Antonin Dvorak, The Late Symphonies, Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, David Bernard

 

Sometimes for well-loved classics there are performance possibilities you may not have considered but once you do, it may seem very much a good idea. I've long lived happily with a multi-LP set of the Dvorak symphonies by Karl Bohm and the Vienna Philharmonic. It has all nine symphonies, played heroically with a full-sized orchestra, perhaps, as I think about it, firmly in a Beethovenian manner, in the tradition of great and grand performances of Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, 9th.

A few days ago a parcel arrived containing a two-CD set of David Bernard and the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony doing The Late Symphonies (Recursive Classics RC3137552) of Dvorak. That is a comfortable fit on the two CDs of Symphonies 6, 7, 8 and the Symphony No. 9--The "Symphony from the New World". Like most listeners I came to the 9th first, at a pretty young age (13) and have sampled a fair number of readings of the work ever since. A kind of Beethovenesque, full-out version suits the work very well of course, and as it happens I never contemplated some other take on it.

So the set arrived. I know the New York based Park Avenue Chamber Symphony under David Bernard through several releases. Some I appreciate a good deal (see index box for those reviews). This Dvorak set seems especially attractive for the way Bernhard and the orchestra handle it all. It sounds much less Beethovenian, even a bit less Romantic per se but more in its own right, with Bohemian, Eastern European vernacular elements coming across with a kind of faithfulness to the overall infectious local elements as Dvorak conceived and transformed them, especially in Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7, but generally speaking throughout, even parts of the "New World" 9th.

The set is available for download in the usual places. If you are reading this early the CDs are not out until July 9, 2021.

I am happy to recommend this set to anyone who is not familiar with the later symphonies as a whole, and for any Dvorak enthusiast who wants a refreshing reading of these works. The orchestra and Bernard are locked in, inspired, filled with a different vision than is the norm. I love it all myself. Give these readings a chance and I suspect you too will find them as a breath of fresh air. Bravo.

I wonder if they are considered subsequent volumes--of the Symphonies Nos. 1 through 5? I would love to hear that.

Berlioz, Messe Solennelle, Le Concert Spirituel, Herve Niquet

My LP set of Berlioz's Messe Solennelle was from the first days of 33 rpm albums, on Cetra Records. I forgot who was on it, but it had a cavernous sound that gave you a very "big picture" yet then obscured some of the sound staging details. It gave me a good look at a masterful work that reminded me just how original Berlioz always managed to be regardless of the project at hand. It was not perfect. It is long gone so I have done without the music for a time.

These many years later I no longer have most of my vinyl (or slate) anymore and so when a new version with Herve Niquet conducting Le Concert Spirituel presented itself (Alpha Classics 564) I gladly availed myself of the chance. Not surprisingly it of course has the detailed soundstaging you expect today, with a natural ambiance and closer miking combined to get a good-location-in-the-house, catbird's seat take on the music and its highly dramatic ark of presentation. No other Mass sounds quite like this one and the detailed sonics and high-level performances we hear on this version reminds us how good all that can be with the right circumstances. This is such a one.

Praise is due for the fine performances of soprano Adriana Gonzalez, tenor Julien Behr and bass Andreas Wolf, all with a heroic demeanor that seems just right for this masterwork. The choir and orchestra sound perfectly matched and attuned to the special requirements of this music. It is neither too much nor too little, which means it neither throttles the music nor does it shake down the house, so to say. And that to my mind is an excellent reading for our "Modern" world..

It reminds us that the best Berlioz is so very French and so originally outside of the Beethoven Romantic Germanic orbit to stand on its own. Niquet works hard to ensure that the Berlioz vision rings out and rings true. There are no doubt others out there that may equal this recording for consistency and inspiration, but I must say that after quite a few listens I am satisfied that Niquet gets it all quite right and keeps it all very much alive.

Is Berlioz to Beethoven as Konitz was to Bird? Something to ponder.

Highly and gladly recommended as an essential.

