More than the scourge of MozartCecilia Bartoli:”The...

More than the scourge of Mozart

Cecilia Bartoli:

“The Salieri Album.”

Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano. Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Adam Fischer, conductor. (Decca)

****

Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli redeems the unjustly maligned Antonio Salieri -- Mozart’s nemesis in the popular 1984 film “Amadeus” -- rising joyfully to the composer’s stratospheric demands and pyrotechnics, revealing his sensitive word painting, and spinning out vocal lines that often twist in unexpected directions. It turns out that Salieri -- who taught Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt, among others -- was an inventive, interesting composer, not unworthy of the esteem in which he was held in his day, even if, at times, his work sounds like an early sketch for a character whom Mozart will later bring to perfection. His music ranges from the heroic to the mock heroic and manages to touch the heart. Because most of it has disappeared from the active repertory, Bartoli had to do her own research, looking at various versions to devise this critical edition of the arias. Conductor Adam Fischer revels in the charm and delicacy, as well as the vigor, of the scoring. The album is eye-opening.

-- Chris Pasles

Previn’s wedding present to Mutter

Previn: Violin Concerto (“Anne-Sophie”); Bernstein: Serenade.

Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin. Boston Symphony and London Symphony. Andre Previn, conductor. (Deutsche Grammophon)

*** 1/2

Commissioned by the Boston Symphony, Andre Previn wrote his Violin Concerto in 2001 for his soon-to-be bride, the German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, and it got him thinking about his own youth in Germany before World War II. A spacious score, reflective and nostalgic, it is a surprisingly personal and dark work for the often remote and facile Previn. The “Rosenkavalier” ending is pure magic, and Mutter plays it and all else with rapt, beguiling devotion. Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade” is a concerto that takes its inspiration from Plato’s dialogue about love in the “Symposium,” and this corporeal performance makes quite a statement. But Bernstein’s unembarrassed, emotional music can take it and does.

-- Mark Swed

High-speed Bach from Hilary Hahn

Bach: Violin Concertos.

Hilary Hahn, violin. Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Jeffrey Kahane, conductor. (Deutsche Grammophon)

***

Hahn’s Bach disc is a bit disconcerting. There is much to praise -- her bright, propulsive, fluid and accurate playing, and her vision, shared by conductor Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, of architectural wholes, not assembled parts. But the relentlessly fast tempos in the outer movements quickly grow tiresome and hectoring. Fortunately, the slow movements -- particularly the Largo of the D-minor Concerto -- are gorgeous. The disc was recorded in Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in October 2002 and January 2003, shortly after Hahn played the E-major and D-minor concertos with the LACO. Chamber orchestra stalwarts Margaret Batjer and Allan Vogel are the other fine soloists in the Concerto for Two Violins and the Concerto for Oboe and Violin, respectively.

-- C.P.

Ives concerto

gets first hearing

Ives: “Emerson” Concerto; Symphony No. 1.

Alan Feinberg, piano. National Symphony of Ireland. James Sinclair, conductor. (Naxos)

***

Charles Ives completed no concertos, but what became arguably his greatest work, the “Concord” Sonata, began as a piano concerto. Now, the draft of the “Emerson” Concerto, left unfinished in 1911, has been fashioned into a performing edition by the Ives scholar David G. Porter. It is an aggressive, abrasive, somewhat crazy work, and Ives surely knew better than to let it out. Still, this first recording, boldly and unsparingly performed, is more than welcome (especially at Naxos’ bargain price). Most of the material is recognizable from the “Concord” -- to say nothing of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, an Ives obsession -- but the composer takes it in remarkably different directions than in the sonata. Feinberg’s playing is deep and impressive, and the perfect disc mate would have been a performance from him of the “Concord.” Instead we get Ives’ Yale graduation piece, the First Symphony -- Dvorak on steroids, plied with strong drink and worlds away from the “Emerson.” But it is hard not to like, especially in this enthusiastic performance.

-- M.S.

Chanticleer

sings Purcell

Chanticleer: “Evening Prayer: Purcell Anthems and Sacred Songs.”

Chanticleer. Joseph Jennings, conductor. Capriccio Stravagante. Skip Sempe, director. (Teldec)

** 1/2

Critics are divided about this disc. Some find the singing of the famed San Francisco-based male a cappella group superbly alert to Purcell’s careful word setting. Others find it bland and unidiomatic. A minority opinion stakes out a middle ground: Chanticleer strikes an attractive balance between expressivity and restraint, but cumulatively, this approach turns out to be severe going. It’s hard to imagine the lusty, bear-baiting Elizabethans listening to such bloodless music-making. What could it have meant to them? Skip Sempe’s period instrument group, Capriccio Stravagante, provides a sumptuous opening for the “Bell Anthem” (“Rejoice in the Lord always”), one of the disc’s more fortunate collaborations. But the simple yet intensely moving solo anthem “Now that the sun hath veiled his light” loses its wonted impact when done as a choral unison. The disc is perhaps best sampled in short doses.

-- C.P.