Nebolsin recorded Liszt’s piano concertos with Vasily Petrenko, another Naxos artist from the younger generation. ‘Vasily is one of the most talented musicians I have ever known. He has an incredibly sharp ear, perfect technical skills, deep musical knowledge and an infinite richness of gestures to express the most subtle musical nuance or colour. I also admire his spontaneity, his sense of humour and his human qualities both on and off stage. It was an unforgettable experience to work with him both on stage and in the recording studio and I hope I will have more opportunities to record something else with him, maybe Russian or German repertoire.’
Having begun his recording career with Decca, Nebolsin is now content to be with Naxos. ‘I feel very grateful to Naxos and would like to thank Klaus Heymann for opportunities to record and work with people like Vasily Petrenko, JoAnn Falletta and Antoni Wit. I think Naxos is doing a fantastic job in the educational field and especially in promoting new and unknown music. It has a tremendous importance in our practical and cynical society because music makes us better and helps us to develop a higher spiritual level and understanding of the world we are living in.’
Christopher Hinterhuber – Piano
Ferdinand Ries, contemporary of Beethoven, was a bit of a revelation for the Austrian pianist Christopher Hinterhuber. When Naxos asked him if he would like to record Ries’s eight piano concertos, he had to admit that he didn’t know them. He had heard some violin pieces and symphonies on the radio but he was unaware that the piano concertos even existed. He was not alone; the recording proposal was only possible because Heymann’s publishing house, Artaria Editions (jointly owned with New Zealand-based Allan Badley), had resurrected them from library archives and was preparing performing editions. Hinterhuber thought he had better look at the music before agreeing and went to the library of the Musikverein in his home city of Vienna to consult the scores kept there. He was forbidden to take them out so he sat at the desk and read through them. He was pleasantly surprised: the piano parts were lively and interesting (Ries himself was a known virtuoso pianist of his time) even if the orchestral parts were little more than accompaniments. ‘There are a lot of notes for me but not many notes for the orchestra,’ Hinterhuber admits, almost apologetically.
He felt the concertos were definitely worth learning afresh and performing. The series was thoughtfully designed – one or two concertos per disc coupled with other works for piano and orchestra – and covers five volumes. The couplings suggested the orchestras so that Hinterhuber found himself travelling the world to record the series, which was conducted by Uwe Grodd: Volumes 1 and 5 were recorded with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra so that Badley could see the start and finish of the cycle; Volume 2 was recorded with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra in Sweden because the CD also contained Variations on Swedish National Airs; and Volume 3 was recorded with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra because the accompanying works included Grand Variations on ‘Rule Britannia’. It has meant, of course, that Hinterhuber has been asked to play them in concert in Europe. ‘They are such attractive pieces pianistically but they are not superficial showpieces – like Kalkbrenner, for example.’
He has been recording for Naxos for a decade. His first Naxos CD was Volume 4 of the ‘Piano Works for Four Hands’ by Schubert, recorded with Rico Gulda in 2002. Three years later a recording of his own suggestion – sonatas and rondos by C.P.E. Bach – was released and was shortly followed by works for piano and orchestra by Hummel, including Oberons Zauberhorn. In danger of being typecast by period, he was rather pleased to record chamber music by Zemlinsky: the Clarinet Trio and the substantial Cello Sonata – which he describes as ‘an extra Brahms Sonata’ – with the clarinettist Ernst Ottensamer and the cellist Othmar Müller.
Hinterhuber’s discography for Naxos has largely settled on late Classical and early Romantic works more by chance than as a reflection of his concert repertoire. He can be found just as often playing Liszt’s piano concertos or twentieth-century music such as Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, which is to be expected of a searching musician from his generation; and he is equally happy to discover music of earlier centuries. In addition to his Naxos recording work Christopher Hinterhuber played the piano (Schubert, Rachmaninov and Schoenberg) for Michael Haneke’s film The Piano Teacher – and it is his own hands that are shown on the screen!
Ten
The Artists: Conductors
When a recording of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred symphony was released with the Royal Liverpool Symphony Orchestra conducted for the first time on record by its new young star Vasily Petrenko, it was clear to critics and the classical collector that here was a very particular talent. ‘We recorded the work in Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and what we tried to do is create something very special that gives a feeling of the monumental scale of Byron’s poem and Tchaikovsky’s symphony,’ says Petrenko. The Naxos recording team reported back to Hong Kong that this was an exceptional recording, and before Manfred was released Petrenko and the RLPO had been invited, and had agreed, to do a Shostakovich symphony cycle over the forthcoming years. When the first volume came out, expectations were confirmed with high critical praise, awards and good sales. Naxos did indeed have one of the most exciting young conductors on its books.
