Vox Bona, the chamber choir of the Kreuzkirche Bonn, offers us here a lovely and reflective a cappella theme collection of mostly late-romantic German pieces about the moods and mysteries of the night.

As the rather philosophically-toned notes point out, nighttime for most of us means protection and threat at the same time; it is "the place of demonic powers as well as the stronghold of comfort and security". Small wonder that night has fired the creative impulses of artists of all kinds. German poets and musicians--particularly in the romantic period--have left us especially sensitive and lovely evocations of the cycle of daily darkness. Some of the best of these are heard here, most of them for normal mixed chorus.

Three fine pieces from Max Reger, all in the style of German folk music, begin the program. 'The Moon has Risen', his second piece, is a drawn-out prayer, asking for peaceful repose and rest from the world's troubles. It is the first of several pieces here to draw parallels between nighttime and the "long night" of death. The most memorable of Brahms's four choral gems here are the two intense 'Night Vigil' songs, setting poetry by Ruckert. These offer stark contrast to his folk-flavored 'Furtively the Moon Rises'. Robert Schumann's single selection, 'Uncertain Light', for double chorus, impulsively explores the common romantic theme of the driven wanderer, stumbling resolutely through the night in pursuit of a distant and mysterious flicker of light. Hugo Wolf's lush and gentle Eichendorff setting, 'Resignation', is a particular treat; and Josef Rheinberger's imploring 'Evening Song' is a happy discovery.

More complex sonic moods and effects are heard in the three pieces by Harald Genzmer (b.1909). The most arresting of them is the Latin-hued 'Black Moon', with softly insistent men's voices spinning out a subtle dance rhythm beneath the women's sensual singing. Only two non-German composers are included. Kodaly's ecstatic 'Evening' speaks of nocturnal joy and peace in striking harmonic language. Perhaps the most disturbing offering of the lot is Britten's 'Long Night', from his eight Sacred and Profane pieces--a piece of bitter resignation.

The wonderful singers of Vox Bona produce the kind of clean, clear, yet robust singing often heard from German ensembles. Their sonorities are consistently pleasing, save for a few slightly shrill-sounding passages from the sopranos at the top of their volume and range. Otherwise, their sense of smooth ensemble and subtle emotional intensity makes this nocturnal music a real joy to hear.

Notes and texts are impeccable, and the English translation is quite elegant. Sound is vividly detailed and transparent. This is deep, thought-provoking, and mostly very beautiful material.

Josephine Lang (1815-80) suffered the typical life of a 19th Century woman composer: a domineering, jealous father, an unsupportive famlly, and more than her share of personal tragedy (she outlived three of her four sons). Like Carl Wieck, Lang's father tried to control every aspect of her education, musical and otherwise. When the young Josephine came to the attention of Felix Mendelssohn, he did his best to encourage her and see to it that she obtained a first class musical education, even offering to board her at the Mendelssohn home in Berlin where he could personally supervise her development. Her father refused. After the death of her father she married Reinhold Kdstlin, a professor of law who did nothing to encourage her to compose. As Ferdinand Hiller would later write, "the artist Josephine Lang disappeared before the Frau Professor; indeed, the art of music often had to yield to the art of cooking". The death of K6stlin in 1856 forced Lang to begin her career anew and, with the help of Hiller, Clara Schumann, and Rebecka (Mendelssohn) Dirichiet, she was able to re-establish herself as a piano pedagogue and composer of lieder.

Lang appears to have concentrated most of her musical efforts on lieder, rarely attempting anything on a larger scale. Only a few composers of piano miniatures and songs have established themselves in the repertory, since there is an expectation that a real composer must eventually attempt something greater. But there's a lot to be said for sticking to what one does well, and Lang, in her 150 published lieder, shows us that she was a very able composer. Mendelssohn waxed rhapsodic over her songs, and it is no wonder: she sounds exactly like him. In song after song, the spirit of Mendelssohn is never far. Grace, poise, elegance, beauty, and simplicity are her hallmarks. But Lang is no mere imitator of an established model. As a composer of songs, she's not just like Mendelssohn, she's often (dare I say it?) better Lang's songs have an extra something that all but the best of Mendelssohn's lack, making the elder composer's efforts sound like the imitations. With respect to her exact contemporaries Robert Franz and Robert Volkmann, she is consistently better. If she has a deficiency, it is that she never developed with time. Songs written in 1870 sound like those from 1840.

