Louis Prima on "I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)" is also not to be missed. Songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman--who clearly enjoyed playing the irony card on songs like "Trust in Me (The Python's Song)" and "That's What Friends Are For" (The Vulture Song)"--offer entertaining reminiscences about the project in a 12-minute bonus track. George Bruns's wonderful underscore, a couple early song demos, and two post-soundtrack Baloo numbers round out a collection that suggests, in the most charming way imaginable, that it really is a jungle out there. --Bill Forman


Schieferdecker: Musicalische Concerte -- Elbipolis Barockorchester Hamburg

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Johann Christian Schieferdecker (1679-1732)

01-05 Concert n13 in c minor
06-11 Concert n8 in F Major
12-18 Concert n5 in d minor
19-23 Concert n10 in G Major
24-28 Concert n1 in a minor
29-35 Concert n6 in D Major

Recorded 4-8 April 2011, Evangelische Kirche Isselshorst (DE)
Challenge Classics 72531 (2011) ([nearly] out of print)



XLD rip    .flc image + cue, covers, booklet, tracklist
344.2 MB
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WeTransfer (for 7 days)     https://we.tl/t-O1PcLdkm2r

Tracklist
01 Concert n13 in c minor - Ouverture
02 Gavott
03 Bourée
04 Menuet alternativement avec le Trio
05 Chaconne
06 Concert n8 in F Major - Ouvertur
07 Concert
08 Sarabanda
09 Gavotte en Rondeau
10 Menuet Alternativement
11 Giquée
12 Concert No. 5 in d minor - Ouvertur
13 Rondeau
14 Bourée
15 Menuet
16 Aria. Violin solo
17 Rigaudon. Alternativement
18 Gigue
19 Concert No. 10 in G major - Ouverture
20 Gavott
21 Aria. Adagio
22 Menuet alternativement
23 Chaconne
24 Concert No. 1 in A minor - Ouverture
25 Passepied
26 Entrée
27 Chaconne
28 Gique
29 Concert No. 6 in D major - Simphonie
30 Aria
31 Gavotte
32 Rondeau
33 Menuet. Alternativement
34 Aria. Hautbois Solo
35 Giguée. Presto

Bruckner - The Three Masses - Te Deum - Symphony 00 - String Quintet

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Mass No 3 in F Minor
Te Deum
Jane Eaglen soprano
Birgit Remmert contralto
Deon van der Walt tenor
Alfred Muff bass
Mozart-Chor, Linz
The London Philharmonic
Franz Welser-Most
EMI 1996


Few passages in music afford such an open view of the heavens as the first bars of Bruckner's Te Deum. So much is riding on those oscillating fourths and fifths, those sky-high choral unisons - a universal belief: one voice, one faith. It's plainchant finding power in proclamation, it's the musical embodiment of the words "And it came to pass". The power of suggestion is greater than mere dimension, far greater than the sum of the notes on the page. But it was ever thus with Bruckner. Simple man, simple means. Huge conviction. When the solo violin takes flight in seraphic embellishments during the opening "Kyrie" of the Mass in F, it is not Beethoven's Missa Solemnis you think of - nothing so visionary, so lofty, so far-reaching. Bruckner's celestial voice is heaven on earth. And be it ever so humble, it's the directness, the sincerity of his message, his manner, that goes straight to the heart.
Welser-Most's choice of choir, the Mozart-Chor from Linz, his (and Bruckner's) neck of the woods, pays off handsomely: a forthright, well-focused, and highly articulate body striding into those resolute fugues, hurling down those mighty blocked unisons like the proverbial tablets of stone. He does an excellent job of terracing those tuttis, nailing the points of release, defining the sound in such a way as to keep the textures open. EMI's engineering plays its part, too. Very impressive. The final stretta romps home gloriously, sopranos sitting jubilantly on that top C, not wishing they were there from a semi-tone below. Eduard Seckerson



Mass No. 1 in D Minor
Ave Maria (1861), WAB 6
Tota pulchra es, antiphon, WAB 46
Locus iste, WAB 23
Os justi meditabitur sapientiam
Christus factus est, WAB 11
 BernardaFink
Monteverdi Choir
 LubaOrgonasova
ChristophPrégardien
John Eliot Gardiner Wiener Philharmoniker
digital download, booklet

John Eliot Gardiner makes heavy weather of Bruckner’s D minor Mass, an already weighty work that in this performance won’t win many new adherents, even among those who love the composer’s symphonies. Yes, the Vienna Philharmonic plays beautifully, the Monteverdi Choir comports itself well, and the soloists are generally fine, but it all adds up to something less than whole in this oddly dispassionate reading. Compared to Matthew Best/Corydon and Eugen Jochum/Bavarian Radio, Gardiner sounds decidedly somber, even in the more uplifting and declamatory sections like the “Gloria” and “Credo”. Things are even more benumbed in the slower sections, with the “Kyrie” so uninflected that it becomes stultifying. This closed-in feeling is reinforced by DG’s dimly-lit and harsh-sounding recording.
However, the sound improves noticeably for the 5 Motets, recorded in England’s St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s church rather than Vienna’s Musikverein. The Monteverdi Choir sings with a vibrancy and finesse that was not so discernible in the Mass, and Gardiner thankfully lets the music flow organically. But you’ll do better overall with one of the above recommended versions of these works–and Naxos also has an excellent disc of Bruckner motets in its catalog. Victor Carr Jr.

(Despite the rather negative response to its publication, I consider this Gardiner album as a different vision from the best known of Jochum and Best. You can listen to them here and here.)



