How Not To Meet Official Approval

I've said before that most Shostakovich symphonies come with their own built in baggage and that is the case with No 8, played here in a live concert recording by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich. The Soviet authorities were expecting a victorious anthem to mark the turning points of the "great patriotic war" but Shostakovich appeared too affected by the bloody cost of the war to produce it. The 8th is an epic work but one steeped in a deep sense of sorrow. Rostropovich had a unique insight into the times and into the composer and it made his performances special. Official reaction to the symphony was one of suspicion and it was eventually denounced as pessimistic and unhealthily individualistic. It is a great tragic statement about suffering but should now be starting to be divorced from the circumstances of its' composition and simply treated as a piece of music with the power to move and ultimately inspire, speaking for all those whose life has been shattered by war and political oppression. The finale, far from proclaiming a triumph, ends with a gradual quiet fade out, as though drained of energy or feeling. The live recording wisely omits any audience reaction at the end of the piece.

A Foot In Both Camps

The conductor James Conlon is a keen advocate of the work of Zemlinsky and this disk features Symphony No 1 and Symphony No 2, works written in Zemlinsky's student days and often discounted as immature and semi formed. But while it would be unfounded to accord them the status of any master work, they are well crafted and it is interesting to see how they point towards his later work as well as showing the influence on him of Wagner and Bruckner. Conlon here conducts the Gurzenich-Orchester Kolner Philharmoniker. The first symphony is built on accepted classical forms and received the support of Brahms, despite Zemlinsky tending to favour the opposing camp in the musical standoff between Brahms and Wagner disciples. The second symphony is a freere more mature work that could be looked upon as his last early work or as his first mature one. The finale is a passacaglia dedicated to Brahms who had recently died. The continued boost to Zemlinsky's reputation will depend on later works rather than these but together they make a disk of thoroughly serviceable late romantic fare and a change from the monumentalism of Bruckner and Mahler.

Play That Licourice Stick

Music for clarinet on a collection called American Classics by Sharon Kam with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gregor Buhl. The music featured is by Copland, Bernstein, Morton Gould, Artie Shaw and Gershwin. The pieces are all jazz inflected, getting progressively more so as the programme progresses until it closes with a selection of Gershwin standards. The Concerto For Clarinet by Copland opens the disk, with expansive melodies and just a nod towards jazz. That is followed by Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, which is a much more concerted attempt to produce a jazz inspired orchestral workout. Even further along the line towards jazz is Derivations For Clarinet And Band by Morton Gould, which like the Copland was written for Benny Goodman. The LSO, or those sections of it required for these scores, show that they can swing out really well and Kam is clearly revelling in the material, even if her clarinet can get a bit squawky at the top of the range. The real jazz McCoy surfaces with Artie Shaw's Concerto For Clarinet which is a pure big band score that more than holds its' own with the more recognised classicists. Kam closes the recital with fairly straight renditions of four Gershwin songs from the Great American Song Book tradition; Summertime, They All Laughed, The Man I Love and I Got Rhythm. There are doubtless more idiomatic recordings of this repertoire but it works well as a programme.

Climb Every Mountain

This disk features Richard Strauss specialist Christian Thielemann conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker in Eine Alpensinfonie and the Rosenkavalier Suite. The conductor and orchestra are ideally suited to this repertoire but some may find the dish a little too rich and sickly. I have found my reaction to the music of Strauss changing since I first began seriously listening to classical music. Initially, the tone poems ( of which the Alpine Symphony is one rather than a pure symphony ) were very attractive to me and a good way into the sound world of the orchestra. I now find the full blown romanticism and political baggage harder to take and best sampled occasionally in small doses. The Alpine Symphony is definitely a finely crafted work though, heavily programmatic detailing the ascent and return from a hike up an Alpine peak with pastorals, sunrises, storms etc. The suite drawn from the opera Der Rosenkavalier was issued while Strauss was still alive at the instigation of his publishers but was probably compiled by the conductor Artur Rodzinski. It serves well as a concert piece with many of the waltz rhythms familiar from those unrelated namesakes of Strauss.

Better As Concertos Than As A Gate

A disk from the pioneering days of using period instruments in the performance of early music, with the first three of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos played by the English Concert directed from the harpsichord by Trevor Pinnock. The performances wear their twenty plus years well and are still competitive in this repertoire. The concertos were written at a period in Bach's career when he was able to spread his wings a little and write music other than the liturgical or the "learned" and they are some of his most light hearted works but as always with Bach, of the highest quality. They were dedicated to the Margrave Christian ludwig of Brandenburg, hence the title subsequently given to them. The first and second concertos here are written in the concerto grosso style originating in Italy and the third shows the influence of Vivaldi. It would be preferable to have a disk of all six concertos since they form a logical cycle of differently scored explorations of the diverse tonal effects that could be produced by an orchestra of those times. This truncated disk was one of my first classical purchases however and has proved a most satisfactory introduction to all that bach has to offer. Maybe I'll trade it in for a full cycle in due course.

War Symphony

The music of Stravinsky features on this BBC Music mag cover disk by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov. The disk commences with The Song Of The Nightingale which was considered in my very first post on this blog, so I'll move onto the two works that follow, the Symphony In C and the Symphony In Three Movements. The Symphony In C is a turbulent and unsettled work dating from a particularly tragic period in his life when his sister in law, eldest daughter, wife and mother all died in quick succession. Part of the work has the neo-classical feel that Stravinsky was experimenting with but there is also much jagged and jittery music that gives some intimation of the sad times he was living through without being specifically programmatic. The Symphony In Three Movements is the more overtly influenced by real life events with Stravinsky admitting it was effected by his viewing of newsreels from the events of WW2, with goose stepping Nazis, scorched earth tactics and the hoped for final victory of the Allies. It is a rhythmic work that in some ways harks back to his early ballet works but there are also vaguely jazzy sections and more use of the piano than is common in orchestral showpieces. Volkov was enjoying his honeymoon period with the BBCSSO at this point and together they produce fine performances on this disk.

Quartet Reprise

Another BBC Music mag cover disk that I'll just note in passing without much comment since it duplicates repertoire that I have already considered. It is a performance of two Beethoven String Quartets ( op 18/2 and op 131 ) by the Artemis Quartet, at the time BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists. It seems some time since I posted about the complete cycle of Beethoven's quartets by the Takacs, so it was good to refresh with what are solid performances by the Artemis.

Handel's English Rival

The only Englishman who could offer Handel serious competition in the theatre, this is a pleasing disk of Overtures by Thomas Arne, played by Collegium Musicum 90 conducted by Simon Standage. The eight overtures here follow the accepted practice of the time of making the instrumental introductions to vocal works available for concert use but the precise vocal works that they referred to are subject to some conjecture. Six of the overtures are examples of the older French type pioneered by Lully and used by Handel. They have dignified opening movements which are followed by a fugue and conclude with a dance movement that can be an elegant gavotte, a lively hornpipe or a minuet and jig, depending on the theatrical work being prefaced. The other two overtures are more Italian sinfonias as developed by Alessandro Scarlatti, comprising a bustling fast movement, soulful slow movement and a minuet. there are a further two overtures on the disk which also follow the Italian model. They are the overtures to the comic opera Thomas and Sally and the oratorio Alfred ( presumably about "the Great" ? ). Maybe an entire disk of this stuff gets close to outstaying its' welcome but it is a good natured and accomplished recording that provides a civilsed kind of background music while still repaying closer attention.

The Train Whistle Wailed And I Wailed Right Back

The base root of the music of Steve Earle may lie in country music but he has never really been a strictly country performer, having much more in common with people like Dylan and Springsteen as a troubadour storyteller investigating the byways of American rural life. A champion of the underdog and the working man, he went through some very bad times of his own but has emerged successfully at the other side. This generously filled disk called The Collection is of selections mainly culled from his four early studio albums for MCA, the first three of which were groundbreaking and evolving, the fourth of which can be seen in hindsight as an indication of the downward spiral that was to occur at that point. Thirteen tracks are taken from these albums and there are also six live tracks which include a couple of nods towards Springsteen. Not that Earle need yield anything to his more successful New Jersey contemporary in the songwriting stakes. The songs here contain vivid cinematic style stories ( he has written a published book of short story prose ) such as Copperhead Road, The Rain Came Down, Johnny Come Lately and Justice In Ontario, together with tales of attempts to break free from the humdrum and everyday in Someday, Fearless Heart and the anthemic I Ain't Ever Satisfied. He's come a long way from Guitar Town as that song states but Steve Earle now stands as a well respected senior statesman and has similarly found personal contentment too. So not a bad result all in all after such a restless beginning.

Epitome Of Jazz Funk

A real period piece from the decade that taste forgot, Head Hunters by Herbie Hancock is one of the best selling jazz albums of all time ( if you consider it to be a jazz album ) Fusion, or jazz funk, the disk is redolent of massive afros, wide collars, high waisted flares and platform shoes. Of course, Miles Davis had been experimenting with electric keyboards and bass with the band that Hancock was a part of and various offshoots like the Mahavishnu Orchestra were also around but Head Hunters was the most overt attempt at danceable funk and making a direct appeal to contemporary black audiences. It's still a reasonable listen and easy to move around to but I'm not convinced of the lasting value of the album over and above superior dance music. it has had a wide influence but more in the contemporary r 'n' b and hip hop field than in jazz. Built largely around riffs culled from the likes of Sly Stone and James Brown as well as a drastic reworking of Hancock's own Watermelon Man, there isn't a great deal of virtuoso soloing, the aim being more that of producing a tight ensemble sound, again like a soul band. Apart from Hancock himself on a number of electric keyboards and synths, any soloing that there is comes courtesy of Bennie Maupin. Maybe I've been a little too dismissive, as far as the field of jazz funk goes, this is just about the archetypal album.

