CD REVIEW: Ludwig van Beethoven – MISSA SOLEMNIS (Kammerchor der KlangVerwaltung; Orchester der KlangVerwaltung; Enoch zu Guttenberg; FARAO B108053)

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770 – 1827) – Missa solemnis in D major, Op. 123: S. Bernhard, A. Vondung, P. Breslik, Y.F. Speer; Kammerchor der KlangVerwaltung; Orchester der KlangVerwaltung; Enoch zu Guttenberg [recorded in concert at the Herkulessaal der Münchner Residenz, Munich, on 07 March 2009; FARAO B108053]

It is evident from the opening chords of this performance, recorded ‘live’ in Munich in March 2009, that Maestro Enoch zu Guttenberg intended this to be a refreshingly ‘new’ Missa solemnis, even after much-discussed ‘period’ performances by the likes of Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Philippe Herreweghe.  Textures are cleaner, not necessarily lighter than in ‘traditional’ performances but articulated with admirable clarity, and balances are often little short of revelatory in the sense that details of Beethoven’s dense orchestration are granted welcome prominence without undermining the broader structure of each movement.  This is a performance that sets out not so much to ‘rethink’ the Missa solemnis from an academic perspective as to simply approach the score with unbiased eyes and ears.  What seems an instinctive approach to a work as famously complicated as the Missa solemnis has nonetheless eluded many conductors and performances, the former pursuing ambitious efforts at leaving individual marks on the music and the latter becoming mired in those efforts.  In the celebrated performances conducted by Otto Klemperer, listeners were allowed to see through music the rage and exaltation of Beethoven’s concept of the Divine.  On this recording, Maestro zu Guttenberg presides over a performance that provides glimpses of a slightly less tumultuous but no less glorious firmament, decisions regarding tempi and instrumental color varying widely from those familiar in Klemperer’s performances and also those of period-practice specialists but equally rooted in a deep respect for Beethoven’s score.  What Maestro zu Guttenberg exhibits anew is that conductors need not strive to make the Missa solemnis monumental: the quality and profundity of the music, when allowed to unfold as Beethoven indicated in his score, are all that are required to reveal the spiritual significance and musical importance of what is by any measure one of the greatest achievements of Western art.

FARAO, a label responsible for the preservation of a number of fine operatic performances from Munich, present this performance of the Missa solemnis in sound of demonstration quality for ‘live’ recordings.  There are a few coughs and other noises off to be heard, mostly in the pauses between movements, but these are never disturbing and are merely inevitable elements of recording a work in concert before an audience.  These are more than offset in this recording (and would be were they increased ten-fold) by the immediacy of sound achieved by recording ‘live.’  There are unique qualities of a ‘live’ performance before an audience that cannot be duplicated even by recording in the same space under studio conditions, qualities that are not limited to the frisson of a live occasion and the interactions among performers and their audience.  There are very basic sonic implications of a sea of human bodies in the space: opera houses and concert halls were designed with the intention of being inhabited by audiences, their physical presence contributing to the spatial ambience of the acoustics.  FARAO have ideally captured the acoustics of Munich’s Herkulessaal with the charged atmosphere of a live performance combined with the clarity and careful balances typical of studio recordings.  This is among the best-recorded accounts of the Missa solemnis in the discography and one that is a credit to the performance that it documents.

The Orchester and Kammerchor der KlangVerwaltung are relatively new ensembles in the context of Teutonic instrumental and choral groups.  The Orchester, founded in 1997, is comprised of players from many of Germany’s and Austria’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Berliner, Münchner, and Wiener Philharmonikers.  Playing with the distinction and accomplishment that this implies, the Orchester meet Maestro zu Guttenberg’s demands with unwavering dedication and an impressively high level of execution.  Founded three years later, in 2000, the Kammerchor is likewise comprised of members of other distinguished choral ensembles, as well as experienced young singers from throughout southern Germany.  For musical accuracy and security of tone, the members of the Kammerchor need fear no comparisons with the famed choirs that take part in other recorded performances of the Missa solemnis.  Both instrumentalists and choristers consistently rise to the challenges of Beethoven’s music with heartening fearlessness, completely obliterating recollections of staid performances in the Teutonic tradition from generations past.  Maestro zu Guttenberg takes advantage of the various experiences of his orchestra and choir to shape a performance of a work that is audibly of the early Nineteenth Century but not limited in scope or impact by its time.

The performance is also fortunate to have a quartet of capable young soloists.  Munich-born soprano Susanne Bernhard, already at her young age an experienced Violetta in La Traviata and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, sings the soprano’s solo lines—which are nothing less than operatic—beautifully, soaring into her upper register with appealing freedom.  Anke Vondung, a very promising young German mezzo-soprano who made her Metropolitan Opera début as Cherubini in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro on 2 October 2007, effectively delivers the alto lines, which admittedly do not allow plentiful opportunities to display the beauty of her voice.  Many performances of the Missa solemnis are let down by inadequate work by the bass soloist, to whom Beethoven entrusted the heartrending opening of the Agnus Dei.  Young German bass Yorck Felix Speer sings admirably throughout the performance, however, bringing special intensity and pointed vocalism to his critical contributions to the Agnus Dei.  Most impressive among the soloists is Slovak tenor Pavol Breslik.  One of the finest tenors of his generation, he made his début at the Metropolitan Opera as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni on 13 April 2009, and will return to the MET in the 2010 – 11 season to sing Ferrando in the much-anticipated revival of Così fan tutte in which famed Baroque specialist and founder of Les Arts Florissants William Christie will make his MET début.  In this performance, Mr. Breslik brings to the tenor’s solo lines the plangent beauty and security of tone that have won the appreciation of audiences and critics throughout Europe.  His contributions to the opening Kyrie set the high standard for the performance, and he completes a solo quartet that is unique among recent recordings of the Missa solemnis for reliable, attractive singing.

