American Record Guide "Philadelphia`s Center City Opera Postman

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American Record Guide
independent critics reviewing classical recordings and music in concert
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September/October 2012
Contents
Spring for Music Festival
Jack Sullivan
4
Bolt of Optimism in Challenging Times
Changing the Concert Experience
Gil French
6
Arild Remmereit and the Rochester Philharmonic
Buffalo Phil and Duke Ellington
Herman Trotter
8
From Songs to Concert Music
Philadelphia’s Center City Opera
Lewis Whittington
10
Postman and KKK Premieres
Spoleto’s Maverick Operas
Perry Tannenbaum
12
Glass and Guo Wenjing Premieres
Pulitzer Foundation Festival
Susan Brodie
15
St Louis Opera’s Alice in Wonderland
Fort Worth Opera
Joseph Dalton
17
Texas Troupe with a Buzz
Montreal Chamber Music Festival
Arthur Love
19
Ambitious Programs, Mixed Results
On the Way to Dresden
Gil French
21
Via Berlin and Leipzig
Dresden Music Festival
Gil French
24
Variety, Ecstasy, and Healing
English Country House Operas
Edward Greenfield
27
Garsington and Glyndebourne
Here & There
Concerts Everywhere
Opera Everywhere
Critical Convictions
Guide to Records
Collections
From the Archives
Notes and Letters
The Newest Music
Books
Record Guide Publications
Coming in the Next Issue:
Festival Anniversaries:
Tanglewood at 75
Carmel Bach at 75
Cabrillo at 50
Santa Fe Chamber at 40
Orcas Island at 15
Music@Menlo at 10
Opera:
Santa Fe
Glimmerglass
Bayreuth Twice
Aix-en-Provence
Vierne Organ Symphonies
World Choir Games
29
31
44
49
52
204
255
261
261
264
268
Vol 75, No 5 September/October 2012 Our 77th Year of Publication
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Page 41: Christian Steiner
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Page 48: Dario Acosta (image reversed)
RECORD REVIEWERS
Paul L Althouse
Brent Auerbach
John W Barker
Alan Becker
William Bender
Brian Buerkle
Stephen D Chakwin Jr
Ardella Crawford
Stephen Estep
Elaine Fine
Gil French
William J Gatens
Allen Gimbel
Todd Gorman
Philip Greenfield
Steven J Haller
Lawrence Hansen
Patrick Hanudel
James Harrington
Rob Haskins
Roger Hecht
Benjamin Katz
Woo Soo Kang
Kenneth Keaton
Barry Kilpatrick
Mark Koldys
Lindsay Koob
Kraig Lamper
Mark L Lehman
Vivian A Liff
Peter Loewen
Ralph V Lucano
Joseph Magil
Sudie Marcuse
Michael Mark
John P McKelvey
Donald E Metz
Catherine Moore
David W Moore
John David Moore
Robert A Moore
Kurt Moses
Don O’Connor
Charles H Parsons
David Radcliffe
David Schwartz
Jack Sullivan
Richard Traubner
Donald R Vroon
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Music in Concert
highlights
Weill Hall
Sept 14-23 & Oct 26-28
Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach continues
to make the rounds (see review this issue), at
the Brooklyn Academy of Music in September
and Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall in October.
Sept 15-Oct 9
The Los Angeles Opera opens its season with
the company premiere of Verdi’s Due Foscari
with Placido Domingo as the Doge of Venice,
Marina Poplavskaya as Lucrezia, and James
Conlon conducting.
September 28-30
Gustavo Dudamel opens the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s season with the world premiere of
Steven Stucky’s symphony. Also on the program at Disney Hall, Ravel’s Pavane and
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring
Sept 29-October 27
Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park CA
inaugurates its new Weill Hall with concerts by
pianist Lang Lang, Canadian soprano Karina
Gauvin, and John Adams conducting the International Contemporary Ensemble.
October 5 & 7
gram, a Rossini overture and Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 5.
October 11-14
Concertmaster William Preucil performs the
world premiere of Stephen Paulus’s Violin
Concerto No. 3 with Giancarlo Guerrero and
the Cleveland Orchestra. Also on the Severance Hall program, Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole
and Stravinsky’s Petrouchka.
October 17-26
The Honens International Piano Competition
takes place at Calgary’s Epcor Centre. Following 10 semi-final rounds, Roberto Minczuk
and the Calgary Philharmonic accompany the
two final rounds.
October 18-27
Yannick Nezet-Seguin officially takes over as
the Philadelphia Orchestra’s music director
with three events at Verizon Hall: opening
night with Renée Fleming, Verdi’s Requiem
with the Westminster Choir, and a concert of
works by Brahms, Bernstein (with Joshua Bell),
and Gabriela Lena Frank (a world premiere).
Oct 23-Nov 17
Anchorage Opera celebrates its 50th anniversary with the world premiere of Victoria
Bond’s Mrs President at the Discovery Theatre
with the composer conducting Valerie Bernhardt and Scott Ramsey. Lemuel Wade is stage
director.
The Metropolitan Opera presents its first performances of The Tempest by Thomas Ades.
The composer himself conducts Simon
Keenlyside, William Burden, and Isabel
Leonard in Robert Lepage’s production.
October 11
The Tokyo String Quartet embarks on a final
tour with a farewell to Carnegie Hall, playing
Webern’s Five Movements, Mozart’s String
Quintet No. 3, and Mendelssohn’s Octet, as
violist Ettore Causa and the Jasper String Quartet join them in Zankel Hall.
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra opens its
40th anniversary season with mezzo Sasha
Cooke and baritone Nathan Gunn performing
the world premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s
Earth Echoes. Also on the Carnegie Hall pro-
October 28
Spring for Music Festival
Bolt of Optimism in Challenging Times
Jack Sullivan
“
Spring for Music” had its second season at
Carnegie Hall May 7-12. Now financed
through 2014, it selects its North American
orchestras based on the creativity of their
long-term plans and their adventurous programming, not on the size of an orchestra’s
budget and publicity machine. This year’s
series was as exciting as the first (Sept/Oct
2011) and even more satisfying, with better
contemporary pieces and more substantial
rarities. There was also a real sense of spectacle, with the New Jersey, Nashville, and Milwaukee orchestras overflowing the stage with
choruses, extra players, soloists, and maestros.
Yet the seats were still an amazing bargain,
only $25 (a limited number for $10)—a seductive price for Carnegie Hall and a lure for
younger audiences as well as fans flown in
from each orchestra’s region. Even the Edmonton Symphony boasted 1000 locals,
including two strapping Canadian Mounties
who paraded onstage dressed in red, like the
orchestra, and waving red banners to the
cheering audience.
All this may sound a bit tacky for Carnegie
Hall, but it was strangely stirring and refreshing. Why should attending a classical music
concert always feel like going to church? During the music itself, the audience was rapturously quiet, even though they were bombarded with challenging new works; and they were
loudly appreciative at curtain calls. Isn’t that
the way it should be?
Certainly these “regional” folk had much
to challenge them. The Houston Symphony’s
opening concert, “Two Faces of Shostakovich”, began with Anti-Formalist Rayok, a
satirical piece so obscure that management
felt it needed to explain its anti-Stalinist point
twice, once with an irritatingly didactic video
illustrating Stalin’s opposition to “formalist”
music. Bass soloist Mikhail Svetlov mouthed
Stalin’s banalities about the superiority of
“people’s music” with hilarious pomposity,
and the Houston brass section had fun with
the “anti-formalist” folk songs and oompahs.
Shostakovich’s “other face” was the gargantuan Symphony No. 11, a grim depiction of
the 1905 “Bloody Sunday” massacre. The
Houston Symphony has a special pedigree for
this symphony: it gave the American premiere
under Stokowski in 1958 and performed it
again June 9 at Moscow’s Sixth Annual Festival
of the World’s Symphonys. Also, years ago
Music Director Hans Graf studied at the St
4 Music in Concert
Petersburg Conservatory under Arvid Jansons.
Houston’s muted strings, whispering timpani,
and offstage Mahlerian trumpets were wonderfully mysterious in the recurring ‘Palace
Square’ motif, and the lower brass and basses
had a Russian gruffness in the climaxes. This is
second-drawer Shostakovich, but Graf made a
compelling case for it.
The Edmonton Symphony, which plays
jazz as well as classical and was celebrating its
60th season, came with a brighter program
ideally suited to its sleek, sexy sound. Music in
the first half was by three Canadian composers. Allan Gilliland’s Dreaming of the Masters III, part of a trilogy dedicated to jazz virtuosos, was Big Band pastiche with the spectacular trumpet of Jens Lindemann (who later
tore the place up in an encore from West Side
Story). At the other end of the spectrum was
Robert Rival’s Lullaby, inspired by the composer’s rocking of his newborn son, a work of
quiet rapture and refined sensibility. Its elegant concision was a contrast to John Estacio’s
overstuffed, neo-romantic Triple Concerto,
played with admirable energy by violinist Julliette Kang, cellist Denise Djokic, and pianist
Angela Cheng.
After intermission came Martinu’s Symphony No. 1, a sensuous swirl of modal
melodies and misty textures written in the
early 1940s after Martinu’s immigration to the
United States. This was his New World Symphony, but it has not been heard in New York
since the 1950s. Propelled by the broad, joyful
gestures of Music Director William Eddins, it
made a powerful impression.
The next night the New Jersey Symphony
under its new Music Director Jacques
Lacombe came across the bridge with a novelty-filled program, opening with Varese’s
spooky Nocturnal, sung with chilling eloquence by soprano Hila Plitmann. The concert
closed with Busoni’s gargantuan Piano Concerto. Both of these rarities have a male chorus, which gave the program an odd symmetry. In the middle was the terse, tensile Symphony No. 1 of Kurt Weill, written when he
was 21, a fascinating amalgam of off-kilter
marches, fugues, and chorales forecasting The
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.
Varese and Weill both studied under
Busoni, the point of this seemingly scattered
program. He clearly inspired his students (who
included Stefan Wolpe and Percy Grainger) to
develop an unmistakable voice, but his own
concerto is a crazed amalgam of contradictory
styles from Lisztian pyrotechnics to Rossinian
parody and rowdy street songs. Marc-André
Hamelin, who specializes in impossible repertory, played the absurdly difficult solo part
with demonic virtuosity, his bold sonority
holding its own with Busoni’s huge orchestra.
All on the crowded stage acquitted themselves
well. The men of the Westminster Choir supplied an austere backdrop to the Varese and an
ennobling richness in Busoni’s stately finale.
Not every orchestra made its strongest
point with new or novelty pieces. The Alabama
Symphony opened with two imaginative but
derivative works: Avner Dorman’s Astrolotry,
depicting star worship with a bit of Crumb, a
dollop of John Williams, and a touching fairy
tale motif; and Paul Lansky’s duo piano concerto, Shapeshifters, commissioned by Quatro
Mani, offering minimalist pulsing and Poulencian colors. The high point of the program was
a propulsive performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 that despite underpowered basses
and timpani had an overwhelming relentlessness. Alabama’s dynamic Music Director
Justin Brown projected Beethoven’s Dionysian
energies with his whole body.
The most satisfying evening was supplied
by Music Director Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony. They came with a unified
program ideally suited to their shimmering
sound: three impressionist meditations from
the 20th and 21st Centuries offering variety in
a single tradition. The transparent Milwaukee
strings in Messiaen’s early Offrandes Oubilées
gradually melted into a nearly inaudible
pianissimo. The mellow brass in Debussy’s La
Mer evoked a clear sea on a sunny day, banishing the storm clouds in the finale with a burst
of light.
Qigang Chen’s Iris Dévoilée, an invocation
of the “eternal feminine” in nine concise sections, brought the concert together at the end
with Messiaen-like chords and Debussian timbres. This was a skillful synthesis of Eastern
and western gestures, including dueling vocal
traditions. Xiaoduo Chen sang radiant, distant,
Delian vocalise; while at the other end of the
stage Meng Meng intoned the fruity, forward
sound of Peking opera. In a brutal section
called ‘Hysterique’ they unleashed terrifying
primal screams. Adding a continuo layer were
the twittering sounds of pipa, erhu, and zheng.
Colorful as this music was, it did not seem
“exotic”. There is now so much Asian music on
the Western classical scene that it is becoming
a new norm, with familiar tropes and traditions.
The wildest ride in this year’s Spring for
Music was the finale, entrusted to the Nashville Symphony under its magnetic Music
Director Giancarlo Guerrero. This orchestra
has a big, glamorous sound and seems capable
of playing anything. The concert opened with
Ives’s unfinished Universe Symphony in a hypnotic realization by Larry Austin. Eschewing
Ives’s usual folklore and wit, this one-movement series of crescendos and decrescendos is
a mystical, multi-layered skein of polytonal
sound requiring five conductors leading four
mini-orchestras and a 20-member percussion
section. It’s as if Ives tried to pick up where the
finale of his Symphony No. 4 left off, enlarging
his vision to impossibly complex dimensions.
Terry Riley’s Palmian Chord Ryddle for
electric violin and orchestra, played by master
electric fiddler Tracy Silverman, offered a welcome playfulness. This new piece by the composer of In C has a boundless, theatrical eclecticism—pop and blues, Moorish modes, South
Indian dances, orchestral “cloud sections”—
but it went on too long, and its constant genreswitching became wearying. With editing or
perhaps the creation of a suite, this could be a
crowd-pleaser.
Even more extravagant but also more controlled was The Warriors by Percy Grainger. It
jettisons the composer’s usual folklore motifs
for what he called a “Valhalla gathering” of
gods, old and young, from different traditions.
In 18 breathtaking minutes, Grainger unleashes 15 themes, including primitive dances,
haunting modal chorales, distant offstage
effects, and all manner of percussion colors
(shivery cimbalons and three bangy pianos
among them). Again, extra conductors crowded the stage, bringing order to primal chaos.
The Nashville players didn’t really need an
encore after this exhausting and exhilarating
adventure, but they supplied one anyway: the
finale of Roberto Sierra’s Symphony No. 4,
bringing the 2012 Spring for Music to a racy
close.
As a showcase for regional orchestras and
imaginative programming, Spring for Music
proved once again to carry a singular importance. Every orchestra was impressive, offering
strikingly different strengths and sonorities.
After a week of hearing these ensembles one
after another in Carnegie Hall’s illuminating
acoustic, one could definitively reject the fashionable myth that all contemporary orchestras
sound alike. There is a significant after-effect
as well: no doubt, these ensembles and their
fans went back home feeling very proud of
their local orchestras—and very good about
Carnegie Hall and New York City. In classical
music that’s a bolt of optimism for a scary,
challenging time. &
Music in Concert
5
Changing the Concert
Experience
Arild Remmereit and the Rochester Philharmonic
Gil French
T
he Rochester (NY) Philharmonic’s last
concert of the season (May 31, June 2)
epitomized the changes of attitude and
experience that Arild Remmereit (Ah-REEL
RIM-mer-right) brought in his first season as
music director.
In each of the 8 (out of 14) classical concerts he conducted Remmereit fastened the
RPO’s ties to Rochester’s poetry community by
having poems (appropriate to the concert)
published by nationally acclaimed and locally
owned BOA Editions read by one of its representatives, and by having mature poems by
students at the High School of the Arts read by
their author or a drama student. He also fastened the ties to local painters by having several exhibits in the lobbies, the most elaborate a
40-painting counterpart to the season’s final
work, Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Remmereit made me realize anew that,
while one can hear 100 recordings, the nonpareil genius of Ravel’s orchestration can only
be appreciated in a performance like the RPO
gave that combined superb execution, crystalline textures (Ballet of the Chicks), exquisite
balances and rhythmic incisiveness (Baba
Yaga), and pacing that matched the character
of the scene (Bydlo slogged wonderfully with
mud-stuck wheels pushing forward). While the
Norwegian conductor went more for “class”
than brash excitement, he gave ‘Baba Yaga’
and ‘The Great Gate at Kiev’ powerful contrasts that built to an orgasmic climax. Principal Kenneth Grant kept his clarinet tuned with
extraordinary brightness in passages that can
easily sound flat. Assistant Principal Trumpeter Wesley Nance gave acidic, subtle, and
spot-on character to the Promenades. And
Ramon Ricker’s inimitable saxophone filled
the ‘Old Castle’ with nostalgia.
The Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy,
inspired by the San Francisco-based orchestra
that existed from 1980 to 2004, promotes performances of great works for orchestras and
ensembles by women past and present. It gave
its first Amy Award (named after Amy Beach)
to Remmereit for conducting works by eight
women in his first season. As the presenter
said, “The award sculpture is one-half inch
taller than the Oscar, and we’re not promoting
crummy works either!”
This concert opened with the world premiere of Margaret Brouwer’s Caution Ahead—
6
Music in Concert
Arild Remmereit
Guard Rail Out, commissioned by the RPO to
celebrate Remmereit’s first season as music
director. This 10-minute entertainment is a
series of meandering episodes rather than a
tightly organized overture, sort of a “road
movie” or tone poem where the RPO’s rich,
mellow strings conveyed an easy journey with
intimations of unexpected, disparate elements
(introduced in the opening brass fanfare) just
around the corner.
As reported in a previous article (Jan/Feb
2012), another goal of Remmereit has been to
strengthen the ties between the orchestra and
the Eastman School of Music. The Eastman
Theater, the RPO’s home, is right next door to
the school; both the school and the theater are
part of the University of Rochester. The grandest coup of the season was not one but two
viola concertos, played at the 40th International Viola Congress (IVC) held this year at the
Eastman School.
On May 31 Cynthia Phelps and Rebecca
Young, principal and assistant principal violists of the New York Philharmonic, performed
another work by a woman—one they premiered in 1999—Two Paths by Sophia
Gubaidulina. Void of melodies yet essentially
tonal, it works around a three-note motif. The
orchestra is the big, active, angular force
(Martha of the Gospels), the soloists the serene
long-lined, legato element (Mary).
Gubaidulina here seems to pick up where
the dying Shostakovich left off—grim, introverted, and bordering on stasis near the end—
with Mahlerian jumps between intervals and
contrasting high treble and low bass instrumentation. Despite hearing the work at a
rehearsal (there are no recordings of it), I could
mark the moments in the performance where
my mind began to wander. I couldn’t tell if the
fault lay in Gubaidulina’s structure or in Remmereit’s pacing. Still, both orchestra and
soloists produced arrestingly beautiful
sounds—especially Phelps, who sustained
extremely long lines that ascended into the
stratosphere.
Not so with the soloist in the Viola Concerto by Olly Wilson, given its world premiere at
the June 2 concert. Wilson, born in St Louis in
1937, left the great soloist Marcus Thompson,
for whom the work was composed in 1992 on a
commission from the National Endowment for
the Arts, stuck mostly in the viola’s midrange,
ruminating on a basic motif. What a shame, for
his instrument has a darker, larger tone than
Phelps’s or Young’s that projected right to the
back of the hall. Instead, it is the orchestra that
is the star, creating the final drama.
The day before, the RPO devoted a two and
one-half hour rehearsal to this 22-minute onemovement concerto, divided into fast-slowfast sections. Even though I followed with a
score, I found it obstinately intellectual, like
many works written by academics between
about 1950 and 1980 (think George Walker). It
starts on F, but there is no key, no signature in
sharps or flats, no harmonic progression, only
a constant rumination on a tiny motif and a
basic rhythmic pattern. In the largo slow section a long line begins to develop. It was only
in the actual performance that the orchestra
finally caught the “logic” of the last section
that builds in intensity to the final two chords.
On the whole, it felt more intellectual than
emotional, like looking at Picasso rather than
Monet.
While the composer seemed evasive when
I asked him the reason for the 20-year delay
between composition and premiere, I noticed
that the score is self-published by Wilson himself, without the promotional advantages of a
publishing house. The IVC and Remmereit’s
interest in American music were the match
that finally brought it to light.
Note that the soloists in both concertos
(each performed only once) were those who
premiered them. Even more remarkable was
the utterly rapt attention of the normally fidgety RPO audience to both difficult works. A
major change has happened to an audience
that just a few years ago stayed away in droves
even for a Shostakovich symphony.
My personal detachment from both concertos is neither here nor there. The point is
that RPO performances are no longer just concerts with popular pre-concert lecture-demonstrations followed by safe favorites. Now they
are “events”, cleverly linked to the city’s wider
artistic scene. And whether in terms of new
works or numerous old works that have been
rarely performed, in one season Remmereit
has changed the basic attitude of RPO audiences from “They’re playing something I’ve
never heard; I think I’ll stay home” to “This
one I’ve got to hear!”
In addition to the Amy Award, the RPO was
also given the 2011-12 ASCAP Award for
Adventurous Programming. Remmereit has
eight more works by women planned for next
season, and he’ll bring last season’s opener,
Beach’s Gaelic Symphony, to Carnegie Hall as
part of the 2014 Spring for Music Festival. &
Music in Concert
7
Buffalo Phil and Duke
Ellington
From Songs to Concert Music
Herman Trotter
I
n 1965 Duke Ellington was nominated for
the Pulitzer Prize in Music. When the voting
denied him this honor, the 67-year-old
Duke famously said, “Fate is being kind to me.
Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too
young.”
Ellington, who died in 1974, never
achieved that Pulitzer distinction. But in the 47
years since that rebuff, his stock has steadily
risen. He is now mentioned by some distinguished musicologists and critics as one of the
most influential composers of the 20th Century alongside Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg,
Bartok, and Shostakovich.
Recently the Buffalo Philharmonic and
Music Director JoAnn Falletta have been
tapped by Naxos to record a CD offering a representative cross-section of Ellington’s music.
The repertoire was previewed for the Buffalo audience in a two-week Ellington Festival
consisting of concerts on the BPO’s Pops series
(May 4-5) and Classics Series (May 12-13). This
was entirely proper, since Ellington’s compositions, numbering more than 1500, include
countless popular classics and a large but less
known output of concert music. Choosing
among these must have presented problems
8
Music in Concert
because of his relative
lack of concern about
detail. He was probably
the most intellectual of
jazz musicians. He just
wanted to compose and
perform, caring little
about other musicians’
arrangements of his own
works. As a result, more
often than not when you
hear ‘Mood Indigo’ or
‘Sophisticated Lady’, it
will be someone else’s
arrangement. Conversely, the Duke sometimes
gets credit for songs he
made popular, such as
‘Take the A Train’ or
‘Chelsea Bridge’, both
composed by Billy Strayhorn. The Duke’s most
indelible quote was,
“Music is my mistress
and she plays second
fiddle to no one.” The
music mattered to him, not the details.
The BPO’s Festival Pops concert opened
with Ellington Portrait, a smoothly connected
medley of ‘Caravan’, ‘Mood Indigo’, and five
other Ellington songs in a glistening, brassy
orchestration by Jeff Tyzik. It was an audience
hit, but it struck me as more Tyzik than Ellington.
Guest vocalist Freda Payne has long been
known as a jazz interpreter of sizzling seductiveness and imagination, but in this context
her contribution was a mixed blessing. In classics like ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ and ‘I’m
Beginning to See the Light’ she unleashed a
great sense of style and showmanship but was
a bit sloppy sometimes. She concluded with a
spectacular traversal of her own signature
piece, ‘Band of Gold’, which had little to do
with Ellington.
But in the middle, Payne contributed one
of the festival’s high points, holding the audience spellbound with Billy Strayhorn’s soulfully yearning ‘Lush Life’, accompanied only by a
spare, probing Ellingtonian solo piano. There
was also a Luther Henderson big-band
arrangement of ‘Take the A Train’ that was
overexcited and overextended for the basic
character of the music.
The main purpose of the Ellington Festival
was to throw light on four concert pieces, two
each on the Pops and Classics programs.
The earliest of these was Black, Brown, and
Beige, which debuted in 1943 as a 45-minute
work for a Carnegie Hall concert but was heard
here in a pared-down 18-minute arrangement
by Maurice Peress. Its three movements,
played without pause, pay tribute to Black
Americans’ faith and work ethic, patriotism,
and contributions to American culture.
Although it would never be confused with Barber or Copland, the music’s wildly declamatory feeling and the contrasting melancholy
blues at its center does present a consistent
view of Ellington’s big band jazz sonorities and
expressiveness. The music is often undergirded by thunderous percussion, flavored with
wah-wah brass, and is fetchingly punctuated
by quotations from ‘Come Sunday’, ‘Swing
Low, Sweet Chariot’, and other tunes from
Americana.
Of similar artistic intent is the 1950
Harlem, arranged by Henderson and Peress.
Ellington saw this work as depicting an optimistic view of New York’s Harlem culture, with
elegantly dressed church-goers, strollers,
parades, and funerals. Introduced by a growling trumpet, the work is episodic, with frequent loud outbursts of Latin-tinged percussion, a fascinating clarinet solo, a captivating
ostinato figure in horns that spreads to full
orchestra, and lots of screaming trumpets, all
in a form that seems more random than carefully structured.
The 1970 suite from The River, a ballet
written for Alvin Ailey, was arranged by Ron
Collier. Here Ellington was clearly aiming
toward a more descriptive-impressionist musical language. Falletta and the BPO performed
six of the original nine movements depicting
the Mississippi River’s progression from a
spring to a rapids, lake, whirlpool, and fullfledged river. The wonderfully probing opening horn solo declares the music’s more
expansive intentions, which are largely fulfilled in the richly orchestrated ‘Spring’ movement, and especially the ‘Lake’, where a threenote descending motif is extrapolated to create
a flowing evocation of serenity and calm. In
two of the movements, however, Duke’s jazz
roots were too heavily tapped, and the music
sounded like big-band Ellington blown up to
out-of-place orchestral proportions.
The most effective example of the “symphonic Duke” was his last effort in that form,
the 1976 Three Black Kings, arranged by Henderson. This was Ellington tipping his hat to
King Balthazar of the Three Magi, King
Solomon, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Here it’s
an almost autumnal Ellington we hear, with
confident use of hurried ostinato figures that
recur like an old-fashioned ritornello and
impressionist upsweeps and swirls, all applied
with a master’s brush. The relaxed meditation
of Solomon has effective ostinato accompaniment and some rising eight-note figures that
momentarily flicker with jazz feeling. The concluding tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr is
called a dirge, but initially came across as
more of a melancholy reflection with a pulsing
theme that finally achieved a power level that
had a dirge-like persistence. It was an extremely effective, almost affectionate tribute.
The performances by the BPO and Falletta
were strikingly clean and assertively projected.
To conclude the Classics Series program,
Falletta and the BPO called on pianists Orion
Weiss and Anna Polonsky as soloists in two
works. Poulenc’s witty Two-Piano Concerto fit
the program’s theme. As a work by a classically
trained composer that was peppered with jazz
influences, it stood in a sort of inverse relationship to Ellington. Weiss and Polonsky were
also soloists in Saint-Saens’s familiar Carnival
of the Animals. Both works were sparklingly
played.
The Buffalo Philharmonic will perform at
Carnegie Hall on May 8 as part of the 2013
Spring for Music Festival. &
Music in Concert
9
Philadelphia’s Center
City Opera
Postman and KKK Premieres
Lewis Whittington
C
enter City Opera Theater, founded in
1999, may still be the new opera kid on
the block in Philadelphia; but it has been
carving out a lot of new turf as a mid-sized
company whose mission is “the creation and
production of new works”. Most impressive is
their roster of area-based singers who are
building audiences via cabarets, flash street
arias, and even bar crawls.
Founder Andrew Kurtz, the company’s
savvy general and artistic director as well as
conductor, concentrated this year on two premieres and on moving Center City Opera into
its new house, the Prince Music Theater,
which presents some acoustical challenges.
In May Kurtz conducted the East Coast
premiere of Daniel Catan’s Il Postino, launching the company’s Hispanic Opera Initiative.
Based on the 1994 Academy Award-winning
Italian film, the opera was championed by
Placido Domingo, who sang the lead role at its
2010 world premiere in Los Angeles and also in
Paris. It was doubly poignant for CCOT to per-
10
Music in Concert
form it because the composer, who died last
year at age 62, had expressed to Kurtz his wish
to have the opera performed by smaller companies.
It tells the story of Mario, a shy postman
whose only postal stop is the island home of
Chilean poet and freedom fighter Pablo Neruda, who is in political exile in Italy. The libretto, also by Catan, is in Spanish. The lyrical
score is very cinematic, padded with a lot of
soundtrack-like filler, at the expense of more
interesting Spanish-centric expression. The
production design by Buck Ross and J Dominic
Chacon used projected paintings to depict the
seaside village and seascape animations as
backdrops, which worked very well.
Tenor Hugo Vera appeared too young for
the aging Neruda, but vocally he was very
much the heroic retiring poet. Jorge Garza,
also a tenor, was touching as Mario, blooming
vocally as he came out of his nervous shell
under Neruda’s influence. Jennifer Hoffmann
as Neruda’s wife, Matilde, sang with sensual
reserve. Mario falls for Beatrice, a cafe worker,
who was played with golden-voiced sincerity
by Jennifer Braun.
The backdrop of the town’s petty politics
sets up all-too-brief choral scenes with the corrupt politico, sung with lusty brio by baritone
Paul Corujo, trying to con the crowd. Even
with director Leland Kimball keeping the three
acts moving at a crisp pace, the opera could
easily have been condensed to two.
CCOT’s orchestra was made up of members from Camden NJ’s Symphony in C (formerly the Haddonfield Symphony), some of
most energized musicians around. Yet at the
May 20 performance Kurtz struggled sometimes to stabilize the pitch in several key
moments to equalize Catan’s velvety orchestral qualities in the Prince Theater.
Two weeks later Kurtz drew the curtain on
the world premiere of Michael Ching’s Slaying
the Dragon about the KKK and the rise of hate
groups in the US. Kimball was tapped once
again to direct, this time working with much
more arresting images, with the specter of
white robed KKK characters singing ‘God Bless
America’ with their hands raised in a ‘Heil
Hitler’ salute. The in-your-face visuals were
part of the very compelling story (libretto by
CCOT’s Managing Director Ellen Frankel) of
the redemption of Jerry Krieg, a Klan leader
who renounces the group and informs on their
activities. It must have been doubly creepy to
see these images in the opera’s June 9 online
stream.
Based on Kathryn Watterson’s non-fiction
book “Not by the Sword” about Klan leader
Larry Trapp, who launched a hate campaign
against multiculturalism in Lincoln, Nebraska
in the 1990s, the opera is very much in the tradition of the 1930s’ socially conscious plays by
Clifford Odets. It is a “message” opera; on its
own terms it is a brave, relevant artistic statement.
Just as shocking as the white robes was the
disconcerting moment when the group
removed their hoods, and
they looked like reasonable people. There were
the expected sneering
skinheads, who could be
anybody’s
alienated
youth, but there were also
soccer moms whipping
out their cell phones to
check on their kids’ dinner.
After being anointed
grand dragon of his chapter of the clan, Krieg and
his boys bust up an ecumenical, multiethnic service at Temple Emeth,
where they brutally attack
Chinese immigrant Giet Long. Also attending
the service is Bud Connor, a radio talk show
host who comes out as a KKK sympathizer, rallying whites to “take back their country”. The
themes of xenophobia, fear, and sedition
swirled. Debilitated by advancing diabetes,
fearing that the clan will kick him out, Krieg
holes up at home and torments the community with threatening phone calls full of racist,
sexist, and anti-Semitic slurs. Discovering his
condition, Rabbi Nathan and Vera Goodman
confront him and try to help him to change his
life.
As Krieg, tenor Christopher Lorge was
vocally impressive in the complex role as he
conveyed his inner struggle while backing off
the pain. Jennifer Braun turned in a fine performance as Reverend Ava Gray, her soprano
voice engulfing the theater. Jody Kidwell as
Esther was the emotional high point of the
opera, a Holocaust survivor who refused to
forgive Jerry until he stopped denying that the
genocide occurred.
Jason Switzer’s commanding bass-baritone was perfect for Rabbi Nathan, who leads
the community away from fighting hate with
hate. He and Teresa Eickel as Vera had a wonderful vocal chemistry. Paul Corujo’s silky
baritone was perfect for the role of the stealth
villain. David Koh as Giet deftly built anger and
resolve into his voice. Baritone Roland Burke
as Dr Masterson, the black choirmaster, raised
the roof in the Hebrew-Gospel number.
Ching and Frankel wrote very well for the
voice, especially in two strong trios (sung by
Burks, Braun, Kidwell, and Koh) in the opera’s
most powerful passages. Ching could have
developed more cohesive drama in the orchestral architecture, in contrast to his cultural
instrumental passages that had fine narrative
clarity. Frankel’s libretto leans heavily on sung
character speeches that eventually became
more “tell” than “show”. But even with a predictable story arc, the opera rode on its messages and musical strengths. Credit Kimball
and Kurtz for keeping it at a crisp pace. &
Music in Concert
11
Spoleto’s Maverick Operas
Glass and Guo Wenjing Premieres
Perry Tannenbaum
Feng Yi Ting (Shen Tiemei and Jiang Qihu)
O
pera programming at Spoleto Festival
USA has had a maverick aspect to it
over the years. For a while, one of the
two pieces would be grand in scale but slightly
off the beaten track (Luisa Miller, Il Trittico, or
Queen of Spades). Secondary works were
adventurous, ranging from early operas to
modern ones. The formula, never quite predictable, almost invariably offered opera
lovers the incentive to travel a long way to the
South Carolina coast to see works they couldn’t see elsewhere. Nearly seven years before
the Metropolitan Opera discovered a massive
audience for Tan Dun’s First Emperor, Spoleto
was ahead of the curve in 2000 with Bright
Sheng’s Silver River and in 2004 with an epic
Peony Pavilion. So the 2012 opera lineup that
included two American premieres was daring
but not unprecedented.
Guo Wenjing’s Feng Yi Ting (Phoenix
Pavilion) was merely Spoleto’s latest gaze
across the Pacific, the first since Monkey: Journey to the West was the talk of the 2008 festival. And the first American staging of Kepler in
the world premiere of its English-language
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Music in Concert
version continued Spoleto’s association with
composer Philip Glass that dates back to 1990,
when he and poet Allen Ginsberg performed
the world premiere of Hydrogen Jukebox.
Three more appearances have occurred since.
Glass didn’t need to turn 75 to win adulation at Spoleto. He sat for a conversation at
Dock Street Theatre on June 2 with Spoleto
resident conductor John Kennedy, two hours
before Kennedy would conduct Kepler at the
Sottile Theatre. Glass even surprised us by
scooting over to the keyboard and performing
‘Wichita Vortex Sutra’ from Hydrogen Jukebox,
accompanying a rediscovered tape of Ginsberg’s reading. Like his operas, a couple of
Glass’s responses to Kennedy’s questions
turned expectations upside down. Asked how
he found his voice as a composer, Glass said
his challenge has always been to lose his voice
with the help of his collaborators. Then he
described Walt Disney, the subject of Glass’s
next “portrait” opera, as the perfect American.
Two of the singers from Kepler, Leah Wool
and Matt Boehler, appeared as soloists at the
second Intermezzo concert the following
afternoon, further compounding the topsyturvy aspects of Glass’s method. Usually we
expect an operatic performance to supply the
comedy, drama, and compelling stage characters missing in a concert setting. When Boehler
and Wool hooked up on Cole Porter’s ‘Oyster
Song’ or clowned on Irving Berlin’s ‘You’re Just
in Love’, they reaffirmed all that had been
missing from Kepler: dialog, suspense, and living, breathing people.
Johannes Kepler was the mathematicianastronomer who refined the heliocentric view
of the solar system formulated by Copernicus
and, against formidable religious and scientific
opposition, established the shape of the planetary orbits as elliptical rather than circular. We
get that achievement off-handedly in Martina
Winkel’s moribund libretto, but Kepler’s struggle and determination to reach his findings
and have them accepted never surfaces in the
text, which leaves our hero without any named
characters to confront him.
We can only dimly perceive Kepler’s inner
turmoil as he attempts to reconcile divinity
with science. Quotes culled from Kepler’s writings certainly resound with his essence. “God
wants to be understood through the book of
nature” struck me immediately, and, later on,
even more poignantly, “Without perfect
knowledge, human life is dead.”
Glass’s style, with its clockwork repetitions,
certainly strengthens the impression that these
statements are at the heart of what made
Kepler tick. Yet stage director Sam Helfrich
was increasingly driven to desperation by the
lack of action in the libretto; he inserted intensified action in Act 2 that was shockingly disconnected from what baritone John Hancock
(Kepler), a group of six soloists listed as scholars, and the Westminster Choir were singing.
At one point the choir was divided into two
warring factions, one apparently brandishing
Bibles and the other waving scientific textbooks with equal vehemence. The staged
action had each faction choosing a champion
and the two chosen representatives squaring
off for combat as the choir circled around
them. At that moment, one of the soloists, possibly their teacher, broke up the conflict, looking up at the sky and declaiming something
totally irrelevant to the heavens.
Other scenes paraded by that were likewise
adrift from dramatic, verbal, or historic context. One by one, the scholars walked up to an
official-looking desk and reluctantly signed a
document—renouncing or traducing
Kepler?—as a scowling actor silently looked
on. Another battle was mustered deep in Act 2
where everyone fell down to the floor, many
after sprouting gouts of blood on their shirts,
though I can’t recall any weapons being
drawn.
Glass’s music certainly rose to the occasion
by echoing the unexplained turmoil. I found
the score more involving than the ordeal of
Satyagraha. There is grandeur in how the
music and libretto circle back to the beginning
after 125 minutes, zooming in on the scientist
who measured the heavens with unprecedented accuracy, intending to understand and glorify God with his achievement. But where
Verdi supplies orchestras with climaxes that
draw wild applause to fill the silences that
ensue, or where Wagner serenades us with
wondrous transitions between scenes, Glass
handed Kennedy and the Spoleto Orchestra a
jukebox. Music often stopped with a jarring
paradoxical abruptness to end episodes. After
an awkward pause, a new clockwork was set in
motion that was palpably different from the
one we just heard, but not sufficiently different
to delineate what just ended and what has
begun.
While Helfrich’s direction often raised the
question of whether Kepler is best left as an
oratorio until a competent librettist comes
along, Kennedy and baritone Hancock brought
real vitality to the music. Hancock had to dispatch much of the nebulous business that Helfrich doled out, like communing with a telescope or a pair of ghostly supernumeraries
(wife and child? Johannes and his mother?),
but his presence, his sure vocal authority, sustained the illusion that Glass’s enterprise holds
together when it has actually spun out of control.
Phoenix Pavilion, billed as an hour long,
actually clocked in at under 42 minutes. But
every moment was a rich delight because of all
the flavorful colorings Wenjing gave conductor
Ken Lam and because of all the evocative
details onstage supplied by stage director
Atom Egoyan and his wondrous design team:
Han Feng (costumes), Derek McLane (scenery), Matt Frey (lighting), Tsang Kin-Wah
(video), and Cameron Davis (projections).
The depth of the synthesis was astonishing
from the moment we sat down at Dock Street
Theatre and found ourselves projected on a
scrim that spanned across the stage. Mysterious objects were dimly visible behind the
scrim, but the only identifiable objects were an
ornate vanity mirror and a pair of sacramental
statuettes, both at the center. Even if you
noticed the camera peephole in the mirror,
what happened when the lights went down
was still surprising. For when soprano Shen
Tiemei entered from stage right as Diao Chan
and began admiring herself in the mirror, her
image was splayed across the scrim, far larger
than life-size, as we gazed at her from behind.
A figure of Ancient Chinese legend, Diao,
was enlisted to bring down the powerful warlord Dong Zhuo by sowing discord via sexual
jealousy between him and his foster son Lü Bu.
So in affairs of state, Diao’s beauty was indeed
Music in Concert
13
Phillip Glass
larger than life. As she and her unseen sponsor
Wang Yun hatched and executed their plan
that enflamed both the father and the stepson’s adoration, hundreds of additional figurines, like the two that greeted us before the
opera began, were artfully illuminated and
magnified as shadows onstage. Among the
rows of figurines that wove their spell, some
were arrayed on little carousels symmetrically
spaced at the center of the set, all put into
mesmerizing motion by either Diao or a discreet electronic switch.
About the only thing that wasn’t magical,
at least to Western ears, was the singing of the
two principals, Shen Tiemei and tenor Jiang
Qihu as Lü. I was still struggling to soften my
description of Shen’s singing to something
more benign than caterwauling when I found
myself eavesdropping on an episode of Ellen
DeGeneris’s daytime variety hour that my wife
was watching in the next room. Two six- and
eight-year-old beauty pageant contestants
were singing, and the younger one actually
reminded me of Shen. Of course, the sound of
Chinese sung in authentic Chinese opera style
wound up being exactly what we didn’t realize
we wanted.
The texture of Guo’s music was easier to
anticipate after I peeked down into the orchestra pit to see the array of instruments that Lam
would lead, a decidedly East-West assembly.
No less than three marimbas were spread
14
Music in Concert
along the back wall, adding percussive punch
to a light string section plus a clarinet, flute,
and bass clarinet. Seated directly in front of
Lam (and listed individually in the program)
was a quartet playing Chinese instruments: the
dizi (wooden flute), pipa (a lute-like instrument), erhu and gaohu (two similar bowed
instruments), and sheng (the Chinese answer
to the oboe). Pan pipes might be the Western
instrument most similar in appearance to the
sheng, played through a curved neck connected to a cluster of unevenly sized black pipes
that resembled the Chrysler building.
Diao’s cunning was icily yet sensuously
drawn, and the depiction of Lü, who usually
came rolling in from the wings (on some sort
of mechanical contraption hidden under his
regal dress), was a constant delight.
Yet I wish Guo had given us more, both to
meet Western expectations and to fully render
his legendary source materials. Our femme
fatale told us she was prepared to give her life
in service of her patriotic cause; she succeeded
in toppling the tyrannical Dong; but Feng Yi
Teng ends there. It’s as if Shakespeare and
Verdi were to end Macbeth at the point where
Duncan is murdered and Macbeth is crowned
king of Scotland. Guo’s opera would be more
powerful if we witnessed the repercussions of
Diao’s triumph, the gathering of the inevitable
payback, and her downfall. Phoenix Pavilion
could then become a full-length evening of
exquisitely grand opera. &
Wondrous Pulitzer
Foundation Festival
St Louis Opera’s Alice in Wonderland
Susan Brodie
The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
I
t’s impossible to discuss the Pulitzer Contemporary Music Festival in St Louis in June
without talking about the art and architecture of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts,
because the series would never have come into
being without it. Joseph Pulitzer, Jr, son of the
barely educated Moravian-Hungarian immigrant who founded a publishing dynasty,
became one of the most discerning art collectors of the 20th Century. His widow, Emily
Rauh Pulitzer, a former museum curator,
established the foundation as “a sanctuary and
laboratory for art, architecture, and ideas”, in
the words of Kristina Van Dyke, the Foundation’s director. It’s a glorious platform for synergies among the arts, and it begins with Tadao
Ando’s gallery, which opened in October 2001.
It’s hard to imagine the wonders in the
blank wall of polished concrete fronting the
sidewalk in the middle of a dull city block dotted with massive mid-20th Century public
buildings looming among parking lots. Archi-
tect Tadao Ando’s clean lines are distinctive
and recognizable; but the structure, with its
cantilevered planes and high, inaccessible
windows, also appears to pay homage to Frank
Lloyd Wright, the innovative architect of the
American prairie. In one of the courtyards, the
oxidized coil of Richard Serra’s Joe contrasts
with shiny walls; in another, Scott Burton’s
Rock Settee forms a naturally rough contrast to
the building’s pure lines and a shimmering
reflecting pool.
Everywhere in the building beams of natural light shift across its spaces through strategically placed apertures. Approaching the
near-hidden entrance and moving beyond the
contained vestibule, a visitor experiences a
space that explodes in multiple dimensions
and astonishing shifts in light. The main
gallery begins with exhibition space at ground
level, then suddenly drops off into a series of
stairs that draw the viewer deeper into the
building. At the bottom, at the far end of the
Music in Concert
15
long, narrow, deep space stands Ellsworth Kelly’s Blue Black, a 28-foot-high canvas designed
for the space. Here is where the musicians
play, with audience seated on the stairs. A balcony running the length of the gallery offers an
observation deck overlooking the space and a
choice and coveted vantage point for these
concerts.
The concert series was conceived not long
after the building’s opening when Richard
Gaddes, a Pulitzer trustee and former director
of the Opera Theatre of St Louis, noticed the
superb acoustics created by the spaces surrounding the main gallery. In 2004, David
Robertson, newly named music director of the
St Louis Symphony, launched the foundation’s
first chamber music series with musicians
from the orchestra performing two concerts of
music of John Adams, Pierre Boulez, Ives,
Varese, Stravinsky, and Kevin Puts (b 1972).
Subsequent programs have included music
primarily by universally recognized master
composers of the 20th Century, supplemented
with works of younger composers like Donatoni (1927-2000), Pulitzer Prize winner David
Lang (b 1957), and Frederic Rzewski (b 1938).
Each concert series was curated in conjunction with a gallery installation, making for fascinating interdisciplinary juxtapositions. Reading the old program lists, one senses that
Robertson relishes the crossing of artistic
boundaries and discovery of interactions. It’s a
stimulating series, with an enthusiastic following eager to fill those 200 uncomfortable seats.
The 2012 edition was titled “Retrospectives
and Innovations: A Celebration of 10 Years of
the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts”, in conjunction with artist Gedi Sibony’s “In the Still
Epiphany”, a thoughtful installation of works
from the Pulitzer collection. Each concert programmed at least one work that had already
been heard on a Pulitzer concert. On the June
14th program George Crumb’s Black Angels
(1970) for string quartet (doubling on percussion) had been played in 2007. It was superb,
evoking the chaos and yearning of those confused years. St Louis musicians Peter Otto, Eva
Kozma, Morris Jacob, and Bjorn Ranheim captured both the frenzy and lyrical calm of the
time, whether playing their instruments conventionally or upside down, or bowing, or
striking gongs or glasses.
The second half of the program was something of a letdown. The People United Will
Never Be Defeated!, 36 variations on a Chilean
revolutionary song for solo piano by American
Frederic Rzewski, was written for Ursula
Oppens as a companion piece for Beethoven’s
Diabelli Variations. The piece was too long by
half, at least as played by Peter Henderson in a
rough and undifferentiated performance
abounding in clunkers and blurred notes.
Still, the evening overall made me regret
16
Music in Concert
having to miss the next two concerts: a session
of works by Steve Reich and David Lang with
the fabulous So Percussion ensemble, and a
concert reprising Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen
(reportedly a transformative performance) and
works by Donatoni and Unsuk Chin.
Across town Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
had returned to the Webster Theatre for its
annual festival season. Of the four works, the
American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in
Wonderland was the big news. First seen in
Munich in 2007, Alice, with its colorful scenario and fascinating characters, would seem a
fascinating source for an opera. While most
English speakers encountered Lewis Carroll’s
masterpiece as children, Chin discovered Alice
as an adult. After reading about it in scientific
works, she was inspired to capture its surreal
qualities and universal elements.
It really doesn’t work as opera: the story of
a little girl who falls asleep on a riverbank and
dreams of strange characters talking nonsense
has no real dramatic arc with conflict and resolution. Worse, the fantastic language of that
nonsense, the essence of Carroll’s genius, is far
too intricate and dense to compete with the
visual and musical activity. Even in librettist
David Henry Hwang’s adaptation, I found
myself too often distracted by absurdist wordplay, though I’m now eager to rediscover the
original.
The production, directed by Artistic Director James Robinson, with sets by Allen Moyer,
costumes by James Schuette, video by Greg
Emetaz, and lighting by Christopher Akerlind,
was quite delightful, cleverly capturing the
fantastic elements. The score itself contains
many pleasures. Chin, known primarily for her
instrumental works, is a wizard of orchestral
color and texture. Even with her own reduced
orchestration, necessitated by the small pit,
the combinations of instruments, conducted
by Michael Christie, created an astounding
variety of sonorities with minimal resort to
extended playing techniques. But Chin’s determined eclecticism, while providing amusing
moments like two rap numbers, saps the work
of coherence and made the evening seem
longer.
Chin’s vocal writing remains a weaker element, though the young singers, coached in
English diction by Erie Mills, were largely
excellent, despite clumsy singing lines. Standouts in the large cast (36 solo singers and a
dancer, plus extras) included soprano Ashley
Emerson as Alice, countertenor David Trudgen
as both the White Rabbit and the March Hare,
mezzo Julie Makerov as the imperious Queen
of Hearts, and Aubrey Allicock as the demented, rapping Mad Hatter. Choreographer Sean
Curran danced expressively as the Mock Turtle
as well as Caterpillar, and Tracy Dahl returned
to OTSL in a sparkling cameo as the Cheshire
Cat. &
Fort Worth Opera
Texas Troupe with a Buzz
Joseph Dalton
Xanthe (Jamie-Rose Guarrine), Myrrhine (Ashley Kerr), and Sappho (Lilliana Piazza)
admire General Nico (Scott Scully) in a scene from Lysistrata
Three operas in two days means an ambitious festival in progress. When the Fort Worth
Opera reinvented itself in 2007 from the traditional format of fall and spring seasons into a
concentrated annual festival, the idea was to
draw attention and lure audiences, not just
North Texans but folks from far and wide. It
certainly seems to have worked. Some unscientific observation combined with occasional
eavesdropping showed healthy-sized crowds
of locals sprinkled with opera buffs and industry professionals from around the country.
A well packed schedule isn’t enough,
though. Good performances and interesting
programming are essential, and on these
fronts FWO is also succeeding. At each perfor-
mance, the musical execution from cast and
orchestra was very good to excellent, while sets
and costumes were substantial and fresh. Plus,
two out of the three operas—Jake Heggie’s
Three Decembers and Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata—were less than 10 years old.
Starting with the traditional, Friday May 25
was the season’s third performance of Puccini’s Tosca (I did not see this year’s fourth
opera, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro). Music
Director Joe Illick conducted a meaty and driving orchestra in support of a fine cast, including soprano Carter Scott in the title role, baritone Michael Chioldi as Scarpia, and tenor
Roger Honeywell as Cavaradossi. The violent
murder and reverent aftermath in Act II were
Music in Concert
17
appropriately riveting and chilling, yet the
ecclesiastical parade in Act I also lingers in
memory. Beneath an elaborate set, some 35
feet tall, processed a chorus of 30 adults and 15
children, plus 22 supernumeraries serving as
villagers, clerics, and even the pope.
It’s interesting trivia that both of the contemporary pieces (seen the next day) were premiered by the Houston Grand Opera. That
company, of course, has a long and distinguished track record of premieres, but seems
to have lost steam in recent years.
Other than being of recent Texas vintage
and set in English, the two newer operas might
seem to have little in common. Lysistrata is a
comedy of mythic origin and grand in scale.
It’s based on Aristophanes’s battle of the sexes
amidst the male fixation on war. By contrast,
Three Decembers is familial, poignant, and intimate. It’s about two adult American children
confronting their aging and distant mother,
who’s an aloof Broadway actress. The source is
a play by Terrance McNally.
Seeing these shows back to back in the
same day led to still more thoughts on their
contrasts and similarities.
Adamo’s opera is about two and a half
hours long, yet almost devoid of set pieces.
Minutes into the first act there’s a fart in the
brass, and the orchestral score remains fragmented and grinding. Most of the umpteen
gags are in the composer’s original libretto,
which is too clever by half. It’s heavy on dialog,
lists, and silly accents, and also overstuffed
with alliteration. Though replete with rhymes,
it’s short of poetry.
Heggie’s Three Decembers is 90 minutes of
pure lyricism. An offstage chamber ensemble
bathes the whole in long smooth lines. There’s
also a lot of conversation, some on cell
phones, but all three characters are given
space and scenes to plumb their emotional
depths. Gene Scheer’s libretto betrays the story’s roots in straight play and is sprinkled with
profanities.
Despite these different terrains, the effect
of each opera was largely the same—minimal.
Neither drew me into its musical universe or
struck home emotionally on any consistent
basis. I had one, maybe two, spontaneous
laughs in the whole of Lysistrata. In Three
Decembers the gay son’s grief after his partner
died of AIDS was unexpectedly touching; but
the family fights, profane laugh lines, and final
apotheosis of the diva mother all left me cold.
The audiences, though, seemed to eat up both
shows. There were guffaws aplenty in Lysistrata and audible sniffles at the conclusion of
Three Decembers.
Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine productions that could make the case for the two
operas any more persuasively than the FWO’s
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Music in Concert
admirable efforts. In Lysistrata soprano Ava
Pine was on top of her game as Lysia, and was
even at her best in the finale, when the libretto
peters out into a bunch of stammering syllables. Other fine supporting cast members were
tenor Scott Scully, mezzos Meaghan Deiter
and Alissa Anderson, and baritone Michael
Mayes. Conductor Illick kept the orchestra
rolling. The colorful set was a combination of
scaffolding, columns, and trompe l’oeil statuary.
There was a bit more to quibble about in
Three Decembers. Sopranos Janice Hall and
Emily Pulley looked more like sisters than
mother and daughter, and Hall’s voice had an
inconsistent tone and a few pitch problems.
Baritone Matthew Worth started out sounding
very operatic with a throaty, too-rounded tone,
but eventually settled into delivering the vernacular text with a convincing American
accent. The offstage ensemble was screechy in
the angular interludes, and I longed for a bigger sound in the swelling emotional climaxes.
The conductor was Christopher Larkin. The
sets by Bob Lavallee were chic and lavish. And,
by the way, the opera was performed with no
supertitles—a nice statement of confidence in
the ability of the singers to be understood,
which they were.
Speaking of confidence, the programming
of Lysistrata and Three Decembers is evidence
of Darren Woods, FWO’s general director, having confidence in his audience and the local
community. And here I’m not talking about
the ability of listeners to accept some new
works, but, rather, to handle the subject matter. I once heard (I think it was on PBS) an editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram say that
Tarrant County was the country’s most conservative after Orange County, California. Yet
you wouldn’t know it from the work of the Fort
Worth Opera. In 2008 they produced Peter
Eötvös’s Angels in America (Sept/Oct 2008)
and two years later premiered Jorge Martin’s
Before Night Falls (Sept/Oct 2010). Like both of
these pieces, Three Decembers overtly addresses homosexuality and AIDS. And for all the
silliness in Lysistrata, it contains a fair bit of
explicit eroticism. During the whole of Act II
the soldiers were literally hard up.
Taken as a whole, the whirlwind weekend
of opera in Cowtown was a good ride and
served as further confirmation that the Fort
Worth Opera is the Texas troupe with a buzz.
Next year’s contemporary opera, Tim
Capillo’s Glory Denied (2007), based on the
book about America’s longest-held Vietnam
prisoner-of-war, comes with a “contains
mature content” notice. In 2013 the festival
will run about a month earlier: April 20-May
12. &
Montreal Chamber Music
Festival
Ambitious Programs,
Mixed Results
Earl Arthur Love
T
his year’s 17th Montreal Chamber
Music Festival, held May 10 to June
2, offered three complete cycles of
masterworks: Bach’s Cello Suites,
Shostakovich’s String Quartets, and
Mozart’s Viola Quintets, as well as two
concerts each by violinist James Ehnes
and soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian. In
addition, the festival presented four
evenings of jazz and one of a comedy
duo. I attended 10 of the 17 concerts, all
held at St George’s Anglican Church, a
wonderful example of English Gothic Revival
architecture—a gorgeous space with excellent
acoustics.
My introduction to the festival was a master class on the Cello Suites with formidable
teacher and cellist Colin Carr. He offered what
one could call a “vegan” view of the suites. (He
told one student that her playing sounded like
meat, then turned to the audience and said,
with tongue in cheek, “Ugh”.) Canadian radio
host Eric Friesen and Quebec musicologist
Richard Turp introduced each suite over two
evenings (played in sets of 1, 3, 5 and 2, 4, 6),
using Montrealer Eric Siblin’s “The Cello
Suites” (named by The Economist one of the 10
best books of 2010) as their starting point.
Translation of remarks for the English- and
French-speaking audience made for long
evenings.
It was fascinating to hear Carr’s remarks to
the students illustrated in his own playing. For
him Bach is subtlety, sensitivity, light, economical bowing, an even pulse—in his own
words, “easy listening music”. These attributes
dominated his performances. His articulation,
intonation, phrasing, sincerity, etc., were irreproachable (notwithstanding the odd squeak).
But he could have used more dynamic contrast and passion, especially the first evening.
Apart from the sorrowful Sarabande of Suite
No. 2, there was little that deeply moved me.
This pattern was repeated for the next two
cycles. For the Shostakovich cycle, before each
of the concerts over four consecutive evenings,
author Wendy Lesser (“Music for Silenced
Voices”), with Richard Turp as translator, gave
50-minute overviews of each group of quartets. Although they were interesting, the excel-
P.H.J.B
lent program notes by Robert Strong would
have been sufficient.
The Pacifica Quartet (whose members still
appear quite young) has been around for
almost 20 years. Although technically adept,
they lack the weight to play Shostakovich convincingly. Too often their playing sounded
light-hearted and skittish. Violist Masumi Per
Rostad and cellist Brandon Vamos showed
depth, direction, and musicality; but violinists
Simin Ganatra and Sigurbjorn Bernhardsson
failed to bring out Shostakovich’s inner agonies that are the bedrock of this music. The
players did not find a common voice.
Mozart’s six string quintets were introduced by Eric Friesen and Quebec actorpianist Jean Marchand. This time, rather than
translating the other’s remarks, they offered
different commentary in each language. I
attended the first evening and heard the young
Canadian Afiara String Quartet (joined by violist Michael Tree, a founding member of the
Guarneri Quartet) perform Nos. 1 and 6. They
lacked intensity and sense of direction, they
skipped repeats and trills, and often the sound
from the cellist was scarcely audible. The performance of Quintet No. 2 by the Cecilia Quartet, also a Canadian group (with guest violist
Barry Shiffman), was not much better. There
were wrong notes, uneven meters in measures,
skipped repeats, and a general lack of drive.
This was the third time I’d heard disappointing
performances from this quartet (more below).
The high point of this year’s festival was
“Revelation Ravel: James Ehnes and Friends”.
(Why was the concert called “Revelation
Ravel?” The music was familiar; maybe the
organizers thought the performances would be
revealing?) At any rate, the overall playing was
Music in Concert
19
first-class. Despite the shaky opening by cellist
Robert deMaine, the Sonata for Violin and
Cello was impassioned and heart-stopping,
bristling with musical ideas. The Trio, with
pianist Andrew Armstrong, elicited a wide
range of emotions, from the warm sunny tone
of the first movement to the blistering Scherzo,
the reverential and ravishing Passacaglia, and
the light and joy of the finale.
In the second half of the concert the James
Ehnes Quartet, with second violinist Amy
Schwartz Moretti, violist Richard O’Neill, and
cellist De Maine, made its Canadian debut.
The performance, while slightly less impassioned than the Sonata and Trio, was a textbook illustration of sensitivity, nuance, balance, intonation, and expressivity. In a word,
perfect Ravel.
Second highest on the enjoyment meter
was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Festival
founder and artistic director, cellist Denis
Brott (formerly of the Orford Quartet), has a
reputation of taking risks. This year he booked
four jazz concerts, and I attended two. The
Band, led by maverick trumpeter Mark Braud
(whose playing sent chills up my spine),
offered two generous sets of over 45 minutes
each, with such classics as ‘That Slide Trombone’, ‘The Sun’s Gonna Shine On My Back
Door Someday’, ‘Puttin’ On the Ritz’, ‘Shake It
and Break It’, ‘St James Infirmary Blues’, and
of course, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’.
Although the first half was a little low-key,
someone must have lit a fire under them during the break, as they had the audience dancing in the aisles in the second half. I believe it
was the only sold-out concert.
My second jazz event was a performance
by the Angelo Debarre Quartet, specializing in
“manouche”—gypsy swing popularized by
Django Reinhardt in 1930s Paris. The sweet,
slow rhythms of this syrupy music are ideal for
a Paris cafe but out of context in a concert hall
(let alone a church!). Nevertheless, the music
was eminently enjoyable, the number of tunes
played generous, and the audience appreciative. Not used to this type of music, I was
struck by the fact that guitarist Angelo Debarre
and violinist Marius Apostol were the stars,
while the equally-accomplished double bassist
Antonio Licusati had only one solo (they
played 17 numbers), and “comp” guitarist
Tchavolo Hassan had none.
The low point of the Festival was appropriately named “A Little Nightmare Music” with
violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Hyugki Joo. They gave consistently cheap, gratuitous renditions of Victor Borge-type sketches
(like wiggling their bums or lying on the floor
while playing ‘Für Elise’) but without Borge’s
sophistication and wit. It’s odd that the near-
20
Music in Concert
capacity audience ate it up. It was just too
crass for my guest and me, so we left during
intermission.
The closing concert was this festival’s tradition of a double-header, a four-hour
marathon of one composer’s music—this year,
Dvorak. 17-year-old Chinese-American piano
prodigy Conrad Tao opened with the American
Suite. His excellent technique, judicious use of
the sustaining pedal, and poetic sensitivity
were marred only by some banging in the
louder passages and a squeaky piano stool.
Tao was then joined by Montreal pianist David
Jalbert in six Slavonic Dances (switching places
after the third) with expressiveness, elan, and
light touch.
The Cecilia Quartet followed after the first
intermission with Quartet No. 13, which they
recently recorded for Analekta. Their playing
sounded thin, strident, and lacking in confidence. Equal notes were played with unequal
value, portamento was used (none is indicated
in the score), and sometimes I could barely
detect the presence of the cello and the second
violin, even from the second row. They
returned later in the evening with a riveting
rendition of the Piano Quintet. Perhaps
inspired by the solid, propelling accompaniment of pianist David Jalbert, the players hit
their stride with an expressive, uplifting performance.
Andrew Wan (one of the two concertmasters from the Montreal Symphony) joined Tao
for a tightly controlled, technically impressive
Sonatina, Op. 100.
The concert and festival closed with 16
musicians giving a warm, flowing performance
of the Serenade for Strings. The string players
were joined by members of the Afiara Quartet,
Shiffman, bassist Eric Chappell, and Brott.
This year’s festival was an odd mix. Are the
organizers happy with several types of audience, or are they searching for one in particular? The two jazz concerts and the comedy
evening I attended had larger and different
audiences than the classical music concerts,
whose numbers seemed to be dropping off
near the end. Brott explained to me that he
opened it up to jazz because, like chamber
groups, each player has a single voice. Should
he then open it to other types of music?
The concert venue is intimate, attractive,
has wonderful acoustics, and is easily accessible; but it also has drawbacks. Despite the
cushions, the pews are uncomfortable, washroom facilities scarce, there is no air-conditioning, and sight lines are not great. 17 concerts plus the master class spread over 24 days
may discourage some from attending more
often, especially out-of-town visitors. But the
festival is running in the black and may therefore see no reason to change its formula. &
On the Way to Dresden
Via Berlin and Leipzig
Gil French
A scene from Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
I
n May the road to the Dresden Music Festival (next article) was paved with concerts in
Berlin and Leipzig. None was more anticipated than hearing the Berlin Philharmonic in
its home, the Philharmonie, constructed in
1962 in West Berlin, one year after the rise of
the Berlin Wall sealed off the city’s historic
hall, the Konzerthaus, as well as the famed
Staatsoper Under den Linden in East Berlin.
The Philharmonie’s logo, three differently
tilted pentagons in one, couldn’t be more apt.
The acoustics are a problem. The hall is divided into acoustical caves by walls, with remote
wings on the far sides. My seat was on the
orchestra level, row 20, dead center. I was right
in the middle of a row of about 50 seats, on the
dividing line where the otherwise straight row
is broken at an angle. Three rows behind was a
huge vertical barrier, like a ship’s prow, splitting the Philharmonie into two halls, left and
right.
The sound of the orchestra was transparent, bright yet somewhat warm, but very
direct, not at all embracing. The six string
basses Claudio Abbado used in an otherwise
full orchestra were barely audible. In Berg’s
Music in Concert
21
Altenberg Lieder the mezzo was completely
inaudible when the orchestra played forte or
louder. Was Anne Sophie von Otter having an
“off” night? No, for, when Isabelle Faust followed her as soloist in Berg’s Violin Concerto,
the same problem occurred. I was sitting
“dead center” in more ways than one.
Nor did it help that Abbado interpreted
both works with metronomic strictness and
intellectual objectivity. How I missed the concerto’s melancholy passion and the atmospheric ripeless he brought to the songs in his
1970 DG recording with Margaret Price and
the London Symphony.
With Abbado’s three performances sold
out for weeks (they were the most expensive
tickets in town), it was impossible to change
seats at intermission for Schumann’s Symphony No. 2. In it and the Genoveva Overture that
opened the concert, Abbado spent at least 75%
of his time facing the first violins, conducting
again with rigid tempos. There were plenty of
shapely melodies and rhythms, but no pulse
and no bass line. While he did use the composer’s original instrumentation, his interpretation was in complete contrast to the stirring
1960 New York Philharmonic recordings of
Schumann’s complete symphonies (on Sony)
with Leonard Bernstein, who pioneered the
use of the original scores in modern times.
Despite this, I have never encountered an
orchestra like the Berlin Philharmonic. Like
the Dresden State Orchestra and Vienna Philharmonic, its sound is unique, but for a special
reason. Here ensemble goes far beyond mere
accuracy or timbre. Body language is intense
to the last rows; players sharing music stands
relate like long-married couples, the principal
oboe and flute included. The sound is rich,
deep, beyond professional, personally contoured by players who “fit in” to the BPO
sound and listen to each other.
What’s more, this is the first time I ever
encountered 10 curtain calls, the last after
Abbado—now a healthy 79, recovered from
two serious illnesses, lean and skipping down
the stairs with his hand above the rail—had led
the orchestra off-stage and half the audience
had left. But the other half still applauded. Out
came the BPO’s former artistic director (19902002), then forced out by stomach cancer, now
alone onstage, acknowledging the audience’s
love affair with Herbert von Karajan’s successor.
Three nights later the St Petersburg Philharmonic visited the Philharmonie. From my
seat, a few rows closer but more off-center, the
sound was superbly balanced and transparent,
but still it came at me without a warm
embrace. In Liadov’s Kikimora Yuri Temirkanov (without baton) made this darker-col-
22
Music in Concert
ored ensemble dance like sprites. Nor did I
have any trouble from this seat hearing soloist
Julia Fischer in the Sibelius Violin Concerto,
though her perfection lacked angst and charisma, as if she were too studied and not
demanding enough. Didn’t she hear the gorgeously dark French horns, viola solo, and
16th-note string basses that Temirkanov lifted
right out of the orchestra? I could practically
feel the wood on the bassoons. It’s a pity she
wasn’t inspired more by the accents, sweep,
and ecstasy of the orchestra.
After intermission I moved down to the
third row center for Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Temirkanov used 10—yes, 10!—string
basses. Embracing sound at last! All the technical stuff (beats, accents, balances) were taken
care of at home. Here Temirkanov closed his
eyes, and his hands performed choreography,
his brain grasping the overall forms and his
gestures drawing long lines with terraced contrasts. I especially noted that he hummed most
of the time, not the melody or bass line but
interior lines that form the skeleton of each
movement’s structure. He maintained the second movement’s poignancy all on one line,
and the third movement’s transition to the trio
was flexible yet utterly seamless.
After two encores (one from Stravinsky’s
Pulcinella with the sensational principal string
bass’s facetious showmanship), a damsel
delivering the flowers gave two kisses Germanstyle, but 73-year-old Temirkanov held her for
Russian kiss No. 3. As her pert buttock exited,
he turned and eyed her from stem to stern,
flipping “Not bad!” eyebrows to the concertmaster. The man in front of me exploded in
guffaws. Ah, those Russians!
Between Abbado’s and Temirkanov’s conducting style came Riccardo Chailly with his
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, performing at
Berlin’s Konzerthaus, the city’s old queen of
halls, much like the Musikverein in Vienna:
shoe box, flat floor, small rear balcony and side
tiers (but with better viewing), brighter in color
(white, red, and gold), and brighter (make that
louder) acoustically. Chailly, 59, also afflicted
with recent health problems, appeared trim,
happy, and energetically one with his superb
musicians, though the orchestra’s timbre is
more generic than the BPO and St Petersburg.
In Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, in contrast
to the smiling Chailly’s bright, crisp, transparent accompaniment, Helene Grimaud lived up
to her reputation as an erratic player, sometimes hard-toned, sometimes lumbering, and
self-indulgent in her first-movement solos. Yet
in the second movement she was unmannered
and utterly lovely. Chailly’s tempos in the
finale defied any possibility of clear articulation.
If you’re familiar with Chailly’s Concertgebouw recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4
on Decca, this performance was essentially the
same, afflicted with unrelated tempo changes.
Without a continuous thread, it came off
sounding like a series of effects divided by sudden dynamic changes (tossed at the orchestra
with big gestures), big climaxes, and woodwind breaths that broke the line. Chailly
couldn’t hold steady tempos in the third
movement. He even dickered with the fourth
movement’s final four harp notes, adding
accents and a retard. Soprano Christina Landshamer’s Slavic timbre was tempered by a softly floating tone in the text’s refrains. Was it my
mood or the bright acoustics that made the
Gewandhaus seem less subtle than the other
two orchestras?
Daniel Barenboim was appointed music
director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden
(Berlin State Opera) in 1992 and has been
appointed conductor for life of the orchestra.
Like James Levine did at the Met, he has transformed the orchestra into a world-class instrument (see Mahler festival reviews in July/Aug
2007 and Sept/Oct 2009). With its historic theater now closed for renovation at least through
2015, it currently performs in the 1,067-seat,
visually unremarkable Schiller Theater, which
has a completely open orchestra pit and dry
but well-projected sound.
In 2004 three ballet companies were combined into the Staatsballet Berlin and now perform at the city’s three opera houses. While the
company’s leading dancers are not the most
soaring, its traditional production of John
Cranko’s Onegin showed a basic corps (12 couples) of consummate ensemble even in the
most intricate and imaginative choreography.
Modest sets, rich period costumes, and excellent lighting were upstaged by the electric
dynamism and mood shifts of two of the company’s lead dancers, Nadja Saidakova as
Tatiana and Wieslaw Dudek as Onegin, assisted by the superb pacing, stylish rhythms, and
high drama American conductor Paul Connelly drew from the Berlin Staatskapelle in KurtHeinz Stolze’s orchestration of mostly obscure
piano works by Tchaikovsky and a condensed
version of Francesca da Rimini for the breathtaking finale (Cranko rejected the use of any
music from the opera).
Michael Thalheimer’s stupid stage direction of Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio
put the Unter den Linden to shame. Not a
prop on the stage, only a stage divided into
two floors. The cast wore inane unrelated
Eurotrash costumes. Gestures were worthy of a
high school production, except for attempts at
dog-like sex. My partner said, “Can you imagine Dmitri Hvorostovsky doing that?” I replied,
“He’d shove it right in some twit director’s
face!” And nothing beat the Pasha, using a
hoarse voice that sounded like a frenzied Adolf
Hitler, except for “count 1-2-3” pauses
between each sentence. At least Hitler understood rhythm. Above all, the singers were
provincial at best (unforgiveable in a major
house), except for Corneila Götz as Blonde.
Englishman Christopher Mould’s strongly
characterized, superbly paced conducting of
the Staatskapelle was the evening’s other saving virtue.
So it was with trepidation that I moved on
to Leipzig to see Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of
the City of Mahagonny the next night at the
Leipzig Opera’s communist-built house—
plain, rectangular, but with a large stage, open
orchestra pit, and superb acoustics. At first I
feared, “No sets again!” But then a few props
appeared in front of the huge digital moviescreen backdrop. The stage was black, but
stunning lighting, Ingo Krügler’s colorful and
tasteful period costumes, Kerstin Polenske’s
brilliant staging, and magnificent singing gave
every person on stage individual character.
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra was large
enough (saxophones replace violas in the
score) to give an orchestral richness even to
the Bach chorale-like allusions in the finale.
Ulf Schirmer’s conducting accented the
humor, drama, and pathos. The general
impression was one of spontaneity, but nothing was left to chance in this visually and
aurally sumptuous production.
My only visit to the Gewandhaus itself was
for a performance of the orchestra of the
Leipzig Academy that was founded by Mendelssohn himself. Felix would have rolled over
in his grave if he had heard this pathetic
ensemble of college-level players plus a few
professionals. (I wonder if the hall sounds this
bright with its home ensemble?) Director
Horst Förster is to blame for unbelievably
shoddy tuning, soggy rhythmic pulse, blaring
brass, unarticulated strings, and utter lack of
balances in Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon
of a Faun and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.
Different flutists utterly destroyed their opening phrases in both works. (For a distinguished
student orchestra, see the next article.)
The orchestra was at least tolerable in
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18. Only soloist
Ukrainian-German Alexej Gorlatch, who turns
30 this year and was winner of the 2011 ARD
Competition in Munich and silver medalist at
Leeds in 2009, was truly worth hearing. His
encore, Chopin’s Etude, Op. 10:4, was as highly dramatic and sharply etched as the Mozart
was finely articulated and delicately phrased.
He’s a talent to watch. &
Music in Concert
23
Dresden Music Festival
Variety, Ecstasy, and Healing
Gil French
Jan Vogler.
A
mericans are so uptight compared to
people in Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden,
where it’s rare to see anyone using a cell
phone, etc. in public. Everything except food
establishments and museums—even the massive shopping mall in central Dresden—is
closed on Sundays. So people ride their bikes
with friends or family (including kids), stop
and have a brew, eat, look at one another, and
enjoy each another’s company, which is exactly what they do at concerts. They’re social
events; people arrive an hour early, visit, drink,
eat, then do the same again at intermissions,
which are at least a half-hour long.
Inside the concert halls they’re again the
opposite of uptight Americans. They don’t fidget with their programs, shift in their seats,
adjust their hair, or take 30 seconds to unwrap
those damnable cough drops. They sit perfect-
24
Music in Concert
ly still, glued to the performers. And when
the concert is over, they don’t let their
musicians go without a minimum of five
curtain calls, as some gradually stand and
others begin to voice their ovations.
During my May 23 to 28 visit to this
year’s Dresden Music Festival (May 15 to
June 3), no ovations were more demonstrative than the ones for the debut of the
period-instrument Dresden Festival
Orchestra at the Semperoper (officially the
Saxon State Opera House) on Pentecost
Monday morning (a national holiday when
all stores were closed for a second day in a
row). Its rich, projected acoustics make
this Dresden’s best concert hall, with curtains dropped behind the performers, further back for full orchestra, right at the
proscenium for chamber groups.
Because Ivor Bolton led them with
such spry tightly-sprung rhythms, transparent textures, terraced balances, and
keenly shaped harmonic flow supporting
highly expressive melodies, it took until
half-way into the concert before I realized
they played with little to no vibrato.
Johann Naumann’s Haydnesque Overture
to Acis and Galatea sprung right out of the
box, followed by two arias, one coloratura,
one adagio, with sultry soprano Danielle
DeNiese. She not only thought “line”; her
gestures, posture (her body rotates around
her anchored diaphragm), and eye contact
were firmly rooted on Bolton and the
orchestra. After a dazzling Exsultate, Jubilate by Mozart, this consummate team
player directed all of her alluring presence and
evident joy toward her musical partners.
One reason WF Bach’s bassy Symphony in
D, F 64, Haydn’s Violin Concerto No. 3, and
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 were ebullient
successes was the fact that baroque violinist
Giuliano Carmignola was not only soloist in
the Haydn but concertmaster of the orchestra.
But more important was Bolton’s conducting
style: yes, he attended to melodic shape, beat,
balance, and pulse; but, above all, he was a
choreographer who made the music dance.
After the Beethoven, with cutting long-bore
trumpets and tightly-rapped timpani, and five
curtain calls, he responded with an encore,
repeating the final movement, but this time
even tighter, brighter, and more dance-like.
