| Casa Guidi | |
|---|---|
 Reference Recordings CD, RR-100-CD | |
| Studio album by Frederica von Stade | |
| Released | 2002 |
| Genre | Contemporary classical |
| Length | 78:25 |
| Language | English |
| Label | Reference Recordings |
| Producer | J. Tamblyn Henderson, Jr |
Casa Guidi: Frederica von Stade Sings Dominick Argento is a 78-minute studio album of contemporary classical music performed by von Stade, Burt Hara and the Minnesota Orchestra under the direction of Eiji Oue. It was released in 2002. [1]
The album contains premiere recordings of three works by Dominick Argento, the Minnesota Orchestra's Composer Laureate. [2]
Casa Guidi was composed in response to a request from the Minnesota Orchestra to write a work for Frederica von Stade to perform with them. Argento chose Elizabeth Barrett Browning's letters as a suitable text after happening upon her home while visiting Florence. (Von Stade had suggested that he might set something by Robert Frost, a favourite poet of hers, but he preferred working with prose rather than verse because of the greater freedom that it afforded him.) The song cycle is scored for a mezzo-soprano and a large orchestra, comprising triple woodwinds, three trumpets, four horns, three trombones, a tuba, strings and a large percussion section, as well as a mandolin, a harp, a piano and chimes playing offstage. It was first performed by von Stade and the Minnesota Orchestra under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner in Minneapolis on 28 September 1983, with repeat performances in Carnegie Hall later in the same season and in Minneapolis in 1996. [1]
Capriccio for Clarinet and Orchestra was commissioned by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra for their principal clarinetist, George Silfies, and was first performed by them under the direction of Leonard Slatkin in the Powell Symphony Hall, Saint Louis on 16 May 1986.. Its first Minneapolis performance was by Joseph Longo and the Minnesota Orchestra, again under Slatkin, on 17 July 1986. [1]
In Praise of Music was commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the orchestra's founding, and was first performed by them under the direction of Stanislaw Skrowaczewski in Minneapolis on 23 and 24 September 1977. [1]
The album was recorded digitally on 29 and 31 May 2001 (tracks 1–5) and on 1 and 2 May 2002 (tracks 6–15). The engineers used studio reference monitor loudspeakers designed by Neil Patel and Keith O. Johnson, and built by Avalon Acoustics of Boulder, Colorado. [1]
The cover of the album, designed under the art direction of Bill Roarty of JTH, features a photograph of von Stade taken by Marcia Lieberman.
Joseph Stevenson reviewed the album in Classics Today. In 1983, he wrote, the English conductor Neville Marriner had urged the Minnesota Orchestra to commission Dominick Argento to compose a song cycle for the operatic mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. Argento, who found prose more sympathetic to his idiom than verse, had decided to set excerpts from the letters that the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning had written to her sister while living a blissful life with her husband, the poet Robert Browning, in an apartment in Casa Guidi, a house in Florence, Italy. Von Stade had sung the cycle so often - if usually with piano or chamber group accompaniment rather than in the orchestral version of its first edition - that she "virtually becomes Elizabeth when she sings it". Her performance on the album had a good claim to be definitive, "capturing a supreme vocal artist near her peak in her most characteristic repertoire". Her voice remained almost what it had been when she made her first records in the early 1970s. [3]
In Praise of Music was also the fruit of a commission by the Minnesota Orchestra, in this case to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of its formation. In crafting his suite, Argento had taken themes from a range of different cultures and from a range of different periods in history. "The result is dazzlingly diverse as it moves from Japanese court music to Tunisian street music (and other equally unlikely juxtapositions) seemingly without effort". [3]
The album's other work, Capriccio for Clarinet and Orchestra, was commissioned by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. In truth, it was a clarinet concerto, but Argento was so in awe of Mozart's concerto for the instrument, its slow movement in particular, that he preferred not to give his piece a name that might invite comparisons with it. Argento had subtitled his work "Rossini in Paris" because it was partly inspired by Gioachino Rossini's Péchés de vieillesse ("Sins of old age"). Argento's music did not appropriate any of Rossini's melodies, but responded to the general feeling of what he had written. The Capriccio was light of heart but not light in substance - it was a "virtuosic, full-scale" work, and its slow movement and Mozart's could be spoken of in the same breath. Burt Hara's performance as the soloist was "exciting and good-humoured". [3]
