Zubin

The charming story of Chinese princess Turandot who will only marry a suitor who can solve her riddles is presented in this adaptation of the opera by Giacomo Puccini.; Critically acclaimed filmmaker Chen Kaige directs this performance. The authenticity of this production is incredible, with its superb costumes and sets, all of which were designed in China.; Zubin Mehta conducts the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, and Maria Guleghina is a remarkable Turandot. The performance offers “genuine fireworks of sound.” (Wiener Zeitung)

John Knowles Paine (1839–1906) was a pioneer—the first university Professor of Music in America (at Harvard), the first American composer to have a symphonic work published in full score. Yet there is nothing primitive about this pioneer. If anything, his music is polished and conscientious to a fault, displaying an apparently uncritical adherence to European models of the kind that would eventually drive Charles Ives and other radicals to revolt.

In the wake of its first performance under his own direction in March 1904, Strauss struck a self-satisfied note: “Domestica has turned out a success, it sounds great, but it’s very difficult.” The extreme technical demands and the large resources required – the intimate details of the composer’s private life are translated into a monumental tone poem in his Sinfonia domestica. The Munich Philharmonic performs this opulent late-Romantic score in the Isarphilharmonie in Munich under its conductor emeritus, Zubin Mehta.

The double title of the opera ''Tannhäuser oder der Sängerkrieg auf der Wartburg'', which had its grand premiere on 19 October 1845 under Wagner''s direction in the Hoftheater in Dresden, is already an indication of how Wagner''s work unites two circles of material whose tradition stems from separate sources. The figure of the minnesinger is an historical fact and his episodes are documented with the ''Tannhäuserlied'' as far back as 1520. In a musical sense, the contrast between diatonicism and chromaticism is symbolic of two different worlds.

The cast is a dream team', wrote the Financial Times after the premiere of this production of Verdis La forza del destino at the Wiener Staatsoper. Powerful performances by Nina Stemme, who gives a fullblooded portrayal of Leonora, Alastair Miles as her father, Salvatore Licitra as Alvaro, Carlos Álvarez as Don Carlo and Nadia Krasteva as Preziosilla resulted in one of the Viennese ensembles most celebrated achievements of recent years. Zubin Mehta leads the Staatsoper Orchestra with agility, subtleness and relaxed mastery, and right from the start David Pountney establishes an atmosphere of entrapment by fate. 'A perfect utopia' (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

Lupu’s splendid pianism thrives among the recorded competition. His port wine sonority and leonine temperament perfectly suit the red-blooded outer movements. Zubin Mehta elicits warm, vibrant playing from the responsive Israel Philharmonic. The solo items are impressively polished and refined, albeit without the dramatic tension and dynamic…

Falstaff was the culmination of Verdi’s long career as an opera composer. He had talked of retirement after the premiere of Un Ballo in Maschera in 1858 and believed that he had laid down his compositional pen after Aida in 1871. But nearly a decade later, persuaded by his publisher, he embarked on a rewriting of Simon Boccanegra of 1857. This involved his working with Arrigo Boito, an accomplished librettist and also a composer; it was an association Verdi relished. The revised Boccanegra, unlike the 1857 original, was a success at La Scala in 1881 and showed that even at the age of 68 Verdi’s inner genius was alive and well. Ricordi and Boito subtly pointed Verdi towards Shakespeare’s Othello. Verdi loved and revered Shakespeare above any other poet. Slowly, via constant personal contact and communication, Boito produced a libretto that sparked Verdi; even more slowly Otello was written. It is a work of significant orchestral complexity that marked major compositional developments, even compared to the revised Boccanegra and the lyrical greatness within Aida and Don Carlos, its immediate predecessors. It was premiered, again at La Scala, six years after the revised Boccanegra… – Robert J Farr, MusicWeb International

Verdi, child of the people, king of popular opera, began life as the son of an innkeeper. He was brought up in modest circumstances. He first received lessons from the village priest, who was amazed by the young musician’s talents. Verdi’s musical education was rounded and complete: at the age of sixteen, the composer wrote fugues, masses and symphonies, which he would later destroy. As he met with reticence in Milan, he settled in Busseto where he fell victim to the pettiness of the town. However, his strong willpower enabled him to pursue his musical path without paying heed to what people said.

Zubin Mehta/NYP - Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (1978) 24-Bit/96-kHz Vinyl Rip
Vinyl Rip in 24-Bit/96-kHz | FLAC tracks | Full Scan Covers | MU, RS | 515 MB 3% recovery
1978 | Genre: Classical | Label: CBS Masterworks | 34557 | US pressing

Mehta's is a performance of extremes, of tempo as well as dynamic, and the CBS recording—which has oddities of balance but which in general is more spacious and less closely focused than one expects on this label— underlines the contrasts.
Overall the sound is breathtakingly vivid with tremendous impact but plenty of space round it, so that the heavyweight bass drum and multiple timpani beats leading into the "Glorification of the Chosen One" in Part 2 are as shattering as I have ever known them, matching the violently immediate recordings of Solti (Decca) and Abbado (DG).

(Edward Greenfield, Gramophone, July 1978)