Te Deum
Psalm 150
Mass No. 2 in E minor
Pamela Coburn (soprano)
Ingeborg Danz (alto)
Christian Elsner (tenor)
Franz-Josef Selig (bass)
Stuttgart Gächinger Kantorei
Collegium Stuttgart/Helmuth Rilling
 Hänssler 1996                                                                                       
Bruckner began work on the Te Deum in 1881 and completed it in 1884; that makes it roughly concurrent with his Sixth and Seventh symphonies. For chorus, soloists, orchestra and organ ad libitum it’s a surprisingly compact piece – it lasts around 25 minutes – that’s anything but tedious. In Rilling’s hands the hyper-intense Te Deum laudamus may lack the purifying heat of Jochum's and Haitink’s versions, but that’s by no means a criticism. It’s a spacious reading – scrupulous even - with a believable balance between orchestra and soloists; the latter are pretty good, both individually and as a team. and the Stuttgart choir sing with clarity and a real sense of devotion.
Indeed, as the performance progressed I became acutely aware of its deeply spiritual character. That’s particularly true of the Te ergo quaesumus, in which the soloists are hushed but not over-reverential. Theirs is a delicate but necessary inwardness, and Rilling calibrates his accompaniment accordingly. Haitink, Jochum and Best – the latter with a very robust organ part – are all built on more generous lines, and that makes for extremely visceral performances.
By contrast Rilling’s Te Deum seems more austere, especially in its quieter moments. His soloists continue to impress, but it’s tenor Christian Elsner who sings with the purest of tone and the loveliest of lines. I mentioned the word ‘scrupulous’ earlier, but it’s not meant in a derogatory sense; actually, such care gives rise to a sensitively shaped, beautifully integrated performance. In short, this is the Te Deum one seldom hears, the inner Bruckner given voice in a most eloquent and affecting way.
Rilling may lack some vividness at the outset, but the start of the Aeterna fac has all the boldness one could wish. Again I was struck by the conductor’s even-handed approach to this score; nothing is forced or fiddled, it flowers so naturally. The recording, similarly judicious, is firm in the bass and clean in the treble. No, Hänssler can’t match Philips’ heaven-storming sonics for Haitink, nor can Hyperion for Best, but then Rilling’s Te Deum is a less overt, more personal affair. So much so that the start of the Salvum fac is like eavesdropping on private thoughts and prayers.
Something else that makes this recording stand out is the hear-through quality of the orchestral playing. One registers far more detail and nuance than usual, and then marvels at the simple, artless beauty of Bruckner’s writing. Rilling doesn’t rush his fences in the finale, where the emboldened soloists add to the growing sense of anticipation. One can really hear Rilling’s baroque skills at work in the buoyant, clearly delineated choral contributions; the women in particular are splendid, their combined voices seeming to batter at the very gates of heaven. As for those final invocations they’re hurled into the empyrean with a fierce hope and certainty that’s utterly overwhelming.
This is an astonishing performance in every respect, all the more so because it's built on core musical values. That doesn’t mean there’s no drama – far from it – just that the work is laid out in a way that reveals all its virtues. 
Psalm 150 – which lasts around nine minutes - opens with high-lying Hallelujahs and pulsing timps. Rilling seems even more incisive here than he is in the Te Deum; the recording is leaner and brighter too. In fact I found the treble somewhat edgy, especially in the choral outbursts. Soprano Pamela Coburn is just fine though, and Rilling brings admirable clarity to the performance. As for the crowning climax – complete with stratospheric sopranos – it’s simply hair-raising. Jochum’s reading is also strong, if somewhat foursquare at times, with less of the lift that Rilling brings to the piece.
At around 42 minutes the Mass No. 2 is by far the longest item here. It’s also the one that has the most devotional character, the chorus filling those votive spaces with their glorious tones. Commissioned for the dedication of a new cathedral it’s scored for mixed choir and wind band, the latter of which underlines and punctuates the radiant choral parts. It’s a slow-wending work, and Rilling accesses its spiritual centre more effectively than most. As for the brass they have a splendid ring in the Gloria and the Credo, both of which are prefaced with the usual priestly intonations.
This Mass setting isn't as tightly focused as either the Te Deum or Psalm 150 but it does have vigour and variety, especially in the keenly felt rhythms and bright sonorities of the Credo. Once again there’s a lucency to the performance – helped in part by a clear separation of voices – that probably owes much to Rilling’s experience with Bach. The start of the Sanctus falls like soft rain – this really is an exceptional choir, at the peak of their powers – while the Benedictus and Agnus Dei are no less nourishing. The orchestral skeins, beautifully balanced and well caught, bring a rubied glow to the proceedings.
A stand-out Te Deum; the partnering works are very well prepared and performed, too.Dan Morgan
                                                 



Symphony in F minor
Adagio from String Quintet
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Ondine 1999






In addition to Bruckner’s nine mature symphonies, there are two others which the composer discarded: one in D minor, designated by Bruckner as his ‘Symphony Number Zero’, which is moderately well known, and an earlier one in F minor, which is scarcely ever played and is referred to sometimes as ‘Symphony Number Double Zero’. The F minor symphony was written merely as an exercise but it is an enjoyable, unpretentious work with more to offer the listener than one might expect from a composition with such an unpromising origin: Bruckner was aged nearly forty and already a fully-qualified, accomplished composer when he produced this work in 1863, so nobody should assume from its alternative title of ‘Study Symphony’ that this is a score which has been dredged up from his early student days.
In the F minor Symphony, Bruckner was testing his own ability to write a conventional, large-scale work, and to achieve this he suppressed his stylistic individuality deliberately, with the result that the character of the music suggests the composer’s predecessors such as Weber and (at the start of the finale) Schumann, more than it suggests Bruckner himself. Its first recording did not appear until 1972, when EMI issued one, long deleted, by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Elyakum Shapirra. To my knowledge, the only other version released since then is that by Eliahu Inbal on Teldec with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Even if more recordings of it were available for comparison, one would probably still find that this modest work allows less scope for subtle variations in interpretation than do the later symphonies, but Ashkenazy’s tempi are so different from Inbal’s that this basic parameter alone is sufficient to account for a significant divergence between the two performances. The most extreme instance of this is in the scherzo, where Ashkenazy is much slower than Inbal in the main section but much faster than him in the trio, the tempo relationships chosen by each conductor being thus the reverse of each other. Ashkenazy’s is considerably the faster of the two recordings in the first movement, imparting an airy mood to the music; one might argue that Inbal’s heavier approach conforms more closely to what we identify nowadays as Bruckner’s characteristic voice, but when one recalls that the composer wrote this symphony with not only no interest in displaying his own individuality but even with the specific intention of eliminating it to some extent, it is clear that to expect any performance consciously to foreshadow Bruckner’s later style is inappropriate, although this does not prevent us from being able to glimpse traces of Bruckner’s later works here in embryo: moreover, Ashkenazy’s choice of tempo is supported by the marking of Allegro molto vivace in the score. Likewise, in the second movement, his quick tempo for the G minor section at 4’04" eschews Inbal’s deliberate ponderousness.
The recording was made in the same Berlin church as that which was used for many of Eugen Jochum’s distinguished Bruckner recordings and the sound quality is good. 
The new Ondine release contains a valuable bonus which more than justifies the higher price asked: we are given the 16-minute slow movement of the String Quintet (1878/9), a work of Bruckner’s maturity, in an arrangement for string orchestra by Fritz Oeser, whose credentials as a Bruckner scholar were impeccable (his fine edition of the Third Symphony appeared in 1950). This Adagio has made more impression on me here than in any performance which I have heard of the original chamber version of the quintet: it is too important to be regarded as just a ‘fill-up’ and it is not be to be missed. Raymond Clarke


