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#11
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Recording of Raff's Samson
Last post by Alan Howe - Yesterday at 17:48It has been a privilege to receive my copy of this landmark recording and a pleasure writing about it this afternoon. The weather outside may be dreary, but I have a wide smile on my face!
#12
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Recording of Raff's Samson
Last post by Mark Thomas - Yesterday at 17:26Thank you Alan. FWIW, having had the privilege of already getting to know the recording for a month, I agree with everything Alan has written, so much so that I'm not going to post the review I'd already written as it would mostly be repetition.
This is as good a recording as we've any right to expect and it really does Raff proud. Schweizer Fonogramm deserve to have Samson sell by the shed load.
This is as good a recording as we've any right to expect and it really does Raff proud. Schweizer Fonogramm deserve to have Samson sell by the shed load.
#13
Composers & Music / Re: Giovanni Bottesini
Last post by Maury - Yesterday at 17:11Regarding the "development" section of sonata I'm reminded of the joke that we have Time so that everything doesn't happen at once. Conceptually there is a certain structural relationship between Sonata form and an expanded Rondo form and composers used that latter form fairly often.
Going back to Bottesini, I hear enough variation of melodic and rhythmic elements in the Italianate style of his movements that I don't get bored with it, as I often do with less capable Italian composers. And of course his double bass music is simply breath taking.
Going back to Bottesini, I hear enough variation of melodic and rhythmic elements in the Italianate style of his movements that I don't get bored with it, as I often do with less capable Italian composers. And of course his double bass music is simply breath taking.
#14
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Recording of Raff's Samson
Last post by Alan Howe - Yesterday at 16:15So: the 'Swiss Lohengrin' is here! And a most welcome arrival on the operatic scene it is too. Samson was completed in 1857, some seven years after Wagner's Lohengrin (1850); other important operas written in roughly the same period include those of Verdi's early maturity (Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata) and his grand opera The Sicilian Vespers (1855), Meyerbeer's Le Prophète (1849), Schumann's Genoveva (1850) and Berlioz's Les Troyens (1856-8); Gounod's Faust (1859) lay two years in the future. Raff's opera, however, was never staged in the composer's lifetime.
How, then, does Samson stack up? In a word: excellently. It's simply amazing that music of such quality should have remained unperformed and unrecorded for so long. In common with Wagner's operas up to this point, Samson would surely have seemed very modern: although it has some of the trappings of Grand Opera, it sacrifices mere crowd-pleasing to the dictates of music drama just as seriously conceived as Lohengrin. This is no Meyerbeerian spectacle; neither, however, is it a mere imitation of Wagner, although Raff does employ musical motifs - such as, for example, Samson's triumphant fanfare. In terms of structure, Raff is actually more consistent than Wagner in creating a continuous musical narrative. A CD of highlights might be tricky to devise!
As in so much of his compositional oeuvre Raff is the consummate synthesizer of musical opposites – in this case, Grand Opera and Wagnerian music drama. The result is something typically Raff, albeit in a synthesis he was soon to abandon altogether.
The performance does this fine work proud. Philippe Bach conducts the Bern Symphony Orchestra with a sure sense of the need in Raff for taut rhythms and clarity of expression. The cast is good, although not of the very highest class, I think. The best singing comes from the powerful, gleaming soprano of Olena Tokar as Delilah and the firm bass-baritone of Christian Immler as the High Priest. As Samson, Magnus Vigilius is better in lyrical passages than in the strenuous sections where his tenor is sometimes sorely taxed, but he certainly doesn't let the side down. The best of him is probably to be heard in his ardent singing in Act 2 scene 2. The chorus give an excellent account of themselves (and they have a lot to do!)
I don't imagine that this release will ever have a commercial competitor. It is the reference recording that Samson so urgently needed – and deserved.
Prosit Raff! Prosit Schweizer Fonogramm!
How, then, does Samson stack up? In a word: excellently. It's simply amazing that music of such quality should have remained unperformed and unrecorded for so long. In common with Wagner's operas up to this point, Samson would surely have seemed very modern: although it has some of the trappings of Grand Opera, it sacrifices mere crowd-pleasing to the dictates of music drama just as seriously conceived as Lohengrin. This is no Meyerbeerian spectacle; neither, however, is it a mere imitation of Wagner, although Raff does employ musical motifs - such as, for example, Samson's triumphant fanfare. In terms of structure, Raff is actually more consistent than Wagner in creating a continuous musical narrative. A CD of highlights might be tricky to devise!
