NIGEL KENNEDY'S GREATEST HITS
EMI Classics
EMI 7243 57429 26
When EMI proposed the idea of a Greatest Hits album, my first reaction was, "Oh shit, am I already over the hill?" writes Nigel Kennedy in characteristic "I'm not really a classical musician but one of you kids" fashion. His booklet is likewise adorned with pictures of him biting his violin, wielding it like a baseball bat, squaring up in boxing gloves (all with his face painted in red and blue stripes), and finally of the instrument smashed into little pieces.
Welcome back, Nigel! We're so happy you're not feeling a day older.
The strange thing is that when you come to listen to the music, he doesn't sound that different from anyone else. It's true there's an item with the Polish trio Kroke (with whom he's issuing a new album early next year), and a beautiful melody he wrote himself. For the rest you get movements from famous concertos in fine modern recordings and brilliantly played.
This shouldn't be surprising. Kennedy, now in his early 40s, was the star of Yehudi Menuhin's school for outstandingly gifted young musicians, and so talented that Menuhin secretly paid all the boy's fees himself.
Kennedy's notes are amusing, but essentially serious and in no way iconoclastic. All in all, this is a welcome compilation, two well-filled CDs, and recommended. It's high-quality classical music dressed up as something more popular, and this is in essence what Nigel Kennedy's art has always been.
WAGNER: ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
Philharmonia Orchestra
Conducted by Otto Klemperer
Great Recordings of the Century
EMI 7243 5 57429 2 6
BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONIES 5 and 7
Philharmonia Orchestra
Conducted by Otto Klemperer
Great Recordings of the Century
EMI 7243 5 67852 2 9
EMI's Great Recordings of the Century continues to go from strength to strength. In reality it's a combination of items that have long been in its catalogue, and have simply been shifted across to this label, and a few from the LP era that are now re-issued in CD format. EMI/Angel's engineers have done marvels in digitally re-mastering these classic items, and on most audio systems they will give no cause whatever for complaint.
Klemperer was not normally much involved with opera. But when he issued three LPs in 1960 and 1963 of orchestral items from Wagner there were immediate calls for him to record some of the works complete. You have only to listen to the Prelude to Act 1 of Parsifal here to understand why. The sad nobility he gives to the simultaneous evocation of the age of religion and lament at its loss is simply astonishing. Klemperer may have lacked suppleness in a way that made, for instance, his recording of Mozart's Don Giovanni less that satisfying, but here the same solemnity that was there a shortcoming becomes a radiant virtue. The brass resounds with a searing sonority that is quite overwhelming, and similar qualities inform many other items on this two-CD compilation.
Naturally Beethoven, who was Wagner's substitute for god, benefits from the same sort of treatment. These 1955 recordings are enormously famous, dubbed by the Penguin Guide to Classical CDs "among the finest versions of either symphony ever put on disc," despite being originally in mono. With EMI's remastering the sound is full, though understandably not with quite the vividness we expect in today's versions. But you can't have everything, or at least not very often. This CD should be snapped up for the virtues it does have -- passion and power.
PUCCINI: MADAMA BUTTERFLY
Conducted by John Barbirolli
Great Recordings of the Century
EMI 7243 6 67888 2 4
Barbirolli wasn't usually known as a conductor of opera either, even though both his father and grandfather had been orchestral players at La Scala, Milan, Italy's premier opera house. This version of Puccini's finest opera dates from 1967 and though not the best available (Sinopoli's of 1988, with Freni and Carreras, is my favorite) it has many admirable qualities. Among these is Rolando Panerai's unusually pensive Sharpless, though Carlo Bergonzi's Pinkerton is also very strong. Renata Scotto (Butterfly) has a voice that's too hard-edged for many ears, though she does tone it down for her portrait of the 15-year old Japanese ex-geisha. Confidence and exuberance are what characterize the performance as a whole.
MOZART: DON GIOVANNI
Conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
Great Recordings of the Century
EMI 7243 5 67873 2 2
Don Giovanni has always eluded perfection in performance. Wit and profundity appear to tug in opposite directions, rather than harmonize as in Le Nozze di Figaro. This recording, however, has long been judged to overcome all obstacles and to lead the field. It has never been out of EMI's catalogue, and now deservedly joins its fast-expanding Great Recordings of the Century stable.
Schwarzkopf, Sutherland, Taddei, the young Cappuccilli -- it seems all the stars of its day (1961) were there; only the Don himself, the 30-year-old Eberhard Wachter, was relatively unknown. Many opera-lovers will already own these discs -- if not, here they are still going strong in digitally enhanced form.
MUSSORGSKY: BORIS GODUNOV
Conducted by Andre Cluytens
Great Recordings of the Century
EMI 7243 5 67881 2 1
Boris Christoff sings two other parts in addition to the title role in this classic recording, made in Paris in 1962, and as a result has to confront himself in one scene, a feat only possible on disc. He is pictured in all three guises in the accompanying booklet.
The only significant female role, that of Marina, is taken by Evelyn Lear. The version used is the one made by Mussorgsky's friend Rimsky-Korsakov after the composer's death from drink in 1881.
Boris Godunov is a seemingly interminable saga that Mussorgsky could never quite get right, probably because the formlessness of history is its real subject and this spills over into the sprawling shape of the opera itself.
If you nevertheless feel the urge to get to grips with it, this version will do as well as any other.
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