CLASSICAL MUSIC

Baroque splendor exhumed

Vivaldi: “Bajazet”

David Daniels, countertenor. Vivica Genaux, mezzo-soprano. Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, bass-baritone. Europa Galante. Fabio Biondi, conductor. (Virgin Classics)

****

This first recording of Vivaldi’s 1735 opera, “Bajazet,” is a welcome exhumation of a vocally dazzling work. Vivaldi set the same libretto that Handel had adapted 11 years earlier in “Tamerlano” -- with greater dramatic depth -- to tell the story of the defeat of the Ottoman sultan Bajazet by the Tartar emperor Tamerlane. Vivaldi’s version is a pastiche opera, an acceptable form in those days, which combines original and borrowed music: The composer created arias for the good guys and adapted other people’s arias for the bad. Everyone in this superb cast rises to the challenges with fearsome agility, dead-on accuracy and seeming ease, particularly Genaux in the castrato Farinelli’s showpiece “Qual guerriero in campo armato” (As a warrior in the field). D’Arcangelo in the title role, however, is a bit emotionally distant. A DVD of the singers in the studio with Biondi and his excellent musicians is included.

Chris Pasles

*

Generous style, lavishly produced

Henze: “L’Upupa”

Matthias Goerne, baritone. Laura Aikin, soprano. John Mark Ainsley, tenor. Vienna Philharmonic. Markus Stenz, conductor. (EuroArts DVD)

*** 1/2

“Hans Werner Henze: Memoirs of an Outsider”; Requiem

Ensemble Modern. Ingo Metzmacher, conductor. (Arthaus

Musik DVD)

**

Next year Hans Werner Henze will turn 80, and he is getting a lot of attention. “L’Upupa” (“The Hoopoe and the Triumph of Filial Love,” to give it its full title in English), which premiered at the Salzburg Festival two summers ago, is his latest and, he says, last opera. It is a smashing success, currently being mounted in Lyon, France, and scheduled to be seen all over Europe. This DVD documents the beautiful Salzburg production, by director Dieter Dorn and designer Jurgen Rose, and was beautifully filmed for television.

A Middle Eastern fairy tale opera with an affectionate nod to Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” “L’Upupa” doesn’t compromise Henze’s overly generous musical style (a lot goes on in the orchestra all the time) but is also movingly generous of spirit and often just plain gorgeous. The winning performance includes John Mark Ainsley as an irresistibly cranky angel, Laura Aikin as the stunningly athletic heroine and the wide-eyed, captivating Matthias Goerne as the hero.

“Memoirs of an Outsider” was filmed four years ago at Henze’s lavish Italian villa (life as a far-left-leaning composer can be not bad). He’s a crafty character, and you know him hardly better after seeing this 90-minute documentary than before, but you do get a good idea of why you might want to know his music. Oliver Knussen and Simon Rattle contribute valuable insights into the man as well as the music. The performance of the 1992 instrumental Requiem included on the DVD is the same as the one issued by Sony Classical on CD a few years back.

A rare Henze treat, by the way, can be found on the recent Criterion Collection release of “Young Torless,” Volker Schlondorff’s first film. It includes a haunting Henze score, and the DVD provides a separate track for just the music.

Mark Swed

*

A master’s magnum opus

Mahler: Symphony No. 8

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and Youth Chorus, London Symphony Chorus, Toronto Children’s Chorus. Simon Rattle, conductor. (EMI Classics)

*** 1/2

Mahler: Symphony No. 8

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Rundfunkchor Berlin, MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig, Windsbacher Knabenchor. Kent Nagano, conductor. (Harmonia Mundi)

*** 1/2

There is an apocalyptic passage in Mahler’s massive Symphony No. 8 that is one of the great moments in Western music. It occurs in the first movement, just before and into the recapitulation of “Veni, Creator Spiritus.” There’s no indication in the score of what to do about the tempo, but it comes off best when conductors violate Mahler’s intentions and slow down, taking in the breathtaking vistas with the singers shouting and the orchestra building tremendous tension.

Both Simon Rattle and Kent Nagano know what to do in their impressive new recordings of Mahler’s self-proclaimed magnum opus. Nagano prepares his slowdown well before Rattle, but they each savors the view and turns the corner into the hymn with an ecstatic release of tension.

Beyond that, these recordings are very different in approach. Rattle’s -- the long-awaited culmination of his complete Mahler cycle -- is an energetic live performance, with bracingly fleet tempos in the long second movement that produce a lighter-than-air sense of fantasy. Nagano, in a “studio” recording in the Berlin Philharmonie, presents the first movement in deconstructionist detail as a prophetic vision of music to come, confronting the crunching dissonances and making the organ more prominent than usual. Yet his second movement is that of a sensuous Romantic looking back, with much slower tempos and freely caressed rubatos.

