title: Off Russian grounds

text:
Carlton Classics compilation of mid-90’s performances of rare cantatas from Sergei Prokofiev and PI Tchaikovsky, plus the original version of Romeo & Juliet from the latter, were probably something in their time. While there are a few more recordings of these same works available today, I don’t think anyone would call them popular, so this recording still remains of viable interest.

Prokofiev’s Zdravitsa, or Hail to Stalin, is probably the most convincing work, even though it represents pure propaganda dreck. Cinematic harmonies, and earworm melodies evoking Khachaturian, make it pleasurable listening, while Prokofiev times the drama opposite the lyricism quite well.

I am not familiar with the UK-based Geoffrey Mitchell Choir or its titular chorus master, but they sound out quite heartily, if not as electrically harried as a motherland chorus might. I imagine the LPO is probably the least scrappy of an ensemble this work is bound to get on record, and the sound is colorful, detailed, and strong. Of course, now you can find Hail to Stalin [[ASIN:B00008NRJM on Chandos]] with Polyansky and his Russian chorus and in Back in the USSR [[ASIN:B00008G49G on Cugate]] under Alexander Titov.

The best of Tchaikovsky’s Ode to Joy, or Kradosti Cantata, is the opening instrumental and the crazy finale. I do like how Tchaikovsky ties together musical ideas throughout, but the ever-present soloist quartet is a weakness. This is mainly due to the Slavic vocal quality of the soloists, of which, the soprano’s vibrato is almost unbearable. Tchaikovsky’s other cantata, Moscow, makes more of an impression on me comparatively, but there are some decent moments in Ode to Joy regardless, even if I find the Russian soloists off-putting and the music not quite as memorable.

Ode to Joy is represented elsewhere by Yuri Simonov [[ASIN:B000031VSB on Citadel Records]]. Even though his Russian orchestra is scrappier, as are the old Melodiya sonics, and while his Russian soloists are also large-voiced, they cohere better. Still, the LPO Chorus is a solid symphonic choral ensemble, and they probably show more musicality than this work will probably receive in a lifetime.

The original 1869 Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture is an interesting beast. The opening and closing minutes are completely different compared to the famous revised version, while the mid portion remains intact from the start of the fight music. If you consider Tchaikovsky's original as a completely separate work with shared music themes, I think it works best, for the beats and moods are completely different in this form. In the end, I think it stands on its own just fine. Plus that timpani really hits home strongly!

Of course, Geoffrey Simon [[ASIN:B000000AC2 on Chandos]] has traversed this version, as has Vladimir Jurowski most recently [[ASIN:B001F1YC20 on Pentatone]]. For the Tchaikovsky’s later revision, Giulini’s [[ASIN:B0007YSDYO on EMI]] remains in a top spot for its drippingly Romantic excess.

This recording remains interesting for its rarer Russian music. The London forces under Derek Gleeson all sing and play solidly, and the sound is good too. This music and its pairings will most likely attract or detract interest, and I doubt these performances would be considered reference, but if you want to explore Russian musical hidey-holes, this is as good a place as any. Recommended.


title: Fresh steps in Tchaikovsky's SQ's

text:
The UK-based Endellion String Quartet, quartered at Cambridge University where this recording was set down, gives readings of PI Tchaikovsky’s three string quartets, the famous sextet Souvenir de Florence, the Quartet Movement in B-flat, and some juvenilia string fragments. All of this music, coming in at over 2½ hours, makes Endellion’s an extremely attractive collection of Tchaikovsky’s chamber music.

The granddaddy of Tchaikovsky String Quartet recordings is that by the Borodin Quartet [[ASIN:B00005043D on Chandos]], [[ASIN:B000000SIT on Teldec]], and [[ASIN:B00000DNLE on EMI]], with a change of personnel over the decades. Their view of this music is intense passion and I can’t say it has ever been equaled for sheer commitment.

The Endellion Quartet take a different tach. These are clean readings, with heaping-handfuls of spirit. They move forward eagerly, bypassing any poring over of Tchaikovsky’s music as emotional excess in favor of a lither, classical touch. They find spirit, humor, and singing lines over any Romantic profusion. It is a valid, and I think, successful approach to Tchaikovsky’s music.

The three string quartets are given full measure by Endellion, even if they are lighter in approach than perhaps expected. Some of the sforzandos might have been given more weight and attack, leaving his quicker movements a little on the classical, gentile side. But the flowing nature they bring to Tchaikovsky’s music, and their clearly delineated musicality amongst the instrumental parts, really works rather well in the slower introductions / movements very, very well, with some genuine heartfelt moments, and the scherzos chug along with an ear-catching quicksilver fleetness. They certainly make a strong case for the 2nd SQ which has garnered less popularity over the others.

Best of all, Souvenir de Florence is played with joyous abandon, and for a work placed in a minor key, is perhaps Tchaikovsky’s happiest masterpiece. Where as in the quartets, when I might have wanted a little more weight or wrought attack, here with the aid of two more Britain string players, Endellion and friends really make the string sextet Souvenir de Florence a bustling ray of sunshine.

The five fragments are a nice addition, if not essential. The Quartet movement in B-flat is really a wonderful stand-alone work. All of Tchaikovsky’s haunting lyrical lines are in full bloom and easily stand among his chamber works with head raised high. The four others are very short and a tad simple comparatively; they are welcome, but probably won’t stick with me.

I am glad the Endellion Quartet don’t try to tread the footsteps of the famous Borodin Quartet, for they make Tchaikovsky’s chamber music full of life on their own terms. Clear musical lines with a fresh step in every movement. I may have wanted or expected a little more weight or attack in certain portions, but I think these work quite well. The addition of the sextet and student fragments are a positive bonus to this set. Highly Recommended!


title: The maturation of Mendelssohn

text:
Felix Mendelssohn’s String Symphonies are an interesting purview of his teenaged musical development. Each work seems to improve upon the earlier, showing new learned techniques. If 1-6 felt a strong pull from the Baroque Era, 7, 9, and 10 show a growth towards Classical Era techniques and a few experiments on Mendelssohn’s part.

I wonder how much time passed between String Symphony 6 & 7, for they seem a bit further apart in ability than the earlier 1-6 combined. The solo strings of the 2nd movement of #7 gorgeously lead into the full string orchestra most satisfyingly. The 3rd movement is a wonderful dance setting, and the interplay among the voices is enjoyable, although the trio is a bit clunky. The outer movements are still steeped in Baroque motor rhythms and unison swirling strings, although Mendelssohn toys with textures a bit more, and he throws in some counterpoint at the finale opposite a pretty strong tune.

String Symphonies 9 & 10 (and 8 on a separate release) show Mendelssohn at his most experimental. The 2nd movement of #9 is written for violins alone, but divided into four parts. He alternates this with a completely different section for violas divided into 3 parts with basses, and this part actually sounds a little gross; the lower tessituras don’t mesh well, although the violins are a nice salve. The outer movements show a burgeoning love of jaunty tunes, laid out in a rather Classical Era manner. The single movement SS #10 continues the Classical Era propriety of harmony and structure, but in a surly minor key.

As works, this middle set of string symphonies raise the bar in terms of Mendelssohn’s abilities with tunes and textures, especially compared to the first six, which don’t really stand on their own. Glimpses of strong tune writing, dramatic impact, and interesting key combinations, along with some exploration of string voicings, textures, and instrument combinations make for engaging listening. Mendelssohn also allows little moments of repose, which is most welcome with his ever-scurrying strings.

Kurt Masur and the Gewandhaus are pretty springy when it comes to Mendelssohn, although 7, 9, and, 10 allow them to inject a little more yearning, colour, and emotional headway in comparison to the straight-ahead 1-6. Berlin Classics includes most, if not all of the written repeats this time, and the sound is pleasantly full in its early 70’s recording session.

There are many more sets of Mendelssohn’s String Symphonies available today. If you have the Masur Mendelssohn Symphony box [[ASIN:B01GSUHVMA on Warner Classics]], it comes with a performance from the Concerto Köln, oddly not led by Masur. Also, Markiz [[ASIN:B000026AHM on Bis]]  is well thought of, as is Boughton on Nimbus, but I find many of the sets from the past few decades view these works as chamber string compositions, so I cleave to Masur who presents them with a fulsome string orchestra.

Masur’s performances are strong ones with warm, full playing from the Gewandhaus, but I still highly recommend the entire set on Berlin Classics, instead of these individual releases. They seem to work better as a set, and I doubt one wouldn’t want to hear some without the others. As it is though, this one of 7, 9, and 10 are solid readings with a modern instrument string orchestra. Recommended.

Masur’s Set of String Symphonies:
1-6 [[ASIN:B0000035PJ on Berlin Classics]]
7, 9, 10 [[ASIN:B0000035PK on Berlin Classics]]
8 [[ASIN:B0000035PL on Berlin Classics]]
11-13 [[ASIN:B0000035PM on Berlin Classics]]
Complete Set [[ASIN:B0000035T9 on Berlin Classics]]


title: Strong Psalm settings from Mendelssohn

text:
Felix Mendelssohn was the ultimate 19th Century JS Bach and GF Handel fanboi. The seven Psalm settings on this 2CD Ultima compilation show this influence rather strongly. This particular set was reissued [[ASIN:B0002OMOZ8 on Apex]], plus you can still find the original two releases [[ASIN:B00V8V448E on Erato]] and the other [[ASIN:B000005EBV on Erato]] as well.

Psalms 42, 95, and 115 from the first disc are essentially structured like Bach cantatas - choruses and chorales mixed in with vocal solos and other vocal pairings, as well as occasional features for instrumental solos. Mendelssohn goes a bit beyond Bach in harmony and orchestrations, understandable at 100 years apart, but still Mendelssohn is devoted to their style in his choral music, so these Psalms are conservative in comparison to his symphonies and overtures.

Psalm 114 and 98 seem to take more cues from Handel. For 8-part chorus and orchestra, the grandness and stateliness of these settings are impressive, particularly the breathtaking opening of Psalm 98 which is entirely a cappella. The contrast continues in Lauda Sion and Lass, O Herr, weaving the best of influences from the former masters.

