August 5 6

The symphonies date from a more mature period of Darius Milhaud compositional life and confronts the listener with music he or she probably didn't expect if one is familiar with the more bizarre, witty, early music with its many influences by light music, like Le Boeuf sur le Toit and La Creation du Monde. The sixth symphony of Milhaud is definitively his greatest. It contains two slow and two fast movements. The slow movements (2/3rd of the music) are of an astonishing beauty! This music of wide open spaces is full of calmness, austerity, clarity, with beautiful changing harmonies and slowly spiralling melodies. The fast movements make a lively contrast to this.

The last three symphonies remain for many listeners the ultimate expression of musical romanticism. Their gorgeous tunes, luscious orchestration, and huge emotional range tempt many interpreters to extremes of musical excess– but not Igor Markevitch. These brilliantly played, exceptionally precise performances let the hysteria speak for itself, while focusing on the music's architectural strength. The results are uncommonly exciting, supple, and above all sensitive to the music's many beauties. Having withstood the test of time, and at two discs for the price of one, this might very well be a first choice for newcomers and collectors alike. Excellent recorded sound too.

Louis Spohr’s career as a composer encompassed Beethoven’s Opus 18 string quartets and Wagner’s ‘Tristan and Isolde’. He spent a large part of his working life as the Kapelmeister in Kassel and was an important influence in early German Romanticism, writing 9 symphonies, 15 violin concertos and a number of operas including ‘Jessonda’ (perhaps his best known) and ‘Faust’. As a conductor he was one of the first people to make use of a baton, a fact which alarmed London orchestras when he first conducted them. A virtuoso violinist, Spohr wrote chamber music all his life. The two recorded here were originally part of a Marco Polo series of Spohr’s quintets and quartets.

It’s a shame that Végh never recorded a complete Schubert symphony cycle: he was virtually unmatched as a conductor of classical period music. No one knew better how to float a melody (to hear his way with the opening of the Fifth Symphony check out my review of the dreadful Minkowski cycle). It was a combination of characterful phrasing, perfect balances, and (crucially) players encouraged to get involved in the interpretation and characterize their individual parts. In other words, these performances are true collaborations.

Langgaard (1893-1952) is slowly emerging as one of the major symphonists of this century; he is certainly one of the major composers of Denmark, right in line behind Nielsen. His Symphony 4 (1916), Fall of the Leaf, is a beautiful study of the forces of nature. Symphony 5 (1917-18), Nature of the Steppe, is more characteristically Nordic than anything particularly Mongol or Russian. The Symphony 6 (1949), Heavens Asunder, is about a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil. These are major works, tonal and Romantic at their core. Excellent performances, excellent sound.

The name of Eduard van Beinum may too often be overlooked among the music directors of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, in between the longer and more internationally renowned tenures of Willem Mengelberg and Bernard Haitink, but this is a wrong that Eloquence has put right with the reissue of the greater portion of Van Beinum’s recorded work with the orchestra on both Decca and Philips. The conductor has been revealed anew as an interpreter of lucidly phrased fidelity to the score and uncommon sensitivity. The present issue brings repertoire especially close to Van Beinum’s heart. He was a master Schubertian, who needed to be taught no lessons by the nascent period-instrument movement on nurturing a hop, skip and jump in the composer’s effervescent orchestral textures or coaxing a sweetly flowing lyricism from their sunny complexions.

Una delle chiavi di volta della storia della musica è costituita dai Concerti Grossi op. VI di Arcangelo Corelli. Dopo la storica versione proposta da Amadeus nel 1998 con l’aggiunta degli strumenti a fiato, nell’interpretazione di Federico Maria Sardelli e dell’ensemble Modo Antiquo (nomination al Grammy Award), il ritorno alla versione per archi, così come è codificata dalla tradizione, era doveroso, ineludibile e, possiamo dire, imposto dalla magistrale interpretazione di Ottavio Dantone e dell’Accademia Bizantina.

Johann Wenzeslaus Kalliwoda, born in Bohemia, was one of the few composers whose symphonies got traction in Germany in the years after Beethoven's death. His Symphony No. 1 in F sharp minor has received occasional performances down through the years, and conductors and scholars have begun to unearth his other six symphonic works. Even Schubert wondered what there was left to accomplish in the symphonic genre after Beethoven. He eventually figured it out, and Kalliwoda, in his Symphony No. 5 in B minor, Op. 106, seems to be thinking along some of the same lines as Schubert in his Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the "Unfinished."