Klangtechnisch ist das Ergebnis, Audite-typisch, eine frappierende Überraschung. [...] Eine grandiose Anthologie, aus der musikalisch besonders die 1953er-Aufnahmen von Mendelssohns Italienischer und Georges Bizets C-Dur-Sinfonie als zeitlose Referenzen hervorstechen

NOW SHOWING, riefen nach dem Krieg die Ankündigungsplakate am Titania-Palast...

Performances given at the Lucerne Festival are now being released by Audite and they look like becoming a historically significant series of discs, even given the raft of broadcast material currently circulating from the archives of European broadcasting stations and festivals. This one concentrates on performances given in 1957 by Robert Casadesus in Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, and by Clara Haskil in Mozart’s D minor Concerto K466 two years later. Not the least of the many distinctive features of the disc is the nature of the collaborations: Haskil with Klemperer and the Philharmonia, Casadesus with Mitropoulos and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Haskil had first performed the C minor in 1942, when she was already 47, and had just had an operation for a brain tumour. In 1960 she recorded it with Igor Markevitch and the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux, so this Klemperer encounter took place the year before her LP was released. Other examples of her way with the concerto appeared subsequently – it was a work that became very much associated with her, and there’s the Swoboda-directed disc on Westminster for example – but the Lucerne performance with Klemperer preserves a reading of the utmost refinement and beauty on the pianist’s part. She wrote in a letter that the performance had been for her ‘unforgettable’ and it features the Philharmonia’s wind soloists on their best, and most tonally responsive form, as they answer and taper their phrases and exchanges with the solo piano with great distinction. There’s a serious playfulness at work; Haskil dispatches her own first movement cadenza splendidly. The fluid yet purposeful slow movement comes over very well, despite one or two balancing disparities. Klemperer is a more emphatic conductor than Markevitch, not least in the finale, but the ensemble between himself and his soloist is first-class throughout, and buoyancy, once established, is properly maintained.

In the same way that Haskil was much admired for her Mozart, so Casadesus was not short of opportunities to set down his versions of the Emperor. Newton Classics has recently restored the recording he made with Hans Rosbaud, but you can also find studio and live versions elsewhere; there’s Medici broadcast directed by Christoph von Dohnányi amongst them, for example, and indeed a New York performance with Mitropoulos himself. Casadesus is a good foil to Haskil; his sensitive masculine extroversion to her introspective but not feline responses. If you’re looking for a perfect balance, finger-perfect pianism and a rock-solid ensemble, you won’t quite find it in this Emperor. If however you want a really exciting, risk-taking and spontaneous-sounding traversal of a warhorse, then you will certainly find it here. Nothing is taken for granted, by either soloist or conductor. The music making is communicative and also, in the slow movement, thoughtful and expressive. The highlight, though, is surely the finale, where a joie de vivre so hard truly to experience suffuses the performance. Casadesus is audacious, brilliant, exciting; Mitropoulos partners him every inch of the way, bringing the Vienna Philharmonic with him for a whirlwind and exhilarating ride.

A conventional concerto pairing is thus brought thoughtfully to life through the interpretative differences of their protagonists. This is a really outstanding start to the series.

Dieses Weihnachtsoratorium ist nichts für Nebenbei. Sollte es ja eigentlich auch niemals sein. Aber mal ehrlich, wer hat nicht schon mal beim Plätzchenbacken oder beim Putzen in der Adventszeit den unverwüstlichen Bach im Hintergrund laufen lassen? Bei dieser Aufnahme geht das nicht. Sie verlangt volle Konzentration und Sammlung. Und man sollte es sich nicht zu gemütlich machen. Am besten, man nimmt gleich auf einem Stuhl vor den Lautsprechern Platz und fühlt sich in eine große Kirche versetzt. Der Klang ist ganz danach, wuchtig und groß. Wie Stereo hebt es an, in Wahrheit ist es weit davon entferntes Mono. Die Pauken tonangebend, kräftig und bestimmend. Als sei am Anfang die Pauke gewesen und nicht das Wort! “Jauchzet, frohlocket, auf preiset die Tage”!