Michel Corboz leads this music confidently, and it is nice to have 7 of these larger symphonic choral settings all gathered together. The sound on the 2nd disc is a little cleaner and more impactful than that of the 1st, which is a tad muddy, but in both cases, I can usually hear all of the parts of the chorus aside the orchestra, and the soloists are always well positioned. The Portugal-based Gulbenkian ensembles from the 70’s are not the most cohesive sounding ensembles, they have a bit of rustic edge to their quality, both from the singing and instrumentals, but this is noticeably upgraded in Disc 2, which was gathered from the 80’s, and great strides were made with those ensembles by that later date.

If you want to move beyond the famous symphonies and oratorios of Mendelssohn, these Psalms are a nice treat, giving both his assured hand in the choral world, as well as a symphonic quality too. It is also rare to have so many gathered together as well. There is a 10-CD set of Mendelssohn’s choral music led by Nicol Matt [[ASIN:B0000BABW4 on Brilliant]], but that will probably only be for completists. Otherwise you can find smaller sets that include the Psalms from Rilling [[ASIN:B000ZA32SC on Hänssler]], Herreweghe [[ASIN:B00009IC6M on Harmonia Mundi]], and just the numbered Psalms [[ASIN:B00BI8SERO on Brilliant]].

This is a nice compilation though, with symphonic-sized choral and orchestral forces traversing Mendelssohn’s backwards-looking choral style. While the sound and performances exhibit rough edges in their performances, it is far from subpar. The Erato Ultima release has no song texts or translations, plus the printed track timings are largely incorrect, so a mild disappointment there. Otherwise, Recommended.


title: Complete Hiawatha, heartily sung

text:
As far I as can tell, this is the only complete recording available of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s 3-Act oratorio Song of Hiawatha. There are a few performances of Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, the first Act, with Malcolm Sargent [[ASIN:B00B5YWU4Y on Heritage]] and [[ASIN:B0009WES52 on CFP]] being most notable, but I don’t think I have seen the rest anywhere else.

This recording of Kenneth Alwyn leading the Welsh National Opera with Helen Field, Arthur Davies, and Bryn Terfel was released three times: once [[ASIN:B00000E4M8 on Argo]], another [[ASIN:B00000INVE on Decca]] with the visage of Bryn Terfel on the cover, and this purple Decca British Music Collection edition. The big difference here is the addition of Coleridge-Taylor’s (C-T from now on) Symphonic Variations on an African Air, not offered with the other releases.

A bit of a dusty Victorian oratorio, The Song of Hiawatha is nearly 2 hours of wall-to-wall choral singing with occasional soloist musings. African-British composer Coleridge-Taylor is a strong writer for orchestra and voice, particularly his use of recognizable melodic themes that are carried and used throughout the runtime. It’s a shame the rest of the oratorio isn’t visited as much, since the return of musical themes give the whole work emotional impact and musical depth.

However, it is easy to see why the Wedding Feast is the most played, for C-T dazzles us with many modulations and burly choral numbers. Act II, the Death of Minnehaha, carries over many of the ideas, but its mood is distinctively tragic. The final Act, Hiawatha’s Departure, showcases the soloists more strongly, and C-T gives us a highly-charged finale for our commitment to stick with this over-long work.

The vocal solos border on orchestrated parlour songs, with flowery vocal lines and repetitive structures. Helen Field and Bryn Terfel, in particular, push the solos a bit beyond its Victorian blandness, although the tenor solo in the first Act is pretty treacly and sing-song-y. In the final Act, the vocalists are allowed a little breathing room to portray their story dramatically, and it is much appreciated.

The chorus is the strongest focus of Hiawatha and thank goodness we have such committed and consistent singing from the Welsh National Opera Chorus. They are out to make this recording impactful and they sound hale and hearty. The orchestra is relegated to colour, momentum, and depth, but the brass, bass drum, and timpani receive strong highlights from C-T.

Symphonic Variations on an African Air allows C-T’s orchestral abilities to shine since Hiawatha has few purely instrumental passages. The tune is pretty strong, and he puts it through the wringer pretty well, although the uber-Romantic pushing and pulling gets to be a bit much for me. I can sense the Dvořák-ian nature of C-T’s colourful symphonic voice here, and its conclusion is most satisfying.

Decca’s sound is wonderful, and the texts included in the physical media are appreciated. The chorus is well heard, but words are not crystal clear against the orchestra, and there is a lot of thick, prose-like storytelling to pick up. It is great that we have such a strong performance of the complete Song of Hiawatha, but it is a shame no one has come back to it. I am not smitten with this music, but it is exciting and colourful, and I love the choral focus in this grand music making. Recommended.

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title: Strong Czech performances

text:
Sir Charles Mackerras recorded these two Czech symphonic choral works by Bohuslav Martinů and Leoš Janáček together in 1985. Both have since been reissued separately alongside other works: Martinů’s Field Mass [[ASIN:B000003532 on Supraphon]] with his other orchestral music and Janáček’s Amarus is paired with his Glagolitic Mass, also [[ASIN:B000003517 on Supraphon]], and they are both these same performances under Mackerras.

Martinů’s musical voice is so striking. His 25-minute Field Mass is a quirky arrangement for male chorus, baritone soloist, winds, percussion, piano, and harmonium, an odd layout for sure, but remarkably effective. It is the men’s chorus that works the best for me; Martinů has a strong hand writing for chorus, and they give this quasi-Mass setting an electric fervor aside some affecting, thick a cappella singing in the finale. The winds and percussion drive home the military aspect of this music, but it is never saccharine or trite. The piano and harmonium lend a bit of Martinů quirk, but the Field Mass is well worth hearing.

I am not as enamoured with Janáček’s Amarus, a rarely-heard cantata whose tragically Gothic story is a bit more interesting than its musical setting. Regardless, like Martinů, Janáček has an engaging, singular musical voice, and compared to the Field Mass, Amarus has some lovely tunes to tie the 30-minute 5-movement work together effectively, and while the full-orchestral setting seems a bit more traditional, it oozes mood and atmosphere. There is a lot of orchestral colour too - the percussive, brass-laden finale is worth the ticket price alone. The solo singing is a little more turgid, drippingly conveying the fatal story, and the choral work is a tad more symphonic in scope, but in the end it all leaves me a bit dry, ala Bartók’s Cantata Profana, another darkly-wooded Bohemian choral tale.

What I cannot fault is the excellent playing by the Czech Philharmonic, wonderful singing by the Czech Philharmonic chorus, and strong leadership from Mackerras. Supraphon captures the orchestra well in all its Czech glory - lovely string work, aromatically piquant winds, and strong brass and percussion; the piano and harmonium are also well heard. Furthermore, the chorus is hearty and well-balanced, and Supraphon places them confidently in the soundscape; no fear of lost words or choral textures in this recording. The same could be said of the soloists, although their Slavic vocal style doesn’t always appeal to me.

On record, there isn’t too much to choose from in these symphonic choral works, although Mackerras’ strong performances don’t really need further looking. The Field Mass can be found [[ASIN:B000000AR5 on Chandos]] with these exact same Czech choral and orchestral forces 8 years later under Jiří Bělohlávek, but his orchestral pairings are not appealing to me. Amarus can also be found [[ASIN:B00WAD610S on Praga]] under Václav Neumann, but those live radio broadcasts do not afford the same sonic experience as Mackerras here on Supraphon.

If you are interested in exploring Janáček and Martinů’s music, I probably wouldn’t start here, but this is interesting music in strong performances and sound. The liner notes are in Japanese and English with texts and translations, the result of an odd licensing deal with Denon and Nippon Columbia. Recommended.


title: Have your cake AND eat it too!!

text:
These performances of orchestral music by Modest Mussorgsky led by Geoffrey Simon and the Philharmonic Orchestra from the late 80’s and early 90’s were released three times: the original here [[ASIN:B00000FDDK on Cala Records]], a reissue a decade later also [[ASIN:B00004TZSQ on Cala]], and a latest iteration [[ASIN:B07Z74Q35V on Signum]] Classics. Mussorgsky’s music could be rough, course, and crude, and although he is an unmistakable voice in Russian music, it took others to revisit his music to make it palatable across the century. Intelligently, this recording of Mussorgsky’s music all come from piano pieces and abandoned operas that were later orchestrated by other composers.

The big draw here is the piano concerto version of Mussorgsky’s magnum opus Pictures at an Exhibition. His original Pictures for solo piano are dynamite all on its own, but Maurice Ravel’s famous version for large orchestra has become a monument to Mussorgsky all on its own, but with Ravel’s special colours. It might seem surprising that dozens of others have orchestrated his original piano suite over the years, but it has obviously captured the imagination of many. The piano concerto rendition on this recording was arranged by Lawrence Leonard.

Lawrence Leonard, who I mainly know from his leading of the London Premier of West Side Story in the 60’s at the behest of Bernstein himself, wrote his piano concerto version of Exhibition in 1977, and it works remarkably well for those who enjoy both the piano solo and Ravel’s orchestral arrangement, and Simon gives its recorded premier. Leonard’s orchestrations are a bit more cinematic than Ravel’s, that opening and final Promenade are blockbusters of pure Hollywood ilk, his employing of wind machine in Gnomus and Baba-Yaga seem a bit hoary, but the sparkling orchestrations of the Market Place and Baby Chicks are not to be missed. Leonard doesn’t mess with Mussorgsky’s piano part all that much for the soloist, and the combined hues of the mostly faithful original piano part mixed with the fairly tasteful orchestrations really work well together.

Of course, I miss many aspects of Ravel’s famous version, the incessant trumpets in Schmuyle, the sax in the Ox-Cart, and the utter spectacle of the Great Gate of Kiev compared to Leonard’s orchestra hits, chamber strings, and bass rumblings, but in most aspects, this version works just as well for me, if not better in many portions. Of course, if this is your first experience with Pictures at an Exhibition, please visit Fritz Reiner’s unsurpassable version [[ASIN:B0002TKFRM on RCA]] with Chicago or Karl Ancerl [[ASIN:B00006IZPO on Supraphon]] and the solo piano version by Paul Lewis [[ASIN:B00OGPK72Q on Harmonia Mundi]], Stephen Osbourne [[ASIN:B00AG8HSTW on Hyperion]], or Yefim Bronfman [[ASIN:B00000279P on Sony]] before toying with this one.