Bruckner: String Quintet
Dvorak: String Quartet No. 12
Koeckert String Quartet, George Schmid, viola
DG MONO 1953
digital download. cover







Bruckner's Quintet is really a symphony in chamber music garb. There are times when you almost expect the brass to come crashing in, but it's not to be. The music abounds in the large blocks of harmonies, chromatic modulations, and the gigantic, majestic crescendos that make his symphonies so distinctive. Harmonically, I think it wavers between the sound worlds of Schubert and Wagner. If most chamber works are like charcoal etchings, Bruckner's Quintet has masses of sound that are more like a large canvas in oil. It's a unique work, and it came from fairly late in Bruckner's career (it was written between the 5th & 6th symphonies). 
This CD was formerly on Decca LP. The Koeckert Quartet players were principals in the Bavarian Radio Symphony under Eugen Jochum, and no doubt their playing in so many Bruckner symphonies under Jochum contributed to their eloquent interpretation of the Quintet. Jeffrey Lipscomb

flac, cue, logs, full scans

Bruckner belonged to the romantic era only in so far as he happened to live in it, sometimes picking up stray influences that appealed to him. He showed a childlike pleasure in encountering anything new and never stopped to ponder its significance in general terms. Occasionally he found its incidental discoveries useful-sounds that interested his musician's curiosity-but not often, for he lived in an inimical world whose products were too often the result of attitudes he could not understand. It is probable that his grasp of the meanings, trends, and processes of society was even less sure than his knowledge of the plot of The Ring, almost non-existent. The artistic fashions and movements
of his day meant nearly nothing to him as broadly discussable ideas,and what he vaguely perceived he found unsympathetic. To him romanticism meant the naive "programmes" with which he would
sometimes try to interest his up-to-date colleagues in his music; he had little idea of the significance of the passionate arguments he must have heard around him. Bruckner once went to hear a performance of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust and was introduced to the composer; the imagination is staggered by the thought-if there were any conversation between the two, what can it possibly have been about? The weather, perhaps, if Bruckner had noticed it. Yet within this oddly humble and puzzled little man was hidden a majesty he discovered for himself with infinite patience and a sublime conscientiousness typical of a great artist. His surroundings and he himself have vanished, and many a sparkling and scornful intellect can bewilder and plague him no more. Though there are Hanslicks still with us, they can no longer trouble him. The frothing tide that often threatened his work and his sanity has long drained into crevices in the soft earth, but the hard and jagged rock of his life's achievement is still there. It has survived all seeming odds. The cracks in the stone are honourable scars on its mighty face.

Robert Simpson, The Essence of Bruckner

Martinon, Ansemet, Ashkenazy, Solti et al: The Essential Borodin

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Decca 455 632-2
Alexander Borodin:
Disc One
01. Prince Igor. Overture* [10'50]
02. Prince Igor. Act I. Galitzky’s Aria^~ [3'52]
03. Prince Igor. Act II. Konchak’s Aria^~ [7'07]
04. Prince Igor. Polovtsian Dances* [13'44]
05. For the Shores of Your Distant Homeland^ #[4'27]
Nicolai Ghiaurov- bass^; Zlatina Ghiaurov- piano#; London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by George Solti* and Edward Downes~
06. - 09. Symphony No.1 in E-flat major [35'20]
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy
Disc Two
01. - 04. Symphony No. 2 in B minor [25'14]
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jean Martinon
05. - 08. String Quartet No. 2 in D major [27'46]
Borodin Quartet (Rostislav Dubinsky & Jaroslav Alexandrov- violins; Dmitry Shebalin- viola; Valentin Berlinsky- cello)
09. In the Steppes of Central Asia [6'44]
10. - 11. Symphony No. 3 in A minor [16'04]
L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Ernest Ansermet

Decca 455 632-2  (recorded 1954 to 1992; this CD release 1997)

(CD rip; flacs, booklet, inlay and cover scans)

Recording venues, Engineer and Producer not stated.

This Double Decca collects together very fine performances of Borodin's best known works. All of the "must-haves" by the amateur Russian Nationalist composer - his day job was as a Professor of Chemistry - are here and many are classic recordings.

Particular standouts are the Second Symphony with the London Symphony in a 1960 recording that has never been bettered and the Borodin Quartet's early, 1961, recording of the Second Quartet. George Solti offers scintillating performances of the popular numbers from Prince Igor  and Ernest Ansermet is his usual reliable self - a very early stereo recording of the short Third Symphony.

Download from MEGA.

Piano recital: Giacometti - Szymanowski - Sánchez - Ashkenazy - Arrau - Swann - Sevidov - Levin - Aimard - Vieru - Ayrapetyan - Richter - Nikolayeva

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MauriceRavel
Sonatine
Gaspard de la Nuit
Le Tombeau de Couperin
Paolo Giacometti, pianos Erard and      Steinway
Channel Classics 2014

Here I have gathered some piano records as if they were memories or perhaps glimpses of the future. From the atomized Iberia of Arrau, with Gaudi colors, to the strange interpretation and the also strange beauty of Michal Saymanowski, we perceive that the piano is no longer just a cultural icon nor an over-elaborate box of impure resonances: it has become the portal of a myriad of other worlds.



Michal Szymanowski
Frederic Chopin
Ignaz Paderewski
Karol Szymanowski
Josef Wienawski
Accord 2013
digital download, cover




Frederic Chopin
Piano Concerto No.2
Ballade No. 2
Scherzo No. 4
Etudes op. 10 1 and 3
Mazurkas 21 and 29
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Warsaw National Philarmonic
Zdzislaw Gorzynski
DG Mono 1955
digital download, cover


Issac Albeniz
Iberia
Book I & II
Claudio Arrau
Sony Mono 1949
digital download, cover




Sarkis Barkhudarian
4 Oriental Dances
12 Armenian Dances
Piano Pieces
Mikael Ayrapetyan
Grand Piano 2017
digital download, cover





Tatiana Nikolayeva
The 1989 Herodes Atticus Odeon Recital
Bach French Suite No. 4
Schumann Eudes Symphoniques
and works by Ravel, Scriabin
Borodin, Prokofiev and Mussorgsky
First Hand Recordings 2016
digital download, booklet


Gyorgy Ligeti
Etudes Books I and II
Eude 15
Musica Ricercata
Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Sony 1997
Flac,cue, log, scans






Ludwig van Beethoven
Bagatelles
Variations Diabelli
Andrei Veiru
HM 1998
Flac,cue, log, scans






Isaac Albeniz
Iberia (Books 3 and 4)
España
Esteban Sánchez
Amadeus/Ensayo 1998
Flac,cue, log, scans







