Choral & Song
Malcolm Hayes is captivated by soloist, orchestra and a well-matched set of vocal masterpieces
Clytemnestra
Berg: Altenberg Lieder; Mahler: Rückert-lieder; Rhian Samuel: Clytemnestra Ruby Hughes (soprano); BBC National Orchestra of Wales/jac van Steen BIS BIS-2408 (hybrid CD/SACD) 54:46 mins Clytemnestra gives this release its collective title, although Rhian Samuel’s solo cantata is placed last in the sequence. Musically, this makes intelligent sense: as Ruby Hughes points out in her cover note, Samuel’s idiom relates back to both Mahler’s style and to Alban Berg’s striking radicalisation of this. Samuel’s text for Clytemnestra, composed in 1994, comes from Aeschylus’s play Agamemnon – about the Greek commander, back from the Trojan war, who is killed by his wife in revenge for his sacrifice of their daughter on the way to Troy ten years earlier.
Samuel’s musical response is something of a tour de force – at once fiercely dramatic and always coherent, laid out in a lucid seven-section sequence (‘The Deed’, at the midway point, is for orchestra only), and presenting a major opportunity to its soloist. Ruby Hughes rises to the challenge with bombproof technical strength and control, plenty of firepower where needed, and a thrilling instinct for capturing the persona of this fearsome anti-heroine. She gets impressive support from Jac van Steen and the orchestra, who have evidently rehearsed their demanding contribution up to the hilt.
They and Hughes also explore the rapturous soundworld of Mahler’s Rückertlieder with mesmerising poise and finesse: I’ve never heard the opening line of ‘Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft!’ sung more beautifully, nor lovelier cor anglais-playing in ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’. And superlative justice is done to the complex range of vocal expression and orchestral invention in the young Berg’s song-cycle – a neglected early 20th-century masterwork, brilliantly delivered here.
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Hear extracts from this recording and the rest of this month’s choices on the BBC Music Magazine website at www.classical-music.com
Beethoven
Works for Voice and Orchestra: Primo amore, piacer del ciel; Ah! Perfido; No, non turbati;
Die schöne Schusterin – arias; Prüfung des Küssens; Mit Mädeln sich vertragen; Ne’ giorni tuoi felici; Tremate, empi, tremate
Reetta Haavisto (soprano),
Dan Karlström (tenor),
Kevin Greenlaw (baritone);
Turku Philharmonic Orchestra/
Leif Segerstam
Naxos 8.573882 72:34 mins
Here’s another of music history’s what-ifs: had his mother not fallen ill, forcing him to go home to Bonn, the teenage Beethoven would have studied with Mozart in Vienna. By the time he was able to return Mozart was dead, and instead he took lessons from Salieri, as prized a teacher as any. But would Beethoven’s comparatively sparse lyric output have been more expansive had he been schooled early on by someone so effortlessly tuned in to the possibilities of the human voice as Mozart, and who shared more of his rulebreaking capacities?
This disc encompasses a handful of Singspiel arias and concert scenas, all written before the premiere of the first version of his opera Fidelio; and while rule-breaking isn’t really its point there is still much to enjoy in hearing Beethoven feeling his way towards the greatness of his only opera, especially given the elegant playing of the Turku Philharmonic for Leif Segerstam, and the classy singing of Reetta Haavisto. In the dramatic scenas ‘Primo amore, piacer del ciel’, ‘No, non turbati’ and ‘Ah! Perfido’, her creamy soprano is equal to everything Beethoven demands, even if it doesn’t quite paint the texts’ changes of mood in full colour. Tenor Dan Karlström, who duets with her in ‘Ne’ giorni tuoi felici’, and baritone Kevin Greenlaw, who joins them for the trio ‘Tremate, empi, tremate,’ sound genial albeit less luxuriantly toned, and make nice, witty work of their Singspiel arias, especially Greenlaw in his roistering paean to the high life. Erica Jeal
PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Ruby Hughes rises to the challenge with bombproof strength
Messe Solennelle
Adriana Gonzalez (soprano), Julien Behr (tenor), Andreas Wolf (bass); Le Concert Spirituel/hervé Niquet Alpha Classics ALPHA 564 51:19 mins