The other orchestral works are minor in comparison, but bear Mussorgsky’s Russian exoticisms and Romantic tunefulness. The big surprise is the recorded premier of Pictures from the Crimea, three piano works orchestrated by Walter Goehr in 1946. The middle Reveries could bust out easily as modern film music, and the finale is wonderfully exotic. The more familiar Dawn on the Moscow River and Galitsin’s Journey are colourful opera preludes well worth hearing, and the Gopak is a barn-burner. Night on Bald Mountain is quite famous in its own right, and we get the familiar Rimsky-Korsakov version, plus Simon adds a slew of other orchestral music taken from more piano works, ones that are slight but most pleasing.

The Philharmonia under Geoffrey Simon are really having fun with these world premieres, their brass really punching out the music, but the ensemble really sounds great as a whole. Why in the world no mention is made of the solo pianist in the physical media case or booklet is a crime against Dr. Tamás Ungár, who gives a wonderful performance, and he is heard quite well against the orchestra. The only disappointment is Night on Bald Mountain, which is recorded in a different location and the resonant church gives weird balances to the orchestra and Rimsky’s orchestrations in a slightly swimmy mess; but the horns play gloriously.

If you are mostly interested in rare orchestral music by Mussorgsky, this recording fits the bill pretty well. Claudio Abbado [[ASIN:B000003FBY on RCA]] gives some different options from this one, plus the choral version of Night on Bald Mountain, and is a strong recommendation and companion to this recording, and Zdeněk Mácal’s Heaven and Hell [[ASIN:B000000710 on Delos]] is also interesting. There are still more varied orchestrations of Pictures at an Exhibition besides Ravel's led by Ormandy, Stokowski, and Ashkenazy among others, but this unique traversal of a piano concerto version by Leonard worked splendidly for me, and the other minor orchestral arrangements are mere icing on the cake.

This isn’t necessarily mandatory or required listening, but it was a fun experience. Despite the absence of acknowledgement for the pianist, mis-attributions of arrangers in the physical media, and woefully incorrect timings for Bald Mountain, this recording comes Highly Recommended to deep-cut, classical music dwellers!


title: Old-World Hollywood symphonies with no Shipoopi

text:
Naxos’ American Classics Series was a breath of fresh air when it first appeared in the late 90’s, especially since every dusty niche of British literature was being explored by Hyperion and Chandos since the 70’s & 80’s. While I don’t find every American Naxos release a lost gem, a lot of it is hard on the ears, their advocacy for new American music, such as that by Michael Daugherty, as well as respected full surveys of Sousa, Bernstein, and Copland, amongst explorations of a veritable host of unknown composers and compositions, has been interesting at least. Naxos must be nearing 500 entries in the American Series by now, especially considering their acquisition of Gerard Schwarz’s catalog from Delos, leftovers from Marco Polo, and their line of Jewish American music, and it is all quite fun to explore.

The main release of this album is found here [[ASIN:B000026CWP on Naxos]]

Meredith Willson, the darling of small-town Iowa and famed composer of The Music Man, apparently has quite the orchestral repertoire hidden somewhere, although Naxos never revisited Willson after this early entry in their American Classics series (around Vol. 30). His two symphonies, about 30-40 minutes each, form a love letter to various aspects of California. Written in his salad days between the World Wars, Willson’s symphonies are glamorous, tuneful works that show the finest of Old-Hollywood Romanticism, much along the lines of Victor Herbert or Howard Hanson, more favourite Naxos American composers. Thus, the music presented here are engagingly approachable, far from the dissonance-tinged works you normally see coming out of this Naxos series.

The first movement of Symphony 1 is an excellent microcosm of the entire disc. Those low, trenchant, menacingly moving bass lines that keep returning could be taken directly from a film score or old cartoon short, yet they also sound like some of those early swinging jazz lines from Duke Ellington; the brass is punchy, the strings are turgidly Romantic, and it is all quite entertaining. That carries over to the various moods of each movement and the inclusion of saxophone remove it from the mainstream classical scene of mid-century America. Symphony 2 plays in much the same manner, with little flecks of Spanish flair, even if it is not as thoroughly developed as the first.

The early orchestral releases of Naxos’ American Classics Series tended to feature Eastern-European orchestras, those led by Ted Kuchar, Keith Brion, McLaughlin Williams, and so it is here with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra under American conductor William T. Stromberg, a film music enthusiast. Naxos’ sound could be a little blousy, but it is OK here. Unfortunately, Moscow’s winds and brass aren’t the tightest in execution or tuning, nor are the strings richly garlanded, but thankfully for these rare Willson symphonies, Stromberg’s enthusiasm keeps this music up and running without fail. Climaxes are well timed by Stromberg, and he doesn’t allow the inbetween bits to dawdle, so this is overall more successful to my mind, despite Moscow’s over-booked recording calendar for Naxos around this time.

You just won’t find Meredith Willson’s Symphony 1 & 2 anywhere else on record, so I won’t come down too hard on the rough occasionalities from the Moscow SO under Stromberg, for this music is a treat. It is only unfortunate that no one has had the gumption to continue to explore Willson’s orchestral music since these late-90’s performances. Recommended.


title: Heartily sung Grainger choral music

text:
Percy Grainger was a weird dude. This is most evident in his orchestrated choral music, here under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner leading his Monteverdi Choir and further aided by the English Country Gardiner Orchestra from 1996. To find the best price, you can compare among the four different releases of this same album: Danny Boy: Songs and Dancing Ballads of which there are two different covers, but also as Londonderry Air: The Music of Percy Grainger and the Gramophone Award presents The Music of Percy Grainger all released by Philips and identical in performance.

Grainger’s choral arranging of British Isles folk songs are thickly textured, often with complexly jazzy, chromatic part writing which is always intriguing, if not a bit unexpected. Even if the chorus is only ooh-ing or aah-ing, as it often does either behind solo singing or as a choral feature, Grainger never blandly makes the chorus merely accompaniment or background, and all of it is terribly difficult to perform. The 9-minute Bride’s Tragedy seems the apex of Grainger’s modernist, complex choral writing and orchestra work, with bouncy mixed-meters and challenging harmonies abounding.

Most of the choral numbers here are orchestrated, often by what Grainger terms as room music. This can be in the form of brass bands, chamber strings, percussion, five clarinets alone, any combination of individual winds, brass, and strings; plus harmonium is always an instrument he writes into this music as an option for performances. In this recording, the brass astounds in the Song of Solomon and the Merry Wedding, the thrumming of Shallow Brown is indeed quirky, and the homespun piping in the Scotch Reel is most toe-tappingly satisfying. This unusual instrumentation only adds to the bizarre cacophony of Grainger’s musical settings, instances where I can understand one reviewer’s two-star rating who says they wanted a pure choral style with simple accompaniment to showcase the attractive simplicity of these folksongs; Grainger will not give you this!

This idea is only perpetuated by this performance by the Monteverdi Singers based out of England. Far from a pure, homogenous sound in the English cathedral style, the Monteverdi Singers sing lustily in a rustic, ‘salt of the earth’ manner, full of character and rhythmic vigour with plenty of vibrato. It is a most exciting approach to this music, one that is constantly engaging and gives the music an electric immediacy built towards eccentric characterizations. Towards the end of the program, the chorus even break into accents during the barroom Lost Lady Found, the cockney Danny Deever, and the men’s chorus gives a full-throated Drunken Sailor. Of course, this suits much of the folk-song topics at hand, ones of gallows humour and tumescent sexuality alongside rousing sea chanties and minstrelsy. This is offset by the intimately lovely a cappella, modal Gaelic tune ‘Nighean’ and the titular County Derry, which Grainger's choral arrangement has no words.

The music is littered with vocal solos, here taken directly within the Monteverdi Singers, and while professional soloists would have been appreciated, the members add to the individualistic, rustic atmosphere. Grainger was enthusiastic for Stephen Foster in his time, and we get an anglicized Camptown Races, whose minstrelsy roots are a bit cringy today, but the lullaby midsection raises the musical material.

Percy Grainger’s choral music is still a relative rarity on record today, but there is surprising little overlap of songs between recordings, allowing fans of this music a strong library of his choral output without repetition. The tried and true recording is one led by Benjamin Britten [[ASIN:B00000E42J on Decca]] from the 60’s and 70’s, an excellent recording sung by the Ambrosian Singers. Stephen Layton and Polyphony present Grainger’s Kipling songs and Jungle Book choral cycle [[ASIN:B004H2PWNM on Hyperion]] which shows more of his jazzy choral writing with odd chamber instrumentations, and more recently, Andrew Davis gives more of his symphonic choral music [[ASIN:B00BK6HQPU on Chandos]]. For the completist, the late Sir Richard Hickox surveyed most of Grainger’s music, Volumes 3, 5, 9, 11, and 18 being dedicated solely to his choral music, also on Chandos, but hardly as characterful as it is portrayed under Gardiner.

Special mention should be made regarding the liner notes: three separate biographical sketches on Percy Grainger, background information on each song, and texts provided for all of the songs is more information than anyone could hope from a recording. Zounds!

Philips’ recording of Sir John Eliot Gardiner leading extroverted and entertaining performances of Grainger’s choral music is excellent for those looking for rustic singing and wryly-themed, complex choral writing. Even more appealingly, at 75 minutes, this is a lot of music and it all comes in good sound too. Highly Recommended!


title: 25 years later, who is this music for?

text:
This 1996 recording of Metropolis Symphony was the first of a series of three Michael Daugherty albums released by Argo, thrusting him into the spotlight. It didn’t hurt that David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra were fully supporting his own brand of music-making either. However, it took until the mid-2000’s for Daugherty’s orchestral music to be regularly released, with a particular stranglehold of recordings from Naxos. Fortunately with advocates such as Neeme Jarvi, Marin Alsop, David Alan Miller, and a host of decent college wind ensembles, his music has spread rapidly.

