Sir Arnold Bax is an important late Romantic composer whose colorful music should appeal to many audiophiles. Yet he is seriously neglected outside of England in an age when fresh orchestral programming is desperately needed. This set, the fourth recorded cycle of his symphonies, may go a long way toward correcting this.
      Bax’s principal influences are Sibelius and the Russian and French Impressionistic schools, but his style remains highly personal and easily recognizable. He mastered the art of orchestration in a remarkable collection of atmospheric tone poems. Detractors say he was not a natural composer of symphonies because his music tends to be more freely rhapsodic than formally structured and, to a limited extent, that is true—the tone poem may be his most natural form of musical expression. Bax’s symphonic argument lies in thematic development (Handley repeatedly refers to it as “metamorphosis”), and emotional and dynamic contrast rather than classic sonata form. He was a fine melodist who could build a symphony from a simple three-note motivic kernel.
      The Second is brutally forceful with a climax underpinned by a sinister organ pedal. The Fifth is Bax’s self-proclaimed homage to Sibelius. His two greatest symphonies are Nos. 3 and 6. The lengthy but tightly argued Third contains his most extravagant and lush orchestral colors. The violently contrasting Sixth opens with a grinding ostinato and closes with one of the great movements in the symphonic literature. Both resolve into hauntingly beautiful epilogues. Following the climactic and cathartic resolution of the Sixth, the Seventh represents a peaceful musical farewell, but is his least characteristic symphony, aside from its serene epilogue.
      Lyrita introduced Bax’s music to most non-British listeners in a series of recordings that remain sonically and interpretively remarkable, but only the First and Seventh are available on CD and the label never released the Third and Fourth. Naxos has recorded the symphonies with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by David Lloyd-Jones. In the absence of the Chandos cycles they would be essential. Bryden Thomson previously recorded the Bax Symphonies and nearly all of his orchestral works for Chandos. So is there any reason to buy the Handley? The answer is yes, because the two conductors take totally different approaches to Bax’s music. Thomson’s tempos are consistently much slower. There are many beautiful moments, but the music sometimes loses its forward momentum. Except for a sonically spectacular Fourth coupled with an amazing Tintagel that rivals Sir Adrian Boult, Thomson’s recordings have the spacious but abrasive sound Chandos was producing at that time. Handley stresses symphonic development more than tonal beauty. He moves the music along quickly, consciously refusing to luxuriate in the sumptuous orchestration. This is most effective in the violent upheavals. The only possible problem is that he de-emphasizes the stunning beauty in those critical epilogues that in many ways represent Bax’s essence.
      The sound supports Handley’s interpretive concept. It is sharply focused, darkly colored, tonally accurate, and reveals more instrumental detail but is less harsh than the older Thomson recordings. This is a good example of the cleaner, new and improved Chandos sound. So, what to do? If forced to choose, go with Handley for his more precise symphonic approach and better sound. This is an important and beautifully packaged set that also contains a lengthy and revealing interview with Handley. It should be the centerpiece in any collection of this important symphonist. I would unhesitatingly recommend Thomson for the tone poems, which are more suited to his interpretive approach. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Bax’s death, Chandos has reissued them in newly compiled albums rather than fillers for the symphonies. Arthur B. Lintgen

      Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) was Argentina’s answer to Bartók: he took his native land’s indigenous folk tunes and transformed them into brilliant, fierce, uncompromising art music. However modern and adventurous in sonority and harmony, however dense and dissonant Ginastera’s music eventually became, the ancient laments and exuberant dances of the Argentinean plains were somehow still there, inflecting the rhythms, shaping the phrases, coloring the timbral mixes, and imparting a primal force and simplicity to the emotions.
