The Arman Ratip

On the occasion of the 85th birthday of Arvo Pärt (September 2020) and the 75th anniversary of the Bavarian Radio Chorus (May 2021). The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, born in 1935, has succeeded in bringing sacred music back to a broader audience, and away from the confines of the church service, more than almost any other contemporary composer. The meditative character of his works, and his return to the simplest and most basic musical forms, convey moments of intense spirituality. Before his emigration from the Soviet Union, Pärt had already invented what he termed the tintinnabuli style of composition (from the Latin word for a bell). He produced an early and important example of this expressive style in 1977 with his “Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten”, scored for string orchestra and bell. It is also a key feature of the choral and instrumental works presented by BR-KLASSIK on this new CD: five works for choir as well as two for instrumental ensemble, covering all of the composer’s creative epochs between 1986 and 2019.

In the Revelation of James, an apocryphal gospel that was not included in the Bible, events and details surrounding the birth of Christ are reported that do not appear in the better-known versions of the Christmas story from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. In particular, it portrays very real people, full of emotions and conflicting feelings. Mary, not Jesus, is the focus of the narrative.

Schubert sits at the piano in a bourgeois salon in Vienna, surrounded by around 30 ladies and gentlemen applauding him. The painting by Julius Schmidt dating from 1897 captures one of those convivial musical gatherings known even during the composer’s lifetime as Schubertiades. The term was probably coined by Schubert’s friend Franz von Schober, and the first of these gatherings took place in January 1821 in Schober’s Vienna apartment. From then on, until the composer’s death in 1828, the Schubertiades were held on a regular basis with different hosts from Schubert’s circle, and always proceeded in a similar manner: Schubert played either piano solos or accompanied a singer, and usually presented new works; the guests read poetry and fiction to each other and exchanged ideas; a snack was then served, and this was frequently followed by an evening of dancing or even joint gymnastic exercises. The ritual also included Schubert going out on the town with his inner circle at the end of the evening.

The “Stabat mater” by the Bohemian composer Antonin Dvořák, well-known in its later orchestralversion, was initially composed with piano accompaniment. This rarely-heard original version has now been recorded for this new album from BR-KLASSIK, featuring the excellent Bavarian Radio Chorus under the direction of Howard Arman, and accompanied by Julius Drake on the piano. The young Dvořák was a well-studied and experienced church musician. Having graduated from the organ school in Prague, he spent three pious years as an organist in the city’s St. Adalbert’s Church. The search for a “truly sacred music” preoccupied him from the very start.

The version submitted by Howard Arman for the Bavarian Radio Chorus is based on surviving Mozart sources as well as on Süßmayr's additions; in several places, however, it reaches new conclusions that are implemented with due caution and humble respect for Mozart's magnificent original. Mozart's Requiem is followed by Neukomm's Respond Libera me, Domine - and for musical, liturgical and chronological reasons, the programme begins with Mozart's Vesperae solennes de Confessore KV 339 (1780), composed of psalms from the Old Testament as well as the Magnificat from the Gospel of St Luke and composed for the liturgical festival of a holy confessor.

Handel’s cantatas can be divided into two groups, those accompanied by continuo and those that add one or more obbligato instruments or a full orchestra. On disc 1, Jochen Kowalski sings five cantatas, one orchestral and four continuo. Kowalski has an attractive countertenor voice, not hooty or hollow sounding. He is adept at coloratura, and his voice is strong throughout its range, aside from a couple of high notes. He does not display much emotional range, but the cantatas he chose are not particularly dramatic and thus do not require it. Tasteful ornaments are added to da capos. The accompaniments are good. The orchestral cantata, Splende l’alba in oriente, is only available in one other currently available performance, by Gerard Lèsne on Virgin, a recording I have not heard.

For his ''Occasional Oratorio'', composed in 1746 in an age of personal and political upheaval, Handel made generous use of much of his own earlier material, and this resulted in something quite close to an anthology: a choice collection of his most beautiful and most famous pieces - as it were, a ''Best Of''. The ''Messiah'' librettist Charles Jennens complained loudly that the oratorio was ''a triumph for a victory not yet gain'd'', and that its libretto, by a certain Newburgh Hamilton, was an ''inconceivable jumble of John Milton and Edmund Spenser''.

George Frideric Handel’s Admeto is considered one of the most successful operas produced in the first half of the 18th century. Along with Radamisto, Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano, Rodelinda and Alessandro, which were also written in this period, Admeto belongs to Handel’s so-called 'London operas' – works he composed for the Royal Academy of Music. Though born in Halle, Germany, Handel spent most of his adult life in London and became a British subject in 1727.