In a matter of musicological significance, Maestro zu Guttenberg prefers the choral singing of the great ‘Osanna’ fugue rather than the assignment of the passage to the solo quartet—a decision based upon ambiguous markings in Beethoven’s manuscript—preferred by Klemperer and other conductors.  There is an undeniably rewarding precision possible when the fugue is sung by the soloists, but in a performance such as this one, in which the choristers diligently articulate the interweaving subjects in contrapuntal passages, the resulting breadth of the music makes the singing of the ‘Osanna’ by the full chorus seem inherently right.

Reviewing a 1934 performance of the Missa solemnis conducted by Arturo Toscanini, the first performance of the work by the New York Philharmonic (with the almost unbelievable quartet of Elisbeth Rethberg, Sigrid Onegin, Paul Althouse, and Ezio Pinza), an article in Time magazine stated that ‘few conductors choose to give the Missa solemnis because of its great technical difficulties, its demands on the human voice for which Beethoven never learned to write considerately.’  Those who love Fidelio might take exception at the suggestion that Beethoven never mastered composition for the voice, but it is an oft-repeated notion that is supported by plentiful examples of performances featuring singers stretched to and beyond the limits of their abilities.  Beethoven was not known during his lifetime as an adaptable man: in life and in music, he wanted what he wanted, and compromise was improbable.  Perhaps it is the lot of a great genius to demand perfection without ever truly hoping for it, to put forth visions to which contemporary eyes are not yet ready to adjust.  This is a performance, compelling not just in its unruffled grandeur but equally in its moments of sublime simplicity, that redeems the Missa solemnis from its reputation for near-insurmountable technical demands.  Enoch zu Guttenberg and his teams of excellent soloists, choristers, and instrumentalists display a communal acceptance that, in his Missa solemnis, Beethoven wanted what he wanted and, giving him what he wanted, prove that he was right.

CD REVIEW: Johann Sebastian Bach – MASS IN B MINOR (Dunedin Consort & Players; John Butt; Linn Records CKD354)

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685 – 1750) – Mass in B Minor, BWV 232: S. Hamilton, C. Osmond, M. Oitzinger, T. Hobbs, M. Brook; Dunedin Consort & Players; John Butt [recorded at Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 13 – 17 September 2009; Linn Records CDK354]

Lest matters of scholarship and disparate editions of the score distract from the merits of the performance at hand, it must be stated at the start that this new recording from Dunedin Consort and Players presents a superb performance of Bach’s monumental B-minor Mass.  As in their prior releases of works by Bach (Matthäus-Passion) and Händel (Acis and Galatea, Messiah), Linn Records have provided top-of-the-line sound, preserving careful balances among singers and players but also granting space within the Greyfriars Kirk acoustic for tonal expansion without troublesome echoes.  This is a performance that, examined solely on the grounds of the quality of music-making, is competitive with the best recordings of the B-minor Mass in the discography.  The soloists—sopranos Susan Hamilton and Cecilia Osmond, mezzo-soprano Margot Oitzinger, tenor Thomas Hobbs, and bass Matthew Brook—are a splendid lot, perhaps less inclined to seem individually triumphant because the overall level of their singing is uniformly high.  The timbres of Ms. Hamilton and Ms. Osmond are sufficiently contrasted to lend distinction to each voice when the ladies are singing in duet, and both Ms. Oitzinger and Mr. Brook bring firm tone and great involvement to their singing: Mr. Brook gives a particularly fine account of the spirited ‘Quoniam tu solus sanctus.’  Especially deserving of praise, however, is tenor Thomas Hobbs, a fine young singer whose naturally beautiful, fresh voice—Evangelical, one might deem it in the context of the vocal music of Bach—is complemented by a technique that encompasses all the demands made by Bach’s music.  Maestro Butt and the Dunedin Consort and Players bring to the performance their usual precision and zeal, which is to say that one has the sense of being on the leading edge of historically-informed performance practices, as it were, but also that those numbers in the Mass which require unhurried grandeur receive it.  Musically, this performance is on the best possible footing, and this recording joins Dunedin Consort’s other Bach and Händel performances in the Linn Records catalogue as another of demonstration quality in terms of both musical integrity and sonic reproduction.

As with many Baroque scores, however, matters of scholarship and disparate editions are central to any discussion of Bach’s B-minor Mass.  Perhaps less is known about the life of Bach than about that of any other of the truly great composers of the Baroque, and much of the information pertaining to Bach’s composition of the B-minor Mass is based primarily upon conjecture and theorizing.  It is known that Bach composed the Mass in segments—the Missa consisting of the Kyrie and Gloria; the Symbolum Nicenum (the Credo); and a final segment consisting of the Sanctus, Osanna, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei—during the last thirty years of his life: what is not known is whether Bach ever consciously intended for these segments to be performed as a combined entity, a complete setting of the Latin Mass.  Much of the music in the B-minor Mass is recycled from Bach’s earlier works, but there is an unquestionable stylistic continuity maintained throughout the segments of the Mass.  Some scholars point to the differences in vocal and instrumental scoring among the segments as evidence that Bach never intended for the segments to be united and performed as a single, monumental Mass, the varying numbers and distributions of personnel involved in the different segments complicating performance to a degree that would have been virtually insurmountable during the Eighteenth Century.  It would surely have been atypical for the devoutly Lutheran (by personal practice and by employment) Bach to compose a full musical setting of the ordinary of the Catholic Mass, especially without commission, anticipation of aristocratic patronage, or expectation of performance.  Bach was, after all, an unfailingly practical composer whose works were carefully crafted to make full use of the abilities of the musical forces at his disposal.  It is possible to debate the sources of the creative impetus that led to Bach’s composition of the segments of the B-minor Mass, but the products of that creativity are of indisputable importance.

The present recorded performance is the first to use the 2006 edition of the score prepared by American conductor and musicologist Joshua Rifkin, published by Breitkopf und Härtel.  Mr. Rifkin was among the first scholars to propose the notion of performing Bach’s larger-scaled liturgical works with one voice to a part even in the most complex choral movements, as he believes was the practice during Bach’s lifetime, a theory also espoused by the British conductor Andrew Parrott and taken up by a number of influential conductors of Bach’s music during the first decade of the new millennium.  As stated at the start, the singers in the present performance are all capable of dealing competently and eloquently with Bach’s demands, both in their solo arias and ensembles and in the choruses, and there are unquestionable rewards in hearing the intricacies of fugal subjects and countersubjects executed with the clarity possible with single or doubled voices.  One of the most admirable qualities of the recording is that, even with the slim-lined vocal personnel, big-boned choruses avoid seeming conspicuously anemic because the singing and playing are so committed.  Maestro Butt and his band have found the most persuasive manner of realizing Mr. Rifkin’s concept of the B-minor Mass and achieve a performance of beauty, spirituality, and impeccable musicality that render the academic aspect of the enterprise unobtrusive.

