Charles Fussell: The Astronaut’s Tale – William Hite, Judith Kellock, James Maddalena, Monadnock Festival Ensemble, James Bolle, conductor, Jack Larson, narrator The composer Charles Fussell was Artistic Director of New Music Harvest, Boston’s first city-wide festival of contemporary music, and Co-Founder and Director of the New England Composer’s Orchestra. He is currently a member of the Composition faculty at Boston University. ‘The Astronaut’s Tale was mostly written during a generous two-month fellowship at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs in June and July of 1996, and was completed the following winter. It is conceived as a numbers opera – arias, duets, trios, with preludes and interludes – all connected by a narrator. The story traces a young man’s life from his first experience of loss, his dog killed by a car, the appearance of a mysterious Einstein-like guide, his youthful desire to become an astronaut, marriage, and the fulfilment of his ambition. The setting is our own time with its confrontation of science and religion. The opera concludes with a meditation on the nature of the cosmos and our experience of life and death within.’ Charles Fussell
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Donizetti: Chamber music, Vols 1 – 3 This enterprising homage to Donizetti, launched to coincide with the composer’s bicentennial year in 1997, is a complete edition of all his chamber works apart from the string quartets. Listeners will find all sorts of little masterpieces in these three volumes, such as some of the pieces for violin and piano in Volume 1, the string trios in Volume 2, the fascinating Notturni for chamber orchestra or the Amusement pathétique for violin and orchestra in Volume 3. These are brilliant performances recorded by some of the best Italian specialists using manuscripts recently rediscovered, with some special editions prepared for the anniversary. Here is an exciting traversal of largely unfamiliar territories of Donizetti’s music, the discs adding much to our knowledge of a composer famous almost entirely for his operas.
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Catoire / Ravel – Herwig Zack, Bernd Zack ‘Herwig Zack provides engaging liner-notes for this complete collection of Catoire’s music for violin and piano. In doing so he describes the genesis of this project when a friend presented him with a CD of David Oistrakh and Alexander Goldenweiser playing works by Catoire: “beautiful, genuine music!” ‘The Second Sonata was dedicated to Goldenweiser. It is a single rhapsodic movement in the spontaneously flowing style of Medtner, dramatic, fantastic, poetic in a free-flowing Russian way. If you like Medtner and early Scriabin you will love this – ending as it does in a serene art nouveau sunset. The Elegy is another gentle curvaceous effusion fading into a glistening silence. The three-movement First Sonata is more torrid and emotionally turbulent than the Second. It is dedicated to Medtner. After a near fourteen-minute first movement comes a Barcarolle whose melodic content recalled Medtner’s Sonata Romantica. The finale bursts with invention of elevated romantic standing. ‘The whole experience of this disc will have you wanting to track down yet more Catoire. As yet unrecorded – but surely strong prospects – are the quintet, the Symphony, Op. 7 and a piano concerto. His activities as a teacher academician – he had Kabalevsky as a pupil – have masked his reputation as composer.
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The Spirit of Poland: Szymanowski, Symphony No. 4, Variations for Piano; Chopin, Piano Concerto No. 1 – Felicja Blumental, Polish RSO, Kord / Innsbruck SO, Wagner The pianist Felicja Blumental explores the vibrant repertoire of Karol Szymanowski, who taught the young Blumental composition, and his fellow Pole Fryderyk Chopin, whose music was a fundamental part of Felicja Blumental’s recording career and brought her great acclaim. That the music of Chopin played a fundamental part in the recording studio and on the concert platform for Felicja Blumental comes as no surprise. As a Pole, and a student at the National Conservatory, she was steeped in the music of her native land through her piano teachers Zbigniew Drzewiecki, Joseph Goldberg and Stefan Askenase, later bolstering these studies with the noted Chopin expert Józef Turczynski.
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Holst: The Planets – SNO, Sir Alexander Gibson ‘Gibson’s version with the Scottish National Orchestra had the distinction of being the first set of The Planets to be recorded digitally. The reading is characteristically direct and certainly well played… there is no doubt that the Chandos recording has fine bite and presence… and excellent detail. With this vivid sound the impact of such a colourful score is undoubtedly enhanced.’ Penguin Stereo Record Guide
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Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla: Streams of Tears
Padilla is symbolic of an age. One of the most important composers of the ‘New World’, Padilla was a native of Spain who emigrated to Mexico at a time when the church had money as well as a great appreciation of art in the service of the church. Streams of Tears reflects not only the penitential nature of this music but also a period in history know as the ‘Siglo de Oro’ when Spain and Portugal were masters of the great ocean and in the process of discovering and developing new lands in the Americas. The music of the period is as varied as it is distinctive, with a harmonic richness and colour that is found nowhere else.
