Forgotten Gems and a Critical Classic

****

SAMUEL BARBER

Violin Concerto, Opus 14; Ballet Suite, “Souvenirs,” Opus 28; Serenade for Strings, Opus 1; Music for a Scene From Shelley, Opus 7

Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Marin Alsop, conductor; James Buswell, violin

Naxos American Classics

Composed between 1928 and 1952, these works, with the exception of the concerto, are undeservedly forgotten. Hearing them again restores one’s admiration for Barber’s unflagging creativity, abundant gifts and well-honed craft. All of this music, not just the inspired Violin Concerto, played here with easy authority and sensitive detailing by the virtuosic American violinist Buswell, touches the listener with its melodic flow and emotional confidence. As ever, Barber’s characteristic lyricism dominates, yet his dramatic peaks, as in the Shelley scene, can be striking, shattering and completely convincing. American conductor Alsop coaxes a full range of dynamics and orchestral colors from the accomplished Scottish ensemble.

Daniel Cariaga

***

VERDI: “Il Trovatore”

Orchestra and chorus of Teatro alla Scala;Riccardo Muti, conductor

Sony Classical

Like those art restoration projects that don’t quite work out, the new critical edition of Verdi’s “Il Trovatore,” the basis for this La Scala production, recorded live, is a mixed bag, even in the hands of a master such as Muti. The conductor forbade Salvatore Licitra--the tenor he personally coached for the role of Manrico--from singing a high C at the end of the aria “Di quella pira” because it wasn’t in the original score. He further banished blood and guts and tub-thumping rhythms (except for the Gypsy camp scene, which is demonic in intensity and sounds peopled by thousands) in favor of literal observation of notes and dynamics. The score acquires delicacy and suavity, but a sauve “Trovatore” means throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

As Leonora, Barbara Frittoli spins a creamy soprano into fine gold in the heights, where, in newly restored passages, she sounds like Violetta transposed from a decidedly different opera (“La Traviata”). Licitra is supposed to be the big find, a young Pavarotti, etc. Not so fast. He has a big, dark, throaty tenor that flirts with chest tones. He hurtles through “Di quella pira” at a fast tempo that has its thrills. But pure gold the voice isn’t.

Leo Nucci is a blustery, unsympathetic Count di Luna. But Violeta Urmana makes Azucena an amazing force of nature. She also sings a cadenza that astonishes. Brava.

Chris Pasles

**1/2

GOLDSMITH

“Christus Apollo,” Music for Orchestra, “Fireworks”

Anthony Hopkins, narrator; Eirian James, mezzo-soprano;

London Symphony Orchestra, London Voices; Jerry Goldsmith, conductor

Telarc

While Goldsmith may believe that the 12-tone-row system is now “almost anachronistic,” as he writes in the liner notes for this CD, it served him jolly well about 30 years ago, when most of this music was composed. Written during a time of personal emotional upheaval, Music for Orchestra is a concise, inventive, exuberantly orchestrated canvas of distress. It serves as a de facto prelude to another tone-row work, “Christus Apollo,” in which Goldsmith fashions a 34-minute cantata out of a strange Ray Bradbury text that may be about seeking Christianity throughout the universe--or something like that. It’s a mystical, ear-enticing souvenir from the year of the first moon landing, with long stretches of narration and no maudlin compromises. The least interesting piece is the one that reverts to tonality, “Fireworks,” a collection of pompous cinematic cliches written for a 1999 Hollywood Bowl concert that gives the disc a forced, cheery Tinseltown ending. Available in CD and Super Audio CD versions, the sonics are sumptuous on both.

Richard S. Ginell

***1/2

SIBELIUS: Complete String Quartets

Sibelius Academy Quartet;

New Helsinki Quartet

Finlandia

If Sibelius’ symphonic work is by now entrenched in standard concert hall repertory, his chamber music is a relatively little-known trove, and one that this fine recording helps to illuminate. The great Finn wrote only four string quartets, and they represent a fairly neat arc of development, from the tidy, Haydn-esque classical rhetoric of his Quartet in E flat, circa 1885, to the more personally expressive A-minor and B-flat quartets, from 1889 and 1890, respectively. Finally, we hear the dramatically more expansive Quartet in D minor “Voces Intimae” (Internal Voices), a mystically post-Romantic piece written after almost two decades away from quartet writing, in 1909. The creative strength here triggers speculation on where else Sibelius might have taken the string quartet format had he continued in the medium. The deeply felt, smartly chiseled readings by the indigenous Sibelius Academy Quartet and New Helsinki Quartet help in making this album an ear-opener.

