Rossini: Complete Overtures

One French wit in the early part of the nineteenth century observed that he had more fun at a Rossini opera than in the bedroom, and Rossini's irresistable melodies, infectious gaiety, and wild zany sense of humor, all coupled with the dizzy acceleration of the famous Rossini crescendo makes this music as captivating and exciting today as it was two centuries ago when ladies intoxicated by the emotional power of the music fainted in the aisles. Rossini also wrote more serious music, his Otello was a great favorite of a man who knew his operas, Verdi, and the set also includes examples of this less known side of the composer of the Barber of Seville.

Neville Marriner recorded a great number of Rossini overtures back in the second half of the seventies, between 1974 and 1980, and this 3 CD set rounds up the lot and presents them in one box set. No attempt has been made to issue them in the order of composition - indeed the first CD begins with the last - the famous William Tell Overture. The rarer and earlier works, generally of far less interest, are closeted away on the third CD, while the first CD garners many of the best, and the second CD at least has several genuine masterpieces among the lesser pieces.

Rossini was a master of the orchestra, and certainly there is far more than enough to justify two CDs, if not three. However, Philips is not charging an arm and a leg for the box set, so perhaps it's best to view the lesser ones as an addendum.

The performances are brisk, with excellent rythmic impetus, and played with the pure clean tones favored by the Academy. Marriner doesn't surpass the greatest versions in the major works, such as the legendary Toscanini, or in stereo, Szell, but Marriner and his orchestra are alert and highly finished. Overall these grade out at between A to B+ performances; surely a box set anyone could enjoy over time. The set might also make a nice addition to a single CD set of the Rossini overtures. Again you have a chance with this set to hear a truly great master working up a form to ever more and more astonishing displays of pure pandemonium.

The sound has been improved from the LPs, which, while pretty enough, lacked a little oomph. These improvements make for a greater swagger and power, not always quite reached on the LPs. The sound stage and sonic effects fall a little short of the best recent recordings - the snare drum in La gazza ladra simply doesn't richocet off the walls as it can in live performances or contemporary SACD CDs. However, the musicianship remains very high, and if you originally owned and liked the first LP issues, these on CD will not be a disappointment.

A nine page essay in English by Philip Gosset discusses the overtures in fair historical detail - also in French and German translation.

A very good set, then, with the understanding that most people might be happy with a single CD of Rossini's overtures, such as Rossini: Overtures or in an expensive but stunning SACD reissue of the Cleveland Orchestra under Szell Rossini, Auber, Berlioz: Overtures [SACD]. For the adventuresome, this set should provide a wealth of interest and much pleasure.

Playing one of the CDs again I am even more impressed by the level of achievement. This is a terrific CD set!--Doug Haydn Listen to samples

ROSSINI - OVERTURE: THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)

Within two decades, from 1810 to 1829, Rossini wrote thirty-eight opera, and then no more in the remaining years of his life. About ten of his operatic overtures survive in the concert-room, among them that attached to The Barber of Seville. Rossini wrote the opera early in 1816, taking a bare four weeks, maybe even less, in the joyous task, for the first performance was on February 20, in Rome. Initially, the opera was a failure, but neither it nor its famous Beaumarchais plot bears any relation to the Overture to the opera, said to have been composed on Spanish popular themes, is lost. The present Overture came to The Barber by way of Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira (first performed in Milan, May 22, 1813) and Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra (first performed in Naples, October 4, 1815)

An Andante maestoso (E Major, common-time) with dramatic contrasts, leads to a pulsing Allegro vivace (E minor, alla breve) with a jaunty middle section and a more suave closing section which rises to a climax before a recapitulation of the opening part of the Allegro and a return to the tonic major in time for a sparkling coda.. 

Programme Note C Felix Aprahamian, 1983 

Schubert: Rosamunde; Die Zauberharfe Overture; Ständchen

"Rosamunde" is one of Schubert's most gratifying works: it's filled with lovely melodies, and this classic mono recording from 1952/53 is quite simply the one to have. Late in 1823 Schubert, who had just completed his song cycle "Die Schone Mullerin," was asked to supply incidental music to Helmina von Chezy's play "Rosamunde." Chezy was once described as "a stout, elderly lady with all the qualities of a real blue-stocking, careless and slovenly in her appearance, not blessed with any earthly goods, but with a great deal of self-sufficiency." Apparently the play (now lost) was really terrible: it closed after only two performances. Schubert had to write this music in great haste to meet the premiere's deadline - reportedly he completed it in only 5 days! There was no time to write a separate overture, so instead Schubert borrowed one from his opera "Alfonso and Estrelle." Later the 1820 overture to his opera "The Magic Harp" was substituted, and that is the one we know today as the "Rosamunde" overture.

