Thrilling Rilling rocks the Missa Solemnis. Beethoven Opus 123, Chicago Symphony forces from 2005

Ludwig van Beethoven

Opus 123, Missa Solemnis

Helmuth Rilling, conductor

Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus

Angela Denoke- soprano, Michelle DeYoung- mezzo

Stephen Gould- tenor, Alexander Vinogradov- bass baritone

January 20th, 2005 

Symphony Center, Chicago, Il

Always having been drawn to this strangely unpopular Beethoven architectural myriad, I think this performance gives it due brawn, impetus, restraint and balance.

The start is such a hustle. You think "oh, another one of the missa solemnis perfs," and settle in for a snooze. Then, Helmuth nudges the accelerator by the barest hint, bringing it into 'wide awake and playing for keeps' territory. His command over the orchestra is Mengerbergian at moments. While backing the solists in the Kyrie he keeps injecting just enough storyline details to make it hard to lose attention, and that sets the standard throughout.

Listening in the wee hours of the dark, I heard an incredible treatment of my favorite episode in the Missa, the "war interruption", always about eight and a half minutes into the ending movement. Here, even upon a repeat listening to it in the light of day (and with the fancy HD590 cans on), the set piece was intact: a far off hint of the change to come in the Agnus Dei.

 Then the clear, rude drumblasts, held off by increasingly fervent spasms of focused yelling, the apparent understanding and cooperation of the martial elements, then, a giant rearing up -and brutal, inexorably paced ritardando- which is done by rending the surface sheen of spacetime... the uneasy compromise that follows leads to the fugal dissociation, more fury and the restatement of warlike intent, renegotiations,..

whew.

The balance of voices is always palpable, producing a clear texture that I can just tell will continue to withstand repeated listenings,  renewing the store of interpretative delights it keeps reeling out.

 I found this one while rifling through concertarchives, again! Thanks to those folks.

If you listen to this (loud enough), you'll understand why it is IMPERATIVE to go see the Chicago Sym when they're in town!

Siegfried's Idyll. Wagner unguarded. Kubelik live with his Bayerischen forces in 1973.

Brings to mind the Tagore quote, "God's great power is in the gentle breeze, not in the storm"

Richard Wagner

Siegfried's Idyll

Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Kubelik, Rafael, conductor

Munich 7 December 1973

In this offering, a somewhat complex plea for cease-fire. The Idyll was a birthday present to Wagner's wife, after the birth of their son, here interpreted by my perenially favorite conductor, Rafael Kubelik. His readings never lack warmth to me.

Some key bits from his Wikipedia article:

"

In 1939, Rafael Kubelík became music director of the Brno Opera, a position he held until the Nazis shut the company down on November 12, 1941. The Nazis allowed the Czech Philharmonic to continue operating, and Kubelík became its principal conductor. (He had first conducted the Czech Philharmonic in 1934 when he was 20 years old.) In 1944, after various incidents, including one in which he declined to greet the Nazi Reich-Protector with a Hitler salute — along with his refusal to conduct Wagner during the War — Kubelík "deemed it advisable to disappear from Prague and to spend a few months undercover in the countryside so as not to fall into the clutches of the SS or Gestapo" (Albert Scharf, in Rafael Kubelík: His Life and Achievement, p. 114).

Kubelík conducted the orchestra's first post-war concert in May, 1945. In 1946, he helped found the Prague Spring Festival, and conducted its opening concert. But after the Communist coup of February 1948, Kubelík left Czechoslovakia, vowing not to return until the country was liberated. "I had lived through one form of bestial tyranny, Nazism," he told an interviewer, "As a matter of principle I was not going to live through another."

"

Maybe the killing of many persons by other persons, under the excuse of one state against another, ends the violence between them all, as it is claimed by whoever starts it. Rarely so. 

Palestine and Israel. Iraq and the US. 

I think Barenboim leads the better path forward, with his orchestras that bring together people from opposite sides of the imaginary fence, while they are young. He also reclaimed Wagner, stubbornly and pointedly.

But I am here, in a safe and complacent environment, spreading pirated broadcast recordings...

