CD Reviews (The Straits Times, November 2010)

BRAHMS The Symphonies
Berliner Philharmoniker / SIR SIMON RATTLE
EMI Classics 2672542 (3 CDs)
*****

Listening through this cycle of four symphonies by Brahms, one pondered if there was actually a “golden age” of the Berlin Philharmonic. Older cognoscenti swear by Wilhelm Furtwängler of the 1940-50s. Others hail Herbert von Karajan’s discipline and pristine clarity, a partnership of longevity which ushered in the digital era of the compact disc. The present incarnation with Briton Rattle at the helm is not overawed by the weight of history and tradition.

The performances of these familiar works are strong and authoritative, as one might expect. The First Symphony in C minor (Op.68) projects tautness and urgency, turning tragedy into triumph, contrasted with the more breezy and pastoral Second Symphony in D major (Op.73) which has its own dark clouds. Rattle and company takes a broader view of the elusive Third Symphony in F major (Op.90), sympathetic to the fact it is the only one that ends on a quiet. Arguably the best reading goes to the Fourth Symphony in E minor (Op.98), where autumnal repose gives way to a passionate final hurrah. The closing Passacaglia gets a tour de force of great trenchancy.

More than ample consolation for those without Esplanade tickets, this splendid box-set retails at a very affordable budget price (just $29.95 at HMV).

Great Recordings by the Berlin Philharmonic

GREAT RECORDINGS
BY THE BERLINER PHILHARMONIKER

I was asked by The Straits Times to come up with a list of top recordings by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra which will be performing in Singapore next week. Here was my shortlist, and much as I would have liked to include others, I was limited to 3 recordings by Sir Simon Rattle and 3 from his predecessors. This list (obviously highly contentious) was published in the 4 November edition of Life! (as a sidebow to Akshita Nanda's main article).

It will be a cliché to restate that the Berlin Philharmonic and great audio recordings were made for each other. Under Herbert von Karajan, its chief conductor from 1955 to 1989, the orchestra became the world’s leading recording orchestra. Its recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label were synonymous with instrumental perfection, crystal clarity and interpretive authority, reproduced on state-of-the-art sound equipment, bringing the concert hall experience into the living room. Karajan’s recorded legacy with the Berliner Philharmoniker was continued by his successors Claudio Abbado (also on Deutsche Grammophon) and Sir Simon Rattle (on EMI Records).

3 Top Recordings from BPO & Sir Simon Rattle
(All on EMI Classics)

SCHOENBERG Gurrelieder (2001)

The Songs of Gurre, Arnold Schoenberg’s fin de siècle early symphonic choral masterpiece, calls for over 400 performers. This recording achieves the near perfect fusion of orchestral opulence and vocal magnificence, marshalled with unerring sense of drama and pacing.

MAHLER Symphony No.9 (2007)

Mahler’s swansong symphony, full of nostalgia and bittersweet regret, receives a moving performance that piques, stirs and ultimately overwhelms the senses.

BRAHMS Four Symphonies (2008)

As common as recorded Brahms symphony cycles are, this ranks at the summit. Recorded in concert, the spontaneity of a live event is never sacrificed in the quest for note-perfection. It retails at budget-price too.

3 Top Recordings from BPO & other conductors
(All on Deutsche Grammophon)

BEETHOVEN Symphony Cycle (Karajan, 1961-62)

Many collectors consider this to be Karajan’s finest of three recorded cycles with his beloved orchestra. Beethoven’s brio and fist-shaking angst are indelibly captured, unhindered by the slower speeds adopted in later cycles.

SECOND VIENNESE SCHOOL (Karajan, 1972-74)

The music of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern still represents to some an insurmountable hurdle, the triumph of musical objectivity over emotions and feelings. These recordings uncannily fuse unimpeachable intellect with aural beauty.

MAHLER Symphony No.6 (Abbado, 2005)

The choice pick from a crop that that reinforces the Berlin Philharmonic as the ultimate Mahler orchestra. The inexorable drive and sheer vehemence of tragic fate has seldom been better portrayed in this earth-shaking reading.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2009)

TCHEREPNIN
Symphonies / Piano Concertos
NORIKO OGAWA, Piano
Singapore Symphony / LAN SHUI
BIS 1717/18 (4 CDs) / Rating *****

Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) may be said to be the first truly cosmopolitan composer. Born in Tsarist Russia, he lived for varying periods in Paris, the Caucasus, China and Japan before settling in America. He was married to a Chinese pianist, and his music suitably reflects his eclecticism, encompassing late Romanticism, Stravinsky’s iconoclasm and neoclassicism, popular idioms, tinged with a modernist outlook and generous helpings of Orientalism. The ten major works in this budget boxset (retailing at under $30) include four symphonies and six piano concertos. The shorter pieces include Magna Mater, Symphonic March, Symphonic Prayer, and Festmusik (a 4-movement suite from opera The Wedding of Sobeide).

Arguably the best among these are the Chinese influenced works – the Third Symphony and Fourth Piano Concerto, subtitled “Fantaisie”. The latter’s movements have descriptive titles – Eastern Chamber Dream portraying Wu Song’s vanquishing of the killer tiger, royal concubine Yan Kuei Fei’s Sacrifice, and the rondo-like Road To Yunnan – and are so accessible as to make one wonder why it isn’t more regularly heard or performed. Pianist Noriko Ogawa is the fearless and swashbuckling soloist in these highly demanding concertos, while SSO in its first project with BIS (dating from 1999) performs with total conviction. Lan Shui and our national orchestra have the field to themselves, and are unlikely to be challenged in this repertoire for decades to come.

STRAVINSKY Symphonies
Berlin Philharmonic / SIR SIMON RATTLE
EMI Classics 2076300
Rating ****1/2

The three symphonies by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) on this disc date from the 1930s and 40s, and are in his neo-classical style of composition. Gone are the lush sounds of his early ballets, in its place one finds sparer and astringent textures, and complex contrapuntal set pieces. The music nevertheless retains Stravinsky’s love of syncopation and the idea of multiple rhythms going on simultaneously. 

The best known is the choral Symphony of Psalms (1930), which finds the Berlin Broadcasting Chorus hale and hearty of voice, alternating reverence with exuberance. The orchestra is the undoubted star throughout, driving the kinetically charged music, especially the outer thirds of the Symphony in Three Movements (1942-45), and making the underrated Symphony in C (1940) sound like a true masterpiece. These “live” performances are well worth catching.

NEW YEAR’S CONCERT 2008
Vienna Philharmonic
GEORGES PRETRE
Deutsche Grammophon 478 0034
Rating ****1/2

There is a French angle to this quintessential Viennese event helmed by veteran conductor Georges Pretre, the first-ever Frenchmen to direct its proceedings. No French composers here but the Strauss waltz family’s French-themed works. Johann the Younger’s Napoleon March opens the festivities with pomp; his father’s Paris Waltz and Versailles Gallop adding to the merriment, with the former slyly quoting La Marseillaise, then outlawed in Austria. The Orpheus-Quadrille is a potpourri of melodies from Jacques Offenbach’s hit operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, which begins and ends inevitably with the ubiquitous cancan. 

Not everything is French, as the son and father try their hands in a Russian March and Chinese Gallop, although one will be hard pressed to tell one from the other! The usual favourites Emperor Waltz, Tritsch Tratsch Polka, Blue Danube Waltz and Radetzky March give a familiar ring and rousing close. Happy New Year!