Robert Simpson

Edmund Rubbra - Complete Symphonies - Richard Hickox (2001) {5CD Set, Chandos CHAN 9944(5) rec 1993-1998}
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© 1993-98, 2001 Chandos Records | CHAN 9944(5)
Classical / Orchestral / Symphony / Contemporary / Modern

If you haven't yet encountered the music of Edmund Rubbra, this superbly played and recorded set of his complete symphonies would be an appropriate place to start. Rubbra may hardly be a household word on these shores, but his reputation has been rising steadily in Britain–largely due to recording projects such as the one under review here. It is a mystery to me why these brilliantly crafted, inexhaustibly inventive, and eminently likeable symphonies have not won a wider following, though perhaps in our fast-paced culture music that requires the listener's total concentration (as does Rubbra's) is not destined to win instantaneous approval.

Robert Shaw's reading of the B Minor Mass is, in one sense at least, just what one would expect: sober and purposeful, beautifully shaped (Shaw is a master architect), it centers on the chorus. Like all of Shaw's choruses, the Atlanta group has that trademark richness of body and blend, and it sings with utter unanimity as though it were one great voice. Shaw opts for marginally broader tempos than those found in most period-instrument performances but is nowhere near as glacial as some interpreters.

No one knew when Robert Shaw made this recording in November, 1999, that it would not only be a crowning personal achievement for the conductor and his Atlanta musicians, but also would stand as a final and fitting memorial to the work of one of this century's finest and most influential conductors. Shaw's death from a stroke three months after the sessions assured that this last recording would get extra attention, primarily viewed through a lens of reverence, respect, and retrospection.

Robert Randolph grew up playing sacred steel music – basically gospel played on pedal steel guitar – on the House of God church in Orange, New Jersey, and began taking his joyous, gospel-infused music out to clubs and into the world.

Under the heading of "old business," someone a while back asked for opinion on the B Minor Mass of Robert Shaw. It is a performance I like a lot. Actually I prefer HIP treatment for Bach, but I think that Shaw goes a long way to give a dynamic life to this music. He has fine singers…..One of my favorites in the mass is the "Laudamus te" and you will go a long way to hear it sung any better than Delores Ziegler sings it….and the opening long phrase in one breath…..in a tempo more relaxed than one hears in other readings. Julianne Banse (Rilling) can also do it in one breath, but at a faster tempo. Veronica Gens (Herreweghe) can make you think that she does it in one breath, but she doesn't quite. She is very clever in this.

The Cleveland Orchestra will release a new audio recording of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 led by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst on August 16 as it prepares to perform the work on tour in Europe later this summer.