Search - Samuel Barber, Marin Alsop, Louise Winter :: Samuel Barber: Capricorn Concerto; A Hand of Bridge; Intermezzo from Vanessa

Mostly Unfamiliar, but Worthy, Orchestral Music by Barber

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 03/14/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the last in the series of Barber's orchestral music with Marin Alsop conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. It includes one very familiar work--the Capricorn Concerto--and several that are almost never heard, including his witty 9-minute one act opera, 'A Hand of Bridge.' Of these only the Capricorn has had multiple modern recordings as far as I'm aware. And Alsop's and the RSNO's performance of this sprightly piece, whose instrumentation is the same as that of Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto (trumpet, oboe, flute, strings), is as good as any I've heard. I've always been taken with its third movement, with its virtuoso trumpet part, and we are not let down by trumpeter John Gracie. As good as he is, oboist Stéphane Rancourt and flutist Karen Jones are his equals.



'A Hand of Bridge' was composed for the Spoleto Festival, founded by Barber's long-time companion Gian-Carlo Menotti, who wrote the libretto for it. It is for four singers who alternate intoning the business of bidding and playing a hand of bridge and singing arioso internal monologs mostly about the other players. It is nicely done here, but Naxos would have done us a favor by printing the libretto in the jewel box insert because even though it is in English, too many words are lost when sung. The excellent soloists are Lesley Craigie, soprano, Roderick Williams, bass, Louise Winter, mezzo, and Simon Wall, tenor.



'Mutations from Bach,' (sometimes called 'Meditation on a theme of Bach'), written late in Barber's life and for his own amusement, is for brass and timpani. This six-minute piece presents four harmonizations of the plainsong 'Christ, thou lamb of God' starting with that of Joachim Decker from the 17th century, then Bach's harmonization (from BWV 23, the cantata 'Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn'), then Barber's own, followed by a repeat of the Decker. They are all of course orchestrated by Barber for brass (4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, plus timpani). This is an extraordinarily beautiful work and is played gorgeously here by members of the RSNO.



Next is the 'Intermezzo' from Barber's beautiful opera 'Vanessa' (which has been taken into the repertoire of many opera companies and which has in the past year had two excellent new recordings). The Intermezzo comes in Act III and is a heartbreaking psychological portrait of the spurned Vanessa. I love this piece (well, I love the whole opera, truth be told) and this performance is both wrenching and consoling. Lovely.



The last work Barber attempted was a concerto for oboe and strings. It was supposed to be for Harold Gomberg, the long-time principal oboe of the New York Philharmonic. But Barber did not live to finish it. Indeed, he wrote only one movement and even that had to be completed by his student, Charles Turner. It is an elegiac pastorale in which the oboe sings as a great soprano might. I'd never heard it before and fell in love with it immediately. It is spare, haunting, echt-Barber with those long romantic lines, those harmonic cross-relations so Bachian and yet so modern. Oboist Stéphane Rancourt plays like an angel, with unearthly breath control, sensitive phrasing, subtle dynamic variation, and lovely tone. This is a nine-minute aria that will tear your heart out.



Finally, the almost impressionistic 'Fadograph of a Yestern Scene.' The title is taken from Joyce's 'Finnegan's Wake.' That evocative title tells us precisely what to expect in this nostalgic and dreamlike reminiscence of other times. In some sense it is a wordless companion to Barber's other nostalgic masterpiece, 'Knoxville: Summer of 1915.' A glorious end to a glorious series of recordings by Alsop and the RSNO. There is no a bad performance in the whole six CD series. I would guess that eventually Naxos will combine them into a boxed set, but why wait?



Strongly recommended.



TT=52:28



Scott Morrison"

One of the best in the series

Redgecko | USA | 03/26/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This last installment in Naxos's Barber series collects together some of Barber's lesser known and hard-to-find pieces. The Fadograph of a Yestern Scene and the Canzonetta are achingly beautiful and not often recorded. My major complaint with this release is the placement of A Hand Of Bridge. Being a somewhat erratic vocal piece, it does not belong in the middle of the CD where it breaks the meditative flow of the other five instrumental pieces. It either belongs as the last selection on the CD, or better still, paired with Knoxville, Summer of 1915, another Barber vocal composition.



That other CD, was also poorly programmed by Naxos by their inclusion of two of Barber's three orchestral Essays. These lovely pieces shouldn't have been tainted by their proximity to the vocal piece. That is, an all-vocal Barber CD would have been welcomed by all.



At 52:28, the skimpiest offering in Naxos's survey of Barber's work.







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A Great Final Disc

D. A Wend | Buffalo Grove, IL USA | 04/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the final disc in Naxos' series of the orchestral music of Samuel Barber, and it ends with more great performances. The Capricorn Concerto (named for the home in Mount Kisco that Barber shared with Gian Carlo Menotti) is not often recorded but deserves much more attention. The concerto is greatly influenced by Igor Stravinsky and is a triple concerto for oboe, flute and trumpet - a neo-classical re-working of Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto. The concerto is an engaging work in three movements that explores the virtuosity of the three solo instruments. The surprise on this disc is the pocket-opera A Hand of Bridge where two couples playing cards think indulgently on their obsessions. The libretto is by Menotti and has quite a biting wit to it, however, the performance recorded here is only adequate. The earlier recording by Vladimir Golshman and the Symphony of the Air has a better balance and better singing overall. The voices on this recording are sometimes not clearly heard over the music and the soprano sometimes does not maintain control. Still, this is performance will be of interest to those interested in Barber rarities. There is no libretto, which would have been a welcomed addition.



The Mutations from Bach is a late work for brass instruments and was meant as a tribute to Barber's favorite composer. The famous Intermezzo from Vanessa, from Barber's first and very successful opera, depicts the spurned heroine, connecting two scenes and providing emotional context. The Canzonetta for Oboe and Strings was to have been a concerto but the ailing Barber was only barely able to produce this short piece, an elegiac and romantic close to a distinguished career. The depth of feeling in this recording is beautifully expressed. Fadograph from a Yestern Scene is a tribute to Barber's interest in James Joyce. This is a later work when the composer was living as a recluse and composed little. The inspiration for this short piece is Finnegan's Wake. It is a quiet, impressionistic work, commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony, and was the last orchestra piece that Barber completed.



This is a remarkable disc that anyone interested in the music of Samuel Barber will want to have. Marin Alsop has proven to be a remarkable interpreter of Berber's music and her series of recordings with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra will be the ones that all newcomers are compared against.

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