Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts STRAVINSKY

                                    ESA-PEKKA SALONEN CONDUCTS STRAVINSKY

Christian Tetzlaff / Daniel Harding / Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra JÖRG WIDMANN Violin Concerto - Insel der Sirenen - Antiphon

For this 2013 release from Ondine, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, conductor Daniel Harding, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra present three exciting works by Jörg Widmann, a German composer who possesses an impressive talent for orchestration. The Violin Concerto is the most imposing piece on the program, at nearly a half hour in duration and of an exceptionally wide range of techniques and sonorities, and it serves as a powerfully expressive vehicle for Tetzlaff. Long lines predominate, and the tonal inflections of the chromatic writing make it quite accessible to listeners who don't normally listen to contemporary works. Antiphon is a vivid display of the orchestra's sections in call and response, and the interplay of these groups is transparent to the attentive listener and fascinating on repeated listening. The closing work, Insel der Sirenen (Island of the Sirens), was inspired by Homer's Odyssey, and Tetzlaff's violin is pitted against 19 strings, often grouped in cluster formations, in an extraordinary competition of sounds. Because Widmann's music is uncompromising and decidedly adventurous, audiences may find it a bit challenging, though the coherence of his compositions and the freshness of his orchestral colors go a long way toward making this music appealing. (Blair Sanderson)

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Daniel Harding GUSTAV MAHLER Symphonie Nr. 5

For the second installment in his Mahler cycle for harmonia mundi, Daniel Harding revisits a symphony which clearly represents a turning point in the composer's output. The years following Mahler's early period (marked by Des Knaben Wunderhorn) saw the production of works of ever greater complexity and sardonicism, which show no trace of naïveté. Within a framework of utmost intricacy, the themes, musical gestures, and building blocks (for instance, the interval of a minor third which opens the Fifth Symphony's famous Adagietto) trace a journey from darkness to light which culminates in the striking modernity of the finale.

ARVO PÄRT Orient Occident

This programme represents a retreat from the remote cloister where for so long Arvo Pärt invited us to join him‚ a definite shift from the aerated tintinabuli. The purity remains‚ so do the spare textures and‚ to a limited extent‚ earlier stylistic traits. Pärt’s voice is always recognisable. And yet who‚ years ago‚ could have anticipated the tempered tumult that erupts in the third movement of Como cierva sedienta‚ a half­hour choral drama commissioned by the Festival de Mœsica de Canarias and premièred in Tenerife in 1999.
I remember hearing an imperfect taped copy of that first performance‚ which both fascinated and perplexed me‚ but this new recording subscribes to ECM’s well­tried aesthetic where clarity‚ fine­tipped detail and carefully gauged perspectives are familiar priorities. The texts come from the 42nd and 43rd Psalms‚ opening with ‘As the hart panteth…’ (Psalm 42). Even in the first few seconds‚ after chorus and bell have registered‚ vivid instrumental colour signals a fresh departure. It’s almost as if Pärt is relishing textures previously denied him‚ like a penitent released from fasting. Take the second movement‚ ‘Why art thou cast down‚ my soul?’‚ which opens among lower strings then switches to tactile pizzicati and woodwinds that are almost Tchaikovskian in their post­Classical delicacy. At 2'36" an unexpected upwards harp glissando cues a rhythmically driven affirmation of praise. The descent from flutes‚ down to bass clarinet and finally bassoon that closes the piece is a really imaginative touch. That aforementioned ‘eruption’ occurs at 1'42" into the next movement‚ with its fearsome waterspouts and billowing waves‚ its bass drum‚ brass‚ bell‚ swirling winds and cymbal spray. The long closing section is pensive but conclusive: a dramatic opening‚ drum taps that recall Shostakovich 11‚ expressively varied instrumental commentary‚ quiet string chords later on and a closing episode filled with equivocal tranquillity.
The two shorter works are also significant. Wallfahrtslied (1984‚ ‘Song of Pilgrimage’)‚ a memorial to a friend‚ is presented in the revised version for strings and men’s choir. Again Pärt engages a lyrical muse‚ particularly for the emotionally weighted prelude and postlude whereas the accompaniment to the main text (Psalm 121‚ ‘I lift up mine eyes unto the hills…’)‚ a combination of pizzicato and shuddering bowed phrases‚ suggests a lament tinged with anger.
The seven­minute string piece Orient and Occident is barely two years old‚ and has ‘a monophonic line which runs resolutely through [it]’‚ to quote Pärt’s wife‚ Nora. Snake­like oriental gestures‚ coiled with prominent portamenti (the sort used by Indian orchestras) sound like an Eastern variant of Pärt’s earlier string works. ‘With perfect consistency‚ like links in a chain‚’ writes Nora‚ ‘tiny contrasting musical segments […] converge‚ yet produce a gently flowing stream of music.’ I’ll certainly buy that‚ but the choral pieces are the prime reasons for investing in this exceptional and musically important release. (Gramophone)

