CD REVIEW: Jacques Offenbach – FANTASIO (S. Connolly, B. Rae, R. Braun, R. Murray, B. Sherratt, V. Simmonds; Opera Rara ORC51)

JACQUES OFFENBACH (1819 – 1880): Fantasio—Sarah Connolly (Fantasio), Brenda Rae (La princesse Elsbeth), Russell Braun (Le prince de Mantoue), Robert Murray (Marioni), Brindley Sherratt (Le roi de Bavière), Victoria Simmonds (Flamel), Neal Davies (Sparck), Gavan Ring (Hartmann), Aled Hall (Facio); Opera Rara Chorus; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Sir Mark Elder, conductor [Recorded at Henry Wood Hall, London, England, UK, in December 2013 (music) and St Jude’s Church, Hampstead Garden, London (dialogue); Opera Rara ORC51; 2 CD, 139:08; Available from Opera Rara, Amazon, harmonia mundi USA, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

Jacques Offenbach at his least inspired was capable of writing riotously entertaining music. At his best, the best embodied by Les contes d’Hoffmann, he could create music of exceptional beauty and surprising profundity. Perhaps the most damning obstacle in his career was that the Parisian audiences for his works were not reliably capable of discerning the merely very good from the truly magnificent. How else can the poor reception that greeted the first production of Fantasio be explained? Despite the presence of Célestine Galli-Marié—the creator of Vendredi in Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoé in 1867 and Bizet’s Carmen in 1875—in the title rôle, Fantasio survived after its 1872 première at the Opéra-Comique for only nine more performances. The opera was produced elsewhere in Europe within a year of its Paris première, however, and a Hamburg radio production featuring Helmut Krebs and Valerie Bak was recorded for broadcast in 1957, albeit in a bowdlerized edition with rôle transpositions that was the only form in which Fantasio was then thought to survive. Continuing the work started with their advocacy of the neglected Robinson Crusoé and Vert-Vert, Opera Rara’s musical archeologists again come to Offenbach’s rescue with a studio recording of Fantasio that is a souvenir of a concert performance of the opera at Royal Festival Hall that was one of the not-to-be-missed musical events of 2013. Restoring the score to its original splendor, complete with music that fell victim to Offenbach’s incessant pursuit of offering his audiences works of taut dramatic construction, this recording preserves a real performance of Fantasio rather than a studio-bound recital of notes; but how could anyone fail to be swept along by such fantastic music?

Sir Mark Elder again proves himself to be one of Opera Rara’s foremost assets, and here he also reveals himself to be a phonogenic vocal actor. Always a prepared, energetic conductor, Maestro Elder reaffirms in this performance that he is a top choice for leading performances of Offenbach’s music. He not only knows how music like that in Fantasio ought to sound but, far more importantly, also understands how to capitalize on that knowledge. Many of today’s conductors seemingly approach Les contes d’Hoffmann with the goal of portraying Hoffmann, Antonia, and Miracle as though they are Siegfried, Brünnhilde, and Wotan on their nights off, replacing Offenbach’s subtle humor with pseudo-Wagnerian pomposity. Fantasio is not Hoffmann, but the musical links between the two scores are unmistakable. Maestro Elder realizes that, even in a Bavarian setting, Offenbach’s music exudes the aromas of champagne and punitions, not those of beer and Schweinshaxe. His conducting of Fantasio honors the learned musicality at the heart of the score without denying the effervescent atmosphere of the Salle Favart. Every number is paced with cognizance of the inner and outer structures of the music and respect for the singers’ needs. It is a performance that treads boldly on dramatically dangerous ground but does so wearing dancing shoes.

Expectedly, the playing of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is another source of strength. Fantasio does not make extravagant demands on the orchestra, having as many uncomplicated, formulaic accompaniments as are attributed to any of Verdi’s early operas, but the OAE players take nothing for granted, dedicating to Offenbach’s score the same concentration that they would lavish on the most difficult music in their repertoire. The string playing is especially refined, not least in the pair of Entr’actes in Act Three, the first a stirring piece that begins with almost Wagnerian brass figures and the second a dulcet, introverted number of intimate, chamber music-like proportions. The percussion is delightfully unrestrained in public scenes, and passages of Gallic delicacy from the brasses and woodwinds alternate with boisterous spirits. This is also true of the singing of the Opera Rara Chorus. Whether lamenting the death of the King of Bavaria’s court jester, Saint-Jean, seething with bellicose impetuosity, or extolling Fantasio’s resourcefulness, the choristers sing with crisp diction—a notable achievement of the cast as a whole, in fact—and perfectly-judged tone. Moreover, the choral singing contributes ebulliently in every scene in which it is heard, starting with the scene-setting ‘Vive le roi!’ at the beginning of the opera. The sympathetic but vaguely ironic tone of the Chœur de pénitents, ‘Ô Saint-Jean! ta joyeuse face,’ is given subtle treatment by the choristers, and their singing provides a strong foundation in ensembles.

A more enjoyable rabble-rouser than the Sparck of Welsh bass-baritone Neal Davies is inconceivable. This fine singer has participated in a number of acclaimed recordings, but he has never sounded better on disc than in this performance. He is on superb form, and his firm, focused singing of ‘Si l'on veut que l'on m'accroche’ and ‘Les fous ne meurent pas’ is feisty and congenially arrogant. Mr. Davies’s singing provides comedic and musical backbone to the performance, and he is charmingly abetted by the Hartmann of Irish baritone Gavan Ring and Facio of Welsh tenor Aled Hall. Both gentlemen bring their characters to life with panache and sing with good command of music and text. Some of the sharpest arrows in Offenbach’s satirical quiver were reserved for the authority figures in his works, whom he often depicted as bumbling, blissfully distracted idiots, but the King of Bavaria in Fantasio is spared the worst of the composer’s contempt. Owing to the brawny, occasionally slightly unsteady singing of Lancashire-born bass Brindley Sherratt, this King has a measure of legitimate authority despite seeming to inclined to orate than to actually take action. As Flamel, a page at the Bavarian court who fills the rôle of the Princess’s confidant, mezzo-soprano Victoria Simmonds sings attractively, her lovely voice heard to advantage in the congenial lines assigned to Flamel in ensembles, especially the scintillating quintet ‘Oui, c’est bien lui, chère princesse’ in Act Two.

