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Presto News - 26th July 2010Gustav Mahler |
 2010 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gustav Mahler, who was born on 7th July 1860 in the small village Kalischt (now Kalište) in what was then part of the Austrian Empire, but is now in the Czech Republic. As 2011 will also be an anniversary (the 100th of his death) it will be a two-year celebration but with the combination of a couple of interesting box sets from EMI and DG and the launch of an innovative and exciting new website to tell you about, it seems a good time for me to feature him in one of these editorials.  Gustav Mahler Mahler seems to be one of those composers to attract real extremes of opinions from people. At the one end there are the almost hero-worshipers who won’t hear a bad word said about him while at the other there are those who dismiss his works entirely as hysterical and over-sentimental. In the middle there are probably the majority of listeners who continually marvel at his ability to startle, charm and excite, and enjoy immensely an hour or so (Mahler’s works tend to be quite long) of escape from the real world into one of Mahler’s symphonies. For what it's worth I definitely used to be at the hero-worship level - when I left school I went on a month-long tour of Europe visiting all of the places he worked and his composing huts (he composed in wooden huts which he built in the gardens of his various summer houses) - but now consider myself to be more mainstream (i.e. I enjoy Mahler immensely but can no longer listen to him all the time and after a particularly heavy session I often feel the need for a good dose of Schubert to recover!). There is always a lot going on in Mahler’s music - building towards climaxes or expressing something either emotional or shocking. The orchestration is fantastic and as there is so much to hear you never tire of hearing new recordings as there is bound to be at least one thing you’ve never heard before. Despite this (and their often long length) Mahler’s music is really very accessible and in many ways much easier for a new listener to enjoy than something like a late Beethoven String Quartet where the complexity of harmonic language and structure are always going to make it hard to really understand what is going on until you’re familiar with the music. There is an almost embarrassing number of great Mahler symphony recordings now available and Mahler enthusiasts enjoy nothing more than debating the relative merits of each of them and picking what they consider the greatest recording of each symphony. An old University lecturer of mine used to say that if a work had only one “great recording” it was probably not a great work. With Mahler this is more true than ever as so many different recordings contain so many different things to enjoy. To mark the 150th anniversary, record labels DG and EMI have released special box sets which draw on the numerous excellent recordings from their catalogues. The DG set (which includes recordings also made originally for Philips and Decca) features a different conductor for each symphony and the list is awesome, while the EMI set doubles up on Barbirolli and Tennstedt and features three recordings from Rattle, but it is hard to argue with this decision considering the undisputed greatness of those conductors. We’ve secured special prices on both sets to the extent that they’re worth getting even if you already own several of the recordings. DG have also just launched their ‘Dream Edition’ website which provides unrivalled access to listen to well over one hundred different recordings of Mahler symphonies in full for free! (You’ll need to register and login first but it is free to do so.) You also have the opportunity to create your own ‘dream cycle’ out of the numerous recordings in the Decca/DG catalogue. The most popular choice for each symphony will then go into a limited edition box set - “Mahler: The People‘s Edition” - which will be released on CD in November this year. There are a few oddities on the site (for example the 1951 Klemperer recording of the 2nd Symphony with Kathleen Ferrier and Jo Vincent is there to listen to but you cannot vote for it which is a bit frustrating as I might well have opted for that one!), and a few annoyances (like when listening to the albums online you have to endure gaps of a few seconds between tracks, which when a movement is split into several tracks is rather unsatisfactory), but overall this is a hugely valuable resource and well worth exploring. You have until September 15th to vote for your favourite cycle and you can access the site here. The two recent boxed sets mentioned above are listed below with a very brief summary of who is conducting what. Full details as always via the 'More...' links.
