Neumann

Few other composers’ music enjoys such enormous popularity and is as frequently performed on stages worldwide and recorded as that of Antonín Dvořák. And it is the symphonic works that are connected with his name most often. The new Supraphon eight-disc box features several complete sets and encompasses Dvořák’s most significant symphonic pieces. Alongside the Symphonic Poems and Concert Overtures, Supraphon is releasing for the first time on CD Václav Neumann’s sensitively remastered 1972-74 analogue recordings of the complete symphonies (until now, only the digital recordings from the 1980s had been released on CD). Václav Neumann linked up to the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra’s bold Dvořák tradition in the wake of his illustrious predecessors Václav Talich and Karel Ančerl and developed it in sonic colourfulness and romantic sweep.

As for the Masses, Mozart kept to the traditional plan in six sections (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei), even when the inpression is that the sections are more numerous (as many as 21 in the "Orphanage" Mass), it is actually a matter of sub-sections, of varying number according to the requirements of the particular work, including famous and impressive settings of the 'Laudamus te' and 'Et incarnatus est'.

The story of the innocent Susanna–whose nude bathing in a stream so excited two elders in her community that they charged her with all sorts of dirty things–is from the Apocrypha. Near the story's close, the young Israelite Daniel, clearly a budding lawyer, disproves the elders' claims by having each explain certain details without the other in the room. (In the Carlisle Floyd version, there's a twist, and the ending is horrifyingly different.) The story, as Handel and his unknown librettist tell it, takes more than two and a half hours. What we get in place of nail-biting drama is a marvelous portrait of the chaste Susanna, her trusting husband, Joacim, and the lascivious elders. There's also a great concentration on the plot's rural setting. Arias are filled with nature–Handel offers us a lovely pastoral setting, with a could-be-tragic story at its core; but neither Nature nor Susanna's good nature wind up sullied.

Václav Neumann was one of the most distinguished conductors of the so-called Eastern Bloc. The long-serving chief conductor of the legendary Czech Philharmonic was principally regarded as an accomplished advocate of the music of his homeland, which he interpreted with a strong sense of form, love of detail, and a vocal espressivo, eschewing any sentimentality. This is also evident in these live recordings made in Lucerne, now released for the first time.

For the premiere of his Cavalleria rusticana in 1889, Pietro Mascagni had to make a whole series of cuts and transpositions: The chorus at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome was not up to the demanding choral parts, and the soloists of Santuzza and Turiddu sometimes complained that their parts were uncomfortably high – and so the composer not only deleted large parts of the choral passages, but also changed his carefully thought-out key concept. Nonetheless, the piece was such a resounding success at its premiere that it continued to be performed in modified form – even after the piece had long since begun its triumphal march around the world.

This is the third English Oratorio by Handel, composed in 1733 for the graduation ceremony at Oxford. It is in 3 acts to a libretto by Samuel Humphreys after the stage drama Athalie by Jean Racine. Incidentally, this was Racine's last tragedy penned in 1691. This biblical account taken from Kings 2, centres on the theme of the triumph of God through the revenge performed by his followers on those who blaspheme and oppose him.

Written in the summer of 1749, Theodora was premiered in London at Covent Garden Theatre on 16 March 1750. This work, which Handel considered his finest oratorio, was a failure at first - Handel said bitterly that the hall was so empty that "there was room enough to dance there." Part of this failure could be explained by the earthquake that hit London in February of the same year and caused the upper classes to flee the city, but another possibility is that the subject matter of the oratorio - the rebellion of a woman against the power of the state - was a bit ahead of its time.