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Various Artists – Schubert Lieder on Record (1898-2012)
Various Artists
US Release Date: July 3, 2012
Label: EMI Classics
ICPN: 5099932757521
In his tragically short life, the Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797–1828) wrote over 600 songs and effectively established the German lied as a new art form in the 19th century.
When Schubert Lieder on Record (1898–1952) was first released as an 8 LP set in 1982, the compiler, the late Keith Hardwick, explained that it was his intention to examine how Schubert lieder was performed in the days before Schwarzkopf, Fischer-Dieskau, Ludwig and Baker, and so he painstakingly sought out examples of recordings right back to the earliest days of sound recording in Europe. Fred Gaisberg, the Gramophone Company’s pioneering recording engineer, began making flat-disc 78rpm records in London in August 1898. Initially he chose material of a popular nature, but on 11 October 1898 the contralto Edith Clegg recorded Schubert’s Ave Maria, and it is this item that opens CD 1. Hardwick finished his programme at the end of the 78rpm era, and the results of his labours are contained on the first six CDs in this set.
In reviewing the LP set in Gramophone magazine, J. B. Steane, the doyen of vocal experts, wrote: ‘Schubert Lieder on Record … is a magnificent achievement, imaginatively conceived and scrupulously presented; and the quality of recorded sound in transference from the old originals is superlative.’ The artists represented are truly international and include German, Austrian, Dutch, French, English, Irish, Russian, Australian and American singers. Purely as an example of the riches contained in the set, Steane picked out LP side 5 and wrote this about it: ‘It begins with Elise Elizza, silvery, haunting and unexpected; then Ottilie Metzger’s glorious contralto; Friedrich Brodersen singing “Sei mir gegrüsst”, intensely expressive; magical touches of Hempel; finally superb Kipnis and the opportunity of comparing his “Gruppe aus dem Tartarus” with Metzger’s or with Hotter’s unpublished one, and his “Erlkönig” with no fewer than four others.’
The records are presented in roughly chronological order of recording, a pattern also followed in the later part of the set. In the days of 78s, many of the singers restricted themselves to a very small selection of the most popular songs, so this affords the opportunity to compare different interpretations of the same composition.
CDs 7 to 16 contain a programme of Schubert lieder performed by a wide range of singers from 1952 to the present day, but in selecting the artists and recordings for these CDs, every effort has been made to cover as many different songs as possible. The result is that the first six CDs contain 93 songs sung by 64 singers in a total of 128 performances, whereas the remainder of the set presents 30 singers in a total of more than 200 performances with very few songs repeated. CD 7 is devoted entirely to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing some of Schubert’s most substantial although rarely performed ballads. The next six CDs contain mixed programmes by a starry collection of singers, including Elly Ameling, Victoria de los Angeles, Nancy Argenta, Arleen Auger, Janet Baker, Ian Bostridge, Nicolai Gedda, Christa Ludwig, Lucia Popp, Christoph Prégardien, Hermann Prey, Kate Royal, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Fritz Wunderlich and many others. Then come complete performances of Die schöne Müllerin by Peter Schreier, Schwanengesang by Olaf Bär, and finally Winterreise by Thomas Hampson, which forms a link to the bonus CD, a penetratingly informative discussion by Thomas Hampson entitled: Schubert’s Journey – An Exploration with Thomas Hampson.
Sung texts and translations are included on the final enhanced CD (CD 17).
Various Artists – Rediscoveries – Wien Am Holf Leopolds
Various Artists
US Release Date: May 22, 2012
Label: Virgin Classics
ICPN: 5099960251121
The one and only album ever recorded by Nikolaus Harnoncourt for EMI will now meet its first international CD release. A wide-ranging and superb collection of tunes which will bring you directly to the Leopold I court in Vienna during the late XVIIth century. Leopold I, musician and patron of the greatest musicians of the XVIIth century (Fux, Biber, etc.). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the descendant of the Habsburg-Lothringen who has revolutionised the interpretation of early music.
Ravi Shankar – The Ravi Shankar Collection
Ravi Shankar
US Release Date: May 22, 2012
Label: EMI Classics
ICPN: 5099932759327
Not only is Ravi Shankar’s name synonymous with the sitar, he has also opened the way to musical genres such as fusion and minimalism through his interaction with other artists, including The Beatles, the composer Philip Glass, the conductors Zubin Mehta and André Previn, the flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal and the violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Diverse aspects of his collaborative magic are captured in this survey, which embraces classical Indian ragas, duets, trios, ensemble performances and concertos with orchestra.
Various Artists – Mozart: Music for Wind Instruments
Various Artists
US Release Date: May 22, 2012
Label: EMI Classics
ICPN: 5099995681528
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27th January 1756 in Salzburg and is renowned the world over for his genius for composing operas, symphonies, concertos, chamber music and choral works. However his music for wind instruments, beyond the Gran Partita (Serenade for thirteen wind instruments) and the Serenades in E flat and C minor, is rarely played and even the authenticity of some of the works is questioned.