Serving this good music is soprano Heike Hallaschka's delightful singing. Confident and controlled, her bright pretty voice is ideally suited to the material. She also invests each song with subtle characterization, wisely avoiding the temptation to let them sing themselves. The engineers have captured the proceedings in ideal sound: realistic balance between singer and piano, both surrounded with just enough space to avoid a sense of being too close, but not with so much as to sound too reverberant.

An intelligent essay, reasonably well translated, and complete texts round out the release. Only the absence of translations for the texts mars the impression of this otherwise wholly effective and easily recommendable recording.

The Izmir Symphony, whose home is found on the Aegean coast, was established in 1975. This recording, made in Munich in 1995, is its first and the first ever by a Turkish orchestra outside of Turkey. It gave me my first chance to hear music by a Turkish composer and a Turkish orchestra.

Composer-conductor Betin Gunes was born in Istanbul in 1957 and studied piano and composition at the Istanbul State Conservatory. From there he went to Germany to study composition, conducting, trombone, and electronic music. His Izmir Alto Trombone Concerto was given its first performance in 1993 by the Izmir Symphony with the soloist heard here. I have written about Thomas Horch before (Nov/Dec 2000: 281; Mar/Apr 2001: 213). Principal trombonist of the Bavarian Radio Symphony, he certainly has good tone and all of the requisite skills, but his playing can be forceful and uninspiring. He has adapted very well, though, to the alto trombone, a little instrument with little solo literature. Pitched in E-fiat, it is not an easy double for tenor trombonists accustomed to instruments in B-flat. Players like Christian Lindberg, Joseph Alessi, and Alain Trudel make it sound light yet full, like a large flugeihorn. Horch compares quite favorably with those artists.

Lyricism, nifty group pyramids and trills, and restraint--unusual for a trombone piece--mark Gunes\'s concerto. In a wary and mysterious I, the soloist plays lyrically over spare orchestral textures. The furtive mood continues in II, as quiet lines from strings and woodwinds lead to lovely playing by Horch. Energy finally becomes a factor in III, but never to the extent I expect. Still, the piece is nicely proportioned, always interesting, and attractive. Gunes favors rich sonorities and has a good imagination. Horch\'s performance is excellent, and the orchestra complements him well.

If Gunes the composer knows how to make the Izmir Symphony sound good, Gunes the conductor doesn\'t fare as well in Villa-Lobos\'s Bachianas Brasileiras 7, where the orchestra sounds washed out. Vague instrumental tone qualities are the products of modestly competent players. Distant miking in a concert setting does not help. The worst problem is anemic bass and tuba sound.

These concert performances by two distinguished friends who often collaborated (from the Archives of the Bavarian Radio) are finely polished, poised, and enjoyable. But since there are several superior recordings of these two concertos, this release may primarily be of interest to fans of Curzon.

The tempos in both works tend to be lyrically conceived but slightly sleepy, thus lacking a sense of direction and proportion heard in the versions by Rubinstein and Bilson. Curzon brings a lot of finesse to the music in the slower passages of Concerto 21, but in the fast sections does not match Rubinstein\'s supreme fluency or tonal control. The perfect choice of tempo in Rubinstein\'s and Bilson\'s recordings makes the tempos in Curzon\'s seem staid. Bilson\'s performance of Concerto 21 (Archiv) is one of the most satisfying recordings of anything I know. Of course, the balance between forte-piano and orchestra is quite different than it is with a modern concert grand and symphonic orchestra, and therein lies some of the charm and rightness of this approach to 18th Century sonority. Another superb recording of this work with forte-piano is Immerseel\'s (Channel).

The orchestra remains strangely subservient to the soloist, almost repressed, until it plays alone, when it bursts forth with a kind of brash insistence.

Curzon seems to be in better form in the C-minor Concerto (recorded four years later in 1970). There is little to find fault with here, except the lack of forward motion when compared to Rubinstein, Bilson, and an exceptionally beautiful recording of this tragic work by Justus Frantz (Eurodisc).

Recorded sound is clear and well balanced, if nor quite of present-day standards.

