Composers – Page 21 – musicophilesblog – From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms

Nearly (But Not Quite) Perfect – Gardiner’s New Recording of Bach’s B-Minor Mass

Bach’s b-minor mass was the subject of one of my first blog posts nearly six months ago. I just love and admire this monumental work of beauty.

John Eliot Gardiner

I’m also a big fan of Gardiner. Many of his recordings with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique of the classical and romantic symphonies are outstanding (e.g. his Schumann cycle), and his entire Bach cantata cycle with the Monteverdi choir is among my favorite versions.

The 2015 recording of the B-minor Mass (SDG 2015)

So when Gardiner released a new recording of the b-minor mass (his first dates back to 1985 for Deutsche Grammophon, still early days for the historically informed practice movement) I was all ears and have listened to it now for several times.

Obviously, a lot of thought and the experience gained from the entire cantata cycle went into this new recording (there is a great article about it in the November 2015 issue of Gramophone).

Bach: Mass in B-Minor - Gardiner (2015) - SDG

How does it compare to my reference version, Herreweghe’s 2012 recording? Well, it’s really very good, but doesn’t replace it. Let me try to explain why.

With this monumental work, one thing you need to get right is the balance between power and nuance. The old recordings of the 1960s and 70s (e.g. Otto Klemperer’s legendary version, or Karl Richter) are powerful grandiose affairs, and then you have other versions that very much limit the number of singers, resulting in a very light and transparent sound.

Gardiner choses something more on the lighter side (approx 30 singers), and also goes for a very clear and natural orchestral playing.

And here we get to the only minor bit of criticism to the otherwise beautiful and near perfect recording, very occasionally, I’d just like a little bit more power and brilliance, exactly what Herreweghe does.

Basically, the little additional sparkle, which he so often has in his cantata cycles, but here it feels somehow a little bit held back, not going at their full power.

Enough nitpicking, this is an excellent recording, and really worth checking out. But I’m in love with Herreweghe and will stick to his version for the moment.

My rating: 4 stars

You can download it here (Qobuz) or here (Prostudiomasters)

UPDATE Dec 5: Gramophone really likes this album and gives it an Editor’s Choice in the December 2015 issue

Rameau’s Zaïs – Beautiful French Baroque Opera by Christophe Rousset

Jean-Philippe Rameau

As mentioned previously, I’m anything but a French baroque expert. I’m a big fan of Bach, love Händel’s operas and oratorios, but my main encounter with Rameau has so far been two excellent “best of” albums, the 2014 Le Jardin de Monsieur Rameau by the brilliant William Christie, and the equally beautiful 2013 album by the young soprano Sabine Devielhe with Alexis Kossenko, Le Grand Théatre de l’Amour.

Zaïs (Aparté 2015)

So I had a vague idea of what to expect when I purchased the latest release by Christophe Rousset and his ensemble Les Talens Lyriques.

By the way, I’m not the only one who will discover the beauty of this opera. Unlike many of Händel’s operas that have seen major revivals in the last 30 years, the last time this has been recorded was 40 years ago by one of the fathers of the historically informed practice, Gustav Leonhard.

Whether the story is worth following is up for debate. Luckily I speak French so I am able to follow the singing, but whether you’re actually interested in understanding what the genie Zaïs is up to, well your call. Basically, not surprisingly, he’s after a woman (Zélide), disguises himself as a shepard, and eventually is willing to give up his magic powers to be able to marry her. Luckily, his boss, Oromazès, king of the genies, is so impressed by the sacrifice that he’s ok to immortalize them both. Nice, isn’t it? What is interesting to note is that apparently, similar to Mozart’s Zauberflöte, this is a work inspired by freemasonry, the booklet tells me.

Rameau Zais Christophe Rousset Les Talens Lyriques 24 96 2015

Rousset is well known for his recordings of Rameau’s harpsichord works. He does a brilliant job leading his baroque ensemble, there is power and drive (check out the dramatic overture), but also always the right level of nuance if required.

Some great singers as well. Sandrine Piau (love her), Julien Prégardien (son of Christophe), and their colleagues, if unknown to me, all do a great job.

This album has been awarded “Choc de l’Année” (their equivalent of album of the year) by Classica Magazine and 5 stars by Diapason d’or.

I wouldn’t go just as far. On my personal scale, Rameau still comes behind Bach and Händel, but he’s climbed some serious steps on my personal appreciation ladder with this album.

My rating: 4 stars (true 5 star playing, but as said above, I still prefer other baroque composers). But you won’t regret buying it, I guarantee!

