Erstmals veröffentlicht Lucerne Festival historische Aufnahmen mit Herbert von...

klangschön, differenziert und mit intellektueller Spielfreude vom Thüringer Bach Collegium musiziert [...]

In the wake of von Karajan’s denazification in October 1947, it was important for him to resume international engagements. One such presentable opportunity was the Lucerne Festival, which had offered performances to Furtwängler, and so Karajan first appeared with the Swiss Festival Orchestra in August 1948, inaugurating a 40-year association that ended only with his death. The three CDs in his handy box cover a slightly later period, 1952-57. audite claims, and I don’t have a reason to doubt them, that the only previously released material is the Bach Concerto for two pianos, with Clara Haskil and Géza Anda.

The first disc has two concertos and a symphony. I can’t say I’m much of a fan of Karajan’s Beethoven No 8 (16 August 1952) which I find disagreeably beefy, Karajan presumably attempting to vest the music with rugged dynamism. Despite a well characterised Menuetto I find those lower strings a bit of a congealing mess. Robert Casadesus in Mozart’s Concerto No 24 in C minor, K491 plays his favourite of the composer’s concertos with the elegance familiar from his 78 set with Eugène Bigot in 1937. His scrupulous musicality may seem a mite small-scaled to some but I find it tremendously winning, Casadesus reserving weight for the optimum moments. The Bach was recorded on 10 August 1955 and was reissued on audite 95650 only last year. One can hardly go wrong with Haskil and Anda unless aural congestion is the enemy – which it isn’t here – and the two make significant hay with the exchanges in the finale. The two pianists recorded the concerto commercially around this time in London with Alceo Galliera.

The second disc was recorded on 6 September 1956. Karajan brough the Philharmonia Orchestra from London and the recording quality, as well as the performances, improve too, not that the Swiss Festival Orchestra was poor. There is, however, a tangible increase in finesse and intensity for Beethoven’s Pastoral and Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. The Philharmonia’s winds are on notable form and reflect something, perhaps, of Klemperer’s influence as modified by Karajan in favour of a more emollient tonal balance. Nevertheless, there is considerable clarity, and the Scene by the Brook moves evocatively at a fine tempo (not too slow). The storm is trenchant and dramatic. Karajan’s Brahms performance is slightly more elastic than his 1957 LP, but is otherwise as lucid, powerful and well-balanced. His tempo modifications are organically convincing and the vistas he summons up are full of grandeur. The richness of the finale, with its funereal-tragic element nakedly audible, is utterly splendid.

The third CD is balanced between Brahms’ Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein (17 August 1957) and Honegger’s Symphony No 3, the Liturgique which was performed on the same evening as the Bach Concerto for two pianos. Milstein is his sovereign self and though he was an inconsistent, sometimes unconvincing exponent of the sonatas, he was invariably convincing in the concerto no matter who the collaborator was. There seems to have been mutual respect between the two men but it’s also clear that Karajan was in no position to impose any conceptual interpretation on the violinist who takes his habitual tempi throughout, tempi he took with Fistoulari, Steinberg and Jochum or in any of the live performances that have emerged such as those directed by Kletzki or Dorati. Only a great musician like Milstein can play at relatively fast tempi but sound unhurried.

Karajan made a famous LP of Honegger’s Symphony in the early 70s, coupling it with No 2. However, it was only a decade old in 1955 when he performed it in Lucerne at tempi somewhat tighter than he was later to take in Berlin. The tensions of a live concert however bring their own reward and the sense of visceral intensity in the first movement, and the controlled Dona nobis pacem finale, are more than merely admirable. The central De profundis clamavi may lack Berlin’s silken strings, and the sense of clarity they brought, but the Swiss Festival Orchestra’s directness is vivid and moving. If you find Serge Baudo’s Czech Philharmonic performance too intense, then Karajan has always offered a rather different perspective on Honegger.

This box is excellently documented, and the recordings come directly from the original 15-inch broadcasting tapes. The repertoire is hardly earth-shattering, and I don’t much like the Beethoven Eighth, but with two orchestras at his disposal, elite soloists and a span of six years this is a valuable addition to the recorded legacy of even so supposedly over-documented a conductor as Karajan.

