Reviewer’s Log: a Summer Retrospect
With the choir in which I sing on summer
break for a couple of months there has
been a bit more time than usual for
listening in recent weeks.
A good number of new discs have come
my way, partly through reviewing duties
and partly as a result of my own purchases.
However, I’ve also been indulging in
some retrospective purchasing. This
has been prompted by the impending closure
of the local CD dealership where I’ve
spent a considerable (some might say
excessive) amount on CDs over the last
18 years or so. Audiosonic in Gloucester
is closing at the end of September when
the present owner retires. It’s no doubt
a sign of the times – and a sad one
- that no buyer could be found to carry
on the business. So after well over
20 years yet another city in the UK
will cease to be served by a shop that
specialises in classical CDs. Of course,
there are a number of excellent mail
order companies but though they offer
efficient service and prices that are
often very keen, they can’t offer the
pleasure of the browsing experience.
Among the new CDs I bought was Lynne
Dawson’s admirable and stylish recital
of mélodies for Berlin
Classics, entitled Voyage à
Paris (0017582BC). Splendidly partnered
by pianist Julius Drake, Miss Dawson
offers a pleasing range of mélodies,
including a generous helping of
Poulenc, which is always welcome. Lynne
Dawson has long been one of my favourite
singers though on disc at least we haven’t
heard enough of her outside the baroque
repertoire. This new disc, and her earlier
fine offering of English song for Hyperion,
On this Island (CDA67227), happily
redresses the balance somewhat.
Mention of Hyperion reminds me that
this label seems to be on something
of a roll currently, even by their lights.
Two fine discs, one of them outstanding
in fact, came my way for review over
the summer. The third volume (of a projected
four) of the complete mélodies
of Fauré maintained the high
standards of its predecessors (review).
Even more exciting was the new release
of James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words
from the Cross. This is a work of
exceptional eloquence and no little
power. Superbly performed by Polyphony
and the Britten Sinfonia under Stephen
Layton, I have absolutely no doubt that
this will be one of my Recordings of
the Year for 2005 (review).
Before leaving vocal music and Hyperion
I must mention one of the catch-up discs
that was sneaked into the house this
summer. There could scarcely be a greater
contrast than that between James MacMillan
and Emmanuel Chabrier. By chance I came
across a cutting that I’d saved of a
review by Michael Kennedy of Hyperion’s
two-disc complete survey of Chabrier’s
mélodies. The set bears
the utterly appropriate title Musique
Adorable! (CDA67133/4). The inspiration
is a bit uneven at times and Chabrier
doesn’t aspire to the depths of, say,
Fauré. However, for pure musical
pleasure these songs take some beating
and with artists of the calibre of Dame
Felicity Lott on hand the standard of
performance is consistently high. Like
the Fauré series, the presiding
genius behind this set was Graham Johnson,
which guarantees not just excellent
piano accompaniments but superb notes.
I’m glad I discovered these Chabrier
songs. I probably wouldn’t have done
so without the prompting of Michael
Kennedy’s enthusiasm. He has just retired
from his weekly review column on the
Sunday Telegraph, though, happily,
he will continue to write for the paper,
albeit less regularly. Mr. Kennedy is
one of the most readable and authoritative
of critics of his generation and for
me he possesses the happy gift, all-too
rare in a critic, of making his reader
want to hear immediately the piece of
music about which he is writing. His
retirement from regular reviewing is
a significant event. I can’t be alone
in noting it with regret for he has
made a major contribution to musical
criticism and literature in the UK and
beyond during his career. It is good
news that he has two new books in preparation.
Two splendid archive discs from the
Orfeo label of recordings by Dimitri
Mitropoulos came my way. One is new
to the catalogue but the other has been
available for some time. The newcomer
(C 627 041 B) enshrines the conductor’s
debut concert at the Salzburg Festival
in August 1954. He conducts the Vienna
Philharmonic in Prokofiev’s Fifth symphony.
This has much to commend it but, in
the last analysis, is a slightly disappointing
affair. All Mitropoulos’s drive and
fire are present but the VPO sound a
bit tentative. Perhaps they were unfamiliar
with the score? The real reason for
acquiring this CD, however, is an incandescent
account of Schumann’s Second symphony.
This is a work that meant a great deal
to Mitropoulos and he leads a quite
astonishing performance, full of conviction
and insight. The members of the VPO
must have played this score many times
but I’m sure they can never have played
it like this. Hear this performance
and be reminded that Schumann’s Second
symphony is a masterpiece!