I think it’s fair to take John Eliot Gardiner’s 1994 recording of this astonishing Mass as a performance marker, ending as it did the almost 170 years of oblivion in which the work had rested before the score’s rediscovery in an Antwerp organ loft. Hervé Niquet’s recording is an honest piece of work, but interesting too for its divergences from Gardiner’s. Most noticeably, Niquet tips the balance between choir and orchestra in favour of the latter, against Gardiner’s of the former. I do slightly prefer the choral superiority, which allows the words to be heard, following what I hear as Berlioz’s intention. The resonance in both recordings is about the same (around four seconds), but Gardiner scores in his slower tempo for the ‘Gratias’, Niquet’s making the movement sound more routine, almost perfunctory. This is a useful reminder that, even at only 24, Berlioz could write simple, slow music that touches the heart. I also prefer the Monteverdi Choir’s sharper articulation in the ‘Gloria’ – this despite what Gardiner remembers as their initial incomprehension of the movement! Finally, they are supreme in their sopranos’ angelic radiance above the stave. So, sadly, I feel honesty here is not quite enough. Roger Nichols PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★
Hellinck • Lupi
Hellinck: Missa Surrexit pastor bonus; Lupi: Salve celeberrima virgo; Quam pulchra es; Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel; Te Deum laudamus
The Brabant Ensemble/stephen Rice Hyperion CDA68304 70:39 mins
What’s in a name? The Brabant Ensemble’s latest foray into the world of 16th-century polyphony sets its satnav to the
Low Countries and two composers eligible for membership of – to quote director Stephen Rice – ‘the so-called wolf pack’: musicians whose name fingers Lupus, the Latin for wolf. Alonso or Duarte Lobo might have offered betterknown Iberian prospects; but true to their appellation, the Brabants have a penchant for northern climes (and the under-championed).
Step forward, therefore, the predominantly Bruges-based Lupus Hellinck, and Johannes Lupi who, after studies in Leuven, returned to Cambrais where he served out his sadly foreshortened days as the Cathedral’s maître de la chapelle.
The main work is one of three Masses to push the envelope by adding an extra voice to Hellinck’s customary four-part preference while, a Te Deum aside, Lupi is represented by a clutch of motets including an arresting eight-part Salve celeberrima virgo. This latter receives a consummately-crafted reading, its tangy ‘false relations’ never exaggerated or attentionseeking. The Mass, too, opens with a poised precision, every note suspended within a texture quietly reverential rather than overtly emotional. The leave-taking of the Agnus Dei is deeply affecting, and the euphonious swirling of the Osanna enchants.
Over the course of the disc, however, a certain expressive uniformity prevails, and the sensual implorations of Quam pulchra es,a motet inhabiting the sultry world of the Song of Songs, eschew any hint of ardour. Paul Riley
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
Come, Let Us Make Love Deathless
Holst: Twelve Humbert Wolfe Songs; The Heart Worships; Epilogue; Holbrooke: Annabel Lee; I Came at Morn; Homeland; Come, Let Us Make Love Deathless; Killary etc
James Geer (tenor),
Ronald Woodley (piano)
EM Records EMR CD 060 75:26 mins Holst’s Humbert Wolfe Songs – by turns quirky, visionary and playful – have been much admired since their remarkable first complete recording by Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten. Yet Pears and especially Britten seemed most at home with the more reflective songs, such as ‘The Dream-city’, and far less with Holst’s response to Wolfe’s
meditation on mortality, ‘Envoi’. Which is where this new recording by tenor James Geer and Ronald Woodley triumphs: by avoiding fussy rhetoric and allowing Holst’s setting to speak serenely on its own terms, they find the music’s effortless nobility, even if they cannot make its fortississimo ending sound other than bombastic. The rest of the cycle, though, is beautifully and straight-forwardly presented – and scrupulously prepared: having checked the original manuscripts, they perform the otherworldly ‘Betelgeuse’ with its correct dynamics. They also include the first recording of ‘Epilogue’, originally written to conclude the collection but rejected by the composer, who never completed the final bars (provided here by Colin Matthews).
