A Survey of Bruckner Cycles

► An Index of ionarts Discographies

Like the Beethoven Piano Sonata Cycle Survey, the Dvořák Symphony Cycle Survey, the Bach Organ Cycle Survey, and the Sibelius Symphony Cycle Survey, this Bruckner Symphony Cycle Survey started life a mere inventory of what has been recorded and whether it is still available. It has become more ambitious, since, and the February 2023 update (see details below) reflects this, bringing the format up to the type used in the Beethoven- and Bartók String Quartet- Cycle Surveys, for example. Favorites are still denoted with the "ionarts' choice" graphic.

See also: Bruckner: The Divine and the Beautiful

[Even after this latest update, there] are several incomplete, out-of-print, hard-to-get, and just plain obscure (at least in the West) Bruckner Symphony cycles that are probably not listed below, because I've found it impossible to get adequate information on them. This includes all but the third of six (!) complete and partial cycles of the Japanese conductor, founder of the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, and Furtwängler-inspired Bruckner-nut Takashi Asahina. That also includes the once ultra-inclusive Gennadi Rozhdestvensky cycle on Melodiya, a selection of which can be found digitally as a sketchy MP3 offering on Amazon. While some incomplete and unboxed cycles have been included (Norrington, because I think his traversals are worthwhile), others (Roegner, on Edel) have not. [Ed. It has now.] There is no particular logic to that decision.

Bruckner wrote 11 Symphonies (counting the Study Symphony in F minor, or "00", and the retracted Symphony in d, "0"). Ten of them are complete, and the unfinished "Ninth" exists in various performance versions. The inclusiveness of a set is indicated: 00-9* would mean all 11 Symphonies including a completed 9th; 1-9 would indicate the conventional nine, with only the three finished movements for the Ninth. There are no cycles that include "00" but not "0". Where the Te Deum is included in a set, it is mentioned; "Te Deum (F)" means that the Te Deum directly follows the third movement of the Ninth in the make-shift completion suggested by Bruckner. There are a few different 'performing editions' of the finale, most prominently William Carragan's (in three revisions) and those based on the work of Nicola Samale and Giuseppe Mazzuca (1984). With John A. Phillips and Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs included on their team, they produced the 1992 Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohrs Completions below abbreviated SMPC, along with the year of the particular revised version. Gerhard Schaller has also produced a finale of his own - although everyone attempting this feat is invariably hampered by the looming lawsuits of those who have attempted this before and who are ready to assume plagiarism on principle. (It is, therefore, impossible to have a best-of-all-versions Finale until the copyrights of the current versions run out.)

For the truly dedicated Brucknerians, I have added the information of which versions the various cycles use in the Alt-Text which you can find if you mouse-over the cover image.

A note on Bernard Haitink: Haitink recorded a Bruckner Symphony cycle with the Concertgebouw for Philips, which is usually out of print. [Ed.: It can be had as part of the catch-all "Haitink Symphony Edition" box set, along with his Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler {[Ed.: ...but that's out of print already, as well, as is the Bruckner-only Blu-ray version that had come out.] It's a tame cycle, as early Haitink was wont to be (though the 1967 analog 7th ought to be sampled!) and maybe not that great a loss. Meanwhile, he was busily recording with his favorite orchestras (BRSO, CSO, Dresden Staatskapelle, LSO, and RCO of course). From those recordings, many in the Super Audio format, one can cobble together an incomplete Bruckner cycle of astounding quality, as Haitink became ever more interesting in old age.


[Oct. 26] Expanded the Haitink-section to include his Vienna and his late live recordings. You will see plenty entries still with placeholder text ("Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..."). These will be removed, one by one (I started by giving Skrowaczewski his due), as I find time and inspiration.
[Ed. Feb. 23 through Oct. 26] This is the update you've been waiting for. The format has been brought into line with the most recent discographic surveys, allowing for commentary and alternate editions to be displayed. And I have scoured enough information to bring all seven (!) Asahina-cycles into the fold! I have kept the alphabetical ordering by conductor out of convenience and because it is quite interesting to see which conductors have recorded Bruckner multiple times. I have become more accepting of partial cycles (Klemperer, Celi III, van Beinum, Norrington and I have included all the most recent cycles (Ballot, Gergiev, Jansons, P.Järvi, Nelsons, Poschner, Schaller, Thielemann), orchestra-centric cycles (Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra), and numerous re-issues of extant cycles.
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[Ed.08/03/18] I've now added Ivor Bolton's cycle - the third to appear on Oehms! Somebody loves Bruckner overe there!

[Ed.03/03/18] Yannick Nézet-Séguin's cycle has just been released and added below. The mostly-Kurt Eichhorn-cycle of the Bruckner Orchester Linz has also been added, at last.