Daugherty’s orchestral music is defined by a regular programmatic subject: pop-culture kitsch. That said, I don’t consider his music cinematic at all, so I think his music easily stands on its own two legs in the classical music world in terms of complexity. His music is not melodic in a traditional sense, although the outer movements have quality thematic material. Instead he seems to rely on rhythm, colour, and atmosphere moreso than tunes. In this vein, I would set Daugherty’s music next to Stravinsky and Philip Glass, the former for rhythm and chamber-like orchestrations at times, and the latter for his use of percussion and rhythmic cells. In this way the other reviewer is correct in that Daugherty’s orchestral music doesn’t develop in a classical structure relying on repetition instead. There is also a wit to his music that never becomes cloying or invasive, but the pop-culture references make eye-winks throughout the music.

The Metropolis Symphony is obviously indebted to Superman comics, with movement titles taking the characters from the superhero’s stories, although its composition comes before the advent of the Marvel movies. Daugherty makes full use of orchestral effects: string glissandi, synthesizer outbursts, plenty of concertante-style instrument features and virtuoso spotlights, and odd percussion and effects instruments (I’m looking at you flexatone). Daugherty doesn’t rely on obvious predicated musical structure or exoticisms either, with the exception of the Red Cape Tango which heartily gives into the titular dance style alongside the Dies Irae chant to guide his music; otherwise his music seems to be completely original.

The companion piece for winds and percussion, Bizarro, is an apt pairing and very much a sister composition to Metropolis. Again, motor rhythm and percussion seem to guide his music, the harmonies gently glide between approachable and dissonance for punchy effect, and the brass and winds seem to evoke a jazzy element in the music. I really enjoy this music for its kitschy fun, and I am glad that it will have a wide appeal for its subject matter. I don’t know, however, if the casual listener will be pleased with the lack of cinematic musical style nor the serious music listener for its lack of spirituality and structure.

David Zinman and the Baltimore SO obviously have fun premiering this music on record and attack it all head on. The percussion and brass get a little too much spotlight in the soundscape, with the strings taking a back seat, but the sound is big and clear if not a bit boomy in their empty hall. If you don’t care for the infusion of pop culture into the classical music scene, obviously stay far away, but this is good clean fun in music that doesn’t slavishly appeal towards easy listening. In that respect, I am not sure who this music is for; this music would be challenging for the average comic fanboi and too on-the-nose for classical music aficionados, so I guess I ride the middle road here. Regardless, despite a second outing of Metropolis Symphony [[ASIN:B002JIBC80 on Naxos]] with the Nashville SO from 2009, this original 1996 recording comes Highly Recommended!


title: A treasure of rare Holst choral music

text:
Gustav Holst wrote heaping handfuls of choral music, both orchestrated and a cappella part-songs. This recording mostly looks at Holst’s a cappella choir music and is divided up between his sacred music, with a few Christmas numbers thrown in, and his secular music. There is also a divergence in his compositional style: ones that focus on simple, strophic folk-like settings which make the melodic material foremost, and others that are more complex in their scope and harmonic diversity. Most of the offerings here are between 1-5 minutes in length.

This recording is most treasurable for the complete sets of Songs from The Princess for women’s chorus and the complete set of Six Choral Folksongs. Both of these sets of songs are really hard to find in their entirety and might now only be able to be found here. In addition, we find Holst is at his most symphonic sounding in these works; more complex settings than much of the rest of the album with occasional ventures into polyphonic textures and wild harmonic offshoots and choral accompaniments.

The six Princess Songs are notable for the echo choir which is performed here with spatial separation to great effect. The Six Choral Choral Folksongs are recognizable from their roots in Holst’s 2nd Military Suite for Band and A Hampshire Suite for orchestra. The Song for the Blacksmith is humorous in its non-lexical, highly rhythmic arrangement, but it is I Love My Love that is the crown jewel of the set, an emotionally charged ballad that is nasty to try to keep together and in tune. 'There Was a Tree' is included in the set, absent in other collections.

We also get the complete Two Carols with oboe and cello, which provides some depth of colour and rhythmic diversity, and the Two Eastern Pictures with harp, both of which offer some variety to the majority of a cappella settings. Eastern Pictures is the only work that alludes to Holst’s affinity to Hinduism, and the music is exotically different than what precedes with some haunting humming in 'Summer'.

And of course there is a huge variety of standalone songs, the most familiar being the Ave Maria for double women’s chorus, which is very beautiful but snot-hard to perform, the titular My Love has a rapturous melody and returning chorus, plus more hauntingly modal folk settings of Dives and Lazarus, Spiritual Pilgrim, and the Welsh folk song My Sweetheart is Like Venus, plus many others. This recording is a well-filled program of Holst’s choral music (70+ minutes) that most enjoyably isn’t duplicated much on other albums, with the few Christmas selections being the most recorded.

The Holst Singers here feature a vibratoless women’s section, a style not to my tastes. It gets a little pushy sounding at the top of the soprano's ranges, especially at loud volumes, and the female soloists in this style can be a bit hit and miss too. In 1993, Stephen Layton had just taken over from Hilary Davan Wetton, the founder of the Holst Singers. Despite the change in leadership, their style has remained consistent over the years. I much prefer Layton’s other English choral ensemble Polyphony, which has light, consistent vibrato, but the straight-tone singing style sung here is authentic to these 20th Century English composers, so I generally overlook it.

Tuning is pretty good throughout the selections, although the balance among voices is not homogenous; occasionally a voice will stick out (the tenor at the ending of the title song!), but nothing egregious. There were only one or two occasions I wanted some longer phrasing from Layton, but generally he leads these songs intelligently. Also, the group is caught pretty close up on the recording, but I think if Hyperion had backed away, the acoustic of St. Judes-on-the-Hill would have taken over. One reviewer suggests that I Love My Love is too slow, and they are crazy: Holst marks the song Andante, and Layton is easily at 100BPM, on the swift side of Andante. Layton does ritard the ends of verses and takes the ending return slower than the start for a quality emotional response, but he generally follows Holst’s accelerandos and many tempo changes at their word.

As I mentioned at the start, this recording is the only one to find the complete set of Songs from The Princess and the Six Choral Folksongs, but you can find the individual parts of the latter on other recordings. As companions to this recording, Hyperion released an earlier set of Holst choral music with the Holst Singers [[ASIN:B0001B0A8U now on Helios]], and complements this recording with The Evening Watch, the Two Psalms, and Nunc Dimittis. The Finzi Singers [[ASIN:B000000AYD on Chandos]] give short shrift to Holst in favour of Vaughan Williams on their album, but I like their singing quality more. There are some historic recordings, one [[ASIN:B076DQQSJL on Alto]] in dry sound but giving the complete set of Welsh folksongs, one on EMI with men’s chorus, and of course his symphonic choral music [[ASIN:B00000IYN5 on Chandos]] along with many others. Holst’s endless sets of part-songs may never be completely captured on record, but Layton's is a top notch addition filling in many of Holst's missing choral repertoire.

Altogether, despite me preferring a different choral sound and the occasional weak link in choral balance, these performances are culturally idiomatic and well led and performed. I especially appreciate having complete sets of Holst’s music that you can’t find on record anymore. Conversely, I will admit that this music is mostly for the Holst collector covering a healthy survey of his choral music, but the choral music is lovely, although I lean towards his more complex music which is offered half-and-half with his simpler folk settings. Hyperion’s recording is in good, clear sound and comes Highly Recommended!


title: A hodgepodge of Whitacre's early vocal and instrumental music

text:
Eric Whitacre became a celebrity of the choral world with Water Night, and of course learned quickly how to self-promote himself and eventually leads his own performances of his own music, most notably today with his virtual choir efforts. Whitacre’s choral music was noted for its multi-divisi chord clusters that give an interestingly pleasant shimmery quality, especially moving to and from open chords. Not quite as equally, his band music proved popular as well, although it didn’t seem to strike as hard as his choral output. Imaginative and colourful, his instrumental music gives another dimension to his composing abilities, which can seem awfully one note in his choral music.

As far as I remember, this 1997 recording was the first to feature his early-to-mid 90’s musical output, if not the first recorded collection of his music period. I remember vividly friends of mine gleefully passing this recording around gawking at Water Night, and to some degree Cloudburst, but I found myself more interested in the audacious wind ensemble music which didn’t catch as much fire as the choral numbers, but sparked my imagination. Of course it took until 2010 and 2012 for Eric Whitacre to release all of his choral works with the Eric Whitacre Singers under his own direction on Decca, alongside his own chiseled and coiffed Glamour Shots. Those two recordings can be found as Light & Gold and Water Night.

The Brigham Young Singers really are the stars of this recording and they get the measure of Whitacre’s choral music in Water Night and Cloudburst. Minimal vibrato really brings out those close-quarters chord clusters that become both Surrealistically colourful and Impressionistically muddy. Their vocal quality makes both Water Night and Cloudburst sing, and after this outing, BYU completed their own traversal of Whitacre’s complete a cappella choral music to check out. The University of Miami Chorale sings ‘little tree’, and their full-vibrato mode is less effective with Whitacre’s music, but is gorgeous in its own right; plus Eric Whitacre is leading the Miami Chorale himself. And it goes without saying that the highlight of Whitacre’s choral music is the high quality texts, which are provided in the liner notes.

The solo vocal work, Rak HaHatchala, now known as Five Hebrew Love Songs, has since been rescored for string quartet and chorus, and that is my preferred version on Decca over this piano, violin, and solo soprano rendition. We do get, however, the poet (now Whitacre’s wife) singing her own words with Whitacre at the piano, so I suppose this is the authentic progenitor of the five movement work, one that is rather quirky. It does offer a middle ground between his outgoing band music and his sensuous choral music.

Eric Whitacre’s wind ensemble music is a bit more on the nose. The three-movement Ghost Train Trilogy has endless types of orchestrated train whistles and motor-rhythm track sounds that repeat in a Minimalist fashion. This is fun music though, and we find Whitacre at his most punchy, far from his ethereal choral music. As far as I know, this is the only place to find Ghost Train Trilogy. Gawd$illa Eats Las Vegas is a riot, and a nasty, hard work to play. I think UNLV recorded Gawd$illa this same year, but its coupling with other composers was less impressive, although they have early Frank Tichelli as well. That said, the featured Rutgers Wind Ensemble are not perfect and you can detect a few oopsies here and there.

