New Releases

[Karl Henning]

The kitchen sink is e'en now in preparation ....

[Mirror Image]

What should be on the first NAXOS Henning offering?

one in progress, the Dostoyevsky ballet White Nights

YES!!! This is one work by Henning that I have been really wanting to hear.

[Brian]

Henning! The People Demand!

I know the American Classics producers used to take proposals or sample tapes from ready-to-go composer-performer combinations, but Klaus Heymann has said they have a backlog of recordings that's enough to keep releasing CDs for 2-3 years if they stop recording new projects tomorrow. Maybe Henning on Albany? Or Henning on Sono Luminus? Those guys are nice, I've been in touch with Sono Luminus over the past couple weeks about their ongoing Kernis string quartet project.

[TheGSMoeller]

What should be on the first NAXOS Henning offering?

I will vote for: Out In The Sun. Nuhro, Sonata for Viola and Piano, Song of Simeon, and two future works, one in progress, the Dostoyevsky ballet White Nights, and then a work that even Karl does not know that he is composing yet, but he will, namely Variations on Achy Breaky Heart      for Krummhorn, Kazoo, and Prepared Kitchen Sink.

Out in the Sun for sure, my favorite from the Henningmusik collection.

[not edward]

Out in the Sun for sure, my favorite from the Henningmusik collection.

I'd certainly spend my hard-earned dollar on a commercial issue.

One good development with Naxos is that Heynmann has sort-of-promised Antoni Wit conducting Bacewicz and further Gorecki.

Agreed that completing the Diamond series would be nice, not to mention clearing up the sundry unrecorded Schuman orchestral works.

[Mirror Image]

not to mention clearing up the sundry unrecorded Schuman orchestral works.

YES!!!

[Brian]

One good development with Naxos is that Heynmann has sort-of-promised Antoni Wit conducting Bacewicz and further Gorecki.

He doubled down on that in another interview last month. "Yes. We work well with Antoni Wit and the Polish Radio Symphony and Warsaw Philharmonic. We have Szymanowski and Lutosławski complete, and we are working on Penderecki, who keeps composing new works. Naxos's exposure has made those three mainstream already. I am now looking ahead to the lesser known Karłowicz, Górecki and Bacewicz."

Wit will also do one of the Weinberg symphony discs and (unrelated) the complete choral works of Dvorak. Wit himself has hinted there is Moniuszko and Panufnik in the pipeline.

[Mirror Image]

He doubled down on that in another interview last month. "Yes. We work well with Antoni Wit and the Polish Radio Symphony and Warsaw Philharmonic. We have Szymanowski and Lutosławski complete, and we are working on Penderecki, who keeps composing new works. Naxos's exposure has made those three mainstream already. I am now looking ahead to the lesser known Karłowicz, Górecki and Bacewicz."

Wit will also do one of the Weinberg symphony discs and (unrelated) the complete choral works of Dvorak. Wit himself has hinted there is Moniuszko and Panufnik in the pipeline.

I'd be anxious to hear more of Bacewicz's music. I disliked the Hyperion recording with Corp immensely. The Chandos recordings of the VCs were quite good though.

[not edward]

I'd be anxious to hear more of Bacewicz's music. I disliked the Hyperion recording with Corp immensely. The Chandos recordings of the VCs were quite good though.

Yeah, by comparison to the Polish recordings I've heard the Hyperion was a bit of a turkey. Even Penderecki (no Antoni Wit, he) was able to get infinitely more out of Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion than Corp. Not to mention the orchestral works of hers that I've never even heard of a commercial recording of: from the last 10 years of her life alone (my favourite period in her output) there's the 2nd cello concerto, Musica sinfonica, Contradizione, In Una Parte, Acropolis and a couple of ballets.

[madaboutmahler]

Glorious cover. I saw her Mahler One live with the Houston Symphony; it was a few years ago, when I was less enthused about Mahler, but her way with the finale had a clarity, shape, and energy about it that, along with Kubelik/audite, finally sold me on that movement. In fact her energy was what I remembered most about it, besides the feeling of "ah! I finally get it."

That said, I don't know that she+Baltimore are the most inspired pairing for new recordings... having seen Wit/Warsaw do 3 last year, I can tell you that if they had Wit re-record a couple of the symphonies to go with his newish 8th the results would be spellbinding.

P.S. A September release? How'd you find out about it? I only know the Naxos releases through June. Speaking of Naxos in June...

Thanks for sharing that with us, Brian. Oh yes, certainly a beautiful cover...
I just found it on Amazon. I was searching recordings of Mahler 1 to start thinking about the Blind Comparison I will be setting up for that symphony (after the current one for Mahler 6) and this new release came up as one of the listed recordings!

Wrong, both of you! A Henning cycle!!!

Yes!

[jlaurson]

hmmmmm....
I wonder what Alsop is like in Mahler. Any ideas?
Coming out around September in England...

Annoying to watch, boring to listen to?