A Mahler Seventh that recalls its artistic muses Rembrandt and Mann through a fired-up Abbado-led Youth Orchestra!

Symphony Number 7, by Gustav Mahler

Claudio Abbado, conductor
Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester
1999 Edinburgh Festival
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
August 17, 1999


Ah! the M7! My absolute favorite Mahler symphony -for the past 3 years at least...(before that i had protracted flings with the 2nd, 4th, forever the 9th of course, and a real time of it with 3...)

Rembrandt's "The Night Watch"( or "The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch") is said to have been influential to the second movement। It fits wonderfully, as the cacophonous military breakdowns so common to this composer been seldom better served; pace Alphons Diepenbrock, who knew Mahler and is quoted as saying, "...It is not true that [Gustav Mahler] wanted actually to depict The Night Watch. He cited the painting only as a point of comparison. [The Nachtmusik I movement] is a walk at night, and he said himself that he thought of it as a patrol. Beyond that he said something different every time. What is certain is that it is a march, full of fantastic chiaroscuro — hence the Rembrandt parallel..."

And the Andante amoroso? A risky, engaging slant is enhanced by the youth orchestra's edgy feel under Abbado. it almost hearkens to the other cultural reference commonly stuck to this piece: that Adrian Leverkuhn's magnificent violin concerto's ending was really this penultimate movement. (This imaginary composer, Leverkuhn, from Thomas Mann's awesome novel "Doktor Faust", also wrote a "Faust" cantata which is supposedly based upon the second movement of the M7!)

En fin, the youth orchestra plays hard and to win. The bite is there at all times, even in the slower sections. They are nervously present and it sounds as if they refuse to let the performance fall into a rote exercise, even if for the barest moment.

From a broadcast, so it is somewhat hissy. Have a fit then, if you seek purely audiophile quality; just know that the performance gods have waved their magic fingers at this, Through Claudio Abbado. He has commercially released 2 other performances of the Mahler Symphony no.7 , one in 1984 and again in 2001 (Chicago SO and Berlin Phil, respectively). I prefer this one to those as well as to [most!] of the 21 other recordings of this work I, unreasonably and ridiculously enough, own
...
It is, worth it.

**Mil gracias to albanberg at dimeadozen for this!**

A very serious Bartok by Kondrashin recording

Bela Bartok
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.
Kirill Kondrashin, conductor
Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra.



This recording is beyond worth it; just listen a tiny bit past the noise that the intruding years present, and a raucous performance emerges to drag you around by the "classical music is nice sleepytime music" hairs. The taper, Alan, stated:

"This stereo broadcast is undated, and is sourced from my own cassette
taped from NYC radio station WNCN on February 17, 1982. The tape is a
bit hissy, which is probably due to the comparatively wide dynamic
range of WNCN at the time. "

Get this.

Beethoven Symphony No. 5, pause a moment and find out why this is up here.

dot dot dot DASH

Beethoven, Ludwig van
Symphony no.5 in C Minor, Opus 67

Live broadcast June 24th, 2007
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Chamber Orchestra of Europe

The original uploader (Scalepet's) comments say what you may need to know:
"...recorded in the course of Harnoncourt's annual music festival, the Styriarte, in 2007, and broadcast just once: Despite the performance getting rave reviews from the press, it was never officially released on disk. Every of the performers got a recording of the concert...
...one of the fieriest, fastest and best performances I've ever heard of this piece, the first movement is barely 6:34 long - with repeat. The phrasing, accents and dynamic contrasts are intense when they need to be, it's remarkably driven, always moving forward with a positive sense of nervousness. But despite the breakneck speed Harnoncourt has total control over the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (who play on modern instruments, only the trumpets and timpani are period instruments), his conducting is firm, but not stiff, there's a terrific sense of chamber musical organization among the musicians, especially in the slow movement. Orchestral color, secondary voices, stereophony - all exceptional, which is why I opted for FLAC this time - you may discover details in the 5th you didn't notice before..."

YES! and then some, este es uno para poner a todo dar, a ver que tanto aguante el sistema de sonido!

Faure's Requiem Mass, the NY Philharmonic led for the first time by a woman (who had "gotten over the initial astonishment" of being one.)

