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Monday, January 15, 2018

Neville Marriner - The 20th-century Concerto Grosso


Information

Composer: Erwin Schulhoff; Ernst Krenek; Vincent d'Indy
  • (01-03) Schulhoff - Concerto doppio, WV 89
  • (04-08) Krenek - Concertino, Op. 27
  • (09-11) d'Indy - Concert, Op. 89

Maria Prinz, piano
Karl-Heinz Schütz, flute
Christoph Koncz, violin
Robert Nagy, cello

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Neville Marriner, conductor

Date: 2013
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010791

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Review

Now approaching his 90th year, Sir Neville Marriner is still adding new material to his vast discography in collaboration with the ensemble he formed in 1958. The young firebrand has long since mellowed – he is instantly recognisable in the session photograph on page 18 of the substantial multilingual booklet, less so on page 43. Fortunately the team’s music-making, as captured in a classic ASMF venue, St John’s Smith Square, has lost none of the old finish. The horn players who occasionally cut through the accompanying string orchestra texture of the Schulhoff are uncredited, presumably band regulars. The flute, violin and cello soloists are members of the Vienna Philharmonic. Only the scores themselves may disappoint a little as diverting rather than revelatory examples of the post-First World War reaction against the grand, soloistic traditions of the Romantic concerto. None of them can hold a candle to, say, Ernest Bloch’s Concerto grosso No 1.

Least neglected is the Concerto doppio (1927) from a composer often shoehorned into Holocaust-themed collections, a restless eclectic who acquired Soviet citizenship too late and died in captivity in 1942 in the Bavarian fortress camp of Wülzburg. There are previous recordings on the Supraphon, Koch Schwann, Dabringhaus und Grimm, Decca, Gramola and Arco Diva labels, to name but six; the sophisticated transparency of this new account is its own justification. If you don’t know the music, think modally adjusted, Frenchified, jazz-inflected Hindemith!

Krenek’s Concertino (1924), though occasionally heard in concert (there is a harpsichord option), is apparently new to disc. It finds the composer’s expressionist tendencies muted by the neo-classicism then in vogue, a stylistic dalliance he would later attribute to an (aberrant) infatuation with Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. Krenek began work on his biggest hit, the opera Jonny spielt auf, in 1925.

Vincent d’Indy, the anti-Semitic, anti-cosmopolitan cuckoo in this nest, wrote his backward-looking Concert (1926) towards the end of his life. The first movement put me in mind of those vintage 78s of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. The elegant, evocative, slightly faded romanticism of the slow movement makes a rather different appeal, unmistakably French, not conspicuously neo-classical.

I should mention the copious booklet-notes, partly penned by the pianist Maria Prinz, whose project this is. You may or may not respond to everything in the programme but she and her associates are convincing advocates throughout. The sure-footed recording team is headed by Andrew Keener.

-- David Gutman, Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: **** / RECORDING: ****
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2013/Oct13/20C_concerto_grosso_CHAN10791.htm
https://www.amazon.com/20th-Century-Concerto-Grosso-Ernst-Krenek/dp/B00EWT183I

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Neville Marriner (15 April 1924 – 2 October 2016) is an English conductor. He was one of the most important of the early figures who spearheaded the reawakening of modern interest in Baroque and early Classical music. In the 1950s, he founded Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and his partnership with them is one of the most recorded of any orchestra and conductor. Marriner made over 600 recordings covering 2,000 different works for various labels, including Argo, L'Oiseau Lyre, Philips and EMI Classics. His recorded repertoire ranges from the baroque era to 20th-century music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Marriner

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FLAC, tracks
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10 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Thanks for sharing.
    This linkshrink link is also dead. May I ask for a re-up, please?
    many thanks in advance!

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. buona sera, Ronald. volevo segnalarti che i link non son più funzionanti.
    quando puoi e se puoi ricaricarlo, grazie.
    S.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. grazie sempre Ronald per la rapidità con cui risolvi le nostre richieste.
    S.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi, could you post a new link? Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  9. Choose one link, copy and paste it to your browser's address bar, wait a few seconds (you may need to click 'Continue' first), then click 'Free Access with Ads' / 'Get link'. Complete the steps / captchas if require.

    https://direct-link.net/610926/20thc-concerto-grosso
    or
    https://uii.io/oTAuHjHLyQ3W3E
    or
    https://exe.io/vLQelP

    ReplyDelete