My suggestion: start your listening with the Magic Harp overture on track 12 (DG has mis-numbered the CD tracks here, inadvertently assigning track 11 twice: the jacket indicates Magic Harp as being on track 11, but it's really on track 12). It's one of Schubert's finest works and has those charmingly obsessive rhythmic patterns that would flower at their fullest in his 9th Symphony (and virtually all the symphonies of Bruckner as well). The Alphonse and Estrella overture on track 1 is much less interesting, and Lehmann's performance of it is a tad hard-boiled.

The rest of the performances are simply wonderful: excellent choral work and some lustrous playing by Furtwangler's Berlin Philharmonic. The contralto singing of Diana Eustrati in the charming Romance is beautiful, and the wind playing throughout is some of the finest on records: note especially the Shephard's Melody (track 8) for unaccompanied winds and the Act II ballet music (track 11) - clearly a foretaste of Dvorak.

The last track (identified as 12 but really 13) features the exquisite serenade "Zogernd leise," for female choir and piano (accompanied here by the excellent Lieder pianist Michael Raucheisen, who also recorded a great Winterreise with Hotter). This genial late work (1827) is in some ways the highlight of the entire set.

My only quibbles: no texts for the vocal parts, the aforementioned track mis-numberings, and recorded sound which, while perfectly acceptable, is a shade dry when compared with the fuller, warmer sound of the original 2-disc LP set. I was also a little saddened to discover that Schubert's setting of Psalm No. 23 "Gott mein Zuversicht" for piano and woman's chorus, which was on the original LP issue, has been left out here.

The short-lived Fritz Lehmann (1904-1956) was one of Germany's finest conductors: he died suddenly during the intermission of a performance of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion at Munich. DG has already released two of his greatest recordings on CD: a magnificent Brahms Requiem and my very favorite readings of Handel's Water Music and Royal Fireworks. Lehmann's old-fashioned but wonderful reading ("live" 1949) of the St. Matthew Passion is available on a Music and Arts CD set: it has Helmut Krebs as an expert Evangelist and, as Jesus, the 24 year old Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Lehmann's superbly incisive accompaniment in Stefan Askenase's Chopin Piano Concerto #2 can be heard in that pianist's wonderful 7-disc Chopin CD set on DG.

Hopefully DG will re-issue more of Lehmann's best recordings: the two Mendelssohn Piano Concertos with Helmut Roloff (superior, I think, to Perahia's and Serkin's), the Dvorak Serenade for Strings (second only to Talich's), Mozart's Serenade #10 (even better than Furtwangler's), his very romantic Schubert "Unfinished" and Mozart 40th, and Brahms' Tragic Overture and Schicksalslied.

Warmly recommended. --By Jeffrey Lipscomb

Overture “Rosamunde”

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

When Schubert was pired, music took shape in his mind faster than his pen could move across paper. And in his incidental music to the Romantic drama Rosamunde, Princess of Cypress he was often in spired. He began composing on November 30, 1823, and finished on December 18, 1823, two days before the premiere. Not much time was left to rehearse either the music or the production’s two ballets, and no time at all to compose an overture. In fact Schubert never did compose an overture to Rosamunde. Instead he used an overture already composed for an earlier work.

                One of Schubert’s close friends, the famous Romantic painter Moritz von Schwind, describing the Rosamunde premiere to a mutual friend, wrote that the Overture was taken from Schubert’s opera, Alfonso and Estrella. But Schubert’s opera, Alfonso and Estrella. But Schwind’s comments on the music do not fit the Overture to Alfonso and Estrella. On the other hand, they do fit Schubert’s Overture to an earlier “magic play” (Zauberstück) called The Magic Harp (Die Zauberharte). Add to this the fact that the Zauberharte Overture was published (in a four-hand piano version) shortly before Schubert’s death as the Overture to Rosamunde, and the conclusion seems almost inescapable. It is the Zauberharte Overture that is customarity performed today under the title of Overture to Rosamunde.

                The drama Rosamunde, Princess of Cypress survived for exactly two performances. Even though Schubert’s music had been singled out by the Viennese press for high praise, it fell into obscurity along with the play and was not brought to light again in its entirely until 1867, when Sir Arthur Sullivan made a joint expedition to Vienna for the purpose of unearthing Schubert’s still-neglected manuscripts. The two men were successful beyond their wildest dreams, and in the booty they brought back to London were parts of Schubert’s Rosamunde music, which was performed, in London, for the first time since the Viennese production of the drama.