Jeffrey Swann
                                                                                     Stravinsky Petrushka
Ravel Gaspard de la Nuit
Tausig Ziegunerweisen
Liszt Mephisto Watz 1
Akademia 1999
Flac,cue, log, scans






W. A. Mozart
Piano Sonatas K 279, 280 and 281
Robert Levin, pianoforte
DHM 2006
Flac,cue, log, scans






Modest Mussorgasky
Pictures at an Exhibition
Arkady Sevidov
Russia PO
Samuel Friedmann
Arte Nova 1997
Flac,cue, log, scans







Mozart: Sonata K 283
Schubert: Sonata D 575
Liszt: Sonata in b minor
Sviatoslav Richter
Music and Arts 1989
Flac,cue, log, scans

Verdi - Un ballo in maschera - Gigli, Caniglia, Serafin - EMI References

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Giuseppe Verdi ( 1813-1901)


Beniamino Gigli, Maria Caniglia, Gino Bechi
Fedora Barbieri, Elda Ribetti, Tancredi Pasero

Coro e Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
dir: Tullio Serafin

EMI References (2000) 7243  5 67476 2 3  ADD mono  2 CDs
Abbey Road Technology  - Rec. 1943



[flac & cue, cover, inlays, booklet & disc scans]



Review:

"This classic, first complete recording of one of Verdi's most melodious and approachable operas continues to appear very cheaply on a variety of labels, but in whatever incarnation you hear it - and presumably Pristine will eventually get around to remastering it best of all - you must put up with what is inevitably elderly mono sound with some constant background hiss and a limited dynamic range but otherwise a perfectly acceptable quality for its vintage, hardly worse than early 50's mono.

It was made during a time when the Allies were poised to ensure Italian capitulation; it is a fascinating historico-musicological fact that some wonderful recordings were being made contemporaneously in Nazi Germany regardless of the implosion of the Fascist state and its war aims.

For all his vocal splendour, Gigli has never been my favourite tenor but his irritating mannerisms of gulping and over-emoting are hardly in evidence here and he sounds considerably more boyish than his actual 53 years, chuckling winningly in "È scherzo od è follia" and rising magnificently to the desperation of "Forse la soglia attinse". His regular partner Maria Caniglia is already evincing signs of decline despite not yet being forty, yet hers was a grand, passionate spinto soprano which, while never perfect nor always sweet on the ear nor even completely under control, was, to be fair, apparently never recorded as gratefully as the tenor's voice. Her lower register is striking and she is not yet singing too often under the note, a fault which later crept in. She is never less than wholly committed to the emotional import of her music and her "Morró, ma prima in grazia" is moving and an example of singing in the old, grand manner. The thirty-year-old Gino Bechi tears a passion to tatters as Renato,exhibiting one of the most sheerly exciting Italian baritones ever to stride stage -and I include Ruffo, Straciari and Amato in that category. He doesn't attempt much in the way of variety of colour or subtlety of expression but what a sound he makes. An even younger Fedora Barbieri at 23 completely and commandingly inhabits the role of Ulrica, displaying extraordinary vocal maturity and artistic confidence as the prophetess. Elda Ribetti is no more shrill or annoying than most coloratura sopranos as Oscar; in my experience the best has been Reri Grist in the highly recommendable - indeed still my first choice - recording by Leinsdorf with Leontyne Price, Bergonzi and Merrill. It is odd to see the great basso Tancredi Pasero cast in the minor role of Samuel the conspirator but his presence lends vocal glamour.

Tullio Serafin is of course completely at home conducting this archetypal Verdi opera and the Rome Opera forces sound as though they are enjoying their part in proceedings, singing and playing con gusto."Ralph Moore - Amazon.com

Beethoven String Quartet 9 No. 3 The Tátrai Quartet (Mono Telefunken LP)

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Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No. 9 In C, Op. 59, No. 3
The Tátrai Quartet

Label:
Telefunken – GMA 38
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Mono





Country:
UK
Released:
Genre:
Classical
Style:
Classical
Tracklist
Hide Credits

String Quartet No. 9 In C, Op. 59, No. 3
Composed By – Beethoven*

A1
1st Mov.: Introduction, Andante Con Moto, Allegro Vivace

A2
2nd Mov.: Andante Con Moto Quasi Allegretto

B1
3rd Mov.: Menuetto. Grazioso

B2
4th Mov.: Allegro Molto

Companies, etc.
Printed By – Robert Stace
Credits
Cello – Ede Banda
Viola – József Iványi
Violin – Mihály Szűcs, Vilmos Tátrai
Notes
Recording First Published 1960 on Label

my notes:
This LP hummed quite a lot and my turntable does have a bit of rumble. Since the music doesn't have subsonics I reduced the rumble/hum as both together sounded a little distracting to me and I can't often hear my turntable rumble! If you feel I was heavyhanded do tell me for next time.
This lp was covered in clicks, pops and ticks. Clickrepair being the magical bit of software that it is absolutely cleared up!
I couldn't find covers for this one anywhere, sorry. It would seem this is an uncommon record and it was a nice surprise in a collection of mostly fairly common items, I enjjoyed it!
Turntable: goldring lenco gl75 with original goldring g800 conical stylus (the eliptical was noisier)
IVinyl usb phono preamp, recorded in 24 bit 96khz using audacity and Asio4all

http://oldgramophonerecords.co.uk/zips/Beethoven%20sq%20no%209%20op%2059%20no%203%20T%C3%A1trai%20Quartet.zip

Shostakovich - The Symphonies - Eliahu Inbal - Vienna Symphony Orchestra - Denon

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Dmitri Shostakovich - Complete Symphonies
Eliahu Inbal
Wiener Symphomiker
DENON
digital download, covers

Symphony No.1, Op.10
       Symphony No.15, Op. 141
1995










Symphony No.2, Op. 14 To October
Symphony No.5, Op. 47
Chorus Viennensis
Damenchor des Wiener Singervereins
1994

Symphony No.3, Op.20 The First Of May
Symphony No.9, Op.70
Wiener Jeunesse-Chor
Schola Cantorum
1995

Symphony No.4, op. 43
1995








Symphony No. 6, Op. 54
                                      Symphony No.12, Op.112 The Year 1917
                                                                                               1994

Symphony No.7, Op. 60 Leningrad
1996












Symphony No.8, Op. 65
1991






Symphony No.10, Op. 93
1990











Symphony No.11, Op.103 The Year 1905
1992











Symphony No.13, Op. 113 Babi Yar
Robert Holl
Chorus Viennensis
1992








Symphony No.14, Op. 135
Elena Prokina
Sergei Aleksashkin
2001

A Record of Singers

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A RECORD OF SINGERS

Volumes 1, 2 and Supplement
Vocal recordings from 1899-1919

EMI RLS 7705, 7706, and HLM 7264
13 mono LPs [P] 1982
Not available on compact disks