[Ed.10/09/17] A massive, much overdue update: SWR Classic has at last issued Hans Rosbaud's near-complete cycle (2-9) in never before achieved sound quality. Kurt Masur's Bruckner has been re-issued. Daniel Barenboim has recorded a third cycle, now, for the first time with "his" orchestra, the Berliner Staatskapelle. I have reviewed the 7th on Forbes: "Classical CD of the Week: Bruckner for DG" and the 4th here on ionarts: "Dip Your Ears, No. 163 (Visual Bruckner)". Jaap van Zweden had his excellent Bruckner cycle issued on Challenge Records on SACDs. The Korean Symphony Orchestra has recorded a cycle for Korean Decca under Hun-Joung Lim. The Riccardo Chailly cycle has been re-issued cheaply on Decca/Eloquence. Mario Venzago finished his controversial cycle on CPO. Brilliant Classic has put all of Heinz Rögner's Bruckner with the RSO Berlin together and made a complete cycle out of it by adding contemporary East German performances of Vaclav Neumann, Kurt Sanderling, and Franz Konwitschny to it. The Bruckner Orchestra Linz' cycle with Dennis-Russell Davies will be re-issued by Sony in December of this year. And Simone Young completed her very complete set ("00" + "0"), which has been released on Oehms. Global Amazon links have been added in all the lines I had to edit. The incomplete cycles of Dohnanyi & Harnoncourt will be added in the next round of edits...

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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)

How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100 (Part 1)

Introduction

The Why, How, and What

This is a reposting (edited and expanded) of an article that George A. Pieler and I wrote for Forbes.com, back in March of 2013 and picks off from these musings: How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100 (Prelude), where you can read all about the idea behind the idea. I am re-posting and editing the articles to makes sure they don’t disappear, to give them the formatting they were meant to have, and as a tribute to George. Also, the articles are behind a paywall in the US, I just found out – so now they are out in the open again, where they belong.

Almost 13 years ago, George A. Pieler and I wrote a column (Two Cents About Classical Music For $100) for Forbes.com on some of the market- and technology-changes that affect this still growing, more-important-than-you-think niche in 21st century entertainment: classical music. The idea of building a classical music starter kit for $100 means we have to define price in an age where the very media of music consumption are in a permanent state of change. It also raises the question of what ownership of digital files actually means. We tackle some of these questions in upcoming columns [Ed. we didn’t], but first we present “the list”. (Incidentally, the Forbes article is itself based on the ionarts-response to Tyler Cowen’s article in 2011, which was promptly criticized for being too cello-heavy.)

[The entire list on Amazon can be found here.]

First, let’s talk about what “Classical Music for $100” is not: It is not a historical survey. It is certainly not meant to be representative of (Western) classical music – the very attempt would be absurd for a genre that spans at least 600 years (and counting). It is not a list of what is or should be considered “great” in classical music, nor just a list of classic recordings. We may overlap with all of these criteria in some parts, but our goal was simply (not so simple, as it turns out) this: “Bait!”. To create a list – within the confines of $100 (measured, old fashioned style, by CD*) – that is most likely to convert the uninitiated, intrigue the newcomer, and still delight the veteran. If you spend your first hundred bucks on classical music this way (or consume this list on Spotify), our rationale goes, you’ll find something—plenty—that will hook you and keep you coming back for more. In which case we’ll happily supply more lists to aid the discovery.

(*Cost was measured as-per-Amazon-pricing-averages at the times and iTunes cost. As recordings (or these iterations thereof) wander in and out of print, these can fluctuate wildly. I have updated the Amazon links below – but not necessarily the cover images – to reflect the most readily available iterations of these recordings.)

If one album alone could do the trick, we would have chosen just one. That’s not likely, though, since every newcomer responds to different stimuli. A one-size-fits-all list is a bit like handing out the “ten best medications” to prospective patients, sight unseen. But between classical disc-jockeying, slaving at Tower Records (The Tower That Fell), writing for classical radio stations, and emulating a classical music critic, we have channeled our experience to come up with a generic model-listener who has appreciation written all over him or her (enough to have read on thus far, certainly), but relatively little previous exposure. (And if you’re a veteran but this sounds like someone you know, why not share this list with them!?)

With that in mind we set ourselves a few rules. The first is adopted from Tyler Cowen who gave us the idea: “Never buy an inferior recording simply because it is cheaper. In the long run it is more expensive.”

True, it’s hard to tell what inferior (or “best”) really means in a market saturated with the greatest artists from seven decades competing with each other, often with multiple entries each, in the crowded field of recording classical evergreens. We interpret it thus: include it only if it really knocks your socks off. This uncompromising approach does conflict with the budget limit and the urge to cover a good deal of territory. But wherever compromise attempted to sneak in at the expense of absolute quality, we tried to resist it.

Another rule was not to include box sets. It’s tempting when you can get the complete works of Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven for $99.99… and all the Wagner operas for $32.66. But that’s unstructured overkill and, in our experience, detrimental to listening habits. Each recording included in this list, and each composer, deserves at least the focus and concentration (and, yes, the expense!) that goes with listening specifically to one album. The kind of focus that used to happen necessarily when people put a vinyl album on their record player. (It makes all the difference: many of them still think vinyl sounds better for this reason.) Experiencing this music for the first time should be a piece-by-piece event, even in an age where the media—hard drives, clouds—have practically no physical confines.