All in all, the album scored ten out of ten, and its engineering was as impressive as its music. Reference Recordings' HDCD represented "the state of the art in standard CD production", and actually sounded better than most Super Audio CDs. It was highly recommended. [3]
Anthony Burton reviewed the album in BBC Music Magazine. Casa Guidi, he wrote, reflected the glowing contentment of the life that Elizabeth Barrett Browning had enjoyed with he husband during their years in Florence. Frederica von Stade's performance of the cycle did not find her in quite as fresh a vocal condition as when she had premiered it eighteen years previously, but she was as easy to like as ever, and she delivered the "highly singable" music that Argento had composed for her "with great authority". [4]
The Capriccio for Clarinet and Orchestra was "essentially light music blown up to concerto length", but its gentle last bars worked well, and Burt Hara was a fluent soloist. In Praise of Music developed tunes from various places and times into "a sequence of 'songs for orchestra' of Respighi-like brilliance". The Minnesota Orchestra was "magnificent" throughout. Reference Recordings' engineers has created a "broad yet detailed sound-picture", although some listeners would find the gulf between the album's quietest and loudest passages too extreme for domestic comfort. [4]
The album won a Grammy award for the best contemporary classical composition of 2003, [5] and was nominated for a Grammy for the year's best classical vocal solo performance . [6]
Dominick Argento (1927–2019)
Casa Guidi: Five Songs for Mezzo-soprano and Orchestra: Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to her Sister, with texts adapted by Argento (Minneapolis, 1983)
Capriccio for Clarinet and Orchestra: Rossini in Paris (Saint Louis, 1986)
In Praise of Music: Seven Songs for Orchestra (Minneapolis, 1977)
Reference Records released the album on CD in 2002 (catalogue number RR-100-CD), with a 20-page booklet including photographs and biographies of Argento, von Stade and Hara, the texts of the songs and notes on the music by Mary Ann Feldman. The booklet did not offer any translations. [1]
The Minnesota Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded originally as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1903, the Minnesota Orchestra plays most of its concerts at Minneapolis's Orchestra Hall.
Frederica von Stade is a semi-retired American classical singer. Best known for her work in opera, she was also a recitalist and concert artist, and she recorded more than a hundred albums and videos. She is especially associated with operas by Mozart and Rossini, and also with music by French and American composers, most notably Jake Heggie. A Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, twice the winner of a Grand Prix du Disque and nominated nine times for a Grammy award, she is widely regarded as the pre-eminent lyric mezzo-soprano of her generation.
Dominick Argento was an American composer known for his lyric operatic and choral music. Among his best known pieces are the operas Postcard from Morocco, Miss Havisham's Fire, The Masque of Angels, and The Aspern Papers. He also is known for the song cycles Six Elizabethan Songs and From the Diary of Virginia Woolf; the latter earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1975. In a predominantly tonal context, his music freely combines tonality, atonality and a lyrical use of twelve-tone writing. None of Argento's music approaches the experimental, stringent avant-garde fashions of the post-World War II era.
Jake Heggie is an American composer of opera, vocal, orchestral, and chamber music. He is best known for his operas and art songs as well as for his collaborations with internationally renowned performers and writers.
Eiji Oue is a Japanese conductor.
Burt Hara was principal clarinetist with the Minnesota Orchestra from 1987 until 2013. He is now the Associate Principal in the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Mahler Songs is a 40-minute studio album on which Gustav Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, his Rückert-Lieder and two of the songs from his Lieder aus "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" are performed by Frederica von Stade and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Andrew Davis. It was released in 1979.
Shéhérazade is a 40-minute studio album of art songs by Maurice Ravel performed by Frederica von Stade. In the Chansons madécasses, she is accompanied by the flautist Doriot Anthony Dwyer, the cellist Jules Eskin and the pianist Martin Katz. In two of the Cinq mélodies populaires grecques, the Deux mélodies hébraïques and Shéhérazade itself, she is accompanied by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. The album was released in 1981.
