|
Site review by Geohominid July 12, 2008
|
Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
Joseph Martin Kraus (1756–1792) was born in Central Germany in the same year as Mozart, and survived him by only one year. He was sent at 12 years of age to Mannheim for music instruction, where his teachers included members of the famous Mannheim Orchestra. After a brief period in Göttingen, he accepted an invitation to Stockholm, where the previously undeveloped Court musical establishment was being upgraded by King Gustav III. After two years of struggle, an opera score gained him the position of Deputy Music Director of Court Music in 1781. Kraus' music is now being re-appraised widely beyond Sweden and also recorded, partly due to the fervent advocacy of Gerhart Darmstadt, President of the International Joseph Martin Kraus Society, who contributed the excellent notes for the present SACD.
The programme is built around four Cantatas for soprano and orchestra, previously unrecorded and rarely heard in concert (possibly because of their very difficult coloratura passages). They are dramatic scenas in typical Italian style of the period, and use texts by the earlier Italian poet Metastasio, whose poetry attracted many other Enlightmenment composers, including Mozart and Haydn. The four 'cantatas' are interspersed here with Kraus' incidental music to Voltaire's play 'Olympie', providing useful orchestral interludes between the vocal items. The Overture to Olympie which opens the programme is perhaps (rightly) the best-known and most often recorded of Kraus' works. In D minor, its dramatic Sturm und Drang' opening and splendidly urgent main tune gets a fine and committed performance from the period instruments of L'Arte Del Mondo, and the other three entr'actes, all slow, are nicely nuanced and voiced, particularly by the delightful woodwind group.
The four vocal items are a considerable 'find'. Their character and context are discussed by Gerhart Darmstadt, who considers them equal of many of Mozart's works in the same genre. They were written specifically for Lovisa Augusti, the principal actress and singer at the Royal Theatre, who had an exceptional voice and technique. The music is constantly fresh and inventive, both in melody and orchestral accompaniment, giving the soprano plenty of dramatic opportunities in the recitatives, and often providing stratospheric coloratura passages in the arias. This results in a most involving experience, as Kraus constantly delights the ear with a new, lovely melody, or illuminates a line with glowing or startling instrumental detail. He never quite succumbs to the rather overblown nature of some of the mannerist poems, and presents the scenas with lucidity and real dramatic flair.
Simone Kermes, one of DGG's current recording stars, has a broad international career, which includes several of Mozart's operatic roles, and these stand her in good stead for the Kraus Cantatas. She does not have a particularly distinctive voice, but it is sweet and agile. Her vocal acting, especially in the accompanied recitatives, is excellent. Metastasio's texts are often written as internalised dialogues, and she portrays the breathy, love-struck young maiden's seeking self-assurance in various scenarios most effectively. Her coloratura runs in the arias are free and fluid, and she seems to have a real affinity for these rarely heard vocal masterpieces, which is certainly shared by conductor Werner Erhardt and his period instrument orchestra.
The recording is atmospheric and detailed, with a wide dynamic range, capturing the glowing textures of the orchestral sections. I did feel that the soloist was placed a just little too close; her breathing is quite audible, and I would have liked to hear more of the orchestral colour behind the vocal part. But this is a matter of opinion, and did not mar in any way my enjoyment of the otherwise fine recording.
The excellent booklet notes already referred to are printed in English, German and French (with one or two infelicities in the English translation), but the Cantata texts oddly are printed only in Italian and German. The disc comes in a coolly attractive card slip-case.
A notable contribution to the rapidly-growing restoration of the very high esteem in which Kraus' music was held by many of his contempories. Both Haydn and Gluck were great admirers, and were it not for his early death from tuberculosis, he might have made an even greater impact on Enlightenment art. Recommended.
|
Copyright © 2008 John Miller and SA-CD.net
|
|
