A (Very!) Fine Messiah From Václav Luks and Collegium 1704

G.F.Handel Messiah Luks/Collegium 1704 Semenzato, Schachtner, Adam, Stražanac Accent, 2019> US | UK | DE

G.F.Handel Messiah McCreesh/Gabrieli Consort Röschmann, Gritton, Fink, Daniels, Davies Archiv, 1997 US | UK | DE

G.F.Handel Messiah Bernius/Stuttgart BO Sampson Taylor, Hulett, Harvey Carus, SACD, 2009 US | UK | DE

To say that there is no dearth of recordings of Handel’s Messiah is putting it mildly. Even granting that every generation needs its interpretations of the classics, there is a glut. On the downside, not all of them are very good. On the upside, choice is a beautiful thing and there is bound to be a recording out there for each taste. The recording at hand might be an interpretation for a listener who has heard Handel’s masterpiece one too many times and needs a deliberately fresh take. While Václav Luks and his Collegium (Vocale) 1704 are not yet international household names (though well on their way there), they certainly are a first-class ensemble, up there with the best and most famous… and they have a knack for finding and working with good and excellent singers. So, the fact that the recording features a quartet of unknown soloists does not make this release less promising.

And indeed the singers are very fine; not all of them impressive but all devoid of mannerisms or any ostentatious modi. Bass Krešimir Stražanac hasn’t the most sophisticated bass voice – it’s a little nasal, just a little barrely – but he certainly doesn’t spoil the party. Giulia Semenzato’s soprano is clear, clean and accurate… more like an operatic Mozart soprano than a baroque specialist, although these two fachs very much overlap in reality. Alto/Countertenor Benno Schachtner is a delight; in the duet with Semenzato (“He shall feed his flock like a shepherd”) his voice rings out with artless, unfussy beauty and his “He was despised” is touchingly natural, becoming a highlight of this recording. Tenor Krystian Adam remains a wee indistinct throughout because he blends nicely into the proceedings and never sounds strained or trying too hard. He might be unfairly overlooked: “Thy rebuke hath broken His heart”, for example, is exemplary for unaffected-yet-dramatic singing and very impressive in its subtle ways. The chorus is well drilled, usually easy to understand, and with five singers to a part offers thrilling energy and depth – for example in “Surely, He hath borne our griefs…” (Sound clip)

In Luks’ hands, the famous bits stand-out for being taken in various, slightly unusual ways: “For unto us a child is born” is not just fast which, for its own sake, could be tedious, but communicates splendid excitement and a tangible sense of joy. They sail right through the Halleluja, too. If you come straight from Malcolm Sargent, it must seem flippant but it has ripping, infectious energy to it. The opening of Part II, “Behold the Lamb of God” and the subsequent “He was despised”, makes René Jacobs and his Freiburgers seem positively glacial. (Sound clips) It’s one of Jacobs’ more extreme moments, granted, taking four and half minutes where well under three is HIP-standard. And while Jacobs can certainly please our every inner speed demon – he switches gears sometimes mid-number to press on like there is no tomorrow – there’s a generally heavier touch to the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra while the Collegium 1704 seems to be blown along on a light cloud. Breezy. Too breezy, for some. But after an initial double-take here or there, on repeat listening no part felt like it was being brushed over; what remains is just the impression of a good quick and steady pulse.

With Jacobs being a much more dramatic, downright operatic account with a far stronger interpretative stance, it might not actually make for the best comparison. Frieder Bernius’ fine, slightly matter-of-fact (sound clips) Messiah on Carus is a more similar take: strait-laced, similar tempi, good singing, no-nonsense. Both present a good modern HIP standard; neither outright demand to replace your reference versions, whatever those may be. (A little trivium: In the ten years between those two recordings, the aforementioned Schachtner had made it from choir member for Bernius to soloist with Luks.) The sound on the Accent recording is brighter and more transparent than that of the Bernius SACDs, and the more prominent harpsichord (Joan Boronat Sanz) adds welcome texture. (Bernius uses a positif organ.) You won’t notice that this is a live recording until the enthusiastic roar and applause erupts at the end – but it explains why the chorus is set a little further at the back in this recording than, say, Jacobs’ studio effort.

