MusicWeb Reviewer’s log: December 2008/January
2009
Reviewer: Patrick C Waller
The death of Vernon
Handley earlier in the year was something of a surprise to me
but, when Richard Hickox died suddenly on 23 November, it was
a considerable shock. Although he had “been around” for a long
time, Hickox seemed much younger than his 60 years. Like Handley,
he had made a large number of desirable recordings, quite a
few of which have found their way into my collection. Both made
their names in British music but Hickox’s recordings, most of
which were for Chandos, range more widely and include a marvellous
set of Haydn Masses made with Collegium Musicum
90 between 1995 and 2000. I have been working my way through
these recordings recently – they are available in a budget-price
8CD box (CHAN0734). As well as the major masses, a variety of
shorter works are included. I particularly enjoyed the two organ
masses and the more extended than usual Missa Cellensis.
These recordings are a model of good taste artistically with
fine soloists and chorus, and very decently engineered – a fitting
memorial to the conductor indeed.
There have been
plenty of other boxes around at irresistible prices, for example,
Géza Anda’s Mozart
Piano Concerto series made for DG with Camerata Academica des
Salzburger Mozarteums in the 1960s. Some occasionally thin string
tone apart, these still sound very well and Anda’s playing is
a consistent delight. His performance of No. 17 in G K453 is
a particular favourite that I knew as an LP and hadn’t heard
for years. The impressive CPO recordings of the symphonies of
Ries
made by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under Howard Griffiths
have also been gathered together at a knockdown price. For all
the excellent Beethoven cycles of the last few years, we surely
need these discs more and they have given me a great deal of
pleasure. At last, Ries is finally getting his due on record,
mainly thanks to CPO and Naxos.
I shouldn’t leave
the topic of bargain boxes without mentioning the Brilliant
catalogue which has recently resurfaced in the UK at some very
low prices – I paid a total of £22 for the three sets mentioned
below. The box of recordings of his own piano music made in
1974 by Mompou
seems the most essential. I also picked up a very neatly presented
set of the four symphonies of Magnard (93712)
conducted by Thomas Sanderling. This composer is probably best
known for having been shot by the Germans in 1914. His music
is well worth getting to know although I understand that some
highly rated competition is just about to appear at bargain
price and the Ossonce
recordings for Hyperion will not be much more expensive when
they are issued as a Dyad. The six cello concertos of early
18th century Neopolitan composer Leonardo
Leo played by Julius Berger (93681) are a delight
to listen to although the documentation here is not impressive.
A foray by Brilliant into a single disc mid-price new recording
of Rachmaninov – the so called “5th
piano concerto” (8900) is best given a wide berth. This is a
cut-down arrangement of the 2nd symphony by Alexander
Warenberg which I heard out of curiosity. My generally high
level of tolerance for such arrangements doesn’t extend to such
cavalier treatment of the score - where is the scherzo? An unsympathetic
performance doesn’t help - can this really be an adagio?
By contrast,
it was a pleasure to hear pianist and composer Philip
Gates play his A Garland
for Gatsby. Also on the disc is the Piano Quintet with the
marvellous Carducci Quartet and The Lake Isle – a short
piece for oboe and piano. A rather different disc of contemporary
oboe music by Edwin Roxburgh has recently been
issued on Metier (msv28508). This contains some virtuosic playing
by Christopher Redgate in music which is often haunting and
pushes back the boundaries of the instrument. Also from the
Divine Art stable, the Concerti Grossi of Charles Avison
(noted for his Scarlatti arrangements) are great
fun (dda21211). This disc contains 18 concerti which are original
works by the 18th century Newcastle composer in delightful
performances by The Avison Ensemble. It is good news that Divine
Art are starting to issue Murray McLachlan’s Chisholm
piano series at mid-price and I enjoyed Volume 1 (ddv24131),
the major item being the 1939 Sonata in A.
