Briefly Noted: Pichon's Pygmalion Passion (CD of the Month)

Bach, St. Matthew Passion, J. Prégardien, Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon (released on March 25, 2022) Harmonia Mundi HMM902691.93 | 2h42

Raphaël Pichon's ensemble Pygmalion, founded in 2006, is another early music group I have been following closely in recent years. Although they have yet to make the trip to Washington, we have had plenty of chances to hear them via stream and recording. The group has released some fine Bach discs over the years, all with a specific goal in mind. As Pichon put it in an interview about their newest recording, "When I founded Pygmalion, I had a single certainty, one big dream: that we would give our first St. Matthew Passion for our tenth birthday." That is exactly what happened in 2016, with most of the musicians who ended up being recorded on this excellent set at sessions in April 2021 at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Pichon calls this "a consciously choral performance," with the solo singers also serving as section leaders in what is an exquisite choral sound. As the finishing touch, fifteen young singers from the Maîtrise de Radio France take the chorale tunes woven into the complex textures of the opening and closing movements of Part I, a part marked by Bach as "soprani in ripieno." The solo parts range from very good to excellent, with soloists from each choir taking the arias as Bach indicated and some of the characters named in dialogues given to other chorus members. The two superb sopranos, Sabine Devieilhe (whose solo album with Pygmalion has also been in my ears recently) and Hana Blažíková, lead the topmost sections of Choir I and II, respectively, as well as splitting the soprano arias.

Mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot is sublime in "Erbarme dich," as she was when she sang with Ensemble Correspondances recently. (She sang with the Maîtrise de Radio France in her youth, which is a nice connection to the young performers in the group now.) Julian Prégardien takes the part of the Evangelist with authority and beauty of tone, while baritone Stéphane Degout brings a plangent resonance to the part of Jesus, wreathed in its halo of strings. The instrumental contributions are all lovely, especially the soft flutes. The continuo realization has a pleasing variety, split among organ, harpsichord, and theorbo, all used quite inventively. Pichon has thought deeply about this massive score, which he has spoken about in interviews. There is no small chorale or bit of recitative that does not reflect the conductor's care for it, such as the last chorale in the work, "Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden," performed by the singers alone after the death of Christ. This marvelous rendition is both full-textured and brimming with the intimacy of historically informed performance practice.

Briefly Noted: Olga Kern and Dalí Quartet

Brahms / Shostakovich, Piano Quintets, Olga Kern, Dalí Quartet (released on March 1, 2022) Delos DE3587 | 71'56"

It is good to see that Olga Kern is recording again. For her first disc since 2012, she has teamed up with the Dalí Quartet in two monuments of the piano quintet repertoire. The tracks were captured in 2019 in Norfolk, under the auspices of the Virginia Arts Festival, for whom Kern serves as director of chamber music. The Brahms selection, the Piano Quintet in F Minor, is a monument of the chamber music repertoire, but this rendition is too brash and forceful to hit the mark. Brahms was careful to note that three of the four movements are not to be taken too fast. Kern and the Dalí Quartet give the Scherzo a blistering air of excitement but rush through the other three movements and miss the wistful qualities of the music.

The other selection, Shostakovich's Piano Quintet in G Minor, makes for much better listening and mostly for the same reasons. The Lento first movement bristles with searing intensity, from both Kern and the quartet. The strings-only sections of the second movement are lush and contained, with Kern's rumbling octaves adding an air of distant menace. This quintet's Scherzo, a happy-go-lucky romp with plucky melodies that turn a little maniacal, could not be more different from the one composed by Brahms. Yearning string lines sing sweetly in the Intermezzo, accompanied by soft pizzicati or pulsed piano chords. Kern's bold touch at the keyboard propels the finale, which subsides to an understated finish.

Shostakovich composed the Piano Quintet just before Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1940. Born and trained in Russia, Kern broke a year-long Twitter silence earlier this month to demand an end to the brutal Russian war in Ukraine. As she explained in her message, her grandfather was from Ukraine, and her family had a connection with Kharkov, one of many cities recently bombed. She also toured with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in 2019. Kern became an American citizen in 2016 and is now on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. Her son, Vladislav Kern, is also a pianist who graduated from Juilliard's pre-college program in 2016. Mother and son have even performed together in recent years.

