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Echo: Schubert, Loewe, Schumann & Wolf
Georg Nigl
Classical - Released May 5, 2023 | Alpha Classics
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4F de Télérama
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Goethe Lieder: No. 50. Ganymed
Mary Bevan
Chamber Music - Released January 8, 2020 | Signum Records
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Michael Gielen, Vol. 6: Mahler Symphonies, Orchestral Songs
Michael Gielen
Symphonic Music - Released September 8, 2017 | SWR Classic
Booklet
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4F de Télérama -
4 étoiles Classica
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Wagner: Siegfried, WWV 86C
Simon O´Neill
Opera - Released September 22, 2023 | BR-Klassik
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Taken from several live performances at the Gasteig in Munich in early 2023, this recording of Wagner's Siegfried made classical best-seller charts later that year. It is part of a series that began in 2016, intending to record the entire Ring Cycle live. The recordings have all been successful, and this is testimony to the skills of conductor Simon Rattle. There are conductors' Wagner performances, and there are singers' Wagner performances. This is the former. The Bavarian Radio Symphony seizes the listener's attention from the opening bell, and the energy never flags. There is nothing objectionable about the singers, but few of them will stick in one's head. The exception, perhaps, is soprano Anja Kampe as Brunnhilde (and Danae Kontora as the Voice of the Forest Bird); Kampe, of course, doesn't enter until the end, but at that point, everything comes together for a really thrilling conclusion of "radiant love, laughing death." Although these were live performances, they might just as well have been made in a studio; Bavarian Radio's engineering in its hometown is superbly detailed, and the audience discipline is awesome (no applause or other crowd noise of any kind is retained). There is a liveliness to Rattle's Wagner that sets it apart from performances in the German tradition, and it is fully on display in this recording.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Robert Schumann : G Minor Sonata - Waldszenen - Gesänge der Frühe
Mitsuko Uchida
Classical - Released January 1, 2013 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Gramophone Editor's Choice -
Choc de Classica
Japanese-British pianist Mitsuko Uchida continues to impress with recordings that are not so much intellectual as simply well thought out, making a challenging yet extremely satisfying overall impression. Consider the three works by Robert Schumann recorded here. Only the Waldszenen, Op. 82 (Forest Scenes), are well known. The Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22, is an early but not immature work, composed in 1830 and supplied with a new finale in 1838 at the suggestion of Clara Schumann, who pointed out that while she could play the original version, few others would be able to. There is already plenty to chew on here, for Schumann incorporates motivic links to the first movement in the new finale. Clara was lukewarm about the work (calling it "not too incomprehensible"), but Schumann himself thought highly of it. The genesis of the work is fascinating; it began with a song Schumann composed in his student days, and Schumann incorporated it into an inner voice of the slow movement. Rather like Beethoven's theater music, it does have the feel of an innovative composer's ideas being forced into an older mold. But Uchida, with her precise yet explosive style, is the perfect interpreter of the work, which seems to spill over the boundaries of sonata form with quasi-improvisatory ideas. Her performance connects the work to the rest of the output of the young Schumann in an ideal way. Also interesting are the Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133 (Dawn Songs), one of the last things Schumann finished before going insane: they are strangely serene little miniatures. The Waldszenen themselves are full of fresh, even daring interpretations. Decca's engineering staff outdoes itself with its capture of an ideal sound environment for the work: not the usual concert hall or studio but the well-known audiophile venue the Reitstadel in the German city of Neumarkt. An essential Schumann release.© TiVo
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Schubert: Lieder with Orchestra
Munich Radio Orchestra
Classical - Released October 6, 2023 | BR-Klassik