The other novelty is a selection of 11 songs by Joseph Holbrooke, a near contemporary of Holst’s only now emerging from relative obscurity. The son of a music hall pianist, many of Holbrooke’s songs have a populist tinge – the booklet note identifies ‘a certain kitsch or camp thread through the fabric of his essentially High Romantic style’. Yet James Geer’s straightforward yet sympathetic accounts avoid any risk of ‘camp’, and the music is intriguing, inventive and rather charming, recalling Brazil’s Villalobos as it blends high art with populist sentiment. Daniel Jaffé PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★
Decades
– A Century of Song, Vol. 4
R Schumann: Liederkreis, Op. 24; plus songs by Dargomyzhsky, Donizetti, Franck, Geijer, Josephson, Lindblad & Mendelssohn
Anush Hovhannisyan (soprano),
Ida Evelina Ränzlöv (mezzo-soprano), Nick Pritchard, Oliver Johnston (tenor), Florian Boesch, Alexey Gusev, Samuel Hasselhorn (baritone); Malcolm Martineau (piano)
VIVAT 119 72:02 mins
This disc, the fourth in the series, collects songs from 184050, a golden age that saw a seemingly endless flow of songs from Schumann’s pen. Fittingly, we open with his substantial Op. 24 Heineliederkreis, before working through a wide selection by seven other figures of varying renown, in different languages and spanning much of Europe. As with the previous discs, this brilliantly introduces lesserknown songs – and some fine young singers – while showcasing the huge stylistic range of art song.
That said, no discernible thread connects the music, poets, languages, topics or singers (of which there are seven). After the incomparable Heine-schumann partnership, we tack between nationalistic songs, love ditties, mini-arias, etc, ending with Mendelssohn’s slightly heavyhandedly humorous ‘Warnung vor dem Rhein’. Nor are all the songs equally interesting – Dargomyzhsky outstays his welcome a little – but there are gems such as Franck’s finely crafted songs, nicely delivered by Nick Pritchard. Oliver Johnston’s Donizetti is tender. I particularly enjoyed Ida Ränzlöv’s beautiful tone in the old-fashioned, naturesteeped songs of the Swedish composers Lindblad, Josephson and Geijer. Samuel Hasselhorn brings magnificence to Mendelssohn, especially the ‘Nachtlied’.
Florian Boesch has a deep understanding of Heine’s searing texts; while I’d welcome some fuller singing, there is much to enjoy in his crooned delivery. Malcolm Martineau’s mercurial playing evokes the protagonist’s semi-deranged state of mind. He brings a light touch, good balance and beautiful sound to the rest. Natasha Loges
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Lines Written During a Sleepless Night
– The Russian Connection Britten: The Poet’s Echo; Grieg: Six Songs, Op. 48; Medtner: Songs After Goethe Nos 2 & 7; Rachmaninov: Six Songs, Op. 38; Sibelius: Spring is Flying; Reeds, Reeds, Whisper; The maiden came from her lover’s tryst; Was it a dream?; Tchaikovsky: Six French Songs, Op. 65
Louise Alder (soprano),
James Middleton (piano)
Chandos CHAN 20153 73:33 mins Rachmaninov composed his
Op. 38 songs in 1916, the year in which Louise Alder’s grandparents were forced to flee Russia, an exile that sets a personal seal on this imaginative anthology circling songs by Russian composers, songs in Russian and more. Tchaikovsky sets French in his Op. 65 Mélodies; Medtner, the German of Goethe; and the disc’s title comes from Britten’s Pushkinsetting cycle The Poet’s Echo,a typically adroitly assembled garland for soprano Galina Vishnevskaya and her husband Mstislav Rostropovich composed in 1965.
Add in the Swedish of songs spanning three opuses by Sibelius, (not to mention Grieg grappling with German) and Alder needs her linguistic wits about her – pianist Joseph Middleton too as he responds to or prefigures her changing colours and inflections. Both triumph across a nightscape – its trajectory by no means exclusively ‘nocturnal’ – in which dreaming weaves a potent Leitmotiv. Indeed, Alder’s delicious floating of the enveloping lines of Rachmaninov’s Op 38 No. 5 is a particular highlight. So, too, are her impassioned climaxes in the last two songs of a Sibelius selection that should inspire those who encounter him only in orchestral music to explore further. Best of all is the Britten, whose elusive, often austere pithiness unites soprano and pianist in a tautly-charged account of ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’, while the disc’s haunting title song encourages the most pellucid ‘ticktocking’ from Middleton’s piano. At the end, the clock ticks but time, paradoxically, seems almost to stand still. Mesmerising. Paul Riley PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★
Music for Milan Cathedral
Sacred works by Werrecore, Josquin, Gaffurius & Weerbeke Siglo de Oro/patrick Allies
Delphian DCD 34224 66:28 mins
With their latest recording, Patrick Allies and his vocal ensemble Siglo de Oro lift the veil that has shrouded the Flemish composer Hermann Matthias Werrecore – maestro di cappella of Milan Cathedral from the 1520s for nearly three decades. Werrecore has been overshadowed by his celebrated predecessor in Milan, Josquin Desprez – but unjustly so, judging from the quality of the music on this disc. Six of Werrecore’s motets are recorded here for the first time, several of them quoting and echoing Josquin by way of homage. Outstanding among them are Popule meus, a stark and monumental work for Good Friday, Proh dolor, with its acidulous harmonies and dissonances, and the radiant Ave maris stella – a feast of spiralling lines and deft canonic writing.