You can download it here (Qobuz, hoping they survive their current financial difficulties), or here (Prestoclassical)

Hype vs. Hype – Lang Lang vs. Benjamin Grosvenor

First of all, to my subscribers, you may have been surprised not to see a post yesterday. This indeed has been the first time since I started this blog nearly 6 month ago that I didn’t post anything on my regular schedule of every 2-3 days. I unfortunately had a health issue in the family. I’ll really target to get fully back on schedule with posts appearing at least every 3 days.

Second, to the Jazz fans among my readers, hope you don’t get bored, my blog has been rather focused on classical music for the last posts. I’m working on getting back to Jazz ASAP.

But well, one more on classical music.

This one was triggered by my mother in law, suggesting I should write about Lang Lang’s latest album. When I spoke to her, I mentioned that I hadn’t heard it yet, but wasn’t a big fan of Lang Lang in general. Her answer was, “So why don’t you compare it to something you like better?”.

Well, here we go.

**“Hyped* classical music artists**

Every once in a while there are musicians out there, that, usually helped either by YouTube (e.g. Valeria Lisitsa) or by the label (remember Vanessa Mae?) that are rather well-known even to a non classical audience, and have a certain pop-star following. Sometimes (e.g. Jonas Kaufmann) the hype is correlated with quality, more often than not, I find the correlation between fame and quality in classical music to be not very strong.

Lang Lang is a typical example. He’s probably today’s best known pianists (don’t have any data to back this up unfortunately). And as I said to my mother-in-law above, I have yet to hear a Lang Lang album I really like.

But thanks to my streaming subscription I could simply check the latest album out and make up my own mind.

Lang Lang in Paris Chopin Tchaikovsky Sony 2015

The Chopin Scherzi

A word of introduction on the music: the album consists of the four Chopin Scherzi, and Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons for piano. I’m not very familiar with the latter, so I’m not going to comment on the performance.

However, I just love the Scherzi. There is an entire world in the 6-12 minutes of each one, and they are among my absolute favorite piano pieces by Chopin.

So my expectations were rather high. And I’m sorry to say I was disappointed.

No. 1 was just too nervous, to ADHD (my wife told me to switch albums when we listened to it together).

No. 2 is nicely flowing at the beginning, but getting a bit quirky over time, and again too nervous in the fast parts.

No. 3 is probably the best of the four, a bit too much still, but quite enjoyable nevertheless.

The worst was probably no. 4, just too much forte all over the place, and just too slow for my taste.

Benjamin Grosvenor

Now, as suggested by my wise mother-in-law, let me write about my recommended alternative.

And actually another form of “hype”, albeit at a smaller scale.

Benjamin Grosvenor at the tender age of 24 has won more awards already than others in a lifetime. He was Gramophone’s youngest-ever double award winner, and the rest of the British (and partially international) press went just as crazy about him.

So how’s the hype working out here?

Well actually, I’m a HUGE fan. His Chopin Liszt Ravel album, which features all 4 Scherzi, is just outstanding, and his more recent release Dances was not far behind in terms of quality (I mentioned it my comments about the 2015 Gramophone awards here).

There are obviously other outstanding versions of the Scherzi out there (Argerich for no. 3, Rubinstein, and the best I’ve heard was Kristin Zimerman for no. 2 in a live concert), but the recording here is pretty close to perfect.

Benjamin Grosvenor Chopin Liszt Ravel Decca 2011

My rating: 3 stars (Lang Lang) vs. 5 stars (Grosvenor)

You can find the Lang Lang here (Qobuz) if you really insist, and the Grosvenor here (Qobuz) and here (Prestoclassical).

The official “making of” of the Lang Lang in Paris album here:

Cavalli: L’Amore Innamorato – Christina Pluhar’s new album

Francesco Cavalli

I actually thought I knew my composers reasonably well, even more obscure ones, but Cavalli was new to me. I’m probably not the only one, this is one of the composers that was known only to early music

So I was a bit surprised to see two new recordings on this Venetian composer coming out at pretty much the same time, Mariana Flores Heroines of the Venetian Baroque (which good excellent reviews in the French press by the way), and also from Christina Pluhar’s early music ensemble Arpeggiata.

Cavalli was a singer and Monteverdi protégée who later started writing his own operas. At his time, he was famous enough tube noticed by Louis XIV’s Cardinal Mazarin to play his operas at the wedding of the Sun King. (That’s probably relatively speaking even better than being invited to play at Kimye’s wedding these days. But I digress.)