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Daniel Harding GUSTAV MAHLER Symphonie Nr. 9

As the last completed symphony that Mahler wrote, the Ninth has often been heard by audiences as the composer’s swan song: a nostalgic, moving farewell from a composer conscious of his own mortality. This interpretation is of course easily justifiable, as etched into the musical fabric of the symphony are references to the tragedies that befell the composer in the years before his death. Furthermore, it is wholly plausible that for a man as melodramatic as Mahler, the idea of a symphony that centres around themes of loss and finality would surely have been an appealing prospect.

Nonetheless, although the symphony certainly has its fair share of poignant and contemplative moments, it is much more than just a musical epitaph. Indeed, one should bear in mind that when the Ninth was written, Mahler was already preparing for various conducting commitments in the USA, and began work on the Tenth soon after the Ninth was completed. This was not a composer on the cusp of death.

Composed over two summers at the composer’s Alpine retreat in Toblach (now Dobbiaco) between 1908 and 1909, the Ninth was written in the wake of several life-changing events for Mahler. In 1907, his eldest daughter Maria Anna died from scarlet fever at only 4 years old, and soon after Mahler was diagnosed with the heart condition which would ultimately kill him come 1911. Furthermore, in the same year Mahler resigned from his position as the director of the Vienna Court Opera, a role he had cherished during his tenure despite mounting criticism. For a composer who so consistently composed the world around him into his symphonies, it is no surprise that references to these events found their way into the Ninth, and arguably imbue the drama of the first and last movements in particular with an additional degree of poignancy. The symphony opens tentatively, with a stuttering rhythmic motif which might easily be heard as a depiction of the composer’s failing heart, and, four movements later, closes with a ‘dying away’ (ersterbend) chord of Db major which teeters on the edge between sound and silence, love and loss, life and death. The poetic narrative between these two events encompasses many of the tropes of Mahler’s late style, as well as an array of subtle references to his life and world in these troubled years. (Harmonia Mundi)

Matthias Goerne / Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Daniel Harding THE WAGNER PROJECT

When does an album become a project? Perhaps when it is spread over two CDs, as Matthias Goerne and Daniel Harding’s collaboration is, or when it is devoted to a sole composer, in this case Wagner, whose work you cannot really dip into track by track but have to fall into head first.

Collections of Wagnerian extracts used to be called ‘bleeding chunks’ and it isn’t just Goerne’s wounded Amfortas from Parsifal who is dripping here. There isn’t a wholly satisfactory way to explore the characters of Wotan, Sachs, Amfortas et al with corresponding orchestral interludes – just as you’re building up the existential agony, it’s time for another opera – but this selection is particularly disjointed and the labels given to the album’s two parts, ‘Of Gods and Men’ and ‘Redemption’, are so vague as to be more or less irrelevant.

And the jump-cuts really chafe. The Tristan Prelude and Liebestod are the strange sandwich wrapping to King Mark’s monologue. The Valhalla monologue from Rheingold ends before Wotan can actually join his family on the Rainbow Bridge, and there’s no coda to Wolfram’s Evening Star from Tannhäuser, just a cliff-edge. As for sending us out on a high, Goerne’s final contribution is Amfortas’s Act 3 lament over the corpse of his father Titurel. Redemption is left to the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra for the Good Friday Music which marks Project Wagner’s finale.

