Atterberg: Piano Concerto (CD review)

Rhapsody; Ballade & Passacaglia. Love Derwinger, piano; Ari Rasilainen, Radio-Philharmonie Hanover des NDR. CPO  999 732-2.

If the first few moments of Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg's Piano Concerto sound a lot like the Grieg Concerto, it probably isn't coincidence. Atterberg freely admitted an admiration for his fellow Scandinavian. Atterberg (1887-1974) is another of those artists whose works are important but seldom recorded. Perhaps they were only important in their time, and their time has come and gone. Nonetheless, it's lucky for us that companies like CPO (and Naxos and so many other labels) are keeping lesser-known composers in the public eye.

The Piano Concerto is the focus of this disc, although it's preceded by a delightful little Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra that's full of exotic charm, and it's followed by the Ballad and Passacaglia, equally brief (about ten minutes) but equally fetching.

Ari Rasilainen

Then, in between, comes the Piano Concerto of 1936, which is foremost on the program, as well it should be. Besides beginning with a homage to Grieg, it settles into a series of powerful and rhapsodic statements of quite sophisticated, albeit slightly melancholy, orchestral proportions. After that is one of the loveliest (and again slightly melancholic) slow movements I've heard in some time. The finale, marked "Furioso," seems to me a little out of keeping with its somewhat subdued antecedents, but it does ease up at the end.

I admit that a previous disc of this composer's Third and Sixth Symphonies (CPO 999 640-2) did not impress as much as this one did, perhaps because of the Piano Concerto's further infusion of folk and blues elements. Whatever, I found it a minor treasure that I'm glad I got to hear. What's more, pianist Love Derwinger plays enchantingly, Maestro Ari Rasilainen keeps the pace moving sweetly, and the orchestra play it with a marked degree of enthusiasm.

As with CPO's earlier disc of Atterberg material, however, the sound is not overly impressive. There's nothing really wrong with it per se, mind you, but it doesn't impress one with any degree of transparency, impact, or stage depth. Rather, it just sort of hangs out there doing its own thing unobtrusively, if a bit softly and flatly.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 (CD review)

Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra. HDTT remaster.

Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985) was the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra for about as long as any conductor has ever been the conductor of any one orchestra: He was at the helm for forty-four years. He took over the orchestra from Leopold Stokowski in the mid 1930's and recorded for several labels thereafter: primarily Columbia/CBS, RCA, and EMI until the late 70's. It was 1972 that Ormandy made the RCA recording under review, using the short-lived technology known at the time as Quadraphonic. HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers) translated the Quadraphonic tape to various newer formats in 2015.

When I started acquiring recordings at the beginning of the stereo age (mid 1950's), Ormandy had already well established himself as one of the world's leading conductors. But I didn't really take much notice of him and bought very little of his work because he always seemed a rather foursquare conductor to me. That is, while I never found anything wrong or deficient about his conducting, I usually never found much spark to it, either. He appeared to give the public exactly what they wanted, which wasn't bad: that is, reliable, straightforward interpretations of popular classical music from a world-class orchestra. Unfortunately, too, in the vinyl days his record companies weren't always good to him, producing LP's that sounded thin, noisy, compressed, sometimes harsh, and bass-shy. By the time EMI started recording him, things got a little better; and then when the CD era arrived in the early 1980's, it surprised me to hear how good some of his early stereo work sounded when properly transferred to the new medium. Apparently, Columbia and RCA had not always been kind to the sound when translating the original master tapes to LP. While Ormandy's performances still didn't impress me too much, at least I could hear them in improved sonics. This HDTT transfer gives us some idea of what Ormandy and his Philadelphians really sounded like back then.

Anyway, the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) wrote his Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 43 in 1902, and over the past hundred-odd years it has become probably his most-popular work. The listening public dubbed it his "Symphony of Independence," although musical scholars are as yet unsure whether Sibelius meant to attribute any symbolic significance to the piece. Whatever, it ends in a splendidly victorious finale that certainly draws out a feeling of freedom and self-reliance.

The work begins in a generally sunny mood, building to a powerful a climax, with a flock of heroic fanfares thrown in for good measure. Ormandy had recorded the symphony once before in stereo (for Columbia in the late 1950's, if memory serves), and this '72 performance is much as I remember the first one. Ormandy takes a fairly relaxed view of the opening movement, building the excitement in smoothly articulated stages with no jarring transitions. It's popular music made even more palatable in Ormandy's essentially idiocyncratic-free approach.

Eugene Ormandy

Sibelius marked the second movement an Andante (moderately slow) and ma rubato (with a flexible tempo) to allow a conductor more personal expression. This second movement begins with a distant drumroll, followed by a pizzicato section for cellos and basses. Again Ormandy handles the music with his customary, gentle evenhandedness, with the insistent staccato rhythms made more comfortable in the process.

The third-movement scherzo displays a fair degree of orchestral pyrotechnics, interrupted from time to time by a slower, more melancholy theme before seamlessly making its transition into the Finale. Sibelius labeled the movement "Vivacissimo," meaning a tempo taken in a lively and vivacious manner. Under Ormandy, the music moves along at a reasonably quick gait without seeming in any way hurried, rushed, or hectic. He judges his rubato well, too, so again we get no incongruous shocks to the senses as the music moves from one contrasting element to the next.

Then, the Finale should burst forth in an explosive radiance--thrilling and patriotic. Ormandy maneuvers his way into this big fourth-movement victory celebration with a kind of polished cushiness that doesn't quite inspire a listener the way, say, Karajan does. Yet it suffices, and one could hardly call it dull. And he does build up to the score's several rousing climaxes with an appropriate amount of success. So, if Ormandy's interpretation is hardly pulse-pounding, it's also hard to fault.

As I say, Ormandy is good at what he does, and there is nothing about the recording that anyone can point to as inadequate or lacking, especially with an orchestra that plays so wonderfully and with such precision at the Philadelphia. It's just that there are already any number of fine recordings I find more rewarding from people like John Barbirolli and the Royal Philharmonic (Chesky Gold), Barbirolli and the Halle Orchestra (EMI), Pierre Monteux and the London Symphony (HDTT),
George Szell and the Concertgebouw Orchestra (Philips), Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic (EMI), Colin Davis and the Boston or London Symphony Orchestras (Philips or RCA),
Thomas Sondergard and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Linn), Osmo Vanska and the Lahti Symphony (BIS), among others. Nevertheless, I doubt that Ormandy would disappoint too many people.

Producer Max Wilcox and engineer Paul Goodman recorded the music for RCA in 1972. In 2015 HDTT transferred it to various formats including two-channel CD, DVD and DVD-A Audio physical disc, DSD or PCM FLAC download, or four-channel surround Blu-ray from an RCA discrete Quadraphonic tape. I listened to the two-channel CD.

The sound is a little closer than I like and a trifle too rounded and soft for me. Still, it beats by a long shot the old sound I remember from Philadelphia, which was often hard, bright, and brittle. Here, we get a most-listenable sound, with strong, wide dynamics and a decent if not wholly satisfying sense of orchestral depth. It seems a good sound for most of the music here--sunny, open, big, and bold, with a warm hall bloom to the instrumental setting. Although midrange transparency suffers a bit, it's a good trade-off for the added ambient glow.

