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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Brahms: The Complete Songs Volume 4 (Robert Holl)
Brahms: | An die Nachtigall, Op. 46 No. 4 (Text: L.C.H. Hölty) Schwermut, Op. 58 No. 5 Dein blaues Auge, (No. 8 from Acht Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 59) Heimweh, Op. 63 No. 8 Heimweh I, Op. 63 No. 7 Heimweh III, Op. 63 No. 9 Alte Liebe, Op. 72 No. 1 Sommerfäden, Op. 72 No. 2 O kühler Wald, Op. 72 No. 3 Verzagen, Op. 72 No. 4 Todessehnen ('Ach, wer nummt von meiner Seele'), Op. 86 No. 6 Lieder (5), Op. 94 Komm bald, Op. 97 No. 5 (Groth) Wie Melodien zieht es mir, Op. 105 No. 1 Auf Dem See op.106 No.2 Maienkätzchen, Op. 107 No. 4 Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121 |
Graham Johnson’s latest Lieder project for Hyperion reaches its fourth volume. Brahms is of course a giant of the Romantic era but his songs and vocal works are rather less well known than much of his other music. There is so much to discover and enjoy in the beautiful, often elegiac melodies and characteristic piano writing. In some of these recitals an opus number will be presented in its entirety: here it is the songs of Op 94, as well as the Vier ernste Gesänge of Op 121. The singer is the bass-baritone Robert Holl, acclaimed as simply one of the most profound artists of the genre and recently praised for the ‘unparalleled depth and complexity’ of his live performance (The Independent). “Holl's true bass register resonates eloquently with this programme of very serious songs...Holl has the ability to draw the listener in...For the Four Serious Songs themselves, Holl brings a deep sense of empathetic humanity to the live, deeply felt and thoughtfully reasoned inner monologues which he makes of them.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2012 **** “Holl fields a bass-baritone of slightly grizzled nobility, with impressive sonorous depth...he catches all the terrible nihilism and life-weariness of the first two songs and the opening of the third...Johnson's fastidiously textured playing, like his detailed commentaries, is always illuminating...But be prepared for a protracted Brahmsian gloomfest.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2012 “Holl's voice, reminiscent of Fischer-Dieskau's but rather more of a real bass...is rich, true and resonant. He uses it simply, without self-conscious artifice, and the result is some very beautiful singing. Johnson's accompeniment is always skilled and perceptive...This disc, while the whole recital has notable integrity and quality, would be worth having for [the Four Serious Songs] alone.” International Record Review, September 2012 “Holl, here approaching his mid-sixties, is still a flexible and nuanced singer with the ability to lighten the tone when appropriate. In spite of a long operatic career with often heavy roles - he has been a regular at Bayreuth since 1996 - the voice is largely unscathed and the tone noble...[Johnson] is the ever-flexible partner in what is a duo of equal merits.” MusicWeb International, January 2013 “[Holl is] dark-toned, at times to the point of grittiness, and you might find your admiration for the emotional truth of his singing offset by moments of unwieldiness and an occasional pulse in his tone. It works best if you listen selectively...The effect is awesome, but makes for difficult listening.” The Guardian, 13th September 2012 *** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Musical brightness and splendour: Handel's oratorios were effective dramatic works for the stage, with one exception: The Messiah. But precisely the reflective character and solemn style of the score helped the work achieve resounding success. For the first time, oratorios were allowed to be performed in church, and The Messiah soon had a firm place in choral societies' standard repertoire. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Schumann: Dichterliebe & Ausgewählte Lieder
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| |  | Bach - Brandenburg Concertos
Never before released on DVD and, to the dismay of fans, long unavailable – these glorious Bach pieces are conducted by period instrument pioneer, Nikolaus Harnoncourt as only he can. Harnoncourt, a notable cellist, performs in two concertos and on gamba in one. Vocalists Perry, Holl, and Schreier sing with distinction. 5.1 DTS Surround Sound makes clear they revel in the acoustics of the visually magnificent Baroque library of Wiblingen Monastery. “Highly accomplished playing from all the Concentus Musicus” (Gramophone) Harnoncourt warns, “If we lose contact with the great works of Bach, we lose our contact with humanity.” This DVD makes staying in touch with this gift pure joy. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Schubert - Schwanengesang