As in so much of his compositional oeuvre Raff is the consummate synthesizer of musical opposites – in this case, Grand Opera and Wagnerian music drama. The result is something typically Raff, albeit in a synthesis he was soon to abandon altogether.
The performance does this fine work proud. Philippe Bach conducts the Bern Symphony Orchestra with a sure sense of the need in Raff for taut rhythms and clarity of expression. The cast is good, although not of the very highest class, I think. The best singing comes from the powerful, gleaming soprano of Olena Tokar as Delilah and the firm bass-baritone of Christian Immler as the High Priest. As Samson, Magnus Vigilius is better in lyrical passages than in the strenuous sections where his tenor is sometimes sorely taxed, but he certainly doesn't let the side down. The best of him is probably to be heard in his ardent singing in Act 2 scene 2. The chorus give an excellent account of themselves (and they have a lot to do!)
I don't imagine that this release will ever have a commercial competitor. It is the reference recording that Samson so urgently needed – and deserved.
Prosit Raff! Prosit Schweizer Fonogramm!
#15
Composers & Music / Re: Giovanni Bottesini
Last post by eschiss1 - Yesterday at 13:05I'd insert early 1800s (unless you mean the decade). Italian chamber music toward the end of the 19th century- or even after 1860 or so, judging from manuscripts available online- continues a tradition of good melody with, in some composers, a serious interest in working-through (Durchführung, to adapt a term).*
*(I mistrust the word "development"; give me a "fantasia-development" that doesn't actually quote any of the movement's themes over a "developmental" repetition of themes that halts the piece in its tracks and misses the -dramatic- point of what the middle section's actually supposed to do- I'm looking at you, Dvorak symphony 9 finale e.g.- any day.)
*(I mistrust the word "development"; give me a "fantasia-development" that doesn't actually quote any of the movement's themes over a "developmental" repetition of themes that halts the piece in its tracks and misses the -dramatic- point of what the middle section's actually supposed to do- I'm looking at you, Dvorak symphony 9 finale e.g.- any day.)
#16
Composers & Music / Re: Did AI just kill classical...
Last post by eschiss1 - Yesterday at 12:58While some early Myaskovsky (including parts, but not all, of his lovely and passionate 2nd symphony, and maybe some of the 3rd as well) makes me think of Scriabin's symphonies, symphonic Scriabin doesn't make me think of Wagner in the same way. (There really are composers who do, though...)
#17
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Enescu Symphonies 1-3/etc.
Last post by der79sebas - Yesterday at 12:26I bought the set and was rather disappointed, too. So many things missing...
#18
Composers & Music / Re: Beyond 'The Bartered Bride...
Last post by 4candles - Yesterday at 12:12Soon to be released on Supraphon. Unless I'm mistaken, this seems to be a collection of previously available recordings, now included in one box set.
Bedrich Smetana - The Complete Operas
Mods: as I wasn't sure whether to start a new thread or not, feel free to do so if you see fit.
Bedrich Smetana - The Complete Operas
Mods: as I wasn't sure whether to start a new thread or not, feel free to do so if you see fit.
#19
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Enescu Symphonies 1-3/etc.
Last post by hyperdanny - Yesterday at 10:27DH is not the only one: even before seeing his video, I was alarmed by the fact that in the 2 reviews on the set's page on amazon, one from the USA said the sound is "lousy", the other one from germany says "Der Klang ist distanziert und blass" (distanced and weak, according to google)
Usually these "user reviews" are all over the place and do not agree on anything.
Usually these "user reviews" are all over the place and do not agree on anything.
#20
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Conrado del Campo: String ...
Last post by Ilja - Yesterday at 08:44I have to confess that the one recording I have of the 8th Quartet is not of stellar quality, so the Diotima Quartet (who already recorded several of Del Campo's quartets) are bound to do a better job. Still, that opening movement of the 8th still feels interminable to me, which isn't helped by the lack of dynamic variation.
The 9th seems like a much more attractive piece. They've uploaded a movement to YouTube:
By the way, Del Campo did write some gorgeous music, but it's a bit "on" or "off" with him, it seems. The Fifth Quartet (which the Diotima also recorded) is a very strong work in my view, and there are a few excellent symphonic pieces from the same period as the 8th Quartet – the Straussian symphonic poem Granada being one.
The 9th seems like a much more attractive piece. They've uploaded a movement to YouTube:
By the way, Del Campo did write some gorgeous music, but it's a bit "on" or "off" with him, it seems. The Fifth Quartet (which the Diotima also recorded) is a very strong work in my view, and there are a few excellent symphonic pieces from the same period as the 8th Quartet – the Straussian symphonic poem Granada being one.