Humperdinck: Hänsel & Gretel Overture - CD

At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a resurgence of interest in fairy-tales as suitable subjects for plays, opera and ballet. Engelbert Humperdinck scored a notable success (especially in his native Germany) with his fairy-tale opera Hänsel und Gretel, based on a story by the brothers Grimm. A great admirer of Wagner, with whom Humperdinck worked on preparations for the premiere of Parsifal at Bayreuth during the 1881-82 season, he was also a distinguished teacher (in which capacity he was active in Spain as well as in Germany). Hänsel und Gretel, a setting of a libretto by the composer’s sister, Adelheid Wette, received its first performance under the baton of Richard Strauss at the Weimar court theatre on 23 December 1893, and was hailed as a masterwork by Gustav Mahler. The influence of Wagner can be heard in this quintessentially German work, in which the composer reveals his total mastery of the art of orchestration. The same mastery can also be heard in his incidental music for a German production of Maurice Maeterlinck’s fairy play The Blue Bird first performed in Berlin on 23 December 1912, as well as in Humperdinck’s three-act fairy-tale opera Dornröschen (inspired by The Sleeping Beauty, one of Charles Perrault’s most famous stories), which received its premiere in Frankfurt in 1902.

Sir John Barbirolli’s full-blooded and dramatic performance of Puccini's Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut brings vividly into focus his Italian blood and background, inherited from a Venetian family in which both his father and grandfather were members of the orchestra at Milan’s opera house, La Scala. Others among the operatic overtures on this disc will be well remembered by Barbirolli admirers from his concerts, especially the Rossini pair and Oberon, the latter with its wonderfully delicate feeling in the introduction and strong vein of romantic ardour coursing through the succeeding allegro. Hansel and Gretel and The Merry Wives of Windsor were perhaps more rare, the latter often being reserved for one of his popular programmes of Viennese Music.

Barbirolli really relished these little overtures and preludes and he brought to them his characteristically elegant phrasing and lively rhythms; note his careful grading of the famous Rossini crescendos in Semiramide, the richness of the orchestral texture in Hansel and Gretel and the vigour and élan of the playing in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Of the four pieces included here unrelated to the opera house, two make their debut on CD. The Trumpet Voluntary recalls a much earlier Hallé record, made in Manchester’s old Free Trade Hall in 1927 under Sir Hamilton Harty, the Orchestra’s principal conductor from 1920-33.

The other title new to CD is his spick-and-span account of The Stars and Stripes Forever which gives the percussion players a chance to enjoy themselves. Elsewhere the Hallé strings, led by Laurance Turner (in his last season before retiring), properly reflect their conductor’s eloquent handling of Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile. Another Hallé stalwart who retired at the end of the same season (1957-8) was first clarinet Pat Ryan, whose many finely sensitive contributions can be heard throughout these performances, notably towards the end of Mendelssohn’s atmospheric portrait of the seas around Fingal’s Cave; all are typical of a quality of playing upon which Barbirolli had been able to rely ever since he re-formed the Orchestra in 1943. The previous two volumes in this series and available – Volume 1 (SJB1036) and Volume 2 (SJB1041).

Timothy Byram-Wigfield, newly appointed master of music at St George’s, Windsor, plays a variety of Edwardian transcriptions on one of the world’s finest concert organs: the Lewis organ in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Gallery.

His enthusiasm for the art of his own time, and his desire to make a personal contribution to it, are not the least of Otto Klemperer’s qualities which have been overshadowed by the enduring image of a stern standard-bearer for tradition. Here are sprightly, quirkily personal performances of neo-classical masterpieces by Hindemith and Stravinsky, as well as a glimpse into the mind of Klemperer the creative musician, decisively influenced by his early encounters with Mahler.

Otto Klemperer was born on 14th May 1885 in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland) and died on 6th July 1973 in Zurich, hence 2013 marks 40 years since his passing. He had had a remarkable career as a young man but it was at the age of 70 that he started a series of recordings that would not only establish him as an inter-nationally renowned conductor but provide EMI with a catalogue of recordings that became and remain touchstones.

At the age of 42 Klemperer became director of the Kroll Opera in Berlin and was responsible for numerous premieres of the music by modern composers, especially Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill. It was a source of pride that he brought so many works by Stravinsky, born three years and dying two years before him, to the public and this continued even when Stravinsky and Klemperer were in America where the Symphony in Three Movements was written. Hindemith, too, was supported both in Berlin and America.

Klemperer was so captivated by the Berthold Brecht/Kurt Weill Die Dreigroschenoper when it opened in Berlin in 1928 that he commissioned the 28-year-old composer to make a suite for wind instruments based on the original score. The result was the Kleine Dreigroschenmusik, which was played for the first time at the annual Berlin opera ball under Klemperer’s direction.

Not only a conductor, Klemperer loved to compose and three works were recorded, The first, in October 1961, was Merry Waltz taken from his opera Das Ziel (The Goal) and re-orchestrated for a larger orchestra which had originally premiered in August 1936 in Los Angeles. The second is his Symphony No. 2 which had had a private recording earlier in 1969 but which EMI then decided deserved proper session time and was released to celebrate his 85th birthday. His String Quartet No. 7 was recorded in February 1970, with the Philharmonia String Quartet for the same reason.

The box set includes a musical bonus in the Overture and Dream Pantomime from Hänsel und Gretel composed by Engelbert Humperdinck. He had often conducted the opera and in 1932 his wife, the soprano Johanna Geissler, had alternated the roles of Gretel and the Witch.

The set concludes with Jon Tolansky’s Sound Biography which illustrates how Otto Klemperer inspired musicians and music lovers not only with his conducting but also with his extraordinary courage, surviving extreme physical and mental adversity with remarkable stoicism. This special disc also includes two never before released items that were discovered as this feature was being prepared: a speech by Dr Klemperer at a reception for his 75th birthday, and a rehearsal during his recording sessions for Mozart’s Don Giovanni. An entire hour of rehearsal can be heard on a bonus CD that appears with EMI Classics’ reissue of the complete opera.

Edinburgh’s churches and concert halls are home to a rich variety of pipe organs. Open this book and step into a world of glorious architecture and fascinating history. In amongst these pages 22 of the city's most notable instruments are surveyed in full colour. Meanwhile 12 illustrious players, all with deeprooted Edinburgh connections, demonstrate the full range and versatility of these instruments on the four accompanying CDs. The full gamut of the repertoire is here, and Edinburgh's organs have the voices to match. Time to lift the veil from some of the closestguarded treasures of one of the world's great cities.

(Only 2,000 of these numbered hardback books will ever be produced. At the time of writing only 600 Copies remain commercially available.)