      Harmonia Mundi’s new anthology gathers four orchestral works from Ginastera’s earliest and most easily approachable phase. His nine-minute Creole Faust Overture is a curious grab bag of vernacular tunes, mock-pompous recitatives, moody interludes, and old-fashioned procedures—it even has a proper-sounding fugato—topped off by a vehement and exciting dance-finale. The Harp Concerto, with its sparkling vivacity and plangent golden cascades (Ginastera wrote for the harp with notable individuality and effectiveness), and the 24-minute sequence of 12 short variants entitled Variaciones concertantes, are more consistent and fully realized creations, among the best music Ginastera wrote. They’re given polished, idiomatic, and involving performances here, and Harmonia Mundi’s up-close, highly detailed recording is especially revealing in the many lyrical sections of both works where, the scoring pared down to chamber-music transparency, individual instruments emerge as virtuoso soloists. There’s plenty of oomph in the tuttis also, though you may have to turn up the volume a tad as the disc is recorded at a rather low level.
      Conductor Josep Pons is less persuasive with the suite from the ballet Estancia. This is Ginastera in his Rite of Spring mode and it requires a bit more sizzle than he offers. In the unhurried second dance Pons is positively sluggish, taking it half as slowly as the equally well-recorded Ginastera collection on Naive (which also includes a competitive reading of the Harp Concerto). But for a truly classic account of Estancia, coupled with the suite from Panambi and a simply unmatchable rip through John Antill’s wild and woolly Corroboree, check out the three-channel SACD with Eugene Goossens on Vanguard. This has more air, more holographic immediacy, and more impact than either of the new digital recordings, excellent though they are. Others have been enthusiastic about this spectacular disc (see HP’s Workshop, Issue 144) and so am I.
Mark Lehman

      This Polish-born Jew fled to the USSR in the terrible year of 1941, when he was in his early twenties, instigating a confusion that will plague musical archivists forever. In this, the first release in a series devoted to his symphonic works, Chandos uses his original name, Mieczslaw Weinberg, but he’s better known (and usually listed in the many recordings of his music over the years) under the transliterated-from-the-Russian surname of Vainberg, sometimes with the also-Russianized given name Moisey or Moise. The 1980 New Grove spells him Vaynberg.
      At any rate, Weinberg (as we’ll call him) was a gifted and interesting fellow who endured much suffering and danger trying to avoid the wrath of two totalitarian states, which didn’t stop him from turning out lots of music—17 string quartets, 22 symphonies, seven operas, and much else besides. He was a close friend of Shostakovich—who at one point intervened with the Soviet authorities, at great personal risk, to save Weinberg’s life—and indeed it was Weinberg’s influence that led Shostakovich to investigate (and eventually set to music) Jewish folk poetry. Weinberg’s own works use Eastern European Hebraic sources quite a bit too, and his music often sounds like a sort of Jewish Shostakovich with added touches from Mahler and Hindemith. It’s well-crafted and imaginatively scored, with its own distinctive personality and a wide emotional range—it can be passionate, majestic, melancholy, tormented, tender, mordant, genial, jolly—as well as an abundance of arresting (often catchy) tunes. And just listen to the Fifth Symphony’s adagio sostenuto to hear how sheerly gorgeous this composer can make an orchestra sound.
      Weinberg’s fiddler-on-the-roofish tunefulness is nicely displayed in his First Sinfonietta from 1948, a 20-minute item that feels more like a suite of dances than a work of absolute music. The 1962 Fifth Symphony is a much bigger, broader, and more ambitious effort, roiled by turmoil, swept along by waltz-tempo waves, punctuated by distant fanfares, and uplifted by heroic defiance. If you respond to the major symphonic works of Mahler, Nielsen, and Shostakovich, you should hear Weinberg’s thrilling Fifth. This new Chandos equals the old Kondrashin/Russian Disc CD in performance and far betters it with exceptionally good sonics that judiciously balance warmth, detail, dynamic range, and ambience. ML

      Anna Netrebko seems to have it all: a lovely lyric soprano voice, photogenic looks, and the full-press PR treatment that includes a CD booklet studded with photos that wouldn’t be out of place in a fashion magazine. Rather than leap aboard an already full bandwagon, I’d say she strikes me as a work in progress, with quite some way to go before she merits her skyrocketing reputation.
