Without doubt, Maureen Forrester was one of the greatest singers of the previous century. By happy coincidence, three Fanfare critics—Henry Fogel, Paul Orgel, and I—just placed her recording of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder with Ferenc Fricsay and the RIAS Symphony of Berlin in the magazine’s Classical Hall of Fame. (I can’t recall any previous occasion on which three different Fanfare critics were moved to nominate the same recording for that status.) And yet her discography, while not small, is somewhat limited, and does not cover major aspects of her repertoire. There is of course a good deal of Mahler, and some Bach cantatas, and solo roles in major choral works by Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, and so on, plus two major operatic parts: Cornelia in Handel’s Julius Caesar and the title role of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. But remarkably lacking is recorded documentation of the wide array of Lieder and mélodies she sang in her almost innumerable concert recitals over four decades. Hence the appearance of this set, featuring five radio broadcasts in Berlin of vocal recitals given in her early peak years between 1955 and 1963, is a discographic event of the first magnitude.

Forrester was one of the last representatives of a voice type that seems now all but extinct—the true, pure alto, with a deep, vibrant vibrato and voluminous weight and power. As with all such voices, the top was secure but not brilliant, with the weight of projection located in the middle and lower registers. While powerful in projection, she could also scale back and produce delicate, deeply affecting mezza voce and piano effects. Her intonation was rock-solid, and her diction a model of clarity without in the least impairing the legato of the vocal line. The timbre had an innate pathos to it that made it particularly suitable for tragic subjects, and she sculpted phrases in ways that made every word count.

All of her many virtues are fully on display in these five recitals. Although the opening Rückert Lieder falls somewhat short of her aforementioned immortal studio recording with Fricsay, it is a formidable and moving account in its own right, though of course the piano accompaniment cannot match the impact of the orchestral version. After that, Forrester soars. The Loewe songs glow; the Wesendonck Lieder smolder with subterranean longing; the Brahms Zigeunerlieder exult in high spirits. In the Schubert and Schumann Lieder, Forrester demonstrates her ability to scale back her voice for intimate effects (try, for example, “Bertas Lied”) and intense pathos. (Interestingly, she sings the Maria Stuart Lieder in the original French and Latin of the poems rather than in the German translation set by Schumann; Forrester’s regular accompanist, John Newmark, had searched out those versions for her Paris debut, and she stayed with them thereafter.) The third disc brings stylistic shifts that move her into repertoire both before and after the Romantic period, and initially is somewhat less successful. While the two brief devotional pieces by the obscure Johann Wolfgang Franck (1644–1710) come off well, by modern standards the two C. P. E. Bach songs and the extended scena of Arianna a Naxos by Haydn are highly unidiomatic, almost clumsy sounding, though Forrester invests her singing with deep feeling. In the sets of songs by Britten, Barber, and Poulenc she is back on form, with a good command of French, though her voice is unusually dark and heavy for this repertoire; it is actually amazing how well she brings them all off in spite of that. Her feeling for Poulenc’s style is so idiomatic that I wonder if she had any personal coaching by him when she was in France.

Forrester is also mostly fortunate in her accompanists. Michael Raucheisen is of course legendary (the 69-CD set of his comprehensive survey of German Lieder during World War II, with a bevy of that nation’s greatest signers, is one of my prized possessions). His successor at RIAS, Felix Schröder, shows considerable sensitivity in the Britten songs and Poulenc’s La fraîcheur. Hertha Klust is best remembered today as an early accompanist to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; I find her acceptable but somewhat heavy-handed and lacking in nuance, particularly in Haydn’s Arianna. The recorded sound is clear monaural radio broadcast quality of its era. The booklet provides the complete contents of the set and a well-considered essay on Forrester and these performances, but no song texts. This is an indispensable acquisition not only for fans of the great Canadian contralto, but of lovers of great singing in general. Emphatically recommended, and another candidate for my burgeoning 2017 Want List.

On connaît mal, trop mal, en France le Quatuor Mandelring, pourtant en activité depuis plus de trente ans. De son opulente discographie (dont des intégrales Mendelssohn et Chostakovitch), seule sa lecture exaltée des quatuors de Janacek nous était parvenue—elle se taillait d’ailleurs une place de choix dans la discographie dressée par Nicolas Derny dans le n° 642.

