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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Music 3 stars; Performance 4 stars, 24 Feb 2005
Just as Arthur Sullivan, with his serious works, never burst the bonds of his fame as a comic opera composer, Jacques Offenbach accomplished this only slightly more often. He is primarily remembered for his effervescent comic operetta tunes (memorialized for most listeners in Manuel Rosenthal's compilation arrangement of the best of these in the 'Gaïté Parisienne') and, of course, for his opera, 'Tales of Hoffmann.' But little of his other music is remembered or often played. He was apparently a marvelous cellist, making his living initially in the orchestra of the Opéra Comique, and he wrote idiomatically for the instrument. On this disc we get two concertos plus a set of characteristic pieces originally co-written with Friedrich von Flotow; in those he wrote the cello part, Flotow the piano part, and the two played them in salons all over Paris. Those four works, here orchestrated by Heinz Geese, are little more than fragile salon pieces that swoon and moon all over the place. They are played nicely here but they remain negligible. The two concerti are the so-called 'Concerto Militaire' in G Major and the 'Concerto Rondo.' Neither is of much musical value, and don't much partake of that insouciance we associate with Offenbach, but they certainly do allow the cellist to display his virtuosity, as cellist Guido Schiefen does here for the most part. In truth, his intonation occasionally goes astray but his playing has flair and vigor. The second and third movements of the 'Concerto Militaire' are actually reconstructions from piano score by a French cellist of the 1940s, one Jean-Max Clément. So, 'Concerto Rondo' is the only piece here that is completely by Offenbach. Neither has much nutritive value. Strangely, the three selections (two concertos and the set of pièces caractéristiques) are conducted by three different men: Helmuth Froschauer, David des Villiers and Gérard Oskamp, leading the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln. They give the music their all but, and in spite of some special pleading by the CD booklet writer, I'm afraid the music still doesn't add up to much. TT=69:56 Scott Morrison
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