1923 was a turbulent year in the western world. The ballooning US stock market fell dramatically and the extreme inflation that ensued caused an intercontinental crisis. Hitler was becoming a serious menace, causing political instability.
Nevertheless, and largely due to the advent of radio, Europe’s artistic life still bubbled with inventive genius in almost every country. Even Turkey emerged from the decaying Ottoman Empire to become a western-style republic, copying the European model of state-sponsored opera, orchestra, theatre, dance companies and music conservatories, thanks to the administrative assistance of violist/conductor/composer Paul Hindemith.
Multiple artists during this era contributed a plethora of new musical languages; among them were Kurt Weill, Ernst Toch, Béla Bartók, and Ernst Krenek. A compelling selection of their works on BR Klassik’s “The Wild Sound of the 20s,” is issued on two discs: the first covering chamber music by Toch, Krenek, and Weill, as well as Bartók’s “Dance Suite” for full orchestra. The second disc is devoted to a single work: French composer André Caplet’s “The Mirror of Jesus – Mysteries of the Rosary,” an oratorio for mezzo-soprano, female chorus and orchestra. All compositions on both discs were written in 1923.
Disc one: New languages
Toch’s 6-part “Dance Suite” was commissioned by a German choreographer and is packed with high octane instrumental activity. This is a very appealing set of virtuosic scores that show off each member of the chamber orchestra throughout. This entertaining suite is so descriptive that you can easily imagine the balletic scenarios it paints.
Weill’s cycle of medieval songs “Frauentanz: Seven Medieval Love Poems” features soprano and woodwind quintet – although the oboe was replaced by a viola, perhaps to accommodate the participation of his friend and colleague, Hindemith. The poems were reset to an updated version of German, and the compositional style is a distinct departure from Weill’s more familiar theatrical works.
Soprano Anna-Maria Palii’s sparkling tone and accuracy appeals throughout the songs, which have challenging, angular melodies. Although her diction was clear enough, it would have been helpful to the listener to have a lyric sheet for better comprehension. In the Toch and Weill scores, all eight instrumentalists are superb, and violist Benedict Hames’ superior performances in both works stand out.
Krenek’s ‘Three Mixed a cappella Choruses, Op. 22’ (sung brilliantly here by the Bavarian Radio Choir, conducted by Howard Arman) employ a wide-ranged tessitura for all voice parts in a neo-romantic choral style. The first two pieces were set to the intensely philosophical words of Matthias Claudius; whereas the third piece’s absurdly conventional tonality pokes fun at the rotting Roman Empire — a commentary on the zeitgeist that Krenek witnessed in Berlin.
Bartók did something similar in his 15-minute “Dance Suite” for orchestra: he cleverly evaded the Budapest City Council’s request to write semi-religious music to celebrate the city’s 50th anniversary of the uniting of Buda and Pest to become the official capital of a country that had just been brutally severed by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. Instead of a plebian threnody, he chose to use a new language that couched just enough Hungarian, Romanian, and Slovakian folk song references, in an otherwise enigmatic score, to satisfy his commissioners. As the first disc’s final cut, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Howard Arman, gave a shimmering and powerful account of a remarkable work.
Disc two: Caplet’s ecstatic score
“The Mirror of Jesus – Mysteries of the Rosary” is divided into three episodes: Mirror of Joy, Mirror of Sorrow, and Mirror of Glory, based on fifteen poems by French writer Henri Ghéon. They are poetic reflections of the stages of Jesus’ life, as experienced through the Virgin Mary’s eyes and emotions. Each subdivision begins with an instrumental or choral Prelude that sets the emotional tone for the text.
Taken as a whole, this hour-long oratorio for solo mezzo-soprano, female chorus, strings and harp, is a work of utter devotion to the deepest Catholic tenets. Its rapturous quality offers a heartfelt connection to the meaning of the rosary — all the while maintaining a highly sophisticated musical description of Mary’s responses to what she witnesses. The Munich Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with the expressive soloist Anke Vondung, conducted by Howard Arman, did the score more than justice, it was a full illumination of a radiant work.
Caplet’s choral writing (sung in French) is some of the most stunning in the classical world: sky-high sopranos and ruby-throated altos floated through the stratosphere in parallel triads and chordal clusters that recall Debussy’s impressionism and the typical French organ music styles of that era.
To his dramatic advantage, Caplet capitalized on the ecstatic vibrational currency of sustained high sopranos; and in this recording, the women of the Bavarian Radio Chorus’ pitch accuracy, purity of tone, and ability to maintain a high tessitura at any volume level is astounding.
[BR Klassiks’ excellent liner notes in the album booklets by Tobias Bleek and Anna Vogt were appreciated and indispensable.]