On réalise dès les premières mesures de l’Opus 881a droiture et l’intégrité du jeu. Cette remarquable formation impressionne autant par la densité des timbres et par la façon de « calibrer » les élans: on y reconnaît l’héritage d’une culture et d’un style. Autorité et puissance habitent un discours rigoureusement organisé dans les trois mouvements du Quintette n° 1 ; les artistes trouvent un juste davanéquilibre des voix comme des nuances. La séduction n’est pas la priorité d’une vision plus forte et intense que véritablement printanière.

Le lyrisme plus généreux du Quintette n° 2 s’épanouit mieux dans leur palette expressive. La vigueu r, l’assurance dominent un propos d’une solidité à toute épreuve, ponctué d’envolées héroïques. Pourtant dans le sublime Adagio, ce n’est pas le rêve qu’ils dessinent mais toujours la réalité. Un brin d’abandon aurait allégé le ton, un peu trop musclé. La couleur slave des deux derniers mouvements est clairement soulignée—encore plus nettement que dans la gravure historique des Budapest. Si, comme nous, vous aimez par-dessus tout le charme plus viennois et surtout la touche de tendresse des Amadeus (avec Cecil Aronowitz en 1967, DG), vous risquez de rester au bord du chemin nettement tracé et balisé par les nouveaux venus, avec métier et conviction.

I have encountered the Mandelring Quartet in their earlier recordings of Schubert and Mendelssohn, where I found their playing wonderfully alert and impassioned. They come from the school of quick tempos and dramatic juxtaposition, rather than of warmth and relaxed romanticism. Sometimes I have found them a bit too fast and brusque, but without doubt they are a very fine group.

The Brahms quintets are late works, but with the Mandelring they do not sound at all autumnal. I’ve sometimes complained when groups take the opening of the F major quickly—I’ve preferred the warmer approach of the Raphael Ensemble—but here, at a pretty good pace, it sounds quite right (and isn’t the opening theme one of Brahms’s nicest melodies?). Fast passagework, as in the last two movements of the F major, is very crisp and beautifully controlled. Through all of this, the emotional side of Brahms is well served. This is modern Brahms, polished and crisp, never sentimental or stodgy. Unless you’re wedded to old-world Brahms, you’ll love this!

The first program is excellently played by both musicians. It consists of Brahms’s E minor Sonata and Debussy’s in D minor and the Cesar Franck Violin Sonata transcribed for cello and piano with the composer’s approval. The emotional impression of these readings is very positive for the Brahms and the Franck, a bit less so for the Debussy. The playing is grand and tender by turns, with effective contrasts and lyricism. The Debussy is more virtuosic and slithery in technique than I like in this music. It tends to go so fast that the subtlety of the music goes by the board, particularly in the Finale. But the rest of the program is very satisfying, and these players deserve to be heard. The sound and balances are excellent.

In the second program we start off with the Debussy Sonata. At first I thought this was going to be a more sensitive reading, but it turned out to be as silly as the other one and less subtle. The three lovely Fauré pieces that follow are beautifully played, and so is the massive Franck Sonata and the contrasting Saint-Saens Allegro Appassionato and ‘The Swan’. It’s a well-arranged and nicely contrasted program of French masterpieces, and only the Debussy is less than satisfying.

This disc would be worth getting if all it contained were the wonderful performance of Brandenburg Concerto 5 in Reger’s piano duet version. Add the other music in, and you have one of the best discs I’ve heard recently. Though the repertoire is Germanic, it is balanced stylistically and contains a couple of acknowledged masterpieces. Bjorn Lehmann and Norie Takahashi have impressive individual credentials and have been performing together since 2009.

One is not even aware of the tremendous difficulties required to keep all of Bach’s counterpoint clear or the interweaving lines smooth and flowing. It is a performance that uses all of the tonal resources of a modern piano in the most musical ways. It was originally written for solo harpsichord, violin, flute, and string ensemble. Bach was showing off both his own keyboard skill and the new two-manual harpsichord he had just acquired. The first movement cadenza is one of those legendary parts that every keyboard player admires. Reger saw fit to divide it among 4 hands, with virtually no extra notes. The challenge so wonderfully met by Takahashi and Lehmann is to make it sound like only two hands.

Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918–70) wrote his Monologs for 2 pianos in 1964, a significant reworking of his Dialogs for 2 pianos and large orchestra from 1960. I was impressed with this large five-movement work as performed by the Huber-Thomet Duo (Wergo 6809, May/June 2015). Here it is a little faster and performed as well. It will not be to everyone’s liking, but it is a well-written and always interesting work.

The Bach Chorales and Brahms Variations are beautiful music, very well performed. The Brahms lacks a little of the excitement I like in the two Argerich recordings (Teldec, May/June 1995; EMI 58472). Excellent piano sound from Audite and comprehensive booklet notes complete this outstanding release.

Hauptwerk und Namensgeber der CD, Toru Takemitsus „Signals from Heaven“, wirkt hier wie ein feiner Zuckerguss über einem Kuchen: Mehr davon! Man möchte einfach nur noch die Repeat-Taste drücken.

„Signals from Heaven“ ist ein absolutes Must-Have für jeden Blechbläser!

Es groovt und swingt die ganze Zeit. Klassische Klänge sind hier Fehlanzeige.
Aber dieser Stil zieht sich durch die gesamte Aufnahme und macht sie extrem kurzweilig und interessant.

Berwaerts überzeugt aber nicht nur als Regisseur dieses ganz besonderen Programms, sondern auch als herausragender Solo-Trompeter und Jazz-Sänger. In Kombination mit dem klangvollen Spiel von Salaputia Brass ein wahrer Genuss für die Ohren. Einfach himmlisch!

„Signals from heaven“ heißen die beiden kurzen Stücke von Takemitsu, und das ist auch die Überschrift dieser CD, die Jeroen Berwaerts mit den Salaputia Brass vorgelegt hat – geschmeidig und graziös musiziert und zudem faszinierend sauber intoniert!

Wolfgang Schneiderhan was a frequent performer at successive Lucerne festivals over the decades. The three works in this disc were recorded in the Kunsthaus in the period between 1952 and 1968 and reveal three differing aspects of his art; the Classicist, the purveyor of contemporary repertoire and the inspirer of new music.

I reviewed the earliest known example yet to have surfaced of Schneiderhan performing Mozart’s A Major concerto. That was a wartime inscription where the Orchestra of the German Opera House, Berlin was directed by Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt in 1943. The two men later collaborated on a studio performance, though the one conducted by Leitner and in particular self-directed by the violinist in 1967 are probably better known. Schneiderhan was renowned for his Mozart which was clean as a whistle and pure-toned, sparing with overt expressive devices, but suitably and sufficiently plangent in the slow movement. The playful wit he so suavely delivers in the finale can hardly have been hindered by the substitute conductor, one Paul Hindemith, who took the place of an indisposed Furtwängler. Admirers of the violinist will recall that he and Carl Seeman recorded Hindemith’s Third Violin Sonata.

Henze’s 1947 First Concerto is the work of a precocious twenty-one-year-old. It’s cast in four movements and is heard in this August 1964 traversal where the violinist is accompanied by Ferdinand Leitner, with whom Schneiderhan gave numerous concerto appearances and with whom he recorded in the studio. Though Henze parades a tone row the music is quite resolutely neo-classical in essence. With Leitner extracting a great deal of orchestral colour it’s a perfect vehicle for Schneiderhan’s stylistically apt musicianship. The scherzo is a sardonic march and the slow movement’s communing qualities, reaching a slow-moving threnody, are superbly and movingly realised here. The strong rhythmic charge of the finale, with a paragraph of erotic cantabile, is equally well projected.

Frank Martin had promised the violinist and his wife, soprano Irmgard Seefried, a joint work. Schneiderhan had recorded Martin’s Violin Concerto with Ernest Ansermet in 1952 so maintained a strong affinity for the composer’s music. After a long delay, there came the Magnificat, heard in this 1968 world premiere performance directed by Bernard Haitink. The stridently austere vocal part – no texts, unfortunately, in the booklet – suggests something of an anguished piece but gradually the music lightens in tone to embrace a kind of raptness of spirit, supported by Martin’s alert orchestral palette. Martin later incorporated this piece as the second movement of his Maria-Triptychon, a work the violinist was to perform in 1984 with Edith Mathis.

Hartmut Lück’s sleeve notes are excellent and the tapes, direct from the original masters, are in a particularly well-preserved state. This valuable triptych of performances shows Schneiderhan in the round in Lucerne.