Latest releases reviewed
SCHUBERT: POETS OF SENSIBILITY, VOLUME 3 Wolfgang Holzmair (baritone), Ulrich Eisenlohr (fortepiano) Naxos 8.557568 ****
For many years now Austrian baritone Wolfgang Holzmair has been a favourite of Irish audiences, courtesy of visits promoted by John Ruddock's Limerick Music Association and later the Association of Music Lovers. Holzmair binds music and text together with unusual narrative skill and, in these performances with Ulrich Eisenlohr on a period piano, the sense of involvement rarely trespasses into exaggeration. This is an important consideration given the kind of issues that the lesser romantic texts set by Schubert can present to modern sensibilities. The poets represented on this new disc, the 20th in Naxos's ongoing Schubert survey, are Claudius, Hölty and Stolberg, and the collection mixes the well-known (Der Tod und das Mädchen, An den Mond, Auf dem Wasser zu singen) with songs that are altogether less familiar. www.naxos.com
Michael Dervan
MOZART: MASS IN C MINOR K427; HAYDN: BERENICE, CHE FAI?; BEETHOVEN: AH! PERFIDO Camilla Tilling, Sarah Connolly (sopranos), Timothy Robinson (tenor), Neal Davies (bass), Gabrieli Consort and Players/Paul McCreesh Archiv Produktion 477 5744 ****
The incomplete state of Mozart's Mass in C minor has never excited the same kind of romantic speculation as either his Requiem or Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. Perhaps there is simply something unassailable in the work's nobility and grandeur. Paul McCreesh's new performance has the lightness and transparency you would expect from period forces, as well as the clear choral tone. His two fine soprano soloists each take centre stage for the dramatic scenas offered as fill-ups, Sarah Connolly in Haydn's Berenice, che fai? and Camilla Tilling offering creamy tone and dramatic insight in the young Beethoven's all-too-rarely heard Ah! perfido. www.dgclassics.com
Michael Dervan
SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY NO 2 (TO OCTOBER); SYMPHONY NO 12 (THE YEAR 1917) Bavarian Radio SO/Mariss Jansons EMI Classics 335 9942 ***
These revolutionary works are among the least-performed of Shostakovich's symphonies. The Second, written for the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik evolution in 1927, is the more adventurous and interesting piece, conceived in the experimental spirit of the 1920s. The Twelfth, written for the 22nd Soviet Communist Party Moscow Convention in 1961, with a finale that's grandiosely titled "The Dawn of Humanity" (the piece is dedicated to Lenin), is altogether more conformist in manner. Mariss Jansons is one of the most urbane and civilised of Shostakovich interpreters, dotting his i's and crossing his t's with impressive care and circumspection. If you would like to hear these works' tendencies towards vulgarity kept firmly in check, Jansons is your man. www.emiclassics.com
Michael Dervan
RARE RECORDINGS 1963-1974 Rafael Kubelik Deutsche Grammophon Original Masters 477 5838 (8 CDs) *****
Rafael Kubelik (1914-1996) was at one time or another principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony orchestras, and artistic director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. His longest and happiest relationship was with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1985. It's copiously represented in this anthology, from Mozart (the Haffner Serenade), Beethoven (Seventh Symphony), Weber (three overtures) and Mendelssohn (A Midsummer Night's Dream, with rehearsal excerpts) to Schoenberg (Gurrelieder), Alexander Tcherepnin (two piano concertos with the composer as soloist), Jean Martinon (Henryk Szeryng in the Second Violin Concerto), and Karl Amadeus Hartmann (Symphonies 4 and 8). Dvorak, a Kubelik speciality, is represented by the Serenade for strings with the English Chamber Orchestra (who also play Kubelik's own Quattro forme) and there are recordings of the first three Beethoven symphonies from the 1970s cycle the conductor made with nine different orchestras. A warm vitality across the unusually broad repertoire makes this one of the most attractive sets to appear in DG's Original Masters series. www.dgclassics.com
Michael Dervan
