By Haller
American Record Guide
08-Dec-2008
Called by many “The Swedish Mozart”, Joseph Martin Kraus was actually born near Mainz, Germany and trained for many years in the Mannheim School before finally moving to Stockholm at the age of 22. There he was fortunate enough to secure a position as court composer to King Gustav III, who was a great patron of the arts and even generously paid for Kraus to travel abroad—where he had the opportunity to meet with Haydn—a four-year grand tour that stimulated Kraus to compose a number of symphonies in the prevailing sturm und drang style. We have reviewed several recordings of his symphonies, above all the eloquent Symphonie Funèbre written feverishly and with great reverence following Gustav’s assassination at a masked ball in 1792 (an event commemorated by both Verdi and Auber). Many readers will also know of its harrowing counterpart, the Funeral Cantata, which surely matches the symphony in intensity.
Unfortunately, room on the disc does not permit quite as extended a suite from Kraus’s Olympie as we get from Uwe Grodd on Naxos [8.553734].We hear the powerful and passionate Overture—also available from Petter Sundkvist on Naxos [8.553734], Anthony Halstead on Musica Sveciae, and Richard Bonynge on Decca—and three brief excerpts that correspond in turn to the Act III entr’acte, Postlude and Act IV entr’acte on Grodd’s recording. Werner Ehrhardt’s surging account of the Overture needn’t yield the floor to anyone, and I’m pleased to find he includes a harpsichord like Bonynge, who by the way replaces the fade-out heard on the other recordings with a more decisive cadence of his own devising.
But the big news here is the world premiere recording of four secular cantatas that Kraus wrote for Lovisa Augusti, the lead singer of the Stockholm Royal Theatre. They’re based on poems by Metastasio and span a wondrous gamut of sensual delights and passionate emotions. The earliest of these is probably La Scusa (The Apology), telling of a suitor who desperately woos the shepherdess Clori even after she haughtily spurns his advances. La Pesca (Fishing) is a seaside idyll that apparently serves as an allegory for the maddeningly shifting emotional moods of true love. That naturally leads to La Gelosia (Jealousy), according to the notes laying bare “the tortures of jealousy...attraction and doubt and the fear of going mad”. Finally, La Primavera (Spring), a curious tongue-in-cheek send-up of the prevailing Italian dramatic style with seemingly misplaced chords and fermatas and constantly changing tempos, capped by an extraordinary florid coloratura display that may well explain why these pieces have never been recorded before and are only rarely attempted in concert. We can only imagine how “Fru Augusti” might have dealt with such formidable and furioso vocalism; but what Simone Kermes unleashes here simply has to be heard to be believed—one dazzling roulade after another and spiraling to dizzying heights until as the notes suggest “one is robbed of sight and hearing”. Truly this is phenomenal singing, and it would be nice to know what she’s singing; unfortunately both the Italian text here and the French Amphitryon are only translated into German— no English. Still, given Ms Kermes’s absolutely stunning performance you may not even care.
So here are two highly satisfying examples further confirming the mastery of the “Swedish Mozart”.
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