Still, Goerne does misery masterfully. The brief taster from Parsifal makes one long for a complete Amfortas, so completely does Goerne soak up the character’s misery. His Dutchman, too, queasy with self-loathing, is a frightening portrait of a broken mind. Mark’s monologue, though it lies low for an essentially baritonal voice, is lacking in kingly fury but high on wounded melancholy, with Goerne’s partner in woe the SRSO’s bass clarinettist, lowing alongside.

The flip side to Goerne’s magisterial introspection is that sometimes the characters deserve bigger personalities. His lyrical phrasing and Lieder-like unspooling of Hans Sachs’s ‘Was duftet doch der Flieder’ from Die Meistersinger is impeccable but missing is Sachs’s geniality and warmth. As Goerne’s Wotan kisses Brünnhilde to sleep, the moment is so intimate that (depending on your speakers) you might even feel a peck on the cheek. Yet this isn’t a god to terrify or awe you.

Once heard, however, Goerne’s Wagner is hard to shift from your mind: he has something new to bring to this repertory and his next steps with it onstage should be fascinating if he can find the right partners. Here, Harding offers him space and breadth and draws clean, bright textures from his players. In orchestral passages recorded by all the greats, that isn’t always enough: the strings lack some depth and colour, and tempos, particularly in the extracts from Parsifal, tend to the slack. Orchestra and conductor are at their most imaginative in a shimmering, almost playful Liebestod. (Neil Fisher / Gramophone)

Isabelle van Keulen / Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Thomas Dausgaard ALLAN PETTERSSON Violin Concerto No. 2

Andreas K. W. Meyer’s notes provide a timeline for the life of Allan Petterson (1911–1980), “orchestra violinist, composer, oddball.” In any event, he cast his Second Violin Concerto in one, almost hour-long, movement (the recording has been divided into 10 tracks for those who might want to study specific sections). Its elfin opening, with swirling tonal parts in the upper registers surrounding a tempo at figure 41 in the score (the designation of the fourth track) and even more strikingly through most of the a tempo of the seventh and at the beginning of the cantando, tempo IV of the eighth and ninth tracks—and, throughout, woodwind sonorities highlight many passages. Meyer relates that Ida Haendel, the dedicatee, gave the work its premiere on January 25, 1980 (it had been composed between 1977 and 1979).  

It might not strike most listeners that Pettersson based the Concerto on a poem, God Goes over the Meadows , and his own musical setting of it. The text continues (in Susan Marie Praeder’s translation), “but only between thistles,” and this line may offer some insight into the work’s thickets of thorns and brambles. Meyer points out that his song’s folk-like style provided the “material point of departure.” So the intermittent tonality and passages of simpler, less entangled, lyricism may hearken to this fons et origo . Whatever lies at the center of this massive Concerto, however, its accessibility to audiences may depend less upon it than upon the composer’s ear for striking sonorities, for dramatic contrasts, and for soaring, effective writing for the solo instrument. Since Pettersson wrote his First Violin Concerto, according to the notes, in 1949, for Violin and String Quartet, this one represents a quantum leap into complex sonorities while remaining within the genre of the Violin Concerto. Adventurous listeners should find the work, the performance by both soloist and orchestra, and the wide-ranging and stark recorded sound especially rewarding. Strongly recommended to them. (Robert Maxham)

Paul Lewis / Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Daniel Harding JOHANNES BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1 - Ballades Op. 10

Brahms planned his First Piano Concerto as a sonata for two pianos, but the music’s stormy grandeur soon needed bigger forces. He dreamed of composing a symphony, but the Beethoven’s shadow loomed too large, so the concerto plays out a massive wrangle: an intense, self-questioning young artist meets the corpulent orchestral sound of Brahms’s future symphonies. Some pianists go one way or the other in interpretation; Paul Lewis masterfully spans both. His account has clarity, muscle and steely pride, but also intimacy, vulnerability and volatility: the combination is magnetic. Conductor Daniel Harding goes for full-out symphonic bulk from the start and his Swedish orchestra sounds hearty and brooding – fuzzier-edged than Lewis’s metallic attack, but generally the partnership works. As a bonus, Lewis plays Brahms’s four Ballades Op 10; quiet, urgent and full of singing lines. (Kate Molleson / The Guardian)

Hilary Hahn / Esa-Pekka Salonen / Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra SCHOENBERG - SIBELIUS Violin Concertos

