by Ben Hogwood picture courtesy of United Archives
Last week we learned the sad news of the death of Hungarian pianist and conductor Tamás Vásáry, at the age of 92.
More details about Vásáry’s accomplishments can be found in an obituary at Classical Music Daily
Vásáry made many fine recordings as a pianist, with his exploits in Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov especially noteworthy, while as a conductor he enjoyed nearly a decade with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, yielding imaginative albums looking at the music of Respighi, Honegger and Martinu.
Arnell The New Age, Op. 2 (1939) Brian The Tinker’s Wedding (1948) Bridge Rebus H191 (1940) Britten orch. Colin Matthews Overture to ‘Paul Bunyan’ Op.17 (1941) A. Bush Resolution Op.25 (1944) G. Bush Yoric (1949) Fenby Rossini on Ilkla Moor (1938) Jones Comedy Overture (1942) Orr The Prospect of Whitby (1948) Parker Overture to ‘The Glass Slipper’ (1944) Rawsthorne Street Corner (1944)
Chandos CHAN20351 [77’20’’] Producer Jonathan Cooper Engineer Stephen Rinker, Philip Halliwell
Recorded 23 May (Arnell, Brian, Britten, G. Bush, Rawsthorne), 20 November (Parker), 21 November 2024 (Bridge, A. Bush, Fenby, Jones, Orr) at MediaCityUK, Salford, Manchester
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Chandos continues its series devoted to British Overtures with the third instalment featuring three first recordings among those eleven works which, between them, demonstrate just how significant to British concertgoing was this now neglected genre throughout the inter-war era.
What’s the music like?
The album gets off to a cracking start with The Tinker’s Wedding – Havergal Brian’s overview of a play by J. M. Synge, by turns uproarious and ruminative, that duly launched his abundant Indian Summer. After this, Geoffrey Bush’s Yorick cannot help sounding well-behaved if with sufficient expressive contrast for an evocative portrayal of Shakespeare’s hapless jester. In his detailed booklet note, Lewis Foreman describes Alan Rawsthorne’s Street Corner as ‘‘largely forgotten’’, which is a pity given its vivid conjuring of time and place has dated as well as the best Ealing Comedy. If Daniel Jones’ take on its subject may be less memorable, his Comedy Overture exudes more than enough humour and intrigue to make its acquaintance worthwhile.
Frank Bridge’s last completed work, Rebus was unheard for decades after its premiere but this third recording confirms it as a minor masterpiece and the finest of all these pieces – not least as an object-lesson in being accessible without diluting individuality. Robin Orr first attracted attention with The Prospect of Whitby, and his bracingly resourceful evocation of the London pub should not have waited so long for its recording. Richard Arnell was clearly out to make a statement of intent with The New Age, which generates real energy between imposing outer sections. Benjamin Britten might not have intended to preface his operetta Paul Bunyan with an overture but, as realized by Colin Matthews, it leaves a pleasing if anonymous impression.
Far more personality is conveyed by Alan Bush in Resolution, derived from an earlier piece for brass band and which continues that dialectical facet evident in much of his earlier music through its contrapuntal dexterity. There could be no greater contrast than The Glass Slipper, Clifton Parker’s overture to Herbert and Eleanor Farjeon’s ‘fairy tale with music’ that found success as a Christmas Matinee in London’s West End. Most appealing for its slightness and knowingly fey charm, it ideally complements Rossini on Ilkla Moor – Eric Fenby’s ingenious homage to the Italian master which came about through (deliberate?) misunderstanding only to enjoyed frequent performance, and which entertainingly rounds off the present collection.
Does it all work?
Yes, whether in terms of the overtures heard individually and a continuous overall sequence. Those who have acquired those previous volumes (or Chandos’s two issues of British Tone Poems) will recall that Rumon Gamba favours predominantly swift tempos and so it proves here, though there is never a sense of this music unnecessarily being rushed, while the BBC Philharmonic is more than equal to the often considerable technical demands of each piece. None of those overtures previously recorded can surely have emerged so effectively as here
Is it recommended?
Indeed it is. The continued absence of overtures from the programmes of most UK orchestras means such pieces have little chance of reaching a new public other than with recordings, and there could be no greater incentive to get to know them than through a collection such as this.
Kabeláč Symphony no.2 in C major Op.15 (1942-6) Overture no.1 Op. 6 (1939) Overture no.2 Op.17 (1947)
Capriccio C5546 [54’51’’] Producer Erich Hofmann Engineer Freidrich Trondl
Recorded 14-16 June 2023 (Symphony), 17 June 2024 (Overtures) at Konzerthus, Radio Kulturhaus, Vienna
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Capriccio continues its exploration of paths less travelled with a collection of early orchestral works from the Prague-based composer Miloslav Kabeláč (1908-79), all persuasively realized by the ORF Symphony Orchestra of Vienna while authoritatively conducted by Jakub Hrůša.