Auf dem Programm steht eine Ausgrabung, die bei audite rechtzeitig zum Fest erschienen ist: Johann Sebastian Bach, Weihnachtsoratorium, aufgenommen 1950 in Berlin mit Kammerchor, Knabenchor und Kammerorchester des RIAS unter der Leitung von Karl Ristenpart (21.421).Er hatte das Kammerorchester 1946 gegründet. Ristenpart (1900 – 1967), der auch während des Nationalsozialismus künstlerisch tätig gewesen ist, gehörte zu den Pionieren des musikalischen Neubeginns nach dem verlorenen Krieg in Westdeutschland. Seine Aufnahmen sind Legende, einer umfänglichen Kantatenausgabe beim selben Label folgt nun das überfällige Oratorium. Es ist eine historische Aufnahme, nicht nur in Bezug auf ihr Alter von mehr als sechzig Jahren. Der Ansatz ist streng, protestantisch streng. “Soli deo gloria!” Dem alleinigen Gott die Ehre, wie Bach unter seine Werke schrieb. Unbändige Freude will bei so viel Ernst nicht aufkommen. Die ist genauso wie Sinnlichkeit und gar ein Hauch Erotik erst späteren Aufnahmen vorbehalten. Auf dem Weg dahin ist Ristenpart mit seiner Deutung eine wichtige Station. Bei allen kritischen Einwänden, die zu einem Gutteil unseren heutigen Hörgewohnheiten entspringen, gebührt dieser Produktion in der umfangreichen Diskographie des Werkes ein vorderer Platz. Ristenpart nimmt die Chorpassagen ziemlich zügig, lässt sich aber bei der Gestaltung des inhaltlichen Geschehens viel Zeit, als wolle er, dass jedes Detail gebührend zur Geltung gelangt, nichts soll verloren gehen.

Das Solistenquartett fügt sich in dieses Konzept exakt ein – Agnes Giebel (Sopran), Charlotte Wolf-Matthäus (Alt), Helmut Krebs (Tenor), Walter Hauck (Bass). Alle singen alles, Krebs ist auch der Evangelist. Alle haben große Bach-Erfahrungen. Stilistisch bieten sie eine vollkommene Leistung an allen sechs Kantaten. Gern erinnere ich mich an weit zurückliegende Aufführungen des Weihnachtsoratoriums in meiner Jugendzeit in kleinen oder großen Kirchen. Die Sänger hatten stets die Noten in Händen, die wie zum Pult gegen das Publikum erhoben waren. Damals fand ich das etwas albern, später habe ich diese Haltung richtig verstanden. Niemand hätte sich gewagt, seine Partie aus dem Gedächtnis vorzutragen, obwohl das die meisten locker gekonnt hätten. Respekt vor dem Werk zeigte sich auch als Respekt vor dem Notenblatt. Genau so konzentriert und würdevoll wirken die Solisten dieser Aufnahme auf mich.

Wer noch kein Weihnachtsoratorium besitzen sollte und sich endlich eins zulegen will, ist mit dieser Aufnahme nicht gut bedient. Für den Einstieg gibt es unzählige Alternativen neueren Datums. Sie ist ein Sammlerstück, ein sehr wichtiges allemal. Ich möchte nicht mehr darauf verzichten.

Mit dieser CD beginnt bei Audite eine umfassende Reihe mit Einspielungen aller Orchesterwerke von Robert Schumann mit dem WDR Sinfonieorchester unter Heinz Holliger. Sie wird alle Symphonien (inkl. beider Fassungen der Vierten) sowie alle Ouvertüren und Konzerte enthalten.

Heinz Holliger ist ein äußerst vielseitiger Musiker, der als Komponist, Dirigent und Oboist gleichermaßen Berühmtheit erlangte. Für Robert Schumann hegt er eine große Leidenschaft, er dirigiert seine Werke oft und er gibt zu, dass Schumann quasi in jeder seiner Kompositionen präsent ist. Er sagte auch, er komme bei Schumann in seinen analytischen Betrachtungen nie an ein Ende: "Es gibt immer neue Türen, die sich öffnen. Nach der geöffneten Tür kommt eine weitere und dann noch eine und noch eine."

Heinz Holligers Interpretationen beruhen also auf seiner langen Beschäftigung mit dem Werk und der Person Robert Schumanns. Und das hört man. Holligers Interpretation sind sehr ausgefeilt, die Detailarbeit, die er vom Orchester fordert, hat gewiss viel Probenzeit konsumiert. Das Resultat ist ein sehr transparenter, farblich aufgefrischter und schlanker Schumann, mit zum Teil kühnen Rubati und einer deutlichen Aufwertung der Holzbläser gegenüber den quasi vibratolos spielenden Streichern. Direkt revolutionär ist das alles nicht, aber spannend ist es allemal.

