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Presto News - 2nd July 2012New Shostakovich discovery - Orango |
 A newly discovered Shostakovich opera? Well, not quite – the 1932 score of Orango was commissioned by the Bolshoi to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the October Revolution, but only developed as far as a thirty-minute Prologue before unspecified political machinations nipped it in the bud. It’s such a fascinating score that it’s impossible not to reflect on What Might Have Been, but what we do have is well worth investigating, both in terms of historical significance and on its own terms as music-theatre.  Esa-Pekka Salonen The manuscript of Orango (just thirteen pages of piano-score) was discovered in Moscow’s Glinka Museum in 2004 by Olga Digonskaya, and after extensive consultations with Shostakovich’s widow Irina the draft was orchestrated by Gerard McBurney and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen last December in a concert-staging by Peter Sellars. (The recording is taken from these live performances.) The Prologue introduces us to the title-character, the result of a mad scientist’s attempt to cross-breed apes and humans, as he is paraded before the crowds at a State pageant: after introductions by a spin-doctor-cum-Master-of-Ceremonies and from his creator, Orango dances wearily to their tune for a while before snapping and ravaging a foreign woman in the audience. Once the ensuing chaos dies down, the MC proposes to stage Orango’s life-story for the entertainment of the crowd... Here the Prologue and Shostakovich’s score ends, so Orango’s protracted adventures as a trench-soldier in the Great War, a Parisian wide-boy and a capitalist press-baron never came to fruition. Dramatically, there are echoes and anticipations of other twentieth-century operas – the circus-like atmosphere and creepy MC prefigure Berg’s Lulu, premiered just five years later, and the surreal picaresque narrative which was to have followed recalls Janacek fantastical Excursions of Mr Broucek – but the music is unmistakeably Shostakovich. There are brash, militaristic marches, apparently hearty workers’ choruses, manic dance-episodes and deliberately saccharine ballet-interludes; the influence of jazz and film-music is rarely far away (Shostakovich was working on the score during a particularly prolific period in cinema-work, and in fact recycled material from The Bolt in this score). Though the precise circumstances surrounding the abandonment of the project are shrouded in mystery, it’s pretty obvious why it came to such an abrupt halt: the premise is too controversial, the satire simply too overtly biting to have won favour with the authorities. The performer is reduced to a dancing monkey; the glittering, mechanical and sedative nature of state-approved art is represented by the ballerina Nastya, who is commanded to dance in order to subdue the rampaging ape; the pervasive atmosphere is one of rebellion only just held in check. All told, it’s hard to imagine that Orango would have gone down well – after all, just five years later Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (which Shostakovich was completing as he worked on Orango) would be attacked as ‘Muddle Instead of Music’ in Pravda, and it’s surely very likely that Orango would have met with a similar denunciation. American baritone Ryan McKinny makes an oleaginous, sinister Master of Ceremonies, whilst the rather thankless title-role is taken by Eugene Brancoveanu: his role in the Prologue gives him little to work with other than a series of groans, yawns and the odd inarticulate phrase, but even with these limited resources he manages to convey the ape’s dangerous pent-up strength and almost Calibanesque poetic sensibility. Though the curiosity-value of Orango is perhaps the main draw of the set, it’s also worth having for the coruscating account of the Fourth Symphony (another work which was withdrawn by the terrified composer – unlike Orango, it was actually completed but only received its premiere almost three decades later) which made up the second half of the programme in Los Angeles. As a testimony to the composer’s self-censorship, there’s a chilling beauty to this set which I shan’t forget in a hurry, and Orango is a find in a thousand.
