BRUCKNER THIRD AND A MASS

posted by James Reel

Have I posted these two reviews I wrote for Fanfare? This site still has no search function (nor a blogroll or provision for a sidebar of links of any kind), so I'm not sure what's here already and what's not. Well, even if you've read these two Bruckner reviews, they probably haven't stuck in your brain, so here you go:

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 3 (1873 version) * Simone Young, cond; Hamburg PO * OEHMS OC 624 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 68:38)

Simone Young is recording the earliest versions of Bruckner’s first four symphonies, plus the Eighth. I was very impressed by her traversal of the Second, although the score itself does not rise to Young’s level of interpretation (see Fanfare 31:3). The Third, the so-called “Wagner” Symphony, is a more satisfactory score, although I must admit that I prefer the later, trimmer editions. The 1873 original, with its Wagner quotations intact, is given to bloat, and the Adagio is simply unmemorable. That said, Young makes a good case for this edition in an increasingly crowded field. This performance is very slow overall, about the same as Nagano’s, but not as expansive as the unusual Tintner (I’m restricting my comparisons to recordings of the 1873 version). The first movement is especially drawn out, and I may eventually decide that it’s too lugubrious for my taste, but at the moment I appreciate Young’s patience, which makes the music ruminative without dragging, and shows proper respect for the rests. The Adagio, despite its inherent defects, is well paced. The scherzo shows off the orchestra’s powerful brass—the section plays with lots of punch here, less elsewhere—contrasted with the grace of the strings and woodwinds in the trio section. The same remarks hold for Young’s traversal of the final movement. The DSD-recorded acoustic is big enough to accommodate the orchestra and its climaxes, but the score does not flounder in cathedral reverberation.

This is a very fine version of the 1873 edition. Robert McColley praised the Douglas Nott recording in 28:6; I haven’t heard it, but I’m cautious, not having found much interest in Nott’s Schubert. McColley also approves of the Nagano performance (28:3), while expressing a preference for Tintner (which, unlike the others mentioned, is not a surround-sound SACD). Peter Rabinowitz warns us away from the Marcus Bosch effort in 31:2. At the moment, I’m quite happy with Simone Young. James Reel

BRUCKNER Mass No. 2. Os justi. Virga Jesse. Locus iste. Afferentur regi. Ave Maria (1861). Christus factus est. Pange lingua * Marcus Creed, cond; SWR Vocal Ens, Stuttgart * HÄNSSLER 93.199 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 65:29)

Bruckner’s Mass No. 2, for chorus accompanied by winds, has received relatively few recordings in recent years, although the smaller motets have fared better. There’s a newish recording of the Mass from Stephen Layton and Polyphony on Hyperion, which I haven’t heard and has not been reviewed in Fanfare at this writing; Robert McColley is very fond of a Carus motet collection conducted by Hans-Christoph Redemann, and had praise for an MDG SACD with Petr Fiala directing Czech forces (see Fanfare 30:4). My own standard for all the Bruckner choral music is the old Jochum set on DG, which seems to be currently available only as a two-pack containing the three Masses, but none of the other choral music that were included in the four-CD version; 10 motets, Psalm 150 and the popular Te Deum are relegated to a separate disc.

On the disc at hand, fleshing out the rather early Mass with some of Bruckner’s early and mature motets, Marcus Creed leads performances that are consistently a bit faster than Jochum’s (except in Pange lingua), but are still slow and devotional. Jochum, overall, is the more dramatic interpreter. Creed, being English, draws a fairly white tone from what sounds to be a mid-sized German choir, but not at the expense of expressive warmth. The choir is well blended, even if some of the writing is skewed to the top voices. The one drawback is that there isn’t much variety among the six motets that begin the disc, which leads to just a little tedium. The surround sound is flattering to the singers, without drawing attention to itself in any way—a hallmark of the SWR engineers. This is a well-performed collection in modern sound, but I’ll stick with the old Jochum when I’m in more of a mood for action than contemplation. James Reel

A MODEST PROPOSAL

posted by James Reel

In the hallway outside my radio studio, there’s a big TV screen that displays six—count ’em, six—different KUAT/Arizona Public Media video feeds. One of them is devoted entirely to children’s programming, and the main broadcast channel devotes most of the morning to PBS kiddie shows. There are lots of non-PBS children’s shows on various cable channels, and as far as I know the commercial networks still devote Saturday mornings to cartoons.

Why?

