Tír Na HiFi

Jose Echenique wrote:

The Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja has been around for some time. He has a nice lyric voice better suited to Donizetti than Verdi. This tribute to Mario Lanza, a cinema tenor (he never sang in a legitimate opera house), has some awful "arrangements" that hardly serve Calleja´s good intentions. Worst of all is the overblown orchestration of Marechiare, a hideous thing that this lovely tarantella doesn´t deserve.
But there is some excellent singing in this cd. The opera arias are mostly well done, I especially loved "Amor ti Vieta" from Fedora, but perhaps the best singing comes in "You´ll never walk alone" from Carrousel.

Pepe, do you like Mario Lanza? I have to confess that I don't so the whole idea of that recording would put me off the thought of buying it .

<Pepe, do you like Mario Lanza? I have to confess that I don't so the whole idea of that recording would put me off the thought of buying it .>

OF COURSE NOT!!!! He was a shouter, and I mean, anyone who likes Di Stefano, Kraus, Bergonzi or Pavarotti can´t possibly stand Mario Lanza, though it´s understandable that for a generation who grew up watching his films he made an impact. Pavarotti and Calleja are confessed fans.
Calleja is no shouter, and in fact he is quite a pleasing and civilized tenor, so it´s all the more regrettable that he uses some overblown Lanza arrangements. My God, if Francesco Paolo Tosti had heard what they do to Marechiare!!!!!!

By the way, I don´t know if you are familiar with film critic Pauline Kael. She made the film reviews for the The New Yorker magazine for decades. She was probably the best film critic ever, and when reviewing The Great Caruso she said this: "Mario Lanza shouts great if you are 10 years old".
That´s the best description of Mario Lanza´s singing ever.

Beethoven - Symphony No.7 (John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, Soli Deo Gloria)

Tippett - Concerto for Double String Orchestra (Neville Marriner, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Decca Eloquence)

fergus wrote:

bombasticDarren wrote:

The final movement of No. 5 and the first movement of No. 7 are two of my favourite symphonic movements of any composer so I would definitely like to hear that version!

My preferences would be the absolute inverse of yours there Fergus: I love the first movement of 5, and the fourth movement of 7. As a symphony Beethoven 7 is hard to beat (although Mahler 9 is a strong challenger, in my view) and this recording is pretty much a textbook HIP reading. I won't say 'rush out and buy it!' though, because I am not sure it adds significantly to the previous recording from the same forces...

Jared wrote:

dhyantyke wrote:

I really hope you're enjoying that bargain we recently found.... ;-)]

Yes I am, and also the Byrd masses also from the bargain thread. Well done!

Jose Echenique wrote:<Pepe, do you like Mario Lanza? I have to confess that I don't so the whole idea of that recording would put me off the thought of buying it .>

OF COURSE NOT!!!! He was a shouter, and I mean, anyone who likes Di Stefano, Kraus, Bergonzi or Pavarotti can´t possibly stand Mario Lanza, though it´s understandable that for a generation who grew up watching his films he made an impact. Pavarotti and Calleja are confessed fans.
Calleja is no shouter, and in fact he is quite a pleasing and civilized tenor, so it´s all the more regrettable that he uses some overblown Lanza arrangements. My God, if Francesco Paolo Tosti had heard what they do to Marechiare!!!!!!

By the way, I don´t know if you are familiar with film critic Pauline Kael. She made the film reviews for the The New Yorker magazine for decades. She was probably the best film critic ever, and when reviewing The Great Caruso she said this: "Mario Lanza shouts great if you are 10 years old".
That´s the best description of Mario Lanza´s singing ever.

I'm glad you said that, I cannot stand his crooning, thanks Pepe.

bombasticDarren wrote:Shostakovich - Violin Sonata (Oleg Kagan/Sviatoslav Richter, Regis)

I am very fond of Kagan's playing and Richter is very fine too.

<I'm glad you said that, I cannot stand his crooning, thanks Pepe.>

If he crooned -like Sinatra- it wouldn´t have been that bad, the problem is that he shouted, probably imitating the loud, loud tones of Mario del Monaco. But the fact is that he wasn´t an operatic tenor. He only sang 2 opera performances in his life (the small role of Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly), and that was at the very beginning of his career in 1948 in New Orleans, but I´m sure he knew he was not equipped to sing in a large auditorium with a large orchestra... in spite of the shouting.

Tonight I've been listening to Amandine Beyer's recording of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin on ZigZag. We have been very fortunate in recent years to have some sterling versions of these extraordinary works added to the catalogue, most notably those by Viktoria Mullova (Onyx) and Isabelle Faust (Harmonia Mundi), and we have no right to expect another set of the same quality but Beyer delivers just that. She differs significantly in her approach to this music in that she favours a rather less visceral tone than Mullova or Faust and the lyrical side to the music is highlighted. She remains alive to the emotional depths that this deeply personal music possesses but her journey takes in the contrast of light and shade, joy and despair, as opposed to a headlong rush of intensity that we hear with Gidon Kremer (ECM). Her very personal journey is imbued with a sense of understated introspection and conveyed with great delicacy. All great music admits a multitude of interpretations and is limited solely by the listener's imagination. Beyer's take on this music may be more sweetly lyrical than some but the works retain their collective sense of spiritual fervour and intellectual enquiry.

Key to any great recording of the Sonatas and Partitas is the Chaconne from Partita No. 2 and, crucially, how successfully the player manages to navigate through the densely polyphonic structure of the different variations that constitute this piece. Bayer's approach is a subtly nuanced one as she patiently and deliberately weaves her way through the successive variations, with each modulation representing an inexorable renewal of intensity, until she arrives at a conclusion that, whilst logical, seems also low-key and very personal.

Like Bach's Cello Suites, I view the unaccompanied violin Sonatas and Partitas as an emotional journey, resembling a kind of Pilgrim's Progress, which must be absorbed in a single sitting to absorb fully the emotional troughs and valleys that the player faces. This music contains in crystallised form the essence of the limitless emotional depths and sense of mystery that exists at the heart of all of Bach's music. There can be no "best" version of this great music because, ultimately, it remains unconquerable for both the listener and musician but each great recording we hear significantly enlarges our understanding of the otherworldly beauty and grandeur that informs each and every note of this imperishable music.