What’s the music like?
Although his output made little headway outside his native Czechoslovakia over his lifetime, with its dissemination subject to considerable restrictions imposed by those authorities either side of the Dubček era, Kabeláč has belatedly been recognized as a major figure from among the European composers of his generation. The three pieces featured here give only a limited idea of those radical directions that his music subsequently took, though a distinct personality is already evident such that they afford a worthwhile and rewarding listen in their own right.
His first such work for full orchestra, the Second Symphony occupied Kabeláč throughout the latter years of war and into a peace whose promise proved but fleeting. Uncompromising as a statement of intent, the first of its three movements unfolds from an imposing introduction to a sonata design as powerfully sustained as it is intensively argued. Beginning then ending in elegiac inwardness, while characterized by an eloquent theme for alto saxophone, the central Lento builds to a culmination of acute plangency. It remains for the lengthy finale to afford a sense of completion, which it duly does with its methodical yet impulsive course towards an apotheosis whose triumph never feels contrived or overbearing. Successfully heard in Prague then at the ISCM Festival in Palermo, the piece endures as a testament to human aspiration.
This recording is neatly and appositely rounded out with the brace of overtures Kabeláč wrote on either side of the symphony (neither of which appears to have been commercially recorded hitherto). Written in the wake of the Nazi’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, the First Overture is a taut study in martial rhythms whose provocation could hardly have been doubted at its 1940 premiere. Eight years on and the Second Overture is no less concise in its form or economical in its thematic discourse, while exuding an emotional impact which doubtless left its mark on those who attended its 1947 premiere and seems the more poignant in the light of subsequent events. Kabeláč was to write more searching orchestral pieces in those decades that followed, yet the immediacy and appeal of his earlier efforts is still undimmed with the passage of time.
Does it all work?
Yes, owing not least to the excellence of these accounts. While he has not previously recorded the composer, Hrůša directed a memorable performance of Kabeláč’s masterly orchestral work Mystery of Time in London some years ago and he conveys a tangible identity with his music. Those who have the excellent Supraphon set of Kabeláč symphonies (SU42022) need not feel compelled to acquire this release, but those who do will hear readings of this uncompromising music which are likely to remain unsurpassed in their authoritative playing and interpretation.
Is it recommended?
Very much so. Recorded sound could hardly be bettered for elucidating the frequently dense but never opaque orchestral textures, and Miloš Haase pens an insightful booklet note. Those yet to acquire Capriccio’s overview of Kabeláč’s chamber music (C5522) are urged to do so.
Tor Lind (bass), Kenny Staškus Larsen (flute), Allan Sjølin, Jesper Sivebaek (balalaikas), Edward Stewart (guitar) (all soloists in The Shot); Lars Notto Birkeland (organ, The Nose); Christian Enarsson (piano, The Human Comedy); Malmő Opera Chorus and Orchestra / Mark Fitz-Gerald
Shostakovich The Shot – incidental music, Op.24 (1929) The Human Comedy – incidental music, Op. 37 (1933-4) The Nose, Op. 15 – appendix (1927-8) The Vyborg Side, Op. 50 – March of the Arnachists (1938)
Naxos 8.574590 [56’42’’] Russian text & English translation included Producer Sean Lewis
Recorded 5-7 March at Opera House, Malmő and 4 April 2024 at Fagerborg Church, Oslo (The Nose)
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Naxos continues its ground-breaking series devoted to Shostakovich’s film and theatre scores, given with conviction by the Malmö Opera Orchestra and authoritatively conducted by Mark Fitz-Gerald, who has edited and often reconstructed these pieces from their surviving sources.
What’s the music like?
It is all too easily overlooked that, prior to being one of the leading composers of symphonies and string quartets from the 20th century, Shostakovich became established primarily through music for the theatre and cinema; in the process, he frequently transferred musical ideas from one medium to the other. The present release features the complete incidental music from two of his most ambitious such undertakings, along with hitherto unknown passages from his first opera and an item from one of his film scores – much of this material recorded for the first time.
Shostakovich’s first assignment for Leningrad-based TRAM (Theatre of Working Youth), his incidental music for Aleksandr Bezymensky’s verse-drama The Shot had a fraught rehearsal process prior to its relatively successful first-run. Few of the mainly brief numbers survived intact but the outcome, as reconstructed from piano sketches, is a lively if not overly anarchic score – highlights being the Mussorgskian pastiche ‘Workers’ Song of Victory’ (track 1) and the poignant ‘Dun’dya’s Lament’ (16) with its guitar part deftly restored by Edward Stewart.