What do children learn from sitting in front of a television that they couldn’t learn more thoroughly from interacting with other human beings? How can Barney or the denizens of Sesame Street or the departed Mr. Rogers teach kids about sharing if they don’t have anybody to share something with? Are commercial-network cartoons even entertaining? I didn’t think so when I was a kid, aside from old Warner Bros. efforts and maybe Roger Ramjet and Rocky & Bullwinkle.

Shows about things like Thomas the Tank Engine are good mainly for selling toys. Why should a child waste time watching the animated infomercial? The kid should just play with the damn toys, either alone (honing the individual imagination) or with other children (learning social interaction). Children also need more time with adults, parents, teachers and strangers who have no compunction about setting them straight when they get out of line. Kids I know spend so much time cavorting in front of the TV (not even watching it, really) that they have no idea how to behave appropriately around actual human beings.

So here’s an idea: End all children’s television programming. Let them read, run around, play with other kids, interact with adults, spend a limited amount of time with video games, help around the house—anything but watch TV. Then PBS and other networks could fill the mornings with programs that grownups could TiVo and use to keep themselves pacified and out of trouble at night.

GRAY AUDIENCE?

posted by James Reel

While I have your attention, here's a good article from the Los Angeles Times debunking the notion that the graying audience for classical music is either a new or tragic thing. Read the article, and you'll be looking at a fairly rosy picture. The only challenge remains how to help younger people make the transition to classical concertgoing once they have the time and money, and I don't think that will be so hard; young people are more musically omnivorous now than they ever have been. What a relief!

IN THE DARK

posted by James Reel

Well, I'm still fending off my case of sinusitis, which returned after a brief hiatus, but yesterday the doc gave me some antibiotics that should rid me of the infection once and for all. I may not be fit for air work, but at least I can point you to my latest Tucson Weekly contribution, a review of the latest Beowulf Alley effort:

In a conventional thriller, darkness means danger. The best twist in Frederick Knott's perhaps too-twisty play Wait Until Dark is that darkness works to the innocent heroine's advantage--she's blind and can easily find her way around while the bad guys flounder. I doubt that I'm giving anything away, because Knott's mid-1960s play was once a Broadway hit, has been repeatedly revived there, can be found in community theaters everywhere, and pops up regularly on cable TV in the form of a nicely edgy little movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin. The appeal of Wait Until Dark isn't what happens at the end--because it's dark, you can't really see much of what's going on, anyway--but how the characters inch their way toward that climax. Beowulf Alley is presenting a not entirely secure production of the play, but its greatest asset is what counts most: a sympathetic but slightly sharp-edged actress in the lead role.

You can read the detailed pluses and minuses here.

BEETHOVEN AND HANDEL

posted by James Reel

Here are a couple more reviews I wrote earlier this year for Fanfare: Beethoven chamber music, and Handel organ concertos.

BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 9 in C, Op. 59/3; String Quintet in C, Op. 29 * Kuijken Ens * CHALLENGE CC72181 (multichannel hybrid SACD: 65:14)

One big happy family—that’s the impression left by these Beethoven performances featuring two generations of Kuijkens. I gave it a corporate title to keep the headnote under control, but group doesn’t really have a name; it consists of violinist Sigiswald Kuijken and his cellist-brother, Wieland; Sigiswald’s violist wife, Marleen Thiers; and their daughters, violinist Veronica and violist Sara. They play well together, in more ways than one.

This is immediately apparent in their joyful treatment of the first movement of the third “Razumovsky” Quartet. (Pedantic note: You can’t just call this the “Razumovsky” Quartet, because the title is applied to all three works of Op. 59, so you must specify whether it’s the first, second, or third. Similarly, you can’t just refer to Schubert’s Ninth Symphony as “the Great,” as if to convey how big or wonderful it is, because the adjective is linked to the key: “Great C-major,” to differentiate it from Schubert’s earlier, “Little C-major” Symphony.) Throughout the disc, there’s abundant evidence of like-minded musicians taking great pleasure in fine music. The often-snubbed Quintet, by the way, is given here in its two-cello version, and comes across as a much stronger work than usual.

