Haydn - The Creation / Piau, Padmore, Davies, Gabrieli Consort & Players, McCreesh

Bravo!

The other reviews say it all, although I would add that this is a great album for those just getting into classical or wanting to experience it for the first time. I also recommend this album to all seasoned classical enthusiasts. August 24, 2008

4.5 stars -- a new period Creation for a new century

When Arkhiv delivered Paul McCreesh's dramatic new version of Haydn's oratorio "The Creation", some critics went overboard, declaring it the greatest reading ever of this evergreen music about the creation of the world, the skies, water, animals, mankind and the heavens. There are those that believe this new recording reinvigorates Haydn's score to such an extent as to make all the good versions from the past obselete.

I like this version but can't go that far, even though I have always enjoyed McCreesh's dramatic approach to choral music. He delivers scores more in keeping with stage or operatic drama than historic or Biblical drama, in my opinion. Using his Gabrielli (period) Players with overwhelming emphasis on brass and timpani in exciting moments, McCreesh may even have one-upped himself in the drama and excitement he generates in this recording.

I have no quibble with excitement but, in matters of taste and style, I wonder if McCreesh hasn't transcended the Classical nature of Franz Josef Haydn and positioned The Creation more as the first masterpiece of choral music in the Romantic era? It certainly sounds that way to me in Part 1, especially in the significant name choruses "Awake the harp" and "Achieved is the glorious work." Indeed, the way the brass and timpani blare in "harp" gave me pause the first time I listened to this. It's clear McCreesh sees this more as Romantic drama than as Haydn's peon to God and creation that closed the Classical 18th century.

Having previously declared Robert Shaw's recording of this music my preferred English version, I expected this newcomer to exceed the more conservative ways of the late, kapellmesiterish Shaw. I can't fully subscribe to that theory since McCreesh seems to mix metaphors stylistically about the respective eras. McCreesh eschews modern convenience by changing the vocal score, too. He says in his notes he tried to re-do the English version from the original German (the original English version is lost) to undo some of the translation curiosities that has been picked at over the years incluidng that flexible tiger, with verdue clad, and the rosy mantle. He left all those intact but went on to fix others, he said.

"In addition...(we)...have rewritten the recitatives as Haydn might have done had he been more familiar with the English language," McCreesh says in his notes. "Although all these changes are inevitably subjective, I believe this new version better serves both the communication of the libretto's ldeas and Haydn's extraordinary score."

So there you have it -- McCreesh and his associates have decided to improve upon Haydn. That is the essential nature of this version. I can't say I am completely sold on these improvements or all musical affectations included here, some of which seem to transcend the score and retranslate the music. Operatic solo singing, sometimes with very wide and uncontrollable vibrato, dominates Part 1. In addition, the soloists engage in what I think questionable trilling and octaves on appogiaturas in Part 1 that I found consistently distressing. These ornaments are inappropriate, in my opinion, and do not improve the music in any way.

There are also issues with at least one performer. In the critical role of Gabriel, McCreesh and Arkhiv selected Sandrine Piau, a Frenchwoman that has recorded a lot of period Bach with Ton Koopman. While she has a magnificent professional instument and a pleasing overall tone, Piau's elocution of the English text is, in a word, abysmal. Without reading the notes -- and, remember, your Schirmer score isn't always going to help you in this production -- Piau could just as easily have been singing about the man in the moon rather than that darkness that was going away in her opening aria, for I couldn't understand a word she was saying. Sad to say, this is a problem throughout the production, even when using headphones.

The two men in critical leading roles -- English-speaking Mark Padmore as Uriel and Neal Davies as Raphael -- have no such problems. Davies, in fact, is grand throughout with a stirring, powerful bass voice and generous understanding of what Haydn was trying to say. When I performed in the chorus of "The Creation" in 1993, our bass soloist left the stage and walked over to some children in the front row of the church where we were performing when he sang about the flexible tiger, cattle in herds, and scattered flocks in recitative No. 21. While Davies apparently sang to nothing more than a microphone, I was reminded of this moment when I heard that recitaitive and its following aria.

Padmore is equally impressive and a quick listen to aria 24, "In native worth and honor clad," will easily demonstrate his wondrous tenor. The Adam & Eve soloists -- baritone Peter Harvey and soprano Miah Persson -- are quite good, although their timing is not exact in their opening duet. On balance, however, like the two men, they consistently distinguish themselves during their time in the sun. If only the weak link work of Gabirel could have been improved, this could indeed have been a recording for the ages in terms of singing.

As it is, this is quite a good performance, full of high spirits, in quite wonderful and clear sound, with fruity period timpani, brass and woodwinds more than counterbalancing the slightly off-putting string sound, all up to the demands of Paul McCreesh's dramatic vision. When called on, the Chetham's Chamber Choir and Gabrielli Consort are magnificent, delivering the goods with punch and style.