L’amore innamorato (Erato 2015)

Christina Pluhar’s ensemble L’Arpeggiata has released some great albums, although the recent ones, especially the “jazzy” Purcell, were reviewed rather controversially.

I haven’t yet seen any reviews on this new Cavalli album, but I think this will be less controversial, as was their initial Monteverdi Teatro d’Amore album from 2009.

It is basically a lot of fun. The beautiful voice of the Spanish soprano Nuria Rial (helped by Hana Blažíková) is a big part of the fun, but Pluhar’s early music ensemble really is playing with a lot of dedication here.

The program is a best-of of Cavalli’s operas (apparently he wrote at least 24), and this is probably a good thing, as following a full early baroque opera seria can sometimes be a bit tedious.

No boredom here, this is thoroughly enjoyable. I suggest you check it out! I’ve added a Youtube sample below.

My rating: 4 stars

You can download it here (Qobuz) or here (HDtracks).

UPDATE November 22: Alexandra Coghlan reviewed this album on Sinfinimusic and gave it 5 stars.

Pappano’s Aida – We’re Really Lucky This Kind of Album Still Gets Produced

Me and opera – again

I’ve already mentioned previously that I’m far less knowledgeable about opera than about instrumental classical music. I clearly come from an instrumental background, and must admit I judge even opera performances first and foremost by the orchestral performance.

I know true opera experts will be able to discuss singer X vs Y. To me, these things matter, but much less. So take my opera recommendations with a big grain of salt.

Furthermore, Verdi is not my daily fare. I listen to a Mozart opera about once per month, Verdi is only on the playlist every quarter or so.

Okay, so the disclaimers are out of the way.

Pappano’s Aida (Warner Classics 2015)

Well, luckily on this album you don’t just need to trust me. I have yet to see a negative review of this outstanding album. The debate is just out whether this is a four or five-star album.

New opera recordings these days are very rare. The productions are simply to expensive for a declining classical music market. So we can count ourselves very lucky if we get new albums at all.

And here we’re even more lucky, because this really hits all the right buttons. Beautiful singing from outstanding artists is matched by the great playing of Pappano with the Santa Cecilia.

Kaufmann is in a way the most hyped tenor of our days. Luckily for us, this hype really is justified, he has an amazing voice. I fully buy his Radomes. Anja Harteros as Aida is maybe a tiny bit lighter, but to be fair my reference so far is the legendary Karajan version with Tebaldi, so I’m being a bit picky here.

The recording quality is very spacious and resolving, and gives an excellent image of the Sala Santa Cecilia.

If only we’d get more of this kind of opera recordings, so we wouldn’t always have to go back to the 1950s and 60s for our operas. Sure, these legendary recordings will stay, but it is nice to be able to experience something with the sound quality of a 2015 high-res download.

My rating: Five stars

You can download it here (Qobuz) or here (HDtracks)

My Must-have Mozart Albums

This post was directly triggered by a question I got to my last post on Mozart’s Violin Sonatas:

To quote jpas1954:

If someone, like me, wanted to listen to Mozart but didn’t know where to start, what would you recommend?

I figured instead of hiding it in the blog comments, I may as well make a post out of it.

So here we go.

The first 3 I already immediately answered from the top of my head, now a post with some additional recommendations,based on some more thinking about it.

The Clarinet Concerto

Take the second movement of the clarinet concerto, and you’re in heaven. The brillian Clarinetist Martin Fröst has recorded this twice, I prefer his second recording with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. On top of the clarient concerto, you also get the beautiful Kegelstatt Trio, and a less well known Allegro, with brilliant guests such as Leif-Ove Ansdnes or Janine Jansen.

The Late Symphonies

For a newbie, I’d focus on the late symphonies 38-41, with the famous no. 40 a-minor and no. 41 “Jupiter”. My favorite version is by Charles Mackerras. He also has recorded the symphonies twice, once in Prague, once with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. I prefer the latter, but the former is a good one if you want to get all 41 symphonies rather cheaply (and still very well played).

Piano Concerto no. 20 & 25

So many good recordings out there. But as I just admire Martha Argerich very much, I had to put this one out there. Is it the best? Probably not, but it is very special, and one of the last recordings of Maestro Abbado.

Good alternatives on fortepiano include Bezuidenhout and Brautigam, and on modern piano the Perahia recordings are also outstanding.

The Violin Concertos

Again Abbado with his own Orchestra Mozart, and this time the brilliant Giuliano Carmignola (see my review of his outstanding Four Seasons here), have recorded one of the best versions of the violin concertos and Sinfonia Concertante out there.

