Throughout her fifty year career Barbara Hendricks has shown herself to be one of the greatest champions of French song. This has always held a special place in her repertory and in her heart, as have German lieder, Scandinavian and Spanish songs (not to mention jazz and blues); her musical world has no limits. For this new recording made in 2016, the Swedish soprano pays homage both to her singing teacher and mentor, the great American mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel, and to the creative genius of Hector Berlioz. If the Nuits d’été have long formed part of her repertory, the two cantatas Herminie and Cléopâtre are new.

"Throughout her fifty year career Barbara Hendricks has shown herself to be one of the greatest champions of French song. This has always held a special place in her repertory and in her heart, as have German lieder, Scandinavian and Spanish songs (not to mention jazz and blues); her musical world has no limits. For this new recording made in 2016, the Swedish soprano pays homage both to her singing teacher and mentor, the great American mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel, and to the creative genius of Hector Berlioz. If the Nuits d’été have long formed part of her repertory, the two cantatas Herminie and Cléopâtre are new."

Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic release live recordings of Beethoven's complete symphonies and his concerto with Alexis Weissenberg, which he recorded in Japan from November 13 to 18, 1977, in a limited edition box of 6 CDs.
The latest 192kHz 24bit remastering without artificial equalization delivers powerful and clear sound. It is a treasure-like record that allows you to enjoy Karajan's true magic and the Berlin Philharmonic's skills, which are difficult to detect in studio recordings.

The exceptional nature and high artistic quality of this performance justify publication of this video even though the filming was done only to preserve the performance for Teatro Regio's archives and therefore offers few close-up shots and occasionally unclear lighting.

Serse is a light and elegant comedy. It opens with the most famous of all Handel's arias, the notorious “Ombre mai fu“ (or Largo), quite a different piece when heard in context. Its mock solemnity sets the tone for what follows. The opera moves swiftly and charmingly, the recitatives often interspersed with brief ariosos rather than full-fledged arias. Outstanding in the cast is Hendricks, her voice flexible and distinctive, clearer and purer than it would become (after the tone began to unknit). She sings with great charm. Watkinson is a fluent Serse but doesn't leave a lasting impression. Oddly enough, I enjoyed Esswood's work more.

Due to its disastrous Viennese premiere in 1954, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Symphony in F sharp was quickly dropped from the repertoire. Yet this late masterpiece, along with Korngold's opera Die tote Stadt, found receptive audiences in the 1970s and has become one of his best-known works. The old criticisms against Korngold's traditional tonality, his conservative formal bent, and his professional Hollywood polish no longer matter; nor should his occasionally spicy dissonances, angular melodies, and ambitious orchestration prove an obstacle to appreciation. Korngold's dense and dramatic symphony may be regarded either as a late development of Mahlerian post-Romanticism or as an offshoot of tonal Modernism, as practiced by Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

Acts I and III of this oratorio are sumptuous pageants: Solomon on the throne with his adoring Queen; Solomon receives the Queen of Sheba. In between, Act II's depiction of Solomon's judgment (over the baby) is one of the finest dramatic scenes Handel wrote in any context. The First Harlot's fear, desperation, and gratitude, the Second Harlot's grief-crazed jealousy, Solomon's serene wisdom–all are smashingly portrayed by Handel and by Rodgers, Jones and Watkinson. Argenta's Queen is a girlish delight; the regal Hendricks as Sheba sounds quite comfortable among these Baroque specialists; Rolfe Johnson and Varcoe have two splendid arias each. The choir and orchestra–whether in the amorous "Nightingale" chorus, the sequence of pictorial numbers in Act III, or the stunning double choruses throughout–are magnificent.

Eve Queler has her shortcomings as a conductor. But a conductor's main task is to make a performance happen, to bring all the elements together, and Ms. Queler has been doing this with scrappy determination for 30 years in her role as music director of the Opera Orchestra of New York. Her invaluable mission has been to present concert performances of little-known or problematic operas with the best casts available.

The best of that rather extraordinary body of music written, often hurriedly, to meet the ephemeral needs of the American entertainment industry between the two world wars has proved durable beyond all expectation. Each of the songs on the present recording is characterised by melodic originality of a most personal kind. George Gershwin’s idiom was tinged from the beginning with jazz and the blues, and this had an effect on his rhythm and harmony, both of which still possess much piquancy.
In most cases the lyrics are by the composer’s brother, Ira, and they are almost equally accomplished, matching the extremely varied moods of the music well…

Understandably, Poulenc's Gloria and Stabat Mater have almost invariably been coupled together on LPs and CDs. Similarly scored for solo soprano, chorus, and orchestra, the two works are arguably the twin peaks of Poulenc's sacred music, that is, they are irresistibly melodic, energetically rhythmic, directly emotional, conservatively harmonic, and fervently religious. That said, however, the difference in tone between the two works is as striking as their similarities. Where the Gloria is light, bright, and at times even funny, the Stabat Mater, as befits its subject matter, is dark, heavy, and always deeply sorrowful. In this pair of performances with Georges Prêtre leading the Orchestre National de France and the French Radio Choir from the '80s, both works are given the deluxe French treatment. Prêtre is as skilled at balancing his forces as he is at keeping the music moving, and, as importantly, he is as capable of expressing the Gloria's joyous wit as he is of articulating the Stabat Mater's profound suffering. But the real star of these performances is American soprano Barbara Hendricks whose clear, warm voice and excellent diction breath vibrant life into all Poulenc's glorious melodies.

When Carlo Maria Giulini returned to conducting public performances of opera after an absence of fourteen years, he chose for the occasion one of the enduring comic masterpieces - Verdi's Falstaff. The composer was almost eighty when he broke the six-year silence following the premiere of Otello, and startled the musical world by revealing his complete mastery of comic invention. Renato Bruson, the renowned interpreter of Verdi and one of the leading lyric baritones of the day, sings the title role.

In spite of the French title, and the conductor known for his interest in period performance, this is not the French Orphee et Eurydice of 1774; it is a different 'period version', the period in question being not Gluck's but that of Berlioz (or, as we shall see, nearly so). In 1859, Berlioz, always a passionate admirer of Gluck, prepared a version of the opera for the contralto Pauline Viardot. The alto version of the opera was of course the original Italian one, of 1762, for a castrato, but Berlioz wanted to incorporate some of the changes Gluck had made in 1774 and to use a French text. His compromise version has served as the basis for most revivals of the opera, in whatever language, from then until relatively recent times, though its four-act structure has rarely been followed.

Ms Hendricks has allied herself with one of the truly great pianists of the last thirty years, and a masterly Schubertian at that: Radu Lupu. His Schubert impromptus on Decca are to my mind only challenged by Brendel. I can’t remember hearing him as accompanist anywhere else, which makes his partnership with Barbara Hendricks special indeed. He doesn’t dominate the proceedings as some other soloists have tended to do but neither is he too reticent. It seems that they have found a good balance. Once or twice I reacted to his approach. Der Wanderer an den Mond seems too jolting but otherwise there are no eccentricities.