Some years ago RCA's ace producer Jack Pfeiffer told me how, every now and again, Jascha Heifetz would open the score of Schoenberg's Concerto only to close it again with a perplexed shrug. Years earlier Schoenberg had personally sent Heifetz the score and the reaction was much the same. Heifetz just didn't get it, but he did at least try. What I wonder would he have made of this magnificent recording by Hilary Hahn? When the last chord sounds its full stop, the sense of satisfied finality is exhilarating. Hahn has the full of measure of the piece, its gawky lyricism, ethereal filigree and cripplingly difficult cadenzas (awkward chords galore), all rendered seemingly effortless. Wisps of old-world Vienna echo from the Andante, whereas in a performance of this calibre the finale's complex acrobatics suddenly have musical meaning. Of course having a first-rate orchestra and conductor helps: Esa-Pekka Salonen's direction is in the very best sense of the term “slick”, a perfect example of musical badinage, alert, crystal-clear and superbly recorded. Which makes the CD mandatory listening both for lovers of the work who crave an appreciative performance and for doubters who still await conversion.

The Sibelius performance is fascinating but less wholly convincing although as with the Schoenberg Hahn weaves a seductive, evenly deployed tone and her technique is impeccable. But while in the Schoenberg you sense a palpable level of emotional engagement Hahn's approach to Sibelius is cool, sphinx-like one might say, the first movement's many solo passages broadly drawn but somehow remote. No violinist currently performing makes a lovelier sound and although time and again I would note some illuminating phrase (not to mention Salonen's immaculately groomed accompaniment) the sum effect is of a strangely cold beauty. But the Schoenberg performance is, as I say, magnificent. (Rob Cowan / Gramophone)

Dorothea Röschmann / Daniel Harding / Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra MOZART Arias

20 years after her critically acclaimed début at the Salzburg Festival as Susanna In Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro, Dorothea Röschmann releases her first solo Mozart album, including famous arias from Don Giovanni and Le Nozze Di Figaro. Dorothea Röschmann is in the prime of her voice and referred to "as one of the leading Mozart sopranos today“ (Der Tagesspiegel). The CD track list not only reflects her at her glorious best, but is also a dream come true for Dorothea: “Mozart is the reason I wanted to do opera,” she says. “To be able to embody Mozart figures on stage, that was my dream. His characters are real human beings, with sadness and joy and wit. It’s the whole picture that you get. It sounds strange, but signing Mozart really is a dream come true.” (Dorothea Röschmann in interview with the Guardian). The album is recorded with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by their music director Daniel Harding. (Presto Classical)

Maria João Pires / Daniel Harding / Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra BEETHOVEN Piano Concertos 3 & 4

The role of interpreter is a delicate one: he, or she, is faced with the score as the sole point of contact with the composer. It is the interpreter’s job to bring a work to life, across distancesin time and space, by making a connection between a personality – often an exceptional one – and ordinary mortals. To achieve this he has to put mind and body at the service of a considerable task: the transmission of art. In music, the word ‘interpretation’ is prone to a number of misconceptions, frequently with unfortunate consequences. Thus we often see two positions set against each other: either the performer must ‘project himself’ in order to give life to the score (to ‘show personality’), at the risk of betraying the spirit of the work; or, on the contrary, he must show the score the utmost respect, so trying to suppress his own personality to give a reading of the work which may well be perfect – but lifeless.

Logically speaking, one might think that the correct approach would be halfway between these two extremes, but such logic would be crude compared to the subtlety of the question. Indeed, these two approaches both fall prey to the same fallacy, through the disproportionate importance they attach to personality. Whether through excess or shortage of personality, this concept gets in the way of music’s essential power to bring out a primal simplicity, so often forgotten, which is present deep inside each one of us, waiting to respond when summoned. Music’s capacity to suggest a stretch of time and yet still exist in the moment amounts to the capacity to reshape every aspect of our sensibility anew. So the act of ‘interpreting’ ceases to be one of simple personal will, to become that civilized conversation where composer and performer lend each other their ears, so to speak, across centuries and borders, with the aim of achieving an eminently simple miracle: for the work to open up, yielding to the source of all music. (Maria João Pires)

