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
CD: Crotchet AmazonUK AmazonUS


Karol SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)
Harnasie, Op. 55 (1935) [35:47]
Mandragora, Op. 43 (1920) [27:04]
Prince Potemkin, Incidental Music to Act V, Op. 51 (1925) [10:26]
Wieslaw Ochman (tenor); Alexander Pinderak (tenor); Ewa Marciniec (mezzo)
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir/Antoni Wit
rec. Philharmonic Hall, Warsaw, June, September 2007. DDD
NAXOS 8.570723 [73:17]
Experience Classicsonline

This latest release in the Naxos Szymanowski series covers the composer’s music for the theatre. It focuses on his ‘ballet-pantomime’ Harnasie, coupled with two lesser known works: the short ‘pantomime’ Mandragora, and incidental music for Act V of Prince Potemkin, a play by the poet Tadeusz Miciński.
 
The Harnasie represented here packs a bold punch, with the Warsaw Philharmonic and conductor Antoni Wit faithfully tracing the work back to its roots in the folk sounds and dance rhythms of the Tatra mountains. The playing throughout has an intense, even threatening, muscularity which is well placed in this tale of peasant robbers and bridal kidnap. The brass section in particular plays with a sense of strident menace, while the woodwind excel in the archly seductive passages, which so clearly link this ballet with the lush, exotic sound world of Szymanowski’s opera King Roger, completed a few years earlier. The best example of this comes towards the end of the first tableau, with the Tatra Robbers’ Dance (track 5), leading to the rousing wedding scene at the start of the second tableau (track 6), where the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir make a forceful entry alongside shimmering percussive effects. Also worthy of note is the beautiful, yearning tenor solo in the final epilogue, accompanied by solo violin.
 
The effect, however, would be all the more satisfying if sung texts were provided with the sleeve-notes. These, the notes explain, are absent due to ‘copyright reasons’, despite being included for Simon Rattle’s 2006 EMI recording of Harnasie with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. The Naxos recording also lacks some clarity. The intricate details of the score are sometimes lost, and the deep orchestral sonorities, so key to Szymanowski’s exoticism, are rather dulled. Certainly this is a less technically polished version than Rattle’s – both in terms of its recording technology and standards of playing. But it is a gutsier, more virile reading, and in that sense closer to the ballet’s folk origins.
 
The middle piece in the recording, Mandragora, is a slight, divertimento-style work. Composed as an interlude for Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, it shows the influence of Stravinsky. Persistent, alternating rhythms and driving percussion (including piano) are reminiscent of Petrushka, while the inclusion of a florid, Italianate tenor solo and light dance movements recall Pulcinella. Unfortunately, the omission of texts or even a synopsis of Mandragora’s three scenes does nothing to enhance our understanding or appreciation of this minor work.
 
The final, shortest, piece in the recording is a revelation. The ten-minute incidental music to a play based on the life of Prince Potemkin is much closer to the sound world of King Roger. Again, the absence of a full explanation of the music’s role in the play in the sleeve-notes fails to place it in context. However, the piece can be listened to on its own as a short, intense tone poem. Brooding strings and plaintive woodwind invoke a dark, threatening mood, while distant trumpet-calls hint at a military theme. A hypnotic chorus and mezzo solo further deepen the rich tonalities of the piece, but without texts or a synopsis, the listener is left a little too mystified.
 
John-Pierre Joyce
 
Reviews of other Szymanowski releases on Naxos
8.557981 Violin concertos
8.570721 Symphonies 2 & 3
8.570724 Stabat mater

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos 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

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




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.