MENDELSSOHN
Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2. Rondo Brillant. Capriccio Brillant. Serenade
and Allegro Giojoso — Ronald
Brautigam (pn), Michael Alexander Willens, cond; Die Kölner Akademie — BIS 2264 (SACD:
74:08)
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New classical music releases reviewed in detail by Gavin Dixon
Thursday, 7 February 2019
Mendelssohn Piano Concertos Brautigam
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Having recently completed a full Mozart piano concerto cycle, Ronald
Brautigam, Michael Alexander Willens, and Die Kölner Akademie now turn their attentions
to Mendelssohn. This well-filled disc covers the whole of Mendelssohn’s mature
output for piano and orchestra, with the exception of the unfinished E-Minor
Concerto No. 3. Also excluded are three early works, the Concerto for Piano and
String Orchestra and the two concertos for two pianos and orchestra. Even so,
the present collection—two concertos, a rondo, a capriccio, and a
serenade—makes for a logical and satisfying program. A Hyperion recording with
Stephen Hough (66969) claimed to be the first to bring Mendelssohn’s mature concertante
piano works together. Brautigam appears to be the first to have repeated the
program, although it is also represented by a collection of Rudolf Serkin
reissues (Alto 1319), and both Benjamin Frith (Naxos 8550681) and Regina Schirmer (Berlin Classics 1775) have
recorded discs featuring four of the five works. It is also worth noting that
Brautigam has recorded the two concertos before with BIS, a modern-instrument
version with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Lev Markiz released in 1995
(BIS-718).
This time round, Brautigam and co. perform on period instruments. That
is still an unusual approach with Mendelssohn, previously confined mostly to
the symphonies (Brüggen, Heras-Casado) and oratorios (McCreesh, Herreweghe).
Brautigam here performs on a 2010 copy by Paul McNulty of an 1830 Pleyel. The
photograph in the liner shows a sturdy concert grand in dark mahogany, its
aesthetic all straight lines and hard angles where a modern grand is curves.
On a modern piano, most of this music is a flurry of light, bubbling
passagework, in which the individual notes blur into the resonance. But this
piano, at least under Brautigam’s fingers, gives a different effect. Its
resonance is more selective and its sound more constrained. Brautigam is able
to make phrases flow, but the attacks on individual notes are always a part of
the sound picture in a way that modern-piano renderings avoid. The advantage is
a greater sense of detail, focusing particular attention on the melodic
ornaments. The bass end of the piano has a distinctive resonance too, solid and
projecting well, but sufficiently nimble for the cascading arpeggio figures
that make up so much of the piano writing.
A legitimate question might be asked about how much the performers have
changed their approach to account for the 50 or so years between the Mozart
they were previously recording and the Mendelssohn here. Brautigam plays a
different piano (though from the same maker: They are all shown on his website,
ronaldbrautigam.com), and the string complement of the orchestra has, no doubt,
been expanded. But we are still in strict no-vibrato territory, an approach which,
whatever its historical veracity, stands out more in the Romantic repertoire
than in the Classical. That said, in several movements, the strings indulge in
a modest but satisfying portamento. This is particularly apparent in the Adagio second movement of the Second
Piano Concerto, this a real gem from both Brautigam and the orchestra.
The studio recording was a joint venture by Deutschlandfunk and BIS, and
producers from both companies are credited. The sound is clear with excellent
balance between soloist and ensemble, though the winds and timpani seem
surprisingly reticent, as if their levels have been significantly lowered in postproduction.
The surround sound is effective but not emphatic, the piano spread across the
front speakers, but the orchestra mostly confined to left and right.
For a composer so well-represented in the catalog, this is an
impressively original project. Brautigam has a solid reputation, but mostly for
Classical-era repertoire. He looks set to become a pioneer of Mendelssohn on
period pianos, and other recent recordings include two volumes of Songs Without Words (BIS-1982, BIS-1983)
and a disc of cello sonatas with Christian Poltéra (BIS-2187). It’s all music
that tends to rush past us in a flurry of cascading arpeggios and fleet,
transient melodies, so the opportunity to take stock with Brautigam, and to
hear so many of the details that otherwise pass us by, is surely welcome.
This review appears in Fanfare magazine issue 42:5.