This recording is hard to rate, mainly because it is a hodgepodge of Whitacre’s first compositions, both vocal and instrumental all smooshed together. I would say if you like these programmatic band works, this is the place to get them unless you have the UNLV recordings. If instead you are here for his vocal works, I would point you to Whitacre’s own recordings [[ASIN:B003ODHXEG on Decca]] or BYU’s beautiful compendium [[ASIN:B00K1JRW8S on Arsis Audio]] and [[ASIN:B00K1JRYBI on BYU]]. On the tried and true professional choir side, you can also find the English chamber choir Polyphony [[ASIN:B000E1XOUS on Hyperion]] from 2006, beating Whitacre to the punch. Recommended.


title: Rutter's ubiquitous choral music

text:
John Rutter’s Requiem of 1985 became immediately ubiquitous upon publication, probably even more so than his other large choral works: Gloria, Magnificat, and Te Deum from that time period. As with Leonard Bernstein, I tend to recommend Rutter’s own performances of his works as authoritative, for his sound world is most obviously envisaged with The Cambridge Singers in mind.

Rutter’s 36-minute Requiem is gentle and contemplative, very much in line with his popular choral anthems and carols, and most obviously in the mould of Faure’s Requiem which Rutter researched heavily around this time and put out a recording [[ASIN:B003BFUS44 on Collegium Records]]. Additionally, Rutter is a master of tunes, and not a movement goes by without an earworm infesting the listener. All of this along with his gently-hued harmonic changes that sound like syrupy 70’s/80’s Rutter, is always interesting if not a little hoary sounding. While Rutter was a great self-promoter and quite commercialized in the choral world, his music is never off-putting, and if it all ends up sounding a bit similar, the Requiem at least attempts to mix up his formula.

More interesting in the Requiem though, is Rutter attempting ominous moods which lie outside of his comfortable, genial voice, and I find this aspect most welcome from Rutter. The opening of the work, the 2nd movement Out of the Deep cello solo, the chanting in the Lord is my Shepherd, and almost the entirety of the Agnus Dei give in to this different aspect of his writing. And even if these moods don’t last long, which it usually doesn’t outside of the terrifying Agnus Dei, it adds variety to Rutter’s easygoing, congenial compositional style.

In regional performances, you usually hear Rutter’s Requiem performed with organ or piano, so it is a delight to hear the colourful City of London Sinfonia, a frequent collaborator with Rutter. Rutter’s penchant in writing for harp and winds, especially double reeds, really brings out the colours of his work adding dimension to the music. Rutter leads the proceedings in no hurry, taking luxurious time with both the choral and instrumentals for a lush, Romantic sound, but I could always hear a skosh more drama or impetuousness than what Rutter provides.

The Cambridge Singers are lovely in the Requiem, and while I don’t usually prefer these straight-toned sopranos in my choral listening, one which The Cambridge Singers freed up later, this is how Rutter hears his music, so I am along for the ride. Cambridge does have some wonderful choral moments, and their abilities in balance and intonation, not to mention character, are outstanding.

I do not care for Rutter’s soloist in the charming Pie Jesu movement at all. Caroline Ashton may as well be a boy chorister for the lack of fullness she displays, although in Rutter’s second recording of the Requiem in 2016 [[ASIN:B01KZKPN74 also on Collegium]], he chooses a female soloist who sounds exactly like this one, so this must be his preference; not mine though!

The pairing of Rutter’s hard-to-find anthem I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes, is very short measure for a CD timing, but by golly if that opening tenor line isn’t the most glorious thing you have ever heard. Obvious indebtedness to Mendelssohn’s opening of Midsummer open the anthem, Holst’s Planets in the Requiem as well, this 7-minute anthem is Rutter in splendid full-Rutter mode.

Despite me preferring Rutter leading his own works in recordings, two other English conductors have lead his Requiem with different stylistic choices. Stephen Layton with Polyphony [[ASIN:B000002ZZH on Hyperion]] has a soprano soloist in Pie Jesu that is much more to my liking, one with some vibrato along with light vibrato from the women choristers. Layton also moves along Rutter’s luxurious tempos, creating more excitement in the tinkly Sanctus and a bit more drama throughout with slightly faster tempos. Stephen Cleobury [[ASIN:B000009OQB on EMI]] also takes slight faster tempos and uses boy trebles; even their boy soloist is preferable to Rutter’s in my eyes. In the end, for me Layton offers the most different alternative to Rutter’s own, but I am biased against the boy choir tradition and sound, so take it as you will.

Add to all of this the fact that Rutter reissued this 1986 Requiem performance many times over on Collegium Records, it really becomes confusing which release is which. This one with the maple leaves is the original, but the total timing of 45 minutes is stingy, although I do really like the pairing of the anthem. However, you can also find this 1986 performed Requiem paired with his Magnificat [[ASIN:B00000DI06 (504)]] or with his Mass of the Children [[ASIN:B01K8N0XA0 (305)]] as a compendium. His 2016 new recording is even slower than the 1986, and I can’t really recommend it over the original unless you want his new work Visions.

All told, I do like Rutter’s Requiem, a work that shows him trying to grow his musical language, even if he always ends up returning to his trademark easy-going style. The orchestral work is quite colourful, the singing is top-notch, and Rutter is most authoritative in Rutter. Highly Recommended!


title: Cinematic Glass Music with Chorus

text:
Philip Glass’ symphonic choral poem Itaipu, premised around a Brazilian hydro-electric Dam, and the orchestral The Canyon are Parts 2 & 3 of his Nature Portrait tryptych. Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus gave these works their recorded premier, performances stemming from the late 80’s and early 90’s, and oddly Shaw’s only Sony outing that I’m aware of, with a lifetime of recordings on RCA and Telarc. Part 1, entitled The Light can be found with Marin Alsop [[ASIN:B000L42JAY on Naxos]] and Dennis Russell Davies [[ASIN:B00004T22L on Nonesuch]] if you want to round out the entire portrait collection.

As expected with Glass, the music is highly rhythmic, with slow moving, repetitive, easy-on-the-ears harmonic progressions and melodic units. The 40-minute Itaipu is mostly bold and forthright, giving full voice to the large orchestral instrumentation and large battery of percussion including piano, but also as a nod to both the power of nature and this man-made creation. What sets Itaipu from much of Philip Glass’ orchestral work is the inclusion of the chorus, which is both an exposed feature as the voice of the indigenous Paraguayans, but also an orchestral or musical texture alongside the instrumentation.

Itaipu has not been repeated much on record, but you can find the Los Angeles Master Chorale [[ASIN:B003NJTLO6 on Orange Mountain Music]] with Glass’ Three Songs for choir or [[ASIN:B00006EXDA on RCM]] with Salonen’s Poems for Ann Jäderlund; these other recordings however are quite stingy with their timings, leaving Shaw’s outing preferable.

The Canyon, a 15-minute dramatic episode for orchestra, does not utilize chorus, but keeps the large orchestral forces with an even wider array of percussion. For me, the loss of the choral texture was noticeable, and the rhythmic undercurrents with sustained overlay lose musical variety in comparison. As far as I can tell, Robert Shaw’s is the only recording available of The Canyon.

Overall, the sound is full with a strong bass line and the orchestra and percussion have plenty of impact on this Sony recording. The choral voices of Itaipu are treated more as an orchestral texture in the soundscape, but it also seems to be used that way in this music, so the chorus’ equal standing with the orchestra isn’t overly daunting here. Also, after perusing some of the other comments here, there seems to be, as far as I can see, an unintended political element surrounding this particular dam and the Itaipu composition; if this concerns you please take it into account, but I am rather uneducated on the subject, I have no primary sources regarding Glass' intent, and will comment only on the music at hand and the notes presented by Nick Jones and Sony.

Purchased 27 years ago, I had heard nothing quite like this recording, and I continue to enjoy seeking out choral/orchestral music that lays off the beaten path, so this performance is right up my alley. Today, this music has a very cinematic quality to my ears, but it is the parts of cinema heard in thrillers and suspense; for example, where the action is happening and the music is purposefully secondary and almost subconscious. I do like Itaipu quite a bit though, its inclusion of chorus adds so much more to this music than what is followed by in The Canyon for instruments alone, and I look forward to exploring more of Glass’ vocal work. Recommended.


title: Cinematically-tinged symphonic choral music

text:
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales seems ripe for musical interpolation, but alas, aside from a late 60’s musical theatre production, George Dyson’s symphonic choral work The Canterbury Pilgrims is all I am aware of. Each movement is a slice of life portrait of Chaucer’s observations on each character embarking on the pilgrimage, omitting the subsequent tales each tells on their travels. Much along the lines of Mussorgsky Pictures at the Exhibition, or more aptly Vaughan Williams’ 45-minute Five Tudor Portraits, each character study is 3-10 minutes long for chorus, soloists, and orchestra. Dyson cleans up much of the olde English, making the meaning of the texts more accessible to his 20th century audiences, although Canterbury is probably not best for casual listening, but thankfully Chandos provides texts for all of the music.

George Dyson shows stunning craftsmanship throughout, taking into account Chaucer’s saucy wit and sarcastic commentary to give full bloom to the dimensions of these characters. Dyson’s music mirrors Chaucer’s mind, where at once a character seems initially stereotypical to their vocation and miens, as Chaucer finds out more about the characters, the music changes gears with his mindset, giving stunning complexity to the depth of the texts.

Luckily, Dyson’s music is easy on the ears. There is a certain Romantic, cinematic quality to his music that keeps it from rambling on like Elgar’s, Delius’, or Holst’s longer symphonic choral works, and more in vein of Vaughan Williams or Hubert Parry with clear-eyed, colourful musical settings. At 90 minutes, the music has enough variety between the serious and wry, the raucous and serene, and chorus and soloist to easily hold attention throughout. Even at his most contemplative, Dyson never fails to inject a grand climax for variation for the listener, although the heartfelt epilogue never fails to bring a tear to the eye at the end, showing the exhaustive epic scale of Dyson’s setting, much along the lines of VW's Sea Symphony [[ASIN:B000000AJ7 on Chandos]].

It helps that this performance is stunning throughout. The London Symphony Orchestra is big and bold with the typical clarity from Chandos. The solo opening of flute, clarinet, and oboe is lovely, but it is the oft-called upon brass that really holds its weight in this recording alongside a solid string sound. If I had a want, a little more presence from the pipe organ is what I would ask for.

