1. Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor: 1. Allegro risoluto - Animato
2. Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor: 2. Adagio
3. Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor: 3. Rondeau. Allegretto grazioso - con fuoco
4. Piano Concerto No. 2 in A minor: 1. Andantino - Allegro - Marziale pi— mosso
5. Piano Concerto No. 2 in A minor: 2. Scherzo. Vivace e leggieramente
6. Piano Concerto No. 2 in A minor: 3. Adagio
7. Piano Concerto No. 2 in A minor: 4. Rondo. Allegretto scherzando - Maestoso - Tempo 1
8. for orchestra Jubel Overture
9. Incidental music: 1. Introduction. Moderato - Allegro Wilhelm von Oranien in Whitehall
10. Incidental music: 2. Act 2. Andante Wilhelm von Oranien in Whitehall
11. Incidental music: 3. Act 3. Maestoso, "Rule Britannia" Wilhelm von Oranien in Whitehall
12. Incidental music: 4. Act 4. Andante Wilhelm von Oranien in Whitehall
13. Incidental music: 5. Act 5. Moderato - Andante - Allegro Wilhelm von Oranien in Whitehall

Carl Petersson - piano
Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra
Hans Peter Wiesheu - conductor

An entirely new perspective on Friedrich von Flotow's compositions. This composer is best known on account of his opera Martha. Here we find newly discovered concertos, which must be considered as sensational. The first is brilliant and melodic, the second is probably influenced by Carl Maria von Weber's concertos. The Oranien suite is most charming, with Thomas Arne's Rule Britannia as one of the movements. --- sterlingcd.com

Flotow was born near Rostock in North Germany. His family was musical but considered the profession unbefitting the family’s aristocratic status. Young Friedrich was intended for the civil service. After tribulations he managed to secure the family’s support to study in Paris with Pixis and Rejcha. It was there that he met Wilhelm Riese, the Hamburg-born poet. who provided the librettos for several of his operas including the one work that has kept Flotow's name prominent: the 1847 Martha.

His First Piano Concerto runs to only 14 minutes. It has a chivalric Allegro, a bejewelled Adagio recalling Chopin and Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto and a bobbing and gallant Rondeau with heroic cross-currents. Schumann and Bellini can be discerned among these pages. The Second Concerto is scarcely longer at approaching 18 minutes. It is in four movements: a noble lapidary Andantino may remind you of the slow movement of The Emperor. After a very brief skipping and bowing Scherzo we have an unhurriedly unfurling and luxurious Adagio. Proceedings close with a hop and jump Rondo which has something of early Tchaikovsky about it. The Jubel Overture with its decidedly fairy-delicate second subject must have had Mendelssohn as an influence. It's an attractive overture with just a surfeit of bombast at the close. As for the incidental music to Wilhelm von Oranien in Whitehall the introduction is stiff and stormy with some stagy Hungarian bagpipe music. The Act II Andante unfolds a long slow Tchaikovskian strand of melancholy. I mentioned bombast earlier - you can hear it again in the brassy strut of the Act III Maestoso where Rule Britannia is played verbatim. After this we get a Rossinian skittishness, a dignified Andante and a grand final Moderato.

There’s really good playing by the Pilsen orchestra and the lustre of their string choir - often a weakness in orchestras outside the greats - is excellent. No problems at all. Wiesheu who also provides the liner-notes has included the 1992 premiere of Kempff's last orchestral piece Un Giorno a Positano and the first German performance of Donizetti's cantata Parafrasi del Christus in his honours list.

There you have it. Premiere recordings of music by a romantic era composer. Will appeal to anyone who know they will enjoy music in the thrall of Schumann, the showier sentimental Chopin and the lyrical Beethoven. It’s all done with style, documented deeply, and performed and recorded with commitment and skill. ---Rob Barnett, musicweb-international.com

