Wagner: Die Walkure

Salzburg Easter Festival 2017

Staatskapelle Dresden, Christian Thielemann

UNITEL 742808

Those of us who have been attending Wagner performances now for over half a century will recall Gunther Schneider-Siemssen’s massive settings from the 1960s – none more so that the Solti Ring Cycles at the Royal Opera House.

This new release is a strange hybrid. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Herbert von Karajan’s opening of the first Salzburg Easter Festival with Die Walkure they have recreated Schneider-Siemssen’s sets but then added in new costumes and a new production. The second and third acts work better as the world of the gods sits more comfortably within the vast ring. Not so the first act where Peter Seiffert’s finely sung Siegmund sits rolling a cigarette before calling out to his father, very much at odds with the heavily stylised setting, which has no doors or sense of the domestic about it, dampening the intimacy of the music.

Thankfully Thielemann and his orchestra are in magnificent form and the end of act one thrills, as to many other key moments. Anja Kampe is an engaging Brunnhilde and a fine foil for the slippery Wotan of Vitalij Kowaljow. Christa Mayer’s Fricka has more to do in this production than is often the case and is only too happy to see Siegmund killed.

In the end, the compromise works, though it might have been even more interesting to have reconstructed and original production as an entity rather than in part.

Wagner: Siegfried

Hon Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Jaap van Zweden

NAXOS 8.660413-16

This is proving to be the finest Ring cycle currently available and I can’t wait for next year’s Gotterdammerung. It is excellently sung throughout and Jaap van Zweden’s conducting is light and flexible – just what the score needs and all too often fails to get. There are many magnificent moments. I particularly enjoyed Falk Struckmann’s Fafner, who hints at the lumbering stupidity of the giant even as he roars out his contempt for Siegfried. Matthias Goerne adds the Wanderer to his earlier Wotan, with a world-weary edge which is most convincing. Valentina Farcas is a sprightly woodbird and both dwarves are incisive and nasty. At the heart of the work, Simon O’Neill brings authority to the title role as well as flexibility to the musical line which always pleases. For this recording to be available on a bargain priced label makes it all the more worth snapping up.

Lehar: Schon ist die Welt

Munchner Rundfunkorchester, Ulf Schirmer

CPO 777055-2

This was the last major work from Lehar and the most operatic. The second act is effectively through-composed, a fact which did not go down too well with some of his followers who preferred a more conventional operetta format. There are some lovely melodies however and more to enjoy here than might at first seem obvious. It is certainly worth a second hearing.

The only minor flaw is that the dual casting means you need to have an idea of the story line to ensure you know which character you are supposed to be listening to at any one time!

Silver Voice

Katherine Bryan, flute, Orchestra of Opera North, Bramwell Tovey

CHANDOS CHSA 5211

While there is much to enjoy here and some very fine playing I am unsure just who the audience are for this recording of operatic arias arranged for flute. The tunes range from Gershwin to Mozart and are all instantly recognisable, but am I simply being snobbish to suggest that if I wanted operatic arias I’d rather have them sung rather than played here as what comes close to background music rather than a cd I would deliberately sit down to enjoy.

Debussy: Preludes Book 1 & 2

Angela Brownridge, piano

CHALLENGE CC72727

A full recording this, with both books of Preludes plus L’Isle joyeuse. What impresses is the range and delicacy which Angela Brownridge brings to the recording, meaning that we can indulge individual pieces but equally experience the books as a whole, moving from one emotional encapsulation to another. She seems to create links with ease, enticing us even when the content is complex and challenging.

A fine recording with hopefully many more to follow.

Arturo Benedetti

ORFEO C 943171B

This recording dates from 7 August 1965 and was recorded live at the Salzburg Festival. Arturo Benedetti is at the height of his career at this time, and here performs Busoni’s arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne aus Partita BWV1004 and Beethoven’s Sonata No3 in C major Op2 No3. The quality of the recording is not an issue, and the quality of the playing radiates throughout. it may now seem a dated approach to the scores, in terms of what we have come to expect from current pianists, but the magnificence of the sound is never in doubt.