Briefly Noted: Jupiter and Lea Desandre

Amazone, L. Desandre, Jupiter, T. Dunford (released on September 17, 2021) Erato 190295065805 | 75'37"

Last Sunday, the early music ensemble known as Jupiter made its maiden appearance in the Washington area, with a stupendous all-Vivaldi concert at the Phillips Collection with mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre. (Although unreviewed in Washington, the group's debut at Carnegie Hall on Thursday received a well-deserved laudatory review in the New York Times.) Founded in 2018 by the talented lutenist Thomas Dunford, this crackerjack group has already released two fine albums. Following their debut disc in 2019, an exciting selection of Vivaldi arias and instrumental pieces for Alpha, this program of music inspired by the theme of Amazons came out last fall on the Erato label. Their Phillips recital was a mixture of repertory from the two.

The Amazons, presented often as the stuff of legend in Greek mythology, were likely based on real warrior women among the Scythians, as shown by recent research. Yannis François helped mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre design the program, selecting examples from Amazon characters in French and Italian Baroque operas, many of which had never been recorded before. Percussionists Keyvan Chemirani and Marie-Ange Petit add a touch of exotic savagery to some of the tracks, including the opener, "Non posso far" from Provenzale's Lo schiavo di sua moglie. A wind machine and thunder sheet set the scene for the storm sinfonia from Georg Caspar Schürmann's Die getreue Alceste, and castanets make "Sdegni, furori barbari" from Pallavicino's L’Antiope into a fandango. The two arias from Vivaldi's Ercole sul Termodonte make as fine a climax as they did at the Phillips concert.

The arias are often paired in fast and slow combinations, like the two from Mitilene, regina delle Amazzoni by Giuseppe de Bottis, featuring both Desandre's rapid-fire melismatic technique and luscious legato line. In one of several memorable guest appearances, mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli soars in tandem with Desandre in the marvelous duet "Io piango / Io peno" from the Bottis opera. Soprano Véronique Gens joins with Desandre in a scene from Philidor's Les Amazones, and William Christie contributes a Passacaille in C by Louis Couperin, shadowed by Dunford on therbo. Virtuoso Jean Rondeau, who serves as the group's regular harpsichordist, improvises a postlude to one aria and performs the dance "L’Amazône" from François Couperin's Second Livre. A curious Thomas Dunford original, Amazones, rounds out the disc, although it is not listed in the booklet or provided with translations like the other vocal pieces.

Briefly Noted: Albert Roussel's...operetta?

A. Roussel, Le Testament de la Tante Caroline, M. Lenormand, M. Gomar, L. Komitès, Orchestre des Frivolités Parisiennes, D. Corlay (released on March 1, 2022) Naxos 8.660479 | 78'56"

How many delightful surprises are left in the oeuvre of Albert Roussel? The chances to hear the French composer's music in live performance remain sadly limited: we have written warmly of his opera-ballet Padmâvatî and his marvelous score Le Festin de l'Araignée, both performed by the National Symphony Orchestra in recent years. Because he had both a conservative education in historical counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum and an interest in jazz and Asian music, his music tends to be erudite and unclassifiable.

Among the least expected works of Roussel is a rather absurd operetta, Le Testament de la Tante Caroline, premiered the Czech Republic in 1936 and then at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1937. The composer died a few months later, but in 1964, at the request of Roussel's widow, the librettist cut it from its three-act original form to a compact single act. Marcel Mihalovici adapted the music for this revised version, in some ways a response to critics who had found the composer had trouble "adapting himself to simplicity."

Benjamin El Arbi and Mathieu Franot founded Les Frivolités Parisiennes in 2012, with the goal of reviving lesser-known light French musical comedies. This disc is the world premiere recording of the one-act version of Tante Caroline, made from a live performance in June 2019, at the L'Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet in Paris. The titular aunt of the venal family in this farce was, somewhat scandalously, a prostitute. She apparently enjoyed much success in her chosen career, as she amassed an impressive fortune.

Now that she is dead her three greedy nieces, who normally keep their distance out of propriety, show up hoping to inherit. Tante Caroline's will stipulates that the wealth will pass to the child of whichever childless niece can produce an heir within a year. Much of the middle nonsense is cut, leading to the conclusion, in which one niece is reunited with her illegitimate son, whom she gave up before taking religious vows. To everyone's surprise, the young man now serves as Tante Caroline's chauffeur, and the old lady has the last laugh.