Three ovations later, all he could say was,
“We’re new. We have such limited repertoire.”
As everyone left, it took several minutes before
I could speak again.
The Semperoper is the home of the famed
150-member, self-governing Dresden State
Orchestra (Staatskapelle: funded mainly by the
state of Saxony, residing in Dresden, able to
serve simultaneously as the opera’s orchestra,
a concert orchestra, and a chamber orchestra,
and the biggest supplier of players to the
Bayreuth Festival). With its unique, profound,
dark timbre, and ultra-creamy violins and
(especially) violas, it was on home territory in
Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8. New chief conductor Christian Thielemann began phrases
with exquisitely transparent pianissimos and
built to climaxes that I swore would crack the
plaster in this ripe, relatively “close” house of
1300 seats with four balconies. But his excited
tempos were erratic, dividing each movement
into gorgeously played but self-indulgent
patches. With overarching form, Bruckner is
monumental; without it, he sounds naive and
interminable, which is what Thielemann
wrought.
The most anticipated concert at the Semperoper, with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra, was by far the worst festival performance I heard. In Bartok’s Miraculous
Mandarin Suite and Strauss’s Heldenleben, the
orchestra, which lacked the distinctive character of the Berlin Philharmonic or Dresden and
sounded as generic as most orchestras in Great
Britain or the US, was certainly prepared, but
the lifeless Gergiev was not. His head was so
buried in the scores it seemed he’d never seen
them before. Tempo relationships were nonexistent in the Bartok. And while Thielemann
broke the music into patches, Gergiev
stretched it with terminal, decelerating tempos. The violin solo in the Strauss was so interminable and the interpretation so “phoned in”
that I would have walked out, had I not been
stuck dead center in a row of about 50 seats.
In Honegger’s Cello Concerto Gergiev at
least had the decency to create a light, airy
space around soloist Jan Vogler and give terrific support to his spiky jazz, longing melancholy, and coloratura playing. How dare he
not! Vogler is the festival’s director.
The Semperoper, first built by Gottfried
Semper in 1841, destroyed by fire in 1869 and
by the Allies’ fire bombs in 1945, and resurrected once again in 1985, is but one of the
many historic performance spaces, churches,
palaces, and museums authentically rebuilt on
the south side of the Elbe River (the more residential north side was spared the bombs).
They form the historical heart of this city,
whose attractive but large, weighty structures
convey the absolute authority of Augustus II
(elector of the Austro-Hungarian emperor,
King of Poland, and known as the Strong, alias
Hercules or Iron-Hand—prolific too, fathering
over 250 children).
Unlike Berlin and Leipzig, both heavy with
German-speaking tourists in May, Dresden
was my first encounter with masses of tour
groups led by umbrella- or flag-wielding
guides. More than the lines of people to see the
fabulous jewels collected by Augustus II and
the stunning collection of paintings (better
than anything in Berlin) collected by Augustus
III were the ones for Dresden’s emotional centerpiece, the Frauenkirche (Lutheran Church
of our Lady), finally reopened in 2005
(March/April 2006).
The 1800 seat structure, at least nine stories tall (not counting the dome) with at least
five balconies and a six-second reverberation,
is not the place to hear a concert if one wants
to appreciate the music, especially when
played by a period-instrument ensemble
(Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) and
sung by a tenor (Ian Bostridge) performing
Bach pitched below his optimum range. On
the main floor I could at least hear Bostridge’s
diction, but orchestral and solo articulation
were impossible to hear in Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 and several sinfonias from cantatas. At intermission I moved up to the third
balcony, where I could finally see the orchestra, which projected a bit more clearly but
where Bostridge was merely distant vowels.
Dresden’s worst concert hall is the Kulturpalast, a huge communist box that authorities
are attempting to get permission to close in
December for renovation. It is home of the
town’s decidedly second orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic (funding mainly from the
city), judging from the results permanent first
guest conductor Markus Poschner’s windmill
gestures got in Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture
and Prokofieff’s Violin Concerto No. 2. Precision, ensemble, and transparency were weak.
Subtle he was not. Nor was violinist Vadim
Repin, who was usually ahead of the beat,
making the concerto sound as if he’d played it
too often. Deciding I had nothing more to
learn here by staying for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, I left at intermission to hear a wild
Moldavian.
The setting for Patricia Kopatchinskaya, a
stunning Moldavian violinist, and her parents,
violinist Emilia and cimbalom player Viktor
Kopatchinsky, plus the gripping pianist
Mihaela Ursuleasa, plus string bassist Martin
Gjakonovski in some Eastern European folk
music, was the stunning, modern, ecologically
pristine Volkswagen factory (where luxury
Phaetons are made), found in the Grosser
Garten, Dresden’s Central Park! In the corner
of a production floor, with suspended body
Music in Concert
25
frames glowing royal blue with backlighting,
Patricia and Mihaela were so possessed of the
kinds of authentic rhythms, flowing rubato,
accents, and uninhibited ethnic style that I’ll
never be happy with another performance
again. The same happened in Ravel’s Tzigane
(a week later when hearing an elegant recording of it with Elmar Oliveira, how I longed for
that Eastern European intoxication only
natives possess). Still, not even these players
could make me appreciate my first hearing of
Kurtag’s Eight Duos for violin and cembalom
and Enesco’s Violin Sonata No. 3.
The second floor of the small, still partly
ruined Palais in the same Grosser Garten was
the perfect acoustic for two chamber concerts
on May 27, one probably only the second performance of an opera written (both music and
Italian libretto) in 1835 by Princess Amalie von
Sachsen (Duchess of Saxony) called La Casa
Disabitata (The Uninhabitable or Haunted
House). The supplied text was only in German,
but the plot was easy enough, about false
impressions and married jealousy, all working
out in the end. The score, “stolen” by the Russians in the 19th Century, still resides in
Moscow and was made available for this one
and only “concert” performance (full staging
not permitted). Like the Frauenkirche-Coventry Cathedral parallelism, this resurrection was
part of Vogler’s “war, peace, and healing”
theme that works its way into every festival.
Von Sachsen’s music, reminiscent of
Haydn and Rossini, has “farce” written all over
it. Conductor Helmut Branny told the story
with his facial expression and hands, as the 29
Dresden Kapellsolisten (from the orchestra), lit
only by music-stand lights, played behind the
nine soloists spread across the front of the
stage. The fully professional singers ranged
from adequate to distinguished. Soprano Anja
Zügner was the best in both voice and gesture,
hilarious with her inflected Italian. Branny
maintained a continuous sprite-like atmosphere that made the 90 minutes pass quickly.
The hall’s acoustics flattered everyone.
Earlier that same day Cafe Zimmermann
(two violins, two violas, one cello, one theorbo,
and a portative organ) performed “Baroque
Music from Vienna” by Biber, Froberger, and
Schemlzer. In the Palais I could feel the vibrations on my skin and in my bones, even with
period instruments. The acoustics gave a comforting cushion to music that I instantly forgot.
This was an interior experience: the performers were careful, clean, nicely rhythmic, but
deadly serious, rarely leaving the scores to
make eye contact or register pleasure; the
audience too was totally concentrated on the
music and players—rare the bobbing head. I
prefer a more expressionist musical experience.
26
Music in Concert
I got Saturday afternoon at the Dresden
Messe, the equivalent of a state fair grounds,
with conductor Kristjan Jarvi. One British
music critic said he couldn’t stand him, I gathered, because he moves. A lot! He is founder
and chief conductor of the Baltic Youth Philharmonic, based on a German island near
Hamburg. In Mahler’s Suite for Orchestra
based on Bach’s orchestral suites, he elicited
long, seamless, remarkably transparent lines
in the ‘Air on a G String’ and highly rhythmic,
keenly articulated, infectious rhythms in the
other movements, even in the equivalent of an
airport hangar. Here was student playing that
put Leipzig’s Academy Orchestra to utter
shame.
Jarvi is also chief conductor of Leipzig’s
MDR (Mid-German Radio) Symphony, the
city’s second orchestra, which, of course, produces a much larger sound. In Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 8, while the tempos in each
movement at first seemed too fast, Jarvi made
them work because he had a firm grip on the
form of each movement and because the highly defined enunciation, accents, contrasts, and
superbly terraced balances revealed the inner
voices. Each movement had a defined character. He caught the humor of the second movement perfectly, the horns in the third movement must have been wearing dancing shoes,
the principal cellist practically needed a seat
belt, and the total commitment of the orchestra to its new director implied that this successor to Fabio Luisi and Jun Märkl assures this
orchestra’s ascendency.
The dark side of modern German history
seemed below the surface during my three
weeks in Germany, but entrepreneurs like
Vogler manage to address it and heal the
wounds through their art. Thus he brought to
the festival Michael Sturmiger’s Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer that John
Malkovich, two sopranos, conductor Martin
Haselböck and the Vienna Academy Orchestra
have been touring with for several years.
Malkovich gradually subsumed the character of Austrian Jack Unterweger, a mutilator
and mass murderer of prostitutes in both Austria and Los Angeles, and mass deceiver of
intellectuals and the justice system alike.
Sopranos Sophie Klussman and Martene
Grimson sang nine arias by Gluck, Boccherini,
Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Weber
echoing the web of doubt Malkovitch wove.
The onstage orchestra sounded whiny, with
poor balance and articulation in the Schauspielhaus’s acoustics; but Grimson more than
made up for it with her electrifying voice and
acting skills. The theme of the play stays with
me and tempers any judgemental thoughts:
“Did Jekyll know what Hyde was doing?” &
English Country House Operas
Garsington and Glyndebourne
Edward Greenfield
La Perichole by Offenbach: Naomi O'Connell (title role) Robert Murray (Piquillo)
T
he most enjoyable of the offerings this
year on England’s Country House Opera
circuit was easy to pick: Offenbach’s
operetta La Perichole at Garsington Opera in
its new home on the Paul Getty estate at
Wormsley in the English Midlands, not too far
from Oxford. There they have built a removable opera pavilion, extremely handsome with
its glass walls, but still with an inbuilt heating
problem. Opera-lovers were warned to wear
something warm against the chill of the English summer.
Not that La Perichole fell short of warmth,
thanks largely to the inspired conducting of
David Parry with the excellent Garsington
Orchestra supporting a splendidly consistent
cast. Written in 1868, La Perichole is a satire on
Paris Society under Napoleon III and the Second Empire. The action is transferred to colonial Peru, with the Viceroy (played by Geoffrey
Dolton with plenty of character) a thinly disguised portrait of the womanising Napoleon
III, notoriously pursuing one mistress after
another, ensuring that each one is safely married off.
La Perichole, a street-singer, attracts the
Viceroy’s attentions, which she welcomes for
want of food. The problem is to ensure that the
man she is forced to marry is her beloved
Piquillo, sweet if a little dim. This plot inspired
Offenbach to a whole range of his most delicious tunes, with infectious waltzes galore and
many numbers with a nice Spanish flavor. It
was some 30 years since the piece was produced in Britain. The Garsington production
raises hopes that it will prompt a whole
sequence of Offenbach revivals there.
The staging, with Jeremy Sams as director
(as well as translator) and Francis O’Connor as
designer, was a delight, with a typical Paris
scene turning inside out to reveal an equally
atmospheric interior. The cast was consistently good, with Naomi O’Connell as a feisty Perichole and even such a charismatic singer as
Simon Butteriss (always brilliant in Gilbert and
Sullivan patter songs) consigned to the role of
Music in Concert
27
La Perichole by Offenbach: Simon Butteriss (Don Pedro,) Geoffrey Dolton (Viceroy of
Peru), and Mark Wilde (Panatellas)
the Governor, Don Pedro, who does not even
have a solo.
The other likewise timely offering at Garsington was Vivaldi’s long-buried opera,
L’Olimpiade, chiming with this year’s London
Olympics. Forget making sense of the highly
involved plot that mixes competition in the
games with competition in love. What matters
is that the piece offers an unfailing sequence of
jolly numbers with just an occasional more
serious minor-key solo. In 1734 Vivaldi originally had a trio of castratos; two of the roles
were taken here by excellent countertenors
(Tim Mead, unusually powerful as the hero
Licida, and Michael Maniaci as his tutor
Aminta), and the third by agile mezzo Emily
Fons as Megacle, who was just as impressive.
Beside them the dark bass of Riccardo
Novaro as King Clistene brought the necessary
contrast, while the scholarly Laurence Cummings, who had edited the score, including an
update of the Chariots of Fire theme, drew
lively and responsive playing from the modern-instrument orchestra. Director David
Freeman gave signs of being desperate to fill
out the spectacle with visual tricks, but the
whole entertainment worked with admirable
smoothness.
Meanwhile, Glyndebourne’s first offering
of the season was a new production of
Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen, directed by
Molly Still, who three years ago directed a winning production of Dvorak’s Rusalka. What
dominated on this occasion was the beauty of
Janacek’s orchestration, played by the London
Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski, music
director of Glyndebourne and principal conductor of the LPO. In his detached way Jurows-
28
Music in Concert
ki made every texture transparent, adding to
the evocative atmosphere of the forest setting.
The controversial point of the production
was that the animals were presented as pantomime characters, with the chickens as a chorus-line of showgirls and both the Vixen and
the Fox incommoded by having to carry their
huge tails around with them. That device
undermined the contrast between animals and
humans that’s at the heart of the story, but in
practice it was easy enough to put that out of
mind in the face of the magical sounds from
the orchestra.
Casting was generally good, with Lucy
Crowe as the Vixen and Emma Bell as the Fox,
both outstanding, most of all in their touching
duet in Act 2. The busy movement on stage
sometimes made it hard to follow the story,
even when the Vixen ousts the Badger from his
lair; but again one was consistently seduced by
the magic of orchestral sound.
With the revival of Peter Hall’s 2005 production of Rossini’s Cenerentola, the wonder
was that a production that controversially
eliminated the supernatural element in the
story by introducing a commentator called Alidoro seemed natural and effective this time.
That this revival had such a success was largely
due not just to a consistently strong cast led by
Elizabeth DeShong in the title role but especially to the sparkling conducting of the LPO
by young American James Gaffigan. How satisfying it was when we were led up to the
supreme pay-off so brilliantly in what could
well be counted as Rossini’s most dazzling
showpiece for coloratura contralto, ‘Non Piu
Mesta’. A total delight. &
Here & There
Appointments, Awards, & News
Music Director Stefan Sandering, who previously announced he would leave the Florida
Orchestra at the end of his contract in 2014,
has departed two years early. As a result, 201314 programming has been seriously revamped
and seven guest conductors have been added
to the five already scheduled. Sanderling will
conduct one concert in each of the coming two
seasons.
Jeff Tyzik has signed a three-year contract to
become principal pops conductor of the Florida Orchestra beginning this year. He holds the
same position with the Oregon and Vancouver
(BC) Symphonies as well as the Rochester Philharmonic, where he began in 1994.
Andrew Litton became artistic advisor of the
Colorado Symphony September 1. Over the
course of his three-year contract he will program the seasons and conduct at least two
concerts a year.
Andrew Davis has signed a four-year contract
to become chief conductor of Australia’s Melbourne Symphony starting in January, succeeding Oleg Caetani, who departed suddenly
in 2009. Also, Davis, who began as music director and principal conductor of the Lyric Opera
of Chicago in 2000, has extended his contract
there until 2021.
Jeff Tyzik
David Itkin, music director of the Las Vegas
Philharmonic since 2007, announced in June
that he will leave the orchestra in 2013 as a
result of what he called “artistic differences
and a lack of institutional transparency”. The
board accepted his decision 15-0.
Violinist Vadim Gluzman has been appointed
creative partner and principal guest artist for
the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus OH, starting with the 2013-14 season.
Glenn Dicterow has announced that he will
step down as the longest-serving concertmaster in the history of the New York Philharmonic at the end of the 2013-14 season after 34
years in the position.
David Robertson has signed a four-year contract to become artistic director and chief conductor of Australia’s Sydney Symphony in
2014, succeeding Vladimir Ashkenazy. He is
also music director of the St Louis Symphony.
Matthias Pintscher, 41, has signed a three-year
contract to become music director of the
Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain in
2013. The German conductor lives in New York
City.
Asher Fisch has signed a three-year contract to
become principal conductor of the West Australian Symphony in Perth in 2014, succeeding
Paul Daniel. He is currently principal guest
conductor of the Seattle Opera.
Simon Halsey became director of the London
Symphony Chorus in August. He is also chief
conductor of the Berlin Radio Choir and director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus.
The Toronto Symphony has given two-year
appointments to Israeli-born Canadian
Shalom Bard as resident conductor and Hong
Kong-born Canadian Kevin Lau as affiliate
composer, part of the orchestra’s first formal
Emerging Artists Program to foster the development of leaders in the Canadian arts community. It is funded by the RBC Foundation
(part of RBC Wealth Management) and the
Canadian Council for the Arts.
In May the Royal Danish Opera appointed
Michael Boder principal conductor and artistic advisor and Sven Müller artistic director,
following the sudden double resignations of
Jacob Hrusa and Keith Warner in January,
owing to severe government budget cuts.
Boder has been music director of Barcelona’s
Gran Teatro del Liceu since 2008. Müller has
been acting artistic director since January.
Music in Concert
29
Elaine Calder, president of the Oregon Symphony since 2007, resigned August 31 to
become executive director of the Shaw Festival
in Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, Canada,
where she held the same position 1990-94. She
leaves the orchestra in the black for a third
consecutive year.
Two young American artists were awarded
2012 Avery Fisher Career Grants in May: 22year-old violinist Benjamin Beilman, first
prize winner of the 2010 Montreal International Music Competition and third prize winner
of the 2010 Indianapolis Violin Competition;
and 18-year-old pianist Conrad Tao, currently
a Gilmore Young Artist.
Kentuckian Tessa Clark, 23, was the winner of
the Naumberg Violin Competition in New York
City in June. Second place went to South Korean Elly Suh, 23, and third to South Korean
Kristin Lee, 26.
Rochester Philharmonic Music Director Arild
Remmereit was given the first-ever Amy
Award for Excellence in Orchestral Programming in May from the Women’s Philharmonic
Advocacy, founded in 2008 to promote the
performance of orchestral and ensemble
works by women. Remmereit programmed
works by women on each of the eight concerts
he conducted in his 2011-12 inaugural season,
with eight more works scheduled this coming
season.
St Louis Symphony musicians ratified a new
contact in June, 14 months ahead of the expiration of their current contract. The new one
calls for an annual minimum wage increase of
5% from $81,892 to $86,053 over four years,
and a 1.5% increase in the pension contribution rate.
Obituaries
Cecil Refik Kaya, 20, from Turkey was the winner in June of the 2012 JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Competition in Buffalo. Petrit
Ceku, 27, from Croatia was second, and
Ekachai Jearakul, 25, from Thailand was third.
Kaya, the youngest contestant, currently studies at Mannes College in New York City and
Ceku at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. Jearakul was first prize winner of competitions in South Korea, Mexico, Italy, France,
and Spain in 2010 and 2011.
Cecil Refik Kaya
American soprano Evelyn Lear, 86, died on
July 1 at a nursing center in Sandy Spring MD.
Famous in opera houses around the world for
her performances from Mozart to Berg, she is
perhaps most remembered for her lead roles
in Alban Berg’s two operas, particularly Lulu.
American soprano Judith Nelson, 72, died on
May 28 in Albany CA after suffering from
Alzheimer’s disease for 12 years. She was an
important voice in the early music movement
with her early links to and recordings with
René Jacobs, Christopher Hogwood, and the
Academy of Ancient Music. She was also a
founding member of the Philharmonia
Baroque Orchestra.
The winners in June of the 2012 Montreal
International Music Competition (this year for
voice) were Canadian bass-baritone Philippe
Sly, 23 (first prize); soprano Olga Kindler, 31,
of Switzerland (second); and American baritone John Brancy, 23 (third).
30
Music in Concert
Violinist Roman Totenberg, 101, died from
kidney failure on May 8 at his home in Newton
MA. Renowned as he was as a soloist, he was
even more influential as a teacher at Boston
University for more than 50 years. He was the
father of National Public Radio’s legal affairs
correspondent, Nina Totenberg.
ConcertsEverywhere
L.A. Philharmonic & Master Chorale
Adams: Gospel According
to the Other Mary
(world premiere)
John Adams is at the point in his ever-ascending career where whatever he wants, he gets.
And for his newest composition, The Gospel
According To The Other Mary, he got a lot: the
services of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, its
celebrity music director Gustavo Dudamel,
and the crack Los Angeles Master Chorale,
two-and-a-half-hours of playing time at Walt
Disney Concert Hall, and a complex web of
blue-chip commissioning groups (the Phil,
Lincoln Center, London’s Barbican, the
Lucerne Festival, Paris’s Salle Pleyel, and the
Amsterdam Concertgebouw’s Radio 4 series).
The premiere was on May 31; I heard it on
June 3. The results, even at what looks to be an
early stage in the work’s development, were
worth the bother. This is one impressive, fascinating, even surreal piece of music as it
stands—possibly the most significant Philharmonic commission since Lutoslawski’s Symphony No. 4 (1993).
The Gospel is chronologically a sequel to
Adams’s re-telling of the Nativity, El Nino, as it
deals with Jesus’s final days using contemporary metaphors. Once again, the PC agenda of
Adams’s persistent collaborator Peter Sellars,
who patched together another libretto for
Adams from sources like the Bible, June Jordan, Hildegard von Bingen, and several others,
is driving the train. A troubled Mary Magdalene and her more practical sister Martha run a
hospitality home for homeless women, Mary
details her harrowing experiences in the
Bethany city jail, and Cesar Chavez addresses
striking farm workers.
I found, though, that the best way to deal
with the agenda on first hearing is to forget
about it and dive into Adams’s painstakingly,
exquisitely detailed sound world, whose colors
are often quite different from any other Adams
work, humble or grand. The pitches sometimes drift, and invented modes take us out of
the usual scales. The massive 449-page score is
underpinned by exotic elements like the Hungarian cimbalom that lends a jangling edge to
the texture and an electric bass guitar that fortifies the lower end.
John Adams
Three countertenors (Daniel Bubeck, Brian
Cummings, and Nathan Medley), together or
often in canon, served as otherworldly narrators. The orchestra was not large, but the array
of percussion instruments included an encyclopedic collection of tuned gongs and syncopated cowbells. The chorus, when not singing,
was sometimes asked to mutter, babble, shout,
and scream at random, reinforced by a prerecorded soundtrack.
There was a weirdly beautiful, vibrating,
hazy sense of mystery in the best parts of this
score, along with jumpy, brutal violence. Some
found it too long, but it held my attention for
149 minutes.
Mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor (Mary)
and contralto Tamara Mumford (Martha) sang
with force and emotion, even when challenged
at the very bottom of their ranges; and tenor
Russell Thomas was ringing as Lazarus.
Dudamel was unusually yet understandably
restrained in his motions, still assimilating a
difficult new score, but he pulled it off like a
seasoned trouper. He will have many more
opportunities to do so, for The Gospel will be
performed here again next March with the
same cast in a fully-staged production by Sellars and then taken on tour to New York, London, Lucerne, and Paris.
RICHARD S GINELL
Music in Concert
31
Los Angeles Master Chorale
Music of Henryk Gorecki
The Los Angeles Master Chorale has not had
the recognition it deserves outside the city limits, one reason being that their recording profile had been very low. But that situation has
changed dramatically in the last few years
under Music Director Grant Gershon.
And they have done it the hard way—with
new music. After a handful of releases on the
small RCM label, the Master Chorale appeared
on two high-visibility Steve Reich albums for
Nonesuch. Then in 2010 came the big break, a
contract with Decca that bore immediate fruit
with an album of attractive music by the fashionable American composer Nico Muhly. And
this fall there will be another, an all-Henryk
Gorecki CD that Gershon and the Master
Chorale previewed at Walt Disney Concert Hall
on June 10, before the recording sessions later
in the week.
All three Gorecki works on the program
had been performed by them in previous seasons, so they were ready for the project. Two of
the three, Lobgesang and Five Marian Songs,
had never been recorded by anyone, though
there were a few recordings of Miserere after it
was banned by the Polish Communist government from public performance for six years.
Why ban a Miserere? Well, it was dedicated
to the city of Bydgoszcz, the site of a violent
32
Music in Concert
beating of Solidarity delegates by the authorities in 1981. Gershon claims that the music is
“a representation of Solidarity in music”.
There is some truth, perhaps inadvertently, to
that, as it does seem to reflect the people gradually coming together to join a movement. The
music begins deep in the basses, very slowly
and quietly, mostly notes one step apart from
each other. Then the baritones, tenors, altos,
and sopranos come in sequentially, the
stacked harmonies become more modern and
complex, and the texture turns brighter and
more resounding. If this sounds similar to the
formula that drives the opening movement of
Gorecki’s famous Symphony No. 3, it is,
though the Miserere’s building blocks aren’t as
immediately emotional and flowing as in the
symphony.
There was a not-so-hidden meaning in
Lobgesang, a simple, gorgeous “song of praise”
that, in the meticulously hushed ‘ewig’ coda,
casts its own quiet spell. That spell is broken
only by the delicate pings of the glockenspiel
(the only instrument heard all night) spelling
out the name of Johannes Gutenberg in musical notation (the piece was written for the city
of Mainz, Gutenberg’s birthplace).
There is an appealing folk-like element in
at least two of the Five Marian Songs, one of
which moves back and forth hauntingly on two
chords. The Master Chorale luxuriated in the
harmonies. From the tart sound of their
accents, the singers evidently had been well
coached by their Polish language consultant.
While it was hard to justify a reason for
Brahms’s motet ‘Schaffe in Mir, Gott, ein Rein
Herz’ (Create in Me, God, a Clean Heart) in the
middle of the program other than that Gershon likes it (its contrapuntal workings clashed
with Gorecki’s latter-day simplicity), one can’t
deny that it was warmly and liltingly sung.
RICHARD S GINELL
New York Philharmonic
Park Avenue Armory
Concert
The soaring heights of the Drill Hall in New
York City’s Park Avenue Armory and its paneled, portrait-lined anterooms currently make
the 1861 structure handier for posh art shows
than for troop training. Since 2007, the Armory
has also been used for site-specific and spacerelated performances. A June 29 concert called
“Philharmonic 360” with Stockhausen’s tripleorchestra Gruppen alongside a segment of
Mozart’s Don Giovanni was a creative venture
by New York Philharmonic Music Director
Alan Gilbert.
Gilbert is emerging as an outside-the-box
programmer. Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen,
Ligeti’s Grand Macabre, the “Contact!” new
music series in halls smaller than Avery Fisher,
and the Marie-Josee Kravis Award (this year
given to Henri Dutilleux) all suggest to audiences that they’d better stay tuned. For “360”
the Armory held 1450 people, counting three
sections of bleachers, standing room in the
rafters, and floor seating on legless chairs.
That’s not gigantic, but the sold-out event,
which also included works by Gabrieli, Boulez,
and Ives, was repeated the next night and
eventually streamed on the Web.
Typically for Gilbert’s experiments, there
was much to see, beginning with the audience
entering past a formation of costumed and
bewigged Don Giovanni cast members (costumes by Kaye Voyce) standing still like mannequins. Bleacher stands were placed among
three back-lighted orchestra stages (colored
panels by Brian Aldous and Kyle Chepulis),
and three conductors faced their ensembles
and listeners from different angles. Musicians
were in Steve-Reich black casual. Whoever
said there were no bad seats was right; in the
great circle, everyone could see.
Before daring to contemplate the time and
cost of rehearsal, know that this program was
about space. Some pieces worked better than
others: the wondrous Gabrieli brass canzona
(unannounced), Gruppen (obviously), and
Ives’s Unanswered Question—expectedly, if
you think about it. Mozart composed Don Giovanni for an opera stage with pit opera orchestra, but the Act I finale had neither. There were
no train wrecks, but moments of orchestral
non-sync were frequent.
Gruppen, the inspiration for this concert,
came after intermission. After more than half a
century, the aleatoric serial piece—recorded
several times but seldom heard in concert
because of its complex, grandiose demands—
sounds dated and, if not tame, relatively
peaceable. Besides timpani licks, its marimba
plinks and percussive plunks sparkled like
glassware in a china cabinet.
The conductors—Gilbert plus the game
Magnus Lindberg, completing his composer
residency with the Philharmonic, and Matthias
Pintscher, newly appointed head of Ensemble
Intercontemporain—used big un-nuanced
gestures and no batons. (Gilbert’s mostlystring group included concertmaster Glenn
Dicterow.) Lindberg had a nice instrumental
mix with harp.
Gruppen—174 musical units, grouped—is
scored for groups, and presents a stellar example of how, if we don’t permit a musical present, we won’t have a past. It was very interesting for 15 of its 24 minutes. How fascinating
that it has become boring. No one stalked out;
if there were any boos at all, there was only
one.
In the preceding Mozart, partygoers
entered at different speeds, strolling around.
The Don, Ryan McKinney, fresh from a Metropolitan Opera debut as Lt Ratcliffe in Britten’s
Billy Budd, descended the bleachers from the
top, as did the trio of would-be avengers pursuing him. Main-role singers in modern dress
and others in period dress with huge wigs were
an oxymoron, if not a wardrobe malfunction,
but the voices were clean and strong. Mezzosoprano Sasha Cooke (Zerlina) was a pleasure
to hear: whatever it is, she gets it, even though
here she was in a sophisticated white gown,
decidedly big-city. Orchestral efforts at togetherness—and the fuss and effort—were distracting, though Gilbert was able—and invested for sure.
He led Boulez’s Rituel in Memoriam Bruno
Maderna (for orchestra in eight groups) from a
central podium, with floor listeners extending
their legs toward him. Like Gruppen, this
memorial to Boulez’s friend and predecessor
at the Phil was no longer as fearsome as had
been perceived when he composed it. Cymbals and gongs were pleasingly resonant, and
clarinets burbled merry little tritones and seconds. The substantial group cadenza, with no
conducting at all, somehow cohered anyway.
The Stockhausen and Ives ensembles were
the same, though The Unanswered Question
had four flutes in the center, with their own
conductor. Heard and seen, its meanings were
clarified, as dissonant questions punctuated a
reverent chordal blanket. It was revelatory, as
was most of the evening, in its way.
LESLIE KANDELL
San Francisco
New York Philharmonic
Following in the footsteps of orchestras from
LA, Boston, Chicago, and Cleveland (Jan/Feb,
Mar/Apr, May/June, and July/Aug 2012), the
New York Philharmonic barged into Davies
Symphony Hall to help celebrate the San Francisco Symphony’s Centennial.
At the start of the orchestra’s May 13 program (I was unable to attend their second program the following night), the fresh sound the
NYP shares with the San Francisco Symphony
shone through brilliantly. Along with it came a
brass section that, once it got going, all but
blasted everything in its path out of the way.
The French horn players too often sounded as
though they were Manhattan cabbies, leaning
on their horns as they cut a path through
everything and everyone before them. When
Music in Concert
33
they weren’t barreling down the Avenue of the
Americas, it was possible to admire the silky
sound of the orchestra’s strings.
This was hardly a warm or glowing orchestra. With Music Director Alan Gilbert at the
helm, Dvorak’s Carnival Overture was far more
rousing than ingratiating. True, concertmaster
Glenn Dicterow played eloquently in his brief
solo, and the inward middle section was lovely. Yet all attempts at beauty were effaced
when the horns kicked in. The cumulative
result was rather silly—much ado about not
very much at all—which, I suppose, describes
a raucous carnival to which it’s wise to wear
earplugs.
Yefim Bronfman joined the orchestra for
Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg’s
Piano Concerto No. 2. It began ominously and
soon grew loud and insistent. The orchestra,
often violent in its outbursts, often overwhelmed the piano with its brutality. The
onslaught became tiresome, especially in
alarming episodes. The conclusion saw Bronfman running up and down the keyboard furiously, playing every note he possibly could in
an effort to match the orchestra’s aggression.
In the evening’s capper, Tchaikovsky’s
Symphony No. 4, Gilbert placed far more
emphasis on force than fate. His yearning
strings could be translucent, even diaphanous,
when playing alone; but their beauty and sensitivity were all but obscured when the brass
bullied their way in.
Prayers for release from oppressive forces
strengthened in the second movement Andantino that was short on yearning. The pizzicatos
that distinguish the Scherzo supplied some
welcome contrast and relief, until the cymbals
crashed and the trumpets pushed their way
forward once again. The Finale, furious and
emphatic, declared that Gilbert was determined to drive his way home without wallowing in sentiment. Not all Tchaikovsky has to
wear its heart on its sleeve, but neither does it
need to wrap itself in a coat of armor.
JASON VICTOR SERINUS
San Franciso Symphony
Barbery Coast and
Beyond
If much of what used to be the rage is boring or
commonplace now, how do you celebrate
entertainment history without eliciting snores
instead of claps? That was the dilemma facing
the San Francisco Symphony Centennial planners as they put together an unusually themed
subscription concert called “Barbary Coast
and Beyond: Music from the Gold Rush to the
34
Music in Concert
Panama-Pacific Exposition”. The result of their
efforts was not a strictly representative sample
of all the music played in the city from 1849 to
1915. It wisely included only a few of the
quaint artifacts (for flavor) that were scattered
among more enduring numbers of the period
that still grace concert halls, plus some sensational stories that sufficiently activated the
imagination to counteract the triteness of the
aural illustrations.
An example was an excerpt from Liszt’s
repetitive symphonic poem Mazeppa, played
in honor of a famous New Orleans prostitute.
In 1863 Adah Isaacs Menken reportedly
attracted half of San Francisco’s population to
a stage play where she, clad only in flesh-colored tights, was tied to a horse onstage as a
female Mazeppa.
Some of the more lurid aspects of visiting
composers supplied reason enough for their
music. Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the touring
virtuoso who slipped into town under a pseudonym after the press discovered his affair
with an Oakland student, was remembered
with an excerpt from his Gran Tarantelle.
Anton Nel performed it with appropriate overthe-top panache. But he should have dressed
for the part like fetching soprano Laura Claycomb did when she emulated Adelina Patti
singing an aria from Bellini’s Sonnambula. The
crew-cut Nel should have worn a long black
wig and handlebar mustache to go with her
flouncy bar-girl dress from the 1880s.
The true concert curiosities included three
short pieces for an equal number of banjo
players; ‘A Mountain Vision’ by Norwegian
violinist Ole Bull, who toured the US in 1852;
JH Stockman’s organ opus, ‘The Earthquake in
San Francisco and the Destruction of the City
of the Golden West on the 18th of April 1906’;
and excerpts from Camille Saint-Saens’s mercifully forgotten ‘Hail! California’, written for
the 1915 exposition.
The parlor-quality Bull was dutifully presented by violinist Vadim Gluzman, who was
impressive later with Fritz Kreisler’s ‘Chinese
Tambourine’, one of the few pieces that hasn’t
lost its luster over time. The hack quality of
‘Earthquake’ couldn’t damage the reputation
of its nobody creator, but the wretched counterpoint of ‘La Marseillaise’ against ‘The Star
Spangled Banner’ was a black mark indeed—
Saint-Saens must have been paid a lot of
money and given little time to assemble his
monstrosity. Here he was in the ebb of his life
like the retreating tide, exposing organic decay
in the estuaries of San Francisco Bay.
Among the parade of artists for the event
were two standouts. Caroline McCaskey
played the violin solo part to Offenbach’s overture to Orpheus in the Underworld with a
musical saw! Who needs a fancy theremin
when a hardware store will do? And organist
Cameron Carpenter flailed about with what
must have been four arms in an amazing
arrangement of ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’. Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas
had to watch Carpenter’s unaccompanied solo
with envy, but he got the orchestra all to himself with a fine performance of the Scherzo
from Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony.
The concert included historical videos
designed by Jeffrey Elias Teeter, an Ethel Merman-like narration by Val Diamond (of fame
here in the decades-running show Beach Blanket Babylon), and contributions from the US
Air Force Band of the Golden West. A singalong of three popular songs concluded the
extravaganza: ‘Hello, Frisco, Hello!’, which
touted the advent of long-distance calling;
‘San Francisco’ (“My home on the hill, I find I
love you still”); and, the irresistible call by
musicians world-wide who know where to
make their mark, ‘California, Here I Come!’
JEFF DUNN
thing connected and sounded utterly “right”. I
wish I could have found a miscalculation—
how can he be that good?
He conducted Ravel and Shostakovich, the
latter a favorite composer of his and mine. The
Ravel had plenty of atmosphere. The pianist in
the Concerto in G was the Macedonian Simon
Trpceski. Together they produced a middle
movement that was downright hypnotic.
In Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, one of
his greatest works, nothing was left unsaid,
nothing was understated, but nothing was
exaggerated and nothing was driven. It felt like
the best performance of the symphony I have
ever heard. He put the music in our laps in its
full emotional import. He projected it, and it
was insistent, yet it was always refined. It was
always moving but also well tailored—never
crude, never harsh. The strings are such a joy
in Indianapolis. I think Raymond Leppard was
responsible for their richness and outspokenness. They properly dominated the Shostakovich with seamless, sensuous sound.
The orchestra is in great shape and very
much entranced with its new conductor. And
why not? He is amazing.
Indianapolis Symphony
Krzystzov Urbanski
update
I never worshiped the cult of youth, even when
I was young. And certainly all the great conductors I heard in my youth were old men. It
takes a long period of living with scores to
know how to put them across most effectively.
It takes a long time to learn scores to begin
with. Most conductors were better in old age
than earlier—but not all.
I went to Indianapolis in May to hear the
new music director conduct. Krzystzov Urbanski is 29 years old. I expected to have a good
opportunity to expound my views on the inadequacy of young conductors. I was given no
such chance. Instead I had to explain to myself
how someone can be so mature musically at
such an age. There are possibilities: his photographic memory allows him to learn scores
very, very quickly. His training was solid and
old-fashioned in Poland. And there’s the simple fact that in a few cases age makes no difference. Some people arrive center stage fully
formed and seem hardly to need to grow or
“mature”.
I would use the word “smooth” to describe
his conducting—both the gestures and the
results. He never prefers “excitement” to flow.
Everything flowed in a perfectly natural way;
all the transitions were incredibly smooth. No
piece sounded the least bit episodic; every-
DONALD VROON
Seattle Symphony
Bartok: Bluebeard’s Castle
Hersch: Along the
Ravines
(world premiere)
How often do you hear gasps of awe from an
audience at a symphonic performance? I did
frequently when the work being performed
was Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle with stunning
art-glass sets by glass wizard Dale Chihuly.
Premiered in 2007, this production, in a semistaged version with the Seattle Symphony and
its conductor laureate, Gerard Schwarz, was
probably the most visually exciting symphonic
experience produced by the orchestra since its
founding in 1903.
After the sets had traveled to Milwaukee,
Nashville, and Tel Aviv, they returned—packed
with care in huge boxes—to Benaroya Hall for
a two-night engagement in May. The vividlycolored glass elements were installed in six 20foot black towers placed between the orchestra and the audience; the towers’ solid backs
faced the house at the beginning. After a prologue, read in the original Hungarian by Helen
Szablya (Honorary Hungarian Consul General
for Washington, Oregon, and Idaho), the two
Music in Concert
35
protagonists, Bluebeard (Charles David
Austin) and his bride Judith (Nancy Maultsby),
came on stage. Judith looked around uneasily
at the forbidding black towers that represented
the locked doors of Bluebeard’s castle.
As she persuaded Bluebeard to let her
unlock the first door, Judith touched the first
of the towers, and unseen stagehands slowly
rotated it 180 degrees so that the fabulous
glass tableau gradually came into view: the torture chamber, filled with glowing red spearlike glass forms. And so it went, door by door,
as the gleaming gold glass stalks and multicolored jewels of Bluebeard’s treasury appeared,
and a wild array of green and yellow lily-like
flowers depicted the garden. Perhaps the most
beautiful of all the six pieces was the lake of
tears, with elongated milky teardrops suspended from the top of the tower, hovering above a
“lake” of clustered glass balls. The total
effect—the scale of it all, the drama of the
incomparable glass paired with the foreboding
and passionate score—immersed the audience
in a sensational evening of musical theater.
Finally, the seventh door (the only one
without a glass installation) opened at the rear
of the stage behind the orchestra to reveal
Bluebeard’s three preceding wives, who
walked to the front of the stage as Bluebeard
hailed them—and Judith—in the final
moments. And here was the evening’s only
theatrical misstep: the six black towers blocked
the view of the seventh box (placed far downstage) for many viewers, robbing the culmination of much of its drama.
But the music supplied a powerful drama
on its own. Bass-baritone Austin, who was
Bluebeard in 2007, returned with an eloquent
performance full of telling details. Stern and
forbidding at first, he turned up the emotional
warmth, begging Judith not to persist in her
determination to open every door—and
became finally rhapsodic as he added Judith to
the procession of doomed wives.
Maultsby, a reliably excellent mezzo who
has appeared as Erda in Seattle Opera’s Ring
Cycle, sang Judith with resplendent Wagnerian
power and considerable feeling. Her transformation from anxious bride to fiery discoverer
was compelling.
Schwarz cued the performers with care,
not an easy task given his awkward stage
placement with respect to the soloists. The
orchestra performed with dramatic urgency.
The concert’s first half was the world premiere of Michael Hersch’s Along the Ravines
for piano and orchestra (soloist Shai Wosner).
Commissioned by Wosner and the BorlettiBuitoni Trust, it is in eight movements based
on poetic fragments by Zbigniew Herbert.
The new work was a major disappoint-
36 Music in Concert
ment, one of the longest half-hours in recent
Seattle music history. It was hard to discern
any relationship between the score and the
poetry that inspired it. The opening poem, for
instance, begins, “To tremble in the air, blow
in the ashes stir the ether”, but the orchestra’s
opening passages sounded like loud atonal
shrieks of distress, with intermittent clattering
arpeggios and attacks from the keyboard.
There are hints of Shostakovich’s techniques
in the score but no hint of that composer’s
genius. Wosner (using a score) gave a heroic
account of the ungrateful piano part, but seldom has so much effort produced so little
music.
MELINDA BARGREEN
Minneapolis
Minnesota Orchestra
Orchestra Hall
“Farewell”
The final picture in the Minnesota Orchestra’s
subscription concerts at Orchestra Hall on
June 15 raised some eyebrows in the audience
and brought on a volley of applause: a halfdozen conductors, all affiliated with the
orchestra, forming a line across the stage and
bowing like a chorus line, among them Music
Director Osmo Vanska, Sommerfest Artistic
Director Andrew Litton, and Pops Conductor
Laureate Doc Severinsen. It’s something not
likely ever to be seen again on this stage.
The occasion was not just the end of the
orchestra’s 2011-12 season; it was a “farewell”
to Orchestra Hall: the week after the concert,
13 months of renovation began at a cost of $50
million. This year’s Sommerfest, the orchestra’s summer festival, moved to Ted Mann
Concert Hall at the University of Minnesota;
and the 2012-13 season will take place at the
Minneapolis Convention Center.
This wasn’t a permanent departure, in
other words. But it was a significant moment
in local cultural history: a farewell to Orchestra
Hall as audiences here have known it for the
past 38 years. The renovation will change the
lobby and the exterior look of the hall fairly
radically. No more exposed heating and air
conditioning ducts—a design idea that was
considered “honest” and “democratic” back in
the 70s, but that today looks like the boiler
room on a submarine. And no more crowding
during intermission, no more stepping on toes
and holding a drink above your head so as not
to get bumped. (“Cramped” was the way the
New York Times described the lobby in 1974.)
The lobby will expand, but the hall itself will
change very little—and it needn’t change.
Acoustically, Orchestra Hall remains what it
always was: a gem.
With so many performers, including a chorus of 200 plus eight dancers, concerts of this
sort tend to feel like a variety show—a lot of
excerpts and short pieces without any momentum. That was mostly avoided on this occasion. The selections were interesting and
unusual; by and large, the performances were
alert and polished; and, as for momentum, the
concert ended with a big, exciting choralorchestral outburst: the first performance of St
Paul composer Steve Heitzeg’s warmhearted
Let’s Start the Great Round, a skillfully written
tribute both to music and to the community
that creates and appreciates it.
Along the way there were meaningful and
surprising choices. 88-year-old Stanislaw
Skrowaczewski conducted his own compelling
orchestration of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in
D minor, which was the first work to be performed in Orchestra Hall in the dedication
concert in 1974. Skrowaczewski, who had been
lobbying relentlessly for the new hall, was then
in his 14th year as music director (he is now
conductor laureate). Following that, Andrew
Litton played piano and conducted a sophisticated arrangement of ‘Over the Rainbow’ with
Irvin Mayfield, director of the hall’s jazz programming and a gifted trumpeter, as soloist.
As for Severinsen, who turned 85 in July, he
is probably as famous for his extravagant
clothing as for his trumpet playing. But he
remains a master. Walking onstage in a gold
sequined jacket and tomato-colored pants, he
whispered into the microphone, “There isn’t a
woman in this audience tonight who wouldn’t
kill for this outfit.” In ‘Caruso’, a musical tribute to the great tenor, he produced a big, burnished sound that filled the hall.
Vanska conducted energetic readings of
excerpts from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 as
well as Orff’s Carmina Burana with bright,
articulate singing by the Minnesota Chorale,
whose director, Kathy Saltzman Romey, took a
bow with the other conductors at the end.
Associate Conductor Courtney Lewis added
dance to the program, leading the orchestra in
a portion of La Mer, where the eight dancers of
the local ensemble Black Label Movement performed an evocative number choreographed
by Carl Flink. Brian Newhouse served as host,
and Tacy Mangan produced a video that
served to tell the history of the hall. Additional
choral groups—Concordia Christus Chorus,
Kantorei, the Minnesota Boychoir, and the
Oratorio Society of Minnesota—performed in
Heitzeg’s piece.
In the spirit of the occasion, the ushers
wore hardhats. And, oh, to have been a fly on
the wall in the conductor’s studio that night to
hear a half-dozen busy conductors compare
notes on the various soloists they can’t stand,
on the cities they won’t ever return to, and on
who’s making the big money.
MICHAEL ANTHONY
Toronto Symphony
Mahler: Symphony No. 8
A performance of Mahler’s Symphony of a
Thousand is an inimitable concert experience.
The marshaling of close to 100 orchestral
musicians, nearly 400 choristers, and 8 operatic singers to grandiloquently beckon the Holy
Spirit is almost the definition of a great occasion. The Toronto Symphony’s performance
June 13 with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir,
Elmer Iseler Singers, Amadeus Choir, Toronto
Children’s Chorus, and eight fine soloists certainly created all the drama built into the
gigantic work.
I often feel sorry for mezzo-sopranos,
whose generally less penetrating tessitura and
tone color mean they risk periods of inaudibility when faced with even modest instrumental
accompaniment. Mahler gives the Alto 1 singer
some open space in the more monumental
sections of Part 1 of this symphony, and Susan
Platts warmed the room with a beautifully burnished tone. She made the most of her small
solo role.
Erin Wall, who began her blossoming
Music in Concert
37
career at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, did some
of the heaviest lifting in Part 1. Like anyone
faced with hoisting a weighty object, the excellent Canadian soprano sometimes bent her
knees before bursting through the huge
orchestral volume pushing from behind her.
Tenor John Mac Master, a last-minute
replacement for Richard Margeson, delivered
much forceful and competitive singing in Part
1; and, after intermission, in the longer Part 2
he made a strong impression with generally
less stentorian duties.
Baritone Tyler Duncan and bass Robert
Pomakov know how to sing this stuff. Duncan,
in particular, sang sonorously and without
strain, often having to call on his inner tenor to
manage Mahler’s clarion lines. Pomakov’s
bass was resonant enough to cut through any
instrumental resistance.
Overall, the musically charged ‘Veni, Creator Spiritus’ section had the requisite declamatory punch, and its propulsive choral effect
produced the feeling of overexcitement that
Mahler generates in his exultant invitation to
the spirit of inspiration. When all the forces
were engaged, including the Toronto Children’s Chorus, looking cheerful in their bright
red tops and singing from memory, the effect
was definitely powerful—some might even say
raucous, in a high-brow sort of way.
There were a few uneven moments at the
start of the transition from the vocally intricate, movingly lyrical ‘Infirma Nostri Corporis’
section of Part 1 into the explosive ‘Accende
Lumen Sensibus’, where the massed choir
must accelerate together. The takeoff was a little sluggish, and the children were slightly
behind for a bit; but, once in sync, this upbeat,
light, but urgently sung section was exhilarating.
The Toronto Symphony, led by Music
Director Peter Oundjian, distinguished itself
from start to finish. The brass and woodwinds
are central to creating many of the grand and
subtle effects in this symphony. The trumpet
section, in particular, led the charge effulgently in its many highly exposed moments.
The second half, inspired by the closing
scene of Goethe’s Faust, gave the TSO everything it needed to display its prowess. Within a
few bars, the opening delicate flute and pizzicato passage, establishing the mystical aspect
of Mahler’s symphony, made the often clamorous first part seem a distant memory
(though the ‘Veni, Creator Spiritus’ does have
strong ear-worm potential).
The chorus revealed its control exquisitely
at the end of the penultimate, ethereal chorus
praising the Virgin Mary. But by the conclusion, when the power overtakes the contemplative, reverential mood Mahler so achingly
38
Music in Concert
constructs in Part 2, the orchestra and chorus
engulfed Roy Thomson Hall with the robust
sound that this unique work is renowned for.
BILL RANKIN
Toronto
Elgar: The Kingdom
The packed house at Toronto’s Koerner Hall
on May 6 stood and cheered an outstanding
conductor, soloists, chorus, and orchestra. But
it directed an even larger surge of acclaim at a
huge red book that the Pax Christi Chorale’s
Artistic Director Stephanie Martin, in a characteristic gesture of humility, lifted high above
her head. It was the score to this piece, last
heard in North America 25 years ago.
The Kingdom was the second of a planned
trilogy of oratorios on the foundations of
Christianity, culminating in the Last Judgement. A tissue of leitmotivs was to have tied
the three together in the monumental manner
of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. But Elgar seemed to
have lost the motivation to complete the project, leaving only a few sketches of the third
piece that were incorporated in yet another
unfinished work, Symphony No. 3. The result
is that The Kingdom does not have a sense of
finality about it. It ends quietly, and it’s akin to
a slow movement of a three-movement symphony. Yet as demonstrated by its reception
here, the high quality and great beauty of the
music overcome its large-scale formal imbalance.
One example of the music’s appeal is the
gorgeous processional tune that Elgar called
the New Faith motive. It is sung to the words,
“And it shall be that whosoever shall call on
the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Like the
first theme in Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2,
it is an earworm characterized by a prominent
and gracious triplet, and it appears many
times in various guises. Another beauty is the
dramatic swirling of sound accompanying “He
who walketh on the wings of the wind shall
baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”
These are masterstrokes that need to grace
North American ears at a rate far more than
four times per century.
This single performance in Toronto was
superb in almost all respects. Martin’s direction was remarkably clear and displayed complete mastery of the score. A bit hesitant at
first, she soon commanded the dynamic range,
ebb and flow necessary to make the most of
Elgar’s style. The soloists made fine contributions. Most impressive was baritone Roderick
Williams. The Chorale flew him in from the
UK, capitalizing on his experience there with
the role of Peter and his ravishing voice. Soprano Shannon Mercer and mezzo Krisztina
Szabo added fine voices to music that was new
to them but has made them Elgar fans, as they
reported afterwards. Keith Klassen’s brilliant
but inconsistent tenor brought energy to the
role of John.
This rare occasion supplied reason for the
North American branch of the Elgar Society to
hold an annual meeting in Toronto, replete
with documentary showings, performance
analyses, and examples of Elgar used in
motion pictures. A remote presentation by
Robert Padgett doggedly tried to prove that ‘A
Mighty Fortress Is Our God’ is the hidden
theme that runs in counterpoint to the Enigma
theme in Elgar’s 1899 Variations. But, despite a
deluge of numerological analyses, the resulting
mix of random-sounding note placements and
dissonances was too unmusical to be believed.
The real enigma is why The Kingdom is not
a regular visitor to our concert halls and
churches. If the word spreads about Martin’s
commendable efforts here, perhaps it will be
an enigma no longer.
Peteris Vasks
JEFF DUNN
New York
Music of Peteris Vasks
Recently I performed a number of works that
included cello in a Latvian church in Yonkers
NY. I was impressed at the determined nationalist feeling generated by both the music and
the audience. The service was entirely in Latvian, but with videos of the subjects the
preacher spoke of and maps showing the
boundaries of Latvia at different times in the
past century. This is a country with a distinct
personality.
Afterwards I went home and explored my
record collection for all the Latvian composers
I could identify. Listening to them took a week
or more, and one of the most recent ones was
Peteris Vasks (b 1946). The earlier composers
(Kalnins, two Medins, two Skultes, and Vitols
are the major names on recordings) sounded
much alike. To generalize more than they
deserve, they all had a primary interest in folk
melodies and a sad outlook, though each
approached this from a different angle and
showed plenty of individuality.
Vasks, born 40 years or so later than those
composers, shows a similar attitude but is distinctly contemporary and has considerably
more intensity and grandeur. When I heard
that a concert was to be given of his music, I
was eager to follow him up, partly since my
collection does not include his organ works or
string quartets, both of which were to be per-
formed. I was surprised at the truly mountainous impression his works made on my psyche.
The Park Avenue Christian Church in New
York City is a large one with a very high ceiling
but relatively clear acoustics. I snagged a seat
near the front so I could watch the quartet. Of
course, that’s all I saw, since the organist was
in the balcony. Churches have their limitations. Ever try to play in a full orchestra in a
church? Don’t! You’ll be squeezed out of shape
forever! But here the space was open and one
could concentrate on the spaciousness of the
music.
The program began with two large works
for solo organ, Viatore (2001) and Canto di
Forza (2004), played by Paul Vasile, the
church’s music director. Viatore (Wanderer) is
a transcription of a work originally for string
orchestra. As the composer wrote in the notes,
it “tells the story of a wanderer who arrives in
this world, grows up in it, develops, falls in
love, fills himself up, and then departs. The
journey is illuminated by the endless and starry universe.” The music has a couple of Latvian-sounding melodies that develop into various moods and events; they alternate with a
depiction of the surrounding universe via
high-register pianissimo noodling that the
clarinetist next to me (an old friend) noted as
typical music for clarinet. The wanderer devel-
Music in Concert
39
ops into a serious fellow who goes through
much of the tragedy that tends to afflict the
Latvian world. This is a powerful 20-minute
drama that alternates between whispering and
building to church-filling climaxes. It is basically tonal.
Canto di Forza, originally composed for the
12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, is
described as diatonic by the composer. He also
remarks that he is “convinced that music helps
to keep the world balanced”. This is a shorter
work than Viatore, though just as dramatic,
ending with a fortissimo chorale-like climax.
Vasile played these works with an effective
variety of touch, and the 1982 Holtkamp organ
gave a satisfyingly powerful and clear sound in
response.
As a string player, I would like to hear both
of these compositions in their original orchestration, but I must confess that they both make
a highly satisfying impression when played on
a lovely-sounding organ like this one. The
power of the instrument fit Vasks’s pieces very
well.
Hearing String Quartet No. 4, written in
1999 for the Kronos Quartet, made me wonder
further what the differences are between the
two organ pieces and their original string
instrument scoring. This five-movement halfhour quartet is full of imaginative and colorful
effects that play one instrument against the
rest, an aspect that was particularly evident in
the Afiara Quartet’s performance. Also, there
were numerous glissandos all over the instruments and between notes of a melody that
added a considerable expressive flavor—something that the organ is not built to do. Clearly,
Vasks worked intimately with the instruments
at hand.
The quartet opens with an Elegy where
each instrument converses with the one next
to it, violin with violin, viola and cello relating
together, with harmonics balancing solid
notes. It was a test the Alfiara passed with flying colors, each player taking on the personality given him by the composer and passing it
on to another. In the following Toccata,
Chorale, and Toccata 2, the test was of virtuosity and balance of voices at fast tempos. Again,
this group performed with notable polish and
unanimity, not a note out of place or out of
tune as they played with total involvement in
the composer’s weirdly wonderful world. The
quartet ends with a lovely Meditation that
pulls the material together for a dying-away
ending.
As Vasks remarks, “There has been so
much bloodshed and destruction, and yet
love’s power and idealism have helped to keep
the world in balance. I wanted to speak of
these things in my new quartet; not from the
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Music in Concert
sidelines, but with direct emotion and sensitivity.” That is precisely the impression given by
this powerful and entertaining music, performed by this really fine Canadian quartet. I
have seldom heard such an intense connection between composer and performers as was
evident in this concert—attributable both to
the players’ commitment and the composer’s
deeply concentrated inspiration.
DAVID MOORE
New York
Previn: Trio No. 2 (world
premiere)
Has it really been 35 years? The KalichsteinLaredo-Robinson Trio had scant time to wonder as they spent their anniversary season celebrating in style, with three commissions, a
CD of the complete Schubert trios, and extensive touring. For their May 6 concert at Alice
Tully Hall for the Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center, they were joined by violinist
Bella Hristova, violist Beth Guterman, and cellist Gary Hoffman for a wide-ranging program.
Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 1 was a choice
and substantial opener. The generational difference between Hristova and Guterman and
the more senior Hoffman and Kalichstein was
never audible; all played in good 20th-Century
legato Mozart style, reveling in both the classical symmetry and the rakish hemiolas peppering the first movement. For these Tully Hall
veterans, the recently renovated auditorium
appeared to require some adjustment: the
cello sounded tubby, and the piano sounded
harsh at higher volume, but these were quickly
corrected. The cantabile second movement
was lit by a lyrical violin solo; when the piano
finally joined in, the quartet appeared to fall
under a collective trance induced by the sweet
harmonies. The final Rondo-Allegro was
played as a gentle frolic rather than the usual
robust romp—perhaps an adaptation to the
hyper-resonant hall.
The concert’s main attraction was the
world premiere of André Previn’s Trio No. 2
(2011), the third of the anniversary commissions. The prodigious octogenarian’s musical
career has incorporated jazz, classical, and
film work; but this chamber trio embraced the
classical idiom with complete assurance and
an easy generosity. All three movements develop from three- or four-note motives that build
into symmetrical phrases in a range of styles
evoking Schumann, Ravel, Satie, and, in occasional quasi-improvisatory piano excursions,
lounge music.
The piece began with a quiet, searching
motif traded between the strings, answered by
soft piano chords, which expanded
with increasing energy into denser
writing. That was contrasted with
an almost percussive second theme
of repeated notes. The slow middle
movement was more lyrical, in the
manner of a 19th-Century trio.
Previn’s writing often gave an
impression of orderly, throughcomposed structure for the strings,
contrasting with a more improvisatory style for the piano. There
were plenty of idiomatic, virtuoso
moments for each player; but the
fast third movement, with its scampering, chasing passagework, gave
the cellist a real workout. The piece
tempered the easy cascade of tonally-driven sound with the welcome
tang of dissonance.
Well crafted as it was, Previn’s
trio was displaced in memory by a
sumptuous, sensuous reading of
Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night,
here with two violins, two violas,
and two cellos. Though often heard
in the orchestral transcription, this
original sextet version emphasizes
the intimacy of the intense and very
private encounter between a man
and a woman in Richard Dehmel’s
eponymous poem. Robinson on
lead cello contributed rich tone and
real character, embodying the woman in the
highly emotional scenario. Playing with
unabashed lushness, the players shaped
melodic give-and-take into a conversation,
now thoughtful, now passionate. The luxuriant
chromaticism combined with the ebb and flow
of tempo and intensity created an unusually
voluptuous performance, leaving this listener
hot and bothered—and the rest of the audience as well, judging from their roar of
approval.
It’s a sure bet that, after 35 years of playing
together, the KLR Trio has weathered many a
crisis of their own. The splendor of this reading
suggests that, like Dehmel and Schoenberg’s
couple, they’ve become stronger and closer
over the long years of their musical and personal journey.
SUSAN BRODIE
Banff Centre
Gryphon Trio
On May 9, at the Banff Centre in the heart of
the Canadian Rockies, the Gryphon Trio and
clarinettist James Campbell performed Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with a twist.
Gryphon Trio
Preceding the work was Echoes of Time, a work
commissioned by the Gryphon from Torontobased composer Alexina Louie. Echoes will act
as a prelude to a new 40-minute play that tells
the story of how Messiaen composed his quartet. The play, written by London-based writer
Mieczyslawa Wazacz, will be directed by her
sister Helena Kaut-Howson and will eventually
become part of the Gryphon Trio’s touring
repertoire.
Messiaen wrote End of Time while he was a
war prisoner and gave the premiere with a
group of fellow prisoners on January 15, 1941.
It was inspired by the tribulations of his
internment and his fascination with the Book
of Revelation’s prophecy of the end time.
The Gryphon Trio has commissioned at
least 60 new works, but this was the first from
Louie. As she began to write, she realized that
her piece would be compared with the Messiaen masterpiece. “At first I thought, what a
great opportunity. This is going to be fun. And
then when I started it, I said, ‘Oh my God, what
have I done?’ It’s the greatest piece for chamber ensemble that’s possibly ever been written.
What am I going to do? And it’s going to be on
the same program.”
The trepidation caused her many false
starts. “Echoes might have more pages thrown
Music in Concert
41
out as I was writing than any other piece that I
have worked on.” Her first efforts sounded
derivative. “It’s hard not to be slavishly devoted to the piece.”
Eventually she found her way towards a
balance between originality and humility, and
the result that I heard was brimming with the
Messiaen spirit but did make its own mark,
echoing Messiaen’s distinctive musical bursts
of violence and his exploration of shards of
unexpected scales and agitated angst-ridden
rhythms.
The concert opened with Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov’s Fugitive Visions of
Mozart, a series of six achingly beautiful
miniatures that gave us our ration of hummable sweetness and light for the evening. Silvestrov’s music, except for a few short, surprising
bursts of forte attacks and occasional poignant
punctuating dissonance, would be perfect to
soothe a child to sleep.
The performance of the Messiaen clearly
captivated the 150 or so people who sat positively silent in Rolston Recital Hall. One high
point was watching Campbell fend his way
through the treacherous musical meditation
‘Abyss of the Birds’.
All the repertoire was recorded earlier for
the Gryphon Trio’s 20th anniversary album
(their 16th recording) to be released on
Analekta in the autumn.
BILL RANKIN
Waltham MA
Aston Magna’s 40th
Anniversary
1972 marked the beginnings of a revolution in
early music performance practice. In that year
Lee Elman and Albert Fuller founded the Aston
Magna Foundation for Music. Their plan was
to teach students and give concerts based on
historically informed scholarship of musical
materials and instrumental performance.
Those concepts were somewhat radical then,
but it is a testament to Aston Magna’s pioneering zeal that today we embrace so many topnotch early music musicians and ensembles.
Since 1990 the ensemble has thrived under
baroque violinist Daniel Stepner’s inspiring
direction.
The summer season, which opened a week
earlier, continued June 14 in Brandeis University’s Slossberg Auditorium with Wilhelm
Friedemann Bach’s Duo for two violins. The
performance was musical and involved,
though I confess that it was only in the third
movement that the players and musical score
seemed most at home with one another.
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Music in Concert
Next up was a reconstruction of an Oboe
Concerto in E-flat, possibly by JS Bach, music
used later in his Keyboard Concerto, S 1053.
Joshua Rifkin and Werner Breig were the
reconstructionists. Stephen Hammer was the
imperturbable baroque oboe soloist. Lively
tempos and nicely shaped phrasing from all
participants enhanced the performance of this
somewhat unusual hybrid of a piece. While not
all of this reconstruction worked quite as
effortlessly and seamlessly as a finished work
by Johann Sebastian (what could?), one was
grateful to hear artists of this caliber perform
it.
The evening’s real drama took place
behind the scenes. The scheduled soprano
soloist had to withdraw, and Kristen Watson
took her place. She has lately been the go-to
soprano when last-minute substitutions happen, and she had all of 24 hours to prepare two
extremely demanding works she had never
sung before, Heitor Villa-Lobos’s mesmerizing
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 and Bach’s Wedding Cantata.
When she arrived on stage for Bachianas
Brasileiras No. 5 for soprano and eight cellos,
one wondered, “Where are the eight cellos?” In
their place were two violins, a viola, cello, and
contrabass. While the accompanying sonorities were certainly different from the original,
this artful arrangement by Daniel Stepner
(unattributed in the program book) was ingenious, supplying plenty of color and exoticism.
Watson sang the opening ‘Cantilena’ radiantly
and seductively, employing a gorgeously shimmering mezza voce when the sinuous opening
melody returned at the aria’s close. Also
remarkable was her rapid-fire Portuguese in
the lively second movement.
Stepner told his listeners that Bach’s personal score of the Goldberg Variations, discovered in Paris in 1974, contained a loose sheet
of manuscript paper that had written on it, in
Bach’s hand, 14 canons based on the first eight
notes of the bass line of the Goldberg’s theme.
Stepner and colleagues then offered a strungtogether presentation of these canons that ran
the gamut, offering their musical lines played
forward, backward, upside down, or all of
these at once. This interesting glimpse of Bach
“at work” reinforced the composer’s reputation as an ever-inquiring intellect.
Kristen Watson then reappeared for the
exquisite Wedding Cantata. She was in fine
form yet again, offering clear and compelling
tone and enunciation in each of her German
arias and recitatives. Her instrumental cohorts
were solo oboist Stephen Hammer and violinist Daniel Stepner, both playing with beauty of
tone and intelligent improvisation. And in the
aria that tells of Phoebus hurrying with swift
steeds through the newborn world, cellist
Loretta O’Sullivan enthusiastically supplied
the galloping accompaniment. And, for Watson, all on 24-hour notice!
JOHN W EHRLICH
New York
Andras Schiff, Salzburg
Marionette Theater
Andras Schiff
Carnegie Hall’s annual Perspectives series, by
pianist Andras Schiff this season, went further
than exploring the legacy of Bartok or Schiff’s
other Hungarian countrymen. The pianist’s
performance at Zankel Hall in May was about
childhood, as imagined by Debussy, Schumann, and the Salzburg Marionette Theater.
Children’s Corner Suite, six beloved piano
miniatures by Debussy, was inspired by his
only daughter (whom he eventually outlived).
They reflect the stilted view of children as regimented midgets in the nursery that runs
through Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Child’s
Garden of Verses”. But who doesn’t love playing them? Three of them, that is. The flowing
‘Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum’, the ethereal
‘Little Shepherd’, and the raffish ‘Golliwog’s
Cakewalk’ are wonderful. The others are
generic Debussy. (Show me a kid who wants to
learn the middle pieces and I’ll show you a fibmeister.)
In ‘Gradus’ Schiff was dry and sometimes
too soft for my taste, displaying clean pedal
work and contrast. His expert voicing in the
entire program was a pleasure, though his
pointillist approach to the suite should have
been a little scrappier.
Schumann had no children yet when he
composed the 15 Scenes from Childhood as a
love-letter to his future wife, Clara—one of history’s great piano virtuosos. But Schumann’s
“scenes” are warmly human in subject and
musical sound, and it is not surprising that
eight children would be in the Schumanns’
future.
Of course Kinderszenen was well played,
but it didn’t sound as if it were the last time
Schiff would ever hear it, which is what I look
for in a recital. ‘Frighteners’ was the unscariest
ever. But the performance had its moments,
like the enthralling final ‘The Poet Speaks’,
which seemed as if it had been composed for
Schiff himself.
The art of puppetry has exploded since the
Muppets moved off their wall and beyond
Sesame Street. Audiences have watched hand
puppets with hidden operators in a Broadway
show (Avenue Q) with operators in full view,
Basil Twist’s underwater Symphony Fantastique, Julie Taymor’s Lion King with people
inside the puppets, the Metropolitan Opera’s
Magic Flute with Taymor’s stick puppets, and
its Madama Butterfly, whose little boy was
operated by kneeling puppeteers.
Debussy’s ballet La Boite a Joujoux (The
Toy Box) was maneuvered by four members of
the renowned Salzburg Marionette Theater,
which began in 1913—the era of La Boite and
Stravinsky’s Petrouchka. The piece is usually
performed in its later orchestration, with
dance or projections. This time a black-clad
puppeteer, inspecting Schiff as he slumped
over the keyboard, dug a big key into his back
and wound it. Schiff snapped upright and
began to play from an illustrated piano score.
Puppeteers, using a center-stage structure
of oversized colorful blocks that doubled as
doors, enacted the tale of a ballerina (stringed
marionette with three operators) who loves a
soldier (stick puppet). After her struggle to get
rid of a pathetic Jack-in-the-Box suitor (handand-stick operated puppet) with the help of
Bear (puppeteer with two-faced mask), love
(and middle-aged spread) triumphed, in a
house with a fence.
La Boite, not well known and largely
ignored in the United States, got lucky when
the Salzburgers picked it up. Now it will be
heard whenever they present this work—
which was done first in 2010, and also last
spring at McCarter Theater in Princeton. The
entire program will be performed nationally
and in Canada.
LESLIE KANDELL
Music in Concert
43
OperaEverywhere
A scene form Einstein on the Beach
Toronto
Glass: Einstein on the
Beach
The 2012-13 tour of Einstein on the Beach
made its first North American stop at Toronto’s Luminato Festival June 9-11, after short
runs at the Opera Berlioz in Montpellier,
France; the Teatro Valli in Reggio Emilia, Italy;
and London’s Barbican Centre. Philip Glass
and Robert Wilson’s four-and-a-half-hour
abstract theater piece, commonly referred to
as Glass’s first opera, challenges audiences not
44
Music in Concert
only to abide a show of huge length but also to
extract a storyline that Einstein on the Beach
aggressively denies them.
So one sits as the hours pass, weighing the
merits of continuing to sit until the end, or to
rise for respite and return (which was permitted), or to draw the line and leave.
The staging, a rarity since Einstein was first
performed in Avignon in July 1976, felt like an
immovable object in a larger opera world
where classic works are regularly given adventurous re-imaginings with all the risks nonconformity entails.
Wilson’s formalist ethos and the analog
aspects of the 1976 production’s limitations
are maintained in this incarnation. There is no
digital awesomeness. The first act, called
Train, has for its set a large, mostly static, cardboard-looking engine more typical of a school
pageant than a modern professional theatre
spectacle. In the last act, Spaceship, what looks
like a foot-long paper rocket is slowly towed
along a line from the bottom left of the stage to
the top right until it disappears. Glass’s music,
known for its repetitiveness, does little to
induce the thrill of cosmic exploration. The
stage technology of the 1950s Flash Gordon
television episodes looked positively space age
in comparison to Wilson’s childlike effects.
Einstein on the Beach is called an opera,
but it has just one solo soprano vocalist, the
role sung with a pure, vibrato-less tone by HaiTing Chinn. The rest of the singing is in small
ensembles; those singers deserve high praise
for their fervent and precise musicianship.
At about the three-and-a-half-hour mark,
there was also a welcome diversion from the
sometimes hypnotic, sometimes tedious minimalism of this early Glass score. Andrew Sterman played an extended tenor saxophone solo
with the verve and inventiveness of free-jazz
specialist John Coltrane. The spell of Glass was
exuberantly broken. I was greatly relieved.
The libretto, if it can be called that, is
mainly numbers, counting no higher than
eight, and solfege syllables. One of the most
enthralling aspects of this avant-garde experiment is the way these meaningless, relentlessly
recursive “words”, when sung at high tempo,
create illusions of meaningful phrases. The listener, aiming to make sense of it, is drawn in,
until the actual meaninglessness of the numbers and notes becomes obvious.
In a tiny nod to standard narrative convention at the very end, a male voice tells the story
of a man and a woman sitting on a bench, the
woman cajoling the man to count the many
ways he loves her. The last words we hear are
“fervent osculation”, as the woman permits
him a kiss. Imagine what a libretto with clunky
words like that looks like!
Violinist Jennifer Koh, sporting a wig that
resembled the famous physicist’s hairdo,
played the frenetic scales and arpeggios that
propel the music with unrelenting commitment; but Einstein’s presence, mostly at the
periphery of the singing and dancing, which
followed Lucinda Childs’s vigorously aerobic
choreography, begged the unavoidable, nagging question: Where was the beach, and why
was the man who levered the world toward
nuclear trauma so incidental a character in a
musical and theatrical conundrum that bears
his name?
I’m glad I stayed for the whole thing. It was
certainly a once-in-a-too-short-lifetime experience.
BILL RANKIN
Opera Company of Philadelphia
Muhly: Dark Sisters
On the surface, composer Nico Muhly and
librettist Stephen Karam couldn’t have chosen
a harder sell for a chamber opera than Dark
Sisters, the very somber story of women
trapped in a Mormon sect that still allows
polygamy. The opera is a co-commission (and
production) of the Opera Company of Philadelphia with Gotham Chamber Opera and
Music-Theatre Group. Its premiere was at the
Lynch Theater in New York last fall (Mar/Apr
2012).
The original creative team and cast were
back for the opera’s second outing—a five-performance run. I saw the third on June 13, and
there were lots of empty tier seats in the Kimmel Center’s intimate Perelman Theater; but
people in attendance, without doubt,
embraced this challenging opera.
Against a backdrop of projected steel blue
clouds, as foreboding as anything Cecil B
DeMille summoned in his biblical epics, five
women scurry on stage in acute emotional distress because federal agents have just separated them from their children at their remote
religious “ranch”. They are instructed by the
smarmy Prophet to “stay sweet”. While not
giving them any hope that they will see their
children again, he tells them to pray instead
and to be obedient to his wishes.
So begins a story that could be as claustrophobic as the heavy flannel nighties the
women are forced to wear. Swirling around
this milieu are heavyweight issues of brainwashing, dehumanization, and wives as sex
slaves. In the first act the libretto doesn’t
escape a certain static quality, even though
Karam’s lines are bursting with subtext, if not
overt exposition.
The first scenes of the opera gradually
transform into sleekly austere designs. The
women’s lives unfold without any real scenic
action, as they pray, mend clothes, and reveal
petty jealousies. Eventually one of the wives,
Eliza, cannot accept being separated from her
children. There are creepy but wonderfully
composed fight scenes between Eliza and the
Prophet (soprano and bass) when she questions his motives and has to submit to him
while she plots her escape from this squalid
life. She also vows to save her daughter, who is
about be pimped out to another of the sect’s
elders.
As the women’s personalities are revealed,
Muhly composes finely interlocked voice lines
and choral passages, keeping the voices from
getting too monochromatic. He revealed in
interviews that, since the New York run, he has
Music in Concert
45
Cincinnati Opera
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
A scene from Dark Sisters
retooled key transitional phrases with sharper
character accents.
The great atmospherics by the video
design team of Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer, who worked on the Broadway hit War
Horse and the Met’s Enchanted Island, support
rather than overwhelm the production. Stage
director Rebecca Taichman orchestrated
much more stage business in the second act as
the women confront the world via a CNN-style
expose. Her crisp pacing matched the circuslike atmosphere.
All of the singers distinguish themselves
vocally and dramatically. Jennifer Check was
loyal Almera, Margaret Lattimore was the
obsessive Presendia, and Jennifer Zetlan was
Zina, the pregnant one who wields her power
as the current favorite wife. As Ruth, mezzo
Eve Gigliotti, in her own world of guilt and
loss, communicated all of this in two gutwrenching solos with lines like “What kind of
mother am I, who can’t protect her own children?” As Eliza, Caitlin Lynch gave a tour de
force vocal performance with warmth, even as
she dispatched emotions of loss, rage, and liberation.
Kevin Burdette employed a commanding,
unctuous bass as the Prophet and was just as
effective as the fast-singing investigative journalist. Gotham conductor Neal Goren instantly
ignited the 13 players with drama and clarity
from start to finish. Among the orchestra
standouts, Linda Henderson’s disquieting
piano and celeste nailed Muhly’s haunted
counterpoint.