Marais Meets Corelli, Jakob Rattinger, Lina Tur Bonet, Musica Narrans

The moment we get complacent about the musical past, we need to hear painstaking and artistically endowed performances on period instruments, so we can remember that the past was different, so that the music sounded  different, that local musics were no less ethnic then and there than everywhere else, that one way or another everybody was historically and culturally unique yet relates to our present as pages in the same book? Recordings that remind us of such things cannot but enrich our vision of the human arts and music. So on the recording Marais Meets Corelli (Pan Classics 10395) we get that uncanny feeling of the presence of the past, that everything in the reconstructed Baroque was neither fish nor fowl, but itself and that much, very much indeed.

We have chamber music on this album of a very high order, featuring the viola da gamba and violin accompanied by baroque guitar, theorbo and harpsichord. The instruments understandably are period ones with the appropriate bows and strings of the time to make that incredibly rich, sweet, vibrant tone. Jakob Rattinger is an excellent gamba exponent and is the principal supplier of direction for this, the Ensemble Musica Narrans. Lina Tur Boney is the talented violinist on the recording.

The extraordinary timbral texture of the ensemble here, the richly resonant swells of the gamba and the baroque violin, in conjunction with the beautiful distinctiveness of the continuo, all this is wonderful to hear and some of my favorite music in truth. Lina on violin and Jakob on the viola da gamba are excellent exponents!

The works on the program have that folksy melodiousness along with the Baroque interplay which sounds so distinctively blended with these original instruments.  The cover may look like a Baroque Crosby and Stills in search of Nash and it most certainly amuses! But then we get glorious works that feature the gamba, by Tobias Hume, Antoine Forqueray and Marin Marais, then two sonatas for violin--by Corelli and von Biber, and then music that features both instruments by Marais, Jacques Morel and then with the two soloists doing select variations on the famed "La Folia" as invented by Marais and Corelli followed by some improvisations. The "Folly" was a favored theme for variations in the day and one can feel the attraction here. F. Couperin comes to mind as doing a nice set as well and you might want to find them after these have done their job with you.

In many ways the program represents the foment of competition between the violin and the viola da gamba for the favor of the public as the virtuoso solo instrument of choice. Corelli represented the violin and Marais the gamba. Before the violin won out there were the two strains, two musical strivings that we hear so readily and beautifully on this program.

Those who may not be familiar with how things sounded in chamber worlds then will find this a real ear opener. Those who already know and love the music of the period in authentic instrumental garb will nonetheless doubtless find joy in this album as I have.

Heartily recommended. Do hear this!

Alexei Tartakovsky plays Chopin

If you are a young fantastic pianist doing Chopin's finest potboilers, be remarkable or you might as well go home. Alexei Tartakovsky is just that on Plays Chopin (self-released) in a live concert recording from Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, 2015.

Fantastic and remarkable...I do not use those words often, especially as it applies to Chopin. So that translates into a huge amount of respect and awe for this Semi-Finalist of the 2015 Chopin International Competition and winner of several others.

We hear him in sterling form playing the "Ballade, op. 23," the "Polonaise-Fantasy, op. 61," the "Polonaise, op. 53," several "Nocturnes," and the "Sonata in B-Flat minor, op. 35."

There is a tremendous passion and kinetic energy unleashed in these performances, something you might expect from a first-ranking virtuoso of our time, doing justice to the high demands of classic Chopin. But with all that you get a supremely musical reading, all the right notes, yes, but with a personal spin that puts Tartakovsky squarely into the music as someone who has drilled deeply to the core of each piece, each movement, and found himself within.

Listen to his way with the funeral movement of the Sonata for what I mean. It sounds new, for as many times as one has heard it. It sings, it suspends time, it carries us into a special world.

So needless to say I recommend you hear what a bright star in the new generational firmament can do with music you have heard so many times.

And if it so happens that you will be in New York City on the evening of this March 31st, he is giving a recital at Merkin Concert Hall, at 7:30. Click on the following link for more info, tickets, etc. http://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/alexei-tartakovski-piano/