Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen—Orchestral Music. Buffalo Philharmonic
Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta. Naxos. $12.99.
Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet. Baltimore Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop. Naxos. $16.99 (2 CDs).
Michael Daugherty: Trail of Tears; Dreamachine;
Reflections on the Mississippi. Amy Porter, flute; Dame Evelyn Glennie,
percussion; Carol Jantsch, tuba; Albany Symphony conducted by David Alan
Miller. Naxos. $12.99.
There are so very many ways to tell
stories in music – and these three new Naxos releases showcase three very
different ones. Wagner’s monumental Der
Ring des Nibelungen is the quintessential music drama, a four-opera
sequence in which words and music intermingle incessantly and are both equally
necessary to give the story its full scope and tremendous impact. There is no
theater experience quite like it – but many listeners have neither time nor
inclination for full immersion, and conductors have for many years sought and
found strictly musical elements that they can extract from the experiential
totality and turn into concert pieces. JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo
Philharmonic offer a mostly excellent version of 64 minutes of music that,
while it scarcely encompasses all the elements of 15 operatic hours, certainly
gives a strong flavor of Wagner’s skill both in drama and in orchestration
(including but not limited to the Wagner tuba, which the composer created
specifically for this masterful set of operas). There is something here from each
of the four parts. “Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla” comes from Das Rheingold, the music’s triumphalism
total in orchestral form (as arranged by Hermann Zampe) even though, in the
opera itself, there is irony aplenty in the gods’ entry into the new home that
they have obtained through very human forms of treachery and deceit. From Die Walküre we get, inevitably and
extremely effectively, “The Ride of the Valkyries,” followed by the opera’s
conclusion, “Wotan’s Farewell and Magic Fire Music” (both arranged by Wouter
Hutschenruyter). This latter excerpt does not work particularly well in the
absence of Wotan’s voice: the scene is a linchpin of the downward spiral of
Wotan and thus of all the gods, and the lack of the vocal element leads to a
musical presentation that, although well-played, is rather under-communicative.
From Siegfried comes the famous
“Forest Murmurs” (arranged by Zampe), as effective as ever. And there are three
excerpts from Götterdämmerung:
“Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” (arranged by Engelbert Humperdinck, whose own works
are strongly influenced by Wagner); “Siegfried’s Death and Funeral Music”
(arranged by Ludvík Šťastný); and “Brunnhilde’s Immolation Scene.” The last of
these is the other major place here where the absence of voice is strongly
felt: without the enormous emotional pull of Brunnhilde’s farewell to Siegfried
and her self-immolation, resulting in flames that consume Valhalla itself, the
music, although splendid, is far less cathartic than in the opera. But despite
what is missing, what is here is
handled with considerable skill by Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic, from
the drama of “The Ride of the Valkyries” to the delicacy of “Forest Murmurs” to
the intensity of the funeral music for Siegfried, where the orchestra’s brass
section really outdoes itself. This CD is far from a suitable substitute for
the entirety of Der Ring des Nibelungen,
but it is a wonderful way to recall the operatic sequence for those who know it
well, and a first-rate introduction to the music for those who have not yet had
the tremendous pleasure of encountering Wagner’s tetralogy in its original
form.
Prokofiev also chose the theater for
telling a number of stories, but unlike Wagner, he created scores both for
operas and for ballets. Since ballet does not require speaking or singing, it
tends to translate to recordings better than do purely orchestral excerpts from
operas – much less tightly integrated music dramas such as Der Ring des Nibelungen. However, the quality of ballet recordings
varies widely, and there are some basic issues that conductors of this sort of
stage music must make when performing it without staging – notably ones of
tempo. In her new recording of the complete Romeo
and Juliet with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop opts for
pacing that would work quite well for dancers, and that proves to be a
significant strength of her performance. Alsop does not control an orchestra
quite as tightly as Falletta does, with the result that, for example, the
violins are somewhat lacking in precision in the fight scene in Act I. However,
Alsop has a great flair for the dramatic – evident in that same scene – and
when the strings are not required to produce quite as high a degree of clarity,
they acquit themselves very well. Thus, the love scenes come across with
exceptional beauty and warmth here; the performance of the lower strings in the
love scene that ends Act I is a particular standout. Other sections of the
orchestra also shine in their own way, the woodwinds being especially notable,
with the orchestra’s principal flute and oboe playing with truly lovely tone.
