Concert Review: Fairy Tales of New York

Manfred Honeck returns to the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Manfred Honeck returned to the New York Philharmonic this week.
Photo by Felix Broede for IMG Artists. 

He may forever be known as the Conductor that Got Away.

Manfred Honeck, who was narrowly beaten out by Jaap van Zweden for the job of music director of the New York Philharmonic returned to the podium of America's oldest orchestra this week. He brought an ambitious program, featuring two of his own arrangements of orchestral music by Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, each drawn from fairy tale works by those great Romantic composers, and the evergreen Sibelius Violin Concerto as an ample and satisfying makeweight.

Concert Review: Brought To You By The Letter "B"

Juanjo Mena conducts Beethoven and Bruckner.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

In search of transcendence: conductor Juanjo Mena.
Photo © 2016 Columbia Artists Management Inc.

On the same day that the New York Philharmonic announced the appointment of Jaap van Zweden as its 26th music director, the orchestra was scheduled to perform two classic works from the 19th century. On the podium, Juanjo Mena, the Spanish conductor who is music director of the BBC Philharmonic. He was leading the Beethoven Violin Concerto (with soloist James Ehnes) and Bruckner's Symphony No. 6, a lesser-known example of that composer's art. Interestingly, this is the type of conservative program that might be ideally suited to Mr. van Zweden's talents.

Of Salt Spray and Space Warps

Superconductor remembers the music of composer James Horner.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The U.S.S. Enterprise (top) fires on the U.S.S. Reliant in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Image © 1982 Paramount Pictures,

The composer James Horner died yesterday when his single-engine plane crashed in California. Mr. Horner was an acclaimed film composer with a wide range of credits, from Aliens to his award-winning Celtic-influenced scores for Titanic and Braveheart. But what he will always be associated with (in the mind of this writer at least) is his two symphonic scores for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

Getting your Gruppen On

A performance of Stockhausen's spatial masterpiece.

I'm out of New York this weekend, so I wasn't able to attend the Philharmonic 360 concerts at the Park Avenue Armory. Normal Superconductor coverage resumes next week. (Even bloggers get a vacation!)

To tide you over, we are proud to present this Youtube video of Stockhausen's Gruppen, featured in the concerts. This unique work is written for three separate orchestras with three conductors and the audience in the middle.

Enjoy.

The Spider and the Fiddle

Are spider-strand violin strings the future of chamber music?
by Paul Pelkonen

A golden orb-weaver spider in its web.

There's a fascinating article on the BBC News site today: a Japanese researcher has figured out how to make spider silk into violin strings.

Spider-man: Dr. Shigeyoshi Osaki
 in a hammock suspended
from rope made from spider-webbing.
Photo © 2011 Dr. Shigeyoshi Osaki.
First published in The Japan Times.

The strings, made from silk spun by the golden orb-weaver spider) have a high tensile strength. When bowed, they produce a softer tone than conventional strings, which are made from steel or cat-gut. The BBC article has an example of a violin played with the new spider-strings.

The scientist, Doctor Shigeyoshi Osaki of the Nara Medical University developed a method to produce large quantities of "drag-line silk" from 200 captured spiders. Each string required 3,000-5,000 strands to form a bundle. Three bundles, twisted together make up a string.

By the way, cat-gut is not made from cats--but from the stretched fibers of sheep or cow intestines. The term may be a corruption of cattle-gut, although the sawings of amateur players may suggest a small feline being tortured.

Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.

Superconductor 2011 Gift Guide Part III: Beethoven for the Holidays

Despite the image, there are no dogs in this page of all-Beethoven recommendations.
Let's call this an unsolicited ad for this direct-to-video sequel starring Curtis "Booger" Armstrong.
Image © 2011 Universal Studios.

Beethoven: Complete Symphonies (Decca, 5 CDs)
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig cond. Riccardo Chailly

It's an amazing thing--no matter how many recordings of the Beethoven symphonies you hear, there is always a conductor who manages to bring out something new and unheard in the works. Here, it's Riccardo Chailly, whose five-disc account of the symphonies (with some overtures) is a welcome addition to an already vast catalogue.