Another very good version is Richard Tognetti with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Solo Piano Works

Kristian Bezuidenhout is one of the best Mozart players of these days. His latest release of the complete piano works, vol. 7, is particularly well-played.

For modern piano, try Uchida or Brendel.

The Requiem

Sadly, never finished, so you only get versions that were completed by others, like Mozart’s pupil Süssmayr.

Again, so many great versions out there; this recent release by the Dunedin Consort is excellent both on the playing and on the recording quality.

Alternatives include Gardiner, Harnoncourt, and many others.

The Violin Sonatas

See my previous post on Rachel Podger.

And finally, the Operas: Idomeneo

i’ll certainly write more about my favorite operas Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Cosi Fan Tutte (see my review of Nézet-Séguins version here) in the future, all are absolute must-haves. Let me promote here the Opera that was Mozart’s own favorite apparently (at least some booklet told me at some point): Idomeneo

René Jacobs Mozart is always worth discovering, not always very orthodox, but certainly exciting.

This one is really very good, and is among the top Idomeneos out there.

This is certainly only an early starting point.

I still need to write about the string quartets, the Great Mass in c-minor, the piano quartets, the horn concertos, etc. etc. etc.

But you need to start somewhere, and for a newbie, you probably have an excellent starting point here.

Please add and suggest other alternatives in the comments!

You can find the recordings here:

Clarinet Concerto: here

Symphonies: here

Piano concerto: here

Violin Concertos: here

Solo piano: here

Mozart Requiem: here

Idomeneo: here

Rachel Podger’s Magnificent Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

When I was young and just started listening to classical music, I had a slight disdain for Mozart. “Too easy”, for kids, or similar stereotypes.

How wrong I was. Sure, pretty much every single Mozart piece has something immediately pleasing to it, something that even a non-classical music listener usually easily grasps, and mostly likes.

What I completely missed how hard it is to make something sound easy AND interesting at the same time. The more I discovered the music of Mozart’s now mostly forgotten contemporaries (Stamitz, Salieri, Michael Haydn, etc.) , the more you discover what is really missing there and what makes Mozart’s music so unique.

Mozart’s violin sonatas

When you think about chamber music, and the very simple but elegant form of violin sonatas, usually people think of Beethoven first, with his famous Kreutzer sonata, or sometimes Brahms (see my review of Brahms sonatas with Isabelle Faust here).

Mozart isn’t the first composer that springs to mind when talking about this genre. Probably this is partially due that quite a number of them were written when he was really young. Luckily, he stuck to this form throughout his life, and ended up writing 36 of them.

Rachel Podger

I’m a big fan of Rachel Podger. She is usually focusing on Baroque music and has recorded some outstanding albums here (more about this later on this blog).

However, she also ventures into Viennese classical music. And how well she does. She has recorded the complete Mozart sonatas in a total of 8 volumes. She plays here with Gary Cooper, who plays a beautiful fortepiano.

Let me arbitrarily talk about vol. 2 here, but honestly, all 8 volumes are worth getting.

On each volume Podger mixes more mature works with some of Mozart’s very early works (e.g. KV7 here). And while it is clearly evident that this is not mature Mozart (the boy was approximately 8 years old when he wrote this, and probably helped by his father), even this one is worth discovering.

But you also get the outstanding KV481 on this album which dates from the same time of his great Da Ponte operas (Don Giovanni, Figaro etc.).

As an additional bonus, Channel Classics is a label that care a lot about recording quality, and this is one more example of it.

My rating: 4 stars (5 stars+ playing, but the inclusion of the early sonatas gives 1 star off, making it just not AS essential as some other works).

You can get it in it’s native recording format of DSD here (Native DSD), note that not all players do support this format. Otherwise you can also purchase the full 8 CD box here much cheaper if you prefer physical media (Prestoclassical). At this point in time, there’s even a special offer ongoing.

John Eliot Gardiner

The 2015 recording of the B-minor Mass (SDG 2015)

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Jean-Philippe Rameau

Zaïs (Aparté 2015)

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“Hyped* classical music artists

The Chopin Scherzi

Benjamin Grosvenor

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Francesco Cavalli

L’amore innamorato (Erato 2015)

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Pappano’s Aida (Warner Classics 2015)

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The Late Symphonies

Piano Concerto no. 20 & 25

The Violin Concertos

Solo Piano Works

The Requiem

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart’s violin sonatas

Rachel Podger

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**“Hyped* classical music artists**