Moreover, for those of you interested in what the original four-channel Quadraphonic sounds like, HDTT also make the recording available in Blu-ray 4.0 surround.

For further information on HDTT products, prices, discs, and downloads in a variety of formats, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Chopin: Nocturnes (CD review)

Also, Barcarolle; Fantaisie. Claudio Arrau, piano. Philips 289 464 694-2 (2-disc set).

Chopin didn't invent the nocturne; Wikipedia defines it as "a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night. Historically, 'nocturne' is a very old term applied to night Offices and, since the Middle Ages, to divisions in the canonical hour of Matins." Credit goes to Irish composer John Field for writing the first nocturnes under the specific title 'nocturne,' but Chopin did quite a lot to perfect and popularize the genre in the early decades of the nineteenth century. We think of nocturnes today as romantic mood pieces with expressive melodies and broad, buoyant, sustained accompaniment, and no one before or since has done them quite as eloquently as Chopin.

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) must have loved the form because he continued writing nocturnes all his short life, the first ones penned in his teens and early twenties, the final ones written just a couple of years before his death. They're all here in the present collection, exquisitely beautiful, done up in raptly concentrated and deeply committed performances by Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau. In addition to the Nocturnes, including the posthumous C sharp minor, Arrau adds the Barcarolle in F sharp and the popular Fantaisie in F minor.

Arrau's way with these nocturnes is strong and emotional rather than purely poetic. Not that they aren't also warm and loving, especially as taken at the moderately slow speeds Arrau adopts, but they have a firm cohesiveness about them, along with some deliberate, solidly molded phrasing. Arrau's playing may not be as lyrical as Arthur Rubinstein's (RCA), who for me still holds pride of place, but Arrau's approach is still among the better, more-decisive interpretations of these works you'll find on disc.

Claudio Arrau

Philips recorded the music in 1978 analogue and remastered them in 2001 using 96 kHz, 24-bit Super Digital technology for smooth all-around sound and reasonably low noise. The resultant sound isn't as quiet or as dynamic as some of today's all-digital recordings, to be sure, but after the first few seconds of listening you hardly notice the small amount of background noise present, and the dynamic range seems as wide as necessary. Otherwise, the sonics are rich and smooth.

This Chopin set was among the first of Philips's line of remastered classics, among which I can also recommend Bernard Haitink's Mahler Ninth Symphony (289 464 714-2), Stephen Kovacevich's Grieg Piano Concerto (289 464 702-2), Kiril Kondrashin's Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade (289 464 735-2), and John Eliot Gardiner's Handel Water Music (289 464 706-2). Philips used these and other recordings to celebrate their first fifty years of music making and, thus, they called the series "Philips 50: Great Recordings." Unfortunately, Philips went out of business shortly thereafter. Such is fate, I suppose. In any case, in my comparisons of a few of the remasters to their previous CD counterparts, the remasterings bring a touch more refinement and polish to the sound, without losing much vitality in the process. And the good thing is that you can still find most of these discs new or used.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Garrop: Mythology Symphony (CD review)

Also, Thunderwalker; Shadow. Alondra de la Parra, Markland Thakar, CCPA Symphony and the CCPA Chamber Orchestra. Cedille CDR 90000 160.

First off, you're maybe wondering who Stacy Garrop is. For those of you who don't know her, Ms. Garrop is an award-winning composer, an Associate Professor of Composition at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, and a Cedille Records artist with compositions on nine CD's. Here, we find three of her works spanning the years 1999-2013, presented by two different conductors, Alondra de la Parra and Markland Thakar, leading the Chicago College of Performing Arts Symphony and the CCPA Chamber Orchestra.

At Ms. Garrop's Web site, we read that her music centers "on direct and dramatic narrative. The sharing of stories is a defining element of our humanity; we strive to share the experiences and concepts that we find compelling with others. In her works, this manifests in programmatic pieces without text (sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly) and more directly in pieces that draw upon poets and writers for source material." So, unlike so much modern music that often sounds like experimental exercises in pure soundscapes, Ms. Garrop's music most often has a narrative attached, little tone poems that unfold clearly enough without too much guidance from program summaries.

The first of these pieces on the program is the Mythology Symphony, which premiered in 2015. (These are world-premiere recordings for all three works on the disc.) Ms. Garrop has divided the symphony into five parts with almost self-explanatory titles: "Becoming Medusa," "Penelope Waits," "The Lovely Sirens," "The Fates of Man," and "Pandora Undone."

As you would expect from a score about mythologic characters, there is plenty of excitement, creativity, and impact from the music, without its ever appearing bombastic or overwrought. Not that I found it particularly groundbreaking in any way, but it is highly accessible and reasonably entertaining. Parts of it bear an unmistakable resemblance to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, so be prepared for that kind of vigorous action.

The quieter sections of the symphony, like "Penelope Waits" and "The Fates of Man," sound appropriately atmospheric, although I could have used a tad more melody to get me through them (the whole work is some forty minutes long). I probably enjoyed the segment on "The Sirens" best of all because of its impressionistic picture painting. Unfortunately (for me), it is also the briefest movement in the piece. I was hoping it would go on a bit longer.

The symphony ends in a finale both carefree and profound. Its rhythms alternate between contrasting moods, accompanied by the tolling of a bell and an ominous drumroll. Yet, all is well, and even though Pandora unleashes great evil into the world, she also manages to undo some of the mischief she's created. So the music ends on a calming note.

Alondra de la Parra

Most important, Maestro de la Parra handles all of the symphony's differing emotions with both energy and resolve. Likewise, the orchestra plays with enthusiasm and refinement, producing a lustrous, polished sound.

Next is Thunderwalker, a three-movement work from 1999, written as Ms. Garrop's doctoral thesis. It, too, has descriptive titles for the movements: "Ritual," "Invoking the Gods," and "Summoned." This piece is shorter than the symphony, and because a chamber ensemble play it, it displays a greater transparency and, in a few places, a greater intimacy. While I found it a little too rambunctious for my taste, I'm sure a lot of listeners will appreciate its imposing gestures.

The final piece is the briefest: Shadow, a chronicle of Ms. Garrop's stay at the Yaddo artist colony in New York in the summer of 2001. The work is a combination of light music with threatening overtones, rather like dark shadows on a sunny, otherwise peaceful day. Maestro Thakar's delivery emphasizes the overall tragic qualities of the music. It's a strikingly evocative piece, well executed by the director and orchestra.

Producer James Ginsburg and Cedille chief engineer Bill Maylone recorded the music in March 2014 and January 2015 at Benito Juarez Community Academy Performing Arts Center, Chicago, Illinois. As always, Maylone does a terrific job with the sound, this time in fact outdoing himself. It's one of the most dynamic, realistic, reach-out-and-touch-it affairs I've heard in a long while. It is, in fact, one of the better-recorded new recordings I've heard all year.