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One might react to this album with initial annoyance and ask whether it is really necessary to hear orchestrated versions of Schubert's supremely pianistic songs. It may come as a surprise, then, to find that most of these Lieder with Orchestra were arranged by great composers. They include Benjamin Britten, Jacques Offenbach, and Max Reger, who took on the job because, he said, he hated to hear a piano-accompanied song on an orchestral program. Perhaps the most surprising name to find is that of Anton Webern, but his arrangements are not the minimal, pointillistic things one might expect; he wrote these arrangements as a way of studying Schubert's music, and they are quite straightforward. Indeed, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish the arrangers simply by listening to the music; Schubert's melodic lines tend to suggest distinctive solutions. Perhaps Reger's are a bit more lush than the others, although his version of Erlkönig, D. 328, is one of the few numbers here that just doesn't work (there is no way to replicate the percussive quality of the accompaniment). As for the performances as such, Benjamin Appl is clearly an important rising baritone, and he has a wonderful natural quality in Schubert. An oddball release like this might seem an unusual choice for a singer in early career, but he contributes his own notes, and he seems to have undertaken the project out of genuine enthusiasm for the material. At the very least, he has brought some intriguing pieces out of the archives and given them highly listenable performances. The Munich Radio Orchestra, under the young Oscar Jockel, is suitably restrained and keeps out of Appl's way. This release made classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Franz Schubert : Nacht und Träume
Accentus - Laurence Equilbey
Lieder (German) - Released November 3, 2017 | Erato
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4F de Télérama -
Gramophone Editor's Choice -
5 étoiles de Classica
“Nacht und Träume” takes its name from one of Schubert’s best-loved lieder, which is joined on the album by a further 10 of the composer’s songs. All performed in orchestral versions by such masters as Berlioz, Liszt, Brahms, Strauss, Webern, Britten and Schubert himself, they are complemented by three choral numbers and an orchestral interlude. The singers are rising stars – German mezzo-soprano Wiebke Lehmkuhl and French tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac – and Laurence Equilbey conducts two ensembles she founded: the Insula orchestra and the choir Accentus. © Warner Classics
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Wolf City
Amon Düül II
Rock - Released January 1, 1972 | SPV
Amon Düül II's fifth studio album is a more conventional recording than most, though there's still a lot of the involved experimenting and dark undercurrent which sets the band apart from the mainstream, along with the off-kilter hooks and odd humor which saved them from being lumped alongside more serious (and less easy to take seriously) prog rock outfits. After the lengthy explorations of Tanz der Lemminge, Wolf City seems targeted to an extent at a commercial English-speaking audience, perhaps reflective of their increased status in the United Kingdom, if not in America. Regardless, opening song "Surrounded by the Stars," the longest track on the album at just under eight minutes, is also one of the band's best, with strong vocals from Renate Knaup-Kroetenschwanz, a dramatic building verse (complete with mock choir), an equally dramatic violin-accompanied instrumental break, and a catchy chorus leading to a fun little freakout. Knaup actually takes the lead vocals more often this time out and turns in some lovely performances, as on the beautiful, perhaps slightly precious "Green-Bubble-Raincoated-Man," with a great full-band performance that grows from a nice restraint to a slam-bang, epic rockout. Lothar Meid gets his moments in as well, his sometimes straightforward, sometimes not-so-much vocals adding to the overall effect as before. The one full instrumental, "Wie der Wind am Ende Einer Strasse," is excellent, with guest Indian musicians adding extra instrumentation to an intoxicating, spacious performance. While Wolf City generally sounds like a tight band playing things live or near-live, there are some equally gripping moments clearly resulting from studio work, like the strange loop opening the title track (percussion, guitar?). Concluding with the groovy good-time "Sleepwalker's Timeless Bridge," including some fantastic E-Bow guitar work, Wolf City works the balance between art and accessibility and does so with resounding success.© Ned Raggett /TiVo
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Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Herbert von Karajan
Classical - Released January 1, 1984 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Gramophone Record of the Year
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Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer, WWV 63 (Live)
Bayreuther Festspielorchester
Opera - Released March 14, 2006 | Orfeo
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Lieder (Berg, Schumann, Wolf, Shostakovich, Brahms)
Matthias Goerne
Classical - Released June 10, 2022 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Choc de Classica
