Weber: Invitation to the Dance, Op. 65 (Aufforderung zum Tanze)

This is the fourth release by the BBC Philharmonic under its Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena, and the discography is going from strength to strength – their recording of orchestral works by Falla was ‘Recording on the Month’ in BBC Music. They are joined on this recording by the bassoonist Karen Geoghegan.

Weber wrote the waltz Aufforderung zum Tanze (Invitation to the Dance) in 1819, around the time when he was also working on the opera Der Freischütz. The two works crossed paths once more, in 1841, when the latter was performed at the Opéra de Paris. Berlioz had been commissioned to orchestrate Aufforderung zum Tanze so that it could be incorporated into the opera, and he did so by melding Weber’s polished and elegant original with his own sound world, with customary panache. It is the version included on this disc.

Also featured are Weber’s Symphonies Nos 1 and 2. That these works should be so neglected is partly down to historical accident; they were composed just four years after Beethoven’s monumental ‘Eroica’ Symphony, the work which ditched the rulebook once and for all, and which turned the genre from classical perfection into a personal musical manifesto. So when Weber’s symphonies saw the light of day, overshadowed by the great master, no one took much notice.

Weber wrote the first symphony between 14 December 1806 and 2 January 1807, while the second took just over a week, from 22 and 28 January. Yet, there is no evidence of undue haste in the finished works, quite the opposite in fact. They strongly display what Debussy aptly described as Weber’s ability to ‘scrutinise the soul of each instrument’.

Also on this disc is the composer’s Bassoon Concerto. Much of the work’s appeal derives from Weber’s ear for sonority, and in particular the dark-hued palette natural to the bassoon. The finale has the bassoon playing a jester of great agility, yet with enough elegant touches to dispel any clichéd ideas of the instrument as a figure of fun. The movement builds to an assured and almost reckless virtuoso ending. Karen Geoghegan is the soloist in this work. Gramophone said of this young artist that ‘lyrical, mellifluous playing seems to come as naturally as wit and charm’.

Recording producers: Ray Minshull (Verdi, Mussorgsky, Saint-Saëns, Rossini); John Culshaw (J. Strauss II, Weber, Minkus); Michael Williamson (Lecocq, Walton)

Recording engineer: Kenneth Wilkinson (Verdi, Mussorgsky, Saint-Saëns, Rossini, J. Strauss II, Weber, Minkus); Ken Cress (Lecocq, Walton)

Recording location: Kingsway Hall, London, UK, July 1953 (J. Strauss II, Minkus), November 1953 (Weber); Watford Town Hall, London, UK, September 1957 (Lecocq, Walton); La Maison de la Chimie, Paris, France, November 1958 (Verdi, Mussorgsky, Saint-Saëns, Rossini)

The music on this pair of CDs falls into one of two categories: ballet music from an opera, or ballet music that was not originally intended for dancing at all, but that was subsequently adapted for that purpose. (The exception is Don Quixote, a full-length ballet with an original score.)

Many famous conductors had unusual lives, but the life of Anatole Fistoulari (1907-1995) was more unusual than most. When he was just seven, he conducted a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony in his native city of Kiev. At thirteen, he conducted Saint-Saëns’s Samson and Delilah in Bucharest. While a young man, he travelled throughout Europe and North America, accompanying bass Feodor Chaliapin and conducting the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Escaping the European mainland in World War II, he came to England, where he soon married Gustav Mahler’s sole surviving daughter, Anna, and was named principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He became a British citizen in 1948. Under a reciprocal arrangement between Decca and RCA, the Verdi, Mussorgsky, Saint-Saëns and Rossini items – all ‘opera-ballets’ – first appeared on RCA in 1960. Their first Decca release (under the title ‘The World of Ballet’) was not until 1972. Likewise, the Lecocq and Walton items were published in 1959 by RCA but in 1971 by Decca.

Recording producers: John Culshaw (Glazunov); Victor Olof (Liszt); Ray Minshull (Ravel, Weber, Falla); Michael Williamson (Adam)

Recording engineers: Roy Wallace (Glazunov); James Brown (Liszt); Kenneth Wilkinson (Ravel, Weber, Falla); Ken Cress (Adam)

Recording locations: La Maison de la Mutualité, Paris, France, September 1954 (Liszt), May 1956 (Glazunov), October & November 1957 (Adam); La Maison de la Chimie, Paris, France, November 1958 (Ravel, Weber, Falla)

The recorded legacy of Albert Wolff is one of the most sought-after by collectors. Of Dutch parentage, but born in Paris, Wolff was something of a polymath: pianist, organist, conductor, composer, and had a long career in recording studios beginning in 1920. His first recordings for Decca, starting in the summer of 1951, were a complete Carmen (with Suzanne Juyol), a Manon (with Janine Micheau) as well as several French orchestral suites and individual pieces. By reciprocal arrangement with RCA that Decca had at the time, the abridged version of Giselle was issued on RCA in 1959 and had to wait fourteen years for its appearance on Decca, when it appeared on its ‘Eclipse’ imprint in 1973. This collection brings together balletic works by Glazunov, Ravel, Weber and Falla, together with Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody.

The artist writes “I feel the French word ”Voyageurs” best covers, in a single word, the many facets of the traveler…….. Making these various aspects of traveling in the broadest sense of the word, audible is the goal of my selection of these works.” Recorded live at the Vienna Musikverein.

Following the warmly-embraced reissue on Decca Eloquence of Horst Stein's reading of Bruckner's sixth symphony, we now follow with the Second. As with the sixth, the couplings are music by Weber. Another much-requested reissue, this will be warmly welcomed by collectors and represent some of the best Bruckner performances of all time.

Classic FM is inviting you to the dance with its brand new double album Waltzing Classics, the ultimate collection of your favourite waltzes and other dances. This wonderful album is packed with the world’s most famous dancing pieces, with waltzes including Khachaturian’s ‘Waltz from Masquerade Ball’, Strauss’ ‘The Blue Danube’, and Meyerbeer’s ‘Skater’s Waltz’. Also included are many other famous dances, including Piazzolla’s fiery ‘Libertango’, Herold’s mischievous ‘Clog Dance’, Prokofiev’s powerful ‘Dance of The Knights’, Ziehrer’s elegant ‘Losslassen’ Polka, and beautiful pieces from the world of ballet including Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker’ and ‘Swan Lake’. Waltzing Classics transports the listener to a magical world of the classical ballroom and will appeal to lovers of dancing and classical music alike.

Weber, best known for his operas today, was also a very fine pianist and he wrote a sizeable body of piano music of which the four sonatas are the centrepiece. These are perhaps the first truly ‘Romantic’ piano sonatas and were a great influence on the succeeding generation of German composers such as Mendelssohn and Schumann; all are large scale and virtuosic and their quality makes it surprising how rarely they have been recorded. The set also includes the most important of Weber’s other piano works including the once hugely popular ‘Invitation to the Dance’, a work which has become better known in the orchestration of Berlioz.

‘These are distinguished performances, by a pianist of true romantic temper, of four works that have had more than their share of misunderstanding from performers and critics alike’ (Gramophone)

Garrick Ohlsson is the pianist, acclaimed for his performances of Brahms and Chopin on Hyperion. These delightful recordings were originally released on Arabesque.