Even in an era in which the musical environment is populated by many gifted Early Music specialists, Maestro Butt and his Dunedin Consort colleagues are surely exceptional, however, and the question of the suitability of Mr. Rifkin’s theories to the B-minor Mass lingers.  Without exploring the implications of Bach’s role as choirmaster-in-chief during his Leipzig tenure on his compositional modus operandi, there is surely evidence within the music of the Mass itself that provides clues to scholars and musicians alike about the nature of the music as Bach conceived it, despite the fact that very few passages in the Mass were newly composed specifically for their functions within the Mass.  What cannot be denied is that, whatever the circumstances of its conception and composition (matters upon which musicologists will almost certainly have to content themselves with uncertainty), Bach’s B-minor Mass is a monumental work that was without equal until Beethoven completed his Missa solemnis almost a century later, though had it been completed Mozart’s C-minor Große Messe (K. 427) would have run it close.  Indeed, the individual fragments of the B-minor Mass may well have been among the then-obscure works of Bach and Händel that Mozart studied in Vienna at the instigation of Baron van Swieten at the time during which he was composing his C-minor Mass.  Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, though strikingly original, was composed in the Viennese tradition inherited from Haydn and Mozart, whose liturgical works Beethoven knew and admired, a tradition derived from the late Baroque masterpieces of Bach and Händel.  [Haydn, for instance, cited Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel as an important influence on his own development as a composer, and it is known that the younger Bach advocated and performed segments from what would eventually be known as his father’s B-minor Mass during the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century.]  Haydn’s, Mozart’s, and Beethoven’s masses were all scored for ensembles of soloists and choruses that, though it is impossible to ascertain their precise numbers, surely consisted of substantially more than one or two voices per part, but the fugal passages in their masses are nonetheless modeled closely on those found in Bach’s Passions and B-minor Mass.  While it might not be sound scholarship to suggest that Bach’s absolute familiarity with the abilities of the choristers at his command throughout his career contributed decisively to his style of composition in choral pieces, it is surely wrongheaded and disingenuous to ignore the fact that Bach had at hand during his last years in Leipzig the choirs of both the Nikolaikirche and the Thomaskirche, as well as the youth choir of the Thomasschule, which was significantly expanded under Bach’s guidance.  In Bach’s time, the Thomaskirche was—as it is now—equipped with two organs, reminiscent of the tradition of ‘grand’ and ‘choir’ organs in French cathedrals, an arrangement of which Bach took full advantage when he revised his Matthäus-Passion for performance in Leipzig.  Was it straightforward musical progress, a conscious effort at expanding the scope of choral music, that inspired Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven to depart from the presumed one-voice-to-a-part tradition scholars like Mr. Rifkin suggest that they inherited from Bach?  Could these geniuses have merely misunderstood or misinterpreted the choral writing of their ancestor?

This recording by the Dunedin Consort and Players provides a sterling example of the viability of the one-voice-to-a-part concept proposed by Mr. Rifkin and other Bach scholars (including John Butt), but the excellence of music-making is to some extent damaging to the academic position the performance seeks to represent in that the quality of the singing and playing fully reveals the brilliance of Bach’s score.  Even when executed with skill and commitment that meet and veritably rejoice in the challenges set by the music, Bach’s music cries out for the thrilling sounds of massed voices, double choirs placed on opposite sides of a great space, if not thundering as was heard in Victorian performances at least raising a glorious din.  With excellent players and gifted singers, John Butt and the Dunedin Consort achieve a stirring performance of the B-minor Mass that is a gift to any listener who loves the music of Bach.  The recording is also an experiment, though, and its very success is also its failure.  It is suggested that gossip almost always begins with a speck of truth.  However hoary, however inconsistent with what academics deem to be ‘authentic,’ are decades-old performance practices completely arbitrary?  Is it not possible that traditions are merely the continuations of the better aspects of the past?

CD REVIEW: Frédéric Chopin & Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – PIANO MUSIC (Miloš Mihajlović, piano; Bel Air Music BAM2046)

FRÉDÉRIC FRANÇOIS CHOPIN (1810 – 1849) & WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756 – 1791): Piano Music – Miloš Mihajlović, piano [recorded at the Lucky Sound Studio in Belgrade, Serbia, during December 2009; Bel Air Music BAM2046]

PROGRAM

Fantasia No. 3 in D minor, K. 397 [Mozart]

Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, K. 310 [Mozart]

Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 [Chopin]

Étude No. 8 in F Major, Op. 10 [Chopin]

Waltz in D-flat Major (‘Minute’ Waltz), Op. 64 No. 1 [Chopin]

Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20 [Chopin]

Waltz in C-Sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2 [Chopin]

Andante spianato & Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22 [Chopin]

Winner of the 2009 Southern Highlands International Piano Competition in New South Wales, Australia, Serbian pianist Miloš Mihajlović received in recognition of his victory the opportunity to make this recording of music by Chopin—much represented on disc this year in both new releases and reissues timed for celebration of the bicentennial of his birth—and Mozart for Bel Air Music, a venture underwritten by Australia’s award-winning Tertini Wines.  What in previous generations was essentially an inevitable rite of passage for a young musician after winning a major competition is in the economic environment of the present recording industry a decided luxury.  In the case of Miloš Mihajlović, it is a luxury for which those who appreciate the music of Chopin and Mozart and those who take special interest in wonderfully promising young pianists should be grateful.