      A hint of her distance from being a complete artist comes from Natalie Dessay’s new CD. She’s a similarly endowed lyric coloratura soprano, far more experienced than Netrebko. Their discs overlap in just one number, the Air and Gavotte from Act III of Massenet’s Manon. The young Russian’s version features an attractive voice but a generic, characterless interpretation, along with raw French that turns “bonne” into “bony” and “appelle” into “apileee,” among other atrocities. Dessay, singing in her native language, avoids such pitfalls; she’s idiomatic throughout her disc, and her stage experience shows as she colors Manon’s words to bring the text alive. In the Gavotte, Dessay makes the words dance, and her coloratura is far better integrated into the whole, where Netrebko’s seems a separate, none-too-fluent display piece.
      But Netrebko is a singer of vast promise, and has plenty of time to fulfill it. This, her first recital disc, has some successful items, like Ilia’s Act I aria from Mozart’s Idomeneo, and parts of the Act I scenes from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Bellini’s La Sonnambula. Yet, note the “parts of” qualifier—since she’s not consistently on target in those, and while she could be a fine Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, she’s no Donna Anna, as evidenced by a tenuous “Non mi dir.” Throughout her recital she displays fine legato singing, and shines in Teresa’s big scene from Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini. But the generic vocalism that mars her Manon is present elsewhere: Rusalka’s “Song to the Moon” lacks radiance, and Marguerite’s “Jewel Song” from Faust misses both trills and rapturous excitement.
      Dessay, on the other hand, conveys a spirit of spontaneity throughout her album. She’d better, since in so many of the arias soprano heroines boast of their beauty and/or good fortune, often in dance time. Oddly enough, a recital chock-full of upbeat pieces, including arias from lesser-known works by Rossini (Le comte Ory), Boieldieu, and Offenbach (Robinson Crusoë), closes with Ophelia’s Mad Scene and Death Scene from Thomas’ Hamlet. They’re done with all the bathos, sensitivity, and brilliant coloratura one could ask for, but it’s a bit of a downer after all the fun.
      Michel Plasson, a veteran conductor with this music in his bones, accompanies Dessay and gives her the idiomatic orchestral support and sprung rhythms her singing craves. DG’s engineering is close-up and vibrant; Virgin’s is more distant, the orchestra less detailed and transparent. It’s interesting to hear Netrebko for an attractive voice whose owner is being pumped for stardom, but you need the Dessay for terrific singing in the here and now.
Dan Davis

      Hans Zimmer strikes again—call it Gladiator-light with a Japanese twist. The Last Samurai starts inauspiciously with “ethnic woodwinds” mixed with lugubrious synthesizers. Then there are massed strings producing static soundscapes occasionally interrupted by pounding drums. The whole thing sounds like Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings on steroids. The Zimmer music factory has once again created a murky, mechanical soundworld that goes nowhere. It almost sounds metallic, even when acoustic instruments are playing. Synthesized percussion effects add to the prefabricated production-line effect. And this was the favorite to win the music Oscar!
      House of Sand and Fog is Horner’s prestige project of the year. It is unmistakably Horner, but not so much because he is stealing from himself or others. To be sure, there are bleak references to Shostakovich, but aside from that Horner has created a score that is haunting and disturbing—no small feat in a dialogue-driven film that is not a good vehicle for music. Synthesizer effects are unobtrusive and mix well with an orchestra dominated by piano and strings, with a recurring tolling bell over typical ominous Horner chords. There is a relentless mood of ineffable sadness and pending disaster. The music recalls Gorecki’s Third Symphony, fortunately without the wordless female voice that so frequently trivializes film scores. It’s all quite beautiful, and represents some of Horner’s most tasteful and restrained work in some time. The closely miked sound nicely blends the densely layered strings.
      Big Fish contains about 40 minutes of Elfman’s music and a characteristically odd Tim Burton assortment of source songs that will be promptly programmed out by anyone interested in original film music. The score is a compendium of Elfman’s style, ranging from gentle chamber-like melodies, ethereal choral music, and modern bluegrass sounds to larger string-dominated orchestral passages and more modernistic Elfmanisms. What’s missing is the increasingly tiresome hyperactive bombast heard in films like The Hulk. The closely miked sonics have little dynamic range or depth, but that hardly matters in a score like this.