The indecisive Prince of Mantua—the libidinal antithesis of Verdi’s Duca di Mantova—is brought to life with manly charisma by Canadian baritone Russell Braun. This Prince may not accomplish much in the course of Fantasio, but in Mr. Braun’s performance he at least sounds fantastic. In the Prince’s strophes in Act Two, ‘Je ne serai donc jamais, non jamais,’ Mr. Braun movingly evinces the Prince’s dejection upon realizing that his title makes being loved for himself difficult. Some singers might be inclined to mope in the expression of such sentiments, but Mr. Braun’s singing avoids saccharine over-emoting. He rises to the high notes of his part with less ease than in past, but he interacts humorously with the Prince’s aide-de-camp Marinoni, who is sung vibrantly by Essex-born tenor Robert Murray. The duet in which the Prince hatches and communicates with his partner in crime his plot to observe the Munich court via traded identities comme Don Ramiro and Dandini in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, ‘Je médite un projet d’importance,’ is handsomely sung by both gentlemen, and Mr. Murray’s account of Marinoni’s Act Three couplets, ‘Reprenez cet habit mon prince,’ in which his reluctance to return to his lowly duties as a barely-noticed aide-de-camp is touchingly expressed, is sparkling. Mr. Murray’s lean, heady tones combine ideally with Mr. Braun’s darker, earthier timbre, and they form a winning partnership as put-upon servant and exasperated master.

Wisconsin native Brenda Rae is an aptly regal presence as the Princess Elsbeth. Richard Strauss famously requested a teenager with the voice of Isolde for his Salomé: the combination of her music and the line ‘Puisque j’ai seize ans à mon âge on doit voir la vie en rose’ (‘At the age of sixteen, one ought to view life with rosy hues’)—amusingly foreshadowing Liesl’s ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’ in The Sound of Music—suggests that Offenbach wanted a sixteen-year-old with the voice of Lucia di Lammermoor. Ms. Rae may not be sixteen, but a Lucia di Lammermoor she is—a very fine one, in fact. Her bel canto technique serves her well in Offenbach’s music, and the proficiency and precision of her top Ds and E♭s, upon which Elsbeth’s vocal lines make few demands even with interpolations, qualify her for the high tessitura to which she is subjected in ensembles. Ms. Rae sings Elsbeth’s recitative and romance in Act One, ‘Voilà toute la ville en fête’ and ‘Hélas! je tremble, hésitante, inquiète,’ with poise and absolute security, but it is in her Act Two air, ‘Ah! dans son cœur qui donc peut lire,’ reminiscent of ‘Je veux vivre,’ Juliette’s waltz aria in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, and Olympia’s ‘Les oiseaux dans la charmille’ in Les contes d’Hoffmann, that Ms. Rae’s voice rockets into the heavens most ravishingly. Elsbeth’s romance ‘Psyché pauvre imprudente’ also inspires Ms. Rae to singing of impressive fluidity, and the honesty with which she portrays the Princess’s overcoming of initial hesitation in Elsbeth’s duets with Fantasio is endearing. Throughout the performance, she creates a character whose confusion, disappointment, apprehension, and yearning are palpable, and she manages to portray a Princess whose friendship with her father’s court jester seems credible. She inspires sympathy for Elsbeth’s suffering, resulting both from the loss of her closest friend and the obstacles to her romantic fulfillment, all while singing Offenbach’s music zestfully.

An evident truth that has emerged in the past decade is that, when putting on performances of a score that includes a prominent rôle for mezzo-soprano, whether that score is by Monteverdi, Mozart, Massenet, or Mahler, a sure-fire way of guaranteeing success is engaging Sarah Connolly. Offenbach’s Fantasio is an ideal rôle for Ms. Connolly, and she impersonates him accordingly. In the Act One Ballade à la lune, ‘Voyez dans la nuit brune,’ also offered as an appendix in its original, fuller version, Ms. Connolly sings magically, her cinnamon-hued timbre seeming to shimmer with moonlight. Intoxicating murmurs are indeed the prevailing element of Fantasio’s duet with Elsbeth, ‘Quel murmure charmant,’ sung with erotically-charged simplicity by Ms. Connolly and Ms. Rae, and the couplets in Act Two, ‘C’est le nouveau bouffon de roi,’ receive similarly pointed performances from both singers. In the subsequent duets with Elsbeth, ‘Je n’ai donc rien de plus’ and ‘Il n’est qu’un refrain à chanter,’ Ms. Connolly sings powerfully and attractively. She never coarsens her tone in efforts to sound masculine, and she traverses her part’s range without strain. This Fantasio is too clever to ever be fully convincing as a fool, but Ms. Connolly exhibits understanding of the fact that the key to effective comedy is sincerity, not buffoonery. Fantasio’s music is supplemented by the inclusion—also as an appendix—of a number cut from the score by Offenbach, ‘Pleure, le ciel te voit,’ and this, too, Ms. Connolly sings beautifully. The composer’s first choice for the rôle of Fantasio was the tenor Victor Capoul, one of the Opéra-Comique’s most popular singers and the first Valentin in Offenbach’s Vert-Vert, and the lion’s share of the few revivals of Fantasio in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries have entrusted the title rôle to tenors. So unique was the range of the first Fantasio, Galli-Marié, that, like her countrywoman Cornélie Falcon, her name became synonymous with a particular Fach of high mezzo-soprano singers. Ms. Connolly’s singing is similarly unique, and she is rightly the heart of this performance of Fantasio.

It is regrettable that, even with Les conte d’Hoffmann in the repertories of most of the world’s most important opera houses, Offenbach has not fully escaped from the stigma of a reputation as a purveyor of frothy entertainments with little substance. The esteem in which the composer held Fantasio is obvious from his use of thematic material from the score in Les contes d’Hoffmann. That Fantasio is a sublime work in its own right is confirmed by this recording. Through the years, the inquisitive spirits that guide the endeavors of Opera Rara have displayed unerring instincts for uniting neglected scores with casts capable of revealing their finest qualities, and this recording of Fantasio is one of the best products of those instincts. With a studio recording of Donizetti’s seldom-heard Les martyrs featuring Joyce El-Khoury and Michael Spyres, as well as accounts of Donizetti’s unfinished Le duc d’Albe, Gounod’s La colombe, and Leoncavallo’s Zazà, on the horizon, Opera Rara’s success, brilliantly perpetuated by Fantasio, is certain to continue blossoming sensationally in the lush garden of rediscovered music.

