Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases
Buckfast Abbey in Devonshire dates back more than a thousand years and has a chequered history, being demolished during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries and its present site was reinstated as an abbey in 1902. It has a thriving musical life with the present Abbey Choir founded in 2009 and an organ by the Italian organ builder Fratelli Ruffati, their first to be constructed in Britain, which was installed in 2017 and given its inaugural recital in 2018. Both are featured in two new discs released on the Ad Fontes label handsomely housed in handsome CD-sized hardback books lavishly illustrated in colour, with beautiful views of the Abbey and its surroundings, and with informative notes. 'Cinquième Symphonie' ★★★★ shows off the Ruffati organ's splendid sound in a 76 minute programme performed by the Abbey's own organist Charles Maxtone-Smith. The album's title is of the disc's opening work, Louis Vierne's Symphonie No. 5 in A minor, Op. 47. It was composed in 1923–24, and is a massively ambitious five-movement work, richly chromatic and inhabiting Wagner's sound-world, in the opening Grave movement, sinister, shrouded and mysterious the listener with spot Wagner's famous 'Tristan Chord'. Maxtone-Smith revels in the flamboyant and darkly humorous Scherzo and the finale, with the engineers capturing the Abbey's generous acoustic, is spectacular. For this work alone organ enthusiasts will want to hear this album. There's more: two works from Maurice Duruflé, his three movement Prélude, Adagio et Choral varié sur le thème du ‘Veni Creator’, Op. 4 and the miniature Prélude sur l’Introït de l’Épiphanie, Op. 13, plus Charles Tournemire's Fantaisie-Improvisation sur l’Ave maris stella (Cinq Improvisations).The Abbey's Choir feature in 'Messe Modale' ★★★★ under their director Mathew Searles, with four works by 20th century French works composed solely for high voices. As Searles explains in his booklet notes: "At Buckfast Abbey it has been customary in recent years for the sopranos and altos of the Abbey Choir to occasionally sing the Sunday Solemn Mass without lower voices. This recording celebrates this, and reflects some of the repertoire that might be encountered if worshipping here on such an occasion." The main work is the 'Messe modale en septuor; by Jehan Alain, whose career was cut short when he died aged 29 when he died in action during World War II when serving as a motorcycle dispatch rider. It's an eclectic work , Alain enjoyed jazz and oriental music and had a sharp sense of humour, one of his cartoons is featured in the booklet, so it's serious but not too solemn. The album includes Jean Langlais' 'Missa in Semplicitate' and 'Mass Modale en Septuor' And Faure's 'Mess Basse' each work preceded by a Gregorian Chant. The disc concludes with an interesting bonus, Daniel Roth's 'Aïn Karim' (Fantaisie pour flûte et orgue) with Charles Maxtone Smith (organ) and Lloyd Hampton (flute) and unusual and piquant combination.
Mazzoli, 'Breaking the Waves': Houston Grand Opera / Summers ( HGO 2 CDs / SACDs) ★★★★
The Danish film director and screenwriter Lars von Trier's work has brought him awards, praise, opprobrium and notoriety mostly because of its sexual content and depiction of extreme psychological states, often at the same time. His 'Breaking the Waves" (1996), set in the Scottish highlands in the 1970s, was a Cannes Grand Prix Winner. It depicts Bess McNeill, a naive and childlike religious young woman who talks to God, and her romance with an atheist Danish oil rigger and the conflict it causes with her Calvinist church community. In 2016 an operatic adaptation, with music by American avant-garde composer Missy Mazzoli, with libretto by playwright Royce Vavrek, was premiered in Philadelphia and this is a live recording of the 2025 production is Houston. Looking at photographs of the production in the set's booklet shows how radically different it is from the film with its deliberately shaky hand-held camerawork and intense ordinariness. Its soundtrack was pop music of the era the film depicted, including David Bowie, Elton John, T-Rex, and Roxy Music. This production is stylized gothic, characters in intimate small sets surrounded by darkness and Mazzoli's music matches that and works perfectly in context. The opening prologue, percussive crashes of waves, high keening woodwind bird calls, sighing strings captures the bleak austere landscape. Into this comes the voice of Bess - the impressive soprano Lauren Snouffer - thinking aloud about the man she has fallen in love with: "Funny name for a man. An outsider has wormed / His way inside my heart. Jan from the rig." The conductor Patrick Summers balances the orchestral and electronic musical elements seamlessly aided by exellent sound engineering, the presentation crisp and wide-ranging. The cast is impressive; Bess's lover Jan (Ryan McKinny) and her mother (Michelle Bradley) especially. The booklet is exemplary with a full libretto and Mazzoli's essay on her musical portrait of Bess.
Strauss, 'Intermezzo': Bengtsson, Jekal, Deutsche Oper Berlin / Runnicles (Naxos 2CDs) ★★★
Richard Strauss adored his wife, the opera singer Pauline de Ahna, despite her irascible nature and his subsequent reputation of being a hen-pecked husband. His brilliant musical picture of her in his tone poem 'Ein Heldenleben' (A Hero's Life) as 'Des Helden Gefährtin' (The Hero's Companion) captures her personality, as Strauss described it to a friend, perfectly: "She is very complex, a trifle perverse, a trifle coquettish, never the same, changing from minute to minute." Pauline also stars as Christine, the unhappy wife of the conductor Robert Storch, a thinly-disguised Strauss, in his 1924 opera 'Intermezzo'. To ram the point home the stage sets of the Dresden premiere copied Strauss's own house at Garmisch. Strauss kept the plot a secret from his wife and the joke was revealed sat the premiere. Frau Strauss was not amused! It's an odd work, seldom performed or recorded, and its most famous parts are the delightful orchestral interludes. Tobias Kratzer’s production for Deutsche Oper Berlin was a hit, radically updating the opera to the present day and employing cinematic special effects, and green-screen projections. This is really a production that needs to be seen and on CD it falls rather flat. Maria Bengtsson and Philipp Jekal are excellent as the warring couple and the orchestral playing is first rate under Sir Donald Runnicles, those Intermezzi sound gorgeous.
