Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CDs
Heggie, ‘Intelligence’: Brugger, Barton, Bridges, Houston Grand Opera / Ryan (Houston Grand Opera 2 CDs) ★★★★
The American composer Jake Heggie relishes challenging subjects when he writes operas. His enormously successful ‘Dead Man Walking’ which has received more than 60 productions on five continents since its premiere in 2000, was about the real-life relationship between a multiple murderer awaiting execution on death row and the nun who becomes his regular visitor. In ‘Intelligence’, premiered in 2023 by Houston Grand Opera in a production featured on this recording, Heggie goes back to the American Civil War and the action focuses on two women Elizabeth Van Lew, white and wealthy, and Mary Jane Bowser, a black woman born a slave. The connection is that both are believed to have become spies for the Union side planning to abolish slavery. The few facts known about them become the basis for librettist Gene Scheer’s drama. It provides meaty parts for soprano Janai Brugger (Bowser) and mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton (Van Lew) and there’s a fine supporting cast too. Heggie’s style is more speech-song than aria but still packs an emotional punch, like Barton’s interior monologue ‘Look me in the eye’. Kwamé Ryan drives the music on powerfully right from the thunderous opening chords, and it makes for an engaging performance. There is one drawback about listening rather than seeing ‘Intelligence’. Financial constraints meant that Heggie could have either a chorus or dancers but not both. He chose the latter and their ballet sequences, commenting and elaborating the action, are obviously missing.
Vaughan Williams: London Symphony Orchestra / Pappano (LSO Live CD & SACD) ★★★★
Five years ago Sir Antonio Pappano explored Vaughan Williams’ two most disturbing symphonies, the aggressive No.4 and No.6 with its disturbingly ambiguous ending. Now on this second live concert recording we have No.5, perhaps the composer’s finest symphony, and Vaughan Williams’ valedictory No.9 finished just before his death at the age of 86. After the explosively dissonant No.4, its anger presaging the approaching World War II, the fifth is seen as being largely serene but that’s not Pappano’s approach. It was premiered in 1943 and there are, unsurprisingly, many dark undercurrents to the music and here they are emphasized. The lovely ‘Romanza’ movement is the fastest I’ve encountered, Pappano’s brisk pace (11.02) is a shock after Haitink’s broad and tranquil (13.29) unfolding. He emphasises the menacing brass interjections in the first movement rather than Sir Andrew Davis’s romantically distanced horn calls. The ninth is less contentious with the LSO’s characterful playing to the fore – the distinctive flugelhorn solo and a jazzy trio of saxophones used to colourful effect in this most genial of symphonic farewells.
Ginastera, String Quartets: Miró Quartet, Kiera Duffy (Pentatone CD) ★★★★
The the quartets of Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) combine the folk music of his native Brazil, edgy and acerbic rhythms reminiscent of Bartok’s string quartets – evident in Ginastera’s String Quartet No 1, Op 20 (1948) – and forays into twelve-tone techniques. That could be a recipe for an unsatisfying pick-and-mix musical concoction but Ginastera succeeded in blending them into a highly individual style, as in the amazing ‘Presto magico’ third movement of his String Quartet No 2, Op 26 (1958). The Miró Quartet’s playing combines precision and passion and they are outstanding advocates of Ginastera’s music. The String Quartet No 3, Op 40 (1973) is the finest where the Miró are joined by soprano Kiera Duffy for settings of haunting and mysterious Spanish poetry.
Scarlatti: Perianes (Harmonia Mundi CD) ★★★★
There are plenty of Domenico Scarlatti’s baroque keyboard sonatas to choose from – 550 and no shortage of interpreters either. For those resistant to the sound of the harpsichord, there are many distinguished recordings made on the modern pianoforte including discs by Angela Hewitt, Yevgeny Sudbin, András Schiff, Alexander Tharud and the always stimulating, if eccentric Ivo Pogorelich. So what does the Spanish pianist Javier Perianes – best known as an interpreter of his countrymen de Falla and Mompou – bring to the crowded table with these 15 sonatas? First is very fine sensitive playing; second is a complete lack of brilliance for its own sake; thirdly while using a modern grand Perianes never unleashes its extremes of pianissimo and fortissimo to make expressive points, preferring to shape the music more subtly in, for example, the Sonata in D minor, K.141. The production team provides a lovely velvety sound for Perianes – there’s much to enjoy on this disc.