In previous generations wind instruments tended to feature as soloists with orchestral – principally strings – accompaniment. In Mozart’s time the wind band, probably more for performances in the open air than within the domestic environment, became popular and Mozart was keen to show his prowess in this field as he did in others. So whilst these works cannot claim to be as profound as the serious chamber music in many there is an infectious humor even joviality.
What is incontestable is that these works show another aspect of his music which leads to a more complete picture of the genius and although even the greatest admirer would have to admit that whilst everything is not in Mozart’s highest class, there are movements which are uniquely sublime – one such is the Adagio in the Serenade for thirteen wind instruments. Indeed Peter Shaffer in his play and film Amadeus chooses this movement to give Salieri his first shattering experience of what glorious music his rival was capable of composing.
The Consortium Classicum, founded by Dieter Klöcker, recorded these works over a period of twelve years which is a similar number of years during which Mozart committed these works to manuscript.
Samson Francois – Debussy: Piano Works
Samson Francois
US Release Date: May 22, 2012
Label: EMI Classics
ICPN: 5099963875423
This year marks the 150th anniversary of birth of the revolutionary French Impressionist composer, Claude Debussy. For the very first time, all of Samson François’ celebrated Debussy recordings in one box. These recordings are fully remastered and convey the highest standards in artistic integrity and sound quality of today’s technology.
Various Artists – Rediscoveries -9 German Arias HWV 202-210
Various Artists
US Release Date: June 19, 2012
Label: Virgin Classics
ICPN: 5099964493824
‘The word “aria” comes without doubt from the air, not only because all sound is conveyed by air, but also because a fine melody cannot be likened to anything more pleasant than sweet, fresh air – indeed, it is a refreshment byond bounds… An aria in other words is – to give a proper description of it – a well-arranged song, in a particular key and tempo, which as a rule is divided into two parts, and expresses great emotion in brief terms. The aria sometimes closes with a repetition of the first part, sometimes without. In the former case it is called Da capo, which means from the beginning, or more exactly from the head – this is an old practice going back to King David, as exemplified by various sources, e.g. the eighth Psalm.’1
The fact that the da capo aria, as Johann Mattheson would have it, had its origins with ‘King David’ was certainly not the reason why this form was able to maintain its unbroken popularity in the musical centres of Europe for more than a hundred years. (Only in France did the shorter ‘air’, with its roots in the native French tradition, manage to hold its own, after these arias had enjoyed initial success, and to oust the da capo aria completely from musical life, at least at court.) The public’s enthusiasm was certainly due in no small way to the custom of well-known soloists adding brilliant flourishes to the da capo repeat. In addition to its hereditary place in Italian opera, the aria was also able to gain a degree of autonomy as a composition in its own right, and it is in this context that George Frideric Handel’s Nine German Arias should be seen.
Handel’s source for the texts of these compositions was the first of nine volumes of the Creation hymn ‘Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott’ (Earthly pleasures in God) by Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680-1747), one of Hamburg’s city councillors. The remaining nine of a total of eighteen interludes in Brockes’ work, which the author himself refers to as ‘arias’, were not set to music. One basic theme runs through the whole work: the idea, based on the philosophy of Leibniz, of a harmonically organised world with God, who manifests himself in all phenomena of created nature, as its highest principle.
Research has not yet been able to establish the precise date of composition of the arias, which were not printed during Handel’s lifetime. They are generally placed around 1724/6, the time of Handel’s major stage successes Giulio Cesare (1724), Tamerlano (1724) and Rodelinda (1725). In purely musical terms the proximity of the German Arias to these operas is evident, for instance, in the similarity between the opening of the theme of No.7 ‘Die ihr aus dunklen Grüften’ with that of Bajazet’s aria ‘Forte e lieto a morte’ in Act I of Tamerlano. Just why Handel, long since established in the musical life of London, chose these arias to be his last compositions with a German text, and why they remained unpublished at his death, are questions to which no satisfactory answer has been found.
The present recording attempts to place the German Arias in their context and thus to show what importance should be attributed to them. Together with the Violin Sonata in F major Op.1 No.12 HWV 370, which was published in 1732 and is attributed to Handel, the arias make up a galant eighteenth-century entertainment. It is no use applying our modern listening habits, with their desire for completeness and retention of the ‘original’ sequence, to this sort of venture; the attempt must be made to transfer the ideas of the eighteenth century – insofar as they can be identified today – into a modern medium. If Johann Mattheson, the best-known music critic of the time, writes that a composer should take care ‘to strive for variety, so far as is possible without gaudy effects, for there is nothing in the world that yearns for change as much as Music, so that one may fairly call changement its very element’2, then it will surely be quite legitimate to postulate such ‘changement’, beyond the context of a single composition, as the basis for putting works of music together in a programme.
This programme, then, not only fulfils the demand made elsewhere by Mattheson for brevity; there is also change in the constantly varying character and emotional expression of the individual arias, which are also interspersed with sonata movements in order to avoid any hint of uniformity that might arise from the instrumentation. The meaning of a musical performance for the galant homme does not consist in the attainment of musical erudition; ‘the final purpose of our musical work, apart from the glory of God, is to please and move the audience’3.