Equally, the London Symphony Chorus is hale and hearty here, with enough heft to sing against the upfront instrumentation, although the tiniest bit of juice might make the chorus’ texts a little crisper, a small niggle overall though. It is a boon to Dyson’s abilities that when the chorus rests for a movement or two, their presence is most a welcome return; the sinuously slimy opening of the clerk, the rambunctious swashbuckling in the Shipwright, the rugged merchant, and the hymnody of the Parson are so entertaining when the chorus arrives betwixt soloist musings.

The soloists are pretty good across the board. Yvonne Kenny has a bright, fizzy voice that sweeps along Dyson’s big climaxes such as the final third of The Prioress, although Dyson seems minimalist in orchestral contributions when the soprano sings in comparison to her male counterparts. Robert Tear’s tenor is full voiced, a bit breathless at first. Stephen Roberts has a slight adenoidal baritone quality that, while not off-putting, would not be my first choice. Each soloist is splendidly crisp with their diction, rolled r’s and all, and are put well in front of the sound for an excellent balance of soloist to orchestra and chorus.

The accompanying instrumental features, At the Tabard Inn Overture and In Honour of the City showcase Dyson’s cinematically-tinged orchestral contributions. Tabard Inn satisfyingly encapsulates the music of The Canterbury Pilgrims within 15 minutes, an outstanding standalone feature of that music. In Honour is a paean to London, another choral work with Medieval texts that, aside from the lyrical midsection that waxes on about the Thames River, heartily extols London’s virtues along the lines of Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture, but here with a choral focus.

There are no competing records to Hickox’s traversal of Canterbury. One can only hope that David Hill and The Bach Choir turn their attention to it, but Hickox did end up completing Dyson’s other oratorios before his death, Nebuchadnezzar [[ASIN:B000VPNK2Y on Chandos]] and Quo Vadis [[ASIN:B00008WQB2 also on Chandos]], as did Bournemouth [[ASIN:B075VVPN3R on Naxos]], as well as the Tabard Overture under Lloyd-Jones [[ASIN:B0008JEKEU also on Naxos]]. Chandos’ liner notes are top-of-the-line here though, with two comprehensive commentaries covering the works at hand.

I would characterize Dyson’s Canterbury Pilgrims as essential listening for symphonic choral lovers along with Vaughan Williams’ Tudor Portraits, again [[ASIN:B000000B24 on Chandos]]. I realize despite Dyson’s approachably colourful music for chorus and orchestra, this music is not particularly casual listening and so might not have broad appeal. Regardless of that, with excellent ensemble performances, big, clear sound, terrific solo singing, and captivating music, this recording easily comes Highly Recommended!


title: Medieval audaciousness

text:
At 45 minutes, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Tudor Portraits is probably the most digestible among 100’s of 20th Century English oratorios. Quite similar to Dyson’s Canterbury Pilgrim’s from a few years earlier, also found with Hickox [[ASIN:B000000B0Y on Chandos]], each movement is a slice of life portrait featuring verse by Medieval poet Skelton. His texts imbue Vaughan Williams’ music with course humour and cheeky wit, covering topics from drinking to death, ones rarely found in these dusty Victorian Society choral works. Similarly, VW’s music runs into Carmina Burana territory, especially the rhythmic 3rd movement for men’s chorus, the drunken solo in the first, and the boisterously jolly outer movements, of which, the opening movement is easily the jewel of the work.

The short, serene 2nd movement has some lovely choral work, a touchstone of Vaughan Williams, but the 20+ minute 4th movement, with women’s chorus and soloist, overstays its welcome. The elegy for a girl’s bird is heartfelt at first, but the religious overtones that include a bird Dies Irae, church incantations, and a parade of bird funereal personifications, all presented so earnestly, becomes almost laughable. Vaughan Williams, an animal lover, perhaps is more loving on this subject than I, however. All in all though, this work is a gas and a joyous delight.

The 10-minute Five Variants on Dives and Lazarus embodies the folk-song writing so closely associated with Vaughan Williams. Written for strings and harp, it is perhaps the loveliest thing to come off this disc.

The London Symphony Orchestra is excellent throughout this program, the unique moments with bassoons and brass come off particularly well. The string playing in Dives gets a little edgy in the violins, but nothing that churlishly hinders the performance, although one wonders what the Philadelphia Orchestra could have done with it in their day.

The choral and vocal singing is outstanding. There is some really characterful work from the London Symphony Chorus, particularly in the 1st and 3rd movements, that make this presentation so fun to listen to. Jean Rigby really sells her drunk solo with a throaty low register, and despite my feelings about the 4th movement, Rigby is lovely throughout. I really like John Shirley-Quirk as a baritone, but approaching 70 years old at the time of this recording, his instrument is not as facile as it could be; the 3rd movement shows slight wobbliness from him, not untoward though, and could demonstrate more tenderness, but listen to his high range in the 5th movement and all thoughts of age are gone. The Chandos sound is big and full, typical of these Hickox symphonic choral albums. The choral singing is mighty solid, but they could be given a little more juice over the orchestra, for the instrumentalists get a little head room above the singers.

As to recorded competition, there isn’t much: Steinberg with Pittsburgh [[ASIN:B007POCBJC on Albion]] is sounding scrappy, and while I would be interested to hear Boult [[ASIN:B00008F8AC on Intaglio]], I suspect it bears the same fate. I have never taken to Wetton’s Guilford Choral Society [[ASIN:B00000J7ZE on Hyperion]], who ride the line of amateur choral society, leaving me wanting in the chorus department, but usually employs outstanding English orchestras. Which leaves the great Sir David Willcocks [[ASIN:B00000DOCS on EMI]] from 1968 with Heather Harper, the New Philharmonia, and the Bach Choir. Their choral work isn’t as characterful as what is here on Chandos, but the 80’s remastering is good if not exhibiting quite the equal in fidelity to Chandos. Willcocks does offer the 15-minute Benedicte in addition to what Hickox offers, so if you don’t mind 80’s remastered stereo sound, EMI might be the one to head to for more music.

Regardless, I can easily recommend Hickox’s Tudor Portraits with characterful choral and vocal work, excellent instrumentals from the LSO, and fine solo singing from Rigby and Shirley-Quirk. It is all easy to listen to, a bit quirky in the lyrics department, ala Britten, but captured in big, detailed Chandos sound. Highly Recommended!

**This is an update of my original review of VW's Five Tudor Portraits under Hickox [[ASIN:B000000B24 found here]].


title: Pensive music from Delius

text:
Frederick Delius’ two large choral/orchestral works, Requiem (sung in English) and A Mass of Life (sung in German), push the boundaries of their historically religious titles. Delius' settings of texts belie their liturgical functions, instead casting Nietzche’s Zarathustra humanist poetry, all of which seems incendiary.

Delius’ 30-minute Requiem is a relatively sombre affair. Set in five sections without break, only the finale lights any fires, and the continuous music certainly feels its length with pensive tempos and easy-going moodiness. The lack of variety is its only detriment though, as the music is lovely in a Delian manner, somewhat post-Romantic in its meandering structure, but almost Impressionistic in its orchestrations and colour.

Hickox’s rendition is good, although the classic recordings under Meredith Davies [[ASIN:B000066CQV on EMI]] and Sir Charles Groves [[ASIN:B000Y8Z2CE live on EMI]], both featuring a rapturous Heather Harper, might be more appealing. The EMI remastering on the Davies certainly gives Chandos a run for its money, but of course the mid-60’s stereo sources will not please all, and the pairings of Delius’ Idyll and Songs of Farewell might not be as glamorous, but are worth the time. Regardless, I am not over-enthusiastic for the Requiem, so Hickox suffices just as well as these classic recordings.

After 30 minutes of moody meandering in the Requiem, A Mass of Life shows its firm footing in the repertoire with an epic scale that rarely ebbs for too long. At over 90 minutes in length, Delius holds my attention for most of its two lengthy parts; only in the last 30 minutes or so does the continuous music without breaks and deliberate tempo settings wear its runtime. Delius’ writing for chorus is interesting though, often setting the choral textures orchestrally, with fast scale runs and non-lexical text settings that ride the line between choral feature and instrumental texture.

Most of Delius’ symphonic choral works feature large roles for soloists and A Mass of Life is no different, with the soloists carrying the most of the texts. The baritone bears the brunt of the solo work, but unfortunately, Coleman-Wright's stony singing is a little heavy in sound compared to his competition, although I think he loosens up as he goes. The others, Evans, Rodgers, and Robison don’t get as much to do, but shine well in their moments and are heard well throughout.

The combined choruses get a good placement against the orchestra, and the number of choristers fill out Delius’ writing for double chorus well. The overall chorus sound is a bit diffuse across the sound, a tad homogenous, but this is a bit of nitpicking for a rarely recorded work.

The Bournemouth musicians are excellent, and the few instrumental solos and brass features really come out of the texture well. The late Sir Richard Hickox leads well, and of course his expertise in the symphonic choral world lends authority and a firm hand to the proceedings. Chandos’ sound captures all of the performers well and the sound is full of detail.

As to competition, A Mass of Life and Requiem have a relative paucity of recordings, but next to Hickox, four others are worth mentioning. Sir Thomas Beecham [[ASIN:B00005B1CN on Sony]] and Norman Del Mar [[ASIN:B000Y8Z2CE live on EMI]] have a bit more thrust to them, but the sound in both is rather scrappy. My preference has usually lain with Sir Charles Groves [[ASIN:B00000DOAN on EMI]], whose 90’s remastering makes his recording quite competitive. Grove’s soloists are easier to recommend as well, with Benjamin Luxon, whose romantically-tinged baritone quality is much more appealing than Chandos’, and with names such as Janet Baker, John Shirley-Quirk, Heather Harper, and Helen Watts, my attention lies with Groves. More recently, [[ASIN:B007P1837E Naxos]] released a recording of the Mass with the same orchestra as Hickox, plus the Bach Choir under David Hill. Baritone Alan Opie gives a bit more competition to the EMI Groves, but the pairing of Delius’ Prelude and Idyll is lacking in general appeal.