9/9

(Originally on ClassicsToday)

A Survey of Prokofiev Symphony Cycles

► An Index of ionarts Discographies

Continuing my discographies, this is a survey of — hopefully — every extant recorded cycle of the Sergei Prokofiev symphonies. They are listed in chronological order of completion. This should include all cycles, whether they were issued as such or not, including those where multiple conductors were at work on it. (Incidentally, that’s not an occurrence in Prokofiev, as far as I know.) I have heard many of these and possibly at least some symphonies of most of them, but hardly all of them. Comments on what you like or dislike about any given cycle are very much appreciated — be it below (where they might take a while to be noticed) on Twitter, or best: in both places.

On a personal note: It has rather taken me a while to really get into Sergei Prokofiev’s symphonies. I didn’t find them particularly attractive propositions before I even had known them well. I remember a friend, classically inclined, yes, but she had less exposure to it than I and far, far fewer CDs, of course. But, somehow, she had the Walter Weller set of the symphonies on Decca. (This was from a time when you did not, could not frivolously add sets to your collection.) Somehow, in any case, I figured that if even Decca couldn’t come up with a more notable name than Weller to record these symphonies with, the works can’t be all that. (I don’t mean to throw shade at the perfectly wonderful Walter Weller – but that’s how I naïvely felt, at the time.)

Also, there simply was not that much attention paid to Prokofiev, outside the popular 1st and 5th symphonies. In the early Aughts, there really were only Weller, Ozawa, and Rostropovich easily available as sets. Rozhdestvensky and Martinon hadn’t made the jump to CD; Košler was essentially unavailable in the West. Gergiev came in 2004, at least, while Neeme Järvi wasn’t re-issued as a price-saving box until 2008. Naxos had Kuchar’s cycle available as an all-Prokofiev “White Box”, but generally it was sold on single discs and, at the time, confined to the budget bins in record stores. A newer major cycle, with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the LSO, RCO, and Cleveland, only got up to four symphonies on Decca.

Now the situation looks a little different. Granted, there haven’t been any sets by the big companies or the most famous orchestras. Ashkenazy threw his hat into the ring, after all, but “only” with the Sydney Symphony” and on Exton, which means that the recordings are either difficult to attain or afford. Kitayenko/Cologne, Karabits, Alsop (in a new cycle for Naxos from São Paulo), Gaffigan, and, probably the most promising of them in a long, long time, Litton from Bergen on BIS.

Several others are on the way, it seems, and some lie strewn on the wayside, incomplete but too good to ignore, so I have included them. One of the more important of these (at the time, at least, and largely for the concertos) is probably Erich Leinsdorf’s Boston non-cycle. At least Sony did box his Prokofiev recordings, which also include the piano concertos with John Browning, the Violin Concertos (Friedman & Perlman), R&J excerpts and the Lieutenant Kijé Suite. That is more (from Sony) than can be said about the Ormandy-Prokofiev (who recorded 5 symphonies). The Gergiev/Mariinsky cycle on the orchestra’s own label can probably be considered abandoned, for the time being, even if recordings of the remaining symphonies were made. Vadim Jurowski, Petrenko (Vasily, not yet Kyrill, alas), Inkinen, and Sokhiev are working on cycles, it seems; Noseda is, too, but that’s digital-only, for the time being. Previn, spread across two orchestras and labels, has 4/7 of a cycle. Arguably the most significant recordings that never became a cycle are those of (and I don’t say this often) Riccardo Muti’s with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He’s got the best-ever Third to his name, bookended by a superb combo of the stalwarts, One and Five. Shame that didn’t get any further.

What makes a good cycle is going to be different for everyone; it is, as we know, a mix of objective aspects and subjective responses. But there is also some common sense in approaching a set: A first-and-only set to satisfy one’s Prokofiev-itch will have to do a different kind of lifting than a fifth set. And yes, a recommended set should be able to do everything well. Still, realistically, if you are thinking of getting a complete set of these symphonies, it would not be unrealistic to assume that you are a bit of a collector with previous Prokofiev-exposure. And as such, it’s almost certain that you have a (perhaps favorite) recording of No.1 and probably also one of No.5. And even if you do not, those are easy to add to the collection. As such, I happen to think that if a cycle has its weak spots precisely on one or two of those symphonies, that’s not a deal breaker, that’s the most easily excusable place to have one. After all, a Prokofiev symphony cycle set is most probably gotten to fill in the gaps with the lesser recorded works and therefore needs to make strong arguments for those symphonies that need to have the strongest arguments made for them.