‘A Year at Birmingham’ The Choir of Birmingham Cathedral, Wagner (Organ), Hardie (Director) (Regent Records) ★★★
Birmingham Cathedral, sitting in a small green space wedged between the busy Colmore Row and nearby banks and shops, looks tiny compared to other Midland cathedrals like Lichfield and Worcester, showing its origins as a parish church, consecrated in 1715. But like Dr Who’s Tardis it's bigger on the inside, with an airy acoustic making it ideal for choral concerts. This generous 80 minute disc packs in 20 works showcasing the talented cathedral Choir, under their Director David Hardie, accompanied by organist Ashley Wagner. It’s a musical journey through the Cathedral’s year from Advent to Christ the King. There are familiar favourites such as ‘The Holly and the Ivy’, in June Nixon’s arrangement, and Franck’s ‘Panis Angelicus’, to beautiful rarities, Bruckner’s ‘Locus Iste’ and contemporary pieces like James Macmillan’s ‘A Child’s Prayer’. A delightful disc to dip into.
Mozart, Volume 2: Federico Colli (piano) (Chandos CD) ★★
Do you admire the Mozart piano sonata series of Mitsuko Uchida and Maria Joao Pires? If so, Federico Colli’s exploration is almost certainly not for you. While those two distinguished Mozart interpreters emphasize clarity, beauty and (for want of a better word) objectivity, Colli sees Mozart through a post-romantic idiosyncratically subjective prism. His booklet notes provide a clue, they are in the form of a letter addressed to ‘Dear Wolfgang…” Listening to Colli you may ponder how much of his interpretation is Mozart and how much ‘Amadeus’. Take the famous ‘Rondo alla Turca’ finale of K.331. Ivo Pogorelich, for example, drives it hard, makes it wild but it’s still Mozart. Colli’s is farcical, more an arrangement than a performance. His Adagio in B minor, sublime in Uchida’s hands, has Colli catapulting the composer into the future sounding more like desolate late Liszt. Colli’s too fine a pianist not to give us occasional revelatory “That’s interesting!” moments, but for me there’s too much Colli and not enough Mozart.
Somm Recordings’ series of rare live material from the radio archives, all expertly restored by Lani Spahr and remastered for CD by Paul Ardern-Taylor, continues with three new compilations. The most notable is Sir Arthur Bliss: The Composer Conducts (2 CDs) ★★★★ gathered from live BBC studio broadcasts and four from their Prom concerts 1961-1968. Bliss’s music never received the attention of his contemporaries like Walton but includes some very fine music. His ‘Colour Symphony’ (1932) is as sparkling and polychrome as the title suggests and his Piano Concerto in B flat, in a vigorous performance by the great John Ogden, makes one wonder why it isn’t programmed now. The Concerto for Two Pianos, played by husband-and-wife team of Cyril Smith and Phyllis Selleck is an enjoyable romp. His oratorio ‘Morning Heroes’, warfare and heroism from Troy to the Somme, has immense passion and dignity. Pierre Monteux: A 150th Anniversary Tribute (CD) ★★★ is a 1961 BBC broadcast by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus from the Royal Festival Hall of works by two composers with whose music the genial maestro was closely linked. Debussy’s ‘Images’ sparkle and there is dignity and precision in Stravinsky’s ‘Symphony of Psalms’. The Hall’s unforgiving acoustic – Simon Rattle joked that conducting there made him lose the will to live – is a drawback. Leopold Stokowski: Frankly Speaking ★★★ (CD) It took 19 seconds of screen time in 1940 to make Stokowski a household name, when he shook hands and exchanged greetings with Mickey Mouse in Disney’s ‘Fantasia’. His reputation with critics and the intelligentsia never recovered. Genius, fake, charlatan take your pick. The manufactured accent – amazingly East European for a man born in Marylebone and buried at Nether Wallop – arouses suspicion. His advocacy of contemporary music, his list of premieres, cannot be doubted. In the right repertoire he could be magic as the 1964 BBC broadcast from the Albert Hall of de Falla’s ‘El Amor brujo’ demonstrates – despite the slightly foggy acoustic – sample the ‘Ritual Fire Dance’. Rehearsal sequences and an interview – it’s hopeful title ‘Frankly Speaking’ must have made Stokowski laugh inwardly – make up the rest of the disc