Ensemble Allegria - Britten/Hagen/Strauss (2022) [Official Digital Download 24/192]

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 recognisable or, in any case, reconstructible.

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. Lars Petter Hagen's "Strauss Fragments" were commissioned by Ensemble Allegria.

All three composers on this album 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.

"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." (BBC Music Magazine)

Tracklist:
1. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Introduction and Theme (01:52)
2. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 1. Adagio (02:12)
3. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 2. March (01:00)
4. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 3. Romance (01:23)
5. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 4. Aria Italiana (01:15)
6. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 5. Bourrée Classique (01:10)
7. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 6. Wiener Walzer (02:36)
8. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 7. Moto Perpetuo (01:08)
9. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 8. Funeral March (03:51)
10. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 9. Chant (01:27)
11. Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937): Variation 10. Fugue and Finale (06:33)
12. Strauss Fragments (2020): I. Adagio (01:19)
13. Strauss Fragments (2020): II. etwas fliessender (00:51)
14. Strauss Fragments (2020): III. sehr langsam (01:36)
15. Strauss Fragments (2020): IV. etwas bewegter (03:26)
16. Strauss Fragments (2020): V. Transfiguration (02:28)
17. Strauss Fragments (2020): VI. Opening (04:55)
18. Metamorphosen (1945) (24:44)


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