A word on the versions: There are two versions of the Fourth Symphony and of the Seventh Symphony, if “version” is the right term in the latter case. The Seventh (despite being written “specifically for children”) originally ended (despite the finale being titled and beginning “vivace”) on a rather desolate note, a skeptical stream of musical consciousness on the bell-theme of the first movement that slowly fades away. Then, shortly before his death, Prokofiev decided to tack on a happy-end to the work. There are competing stories that try to explain the new ending. Was it because of criticism, when the quiet ending was condemned after the symphony’s premiere under Samuil Samosud? Rostropovich and a few others have suggested that the Samosud suggested that Prokofiev end the movement “vivace”, by using the principal theme of the finale as that would probably win him a first rather than a second-class Stalin Prize, which meant an extra 25,000 rubles. (The stories, as told, vary as to what the amount is and which prize the symphony might have otherwise won – but it’s told often enough.) Similarly, it has been suggested that Prokofiev changed his mind and confessed to preferring the original ending.

The difference is actually close to nil; these 25 seconds of “Yay” tacked on – almost like a joke: as if that little disconnected coda could possibly change the mood of the preceding music – make no darn difference. If you like the Seventh (I do), it works just fine either way. It is, in any case, up to the conductor. Many conductors profess to prefer the original ending but most (though usually not the Russians!) offer the alternate ending, playing the bright add-on. Sometimes that is set off by adding a new track for it, so that one could just skip it (relatively) easily. I mark the sets below with a smiley and/or frowny face, to indicate the endings. In essence, if you have the happy end, you also have the frowny end; if I do include the frowny face and a smiley, that means that the ending has a separate track or that the entire finale is recorded twice (Litton, for example). (But once more: It simply does not matter.)

With the Fourth Symphony, the differences between the earlier and later version were significant enough for Prokofiev assign it a new opus number: Opus 47 (1930) thus became Opus 112 (1947). Generally, it is the latter version that is being preferred by conductors but again, some sets (Neeme Järvi, Gaffigan, Gergiev, Kitajenko, Karabits) contain both and a few only the earlier version (Martinon, Rostropovich). Prokofiev added a few instruments (most notably Piano, more colorful percussion, and the harp), added a lot of material to bolster its breadth, width, and length. Ultimately, he set out to give the work more appeal, either with the politicians, the public, or probably both, wanting to “rehabilitate a defective but worthy score by adjusting it to the standards and practices consolidated in the Fifth and Sixth [Symphonies]”. I'll note the opus numbers below, to indicate which version was used. (Prokofiev was also going to revise wholesale his unsuccessful Second Symphony. He had even picked out a new opus number for it, “136”, but then never go around to it. Had he lived, he might have begun to rival Bruckner in causing Edition-confusion.)

General housekeeping: I am sitting on the data for several new discographic entries under work. Ring cycles, Mahler, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven symphony cycles, Mozart Piano Concerto and String Quartet-cycles, Mendelssohn String Quartet cycles, and DSCH-Prelude & Fugue recordings. They take an awful lot of time to research, however, and even more time to put into html-presentable shape. Even then they are rarely complete or mistake-free. Neither will this one be, and every such post is also a plea to generously inclined readers with more information and knowledge of the subject than I have to lend a helping hand correcting my mistakes or filling data-lacunae.

I am explicitly grateful for any such pointers, hinters, and corrections and apologize for any bloomers. (Preferably on Twitter, where I'll read the comment much sooner than here, but either works!) Unlike some of my earliest discographies, this one does intend to be comprehensive. I am therefore especially grateful when I get sets that I have missed (such ones that have only ever appeared on LP, for example) pointed out to me. I have not listened to all the recordings above, but most of them and favorites are indicated with the "ionarts choice" graphic. Ditto recommended cycles by ClassicsToday/David Hurwitz or, if the fancy strikes me so, Gramophone. Links to reputable reviews are included where I thought of it and could find any. With hundreds of links in this document, there are, despite my best efforts, bound to be some that are broken or misplaced; I am glad about every correction that comes my way re. those, too.

Enjoy and leave a comment in some form!


Edits


04.04.2026 This survey is pretty much done; at least as far as the complete cycles are concerned. I will still add incomplete and ongoing cycles below but don't feel like that's urgent enough to keep this survey unpublished for however long it would take me. In any case, these are the non-cycles I am thinking of adding: Ashkenazy I, Jurowski, Petrenko, Inkinen, Sokhiev, Noseda, Previn, Welser-Möst (assuming they are really ongoning cycles and will find some physical manifestation. [I'm looking at you, Noseda!] And I might boycot Welser-Möst for coming in an idiotic shape.