An exciting release that embraces all the drama, quirkiness and transcendent beauty of Vierne's huge organ Symphonies. Ross's brilliant playing is captured in good sound.

Holliger's profound empathy for Schumann shines through these outstanding performances which sustain a miraculous transparency of orchestral texture without sacrificing expressive intensity.

The six organ symphonies of Louis Vieme naturally fall into the repertoire of such works by French composers, but they constitute a 'set' (albeit in some respects an unfinished one) far more readily put together as a sequence than any other. They virtually demand being heard as a major series of works in sequence, and I hope that at some point a dedicated organist will play all six in one recital This is because, from the start, they were planned as such: Vierne's six organ symphonies are each in a minor key, the rising sequence – Bach-like, as in the Clavierübung – being D minor, E minor, F sharp minor, G minor, A minor and B minor. Vierne was unable to complete the Seventh, in C minor, for which only sketches survive.

Of the six symphonies, only the first is in six movements – the others are all in five. In discussing the first volume of Hans-Eberhard Roß’s set in February 2013, I explained the multi-movement form of French organ symphonies, which I shall not repeat here, but what is remarkable in this sequence of extended works is the variety which Vierne brings to each multi-movement plan. He never 'repeats' himself in structuralization or emotional juxtaposition, and the result is – despite a certain macro-thematicism which tends to run throughout all six symphonies – that each work is quite different from its fellows, yet at the same time seems to 'belong' to the set.

It is a facet of large-scale integration of contrasts, which in my opinion has never received the musicological attention it deserves, but which these recordings in progress from this organist via Audite makes eminently worthwhile and practical.

Vierne was virtually sightless, and suffered greatly in his personal and professional life; the first element means that it is only quite recently that reliable editions of his works have appeared (he was considerably disadvantaged in checking proofs prior to publication and was often emotionally discouraged from dealing with practical matters). Although the symphonies were composed with the sounds of the great Cavaillé-Coll instrument at Notre-Dame very much in mind, the music in each symphony is sufficiently varied as to afford the performer with a number of choices, which in this case Roß explains in detail – at the same time as exhibiting his own love for and understanding of this music.

Thus it is that we have performances of these fine works which are compelling throughout. Particularly, the account of the great Adagio in the Third Symphony (arguably Vierne's masterpiece), shot through with deeply expressive invention, is very moving here, especially as the composer's individuality is strong and quite original, as we hear in the handful of recordings he made himself.

Roß’s accounts are consistently very good indeed: the main facet of his interpretative ability is that he brings out the character of each movement in both symphonies as well as relating them to the overall larger structure. This is a rare and noble quality, achieved through an integration of tempos as subtle use of registration – in the Third Symphony through relating the Adagio and the toccata-like finale, and in the Fourth (over which looms the shadow of the recently broken-out war) through thematic, cyclical, integration (César Franck was Vierne's teacher, albeit briefly) rather than emotional character (the variety in the first three movements is astonishing).

Apart from the committed intelligence of this fine player, the recording quality here is quite splendid, and this second volume deserves a strong recommendation to set alongside its predecessor.

'Tis the season to jauchzen and frohlocken. Right on cue, here is a stimulatingly diverse crop of Christmas Oratorios: two on rather different scales employing period instruments (one on CD from Camhridge, one on DVD and Blu-ray from Brussels) and one employing twentieth-century hardware (nowadays sounding 'period' in its own right) from post-war Berlin. The Christmas Oratorio has not managed to attain quite the prominence in the repertoire that the Mass in B minor or the Passions have established for themselves – a little odd on the face of it, given that it has the narrative potential of the former and the sumptuous scoring of the latter. Even Bach himself gave it just a single outing, over Christmas-New Year 1733-34. Perhaps it is not too blasphemous to feel that Bach's parody practice might have had something to do with it: a great part of the music was originally intended for different words, and words that fit it somewhat better. The strangely gravelly tessitura of the chorus's opening utterance (taking the sopranos down to low A) is explained by the original text: not 'Jauchzet, frohlocket' (,Rejoice, exult!') but 'Tönet, ihr Pauken' 'Sound out, ye drums'. The lullaby to Baby Jesus from Part 2 ('Schlafe, mein Liebster') was originally sung by none other than a personification of Lust to tempt Hercules in a secular cantata. Hercules's aria of rejection (Ich will dich nicht hören') became the call to Zion to welcome Jesus as bridegroom ('Bereite dich Zion'); 'Großer Herr, o starker König' was originally addressed to a Königin. This is certainly all very inventive and economical (although surely bordering on the potentially scandalous at the time) but does not guarantee the ideal symbiosis between text and music – certainly the chorus which opens Part 5, one of the few large-scale choruses to be newly composed, does seem to have a particular freshness. […]