The orchestra sparkles under the baton of Dylan Corlay, with a capable cast of singer-actors. Bass-baritone Till Fechner excels in both vocal and spoken patter as the lawyer, Maitre Corbeau, and Marie Perbost displays a limpid light soprano as Lucine, Tante Caroline's maid, especially in the pleasant little aria "Mlle Irene d'Anjou." Sadly there is no libretto included with this recording, and none to be found online, making this mostly of interest to francophone listeners. The Bibliothèque nationale de France has made available a portfolio of newspaper clippings about the work.

Briefly Noted: Lalande's grands motets

Michel Richard de Lalande, Grands motets, Ensemble Correspondances, Sébastien Daucé (released on February 4, 2022) Harmonia Mundi HMM902625 | 80'20"

Long-time readers are already aware of my admiration for the French early music group Ensemble Correspondances. Their streamed concert, aired by the Library of Congress, was one of the highlights of 2021, and a few years ago they made a stellar disc of music by this composer, Michel Richard de Lalande, back when the Washington Post was still publishing recording reviews. While that earlier recording focused on Lalande's solo motets, this even more satisfying disc brings together three grands motets, large-scale choral works that also feature parts for solo voices, recorded February 2021 at the Arsenal de Metz.

The new recording immediately grabbed my ears with the opening verse of Lalande's Dies irae, a substantial work composed for the funeral of the Dauphine Marie-Anne-Christine of Bavaria, who had died in Versailles on April 20, 1690. Likely performed when she was interred in the Abbey of Saint-Denis, on May 5, the dessus (treble) part makes an intoxicating, dance-like quotation of the first verse of the famous chant melody. The direct reference to the chant melody ceases after that first verse: an almost fandango-like spirit invades the "Tuba mirum" movement, and the happy setting of "Confutatis" dances, a curious opposition to the "Voca me" music. Gorgeous choral textures return in the "Lachyrmosa" and "Pie Jesu" movements.

The group's earlier recording included the solo version of the composer's most celebrated motet, Miserere, an expansive setting of the penitential psalm. Daucé has now added an authoritative recording of the original choral motet, composed in 1687. The group's female voices excel over the male voices, especially in the opening section and the "Asperges me," composed on the ground bass pattern associated with the chaconne, with lovely paired flutes and chiffy organ. The closing choral section, "Benigne fac deus," is fast and taut.

The most complex of the motets, in terms of choral textures, is Veni creator spiritus, composed in 1684 on the Gregorian hymn text for Pentecost. The performances, full of many running lines taken at generally rapid tempos, are exceptional. This is a motet likely heard many times, not only at Pentecost but at other ceremonies for the Ordre du Saint-Esprit, of which the King was Grand Maître, on other significant feast days. Lalande also served as composer of the king's secular music, and there are three instrumental pieces included from that part of his work. Thomas Leconte, a researcher at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, contributes not only authoritative program notes but editions of the scores for some of these pieces, taken from the Symphonies pour les Soupers du Roi and other sources. The most interesting is an unlisted final track, the disc's Easter egg, a lengthy, complex Grande pièce en G-ré-sol.

Dip Your Ears: No. 265 (Muti’s 1981 Verdi Requiem)

G.Verdi, Missa da Requiem R.Muti / BRSO BR Klassik

Riccardo Muti’s Star-Studded 1981 Verdi Requiem

Bewildering Muti

Riccardo Muti is as Janus-faced a conductor as I know. His best is the best, his worst the worst. He can blow the roof off with one type of repertoire and he can bore the life out of every note with another. Groping through his discography and sitting through enough of his concerts, I’ve come up with the following theorems: Younger Muti is marginally more interesting than older Muti, but if that’s the case, it’s completely overshadowed by the differences in repertoire. Great repertoire includes: Anything post-romantic Russian is great. Think Prokofiev and Scriabin, where his symphonic recordings are still unsurpassed. Almost anything Italian, too, but especially these: Cherubini, which he lovingly tends to. Nino Rota, his mentor, whom he champions. Verdi, whom – softly and fiery – he knows inside out. And Respighi, where he over-the-tops it to jaw-dropping effect. So-so repertoire: Everything else. Atrocious: Bruckner, Schubert.