Rattle has superior vocal soloists, Nagano a better orchestra and a more intriguing concept. But Rattle gets his rendition onto a single disc, while Nagano -- whose Eighth clocks in 11 minutes longer -- needs two discs, at a price almost double Rattle’s. Both are among the best Eighths to have come out in the last two decades. They fall just short of the titanic emotional orgies served up by Leonard Bernstein and Klaus Tennstedt.

Richard S. Ginell

*

Conductor on the rise

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4

Bamberg Symphony. Jonathan Nott, conductor. (Tudor)

***

Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1 and choral works

Accentus, Ensemble Intercontemporain. Jonathan Nott, conductor. (Naive)

***

It may not sound like a good career move to anger Pierre Boulez, but in Jonathan Nott’s sudden rise to conductorial fame, even that hasn’t hurt. What upset Boulez is that Nott is resigning from the musical directorship of the Boulez-founded Ensemble Intercontemporain. Listening to his effusive, rapturous new recording of Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony with this peerless French ensemble, I’m with Boulez.

But one can hardly blame the gifted British conductor, who is starting to get noticed and who will make his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut in October, for moving on. His other job is as music director of the Bamberg Symphony, which he has turned into one of Germany’s finest. The Schubert CD includes a take on the Second Symphony that sounds as if Nott has found a new means for extracting energy from this early work. The Fourth (the “Tragic”) is, perhaps, a tad too heavy, but the playing is richly satisfying and the propulsiveness is still there.

The Schoenberg disc also includes several Schoenberg choral works sung by Accentus and conducted by Laurence Equilbey, including a spiritually luminous version of “Friede auf Erden,” Schoenberg’s 1913 plea for peace on Earth, which might have been written yesterday.

M.S.

*

An American innovator

Cowell: “A Continuum Portrait,” Vols. 1 and 2

Continuum. Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs, directors. (Naxos)

***

The budget-priced Naxos series of American classics has finally caught up with Henry Cowell with two CDs (issued separately). The solo and chamber pieces and songs on these recordings come from throughout Cowell’s long career, which began in Northern California early in the 20th century. He was the first Western composer to incorporate world music extensively in his scores, the first to pluck and strum the strings inside the piano, the first to systematically bang the keyboard with his forearms.

Cowell was prolific and uneven, and we still know little of his music (he wrote 20 symphonies). But when he was good, he was like no one else. And these discs include some fine examples of the very good Cowell, such as the crashing and banging piano music, the wacky Suite for Violin and Piano, the intriguing “Homage to Iran,” and “Set of Five,” which is an example of Cowell at his most fetchingly multicultural. The performances are expert; one of Continuum’s directors, the pianist and conductor Joel Sachs, is writing a Cowell biography.

M.S.

*

Thoroughly theatrical

Alfano: “Cyrano de Bergerac”

Roberto Alagna, tenor. Richard Troxell, tenor. Nathalie Manfrino, soprano. Nicolas Rivenq, baritone. Orchestre National de Montpellier. Marco Guidarini, conductor. (Deutsche Grammophon)

**

Why isn’t there a first-rate studio recording of the opera “Cyrano de Bergerac”? Probably because Franco Alfano’s score -- which wobbles between verismo and modernism -- isn’t very easy on the ear. Into this void comes the first DVD version of the little-performed opera, starring Roberto Alagna in the title role. A recent Metropolitan Opera revival starring Placido Domingo showed that this adaptation of Rostand’s famous play is better seen than heard -- primarily because of its Act 2 balcony scene. Alfano’s love duet may not possess lyric beauty of the caliber of “Boheme’s” “O soave fanciulla,” but the music is theatrical enough to make the romantic set piece work. In the video, Alagna’s excellent French diction adds considerably to the balcony scene (which is about the seductive power of language). Equally helpful are two photogenic singers, Richard Troxell and Nathalie Manfrino, who complete the opera’s love triangle. As Roxane, Manfrino displays a strong voice and an even stronger screen presence, holding her own against the famous scenery-chewing Alagna. The DVD is largely a vehicle for him. His two brothers directed the Opera National de Montpellier production, and one “bonus extra” on this release is a three-minute “video” of the tenor’s CD covers. It must be said that Alagna makes a convincing Cyrano, but ultimately the DVD is only further evidence that Alfano’s opera remains a one-number show.

-- James C. Taylor