Favorites of 2010-2019: Music
Choosing ten favorite recordings first heard in the past decade was extraordinarily difficult, and if I made my choices tomorrow several entries might be different. In chronological order by composer or musical era:
The Complete Gesualdo Madrigals. Delitiae Musicae, directed by Marco Longhini. Recorded 2010-13; Naxos.
From Gesualdo's fifth book of madrigals, "O
dolorosa gioia" (Oh painful joy):
Prince Carlo Gesualdo was a tormented spirit: he brutally murdered his wife Maria and her lover, and later in his life by one account "was assailed and afflicted by a vast horde of demons." Some have heard echoes of madness in his music, which (especially in his later madrigals) takes chromaticism and dissonance to new extremes.
I doubt that his music is a simple reflection of his madness: other composers were also exploring these expressive techniques, and whatever demons afflicted him were more likely to have interfered with his ability to compose rather than to have inspired it. Instead I think we have to recognize Gesualdo as a highly innovative and self-conscious composer who was deliberately pushing the boundaries of the accepted musical practice of his time.
Cecilia Bartoli: Mission. With Philippe Jaroussky and I Barocchisti conducted by Diego Fasolis. Recorded 2012; Decca.
"T'abbracio mia diva" (I embrace you, my goddess), from Agostino Steffani's opera Niobe.
Agostino Steffani was of the generation before Handel, and was Kappellmeister for the Hanoverian court before Handel was appointed to the same post. Handel and Steffani knew one another, and Handel thought highly of Steffani's vocal music. You can hear why in this exquisite duet. Once again Cecilia Bartoli has used her superstar status to bring unjustly neglected music to light.
Philippe Jaroussky: Carestini — The Story of A Castrato. Le Concert d'Astrée conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm. Recorded 2007; Erato.
From Handel's opera Alcina, Ruggiero's aria "Mi lusinga il dolce affetto" (Sweet passion tempts me):
The 2010s for us have been the decade of Philippe Jaroussky. After hearing one of his early recordings we attended the Boston Early Music Festival especially to hear him sing the role of Anfione in Agostino Steffani's rarely performed opera Niobe, Regina di Tebe (Niobe, Queen of Thebes). As I wrote in my post, "The moment Jaroussky began to sing an electric surge of excitement rippled through the audience. The unearthly soprano sound he produces, his amazing virtuosity and his deep musicality offer a suggestion of why in the Baroque era the castrati were showered with so much adulation."
A superb recording of that opera was issued (it was one of my Favorites of 2015), but Jaroussky's disc of arias written for the castrato Giovanni Carestini by Vinci, Hasse, Porpora and Handel is one that I find myself returning to again and again. This album was the first of Jaroussky's seven straight appearances on my year-end favorites lists.
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: Lorraine at Emmanuel — Celebrating the Lives of Craig Smith and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Orchestra of Emmanuel Music conducted by Craig Smith and John Harbison. Recorded 1992-99; Avie.
From Bach's cantata Freue dich, erlöste Schar (Rejoice, redeemed host) the aria "Kommt ihr angefochtnen Sünder" (Come, you troubled sinners):
Seeing Lorraine Hunt (later Lieberson) perform live was a uniquely intense experience. Each time it was like an outpouring from her soul; as I wrote in an earlier post, "During the time you'd spent in her company you felt that you had lived more deeply."
This disc documents concert performances of Bach and Handel given at Boston's Emmanuel Church, where Hunt Lieberson was once a violist with the orchestra. It's easy to believe that she felt a special connection with the ensemble and with this music. Her life was tragically cut short by breast cancer in 2006, making even more precious the rare documents (such as this one) of her profound gifts.
Haydn: Baryton Trios. Balázs Kakuk (baryton), Péter Lukács (viola) and Tibor Párkányi (cello). Recorded 1989; Hungaroton.
The first movement (Adagio) of the Trio in C major:
Haydn's patron Prince Nikolaus I was an amateur musician whose favorite instrument was the baryton. Like the larger viola da gamba, the baryton had seven bowed strings and a fretted neck; like a viola d'amore, the baryton had a second set of strings that resonated when the first set were bowed; and like the theorbo, the baryton's sympathetic strings could be plucked (the baryton had a hollow neck, and the strings were plucked from behind, with the thumb of the left hand). Haydn composed about 175 pieces for the baryton, most of which were trios for viola, baryton and cello (Haydn himself probably played the viola part). The combination of the three low stringed instruments creates a lovely sound, and lends more a hint of melancholy to the slower movements.
As I wrote in my original post, "For many years I resisted the appeal of Joseph Haydn's music. It seemed too clever to be profound, too pleasant to be emotionally affecting." This was the album that changed all that. Hearing this marvelous music played on 18th-century instruments inspired me to seek out other period-instrument Haydn performances. I don't remember how I first discovered the string quartet recordings of the Quatuor Mosaïques, but they have such warmth and such a beautiful blending of sound that my resistance to Haydn was overcome.
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin.
CD: Thomas Allen (Onegin), Mirella Freni (Tatiana), Neil Shicoff (Lensky), with the Statskapelle Dresden conducted by James Levine. Recorded 1988; Deutsche Grammophon.
Film: Vadim Medvedev (Onegin, sung by Yevgeni Kibkalo), Adriana Shengelaya (Tatiana, sung by Galina Vishnevskaya), Igor Ozerov (Lensky, sung by Anton Grigoriev), with the Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre conducted by Boris Khaikin, directed by Roman Tikhomirov. Released 1959; Corinth Films/Kultur DVD.