LEWIS WHITTINGTON
46
Music in Concert
When Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway in
1935, George Gershwin had cut about 40 minutes of the music he wrote for it. In the big productions and recordings of the late 1970s
(starting with Houston) most of that music was
restored. It was the age of “complete original
versions”—rather silly, if you ask me. After all,
the composer himself made the cuts. Yes,
there was the practical reason that Broadway
shows started at 8:30 (a civilized hour compared to the current 7:30 Cincinnati Opera
start times) and had to be pretty much over by
11:30 if people were to get the last trains out to
the suburbs. (Those are also earlier today.)
Three hours including intermission was normal and expected.
But the cuts actually helped the opera,
moved the action along. For example, in the
original the crap game goes on far too long. At
the Boston tryouts, everyone—including the
composer—felt that the opera would be
improved by cuts.
This recent production, shared by many
US opera companies, essentially goes back to
the Broadway version, the composer’s final
definitive version. (He died two years later, so
we don’t know whether he might have tinkered with it some more; but we do know he
was happy with the Broadway production.)
Still, with a very long intermission this wasn’t
over until 11:15. A few small cuts were restored
for smooth transitions, but I haven’t figured
out why it went so late.
Of course, no one who was there cared; we
were all completely caught up in it. It was a
perfect evening of musical theatre. When
Ralph Lucano reviewed Jonathan Lemalu’s
recorded Porgy (Jan/Feb 2011), he commented
that he was almost too “gentlemanly”. I think I
know what he meant, but I think that is part of
why we all identified so well with him here. He
had such dignity and courage, and his singing
was so elegant. I have never felt such sympathy
for this character when sung by others.
Measha Brueggergosman did the same thing
for Bess: elegance and dignity and poise. Both
of them were more than singers; both brought
their characters abundantly alive and made
everyone in the audience sympathetic.
Everyone was talking about this after the
first weekend, and it sold out the second weekend; four full Cincinnati houses amounts to
almost 14,000 people who saw it. People were
even talking about it in church Sunday morning. One of the things everyone said—and I
said—is that every singer in the cast was on the
same high level. Each time we were about to
hear a new character we wondered if he or she
could possibly keep up the incredible level of
quality—and they all did! The brilliance and
consistency were amazing. But this review
would not be so brilliant if we tried to list
everyone and explain why each was so good.
The orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony,
has recorded much of this music and knows it
well and plays it well. The conductor was
David Charles Abell, and he seemed “inside
the music”. The staging was utterly realistic
and ingenious. I’ve seen this opera a few
times—once in Charleston, where it takes
place and where you can walk on (a rather
gentrified) Catfish Row after the opera. But
every other performance was wooden compared to this one. This was the real thing, and
it felt like opera with an infusion of Broadway,
as it was in 1935. It had the weight of opera
and the flair of Broadway. I can’t imagine it
done better. It was one of those evenings when
Cincinnati Opera hit the top.
DONALD VROON
Canadian Opera Company
Florentine Tragedy and
Gianni Schicchi
How do you tell that an opera is a great opera?
One indicator: You still enjoy it even though a
director’s resetting of it in modern times introduces silly anachronisms. A test case of this
principle was offered in May by the Canadian
Opera Company in Toronto when Catherine
Malfitano directed two short operas that were
similar in many respects, Alexander Zemlinsky’s Florentine Tragedy and Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. Zemlinsky foundered,
Puccini soared.
Both operas were written during World
War I and last about 52 minutes. Both stories
take place in Florence more than 500 years ago
and have a major character named Simone.
Both were updated by Malfitano to much more
recent times. While not sporting a show-stopper aria like ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’, Zemlinsky’s music is every bit as fascinating and supportive of its libretto as Puccini’s. And neither
should be updated.
Surely in Italy today, the cutting off of
hands and banishment are not the penalty for
falsifying a will, yet this crucial plot device
keeps the fearful relatives in Puccini’s opera
from turning Schicchi over to the authorities
when they conspire to alter Donati’s will. And
surely a wealthy neighbor in the 1920s would
have difficulty making love with a merchant’s
wife practically in front of her husband, while
the merchant continues to sell him goods—
unless the script was a comedy instead of A
Florentine Tragedy. Such only makes sense in a
time like the 16th Century, where the fact that
the neighbor is of the nobility makes the merchant acutely aware of class differences and
the consequences of transgressing them, keeping a temporary cork plugged against his
increasing rage.
The significant point is that the above
problems, crucial to both plots, ended up having opposite results. With Schicchi Malfitano’s
direction, coupled with the charm of the
music, made the absurdity of hands being cut
off a non-issue. With Zemlinsky’s opera her
direction divorced the music from its libretto
and made the stage action an annoying distraction instead of a drama.
Malfitano began directing opera with
Madama Butterfly in 2005 and has had a fair
degree of later success. Her many years of
experience as a celebrated operatic soprano
certainly must be invaluable in her newer
career, guiding the acting and singing of cast
members. This showed especially in Schicchi,
where Italian over-expression rose to the fore.
But for the Zemlinsky, the darker, more
static drama didn’t play to her strengths. Her
biggest mistake was trying to make up for the
stasis by giving weird, almost laughable balletic movements to the lovers Bianca and Prince
Guido before the singing began. Abstract projections on a screen would have been a better
solution, to allow the audience to concentrate
on where the real action was, namely, in Zemlinsky’s music—passionate, Straussian,
attempting to outdo Salome without the tunes.
In the rest of the opera most movements of the
singers didn’t flow well, and the staging was
not inventive.
Quite the opposite was true for Schicchi.
The large stage was dominated by a huge pile
of Donati’s former possessions, which were
occasionally mounted by relatives. Malfitano
took full advantage of the many opportunities
offered by Giovacchino Forzano’s terrific
libretto. Having a real person as the deceased
Donati was a plus, especially when he was
stuffed into an old convertible couch when
Schicchi took his place.
The principle singers were first class. Alan
Held as Zemlinsky’s Simone sang beautifully,
then shone as an animated Schicchi. Gun-Brit
Barkmin was great as both Zemlinsky’s Bianca
and Puccini’s Nella. Michael König was fine as
Zemlinsky’s Prince. René Barbera excelled as
the fiance of Schicchi’s daughter Lauretta, and
the role of Lauretta was sung gorgeously by
Simone Osborne.
Malfitano explained in the program’s
“Director’s Notes” that her modernization
Music in Concert
47
“came from the desire to allow us to see ourselves mirrored in a more familiar frame”. As a
prince with dangerous power? Not conveyed.
As people afraid of losing their hands? Africa,
or governments enforcing sharia law were not
used. I’ll take the renaissance mirror any day
over what Malfitano supplied, and laugh just
as hard at Forzano’s jokes.
JEFF DUNN
Frankfurt Opera
Stravinsky: The Rake’s
Progress
Aspiring American singers once needed to gain
experience in Europe before they were hired
for opera stages closer to home. Young artist
programs in the US now supply opportunities
for rising performers who would prefer to stay
here, but many continue to acquire on-the-job
training on foreign shores, to the mutual benefit of both singers and opera companies.
Frankfurt Opera hosts several accomplished young Americans on its roster, including rising soprano Brenda Rae (who at this
writing is about to make her unexpected Vienna Opera debut as Lucia). And for its “Opera
Finale” mini-Stravinsky Festival, Frankfurt
invited tenor Paul Appleby, a recent JuilliardLindemann graduate, to join her for its new
production of The Rake’s Progress, seen in its
third performance on May 27.
This score is something of an oddity, written by a Russian expat composer in Hollywood
who was inspired by a series of etchings by
18th Century British artist William Hogarth
about a lazy young innocent led to his ruin. On
a deftly clever libretto by WH Auden and
Chester Kallman, Stravinsky translated the wry
humor of Hogarth’s images into musical theater, based on 18th Century forms.
Director Axel Weidaur’s setting evoked an
18th Century English garden, gradually introducing surreal contemporary design elements
as young Tom Rakewell succumbs to the lure
of fame and the fast life in, apparently, the
Hollywood Hills. Berit Mohr’s stylized costumes likewise started out in the 18th Century
and fast-forwarded through mid-20th Century
fashion, though Tom and Nick continued to
sport Tom Jones pigtails, maintaining their
18th-Century look.
Moritz Nitsche’s sets and Joachim Klein’s
lighting captured the punch and wit of the
music, with plenty of neon and lamé underlining the modern analogs to 18th Century vice.
While eye-catching and amusing, the randomly updated visual elements, combined with the
arch tone of the score, emphasized an artifi-
48
Music in Concert
Brenda Rae
ciality and detachment that drained the pathos
from the story. In spite of liking the music very
much, I’ve never responded warmly to The
Rake’s Progress: Stravinsky’s vocal lines,
though eminently singable, can’t compare in
emotional directness with their Mozartean
models. This production didn’t change that,
and the empty seats spotted after intermission
suggested that others felt the same.
If the over-stylized narrative fell somewhat
flat, it wasn’t the fault of the excellent cast. In
his European operatic debut, Paul Appleby as
Tom struck the right balance between innocence and ready cynicism. After some initial
vocal roughness, the tenor delivered the honeyed tones, crystalline diction, and ingratiating
presence that Met audiences enjoyed in last
season’s Enchanted Island. Five-year company
member Brenda Rae was winsome as Anne
Truelove, the rose-gowned, perpetually faithful ingenue. She made light work of the dazzling ‘No Word from Tom’. The versatile American tenor Peter Marsh, now a permanent
company member, was a bright-voiced, giddily
manic Sellem. Baby-faced Simon Bailey was a
seductive and stentorian Nick Shadow. Paula
Murrihy hilariously stole the show as Baba the
Turk, with her Lucille Ball pompadour, gunfire
monolog, and absolutely nothing under her
voluminous hoop skirt (how did they do
that??).
Conductor Constantine Carydis kept
things moving with crisp efficiency; the Frankfurt ensemble’s brass section would be the
envy of most American pit orchestras. And
Matthias Koehler’s chorus was exemplary in its
enunciation and energy.
SUSAN BRODIE
CriticalConvictions
I became Editor of American Record Guide in
the Fall of 1987, so it has been 25 years. The
first issue I produced was Nov/Dec 1987. It is a
very demanding job and pays very little, but
that is true of most jobs in the field of serious
music. I haven’t the sheer talent—even
genius—of many musicians I know, but I have
a very sharp mind and lots of details stored in
it. And, like musicians, I may have to work
hard, but the rewards are great.
For one thing, the subject is so interesting.
It is so easy to read and write about great
music—and to listen to it is so rewarding. It is
such a joy to work with musicians and serious
music-lovers like our writers. They are extremely intelligent, great conversationalists,
and people with good values and plenty of
ideas. Talking with them, staying with them,
eating and drinking with them is a real pleasure. I am sure that I know many of the very
best people in the land. Our readers are also a
remarkable bunch, and I find I never lose the
urge to do my best for them.
An Editor with a deadline every two months
can work hard for six weeks and then take up to
two weeks off to travel—another great advantage of this job. Once a year I stretch it to almost
three weeks and go to Europe—for sheer pleasure (no reviewing). An Editor of a magazine
like this can get free tickets to most concerts
and operas in most of the world—another great
perk—and necessary, because I couldn’t afford
many of those tickets. And it has been easy and
not costly to build a fine CD collection and a
good library of books on music.
I get to indulge my love of language. I even
get to exercise my skills at culture criticism, a
favorite field. But, best of all, I have plenty of
time to listen to glorious music. What a fortunate 25 years it has been for me! I am grateful to
our readers, who continue to make it possible.
How Have Things Changed?
When I started doing this, music was not considered a luxury. People who knew our music
well viewed it as a necessity and took it very
seriously. It was not just classy entertainment;
it was spiritual food. A large part of the audience at concerts (which were not expensive)
was old people, poor people, immigrants, and
young people. The halls were often old, usually
unchanged since the 1930s (Carnegie, Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Academy of Music, Symphony Hall in Boston). There were stairs, not
elevators. The seats were often hard. There
was no air conditioning (and no summer concerts). All that mattered was the music.
And that’s the way serious record collec-
tors were too. We all spent way too much of
our budget on records (and sometimes on the
best machines we could afford to play them
on—there was a huge difference from one
piece of equipment to another). It didn’t bother me that I couldn’t buy clothes, go to movies,
eat out, take a cruise, or whatever. All I cared
about was the music—and I knew a great
many kindred spirits.
We also spent a great deal of time on building a record collection—chasing after sales, for
example. Certainly we had to read the magazines that kept us informed about what was
available and how the new measured up to the
old. So there were many stores and magazines
that catered to the serious collector. “The serious collector” is becoming an endangered
species. How many of them are there under 50
years old? Under 60? How many people in the
concert hall are real music addicts?
We spent a lot of time browsing the bins—
hours on end, really. We had to know everything available and how good it was. What an
education that was! Now there are no bins to
browse, almost no stores, and very few magazines. In a mass society unless millions want
something it becomes hard to get. Fewer and
fewer people want and care deeply for this
music, and it is becoming harder and harder to
get it. The whole way of life we had 25 years
ago is gone—well, this magazine is still
around, and a remnant subscribes to it.
The record industry had talent scouts—
now a legend of the past. The label was going
to invest piles of money promoting a new
pianist, so they had to know his playing and
how it stacked up next to some of the best in
the business. An artist was an investment, and
it took perceptive people to decide whether he
would measure up to expectations.
Those people—A&R people (Artists &
Repertory) have been replaced by publicity
people. Very few record labels have anyone who
has the musical knowledge and judgement that
the old A&R people had. Instead they hire people to “promote” their artists using the latest
propaganda techniques and bags of adjectives.
If it sounds unconvincing that’s because no
conviction is required, no real judgement has
been made—except that some accountant
decided they could make money by promoting
that artist—that is, saw a way to make him a
“star”. His musical depth (or lack of it) is completely beside the point. He impresses audiences, so you can call him “the hottest classical
musician on the planet” and make people
believe it. Yes, the industry has changed a lot;
49
and friends who worked in it in the good old
days often lament what has been lost.
Every step of the way, judgements were
made. His teachers judge his playing and
potential; his school decides him worthy of
bearing their degree. Early audiences responded one way or another to his concerts. An
agent took him on because he realized he was
very good. Then maybe a record company
decided he was worth investing in and promoting. Critics at every stage had their say and
influenced the next step.
Today very few judgements are made, and
the decision makers are not likely to know anything about music. Whether he gets recorded
may have more to do with how much money he
has or can raise than anything else. The reviewers are mostly too ignorant to actually criticize
his playing. A whole career can be made out of
very little talent or musicality. Audiences will
obediently give him standing ovations because
of his reputation or his manner.
Rubinstein had to play on pretty terrible
pianos under awful conditions, but he did it
for the audience, for the music, and because
he had something to offer. Who does that
nowadays?
The level of public writing has degenerated
badly in these 25 years. The publicity produced
in our field is increasingly illiterate and makes
no sense. It is written to appeal to idiots.
I recently bought the newest American Heritage Dictionary (5th Edition, 2011). A great
many of the usages the 1970 edition condemned outright are now condemned more
mildly or hardly at all. The makeup of the
Usage Panel has changed, so the panel has
become much more tolerant. They accept
“upcoming” and “due to”. I will never accept
“upcoming”—never! And “due to” cannot ever
begin a sentence! They even accept “prioritize”
on the ground that there isn’t a ready substitute. (But there is: “rank”.) But they often add a
note to the effect that you can spot a careful
writer because he avoids many of these newer
usages that are just becoming accepted. I
would say that since most of our readers are
older we should usually stick with the stricter
1970 First Edition; that will also tell everyone
who can appreciate such matters that we are
“careful writers”.
I have not accepted the word “segue” in
ARG, noun or verb, because it was not in my
dictionary and I thought it a radio word with a
technical meaning that most people wouldn’t
understand. But the newest AHD lists it as
both noun and verb. The verb means to make
a direct or smooth transition, and I would certainly prefer “segue” to “transition” as a verb.
Still, what’s wrong with “becomes” (even
“smoothly becomes”) or “moves into” or
50
“changes into”? (I would never allow
“morphs”!)
I suspect neologisms—words that were not
listed in my 1970 dictionary. Although it is in
the newest AHD, I will never accept words like
“underwhelmed”—too illogical. As far as possible usage should be logical. Nor is “unwelcomed” a verb—not even in the new dictionary. (“This recording was unwelcomed by our
editor.”) In 1970 no one used “issues” to mean
“problems”, “difficulties”, “matters” or “conditions”. Nowadays instead of sending someone
a “get well” card, we send an e-mail saying,
“focus on resolving your health issues”. The
new AHD acknowledges that but frowns on it,
commenting that the use of “issues” is often a
way to evade the word “problems”, which is
considered too negative (in our wimpy times).
The new edition also rejects “read” as a noun,
as in, “this book is a good read” (never allowed
in ARG—and neither is “a good listen”). And
I’m glad that they call the popular use of “awesome” slang.
The new edition does not strongly insist
that to “aggravate” is to make worse, not to
irritate. (But it is.) Nor that the whole comprises the parts, never vice-versa. Nothing can be
“comprised of”, but the new edition says
“opposition to this usage is abating” (read:
sloppy usage is spreading). “Convince” cannot
take “to”, but they are weakening on that, too.
Something that is fascinating or interesting is
not “intriguing”, but they no longer seem so
opposed to it (like “convince to”, it is very
common). You lend someone something; you
don’t “loan” it. That distinction is almost lost
in the USA, and so the new edition more or
less admits defeat. “Momentarily” means FOR
a moment, not IN a moment, but it is so often
used the other way that the new edition says,
“resistance is waning”. “Transpire” doesn’t
mean “happen”; it means “become public
knowledge”. The new edition allows it to be
used for either but does add that it is pompous
and pretentious.
“Inauthentic” has replaced “unauthentic”—and “inauthentic” was not even in the
1970 dictionary. There’s not much difference,
but I wonder what their reasons were for this.
In a few areas the AHD still takes a strong
stand. “Impact” as a noun means “collision”,
but the Usage Panel now accepts it for “effect”
(I don’t; it’s gross exaggeration.) But “impact”
as a verb “ranks among the most detested of
English usages” (Hear, hear!). It can only mean
to strike forcefully or smash together; it’s a
physical thing. You cannot be “impacted by”
an idea or plan or law. “Hopefully” is still
rejected almost absolutely. (It is called “a sign
that the writer is unaware of the canons of
usage”.) “Bemused” cannot mean amused; it
means something like confused. “Disinterested” cannot mean “uninterested”.
But in general the AHD is becoming more
descriptive and less prescriptive, which is a
shame, because most people want guidance
and need it very badly—they are increasingly
uneducated in language matters. More and
more writers are using circumlocutions that
were considered “informal” or even slang in
1970—are you surprised? The usage manuals
are still pretty firm on most of those matters,
because they are designed to give guidance.
The Editor of the new dictionary says in the
front of it, “We pay attention to the way people
use language”. What people? From his essay I
surmise he means “everybody”. So does he
aspire to make the AHD just another dictionary that simply describes what people are
saying? That’s not what we need. If words are
accepted just because they are widely used,
the lunatics are in charge of the asylum. We
want to know what the best writers and speakers are doing with language—not just anybody!
We have had presidents who could hardly construct a meaningful sentence. Our advertising
and journalism is dreadful. Our public signs
and public speakers are ungrammatical. Are
the dictionaries just going to baptize all that?
A new feature of this edition is the “Our Living
Language” notes. The very name smells of
democratic relativism. It’s code for “language
is always changing and we refuse to prescribe
rules”. But language can improve or it can
degenerate. Shouldn’t a dictionary care
which—and help it to improve rather than sink
into the quicksand of vagueness?
In 40 years language does change. But the
main thing that has changed in these last 40
years is that people who don’t know language
have abused it freely and widely—and loudly.
People who don’t know language are writing it
everywhere. The inmates really are in charge of
the hospital. I can’t understand why a dictionary would view language as democratic. Even
the AHD now seems to argue that if lots of
people (sometimes lots of writers or speakers—TV newspeople?) use something it has to
be accepted. So our language is losing precision every day—and therefore its usefulness as
a tool of communication. Words are increasingly coming to mean whatever people want
them to mean, and it is apparently unsporting
to say to someone, “but that’s not what that
word means”. And if it’s a common error, he
will find it justified in the dictionary! The odd
thing is that very few people use dictionaries
any more. They just “wing it”. But the ones
who do look in the dictionary are certainly
hoping for more than a mere description of the
ways people use words. They hear and read
that every day. And since Webster’s Third they
even read it in dictionaries. The AHD was originally published as an alternative to that kind
of dictionary.
Yet the editors aren’t quite willing to admit
that there isn’t good writing and bad writing! A
large part of the distinction is that bad writing
is full of the fad words and neologisms that the
AHD is no longer opposing! A good writer
doesn’t need those things and does not grab
words out of the air. He knows what words
mean and what words he needs to express his
thoughts. He doesn’t need to break rules and
become illogical to express himself. And why
should good writers accept that kind of writing? Why should intelligent readers? It’s
unseemly, and I am disappointed in the new
edition of my favorite dictionary.
VROON
Language and Usage Bloopers Recently Seen
A Michigan music series season folder:
While this continues to remain the choir’s primary reason for existence...
A science journal suggested that global warming would “negatively impact” Antarctic glaciers.
The program “experienced” growth.
Breathless publicity about a “12-year-old protege” (prodigy).
Music described as “shiek” (chic?).
A major magazine talked about “books as this”
(meaning “books like this”).
A classical music magazine told us that “nothing phased him”.
I complained to a writer about a dangling participle; I said, “It’s not logical; it makes no
sense.” He replied that language is not logical
and needn’t be. Whatever is widely done is considered acceptable. And after all, he said, I knew
what he meant, so it communicated just fine.
The latter is the pragmatic argument—very
American—and the former is the “democratic”
view of language. Together they are dismantling our language to the point where nobody
bothers anymore to say what he means. Soon
we will have no idea, because—like the telephone—this great tool of communication is
losing its power.
I read quite often about dead people “receiving” awards. It’s impossible. And many writers
tell us that a work “received” a performance—
also impossible. Inanimate objects can’t
receive anything.
In a major magazine a writer mentioned
“the school at which I finished second grade”.
Why are “at which” and “in which” replacing
“where”? Why is “the manner in which” (or
51
“the way in which”) replacing “how”? Why do
people seem to love awkward constructions
and steer clear of simplicity and directness?
A local paper: “As a reviewer, people ask me...”
Asinine. “As a reviewer” must modify the subject, which is “people”. She means “Since I am
a reviewer, people ask me...” I have also seen
“as a parent, people ask me whether children
are worth it”. The airlines say, “as a
reminder”—also utterly ungrammatical.
From a major record label after a major competition: “X Records eagerly signed John Smith as
an exclusive artist, and now, like many of his
predecessors, presents his debut recital...” That
means either that many of his predecessors
presented his debut recital (seems very unlikely) or that he had other record labels that presented his debut recital—which is impossible.
There can only be one debut recital. They seem
to mean “as in the case of many of his predecessors (that is, other prizewinners at this competition), we present his debut recording”, but
that’s not what they said.
An important magazine told us who “coined
the iconic phrase, ‘The American Dream’”. The
word “iconic” has come to mean about the
same as “prestigious”—that is, it is just a signal
to pay special attention, a term of approval
and approbation. It says, “if you want to be
‘with it’, you have to know this stuff.” And it is
as unnecessary as “prestigious”, too, because if
something is that significant people don’t have
to be told. In fact, both are patronizing, as if to
say, “I know you are too stupid to realize that
the Metropolitan Opera is prestigious (is an
important thing) so I am telling you it is.” Yes,
in a recent press conference the speaker
referred to the Met as “prestigious”. Thanks for
telling us. These words are felt to be necessary
(I was told by a publicity person) because the
public in general now knows so very little
about music and musicians (to say nothing of
the publicity people themselves, who are
learning on the job what entities are “prestigious”). And, after all, it was a “news conference”, and “news” is aimed at idiots—in other
words, at people who watch television.
“Our focus is providing a quality support experience.” That was the actual sentence spoken
while I was waiting “on hold” for someone to
help me at a company. Could it be more
trendy or illiterate? (or hypocritical?) I think
not. Does it mean anything at all? Again, I
think not. It is meant to leave an impression—
that’s all. My “support experience” was not
improved because they kept repeating that
sentence. In fact, it is such a bad sentence that
it made me angry.
Guide
to
Records
ALBENIZ: Guitar Pieces
Asturias, Granada, Sevilla, Cordoba, Mallorca, Prelude, Tango, Malaguena, Serenata,
Capricho Catalan, Oriental, Zambra Granadina, Torre Bermeja
Stephen Marchionda
MDG 903 1739 [SACD] 67 minutes
When I reviewed Marchionda in Scarlatti (J/A
2010) I found his playing sensitive and expressive, but without quite the technical command
that the music demands. I have a similar
response to this release.
Now, this is still some very fine playing.
Marchionda has, with a few exceptions, the
“Albeniz rubato” I’ve described in earlier
reviews—it’s not overdone, just right for the
musical flow. He has a lovely sound, and the
SACD release captures that in great detail. He
has a nice sense of the architecture of these
works, and he is dramatic but not overwrought. I believe he has done most of the
HAVE YOU SEEN OUR WEBSITE?
No log-in is required. You can subscribe
there and order back issues. But there’s a lot
more:
—a brief history of ARG
—an essay on record collecting
—a radio interview with the editor
—biographies of the record reviewers
—a list of record distributors
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www.americanrecordguide.com
VROON
52
transcriptions, as he did in the Scarlatti, and
that might explain some of the different notes
that occur in ‘Torre Bermeja’, ‘Asturias’, and
‘Sevilla’.
The technical quibbles are small but significant. The inner lines are lost in ‘Sevilla’, and
the pulse doesn’t flow. The rubato in ‘Mallorca’ is uneven and the performance tedious. His
rasgueado climax in ‘Cordoba’ is just not as
strong as it needs to be, and ‘Malaguena’ is
rhythmically jerky. Listen to David Russell’s
performance on The Art of the Guitar (M/J
2007) to hear the snap and momentum this
piece should have.
Part of the issue here is the competition.
This is coming out just after Russell’s Albeniz
release (J/A 2011), with most of the same
pieces, and it’s not in the same league. Nor can
it match John Williams’s Sony recording. Even
Giuseppe Feola (M/A 2011) is a stronger performer technically, though his program is less
interesting. Still, all-Albeniz recordings are
comparatively rare in the guitar world, and
Marchionda’s recording will satisfy most audiences.
KEATON
ALBENIZ: Iberia, sel; Mallorca
Albert Nieto, p
LMG 2105—48:25
Isaac Albeniz’s impressionist piano suite
Iberia, composed in the early 1900s, is a wildly
difficult masterpiece highly praised for its vivid
portrayal of Spain, its virtuosity, and its vitality. Such a work demands tremendous skill of
interpretation from the pianist, not to mention
great technical facility. In this 2011 recording
for La Ma de Guido, Albert Nieto delivers six
pieces from this suite in addition to ‘Mallorca’.
Nieto notes the challenge he has set up for
himself: such evocative works demand of the
pianist a great deal of effort to stay true to the
character indications Albeniz prescribes for
each piece. Each piece is full of juxtapositions,
ranging from the festively buoyant to atmospheric remoteness. Things like harmonic basses can too easily accumulate unpleasant fogginess rather than the ornamental brilliance
intended. Nieto’s treatment of these matters is
not without significant problems. Pieces like
the opening ‘Evocacion’ attempt to stay true to
Albeniz’s native country. But though Nieto’s
interpretation is thoughtful, he takes too much
liberty with the tempo, and the rubato is overdone. The lyrical lines in some pieces, while
presented with sensitivity and warmth and
with an ear for the timbre and harmonic color,
tend to feel disrupted as a result. The lively ‘El
Puerto’ is sometimes light and sparkling,
sometimes bold, though the percussiveness
seems to be lacking sometimes. (Alicia de Lar-
rocha’s performance seems to evoke more of
the timbre of Spanish instruments.) One can
still hear in this zapateado, a folk dance of
Spain as well as the southern Spanish fandango and the northern Spanish song forms in
‘Evocacion’ the composer’s colorful rendering
of the richness of Spain’s musical tradition. In
the contemplative ‘Mallorca’ Nieto presents an
air of mystery, with an unusual and dramatic
fade-out at the end, both dynamically and
rhythmically. I must admit that the following
applause felt jarring and rather self-congratulatory.
The sound of the recording is great, preserving the clarity of the performance. Liner
notes in English, Spanish, and Catalan are supplied; but the English translation, while understandable for the most part, often veers into
the obtuse. Nieto’s regard for these works is
apparent, and some may find his approach
unique and interesting, but the recording is
recommended with reservations.
KANG
ANDERSSON: The Garden of Delights;
Warriors
Norrlands Opera/ B Tommy Andersson
Sterling 3001—54 minutes
Andersson is active as a conductor and composer; his teachers include Peter Eötvös (conducting) and Sven-David Sandström (composition). The two works on this release are programmatic; in fact, Warriors accompanies a
dance work by the choreographer Pontus Lidberg, while The Garden was inspired by
Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Andersson’s style is conservative, but he shows a
clear awareness of musical innovations of this
century and the last. His orchestration is
superb, and the music is always engaging if not
particularly surprising. The sound is fine but
doesn’t favor the strings enough.
HASKINS
ARENSKY: Trio 1;
TCHAIKOVSKY: The Seasons
Arensky Trio
Northern Flowers 9997—75 minutes
For pianist Igor Uryash and especially cellist
Alexei Massarsky, it’s a case of “all that talent
and so little musicality”. In the first movement
the exposition repeat and development are on
autoplay, the Elegy they play with exact note
value, and in IV the piano is utterly wooden in
the andante triplets leading into the coda.
Such firm touch and full tone, but their pulse
and flow have the insight of an unrelenting
metronome. Violinist Ilya Ioff, who takes
advantage of moments without the cello for
expansive shading, ethereal tone colors, and
muted dark colors in his mid-range, deserves
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better partners. What a shame! The Arensky is
so filled with emotion, as violinist Andres Cardenes, cellist Jeffrey Solow, and pianist Mona
Golabek show on their Delos recording.
As for the Tchaikovsky, I’ve been listening
to Neeme Jarvi’s fragrant recording of The Seasons with the Detroit Symphony on Chandos,
and also to a highly kinetic performance of
Onegin with the Berlin State Ballet (see “On
the Way to Dresden” in this issue) that uses
several selections from this work in its score.
And then to encounter ‘January’ deadly
straight, a wooden ‘March’, no tease or play to
‘August’ (a scherzo on a hot plate), a rhythmically square ‘June’ (most famous), ‘October’
(also familiar) turned into a wooden lament,
and ‘December’ (as familiar as ‘October’) a
waltz without swing. And what happened with
the engineering in ‘February’? All muddy bass
sound—did no one catch this glaring production flaw?
The cover production is weird too: faded
photo quality straight out of the 1940s, and “St
Petersburg Musical Archive” across the front
cover, indicating an old recording. Not true!
The album was recorded in December 2010
with excellent balances and engineering that
captures the full range of each instrument,
including the piano’s bass, but to no avail
here.
completed it in 1913 after returning from Ireland. It is in one movement in four sections
and is written for a large orchestra. The Symphony is romantic, impressionist, colorful,
powerful, and filled with whole-tone scales
and parallel harmonies. There is some Delius
and Arnold Bax, but with more whole tones
and less froth and sparkle. The atmospheric
and dramatic first movement opens like an
ocean awakening and has a strong feeling for
the sea. The faster section is lighter and Baxian
with a bit of militarism. An interlude is
warmed by thick string writing that is gorgeous. The militant aspect picks up near the
end, which sounds grand and cinematic. II
begins with clarinets flitting about before a
march steps in. After an interruption of carefree breeziness, the march returns. There is
some Bax here (and in the prominent tambourine), but Austin is more straightforward
and less complex, save for his whole tones. III
is like a warm summer day. After a noble climax and some celebratory horns, it drifts luxuriously into the twilight. (The last three words
fittingly invoke a Bax tone poem.) A Holst-like
passage leads cleverly into IV, which starts
grandly, then settles into a warm bucolic and
summery trance. Some of the Russian warmth
here may have been picked up from Bax, who
visited that country in 1910.
FRENCH
The Richard II Overture (1900) was Austin’s
first truly public work. It is typical of the postWagner and Strauss works prevalent at the
time and teems with boldness and adventure.
A
USTIN: Symphony; Richard II Overture;
Sea Venturers Overture; Spring Rhapsody
Bournemouth Symphony, Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal College of Music/ Douglas Bostock,
Ronald Corp
Dutton 7288—69 minutes
Frederick Austin (1872-1952) was born in Liverpool and attended Durham University. In
1904 he moved to London and embarked on a
singing career that found him the foremost
baritone in London. He was known for his
Wagner as well as works by Debussy, Strauss,
Wolf, and Schoenberg. He was a good friend of
Delius and sang the premiere of that composer’s Sea Drift. He was a professor at the Liverpool College of Music, the Music Director of
the British National Opera, and after that a
Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of
Music. In 1951, Austin joined Cortot, Casals,
Stokowski, Stravinsky, and Sibelius as Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic
Society. He is remembered today for arranging
the music for Nigel Playfair’s production of
The Beggar’s Opera, which ran for 1463 performances in the 1920s. This is the only record I
know devoted to Austin’s compositions,
though I am aware of two CDs that include one
of his works.
The Symphony in E is the gem here. He
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Rhapsody: Spring (1907) was his second
work for orchestra and reflects his happiness
at the time. The opening could be mistaken for
Delius, but Austin’s Rhapsody is more romantic, especially as the piece goes on, though it
never gets as pointed as Frank Bridge’s Enter
Spring. There are also strong touches of Bax,
though the scoring is not as sophisticated.
Sea Venturers Overture (1936) was a tribute
to British seamen. After a stormy beginning,
things settle into a dreamy quiet nocturne
symbolizing calm seas. Brisk roiling waves follow in the strings, then a nautical march (if you
can imagine such a thing). There are more
than a few gestures toward Vaughan Williams
here as well as Bax. The latter reference led
annotator Martin Lee-Browne to speculate
that Bax may have learned something from the
scoring of Sea Venturers. Bax’s biographer,
Lewis Foreman, made the same speculation
about the Symphony in E. There is a distinction to be drawn here. Bax wrote his Sixth
Symphony in 1935 and not much else of serious consequence other than his Seventh after
1936, when Sea Venturers appeared. I believe
he was more likely to have been influenced
much earlier in his career by Austin’s 1913
symphony.
All these pieces are attractive, but it is the
symphony that puts this on the Anglophile’s
want list. The sound is very good, as are LeeBrowne’s notes, the quibble noted above
aside.
HECHT
BACH, CPE: Oboe Concertos; Pastorale;
Sonata
Anna Starr, ob; John Ma, Arwen Bouw, v; Leticia
Ballesteros; va; Maria Ramirez, vc; Silvia Soriano,
db, Joaquim Codina, bn; Jorn Boysen, hpsi
Brilliant 94298—53 minutes
Some people today crusade to reveal the beauty of forgotten composers, and other are content playing the music of composers we have
now long recognized as tapping some timeless
chord in our souls.
Anna Starr and her Musica Poetica colleagues bring a great deal of inspiration to
their performances. Their blend is well-crafted
and refined, save a few moments when the
strings might do better to play more in tune
with each other. Sometimes their sound is
quite robust, and I forget that they are playing
period instruments.
Within the last five years, two other recordings have been released with one or more of
these works. A 1974 set of recordings with
Heinz Holliger and the English Chamber
Orchestra was rereleased on Pentatone in
SACD (5186128, March/April 2009). For audiophiles it was a great thing. For period instrument lovers, Holliger’s performance on the
modern instrument with a full chamber
orchestra accompaniment was probably blasphemous. On the other hand, the richness of
sonorities and timbres on these instruments
enhance qualities in the music that just cannot
be revealed with period instruments. A few
years after that, Yeon-Hee Kwak released a
recording with the Sonata in G minor, also performed on the modern instrument, with a
number of pieces from various eras.
This recording is not bad by any measure,
but I think the Heinz Holliger recording with
Raymond Leppard and the ECO or Yeon-Hee
Kwak with a more varied program are more
enjoyable.
SCHWARTZ
BACH,CPE: Flute Concerto; see HANDEL
What comprises good performance? The
ability through singing or playing to make
the ear conscious of the true content and
affect of a composition.
—Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
BACH, JE: Passion Oratorio; Psalm 77;
German Magnificat
Barbara Schlick, Martina Lins, s; Silke Weisheit, a;
David Cordier, ct; Christoph Pregardien, Martin
Schmitz, t; Stephen Varcoe, Hans-Georg Wimmer, b; Rheinische Kantorei, Das Kleine Konzert/
Hermann Max—Capriccio 5122 [2CD] 123 mins
This is a straight reissue of a set that appeared
in 1990 as 10310 and was not reviewed.
Johann Ernst Bach (1722-77) was a nephew, a godson, and a student of the great
Johann Sebastian. His career was subject to
lurches in employment and a scattering of
directions. Among other things, he served as a
business agent for his cousin, Carl Philipp
Emanuel Bach, who was his elder by six years.
His professional activity is not clearly understood yet, and his legacy needs to be sorted
and studied thoroughly. He was primarily a
composer of sacred music. While he was thoroughly grounded in counterpoint by his uncle,
and was a particular master of treating chorale
melodies, his compositional style leans forward, via the prevailing spirit of “sensitivity”
(empfindsamkeit).
Such elements are quite evident in this
Passion, which perhaps dates from the 1750s
and runs just over an hour and a half. It displays the abandonment of the old Gospel Passion idiom and the pursuit instead of expressive contemplations on episodes in Christ’s
sufferings and passion. The best-remembered
example of that genre is Carl Heinrich Graun’s
Death of Jesus. While the musical substance of
this work is carried by soloists, an important
function is reserved for the chorus, which
offers its own contemplations but also sings
regular chorale settings. (Whether an audience
or congregation was expected to join in these
is not clear.)
This Passion is complemented stylistically
by the two shorter works. One is a relatively
brief ode derived from Psalm 77. It consists of
a recitative and aria for tenor, framed by much
longer choral movements. Slightly shorter is a
five-movement German Magnificat, with passages for one or more soloists but predominantly for chorus.
It is the choral writing in these three scores
that most catches my ear. Johann Ernst chose
to avoid the severe contrapuntalism of his
uncle and mentor, preferring a more flowing
and beautifully shaped polyphony, with dramatic undercurrents, all of which makes me
think a bit of CPE Bach’s choral writing. But
JE’s has a beauty of its own.
Hermann Max can always draw on fine
soloists: the team of Schlick, Cordier, Pregardien, and Varcoe is particularly fine in the Passion. Schlick’s singing is lovely, and Pregardien
55
is really fresh and outstanding in both the Passion and the Psalm Ode. Choral and orchestral
forces are polished and ever-reliable, under
Max’s knowing and stylish leadership.
The booklet repeats the good annotations
and gives the texts (as last time) only in the
original German.
If you are curious about lesser-known
Bachs, and if you missed this set last time, do
grab this now.
BARKER
BACH: Solo Cello Suites
Richard Tunnicliffe—Linn 396 [2CD] 2:18
The early music movement has done some
wonderful things for our ears. Yes, it led initially to some dry, inexpressive playing with no
rubato and no vibrato; but it also created a
world that didn’t insist that early composers
be romantic or shut up. Yes, I am a lover of
romantic music that expresses itself to my
heart and my memory. And that is what the
Bach suites do for me—and dry, unvaried performances don’t appeal to me.
Listening to these interpretations by Tunnicliffe, cellist and viol player in the Avison
Ensemble and Fretwork, among other organizations playing both new and old music, I hear
an effective compromise between styles. His
vibrato is sparing but not non-existent and his
rubato limited, but expressive. What initially
sounds like unvaried but leisurely tempos
develop expressiveness as they proceed.
One curious aspect to these readings is
that the first three suites have a certain harshness to the cello sound that either diminishes
during the last three or Tunnicliffe uses a different instrument. He does seem to employ
Bach’s five-stringed preference for Suite 6 and
tunes his A string down to G for Suite 5. Also,
his use of ornamentation grows as he gets to
the later suites.
Altogether, this is a carefully thought-out
series of recordings, made over a span of a
year. They bring out a fine sense of growth on
Bach’s side as well as the performer’s. I only
wish that the sound of the instrument was less
pinched in the upper register. It is harsh on the
ear. That goes for Suite 6 as well, played on a
different instrument. It seems to be a preference of the player’s. An unusual and interesting set of performances marred by rough cello
sound.
D MOORE
BACH: Flute Works
Daniel Pailthorpe; Julian Milford, p; London Conchord Ensemble—Champs Hill 31—66 minutes
I am entranced by the Bach of Daniel Pailthorpe et al., but there is only so much that I can
56
say to help you understand just what has cast
such a spell. The playing is easy. There is vibrato. Their style is not the period performance
practice that our editor despises. It is all just
right.
To hear Pailthorpe and Milford caress their
way through scales and sixths in the opening
movement of the Sonata in B minor is a delight. When the playing gets soft, the music
never turns dry, as Bach sometimes can. I am
amazed at how sonorous and connected Milford can be at the piano without anything
sounding wrong. At the end of the first movement they make a big ritard. It sounds inevitable and satisfying. The Presto concludes
with a gay jaunt at the turn to 12/16 meter that
has me imagine Bach bopping his head along
approvingly.
The Vivace that opens the Sonata in A finds
more punctuated piano playing than in the
preceding piece. The first movement was
incomplete; this is the completion by Alfred
Durr. The Largo is not so slow; it seems odd
that Bach gave such a slow indication for a
piece written with so much motion. The movement still offers plenty of respite from what it
comes between.
Pailthorpe’s sound is close up and vibrant
in the Partita for solo flute, with just a little
electricity that doesn’t disappear from the
sound no matter how soft he gets. Even the
very last notes in spots that are usually tossed
off have life to them. I don’t like a few of the
breaths, but I’m willing to excuse anything to
be able to listen to this.
In the Suite in B minor the London Conchord Ensemble sounds like a rich ensemble,
but with plenty of clarity where imitation
occurs. The warmth of the string sound had
me fondly recalling a performance of this piece
by the English Chamber Orchestra. In fact, it is
a string quintet playing. The flute is a part of
the texture, and I practically melted at 1:10 in
the Rondeau. In fact, the flute practically melts
its way through the music—consider the central section of the Polonaise. What can I say?
Sometimes it gets this good.
Thank you, Daniel, Julian, and London
Conchord members, for restoring my faith in
humanity. When I need it again, I shall return
to this...with tissues just in case.
GORMAN
BACH: Goldberg Variations
Frederick Haas, hpsi
La Dolce Volta 1—77 minutes
Here are the Goldberg Variations played by
Frederick Haas on his instrument, an exemplary antique harpsichord built by Henri Hemsch in 1751. The contrast between the two
eight-foot stops is notable and is a major asset
in moments, as in the 23rd variation, where
the crossing and converging of the hands plays
a central expressive role.
The label, La Dolce Volta, states that it
“wants to change people’s perception of CDs
so that they see them as luxury items”. A great
deal of care was put into the packaging of this
recording. The cover and illustrations were
designed by Jerome Reese, an artist and producer. Haas’s playing style is thoughtful and
reflective.
KATZ
BACH: Harpsichord Concertos
Igor Kipnis, London String Players/ Neville Marriner—Newton 8802186 [2CD] 146 minutes
Here are all seven harpsichord concertos published under Bach’s name, plus someone’s
arrangement of an eighth, based on a few bars
Bach wrote out. It seems to have been an oboe
concerto originally, and it has a lovely Siciliano
middle movement—with oboe.
Of these seven concertos I only had three
in my library. That was a conscious decision:
Nos. 1, 4, and 5 are not available any other
way. The others are identical musically to violin concertos and, in one case (No. 6), a Brandenburg concerto (No. 4). I like them better on
the violin—largely because I simply like the
violin a lot better than the harpsichord as an
instrument. I like the way a violin sounds, and
the harpsichord sounds jangly and nervous to
me.
Besides these seven harpsichord concertos, there are also six for more than one harpsichord. Some of them are also based on earlier
concertos, but there I like the harpsichord versions better, mostly because they produce a
wild and ecstatic sound.
To further confuse the picture, some scholars no longer think the violin versions were
earlier; so if you preferred them on that basis
you may want to reconsider the matter.
It is needless to praise this team, Kipnis
and Marriner. They recorded these from 1967
to 1970, and the style is very appealing. They
are not heavy, but they are not light and airy
and insubstantial the way later recordings
would be. Kipnis does not play like a machine
and according to rules; he is an artist. Listen to
how much better Bach sounds this way than
the way he is played now. Even when this
recording was made its tempos were more
relaxed than most (but it’s not slow). In No. 5 I
prefer Anton Heiler, who also gives Kipnis real
competition in a couple of other concertos
(Vanguard, July/Aug 1995) and adds in the
more than one harpsichord ones.
The sound is excellent; it might have been
recorded last week.
BACH: Lute Pieces
Heiki Matlik, g
Alba 143 [2CD] 107 minutes
Bach’s music transcribes easily. It’s just great
music and seems to work beautifully regardless of what is playing it. But he did write
works for lute (all playable, and interchangeable, on the guitar): four suites; the Prelude,
Fugue, and Allegro; and a separate fugue and
prelude. Even those include transcriptions,
though Bach’s own, of his E-major Violin Partita and the Fifth Cello Suite.
Bach’s complete works for lute is an excellent program, and it’s odd there are so few
other such programs. I only know Lutz Kirchhof’s old Sony release (N/D 1991), which was
on lute, not guitar. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend Mr Matlik’s program, for several reasons.
Recorded sound is quite good, and his
playing is clean and reasonably expressive. But
Bach needs more. This is some of the greatest
music in the guitar and lute repertory, and the
works have inspired magnificent performances from others—playing of joy, spirituality, and fresh invention. Matlik’s playing is
restrained, almost uninvolved. The most
demanding passages, like the Gigue from the
Suite in E minor or the Prelude from the Suite
in E, are too slow and cautious—they’re clean
enough, but they generate no excitement.
Repeats are just repeated, without using the
opportunity to discover anything different.
The one exception is in the Courante of the S
995 suite, where he incorporates the French
practice of notes inegales, though only on the
repeats, and only on some of the phrases. It’s
an odd interpretive choice, and an unconvincing one.
If you want this set of works, hold out for
Jason Vieaux’s set in progress. His first volume
on Azica (J/A 2009) was one of the finest Bach
recordings I’ve ever heard and made my Critic’s Choice for that year. Here’s hoping he finishes it soon. Complete sets of the suites are
fairly common, since they fit on one well-filled
CD. I’m fond of Isbin on Vanguard (J/F 1991),
and Williams’s old Sony set is still around.
Individual performances like Bream’s old
recording of 996 and 997 (still around on RCA,
one of those recordings that made me love
Bach and the guitar), Scott Tennant’s 997 on
GSP, and Barrueco’s debut set on Vox with 997
and 1006a, belong in any guitar lover’s collection.
KEATON
VROON
57
BACH: St Matthew Passion
Irmgard Seefried, s; Hertha Topper, a; Ernst Haefliger, t; Kieth Engen, b; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau,
bar; Munich Youth Choir, Bach Choir & Orchestra/ Karl Richter
Profil 12008 [3CD] 197 minutes
Once upon a time, musicians had no qualms
about making The Greatest Story Ever Told
sound like the most imposing music ever written. This Richter recording of the St Matthew—
his first—comes from those bygone days. Once
known as DG Archiv 439338, it has been
reborn on Profil. Our Bach Overview (Nov/Dec
1997) listed it among the preferred Big Band St
Matthews, and on that select roster it definitely
remains: an expansive, gut-wrenching ascent
up Bach’s musical Everest that, despite some
stumbles, is still a powerful voyage of spiritual
discovery.
50 years after it was recorded, Otto Klemperer’s monumental St Matthew continues to
cast a giant shadow over the work’s discography. So before we go anywhere, let’s put the
current performance in context. While Klemperer’s tempos are eccentrically slow—perversely so to some listeners—Richter’s are not:
expansive yes, but never disconcertingly slow.
His opening chorus clocks in at 9:45, a full two
minutes faster than Klemperer. And while
Richter’s pacing has the story unfolding rather
than bounding forward, his flair for dramatic
inflection imparts plenty of oomph as events
occur. Try his bouncy “Ja nicht auf das Fest” in
Part I and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
(There are countless other examples.) So if you
see Richter’s 1959 vintage and figure he’s crafted a St Matthew too big and slow to get out of
its own way, you couldn’t be further from the
truth.
This is a performance that embraces the
passion of the drama and the drama of the
Passion. Jesus’s epoch-changing words are
framed in shimmering halos of sound created
by the Munich strings. In collaboration with
bass Kieth Engen’s mellifluous but powerful
“voice of God” tone, Richter’s orchestra muscles up to turn the Christ’s “Ich werde den
Hirten schlagen” (I will smite the shepherd)
into a dramatic utterance worthy of grand
opera. Haefliger is as vivid a story-teller as any
Evangelist who’s ever recorded the role. When
he recounts the Apostle Peter crying bitter
tears, it’s hard not to cry along with him. (Just
in case you miss the point of the recitative,
Richter has the violin obbligato in the ensuing
‘Erbarme dich’ sounding like something on
loan from Schindler’s List—quite moving.) The
most riveting moment of all is the choir’s
dumbstruck response to the crucifixion
(“Wahrlich, dieser ist Gottes sohn gewesen”),
58
which stops everything in its tracks (including
your breathing).
Irmgard Seefried and Hertha Topper do
nicely with their solos, but you can find more
affecting accounts elsewhere. Klemperer was
blessed with Schwarzkopf and Ludwig. The latter’s exquisitely sad ‘Erbarme dich’ is a great
one. Nothing Seefried does approaches the
gorgeous ‘Aus liebe’ Te Kanawa turned in for
Solti, who also bequeathed us one of the best
St Matthews on modern instruments (London
421177, March/April 1989). Sir Georg’s
approach is more streamlined than Richter’s
but still deeply felt, and the Chicago Symphony Chorus is clearer and has more sheen than
their counterparts from Munich. When Richter
has his children’s choir trumpeting out Bach’s
chorale lines at full volume, you might find
yourself yearning for Chicago’s smoother tone
and for London’s brighter, clearer sound. Profil
offers a German text, but no notes, no English
translation, and no tracking numbers as the
libretto progresses. Sigh.
Another pearl of great price in Richter’s
account is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s singing
in the bass solos. As I listened to this in early
June, he had died just a couple of weeks
before. How moving to hear him embrace the
cross (‘Komm, susses Kreuz’) and bestow his
many, many blessings elsewhere in the score.
He was in his prime in 1959, which means he
sounds very much like the greatest lyric baritone of our time—probably of anybody’s time.
I hope Schubert, Schumann, and Bach volunteered for duty on St Peter’s reception committee on 18 May, 2012.
GREENFIELD
BACH: St Matthew Passion
Ute Selbig, s; Britta Schwarz, a; Martin Petzold, t;
Matthias Weichert, Thomas Laske, b; St Thomas
Boys Choir; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/
Georg Christoph Biller
Rondeau 4020 [3CD] 164 minutes
This St Matthew Passion appears to be the first
commercially available recording of the early
version, S 244 (b), possibly dating as far back
as 1727. It has apparently been performed in
recent years, but most recordings are of the
1736 version—Bach’s first extant autograph
score—though there are a couple of recordings
incorporating minor changes made in 1742.
The early version’s original score was lost, but
we have what appears to be a faithful copy of it
from the 1750s, made either by Bach’s pupil
(and later son-in-law) Johann Christoph Altnickol or, more likely, by Altnickol’s own pupil,
Johann Christoph Farlau. That version was
finally published in 2004.
While it’s fairly certain that the work was
first performed on Good Friday of 1727, there
remains some confusion as to whether the
magnificent opening chorus and later turbae
(or “crowd” choruses) were originally scored
for double chorus, as we know them. This is, in
part, because Bach apparently later used them
for a dual purpose. Prince Leopold of AnhaltCöthen, his benevolent earlier noble employer,
had died, and Bach was asked to supply music
for his late-March (1729) funeral in Cöthen:
just three weeks before he was scheduled to
deliver his Good Friday Passion in Leipzig.
Under considerable pressure, Bach thus used
parody-versions of least ten of the choruses
intended for the Passion for the good Prince’s
funerary service as well. And there is some fairly substantial evidence that the earliest versions of those choruses were for single choir.
The author of this release’s excellent notes
makes a good case for the likelihood that the
Passion’s 1827 version also employed such single-chorus scorings. In 1827, the choral and
instrumental resources available to Bach in
Leipzig are believed by many to have been
somewhat limited. But, by the time of the
work’s second performance in 1729, Bach had
been appointed director of a Leipzig Collegia
Musica, giving him access to a considerably
greater number of instrumental musicians and
singers than before; thus it was now possible
to employ not only double choruses, but also
dual supporting orchestras. Since the physical
layout of the St Thomas church was well suited
for the placement of multiple ensembles in
order to impart a “surround-sound” antiphonal effect to the congregation—thereby
boosting the music’s impressiveness—it seems
only natural that Bach would have jumped at
the chance to do so.
Actually, while there are a good many differences between the 1729 version and the
revised versions that followed, rather few of
them will be readily apparent to most listeners.
The most significant change was in the later
substitution of a different chorus at the end of
the Passion’s first main part (of two): the 1729
version’s fairly simple ‘Jesum Lass’ Ich Nicht
von Mir’ was replaced by the more complex
and impressive ‘O Mensch, Bewein dein Sünde
Gross’ in the 1736 edition. Aside from that, two
organ parts were added (one of the church’s
two organs had been out of commission in
1729). Otherwise, only people intimately familiar with the score will catch most of the
changes: mostly switching individual vocal
parts in a couple of the arias (i.e., from alto to
bass) and a fair number of adjustments to the
orchestrations. Indeed, Bach sought merely to
refine a work that he was already basically
happy with; there are no sweeping alterations
to the original work’s overall concept, layout,
purpose, or effect. As Herr Biller, current St
Thomas Cantor (and conductor here) put it,
Bach acted out of his determination to “perfect
the perfect”.
Still, this particular performance will
sound quite different to most listeners, simply
because it is delivered here entirely by
Leipzig’s famous, 800-year-old St Thomas
Boys Choir: an ensemble of boy trebles and
young men whom cruel puberty has transformed into youthful tenors and basses. Of
course, we’re all familiar with the work’s use of
boys as the heavenly-sounding third “ripieno”
choir in the massive opening chorus. But I’m
not aware of any other recording where all of
the choir’s treble voices belong to boys. Thus,
the high, floating ripieno voices, as they intone
their ethereal ‘O Lamm Gottes Unschuldig’
hymn in the opening chorus, don’t stand out
in quite the same sort of contrast as they
would in the case of an all-adult double choir;
also, the general sonic effect tends to lack the
weight that all-adult voices bring to this music.
But let me hasten to add that this performance is in no way lacking or inferior; it’s
merely different. Once the ear adjusts to a different timbre, the music unfolds to its usual
stunning, grief-stricken, and deeply spiritual
effect. With nearly 100 voices, this is a pretty
big boychoir—and they have no trouble cranking out crashing volume where it’s called for;
neither do they fall short in the big crowd
scenes, where director Biller draws convincing
mob-style outrage and hysteria from them.
Whether as crazed crowds or sweet cherubic
angels, these kids play their roles supremely
well. Quite a few of them also fill the lesser solo
roles quite effectively.
Musically, all else is well. The adult soloists
all acquit themselves admirably; Martin Petzold outdoes himself in the tricky and emotion-laden role of Evangelist, and Matthias
Weichert is the very model of a mournfully
resigned Jesus. The renowned orchestra is
superb at every turn; their shimmering string
“halos” as Jesus sings are especially affecting.
My few niggling complaints (what performance is ever absolutely perfect?) are hardly
worth the print space they would take. Sound
quality is excellent, and the thorough liner
notes not only cover the St Matthew Passion’s
history but offer an informative short history
of the Passion tradition in Germany as well.
Bach buffs should think seriously about adding
this version to their collections—and owners
of the classic recordings (Klemperer, Solti,
Herreweghe, Gardiner, etc.) will find it a
refreshing change.
KOOB
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BACH: WTC I
Don Freund, p
Navona 5869 [2CD] 111 minutes
This is one of the most unusual recordings of
Well-Tempered Clavier I’ve ever reviewed. Freund is a composer with a long and distinguished career; since 1992 he’s been at Indiana
University. I’ve always found that composers
who perform have some of the most interesting things to say about the music, even if their
technique doesn’t have the razor-sharp
panache and consistency that a virtuoso can
boast. That’s what we have on this release.
For instance, Freund cannot quite manage
the quicksilver speed of the Prelude in G, but
goes right ahead and attempts it anyway, no
doubt because he believes in the rightness of
the tempo. Other pieces that are just as difficult—such as the A-major and A-minor
fugues—sound just fine, though. At every turn
I sense that he has played this music for many,
many years and understands it better than
most people do. His tempos are always plausible and often perfect; the moderate, flowing
tempo for the F-sharp minor fugue convinces
me in spite of myself, and the lively tempo of
the G-sharp minor fugue brings out that
piece’s Vivaldi-like elan. (With most keyboard
players, unfortunately, the fugue becomes a
tortured dirge.)
He plays without pedal, except certain
moments where he uses the sostenuto pedal to
add an octave to a bass pedal point or sustain
the bass to allow him to play another line in
octaves and mimic a harpsichord or organ
with 4-foot stops. He doesn’t, as some pianists
do, emphasize the fugal subject at the expense
of the other voices, and as a result he gracefully reveals the polyphonic texture of the music.
Perhaps best of all, he’s not afraid to linger on
a phrase or suddenly change tempo (faster or
slower)—not to create a kind of meaningless,
mannered rubato, but rather to illuminate
something important about the music’s compositional design: the music breathes with
purpose.
I’d prefer a more spacious acoustic, which
might have been accomplished in the postrecording engineering and mastering, but the
performance is completely satisfying nevertheless. The release includes a DVD where Freund
presents lessons on compositional aspects and
performances of the first four preludes and
fugues; his website includes more of this material.
HASKINS
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B
ANKS: Siren; Still Waters; Blade; Wild Pilgrimage; The Oracle; City of Gold
Prague Philharmonic/ Paul Englishby
Naxos 572986—52 minutes
Tony Banks is the founder of the rock band
Genesis and a new convert to classical music
as well. This is crossover, a hybrid of pop
music gestures, film music harmonies, and
effective 19th Century retro symphonic writing. This is his second recording for Naxos.
These six symphonic songs are full of openhearted melody and glamorous orchestration,
predictable and not very innovative but very
easy to take. Particularly pleasing is The
Oracle, a serene bit of tunefulness that has harmonies, harps, and woodwind writing that
sound a bit like early Delius.
The orchestra has a big, brassy sound, with
lush strings for the soupier lyrical moments—
and there are plenty of those. Martin Robertson’s alto sax solos in Siren and Charlie Siem’s
violin in Blade are smooth and stylish.
SULLIVAN
B
ARTOK: Concerto for Orchestra; Music for
Strings, Percussion, & Celesta
Baltimore Symphony/ Marin Alsop
If you are seeking full, rich, and warm sounding Bartok, with glorious string tone, look no
further than this beautifully played, Westernized performance of the Concerto for Orchestra. What hits you first is that string tone,
which is rich, dark, and full-bodied. The interpretation is full-textured and mostly moderate
(never really slow) in tempo. While it lacks the
Hungarian color and spice that Bartok injected
into the music, it has a point of view and is not
just a sound bath. Right from the opening,
which is slow, creepy, and smooth—including
the trumpet entrance, which is so smooth that
the last note is barely articulated—everything
flows richly, like a broad river, including the
well-rounded brass fugue.
Listening to II, it was obvious that the Baltimore woodwinds were selected for, among
other virtues, their clear warm sounds. Their
duets are well balanced and clearly defined,
with only the oboes injecting a touch of bite in
their articulations (which is a good thing even
if they are on their own in doing so). Even the
muted trumpets keep things rounded. The
brass chorale is gorgeous. The last section is
extraordinarily graceful—perhaps too much so
(but only if you think there is such a thing as
too much elegance).
The opening to III is beautifully spooky,
with excellent work from the winds. An unexpected touch occurs about halfway through:
given the overall smoothness of Alsop’s
approach, the very deliberate marking of the
six-note phrases, first in the violas then the
winds, stands out. It almost doesn’t fit, but this
is a small point.
The one movement where even admirers
of “soft Bartok” may object is IV, where you
really do want some bite and color. That said,
the string playing is gorgeous, particularly the
violas in their solo line and later all the silky
strings just after the little trombone solo (not
the glissandos, which came earlier) and before
an oboe entrance.
The Finale starts slowly, with clear string
tone. The trumpet canon, which can be too
edgy, is finely delineated and not too aggressive, and the later fugal passages are brilliantly
executed. Smooth as everything is, there is
plenty of excitement, and one can only admire
the strings, who are breathtakingly fleet, nimble, and tight (here and everywhere else). Playing like this makes us forget how difficult these
passages really are. The recording is typical of
what we have been getting from Baltimore
recently—smooth, big, and full, with a lot of
bass. If you are looking for a reading of this
piece that is even lusher than Karajan’s, this
certainly is a prime candidate. It’s not for
everyone. There are many other good choices—I’ve heard very few poor recordings of this
piece. Gielen, Reiner (two of the best), Kubelik,
Karajan, Solti, Leinsdorf, Bernstein, Ancerl,
Boulez, Eschenbach, Paavo Jarvi. Frustrating is
Chailly. It’s like the Alsop, but not as well
recorded. Two I’d avoid are Ozawa and
Schwarz.
Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta is
another matter, mainly because it is a thornier
and more aggressive piece, and it was recorded differently. Without brass and woodwind
color, “big” string textures and sleek playing
are not enough to bring it off. There has to be
fire, drama, and energy. I is very good and best
suited to Alsop’s approach. The way it develops like a field of wildflowers opening in slow
motion—time-lapse photography—is impressive. The same approach doesn’t work as well
in II. Worse, the percussion and piano are covered, essentially disqualifying the performance. The opening to III is creepy, eerie, and
full of suspense. The fugal theme slithers in
nicely, the crescendo and glissandos are
impressive, and the percussion sounds better
than in II. If the finale lacks the requisite hairpin turns, it fits the interpretation.
MSPC was done about 8 months later, and
the mikes seem closer than in the Concerto.
Too close. That exaggerates the “bigness”,
makes the strings sound a little rough (perhaps
the slightly greater distance in the concerto
helps them?), and probably explains the problems with the percussion.
The Bartok Overview likes Bernstein (dramatic), Reiner (very Hungarian), and Ormandy
on Sony. I know and like the first two. I don’t
know Ormandy’s Sony, but I do like the EMI.
My favorite may be Boulez (the one with the
Chicago Symphony, with stunning playing and
sound).
Keith Anderson’s notes are good—and very
good in their breakdown of the first movement
of MSPC.
HECHT
BARTOK: 44 Violin Duos
Duo Landon
MSR 1401—50 minutes
Bela Bartok wrote his 44 Violin Duos in 1931 at
the request of the German violin pedagogue
Erich Doflein. His purpose in writing these
pieces was to introduce music students to different sounds than they would be accustomed
to making from exposure to the conventional
instructional repertoire. They are written so
they can be played by beginners and more
advanced students, and they make no special
technical demands. But they are very fine
works that are much more enjoyable to listen
to than most pedagogical works. They are also
worthy of the attention of seasoned, professional performers.
Duo Landon is Hlif Sigurjonsdottir and
Hjörleifur Valsson, two Scandinavian violinists. They named their group after the maker of
the violins they play, Christophe Landon. Landon made copies for the Duo of Stradivarius
violins made in 1714. Duo Landon do a good
job playing these duos, but when I compared
them with my favorite set by Andras Keller and
Janos Pilz (Nov/Dec 2002), the violinists of the
Keller Quartet of Hungary, the Scandinavians
cannot compete. The simpler tunes written for
the less advanced students are intoxicatingly
evocative in Keller and Pilz’s hands, and they
make the more boisterous, advanced pieces
flow more naturally.
Another shortcoming of this release is the
sound. The Keller and Pilz disc is ideally
recorded, with just the right, slightly dark
ambience; but this disc has too much resonance from the hall—it is a hard resonance,
and the Landon violins are too bright, their E
strings producing an especially harsh, piercing
sound. Keller and Pilz’s recording is a classic
that I hope will never be deleted.
MAGIL
BEETHOVEN: Bagatelles, all
Steven Osborne, p
Hyperion 67879—67 minutes
Quite a few recordings of Beethoven’s Bagatelles were issued in the 90s and comparatively
61
few since then: the latest review in our cumulative index dates from 2004. I have none of
those releases in my library and have only hazy
memories of hearing others; certainly none of
the recordings I might have heard sufficiently
moved me to include them in my library. On
that score alone, it’s very nice to have one CD
devoted to all the Bagatelles, and by a pianist
of Steven Osborne’s caliber; readers may
remember my positive review of his release
including Tippett’s works for piano and
orchestra as well as the four sonatas, also on
Hyperion (Mar/Apr 2008).
This release includes, I gather, many if not
all of Beethoven’s little pieces for piano: some
were composed as souvenirs (for instance, the
masterly and compact WoO 61a in G minor,
written in 1825 for Charles Burney’s daughter).
Indeed, Osborne seems most comfortable with
the later and more unclassifiable ones. WoO
61a explores a somewhat austere two-voice
contrapuntal terrain—in 32 seconds—while
WoO 60, composed around the same time as
the Hammerklavier Sonata, breathes some of
the same uncomplicated but still rarefied air as
passages from that work. Some of the earlier
pieces (Op. 33, for example) and even certain
numbers of Op. 119 seem too bland, too
straightforward. Both Mr Chakwin and Mr
Linkowski have recommended Stephen
Kovacevich’s recordings, and I would look for
those if I wanted to add to my collection. But
Osborne satisfies my needs for now.
HASKINS
B
EETHOVEN: Creatures of Prometheus;
MOZART: Idomeneo Ballet
Vasteras Sinfonietta/ Roy Goodman
DB 148—78 minutes
The Vasteras Sinfonietta is a part-time Swedish
chamber orchestra founded in 1995, here with
34 players (strings 6-5-4-3-2). Their tuning is
not good, bordering sometimes on the sour
side. Nor do they arrive on the downbeat at the
same time. They also tend to play “behind the
beat”, and the winds arrive on the beat before
the strings do. The fifth section of Prometheus,
with its many solos for winds and a few for
strings, shows how second-rate the principal
players are. In addition, the engineering feels
close and congested; more air is needed
around the players to let the music breathe.
Roy Goodman is the ensemble’s principal
guest conductor. With other ensembles he
directs, he elicits subtle playing, but not here.
He is the one to blame for the biggest sin of all
in these performances, an utter lack of style.
He lets this orchestra sound like a second-rate
provincial ensemble in his ineffective attempt
to apply period performance practices (including non-vibrato) to their playing.
62
The Mozart consists of only four selections
from the opera (14 minutes). The Beethoven is
the complete ballet. Forget this performance
and stick with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the
Chamber Orchestra of Europe on Teldec or
Warner.
FRENCH
BEETHOVEN: Diabelli Variations
Andreas Staier, fp
Harmonia Mundi 902091—67 minutes
No, this isn’t a Gouldian reading of Beethoven’s late masterpiece; Staier—who performs on a replica of a Graf fortepiano—
includes some of the variations published in
the collection by 50 composers (by Czerny,
Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Kerzkowsky, Kreutzer,
Moscheles, Liszt, Pixis, FX Mozart, and Schubert), plus an introduction—actually Staier’s
performance of a sketch from Beethoven’s
original manuscript of the work (held privately
until it was acquired by the Bonn Beethoven
House in 2009—Staier consulted it for this
recording). Lasting some three minutes, it
recalls the ruminative, inimitable style of the
Choral Fantasy’s solo and similar introductory
passages in the late sonatas. And even though
Beethoven didn’t finally elect to use it for the
Diabellis, it makes for a marvelous introduction to that sprawling, complex work.
The fortepiano, with its whisper-thin treble, will strike many listeners as too anemic for
the piece; indeed, sometimes something’s
missing, and even though the historicallyinformed performance practice often appeals
to me, a few moments (notably Variation 18)
don’t seem effective. On the other hand, the
enigmatic expression of the final variation—a
wistful minuet—works very well on the
fortepiano. The high-registered passages make
infinitely more sense with the gossamer textures Staier can achieve with the fortepiano
than they do on a modern instrument. Altogether, this is a remarkable and unforgettable
performance that many connoisseurs of the
Diabellis will not want to be without.
HASKINS
BEETHOVEN: Choral
Der Glorreiche Augenblick;
Fantasy
Claire Rutter, Matilde Wallevik, Peter Hoare,
Stephen Gadd, Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Julian
Davies; Leon McCawley, p; Westminster Boys’
Choir; City of London Choir; Royal Philharmonic/
Hilary Davan Wetton
Der Glorreiche Augenblick (The Glorious
Moment), written to celebrate the victory over
Napoleon, was first performed in 1814 as part
of the general festivities surrounding the Con-
gress of Vienna. The text, written by a former
army doctor, Aloys Weissenbach, is fairly weak
but full of patriotism. It is seldom performed,
but probably deserves better because Beethoven left very few cantatas—and besides, the
music is a good example of Beethoven in his
public mode. The four soloists represent Vienna, a Prophetess, Genius, and Leader of the
People and take up about 75% of the score. A
lot of the music is challenging for the soloists,
and all these do very well. The chorus is limited mostly to the outer movements, but their
work is sprightly and enthusiastic.
The Choral Fantasy is an earlier work, first
performed in an 1808 concert that also included the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies and the
Fourth Piano Concerto. It is an odd piece, neither fish nor fowl. First it’s a piano solo, then a
concerto, and finally a choral piece. Pianist
Julian Davies plays well, but I was more taken
with Howard Shelley’s performance (J/A).
Nonetheless, this is a persuasive performance,
nicely shaped and controlled by the conductor. The choral work is again fine.
A good recording, then, of two of Beethoven’s second-tier pieces. Special thanks to
Wetton, a strong advocate of these seldomheard works.
ALTHOUSE
BEETHOVEN: Missa Solemnis
Anne Schwanewilms, Annette Jahns, Nikolai
Schukoff, Dietrich Henschel; London Philharmonic/ Christoph Eschenbach
LPO 61—80 minutes
Only a short time after reviewing a very fine
Missa Solemnis (Steinberg’s), we have another
excellent performance from the LPO and
Eschenbach. This was recorded in concert on
October 18, 2008 in Royal Festival Hall.
This recording has a lot going for it:
Eschenbach’s large, expansive view; a fine
group of soloists; and finally the LPO in fine
form—in particular concertmaster Pieter
Schoeman, who plays the violin solo. The real
stars for me, though, are the chorus members,
especially the sopranos, who pump out
Beethoven’s outrageously high writing with
full energy and complete assurance. When the
Gloria had finished, I wondered if, like a sports
team, they would send in subs for the Creed
since they were, after all, in a concert rather
than a studio. In any case they surmount the
rest of the piece without ever sounding tired.
To be sure, there are moments when the intensity sags a little (the reprise of “Credo” and
perhaps during the “Dona”) and we can find
some small spots of shaky ensemble (as are
common in concert performances of big
choral works). The overwhelming impression,
though, is one of great strength and conviction
in tackling this gigantic, unwieldy work.
The soloists, as I said, are all good, though
Annette Jahns’s dark mezzo doesn’t project
very well and the opening solo of the Agnus
sounds too low for Henschel. Eschenbach’s
tempos are on the slow side, allowing the gravity of the piece to be felt with sensitive detailing.
A fine job all around. I do wonder, though,
if this performance would have been better
done over several days in a studio setting.
ALTHOUSE
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonatas 1-10
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet
Chandos 10720 [3CD] 3:14
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has decided on a strictly
chronological order for his Beethoven sonatas
cycle. The first disc covers the three Opus 2
sonatas; his playing is light, fleet, and boasts
exceptional clarity and nuance. The last movement of 3 is quite brisk (close to Rubinstein on
RCA) but sounds effortless. Bavouzet’s scaledback dynamics barely reach a forte, but that
suits these early works. But with the second
disc you get the feeling he is merely skimming
the surface. In the Pathetique he zips through I
at an impressive clip but pulls his rhetorical
punches, and III is more of the same. Peter
Takacs (Nov/Dec 2011) is no barn-stormer,
but even his Pathetique conjures up more
gravitas (especially in I). Bavouzet’s pastel
readings of 4, 9, and 10 are impressively performed and may charm listeners predisposed
to tactful Beethoven.
In the three Opus 10 sonatas (5-7) Bavouzet is a bit more assertive, and 6 is a high
point of the set. Extras include some unused
music from 5: a discarded draft of II and a
reconstructed longer finale. Sonics are intimate without a lot of hall sound; 12 pages of
notes offer brief analyses of the sonatas (with a
few musical examples) and some comments
from the performer. Overall this is gorgeously
played but not especially gripping Beethoven.
KOLDYS
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonatas 8, 17, 23
Sviatoslav Richter
Regis 1384—65 minutes
Regis is unusually coy about the provenance of
these performances; there’s no licensing information, and the only date given is “recordings
first published in 1961”. 23 is the masterly 1961
RCA performance praised by our Editor as the
best Appassionata he’s ever heard (May/June
1998). More recently it was coupled with Concerto 1 and Sonata 22, again highly recommended by Mr Vroon (July/Aug 2004). 17 turns
63
out to be Richter’s 1961 EMI Tempest. It isn’t
quite as bold as 23 but it’s an outstanding rendition; Mr Morin was enthusiastic, calling it
“astonishing in its dramatic force, tension, and
beauty” (May/June 1997). The Pathetique
dates from the late 1950s, a Melodiya production in constricted monaural sound that has
surfaced on many different labels. It sounds
like Regis has tamed the excessive tape hiss
but at the cost of dulling the sound. The performance rivals the Appassionata in its power
and grandeur, but primitive sonics spoil the
broth.
KOLDYS
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata 21; Andante
Favori;
MOZART: Fantasy in C minor; Piano Sonata
14
Alejandro Pico-Leonis
Oehms 797—66 minutes
Pico-Leonis’s new effort improves moderately
on his debut Oehms release (July/Aug 2011).
The program is more coherent: rather than a
mishmash of variation sets we get some more
substantial works. The quality is also more
even, given that this pianist is a natural fit for
Mozart and Beethoven. As before, his sound is
extremely polished and pleasant and his technique light and fluid.
Also as before, though, the piano threatens
to overtake the pianist as the more memorable
contributor on the release. It has a huge and
immediate sound with full rounded tones in all
registers. Pico-Leonis relies too much on it to
make his impression on listeners.
The first section of the C-minor Fantasy is
given in a rigid tempo. It is gently done with
attractive attacks but lacks drama. In II the
music can only be spoken of in negatives. It’s
like there’s nothing there! The tremolos have
no nervous energy, and the arpeggios and
cadenzas at the end are rattled off as if from a
typewriter. There is no humor, or anger, or
anything to IV. The only urge I sense in the
music is the aspiration to sound beautiful and
profound. All the movements of the C-minor
Sonata are likewise competent but not
thrilling.
Both the best and the worst moments
occur in the Waldstein. The lack of drive in I
makes this track the weakest by far. The music
drags as early as the end of the first theme, and
then the second one slows down further. The
development also runs out of steam early on
and never recovers. Everything is just too languid and syrupy. On the other hand, I can find
no fault with the interlude. The voicing and
dynamics are near perfect, with all of the
sforzandos fully honored to great effect. The
sound is unmistakably soft and hushed, but
the recording makes it big and intimate, result-
64
ing in a perfect blend of intimacy and
grandeur. III falls in the middle. The tempo is
relaxed, allowing it to proceed in a stately
manner. It further avoids the common problem of the virtuosic triplet episodes becoming
frantic; instead they sound deliberate. The
coda is too slow.