Persian Kurdish Traditions Fused

This is a very powerful piece of music called In The Mirror Of The Sky by Kayhan Kalhor and Ali Akbar Moradi. The fifty plus minutes length is split into different tracks on the listing but it is really a continuous piece of music that goes through various changes and builds to successive peaks. These two master musicians are from different but related classical traditions, that of Persia and that of Kurdistan. Because of their proximity to each other ( and the political integration of large parts of Kurdistan into modern day Iran ) the music of the two cultures is historically related but each has formed a unique path of development over the centuries. Kayhan Kalhor appears on a couple of other disks that I have and is a virtuoso on the Persian kamancheh ( spike fiddle ) He is expert in the classical tradition while the work of Ali Akbar Moradi on the Kurdish tanbur ( lute ) is slightly more folky, the instrument being long associated with mysticism. This boundary crossing improvisation is on Kurdish modes and drips with soul. Moradi adds vocals at a couple of points during the course of this extended piece, the lyrics setting Kurdish poems of love and nostalgia. Percussion effects are provided by the tombak ( goat drum ) of Pejman Hadadi. Is it a forlorn hope that shared cultures can bring some reconciliation to this troubled region ? The music here is certainly inspirational.

More BobbyZ

Another Side Of Bob Dylan. So, what side is Dylan showing us on this album ? Not so many "protest songs" as the sixties media loved to call them, with only Chimes Of Freedom really falling into that category. There are several jokey tracks such as All I Really Want To Do, I Shall Be Free - No 10 and Motorpsycho Nightmare, plus what appear to be more personal love songs. Although being Dylan, he is suitably cagety about To Ramona and Ballad In Plain D. It's still a very sparse album musically, just Dylan's guitar and harmonica apart from clunky piano ( played by Dylan ? ) on Black Crow Blues. I think that Dylan's voice on the early records and in live performance from this time ( at the Newport Festival for instance ) is a very powerful and moving instrument but there are a couple of occasions here where he wavers. it says something for the standards and expectations of those days that no retakes were done. Apart from Chimes Of Freedom, the other standout and important tracks on this disk are the enigmatic My Back Pages and It Ain't Me Babe, ostensibly a relationship song but perhaps an early indication of his abdication from being the "voice of a generation". Another noteworthy aspect of this release was the inclusion of several poems by Dylan in the sleeve notes which give a further insight into his art of this period.

A Mixture Of Styles

Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero is a protege of Martha Argerich. Not exactly a young rising star ( she was born in 1970 ) she has placed as much emphasis on her family as on her career. Reviews have been mixed and I happened upon a rave review before any others, hence the purchase. This double cd contains a recital of romantic repertoire on one disk and on the other, examples of her improvisations. The "main" cd features works by Rachmaninov, Scriabin, de Falla, Granados, Ginestera, Chopin and Liszt's Mephisto Waltz. I found Montero's playing more convincing in the latin and Chopin items and in the Mephisto Waltz than in the Russian items. That's not to say that her interpretations of Rachmaninov and Scriabin are without merit. The second disk of improvisations may also split opinion. There is always suspicion of artists who cross boundaries and the improv here is manily of a light jazzy nature and takes off from works by Rachmaninov, Bach, Chopin and Granados as well as items "in the style of ", "inspired by" and a couple of Montero originals. Classically trained musicians that I know have been unconvinced but I found the disk an enjoyable and relaxing listen. Whether it is deserving of a wide audience outside of a private after hours jam is more debatable but as a bonus to the main recital, it would be churlish to judge too harshly.

A Jazzy Creation

This disk is of the jazz inflected music of French composer Darius Milhaud. The performers are the snappily named Orchestre National de Lille-RegionNord / Pas-de Calais conducted by Jean-Claude Casadesus. Although not in the first rank of orchestras, their performances here in this repertoire are sound as a rock. Milhaud's listed compositions number into the four hundreds but he is best known for the series of imaginative works written at the end of WW1 and during the 1920s. of the works featured on this disk, Le Bouef Sur le Toit is a work of unusual rhythmic and melodic appeal and Latin American overtones, originally composed as the background music for a silent film. The ballet L'Homme et Son Desir for four wordless singers, solo wind strings and a vast percussion section was seen as the composer's most radical and influential work. The solo singers sound a little strained at times but just about carry the day ( Tomoko Makuuchi soprano, Jian Zhao mezzo, Mathias Vidal tenor and Bernard Deletre bass ) The disk also has the composer's most played work, the jazzy ballet La Creation du Monde, scored for alto saxophone and 17 players and inspired by an American big band. The one work on the disk that eschews any jazz influence is Suite Provencale, a suite from incidental music to a play which makes extensive use of old Provencale melodies from both a court and a folk origin.

Orchestral Workouts

Back to Bartok and that Concerto For Orchestra that coincidentally featured on the new BBC Music mag cover disk for this month. The recording here is by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Georg Solti and it is accompanied on this disk by Dance Suite and the suite from The Miraculous Mandarin. The LSO relish the chance to play these scores. The concerto was written when Bartok was at a very low ebb in New York during WW2 and was commissioned as an attempt by well wishers to give him a boost. It is a fine orchestral showcase but the content indicates Bartok's unsettled state of mind, with intimations of the war and homesickness as well as some bitterness about his situation in the US. There is the curious disparaging referencing of Shostakovich's 7th symphony, which was receiving much war related acclaim at the time, in a movement that juxtaposed it with a sweeping pastoral tune. The Dance Suite was commissioned to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the union of the twin cities of Buda and Pest. It has folk like themes without quoting directly from any known tunes, similar to the practice of Dvorak. The Miraculous Mandarin was a scandalous piece because of the content of the storyline with lowlifes, love for sale and violent murder, not to say racist undertones. Bartok called it more of a pantomime than a ballet and it is more often played as a concert piece than staged as a theatrical work. A thoroughly modern, abrasive work which despite the title doesn't conatin much in the way of orientalism.

The Marketing Power Of TV

An Armenian born in Georgia and working for most of his life under the auspices of the Soviet Union, Aram Khachaturian was not always in an enviable position and his music is often dismissed accordingly. It is not without merit however and is shown to good effect on this disk of extracts from the ballets Spartacus and Gayaneh with the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by the composer himself. The music of both ballets is following in the footsteps of Rimsky-Korsakov with oriental touches and folk oriented themes spiced up with a hint of Hollywood film music styles. Both ballets have famous hit tunes. With Spartacus it is the adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia, which was given a totally changed context from Ancient Rome to 19th century sailing ships by the BBC making it the theme to the successful tv series The Onedin Line. That certainly gave a massive boost to the sales of this album in its' original vinyl format. Gayaneh was Khachaturian's second ballet and the famous hit here is Sabre Dance. The other extracts show similar oriental and folky aspects however and the Vienna band obviously enjoy the orchestral showcases. This reissue cd is completed by a performance of Glazunov's ballet The Season's, played by L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Ernest Ansermet. A plotless ballet, simply portraying the four seasons of the year, it isn't very profound music when divorced from the dance it was meant to accompany but fills out this disk in a pleasant enough fashion. Amongst the dreamy waltzes, Autumn has a familiar "big tune" that it might surprise some to discover in this work.

Great Works, Variable Performances

Another example of the DG series of double cd's Panorama, this one with the formidable task of trying to represent the music of Ludwig van Beethoven. A starry cast of musicians produce mixed results. Disk one features the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Herbert von Karajan in Symphony No 1 and Symphony No 3, Eroica. It is tempting to think of the first symphony as a fledgling work with close links to Haydn and Mozart but while there is truth in those links, Beethoven was already moving away from a pure classical form and that move became a leap with the third symphony. The Eroica has many well known tales associated with it, the abortive dedication to Napoleon, the circumstances of the premiere etc. But the stature of the work as a major move forward from what had gone before can't be doubted. Sadly, it gets something of a lack lustre performance from Karajan who is perhaps perversely much more animated in No 1. I may change the habit of only buying one copy of any particular work in this case and also in the case of the Violin Concerto, a wonderful work given a turgid rendition here by Karajan, the Berlin Phil and soloist Anne Sophie Mutter. Fortunately the disk is bookended by splendid performances, concluding with Sviatoslav Richter and Mstislav Rostropovich playing the Cello Sonata Op 69. This is chamber music playing of a very high quality.

He Did Write Other Things You Know

Not surprisingly, since it is one of the most well known twnetieth century works, this was one of my early classical purchases. John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Women's Voices of the Monteverdi Choir in this performance of The Planets by Holst. This is a straightforward recording of Holst's score with no additions for Pluto, a good thing since that piece of rock has now been deplanetised. Most people will know some of the themes from this music, particularly Mars and Jupiter. It is a remarkable piece if orchestral writing and is one of the few works by English composers of that era that have taken on a life in the concert halls of the wide world. It is more or less the only work by Holst that I have and I would guess that is common. Further investigation would be merited of his other music, as is often the case when one work assumes such a stature, it can be frustrating for the composer who feels he has much more to say. The disk is padded out by The Warriors by Percy Grainger. This is the only music of Grainger's that I have, something else that could be further investigated. A dance number with many Russian influences and unusual use of piano in the orchestral score, it marks a direction that Grainger lacked the discipline to develop and pursue but fits well with the Holst.

They're The New Generation

One of those periodic BBC Music mag cover disks that feature the then current Radio 3 New Generation Artists, this is a fine collection of chamber music by Schumann built around pianist Jonathan Biss in various combinations. The disk begins with solo piano performances of Papillons, twelve dance miniatures. Papillons has a dual meaning in German, that of both a mask and a larva and it is based around a novel by Jean Paul called the Fledgling Years which includes a set piece at a masked ball. Biss is then joined by soprano Emma Bell for four lieder performances. The songs here are selected from a cycle called Myrthen, written for Clara at the time of their long fought for wedding and setting the words of various poets. Martin Frost on clarinet then joins with Biss for a performance of Fantasiestucke Op 73, three short pieces with an important thematic idea from one carried over to the next in a different guise. Perhaps the most substantial piece on the disk is the final Piano Quintet in E flat Op 44, played by Biss with the Jerusalem Quartet. It's a work on a symphonic scale written in 1842 when Schumann was concentrating exclusively on chamber music and it is a work every bit as impressive as his quartets. All the performers here show great promise that is already being realised as their careers develop.

Just A Note In Passing

I don't have much to say about this BBC Music mag cover disk of Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony other than to note it, since I have already posted about the work in relation to the commercial recording of it that I have. Suffice it to say this is a good live performance from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Philharmonia Chorus and TrinityCollege of Music Chamber Choir with featured soloists soprano Joan Rodgers and baritone Simon Keenlyside, conducted by Leonard Slatkin and choir master StephenJackson.