Matthias Goerne not only performs at the highest level as a baritone himself, but his piano accompaniments also rank among the Champions League of classical music. For his first album, which was dedicated to Beethoven songs, he brought Jan Lisiecki on board. This was followed by the album Abendrot with melodies by Wagner and Strauss, among others, together with the young talent Seong-Jin Cho. Now we may experience the baritone in duo with the world-class Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, presenting us with a metaphysical program of Berg, Schumann, Wolf, Shostakovich and Brahms.The combination of music and poetry was brought to a climax in the form of the Romantic art song by Franz Schubert. The composers presented here build on this tradition, and despite the wide, temporal span of their publications - there are 135 years between Schumann's Dichterliebe and Shostakovich's Michelangelo Suite - the closeness and significance to the text and its authors is equally evident in all of them. Schumann's Dichterliebe is probably one of the best examples of this: the setting of Heinrich Heine's texts brings together two masters of Romanticism who could not be better interpreted by Goerne and Trifonov. Themes of impossible love and human suffering are unfolded through extremes in the monologue as well as the music, with Goerne maintaining this "strong sensitivity" throughout. In the same vein, the unspoken finds its place on the piano and takes on much more than just an accompanying role in his interpretation - as well as in art song in general. Trifonov is in direct musical dialogue with Goerne, the two artists communicating at eye level.A similar symbiosis is evident in the Michelangelo musical settings by Wolf and Shostakovich. By abandoning tonality in the latter, the connection between piano and spoken word is again reinforced on another level. A unique duo project by two contemporary greats whose paths will hopefully cross more often. © Lena Germann/Qobuz
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The Unreleased Masters
Jessye Norman
Classical - Released March 24, 2023 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
Jessye Norman was always protective of her art and the sound image she projected, no different with these unreleased recordings. However, with the approval of her loved ones, they’re now being released post-mortem.This new release (which is available in a lavish, physical limited edition) features three of Jessye’s recordings done between 1988 and 1998, when she was at the height of her career. There are substantial excerpts from her extraordinary performance of Tristan und Isolde recorded with Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, featuring tenors Thomas Moser (Tristan) and Ian Bostridge (the young sailor) and soprano Hanna Schwarz (Brangäne).The rest of the programme consists of live recordings conducted by James Levine and Seiji Ozawa. With the former, Jessye Norman sings Strauss's Four Last Songs and Wagner's Wesendonck-Lieder in a recording that favours orchestral richness to the detriment of the voice. This may explain why the American singer chose never to release this recording, even though her hedonistic interpretation of Strauss's farewell to life is still striking. The album ends with a recital complete with orchestra, tailor-made for the diva in 1994 in Boston. It features two cantatas: Berenice che fai by Haydn and Phaedra, written by Benjamin Britten for Janet Baker. Nestled between the two, you’ll find a stunning rendition of Berlioz's The Death of Cleopatra. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Winter Journeys
Lautten Compagney
Classical - Released October 20, 2023 | deutsche harmonia mundi
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Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Verbier Festival Orchestra
Classical - Released February 2, 2024 | Verbier Festival Gold
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Bach : The Complete Organ Works
André Isoir
Classical - Released January 1, 1991 | La Dolce Volta
Booklet
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4F de Télérama -
Le Choix de France Musique -
Choc de Classica
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Mahler : Symphony No. 3
Claudio Abbado
Classical - Released January 1, 1982 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Elysium - A Schubert Recital
Carolyn Sampson
Classical - Released March 3, 2023 | BIS
Booklet
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Elysium (the Elysian Fields) was a Greek notion of the positive afterlife that dates back as far as Homer. The early Romantics were fascinated by its resonances, and if the organizing principle of this recital by the increasingly Schubert-oriented soprano Carolyn Sampson seems a bit vague, well, so was the concept in Schubert's time. It extended into realms of sleep, ghost stories, the moon and stars, and really many kinds of spirituality -- religious and otherwise. CD buyers get an enlightening booklet note by the song historian Susan Youens that amplifies the tightly woven sequence of songs Sampson offers here. There are a few Schubert hits, but also some lieder that only Schubert buffs will have heard, such as the title track, setting a lengthy ode by Schiller. The program is one that Sampson and accompanist managed to