The Music Pages | July 2008

The Decca Ansermet Legacy on Eloquence continues with 3 titles of Russian music, two of them being Rimsky-Korsakov titles released to mark the centenary of his death. Zubin Mehta’s Mahler Symphonies 1 and 3 re-enter the Decca catalogue in tandem with his Australian visit this July and a buried treasure is unearthed – Jacqueline du Pré’s last recording which she made in 1979 for Deutsche Grammophon and receives its first outing on CD.
	Cat. No.: 480 0047 Barcode: 0028948000470 Label: Decca CD Release Date: July			ERNEST ANSERMET MUSSORGSKY: Night on a Bare Mountain ARTISTS L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Ernest Ansermet TRACK LISTING MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. M. Ravel) Night on Bare Mountain Prelude (Khovanshchina) Dance of the Persian slaves (Khovanshchina) Gopak (orch. Liadov) (Sorochintsy Fair) BALAKIREV: Tamara – Symphonic Poem At the time of its release – 1960 – Ansermet’s stereo recording of the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition was demonstration worthy, and it still, today, retains its sense of space and impact. Much of the remainder of the program makes its first international appearance on CD, and the ‘Dance of the Persian Slaves’ (from Khovanshchina) and the little Gopak from Sorochintsy Fair will be especially sought after by collectors. The CD of Mussorgsky orchestrations is filled-out with a comparative rarity – Balakirev’s haunting symphonic poem Tamara, a temptress who seduces and murders ill-fated travellers. RETURN TO THE TOP

	Cat. No.: 480 0081 Barcode: 0028948000814 Label: Decca CD Release Date: July			ERNEST ANSERMET RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade \| Le Coq d’Or – Suite ARTISTS Pierre Nerini, violin* Paris Conservatoire Orchestra* L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Ernest Ansermet TRACK LISTING RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade, Op. 35* Le Coq d’Or – Suite While Ansermet’s stereo Suisse Romande recording of Scheherazade is well-known and has been frequently reissued, his early (1954) Paris Conservatoire Orchestra recording of this piece is a relative rarity and here receives its first CD outing on Decca. It has, perhaps, that extra bit of fantasy over his later recording of the work and was beautifully recorded by the Producer/Engineer team of Victor Olof and James Brown at the Maison de la Mutualité in Paris. Its coupling receives its first release on CD – the Coq d’Or Suite, recorded two years earlier (in mono) and which tells the tale of the ill-advised King Dodon who meets his end by being pecked to death by a golden cockerel! RETURN TO THE TOP

	Cat. No.: 480 0827 Barcode: 0028948008278 Label: Decca 2CD Release Date: July			ERNEST ANSERMET RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Antar \| May Night \| The Tale of Tsar Saltan \| The Flight of the Bumblebee \| Capriccio Espagnol ARTISTS Motet de Genève* L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Ernest Ansermet TRACK LISTING RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Symphony No. 2, Op. 9 ‘Antar’ May Night Overture The Tale of Tsar Saltan – Suite, Op. 57 The Flight of the Bumblebee The Tale of Tsar Saltan Capriccio Espagnol, Op. 34 Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op. 36 Christmas Eve – Suite Dubinushka, Op. 62 Sadko, Op. 5 – A Musical Picture The Snow Maiden – Suite* Fantasy and folklore are the subject of this 2CD collection of orchestral pieces by Rimsky-Korsakov recorded between 1953 and 1963 by the Suisse Romande Orchestra and Ernest Ansermet. We encounter Antar, disillusioned son of a slave who rises to become a Bedouin chief and dies in the arms of a fairy queen. We meet a Tsarina consigned to sea in a barrel with her son who transforms himself into a bumblebee; a witch who steals the moon; and a maiden who is immune from the power of the sun, thanks to her father, Winter, who is enemy of the sun! Antar represents Decca’s first stereo recording and the booklet note includes an account of the making of this seminal document. The thrilling sound in many of the recordings is complemented by conducting of swiftness and astuteness, and above all, plenty of colour. “The Tsar Saltan suite shows Ansermet and the Decca engineers in glittering form… The Christmas Eve suite is played with much affection and that mixture of spontaneity and remarkably graphic orchestral palette which made Ansermet’s performances special… The sound [in The Snow Maiden] is remarkably warm and richly coloured” Penguin Guide to CDs RETURN TO THE TOP