Kirill Karabits s’inscrit dans cette seconde lignée, avec un troisième mouvement particulièrement réussi où une mise en place au cordeau s’acoquine avec l’esprit méphistophélique. Sa direction à la pointe sèche épure le romantisme de l’œuvre qui regarde moins vers le fondu wagnérien qu’elle ne perpétue, dans la netteté du dessin, un certain classicisme hérité de Berlioz

Kirill Karabits poursuit son périple en terres lisztiennes . Après l’exhumation de l’opéra inachevé Sardanapalo (Diapason découverte, cf. n° 683) puis la Dante-Symphonie (Diapason d’or, cf. n° 689), voici la Faust-Symphonie. La première de ces « trois études de caractères d’après Goethe », Faust, inspire d’emblée le respect, par la cohérence du propos et la maîtrise de la forme, avec des transitions très réussies. On déplore cependant un éventail assez limité de couleurs, et un certain manque de flamme et de tension pour l’Allegro agitato ed appassionato – le personnage est ici plus nostalgique qu’héroïque. Le début de Marguerite pourrait être plus éthéré, mais la partie centrale, où les thèmes des amants s’unissent en une étreinte passionnée, séduit par le lyrisme de la direction etle fini des nuances. Tout va décidément crescendo, avec un Mephistophélès au rictus diabolique et fort bien tenu. A-t-on gagné le Ciel quand arrive le Chorus mysticus ? Airam Hernandez, impeccablement stylé, à la ligne fuselée, n’a pas tout à fait le rayonnement extasié de celui que l’Eternel féminin conduit au paradis. Que donnerait le chef ukrainien à la tête d’une autre phalange ? Enregistrer Liszt à Weimar constitue évidemment un retour aux sources, mais s’il tire le meilleur de la Staatskapelle, Karabits se heurte à rude concurrence, celle de chefsplus visionnaires etd’orchestres plus prestigieux. On retiendra surtout de cet album un peu sage une intéressante curiosité, la Méphisto Valse n° 3 orchestrée par Alfred Reisenauer – un des disciples préférés de Liszt – et Kirill Karabits. Même si le maître aurait sans doute été moins massif, plus anguleux, plus diabolique. Pour la Faust-Symphonie, on retournera à Beecham, Bernstein, Dorati, Sinnopoli ou Noseda (sans le chœur final).

The disc to be reviewed here is the third volume in a project devoted to the oeuvre of Gregor Joseph Werner. He is pretty well-known, but mainly as Joseph Haydn’s predecessor at the post of Kapellmeister at the Esterházy court. Until recently, his oeuvre has hardly been given any attention. The main exception is his Musicalischer Instrumental-Calender, a set of twelve Parthien for two violins and basso continuo about the months of the year. Most of his instrumental output has been lost. The largest part of his extant oeuvre – around 420 works – consists of sacred vocal music, including about 70 masses, three Requiems, four settings of the Te Deum, 18 oratorios on German texts and many liturgical works. In recent times several recordings of his oeuvre have been released, such as his oratorio Der Gute Hirt, directed by György Vashegyi (Accent, 2020). Two years ago, audite released the first volume of the present project, which comprised instrumental Pastorellas and a number of settings of the Salve Regina. It was followed last year by a recording of one of his Requiems. This third volume includes two masses, four Marian antiphons and a sinfonia.

Werner was born in Ybbs an der Donau, and started his career as an organist at Melk Abbey. He married in Vienna, where, according to the traditional view, he may have been a pupil of Johann Joseph Fux. However, Lajos Rovatkay believes there are good reasons to assume that it was rather Antonio Caldara who was his teacher. In 1728 he was appointed Kapellmeister at Esterházy. Just like German aristocrats of the late 17th century were impressed by the splendour of the French court under Louis XIV and aimed at imitating that at their own courts, their peers of the mid-18th century wanted to imitate the splendour of the imperial court in Vienna. Werner was selected with the purpose of creating something similar in Esterházy.

It is mostly impossible to date Werner’s works and therefore it is impossible to follow his stylistic development. “Werner’s dated works show that he already made use of all his progressive harmonic expressive colours shortly after his appointment as Kapellmeister at the Esterházy court in Eisenstadt (1728) (…) and also revealed himself as a great contrapuntal master”, Lajos Rovatkay states in his liner-notes.