I bought all of
the discs mentioned in the previous paragraph directly from
the label concerned and they arrived very promptly indeed. For
some reason I can’t fathom, I ordered the next one from a major
internet retailer on 9 October and it only arrived a few days
before Christmas. However, it was worth waiting for since Naxos
continues to champion the music of Hovhaness
most effectively and this release is a particular gem
containing the second guitar concerto and Symphony No. 63. The
Naxos Music Library continues to expand at a rate that is impossible
to keep up with. They have been adding the Capriccio label and
one of their discs that caught my ear contains the music of
Viktor Ullmann, an interesting composer
I hadn’t heard of before. According to Victor Martell in his
review
for MusicWeb in 2003 he found “a fascinating middle ground between
Schoenberg and Zemlinsky”. The major works are two symphonies
which date from the war years and are reconstructions of piano
sonatas.
I had high expectations
of Artur Pizarro’s two discs of Ravel’s piano
music for Linn (CKD290 and CKD315) but I am afraid that they
didn’t really bowl me over on first hearing despite receiving
some very positive notices.
The Concertgebouw
Orchestra of Amsterdam has been celebrating its 120th
anniversary and was also named the world’s greatest orchestra
by the Gramophone magazine. Although a great admirer
of the band, I was tempted to ask “in what” and “conducted by
whom”. But I should get off the magazine’s back for once and
applaud their decision to scan their whole archive
onto the internet and make it freely available. It is separate
from their main website and, curiously, they don’t appear to
mention the archive on that [yet]. Coming back to the Concertgebouw
Orchestra, free downloads
of live performances of ten symphonies have been made available
by Dutch Radio 4. When I wrote the brief linked article I hadn’t
actually heard the Haitink reading of Bruckner’s
Eighth from 2005 although John Quinn has reviewed
the same performance. Although well worth hearing it doesn’t
displace my favourite versions of this work – Wand, Karajan
and Horenstein. Hearing this and a continuing trickle of correspondence
about an article I wrote on this work over four years ago prompted
me to add an addendum
to it. John Quinn and I are also intending to revisit our Bruckner
conspectus of 2005 during the coming year.
The end of the year
means it is Recordings of Year
time and, yet again, there was a good crop to choose from. Dan
Morgan’s choice of Fiesta
– a disc mainly of South American orchestral works played by
the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel prompted
me to buy it for my wife who was very taken with orchestra when
we saw a recent BBC
documentary about them. And indeed, the playing is quite
marvellous and the music well worth exploring.
It is also the end
of the anniversary year of Olivier Messiaen who
seems to have done well in terms of recorded collections. I
understand that DG’s 32CD complete edition has effectively already
sold out but I was fortunate enough to receive this box for
Christmas. It will take me a while to listen to it all but so
far I have heard about a quarter of the contents and, generally,
have been highly impressed. My listening to date includes much
of Roger Muraro’s readings of the piano music, a couple of discs
of Olivier Latry playing the organ of Notre-Dame in Paris, the
magnificent Des canyons aux étoiles given by Myung-Whun
Chung (a recording
of the month back in February 2003) and the orchestral version
of the Poèmes pour Mi sung by Françoise Pollet. The box
is strikingly well presented with a chunky booklet containing
detailed information on the composers and his works, and texts
with translations. Come on DG – if you can sell this out in
a just over a month surely you should be running some more copies
off.
Finally, an unexpected
present I received was the recently issued Opus Arte DVD (OA0999D)
of Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux in a
production from about a year ago given in Amsterdam. The cast
includes Finnur Bjarnson and Henk Neven as the brothers, and
Anna Maria Panzarella and Veronique Gens as Télaire and Phébé
respectively. Christophe Rousset directs Les Talens Lyriques
and Netherlands Opera Chorus in an all-round excellent production
of the 1754 revised version of the work. This proved ideal Boxing
Day entertainment for us and is a very useful addition to the
catalogue.
Patrick C Waller