This process was almost unique in twenty-five years of Naxos. It was the way the established classical record industry had worked since the early days of recording: look for stars and capture them. It was not the way Naxos, from its beginnings, had built its catalogue and its reputation. Naxos was a repertoire label. The composers were its stars. The role of the conductor was to direct performances on record that were sound, that would last, and that would, at the very least, stand up to scrutiny. If this appears to be damning with faint praise, it is not. Standing in front of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, or the Capella Istropolitana, the conductor had to be a master of his art and direct an interpretation that had character and verve, and was accurate and well balanced. And that is exactly what those Naxos conductors did. They were highly capable and experienced, giving successful concerts night after night; they may not have been conducting at the Salzburg Festival or in the Berliner Philharmonie but they knew the music and could perform it.
This relaxed pragmatism is typical of the conductors whose names appear again and again on Naxos covers dating from the label’s very first sessions. There was a central core of conductors in the first decade who helped to build the world’s largest classical catalogue in record time. Many remain busy even now, and although they are not often in the fashionable limelight, they know as well as any star how to conduct an orchestra and bring a symphony to life: Anthony Bramall, Béla Drahos, Stephen Gunzenhauser, James Judd, Adrian Leaper, Ondrej Lenárd, Barry Wordsworth, Antoni Wit, Dmitry Yablonsky, to name a few. Each has a place in the Naxos history.
Anthony Bramall was director of music at the Municipal Opera in Augsburg when he recorded Bizet’s Carmen and L’Arlésienne suites with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in Naxos’s very first year; over 100,000 CDs have been sold and the recording is still available. And he is still in Augsburg. The Hungarian Béla Drahos has a broad Naxos discography. Heymann chose him to conduct the label’s first one-conductor Beethoven symphony cycle (with the Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia) as well as nine volumes of Haydn symphonies, Hofmann flute concertos and the complete Vivaldi bassoon concertos; he is also the soloist in a selection of Vivaldi’s flute concertos. Stephen Gunzenhauser has been conductor and music director of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra since 1979 and was for a long time music director of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra in Wilmington. He was a Naxos house conductor for many years and was at the helm for the label’s top-selling disc of all time: The Four Seasons played by Takako Nishizaki with Capella Istropolitana. Adrian Leaper, now principal conductor and artistic director of the RTVE Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Madrid, took charge of a wide variety of repertoire for Naxos, including works by Eric Coates, Frederic
Curzon, Elgar, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky, Chinese orchestral music, and Nielsen’s symphonies. Ondrej Lenárd, Slovakian born, has a long list of recordings, including volumes of Strauss and Tchaikovsky; but he will go down in Naxos history as the man who conducted the world-premiere recording of Havergal Brian’s Symphony No. 1 ‘The Gothic’ (originally released on Marco Polo). He can wear that badge with pride. Barry Wordsworth, a stalwart with the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, conducted the Capella Istropolitana in volumes of symphonies by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven in the very first years of Naxos.
These were the conductors whose names, totally unknown to begin with, were imprinted on those white CD covers and became curiously familiar. Their faces may never have become famous, but their music-making can be found at the heart of millions of classical CD collections around the world.
Naxos has never set out to sign star conductors, though this is not to say that it doesn’t have conductors of exceptional talent, charisma and personality. Throughout the Naxos years Heymann approached conductors of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities to take charge of a wide range of repertoire. Sometimes they came to him with specific projects. Always the proposal was repertoire-driven. In many cases the success of the Naxos label, and its ubiquitous availability, helped to promote the careers of the conductors themselves. Sometimes the conductors were disappointed that they were unable to commit to disc their own interpretation of a major classic because it existed already on the label (though on rare occasions Heymann relented); but they came to appreciate the Naxos philosophy and they worked hard for the projects they did have. Being a conductor is often not as glamorous as it seems. Sometimes the requirement is purely to focus on the task in hand, in which case it is relatively straightforward; but often the conductor is also the impresario, fundraiser, problem-solver and diplomat, and has to display a cool head and resilient attitude. Without Leonard Slatkin’s championing (over a decade) of William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, the GRAMMY Award-winning recording would never have been made; Marin Alsop has brought untiring energy and resource to her Naxos projects, including, if the truth be told, convincing Heymann that he and Naxos did indeed need a Brahms symphony cycle conducted by her; and from the moment Peter Breiner met Heymann he has been juggling the roles of conductor and arranger.
As with the instrumentalists, each conductor has his or her own tale to tell of the relationship between the artist and Naxos. The one consistent characteristic shared by all these conductors, in common with Heymann himself, is a lack of pretension. Their podiums are the standard height above an orchestra. They are, above all, fine working musicians. Here are some of their stories.
Marin Alsop
No one who has seen Marin Alsop’s fiery performances on the main concert platforms of the world, whether in New York’s Carnegie Hall or at the BBC Proms in London, will forget her sheer dynamism. She inhabits the rostrum with an unquestioned star quality yet the focus is always on the music. This is why her musical ideas come across so forcefully on CD, and why her recordings for Naxos have become a key part of the label’s catalogue. In the twelve years since making her first recording (Barber’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2) her international career has grown steadily, leading to her appointment, in 2005, as the first female director of a major American orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Significantly she acknowledged straight away the reciprocal benefit of her association with Naxos by programming Naxos recordings with the orchestra, including the Dvoák symphony cycle recorded live at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore. Others have followed, including her widely praised studio recording of Bernstein’s Mass, which brought her a Gramophone Award in 2010.