A Musical Bridge

I may be totally wide of the mark but I have the impression that Andrew Manze's term as director of The english Concert wasn't an unqualified success. It was certainly a fairly brief tenure compared to his predecessor Trevor Pinnock. Be that as it may, the disk up for consideration here is an excellent, comprising Symphonies 1 - 4 by C P E Bach plus Cello Concerto in A with soloist Alison McGillivray. CPE provided a musical bridge between the baroque and classical fashions and the symphonies in question here are closer to the classical. It is clear why he was admired by both Mozart and Beethoven. They are dramatic and powerful works and the English Concert give their all in spirited performances. Although the musical content was closing in on the classical, the form that CPE favoured still took the baroque three movement shape as opposed to the four movement convention taken up by Haydn. The cello concerto similarly takes a form that would have been familiar to Vivaldi but the vocabularly of the emotional expression used is moving forward. Alison McGillivray makes the most of her spell in the spotlight.

Music Of The Desert

An early breakthrough disk in the popularising of world and more particularly West African music, Talking Timbuktu by Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder makes even more musical sense lisened to in today's more knowledgeable context. Initially, I listened to this looking out for bluesy influences and the interplay between Ali's acoustic and Ry's slide guitar but listening again with hindsight, it is clear this is predominantly a strictly African disk with what are now familiar sounds and refrains. The spike fiddle and percussion additions are especially atmospheric. The track Ai Du is the closest to blues with the musicians augmented by the western rhythm section of Jim Keltner and John Patitucci and the soulful viola of Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown along with that slide from Mr Cooder. This is most definitely an Ali Farka Toure album however and his own style of music is in no way diminished or diluted by the collaborations. It is also clear that he was very much in the ancient griot tradition of the Mande empire and that any links to the blues are looser and more incidental with the desert blues tag doing nobody any favours. As ever Ry Cooder is a sensitive and apposite partner and adds some very fine playing of his own during a period when his solo career was on hold.

A Lazy Groove

Easy groovin' sixties jazz for hep cats from Herbie Hancock on a compilation called Canteloupe Island. All the six tracks have a kind of funky, latin feel made for dancing with tasteful soloing that won't scare the horses. The title track and Watermelon Man are familiar and well known to advertising and continuity arrangers on tv. The personnel varies through the different tracks but with the rhythm section featuring such as Tony Williams, Billy Higgins and Ron Carter, a solid base is assured. Hancock himself maintains a rhythmic pulse too without cutting loose very often into more intricate solos. His contribution is as band leader / composer. Guitarist Grant Green is on two tracks and the horns are by a string of classy performers; Freddie Hubbard and Donald Byrd on trumpet and Dexter Gordon, Hank Mobley and George Coleman on saxes. Superior feelgood music, it is only on the albums final track Maiden Voyage that there is the beginning of something more substantial and profound and akin to the work of Miles, with whom most of these musicians also played. The groove is altogether more subtle and Hubbard excels in his solo.

Downtown Bamako

Some downhome West African blues from Lobi Traore on an album caled Mali Blue. Probably the funkiest and rawest of Malian bluesmen and the one who most reflects a cross influence back to Africa from the Mississippi, Traore is a bit of a rebel who goes against the more aristocratic and hereditary griot tradition. Having said that, one of the patriarchs of that tradition, the late Ali Farka Toure, is a supporter who produced four of the tracks in this disk. The difficulty that Traore has is illustrated by the fact that the recordings here were made over a period of eight years, the most recent back in 1998 and this album didn't see the light of day until 2004. The more commercial success recently of the final Ali Farka Toure album, of Amadou and Mariam and of Tinariwen make the outlook for Traore a bit more hopeful. His music is drenched in the sound of the bars of Bamako and although there are some acoustic tracks, a lot of the music has wah wah pedal, sustain and distortion in a dirty kind of south side Chicago sound. There is also a lot of impressive blues harmonica, which isn't exactly indigenous to the region. Sadly, the booklet gives no indication of the lyrical content of the songs but any lover of blues should check it out.

Suitably Dickensian

The final strictly seasonal offering is a disk by the City of London Sinfonia and the Joyful Company of Singers with soprano soloist Sarah Fox and baritone Roderick Williams conducted by Richard Hickox. The works are by Vaughan Williams and comprise premiere recordings of the strings and organ arrangement of the Fantasia on Christmas Carols and the masque adopted from Dickens's A Christmas Carol called On Christmas Night. The other work is the Nativity Play The First Nowell. The Fantasia isn't in the same class as those on Tallis and Greensleeves but is nevertheless an enjoyable setting. The Dickens adaptation weaves folk themes amongst further carol tunes ( God Rest Ye and the First Nowell seem favourites throughout these works ) and it is straightforward to follow the narrative through celebratory and melancholic scenes. The Nativity play makes a perfect Christmas Eve divertissement with echoes of what might be termed typical VW touches in some of the more ancient and mysterious themes like the Salutation Carol. As might be expected, there is some particularly fine string writing and the players, chorus and soloists are all excellent. The whole disk has a suitably Dickensian feel and nothing wrong with that at Christmas.

Folk Influenced Concertos

Have recently received the latest edition of BBC Music magazine and the cover disk this month has two Concertos For Orchestra, those by Bartok and Lutoslawski. I have another commercial recording of the Bartok which has its' turn off the shelf fairly soon now, so won't talk too much about the performance here by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Tadaaki Otaka. Both concertos are folk influenced and were written with in a few years of each other in the mid twentieth century. The Bartok concerto was the first and was written in the freedom of the US and so established itself first in the repertoire. That lead over the Lutoslawski ( which was written under the constraints of the Stalinist Polish authorities ) has been maintained but the composer himself conducts a fine performance from the BBC Symphony Orchestra on this live recording from 1986. The first two movements of the concerto act as preludes to the extended finale which has a passacaglia based on a Polish folk theme leading to an exhilarating toccata bringing the work to a conclusion.

Dreams, Schemes And Themes

Seven months into this venture and finally the Bob Dylan section on the shelf begins to roll around. What to write about Mr Zimmerman ? I'm not a fully paid up Dylan obsessive but I admire the guy enormously and think he is one of the major artists of the twentieth century. It is interesting how he has managed to regain a sense of space and normality in his existence in these celebrity obsessed times. By touring virtually non-stop he has removed the mystique and his wonderfully entertaining Theme Time Radio Hour d j work shows him a very human light. In his book Chronicles, he more or less admits to producing deliberately mediocre albums to tone down the hero worship. He also admits that the early iconic songs came from somewhere that he is now unable to tap into but that body of work remains remarkable and unique. The first album up for discussion here is The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I may have gone slightly out of chronological order in tackling this one first, not sure but it doesn't really matter. It seemed appropriate since track one is Blowin' In The Wind which, stripped of its' ubiquitousness remains such a powerful anthem. The influences of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Ramblin' Jack Elliot etc are still apparent on some songs, with Girl From The North Country even indebted to Martin Carthy. But Don't Think Twice, It's Alright points to the start of an ongoing trait of sardonic personal songs, while nobody ever wrote anything like A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall. It's strange to hear throwaway references to JFK, Brigitte Bardot, Anita Ekberg and Sophia Loren which indicate just how long ago now these songs were written but the relevance of Masters Of War is undimmed and I'm sure there are plenty of current candidates to whom the song applies. More thoughts on the musical aspects as I move through the albums that I have.

Christmas 2000

The last of the BBC Music mag cover disks to talk about is the first one that I acquired and my favourite, a fine disk by any standards. It is the one dating from Christmas 2000 ans is titled Christmas Through The Ages, although the subtitle is Christmas at Hyperion since it is a joint venture between the magazine and the record label. Not a carol in site apart from the Coventry Carol and While Shepherds Watched, both of which are given with unfamiliar tunes, the former a setting by Leighton which destroys the mystical feel of the original and the latter in the rollicking Yorkshire pub setting. Otherwise, the featured items range from anonymous medieval settings in England and Spain ( which particularly grab me ) through to Britten, Poulenc and Tavener by way of Praetorius, Bach, Gabrieli, de Lassus, Corelli, Guerrero, Handel and Berlioz ( the last two the predictable but well played For Unto Us A Child Is Born and Shepherd's Farewell ). Among the excellent performers are The Sixteen, The King's Consort, Polyphony, The Parley Of Instruments and the Westminster Cathedral Choir ( much more natural than the mob from the Abbey ). This disk normally gets more than one seasonal outing each year.

Bonnie Barbara

This one is a recital disk by soprano Barbara Bonney and pianist Malcolm Martineau titled My Name Is Barbara and featuring twentieth century art songs by Quilter, Griffes, Copland, Britten, Bernstein and Barber. it wasn't particularly kindly received by critics as I reacll. Some couldn't seem to see beyond Ms Bonney's decolletage on the cover photograph and others suggested her voice is now past its' best. The latter is probably true, there are some ragged moments but the musicality and committment to the material still make the project worthwhile I feel. There is plenty of variety amongst the works sung here, despite their proximity in time. The Quilter songs comprise Seven Elizabethan Lyrics, from Griffes there are Three Poems of Fiona Macleod, while copland is represented by Four Early Songs. Britten's collection is On This Island, which is followed by Bernstein's child's eye pastiche I Hate Music. The disk concludes with Four Songs by Barber. It seemed for a while that this disk might be Ms Bonney's swan song but it is rumoured that she may now be ready to resume performing. I suspect her repertoire will need to undergo some changes but this recital remains an honourable enough effort.

English String Tradition

Still a couple more Christmas related disks to cover but taking a break and going back to the shelf rotation policy, we come to a recording of music by English composer George Dyson. The performers are the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Lloyd-Jones and the main work on the disk is Dyson's Symphony in G major. It dates from 1938 and although superficially a celebratory piece full of pageantry that related to a choral work of his on the Canterbury Tales, it is also clearly a work of troubled times with distant echoes of war. Enigmatic beuty and depictions of icy landscapes alternate with mock courtly dance music and fine orchestral effects. Traces of Sibelius and Rimsky-Korsakov can be discerned as well as contemporaries such as Vaughan Williams. The disk also features an overture, At The Tabard Inn, which prefaced the Canterbury Pilgrims work and a fine Concerto da Chiesa for String Orchestra. This is in the long tradition of English string writing and is maybe the most striking piece on the disk for me. It also coincidentally plays to the seasonal theme by making extensive use, in a very soulful manner, of the theme from the Advent hymn Veni Emmanuel. Dyson is one of that group of early to mid twentieth century English composers who are not major forces but who deserve more consideration than they have been used to getting. A balance may now be on the way to being struck.