Josef Woodard

***

“L’Orchestre De Satie”

Orchestre de Concerts Lamoureux, Yutaka Sado, conductor

Erato

Erik Satie dreamed of having his music played by Charles Lamoureux’s orchestra, an alternative to the more traditional Parisian ensembles. A century ago, its concerts were the place to hear Bach’s “St. Matthew” Passion or something new by Debussy or Ravel, concerts where the decidedly odd Satie and a music critic once dueled with their canes. It didn’t happen in Satie’s lifetime, but finally the orchestra, under its imaginative new music director, Yutaka Sado, is making the dream come true. In fact, the Lamoureux Orchestra offers something altogether unusual--an entire program of Satie’s orchestral music. This includes the ballet “Parade,” with its typewriters and gun shots and other curiosities, along with small orchestral pieces and cafe band orchestrations that Satie made of some of his piano pieces. There are even two examples of Satie’s “furniture music,” the original Muzak. Performances are striking, maybe a little too striking, but they remind us that Satie’s amazing originality included his wonderfully peculiar uses of instruments.

Mark Swed

**1/2

LEOS JANACEK

“Diary of One Who Disappeared” (to 18 poems by Josef Kalda); 15 Moravian Folksongs for piano; Seven Piano pieces, Ian Bostridge, tenor; Thomas Ades, piano; Ruby Philogene, mezzo-soprano

EMI Classics

Janacek, with his obsessive Romantic nature, found a mirror in these poems about an ordinary man who leaves everything to follow a Gypsy girl who has seduced him. The half-hour cycle is colorful and melancholy, although not wholly realized in Bostridge’s vocally limited and monochromatic performance. Pianist Ades--no biographical notes are given, but this is also composer Ades--turns in a mixed bag of accompaniments, some suave, others rough-edged. By himself, the pianist makes a persuasive case for nearly two dozen of the composer’s miniatures--charming, bold and characterful keyboard vignettes.

D.C.

***

COZZOLANI

Vespro della Beata Vergine Magnificat, Warren Stewart,

conductor

Musica Omnia

Chiara Margarita Cozzolani was a Benedictine nun fortunate enough to have lived in the highly musical convent of Santa Radegonda, near Milan’s huge cathedral, in the 17th century. Remarkably for her time, she published four collections of music, two of which survive, and this three-CD box fits 12 settings of psalms and antiphonies by her into a speculative vespers service for the Feast of the Annunciation, circa 1650. As delectably sung by nine female singers from the Bay Area early-music group Magnificat, Cozzolani’s ideas are often quite nice--appealingly melodic, lightly Italianate, sometimes unpredictable (the syncopations in Psalm 112 or the honest-to-God blue note in “O quam bonus es”) or even operatic in style. The set claims to use Cozzolani’s music “wherever possible,” with brief linking pieces and a hymn from other sources. Disc 3 is occupied by useful comments from Stewart designed to lead nonspecialists gently into the package. R.S.G.

**

YOSHIMATSU

Symphony No. 4; Trombone Concerto, “Orion Machine,” Opus 55; “Atom Hearts Club” Suite No. 1, Opus 70b, Ian Bousfield, trombone; BBC Philharmonic; Sachio Fujioka, conductor

Chandos

Ideas and colors clash on this set of orchestral works from Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu, to the point where finding the artistic or emotional center becomes a frustrating search. His Fourth Symphony, given a crisp and clean premiere recording by the BBC Philharmonic, is pleasant to a fault, a half-hour piece too often drifting into zones of friction-free romanticism and cheery tunes. The composer suggests that it could be called a “pastoral toy symphony,” which may be the best way to consider the piece, suitable as a kind of children’s introduction to orchestral music. Greater artistic rewards are to be found in his Trombone Concerto, “Orion Machine,” played with a sinuous ease by trombonist Bousfield. For starters, any expansion of the too-thin ranks of music for this under-sung instrument is a happy occasion, and the score deftly melds musical languages, weaving in and out of tonalities (and lack thereof) and nicely showcasing the soloist. Seriousness thins out again with “Atom Hearts Club” Suite No. 1, Opus 70b, which freely refers to such sources as the Beatles and Pink Floyd, and includes a rhythmic figure filched from Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” Its alternately stern and giddy approach leaves us unsure: Is it a valentine to rock or a parody of it in musical formal wear? J.W.

*

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.