Finally, we tried—and failed—to make the list compatible for iTunes downloading, hard-copy-purchasing, andSpotify streaming. We’ve come close, and picked only albums [then] in print (which might, granted, [and did] change tomorrow). At the time, Spotify (which shares exceedingly little revenue with the artists and record companies, it might be pointed out) didn’t carry three essential labels: Hyperion, ECM, and Harmonia Mundi – so the initial playlist had to substitute the relevant recordings. They do now and the list has since updated accordingly. If you have access to the Naxos Music Library, that should enable you to hear every one of these albums, too.)

The relative prominence of time-tested, ‘classic recordings’ on this list (four out of nine—out of ten, if you count the ‘iTunes bonus’) is not primarily one of nostalgia but economics. These are recordings that are exceptional – and widely acknowledged as such, but they have also earned their money many times over and can be re-released in various guises at ever decreasing price points. But there is also a reason why new recordings are still made and listened to: every generation needs its Beethoven, its Bach, its John Adams. A few classic interpretations are truly exceptional and a few favorite artists really were unique, but often the focus on older recordings by collectors is a sentimental one; a disease called “Golden Ageism”, caused by the emotional footprint that the first exposure to a particular interpretation leaves. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… with any luck, you will acquire it with some of these choices!

The List

Hooked in under $100

And here now are, in order of recommended listening, the recordings we would recommend to hook you.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 285 (A World Premiere Recording of Nadia Boulanger’ Opera)

Nadia Boulanger La ville morte Neal Goren, Talea Ensemble Melissa Harvey, Laurie Rubin, Joshua Dennis, Jorell Williams (Pentatone 5187792, 2 CDs) US | UK | DE

Nadia Boulanger as a Composer

A delightful surprise for lovers of French Impressionism

There is an endless amount of unfamiliar repertoire to be discovered in classical music. Much of it forgettable, but some of it worth perking up for. This is very much a case of the latter. La ville morte is a four-act opera to a libretto by the would-be dictator and man of letters Gabriele D’Annunzio, with music by Raoul Pugno and Nadia Boulanger. Nadia, mind you. Born in 1887, later to enter music history as the most influential composition teacher of the twentieth century — and elder sister of the composer Lili Boulanger (1893–1918) who died at a tragically young age when Nadia was 31.

The Boulanger sisters’ story, told in shorthand, usually goes thus: Lili was so prodigiously gifted that Nadia, faced with this overwhelming talent, put her own compositional ambitions aside and devoted herself to teaching. And if there were still any questions early on, the younger sister’s premature death surely did the rest. No doubt family pressure also played a role — the father, just like Nadia, had won the prestigious Prix de Rome. But the decisive blow to the composing career may well have been the death of her teacher, mentor, musical collaborator, and lover, the (very much married) Raoul Pugno, who died in January of 1914 while the two were on concert tour together. Even then, things might still have turned out differently, had the outbreak of the First World War not forced the cancellation of the premiere of La ville morte. That finally took place only in 2005, in Siena.

Performances then (as now) were further complicated by the fact that the score itself was lost during the war. For the newly released world-premiere recording on Pentatone — produced in conjunction with a new staging at the Greek National Opera — conductor Nel Goren had to take matters into his own hands. He opted for a chamber-scale orchestration. He also cut a wordless chorus and a peripheral role to make future performances more feasible — in plain terms, cheaper. That decision is possibly lamentable (but if he had not told us, we would even know what we are missing) but in any case entirely defensible, and the result speaks for itself. The music, superbly played by the Talea Ensemble, can at times sound uncannily like Michael Nyman, or like Mahler seen through the prism of chamber music - a result of the minimal orchestration. It remains thoroughly compelling, though — with especially striking affinities to Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. The singers, led by Melissa Harvey, add their share to the pleasure of this pleasing rediscovery.

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This review had been previously published on Classics Today.

The Last Missing Piece of the Kna’ Grail: Knappertsbusch’s 1955 Parsifal from Bayreuth

Richard Wagner Parsifal, Hans Knappertsbusch Bayreuth Festival, 1955 (Profil Hänssler, 2023) US | UK | DE

Dip Your Ears: No. 284 (Knappertsbusch’s 1955 Bayreuth Parsifal)

Kna’s long-lost Parsifal, the last one to await full issue, is now available. Was it worth the wait?

Parsifal-Aficionados had to wait a long, long time for this: The recording of the 1955 Bayreuth performance under Hans Knappertsbusch. An interpretation of primordial power, forward momentum, dynamism. A recording of vocal superlatives from the 30-year-old Fischer Dieskau as Amfortas; with Ramon Vinay and Martha Mödl at peak voltage. In short: One of Bayreuth’s finest hours. At least such were the rumors.

