Vocal and Choral

Bernard Rands – Vincent
Soloists; Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra and Opera Chorus; Arthur Fagen
Naxos 8.669037-38

Not every artist’s life can be called operatic. Yet the life of Vincent van Gogh certainly fits the bill. Born into a family dominated by an Old-Testament-God-like father, Theodorus, a preacher, Vincent was destined to fail at everything he tried.

He fails as an art gallery director in Paris. His feverish religiosity first garners him a position as a rural preacher, only to have that zeal undermine the position. His attempts at relationships are pathetic: he tries to marry and “save” a prostitute, only to have his noble intentions rejected. His friendship with Gauguin collapses, leads to (or according to some scholars, not at all) the famous ear-cutting episode. The only constant in van Gogh’s life is the love and support of his younger brother Theo, the source of money, paints and canvasses. Alas, progressive epilepsy and beginnings of mental illness (perhaps with a touch of lead poisoning) defeat Vincent. The final irony is of course the sale of his first paining shortly after his death and then posthumous fame.

This is an epic life, condensed here into two acts of beautifully representative music. The only flaw is the lack of an overture. This element, so brilliantly deployed not so long ago by Bernstein in Candide, is increasingly eschewed by contemporary composers, here to a fine work’s detriment.

Sigmund Romberg – The Student Prince
Petersen; Wortig; Blees; Ezenarro; WDR Radio Choir and Orchestra; John Mauceri
CPO 555 058-2

I presume that those of us who enjoy operetta, and others, are familiar with the many deservedly popular songs from The Student Prince, if only from the movie version featuring the singing voice of Mario Lanza shown again recently on TCM. Sigmund Romberg was born in Hungary, studied in Vienna, emigrated to the USA in 1909 and in 1914 became a US citizen. The Student Prince with lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly opened on Broadway in December of 1924 and ran for an astonishing 608 performances, a record number that stood through the 1920s and 1930s. It even outpaced Jerome Kern’s Show Boat that played for 572 performances. The many memorable songs include the Serenade (Overhead the Moon Is Beaming), Deep in My Heart, Golden Days and, of course, the rousing Drinking Song.

The cast of classically trained singers under John Mauceri, who is at home in all genres of music from symphony hall to Broadway, are well-chosen for their roles. There are nine soloists, the leading roles sung and spoken by Dominik Wortig as Karl-Franz, Anja Petersen as Kathie, Frank Blees as Dr. Engel, Arantza Ezenarro as Gretchen and Vincent Schirrmacher as Graf Hugo-Detlef. This winning, naturally balanced recording of the complete score includes some dialogue and the entr’acte music and opening ballet for Act Three.

Bach – Matthäus Passion
Berliner Philharmoniker; Sir Simon Rattle; Peter Sellars
Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings BPHR140021

“Everyone knows it’s the great piece of music in the Western tradition,” affirms Peter Sellars with chorus master Simon Halsey in their 51-minute illuminating discussion of the St. Matthew Passion incorporating Sellars’ staging. The two sat on the stage of the Berlin Philharmonie and talked about aspects of the music and this performance. Here are some of Sellars’ thoughtful musings:

“It’s not theatre, it’s a prayer, a meditation, and I invited them to dedicate the opening chorus to someone they care about, to one who is still with them or maybe someone who is not. Someone who’s leaving the world now or someone who needs their help or thoughts or some act of kindness and to make the performance itself to be the prayer that reaches that person whether they are here or gone. Bach wrote the music for us to place everything we hope and care about into the vessel of this music… . This music has been the property of the early music movement for the last 20 to 25 years and it has been hands-off. Now the actual sense of discovery of this group of musicians is quite amazing, it’s the first time they have held these scores… In this pentagonal, 360-degree hall we could do the St. Matthew Passion in Bach’s imaginary spacialization, two choruses face each other, two orchestras face each other in a communal cross where there is no proscenium. We are not standing back and admiring it but opening it and going inside, a communal event. People are not performing out but performing to each other and what you get is a community engaging with itself and working through issues together and talking it out and so equal time is spent playing and singing and listening and being receptive.”

The participants in this performance of April 11, 2010, are Mark Padmore (Evangelist) and Christian Gerhaher (Jesus), together with Camilla Tilling (soprano), Magdalena Kožená (contralto), Topi Lehtipuu (tenor) and Thomas Quasthoff (bass) in the recitatives and arias. Peter Sellars is the stage director and the conductor is Sir Simon Rattle, who has said that this is the best thing he has done.

In every way, this is music-making at the very highest level. It is no longer a matter of listening to and watching a group of singers before an orchestra but a depiction of the events behind the words, raising Bach’s great work to a new level of appreciation and understanding. We look forward to the Sellars, Rattle, Padmore, BPO St. John Passion that follows.

If you acquire a copy of this set, I most heartily suggest that you first absorb the complete conversation between chorus master Halsey and the charismatic Sellars, a bonus on these discs. Their appreciation of what you are about to see and hear, how it was achieved and so much more, sets up the performance. As I write this I am re-watching this conversation just for the pleasure of doing so.

