NAXOS AND BIS

The latest installment in Naxos's series of English String Miniatures (and at least a fourth volume is in the works) contains even more delights and surprises than the first two. Lloyd-Jones and his orchestra, given their experience with ballet scores, bring exactly the proper light and graceful touch to this program, which, despite the various styles that it encompasses, holds together beautifully.

Gerald Finzi and Gustav Holst are the familiar names here. Finzi's Prelude (1925) is sensitive, and beautifully written for divided strings, while the Romance (1922) increases the emotional temperature more than one might predict for this composer. The Brook Green Suite (1934, the year of the composer's death) is another one of Holst's works for students of London's St. Paul's Girls' School. The earlier work, written for the older and more accomplished string-players of St. Paul's, was the St. Paul's Suite. Simpler in its demands, the Brook Green Suite nevertheless challenges and charms in equal measure. Student who could play it well would be fine musicians indeed.

As his name suggests, Carlo Martelli's father was Italian. (He was, however, born in London in 1935.) Persiflage is a sort of Leroy Anderson Holiday for Strings European-style, and quite brilliant for all that. William Blezard (b. 1921) wrote his smoothly contrapuntal Duetto in 1951. Simple and agreeable, it is an interesting way to spend six minutes.

And, if you know the song "Roses of Picardy," you know at least some of the music of Haydn Wood (1882-1959). His 18th Century Scherzo is a happy English pastiche of Mendelssohn and Rossini (who were, of course, not 18th-century composers!) and more modern ideas. Presumably the Scherzo is meant to depict aspects of life in the 18th century, and not to be a copy of that century's music.

The two most substantial works are by composers whose names are quite unfamiliar, particularly outside of the United Kingdom. Michael Hurd (b. 1928) has contributed a work of merit to the string orchestra genre with his neo-classical Sinfonia concertante, which is a gently emotional showpiece for the violin soloist as well. Not even ten minutes long, Hurd concentrates many lovely thoughts within. The music seems, like a brook in spring, to want to bubble over its boundaries. Bruce Montgomery (1921-1978) was the composer of music for films in the "Doctor" and "Carry On" series. As such, his work is well known, although he is not. His Concertino contains many hints of a major talent whose opportunity never came. Its chromatic and compact writing bring the disc to a darker and more serious (but not unhappily so) ending.

The recording, made in St. Paul's in New Southgate, London, is very resonant, and some of the music's more complicated textures are obscured. Still, this is a very enjoyable disc, and I look forward to future volumes.

The playing on this disc is more than decent, although, as I hinted above, the orchestra is at its best when the music is smallest in scale. I have no reservations at all about the sympathetic interpretations. The engineering, while nothing spectacular, is effective at giving the listener a feel for both the ensembles' true sound, and for the venues in which they are playing.

A collection such as this one would be attractive at any price. At Naxos's list price, it's irresistible. Finnish lollipops, then, but neither cold nor dour!

These are Swedes who composed in the twentieth century. Kurt Atterberg and Ture Rangström were of the generation that was reaching its fullest maturity around the time of World War One, and Lars-Erik Larsson, Gunnar de Frumerie, and Karl-Birger Blomdahl were from the following generation. Most are relatively unfamiliar outside of their homeland, although Atterberg achieved fame in the late 1920s when his Dollar Symphony won an international competition and was played by Sir Thomas Beecham.

Some of the music on this CD is in a pastoral vein. Larsson's Lyric Fantasy is pleasingly melancholy, and its gentle introspection reminds me of Vaughan Williams's Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 3). There is beautiful writing for winds in this short fantasy. De Frumerie's Pastoral Suite is in five movements, and the titles (Preludium, Gavott, Saraband, etc.) look back to earlier musical eras. The music doesn't feel particularly antique to me, though. The flute is given prominence, and it is the source of long, consoling melodies in some of the movements and brilliant dance themes in the others. Not just pastoral, this suite leaves one feeling profoundly at peace.