      Looney Tunes is a hoot. Goldsmith makes numerous (presumably intentional) references to Carl Stallings’ cartoon scores, John Barry’s James Bond music, Henry Mancini, and his own scores for The Trouble With Angels and Gremlins. Nevertheless, it remains unmistakably Goldsmith. Looney Tunes is not as melodic and original as the goofy score for Angels, but it is better than most of his pretentious dramatic music of recent years. It is good to see that this master composer still retains some of the old spark. The sound is flashy as befits the music, but it’s not annoyingly multimiked.
      I have previously remarked that Lord of the Ring zealots have a palpable need to have the film and its score be something profound: the greatest score for the best film of all time will do. Return of the King is a gorgeously photographed, extremely entertaining film with plenty of flaws. Regardless of what you think of Shore’s score, this soundtrack album is a near disaster. The primary emphasis is on long, boring stretches of brooding soft music, often featuring big name soloists and source music. (Do we really need Billy Boyd and Viggo Mortensen “singing” on an album that omits large portions of the score?) The less said about “Into the West” the better, except that it robs Shore of the opportunity to sum up his music for the trilogy in the “End Title” sequence.
      Finally, the sound is miserable. It is sweet but hazy with no significant information at the frequency extremes and lacks focus, instrumental detail, and dynamic impact. Where is the epic grandeur anticipated in the conclusion of a trilogy? We keep waiting for a satisfying climax, but it never comes. Once again, the shameful marketing of anything that involves LOTR has contributed to this mediocre, soloist-dominated soundtrack recording of an otherwise impressive orchestral score. ABL

      Our expectations for and responses to “unfinished” works by great composers vary widely. On the one hand, performances of Bach’s The Art of the Fugue frequently end abruptly, right where the composer left off, while audiences generally experience no angst listening to Süssmayr’s completion of the Mozart Requiem. We’ve made peace with Deryck Cooke’s performing version of Mahler’s Tenth and Friedrich Cerha’s completion of the third act of Alban Berg’s Lulu.
      In the case of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, listeners have lived for generations pretty complacently with the first three movements, both in concert and on record. Part of this is rationalization: Bruckner’s finest creations, many feel, were his slow movements, so why not have the Ninth’s great Adagio serve as his final symphonic utterance? But there’s also the perception that what Bruckner left of the Finale was too rough and incoherent to be of any use. Nikolaus Harnoncourt sets out to demonstrate that this is patently untrue.
      The first disc of this set holds a “workshop concert” where Harnoncourt plays over 500 measures of music, every note of it by Bruckner, with spoken explanations (there are both German and English versions). The conductor feels that the movement was actually completely composed, and that Bruckner could have finished the instrumentation in a matter of weeks. Some missing pages probably still exist—they were given away or sold as “devotional remembrances” after the composer’s death in 1896. A portion of what remains is incompletely scored and Harnoncourt makes no attempt at all to present the coda that Bruckner intended—music that was to include material from the Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth symphonies. But what we do get (especially the first 278 bar block) is radiant, forward-looking music that would have completed the powerful arc implied by the work’s first three movements. After hearing this, one’s experience of the rest of the symphony is forever transformed; a “performing version” of the finale, ironically, seems unnecessary.
      Harnoncourt’s reading of the first three movements is lovingly shaped and deeply communicative. The Adagio, officially freed from the role of Bruckner’s Last Word, takes on a more introspective, spiritual glow—less anguished, but no less dramatically cataclysmic—a grand and perfectly realized affirmation of faith. The VPO’s level of orchestral execution—these are live performances from August 2002—is extraordinary.