Adequate notes, a complete vocal score in three languages, and McCreesh's own notes fill a 48-page booklet. I'm probably going to like this more the more I listen to it, but, for today, my cited reservations keep this from being a five star recording. It's certainly a good one, however, and anyone wanting to know the authenitc direction this music is probalby going to take in the new century should investigate this issue at once. August 19, 2008

McCreesh & Co.: Haydn Creation : English Libretto: Most Modern Yet Timeless

Okay first things first. This new recording of the English version of Haydn's Creation oratorio goes right to the fav shelf. There you will also find several German language versions, plus a few English ones. Old favs tend to be big bands with conductors like Marriner/ASMF first set, Harnoncourt/Vienna SO first set, Munchinger/Vienna PO, Dorati/RPO, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos on EMI. Newer favs tend to be period or smaller bands.

In English, the recorded competition boils down to two worthy contenders, both out of print and/or hard to find. One is on EMI with Sir David Willcocks leading King's College (starring Heather Harper, Robert Tear, and John Shirley-Quirk). The other is even older (1965), and to my knowledge also distinguished by the oddity that so far it is only vinyl. This release failure stands out, since this USA Decca Gold Label Set set still flies uniquely strong and high among the great English readings. It was led by Frederic Waldman with Musica Aeterna, showcasing soprano Judith Raskin, tenor John McCollum, and bass-baritone Chester Watson.

When Universal Classics began to release some of the old back archives, I briefly hoped that the Waldman English set would be tagged for resurrection on remastered CD. Then I really got my hopes up when the three queen operas of Donizetti with Beverly Sills were refurbished, and some even more obscure Hermann Scherchen items. Alas, no cigar. I am contenting myself with computer hard drive music transfers via a LP turntable with a USB connection.

Fair disclosure requires me to say right out that I can often take or leave McCreesh in his prior outings. But on this oratorio, my ears tell me he and his band and his singers are all and each - right on the bullseye musical target.

Like the super audio Spering set, McCreesh is so comfortable with his original instruments that period practices are really not the point. McCreesh textures are clear, burning clear. Think George Szell in Cleveland's golden stereo era. He dramatizes brilliantly and vividly, as do Spering and William Christie - but hews to an altogether less operatic-romantic conception. I wager a listener could put his Chaos - the musical introduction to the oratorio depicting an unformed cosmos before creation - up against anybody else who has so far bothered to record it.

His woodwinds are beautifully present and capable, just as the strings and brass hold true. His chorus (Chetham's Chamber Choir) is entirely straightforward and direct, yet deep and brilliant in their varied angelic throng characterizations. His continuo is fortepiano, not harpsichord. Nobody hogs, nobody outshines, nobody grandstands - yet nobody is underplaying, under-singing, either.

I must admit that at first I had some passing worries about his soloists. Right from the first recitative of creation, the bass Neal Davies floats ethereally above the darkened firmaments. And any listener who has grown jaded with how the composer evokes that primal Light created in a blaze of C major chord will return to musical thrilldom, suspended in a spell of expert and magical chorus intoning God's command just before the primal C Major sun fires up for the first time. The tenor Mark Padmore seems Davies' equal, though at first I thought he tended to lose beauty and sheen when he pushed his tone and notes, just a tad too hard in some of the early recitative drama. Then I found myself warming to the tonal variety in his singing, as I thought at times that he phrased like Peter Pears with Britten at the keyboard, making up in expressive art what he temporarily risked in sheer tonal allure. By the end of the oratorio I was completely unfazed, thanks to Padmore's gifts.

With soprano Sandrine Piau, I started off uncertain again. She too seemed to surrender tonal beauty and focus in some of her passing recitatives, in favor of drama and pushing the scene-setting narratives. Yet Piau always comes through in the soloist soprano heights Haydn so loves to pitch daringly against a lively choral background. And in the trio sections, she weaves and phrases and blends, all involved, all musically knowing, all charm, an undoubted musical equal to the tenor and the bass angels.

By the end of parts one and two, I really had come to believe that all three soloists were angels, aflame with intelligence, inspiration, and thus aptly qualified to be witnesses to the first primal creation.

So this leaves our vocal Adam and our vocal Eve. Adam is sung by baritone Peter Harvey, and Eve is Miah Persson. Solo and together, they are sheer luxury. And with ever so slightly bigger, warmer voices than the three angels, they do indeed sound like flesh and blood companions. Miah Persson has been a prior delight in Mozart and Faure-Durufle Requiems and Handel and Suzuki's Bach Collegium cantatas. She is star soprano in Ivor Bolton's Mozarteum super audio Haydn Schopfung, so reserving her for Eve is something extravagant. Peter Harvey has earned his recording chops in a great deal of early music, and yet here is that extra touch of oratorio character performance.

All in all, the set is a success that probably will endure. It's been too long since we could listen to the English Creation, though those other readings of the German Schopfung rank highly and sound vivid or gorgeous or enthralling by turns. Part of the allure in this set is the size of the forces, enlarged according to the grand presentation concert in Haydn's lifetime. Add this one to the shelf, and maybe we can still hope or dream of the Waldman being re-released - are you listening, Universal? Until that fabled day, the EMI with Willcocks and this set will hold the oratorio banner high in the English-speaking world.

Enthusiastically, emphatically - Recommended. All music, a keeper, a fav - add up plenty of stars. April 12, 2008

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