Sunday, 3 February 2019
Mahler Symphony No 2 Vanska Minnesota Orchestra
Mahler Symphony
No. 2
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Osmo Vänskä, cond; Ruby Hughes (sop); Sasha
Cooke (mez); Minnesota Chorale; Minnesota Orchestra
BIS 2296
(SACD: 84:37)
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Osmo Vänskä’s Mahler cycle with the Minnesota
Orchestra is shaping up to be a coherent affair. This Second Symphony is the
third release, following a Fifth Symphony in 2017 and a Sixth in 2018. Like
them, this is a relatively swift reading, often elegant and lyrical, but rarely
grand or monumental—though he gives the conclusion its full weight. The orchestra
plays well for him, with the quality and character of the woodwind solos a real
asset throughout. The surround-sound audio is good, too, although for various
quirks of miking or balance, it doesn’t quite reach demonstration quality.
As with the
Sixth Symphony recording, this new disc stretches the limits of SACD capacity,
coming in at over 84 minutes. A note in the liner says that a longer pause than
usual has been left between the first and second movements, acknowledging Mahler’s
desire that they should be separated by at least five minutes. This reads as if
the company is showing off the sheer quantity of space that they have found on
the disc, but the pause turns out to be only around 20 seconds and so hardly worth
their comment.
Something that could have used more explanation is the
publisher credit after the title “Universal Edition/Kaplan Foundation.” This suggests
that Vänskä is using the edition prepared by Gilbert Kaplan some years ago.
Kaplan was then owner of the autograph score, so presumably his amendments were
to bring the published version in line with what Mahler wrote. Given the scope
for interpretive freedom that Mahler afforded conductors, or rather the scope
for variance in spite of his often pedantic instructions, the difference
between editions is probably less than the difference between performances. To
my ear, the unwritten, but here emphatic, crescendo in the second phrase of the
trombone choral early in the finale (Fig. 10), is different enough from what is
on the page to suggest an editorial intervention.
And, in fact, Vänskä generally follows the letter of
Mahler’s instructions, especially with regard to extremes of tempo and dynamic,
creating a distinctive character for each of the sections, and sometimes
jarring contrasts between them. The opening is fast, with heavy accents and
clipped phrases. But this is not typical of the movement as a whole, and in the
quieter music, Vänskä focuses on elegance, the phrases always flowing and the
violins always swooning right on cue. The lower end of the orchestra gets a
work out in this opening movement, and the lower woodwinds always excel.
The second movement melody is performed with emphatic
portamento by the strings. That isn’t marked into the score either, but when
Mahler does give the occasional glissando mark in the melody, Vänskä, thank
goodness, doesn’t take it as an excuse for greater indulgence. At the tutti
pizzicato section, Fig. 12, you suddenly become aware of the resonance of the
hall, each note given a warm halo around the speaker array. The third movement
is a little lacking in energy and shape, apart from a sudden surge to the
climax; impressive, but the only real moment of drama. Mezzo Sasha Cooke is
ideal for “Urlicht,” her voice round and warm, but not overly sensual. The last
movement plays out much as the first, with a huge rush of energy in the swiftly
paced opening section, before Vänskä finds a more manageable pace for the
movement proper. Soprano Ruby Hughes also has an elegant tone, but much
narrower than Cooke’s, and the voices don’t blend. An excellent performance from
the Minnesota Chorale, though, whose ensemble, balance, and tone are ideal.
There is no suggestion that this was recorded live,
and indeed the uninterrupted decay after the final chord suggests that no
applause followed. The surround sound audio is clear and lifelike, but not
immersive. The middle channel is reserved for the woodwinds and timpani, and
dominated by the latter. The second violins are seated stage left, and the separation
between first and seconds is clearly delineated between the channels. Efforts
have been made to acknowledge the distance Mahler calls for with the off-stage
brass and percussion—some passages are marked as sounding close-by, others from
the far distance—but all are too dim in the soundstage, and the distant calls
can barely be heard at all. No such concerns, though, with the magnificent
organ, which I assume is not in situ, but which has been skillfully integrated
into the ending to give ideal weight and support.
If you’ve heard the previous installments in Vänskä’s
Mahler cycle, there are no surprises here. Some listeners may wish for more
intensity, and perhaps more continuity to the musical drama. But Vänskä’s commitment
to the detail of these scores pays off, and, as in previous installments, the
result is a richly variegated musical canvas, those details as much a concern
for the sound engineers as for the conductor himself.