CD REVIEW: Gustav Mahler & Igor Stravinsky – SYMPHONY NO. 2 ‘RESURRECTION’ & SYMPHONY OF PSALMS (E. Zareska, V. Elliott; Hallé Choir, Hallé Orchestra; Sir John Barbirolli; The Barbirolli Society SJB 1078-79)

GUSTAV MAHLER (1860 – 1911) and IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882 – 1971): Symphony No. 2 ‘Resurrection’ and Symphony of Psalms—Eugenia Zareska, mezzo-soprano; Victoria Elliott, soprano; Hallé Choir; Hallé Orchestra; Sir John Barbirolli, conductor [Recorded in performance in Free Trade Hall, Manchester, UK, on 12 March 1959 (Mahler), and at the Edinburgh Festival on 28 August 1957 (Stravinsky); The Barbirolli Society, SJB 1078-79; 2 CD, 105:57; Available from The Barbirolli Society, Amazon, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

It is often said now that the supposed erosion of interest in Classical Music—a phenomenon of dubious legitimacy—is precipitated in part by the lack of great conductors at the helms of the world’s most important orchestras. A similar perception seized musical New York when the resignation of Arturo Toscanini from the podium of the New York Philharmonic left the orchestra’s bosses with the unenviable task of replacing him. Confidence was hardly boosted by the news of the engagement of an Englishman with a funny-sounding surname, a young conductor still in his thirties of whom many well-informed New Yorkers had never heard. The arrival of John Barbirolli—knighthood would come later—in New York in many ways echoed that of Gustav Mahler a generation earlier. Meticulous, determined, and armed with lifelong passion for and knowledge of music, Maestro Barbirolli was the sort of musician who practiced Ravel in lavatories when his conservatory professors condemned the music and whose operatic endeavors were shaped as much by the conductor’s desire to listen to the voices in the orchestra as by response to the voices on the stage. Even in the first phase of his conducting career, when he garnered the appreciation of Elgar and Vaughan Williams, Maestro Barbirolli demanded unparalleled preparedness both of himself and of the orchestras he led. The intensity of his focus on achieving the highest possible standards of playing earned him a few enemies among musicians and press, but his truest friends dwelled within the ledger lines of the scores he conducted.

Maestro Barbirolli’s association with the Hallé started in 1932, when the orchestra’s principal conductor, Sir Hamilton Harty, chose to accept more engagements beyond Manchester. One of the quartet of conductors selected to lead the Hallé Orchestra in Harty’s absence, Maestro Barbirolli won plaudits from audience and critics alike, as well as the respect of the Hallé musicians. Following a stint with the New York Philharmonic that kept him in America during the torturous first months of World War II, he did not hesitate to accept an offer in 1943 to return to England to rehabilitate the Hallé, the ranks of which had been decimated by the war. Thus began a quarter-century-tenure that transformed the Hallé Orchestra from a ragtag ensemble of schoolmarms and student players to one of the best orchestras in Britain. So great was the rapport that the conductor developed with the Hallé that, following his retirement from the post of Principal Conductor in 1968, a successor was not named until several months after his death in 1970.

Maestro Barbirolli’s relationship with the music of Gustav Mahler underwent a transformation similar to the Hallé’s during the course of the conductor’s career. Despite early misgivings about the consistency of Mahler’s compositional integrity, the composer’s music played rôles of ever-increasing prominence in Maestro Barbirolli’s concertizing and recording schedules as his work with the Hallé and other orchestras progressed. He famously expounded that preparing to conduct a Mahler symphony for the first time was a process requiring months, even years of intense study, and the depth of his familiarity with the music is apparent in his live and studio recordings of the Symphonies with several orchestras, as well as Das Lied von der Erde with Kathleen Ferrier and Richard Lewis and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Dame Janet Baker, both with the Hallé. Performances of Mahler’s gargantuan ‘Resurrection’ Symphony with the Berliner Philharmoniker [1965, with soprano Maria Stader and mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker] and Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Stuttgart [1970, with soprano Helen Donath and contralto Birgit Finnilä] are preserved on disc, but the 12 March 1959 performance in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, the Hallé’s base of operations prior to the opening of Bridgewater Hall in 1996, recorded for broadcast by the BBC and now released on compact disc by The Barbirolli Society is the kind of performance that those who heard it either in the concert hall or over the radio in 1959 cannot have forgotten. Hearing it now in a digital remastering by Paul Baily, the technical wizard who also worked wonders with the 1961 Covent Garden Die Walküre recently released by Testament, the performance stirs the senses as potently as it must have done fifty-five years ago.

The sound in the performance of the ‘Resurrection’ is noticeably inferior to that in the accompanying performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, but the ears adjust quickly when the exceptional quality of the music-making reveals itself. The ‘complete gravity and solemnity of expression’ of the Allegro maestoso opening movement have rarely been effectuated with the grandeur furnished by Maestro Barbirolli in this performance. This problematic score presents challenges that push the Hallé players to the limits of their abilities, and there are passages in which even the famously plush playing of the Hallé strings proves fallible. In the notoriously tricky repeat of the exposition, Maestro Barbirolli takes a measured approach to unfurling themes that will recur in the four movements that follow, but the expansiveness of his pacing does not impede the dramatic impetus of the music. In fact, Maestro Barbirolli’s conducting realizes Mahler’s vision of the Second Symphony being the resolution of the programmatic First Symphony with appreciable coherence, and he demonstrates unique comprehension of the overall structure of the ‘Resurrection’ on its own and as a transition from the tonal architecture of the ‘Titan.’