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 Shostakovich: Prologue to Orango & Symphony No. 4Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen |
Katherine Cooper - katherine@prestoclassical.co.uk |
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Watch: A short video trailerNew Releases2nd July 2012 |
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. |
 Liszt: The Complete Songs Volume 2Angelika Kirchschlager (mezzo-soprano) & Julius Drake (piano)This second volume of Hyperion’s newest Lieder series features the great dramatic and musical gifts of mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager. Internationally renowned on the opera stage, the concert hall and the recording studio, Kirchschlager is an ideal performer of these most varied, complex and emotionally charged songs. She is accompanied by the multi-Gramophone Award-winning Julius Drake, who curates the series. |
 Jeanne d’Arc: Batailles & PrisonsMontserrat Figueras, Louise Moaty, René Zosso & Manuel Weber, La Capella Reial de Catalunya & Hesperion XXI, Jordi Savall20 years after having worked on the soundtrack of Jacques Rivette’s movie Jeanne la Pucelle, Jordi Savall has decided to dedicate this new album to the mother figure of the struggle for French independence. Music fully enables us to rediscover this icon. |
 Strauss, R: ElektraJeanne-Michèle Charbonnet (Elektra), Angela Denoke (Chrysothemis), Dame Felicity Palmer (Clytemnestra), Matthias Goerne (Orestes), Ian Storey (Aegisthus), London Symphony Orchestra, Valery GergievValery Gergiev conducts Strauss’ Elektra, one of the most powerful operas in the repertoire, accompanied by a superlative cast. Premiered in 1910 at Covent Garden, under the baton of Sir Thomas Beecham, Elektra showcases many, of what were at the time, modernist techniques such as dissonance, chromaticism and fluid tonality but also some of his finest writing. |
 Schumann: Piano ConcertoAngela Hewitt (piano), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Hannu LintuAngela Hewitt’s recordings of Schumann’s solo piano works for Hyperion have been described as ‘revelatory… something to cherish’ (Gramophone) and ‘unreservedly superb’ (The Guardian). Now she turns her attention to the works for piano and orchestra in a magnificent release which includes the beloved Piano Concerto in A minor – one of the most treasured concertos in the repertoire – and two other works also written for Clara Schumann. |
 R. Strauss: Four Last SongsAnne Schwanewilms (soprano), Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Markus StenzA setting of poems by Hermann Hesse and Joseph von Eichendorff, Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs afford ultimate proof of Strauss’s unique ability to write soaring melodic lines for the soprano voice. Many outstanding Strauss sopranos have faced up to the challenge and now Anne Schwanewilms joins them, ahead of her Proms performance on 17th July. |
 Christian Gerhaher: Ferne Geliebte (Distant Beloved)Christian Gerhaher (baritone) & Gerold Huber (piano)‘Ferne Geliebte’ (Distant Beloved) juxtaposes compositions from the two great Vienna schools, Viennese Classicism on the one hand, represented by Haydn and Beethoven, and the Second Viennese School with Schönberg and Berg on the other. The connection between them all is their preoccupation with loneliness, longing and hopeless love. |
 Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, David ZinmanAfter their acclaimed recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies in a new musical guise, a highly-regarded cycle of Richard Strauss’s tone poems, the complete Mahler symphonies and a number of other musical projects with which they attracted widespread attention, David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich now devote themselves to the symphonies of Franz Schubert. We began with 2 volumes – one containing Symphonies 1&2, and the second containing the 7th Symphony, and this is now followed by the brand new recording of Symphonies 3 & 4. |
 Lalo: Concerto russe & Piano ConcertoTapiola Sinfonietta, Kees BakelsJean-Jacques Kantorow follows his critically acclaimed recording of music by Édouard Lalo with a second disc featuring two further works that were originally intended for Sarasate, the brief Fantaisie-ballet on themes from Lalo’s ballet Namouna, and the large-scale Concerto russe.
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Download - download options available for this item BBC Radio 3 CD ReviewSaturday 30th June 2012 |
Building a Library - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 3 in D major, Op. 29 'Polish' |
 First Choice(Original Decca recording re-issued by Newton as part of a 4 CD set of the complete Tchaikovsky Symphonies)London Symphony Orchestra & New Philharmonia Orchestra, Igor Markevitch |
 Highly RecommendedUSSR State Symphony Orchestra, Evgeny Svetlanov
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Disc of the Week |
 Brahms: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1-3 (complete)Anthony Marwood (violin) & Aleksandar Madžar (piano) |
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