So great an impression did Mitropoulos
make on Wilhelm Furtwängler during
his first appearance at Salzburg that
the German maestro was instrumental
in securing him a return invitation
to the festival. On August 15, 1956,
Mitropoulos conducted a simply staggering
account of the Berlioz Grand Messe
des Morts at the Festival, dedicating
the performance to the memory of the
recently-deceased Furtwängler.
Orfeo issued this recording back in
1997, I believe, (C 457 971 B) but unaccountably
I’ve missed it until now. There are
some problems of execution. The chorus,
and the sopranos in particular, are
fallible. However, tenor soloist Leopold
Simoneau is first class and the blemishes
in the choral singing cannot dim the
ardour of the performance. Mitropoulos
confirms his credentials as a Berlioz
interpreter of immense stature with
this superb reading of Berlioz’s visionary
score.
Mention of Berlioz reminds me of another
great interpreter of his music, Sir
Thomas Beecham. I’ve just acquired a
2-disc Sony set containing all his Berlioz
recordings for CBS (Sony Classical 515300
2). This includes his 1953/4 account
of the Te Deum, the work’s first
recording I believe. This is a splendid
version, with Alexander Young a sensitive
tenor soloist. The recording wears its
years incredibly lightly. The same is
true of Beecham’s 1951 traversal of
Harold in Italy in which he is
joined by another splendid soloist,
on this occasion William Primrose. Beecham
is perhaps a more swashbuckling interpreter
of Berlioz than Sir Colin Davis but
he had a real feel for this highly original
composer. These performances are all
excellent and the set, which also includes
a number of overtures, is an unmissable
bargain.
Back with new issues, I have been following
Peter Donohoe’s series of British Piano
Concertos for Naxos with great interest.
Added to that, I admire the music of
William Alwyn very much. So Donohoe’s
new disc of Alwyn’s Piano Concerti had
to be on the purchase list. I completely
share the enthusiasm of Tony
Haywood and Rob
Barnett for this release. The total
neglect of the Second concerto is especially
mystifying. This Donohoe series goes
from strength to strength and is a significant
feather in the Naxos cap. I endorse
just as strongly Rob Barnett’s enthusiastic
welcome for the first disc in the Naxos
cycle of Alwyn’s symphonies (review).
I hadn’t heard the concertos before
but all three works on this other disc
were familiar to me, in the case of
the Second and Fifth symphonies from
the composer’s own Lyrita readings (rightly
praised by Rob) and in the case of the
wonderfully luminous and strongly-profiled
Lyra Angelica from the very good
recording in the Hickox/Chandos survey.
All three works on this new Naxos CD
are extremely fine and as rewarding
as they are approachable. They get fresh
and committed performances from the
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
and David Lloyd-Jones. Add to the excellence
of the performances very good engineering
and notes on the music by the composer
himself and you have all the ingredients
for an unmissable issue. I await further
releases in this series impatiently,
especially the Third symphony, my own
favourite.
I also invested in Bernard Haitink’s
new recording of Bruckner’s Eighth symphony.
For this he returns to direct the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra on its own label
of live recordings. This version was
taped at performances earlier this year.
I don’t think it supplants existing
recommendations but it’s still a first
rate performance, distinguished by the
integrity, musicianship and complete
affinity with Bruckner’s music that
we have come to associate with this
fine conductor (review).
Haitink has been identified for years
as a leading interpreter of the Austro-German
repertoire but his long career in the
UK has encouraged him also to explore
English music. Over a long period of
time (1984-2000) he recorded a cycle
of the Vaughan Williams symphonies for
EMI. I bought some of these (Sea
Symphony, A London Symphony
and Sinfonia Antartica) when
they first came out and I admired them
very much but the remainder escaped
my attentions, probably because my shelves
already groan under an embarrassing
number of recordings of the RVW symphonies.
However, the chance to acquire the whole
cycle in an EMI box of seven CDs for
£21.00 (5 86026 2) proved to be too
great a temptation. In general, I think
Haitink is more successful in the more
reflective works. His Pastoral
and Fifth, for example, are beautiful.
He’s also very fine in the London
Symphony but to my ears the turbulent
Fourth in particular doesn’t have quite
the punch and thrust that it needs.
Sea Symphony is a wonderful,
heart-warming creation but it needs
a firm hand on the tiller if the structure
is not to sag. The same powers of concentration
that make Haitink so successful in Bruckner
serve him well here and I was delighted
to renew my acquaintance with this splendid
recording. EMI gave Haitink superb sound
throughout the cycle and this box is
graced by a splendidly readable and
authoritative essay by Michael Kennedy.