Many folks frown these days when a musician flaunts the title virtuoso. Modesty prevails. Just identify a performer as a virtuoso and he will blanche. Best to just call him a musician, as though the plainer term was antithetical and more honorable than the fancier. Giovanni Bottesini proudly billed himself as the virtuoso of the double bass. His career was sustained by the romantic obsession with virtuosity. A virtuoso was set apart from other musicians not only by his astounding technical prowess. That was merely the first condition. The second was closer to the bone. A virtuoso incorporated his instrument as part of his sense of who he was. Paganini's name cannot be invoked without the violin immediately springing to mind, even though Paganini played the viola and guitar with the same amazing facility. Liszt epitomizes the piano. Still it was not enough that a virtuoso's name become synonymous with the instrument; the instrument must become his means of expression. The virtuoso must write great music in collaboration with his instrument. Among the many musicians who could be classified as virtuosos in the 19th Century only Paganini, Liszt, and Chopin wrote music that has endured beyond their own abilities to animate it. Yes, there is a hefty list of occasional and user-friendly works written by a host of virtuosos who are long dead. Most of them require a supreme instrumentalist to breath a moment or two of life back into them.

These pieces written by Bottesini to show off his skills and the potential of the double bass are sometimes sweet, sometimes saucy, always skillful works of no great staying power. Bassist Michinori Bunya does a credible job of playing them. He brings elan, a sense of timing worthy of the Flying Wolendas, and the same kind of madcap unpredictability that Jonathan Winters used to bring with him onto the set of the Tonight Show. The playing and the music are full of surprises. At your local classical music radio station this is the kind of music that the program director or computer operator salt into that part of the day they insist on calling "drive time" or "the drive home" when they need pieces that require no thought that might pull your attention from the road or the promotional announcements.

I imagine Bottesini himself played with a good deal more elegance and poise than Bunya. The arrangements by Bottesini for the accompanying string quintet are never less than accomplished. So in the end something is missing--the animating presence of the virtuoso himself. It's just such liveliness that makes the work of the contemporary double-bass virtuoso Edgar Meyers bearable.

Don\'t be misled by the packaging. The liner gives the title in German (Die Sieben Worte Christi am Kreuz), but the work is in fact sung in Latin. It comes from 1859, a time when the composer was engaged with liturgical and religious music; in later life he restricted his composition to the orchestral and chamber music he is known for. The Seven Words was, for reasons unknown, not performed during Franck\'s lifetime, and in fact was not discovered until 1977. This performance dates from 1979, shortly after the discovery. Franck supplemented the traditional Seven Words with additional text, both biblical and free. His music is sweet and lyrical, rather Mendelssohnian in flavor (as is so much 19th Century church music), and free from Franck\'s penchant for incessant modulation. The overall effect is meditative, not dramatic, even in poignant sections like \'My God, why has thou forsaken me?\'

The performance is certainly adequate for such a rare work. Most impressive is soprano Edith Wiens, who sounds terrific: full, rich, and expressive. A valuable release, then, for seeing another side of Franck and the state of church music in France around 1860.

A summer\'s day is good for listening to this kind of romantic music. Albert Dietrich (1829-1908) was the composer who contributed the first movement of the FAE Violin Sonata that Brahms and Schumann also helped with. He had a fine lyrical gift, judging by this 27-minute Cello Sonata, though he isn\'t as compellingly memorable as his two friends. I wonder how he and his older contemporary, Theodor Kirchner (1823-1903) felt when young Brahms (b. 1833) died in 1897? It is nice to couple these good but not great composers with short works by Schumann and Brahms that complement them without forcing a comparison. The Brahms intermezzos are played in transcriptions by Paul Klengel (1854-1935), violinist brother of Julius Klengel, the famous cellist. It is Paul who transcribed the First Violin Sonata of Brahms into a cello sonata, and he is responsible for numerous similar rearrangements of Brahms\'s works. The Opus 116:4 and Opus 117:1 are sensitively handled. Kirchner\'s Eight Pieces are imaginative and harmonically i nventive. All of this is played with warmth and sensitivity by these Munich-based musicians and recorded naturally.