Season's Greetings

Time to dig out The Essential Carols Collection I guess. A disk of 25 tracks from DG featuring most of the familiar carols that you would want to hear ( Once In Royal David's City, O Come All Ye Faithful, The First Nowell, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, Hark The Herald etc, won't list them all ) Some given fairly po faced and slow paced renditions with lots of descants. Britten and Tavener also feature together with Bryn Terfel singing Mary's Boy Child and the Boston Pops playing Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer to finish off. Fairly starry choirs featured, mainly the Choir of King's College Cambridge but also the Choir of Westminster Abbey ( the one mainly responsible for the po faced contributions ), the Monteverdi Choir and the Vienna Boys Choir, who provide a very oddly phrased Twelve Days of Christmas. Despite reservations, it gets you in the mood for the festivities. On the off chance that anybody reads this post, season's greetings and very best wishes.

Carnival Christmas

Vicar's daughter and British folk rock heroine Maddy Prior has instigated her own Christmas tradition with her work with the Carnival Band at this time of the year. This disk by them, simply titled Carols At Christmas, was recorded live and captures a joyful fun concert that nevertheless doesn't in any way demean the content or the nativity story. Ms Prior is in fine voice and the main musical thrust is that of medieval Europe, primarily England but with touches of France and Italy and the troubador tradition too. All sorts of other influences sneak in though, from Dixieland jazz to gospel to hoedown. Well known traditional carols do get vigourous reworkings, such as Ding Dong Merrily On High, In Dulce Jubilo, I Saw Three Ships, The Holly And The Ivy and the Coventry Carol. But the less well known numbers wortk equally well, more so in some cases. The audience enjoy the singalong of the wassailing Gallery Carol and the disk concludes in a howl of feedback following a blistering version of possibly the heaviest rock setting of any latin text, Personent Hodie. Gloria in excelcis deo.

Christmas 2005

2005 was the year that BBC Radio 3 held their marathon "A Bach Christmas", when they played all of his works continuously over an extended period ( yes, I've forgotten exactly how long. Was it three weeks ? ) To coincide with that, the December issue of BBC Music magazine that year had a similarly titled disk as the cover cd. It is a recital of organ and choral music played by organist David Goode on the organ of School Hall in Eton College and the Rodolfus Choir conducted by Ralph Allwood. The recital kicks off with the familiar Wachet Auf and Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring before going into the main item of Advent, Christmas and New Year chorale preludes from the Orgelbuchlein. This has organ preludes followed by briefly sung choral texts in seventeen pairs. There is an austere but at the same time warm feel to both the playing and singing on show here. Apart from the first two items, the occasional other obviously seasonal theme appears such as In Dulce Jubilo, so a Christmas feel is definitely there. The disk concludes with Goode playing a Prelude and Fugue in C major BWV547 and a final choral work with cello continuo, Lobet den Herrn alle Heiden.

Christmas 2004

For December 2004, BBC Music mag's seasonal offering was titled Russian Christmas. In truth, it would be more appropriately called "winter" than "Christmas". The works featured are Tchaikovsky's 1st Symphony ( Winter Daydreams ), extracts from his incidental music to The Snow Maiden and Rimsky-Korsakov's suite from his opera dealing with the same tale. The performers are the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Vassily Sinaisky. Tchaikovsky's first symphony, like the first symphony of many composers, was an arduous and painstaking endeavour but one that the composer retained affection for throughout his career. The first movement seems to me the most obviously programmatic around the stated theme. As for both composers efforts on The Snow Maiden, there are wintry effects such as sleigh bells as well as vigourous and stately dances to go with the story. So, no particular Christmas content as such but these works, especially The Snow Maiden, are perennially staged in Russia over the holiday period and so have attained the Christmas linkage in much the same way as the Nutcracker for instance.

Christmas 2002

Later today, BBC radio 3 is broadcasting 8 hours of music in Christmas Around Europe from various European countries including Canada ! The show is a collaborative effort from a number of national radio broadcasting companies. So before sampling that, I've played this BBC Music mag cover disk from Christmas 2002 similarly titled Christmas Around Europe and featuring highlights from an earlier broadcast. Not the greatest or most profound music in the world but a nice seasonal starter. This disk has music by Jacobus Gallus from Slovenia, light music by Hindemith from Germany, Sibelius from ( surprise surprise ) Finland, a mass by Jan Wanski from Poland, traditional music from Sweden and the Czech Republic and a Spanish contribution of Christmas villancicos y canciones from Rodrigo. No stellar names among the performers but all nicely played and sung.

When A Fifth Is A First

Symphony No 5 was the first Mahler symphony that I bought on this recording by the Berliner Philharmoniker with Herbert von Karajan. This 1973 recording was also Karajan's first ever Mahler recording, apparently left until late in his career because of the amount of preparation required. Commercial reasons could have been in evidence too, since the current massive popularity of the composer is a relatively recent thing. Some might say that Mahler was also not sufficiently teutonic but that would be taking conspiracy theory a bit far and Karajan did subsequently record much Mahler. The performance on this symphony is perfectly adequate, although slightly dated by modern performance standards. The adagietto ( famously used in the film Death In Venice and the closest Mahler ever comes to Classic FM friendly territory ) drags somewhat here but elsewhere there is much to admire. The symphony itself is another of Mahler's angst ridden works with every silver lining threatened by another approaching cloud, a world view that in retrospect fits perfectly with Mahler's age and resonates through most of the ages that followed too.

The Prague Connection

This one is a recital disk by Czech mezzo Magdelena Kozena accompanied by the Prague Philharmonia directed by Michel Swierczewski. It is a disk of 18th century operatic arias and Kozena was anxious to showcase some lesser known Czech music alongside Mozart and Gluck. Gluck himself had early roots in Bohemia and Prague although he is more associated with naples and Vienna but the main thrust of the Czech connection here is the inclusion of pieces by Josef Myslivecek. There are a couple of particularly well known Mozart arias on the disk but apart from the familiarity of these, the works blend well and the lesser known pieces need not feel any inferiority complex. There is a uniformity of Italianate style, although the three composers suffered greatly differing fortunes during their lives, as did their sunbsequent reputations. Myslivecek died in poverty in Rome and despite the good intentions of this disk recorded by Kozena in 2001, there have been few signs of any real revival of interest in staging his operas. The performances by both singer and band can't be faulted though and this remains a thoroughly well thought through and musical recital disk.

Pining For The Fjords

This edition of the Panorama series, where DG plunder their back catalogue to compile budget priced double cd's with a linked theme, features the music of Grieg. For the casual collector, it could be said to include all the grieg you would ever need. All of the "greatest hits" are here; the two Peer Gynt suites, the Piano Concerto, the Holberg Suite, the Lyric Pieces and the Norwegian Dances, together with the maybe lesser known Sigurd Jorsalfar : Three Pieces For Orchestra. Disk one is performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker under Herbert von Karajan, with the Peer Gynt, Holberg and Sigurd Jorsalfar. These all have literary connections with Peer Gynt being incidental music written for Ibsen's play, Sigurd Jorsalfar also being incidental music for a lesser known play by Bjornson and Ludvig Holberg considered the founding father of modern Norwegian drama. All these works feature memorable tunes and skilled orchestrations but perhaps Grieg's main genius lay with his pieces for piano. The concerto ( excellently played here by Stephen Kovacevich and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis ) is just about the most poular in the repertoire along with Tchaikovsky's first. But the lyric pieces were closest to grieg's heart and Emil Gilels is a superb advocate here. The piano works are on disk two which concludes with Neeme Jarvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra playing the Norwegian dances. Those unfamiliar with classical music will undoubtedly recognise so much of this music and the compilation highlights Grieg's understated gifts.

I Wanna Tell You A Story

This one is one of the first batch of classical disks that I bought because I knew of the piece and the "big tunes" in it. It is one of EMI's groc series ( great recordings of the century ) and it features Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. Written as ballet music, Scheherazde tels the tale of the arabian Nights where Scheherazade tries to save her skin by keeping the sultan interested in her stories. The two adversaries are portrayed throughout by their own motifs ( the solo violin of Scheherazade played here by Steven Staryk ) I guess it is another of those works that is sometimes not given the due it deserves because it is so popular and regularly programmed but it does stand up as a fine work. The disk is padded out with Borodin's Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor which I have already talked about as part of the Borodin "twofer" disk I have. Scheherazade is rather an elderly recording now ( 1958 ) but the sound is perfectly acceptable and the RPO are on vintage form, relishing the colours of the orchestrations.

Summery Chamber Music

An interesting recital of mainly 20th century chamber music from the Galliard Ensemble om a BBC Music mag cover disk entitled Wind Quintets. The featured works are Nielsen's Wind Quintet, Six Bagatelles by Ligeti, Summer Music by Barber and Jean Francaix's Wind Quintet No 1. The quintet comprises flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon and the mood is generally upbeat. The Nielsen was tailored for the Copenhagen Wind Quintet and shows fine interplay. Ligeti's bagatelles are early works written when he was still in Hungary and maybe subject to the constraints of a communist regime. They are folk inflected Bartokian works. The title of Barber's piece describes accurately the summery feel ( rich, warm but also playful ) which is also reflected by Francaix, who once said "my desire is to communicate joy rather than sorrow". Maybe not the most profound mood bu one that there is certainly a place for. The playing of the Galliard Ensemble is excellent throughout and while the wind quintet may not be the most widely represented in the repertoire, a solid case is made out for it here.

In Powerful Voice

The music of Richard Strauss features on this BBC Music mag cover disk, Songs and Arias. The soprano soloist is Christine Brewer with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Walter Weller. The two arias are taken from the operas Die Agyptische Helena ( Zweite Brautnacht ) and Ariadne Auf Naxos ( Es Gibt Ein Reich ) Instead of the Four Last Songs, those included here are Befreit, Zueignung, Morgen and the cradle song Wiegenlied. Brewer is in fine powerful voice and the BBCSO obviously enjoy the typically Straussian orchestral colours. Strauss had his wife as muse when writing for the soprano voice and it is one of the strengths of his music. The disk also includes the strings of the BBCSO playing Metamorphosen. They can't match those of the Berliner Philharmoniker on the commercial recording of that work I have already posted about and Weller gives a more low key interpretation than the highly wrought one by Karajan. It is still a well played and moving version however.

