Written in the final year of his life, Schubert’s Mass No. 6 in E-flat major is often regarded as the composer’s own requiem. In this recording, The Cleveland Orchestra is joined by soprano Joélle Harvey, mezzo-soprano Daryl Freedman, tenors Julian Prégardien and Martin Mitterrutzner, bass-baritone Dashon Burton, and The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus.
“…Fleming looks fabulous, knows and can deliver good German, and can sing this role at least as well as anyone on the planet at the moment. But it's a shame that all concerned did not wait for a genuinely new production to preserve. This run-through of an old staging… is fluent and energetic… but it is not an evening pregnant with dramatic insight. In the pit Welser-Möst is an efficient, unemotional guide to the score…” (Gramophone Magazine)
The fifth audio release on The Cleveland Orchestra’s own label once again showcases the ensemble’s unparalleled artistry and polished music-making, alongside as its longstanding commitment to perform and present new repertory under the direction of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst. This album features four works spanning half a century by pioneering American composer George Walker (1922-2018). Together, they demonstrate his wide-ranging musical vision and meticulously-crafted sound-worlds.
It was hard to muster much enthusiasm for Welser-Möst’s soft-grained, untheatrical approach to Mozart’s score and his careful avoidance of appoggiaturas, though it has to be admitted that the clarinet and basset-horn obbligatos — their players not credited in the program — sounded ravishing. Welser-Möst’s beat could certainly have been fueled by some extra zest, his syncopations by stronger incisiveness. Little was made of the explosive clashes of contrasting keys, Welser-Möst’s opera gentile dallyings replacing Mozart’s needed opera seria gravitas.
This stylish and beautifully sung and acted 2006 performance of Don Giovanni from the Zurich Opera House should be of strong interest to anyone who loves the opera. The production, directed by Sven-Eric Bechtolf with costumes by Marianne Glittenberg and particularly striking sets by Rolf Glittenberg, is visually and dramatically dazzling. The timeframe is contemporary, but the clever trompe l'oeil set suggests the infinitely receding stage depth that flourished in 18th century scenic design. Don Giovanni's palace is a cosmopolitan playboy's penthouse, and the costumes clearly define the social standing of the characters in modern terms.
This production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro caused a sensation when it first came out, stunning critics and audiences alike with its perfect balance of joyous humor, improvisatory brilliance, and always subtle music-making.
This recording of Alban Berg’s Three Pieces from Lyric Suite and a Suite in Three Parts from Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier, compiled by Franz Welser-Möst, pairs two early-20th-century masterpieces grappling with an all-consuming love and lust through vastly expressive but different means.
Here is a natural and effective coupling of spiritual-minimalist pieces from the Baltic and the Balkans; and how good it is to see this music at last on a major label with a top-flight international orchestra.
The benefits are clear in Kancheli’s Third Symphony, with its extreme contrasts of solo vocal keening and tutti Stravinskian outbursts. Here the spaciousness of EMI’s recording, made in Watford Town Hall, and the refinement of the LPO’s playing are clear gains over the rival Georgian performance (which comes with the added drawback of having been transferred a whole tone too high by the original Melodiya team). The mesmeric folk-derived lament which punctuates the structure was sung on the earlier recording by Rustavi choir-member Gamlet Gonashvili, for whose unearthly tenor Kancheli conceived it.
Hot on the heels of the Gramophone Award-winning account of Schmidt’s Fourth Symphony (1/96) Franz Welser-Most has turned his attention to another undervalued late-romantic Austrian masterpiece. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find this disc on the nomination lists for next year’s Awards.