​In his broadly-phrased account of the Symphony’s Andante moderato second movement, Maestro Barbirolli takes Mahler’s instructions—‘Sehr gemächlich, Nie eilen’ (‘Very leisurely, Never rush’)—at face value, the eloquence of the music contrasting with the funereal solemnity of the first movement but having its own unique stateliness and subtle melancholy. The Hallé’s ensemble is tighter, and there is increased clarity of thematic development in all sections of the orchestra. The formal charm of the Scherzo third movement is not lost in the extravagant volume to which Maestro Barbirolli escalates, the ‘tranquil, flowing movement’ (‘In ruhig fließender Bewegung’) requested by the composer supplied by the conductor and attentive musicians. There are a number of misfires from the orchestra, but they are only momentarily distracting and certainly not cumulatively disfiguring.

The entry of Polish mezzo-soprano Eugenia Zareska in the fourth movement elevates the performance to even greater heights of emotional power. A respected artist whose discography includes, in addition to a radiant performance of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the London Philharmonic and Eduard van Beinum, operatic rôles as dissimilar as Ottavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, the titular noblewoman in Offenbach’s La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, Marina in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Gräfin Geschwitz in Berg’s Lulu, and Jocasta in Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex and whose début rôle at La Scala was Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Ms. Zareska was in her forty-ninth year at the time of this performance of the ‘Resurrection.’ She was a versatile singer capable of adapting her technique to an astonishing variety of vocal styles, but no music in which she is heard on recordings suits her better than the deceptively straightforward declamation of Mahler’s ‘Urlicht.’ The composer’s marking of ‘Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht’ (‘Very solemn, but simple’) is zealously respected: indeed, the tempo set by Maestro Barbirolli at first seems debilitatingly slow, but Ms. Zareska’s breath control enables her to follow the conductor’s speed with awe-inspiring results. The directness with which the singer delivers lines like ‘Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein!’ and ‘Ich ließ mich nicht abweisen!’ is uncommonly moving, and the voice itself seems to emanate from the heart of the earth like that of Erda in Der Ring des Nibelungen. The text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn is of course one that was of great personal significance to Mahler, and both Maestro Barbirolli and Ms. Zareska react to the quiet depth of the music with unperturbed grace. There are a couple of phrases in which the awkwardness of the vocal line undermines the steadiness of Ms. Zareska’s tone, but the richness, beauty, and poetic sensitivity of her singing are profoundly satisfying. Rather than disinterestedly accompanying, Maestro Barbirolli prompts the Hallé musicians to sing with Ms. Zareska through their playing.

It is in the leviathan fifth movement, in which the efforts of many conductors dissolve into desperate struggles to hold things together, that Maestro Barbirolli’s performance is most accomplished. The inherent logic of the conductor’s approach to each of the preceding movements is confirmed as, one by one, the previously-heard thematic elements reappear. There are sour notes in the brass fanfares, but Maestro Barbirolli rightly phrases them with the gravitas of Bach chorales. Considering the provenance and vintage of the recording, the distance effects are surprisingly well managed, and the hushed entry of the chorus is spine-tingling. The singing of the Hallé Choir is one of this recording’s principal glories, both in the ‘Resurrection’ and in Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. The nobility that the choristers bring to Klopstock’s and Mahler’s own words is captivating, and the sopranos earn special praise for the fearlessness and accuracy of their singing in the very treacherous tessitura of the Symphony’s final pages. Ms. Zareska again distinguishes herself, her singing of ‘O glaube, mein Herz, o glaube’ filled with emotion but never exaggerated. Soprano Victoria Elliott [there is debate about the correct spelling of her surname, but most sources prefer the spelling with a pair of final Ts], who studied with Rosetta Pampanini and sang prominent rôles such as Verdi’s Violetta and Leonora in Il trovatore, Puccini’s Tosca and Cio-Cio-San, and Maddalena in Andrea Chénier at Sadler’s Wells and elsewhere, sings glamorously, her voice firm and ideally-projected if slightly short of the pitches in a few of the highest notes of her part. Perhaps because of microphone placement for the BBC broadcast from which this recording originates, she holds her own against the choir impressively, enabling the text to be heard as in few live performances. Free Trade Hall’s custom-built three-manual Compton organ, installed for the Hall’s 1951 reopening to replace the magnificent organ destroyed in the Blitz and itself eventually replaced by a relocated Wurlitzer model, resounds thrillingly, and the bells, though suspect of intonation, chime vividly. Whereas many performances of the ‘Resurrection’ seem merely to lose momentum and crawl to a stop, Maestro Barbirolli brings this reading to a genuine resolution, the Last Judgment appropriately being both beginning and end.

The Vulgate texts of Psalms 38, 40, and 150 used by Igor Stravinsky in his Symphony of Psalms give the work an odd symmetry that also engenders a kinship with Mahler’s ‘Resurrection.’ Maestro Barbirolli enjoyed a mutually admiring relationship with Stravinsky, who valued the conductor’s absolute dedication to mastering a score before presenting it to the public. In this performance of the Symphony of Psalms from the 1957 Edinburgh Festival, Maestro Barbirolli’s expertise in Stravinsky’s music nearly equals his mastery of Mahler repertory. Each of the three movements, played without separating pauses, is fashioned with scrutiny of its individual forms. It is not the kind of performance in which the choir is treated like an instrument in the orchestra: rather, Maestro Barbirolli leads the Hallé players as though they were, collectively, a voice in the choir. The perilous double fugue in the second movement is piloted with the deliberation that would be applied to similar numbers in the scores of Bach and Händel. The contrast between the initial and ultimate tempi in the third movement is accentuated by the pinpoint articulation that Maestro Barbirolli coaxes from both choir and orchestra. Notably, this is not a conventionally didactic reading of the Symphony of Psalms: to Maestro Barbirolli, music was its own religion, and his rôle was to be a postulant, not a priest.

Every conductor of lasting importance should enjoy the advocacy of an organization like The Barbirolli Society. This release proves anew that this enterprising Society’s principal aspiration is industry rather than idolatry: the aim is not to canonize Sir John Barbirolli, but the Society’s efforts undeniably preserve and perpetuate the miracles that the conductor achieved in many of his performances. These recordings of Mahler’s Second Symphony and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms are not performances of clinical precision, but they are pageants of the luminosity of which Maestro Barbirolli was capable when afforded adequate rehearsal time and collaborations with musicians with whom he shared bonds of trust and respect. The goal was never perfection, and the mistakes in these performances are not sins to be forgiven but scars to be commended. They are the wounds of musicians who devoted themselves body and soul to their cataclysmic conclave with great music and a great conductor.