(Survey begins after the break, if you didn't land on this page directly)

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RSC's "Hamnet" is the thing at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Kemi-Bo Jacobs (Agnes Hathaway) and Rory Alexander (William Shakespeare) in Hamnet, Royal Shakespeare Company, at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Kyle Flubacker

For the first time in Shakespeare Theatre Company's history, the company is hosting a production and cast from Royal Shakespeare Company. The British troupe's intriguing staging of Hamnet, Lolita Chakrabarti's adaptation of the recent novel by Maggie O'Farrell, opened this week at Harman Hall, seen Friday evening. Those who have seen the recent film adaptation of this story about William Shakespeare and his family, directed by Chloé Zhao, know that Shakespeare's wife, named Agnes Hathaway in the story (a version of her name found in some official documents), is depicted as a mystical figure adept at herbal cures and second sight. Chakrabarti adds the additional twist that she is black, and her children with Shakespeare bi-racial. (A program essay by Farah Karim-Cooper, recently appointed director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, examines the historical evidence of such multiculturalism in Tudor England.)

Though not historically accurate in terms of Shakespeare's family, neither is O'Farrell's basic premise, that Shakespeare wrote his play Hamlet as a way to mourn the death of his son with Hathaway, the twin named Hamnet. Shakespeare did have twins named Judith and Hamnet, and the latter died at age 11 during an outbreak of the bubonic plague. (Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate, who sees no connection between Shakespeare's son and his most famous play, has speculated instead that Twelfth Night, with its story of fraternal twins reunited after a tragic separation, has a more plausible resonance with the story of Shakespeare and his children.)

The cast in this production is uniformly excellent, beginning with the believable chemistry between Kemi-Bo Jacobs's proud Agnes and Rory Alexander's writing-obsessed William. The children, played by Ajani Cabey (Hamnet), Saffron Dey (Judith), and Ava Hinds-Jones (the elder sister, Susanna), add poignant and sometimes mysterious touches to the play. Some of the strongest performances came in the supporting cast, beginning with the fierce, even horrifying mothers of Penny Layden (Mary Arden, Shakespeare's mother) and Nicky Hobday (Joan, Agnes's stepmother). Nigel Barrett is imposing as Shakespeare's abusive father, John, but equally humorous as Will Kempe, one of the players in Shakespeare's company.

Appropriately this theatrical adaptation draws more connections to other Shakespeare plays than the movie. Another twin-centered play, The Comedy of Errors, made a hilarious appearance, as did a touching reference to the grief of Laertes, who crawls into the grave with the coffin of his sister, Ophelia, in Hamlet: Alexander's Shakespeare did something similar when Hamnet was buried in the play. A number of references to the horrors of acting indoors, with a crowd of people all on top of one another, got some solid laughs. The bare set of wooden beams, ladders, and upper levels (sets and costumes by Tom Piper) suggests both the various homes in Stratford and the structure of the Globe. Music and sound (designed by Simon Baker) and atmospheric lighting (Prema Mehta) helped create some of the story's more mysterious moments.

Hamnet runs through April 12 at Harman Hall. shakespearetheatre.org

Critic’s Notebook: Force Majeure! Marianne Crebassa at the Musikverein

M. Crebassa / F. Say, "Secrets", French Songs (Erato, 2017) US | UK | DE

M. Crebassa / Glassberg, Orch. Ntl. du Capit. de Toulouse "Seguedilles", Spanish Songs (Erato, 2022) US | UK | DE

Force Majeure! A MET-voice in a MINI-space.

The French mezzo-soprano bewitched and trumpeted in her song recital – more impressively than moving

Anyone who experienced the young Marianne Crebassa – for instance at the Salzburg Festival, as Irene in Tamerlano (2012), Cecilio in Lucio Silla (2013), or in Marc-André Dalbavie’s Charlotte Salomon (2014), where she basically carried the entire opera single-handedly – knows her as a French mezzo starlet on the operatic firmament and one of the postively most charming stage presences around. On Wednesday evening, the Béziers-born singer made her way to the Musikverein with some mélodies, some Mahler, and pianist Alphonse Cemin.

