Casals Original Jacket Collection

Pablo Casals, The Original Jacket Collection (Sony 88697656902)

Sony has issued several boxed sets in its Original Jacket Collection series. The idea is nice. Each is a boxed set of reissues of well-known recordings by prominent artists, with the individual discs packaged in facsimiles of the original vinyl sleeves, including the original liner notes (although many purchasers will find that, even with their bifocals on, they are reaching for their magnifying glass). In addition to this set I greatly enjoyed the set of Bruno Walter conducting Mahler, Wagner, and Bruckner.

It is not clear whether there has been any significant remastering in this collection. The rather sketchy leaflet identifies Philip Nedel as the remaster, but that is all the information we are given. This is particularly puzzling, since Sony have already re-released (re-re-released?) much of the material in this set in their Pablo Casals edition. On the face of it, this boxed set may seem a better bargain than buying individual reissues in the Pablo Casals edition – at the price I paid the set came out at less than $3 per disc. On the other hand, though, the discs in the Pablo Casals edition (itself a budget-priced series) are typically twice as long as the ones in this set, where each LP is given its own CD. For what it’s worth, I sampled across the two releases and could not detect any meaningful difference in sound quality (although I lay no claim to golden ears).

In any event, the music-making is wonderful and comes primarily from the Prades and Perpignan festivals in the 1950s (studio rather than live performances). The first 2 discs feature Bach’s 3 sonatas for Harpsichord and Viola da Gamba (BVW 1027-29), played with Paul Baumgartner at the piano. All 3 sonatas are highly expressive and Casals brings to them the same intensity that he brings to the better known Suites. The second disc is filled out with Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue and the F major Italian Concerto, both played by Rudolf Serkin – good performances both, but probably not rising to the top of a very crowded market.

For me the highlight of the collection is the complete cycle of Beethoven cello sonatas with Rudolf Serkin at the piano –Casals’s second studio recording of the complete cycle (the first was made in the 1930s with Otto Schulhof and Mieczyslaw Horzowski). Particular highlights are the Adagio in the 5^th Sonata (Op. 102 no. 2) and the extraordinarily long first movement (21 minutes!) from the early 2^nd sonata (Op. 5 no. 2). The effortless mastery of Casals and Serkin is particularly evidenced in the movements that have transitions from Adagio introductions – the Allegro emerges organically from the slow introduction, without a hint of awkwardness or discontinuity.

The set features 3 string trios – Beethoven’s Archduke (Op.97), the Schubert B flat major Trio (D898), and Brahms’s Trio No. 1 (Op. 8). The first two have Eugene Istomin at the piano and the violin of Alexander Schneider. Isaac Stern is the violinist and Myra Hess the pianist for the Brahms. The Beethoven and Schubert recordings are justly celebrated. The Brahms performance is perhaps less well known, but beautifully played. Casals is a superlative chamber musician and his collaborators here are of the highest quality.

The two relative outliers in this collection are the famous White House concert – which stands out because of its location (obviously!), but also its date (1961, whereas most of the other performances date back from the early 1950s). Here Casals is joined by long-time partners Schneider and Horszowski in Mendelssohn’s D minor String Trio (Op. 49) and pieces by Couperin and Schumann (as well as 1 of 2 recordings in this collection of Casals’s own Song of the Birds). On a musical level, however, this disc stands with the others in displaying the organic unity of Casals’s ensemble playing.

The real outlier to me is the 1953 recording of Schumann’s Cello Concerto – a wonderful recording of a wonderful piece, but it breaks the flow of a collection focused on the delicacy of Casals chamber musicianship and his ability to meld a whole that is so much greater than the sum of its parts. The only connection that I can see with the other 9 discs is that it was recorded at Prades with the Prades festival orchestra.

Nonetheless, the fact that the only negative thing I can find to say about this collection is that it includes a great recording of Schumann’s Cello Concerto should speak volumes. This is a wonderful collection and the sound quality is good enough for many of the performances to be signature recordings that can stand against any.

Bohm conducting Bruckner's 7th

Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 7

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted By Karl Böhm

June 1943, Guttman edition (Preiser CD 90102)

September 1976, Nowak edition (Deutsche Grammophon CD 419 858)

May 1977, Nowak edition (Audite CD 95.494)

Although not terribly celebrated as a Bruckner conductor, Karl Böhm left a relatively substantial recorded legacy, with 24 surviving recordings of the 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 7^th, and 8^th symphonies. Böhm’s lyrical and expansive approach to Bruckner is probably best suited to the 7^th symphony, which was certainly the symphony of which we have the best recorded legacy. There are 2 surviving performances of the Guttman edition, including the 1943 performance reviewed here, and 9 of the Nowak edition, including the 1976 studio recording for Deutsche Grammoph and the 1977 live performance preserved in excellent sound by Audite.

