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Szymanowski: Songs, Harnasie / Sobotka, Rattle
Release Date: 10/31/2006
Label: EMI Classics Catalog #: 64435 Spars Code: DDD
Composer: Karol Szymanowski
Performer: Iwona Sobotka, Timothy Robinson, Katarina Karnéus
Conductor: Simon Rattle
Orchestra/Ensemble: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus
Number of Discs: 1
Recorded in: Stereo
Length: 1 Hours 5 Mins.
EAN: 0094636443522
Works on This Recording
1. Songs (6) of a fairy-tale princess, Op. 31 by Karol Szymanowski
Performer: Iwona Sobotka (Soprano)
Conductor: Simon Rattle
Orchestra/Ensemble: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1915; Poland
Date of Recording: 03/20/2006
Venue: Symphony Hall, Birmingham, England
Length: 9 Minutes 50 Secs.
Language: Polish
Notes: Arranger: Karol Szymanowski.
2. Harnasie, Op. 55 by Karol Szymanowski
Performer: Timothy Robinson (Tenor)
Conductor: Simon Rattle
Orchestra/Ensemble: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1923-1931; Poland
Venue: Symphony Hall, Birmingham, England
Length: 33 Minutes 45 Secs.
Language: Polish
Notes: Symphony Hall, Birmingham, England (10/23/2002 - 10/25/2002)
3. Lovesongs (8) of Hafiz, Op. 26 by Karol Szymanowski
Performer: Katarina Karnéus (Mezzo Soprano)
Conductor: Simon Rattle
Orchestra/Ensemble: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1914; Poland
Date of Recording: 06/30/2004
Venue: Symphony Hall, Birmingham, England
Length: 21 Minutes 31 Secs.
Language: Polish
Notes and Editorial Reviews
Despite being influenced by the likes of Richard Strauss, Debussy, Ravel, and his countryman Chopin, Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) composed music of great beauty and unique exoticism. The two song cycles recorded here, written during World War I, are more than tinged with orientalisms, with the East filtered through French pastels. The first, Love Songs of a Fairy-Tale Princess, consists of just three songs and is only nine minutes long. The titles--"The Lonely Moon", "The Nightingale", "Dance"--give away the styles in which they're composed: each is a coloratura gem that sometimes lapses into sheer vocalise, with the texts left behind. Bird-like soprano Iwona Sobotka sings them splendidly.
Love Songs of Haviz, the other cycle, is based on translations of 14th-century Persian poetry. The late-Romantic texture, the expressive honesty, and the use of percussion--both high and low, is warm and tempting. Szymanowski wisely uses a darker, mezzo-soprano voice to express the intermingling images of nature and desire, and Katarina Karneus caresses each languourously. The lushness and decadence of a song like "Pearls of my soul" occasionally calls to mind Zemlinsky and his like.
Sandwiched between the cycles is a ballet called Harnasie, completed in 1931 and peculiarly scored for tenor, chorus, and orchestra. Inspired by the folk sounds of the Tatra Mountains, this is forwardly propulsive, rhythmically jerky, occasionally Stravinsky-like music that perfectly suits the subject of a bride being willingly abducted on her wedding night by bandits in the Carpathian Mountains. The textures are on a grander scale here--still strangely ethereal at times, but intercut with more earthbound sounds. Blocks, snare drums, and possibly a whip enter the aural landscape, and the xylophone goes wild.
All of the music recorded here is gripping and thrilling, filled with harmonic and orchestral surprises, and Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Orchestra and Chorus obviously feel passionately about it. The performances and sonics are exemplary. This out-of-the-ordinary program is vastly entertaining, very rewarding, and comfortably otherworldly.
Artistic Quality: 10
Sound Quality: 10
--Robert Levine., ClassicsToday.com
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AllMusic Review by Stephen Eddins [-]
With this CD, Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Orchestra and Chorus continue their traversal of the orchestral and dramatic works of Karol Szymanowski. They have become expert interpreters and passionate advocates for his work and deserve credit for bringing it to a broadening audience. The three works featured here, the ballet Harnasie, and two orchestral song cycles, are notable for demonstrating Szymanowski's clear grasp of the difference between music written for the concert hall and for the theater. Harnasie, scored for tenor, chorus, and orchestra, is narrative music as aptly conceived for dramatic presentation as Stravinsky's ballets and whose influence can be detected both in its structure and in the new gestural and orchestrational freedom Szymanowski unleashed in this work. The subject of the ballet is the abduction of a not-unwilling bride on her wedding night by the leader of a group of bandits in the Carpathian Mountains, and the score is flavored by the folk music of that region. Szymanowski's opulent, late-Romantic harmonic vocabulary and sweeping melodies are still prominent, but are even grander and more emotionally engaging in the service of the drama.
The song cycles, Songs of a Fairy-tale Princess and Love Songs of Hafiz, reveal Szymanowski's mastery of vocal writing and in creating shapely and affecting dramatic miniatures. The songs in the first set are extravagantly ornamented, using the full range of vocal acrobatics available to a coloratura, as is appropriate for the regal subject. The Love Songs of Hafiz have a Mahlerian emotional directness and harmonic palette that are filtered through a Slavic sensibility. Szymanowski's orchestration, particularly in his inventive and prominent use of percussion, makes this music distinctively his own. Rattle and the City of Birmingham Orchestra and Chorus outdo themselves in presenting this music with energy and warmth. The soloists sing with passion and with an abandon that is ideal for the rhapsodic nature of the music and subject matter.
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Vor seiner Berliner Philharmoniker-Zeit hat Simon Rattle aus dem City of Birmingham Orchestra einen Klangkörper geformt, der heute Besucher aus der ganzen Welt anzieht. Nach Rattles Weggang gelangte das Orchester in gute Hände, doch jetzt ist der Dirigent für eine Neueinspielung zurückgekehrt: Mit opulenten Orchesterliedern von Karol Szymanowski – dem spätromantischen Klangmagier Polens, für dessen zu Unrecht vernachlässigtes Werk sich Rattle seit Jahren mit offensichtlicher Liebe und höchst erfolgreich einsetzt.
Zusammen mit den Gesangssolistinnen entführt Rattle seine Hörer in die von Szymanowski so sehr geliebte märchenhafte Welt des Orients: Die Texte des mittelalterlichen persischen Dichters Hafiz inspirierten ihn zu den Liebesliedern, deren Mystik sich auch in den Liedern einer Märchenprinzessin wiederfindet. Die temperamentvolle Ballettpantomime Harnasie für Tenor, Chor und Orchester dagegen ist ein Spätwerk von 1931 und dokumentiert Szymanowskis Beschäftigung mit der Folklore der Góralen, einem Bergvolk der Hohen Tatra.
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Rezensionen
B. Woll in FonoForum 12 / 06: "Ein absoluter Glücksfall, was die Musik und ihre Interpretation anbelangt. Iwona Sobotka bezirzt in den "Liedern der Märchenprinzessin" mit koloraturgewandten Soprantönen in stratosphärischer Höhe, mit wunderbaren wortlosen Melismen, mit trillernden Vogellauten und virtuosen Läufen, dass es eine Ohrenweide ist. Katarina Karnéus steht ihr in 'Hafis Liebesliedern' mit ihrem herrlich aufblühenden hohen Mezzosopran nicht nach. Und Simon Rattle demonstriert beispielhaft, welch filigrane Klangfarbensensibilität und welch eminent rhythmische Kraft in den volksmusikantischen Tänzen der "Harnasie" steckt."
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