These are all live recordings: brisk, invigorating accounts of these familiar symphonies. The Fifth (taken at a very fast tempo) is a highlight. The Sixth is played with great purpose and clarity. In the later symphonies (7, 8) Mr. Chailly draws out the textures of Beethoven's string writing, showing the composer pushing the musical envelope. The Ninth wails and stomps through the first two movements. The third is played very slowly--Chailly's experience with Bruckner pays off here. There is an inspired set of soloists in the final choral movement. Recommended.

Fidelio (Decca, 2 CDs)
Lucerne Festival Orchestra cond. Claudio Abbado
Leonore/Fidelio: Nina Stemme
Florestan:  Jonas Kaufmann

Now this was a good idea. Jonas Kaufmann's first major studio opera recording has him taking on the challenging role of Florestan, wrongfully imprisoned by a vengeful government official. To save him, his wife Leonore (Nina Stemme) cross-dresses and becomes "Fidelio", a suspiciously helpful turnkey in the prison. This is the first new recording of Fidelio in a while, which is mostly due to a lack of Leonores. 

Happily, Nina Stemme is admirably qualified for the part, a full-on Wagner soprano who can summon tenderness in the big Act I quartet. The strong cast features Falk Struckmann as the baddie, and bass Christoph Fistesscher as Rocco. In a welcome return to opera recordings, the great Claudio Abbado shows his way with Beethoven, leading this Swiss orchestra.

Beethoven (Deutsche Grammophon, 13 CDs)
Berlin Philharmonic cond. Herbert von Karajan
It's coming out next month: the reissue of Herbert von Karajan's umpteenth (and final) cycle of Beethoven symphonies made with the Berlin Philharmonic. Experience the pristine DG Karajan Gold sound without having to shell out too many gold pieces.

Over the course of a five-decade recording career, Karajan repeatedly recorded the Beethoven symphonies, seeking greater refinement of sound from his Berlin Philharmonic forces. The "standard" is his 1963 cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic. But even if it's in the interests of completism, there's something to be said for these digital readings, made in the early 1980s when the conductor's power was at its height.

But wait, shoppers, there's more! This small but mighty box includes the Anne Sophie Mutter recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, a rare orchestral arrangement of the Grosse Fugue, and a cycle of the piano concertos. Christoph Eschenbach plays the first, and Alexis Weissenberg (appearing under a special licensing deal with EMI Classics) plays Nos. 2-5.


Beethoven: Symphonies 1, 2, 3 (3 DVDs or 1 Blu-Ray)
Symphonies 4, 5, 6 (3 DVDs or 1 Blu-Ray)
Symphonies 7, 8, 9 (3 DVDs or 1 Blu-Ray)
Hi-def high-quality Beethoven from Christian Thielemann, the German conductor whose whole career has been a determined throwback to the great kapellmeisters of the past: Hans Richter and Arthur Nikisch. These are visual records of the Vienna Philharmonic playing these great works in the legendary Musikverein. If you want the audio record, the CD box set (released by Sony) comes out on Dec. 27.

From my review:
"Mr. Thielemann leads a straightforward, über-Romantic interpretation, opting for a limpid clarity of texture that allows the listener to hear these sturdy works afresh. He is aided by the sterling acoustics of the hall, the quiet-as-mice audience, and of course the unique sound of the Vienna Philharmonic, whose well-documented use of "Viennese" horns, period oboes and goat-skin drums make them, in effect, an historic ensemble that chooses tradition over technology."

The concert films and recordings are top-notch, even though the camera has a music video tendency to cut too quickly. And if you have a post-Christmas gift certificate, these concerts will be released on CD on Dec. 27.

Beethoven: The Complete Symphony Collection 
(MP3 Download Only, Everest Classics)
London Symphony Orchestra cond. Joseph Krips
This 53-year old set is from the stereo boom, when many record labels were putting together orchestras and conductors in an effort to get into the market. Joseph Krips is chiefly remembered for his opera recordings, most notably a Vienne Don Giovanni that remains an industry standard. The LSO sounds great, captured in their prime. And hey, it's SIX BUCKS for a high-quality MP3 download from Amazon. At that price, it's bound to make somebody happy if they find it in their mailbox this holiday season.