Atterberg's Suite started as incidental music to Maeterlinck's mystery play Sister Beatrice, a drama that also inspired conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos early in his career. This is emotionally intense music, filled with a morbid yearning that suits the drama's subject. (A nun is torn between earthly and spiritual love.) The dark waltz that closes the suite is not dissimilar to Sibelius's Valse triste. The Divertimento elegiaco by Rangström reminded me, at times, of music by Bernard Herrmann, particularly of the less violent moments of his score to "Psycho." It's highly melodic, but dark and very serious. Another dark work is the last to be mentioned here: Blomdahl's Adagio from "The Wakeful Night," a drama about witch hunts. It is simple and elegiac, and gives few hints of the composer's later paths, which were definitely more modernistic.

These are excellent performances. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra, based in the small city of Örebro, has won awards for its earlier Naxos recordings, and they play these works stylishly and with commitment. The soloists are outstanding, not just for their understanding interpretations, but also for their characterful playing. The engineering is fine - the bass is a little too full - and the booklet notes are helpful. Try this!

Bruckner wrote this study symphony in his fortieth year. His life was more than half over, and yet all of his masterpieces were yet to be written. This symphony was an assignment for Otto Kitzler, his last competition teacher, whose verdict was "not very inspired." Overall, Kitzler's comment may not be inaccurate, but sometimes not very inspired can be inspired enough; this symphony has many delightful and rewarding features. It would have been easy enough for Bruckner to destroy it, as he did with other bits of "juvenilia," but he did not, suggesting that he believed it to be not completely lacking in merit, even though he disowned it.

The symphony, in Tintner's words, is "full of Schumann and Mendelssohn," although there are enough Brucknerian fingerprints upon it to make its patrimony unquestionable. Most characteristic is the Scherzo, which is delightful. There's nothing to be ashamed of here, even if it doesn't scale the heights that Bruckner would reach later.

It is the third (1880) version of the Symphony No. 4 ("Romantic") that is most familiar today. Bruckner's earlier thoughts on the finale are really fascinating; the beloved themes appear in new costumes, thereby deepening our relationship with them. This "Volksfest" finale is smaller-scaled than the one we know best. Although it is less impressive, it is not a failure in any sense of the word, and it gives us insight into how the composer thought and worked.

Tintner, like Günter Wand, knew Bruckner as well as he knew his own life. Hearing Tintner's Bruckner recordings is like appreciating the work of a veteran auto mechanic: he might not have designed any race cars or worked at the Indy 500, but he knows how cars are put together and what makes them work. In short, Tintner is like the only mechanic you'd trust with your difficult but adored Fiat. This recording is a fitting memorial. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra plays as if they were having a mass out-of-body experience, and the recording is superb. If you have not given Tintner's Bruckner recordings a try, here's your chance.

The other composers on this disc were completely unknown to me. The oldest is Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, who was born in 1889 amd died in 1960. His Miniature Dance Suite is a pastiche of early Classical dance forms.

While little of the music on this CD is as memorable as the work of Leroy Anderson or Eric Coates, it's all impeccably professional and barrier-free. Lloyd-Jones conducts it sympathetically, and the Royal Ballet Sinfonia ("the only regularly contracted ballet orchestra in Britain") plays it with lilting grace. There's nothing else quite like this CD on the market, and if the genre interests you, then don't hesitate.

In the Fourth Symphony, Sakari's unusually slow tempos challenge the listener without losing his interest. The total timing is 37:47; compare this with commercial recordings by Maazel/VPO (32:31), Saraste (34:28), and Barbirolli (36:17). Only the third movement is distended by Sakari's frosty treatment. The tempos for the Fifth Symphony are more conventional; Sakari takes 31:17, compared to 27:15, 32:25, and 33:15, in the same sequence given above. Sakari, no doubt assisted by the Icelandic engineers and the acoustics in the Reykjavík Concert Hall, uncovers details that are not apparent in more expensive recordings featuring big-name conductors. The Icelandic double basses are particularly noticeable, and this adds needed foundation to Sibelius's sound. The conductor's lively phrasing makes even these familiar scores sound fresh.

At this price, the only other strong competitor in these works is Maazel in his first recording, which is 35 years old and not nearly so well recorded. You won't be disappointed with Sakari.