She still has the presence – but the evening would have been more successful had she traded in her operatic voice for a more Lieder-suitable instrument. With her rather expansive vibrato, her darkly timbred tone was penetrating and mightily focused, occassionally even harsh. She was loud enough, for sure and sometimes almost overwhelming - and not in the best sense. On “¡Sereno!” in Jesús Guridi’s “Seis canciones Castellanas” it pressed you right back into your Brahms Hall seats. At the same time, those passages from Guridi where things got heated (esp. bullfight-related matters) and could thus absorb the vocal muscle-flexing thematically (“Llámale con el pañuelo” and for the last stanza of “Como quieres que adivine”) were also the best, indeed the outstandingly good moments of the evening. Damn, she has got character in that voice! But that evening she only brought one. Ravel, Debussy, and Mahler, however, suffered under the primordial force, the wooden-trumpet sound, and the none-too-distinct intelligibility.

Wholly enriching was Cemin’s contribution at the Bösendorfer: a beautifully gently drawn tempo in the transition of one of the Kindertotenlieder here; there, sensitive in tone and phrasing behind Crebassa’s steely onslaught; “pitter-pattering” in the introduction to “In diesem Wetter” and bell-like at the close of it. His “let’s-let-the-soloist-rest-a-bit” solistic contribution, usually more chore than pleasure in such evenings, was Ravel’s “La Puerta del vino”. Not only was it actually welcome, it also neatly set the mood for the Guridi.

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Critic’s Notebook: Marin Alsop, the RSO and Bruce Liu in "Program vs. Performance"

F. Chopin, "Winner of the 2021 Chopin Competition", Bruce Liu (DG, 2022) US | UK | DE

S. Prokofiev, The Symphonies Marin Alsop, OSESP (Naxos, 6CDs, 2021) US | UK | DE

Insipid Program, Inspired Orchestra

Under Marin Alsop's baton the proof of the music is in the listening.

On paper, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra’s program under Marin Alsop on Friday, February 27th, at the Musikverein was a rather incoherent hodgepodge, especially compared to the orchestra’s concert a week earlier under Ingo Metzmacher: A bit of Friedrich Cerha, honoring his 100th birthday. A Chopin concerto to showcase the second-most recent Chopin Competition winner, Bruce Liu (not to be mistaken for the most recent winner, U.S.American Eric Lu). And Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, because, presumably, returning chief conductor Marin Alsop wanted to present the suite she’d (very effectively!) assembled herself.

But what looks uninspired and conventional doesn’t necessarily have to sound that way — and after the aforementioned Prokofiev, no one will have been asking anymore whether the concert might not have been put together more elegantly or freshly, so rousing was this second half. Right from the opening, the suite convinced with exaggerated loud-soft contrasts. Even more: the RSO played passionately and with visible motivation, edgy (in the best sense) and with tension. It hummed and buzzed at such a tempo that no ballet dancer could have kept up, but to the ears it positively glittered and glistened.

The Chopin E-minor Concerto couldn’t, alas, compete with that, even though Canadian Liu played it classically and sensitively, with a calm, even touch. Nothing was romanticized – and neither was there an air of ostentatious cool. It was a sort-of middle-of-the-road-excellence, very fine in the moment, forgotten soon thereafter. As an encore, Liu chose something modern, witty, Hungarian. You’d think György Kurtág, given his hundredth birthday. Wrong: It was György Ligeti instead; a case of “close enough” perhaps – though it might be said that the latter’s Fanfares: Etude no.4 is rather more substantial than most Kurtág pieces for piano – and includes welcome hints of Rzewski, apart from light abstraction. Neither (to the surprise of no one) could the scraping and lyrical creaking of Cerha’s late work Three Movements for Orchestra that opened the concert compete with the Prokofiev. But! Those who stayed in the Golden Hall after the lengthy applause could still experience a programmatic bracket of sorts: Cerha's Six Postludes, played on the organ by Wolfgang Koger which (despite a few escape attempts on the part of some remainders who got cold feet) turned out a surprisingly sizeable amount from the curious crowd and a surprisingly gratifying experience.