The two masses consist of the usual sections: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus – Benedictus and Agnus Dei. All of them are divided into sections for tutti and for one to four solo voices. The instrumental accompaniment is very modest: two violins and basso continuo. The violins often play a substantial role, more than just an accompaniment. In the ‘Laudamus te’ from the Missa Sunt bona mixta malis the organ plays an obbligato part. This is a solo for soprano, and so are ‘Quoniam tu solus sanctus’ (Gloria) and Pleni sunt coeli’ (Sanctus). The soprano solos are the most technically demanding; in comparison, the only tenor solo (Benedictus) is rather modest. In this mass the Kyrie is a single section, and not divided into three. Likewise, the Crucifixus is not singled out, but part of the section which opens with ‘Et incarnatus est’. Werner shows his skills in counterpoint with several fugal episodes. It is not known why this mass has the title Sunt bona mixta malis (The good are mixed with the bad). Likewise, the idea behind the title of the other mass is unknown: Post nubila Phoebus – After the clouds, the sun. In this mass the Kyrie is split into three sections; the Christe eleison is a solo for bass. There are two solo sections for soprano: ‘Quoniam tu solus’ (Gloria) and – like in the other mass – ‘Pleni sunt coeli’ (Sanctus). The Domine Deus (Gloria) is a solo for tenor. In several sections, the soli and the tutti alternate. Notable is that here the Crucifixus is a separate section.

In these two masses Werner mixes the style of his time with the stile antico; Rovatkay notices that Werner stayed away from the ‘galant’ idiom that became fashionable in the course of his career. His sacred works have undoubtedly more depth than much that was written in his time. The four antiphons are masterpieces of counterpoint, and here the influence of the ‘old style’ of the Franco-Flemish school manifests itself. That said, Werner does not overlook the possibilities to use harmony for expressive reasons, such as in Alma redemptoris mater, on the closing words “peccatorum miserere”.

The harmonic progressions in the Sonata prima are remarkable. This work dates from 1735 and was written to welcome Prince Paul Anton Esterházy returning from his grand tour. It is written after the model of the Italian sonata da chiesa, with four movements.

Sometimes, when a musicologist or performer discovers a ‘forgotten master’, he is carried away and overstates the importance of his discovery. Lajos Rovatkay is clearly very enthusiastic about his discovery of Werner and rates him highly. Having heard the previous two recordings under his direction and some other performances, I agree with his assessment that Werner was a true master. The efforts to explore his oeuvre are well deserved, and I hope that we may expect more. If a hitherto hardly-known composer’s oeuvre is presented, it helps if the performances are really top-class. That is the case here. Given the important role of the soprano and the character of her part, Magdalene Harer deserves a special mention. She is a specialist in early music, and her voice is perfectly suited to this repertoire. She has no problems with the coloratura, thanks to the agility of her voice. The other three soloists are her equals, and all four of them blend perfectly in the many ensembles. Voktett Hannover is a fine vocal ensemble which produces a transparent sound, which is important in these largely polyphonic works. La festa musicale is the perfect partner for the instrumental parts.

If you have purchased the previous volumes, don’t hesitate to add this disc to your collection. It will give you much to enjoy and to admire. Let’s hope for more Werner.

Mit seinem quicklebendigen, aber auch hochsensiblen Spiel zeigt Murtfeld, was in den Werken steckt. [...] Scheinbar mühelos meistert Murtfeld die Klangkaskaden in Chopins Variationen über "La ci darem la mano", stürmt durch Schumanns Toccata und verleiht jedem Stück der "Abegg-Variationen" seinen ganz eigenen Charakter.

William Byrd died in 1623, which means that this year (2023) is Byrd year. Some composers take advantage of the commemoration of their birth or death, but Byrd hardly needs such an event. However, the author of the liner-notes to the present recording thinks differently. “There is a persistent belief in music history that England produced only two truly significant composers: Henry Purcell and Benjamin Britten. But can this be true? What about the Golden Age of British art and culture under the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I? Was it not a golden age of poetry, music and theatre, led by the singular œuvre of Shakespeare? Did English composers not develop a particular musical language before a host of Italian and German musicians made their fortune in London? Has it not been precisely this island existence that has made development of music in England unique, whilst also preventing far-reaching reception on the continent?” This is hard to understand, as Byrd’s sacred music is part of the standard repertoire of choirs and vocal ensembles, not only in the United Kingdom, and his keyboard works and consort music are also often performed and well represented on disc. The part of this recording that may be considered a little underexposed is probably the genre of the consort song: a piece for one or several voices and a consort of instruments.

Never mind; a disc with music by Byrd is always welcome. It was for a reason that the poet Henry Peacham called him “our Phoenix Master”, as quoted in the booklet. What makes this disc especially attractive is that he is put into his historical context. His music is the core of the programme, but we also hear pieces by English contemporaries and composers of the next generation, some of whom may have been his pupils.