On-Paper Excellence

This view colors my expectations, which isn’t always aiding a reasonably objective opinion, but it’s not clear in which direction. Will I necessarily like that which I assume to be great and loathe what I expect to be junk? Or will I have too-high expectations disappointed in the former case and very low expectations exceeded in the latter? So much to think about and I haven’t even put BR Klassik’s new release of a 1981 live recording of Muti conducting the Verdi Requiem into the CD tray yet. Well, it really is the corker that it promises to be. The soloists Jessye Norman, Agnes Baltsa, José Carreras, and Yevgeny Nesterenko promise and deliver. Baltsa isn’t the smokiest, haunting alto (as, say, Ekaterina Semenchuk), but gorgeous and at the height of her powers. José Carreras has the mellifluous lightness that lets him navigate his tricky part without the embarrassing slurs and wails that so often undo this work. Norman plows through the score with aplomb but also creamy finesse. And Nesterenko, who passed away last year, doesn’t rumble in the basement but adds a welcome lyrical quality to the proceedings. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra plays with the perfection that was already then its hallmark (delicate string whispers, turn-on-a-dime dynamic changes) but also lets itself be whipped into an absolute frenzy by Muti, as is true for the BR Chorus, who Muti audibly loves working with. His take is dramatic rather than sulfurous, deliberately powerful rather than violently thrusting but crucially: never Zeffirelli-harmless. I am in theory partial towards darker, brisker, more biting readings, but not only do I not know any half-way flawless recordings in that vein, Muti also just convinces on sheer quality and decibels. And there is nothing about the event being live that detracts from the sonic experience.

Compared to what?

The whole thing is a top-notch recording, every bit as good or – thanks to Norman – actually better than his 1979 EMI/Warner take (Scotto, Baltsa, Luchetti, Nesterenko) and much more moving than the grand, self-conscious, stilted 1987 effort (EMI, Studer, Zajic, Pavarotti, Ramey). His latest recording, from Chicago (CSO-Resound, Frittoli, Borodina, Zeffiri, Abdrazakov) packs a punch but is let down by the high voices. Most Verdi Requiem recordings have some flaw or another that one has to overlook for true enjoyment. This leaves some very old accounts still among my favorites, starting with bracing Leinsdorf (oop) and Fricsay by way of Solti II, Gardiner’s HIP take, and, most recently Barenboim: another good slow-burn reading but let down by the male soloists. (I haven’t listened to Noseda’s LSO discyet; his Verdi Requiems live, however, have been splendid.) In short: Listen to it!

10/9

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Briefly Noted: Melodramas with the Vogts

Schumann / Strauss, Melodramas, Isabelle Vogt, Lars Vogt (released on February 4, 2022) CAvi 8553576D | 61'25"

File this one under the heading of Curiosities. German pianist Lars Vogt and his daughter, actress Isabelle Vogt, have recorded these three melodramas, Romantic poems recited to musical accompaniment. They are live recordings of performances given in 2018 at the Spannungen Festival, held in a hydroelectric plant in Heimbach, Germany, and then virtually in 2020, due to the pandemic. First are Robert Schumann's Zwei Balladen für Deklamation, op. 122, composed from 1852 to 1853, a short time before the composer's confinement to an asylum. In the "Ballade vom Haideknaben," written by Christian Friedrich Hebbel, a moorland apprentice is forced by his master to carry a sum of money to the next village. He dreams that he is murdered along the way for the money, and in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, it happens.

In "Die Flüchtlinge," a poem by Percy Shelley translated into German by Julius Seybt, a woman flees her wedding day with her lover. They set out on the storm-tossed ocean in a small boat while her father and intended bridegroom watch from the castle above the port. This is arch-Romantic stuff, recited with emotional fervor by Isabelle Vogt. Schumann meant the musical phrases in the piano to be timed meticulously with the declamation of the poetry for maximal effect, and Lars Vogt does this with precision and a sense of wild abandon.

These more modest works, each only a few minutes, are dwarfed by Richard Strauss's "Enoch Arden," written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and translated into German by Adolf Strodtmann. At almost an hour to recite, this long poem tells the story of three childhood friends, a girl and two boys. The girl, Annie Lee, falls in love with the poorer and rougher boy, a sailor's lad named Enoch Arden. After they are married and have children, Enoch sets to sea and is thought lost. After a time, Annie, agrees to marry the wealthy Philip Ray, their mutual friend, who loves her and raises her children as his own. When Enoch miraculously returns home, he chooses not to let Annie know he is alive, seeing that all are happy. The poem was so famous that it gave its name to the Enoch Arden doctrine, a legal concept that a divorce may be granted if a spouse is believed dead, even if the lost spouse later returns. Strauss's music is in some ways more complex, but there are long stretches of poetry left unaccompanied.