      That we get such a significant release in high-resolution multichannel (movements 1 to 3, that is—the “workshop” disc is a conventional CD) is a nice bonus. The sound is unfatiguing, with a grainless full-bodied string choir, delicately characterized winds, and commanding, sonorous brass. There’s not a great deal of air, but the dimensions of the hall are well defined. Andrew Quint

      How many versions of this grandest of grand Romantic piano concertos does anyone need? Just about every big-time virtuoso has taken a whack at it; eminently recommendable stereo versions include those by Van Cliburn, Mikhail Pletnev, and Martha Argerich. Well, here’s another. If you’ve heard Arcadi Volodos’ CDs or, better yet, seen him in concert, you know he has a huge brilliant tone and ten fingers that can do anything any composer has ever asked of a pianist. This Tchaikovsky Concerto, recorded live, offers breathtaking pianism that fully encompasses the work, from the big, burly power of the opening to the light filigree of the poetic slow movement to the rapid-fire pyrotechnics of the Finale.
      It’s easy to be seduced by Volodos’ massive sonorities, but I’ve always been even more impressed by his lyric delicacy, those beautifully sculpted pianissimo phrases whose pearly notes hover gently in the air. But he never loses the musical line by dawdling, and he’s within seconds of Argerich’s timing in her volatile recording with Abbado on DG. Ozawa and the Berliners provide good support. The CD sound is multi-miked moderne, with occasional harsh orchestral tuttis, a hint of detail-obscuring tubbiness, and a backwardly placed piano—complaints only somewhat ameliorated on the SACD layer. The 5.1 surround presentation is vague, with a bit too much in the rear channels.
      If, like many, you’re jaded by the Concerto, Volodos should convince you to give it another shot. But whatever your attitude, the Rachmaninoff items are not to be missed. Here, the studio engineering is closer, more immediate, with no trace of excessive resonance. And the playing is drop-dead gorgeous, with a Moment Musical, Op. 16 No. 2, fresh as a spring shower, while the Prelude, Op. 32 No. 5, has stunningly beautiful soft playing. Want excitement? Try Volodos’ own Concert Paraphrase on Rachmaninoff’s Polka Italienne, where he turns the composer’s piano duet original into a wild fun-filled romp, with a rocket-launched cascade of notes at the end.
      Too bad there isn’t more—another twenty minutes of Rachmaninoff could have easily been added. And is there any reason why neither booklet nor jewel case gives track timings? Sloppy. DD

      Perhaps the best way to describe the Prazák Quartet’s approach on these discs is to say that they’re a Central European analog of the Emerson Quartet. The two groups share such ensemble priorities as driving energy, precise rhythm, and a dramatic interpretive approach, but in the Prazák’s case, it’s leavened by the greater degree of warmth that’s always been a trademark of great Czech string quartets. Those attributes are found in abundance here, securing for these discs an honored place among the best available versions of these works.
      The Prazák is closing in on completion of its sterling Beethoven Quartet cycle, and this is one of the best of the bunch. It’s labeled Volume 1 of the Quartet’s Op. 18 set, although Volume 2, which includes Nos. 2, 3, and 6, was released earlier as Praga 250158. All of the quartets crackle with Beethovenian tension, indicating that the ensemble sees them through lenses crafted by the more urgent Beethoven of the so-called “middle period,” rather than as early works shaped by the quartets of Haydn and Mozart. So while the Prazák’s interpretations may lack some of the genial charm we hear elsewhere, there’s a rightness about them that convinces. The group’s dramatic frame of reference doesn’t prevent it from beautifully shaping the Adagio of Op. 18 No. 1 with a touching tenderness shadowed by tragic overtones, nor does it back off from its polished ensemble sound by downplaying the first violin’s many soloistic flights, as in the first movement of Op.18 No. 4.
      The Schubert Quintet is a late work (provided anything can be labeled “late” by a composer who died at 31), and it’s one of the most wonderful creations in music. Its four movements occupy over 50 minutes of otherworldly thoughts and run the gamut of human emotions. The Prazák is equal to its challenges: the group’s dynamism makes Schubert’s “heavenly lengths” pass without longeurs, ensemble blend is superb (especially difficult in a two-cello quintet), and without scanting the dramatic, it sings long lyric lines with heartbreaking poetry. As in the Beethoven pieces, there were moments where I felt the Prazák’s forceful accents almost too much of a good thing, but that’s a very minor point that vanishes on rehearings. The substantial filler is the early String Quartet in D major, a slighter, structurally ungainly work, but one that’s irresistible in this charming reading.
