#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 020 - Johann Strauss II and his Contemporaries

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or, in a nod to Bruckner, "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Comments on YouTube directly are even more appreciated, as they will help the visibility and reach of the podcast - and because they make us feel like what we are doing is not completely in vain.

Now here’s Episode 020, cunningly released around the New Year to ride the Johann-Strauss-train of popularity to its full extent, as we talk about said composers, the whole business of Waltz-writing in Vienna, his rivals and successors and his Danish counterpart, Hans Christian Lumbye!

If you wanted to dance with somebody, in 19th century Vienna, Johann Strauss was your best bet to provide the soundtrack. But he wasn't alone in churning out the waltzes and polkas and operettas - continental "light music" - that the city consumed at such a rapid rate. In this episode Jens and Joe explore some of these composers, the history of the genre, and even visit Copenhagen by way of twirling musical entertainment.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 283 (Martin Fröst’s maudlin’ mushy B.A.C.H.)

Martin Fröst B.A.C.H. (Sony, 2024) US | UK | DE

Martin Fröst and his album of Bach Transcriptions. You have been warned!

Martin Fröst is truly a generational musician who has pushed his instrument places it had not hitherto gone, a paragon of quality in established repertoire and bold, glad explorer of all things new. Occasionally, as with his penchant for dance intruding into his performances, I found that he could be “a bit much” for me, watching his gyrations. But it never affected the quality of the output.

Because he is the kind of artist where you would assume that every release of his must be stupendous (a fairly rare category also occupied by the likes of William Youn, Manfred Honeck, Marc-André Hamelin, Mitsuko Uchida, Pygmalion), this album, “B.A.C.H.” comes as a bit of a surprise and might be worth the warning, for a warning it is.

Regular ionarts-readers will know I have more than just a penchant for Bach… and moreover Bach-transcriptions of all kinds. Add a favorite artist into the mix and the assumption may well be made that we have an absolute winner at our hands here… and somehow, we just don’t. But what went wrong?

Well, for one, the selection of bits and bobs from Bach’s oeuvre, appears as perfectly haphazard. A collection of the most memorable tunes, strung together without little more rhyme or reasons than that they might be tempting to play on the clarinet, if one happens to be a Bach-loving clarinetist. They are, as per Sony’s marketing blurb, “Fröst’s favourite pieces that have been with him constantly throughout his own musical expeditions.” But the result is not, as might be ideally hoped for, some sort of exotic-sounding new Suite of Bach, it’s the output from a randomizer – and one that did not appear to take key-relationships much (if at all) into consideration. The brevity of the pieces (just under two minutes on average) and the resultant number of grating gearchanges don’t help.

Nor is the adaptation for the clarinet particularly fortuitous. Even a wizard like Martin Fröst can only play one line – usually a melody. But in Bach, it’s about counterpoint. The missing parts are thus entrusted to other instruments, most prominently among them the bass. Not inappropriate, generally speaking. But double bassist Sebastien Dubé can play as delicately as he wants to, the nature of the music pushes him to the forefront quite often. For a third of the disc, the album sounds like a solo double bassist with clarinet accompaniment. For another third like a lame imitation of the Jacques Loussier Trio (try the Prelude in D minor for size), and for the rest like a book of Bach-style Etudes for clarinet.

We get Fröst crawling through the Goldberg Variations Aria. Naturally, we get the Air from the third Orchestral Suite, though lugubrious, is probably one of the more successful pieces – if it doesn’t come across as painfully obvious. Truly beautiful on its own is the arrangement for clarinet and of “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden” from the Matthew Passion for Clarinet and Cello (Anastasia Kobekina). When it isn’t bass or cello supporting the clarinet, it’s Jonas Nordberg’s theorbo. The “Ave Maria”, a “Mediation on the Prelude” for dominant cello and undulating clarinet sounds, alas, shlocky as if it was re-arranged by a lesser Saint-Saëns. Oh, and ABBA’s Benny Anderson tinkles along on the piano to the closing track.

Clunkers and gems as are included on this disc, the whole comes out as much less than the sum of its parts. A friend, moderately versed in classical music, who listened with me, not knowing what was playing, or why, said, once I had voiced some criticism of the disc myself: “Yes, I was wondering why you were listening to such a… childish album.” Thereby hitting the nail on the head.

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This review had been previously published on Classics Today.