CD REVIEW: Darius Milhaud – L’ORESTIE D’ESCHYLE (L. Phillips, D. Kempson, S. Outlaw, S. Delphis, B. Rae, T. Mumford, J. Lane, J. Di Giacomo, K. Eder; NAXOS 8.660349-51)

DARIUS MILHAUD (1892 – 1974): L’Orestie d’Eschyle—Lori Phillips (Clytemnestra), Dan Kempson (Orestes), Sidney Outlaw (Apollo), Sophie Delphis (Leader of the Slave Women), Brenda Rae (Athena, a Slave Woman), Tamara Mumford (Athena), Jennifer Lane (Athena), Julianna Di Giacomo (Pythia), Kristin Eder (Electra); UMS Choral Union, University of Michigan Chamber Choir, University of Michigan University Choir, University of Michigan Orpheus Singers; University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra; Kenneth Kiesler, conductor [Recorded in concert and studio sessions in Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, 4 – 7 April 2013; NAXOS 8.660349-51; 3 CD, 161:24; Available from ClassicsOnline, Amazon, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

​Poll even a group of conscientious musicians about Darius Milhaud, and the results are apt to divulge that he was a member of Les Six, the namesake of Dave Brubeck’s first-born son, the teacher of Burt Bacharach, and the composer of some nifty music for saxophone. Milhaud is the sort of artist whose reputation compels musical folks to cite him as an important innovator without knowing the reasons for his significance. Brubeck said in a 2010 interview with Marc Myers on JazzWax of his studies with Milhaud that ‘he taught me by osmosis and encouragement. He also taught me by showing me a chart of all the polytonality possibilities.’ This is, in fact, an insightful summation of Milhaud’s work as a composer in general. He absorbed the sounds of his own and previous generations as if by osmosis, and his music encouraged the efforts of future generations of composers by meaningfully charting the possibilities of polytonality and myriad modes of sonic expression and manipulation. To focus on Milhaud’s mutually-beneficial relationship with jazz is to overlook the enormity of his contributions to Twentieth-Century Classical Music, however; and perhaps also to limit the exposure that his compositions deserve. His operatically-scaled triptych L’Orestie d’Eschyle is a Brobdingnagian effort by any standard except that of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, and recording the complete work is an extraordinarily daunting proposition. It is an endeavor that almost no label but NAXOS might have contemplated, but in typical NAXOS fashion the artists on all sides of the microphones hold nothing back, and their achievements speak for themselves.

Completed when the composer was barely in his thirties, L’Orestie d’Eschyle is the Marseille-born Milhaud’s ambitious setting of an adaptation of the Oresteia of Aeschylus by Paul Claudel, whose Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher was given music life by Milhaud’s Les Six colleague Arthur Honegger. Recognized as the first playwright known to have presented dramas with interconnected subjects as trilogies, Aeschylus defined theatre in the modern sense: it is also alleged that it was his invention that expanded plays to include numerous characters in pursuit of increased humanistic verisimilitude. The breadth of Milhaud’s vision notwithstanding, L’Orestie d’Eschyle is a flawed, in many ways exasperating work. As recorded here, it is an inconsistent, unbalanced piece that requires special commitment. The first of the three ‘episodes,’ L'Agamemnon, is only eleven minutes long and is followed by the thirty-five minutes of Les Choéphores. Only the third part, Les Euménides, is an evening-length work at ninety minutes, but L’Orestie d’Eschyle as a whole presents an unique set of challenges, not least in the alternation of spoken passages with the harmonically-indecisive music. Perhaps the most daunting demand is that of sustaining dramatic focus, without which the wit of Milhaud’s invention is apt to seem disjointed and sporadic. Performing L’Orestie d’Eschyle is a bold undertaking for any institution, and the sheer numbers of personnel required push Milhaud’s work in its intended form beyond the reach of most organizations. There cannot have been more than a handful of musically-inclined people on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus who were not involved with this performance recorded by NAXOS. All things considered, the level of musical excellence is very high, and the technical attributes of the recording adhere to NAXOS’s industry-leading standards. The most gratifying aspect of this performance is the manner in which every member of the musical team displays dedication to climbing this Everest not merely because it is there but because it deserves to be conquered. As this performance proves, the sonic views from the summit of L’Orestie d’Eschyle are spectacular.

Conductor Kenneth Kiesler cannot be praised too extravagantly for his expert leadership of the batteries of voices and instruments employed in this performance. No conductor can claim to be an authority on L’Orestie d’Eschyle, certainly not in the way in which Sir Thomas Beecham dominated Les Troyens in the first half of the Twentieth Century, but Maestro Kiesler presides over this performance as though it were the summation of his life’s work. His tempi sound inherently right both for the music and for the performers, and he clearly collaborates closely with the directors of the respective choirs, managing their singing with unflappable stamina and an ear for balancing choral lines with the soloists and orchestra. The choristers of the UMS Choral Union, University of Michigan Chamber Choir, University of Michigan University Choir, and University of Michigan Orpheus Singers all sing powerfully and with great involvement. The tasks faced by the sopranos and contraltos are especially fearsome, but the UM ladies brave the difficulties in fine fashion. The instrumentalists are given music of great difficulty with which to contend, too, and the University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble and University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra respond with determined playing. The intricacies of Milhaud’s dissonances and polytonality are not easily mastered, but the talented UM musicians devote themselves to meeting every demand unflinchingly.

From her first note, soprano Lori Phillips takes charge of L'Agamemnon as a Clytemnestre of startling severity. Milhaud’s vocal lines take her on a journey through dangerous vocal territory, and the freedom with which she negotiates excursions into the upper register is fantastic but hardly surprising from a singer whose Seattle Opera performances of Turandot and the Siegfried and Götterdämmerung Brünnhildes were acclaimed for her ease on high. In L’Agamemnon, Clytemnestre has just slain her illustrious consort, ostensibly in retribution for the believed sacrifice of their daughter Iphigénie, and Ms. Phillips compelling voices her character’s justification of her actions to the Elders, vigorously portrayed by the men of the chorus in music that bears a distant familial resemblance to Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. Essentially a dramatic cantata rather than opera, as tacitly acknowledged by the composer, L’Agamemnon is a splendid vehicle for a gifted Jugendlich-dramatischer soprano, and Ms. Phillips accepts the challenge of Milhaud’s music with the requisite vocal fire.