The sound has an enormous dynamic range, with a realistic wallop to the timpani. It's also smoothly articulated, with a lifelike depth of field, a flat frequency response, strong bass, clean highs, and an overall natural ambient glow. The sound pretty much replicates real players and instruments in a real acoustic setting, so you get a fine sense of being there live without its being a live recording.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Concerto Veneziano (SACD review)

Giuliano Carmignola, violin; Andrea Marcon, Venice Baroque Orchestra. Archiv SACD 00289 474 8952.

Absolutely splendid sound and performances drive this collection of Baroque works straight to the top not only of the recording pile, but to the top of the Baroque pile, the top of the classical-music pile, and the top of the music-in-general pile. Even though it's been around for a while, you may have missed it; thus, the reminder.

We've got a combination of assets working here. First, there is the selection of violin concertos from stalwart Baroque composers Antonio Vivaldi, Pietro Locatelli, and Giuseppi Tartini. The various works included (Vivaldi's RV 583 and RV 278; Locatelli's Concerto for Violin in G major; and Tartini's Concerto for Violin, Strings and Continuo in A major) are not as familiar as some others by these men and, therefore, come off sounding somewhat new.

Andrea Marcon

Second, violinist Giuliano Carmignola and the Venice Baroque Orchestra play the pieces with a fresh vigor and spontaneity that communicate smoothly and easily to the senses. Their interpretations sound relaxed without being lax, vigorous without being overbearing. They simply appear graceful, spontaneous, well judged, and well executed, which is as much as I, at least, could reasonably expect from this music without the scores sounding distorted for the sake of eccentricity.

And, third, the sonics are about as good as it comes. DG released it on their Archiv label in April 2005, and it remains one of the best of its kind. There is a breadth and depth to the ensemble more than amply reproduced by Archiv's fully compatible (hybrid CD/SACD) SACD recording. Although the number of players is relatively small and, therefore, one would expect a good degree of transparency to the sound, we also get here a good deal of warmth, resonance, and natural hall ambiance. The result puts the listener closer to the actual orchestral experience than we would normally get in a period-instrument performance, where sometimes a hard, dry, brittle sound seems the norm.

It's hard to argue with the music, the performances, or the sound of this impressive entry from Carmignola, Marcon, and company.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Fucik: A Festival of Fucik (SACD review)

Neeme Jarvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Chandos CHSA 5158.

If you're not quite sure about the name Julius Ernst Wilhelm Fucik (1872-1916), it would probably take you no more than a couple of seconds into the "Entry of the Gladiators" to recognize the music. Oh, yes, Barnum & Bailey, to be sure.

Fucik was a Czech composer as well as conductor of military bands, with marches, polkas, and waltzes his specialties. Bands still play his music, although symphony orchestras seem to overlook him, probably because much of his work is, frankly, less than subtle and not particularly innovative. Maestro Neeme Jarvi and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, however, attempt to rectify the situation somewhat with this collection of fourteen of Fucik's most-popular pieces, including the aforementioned "Gladiators" as well as the "Florentine" march and "The Old Grumbler."

The subject matter may be lightweight, but Jarvi and company embrace it with good-hearted enthusiasm and make the most of what they have. I must admit, though, that Jarvi's view of Fucik may be a tad too enthusiastic for some listeners. The Fucik disc of tunes I've had on the shelf for years is one by Vaclav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic on Teldec, which sounds a fair bit more refined than Jarvi's, if not quite so exciting. They make a nice contrasting pair, the Neumann disc taming Fuck's typical bombast more than Jarvi's recording, while Jarvi goes more hell-bent-for-leather in sound as well as performance.

If you think any of this might interest you, the track list goes as follows:

  1. Marinarella, Op. 215
  2. Onkel Teddy (Uncle Teddy), Op. 239 (version for orchestra)
  3. Donausagen, Op. 233: Andantino
  4. Donausagen, Op. 233: I. Tempo di valse
  5. Donausagen, Op. 233: II. Con dolcezza
  6. Donausagen, Op. 233: III
  7. Donausagen, Op. 233: Coda
  8. Die lustigen Dorfschmiede (The Merry Blacksmiths), Op. 218
  9. Der alte Brummbar (The Old Grumbler), Op. 210
10. Einzug der Gladiatoren (The Entry of the Gladiators), Op. 68, "Triumph March"
11. Miramare, Op. 247
12. Florentiner Marsch (Florentine March), Op. 214, "Grande marcia Italiana"
13. Wintersturme (Winter Storms), Op. 184 (arr. P. Stanek for orchestra)
14. Hercegovac, Op. 235
15. Regimentskinder (Children of the Regiment), Op. 169
16. Ballettratten, Op. 226: Allegretto
17. Ballettratten, Op. 226: I. Tempo di valse
18. Ballettratten, Op. 226: II. Meno con delicatezza
19. Ballettratten, Op. 226: III. Meno mosso
20. Ballettratten, Op. 226: Coda
21. The Mississippi River, Op. 160
22. Unter der Admiralsflagge (Under the Admiral's Flag), Op. 82

Neeme Jarvi

All of the selections are brief, three-to-five minutes apiece, with the exceptions of "Danube Legends" and "Little Ballerina," which have five sections each.

The Scottish orchestra plays them with finesse, despite the sometimes rowdy nature of the music, and the musicians are especially felicitous during the softer, gentler interludes (and almost every selection has such quieter moments, believe it or not).

My own favorites include the "Marinarella" overture that opens the program for the grace intermixed with its thrills; the march "Uncle Teddy" for its Sousa-like swagger; "Danube Legends" for its lilting (and for me familiar) waltz tunes; "The Old Grumbler" for its humorous bassoon solo; of course, "The Entry of the Gladiators," also known as "Thunder and Blazes," here given an invigorating workout; and the "Florentine March," also enthusiastically handled.

Although there is not a lot of substance to these pieces, Jarvi finds the sparkle and merriment in each selection and capitalizes on it. For march and waltz fans, it's not a bad collection, particularly when Chandos recorded it so well.

Producer Brian Pidgeon and sound engineer Ralph Couzens made the recording at the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Scotland in February 2015. They made it for hybrid SACD and CD playback in multichannel and two-channel stereo. I listened to the SACD two-channel layer.

As we might expect from Chandos and Couzens, the sound is quite natural, quite robust, and quite dynamic. The lower midrange and bass have a real heft, the transient impact is palpable, and the ambient bloom of the hall is always in evidence. The engineers appear to have set up the microphones at a moderate distance, so we get a fairly lifelike response from a listening distance not too close up, with a good depth of field, as well. The engineers give up a little in the way of ultimate transparency for a feeling of being in the auditorium with the musicians.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Vivaldi: Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (CD review)

Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante. Virgin Veritas 7243 5 45465 2 (2-CD set).

Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, "The contest between harmony and invention," put Vivaldi on the map insofar as concerns modern audiences because it begins with history's most famous collection of early tone poems, The Four Seasons. Vivaldi's publisher put them out in 1725, a time when the musical world seemed little used to music representing the sights and sounds of the environment around them. The works obviously continue to excite the imagination today, which is probably why there are so many recordings of them in the catalogue.