AUERBACH
BEETHOVEN: Symphonies
Renate Behle, Yvonne Naef, Glenn Winslade,
Hanno Müller-Brachmann; Berlin Radio Chorus;
SW German Radio/ Michael Gielen
Hänssler 93285 [5CD] 6:04
Symphony 9
Erin Wall, Mihoko Fujimura, Simon O’Neill,
Mikhail Petrenko; Tafelmusik Chamber Choir;
Montreal Symphony/ Kent Nagano
Sony 91944—63 minutes
Now in his mid-80s Michael Gielen was born
in Dresden, but moved to Argentina as a
teenager and began his career there. Later he
held posts in Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Holland and Germany, though in this country we
know him best as conductor of the Cincinnati
Symphony (1980-86). In recent years he has
been with the Radio Orchestra of BadenBaden and Freiburg, which he led from 1986 to
1999. On recordings he is admired mainly for
contemporary music. These were made at
broadcasts from 1997 to 2000, all in the
Freiburg Konzerthaus.
Gielen has long advocated fidelity to
Beethoven’s metronome markings, so you
know the temperature of the water before you
stick your toe in the pool. The liner notes
quote him defending his tempos as early as
1957, so he was in the pool well before the current generation of speedy conductors.
(Remember, though, that a tradition of quick
Beethoven extends back at least to the time of
Toscanini and Weingartner.) Generally speaking, Gielen draws such clean playing from his
orchestra that the tempos seldom sound
rushed, and in his way he brings a wide
expressive range to the music.
One might expect the first two symphonies
to go well with Gielen’s approach, and indeed
they do. Both opening movements are a little
unsettled (moments of poor ensemble), which
may be because they opened their programs.
Both finales are fine, quick without sounding
too fast (and at moments I thought 2:IV could
use more energy). Interior movements are
good, except for 2:II, which for me is too fast
and uncomfortably metronomic.
The opening of the Eroica is very satisfying
if you like a one-to-a-bar feel. I resist that
quick speed because the music threatens to
become dance-like, making the rhythm and
flow too “easy”. This is followed by a slow
movement that happens too fast for me and
thus has little to say. If you like Beethoven with
minimal romantic decoration, you may like
this, but my best description is “prosaic”. The
closing movements, though, are quite good.
The Fourth is one of the best. The tempos
work well, the playing is energetic and pushes
ahead (particularly in the development of I),
and Gielen’s detailing illuminates the piece
very nicely. This is also a work with lots of wind
solos, and here I must report that none of the
wind players sounds absolutely top drawer.
This is a satisfying performance, but you won’t
mistake the orchestra for Berlin or Vienna.
The Fifth is an exciting, bloodthirsty affair,
generally well played by the orchestra and well
controlled by Gielen. I did feel that perhaps
too much emotional capital was spent in the
first three movements, leaving the finale to
sound post-climactic. I wonder what
Beethoven had in mind. We know from music
history classes that in the classical symphony
most of the argument was in the first two
movements, and the last two were fun and
fluff. There are exceptions—the Jupiter and
perhaps the Eroica—but there are few before
the Fifth. I do feel sure, though, that Beethoven
saw the finale of the Fifth as the culmination of
the whole piece. He enlarges the orchestra for
this one movement, moves from minor to
major, and pounds mercilessly on the tonic at
the very end. If I’m right, conductors should be
wary of using all their ammunition in the first
movement; because the essence of the piece is
in the finale, not the earlier movements. As for
Gielen’s performance, I think you’ll like it if
you like Kleiber’s, but Kleiber’s is better.
The Sixth is in the same vein. Rather than a
stroll through the woods, the opening movement sounds like a forest ranger who is late for
work; it’s nervous and impatient. The “slow”
movement comes as a relief, but it is still quick
and very much in four (rather than 12). The
storm is exciting, and the finale is relaxed, with
some tempo fluctuation. Many of the fast
string articulations are unusually well played,
so this recording may appeal to people who
like a fast, no-nonsense Pastorale. But it is a far
cry from Walter, Klemperer, or Böhm.
The Seventh is the one symphony (after
the Second) where I thought I might have no
quarrel with tempos, and indeed the pace here
feels consistent and appropriate. Even the
slow movement, which I almost always find
too fast these days, is broad enough to allow
for sentiment and feeling to seep in. A satisfying performance, then, but I will admit I miss
the richness of orchestras like Berlin and Vienna. This isn’t at all bad, but in this repertory
the stakes are high, and we can be picky.
Much the same could be said about the
Eighth, which is swift without sounding too
fast or out of control. Again, we don’t hear the
luxury of more famous orchestras, but this is a
lighter piece, full of what we call “humor”. So,
in all, a very fine performance, one of the best
in the set.
The Ninth is one of the few pieces to have
become an icon of Western civilization and
achieved celebrity status, which means the
symphony has turned into something Beethoven probably didn’t intend at all. In great
performances like Furtwängler’s the Ninth can
be almost life-changing. Gielen may be truer to
the composer’s intentions, but in so doing he
has cut this colossus down to a 40 regular. The
opening movement is well done, but the level
of emotion is not deep. The scherzo is actually
not very fast and with all the repeats sounds
interminable. The efficient slow movement
floats nicely on the surface, rarely engaging
any real feeling and never reminding you this
is one of the finest slow movements ever written. Particularly disappointing are the sudden
modulations (e.g., B-flat to D), which have no
magic whatsoever. The finale is an extraverted
affair, with fine soloists and enthusiastic chorus. Gielen urges the piece along, particularly
in the opening recitatives, and keeps the level
of excitement high, though the balances are
not always ideal.
This set will appeal to people who want
Beethoven fast and exciting, with a minimum
of rhetoric and romantic overlay. The playing
is generally quite good, and the performances
have an honesty and consistent view. I would
argue, though, that there is more to tease from
this music than fast and exciting playing.
The elevated status of Beethoven’s final
symphony is admirably confirmed by the
Montreal recording, made in September 2011.
The piece was played for the inaugural concerts of the new Maison Symphonique in front
of an audience that is totally silent until
applause at the end. And, as if to suggest
Beethoven’s music needs some “context”, it is
accompanied by a poetic narration by Yann
Martel, read before the symphony in English
and afterward in French. Furthermore, the
album cover sandwiches the words “Human
Misery—Human Love” between “Beethoven”
and “Symphony No. 9”. I guess the opening
movement is misery and the finale love, but
what about the middle movements? I won’t go
on. I suppose it’s fine to have such associations with this (or any) piece, but just don’t put
them in print!
Unless you’re from Montreal, you’ll be
interested in the music, which is quite nicely
done. The opening movement is strong and
muscular, almost a minute slower than Gielen,
but still moving ahead with confidence (and
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hardly suggesting human misery). The scherzo
is considerably quicker than Gielen’s puzzling
pace and much more satisfying. The Adagio is
by the clock about the same as Gielen, but
Nagano achieves a better sense of tranquility,
and he is more sensitive to Beethoven’s dramatic modulations. The finale, taken quickly
like Gielen, is hampered by the sonics, which
place the soloists and chorus too far away.
(The perspective is a concert hall with soloists
in front of the chorus, not in front of the
orchestra.) Other than the question of balances the performance is quite fine, musical
and well shaped (though soloists and chorus
sometimes seem to struggle to keep up with
Nagano’s tempos). In many respects this is
preferable to Gielen’s reading and a fine testimony to Nagano and his troops.
ALTHOUSE
B
EETHOVEN: Trio 1;
HAYDN: Trio
with ARMSTRONG: Stop Laughing: We’re
Rehearsing!;
LISZT: Tristia; Vallee d’Obermann
Kit Armstrong, p; Andrej Bielow, v; Adrian Brendel, vc
Genuin 12239—70 minutes
Continuing Genuin’s commitment to recording new, young musicians, this release presents the accomplished first violinist of the
Szymanowski Quartet; the son of a great
pianist; and a gifted polymath, 20 year old
British-Taiwanese pianist, composer, mathematician, and cook, Kit Armstrong. The extensive interview with Armstrong in the notes suggests he is the main attraction here, and his
own work is sandwiched between Beethoven
and Haydn. A student of Alfred Brendel, who
has sought to keep him out of the bright glare
of the media, Armstrong has nonetheless
drawn a fair amount of coverage—extensive
reviews in The Guardian and The Independent,
an appearance on David Letterman, and a
recent documentary about the relationship
with his mentor, Alfred Brendel. Having more
than 50 compositions to his credit and currently doing work above the doctoral level in
algebraic geometry and topology, Armstrong is
with some frequency described with the word
“genius”, though he asserts that such terms
have no importance for him. Brendel described the 13-year-old Armstrong as a natural
Bach player, and this affinity for Bach’s vast
universe of musical structure joined with his
mathematical gifts is felt in these performances. In an article in The Independent,
Michael Church notes Armstrong’s discomfort
with the “overblown” music of late romanticism, and it is clear from this release that his
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tastes are firmly grounded in classicism,
though there is a late Liszt creation.
The group’s reading of the Beethoven Trio
is a wonderful revelation of structural clarity
and balanced sound. The string timbre and
phrasing is especially full and expressive in the
melodic dialogs of II. Despite the emphasis in
the liner notes on how Beethoven moves the
piano trio into new territory, the interpretation
here consistently reminds the listener of the
work’s roots in Haydn. The apt inclusion here
of the Haydn D-major Trio, published in the
same year (1795) as Beethoven’s, further
emphasizes the relation of the pupil’s work to
his teacher’s. The occasional and sometimes
striking similarities between the two works
reveals something of the stylistic shell from
which Beethoven’s first trio was hatched.
I would prefer that the Armstrong piece
not interrupt this Haydn-Beethoven connection on the program. It’s an appealingly playful
composition, with a whimsical, unexplained
title typical of several of Armstrong’s works—
eg, Message in a Cabbage, Who Stole my
Wasabi). It has a neo-classical transparency
and playful intricacy suggesting the composer’s mathematical abilities and love of
structure.
Liszt’s late reworking of a piano piece from
First Year of Pilgrimage is somewhat of an oddity, since chamber music is by no means common or even particularly noteworthy amid his
vast output. As the liner notes observe, Liszt’s
arrangement “savors extremes to the full”, but
the performance maintains a tense restraint
perhaps guided by Armstrong’s distaste for
romantic extremes. Here again the musicianship is admirable and engaging, though I find
the Beethoven in particular best rewards
numerous hearings.
JD MOORE
BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata 32; see LIGETI;
Quartet 4; see Collections
Violin Romances; see BRUCH
BERIO: Piano Works
Francesco Tritano—Piano Classics 32—79 mins
Berio’s piano music takes in the composer’s
entire career and reflects his many styles.
Every few years a young pianist records this
repertory in its entirety, and why not? It’s
music by a master, much of it avant garde but
some surpassingly lyrical, and you can get it on
one CD. I wrote about the expressiveness and
delicacy of Andrea Bacchetti and Andrea Lucchesini three years ago and am happy to
endorse this pianist (actually recorded in
2004).
Listen to the uncanny spatial effects in
‘Erden’, the Ligeti-like swirlings in ‘Luft-
klavier’, or the serene lyricism in ‘Waserklavier’, and you know immediately that Berio’s piano legacy continues to be in good
hands. Once again, we have an artist who is
willing to understate and suggest as well as
aggressively attack, who offers poetry even in
dissonant pieces like Sequenza IV.
The clear, bright recording illuminates all
these qualities. There is not much warmth but
plenty of resonance for Berio’s echoes and
bells. Tritano brings this composer’s unique
world of colors, effects, and abstractions to
startling life.
SULLIVAN
BERLIOZ: Damnation of Faust;
RAVEL: Daphnis & Chloe excerpts
Beatrice Uria-Monzon, mz; David Kuebler, Franz
Grundheber, bar; Denis Sedov, b; Transylvania
Philharmonic Choir; Israel Chamber Choir & Philharmonic/ Gary Bertini
Helicon 9648 [2CD] 142 minutes
Debate has always swirled around Damnation
of Faust as to what it is. Choral work? Cantata?
Opera? In a full-bodied, red-blooded performance like this, opera wins hands down. The
Israel Philharmonic is on top of its game, alert
to every nuance of the music and desire of
conductor Gary Bertini. They are powerful in
all the big places, fiery in the ‘Hungarian
March’, and nimble in ‘Esprits des Flammes
Inconstantes’ and ‘Maintenant Chantons a
Cette Belle’.
The soloists fill their roles very well.
Leopold Simoneau and Nicolai Gedda are the
right tenors for French music. The American
David Kuebler sounds more like a not-too-lyrical German tenor—he cannot duplicate the
beautiful sounds Gedda makes for Colin Davis
in ‘Grand Dieux’—but he makes up in dramatic sense and excitement what he lacks in
French lyrical tone. He is moving in ‘Dors!
Heureux Faust’, powerful in ‘Nature
Immense’, and defiant on his way to Hell. (The
tuba is great there.) Beatrice Uria-Monzon (the
only French soloist) is a mature Marguerite—
dark and almost syrupy of tone. She brings
strength to her part even if she does not have a
lyrical French voice or great enunciation: Faust
displayed some courage walking out on her! A
little more delicacy would have helped ‘Autrefois un Roi de Thule’, but she makes up for
that in other places. Franz Grundheber’s
Mephistopheles is almost noble.
The lusty Transylvanian Choir (from
Romania) is a huge asset. Just listen to them in
‘Choeurs de Buveurs’, the great ‘Amen’ fugue,
and the ‘Choeurs de Soldats’, and of course in
Faust’s Hellish end. Bertini’s conducting is
magisterial. This is a concert recording, which
may help explain the electricity of the perfor-
mance. It must have been some experience to
have been in Mann Auditorium on that night
in 1996.
I like the Georges Prêtre Damnation (lighter
in tone and somewhat set back in staging) and
the Colin Davis (the Philips, in Davis’s neoclassical approach), but Bertini rivets me to my
chair in a way neither of those two quite does.
The sound is not “demonstration quality”,
but it is very good, the best I’ve heard from
Helicon. It is full and natural and is no impediment to enjoyment. The booklet notes are
detailed on the work’s history and action.
There is no text, but there is a separate breakdown of the numbers that includes more
information about the plot. The presentation
is confusing—it seems that two separate entities were pulled together—but it is worth reading through.
The packaging calls the Ravel Daphnis et
Chloe: Ballet Music. The booklet text tells us
this is Suite No. 2 and goes on to describe that
work (after an interesting discussion of the
whole ballet). In fact, we hear not a note of
Suite No. 2. Instead, the performance starts at
the beginning of the ballet and runs to where
Dorcon tries to kiss Chloe (just before No. 29 in
the score). After a short pause, it resumes
where Ravel’s standard Suite No. 1 begins (No.
70) and ends where that Suite ends (just before
No. 131). Since chorus is included, this
amounts to two large chunks of the complete
ballet. (Suite No. 1 is often performed without
chorus, using the orchestral parts Ravel substituted at Sergei Diaghilev’s insistence for some
performances by the Ballets Russes.) The reading is quite good, but it does not match the
best performances of the complete ballet. It
took place in 1974, and the Israel Philharmonic
does not sound as sophisticated as it does for
the Berlioz. Nor is the more forward, slightly
less refined sound as good. No matter. The
important thing here is The Damnation of
Faust. As part of Helicon’s memorial to Bertini,
who died in 2005, this performance of that
great work by Berlioz is a wonderful tribute to
a very underrated maestro.
HECHT
BERLIOZ: Symphony Fantastique; Beatrice
& Benedict Overture
Scottish Chamber Orchestra/ Robin Ticciati
Linn 400 [SACD] 63 minutes
Orchestra da la Francophoni/ Jean-Philippe
Tremblay—Analetka 9998—54 minutes
The quest for Historically Informed Performances (HIP) has taken on the romantic era.
For a while, it was “period instruments”. For
Symphony Fantastique there was Roger Norrington and his London Classical Players, then
67
John Gardiner and his Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique recording in the hall
where the work’s premiere took place. Norrington moved on to “hybrids”, using a large
orchestra with modern instruments but
eschewing string vibrato. Several of us at ARG
have railed against that practice. There are also
recordings of Sibelius and Brahms Symphonies with modern-instrument chamber
orchestras.
Now Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra gives us another hybrid: a Symphonie Fantastique with a chamber orchestra
playing modern instruments without vibrato.
(The booklet lists 60 players, but the group
sounds much smaller.) Berlioz led about 100
players for the premiere, and he wanted (and
probably got) the same for the revision three
years later. That would seem to eliminate “historically informed” as a justification for a
chamber orchestra recording without vibrato.
What it leaves is the question of whether
this newcomer is enjoyable on its merits and
whether it offers any interesting insights. Certainly, the playing is excellent. The recording is
fine, though at a very low level. The interpretation is reasonably good and perhaps very good
if you sit in the “classical” camp for Fantastique performances. The tempo for the opening segment is slow and labored, but speeds
after that are mostly moderate; and there is
energy, life and sparkle. Accents are pronounced, and the phrasing is full of sharp
angles and hairpin turns, especially in I. The
only problem there is edginess in the trumpets. ‘The Ball’ works well, partly because it is
easy to accept a small orchestra for an indoor
ball. ‘Scene in the Fields’ is slow, pensive,
inward, but sounds bleak, more like a tundra
than fields. ‘March’ is crisp and almost jaunty
but light in weight. ‘Witches Sabbath’ is too
polite and reserved, particularly in the Dies
Irae, which is not helped by thin, bright bells.
(Ticciati takes the repeats in I and IV and does
not include the cornet in II.)
As with any smallish performance of a
large orchestral work, you will catch things you
may not have noticed before, though there is
little revelatory here, and there are balance
problems. There are too few strings for the col
legno to rattle the bones in the finale. Ticciati
holds the trombones back in key places, making them seem passive and distant in their first
entrance of the full section in the march, their
replies to the tubas’ Dies Irae, and their reference to it just before the end. On the plus side,
the harps are more present than usual in II.
A few interpretive points call too much
attention to themselves. The passage just
before the blade drops in IV is restrained and
chorale-like, slowing down while the percus-
68
sion thunders—for what effect I’m not sure.
The muted horn just before the crowd outburst in V exaggerates the marked ppp and
pppp into inaudibility. The brass accent and
back sharply off each note of their collective
reprise of the Dies Irae near the end of V. The
accents are written, but not the drastic
decrescendo, and the effect is mannered.
I don’t like the vibratoless string tone at all.
If you know any Norrington recordings, you
have an idea what to expect, only the sound
here is even thinner and whinier because of
the smaller ensemble. It is obvious from the
start, when in typical HIP fashion, the strings
sit hard on edgy long notes. In fact, the string
sound is thinner and whinier than on some
recent HIP recordings. Perhaps experienced
HIP players have become more adept at producing a warm vibratoless tone than the Scottish players, who I presume play without
vibrato only occasionally. (If so, the sound
heard more than a century ago may have been
closer to what we consider modern than some
HIPers would have us believe.) The smallerscaled Beatrice and Benedict Overture is more
suitable for this kind of performance, and it
comes off better.
The excellent notes are by the great Berlioz
biographer, David Cairns. Nothing in them
refers to this or any other small orchestra performance.
I don’t see the point of this recording, but
many British reviewers loved it, some breathlessly so. If the idea of a hybrid Fantastique
appeals to you, Mr Haller endorsed Norrington
with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony. Haller and
I both strongly advise against Norrington’s
London Classical Players recording. For HIP,
the Gardiner is very good.
The Orchestre de la Francophonie is based
in Quebec for young Canadian musicians
working toward a professional career. It was
established in 2001 by Jean-Philippe Tremblay,
who remains its music director. It is a fine
group, like many similar ensembles in the US
and Europe.
The performance is very good. The interpretation is deliberate and squarely phrased
(geometrically speaking) but is not lacking in
boldness and color. The string tone is not rich,
but its clean, colorful string lines sound
French, which is not a bad thing at all. It
sounds as if the players are using some vibrato
but not a lot. Trembley takes his time in
between pauses in the early section of I—
maybe too much—but the rest goes well, with
some good cut and thrust. The ‘Ball’ is lively
and good natured. One annoying aspect in
these two movements is that the horns seem
too present—probably a matter of recording
balance, but I’m not sure. Some may not like
the deliberateness, square phrasing, and
straightish tone in ‘Scene in the Fields’, but
none of those qualities is overdone, and the
movement is enjoyable in a simple, straightforward way. The ‘March’ has angry timpani
and generates some nice weight; the prelude
to the beheading at the end of the movement
is frightening (without the odd pullback of the
Ticciati). The laugh that begins the finale is
more cleanly executed, and the roar of the
crowd is terrific. The dead sound of the bells is
oddly fitting; and, while the tubas of the Dies
Irae are reticent, the trombones (here and
elsewhere) have plenty of imposing power,
and overall this movement is very well done.
This is a performance full of enthusiasm, but
at full price without a coupling, it runs into a
threshing machine for competition. I have to
admit it has grown on me. Tremblay takes
both repeats and uses the cornet in II. The
notes do the job.
HECHT
BERNSTEIN: Arias & Barcarolles;
BARBER: School for Scandal Overture;
DIAMOND: Elegy in Memory of Ravel
Jane Bunnell, mz; Dale Duesing, bar; Seattle Symphony/ Gerard Schwarz
The Bernstein was first released on Delos 3078,
and Ralph Lucano reviewed it (J/F 1991). He
found the orchestration (by Bright Sheng)
added nothing to the accompaniment, and he
preferred Judy Kaye and William Sharp, the
soloists in the first recording of the cycle (with
piano, Koch 7000, J/A 1990). That was reviewed by David Greene, and he believed the
cycle gave evidence that “Bernstein might well
have been the key American composer of our
era”, commenting on his natural American
idiom and his understanding of “the more selfconscious and artificial devices of post-modern music” and the ability to make real music
out of all that. To Lucano, the songs were “disconcertingly personal and sentimental”, even
though the orchestral accompaniment made
them less intimate.
Naxos doesn’t include texts (for shame!),
and the singers are not readily understandable. And the playing isn’t the best I’ve heard
from Seattle.
Mr Lucano felt the Barber needed “a little
more plush” and wished that the lyrical second
subject had been played with more feeling. I
found it somewhat listless and disjointed, and
I’ve never thought that any of the other times
I’ve heard it. It’s not bad, just not great. Speaking of disjointed, that’s my final word on the
Elegy.
I’d pass on this release.
ESTEP
BIZET: Carmen Suite; see LORCA
BLOCH: America; Concerto Grosso 1
Patricia Michaelian, p; Seattle Symphony &
Chorale/ Gerard Schwarz
The sound here for America is even muddier
than on the original release. It is the worst
sound I’ve ever heard from Delos’s famous
recording engineer, John Eargle. Treble is
almost non-existent; flute and French horn
passages are often buried, and there is no
transparency. The more the instruments, the
worse it gets, and it’s worst of all in the final
measures when the chorale joins in with the
unison patriotic song.
Nor does it help that Schwarz is at his
rhythmically weakest in America. The score
has frequent changes of tempos, which he
anticipates and distorts, and he then adds
many more tempo changes of his own, which
destroy any possible appreciation of an overarching form in each movement. Add to that
the spongy character of his conducting when,
for example, triplets play against quarter or
eighth or 16th notes. I found it impossible to
grasp any basic pulse in far too many passages.
At 39 minutes, this performance comes across
as a meandering mess.
The liner notes on Delos by my ARG predecessor, Shirley Fleming, give the early history
of the work: composed in 1925 after Bloch
became an American citizen, and in 1926
judged for Musical America as “the best symphonic work on an American theme by an
American composer by conductors Walter
Damrosch, Leopold Stokowski, Serge Koussevitzky, Frederick Stock, and Alfred Hertz—all
of them, I might add, immigrants like Bloch.
I’m sure they had a different take on patriotism than I do, particularly in an election year
when “patriotism is the last refuge of
scoundrels”.
Either I’m out to lunch in finding the work
utterly simple-minded, or it is horribly dated,
or Gerard Schwarz makes it sound shallow and
sappy. In Carl Bauman’s original review
(May/June 1994) he found the work inspiring,
the engineering “superior sonically”, and the
performance “superb”. Concerning the Concerto Grosso, he found the performance “a
good one” and “a version to love”, though he
was ambivalent about choosing between this
recording and Howard Hanson’s on Mercury.
To my ears, the Concerto Grosso, recorded
18 months earlier, is a sonic joy. The string
lines are clear, and a wonderful bass presence
reinforces the ripe piano part. It’s easy to hear
how harmonies, accents, and textures function
in the work. Schwarz’s rhythms are rather
spongy, and in III the many tempo and meter
69
changes just don’t relate in a flowing manner.
His grasp of form and propulsion is weaker
than Hanson’s, who offers more snap in I, II,
and IV and more effective tenderness and contrasts in III, if you can put up with the fleshless
piano and grainy strings of the EastmanRochester Orchestra.
Compared to Delos’s more historical notes
that also include a listener’s minute-byminute walk through Bloch’s notes in America’s score that quote its poetic and musical
sources, the completely different liner notes
for Naxos are typical: intelligent, straight-forward, and analytical.
FRENCH
BLOWER: Horn Concerto; see Collections
BLUMENFELD: Piano Pieces
Jouni Somero
FC 9706—69 minutes
For people familiar with the music of Felix Blumenfeld, there should be no qualms about
acquiring this recording. All of the selections
save one are new to CD, and the performances
are beautifully realized with careful attention
to phrasing and dynamics.
Blumenfeld (1863-1931) was born in Russia
and studied composition under Rimsky-Korsakoff. As a piano teacher he counted among
his students Simon Barere, Vladimir Horowitz,
and Maria Yudina. His music is romantic,
technically challenging, and Russian to the
core. Only the Etude de Concert, Op. 24, is
duplicated on another disc, so this recording is
mandatory for expanding your Blumenfeld
collection. As a study in contrast it is enlightening to compare this with the performance by
Daniel Blumenthal on Marco Polo. Somero is
the more powerful player, though Blumenthal
achieves impressive results with his refined,
more poetic playing. It would be hard to
choose between them.
The Suite Polonaise has four dance movements and must be a delight to play as well as
to hear. It is unpretentious and has the wonderful melodic and harmonic twists of the late
Russian romantics. It also owes a certain debt
to Chopin. With its ten brief movements, the
Moments Lyriques strike a more serious tone,
with melody slightly more elusive than the
Suite and a definite sadness defining most of
the pieces. Nicolas Medtner comes to mind
most often in listening to it.
Two Nocturnes, Souvenir Douloureux, and
the other pieces are all worth getting to know.
The short Danse, Op. 53:1 that concludes the
program reaches into new harmonic territory
reflective of Scriabin or Catoire.
In all of this, Finnish-born (1963) Jouni
Somero shows complete mastery and the high-
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est interpretive skills. None of the music save
the Suite can be considered to belong to the
salon. All of it is serious and requires great subtlety and a willingness to probe the depths.
Somero studied in Cologne and Switzerland
with Georgy Cziffra and Michael Ponti. In 1987
he was awarded a diploma at the International
Music Competition in Rio de Janeiro. He is
well represented on records. Notes are decent,
if brief, and the recording is very good. Chalk
this up as another recent discovery of some
importance.
BECKER
BOLCOM: Gospel Preludes
Gregory Hand, org
I believe this is the first time all the Gospel Preludes have been released on one disc. The Dallas chapter of the American Guild of Organists
commissioned the first book of three preludes
and liked them so much that they asked for
three more books of three.
I almost sent this back to the Editor,
because what I hear is so personal that I didn’t
know if I’d be able to think clearly enough
about the music to give it a proper review. I
was almost exhausted after the first two hearings—it felt like Bolcom had notated all the
spiritual upheaval and theological wonderings
of my last few years with eerie accuracy. The
hymn tunes the preludes are based on are
nearly all ones I grew up singing and loving—
and being alternately comforted and manipulated by. I can’t think of ‘Just As I Am’ without
revival services and horrendously long altar
calls coming to mind, including one where I
started counting after the organist and I (on
piano) had played that song about a dozen
times and lost count after another 50 repetitions.
Bolcom has painted well the state of much
of American Christianity, with the revivalist
hymns flirting with High Church musical traditions, ramming their heads against a century
of dissonance, whirling around the floor with
Black gospel music, walking the sawdust trail
teary-eyed, trusting in their own wretched
urgency, but ineptly and accidentally finding
Christ’s light burden and easy yoke in spite of
themselves. The preludes are us, tortured,
laughing it all off, taking it seriously again, and
coming back to the church as it should be: a
hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints,
where the unfamiliar incense covers the stale
cigarette smell still in our grubby clothes, and
where the blood imparted in little sips doesn’t
care if it’s a chaser to last night’s rum.
It’s a compliment to Bolcom that these
dozen preludes can be so personal. And they
don’t care much about being genteel! When
they feel the need to burst into song (or “Let ‘er
rip”, as I would hear shouted at camp-meeting
services), they do without warning, and it’s
tinged with the thrill of breaking a taboo.
When Bolcom writes in a black gospel style,
he’s not just aping the harmonies; he gets the
essence of it in the elongated melody lines. Art
should sometimes be a commentary on culture, and that’s what these preludes are.
They’re an important addition to the organ
repertory, and they’re an accurate reflection of
American Christianity. Gregory Hand has done
a stunning job here, too, on the Skinner Organ
at the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago.
ESTEP
B
ORTKIEWICZ: Piano Works
Volume 3: The Little Wanderer; 6 Preludes,
op 13; Marionettes; Sonata 1
Volume 5: 4 Pieces, op 10; 3 Pieces, op 24; 12
New Etudes, op 29
Jouni Somero, p
3: FC 9723—68 minutes 5: FC 9736—72 minutes
Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952) was born in the
Ukraine, educated in St Petersburg and
Leipzig, and died an Austrian citizen in Vienna. While his life began only four years later
and lasted nine years longer than Rachmaninoff’s the two Russians can easily be viewed as
exact contemporaries. There is no evidence
that they ever met or performed each other’s
music. While Rachmaninoff’s life story is fairly
well known, leaving Russia for good in 1917
during the Revolution and eventually becoming an American citizen, Bortkiewicz found
himself caught up in the horrors of the Russian
Revolution and both World Wars. He moved
often and was financially dependent on the
generosity of friends and benefactors. Even
though he became an Austrian citizen in 1925,
he was viewed as a Russian by the Nazi regime
and his works were banned in Germany. The
wealth that Rachmaninoff earned as a concert
pianist, conductor, and composer the last 25
years of his life were completely unknown to
Bortkiewicz. I find it therefore somewhat
incongruous that Bortkiewicz’s music, while
similar stylistically to Rachmaninoff’s, is more
positive and bright than the pervasive melancholy we associate with Rachmaninoff.
Bortkiewicz’s musical style is heavily influenced by Chopin, Schumann, Tchaikovsky,
and Liadov. There are also similarities with
Rachmaninoff and even early Scriabin. 38 of
his 70 opus numbers are for solo piano (a
number are 10 or more short pieces), two more
are for piano duet, plus three piano concertos,
a number of songs, and a good quantity of
chamber music with piano. He was quite a fine
concert pianist; and, except for a few sets of
pieces specifically designed for amateur
pianists, his music is very challenging.
Of the music on these two discs, I found
the sonata and the etudes the most compelling, with performances to match. These
are big virtuoso pieces, the sonata similar to
the first sonatas of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin,
except this is in a major key. Bortkiewicz
packed the etudes with all the romantic emotion and technical demands that you are familiar with if you know Chopin’s. Both The Little
Wanderer and Marionettes are sets of teaching
pieces in a wide variety of musical styles, and
could easily introduce young musicians to a
wide range of music. Somero imbues each
with the requisite panache, and they hold your
interest over many hearings. The other sets of
pieces range from short two-or-three minute
pieces like the Six Preludes to more substantial
six-minute plus pieces with Chopin-inspired
titles like Ballade, Nocturne, and Impromptu.
Jouni Somero (b. 1963) is a very busy
Finnish pianist with over 2300 concerts and 60
recordings to his credit. He has recorded four
volumes of Rachmaninoff, five volumes of
Finnish piano music, as well as eight volumes
of Bortkiewicz. His booklet notes are very good
(and well translated from the original Finnish).
He has all the necessary technical equipment
and sensitivity, coupled with a clear affinity for
late romantic piano music. These are very
enjoyable recordings.
HARRINGTON
BOTTESINI: Duo Concertante; Allegro di
Concerto Alla Mendelssohn; Une Bouche
Aimee; Tutto che il Mondo Sera; Capriccio di
Bravura
Rick Stotijn, db; Liza Ferschtman, Candida
Thompson, v; Monika Leskovar, vc; Christianne
Stotijn, mz; Hans Eijsackers, p; Amsterdam Sinfonietta
Channel 32612 [SACD] 57 minutes
Here is a joyous performance of some lightly
lovely and virtuosic music from the romantic
period. Giovanni Bottesini (1821-89) was perhaps the greatest double bass player of his
period and certainly the most prolific and polished composer for that oft-ignored instrument. He was also a well-known conductor
who led the first performance of Verdi’s Aida
in Cairo, marking the opening of the Suez
canal.
The music played here is not all in its original form. One Duo Concertante was originally
written for two double basses and orchestra.
Camilla Sivori adapted one of the solo voices
for violin and Duncan McTier has cut the
instrumentation down to a string orchestra. If
you can take all that, the performance here is
enthusiastic and virtuoso.
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The Grande Allegro is played by solo bass
and string quintet as arranged by Wijnand van
Klaveren. This is followed by two songs to texts
probably by the composer with accompaniment of double bass obbligato and piano, sung
by Stotijn’s sister. One is in French, the other
in Italian. Texts are given, but there is no translation. Christianne sings with a lovely sound.
Then it is back to bass and string quintet in
another Klaveren arrangement of Capriccio di
Bravura. These two works are played with polish and enjoyment by all.
The program ends with another Duo Concertant, on themes from Bellini’s Norma, for
cello, double bass, and orchestra, arranged for
string orchestra by Marijn van Prooijen. Like
everyone else in this project, Leskovar plays
fine cello, joining in the fun with abandon and
perfection.
As you can see, this is not for people who
want the original versions of anything. On the
other hand, the music of Bottesini is played
with flair by a bunch of musicians who work
well together. Bottesini can take all this arranging since his music is not built for depth but
for enjoyment. So enjoy!
D MOORE
BOURGEOIS: Cantatas (5)
Carolyn Sampson, Le Concert Lorrain
Carus 83374—72:36
Until getting this record, the only composer
named Bourgeois I knew of was Louis Bourgeois, the 16th Century musical assistant to
John Calvin in Geneva. There were, in fact,
other composers of that surname (unrelated).
Here we have Thomas-Louis Bourgeois (16761750), of whom I suspect our readers have likewise been ignorant up to now.
This Bourgeois was a singer by training
and initial profession, a high-tenor (hautecontre) greatly admired. But, settled in Paris,
he turned his energies to composing, moving
on then to a pivotal post in Brussels. He composed a large number of theatrical works. But
he also contributed to the idiom of the French
secular cantata, which was highly popular by
the early years of the 18th Century. Besides
some isolated examples, he built his reputation in this sphere with two published collections, from which the five examples here are
derived: three from the publication of 1708,
two from 1715. The release takes its title from
the program’s opening cantata, Les Sirenes.
I am unable to find any of his music in
recordings—not even in anthologies. So here
we have a true recording debut. And it is justified. At this remove, the cantatas of Bourgeois
(mostly on mythological themes of love) do
not sound that different in character from ones
by Clerambault, Monteclair, and other well-
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known masters of the genre. But Bourgeois
does have a profile of his own, and I was quite
impressed by his capacity for weaving truly
sinuous and seductive melodies in the airs.
That is just the meat for Sampson, who is
skilled at applying her full, ripe voice with rich
nuance and assertiveness. She is vigorously
supported by an ensemble of six versatile
instrumentalists.
Lovers of French Baroque music should
rush to be the first kid on the block to have rare
music by this hitherto-ignored composer.
Good notes; full texts with translation.
BARKER
BRAHMS: Cello Sonatas
Laura Buruiana; Matei Varga, p
Coviello 51204—51 minutes
This is one of the few cello-piano records I
have seen where the pianist is listed first. It
doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the
performances. They are nicely balanced, and
both defer to each other politely and with sensitivity. If there is a lack here, it is in the rather
metronomic approach to the tempos. Rubato
comes in unexpected places, not where I
would expect it. These Romanian musicians
have a different feeling about this music than a
German or Austrian pair would have, yet
Brahms survives very well, as one might
expect. On the other hand, these are not the
kind of polite performances I would choose to
have as my only recording of this music,
though they offer an unusual alternative to the
normal way of playing Brahms. And then there
is the short timing.
D MOORE
BRAHMS: Piano Pieces 1
Barry Douglas
Chandos 10716—77 minutes
Since this is the first volume in what will supposedly be a complete Brahms piano music
project, I’m rather puzzled and put off by the
arrangement of works. This is assembled more
like a “My Favorite Brahms” record than the
beginning of a methodical traversal of the
piano works. Douglas samples pieces from
four of the composer’s sets—Opp. 10, 116, 117,
118. Both the Op. 79 Rhapsodies are here but
not together. Certainly any of these works is
capable of standing on its own, but it is also
clear that Brahms often had a clear musical
idea behind their groupings. Then the notes
discuss the selections in terms of their opus
number groupings. The seven Fantasies Op.
116 (Douglas plays only four) are described as
“less of a compilation than a self-consistent
entity”. This release offers only the first of the
three Intermezzos of Op. 117, yet Calum Mac-
Donald’s notes describe them as a “triptych”
of interrelated “Lullabies”. The Ballades Op. 10
are accurately noted as “organized around a
limited sequence of related tonalities,
suggest[ing] a kind of loose sonata pattern”.
Unfortunately Douglas’s program doesn’t let
us listen for this structure, since it only
includes the fourth and final Ballade.
Despite these vagaries of programming,
Douglas’s playing is warm and full-bodied as
well as restrained and introspective in the
more intimate lyrical expressions of the Intermezzos. He manages to capture Brahms’s
power without hammering at the full chordal
passages and climactic moments. He builds
forward motion and tension more through
attentive phrasing—something especially
admirable in the two rhapsodies. The Handel
Variations and Fugue pay attention to the varied characters the variations explore while
maintaining the sense of constant sweeping
movement towards the grand closing fugue.
If one approaches this as a “Brahms sampler”, it has a lot to offer; but when it comes to
complete collections of the piano works, I
think Julius Katchen’s will remain at the top of
my list.
JD MOORE
BRAHMS: Fantasies, op 116; Intermezzos,
op 117; 2 Rhapsodies, op 79; Handel Variations
Peter Katin
Diversions 24157—78:48
This is a reissue of a 1990 Olympia recording.
Opuses 79, 116, and 117 are regarded as
Brahms’s return to smaller forms from the
Sonatas and Variations as he was nearing the
end of his career. Concluding the recording is
the masterly Variations and Fugue on a Theme
by Handel, composed 30 years earlier.
It is evident immediately that Peter Katin is
an arresting pianist with a fine command of
the instrument. These miniatures demand
amazing sensitivity, and Katin delivers. While
Op. 116 is for the most part interpreted with
great attention to detail and character, Katin’s
transitions between very fast passages to the
slow passages lack continuity. He could also
take more care with the B section of the same
piece, a particularly passionate section that
seems a little rushed. The Intermezzo in E
minor, a favorite of mine, drags sometimes
here. The Intermezzo in E, “Andante teneramente”, could use a little more tenderness.
Despite these quibbles, he is a dexterous
performer, and his Op. 117 Intermezzos bring
out the beautiful density of texture in these
pieces, with great consideration for the buried
lines in the accompaniment. There is no
extensive bravura here, but rather a gentle inti-
macy. Katin’s playing draws attention to such
introspective works without becoming too precious. The Variations are the perfect way to
close the recording, with their brilliance and
sparkling wit. While this interpretation may
not be as grand as others, Katin displays the
richness of these variations, from the light
playfulness of Variation 1 to the exuberant fanfare of Variation 25. The fugue builds up to a
climactic finish, and there’s plenty of energy.
The sound quality of the Norwegian
recording is decent, and many should enjoy
this testament to a fine pianist’s storied career.
The liner notes are written by Katin himself,
and are informative and well researched.
KANG
BRAHMS: 18 Songs
Brigitte Fassbaender, mz; Thomas Riehl, va; Irwin
Gage
Acanta 233493—51 minutes
Fassbaender, now in her early 70s, was one of
the finest mezzos of her day. She excelled in
stage roles like Octavian and Orlovsky, but
later in her career gravitated toward recitals
and lieder. She retired from singing in 1995.
These songs were recorded in the early 80s
when she was at the height of her powers.
This is a splendid recital in every way.
Fassbaender’s singing is above reproach:
securely produced with excellent intonation
and a fine sensitivity to the texts. Her fairly
dark vocal color is perfect for Brahms, whose
songs rarely have soprano innocence. Perhaps
best are the big, stormy pieces—’Auf dem
Kirchhofe’, ‘Verzagen’, ‘Wehe, so Willst du
mich Wieder’—but at the same time it is hard
to fault gentler pieces like ‘O Kühler Wald’ or
charming ones like ‘Ständchen’. Special mention should be made of the two viola songs,
beautifully accompanied by violist Thomas
Riehl. Irwin Gage is an excellent partner,
though he is too prominent in ‘In Stiller
Nacht’. Texts and translations are included,
but you have to flip back and forth to get German and English.
If your taste or curiosity runs to Brahms
sung by a mezzo, look no further.
ALTHOUSE
BRAHMS: Symphonies (all)
Philharmonia Orchestra/ Christoph von
Dohnanyi
Signum 255 [4CD] 2:48
Dohnanyi recorded Brahms’s symphonies in
the late 1980s with the Cleveland Orchestra.
They were reviewed, none too enthusiastically,
by Kurt Moses (M/A 1990). For this new
release Symphonies 1-3 were recorded in
Royal Festival Hall concerts, ranging from June
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2007 to October 2009, while the Fourth was
played in Queen Elizabeth Hall in February
2007.
Back some two decades my colleague was
bothered by a “blandness and stodginess” in
the playing, and I have to report that things
haven’t gotten much better in the intervening
years. The First (which Mr Moses liked the
best) has seemingly passionless playing in the
first movement, despite the loud brass interjections (the rhythm reminding us of Beethoven’s Fifth). Balances are sometimes odd,
as if Dohnanyi were looking for little counterpoints hidden away in the symphonic texture.
In the finale of the First he sometimes adjusts
tempos, which is fine by me, but he seems to
lurch from one pace to another. Things don’t
feel organic; the music doesn’t have a natural
ebb and flow. I’m tempted to say the slow
movement is better than the rest because a
stoic restraint here might make sense, but
when I think of someone like Furtwängler in
this movement, I wonder if I’m wasting my
time.
The Second begins nicely as a slow, bucolic
affair, but it seems over-phrased and fails to
gather steam, so with the repeat the whole
movement becomes dull. Middle movements
are OK, and the finale moves energetically with
strong timpani.
The Third is generally quite good. The
music feels pulled along, rather than poked at,
though joined by occasional unsteadiness of
rhythm. This performance feels less careful
and less detailed than, particularly, the First,
and therein may lie its value. It has a muscular
strength that is appealing, though the slow
movement is rather matter-of-fact without
much feeling or warmth.
The Fourth is similar. The playing is strong
and rugged where required, but the slow
movement needs more tenderness, and the
rich E-major coda doesn’t glow as it does with
rivals. The scherzo is very good.
In sum this is, except for the First, a fairly
good traversal of the symphonies. I generally
found them better than the Gardiner performances, reviewed singly in the past few years.
Most movements are played with strength and
commitment, though sometimes the music
can sound too heavy-handed. All of Dohnanyi’s slow movements, though, need more intensity, often more quiet intensity. The sound is
quite good and full, though the orchestra’s
ensemble and intonation are not so good as
we might like. The four symphonies are spread
lavishly over four CDs with no fillers, so each
disc averages less than 45 minutes.
ALTHOUSE
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BRAHMS: ESinfonia
in B; Scherzo from F-ASonata;
SCHUMANN: Intermezzo from F-A-E
Sonata;
SCHUMANN,C: 3 Romances
Malmo Opera Orchestra/ Joseph Swensen
Signum 191—66 minutes
You’re right. Brahms didn’t write a Sinfonia in
B. This is his first Trio (Op. 8), the one Brahms
drastically revised later in life. The original,
written when he was 21, is seldom heard
because the later version is more concise and
really superior, but it has been recorded. It is
this early work that Joseph Swensen has chosen to orchestrate, dropping the piano and
adding winds. In making his arrangement
Swensen claims to have included every note of
Brahms, even the challenging passagework
from the piano part. The new piece works fairly well and sounds convincing (but not always
like a Brahms orchestration). It is particularly
nice to hear the main theme played by solo
horn, but I have to say that the discursiveness
of the original Op. 8 Trio is not improved here.
Best of the movements is the Scherzo, which is
the one least changed in Brahms’s later version of the Trio. I would like to say we have a
new work to spice up our concert halls, but I
don’t find this piece as engaging as the Brahms
serenades (which the piece loosely resembles).
The remaining pieces are all arranged for
orchestra and solo violin, which is played by
Swensen himself. All of them are certainly
agreeable as vehicles for solo violin, but I find
that enlarging the canvas of a piece to full
orchestra leads me to expect more musical
substance than was in the original. As a result
the pieces sound thin.
I would put this in the category of Curiosity. If arrangements like this appeal to you,
you’ll find old friends in new places—a little
like running to your neighbors when away on
vacation.
ALTHOUSE
BRAHMS: Violin Sonatas
Anthony Marwood; Aleksandar Madzar, p
Wigmore Hall Live 50—68 minutes
These are good, solid performances of the
sonatas that were recorded in concert at London’s Wigmore Hall on September 19, 2010
and January 9 and May 15, 2011. There have
been quite a few outstanding recordings of
these sonatas in recent years, so while I have
no caveats about this set, I can name several
others that are more satisfying and thoughtprovoking. I would urge anyone who wants a
set of these to get Barnabas Kelemen and
Tamas Vasary’s outstanding one (Nov/Dec
2004) or Frank Almond and William Wolfram’s
(July/Aug 2001).
MAGIL
BRAHMS: Violin Sonatas
Simca Heled, vc; Jonathan Zak, p
Centaur 3147—70 minutes
No, your eyes are not deceiving you. These are
the three violin sonatas all played on the cello!
Do you want to hear them done that way?
Well, it does give us a different slant on the
music, but is it really informative, helpful, or
beautiful?
We cellists have been playing Sonata 1 for
several years now with varying degrees of success. As far as I am concerned, it is one of my
favorite pieces of music to listen to in its original form. The cello version disappoints me
because of all the changes in register the piece
is put through in order to sound convincing on
the cello. The ending particularly bothers me,
since the final theme is given to the piano
when it was originally most beautifully given
to the violin. Some cellists obviously feel as I
do about it and have changed the arrangement
back to Brahms’s way. Heled and Zak do not
do this, though they seem perfectly happy with
it this way.
This is the first time I have heard Sonata 2
on the cello. It doesn’t convince me, but it is
good to hear it done. Sonata 3 is a gutsy wonder and sounds possibly most convincing of
the three on the cello. It will never replace the
original violin sonata in my affections, but it
works well this way. Velitchka Yotcheva with
Patrice Lare (XXI 1587, Nov/Dec 2009) are the
only others to play this one. I believe. Heled
and Zak do it better. As for Sonata 1, my choice
would be Torleif Thedeen and Roland Pontinen (BIS 1606, SACD, Sept/Oct 2010), who not
only play beautifully, but restore Brahms’s
original ending.
D MOORE
B
RIAN: The Tigers Variations; Preludio
Tragico; Night Ride; Turandot Pieces & Suite
BBC Scottish Symphony/ Garry Walker
Toccata 113—71 minutes
Havergal Brian said his five operas contained
his best music. Proof of that awaits their hearing, though there have been studio performances of a couple. Meanwhile, we have here
a tantalizing cross-section of orchestral
extracts. Except for the Kelly Variations from
The Tigers (1929), all are recorded premieres.
The variations aren’t the predictable kind
where we hear the theme, then a string of
modifications. Rather, Brian forges a symphonic movement where, after the initial
statement of the once-popular song, bits of it
are interlocked, disintegrated, and reassembled. The tune occasionally reappears, giving a
spine to a kaleidoscopic sequence of transformations. The result is one of the most compact
and ingenious sets of variations ever created.
The Preludio Tragico is to his Shelleybased opera The Cenci (1952). I’ve known this
piece for over 20 years, and never quite got it,
Brian’s fragmented logic being in full cry. At
first hearing, its themes are as abstract as in
one of his later symphonies and seem to have
no dramatic connection with Shelley’s, to put
it mildly, grim plot. Yet with this superior performance, aided by Malcolm MacDonald’s
superb notes—an education in themselves—
the work, though still a rambler, now makes
some sense.
‘Night Ride’ from Brian’s Faust is a fiveminute interlude. Its initially steady 12/8 pulse
gives it organization; and Brian keeps up the
momentum, even with the scoring constantly
dividing into ever-changing subgroups. By
now (1956), Brian’s language had become so
condensed that Faust’s descent into the abyss
needs only a few bars to make its point.
His Turandot (1949-51)—it seems like
Brian wanted to rewrite the opera repertoire—
is nearer to Busoni’s commedia dell’arte treatment than to Puccini’s grandiose entry. Die
Frau ohne Schatten was a model for its dramaturgy. Brian even borrowed the names of
two of Strauss’s characters—Barak and
Keikobad. The music has a pronounced satirical streak. The ‘Three Pieces’ sets out some of
the major motives, including Turandot’s sinuous, seductive theme and Kalaf’s pentatonic
one. MacDonald arranged his suite in 1975,
and it’s an astonishing piece of work. He not
only captures the Brian sound—and recall that
no one had heard a note of this work—but also
amplifies the emotional moods of the music.
Furthermore, the basic form of the movements
is more direct and comprehensible than Brian
would have done at this stage, showing the
music to better advantage.
‘At the Court of the Emperor’ is a lurching
triple-time march in a mock-ceremonial style,
similar to the final movement of Brian’s Symphony 9. The ‘Minuet’, occurring while the
chancellor is describing the next sucker—er,
suitor—to seek Turandot’s hand, is a dance
movement of utmost delicacy. At first, hearing
the stilted gestures of ‘The Entry of Turandot’,
you know this is a court where protocol rules;
but the movement ends reflectively. The ‘Nocturne’ has the sheerest beauty of all. With
transparent scoring for two harps, divided
strings, and winds, it’s the most gossamer
Brian music I’ve ever heard. MacDonald has
commented on Brian’s throwaway use of textures another composer would milk for years,
75
and this ravishing movement is a perfect
example. ‘To the Divan’ is an imposing interlude, making impressive use of a descending
do-la-sol figure. The concluding ‘Lugubre
Marsch’ symbolizes the death-knell, not of
Turandot’s suitors, but of her hopes.
Besides Malcolm MacDonald the superb
musical writer, we must now acknowledge
Malcolm MacDonald the superb composer,
arranger, and orchestrator. He’s largely a selftaught musician, and one big edge such artists
have is that they treat their acquired knowledge with respect. (The back edge of the blade
is that they sometimes develop bad habits for
lack of disinterested counsel, vide Elgar’s
sequences.)
These performances are tasteful and virtuosic. I mention the latter because the music is
intricately orchestrated, with constantly overlapping and interweaving voices. It makes for
endlessly fascinating sounds, but means the
whole orchestra must always be at peak form.
The BBC Scots cover themselves with glory in
their skill, and Garry Walker’s conducting has
real insight into this quirky idiom. With this
coming fairly close on the heels of Hyperion’s
spectacular Gothic recording (May/June 2012),
this is a banner Brian year.
O’CONNOR
BRITTEN: The Little Sweep; Cantata
Academica
David Hemmings (Sam), Jennifer Vyvyan
(Rowan), Peter Pears (Clem, Alfred); English
Opera Group/ Benjamin Britten; Jennifer Vyvyan,
s; Helen Watts, mz; Peter Pears, t; Owen Brannigan, b; London Symphony & Chorus/ George
Malcolm
Heritage 236—65 minutes
Britten conducting his own music is always
(well, almost always) the performance against
which all others must be compared. Britten
conducting his music written specifically for
children brought out the best of his best. So it
is with this reissue of the 1956 recording of his
children’s opera The Little Sweep. Such innocence, such charm, such enthusiasm are totally beguiling.
The rarely heard or recorded Cantata Academica is a piece d’occasion. The title refers to
the commission of the work by Paul Sacher in
celebration of the 500th anniversary of the
founding of the University of Basel. It also is a
sly joke on academia as Britten discreetly uses
a 12-tone row (a technique he generally disliked) in the texture. This is the 1961 recording
approved by Britten.
No libretto, but good notes.
PARSONS
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B
RITTEN: Serenade; Nocturne;
FINZI: Dies Natalis
Mark Padmore, t; Britten Sinfonia/ Jacqueline
Shave
Harmonia Mundi 807552 [SACD] 78 minutes
Enter my 22nd recording of Serenade (30 if I
count reissues) and 15th of Nocturne. This is
my first encounter with the Finzi piece. Padmore continues his recording of the Britten
song-cycles. One can only praise his silver timbre, his nimble agility in fast passages, his unquavering sustaining of notes, his uncanny
interpretive ability. Stephen Bell’s horn obbligatos are also worthy of the highest praise. His
breath control is quite amazing. The Britten
Sinfonia lives up to its name with superior
accompaniments. The group gets to shine
more in its own right in the Nocturne, with the
variety of obbligato instruments and in the
Finzi piece, as the ear is so caught up with the
voice and horn in the Britten.
Texts included.
PARSONS
B RITTEN: Songs & Proverbs of William
Blake; Tit for Tat; Folk-Songs
Roderick Williams, bar; Iain Burnside, p
One could hardly wish for a better showcase
than these three items by Britten. There is seriousness in the Blake, a wonderful assortment
of humor in the Folk-Songs, and a bit of both
in Tit for Tat. And Williams has such a wondrous voice to show off. His is no affected, artificial kind of Englishness. He sounds as if he is
telling a story for all, no condescension. Simplicity is preeminent. A warmly expressive timbre fills the ear with beauty; immaculate enunciation clearly tells the story. Best of all is the
gentle, radiant personality that Williams displays. He is someone I would like to meet as
well as hear singing.
Burnside’s piano accompaniments are just
as pleasing. Britten would have been pleased.
The texts are available online at
www.Naxos.com/libretti/572600.htm
PARSONS
BRITTEN: War Requiem
Sabina Cvilak, s; Ian Bostridge, t; Simon Keenlyside, bar; Eltham College Choir, London Symphony & Chorus/ Gianandrea Noseda
LSO 719 [2SACD] 84 minutes
This is an exciting performance boasting eminent soloists, a world-class orchestra, and an
excellent choir with the music in its blood. In
the booklet there’s a wonderful picture of a
chorus member’s vocal score autographed by
the likes of Peter Pears, Colin Davis, Richard
Hickox, Galina Vishnevskaya, Mstislav Rostropovich, Robert Tear, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Heather Harper, Felicity Lott, Bryn Terfel,
and others who had joined the orchestra for
War Requiems over the years. This is, of
course, the orchestra and choir conducted by
the composer on that magical first-ever
recording with Pears, Vishnevskaya, and Fischer-Dieskau as soloists. Talk about a proprietary
connection!
This time around, Sabina Cvilak, a young
Slovenian soprano, gives us a gutsy Sanctus
and a heart-felt Benedictus. Simon Keenlyside’s voice is as handsome as they come, but
he doesn’t enter the emotional flow as tellingly
as the late Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau who “created the role”. Still, Keenlyside’s timbre blends
impeccably with Ian Bostridge, which is
important because the tenor and baritone do
so much together. Bostridge heads straight for
the dramatic jugular, which is good, though
the bright intensity of his voice makes me
yearn sometimes for the darker, tangier quality
of Peter Pears whose singing in this inimitable
work has never been bettered. Nobody comes
close to Pears in the powerful Agnus Dei (“But
they who love the greater love, Lay down their
life; they do not hate”).
I can’t argue much with Maestro Noseda.
He accompanies well, has his choir spitting
bullets where it counts (Dies Irae, Confutatis),
and gets brilliant playing from the LSO as he
paces them smartly through the score. He
joins Richard Hickox (Chandos) and Robert
Shafer (Naxos) as conductors to turn to for a
distinguished War Requiem to augment Britten’s own.
The only disappointment is the sound of
this concert performance recorded at the Barbican in the fall of 2011. Maybe it’s the sonic
gremlins who inhabit that space. Perhaps it’s
the engineering, the extremes of Maestro
Noseda’s dynamic scheme, or a combination
of all three. Whatever the reason, Super Audio
or not, parts of this sound like they were
recorded under the Get Smart cone of silence.
(I know it never worked, but you get the idea.)
Quiet introductions and transitions have us
straining to hear them. The boys choir creates
a small, wispy sound, which is a problem
because the young voices are so crucial to the
interactive drama of the work. Even the adult
ensemble can sound distant when not going
full out. And here’s the kicker: none of these
problems—not one—is evident on Britten’s
own War Requiem recorded 49 years ago this
October at London’s Kingsway Hall. Ladies
and gentlemen, the winner and still champion...
GREENFIELD
B ROSTROM: Piano Concerto; Kaleidoscope; Violin Concerto; Transit
Underground; Lucernaris
Karen Gomyo, v; Per Tengstrand, p; Hakan Hardenberger, tpt; Gävle Symphony/ Johannes Gustavsson
Swedish Society 1145 [2SACD] 104 minutes
Gävle, a small Swedish city about 100 miles
north of Stockholm, is best known as the home
of Gevalia coffee. The Gävle Symphony also
deserves renown. It sounds very good in this
collection of works by Tobias Broström (b
1978), composer-in-residence in Gävle from
2006-9.
Transit Underground (2007) is a tenminute study with a free but not atonal harmonic language. Although the notes say it is
about the fast pace of urban life—and indeed,
there are a couple of propulsive, rhythm-dominated sections—I am enthralled by the languorous, quiet ones where time seems suspended. Kaleidoscope (2008), in three movements lasting 21 minutes, opens with ‘Reflexion-Fauxbourdon’. Here the language is more
abstract, the orchestral colors and effects fascinating. For a long time one has the feeling that
something spectacular is going to erupt, but
instead there is very gradual expansion into
what seems like a galaxy of sound. ‘Ombres’
(Shadows) has sustained, beautiful sonorities
and textures, a middle passage with softly
struck sounds from marimba, and a sort of
minimalist ending. ‘Resonance’ brings the
galaxy of sound back, but this time with
greater intensity and drive. The ending is
incandescent.
Three concertos round out the program.
The young Japanese-Canadian violinist Karen
Gomyo (b 1982) is soloist in the three-movement, 19-minute Violin Concerto (2008). I am
especially taken by the cadenza opening of II,
where Ms Gomyo produces haunting sounds
on her Strad, and by the incendiary III. The
three-movement, 21-minute Piano Concerto
(Belle Epoque, 2011) looks back at the past.
Here the musical language is quite tonal, the
character sometimes hinting at minimalism in
a lively I that ends enigmatically. As did the
Violin Concerto, a dreamy II opens with a long
cadenza. III is rhythm-driven but also has wistful passages. Swedish pianist Per Tengstrand
(b 1968) is the fine soloist.
Hakan Hardenberger (b 1961) is soloist in
Lucernaris (2009), a 32-minute concerto for
trumpet, electronics, and orchestra—
Broström’s most committed excursion into
contemporary sounds and styles. Extended
trumpet techniques like glissandos and muting effects are called for, as are some very high
notes. A lengthy passage where Hardenberg-
77
er’s phrases are repeated and piled up by electronic loops is quite spectacular. All in all, it is
a fascinating work, loaded with remarkable
sounds.
I hope I have the chance to hear a Tobias
Broström piece in concert someday. Excellent
readings by conductor Johannes Gustavsson
and the Gävle Symphony.
KILPATRICK
BRUCH
& MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concertos;
BEETHOVEN: Romances
Philippe Quint; Mineria Symphony/ Carlos
Miguel Prieto
Avanti 10362 [SACD] 66 minutes
These are superb performances, with fantastic
solo playing from Mr Quint and solid support
from the estimable Mexican ensemble. In the
interview on the accompanying DVD, the violinist says, essentially, he just felt it was time
for him to record these works, that he finally
had something to say. And so he does.
The recorded sound is interesting. In SACD
mode the violin sound is almost three-dimensional, as if Mr Quint were standing in my living room between the speakers and distinctly
in front of them. More important, his tone is
gorgeous—firm, singing, powerfully expressive. We’ve all heard these works a million
times, but Quint takes you back to the first
time you heard them and makes you realize
that—holy smoke!—these pieces are popular
for a reason. The fast, virtuoso passages don’t
faze him, but he doesn’t whip through the
finales just to show how fast he can move his
fingers. These are intensely expressive interpretations, but never self-indulgent.
I don’t have a lot to say about the interpretations. Quint walks down the center of the
road. You won’t hear any quirky shenanigans
here, just the eloquent beauty of Bruch,
Mendelssohn, and Beethoven. Adding the
Beethoven Romances was a brilliant idea—
juxtaposing them to the later works brings out
the “romantic” side of the Titan.
We’ve reviewed recordings by the Mineria
Symphony in these pages before, and here the
ensemble builds on the favorable impression
it’s already left. But I wish the engineers had
been as flattering to them as they were with Mr
Quint. The orchestral tone is not captured
poorly by any means; but compared to the
soloist, their sound is a little two-dimensional
and congested. Maybe I’m hearing things, so I
put on the Nicola Benedetti account I enjoyed
so much last year (May/June 2011) and a
recent dub I’d made of a pristine original LP
copy of Zukerman and the Los Angeles Philharmonic/Mehta (Sony). I asked for a little
more front-to-back depth to the orchestra in
78
the Benedetti, but the sound was still less congested than here. And even the old LP (a very
well-engineered recording for its time) sounded more spacious. This is not a deal-breaker.
I’ll still reach for the Quint in the future; but in
both of these works the orchestra has too
much to say to short-change them on sound
quality, even a little.
Mr Quint’s name is a bit deceptive: he’s
originally from Russia, immigrated to the United States to study with Dorothy DeLay in the
1990s, and has since become a naturalized citizen.
For the most part, the bonus DVD is fluff.
Soloist and conductor do have nice things to
say—mostly the kind of platitudinous stuff we
hear from musicians when they’re cornered
and forced to talk about how they feel about
their music, rather than just cut the BS and
PLAY it. We see some shots of the technical
folks setting up mikes, etc., which appeals to
the electronics geek in me. Otherwise, you can
ignore the DVD and just play the CD as soon as
you get it.
HANSEN
BRUCKNER: Symphony 7
Staatskapelle Berlin
DG 4790320—67 minutes
This is Barenboim’s third recording of this
piece. The first was with the Chicago Symphony, then the Berlin Philharmonic.
The Chicago performance offered a notfully-developed view of the symphony. Perhaps part of the problem was that Barenboim
was trying to get a Furtwangler performance
out of Solti’s orchestra, but there were good
moments: the lift in the scherzo, some of the
building of climaxes in the outer movements,
the weight of the opening of the slow movement. There were also bad ones: the harshness
of some loud passages, a general feeling that
the music was pushed along instead of flowing.
The Berlin Philharmonic performance was
quite different. Where the Chicago players
knew the Bruckner and played it with skill and
ease, the Berlin players inhabited the work.
They had been formed into an ensemble by
two of the greatest Bruckner conductors in history and led in this piece by almost all the others. What Barenboim seems to have done
there is let them play their Bruckner. And they
did that, with stunning beauty.
The problem with that performance was
that, unlike the just as beautifully played performance that this orchestra gave Karajan on
EMI, the message stopped there. The beautiful
playing was the point of the performance, not
the starting place, as it was for Karajan.
The Staatskapelle, recorded in concert in
the Berlin Philharmonie, is not quite in the
Philharmonic’s league. The strings don’t have
as big a vocabulary of sounds, the winds aren’t
as polished, the percussion isn’t as crisp,
and—perhaps most tellingly—the group doesn’t have that tremendous rhythmic power that
the Philharmonic exudes.
This reading is the lightest of Barenboim’s
three. I don’t find it very satisfying: the lightness here is intermittent and doesn’t flow well
with the music. It takes the weight out of
things like the giant bass chords in the slow
movement—pedal notes in Bruckner’s organlike scoring—and the lift out of the ends of the
outer movements. It sounds paradoxical to say
that the sound is too light to make these codas
soar, but that’s what it is. Part of Bruckner’s
point, I believe, is to overwhelm the listener
with the sheer grandeur of the vistas that he
has taken you so far to see. No overwhelm
here. Part of the problem may be the thinness
of the Staatskapelle violins in Bruckner’s high
writing, whether because of the engineering or
the hall or Barenboim’s balancing.
Barenboim plays the slow movement with
great freedom but a kind of sogginess of sound
and lack of the feel of a rhythmic skeleton. It’s
like a reprise of his other Berlin performance—
all about sound—but without the Philharmonic’s ensemble rhythm grounding the sound. I
hear this movement as a meditation on
mourning, loss, and grief, with public formal
mourning and private pain eventually merging. Not here. The tears in the violin writing a
little before the middle of the movement, 9:37
in this performance, are dry and formal, as
from paid mourners. I hear some lovely
sounds here, but little heart—and Bruckner
without heart doesn’t amount to much.
The scherzo lacks verve. The finale is not
much better.
If I had to choose a Barenboim performance of this symphony, I would choose
Chicago over either of the later ones. It’s not a
full exposition of all that this work has to offer,
but it’s less empty than its successors.
Fortunately, there’s no need to choose a
Barenboim performance. This work is very rich
in great performances. Better choices include
Karajan in Berlin (EMI has better sound and a
slightly more relaxed performance), Giulini in
Vienna, Blomstedt in Leipzig, Dohnanyi in
Cleveland, Böhm in Vienna, and, if you can
handle monaural sound, any Furtwangler or
any Schuricht.
In fairness, I have to note that a lot of Germans in June of 2010 apparently had a different view of the performance than I do and DG
has graciously supplied the evidence in the
applause at the end. Why this had to be included is a mystery to me. Why, if it had to be
included, it wasn’t put onto a separate track is
a bigger mystery to me. Who would want to listen to the applause track at the end of this
finale even once, much less more than once?
Perhaps DG doesn’t expect that many people
will be listening to this performance more than
once.
CHAKWIN
BRULL: VC; Serenade 2; see JADASSOHN
BUXTEHUDE: Membra Jesu Nostri; Friedund Freudenreiche Hinfahrt
La Petite Bande/ Sigiswald Kuijken
Accent 24243—65 minutes
Membra Jesu Nostri is Buxtehude’s most often
recorded work. It is a cycle of seven Latin cantatas on the Passion of Christ written in 1680
for the composer’s friend, Gustav Düben, who
served the Swedish royal court in Stockholm.
Each cantata is addressed to a different part of
Christ’s body: feet, knees, hands, side, chest,
heart, and face. Each is introduced by a brief
instrumental sonata followed by a “concerto”
that sets a brief passage from the Vulgate pertinent to the part of the body. The concerto is
followed by an “aria” that sets three stanzas
from the medieval devotional poem Oratio
Rhythmica, formerly thought to have been
written by Bernard of Clairvaux but more likely
by Arnulf of Leuven (c1200-48). Five of the
seven cantatas conclude with a reprise of the
concerto. The intensely personal devotion of
the medieval texts may have resonated with
the Lutheran pietists of Buxtehude’s day, but it
would have been at odds with the devotional
culture of staunch Lutheran orthodoxy that
prevailed at St Mary’s Church, Lübeck, where
the composer spent the greater part of his
career. This is not liturgical music, and it is
uncertain whether Buxtehude ever performed
it in Lübeck.
The program is filled out with Fried- und
Freudenreiche Hinfahrt. The first part of this
work dates from 1671 for the funeral of Meno
Hanneken, who for 25 years was superintendent of Lübeck and preacher at St Mary’s. It is
based on the melody of Martin Luther’s paraphrase of the Nunc Dimittis. The first and third
movements are designated Contrapunctus I
and Contrapunctus II, with the chorale melody
in the soprano part. Each of these is followed
by a movement called Evolutio, where the
original contrapuntal voices are rearranged.
Although there is nothing overtly ostentatious
about the music, the work is a tour de force of
invertible counterpoint, perhaps as a fitting
tribute to the learned theologian. In this performance the chorale melody is sung with the
accompaniment of three viols, but I have
heard performances that were purely instru-
79
mental. A few years later, in 1674, Buxtehude
appended an elegy (Klaglied) in memory of his
own father. It is in the form of a strophic aria
with accompaniment of viols and continuo
marked by a constant throbbing of repeated
notes. Three of the original seven stanzas are
sung here.
As I have pointed out in reviews of previous recordings of Membra Jesu Nostri, the personality of the music can vary extremely
depending on who is performing it. This performance is very much in the early-music
camp with period instruments and performance style. I find the recorded sound somewhat close and aggressive, sometimes overbearing. I said much the same a few years ago
of a recording by Konrad Junghänel and Cantus Cölln (HM 901912; July/Aug 2006). The
string tone has a biting edge that is matched in
character by the singers. In some recordings
the concertos are sung by a small choir, but
here we have one voice to a part. While some
solo vocal ensembles can subordinate individual sound to obtain a smooth vocal blend, here
the singing is always soloistic. Vibrato is not
entirely absent, but used very sparingly. This
contrasts with a recording from a few years ago
by Alexander Weimann and Les Voix Baroques
(ATMA 2563; Jan/Feb 2008) where I commended the vocal blend and teamwork of the solo
vocal ensemble. The young singers on the present recording are very good of their kind, but I
often found myself wishing for greater evenness and control of tone.
In his review of the recording by Erik Van
Nevel and Currende (Eufoda 1294; May/June
2000), John Barker gave an overview of recordings up to that time, citing five besides the one
reviewed. There have been several worthy
recordings since then. One that I find particularly attractive is by Diego Fasolis and the
Swiss Radio Choir (Naxos 553787; Nov/Dec
1997), who bring out the Italianate qualities of
the music in a performance that is suave and
ingratiating. Perhaps no one can surpass
Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan in
sheer polish and refinement (BIS 971; July/Aug
2006). His performance is more Germanic in
personality than Fasolis’s, but without the
overbearing quality noted in the present
recording.
GATENS
CABEZON: Intabulations
Veronique Musson-Gonneaud, hp
In 1578, Antonio de Cabezon published a book
called Obras para Tecla, Arpa y Vihuela (works
for keyboard, harp, and vihuela). The title is
important because while there are many
recordings of the music of Cabezon played on
80
various keyboard instruments (organ,
Nov/Dec 2001; harpsichord, May/June 1999;
and clavichord, René Clemencic, Arte Nova
927810) this is the first recording I know that
has used a renaissance Spanish harp, and it is
a delight to hear these pieces with this different sonority.
Most of Cabezon’s book consists of
arrangements of popular vocal music, including French chansons, Italian madrigals, and
Latin sacred music, especially by Josquin des
Prez (Clemencic’s collection includes a whole
disc of just Cabezon’s Josquin arrangements).
In addition, it includes contrapuntal studies
(tientos) and differencias, sets of variations on
well-known melodies, such as ‘La Alta’ (better
known as ‘La Spanga’) or ‘Las Vacas’ (The Cattle). This collection also includes single pieces
by Hernando de Cabezon, Juan de Cabezon,
Alfonso Mudarra, and Fernandez Palero.
Musson-Gonneaud is an accomplished
harpist, and her copy of a renaissance double
harp is very sonorous and effectively recorded
in a resonant church, adding extra ring to her
instrument. Her interpretations are quite
shapely and mirror the rich polyphonic textures of Cabezon’s vocal models. Similar works
by Luys Venegas de Henestrosa have been
recorded by Andrew Lawrence-King and the
Harp Consort (July/Aug 2004), but LawrenceKing often takes the original solo pieces and
rearranges them for a larger group of instruments. This collection of Cabezon’s music on
solo harp is a special joy.
BREWER
C
ASELLA: Concerto for Orchestra; A Notte
Alta; Symphonic Fragments from La Donna
Serpente
Martin Roscoe, p; BBC Philharmonic/ Gianandrea Noseda
The Concerto for Orchestra is big, sometimes
dour, sometimes busy, sometimes pretty, but
far from memorable. Mengelberg commissioned it and performed it in 1938; this is the
first recording. Casella’s style is mid-century
Mediterranean, but with a little Hindemithian
angularity.
A Notte Alta (In Deepest Night) was written
for solo piano in 1917, and orchestrated (with a
solo piano part) in 1921. It is more interesting
and has some spooky, positively psychedelic
moments. Still, it’s more wind than earth,
water, or fire. The Symphonic Fragments from
La Donna Serpente open with the music that
accompanies King Altidor’s dream, and that
track is by far the best thing on the release,
steamy and languid. La Donna Serpente is an
opera from late in Casella’s career; he wanted
to write something similar to The Magic Flute,
and it has both comedy and magic in it. It’s far
better than what’s come before; but still, if I’m
going to listen to mid-century Mediterranean,
I’ll take Pizzetti (J/F 2010) or CastelnuovoTedesco (M/A 2011). This simply isn’t of the
same caliber. Notes in English, German, and
French; Chandos sound.
ESTEP
C
ASTELLO: Sonatas;
FONTANA: Sonatas
John Holloway, v; Lars Ulrik Mortensen, hpsi;
Jane Gower, dulcian
ECM 16622—71 minutes
An ancestor of the bassoon, the dulcian was
prized in 17th-Century ensembles as a virtuoso instrument that was much more portable
than the bass stringed instruments, and whose
characteristic sound also cut through musical
textures better. In the same time period, combining string and wind instruments into
“mixed” consorts became very popular, and
bass instruments took on independent roles
far beyond simply providing the lowest notes
under the rest of the music.
In the booklet notes, violinist John Holloway comments on his long association with
Castello’s music (solo sonatas) and describes
his enthusiasm at having “found the dulcian
player with the necessary virtuosity and musicality for a proper exploration of the even
more wonderful trios”. The combination of
three excellent players here brings these very
fine compositions to life: by turns the music
dances, sings, bewitches, and ennobles.
The program of 13 pieces is very well
selected and sequenced, with a strict alternation of sonatas for solo violin and for violin
and dulcian. Two sets of three sonatas by
Dario Castello (published in 1621 and 1629)
frame seven by Giovanni Battista Fontana
(1641).
John Holloway and harpsichordist Lars
Ulrik Mortensen are both very well known, and
I am glad to hear the Australian dulcian player
Jane Gower for the first time. There are no bios
with the CD, but from online research I found
that she studied at the Canberra School of
Music, then at the Royal Conservatory at The
Hague, and since 2007 she has taught at the
Royal College of Music in London. She plays
with a sweetness and beauty that is remarkable, both in the highest and lowest registers,
with a rich singing tone that is a delight to
hear.
C MOORE
CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO: Guitar Concerto 1; Quintet; Romancero Gitano
Giulio Tampalini, g; Polifonico Castelbarco Chorus; Bolzano Haydn Orchestra/ Luigi Azzolini
Concerto 2072—64 minutes
First, the good news. The quintet and Romancero Gitano are among the best performances I’ve heard, and are first choices of the
available performances. There are few competitors in these works, but this is not faint
praise. Tampalini has the composer’s sunny,
evocative, and lush style in his bones; and he
delivers magnificent performances. The quintet was written for Segovia, and his performance is still available on Decca, but the
sound is poor and the quartet less than ideal.
