Franz Peter Schubert

Following the extremely successful recording of Haydn complete London Symphonies released in 2010, Marc Minkowski, Naïve and the Wiener Konzerthaus set up a new project, even more ambitious although similar in form: to perform for the Viennese audience and record the complete symphonies of Schubert in the same week, in March this year. 2012 marks the 30th anniversary of Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble. Major concerts will take place in Paris this Autumn to celebrate this event.

This 4-CD set on period instruments sheds a new light on all the Symphonies, some not as highly considered as perhaps they should be.

Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble use instruments of the Classical era, laid out according to Viennese tradition, with the violins on either side of the conductor and the double basses in a line facing him. The oboe too is of Viennese manufacture: its highly idiosyncratic bore produces a sound, at once nasal and tender, that is immediately recognisable – indeed, despite developments in instrument making and the multiplication of keys, the modern version of this instrument is still not so very far removed from the oboe that Schubert knew. Four double basses are used in general but only two for the Fifth Symphony, which is written in a more central tessitura and dispenses with clarinets, trumpets, and timpani.

‘In the “Great C major”, on the other hand,’ explains Marc Minkowski, ‘Schubert’s ambitions recall, relatively speaking, those of Haydn in The Creation or Beethoven in the Ninth Symphony. That’s why I chose to deploy five basses and to double the first flute and oboe parts and the second clarinet and bassoon parts: the use of three instruments per section allows us to obtain that organ sonority that was later to define the Bruckner rchestra, whereas the woodwind, in the early symphonies, sound like a pastoral group. When all is said and done, the key word for all this music is melancholy, even at the height of virtuosity – and goodness knows that these works, more ideal than practical, remain behind their apparent simplicity very risky to bring off in performance. Schubert wrote with genius for the orchestra, but his thought, much more than that of Mozart or Beethoven, was situated outside reality, in the tumultuous imagination of a young – sometimes very young – man, at the frontiers of the possible.’

The centenary of the birth of the extraordinary British contralto Kathleen Ferrier, a singer who became a legend after her untimely death in 1952, is marked by a 10-CD set on the Documents label. These recordings from her all-too-short career present an outstanding artist who with her inspired singing and her legendary, darkly warm timbre achieved immortality.

Many of the recordings featured have become benchmarks, in particular her interpretations of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Kindertotenlieder. Her Brahms, Schubert, Schumann and Wolf are evidence that she was a great Lied singer. The set also includes sacred works by Pergolesi, Handel and Bach, together with a complete recording of Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice, as well as her wonderful interpretations of the traditional songs of her native country, sung with lightness of touch and devotion in equal measure.

The eighteen songs included in this recording of Schwanengesang all belong to the last three years of Schubert’s life. The earliest of them, Am Fenster, was written in March 1826, while the last, Die Taubenpost, was finished only a few weeks before his death on 19 November 1828. Fourteen of them, seven by Ludwig Rellstab, six by Heinrich Heine and one by the Vienna government official and journalist J.G. Seidl, were published by Tobias Haslinger in May 1829 under the umbrella title Schwanengesang (‘Swan Song’) and are often performed as a complete cycle. Of these, Am Fenster, Der Wanderer an den Mond (both Seidl) and Herbst (Rellstab), were not included in the original publication of Schwanengesang.

Auf dem Strom, with obbligato horn, dates from the previous year, 1827, but was first performed on 26 March 1828, marking the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death. The horn plays a significant melodic role in the setting, opening the piece, providing interludes between the verses, and duetting with the solo tenor voice. It was recorded in 1991 by Peter Schreier and András Schiff, with Radovan Vlatković, at the Decca Winterreise sessions, but owing to the playing time of the CD, Auf dem Strom did not appear. This is the recording’s first release.

On this new release, the Doric String Quartet turns to the music of Franz Schubert. It is the Quartet’s fifth release for Chandos, and the discography has gone from strength to strength. MusicWeb International said of the recent Korngold release (CHAN10707): ‘The Doric Quartet seem to have a Midas touch, and any repertoire they commit to disc comes out sparkling’. Their Schumann release (CHAN10692) was ‘Recording of the Month’ in both Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine.