#ClassicalDiscoveries: The Podcast. Episode 019 - Alexander Zemlinsky, the Opera Composer

Welcome to #ClassicalDiscoveries. Here is a little introduction to who we are and what we would like to achive at the first (or, in a nod to Bruckner, "double-zeroëth" episode). Your comments, criticism, and suggestions remain most welcome, of whatever nature they may be. Comments on YouTube directly are even more appreciated, as they will help the visibility and reach of the podcast - and because they make us feel like what we are doing is not completely in vain.

Now here’s Episode 019, which tackles the operatic side of Alexander Zemlinsky and his development throughout. Or as the blurb states: "Once upon a time, there was a tiny little man in Vienna, who composed the grandest operas..." Chronologically correct, we start with the alluded-to Once upon a Time, and work our way to the Ouverture to a Grand Opera.

A little note on the discography of the Florentine Tragedy, Zemlinsky's one-act opera that's the only one that has had a lot of love lavished upon it, by the record industry: Beyond the two accounts below, you can also choose from: Gerd Albrecht/RSO Berlin/1983/Schwann, James Conlon/Gürzenich/1997/EMI, Vladimir Jurowski/LPO/2012/LPO Live, Armin Jordan/ORTF/2003/Naïve, Marc Albrecht*/Nethelands PO/2021/Pentatone, and Patrick Hahn/Munich RSO/2024/BR Klassik (w/Christopher Maltman!)

Once upon a time, there was a tiny little man in Vienna, who composed the grandest operas. What started out with fairy-tale works of musical theater did, alas, take a tragic end for Alexander Zemlinsky in the New World. In their latest podcast, Joe and Jens track this wildly underrated composer’s operatic career from Vienna via Prague and Berlin to a premature death in New York.

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Critic’s Notebook: Beethoven Tradition with the Vienna Symphony and the Singakademie

Also published in Die Presse: Flüssig und nie überhitzt: Beethovens Neunte im Konzerthaus

L.v.Beethoven Symphony No.9 Fricsay, BPh (1957) (DG, 2001) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Symphony No.9 Abbado, BPh (1996 live) (Sony, 1996) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Symphony No.9 Böhm, VPh (1970) (DG) US | UK | DE

Annual LvB9 from Vienna; Slobodeniouk-Edition

To round off the year, the beloved tradition of Beethoven’s Ninth returned to the Konzerthaus – with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Singakademie

After a year like this one, it is hard not to view the lofty wishes articulated by the Schiller–Beethoven team in the latter’s Ninth Symphony with a measure of skepticism. How much reason is there, really, for fire-drunken exultation? What can the gentle wing of joy – music, whether Beethoven’s symphony or, say, Straussian waltzes – actually accomplish? Not all that much, to be honest. But what makes the text that Beethoven choose and adapted so appealing is that, almost immediately after stating its ambitious ideals, it concedes that not all men must become brothers right away – however desirable if somewhat naïve that aspiration may be. It’s perfectly fine to start small with a New Year’s resolution or glimmer of hope: Being a friend to a friend, for example, would already be reason enough for jubilation. Heck, even grumbling a little less, being a little kinder in moments when it is most difficult, would be a step toward that famous “embrace, ye millions.” Friedrich and Ludwig both knew: all good greatness begins small.

That insight applies, in a way, to music-making as well. No grand sweep, no overwhelming interpretation can succeed if the basic ingredients – the details – are not right. With the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, guided through the Ninth this year by Dima Slobodeniouk, they were. Engaged, fluent, without exaggeration and never overheated, the performance moved through the familiar work from the opening bars onward. The strings were in fine form, repeatedly finding their way back to a genuine pianissimo between the regular outbursts; the winds were lively; and the horns, for the most part, issued a faultless, even burnished sound. The slow movement unfolded in a gentle, calm atmosphere without grinding down to a halt. And in the Allegro assai of the finale, the bassoon's contribution was delightfully brought to the fore – or at least not pushed aside – bySlobodeniouk.

The details also aligned where the soloists were concerned: a well-balanced, evenly matched quartet singing from the organ loft. The young bass Alexander Grassauer opened proceedings with a large, aptly heraldic voice. Tenor Julian Prégardien sang brightly and naturally into the vast space of the Great Hall – especially welcome for the absence of violent attempts to be heard at all costs, everywhere. Much the same can be said of the women, Christiane Karg (pointed) and Beth Taylor (velvety), whose relative inconspicuousness in this work was probably more a virtue than a fault. The final vocal quartet, which had gone completel off the rails the year before, came off well this time. The Singakademie sohwed up in full force and contributed its share – particularly the energetic tenors – to the starry musical canopy this symphony is. Or can be.