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Roger-Ducasse: Au jardin de Marguérite, Interlude, etc. – Rheinland-Pfalz Phil. O, Segerstam ‘The music of Roger-Ducasse has both elegance and atmosphere. The Nocturne de printemps and the fragmentary but imaginative Prélude d’un ballet show a post-impressionist, Debussy-like figure with a refined feeling for the orchestra; elsewhere, in Orphée for example, the influence of d’Indy can be discerned. There are touches of Ravel and in the Épithalame something of the high spirits of Les Six. Segerstam has a good feeling for this repertoire and gets atmospheric and sensitive performances from his Baden-Baden forces and good, serviceable recordings from the Marco-Polo and radio engineers.’ Penguin Guide to Compact Discs
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Beethoven explored, Vols 3 and 4 – Peter Sheppard Skaerved, Aaron Shorr Continuing the acclaimed ‘Re-Appraisal series’ from Metier, Peter Sheppard Skaerved and Aaron Shorr follow their exploration of Beethoven through his works for violin and piano set in their historical, musical and social context, by also recording rarely heard works of quality by Beethoven’s pupils and colleagues – in this case (on Volume 4) the fine Sonata in C minor by Ferdinand Ries and (on Volume 3) the unique Variations for Solo Violin by Franz Clement, based on themes from Grétry’s opera Barbe Bleu. Just released in March, these discs will be essential for all students of the era and anyone who loves the violin. Volumes 1 and 2 are also available on CD and digitally on this site.
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English String Miniatures, Vol. 5 – The Royal Ballet Sinfonia, Gavin Sutherland ‘Naxos continues to unearth a host of modest but very attractive works – mostly pastoral in mood – by skilled practitioners of the “light music” genre, which the English, Lord love ’em, might as well have patented. Why are British composers so good at writing music that seeks to evoke an optimistic, or at its heaviest a wistfully nostalgic mood, simply to entertain the widest possible audience? It may be a matter of supply and demand. The BBC has always been a steady market for fresh scores requiring small-to-medium-sized ensembles; so has the native cinema; so, to a diminishing extent, has the theatre. And major UK orchestras have unapologetically programmed the better specimens of “light” music, often as a way to clear the audiences’ palates before a concert’s heavyweight symphonic fare. All of these factors used to obtain in the US, but all are now close to extinction (when was the last time you heard a Strauss waltz or a Suppé overture in a “serious” concert?).
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Harvey: Body Mandela, Timepieces, White as Jamine – BBC Scottish SO, Volkov Featuring works from the highly successful residency of Jonathan Harvey with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, this disc explores his fascination with Eastern philosophies – from the ecstatic Indian text of White as Jasmine, the meditative Tranquil Abiding and ...towards a Pure Land, to the raucous Tibetan brass and percussion of Body Mandala. The disc is completed by Timepieces, Harvey’s early work for orchestra with two conductors. ‘Four of the five pieces in this impressive selection of Jonathan Harvey’s orchestral pieces deal in different ways with Harvey’s deep fascination with eastern religions… All are striking, beautifully achieved pieces.’ The Guardian
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Britten Abroad – Susan Gritton, Mark Padmore, Iain Burnside Britten possessed an extraordinary skill and fluency in setting his native language to music and this has sometimes obscured his flair for setting foreign poetry; some of his very finest vocal works involve German, Latin, Italian or Russian texts. Susan Gritton and Mark Padmore perform these songs with vigour, marvellously accompanied by Iain Burnside, and do great justice to songs which many would regard as being the most distinctive and very finest examples of Britten’s art. ‘The Pushkin settings of The Poet’s Echo (1965) demand dramatic, intense colours, and the soprano Susan Gritton duly supplies them… Throughout, the pianist Iain Burnside traverses this vast, impressive terrain with stylish ease.’ The Sunday Times
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