Individual FLAC tracks + scans + generous metadata

See details below

















Gilles: Requiem, Lamentations, Messe en ré, Te Deum, &c -- Andrieu

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Jean Gilles (1668-1705)

Choeur de chambre les éléments (Joël Suhubiette, dir)
Orchestre Les Passions; Jean-Marc Andrieu, dir

CD1 Requiem, Motet Cantate Jordanis incolae
CD2 Lamentations, Motet Diligam te Domine
CD3 Messe en ré, Te Deum

Recorded 2008-2012, Église Saint-Pierre des Chartreux, Toulouse
Ligia Digital Lidi 02020256-13 (2013) ([nearly] out of print)

XLD rip    .flac image + cues, webcovers, tracklist (in CD1 folder)

CD1    364 MB
1fichier     https://1fichier.com/?38d3zbpk653yceluhwdc
WeTransfer (for 7 days)     https://we.tl/t-zDEFwSGCc6

CD2    320.8 MB
1fichier       https://1fichier.com/?d5sm9tidzd6otcbrpcly
WeTransfer (for 7 days)     https://we.tl/t-QSs4fHZau6

CD3    405.6 MB
1fichier      https://1fichier.com/?cfeq3795t4nuuluk1lsc
 WeTransfer (for 7 days)    https://we.tl/t-tvuRpsyH6S

Note: I couldn't locate a digital booklet (and don't have a decent scanner at the moment), so I've included the booklets from the original CDs that make up this collection (in CD1 folder). Hope that helps.

Tracklist
CD1 (rec Église Saint-Pierre des Chartreux, Toulouse; date not given)
01 Requiem - I. Introit
02 II. Kyrie
03 III. Graduel
04 IV. Offertoire
05 V. Sanctus
06 VI. Agnus Dei
07 VII. Post Communion
08 Motet Cantate Jordanis incolae I.Cantate Jordanis incolae
09 II. Ut nunctiatus Christus ab angelo
10 III. O res, o res mirabilis
11 IV. Qui gestat tacento
12 V. Redemit Christus
13 VI. Quantus amor
14 VII. Gaudeat caelum

CD2 (rec 30-31 Oct 2009 Église Saint-Pierre des Chartreux, Toulouse)
01 Lamentation pour le Mercredi saint au soir - I. Incipit. Aleph... Quomodo sedit sola civitas
02 II. Beth... Plorans ploravit
03 III. Ghimel... Migravit Juda
04 IV. Daleth... Viae Sion lugent
05 V. He... Facti sunt hostes ejus in capite
06 VI. Jerusalem convertere ad Dominum
07 Lamentation pour le Jeudi saint au soir - I. De lamentatione. Heth... Cogitavit Dominus
08 II. Teth... Defixae in terra. Jod... Sederunt
09 III. Caph...Defecerunt prae lacrimis
10 IV. Jerusalem convertere ad Dominum
11 Lamentation pour le Vendredi saint au soir - I. De lamentatione. Deth... Misericordium Domini
12 II. Teth... Bonnus est Dominus
13 III. Jod... Sedebit solitarus et tacebit
14 IV. Jerusalem convertere ad Dominum
15 Motet Diligam te Domine - I - Symphonie - Diligam te Domine
16 II. Laudans invocabo
17 III. Dolores inferni circum dededrunt me
18 IV. In tribulatione invocavi Dominum
19 V. Commota est et contremuit
20 VI. Inclinavit coelos et descendit
21 VII. Et ascendit super cherubim

CD3 (rec 3-5 May 2012 Église St-Pierre des Chartreux Toulouse)
01 Messe en ré - I - Kyrie
02 Messe en ré - II - Gloria - Et in terra pax
03 Messe en ré - II - Gloria - Laudamus te
04 Messe en ré - II - Gloria - Gratias agimus tibi - Domine Deus
05 Messe en ré - II - Gloria - Qui tollis peccata mundi
06 Messe en ré - II - Gloria - Quoniam tu solus sanctus
07 Messe en ré - III - Credo - Patrem omnipotentem - Genitum, non factum
08 Messe en ré - III - Credo - Per quem omnia facta sunt
09 Messe en ré - III - Credo - Et incarnatus
10 Messe en ré - III - Credo - Crucifixus
11 Messe en ré - III - Credo - Et resurrexit
12 Messe en ré - III - Credo - Et in spiritum Sanctum
13 Messe en ré - III - Credo - Et unam sanctam catholicam
14 Messe en ré - III - Credo - Et vitam venturi saeculi
15 Messe en ré - IV - Sanctus - Sanctus - Hosanna
16 Messe en ré - IV - Sanctus - Benedictus - Hosanna
17 Messe en ré - Agnus Dei
18 Te Deum - I - Te Deum
19 Te Deum - II - Peni sunt - Pleni sunt
20 Te Deum - II - Peni sunt - Te gloriosus
21 Te Deum - III - Te per orbem - Te per orbem
22 Te Deum - III - Te per orbem - Tu rex gloriae
23 Te Deum - IV - Tu devicto
24 Te Deum - V - Te ergo
25 Te Deum - VI - Aeterna fac
26 Te Deum - VII - Salvum fac - Salvum fac
27 Te Deum - VII - Salvum fac - Et rege eos
28 Te Deum - VII - Salvum fac - Per singula
29 Te Deum - VII - Salvum fac - In te Domine - Non confundar

Walton - Troilus and Cressida - Belshazzar's Feast, Choral Works & Songs - Symphony 1 and Viola Concerto

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William Walton
Troilus and Cressida
Opera in three acts
Judith Howard
Arthur Davies
Alan Opie
Clive Bayley
Opera North 
Richard Hickox
Chandos 1995
     flac, cue, log, booklet   
You can read a review here

Richard Hickox draws magnetic performances from chorus and orchestra alike As for the recorded sound the bloom of the Leeds Town hall acoustics allows the fullest detail from the orchestra, enhancing the Mediterranean warmth of the score, helped by a wide dynamic range. The many atmospheric effects, often offstage, are clearly and precisely focused, and the placing of the voices on the stereo stage is also unusually precise. The Penguin Guide - 1000 Greatest Classical Recordings 2011-12


William Walton
Coronation Te Deum
Belshazzar´s Feast
Choral Works
Songs
Benjamin Luxon
Heather Harper
Sir Georg Solti
Simon Preston
Decca 1977
digital download, covers


Violin Concerto/Viola Concerto
Walton: Viola Concerto
Britten: Violin Concerto
Maxim Vengerov
London SO
Mitslav Rostropovich
EMI 2000
flac, cue, log, scans
You can read a review here





William Walton
Symphony No. 1
Partita
Paul Daniel
English Northern Philharmonia
Naxos
flac, cue, log, booklet

REVIEWS:
BBC Music (3/98, p.73) - Performance: 4 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5) - "...this is a passionately driven performance [of Walton's First Symphony], with the English Northern Philharmonia in fine form, and the symphony's almost unbroken level of high tension is splendedly sustained. The Partita...receives a finely judged performance..."





