NAXOS OF AMERICA IN THE NEWS
JUNE 20^th-27^th and June 28^th-July 3^rd 2005

• NAXOS IN SEATTLE, L.A., DALLAS AND MORE
• NEW ACCENTUS CD IN L.A. TIMES, CLASSICSTODAY.COM
• DVD ROUND-UP: L’UPUPA (EUROARTS) AND TDK
• PENTATONE IN NEWARK STAR-LEDGER

NAXOS IN SEATTLE, L.A., DALLAS AND MORE 

From “Naxos: American Classics” by Christopher DeLaurenti
The Stranger (Seattle), Thursday, June 30^th, 2005

No other record label has done more for American classical music in recent years than Naxos. . . . I'm quite enamored with its "American Classics" series, especially the latest disc, Schuman: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 9. . . . Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony navigate the tempestuous moods of these symphonies - harrying brass stabs, ennobling declarations by the strings, woodwinds frolicking in counterpoint, and mournful interludes - superbly.

Additionally, I recommend Naxos's cycle of Bruckner symphonies conducted by the late Georg Tintner as well as their Penderecki series, whose first volume contains riveting performances of the legendary Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and the unjustly neglected Fluorescences.

Another jewel in Naxos's crown is the recently launched Robert Craft Collection. . . . Naxos has begun to reissue these shamefully out-of print recordings; Three Greek Ballets boasts three Stravinsky masterpieces: Apollo, Agon, and Orpheus. Essential. And inexpensive.

COWELL: A Continuum Portrait, Vols. 1 and 2
Continuum; Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs, directors
8.559192 and 8.559193

From a review by Mark Swed
Los Angeles Times, Sunday, July 3^rd, 2005

The budget-priced Naxos series of American classics has finally caught up with Henry Cowell with two CDs (issued separately). . . . these discs include some fine examples of the very good Cowell, such as the crashing and banging piano music, the wacky Suite for Violin and Piano, the intriguing "Homage to Iran," and "Set of Five," which is an example of Cowell at his most fetchingly multicultural. The performances are expert; one of Continuum's directors, the pianist and conductor Joel Sachs, is writing a Cowell biography.

From a review by Scott Cantrell
Dallas Morning News, Sunday, July 3^rd, 2005

Grade: A

Spanning three decades, these are three of the masterpieces born of the long and fertile partnership between Stravinsky and ballet master George Balanchine. . . . It's good to have the three together in suave and beautifully recorded performances conducted by Stravinsky's assistant-amanuensis Robert Craft.

From a review by Marc Geelhoed
Time Out Chicago

Along with producing recordings of nearly every single composer's every  single note, the industrious Naxos label took it upon itself to commission British composer Peter Maxwell Davies to write ten string quartets . . .

The first two quartets were the work of a composer testing the waters to see what worked; they were episodic and didn't fare too well. Lucky for us, the Third and Fourth do, likely due to being inspired by outside events, not just abstract theory.

The Third is Davies's response to the buildup to the Iraq invasion, and it's pretty brutal, as is expected from the amount of protests Britons staged to the war. . . .

The Fourth Quartet is in a single movement. Subtitled "Children's Games," it takes its cue from Brueghel's painting of the same name.  Unable to escape from the wartime shadow, however, darkness lingers over the happy games, as it does over the entire disc.

From a review by Mary Kunz Goldman
Buffalo News, Sunday, June 26^th, 2005

Stores are full of CDs for kids. . . . Parents might want to check out this latest from the bargain Naxos label. Here are 27 pieces based on Hungarian and Slovakian folk songs - all simple, angular and attention-grabbing, some invigorating, some calming, and some, like a Hungarian "Play Song," quite beautiful. Jando, a Hungarian pianist, gives them a good rhythmic bite. Kids will like the sharp, succinct tones and maybe - who knows? - want to try to play them themselves.

NEW ACCENTUS CD IN L.A. TIMES, CLASSICSTODAY.COM

From a review by Mark Swed
Los Angeles Times, Sunday, July 3^rd, 2005

It may not sound like a good career move to anger Pierre Boulez, but in Jonathan Nott's sudden rise to conductorial fame, even that hasn't hurt. What upset Boulez is that Nott is resigning from the musical directorship of the Boulez-founded Ensemble Intercontemporain. Listening to his effusive, rapturous new recording of Schoenberg's First Chamber Symphony with this peerless French ensemble, I'm with Boulez.

. . .

The Schoenberg disc also includes several Schoenberg choral works sung by Accentus and conducted by Laurence Equilbey, including a spiritually luminous version of "Friede auf Erden," Schoenberg's 1913 plea for peace on Earth, which might have been written yesterday.