With all these fine ingredients, one must be careful not to grow numb to the sheer stature of the work: to remember that a solid, unflashy interpretation – one that does not clamor for attention – can still ignite the Beethoven spark within us, rather than producing refined boredom. Slobodeniouk managed this very respectably, and fittingly, at the close of the year.


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Critic’s Notebook: An Orgy of Musicality with Ollikainen, Larcher, Strauss, Widmann

Also published in Die Presse: Unbekanntes von Großen – und Großes von einem lebenden Komponisten

T.Larcher Kenotaph H.Lintu, Finnish RSO (Ondine, 2021) US | UK | DE

R.Strauss Violin Concerto / Aus Italien M.Poschner, R.Kowalski, O.d.Svizzera Italiana (CPO, 2017) US | UK | DE

New Wine in Old Wineskins

The Bruckner Orchestra shone, from filigreed to ferocious, under Eva Ollikainen in Larcher and Strauss

Welcome back! Almost ten years have passed since Thomas Larcher’s Second Symphony, Kenotaph, was premiered in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein to mark the Austrian National Bank’s 200th anniversary. (My Forbes.com review of the premiere.) On Sunday afternoon the Bruckner Orchestra Linz brought it back to the same spot. It’s a grand piece (and not only es regards length); an “extraordinary coup”, as Wilhelm Sinkovicz put it at the time, or (as I put it) "a brilliantly entertaining symphonic tour de force". Larcher pours new wine into old skins – and although it occasionally rattles and strains at the seams, nothing bursts. The classical symphonic shape, unabashedly modern yet consistently consonant and traceable in its musical narrative. And that refers not to the lament over drowned refugees embedded in Kenotaph, but to music written for the listeners rather than against them. Even when the ten-armed percussion squad bangs its way through the punchiest moments with all tentacles flailing, none of the numerous sonic effects feels overused or gratuitous. Kenotaph never turns into a percussion orgy, and no glissando-flood washes over the – at times quite rough, inventive, and varied – music.

A few walkouts after the first movement, and again in the third – somehow fitting, seeing how the movmeent is about refugees – there were anyway. Even in the slow movement, which could be called conciliatory lyrical… although there's also a threatening element to that lyricism, no doubt. The pizzicato-bubbles of the violins that foamed up in the spray of sound were not enough for some. Under Eva Ollikainen, the work sounded swifter, more propulsive, with more energy drawn from motion than from the sheer piling-up of sonorities – than under Bychkov, assuming memory serves. Back then the ensuing Heldenleben that was also on the program became a footnote. This time, thanks to Ollikainen – one of the most heartening podium presences of the year (she has come to our attention at ionarts in 2016 already!) – and Carolin Widmann, neither the accompanying Strauss nor Bruckner became an afterthought – even though both pieces were early works, and are not counted among the finest either composer produced.

Bruckner’s rather Wagnerian "youthful" ouverture, written at 38, came across almost cheekily; it surprised with flashes of playful lightness and the occasional Weberian moment (Carl Maria von, not Anton). The whole thing was played with the kind of cleanliness, color, commitment, and precision one hopes for from an orchestra bearing the composer’s name.

Strauss’ Violin Concerto – likewise a rarity but a welcome guest on any program – is another of those pieces: not a masterpiece, but fascinating, and absolutely dependent on being played outstandingly well if it’s going to make any impression. No problem for these artists. Widmann’s rich, velvety, yet pointed, even sharp-edged tone brought exactly the intensity this post-pubescent work – Strauss was sixteen – needs. Anyone who had filed Widmann (despite a reference recording of the Schumann sonatas) into the “modern music” drawer was, at long last, corrected.




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Critic’s Notebook: Concentus Musicus and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir in Seasonal Bach

Also published in Die Presse: Feiern mit dem Concentus: Bach im Musikverein

J.S.Bach Christmas Oratorio N.Harnoncourt, Concentus, ASC (DHM, 2007) US | UK | DE

J.S.Bach Christmas Oratorio J.v.Veldhoven, Nederlandse Bachvereniging (Challenge, 2003gg) US | UK | DE

Bach and a Message for Contemplation

Stefan Gottfried is not Nikolaus Harnoncourt, but that's OK

In the winter of 2006/2007, Nikolaus Harnoncourt led and recorded the Christmas Oratorio in the Golden Hall with Concentus Musicus, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, and an incomparable line-up of singers (Christine Schäfer, Bernarda Fink, Werner Güra, Christian Gerhaher, Gerald Finley).

On Saturday evening, in that very same hall, Stefan Gottfried conducted the same forces in the first two of the six cantatas that make up the oratorio. Had Werner Güra not fallen ill, one of those original soloists would even have been back.

