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| © Dmitri Gutjahr |
BBC Proms Chamber Music 1
The Cardinall's Musick
Andrew Carwood (Director)
Introduced by Petroc Trelawny
Tallis: Videte miraculum
O Lord, give thy Holy Spirit
Hear the voice and prayer
Why fum'th in fight?
Suscipe quaeso
O nata lux de lumine
O sacrum convivium
O salutaris hostia
Cheryl Frances-Hoad: From the Beginning of the World (world premiere)
Tallis: Spem in alium
Cadogan Hall, Monday 20 July 2015
'Andrew Carwood elicits a highly distinctive sound from the singers'.
On From the Beginning of the World:
'I hope this impressive work secures the further performances, and hopefully recording, that it deserves'.
On Spem in alum:
'The tutti sections had immense power, and the crescendo to the final cadence was truly magnificent'.
Read my full review on Bachtrack here.
Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has reached the fourth
volume of his recordings of Chopin’s piano works, and for this latest release
he again uses Nocturnes to vary the programme of the disc’s main genre focus,
in this case the Waltzes. He also doesn’t present the waltzes in
chronological or numerical order, but favours a more logical order in terms of
key relationships, so that the disc makes for a pleasurable programme for the
listener. Of all his genres, the Waltzes
might initially appear to be the least profound – in fact Chopin only thought
eight were worthy of publishing as proper ‘works’ in his lifetime. Included here however are eleven further Waltzes
published posthumously – of these, one (B150,
which opens the disc) is considered spurious, and a further one (B46) is now considered to be probably
by one of Chopin’s students. Lortie’s performances here emphasise the dance
qualities of these short miniatures, of which only a couple top five minutes,
and most are around two minutes long. He has a lightness of touch, even in the
more virtuosic moments, such as in Op.
70 No. 1, never letting the rapid figurations get bogged down in any way.
He uses rubato (a pulling about of the tempo) appropriately but never
indulgently, and the tempi of the faster examples (such as the famous ‘Minute Waltz’, Op. 64 No. 1, and the Grande Valse Brillante, Op. 18) are
perfectly judged. However, the downside
of this focus on the dance means that one or two of the slower Waltzes feel
slightly rushed – the darker A minor Waltz, Op. 34 No. 2, marked ‘lento’, for example, needs a bit more time to
emphasise the mournful, mysterious outer sections. Yet there are moments where the poignancy and
delicacy of Chopin at his most deceptively simple really shine through. The
five Nocturnes on offer here, towards the end of the programme, pick up on the
darker atmosphere, particularly in Op.
32 No. 1, whose simple lyrical opening leads through darker moods to a
strange, dramatic recitative ending. The
disc ends in a brighter mood, however, with the lilting ballad-like Op. 37 No. 2. A most interesting
presentation of the Waltzes, with Lortie once again showing himself to be a
thoughtful and insightful performer.
British conductor Sir Andrew Davis lives in Chicago where he conducts the Lyric Opera, but he
must spend a lot of time in the air, as he also conducts the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the BBC SO and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and it is with the last of these that he has released a
live recording of an all-Strauss
programme. The disc opens with a lively
performance of the swashbuckling tone poem, Don Juan. They performed this when they visited the Proms in London
in 2014. It was well-received then, and
Davis certainly brings out the detail of this imaginatively (and challengingly
for most instruments) scored piece here, letting the music tell the story, making
this a great disc opener. This is
followed by Strauss’ sublime Four Last
Songs, with soprano Erin Wall. Her voice is beautifully rich without being
too heavy or dark, and September is particularly enchanting here. The rest of
the disc is given over to Also Sprach
Zaruthustra, his most ambitious tone poem.
Despite the somewhat episodic writing here, the work has symphonic
proportions, and Davis shows that he fully understands the architecture, giving
perfect sense to the frequent changes of mood.
The orchestra are on fine form, and as in the Don Juan, they rise to the
challenges of Strauss’ writing. The final sequence of alternating wind and
strings quiet chords are perfectly placed – all the more impressive in a live
recording. As the first of a promised
Strauss cycle of recordings, this certainly bodes well.
Chandos have gathered together their recordings of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s (1921-2006) nine Symphonies in a box set re-release. The recordings include the first six
symphonies performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the late Richard Hickox, and the final three from the BBC Philharmonic under Rumon Gamba. Arnold’s music was somewhat
unfairly dismissed by many in his lifetime, with many not able to separate his
more substantial and ‘serious’ output from his more popular works, particularly
his extensive filmscore output. Yet the
symphonies, which span most of his career from 1949 when the Symphony No. 1 was composed, right
through to 1986 when he finished the Symphony
No. 9. The early symphonies show influences of Sibelius and Mahler, yet
very soon Arnold develops his own particular style, and the symphonies become
progressively darker, and more disturbing, somewhat reflecting Arnold’s own
difficult mental health. It is perhaps
not surprising that the Symphony No. 5,
the most disturbing, labelled by one critic as ‘a study in disintegration’, was
apparently Arnold’s favourite. His mental health deteriorated significantly in
the early eighties, and he pretty much stopped composing altogether from 1982
to 1986, and it was only thanks to the help of his companion and carer, Anthony
Day, that he was able to regain his creative inspiration to compose the Symphony No. 9. It is a particularly
desolate creation, and it struggled to receive a first performance, owing
partly to the delay in its completion, but also to its stark, bare
scoring. Yet it is a work of remarkable
if uncomfortable intensity, and in many ways makes perfect sense in the context
of the progression through the symphonies, which makes this box set
particularly powerful. The recordings
are exemplary throughout, with the LSO under Hickox perhaps achieving a tad
more intensity than Gamba and the BBC Phil – it would have been great to hear
Hickox perform the ninth. This is an important digitally remastered collection, and hopefully will
add further to the belated reappraisal of this troubled and misunderstood
composer.
(Edited versions of some of these reviews first appeared in GScene, July 2015)
