Textual 7.2.3

Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets, and Heine. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert’s Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him. Thanks to the Bärenreiter’s Neue Schubert-Ausgabe (New Schubert Edition), Tübingen, which uses primary sources, the performers have been able to benefit from the most recent research of the editorial team.

This is a most encouraging issue. In the wake of BIS’s continuing series of Mozart Camargo Guarnieri’s symphonies, Naxos – knowing a good thing when they hear it – have collected his three piano concertos onto a single disc, the First being a premiere recording with neither of the others otherwise available. Indeed, there is little enough of Guarnieri’s bright and attractive music in the catalogue at all. Recording the appealing First Concerto highlighted some major textual issues with the score, as James Melo succinctly summarizes in the booklet.

David Zinman and his Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra have all but completed what is without question one of the most invigorating Beethoven cycles to appear in the last few years. True to form, Zinman takes the latest Beethoven scholarship on board, which in this case includes some novel emendations to the opening of the Second Symphony.

Christoph Graupner - Das Leiden Jesu, Passion Cantatas IV - Florian Heyerick (2020) {cpo 555 348-2}
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© 2020 Classic Produktion Osnabrück | cpo 555 348-2
Classical / Baroque / Sacred / Period Instruments

The present recording of Christoph Graupner’s Passion Cycle of 1741 concludes on Vol. 4 with the highly expressive cantata for Laetare Sunday GWV 1123-41. Laetare Sunday (‘Joy’ or ‘Refreshment’ Sunday), the fourth Lenten Sunday, actually assumes a certain special positive status with its central focus on God’s action, which alone can rid human beings of their failings. However, Johann Conrad Lichtenberg, the author of the text, had a different view: here the dominant theme is the inequity of the rulers and judges who pronounce on Jesus while he bears everything with patience.

The performance of Radamisto is notable for an array of vocal talent headed by Janet Baker. Every name is familiar and admired. The ECO was a vibrant presence in the Handel operatic and oratorio market at this time and Norrington at the helm ensures that period practices are helpfully integrated into the fabric of a modern instrument performance – recitatives for instance, once the bane of some 1960s and 70s performances, move fluidly and intelligently, highly responsive to textual meaning and dramatic implications. Note Act I’s Reina, infausto avviso when Tigrane and Polissena’s recitative embodies fine pacing, telling rubato, and appropriately coloured accompaniment. Some cuts though were clearly necessary to accommodate the length of the production.