Gabriel Faure
Requiem Mass

live:
Mass for Bruno Walter in NY 17 Feb 1962
Reni Grist (sop); Don Gramm (bar); Vernon deTar (organ); The Choral
Art Society
New York Philharmonic

Nadia Boulanger, conductor

Mono recording
mp3, avg.131 kbps

Nadia Boulanger was one of Gabriel Faure's more noted students.
This is an excerpt from "Time" magazine of February 23, 1962:

"[ On a triumphal 75th birthday trip to the U.S., Nadia Boulanger, Paris' matriarch of modern music, became the first woman ever to conduct a full concert by The New York Philharmonic. Borrowing the podium of one of the few notable American composers who was never her pupil, mercurial Maestro Leonard Bernstein, the "tender tyrant" led the orchestra through psalms by her late sister, Lili, A Solemn Music by Disciple Virgil Thomson, and the Requiem Mass of Gabriel Faure with an authority that convinced the New York Times that "she could hold up her end of the baton with most of her male colleagues." Tactfully shrugging off this bit of male chauvinism, Mme. Boulanger refrained from repeating her response to a similar comment when she led the Boston Symphony in 1938: "I have been a woman for a little over 50 years and have gotten over my initial astonishment." ]"

and, incidentally, OT but further reading from that issue:

"[ Out of rural Berkshire to London's Hospital for Sick Children whooshed a police-escorted ambulance bearing the football captain and choir leader of Britain's Cheam School: His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 13. Following a post-midnight appendectomy, the robust Charles recuperated rapidly, was expected to be sprung this week from the TV-equipped private room for which the royal family, which does not take-advantage of the National Health Service, was paying $14 a day." ]

Times the're a changing, no?

Enjoy the tunes. This recording was released commercially as part of a (to my budget and everyone I know) crazily expensive New York Philharmonic Anniversary Box Set, called
"The greatest historical release of them all!" by Robert Cowan, Gramophone. It (the whole set AND this particular bit of it) really is full of wondrous and unexpected depths of performance history galore.

The box set is still available here:
http://nyphil.org/buy/estore/itemDetail.cfm?itemnum=2&itemcategorynum=cds&itemdetail=yes

Mahler Symphony Nr.3 Martinon/Chicago SO (box set version)

Jean Martinon leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a performance which does justice to the myriad moods and tempos you expect to have a Mahler Symphony no.3; that is such a relative phenomenon, since the M3 is one of the most philosophically, temporally and sonically ambitious of symphonies in general!
This excerpt about the recording is from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra website, from which you may purchase the incredible box set containing this performance (in better sound) and a host of other rarities:

http://www.cso.org/main.taf?p=4,1,3,7,2&productid=4677

"The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's first subscription concert performances of Mahler's Third Symphony were given at Orchestra Hall on March 23, 24, and 25, 1967, with Regina Resnik, Women of the Chicago Symphony Chorus (Margaret Hillis, director), the Chicago Children's Choir (Christopher Moore, director), and Jean Martinon conducting."

The sound is broadcast quality, Pre-FM.

American trailblazer Charles Ives with another beauty

The very rarely heard and recorded "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" was
the other Ives piece from the 2004 Alan Gilbert/NY Phil program which ended with Symphony No. 4, posted below.
General Booth is the founder of The Salvation Army. The piece is a characteristically ambitious Ivesian challenge, built around the sung text of Vachel Lindsay's 1912 poem. I've copied some of it below, and think it an appropriate mechanism to countenance the fears of, frankly, the worst case scenario of our economic reality; the music is simply a very stirring piece:

General William Booth Enters into Heaven

by Vachel Lindsay

[To be sung to the tune of `The Blood of the Lamb' with indicated instrument]

I

[Bass drum beaten loudly.]
Booth led boldly with his big bass drum --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come."
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,
Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank,
Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale --
Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail: --
Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,
Unwashed legions with the ways of Death --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

[Banjos.]
Every slum had sent its half-a-score
The round world over. (Booth had groaned for more.)
Every banner that the wide world flies
Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes.
Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang,
Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang: --
"Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
Hallelujah! It was queer to see
Bull-necked convicts with that land make free.
Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare
On, on upward thro' the golden air!
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

II

[Bass drum slower and softer.]
Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod,
Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God.
Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief
Eagle countenance in sharp relief,
Beard a-flying, air of high command
Unabated in that holy land.