Alsop certainly picks up on and even extends the romantic drama of the score,
presenting the music with passion bordering on that of film music (a category
at which Prokofiev excelled) while also allowing plenty of solemnity when it is
needed – plus third and fourth acts that are beautifully sad (if perhaps not
really tragic) and quite tender. Individual numbers from the score that are
particular high points include Dance of
the Mandolins and Dance of the Girls
with Lilies, but these are exceptional only within the larger context:
Alsop integrates the score very well, so these highlights are clearly heard as
portions of a greater whole, and the entirety of Romeo and Juliet never comes across as episodic. It is also worth
mentioning that the sound quality both of Alsop’s recording and of Falletta’s
is absolutely top-notch – Naxos has an outstanding producer/engineer in Tim
Handley, who handled both of these releases. Alsop’s Romeo and Juliet continues her work on the music of Prokofiev – she
has already recorded all the symphonies, most of them to fine effect – and
shows her to be a sensitive and strongly engaged conductor of this repertoire.
The sound is not quite as good on a Naxos CD
that tells stories and engages the audience in a very different way: one
featuring three 21st-century concertos by Michael Daugherty (born
1954). Listeners will have no doubt at any point that these are concertos, since the soloists are
placed quite prominently (the producer/engineers here are Silas Brown and Doron
Schächter, with Daugherty himself also taking a producer credit). Aside from
that, the orchestral accompaniment by David Alan Miller and the Albany Symphony
is fine, although this ensemble is not quite at the level of either Falletta’s
or Alsop’s. The main effect of Daugherty’s music here, however, comes from the
stories it illuminates – something that it does through the composer’s careful
selection of solo instruments as well as his ability to find new ways to
explore what is essentially traditional tonality. Reflections on the Mississippi (2014), for tuba (Carol Jantsch) and
orchestra, is especially successful. Its four movements, portraying scenes the
composer says he remembers from youthful times spent by the great river, have
sounds that genuinely go with their titles: “Mist,” “Fury,” “Prayer” and
“Steamboat.” It is thanks to Jantsch’s marvelous playing that the scenes come
so vividly alive: she has the great lower heft of the tuba, to be sure, but she
also produces sounds of delicacy and intimacy from an instrument that all too
often seems unwieldy rather than as expressive as it is here. The other
concertos on this CD are both world première recordings. Trail of Tears (2010), for flute and chamber orchestra, is
communicatively on the too-obvious side. Its topic is the forced relocation of
Native Americans in the 1830s, and its first two movements (“Where the Wind
Blew Free” and “Incantation”) are, accordingly, sad to the point of being
despairing – but not particularly revelatory and not expressive in any unusual
way. The finale, “Sun Dance,” is the best part of the work, representing the
intensity of attempts to overcome deep sorrow and move on with life. It is a
difficult and highly virtuosic movement that soloist Amy Porter handles with
admirable skill. Daugherty’s use of a chamber rather than full orchestra for
this concerto is an inspired touch, lending the music more intimacy than it
would otherwise possess. Also on the disc is Dreamachine (2014), a rather too cutely titled concerto for solo
percussion and orchestra that gives Dame Evelyn Glennie plenty of chances to
display her very considerable skill. The basic idea here is to pay tribute to
people who create machines of all types, including ones that never quite make
it to reality. The four movements are called “Da Vinci’s Wings,” “Rube Goldberg’s
Variations,” “Electric Eel,” and “Vulcan’s Forge.” The communicative power here
is not quite as strong or direct as in Reflections
on the Mississippi, but Dreamachine
has more humor and an overall lighter touch with its subject matter than
anything else on this CD. The exact machines portrayed or commented upon in the
concerto are not obvious beyond the movements’ titles, and not always even
then: “Electric Eel” really does sound like the creature, quite engagingly so,
rather than like anything it may have inspired someone to create. The highly
virtuosic snare-drum cadenza in this concerto’s finale, somewhat reminiscent in
its complexity of Nielsen’s use of the instrument in his Symphony No. 5, is a
high-water mark of the entire disc, even if its exact intended meaning is
elusive. As a whole, the CD shows Daugherty to be a very fine musical
tale-teller whose stories may not always be completely clear but whose
enthusiasm for conveying them is evident at all times.
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