Skeletal charm

 

Puccini, Strauss & Tchaikovsky: Opera Suites for Nonet, Act II

This is the second disc of Stefan Potzmann's clever arrangements of opera excerpts for a chamber ensemble of strings and winds. Puccini, Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss are the perfect composers for this type of project, since they're all brilliant melodists, and the operas chosen - La Bohème, Elektra and Eugene Onegin - all have enough diverse elements to build dramatic suites of instrumental music. Of course there's much lost when the voices are tossed, but the musical bones that remain have their own skeletal charm. The committed performances of the nine members of Ensemble Minui makes this release a real treat - perhaps even better than the first in the series.

This album isn't yet available on Spotify, so I'll add a link to Ensemble Minui's Act I, released in 2020. Music by Puccini, Richard Strauss and Dvorak.

Greatness in musical partnership

Mravinsky Edition, volume 3: works by Tchaikovsky, Bach, Weber, Wagner, Scriabin, Kalinnikov, Bruckner, Shostakovich

I've come to historic recordings fairly late, but I've had such good luck with recent releases that I'm beginning to search them out. This 6 CD set, the 3rd volume in Profil's Mravinsky Edition, is a superb example of well-documented remastered recordings of special significance. It's easy enough to filter out sonic shortcomings when the performances are so vital. Mravinsky had a lifelong relationship with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, and it's fascinating to hear the development of their musical partnership from 1938 to 1961. The obvious highlights in this package are the Tchaikovsky Symphonies #4 and (especially) #5 and a blistering performance of the Shostakovich 8th Symphony. But I was completely bowled over by Mravinsky's take on Bruckner's 8th Symphony, which I've been listening to a lot lately. In my review of Mariss Jansson's recent recording, I talked about the balance in Bruckner 8 between what Vincent Van Gogh referred to as "Tranquility of Touch" and "Intensity of Thought". It's no surprise that Mravinsky comes down on the intense side. Shostakovich biographer David Fanning describes just this intensity:

The Leningrad Philharmonic play like a wild stallion, only just held in check by the willpower of its master. Every smallest movement is placed with fierce pride; at any moment it may break into such a frenzied gallop that you hardly know whether to feel exhilarated or terrified.

An outstanding production all around.

The Mravinsky Edition covers feature a monochrome detail of his portrait by Lev Russov. Here it is in colour:

A mixed bag: from oddness to greatness

This is the second 6-CD set from Profil of recordings made by Yevgeny Mravinsky with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, largely live recordings from the 1940s and 50s. It's very much a mixed bag, with some oddly shaped and accented Mozart, Berlioz and Bizet, thin sounding in the bargain. A bit better is the Richard Strauss Alpensymphonie, though one cannot put it in the top class. But the high end is high indeed.The standouts are, naturally, music by Russian composers.

The Stravinsky ballets on the third disc, Petrushka and The Firebird, are completely alive, fresh and airy but also cruel and barbaric. Remastering has delivered impressive sound considering the vintage and recording sources, though of course there isn't quite the presence of the best new recordings. The Prokofiev works, the 2nd Romeo & Juliet Suite and the 6th Symphony, sound even better, in performances of style and again some considerable violence. Romeo & Juliet has a paranoid edge; after all, orchestral musicians as well as composers must have worried about official disapproval of "degenerate modernism". The same is true of the 6th Symphony. "Now we are rejoicing in our great victory, but each of us has wounds that cannot be healed," the composer said when he wrote this music in 1947. The pain and loss in this music comes from a sharing of those wounds, with many personal losses I'm sure. This is an affecting document as well as an artistic statement of considerable merit. I've only rarely heard as impressive a Pathetique Symphony as Mravinsky delivers here, taut with menace but finely and delicately balanced, and in the end heartbreakingly sad. This is Tchaikovsky laid bare, stripped of false sentimentality. Mravinsky and his wonderful musicians demonstrate that this is indeed one of the greatest of all 19th century works of art.

Blumental's Tchaikovsky on LP

I find myself very much in a self-conscious state listening to this 1957 recording on a brand-new 180-gram LP from Brana Records. There are a number of different feelings to unravel, all of them positive. There's nostalgia, of course: I loved opening the album and pulling out the disc in its paper sleeve, noting that my LP-handling skills came back instantly. No finger-prints on my records! As I dropped the needle everything snapped into place. I was unprepared for the warmth and immediacy of the sound. After all, this recording is coming up to sixty years old this year. Though I shouldn't have been, I was as surprised by the delicacy of Blumental's playing as I was reassured by her well-remembered control and power. Though I'm not familiar with the Vienna Musikgesellschaft Orchestra, who have only a few recording credits, they play exceptionally well under the direction of Michael Gielen. This is not an ordinary under-rehearsed group of pick-up musicians. There's a pleasing give-and-take to the conversation between piano and orchestra that keeps things interesting. It's nothing like the famous Bernstein-Gould contretemps over a Brahms concerto but neither is it a comfortable group-think where everyone's on the same boring page. I can recommend this particular release very highly, but I endorse the entire move back towards music on vinyl even more so.

Sir Neville Marriner, RIP

I heard this morning that the great conductor Neville Marriner had died at 92, and immediately pictured myself in the middle of James Gibbs's St. Martin in the Fields, his lovely church in Trafalgar Square. We were just there last week, listening to an excellent chamber music concert.

Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

This is the scene of Marriner's greatest accomplishments: building a world-class chamber orchestra in the Academy of SMF, creating a recording juggernaut (more than 500 discs), and expanding its repertoire from baroque and classical to a very broad range of standard orchestral works. This new re-issue by Capriccio (out October 14, 2016) of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony, originally released in 1990, is a good example of the outstanding playing Marriner coaxed from his players. Even the 1812 Overture gets the same full, serious, in-depth performance as the composer's more serious music. This is a very fine recording indeed, and a great tribute to the conductor on this sad morning.

It's no coincidence, I think, that Sir Neville's greatest triumphs came in this church. His best qualities, and those of his orchestra, are 18th century, Enlightenment ones. His music is social, both rational and sentimental (in the best sense), and most importantly, very beautiful.