Ensemble Allegria: Britten/Hagen/Strauss

Klasyczna Muzyka Kameralna
premiera polska: 2023-03-08
opakowanie: Digipackowe etui
opis:
Editor's info:
Ensemble Allegria presents here a combination of works as an invitation to enjoyment as well as reflection. We are offered variations, metamorphoses and fragments, three different artistic working concepts. Variation and metamorphosis are similar artistic tools inasmuch as the material to be used is workable and encourages modification. At the same time, the basic material is recognizable or, in any case, reconstructible. Music cannot be created out of nothing. Whether deliberate or not, we find metamorphosis and variation in all compositions of a certain scope. Of course in the works heard here the motif of transformation is intended. And whereas musical variations — as with Benjamin Britten — typically retain a theme’s form and length more or less unaltered, a metamorphosis — as Richard Strauss calls his work — can by contrast pertain to everything from the shortest motifs to entire movements. A fragment — a form often associated with Romanticism — is on the other hand an idea that has not reached a final form and remains an intimation of something more. Lars Petter Hagen’s Strauss Fragments were commissioned by Ensemble Allegria.

Metamorphosis is a Greek expression simply meaning transformation. We find the motif of transformation in other art forms of course. Especially well known is the Roman Ovid’s sweeping narrative poem Metamorphoses from the beginning of the Christian era, and Franz Kafka’s story “Die Verwandlung”, published in 1915, about Gregor Samsa, who one morning awakens in the body of a huge and hideous insect.

All three composers on this CD stand in debt to an older colleague. Britten had a close association with his teacher Frank Bridge and reveals this through his variations. Strauss explicitly cites Ludwig van Beethoven’s third symphony in his Metamorphoses, and Hagen’s composition is based on this latter work. Composing on the basis of music one does not hold in high regard often results in a caricature. This is by no means the case here.

BC Music Magazine
Artificial-sounding reverb mars the authenticity of the massed string sound – and serves to mask some imprecision in the ensemble playing. Solo passages emerge nicely, though, and the combination of Britten, Strauss and the newly commissioned Strauss Fragments from Lars Petter Hagen makes for an attractive programme.

Gramophone Magazine
In an overcrowded field, there are many good options for the Britten and Strauss – though the Britten is a version to rank with the finest, and the sheer immediacy of the sound ensures an engrossing listen by any standards. Do listen to it.

muzycy:
Ensemble Allegria

utwory:
Benjamin Britten: Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10
Lars Petter Hagen: Strauss Fragments
Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen

wydano: 16 September 2022
more info: www.lawo.no