Two Concertos For Organ

Albrecht Mayer - New Seasons: Handel for Oboe & Orchestra
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 396 MB | Full Artwork: 118 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Deutsche Grammophon # 00289 476 5681 | Country/Year: Germany 2006
Genre: Classical | Style: Baroque, Oboe

"New Seasons is a project undertaken by oboist Albrecht Mayer to create "new" concertos for oboe, based primarily on the operas and oratorios of George Frideric Handel. He and arranger Andreas N. Tarkmann used arias, sometimes including bits of recitative, and gave the vocal lines to the oboe, flute, and bassoon without changing too much of the accompanimental parts to create a cycle of four concertos. Compared to Handel's original instrumental music, these are naturally more lyrical and sometimes more declamatory, but it is surprising how often the music is very dance-like. Lively, moving rhythms are not what is normally expected in vocal music, but it makes the arias used here very natural sounding as concerto movements…" ~AMG

New Seasons is a project undertaken by oboist Albrecht Mayer to create "new" concertos for oboe, based primarily on the operas and oratorios of George Frideric Handel. He and arranger Andreas N. Tarkmann used arias, sometimes including bits of recitative, and gave the vocal lines to the oboe, flute, and bassoon without changing too much of the accompanimental parts to create a cycle of four concertos. Compared to Handel's original instrumental music, these are naturally more lyrical and sometimes more declamatory, but it is surprising how often the music is very dance-like. Lively, moving rhythms are not what is normally expected in vocal music, but it makes the arias used here very natural sounding as concerto movements.

A generous collection of Haydn Concertos, Overtures and Dances, this 2CD set offers the Philips recordings of the Cello Concertos and the Argo recordings of the remaining works. Although released in various reissues, the Marriner/Argo Haydn Concertos have never before been offered together and this collection offers a great opportunity to explore these recordings from 1966–69. Familiar works such as the E flat major Trumpet Concerto and the two Cello Concertos appear together with the little-known Organ Co’ncerto. Also on offer, are two sets of German Dances/Allemandes (both making their first appearance on CD) and a pair of Overtures, of which that for Acide e Galatea’ is a first-on-CD release.

Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963) enjoys an audience for his works for the stage and for the solo piano but his grander works are usually reserved for special 'theme events' by our orchestras. This recording repairs that omission by offering three disparate works for solo instrument and orchestra. And the performances are first rate! Pascal Roge delivers the 'Piano Concerto in C sharp minor' with all the ping and tongue in cheek fun so identified with Poulenc's music. He is joined by Charles Dutoit conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in a collaborative event that respects the surging melodic statements so often missing in Poulenc's concerto performances.

Many of us tend to pigeonhole composers; we think of Beethoven and Brahms as symphonists (and rightly so) and associate the name of Mozart with his 20-odd piano concertos. With Haydn we might answer with either the symphony or his unassailable settings of the Latin Mass. Seldom—if ever¬—is the gentleman from Rohrau, Lower Austria, thought of as a composer of concertos. But Haydn wrote a respectable number of them, including ones for flute, bassoon, and double bass that are irretrievably lost.

After a highly acclaimed recording of Briten’s Cello Symphony (ONYX4058) Pieter Wispelwey and the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Seiko Kim, turn to two romantic cello concertos whose neglect is hard to fathom. Lalo, unusually for a French composer in the mid 19th century, was drawn to chamber music, and formed a string quartet (in which he played viola, and later second violin) that championed the works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. His passion for chamber music developed to embrace large scale orchestral works – two violin concertos, the famous 'Symphonie espagnole' for violin and orchestra, a symphony in G minor, the Piano Concerto and the concerto recorded here: the Cello concerto in D minor of 1877.

This disc brings together recordings made in the 1980's as part of a reduction of three original discs down to two. At the same time, the original fine recordings have been remastered to good effect with added depth and space. This makes a particularly important improvement to the Coronation Anthems which previously came over as sonically lacking ideal breadth, depth and recorded weight in Zadok. The ears adjusted after that.