None of the pieces on this disc is unfamiliar or under-represented on commercial recordings.  Whereas many young pianists who are fortunate enough to make recordings in the early stages of their careers are eager to make their marks with performances of lesser-known pieces of which there are not scores of recordings by the greatest pianists of the past century, Mr. Mihajlović possesses the courage and foresight to make his international recording début with music squarely at the center of the traditional piano repertory.  It can be dangerous for a young artist to invite comparisons of his work with decades of recorded performances by seasoned, celebrated pianists: when his playing is shaped by an assured technique and genuine interpretive insights, however, his credentials are appreciated on their own merits, and the risks are justified.  With the recent publicity concerning the concert performances by the legendary Ivo Pogorelić, perhaps merely the mention of a ‘new’ pianist from Serbia is sufficient to garner interest, but his playing on this disc reveals that Mr. Mihajlović has at his command the complete technical mastery and mature artistry not only to satisfy a music lover’s curiosity but also to stand proudly alongside Mr. Pogorelić and to join the ranks of the finest pianists of the new century.

The piece with which the disc opens, Mozart’s D-minor Fantasia (K. 397), is among the Salzburg master’s most enigmatic and difficult pieces for piano.  Little is known about the circumstances of the composition of the Fantasia except that Mozart never completed the piece.  The incomplete form in which it survives creates many mysteries: called a Fantasia because of its meandering musical moods and unpredictable changes in tempo, the piece adheres to none of the musical forms prevalent in music for the piano in Mozart’s time.  Though of great technical difficulty, this lack of formal boundaries has made the Fantasia popular with pianists because the scope for individual interpretation is broadened.  Mr. Mihajlović plays the piece with rhythmic freedom that exploits the rhapsodic nature of the Fantasia, but he also maintains an audible sense of grace that reminds the listener that this is music by Mozart.  The A-minor Sonata (K. 310/300d), one of only two of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas in minor keys, is also a seminal work.  Composed in Paris during the summer of 1778, Mozart’s work on the Sonata may have coincided with the sudden illness and death of his beloved mother, who died at their flat in the rue du Sentier on 3 July 1778.  It is perhaps irresponsible to suggest that any one of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas is his most profound, but the A-minor Sonata undeniably contains some of its composer’s most brooding music for the solo piano.  Mr. Mihajlović’s performance of the Sonata, observing every stylistic element of the piece with precision that suggests both absolute familiarity with the music and understanding of historically-informed practices in the playing of keyboard music of Mozart’s era, exhibits the same approach that sounds inherently right for the music that can be heard from a ‘period specialist’ keyboardist such as András Schiff—a considerable achievement for a young pianist.  So extraordinary is the stylistic aptitude with which Mr. Mihajlović plays the Mozart selections on the disc that it is possible to think that he is, in fact, playing a period pianoforte rather than a modern instrument.  Equally impressive, though, is his respect for the emotional nuances of the music, every shift in mood rendered poetically but without distorting the musical continuity.  Mr. Mihajlović’s playing proves as eloquently as that of any pianist in recent memory that the greatest test of a musician’s artistry is to perform in a manner that allows the music at hand to be heard on its own terms, and with his playing of these Mozart pieces Mr. Mihajlović rivals the best performances of this repertory by allowing the listener to hear, unencumbered, the voice of Mozart.

If more demanding from a purely technical perspective, it might be argued that the music of Chopin is, in comparison with that of Mozart, more emotionally direct, the later composer’s pieces more consistently evoking a specific mood rather than proving temperamentally chameleonic like the music of Mozart.  That Mr. Mihajlović so thoroughly inhabits through his playing the musical world of Chopin is remarkable after hearing his stylistically spot-on playing of Mozart.  In the first Chopin piece on this disc, the G-minor Ballade (Op. 23, No. 1), Mr. Mihajlović announces to the listener the dizzying virtuosity of his playing, a quality that never fails him in any of the pieces on the disc.  Even in Chopin, however, Mr. Mihajlović searches beyond the furious flurries of notes, quietly underlining rhythmic buoyancy and using dynamic contrasts to reveal unexpected hues in even the very familiar ‘Minute’ Waltz and C-minor Waltz (Op. 64, No. 2).  The wonderful B-minor Scherzo (Op. 20, No. 1) receives a particularly fine performance: with his exaltedly lyrical playing of the contemplative second theme, Mr. Mihajlović—on Chopin’s behalf—aims for the heart.  Both in the Scherzo and in the Opus 22 Andante spianato & Grande Polonaise (played here without its original orchestral accompaniment) that closes the recital, Mr. Mihajlović shapes Chopin’s delicate melodic phrases with unimpeachable poise, executing the ornaments with the distinction of a great bel canto singer performing an aria by Bellini.  Primary and secondary themes, harmonies, bass figurations in accompaniments, and the most elaborate of ornaments are all in Mr. Mihajlović’s playing equally important components of the music.  Chopin of course knew and admired Bellini during the time when both composers were in Paris, and without in any way diminishing appreciation of his technical brilliance perhaps the most memorable quality of Mr. Mihajlović’s playing of Chopin on this disc is his talent for truly making the piano seem to sing.

It also merits mention that this is an excellently-recorded disc, engineered by Mr. Mihajlović, produced by Aleksandar Radulović, and mastered for Bel Air Music by Ole Jorgensen.  Both balances and the timbre of the instrument are clear, with only a pair of the piano’s highest tones losing focus.  Throughout, the listener has the aural perspective of hearing a recital in a small venue.

The unfortunate truth is that, much as the advocates of both genres might deny it, serious concert music and popular music are very much alike in the ways in which talented youngsters come and go.  Artists who display from the first the indescribable affinity for survival are sadly rare.  If his artistry continues to develop after the manner represented by his playing of the music of Mozart and Chopin on this disc, Miloš Mihajlović is a pianist whose work will endure for decades to come and whose name will be synonymous with pianism of the highest order.

