Vocal and Choral

Myths Contested
Washington Bach Consort; Dana Marsh
Acis APL53752 (acisproductions.com)

Johann Sebastian Bach is synonymous with church music, writing hundreds of compositions for choir, orchestra and organ, many of which were intended for use in his role as Kapellmeister of Leipzig’s Thomaskirche. In addition to these myriad works, Bach also wrote a number of secular vocal works, including the stunning Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde, BWV 201, also known as The Contest between Phoebus and Pan, featured on this disc by the Washington Bach Consort.

Titled Myths Contested, this recording juxtaposes Bach’s secular musical drama with American composer Trevor Weston’s A New Song. This work, commissioned by the Bach Consort, addresses the challenges that arise from attempting to evaluate music from past centuries in relation to contemporary music, an issue that resonates with anyone who is asked to review music in a public forum.

Bach’s Contest between Phoebus and Pan is a delightful work composed in traditional cantata form, with recitatives and arias bookended by choral movements. The Washington Bach Consort manages Bach’s contrapuntal intricacies masterfully, and the orchestra shines in the opening movement, particularly through the virtuosic writing for wind instruments (which is characteristic Bach, given that the choir is singing “Hasten, you swirling winds.”).

Weston’s A New Song is fascinating, a modern “cantata” for choir and Baroque orchestra that adheres to certain stylistic conventions while defying others. For example, the opening and closing movements include trumpet and full choir, and arias (titled “songs”) are the primary middle movements, although a chorus and chorale are each interspersed between the solo movements. While these traditions look back to the Baroque, the musical vernacular is strikingly different than anything Bach ever wrote, resulting in a listening experience that is simultaneously familiar yet new.

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ArtChoral Vol.5 – Romantique
Ensemble ArtChoral; Matthias Maute
ATMA ACD2 2424 (atmaclassique.com/en)

The Montreal-based Ensemble ArtChoral – initially known as Ensemble Vocal Arts-Québec, was founded by Yves Courville in 1979 with the aim of presenting professional choral music both in Canada and internationally. Since then, the group has earned a formidable reputation, and with the appointment of Matthias Maute as music director in 2019, the ensemble has not only increased its appearances, but has also been the recipient of two JUNOs and an OPUS Prize (for Musical Event of the Year in 2020). 

This newest recording on the ATMA label presents music by Romanic-period composers including Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Fauré, appropriately titled Romantique. It is the fifth in a projected series of 11 aiming to cover the entire history of European choral music. The pieces on the program are brief – none more than five minutes in length – and the entire program totals no more than 40 minutes. Opening with Rheinberger’s Abenlied Op.69 No.3, the choir sings with a solid conviction while demonstrating a fine sense of phrasing and dynamics.

Three songs by Brahms – Schnitter Tod, Abendständchen and Darthulas Grabgesang – are all fine examples of the German volkslied tradition, while the choir has no difficulty in capturing the mystical religious mood in Tchaikovsky’s Hymne des Chérubins Op.41.

The fine sound produced by Ensemble ArtChoral’s performers together with the thoughtfully chosen program go to make this a compelling recording, although it could have been even more fulfilling had Maute included one or two more substantial works. Nevertheless, this is a minor quibble and doesn’t mar an otherwise fine performance – we can look forward to more in the series.

Giuseppe Verdi – Ernani
Soloists; Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; James Conlon
Dynamic DVD 37972 DVD (naxos.com/Search/KeywordSearchResults/?q=37972)

For some unknown reason Verdi’s Ernani does not even make it to the operatic maestro’s greatest hits. This performance by Francesco Meli (in the title role), Roberto Frontali (Don Carlo), Vitalij Kowaljow (Don Ruy Gomez de Silva) and the inimitable Maria José Siri (Elvira) is nothing short of stellar, more so for the masterful direction of Leo Muscato who enables them to bring the characters to life. James Conlon’s conducting of the Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is superb. 

There is real gain from watching this DVD, with those stars throwing every fibre of their being into intense portrayals of what becomes an emotional whirlpool by the end of the opera. Verdi adapted Victor Hugo’s play which came at a time when Hugo was waging a “culture war” that aimed to promote “ideas for progress” in the 1830s. By the time of this opera the Italian master’s work had already become synonymous with the word “operatic”.

Verdi throws his characters in Ernani into infernos for tortured souls. But while the passion with which Meli, Frontali, Kowaljow and Siri play their parts may not be unexpected, it is impressive indeed to watch and listen to the subtlety of so much soft singing. Meli and Siri’s performances tingle with so much nervous intensity. The set is elegantly simple, costumes are superb down to the last accessory and the filming – designed to accentuate the melodrama – is excellent.

Guiseppe Verdi – I Due Foscari
Soloists; Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno; Cappella Aquileia; Marcus Bosch
Coviello Classics COV92514 Blu-ray (covielloclassics.de/en)

I Due Foscari is Verdi’s sixth opera, preceded immediately by Ernani, both in the same year, 1844 with the same librettist, Francesco Maria Piave. It is well documented that Verdi was very actively involved with the development of the libretto, wishing to inject it with more theatricality. Based on the true story of Francesco Foscari, the 65th and longest reigning Doge of the Republic of Venice. The opera owes its inspiration to the poetic drama play by England’s Lord Byron, The Two Foscari.   

