Romanic Archive
Bruno Walter Rarities, Vol. 2 = Works of BERLIOZ, HANDEL, WAGNER, MOZART, WEBER – Pristine Audio
Mark Obert-Thorn adds more rare Bruno Walter recordings to supplement his three earlier installments. Bruno Walter Rarities, Vol. 2 = BERLIOZ: Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9; HANDEL: Concerto Grosso in b, Op. 6, No. 12; WAGNER: Parsifal: Act I Transformation Music; A Siegfried Idyll; MOZART: Le Nozze di Figaro, K. 492 – Overture; Serenade No. 13 in G Major, K. 525 “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”; WEBER: Der Freischuetz, Op. 77 Ov. – Berlin Philharmonic Orch. (Berlioz)/ Royal Philharmonic Orch. (Wagner)/ Mozart Festival Orch. (K. 492)/ British Sym. Orch. (K. 525)/ Paris Conservatory Orch. (Handel, Weber)/ Bruno Walter – Pristine Audio PASC 492, 72:28 [avail. in various formats from www.pristineclassical.com] ****: The recorded legacy (1923-1938) of Bruno Walter (1876-1962) enjoys further expansion in the CD format via the painstaking efforts of Mark Obert-Thorn, who restores several items – the Handel Concerto Grosso, in particular – once available through the Bruno Walter Society on LP, and the frisky 1928 Le Nozze di Figaro Overture, which makes its debut here. Essentially, Obert-Thorn’s tour takes us from Walter’s work in Berlin to his excursions to Britain and then flight to Paris, France to escape the Anschluss in Austria. Walter’s musical style maintains strong ties a […]
CHOPIN: 24 Preludes; SCHUMANN: Fantasie in C Major – Horacio Gutierrez, p. – Bridge
Noble and commanding, the Gutierrez renditions of two Romantic staples should bring repeated delights. CHOPIN: 24 Preludes, Op. 28; SCHUMANN: Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17 – Horacio Gutierrez, p. – Bridge 9479, 65:56 (10/7/16) [Distr. by Albany] ****: Horatio Gutierrez (b. 1948) addresses (rec. 26-28 March 2015) two of the Romantic pillars of keyboard composition, the 1838 Chopin Preludes, and the 1839 Fantasie of Robert Schumann, works whose rhetoric and exalted gestures – along with the Liszt b minor Sonata – virtually embody the spirit of the age. The Chopin Preludes provide a kind of Rosetta Stone for the Romantic sensibility, 24 pieces in all the major and minor tonalities whose one concession to the Classical form lies in their following the circle of fifths. Chopin had taken a copy of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier with him to Majorca, and he studiously absorbed much of Bach’s concentrated lyricism and contrapuntal models, but he eschewed any additional component to his preludes: none of them attaches to an ensuing fugue or fantasia. Instead, the mighty drama Chopin effects lies within the core of each miniature – say, in the f-sharp minor – whose angry figures relent only in the last measures. True, […]
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