CD REVIEW: Ruggero Leoncavallo – I MEDICI (P. Domingo, C. Álvarez, D. Dessì, R. Lamanda, E. Owens; DGG 477 7456)

RUGGERO LEONCAVALLO (1857 – 1919): I Medici – P. Domingo (Giuliano de’ Medici), C. Álvarez (Lorenzo de’ Medici), D. Dessì (Simonetta Cattanei), R. Lamanda (Fioretta de’ Gori), E. Owens (Giambattista da Montesecco), V. Kowaljow (Francesco Pazzi), C. Bosi (Bernardo Bandini), A. Kotchinian (L’Archivescovo Salviata), F.M. Capitanucci (Il Poliziano); Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Coro di Voci Bianche della Scuola di Musica di Fiesole; Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Alberto Veronesi [recorded in the Teatro Comunale, Florence, during July 2007; DGG 477 7456]

Why?  Even the most ardent admirers of the world’s busiest tenorissimo surely utter this question to themselves when they see another new recording of a forgotten score with their idol at the top of the cast list.  First from DGG there was the studio recording of Isaac Albéniz’s Pepita Jiménez that left many critics and listeners wondering which was more embarrassing, the opera or the performance, though it had to be conceded that our leading man’s singing was the best part of the recording.  Then, there were new versions of zarzuelas recorded in performance in Spain, most notably the Teatro Real production of Luisa Fernanda, valuable documents of Señor Domingo’s work in the musical tradition inherited from his padres and, in general, redolent of the theatre but as well-recorded as many studio sets.  A studio recording of Puccini’s Edgar followed; not quite a forgotten score, it is true, and one with a recording of a legendary Carnegie Hall concert performance with Carlo Bergonzi and Renata Scotto available to anyone who wanted to hear it.  Now there comes this studio recording of Leoncavallo’s long-buried I Medici, utilizing a ‘critical revision’ edited by Graziano Mandozzi and published by Ricordi in 1993.  This critical revision was undoubtedly prepared in order to mark the centenary of the opera’s premiere at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme (where Pagliacci also had its premiere) on 9 November 1893, with Francesco Tamagno—Verdi’s first Otello—as Giuliano de’ Medici.  Perceived by critics and touted by its composer as an Italianate homage to Wagner, I Medici was not successful at its premiere and was heard very infrequently (if ever) thereafter until a 1993 concert performance—also marking the opera’s centenary—by the forces of Alte Oper Frankfurt with Giuseppe Giacomini as Giuliano.

So, again, why?  Even if one is tempted to doubt the underlying artistic merit of the tenor’s recorded exploration of operatic esoterica, one thing for which Plácido Domingo must be congratulated is his ability to secure the collaboration of Deutsche Grammophon in making commercial recordings that surely have decidedly limited aspirations for financial success.  When even Juan Diego Flórez, one of his generation’s most important singers and one very much in his prime, must content himself with few-and-far-between ‘live’ recordings, the influence that Mr. Domingo continues to enjoy is palpable.  Later this year, a new recording of Giordano’s Fedora with Maestro Veronesi presiding over Angela Gheorghiu’s Fedora and Mr. Domingo’s Loris is due for release.  Perhaps, then, the true question is, why I Medici?  With a libretto by the composer, it is a standard-issue veristic tale of amorous entanglements, murders, and conspiracies involving the Church, and it has the undoubted strength of ending with a lynching.  Leoncavallo’s music has Wagnerian pretentions, and unfortunately this is precisely how it sounds; lesser-quality Leoncavallo with an ostentatious vein of Wagner—pasticcio and direct quotes—injected into the flesh.  The score of course lacks the stinging passion of Pagliacci but also the uneasy charm of his Bohème and the wistful pathos of Zazà, but even lesser-quality Leoncavallo is still Leoncavallo, and there are in I Medici moments in which one glimpses the musical distinction of the composer of Pagliacci.

It is to the credit of Alberto Veronesi, with whom Deutsche Grammophon have embarked on an informal verismo series, that these moments in which the music in I Medici seems better than it truly is are relatively plentiful.  Conducting the combined choruses of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Voci Bianche della Scuola di Musica di Fiesole (a children’s ensemble) and the orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Maestro Veronesi conducts the recording, which followed a performance at the 2007 Puccini Festival (mounted for the 150th anniversary of Leoncavallo’s birth), with grace and the good sense to keep things moving when Leoncavallo’s pseudo-Wagnerisms threaten to impede musical and dramatic progress.  Portions of the score obviously regarded by the composer as ‘purple passages’ are allowed to develop naturally but unsentimentally, with Maestro Veronesi gauging his tempos to respect the capacities of his singers.  If not quite the equals of their La Scala counterparts or even their Maggio Musicale ancestors, the Florentine singers and players have Leoncavallo’s idiom—even when it is somewhat diluted on a Wagnerian palette—in their musical mitochondria.  Leoncavallo gives the choristers a good deal to do, and they meet every demand set before them.  Praise is due to Deutsche Grammophon’s engineers for capturing the work of singers and players alike in spacious but detailed sound.

As in most verismo scores, the lion’s share of the musical challenges in I Medici is assigned to the quartet of principals, but the opera relies more than most of Leoncavallo’s other works on reliable singing in supporting roles.  The conspirators against the Medici brothers are sung with gleeful relish by Italian tenor Carlo Bosi (Bernardo Bandini), Armenian bass Arutjun Kotchinian (L’Arcivescovo Salviati), and Ukranian bass Vitalij Kowaljow (Francesco Pazzi).  The minimal contributions of il Poliziano are stylishly done by Italian baritone Fabio Maria Capitanucci.

The historical role of Giambattista da Montesecco, a captain in the Papal army who has been entrusted with the task of assassinating the brothers Medici, is sung by American bass-baritone Eric Owens, an exciting singer whose operatic repertory extends from Monteverdi and Händel to Twenty-First-Century works.  Mr. Owens made his Metropolitan Opera debut in John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, but he was especially lauded by MET audiences for his performances as Sarastro in the Julie Taymor production of Die Zauberflöte.  As Montesecco, Mr. Owens cleverly and chillingly embodies the role of the Holy See’s ruthless assassin, conveying the sinister sliminess of the part through the coloration of his voice.  Leoncavallo conjures Montesecco’s cutthroat sound world by peppering his vocal lines with frequent descents to a sepulchral lower register.  The cumulative tessitura of the music seems slightly too low to be completely comfortable for Mr. Owens, leading to a ‘dead’ sound (which, to be fair, is perhaps unduly emphasized by the recording perspective) in the voice.  This is not inappropriate for a character who is an agent of death for hire, but the role surely shares with most villains in Italian opera the tendency to be most effective as an instrument of evil if also deceptively charming and beautiful.  Nonetheless, among basses of the past few decades only Kurt Moll and Cesare Siepi could have brought to the role an ideal blend of vocal depth and tonal warmth, and in fact Mr. Owens sings the role as well as any active singer is likely to have done.