The 13 youthful voices of Siglo de Oro produce a fresh, ingenuous sound. Their timbre is open and expressive – the use of vibrato adding a tremulous urgency to some of the more emotive passages. The young singers respond sensitively to the musical and liturgical range of this programme: exultant in Werrecore’s setting of Psalm 127,
Beati omnes (probably intended for a wedding); plangent in his funerary motet Proh dolor, rapt in Gaffurius’s O sacrum convivium. Textures vary, too, from the luscious full ensemble to fragile solo voices (their sound tender, if a shade tentative at times). Director Patrick Allies shapes the architecture of the large-scale musical edifices with admirable control. Both the ensemble and the recording are well-balanced, and the acoustic has an aptly sacred bloom. Kate Bolton-porciatti PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
Une soirée chez Berlioz
Works by Berlioz, Dalayrac, Della-maria, Devienne, Lélu, Liszt, Martini, Meissonnier, Plantade & Zan de Ferranti Stéphanie d’oustrac (mezzosoprano), Thibaut Roussel (guitar), Tanguy de Williencourt (piano) Harmonia Mundi HMM 902504
64:34 mins
This disc is of considerable historical interest in giving us not only the sound of Berlioz’s own guitar, but nine of the arrangements he made in his youth for voice and guitar of music he liked. I can’t say these have enormous musical interest, and their blandness is brought into even sharper focus by being set against pieces by Berlioz himself, either, as with ‘Élégie en prose’, in their original version or, as with the piano piece L’idée fixe, in Liszt’s truculent fantasia on that theme from the Symphonie fantastique. These choices from his youth, beginning almost inevitably with ‘Plaisir d’amour’, need considerable nuancing from the singer in the way of colour and articulation, otherwise interest does flag. Stéphanie d’oustrac is, for many music lovers, the Carmen of the present day and in the dramatic ‘Élégie en prose’ she shows why. But the pieces by Devienne, Dalayrac et al don’t really suit her voice, calling as they do for one that is lighter and more flexible, and for an approach that at least tries to reflect the emotions behind the words, facile though these generally are.
The sound of Berlioz’s guitar, donated to him by the Musée of the Conservatoire when he was appointed curator of it in 1866, is attractively mellow, and nearer to the modern sound of the 1842 Pleyel piano, whose delicate sonorities suit the music perfectly. Both instruments are played with great style, contributing a good deal to this disc’s value. Roger Nichols PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
When David Heard
Choral works by Barber, Britten, Elgar, W Harris, Howells, Leighton, Eric Whitacre etc
The Purcell Singers/mark Ford, Jonathan Schranz
Stone Records 5060192780925 61:10 mins Although these are all new recordings, this programme is intended as a retrospective of favourite pieces The Purcell Singers have performed since conductor Mark Ford founded the Londonbased chamber choir 25 years ago.
Its 40 members make a warmlyblended sound in the opening track, Elgar’s ‘My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land’, with alertly sharpened accents on the pulsing rhythms of verses three and four, and a sudden flaring of emotion when the dead lover’s heart is contemplated in the final line, ‘colder than the clay.’
That mix of fulsome tonal blend and insightful word-pointing continues throughout the recital, in a feelingly shaped Barber Agnus Dei, a dynamically proactive take on Harris’s eight-part ‘Bring us, O Lord God’ and a probing account of Howells’s ‘Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing.’
Britten’s Flower Songs pose bigger technical challenges, but The Purcell Singers meet them impressively in a punchy, crisply articulated ‘Marsh Flowers’ and a version of ‘The Ballad of Green Broom’ which is nimbly playful while avoiding archness.
Eric Whitacre’s 13-minute ‘When David Heard’ is another major test of technique and concentration, and while the clustered harmonies don’t always emerge with pinpoint clarity the searing emotional arc of the piece is compellingly communicated, with telling demarcations between the successive stages on its journey of grief and lamentation.
Conducting duties are shared between Mark Ford and Jonathan Schranz, and the sound is excellent. Terry Blain
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★