When baritone Dan Kempson’s Orestes is first heard in Les Choéphores, there is no question that he is a man of action. He is a rugged, handsome-voiced presence that any man seeking vengeance would want as an ally, but in Mr. Kempson’s thoughtful performance he is not merely a chest-beating brute. Returning from exile in order to avenge his father’s death, Orestes is welcomed by his sister Electra, voiced with unstinting strength by mezzo-soprano Kristin Eder, and she and Mr. Kempson combine forcefully with the chorus in the grand Incantation, ‘Ô vous, grandes Parques de par Zeus.’ The Choéphore’s Présages, ‘Que de fois la terre a enfanté la terreur,’ and Exhortation, ‘Je te supplie, ô toi, le Père Zeus,’ are assertively sung, and the drive brought to ‘Elle est venue aux Priamides en son temps’ by the ladies of the chorus lures the listener into the drama. Milhaud’s depiction of the reunion between brother and sister lacks the emotional engagement of the similar scene in Richard Strauss’s Elektra, but his robust, forthright performance of Milhaud’s Orestes suggests that, in time, Mr. Kempson might prove a memorable exponent of Strauss’s Orestes, as well.

Les Euménides is Milhaud’s operatic equivalent of courtroom drama, the confrontations among Orestes, the shade of his mother, and their respective motivations inspiring the composer to the most perfervid music of the cycle. Central to the success of this performance of Les Euménides is the characterful enunciation of Sophie Delphis as the leader of the slave women. Her voice is splendidly resonant, and every word that she utters seems torn from the throat of oppressed humanity. Soprano Julianna Di Giacomo, one of America’s most talented young Verdians, sings Pythia’s ‘Premièrement la prière’ and ‘Une chose affreuse à dire’ in Act One with ardor, and the quality of her singing is rivaled by baritone Sidney Outlaw’s performance of Apollo’s ‘Je ne te trahirai pas.’ Like Mr. Kempson, who furthers the sensational impression of his performance with his singing of ‘Seigneur Apollon’ and ‘Rappelle-toi,’ Mr. Outlaw is among the ranks of America’s finest young baritones. He joins the chorus in rousing traversals of ‘Éveille, éveille-toi’ and ‘Sortez de ces demeures.’ Ms. Phillips’s ironclad Clytemnestre returns in spirit form to incite the Furies to punish Orestes for her murder, her ‘Vous dormez-là-dedans’ detonated with the fuming intensity of Nisyros, but Apollo intervenes, directing Orestes into the protection of Athena’s temple.

The basic conceit of Act Two is the invocation of Athena to stand in judgment over Orestes. One of Milhaud’s most effective inventions is his employment of three singers for the voice of Athena. It is doubtful that even the fastidious composer could have imagined a more authoritative trio of sub-Athenas than soprano Brenda Rae, mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford, and contralto Jennifer Lane. The skill with which they blend their very different voices is awesome, and the sheer solemnity—or divinity, as it were—of their delivery of ‘De là-bas où j’étais,’ ‘Si l’on estime que cette cause,’ and Athena’s cross-examinations in Act Three is tremendous. The nobility of Orestes’s responses to Athena’s questioning in ‘Mes malheurs m’ont instruit’ is disclosed by the unfeigned profundity of Mr. Kempson’s singing, and the choristers again acquit themselves terrifically in ‘Formons, lions, un chœur’ and ‘Voici la loi nouvelle.’

Following the orchestra’s suitably acerbic rendition of the Overture, the tripartite voice of Athena launches Act Three bitingly with ‘Crie, crieur, à gorge déployée.’ Athena as adjudicator and Mr. Kempson’s Orestes spar with cinematic timing in ‘A vous autres la parole,’ and Mr. Outlaw’s Apollo offers assertive testimony on Orestes’s behalf in ‘Juges de la grande Cour d’Athénaïa’ and ‘Juges, vous nous avez entendus.’ Ms. Rae, Ms. Mumford, and Ms. Lane surpass their own high standard with the ringing forcefulness of their singing of ‘Cet homme est acquitté du crime de sang,’ and Mr. Kempson brings bronze-toned incisiveness to his brief paean to Athena’s justice, ‘Ô Pallas! ô Salvatrice de ma maison!’ The level-headed goddess’s verdict, though consistent with gender identities in Classical mythology, is surprisingly misogynistic: her exoneration of Orestes for the crime of matricide is predicated upon her assessment that Clytemnestre is not a true parent but merely a vessel for the seed of Agamemnon! Whether the young Milhaud sought to comment allegorically on conditions of the society of his own generation is unclear, but there is no question that the prevalent spirit of the choral interjections ‘Iô, jeunes dieux,’ ‘Iô, jeunes dieux, quoi, les vieilles lois,’ ‘Cela, moi, le supporter, pheu,’ and especially the closing Processional, ‘A cause du bien qui suit’ suggests that the composer sympathized most readily with Orestes, whose persecution for actions that he considered not just right but inevitable might have resonated with a man whose own music—equally felt by its creator to be ineluctable—was criticized, misunderstood, and dismissed.

That L’Orestie d’Eschyle is unlikely to gain a place in the repertories of any of the world’s opera houses or concert organizers is a reality upon which this fantastic recording will almost certainly have little impact. The institution that assembles a team of musicians as expansive and a cast as accomplished as those heard on this recording will devote those resources to performing music more likely to sell tickets. For better or worse, that is an economic truth upon which the survival of Classical Music depends. The future of the Classical recording industry depends upon the efforts of labels like NAXOS, however, and this recording of L’Orestie d’Eschyle is a tribute to both the neglected flair of Darius Milhaud’s music for the stage and the critical rôle played by NAXOS in enriching the collective Classical listening experience. Still, the most triumphant aspect of this recording is the opportunity that it provides to hear several of America’s best singers giving their all to music that demands nothing less.