The famous de’ Medici, Lorenzo, is sung by Spanish baritone Carlos Álvarez, a singer with celebrated portraits of Verdi and verismo roles in his repertory.  Mr. Álvarez’s voice has always seemed to lack on records the impact that it can have in an opera house, where the wide vibrato on his topmost tones is mitigated by the space in which the tone can expand.  The voice has a ruggedly handsome timbre that suggests authority, but in this performance Mr. Álvarez’s approach is too conventionally blunt and hectoring.  His character is a man with a target on his back, but he is also Lorenzo de’ Medici, the patron of Botticelli, da Vinci, and Michelangelo, and whose charisma was sufficient to stifle the Papacy-backed insurrection that took the life of his brother Giuliano.  One hears the brute force in Mr. Álvarez’s performance but not the charm and diplomacy that made Lorenzo de’ Medici more powerful in his Florentine Republic than the Pope.  Mr. Álvarez’s actual singing of the notes cannot be faulted, but his one-dimensional performance is disappointing.

The somewhat hapless love interests of Giuliano de’ Medici are a pair of Arcadian maidens, one of them loved by Giuliano but—predictably—both of them in love with him.  Both are tragic heroines in a sense, one condemned to die of consumption in Giuliano’s arms in the third of the four acts and the other widowed by the man who impregnated her but never truly requited her love and destined to give birth to a future Pope.  Leoncavallo’s intention was to contrast the roles by assigning the withering consumptive, Simonetta, to a lyric soprano and the stronger, ultimately maternal Fioretta to a heavier, more dramatic voice.  The effectiveness of this is undermined to a degree in this performance by the casting of Daniela Dessì as Simonetta.  Ms. Dessì is a lyric soprano who at this point in her career, not unlike Mirella Freni before her, has several seasons of dramatic roles to her credit.  Singing heavier repertory has taken a toll on Ms. Dessì’s voice, especially in the extreme upper register, which is apt to loosen slightly under pressure.  Ms. Dessì sings with abandon, however, thrusting the voice into the highest notes with exciting attack.  If the results are not always as thrilling as one would like them to be, Ms. Dessì at least gives a performance that suggests that she regards the opera as something more than a tattered score that had been collecting dust for more than a century.

If Simonetta is I Medici’s Nedda, it might be said—to borrow from a traditional association—that Fioretta is its Santuzza.  Sung by Italian mezzo-soprano Renata Lamanda, who surprisingly does not list Santuzza among the dramatic mezzo-soprano roles in her repertory, Fioretta receives a performance of musical and dramatic conviction.  There is in the baleful sound of Ms. Lamanda’s voice a sense of the dejection of unrequited love, and she pursues her quest of loving a man who is not truly in love with her with convincing vocal ardor.  There are a few instances of clumsy handling of register shifts, but Ms. Lamanda’s experience with a role such as the Principessa in Adriana Lecouvreur serves her well in Leoncavallo’s music.  Ms. Lamanda avoids making Fioretta seem a shrew, a danger which appears large when one reads the libretto.  The nature of her role does not distract Ms. Lamanda from indulging in old-fashioned, eyes-on-the-melodic-line Italian singing, an approach of which Leoncavallo would surely have approved.  The timbre is not distinctive but is pleasant and forceful when required, and Ms. Lamanda contributes an effective performance of her role.

The parallels between the repertories of Francesco Tamagno, Leoncavallo’s first Giuliano de’ Medici, and Plácido Domingo suggest that Giuliano should be a near-ideal role for Mr. Domingo—or perhaps that it would have been earlier in his career.  It is clear almost at once that Giuliano was the focus of Leoncavallo’s most studious musical interest, an effort at creating his own Siegfried or Tannhäuser.  The wonder of Mr. Domingo’s performance is that he manages the challenging tessitura of the role with an assurance that is undeniably impressive for a tenor who was six months past his sixty-sixth birthday at the time at which the recording was made.  This is not to suggest that the music is managed without strain, for the effort required to produce many of the higher tones is almost painfully audible.  The vibrato has unraveled slightly, but the bronzed, burnished quality of the tone remains intact.  After more than four decades of service, Mr. Domingo’s timbre remains immediately recognizable, a trait that is increasingly rare among his often anonymous-sounding younger colleagues.  Mr. Domingo is not in this performance an astonishingly insightful interpreter, but his earnestness and attention to musical values are decided assets.  On the whole, Mr. Domingo offers a performance that, while perhaps not fully justifying the expense of a studio recording for this work, proves that his voice and versatility remain impressive despite the unavoidable diminishments wrought by time.

It is certainly possible to appreciate the reasoning that compels many younger singers to long for Mr. Domingo to step aside.  Hearing the quality of singing of which he remains capable, however, it is also possible to appreciate why he continues singing as his seventieth birthday approaches.  Had Mr. Domingo recorded I Medici in the early years of his career, with Montserrat Caballé as Simonetta, Fiorenza Cossotto as Fioretta, Sherrill Milnes as Lorenzo, and Cesare Siepi as Montesecco, he might have managed to convince his listeners that the opera is an overlooked gem.  This recording misses that mark but is an enjoyably honorable effort.