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Disc: 1
  1. Ouvertüre
  2. Act 1. No. 1. Introduktion und Szene. In des Mondes Silberhelle
  3. Act 1. No. 2. Serenade. Horch, Liebchen, horch
  4. Act 1. No. 3. Szene. Doch seht! In der Geliebten Zimmer
  5. Act 1. Nocturno. Durch die Täler, über Hügel, führt die Liebe uns
  6. Act 1. No. 4. Finale. Doch horch! - Freudessausen, Jubelbrausen
  7. Act 1. Ballett
  8. Act 1. Schlussszene. Zu Jubelchor und frohem Reigen
  9. Act 2. Introduktion
  10. Act 2. No. 5. Rezitativ und Arie. So wär es denn erreicht... -Seid meiner Wonne stille Zeugen
  11. Act 2. No. 6. Chor. Hört die Glocken freundlich locken
  12. Act 2. No. 7. Duett. An dem linken Strand des Tiber
  13. Act 2. No. 8. Finale. Glockenklänge? - Bunte Menge!... Froh durchs Leben hinzustreben
  14. Act 2. Trinklied. Raus mit dem Nass aus dem Fass
  15. Act 2. Ballett
  16. Act 2. Schlussszene mit Liedchen von Salvator Rosa. Doch soll die Lust vollkommen sein - Tief

Disc: 2
  1. Act 3. No. 9. Introduktion und Wechselgesang. Italia, mein Vaterland
  2. Act 3. No. 10. Pilgerchor. Rosig strahlt die Morgensonne
  3. Act 3. Rezitativ. Das Haus scheint leer
  4. Act 3. No. 11. Terzett. Sag doch an, Freund Barbarino
  5. Act 3. No. 12. Finale. Aber still! Ich höre nah'n... Ruhig, leise, stille, sacht - Wie freundl
  6. Act 3. Gebet. Jungfrau Maria, himmlisch Verklärte
  7. Act 3. Rezitativ und Schlussszene. Wie! Was seh' ich? Mein Vormund!... Fromme Menge, im Gedrän

Alessandro Stradella, Sänger – Jörg Dürmüller (tenor)
Bassi, ein reicher Venezianer – Markus Marquardt (bass)
Leonore, sein Mündel – Sabine Passow (soprano)
Malvolino, Bandit – Johannes Martin Kränzle (bass)
Barbarino, Bandit – Bernhard Schneider (bass)

WDR Rundfunkchor Köln
WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln
Helmuth Froschauer – Dirigent

Rec.: Köln, Funkhaus des WDR, Klaus-von-Bismarck-Saal; 13-23.VII.2004.

During the trend of composers writing operas about composers (witness, for example, Alfred Schnittke's 1994 Gesualdo, Franz Hummel's 1996 Gesualdo, and Bo Holten's 2004 Gesualdo) it was not, in fact, an entirely new phenomenon. Pfitzner's 1915 Palestrina is the earliest composer-opera to have come anywhere close to entering the repertoire, but there were at least five operas written in the nineteenth century on the life of Alessandro Stradella, based on a biography, now discredited, that sensationalized his illicit romantic liaisons. Flotow's version, written in 1844, was his most popular work apart from Martha, and continues to be performed in Germany, but is little known elsewhere. The story involves the power of Stradella's music to avert his murder at the hands of his lover's guardian.

Flotow, along with Otto Nicolai and Albert Lortzing (who had written a singspiel about Mozart in 1833), filled the gap in German opera between Weber and Wagner. Having fulfilled that function, their music, lacking strong personality and being heavily indebted to Italian opera, is rarely performed. Flotow's Alessandro Stradella is a very competent work, dramatically engaging and full of attractive if conventional music; it frequently sounds like the kind of music Arthur Sullivan so skillfully lampooned in his operettas. It has moments of real lyric effectiveness; Stradella's aria "Jungfrau Maria, himmlisch Verklãrte" is memorably melodious. It's easy to see, given the dearth of competition, why the opera would have been beloved in its own time, and equally easy to see why it has failed to secure a place in the repertoire of great operas.

The recording makes as strong a case as possible for the opera. The WDR Rundfunkorchester and Chorus, Köln, under Helmuth Froschauer, performs with conviction and energy, making even the clichéd gestures and conventions sound as fresh as they must have before they became clichés. Jörg Dürmüller's tenor is strong and supple, and he delivers a virtuoso performance as Stradella, bringing him alive as a believable and appealing character. Basses Markus Marquardt, Johannes Martin Kränzle, and Bernhard Schneider have powerful, focused voices and are skilled comedians, keeping the action lively. Soprano Sabine Passow, whose timbre becomes strained and shrill in the upper register, makes the only weak contribution. --- Stephen Eddins, Rovi