Then there’s the Yamashita-Tokyo Quartet,
now unavailable. The quartet can’t be beat, if
you can endure Yamashita’s playing.
Romancero Gitano is an odd but beautiful
work for guitar and chorus, on the poetry of
Garcia Lorca. There are several performances
available, but the only one I know is Romuald
Erenc on Acte Preable. He delivers a lovely performance, but the chorus is a bit thin, and the
rest of the program consists of several a cappella choral works from the 20th Century, not
of much interest to guitar or Castelnuovo fans.
Tampalini’s chorus is really lovely, and his
recorded sound is better.
That brings us to the concerto. He takes an
approach I’d call Castelnuovo-lite. He perceives the work as more neo-classical than
neo-romantic, and much of the gorgeous lushness is missing. The magical II is ruined by
short articulations of passages that should
sing. If any sonority of the guitar can be considered massive, it’s the second movement
cadenza, but not in Tampalini’s performance.
And the unstoppable momentum of III is held
back—surely by choice, since he has a real virtuoso technique.
One aspect of his performance is interesting—he plays the work, as nearly as I can tell,
exactly as it’s written. Those short notes in II
are actually in the score, though it’s not clear
exactly how they should be realized. One
might assume that playing the score as written
might be, well, assumed; but this composer’s
music for guitar always relied on a guitarist,
usually Segovia, to edit it. Indeed, the Maestro
makes many alterations in the solo part for his
performances of the concerto. I once had a
manuscript copy of those changes, and I wrote
about the various versions (and suggested a
compromise) in American String Teacher 1994,
No. 2. Perhaps the composer would appreciate
such fidelity, but he was delighted at Segovia’s
performances and never complained that his
81
strongly romantic interpretation violated his
intent.
Perhaps I’m being unfair: I performed the
work about a year ago, and I have a totally different conception. The notes, by musicologist
and composer Angelo Gilardino, make a thorough case for this approach, but I don’t find it
convincing. He even mentions a different
arrangement of the orchestral instruments as
support for his revision, though I’ve never
encountered that, and there’s no mention of it
in the conductor’s score. Those notes, by the
way, get the award for Smallest Type Ever
Used. Why get such thorough, excellent notes
and present them in type that one needs a
magnifying glass to read?
Still, the rest of the program is compelling,
and it’s all excellent music. If you’re a guitar
lover, you probably already have a reading
from Pepe Romero on Philips or John Williams
on Sony, both magnificent. My favorite,
despite the poor sound, is Segovia in an EMI
collection (M/A 2009). It’s not the later one
released on Decca, and it’s one of the most
joyous readings I’ve ever encountered. It’s on a
three-disc set of the Maestro at his prime, well
worth seeking out.
KEATON
CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO: all
Organ Pieces,
Livia Mazzanti
Aeolus 10541 [SACD] 64 minutes
This is the first time all of Mario CastelnuovoTedesco’s organ music, written while he lived
in America, has appeared on one release. The
Introduction, Air, and Fugue has the most
unfugue-like fugue I’ve ever heard, but when
there’s so much good humor and even rascality, who cares! The Sacred Service for the Sabbath Eve is sober yet dramatic; the ‘Adoration
(Borechu)’ theme sounds a little like a 1950s
sentimental organ piece, though, with its
romantic melody and unusual registrations.
(The organ is the Kleuker & Steinmeyer of the
Tonhalle in Zurich.) ‘Invocation (Shema Yisrael)’ is intense and prayerful—I’m no expert
on Jewish liturgical music, but C-T captures
well the feeling without using stereotypically
Jewish harmonies or lines like a cantor would
sing. In fact, some of his harmonies, especially
in ‘Silent Devotion’, are downright impressionist.
The two preludes based on 12-tone rows
are almost more tonal than the other pieces!
The ‘Prelude on the Name of Frederick Tulan’
is almost shorter than its title—the harmonies
meander, and rhythmically it sounds completely improvised. Other of the organ pieces
have that same characteristic, and it’s unusual
to hear the harmonies connecting what the
82
rhythms dismantle. The ‘Fugue on the Name
of Albert Schweitzer’ is again barely fugal, but,
wow, is it a deep, blustery piece—very virtuosic.
Prayers My Grandfather Wrote are six preludes based on a theme by Bruto Senigaglia, CT’s maternal grandfather, who persuaded Mario’s mother to teach him music on the sly for a
year (his father, a banker, didn’t like the idea of
having an artist in the family). The Prayers are
less disjunct than the other pieces.
Mazzanti plays everything exceedingly
well, with colorful registration choices, and the
sound is terrific. Notes in English, French, Italian, and German, with several pictures—
including one of our composer with VillaLobos, Villa-Lobos’s wife Arminda, Edmund
Grainger, Willard Coe, and a distracted,
bemused-looking Audrey Hepburn.
ESTEP
C ASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO: Piano Concertos; 4 Dances from Love’s Labour’s Lost
Alessandro Marangoni, p; Malmo Symphony/
Andrew Mogrelia
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s two piano concertos, in G minor (1927) and F (1936-37) are
solid half-hour pieces. They have to be about
the most cheerful pieces by anyone written in
those ten years! 1:I is so vivacious, in fact, that
it sounds like the third movement of a piece
instead of a first movement. I loved the recordings of his Shakespeare Overtures (Naxos, M/A
2011); the organ works (above) show a more
pensive side, but these concertos are sheer
sunshine and lazy afternoons. II leans more
toward mere pleasantness—the melodies
aren’t terribly original, but the mood is what
counts.
I have to temper my enthusiasm slightly
now: 2:I is more gestures and flourishes than
themes. It’s still enjoyable to listen to overall,
but there isn’t a memorable melody, as there
should be, especially in the piano part. II
stretches its material a little thin. These probably aren’t better known because the piano
writing isn’t that meaty. Lovely as the music
can be, they’re more poems than concertos in
the usual sense. The Dances are forgettable.
Sound and playing are excellent; notes in English.
ESTEP
C
ATOIRE: Piano Concerto;
SHERWOOD: Piano Concerto 2
Hiroaki Takenouchi; Scottish National Orchestra/
Martin Yates
Though very different, these concertos have an
important similarity—they’re good. Georgy
Catoire (1861-1926), descended from a family
of French businessmen, was born and died in
Moscow. He began as a science student, but
his musical ability gained the support of
Tchaikovsky. He eventually taught at the University of Moscow, and his most famous student was Dmitri Kabalevsky.
On paper his 1909 concerto looks lopsided,
movement I consuming 19 of its 33 minutes.
The episodic construction of that movement
reduces that impression. Although very much
in the grand line of Rachmaninoff concertos,
the music rarely sounds Russian. Written a
generation earlier than the Sherwood, it’s
more advanced harmonically. Catoire uses the
piano more as a concertante instrument; as
soloist Takenouchi writes, it’s the orchestra
that often drives the argument. Though most
of the movement is splashy, it ends pensively.
II is more coherent, balancing ornament and
melody. III begins in an exuberant vein, but
grows more tranquil before regaining power.
The conclusion recaps the theme from I in a
blaze of glory.
Percy Sherwood (1866-1939) had an English father, but came from Dresden, Germany.
He was a Felix Draeseke student, and when he
himself began teaching, one of his students
was the Croatian female composer Dora
Pejacevic. Her fine symphony is on CPO
(Sept/Oct 2011). Sherwood’s output includes,
in addition to the two concertos, five symphonies. He moved to London in 1914, but his
work became increasingly out of style and he
died there all but forgotten.
His Concerto 2 (1932-33) in the 1930s must
have seemed positively atavistic. Takenouchi, I
think rightly, observes that such questions
don’t bother us now as much as they used to.
It’s a more organized, compact work. The unison opening gesture harks back to Rubinstein,
preparing an elaborate piano entry. Its development includes plenty of two against three
rhythms, and for once the cadenza is musically
intelligent, rather than sounding like Czerny
finger drills on steroids. It actually contributes
to, and drives, the musical narrative. II has a
more lyrical, charming theme. III moves along
in a fleet 6/8 meter, demanding a light touch.
Its construction is so compact that the movement sounds monothematic, even though
there is a second theme. The performances are
excellent. Takenouchi’s skill and, as important,
his belief in the music makes him a convincing
advocate. Yates and the RNSO capably abet a
worthy enterprise.
O’CONNOR
CAVALLI: Giasone
Christophe Dumaux (Giasone), Katarina Bradic
(Medea), Robin Johannsen (Isifile), Emilio Pons
(Egeo, Sole), Andrew Ashwin (Ercole, Oreste),
Josef Wagner (Besso, Giove), Filippo Adami
(Demo); Flemish Opera/ Federico Maria Sardelli
Dynamic 663 [3CD] 191 minutes
Francesco Cavalli (1602-76) was perhaps the
most famous opera composer of his century
and the leading exponent of the Venetian
operatic idiom. Giasone’s composition and
production (1649) dates about one-third of the
way into his massive output. It was among the
most popular and often revived of his 30-odd
operas.
Its libretto is an unbelievable massacre of
the ancient myth of Jason and the Argonauts.
The action is scrambled and compressed.
Scored inappropriately for a castrato, Jason
(Giasone) is already the father of twins by an
island queen, Hypsipyle (Isifile), whom he
seduced on the way to claim the Golden
Fleece. He has since had a twin-producing
romance with Medea in Colchis. Isifile turns
up to claim Giasone, creating a set of problems
and choices for him. Hercules (Ercole) has a
small but proper appearance, while Isifile’s
supporter Orestes might be thought to have
wandered in from another mythological cycle.
Aegeus (Egeo), King of Athens, is brought in
prematurely as a suitor for Medea, totally at
odds with his mythic place much later in her
extended story. Here, Medea is thrown into the
sea (mistakenly, but don’t ask) and rescued by
Egeo, with whom she decides to pair off forthwith, while Giasone is (reluctantly or otherwise) sent back to Isifile. Along the way, Medea
has a parodistic incantation scene. Some agitated deities argue in the Prologue and butt in
in the middle act.
As can be seen, as a treatment of venerable
mythology this opera is a farce. And it was so
intended. It becomes an excuse not only for
high-jinx among the leading characters, but for
gimmicks involving Venetian theatrical conventions among the lesser roles. These include
the stuttering-hunchback tenor role of the servant Demo and the high-tenor travesty role of
Delfa, Medea’s nurse. Oh, and there is a comically mis-matched couple—the rough officer
Besso and the scheming attendant Alinda—
who get together for an ending of their own,
probably of the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
variety. (Oreste had been loving Alinda without
success; what happens to him then is not made
clear—and perhaps that’s for the best.)
Recordings are only belatedly exploring
Cavalli’s seminal operatic legacy, which
requires a lot of editorial intervention. This
Dynamic recording is only the second one
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accorded the important Giasone. The first was
a trail-blazer put together by Rene Jacobs for
Harmonia Mundi (901282, 3CD: M/J 1989). In
retrospect, that can be seen as a forerunner to
Jacobs’s later opera recordings, marked by
both exciting insights and textual liberties. He
does some cutting, and he interpolates a few
things, some of them his own. But he has the
benefit of a sterling cast that is almost a who’swho of early-music singers, of the Christie
school and beyond. Gloria Banditelli and
Michael Chance are solid as Medea and Giasone. Catherine Dubosc is the pleading Isifile,
while the expert likes of Dominique Visse,
Agnes Mellon, Guy de Mey, Bernard Deletre,
and Harry van der Kamp are all solid assets.
But Gianpaolo Fagotto is simply hilarious as
the stammering Demo, all but stealing the
show.
Against this Sardelli makes a brave showing. Like Jacobs, he makes some cuts and
includes pieces of his own among the instrumental interpolations. (An example is a fake
ciaccona used as the Act III finale, complete
with his own recorder tootling.)
On the whole, though, Sardelli presents a
responsible and reliable performing edition of
the opera. All of his singers are equal to their
roles, but they lack the personality and polish
of their Harmonia Mundi rivals. Dumaux, an
admired countertenor makes a good show in
the title role, and Bradic, if sometimes a bit
shrill, is a serious and distinctive Medea.
Soprano Johannsen plays the ingenue card in
portraying the whining, pleading Isifile. Adami
falls a little short of Fagotto but is a genuinely
funny Demo, making all the stuttering jokes
work well.
Thus, while falling short of the Jacobs team
in comparison, this is still an able cast that
puts itself intently into the action and music.
The performance was a public one in Antwerp
in May 2010. The extensive theater noises indicate a lot of movement, and audience reactions testify to much fun and enjoyment.
But this release is ruined by Dynamic’s
irresponsible packaging. The slender multilingual booklet gives inadequate track lists, a tiny
background essay, and hopelessly skimpy synopses. No libretto. Now, this opera’s action is
complicated and constantly shifting. The synopses do not tell you all that is going on from
one scene to another. You must have the full
libretto to have any idea of what is happening,
or what characters (and, thus, which singers)
are involved.
Dynamic is issuing a video counterpart to
this audio releases, so that might help sort out
the action a bit.
On the evidence here, Sardelli should sue!
BARKER
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CHABRIER: Le Roi Malgré Lui
Gino Quilico (Henri), Peter Jeffes (Count Nangis),
Jean-Philippe Lafont (Duke Fritelli), Barbara Hendricks (Minka), Isabel Garcisanz (Alexina); Radio
France Philharmonic/ Charles Dutoit
Warner 6213 [2CD] 143 minutes
In his review of this recording (Jan/Feb 1993,
on Erato), Lee Milazzo called Le Roi “the peak
of Chabrier’s art. Its irresistible rhythms, startling but by no means grotesque harmonies,
and often memorable melodies both look to
the past and anticipate the future.” Ravel himself declared, “I would rather have written Le
Roi Malgré Lui than The Ring.” It’s really a
lovely opera, and its music transcends the
inane libretto. (Modern directors have tended
to rewrite it entirely.)
The reluctant king of the title is Henry of
Valois, pressed by his mother Catherine de
Medici to accept the crown of Poland in 1574.
Henry poses as a courtier, and predictable
complications ensue. In the end, he keeps the
woman he loves and decides it’s good to be
king after all. The opera was first performed in
1887 and revived in 1888, with some revisions.
Dutoit uses a combination of the two scores
but omits all the spoken dialog, which makes
the story even more confusing.
His performance is a fine one, and the cast
is superb, especially Gino Quilico (a Canadian)
as a sleek Henry. Jeffes (an Englishman) and
Hendricks (an American) do well in their
important roles. She has the necessary coloratura skills for the ‘Chanson Tzigane’, and
he rises to the rapture of their final duet. Isabel
Garcisanz is lovely as Henry’s love interest,
Alexina. Dutoit, his chorus, and orchestra convey both the grandeur of the score and its
quirky originality. Warner supplies a good synopsis but no libretto. If you’re curious about Le
Roi (and it’s worth investigating), this is the
only CD recording available, and it does justice
to the music.
LUCANO
CHARPENTIER: Motets for 3 Men’s Voices
Magnificat; Beata est Maria; Veni Creator;
Salve Regina; Ad Beatam Virginem Hodie
Salus; O Bone Jesu; Laudate Dominum; Litanies for the Virgin; instrumental pieces
Vincent Lievre-Picard, ct; Sebastien Obrecht, t;
Jean-Manuel Candenot, b; Les Passions/ JeanMarc Andrieu
Ligia 202233—57 minutes
When Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704)
returned to Paris from his studies in Rome in
the late 1660s, he entered the service of the
Duchess of Guise, where he remained until her
death in 1688. The preponderance of the
immense quantity of sacred vocal music he
wrote for her chapel and the Church of Mercy
found near her residence is for small ensembles, essentially sacred chamber music. The
works on this recording are from an important
sub-set of that output: music for a trio of
men’s voices with instrumental accompaniment.
Some of the pieces here are settings of
standard liturgical texts: ‘Magnificat’, ‘Veni
Creator’, ‘Salve Regina’, ‘Laudate Dominum’.
Others are more specific to the institutions
that Charpentier served. For example ‘Beata
est Maria’ comes from the Office of the
Redemption of Captives, a liturgy peculiar to
the Church of Mercy. ‘O Bone Jesu’ was probably written in celebration of a victory of Louis
XIV in the Alsace campaign of 1675-76. The
king is named in the text of the motet. One of
the most remarkable pieces here is the Magnificat (H 73) that opens the program. The entire
canticle text is projected over 89 repetitions of
a four-note descending ground bass. The
degree of melodic freedom and breadth of
phrasing Charpentier is able to achieve under
this structural constraint is quite amazing.
The performances are very fine. My first
impression of the three singers was that their
delivery is not so much churchly as in a style
appropriate for baroque opera. This is quite
likely the effect the composer had in mind.
They work well together as a tightly-knit solo
vocal ensemble. The period instrument
accompaniments leave nothing to be desired
in technical polish. The baroque orchestra Les
Passions was formed in 1986 by recorder player Jean-Marc Andrieu, who both plays and
directs in the present recording. There are nine
players.
Over the years, thanks in large part to ARG,
I have amassed a fair collection of recordings
of sacred works by Charpentier, and my regard
for this composer has grown as a result. Like so
much of his output, the works presented here
reflect the influence of his studies in Italy, preeminently with Carissimi; but in Charpentier’s
hands the Italian idiom speaks with a decidedly French accent, giving his music a distinctive
flavor. It is worth noting that only one of the
vocal pieces and two of the brief instrumental
pieces in this program are duplicated in other
recordings from my collection. I think it a safe
guess that many of them qualify as rarities,
and admirers of the composer’s music will not
go wrong in acquiring this. Texts are given in
the original Latin with French but not English
translation.
GATENS
CHERUBINI: Piano Sonatas
Francesco Giammarco
Newton 8802120—67:25
Luigi Cherubini’s six piano sonatas were composed with the increasing popularity of the
piano in Florence. Composers developed a
lucrative market composing music that
showed off the technical capabilities of this
new instrument. Cherubini’s sonatas are well
suited for the development of dexterity and
dynamic variation in amateur players.
Giammarco has produced a competent
recording of pieces that, while not unpleasant,
lack anything outstanding.
It is apparent from the start that Giammarco may be trying to emulate the sound of a
fortepiano by aiming for a crisp sound with
minimal pedaling. But his approach lacks fluidity. This is especially apparent in the Alberti
bass left hand of the Sonata No. 1 in F, which
sounds choppy. These failings aside, his performance of the Rondo is energetic and lively,
and shows that he has an ear for dynamic
shadings—a must in performing pieces with
such a light aesthetic. The crisp touch he
employs, while almost too dry, is well suited to
these instances. The dynamic nuances in
Sonata No. 3 are well controlled, though his
passagework here and in other places is disappointingly uneven.
These are works that would otherwise have
little opportunity to be recorded or performed.
There are buzzing noises scattered through the
recording that mar an otherwise pleasant
enterprise.
KANG
C HILCOTT: Requiem; Salisbury Motets;
Downing Service; 3 Carols
Laurie Ashworth, s; Andrew Staples, t; Jonathan
Vaughn, org; Nash Ensemble; Wells Cathedral
Choir/ Matthew Owens
Bob Chilcott (b 1955) was a chorister and later
an undergraduate choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, where he sang under the
direction of Sir David Willcocks. For 12 years
he sang tenor with the King’s Singers. It is not
surprising that this background has given him
an insider’s ability to write effectively for voices.
The principal work here is the Requiem
(2010), the result of a joint commission from
the Oxford Bach Choir, Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas, and Music at Oxford.
In contrast with the Requiems by Herbert
Howells and John Rutter, Chilcott takes his
texts from the liturgical Missa pro Defunctis
with the insertion of the funeral sentence
“Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts”
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from the Book of Common Prayer. It is meant
to serve both as a concert piece and a liturgical
setting. It is scored for soprano and tenor
soloists, choir, organ, and an instrumental
ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and
timpani.
When Chilcott was in the choir at King’s,
the Fauré and Duruflé Requiems were sung in
alternate years. The experience of singing this
music as a boy left a profound impression on
him. Judging from Jonathan Wikeley’s program notes that quote extensively from the
composer, the Fauré Requiem left the stronger
impression and directly influenced the writing
of the new work. Both the Fauré and Duruflé
Requiems could be described as contemplative rather than dramatic. but where Duruflé
seems to be pondering mysterious and eternal
verities from a perspective of great spiritual
depth, Fauré gives us a series of exquisitely
crafted meditations that are very touching but
comparatively earth-bound. Duruflé took
Fauré as his chief model, but Duruflé’s music
grows from the material and ethos of plainsong, which gives it an otherworldliness not to
be found in Fauré or Chilcott. In speaking of
Chilcott’s “interest in the human side of religion”, Wikeley quotes the composer’s view of
the funeral sentence from the Prayer Book: “It
has none of that idea of revenge, it’s just about
one human saying ‘Here I am, Lord, with all
my faults: be decent to me’.” I think that is very
revealing in that it almost trivializes a text that
expresses the human soul’s awareness of mortality with a deeply penitential acknowledgement of its own unworthiness. Chilcott’s
music seems to grow more from sensibility
than conviction, as if he is telling a gently sad
story—sad, not tragic or numinous—where
one can be casual and chummy with God. He
seems squeamish about “words that define
God as vengeful”, so it is hardly surprising that
his Requiem does not include the Dies Irae or
Libera Me. If I were to turn on the radio and
hear this music without knowing who wrote it,
my first guess would be John Rutter, but there
are also shades of Ennio Morricone in the slow
harmonic progressions and tempos.
The Salisbury Motets are from a larger
work, the Salisbury Vespers (2009), written for a
choral festival that included more than 500
singers. The greater part of the work consists of
large-scale psalm settings, but these four Marian motets are inserted between the psalms.
The Downing Service (2009), a setting of the
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, was written for
Camilla Godlee, organ scholar of Downing
College, Cambridge. The three carols (2010)
that conclude the program were commissioned by Philip Brunelle for the Plymouth
Congregational Church in Minneapolis. They
86
are settings of texts by Kevin Crossley-Holland
(b 1941).
The performances are splendid in every
respect, and the recorded sound lives up to the
lofty standard we have come to expect from
Hyperion. All of these works are recorded here
for the first time.
GATENS
CHISHOLM: Piano Concertos 1+2
Danny Driver, BBC Scottish Symphony/ Rory
Macdonald
Having reviewed a few volumes of Chisholm’s
piano music in these pages, and finding them
mostly less than satisfactory, I was pleased to
find a few of his orchestral works making a better impression. Now we have his piano concertos, and they do show impressive facility in
handling larger structures.
Piano Concerto 1 is called Piobaireachd—
pipe music. It definitely has the sound of the
Scottish highlands, at least of the bagpipers
practicing their skills. The opening movement
is based on short rhythmic motifs that remind
me a bit of Beethoven’s Symphony 7 (first
movement). It almost outstays its welcome,
but a contrasting lyrical and somewhat
impressionist theme enters and brings the
movement to a tranquil close.
II is an aggressive Scottish dance with a
continuance of strong rhythms. It’s most
enjoyable, and Holst comes to mind as the
theme grows more elephantine. By contrast,
the following Adagio picks at scabs of motifs
that intertwine between piano and orchestra.
It’s fascinating to listen to, and clearly shows
Chisholm to be his own man, with a highly
individual way of writing. This is clearly the
heart of the concerto.
The last movement begins as a reel but
soon starts to deconstruct as Chisholm uses
every compositional trick to lend interest to his
frenzied tour-de-force. It’s all quite wonderful,
but hardly the kind of piece one would want to
hear when the objective is relaxation. Bartok’s
Piano Concerto 2 came to mind a few times,
though this is in no way imitative of the Bartok.
Concerto 2 Hindustani completed in 1949
is the more modern-sounding work. The long
first movement (over 15 minutes) has a manic
drive to it and pursues its fierce argument with
an almost expressionist abandon. There is little that one would relate to Hindu sounds,
though the notes speak of the Raga as a
melody type, rather than a tune. It is definitely
not pretty music, nor should that be any criterion for its quality. If you enjoy the Carlos
Chavez Concerto, you may enjoy this as well.
The Theme and Variations Andante is full of
angst and unsettling sonorities. It is soon
interrupted by a faster variation that continues
to drive the music relentlessly forward.
The concluding ‘Rondo Burlesca’ lets its
hair down a bit for some short-lived levity.
Finally the drive continues as the super busy
music spins its web. Like some vicious spider
waiting to devour you, it whirls you around,
engulfs you in super-strong filament, and
waits for the right time to come back and partake of its feast. John Purser’s excellent notes
speculate that Sorabji would have been thrilled
by the music, and well he might.
In all of this difficult music, Danny Driver
keeps things moving while performing prodigious pianistic feats. While it is doubtful that
another pianist will come along to challenge
this one soon, the gauntlet has definitely been
thrown down. Scottish conductor Rory Macdonald and the BBC Scottish Orchestra cover
themselves with glory.
I am not quite sure that I’m ready to begin
traveling down the Chisholm trail, but I will
certainly be listening to this recording several
more times. It is time to give it a rest while I
check my blood pressure.
BECKER
CHOPIN: Piano Pieces
Polonaise in E-flat minor; Waltzes opp
posth, 34:2, 64:3; Ballade 2; Preludes
10,11,13; Fantasy; Nocturne, Op. 55:2;
Mazurkas, opp 7:1, 50:3; Scherzo 2
Janina Fialkowska
ATMA 2666—76 minutes
Janina Fialkowska is a French-Canadian
pianist, born in Montreal circa 1958 (the exact
year is tough to pin down) who first obtained
recognition internationally by winning the
Arthur Rubinstein competition in 1974. She is
truly an accomplished pianist if these performances are typical, for I cannot hear a single
wrong note or smudged passage in the entire
recital. Her playing tends to the staccato, with
little legato, smoothness, or relaxation that I
can hear, which makes her style metallically
brilliant, though not wholly lacking nuance or
other expressive content. She can be viewed as
an antiparticle to Alfred Cortot, who is in the
same music supple, flexible, and legato to a
fault. Her tempos are generally well chosen,
however, and do not get in the way of Chopin’s
expressive intent.
The program covers a wide spectrum of
the composer’s works. Though I wish she had
included some of my favorites (like the splendid little waltz, Op. 64:2) her choice is wideranging. The Mazurka Op. 7:1, titled Notre
Temps, for example, was Chopin’s contribution to a series commissioned by the Mainz
publishing firm of Schott, works representing
“our time” published in 1855.
The recorded sound is brilliant to a fault,
with admirable clarity and definition, though
seriously lacking hall resonance and ambiance
of any kind. It thus occupies its own space,
with no sonic hint of any surroundings. In
summary, this sonically and musically brilliant
collection lacks warmth, suppleness, and richness of sound and expression. Extensive musical and historical notes are supplied.
MCKELVEY
CHOPIN: Piano Pieces
6 Mazurkas, 6 Nocturnes, 4 Waltzes, 1 Impromptus, 1 Etude
Byron Janis
EMI 2898—77 minutes
This release offers stereo recordings originally
made in 1996 and 1999 and previously
released on EMI labels. Byron Janis is not only
a fellow Pittsburgher, but also a near-contemporary of your reviewer. Unfortunately, our
relationship ends there, for I have never seen
him or heard him play, other than on records.
He was a great artist, a phenomenal pianist at
the outset, but he suffered from persistent
arthritis for most of his career. The performances presented here were recorded when
he was around age 70, and they appear to
reflect many of the physical limitations of the
later phases of his career.
This is not to suggest that they are in any
sense technically flawed; indeed they are
absolutely note-perfect. But they are cautious
and somewhat reserved, perfect but unassuming and artistically anonymous.
The Valse Brilliante Op. 18 is a good example; it is first of all an early edition, one discovered only recently in the archives of Yale University. It is brilliant, but not technically on the
level of Chopin’s end product, which has a
more scintillating and more difficult conclusion.
MCKELVEY
COPLAND: Appalachian Spring; see CRESTON
CORELLI: 12 Violin Sonatas, op 5
Trio Corelli
Bridge 9371 [2CD] 126 minutes
These famous forerunners of Vivaldi’s violin
sonatas and concertos have been recorded a
number of times, but not a large number of the
releases are still easily obtainable. The last
time I reviewed a set of these (Sept/Oct 2006)
one of the most reliable and well loved recordings, by Monica Huggett, appeared to be deleted. I am happy to report that it is once again
available (S/O 1990). The Hyperion set with
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Elizabeth Wallfisch (M/J 1991) is still available
also, as it was re-released in 2004. I quite liked
the set that occasioned my 2006 review, and it
is still available. I liked it because of the full
sound, as more than three instruments were
used. Because it is an import, though, and
SACD, it is very expensive. Another set that
should be mentioned here is the complete
Corelli released by Brilliant a few years back
(N/D 2005).
I can say without hesitation that if the current release were the only set I had, I would be
quite content. There are just three musicians
playing violin, archlute or theorbo, and organ.
But the organ offers a warm and full continuo,
and the combination of organ with both
plucked and bowed strings yields a pleasing
texture. In addition, the performances are lively and even sprightly sometimes—energetic
and creative. Listeners who pay attention to
embellishments may be interested to know
that ornaments believed to have originated
with Corelli are used for the church sonatas,
and the musicians added their own embellishment for the chamber sonatas, except for No.
9, where they used Geminiani’s ornaments.
Another consideration here is the price:
this is a two-disc set for the price of one.
CRAWFORD
COUPERIN: Apotheoses
Ricercar Consort/ Philippe Pierlot
Mirare 150—67 minutes
In 1724, François Couperin published Les
Gouts-reünis (The Reunited Tastes), a musical
manifesto that the different styles of French
and Italian music could be combined. Following the ten suites of the Nouveaux Concerts (a
continuation of his earlier Concerts Royaux),
Couperin raised the deity of the foremost Italian instrumental composer in Le Parnasse ou
L’Apotheose de Corelli, a collection of programmatic pieces, each subtitled with some event
in the elevation of Arcangelo Corelli to Mount
Parnassus. The following year, Couperin paid
equal homage to the foremost “French” composer in a separate publication, Concert Instrumental sous le titre D’Apotheose Composé a la
memoire immortelle de l’incomparable Monsieur de Lully. This was also a collection of
character pieces, honoring Jean-Baptiste Lully,
who is given Apollo’s “violon” and invited by
Corelli to join with him in a trio sonata. Both of
these works are important expressions of
extra-musical meaning in the baroque and
documents of the changing tastes in 18th Century French music.
There have been a number of recordings
for both over the years, and this new release by
the Ricercar Consort is a distinguished addition. Among the earlier ones are the 1973 Seon
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recording by the Kuijkens and colleagues
(released on CD as Pro Arte 254 in 1987), John
Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque
soloists (Erato 45011, 1990), and London
Baroque (BIS 1275, 2003); unfortunately, I
haven’t heard the complete recording of
Couperin’s chamber music by Musica ad
Rhenum (Jan/Feb 2006). One aspect that is
common to three of these recordings (not Gardiner’s) is the reading of the titles for each of
the movements. While apparently a common
practice, it is most doubtful that this was
Couperin’s intention, since at least two movements in the Apotheosis of Corelli are to be
played attacca; in the London Baroque recording the narration is actually spoken over the
music.
The more difficult comparison is how each
of these groups responds to the subtleties of
Couperin’s united musical tastes. The least
satisfactory is Gardiner (though his is the only
recording I know without narration), whose
players lack the elan I would expect in French
music. But each of the remaining three readings is very strong. The London Baroque takes
a minimal approach: two violins, viola da
gamba, and continuo (even though Couperin’s
preferred instrumentation for the ‘Lamentations’ of Lully’s detractors is two flutes—the
composer did allow for the substitution of violins), but the music and rhythm are phrased
with great subtlety.
The new release by the Ricercar Consort is
more elaborately scored, adding two flutes and
a theorbo to the texture. The exquisite use of
“notes inegales” and the effective contrasts
between flutes and violins gives this recording
a slight edge. What was astonishing to me as I
prepared this review was how this same elegance was evident in the older recording by
the Kuijkens, though they also added two
oboes and a bassoon to the strings and flutes.
What I would really have wished is for at least
one of these recordings to have left out the
narration.
BREWER
COUPERIN: Premier Livre
Davitt Moroney, hpsi
Plectra 21201 [3CD] 231 minutes
Moroney has recorded the entire Pieces de
Clavecin, Book 1 (1713) of Francois Couperin.
He appends preludes from Couperin’s Art de
Toucher le Clavecin to each ordre (suites and
dances grouped by key; Moroney explains the
Italian origin of this word in the liner notes).
He has also included a free-standing Sicilienne
in G at the end of the first ordre. The piece was
published in 1707 by Ballard and is also found
in several manuscripts. Although he has
doubts about its authenticity, he lavishes the
same care on it as he does all the other music
here and delivers a compelling and nuanced
performance. He is as at home with the harpsichord’s “standard repertoire” as he is with little-known music. His recording of music from
the Borel Manuscript (Plectra, N/D 2008)
attests to this versatility.
He records here on two of the finest extant
antique harpsichords, built by Nicolas
Dumont (Paris, 1707) and Ioannes Ruckers
(Antwerp, 1627). The instruments are in a private USA collection and were restored by John
Phillips of Berkeley. The Dumont harpsichord
appears on the first two discs (Ordres 1-3). The
sound of both 8-foot stops together is magnificent. The 8-foot stops played separately offer
more subtle pleasures. In the first Courante of
the Third Ordre, a piercing drone in the alto
register reveals the instrument’s complex
decay. In the Minuet of the same ordre,
Moroney alternates between the two eightfoot stops, like the violin and oboe sections of
a dance orchestra. The sound of the Ruckers
harpsichord is deep and full-bodied. The
sound of the tenor and bass registers together
in ‘La Flore’ (Fifth Ordre) is particularly effective on the instrument. Moroney has cultivated
sweetness of tone and smoothness of line in
his playing. A piece like ‘Les Baccanales’
(Fourth Ordre) risks sounding hokey without a
sensitive, vocal approach. In his hands, the
piece seems to speak and sing all at once. This
effect is achieved by extremes of legato and
staccato touch. The contrast creates the feeling
of language, complete with vowels and consonants.
His liner notes add immensely to the overall experience of the recording. In particular,
the inclusion of Nicholas Siret’s dedication to
Couperin, from his first book of harpsichord
pieces, goes a long way in bringing the composer to life in our time. Siret (1663-1754) was
a close friend of Couperin. He remarks, “How
many times have I heard you called by people
in our profession their protector, their father!”
Though no one in our time will have the pleasure of knowing the “perfect honest man” that
Siret speaks of, I suspect that more than a few
harpsichordists and harpsichord builders
today proudly claim Couperin le Grand as an
artistic father.
KATZ
COZZOLANI: Psalms;
PERUCONA: Motets
Hanover Girls Choir & Hofkapelle/ Gudrun
Schrofel
Rondeau 6020—59 minutes
Visitors to 17th-Century Milan lavished praise
on the famous nuns there, renowned for composing and performing music of the highest
caliber. Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602c1677) not only was a leading composer, but
also the abbess of her convent. The six largescale psalm settings in this program all come
from her 1650 publication Salmi A Otto Voci
Concertati. The pieces are glorious, and very
well performed by the Hanover Girls Choir, an
adult female vocal quintet (four are alumnae
of the same girls choir), and the Hanover
Hofkapelle instrumental ensemble.
The contrasting timbres and styles of the
two vocal groups enrich the interpretation: the
five solo singers use their mature voices and
skillful ensemble experience to supply character and expression; and the girls—teens and
young adults, not little children—are in a large
ensemble (likely 70-80 voices judging from the
photograph in the booklet) and therefore don’t
need to force their voices or over-sing to supply the considerable volume needed in this
music. Whether the larger or the smaller group
sings a particular passage is up to the conductor (not specified in the score), and Gudrun
Schrofel’s choices here attest to her mastery of
the idiom and skill at using variety to good
effect. Often there is a style difference too, with
the girls singing more of a staccato articulation
and in exact time and the solo ensemble more
legato with a greater flexibility of tempo and
pulse.
Very little is known about the other composer here, Maria Xaviera Perucona (1652-99),
“who left behind a print of her music in the
Ursuline convent of Galaite in 1675”. Two
Perucona motets are in this program: the first,
‘Gaude Plaude’, is a tribute to St Ursula for
solo soprano; the second, ‘O Superbi Mundi
Machina’, a reflection on the fleeting and
empty vanity of the world’s pomp and wondrous grandeur for soprano, mezzo, and alto.
All the music here is extremely well performed. The Hofkapelle is a large ensemble of
strings and winds, with a range of colors to
complement the vocal forces. In Cozzolani’s
‘Beatus Vir Qui Timet Dominum’ (Psalm 112)
active bass figures drive the music forward in
the fine choral opening section; and in a later
passage, notes are scattered across the voice
parts in effective depictions of the “dispersit”
text. In ‘Gloria In Altissimis Deo’ (paraphrase
of St Luke, Chapter 2) the solo singers—as
individual shepherds and angels—are accompanied by a delicate combination of dulcian
and lute, with the choir coming in at the end as
the angelic host, with exuberant alleluias and
then a beautifully tapered diminuendo closing.
Notes, bios, texts, translations. You may
need to experiment with your playback volume so that both the large choir and the soloist
ensemble come through well. The Magnificat
ensemble, singing one voice to a part, has
89
released fine programs of music by Cozzolani
(Musica Omnia 103, M/J 2002; 209, N/D 2002;
401, N/D 2010), and I praised a vespers performed by the Orlando Di Lasso ensemble
(Thor 2461, M/A 2003).
DANIELPOUR: Symphony 3; First Light;
Awakened Heart
Faith Esham, p; Seattle Symphony & Chorale/
Gerard Schwarz
C MOORE
C
RESTON: Symphony 3;
COPLAND: Appalachian Spring Suite;
Symphonic Ode
Seattle Symphony/ Gerard Schwarz
These have all been reviewed here before;
Naxos is apparently going on a Schwarz spree
and reissuing a bunch of recordings formerly
found on Delos—I’ve got two in this issue (see
Bernstein), and I saw one in the last issue.
Copland’s Piano Concerto, with Lorin Hollander, was originally in the company with the
other two of his pieces; Charles Berigan (M/J
1996) thought it was the most valuable piece
on the Delos release. He concluded that
Appalachian Spring was decent, but too subdued and almost manicured, except for the
too-loud timpani. He said the Symphonic Ode
was “most biting and impressive, with its
rhythmic chordal relentlessness towards its
finish a seeming foretaste of the pounding
opening of the Harmonielehre of John Adams”.
I could do without the pompous, dour opening, but there are some charming spots further
on—not charming enough to make me go back
and listen to the piece again, but at least
enough to get me through it.
Karl Miller reviewed the Creston (N/D
1992), noting that his music has been “all but
ignored the last 40 years”. And it hasn’t
improved too much since then, though the terrific Saxophone Sonata gets played a lot in colleges. Naxos has put out Theodore Kuchar’s
recording of Symphonies 1-3 (559034, S/O
2000) and Symphony No. 5 (Seattle/ Schwarz;
559153, J/F 2004). I wish someone would
release the excellent recordings of Symphonies
2 and 3 that Howard Mitchell did for Westminster more than half a century ago. They’re in
mono, but as Mr Miller noted, the performance is tighter. Seattle is more relaxed, but
the playing is better. The Third Symphony is
Creston’s most lyrical. It has the subtitle Three
Mysteries. Creston was a fine organist, and his
music tends to be thick and sumptuous. Many
people have noted that his style tends toward
impressionism, but I don’t hear that as much.
His music is very rhythmic, sometimes cerebral, but nearly always interesting. If you’ve
not heard his music, this is a good place to
start.
ESTEP
90
Richard Danielpour’s Third Symphony (1989),
Journey Without Distance, is a large singlemovement work based on Helen Schucman’s
book “A Course in Miracles”, about the
Columbia University psychology professor’s
experience having her new book dictated to
her by “an inner voice”. The text was prepared
for the composition by Judith Skutch Whitson
and the composer. It is scored for soprano solo
and orchestra, with a brief appearance by a
chorus at the end. The piece is musically
involving, often beautiful, brilliantly orchestrated, and filled with memorable motives and
tunes; but unfortunately Naxos fails to supply
texts. They don’t appear on Naxos’s website,
nor on the composer’s, so I see no reason to
purchase this, except for the second half of the
disc, which contains two of Danielpour’s best
pieces.
First Light (1988), which opens the program, is a 13-minute overture alternating
Danielpour’s vivacious dance-like music with
a central contrasting section of warm romanticism. The lovely coda is filled with a couple of
richly harmonized chant melodies. This would
make an excellent program opener, especially
for concerts of American music.
The Awakened Heart (1990) could be considered a symphony in all but name. It has
three impressive movements. It opens with a
tightly argued allegro, moves through an
expressive slow movement with another
chorale, and concludes with an energetic
transformation of previous material. I could do
without the pretentious movement titles, but
heard in purely symphonic terms this work
could easily take its place in the better American symphonic repertoire.
This originally appeared on Delos in 1993.
Naxos shouldn’t bother releasing vocal music
until they find ways to deliver texts.
GIMBEL
D
AVIES: Ave Maris Stella; Psalm 124;
Dove, Star-Folded; Economies of Scale
Gemini/ Ian Mitchell
Metier 28503—53 minutes
Of the four chamber works on this program,
the main event is the nearly half-hour Ave
Maris Stella (1975), a sextet for flute(s), clarinet, viola, cello, marimba, and piano. Taking
off from the plainchant, Davies produces (for
the first time) one of his “magic squares”, a
serial matrix generating both the piece’s pitch
and rhythmic material. Despite its diatonic
roots, the perpetual variation concept and 70s
chromatic serialism make imposing demands
on listener’s patience and attention, though
we are told in the notes that the compositional
processes involved are “of little concern to
anyone but the composer and those who concern themselves professionally with such matters”. This suggests a “just let the music wash
all over you” listening strategy, which may be
enough to satisfy some, but I always have preferred more substantial involvement in the
music I listen to. The piece does break into
nine easily audible sections, and Metier
thoughtfully offers track divisions. People who
don’t care about such things could still appreciate the sheer virtuosity involved. This seems
enough for the composer’s many fans and
made him “Master of the Queen’s Music” in
2004, and what could be more impressive than
his dramatic Orkney Islands isolation and his
huge catalog? Audiences have changed since
the 70s, but if you are nostalgic for those times
you will certainly value this excellent performance.
Turning to the remaining pieces, the contemporaneous and considerably less complicated Psalm 124 (1974), also built on Early
Music material, is described by the composer
as a “Motet for Instrumental Ensemble after
[medieval and renaissance composers] David
Peebles, John Fethy, and an Anonymous Scottish Source”. Davies transforms and superimposes melodic lines from this music with
counterpoint built with what one of my teachers liked to call “dirty harmony”. The piece’s
three sections have brief interludes from a solo
guitar that transform the previous material.
Dove, Star-Folded (2000) is a brief work for
string trio in memory of scholar Sir Steven
Runciman, and is based on a Greek Byzantine
hymn (apparently Sir Steven’s object of study).
The piece, essentially a more traditional theme
and variations, alternates somber treatments
of the hymn with livelier passages.
Economies of Scale (2002), for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, was commissioned by
Nobel Laureate economist Sir James Mirrlees.
Opening with a bombastic explosion, the piece
is primarily angular and “difficult”—more
chromatic and old-fashioned-modernist than
anything else on the program—yet it is the
most recent work here.
GIMBEL
DAVIES: Symphony 2; St Thomas Wake
BBC Philharmonic/ Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies’s Second Symphony
(1980) is known as his Sea Symphony. Apparently his house overlooks the ocean, and that
was the inspiration for this nearly hour-long
four-movement work. Its formal layout follows
the usual classical-romantic norm: a wildly
explosive sonata form allegro, an expressive
(but here meandering) slow movement, a relatively gentle scherzo, and a dramatic finale.
The composer, in his notes, purports to be
writing in an expanded B minor tonality, “but
that tonality might be extended to furnish new
methods of cohesion”. The new methods are
said to be based on his famous technique of
“magic squares”—arrangements of sequences
of numbers producing “arithmetical constants” that when “read in a particular way”
produce “architectural modules”. These modules are read astrologically (the Sun and Mars
are symbolized by the squares in this
instance.) These squares take as their source
the plainsong Nativitas Tua, Dei Genetrix,
never clearly heard (the composer and the Virgin Mary share the same birthday, by the way).
And if all that were not enough, the rhythmic
and even formal processes are said to reflect
the wave motions of the ocean.
So how does it sound? Unrelievedly dense,
turgid, overwrought, and very difficult to follow. Since the music consists of an endless
flow of non-repeating transformations (like
the sea, I suppose), the listener has little
chance to process coherent musical information, so any notion of relation to classical
structure is wishful thinking at best (and disingenuous at worst). Detailed score study might
help, but this is a tough way to spend an hour,
and only the most courageous listeners will
have the patience to take the plunge (pun
intended).
Also included is St Thomas Wake (1969), a
“Foxtrot for Orchestra on a Pavan by John
Bull”. In this 20-minute exercise in 60s naughtiness, a sensitive John Bull pavan is deformed
offstage by an out-of-tune early music ensemble, becomes absorbed into avant-garde 60s
Maxwell Davies music, and is then interrupted
by irritating wartime foxtrots (the composer
was trapped in Manchester during the bombings). The result seems more than a little
dated, and not only as a relic of the World War
II subject matter. The atonal vs tonal battle
needed to be fought back then, but that war is
over. Annotator Stephen Pruslin’s proposal
that the composer was commenting on “the
failure of between-the-wars popular music to
reflect the political and moral climate of its
time” was true until we hit the late 60s (it’s
surely true today), but the serious music in
vogue at the time was an even worse culprit,
especially in the modernist arena. That makes
this piece not only precious but a probably
unintentional good example of exactly what
the problem was.
The symphony was recorded in 1993 and
91
released on Collins back in 1995. St Thomas
Wake was recorded at the 1991 Cheltenham
Music Festival.
GIMBEL
DAVIS: Ben-Hur
Liverpool Philharmonic/ Carl Davis
Carl Davis 14—72 minutes
Carl Davis composed a 143-minute wall-towall score for the restoration of Ben-Hur, and
when heard with the 1925 silent film it fits the
visuals seamlessly. This recording (from a 1989
Silva Screen release) is about half that length
and includes the major sequences and themes.
Some of the nativity music recently appeared
in a Christmas collection (Nov/Dec 2011, p
247) but it was encumbered with narration.
Here Davis’s use of Martin Luther’s ‘Dresden
Amen’ is heard unfettered, growing from a
whisper to a powerful statement combining
organ and orchestra. What follows is less
impressive. The themes assigned to the key
characters are not especially inspired (particularly when compared to Miklos Rozsa’s music
for the 1959 film) and some of the development sounds more efficient than creative. The
spectacular sequences come off better: the
‘Pirate Battle’ is rousing bravado, the earthquake finale a cataclysmic riot of sounds. The
film’s famous set-piece, the chariot race, is a
mixture of themes for Ben-Hur and Messala
set against relentless, warring antiphonal timpani (a la Carl Nielsen). It’s spectacular but at
nearly 10 minutes a bit repetitive. The Liverpool ensemble plays all this to the hilt (especially those timpanists!) and the sound is A-1.
KOLDYS
DEBUSSY: La Mer;
RAVEL: Mother Goose; La Valse
Seoul Philharmonic/ Myung-Whun Chung
The Seoul Philharmonic was formed in 1948
and reorganized as an incorporated foundation in 2006, the year Myung-Whun Chung
became Music Director. It has played under
many major conductors and has toured Asia
and Europe. This is the first of 11 recordings of
the orchestra to be issued by DG. The performances are scrupulously played, with a rich,
colorful string sound that suits them well. If
the orchestra does not have a huge sound, it is
well blended and cultivated. The woodwinds
exude personality and dexterity; the brass are
not quite as refined, but they are good, if a bit
reticent, and that is probably a result of
Chung’s balancing. The recording is balanced,
clear, and detailed. The performances are
slightly on the slow side, but they are not static. The overall approach is detailed, rhythmi-
92
cally precise, and even literal; but there is a lot
going on here precisely because of those qualities.
La Mer seemed slow and aloof at first hearing, but once I settled in it was possible to substitute studied and attentive for aloof—a fine
distinction, but it holds. ‘From Dawn to Noon
on the Sea’ is more mysterious than usual,
almost as if afraid of what the sea will reveal,
while the ending is a true hymn. The brass are
restrained and even reverent—probably too
much, but the effect is compelling, and you
can hear the waves in the strings unusually
well in one place as a result. The clarity, lively
rhythms, and sheer control of ‘Games of the
Waves’ make the movement more light-hearted and game-like than usual, and the harps are
audible even in their softest passages. The
result is not pointillistic, but it is certainly not
romantic. The opening of ‘Dialog of the Wind
and Sea’ has an ominous quality, stemming
especially from the drum, which is always
audible and sustained underneath. The strings
take their time to grow, and the English horn
sounds less bold and opulent over the bassoons in their two chords right near the opening than it should. The big horn calls near the
end are throaty, like foghorns in a mist or creatures from the depths of the sea, and the
answering waves in the strings are subdued.
The ending, as in I, begins like a hymn and is
anything but overblown.
The approach to Ravel’s Mother Goose
Suite is similar. ‘Pavane of Sleeping Beauty’ is
again on the slow side. The attention to detail
makes sure that the lower woodwinds are as
prominent as the upper ones, and the slight
ritard at the end is a nice touch. ‘Tom Thumb’
is well balanced, but I wish the English horn
had a larger sound. Chung’s control is palpable in ‘Little Ugly Girl’. The fast scurrying in
the quick passages comes as a surprise, though
it is hardly out of place. The gong is gorgeous,
a fine example of percussion control. Several
nice details enlighten ‘Beauty and the Beast’:
the way the basses hold their own against the
contrabassoon making the beast more threatening than usual, the lilt to the strings’ rhythm
in their dance over the contra, and the exquisite violin solo as it goes from sweet to warm.
The opening to ‘Fairy Garden’ fans out beautifully, leading to a movement that fulfills its
function as a noble and uplifting conclusion.
All the above qualities are prevalent in La
Valse, but it is a very different piece. Detail,
control, clarity, and beautiful playing (particularly in the luscious strings) are admirable, but
account must be taken of the work’s manic
and destructive qualities, and Chung doesn’t
do that until the end. Until then the performance is so careful that it sounds interpretive-
ly uncertain, and the reticence of the brass
does not help. They do come alive at the end,
but it’s too late.
The sound is clean and detailed, fitting the
performances well. I was working from a press
kit, so I don’t know if the adequate notes are
the ones that will be in retail copies.
HECHT
DEBUSSY: Orchestral Pieces
Nocturnes; La Mer; Jeux; Images; Afternoon of
a Faun; Printemps; Enfant Prodigue excerpts:
Marche Ecossaise; Berceuse Heroique
Scottish National Orchestra/ Stephane Deneve
Chandos 5102 [2SACD] 146 minutes
Stephane Deneve seems on the road to making
himself the leading conductor of French music
today. Having apparently finished his excellent
Albert Roussel traversal for Naxos, he is taking
on Claude Debussy for Chandos. In doing so,
he takes Debussy at his word that impressionism was not a term that should apply to his
music. There is no haze, rhythm is clearly
delineated, tempos are very well chosen, and
there is no lingering. The Scottish National
sounds more agile, sensitive, refined, and
French than it did in Roussel—and it sounded
all of that then. The recording is more open
and airier than usual from Chandos and is well
suited to the music. My only quibble is a slight
lack of bass, making it seem as if the sound
were built from the top down. Both the orchestra and the recording are much better, and less
strident, than their Chandos recordings with
Jarvi.
Deneve’s approach to Debussy is consistent, so a few examples should make things
clear. La Mer is quiet, mysterious, and restrained at the beginning, but soon comes
alive with a burst of light. Rhythms are clear
and almost swing. It is intimate, balanced, and
detailed without seeming pedantic, and the
ending to I is beautifully scaled. I is taut, sleek,
clean, and beautifully serene; and the ending
tapers off almost to nothing. III is dramatic
from the outset, with fine tension. The trumpet
is unusually legato, trombones are menacing,
and the horns are restrained in their big calls
against the waves. The tempo is quite slow
toward the end, which is full, built from the
bottom up in this case, with beautiful brass. It
is often said that La Mer is as close as Debussy
came to writing a symphony, and this performance bolsters that theory.
It is good to hear the outer movements of
Images get their due. Because of the stress on
the underlying rhythm, ‘Gigues’ really does
dance. Everything is clear, yet, full, and the
ending seems appropriately careful after all
the previous activity. ‘Iberia’ follows, appropriately, as if it is from the same piece rather than
a stand-alone. The stress on rhythm brings out
the Spanish flavor, and the night music is pensive but very much alive. ‘Rondes des Printemps’ glitters.
Jeux may be the best performance I’ve
heard of the piece. It certainly is one of the few
that puts it across. The trick is steady, very
clear rhythm, lively colors, and a sense of the
whole, rather than of “modern” music that just
wanders around and sounds pretty. Deneve
elaborates on Jeux in an essay included in the
booklet, and this performance is exactly what
I’d expect from his sentiments. The excellent
booklet also contains a vital scene-by-scene
analysis of this elusive work. If you have had
trouble with Jeux but otherwise like Debussy,
this is a must for that reason alone.
Deneve’s seamlessness really helps
‘Nuages’ in Nocturnes. One distinction of
‘Fetes’ is the way the muted trumpets start
from a much greater distance than usual. I’m
not sure I like it, but it may work well for some
listeners. ‘Sirenes’ often seems like a tag-on
after ‘Fetes’, but it makes a case for itself here
because everything is laid out clearly and given
its say. That includes the choir, which has
more presence than usual.
Prelude a L’Apres-Midi D’un Faune is beautifully shaped, bright yet warm, and seamlessly
structured. The one oddity, and it is a subtle
one, is slightly greater emphasis on the horn
than the flute. Some performances bring a
touch of menace to this work, but this is more
hypnotic than ominous.
I’ve always thought Printemps a better
piece than it is given credit for, and Deneve
makes that case. He is also a strong advocate
for the minor pieces here, particularly Marche
Ecossaise. The Enfant Prodigue excerpts are
‘Prelude’ and the ‘Cortege et Air de Danse’.
Deneve says he wants every note heard,
adding that “one must emphasize transparency, freshness of timbre energy, and rhythmic
precision”. His idol as a youth was Charles
Munch, but his Debussy is much closer to
Haitink’s. Where Haitink leans to warmth,
Deneve goes for airy, rhythmic clarity. Jun
Markl’s excellent Debussy series is far more
complete, smaller in scale, and more intensely
colorful. Ideally, I would not be without Deneve, Haitink, and Markl and have come to prefer them to Martinon, Boulez, Munch, Ansermet, Tortelier, and others.
Deneve proclaims Debussy’s Pelleas et
Melisande his favorite opera. I hope that translates into a recording. I’d like one of the complete Martyrdom of St Sebastian, too.
HECHT
93
D
EBUSSY: Preludes, Book 1
with Arabesques; Ballade; Nocturne; Danse
Bohemienne; Danse
Amir Tebenikhin, p
with Khamma; Les Soirs Illuminés par
l’Ardeur du Charbon; Toomai des Elephants;
Intermede; Petite Valse
Michael Korstick, p
Hänssler 93290—73 minutes
with Preludes, Book 2; Afternoon of a Faun; 3
Nocturnes
Alexei Lubimov, Alexei Zuev, p
ECM 16958 [2CD] 113 minutes
There are few sets of piano pieces more foundational to the repertoire than Debussy’s Preludes, Book 1, composed from December 1909
to February 1910. I cannot imagine any pianist
who has not performed at least one of these.
Like Chopin’s Preludes, there is a wide range
of pianistic requirements in the set. Perhaps
half of Debussy’s 12 are within the abilities of
talented teenage pianists. At the other end, the
most difficult require a fully developed virtuoso technique, a full pallet of pianistic colors,
and the intelligence to make both music and
sense out of quite complex scores. The titles
are placed at the end of each piece, supposedly
so they would not be the pianist’s primary
source of interpretation. That might have
worked early on, but at this point everyone
knows the titles, and they are very descriptive
and inspirational. Each of the above recordings has its strengths, and the choice might
easily come down to the other pieces.
Tebenikhin on Genuin continues a very
special series that uses four different pianists
playing a Blüthner. Last issue I was quite favorably impressed by the playing of Juliana Steinbach in Volume 1. This second volume continues in the same strong vein. Debussy purchased a Blüthner in 1905 that was fitted with
the Aliquot system of strings. Blüthners still
are, and they have a fourth string for every
note in the treble, which is not struck by the
hammer. It simply vibrates sympathetically
with the other three and adds to the resonance
and sonic richness. Debussy loved his piano,
and one can safely assume that all of his piano
pieces from 1905 on were composed with its
sound in mind. The technicians at Blüthner
went to great lengths to prepare the piano
used for these recordings so it would sound as
close to Debussy’s as possible. The instrument
is in the Musée Labenche in Brive-la-Gaillarde.
There are exemplary notes by Roy Howat, a
noted Debussy scholar. All would be for
naught if the performances weren’t on the
same level and, so far, they certainly are. The
series is not striving for the kind of complete-
94
ness that might include Debussy’s student
fugues written as examination pieces. It will
have all of the pieces published for solo piano
on four generous discs.
Tebenikhin has a group of early works
(1880-92) that set the stage perfectly for a wonderful set of Preludes. The Arabesques were
Debussy’s first piano pieces to appear in print
in 1891. The ‘Danse Bohemienne’, composed
in 1880 was not published until 1932. The
other ‘Danse’ (Tarantelle Styrienne), ‘Ballade’,
and ‘Nocturne’ all date from 1890-92. These
are substantial pieces, five to eight minutes
long. Tebenikhin brings all the necessary elements to these works: imagination, rhythmic
drive, tenderness, and an unfailing sense of
legato line.
As for the Preludes themselves, I make particular note of Tebenikhin’s ‘Cathedrale
Engloutie’, perhaps the best known of the Preludes. He follows the rhythm of the score, not
Debussy’s piano roll recording. His tempos are
flexible but a bit faster where Debussy doubles
the time. He also only plays one low C in the
big middle section where many play two C’s an
octave apart (somewhat necessary on small
pianos). Tebenikhin is always faithful to
Debussy’s score, which the composer was
notoriously meticulous about. I would have no
compunction about giving this recording an
unqualified recommendation, especially if you
are just learning these masterpieces.
Michael Korstick offers his first installment
in a projected complete series. The drawing
card for this volume is three world premiere
recordings (as per the booklet notes): ‘Intermede’, ‘Petite Valse’, and ‘Toomai des Elephants’ (the last two completed by Robert
Orledge, who supplies excellent notes). The
last work, inspired by Kipling’s Jungle Book,
was originally intended as the 11th Prelude in
Book 2. The very difficult piano arrangement
(by Debussy) of his late ballet Khamma takes
20 minutes, and few include in the complete
piano music. Korstick gives us a strong performance. The piece called ‘Les Soirs Illuminés
par l’Ardeur du Charbon’, Debussy’s last
known piano composition, is also a rarity, having appeared only in 2001. Its opening measures are very similar to the Prelude ‘Les Sons
et les Parfums Tournent dans l’Air du Soir’,
and it contains some exceptionally beautifully
music.
I am not happy with the sound quality.
Whether it’s the pianist, the piano, or the
recording (or a little of each), there are a number of rather harsh, loud upper-register
moments, and the overall sound is not as good
as the other two recordings under consideration. As for Korstick’s Preludes, his ‘Sunken
Cathedral’ accurately follows the newest
Durand complete edition corrections to the
tempo. As per Debussy’s piano roll recording
and eyewitness accounts of his playing, he
doubles the time in measures 7-12 and 22-83. I
wish someone had told me about that when I
was 12 years old and learning the piece. I simply felt guilty at the time for speeding up considerably in those places. But he does not hit
the rhythms in the left hand accurately enough
for me in measure 21. He also has a harsh
sound at the big section beginning at measure
28. Debussy’s marking is “sonorous without
hardness” but I hear hardness. On the other
hand, except for an extra note in one chord,
Korstick’s ‘Ce qu’a vu le Vent d’Ouest’ is as
good as they come. It is marked “strident”,
“incisive”, and “furious”; and some of the
harshness I hear is perfectly in keeping with
the nature of the piece.
Alexei Lubimov’s 2CD set is of both books
of Preludes with a unique addition of two
major orchestral works in two-piano arrangements: Prelude a l’Apres-midi d’un Faune by
Debussy and Trois Nocturnes in Ravel’s
arrangement. He plays a 1925 Bechstein for
the first book of Preludes and a 1913 Steinway
for the second. Both are used in the two-piano
arrangements, where he is joined by Alexei
Zuev. These older instruments have a mellow
tone that is somewhat uneven by modern
standards. But the unique timbres of the
instruments allowed his imagination to take
flight. His unique and compelling interpretations are always tasteful and imaginative. Even
more fascinating are the textures and sonorities from the two old pianos together.L u b i mov’s Preludes (both books) are consistently a
joy to listen to. His are not textbook examples
of utmost fidelity to the printed score, or traditional interpretations. Nor is he doing anything remotely outlandish. He makes you listen closely and think. Even the most familiar of
these, like ‘The Girl with the Flaxen Hair’,
sound fresh and alive. Close attention to the
score showed me he was not above some rubato and a little tinkering with dynamics and
accents, but always in a musical line. His
‘Sunken Cathedral’ is like Korstick’s, following
the newest edition and stretching the first note
of four in the left hand on both the first and
third beats of measure 21. When we get to
Book 2 Lubimov switches pianos. His descriptions of the sounds is worth repeating here.
The Steinway is “divinely soft in pianissimo,
resonant and marvelously suitable for unexpected colors”. The Bechstein (Book 1) is
“clear, sharply-etched, translucent and light,
even in complex textures”. In Debussy’s
orchestral masterpieces, there is as much variety of sound as can be imagined in the twopiano versions, though they can never displace
the magic of Debussy’s orchestrations.
Lubimov and Korstick have similar timings; Tebenikhin is slower. He takes a minute
longer than Korstick in the ‘Sunken Cathedral’,
and Korstick is a minute longer than Lubimov
in ‘Footprints in the Snow’. Most of the time
the differences are less. The Blüthner wins for
the most beautiful sound. I am very glad to
have the new pieces from Korstick, the early
works played so beautifully by Tebenikhin,
and both Book 2 of the Preludes and the
arrangements for two pianos from Lubimov.
HARRINGTON
DEBUSSY: Quartet; Trio; Sacred & Profane
Dances; Reverie
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, p; Sioned Williams, hp;
Chris Laurence, db; Brodsky Quartet
After reviewing the Brodsky Quartet’s “PetitFours” in the last issue, I could be accused of
wearing rose-colored glasses in approaching
this next album.
But the glasses came off enough in the
String Quartet to allow a fair look. In the first
movement the balances are exquisite. Each line
has the space to make its function radiate
warmly. The players are not rigid—they yield
nicely to lyrical opportunities with a little tenuto
here, a wave of tenderness there, so poignantly
felt. And in II they lead the ear so well as the line
shifts from one instrument to another amid the
twos-against-threes, pizzicatos, and accented
chords. “Atmosphere” is what they create, the
essence of impressionism.
Then in III each player takes so many individual liberties with phrases that the music
feels like a series of mismatched recitatives.
The pulse is so irregular, so rhetorical that it’s
impossible to tell the meter without a score.
Yet all that disappears in the recapitulation,
which is utterly divine. Then IV is no more
than ordinary.
Sacred and Profane Dances (on the cover
simply called Deux Danses) with the quartet,
Williams, and Laurence absolutely floats. The
‘Sacred Dance’ is like chiffon, and the ‘Profane
Dance’ emerges without a break on a bed of
air. Harmonies between the string lines are
utterly clear and delicately felt, and overall balances are exquisite.
The gem performance here is the trio. With
drama, expressive depth, natural flow, exquisite balances, and uniform concept of style, this
performance is a prime example of how to
make a second-rate early work sound first rate.
It’s too bad the engineers delete all bass quality from the piano—something I partly fixed by
turning the bass knob all the way up.
‘Reverie’, arranged for string quartet by
violist Paul Cassidy, here sounds exceptionally
labored, especially the eighth-note arpeggios.
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Strange to say, I’ve created a more legato
impression myself on the piano (and I’m
worse than amateur at the keyboard). The
piece here comes across as merely series of
effects with enharmonics, arpeggios, etc.
FRENCH
DEBUSSY: Songs 2
Lorna Anderson, Lisa Milne, s; Malcolm Martineau, p
Hyperion 67883—66:47
This is a sequel to Hyperion’s recording of
Debussy songs with baritone Christopher
Maltman and pianist Malcolm Martineau
(May/June 2003.) The two sopranos here are
both marvelous: their voices are full and lustrous, capable of delicate nuance and with
ample power for dramatic expression; and
their French declamation is natural and compelling. Martineau’s playing is, as ever, sensitive and assured.
The program includes Debussy’s first version of the three songs in Fêtes Galantes from
1882, as well as Proses Lyriques (1893), Chansons de Bilitis (1897), Ariettes Oubliées (1903),
Trois Chansons de France (1904), and Trois
Poemes de Mallarmé (1913). A number of the
individual songs are very familiar, appearing
on numerous recital programs and recordings;
but it is enlightening to hear them in the context of their original groupings and in chronological order, revealing something of the composer’s musical and harmonic development.
The excellent notes by Roger Nichols are
perceptive and informative, especially about
the revisions Debussy made over time to some
of the songs. Yet for all its strengths, there is
something about this recording that is too
smooth, too perfect; so that while it is a great
pleasure to listen to, the songs, which are often
quite shocking in their harmonic explorations
and erotic suggestiveness, are less compelling
than one might expect. For freshness and
sheer risk-taking, I still recommend Susanna
Phillips’s performance on Bridge Records
(March/April 2012).
MARCUSE
DEBUSSY: En Blanc et Noir; see MESSIAEN;
Epigraphes Antiques; see STRAVINSKY
D
EMESSIEUX: Te Deum; Easter Response;
Prelude & Fugue in C; 9 Chorale Preludes;
Etudes 5+6;
LINDWALL: Homage to Demessieux
Hampus Lindwall, org
Ligia 109228—67 minutes
Esprit, Paris from 1933 until 1962 when she left
and took on the same title at La Madeleine.
Her organ compositions, limited as they are,
are far better known than the ones for organ
and orchestra, piano, chamber players, and
voice.
Lindwall is a Swedish musician who studied with Toren, Lebrun, Pincemaille, and
Mallie. He also worked with Rolande Falcinelli
for eight years. He is currently titulaire at the
same Saint-Esprit church. The first 13 selections are performed in La Madeleine on the 485 Cavaillé-Coll (1846, Dargassies 2002); the
remaining four—called bonus tracks—are
played on the 2-24 Gloton-Debierre (1934, Cicchero 1985) in Saint-Esprit. This organ is only
slightly larger than it was when Demessieux
played there. The clarity of the engineering is
excellent.
Most organ music listeners probably have
heard a few of the Chorale- Preludes (1947), a
collection of well known melodies (e.g. Stabat
Mater; Veni Creator; Domine Jesu). They are
short and fairly easy. The chant melodies are
surrounded by pleasantly modern harmonies.
A good recording of all of them is from Leclerc
at La Madeleine (Motette 11671, M/A 1993).
Lindwall does a first rate job with this music.
His performance of the challenging Etudes 5
and 6 is as satisfying as any. Three of the final
four pieces simply repeat two chorale preludes
and the Te Deum heard earlier from La
Madeleine—this to demonstrate the potency
and breadth of sound from the small SaintEsprit organ. They sound just as full and warm
as when performed on the much larger organ.
Finally, Lindwall adds a personal tribute to
Demessieux by turning her name into a 16-letter acrostic. His jazz background shows
through in this jaunty, atonal ramble that
offers little in the way of tribute unless we
count its syncopated rhythms. A far more
appropriate dedication can be found at the
end of Labric’s recording, where we hear the
first movement of Labric’s Homage, very much
in the Demessieux world of harmony and technical prowess. All said, I believe Lindwall is a
talent worthy of attention.
The complete Etudes (1-6) can be heard by
Labric (Solstice 269, J/F 2011), Ciampi (Stradivarius 33384, S/O 1995), Patel (FUGO 25), and
Tharp (Aeolus 10561—no longer available, but
it can be downloaded). If you like the Te
Deum, hear it played by Demessieux herself:
Festivo 132.
METZ
DIAMOND: Elegy; see BERNSTEIN
This is a recording aimed at a small but appreciative audience. Demessieux (1921-68) was a
musical prodigy, becoming titulaire at Saint-
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DOVE: The Passing of the Year; In Beauty
May I Walk; My Love Is Mine; Who Killed
Cock Robin?; It Sounded As If the Streets
Were Running; I Am the Day; Wellcome, All
Wonders in One Sight!; Three Kings
Christopher Cromar, p; Convivium Singers/ Neil
Ferris
This affords a nice opportunity to sample the
work of British composer Jonathan Dove (b
1959). His music is accessible and well crafted.
He also has a flair for making great poetry
come alive in song. His Passing of the Year, for
example, is an engaging cycle of seven songs
for double chorus and piano that makes excellent use of poems by Blake, Tennyson, and
Emily Dickinson, among others. He also has a
flair for theatrical story-telling, as in ‘Who
Killed Cock Robin’, a clever entry full of chirpy
calls from a number of ornithological sources.
The British chamber choir is aptly named,
as these are convivial performances caught in
strong, clear sound by the Naxos engineers. I
do find, however, that the straight, steely
sound of the soprano section detracts from the
radiance of some of the choral effects the composer was after. ‘Hot sun, cool fire’ from the
Passing Year, for example, conveys more cool
fire than hot sun, and that’s not the only place
where I would have welcomed more warmth.
Loud passages are particularly chilly. Notes
and texts are supplied.
GREENFIELD
D
RATTELL: Sorrow is Not Melancholy;
Fire Dances; Lilith; The Fire Within; Syzygy
David Shifrin, cl; Scott Goff, fl; Seattle Symphony/
Gerard Schwarz
Deborah Drattell is one of the more talented
neo-romantic composers to emerge in the 80s.
This is a composer with real lyrical talent
rather than just skill at tonal pastiche. My only
problem is that she tends to conclude her livelier pieces with coarse, repetitive crescendos.
They really deserve better endings.
Sorrow is Not Melancholy, from 1993, is an
eloquent threnody for strings, packing a great
deal of mournful emotion into its 11 minutes
before its final sigh. A piquant contrast is Fire
Dances, her clarinet concerto, a ritualistic
dance (in Drattell’s words) full of haunting
Eastern colors. It too, however, slows down
into Drattell’s signature sorrow. Drattell wrote
this one-movement work (again, just over 11
minutes) for David Shifrin, who plays it here
with uninhibited passion. The orchestra has a
great deal to say as well, and the Seattle Symphony under Gerard Schwarz (a Drattell cham-
pion) comes through splendidly, as it does in
all these performances from the early 90s.
A more sinister note is struck in both Lilith,
a two-movement portrait of the mythical vampire seductress, and The Fire Within, a concertante piece for flute and orchestra played with
intensity by Scott Goff. Again, the lyrical sections have an Eastern sensuousness—the legacy, says Drattell, of her upbringing with synagogue music. Some of the violin solos in exotic
modes sound a bit like Delius’s Hassan. Concluding the program on an apocalyptic note is
Syzygy, depicting the violence of nature. This is
raw, compelling music, a bit overcooked but
certainly not bland.
SULLIVAN
DUBERY: Oboe Sonatina; Cello Sonata; 2
Stopfordian Impressions; Degrees of Evidence Suite; Escapades; Harlequinade; Walking Cimbrone; Mrs Harris in Paris; 3 Graves
Songs; 4 songs; Remember
Adrienne Murray, mz; John Turner, rec; Richard
Simpson, ob; Graham Salvage, bn; Richard
Williamson, va; Peter Dixon, vc; Craig Ogden, g;
David Dubery, Paul James, p
Metier 28523—79 minutes
David Dubery (b 1948) hails from South Africa
and has lived in England for many years. His
music has a traditional flavor to it, and the
pieces recorded here are for recorder, oboe,
and cello, along with a number of quite lovely
songs sung with beautiful intonation and clear
diction by Murray. Texts are included.
The instrumental works are quite concise,
none of the movements more than 4-1/2 minutes. Dubery’s musical idiom is romantic at
heart with a leaning towards jazz. It reminds
me somewhat of the music of Judith Lang Zaimont, whose piano pieces I was just listening
to, though it is rather more conservative harmonically. It is very pleasant to listen to.
The scoring should be mentioned. The
suite from Degrees of Evidence is for recorder,
oboe, and viola. The Escapades are for
recorder, bassoon, and piano and Walking
Cimbrone for bassoon and piano. Harlequinades is for recorder and guitar; Stopfordian Impressions and Mrs Harris in Paris are
for recorder and piano. The three songs on
Robert Graves poems are for mezzo-soprano,
recorder, and piano. The longest suite is only
12-1/2 minutes. Though not particularly deep
in its emotional pull, it has much beauty and
humor. All of the performers here are competent and seem to be enjoying themselves. I
enjoyed it a good deal.
D MOORE
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DVORAK: Piano Quartet 2; Piano Quintet;
Gypsy Songs; Songs My Mother Taught Me
Schubert Ensemble
The Schubert Ensemble has covered most of
the notable piano quartet and quintet repertory on various labels, and thus one expects
some seasoned musicianship in their readings
of these two major Dvorak works. These interpretations, though pretty straightforward, are
laced with perceptive and memorable
moments, particularly in the crisp clarity of
both final movements. On the other hand, the
quality is uneven. In II of the quartet, rhythm
and articulation feel insecure, and the declamatory thematic material in I is marked by
rather heavy-handed bluntness. In I of the
quintet, Jane Salmon’s opening cello solo
(heard twice, since the group takes the repeat
for the exposition) is rather timid; and the
sound, here as elsewhere in these performances, lacks a full, lyric resonance. In the
delivery of both these works I miss much of the
excitement and freedom that I hear in the
recordings made by Rudolf Firkusny, particularly the ones from 1977 and 1978 on CBS Masterworks.
Though the delightful encore item may not
redeem the whole program, this arrangement
by the Schubert Ensemble of Dvorak’s most
famous song is a welcome addition to a rather
meager catalog of chamber group encores.
That Dvorak was not averse to recasting his
vocal works as chamber music is demonstrated by his resurrection of the early cycle,
Cypresses, in a version for string quartet. Perpetuating this practice, as well as keeping it in
the family, Dvorak’s great-grandson, Josef Suk
recorded Suk’s own arrangements both for
violin and for viola with piano of 30 Dvorak
songs on the Toccata label (100).
JD MOORE
DVORAK: Quartet 13; Cypresses; Waltzes
Cecilia Quartet
Analekta 9892—58 minutes
The musicians in the Toronto-based Cecilia
Quartet are all fine players, and they play well
together, have lovely instruments, and seem to
be doing well touring in Canada and elsewhere. This is their first recording.
They play with a great deal of energy, but I
find listening to the G-major Quartet, Op. 106,
emotionally exhausting because every phrase
is nuanced to the fullest. The only place where
I feel the space and clarity of mind to really
hear the music is in the slow section of IV,
which is genuinely beautiful. The rest of the
recording is like a brilliant aural neon blur.
Perhaps these musicians are reaching out
98
to an audience that might enjoy a kind of “inyour-face” stimulation that is not normally
associated with readings of what I consider to
be very earthy music.
They play half a dozen of the 12 Cypresses
(Dvorak’s transcriptions of some early songs),
and two of the eight Waltzes that Dvorak wrote
for piano and transcribed for string quartet.
They really shine in the waltzes, where their
particular brand of heightened collective
expression is quite appropriate.