"The tempos are spectacularly exhilarating from the very opening pages, yet Biondi maintains a remarkably smooth pace throughout.... It is exciting, creative, and rewarding for anyone looking for something new in an old warhorse." That's what I wrote back in 1992 about the first recording Fabio Biondi and his Europa Galante ensemble made for the Opus 111 label of the concertos comprising The Four Seasons. Having switched record companies some time ago, Biondi and his group of period-instrument players finally decided in 2001 to get around to the whole set of twelve concertos, which meant, of course, re-recording the famous first four. His performances remain very much the same as I remember them from the Opus 111 recording, the interpretations based on original manuscripts rather than the more familiar published ones. Whether the small variations in the present recording are worth the bother will probably only concern the Vivaldi connoisseur. What's more important is that Biondi and his players will take you on a whirlwind ride through the music. It makes me wonder, however, if there were really so many virtuoso orchestras around in the early eighteenth century that could play these pieces with the kind of ruthless yet lyrical abandon and exacting precision that Biondi and his people display.

Fabio Biondi

Anyway, I found the familiar four concertos at this pace stirring enough, but by the time I finished all twelve I was a little fatigued. So, I would advise taking them a few at a time, unless you're just playing them as background music.

The sound is exceptionally clean and somewhat close-up. At first blush I thought it a tad bright, but I became used to it. The clarity comes at the expense of some mid bass warmth, however, so the overall impression is not necessarily one of a live, concert-hall experience. I doubt that any reader of this site doesn't already have three or four favored Four Seasons, and maybe a favored recording or more of the whole set of twelve concertos in the set, so I won't bother with a recommendation. My own favorites in The Four Seasons alone remain: McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO), Sparf and the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble (BIS), Pinnock and the English Concert (DG Argo), Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (Decca), I Musici (Eloquence), and Jeanne Lamon and Tafelmusik (Sony or Tafelmusik); with the stylish and refined I Solisti Italiani (Denon) doing the whole set of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione as well as anybody.

There are, incidentally, good booklet notes on these works in the Virgin set--two essays, in fact: one on the history of the music and a second by Biondi on why he chose to go back to the original manuscripts for his inspiration. As he says, "I believe it is absolutely legitimate to consider research into manuscript sources of these concertos as a contribution towards a more thorough knowledge of the multiplicity of instrumental techniques appropriate to the performing practice of Vivaldi and his school." As I say, though, whether original sources make the music sound any better is a matter of taste.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Schubert: Rosamunde, complete incidental music (CD review)

Ileana Cotrubas, soprano; Rundfunkchor Leipzig; Willi Boskovsky, Staatskapelle Dresden. Brilliant Classics 95122.

As you know, only a relative handful of people heard any of Schubert's prolific musical output during his lifetime, the lucky few being mainly family and friends. However, one work that did get a fairly large audience, at least initially, was Schubert's incidental music to the play Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus by Helmina von Chezy. The premiere took place at the Theater an der Wien in 1825, but it failed and had only two performances. Fortunately for fans of Schubert, his music gained popularity after his death, the Rosamunde score remaining a treasure for us today.

Oddly, though, there aren't a lot of recordings of the complete incidental music, the one I've been living with quite happily until now being from Kurt Masur and the Gewandhaus Orchestra on Philips from 1983. However, the Brilliant Classics reissue here under review from Willi Boskovsky and the Staatskapelle Dresden provides a good alternative. Recorded a few years earlier, 1977, than Masur's, it sounds marginally clearer (if not so rich), with Boskovsky putting in a slightly more energetic performance than Masur.

So, the Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828) wrote the Rosamunde music in 1823 on a commission from the Theater an der Wien, and he completed it in barely two weeks (in some accounts less than five days). Although the play closed, as I say, quickly, critics and audiences rather enjoyed the music, and it has delighted listeners ever since (or, at least, ever since people like Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Brahms got behind it after the composer's death). The play itself doesn't matter anymore, lost to history--the plot and characters apparently being quite melodramatic, even corny by today's standards of entertainment--but Schubert's music remains forever charming.

Maestro Boskovsky, perhaps better remembered as a conductor of German waltz music, especially the Strauss family, does a good job with this light music from Schubert. Things begin with an overture, which Schubert didn't have time to write, so concert performances usually use either the one we have here, written a year earlier for Alfonso and Estrella, or the one from 1820 for the fairy-tale play Die Zauberharfe ("The Magic Harp").

Boskovsky takes a characteristically chipper view of the music, even if the story was evidently rather depressing (some referred to it as "a grand romantic play"). Not that Boskovsky doesn't sufficiently address the more-dramatic elements; he does. It's just that his interpretation dwells more on the purely sweet, lilting aspects of the score, allowing a free flow of rhythms throughout.

Willi Boskovsky

In addition, there's the matter of tempos. In comparison to the aforementioned Masur performance, Boskovsky is consistently faster. He's faster, in fact, in every single movement (except in the overture because the conductors use two different ones). Yet Boskovsky never hurries the music. It's really lovely, dancing along as it does on its sprightly airs.

My own favorite parts of the score are the gentler sections--the ballets, andantes, and, of course, the Entr'acte No. 3. Then, too, the Staatskapelle Dresden play beautifully, and Ms. Cotrubas and the Leipzig Radio Choir add brief but effectively touching contributions to the affair.

As a bonus coupling, the program provides the overture to Die Zauberharfe, the music Schubert eventually decided would be best for the score rather than the more-hastily chosen Alfonso und Estrella, which he used for the first public performances. So, with this recording, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Producer John Mordler and engineers Horst Kunze and Gerald Junge made the recording at Lukaskirch, Dresden, Germany in March 1977. Compared to the Philips/Masur disc I had on hand, which sounds warm, spacious, dark-hued, and mellow, the Brilliant Classics/Boskovsky reissue sounds more close-up and more sharply focused. The Masur disc seems like a sixteenth-century tapestry compared to Boskovsky's twentieth-century photograph. I enjoyed the sound of both, but they are different.

Anyway, the Boskovsky recording displays a fair amount of transparency without sacrificing much in the way of natural ambience or dimensionality. Dynamics are good, too, as are stereo spread and transient response. Highs are adequate, although bass could be deeper and some midrange frequencies betray a slight degree of fuzz around the notes.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Concerti Virtuosi (CD review)

Music of Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Locatelli, Fasch, and Leo. Jeanne Lamon, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Analekta AN 2 9815.

The Canadian period-instrument ensemble Tafelmusik is one of today's leading early music orchestras, the group as refined yet as exciting playing historical instruments as, say, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields is playing modern instruments. The only trouble is finding enough good Baroque music to make the ensemble worth hearing, which is perhaps why they have reached out as far as the early Romantic period in their performances.

In any case, I know it sounds a bit harsh of me to criticize Baroque music, and it probably says more about me and my attitudes toward music than anything else. The fact is, I'm in a minority. The music of the Baroque and Classical periods make up the biggest part of the air time on most classical radio stations; it's that popular. Apparently, radio listeners love it as a sort of background music to whatever else they're doing during the day or night: driving or working or reading the newspaper. Perhaps I'm being unfair suggesting that Baroque music takes less concentration to enjoy than other types of music, but there is a fairly static quality about most of it that makes it akin to radio's "easy listening."