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Enrichetta (Martha) - Elena Rizzieri
Sir Tristano Mickleford - Bruno Carmassi
Plumkett - Carlo Tagliabue
Lionello - Ferruccio Tagliavini
Nancy - Pia Tassinari
Sheriff of Richmond - Mario Zorgniotti
A servant - Alberto Albertini

Coro e Orchestra della RAI di Torino
Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, 1953

Friedrich, Freiherr von Flotow (1812-1883), was born of an aristocratic family in one of the small German states that abounded before the creation of modern Germany in 1870. He was intended to go into diplomatic service. He escaped from that fate by diving into music--and French-oriented music, mind you, in the line of Auber and Meyerbeer, not the Germanic line of Weber and Wagner (his almost exact contemporary.) He seems to have written about thirty operas, although nobody is quite sure of the exact number. Of them, only two survive on stage. "Alessandro Stradella" (1844), often described as an operetta, occasionally earns a revival and then returns to fairly well deserved obscurity--except for one warhorse aria for concertizing tenors. "Martha" (1847), on the other hand, continues as a member of the standard operatic repertory in the German-speaking lands and to a lesser degree in Italy. In the rest of the world, it once enjoyed great popular success, although it presently sits just beyond the limits of the standard repertory, being revived from time to time as something of a tuneful museum piece.

"Martha" is, indeed, a tuneful and charming comic opera (you can ignore the "semiseria" description) set in England during the time of Queen Anne. It premiered during the Christmas season of 1847 in Vienna, but the fully bi-lingual Flotow also launched the opera almost simultaneously Italy. "Martha" is best known for two arias. One of them is a standard concert chestnut for lyric tenors, known equally as "Ach! so Fromm" or "M'appari tutta amor." In actual fact, that aria was written for an entirely different opera and didn't even make it into the score of "Martha" until 1865. The other hit tune has an even odder background. It wasn't composed by Flotow. He simply quoted a well-known Irish folk song, made famous a full generation before the premiere of the opera by the Irishman, Tom Moore, who was a singer, composer, poet, literary executor of Lord Byron (and the spineless jellyfish who allowed that great poet's self-serving family to burn his racy memoirs after his death). Moore put English words to the old tune and it has been known ever since as "The Last Rose of Summer."

"Martha" is considerably more than a two-aria opera, however. It has a fine, sparkling overture and is sprightly from beginning to end. (I find it puzzling that "Martha," with all this, has practically vanished while that ripe piece of tripe, "Lakme," with its two bearable numbers--one of them wholly out of phase with the rest of the opera--not only survives but thrives.)

This 1955 recording presents "Martha" in its Italian form, with Italian singers, orchestra and conductor, as "Marta" (with the English name "Plunkett" transformed into "Plumkett" to sit more easily on Italian tongues.) The cast is unusually strong and shows the best of the old CETRA.

Ferruccio Tagliavini (1913-1995), opera singer, movie star and sometime heartthrob was, for a few years and within narrowly defined limits, very nearly a perfect lyric tenor. This recording catches him at just about the time he began to abandon the purely lyric roles for the heavier tenor parts. His stage career would come to an end only a decade later.

Pia Tassinari (1903-1995) was married to Tagliavini and recorded extensively with him. She could be effective in a surprisingly wide variety of parts for an Italian soprano. Her few recorded Wagnerian excerpts, for instance, are good enough to make me wish that she had done more along that line. Her voice darkened with time. Her last major recording, to my knowledge, had her as the mezzo Ulrica in Verdi's "Ballo in maschera."

Carlo Tagliabue (1898-1978) was a fine baritone whose career straddled World War II. This recording is late for him but in the mid-1950s he was still good enough to step in to record his second complete "Forza del destino," this time with Callas, and as a hasty replacement for Gobbi who had dropped out just before recording was to begin.

Elena Rizzieri was a light-voiced soprano with a primarily Italian career. It was her fate to be coupled with heavier-voiced sopranos, as she is here with Tassinari, as well as in the parts of Michaëla in "Carmen" and Liu in "Turandot."

As Mr. Moore in the previous Amazon review pointed out, "Marta" is a small treasure from CETRA. The recital of lyric tenor material from Tagliavini is pure gold and tossed in as an extra. Grab it while you can. --- L. E. Cantrell, amazon.com

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