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 Mahler - Complete EditionSymphonies conducted by Kubelik (No. 1), Mehta (No. 2), Haitink (No. 3), Boulez (No. 4), Bernstein (No. 5), Abbado (No. 6), Sinopoli (No. 7), Solti (No. 8), Karajan (No. 9) and Chailly (No. 10). |
 Mahler - The Complete WorksSymphonies conducted by Giulini (No. 1), Klemperer (No. 2), Rattle (Nos. 3, 7 and 10), Horenstein (No. 4), Tennstedt (Nos. 5 and 8) and Barbirolli (Nos. 6 and 9). |
Chris O'Reilly - chris@prestoclassical.co.uk |
New Releases26th July 2010 |
This is just the pick of the recent releases. The New Releases and Future Releases pages are always available for browsing all the new and forthcoming releases. |
 Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin, D795Mark Padmore (tenor) & Paul Lewis (piano)After their much lauded recording of Winterreise, Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis turn to Schubert’s first song-cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, which follows a lovelorn young man on a melancholy journey of false hope. Two great artists at the zenith of their careers. |
 The Feast of St Peter at Westminster AbbeyWestminster Abbey Choir, James O'DonnellAnother fascinating collection from Westminster Abbey, recreating a particular liturgical period. This disc contains music one might hear if visiting the Abbey on its patronal feast, that of St Peter the Apostle, which falls on 29 June. The programme broadly follows the structure of the three major choral services of the Anglican tradition, all of which can in turn be traced back to the worship familiar in the pre-Reformation period when the Abbey was a Benedictine monastery: Matins (or Morning Prayer), Eucharist (Mass), and Evensong (Evening Prayer). The two principal musical elements are William Byrd’s Mass for five voices and, linking the morning and evening Offices, four movements from Charles Villiers Stanford’s Service in B flat. Also featured is Walton’s choral masterpiece The Twelve. The Abbey choir sings with its usual full-throated joy, expertly directed by James O’Donnell. |
 The Romantic Piano Concerto 51 - Taubert & RosenhainHoward Shelley (piano & conductor), Tasmanian Symphony OrchestraThe Romantic Piano Concerto series continues to surprise and delight with a 51st disc of 19th-century pianistic splendour. This new releases includes the two piano concertos by Wilhelm Taubert, as well as one of the two works for piano and orchestra by Jacob Rosenhain. Both composers were near exact contemporaries with Mendelssohn (born 1809), Chopin and Schumann (both 1810), Liszt (1811) and Wagner and Verdi (1813). |
 Walton: The SymphoniesOrchestre National de Lille, Owain Arwel HughesRarely appearing together on disc, William Walton’s two symphonies are separated by some 25 years. The First Symphony was composed after his dazzling early success, beginning with Façade and culminating in two scores written before Walton reached the age of thirty: the Viola Concerto and the oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast. After this, composition became more difficult, and progress on the symphony was tortuous and protracted. Nevertheless, the work has a strikingly positive tone – perhaps in celebration of the victory over the many demons and difficulties that had attended its creation. 22 years later, in 1957, the musical world was a very different place, but Walton’s response was not to seek solace in reflective nostalgia. It is rather as if he conceived the Second Symphony as a follow-up to his terse and bubbly Partita for orchestra, building on the confidence that the success of that score had given the always self-doubting composer. Owain Arwel Hughes first made his name with an electrifying televised performance of Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast which received a notable accolade from the composer. On this recording he takes Walton across the English Channel and conducts one of the leading French orchestras, Orchestre national de Lille, for their first appearance on the BIS label. |
 Schumann: SonatasDaniel Sepec (violin), Andreas Staier (piano Erard)After his earlier Hommage à Bach album, played on the same 1837 Érard piano he uses here, Andreas Staier is joined by Daniel Sepec in a programme of considerably later works by Schumann. However, these two violin sonatas and the Gesänge der Frühe of 1853 show no retreat from the composer's ideal: here too, ‘the poet speaks' ... |
 Guerrero: Missa Congratulamini mihi (and other works)The Cardinall's Musick, Andrew CarwoodThe award-winning Cardinall’s Musick have finally completed their Byrd series, and now look outside the British Isles to a composer who had to wait for a long time for his genius to be fully recognised, although he was well known to his contemporaries and produced a considerable output. Guerrero was born in 1528 in Seville, the city that was to remain at the centre of his entire life. His early training came from his brother Pedro and it is thought that he was a chorister at the magnificent Cathedral in Seville with its sumptuous music foundation. Guerrero himself states that he studied with Morales, and it was Morales who recommended the young musician for the post of maestro de capilla at Jaén Cathedral in 1546 – a short-lived appointment. |
 Cavalli: L’OrmindoSandrine Piau, Magali Léger, Stéphanie Révidat, Karine Deshayes, Martin Oro, Dominique Visse, Howard Crook, Jean-François Lombard, Jacques Bona, Benoît Arnould, Ensemble Les Paladins, Jérôme Correas (harpsichord & direction)Ormindo is the third melodrama to have been born of the collaboration between librettist Giovanni Faustini and composer Francesco Cavalli. The plot, following the established code of dramatic convention, tells the story of two pairs of lovers (Erisbe and Ormindo, Sicle and Amida) as they experience reversals of fortune, disguise and a fictitious death, all of which culminates in the agnizione of Ormindo as Hariadeno’s long-lost son in an incomparable coup de theatre. In Ormindo, as in the majority of Venetian operas from the same period, all is wagered upon the expressive power of the voices. It is no wonder that the instrumental accompaniment is entrusted to a string ensemble backed by a continuo. The symphonies and ritornelli, sometimes merely sketched out in the score and left to be improvised by the singers during performance, have the role of giving body to the fine texture of the character’s monologues and dialogues, accompanying them throughout the vicissitudes with which they are confronted. |
 Handel: ScipioneDerek Lee Ragin (Scipione), Sandrine Piau (Berenice), Olivier Lallouette (Ernando), Vanda Tabery (Amira), Guy Flechter (Lelio) & Doris Lamprechts (Lucejo), Les Talens Lyrique, Christophe RoussetWith their founder and conductor Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques appear all over the world, presenting both new revivals and established masterpieces of Baroque and Classical eras. Among their most notable achievements (and Christophe Rousset’s first recording of a Handel opera) was Scipione, recorded 17 years ago. That recording on the fnac label has been deleted, and no other version has been recorded since. |
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