Scenes from Troilus and Cressida
Richard Lewis
Elizabeth Schwarzkopf
Monica Sinclair
Philharmonia Orchestra
William Walton
Warner 1955
digital download, cover
You can read the history of the opera here


Leonard Slatkin & Simon Preston: Copland - Billy the Kid & Organ Symphony

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BBCMM98
Aaron Copland:
01. El salón México [12'00]
02. - 08. Billy the Kid. Complete Ballet [21'20]
09. Danzón cubano [6'49]
10. - 12. Organ Symphony* [24'31]

Simon Preston- organ*; BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin

BBC Music Magazine BBCMM98  (recorded August 1996* & June 2000; CD issued October 2000)

(CD-rip; flacs, booklet, cover & inlay scans)

Recording venue: Royal Albert Hall Promenade Concert* and BBC Maida Vale Studios, London
Recording engineers: Simon Hancock & Philip Burwell; Producer: Ann McKay

Both Slatkin and Preston have made commercial recordings of all of these works (together with the St Louis Symphony in the Organ Symphony) but this mix of concert and studio recordings offers an alternative view of the works. The studio recordings were made when Slatkin was appointed as chief conducor of the BBC Symphony; a position that he held until 2004.

This selection of Copland works offers a representative mix of his popular 'prairie' style as well as the more serious masterpiece of the Organ Symphony - here given a fervent account by conductor, orchestra and organist. It's also good that, as usual and as with his two commercial recordings, Slatkin gives us the complete Billy the Kid ballet score.

Download from MEGA.

Nielsen - Maskarade - Schonwandt

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Resultado de imagen para musicweb maskerade nielsen schonwandt
Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)
Maskarade FS 39 (1904-06) [134:36]
Johan Reuter (baritone) – Henrik, Leander’s servant;
Dénise Beck (soprano) – Leonora;
Stephen Milling (bass) – Jeronimus, Leander’s father;
Anne Margarethe Dahl (soprano) – Magdelone, Leander’s mother;
Niels Jørgen Riis (tenor) - Leander;
Ditte Højgaard Andersen (soprano) – Pernille, Leonora’s maid;
Stig Fogh Andersen (tenor) – Leonard, Leonora’s father;
Christian Damsgaard (tenor) – Arv, a servant
Danish National Concert Choir; Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Michael Schønwandt
                                                       Rec. August 2014, DR Koncerthuset
                                                       DACAPO 6.220641-42 135 m.
                                                       digital download, booklet, score