Check out the rest of the 2011 Superconductor Gift Guide:

Part I: Gigantic Boxed Sets

Part II: Slightly Smaller Boxed Sets

Part IV: Opera Recordings
Part V: Piano Mania

Concert Review: Who Needs Black Friday?

Ludovic Morolt conducts Harbison's Fourth, Mahler's First.

Composer John Harbison.
 Photo by Kathrin Talbot, © 2010 G. Schirmer and Associates.

James Levine vacated the position of Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in March of this year. But this week's program, conducted by his former assistant Ludovic Morlot, is very much a continuation of the programming idea prevalent in his seven-year tenure.

The program, played to a full Symphony Hall on the afternoon after Thanksgiving, opened with the Fourth Symphony by John Harbison. This was part of a two-year BSO initiative, to perform all of Mr. Harbison's extant symphonies by the end of this season. It will conclude in January with the premiere of his Sixth.

The Fourth is a bleak, unsmiling work in five movements. In his thoughtful program notes, the composer describes the work as a five-movement cure for his Gatsby hangover, following that work's mixed reception in 2000. Indeed, the first movement is jazz-inflected and brassy, almost strident until stopping dead against its own momentum. The second is indecisive, the sound of a man  beginning anew.

The third finds the composer emulating the work of Shostakovich with a dour double scherzo, Complicated dance rhythms tumbling over each other in and effort to express themselves. The funereal Threnody that followed was grim, terse effective. The final movement was bold and determined, the sound of a composer finding his groove, and moving on to what should be a brighter, more optimistic future.

Under Mr. Morolt, the Boston Symphony Orchestra played the Harbison work with taut power. They brought the same quality to the second Suite from Maurice Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloë. The large ensemble tackled these furious rhythms with glee, playing the closing "Danse generale" with gusto. 

The concert concluded with a Mahler First played with bold strokes. Despite a few balky notes from the bassoons, Mr. Morolt summoned the spirit of spring into Symphony Hall, making Mahler's chorales of offstage trumpets and onstage horns come together in a celebratory manner. 

The reeling, wine-tippling peasants of the second movement lurched groggily in. The joy was visible on the faces of the Boston players as they moved into the elegant trio before returning to Mahler's clod-hopping Ländler rhythms. played the famous funeral march, drawn from the children's rhyme "Frere Jacques" before slipping into Jewish wedding music and letting out some very merry sounds from the eight-man horn section.

Those horns move to their feet in the last pages of the tumultous finale, a treacherous, long movement made more difficult by a tricky repeat that forces the orchestra to reprise the entire main theme in a different, higher key Still, the players stood up to the challenge. Mr. Morlot slowed a little in the middle of this movement, but regained his footing and brought the First in with a blaze of sound and a loud, approving applause. 

With stunning playing like this, who needs a door-busting sale to be truly happy?

The Sheer Weight of Sound

Reflections on Soundgarden and Bruckner Symphonies
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Devastating bass: Ben Shepherd of Soundgarden.
Photo by the Author. © 2011 by me.

"They want me to write differently. Certainly I could, but I must not."
--Anton Bruckner

"We do this basically for ourselves. People appreciate it, which is cool, but I think they appreciate that we're doing it for ourselves. We're doing it our way, and how people like it is not up to us. We like it."
--James Hetfield of Metallica

So last night my friend Rob Pantuliano and I went to Newark, NJ to see the resurrected '90s grunge band Soundgarden play the Prudential Center. For the uninitiated, Soundgarden were the loudest, and one of the heaviest bands to come out of that Seattle scene, combining unusual time signatures, shrieked vocals and a slow, sludgy, heavy sound produced by tuning the guitars and bass down to D or C, and occasionally, all the way down to a low B. They broke up in 1997, but are currently enjoying a renaissance.

That's No Moon, That's a.....

Pluto and the Battle of The Planets.

Pluto, now a minor planet.

Following the recent Philadelphia Orchestra performance of Holst's The Planets, I've been investigating Pluto, the Renewer, the six-minute "sequel" written by composer Colin Matthews in 2000.