Consort music was not an exclusive English genre, but probably more popular in England than elsewhere, and also still fashionable when it had become obsolete on the mainland. It could be played with different combinations of instruments. One of them was a group of instruments of the same family, such as viols or recorders. Instruments of different kinds could also be mixed; such a formation is known as ‘broken consort’. In this programme both kinds of consort can be heard. Most pieces are played by the Boreas Quartett Bremen, a group of four recorder players. A few items are performed by the Hathor Consort, here consisting of four players of viols, from treble to bass. As the track-list shows, some pieces are in more than four parts, which means that there the two ensembles are mixed in different combinations of viols and recorders. One such piece is the Fantasia à 6. Fantasias were very popular in England, often called fancies. They were so typical of the traditional English music that after the Restoration Charles II, having come from exile in France where he had heard the latest music, expressed “an utter detestation of Fancys”, as the author Roger North stated. Another genre that was much revered was the In nomine, based upon the Sarum antiphon Gloria tibi Trinitas as it was used by John Taverner as cantus firmus in his mass of the same name. Lastly, a substantial part of the consort repertoire consists of dances; the combination of pavan and galliard was the most common. Here we get such a pair from the pen of Thomas Tomkins. In the track-list in the booklet the galliard is omitted.

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries numerous songs were written and published in England. The best-known today are those by John Dowland, but many of his colleagues also contributed to the genre. One of them was Thomas Campion, who is represented here with The Fairie Queene Proserpina. Here the voice is accompanied by a lute. It was also a possibility to add a viola da gamba. That is the case in Henry Lawes’s A Dialogue on a Kisse. A special genre was the consort song, in which a consort accompanies one or several voices. Strictly speaking that is not the correct description. In fact, the voice is part of the consort; it is consort music in which one or some of the parts are sung, usually the upper part. This means that the balance has to be right: the singer is not a soloist. Such pieces are mostly performed with a consort of viols, but this disc shows that it is perfectly possible to use recorders instead. The voices of Dorothee Mields and Magdalene Harer are such that they blend perfectly with the recorders. There is one piece where the performers have taken some freedom which does not really convince. Byrd’s O Lord, how vain comprises three stanzas which end with a chorus, which is performed here by the two sopranos and recorders, which is a rather unlucky decision on the part of the performers. The disc ends with an anthem by Orlando Gibbons, which is scored for five to six voices with consort; here only the two upper voices are sung, the others are performed instrumentally.

One may wonder why a piece from a collection with the German title Taffel-Consort is included here. The composer was English; little is known about the formative years of Thomas Simpson. The first documented evidence of his existence is a list of musicians at the court of the Elector Palatine in Heidelberg in 1608. He worked for most of his life in Germany and spent his last years in Copenhagen. All his extant music was published in Germany, and the Taffel-Consort was the last, printed in 1621, comprising fifty consort pieces. They include a basso continuo part which has been omitted here. From Peter Holman’s article on Simpson in New Grove I conclude that these pieces seem to be intended for strings, including violins. Here they are played on recorders, and these suit the four selected dances pretty well.

The Boreas Quartett Bremen is a fine ensemble; I first heard it on a disc with consort music by Christopher Tye (cpo, 2015) and more recently in a programme with music at the Court of Margaret of Austria (review). I enjoyed both very much, and that is the case here again. Their technically impeccable and lively playing is nice to listen to. In the latter programme they collaborated with Dorothee Mields, and that is a winning combination. I have to say, though, that I regret the slight vibrato in her voice. Her colleage Magdalene Harer is nearly free from that. Their voices blend well in the pieces for two voices. For those who don’t know them: in such pieces Mields is on the left side of the sound spectrum, Harer on the right. As I already mentioned, the balance between the voices and the instruments is just right. The collaboration with the Hathor Consort is a nice addition: some pieces are played by viols alone, but in most cases members of the two ensembles join in a ‘broken consort’, and that works very well.