      The sound on both discs is first-rate, well balanced with you-are-there presence on both layers. Excellent performances and sonics in whatever format you choose to listen. DD

      Universal continues to issue worthwhile performances from A-List classical artists in the DVD-Audio format—releases in short supply until this behemoth label entered the fray. In addition to these three, other recent titles include Mahler’s Eighth from Chailly and a Renée Fleming program; more is on the way, including, imminently, Claudio Abbado’s Beethoven symphony cycle.
      Gergiev’s readings of the Tchaikovsky and Scriabin works are excellent. As usual, the conductor takes nothing for granted, even with the most familiar music. In the symphony, the opening Adagio section of the first movement is carefully shaped, followed by a blazing Allegro non troppo. The 5/4 Allegro con grazia flows along gracefully and Gergiev employs a light touch with the third movement, which nonetheless develops in a thrilling fashion. The finale is moving without ever descending to bathos. Prometheus is erotically charged and edgy; fulminantly hyperromantic, synesthetic in its symphonic color. The playing of the Kirov is absolutely world-class: Gergiev has accomplished with this young orchestra what Simon Rattle did with Birmingham twenty years ago.
      Cecilia Bartoli offers selections from a few of Vivaldi’s 94 (!) operas, most of which are nowadays unheard. Not all the material is unfamiliar, though. “Dell’aura al sussurrar,” from Dorilla in tempe, has Bartoli joined by a chorus and utilizes music from the “Spring” movement of The Four Seasons. The program also includes “Gelido in ogni vena” from Farnace, considered by some to be Vivaldi’s finest aria, a majestically anguished expression of loss and grief, supported orchestrally by descending instrumental lines and lancinating dissonances. (A superb performance of the entire opera, led by Jordi Savall, was issued by AliaVox in 2002.) Bartoli is an ideal interpreter for this frequently florid and melodramatic music. Her voice is well situated to cover some roles originally conceived for castrati and she eats up the most challenging coloratura passages. Il Giardino Armonico provides stylish and spirited support on original instruments.
      Christian Thielemann’s Carmina burana is a perfectly respectable performance, but one that fails to distinguish itself in a very crowded field. By my count, there are already five Carminas available on SACD and DVD-A. My favorite of these is Robert Shaw’s 1980 version for Telarc, a stereo DSD remastering. Under Thielemann, the work is largely shorn of its sexual energy, lacking flair and the aura of pagan abandon. The choral work is good, if without the ultimate degree of precision, and the soloists are quite fine—especially Simon Keenlyside, whose rich baritone has never sounded more appealing, and who sings with great sensitivity to the texts.
      It’s the technical execution of these DVD-As that audiophiles may find disappointing. First of all, the audio specifications for the MLP (“Advanced Resolution”) programs given on the backs of the jewel boxes bear little relationship to what’s actually on the discs. Sometimes it’s better (48kHz/24-bit); sometimes it’s worse (44.1kHz/16-bit). Pop DVD-As routinely offer 96/24 sound in six channels, not infrequently 192/24 for the stereo program. Not long ago, Decca proudly remastered some of its wonderful older analog material with 96/24 technology for CD—couldn’t we have some of that on DVD-A?
      The multichannel mixes are tastefully done—5.0 for Gergiev; 5.1 for Bartoli and Thielemann. The best sounding is the Orff, which manifests good dynamic headroom, a decent sense of the venue (a Berlin church), and true vocal and instrumental timbres. For the record, this one’s 44.1/24, for both the two-channel and surround versions.
      Lastly, the multimedia possibilities of DVD-A aren’t much exploited, again falling short of what’s been done with some rock releases. There’s a chance to sample audio clips of other releases and photo “galleries” that aren’t exactly riveting. The Vivaldi Album does hold an interesting interview with Bartoli, but it’s merely printed on-screen—not the live action video I’d hoped for. No on-screen texts for Carmina or the Vivaldi arias.
      Conventional wisdom, in some quarters, has it that SACD will emerge as the “audiophile format” and DVD-Audio as something else. The nature of these three discs is not inconsistent with that scenario. AQ