MusicWeb Review
RECORDING OF THE MONTH

Maskarade was Nielsen’s second opera. He composed it between 1904 and 1906 so it comes between his Second Symphony (1901-02) and the Sinfonia Espansiva (1910-11). According to Knud Ketting’s helpful notes, however, he had pondered since the early 1890s using Ludvig Holberg’s comedy Mascaraden (1724) as the basis for an opera. But first came Saul and David, premiered in 1902. Sometime thereafter he approached Wilhelm Andersen (1864-1953) who agreed to write him a libretto based on Holberg’s play. Nielsen made a start on the music at the turn of 1904/05. The opera was eventually finished in time for a successful first performance at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen at the end of November 1906. Since then Maskarade has been, in Michael Schønwandt’s words “Denmark’s national opera.” In a short booklet essay Schønwandt also expresses the view that Nielsen drew inspiration from Falstaff and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. I wouldn’t disagree but I also detect the influence of Mozart’s da Ponte operas, not least in the Leporello-like role of Henrik. The helter-skelter trio for Leander, Henrik and Jeronimus at the end of Act I, here taken at a real lick, is almost Rossini-like.
The action takes place in the Copenhagen of the early eighteenth century. The start of Act I is very much ‘the morning after the night before’. Leander has been to a masked ball the previous evening and has met and fallen for a young girl; like him, she concealed her identity behind a mask. They exchanged rings. When the curtain rises Leander and his valet, Henrik gradually come to terms with the new day following their night on the tiles. Leander tells Henrik about meeting the girl but Henrik brings his young master back to earth by reminding him that his parents have betrothed him in marriage to Leonard's daughter. Jeronimus, Leander’s father, is a bombastic chap, clearly all too used to getting his own way. He’s contemptuous of the masked balls but we subsequently meet Leander’s mother, Magdelone who confides to her son that she’d quite like to attend such an event.
Then Leonard arrives and plucks up the courage to tell Jeronimus that his daughter, Leonora, has fallen for a young man who she met at the masquerade the previous night. The furious Jeronimus tells Leander that he and Henrik are ‘gated’ to prevent them from attending any more of these dangerously frivolous masked entertainments. Much of Act II is concerned with the skilful conniving of Henrik. Jeronimus has ordered his servant, Arv to mount guard to prevent Leander and Henrik from breaking their curfew. However, Henrik dupes the servant into admitting some misdeeds – and in particular one involving the kitchen maid – and threatens to expose him if he doesn’t look the other way while he and his master make good their escape to the masked ball.
Act III takes place at the ball, a very lively affair. The identities of all the attendees are concealed behind masks. Leander meets Leonora again in an ardent encounter. (Curiously, they learn each other’s names but the penny fails to drop; that’s opera buffa for you.) Meanwhile Henrik is getting along famously with Pernille, Leonora’s maid. At the same time Magdelone has arrived and she enjoys a masked flirtation with Leonard. Jeronimus has discovered that his son has escaped from the house and arrives, reluctantly costumed as Bacchus. Henrik engages the Dancing Tutor, aided and abetted by a crowd of students, to get Jeronimus tipsy whereupon he makes a fool of himself trying to flirt with young girls. When everyone takes off their masks all is revealed but Jeronimus’s anger and embarrassment is calmed when he realises that the girl for whom his son has fallen is, in fact, the very girl for whom he was intended all along. Cue rejoicing and, one presumes, everyone living happily ever after.
The plot is not be quite as bafflingly complex as some operas but it has ample room for twists and turns as well as misunderstandings. It’s a thoroughly engaging affair but it’s thanks to Nielsen’s music that everything is brought so vividly to life.
It may seem odd to mention the orchestra before discussing the singers but the orchestra has a crucial role in Maskarade. Nielsen’s orchestration is a delight from start to finish and the imaginative and colourful way in which he uses it to comment on the action and to underline what is going on, packing the score with engaging illustrative details, is the work of a master. We know from his symphonic works how skilled Nielsen was in writing for the orchestra. This opera is a vivid reminder of the significant experience that he gained as a violinist in the Royal Danish Orchestra and as sometime Deputy Conductor at the Royal Theatre. This recording starts off with a sparkling account of the spirited overture and it never looks back. Inspired by Michael Schønwandt’s terrific conducting, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra produces a fantastic performance of this score.
The singing is superb; there isn’t a weak link in the cast. I’ll discuss the principals in a moment but all the subsidiary roles are expertly and characterfully taken. Special mention should be made of baritone Simon Drus who brings the role of the Dancing Tutor to life in Act III. Also treble Johan Uhrskov-Bendixsen gives a winning cameo as the Flower-Boy earlier in that act. The chorus isn’t significantly involved before Act III – they have a small part in the action of Act II – but they are important participants in the last act. The choral singing is splendid and full of life.
All the principals do very well indeed. I liked Christian Damsgaard’s portrayal of Arv, the put-upon servant. Anne Margarethe Dahl and Stig Fogh Andersen offer convincing portrayals of Magdelone and Leonard respectively. Stephen Milling is excellent as the blustering, domineering Jeronimus who richly deserves his comeuppance. I was very taken with Dénise Beck’s Leonora. She has a lovely bright soprano voice which is well suited to the often rapturous music that Nielsen gives her to sing with Leander.
The key roles are those of Leander and Henrik. Niels Jørgen Riis has a clear, ringing tenor and the top of his register is produced easily and excitingly. He is completely convincing as the ardent young man, lovesick for his masked lady. When he sings passionately to Leonora you can understand why she would fall for him even though she can’t see his face. An impulsive young man such as this needs a worldly-wise servant to keep him on the straight and narrow, one who can be as wily as necessary to extricate his master – and himself – from scrapes. Fortunately for Leander Henrik is such a servant and Johan Reuter is just the man for the job. I enjoyed his performance greatly, especially his ability to be funny without going over the top.
I’ve already referred to Michael Schønwandt’s conducting. It seems to me that he paces the score expertly. He keeps the music moving forward purposefully, though he gives the amorous writing for Leander and Leonora its full rein. His handling of the teeming third act is particularly impressive. Here the performance is packed full of vitality yet the music is never rushed nor is detail obscured. He says in his introductory essay that Maskarade ”has in fact followed me all my life”; this fizzing, thoroughly entertaining performance offers ample proof of that.
Production values are as high as the quality of the performance. The sound is first rate. The booklet is similarly good. It contains excellent notes and a detailed synopsis as well as the full libretto in Danish and English which I found easy to follow.
Dacapo has done signal service to Maskarade, of which this is their third recording. They issued a complete recording on CD made, I think, in 2005 and conducted by John Frandsen. There’s also a DVD of a 2006 live performance, conducted by Michael Schønwandt. Some of the principals are common to that performance and this new studio audio recording, namely Johan Reuter, Stephen Milling and Niels Jörgen Riis, all of whom take the same roles in both recordings.
This is a wonderful set, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Offhand it’s hard to imagine a happier celebration of Nielsen’s 150th anniversary.

John Quinn

Wagner - Die Walküre - Melchior-Traubel -Leinsdorf Naxos

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Richard Wagner (1813-1883)


Helen Traubel, Lauritz Melchior, Astrid Varnay, 
Friedrich Schorr, Alexander Kipnis, Kirsten Thorberg

Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra
dir: Erich Leinsdorf

Naxos (2000) 8.110058-60 ADD  3 CDs
Metropolitan, broadcast on 6th December, 1941 (Good sound)



[flac & cue, inlays,track list & disc scans]



Review:

"This sizzler of a Die Walküre, one of the finest of the opera’s many vintage broadcasts from the Met stage, has everything going for it. Let’s start with the women. Astrid Varnay was an 11th-hour replacement for the indisposed Lotte Lehmann. Making every word count, Varnay’s big voice welds Sieglinde’s bottled-up passion and Wagner’s urgent lyricism with riveting authority. You’d never know that this inexperienced 23-year-old singer had never before sung on stage. As Fricka, the great mezzo Kirsten Thorborg finds a vulnerable subtext beneath her character’s “morals police” surface. As for Helen Traubel’s Brünnhilde, you’d have to look far and wide today for a voice as seamlessly modulated and effortless. What can anyone add to all the praise bestowed upon Lauritz Melchior’s honeyed, baritonal Siegmund, in prime voice? Yes, he milks the pair of “Wälses” in Act 1 to, well, Wagnerian length! And why not? After all, was Rockefeller ashamed of his millions? Alexander Kipnis’ statuesque, resplendent Hunding is one of the best on record. Sadly, Friedrich Schorr no longer commands the ringing tone and support that distinguished his pre-war Wotan recordings.

Under Erich Leinsdorf’s disciplined baton, the Met Orchestra emerges as an equal character in the drama. The string playing sings with tender inflection, and the most complex scoring is cogently contoured, even at Leinsdorf’s sometimes-breakneck tempos. The sound is quite good for an AM radio aircheck–about equal to what HMV’s engineers achieved in the late 1920s. Save for a big cut in Wotan’s Act 2 monologue, the opera is performed complete. If you’re a historic Wagner maven, you’ll easily find shelf space for this enticing bargain."Jed Distler - www.classicstoday.com

Fontana - Cima - Turina - Byrd - Bull - Chamber and Keyboard Music of the early XVIIth century - Sonnerie - Leonhardt

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Giovanni Battista FONTANA (d. c.1630)
Sonatas (1641)
Giovanni Paolo CIMA (c.1570-1630)
Sonatas (1610)
Andrea CIMA (fl.1606-1627)
Capricci a 2 e 4 (1610)
Francesco TURINI (c.1589-1656)
Sonatas (1624) [4:29]
 Ensemble Sonnerie: Monica Huggett (violin); Bruce Dickey (cornetto); Sarah Cunningham (cello); Gary Cooper (harpsichord; 3-stop organ; virginals); Pavlo Beznosiuk (violin); Emilia Benjamin (viola); Doron David Shwerwin (cornetto); Frances Eustace (gedackt dulcian); Stephen Saunders (sackbut); Elizabeth Kenny (chitaronne; baroque guitar); Erin Headley (lirione); Siobhán Armstrong (arpia doppia)
rec. 17-19, 21-23 August 1995, St. Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead, London
VIRGIN VERITAS 1996
flac, cue, log and scans