In any case, the Baroque music on this 2005 release from Tafelmusik comprises various concerti, a term that the booklet note explains got its meaning in part from the Latin word concertare, meaning "to contend, dispute, debate," and from the Italian, meaning "to agree, arrange, get together." The definitions would seem to be contradictory, and in a way so is the music, with the trio sections contending against yet blending with the rest of the orchestra.

All of the works on the disc come from the early seventeenth century, the composers being the ever-popular Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, and George Friedrich Handel, of course; the lesser-known Pietro Locatelli and Johann Friedrich Fasch; and the least-known Leonardo Leo. What they all have in common is that their concerti sound pretty much alike to the uninformed ear. Count me among those; I doubt that I could identify any single snippet of music from any of these works two minutes after listening to them. While I know that makes me sound like Barbarian, I nevertheless enjoyed every minute of every note.

Jeanne Lamon

What's on the disc? Vivaldi's Concerto in A Minor for Two Oboes and Strings and his Concerto in E Minor for Four Violins; Leo's Concerto in D Minor for Violoncello; Bach's Concerto for Oboe D'amore in G Major; Locatelli's Concerto Grosso in D Major; Fasch's Concerto in C Minor for Bassoon, Two Oboes, and Strings; and Handel's Concerto Grosso in A Minor.

Jeanne Lamon and her Tafelmusik ensemble make the music come alive, all the while sounding as graceful and elegant as any orchestra you'll find. It's no wonder Tafelmusik has become one of the leading period-instrument bands in the world. Along with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, among others, they perform with a lively yet moderate style, never overemphasizing the period qualities of their playing and always allowing the tempos, phrasing, bowing, and various nuances to serve the music and not spotlight the players.

The sonics are typical of what the Tafelmusik players have been doing since switching to their own Analekta label some years ago. The recording sounds smooth, rich, wide ranging, vivid, and alive, without appearing in any way spectacular. The sonics are not bright, hard, or edgy as so many period-instrument recordings can sound; nor are the sonics as clear, open, and transparent as a few audiophile discs can be. The sound is simply natural and pleasant, never drawing attention to itself. The recording places the music above all else, which is as it should be.

With over seventy records to their credit, if any group can help a listener appreciate Baroque music, it's Tafelmusik.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 (HQCD review)

Also, Piano Sonata No. 22. Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Charles Munch, Boston Symphony Orchestra. HDTT HQCD278.

It was several years ago that I reviewed a remastering of this recording from JVC in their XRCD series of audiophile discs. There, I found the sound, recorded more than half a century ago, rock solid. Not like most of today's classical recordings that to me can appear misty, cloudy, fuzzy, excessively soft, or, even more likely, overly hard. With the exception of a touch of background noise, this older recording from JVC sounded just right, especially the piano, which was strong and steady in an unexaggerated way. The JVC XRCD issues, however, are expensive, no matter how much pleasure they provide. Which is where this HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers) release comes in. It's almost identical in sound quality with the JVC product but at a much lower cost.

Anyway, Sviatoslav Richter was a legend in Communist Russia before the Soviet government allowed him to record in the West. When he did begin recording in America, among the companies he worked for was RCA in their "Living Stereo" series, one of the best places for any artist to record at the time. In the present recording, backed by Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Richter brings a robust vitality to this first of Beethoven's five piano concertos. The fact is, I hadn't really thought about Richter's recording much in quite a while until hearing it on the JVC release. It had been many, many years since I had last listened to it, and I hadn't remembered it being so thoroughly Romantic or so thoroughly powerful as it is, nor had I remembered how lovely and embracing the slow movement could be under Richter. He produces a vivacious opening movement, a meltingly beautiful slow movement, and a sparkling conclusion.

Perhaps it's just that Richter brings out the best in the music, I don't know. Going back and listening to relatively newer recordings by pianists Stephen Kovacevich with conductor Colin Davis on Philips and Murray Perahia with Bernard Haitink on Sony, also favorites, I found them good but not so dynamic or persuasive as Richter.

The companion piece on the disc, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 22, also comes off in a most vigorous and dramatic fashion. Richter's way with the keyboard is both precise and incisive, making each note sound out loudly, clearly, purposefully. As with the Concerto, the Sonata offers a most impressive performance and makes a worthy coupling.

Sviatoslav Richter

Producers Max Wilcox and Peter Dellheim and engineers John Crawford and Lewis Layton recorded the music at Boston Symphony Hall (Concerto) and Webster Hall, NY (Sonata) in November 1960. HDTT transferred the recording to CD from an RCA 4-track tape.

I have sometimes found Munch and the Boston Symphony sounding thin, steely, and hard in their early RCA releases, but not really here. There may be a touch of hardness to the sound but nothing thin or bright about this recording. It is, if anything, darkly aggressive and absolutely stable, well complementing Richter's sturdy, energetic, and wholly realistic piano.

As I mentioned above, I had reviewed this recording several years before, remastered by JVC in their XRCD audiophile line and found the sound excellent in almost every way except for a bit of bass noise and a small degree of hardness. With this HDTT remastering (on an HQCD), there is no bass noise and more warmth than hardness. For comparison purposes, I put both discs into separate players and switched back and forth; to double check, I swapped out the discs and played them in the opposite machines. The bass noise was definitely on the JVC disc, not the HDTT. Of course, it's not possible for me to tell if the noise was in the original master tape and JVC transferred it directly to disc that way; or whether JVC's usually immaculate XRCD mastering introduced the noise; or whether RCA eliminated the noise from the four-track tape HDTT used; or whether HDTT eliminated the noise themselves from this disc transfer. What I do know is that the HDTT is quiet, with no apparent side effects.

In practically every other way, it's difficult to differentiate between the HDTT and JVC products. Maybe the JVC is a touch clearer (the HDTT having a very slight, almost unnoticeable degree of fuzz around the notes), and maybe the HDTT is a tad more dynamic (the impact is certainly strong). The main thing to know is that the HDTT disc costs about half or less (depending on the format you choose) the price of the rather expensive JVC product, making the HDTT clearly the superior bargain.

Anyway, the HDTT sonics are big and full, with plenty of zip and zoom (old audiophile talk), and lots of depth, dimensionality, and natural hall ambience. It's one of HDTT's best-sounding discs, and that's saying quite a lot, given that HDTT has successfully remastered any number of very fine recordings.

For further information on HDTT products, prices, discs, and downloads in a variety of formats, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 31, 70 & 101 (SACD review)

Robin Ticciati, Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Linn Records CKD 500.

The possible advantages of this disc: First, Maestro Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra play three symphonies by Austrian composer Joseph Haydn (1732-1909) from three periods in the man's life: early, middle, and late, giving the listener a useful overview of Haydn's developing output. Second, Linn Records provides another excellent-sounding album.

The possible disadvantages: First, Ticciati chooses to play each of the symphonies in something approaching historical accuracy, yet the orchestra performs on modern instruments. The combination may seem a tad disconcerting for some listeners. Second, Ticciati doesn't appear to display any discernable difference in playing style among the three symphonies even though they span a period of about thirty years. You would think that maybe as Haydn's style evolved, the playing practice might, too.