To make it even more tantalizing: For years, this Parsifal could only be experienced partially and unofficially. Namely only by way off an aircheck of a BBC broadcast of the second act. Adding further to the intrigue: The complete tapes were known to exist in the archives of Bavarian Radio; my colleague Klaus Kalchschmid had seen and heard them.

When said colleague Klaus and I visited the Wagner-discography expert Frank Schöneborn in Aachen, the latter – before putting on this aircheck as the very last snippet of Parsifal to listen to – pronounced: “Kna was at the absolute height of his powers here! And these singers… fantastic. It absolutely blows you away!” And this opinion was based on that old, wildly imperfect recording in, frankly, execrable sound. The musical instruments were hardly recognizable as such. The sound came and went. Everyone and everything howled; it was like listening to an old C-90 cassette that had been left in the glove compartment on a hot summer’s day.

Myth v. Reality

It’s a truism of record collecting, as any ionarts-reader will be aware, that the best recordings are always those that are the most difficult to source. Alas, the grail is ever only the grail in searching, rarely in finding. Now Profil/Hänssler has issued the tapes from the BR archives, at long last, closing the last remaining gap in the Parsifal/Bayreuth discography of Hans Knappertsbusch. Naturally you’ll wonder: Does the reputation survive the availability? Well, this much up front: The modest mono-sound of this release feels like high fidelity, compared to the BBC bits. The voices come out nicely, indeed. As far as the two dimensional orchestra goes, however, these tapes don’t begin to approach the vivid stereo image of the 1962 Philips recording. (But then, neither do any of the other Kna/Parsifal recordings, where every orchestra group – strings, brass, woodwinds – sounds the same.)

The tempos are, by Kna’s standards, on the taut side and similar to ’62; only in 1960 was he a shade less slow. In this, the recording is a nice and welcome contrast to the other (somewhat dreary) Knappertsbuschian Parsifals of the 50s. Amid the so-so-OK sound, you can also hear that, vocally, nothing went particularly wrong. Ludwig Weber’s Gurnemanz sounds a little taxed. Martha Mödl truly is at the height of her goosebumps-inducing powers as Kundry. Neidlinger’s attractively-evil Klingsor almost makes you want to switch sides, and Fischer-Dieskau’s Amfortas is decidedly not mannered, but fresh and surprisingly (given the character’s disposition, not the singer’s age) healthy. Ramón Vinay’s Parsifal, however, barks and lumbers, which is surprising, even if it actually suits the crude Parsifal of Act I rather well. Subsequently, Vinay proves, in lyrically convincing ways, that this was, indeed, a choice on his part. The chorus is more coordinated than in 1951, which, admittedly, is saying little. That ensemble would go on to improve, year over year. The Eduard Steingraeber Parsifal-piano, specifically made for the bells in Parsifal, sounds – how to put this… awful. Brash and not particularly bell-like, either.

This issue is a collector’s dream-come-true – and no self-respecting Parsifal-obsessed Wagnerian will forgo the experience of having and having heard this recording. For everyone else, it’s a case of “be careful what you dream about” – if you are among those, you can stick with your favorite recording of Parsifal, be it with or without Kna’, and know that you are not missing out on anything. (Jed Distler, over on ClassicsToday, likes it a bit better than I do, btw.)

The 1962 Parsifal Redeemed

As far as Kna’ and his Parsifals in general are concerned, that two-day listening session (and subsequent listening) have established quite definiteively to these ears (but also to Schöneborn, that the 1962 Philips recording is the best of all his Bayreuth Parsifals, and by a very wide margin. Not only is the sound in a completely different league from every other recording (which means that you can actually hear the instruments in the orchestra, as opposed to a vague, two-dimensional Wagner-like orchestral mixture), the orchestra and chorus are caught in much better shape than anywhere else, too. Also the interpretation is probably the most statisfying of Knappertsbusch’s, in doing well what he did well and avoiding some of the pitfulls that, on record at least, didn't translate quite so well... The singers are very good to good-enough: Only Irene Dalis will never be to everyone's taste; if one could airlift the 1953 Martha Mödl (Kna') or the 1970 Gwyneth Jones (Boulez) or the young 1985 Waltraud Meier (Levine) into this recording, one might. But Dalis is certainly not ruinous to the efforts and neither is George London, whose magnificent Amfortas adorns seven of Kna’s Parsifals (51 to 53, 57, 61 to 63) might arguably be 'least magnificient' specifically in this outing.

The second-most famous 1951 version, meanwhile, probably suffers probably most from direct comparison (entries are off, imprecise strings), but some of that has to do with the expectations it comes with. The same, ultimately, goes for the 1955, which is not, however, as bad as it might have reasonably feared to be, sound-wise. Something for the Parsifal-curious then – but if you are, you already knew that!

