Franz Messer News
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2024-03-28
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2022-04-30 11:56:00
LSO/Rattle - Weill, 28 April 2022
Barbican HallKleine Dreigroschenmusik Vom Tod im Wald, op.23 Street Scene: ‘Lonely House’ Four Whitman Songs: ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’ and ‘Dirge for Two Veterans’ Die Sieben Todsünden Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano)Andrew Staples, Alessandro Fisher (tenors)Ross Ramgobin (baritone)Florian Boesch (bass-baritone)London Symphony OrchestraSimon Rattle (conductor)Images: Mark Allan The opening of Kurt Weill’s Kleine Dreigroschenmusik struck a properly anti-Romantic note, the Overture clearly growing out of 1920s’ Neue Sachlichkeit, the ‘Anstatt-dass Song’ likewise wearing its post-Busoni-and-Hindemith constructivism wisely on its sleeve, a hard edge supplied by banjo and piano. In between, the ‘Ballad of Mackie Messer’ showed something a little more yielding, rapport between saxophone and piano especially noteworthy. At times, it perhaps felt a little too conducted, but there is a difficult balance to strike here. An intimate, inward account of ‘Polly’s Lied’ and a surprisingly fast—if only in context—‘Kanonen-Song’ worked well in tandem. Simon Rattle tied things up nicely in the Finale, […]
2022-04-20 07:55:05
The Saxophone Craze: saxophonist Jonathan Radford and pianist Ashley Fripp launch
[…] Valse Marilyn, a fabulously swaying waltz that worked itself up into quite a frenzy. Finally Radford and Fripp's suite of music arranged from Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera. This was inspired by Weill's own 1929 arrangement of music from the opera for wind band, the Kleine Dreigroschenmusik (premiered by Otto Klemperer no less). Fripp explained that in their version they had tried to keep the rhythmic complexity of Weill's original. We heard five movements, Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, Die Ballade vom angenehmen Leben, Pollys Lied, Zuhaelterballade, and Kanonen Song. We began with crisp piano rhythms and a fabulously seductive saxophone. and throughout the suite this combination really came to the fore. The second movement's sleaze moved into more bittersweet melancholy (and lovely phrasing) of the third, whilst the fourth movement gave Fripp's piano a chance to sing with lovely saxophone figurations over the top. The final movement was vividly vigorous, an energetic […]
2021-11-12 08:57:14
Intimate and intense: Mahler with just voice and piano, Alice Coote, Stuart Jackson and Julius Drake at Temple Song
[…] to us, without ever pushing the music towards operatic scene. This was dramatically characterful song, and whilst the colours in this first one were largely dark, the pastoral episode in the middle was a complete delight. 'Ging heut' Morgen über's Feld' continued the bright characterful nature of the middle section of the first song, with a great sense of story telling but of course, at the end the clouds descend. And 'Ich hab' ein glühend Messer' was vivid indeed, with Jackson spitting out the words; there was anger in both voice and piano. When he talked about heaven, there was a moment of real magic but by the end all was intense anger. Terrific, indeed. The final song, 'Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz' saw our young man tired, leaving everything behind. Haunted at first, the appearance of the linden tree wrought magic in the sound and character, with […]
2021-11-12 08:57:14
Intimate and intense: Mahler with just voice and piano, Alice Coote, Stuart Jackson and Julius Drake at Temple Song
[…] to us, without ever pushing the music towards operatic scene. This was dramatically characterful song, and whilst the colours in this first one were largely dark, the pastoral episode in the middle was a complete delight. 'Ging heut' Morgen über's Feld' continued the bright characterful nature of the middle section of the first song, with a great sense of story telling but of course, at the end the clouds descend. And 'Ich hab' ein glühend Messer' was vivid indeed, with Jackson spitting out the words; there was anger in both voice and piano. When he talked about heaven, there was a moment of real magic but by the end all was intense anger. Terrific, indeed. The final song, 'Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz' saw our young man tired, leaving everything behind. Haunted at first, the appearance of the linden tree wrought magic in the sound and character, with […]