perform in recital at the height of the pandemic, and it is clear that she has lived in the songs for a while and knows their little turns. In general, it is a delightfully moody set that features deep interaction between Sampson and Joseph Middleton, with the latter grabbing the listener's attention right from the opening bars. Sampson's voice in mid-career has developed a slight and not unpleasant metallic tinge that she deploys well in the reflective moods of these songs and that blooms startlingly in the final melodrama Abschied von der Erde, D. 829. Consider the knife's-edge opening long note in Nacht und Träume, D. 827, also a splendid example of Middleton's art. With excellent Potton Hall sound, this is an absorbing Schubert recital that will bring new insights.© James Manheim /TiVo
Elysium (the Elysian Fields) was a Greek notion of the positive afterlife that dates back as far as Homer. The early Romantics were fascinated by its resonances, and if the organizing principle of this recital by the increasingly Schubert-oriented soprano Carolyn Sampson seems a bit vague, well, so was the concept in Schubert's time. It extended into realms of sleep, ghost stories, the moon and stars, and really many kinds of spirituality -- religious and otherwise. CD buyers get an enlightening booklet note by the song historian Susan Youens that amplifies the tightly woven sequence of songs Sampson offers here. There are a few Schubert hits, but also some lieder that only Schubert buffs will have heard, such as the title track, setting a lengthy ode by Schiller. The program is one that Sampson and accompanist managed to perform in recital at the height of the pandemic, and it is clear that she has lived in the songs for a while and knows their little turns. In general, it is a delightfully moody set that features deep interaction between Sampson and Joseph Middleton, with the latter grabbing the listener's attention right from the opening bars. Sampson's voice in mid-career has developed a slight and not unpleasant metallic tinge that she deploys well in the reflective moods of these songs and that blooms startlingly in the final melodrama Abschied von der Erde, D. 829. Consider the knife's-edge opening long note in Nacht und Träume, D. 827, also a splendid example of Middleton's art. With excellent Potton Hall sound, this is an absorbing Schubert recital that will bring new insights.© James Manheim /TiVo
![Bayreuther Festspielorchester Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96 (Orfeo d'Or) [Live]](https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/23/34/4011790753423_100.jpg)
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Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96 (Orfeo d'Or) [Live]
Bayreuther Festspielorchester
Opera - Released July 25, 2008 | Orfeo
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Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75 (Live)
Bayreuther Festspielorchester
Opera - Released July 28, 2006 | Orfeo
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Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 1-9
SWR Sinfonieorchester des Südwestrundfunks
Classical - Released January 1, 2000 | SWR Classic
Like the growth of the cult of Christ, the growth of the cult of Mahler started with the man himself performing his works whenever and wherever he had the chance. Like Christ, Mahler was followed by true believers who had known him and who proselytized for him among the unbelievers with the fervor of musical Pentecostals. The true believers were followed by those who had never known the man himself but whose belief was therefore all the more passionate and subjective. And thus it was that the faith spread from Mahler to Walter, Klemperer, and Mengelberg; and then on to Mitropoulos, Bernstein, Kubelik, Solti, and Haitink; then on to Abbado, Bertini, Boulez, de Waart, Inbal, Maazel, and Rattle, spreading from the true believers to the passionate believers of the true believers to those who still keep the belief but whose faith is more reason than emotion, more intellect than spirit, more nuance than rapture.
In this Hanssler Mahler cycle, Michael Gielen leads the SWF Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg in rational, reserved, and respectable performances, performances that mute Mahler's agony and mask his ecstasy, performances that believe in the sublimity of Mahler, but with more head and mind than with heart and soul. The SWR Sinfonie plays more than capably if somewhat less than virtuosically and Hanssler's sound is open and full. But while Gielen is certainly a fine fourth-generation Mahler conductor, his restraint, his inability, or his unwillingness to surrender himself to the awesome, the immense, the infinite, and the eternal of Mahler's music prohibits him from leading truly compelling and passionately convincing performances. For truly compelling and passionately convincing fourth-generation Mahler, try Claudio Abbado. He'll beatify you, exorcise you, and sanctify you, but he'll never, ever lie to you.
© TiVo
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