Knappertsbusch varies his tempi quite a bit. Turns out that his quickest, from 1962, is also his best, offering compassion rather than pathos. The ’51 recording sounds awfully grave and a bit uniform, with little energy. Knappertsbusch seems to start and re-start the orchestra over and over. At the dramatic peak, London is left to his own devices and when London passes his duties to Windgassen, the interpretation feels a lot slower than Levine’s, despite lasting just as long. The latter really brings out the augustness of this moment, perfectly timing orchestra and singers. A pity you don’t trust Peter Hofmann that he is quite cut out for the duties ahead. (Frank Schöneborn)

As a bonus: Below will follow a Knappertsbusch-Bayreuth-Parsifal Survey:

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How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100 (Prelude)

This is a reposting of an article that George A. Pieler and I wrote for Forbes.com, back in 2013. Who knows, how much longer these articles will be available on Forbes (for now, they still appear here, here, and here, although the formatting is already off), in uncorrupted form, so I wish to give them a slightly longer potential lease on life here. (Part 1, Part 2) Not the least as a humble little tribute to my friend George. George Pieler, with whom I collaborated on many articles covering all kinds of subjects, died of a heart condition at his Washington, D.C. home on September 30th, 2021. I still received his annual birthday-whiskey - but he did no longer receive my thank-you card. It was returned "addressee unknown". Though certainly not lacking definite opinions, on matters of politics, liberty, economics, but also his passion, classical music, he would graciously defer to me in picking the recordings for this lists. Still, they reflect his tastes in that he approved my choices, tempered some of my biases, and made sure I would include Szell's Mozart.

These two lists started with this preliminary musing which was, in turn, prompted by a post of Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution, who had done the same thing a few years earlier – asking, along the way, how music could actually be measured anymore, both as regards cost and medium (length), given the proliferation of “free” music and the changes in consumption of music as online bits & bobs. That this question, 13 years after our pondering it superficially, has not yet been definitively answered, despite the dominance of streaming services of one kind or another as our primary music-conduits, is interesting in and of itself. The measure as to what “$100” in music might be, probably has been further softened. The idea how best to look at music as units, meanwhile, remains the traditional album. That’s certainly true in classical music which is (not surprisingly) a somewhat more traditional corner of the music-appreciation niche. Our lists, therefore, retain some value as general “introduction to classical music” essays – and if they bring a few people closer to the genre, we feel we’ve done our job. (Incidentally, we probably did: For years, if you clicked on any one of the albums especially of the first list, Amazon would show you, under the rubric “Frequently bought together”, all the other albums we listed. But here we go, with the first of the three articles:

Two Cents About Classical Music For $100

ByJens F. Laurson and George Pieler

The Grammys (see full list of winners) put classical music in a ghetto of its own, an afterthought following folk, reggae, and spoken word. Is that because classical music, once culture-defining beyond its actual household reach, isn’t a market-driven, profit-potential line of entertainment and culture anymore? Recently on Forbes.com, Connie Guglielmo pondered iTunes’ Top Ten classical music picks, part of an Apple campaign that promotes “essential” classical music (which constitutes about 12% of sales, though heavy on crossover and light classics). A few years ago, Tyler Cowen (Marginal Revolution) took a more sophisticated look at what kind of starter-kit classical music collection could be put together with $100.

The way these two surveys approach classical music, beautifully frames two key aspects of the classical music world today: availability and affordability. Classical (ditto jazz) is a fascinating niche industry annually pronounced dead but more alive than ever. It’s just changing in all possible kinds of ways, at different speeds, in different countries. Pricing, production, distribution, listening and purchasing habits, even the very medium itself and its long-accepted norms (like album playtime, the concept of ‘album’ itself etc.) change or vanish.

Let’s focus just on what Cowen and Guglielmo touch on: price, medium, and the idea of “essentials”.

Now that Tower Records and the HMV Shop are history, how do we consumers determine price? By the cost of a CD on ArkivMusic.com, the specialty on-line seller of classical music owned by Steinway & Sons? [Note: Once a great resource for research and checking on what was available and new – but now quite useless.] Or Amazon, taking an average of prices offered and considering shipping? By the album cost on iTunes, or dedicated classical download sites like [Ed. Long defunct] The Classical Shop (which was run by Chandos, offering Digital Rights Management-free, high audio-quality downloads), Classics Online (Naxos, Ed.: also defunct), or (for the francophone) Qobuz? [Ed. A survivor and definitely not just for the francophone anymore. Arguably the best and most fair source for purchasing/streaming classical music online!]

But even downloading, which opens the intriguing question of whether you own or lease a digital file (more on that in a future column [Ed. That didn’t alas, happen]), may be a thing of the future past: left in the dust as streaming becomes ever more available, reliable, and cheaper. Your tunes are in the cloud, ready when you want them, where you want them. Assuming the internet isn’t down and that you can live with—as yet—modest sound quality or little clicks between tracks (because we can send people to Mars but struggle with Gapless Playback, apparently).