ARTIST PROFILE: Christophe Dumaux, countertenor

When visiting Bologna in August 1770, the English music historian and author Charles Burney wrote in his famous journal of meeting the world-renowned castrato Farinelli, ‘I cannot describe the pleasure it gave me to see this extraordinary personage, who had so enchanted all Europe by his uncommon powers.’  It is indeed a testament to the remarkable quality of Farinelli’s singing that Burney, from whose pen came some of the most astute assessments of Farinelli’s singing during his London tenure as primo uomo of his tutor Niccolò Porpora’s Opera of the Nobility, should have written so exuberantly of him more than three decades after his voice had last been heard in Britain.  Farinelli was unquestionably among the finest castrati of the Eighteenth Century, a member of an unintentional fraternity of singers who inspired some of the most demanding and emotionally poignant music of the Baroque and early Classical periods.  One of the greatest challenges faced by artists involved with the Baroque renaissance that emerged in the last quarter of the Twentieth Century was the necessity of making decisions about how and by whom music composed for castrati would be sung.  In the occasional performances of works like Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Händel’s Giulio Cesare prior to the 1970’s, roles composed for castrati (principally Nerone and Ottone in the former and the name-part in the latter) were typically transposed for tenors, baritones, or basses, enabling preservation of the gender identities of the roles at the expense of the composers’ concepts of musical integrity.  The heightened sensibilities of the Baroque renaissance led to ever-broadening efforts to present Baroque and early Classical scores in performances that adhered to their composers’ original intentions, not just by using instruments and playing techniques from these periods but by restoring Monteverdi’s, Händel’s, and their contemporaries’ operatic heroes to the vocal registers for which they were composed.

Some twenty years before the Baroque renaissance reached its zenith, two unique artists emerged who paved the way for Baroque specialists to realign the music composed for Eighteenth-Century castrati with male singers possessing the appropriate vocal registers.  In Britain, there was Sir Alfred Deller, a remarkably unique artist whose work in the sacred and secular music of Bach and Händel revitalized the legendary British choral tradition and whose revelatory performances of John Dowland’s Elizabethan songs and the music of Henry Purcell not only refocused the attention of Twentieth-Century British musicians on the music of their collective past but also inspired Benjamin Britten to compose the role of Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, whose music recalls Purcell, for him.  In America, there was Russell Oberlin, an equally important and perhaps even more effective artist whose voice, in contrast to Deller’s falsetto, was a genuine high tenor in the tradition of the French haute-contre.  Neither Deller nor Oberlin enjoyed extensive opera-house careers despite being regarded as pioneers in singing castrato roles at the original pitches.  Comparing their sounds, Deller’s voice was ethereal, a sexless timbre that could seem almost inhuman, whereas Oberlin’s voice was similarly pure but firmer and more centered, capable of reaching soprano heights but always obviously emanating from the throat of a man.  The combined influence of these two artists set the stage for the advent of the modern countertenor in the subsequent generation, when the doors of the world’s opera houses opened to singers such as James Bowman, René Jacobs, Jeffrey Gall (the first countertenor to sing a leading role at the Metropolitan Opera), Jochen Kowalski, and, another few years on, David Daniels and Andreas Scholl.

It is upon the foundation laid by these esteemed singers that the career of young French countertenor Christophe Dumaux has been built.  ‘The first one I want to quote [as an influence on my career] is James Bowman, with whom I [took part in] a master class,’ Mr. Dumaux reflects: ‘then René Jacobs, and later Andreas Scholl and David Daniels.  I [was] brought up with the recordings of all these artists, and I [have been] lucky to work with them in my career.’  It was opposite the Bertarido of Andreas Scholl in Händel’s Rodelinda that Mr. Dumaux made his Metropolitan Opera debut on 2 May 2006, a performance that prompted Bernard Holland to write in the New York Times that Mr. Dumaux’s MET debut heralded the arrival of another ‘first-rate countertenor.’  In an age in which first-rate countertenors are perhaps more plentiful than first-rate Verdians and Wagnerians, there are nonetheless exceptional qualities in Mr. Dumaux’s singing that set him apart.

The son of musical parents, Mr. Dumaux’s first explorations of the family craft were as a cellist.  ‘My cellist experience was a passion, and at that time [in my life] I didn’t want to become a musician,’ he recollects.  ‘The cello was at first a hobby, but [during] the same period I began to sing in a chorus, and I realized that my experience in an orchestra brought me a kind of humility [that enabled me] to begin my career as a singer.  To my mind, these two worlds are completely different.’  After studying singing in his native France and taking part in a student production of Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, Mr. Dumaux made his professional debut as Eustazio in Händel’s Rinaldo in Montpellier at the Festival de Radio France in 2002, in a production conducted by René Jacobs and recorded by harmonia mundi.

 

An important milestone in Mr. Dumaux’s career followed in 2005, when he participated in the rapturously-received David McVicar production of Giulio Cesare at the Glyndebourne Festival, singing Tolomeo, a part that has become in the brief space of five years a signature role that Mr. Dumaux has sung to great praise with opera companies throughout Europe and the United States.  The role of Tolomeo epitomizes Mr. Dumaux’s approach to his art, which in his own assessment is centered on maintaining a sense of spontaneity.  ‘Each time I am on stage I try to make my character evolve,’ Mr. Dumaux says.  ‘I try to convey to the audience the dark, complex sides of the character, such as for Tolomeo, who is both Machiavellian and at the same time charming.  Indeed, I’ve sung Tolomeo more than eighty times, and each time I try to bring something new to the character.’  Mr. Dumaux’s success in achieving spontaneity is apparent in any of his performances as Tolomeo.  Of his performance in the November 2007 outing of the McVicar production at Chicago Lyric Opera, conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, Steve Smith wrote in the New York Times, ‘The countertenor Christophe Dumaux brought a penetrating voice and a thrilling physical athleticism to the role of Tolomeo, Cleopatra’s conniving brother and co-ruler.  His interactions with Ms. de Niese [soprano Danielle de Niese, who sang Cleopatra] mixed salaciousness with adolescent contrition in a manner both fascinating and repellent.’