Anyway, things begin with the Symphony No. 31 in D major, which Haydn wrote in 1765 for his patron Nikolaus Esterházy. It acquired the nickname "Hornsignal" because it provides the horn section a rather large role in the proceedings. I really wasn't familiar with No. 31 (I hadn't heard Dorati's version in decades), but under Ticciati it sounds fresh, chipper, and alive. The Adagio is especially lovely, taken at a steady, enlivening gait that never indulges in sentimentality. And so it goes with a light, lilting flow throughout.

Next is the Symphony No. 70 in D major from 1779, written to commemorate the construction of a new opera house on Prince Esterhazy's property. Although it is not among Haydn's most-memorable symphonies, it does feature the composer's usual complement of pleasing harmonies. No. 70 starts out in a veritable storm of sounds, which Ticciati handles with ease, although the relatively small size of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra rather diminishes the overall effect. Yes, it sounds a tad underpowered compared to other renditions I've heard. Nevertheless, Ticciati again maintains a good forward pulse, and the movements proceed fluidly one to the next. He particularly handles the playful finale with dexterity.

Robin Ticciati

The final piece on the program is the Symphony No. 101 in D major, composed around 1793-94 while Haydn was visiting London for the second time. It got the nickname "The Clock" because the ticking rhythms in the second-movement Andante remind people of the movement of the second hand in a loudly ticking clock. Unfortunately, under Ticciati's direction "The Clock" seems little different from the preceding selections. While one still easily recognizes the music, it appears to me a touch too lightweight. And then comes the famous clock movement. Oh, dear. Ticciati sounds as though he's taking it at double speed; it's faster than any of the half dozen comparisons I had on hand, including one done on period instruments. Not that it doesn't still sound good--exciting, in fact--it's that it doesn't appear to me what Haydn intended: An Andante should be moderately slow, not speedy. Oh, well; at the very least, Ticciati's interpretation makes a solid alternative view.

Producer and engineer Philip Hobbs recorded the symphonies at Usher Hall, Edinburgh, UK in January and February 2015. He made the recording for hybrid SACD playback, so you can listen in multichannel or two-channel SACD if you have an SACD player and regular two-channel stereo if you have only a standard CD player.

In the two-channel SACD mode to which I listened, the sound appears warm and clear, with a good sense of depth and dimensionality. As this is a Linn recording, there is nothing hard, bright, compartmentalized, or close-up about the sonics. It just sounds natural and dynamic, with a sold timpani response and a mild hall resonance providing a realistic ambient bloom.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Debussy: La Mer (HQCD review)

Also, Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe, Suite No. 2; Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust, Part 2: Ballet des Sylphes. Leopold Stokowski, London Symphony Orchestra. HDTT HQCD.

Leopold Stokowski's Decca recording of Debussy's La Mer with the London Symphony is not the most graceful or poetic interpretation on record. For that, you'll want Martinon (EMI). But Stokowski is close. Stokowski's recording is not the most exciting, either. For that, you'll want Reiner (RCA or HDTT). But Stokowski is close. Stokowski's recording is not the most lush or glamorous you'll find. For that, you'll want Karajan (DG). But Stokowski is close. Stokowski's recording is not the most precise or analytical around. For that, you'll want Boulez (DG). But Stokowski is close. And Stokowski's recording is not the best recorded in the catalogue. For that, you'll want Previn (EMI). But Stokowski is close. In fact, Stokowski's Decca recording is so close in all of the above categories, it qualifies in my mind as the best overall choice in this work of anything available, and HDTT's remaster of it on the HQCD I reviewed makes it even better. It's a hard proposition to refuse.

French impressionist composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) wrote La Mer between 1903 and 1905, and the work has since become one of his most well-known compositions. Certainly, it is one of his greatest and most descriptive pieces. Debussy named it La mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre (or "The sea, three symphonic sketches for orchestra"), but usually people just call it La Mer.

Debussy said he wanted the first movement, "From dawn till noon on the sea," to be a little less showy than the other movements and added that the conductor should take it slowly and animate it little by little. It begins with a warmly atmospheric introduction and then opens up about halfway through to a rapturous melody. In this first movement, Stokowski provides a requisite enthusiasm, but he is careful not let this opening music upstage the climactic final movement. So, he reins it in a bit, producing a suggestive, atmospheric, picturesque, and wonderfully rhapsodic portrait of morning on the sea.

The composer intended the second movement, "Play of the waves," to sound light and carefree, the dancing waters luminescent and magical. He indicated it should be an allegro (a brisk, lively tempo), animated with a versatile rhythm. In reality, the second movement acts as a kind of slowish scherzo, although, to be fair, it isn't actually slow or fast. As its subtitle indicates, it's more playful than anything, with Stokowski delighting in the imaginative nuances of sea and air. This is Stokowski at his more charming: light and lyrical.

Leopold Stokowski

Then comes probably the most well-known segment of the work, the third-movement finale, "Dialogue between wind and waves," in which Debussy provided his biggest splashes of color and which he noted should sound animated and tumultuous. Here, Stokowski infuses the music with immense personality; but not necessarily his own--he infuses it with the composer's personality. The movement's rhythmic rises and falls appear perfectly timed, the cadences beautifully judged, the subtleties of wind and sea well expressed in contrasting dynamic shifts. The result is as pleasing, as relaxed, yet as intense as anything you'll find on record.

The accompanying items--Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe, Suite No. 2 and Hector Berlioz's Ballet des Sylphes--are equally appealing. Stokowski's Ravel, especially, sounds magical, rich, and luxuriant. It's the ideal complement to the Debussy. Still, it's the Debussy that steals the show and for which I strongly recommend the disc.

Producer Tony d'Amato and engineer Arthur Lilley recorded the music in June, 1970, at Kingsway Hall, London. HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers) remastered and transferred it from a London Phase 4 four-track tape to a variety of formats (I reviewed the HQCD) in 2015.

It's the "Phase 4" business that may concern some audiophiles. According to Decca, "Phase 4 was a special series of recordings from the '60s and '70s which presented music in spectacularly vivid sound." And according to Wikipedia, the Decca sound of the time "was characterised by an aggressive use of the highest and lowest frequencies and a daring use of tape saturation and out-of-phase sound to convey a lively and impactful hall ambiance, plus considerable bar-to-bar rebalancing by the recording staff of orchestral voices, known as 'spotlighting.' In the 1960s and 1970s, the company developed its 'Phase 4' process, which produced even greater sonic impact through even more interventionist engineering techniques." The fact is, Phase 4 sound used multi-miking to the extreme, usually producing a close-up, compartmentalized sound field that dazzled some listeners with its lucidity and detail and infuriated others with its sometimes unnatural perspective. Love it or leave it, HDTT have transferred it to HQCD with their customary excellent results.

