MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


alternatively Crotchet

Artur KAPP (1878-1952)
Don Carlos – dramatic overture after Friedrich Schiller (1899) [11:06]
Eugen KAPP (1908-1996)
Kalevipoeg – ballet suite (1947) [21:48]
Villem KAPP (1913-1964)
Symphony No. 2 in C minor (1955) [30:21]
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/Neeme Järvi
rec. Studio 7, BBC Broadcasting House, Manchester, 8 July 2005 (Carlos, Kalevipoeg); 5-6 March 2001 (Symphony). DDD
Premiere recording of Villem Kapp’s Symphony No. 2, first issued on BBC Music Magazine CD
CHANDOS CHAN10441 [63:34]



The programme on this CD was played at a concert of the Estonian State Philharmonic Orchestra on 16 June 2007, though as you can see by the recording dates above, this CD is not a record of that concert. It celebrates a dynastic family at the heart of creative musical life in Estonia.
 
Artur, the son of a sacristan, went to study music at St Petersburg Conservatoire from which he graduated as organist in 1898 and as composer in 1900. After teaching duties in Astrakhan he returned to Estonia in 1920. is works include one hundred songs, five symphonies, five concertos and the grand oratorio Hiob (Job) which was recorded by Järvi on Eres
 
The Don Carlos overture is given a white hot performance by Järvi. This is no time-serving run-through. The music is a stormy and torridly clamorous  blend of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. It’s extremely effective and at least as good as the Beethoven Egmont or Schumann’s Julius Caesar.
 
While Artur’s overture is late-nineteenth century romantic Eugen’s  Kalevipoeg suite is from another world – the Estonian equivalent of the outdoor Moeran and Holst. The music is engagingly folksy, airily orchestrated, open-textured and very accessible. The Shepherds’ Dance is lightly coloured and bright-eyed. Some of this is redolent of Madetoja’s 1915 Second Symphony and Janis Ivanovs’ superb Violin Concerto. Occasionally I was reminded of Malcolm Arnold English Dances with which Kalevipoeg is roughly contemporary. Time for the complete ballet, please. Just as for years we lived with suites of Madetoja’s Okon Fuoko and Tubin’s Kratt and then came Ondine’s unabridged versions so the same principle should be applied to Kalevipoeg.
 
Villem Kapp was Artur’s nephew. His Second Symphony is dedicated to Roman Matsov who conducted its premiere in Moscow in 1956. It is tuneful and grand with a ‘weakness’ for storming Tchaikovskian heroism. It is without the sometimes blaringly suffocating density of the first symphonies by Boris Tchaikovsky or Georgi Sviridov. Dapper and touching wind writing out of the Borodin-Balakirev tradition together with bass-deep pizzicati are some of the work’s other beguiling DNA signatures. Let’s now hear the First Symphony from 1947.
 
The audio side and documentation by David Fanning is well up to Chandos’s very best standards. I only wish that Mr Fanning had trialled some other works by each of these composers as an incitement to Chandos and others to continue the exploration.
 
Three works from the Kapp dynasty. Each one is attractive and accessible without being bland, hectoring or inane. If you already have a weakness for late-romantic overtures then don’t miss this Don Carlos. The other two works have their often unknowing counterparts in folk-impressionistic music by Moeran, Arnold, Sibelius and Prokofiev. Much more please.
 
Rob Barnett
 



 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.