Hill: String Quartets Nos. 4, 6 and 8. Dominion Quartet – Naxos 8.572097 (65 minutes).
Born in Australia, Alfred Hill (1869-1960) moved to New Zealand when he was two. At 17 he left Wellington for Leipzig to start his studies at the Conservatoire. There he encountered such prominent masters as Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss.
After he completed his studies in violin and piano in 1891, Hill won the prestigious Helbig award for composition. For the next 20 years he lived mainly in Wellington but in 1910 he finally settled in Sydney where he stayed till he passed away.
Hill is considered to be the only composer of stature to come out of the southern hemisphere who remained faithful to the Romantic age. While the influences of his immediate predecessors are very evident in his early works, he later developed a style that was more akin to modernism, although he never completely discarded the old European traditions.
His output, according to researcher Allan Stiles, runs into well over 2,000 titles covering all genres of music, but sadly many are still unpublished, and only a few have been recorded. This second volume of Naxos’ ongoing cycle of Hill’s string quartets highlights three works from his evolving middle period, when his compositions were taking a new direction.
The Adagio from the fourth quartet has hints of Elgar, while the sixth is laid out in a retro-classical idiom. The pioneering eighth clearly marks the beginning of a new sound world with impressionistic echoes and a somewhat English-sounding finale.
Hill had a particular gift for writing slow movements of extreme beauty, and the three works on this disc are no exception, although the outer movements also offer memorable melodies etched out with much grace and finesse.
The Dominion Quartet were formed in 2006 with the specific aim of recording string quartets by New Zealand composers, and their passion for this music is all too manifest in performances of exemplary precision and vigorous energy. Not mainstream chamber repertoire by all means, but for those who have a penchant for the unusual should find this programme stimulating.
Johann Strauss II: Fürstin Ninetta (Princess Ninetta), complete operetta in three acts; several soloists, Ninetta Chorus, Stockholm Strauss Orchestra conducted by Valeria Csanyi – Naxos 8.660227-28 (103 minutes).
Although Johann Strauss Junior’s (1825-1899) popularity rests mainly on his countless waltzes, polkas, galops and a huge number of other orchestral delights, very few know that he wrote 15 operettas. Die Fledermaus and The Gypsy Baron are still able to work their magic on audiences, but the remaining 13 apart, from A Night in Venice, can be dubbed museum pieces.
Fürstin Ninetta is one such composition. Written in 1892, when Strauss was a bitterly disappointed man after the minimal success of his only opera Ritter Pasman, the work was instrumental in giving the composer a much needed boost both to his morale and the people’s favour.
Premiered on January 10, 1893, with electric lights in the theatre for the first time, the operetta was an encouraging success. Indeed, Emperor Franz Josef, who was present, was greatly impressed.
Fürstin Ninetta ran for 76 performances to great critical acclaim, and very soon a dozen other Austrian theatres took the work into their repertoire. This trend continued until 1905, when suddenly, the piece disappeared completely for 102 years. This excellent live recording from the Berwaldhallen in Stockholm captures all the excitement of this overdue revival which took place on October 7, 2007.
The story is common operetta stuff, with the protagonist, Ninetta, the Russian widow of an Italian prince, finding herself enmeshed in the usual love escapades.
The setting of a beach hotel in 1890 Sorrento inspired Strauss to some truly fizzy yet charming music, and this very timely issue should endear it to all music lovers.
Performances are wonderfully fresh and light-hearted, and the infectious sparkle of this music is made to glisten and shine with effortless ease. How this Princess Ninetta remained buried for over a century defies logic. But now she is back, inviting us to revel in the sheer beauty of her world. Do not miss it.
Gounod: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. Sinfonia Finlandia conducted by Patrick Gallois – Naxos 8.557463 (68 minutes).
Born in Paris in 1818, Charles Gounod had a formidable cultural background. His father was an excellent painter (he died when Charles was just five); his mother an accomplished pianist from whom the young boy got his first lessons.
Entering the Conservatoire in 1836, he furthered his studies with Halevy, Berton, Le Sueur, Zimmermann and Paer, all contemporary composers of a certain reputation, and by 1839 Gounod’s fame was safely cemented. Indeed, by that year he had already won the prestigious Prix de Rome twice. While in Rome, the composer met such influential figures as Fanny Mendelssohn (Felix’s sister), who introduced him to the music of Bach and Beethoven and to the writings of Goethe, and Pauline Viardot, wife of the director of the Theatre Italien and an excitable opera singer. Later he travelled to Vienna, Berlin and Leipzig where he met Otto Nicolai and Felix Mendelssohn, who left a great impression on him.
Mainly considered as an opera composer, Gounod wrote many choral pieces, particularly during the four years he spent in England (1870-74), when the Franco-Prussian War drove him out of his native France. By the time of his death in 1893 he had also tried his hand at the symphonic genre, leaving for posterity a number of well-crafted pieces, among which we find the two symphonies on this recording.
Oddly enough, although both date from 1855, they are somewhat different in scope and structure. The first, only rediscovered in 1950, does not harbour any epic ambitions, but with its wistful melodies and delightfully rhythmic passages it is a hugely attractive piece full of youthful vigour. The second is more robust and elaborate, particularly in its orchestration for the winds, and with two extensive outer movements it is more in the style of Beethoven or Mendelssohn.
Gallois and his Finnish forces capture all the colour and exuberance of Gounod’s creations with sparkling enthusiasm and the overall cheerful nature of both works is highlighted with consistent dexterity. I wholeheartedly recommend these thoroughly pleasing works.
These CDs were made available for review by D’Amato Record Shop of 98/99 St John Street, Valletta.