Though this cycle doesn’t shake my allegiances
to Handley or Boult it’s a fine achievement
and at the current price it’s almost
an indecent bargain.
I’ve deliberately left to last the
outstanding item among the past releases
that I’ve caught up with over the summer.
In 2004 DG issued a two-disc set containing
live recordings by Claudio Abbado of
Debussy’s La Mer and Mahler’s
Resurrection Symphony (00289
477 5082 GH2). These were live performances,
taped at the Lucerne Festival in 2003
by the Festival’s eponymous orchestra,
a handpicked group, many from the Berlin
Philharmonic, and containing some of
the finest players in Europe. These
are quite astonishing performances.
Abbado conveys the sweep and drama of
Mahler’s vast fresco superbly. He may
not quite storm the heavens in the way
that some conductors do but it’s still
a thrilling performance, made still
more thrilling by the playing, which
consistently attains the utmost heights
of virtuosity. This is one of the finest
accounts of the symphony I’ve heard
in many years. In the Debussy the playing
is finer still, if that’s possible.
Abbado and his players recreate Debussy’s
imaginative canvasses with consummate
skill. Even more than in the Mahler,
many tiny details that often go unremarked
in performance emerge as if new-minted
to excite the listener. Yet one is never
conscious that this is a micro-managed
performance, just delighting in detail
and virtuosity for its own sake. No,
this is the genuine article. A superb,
vital performance caught on the wing.
This is an outstanding set and I’m kicking
myself that it’s taken me so long to
hear it.
Of course, in the UK the musical summer
is dominated by the Henry Wood Promenade
Concerts. There were well over seventy
this year and as usual the BBC, noble
sponsors of the season, broadcast the
lot. One can easily carp at the Proms
– the omission of music by a wide variety
of British composers is one perennial
complaint. Also, inevitably, not all
the concerts reach the heights. However
I’ve heard some fine concerts and it’s
evident from the press reviews that
there have been other excellent concerts
that I have missed (or have chosen to
miss!) For me, the highlights came at
the beginning and end of the season.
Mark Elder conducted his Hallé
forces in a very fine performance of
The Dream of Gerontius. As I
remarked to my wife during the Demon’s
Chorus, Barbirolli would have been proud
of the Hallé Choir. This
was an urgent, red-blooded reading,
emphasising, perhaps, Elder’s operatic
credentials. There were occasions when
I thought his speeds were a bit too
fast but for the most part I thought
his interpretation was a fine and idiomatic
one He had a quite splendid Gerontius
in Paul Groves, an American tenor, I
believe, who I hadn’t heard before.
He made a superb ringing sound in the
more heroic passages but was also sensitive
in the many more intimate stretches.
Though he carried a score he scarcely
glanced at it; in fact, his eye contact
with the audience was extraordinary
and enhanced his performance. If, as
I hope, Elder is planning to record
the work for the Hallé’s own
label as part of his ongoing Elgar series
I trust Groves will be engaged and so
too Alice Coote, who was a fine and
involving Angel.
A few days earlier had come the Royal
Opera’s concert performance of Die
Walküre. The big attraction
here was the belated Proms debut of
Placido Domingo as Siegmund. Domingo
is quite amazing for a man in his sixties
and he sang superbly. The performance
also featured Bryn Terfel’s extraordinarily
vivid portrayal of Wotan. But despite
these two excellent performances it’s
arguable that the show was stolen by
Waltraud Meier’s shatteringly intense
portrayal of Sieglinde. The other plaudits
must go to the splendid playing of the
ROH orchestra and the electrifying and
dramatic conducting of Antonio Pappano.
Towards the end of the season there
was the annual and welcome influx of
visiting orchestras from overseas. I
was abroad when the Cleveland Orchestra
came to town, though I noted that the
critical reception was cool. However,
I made sure I got home in time for the
visit of Mariss Jansons and the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra. Thank goodness
I did for I wouldn’t have missed for
anything their shattering account of
Mahler’s Sixth symphony, nor the splendid
Brahms First symphony which concluded
their second prom. Here we have a world-class
orchestra, currently on top of its form
and inspired by a marvellous conductor.
What more can one ask?
The end of the Proms heralds the changing
of the seasons. The summer is over,
autumn and the rugby union season are
upon us and England’s cricketers have
wrested the Ashes from the Australians
at long last. The 2005/6 concert season
has begun and CD collectors and reviewers
alike await the record companies’ pre-Christmas
release lists with excitement and anticipation.
Happy listening!
John Quinn