If you are serious about music, it’s a rough transition, though. Catch-all services like Spotify and Rhapsody make finding specific recordings hard, thanks to sloppy meta data and limited catalogs, and can frustrate the inquiring listener and overwhelm the newcomer. [Ed. Also, they aren’t all that great for the participating artists.] For a full dose of Beethoven Symphonies, Haydn String Quartets, or Bach Cantata streaming, they’re quite practical, however. If a standard bearer like Herbert von Karajan suffices, Spotify has all four of his complete cycles. But if you don’t know how the cover of the zesty 60s cycle looks, or which edition contains the savvy 70s recordings, and which box the mannered, digital 80s run-through (all with the Berlin Philharmonic), you will be left guessing. And if you want the sprightly punchy, historically informed musicianship of Jos van Immerseel and Anima Eterna (Zig Zag Territories), you are out of luck altogether.

The [wonderful] Naxos Music Library (and versatile Qobuz) offers a well-honed, classical-only streaming experience with plenty of relevant information, and Immerseel on both services, but on the Naxos Music Library only select early Beethoven recordings of Karajan (made for HMV with the Philharmonia Orchestra, now EMI, just sold to Warner as part of the Parlophone auction) are available, and early post-war broadcasts from Berlin (Audite). [Ed.: ALL the standard Karajan Beethoven is now available on the Naxos Music Library.] Only Qobuz emerged from this random test with all five cycles available. [Ed. The two live Japanese cycles and the two for-video-cycles are still out of reach for streaming.]

All this is by way of suggesting that the very idea of what $100 worth of music means, is changing by the day, if not the hour, and impossible to define. You could probably get the complete works of Mozart or Beethoven as downloads for that money. You would get fine music, too, though probably not all quality performances or snappy interpretations, which is what makes classical music so different from other genres. And for most, the bulk approach won’t yield the most memorable experience.

For our own list of how a relative newcomer might most satisfactorily invest $100 in classical music, we turn to the anachronism of the familiar CD—a medium that will be with us for decades to come, however outdated it may already seem. Certainly as a unit of price and music, CDs remain a trusty standard, perhaps akin to the way horses still define how we measure rail gauge and the engine power of an aircraft carrier. (Ed.: See list here: How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100 Part I & Part II)

Amazon is currently merging the two worlds of hard copy (satisfying the collector) and digital availability (for immediate gratification and portability) with a function called ‘auto rip’. This delivers a free cloud–version to your Amazon cloud player when you purchase a hard copy of the CD from Amazon. Selection is limited so far, especially in classical, but fast expanding [Ed.: OK, that didn’t take off, massively, but it is still alive and available to consumers with billing addresses in the United States who have a U.S. bank-issued credit card] and it does include two of the Karajan cycles (1950s EMI and 1960s DG, if you find the right one among various editions of just that particular set [Ed.: I don’t think it does, anymore].

For skeptics who still think this kind of music is a dead-white-male cultural relic, we suggest the very profusion of listening options—in repertoire, medium, and listening mode—tells us classical is not just very much alive, but a great case study in market evolution. We hope to offer a glimpse into that (from our alive-white-male point of view) when we put together a sophisticated introductory list, available across various formats. We might ignore vinyl, though, which is making its own fascinating niche-within-a-niche comeback.

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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.

Dip Your Ears: No. 282 (Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Indelibly Interesting Symphonies)

Erkki-Sven Tüür Symphony No.5, Prophecy (Accordion Concerto) Nguyên Lê, Mika Väyrynen Olari Elts, Helsinki PO (Ondine, 2007) US | UK | DE

Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Fifth for Orchestra, Big Band and Electric Guitar

Erkki-Sven Tüür’s ongoing cycle of interesting symphonies (in 2017 he arrived at No. 9) makes him – by quality more significantly than quantity – the premiere symphonist of our time. Always good for the inclusion of seemingly eclectic instruments (electric guitar, accordion, big band, percussion, tape, synthesizer) in his orchestral works, he expands the tonal palate much the same way a Gustav Mahler did when the latter threw the mandolin or guitar or castanets or xylophones or a hammer into his symphonies, all before perfectly unsuspecting audiences. (Happily, this is much easier on the ears than when other composers stick with the traditional instrumental apparatus only to then make these instruments generate every sound except those they were meant to produce in the first place.)

In this Fifth Symphony, premiered in 2005 at the Stuttgart Eclat New Music Festival, the electric guitar has some particularly lyrical quasi-cadenzas in the second movement. The fact that we might find it curious is only a consequence of our aural associations and expectations with and of an electric guitar. But all the rest of the symphony is pretty classical, down to the four-movements and their structure, which goes to show that there’s still much left in the old form and ‘old’ – i.e. tonal – modes, if only a composer can muster sufficient imagination.

Erkki-Sven Tüür does. In fact, his works are bursting with originality and phantasy, freed of all academicism and perceived “ought-to’s”. Not all of them as successful as this Fifth (or the Seventh) Symphony, perhaps, but always full throttle and never displaying originality for its own sake. The groove of the third movement is befitting any classical Scherzo; the Big band gets its moment in the spotlight, backed by a percussive, happy but firmly embedded, organic beat (sound clip) – not as artificially superimposed and faddish as large percussion sections can sound in too many contemporary works (Higdon, Sierra, Widmann, Golijov et al.).