FINE
DVORAK: Songs & Duets
Genia Kühmeier, s; Bernarda Fink, mz; Christoph
Berner, p
Harmonia Mundi 902081—65:46
Dvorak’s so-called Gypsy Songs are not based
on actual Gypsy melodies, but are intended to
evoke the character and instrumentation of
their traditional music and the proud independence of their people. Soprano Kühmeier sings
them beautifully, with great sensitivity but not
a trace of sentimentality. She has a voice of
remarkable purity and clarity and a sinewy
sense of line, especially evident in the exquisite ‘And the Forest is Silent all Around’ as well
as the nostalgic ‘Songs my Mother Taught Me’.
An allegory of freedom for the Czech people is
given passionate voice in ‘Give a Hawk a Pure
Gold Cage’.
The Biblical Songs, settings of parts of
Psalms, were composed in 1894 in response to
threatening news from Europe as well as the
deaths of Tchaikovsky, Gounod, Dvorak’s own
father, and his friend and champion Hans von
Bülow. Kühmeier has a clear sense of the arc of
the cycle as a conflict between despair and
faith, from the raw anguish of No. 1, ‘Clouds
and Darkness are Round About’, with its stark
unaccompanied exclamations, to the glowing
serenity of No. 10, ‘O Sing unto the Lord a New
Song’. Pianist Christoph Berner shows impressive restraint in the spare, exposed accompaniments.
The Moravian Duets were the first published works to gain serious success for Dvorak, and they are still popular for their delightful, folksong-inflected melodies and perfectly
balanced vocal lines. They are most often
treated as lovely confections, but here they
have real weight and an unexpected bitter
tinge underlying their charm. Mezzo-soprano
Bernarda Fink is a firm, richly-colored foil to
Kühmeier, and both texts and harmonies are
faultlessly clear.
The booklet includes full texts and excellent notes, in Czech with translations in English, French, and German.
MARCUSE
DVORAK: Stabat Mater
Janice Watson, Dagmar Peckova, Peter Auty,
Peter Rose; London Philharmonic/ Neeme Jarvi
LPO 62—67 minutes
Dvorak’s Stabat Mater is a fairly early work,
drafted in early 1876 (after his Fifth Symphony) and orchestrated in 1877 (just before the
Slavonic Dances). It was, in fact, his first sacred
work except for a now lost setting of the Mass.
The Stabat Mater was written without commission, apparently in response to the death of
three of his children between 1875 and 1877.
The first performance had to wait until 1880,
but it soon added to his fame. In 1884 Dvorak
was invited to conduct in London, and one of
the pieces presented (in the Royal Albert Hall)
was his Stabat Mater.
Dvorak divided the medieval sequence
into 11 sections, which use various combinations of soloists and chorus, along with full
orchestra. In Jarvi’s hands this is not an introspective, meditative work, which the text
might suggest, but rather a full-throated, passionate piece, recorded, by the way, in a Royal
Festival Hall concert in October 2010. The liner
notes by Anthony Burton make a connection
with Verdi, whose music Dvorak knew from his
many years as principal violist at the Provisional Theatre in Prague.
This is a fine performance if you accept the
premise of Jarvi’s pace, which is very fast. Most
performances run from 80 to 90 minutes, and
Jarvi, at 67 minutes, isn’t even close. It’s a
thrilling experience, quite consistent and satisfying, but if you didn’t know the words, you’d
have trouble identifying this as a work springing from the saddest of texts: a bereaved Mary
lamenting the death of the crucified Jesus. The
chorus does an excellent job, particularly in
the tough chromatic passage in ‘Virgo, Virginum Praeclara’, and they sound terrific in
the fortissimo sections. Soloists are all acceptable, though tenor Auty strains above the staff
and the women have the maximum vibrato
allowed by law. And the sound from LPO’s
engineers is very fine—clear and exciting, with
things in good balance.
I enjoyed this quite a bit, but I think most
listeners would be better served by broader
readings that are more attentive to the text. In
particular I would suggest the recommendations of the late Carl Bauman, who spoke highly of Kubelik, Belohlavek, and Shaw (his last
recording).
ALTHOUSE
DVORAK: Trios
Gould Trio
Champs Hill 34 [2CD] 141 minutes
Dvorak’s four trios are endlessly delightful.
They are rich with emotion but still light and
charming, with that special Czech flavor. The
thought of English Dvorak did not appeal to
me at all, but naturally the actual performances are not as bad as I feared they would
be. Still, my two favorite sets of these trios
need not fear this competition.
The Guarneri Trio Prague (Praga, Nov/Dec
2009) is utterly idiomatic in a way no English
group ever could be. (Perhaps that’s a bit of
bias on my part: theoretically music is music,
and a bunch of English musicians can “get” it
as well as anyone else. But I think it’s unlikely.)
Listen to the way the violin skips thru the folklike theme of 1:I—yes, right from the start the
Czech musicians have just the right feel for the
music. Even in 3:II (the F-minor is the most
Brahmsian trio of the four) they sound more
Czech than anyone else.
My other favorite set is by the Fontenay
Trio (Teldec, Jan/Feb 1994). For some reason
Germans often dig right into Czech music, as if
they are very fond of their neighbors. It’s not as
idiomatic as the Czech group, but it comes a
lot closer than the English, and it adds a certain German assurance and polish that makes
you accept it. One of our reviewers said the
Fontenay Dvorak is smooth and spirited—sensitive, romantic, and intelligent.
There’s nothing wrong with the tempos
here, though some first movement repeats
annoy me. There is nothing much wrong with
the playing, though the violinist sounds metallic and a bit frantic sometimes (too much nervous attack, too little calm assurance). The
music does not unfold naturally. They do not
sound warm and Brahmsian—and I do think
they should. The English are getting colder and
colder as they forsake continuous vibrato. I
think the violinist sinks these performances—
and they are not about to replace her, because
her name is Gould.
Any further comment would just be
details.
VROON
E
LGAR: Enigma Variations; Cockaigne
Overture; Pomp & Circumstance Marches
Royal Philharmonic/ Barry Wordsworth
RPO 35—75 minutes
Edward Elgar was 32 when he completed Enigma Variations, and this performance, one of
the fresher ones I’ve heard, reminds us that he
was still a young man. The tempos are on the
slow side, and the pacing is deliberate; but
things never lag, and timbres are bright. The
99
deliberate ‘Theme’ sets that tone. ‘CAE’ moves
along without hurrying or too much sentiment, and Wordsworth does not overpower
the climax the way some conductors do. The
portrait of Richard Penrose Arnold (‘RPA’),
doesn’t catch the melancholy nature of the
man, but as abstract music it works. ‘Ysobel’
displays a warm sentiment with nice leaps and
a seductive leaning on the long notes. ‘WN’
laughs delightedly as she snaps to her task of
serving travelers (possibly Elgar and Troyte)
who came to her, dampened by the storm of
the latter’s variation. The ‘Nimrod’ is one of
the slower ones, with deliberate pacing that
does not hurry or crush the climax. Its
grandeur makes a strong case for playing the
variation without affectation and allowing the
music to take care of itself. In ‘Dorabella’ I like
the little drag on the long note from the stuttering oboe, a result of close attention and the
slow tempo. ‘GRS’ is suitably gruff. ‘BGN’ is
both eloquent and dignified, and the transition
to ‘ê’ is wonderfully natural. Wordsworth takes
his greatest interpretive pains with ‘ê’ itself,
slowing down a great deal for the
Mendelssohn quotes and diminishing to a
whisper in the clarinets at the end. ‘EDU’ often
blusters like a crusty old man looking back
defiantly at conquests over ancient criticisms,
but here we have a young man, full of confidence, ready to take on the world.
There is great deal to be said for this
straightforward dignity and clear-headed
approach. Wordsworth clearly knows what he
wants to do, and there is not a single unsure
moment or passage of questionable taste. I’ve
never found him that interesting a conductor,
but the results here are fresh and entertaining.
Cockaigne (1901) displays good feeling and
insouciance—both fitting in a work subtitled
In London Town and dedicated to Elgar’s
“friends, the members of British orchestras”.
The instrumental color is bright, as it is in
Enigma, but the tempos are not as slow in
what is a delightful and lively performance.
Wordsworth doesn’t quite capture the work’s
sentimental moments, but he can be forgiven
for that.
The marches are played to the hilt—blazing and powerful—and like Cockaigne, they
eschew the slow tempos of the Enigma. These
are rousers, and no less enjoyable for that, but
you may not want to listen to them all at once.
The sound is fine, and the notes are quite
good, too. My one quibble is their declaration
that ‘ê’ is for Lady Mary Lygon. That is the
common belief, but there are other theories.
As long as we’re talking about enigmas, the
booklet presents an interesting solution for the
one surrounding Enigma Variations. But in the
spirit of the occasion—and I trust that that
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great puzzler Sir Edward will approve—its
identity will be revealed only to purchasers of
this disc. I’m not sure I buy the theory, but it is
novel and interesting.
HECHT
ELGAR: Cello Concerto; see GAL
ESCHMANN: Quartet; Fantasy Pieces
Ceruti Quartet; Dave Lee, hn; Roy Howat, p; Oliver Lewis, v
Guild 7171—66 minutes
Johann Carl Eschmann was born in Winterthur
in 1826 and died in Zurich in 1882. The listing
in Hugo Reinmann’s Musiklexicon gives his
name as Julius and gives his year of birth as
1825. Something we certainly do know about
Eschmann is that he emulated Mendelssohn.
His string quartet, a work he never published,
is Mendelssohnian to the core. It could also be
used as a textbook example of the mechanics
of writing in sonata form. Everything is in
order here: he writes well for the instruments,
develops his material well, and follows the
rules of good counterpoint and of good voiceleading. These musicians do a fine job of
bringing out what is good in this music, but
this quartet is an example of a case where the
great is the enemy of the good. I can understand why Eschmann never had it published.
The set of 6 Fantasy Pieces, with the subtitle In Autumn, was published in 1849 as Op. 6.
They are lovely pieces that are very well written for the horn and very nicely played here.
The undeniable influence is Robert Schumann
(but there’s nothing wrong with that). The also
Schumannesque Fantasy Pieces, published for
violin or clarinet and piano as Op. 9, probably
sound better on the violin than they would on
the clarinet. Oliver Lewis plays them with spirit
and imagination, along with a healthy helping
of air in the sound and many audible shifts
(there for stylistic reasons, I imagine). I am
particularly impressed by Roy Howat’s piano
playing on both sets of Fantasy Pieces.
FINE
FASCH: Orchestral Suites
Capella Savana/ Pal Nemeth
Dynamic 8029—73 minutes
This program was originally released as
Dynamic 233 (M/A 2000). It includes three
suites in F, D, and A minor. Both times we
found the performance lacking in fire and precision, the sound odd—somewhat hollow. It
made my speakers buzz. We still cannot recommend it. The wait continues for an excellent recording of anything approaching a complete collection of Fasch’s orchestral suites.
CRAWFORD
FINGER: Recorder Sonatas
Ernst Kubitschek; Daniel Pilz, gamba; Annemarie
Dragosits, hpsi; Andreas Arend, theorbo
Cornetto 10034—46 minutes
Gottfried Finger (1660-1723) is a good representative of the kind of internationalism we
find in the high baroque. He hails from
Bohemia, trained with Viennese teachers, and
then made his career in Moravia, England, and
Prussia. The chamber sonatas are conventional suites of dances. The playing is fine, quite
ornamental, though Kubitschek is sometimes
out of tune. Notes are in English.
LOEWEN
FINNISSY: Quartets 2+3
Kreutzer Qt
NMC 180—64 minutes
Michael Finnissy’s Second Quartet (2006-7) is
what amounts to a 20 minute deconstruction
of a Haydn quartet. Random shards of Haydn
are pasted into a muddy haze produced by not
coordinating the quartet parts and composing
angular, ear-scraping dissonances to go along
with the Haydn fragments. The last 10 minutes
consist of quiet static harmony inducing welcome sleep.
The Third Quartet (2007-9) perpetrates a
similar massacre of, of all things, Bruckner’s
First and Second Symphonies, this time for 44
excruciating minutes. Relatively extended
shards of the Bruckner are defaced, producing
more sprawling agony for the unfortunate listener. Bits of recorded bird song are tossed in
starting about 22 minutes in for added ludicrousness, referring to Schoenberg’s “air from
other planets”, according to the apparently
deranged composer.
We don’t have a Worst of the Year award,
but this would be a top contender.
GIMBEL
FINZI: Dies Natalis; see BRITTEN
FLAGELLO: Passion of Martin Luther King;
L’Infinito; The Land
Ezio Flagello, b; Leslie Pearson, org; Ambrosian
Singers; London Philharmonic, I Musici di Firenze/ Nicolas Flagello
The Flagello brothers were born in New York
City, Nicolas in 1928 and Ezio in 1931. Ezio
won first place in the Metropolitan Opera
Auditions of the Air in 1957 and made his
debut in Tosca that same year. He performed
on the Met stage 528 times. Nicolas studied
with Vittorio Giannini and earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s from the Manhattan School
of Music, where he then taught for 25 years.
Nicolas’s style is romantic but not derivative.
Paul Cook described him as “something of a
second-generation Roy Harris or Howard Hanson” (M/J 1996). The music here is very sober,
certainly. Of course, the assassination of King
deserves such.
This is the first release of the original version of the Passion (it was recorded in 1969).
James DePreist led the premiere in 1974 and
asked Nicolas to leave out the ‘Jubilate Deo’
and ‘I Have a Dream’ movements that end the
piece. He felt that the music “was so incredibly
beautiful that it captured the spirit of the
words, but in a crucial sense it did not capture
the contrast of the context of those words—
that it was necessary to have a march to the
Capitol to make those words, that dream, a
reality”. Nicolas wrote a new ending based on
the theme of the third movement, ‘Cor Jesu’.
The Flagello estate thought that Obama’s election was enough of a milestone in the realization of King’s dream and justified the release
of Nicolas’s original conception.
He had composed five choral settings from
the Latin liturgy that he called Pentaptych
(1953); they remained unperformed. He took
those five pieces and interspersed settings of
King’s speeches among them to form the Passion. His inspiration was Pope Paul VI’s statement after hearing of King’s murder, “I liken
the life of this man to the life of our Lord.”
The whole piece is nearly 49 minutes long,
and I can imagine it would be more engrossing
in concert. By about the seventh part (out of
ten), my attention was flagging. It is mostly
slow. King’s speeches are deep but not dramatic, and the arioso style Flagello used tends
toward sameness. And I didn’t find the ‘I Have
a Dream’ finale so overwhelmingly beautiful.
The Passion is heavy and even draining—definitely not for casual listening. It’s a good piece,
but it needs about 8 minutes of creative trimming.
The Land is a setting of six poems by Tennyson: ‘The Eagle’, ‘The Owl’, ‘The Throstle’,
‘The Oak’, ‘The Snowdrop’, and ‘Flower in the
Cranny’. ‘The Eagle’ is introduced by a restless,
but not turgid, depiction of the sea. The set is
often moody, except for ‘The Throstle’ and
‘The Snowdrop’—they sound a little like
escapees from Songs of the Auvergne. Paul
Cook reviewed this when it was first released
(Citadel 88115, M/J 1996) and noted that Ezio’s
“aggressive basso is fairly scary, given the pastoral light-heartedness of the music”. Ezio
does often sound grim.
The music has been interesting to hear, but
it’s not something I’m going to pull off the
shelf again next week. The performances are
good, if dated, though the individual winds
and horns could have been improved on. The
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remastering of the Passion was well done, but
there’s a little distortion in The Land. Notes in
English, but no texts; the Latin texts are easily
found elsewhere, and Ezio’s diction is a marvel.
ESTEP
FOERSTER: Trios 1-3
They are more daring and imaginative, and the
string players have a range of tone color lacking in the current recording. Even the fidelity
of the sound is much better in the earlier performances. I do commend the Janacek Trio for
undertaking this music, since any adequate
recording will draw attention to these excellent
trios.
Janacek Trio—Supraphon 4079—75 minutes
Until recently, Foerster has been known largely through recordings of his Fourth Symphony
(Easter Eve). Though awarded the title of
“National Composer” by Czechoslovakia in
1946, Foerster, unlike Dvorak and Smetana,
did not draw as evidently on national folk
music and literary themes. Having spent much
of his life with his wife, the soprano, Berta
Lautererova, in Hamburg and Vienna, befriended and supported by such as Mahler,
Tchaikovsky, and Grieg, he was more of an
internationalist, registering influence from a
variety of musical directions.
These trios span nearly four decades of
Foerster’s career, with the first in F minor written when he was 23. All three were written
against a background of loss. The first (1883)
can be heard as a meditation on the loss of the
composer’s mother when he was 17; the second (1894) is dedicated to the memory of his
younger sister, who died at 23; and the third,
written 28 years later, is touched by the loss of
his only son.
The First Trio has the most nationalist flavor, especially in I, II, and IV, though it’s
debatable which nation’s flavor we are sampling. Echoes of Dvorak are evident, and more
than a smattering of Grieg, the work’s dedicatee, can be heard, especially in the contemplative and emotional lyricism of III. The polka
rhythm of IV adds the presence of Smetana to
a mixture that is nonetheless Foerster’s own.
The background of Czech and Norwegian
influences is less evident in the Second Trio,
which, though more bright and optimistic,
gives way to elegiac meditation in its final
movement.
The final trio, in A minor, is the most progressive of the three. The harmony is more
elaborate, the polyphony more complex; and
though lyricism is not absent, the writing
inhabits a very different world from Dvorak or
Grieg.
The Janacek Trio offer a strong case for this
music. They have been together only since
2003 but have achieved a balanced and attentive ensemble that does adequate justice to
these trios. I say “adequate” because I much
prefer Supraphon’s earlier release of these
works with the Foerster Trio (3603). Their 1970
and 1979 readings are marked by a deeper
understanding and emotional involvement.
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JD MOORE
FONTANA: Violin Sonatas; see CASTELLO
FOULDS: Cello Concerto; see SAINSBURY
FRANCAIX: Clarinet Concerto; Variations;
PROKOFIEFF: Sonata, op 94
Shirley Brill, cl; Romanian Radio Orchestra/ Adrian Morar—Aparte 24—60 minutes
Over the past decade Israeli clarinetist Shirley
Brill has quietly been building a respectable
career as a soloist and chamber musician. Now
residing in Berlin, Brill and her Israeli-born
pianist husband Jonathan Aner both teach at
the Hans Eisler Hochschule and play together
often. Since 2000 they have produced three
albums, but on this release Brill enters the
concert hall. She joins noted Romanian opera
conductor Adrian Morar and the Radio
Orchestra for a very challenging program:
French composer Jean Francaix’s works for
clarinet and orchestra, as well as American
composer Kent Kennan’s transcription of the
Prokofieff Flute Sonata.
Despite its delightful humor and tender
moments, the Francaix Clarinet Concerto
(1968) is one of the most technically demanding pieces for the instrument; and although
the clarinet and piano version of the Tema con
Variazioni (1974) is a popular recital piece, it
originated as a Solo de Concours, and it pulls
no punches. Four years after the commission,
Francaix recast it for clarinet and string
orchestra.
While working on the music for the Sergei
Eisenstein film Ivan the Terrible (1943),
Prokofieff wrote his virtuosic Flute Sonata, and
at the request of his violinist friend David Oistrakh, he turned it into his Violin Sonata No. 2.
Shortly after his retirement from the University
of Texas at Austin, Kennan imagined the work
as a vehicle for the clarinet, producing a clarinet sonata (1984) and a clarinet concerto
(1986) for full orchestra. While the sonata is a
very faithful transcription of the original, the
concerto sparkles with the kind of witty and
colorful scoring that Prokofieff would have
loved.
Brill and the orchestra give solid performances, even if they are not ground-breaking.
Despite her resistant German equipment, Brill
has a clear sound, and she skillfully interacts
with the orchestra, fading into the background
when required, then bursting forth with a brisk
soloist personality. She phrases nicely; boasts a
remarkable gamut of dynamics, including
quadruple pianissimos; and handles all the
finger-breaking passages with breathtaking
facility. At the same time, her approach is
somewhat conservative. She often limits herself to one or two colors, never fully exploring
the expressive potential of the music; and she
rarely offers a vision or drive that grabs the listener and demands attention. The orchestra is
reliable and even with some scrappy playing
manages the scores well and serves as a good
foil to the guest artist.
HANUDEL
FRANCAIX: Wind Quintets; Wind Quartet;
Divertissement
Bergen Woodwind Quintet
BIS 2008—63 minutes
This may be the best wind quintet making
recordings today, and it is delightful that they
have selected this music. One of the underappreciated composers by the larger classical
music audience, Jean Francaix contributed
some of the more challenging and enjoyable
music to the wind repertoire in the 20th Century. His first quintet, written in 1948, is a
favorite among performers—and a favorite of
mine, too. More than just a well-crafted display of technical virtuosity, the work has wit,
charm, and dazzle. And the Quartet written in
1933 and Divertissement for oboe, clarinet,
and bassoon written in 1947 bear the marks of
a quirky intellectualism styled with jazz. The
second quintet, however, written nearly 40
years later, sits a notch below the vibrancy of
those earlier compositions. A product of the
sappy 1980s, it sometimes waxes sentimental
and just lacks the same level of substance and
inspiration. Nevertheless, like good stewards
of their art, the Bergen Quintet keeps all this
music brimming with expression.
The strongest and most interesting pieces
on the program, not to mention the most lovingly played, are the first quintet and the
Divertissement. Overall, Bergen’s performance
has all the elements of what sometimes seems
unattainable—tremendous technical capacity,
ideal sense of balance and hierarchy of sound
and tone, and the convergence of talented
musicians with similar sensibilities. There is
not a better recording of these works.
SCHWARTZ
FRANCK: Organ Pieces
David Enlow
Pro Organo 7247 [3CD] 161 minutes
Just when you thought that Franck’s organ
music had been recorded enough (there are 13
complete or nearly complete recordings available now) another collection comes on the
market—this one titled “Pater Seraphicus”.
Enlow is Organist and Choir Master at the
Church of the Resurrection, New York and
teaches at Juilliard; the instrument is the 4-93
Aeolian-Skinner (1932, 1942, 2002) in St Mary
the Virgin, New York. The 12 major compositions—considered the canon—make up the
program.
Interpreters of Franck’s organ works face
the challenge of how they will play the notes so
that they reflect the player’s honest feelings
about the music and not copy another’s interpretation. Enlow seems to have figured all this
out, as his performance exhibits a certain style
for Franck: emphasis on very loud and very
soft wherever it seems to fit, and favoring the
pungent Pedal ranks, which, alas, cover the
manual work. I am guessing that the 32’ Bombarde is the culprit. This observation goes not
just for the obvious selections but also the
Fantasy in A, the Final, and the Chorales. I find
the Piece Heroique lacking heroism with its
ponderous registration and tempo.
Most of the pieces are slower than the
competition. A case in point: the Final from
Enlow is 12:14; Kaunzinger does it in 9:10,
Langlais in 9:56. Research by Marie-Louise
Langlais concludes that Franck’s own tempos
were faster than generally assumed (The
American Organist, March 2000, 42-3). This
does not mean that Enlow’s approach is
wrong, but I find his interpretations less compelling than others, flawed especially by his
penchant for the heavy Pedal registration.
The cover title, originally applied to St
Francis, refers to one “selfless, saintly, and
wise” who shepherds his flock of disciples.
Franck fans may wish to know of other
interpretations. The following list of best
recordings of the canon was compiled by fellow ARG critic Bill Gatens and me: Demessieux, Robilliard, Roth, Marchal (J/F 2011), and
Pincemaille (S/O 2006).
METZ
FRANCK: Trios 1+2; Fantasy; Andantino
Quietoso
Mariana Sirbu, v; Mihai Dancila, vc; Mihail Sarbu, p
This is sweet and beautiful music; every work
is a treasure. Trio 1 is as attractive as any piano
trio I know. A theme of heartwarming beauty
recurs in every movement, and I can’t imagine
any real music lover not captivated by it on
hearing it.
These recordings date from LP days—1981
or so. We reviewed the first CD release (two
discs, with Trios 3 and 4 and the ubiquitous
violin sonata) in January/February 1991. That
103
is probably deleted, so you’ll have to settle for
this. There is no better recording. The violin is
sweet and relaxed, the piano natural and
recessed, the cello mostly unobtrusive but
quite tender and mellow.
I have lent these recordings to friends, and
they routinely praise them and find the music
a delight. The musicians are Romanian, and
Mariana Sirbu seems to have all the best characteristics of Eastern European playing. She is
the soloist in the two non-trio pieces.
VROON
FROBERGER: Suites & Toccatas
Alina Rotaru, hpsi
Carpe Diem 16290—64 minutes
Rotaru offers suites, toccatas, the Tombeau for
Blacheroche, and a ricercar of Johann Jakob
Froberger, played on an original Ruckers harpsichord housed in the Musee d’art et d’histoire
in Neuchatel, Switzerland. The sound of the
instrument is sublime.
After reading in the liner notes about
Froberger’s association with the brilliant Jesuit
polymath Athanasius Kircher, I was drawn to
the ricercar on this disc. It is a piece that brings
to life a time when, as in Kircher’s intellectual
world, science and mysticism were not always
separate. Rotaru accentuates the piece’s esoteric and earthbound aspects in equal parts.
She mingles the grand sound of pillar-like
organ sonorities with a style of free resonance
that evokes the lute’s “broken style” of playing.
Her deep understanding of musical structure
in the ricercar is evidenced in her acute sense
of timing between sections. This release is
excellent, musically satisfying, and beautifully
presented.
KATZ
FUCHS: Serenades 3,4,5
Cologne Chamber Orchestra/ Christian Ludwig
Robert Fuchs (1847-1927) is better known as a
musical pedagogue than as a composer. He
was a professor at the Vienna Conservatory
where he taught at least two generations of
composers including Mahler, Sibelius, Richard
Strauss, Wolf, Schreker, Korngold, and Zemlinsky. He was a friend of Brahms, who apparently encouraged his efforts at musical composition. But Fuchs’s music gradually lost popularity in the 1920s and is only now coming back,
thanks no doubt to CDs. His serenades (he
wrote five) were among his most played works,
but that’s not saying much. This is the first
recording, as far as I know, of Serenades 3 and
4. A recording of Serenade 5 was reviewed by
Mr Althouse (J/A 2004) and of Serenades 1 and
2 by Mr O’Connor (J/A 2011).
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Serenade 3, heavily scored for strings and
not much else, will surely remind listeners of
Brahms’s serenades if not of some of his other
works like his Third Symphony. In Serenade 4,
French horns have been added to the instrumentation; and in Serenade 5 there are more
wind instruments but it still sounds Brahmsian
to me, even with the allusion to Johann Strauss
waltzes. Still, these serenades have charm and
are pleasant to hear. They share tempo markings, and the finale in each case sounds, like a
Hungarian Dance by Brahms. But I could not
find “the darker hints of distinctly Mahlerian
hue” that the writer of the notes claims to find
in the Adagio of Serenade 5. These works are
pleasant music and easy listening, but profound they are not.
The Cologne Chamber Orchestra produces
a rich, romantic sound that’s quite attractive
and expressive; but it’s not always clear what
they are trying to express.
MOSES
GAL; ELGAR: Cello Concertos
Antonio Meneses; Northern Sinfonia/ Claudio
Cruz
Avie 2237—62 minutes
Pairing these two cello concertos was a good
idea. They are both basically romantic in
nature and tragic in background. Edward
Elgar’s was his last major work, written in
1919, just before his wife died and after four
years of war that put an end to many composers’ productivity. Austrian composer Hans
Gal (1890-1987) wrote his concerto in 1944
after losing four of his close relatives two years
earlier to the Nazis, including the suicide of his
youngest son. The music, in both cases,
though sad, is still an expression of a positive
kind. Music is, if not an escape, an activity that
keeps both composer and listener alive and
opens new possibilities. So I find it, and these
composers did it well. I have always loved
Elgar and this concerto. The Gal is new to me
and I am very glad to make its acquaintance. It
is a beautiful and strong work, not overtly virtuosic but rich in warmth and love for mankind.
Meneses hasn’t the richest sound I have
heard, but his technique is excellent and he
plays with musical insight and involvement in
the deep emotions of these pieces. Cruz and
the Northern Sinfonia blend beautifully. In
other words, though his Elgar is not as richtoned as Du Pre or Rostropovich, it is moving
and a fine representation of the piece. Still, I
will be keeping this primarily for the Gal—a
33-minute piece of great depth and musical
beauty. This is its first recording—and a good
one!
D MOORE
GALUPPI: Harpsichord Sonatas
Ilario Gregoletto
Newton 8802112 [4CD] 239 minutes
Galuppi’s harpsichord sonatas are truly
inspired compositions, full of eloquence and
invention. As a performer Galuppi was
remarkably erudite. His music is also blessed
by a wild, brilliant sense of humor.
The delights in these pieces are so numerous that I can only describe a few. In the
Larghetto of Sonata No. 3 in C minor grand
expository arpeggios rub up against pensive
contrapuntal material, like a glimpse into an
epic hero’s inner thoughts. The sly, systematic
rhythmic mutations in the Andante Spiritoso
of Sonata No. 5 in E minor create an extra level
of subtext in an otherwise typical galant keyboard sonata. The effect is like vines growing
on a decaying baroque building: in the midst
of human creations we are reminded of the
great force of nature.
Galant music is sometimes maligned as
stemming from a vain and superficial emotional place. Not so with Galuppi. One need
only look to a piece like the Andante of Sonata
21 in G minor to refute such a claim. It starts
simply and builds in emotional intensity,
almost unbearably. If you hear the piece and
are impressed that the composer can provoke
a vast sense of catharsis in a minute-long
musical miniature then you are in for an
extremely rewarding experience when you
explore his larger-scale keyboard works.
The seven-minute-long Andante of Sonata
No. 10 in A is a longer piece that is one of the
high points of this recording. It is languid, sensuous, and larger than life, like Ingres’s Odalisque.
Ilario Gregoletto knows Galuppi’s music as
intimately as one knows a close friend or family member. I have no doubt that his graceful
and generous style of playing contributed in
large part to my newfound love of Galuppi’s
music. I truly hope this recording will have a
similar effect on a great many listeners.
KATZ
GALUPPI: Trio Sonatas
Accademia Vivaldiana
Newton 8802121—57 minutes
Baldassare Galuppi (1706-85) was a well-traveled composer, who in addition to his important place in the history of Venetian music
spent time in London and St Petersburg.
Though better known for his dramatic works
and his keyboard sonatas, he was also a
respected composer of instrumental music,
though little of this legacy has been recorded.
The six trio sonatas on this recording are
found in an Italian manuscript now in the collection of the University of Uppsala; it was
purchased by Jean-Henri Lefebure, the son of
a Swedish merchant of Huguenot descent,
while on his Grand Tour around 1760. In contrast to the more contrapuntal sonatas of the
baroque, these are clearly “galant” works, with
an emphasis on elegant melodies and clear
tonal harmony. Most are in the more modern
three-movement format (fast-slow-fast),
though Sonata 3 begins with a Largo. Also
unusual is the inclusion in Sonata 6 of a recitative movement called ‘Dialog between
Pasquino and Marforio’, which mimics two of
the “talking statues” in Rome. There was
another recent recording of this same set of
trio sonatas by the Accademia dei Solinghi
(Dynamic 694, Jan/Feb 2012), which is somewhat less “galant”, with less emphasis on the
refined melodic phrasing heard on this new
release. But I like this new one better.
BREWER
GEHOT: 4 Trios, op 5
Bacchanalia
Eroica 3466—60 minutes
Joseph Gehot (1756-c.1795) was a contemporary of Mozart, and this set of six trios dates
from 1781. They were written for two violins
and cello, but we hear them performed on
flute, viola, and cello. Gehot was a violinistcomposer born in Liege who, like Mozart, traveled extensively as a teenager and young adult
to perform in France and Germany. He settled
in London in 1780, which is where this music
was published in 1781. In the summer of 1792
he and three colleagues decided to come to the
United States, and Gehot died in Philadelphia.
The refinement and charm of this music
reminds me most of Boccherini. This program
presents Trios 1-3 and 6. They are all in three
movements except Trio 3, which is an Andante
cantabile and a Fugue. This is also the only trio
in a minor key, and the Andante is quite chromatic. Overall, the third trio has a dramatic
heft the others don’t have; think of amiable
Pleyel for the rest of them.
The members of Bacchanalia are baroque
flutist Laura Thompson, violist Louise Schulman, and cellist Myron Lutzke. These three
New York-based musicians have performing
credits with many period instrument groups as
well as larger ensembles such as the Orchestra
of St Luke’s. They play this music with emphasis on the refinement rather than the drama,
and the recorded sound is on the soft side, but
otherwise very good. I would not consider
these trios—or the playing—such a discovery
as the 4-Flute Concertos by Schickhardt (Ars
Musica 232341; July/Aug 2010), but they are
105
pleasant; and the notes by flutist Thompson
offer more details of Gehot’s interesting life.
GORMAN
GEMMINGEN: Violin Concertos 1+2;
SPERGER: Sinfonia in F
Kolya Lessing; Munich Radio Orchestra/ Ulf
Schirmer
CPO 777454—63 minutes
Ernst von Gemmingen lived from 1759 to 1813.
These concertos sound a lot like Haydn’s, but
he is not as good a composer as Haydn. It’s
pretty ordinary classical period stuff, and if
you like the period it may interest you. I find it
somewhat boring.
Johann Matthias Sperger is a contemporary of Gemmingen (1750-1812). His 13minute piece is an Arrival Symphony—his
answer to Haydn’s Farewell Symphony. Two
violins start it off, and other strings are added.
It’s 6 minutes in before we hear a wind (oboe).
There will eventually be two of them, plus two
horns. By 8 minutes in we even hear a harpsichord, filling out the texture—now it’s a symphony! It’s a pleasant piece, once it gets going,
and it sounds better than the two concertos.
The performances are irritating. The violin
sounds very metallic (yes, tinny). He uses
vibrato on held notes only. The rest is scraping
sounds that strike me as unpleasant. The
strings also play with essentially no vibrato
and sound raw. How long are we going to have
to put up with this kind of thing?
The orchestra (not to be confused with the
Bavarian Radio Orchestra in the same town) is
a small one—all the time, but especially here.
At maximum there are about 60 players, but
here it’s closer to 40, I would guess (there’s
also a picture, but was that taken especially for
this release?).
VROON
G
ERNSHEIM: Zu Einem Drama;
KLUGHARDT: Lenore
SW German Radio Orchestra/ Klaus Arp; Anhalt
Philharmonic/ Manfred Mayrhofer
Sterling 1096—51 minutes
Both Friedrich Gernsheim and August
Klughardt languished in the shadow of
Brahms. Gernsheim’s First Symphony often
sounds remarkably like Brahms, whose own
first attempt would not see the light of day for
another year; and he often scheduled Brahms’s symphonies at his concerts in Rotterdam.
In turn Klughardt had an epiphany on attending the first Wagner Festival at Bayreuth in
1876 and not only directed his Dessau Opera
in the Ring cycle 16 years later but also borrowed Wagner’s leitmotif principle for his own
operas, Gudrun and Die Hochzeit des Münchs.
Thus both composers were obliged to find
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their own style amidst the schools of Brahms
and Schumann on one side, Liszt and Wagner
on the other; and while their relative neglect
these days would suggest neither of them was
able to develop a distinct musical physiognomy that would set them apart from the others,
both wrote music that repays repeated hearings. Arte Nova has generously made all four of
Gernsheim’s symphonies available at very low
cost (Jan/Feb 2000); you may also find
Klughardt’s Third Symphony and Violin Concerto on CPO (July/Aug 2011), and Sterling has
already given us Klughardt’s suite Auf der
Wanderschaft along with his Cello Concerto
(Mar/Apr 2004).
Friedrich was born in Worms and emotionally always remained close to that city. As a
youth he took lessons with a student of Louis
Spohr. With the Revolution of 1848 the family
moved first to Mainz and later Frankfurt,
where the 11-year-old Gernsheim made his
debut as a triple-threat recitalist, playing both
violin and piano and also directing his newly
written Overture. From Frankfurt he traveled
to Leipzig to learn more but soon broke off to
study piano at the Paris Conservatoire, where
he frequented Rossini’s famous salons and
found himself witnessing the scandalous performance of Wagner’s Tannhäuser. He had
formed a close friendship with Hermann Levi,
who would become a staunch advocate of
both Brahms and Wagner; and after leaving
Paris he succeeded Levi as music director in
Saarbrücken. In Cologne he became a protege
of the noted composer and conductor Ferdinand Hiller, who introduced him to Brahms;
and when Brahms declined Hiller’s invitation
to teach piano and composition at the Cologne
Conservatory, he turned instead to Gernsheim.
Gernsheim championed Brahms’s German
Requiem and Alto Rhapsody during his 16
years in Holland and finally settled in Berlin,
where he died in 1916 at the age of 77. Two
years before he died Dortmund held a Gernsheim Festival—only a few weeks before the
start of World War I. But his music soon
became passe, and matters only grew worse
when Gernsheim as a Jew was banned by the
Third Reich.
August Klughardt may have slightly greater
name recognition, if only for his C-major Wind
Quartet—but not his symphonies. He was
born in 1847 in Cöthen, but his family moved
to Dessau when he was 16. He had already
started to make a name for himself as a composer—mostly for small ensembles—and also
as a pianist. Upon relocating to Dresden, his
expansive choral setting of Sleeping Beauty
(also set by Gernsheim’s student Humperdinck) impressed audiences with its flowing
melodies and skillful orchestration (yet
remains unavailable). Further travels took him
to Bayreuth and also Weimar, where he
became infatuated with the symphonic poems
of Liszt. At first it was hoped he might become
one of the shining lights of Liszt’s New German
School, but he strayed from the righteous path
first with his initial attempt at opera, Mirjam—
deemed unpalatable for its strange mix of
Weimar and Mehul’s classical-romantic style,
and later with Gudrun whose clear Wagnerian
influences went beyond the pale. With the unification of the German states under Bismarck
that followed the Franco-Prussian War,
Brahms wrote his Triumphlied and Klughardt
contributed two works, Die Grenzberichtigung
(literally “border adjustment”) and the overture Die Wacht am Rhin hailed by Kaiser Wilhelm I. In 1873 Klughardt accepted the post of
Hofkapellmeister at Strelitz, where he wrote
the Lenore Symphony heard here along with
numerous other works in nearly every conceivable genre. Finally in 1882 he returned to
Dessau, where he died in 1902—he was only
54. While his operas may not move a modern
generation, his symphonies—six in all—surely
deserve an occasional hearing if the two now
on records are any indication, though Lenore
was doomed to obscurity by a composer
whose musical gifts far surpassed his.
Perhaps under the influence of Liszt,
Friedrich Gernsheim’s swan song, the tone
poem Zu Einem Drama, speaks mostly in generalities; no specific drama is cited in the
score. It also contains enough melodies or
motifs for half a dozen pieces, as if the 63-yearold Gernsheim wanted to say everything he
had to say while he was still at the peak of his
creative powers; thus there is so much to
admire and yet the listener has little time to
enjoy one melody before the next one is on
him. One might welcome a more expansive
exploration of such bounty. The tranquil opening soon erupts in fury; the horn now introduces a sweeping romantic melody in the
strings, yet just as suddenly more tempestuous
busywork leads to a quasi fantasia interlude, in
turn yielding the floor to an opulent, soaring
melody that annotator Malcolm MacDonald
considers Gernsheim’s “love theme” (it is
marked Andante amoroso). A thunderous
return of the central strife, quite Brahmsian,
leads to a ringing coda—yet not quite the final
word. The ensuing majestic apotheosis of the
amoroso theme is a sign that love has conquered all. Perhaps this rather personal program shows how Gernsheim might have
expanded his art beyond the Brahmsian ideal
if he only had more time.
The first problem with August Klughardt’s
Lenore is that no one seems to know whether
it’s a symphony or a suite in four movements
(here the two middle movements are combined). Apparently the composer had it published as a suite, yet listed it as a symphony in
his own catalog—a situation not unlike Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Antar. But the larger problem
for Klughardt is that he came up against one of
the acclaimed composers of his day, Joachim
Raff, whose own Lenore Symphony (5) has
been recorded many times. Apparently
Klughardt only learned of Raff’s symphony on
the day his own had its premiere, Both were
published in 1873, but Raff actually completed
his symphony the year before.
Both Raff and Klughardt took their inspiration from the popular ballad of Gottfried
August Bürger that caught the fancy of several
composers of the time. Some think Bürger’s
Lenore even resonates in Edgar Allan Poe’s
brooding poem, The Raven. The maiden
Lenore grows weary of waiting for her lover,
the gallant Wilhelm, to return home from the
battlefield, and in a fit of anger she blasphemes against God. That night she hears a
knock on the door and is overjoyed to see Wilhelm in full armor standing before his panting
steed. At once she begs him to take her to their
wedding bed, and a furious ride ensues; but
suddenly he dismounts and points to a newly
dug grave clearly meant for two, and as Lenore
stares at him in horror she now sees him for
the rotting skeleton he has become as he
declares “Tis done, tis done, we’ve come full
run, the wedding bed awaits not just one”.
Unlike Raff’s more fortunate maiden, who is
redeemed at the end, Klughardt steadfastly follows Bürger’s cautionary tale: Lenore’s wish
has been fulfilled, God’s justice rendered.
We can clearly hear Lenore’s anguish in
the opening outcry; this dissipates, and a more
chivalric motif in the winds might be the
valiant Wilhelm. Thereafter the thrusting
orchestral writing, spelled by a more romantic
swelling of the strings, builds steadily to an
even more agitated section; there’s a forceful
return of the primary materials, with romance
finally yielding to the fray. Much like Raff (who
placed it third, after the slow movement),
Klughardt intersperses a march for Wilhelm
that reaches a brilliant peroration, while the
slow movement—again, as with Raff—shows
poor Lenore now quite distraught; there’s
more agitato material that’s soon combined
with the main subject, but the ethereal close in
the high violins suggests she has given up all
hope of ever seeing her lover again. Of course
Klughardt also sets up a ride of eternal damnation in the closing movement; despite the rapturous embrace of the lovers we may hear in
the violins early on, the Devil (or is it God?) will
have his due, and following a heated gallop
ominous chords tell us the riders have reached
107
their destination. The sardonic writing for the
woodwinds near the close (6:15) might well be
Wilhelm—or what’s left of him—beckoning
the doomed Lenore to join him forever in their
nuptial dirt bed.
But even played at full room volume it
must be admitted Klughardt’s Lenore is scarcely a patch on Raff’s; the trenchant ride to the
abyss spawned by Raff conjures terrors not
hinted at by Klughardt, while the power of Raff’s march for Wilhelm stirred intense feelings
in me when I heard it for the first time from
Bernard Herrmann’s epic Unicorn recording,
whereas Klughardt’s seems rather foursquare
by comparison. But that doesn’t prevent me
from recommending these entirely unknown
works for your consideration if you have any
iota of interest in romantic music.
Both performances were taken down in
concert—though I would never guess it of the
pristine Gernsheim—and my only nitpick for
the Klughardt is Sterling’s decision to break off
between movements; they could have been
joined together very easily. There is some congestion at climaxes, mostly in Lenore. Perhaps
Bo Hyttner might be cajoled into giving us
Klughardt’s other symphonies, or possibly his
Sleeping Beauty?
HALLER
GERSHWIN: American in Paris; see GROFE
GESUALDO: Madrigals, Book 5
Hilliard Ensemble
In the text of Gesualdo’s madrigal ‘O Dolorosa
Gioia’ lie two words—graditi martiri (welcome
torments)—that very aptly describe what performers must embrace in tackling the Prince of
Venosa’s notoriously difficult music. Discipline, commitment, and preparation must be
welded to a certain delight in the painful
experimentation that effective Gesualdo interpretation exacts from even the most experienced of performers.
The Hilliard Ensemble’s decades of high
accomplishment are well documented, and
this new recording is very fine. It is not surprising to learn from baritone Gordon Jones in the
booklet that although their only previous
recording of Gesualdo was some 20 years ago
(Tenebrae, N/D 1991), they have performed
Gesualdo’s late madrigals in the intervening
years.
One could invent an apt heraldic motto
here: “In mastery is service”. By mastering the
style the singers serve the music. In ‘O
Dolorosa Gioia’ the ensemble has exquisite
control over the suave lines; and the singers’
excellent articulation of the text—on pain, joy,
and the above-mentioned welcome tor-
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ments—is a model of the Italian Renaissance
ideal of sprezzatura. The torturous nature of
Gesualdo’s music is there for performers to
bring forth, but there is no need to overplay
the effect. The graceful nonchalance of sprezzatura is far harder to achieve than an exhibition of just how hard it is to sing this music. To
balance the matter of fact and the extraordinary is the key to effective interpretation of
this music, and The Hilliard Ensemble never
overdoes the oddities for superficial effect.
In ‘Itene, O Miei Sospiri’ the delicacy of
expression, the five voices singing as one, the
shaping of lines, subtle dynamic coloring, and
the harmonic squeezing of dissonance all
denote the ensemble’s familiarity with this difficult idiom. ‘Languisce Al Fin’ has all of Gesualdo’s extremes: dissonance, chromaticism,
going to meet Death. Don’t forget that Gesualdo demands a lot from the listener, too. It is
draining to hear these madrigals, as they wear
on the emotions and command close listening.
Listen to the CD in sections, perhaps starting
at Track 12 (‘O Voi, Troppo Felice’) after taking
a break to refresh your spirit.
Brief notes, texts, translations. John Barker
had very high regard for The Hilliard Ensemble’s earlier Gesualdo program (N/D 1991),
and to compare Book 5 interpretations and
enrich your experience of this remarkable
music I recommend The Consort of Musicke
(Oiseau 4759110, M/J 2008, reissue from 1983)
and Concerto Italiano (Naive 30486, J/F 2010,
with madrigals from Book 6 and by other composers).
C MOORE
GETTY: Plump Jack
Christopher Robertson (Henry IV), Nikolai
Schukoff (Henry V), Nathaniel Webster (Bardolph), Lester Lynch (Falstaff), Melody Moore
(Clarence), Susanne Mentzer (Quickly); Munich
Radio Orchestra/ Ulf Schirmer
Pentatone 5186445 [SACD] 76 minutes
“Plump Jack” is our old friend Sir John Falstaff.
Gordon Getty’s opera has been years in the
making. Parts of the “Boar’s Head Inn” scene
go back to 1982. The libretto, by the composer
himself, assembles scenes from the three
Henry IV and Henry V plays of Shakespeare (no
merry wives), and it really doesn’t tell a coherent story. The crown passes from father to son;
Falstaff interacts with his familiar cohorts (Pistol, Shallow, Bardolph, Nell Quickly) and is
finally expelled from Henry V’s court. If we
didn’t know these characters from other contexts, we wouldn’t get to know them very well
here. “Banish plump Jack and banish all the
world”, says Falstaff, but you’ll have to take his
word for it.
Getty may have been worried about writ-
ing too long an opera, but I would have welcomed more. He has a real knack for setting
words well and sensibly, but he deprives us of
almost all of the most famous lines from the
plays—no “Uneasy lies the head”, no St
Crispin’s day speech. To reinforce the realism
of his story, he quotes some Renaissance
music and Latin plainchant. His spare orchestration can be quite vivid (as in the final
scene). He compares much of what he writes
to movie music, citing such characters as
Sylvester, Tweety, Yosemite Sam, and Mr
Magoo, which is perhaps carrying self-denigration too far. Plump Jack is far more sophisticated than anything from Looney Tunes and
would probably be effective on stage for an
audience already familiar with Shakespeare’s
plays.
One of the most familiar lines from Henry
V is given to Pistol: “O for a muse of fire, that
would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.” How bright a heaven Getty ascends
should probably be decided by each individual
listener. I loved Nell’s heartfelt eulogy for the
dead Falstaff, “Nay, sure, he’s not in hell, he’s
in Arthur’s bosom”, and the byplay among Falstaff, Bardolph, Shallow, and Pistol earlier on;
the speeches of the two kings are rather stiff
and less striking.
This performance, from Bavarian Radio of
all places, does not make the best case for
Plump Jack. Susanne Mentzer as Quickly and
Robert Breault as Shallow are impressive, and
so is Lester Lynch as an articulate Falstaff.
Melody Moore sings sweetly as Clarence, and
Nikolai Schukoff brings some ring and clarity
to Hal’s lines, but Christopher Robertson is too
diffident and muffled as Henry IV. The orchestra plays well under Ulf Schirmer’s direction,
and the sound is excellent. A libretto is supplied. Some cuts are made in this “concert version”, including all of Scenes 1 and 8.
We’ve reviewed quite a lot of Getty’s music
in ARG (check the index), and our critics have
generally been positive. Here’s another interesting recording to add to the list.
LUCANO
GIANNINI: Piano Quintet; Trio
Manchester Music Festival Quintet
MSR 1394—61 minutes
Despite a handful of releases of his music on
CD, Italian-American Vittorio Giannini (190366) isn’t much remembered or played these
days. Too bad. He was a gifted melodist and
fine craftsman who wrote symphonies, concertos, and operas in a modern-but-traditional
idiom that began with late-19th Century harmonic language and progressed to the more
expanded tonality and somewhat leaner textures of Hanson, Barber, and Piston (as of
course they were progressing themselves). But
like them he remained a romantic in his
expressive aims.
Giannini’s best-known work today is probably his 1958 Third Symphony, one of the best
ever written for wind ensemble and deservedly
popular for that reason. It came out on a Mercury LP and was reissued on CD (Mercury
434320, Mar/Apr 1993, p 178); there’s also a
more recent recording on Naxos 570130
(Sept/Oct 2006). Two orchestral works in a
neo-baroque vein are on Albany 143 (July/Aug
1995), and his Rachmaninoffian 1934 Piano
Concerto and splendid 1959 Fourth Symphony
are on Naxos 559352 (May/June 2009). Readers
wanting more details about Giannini and his
slender discography should seek out the
review of that release.
The two chamber pieces on this superblyplayed-and-recorded MSR are early works
(from the early 1930s) and show Giannini at
his most effusive and fervent. The 34-minute,
three-movement Piano Quintet is the prize
here: full-throated, packed with glorious
melodies that work up to passionate climaxes,
cunningly crafted and idiomatically laid-out
for the instruments, commanding in its youthful exuberance. The harmonic idiom and thematic inflections bring to mind Puccini more
than anyone else I can think of; occasional
touches of exoticism and modality—and the
prevailing high level of emotional intensity—
recall Bloch. The pianism owes much to Rachmaninoff; calmer moments might have come
from Fauré; the flair and sweeping power owe
something to Respighi. Yet the piece doesn’t
sound like anyone else.
The opening allegro begins with a dandy,
swaying tune in 5/4 time over minor triads a
major third apart that rock back and forth with
an anticipatory, almost erotic restlessness. The
second theme—also an indelible melody—
arrives a minute and a half later. It’s an interesting contrast: still surging and romantic, certainly, but more stately and ceremonious, with
ornaments that suggest adventures in mysterious, far-off places of epic and legend. These
two ideas are extensively developed, often in
alternating strophes, until, after a satisfying
grand recapitulation, the movement ends with
a final climactic restatement of the two
themes, this time not merely in alternation but
instead in thrilling contrapuntal superimpositions. The following adagio builds a seductive,
dreamily lyrical meditation into an outpouring
of impassioned rapture on yet another beautiful, long-lined melody, first presented in
octaves on the piano over murmuring strings,
that might have served as an aria for one of
Puccini’s lovelorn heroines. If III doesn’t quite
match the exaltation of the first two move-
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ments, still it brims over with fine tunes,
bravura excitement, and forward-driving energy.
Three decades I’ve known and loved this
resplendent quintet (from non-commercial
recordings as well as the score), and now at
last I can proclaim that here it is for all to hear
and enjoy. Yes, there are more up-to-date,
more original, more profound, and more
“important” piano quintets than this one, but
if there is another more sheerly beautiful, I
have yet to hear it.
Giannini didn’t have the same success with
the slightly later trio as with the quintet.
Though the works share a similar language
and romantic ethos, the fervency and melodic
inspiration had slackened and become too formulaic and obligatory in the later work. It’s not
a bad piece by any means, but so outshone by
the earlier one that it feel superfluous. Buy this
for the quintet. And thank the superlative
musicians of the Manchester Music Festival
who have brought it into the recorded repertoire with such magniloquence and devotion.
LEHMAN
GIORDANI: Lamentations & Miserere
Il Terzo Suono
Pan 10265 [2CD] 100:18
Giuseppe Giordani (1751-98) is most likely not
a household name. He was trained at the Conservatory of St Maria di Lorato in Naples along
with Domenico Cimarosa. Though an active
opera composer, he held church positions in
Naples and later was the director of the Metropolitan Church in Fermo, a position he held
until he died. The Lamentations for Holy Week
included on this new release are in an autograph score from the Fermo archives, labeled
“Lamentations and Miserere, more solemn
than those that are sung ordinarily”. What
Giordani termed “more solemn” might be better interpreted as more operatic. Each of the
lessons from Jeremiah’s Lamentations is a
miniature cantata for solo voice, duet, or small
ensemble, and sometimes the affect of the
texts seems contradicted by the lively nature of
the vocal and instrumental writing.
In Giordani’s score it is unclear what
instruments should play the accompaniment.
In this recording we have a delightful 18th
Century Italian organ by Gaetano Callido, but
Massimilliano Raschietti struggles with the
repeated notes and tremolos more typical of
Italian string writing. This type of substitution
was prevalent among the poorer churches that
wanted to emulate the modern style, and in a
similar fashion the four vocal parts are performed by soloists (Marinella Pennicchi, Jeffrey Gall, Gian Paolo Fagotto, and Furio
Zanasi). The booklet has an excellent essay
110
and includes full texts and translations. The
performance is very good, but this is not your
typical set of Lamentations.
BREWER
GLASS: Symphony 9
Bruckner Orchestra/ Dennis Russell Davies
Orange Mountain 81—50 minutes
As Glass observes in an interview with Richard
Guerin in the liner notes, Dennis Russell
Davies is largely responsible for his ten symphonies. (The tenth was first performed in
August.) Davies commissioned all except No.
7, and I’m very grateful for his advocacy of
them; this performance is, as always, committed and authoritative.
Glass’s symphonies certainly arouse very
extreme responses from their listeners: I can
remember hearing No. 2 performed at Eastman with more than a few composers and
new-music enthusiasts in the audience showing quite open hostility and bad-mannered
derision. Still, the claim that Glass’s music is
too simple-minded to be taken seriously is
now almost a cliche. Frankly, I think he actually encourages such talk, almost as a kind of
private joke, because—despite his protestations to the contrary—he’s a very intelligent
composer with a very clear sense of music past
and present and his own position in it.
In Symphony No. 9 he refines the deceptive tonal leanings of his music still further—
they’ve always been ambiguous, but here the
ambiguity seems even more nuanced than in
earlier works. And as always he offers a very
unusual idea of what a symphony is: the material feels neither quite weighty enough to
resemble a symphony of the 19th Century nor
so overtly programmatic that it completely
resembles his operas or such evocative orchestral scores as The Light (May/June 2007) or
Itaipu (July/Aug 2010). I believe Glass’s symphonies—and perhaps the Ninth in particular—are important much in the way Satie’s
music is: resolutely equivocal, impossible to
assign to simplistic categories. If they continue
to be played in years to come, as I hope they
will be, Glass will attract very heterogeneous
audiences just as Satie has—from people who
simply delight in the apparently uncomplicated sentiment of the music, or in its humor, to
people who suspect that something far more
subversive and vital is at work: nothing less
than music that disorients us precisely
because it seems to come, quite literally, without much sense of a lineage from tradition and
without any particular allegiance to a self-conscious avant-garde.
HASKINS
GOMES: Salvator Rosa
Maria Porubcinova (Isabella), Ray M Wade (Salvator Rosa), Malte Roesner (Masaniello); Braunschweig/ Georg Menskes
Oehms 957 [2CD] 133 minutes
Brazilian opera is rarely encountered on any
stage outside of Brazil, and recordings of
Brazilian opera are just as rare. In May/June
2000 it was interesting and mainly pleasurable
to totally immerse my ears in eight operas of
Antonio Carlos Gomes (his entire operatic output except for his second opera, Joana de Flandro. and three operettas). In general those
recordings from Brazil were inadequate.
In excellent sound is a 1994 performance
of Il Guarany (Sony 66273, July/Aug 1996) with
Placido Domingo as the Guarany tribal hero.
He sings sternly, with little imagination, characterization, or musical variety, turning out a
workman-like, one-dimensional performance.
The notes are all there, but little else. Veronica
Villarroel is an agreeable heroine—a bit short
on technical facility, but a credible character.
Again it is the baritone who steals the show.
Carlos Alvarez creates a virile, strongly sung
villain. Finally a Don Antonio that can at least
sing the music: Hao Jiang Tian. John Neschling
led the Beethovenhalle Orchestra in the best of
the orchestral readings.
Although of Spanish colonist descent, the
composer’s father altered the Spanish Z ending (Gomez) to S (Gomes) to look more Portuguese. The composer was born in the
province of Sao Paulo July 11, 1836. His grandfather was Spanish, his grandmother from the
indigenous Guarany tribe. The son of a provincial bandmaster, Gomes was the 11th of 12
children. Having learned the rudiments of
music from his father, at age 18 he composed a
mass that was performed in a local church by
the entire Gomes family. He began a career as
a concert pianist, touring Brazil while still in
his early 20s. The Brazilian Emperor Dom
Pedro II had him admitted to the National
Conservatory of Music to study composition
with an Italian maestro, Gioacchino Gianini.
Following the success of his first two operas, A
Noite do Castelo (1861) and Joana de Flandro
(1863), the Emperor gave him a grant for further studies in Germany. But, with some assistance from the Emperor’s wife, Teresa Cristina, Gomes went to Italy instead. In Milan he
studied with Lauro Rossi, a popular composer
of operas. It was in Italy that he composed six
of his major operas, two musical theater
works, and a huge collection of chamber
music.
We are told that his musical style is heavily
influenced by Brazilian music, itself an amalgamation of Spanish, Portuguese, native Indi-
an, and African elements. But on listening to
these operas, it soon becomes obvious that
there is only one musical style and influence:
late 19th Century Italian music—Ponchielli
and Verdi by way of Bellini, Donizetti, and
Rossini. Only in some of the extensive ballet
music in his operas is there a touch of local
color—Brazilian dance rhythms. Such is the
excellence of much of Gomes’s music and
drama that his entire oeuvre needs to be reexamined and published in decent modern
editions and recordings.
Although Salvatore Rosa became almost as
popular as Guarany, perhaps the less said
about the opera the better. At least that was
my judgement of the opera in 2000 on the
basis of a Brazilian recording. Despite another
Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni after
Eugene Mirecourt’s novel Masaniello about
the Neapolitan revolution against Spanish
oppression, the music isn’t much. It’s a lighter
opera than the others, with two not very sympathetic heroes.
This performance—January 20, 2010 at
Braunschweig—is infinitely superior. Wade
sings a brilliant, ringing Rosa, so full of life,
practically champing at the bits to thrill the
audience. He is met full head on by the roaring
passionate Isabella of Porubcinova. The chorus is a character in itys own right. It unleashes
a torrent of sound every time the baton points
at them. It’s really exciting.
The program notes are helpful, but there is
no libretto.
PARSONS
G ORECKI: Little Requiem for a Certain
Polka; Concerto-Cantata; Harpsichord Concerto; Dances
Carol Wincenc, fl; Anna Gorecka, p; Warsaw Philharmonic/ Antoni Wit
The oddly titled Little Requiem for a Certain
Polka (1993), a continuous four-movement
piece for piano and orchestra, opens with
misty chimes and the ubiquitous Dies Irae
motive and becomes a quiet trio for two violins
and piano. The “wake-up” pick-up chant is
harshly developed, and after a brief recap the
Dies Irae appears with aggressive brass and
crashing piano chords. Sinister tritones (“the
devil’s interval”) appear, but a peaceful clarinet solo ushers in an elevated prayer for
strings. In celebration (I presume), a hearty
but eventually nightmarish Polka follows (I
don’t know what “Certain” refers to), and all
that’s left are the church bells and a pensive
chorale.
Following Maria Cizmic’s recent work on
Gorecki (in her Performing Pain, which I cited
in a recent review of Schnittke), it’s not hard to
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suggest an interpretation of the piece. Struggle
between trauma and redemption can be taken
personally or politically (not to mention theologically), and given the composer’s and his
country’s history, the work’s expressive trajectory can be clearly followed. In any event, the
result is very effective.
The Concerto-Cantata (1992), for flute and
orchestra, is a four-movement work built
around a moody recitative (again with tritones) and serious arioso, with a capricious
Concertino in between with unmistakable burlesque elements. The juxtapositions again
seem suggestive.
The brief two-movement Harpsichord
Concerto (1980) is given here in an arrangement for piano and orchestra. A tempestuous,
stormy opening movement is followed by a
jocular finale, again with grotesquely burlesque overtones.
The Three Dances (1973) are pulsating and
obsessive chunks of Polish peasant stuff, the
beautiful middle movement showing an early
resemblance to the figuration in the last movement of the famous Third Symphony. It would
make a terrific substitute for the 19th Century
folk music rhapsodies heard so often closing
orchestra concerts.
This is a wonderful selection of this great
composer’s not often heard orchestral music.
The Warsaw Phil is obviously a definitive
source for it. Ms Wincenc, of course, needs no
introduction, but note that Ms Gorecka is the
composer’s daughter.
GIMBEL
G
RAENER: Comedietta; Russian Folksong
Variations; Evening Music; Short Symphony
Hanover Radio/ Werner Andreas Albert
CPO 777 447—67 minutes
The Internet has much self-righteous ado
about this release. Graener has been misidentified as “the official Nazi composer”—there
was no such figure. Despite holding some significant posts under the Reich, his tenure was
rocky. Goebbels griped that he was interested
only in money—as though composers weren’t
supposed to care about paying bills. Furthermore, he was fired from his teaching post
because he was unable to document properly
his Aryan lineage. Toscanini, hardly a fascist
suck-up, often conducted his Flute of SansSouci Suite, and the publisher Eulenberg, who
had been exiled by the Nazis, continued to
promote his work even after the war. As for
me, when it comes to judging anyone’s day-today survival under a homicidal dictatorship, I
refuse to demand of others a level of courage I
don’t have myself. (I have all the respect in the
world for the few who do have such courage.)
So, PC posturing aside, what’s the music
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like? Paul Graener (1872-1944) was a largely
self-taught composer. From 1898 to 1909 he
conducted at London’s Haymarket Theater,
and even during WW II was technically a
British citizen. His music is conservative in
idiom, often in a neo-baroque or classical vein,
rather along the lines of Stravinsky. It lacks the
tang of the Russian master, but is less condescending to its material.
Evening Music (1913) is a suite of three
attractive sketches for small orchestra—mood
music in the best sense of the phrase. Variations on a Russian Folk Song date from 1917.
The song is the familiar ‘Volga Boatmen’.
Graener’s variations are first class, leading it
through a range of guises. Like the better sets,
he not only varies the tune, but creates from it
new, yet discernibly related themes. The scoring sounds unusually rich, because it favors
the orchestra’s mid to lower registers, like the
song itself, which I’ve never heard sung by
anyone higher than a baritone. The variations
have a central European flavor—only the 10th
has a Russian cast. Unlike his model Reger,
Graener, with admirable restraint, chooses not
to end with a fugue.
The Comedietta (1928) is a cute caprice for
small orchestra, with changing humors and
colors, also orchestrated with taste and skill. In
the listenable Short Symphony (1932), I is more
like an 18th Century concerto grosso, even to
the concluding Picardy third. II, for strings
only, is more emotionally moving. III is a sustained, stately processional. The score is
marked “moderate and somewhat majestic”
and has no other tempo indications at all, but
any time I’ve heard it, I’ve always felt it should
go faster.
In sum, Graener is a good, not great, composer worth exploring. For score-readers, the
Petrucci online library has the Evening Music
and Variations. CPO is supposedly working on
another Graener disc, but they’ve toyed with
us before. I’m still waiting for their promised
releases of Nicode and more music by Siegmund von Hausegger.
O’CONNOR
GRAGNANI: 3 Sonatas
Franco Mezzena, v; Massimo Scattolin, g
Filippo Gragnani (1767-1820) was one of many
contemporaries of Beethoven who wrote
chamber music for amateur players. Like so
many of his fellow guitarists-whose-namesend-in-a-vowel (Carulli, Carcassi, Molino,
Moretti, Giuliani, Legnani, etc.) he was born in
Italy, but spent much of his life abroad, in
cities more welcoming to instrumental music.
His output consists of about 40 pieces; about
17 were published in his lifetime, mostly
chamber music for guitar and other instruments.
Gragnani isn’t the strongest of his generation—he was apparently a protege of Carulli,
also not the strongest of his generation—but
his music has charm. It’s fun to play (perhaps
more so than to listen to), and it’s great for
introducing students to the joys of chamber
music-making. Each of these three sonatas is
in three movements: an opening in sonata
form, a slow theme and variations, and a concluding polacca. You won’t find anything profound or particularly inventive here, but it
does have some pretty melodies and enjoyable
rhythmic momentum.
I reviewed Mr Scattolin (M/J 2012) as part
of a three-disc Giuliani set with two other players. His disc was devoted to some of Giuliani’s
most virtuosic works inspired by Rossini, and
he wasn’t quite up to the demands of those
works—at least with the competition at that
level. He is more comfortable here. Indeed, he
and Mezzena play quite well together. Intonation is perfect, ensemble well coordinated.
Both have a sweet tone. They recognize the
nature of this music and don’t try to make it
greater than it is—this is a tasteful performance. It’s also a reissue, first recorded in
1990, with excellent sound.
KEATON
GRAUN, JG: Trios (3), Quadro
Les Recreations
RaumKlang 3008—70:27
Johann Gottlieb Graun (1702-71) and Carl
Heinrich Graun (1704-59) were brothers who
both served the Potsdam court of Frederick the
Great. JG was one of the great violinists of his
day and teacher-founder of the German school
of violin playing that ran through the 18th
Century. He was also a prolific composer of
instrumental music. CH was best known as a
very effective composer of operas.
Though they had very distinct personalities, the two are often confused, especially in
surviving instrumental music. Only a few of
these works are sometimes attributed to CH,
but some of them could actually represent collaborations. That was very much the assumption made, for example, in a release of Graun
Trio Sonatas, played by Ludger Remy’s ensemble Les Amis de Philippe, for CPO (777 423: J/F
2010).
That earlier release includes a Trio Sonata
in C minor that is offered here. Comparison is
revealing. Remy’s group uses a hammerflugel
or early piano in the keyboard role, which suggests anticipation of “classical” expression to
come, whereas the ensemble here employs a
harpsichord, connecting the music more firmly to baroque roots—and that feeling is
emphasized by the more aggressive limitation
of vibrato in the string playing. Remy’s group
offers an expert and elegant Gallic vivacity that
Mr Loewen greatly admired. But I find their
playing relatively anemic against the forceful,
sometimes almost savage, intensity of these
musicians.
Of the other three selections offered here,
unequivocally credited to JG, there is a Trio
Sonata in G, also for the conventional scoring
of two violins and continuo. (That was, in fact,
included in an earlier Graun program by
Remy’s group for CPO: 999 623; M/J 2000.) But
there is also a Quadro in G minor—think Telemann—which requires an added viola. The
most striking work here, however, is titled Trio
per cembalo obligato e viola. “Trio” is apparently meant to suggest that the two hands of
the harpsichordist are to be counted separately, meaning that this is really a duo-sonata for
viola and harpsichord, without any other bass
or continuo function.
And what a work it is! Based in the dark key
of C minor, it is 22 minutes long, with a central
slow movement that clocks in at 10:33. I have
never heard viola writing of such powerful,
even ferocious character, especially as realized
with almost frightening force by Matthieu
Camilleri. This is astonishing stuff—whether
you call it late baroque or early classical, or
whatever—and it has to be heard to be
believed. The bold, close sound only emphasizes the power of this ensemble’s playing.
In sum, this is more than just perfunctory
baroque note-spinning. This is strong music,
strongly delivered, and I recommend it strongly.
BARKER
GRAUPNER: 7 Words of Christ on the Cross
Ingrid Schmithüsen, Claudine Ledoux, Nils
Brown, Normand Richard; Les Idées Heureuses/
Genevieve Soly
Analekta 9122 [2CD] 135 minutes
Christoph Graupner (1683-1760) spent most of
his long career in the service of the court of
Darmstadt where he was recruited in 1709 as
vice-Kapellmeister, succeeding to the position
of Kapellmeister in 1712. He was an alumnus
of the St Thomas School of Leipzig, where he
had an excellent musical education from
Johann Kuhnau. In Graupner’s early years at
Darmstadt, he was involved with the court
opera as well as church music, but in 1719 circumstances dictated a major cutback in
expenses and the dissolution of the court
opera. With the death of Kuhnau in 1722,
Graupner became a candidate for his old
teacher’s position as Thomaskantor. After
Telemann refused this position, the offer was
made to Graupner, but the Landgrave of
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Hesse-Darmstadt refused to accept his resignation and made a generous offer to retain
him in the service of his court. As we all know,
the Leipzig position went to the third choice:
JS Bach.
The Seven Words (1743) is a cycle of seven
church cantatas intended for performance on
the first five Sundays in Lent, on Maundy
Thursday, and on Good Friday. Each cantata is
a meditation on one of Christ’s words from the
cross. Each cantata opens with a “Dictum”, a
presentation of the scriptural text of the word
in question, sometimes with a narrative or
devotional context. These are given as accompanied recitative. Each cantata contains two
arias with recitatives. In three instances there
are alto-tenor duets. The concluding movements are chorales for three or four voices with
figural instrumental accompaniment, a trademark of Graupner’s sacred composition. The
tenor and bass voices bear the brunt of the
solo work. There are no alto solo arias, and the
soprano has a solo recitative and aria only in
the last of the seven cantatas.
Genevieve Soly, who directs these performances from the organ, is a noted authority on
the works of Graupner. She claims that this
music was probably never heard between 1743
and the time of her first concert performance
of it with Les Idées Heureuses in 2005 in Montreal. This is the first recording. Soly’s program
notes read in part like a disclaimer. She advises
the listener not to expect the scale and
grandeur of the Bach Passion oratorios or their
colorful instrumentation. The court chapel at
Darmstadt, with a seating capacity of about
130, was a more modest space than the major
city churches of Leipzig. Graupner’s scoring is
for strings and continuo with oboe and, in a
couple of the movements, tenor and bass
chalumeau, mistranslated here as tenor and
bass recorders. The chalumeau is an early
form of the clarinet. While the concluding
chorales could conceivably have been sung by
a small choir, it is more likely that they were
sung by solo voices as they are here.
Graupner’s compositional technique is
recognizably baroque, but the personality of
his music leans in the direction of the galant.
He was a consummate musical craftsman and
accomplished contrapuntist, and while these
cantatas are full of lively part writing, there is
nothing in the way of rigorously formal contrapuntal writing in contrast with the Bach cantatas where a fugue, canon, or ingenious cantus firmus treatment is lurking around almost
every corner. Graupner was the more “modern” composer, whose genial works went
down easily. It is not hard to imagine how
attractive he must have been to the Leipzig
authorities in 1723.
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The performances here are very fine. If the
vocal soloists are not quite up to the standard
of the very best exponents of this idiom, they
are not far behind them. I was pleased to hear
a bold and warm, though not overpowering
sound from the continuo organ. For the more
exuberant and dramatic recitatives Soly will
sometimes use a fuller registration than one
usually hears in continuo playing, and to great
effect. It is a vast improvement over the feeblesounding cabinet organs so often used in this
kind of repertory. The recorded sound itself is
warm and ingratiating yet always clear. Listeners who want to make an acquaintance with
this music should not hesitate to acquire this
recording—not that there are yet any alternatives. Full texts and translations are not included in the booklet, but they can be obtained
from the Analekta website.
GATENS
GRIEG: Piano Concerto; Holberg Suite;
Lyric Suite
Bella Davidovich; Seattle Symphony/ Gerard
Schwarz
This originally appeared on Delos, won scant
attention, and is now seeking a new lease on
life as a Naxos reissue. It was reviewed in this
journal (July/Aug 1991); the Concerto was
called “plodding, leaden, stodgy” and the
suites “played with lovely understatement”.
Recorded in 1989, the sound is perfectly
fine, and the performance of the concerto, in
my opinion, is quite lovely, if a bit restrained.
The Holberg Suite is mostly gentle, though the
‘March of the Dwarfs’ from the Lyric Suite
works up quite a lather.
Given the Naxos low price, it can be recommended to anyone who responds to a quieter, more nuanced performance of this
warhorse. Others may wish to explore performances with a more explosive response to the
music; there’s an almost endless supply.
BECKER
GRIEG: Orchestral Works
Piano Concerto; Peer Gynt Suites; Symphonic
Dances; Holberg Suite; 2 Elegiac Melodies; 2
Lyric Pieces; Wedding Day at Troldhaugen
Garrick Ohlsson, p; Academy of St Martin-in-theFields/ Neville Marriner
Hänssler 94610 [2CD] 2:15
This is a reissue in Hänssler’s “Premium Composers” series combining the 1997 Grieg Piano
Concerto and Symphonic Dances covered by
Tom Godell (July/Aug 1998) with a 1995
release of the Holberg Suite and Peer Gynt that
apparently escaped our notice. I fear I must
echo Mr Godell’s negative assessment of Garrick Ohlsson’s Grieg Concerto; tempos are so
erratic it sounds like they took passages from
several different performances and pasted
them together, and much of the time his playing seems calculated purely for effect. The
capricious pendant to the opening section
(1:40) becomes something of a scramble; and
the lyrical second strain, once set forth by the
cellos, Ohlsson stretches out like taffy, and
when it’s repeated midway in (7:47) it seems
even slower, to the point of very nearly coming
to a halt. I almost nodded off during the
cadenza; someone should have reminded
Ohlsson the concerto is not by Brahms! The
peerless strings of the St Martin Academy
establish an almost timeless mood at the
opening of the Adagio, but Ohlsson ruins
everything with his moribund tempos and
wayward phrasing. In the finale he runs slipshod over Grieg’s clear-cut halling rhythms,
grasping at fistfuls of notes and leaning on the
music until everything spins out of control.
And once again in the central reverie he all but
falls asleep draped over the keyboard. All
through this mishmash the St Martin players
give Ohlsson far better than he deserves, but
there are far too many vastly superior performances out there to recommend this.
While I share Mr Godell’s evident enthusiasm for the Symphonic Dances, there are several others I’d put above this one, including
the RCA with Morton Gould and Barbirolli on
Dutton. He seems too tense by half in much of
it, though he really nails the closing dance;
still, for people who prefer such an overheated
approach there’s much to enjoy, most of all
the brawny St Martins brass.
If I didn’t have the booklet in front of me, I
would have thought Neeme Jarvi was conducting Wedding Day at Troldhaugen; this slowpaced and belligerent account, becoming
downright rackety at the close, does neither
the composer nor the listener any favors. Fortunately the much better RCA with Mackerras
and the RPO has just been brought back by
Alto.