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Critic’s Notebook: When Alban Berg is the Sweetener: Great Programming with Metzmacher

K. Weill, Der neue Orpheus et al. Carole Farley, M.Guttman, J.Serebrier (ASV, 1997) US | UK | DE

A. Berg, Lulu Suite, 3 Pieces D.Gatti, Concertgebouw (RCO Live, SACD, 2008) US | UK | DE

A Successful 20th-Century Miscellany

Ingo Metzmacher and the RSO Vienna deliver a colorful evening in which Alban Berg formed the romantic high point

Good programming is an art. It should be interesting, ideally challenging too, somehow hang together... and alienate as few audience members as possible. At the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, the audience-alienation factor plays a somewhat less important role. First, the orchestra a mandate to go exploring – and second, the audience is battle-hardened. Still, there’s always the temptation to jazz up "difficult" fare with a crowd-pleaser – to almost invariably unsatisfying results. Anyone who rushes to a concert for Tōru Takemitsu, or – as on Saturday evening, February 21st, at the Konzerthaus – for Friedrich Cerha or Kurt Weill, doesn’t want or need a Tchaikovsky piano concerto... and vice versa. Ingo Metzmacher has mastered the art of programming – which is why the evening's highlight was Alban Berg’s Lulu Suite.

A rather obvious bracket is Cerha and Lulu, since his orchestration of the third act established Cerha’s fame in the first place. Less obvious, however, is a cultural-historical factoid that might prove useful at the next pub quiz: Kurt Weill’s cantata Der neue Orpheus and Berg’s Lulu Suite were both brought into the world by Erich Kleiber. But before we got there, the other hundredth composer birthday of recent days was celebrated: Monumentum für Karl Prantl (1988) – in turn written by Cerha for Prantl’s 65th – rises up as a loud, brass-heavy cacophony that sweeps over you like a summer storm. There follows an orchestral whirring and swaying, Messiaen-esque meditations with grand string gestures and dabs of color from the organ. It has a certain sculptural quality but without the danger of therefore drifting towards populism or, for that matter, wider popularity.

Kurt Weill, in his cantata for soprano and violin written over 60 years earlier, isn’t really that either. You will certainly hear little from chameleon-composer Weill’s studies with Engelbert Humperdinck. But the soloists Alina Wunderlin and concertmaster Maighréad McCrann were able to distinguish themselves in this mixture of vaudeville, comedy, and "serious music." That just about proved irrelevant, though, because the Lulu Suite after intermission outshone everything. Once again Alina Wunderlin was allowed to step up, now in a glitter-black Lulu look, and she sang beguilingly agile, more intelligible than in the Weill, and with the right mixture of sensuality and edge, so that one didn’t think about tone rows but the protagonist’s fate instead. Metzmacher also drew remarkable things from the RSO: Whether the tavern atmosphere in the variations, the Tristan und Isolde-moments in the Adagio, or the death cry that bites into the Più lento like the nine-note chords in Mahler’s Tenth, everything was played with fervor and grand gesture.

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Critic’s Notebook: The Quinteto Astor Piazzolla in Vienna

A. Piazzolla, "The Late Masterpieces", Quinteto Tango Nuevo (American Clavé, 3CDs, 1993) US | UK | DE

A. Piazzolla, "Mi Buenos Aires Querido", Barenboim, Mederors, Console (Warner, 1996) US | UK | DE

Piazzolla by the Book

Music to fall in love with – but also a distinct lack of flair – characterized the Quinteto Astor Piazzolla's appearance

The first time you hear Astor Piazzolla's music – perhaps from recordings with his New Tango Quintet like "Tango: Zero Hour" or "Live in Vienna" – is a moment you are not likely to forget. (I remember mine, picking up the 3-CD box on American Clavé in the 2000 Penn Tower Record's world music section with its fancy, since deteriorated, foil cover.) The music imprints itself, opens worlds, becomes shorthand for "Argentina" and everything one associates with it. No wonder, then, that the Konzerthaus was packed for the Quinteto Astor Piazzolla on Sunday evening. After all, the ensemble, founded six years after Piazzolla's death, claims to "reproduce the old master's music as he would sound today." And what exactly does that sound like?

The five marched onto the stage of the Großer Saal, punctual, all in their tango-uniform: Prussian blue suits, light blue shirts, steel blue ties - with a hint of fashion-savvy civil servants about them. Without much ado, lickety-split, the knocked out one terrific Piazzolla piece after another with surprising mechanical precision – working their way from the lesser to the better known ("Oblivion", "Libertango"). Was this Argentine understatement? Nor was there any trace of communication at first; only about two thirds in, after "Contrabajísimo" (with a wobbly double bass solo) were the members of the band introduced, just with their names mumbled, apart from a generic "what a pleasure to play in this beautiful hall". Then it was briskly back to business and onward with the music.