Hickox’s survey of Delius’ A Mass of Life and Requiem are easy to recommend despite my slight reservation over Peter Coleman-Wright and my take-it-or-leave-it greeting of his agnostic Requiem. If you can find it, I prefer the more daring cover of the baby over the bland leaves, but that is neither here nor there. In the end, I prefer EMI’s outing with Sir Charles Groves and his lineup of soloists in fine remastered sound, but there is nothing wrong with this Chandos release either, one that is in good sound and led with authority. Recommended.

** This review is an update from my original 2006 review of Chandos’ Mass of Life under Hickox [[ASIN:B000000B0M found here]].


title: Existing on the Fringe

text:
Percy Grainger was a weird dude. His work for chorus on this Hyperion disc shows this aspect of Grainger’s musical personality to an extent. The first half of this presentation focuses on Grainger’s setting of texts from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’, a mixture of a cappella choral numbers, chorus accompanied by a colourfully wide array of chamber instrumentation including saxophones, low winds, harmonium, and chorus with soloists. The second half focuses on Grainger as a collector of indigenous British Isles folk songs, again with plenty of choral numbers, but also a smattering of solo settings as well.

The opening Shallow Brown, an audacious choral setting (and the longest at 6 minutes) for guitars, mandolins, ukuleles, contrabassoon, saxes and chorus to name a few, sets the mood for an unusual secular choral program. The Jungle Book is the prize of this recording though; it still can’t really be found elsewhere on record except as separate individual movements or spread across Chandos’ exhaustive Grainger collection, but here presented in its entirety. Grainger’s writing for chorus in the Jungle Book choral cycle encompass jazzy harmonies, more complexly interesting than the lightly jazz-tinged choral settings by John Rutter, and sumptuously unexpected bitonality that reminds me of Britten’s jewel, Hymn to St. Cecilia. The text is unusual; Kipling’s poetry is more prose-like than verse, but when all combined, quite interesting, even if the words end up not being very memorable. The occasional chamber instrumentation is always colourful and sometimes bewildering, but it adds bushel baskets-full of dimension opposite the a cappella songs.

The folk-song settings are not as interesting to me, their strophic forms get repetitive, although Grainger’s choral arranging is always engaging, even when the chorus is only ooh-ing or aah-ing. The solo voice songs seem to suffer the most from lack of musical invention and end up sounding like slightly more interesting parlour songs. 'Goodbye to Love' is quite overwrought in this regard, but The Love Song of Har Dyal stands out as something more than a repeating folk song. The solo singers themselves, whether with chorus or on their own, are pretty good. Libby Crabtree is the most pleasantly stylish sounding, and aside from Wilson-Johnson’s vibrato-y end to Early One Morning, is in consistently good voice. John Mark Ainsley is probably the headliner here, and aside from bleating in his highest range, is well sung and articulated.

The centre of this music is most definitely the chorus though, and Polyphony, an English chamber choir, is very characterful throughout this music, with plenty of rhythmic vitality. Polyphony tunes well, sings fully and cohesively (far from the thin, straight toned quality of The Corydon Singers), and manages Grainger’s unexpected harmonies with aplomb. The Polyphony Orchestra are playful and full in their intermittent contributions, and Stephen Layton’s direction never dwells more than this music, music that quite truthfully exists on the fringes, can handle.

Special mention should be made of the extensive liner notes from the physical media that gives quite a bit of background on each track of music, texts for all of the songs, information on the unusual instruments used, in addition to the usual overviews and commentary.  This was obviously a labour of love for all involved and high quality product altogether.

This recording, well caught by Hyperion in 1996 from what I assume is studio conditions, is an easy recommendation for me. It is well sung, the choral numbers are interesting, and even if the small portion of solos aren’t overly captivating, they are also well sung. It has taken me 25 years to get around to reviewing this disc, and it is well worth your time if you enjoy choral music, especially choral music that exists off the beaten path. Recommended.


title: Handley's extroverted reading

text:
I was pleasantly surprised by Sir Arthur Bliss’ symphonic music, pleasingly agreeable in most aspects, and this particular programme of his Colour Symphony and the Suite from his ballet Checkmate is continually active, and often aggressively so, during its runtime. Even the Colour Symphony’s 3rd slow movement is always actively moving and very outgoing rather than the typical serenely lyrical settings, and the 2nd movement scherzo is cinematically boisterous and extroverted. It is only the 4th movement, whose craggy, unappealing opening hints at any undue modernism in the symphony; otherwise the work is always, at its very least, colourfully exciting.

The Suite from Checkmate, which includes most of the first half of the ballet and excises the last half’s 20+ minutes of battle music, is a gloomy affair. Dour and unsmiling, only the Red Knight’s Mazurka hints at any joy, a welcome relief from the rest. The concept is intriguing, chess pieces brought to life, and perhaps the militant strife of the story is apt for this angry music, but it brought me little joy in the end. The melodies are a little more angular here in comparison to Colour, the late-Romantic harmonies and orchestrations of the symphony are not in full bloom in this ballet, and again while the music is always in motion and quite outgoing, the grimness pervades throughout. The finale is a blast, however.

Here the Ulster Orchestra under Vernon Handley only adds to Bliss’ penchant for movement and rugged textures. The early digital Chandos sound here is a tad harsh and edgy, but the edge in Ulster’s sound certainly adds to the constant dramatics and menace. Handley encourages the group to dig in to this music and they don’t back away. That said, Ulster has some occasional tuning issues, LSO they are not, but for pure atmosphere and excitement, they have them in spades.

Vernon Handley’s recording with the Ulster Orchestra has been held in high esteem with the handful of choices available: Sir Charles Groves with 2-discs of Bliss music [[ASIN:B000BTDLR4 on EMI]], Wordsworth [[ASIN:B0000037DZ on Nimbus]], Hickox [[ASIN:B000GW8AU4 on Chandos]], Lloyd-Jones [[ASIN:B000001491 on Naxos]], and of course Bliss himself, but in rough sound [[ASIN:B00CL92WI6 on Dutton Epoch]]. Naxos gives the full Adam Zero ballet paired with Colour, plus the complete Checkmate ballet on a separate release, so those are probably the best bargain and they come in good sound and fine performances. In actuality, I think most of these performances are quite good, with Groves the most expansive and musical plus a lot more music. Hickox performs in big, modern Chandos sound, and Wordsworth performs with the BBC in the early 90’s. It will probably come down to pairings, so check them out individually.

In the end, I really like Handley’s Colour Symphony for its extroversion and commitment from Ulster. Checkmate did little for me in the end, but these performances are excellent with minor ensemble fallacies and early digital sound. This recording was reissued and remastered [[ASIN:B000000ABQ on Chandos Collect]] and [[ASIN:B0002NRRFQ Chandos Classics]], so check it out there for cleaner sound, but the bigger bargain is probably had on Naxos with Lloyd Jones, although both performances are worth the effort to find them. Recommended.


title: Handley's extroverted reading


title: Excellent orchestra, inconsistent vocals

text:
This review is a reassessment of my original review from December of 2005 [[ASIN:B00005Y0NB found here]]. Overall I believe I may have been overly harsh, but in reality, my rating doesn’t really change.

Holst’s large symphonic choral works lay on the approachable side of modern sounding; this music is not great for passive listening, but far from unwelcoming as a listening experience. The 50-minute Choral Symphony bears the same issues that his 45-minute choral/orchestral Cloud Messenger has: sprawling, ambiguously formed movements/sections set over obscure texts that are prose-like and rarely repeat in a poetic manner. Add to this Holst’s use of modal harmonies, frequent quartal and quintal chords, and general lack of melodic material make these long works slightly challenging. Similarly, the crunchy pipe organ opening of the 20-minute Choral Fantasia is more off-putting at first, followed by a too-meandering organ solo that gets the composition off on the wrong foot.

It is not all bad news though, for Holst is never less than atmospherically mysterious in the lyrical portions, and the big moments, aided by the pipe organ, are always thrilling. The scherzo 3rd movement of the Choral Symphony shows cheeky wit rarely seen in Holst’s serious works and his writing for instruments and voices is always interesting as in the cinematically haunting 2nd movement. Holst seems drawn by underlying march settings and choral chanting, both found permeating all of these works.

In my original review, I took issue with the abilities of the Guilford Choral Society, and while I still feel they are a bit breathy and stretched in the men’s sections, unison’s are wonkily tuned at times, and the seams of the ensemble are tested throughout, they do get to the spirit of these works well and perform accordingly. I enjoy soprano Lynne Dawson intermittently here, her quick vibrato is almost too much and at times inconsistent, but her tone is good and she can be stylish without a heavy oratorio tone. She probably should have chosen Holst’s alternate notes for the highest portion, and in the end, she has been bettered by starrier soloists on competing records.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra shows up all of these other performers handily, with excellent tone and authoritative playing throughout. They give, under Hilary Davan Wetton’s direction, rhythmic vitality and symphonic grandeur that without, would have made this recording a lost cause. I haven’t revisited this recording in 15 years, but the playing here sounds quite excellent, and the choral and vocal work is good, if not inconsistent in their abilities.

At the time of its release in 1993, there was little to choose from in these rare Holst works, but now in 2020 there is more choice available: Sir Richard Hickox’s thorough conspectus [[ASIN:B00000IYN5 on Chandos]], Sir Andrew Davis [[ASIN:B00EWT17T8 also on Chandos]], and two classic recordings - Imogen Holst [[ASIN:B000005GSD on EMI]] and Sir Adrian Boult [[ASIN:B002HHH3WC also on EMI]]. If nothing else, these recordings get consistently solid choral singing, Chandos in particular gives fuller sound compared to Hyperion’s rather dry setting in  Henry Wood Hall, and the choice of soloists are markedly superior to Dawson, including Felicity Palmer, Paticia Rozario, Susan Gritton, and Dame Janet Baker.

Coming back to Hyperion’s recording 15 years later, from a time when this music was hardly available on record, this recording gets my lightest of recommendations, as it did previously. This is far from a poor performance, with many sensitive and grand moments, particularly from the RPO. However, this is with full knowledge that there are now better performances of this music available elsewhere.


title: Years later, a middling performance and sound

text:
Stateside, Gustav Holst’s music begins and ends with the Planets, although the US’s tradition of brass bands has had some love with his two Military Suites, most famously un-British with Frederick Fennell and the Cleveland Winds [[ASIN:B000003CSE on Telarc]]. And so it is a delight to be offered this wealth of early or little-known Holst music to hear this side of the pond.