Matters improve greatly with the other
disc. Marriner’s highly characterized Peer Gynt
suites made me wish he’d recorded the whole
thing. All of these miraculous essays bespeak
Grieg’s expertise at painting memorable
episodes from Henrik Ibsen’s play in the space
of only a few minutes, from the rapt ‘Morning’
with its flute solo and the heart-rending scene
of Peer at the deathbed of his beloved mother
Ase to the awkward gait of the trolls who
inhabit the ‘Hall of the Mountain King’ and the
poignant strain of the faithful Solveig as she
continues to await the errant Peer’s return—a
melody that will continue to haunt the memory long after the music is finished whether
heard from the strings (as here) or the sopra-
no. The orchestra plays beautifully. Marriner
starts the Mountain King’s entry too briskly,
leaving the ensuing crescendo with nowhere
to go, but that’s a minor quibble. The 2 Elegiac
Melodies are simply models of string playing—
most of all the bittersweet ‘Last Spring’—while
the 2 Lyric Pieces, ‘Evening in the Mountains’
and ‘At the Cradle’, offer welcome variety.
Only Marriner’s Holberg Suite is disappointing,
with tempos ranging from too fast in the opening Prelude to too slow in the ‘Sarabande’ and
‘Air’, though the concluding ‘Rigadoun’ certainly counts as Allegro con brio. In sum, a
mixed bag, worth having most of all for Peer
Gynt if the price is right.
HALLER
GRIEG: Quartet; Elegiac Melodies; Holberg
Suite; Erotiek
Australian Chamber Orchestra/ Richard Tognetti
BIS 1877 [SACD] 63:30
Grieg’s quartet played by 17 string instruments
instead of 4. If that appeals to you, you might
like this.
I must admit that was never very attached
to Grieg’s quartet, but I always liked the Holberg Suite and Elegiac Melodies. So I was
pleased to hear the quartet in a new light. The
conductor made the arrangement.
But the Elegiac Melodies here have vibratoless violins; they screech. You don’t want this
recording of that! And it’s asinine to play that
way. The same sauce is applied to the Holberg
Suite—no vibrato, no legato—and I find it
obnoxious. Notes are not connected; there is
no phrasing. It’s jumpy and cold. Believe me,
sometime in the future recordings like this will
be thoroughly despised. The “no vibrato”
school hasn’t a leg to stand on, and scholar
after scholar is refuting that idiocy. It may take
10 years for the true scholarship to filter down
and cure this disease, but I guarantee you, it is
coming. A whole edifice has been built on
sand, and the result is simply ugly—so, reject
it! Refuse to listen!
If it matters, the sound is as rich and strong
as we expect from BIS, and SACD makes it
even better.
VROON
GROFE: Grand Canyon Suite;
GERSHWIN: American in Paris
Seattle Symphony/ Gerard Schwarz
Another welcome installment in Naxos’s reissue of Delos recordings from the 1980s and
90s. Both of these works were once staples of
“pops concerts” when the term referred to
programs of light, popular classics, instead of
“symphony orchestra pointlessly vamping
background for a pop star”. Now, they’re kind
115
of orphaned: not “popular” enough, but not
grand enough for regular symphony programs.
The Grofe originally appeared on Delos
3104 coupled with the Copland Billy the Kid
suite and Rodeo dances that I just reviewed last
issue. Our American Music Overview (July/Aug
1995) reports a preference for this recording.
It’s an excellent one. The sound is fantastic,
with crisp, clean brass and sweet-toned
strings; and the interpretation is spot-on. In
his review of the Delos release (May/June
1991), our Editor attributes that to Schwarz’s
time as principal trumpet of the New York
Philharmonic under Bernstein. Maybe so. He
and his players don’t make the music sound
hoaky—especially ‘On the Trail’—nor does he
make it all stiff and seriously symphonic.
The Gershwin was originally released on
Delos 3078, accompanied by an orchestrated
version of Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles
song cycle and Barber’s School for Scandal
Overture. This is another fine performance
that really catches some of the breeziness we
expect from Gershwin without downplaying
the complexity of some of the musical ideas.
Our reviewer of the original release (Jan/Feb
1991) reported that Schwarz includes an extra
three minutes or so of music Gershwin cut
before the premiere. Naxos says nothing in its
album notes; I didn’t really notice anything
strikingly different.
HANSEN
GUBAIDULINA: 5 Quartets
Stamitz Quartet
Supraphon 4078—67 minutes
Margaret MacDuffie; Matthias Fischer, v
Parnassi Musici
A wealth of color animates this very fine music,
played with engaging energy and beauty by
Parnassi Musici. The players excel in all performing techniques, turning on a dime in ‘La
Galeazza’ from vigorous shaking effects to gentle legato lines, and sprinting like arrows at the
very rapid end of ‘La Sevesca’. Solo recorder,
organ, and harp join solo violins in these 16
selections from Agostino Guerrieri’s 1673
Opera Prima sonatas for one to four melody
instruments. Both delicacy and virtuosity
abound, as the players eagerly welcome the listener into the music.
The program is very well chosen and
sequenced, as is the instrumentation. The use
of harp is most effective in pieces like ‘La Rotini’, because its deep bass notes are not dampened (in contrast to a harpsichord) and therefore they ring out powerfully under the soaring
voice-like solo violin melody.
Notes, bios of all seven players. There is no
Guerrieri in the ARG index, which makes this
an even more welcome release. Among the
many fine recordings by Parnassi Musici, of
music by many composers, John Barker called
a Telemann program “deliciously playful and
stylish” (CPO 777301, J/A 2009), and I had high
praise for Caldara trio sonatas (CPO 999871,
M/A 2003).
C MOORE
The music of Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931) is
abstract in tonality, usually slow-moving in its
progression from one sound world to another,
and basically philosophical and religious in
inspiration. If these elements seem difficult to
picture together, particularly as applied to the
world of the string quartet, then perhaps you
should get this recording and see what you can
get out of it. She is undeniably a fine musician
with strong convictions. I can’t say that I am
turned on by her sound palette, but it is undeniable that she has something to say and says
it.
The first three quartets have been recorded
before by the Danish Quartet (CPO 999 064,
March/April 1995). We found the performances good—as I do these—but whether I
like the music itself is another question. It is all
so thoughtful yet distant that one has trouble
getting involved with it. She doesn’t push her
specific religious convictions at you, but she is
pushing something into your mind. Isn’t life
fascinating?
D MOORE
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GUERRIERI: Violin Sonatas
HAGEN: 6 Lute Sonatas
Robert Barto
Pan 10267—67 minutes
In the mid-18th Century the Margravina of
Brandenburg was Wilhelmina, Princess of
Prussia, sister of Frederick the Great. She was
also a lute student of Silvius Leopold Weiss,
probably the greatest lutenist of the High
Baroque. She hired three of the finest lutenists
of her era to serve in the Bayreuth court: Adam
Falkenhagen, Charles Durant, and Bernhard
Joachim Hagen. Falkenhagen and Durant were
hired as lutenists; Hagen was a violinist. But he
wrote a number of works for lute, all contained
in the Augsburg Manuscript, and Barto presents six solo sonatas from that source.
Robert Barto is currently involved in a
series of recordings for Naxos of the complete
lute sonatas of Weiss (M/J 2010 & J/A 2012).
Hagen’s music is a generation removed from
Weiss’s. By that time the contrapuntal and
chromatic grandeur of the baroque was considered hopelessly out of date, and AustroGermanic music was following the empfind-
samer stil, the sensitive style—simpler music
on all fronts—less chromaticism, slower harmonic rhythm, little counterpoint. It is enjoyably melodic, intentionally lighter, aspiring to
a more personal and less exalted affect. The six
sonatas are still baroque, at least in that the
movements are all monothematic—sonataallegro form, with its contrasting themes and
keys, was just being developed.
I suppose the audience for this music is a
bit limited—I’ll confess that I find most preclassic music rather uninteresting. But Barto
obviously does not. His performance is completely convincing. His sonority is rich and
compelling, his phrasing elegant and graceful,
his passagework expertly executed without
strain. He plays a 13-course lute, even larger
than Weiss’s 11-course instrument (the extra
two strings are bass extensions, which make
for a richer sound), and the sound is excellent,
as are his notes for the recording.
KEATON
H AKIM: Bach’orama; Jonquilles; Mit
seinem Geist; Theotokos; Salve Regina; Gershwinesca
Naji Hakim, org
Signum 284—69 minutes
Hakim, from 1985 to 1993 Organist at Trinité,
Paris (following Messiaen), is currently a professor of music analysis at the National Conservatory in the Boulogne-Billancourt region
(western suburbs of Paris). He is married to
Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet, prize winning
organist and titulaire at Notre-Dame des
Champs, Paris. The organ here is the 4-94
Stahlhuth (1912, Jahn, 2002) in St Martin’s,
Dudelange, Luxembourg. The instrument is
designed to supply appropriate ranks for the
performance of German, French, and English
music.
Hakim may be known to organ music fans
from his recordings at Sacre- Coeur, Paris. His
improvisations generally have an angular, dissonant quality, but often that is balanced with
very pleasant modern-romantic harmonies
such as heard in the eight variations on ‘Ein
Feste Burg’ in Mit seinem Geist. The bulk of
this program is devoted to variations on tunes
that won’t be familiar to many listeners.
Jonquilles is based on Danish hymn tunes;
Theotokos presents seven improvisations on
Gregorian, Maronite, French, and Basque
melodies. As most of the melodies are unfamiliar, it’s difficult to appreciate what Hakim does
to them. The Salve Regina setting is refreshingly clear, while the concluding Gershwin romp
is a bit of fresh air. Hakim’s Lebanese heritage
perhaps enabled him to interpret music from
mid-Eastern countries with a knowing hand.
The organ is more than able to supply the
sounds he wants. Unless you are a Hakim fan
or enjoy off the beaten track organ pieces,
you’ll probably pass this one by.
METZ
HANDEL: Alceste
Lucy Crowe, s; Benjamin Hulett, t; Andrew Foster-Williams, b; Early Opera Company/ Christian
Curnyn
Chandos 788—63:16
For an English-language dramatization of the
Greek tale of Alcestis (as adapted from Racine),
Handel composed in 1749 music that constitutes the most significant of his very few ventures into English theater. As it turned out, the
production was cancelled, and so Handel recycled much of his music into a kind of mini-oratorio (a dramatic cantata, or “musical interlude” as he called it), The Choice of Hercules,
with other bits distributed elsewhere.
Handel composed 20 numbers for the play,
most of them short. None of them involved the
main characters (whose text has been lost). In
this respect, Handel’s score is similar to Purcell’s “semi-operas”. Rather than annexing
segments of each act for extensive musical
entertainments, as in the larger Purcell predecessors, Handel’s musical numbers are scattered through the action as diversions. Though
some pieces are trivial, there is a good wedding
scene for soloists and chorus, another one welcoming Alceste to Elysium, and two or three
songs that Handel fans should certainly know
and cherish, such as Calliope’s beautiful first
song, ‘Gentle Morpheus, Son of Night’.
This Alceste score has had a skimpy history,
and this is only its third recording. The first,
led by Christopher Hogwood in 1979 for
Oiseau-Lyre LP, was briefly reissued on CD
(421 479), joined with his 1980 recording of
pieces Handel composed for Milton’s Comus.
The second recording was made in 1997 by
French forces under Franck-Emmanuel Comte
and released on the obscure Absalon label
(897: N/D 1998). It was quite simply a provincial venture, inferior in all ways to Hogwood’s
achievement. So Hogwood remains the predecessor to beat.
Curnyn comes about as close to doing so
as anyone could. He adds a twist of his own by
filling out Handel’s score a bit. Whereas Hogwood recorded only the 20 numbers straight
(totalling 57 minutes), Curnyn interpolates two
“symphonies” from earlier Handel operas. A
brief one comes from Admeto, which is, after
all, an Italian treatment of the Alcestis story.
The other is an ambitious Passacaille from
Radamisto. These add a bit more value for
money, as well as further substance to the
score.
Curnyn’s team of soloists makes a mixed
117
showing. Hogwood’s Emma Kirkby is lovely, of
course, but Crowe is simply glowing in her
soprano functions, notably the two Calliope
airs. Hulett makes a very strong and admirable
showing here, but cannot quite better Hogwood’s Paul Elliot. Foster-Williams is too light
a baritone to do full justice to Charon’s display
of sardonic cloddishness in ‘Ye fleeting shades,
I come’: he makes what he can of comic inflections, but he is no match for Hogwood’s really
nasty David Thomas.
In style, Curnyn is just a bit more suave,
Hogwood more blunt. But each is fully satisfying. The choral and instrumental forces are
superb here, and the sound is quite full in
Chandos’s updated engineering. The packaging is exemplary.
In sum, if you have the Hogwood release,
hang onto it for dear life; but Curnyn has given
us a thoroughly acceptable replacement, and
one that Handelians previously ignorant of
this work should definitely investigate.
BARKER
H
ANDEL: Concerti Grossi, op 6: 1,6,9;
VIVALDI: Flute Concerto, op 10:3;
BACH,CPE: Flute Concerto in D minor
Scott Goff, fl; Seattle Symphony/ Gerard Schwarz
Naxos 571208—79:16
I have sets of Opus 6 conducted by Angerer,
Rolla, and Malcolm. I’ve had them for years.
They were classic recordings, and to me they
represent not a past and old-fashioned Handel, but Handel the way he ought to sound.
None of them are available now, but you can
get classic recordings by the Academy of St
Martin-in-the-Fields (both under Brown and
under Marriner) and Yehudi Menuhin. They
were not favorites of mine, but they were rightminded. The historical and period performances are wrong-headed—and apart from
ASMF and Menuhin, that is all you can get
now.
Gerard Schwarz, like those other classic
recordings, treats Handel (and Vivaldi and
Bach) as music, not as historical curiosities to
sniff at. The PPP people would accuse him, I’m
sure, of “romanticizing” Handel; but that is not
at all the case (except that music is essentially
a romantic art). I like romanticized Handel, the
way Stokowski conducted it. It’s wonderful,
and there’s no reason not to do it if that’s the
way you hear it. (Stokowski was a remnant of
the romantic age.) Schwarz is stricter with
rhythm and more limited in expression, but
still more expressive than the PPP people.
Some people consider any expression “romantic”. But music has to be expressive! Otherwise,
what’s the point?
This is full-bodied and substantial, not
airy-fairy piss-elegant. The harpsichord is per-
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haps too prominent, and that has to be microphone placement and engineering. A harpsichord doesn’t naturally project much and
belongs in the background, underlying the rest
of the music. But the rhythms are not sewingmachine regular and monotonous.
These recordings were made in 2008. How
nice that one major orchestra and conductor
have not given up on Handel. Everyone else
seems to think his music inappropriate for a
modern orchestra. It is rare to hear this music
so well played and projected, so we should all
grab this record right away. Who else is doing
this kind of thing today?
VROON
HANDEL: Esther
Susan Hamilton (Esther), James Gilchrist (Ahasuerus), Matthew Brook (Haman), Nicholas Mulroy (Mordecai), Robin Blaze (Priest), Dunedin
Consort/ John Butt
Linn 397 [2SACD] 99:31
Among other things, this recording is a companion to Butt’s recent treatment of Handel’s
Acis and Galatea (Linn 319, 2SACD: M/A 2009).
In both Butt has devoted intense thought to
recapturing the specifics of texts and scoring
that made up the origins of these entertainments for Handel’s patron, the Duke of Chandos, at his estate, Cannons.
Acis was composed and first performed in
1718. Getting back to its original qualities is
not too very difficult, with a reliable edition
available in the Hallische Handel-Ausgabe.
Esther, however, poses some tricky problems.
It was Handel’s first venture into the idiom of
English oratorio—as its actual creator—and its
genesis suggests some of the growing pains of
that idiom. Handel used a text based on
Racine’s drama about the Biblical Jewish
Queen of Persia who saved her people from
persecution. He was happy to recycle into it
some music from his recent Brockes Passion, a
German work not known in England. He began
composing his setting in 1718, the same year
as Acis. But there is evidence of a performance
(and an edition to go with it) in 1720. The HHA
editor accepted score evidence that was identified as of 1718, and that modern edition was
used by the work’s first recording, made in
1984 under Christopher Hogwood (OiseauLyre 414 423).
Recent researches have suggested that
Handel discarded or altered much of what he
began with in 1718, and that a “revised” version we have dated to 1718 really belongs to
1720. Awareness of that was taken into
account in the second recording, made in 1995
under Harry Christophers for Collins (7040:
S/O 1996; reissued as Regis 2025). In making
his own attempt to re-establish a true “origi-
nal”, John Butt and the Linn promotion team
have proclaimed this the “First Reconstructable Version (Cannons), 1720”.
In point of fact, there is not too much difference in the musical text between the
Christophers and Butt recordings. The latter
restores the Israelite Woman’s number to an
Israelite Boy, the three-act format is restored,
and there are details that certainly do put this
new recording a few points ahead of Hogwood’s.
On musical grounds, comparisons yield
mixed results. Butt’s cast seems a youngish
one. I find Hamilton disappointing in the title
role. Though she sings the lines with feeling,
her voice is just too girlish to carry the character’s dramatic strength. Hogwood’s dignified
Patrizia Kwella and Christophers’s weightier
Lynda Russell are more convincing. As King
Ahasuerus, Gilchrist here is quite competitive
with Hogwood’s more sensitive Anthony Rolfe
Johnson or Christophers’s Thomas Randle.
Nicholas Mulroy is a serviceable Mordecai,
Esther’s mentor, stronger than Hogwood’s Ian
Partridge, but yielding to Mark Padmore for
Christophers. But Brook, however appropriate
his dark bass is for the villainous Haman, is not
as sinister as Hogwood’s David Thomas, nor as
blackly menacing as Christophers’s Michael
George.
Robin Blaze is musically eloquent as the
Israelite Priest, the equal of Michael Chance
for Christophers and a step ahead of Drew
Minter for Hogwood. Electra Lochhead is boyish enough here for the redefined Israelite Boy,
but can hardly match Emma Kirkby or Nancy
Argenta as the “Israelite Woman”. Lesser
soloists do well enough. Generally, I was much
impressed by the clarity of diction. And the
choral and orchestral work is certainly equal to
the competition (especially from Christophers), in sound even better than Christophers. I must say, too, that the unusually long,
anthem-like final peroration for soloists and
chorus (almost 12 minutes long here) is
absolutely magnificent here.
This is a brief work by Handelian standards. Only Christophers was embarrassed
enough to include a bonus, a chamber piece,
orchestrally enlarged, bringing his running
time up to 104:09, as against Hogwood’s 96:47,
In all this discussion of competing 1718-20
versions, it should not be forgotten that Esther
exists in another, much more complex (and
redefined) version, cobbled together for public
consumption in 1732. Crazy as that confection
looks on paper, it works rather well musically,
as demonstrated in its sole recording, under
Laurence Cummings (Somm 238: S/O 2008).
As for the “original” Esther, we are lucky to
have had the two earlier recordings, which still
have their merits, but we can be grateful for
this new and very carefully thought-out rendition.
BARKER
HANDEL: Theodora
Dawn Upshaw (Theodora), Lorraine Hunt (Irene),
David Daniels (Didymus), Richard Croft (Septimius), Frode Olsen (Valens); Glyndebourne Chorus,
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/ William
Christie
Glyndebourne 14 [3CD] 200:42
Utterly different from Handel’s only other
Christian oratorio for London (guess what that
is!), lacking any Gospel or Scriptural theme,
and instead retailing the preachy story of an
early Christian martyr, Theodora, was quite
out of tune with public interests and fashions
by 1749-50, the years it was composed and first
performed. The ageing composer, wanting to
explore deeper truths and values than before,
was very disappointed.
This truly great masterpiece has been
rediscovered by musicians and music-lovers
only in recent decades, and now is recognized
for its worth, musically and dramatically. At
hand is no less than the eighth audio recording
(plus one video)—a quite impressive showing
in the Handel discography, and I think that the
composer would be pleased that this seeming
stepchild has been vindicated.
For surveys of earlier recordings, I refer
you to my reviews (Jan/Feb 2004, July/Aug
2001, July/Aug 2012). Aside from a quite
respectable bargain-rate reading under
Joachim Carlos Martini for Naxos (572700), the
serious contenders are sets under Nicholas
McGegan for Harmonia Mundi (907060),
under Paul McCreesh for DG Archiv (469 061),
and under William Christie for Erato (43181).
Now joining them is this new release,
recorded at public performances in May and
June 1996 at Glyndebourne, in a production
staged by Peter Sellars. It is curious that the
promotional folks have chosen to stress the
involvement of the still-missed Lorraine Hunt
(not yet -Lieberson). Her photo is on the cover
and she appears predominantly in the albumbook’s photography—but she only sings a secondary role rather than the title part. To be
sure, she had a long involvement with this oratorio—longer than any other singer. She did
sing the title role in McGegan’s 1991 recording,
creating a warmly human heroine while she
was still functioning as a soprano. Here, in
1996, she has shifted to her mezzo fach and to
the mezzo role of Irene, the doomed Theodora’s friend and supporter. She proves herself
just the devoted, humane friend we all would
want. Her identification with that character
was affirmed in 2003 in one of her late record-
119
ings—with Harry Bickett conducting (Avie 30:
J/F 2005)—where she sang again all five of
Irene’s arias (four with their recitatives). On
other full recordings, only McCreesh’s Susan
Bickley can challenge Hunt for definitiveness
in this role.
So seemingly overshadowed, Upshaw
sounds vocally restrained and inconsistent;
but she manages to suggest a young, fragile
heroine quite convincingly. Of course, she is
up against Hunt again, and the latter’s more
mature portrayal—and the mature warmth of
McCreesh’s Susan Gritton.
As Theodora’s loyal lover Didymus—a role
Handel wrote for the famous castrato Guagagni—countertenors Drew Minter (McGegan)
and Robin Blaze (McCreesh) make strong
rivals to Daniels, but he proves beguiling in
some of the most beautiful singing I have
heard from him on records. Croft here repeats
the manly Septimius, the friend of Didymus,
he gave for Christie.
Unfortunately, the role of Valens, the
Roman governor who condemns Christians in
general and Theodora in particular, has been
subjected by Sellars to the same vulgar trashing followed by Christof Loy in his production
for the Salzburg Festival in 2009, and documented in a DVD from Unitel (705804: N/D
2011). In this approach—did Loy copy it from
Sellars?—Valens becomes a coarse, drunken
lecher. It seems to have amused Sellar’s audience, but it is a cheap play for laughs that does
not belong in this serious story. Olsen hardly
has a chance in this characterization, and one
longs for the sternness of David Thomas
(McGegan) or the dignity of Klaus Mertens
(Martini).
The Glyndebourne chorus sings lustily, but
its stage placement dilutes the clarity of the
supreme chorus, ‘He saw the lovely youth’ that
ends Act II, and such a letdown is a serious
detriment to any performance of this work.
The Enlightenment orchestra (the same one
used by Bickett and Hunt for her arias) is given
knowing leadership by Christie. It is interesting that, four years after this Glyndebourne
performance, Christie chose to make his own
audio recording for Erato. Despite some merits, his leadership then seemed to have lost the
feeling of dramatic involvement he showed at
Glyndebourne, and the later cast is generally
less appealing.
The Glyndebourne production by Sellars
has been praised by some. A BBC video of not
exactly the same performance has been issued
on DVD by Warner, which I have not seen.
Judging from the book’s photos here, I am just
as glad, for it seems to have been another of
those irrelevant re-settings into a present-day
totalitarian state. But it cannot be escaped
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even in this purely audio souvenir. Beyond the
usual sound of stage noises, there are evidences of a great deal of movement, complete
with bawling and screaming from the chorus.
Frequent ovations following individual numbers are bad enough, but the 40-minute round
of clapping, shouting, and whistling by the
audience at the end is a shameful conclusion,
especially when it bursts brutally on the quiet,
poignant ending of the closing chorus. The Loy
staging has made me conclude that this oratorio does not benefit from staging, especially
anything “modern”. And this recording makes
me ask why editors cannot trim out the disruptive intrusions of audience reactions.
Thanks to the work of Upshaw, Hunt, and
Daniels, this performance would deserve to be
placed beside the recordings by McGegan and
McCreesh. But the intrusions spoil it so badly
that I cannot fully recommend it. Handel’s
profound tribute to virtue, loyalty, and loving
devotion deserves serious absorption, not trivialization.
Full text is in the bound-book album.
BARKER
H
ANSSON: Endless Borders; Som Nar
Handen; Salve Regina; Then I Heard the
Singing; For As the Rain; The Place Amongst
the Trees; Missa Brevis; Lighten Mine Eyes
William Baldry, org; Royal Holloway Choir/
Rupert Gough
If you like your choral fare caressed with spiritual touches but find the likes of Whitacre and
Lauridsen a mite caloric for your taste, you
might enjoy the music of Bo Hansson (b 1950).
Born in Sweden, Hansson began his career as a
guitarist and arranger of folk and popular
songs. In his mid 30s he changed direction and
began experimenting with an emotionally
direct, spiritually rapt classical style that
avoids harmonic excess and tends to keep its
dynamics between mezzo piano and mezzo
forte. Some might find him too restrained to
get excited about. (I would be one of those.)
Others might be drawn to his writing.
Whatever the final verdict, all of us would
do well to hear this composer at his best. ‘Then
I Heard the Singing’ is luminous and very
affecting. I also admire the crystalline harmonies in ‘Som Nar Handen’ (As the Day
Dawns), which begins the program. The soft
spring shower that falls from the organ console
in the quiet section of ‘For As the Rain’ is beautiful, as is the quiet ecstasy of the Sanctus from
his 20-minute Mass. Royal Holloway gives
Hansson the royal treatment, as do Hyperion’s
engineers and annotators.
GREENFIELD
HARTY: Quartets 1+2; Piano Quintet
Piers Lane, p; Goldner Quartet
Hyperion 67927 [2CD] 83 minutes
Herbert Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) was born
in Northern Ireland, the son of an organist and
a highly respected doyen of music in Lisburn.
As a boy he studied piano and viola with his
father and was playing services by the age of 12.
He also learned a great deal from his father’s
vast library. As Harty developed, he began to
play in churches away from home. In 1899, he
met Michele Esposito, an important figure in
the Dublin music scene, particularly in helping
to develop the Feis Coeil, an Irish music society.
The two developed a respect for each other,
and Esposito proved an early influence.
Harty wrote a number of orchestral pieces
that achieved a little popularity, particularly
the Irish Symphony, but he may be best known
for his arrangements of Handel’s Water Music
and Fireworks Music for modern orchestra. His
compositional style was rather old fashioned.
Even Elgar was more modern. The three pieces
here are purely romantic and on the light side.
They are of often modal melodies, recalling
Irish folk tunes and the work of Percy Grainger,
though the tunes are all Harty’s.
Quartet No. 1 in F was Harty’s first success,
winning a prize at the 1900 Feis Coeil. The
high-spirited Allegro con Brio is reminiscent of
Mendelssohn and perhaps even Haydn,
though it turns more serious as it goes on in
passages that Annotator Jeremy Dibble found
“overambitious”. Still, the composer’s enthusiasm is hard to resist. The Vivace is full of verve
and creativity, a combination of Mendelssohn
and light Dvorak. The Andante Pastorale lacks
the country feeling associated with “pastorale”, but it is nicely song-like, if too dependent on the violins. The Vivace appears briefly
in the middle then disappears like a brief sun
shower. The Allegro Vivace is the most complex and serious movement—it even displays a
touch of the chromatic Bruckner—though it
never stops being tuneful.
Harty wrote his Quartet No. 2 in A minor a
year later, and it won a prize at the Dublin Feis
of 1902. It was played one more time that year
and not again until this recording. To the
youthful ebullience of the First Quartet, the
Second adds study and polish. The melodies
take a slightly more mature turn; in I I hear a
bit of Schumann with an Irish accent. The
Vivace (not that fast) sounds like a complex
Irish gig with a dreamy Irish trio. The romantic
and yearning Lento is the most outright serious movement of both quartets, taking a dark
turn about two-thirds of the way through for
what sounds like a pensive recapitulation. The
finale is more romantic, but relieved with
interesting effects and turns, a lilting main
theme, and, after a short pious chorale, a nicely tossed-off ending.
The Piano Quintet in F (1905) won a prize
in a local contest. It appears that only two
movements were played for that competition.
The complete revised work was performed in
1906, but not again until now. It is the
strongest piece here, though it is more showy
and entertaining than deep. It sounds like the
Elgar Piano Quintet, and there is some influence from Franck’s Piano Quintet, but I do not
agree with Dibble that it can stand beside
those and other major piano quintets. Still, it is
a fine work, strictly 19th Century romantic,
with a lot of diatonic melody and nice writing
for the first violin. The Allegro is mildly Russian, though the big chordal piano part comes
closer to Brahms but with harmonies less dark.
The Vivace sounds more Irish, with a strong
touch of Grainger. The viola is the star here,
particularly with its nice arpeggios. The Lento
brings back the Russian flavor, with a touch of
1940s Hollywood and an effluent climax. The
Allegro con Brio contrasts Irish and Russian
sounding themes to produce an upbeat opening, some mystery, a bit of what could be Russian fairy music, and a stirring ending.
The Goldner Quartet and Piers Lane play
well and very musically, but the overall tone
sounds a little bright, and the piano is a bit too
prominent. The recording may be partly to
blame for the brightness, but Harty bears
responsibility for the piano balance. Sometimes it sounds like he was writing a piano
concerto. It would be interesting to hear these
pieces with a darker tone and a better balanced piano, but these performances should
be enjoyed by admirers of light to moderately
serious romantic chamber music.
Dibble’s notes are well written and informative. People interested in Harty might look
forward to his biography of the composer.
HECHT
HASSE: Arias from Didone Abbandonata;
La Gelosia; Artaserse
Valer Berna-Sabadus, ct; Hofkapelle Munich/
Michael Hofstetter—Oehms 830—62 minutes
Hasse’s music is absolutely gorgeous, and
Valer Berna-Sabadus’s singing is astonishing!
Of course his voice is high, but that seems
beside the point when one considers the
extreme subtlety of his voice. There is no
reaching or screeching here, only pure beauty.
The program presents arias and recitatives
from three kinds of works where 18th Century
audiences would have encountered a voice
like this, all by Hasse: his opera Didone Abbandonata of 1742, his cantata La Gelosia of 1762,
and his pastichio Artaserse of 1734. Each of
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them will put you on the edge of your seat.
Arias like ‘Chiama mi Pur Cosi’ from Didone
Abbandonata and ‘Giura il Nocchier che al
Mar’ from La Gelosia give you all the fireworks
your heart could desire. But the slow melodic
arias like ‘Cadra fra Poco in Cenere’ from
Didone Abbandonata are the ones that will
melt your heart. The notes are in English, but
the texts are in Italian and German only.
LOEWEN
HAYDN: Keyboard music (all)
Tom Beghin, hpsi, p
Naxos 501203 [12CD] 18 hours
Someone at McGill University had a wonderful
idea: what if we tried to reconstruct the actual
performing circumstances of the playing of
Haydn keyboard works—instruments and
room ambience—and recorded these reconstructions? It would be a wonderful experiment. Haydn’s works span the scale from
small pieces to be played by a player alone or
perhaps a student for a teacher all the way up
to the big sonatas meant for concerts. His work
spans an important time in the development
of keyboard music. The early works are for
harpsichord, clavichord, or primitive piano;
and the last works were meant for instruments
fairly close to modern pianos. And there’s
enough music to make a series of programs to
show how the music and the players and the
purpose of the music all interact.
McGill, as a major university that takes the
arts seriously, had the resources to put into
this and very smart people to make it happen.
There’s a DVD bonus disc in this set that
shows a lot of what they went through in
investigating room sizes and reverberation and
selecting instruments. I think they may have
worked from empty rooms and not compensated later for the dampening effects of spectators and their clothing, but still it’s a wonderfully clever and laboriously carried out enterprise. If you ever have a chance to see the
video presentation, either on television (fat
chance if you live in the US) or perhaps on
YouTube, try to take advantage of it.
But now we come to the problems, and
they’re big ones.
The first and lesser problem is the instruments. The ones used here are two harpsichords (copies of a 1755 Johann Leydecker and
a c. 1770 French one), a clavichord (Saxon style
c. 1760); a table-piano (a copy of 1788 Ignaz
Kober); and three fortepianos (copies of Anton
Walter from 1782 and after 1791 and Longman,
Clementi & Co, 1798). They are played with old
tunings that will sound strange to modern
ears, and the instruments themselves, except
for the fortepianos, sound strange in this
music. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but
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it is something to be mentioned and understood. The early works actually sound better
on harpsichord and clavichord than they do
on modern pianos because the writing is spare
and the bass-treble balance of the old instruments works with the writing better. Of course,
some of these early works could well have
been played with a bass instrument (gamba or
cello) doubling the bass line and a flute or violin playing the treble, but no need to go there.
The second problem, which is serious, is
who is doing the playing. Mr Beghin, who is a
Belgian-born academic, studied with harpsichordist Malcolm Bilson and pianist Rudolf
Buchbinder, among others, but he plays like,
well... an academic. We’ve been spoiled with
the supple, beautifully rhetorical Haydn performances of players like Schiff and Bavouzet;
and Beghin, who probably knows and deeply
understands rhetoric and its role in 18th Century music, seems not to be able to translate
this knowledge into performance. What we get
instead are odd performances that seem to
lurch hammishly in attempts at expression—
the great F minor Variations are the worst victim of this—or to relax into blandness—Sonata
34 in E minor, so beautifully played by Schiff—
is pretty plain-vanilla musically, despite the
ingenious use of ornamentation. I don’t know
why this is so. Perhaps he had to learn a lot of
music in a short time and didn’t have a chance
to get deeply into it—or maybe he’s just not a
natural performer.
One thing he is is a consistently interesting
and informative writer. His copious notes are a
fine exploration of many of the concerns
involved in trying to perform this music.
If you’re looking for Haydn sonatas to listen to and get to know, this is not the set for
you. Get the Schiff set and then buy the
Bavouzet discs as they come out (he’s up to
three, I believe). There are some good complete sets (Jando on Naxos, McCabe on
Decca—though a little subdued sometimes,
Walid Akl, if you can find him), but Schiff and
Bavouzet are really at the top of what you can
get now.
On the other hand, if you already know
these works or are a scholar or a university
music department librarian, this is worth considering. The oddity of the playing won’t matter that much, since you already know the
music and you can listen past it to the sounds
of the instruments and the “play” between the
instruments and the halls. You may also be
able to hear, as Beghin suggests, how the music
and the instruments shaped each other, since
Haydn was a true professional deeply involved
in the day-to-day matters of how is music was
to be performed and what instrumental
resources he had available to perform it.
CHAKWIN
HAYDN: Quartets, op 64: 3-5
Leipzig Quartet
MDG 307 1723—66:51
Herewith another stunning chapter in the
Leipzig’s survey of the string quartets by the
man who invented the form and brought it to
full maturity. These works represent that
maturity—though certainly not the final greatness of Opuses 76 and 77—and the Leipzig
gives them full-throated, vibrato-laden, glorious readings. There is a discreet sense of order
and respect for the composer’s wishes embellished by a tasteful freedom of expression and a
lovely bloom to the recorded sound. Listening
to the players transform the simple opening of
No. 3 into such joy is to think alchemy is at
work. Their quicksilver attention to the vivace
finale of No. 5, The Lark, confirms the impression.
BENDER
HAYDN: The Seasons
Agnes Giebel, Fritz Wunderlich, Kieth Engen;
Stuttgart Radio/ Hans Muller-Kray
This is the only recorded Seasons that boasts
Fritz Wunderlich among its soloists, and that
alone could stir some interest. Whether frolicking among the lambs in spring, languishing
under the blazing summer sun, falling in love
during the autumn harvest, or becoming lost
in a wintry snowstorm, Wunderlich is a tenor
for all seasons. His story-telling is vivid, and
his tone gleams through each agrarian montage of Haydn’s musical year.
Wunderlich’s excellence is complemented
by Kieth Engen (1925-2004), a NorwegianAmerican bass who was a mainstay at the
Bavarian Opera for several decades. He’s perfect for Haydn; bright, agile, powerful where it
counts, and never tubby. Agnes Giebel isn’t as
affecting as the men, but her attractive voice
also does honor to Haydn’s intentions.
This was the opening concert of Germany’s
Schwetzingen Festival in 1959, the 150th
anniversary of Haydn’s death. Presumably
there was an audience, though I hear no ambient noises at all. For the most part, the sound
is pretty good for a 53-year-old recording. The
level does drop, however, in some choral passages. One of those fade-outs, alas, occurs in
the ‘Dan bricht der grosse Morgen an’ doublechorus that ends the work with such a joyful
flourish. Pity that bleached out sonics had to
dull Haydn’s final exclamation point.
Missing most of all is the flair a great conductor would have brought to the proceedings.
Herr Muller-Kray keeps the trains running on
time and there’s brio to spare, which is all to
the good. But the strings in the recitatives
should shimmer more, and I wish the genius of
Haydn’s counterpoint had been rendered
more imaginatively, especially with regard to
the terracing of dynamics. (Part of the latter
problem is the choir, which is no better than
so-so.) Also, Muller-Kray’s rhythms could have
more snap; especially the spinning wheels of
winter, which don’t work up much torque.
So our Best of the Seasons list remains
what it was. For Big Band Haydn auf Deutsch,
Solti and Bohm. Beecham is still the prime
English language entry. Gardiner, Harnoncourt, and Jacobs are the best from the period
performance side of the tracks. Even if
antiques aren’t your thing, each is blessed with
soloists who are brilliant by anybody’s standard. But if you are looking for Haydn and legendary singers in action, you will be pleased to
hear Fritz Wunderlich work his magic on the
score. You’ll recall that the great tenor died
before he could complete the recording sessions of The Creation he was working on with
Karajan. Here, he was alive, well, and enchanting from Spring through Winter, from first to
last.
GREENFIELD
HAYDN: Symphonies 6, 7, 8
Apollo Ensemble
Bad news right off the bat: the first two measures of Symphony 6 form one lyrical phrase,
but the violins make a complete break
between them. This is followed in all three
symphonies with occasional weak ensemble
and frequent sour tuning. When’s the last time
you’ve encountered tuning to 430 hz (415 is
more usual)? This group has a devil of a time
matching pitches at 430. Also, you’d think that
with only two first violins, two seconds, one
viola, one string bass, two traverse flutes, two
oboes, and two French horns, you’d be able to
hear all the instruments; but all too often notes
in the flutes disappear even when they have
the melody.
This is ugly period instrument playing
from the bad old days of sour sounds and no
vibrato with a vengeance. The notes say that
leader David Rabinovich has worked with
William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, and
Ton Koopman; apparently he didn’t learn
much.
FRENCH
I was cut off from the world. There was no
one to confuse or torment me, and I was
forced to become original.
—Joseph Haydn
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HAYDN: Trios 27-30
Kungsbacka Trio—Naxos 572062—67 minutes
Trios 8,24,25,35,36
Mendelssohn Trio—Centaur 3126—73 minutes
The first group has recorded all the Mozart
trios; and Paul Althouse and I were not disgusted, though I commented that this is very
plain playing, and I longed for a little warmth
and atmosphere (May/June 2009).
The second group is also guilty of very
plain playing, very forthright and without
nuance—almost mechanical. (There are people who think that’s right for classical period
music, but it’s never right for any music.)
Two of the trios on the first disc and one
from the second were recorded by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio (Dorian 90164,
Jan/Feb 2008) and they have all the warmth
and perfume I miss here. Their musicality is
much more traditional; that is, they make the
most of the music and are not inhibited by
rules devised by so-called “scholars” as to the
correct period style. As you would expect,
music played from the heart is a lot better than
music played by the rules. That is so obvious! I
can’t imagine why anyone plays “by the rules”.
Another older group that was certainly not
“romantic” but might be accused of that
nowadays was the Beaux Arts Trio. Their
Haydn trios are far better than either of these.
VROON
HAYDN: Violin Sonatas
Monika Tschurl; Michael Dartsch, p
Telos 71—63 minutes
Unlike Mozart and Beethoven, Haydn is not
noted for his violin sonatas. One reason for
this is he really didn’t write any. Of the four
sonatas and one divertimento recorded here,
all but the Sonata in G and the Divertimento
are versions of other works. The Sonatas in D,
E-flat, and A are three of the six so-called
“Esterhazy Sonatas” for piano, to which Haydn
added the violin part mainly to reinforce and
add tonal color to the piano’s melodic line. In
1803 Haydn identified the Divertimento as “for
piano and violin”, but because of the traditional bass-doubling cello part, it also appears as a
piano trio in the Hoboken catalog, as does the
Sonata in G. Moreover, in these works—for
piano and violin, not vice versa—the keyboard
is dominant. This is not to say that the violin is
merely an ad libitum presence. Haydn does
much here that anticipates the equality of the
instruments realized in Mozart’s later sonatas
as well as Beethoven’s. Often Haydn allows the
violin to carry the melody on its own; sometimes it echoes a phrase in the piano, embellishes it or inverts it; often it will double an
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inner voice rather than the melodic line.
Though not “true” violin sonatas, there is
much to enjoy here in Haydn’s imaginative
turns of phrase and exploration of what the
violin can add in tone color. These works offer
delightful surprises—the sudden appearance
of a diminished chord, as if introducing a
cadenza, in the coda of the G-major Sonata’s
Minuet; the repetition of the Minuet note by
note in reverse after the trio in the A-major
Sonata.
Dartsch and Tschurl deliver convincingly
clear and witty readings of these works. They
are particularly adept at revealing the variety
of Haydn’s inventiveness through careful
attention to tone and dynamic contrasts. The
recording overall is of excellent sound quality
except for a perceptible drop in volume
between the first two sonatas. The notes are
well researched and of interest if you are curious about the vagaries of cataloguing Haydn’s
work.
JD MOORE
HAYDN: Quartet, op 64:6; see Collections
HENSEL: Songs without Words; see
MENDELSSOHN
HERBERT: Songs
Margaret Jane Wray, Marnie Breckenridge, Rosalie Sullivan, Korliss Uecker, Jeanne Lehman,
Rebecca Luker, Sara Jean Ford; Jonathan Michie,
Valerian Ruminski, Dillon McCartney, George
Dvorsky, Zachary Staines, Steven La Brie, Daniel
Marcus, Ron Raines; William Hicks, p
New World 80726 [4CD] 3 hours
This is a very strange album. It collects a great
many of Victor Herbert’s published songs, with
only a few from his better-known operettas. It
begins with German lieder, a whole disc’s
worth, which are not especially memorable,
though they smack of other more famous composers sometimes. These were written quite
early in Herbert’s career, when he was a student in Germany.
He was a passionate lover of Ireland, his
home country, and there are dozens of Irish
songs, some with distinguished authors
(Robert Burns), though most of them are negligible, and they seem exactly the same, every
one of them. Crowing about Tara’s Halls, the
harps, and such blarney. None of these hold a
candle to the Irish songs he composed for
Eileen, his patriotic operetta, which is filled to
the brim with glorious tunes.
There are selections from his first operettas—not terribly distinguished—like Prince
Ananias and Peg Woofington, which are forgotten today. The problem with the accompaniments is that they are piano only, so we don’t
hear his very fine orchestrations. There are two
songs dropped from Babes in Toyland, which
is probably his best-known work. I happened
to work with the producer of this album, Larry
Moore, on a new version of Babes in Toyland
for the Houston Grand Opera, where we incorporated many cut numbers.
There are lyrics by James Russell Lowell,
Thomas Moore, and others, but the songs
themselves are barely memorable. One problem is the rather thick verses to the songs,
which was the style of the day. The refrains for
many of the numbers are moody romantic garblings on the girl of one’s dreams and such.
I did like almost every number sung by Ron
Raines and Rebecca Luker, who sings a condensation of ‘Kiss Me Again’. The more vigorous songs, like ‘In the Folds of the Starry Flag’
and ‘Uncle Sam’, caught my attention. Some
very sentimental numbers, like ‘When Knighthood Was in Flower’ (composed for a Marion
Davies film) and ‘That Old Fashioned Garden’,
composed for various revues in the late teens
and 20s, are also somewhat striking. But many
of the tunes are not that good and seem to
have been tossed out to fill certain revues, like
The Ziegfeld Follies of 1923.
At the end is a series of unpublished songs,
which perhaps ought to have remained
unpublished. If you like achingly sentimental
songs, with complicated verses (as in some of
the operettas), you will probably like this very
complete set of Herbert’s songs. But bear in
mind that his operettas contain the great numbers.
TRAUBNER
HERZOGENBERG: Secular Choral Pieces II
Cantissimo/ Markus Utz
Carus 83452—56 minutes
This is Volume 2 of Herzogenberg’s a cappella
output. It only duplicates about 10 minutes of
the recent CPO album of that genre (May/June
2012). A significant difference is that here, Herzogenberg sets mostly older texts, many dating
from the 15th to the 17th Century. His settings
often consciously revert to the practices of
those times, both contrapuntally and in part
distributions. As usual with this fine musician,
the writing is clean in texture and direct in
expression. Generally, the music is lyrical and
attractive, its beauties enhanced by these elegant performances and spirited directing.
To note some high points, ‘The Night
Song’ has fascinating and unusual harmonies,
but they result directly from the voice-leading.
For ‘The Three Kings’, Herzogenberg revives
not only Bachian, but late Renaissance techniques. ‘The Highest Joy’, a 16th Century
poem, takes us musically into the realm of, say,
Philipp Nicolai, and it’s a great place to visit. In
‘The Convert’ (Goethe), whose verses mention
Damon’s flute, it was apparently a pan-flute,
given its self-harmonization.
‘Christmas Song’ from Op. 28 was, for me,
the peak of the album. Herzogenberg takes the
familiar ‘In Dulce Jubilo’ and uses it both as a
theme in itself and as a cantus firmus under
and among the other parts. His inspired handling creates a masterpiece of less than four
minutes. An enterprising choir director should
take up this little jewel in lieu of the hackneyed
fare typically cluttering up the Christmas season. It’s difficult, but unless you have the
absolute fetish for a cappella sound that some
choir directors do (I was never one of them),
there’s no reason you couldn’t add accompaniment. The texts and notes are in German
and English.
O’CONNOR
HILLER: Piano Sonatas 2+3; Ghazals, op
54: 1+2; Piano Pieces, opp 81+130
Alexandra Oehler—CPO 777584—53 minutes
Oehler has recorded for CPO before, serving
up a volume of Fritz von Bose that Alan Becker
found delightfully eye-opening (May/June
2012). Here she turns to another mostly forgotten composer, Ferdinand Hiller, who despite a
rich career as a performer and conductor is
better remembered as a writer, public lecturer,
and music school director.
No doubt influenced by his biography and
printed comments about him, I have always
tended to regard Hiller’s music as “academic”
in the worst sense of the word. I am glad to
report my prejudice has been punctured by
some of the works here, which contain some
genuine surprises.
A noteworthy one appears in I of the Second Sonata. This is a light-hearted work in
triple time that, after its first two balanced
phrases, launches into a free exploration of its
materials. Everything is breathlessly connected
in the manner of a Wagnerian endless melody.
Another fine work is the ‘Idyll’ that appears in
Op. 130. It is simply built of floating chords
over a pedal, but manifests a steady restless
spirit. Among other innovations, Hiller claims
to have been the first to transfer the ghazal, an
Arab poetic form, to music. That may be so.
Practically speaking, though, his ghazals just
sound like songs without words, simple isolated melodies placed over rolling, repetitive lefthand figures. The two from Op. 54 are sweet
and yearning, if a little repetitive and monochromatic; the one from Op. 130 is blocky and
stiff.
I enjoyed Oehler’s playing, though certainly not as much as Mr Becker. Her style is genial
and she has a broad expressive palette, with
good control over volume and tempo. There
are a number of places where she falls short of
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realizing the music’s beauty, though. In the
Second Sonata, the impassioned intermezzo of
II is bland (the staccatos have no teeth) and III
sounds tired (the rippling textures are all soft
edges and you can hear where she lifts her
hands in the virtuosic passages). Everything
else is well done, though, leading to the assessment that this is all quite decent music played
quite decently.
AUERBACH
HOCHREITHER: Mass
Requiem; Jubilus Sacer
Ars Antiqua Austria; St Florian Boychoir/ Gunar
Letzbar—Pan 10264—59 minutes
Joseph Balthasar Hochreither (1669-1731) was
trained in Salzburg probably under the tutelage of two of the luminaries of the era: Heinrich Ignaz von Biber and Georg Muffat. Alas,
Hochreither lacks much of their genius. The
Requiem is an early work, dating from around
1712, while the Jubilus Sacer Mass comes from
the year of his death. Gunar Letzbar writes in
his notes “This is ‘Catholic Baroque music’ to
the finest degree!” No doubt, Hochreither is a
capable composer. His use of harmony is
rather simple and a bit predictable, but his
music sounds pleasant and has plenty of color
with its combination of vocal soloists and
impressive corps of brass players and timpani.
In any case, Ars Antiqua Austria and the boychoir sound wonderful. Notes are in English,
but the Latin texts have German translations
only.
LOEWEN
HOFFDING: Symphony
3; Evolution; It’s
Perfectly True
Jena Philharmonic/ Frank Cramer
DaCapo 8226080—60 minutes
Annotator Per Norgard describes Finn Hoffding (1899-1997) as the link between Nielsen
and the three great Danish symphonists of the
generation following him—Bentzon, Holmboe, and Koppel (see our cumulative index for
all three). That may well be, but the superblyperformed-and-recorded orchestral works
here, though they show affinities with both
Nielsen and the later Danish “Big Three”, are
just as close to many other between-the-wars,
modern-but-romantic symphonists from
many countries. One hears echoes of Shostakovich, of Americans like David Diamond or
Walter Piston, of Englishmen like Richard
Arnell or Stanley Bate or Bernard Stevens, of
Dutchmen like Henk Badings, of Germans like
Harald Genzmer, of Norwegians like Klaus
Egge, of Slavs like Graznya Bacewicz. One
could adduce dozens more—but none Gallic
or Mediterranean. Hoffding is sturdy and solid,
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never frothy or hedonic—even when he’s joking.
By far the most ambitious and substantial
work here is the 1928 Third Symphony. It’s in
four movements lasting 36 minutes, and with
an extensive part (orchestral—not soloistic) for
two pianos that color the music with their own
sonorities both in big chordal announcements
and in single-line articulative edges they add
to other instruments. Like so many other symphonies from the war-torn first half of the last
century, the symphony has a somewhat dark,
martial character, with pounding marches,
minatory battle-cries, and roiling percussion,
as well as an elegiac slow movement brooded
over by long-lined laments in the winds from
which funereal marches erupt and then subside. But I wouldn’t call it a “war symphony”
exactly; the turmoil is more sublimated, more
controlled and “objective”, or perhaps just
more stoic, than such a designation suggests.
At any rate the symphony is shapely, potent,
dramatic, and powerful without eccentricity or
bombast—well worth seeking out for listeners
drawn to modern-but-mainstream symphonic
music.
Two shorter works fill out the program.
Evolution, from 1939, is a 15-minute “symphonic fantasy” (as the composer describes it)
that’s sometimes wispy, sometimes vehement,
and as a whole rather enigmatic. It’s Perfectly
True, from 1943, is another fantasy, this one
programmatic rather than abstract, as well as
shorter and more playful. It’s based on the
Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about a hen
who makes an ill-considered comment about a
missing feather (musically depicted as a brief
“clucking” motive in the winds) that’s inflated
out of all proportion as it’s passed around a
circle of gossips—somewhat like the treatment
afforded the musical theme itself. Indeed both
“fantasies” could as easily be described as variation cycles. Though both are cleverly made,
these minor works don’t present the fuller picture of Hoffding’s gifts offered by his more
memorable and imposing Third Symphony.
LEHMAN
HOLST: The Planets
Buzz Brass Ensemble; Melanie Barney, org
Fidelio 28 [2LP] 55 minutes
Will classical labels—after a quarter-century
hiatus—actually begin issuing new releases on
vinyl in any quantity? Hard to say. For now it’s
just a trickle, presumably aimed at a niche
market for audiophile analog devotees or nostalgic retro-cool. Any prediction is complicated by the recent proliferation of small, ensemble or artist-owned labels that issue only a
handful of recordings, often of only a very few,
or even just one, performer (or even just one
composer). These may not follow any patterns
set by the larger labels.
At any rate the re-appearance of new classical recordings on vinyl has been keeping
things interesting for us black-licorice spinners. As I pointed out in my review of the
superb new LP of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade on
2L last issue, the most ambitious new releases
of classical vinyl have been the complete symphonic cycles of Mahler (from the San Francisco Symphony) and Beethoven (from the Bremen Chamber Symphony). Those are productions of the individual orchestras and probably
one-off issues. But at least a few established
classical labels seem ready to test the possibility of getting back into LPs. Deutsche Grammophon has just released a vinyl-only recording of Mendelssohn’s Third Symphony with
Gustavo Dudamel and the Vienna Philharmonic—an excellent-sounding in-concert
recording, by the way—and Fidelio, an audiophile-oriented label from Canada, has now
chosen to show off its analog credentials by
reissuing its recent recording of Enrico Dastous’s arrangement for brass quintet and
organ of The Planets (Mar/Apr 2012) on a set of
two 45-rpm discs (the faster turntable speed
improves sonic fidelity). The recording was
made using all-analog, all-tube microphones
and electronics, and it sounds tremendous on
a good stereo. Of course Holst’s warhorse is a
sonic showpiece to begin with, and the organand-brass version, with its thunderous bass
and brilliant brass fusillades, is perfectly suited
to test state-of-the-art systems.
As Barry Kilpatrick points out in his review
of the CD, Dastous’s brass-and-organ version
feels closer to the original in the more imposing and majestic brass-heavy parts of the work,
and imparts a somewhat different character—
less agile and transparent but more liquid—to
its more elfin or diaphanous sections where
strings and woodwind predominate in Holst’s
scoring. So some parts of the transcription
work better than others, but on the whole it’s
effective. The organ in particular creates quite
a persuasive sense of ghostly menace and,
finally, rapt mysticism in the outer planets,
and the muted brasses (taking the part of the
wordless women’s chorus in ‘Neptune’) bring
the work to a fitting otherworldly conclusion.
Whether this novelty arrangement on a
novelty format is worth investigating depends
on what you’re looking for in a new recording.
$30 isn’t inexpensive, but this certainly delivers on its promise of vivid, detailed, widedynamic-range, spacious sonics, with stunning clarity and positively tectonic low bass. If
that sounds like your cup of tea, and you have
the sound system to implement it, you might
want to try this new black-disc rendering of
Holst’s spectacular interplanetary tour.
LEHMAN
HUXLEY: Choral & Organ Pieces
Timothy Harper & Marcus Huxley, org; Birmingham Cathedral Choir/ Marcus Huxley
Regent 361—68 minutes
I never cease to be amazed at the endless
depth, variety, and quality of the English
sacred choral scene and its profusion of excellent composers. Fresh and worthy voices
among them keep popping up at such a dizzying rate that hapless reviewers like me are
hard-pressed to keep track of them all. One
such distinctive voice is organist and composer Marcus Huxley, who is honored here with
the first-ever CD devoted entirely to his music.
Distinctly Anglican in style and purpose, Huxley’s music is of course best suited to that liturgy, though much of it would not sound out of
place in other churches with tradition-minded
music programs. It ranges from fairly simple,
yet tremendously appealing pieces that can
involve congregational participation to music
of comparative complexity and sophistication.
The mostly organ-supported selections
here include several stand-alone shorter
pieces, an excellent Christmas setting and two
touching traditional carol arrangements
among them. We also get two excellent Psalmsettings: Psalm 150 is a rousing anthem, while
‘A Psalm of Thanksgiving’ (from Psalm 126)
elaborates flowingly on the style of traditional
modified Anglican chant.
We also get very unusual single settings of
the classic Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis texts,
though they were composed separately and
are very different in style and scoring. The fascinating Magnificat, for men’s voices, follows
the so-called “falso bordone” practice, dating
from 16th Century Italy and Spain, described
in the booklet as “harmonizing the Gregorian
Psalm tone for alternate verses of a psalm or
canticle”. The Nunc Dimittis is a very sweet
setting for treble voices.
Of greatest interest (and enjoyment) to me
were three longer works that can serve as centerpieces for special services. The first, Common Worship Evening Prayer, is a winning
assortment of pieces in Anglican style that
consists of two responsories; one hymn, one
Psalm, three canticles (including another Magnificat setting), and a setting of the Lord’s
Prayer. Most of these lovely, but fairly simple
pieces can also be sung by congregations;
together, they make for a haunting and memorable evening prayer service that will be of
tremendous appeal to any tradition-minded
congregation. There’s also the fairly short, but
very effective Mass of St Henry & St Philip, con-
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sisting of only three sections: the Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, all set in English.
I was most profoundly struck by The Passion of Our Lord According to Luke, a compact
(barely 20 minutes) but fairly complete rendition of the passion story that any church with a
competent choir could build a memorable
Palm Sunday or Good Friday service around.
It’s got just about everything that a classic Passion oratorio does (save for extended arias),
but in microcosm. We hear an Evangelist as
primary narrator, responses, chorales, and
brief character role portrayals (Jesus, Pilate,
etc.) sung by either soloists or sub-ensembles.
While it’s modeled on the ancient tradition of
making a drama out of the Passion story, I’ve
never heard anything quite like it. It moved me
deeply; I’ll definitely be bending my own
choirmaster’s ear about this one.
While the organ accompaniments to the
choral selections are no doubt played by Mr
Harper, the three appealing selections for solo
organ are probably done by the composer,
who first made a name for himself as an organ
virtuoso.
The polished and confident choir is certainly one of the finest among England’s excellent cathedral choirs. Thanks to director Huxley, it’s one of several that, in recent years,
have nurtured ensembles of well-trained girl
choristers that can stand to-to-toe with the
usual complement of boys; they now take
turns performing with their men’s ensemble in
the church’s many regular services. Here they
are heard about as often as the boys, or
(apparently) in mixed groupings. Frankly, I can
hardly tell the difference between them.
Regent honors them with glowing sound and
succinct, but helpful booklet notes, as well as
complete texts.
Choirmasters, take heed. Huxley is a composer who has never forgotten that sacred
music must, first and foremost, serve the primary purpose of enhancing worship rather
than showing off one’s compositional chops or
brilliant choir. All of this is music that you can
use—material that will convey sacred sentiment and nostalgia (an important worship
component) to your congregations, leaving
them spiritually inspired and satisfied. Some
of it will give your choirs a decent workout, but
all of it will rest easy on parishioners’ ears
while stimulating their souls. I urge you to give
this man’s music a try.
KOOB
ISAAC: Paschal Mass
Ensemble Officium/ Wilfried Rombach
Christophorus 77356—71 minutes
This is a reissue of a recording that was welcomed by Mr Barker, as there is too little of
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Heinrich Isaac’s music available on recordings
(Nov/Dec 2004). I agree fully with his evaluation that “If you like your Renaissance
polyphony done with broad sonority rather
than with slashing detail” this is recommended.
Mr Barker thought that too many of the
chant intonations were performed by the treble voices (in this case, women). In most of the
Middle Ages and Renaissance, and even into
the baroque, chant was actually more likely to
have been sung by the choirboys trained in the
church, monastery, and cathedral schools than
by the adult clerics, so that the women may be
a suitable substitute for a sonority that Isaac
would have expected. A number of recordings
by the Schola Hungarica have either women or
children singing chant, a wonderful contrast to
all those monks.
BREWER
J
ADASSOHN: Serenades 1+2
BRULL: Serenade 2
Malta Philharmonic/ Marius Stravinsky
Cameo 9031—68 minutes
Symphony 1;
PABST: Piano Concerto
Panagiotis Trochopoulos, Belorussian Symphony/ Marius Stravinsky
Piano Concerto 1
Valentina Seferinova, Karelia Symphony/ Denis
Vlasenko
Serenade;
BRULL: Violin Concerto; Macbeth Overture
Ilya Hoffman, v; Rebecca Hall, fl; Malta Philharmonic/ Michael Laus
In July/August 2009 we covered what would
become the first two volumes in Cameo’s
series “Music of German Jewish Composers”,
including works of Ignaz Brüll and Salomon
Jadassohn. Before that I compared Cameo’s
disc of the Pabst Piano Concerto to Oleg Marshev on Danacord (Sept/Oct 2008). Now
Cameo has thoroughly revamped their product, issuing three new releases that combine
new performances with old, though 9027 coupling Brüll’s Symphony 1 and Serenade 1
remains in the catalog. In revisiting these performances and making the acquaintance of
much wonderful new music, I feel privileged to
recommend all three discs (or four counting
9027) to lovers of romantic music everywhere.
Where should I begin? Some biographical
material, surely. Ignaz Brüll you may already
know from his piano concertos on Hyperion
(July/Aug 1999); he was a favored member of
Brahms’s inner circle. Indeed, Brahms thought
so highly of his keyboard skills that he routine-
ly asked Brüll to join him in presenting his new
works to friends and critics in arrangements
for piano four-hands. Yet save for his opera
Das Goldene Kreuz (The Golden Cross) his
works were generally either thought inferior to
the Master or else ignored altogether.
It seems unconscionable that his Violin
Concerto should have fallen into disrepair, so
much so that conductor Michael Laus had to
pore over three different copies of the score to
come up with this recording; and he went
through it with great care together with the
Russian violinist Ilya Hoffman, who contributed the slow movement to Cameo 9026
(now discontinued)—it was all they had to
work with. No one will be surprised to hear
that the opening movement sounds like the
Brahms written four years earlier; but this
music lies well for the soloist and it would be
nice if other violinists would take it up, along
with Joachim’s concertos. The glorious slow
movement is harder to pin down, but with all
the embellishments by the woodwinds my best
guess would be Dvorak. And the dance-like
finale bears no resemblance whatever to
Brahms’s Gypsy double-stopping; I hear
Mendelssohn. though, and a supporting
chorale that might be an Orthodox chant of
the type Rimsky-Korsakoff employed in his
Russian Easter Overture. Soloist Hoffman
sounds like he’s in an echo chamber and displays a trace of insecurity when he ventures
into the stratosphere; but that’s just reviewer
nitpicking and it’s a pleasure to welcome this
fine concerto to the literature.
The string of musical cognates continues
unabated in the Second Serenade of Brüll. I felt
like radio’s Tune Detective as one old friend
after another paraded by. Right off the bat the
horns sounded like Weber (don’t they always?)
or possibly the opening bars of Coppelia. The
serene melody that follows reminded me of
Goldmark’s Im Frühling, and one motif (0:43f)
has an “Eastern” tang to it that made me think
of Weber’s Turandot. While the good-natured
Marcia clearly has no hint of the battlefield,
once things heat up the similarity to Raff’s
Lenore is unmistakable. In fact, the spirit of
Raff hovers over the entire piece. What then
might we think of the finale, which begins with
a jaunty tune rhythmically close cousin to the
Rakoczy March before the flutes echo the mirlitons from The Nutcracker and right before the
end (5:10) you could just as easily think of
Schubert’s Ninth. In the Macbeth Overture, we
hear the Thane’s struggle for power as well as
the triumphant march that hails his downfall.
Once we get into it the rhythms suggest Grieg’s
In Autumn, most of all near the close (7:40)
where the roiling strings just as clearly point to
Mendelssohn’s Erste Walpurgisnacht. I still
prefer the earlier performance by Denis
Vlasenko (9026) who works it up more than
Laus; but especially if you remember the Genesis LP with Zsolt Deaky, Laus is clearly on the
same page. (Here’s another piece I wish conductors would program.) Incidentally, conductor Marius Stravinsky is the grand-nephew of
you-know-who.
Sad to say, Salomon Jadassohn failed to
achieve even the glimmer of fame accorded
Brüll. It has been suggested that his music
would have been completely forgotten if the
Nazis hadn’t called attention to it by banning
it from the concert hall (something that never
stopped Mendelssohn). We covered both of his
piano concertos with Markus Becker (Hyperion) in the same review as the Cameos; on 9033
Valentina Seferinova plays with great confidence, but you really need both. The Symphony in C—the first of four—lurches forward like
Schumann’s symphony in the same key (2),
but much of what follows seems closer to Sullivan—likewise the sweetly sentimental Largo.
In turn the Mendelssohnian trio of the Scherzo
as well as the bustling finale seem pretty much
busywork, yet engaging busywork for all that.
If the title of the Serenade in 4 Canons suggests Brahms, that’s deceptive—and this is no
sterile pedagogic exercise. Jadassohn was far
overshadowed in his time by Reinecke, and
that master certainly comes to mind in the first
movement, most of all the playful sub-theme
that might have come from the Children’s
Symphony (Sept/Oct 2002). The Minuet trips
along winningly, yet the serene Adagietto is
over almost before it begins. Like Brüll’s Serenade the flutes in the Intermezzo seem to have
stepped from the pages of the The Nutcracker.
The finale, opening with a Handelian “shake”,
gives us a back-and-forth rhythm redolent of
Bizet’s Patrie, and we may even hear the
valiant warrior returning from the battlefield
in Weber’s Konzertstück at 6:11. In the Second
Serenade the opening Intrada that might be
Lully leads into an impassioned Notturno that
clearly conjures Raff. The Minuet just as obviously summons the Second Symphony of
Schubert, while the flutes disport in the
patented Mendelssohn manner. The main
theme of the finale might be a cocky variant of
Schubert’s Unfinished, with a gracious flowing
melody as foil.
Rebecca Hall’s silvery tones make the Serenade for flute and strings very special, even
though she seems cooped up in the same echo
chamber as Ilya Hoffman. In the opening
movement she flits above and around the
striding orchestra like Tinker Bell jesting with
Peter Pan. The long-breathed Notturno follows
without a break, and there’s some whimsical
banter between flute and strings before the
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music sighs itself to sleep. The Minuet could
reflect Bruckner’s tentative efforts before finally setting down the F-minor Studiensymphonie
(often numbered 00), offering as trio first a
sturdy fugato and then a winsome waltz.
Jadassohn labels the finale a tarantella; of
course it turns out to be really a saltarello, as
usually happens; and it can’t be any coincidence that Mendelssohn in the finale of his
Italian Symphony (which makes use of both
saltarello and tarantella rhythms) entrusted
much of that heady romp to the flutes. (David
Kent-Watson, head honcho of Cameo Classics,
sent me a photo of his cat intently following a
video of Ms Hall playing the Serenade.)
The Pabst Piano Concerto was discussed in
some detail in my earlier review. No less than
Anton Rubinstein hand-picked the Prussianborn Pavel Pabst to teach at the Moscow Conservatory; the young Rachmaninoff performed
with him on numerous occasions, and
Tchaikovsky called him “a pianist blessed by
God”. Big-boned and imposing in the manner
of both Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, the
concerto also affords the resourceful pianist
ample opportunities for embellishment much
like Liszt; but its emotional core is the central
Andante cantabile. That reminds us the young
Pabst helped his mentor Tchaikovsky complete his own B-flat minor Concerto. We may
also hear Tchaikovsky in the spirited finale,
which might be a folk dance of the type all
Russians no doubt absorb while still in the
womb. The Greek pianist Panagiotis Trochopoulos, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, has all the right impulses and displays
clear affection for the music; but he doesn’t
tear up the keyboard in the finale like Marshev—but you’re going to want the Jadassohn
pieces anyway.
All three recordings are warm and resonant, and the performances could scarcely be
bettered. Moreover the engineers have
brought out the repartee between high and
low strings remarkably well, further enhancing
enjoyment (but then both my front and back
pairs of speakers are set 15 feet apart). These
new releases have exponentially increased my
appreciation of Jadassohn and Brüll; now if
only Cameo could come up with Jadassohn’s
other three symphonies I’d really be a happy
camper!
HALLER
JANACEK: Sonata
1.X.1905; On An Over
grown Path;
RAVEL: Valses Nobles et Sentimentales;
PROKOFIEFF: Piano Sonata 2
Ivana Gavric—Champs Hill 26—79 minutes
This is Gavric’s second CD to come out of her
self-described year studying and performing
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the solo piano works of Janacek. It takes its
title from the subtitle of the Sonata, From the
Street>. Her first disc, In the Mists (Champs Hill
9, Mar/Apr 2011), was highly praised by Alan
Becker. Although one disc would have held the
three major Janacek works, she has chosen to
present these lesser-known works alongside
Schubert, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff in the first
disc, and here, Ravel and Prokofieff. This is the
kind of programming I thoroughly enjoy: just
the right mixture of works I know and listen to
regularly, along with something less known,
and finally an unknown composition. It gives
me the opportunity to compare the pianist’s
technical and interpretive skills with other
great pianists, and allows me to get better
acquainted with something I know only casually and to explore a brand new piece. The
Ravel and Prokofieff are favorites dating back
to my undergraduate years in the early 1970s.
Only recently have I come across some recordings of the Janacek Sonata, and I have never
come across the collection of his pieces titled
On An Overgrown Path.
Gavric is a complete pianist: technically
proficient, very musical, intelligent and exciting. Her Ravel never loses sight of the fact that
they are waltzes. Even in the Epilogue, where
all of the prior waltzes are recalled through a
bit of a rhythmic haze, Gavric keeps that triple
beat going. The Prokofieff ranks with the best,
especially the Scherzo, and would be reason
enough to get this release. But her Janacek will
be the main reason many get this recording.
Her ability to handle to complex rhythms and
textures in the sonata are quite good. I listened
several times before using the score and then
was astounded following along. There is no
feeling of any difficulty in Gavric’s performance, just a secure musical interpretation.
She has all the power for the big climaxes, but
it is her finesse and ability to spin a beautiful
musical line that makes her a pianist to watch.
HARRINGTON
JOPLIN: Treemonisha
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra & Singers/ Rick Benjamin—New World 80720
The new recording of Treemonisha is presumably closer to the original than the recording
way back in the 1970s. But that one, for all its
glitzy sound (orchestrated by Gunther Schiller)
I prefer to the new one, which has orchestrations by Rick Benjamin, its conductor.
I have never seen a CD with as many notes
as this one, giving a complete account of the
career of Scott Joplin, with many pictures. And
there is also, fortunately, a libretto. Whether
we need a complete dossier about Joplin is
questionable, though it mentions other operas
and other works.
If you are a passionate admirer of ragtime,
you will like this new recording. The recitative
sections are for the most part quite bland, but
the ragtime ditties are reminiscent of the
Joplin musical tracks for the film, The Sting.
Things start ebulliently with ‘The Corn
Huskers’, and continue with ‘Aunt Dinah has
blowed de horn’, and the final ‘Slow Drag’,
which is very catchy.
There are also impressive sections depicting a church service, and a scene where
Treemonisha is lost, The third act is full of lectures, to deal with the criminals who stole
Treemonisha.
The vocal writing is impressive; and the
soloists are very good, particularly Anita Johnson as Treemonisha. At the end of the recording is a historical resume of the story, but I
really can’t tell you too much about the plot. It
was never terribly well spelled out in the 1970s
version, either.
TRAUBNER
JUON: Viola Sonata; see Collections
KAGEL: Flute Pieces
Michael Faust; Paulo Alvares, p; Ensemble Contrasts/ Robert HP Platz; Sinfonia Finlandia
Jyvaskyla/ Patrick Gallois
Mauricio Kagel (1931-2008) is surely among
the most famous Argentine musicians after
Piazzolla. Unlike Piazzolla, who studied under
Nadia Boulanger, Kagel was famously selftaught. Here Michael Faust, the dedicatee of
Das Konzert for flute and orchestra (2001-2),
plays that work and two others. Pan for piccolo
and string quartet (1985) is a nearly fiveminute work that continuously varies its opening idea. Much of it is quiet. Then there are
two versions of the Phantasiestuck (1987-8):
one for flute and piano and the other for flute,
piano, and ensemble. This is a large continuous piece with a variety of episodes and textures. Das Konzert runs 25 minutes and is not
nearly as avant-garde as I expected. The sound
of the orchestra is rather flattened, and only
the harp and percussion stand out, but often
the strings are only soft background. Faust certainly knows this music as well as anyone and
carries out the extended playing techniques
well.
GORMAN
KAMINSKI: String Orchestra Pieces
Neuss German Chamber Academy/ Lavard SkouLarsen—CPO 777 578—54 minutes
The German composer Heinrich Kaminski
(1886-1946) was the son of a former priest
whose father was Jewish. Thus, Kaminski’s
music was banned under Hitler. This piece is
actually an arrangement for string orchestra of
the composer’s F-sharp minor Quintet by his
student, Rudolf Schwarz-Schilling. I has constantly shifting chord progressions, with faster
interjections. Kaminski buries the ‘Dies Irae’ in
some phrases. I don’t know the quintet version, but can’t help thinking this string orchestra arrangement is better. Many pages that
would sound strained and hysterical with a
quintet here sound impressive, majestic even,
played by a larger string body. (I guess that’s
why I also much prefer the orchestral version
of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony 1.)
II has a ghostly beginning, developing into
a slow movement worthy of Beethoven in its
conveyance of a composer totally at one with
his thoughts. III begins with graceful, but irregular rhythms moving into a more serious emotional section incorporating ascending wholetone passages. A quieter segment reflects on
what has gone on up to now, to the point of
seeming like an unresolved enigma. The music
begins anew with denser harmonies and a
passing salute to the scherzo of the Beethoven
9th. The pace slows down for an ethereal ending. In IV, a monumental and powerfully
fleshed out melody dominates. After a reminiscence of III, the work proceeds to an impressive ending.
I can best describe the general musical language of this superb work by saying if Ernest
Bloch wrote a third concerto grosso, summarizing all his work in that genre, it would sound
like this. The string writing has that much vigor
and bite. For all its substantial length, there’s
not a bar of padding, but rather an abundance
of inspiration. It makes me wish Kaminski’s
symphonic output were larger.
The playing of the Neuss orchestra is outstanding in a difficult work, and Skou-Larsen’s
conducting is a match. For instance, I concludes with many tempo changes that could
easily drift into chaos, but Larsen has them
completely under control. Ditto his firm guiding hand in the playful rhythms of III. Eckhardt
van den Hoogen’s notes, though his style still
inhabits the bizarre world, have genuinely
valuable information about the composer, for
once worth the excavation effort.
O’CONNOR
KERNIS: Quartet 1;
SCHUBERT: Quartet 14
Jasper Qt
Sono Luminus 92152—73 minutes
We now have three recordings of this terrific
Kernis Quartet, all of them well played but
with different couplings. The competition for
this one is the two recordings by two different
incarnations of the Lark Quartet (S/O 1999 &
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J/F 2007). My comments on the Jasper’s disc
containing Kernis’s Second Quartet hold for
this one as well: the Jaspers are generally less
pointed than the Lark and somewhat less technically accomplished. If I had to make a choice
for this piece I would go with either of the
Larks, but couplings may be decisive for some
listeners, and those discs are deleted.
Lark I was coupled with Kernis’s Pulitzer
Prize-winning Second Quartet, which was
written for that group; Lark II has a re-release
of the Argo Symphony in Waves; the Jasper
Second Quartet is paired with Beethoven’s
Second Razoumovsky. The present release’s
coupling is a very intense reading of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden and makes the
point of comparing the formal archetypes of
the two quartets—but the comparisons are
fairly strained. Both works’ slow movements
are in the “Heavenly Length” mode, but the
Schubert is a theme and variations based on a
song about death and demonic possession,
whereas Kernis’s is a clear but extended ABA
form subtitled Musica Celestis and has more
ethereal subject matter. Both quartets open
with inventive sonata forms, have dances with
trios as third movements, and close with rapid
virtuosic dances, with Schubert’s outdoing all
comers. Both update their classical models
with brilliance. A case could be made that the
central slow movements are so different in
topic that their central position casts a very
different light on the overall expressive content of both works. This unlikely pairing could
be seen to be misleading, but listeners can certainly make their own decisions on the topic,
and everyone loves to discuss the issue of
Form and Content, so this offers as good a
stimulus as any.
The Jasper is a talented and ambitious
young group who I think we’ll be hearing
much of in the future. Sound is excellent.