Isabelle Faust /Daniel Harding / Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra BÉLA BARTÓK Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2

Bartók’s music seems to be less popular than it was a few decades ago; at least it has been a while since major new recordings of these iconic works have seen a new release. That wait has been worth it. Bartók’s First violin concerto never will enjoy the popularity of the second, not just because it sat unperformed until after his death, but because its thematic material suffers from what might charitably be called “chromatic drift”. In other words, it can sound pretty ugly, at least until you get to know it well. Happily, Isabelle Faust really knows her Bartók, as her very sympathetic and intelligent booklet notes demonstrate. She plays the dreamy opening movement with a pure tone and sure sense of direction, while the second movement exudes just the right kind of purposeful energy, even in the music’s most gnarly passages. The epic Second concerto is even better. This is surely one of the great recordings of the piece. The long first movement flies by without a single dead spot, despite (or because of) huge contrasts in tempo between sections. Bartók’s suggested timing for this movement—12 minutes—never has been followed slavishly, and Faust’s 15 minutes exactly match the reference recording of Zehetmair/Fischer, as do the remaining movements for that matter. Perhaps the most telling evidence of Faust’s mastery occurs around measure 304, the passage in quarter-tones that leads into the big cadenza. Her purity of intonation makes sense of a moment that often sounds queasily out of tune, while the cadenza itself emerges naturally from what has come before, and leads inevitably to the orchestra’s return. The central slow movement is again impressively cogent, its scherzando section deftly integrated, and the finale is really exciting. Faust and conductor Daniel Harding opt for the work’s original (and superior) ending, without the solo violin in the final bars, giving Harding and the excellent Swedish Radio Symphony a moment to shine. Apropos Harding, I have to say that this strikes me as some of his best work on disc: precise, attentive to matters of color and texture, considerate of his soloist but also nicely detailed. He’s very much an equal partner in these proceedings, and just as fine a one. Harmonia Mundi provides ideally balanced sonics that flatter Faust’s sweet tone without sticking a microphone inside the instrument. This is a wonderful recording in every respect. (David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com)

Hélène Grimaud / Esa-Pekka Salonen CREDO

Beethoven: Choral Fantasy op. 80
The piano's crashing opening chords herald what seems for the first three minutes like a solo work. Then comes a tentative dialogue with the lower strings, after which - equally tentatively - the woodwind enter. Human voices arrive almost as an afterthought. This was a fantasy indeed, written at such speed that the musicians got their parts with the ink wet. As the piano reworks the simple musical ideas on which the whole edifice is based, we get a strong whiff of what Beethoven's celebrated improvisations must have been like. In 1808 he'd earned little, and his friends encouraged him to put on a four-hour concert of his own works in order to refill his coffers. But this late addition was no mere space-filler: bringing order out of chaos, moving from darkness to light, and prefiguring the final theme of his Ninth Symphony, it reflects Beethoven's genius at full tilt. 

Beethoven: Sonata in D minor, op. 31 no. 2 "The Tempest"
Beethoven himself didn't give this work its name - according to his early biographer Schindler, the composer declared that the work could be understood by reading Shakespeare's play - but from the moment the first theme breaks free from the cavernous opening chord, it certainly is tempestuous. That chord seems to pose a question, to which - after a long journey through darkly dramatic landscapes - the last notes come like an answer. This sonata was one of three composed in the village of Heiligenstadt in 1802, at a time when Beethoven was growing deaf, and in near-suicidal despair. Here he was at his most heroic: on the one hand, his "Heiligenstadt Testament" confided his woes to posterity (while concealing them from his contemporaries); on the other, he was creating masterpieces of coiled energy like this. 

John Corigliano: Fantasia on an Ostinato
As one of the American composers finding a way forward without abjuring tonality, Corigliano is blazing a fascinating trail. In this work from 1985 his aim has been "to combine the attractive aspects of minimalism with a convincing structure and emotional expression". The foundation is the famous theme of the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, with Corigliano exploiting the repeated rhythmic motive as well as the harmonic pattern. (Michael Church)

Music is about emotional communication. Give it a try, and don't think you have taken the wrong road when perhaps you just have not gone far enough. After all, what is to come does not need to be discovered so much as invented. (Hélène Grimaud)