Not A Season In Site

This disk is a breath of fresh air after the old fashioned best of Vivaldi compilation I bought in the early days of my classical collecting. Viktoria Mullova and Il Giardino Armonico under Giovanni Antonini play Five Violin Concertos by Vivaldi. And not a Season in site, although some passages come perilously close since Vivaldi, like most baroque era composers, was a serial recycler of themes. This is a period instrument performance and has the drive and committment associated with that movement. Mullova has become a fine practioner on gut strings, despite her traditional Russian conservatory upbringing. As she states, she does not generally consult historical sources as as a means of justifying her interpretations as authentic but is as faithful as possible to the score in matters of ornamentation and phrasing. Il Giardino Armonico are also an experienced and forceful band who provide the most apposite accompaniment. Not much more to add, most of you will be aware of the sound world of a Vivaldi concerto. If you want to sample it and don't need those Seasons, then this is a fine place to start.

Another Indo-American Collaboration

About a decade before the Debashish Bhattacharya / Bob Brozman collaboration recently considered, Ry Cooder and V.M.Bhatt produced the album A Meeting By The River. This is a purely instrumental venture, with four tracks giving the two of them a chance to stretch out in displays of subtle interplay. It is easy to discern the differences between the bottleneck of Cooder and the Indian slide guitar ( mohan vina ) of V.M. Bhatt but the similarities of approach and group improvisation is also strong. There first track has an Indian raga feel, the next two more of a recognisable blues base and the disk ends with a gentle Hawaiian or even Mexican feel. Both musicians are admirers of the revered sufi poet Rumi and the disk is ostensibly based around one of his poems, although to be honest that wouldn't be evident without reading the booklet notes, other than in the serenity of much of the music. Percussion duties are undertaken by Sukhvinder Singh Mandhari on tabla and the then 14 year old Joachim Cooder ( Ry's son ) on dumbek. If such a disk were to be recorded now, it would be treated more as a fanfare project, rather than the impromptu "recorded in an afternoon" vibe this disk has and is all the better for.

Then There Were None

I'm not sure if You're Under Arrest was THE last Miles Davis album but if not, it was certainly ONE of the final efforts. Recorded in 1985, it sounds very much a product of those years and as such very dated. The whole album is soaked with the kind of synth sounds that polluted many an artists work around this time ( think Springsteen Dancing In The Dark for the kind of inappropriateness apparent here ) But despite that there are unexpected moments of lyrical beauty, oddly enough on the two pop covers of Michael Jackson's Human Nature and Cyndi Lauper's Time after Time. Also, Miles himself takes most of the solo work and is in fine form on the mute. Most of the other players are of pygmy status when compared to the great bands, there's little sax, no piano and just a bit of wailing guitar from John Scofield and funky synth doodling, some of which is admittedly danceable. Sadly though, I the impression left is of an artist finally running out of stream after one of the most creative journeys in 20th century music....the album ends with the weird and poignantly titled Then There Were None.

Indian - Hawaiian Borrowings

I obtained this disk as part of the offer for taking out a subscription to Songlines magazine. The title is Mahima and it is by Debashish Bhattacharya and Bob Brozman. Bhattacharya has already been subject of one post concerning the album I have of his stunning Indian slide guitar stylings. Brozman is a serial collaborator, a fine American slide guitarist superficially compared to Ry Cooder who dabbles in a myriad of styles and forms. The way that Bhattacharya often makes his slide imitate a sitar means that there is inevitably an Indian feel, especially given the occasional vocals on the disk from Sutapa Bhattacharya and the tabla presence of Subhashis Bhattacharya. But the material often veers toward a Hawaiian feel, steered by Brozman but music that has also long influenced Debashish. On first hearing, Bhattacharya seems to overwhelm Brozman relegating him to the role of a mere accompanist but closer listening reveals a lot of interplay and subtlety from the American that make the recording stand out as being different from a DB solo outing. A pretty good perk to get in addition to a subscription.

A Wry Return

2005's Chavez Ravine was considered to be the first Ry Cooder solo album since Get Rhythm back in the eighties but I don't really consider it part of that early cycle. It's revealing that the booklet cover states that it is "a record by Ry Cooder". It is a collaborative effort and while there is no doubt that the guiding light and driving force is that of Cooder, he is generous in the time given to various musicians of several generations from the Mexican American community. The album is built around the disgraceful story of the building of the Dodgers baseball stadium in Los Angeles in the early fifties and the graft, corruption and callous destruction of the local Mexican community that it entailed. Woven into the narrative are McCarthyism, left wing labour politics and a celebration of the vitality of the Mexican musical scene, plus Ry Cooder's odd UFO fixation that first surfaced in the disappointing early eighties album The Slide Area. Ry Cooder does sing himself on a number of tracks which was a first since the Get Rhythm era but he also uses veteran latino style singers in a similar way to the Buena Vista project, plus east side LA r'n'b old timers and some young feisty Mexican American ladies. The Mexican influence obviously pervades the whole album but there is variety with some Mose Allison style jazzy inflections, growling redneck blues and spacey portrayals fo the alien visitor in his UFO who tries to warn the residents of impending doom. The track Third Base Dodgers stadium is almost unbearably sweet and poignant. The fine booklet notes give ample explanation of the story behind the songs.

No, It's Not Opera, Oh No !

Coincidentally a second successive disk off the shelf featuring Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre but this time as the backing band for mezzo Cecilia Bartoli on her album Opera Proibita. Another of Bartoli's concept projects, the link here is that the music dates from the early 18th century in Rome when the Catholic church had effectively banned the opera. Many of the church's cardinals were music and opera lovers however and so the ban was circumvented by geting composers to use ostensibly sacred texts in very elaborate operatic settings, providing the fix of beautifully sung arias that the afficionados were missing. The composers whose music appears on the disk are Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti and Antonio Caldara. Listening to the tracks without recourse to the texts or the background, it is simply like listening to a finely sung and beautifully played recital of high baroque music. On the whole, la Bartoli is an integrated team player with maybe just the occasional lapse into showiness and exaggeration. Her reticence in the recording is made up for by he lavish packaging and the somewhat incomprehensible link ( Catholic censorship ) made with the fifties Fellini film La Dolce Vita and Anita Ekberg in a fountain !

The Symphony He Didn't Write

An interesting concept on this disk from Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre titled Une Symphonie Imaginaire by Rameau. Of course Rameau didn't write a symphony, the idea is that Minkowski has selected material from among the orchestral and ballet music to create an imagined symphony full of irresistible dance rhythms, ingeneous harmonies and innovative orchestrations. Whether this holds together fully as a concept doesn't really matter, there is little attempt to rewrite any material or to cobble together false segues and the disk can simply be listened to as a selection of beautifully played instrumental muisc from the French baroque era. John Eliot Garnder did similar with his BBC Prom concert last year featuring dance performance by French and African troupes and it is an excellent way to bring Rameau's instrumental writing to the fore when full scale performances of the ballets and operas might be prohibitive. On a couple of occasions, Minkowski has usurped the composer by removing vocal lines and by orchestrating the famous solo harpsichord piece the Hen, but there are historical precedents for these actions. The disk is recorded in fine SACD sound that also enhances reproduction on a standard cd player.

Home Thoughts From Abroad

There have been a few disks considered here featuring the music of Dvorak but the rotation off of the shelf has finally come around to the two "biggies" in terms of popularity and, I think it is fair to say, quality; Symphony No 8 and Symphony No 9 ( from the new world ). They are played on this disk by the Berliner Philharmoniker but given an authentic Czech slant by the conductor Rafael Kubelik. There's a strong argument for considering these the two most approachable of all symphonies for the layman, not just those of Dvorak but in general terms. There are so many memorable themes that seem to succeed each other continuously and should satisfy the most demanding of "big tune" addicts. But the logic and musical development are also of the highest quality. The 8th is in no way overshadowed by the even more ubiquitous New World . The latter launched a whole idea of American music evoking the wide open prairies and big skies, that continued through Copland and other of his contemporaries onto Hollywood western soundtracks of varying merit. but ironically, Dvorak wrote it as a look back home to his native Czech countryside for which he was increasingly homesick while working in the cityscape of New York. Certainly stray influences of earlier Czech nationalist compositions by such as Smetana are discernable. For all the familiarity of the piece, the blazing finale of the 9th is an undeniably triumphant way to bow out.

Pre-Classical Bach

When you see the name "Bach", there are certain expectations as far as content is concerned. This disk however, shows the different but still notable ability of the most successful son Carl Philip Emanuel. It is a disk of solo piano pieces, Sonatas and Rondos, played by Mikhail Pletnev. Pletnev has developed a tendency in recent years to be wilfully idiosyncratic in his interpretations, almost as if courting controversy for the sake of it with extreme tempos and other distortions of the composer's original score. There are hints of the start of this tendency once or twice on this disk, which dates from 2001, but in the main it is a superb recital with taste and clarity. CPE has clearly moved on from the baroque of his father and into what might be termed pre-classicism. He was also a much better businessman than his father and wrote these pieces with connoisseurs and enthusiastic amateurs in mind who would purchase the sheet music. The quality of the music speaks volumes for the abilities of private individuals back in those days. The booklet notes print a quote attributed to CPE, "As I see it, music should move the heart emotionally and a player will never achieve this by mere scrambling, hammering and arpeggiation, not with me anyway". The music and playing on this disk certainly succedds in moving the heart.