ARTS IN ACTION: Spitfire mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and STELLA DI NAPOLI to shine over Brooklyn

Live from the Gowanus Ballroom: Joyce DiDonato sings selections from Stella di Napoli in Brooklyn on 3 October [Photo by Pari Dukovic, © Warner Classics/ERATO]

The rare junctions of great music with great musicians are almost always events in the most exuberant sense of the term. Even rarer are events in which serendipitous circumstances enable audiences throughout the world to embark together on artistic adventures that strive to uncover new vistas of long-forgotten landscapes. Timed to celebrate the widely-acclaimed recent release of her ERATO disc entitled Stella di Napoli [reviewed here], superstar mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato will offer performances of music from the disc to the audience at Brooklyn’s Gowanus Ballroom and via Livestream to listeners worldwide on Friday, 3 October. Co-sponsored by Warner Classics/ERATO and LoftOpera, the concert will take Ms. DiDonato to one of New York’s most innovative Arts spaces, the magnificently-converted Civil War-era factory in the Gowanus Industrial Arts Complex that is home to the Ballroom.

In an international career encompassing an unusually extensive repertory ranging from Monteverdi and Händel to Mark Adamo and Jake Heggie, Ms. DiDonato has displayed special affinity for bel canto. Stella di Napoli is the singer’s journey to the source of bel canto—Naples in the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century. With invigorating accounts of arias by Bellini, Carafa, Donizetti, Mercadante, Pacini, Rossini, and Valentini, Stella di Napoli is the work of a phenomenal singer in her prime. Ms. DiDonato’s concert in the Gowanus Ballroom will transfer her exploration from the studio to the vibrant atmosphere of live performance. Doors open at 19:00 EDT on Friday, 3 October, and Ms. DiDonato takes the stage at 20:00 EDT. The Livestream feed will begin at 21:00 EDT and can be accessed by clicking here or watching below. LoftOpera’s November production of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia will also be previewed during the event.

It was recently announced that Ms. DiDonato’s Carnegie Hall recital on 4 November, A Journey through Venice, will be streamed online, as well.

Visit Joyce DiDonato’s Official Website to learn more about her upcoming appearances, including her tour with The English Concert in Händel’s Alcina.

For more information about Stella di Napoli, visit the Warner Classics/ERATO website.

CD REVIEW: Stephen Douglas Burton – SYMPHONY NO. 2 ‘ARIEL’ (D. Curry, S. Dickson; Syracuse Symphony Orchestra; Bridge Records BRIDGE 9436)

STEPHEN DOUGLAS BURTON (born 1943): Symphony No. 2 ‘Ariel’ (1975)—Diane Curry, mezzo-soprano; Stephen Dickson, baritone; Syracuse Symphony Orchestra; Christopher Keene, conductor [Recorded in Syracuse, New York, in April 1978; Bridge Records BRIDGE 9436; 1 CD, 51:25; Available from Amazon, iTunes, jpc, Presto Classical, and major music retailers]

​Born in California in 1943, composer Stephen Douglas Burton has devoted much of his career to writing for the human voice with intelligence, naturalness, and unabashed melodic bountifulness rare in Classical Music since the death of Richard Strauss. Frankly, it seems ridiculous that any composer should be deemed unoriginal or uninspired for daring to craft legitimate tunes, but the prevalent trends in modern music have been to value noise as the only means of unique expression. In molding his Second Symphony, commissioned in celebration of the American Bicentennial in 1976 by the National Symphony Orchestra and premièred under the baton of Antal Doráti, Mr. Burton found in the poetry of Sylvia Plath words that both stoked his genius for insightfully allying texts with music and provided extraordinary opportunities for translating his nascent Romanticism into the compositional language of the late Twentieth Century. As the composer noted in describing the Symphony, the influence of Mahler—particularly the singular tonalities and structures of the older composer’s own Second Symphony (the massive Resurrection) and Das Lied von der Erde—is unmistakable, but reminiscences of Beethoven, Schumann, Schoenberg, and Britten combine with a discernibly individual voice that Mr. Burton already wielded with astute maturity at the age of thirty-three. It seems intriguingly ironic that the first performance of the nineteen-year-old composer’s setting of Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ was conducted by Hans Werner Henze, whose polyglot philosophy as a composer Mr. Burton’s music reflects to a degree.

In many ways, however, this newly-remastered reissue of Syracuse Symphony Orchestra’s 1978 studio recording of the ‘Ariel’ Symphony is as much a sad reminder of some of the greatest losses in American music as a celebration as one of America’s finest composers of large-scaled symphonic music. The Syracuse Symphony, an ensemble that often championed repertory ignored or underserved by other orchestras, fell victim to the decimating intersection of pensions with the economic downturn in the first decade of the new millennium, and the Symphony’s Musical Director at the time of this recording, conductor Christopher Keene, was struck down by AIDS in 1995, before he reached the age of forty-nine. The uncommonly gifted baritone Stephen Dickson, who sang all of the vocal selections in the première of the ‘Ariel’ Symphony and reprised his participation, in part, for the recording, was also taken by AIDS, his magnificent voice silenced in 1991. Alongside mezzo-soprano Diane Curry, this team of musicians recorded an account of Mr. Burton’s Second Symphony that is both a momentous homage to its composer and an inspiring memorial to the work of both a fine orchestra and a pair of their country’s most profoundly-missed artists.

Maestro Keene’s extensive experience in conducting opera surely contributed significantly to the measured fluidity of his pacing of this performance of the ‘Ariel’ Symphony. Though his career at the Metropolitan Opera was confined to ten performances of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci in 1971, his quarter-century tenure with New York City Opera included collaborations with many important singers, acclaimed performances of standard repertory, and premières of new works. Co-founder of Spoleto Festival USA and the Long Island Philharmonic, an early training ground for esteemed conductor Marin Alsop, Maestro Keene was also a respected presence in ballet and symphonic music. In this recording of Mr. Burton’s ‘Ariel’ Symphony, Mr. Keene exhibits an exceptional ear for aural textures and instrumental timbres. The Symphony is the sort of music that frequently teeters exhilaratingly at the edge of rhythmic catastrophe, but Maestro Keene maintains control without clipping the wings on which the performers soar through the music. Mr. Burton was frugal with motivic writing in the Symphony, but Maestro Keene conducts with close attention to the cumulative architecture of the music. His approach both clearly differentiates each of the five movements and unifies them compellingly, revealing the ways in which Mr. Burton used nuances of orchestration as well as subtle manipulations of thematic material to link the movements. Maestro Keene conducts Mr. Burton’s music as he might have paced Tosca or Moses und Aron, which is to say that he focuses on identifying the primary colors in the score and enabling the musicians to mix them imaginatively without warping the composer’s palette.