The Dutch bass-baritone Robert Holl is one of the great Lieder singers of our time. A recent review of a recital from The Times illustrates his extroardinary technique and mesmerising power: ’Dutch baritone Robert Holl delivered a Schubert programme with such natural force and passion that resistance was impossible … Holl’s huge presence, and huge, dark voice can transform itself at will into the lightest breath of spring, rising into a hushed head-voice with total ease, or fining itself down to recreate the vision of a wakeful gondolier and a sleeping Serenissima.’ In Holl’s first recording for Hyperion, he brings his tremendous artistry to Schubert’s last song-cycle. The songs in Schwanengesang were described by Schubert’s publisher Haslinger as ‘the final blooms of Schubert’s creative muse’. Schwanengesang contains some of Schubert’s greatest works. It tells no particular story, but the two sets of songs are linked by their poetic themes—nature, love and separation in the case of the settings of Rellstab, bitterness, loss and despair in the case of Heine. This recording includes two further songs. The first, Herbst, though also to a text by by Rellstab, did not appear in Schwanengesang, and the manuscript was not discovered until the 1890s. A highly atmospheric nature-piece, its texture anticipates Mendelssohn’s songs on a similar theme, with its tremolando right hand and sinuous, fateful left-hand melody. The other extra is Der Winterabend from 1828. The poem by Leitner creates the image of a contented man, contemplating not just the winter evening, but by implication also his approaching death (the silvery moonlight is a symbolic pall cast over the objects of his life). In his extensive booklet notes, Roger Vignoles writes that ‘If one wants to know how Schubert felt about his own mortality, it is worth noting the loving care he bestowed on this song. Every turn of phrase, every modulation is perfectly judged, as in the hushed sidestep (through a major third, his favourite interval) that announces the entry of the moonlight into the poet’s chamber’. “…Holl's interpretation really does stand alone in its musical truthfulness and depth of insight.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2008 **** “Part of what makes Holl such a wonderful artist is the obvious relish he has for the simple act of singing. The words emerge with a wonderful fruity weight, the tone burgeoning through the note's length.Being so firmly rooted in the body, the singing carries an immense natural conviction.” The Telegraph, 26th October 2006 (on the Wigmore Hall performance of Schwanengesang)) | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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“Jochum's memorable, dedicated (1980) performance, marked by resilient rhythms, remains among the most completely satisfying versions even today. The choral singing - by far the most important element in this work - is superb and, though the soloists are variably balanced, they make a fine, clear-voiced team.” Penguin Guide, 2010 *** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Abbado in Concert
Brahms: | Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83 Maurizio Pollini (piano) Wiener Philharmoniker | Mozart: | Kyrie in D minor, K341 Karita Mattila, Marjana Lipovšek, Robert Holl, Jerry Hadley & Jorge Pita Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor & Wiener Philharmoniker Grabmusik, K42: Betracht dies Herz Karita Mattila, Marjana Lipovšek, Robert Holl, Jerry Hadley & Jorge Pita Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor & Wiener Philharmoniker Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, K339: Laudate Dominum Karita Mattila, Marjana Lipovšek, Robert Holl, Jerry Hadley & Jorge Pita Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor & Wiener Philharmoniker | Rossini: | La Cenerentola Overture Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala Il barbiere di Siviglia Overture Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala | Schubert: | Mass No. 6 in E flat major, D950 Karita Mattila, Marjana Lipovšek, Robert Holl, Jerry Hadley & Jorge Pita Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor & Wiener Philharmoniker |
The ’All Saints Day Concert’ - besides the New Year´s concert the most important Viennese music event - from the Musikvereinssaal, Vienna from 1986 with sacred music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Schubert. Superb soloists like Karita Mattila, Marjana Lipovsek, Robert Holl, Jerry Hadley and Jorge Pita, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera Chorus under the baton of maestro Abbado. “The Schubert Mass may tax Abbado's greatest fans. Yet the Mozart sequence with Karita Mattila is revelatory, camerawork for the Brahms Second Piano Concerto as fluid and imaginative as the Abbado-Pollini partnership...He combines a phenomenal technique with a poetic temperament. Wonderful.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2008 ***** “the most widely respected living conductor” New York Times | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Seen by many as Franz Schmidt’s greatest work, Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln ambitiously sets one of the most challenging texts, the Book of Revelation, to music. In his programme notes for the first performance of Das Buch, he commented on the mammoth challenge of setting the entire Apocalypse to music and said his priority ‘was to bring the text into a form which retained everything important, wherever possible in the original wording, and yet reduce the immense dimensions of the work to a point where they could be grasped by ordinary human brains.’ The result is this magnificent oratorio, here performed by the Tonkünstler Orchestra and starring Dutch bass-baritone Robert Holl, who has almost become synonymous with the role it is so much his own. Schmidt composed his oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln in 1935-7, when Schmidt’s health was quickly failing and with a particularly keen sense of his own mortality. The composition wittingly or unwittingly seems to tap into the feelings of the time, and his apocalyptic visions soon became realities. Written at a time when the opposite poles of contemporary music were represented by the internationally renowned music of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Their pioneering styles seemed at the time to be mutually exclusive and left little room for those who did not obviously adhere to one camp or the other. Sadly Schmidt’s music seemed a highly conservative continuation of an outmoded romanticism, greatly influenced by his teachers Bruckner and Fuchs and his Hungarian origins. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, it is precisely Schmidt’s refusal to pander to modernistic trends that endows his distinctive contribution to twentieth-century music with a refreshing integrity and individuality and Das Buch is now justifiably seen, as one of the greatest epic works of the Twentieth Century. “When Franz Schmidt wrote his oratorio based on the Book of Revelation in the mid-1930s, it already sounded musically outdated, with its solidly Austro-Germanic contrapuntalism and nods to Bach, Handel and Bruckner. But, especially when performed with the vigour and bite of this new recording, one can forgive the work its backward-looking aspects and admire its musical glories.
It was taped live at the Vienna Musikverein, but audience "participation" does not detract from the superbly communicative St John from Johannes Chum and Robert Holl's sonorous Voice of the Lord. Kristjan Järvi's account can certainly stand comparison with the Vienna Philharmonic rivals under Harnoncourt (Warner) and Mitropoulos (Sony)” The Telegraph, 26th April 2008 “Jarvi conducts a well-played and sung account of the complex score, with fine contributions from Johannes Chum (St John), Robert Holl (Voice of a God, above), and a well-balanced quartet, although he can’t quite match the evangelistic zeal of Mitropoulos on the live Salzburg recording, with Dermota, Güden, Wunderlich and Berry as incomparable soloists.” Sunday Times, 13th April 2008 **** “More evocative than Franz Welser-Möst but less theatrical than Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Järvi makes it the concert-drama Schmidt surely intended. … this could well be first choice for those new to the work. ” Gramophone Magazine, June 2008 “Where this new version really trumps both the magisterial… Mitropoulos and the over-boxy… Harnoncourt is in the quality of the recording itself, excitingly atmospheric… and… throated choral singing and all-important brass. With Robert Holl a sympathetically soft-grained God and Johannes Chum a sweetly lyrical rather than heroically over-forced St John, this Book now stands as top choice.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2008 **** “Best known for his work with the left-field Absolute Ensemble, Kristjan Järvi might not be thought a natural exponent but there can be no doubting his conviction. He is abetted by a strong vocal line-up: Johannes Chum is a youthful and forthright St John who, though a little strained in his initial entry, exudes the right impulsiveness and awe; Robert Holl is eloquently authoritative as the Voice of the Lord; and with the remaining quartet well contrasted as soloists and finely balanced in ensemble. The Wiener Singverein lack nothing in either incisiveness or sensitivity, while the Tonkünstler Orchestra, if a mite undernourished in string sound, are more than equal to Schmidt's surprisingly wide-ranging demands.
Surprising in that this is a piece which marks a culmination within the Austro-German choral tradition and yet looks defiantly to its future – an aspect Järvi pointedly emphasises – whether in the stark expressive contrasts as the Seven Seals are opened, the powerful momentum unleashed by the Seven Trumpets, or the climactic 'Hallelujah' chorus whose grandeur is charged with a keen fervency.
More evocative than Franz Welser-Möst (EMI) but less theatrical than Nikolaus Harnoncourt (BMG), Järvi makes it the concert-drama Schmidt surely intended. SACD sound maximises its textural and dynamic extremes, but a pity that applause was retained at the end of disc 1. Even so, this could well be first choice for those new to the work.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | (also available to download from $21.75) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Robert Holl (bass) & Elena Bashkirova (piano) Orchestre National des Pays de Loire, Isaac Karabtchevsky | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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