[Sweet flute music.]
Jesus came from out the court-house door,
Stretched his hands above the passing poor.
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there
Round and round the mighty court-house square.
Yet in an instant all that blear review
Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.
The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.

[Bass drum louder.]
Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole!
Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl!
Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean,
Rulers of empires, and of forests green!

[Grand chorus of all instruments. Tambourines to the foreground.]

To be administered at full volume as tonic and rejuvenative conduit, esp. as one walk out the door to do one's election-related duty! Artwork is the same because it was on the same bill. sorry about the non-inclusion of that text on the cover.

Sibelius Symphony 5 LSO/Davis Alternate rec. (NYC!)

This duplicates the conductor/orchestra pairing for this work in the same year as an official release. Although it documents a different performance,
it is only an extra sweetener to enjoy the artistry of these workers. This straight to CD Recording of Live Broadcast on WQXR NYC does have a bit of hiss audible in the quieter moments. If you like the performance, please buy the official LSO live CD release, which has vastly better sound anyway;
The London Symphony Orchestra has its own website from which they sell their "LSO Live" CDs:
http://lso.co.uk/detailedrecordinginfo&showdetailstype=recording&detailID=22

That said, this is still a blast to hear! That wierdo ending with the quintuple hangups is never tiring. The LSO and Sir Colin Davis seem to be welded to one another's thoughts sometimes, as evidenced in long stretches of -even for these pros- gorgeous ensemble work.

Ives Symphony no. 4 NY Philharmonic/Gilbert 2004 live

Charles Ives' raucous Fourth (and last) Symphony, live from Carnegie Hall to get the Estados Unidos folk in the voting mood!

Alan Gilbert, young American conductor at the helm of the New York forces who will take him as their new music director starting 2009, in one of this pairing's most acclaimed showings- so far. Interesting but overreported note: his parents are New York Philharmonic musicians, and on this particular occasion mom was one of the band.
I recorded it from a live WQXR broadcast, straight to cd... Great American Cacophony to rival the election season's cross'd streams of sameness (that simply means that reality is slightly below expectations; you still have the right to vote. Voting could be treated like a Victorian-era unruly child or bad tooth- Ignore it and it may go away.)

links for this in comments

Beethoven Last Sonatas live by Paul Lewis, from a broadcast

Gandador del Premio Gramophone en vivo:

Otro broadcast de ahora ultimo, como si estuviera renaciendo el arte! Could it be that the Far Eastern curse "may you live in interesting times" is also informing the depth of recent performances?

All thanks to christos e from DIME for this awesome recording of a digital FM Broadcast- DVB-S Radio, 256kb/s. He might poke me right in the eye for putting this up here. (hope not!)

The performance is a testament to Paul Lewis' gifts, so spread it while it's available. As such, it is more than ample argument for keeping his career triumphantly afloat by going to a concert or purchasing a CD of his!!! We are Medici! [sung to the sister sledge tune, in these art funding-starved times]; Please mention that if you Do spread this treasure.

viene con arte y texto informativo. comes with some more info and homebaked art (yea that up there.)
crank it!

The actual studio release, winner of the 2008 Gramophone Award here
(live concert link in comments; as a zip file and, further down, in mp3s individually)

Shostakovich 10th live 19 Feb 2004 NYC broadcast

Snippet of the performance, you've got to hear it. Es otra tecnologia. pegale el volumen hacia 11 antes de escuchar (para eradicar tendencias facistas en tu vecindario):
http://rapidshare.com/files/158466344/Snippet_from_Allegro.mp3

Shostakovich

New York Philharmonic, Antonio Pappano - Guest conductor
Carnegie Hall, NYC, New York (USA)
19 Feb 2004

WQXR "New York Philharmonic live" broadcast recording

Viene con guia , seis minutos de buenisima informacion antes de escuchar esta obra.
Comes with a Listening guide to Shostakovich Symphony no. 10 (6:24)

QUALITY
320kbps

It's in there!