The (former) planet Pluto was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. It turned out to be a small, rocky, ice-covered world that occasionally traded orbits with Neptune. Further discoveries, including that of the (larger) scattered disc object Eris in 2005 led to the 2006 decision of the International Astronomical Union, demoting Pluto to the status of "minor planet."

Holst completed The Planets in 1916. Although he later heard of Tombaugh's discovery, he was content with a seven-movement suite depicting Mars, Venus, Mercury, Earth, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. His exploration of the outer planets becomes progressively weirder. Highlights include the proto-doom-metal march of Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age and the shimmering wordless chorus of Neptune, The Mystic..

Colin Matthews is an acclaimed composer and authority on Holst's music. Pluto was commissioned by the Hallé Orchestra in 2000 as a new eighth moement. The piece is designed to be played directly after the fade-out that ends Neptune, the Mystic at the end of Holst's suite. It recapitultes many elements from earlier in The Planets, attempting to "sum up" Holst's music, using his orchestral technique while putting a more modern spin on these musical ideas.

A first listen immediately reveals scintillating glockenspiel parts, the rapid-fire scales of Mercury, the 'cello run up that starts Jupiter and the low, menacing growls of Saturn. The music then thunders into gear with a clattering timpani part, roaring tuba and lighter brass, and a cosmic storm of ostinato rhythms that recall the heavier pages of Mars..

Footage of Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic playing Pluto for your listening pleasure.

Attempts to finish or improve other composer's unfinished compositions rarely succeed. By attempting to summarize The Planets with a grand finale, Mr. Matthews undermined Holst's intent of a cosmic fade-out into the void of space. With the relegation of Pluto to the ranks of minor planets, this piece becomes an interesting historical footnote.

Concert Review: Nimble Strings and Cosmic Things

The Philadelphia Orchestra Explores The Planets

Neptune: the Mystic. We could have run another photo of Charles Dutoit, but what fun would that be?
 Image by Voyager 2 © 1989 National Aeronautics and Space Administration

On Tuesday night, the Philadelphia Orchestra presented a pair of works by 20th century British composers William Walton and Gustav Holst (capped by the latter's The Planets) under the brisk leadership of Chief Conductor Charles Dutoit.

The concert opened with Walton's lone Violin Concerto, with soloist Gil Shaham. Mr. Shaham displayed adept technique, whizzing through Walton's scales and arpeggios, although his instrument sounded dry and reedy against the lush sonic curtain of the orchestra.

Written as a love letter to his paramour of many years, Walton's concerto contrasts Italianate lyric melodies with a jazzy sequence of changes, influenced by what was at the time a new type of music. This is a treacherous concerto (there is no slow movement) and Mr. Shaham's energetic performance was well suited to the composer's rapid-fire writing.

The Philadelphia Orchestra charged up its hyper-drive engines and roared into The Planets, playing "Mars, the Bringer of War" with a savage, muscular drive. The brass section and the low strings dominate this movement, a thunderous protest of the stupidity of war that predates the music of both John Williams and Metallica. Thrilling low notes from the tuba and the steady chug of basses and cellos created the grinding wheel of the war machine and propelling it with a ferocious snarl.

"Venus, the Bringer of Peace" was a far more lyric affair, with eloquent melodies for the English horn, oboe, and first violin against a romantic backdrop. Mr. Dutoit took "Mercury" at a light clip, with its sparkling celesta part and woodwind solos. The orchestra seemed to gather its breath for "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity", playing this famous movement with joy and a kind of savage glee. The contrasting second theme featured the Philadelphia trademark: a round, rich cello-led tone, finely burnished and capable of elevating the spirit to the heavenly spheres that inspired Holst's suite.

The Last Planet: Neptune with its moon, Triton.
Photo by Voyager 2 © 1989 National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Holst used the last three movements of his suite to visit the obscure outer planets: Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Saturn, marked ("The Bringer of Old Age") is a grim, slow death march exploring the ear-tormenting interval of the second. It was played with funereal power. Uranus ("The Magician") allowed the brass and crack timpani players to sally forth, evoking a magic show of orchestral effects.

