American Record Guide May/June 2008

Temporal Fantasies of Britten and Hindemith
This album presents works for oboe and English horn by Benjamin Britten and Paul Hindemith. Many of the work include piano accompanist Nicholas Roth, and one of the pieces has violin, viola, and cello accompaniment. Hauser plays with a nice sound. His middle register has a particularly dark overtone, which lends itself well to the color of these pieces.
Temporal Fantasies is a dark and mysterious piece, believed by some scholars, according to the liner notes, to be influenced by the unrest and intolerance of Hitler’s Germany. It is hardly a beautiful work, perhaps because Britten was trying to say something too monumental or difficult for this medium. Hauser and Roth seem to approach it, however, with intellectual curiosity that does give it appeal. They see this portrayal of conflict and unrest in the music and perform it with due agitation and fury.
The Phantasy Quartet is a more romantic piece. The longer melodies sing quite a bit in both the oboe and the string instruments, and the through-composed style lends itself to a cohesive interpretation of its various melodies. The strings play with great fervor, but sometimes cover up the oboe in a few of the climactic moments.
The Metamorphoses after Ovid for unaccompanied oboe is very nice. Hauser’s playing here is meditative and thoughtful, and his style is more convincing than in the Two Insect Pieces, which could have been more light-hearted. Granted, Britten’s dry humor is not exactly playful and often has a sinister overtone, but this piece would have come across better had it not sounded so labored.
The Hindemith English horn Sonata, as Hauser points out in the liner notes, is a rather manic work, alternating between depressed and jovial moods, and his performance is convincing, The first movement of the Oboe Sonata is more a concentration of Hindemith’s jaunty and jovial atonal character; and the second movement, which really is a slow movement followed by a dance-like movement, contains some of Hindemith’s most wonderful lyricism.
This is a fine recording. It will surely appeal to oboists and Britten and Hindemith fans.
SCHWARTZ

Temporal Fantasies of Britten and Hindemith

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