Flavours Of Spain

This budget release double cd from DG goes by the somewhat cheesy title of Viva Espana. You won't be surprised to learn that it features music with a Spanish flavour. Not all the composers are native Spaniards, there are works by Russians ( Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov ) and French ( Chabrier, Bizet, Ravel and Debussy ) as well as Tarrega, Turina, Albeniz, De Falla and Granados representing the home side. The performers are equally numerous, various orchestras are led by such as Ozawa, Mackerras, Maazel, Abbado, Fremaux and Ansermet, while soloists are Narciso Yepes on guitar and pianists Sviatoslav Richter, Dino Ciani and Jean-Marc Luisada. The choices are mainly obvious ( Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole, Rimsky's Capriccio, Bizet's Carmen Suite ) and familiar from travel shows about holidays in Spain ( the guitar features of Tarrega and Albeniz ). Of more interest are the orchestral suites by De Falla and Albeniz ( The Three Cornered Hat and Suite Iberia ) which are in the vein of the Rimsky piece for instance but maybe more authentic ? The highlights for me are the solo piano pieces of Debussy played by Richter and Ciani ( Le Soiree dans Grenada and two preludes ) and of Granados played by Luisada ( Fandango by Lamplight and Lament of the Girl and the Nightingale ). Some of the recordings are showing their age as far as sound quality is concerned but it is a good sampler if you want a bit of sun and warmth on a cold winter day.

Mahler ( Or is It ? )

I think that I'd better start this post by quoting the booklet notes ; Gustav Mahler Symphony No 10 : a performing version of Mahler's draft prepared by Deryck Cooke in collaboration with Berthold Goldschmidt, Colin Matthews and David Matthews. The performers on the disk are the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and I guess if you are going to present a project like this it doesn't hurt the credibilty of the venture to have artists of that calibre on board. Like all such posthumous completions by other hands ( such as Elgar's 3rd Symphony, Mozart's Requiem, tacking Pluto onto the end of the Planets ) there are always ethical questions and doubts. The ultimate test is probably the quality of the music and this realisation most certainly sounds Mahlerian. The booklet notes make the musicological case, I'm not expert enough to offer any opinion as to how true it might be to Mahler's intentions. There is the danger of reading too much into the fact that his death was imminent and thinking that he was composing with that in mind. In fact, although he knew he was in fragile health, he was continuing to make career and personal plans. I thoroughly enjoy the work as presented, even if I wonder whether the elegiac ending has been put together with hindsight. It's curious though that in these days of never ending Mahler performances, this version of the 10th hasn't really become a concert or recording regular.

Cinderella Symphonies

It's a commonly held opinion that, with the exception of the sixth, Beethoven's even numbered symphonies are the Cinderella symphonies in the cycle. This BBC Music mag cover disk features Symphonies 2 and 4 played by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. These two performances were part of the complete cycle famously made available for free download by the BBC as part of Beethoven Week on Radio 3 which played the composers entire output ( even including Wellington's Victory ! ) Millions downloaded the performances, leading to much gnashing of teeth by the mainstreeam record companies and a lot of debate about the future of classical music. It would be interesting to know how often the downloads have actually been played by the average punter. Noseda in fact gives very acceptable mainstream performances. The second symphony was written at a time when Beethoven apparently wrote his testament despairing of his developing deafness but the work betrays few traces of despair. The fourth was described by Schumann as "a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants", referring to the third and the fifth. While the Eroica and the fifth are obviously more iconic, the fourth stands up as a fine symphony with plenty of intellectual rigour to please the most discerning listener. These happen to be the only recordings I have of these two symphonies and they are more than good enough performances for me.

The Music, The Life - The Contrast

It may seem incongruous to begin December with a disk of music written for Easter but that's the way the ordering on the shelf works out sometimes. This is a BBC Music mag cover disk from 2004 titled Sacred Music For Easter and featuring Motets and Tenebrae Responsories for Good Friday by Gesualdo, sung by the BBC Singers directed by Bo Holten. Gesualdo is of course one of the most notorious of composers, having murdered his wife and her lover after catching them in a compromising situation. These events took place about four hundred years ago and just add colour to the life and times. I wonder what the reaction would subsequently be to the music of a composer closer to our own time who was involved in such actions ? The other response is to put undue emphasis on the effect such a deed might have had on Gesualdo's music, looking for excessive piety or repentance. The music here is certainly very expressive and moving but it is also firmly within the traditions of church music at the time, stretching from Spain, through France and England to the low countries and down to Italy. The responsories are from the service of Matins on Good Friday, prior to the light and triumph of Easter Day. Gesualdo's settings are suitably solemn but with a quiet beauty.

Cantata Contentment

Three Bach cantatas from my current favourite exponents of the form, Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe. The disk is titled Weinen, Klagen...and features three cantatas BWV12, 38 and 75. These are relatively downbeat in content, making use of the texts of Psalms 22 and 130, the De Profundis, or deal with the "weeping, wailing, lamenting, fearing" that are everyday fare in the vale of tears. Being Bach though, even doleful is beautiful and the final tone is that of resignation and consolation, bringing succour to souls in torment. The playing of Collegium Vocale Gent and the production values of Harmonia Mundi are impeccable. I think that Herreweghe's cycle benefits from the fact that he has no intention of being a completist and so selects those cantatas that he feels a particular affinity for and takes his time over the recording and programming of those he chooses. The soloists are again of the highest quality; the soprano Carolyn Sampson and the tenor Mark Padmore are now regular vocalists of choice for this repertoire but counter tenor Daniel Taylor and bass Peter Kooy also acquit themselves very well.

Ry Decides To Take A Little Break

Get Rhythm was the final Ry Cooder solo album for about 18 years until the release of Chavez Ravine and My Name Is Buddy in the last couple of years and arguably those are concept albums that don't really sequence naturally from the earlier body of work. Get Rhythm is a quite a hard driving album on the whole with more aggressive and distorted guitar from Cooder than he normally played on disk. It still followed the by now familiar path of plucking obscure ( Chuck Berry's 13 Question Method ) and the not so obscure ( Presley's All Shook Up ) gems from the rock catalogue, disembowelling them and putting them back together in an idiosyncratic way. The latin side gets a look in with the calypso-ish Women Will Rule The World and there is a beautiful ballad homage to the Tex Mex region, Across The Bordeline. The Johnny Cash written title track ( again totally reworked ) and Going Back To Okinawa are irresistably danceable and Let's Have A Ball is a totally apt way to finish off a fifteen year solo journey through the byways of Americana, like an encore to the world's longest gig.

Run the Voodoo Down

Bubbling electric pianos, sharp stabbing guitar chords, low rumbling oddly sinister bass clarinet, funky bass and drums, occasional soprano sax wails and running trumpet arpeggios. It must be Miles Davis, it must be Bitches Brew. Strange how unremarkable it now sounds, not in any way to diminish the quality and playing of Wayne Shorter, Bennie Maupin, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Larry Young, Joe Zawinul, Dave Holland, Harvey Brooks, Lenny White and Jack DeJohnette but the revolutionary nature of the album has become faded with time. Is that because it was successful in spawning many imitators or conversely because it proved to be a blind alley ? As so often with these things, the truth is probably somwhere in between. But I would urge any gainsayers to put on Miles Runs The Voodoo Down at top volume and then still try to say that the fire, passion and committment was a waste of time. What is slightly sad I think is that the album didn't really have a lasting connection with the constituency for which Miles really recorded it, that of urban black American youth. I expected the album to sound dated but it is far less so than most of what immediately followed such as Weather report or Herbie Hancock's Headhunters. In many ways it sounds just as timeless as Kind Of Blue and has the same right to stand on its' own as a fine piece of music.

Tuareg Quo ?

Another act being pushed very hard by the world music cadre of the music biz are Tinariwen. I bought this album, Amassakoul, before the hype went into overdrive and I have to admit that my opinion of it has been coloured a little since then and I don't have much desire to purchase the latest release. That may be my problem more than Tinariwen's though, I have always tended to shy away from the more commercial tendencies in rock and pop music and it just seemed a shame to see them begin to infoltrate the world music scene ( Tinariwen are by no means the only example ) looking at the album dispassionately, it is an excellent example of the desert blues genre where instead of a shuffle boogie you get the camel lope beat. There is a certain sameness to the material though, especially when you can't understand the lyrics ( translations are thoughfully included but I don't tend to listen with the notes to hand every time ) I would also say that they lack a truly distinctive vocalist. They are a very tight band though and it is churlish to criticise them for not turning down support band slots for the Rolling Stones and the exposure that brings. as I said, I don't feel the need for more than one Tinariwen album but if you are going for only one, the latest effort has slightly better production values and a more spacious sound.

The Heart Of The Kora

In the two years before his death in 2006, Ali Farka Toure produced two albums that he wanted to represent a culmination of his musical life. His own final album Savane will be considered here another time but he also wanted to make a collaboration with the master kora player Toumani Diabate. That album was titled In The Heart Of The Moon. It is an exclusively instrumental album apart from some shouts of encouragement and inter track chat. The record company for understandable commercial reasons trumpet the participation of both legends but this is predominantly Diabate's album. The kora takes the melodic and improvisatory lead with understated accompaniment from Ali Farka Toure that is almost akin to the role of a continuo in baroque classical music. The kora has a long and deep tradition among the griots of west africa, the keepers of the oral tradition of the ancient Mande empire. The possible links from west African music to the blues is well known and often cited but listening to the kora, I am always struck by the resemblance that the cascades of notes seem to have to the pealing of church bells and how that has permeated northern European folk music. This is basically a duo album with low key input from percussion and a relatively pointless contribution from Ry Cooder's guitar on one track, again more or less used as a drone. A fine disk but one that should really be regarded as a Toumani Diabate solo effort.

Hallelujah

Handel's oratorio Messiah has tended to become linked inextricably with Christmas in the UK but in fact only part of the work concerns the Nativity and there isn't any real reason why it can not be performed at any time of the year. When I first began to explore classical music, Messiah was a piece that I had a prejudice against because I bracketed it with some of Elgar's works as a kind of bastion of the British establishment and old fashioned early 20th century values. Certainly there are some hideous versions with massive choirs and full scale symphony orchestras but as I grew to love other Handel works, I began to re-evaluate Messiah and now realise what a great work it is, on a par with the other oratorios. This version on a double cd is a pared down period instrument recording with modest forces and it brings out the detail in the work very effectively and plays to my tastes in baroque performance. The players are Les Arts Florissants under William Christie and there is a fine cast of soloists with sopranos Barbara Schlick and Sandrine Piau, counter tenor Andreas Scholl, tenor Mark Padmore and bass Nathan Berg. It is also a beautifully presented release with in hardback format with extensive notes and lavish illustrations.