The finale, "Neptune: the Mystic" is sad and remote as its namesake, an icy soundscape of strings and wind accompanied by a wordless offstage women's chorus. As the orchestra played its hushed, final notes, the mysterious chorus faded to silence. Verizon Hall erupted with cheers for this successful tour of the Solar System under the baton of Captain Dutoit.

Concert Review: Two Paths, Two Rivals, Two Conductors

Kurt Masur Conducts the New York Philharmonic

Kurt Masur. Photo by Chris Lee © 2009 New York Philharmonic

When Kurt Masur comes back to the New York Philharmonic, it's always a big deal. The German conductor steered the orchestra through eleven acclaimed seasons from 1991 to 2002, expanding the repertory, breaking new musical ground, and honing the orchestra's sound in a successful term as music director.

This week's program featured two composers that are at the heart of Mr. Masur's repertory: Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt. In 19th century Europe, Brahms and Liszt occupied seperate musical "camps". Brahms was pigeon-holed as the arch-conservative, steeped in the tradition of Beethoven. Liszt: the wild Romantic who created new musical forms and gave barn-storming, piano-breaking performances that caused extreme behavior in his doting fans.

Mr. Masur chose to bridge this gap with Two Paths, a double concerto for violas and orchestra by Sofia Gubudalaina, which was originally comimssioned by the conductor's wife, Tomoko Masur. Philharmonic principal violists Cynthia Phelps and Rebecca Young (the soloists at the work's 1999 premiere) were scheduled to play. But an eye infection has made Mr. Masur unable to read sheet music this week. Assistant conductor Daniel Boico stepped in.

Two Paths, inspired by the New Testament figures of Mary and Martha, is a set of seven variations. Mr. Boico juxtaposed jarring brass chords and unusual percussion with otherworldly orchestral textures. Ms. Phelps and Ms. Young played their slow dance of entwining violas, one soaring up the scale to represent the faith of Mary, the other spiralling downward as the more pragmatic Martha.

For the Liszt and Brahms works, Mr. Masur relied on a prodigious memory and six decades of podium experience. The concert opened with an elegaic performance of Les Preludes, the third, (and most frequently played) of Liszt's tone poems. Its pretentious subject matter (don't ask) stands in contrast to its compelling orchestral writing and elemental tone-painting. Mr. Masur skipped the program and focused on pure music, panning gold from Liszt's rushing rivers of sound.

Kurt Masur presented Brahms' First Symphony as the work of a secret progressive, demonstrating how Brahms used the conventional four-movement framework of the instrumental symphony to explore new textures and fresh ideas of rhythm and phrasing. From the steady rhythm of the introduction to  the finale (which quotes Beethoven's Ode to Joy), Mr. Masur led the symphony as a cohesive whole, giving cohesion to Brahms' big orchestral gestures.

The last two movements were played without a break, creating a momentum that drove the whole work home in true Romantic style. The connection between conductor and band may have been stormy, but this performance showed that, a decade later, it is still as strong as ever.

Concert Review: Visions of the Amber Room

Detail from a modern replica of the Amber Room
 in the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg, Russia. 
© State Museum Preserve "Tsarskoye Selo."

The St. Petersburg Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall
In the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg, Russia, there was a fabulous chamber called the Amber Room, a gift to Peter the Great from Frederick I of Prussia. The walls of this room were hand-crafted of polished amber, creating a unique, burnished ambiance that was called the Eighth Wonder of the World.

The Amber Room is lost to history, but its qualities of richness and warmth could be heard Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall, as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra played the first of two dates at Carnegie Hall under the sure baton of Yuri Temirkanov. The SPPO is Russia's oldest orchestra, founded in 1882 at the order of Tsar Alexander III. They are imbued with dark, rich orchestral tone, featuring throaty brass, warm strings and woodwinds that bring a personal, questioning voice to the most challenging solo parts.

The concert opened with Kikimora, a tone poem by Antonin Liadov. Liadov was a Rimsky pupil, whose sparse output has consigned him to minor status. Kikimora is based on an equally obscure fairy tale. But the story inspired Liadov to write innovative orchestration with rich rhythms and an imaginative solo part for the English horn.

