Classical recording crisis? What crisis? The year brought a steady stream of worthwhile, stimulating releases as the big record labels discovered what the indies knew long ago: Smaller is better. Much less in evidence were the expensive, star-oriented opera projects, the mindless duplication of standard repertory recordings and the cynical bingeing on crossover that not so long ago signaled an industry in economic panic.
Of course, things have not yet settled down. Nobody seems to know, for instance, what the recent merger of those former giants, BMG Classics and Sony Classical, will portend. The good news is that 2004 saw the issuing of more interesting and important new recordings than collectors, myself included, could possibly keep up with.
1. William Bolcom, “Songs of Innocence and of Experience.” Soloists, University of Michigan School of Music Symphony Orchestra and Choirs, Leonard Slatkin, conductor (Naxos, three CDs) If American composition in the late 20th Century has a single defining work, it is this sprawling masterpiece. Bolcom’s 2 1/2-hour song cycle, set to the mystical poems of William Blake, is a multicultural stew — atonal modernism, Mahlerian romanticism, ragtime, rock, folk, country, Broadway and reggae are tossed in the pot and brought to a merry boil. Everything hangs together miraculously well because Bolcom is a master of his many musical domains.
2. Berlioz, “Les Troyens.” Soloists, Monteverdi Choir, Theatre du Chatelet Chorus, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner, conductor (Opus Arte, three DVDs) This grandest of French Romantic operas needs theatrical space around it to make its epic effect. It gets that space in this triumphant period-instrument performance from Paris’ Chatelet Theater in October 2003. Gardiner’s flair for Berlioz shows in his expert shaping of individual scenes against the mighty sweep of the narrative, the colorful interplay of sonorities he gets from his musicians and the persuasive performances of Susan Graham as Dido, Gregory Kunde as Aeneas, Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cassandra, among other soloists.
3. Shostakovich, Symphony No. 4. Kirov Orchestra, Valery Gergiev, conductor (Philips) This masterpiece from 1935-36 is the strangest of the great Shostakovich symphonies, two huge outer movements framing a brief Mahlerian scherzo. The music’s passions are white-hot, ignited by vast orchestral forces, often sinking into miasmas of brooding dissonance. If there’s any conductor today who can make sense of the score’s seemingly random lurches from event to event, it’s Gergiev. This third entry in what promises to be a complete Shostakovich symphony cycle from the maestro and his St. Petersburg players will make your hair stand on end.
4. “Carlo Maria Giulini in Rehearsal.” Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Giulini, conductor (Arthaus Musik DVD) The great conductor Carlo Maria Giulini was 83 when he conducted the affecting concert performance of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 that occupies the second half of this DVD. You would never guess it from the physical vigor, spiritual intensity and lyrical warmth he brings to his interpretation. The German orchestra plays its collective heart out for him, in a performance that’s faster and tauter than the maestro’s two audio recordings.
5. Rachmaninov, Piano Concertos Nos. 1-4, “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” Stephen Hough, piano; Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton, conductor (Hyperion, two CDs and Super Audio CDs) Here at last we have a major pianist using the brilliance at his disposal to illuminate what the composer wrote, rather than himself. Drawn mostly from live performances (the Paganini Rhapsody was taped in studio sessions), these recordings are true to the romantic performance practice of the composer’s time, with its emphasis on subtly expressive rubato and improvisatory freedom.
6. Ives, Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord”; 17 songs. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano; Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano (Warner Classics) Charles Ives’ 50-minute “Concord” Sonata is a ferocious crazy-quilt interwoven with polytonality, tone clusters and unmetered rhythm. Yet its mystical serenity speaks of Ives’ spiritual identification with the New England transcendentalists. This is fiendishly difficult music to play, but Aimard is more than equal to its rigors on this glorious new recording.
7. “Great Tenor Arias.” Juan Diego Florez, tenor; Giuseppe Verdi Orchestra and Chorus, Carlo Rizzi, conductor (Decca, CD and SACD) This latest pretender to King Pavarotti’s throne will make his belated Lyric Opera debut next season in one of his Rossini specialties, “La Cenerentola.” In this splendid recital we get to hear why the opera world is all aflutter over the Peruvian tenor.
8. Mussorgsky, Symphonic Transcriptions by Stokowski (“Pictures at an Exhibition”; “A Night on Bare Mountain”; “Boris Godunov,” Symphonic Synthesis). Cleveland Orchestra, Oliver Knussen, conductor (DG) The Russian master Mussorgsky and the great colorist among legendary 20th Century conductors were meant to meet. Leopold Stokowski’s orchestration of “Pictures at an Exhibition” may omit two of the portraits in the Hartmann gallery, may yield a few subtleties to the more famous Ravel orchestration, but it’s pretty spectacular stuff.
9. “Itzhak Perlman Rediscovered.” Perlman, violin; David Garvey, piano (RCA Red Seal) According to producer Max Wilcox, RCA shelved this debut recital for nearly 40 years because it felt “a mixed bag of violin pieces didn’t seem appropriate” for an artist of the young Itzhak Perlman’s stature. The characteristics of the violinist’s tone and style already were firmly in place in 1965 when he made these recordings of sonatas and short pieces.
10. Mahler, Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”; Debussy: “La Mer.” Soloists, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Orfeon Donastiarra, Claudio Abbado, conductor (DG, two CDs) Abbado has made two distinguished recordings of the Mahler Second, one of them with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1977. So why bother with a third? Because this live recording brings an extra immediacy to an even more persuasive reading, and because it showcases the maestro’s hand-picked resident orchestra from the Lucerne Festival, a superb ensemble consisting of Mahler Chamber Orchestra alumni augmented by present and former principals of the Berlin Philharmonic. A lucid, shimmering “La Mer” completes a distinguished recording debut, marred only by unflattering sound.
Honorable mentions: Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony (SF Symphony); Schubert’s “Die Winterreise,” a live recording with baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Alfred Brendel (Decca); the complete orchestral works of Arthur Berger, played by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under Gil Rose (New World); Haydn’s “The Seasons,” with Rene Jacobs conducting (Harmonia Mundi); Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra and “City Scape,” with the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Spano (Telarc); “Through the Years,” short pieces played by pianist Dmitry Paperno (Cedille).
Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 9 and 18, performed and conducted by Leif Ove Andsnes (EMI); volume two of Carlos Chavez’s chamber music, by Southwest Chamber Music (Cambria); Britten’s “Peter Grimes,” with the London Symphony Orchestra under Colin Davis (LSO Live); Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and Choral Fantasy, with pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard and conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Warner Classics).
