Here’s a strange one. Compilations of adagios presumably sell
well – certainly they can be found in relative abundance on the
classical shelves in shops that don’t really - to all intents
and purposes - actually sell classical CDs. Titles often include
words like “chill” or “chilled”; here we have a subtitle – “Let
the World Be Still”. It is presumably because they want to use
it to make them feel relaxed that people buy such compilations.
This is the first time I have listened – and I did listen all
the way through in one go- to such a compilation. I have to report
that that the experience actually made me feel rather tense!
Think, in part, that was because some of the pieces, such as those
by Schubert and Mahler, being extracts from longer works, left
me with a kind of nervous irritation when expectations of what
should succeed them were frustrated; in larger part, however,
I found the unrelieved diet of music of much the same tempo frustrating
in a broader sense, feeling robbed of those patterns of contrast,
of the architectural disposition of differentiated but related
masses, which are the very stuff of serious music.
Even
granted all that – and my reactions are presumably not generally
shared by the intended customers of such compilations – this seems
to me a pretty strange affair. It is split into one CD of ‘Orchestral
Adagios’ and one of ‘Choral Adagios’. The second of these makes
by far the more satisfying listening, in part because it features
a number of highly-accomplished tracks by Harry Christophers and
the Sixteen, stylish, consistently idiomatic and models of clear
vocal texture. Whether in ‘O nata lux’ (by Tallis), Byrd’s ‘Ave
verum corpus’ or the ‘Exhortation’ from John Tavener’s Exhortation
and Kehama, their work is exemplary in its intelligence and
its vocal security. Also very impressive are the Choir of New
College, Oxford, directed by Edward Higginbottom, in Stanford’s
‘The Bluebird’. There are very decent performances of Mozart’s
‘Ave verum corpus’ and the ‘In paradisum’ from Fauré’s Requiem.
Though there are one or two tracks at a rather lower level, this
second CD makes generally satisfactory listening.
It
is the orchestral CD which is profoundly disappointing. There
are, of course, some worthwhile tracks here, such as David Zinman’s
performance of the Barber Adagio with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
and the version of Sibelius’ Valse triste by the Berlin Philharmonic
under Karajan. But there is too much that disappoints. The baroque
pieces suffer most. The movements from oboe concertos by Marcello
and Albinoni get adequate, if unexciting, performances by Heinz
Holliger and I Musici. Elsewhere, however, the performances by
Karajan and the Berlin Philarhmonic – of Bach, Pachelbel, and
the pseudo-Albinoni (not that the disc alerts you to the piece’s
spuriousness – are turgid and as lacking in stylistic appropriateness
as those by the Sixteen on the second disc are full of it. The
heaviness of these performances soon becomes wearing – where the
Albinoni adagio is concerned it is more a case of desperately
waiting for the end than the ‘world standing still’.
A
very mixed bag indeed – I could have summoned up a certain enthusiasm
for the Choral disc on its own, but taken as a whole this falls
pretty flat.
Glyn Pursglove
Details of works
and artists:
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Adagio
for Strings [8:45]
Baltimore Symphony
Orchestra/David Zinman
Pietro
Mascagni (1863-1945)
Intermezzo (from Cavelleria
Rusticana) [3:13]
National Philharmonic
Orchestra/Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Giacomo
Puccini (1858-1924)
O Mio Babbino Caro (from
Gianni Schicci) [4:05]
BBC Concert Orchestra/Barry
Wordsworth
Alessandro
Marcello
(1669-1747)
Adagio (from Oboe Concerto)
[4:26]
Heinz Holliger (oboe),
I Musici
Johann
Pachelbel (1653-1706)
Canon [5:05]
Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert
von Karajan
Tomaso
Albinoni (1671-1750)
Adagio for strings in
G Minor (arr. Remo Giazotto)
[11:45]
David Bell (organ),
Leon Spierer (violin), Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan
Johann
Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750)
Air (from Orchestral
Suite No3) [6:00]
Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert
von Karajan
Tomaso
Albinoni (1671-1750)
Adagio (from Oboe Concerto
No2) [5:24]
Heinz
Holliger (oboe), I Musici
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Adagietto (from Symphony
No.5) [11:52]
Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert
von Karajan
Jean
Sibelius (1865-1957)
Lento (from Valse
Triste) [6:03]
Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert
von Karajan
Georges
Bizet (1838-1875)
Adagietto (from L’Arlesienne
Suite) [3:27]
Daniel Deffayet (saxophone),
Berlin Philharmonic
Franz
Schubert (1797-1828)
Adagio (from String
Quintet in C, D.956) [5:18]
Weller Quartet, Dietfried
Gertler (cello)
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c.1525-1594)
Kyrie (from Missa
Papae Marcelli) [4:11]
The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
Antonio
Lotti (c.1667-1740)
Crucifixus [3:04]
The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
Gregorio
Allegri (1582-1652)
Miserere [11:56)
The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
Samuel
Barber (1910-1981)
Adagio (arr. Daryl
Runswick) [5:34]
London Voices/Terry
Edwards
Thomas
Tallis (c.1505-1585)
O Nata Lux (from Cantiones
Sacrae) [1:49]
The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
William
Byrd (1543-1623)
Ave Verum Corpus [4:26]
The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
ANONYMOUS
Veni Creator Spiritus
[2:32]
Cistercian Monks of
Stift Heiligenkreuz
Anton
Bruckner (1824-1896)
Locus Iste [2:53]
The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
Diogo
Dias Melgás
(1538-1600) arr. Francis Poulenc
(1899-1963)
Salve Regina [4:19]
The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
Charles
Villiers Stanford
(1852-1924)
The Bluebird, Op.119
No.3 [3:25]
Choir of New College,
Oxford/Edward Higginbottom
Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791)
Ave Verum Corpus, K.618
[3:39]
The Choir of King’s
College, Cambridge/Stephen Cleobury
Charles
Gounod (1818-1893)
Ave Maria [2:52]
Ben Hulett (tenor),
Helen Tunstall (harp), Choir of New College, Oxford/Edward Higginbottom
Gabriel
Fauré (1845-1924)
Pavane Op. 50 [6:40]
Choeur et Orchestre
Symphonique de Montréal/Charles Dutoit
John
Tavener (b.1944)
Exhortation (from Exhortation
and Kohima) [3:22]
The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
Maurice
Ravel (1875-1937)
Pavane Pour Une Infante
Défunte (arr. Daryl Runswick)
[5:22]
London Voices/Terry
Edwards
George
Frederic Handel
(1685-1759)
Crux Fidelis (arr. Edward
Higginbottom, after ‘Ombra ma fu’) [2:30]
Capricorn, Choir of
New College, Oxford/Edward Higginbottom
Gabriel
Fauré (1845-1924)
In Paradisum (from Requiem)
[3:19]
Choeur et Orchestre
Symphonique de Montréal/Charles Dutoit
Edward
Elgar (1857-1934)
Sancte Deus (Nimrod),
(arr. John Langley, Steve Abbott, Simon Lole and Ian Tilney [3:27]
All Angels, City of
Prague Philharmonic Orchestra/Simon Lole
Various artists, recording locations and dates