From reviews I tend to trust, in that they reflect my experience with Alsop, esp. in such repertoire:

M9

As a conductor, Alsop has a fairly limited vocabulary of gestures, with a default setting of bouncy and agitated and a left hand that is constantly moving, often only in a mirror pattern of her beat hand. In her reading of the ninth symphony the transitions between sections and tempi often seemed awkward, more forced than organic and therefore not always unified. The first movement, thought to be on the theme of farewell because of the constant reference to a motif from Beethoven's "Les Adieux" sonata (as noted in fine program notes by Janet E. Bedell), was contained and gentle in Alsop's reading, only to be pushed ahead a little too nervously. An odd overemphasis of offbeats unbalanced the second movement, and a similar Bernsteinesque electricity was evident in the rough-and-tumble third movement, making the Burleske overly grotesque.

The fourth movement did not feel rushed as much as soupy, with emoted gestures from Alsop, who laid it on pretty thick. It suggested a conclusion that was superficially sad, rather than a deep tragedy welling up from within. La Grange notes that the principal theme sounds like a hymn, and others have suggested that it could have been modeled on Nearer My God to Thee or another hymn that Mahler may have heard in New York. The best interpretation, like Sinopoli's, lets the thread of grief pull itself from the spool at its own pace, until the almost voiceless quotation or allusion to Kindertotenlieder near the end. In spite of these shortcomings, the playing of the BSO continues to improve, with spartan brass throughout, especially in the horn section, and fine winds, especially the double reeds.

M2

Alsop's tempo choices were often distorted, such as overly slow funeral march sections in the first movement and an overly fast third movement. This mannered approach helped neither ensemble unity nor the sense of overall line through the symphony. Most successful was the delicate second movement, an unruffled, nostalgic Landler that bordered on the shmaltzy in its evocation of a memory of the world left behind.

[madaboutmahler]

Annoying to watch, boring to listen to?

From reviews I tend to trust, in that they reflect my experience with Alsop, esp. in such repertoire:

M9
M2

Thank you for sharing those reviews, Jens!

I'll probably pass on this recording. I'll just save up for the MTT cycle instead.

[not edward]

I experienced some Alsop performances with the RSNO in the late '90s. Now, granted, these were in the Edinburgh Festival Theatre with its horrendously dry acoustics (the Usher Hall was closed for renovation that season), but I don't recall nuance being on the menu at all.

I'm sure she's done better since, but I certainly don't associate her with compelling interpretations of the mainstream repertoire.

[Brian]

I don't recall nuance being on the menu at all.

This may be why the best conducting I've seen from her live was in the Planets.

I'm not a total Alsop-hater; I love her Barber live and on CD, I thought her Bernstein Mass was terrific, I'd like to hear more Adams CDs, and there was one Brahms symphony recording that wasn't a waste of time. But the rest of the Brahms, and the Dvorak, suggest no particular affinity for core repertoire...

[knight66]

The Glyndbourne production of Handel's oratorio 'Theodora' won a huge number of friends for the piece, mainly through the issue of DVDs of the production. I waited long for the CDs and gave up a long time ago. However, this month a sound only issue has been made from the DVD performance. The sound has been worked on I gather, certainly, although it is clear that it is live, there is little to distract from the intense drama and the superb musical performance. This is possibly the most treasured performance by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Together with the counter tenor David Daniels and Dawn Upshaw, we are given by far the most intense experience I can imagine of this wonderful piece. Everyone is working at the top of thir form. I have listened through three times and it still leaves me stunned at the close. One critic at the first night wrote something along the lines of.....this little known piece unearthed a string of jaw dropping lay beautiful arias that left the audience in rapture.

The resounding reaction at the end emphasises the delight at what was a historic run of performances for the piece, bringing it out in to the light. I cannot recommend the discs enough.

Mike

[The new erato]

The Glyndbourne production of Handel's oratorio 'Theodora' won a huge number of friends for the piece, mainly through the issue of DVDs of the production. I waited long for the CDs and gave up a long time ago. However, this month a sound only issue has been made from the DVD performance. The sound has been worked on I gather, certainly, although it is clear that it is live, there is little to distract from the intense drama and the superb musical performance. This is possibly the most treasured performance by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Together with the counter tenor David Daniels and Dawn Upshaw, we are given by far the most intense experience I can imagine of this wonderful piece. Everyone is working at the top of thir form. I have listened through three times and it still leaves me stunned at the close. One critic at the first night wrote something along the lines of.....this little known piece unearthed a string of jaw dropping lay beautiful arias that left the audience in rapture.

The resounding reaction at the end emphasises the delight at what was a historic run of performances for the piece, bringing it out in to the light. I cannot recommend the discs enough.

Mike

I have the DVD set, as well as Christies CD set on Erato, and have even seen it semistaged here in Bergen. It is a stunning work that demonstrates for all doubters why Handel deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Bach, and why he is a composer of dramatic works on the level of Mozart and Wagner.

[Lethevich]

This would go in the "recordings you are looking forward to" thread, but, etc...:



It's out in August and looks neato.

[Que]

This would go in the "recordings you are looking forward to" thread, but, etc...:

So, you're looking forward to this new release?

(For those out of the loop: that used the be the name of this very thread)

Q

[chasmaniac]

We have cover art now, and if you squint you can read a list of composers on it.

[asin]B007AR7QZI[/asin]

Arkiv now lists the contents: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=733915

[Karl Henning]

Arkiv now lists the contents: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=733915

Groovy, thanks!