Shostakovich: The Gadfly – complete original film score

Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Mark Fitz-Gerald

NAXOS 8.573747

The Gadfly is best remembered today for the longer arrangement of Youth though the score as reconstructed here has a good deal of music which is equally impressive. It also draws on the full orchestral resources Shostakovich required for the film – including church bells, organ, guitars and mandolin – which are absent from the normal orchestral suite. There is also an added bonus in the inclusion of The Song of the Counterplan from the score of that name.

Mahler: Symphony No 5

Bayerischen Rundfunk symphonieorchester, Mariss Jansons

BR KLASSIK 900150

Maris Jansons finds the joy inherent in this score and brings it out time after time, lurking even in more sombre moments. The familiar Adagio has a warmth to it which carries us easily into the romp of the finale.  As with his other Mahler cds, this benefits from being a live recording with the added sense of atmosphere and tension.

‘Aqua’ – Arta Arnicane

(Solo Musica label on Sony Music)

The planet looks likely to need artistes like Arta Arnicane. The Latvian pianist’s ingenuity and imagination combined again to create an enriching and rewarding songlike programme by her piano-cello DUO Arnicans at their International Interview Concert at Worthing in November 2017. But few places in Britain have yet tasted her appealHer new CD album ‘Aqua’ is a beautiful piece of work. Do not be surprised at its class. The disc, the music, the booklet, the personally-written narrating booklet accompaniment, the guest photography, the packaging, indicate that Arnicane promises a future flow of contributions to the wellbeing of her listeners.

‘Aqua’ amounts to a sort of soul hydrotherapy. We know of the physical and spiritually therapeutic effects of water, and here she presents a 16-item sequence of solo piano music designed to seep inside ourselves. Our majority-water composition as human beings subliminally determines our  affinity and receptiveness to that – and if science has yet to research this process, Arta Arnicane here issues their prompt.

Scientists now confirm the imminent increased water domination of our existence: the oceans are on their way upwards to meet us. Indeed, prescient on this album is Waterfall of P?rse, which portrays an actual waterfall lost to the rising level of the river Daugava. It is one of seven pieces by Latvian composers, some actually acquaintances of Arnicane, and who on ‘Aqua’ are rubbing shoulders with music’s already established master water painters.

Latvia gave us Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mischa Maisky, Mariss Kansons, Andris Nelsons, Gidon Kremer. Like all these, who were born in the winter by the Baltic Sea, at the mouth of the Daugava, Arnicane hails from Riga. I have named only male compatriots. But Mirga Gražintye-Tyla from neighbouring Lithuania has lately broken through the glass door of recognition and now chief-conducts Birmingham’s famous orchestra.

No Latvian woman has hit full international musical consciousness outside opera. But Arnicane could emerge from that shade with her own angle on great music. In ‘Aqua’, she creates both an alluring and invigorating ambience, and a refreshing and rejuvenating listening experience. Relaxation comes in the knowledge that, heard end-to-end, ‘Aqua’ has taken the hearer to a new plane of perception and understanding – even repose.

I firmly recommend that your first listening is done without knowing all the titles, or the running order, nor having read the inside booklet. Failing that, not having them in front of you.

This greatly empowers the undulation of the programme’s trajectory and energy, and increases the listener’s feeling of discovery, for discoveries lie in wait. Approach ‘Aqua’ like a 1970s concept album heard in the dark.

Arnicane, to use circus billing, is already a virtuoso. But in’Aqua’ her prize gift to the hearer is not from the necessary servant dexterity and strength but the priority of the scenic depiction and the poetry. She wants you to shut your eyes and visualise, not to seek bedazzlement. And her instinct and innate sensitivity of planning leaves you with the final feeling of ‘and so to bed’. Magic is abroad and know also that this is a record you could give unhesitatingly to a child.

From our wealth of sea, lake, river, stream, brook and rain music, Arnicane draws on Berio, Debussy, Ravel, Liszt, Schubert, Chopin, Grieg  (people you’ve heard of) and Jazeps Vitols, Arvids Žilinskis, Janis Keptis, Pauls Damis and Romualds Jermaks – the important newcomers who make this record the treasured one it will become. Providing that you, I trust – like everyone else – are made of water.

Richard Amey

Details and special video: https://www.artaarnicane.com/aquacd

DUO Arnicans’ self-titled CD of Chopin and Dohnanyi Sonatas, plus two other unexpected Chopin items is out on the same label.