The electric guitar got somewhat lost in the quintet. The piano was the driving force and occasionally a bit muddy. The violin mostly drew attention only through its characteristic rasping sounds. The bandoneon dominated, as might have been expected. Nothing was bad - but all told, everything remained pallid. Was it supposed to sound like this? Not that there wasn't some steam generated here and there – but it dissipated immediately. Was it the too-large room? The Viennese audience even, which though enthusiastic, listened very well-behaved and politely? A hint of rankinling disappointed appeared to be lingering, even after three encores. Then again: one cannot not let oneself be thrilled by this music.

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Critic’s Notebook: Evgeny Titov’s New Wozzeck in Graz

A. Berg, Wozzeck, Dohnanyi, WPh Silja, Waechter et al. (Decca, 1981) US | UK | DE

H. Berlioz, Les Troyens, Böhm, Deutsche Oper Berlin Lear, Fischer-Dieskau et al. (DG, 1965) US | UK | DE

The Naked Truth About Graz’s Wozzeck

Every aspect of the new Wozzeck in Graz is better than average. Even if (with one exception) nothing is quite superlative, the result is an enormously successful evening.

Is it actually possible to ruin Alban Berg’s Wozzeck? Musically, it may be “difficult” fare for the more occasional opera-goer, but the drama is so goshdarn concentrated and Berg’s setting so atmospheric that one often feels closer to witnessing spoken theater with music than an opera proper. That was certainly the case in Graz, where Evgeny Titov’s new production – the same director responsible for the dark-romantic Vienna Iolanta – opened to deserved applause on Friday evening.

Anyone who saw said Iolanta, with its sugar-coated mountain of flowers, can imagine Titov’s Wozzeck as its inversion. The “Upside Down” (cf. Stranger Things), so to speak. Low dunes of sand where yonder a green knoll rises high. Arid, wispy brown brambles instead of flowers blooming in technicolor, gloom instead of brightness. This natural landscape rotates – sometimes faster, sometimes slower – on the revolving stage. Behind it, occasionally kitschy, occasionally strikingly effective, projections: a blood moon, a forest (turning in perspective with the stage), ominous clouds. Titov plays – consciously or not – with dark kitsch and realism, kept in productive tension.

The costumes (Sebastian Alphons) move in a similar direction. The protagonist, thrown butt naked into the first act (dramaturgically unnecessary, though undeniably efficient in underscoring Wozzeck’s humiliation at the hands of his superiors), wanders about in a shabby blazer and socks, while the figures around him appear in black latex costumes, grotesque and abstract, ghoulishly made up so that they faintly resemble figures from a George Grosz drawing. The latter appears to be a popular device for visualizing Büchner; the wildly outstanding productions by Kriegenburg (Munich) and Andreas Homoki (Zurich) went in a roughly similar direction. Does one need a mute black angel silently overseeing the action? Probably not. It’s directorial bric-a-brac – tasteful enough, and not much of a distraction –but bric-a-brac nonetheless.

For all its dramatic and visual appeal, a Wozzeck still wants be sung and played – and here, too, Graz delivered handsomely. First and foremost, with the Wozzeck himself. Unexpectedly, perhaps: Daniel Schmutzhard. A perennial Papageno elsewhere, here unmistakably tragic on a smaller, more human scale – and all the more touching for it. That he does not possess the most powerful voice proves dramaturgically apt; one might even bemoan the fact (not seriously, though) that his voice proved almost too beautiful! Annette Dasch, by contrast, could not be accused of too much beauty at this stage in her career: her Marie occasionally sounded strained, slightly worn – but again entirely in keeping with the character (a spent, run-down prostitute), and dramatically persuasive throughout.

The vocal high point (in more ways than one), and perhaps the evening’s most gratifying surprise, was Thomas Ebenstein’s Captain: penetrating, incisive, clear, and more secure in the upper register than is often the case in this role. A pleasure to hear… if only he weren’t such a scoundrel. (The Captain, not Ebenstein.)

The orchestra did itself proud, too. Properly brutal when needed, and mostly precise; a few off-moments in the interludes were the exception rather than the rule. This came as little surprise, given how impressively Les Troyens had fared in Graz under Vassilis Christopoulos. Could it have sounded even rounder from the pit? More lush? Sure thing. But Wozzeck does not necessarily benefit from polish for polish’s sake. An impressive overall package then, this Graz Wozzeck.

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