Leon Botstein, Radio-Philharmonie Hannover des NDR - Max Bruch: Odysseus (1999)

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Leon Botstein, Radio-Philharmonie Hannover des NDR - Max Bruch: Odysseus (1999)

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During his lifetime Odysseus was one of Bruch’s most frequently performed and highly regarded works: the influential English critic J. A. Fuller-Maitland thought it his masterpiece, and Brahms admired it greatly. It was a very successful performance of Odysseus in Liverpool in 1877 that led three years later to Bruch’s appointment as Director of the Philharmonic Society there. It is an oratorio, not an opera (subtitled Scenes from the Odyssey), and one reason for its decline into obscurity may be that for such a subject it is often undramatic, in word-setting (sometimes rather square and inexpressive) and in its choice of episodes: Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, and the jubilation over his rout of the suitors are portrayed, but not Penelope’s recognition of him nor the fight itself. There is no narrator, and there are very few dramatic links between the 12 self-contained sections.
Yet those who love Bruch for the shapely melodies of his G minor Violin Concerto will not find any lack of melodic richness here, and the two central scenes, ‘Penelope’s Lament’ and ‘Nausikaa’ give a good idea of their range. Penelope begins in grave recitative with expressive orchestral commentary and continues in an aria of long and affecting lines, sparingly accompanied. The girlish Nausikaa is introduced in a gentle, charming scherzo, Odysseus explains his plight and begs for pity in a slower variant of her theme which she takes up, but they sing in duet for barely two lines. A choral recitative (there are several of these: very effective) invites Odysseus to the King’s palace and the scene ends, as many of them do, with a quiet orchestral coda. Even Bruch’s plainness of word-setting can be effective, as in the duet of reunion for Odysseus and Penelope, to which it gives a touching sincerity. Although the effect of the whole is of a series of static tableaux, not a drama, Bruch has striking dramatic ideas: an exciting choral storm-piece; the oddly subdued sea music that introduces the scene of the Sirens.
It has to be admitted that, unlike Penelope (with two arias, both fine), Odysseus (with none, but lots of declamation) emerges as a pasteboard figure; that Bruch has little gift for the supernatural (his evocation of the Underworld is far from frightening; the Sirens sing a pretty waltz, like respectable Flower-Maidens) and that his fidelity to a lamentably rum-ti-tum text leads him at times into rhythmic monotony. But his picturesqueness and wealth of melody make Odysseus well worth reviving; I can imagine an adventurous choir enjoying its taxing but rewarding choral writing. A decent performance, one or two of the secondary soloists apart (Kneebone is a slightly tremulous but stalwart Odysseus, Maultsby and Nylund are both good), and a slightly congested but by no means objectionable recording.

–Michael Oliver

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Leon Botstein, Radio-Philharmonie Hannover des NDR - Max Bruch: Odysseus (1999)

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