From a review by David Vernier
ClassicsToday.com

. . . the choral selections receive first-rate readings by the outstanding Accentus chamber choir, and if you're looking for reliable renditions of both Friede auf Erden settings, these will do nicely. . . . the choir exhibits an appropriately full-bodied, Romantic tone quality in Friede auf Erden and the folksong settings and a harder, more austere character in the harsh and turbulent De profundis and in Franck Krawczyk's transcription for wordless voices of the eerie atmosphere of Farben.

Most of this is not easy music for the singers, nor is it particularly comfortable listening--but occasionally, as with the folksong setting Schein uns, du liebe Sonne, which shows Schoenberg could write beautiful and emotionally affecting, really singable music, or Dreimal tausend Jahre, where he manages to achieve a strange yet somehow agreeable serenity with serial techniques, we find some shining nuggets of gold. The voices make a uniquely compelling case for Krawczyk's conception in Farben, and the male chorus Verbundenheit (from the Op. 35 set) is also worth hearing more than once.

DVD ROUND-UP: L’UPUPA (EUROARTS) AND TDK

From a review by Mark Swed
Los Angeles Times, Sunday, July 3^rd, 2005

Next year Hans Werner Henze will turn 80, and he is getting a lot of attention. "L'Upupa" ("The Hoopoe and the Triumph of Filial Love," to give it its full title in English), which premiered at the Salzburg Festival two summers ago, is his latest and, he says, last opera. It is a smashing success, currently being mounted in Lyon, France, and scheduled to be seen all over Europe. This DVD documents the beautiful Salzburg production, by director Dieter Dorn and designer Jürgen Rose, and was beautifully filmed for television.

A Middle Eastern fairy tale opera with an affectionate nod to Mozart's "Magic Flute," "L'Upupa" doesn't compromise Henze's overly generous musical style (a lot goes on in the orchestra all the time) but is also movingly generous of spirit and often just plain gorgeous. The winning performance includes John Mark Ainsley as an irresistibly cranky angel, Laura Aikin as the stunningly athletic heroine and the wide-eyed, captivating Matthias Goerne as the hero.

From a review by Bradley Bambarger
Newark Star-Ledger, Tuesday, June 21^st, 2005

****

Over a wonderfully iconoclastic career, Henze has often downplayed his Germanic birthright in favor of Italianate lyricism and Stravinskyian piquancy. For his operatic finale, the 78-year-old composer returned to a German tradition, specifically, "The Magic Flute." Henze's score reverberates with his modern spin on Mozart's ceremonial music, and the libretto -- by Henze, after Arabic folk tales -- echoes the earlier opera's quests and trials, all in the name of spiritual growth and faithful, selfless love.

German baritone Matthias Goerne, not only a top singer of lieder but an experienced Papageno, takes the role of Kasim, the virtuous son of three sent on a mission to return a beloved hoopoe bird to their ailing father. Goerne's voice sounds as sonorous as ever, even if his body language isn't always naturally theatrical. The characters Kasim meets along his picaresque quest are ingeniously embodied, particularly an otherworldly John Mark Ainsley as Kasim's guardian Demon and the beautiful Laura Aikin as Badi'at, Kasim's Pamina and Papagena rolled into one.

The Salzburg Festival production was staged with vivid colors and shapes, simultaneously ravishing and threatening in the classic fairy tale way. (A scene with Kasim and Badi'at trapped in a deep well is particularly spooky.) Henze's orchestration matches the sets and costumes in kaleidoscopic, contrapuntal atmosphere, and there's a blue-hued orchestral coda that serves as Henze's long good-bye to his operatic art. The picture and surround sound for this 143-minute DVD are state-of-the-art.

From a review by Shersten Johnson
OperaToday.com

This opera production is pleasurable on all levels. Vivid images of imaginative scenes fill the stage, complemented by clever action, lighting, and costuming. Skillful singing and acting, supported by colorful music, advance the story with beauty and grace. Neither deep nor grand, the tale has a resonant quality that enhances its economy. The condensations from literature, scripture, and other music lend a thoughtful nature to the fable, encouraging us to revalue the three kinds of true love presented: filial, friendly, and passionate. I found this opera both enchanting and sensitively executed.

From a review by Kurt Loft
Tampa Tribune, Sunday, July 3^rd, 2005

Even those who have never been to an opera can appreciate a special power at work in her recordings and how she swept the common listener into this often insulated art form. Those who love opera can be overcome by the Callas magic and view her brief time onstage as a revelation.A new DVD of reissued material captures these qualities and presents them in a way most anyone can digest. `Maria Callas: Living and Dying for Art and Love` (TDK, $24.95) is bio-drama. It holds a mirror up to the diva's career, and in its reflection we see an often-tortured woman, makeup removed, away from the mad scenes and ovations.