Some five years on and the experimental zeal of Soviet theatre had largely evaporated, hence the music for Moscow-based Vakhtangov Theatre’s production The Human Comedy. Adapted by Pavel Sukhotin from Honoré de Balzac’s epic, its essence seems one of nostalgia for things past – typified by the theme, nominally evoking Paris, which Shostakovich threads across his half-hour score. Complementing this are more animated or even uproarious numbers, several of which found their way into those Ballet Suites latterly assembled in Stalin’s twilight years.
The programme is rounded out, firstly, with three fragments from The Nose – the undoubted masterpiece of Shostakovich’s radical years. Taken from each of its acts, they pursue musical directions likely impractical in a theatrical context; though what was intended as an overture to Act Three (41) could still make its way as a scintillating encore. Finally, the ‘March of the Anarchists’ (43) from the film The Vyborg Side: reconstructed from its original soundtrack, it finds the composer remodelling music from Weill’s The Threepenny Opera in his own image.
Do the performances work?
Pretty much throughout – accepting, of course, the fragmentary nature of the two main works as determined by their function. In particular, the five-movement suite assembled – not by the composer – from The Human Comedy (and recorded by Edward Serov with the St Petersburg Chamber Orchestra for Melodiya) brings together various of those individual pieces to more cohesive overall effect. Not that the present performances are at all wanting in expertise and conviction, making for an album which is a necessary listen for all admirers of this composer.
Is it recommended?
Very much so. The booklet features detailed notes from no less than Gerard McBurney, with a brief contextual note by Fitz-Gerald. Hopefully there will be further such releases from this source, and not forgetting that several of Shostakovich’s film scores have still to be recorded.
Natalya Romaniw (soprano, below), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Eduardo Strausser (above)
Shekhar Lumina (2020) [UK Premiere] Richard Strauss Vier letzte Lieder (1948) Brahms Symphony no.4 in E minor Op.98 (1884-5)
Symphony Hall, Birmingham Wednesday 4 February 2026
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Pictures (c) Rodrigo Levy (Eduardo Strausser), Frances Marshall (Natalya Romaniw)
Eduardo Strausser has been welcome visitor to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra on several earlier occasions (see elsewhere on this website), with this afternoon’s programme demonstrating a keen ear for his juxtaposing of contemporary music and established classics.
Equally well-established as an instrumentalist and multi-media artist, Nina Shekhar (b.1995) is an Indian-American with a substantial output to her credit – not least Lumina. Premiered in Los Angeles and subsequently heard across the United States, its eventful 12 minutes explore what she has described as ‘‘… the spectrum of light and dark and the murkiness in between’’. The incremental emergence of sound and texture brings Ligeti’s 1960s pieces to mind, while the build-up of its central phase towards a culmination of palpable emotional fervour is both adeptly managed and powerfully sustained, before the gradual return to its inward origin. The present performance left little doubt as to Strausser’s belief in this music, even if that opening stage would have benefitted from a more attentive response by some of those in the audience.
Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs is too frequently encountered in concert these days, so that it takes something special to make one reflect anew on its achievement as among the greatest of musical swansongs. This account got off to rather an inauspicious start – Natalya Romaniw overwrought in the vernal deftness of Frühling, not aided by overly opaque textures – though it subsequently came into its own. Arguably the most perfectly realized of all orchestral songs, September found an enticing balance between joy and resignation, while if leader Jonathan Martindale’s solo in Beim Schlafengehen was not quite flawless, it eschewed sentimentality to a (surprisingly?) rare degree. Im Abendrot rounded off the performance with Romaniw’s eloquent retreat into an orchestral backdrop which itself faded into serene and rapt fulfilment.
If by no means his final work, Brahms’s Fourth Symphony surely marks the onset of his final creative period. In its overtly austere sound-world and an abundance of hymn-like or chorale-inflected themes, it is also the most Bachian of his orchestral works but Strausser was right to offset this aspect against that surging emotion as underlies even the most speculative passages of its opening movement. The coda built methodically yet not a little impulsively towards an apotheosis as dramatic as anything by this most Classically inclined of Romantic composers.
After this, the Andante emerged in all its autumnal warmth and expressive poignancy – if not the most perfectly realized Brahms slow movement then surely the most profound. Bracingly energetic if never headlong, the scherzo prepared unerringly for the finale – the effectiveness of its passacaglia format having on occasion been questioned, while conveniently overlooking that parallel sonata-form dynamism such as galvanizes this movement on its intended course. Suffice to add that the closing pages felt as inevitable as any performance in recent memory.
Overall, a fine showing for the CBSO – notably its woodwind and brass – and Strausser, who will hopefully return soon. The orchestra is heard later this month with Omar Meir Wellber in a no less stimulating programme of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass.
Arcana.fm 