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Ludwig van Beethoven: Overture to Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, Op. 43; Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55 "Eroica"
The London Classical Players, Roger Norrington
This disc is one example (among others) of Norrington's first Beethoven cycle that I think still holds up very, very well. It's a bold, always musical, rhythmically astute performance. Certainly: no vandalism. Even just with period instruments, there are more ways than one to successfully interpret this great symphony!
If you were to read the sleeve notes for this Monteverdi disc from the early music group L'Arpeggiata, then you might be forgiven for being scared off. Director, Christina Pluhar, devotes much of the space to discussing Monteverdi's use of ostinato and walking basses, which is fine if you have a music degree, but scholarly gobbledygook to most. Don't be put off. Don't be. The packaging is a red herring, and this disc has to be one of the most exciting Baroque performances to hit the record shelves this year.
The group's aim is to show off the variety of Claudio Monteverdi's secular compositions, and the subsequent wide-ranging assortment of Baroque bonbons encompasses everything from the sensuous duet, Pur ti miro, from L'incoronazione di Poppea, to the upbeat instrumental Toccata that opens L'Orfeo. The technical perfection, and the easy informality with each other and the music, with which these pieces are performed, makes for a captivating listen. It's back to those ostinato and walking basses, though, for the disc's trump card. A walking bass is a bass line that moves step by step, and it is an ostinato bass if repeated over and over; they are often associated with jazz musicians, an example being the opening repeated downward bass line of Nina Simone's My Baby Just Cares For Me. Monteverdi, Christina Pluhar points out, actually invented such things as early as 1607. Here, on the tracks featuring a walking bass, the musicians have injected a swing (or, as Pluhar puts it, a 'scherzo musicale') that has turned these pieces into an extraordinary fusion of Baroque and Jazz. The first track on which it appears, Ohime ch'io cado, feels as though Miles Davis has swapped his trumpet for a Baroque cornett and time-travelled back with his band for a jamming session with Monteverdi. Meld Philippe Jarroussky's sweet countertenor into the mix (who is also letting his hair down), and you've got something that is very special, and very surprising. A Must Listen.
Dame Joan Sutherland (soprano), Richard Bonynge (piano), Osian Ellis
(harp), Josef Sivo (violin)
London Symphony Orchestra, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Horst Stein
Glazunov: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 82
Glière: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra in E flat major Op. 74
Grechaninov: Lullaby, Op. 108
Stravinsky: Pastorale
Renée Fleming (Thaïs), Thomas Hampson (Athanael), Giuseppe Sabbatini
(Nicias), Estefano Palatchi (Palemon)
Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Yves Abel
Gramophone Magazine November 2000
At last - a modern recording of Thaïs with a soprano who can sing
the title-role...There is just enough individuality in her singing to
give Fleming's Thaïs a personality of her own, and vocal loveliness
brings a bloom to her every scene...Thomas Hampson...is her match in
sensitivity and roundness of tone.
[Thais] finds an ideal interpreter in Renee Fleming. After making
the heroine's unlikely conversion to virtue totally convincing, she
crowns her performance with a deeply affecting account of her death
scene...[Hampson] cannot quite equal her in such total conviction but
he is vocally ideal.
Within minutes of Renée Fleming's entrance it is clear that she
simply has a vocal class that puts her in a different league. The
famous Meditation is a dream. It is clear that this new Thaïs has
pretty well everything going for it.
Henry....Intrigued by the fact that Norrington has seemed to attract such criticism/'vitriol' over the years. To my ears his Beethoven SWR recordings are 'bang on'.....I also have the good fortune to have access to his Schumann and Mendelssohn recordings with the same orchestra that I also find impressive. Am seriously considering the recent Brahms symphony release and the Mozart box looks attractive to me.
As Beethoven 4 is one of my favourite symphonies by anybody I am going to go back to the Harnoncourt recording on your recommendation in your next post!
Davis's 2001 LSO performance of Elgar's 1st Symphony runs to about the same timings as Barbirolli's, but it just seems a lot slower, right from the rather opening theme, which sounds lugubrious rather than nobilmente. Not a patch on the Barbirolli I listened to yesterday and the symphony failed to make anywhere near the same effect.
Henry....Intrigued by the fact that Norrington has seemed to attract such criticism/'vitriol' over the years. To my ears his Beethoven SWR recordings are 'bang on'.....I also have the good fortune to have access to his Schumann and Mendelssohn recordings with the same orchestra that I also find impressive. Am seriously considering the recent Brahms symphony release and the Mozart box looks attractive to me.
As Beethoven 4 is one of my favourite symphonies by anybody I am going to go back to the Harnoncourt recording on your recommendation in your next post!
Alban Berg - various works part two of three for either side of an hour's walk.
Wozzeck - opera in three acts [Libretto: Alban Berg, after the drama Woyzeck by Georg Büchner] (1914-22):
Kammerkonzert for piano, violin and winds (1923-25):
Schliesse mir die Augen beide [Close Both My Eyes] - song for voice and piano (second setting) [Text: Theodor Storm] (1925): Sieben frühe Lieder for voice and piano, rev. and arr. for high voice and orchestra by Alban Berg [Texts: Carl Hauptmann/Nikolaus Lenau/Theodor Storm/Rainer Maria Rilke/Johannes Schlaf/Otto Erich Hartelben/Paul Hohenberg] (orig. c. 1905-08 - arr. 1928):
Lyrischen Suite for string quartet (1925-26):
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