Frederica von Stade Live! is a 46-minute live album of arias, art songs and folk songs from America, France, Ireland and Italy, performed by von Stade with piano accompaniment by Martin Katz. It was released in 1982.
Nuits d'été & La damoiselle élue is a 51-minute studio album of songs by Hector Berlioz and a cantata by Claude Debussy performed by Frederica von Stade, Susanne Mentzer, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. It was released in 1984.
Italian Opera Arias is a studio album of music by Frederica von Stade, Janice Taylor and the National Arts Centre Orchestra under the direction of Mario Bernardi. It was released in 1979.
French Opera Arias is a 51-minute studio album of music performed by Frederica von Stade and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of John Pritchard. It was released in 1976.
Frederica von Stade: Chants d'Auvergne, Vol. 2 & Triptyque is a 60-minute studio album containing thirteen of the thirty traditional Auvergnat songs collected and arranged by Joseph Canteloube, together with a song cycle of his own composition, performed by von Stade and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Antonio de Almeida. It was released in 1986. The same artists recorded Canteloube's seventeen other Auvergnat songs for the album's predecessor, Frederica von Stade: Chants d'Auvergne, Vol. 1, released in 1982.
Frederica von Stade sings Mozart & Rossini Arias is a 52-minute studio album of operatic arias performed by von Stade and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Edo de Waart. It was released in 1976. A second, 69-minute version of the album, Frederica von Stade: Haydn, Mozart & Rossini Arias, released by Philips on CD, adds bonus tracks derived from von Stade's contributions to Antal Doráti's recordings of Joseph Haydn's operas La fedeltà premiata and Il mondo della luna. A third, 52-minute version released on SACD by PentaTone in 2005 reverts to the contents of the first version, but presents the music in quadraphonic surround sound.
Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria is a 166-minute studio album of Claudio Monteverdi's opera, performed by a cast of singers headed by Ann Murray, Patrick Power, Frederica von Stade and Richard Stilwell with the Glyndebourne Chorus and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Raymond Leppard. It was released in 1980.
My Funny Valentine: Frederica von Stade sings Rodgers and Hart is a 69-minute studio album of songs from Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's musicals, performed in historically authentic versions by von Stade, Rosemary Ashe, Peta Bartlett, Lynda Richardson, the Ambrosian Chorus and the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of John McGlinn. It was released in 1990.
Mahler Symphony No. 4 is a 73-minute studio album on which Mahler's Fourth and his song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen are performed by Frederica von Stade and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Yoel Levi. The recording was released in 1999.
Arias and Barcarolles is a 78-minute contemporary classical studio album of music by Leonard Bernstein, performed by Thomas Hampson, Frederica von Stade, Simon Carrington, Neil Percy and the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. In addition to the song cycle which gives it its name, the album includes the Suite from Bernstein's opera A Quiet Place and the Symphonic Dances from his musical West Side Story. It was released in 1996.
Otello is a 153-minute studio album of Gioachino Rossini's opera Otello, performed by José Carreras, Nucci Condò, Salvatore Fisichella, Alfonso Leoz, Keith Lewis, Gianfranco Pastine, Samuel Ramey and Frederica von Stade with the Ambrosian Chorus and the Philharmonia Orchestra under the direction of Jesús López Cobos. It was released in 1979.
The Rossini Bicentennial Birthday Gala is a live album of operatic and sacred music by Gioachino Rossini, performed by Rockwell Blake, Craig Estep, Maria Fortuna, Thomas Hampson, George Hogan, Marilyn Horne, Kathleen Kuhlmann, Mimi Lerner, Chris Merritt, Jan Opalach, Samuel Ramey, Henry Runey, Frederica von Stade, Deborah Voigt, the Concert Chorale of New York and the Orchestra of St. Luke's under the direction of Sir Roger Norrington. It was released in 1993 as a 119-minute video album and in 1994 as a 78-minute CD.