The Kuijkens are best known as period-instrument players, but here (as in an earlier Debussy release, apparently not reviewed in Fanfare) they take up modern instruments. Still, they tend to reserve vibrato for held notes and dynamic swells, and they keep their textures clear. The interpretation is not highly emotive, yet the music is by no means underplayed. The playing is clean and incisive, but the overall affect is not high-strung. Compare, for example, the Prazák Quartet’s treatment of Op. 59/3 in its SACD survey of the Beethoven quartets. The Prazáks are recorded at a greater distance, with a narrower aural deployment of the instruments, yet their performance is “bigger.” After the Kuijkens, they seem a bit rushed and frantic, and some of their attacks have greater bite, although there’s nothing soft about the Kuijkens.

There’s nothing unusual about any of the tempo choices; what distinguishes these performances more than anything is the wonderful variety of dynamics, carefully applied, without going to extremes. In the Quintet, despite what might be expected from musicians immersed in the 18th century, the Kuijkens don’t go out of their way to Classicize the score. Indeed, in terms of weight and expression, they link it firmly to Beethoven’s middle quartets. There’s drama here, as in the big episode near the end of the second movement, but the drama isn’t as explosive as it might be at the hands of today’s harder-edged American groups. All in all, this is an exceptionally agreeable and engaging disc, with attractively realistic, fairly close sonics. James Reel

HANDEL Organ Concertos, Op. 4 * Richard Egarr (org); Academy of Ancient Music * HARMONIA MUNDI HMU 807446 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 71:35)

Between us, Andrew Quint and I favorably reviewed PentaTone’s four-disc, multichannel reissue of Daniel Chorzempa’s Handel organ-concerto survey, originally for Philips, in Fanfare 26:5, 27:2, and 28:1. That is a highly desirable series, and has been for more than 30 years, but now Richad Egarr and his Academy of Ancient Music are embarking on a set that should be highly competitive, and interpretively quite different.

The initial disc collects all six of the Op. 4 concertos, and suggests that Egarr and Harmonia Mundi will probably be able to compress the entire series onto three discs. In terms of sonics and performance, Chorzempa is brighter and more in-your-face than Egarr; the latter turns in thoughtful, often darker readings on a sweet-toned little organ that contrasts interestingly with the natural astringency of the period-instrument orchestra (it should be noted that today’s Academy of Ancient Music is far less nasal and honking than it was in the 1970s and ’80s). Making up for the color limitations of the organ (Egarr, like Handel, uses a fairly modest four-stop portative instrument), the musicians employ a mean-tone tuning system that adds some harmonic sparks when certain keys scrape against each other. Egarr’s dense level of ornamentation sounds free, not fussy, and the overall effect is probing and ruminative.

One potentially controversial aspect of this disc is the performance of the sixth concerto, usually played on the harp. What might cause a stir is not the fact that it’s re-assigned to the organ, as is not uncommon, but the nature of the performance itself. On the theory that the organ is essentially a “box of recorders,” Egarr has eliminated the real recorders from the orchestra, and extended throughout the work Handel’s first-movement idea of muting the violins and having the lower strings play pizzicato. The interpretation itself, including Egarr’s playing, is muted and slow, eliminating the work’s customary sparkle. In exchange, we get greater sensuality.

The sonic image is clear and natural, with the organ seeming to be placed a bit closer to us than the orchestra. This promises to be a fine series, and a real interpretive contrast to the more chipper Chorzempa. James Reel

BALAZS BLAST-OFF

posted by James Reel

The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, which I help direct, is running an underwriting spot on KUAT-FM promoting this season’s first concert, tomorrow night (October 1). The spot promotes Trio Solisti playing music by three composers: Franz Schubert, Paul Schoenfield and Modest Mussorgsky. One composer was left off that list, whether to keep the spot within its 15-second limit or because whoever wrote it thought he didn’t have a recognizable name: Frederick Balazs. But that name should be immediately recognizable to classical music lovers who have lived in Tucson since the early 1960s.

Fred Balazs was the conductor of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra from 1952 to 1966. He doubled as a composer at the time, and once he left the orchestra and Tucson, that’s mainly how he occupied himself.

After we’d engaged Trio Solisti for the concert, I found out that its violinist, Maria Bachmann, and pianist, Jon Klibonoff, had played a violin sonata by Balazs on the east coast. Since Balazs, now in his late 80s, is living in Tucson again, I asked the AFCM president to try to persuade Bachmann and Klibonoff to play the sonata as part of the Trio Solisti concert. They readily agreed.

At the beginning of the concert, I’ll interview Balazs onstage; meanwhile, you can read all about him in this archived article Dan Buckley wrote for the Tucson Citizen upon Balazs’ last local sighting, some five years ago.