If you’re a record company with a back-catalogue of acclaimed recordings that have ceased to sell very vigorously, what do you do? Issue them as boxed-sets, of course, claiming that they portray their respective musical eras. And this is what Decca have done with their elite L’Oiseau-Lyre label. One of these, The Baroque Era, has recently come to hand — 50 CDs, none exceptionally recent, but taken together selling at the equivalent of only US$3 a disc.
There are the Brandenburg Concertos, of course, recorded by the New London Consort under Philip Pickett from 1994, Vivaldi’s Gloria and Bach’s Magnificat by The Academy of Ancient Music and the Choir of Oxford’s Christchurch Cathedral under Simon Preston from 1978, theater music by Purcell, Handel’s 1708 oratorio La Resurrezione, written when he was only 23, oboe concertos and violin concertos by Vivaldi, Purcell’s semi-opera The Indian Queen (set in South America), and a great deal more.
Most of these are congenial, period-instrument renditions, but they can suffer from a certain blandness. The Vivaldi Gloria and Bach Magnificat disc, for instance, featuring works of which there are many alternative versions, including quite a few with the same pairing, seems altogether too much in the English, Anglican choral tradition to do full justice to these vigorous continental classics.
Christopher Hogwood’s 1991 recording of Handel’s 1733 opera Orlando is included. The work is rightly considered a masterpiece, despite being neglected after a few initial performances and not revived until the 1920s.
Hogwood’s recording, with a star cast including Emma Kirkby, is notable, and has also been issued separately on two CDs by Australian Eloquence (ELQ 4808813).
However, a dramatic new rendering under Rene Jacobs, with the celebrated US counter-tenor Bejun Mehta as Orlando, must now be first choice (DG Archiv 4792199). Only issued in May this year, and more expensive than the old Hogwood recording, it scores highly on account of dramatic intensity, strong characterization, and an intense vividness of sound.
To get the flavor of this extraordinary music, and Bejun Mehta’s equally extraordinary talent, watch him on YouTube singing an aria from Orlando, also with Rene Jacobs on the podium, at a concert in Frieburg in 2010. The aria is Fammi combattere (‘Let me fight‘) and the applause lasts almost exactly as long as the music. It’s uploaded by nt7006036662.
Orlando, incidentally, is Italian for Roland, the central character in the ancient French chanson de geste (‘song of heroic deeds’) The Song of Roland. Centuries later the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto took the character and sent him on fantastic and often absurd adventures in his immensely long poem Orlando furioso (‘Mad Orlando’, 1532). One of these adventures involved his love for a princess, Angelica, and his madness when she didn’t return his feelings. This episode forms the basis for Handel’s opera.
It’s some time since we reviewed anything from Video Artists International, the admirable label that seeks out and re-issues old TV items, often in black-and-white and frequently from Canada.
One interesting offering is of a gala concert on US TV given in January 1956. Containing only classical items, it was apparently the first of its kind to be televised. Fees were stellar compared with those for stage appearances, and the whole thing was held together, with occasional lapses, with commentary by the UK actor Charles Laughton.
You see it in black-and-white, although the original TV program was transmitted in color. Only English subtitles are available, but there is a welcome option that allows you to see the musical items but not the advertisements.
Featured artists include tenor Jussi Bjoerling, soprano Renata Tebaldi, violinist Isaac Stern and pianist Artur Rubinstein. VAI have located some high quality tapes of the occasion, and the DVD contains the only visual example of the Croatian soprano Zinka Milanov performing in existence.
I was most struck by Stern playing the last movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto — such manic energy is breath-taking to behold. Next in splendor came Tebaldi and Bjoerling in the final 15 minutes of Act One of La Boheme, while Rubinstein playing Chopin’s famous Polonaise in A Flat was predictably astonishing.
The National Children’s Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela is one of the many products of that country’s extraordinary sistema (‘system’) under which well over 300,000 schoolchildren play classical music in, among other things, 31 symphony orchestras. Last year they performed at the Salzburg Festival under various conductors, and a DVD is now available of which the highlight is their performance of Mahler’s Symphony No 1 under the baton of Simon Rattle.
Rattle has gone on record as saying that when he first conducted them he couldn’t believe that children as young as 9, and never older than 14, could not only play all the notes, but also could make such wonderful music. “This is, quite simply, the future of music,” he said. “Those of you lucky enough to hear the concerts will see why.”
He also credited them with being as good as some world-renowned orchestras, and there was no reason for him to say this if he didn’t mean it. As you watch them you realize that it’s not only youthful enthusiasm that marks them out, but simple professionalism as well. The orchestra looks to be about twice the size of a conventional one, so if one person forgets to play, you feel, his or her lapse will be drowned out by the huge numbers who don’t. But joking apart, this is a wonderful DVD.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
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