In March 1824, despite describing himself as ‘the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world’, Schubert completed not only the great Octet, but also the two String Quartets recorded here.

The String Quartet in D minor is considered the greatest of Schubert’s late quartets, mainly on account of its raw emotional honesty, which reaches an almost unendurable pitch in the second movement, a set of variations based on Schubert’s song Der Tod und das Mädchen. All four movements are driven by extensively repeated rhythmic figures, reminiscent of the musical style of Schubert’s great idol, Beethoven.

Full of Schubertian ambivalence, the String Quartet in A minor is a deeply intimate work. The opening, expressing brooding sadness, is played by the first violin over a restless accompaniment, and subsequently interrupted by flurries of almost manic energy. In the second movement, Schubert ‘borrowed’ the main melody from the second Entr’acte of his incidental music to the play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (1823) by Wilhelmine von Chézy.

For a half-century he had the reputation of the trumpet soloist: Maurice André, who died in 2012. The best examples of his radiant tone are the recordings he made with different organists – a brilliant stroll through the golden world of Baroque music.

It is 30 years since legendary British pianist Clifford Curzon died (1 September 1982). Over the course of his career, during a long and almost exclusive association with Decca, Clifford Curzon established a pre-eminence unrivalled by any other British pianist of his generation.

For the first time this collection brings together absolutely every recording he ever made for Decca which has survived [in the days of fragile 78rpm shellac discs one or two items were given to the artist as unique-copy test-pressings and these have not survived], including several which have never been published on CD ( or even LP) by Decca [Falla: Noches en los jardines de España (recorded in September 1945); Liszt: Mephisto Waltz No.1 and Liebestraum No.3 – recorded in September 1947, Liszt: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca recorded in1942].

Published for the first-time ever in any format are 8 pieces including a Medtner Fairy Tale, Chopin C sharp minor nocturne, Beethoven’s “Rage over a lost penny”, and 5 pieces by Brahms. These recordings survived as 78rpm test-pressings in Clifford Curzon’s private collection and have been made available for publication through his family.

Also herewith alongside 23 CDs is a famous DVD programme made by the BBC. It includes Curzon performing solo works by Schumann and Brahms [filmed in 1959, black & white] and Schubert – including a complete performance of the Piano Sonata in B flat, D960, filmed in 1968 [colour].

Sir Adrian Boult was born on 8th April, 1889 in Chester and died on 22nd February 1983 in London and hence next year we mark 30 years since his passing. From an early age he was attending concerts, firstly in Liverpool, primarily with Hans Richter, and then in London, whilst a pupil at Westminster School, by Sir Henry Wood, Claude Debussy, Arthur Nikisch and Richard Strauss; he also met Elgar for whose music he was to do so much during his life. He started studying History at Christ Church, Oxford but changed to music graduating in 1912. Among musical friends at Oxford was Ralph Vaughan Williams with whose compositions he is much associated.

He spent a year studying in Leipzig where Arthur Nikisch had the greatest influence on him. He gained experience conducting for both the Royal Opera House, where he assisted in the first production there of Wagner’s Parsifal , and Serge Diaghilev’s ballet company. He was appointed conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924 and six years later the BBC made him director of music where he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. During these years he introduced works by Bartók, Stravinsky and the Second Viennese School composers – Schönberg, Webern and Berg including his opera Wozzeck.

Forced to leave the BBC when he reached their retirement age, he became chief conductor of the LPO retiring in 1957. Although he worked with the other London Orchestras he was generally associated with them and this set of recordings bears this out. He became a champion of British music, giving numerous performances of Bliss, Britten, Delius, Tippett, Walton and Holst, whose Planets he had premiered, and the aforementioned Elgar and Vaughan Williams that he was primarily associated. His repertoire was wide from Baroque through to modern but it was the main period of Mozart to Brahms where he was pre-eminent. He continued conducting concerts and recordings until 1978.