Using two separate CD players, I compared the HDTT disc to a London Phase 4 compact disc remastered by Decca in 1997. (If you want the Stokowski Debussy, you'll have to find a used copy of one of the several discs Decca or London issued; buy it in a big Decca box set of miscellaneous Stokowski material; or get this HDTT transfer. I recommend the HDTT.) Anyway, the listener need have no fears about the sound being too close or too analytical because it's not quite as drastic as some of Decca's Phase 4 releases. Here, the sound is reasonably realistic, at least from a near vantage point. More important, the HDTT product displays a touch more smoothness and clarity than my comparison disc. It's also quite clean (although both discs are, for that matter), with almost dead quiet backgrounds. As with many other Phase 4 recordings I've heard, the bass is not quite as deep as I'd like, but it's more than adequate and sounds taut and well controlled. Finally, I thought the HDTT transfer showed a hair more orchestral dimensionality and depth than the London CD. In other words, you will be happy with the HDTT remastering. It does credit to Stokowski's fine performance.

For further information on HDTT products, prices, discs, and downloads in a variety of formats, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Chopin: Pianos Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 (CD review)

Akiko Ebi, piano (No. 1); Janusz Olejniczak, piano (No. 2); Frans Bruggen, Orchestra of the 18th Century. Frederic Chopin Institute NIFCCD 042.

This disc has a lot going for it: It features a prominent, prizewinning Japanese-French pianist, Akiko Ebi, as the soloist in the First Concerto; and an equally distinguished soloist, the Polish pianist (and actor) Janusz Olejniczak in the Second. The conductor is the late Frans Bruggen, who knew his way around historically informed performances. The band is the Orchestra of the 18th Century, who have been playing on period instruments since their founding in 1981. And the performers use dated scores after the National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin.

On the other hand, not everything works. The performances have a good deal of competition and despite their "authenticity" seem little more than ordinary in a crowded field. What's more, the live sound, taken from two Chopin festivals, too often betrays its live origins.

First, to the music: Chopin wrote his Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1830, within a year following his Piano Concerto No. 2. However, he published No. 1 first, so if No. 1 seems the more mature of the two, it actually is by several months. Chopin described the second movement of No. 1 as "reviving in one's soul beautiful memories." In Chopin's case, he composed the piece when he was about nineteen or twenty and smitten with a beautiful young student, Constantia Gladkowska, at the Warsaw Conservatory. Even though he barely talked to her and she soon married somebody else, he may have had her in mind when he wrote his piano concertos, as well as a few other things.

Naturally, the piano parts dominate both piano concertos, the better to showcase Chopin's own virtuosity on the instrument. Yet with the Piano Concerto No. 1, the piano doesn't even enter the picture until the end of a fairly lengthy orchestral introduction. Maybe Chopin intended the prolonged preamble to make the piano's entrance all the more grand. It certainly works that way.

Anyhow, Chopin wrote the concerto at a time when he and other pianists were breaking from what we know today as the "brilliant" style in favor of pure Romanticism That is, they were getting a little away from sheer virtuosity and ornamentation and more into lyricism and emotion. So, that's the way Ms. Ebi, Maestro Bruggen, and the Orchestra of the 18th Century appear to play the concerto, with a combination of the "brilliant" and "Romantic" styles.

Akiko Ebi

For those listeners worried that perhaps a period-instrument approach to this music would produce some exceedingly fast tempos, there is no such thing here. Indeed, if anything, both soloist and orchestra take the tempos in rather a leisurely fashion. The opening of the First Concerto seems quite heady, even at a relaxed pace, but then when Ms. Ebi enters, she takes the score in a fairly matter-of-pace manner. There is little misty-eyed Romanticism here, just an apparently note-for-note reading. Indeed, I felt little joy, warmth, or expressiveness in the playing. However, I confess that the performances of pianists like Maurizio Pollini and Martha Argerich may have conditioned me to such an extent that I was not able fully to appreciate what Ms. Ebi was up to.

The slow second movement and the robust final movement go by in what I thought was perfunctory fashion as well. Nothing about the performance actually moved me much; it all sounded too deliberate, which may be entirely the intent, I don't know. Let's just say that Ebi and Bruggen attempt something a bit out of the ordinary, and except for a little spark in the final section it didn't work for me.

The Second Piano Concerto hasn't as much poetic grace as the First Concerto or such an abundance of good melodies, which is probably why it has never become as popular, but it does showcase the piano considerably. On the present recording we find Janusz Olejniczak taking the solo part. I sensed a greater flexibility in his playing than in Ebi's, yet not quite enough for me to recommend this disc over its rivals. The exception, of course, is whether the novelty of the period instruments impresses you. For me, it didn't.

Producer Stanislaw Leszczynski and engineers Lech Dudzik and Gabriela Blicharz recorded the performances live during the "Chopin and his Europe" festivals in 2013 (No. 1) and 2010 (No. 2) in the Witold Lutoslawski Concert Studio of Polish Radio and the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall.

The live sound appears a tad warm, congested, and broad, with occasional audience noise (coughs, grunts, and the like). At least it's not too close-up, as many live performances tend to be, but fairly natural in its perspective. Still, the moderate miking distance does no favors to transparency (although, to be fair, it's better in the Second Concerto), and the overall impression is hardly clean. I could also easily have done without the closing applause in both works. Let's just say the sound of this disc is more a memento of a live event than anything you'd want to put on to show off your stereo system.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

My Fair Lady (Blu-ray, restored)

Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Alfrid Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper, Jeremy Brett, Theodore Bikel. CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Pictures 3-disc Blu-ray set.

If at first you don't succeed....

In 2011 CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Pictures released My Fair Lady to Blu-ray. They did a horrendous job, one of the worst Blu-ray movie transfers I had ever seen or heard. However, in 2015, thanks perhaps to a multitude of complaints, they rereleased the film to Blu-ray, this time with completely remastered picture and sound for a flawless 50th Anniversary Blu-ray edition. It was a long wait, but it was worth it for one of filmdom's great, classic musicals.

My Fair Lady is, of course, one of the best and most-popular stage musicals of all time. It has what so many other musicals do not have--an intelligent script, great acting, clever dialogue, and an endless stream of memorable tunes. The film won eight Oscars in 1964 for Best Picture (Jack L. Warner), Best Actor (Rex Harrison), Best Director (George Cukor), Best Art Direction (Gene Allen, Cecil Beaton, George James Hopkins), Best Cinematography (Harry Stradling, Sr.), Best Costume Design (Cecil Beaton), Best Music (Andre Previn), and Best Sound (George Groves). Yes, I said it was good.

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe based the story on George Bernard Shaw's popular 1913 stage play Pygmalion, which Shaw in turn had based on the classical myth about the sculptor who fell in with the statue of a maiden he created, brought to life by the goddess Aphrodite. The Lerner and Lowe musical stage play was an instant success on Broadway in 1956, coming to the screen in 1964 under the supervision of producer Jack L. Warner and director George Cukor.

