König Ludwig

60 CD box set. Selection of Ludwig Van Beethoven works recorded by David Zinman & Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich (Symphonies), Yefim Bronfman, David Zinman & tonhalle Orchestra Zurich (Piano concertos), Pinchas Zuckerman & Marc Neikrug (Violin Sonatas), Anner Bylsma & Jon Van Immerseel (Cello Sonatas), Seraphin Trio (Piano Trios), Alexander String Quartet (String Quartets), Yukio Yokoyama, Robert Casadesus, Justus Frantz, Vladimir Horowitz, Gerhard Oppitz & Charles Rosen (Piano Sonatas), Eugene Ormandy & Philadelphia Orchestra (Christ On The Mount Of Olives), Wolfdieter Maurer & Tokyo Oratorio Society (Mass in C Major), David Zinman & Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich (Missa Solemnis) and many other great artists.

Ludwig van Beethoven - The Nine Symphonies - Pierre Monteux (2015) {6CD Set Decca 4808895 rec 1957-1962}
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© 1957-62, 2015 Eloquence / Decca / Universal | 480 8895
Classical / Symphony

Monteux’s Beethoven has been described as visionary. Respect for the spirit of the score, directness of expression, exceptionally well-drilled playing and a sense of untainted idealism that lay at the very heart of the composer’s vision – these are the qualities that typify Monteux’s interpretation of Beethoven. Eight of the symphonies were recorded for Decca; the Ninth for Westminster; and the third (Eroica) again, for Philips. Together with the rehearsal for the Ninth and an impromptu in-studio performance of ‘La Marseillaise’, they form the most complete collection of Monteux’s Beethoven recordings. Other conductors may have offered a more personalised take on the music but none made it more universal or more human. The fascinating accompanying notes to the set are by Rob Cowan and the recordings have been remastered for this release.

In celebration of Christa Ludwig’s 90th birthday March 16th 2018, a Limited 12-CD Edition celebrates her impressive mezzo voice, displayed in excerpts from Bach’s sacred works, operas by Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and Strauss; as well as Schubert Lieder; Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder” and “Das Lied von der Erde”; and Bernstein conducting Bernstein. The collection also includes for the first time internationally on CD a witty and endearing interview of Ms. Ludwig discussing the conductors.

The performance of Leonore Overture No. 3 tells you what to expect: the wonderfully flowing introduction, organically related to the tempo of the ensuing allegro, establishes a chamber-music-like balance between strings and winds. Brass and timpani cut through clearly, but never forcefully. The main body of the movement is fleet and graceful, yet also lacking in rhetorical emphasis and the kind of grandeur that many listeners prefer. David Zinman clearly takes his cues from the period-instrument crowd, but he also takes advantage of modern timbral smoothness to achieve singularly beautiful results. While you may not like the comparative dearth of weight, there’s no question that the orchestra fully realizes his approach, and it is excellently recorded to boot.

The East German-born Stephan Genz, still in his mid-twenties, brings an engaging voice and glowing dramatic sense to this desirable Beethoven collection. Some of the ballad-like songs undoubtedly suit his rich, warm, darkish timbres especially well (‘Klage’ – ‘Lament’, or the mournful ‘Vom Tode’); yet he relishes, too, the lively patter of ‘Neue Liebe, neues Leben’, which, with Vignoles’s lively accompaniment, takes instant flight. The phrasing is nicely sustained, though Genz’s rather self-conscious, earnest delivery can be fractionally unsteady (chiefly in the descent to cadences, a slight overweighting of second syllables, the arching up towards higher notes, and scattered patches of chromatic detail). Goethe’s ‘Es war einmal ein König’ and Gellert’s ‘Busslied’ both hint at the wider emotional range to which this young singer can aspire. His contrast between the end of Goethe’s poignantly pleading ‘Wonne der Wehmut’ and the lightly alert ‘Sehnsucht’ could not be more charming. True, one senses those gloomier timbres might be lightened to advantage (an exquisitely floated ‘May-Song’ cheerfully counters his unusually doom-laden launch to the An die ferne Geliebte cycle). Yet if the disc sometimes suggests a promising artist still just emerging, there is much here that is elegantly persuasive.

It is usually the big nineteenth-century opera sets that are bought for their singers; but with a line-up of principals such as we have here Handel too is swept into the golden net. Lucia Popp, two years into her career after her Vienna debut, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Walter Berry: that is a quartet which in its time may have seemed no more than standard stuff, but at this date looks starry indeed. […] The Orfeo, for one thing, is sung in German instead of Italian; it has cuts, though many fewer than the Mackerras recording in English with Dame Janet Baker; it has the solo voices recorded very close indeed (those that are supposedly off-stage are just about where many modern recordings would have them except when off-stage); and the orchestra sounds, to our re-trained ears, big and thick, with the heavy bass-line that used to seem as proper to Handel as gravy from the roast was to Yorkshire pudding. The roles of Caesar and Sextus, moreover, are taken by men, and there is not a countertenor in sight.