Puccini – Turandot
Nina Stemme; Maria Agresta; Aleksandrs Antonenko; Coro e Orchestra del Teatro Alla Scala; Riccardo Chailly
Decca 071 3937

Alma Mahler – Lieder und Gesange
Catharina Kroeger; Monica Lonero
Brilliant Classics 95469

Alma Schindler was an aspiring composer who, in 1900, became a student of Alexander von Zemlinsky (who also became her lover). In December 1901 she became engaged to Gustav Mahler, who did not allow her to compose. He was the composer of the family; she was to be the loving companion and understanding partner of her husband. Such an attitude seems insensitive and draconian but it would not have been uncommon at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1910, at a time of great personal stress, Mahler relented and helped his wife revise five of her songs for publication. After his death two further publications followed: four songs in 1915, five in 1924.

The performance of the Alma Mahler songs is complemented with Patrizia Montanaro’s Canto di Penelope, in which the protagonist “rejects the role that has been assigned to her by the myth and lays claim to her own autonomy as a woman, a mother and a head of household.” The oblique relevance to the story of Alma is clear.

It is time to move past the notion of Alma Mahler as Gustav’s wife and to listen to the songs in their own right. Several of them are certainly arresting, with surprising harmonies. They are beautifully sung by the soprano Catharina Kroeger. The pianist Monica Lonero is especially fine. I note that in November soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw will perform in Koerner Hall works by members of the Second Viennese School and that the concert will include not only works by Alban Berg and Anton Webern but also songs by Hugo Wolf (a forerunner?) and Alma Mahler. It will be interesting to see how her work will stand up in that context.

Sibelius – Kullervo; Kortekangas – Migrations
Lilli Paasikivi; Tommi Hakala; YL Male Voice Choir; Minnesota Orchestra; Osmo Vanska
BIS BIS-9048 SACD

The early 1890s found Sibelius engrossed in the Kalevala and other verses of Finnish poetry that were to become the subject matter of so many of his most celebrated and memorable works. Kullervo, published in 1892, was Sibelius’ first grand symphonic opus. It was his first setting of stories from the Kalevala and is packed with new ideas, revealing first glimpses of many of the composer’s trademark orchestrations, his poetic spirit and his depiction of northern vistas. The work is a symphonic poem in five parts scored for symphony orchestra, male voice choir, mezzo-soprano and baritone. The story tells of a clan massacre, seduction, incest, revenge and suicide. This performance is instantly pleasing, particularly the male choir. Interestingly, between 1892 and the composition of the First Symphony in 1898-99 Sibelius wrote just about all of his mighty tone poems, Op.8 to 27. The first performance of Kullervo in Canada using Sibelius’ final revisions was in Roy Thomson Hall on May 3, 1986. The soloists were Ritva Auvinen, soprano, and Esa Ruuttunen, bass, with the Laulun Ystävät (from Turku, Finland), the Toronto Finnish Male Choir, the Toronto Estonian Male Choir and the CJRT Orchestra conducted by Paul Robinson. It was truly a gala event for the city and the who’s who, too.

Olli Kortekangas, born in 1955, studied music theory and composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under the direction of Einojuhani Rautavaara and continued his studies in Berlin with Dieter Schnebel. His music has been featured in concerts and at festivals around the world and he is currently working on several domestic and international commissions. Migrations, scored for orchestra, male choir and mezzo was commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra. The English-language text was written by Sheila Packa, a Minnesotan poet of Finnish roots. “I believe that immigration affects families deeply, particularly in relation to borders, language and landscape…many believe that speaking a new language brings out different parts of the self.” Migrations is a narrative poem in seven parts: four sung movements, Two Worlds, Resurrection, The Man Who Lived in a Tree and Music That We Breathe, separated by three instrumental interludes. A suitable disc mate for the Sibelius. The brilliant YL Male Voice Choir was founded in Helsinki in 1883 is deservedly one of the most prominent male choirs in the world. The recorded sound is superb.

In the Stream of Life – Songs by Sibelius
Gerald Finley; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Chandos SA-CD CHSA 5178

Jean Sibelius, the long-lived national Finnish composer, was in fact brought up in a Swedish-speaking home, studied in Berlin and Vienna and the bulk of his song output was set to Swedish and German poems. Despite that, he came to symbolize Finnish music the same way Edvard Grieg did the Norwegian national school. Incidentally, Grieg was for many years the artistic director of the Bergen Philharmonic heard here, one of the oldest orchestras in the world, ringing in 250 years of continuous existence.

Which brings us to Gerald Finley, everybody’s favourite baritone. This Montreal-born, Ottawa-raised artist, currently living in the UK, received particular attention from the sadly departed (in 2016) Einojuhani Rautavaara, another great Finnish composer. It was Finley for whom Rautavaara composed his brilliant Rubaiyat and orchestrated seven of Sibelius’ songs – In the Stream of Life – originally composed for voice and piano. In fact, these orchestrations turned out to be Rautavaara’s swan song and this world premiere recording was only concluded in the week of his funeral. Finley navigates the complex harmonies of Sibelius’ (and Rautavaara’s) music and the treacherous linguistic ground with mastery and elegance that we have come to expect from him.

The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra’s playing deserves kudos as well, especially in the tone poem Pohjola’s Daughter. It may be of interest that the current principal conductor in Bergen, Edward Gardner, led the English National Opera in the artistically rich, financially disastrous period from 2007 to 2015. Five stars.