Lebrecht Weekly - my/maSCENA

Joseph Haydn: 3 symphonies (Chandos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 26 July 2019 Lebrecht Weekly

The Department of It Never Rains But It Pours has delivered us a set of premiere recordings of three Haydn symphonies, reduced for piano solo. Last week, we reviewed Mozart, shrunk to four instruments. What’s next – Wagner on the mandolin? There are two saving graces at play here. The transcription by Carl David Stegmann (1751-1826) is craftily inventive, leading the ear up paths never fully imagined by the original symphonist. And the interpretation by the Serbian-US pianist Ivan Ilic has a splash of fun – mischief, even – that tells us not to take classical music always at its…

Mozart: The Jupiter Project (Hyperion)

By Norman Lebrecht on 19 July 2019 Lebrecht Weekly

In an age when the majors pump out stars and brands, boutique labels are free to indulge in the cranky, the batty and the frankly off-the-wall. Which self-respecting woke person, for instance, would pay to hear Mozart’s major orchestral works shrunk to fit a Brooklyn or Lewisham bedsit? Mozart reduced to pocket size by his principal rivals Hummel, Cramer and Clementi – do we really need that? Actually, yes, yes, yes! It is totally thrilling to hear the C-major piano concerto K467 played by piano, flute, violin and cello… like a digital scan of Mozart’s mind working at full speed…

Brahms: 3rd Symphony; Dvorak: 8th (Tudor)

By Norman Lebrecht on 12 July 2019 Lebrecht Weekly

The Bamberg Symphony was formed in 1946 by ethnic Germans expelled by the Czechs in retribution for the Nazi occupation. Based in Bavaria, it acquired a sound that was markedly different from the nearby Munich orchestras, let alone others in the state. Joseph Keilberth conducted the group with distinction for 20 years followed by Horst Stein. Since the turn of the century, the sound lost something of its edge under the British conductor Jonathan Nott. Now, in bedrock repertoire, it is reassuring to find that the Czech conductor Jakob Hrusa has restored something of the original sonority, allowing the brass…

Nikos Skalkottas: Piano works (Bis)

By Norman Lebrecht on 5 July 2019 Lebrecht Weekly

The Greek composer Skalkottas died of a ruptured hernia in 1949, shortly after the birth of his second son. He was 45 and completely unknown, his health broken by internment in a camp during the German occupation. Possessed of a questing mind, Skalkottas enrolled in Arnold Schoenberg’s Berlin class from 1927 to 1932, learning how to write ultra-modern serialism and balancing it with his own instinct forMediterranean melody. This collection of piano pieces by the Greek scholar Lorenda Ramou contains three world premieres, all of considerable curiosity. If you’re into 20th century piano music, this should be high on your…

Beethoven: Christ on the Mount of Olives (Naxos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 28 June 2019 Lebrecht Weekly

Never one to leave his audience short of music, Beethoven wrote this oratorio for an 1803 Vienna concert that already consisted of his first two symphonies and his third piano concerto. Since he only finished the oratorio on the morning of the concert, rehearsals were scratchy and the musicians bad-tempered. Even at this distance of time, it is hard to tell how they made any sense of this episodic work, which veers from flights of inspiration to pedestrian note-filling. At its most sublime – the orchestral introduction and the tenor aria ‘my soul trembles’, we hear Beethoven finding raw materials…

Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin (Chandos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 21 June 2019 Lebrecht Weekly

One of the marvels of English music-making in the past couple of years has been the emergence of Roderick Williams in mid-career as one of the most pleasing lieder baritones of our time. Williams, who is 54, has sung Billy Budd and Don Giovanni among other operatic roles. He is also a composer. But it is in Lieder that he has found a true vocation and his performance of Schubert’s love-struck cycle captures all the colours of a bucolic landscape and the clouds of an unattainable desire. What I particularly like is that, unlike Fischer-Dieskau for instance, he neither hardens…

Mendelssohn in Birmingham, vol. 5 (Chandos)

By Norman Lebrecht on 14 June 2019 Lebrecht Weekly

This really useful series has reached a clutch of shorter pieces, all of them offering fresh insights into the life and mind of the travelling composer-conductor. In the overture to St Paul, Mendelssohn plays parlour games with the founder of his faith. The trumpet overture, opus 101, is quite literally a blast and the overture to Athalie has real novelty value. The truth is that, two centuries on, we still have no idea who Mendelssohn was. He is so adept at presenting ideas in a patina of respectability that we are left wondering if this man knew any passion in…

Lise Davidsen/Renee Fleming (Decca)

By Norman Lebrecht on 7 June 2019 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

A soprano at the start of her journey cuts a debut album as another reaches what must be the end. The contrasts are simply too compelling to ignore. Lise Davidsen, a Norwegian, came to attention in the Kathleen Ferrier competition four years ago, though her voice is more Flagstad than Ferrier. This is a genuine Wagnerian instrument, fully formed at 32 years old and equal to a massive orchestra. Two Tannhäuser arias are surmounted here with what sounds like nonchalance, a walk in the Bayreuth park in a really pleasant breeze. The shortcomings are exposed in a set of Richard…

Josef Suk: Asrael (Decca)

By Norman Lebrecht on 24 May 2019 CD and Book Reviews, La Scena Online, Lebrecht Weekly

The symphonic monument Asrael, written in memory of the composer’s wife Otilie and her father Antonin Dvorak, embodies for Czech musicians what Verdi’s Requiem does for Italians – a summit of national loss and hope. Unlike the Verdi Requiem, it has never caught on outside its heartland. Its great interpreters on record have all been Czech – Talich, Ancerl, Kubelik, Pesek and now Jiri Belohlavek. To the latest interpreter the heritage must have weighed particularly heavy since he knew he was mortally ill and this recording would stand as his legacy. Never a flamboyant conductor, Jiri Belohlavek goes for large…

L’Esprit des Six (Claves)

By Norman Lebrecht on 17 May 2019 Lebrecht Weekly

Your challenge for the weekend: name all six of Les Six. Poulenc and Milhaud? That’s average. Arthur Honegger? Good (unless you’re Swiss). Germaine Tailleferre? Very good. Georges Auric. Excellent. So who have we forgotten? (Louis Durey (1888-1979). Nobody remembers Durey.) Les Six came to the fore in 1920s Paris as acolytes of the iconoclastic Erik Satie and briefly caught the spirit of the age before veering off in diverse directions. This ingenious album of clarinet-piano music from either end of their careers. Francis Poulenc, the most lyrical and the only one with a major opera to his credit, can be…

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