Soulful Recital

A very soulful recital by cellist Truls Mork and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Paavo Jarvi. The works on the disk are Schumann's Cello Concerto, Kol Nidrei by Bruch and Bloch's Schelomo. The Schumann concerto is a long elegiac monlogue for the cello with understated orchestral accompaniment responding to the inflections of the soloist and as such it fits well in recital with the two other pieces. The Bruch piece is informed by the solemn Jewish prayer Kol Nidrei which fascinated the Protestant Bruch. The form of the music similarly is coloured by Hebrew sacred music but is still steeped in a generalised romantic religious style. Bloch originally intended to set Schelomo to texts from Ecclesiastes ( Schelomo is Solomon ) as a meditation on the view that "all is vanity". He changed tack to entrust the "voice" of the preacher to the cello, backed by a big orchestra. There is a general soulful feel to the entire disk which Mork relishes and to which Jarvi provides apposite support.

Your Call Is Very Important To Us

Here's everybody's favourite telephone hold music ( yeah, right ! ) Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. They are part of this disk titled The World of Vivaldi and with a title like that you might be able to guess that it was another of my early purchases. The performance style is somewhat dated too with most of the tracks being recorded in the 1970s. It is a pity about the way in which the Four Seasons have been abused for so many commercial purposes, especially since the composer is in no position to benefit at all from it ! Familiarity can breed contempt but they are popular for a reason, being delightfully accessible with memorable tunes and if listened to dispassionately they seem to have a distinctiveness that some of Vivaldi's other numerous concertos lack. They are given a middle of the road performance on this disk by the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester under Karl Munchinger with Konstanty Kulka on violin and Igor Kipnis on harpsichord. The disk also features the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields led by Neville Marriner in the Concerto for Piccolo RV443 ( William Bennett on piccolo ) and the Concerto for Two Trumpets RV537 ( John Wilbraham and Philip Jones soloists ). The familar Concerto for Guitar RV93 is played by Eduardo Fernandez with the English Chamber Orchestra and George Malcolm and the disk is rounded off by the Concerto RV151 "alla rustica" performed by the Lucerne Festival Strings under Rudolf Baumgartner. To be honest, the kind of disk you might put on for undemanding background music while preparing a meal in the kitchen.

Thank You Mr Boulez

The performance piece Sinfonia by Luciano Berio is not titled after any classical meaning of the term but rather as the simultaneous sound of various parts ( eight voices and instruments ) and the interplay of a variety of situations and meanings. It is performed here by the New Swingle Singers directed by founder Ward Swingle and Orchestre National de France conducted by Pierre Boulez. The Swingles have been associated with the piece thorughout its' performing life, playing it again at this years BBC Proms in London. The text is made up of various snippets from Claude Levi-Strauss, Samuel Beckett and a tribute to Martin Luther King and there are musical nods towards the slow movement from Mahler's second symphony. The spoken words weave in and out of wordless singing from the voices and the clarity deliberately varies from crystal clear to blurred and indistinct. The orchestral colourings are similarly allusive but are far from intimidating. The other work featured on the disk is the single movement Eindrucke, a stark concentrated piece but with interesting depths and while not being exactly easy listening, it isn't as abstract and forbidding as the reputation of much modern music might imply.

I'll Get Around To Finishing It

Although I didn't realise it when I bought this disk back in the early days, it is another example of DG milking their Herbert von Karajan back catalogue. To me, it was just an opportunity for another reliable Berlin Philharmonic performance of standard repertoire at a budget price, containing as it does two Schubert symphonies No 8 ( Unfinished ) and No 9 ( The Great ). It's probably true that the symphony isn't what Schubert is mainly remembered for but it can be argued that these two symphonies were early pointers to the Romantic style that was to follow through the remainder of the 19th century and but for his early death, he may well have been at the forefront of that movement. They were certainly advanced enough to obtain that universal seal of approval of being initially deemed too diffficult by the orchestral players of Vienna. There are also certain confusions and mysteries surrounding the numbering and chronology of these late Schubert symphonies. The number nine was affixed much later when it had obtained the superstitious significance of being a fateful number after Beethoven, Bruckner, Dvorak and Mahler. And was the Unfinished really unfinished ? It certainly wasn't lack of time prior to his death that caused Schubert not to add further movements. This is a relatively elderly recording by the Berlin Phil from 1965 and the sound quality shows its' age. But as I said above, it is a reliable enough performance.

More Tunes Than You Can Shake A Stick At

This two disk budget set is another of my early classical purchases when I was trying to tick off boxes in the core repertoire. It's a sort of greatest hits of Prokofiev, titled Favourite Orchestral Suites, and although a bit disjointed the two disks hold together quite well since the full works are played. It delivers what it promises with the suites from the ballets The Love For Three Oranges and Romeo and Juliet, Symphony No 1 ( Classical ), Lieutenant Kije, the children's tale Peter and the Wolf, and Ala and Lolly ( The Scythian Suite ). The performers are variously the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Neville Marriner, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra with Andre Previn and the Rotterdam Philharmonic conducted by Edo de Waart. The narrator for Peter and the Wolf is Alec McCowen. Most of these works are very familiar and highlight Prokofiev's gift for memorable themes and orchestrations. Romeo and Juliet has the Montagues and Capulets theme, beloved of soccer and grid iron teams wanting to project a swaggering macho image, while Lieutenant Kije has the Troika which, thanks to tv advertisers and Greg Lake, has become associated with Christmas. Peter and the Wolf is a well loved tale used to introduce children to the various instruments in the orchestra, maybe Alec McCowen's actorly style of narration is a little dated these days. I also know from a teacher aquaintance that with very young children there is the sensitive problem of the fate of the duck ! The least familiar work is probably the Scythian Suite with Prokofiev reaching back to his Russian roots and influences from Rimsky-Korsakov and particularly Borodin.

An English Wanderer

Baritone Christopher Maltman, supported by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Thierry Fischer, is the featured artist on this excellent BBC Music mag cover disk from 2004. Titled Vaughan Williams Songs Of Travel, it also features music by Ravel and Debussy. Songs Of Travel was conceived by Vaughan Williams as a kind of English Winterreise based on poems by Robert Louis Stevenson. They are performed here in their orchestrated version, with some of the orchestrations being Vaughan Williams's own and the remainder being done by his assistant Roy Douglas after RVW's death. Sounding from more sturdy yeoman stock than Schubert's wanderer, the song cycle is still a moving one and Maltman is in excellent voice on this and all the works on the disk. The other substantial vocal work here is Le Livre de Baudelaire, an orchestration of four songs from Debussy's Cinq Poemes de Baudelaire completed by John Adams. Adams consciously orchestrates in the style of Debussy with that familiar languid and sensual feel and his additions do not sound at all out of place. The disk is topped and tailed by two pieces from Ravel. Maltman sings three brief settings of words by Paul Morand on the theme of Don Quichotte a Dulcinee and the disk ends with the BBCSO luxuriating in the orchestral showpiece Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, another subtle undermining of the waltz form without the savagery of La Valse.

Nothing To Say But It's Ok

I don't have much to say about this BBC Music mag cover disk of Bruckner's Symphony No 4 ( Romantic ), played by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Romanian conductor Ion Martin, because I have already considered the work when posting about the commercial recording that I have of it by the Vienna Phil under Karl Bohm. It is one of my favourite Bruckner symphonies though and if I didn't already have a copy I would find this live performance perfectly serviceable.

Cross Cultural Connections

Many of Jordi Savall's projects for his Hesperion XXI straddle that early music / world music divide and have plenty to appeal to lovers of both genres. This particular one, Orient - Occident 1200 - 1700, veers quite far into world music territory. It celebrates the shared cultural legacy of Arab and jew, Muslim and West and laments what was lost in the second half of the 15th century with the fall of both Sepharad And Al-Andalus in Spain and Byzantium in the east. The disk attempts to rebuild some of the bridges between shared heritages. There are pieces from Turkey, Afghanistan, Morocco, Iran and the Jewish diaspora, together with others from medieval Italy and Galicia and even courtly Spain. The musicians involved come from similarly disparate backgrounds; Afghanistan ( a wonder in itself post Taliban ), Israel, Greece, the wonderful oud virtuoso Driss El Maloumi from Morocco and the Catalan Savall himself. As well as the already mentioned ouds, the instrumentation includes rubab, transverse flute, santur, saz, viol and archlute plus the varied percussion effects of Pedro Estevan. I noted the east west connections on the disk of Armenian dances I posted about yesterday and those connections are made even more explicit here.

Nothin' But A Rubber Heel

Borderline can be considered as a companion album to Bop Til You Drop in Ry Cooder's solo output. It was a similarly "almost commercial" album and was toured extensively and very successfully by his then regular band, which again had the backing vocals of Bobby King and Willie Green Jr and the inclusion of John Hiatt. Not quite as complete an album as "Bop", there are two or three duff tracks, when it is good it is very good. There are excellent examples of the way Cooder would deconstruct an old r'n'b standard and come up with something entirely different ( Speedo, Crazy 'Bout An Automobile, Girls From Texas ), a couple of numbers featuring excellent bluesy slide playing ( Johnny Porter and Never Make Your Move Too Soon ) and two poignant and aching songs of damaged relationships ( Why Don't You Try Me and The Way We Make A Broken Heart ). Those familiar with the album can work out by a process of elimination which I consider to be the duff tracks since I haven't listed those. The Tex Mex border area had been a Ry Cooder pre-occupation but strangely, despite the album title, there isn't much of a border influence here musically.

Way To Go

It may not be as ubiquitous as Kind Of Blue but the Miles Davis album In A Silent Way is another of those that crosses the boundary of appealing to a strictly jazz audience and appears in many a general music collection. By now, the electric nature of the band was well established and it still contained Wayne Shorter on sax, both Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea on electric piano and Dave Holland now on bass guitar providing the rhythm section with the uniquely propulsive Tony Williams on drums. The new boys for the album were Joe Zawinul on electric piano and organ and guitarist John McLaughlin. Something that goes relatively unremarked about this period of Miles's music is that the inclusion of Zawinul, Holland and McLaughlin was the first time that non American players were an influence. The title track itself is a Joe Zawinul composition and it segues into and out of the compositions by Miles himself. The original vinyl album obviously was seperated into two sides but the music can be seen as a continuous evolving piece with long evolving lines, subtle rather than showy soloing and bubbling electric undercurrents. Although electric, it is a restrained record without any loud adrenelin fuelled passages. The start of a funk influence is there but in a laid back mode. And again, despite the electric instrumentation, it has a certain timeless feel.