. . .

The DVD devotes three of its eight chapters to `Tosca,` the Puccini opera most identified with the art of Callas (along with Bellini's `Norma`). It draws extensively from her 1964 Covent Garden performances with Tito Gobbi, as produced by Franco Zeffirelli, and depicts her penetrating vocals and absolute authority in the role. Callas would make `Tosca` her swan song, again at Covent Garden, on July 5, 1965.

The documentary balances Callas' professional and personal lives and includes commentary by those in and outside the opera world, such as Zeffirelli, Grace Bumbry, Placido Domingo and Dame Judi Dench, an Oscar-winning actress who calls Callas the embodiment of theater in opera.`It's wonderful to have an actress who can sing like an angel,` Dench said. `It's grossly unfair.`

From a review by Barbara Miller
OperaToday.com

An important thing to realize about this DVD is that it is not so much about Die Schöne Müllerin as about the performers, pianist András Schiff and especially baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. . . . The record of the performance is doubly significant because, while Fischer-Dieskau earlier in his career had been one of the preeminent performers of Die Schöne Müllerin, he had not performed it since 1971, and he was to retire from public performance two years later.

I have never seen Fischer-Dieskau perform live, but I came to this DVD with great respect for the clarity of emotional expression and the distinctive interpretations that I had heard on his audio recordings. . . . As a recitalist myself who has learned much from Fischer-Dieskau’s published scholarship about the songs he has performed, I was very pleased to have this belated opportunity to watch him in recital and form my own impression.

What emerges most strongly in watching this performance is the intense connection between Fischer-Dieskau and the music, the accompanist, and the audience (including the home audience, through the camera). . . . The music appears to pose no great difficulties for his voice, the tops of some phrases perhaps a bit less smooth than in a recording with Gerald Moore made decades earlier, but there is plenty of lovely tone color and dynamic control.

The DVD includes a 20-minute film of a conversation between Fischer-Dieskau and Franz Zoglauer, augmented by some narration about Fischer-Dieskau’s approach to recitals, a visit to an exhibition of some of his paintings, and a brief interview with the singer’s son, who was playing the cello as part of an ensemble during the 1985 Schubertiade. The conversation is wide-ranging and sheds additional light upon Fischer-Dieskau’s approach to this performance, when he says he views any recording as a snapshot of a single moment, and that in any performance he aims for a spontaneous interpretation, influenced by what he senses in the accompaniment and even the audience. . . . If you have been fortunate enough to enjoy a live recital by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau during his career, this disk may provide a valuable reminder of the experience. For those of us who will never have that opportunity, this disk is a gift.

PENTATONE IN NEWARK STAR-LEDGER

From a column by Bradley Bambarger
Newark Star-Ledger, Tuesday, June 28^th, 2005

Forgotten Philips treasures by violinist Arthur Grumiaux, soprano Elly Ameling and conductors Colin Davis and Neville Marriner sound better than ever thanks to PentaTone -- whether they're played as stereo CDs or in a surround system. . . worthy new recordings include rare Stravinsky conducted by Paavo Järvi, as well as multiple discs by Russian conductor Yakov Kreizberg and up-and-coming German violinist Julia Fischer.

Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin
Julia Fischer, violin
(PentaTone)*** 1/2

Inaugurating PentaTone's new U.S. distribution deal with Naxos, this double-SACD set follows Fischer's fine PentaTone disc of Russian concertos (Khachaturian, Prokofiev No. 1, Glazunov). The Bach solo violin works used to be reserved for mature masters; raised on these sublime scores now, younger violinists are turning to them as a self-contained statement. The 22-year-old Fischer has a bold mind -- which you can see from a bonus DVD interview -- and plays Bach with a probing subtlety. . . .

Schmidt: Symphony No. 4, "Notre Dame" Suite
Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra-Amsterdam, Yakov Kreizberg, cond.
(PentaTone)****

This recording is welcome rarity in the surround-sound catalog, which is mostly devoted to standard repertoire. The melodic beauty and harmonic richness of the Fourth Symphony . . . blooms in this five-channel production.

Schubert/Schumann: Lieder
Elly Ameling, soprano; Dalton Baldwin, piano
(PentaTone)****

. . . PentaTone has reissued three Ameling discs, including this heartwarming set of Schumann's "Fraunliebe- und Leben" cycle and a series of popular Schubert songs (with "Gretchen am Spinnrade"). The recording, made in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw in 1973-75, sounds like it was made yesterday.