                The orchestra for the Rosamunde (Zauberharte) Overture calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and the standard choir or strings.

                                                                                 Edward Downes

Dvorák: Cello Concerto, Op. 104

This is a supreme classic of the gramophone catalogue. It is a glorious disc, representing Rostropovich at his peak. The Berlin Philharmonic and Karajan are on top form as well. From the rapt opening of the Dvorak concerto, Karajan and his band create the most wonderful atmosphere for the soloist to play in. Dvorak's Cello concerto is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, work for the cello in the concerto repertoire. Rostropvich's magnificently full tone is perfect for this work. There is hardly anything you could criticise about the disc. The Dvorak is full of passion, fire, lyricism you could wish for, but Rostropvich doesn't pull out all the stops. He keeps certain degrees of fire in reserve for the really big moments. The dialog between the soloist and orchstra are unmatched in its chamber-like quality. It's a give-and-take performance, and what a performance! This particular recording of the Rococo Variations is unsurpassed. It has so much wit, panache, elegance, and the addition of Karajan being a master Tchaikovskian helps enormously. The playing matches the beauty and elegance and the Rustic charm of this piece fully with the soloist. This piece is pretty difficult to play, as there are many technical difficulties which surround the soloist, but Rostropovich, with his rich palette of tone colours, make the piece sound easy, very easy. My favouite in the Variations has to be the Finale, where Rostropovich finally pulls out all his powers and lets rip. The way he 'talks' with the orchestra is unmatched in its imaginativeness. All the parties involved really give the impression that they are really having fun, which in turn gives the listener the same impression. A most joyful way to end a glorious disc. I realise that I have been pretty indulgent with my use of superlatives, but I am lost for words, really. It really is a great disc, whose reputation is for once not exaggerated. If you don't have this CD right now, you should get a copy immediately.--P. Rah "Prahcello" Listen to samples

Favourite Cello Concertos

During her far-too-brief career, cellist Jacqueline du Pré exhibited an almost oracular power of communication. Her performances bristled with the kind of brilliant electricity that could change lives and convert listeners to a lifelong love of music. Happily, it's possible to experience a sense of that power from the recordings du Pré completed before multiple sclerosis halted her career as a performer in the early 1970s. This set provides a splendid portrait--at bargain price--of du Pré's unmistakable personality: the astonishingly original yet convincing phrasing, raw energy, and ability to make her instrument sound uncannily like a human voice (du Pré was after all a favored student of Mstislav Rostropovich). Her rendition of Haydn's Concerto in C is clearly cast in a romantic--and nowadays perhaps unfashionable--mold, yet du Pré's big, bold tone carries the musical line forward with exhilarating presence. It's a demeanor that proves especially reassuring for the quirkily mercurial inventions of Boccherini. Yet du Pré most indelibly leaves her signature on the work that became her hallmark, Edward Elgar's E Minor Concerto, grafting a deeply personal level of expression onto the score's rich post-World War I melancholy. In the Schumann, du Pré makes an eloquently passionate protagonist. A similar sense of excitement is to be heard in Dvorák's Concerto--performed near the end of her career--above all in the flame of inspiration she evidently sparks from the orchestra in the serene close of its slow movement. This is a supremely rewarding collection for the beginner and aficionado alike. --Thomas May Listen to samples

Cello Concerto in B minor Opus 104

Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)



The World famous Czech composer was born in the outskist of Prague into the music Coving family of village butcher. He was as customary educated by the church organist and lead the village Brassband. His numorous Slavonik Dances were very popular not only in Czechoscovak but also throughout Europe and America. He became Professor & Director of the Czech National Conservatory. Cambridge Universary conferred the rare Mus. D. on him before be sailed across the Atlantic to direct the American National Academy of Music 1893-1895. He composed the world master works “New World” Symphony and the F major op. 96 String Quartet. White Theoi he met Victor Herbert the American cellist compose who urged Dvorak to write a cello Concerto.

Dvorak Cello concerto begin with the long Tutti introduction. The cello repeated the Subject and lead to the 2^nd theme in the usual “Sonata Form” with the long cadenza before ending.

2^nd movement is as lovely as the Adagio in the “New World” Symphony. Clarinets was he employed in place of Cadenza. The final 2^nd movement.