The orchestra was then joined by pianist Nicholas Lugansky for Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. Though it does not share the Everest status of the Third, this is still a fiendishly difficult work that is challenging to bring off. Rachmaninoff possessed a formidable hand-stretch which presents difficulty for soloists playing his music.

Mr. Lugansky brought impressive physical tools and technique to the keyboard, a wide finger-stretch and a command over the pedal and liquid runs required in the first and third movements. The second movement was the highlight, a slow meditative wander through the subconscious, shot through with the melancholy melodies that are a calling card of this composer.

Yuri Temirkanov. Photo © 2009 Medici TV.

The second half of the evening was dominated by Scheherezade, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's retelling of the Arabian Nights. This is really an extended four-movement concerto for orchestra, with different soloists and groups of instruments taking the part of characters in these famous stories. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship featured eloquent violin soliloquys from concertmaster Lev Klychkov, in an engrossing call-and-response with his orchestra and Mr. Temirkanov.

Other instruments stepped to the fore as the tales spun on. The Kalandar Prince featured powerful brass playing in perfect balance with the rest of the orchestra. The Young Prince and the Princess highlighted the woodwinds. And finally the whole orchestra roared forth in a mighty voice for The Ship Breaks Against the Cliff, before coming to a transcendent, almost Wagnerian conclusion in the final bars. This spectacular performance was met with an enthusiastic reception, and the appreciative audience earned a brief, scintillating encore.

Comparitive Listening: Verklärte Nacht

Self-portrait of Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg's 30-minute tone poem Verklärte Nacht was the work that first cemented his reputation as an up-and-coming composer in fin-de-siecle Vienna. Yet it is a misunderstood work, mostly because the name Schoenberg has become associated in the popular culture with his later discoveries in the realms of atonal and twelve-tone music.

This is a great example of the composer's early style, where the orchestral and harmonic ideas associated with Richard Wagner receive a full exploration over the course of a half hour. Verklärte Nacht (the title means "Transfigured Night") is heady, intoxicating music for strings. It is love-music, and was inspired by Schoenberg's first encounter with Mathilda von Zemlinsky. Eventually, he married her.

The work is based on a poem by Richard Dehmel
and as such, has a plot. A man and a woman, lovers, are walking in the woods. The woman reveals to the man that she is pregnant, and that he is not the father. Schoenberg explores shifting chromaticism and dissonance, working inexorably to the final resoluton, when the man forgives the woman and they walk on into the night.

Self-portrait of Arnold Schoenberg

The Contenders:

Berlin Philharmonic cond. Herbert von Karajan (DG)

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester cond. Riccardo Chailly (Decca, 1987)

Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Giuseppe Sinopoli (DG, 1995)

Chamber Orchestra of Europe cond. Heinz Holliger (Teldec/Apex 2002)

Glass Chamber Players (Orange Mountain Music, 2010)

This week's CL features five recordings of the piece. One

features the original chamber music version, scored for two violins, two violas and two cellos. This is an excellent 2009 recording of the chamber version of the work, allowing the listener to hear the interplay of Schoenberg's melodic lines.

The other four are of Schoenberg's 1943 revision of the work for chamber orchestra. This is the most commonly heard version of Verklärte Nacht.

Self-portrait of Arnold Schoenberg

These orchestral versions were recorded for major labels, when conductors had free rein over their repertory and record companies spent gobs of money on sessions. Giuseppe Sinopoli takes the slowest tempos by far on his London recording, made in 1992 and released three years later. He travels through the woods at a careful pace, pausing to stretch out the key phrases. His performance of the opening movement is nearly a minute longer than his rivals.

Herbert von Karajan' Berlin Philharmonic recording sounds cavernous and hollow, in an over-resonant acoustic that the DG tonmeisters did little to correct in the remastering process. This is one of the few recordings that Karajan made of music of the so-called Second Viennese School, and he sounds vaguely ill at ease in this music.

The Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly leads the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the excellent, if slightly less famous band from further down the River Spree. Chailly recorded this as a follow-up to his excellent Gurrelieder. It is a sterling version in digital sound. Finally, the famed oboist Heinz Holliger leads the excellent Chamber Orchestra of Europe in a warm reading that emphasizes the romantic qualities of the score.