Washington Ballet takes flight in long-delayed return to Kennedy Center

Washington Ballet corps in “Swan Lake,” at the Kennedy Center through Sunday. (xmb Photography)

Sometimes this season it feels like the last two years didn't happen or were some sort of bad dream. This was the feeling last night watching Julie Kent and Victor Barbee's long-awaited Swan Lake finally make it to the Kennedy Center. It was as if we were back in 2020, a few years into the Kent era at Washington Ballet. Somehow, the company's new production of Swan Lake, a marquee event for any dance company, was not canceled by the coronavirus pandemic. Watching this group continue to move in an encouraging direction made one realize again how culturally deprived we have been during the lockdowns.

Ballet is back, or almost. This run is taking place in the Eisenhower Theater rather than the Opera House (occupied instead by something Broadway). Things felt a little cramped: the scenery (designed by Peter Cazalet and on loan from Ballet West) crowded the dancers at times on the smaller stage. The limited number of strings, with the Washington Ballet Orchestra packed into the venue's smaller pit, limited some of the musical climaxes of Tchaikovsky's often wondrous score. The important thing was that the company made its return accompanied by live music, with Charles Barker, principal conductor of American Ballet Theater, again invited to take the podium. With some shortcomings in the collective string sound, the instrumental contributions were excellent, including the violin solos of concertmaster Sally McLain, the bright trumpet of Chris Gekker, brilliant flute and oboe of Sara Stern and Ron Erler, and the magical harp of Nadia Pessoa.

Other Reviews: Sarah L. Kaufman, Washington Ballet’s ‘Swan Lake’ is finally at the Kennedy Center, intimate and also more ambitious than ever (Washington Post, February 10) Lisa Traiger, Washington Ballet shows a so-so ‘Swan Lake’ at Kennedy Center (D.C. Metro Theater Arts, February 11)

Kent and Barbee built their production on the choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, made for the 1895 revision of the ballet. It has more in common with Kevin McKenzie's version, last seen from American Ballet Theater in 2017 (see video), than the reconfigured version created by Konstantin Sergeyev, last seen with the Mariinsky Ballet in 2014. Spoiler Alert: At the end, Odette leaps from a cliff into the lake rather than live with Prince Siegfried's betrayal. Siegfried joins her in death, leaping as well, and their union destroys the power of the demonic von Rothbart over the flock of women he has turned into swans.

Some things were different. Kent and Barbee did not distract from the orchestral prelude to the first act with any added action, allowing the music to set the stage by itself, leaving the first appearance of the villain, von Rothbart, to the lake scene in Act II. In the original libretto, he appeared in the form of an owl, recalled in some ways by the movements and costume worn by Daniel Roberge, although his wings were more like those of a butterfly or moth. Child dancers featured prominently in the first act as girls and boys from the village celebrating Prince Siegfried's birthday, a charming way to showcase the company's training program. Their choreography, prominently featuring a roundel dance about a May pole, created an idyllic backdrop to the prince's life.

The dancing was all extraordinary. The leads of Eun Won Lee and Gian Carlo Perez are the same as in the company's Romeo and Juliet from 2018, and they have become a beautiful pairing together. Lee seemed both proud and fragile in the Act II pas de deux, and Perez's lifts and leaps showed exceptional strength. Lee seemed less a natural fit as the evil twin, Odile, in the third act, but there was no lack of technique to be sure, not least in that demanding sequence of 32 fouetté turns. The Friday night audience ended up with a bit of luxury casting, as Masanori Takiguchi, who is dancing the role of Siegfried in the alternate cast, took over the role of Benno from Lope Lim. (The reason for Lim being indisposed was not given.) The substitution gave an extra spark to the Pas de Trois in Act I, with Ayano Kimura and the spirited, girlish Ashley Murphy-Wilson.

The corps de ballet danced with near-flawless precision, to beautiful and sometimes comic effect. When the men first encountered the swan-women in the second act, an attempt to touch one of them provoked a unison snapping down of their raised arms. The four cygnets, arm in arm in that famous scene in Act II, moved with crisp unity, and the big swans (Adelaide Clauss and Brittany Stone) presided with elegance over the corps in Act IV. For once the divertissment of national dances did not drag down Act III, with fine contributions from both the men and women of the company, in particular the Czardas, led by Kateryna Derechnya and Tamás Krisza. The richly colored costumes in this scene (also designed by Peter Cazalet and on loan from Ballet West) sparkled under vivid lighting by Brad Fields.

Swan Lake runs through February 13 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. kennedy-center.org