It is interesting to compare the evolution of Böhm’s interpretation from the war years to the two performances when he was already over 80. The timings are very informative. The 1943 Adagio stretches for a very lengthy 27.36, while the DG and Audite discs come in at 24.04 and 22.15 respectively. At the same time, the finale is significantly shorter in 1943 (10.37, as opposed to 12.03 and 12.04). It is characteristic of Böhm’s 7^th symphony interpretations that the Adagio is typically longer than the scherzo and finale combined, but the contrast in 1943 is remarkable. I am not convinced that this extreme architecture works. There are several moments when the Adagio seems about to grind to a halt, and the relatively aggressive approach to the finale distorts the pacing required for the movement not to seem lightweight after the monumental Adagio and what amounts to a second slow movement in the Trio of the 3^rd movement. The sound from the 1943 recording is perfectly acceptable, but it would be difficult to recommend the performance for more than historical interest.

Böhm’s interpretation is much more secure in the 1970’s recordings. The balance between the movements works much better architecturally and the sound quality allows the finer points of Böhm’s approach to come across, in both the live and studio performances. Böhm is a master at shaping Bruckner’s melodic line – as can be appreciated from the opening bars of the Adagio in both performances. He is also highly skilled at bringing out the complex texture of Bruckner’s orchestration. The coda to the first movement illustrates this nicely both live and in the studio.

The 1976 studio performance is marked by very sensuous string playing and great delicacy from the wind sections. The Adagio is well-paced, and the coda displays the VPO beautifully. However, the climax falls a little flat (due not least to a rather subdued percussion section) and the movement lacks the emotional engagement of the live performance, which I found more convincing overall. The Audite sound is good enough to bring out Böhm’s distinctive lyricism. At the same time, the live performance has a sharper edge and greater drive, with a more compelling vision of the architecture of the 7^th. The Audite disc is highly recommended.

Review of Harnoncourt's Bruckner 9

Anton Bruckner, Symphony no. 9 with the documentation of the finale fragment

Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt

RCA Red Seal 2CD 82876 54331 2

There are two CDs on this release. The 1st CD features 2 versions (in German and English respectively) of a workshop concert in which Harnoncourt introduces and conducts John A. Philipps’s edition of the finale of Bruckner’s 9^th Symphony. The 2^nd CD features a live recording of the “standard” 9^th symphony from August 2002.

By the time of Bruckner’s death, we learn from Harnoncourt and from the detailed liner notes, he had completed composing the finale, but was unable to complete the instrumentation. Some portions exist in their entirety, in particular the whole of the exposition. In some the final instrumentation remains incomplete. And, although there appears to have existed a fully paginated autograph score, a number of pages have disappeared.  

The lengthy fragment that remains (around 18 minutes of music) is tantalizing. It contains some of Bruckner’s most dissonant and forward-looking music (as Harnoncourt puts it, Bruckner dropped into the musical world like a stone from the moon), as well as another of his wonderful fugues. Tragically nothing remains of the coda in which Bruckner recapitulated key themes from the 5^th, 7^th, and 8^th movements. But there is enough preserved to make clear that Bruckner envisaged the finale as the summa of his symphonic odyssey.

So now Bruckner-lovers and performers have a real puzzle. On the one hand, the remains of the finale are too fragmented to be performed after the 3 movements that have been preserved in their entirety. On the other, the standard picture of the Adagio being Bruckner’s apotheosis and farewell to life seems demonstrably mistaken.

This has performance implications, most obviously for how the Adagio is approached. Comparing them side by side reveals Harnoncourt to be much more understated than, say, Gunter Wand. Harnoncourt approaches the opening bars with much weaker dynamical contrast, for example. And the Adagio’s massively discordant climax is less monumental for Harnoncourt than it is for Wand (and many others).

Of course that’s exacting what one would expect when the Adagio is viewed as the 3rd of 4 movements, rather than as a cathartic finale. But the downside is that the 4^th movement doesn’t really exist, and so to structure the Adagio in the light of it may be to compromise its greatness without adding audible benefits.