As with the Kubelik recording of Mahler's Symphony 2 (July/Aug 2001), this 1976 concert performance of Symphony 7 is not to be confused with his 1970 studio recording with the same orchestra. I do not have that earlier recording on hand, but if memory serves, both have the same shortcomings. Although this is a well-conceived, straightforward performance, Kubelik ignores so many of Mahler's detailed notations--details that must be observed if Mahler's rampant imaginative ideas are to be realized--that the performance becomes a mere playing of the notes. For instance, the soaring, ecstatic flight of the strings in I (11:05-12:25) is neither soaring nor ecstatic. In the coda, the wild, screaming piccolos and the heavily scored battery--snare drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, tambourine, timpani, triangle--are scarcely heard (compare with the Horenstein, where they are heard best), and much orchestral color is thereby lost. In II, Mahler surely had more mystery in mind in this 'Night Music' than Kubelik gives us. The "Shadowy" (Mahler's word) III is very unshadowy under Kubelik's baton. (To experience that, try Bernstein or Thomas). The phantasmagoria is almost completely missing. Even the famous fffff(!) pizzicato (four bars after cue 161; "so intensely incited, that the strings strike the wood") sounds like a mere pluck (try the Sony Bernstein!). IV is quite good; Mahler's imaginative combining of guitar and mandolin in this movement is clearly heard (not so in many recordings). The finale brings us back to blandness. True, it is very spirited, but the movement's wild humor is in short supply. In the coda, Mahler throws every thing in but the kitchen sink, but here we do not hear much of it. In short, the movement's delicious vulgarity is lacking.

Despite the fact that many of the instruments (especially percussion) are scarcely heard, the recording has good sound. There are those who prefer their Mahler underplayed, with emotions held in check. I can recommend this recording to them, but as I have said often in these pages, underplayed, unemotional Mahler is an oxymoron.

Franz Paul Lachner (1803-90) was the son of an organist and composer and brother of two other professional musicians. He began studies with his father, but in 1822 he moved to Vienna where he became organist of the Lutheran Church. He completed his studies with Simon Sechter and Abbe Stadler. He became friendly with Schubert, Beethoven, and others. He moved up in Viennese musical circles until he moved briefly to Berlin. In 1836 he returned to Munich and became a fixture of the city\'s musical life.

In 1852 he wrote a setting of Sophocles\'s tragedy Oedipus for theatrical performance with a narrator, cast of speakers, chorus, and orchestra. It is an impressive work. Unfortunately this recording is aimed strictly at the German-speaking marketplace, for the notes and full text are supplied only in German. The music is dramatically written, in the mid-l9th Century style. The chorus sings very well, and the narrator is superb. So are most of the members of the speaking cast, with the sole exception of Oedipus, who speaks harshly and with emotions that bring to mind a Nazi party leader. Fortunately his role is minor. I should emphasize that the chorus and narrator have the major roles and are both splendid.

The recording is excellent in range and spatial positioning. I would strongly recommend its purchase to those who have wide ranging collections and who either speak German or don\'t mind their inability to read German. The recording is so clear that following the German text is easy.

Clifford Curzon was a finicky perfectionist who never liked the recording process and never seemed satisfied with his recorded performances, however favorably they were viewed by everyone else. His repertoire was not very extensive, but what he played, he played exceedingly well. In this respect he resembles Michelangeli and Lipatti. We are left with a somewhat sparse catalog of mostly splendid performances--far less complete than it could have been.

Curzon recorded expressive and powerful accounts of these two concertos with Knappertsbusch and the VPO in the mid-1950s. They are scheduled to be released soon on a low-cost Decca CD. Why, then, do we need these items from Audite?

Well, simply because these 1977 performances are even more poetic, grandly shaped, spontaneous, luminous, splendidly proportioned, and totally effective than the earlier ones. What is more, Kubelik and his great orchestra supply as sensitive and romantically supportive an orchestral backing as one could imagine--a framework for Curzon\'s pianism even more elegant than the formidable Knappertsbusch manages. Also, the sound here, though exhibiting less warmth and resonance than one expects from the Herculessaal, is more spacious, better focussed, and precisely imaged than in the earlier issue. Curzon is more expansive, and his sensitive and poetic shaping of phrases and paragraphs puts this release right into the top drawer. This is most impressive in No. 4, a work that is clearly structured on a Mozartean model. The Emperor is a little more straightforward, though still grandly proportioned and nobly expressed. Curzon\'s runs and trills are often slightly uneven, intentionally so I think, to give each of them i ts unique and individual profile. The uniquely poetic quality of these readings really puts them in a class by themselves. This is a full-price release, and it is worth far more than the asking price. It demonstrates this artist\'s work at its best.