During the summer silly season, when the big multinational record labels take an extended holiday while independents like Somm Records beaver away. The latest release in thier series 'The Beecham Collection Live Recordings' ★★★★ is one of their best. Audio restoration specialist Lani Spahr has revitalized the off-air mono broadcast recordings of Berlioz and Wagner from the Festival Hall made in 1955 and 1958. Beecham was a wonderful conductor of French music - think of his 'Carmen' - and his two extracts from Berlioz' 'Les Troyens' - Prelude to The Trojans at Carthage and 'Royal Hunt and Storm', with the Oxford Bach Choir - are stirring stuff while the Hungarian March from 'La Damnation de Faust' has an invigorating swagger. Beecham's Wagner is a refreshing alternative and antidote to the doleful, dragging metaphysical readings of the composer. In Beecham's hands The Overture and Venusberg Music from 'Tannhäuser' soars and simmers with eroticism; the Good Friday Music from 'Parsifal' and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey from 'Götterdämmerung' are noble and powerful but have energy too, they elevate without dragging. Herbert Howells (1892–1983) composed many part-songs - choral music consisting of a song to a secular or non-liturgical sacred text - and this collection Herbert Howells: Partsongs ★★★ consists entirely of premiere recordings. They are performed by The Mira Ensemble, who were formed last year, and are directed by Newcastle-born conductor and composer Tom Edney, accompanied by pianist Nick Salwey. The 28 early partsongs featured on this disc include 'The Shepherd', a setting of William Blake; 'A Croon' from an old cradle song; 'An Old Man’s Lullaby' by Elizabethan Thomas Dekker; and 'A Tinker’s Son'g, an anonymous old London song from 1667. There are shades of Holst and Vaughan Williams in the songs and the performances are fresh and easy on the ear. The title for Peter Donohoe's 'The Chopin I Love' ★★★ was chosen by him in honour of Artur Rubinstein's disc of the same name. The old master's was subtitled 'The Great Favourites', a greatest hits compilation, while Donhoe's is very different. It's centerpiece is a performance of Chopin's early masterpiece the 24 Préludes, Op.28 which, in the days of 40 minute LPs, would occupy a whole disc but Somm give us 82:26 with Donohoe adding piquant short works 3 Écossaises, Op.72 No.3, Berceuse, Op.57, 2 Nocturnes, Op.62, Prélude, Op.45, Barcarolle, Op.60 and a scintillating Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op.61 which the listener should programme last as a perfect encore. Donohoe's survey of the Préludes is very satisfying, finely played, with sensible tempi which avoid extremes but, to be honest, never dazzles. If you are allergic to the brilliance and occasional barminess of Pogorelich's Chopin - his dreamy No.15 takes 7:22 to Donhoe's 4:33 - or find Argerich too sparky and nervous, then Donohoe will do nicely.
The British choral tradition is one, if not the, richest in the world. Here are two new discs of choral music by British composers which are worlds apart. demonstrating that richness and diversity. I remember reviewing John Casken's bracingly atmospheric tone poem 'Darting the Skiff' on a disc of his orchestral music on the now defunct Collins Classics label thirty years ago. The Northumbria-based composer's collection of choral music Uncertain Sea: Joyful Company of Singers / Broadbent (Métier CD) ★★★★ shows that his ability to conjure up the area's atmospheric land and seascapes is undiminished. There are 14 pieces composed between 1990 and 2024 which set texts ranging from seventh century Northumbrian cow herder and versifier Caedmon - the inspiration for 'Caedmon's Hymn' (2021) - to contemporary poet Katrina Porteous, who has written about the Northumbrian fishing community, via Donne, Burns, and Manley Hopkins. Their variety shows Casken's versatility from the cantata 'Memorial', a setting of Casken's own texts for two soloists, two percussionists and chorus, to Burns' paean to love 'Ae Fond Kiss' and its immortal couplet, "Naething could resist my Nancy; But to see her was to love her". The choir, conducted by Peter Broadbent, is excellent and the sound is warm, resonant yet clear. From Casken's songs of experience to the youthful vigour and eager confidence of Christopher Churcher, the Birmingham born composer. He's only 22-years-old but introducing his album Moonrise: Somerville College Choir / Dawes (Resonus) ★★★★ on YouTube he's a dead ringer for Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾. Don't let his appearance or precocity mislead you, here's genuine talent and promise. The title track has gently shifting soaring harmonies, a lovely aural balm. When I saw the track 'Everything Is Going To Be All Right' I thought Churcher had re-imagined the great Bob Marley's anthem of consolation, but it's actually a setting of Belfast poet Derek Mahon with a similar message: "The sun rises in spite of everything..." and Churcher provides a rousingly uplifting soundtrack for the full-throated choir - sounding very young and fresh - under Will Dawes. Churcher's settings of more subtle and more demanding texts work too, as in the album's heart the three settings collectively entitled 'Pride Motets'. Churcher cleverly separates the strands of e.e.cummings' poem 'my heart' into musical ones, clarifying their message, and Richard Barnfield's Sonnet 16 a bleak analysis of unrequited passion, "Thus kiss I clouds in vaine / Thus I feel endless paine' captures its emotional turmoil.