DVD: Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Onegin), Renée Fleming (Tatiana), Ramon Vargas (Lensky), with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra conducted by James Levine, production by Robert Carsen. First broadcast 2007; Metropolitan Opera Live in HD/Decca DVD.From the Metropolitan Opera production, Onegin's remonstrance of Tatiana for indiscreetly writing him to declare her love:
The impulse purchase of the Thomas Allen/Mirella Freni recording at a library sale led to my seeking out Pushkin's novel in verse, and to the exploration of the work's biographical parallels for both Pushkin and Tchaikovsky (see following a train of thought). It didn't take long for us to recognize Eugene Onegin as one of the greatest 19th-century operas, and as a model adaptation of a literary source.
You will find any of the versions listed here to be rewarding: the 1988 recording conducted by James Levine is lush and passionate; Tikhomirov's classic film features a youthful, attractive cast and is shot on location in the Russian countryside and St. Petersburg; and the Metropolitan Opera DVD seen above captures the incomparable Onegin of the late Dmitri Hvorostovsky, partnered by Renée Fleming's affecting Tatiana in Robert Carsen's visually striking production.
Richard Strauss: Orchesterlieder. Gundula Janowitz with the Academy of London conducted by Richard Stamp. Recorded 1988-89; Virgin Classics Red Line.
"Morgen!" (Tomorrow!) is a rapturous anticipation of a lovers' meeting:
Gundula Janowitz's ability to spin out long-breathed melodies and her creamy tone are ideal for Strauss's gorgeous orchestral songs. This recording is the perfect companion to her magnificent performance of Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Janowitz remains unsurpassed in this music.
Gustave Charpentier: Louise. Ninon Vallin (Louise), Georges Thill (Julien), with Les Choeurs Raugel and Orchestra conducted by Eugène Bigot. Recorded 1935; Nimbus Records.
Ninon Vallin singing "Depuis le jour," in which Louise expresses the joy she's found with her lover:
Charpentier's musical talent was discovered while he was laboring in a textile factory as a teenager. After his training at the Paris Conservatoire he conceived of a musical drama whose subject came from his own life: the struggle of a young working-class woman, Louise, to find happiness with her artist lover despite the strong disapproval of her family. Charpentier had begun a long-term affair with a seamstress while attending the Conservatoire, and may have based his opera's heroine in part on her.
The opera was given its first performance in 1900, and made the soprano who sang Louise, Mary Garden, a star. Thirty-five years later it was decided to record as much of Louise as could fit on eight double-sided 78 rpm discs. Charpentier—then 75 and still living in the same Montmartre apartment—made the needed cuts for this "special version for the gramophone." The recording won the Grand Prix du Disque, and despite the substantial abridgment and the limits of the mono sound is still perhaps the greatest recording of the opera that has ever been made.
Gustav Mahler: In Meinem Himmel: The Mahler Song Cycles. Kindra Scharich with the Alexander String Quartet. Recorded 2018; Foghorn Classics.
In "Ich atmet' einen linden Duft!" the singer contemplates a gift from a lover, a lime bough whose scent brings back the memory of the day it was received:
This disc includes three of Mahler's great song cycles, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) and Rückertlieder (Rückert Songs). Scharich's pure, rich voice is exquisite, and the string quartet transcriptions by ASQ first violinist Zakarias Grafilo offer both intimacy and fullness of sound.
Federico Mompou: Música Callada. Federico Mompou, piano. Recorded 1974; Ensayo.
Federico Mompou performing the first piece from Book 1 of Música Callada ("Silent music"):
Música Callada (the title is taken from a poem by San Juan de la Cruz) is a collection of 28 short piano pieces by the Catalan composer Federico (Frederic) Mompou. Although the pieces make use of a modern and occasionally dissonant harmonic language, they create an atmosphere of stillness and inwardness.
The album that introduced me to these pieces was by the pianist Herbert Henck (ECM 1523). Two or three years later I came across Mompou's own versions in a bargain bin at Amoeba Music. As Henck points out in the notes to his recording, the pieces "seemed to continue beyond their conclusion as the composer—at least in the first two books of the cycle—consistently omitted the traditional double bar at the end. Ties on the final notes led symbolically into emptiness, meaning that the pedalled sounds should be. . .fading and losing themselves in the instrument and the surrounding space."
Mompou's sound-world evokes Erik Satie (especially his Gymnopédies and Gnossienes) and Debussy. But at the same time his music conveys a deeply personal sensibility, especially when these quiet, contemplative and reflective pieces are heard as a series.
Bonus: Lin-Manuel Miranda: Hamilton: An American Musical. Original Broadway Cast Recording. Recorded 2015; Atlantic.
"My Shot":
What is left for me to add to everything that's been said about this musical? As everyone already knows, it is the story of the Revolutionary War hero, Federalist Papers author and founder of the Federal Reserve Alexander Hamilton told through rapid-fire rap. Miranda's tongue-twisting wordplay is performed trippingly by himself as Hamilton and a largely African-American cast portraying his revolutionary compatriots such as Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom, Jr.), George Washington (Christopher Jackson), and the Marquis de Lafayette (Daveed Diggs).
Miranda's musical references range from Gilbert & Sullivan (Pirates of Penzance) and Rodgers & Hammerstein (South Pacific) to Biggie Smalls ("Goin' Back to Cali") and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five ("The Message"), but Hamilton is also dazzlingly unprecedented. And at a time when voices have been raised in fear and anger against immigration, the musical points up the foundational role of immigrants and people of color in creating and sustaining our country and its ideals. "Rise up!"
Other Favorites of 2010-2019:
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