I have an interesting und unusual discovery to share: a composition of a well-known composer which was seemingly almost forgotten. Everyone who has ever dug into the oeuvre of a composer giant asking himself or herself why this or that work is underrepresented usually gets an answer when listening to it. I personally had the worst live performance in my life when trying ´Das Liebesverbot´ by Richard Wagner which might be the worst opera ever written.
This sacred composition from the last high time of romanticism is different. No-one really knows why it was almost forgotten. Only a handful of recordings were published. Maybe it had to do with the composer falling ill after completing the work, maybe it lacks popular melodies, maybe it is too catholic for lovers of romantic music, too much devoted to strict liturgy for the concert hall, not overly practical with its orchestra and big choir required for an ordinary Sunday mass.
Whatever the reason, I highly recommend the Missa Sacra Op. 147 by Robert Schumann in this stunning recording by the Swedish Radio Choir with a limited number of singers replacing the orchestra with an organ:
The first three parts are despite all beauty far from a usual concert performance as they are strictly devoted to the (repetitive) catholic liturgy with the Gloria extending the usual framework of such pieces significantly.
Beginning with the Offertorio concepted as a brief solo aria, things are changing, and this is a wonderful experience of sacred music sounding astonishingly modern in terms of catholic tradition (If one is familiar with the sacred work of Bruckner, Saint-Saens or Dvorak, you know what I mean).
Singing is simply perfect, precise and natural with subtle vibrato. The organ with its massively registered pedal work is powerful enough to both fill the room and serve as a proper fundament.
This is encouraging for Exton releases! That album isn’t currently on Apple Classical in the US, but hopefully will be coming.
In the Apple Classical app, after you open an album, there is a button below the track list that opens a list of albums from the record label (the regular Apple Music app doesn’t have this feature).
When I last tried this many months ago, only a handful of albums came up (literally 4 or 5). Now it is showing hundreds of Exton albums. The vast majority of albums are by Japanese orchestras and musicians, but there are also some others including the Czech Philharmonic under Zdeněk Mácal and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Honeck/Pittsburgh (currently only Mahler 1 and Ein Heldenleben in the US). I checked on a few albums, which also seem to be available on Tidal and Spotify (however, still missing from Qobuz). Very happy to see Exton streaming again, and hoping to see them include more of their catalog.
Well after my summer of Bruckner, which itself was quite a transformation of views on his music, I felt I needed to get those great slabs of sound and silence out of my system, with something rather different…perhaps a CPE Bach Cello Concerto that has been very well received?
Sadly, I find myself still addicted to large orchestral works and blasts of brass, and so I turned to this…From track 15, disc 2, the Sinfonietta was quite the tonic.
Janacek’s music is great but I never really found the cunning little vixen to be his most dense piece on stage. Makes sense to record it in a concert hall.
Another great installment of that LSO series and in general an underrated composition by Janacek:
Agreed; my main purpose for sharing was the excellent account of the ‘Sinfonietta’, after the ‘Vixen’, which comes from the same sound world as ‘Katya’. I could have gone with Mackerras, but the LSO/Rattle account just sounds terrific.
Thanks! Really enjoyed the Gabrielli (to hear that in St Marks!) and Bach…the latter sounding so modern, and (a bit off topic) reminiscent of ‘Atom Heart Mother’!
Reminded me, that I should dig out some Praetorius.
Our lengthiest-ever Classical Spotlight is now up on the Roon homepage! I was away on vacation for a bit, causing the interlude between updates to extend to three weeks rather than the usual two. With that, the list is literally bursting with choice selections from the latest classical releases. 82 tracks for 10 glorious hours of beautiful sounds. Enjoy!
Some composers may suffer because of one huge success, and for myself, when it comes to Gustav Holst, ‘The Planets’ has clearly obscured some very fine music.
I was taken aback, today, by some stunning singing and orchestral accompaniment; was it Schoenberg? Strauss? Possibly Berg?
Roon suggested it was Susan Gritton in Holst’s ‘The Mystic Trumpeter’…quite a discovery.
Few would choose Leontyne Price in the ‘Four Last Songs’, but her ‘Empress Awakes’ scene from ‘Frau Ohne Schatten’ (which the Holst also reminded me of), conducted by Leinsdorf, is phenomenal.
I’ve never listened to many recordings by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy so I’m diving in and, as a bonus, find the mid century cover art to be a bit intoxicating.