Anyone who’s carried either the recording or the memory of it in their inner ear and compared the two would not have failed to notice that the twenty-year-old interpretation sounded fresher, brisker, more spontaneous: colourful, warm, heartfelt, yet crisp.

It would have been a pity to let such an—admittedly unfair—comparison keep one from appreciating the beautiful things offered here. Must everything always be a chase for superlatives, for “events”, for the sensational? Must every concert be earth-shattering? Must we, just because a performance may not eclipse everything previously heard, immediately grumble and go excavating for tiny blemishes to justify our disappointment? “Aha! The continuo organ wasn’t always in rhythm. There—those trumpets squeaked. An oboe was flat. Or the stand-in evangelist sounded heraldic rather than urgent or particularly text-attuned. And the soprano’s mordents and trills were more of a wobbled vibrato.” Can’t something simply be good?

Yes. It can, and it should. Especially in this reflective season, when one might consider not letting the best become the enemy of the good. Why not, then, delight in the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, in sensational shape, singing their choruses and chorales with precision, point, and an impressive dynamic span: “Break forth, O beauteous heavenly light!” — what a radiant line, that alone. Or take Olivia Vermeulen’s tenderly delivered “Schlafe, mein Liebster”. Or, in the Advent cantata of the first half, “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”: the delicately sustained recitative “Siehe, ich stehe vor der Tür”, sung by bass Manuel Walser. Or again the choir, in the instructive chorale “Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele, und vergiss all Not und Qual” from Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet!

And then there was the Concentus itself, playing with commitment and good spirit — even if the exuberant timpanist, alternately whispering and metaphorically (and literally) hitting the big drum, almost stole the show in the first cantata, which proclaims to us the joyful news of Christ’s birth. In short: It was beautiful.

Concentus Musicus Wien

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Critic’s Notebook: Víkingur Ólafsson Looks at Opus 109 through his Kaleidoscope

Also published in Die Presse: Beethoven durch den Ólafsson-Filter

W.A.Mozart Mozart & Contemporaries Vikingur Olafsson (DG, 2021) US | UK | DE

L.v.Beethoven Opus 109 et al Vikingur Olafsson (DG, 2025) US | UK | DE

Bach / Glass / Rameau Triad (1736) Vikingur Olafsson (3CDs, DG, 2020) US | UK | DE

Beethoven Through the Ólafsson Filter

Víkingur Ólafsson offers an evening in unwavering E major – and minor – at the Konzerthaus.

Víkingur Ólafsson (whom we predicted to have a great career at ionarts as early as 2005!) has built up an enthusiastic following in the cities he visits. Quite rightly so: with his distinctive mix of playfulness amid great seriousness, he is that rare phenomenon whose impact stems from the sheer quality of his playing rather than from interpretive gimmicks, exaggeration, or provocation. On Tuesday night at the Konzerthaus, he showed a different side.

The Bach Prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier was still a conventional opening – leisurely, relaxed. Why he chose No. 9 in E major in particular became obvious during the seamless slip into Beethoven’s op.90. When the program noted that “the performance will take place without intermission”, they sure meant it literally: Ólafsson played straight through, leaving no space for applause (or regulated coughing) until after the last movement of the last work. Admirable for its efficiency but slightly taxing after an hour.

Beethoven’s two-movement sonata – a major little gem perhaps underestimated because of its brevity – took on an unusually dreamlike cast under the Icelander’s hands. “mit Empfindung”, indeed. And then, as the tempo tightened in the second movement (“mit Lebhaftigkeit”), he launched into it with such headlong abandon that the notes nearly tripped over their own feet. He let the whole piece unfold with unexpected emphases, freshly minted agogics, artful pauses, and a whispering close. From anyone with a lesser reputation, one would say: wildly distorted.

It was a sign of what was to come. After a progressively introverted reading of Bach’s Partita No. 6 – taken, like everything else, attacca in and out – came early Schubert and his likewise two-movement Sonata D.566, which Ólafsson quite plausibly places in the wake of Beethoven’s op.90. Individual, playful, a touch sugary – and with a stormy dash into the finale: an April-weather Schubert. Onto this, without so much as a breath, the supposed crowning moment was to follow: Beethoven’s antepenultimate sonata, op.109. His hand went to the keys... recoiled several times, visibly annoyed by coughers. But what does the young man expect when, in December no less, he gives no proper coughing-outlet to two thousand throats for nearly ninety minutes?)