What can you do with these works, particularly Finlandia, that hasn't already been done? While Sakari does nothing freakish, his interpretations are sufficiently different to justify their being made available at any price. He is an unusally responsive conductor, sensitive to the music's currents and eddies. There's nothing stiff or stodgy about his Sibelius. Finlandia begins with grim defiance (the Icelandic brass really have character here) but the first fast section goes at a galvanizing tempo, and when Sakari comes to the Big Tune, the orchestra plays it with intense patriotic fervor -- one can almost hear a crowd of men, women, and children singing it with a catch in their throats. The outer movements of Karelia are jaunty; Sakari's emphasis of the strong beats gives the music a masculine, natural swing. The vocal quality of the "Ballade" is brought out by Sakari's flexible phrasing.

Sibelius composed this music between 1895 and 1896, with the exception of The Swan of Tuonela, which he composed in 1893. All of the sections were revised in 1897. The Swan of Tuonela and Lemminkäinen's Homeward Journey were revised one last time in 1900, and Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island (also known as Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of Saari) and Lemminkäinen in Tuonela were revised in 1939 to produce the versions that we know today. Resuscitating earlier versions of this music may seems a bit like grave-robbing, but the ideas that Sibelius subsequently rejected or revised are worth hearing. Overall, the final versions are the best. However, there are too many interesting things in the earlier versions to ignore them completely.

The most dramatic changes happened to Lemminkäinen's Homeward Journey. In 1896, it was almost twice the length it is today. This first version is not very concise, but the added weight brings out a celebratory character missing from the final version.

Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island also underwent significant changes, although its length remained about the same. The composer revised the orchestration in many ways, both large and small. There were more important revisions, however, in the manner in which Sibelius handled his themes. Hearing the original version creates a strong feeling of dislocation; the material is familiar, but the treatment is not. It's like seeing a picture of an old friend and discovering that he used to have different hair color and wear glasses.

At first, I was a taken aback by what seemed to be a rather undemonstrative reading by Vänskä and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. After several auditions, I admire this performance a great deal more. It doesn't go for the jugular; it's not a "popular" reading. Instead, the performers emphasize Sibelius' dark colors. A Finnish critic once complained that this music sounded "positively pathological", and while I don't agree, Vänskä's inwardness allows one to see where the critic was coming from. Eugene Ormandy's bright-eyed and excellently played version remains a classic. Nevertheless, there is room for many different viewpoints, and Vänskä's intense thoughtfulness leaves one thinking about the music long after it is over. As usual with BIS, the engineering is outstanding, and copious annotations by Andrew Barnett help the listener to suck the marrow out of Lemminkäinen's bones.

This is the fourth Bis CD devoted exclusively to his music; again, these are world premiere recordings. Epiclesis was written in 1993 and revised five years later. The title refers to a prayer or invocation, specifically one delivered to God to send the Holy Spirit to Communion and thereby to complete the Trinity. In so doing, transubstantiation -- the actual transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ -- is made possible. The work actually is a single-movement, 25-minute concerto for trumpet and orchestra. The first two-thirds of Epiclesis are largely free and improvisational in effect. The soloist rhapsodizes in quiet ecstasy, and the orchestra reacts torporously, but with increasing movement. At length, the soloist and the orchestra meet on the same spiritual plane, a process aided by the quotation of the plainsong Adoro te devote. A ferociously joyful dance signals the arrival of the Holy Spirit, and it is here that Epiclesis, its materials now organized in accents of wild praise, reaches its climax. Two antiphonal trumpets join the soloist to represent the Trinity. Its work done, the solo trumpet literally recedes (he walks offstage while playing), and the work comes to a rumbling, transformed close. MacMillan makes outrageous demands on his soloist -- and John Wallace is one of England's finest -- but one feels that this is done for expressive purposes and not for ego.

Russian-born Alexander Lazarev has been the Principal Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra since 1997. He sounds very comfortable with MacMillan's unabashedly theatrical vein of Roman Catholicism, and the music's many technical and interpretive demands do not stymie him. This is the Orchestra's first recording for Bis, and they benefit from the label's characteristically dramatic engineering. This CD is a sonic and musical showpiece, and if the idiom may be a little strong for traditional-minded listeners, MacMillan's sincerity (plus the sincerity of these performers) must win the day.

Brittens Music Eastbourne