On the surface, the plot of I Due Foscari is the tragic story of a father and son and the father’s responsibilities to the Republic versus his responsibilities as a father. The Doge of 15-century Venice, Francesco and his seemingly popular son Jacopo highlight the fight for power and corruption of the ruling families of the realm. When Jacopo is wrongly accused and convicted of a crime for which he will be exiled, his father doesn’t defend him. Prior to being exonerated in the third act, Jacopo dies in jail from a broken heart. Francesco is forced from power, finds out his son has died and he too perishes of heartbreak.

The baritone Luca Grassi as the Doge, Héctor Sandoval as Jacopo and Sophie Gordeladze as Lucrezia his wife, all deliver stunning performances. Marcus Bosch conducts the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno and the Orchestra of Heidenheim Opera Festival brilliantly, supporting the inspired stage direction of Philipp Westerbarkei. 

Wagner – Siegfried
Simon O’Neill; Anja Kampe; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Simon Rattle
BR Klassik 900211 (brso.de/en/cd-dvd/Richard-wagner-siegfried/)

Siegfried was the third in Wagner’s Ring Cycle; preceded by Das Rheingold and Die Walküre and followed by Götterdämmerung. Die Walküre ended with the pregnant heroine Sieglinde fleeing into the woods, and with the Valkyrie Brünnhilde condemned to sleep within a ring of fire until rescued.

This opera skips ahead: Sieglinde’s child is now a young man, Siegfried. Since Sieglinde died in childbirth, Siegfried was raised by a Nibelung, Mime. Siegfried is defiant, boastful and even arrogant. The role is played to the hilt by Simon O’Neill, his powerful tenor fulfilling all of the qualities with which Wagner had imbued Siegfried’s character. These are not negative traits. Instead, they reflect the unconquerable nature and innate heroism of the great Wagnerian character.

The finale, Act III, features exceptional music. Baritone Michael Volle is powerful, even majestic, playing Wotan, The Wanderer, and gives the performance of his life as he bares his soul to the goddess Erda. Meanwhile the sequence where O’Neill’s Siegfried expresses his feelings for Brünnhilde (sung by the lustrous soprano Anja Kampe) veers from plangent lyricism to flame-toned declamation.

Sir Simon Rattle conducting Symphonieorchester des Bayerischer Rundfunks is a strong contender for the finest Siegfried on CD in recent times. O’Neill is at his peak as Siegfried while Volle is uniquely authoritative as Wotan. Rattle is a less showy conductor than his rivals, but he offers a refreshingly unforced quality, one to which his performers are deeply responsive. 

Frati Uccelli
La Squadra di Genova
Alborada Editions (alborada-editions.com)

Musical recordings are most often self-contained microcosms, with everything that a listener needs to understand the material in question contained on a single disc or playlist. For those looking for greater information, detail and context, liner notes and booklets are included, but while these are undoubtedly helpful, they are not often required to listen to a particular piece of music.

What happens, however, when the music one is listening to is extracted from a larger artistic production, of which music is only a portion of the whole? Consider, for example, Wagner’s idea of “Gesamtkunstwerk” or Total Art Work, in which all the senses are engaged in the consumption of a work of art. While one can listen to Wagner’s music away from the stage, it is questionable whether he would be pleased with the thought of tearing his Total Art Work limb from limb into its constituent parts.

It is this reviewer’s conundrum that such a situation has arisen here, with La Squadra di Genova’s Frati uccelli, a small, five-track release that originally accompanied Nino Laisné’s visual and sound installation of the same name at the Saorge Monastery in France. This monastery was previously home to Franciscan monks and Frati uccelli attempts to revive their memory through the monastery’s physical space and these polyphonic vocal works.

The music itself is a blend of Genovese and early Baroque polyphony, playfully interpreted by La Squadra di Genova. Crafted specifically for the Frati uccelli exhibit, these works are adaptations of texts by historical figures including Luca Marenzio and Giovanni Legrenzi – both of whom were notable composers – as well as two Anonymous period compositions, all of which provide delightful forays into early Italian musical styles.

Wonderland
The King’s Singers
Signum Classics SIGCD739 (kingssingers.com/albums)

With his centenary year ending, at last there comes a vocal project worthy of one of the most iconic and adventurous composers of the 20th century, György Ligeti. That project comes in the name and shape of Wonderland, by the celebrated King’s Singers. To be exact, while the project is built around Ligeti’s eerily beautiful Nonsense Madrigals, the composer’s delightfully zany world is embellished by works – equally and beautifully daft – by seven other composers who take us through the rabbit hole of Ligeti’s making.

Makiko Kinoshita, Ola Gjeilo, Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, Joe Hisaishi, Judith Bingham, Malcolm Williamson and Paul Patterson give us equal cause for merriment and joy as they leap off Ligeti’s song cycle with marvellous works of their own. 

Together the seven composers create a parallel world evocative of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland (that Alice tumbles into), as magical as Ligeti’s madcap world (not unlike his Breughelland – a world derived from the paintings of Breughel and Bosch – from his opera Le Grand Macabre). Only this Wonderland is one infinitely more light-hearted, evoking Ligeti’s inimitably personal manner with a lyric often expressed in a complex rhythmic style in which conflicting layers of tempi are used to drive narratives – and the music – ever onward.

In the wrong hands these works might sound merely odd. But The King’s Singers deliver the crazy lyrics with consummate musicality, allowing the narratives of their strange beauty to flower.