The Symphony takes its name from the composer’s setting in the first movement of Plath’s ‘Ariel,’ the centerpiece of the like-titled collection of poems published in 1965, and the lucidity of Mr. Burton’s response to the ‘dead hands, dead stringencies’ of the poet’s text is apparent from the first note that Ms. Curry sings. The ‘black amnesias of heaven’ of the poem ‘The Night Dances’ surge in the orchestra while the soloist traces the bold shapes of the composer’s melodies. Ms. Curry, whose nineteen performances at the Metropolitan Opera included rôles as diverse as the Amme in Die Frau ohne Schatten, the Innkeeper in Boris Godunov, the Mother in Lulu, and the Aunt in Jenůfa, displays a strong, burnished timbre that she deploys with absolute composure, and her diction, though sometimes imperiled as the vocal line ascends, is generally excellent. She blends her voice with the orchestra appealingly, reveling in the contrasts between the euphonious vocal lines and the more angular instrumental writing.

The second movement combines settings of Plath’s ‘Contusion’ and ‘Fever 103°,’ poems that epitomize the harsh emotional landscapes of Ariel. The bleakness of lines such as ‘The sea sucks obsessively, / One hollow the whole sea’s pivot’ and ‘My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats’ undulates entrancingly in Mr. Dickson’s singing. Sadly, Mr. Dickson was just coming into his prime at the time of his passing, his vibrant portrayal of Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos at the MET in the 1987 – 1988 Season signaling the emergence of a great American baritone in the tradition of Theodor Uppman. The allure of his resonantly masculine singing in Mr. Burton’s music is irresistible, and the concentration with which he thrusts himself into both music and text is fantastic. Maestro Keene keeps the orchestral environment congenial for the singers, but the vocal lines occasionally take Mr. Dickson just beyond the upper limit of his comfort zone. He sings his native language with clarity that should be a model to any singer of English and with unaffectedly poetic phrasing—greater distinction than the text sometimes merits, in fact. Mr. Burton’s music shimmers in the light of such a voice, however, and the severity of the dramatic expression is evinced with uncompromising musicality.

The rigidity of the ostinato-like conjuring of mechanical sustenance of life strikes the ears with surprising ferocity in the third movement, in which Mr. Burton’s exploration of the sickening imagery of ‘Paralytics’ avoids easy sentimentality. The simplicity with which Ms. Curry intones ‘My mind a rock, / No fingers to grip, no tongue, / My god the iron lung / That loves me, pumps / My two / Dust bags in and out’ highlights the composer’s placid, almost tedious treatment of the text, which aptly suggests the separation between the impersonal physical and the life-defining metaphysical. As in the preceding movements, Mr. Burton’s music imitates the flow of the text, in this case droning with the disjointed rhythms of Plath’s verses. The avoidance of a discernible climax in the movement is perhaps symbolic of the inexorable cycles of life: when soul and body are no longer conjoined, cessation—the physiological manifestation of musical silence—is the most perfect resolution.

The recessed brass fanfares of the fourth movement are Mr. Burton’s most obvious nod to Mahler’s Second Symphony, and Maestro Keene and the Syracuse brass players execute them sonorously. A setting of Plath’s ubiquitous ‘Daddy,’ the music breaks into an elaborate waltz when the text mentions Vienna, and the passages for xylophone and brass when the swastika is invoked with sadistic glee are disquieting. Eerie piano figurations compete with percussion in syncopated music that briefly inhabits the jazz-influenced world of Gershwin in Mr. Burton’s setting of the wonderful line ‘Every woman adores a Fascist.’ Mr. Dickson’s singing is as redolent of Tin Pan Alley as of the opera house, and the explosive vehemence of his final utterance of ‘Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through!’ is staggering. This movement could be very effective in concert on its own: in Mr. Dickson’s performance, which scrutinizes the full panoply of the music, it is a tour de force.

The epically-conceived final movement is built upon the juxtaposition of the bracing cacophony of the full orchestra with the suspension of expansive melodic arcs in the strings over uncertain music for the winds. The coldness of ‘The Moon and the Yew Tree’ is alleviated by the warmth of Mr. Burton’s music, the richness of Ms. Curry’s singing lending additional layers of meaning to Plath’s sparse poetry. When Mr. Dickson takes over the vocal duties, the plodding accompaniment that underpins the vocal line accentuates the music’s search for a tonal center. Mr. Dickson equals the consequence of Ms. Curry’s singing, and both soloists movingly explore what ultimately seems to be the fundamental concern of the Symphony as communicated by Plath: ‘How I would like to believe in tenderness.’ Throughout all five movements, the Symphony’s musicians play with individual and collective brilliance, and the immediacy of their performance is evidence of their respect for Maestro Keene and the music before them.

Like so many aspects of American culture, the Classical Music of the United States is an astoundingly diverse crossroads of styles, influences, and assimilations. Characteristic American ingenuity is no less prevalent in the work of native composers than in any other art or industry, but neither is total individuality. If recognition of the models that inspired Stephen Douglas Burton in the creation of his Second Symphony suggests that his score is derivative, the suggestion is deceptive. The ‘Ariel’ Symphony is not a reading of Mahler and earlier Teutonic Romantics with a Yankee accent: it is a journey through more than a century of Romantic edifices that has an unmistakably American destination. It is a score of beauty and punch, and Bridge Records and renowned writer, academic, and Arts administrator Henry Fogel, the producer of the original LP recording, are to be heartily thanked for introducing this performance to a new generation of listeners. The only possible regret is that the ravages of a disease that even Sylvia Plath’s poetry could never adequately castigate deprived Christopher Keene and Stephen Dickson of accepting the gratitude of those who hear this release.