This disc is an interesting and musically captivating contribution to the Byrd commemoration.

audite setzt seine Reihe mit Werken von Gregor Joseph Werner (1695-1766) mit Messen und Motetten fort. Lajos Rovatkay dirigiert sorgfältig, um das kompositorische Raffinement der Musik und ihre Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten im richtigen Maß auszuschöpfen. Sein Ensemble la festa musicale spielt in einem entspannten Stil und einem Ausdruck, der Spiritualität dem Affekt vorzieht. Werner spricht in den hier aufgeführten Stücken eine verinnerlichte Sprache, die der Meditation, sowohl der musikalischen als auch der spirituellen, einen großen Platz einräumt. Man darf nämlich nicht vergessen, dass all diese Werke als funktionale liturgische Musik entstanden.

Das Solistenquartett ist homogen, wenn auch die Sopranistin Magdalene Harer mit ihrer warm leuchtenden Stimme besonders überzeugt. Exzellent, wie schon in vorigen Einspielungen ist auch das Voktett Hannover.

Die künstlerische und ästhetische Umsetzung dieses Programms ist also über jeden Zweifel erhaben. Rovatkay findet immer die richtige Intonation, die die Musik, den Text und den Ausdruck des religiösen Gefühls am perfektesten zusammenbringt.


English translation:

audite continues its series of masses and motets with works by Gregor Joseph Werner (1695-1766). Lajos Rovatkay conducts carefully to exploit the compositional sophistication of the music and its expressive possibilities at the right level. His ensemble la festa musicale performs in a relaxed style and expression that favors spirituality over affect. Werner speaks an internalized language in the pieces performed here that gives a great place to meditation, both musical and spiritual. Indeed, one must not forget that all these works were functional liturgical music.

The quartet of soloists is homogeneous, although soprano Magdalene Harer is particularly convincing with her warmly luminous voice. Excellent, as in previous recordings, is also the Voktett Hannover.

The artistic and aesthetic realization of this program is thus beyond any doubt. Rovatkay always finds the right intonation that most perfectly brings together the music, the text and the expression of religious feeling.

Die „Kreisleriana“, zu der Schumann sich durch die skurrile Figur des Kapellmeisters Kreisler von E.T.A. Hoffmann inspirieren ließ und die auch ihn selbst und seine Clara darstellt, eröffnet dieses Programm der Pianistin Jimin Oh-Havenith bei audite. Schumanns Opus 16 wird von ihr kontrastreich zwischen virtuoser Verspieltheit und größter Zärtlichkeit in seine Zweigleisigkeit gebracht. Allerdings macht die Interpretin keine psychoanalytische Studie daraus, sie übertreibt die Dramatik ebenso wenig wie die Poesie. So bleibt der Kern der Komposition erhalten.

In der „Humoreske“ stellt Jimin Oh-Havenith die wechselnden Stimmungen dieses Werkes des jungen Schumanns sehr detailliert dar. Sie überzeugt durch ein poetisches, aber gleichzeitig auch spontanes Spiel, das ein natürliches Verhältnis zu Schumanns Musik deutlich macht. Mit feinem Anschlag, kluger Phrasierung und viel Sensibilität geht sie diese vielschichtige Musik an, die nicht nur in ihrer ganzen Komplexität ausgelotet, sondern auch brillant und spannend kontrastreich gespielt wird.

Die melodische Zärtlichkeit wird dabei nie von Melancholie verschleiert, die dramatische Kraft der schnelleren Passagen zerstört nie die bewegende Atmosphäre, die von den langsamen Teilen geschaffen wird. Vielleicht ist es gerade diese gute Mischung aus Strenge und Poesie, die dieser Interpretation einen so überzeugenden Charakter verleiht.


English translation:

The “Kreisleriana”, for which Schumann was inspired by the whimsical character of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Kapellmeister Kreisler and which also depicts himself and his Clara, opens this program by pianist Jimin Oh-Havenith at audite. She contrasts Schumann’s Opus 16 between virtuosic playfulness and the utmost tenderness in its two-pronged approach. However, the interpreter does not make a psychoanalytical study out of it; she exaggerates the drama just as little as the poetry. Thus, the core of the composition remains intact.

In the “Humoreske”, Jimin Oh-Havenith portrays the changing moods of this work by the young Schumann in detail. She convinces with poetic, but at the same time spontaneous playing, which makes clear a natural relationship to Schumann’s music. With a fine touch, clever phrasing, and a great deal of sensitivity, she approaches this multi-layered music, which is not only explored in all its complexity, but also brilliantly and excitingly played in rich contrast.

The melodic tenderness is never obscured by melancholy, the dramatic power of the faster passages never destroys the moving atmosphere created by the slower parts. Perhaps it is precisely this good mixture of austerity and poetry that gives this interpretation such a convincing character.