It’s possible that connoisseurs of conventional symphonies wrinkle their brow in disapproval of these allegedly foreign ingredients. This brings to mind a beverage-related spoonerism of composer and linguistic genius Franz Mittler: “I would rather have a boot in my rear / Than a root in my beer.” But Tüür’s symphonies are not symphonies-in-name only, they are decidedly real beer; just a modern variant of the classic original. Maybe something Dogfish Head Brewery would concoct.

Rounding out a fabulous disc is the accordion concerto Prophecy, a substantial concerto in four continuous movements, which often ends up a swarm of sound with intermittent, hallmark Tüür moments (dry timpani before a canvas of dark quiet, for example). In it, the accordion is less folksy than it is grave; the whole thing more redolent of an organ concerto than a polka. As a card-carrying accordion-lover, I dig it muchly.

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This review had been previously published on Classics Today.

Dip Your Ears: No. 281 (Top of the Shostakovich-15 Heap, Still!)

D.Shostakovich Symphony No.15 [42:38] Boris Tchaikovsky Theme & 8 Var. [18:12] Dresden StaKap, K.Kondrashin (Hänssler Profil, 2007)

Kondrashin in Dresden

“Profil – Edition Günter Hänssler” has been issuing more and more CDs from (old) German radio tapes that vie for a spot in the limelight of the mainstream. Especially some of the more recent performances of the Staatskapelle Dresden like Bernhard Haitink’s supreme Bruckner 6^th and a Mahler 9^th with Giuseppe Sinopoli are immensely impressive. This recording of Shostakovich’s 15^th Symphony with Kyrill Kondrashin, too, makes this list.

On January 23^rd, 1974 – just a little over a year before Shostakovich died – Kondrashin conducted his favorite German orchestra in a concert celebrating the 425^th anniversary of the orchestra, the 50^th anniversary of the renaming of St. Petersburg as Leningrad, and the 30^th anniversary of the break of the German siege of Leningrad.

The latest and last symphony of the great composer from St. Petersburg was a logical choice for this, but it wouldn’t have escaped Kondrashin, or the Dresden audience, that it is uniquely unsuited to venerate the Soviet—or any communist—regime. After vocal symphonies 13 and 14, Shostakovich, fatally ill and well aware of it, returned to an almost classical form of the symphony.

In the essay that accompanied the recording of Maxim Shostakovich (said to be the best performance of Shostakovich’s son on record – but to my knowledge not available on CD) Shostakovich spoke of the first movement Adagietto as a “toy-shop with plenty of knick-knacks and trinkets – absolutely cheerful”. No listener will get away from the first movement without doubting the composer’s own words. If it is a toy-shop at all, it’s one that sells little tanks, toy-guns, and junior’s first water boarding-kit. It’s a romp with its share of plink and delicate chirping, but this collection of trivialities amid intensity, with crashing marching bands and ballerinas, sounds like a sugarplum fairy-cum-guerilla fighter. There are moments that remind of the 2nd and 9th Symphony, and it’s always interrupted by the seemingly random William Tell overture excerpt that all American audiences can identify as the “Lone Ranger” theme.

It’s not impossible that Shostakovich knew the Lone Ranger and his heroic deeds (or his appeal to children, which would go with the toy-shop story) – but it’s more likely the Rossini original that inspired him. And that’s telling enough: A story about a man who is coerced to use his skill (archery, in Tell’s case) according to the bidding of a despot – who then uses that skill to fight against tyranny. If anything it seems that Shostakovich, in the hospital while composing this movement, had dispensed with being subtle in his political statements.

On ionarts: Shostakovich Symphony Cycle Survey

The strange giddiness of the first movement is immediately subdued by the grave brass chorale that opens the dark second movement. Phases of rest-and-answer and the cello’s lamenting song lead into trombone and violin statements that are everything but “absolutely cheerful”. Trombone glissandi (the ones that enraged Stalin in Lady Macbeth) are employed and eventually the subdued movement wakens and rises slowly to a big orchestral thrashing-about. It’s much like the Shostakovich from Symphonies 4, 7, 8, and 11 – but with an incredible efficiency of means, almost chamber-like in proportion and scoring.

The little, friendly third movement (Allegretto) has moments that are nearly Haydnesque before the fourth movement takes over with another blatant musical quotation – this time Wagner’s ‘ensuing death’ (or “fate”) motif from the Ring, already foreshadowed in the Adagio of the second movement. The yearning opening of Tristan & Isolde also appears several times, completing the atmosphere of resignation and departure. More difficult to hear, if you don’t know about them, are references or quotations of a Glinka song, twelve-tone rows (“bourgeois decadence!”), Strauss’ Heldenleben (the “adversaries” phrase, third movement), and many others that I will have missed completely. In this fourth, as in the second movement and in so many of his other symphonies, there is the gathering of momentum, the orchestral outbreak, the swoop up… here leading to a Passacaglia – and then the symphony dithers away in a morose mood over ghastly tic-tocs of a clock and a last, faint glimmer of percussive hope.