The early Symphony in F, Opus 8, is fresh and youthful, with buoyant fanfares in the outer movements and a turgid elegy that crowns its centre. The Walt Whitman overture, Opus 7, is much in the same mould, although perhaps less memorable. All of these early works are concise and, for the most part, sunny, and while they might not have the soul searching of his later, more famous orchestral outings, they are a joy to listen to.

I have heard the 2nd Military Suite, Opus 28, for wind band countless times, but it has been a pleasure to hear it arranged for choir, and here as ‘A Hampshire Suite’ arranged for orchestra. While the music may not be completely Holst, I actually appreciate this arrangement for its lack of wheezy saxophones, giving more clear body from the clarinets and oboes, although the euphonium solo sounds wrong from the cello section and the snare and timpani are a bit tubby in this recording. The 2nd movement ‘I love my love’ gets the biggest lift from its wind ensemble roots with some sumptuous string playing,  a particularly delicious oboe solo, and the overall tempos are good in an not-in-a-rush English manner.

The Perfect Fool ballet suite, Opus 38, was completely unknown to me and it offers more harmonic and orchestral complexity than the rest. Perhaps the musical representation of Earth, Water, and Fire split into separate tracks aid the visuals of the music. The music is colourfully characterful and I can see it having more lasting appeal than the rest of the program. The late scherzo, H. 192, is the only one that I am not smitten; a 5-minute blustery movement from an unfinished symphony that brings me little joy.

This recording has been released countless times on many labels: Olufsen Records and Classico in 1999, Scandinavian Classics and The International Music Company in the early-2000’s, and another reissue on Alto in the last decade. At its release, this recording was a treasure since the complete early Symphony was getting its premier on record. Now, at the time of this review, much of this music has more of a legacy on record: Boult [[ASIN:B000027QWB on Lyrita]], Atherton [[ASIN:B000027QVY on Lyrita]], Braithwaite [[ASIN:B000M5B6LA on Lyrita]], and Falletta [[ASIN:B007WB5D8Y on Naxos]] with the early symphony. Perfect Fool has many winning accounts starting with Previn, Boughton, and Hickox as its champions.

The release of those records has been most unfortunate for this disc, a performance by the Munich Symphony Orchestra led by Douglas Bostock where one could always imagine a lusher and weightier string sound, fuller and more cohesive brass, and overall, more virtuosic playing and tuning. Bostock is nothing if not a straightforward, rather unimaginative leader, although this recording is one of his better ones. It is not at all bad here though, and while the sound engineering did no favours for this orchestra, the performances are at their least, good.

Unfortunately, those earlier mentioned recordings have easily outdone Bostock and this regional orchestra, in the case of Falletta, by another regional orchestra, and in the case of Lyrita and the others, by outstanding British orchestras. This recording is therefore a lukewarm recommendation knowing there are now better out there, but fully acknowledging this is far from a poor presentation.


title: 3 Albums in 1

text:
This Dutton-Epoch remastered hybrid-SACD collection of three previously released albums, featuring a youthful Michael Tilson Thomas (heretofore referred to as MTT) leading the Cleveland Orchestra, London SO, NY PO, and the Columbia Jazz Band, can be still found separately today and have never really left the catalog: Carmina Burana on [[ASIN:B01M8NYNPW CBS]] Great Performances, Beethoven’s Late Choral Works on [[ASIN:B00000254J CBS]] Masterworks, and the Gershwin on [[ASIN:B0001ENYGC Sony]] Masterworks Expanded Edition. These albums represent MTT’s earliest album releases from 1974-1976, and along with a handful of earlier American modern orchestral performances, thrust him into the public eye.

 Carmina Burana: The granddaddy of Carmina Burana recordings is Eugene Jochum’s characterful performance from 1968 under the purview of Orff himself, although even in its newest [[ASIN:B000001GQP DG]] Originals remastering, lacks a bit sound wise. My most-oft returned recording is that by Slatkin [[ASIN:B000003FH3 on RCA]], and while the regional performers cannot compete with the big leagues, the soloists (McNair and Hagegård) are exquisitely ideal and there is spirit and gusto aplenty.

Here, Tilson-Thomas has a pretty fine line-up of soloists, an all-American team of Blegen, Riegel, and Binder, with Blegen rapturous and Binder all-in with accents, and both are on solid vocal ground; Riegel is not as characterful as Stolze nor as pained as Aler, but acquits nicely. Positively, MTT has the legendary Cleveland Orchestra at his beck and call, and if anything he leads a modern, angular reading of this chestnut, aided by the odd quadraphonic recording techniques of Andrew Kazdin and MTT leading the orchestra literally in the round; this puts the vocals, piano, and the cadre of percussion clear to the front for a unique inner-voice clarity that, while not natural, puts Carmina in a colourful, percussive light.

The chorus sounds plenty full in the big numbers, and the boy’s chorus is aurally present, only ‘Si puer’’s semi-chorus is a bit thin and unbalanced, but the textural differences of the different-sized choruses are aurally apparent. Also, MTT is quite eager with his tempos and tempo changes, where at once he is suddenly off to the races and the next holds on to fermatas for days. There is plenty of excitement here though, and excellent playing from Cleveland, but I don’t think it will displace my favoured recordings overall.

Beethoven Late Choral Works: Here is the treasure of this collection and the main reason I purchased this set. While none of these works are essential Beethoven, these rarely heard choral works and incidental music show a mature Beethoven, but from his neglected vocal catalog. Elegischer Gesang and Opferlied are intimate musical portrayals, Lorna Haywood fine in her soprano outing, while Bundeslied seems a jaunty pub chorus (MTT re-voices for alternating men’s and women’s choruses for variety), all three focusing on wind section accompaniment.

Additionally, Meerstille shows Beethoven’s influence on Brahms, Schumann, and Mendelssohn for a unique Romantic Era choral setting, Meerstille is slightly plodding under MTT during the raindrop sequence and a bit too staccato, but finishes triumphantly. The real find is the rarely recorded incidental music to King Stephen that is full of varying men’s and women’s choruses (one that is quite staccato), instrumentals, and a final exultant choral paean that stirs up stereotypical Beethoven moods. The Victory March may be a little stodgy, but it falls in line with typical British march tempos and the Priest’s march is exquisitely humbling before the glorious ending choruses.

Under MTT, the Ambrosian Singers sing lustily with ne’er a sign of tentativeness and the LSO is in top form, especially considering all of the wind work in the shorter choruses. None of the quirkiness of sound from Carmina Burana is present in the Beethoven, although the chorus is spread across the soundstage, and everything is given a full clear sound. While the literature is far from requisite, if you enjoy choral music and Beethoven, this is a no-brainer.

In comparison, Robert Shaw [[ASIN:B000003CWY on Telarc]] has solid singing in his Meerstille and both Hickox and JE Gardiner use period instruments, and all are swifter than Tilson Thomas. MTT’s King Stephen eschews the 5-15 minutes of German dialog with underscoring, MTT focusing on the music only, so if you want that included, Myung-whun Chung [[ASIN:B0018O8AL8 on DG]] has a dramatic version with his St. Cecilia forces, but is part of a 5-CD set. And Leif Segerstam [[ASIN:B081KRCTBT on Naxos]] is completing a series of Beethoven’s incidental music, but with an orchestral skill-set less than the 70’s London SO and weaker singing than the hearty Ambrosian ones found here.

Gershwin: The New York Philharmonic gives MTT plenty of edge and excitement in An American in Paris, the brass wailing out when needed, and there is certainly an American swing and swagger to the middle section. Again, with this recording setup, the percussion is clear to the fore and the Parisian taxi horns are uniquely spread out in the sound.

The claim to fame of this recording, though, is the use of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue piano roll from 1925 as the piano soloist. And while you can still hear Gershwin playing with the Whiteman Band in shoddy 20’s sound on record, this is as historically-informed as you can get for an American composition generations away from the original. Most striking are Gershwin’s runaway tempos that have been tamed over the years, and hearing Gershwin playing his own music is an eye opener. MTT has made a career playing the jazz band version of Rhapsody in Blue, 13+ minutes here, 15 minutes with Los Angeles, 17 minutes with Ohlsson, and 17 minutes with the Florida kids, so even Tilson Thomas has broadened his interpretation from Gershwin’s over time.

Gershwin’s music is definitively represented by Earl Wild and Arthur Fiedler [[ASIN:B001HAWX70 on RCA]], who grind sparks from this music, and use the later full orchestral version, but MTT’s is a singular HIP presentation that won’t be found duplicated anywhere else. The recorded piano sound itself has an odd, dull sound that lacks brilliance, but that might be due to the limited choice of pianos able to be installed with a piano roll system in it; nothing egregious, but noticeable. Added to it, the Columbia Jazz Ensemble is a machine at these tempos, the expert playing mixed with the jazz idiom is astounding, although the frantic pace of this familiar music might challenge perceptions. The windy sonorities of the jazz band version are interesting, the banjo could use a little more juice from the miking, but overall is a good recording. I can go either way with An American in Paris, but there is enough edge and swagger to hold its own.

The only omission in this compilation are the six Gershwin overtures from that release, otherwise, this 2-disc set covers three albums in their entirety. The Dutton laboratory sound is a bit interventionist, especially in Carmina Burana where the percussion and piano are forward and the orchestral voices are spread unusually. This doesn’t bother me too much as I greatly appreciate RCA’s Living Stereo series, especially Fritz Reiner’s spatial orchestral arrangements, but may irk some who prefer a natural concert hall ambiance. Lastly, the liner notes are good, but there are no texts (can be found online) and no mention of the recording processes.

Personally I cherish this recording for the rare Beethoven choral works portrayed with gutsy singing and playing. The Carmina Burana could be a first choice, but for me sets behind some others that are more characterful. And the Gershwin is, if nothing else, a historical eye-opener with virtuosic whirlwind playing from Columbia. Recommended.