This month sees the launch of the Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings label, doubtless inaugurated to get a greater percentage of the sales funds for the orchestra rather than for another label, though recording quality is clearly also going to be particularly high. The label is kicking off with Schumann’s four symphonies played by the Berlin Philharmonic, indisputably one of the world’s greatest orchestras, under Simon Rattle, and despite all the hype this is an important occasion.
Schumann’s symphonies are lyrical works marked by a special kind of innocence, and though I haven’t been able to hear the complete versions yet, this new recording appears to embrace just these qualities. They certainly constitute a high-profile entry into the marketplace, and these CDs will no doubt be eagerly acquired by executives who drive very expensive cars and have the highest quality audio systems installed inside them. The symphonies are recorded on two CDs, with a third disc containing a Blu-ray version, audio and video, plus access via a special code to a download at up to 192 kHz. For your not inconsiderable amount of money — currently US$57 — you also get seven-day’s access to the orchestra’s video service, their Digital Concert Hall. That represents a considerable sales pitch!
After all this it’s something of a relief to return to the world of an ordinary commercial release from the same orchestra — Yundi (Li Yundi) playing Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto under the 39-year-old British conductor Daniel Harding. It was only released in March, but is nonetheless on the old Deutsche Grammophon label.
This celebrated concerto, of which there are innumerable recordings, is given a fresh though not exactly light-weight treatment by Yundi and the great orchestra. It’s accompanied by Schumann’s three-movement piece for solo piano, his Fantasie in C. This was one of the most daunting piano works ever written in its day (the 1830s). The whole CD can be downloaded for just over US$6, and will add to Yundi’s already stellar reputation.
Vasily Petrenko has made his name as the youthful conductor of the UK’s Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and with the prize-winning cycle of Shostakovich symphonies he’s recording with them on the Naxos label. This recorded cycle still has one symphony to go, the Thirteenth, before it’s complete, though Petrenko conducted that work to great acclaim in Liverpool last year.
But famous conductors these days don’t stay with one orchestra all the time, and Petrenko is in addition chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. This kind of multiple arrangement is typical — Petrenko will spend only between seven and 10 weeks a year in the Norwegian capital. But an early fruit of the collaboration is a recording of Shostakovich’s two cello concertos, with Norwegian cellist Truls Mork as soloist.
These two concertos could hardly be more different. The first is dynamic, accessible and extrovert, and has become one of the most popular of Shostakovich’s compositions in the concert hall. The second, by contrast, is introspective and contemplative. This is actually an opposition that’s integral to this composer’s work, and many of his compositions — symphonies and quartets, for instance — can be assigned to one category or the other.
The recording of these cello concertos I’ve been used to is Mischa Maisky’s of 1995, with the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas [DG 4458212], and I have to say that I’m not convinced that this new version is superior to that. Maisky, of course, is always markedly extrovert, as his 1994 recordings of Bach’s six cello suites made abundantly clear [DG E4453732]. Mork is generally more subdued, though the Oslo Philharmonic under Petrenko is as bright as a new pin.
Lastly, something totally unexpected from Siberia, or close to it — Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. Crispness and a youthful energy are its hallmarks, and there are some enormously beautiful things in it. It’s an untraditional reading, if for nothing else because it uses a piano, not a harpsichord, for the continuo, and also allows the pianist considerable room for improvisation. This may not bode well to some ears, but the achievement is really most remarkable.
To begin with, the orchestra, MusicAeterna, sounds simultaneously precise and thrilling. Second, many of the soloists are very fine, though none of them are superstars in the West. Simone Kermes as the Countess, for example, is ravishing, while Andrei Bondarenko as the Count is extremely vigorous and incisive. When he sings “Contessa, perdono” (Countess, forgive me) you feel he really means it. Mary-Ellen Nesi as Cherubino is a delight in her two display arias, Non so piu cosa son, cosa faccio and Voi che sapete, though employing considerable ornamentation in the latter. But solo excellence isn’t really at the heart of the matter.
What matters most is that Le Nozze di Figaro is perhaps the greatest opera ever written. Its mixture of sadness and vivacity, plus its incomparable dramatic power, has never been equaled. But above all it has an eternal freshness, and a capacity to evoke who you were when you first heard it, that is one of music’s greatest gifts to humanity. It’s when a recording is equal to this quality that it’s most to be treasured, and the supreme virtue of this new version from Perm in Russia’s Urals is that it’s just that. There are a huge number of recordings of this opera, but this one is special, and hence highly recommended.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
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