Especially the Wagner quotations, himself once Hofkapellmeister in Dresden, would not have escaped the sophisticated Dresden audience at this performance, the last together with Kondrashin. And what an extraordinary performance it is. It is better in every regards than Kondrashin’s earlier recording (Melodiya / Aulos): The playing is finer, indeed flawless. The sound, with a little artificial reverb, is excellent from the GDR’s radio-broadcast recording crew. Lasting about 42 minutes, the tempi are marginally more relaxed than in the Moscow recording, but still very much on the fast side which means that no moments are allowed to sag or lumber along. I have not heard the mythical first Maxim Shostakovich performance (and I'm not sure how many of those who sing its praises have, either), but among the interpretations I know (Barshai, Caetani, Haitink, Järvi/DG, Kitajenko, Kondrashin/Moscow (oop), Ormandy, and especially the favorite Sanderling/Cleveland), this one goes to the very top.

The Theme & Eight Variations by Boris Tchaikovsky (not related) was written for this concert and are heard in their world premiere. The work has only reinforced my curiosity about—and appreciation of—a composer that really belongs in a next edition of Surprised by Beauty.

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This review had been previously published on the long-nixed WETA 90.9 blog.

Dip Your Ears: No. 280 (DSCH, dogmatically pumped up)

D.Shostakovich 24 Preludes op.34, Chamber Sy. op.110a dogma chamber orchestra Mikhail Gurewitsch (CM) (M|DG SACD, 2013)

Shostakovich Strung Up

It’s rare enough to hear Shostakovich’s Twenty Four Preludes op.34 on disc (much less in recital). Much rarer still, but no less interesting, is it to hear the work—not to be mistaken for the increasingly popular 24 Preludes and Fugues, op. 87—set for string orchestra. The all-lower case dogma chamber orchestra took on the task and recorded Grigory Kochmar’s arrangement to marvelous, delightfully unsettling effect: A new angle on an unfamiliar work gives us de-facto brand new Shostakovich. Compared to that, the String Quartet No.8 in its souped-up version (basically a simpler version of Chamber Symphony op.110a), is familiar territory in which dogma faces and proudly meets the competition.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 279 (The Sibelius Lure)

Jean Sibelius The Essential Orchestral Favorites Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra Leif Segerstam (Ondine, 2014)

Essentials of Sibelius

Reducing “Essential Sibelius” to the Violin Concerto, tone poems, and one Symphony will make hardened Sibelius-fans wince. But then Ondine’s “The Essential Orchestral Favorites” intends not to please the hardened Sibelius-fan, it aims at making hardened Sibelius-fans out of the uninitiated. The 2-CD set does this splendidly: The Violin Concerto is the only Sibelius-work that’s permanently in the repertoire. The Second Symphony, Sibelius’ most conventional, is the ideal first symphonic exposure. And the tone poems, Karelia Suite, and three movements from The Tempest make a perfect Sibelius-starter—especially with Leif Segerstam and the Helsinki Philharmonic, whose soft-lit brawn is dream-boat stuff. Add Sibelius’ own performance of his Andante festivo and a 50-page booklet with oodles of photos of Sibelius, a timeline, and condensed biography. Start here and fall in love.

P.S. If you are ready for a more serious commitment right away, look for The Essential Sibelius on BIS, which will give you absolutely everything you could reasonably want from Sibelius (all the symphonies, tone poems, the concertante pieces, Kullervo, Suites, plenty of choral works, and selected chamber and piano pieces), in reference performances, on 15 discs.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 278 (Freiburgian Schumann Glory)

Robert Schumann Violin Concerto, Piano Trio No.3 Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov, Jean Guihen Queyras Freiburg Baroque Orchestra Pablo Heras-Casado (Harmonia Mundi, 2015)

Schumann Glory: Violin Concerto Edition

There are neglected works by great composers, fitfully revived and let go again and rightfully forgotten. Fewer are the works by great composers once ignored and only now rediscovered as masterpieces. Enter Schumann’s Violin Concerto. Clara Schumann, following Joseph Joachim’s advice, suppressed it. Unplayable. Drab. Tiresomely repetitive. Awkward. It’s half a miracle she didn’t burn it. And still performances remain rare. This disc might be the concerto’s best chance to change this! Isabelle Faust’s hushed gentility and her faint, otherworldly touches bring the ears to their knees with the Ghost Variation motif. The following emergence out of this gorgeous, troubled netherworld of Schumann’s mind is all the more invigorating. The Piano Trio is a stupendous bonus; the first in what might be the next touchstone set of three!

(Since then, these artists have completed the trio of concertos coupled with the trio of Piano Trios – and the happy result has been conveniently boxed.) .

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