<<  -- 8 --  Bill Newman    LIFE'S FULFILMENT

Ilse von Alpenheim, the pianist who was to become Doráti's second wife, is represented by a delightful selection of Haydn Keyboard Concertos 2, 3, 4, 9, 11 and the Divertimento for piano, horn and strings with her husband conducting the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra (Vox 11 54992).

Honourable mention should be made of a recording of Handel's Messiah made in Washington in 1982 by a chamber ensemble called the Smithsonian Orchestra, with a team of soloists and the University of Maryland and Cathedral Choirs. Doráti does not scale down his approach to cater for the purist element, but the size of the forces makes for a good musical balance with the singers -- Mathis, Bowman, Ahnsjö and Krause, with a wonderful sense of flow (Intersound CDD 232).

The same choral forces with an eminent team of soloists and the European Symphony Orchestra, gathered together especially by Thomas Brandis who plays the violin solos, were on hand to perform the conductor's 'Swan Song' -- Beethoven's Missa solemnis in Berlin in 1988. Doráti had given a series of performances of the monumental work before writing his own poignant farewell to the world using Beethoven's words 'From the heart -- may it again go the heart' as his own dedication 'For inner and outer peace'. With soloists Tina Kiberg, Rosemarie Lang, William Cochran and Mikhail Krutikov, this is one of the great performances (BIS CD 406-407).

Doráti the composer I have not written about, as his works will be dealt with elsewhere. However, I must make mention of his two Symphonies on BIS-CD 408. The First, circa 1957, was originally recorded by Mercury with the Minneapolis Symphony along with the earlier Nocturne and Scherzo for Oboe and String Quartet with Roger Lord and the Allegri Quartet. The later recording of this turbulent work with its Bartókian overtones derives from a live event at Folkets Hus, Stockholm, 1972. The Second, Querela Pacis (Complaint for Peace), is divided into three sections: Peccata Mundi -- which has as its aspects bitterness, mourning, wrath, surrender, revolt. It prefaces the next part -- Dies Illa: strife, threatening disaster with unrest and tensions acting as a kind of warning. This gives way to a song of peace -- Dona Nobis, in the final part which rings forth to be transformed into a hymn of great faith and understanding. The 1988 recording comes from Stockholm Concert Hall, also under the composer's direction (BIS-CD 408). A performance following Doráti's death by the Philharmonia Hungarica under Menuhin on video is very moving.

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