This delightful pair of CDs contains music from three collections published in northern Italy between 1610 and 1641. The earliest is a volume published in Milan in 1610, Concerti ecclesiastici, which is made up of music by the two brothers Giovanni Paolo Cima and Andrea Cima and contains the ‘Sei sonate, per instrumenti à due, tre e quarto’ recorded here; the next, chronologically speaking, is the Madrigali, libro II of Francesco Turini, published in Venice in 1624, from which six sonatas for two violins and continuo have here been extracted. The last is another Venetian publication (of 1641) the Sonate a 12.2.3. per il violono or cornetto, fagotto, chitarone, violoncino o simile altro istrumento of Giovanni Battista Fontana.
 The two Cimas were both organists in their native Milan, composing both sacred music and instrumental music. Giovanni’s work, more clearly than that of his brother, registers that crucial development in the early baroque music if northern Italy, the movement away from polyphonic textures towards solo (or due) melodies supported rhythmically and harmonically by a continuo bass, or to put it another way, the movement in which the usually polyphonic canzona gradually lost ground to the sonata. Eleanor Selfridge-Field (Early Music, February 1991) has shown that most organist-composers of the period were largely given to the composition of canzone rather than sonatas, but Giovanni Paolo Cima is an exception. The published scores of Cima’s sonatas are quite specific as to instrumentation, foregrounding the cornet and the violin as soloists. Andrea Cima’s instrumental music included in the 1610 collection is closer in structure and method to the declining form of the canzona, and the presentation on this CD of work by both brothers enables one to see (or rather hear) the nature of the transition which was taking place.
 Turini’s sonatas belong very much to the new development of the sonata; indeed they are amongst the earliest examples of the trio sonata. Turini is an interesting figure, a an innovative and accomplished composer. Of Italian stock, he was born in Prague and became court organist there at the early age of 12; he was sent to Italy to study, returned to Prague at least briefly, and then from the late 1610s made his living in Italy. From 1620 he held the post of organist at the cathedral in Brescia. His publications included three volumes of madrigals – with parts for violins - in 1621, 1624 and 1629; his other publications included volumes of motets (1629 and 1640) and a set of masses (1643). The sonatas included here are fine works. The Sonata a 2 violini, which opens the second CD, is a piece of exquisite beauty, subtle melodic twists and changes of direction, quiet yet vivacious; the use of chitarrone alongside the harpsichord to provide the continuo, a practice which Turini himself advocated, produces some beautiful effects. Turini’s set of variations on the song ‘E tanto tempo hornai’ is thoroughly engaging, inventive and delightfully varied in instrumental colouring in this excellent performance by Ensemble Sonnerie.
 The greater part of this set is given over to all eighteen sonatas printed in Giovanni Battista Fontana’s 1641 posthumous collection – born in Brescia, Fontana had died around 1630, possibly a victim of the dreadful plague which affected northern Italy between 1629 and 1631 and which claimed the life of so many musicians (including Giovanni Paolo Cima). We cannot know whether the designation of these sonatas as for il violono or cornetto, fagotto, chitarone, violoncino o simile altro istrumento is Fontana’s own or was the work of a later editor or publisher. According to Selfridge-Field this was the earliest such volume to specify the use of the violoncello as part of the continuo instrumentation. Fontana’s sonatas are here played so as to make use of the kind of variety of instrumentation which the 1641 title page allows, perhaps even encourages. No.1, for example, is played by cornet and organ alone, while no.2 uses violin, harp, chitarrone, lirone and virginals; no.9 is played by cornet, dulcian and organ, no.18 by violin, cornet, dulcian, organ, harp and chitarrone. The resulting variety of colours and dynamics is a constant source of aural pleasure; the performers’ choice never seem merely wilful or eccentric, but to respond to the nature of the music in each particular sonata (which isn’t to say that other choices might not be made by other performers or, indeed, by the same group on different occasions).
Ensemble Sonnerie’s playing throughout is the height of sensitivity and aptness; while based on sound historical scholarship it is never remotely pedantic. The performances, by soloists such as Monica Huggett and Bruce Dickey, and by the ensemble as a whole, are full of an obvious, but never indulgent, love of the music. The whole project has a distinctive air of Lombardy and Venice about it – the relishing of instrumental colours, the evident sophistication, the sensuality, remind one irresistibly of north Italian painting of the same (and slightly earlier) generations.
 These CDs provide an exemplary illustration of the north Italian emergence of chamber music. But to say that runs the risk of making them sound merely like worthy historical documents. But they are so much more than just that – the first adjective I used at the beginning of this review was “delightful”. It deserves to be one of the last, too; these CDs will be a source of great pleasure to anybody with an nterest in the instrumental music of the early seventeenth century. Glyn Pursglove


Music by Byrd, Bull, Tomkins, Morley, Gibbons, Philips
Gustav Leonhardt (harpsichord, virginal)
Philips 1993
flac, cue, log and scans







This disc takes us on a whistle-stop tour of English keyboard music in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The fantasy, pavan and galliard were among the most popular forms of their day. The latter two dance movements were often paired together, and sometimes linked thematically. The pavan, wrote Thomas Morley, was ‘a kind of staide musicke, ordained for grave dauncing’, while the briefer galliard serviced ‘a lighter and more stirring kinde of dauncing’.   The most attractive examples here are Bull’s charming John Lumley’s Pavan and Galliard and Byrd’s Pavan ‘Ph. Tregian’ & Galliard, its regal pavan among the disc’s high spots. Byrd’s finely wrought My Lady Nevell’s Ground is also included, while of the handful of fantasias here, the longer of the two by Orlando Gibbons is especially captivating. Much of the rest of the music is pleasant, though hardly out of the ordinary. Despite the persuasive advocacy of Gustav Leonhardt’s superb playing, I suspect the disc’s appeal will remain confined to the specialist audience. Graham Lock

Rossini: Petite Messe Solenelle

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Gioacchino Rossini 

PETITE MESSE SOLENELLE

Renata Scotto (s), Fiorenza Cossotto (ms)
Alfredo Kraus (t), Ivo Vinco (bs)

Franco Verganti (pianoforte), Gianluigi Franz (pianoforte), Luigi Benedetti (harmonium)

Coro Polifonico di Milano

Giulio Bertola (dir)
Ricordi OCL 16046/47 - 2 stereo LPs, [P] 1960

Individual FLAC files, scans







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