Ristenpart's 1950 account would not be an obvious choice as one's only Christmas Oratorio. It is nonetheless an intriguing document of post-war Bach performance practice, incorporating several ideas one would generally, associate with later decades. Even though it does run onto three CDs, the overall duration of 156 minutes is just four minutes longer than Layton's and ten more than Herreweghe's and some of his tempos are swifter than either.

Habakuk Traber's booklet note puts Ristenpart in historical context as helping to reclaim Bach from Nazi-era monumentality. The chorales show a quite modern understanding of Bach's fermatas (as phrase marks rather than held chords), making Layton's approach seem strangely old-fashioned by comparison. The shepherds' Sinfonia at the beginning of Part 2 is most attractively phrased and zips by in a mere 4'20" – Traber makes the comparison with René Jacobs's 1997 period-instrument recording featuring the successors of the same choir, in which the same Sinfonia takes a leisurely 7'48" (Harmonia Mundi HMC2901630.31). On the debit side, the large-scale choruses are generally (inevitably?) somewhat slower to modern ears, with the runs choppily articulated; the 3/8 choruses, of which there are many, do not always manage to phrase in one to the bar, instead emerging with three relatively even accents.

The solo arias often show an enviable degree of chamber-music rapport between voices and instruments – something which eludes the vast majority of performances, historical or otherwise. (Indeed the combination so often met with today of rigorously historical instruments and not particularly historical voices is all but guaranteed to miss this rapport which Bach's scores above all seem to demand.) In 'Frohe Hirten' Helmut Krebs's tenor and the unnamed flautist trade their demisemiquavers as equals; in 'Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben' Krebs is neatly embedded in the violin obbligatos. In 'FIößt, mein Heiland' soprano Agnes Giebel and her oboist are not only on compatible dynamic planes but share a compatible musical concept, which could not be said for the version on the Layton recording, as lovely as it is in other respects. The instrumental contribution is in general uneven: the high trumpets are overstretched in many passages compared with what their valveless colleagues manage so serenely on the other two recordings, the woodwinds generally fine, the strings a little inarticulate by today's standards, the harpsichord rather out of place in the general instrumental concept.

In all, though, Ristenpart's recording is an important testament to the complexity of interpretative currents in Bach performance in the second half of the twentieth century – not least in suggesting that some recent developments might not have led to more historically or musically appropriate results.

Not, then, the only recording to have on the shelf, but certainly one to be recommended for any listeners seriously interested in the recent history of performance practice. It is hard to avoid noticing that the vocal soloists on recent period-instrument recordings employ significantly more vibrato than some of their mid-twentieth century counterparts: not only Krebs for Ristenpart here but also, for example, Anton Dermota in Furtwängler's classic St Matthew Passion (EMI Références 5 65509-2) are comprehensively outdone in that department by Gilchrist and Hobbs, as well as Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Hans-Peter Blochwitz for Gardiner, Paul Agnew for Philip Pickett (Decca 458 838-2) and dozens of others. (Choirs, to be fair, have gone decisively in the opposite direction, and a good thing too – the RIAS choir's vibrato for Ristenpart is an unequivocal debit point.) Perhaps one day a recording might come along where the singers shape their notes as today's historical instrumentalists do in the service of a genuine chamber-music approach – I can only dimly imagine the possible results but I am sure they would be wonderful. I can't, alas, imagine how well-behaved I would have to be for Santa to organize that in the foreseeable future (Audite 21.421, three discs, 2 hours 36 minutes).

Das Quartett trug von London aus die wienerische Spielkultur in die Welt und wurde zum wohl bedeutendsten Quartett seiner Zeit. Für Rias Berlin machten die vier ab 1950 Radioaufnahmen, die nun nach und nach in den Handel kommen. Auf Beethoven folgt Schubert – in Vollendung musiziert.