	Cat. No.: 480 0475 Barcode: 0028948004751 Label: DG CD Release Date: July			JACQUELINE DU PRÉ \| DANIEL BARENBOIM Jacqueline Du Pré’s Musical Stories PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf L. MOZART: Cassation DUKAS: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice ARTISTS Jacqueline du Pré, narrator* English Chamber Orchestra+ Orchestre de Paris Daniel Barenboim TRACK LISTING PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67+ L. MOZART:* Cassation in G for Orchestra and Toys+ DUKAS: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice SAINT-SAËNS: Danse macabre In 1979, the much-loved British cellist Jacqueline du Pré, then beset with multiple sclerosis (she was diagnosed in 1973), stepped into the recording studio to make what was to be her last recording – not as cellist, but as an engaging narrator in Peter and the Wolf. Her husband Daniel Barenboim conducted a spacious and relaxed account of this timeless story. The coupling was an expanded version of the movements that are frequently heard as Leopold Mozart’s Toy Symphony – the Cassation in G. Her spirit ever indomitable, du Pré had actually taken part in performances of this work in 1976 at the Royal Albert Hall, playing a toy drum. (Earlier, as a little girl, she performed it with much enthusiasm on a television show, managing to rupture the instrument!). This timeless recording has never before been released on CD, and in the spirit of musical-storytelling it is released coupled with two other favourites – Dukas’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre both recorded some years later by Barenboim. “Jacqueline du Pré’s is a leisurely and intimate account, like a bedtime story” Penguin Guide to CDs RETURN TO THE TOP

	Cat. No.: 480 0461 Barcode: 0028948004614 Label: Decca CD Release Date: July			GERALD ENGLISH \| DAVID ATHERTON FORD: Night and Dreams \| SCHOENBERG: Ode to Napoleon ARTISTS Gerald English, tenor & reciter+ Ingrid Rahlén, backing track playback London Sinfonietta+ David Atherton+ TRACK LISTING FORD: Nights and Dreams: the Death of Sigmund Freud SCHOENBERG: Ode to Napoleon, Op. 41+ Gerald English was a founder member of the legendary Deller Consort; he sang under the batons of Stravinsky, Ansermet, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Barbirolli and Beecham; he premiered works by Tippett, Henze, Berio and Dallapiccola. He also premiered 12 pieces by the Australian composer (and broadcaster), Andrew Ford. The last of these, the one-man music-theatre piece Night and Dreams: the death of Sigmund Freud was commissioned by the 2000 Adelaide Festival. We find ourselves in the exiled Freud's London home in September 1939, as the father of psychoanalysis confronts his own death while dreaming of Vienna, Schubert and a strange, unidentified girl. In the Sydney Morning Herald, Roger Covell wrote of the premiere that 'English . . . acts out Freud's reveries with a keen sense of timing and humour. The feeling of physical presence in the last hours of the great theorist is vivid'. Described by other critics as 'stunningly intelligent, intensely moving' (The Age), 'powerful and eerie' (The Australian) and 'electrifying' (The Canberra Times), Night and Dreams had sell-out seasons at the 2001 Sydney and Melbourne festivals, and this ABC studio recording of the 75-year-old English's 'virtuoso performance' (UK Opera magazine) is now commercially available for the first time. It is paired with Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon, the work of another Viennese in exile. Schoenberg composed his brilliant setting of Byron's sardonic ode in Hollywood in 1942, scoring it for reciter and piano quintet. Gerald English recorded the work with the London Sinfonietta for Schoenberg's centenary in 1974 and this is its first release on CD. RETURN TO THE TOP

	Cat. No.: 480 1133 Barcode: 0028948011339 Label: Decca 2CD Release Date: July			ZUBIN MEHTA \| MAHLER: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 ARTISTS Maureen Forrester, contralto (No. 3) The California Boys’ Choir (No. 3) Members of The Los Angeles Master Chorale (No. 3) Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (No. 3) Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (No. 1) Zubin Mehta TRACK LISTING MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 Symphony No. 3 Both, Mahler’s First and Third symphonies, originally enjoyed subtitles for their movements. The first movement of the First was one ‘Spring Without End’, the second ‘Under Full Sail’. For the Third, Mahler paid tribute to the Flowers in the Meadow, the Animals in the Froest, Man, Angels and Love, respectively, for its five movements. Both the Mehta recordings have a real sense of presence and space about them, and the elegiac finale of the Third was recorded in a single take. “Mehta in his years in Los Angeles rarely recorded a performance so authentically Viennese as this Decca account of Mahler’s Third. The crisp spring of the first movement leads to a fruitily Viennese view of the second and a carefree account of the third in which the Wunderhorn overtones come out vigorously. The singing is excellent, and the sharpness of focus of the reading as a whole is impressive, underlined by the brilliant … recording” Penguin Guide to CDs RETURN TO THE TOP