Not surprisingly, the music of Händel occupies a large place in Mr. Dumaux’s repertory.  ‘I am open to all repertories,’ he says, ‘but I prefer when the music had specially been composed for countertenors – even if Händel composed not for countertenors but for castrati.’  Music both earlier and later than Händel is also vital to Mr. Dumaux’s career and artistic development, however.  ‘I’ve recently sung [the Voice of Apollo] in Death in Venice by Benjamin Britten in the Theater an der Wien.  Next year, I’ll be in a new contemporary creation composed by Bruno Mantovani, called Akhmatova, at the Opéra de Paris. I have received scores by Jonathan Dove, and I am very interested in this music and hope to sing this repertory very soon.’  Even while possessing a welcome and obviously intuitive musical curiosity, Mr. Dumaux is aware of the natural boundaries of his voice at this time in his career, bringing uncommonly insightful judiciousness to his choices of repertory.  ‘Before accepting a contract I always look at the score, and if this [role] doesn’t fit me I prefer to refuse the role rather than to risk running into trouble vocally.  I have refused many roles; for instance, Nerone in L’Incoronazione di Poppea.  I am very interested in this role thanks to the duality and complexity of the character, but unfortunately I don’t have sufficient high notes at this moment [in my career].  Maybe I’ll get them in few years, and my voice will allow me to sing this part.  In 2011, I am [scheduled] to sing the title roles of Giulio Cesare and Rinaldo, and I think that both of these experiences will happen in suitable moments in my career.’  Mr. Dumaux adds, pensively, ‘Generally, I prefer to sing secondary roles in order to avoid trouble with a primary one.’

His considerable success in leading roles is evident from the recent recording of Händel’s Orlando, previously reviewed on this site, in which Mr. Dumaux brings both intensity and tonal beauty to his performance of the title role, however.  Another recent success was in the name-part in Mariame Clément’s evocative production of Cavalli’s Giasone for Vlaamse Opera.  Critic Bernard Schreuders wrote on ForumOpera.com that Mr. Dumaux, ‘who continues to improve, enacted a Giasone as camp as one could wish, both seductive and detestable, and he brought off with panache tessitura that is dangerous for a countertenor.’  Of Ms. Clément’s production, Mr. Dumaux says, ‘The director [Ms. Clément] chose not to place the action in the [era of Classical] mythology but in a post-Apocalyptic setting in order for the spectator to interpret the story and place it in the period that he wants.’  Though a potentially controversial business, Mr. Dumaux feels that a certain degree of artistic license among directors is crucial to introducing younger audiences to opera.  ‘I think that the most important [things] are to adapt classic repertories to modern situations and, more particularly, to attract young people to operas; and also to try to stop some of the prejudices that concern [young people’s perceptions of] opera. That’s why, even in Baroque repertory, some directors update the sets and costumes and make the operas more approachable to young people.’  This progressive attitude towards the presentation of opera is consistent with Mr. Dumaux’s personal philosophy of singing, which he characterizes as being based upon ‘pleasure and rigor.’

Above all, it is Mr. Dumaux’s view that striking a balance between one’s lives on and off the stage is the most critical component of an individual’s artistry.  ‘The state of mind influences the voice a lot,’ he suggests, ‘and [I believe that] if the strength [of mind] is absent there is no way to sing in a good way.  The most gratifying element of singing for me is to really enjoy being on stage and giving pleasure to the audience.  The day when I no longer enjoy being on stage, I’ll stop my career.  Indeed, the greatest challenge of this career for me will be to enjoy the stage for another twenty years and more!’  Realizing, respecting, and managing the impact that a career as a singer has on one’s personal life and relationships are the other elements of the balance for which Mr. Dumaux strives.  ‘I spent a lot of time to dedicate my life to music, far away from my family and friends.  This cost me a lot, so I realized that my private life is more important than music and now I succeed in reconciling both my private life and music.  Music is a passion, but my biggest passions are life and spending time with those I love.  If I have to refuse some contracts to spend more time with my family, I don’t hesitate.’  The almost indiscernible core of his artistry is this ability to give everything to his audience in the course of a performance but to resume a refreshingly ‘normal’ life when the applause ends.  ‘When I am on stage I am not Christophe Dumaux anymore: I am entirely the character.  But when the performance is over, the character is left on stage.’  This, in Mr. Dumaux’s view, is the way in which a thoughtful artist survives the sacrifices he makes for his art.

It is this emotional centeredness that allows such a thoughtful young man to portray threatened, tormented, and sometimes unhinged characters with fiery brilliance.  As with any singer, however, it is the voice that demands primary attention, and Mr. Dumaux’s modesty cannot obscure the fact that his is a vibrant, beautiful voice that is meant for leading roles.  Unlike those of many of his rivals, Mr. Dumaux’s voice is a true alto, even from the bottom of his range in baritonal chest resonance to the bright top and without the slightest hint of femininity.  His is unquestionably a masculine timbre, and an heroic one that is well-suited to the alto castrato leading men in the operas of Händel and his contemporaries.  Though the actual timbres and ranges are not at all alike, there is something in the sweet but stirring sound of Mr. Dumaux’s voice that is reminiscent of some of the headily beautiful voices of generations past, voices such as those of Georgi Vinogradov and Léopold Simoneau.  As with these artists, the intensity of Mr. Dumaux’s singing is derived organically from his consummate musicality and dedication to thoughtful, idiomatic delivery of text.  He is content to follow composers where they lead him and, in making these journeys repeatedly, to find new insights and nuances at every turn.  As he suggests, each performance is a new creation such that even a role that he has sung more than eighty times is approached with a combination of experience and inquisitiveness rather than with a carefully-sorted-out impersonation that is employed repetitively, unchanged, and then stored away like a costume until it is required again.

Mr. Dumaux is a rare countertenor who, possessing a voice of exceptional quality, a solid technique, and an impressive understanding of himself as a man and an artist, one can imagine enduring in his craft to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of his professional debut.  Perhaps more remarkably, Christophe Dumaux is the even rarer countertenor one can truly imagine oneself wanting to hear for decades to come.

Heartfelt thanks are extended to Mr. Dumaux for his wondrous grace, kindness, and candor in responding to the questions that formed the basis for this article.

Sincere thanks are also extended to Mr. Dumaux’s manager, Ms. Claire Feazey of IMG Artists Paris, for her dedicated assistance and to Ms. Marie Kalaghabian, Vocal Division Intern at IMG Paris, for her assistance with providing photographs used in this article.

Click here to visit Mr. Dumaux’s profile on the IMG Artists Paris website.