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Maria Callas: ‘La Divina: Maria Callas in All Her Roles,’ Warner Classics
For some individuals, a superbly wise method to have fun the a hundredth birthday of La Divina (a.okay.a. soprano Maria Callas) is perhaps to easily snack on YouTube highlights — say, her legendary 1958 “Lisbon ‘Traviata,’” or the unforgiving newsreel protection of her “Norma” walkout that very same 12 months. (She was indisposed!) However for others, nothing in need of immersive, complete, endurance-based diva worship will suffice.
For these individuals there’s “La Divina: Maria Callas in All Her Roles,” which is exactly what it says on the field. Throughout 131 CDs, three Blu-ray Discs and one DVD-ROM, the field set collects all of the roles for which audio paperwork exist — together with the 43 roles Callas sang onstage, studio recordings and alternate takes. This implies no fewer than eight Toscas, seven Normas and Lucias, six Medeas, 4 Aidas and a joke a couple of partridge in a pear tree. This will all look like method an excessive amount of Maria — and it completely is — however every disc on this in depth library looks like an invite — from the spellbinding early 1954 recording “Maria Meneghini Callas Sings Operatic Arias” to her 1972 grasp lessons at Juilliard.
The DVD-ROM contains libretti and sung texts, liner notes galore, interviews and recording sheets. And a supplementary lap-friendly hardcover guide gathers dozens of pictures and liner notes in French, English and German. For probably the most hardcore of Callas followers, this set will present hours of discovery and pleasure. (Outcomes might range for his or her neighbors.)
Varied artists: ‘The Avantgarde Collection,’ Deutsche Grammophon
Within the late Sixties, the esteemed classical recording label Deutsche Grammophon did what a whole lot of people have been doing at the moment: They began experimenting. Between 1968 and 1971, the label launched 4 field units of six LPs every — handsomely designed makes an attempt to bundle and market the burgeoning international new music scene. Fairly than concentrate on particular person works, the packing containers lured hesitant browsers into the wild by organizing round scoring, concepts, ideas and varieties: an album of string quartets, one other of choral works, one other of music for early devices. However these assurances of the acquainted shortly gave method to (typically actually) uncharted territory.
This 21-disc set collects and reissues that formidable and short-lived collection (other than three Karlheinz Stockhausen releases, withheld on the request of the composer’s property), and within the course of resuscitates its experimental intrigue. A grouping of string quartets by Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki and Toshiro Mayuzumi is a tangle of mid-century existential tensions. A trombone-centric suite assembles brass-bending experiments by Vinko Globukar, Luciano Berio, Stockhausen and the ingrown fanfare of Carlos Roque Alsina’s “Consecuenza.” Mauricio Kagel’s “Music for Renaissance Devices” breaks the Baroque into bits. There are (comparatively talking) some massive names represented: John Cage, whose “Atlas Eclipticalis” and “Winter Music” are right here recorded concurrently; György Ligeti, whose molten second string quartet feels just like the set’s heart of gravity; and Stockhausen, whose “Spiral” units up a energetic dialogue between oboist Heinz Holliger and a shortwave radio.
However the true pleasure of this reissue are its little secrets and techniques and surprises: the seaside discipline recordings of Luc Ferrari; the feral tape manipulations of Roland Kayn; the primordial electronics of Zoltán Pongrácz, Rainer Riehn and Gottfried Michael Koenig. “The Avantgarde Collection” shouldn’t be mistaken for a complete cross-section — there’s no New York minimalism, no pre-IRCAM Pierre Boulez and never a single girl to be heard. However its 186-page guide does assist fill in some conspicuous blanks, and the set’s fearless vary and attain supply adventurous ears a compelling retreat to what as soon as have been music’s entrance traces.
Philip Glass: ‘Philip Glass Piano Etudes: The Full Folios 1-20 & Essays from 20 Fellow Artists,’ Artisan
D.C. audiences are nonetheless ready for Philip Glass’s Nationwide Symphony Orchestra-commissioned Symphony No. 15, however within the meantime, all ears have been on the composer and his piano.
A celebration in November at Lincoln Middle assembled 10 pianists, together with Timo Andres, Inon Barnatan, Lara Downes, Jenny Lin and Nico Muhly, to carry out all 20 of Glass’s piano études in a single night. Earlier this month, the Joyce Theater offered “Dancing With Glass: The Piano Etudes,” that includes 5 new dance interpretations of the études (carried out by pianist Maki Namekawa). And a brand new album of Glass taking part in a choice of his solo works arrives Jan. 26.
All this exercise is swirling across the launch of “Philip Glass Piano Etudes: The Full Folios 1-20 & Essays from 20 Fellow Artists,” a considerable field set not of CDs, however of sheet music folios for his 20 elegantly scored études. Taken collectively, they’re half self-portrait and half autobiography — their repetitive textures serving to to obscure the narrative development of Glass’s apply (each senses) on the piano. Gorgeously printed and ready, they’re an ideal reward for learners and skilled gamers alike. “If I’m to be remembered for something,” Glass has stated, “it would most likely be for the piano music, as a result of individuals can play it.”
Bundled with the set is “Research in Time,” a guide of quick essays from artists and collaborators, together with Alice Waters, Angélique Kidjo, Ari Shapiro, Ira Glass, Laurie Anderson and Martin Scorsese — every of whom sing the composer’s praises. (It feels a contact repetitive, however perhaps that’s the purpose.)
