Month: February 2006

by

Sibelius and Guerrero

Well, what should be waiting for me at my friendly local CD shop this morning but two fine new releases, Sibelius’s vast Symphony/Cantata hybrid Kullervo on LSOLive, conducted by Sir Colin Davis, and the new Tallis Scholars recording of Guerrero’s Missa Surge Propera. Davis’s Kullervo is such an improvement over his previous recording on RCA from the mid 90s that it’s hard to believe the readings are by the same conductors, and not only because the new one is over 10 minutes shorter than the old one. The general flabbiness of the first recording has been replaced by tautness, focus, and a real sense of inevitability. The recording quality is problematical in the usual Barbican way—a bit stiff and unresonant, but with lots of detail. This wonderful piece, which for some reason Sibelius disowned, withdrawing it after its first performance, demands to be heard. There is no lack of good performances around, but Davis’s new one goes to the top of the stack along with Berglund’s first recording.

The new Tallis Scholars CD is likewise a triumph. Guerrero was the major figure in Spanish music between Morales and Victoria, and if, as some argue, that Palestrina developed his style from Morales, then Guerrero was a very powerful proponent of that Italian master’s polyphony. Add to that the peculiar passionate characteristic of Iberian music of this time, and you get riveting art, and of course powerful advocacy from Peter Phillips and his singers. This now makes two fine Guerrero recordings I’ve acquired recently. A nice trend.

by

The NSA and the rule of law

Jack Balkin has a wonderful entry on Posner and his New Republic piece on how he would approach the legality of the NSA surveillance program. Read it all.

This concluding paragraph is worth memorizing and shouting from the rooftops:

Balkinization

The rule of law, as I have said before, is a political value as well as a legal value. It is a political value of restraint that we take upon ourselves so that we can demand the same restraint from others when the power of the state rests in their hands. The rule of law can be, and has been, used to perpetrate or apologize for many injustices in human history. But it has one saving grace– that it offers us a place to stand when we object to the aggrandizement of power by those who are utterly convinced that they come to us as saviors. For many years conservatives warned us about would-be saviors of the left, who would sweep away legal restraints to pursue their vision of a just society. It is time to stand up to the would-be saviors of the right, who seek to concentrate unaccountable power in order to pursue their vision of national security.

by

The Mozart year

Jack Balkin blogs on his favorite Mozart recordings. Go have a look. I note with pleasure that he includes many recordings by Colin Davis, who I think is the finest Mozart conductor of his generation. His readings may seem old-fashioned in this day of period performance practice, but Davis could be counted on to get many things just right, including finding just the right tempo to articulate the melody and rhythm in such a way to make Mozart’s phrases come to life. Just one example: In the C minor Mass, at the end of the first statement of the Hosanna, Davis doesn’t slow down at the end of the “Excelsis”. This has the effect of making the silence afterwards, before the Benedictus, full of possibilities instead of just another silence at the end of a final cadence. Many of Davis’s early Mozart recordings are not available on CD, and it would be nice to have them. I mention only a few:

Oboe Concerto (Leon Goossens) (RCA);
Symphonies 29 and 39 (RCA)
Symphonies 28 and 38 (L’oisseau Lyre)
Symphonies 39 and 40 with the LSO (Philips)
Symphonies 38 and 41 with the LSO (Philips)

His beautiful recording of the Solemn Vespers of the Confessor, K339, with Kiri Te Kanawa is set to be released at budget price this month. Don’t miss it.

Oh, one last thing. As good as Davis is with the Mozart operas, Jacobs has done what 9/11 was supposed to have done: changed everything.

Jack Balkin’s Mozart list