Nonetheless, Harnoncourt has done a valuable service by dispelling some persistent myths about the 9th symphony, and shedding new light on Bruckner’s final statement. It will be hard for anyone who listens to this lengthy fragment to hear the standard 3 movement version in the same way again.

Review of Tristan und Isolde (Bayreuth 2009, Opus Arte DVD)

Tristan Robert Dean Smith

Isolde Iréne Theorin

Brangäne Michelle Breedt

King Marke Robert Holl

Kurwenal Jukka Rasilainen

Melot Ralf Lukas

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Peter Schneider. Produced by Christoph Marthaler. Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival, 9 August 2009

This production of Tristan by Swiss director Christoph Marthaler was first seen at Bayreuth in 2005, revived in 2008, and then opened the 2009 Bayreuth Season. It met with a mixed reception, to say the least, and it is not hard to see why.  Traditionalists are likely to be up in arms at the absence of boats, trees, castles, sword fights and other staples of Tristan productions. At the other extreme, enthusiasts for Wieland Wagner’s 1950s minimalist psychodramas will be appalled at Marthaler’s determinedly affect-free approach, with characters turning their backs to the audience and staring hopelessly at empty walls.

I do not have much sympathy for the booing audience in 2005, however. After a while one begins to appreciate the atmosphere of desolation created by the sets, costumes, and extreme understated acting. Tristan and Isolde’s doom was sealed long before the curtain rises on the first act, and the production is built around the inexorable slide towards the carnage of the final scene. The dowdy costumes and drab interiors accentuate the sense of futility and the production culminates in a dramatic masterstroke, as Isolde lies down on Tristan’s hospital gurney and pulls a white sheet over her head as she expires at the end of the Leibestod.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the focus of the production, the first and last acts are more successful than the second. Each of the principals is most convincing in the absence of the other. Iréne Theorin’s Isolde is visceral in Act 1 as she laments her betrayal by Tristan/Tantris. Robert Dean Smith’s Tristan comes into his own in Act 3 as he regains consciousness and slowly builds to the delirium scene where he hallucinates Isolde’s arrival. His finest moment is ‘O dieser sonne’. Both are less convincing in Act 2, although the ‘O sink herneider’ duet is sung with delicacy and Robert Holl is a commanding Konig Marke.

The outstanding singer in this production is Iréne Theorin, whose Isolde is deeply felt and thrillingly sung. In the final stages of Act 3 she moves compellingly from fury with the dead Tristan to a transcendent ‘Mild und leise’. Robert Dean Smith has much less psychological depth as Tristan, with a tendency to stand and belt out his lines. Jukka Rasilainen is a very creditable Kurwenal, particularly fine in the first part of Act 3. Michelle Breedt’s Brangäne is a very worthy partner to Theorin in the first two acts.

Peter Schneider’s conducts well. I appreciated his pacing in Act 1. It came across particularly well in the interlude between scenes 4 and 5. Act 2 was somewhat less convincing, with the two key dramatic entries of Tristan and Kurwenal not as effective as they might have been. But momentum and tension were maintained in Act 3.

The audio and visual quality of this Opus Arte CD are characteristically excellent. It would probably not be an ideal “starter” Tristan, but is certainly to be recommended for Theorin’s excellent Isolde and Marthaler’s idiosyncratic and thought-provoking production. 

Lady Macbeth of Mtensk in Amsterdam (Opus Arte DVD)

I am embarrassed to say that this was my first encounter with Shostakovich's wonderful opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk. Anyone else who has missed out would do well to pick up this excellent Opus Arte release from Netherlands Opera.

Mariss Jansons conducts at a feverish pitch. The camera focuses on him in the orchestral interludes and it is impressive to see his double-breasted suit remain fully buttoned throughout, in striking contrast to the lack of clothing on stage. Martin Kusej's production is minimalist in design and raunchy in execution. The singing is uniformly excellent. Katerina Ismailova is the one truly multidimensional character, sung with great expressiveness by Eva-Maria Westbroek. Christopher Ventris (solid in the title role of the Nagano/Lehnhoff Parsifal, also on Opus Arte) sings Sergey forcefully. Vladimir Vaneev is a wonderfully repellent Boris Timofeyevich Ismailov (Katerina's father-in-law and first victim), doubling up in the last act as the Old Convict. The chorus is first-rate.

Here is an extract from the final act that gives the flavor of the production and some of the principals.