The plot centers on the idea that the way things appear is not always the way they are; or, conversely, if you can change the way things appear, it makes them the way they are. In the story it is phonetics Professor Henry Higgens's proposal that he can take any lower-class citizen off the streets of London and pass him or her off as a cultured lady or gentleman simply by teaching the person to speak properly. Of course, it was Shaw's satiric dig at society that we judge people on how they look and sound, not on who they really are. The object of the professor's interest in this pursuit becomes Eliza Doolittle, a poor, largely uneducated flower girl. Taking her under his wing, the professor makes a bet with his friend and colleague, Col. Hugh Pickering, that he can successfully introduce her into high society within six months. Needless to say, Eliza winds up teaching Professor Higgens as much about life and about himself as he teaches her about how to be a proper lady. The story is endlessly engaging and has as much appeal today as it did when Shaw first conceived it.

Audrey Hepburn

Rex Harrison reprises his stage role as Higgens, the part for which fans will forever remember him.  Harrison was already an established star when he accepted the role in the musical, and it is one he seemed born to play. When the studio initially asked Cary Grant to do the movie role, Grant turned it down, saying if Harrison didn't get the part, he'd never do another film for them. Harrison is so convincing one would think he were the Professor in real life. I rather expect his fans thought he was, too. Shaw's play leaves the final relationship of the Professor and the flower girl ambiguous, but the musical is more romantic and hints at something more serious. It is a tribute to Harrison that audiences hardly notice the age difference between the two characters, although the twenty-one-year span is almost exactly what Shaw had in mind. Higgens's most notable songs are "Why Can't the English?," "I'm an Ordinary Man," "The Rain in Spain," and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face."

The part of Miss Doolittle went to Audry Hepburn, and therein probably lies the movie's major point of contention. Julie Andrews had made the role her own on Broadway and record albums, and for audiences who had seen or heard her, it was inconceivable that anyone else should get the part. But the studio felt otherwise, unconvinced that Ms. Andrews had the necessary drawing power they thought the film needed and also a little wary of Ms. Andrew's photogenic qualities. So they went with what they considered a sure thing in superstar Audry Hepburn, causing not a little bitterness on the part of theatergoers everywhere. Meanwhile, Ms. Andrews went on to do Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music in the next year and half; and while the Academy didn't even nominate Ms. Hepburn for My Fair Lady, they gave Ms. Andrews the Best Actress Oscar for Poppins.

None of which is to suggest that Ms. Hepburn's portrayal of Eliza is anything but delightful and charming. Yet the controversy was not to end there. Despite Ms. Hepburn's insistence that she do her own singing, Warners dubbed her voice by uncredited singer Marni Nixon, who had previously done the singing dubs in the movie versions of West Side Story and The King and I. Again the studio got its way, and again there was a degree of bitterness involved, this time on the part of Ms. Hepburn, whom the studio had apparently assured could do the vocals and for which she had even rehearsed and filmed several. But it's all history now, and we will never know what more Ms. Andrews might have done with the role or, except for two songs mentioned below, what Ms. Hepburn might have done with the rest of the singing. Eliza's most celebrated songs include "Wouldn't It Be Loverly," "Just You Wait," "I Could Have Danced All Night," and "Without You," among others.

Red Harrison

The indefatigable Stanley Holloway plays Eliza's father, a role he did on Broadway, and he all but steals the show with his two cockney music-hall numbers, "With a Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me to the Church on Time." In other notable parts, fans of English television's Sherlock Holmes will be tickled to see the late Jeremy Brett playing Eliza's young, lovesick, high-society admirer, Freddy Eynsford-Hill, and singing "On the Street Where You Live" (uncredited singing voice courtesy of Bill Shirley). Wilfrid Hyde-White plays Col. Pickering; Gladys Cooper plays the Professor's mother; and Theodore Bikel plays the deliciously unctuous Zoltan Karpathy ("Oozing charm from every pore, He oiled his way around the floor").

The songs, cast, dialogue, direction, costumes, and set designs combine to make My Fair Lady one of the all-time great movie musicals in Hollywood history. The newest Blu-ray does it proud.

Video:
The first time around on Blu-ray (in 2011), the CBS/Paramount engineers apparently used the same 1994 restoration that had looked good on DVD, but they made no effort to restore the film any further for BD. Worse, they introduced some ugly artifacts into the BD, including some occasional white flecks and specks and an unconscionable blooming at the edges--maybe exposure issues, fading--in the lower sides of the screen that intensified as the film went on; and by the second half the print looked as though someone were shining a bright light on the image

Fortunately, for this new My Fair Lady 50th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray edition, CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Pictures asked restoration expert Robert Harris (who had done excellent work twenty years earlier with the restoration of the DVD) to head up the team restoring this new Blu-ray version of the film. The results look splendid. The colors are vivid; the object delineation is well-nigh perfect; the screen is clear and clean. The whole thing is gorgeous.

Audio:
It was remarkable that the first time around on Blu-ray, the CBS/Paramount audio engineers couldn't correctly transfer the sound of possibly the greatest musical of all time to disc. Through a misplaced enthusiasm in the use of the surrounds, the solo vocals on the older BD often appeared soft and hollow and the orchestral accompaniment too reverberant, sometimes cavernous. What's more, the engineers even cranked up the bass in a few scenes. It was pretty awful, and if you still have that older disc, you might consider making a 100% better upgrade to this newer BD edition if only for its improved audio.

For the current edition, the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio is excellent. That is, it reproduces the sound of the movie pretty much as I'm sure its original creators intended, but with a little more ambient action for a home setup equipped with multichannel sound. Instead of going all crazy with the surrounds and making the musical interludes appear as though the engineers recorded them in a barrel, the engineers perfectly blend the singing and orchestral accompaniment in the front channels where they belong, with a touch of ambient bloom from the surrounds to provide depth and dimension. Voices sound natural, whether in song or dialogue, and the orchestra sounds realistic. The frequency extremes are maybe a little less extended than we find today, but it's hardly an issue.

Extras:
The extras include a second Blu-ray disc with a ton of extras, plus a third disc containing a DVD version of the movie. But it's the second BD that has most of the bonus items, starting with a 1994 making-of documentary, "More Loverly Than Ever: My Fair Lady Then and Now." Next, there is a series of vintage featurettes, including the 1963 production kickoff dinner; the film's Los Angeles and British premieres; a Rex Harrison radio interview; George Cukor directing the Baroness Rothschild; some production tests; alternate Audrey Hepburn vocals; and comments on the film by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Martin Scorsese.

Following these items are several more things, including "The Story of a Lady," "Design of a Lady," and "The Fairest Fair Lady"; Cecil Beaton sketches, black & white stills; color production stills; documents and publicity; plus seven different trailers, and three awards featurettes.

The disc extras conclude with fifty scene selections; English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, and Japanese spoken languages; English, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Finally, CBS/Paramount have packaged the three discs in a beautiful, glossy, trim-line, foldout case that is among the most attractive I've seen. It is in itself a small work of art.

Parting Thoughts:
As pure entertainment My Fair Lady makes other musicals seem almost crude by comparison, and it deserves to be the standard by which we judge other musicals. Movie fans' concerns about Julie Andrews notwithstanding, the film is absolutely loverly, now with Blu-ray picture and sound to do it justice.

JJP

To watch an official trailer for the restored version of "My Fair Lady," click here: http://www.myfairlady50.com/

Picture quality:  10
Sound quality:  9
Extras:  9
Entertainment value:  10