This review
appears in Fanfare magazine issue 42:5
Saturday, 2 February 2019
BRUCH Die Loreley Blunier
BRUCH Die
Loreley
Michaela
Kaune, Jan-Hendrik Rootering, Magdalena Hinterdobler, Danae Kontora, Thomas
Mohr
Prague
Philharmonic Choir
Münchner
Rundfunkorchester
Stefan
Blunier, conductor
CPO
777-005-2 (3 CDs: 143:06)
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CPO specializes
in reviving obscure works, with a particular focus on German-speaking composers
of the Romantic era. This latest offering is no exception, a “Grosse
romantische Oper” based on the Loreley legend, and composed by Max Bruch while
still in his early 20s (completed 1863). It’s a live recording, taken from a
single concert performance. That makes stagability a marginal concern, but as a
purely aural experience, the work is compelling: juvenile, yes, and often simplistic
to a fault, but fully justifying its grand scale, and beautifully orchestrated
throughout.
The
genesis of Bruch’s Die Loreley is
bound up with the posthumous reputation of Mendelssohn. The libretto, by
Emanuel Geibel, was originally written for Mendelssohn, and the older composer
did in fact set several numbers, the fragments collected together as his op.
98. Several decades later, Bruch took an interest in the project, by then an
aspiring prodigy himself, keen to fit the Mendelssohn mold. Bruch’s anti-Wagnerian
tendencies also attracted him to Mendelssohn and his legacy. But Giebel was
opposed, and only finally granted Bruch permission to use the libretto when the
younger composer presented him with the completed score.
In Geibel’s
version of the legend (the liner points out that Loreley is not actually a legend at all, but an idea of Clemens
Brentano early in the 19th century), the spirit on the rock is a spurned lover,
Lenore. The first act tells of how Otto rejects her in order to marry Bertha.
In the short second act, Lenore enlists the help of the spirits and plots her
revenge. Act III begins after the wedding of Bertha and Otto: When Otto’s
double life is revealed, Lenore becomes the center of attention. She is tried
for witchcraft and narrowly avoids being burnt at the stake. By the last act,
Bertha has died, and the community is more subdued. But Lenore is still intent
on revenge. Her singing attracts Otto to the rock above the Rhine. But when she
spurns him, he jumps to his death, the Rhine spirits taking revenge and hailing
Lenore, now transformed into the Loreley, as their Queen.
Musically,
the story offers Bruch a great deal of variety and potential drama. Fittingly,
for the wine-growing region of the Middle Rhine, the chorus and several of the
minor characters are vintners, and much of the first act concerns the making of
wine for the wedding of Bertha and Otto, all to hearty choruses. The church
plays a major role the slightly two-dimensional morality, giving occasion for a
tender Ave Maria in the first act, Lenore
accompanied by the chorus, and some atmospheric organ interjections in the fourth.
The second act, where Lenore communes with the spirits, clearly owes something
to the Wolf’s Glen in Der
Freischütz, but it doesn’t come close for atmosphere or menace.
The recording is a co-production with Bayrischer
Rundfunk, who presumably broadcast the concert around the time it was given, in
2014. Stefan Blunier leads a lively account, sensitive to Bruch’s
always-apparent aspirations to high drama, but never laboring the music when it
lacks the substance to make its full impression. The singing is mostly fine,
with the all-German cast delivering excellent diction. In the title role,
Michaela Kaune has a throaty but elegant soprano, with a pronounced by well-controlled
vibrato. Thomas Mohr sings the role of Otto with great assurance—there are
plenty of vocal acrobatics in this lead tenor role, but Mohr has a solid tone
and good support, plus the agility to tackle Bruch’s often intricate melodic
lines. As Bertha, Magdalena Hinterdobler is well distinguished in tone from Kaune,
Hinterdobler a slightly lower-set soprano, her breathy tone less musically
pure, but always highly expressive. The comprimario
roles are never less than serviceable, although the vibrato of Sebastian Campione,
as Hubert, father to Lenore, is uncontrolled and distracting; while Jan-Hendrik
Rootering brings an aging voice to the prominent role of Reinald.
The Munich Radio Orchestra are serviceable too,
although the difference in standard between this ensemble and the BRSO is all
too clear, not least from the unfocussed string ensemble of the former. The
recorded sound is good, although the climaxes lack detail. The chorus, the
excellent Prague Philharmonic Choir, are sometimes required to sing offstage, a
sound effectively rendered, though it is not clear how this was achieved in a
concert setting.
Packaging and documentation are up to CPO’s usual high
standards, with detailed synopsis, full libretto, some artist bios, and an
interesting liner essay, all presented in German and with excellent English
translations.
This review appears in Fanfare magazine issue 42:5.
This review appears in Fanfare magazine issue 42:5.