Non Standard

Inside Out is the title of this live recording from a concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 2000 given by Keith Jarrett. It's a trio recording with Jarrett on piano, Gary Peacock double bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. This is a very experienced combination who have performed regularly together over a long period. Often, their long group improvicastions have been built around standards from the great American song book but on this occasion most of the tracks take off from original compositions. The numbers have titles but aren't formally composed but start from an improvisatory base. It isn't really accurate to call them free jazz either though, since there are melodies and riffs that drift in and out over a definite rhythmic pulse. As a final encore type feature there is one standard played, When I Fall In Love. Jarrett is the obvious solo leader in these settings with his Glenn Gould style vocal interjections alongside his endlessly inventive playing. But Peacock and DeJohnette are much more than just a rhythm section, soloing underneath the piano to give a many layered density to the sound.

File Under : World / Armenia

A wonderful recording by the Shoghaken Ensemble called Traditional Dances Of Armenia, reflecting a vibrant tradition that has endured through a terrible history of persecution and which still retains joy and celebration. Armenian dance is one of the country's cultural treasures and has a rich history. There are various types; the circle dance is rooted in Zoroastrian ritual, line dances derive from mountain battles, gesture and jump dancing can be traced to medieval mysteries as well as to 19th century fairs and festivities. The Shoghaken ensemble cover all these bases in their rhythmic and melodic variety. The instrumentation includes the primitive wail of the zuma, the beat of the dhol drum renowned from village weddings and virtuoso improvisations on the duduk, kamancha, kanon amd shvi. It is interesting to hear links both with neighbouring cultures such as Iran, Turkey and even Greece alongside echoes from further west in the Mediterranean like Sicily and Spain. The performers are excellent, with a couple of the tracks also featuring vocals. This fine release comes with a superbly informative and illustrated booklet.

Fit For The Queen Of Sheba

Handel wrote several dramatic oratorios based on Israeli history as told in the Old Testament and the early ones all covered tales and periods when the Israeli nation was threatened and struggling for survival. There was a contemporary subtext to these oratorios though with Handel's public seeing parallels between Israeli and British politics. And so he composed Solomon in relation to the end of a long intercontinental war in Europe because the reign of Solomon was an unusually peaceful time in Israelite history and was a perfect metaphor for the age of prosperity and stability that Britons looked forward to. This three cd set is by the Gabrieli Consort and Players conducted by Paul McCreesh who have produced an impressive series of these oratorio recordings. As usual, there is a fine cast of soloists including Andreas Scholl, Paul Agnew and Susan Gritton. There are some fine "numbers", including the joyous and famous entry of the Queen of Sheba. These oratorios are a unique and fine body of work in a field which Handel pretty much invented for himself.

Hit The Road John

John Adams is mainly known for his orchestral works and operas but this disk features chamber music played variously by the violin / piano duo of Leila Josefowicz and John Novacek and by pianists Nicolas Hodges and Rolf Hind. The disk is titled Road Movies after the piece performed by Josefowicz and Novacek. It is described as travel music, passing through harmonic and textural regions as one would pass through a landscape on a car journey, presupposing that car journey is in America. the motoric pulse of minimalism is there beneath the surface but there is also the weight of tradition too. Hallelujah Junction is a work for two pianos played by Hodges and Hind and it occupies similar rhythmic and structural territory as the title piece. The solo piano works have more of a Debussy inflected feel with touches that remind of jazz improvisation also. Hodges plays China Gates and American Beserk while the disk closes with a return to the eternal pulse in the three part Phrygian Gates performed by Hind. All in all the disk succeeds in being idiosyncratically American in conjuring up those wide open spaces of the road.

That Inevitable Concerto Coupling

It sometimes seems that every budding international solo violinist has to record a coupling of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and the Bruch Violin Concerto No 1 ( he did write another though you would be hard pressed to find a recording of it ) The coupling here is a classic recording reissued as an EMI great recording of the century. The soloist is Yehudi Menuhin with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Efrem Kurtz in the Mendelssohn and Walter Susskind in the Bruch. These two works have become ubiquitous because of their great romantic sweep and memorable melodies, as well as for the opportunites that they afford for the soloist to show off his virtuosity. It's easy to say that because they are so popular and appeal to the casual Classic FM daytime listener they must be without worth but like most such classics, they have fine musical qualities that transcend mere kitsch. Menuhin had recorded the works as a child prodigy in the thirties but these are re-recordings made to take advantage of advances in sound technology by the late fifties. The sound and performance practice stand up well.

Giving The Text Its' Due

Gluck Italian Arias by Cecilia Bartoli and the Akadamie Fur Alte Musik Berlin led by Bernhard Forck, is another of her lavishly packaged and thoroughly researched "project" disks. As well as presenting several arias from Gluck operas, the hook on which to hang the project is the way in which Gluck is very respectful and conscious of the libretti written by Pietro Metastasio. Both of these 18th century artists can be seen to share the same ideas and creative development, rejecting the sort of abuses which reduced poetry to a mere support for outrageous displays of virtuosity with no basis in the logic of what was being expressed. Gluck and Metastasio both wished to establish the true function of music as they saw it; to clarify and intensify the changing emotions in the human heart. The quality of the poetry isn't immediately apparent to the non-Italian speaker of course but the full translated libretti are provided and the feeling put into the singing by Bartoli is clear to anyone. The Akademie Fur Alte Musik provide suitably appropriate and heartfelt support.

Now That's What I Call Baroque Etc

I bought this disk early on in my classical collecting and it isn't the sort of disk that I would now bother with. But it still makes pleasant listening on a grey and dreary November afternoon. Entitled Baroque Favourites, it is a bit of a Classic FM style production and I had assumed that it was cobbled together from various earlier releases. I now see that all of the pieces are played by the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester under Karl munchinger, however, which indicates it was a specially recorded release. Many of the pieces are familiar in the extreme; Pachelbel's Kanon, Dance of the Blessed Spirits by Gluck ( you'll know the tune if not the title ), Boccherini's Minuet, Bach's Air on a G String and what is known as Albinoni's Adagio but is in fact a 20th century confection by Italian musicologist Giazotto, referencing various Venetian baroque composers. There are also two fine oboe concertos by Handel, with soloist Lothar Koch, and Handel's organ concerto the Cuckoo and the Nightingale, with soloist Martin Haselbock. There's one of Handel's Water Music suites and the disk ends with the novelty Toy Symphony by Wolfie's dad Leopold Mozart, which it must be said, does tend to outstay its' welcome.

Pa - Pa - Pa - Pa

This is the only disk that I have of a mainstream full length opera, although I have a baroque opera from Rameau and a one act opera by Ibert. Audio disks aren't really the best medium for opera but if you are going to have one I would argue that this makes the most sense; Mozart's The Magic Flute. Having said that, "making sense" and The Magic Flute are not terms that readily come together, since the plot seems to make little sense at all. It is supposed to be full of Masonic overtones but since I know little about the inner workings of the secret society, these pass me by. There may well also be satirical allusions to contemporary politics in the Habsburg Empire but these too have become blurred with the passing of time. it has a lot in common with many Shakespeare plays that are ostensibly about those of noble birth but when some of the most enjoyable parts revolve around the antics of the lower classes, roles fulfilled here by Papageno and Papagena None of the impenetrability of the plot seems to matter however when the staging is right. And the music is packed with memorable arias and orchestral writing, plus solo roles for the title instrument. This recording is solid down the middle traditional by the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Karl Bohm. The mainly German cast is excellent and includes Hans Hotter, Fritz Wunderlich and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Papageno. The fearsome Queen of the Night aria is taken by Roberta Peters. The recording includes the spoken dialogue and since there is a full libretto, this adds to the atmosphere and plot development, such as it is in this opera.

Christmas 2007

I've just received the new December issue of the BBC Music mag and as is often the case, the cover disk is another selection of Christmas orientated music. The performers are The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists directed by John Eliot Gardiner and the music heavily features recordings made during their mammoth Bach pilgimage of 2000, when they played all of his cantatas on their appropriate feast days throughout the year. There is a complete performance of one of the Christmas cantatas for Leipzig, BWV 110, plus extracts from BWV 40, BWV 133 and BWV 190. Fortuitously, there's only one slight duplication in the case of the BWV 133 extract with the commercial disk I have by Collegium Vocale Ghent. These are live recordings and do not have quite the luxury casting ( the soloists here are taken from within the choir ) and recorded sound of the Belgians but it is still a worthwhile listen. The disk also has some fine extra items. The Familiar Shepherd's farewell from Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ is given a moving performance and there are two excellent examples of unaccompanied 16th century motets, one by the french composer known as Mouton and one by Clemens Non Papa. The booklet notes don't mention where he comes from, I'd guess the low countries without doing a search on the net.

The First Guitar Hero ?

Occasionally, the BBC Music magazine cover disk is a joint promotion with a small independant record company, instead of an in house production using the BBC orchestras or Young Generation artists. That is the case here, with a disk that is a co-production with ARTS Music. The disk features two Haydn symphonies, No 6 ( Le matin ) and No 8 ( Le soir ), plus Guitar Concerto No 1 by Mauro Giuliani. The performers are the Wiener Akadamie under Martin Haselbock and the guitarist in the concerto, using Giuliani's original guitar, is Edoardo Catemario. It is much preferable to hear the Haydn symphonies played by a chamber orchestra on period instruments rather than a full blown modern BBC symphony orchestra as might otherwise have been the case. These two symphonies are part of a set of three written to illustrate the times of day and were composed at the request of his Haydn's first Esterhazy patron who wanted a response to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. They incorporate many solos for several of the ensemble's instruments and evoke a suitably civilised Haydnesque ambience. Giuliani was renoened as the guitar virtuoso of his time ( contemporaneous with Beethoven ) when the guitar was first coming to prominence. It is notoriously difficult to balance an acoustic guitar with a full orchestra, so again the chamber orchestra forces here are ideal. The work follows the classical conceto style of Mozart but has many individual touches designed specifically for the instrument in question. The Neopolitan Catemario is a fine advocate.