There was, to be sure, much to marvel at in this Beethoven: vlafsson's outstanding sensitivity, naturally, and his finely cultivated touch. But there were also exclamation marks underlined twice, while subordinate clauses were stuffed into double parentheses. There were ritardandi that might have left Josef Hofmann blush and would perhaps not even occur to a Lang Lang. Also lots of pedalling, then breathless passages that pushed the Beethoven to the point of sounding like it consisted of clusters. A harried fugato was followed by a sixth variation in super slow-mo. At times it sounded like a departure from the pianist’s usual image – the one built on naturalness and exquisitely differentiated touch. A step from Wilhelm Backhaus toward Khatia Buniatishvili, if you will.

But one man's disappointment is another man's delight - and the four generous encores – Bach, Rameau, and Bartók, who in his Three Hungarian Folk Songs suddenly sounds like Erik Satie – brought the house down.


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Critic’s Notebook: A Requiem for Mozart

Also published in Die Presse: Mozarts Requiem wird unterminiert

W.A.Mozart Requiem N.Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus, A.Schoenberg Choir (DHM, 2004) US | UK | DE

W.A.Mozart Masonic Funeral Music, Symphony in G-mionr KV.550 Stuttgart CO, Dennis-Russell Davies (ECM, 1996) US | UK | DE

G.P.Telemann Ouvertures à 4 ou 6 (1736) L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Carin van Heerden (DHM, 2004) US | UK | DE

The L’Orfeo Barockorchester celebrates Mozart’s Death

Competent music-making and killing dolphins in the name of humanity

L’Orfeo Barockorchester usually rummages delightfully through the more remote corners of the repertoire – as their recordings of symphonies by Josef Mysliveček, Anton Fils, Leopold Mozart, or – hot off the press – Franz Xaver Richter make plain. Not to mention their superb Telemann: whether overtures or (all!) the violin concertos. At a Jeunesse-organized concert in the Musikverein – fittingly on the 234th anniversary of Mozart’s death – the program was, however, fixed squarely on the birthday boy of the afterlife. Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music in C minor, as the warm-up overture, had a few wobbly entries but pleased with its even, nobly flowing tempo. The attacca transition into the G minor Symphony K. 550 was presumably meant to be just as fluid, but turned out a touch abrupt. No harm done to the piece, though, last heard in the same spot only a week earlier with the VSO. With robust entries, quicksilver vitality, and no kid gloves in sight, it sounded plenty concining, even with the much smaller forces assembled here. Michi Gaigg might have pushed the inner movements forward rather hard – nearly breathlessly – but the finale regained a gratifying swing.

The main course of this Mozart commemoration was to be the Requiem, in its regular Süssmayr completion. Several things conspired against it. Chief among them: the request to switch on small LED candles – handed out before the concert – during the Lacrimosa, for purposes of introspection and “collective contemplation”. Because, apparently, the music alone does not suffice to do the job. Predictably, it all went to sh...pieces. First, half the lights in the hall were switched off. No dimming, no subtlty. Then: rustling, rummaging, rumbling. Finally, the little LED bitties had been pulled out of bags and pockets – but now what? The hall was still too bright, no one quite knew what to do, and everyone stood around sheepishly, holding their gadget. And the Lacrimosa is not, in fact, a piece that lends itself to waving little lights like lighters during the ballad at a rock concert. What remained was disturbance – and plastic waste for the sake of humanity. A fool’s errand of the highest order.

Not that it disrupted anything particularly exquisit (the music itself excepted, of course), since this Requiem sounded undernorished and pale with the smallish ensemble – and not solely because of our modern listening habits or the historically informed performance. There have been plenty HIP takes of the Requiem that have knocked our socks off. Here, too, the music felt driven, as if fatigue was to be avoided at all costs – thereby causing it. The quartet of soloists was at least respectable: Ekaterina Krasko, once warmed up, with a bright soprano; Tamara Obermay’s alto strikingly even and balanced (a stand-out performance); Virgil Hartinger’s tenor alternately lyrical and croaky; and Daniel Okulitch pleasingly dark and secure in the depths, for a bass-baritone. The Salzburg chorus, fielding four voices per part, sang with clear tone and had no trouble making itself heard in the Golden Hall. Most of the dynamic shaping came from them, to the extent there was any. Intelligibility, however, was not their strong suit, depsite the reduced numbers. At least the natural trumpets, in fine form indeed, cut through the texture as if determined to grab you by the scruff of the neck. But for all the everal fine individual moments, the overall impression was one of dull gray, and essentially had evaporated by the time one stepped out of the Musikverein.


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