The Alsop–Naxos association began with a coincidence. Alsop had planned to record music by Samuel Barber while director of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in the mid-1990s but it never happened. Then Klaus Heymann decided that he wanted to record Barber’s main orchestral music, asked the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to do it, and was told that they had in fact recently appointed an American as principal guest conductor: Marin Alsop. So began the relationship. She had recorded for EMI and others, but it was with Naxos that she settled. ‘The Barber cycle was a great project to start with: running to six strong CDs, it had a long life, and during that time I got to know Klaus quite well. We met a few times, and over the years have been in constant email and telephone contact – more recently on Skype, of course!’
Right from the start, Alsop encountered ‘this very interesting stigma’ about being a recording artist for a so-called budget label. ‘Everyone said I shouldn’t be with a budget label – that no one has ever heard of the artists on the label. I thought about it, but once I had spoken to Klaus it was clear to me that he was so outside the box and entrepreneurial in his thinking. He was looking at this industry from such a completely new and fresh vantage point. I really liked that. I could see the brilliance in his thinking and his willingness to take chances; and I could see that by going with Naxos I would be able to do a lot of things that otherwise I would not. It was really a win-win situation.’
The first Barber recording came out in 2000, a time when Alsop’s career was beginning seriously to take off. It may have helped that she was a female conductor (still relatively rare), though that had no bearing at all on Heymann’s decision to do the Barber cycle and then charge ahead with a variety of recordings. For him, they were simply exciting performances. The bonus was that until this point Naxos had not really had a conductor (or any artist) who was regularly appearing at the world’s top concert venues. The Naxos roster included many musicians who recorded a lot, but very few who, like Marin Alsop, had a concert career at the highest level. Developing a close association with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, which resulted in a string of Naxos recordings, Alsop became a familiar figure in the UK – and not only for conducting.
Alsop is far from a traditional maestro and her informal personality enables her to engage directly with audiences. A little like her mentor Leonard Bernstein, she found she was able to introduce works like Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin in such a relaxed yet informative style that BBC Radio 3 decided to broadcast not only the music but her words as well – a rare occurrence. This facility for the spoken word enabled her to diversify into audiobooks; she recorded The Story of Classical Music and two volumes of Famous Composers for Naxos AudioBooks, titles that brought classical music to a younger audience. More accustomed to addressing adults, she nevertheless proved a natural raconteur for children, taking them through music from the early periods to composers whose work she conducted around the world – and composers she knew personally! This gave her a penchant for the speech studio, and she determined to fit in a session with Naxos whenever she could. On more than one occasion her schedule was so tight that it meant her flying across the Atlantic to London, catching a taxi straight to the Naxos AudioBooks studio, and recording words for children, or introductions to Takemitsu or Brahms or other imminent recordings, or various podcasts, before going to her hotel.
This remarkable stamina and energy is born of a keen sense of purpose. Alsop knew that in starting with Barber, even with Heymann’s broad repertoire plans, there would be a danger that her recording activity could become stuck in an American niche. It was something she was determined to avoid, whilst acknowledging that American repertoire is natural fare for her. ‘It was inevitable that I would do a lot of the American classics for Naxos because I had a good reputation for doing American contemporary music. I liked it and it remains important to me.’ Some of her American recordings now form the backbone of the ‘American Classics’ series on Naxos: symphonies by Aaron Copland, Philip Glass and Roy Harris, for example. She even championed the work of a young American composer, Michael Hersch, recording his Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. She points to this CD to demonstrate the remarkable eclecticism that Heymann is eager to foster even though Naxos is a budget label. She actually encouraged Heymann to take risks with other contemporary
composers, including Michael Torke and the doyen of Japanese classical composers, Toru Takemitsu.
In common with many conductors Alsop also wanted to record some of the mainstream composers; initially she ran into the problem that by this time (shortly after the turn of the millennium) Naxos already had most of the core works in the catalogue and Heymann was still not keen to repeat repertoire. However, he acknowledged that Alsop was respected for her interpretations of a wide range of music, and when she came to him with a project to record Brahms’s symphonies with the London Philharmonic Orchestra he agreed. Made in the UK in 2004 and 2005, these were released with a cover design that departed from the standard Naxos white frame and featured Marin Alsop herself. The recordings demonstrated on CD what her concert performances had shown for some time: that here on Naxos was a distinctive interpreter of the central Viennese classics. ‘Brahms’s music is especially close to my heart. His B flat String Sextet was the first piece that emotionally affected me, when I was about twelve years old, and I suddenly understood music’s power to change lives and capture our hearts. My only goal has always been to record music I feel passionate about, and Klaus has been very open to that. My hope is that people can hear the connection among the Brahms symphonies over the four CDs. I feel that they are four planets in the same solar system, inherently, organically, indelibly connected – yet each unique and distinct in its own right. I hope that people can feel the architecture of the Brahms cycle, not just the structure of each symphony.’
The Story of Naxos Page 19