A special eight-page section focusing on recent recordings from the US and Canada Floyd Prince of Players Keith Phares bar .....................................Edward Kynaston Kate Royal sop .........................................Margaret Hughes Alexander Dobson bar...................... Thomas Betterton Chad Shelton ten ...........................................King Charles II Frank Kelley ten ..................................... Sir Charles Sedley Vale Rideout ten .............Villiers, Duke of Buckingham Nicole Heinen sop ............................................. Miss Frayne Rena Harms sop ..................................................... Nell Gwyn Florentine Opera Chorus; Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra / William Boggs Reference Recordings M b FR736 (96’ • DDD) Recorded live at Uihlein Hall, Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, Milwaukee, October 12 & 14, 2018 Includes synopsis and libretto

The Florentine Opera production features Alexander Dobson’s powerful, compassionate Thomas Betterton, tenors Chad Shelton, Frank Kelley and Vale Rideout as the King and his courtiers, and Rena Harms as Nell Gwyn, each of whom give full reign to their key roles. The participation of the Milwaukee Symphony further justifies the decision to record the full-orchestral version, to which Reference does its usual audiophile justice. Laurence Vittes

The full-orchestral version of Carlisle Floyd’s Prince of Players, premiered in

Martinů ‘Openings’ The Birds’ Feast, H379a. Czech Nursery Rhymes, H210. The Opening of the Wells, H354b. The Primrose, H348c. Songs for a Children’s Choir, H373 Jitro Czech Girls Choir / Jiří Skopal with bLudmila Horová sop bMarkéta Kubínová contr bLuděk Vele ten bAlfréd Strejček narr aJiří Houdek tpt bJindřich Pazdera, Josef Kekula, cZdeněk Häckl vns bJan Pěruška va bcMichal Chrobák pf Navona F NV6288 (51’ • DDD • t)

a chamber version at the Houston Grand Opera in 2016, does full justice to the sexual tensions of the historical period it adores, if less provocatively so without the visuals. It is an extended conceit without conceit that musically captures the hedonistic blend of lusty, intellectual Restoration excitements that had the project’s grand inspirator Samuel Pepys greeting Charles II’s return from exile: ‘The shouting and joy expressed by all is past imagination.’ As Pepys might have appreciated, Floyd and his collaborative team also gnaw at the relationship between words and music or, as in this case, between music and words.

The structure is signposted by three fragments from a truncated version of the death scene from Othello during which Edward Kynaston (Keith Phares) segues from being strangled as Desdemona to strangling as Othello. It seems an obvious device at first but gains enormous cumulative power as the fragments come together. The dramatic impact is heightened by Phares’s unswerving classical line and intense underlying emotion set against Kate Royal’s stunning portrayal of the era’s first female superstar, moving from the music hall to starring with her lover.

Has there ever been a composer who, with a simple song (or set of them), communicated the sheer joy of existence better than Martin≤; that deep-seated sense of heartbursting exhilaration, felt with every intake of breath, at simply being alive? The five brief Moravian folk songs that comprise The Primrose (1954) encapsulate this feeling absolutely, delicate yet full of life. The Jitro Czech Girls Choir’s bright tone matches the songs’ apparent naïvété remarkably well, yet they catch the songs’ slightly doubleedged character, too, superbly accompanied by Zden∆k Häckl and Michal Chrobák.

The testing programme includes 15 such short songs, grouped into three sets, along with the charming stand-alone Pta∂í hody (‘The Birds’ Feast’, 1959) with its accompanying trumpet, a minor gem of the composer’s last year. Two sets are unaccompanied: Songs for a Children’s Choir, also from 1959, superbly weighted music for younger singers, and the earlier Czech

Nursery Rhymes, six subtler, expressively more ambiguous settings from 1931 (the year he started composing Špalí∂ek). None of these tracks exceeds three minutes, the choir catching their tiny self-contained worlds with flawless intonation and ensemble, a tribute to Ji∑í Skopal’s excellent direction. When we come to the concluding 21-minute cantata The Opening of the Wells (as it is usually translated, rather than, as here, The Opening of the Springs), the choir prove their musicianship over a much longer time frame, as part of a broader ensemble. The first and best-loved panel of Songs from the Czech Highlands (1955-59, four settings of folk-inspired poems by Miroslav Bure≈), The Opening of the Wells is just a joy to listen to, a wonderful synthesis of the simplicity of folk song with a larger, semidramatic canvas. I spent two days listening to this wonderful disc and the broadest of smiles never left my face. I didn’t mind the absence of full texts. Guy Rickards

M Monk ‘Memory Game’ Double Fiesta. Downfall. Gamemaster’s Song. Memory Song. Migration. Spaceship. Tokyo Cha Cha. Totentanz. Waltz in 5s Meredith Monk sngr Vocal Ensemble; Bang on a Can All-Stars Cantaloupe F CA21153 (51’ • DDD)

Meredith Monk’s Memory Game (2016-17) can be viewed as one single composition (not unlike a 1980s concept album), a pair of suites or even as nine separate pieces that nonetheless interconnect. The first five tracks – ‘Spaceship’, ‘Gamemaster’s Song’, ‘Migration’, ‘Memory Song’ and ‘Downfall’ – form, in the composer’s own description, a suite from her science-fiction opera The Games (1983-84), which with ‘Tokyo Cha Cha’ (from Turtle Dreams Cabaret, 1983) and ‘Double Fiesta’ (1986, from Acts from Under and Above) have been reimagined here in arrangements by Bang on a Can All-Stars’ David Lang, Michael gramophone.co.uk

GRAMOPHONE JULY 2020 I