GIMBEL
KLUGHARDT: Lenore; see GERNSHEIM
K
NUSSEN: Symphonies 2-3; Trumpets;
Ophelia Dances; Coursing; Cantata
Elaine Barry, Linda Hirst, s; Nash Ensemble; Philharmonia Orchestra/ Michael Tilson Thomas;
London Sinfonietta/ Oliver Knussen
NMC 175—68 minutes
Six works by conductor-composer Oliver
Knussen (b. 1952), written at the beginning of
his career in the 1970s.
The major pieces are two symphonies.
Symphony 2 (1970-71), for soprano and chamber orchestra, was written when the composer
was just 18 and shows its depressive youthfulness. The work is a set of four poems by Georg
Trakl and Sylvia Plath, dealing with dreams,
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scurrying rats (the scherzo), female death
(Plath, of course), and a portrait of Trakl’s living sister (with an inserted closing echo by
Plath). The work closes the program.
Symphony 3 (1973-79) is a 15-minute piece
in two parts. The first section is composed of
five characteristically amorphous but busy textures differentiated by orchestration, while the
second amounts to a theme and variations
with a slow series of complex chords as repeated background (the composer refers to the
conception as “passacaglia-like”.) Eventually
the chord series is revealed unambiguously as
the coda. The effect is colorful but dense.
The remaining works begin with Trumpets
(1975), a setting of another Trakl poem for
soprano and three clarinets, based on material
from the Third Symphony. The poem’s subject
of rural isolation and cowering are mirrored by
turbulently windswept clarinets and a lyrically
hysterical soprano part.
The Ophelia Dances (1975), for nine instruments, use as their material the ‘Sphinx’ motto
from Schumann’s Carnaval, placed in the
composer’s typically abstract language. There
are four easily discernible and rather humorous dances framed by an introduction and
lengthy coda.
Coursing (1979) is a brief piece for chamber orchestra composed for Elliott Carter’s
70th birthday (Carter seems to be a major
influence on Knussen’s music). It opens with
what comes across as a wild fugal exposition
with the material then splintered into fragments that “course” through the piece, its
inspiration said to be the Rapids of Niagara
Falls.
Finally, the Cantata (1977) is a singlemovement 10-minute piece for oboe and
string trio contrasting long lyrical lines with
breathtaking scherzo-like virtuosity. Brilliant
oboist Gareth Hulse is not credited as soloist
on the jewel box and buried in small print with
the Nash Ensemble personnel at the beginning
of the booklet.
Mr Knussen is obviously an exceptional
musician, and even though the language of 70s
atonality comes across as a bit dated today,
there is much to admire. Performances are
exceptional, which should come as no surprise
given the participants.
GIMBEL
KOECHLIN: Orchestrations
Sarah Wegener, s; Florian Hoelscher, p; Stuttgart
Radio Symphony/ Heinz Holliger
My favorite anecdote on Koechlin’s musicianship concerns his late 1930s book on orchestration. He needed an example from Schoenberg’s Erwartung. As there was no score
handy, and the piece was almost never performed, he simply wrote it in from memory.
Even now, many of us feel it’s a good day when
we can follow, never mind quote by heart
from, this staggeringly complex score.
Here we get a good cross-section of his
orchestral talents applied to other composers.
In addition to his own Sur les Flots Lointain,
the album also includes his arrangements of
Chabrier’s Bourree Fantasque, Debussy’s
Khamma, Fauré’s Pelleas and Melisande Suite
and Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy. Koechlin’s
scoring of Khamma is already familiar to
Debussy fans. Debussy scored the opening—
Koechlin takes over at 4:33. He includes a
piano as part of the overall texture. This is a
departure from Debussy, but not from French
music as a whole. The musicologist Alan
Krueck has noted the continuation in 19th
Century French music of the concertante practice, bridging its use between the 18th and
20th centuries.
Sur Les Flots Lointains is the orchestral version; Hänssler plans to release the string
orchestra arrangement on a future disc. It’s an
orchestration of a song given to Koechlin by
his American student Catherine Urnes. The
Pelleas and Melisande Suite heard here adds
three more movements to the familiar four. A
real bonus is the inclusion of ‘Melisande’s
Song’, well sung in English by Sarah Wegener.
The vocal line has the haunting beauty of
Elgar’s ‘Land Where Corals Lie’.
The Chabrier is also more 20th Century
French in its penchant for isolated choirs and
more transparent brass distribution. In the
Wanderer, commissioned for a 1933 Balanchine ballet, Koechlin handles the orchestral
choirs in a Pointillistic way, the parts sometimes broken up into overlapping cells. One
curious choice concerns the beginning of IV.
Liszt’s arrangement with orchestra gives the
hammering fugue introduction to the solo
piano. Tovey praised this detail, observing that
no orchestral bass has the resonance of that
piano register. Koechlin gives it to the lower
winds, even though his scoring does have an
important piano part. Much as I enjoyed the
arrangement, at that point I missed the power
of the Liszt.
Overall, this is an interesting entry in
Hänssler’s documentation of the work of one
of the most fascinating minds in music.
O’CONNOR
The only authentic performance is one that
reflects our own time and the character of
the musician playing. Nothing could be
more unauthentic than a reconstruction of
historical performance practice.
KRAEHENBUEHL: Diptych; Landscapes;
Betrayal; Ash Wednesday; Drumfire; Pas des
Papillons; Our Father Have Mercy on Us
Who Gather Wood; Toccata Sinfonica; Circus
Overture; 4 Christmas Choruses; Jazz & Blues
Frank Costanzo, v; Joel Krosnick, vc; David Kraehenbuehl, p, fl; Max Lanner, Susan Neebel,
Samuel Sanders, p; Warren Stannard, Howard
Niblock, ob; Josephine Vadala, s; Megan Friar,
mz; LaSalle Quartet; Artaria Quartet; La Crosse
Chamber Chorale/ Paul Rusterholz; Amor Artis
Chorus & Orchestra/ Johannes Somary; White
Heron Chorale/ Richard Bjella; Evangel University Orchestra/ Larry Dissmore; The Concert Choir/
Margaret Hillis
David Kraehenbuehl Society [2CD] 141 minutes
(c/o Burkhart, Apt. 1403 550 E 12th Ave,
Denver CO 80203)
David Kraehenbuehl (CRANE-BYOOL—Mark
Lehman reviewed the piano pieces in S/O
2000) was born in 1923, graduated from the
University of Chicago with degrees in music,
mathematics, and German (after entering said
university at 16), and was mustered out of the
service at the rank of captain after World War
II. He applied to Yale and won the last spot in
Hindemith’s select studio; Hindemith called
him the most gifted student he ever had.
His music, especially the instrumental
pieces, is often agreeably aggressive. It’s free
with its dissonance, a little cerebral, and never
cluttered. He wrote, “12-tone set technique
offers harmonic control; Hindemith influences
the harmonies and melodic gestures; Stravinsky
offers the rhythmic vitality; and I determine the
aesthetic effect.... [W]hen I make a new composition, I can concentrate on its ‘message’. That
is a happy condition for any composer.”
The Diptych for violin and piano consists
of the ‘Canzona di Dionigi’ and the ‘Partita
d’Apollone’, the latter in the form of a baroque
suite. The ‘Canzona’ has a good bit of humor,
even a little subtle jazziness. Stravinsky’s neoclassical influence is quite recognizable; the
piece is a lot of fun to listen to, and I bet it
would be a blast to play. Landscapes is a setting of five TS Eliot poems for soprano, flute,
oboe, and string quartet. It’s more restrained
than the Diptych, and not quite as sensitively
played as it should be by the strings. A better
recording would help—this and the Diptych
were transferred straight from very scratchy
records, with no attempt at cleaning up the
sound (and capable software is not at all
expensive!); the acoustics are dry, too.
The Betrayal: A Motet Cycle for the Passion
Season is homophonic in texture; the first
three of the nine responsories from the Tenebrae service are here (Kraehenbuehl set the
other six as well). They’re capably sung by a
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talented community choir, and were taped in
front of a fairly silent audience. Ash Wednesday, for cello and piano, is a reflection on
Eliot’s six-part poem of the same name from
1927, written after Eliot had converted to
Anglicanism. It is, of course, serious, but it has
some virtuosic passages as well. The cellist is
mostly in tune, the audience a little intrusive,
and the tape sometimes distorted and murky.
Drumfire: A Cantata Against War is represented only by the first two movements (out of
about nine or ten): ‘The First Horseman:
Oppression’, and ‘....of the Guns’. It is rather
dated sounding in scoring and sonics. The
chorus sounds distant, and reading along is
necessary.
Pas des Papillons is a very enjoyable piece,
the most consonant of anything on the program—full of glorious hesitations, alluring harmonies, and bursts of vigor. It is a paraphrase
of Schumann’s Papillons and a broad depiction of that composer’s life, with young love,
sadness, Eusebius and Florestan, and finally
insanity and death. The Artaria Quartet does a
tremendous job, keeping an unbelievable tension through the quiet parts, and loving each
phrase exquisitely. The sound here is about the
best as well, if a little bright; it’s a decent concert recording of the 1995 premiere.
Toccata Sinfonica is another dated-sounding work, performed by a somewhat-capable
college orchestra. Circus Overture, for piano
four hands, takes us back to scratchy record
land; it’s more austere than its title indicates,
veering close to abstraction. The Four Christmas Choruses are solid if not terribly creative.
Jazz & Blues (seven excerpts appear here)
is a six-volume pedagogical tool Kraehenbuehl
wrote to give his piano students experience in
playing swing, boogie, ballad, folk song, and
Latin American styles. The recording comes
from a nasal-sounding LP with the composer
playing. They’re not neglected masterpieces,
but they’d be quite useful teaching tools, and
Kraehenbuehl plays them with a lot of expression and care. ‘Got the Jitters’ reminds me of
the Super Mario Brothers theme.
I’m quite glad I’ve heard this music—I only
wish the sound were better. I also had fits getting the CDs out of my car stereo, and my
home system had a little trouble reading them.
If there is a second run of these, the Society
should look for someone else to press them.
In-depth notes in English.
ESTEP
KRAUS: Viola Concertos
David Aaron Carpenter; Riitta Pesola, vc; Tapiola
Sinfonietta—Ondine 1193—62 minutes
Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-92) is known as the
Swedish Mozart. Not only was he an almost
134
exact contemporary of the more famous composer, but when I listened to these concertos, I
was strongly reminded of Mozart’s violin concertos and some other compositions of his.
Kraus was born in the town of Miltenberg in
Franconia, and he had his musical education
in Erfurt and Mannheim, where he had intensive training on the violin with Father Anton
Keck and was even allowed to play in the city’s
famous orchestra. In 1778 he moved to Stockholm and finally got the attention of King Gustav III two years later. The King appointed
Krauss deputy kapellmeister in 1781, and in
1782 he financed a five-year grand tour of
Europe for him. The now cosmopolitan composer returned to Stockholm in 1787 and was
appointed first kapellmeister the following
year. Kraus remained a leading light in the
Stockholm music scene until he died in 1792.
The quality of the music is quite high.
These works make greater technical demands
on the viola than one usually hears in music
from this period, except of course, from
Mozart. Kraus and Mozart also shared a preference for the viola. Kraus had been trained on
the violin, but when he died the only stringed
instrument in his possession was a viola.
These works have only recently been
attributed to Kraus. They were not unknown in
the time from Kraus’s death until now, but
they were published by Breitkopf in 1787
under the name of the Benedictine monk
Romanus Hoffstetter, a close friend of Kraus.
The discovery of the manuscript of one of
these works, clearly in the hand of Kraus, has
convinced the scholar who wrote the fine
booklet notes for this release, Bertil van Boer,
that that work and the other two, which are
stylistically related, must all be by Kraus. Boer
also dates these works to 1777 to 1781.
One stylistic peculiarity is the odd cadence
on the dominant instead of the tonic in the key
of F at the close of the middle movement of the
Concerto in C. Not only does the movement
end in the dominant, but the ending sounds
abrupt and incomplete. No doubt, this is a
touch of Haydnesque humor. Kraus distinguishes himself from Mozart in the Concerto
for Viola and Cello, where the cello plays a
subservient role to the viola. The degree of
independence and equality that Mozart gives
the two solo instruments in his Sinfonia Concertante is lacking here.
This is the first time I have heard David
Aaron Carpenter, who is an excellent violist.
Carpenter has had instruction from some of
the best viola soloists in the world: Yuri Bashmet, Nobuko Imai, Roberto Diaz, and Pinchas
Zukerman. He won First Prize in the Walter E
Naumberg Viola Competition in 2006. He has
the temperament of a soloist and draws a full,
mellow tone from the “ex-Hamma” viola made
by the Venetian violin maker Michele Deconet
in 1766.
The Tapiola Sinfonietta, apparently directed by their concertmaster, Janne Nisonen, follows modern period-performance practice and
eschews vibrato; but Carpenter uses a continuous vibrato of a pleasingly wide amplitude and
inserts the occasional juicy slide. The cadenzas, not credited, have some coy quotes from
two other classical concertos: Haydn’s Cello
Concerto 1 and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.
Excellent sound as usual from Ondine.
MAGIL
KREEK: Psalms; see MENDELSSOHN
KROMMER: Clarinet Concertos
Dmitri Ashkenazy; Sefika Kutluer, fl; Kamilla
Schatz, v; Northern Sinfonia/ Howard Griffiths
Paladino 25—57 minutes
Thomas Friedli, Antony Pay, cl; English Chamber
Orchestra
Claves 8602—70 minutes
Composers who happen to have careers during transitional phases in Western music often
have an unfair burden. If they insist on pushing their art forward, they could, after some
scathing criticism, be hailed as landmark revolutionaries. If they simply write good quality
music that reflects the uncertain time period,
though, they are usually greeted with question
marks. Such is the case with Franz Krommer,
the Czech son of a country innkeeper born in
the year of Handel’s death (1759). He learned
violin and organ from his uncle, enjoyed fame
and success in Vienna as one of the last court
composers, and died a year after the premiere
of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique (1831).
With the exception of a few sacred choral
works, he preferred to write for instruments;
and he was extraordinarily prolific, completing
over 300 published works in 110 opus numbers. Known for his symphonies and string
quartets, he wrote generously for winds,
including solo concertos, sinfonia concertantes, quintets with strings, and wind octets.
In his day, Krommer was justly admired for
his craftsmanship and sincerity, and he paid
respect to the conservative Viennese tradition
with a persistent classical framework and
sound. Yet he also acknowledged the change
that was in the air. Krommer never let the
peasantry storm the castle like Beethoven—
perhaps the reason that he was soon forgotten
amidst the rise of the middle class and the
freelance artist—but he knew where things
were going.
Both albums here have been released
before. The Paladino is a 1994 effort by three
then-young musicians with the assistance of
experienced British conductor Howard Griffiths, and the Claves is a 1985 collaboration
between Swiss clarinetist Thomas Friedli and
noted British clarinetist and conductor Antony
Pay.
The rarely heard Sinfonia Concertante in
E-flat, Op. 70 (1808), is a delightfully creative
five-movement divertimento played by the
American-born Russian clarinetist Dmitri
Ashkenazy, Turkish flutist Sefika Kutluer, and
the Danish-born Swiss violinist Kamilla
Schatz. Ashkenazy then remains to play the
better known Clarinet Concerto in E-flat, Op.
36 (1803), whose virtuosic demands foreshadow Spohr and Weber. The Claves label offers
the same Opus 36; the Concerto in E minor,
Op. 86 (1809), a transcription of a flute concerto rendered by Krommer’s violinist friend
Joseph Kuffner; and the notable Concerto for
Two Clarinets in E-flat, Op. 35 (1802).
While the Northern Sinfonia and the English Chamber Orchestra are professional in
energy, style, and sonic concept, the soloists
fall short. The Paladino crew is talented, but
require much more polish and artistic insight.
Friedli and Pay tackle the scores with zest and
character, yet their timbres lack the core and
clarity that would make their ideas truly shine.
HANUDEL
LANGGAARD: Quartets 2, 3, 6; Variations
Nightingale Quartet
DaCapo 6220575 [SACD] 70 minutes
I think Rued Langgaard, a Danish musical outsider who died in 1952 at age 58, would be
quite happy with DaCapo’s releases of his
music. I reviewed one program of piano music
(S/O 2011) and Alan Becker covered the previous volume (S/O 2005), and the performances
and sound have been excellent. The music
often doesn’t live up to its promise, though; as
the Editor pointed out (Symphonies, Music of
the Spheres, M/J 2002), form is not Langgaard’s
strong point.
III of Quartet 2 (1918, revised in 1931) is a
lovely slow movement, sounding almost like
one of those hesitating Kodaly songs; it’s by far
the best thing here. Quartet 3, from 1924, is a
little like Bartok in tone, but not as creative or
visceral. Tonal parts interrupt the almostexpressionist core of the piece, but they don’t
sound like they’re there for any particular reason.
Quartet 6 (one movement, 1918-1919)
opens with a tender, childlike hymn; and
much of what follows is pretty, but there’s not
much depth. I’d take a Dvorak quartet over
this any day. Like the other pieces, the Variations have nice moments, but Langgaard doesn’t really know how to develop and control his
135
material. If you like his style, you’ll certainly
like this, but it doesn’t convince me he had any
great talent. The performance is stellar—the
Nightingale Quartet is expressive, and they
obviously care a lot about the music. I can
think of many composers whose work should
be played and recorded this well. Extensive
notes in English and Danish.
ESTEP
LEGRENZI: Sonatas
Lauretana Mass; Motets;
Oficina Musicum/ Riccardo Favero
This program of music by Giovanni Legrenzi
(1626-90), who spent most of his career in
Venice, brings together a Mass, three vocal
pieces that honor the Virgin Mary (published
1655, 1660, and 1670), and two string sonatas
from a 1655 collection.
The five-voice Mass—recorded here for the
first time—is dedicated to the Virgin of Loreto,
hence its name. It survives in a single manuscript source dated 1689 and conserved in the
archive of the Holy House Shrine in Loreto, on
Italy’s Adriatic coast. The notation used in the
Mass manuscript is archaic (with note-shapes
from the 15th and 16th Centuries) but the
manuscript is also modern because it contains
specific markings for “piano” and “forte” passages.
Legrenzi’s compositions are of a consistently high quality, and in recent years the
singers and players of Oficina Musicum have
specialized in his music. The ensemble chose
appropriate vocal music to complement the
Mass (including three anonymous pieces from
a choral book at the Loreto shrine for the
Introit, Gradual, and Alleluia sections of the
Mass), and their performances are full of fervent and devotional veneration. Strings, organ,
and theorbo accompany the singers and perform the sonatas with beautiful elegance and
sparkle.
In the accompanied Marian antiphons,
soprano soloists Lia Serafini and Roberta Giua
are very well matched in their intertwining figures and expressive spirit, and their joy-filled
exuberance depicts the delight of the angelic
host (in ‘Hodie Collaetantur Coeli’) to fittingly
crown this celebration of the triumphant
Queen of heaven.
Two short organ improvisations frame one
of the vocal pieces. They are rather in the style
of reflective “elevation” toccatas, so might fit
better in the Mass. But this is my only quibble
with a satisfying program.
The program title is Testamentum. Notes
in English; texts in Latin. I praised this same
ensemble’s 2-CD set of Legrenzi containing a
Mass, Vespers, and other pieces (Dynamic 653,
136
J/A 2010); David Schwartz recommends Parnassi Musici’s program of Legrenzi sonatas
(CPO 777030, M/A 2005), and John Barker welcomed a release including Legrenzi’s oratorio
Il Cuor Umano All’Incanto as the restoration to
the catalog of an interesting work (Brilliant
93354, M/J 2008).
C MOORE
LEKEU: Trio; Piano Quartet
Trio Hochelaga; Teng Li, va
This is very similar to the recording by the
Spiller Trio (Arts; March/April 2000)—and that
may be the only other one around these days.
Both are fast and the musicians technically
excellent, but neither reading is intense or
warm or poignant. Both have clear sound. But
neither seems to get very deep into the music;
both are rather surface readings.
The trio here takes 40-1/2 minutes; the
Spiller Trio takes 42 minutes. But the trio from
La Monnaie (Schwann, March/April 1990)
takes more than 56 minutes for the same
music. Guillaume Lekeu lived from 1870 to
1894—died at 24—and was quite taken with
Wagner’s music. I realize the tragedy of such a
short life should not affect the tempos, but he
did use the word “Lent” (slow) to mark three of
these four movements. One (II) is even marked
‘Tres Lent’. III is ‘Tres Anime’. He liked Wagner
and he wanted exaggerated tempos. Why turn
his music into Mendelssohn?
If you can’t get the music any other way,
the notes are here, and the players are not
crude. The Schwann recording is gone (for
now, anyway—and those players were not as
refined as these), but Gil French liked the
Signum (54; Jan/Feb 1995) for its sensitivity
and full sound. It is a little slower than this new
one; it takes about 42 minutes. I’m not sure it
is still around. No one knows Lekeu, so his
music is a hard sell; but this is a beautiful
piece.
VROON
L
IGETI: Etudes, Books 1+2;
BEETHOVEN: Sonata 32
Jeremy Denk, p
Nonesuch 530562—67 minutes
Denk, on combining Ligeti and Beethoven in a
program: “The romantic composers followed
in Beethoven’s footsteps, anxiously, with more
than a few daddy issues. But they drew most
often on middle Beethoven; many elements of
Beethoven’s late period were left behind—perhaps too unsettling to deal with at that historical moment. One has to wait for the 20th Century for some of those crazed late urges of
Beethoven to find continuation, to find resonance. Ligeti’s Etudes seem sometimes like a
sequel to late Beethoven mania.” He gives
other reasons, but I’ll leave them to your discovery.
I’ve not heard the praised Biret recording
of the Ligeti Etudes (Naxos 555777, S/O 2003),
but I generally found Denk more impressive
than Aimard (Sony 62308, J/A 1997). Denk’s
‘Escalier du Diable’ is more frightening. He
gets the Hungarian (or perhaps Bartokian)
tone of ‘Der Zauberlehrling’ (The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice) that Aimard completely misses.
Aimard sounds a little businesslike in comparison; Denk’s microphrasing is more exciting.
This piano is better recorded and a little less
harsh.
Two faults. Denk chose not to record the
final etude of Book II, ‘Coloana Infinita’,
because he couldn’t imagine going on after
‘L’escalier du Diable’, and points out that
Ligeti had also thought of ending the book
there. Truth be told, it does sound like clutter
when placed at the end, until that final thunk
on wood that makes it so salient. Also, Denk’s
‘Escalier’, though better than Aimard’s, still
pales next to Greg Anderson’s video of that
piece (ignoring the tacky opening); Anderson
is the only person I’ve heard yet who makes
‘Escalier’ shriek and scream with terror. (I
believe Anderson’s is only available on
YouTube and at www.andersonroe.com.)
The Beethoven is grand and confident, but
also cheerful in spots. Denk proves himself to
be quite the poet of tone and emotion. Now,
the beginning of II is patient, but not yet sublime; I’d like to hear Denk re-record this in
about 30 years. It’s still an excellent performance, though, and I’m happy to have the
whole program. Intelligent notes in English by
the performer.
ESTEP
LISZT: Opera Paraphrases
Rigoletto, Aida, Trovatore, Boccanegra,
Lohengrin, Carmen
Jerome Lowenthal, p
LP Classics 1003—70 minutes
Lowenthal, a faculty member at the Juilliard
School since 1991, has recorded extensively on
RCA, Columbia, Arabesque, and Bridge. His
recent releases have included composers such
as Rorem and Sinding; the latter earned strong
praise here (March/April 2010). Here he
returns to one of his specialties, the music of
Liszt, with impressive results.
The quartet from Rigoletto is profound,
jubilant, and virtuosic. The rapid curlicues in
the music are thoroughly elegant, spinning up
and down the keyboard with lightness and delicacy. The ‘Miserere’ from Il Trovatore is
another gem. In the depths, he pounds out the
bleakest, black, loud music. The music com-
municates so well, I think, because of his tendency to withhold pedal: every note sounds
clearly.
It is always a joy to come across Liszt
played this well. Keep in mind that these are
not powerhouse performance of the likes given
by Fialkowska or Bellucci. His touch, in contrast to theirs, is transparent. It is easy and
fluid, yet solid enough so that it never sounds
facile. This gentler approach has another
advantage: it never leaves you feeling manipulated. He can play loud enough, but chooses to
shun heavy artillery, preferring to present the
music in a way that successive waves gently
convey listeners higher at every crest.
Only occasional cracks show in the facade
of this generally strong program. The march
from Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra begins with
great energy, but later episodes drag. And his
merely competent playing of the prelude to
Lohengrin Act III is not sufficient to overcome
the weaknesses of the piece and the transcription. The melodies there are uncharacteristically garish and hard-edged. These are minor
quibbles with a release that offers a generous
amount of great piano music. It is definitely
worth looking into, especially if past releases
by this accomplished musician have somehow
escaped your attention. Also included are two
informal, light-hearted encores that inject narrations—one relating the plot of the opera
itself and the other the story of Peter and the
Wolf—between the phrases of the introduction
section of the Rigoletto paraphrase.
AUERBACH
LISZT: Piano Sonata; Paganini Etudes; Au
Lac de Wallenstadt; Il Penseroso; Hungarian
Rhapsody 13; Valse Oubliée 1
Andre Watts
This festival performance dates from May
1986, well after the time that Watts rocketed to
fame when he stood in for Glenn Gould, but
still early in his performing career (to this day
he tours actively and is on the faculty at Indiana University). There is plenty of youthful
exuberance on hand in this fine Liszt recital.
Watts warms up with two contrasting
pieces from the Années de Pelerinage. ‘Au Lac
de Wallenstadt’ is absolutely smooth and even.
Above the sun-dappled lake texture, he weaves
a delicate melody out of rich velvet tones. ‘Il
Penseroso’ offers a glorious contrast. The first
1:30 is a solid crescendo where the dotted
rhythm idea grows in volume and menace. The
supporting, punctuating chords are bare,
stark, and hard edged. The wonders continue
when the bass changes over to the deep-register walking accompaniment that growls even
when it remains quiet.
137
The main offering of the recital is the
Sonata in B minor. Initially this performance
disappointed me, particularly the first ten
minutes of it. The first plunge into the allegro
material is too cautious, and most of the later
tempos sound relaxed compared to mainstream readings by Korstick and Matsuev
(both March/April 2010). In addition, many of
the rubatos are overdone, which degrades the
decorative slides into drawn-out, syrupy
scales. At first, the playing is only compelling
in the moderato areas where we may still
delight in his facile touch. All of this changes at
the first real presto passage at 8:45. Although
he doesn’t drop a single note for the next two
minutes, a sense of dislocation between the
hands is projected. This imprecision will bother some listeners, but I found it dizzyingly
heady. From this point forward he plays with
abandon at every moment, resulting in unparalleled beauty in the longest adagio episode
and cataclysmic explosions in the vivo material that follows. The fugue sounds too fast and
light when it enters, and remains flippant for
most of its duration. But it works marvelously
in context. Instead of conceiving it as a climactic episode in its own right, he boldly and correctly portrays it as a re-transition, a long fuse
leading to the powder keg of the impending
recapitulation.
The remaining performances are technically sound. The Hungarian Rhapsody in A
minor is uncommonly musical. I usually suffer
through this showpiece and do not respect it
or its brethren enough to even keep track of
which is which. Here, though, Watts’s longbreathed legatos and gift for ornamentation
make the dancing melodies enticing. The final
sprint is shockingly virtuosic, both by virtue of
his repeated tone technique and an acceleration that goes too fast even for him (the left
hand barely keeps up with the right)!
The Grand Etudes, on the other hand, suffer from a host of problems ranging from grating tones and overbearing intensity to unimaginative, rote performances. All that can be salvaged of them is Number 6, which is sufficiently epic in scope to serve as a worthy encore to
this mostly fantastic evening of music.
AUERBACH
LISZT: Songs
Elisabeth Kulman, mz; Eduard Kutrowatz, p
Preiser 91197—74 minutes
Titled “Roots and Routes”, these 23 songs in
six languages are selected to demonstrate how
Liszt, in his international career, “never forgot
his roots” in the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy where he spent his first 11 years. The performers are from the same region and chose
songs that demonstrate Liszt’s range as a song
138
writer, including his very first song (‘Angolin
dal Biondi Crin’), his only setting of a Russian
text (Tolstoy’s ‘Do Not Rebuke Me, My
Friend’), his only setting of an English text
(Tennyson’s ‘Go Not, Happy Day’), one song in
Hungarian (‘Aldon Eg!’); songs in German,
French, and Italian; and the duet ‘O Meer im
Abendstrahl’ (with Kulman recording both
vocal lines). These are first recordings of the
Russian song and the duet, and this is one of
the best available recordings of Liszt songs by
a female singer, despite the silly packaging
with photos of Kulman and Kutrowatz in a carriage harnessed to a piano on its side and the
glamorous singer by herself in various swooning postures.
Kulman is a highly expressive singer with
gleaming top notes and rich chocolate low
tones. With her supple voice and excellent
enunciation she imparts beautiful phrasing
and nuancing to each song. Kutrowatz offers
just as fine collaboration; his managing of both
the delicacy and challenging drama of ‘Die
Drei Zigeuner’ along with Kulman’s sensuous
reading is a high point of the program.
If you don’t know Liszt’s songs, here is an
excellent introduction to them; if you know
them you will find this a good sampling. Brief
notes by the performers about each song are
printed adjacent to the texts with translations
in English, French, and German.
R MOORE
LOPES-GRACA: Symphony; Rustic Suite 1;
Festival March; December Poem
Royal Scottish Orchestra/ Alvaro Cassuto
Three composers dominate Portugal’s contribution to national-romantic concert music in
the 20th Century: Luis De Freitas Branco
(1890-1955), Joly Braga Santos (1924-88), and
Fernando Lopes-Gra135a (1908-93). There are
a fair number of recordings of all three (the
older ones on obscure LPs but the newer on
recent Naxos CDs). See our cumulative index
for reviews under BRAGA and FREITAS.
Family resemblances among these three
are hard to describe but easily perceptible. I’m
tempted to use to the kind of phrases beloved
of wine tasters: “sun-drenched”, “warm and
genial but with an undercurrent of reserved
melancholy”, “at once aristocratic and earthy”.
Resorting to negatives, one might add that
their music—like the indigenous folk-tunes
that often inspire it—seems Mediterranean
without sounding Spanish, much as the Portuguese language does. Hearing it unidentified
I’d have guessed the music was Italian but not
quite.
At any rate this new Naxos offers a fresh
and tangy personality to listeners unfamiliar
with Lopes-Gra135a. The 35-minute, threemovement symphony—the composer’s only
one—is from 1944. Full of color and movement
yet tightly and cunningly constructed with
neo-classical precision, it radiates vigor, confidence, and purpose but never veers into excess
or whim. The overall mood is celebratory and
life-affirming—and patriotic: the music evokes
and pays homage to a proud and ancient
country without resorting to anything rhetorical or pompous. I is a lively, dancing allegro
with a touch of Stravinskian bite, II a steadily
pacing intermezzo with some fado-like stomping interludes, III a big (14-minute) passacaglia
that, though it follows the form strictly, does so
much less overtly, and with far more variety in
tempo, texture, and character, than (for
instance) the marmoreal and relentless finale
of the Brahms Fourth.
Rustic Suite 1 comes from 1950. Its five
short movements lasting 15 minutes are extrovert and picturesque, calling forth scenes that
range from somnolent countryside to village
festivals to moonlit mountains, all of them
tinted with regional accents. Portugal’s answer
to Ferde Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite, perhaps?
Festival March, from 1954, is seven minutes of
brassy fanfares and brilliant scurryings on (as
is typical of Lopes-Gra135a) straightforward
tunes harmonized with spicy clashes and set
out in inventive timbral combinations. December Poem, from 1961, is a melancholy but lush
ten-minute andante that reminds me of Rachmaninoff’s quieter Etudes Tableaux. No folk
tunes here, but instead a deeply-felt exploration of emotions all the more touching for
being submerged and restrained, except for
one brief but intense outburst at 7 minutes in.
Alvaro Cassuto has done much to bring the
music of his homeland to wide notice and conducts with skill and sensitivity. Naxos’s sonics
are serviceable—good enough to do the job if
not as transparent and detailed as one might
wish.
LEHMAN
LORCA: Cantares Populares;
BIZET: Carmen Suite
Torroba Guitar Quartet; Francesca Scaini, s; Carlo
Scalco, narr
Yes, Federico Garcia Lorca. The great poet and
playwright, who could work miracles of deep
expression with language, was also a composer. Actually, he was more of a folklorist, a collector of Andalusian melodies. He supplied a
piano accompaniment, but that was based on
the guitar that would have been used in the
songs’ native settings. The settings are related
to Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas—indeed, the melody for ‘Los Pele-
grenitos’ is the same as Falla’s ‘Cancion’,
though with different lyrics. Recordings from
Lorca’s time generally use piano, but most for
the last 40 years have been on guitar. The
arranger is not noted on my score (Lorca himself?).
This performance, a reissue from 1999, is
for guitar quartet and soprano. The Federico
Moreno Torroba Quartet includes Alfonso
Baschiera, Dino Doni, Vittorino Nalato, and
Marco Nicole. They play well—good ensemble
and a nice range of sonority and timbre. Having a quartet makes it easier to play with an
operatic soprano—no balance problems here.
Ms Scaini has a lovely tone, but sings with
too much sameness. Most of these songs are
strophic, but I hear no attempt to differentiate
among the verses. And her sound is frankly too
pretty—these songs need a bit more of the
cante jondo intentional coarseness that reflects
the hard life that produced this music. No
texts, and there are two songs that include a
male narrator, Carlo Scalco. I’m not familiar
with what he is saying, and there is no such
part in my solo score, nor in any other performance I’ve heard. It’s artistically affecting, but
I’d like to know what’s being said.
The quartet arranged the Carmen Suite,
and it’s not the same one recorded by Los
Romeros and the LAGQ. It’s not as good a performance as either of those, but it’s fun. Their
suite includes the Prelude, Habanera,
Entr’actes from Acts III, II, and IV, and the
Chanson Boheme. But get this for the Lorca.
It’s fascinating and moving music, and should
be heard more often.
KEATON
LUDFORD: Regnum Mundi Mass
Blue Heron/ Scott Metcalfe
Blue Heron 1003—79:40
This recording is the second made by Scott
Metcalfe and Blue Heron from a set of English
partbooks containing music performed at
Canterbury Cathedral in the early 16th Century. Unfortunately, parts of the manuscripts are
now missing (including the full Tenor book),
but Nick Sandon has reconstructed the missing material with great sensitivity.
The first recording by Blue Heron, including music by Hugh Aston, Robert Jones, and
John Mason, was characterized by Ardella
Crawford as “sung with perfection” (Sept/Oct
2010, see Aston). This second release includes
two further works found only in these partbooks, an extensive setting of the votive
antiphon ‘Salve Regina’ by Richard Pygott and
the Regnum Mundi Mass by Nicholas Ludford,
and I can only second her evaluation.
Pygott’s antiphon is a 20-minute work
filled with the rich and varied textures of late
139
Tudor polyphony, found also in the earlier
votive antiphons from the Eton Choirbook.
Ludford’s mass, based on the ninth responsory
for the Matins of Virgin Martyrs in the Sarum
usage, is placed in the context of the chant
propers of a reconstructed mass for St Margaret, resulting in a marvelous sonic variety. As
compared to the earlier recordings of Ludford
masses (a series by The Cardinall’s Musick,
Nov/Dec 1993, Mar/Apr & Sept/Oct 1994,
Mar/Apr 1995, and the Benedicta Mass by the
Choir of New College, Oxford, Sept/Oct 2008),
this release sets a new and higher standard.
Metcalfe allows his voices to shape the constantly shifting textures of this intricate
polyphony with subtle dynamic shadings and
the crystal-clear balancing of the five voice
parts. My one unfilled wish was for a recording
of the source chant for the mass, since few
choirs sing Matins for virgin martyrs anymore.
Since most of the earlier Ludford recordings have been deleted, and works by Pygott
have only rarely been recorded (May/June
1999), this recording gains even greater significance and should be considered an essential
acquisition for any renaissance collection.
BREWER
LULLY: Ouvertures avec Tous les Airs
Capriccio/ Dominik Kieger
Tudor 7185—63 minutes
The basis for this collection is not the original
tragedies lyriques of Jean-Baptiste Lully, but a
collection of arrangements published in Amsterdam by Estienne Roger between 1697 and
1712, all beginning with the phrase “Ouverture
avec tous les Airs... “ The basic change from
Lully to the Amsterdam versions is that the
original five-part French orchestra has been
reduced to the more common four-part Italian
scoring. This performance by Capriccio also
approaches each suite differently to underscore the adaptability of these arrangements:
the airs from Phaëton use a full baroque
orchestra with multiple winds, the ones from
Armide use a reduced orchestra, and Atys is
performed with just single performers on each
part. The interpretations do sometimes go
beyond the original parts by reallocating
instruments among the parts for sonic variety,
but this has apparently become a commonplace of modern baroque performance. As
argued in the booklet, it was especially
through these arrangements that Lully’s music
and reputation was disseminated beyond
France around 1700, and the stylish performances by these musicians demonstrate how
infectious this French dance music could be
on its own.
BREWER
140
LUTOSLAWSKI: Concerto for Orchestra; see
Collections
MARCELLO: 12 Flute Sonatas, op 2
Trio Legrenzi
Newton 8802123 [2CD] 97 minutes
Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) was a Venetian nobleman who came to be widely known
as a composer. His older brother, Alessandro,
was also active in Venetian government and
composed on the side. Benedetto’s Op. 1, a set
of 12 concertos for orchestra, was published in
1708; and this is his Op. 2, published in 1712.
In between the two sets, Marcello’s contrapuntal Clementina Mass got him admitted to
the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna. These
sonatas were originally written for recorder,
but are played here on flute, with cello and
harpsichord. The flutist and cellist are heard
on modern instruments and do not take a period performance approach.
Last issue, we had a similar release from
the Newton label of Albinoni that I gave tempered praise. The music on this one is more
elementary, and it bores me. The style is not so
good, either. Imagine movements that end
with a deliberate mordent; if you’re salivating,
you might like this trio’s tendencies. The flute
playing is consistently legato; this means that
even repeated notes or, more generally, dancelike movements fall flat. The great French
flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal had a term—”living
staccato”—for notes that were to be played
short but, he insisted, should still have some
life to them. There are some staccato notes
occasionally; they just sit there. The playing
has little variety of any kind, and the slow
movements are plodding.
The recorded sound is clear and direct,
which means that there’s nothing that adds to
the sound coming from the instruments. The
flutist’s tone is clear, but not always pretty, and
sometimes borders on forced when playing
above the staff (cf. Sonata 4, the opening Adagio). He uses vibrato everywhere. The cellist,
for better or worse, tends to match the flutist’s
approach; and the harpsichord playing is fine,
but placed in the background.
These sonatas come in four or five short
movements, and each has one track. This
release amounts to 100 minutes of baroque
boredom.
GORMAN
MARCHAND: Harpsichord Suites; see
RAMEAU
The simple want everyone else to be simple.
The wise know that even the simple are
complex. Yet there is a wise simplicity.
MAREK: Piano Pieces
Marie-Catherine Girod
Guild 7364 [2CD] 152 minutes
Chamber Pieces; Piano Pieces
Ingold Turban, v; Marie-Catherine Girod, p; others
Songs & Choral Pieces
Elzbieta Szmytka, s; Jean Rigby, mz; Iain Burnside, p; Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra/ Gary
Brain
These are reissues of Koch-Schwann recordings that came out about a dozen years ago as
single discs, now repackaged by Guild as twodisc sets. These recordings introduced an
international audience to the little-known
music of Czeslaw Marek (1891-1985), a Polishborn pianist and composer who spent most of
his very long adult life in Switzerland.
Readers wanting detailed descriptions of
Marek and his music should see our original
reviews (May/June 1999, May/June 2000,
Nov/Dec 2000, Mar/Apr 2001, July/Aug 2001).
They concur in praising his refinement,
warmth, and skill in the late-romantic-shading-into-early-modern styles that he worked
in. The earlier pieces show his debt to Brahms
and Dvorak as well as his teachers Hans Pfitzner and Karl Weigl, along with a French tinge
that sometimes makes him sound like a sort of
Central European Fauré. The later music
shows the composer’s growing knowledge of
Strauss, Mahler, Busoni, Ravel, Szymanowski,
Janacek, the folk-music settings of Bartok and
Kodaly, and the latest-craze import from
across the Atlantic, jazz. But for all his absorption of wide-ranging influences and his
chameleonic stylistic wanderings, Marek
maintains a consistent artistic temperament:
sensuous but elegant, ardent but decorous,
imaginative in harmonic nuances and instrumental color but fastidious in craft and propriety, always respectful of the traditions of both
art music and of the indigenous songs of his
homeland.
There are many marvelous pieces on these
discs (and also in the orchestral works originally on Koch that Guild hasn’t so far reissued)
along with, it must added, a fair number of
minor items that might be fairly described as
superior salon music. The fine 1914 Violin
Sonata, like everything here, is beautifully performed and recorded. But if I had to choose
the epitome of Marek’s achievement, I’d single
out his vocal settings. Again and again he
wrote for the voice—and instrumental accompaniments for the voice—with divine inspiration. This is apparent all through the two marvelous discs of vocal works, many of them
sung by soprano Elzbieta Szmytka, who has a
pure, almost childlike voice of angelic sweetness and sadness, ideal for Marek’s settings of
Polish folk poetry. Of these there are two
enchanting 20-minute cycles, both in versions
with piano and with orchestral accompaniment: Rural Scenes from 1929, and Village
Songs from 1934. ‘Pastorale’, the second song
in Rural Scenes, and ‘Na Wojence Dalekiej’
(The Far-Away War), the third song in Village
Songs, are ravishing in their haunting loveliness: quite simply among the most beautiful
vocal works in creation.
Guild doesn’t print the texts and English
translations (included in the original Koch
releases) though they’re available on the company’s web site. But this does include both the
voice-and-piano and the voice-and-orchestra
versions. As you’d expect, with piano the
cycles are more intimate and agile; the orchestral renderings are more voluptuous and
expansive. Both are gorgeous—somewhere
between Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne
and Bartok’s Hungarian Folk Songs. A magical
place to be.
LEHMAN
MASSENET: Songs
Sabine Revault d’Allonnes, s; Samuel Jean, p;
Matthieu Fontana, vc
Timpani 1191—60:27
Was there ever a nation so in love with its own
language as France? In the late 19th and early
20th centuries many composers experimented
with the musical qualities of the spoken word,
but surely the most effective and attractive of
these were in the French language. In his cycle
Expressions Lyriques Massenet combines sung
and spoken poetry to astonishing effect. Today
many singers treat the use of spoken words in
a song as slightly embarrassing, but Soprano
Sabine Revault d’Allonnes is blessed with an
appealing and expressive voice whether speaking or singing; and she brings to these pieces,
which might seem superficial or over the top
in other hands, a heartbreaking restraint as
well as convincingly genuine passion.
The song cycles Le Printemps Visite la Terre
and Poeme d’Octobre approach the expression
of text from a different direction. Here Massenet treats the accompanying instruments like a
voice without words. In three of the songs a
cello is added to the texture in dialog with the
soprano, questioning, exclaiming, and completing her thoughts. Elsewhere the piano is
the duet partner, reduced to a single melody in
delicate counterpoint with the voice.
‘Automne’ and ‘Les Maronnier’ are notable for
the way they create a mood, nostalgic or
regretful, with a remarkable economy of
means. The autumnal mood of the later cycle
141
balances the youthful exuberance of the earlier
set, but both cycles include both melancholy
and joyful texts. ‘Amours Benis’, which closes
the first cycle, brims with lush, satisfying harmonies, and ‘Pareils a des Oiseaux’ completes
the later cycle with defiant passion and insistent repeated chords.
Most modern audiences know Massenet
only for his three or four popular operas. His
songs, especially the ones with spoken text,
have been largely dismissed as salon confections; but the excellent performances on this
impressive record will certainly repay serious
attention.
MARCUSE
MAYER: Prabhanda; see PFITZNER
MEDTNER: Piano Sonata; see MOUSSORGSKY
M ENDELSSOHN: Cello Sonatas; Varia-
tiones Concertantes; Song Without Words, op
109; Album Leaf
Keith Robinson; Donna Lee, p
Blue Griffin 237—64 minutes
Keith Robinson is Sharon Robinson’s brother,
she of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson trio.
He is cellist in the Miami Quartet. He and
Donna Lee have taught at Kent State University and have worked together for some time.
Their musical relationship is evident in this
demanding program. Their interpretations are
rich in rubato and energy. My only real objection is that the balance between cello and
piano favors the piano, making some of the
cello lines hard to pick out of the sound. There
seems to be less of the high frequencies than
usual. That might have made the difference.
Lovely as these readings are musically, I can’t
really enjoy them while straining to hear the
cello.
D MOORE
MENDELSSOHN: Piano Pieces
Prelude & Fugue; Variations Serieuses; 3
Etudes; Last Rose of Summer Fantasy;
HENSEL: Songs Without Words, opp 6+8;
Piano Sonata in C minor
Sylviane Deferne
Doron 5034—73 minutes
By alternating Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn
pieces, Deferne allows us to compare and contrast music by brother and sister. The elder sibling (Fanny) gives us the better melodies, and
Felix gives us more dramatic music. Both had
excellent piano technique, and a lot of this
music is brimming with brilliant passage-work.
Deferne seems to toss this off effortlessly.
Only Felix’s Variations Serieuses is heard
with any regularity these days, but his early
Prelude and Fugue and Fanny’s Piano Sonata
are also serious music that deserves to be
142
heard on a more regular basis. This is a wellbalanced recital with a good selection of some
of the best piano music by the Mendelssohn
family. Good booklet notes and excellent
piano sound complete a memorable release.
HARRINGTON
MENDELSSOHN: Psalms 2, 22, 43, 100
KREEK: Psalms 22, 104, 137, 141; 5 Sacred
Folk Songs
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir/ Daniel
Reuss
Ondine 1201—64 minutes
Until now, the best recorded traversals of
Mendelssohn’s psalms, motets, and associated
a cappella works have been all-Mendelssohn
affairs. I’m thinking of Philippe Herreweghe
and Marcus Creed, both on Harmonia Mundi;
Helmuth Rilling (with the two big orchestral
Psalms) on Hänssler, and Richard Marlow on
Chandos. This time around, though, Felix has
a disc mate and an unlikely one at that.
Cyrillus Kreek (1889-1962) was an Estonian
product of the St Petersburg Conservatory. He
went on to teach at the Talinn Conservatory
and other Estonian schools, while he conducted many choirs and became a staple of his
country’s musical life. Indeed, most of his
choral pieces—including his many hymns—
have a strong folk component. There are
orchestral works as well, but it was choral
music that dominated his art.
Kreek’s writing isn’t flashy; and Mendelssohn’s, despite formidable bouts of 19th
Century counterpoint, isn’t either. Kreek’s
spirit of moderation is buoyed by elegant
craftsmanship and a sincerity of faith you can
cut with a knife. Ditto Mendelssohn. At the
center of Jauchzet dem Herrn, for example,
Mendelssohn lets us know that praising God
can be a profound experience. In Kreek’s 22nd
Psalm (My God, Why Has Thou Forsaken Me?),
the believer’s sad words are expressed with a
knowing introspection not far removed from
the inner peace of Mendelssohn’s grateful
spirit. They dovetail beautifully, there and elsewhere. All in all, this is less of an “odd couple”
pairing than you might think.
The singing is extraordinary, with the
choir’s warm, gracious tone animated by supple phrasing from all quarters. What gorgeous
soprano and alto sections this choir has! One
traditional way to achieve a seamless legato is
to ease up on consonants to take the bumps
out of the melody line. Maestro Reuss and his
singers are way too good for that. Diction is
remarkably clear, even as melodies flow richly
and smoothly by. Such a luminous effect is
achieved at “Sende dein licht” in
Mendelssohn’s Richte Mich, you’d be tempted
to own this for that interlude alone. Ondine’s
engineers enhance the beauty of the choir,
while their annotators and translators enhance
the value of an estimable production. Here’s
hoping Mendelssohn’s orchestral Psalms are
also on Ondine’s Estonian agenda.
GREENFIELD
MENDELSSOHN: Quartets 1+2
Minetti Quartet
I know these Mendelssohn quartets very well. I
have played them many times, and I have
heard dozens and dozens of recordings; but I
still get a thrill out of listening to this one. I
love everything this quartet does: the phrasing
is both logical and compelling, the counterpoint is both transparent and supple, and
every tempo they take is ideal for what they
want to do with the music. The recording is
extremely satisfying, and I really couldn’t ask
for more (except the chance to hear them play
this music in a concert). It is hard to believe
that people so young can play this music so
well, but then again, since it is music from the
young Mendelssohn, and music that exudes
the optimism and brilliance of youth, perhaps
it is best when played by brilliant and musically optimistic young people.
This quartet is based Austria and began
playing together in 2003. They studied with
members of the Alban Berg Quartet and the
Artis Quartet, and have prizes from many
international European competitions.
They play lovely instruments that come
across in a perfect natural balance.
FINE
MENDELSSOHN: Trios
Leibniz Trio
Having recently reviewed a rather wooden and
perfunctory recording of these trios (Wu Han,
Setzer, Finckel; ArtistLed 11102) I am pleased
to encounter this fresh and perceptive performance by these young musicians. Hwa-Won
Pyun, Lena Wignjosaputro, and Nicholas Rimmer formed the Leibniz Trio in Hanover in
2005 and have since performed widely with
much acclaim from audiences and guidance
and support from the Alban Berg Quartet and
the Florestan Trio. So far their recordings
include trios by Haydn and Reger and by Dvorak, Joseph Finlay, and Frank Martin (Genuin
11208, Nov/Dec 2011).
The playing here is understated, subtle,
and refined without sacrificing any of
Mendelssohn’s range and depth of expression.
What some readings of these trios attempt to
accomplish through strong dynamic contrasts
and manipulation of tempo the Leibniz group
manages with strict adherence to tempo and
attention to expressing the long, overarching
phrase. The result is a sense of the music’s
seamless forward motion in the outer movements as well as in the mercurial scherzos and
the lyrical andantes. Apart from the slow
movements, the tempos here are very much
on the impressively fast side but always elegantly controlled, never frantic. The andantes
of the two trios flow with an expressive placidity, again characterized by the group’s talent for
expressive understatement. The ensemble
here is impeccable; this trio plays not as three
distinct musicians but as a single musical
organism. After a fair number of indifferent
Mendelssohn recordings, the Leibniz Trio
clearly brings a fresh and engaging conception
to these works.
JD MOORE
MENDELSSOHN: Variations Serieuses;
Songs without Words
Michael Korstick, p
CPO 777 519 [2CD] 125 minutes
The CPO label is noted for exploring less familiar, unknown, and often previously unrecorded works. Performances by Michael Korstick of
more standard repertoire (the award-winning
recordings of Liszt’s complete Années de
Pelerinage) are worthy exceptions. Korstick’s
reading of the aptly titled Variations Serieuses
convincingly demonstrates the work’s place in
the ranks with Beethoven’s C-minor Variations. Korstick captures the relentless forward
momentum of the music, maintaining a compelling tension even in the slower, more contemplative sections.
His presentation of the Songs without
Words, complete except for ones without opus
number, about whose quality Mendelssohn
was apparently doubtful, does much to further
dismantle the music’s one-time reputation as
sentimental Biedermeier salon pieces for the
amateur intermediate pianist. The continuing
presence of Constantine von Sternberg’s
Schirmer edition with its horrid unauthentic
titles for each piece (language-leery
Mendelssohn only titled a few of them) and his
insufferable introductory “Appreciation” of the
music’s “wholesome sentiment” and “chastity
of concept”, has done serious understanding
of this music no favors. The well-researched
discussion in this release’s notes reveals how
much importance Mendelssohn placed on
these pieces, carefully revising them and
assembling them into their various collections.
Korstick plays them with the refinement they
deserve; the cantilena phrasing is impeccable
and the quick, more virtuosic pieces never lose
the sense of a singing line. Although I remain
attached to the first recording I ever heard of
143
these works—Guiomar Novaes on a Vox LP—
Kostick’s readings are the best I’ve encountered from recent decades.
JD MOORE
MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto; see BRUCH
M
ESSIAEN: Visions de l’Amen;
DEBUSSY: En Blanc et Noir
Ralph van Raat & Hakon Austbo, p
Written in wartime Paris (1943), Messiaen’s
Visions de l’Amen pairs just about perfectly
with Debussy’s En Blanc et Noir, also written
in wartime Paris (1915). This is the second
release I have with the same pair of works
(Lowenthal and Oppens, Cedille 119, Jan/Feb
2011), the fifth of the Messiaen and the sixth of
the Debussy. In Messiaen the times average
47:41, and the current recording is typical.
Similar consistency is shown in the Debussy
timings.
Do not be deceived into thinking Van Raat
and Austbo give simply an average performance though. Their precision is as good as it
gets in Visions, possibly one of the most difficult works from the aspect of rhythm in the
two-piano repertoire. Ensemble in the
Debussy is also demanding, and these two
men are fully equal to the task.
Messiaen wrote this for himself and his
student (later his wife), Yvonne Loriod. He
kept the big, slow, chordal, melodic, and
expressive writing for his own part and
entrusted all of the percussive, brilliant, and
technically demanding parts to Loriod. They
recorded it in 1962 (Ades 13233, July/Aug
1989), but that recording can be a little hard to
find.
Messiaen’s work is a musical metaphor
that is quite emotionally demanding. It has the
largest dynamic range of any work I know for
two pianos. Make no mistake, this is not easy
music to listen to, and you have to pay close
attention to everything that is going on for it to
make sense. Austbo, who has recorded a number of volumes of Messiaen’s solo piano music
for Naxos, offers enlightening booklet notes
that will guide you through the maze of sounds
quite well.
The Debussy is another work to have come
my way for review many times in the past few
years. I was taken with Van Raat and Austbo’s
battle imagery, especially in II. This is music
that creates many impressions, but it is not the
kind of music that practically defines the term
impressionist and is found in Debussy’s earlier
works. The opening waltz has many clashing
harmonies and is interrupted by military-like
fanfares (single unison notes played by each
pianist with dead-on accuracy). II is dedicated
144
to a friend killed in battle, and the march-like
rumblings build to quite a climax with the Germans represented by the Ein Feste Burg
chorale and the French by what Debussy calls
a “pre-Marseillaise carillon”. The final movement is dedicated to Stravinsky and still has
suggestions of military music, but is more sad
and ends quietly. Nearly two years ago I wrote
that you could not ask for a more sympathetic
and knowledgeable performance of this work
than Oppens (one of Van Raat’s teachers) and
Lowenthal; but this recording is a match, with
possibly even more brilliance in the big parts.
We are fortunate to have some of the best
piano sounds I’ve heard from Naxos here—
and they are normally very good. Capturing
this kind of dynamic range with clarity and
fullness is a rare feat. At the price this is indispensable for anyone with a liking for this kind
of music. I will return to it often.
HARRINGTON
MONTEVERDI: Sacred Music & Madrigals
Complesso Vocale Polifonia, Milan Soloists/
Angelo Ephrikian
Newtown 8802117 [3CD] 2:12:42
I remember when I first began to learn Polish,
and my Polish friends were gently laughing at
me. They said I was easy to understand, but I
wasn’t speaking Polish, but only English using
Polish words. This reissue of recordings first
released in the late 1960s provokes in me a
similar response. Collected from separate LPs,
the set includes the Mass for Four Voices
(1650), the ‘Litaniae della Beata Virgine’,
madrigals for two and three voices from Book
9, and a selection of solo madrigals from Monteverdi’s second Scherzi Musicale. They antedate Raymond Leppard’s collections of Monteverdi madrigals on Philips (1971) by a few
years, but are very similar in style. In both
cases, with ears that are now a few decades
older and having experienced a few more
recordings of Monteverdi’s madrigals and
sacred music, I can still hear Monteverdi’s
genius, but the dialect of the performers was
not yet 17th Century.
Ephrikian’s musicians, more than Leppard’s, were still too tied to the performance
traditions of the 20th Century, to the point
where the rather tinny harpsichord (it sounds
exactly like one of the steel-framed Neupert
harpsichords popular in the late 50s and 60s)
plays only the continuo realizations printed in
Malipiero’s editions of Monteverdi from
before World War II. Tempos are consistently
slower, and even so, the singers (mostly the
rather “hooty” sound of early music singers
from the same period) still struggle with the
intricacies of Monteverdi’s florid style. While I
can listen to these recordings with fondness, I
would recommend more recent performances
of the sacred music (such as Herreweghe’s
recording of the Mass for Four Voices,
Nov/Dec 1992, and King’s for the Litaniae
della Beata Virgine, Sept/Oct 2004); for the
madrigals from Book 9, an excellent performance by La Venexiana (Glossa 920921); and
for the solo madrigals, the selection by Concerto Soave (Jan/Feb 2006).
BREWER
MORAWSKI: Don Quichotte; Ulalume;
Nevermore
Sinfonia Varsovia/ Monika Wolinska
Accord 176—58 minutes
Eugeniusz Morawski was born in Warsaw in
1876 and died there in 1948. He graduated
from the Warsaw Conservatory, was exiled to
Turukhansk for his involvement in an assassination plot against Tsarist police, had that
exile changed to exile from Russia when his
father bribed the right people, moved to Paris
in 1908, became friends with Arthur Rubinstein, wrote a machine-inspired ballet, moved
back to Poland in 1930, became dean of the
National Conservatory in 1932, helped form a
“pedagogical underground” in World War II,
and lost about 75% of his manuscripts when
his flat was razed in the Warsaw Uprising.
Destroyed were about 29 songs, five operas,
two ballets, three oratorios, three symphonies,
six symphonic poems, six string quartets, eight
piano sonatas, and three concertos. He lived
mostly with his sister outside the city until he
died, commuting by wagon into Warsaw to
teach piano lessons. He wrote at least one
more string quartet in that time.
Morawski’s harmonic style is squarely late
romantic. Don Quichotte sounds to these ears
like second-rate Strauss. It’s bombastic and
large, and very episodic; it does not hang
together well at all. Ulalume and Nevermore
are based on the Poe works. Ulalume, probably written between 1914 and 1917, has the
most depth of the three extant tone poems—
and the most length, at over 24 minutes. It
wanders elaborately, but it is very affecting
and morose. Nevermore resembles at the
beginning a slowed-down, quieter version of
Tchaikovsky’s chromatic turbulence (as in
Francesca da Rimini). It creates a mood of
darkness, for sure, but it seems to me to be
more episodic than its themes are designed to
handle. The orchestra and sound are very
good, though. If what I’ve described sounds
more interesting to you than not, then by all
means give it a chance. Notes in Polish and
stunningly badly translated English.
ESTEP
M
OUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition
with MEDTNER: Reminiscence Sonata;
TANEYEV: Prelude & Fugue
David Kadouch
with PROKOFIEFF: Sonata 7;
RACHMANINOFF: 4 Pieces
Konstantin Scherbakov
TwoPianists 1039114—66:30
There are still schools and stereotypes. Certainly David Kadouch sounds French, and in
comparison Konstantin Scherbakov sounds
Russian. Nowadays it is hard to find any real
biographical information on a pianist or musician. The section of the notes that discusses
them simply brags about their prizes and
accomplishments. I think David Kadouch is
French because he looks French and sounds
French. We are not told where he was born.
Scherbakov has lived in Switzerland since
1992, but he was born and trained in Russia.
He is a professor in Zurich, and he looks more
Swiss-German than Russian. He also looks old
enough to be Kadouch’s father, but we are not
told when he was born—though we are told
that Kadouch was born in 1985. (So the many
cute boyish pictures of him are probably fairly
current—except for two of them that must be
ten years ago.)
What makes his playing French? Shallow
tone above all. It’s pretty and splashy, and it
flits around, but it never gets very heavy or
serious. You hear that right away when you
switch back and forth with Scherbakov.
Scherbakov is utterly idiomatic—but not as
heavy as Russian pianists can be. Still, you can
tell he is not French! He has a lot of deep, full
tone, even in the promenades. He is aiming at
feeling, while Kadouch is aiming at brilliance.
Even in the ‘Great Gate’ Scherbakov is subtle
and seems to feel each phrase. He never
pounds; it’s the Frenchman who pounds. In
the ‘Great Gate’ the piano buzzes and rattles
with the pounding.
Mr Kadouch follows the Moussorgsky with
a nice sonata by Medtner, and he plays it well.
It’s more sensitive than his Moussorgsky. The
Taneyev is not as striking.
Four Rachmaninoff pieces follow Pictures
on Scherbakov’s program, then the Prokofieff
sonata. It would have been terrible programming to go right from the Moussorgsky to the
Prokofieff. The Rachmaninoff sequence allows
the ears to relax (an elegy, two preludes, and
an etude-tableau). The Prokofieff is quite
beautiful—that andante surrounded by furious, war-like movements. This is natural
music for Scherbakov—but so is his whole program.
For the Moussorgsky there is no question
that Scherbakov makes Kadouch sound shallow and immature. I’m not sure I would put
Scherbakov ahead of my five or six favorite
recordings, but he is the best I have heard lately. If you are wrapped up in the classical equivalent of “boy band”, Kadouch is far prettier
and sexier than Lang Lang, let alone
Scherbakov! But if you care about real musicianship this middle-aged Russian is ahead of
all the boys who have recorded this music (or
might even think of it).
VROON
MOZART: Marriage of Figaro
Andreas Schmidt (Count), Leila Cuberli (Countess), John Tomlinson (Figaro), Joan Rodgers
(Susanna), Cecilia Bartoli (Cherubino); Berlin
Philharmonic/ Daniel Barenboim
Barenboim’s Figaro was released by Erato in
the Mozart year 1991 (the 200th anniversary of
the composer’s death) and reviewed in the
November/December issue of ARG, which had
30 pages devoted to Mozart recordings as well
as a Mozart opera overview. When our revised
overview appeared (Jan/Feb 2002) Barenboim
was summarily dismissed. It’s not that he was
lost in the shuffle; it’s just that his Figaro was
not very good.
Our original reviewer (Lee Milazzo) was
fairly critical of all the principals except Bartoli, an adorable and vivacious Cherubino.
Cuberli’s Countess lacked poise and vocal
purity; Rodgers was a bland Susanna, Tomlinson a crude Figaro, and Schmidt a “petulant
bore”. What saved the performance was the
marvelous playing of the Berlin Philharmonic,
and the slow tempos allowed the listener to
savor many details. When I’m in a certain
frame of mind, I can particularly enjoy hearing
the Act 2 finale unfold at such a leisurely pace
(all in a single 21-minute track)—but then the
sluggishness continues into Acts 3 and 4, and
all the life goes out of the drama.
In November/December 2011 I pronounced Barenboim’s Cosi the best of his
Mozart opera recordings. This Figaro doesn’t
come close to that level. It is performed complete and includes the arias for Marcellina and
Basilio in Act 4. In Act 3, ‘Dove Sono’ is in its
usual place after the sextet. The sound is excellent, but no libretto is supplied.
LUCANO
When I am traveling in a carriage, or walking
after a good meal, or during the night when I
cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that
ideas flow best and most abundantly.
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
146
MOZART: Requiem
Jutta Böhnert, Susanne Krumbiegel, Martin Petzold, Gotthold Schwarz; St Thomas Boys Choir,
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/ Georg Christoph
Biller
Rondeau 4019—47 minutes
Here’s my second go at a recording from the
most excellent St Thomas Choir and Gewandhaus Orchestra this issue (see Bach), and—as
in that one—I was not disappointed. There are
a few other recordings of Mozart’s immortal
Requiem out there with boy trebles, but the
ones I’ve heard can’t hold a candle to this one.
As pointed out in the excellent liner notes, the
venerable (eight centuries old) St Thomas
Choir was apparently the first to present the
work outside of Vienna.
We’ll surely never know the complete true
story behind the completion of a hallowed
masterpiece that remained unfinished at the
time of its creator’s death. Endless speculations on that subject have led to several revised
(and even re-composed) versions that, in the
long run, offer more confusion than closure.
The musical establishment has more or less
settled on the flawed “completion” by
Mozart’s disciple, FX Süssmayr, whom most
now agree was the best choice for the job, as
there was probably nobody else who was more
familiar with the composer’s intentions about
the work. But just about everybody (including
Brahms and Richard Strauss) agrees that one
of the main problems with Sussmayr’s work is
the clumsiness and general ineptitude of his
orchestrations.
In 1972 Franz Beyer published his own edition, leaving Sussmayr’s work chorally intact;
Beyer wanted to “cleanse Süssmayr’s (orchestral) part of all the most glaring errors and to
inject as much as possible of Mozart’s own
idiom”. And it is this edition (which Beyer has
revised slightly several times) that is presented
here. I can’t comment on the precise nature of
his modifications, beyond noticing a certain
sense of increased boldness and refinement in
some of the orchestral parts. But this is one of
the more sensible and least intrusive of the
many attempts to reinvent a universally cherished, though flawed masterpiece.
I found this performance highly spirited,
sincere, and very well executed. The sound of
this choir lacks the depth and weight you hear
from good adult ensembles. Boy trebles plus
adolescent tenors and basses produce a distinctly “immature” sort of choral sound that
any knowledgeable listener will pick up on. Yet
these lads do a splendid job, delivering an
entirely convincing account of the music. The
young tenors and basses tear into the ‘Confutatis’ here with a kind of headlong, mini-
macho vehemence that you’d rarely hear from
grownups. The trebles match them in several
places: no prissy, angelic singing from these
boys. Yet they can sound as sweetly ethereal as
any bunch of English trebles. Neither need
they take a back seat in terms of vocal skill,
precision, or refinement. They manage the
work’s tricky double-fugue sections as cleanly
and powerfully as any adult choir I’ve heard.
Director Biller—the latest in the long line of St
Thomas Cantors—has maintained the choir’s
lofty standards admirably; perhaps he has
even raised them a notch or two.
The adult soloists are all excellent, and the
Gewandhaus Orchestra’s luminous playing
could hardly be bettered. Sound quality is very
good, and the booklet is useful, revealing, and
complete. This may not be my absolute
favorite recording of the Requiem (I favor
Harnoncourt’s 2003 Super-Audio account on
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi), but it certainly
ranks near the top of my list.
KOOB
MOZART: Idomeneo ballet; Piano Sonata 14;
Fantasy; see BEETHOVEN
N
EEFE: Piano Sonatas (12);
BEETHOVEN: Dressler Variations
Susan Kagan
Grand Piano 615 [2CD] 127 minutes
Susan Kagan has recently been recording
sonatas by Beethoven pupil Ferdinand Ries.
Now she turns her attention to Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748-1798), Beethoven’s first
important teacher in Bonn.
The sonatas date from 1773 and stylistically link baroque with early Classic style. Neefe
(pronounced NAY-fuh), is far from long-winded in his writing; each of the three-movement
works takes around 10 minutes. They are easy
enough to assimilate, display reasonable skills,
but finally fall far short of any major reward for
the listener. Too short for boredom to settle in,
there is little here to really engage the mind or
to titillate the ears.
Making any kind of a minor feast of these
little pieces would require a pianist of high
interpretive rank such as Hamelin, Horowitz,
or Shelley. Kagan is not in that league, though
she certainly gives us an idea of what the
music sounds like. Her heavy touch and her
overall sound is pretty much the same for each
sonata. Tempos vary little, whether vivace,
allegro, or presto. I found the same to be true
of her Ries interpretations and longed for
some daring or less staid approach to lift the
music from the page. Remember what
Horowitz did for Clementi? That’s precisely
what’s missing here, though Clementi’s talent
was on firmer ground most of the time.
Beethoven’s Variations, his first published
work, is heard here in a revision made by the
composer in 1803. The sound is a little richer
than in the sonatas. Unfortunately, the heaviness, lack of differentiation between variations, and under tempo speeds rob the music
of much of its spirit. Kagan is wrestling with a
technique that will not allow for much beyond
caution. The pianist has supplied her own
brief notes.
BECKER
OCKEGHEM: Requiem
Ars Nova Copenhagen/ Paul Hillier
Dacapo 6220571 [SACD] 61:32
This recording presents Paul Hillier’s re-envisioning of Johannes Ockeghem’s 15th Century
Requiem in the context of Beng Sorensen’s
Fragments of Requiem, composed from 1985 to
2007—his settings of the proper and ordinary
texts for the mass not set by Ockeghem. Part of
this process, which juxtaposes the two polyphonic idioms, aptly defined in the excellent
notes by Jens Brincker as Ockeghem’s predominantly melodic writing and Sorensen’s
emphasis on sonority, is to combine the whole
into “an integrated process where each element has its strategic position in a plot with a
beginning, middle, and an end”. Hillier has
restructured the liturgical order by placing
Ockeghem’s Offertorium after the Sanctus and
Agnus Dei and before Sorensen’s setting of ‘In
Paradisum’.
There should be no doubt that Hillier’s
direction is both informed and quite effective.
In only a few passages is the ensemble ever-soslightly off; balance and tempos are all well
considered. For the Ockeghem, this stems
from his direction of the recording by The
Hilliard Ensemble in 1985 (EMI 49213), and he
has made a number of well-received recordings of contemporary choral works from the
Baltic region (Mar/Apr 2004: 242, Nov/Dec
2004: 244, Nov/Dec 2007: 258).
The performance of the Ockeghem with
the larger forces of Ars Nova Copenhagen may
not have the clarity of a smaller ensemble such
as The Hilliard Ensemble or Ensemble
Organum (Nov/Dec 1993). This new release is
comparable to other mixed-voices recordings
by Musica Ficta (Mar/Apr 1998) or The Clerks’
Group (July/Aug 2007). I would still recommend the Ensemble Organum as a reconstruction of an early renaissance Requiem (and it is
not marred by Peres’s idiosyncratic interpretations), but its downward transposition creates
a very dark sound.
BREWER
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PABST: Piano Concerto; see JADASSOHN
PART: Veni Creator; The Deer’s Cry; Psa-
lom; Most Holy Mother of God; Solfeggio; My
Heart’s In the Highlands; Peace Upon You,
Jerusalem; Ein Wallfahrtslied; Morning Star;
Stabat Mater
Christopher Bowers-Broadbent, org; NYYD Quartet; Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen/
Paul Hillier
Harmonia Mundi 807553 [SACD] 75 minutes
Chamber Pärt, you might say, in repertoire
that’s mostly of recent vintage. The music is
highly interactive, with soloists, small groups
of voices, and various combinations of a string
quartet collaborating to the glory of God and
the salvation of man. You wouldn’t call a program dominated by this 26-minute Stabat
Mater a walk on the lighter side. Still, there’s a
blitheness of spirit here that makes this one of
the more engaging collections of Pärt songs
you’ll come across. Try the light, arpeggiated
organ accompaniment in ‘Veni Creator’, or the
gentle barbershop chords in the Taize-like
‘Deer’s Cry’ and see if you don’t agree. ‘Peace
Upon You Jerusalem’, a clever evocation of an
English Renaissance motet, is unusually animated, with several enthusiastic specifications
in the score spelling out the dramatic effects
the composer was after. He didn’t usually do
that, which reinforces the notion that the program is out of the ordinary.
I’m fascinated by ‘Most Holy Mother of
God’, a 5-minute work where a single line of
English text is repeated 17 times by different
combinations of voices intoning it at varying
volumes and densities. Also haunting is ‘My
Heart’s In the Highlands’, which turns a search
for a deer into a folk ballad sung on repeated
single pitches. No surprise, is it, that nature’s
quest quickly takes on a spiritual dimension.
The 1985 Stabat Mater, the oldest piece on
the program, is one of his purest and loveliest
works, with ethereal strings and plaintive voices sympathizing with the Virgin’s sadness as
she stands at the foot of the cross. Mary may
have been gazing upward, but the music looks
down, casting a serene glow on the sad, agonizing sacrifice that had to be made below.
Finding and magnifying the poignant variances Pärt injects into his repetitive minimalist
style is incredibly hard to do, and no one does
it better than Paul Hillier. Distinguished engineering and first-rate annotation from HM
sweeten the pot further. Pärt will never be for
everybody, especially not for listeners in a
hurry. But for ones with spiritual inclinations
and the time and willingness to act on them,
this is something special.
GREENFIELD
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P
ERGOLESI: Stabat Mater
with Salve Regina; Orfeo
Regina Klepper, s; Martina Borst, mz; Bamberg
Quartet—Capriccio 5130—65 minutes
with Laudate Pueri
Valer Barna-Sabadus, Terry Wey, ct; Neumeyer
Consort/ Michael Hofstetter
Oehms 831—56 minutes
These two recordings of works by Giovanni
Battista Pergolesi, both centered on his exquisitely crafted Stabat Mater, offer very different
performances: the Bamberg Quartet uses
modern instruments and female vocalists,
while the Neumeyer Consort uses 18th Century instruments and male countertenors.
Although I will admit to a clear preference for
the Neumeyer Consort recording (full disclosure here: most of my own training and experience has been in pre-19th Century music)
both are wonderfully played and sung, both
are true to the spirit of this intensely devotional work, and both have moments of breathtaking beauty.
The Stabat Mater is one of the last pieces
Pergolesi wrote in his tragically short life. (He
died in 1736 at the age of 26, probably of tuberculosis.) It may have been commissioned by
the Archfraternity of the Seven Sorrows of
Mary, or it may have been written for the Duke
of Maddaloni, at whose villa in Pozzuoli Pergolesi found refuge in his last illness. Whatever
its genesis, it is undoubtedly intended to
express intense religious fervor and identification with the sufferings of Christ. Scored for
two treble voices, as soloists and in duets, with
a small instrumental ensemble, it has long
been admired for its elegant melodies, contrasts between major and minor tonalities, and
expressive use of dissonance between the two
voices.
The Bamberg Quartet’s interpretation is
gentle and deeply mournful, passionate but
muted by sorrow. The Neumeyer Consort aims
instead for a depiction of almost unbearable
anguish, with extreme contrasts of tempo and
mood. The Neumeyer’s slow tempos are
noticeably slower than the Bamberg (their performance as a whole is a full two minutes
longer), and their fast movements are blinding. Soprano Regina Klepper has a voice of
limpid beauty, especially in the high register,
but Martina Borst’s dark mezzo-soprano
sometimes seems too weighted, ever so slightly behind the beat and below the pitch. The
two countertenors are perfectly matched, with
the agility of youth (neither singer is older than
the composer was when he died) and a piercing purity that makes the suspensions gleam
and burn. They also freely ornament the vocal
lines (as Klepper and Borst rarely do.) Both
instrumental ensembles play with elegance,
sensitivity, and impeccable style; but the
Neumeyer has brighter and more varied colors
at its disposal, and it deploys them with taste
and clarity.
The Bamberg recording also includes Pergolesi’s Salve Regina for solo alto (mezzosoprano here) and his cantata Orfeo for solo
soprano. Borst sings the Salve Regina with fine
clarity of line and text, though the part is obviously low for a mezzo, and her tone suffers a
bit below the staff. Klepper is lovely in Orfeo,
delicately expressive and graceful. Again there
is a reluctance to sustain a truly slow tempo,
which results in an oddly chipper lament for
Euridice in the first aria.
The Neumeyer Consort rounds out its
recording with Pergolesi’s setting of Psalm 112,
Laudate Pueri Dominum, a work in seven
short movements for two treble soloists, choir,
and chamber orchestra. The Baroque Vocal
Ensemble of Mainz is precise and exuberant in
the choral parts, and the addition of winds and
brass lends a brilliant luster to the instrumental sound. The ‘Gloria Patri’, for solo soprano,
is simply some of the most exquisite singing I
have heard from a countertenor.
Both booklets include enlightening essays
and full texts in German, adequately translated
into English.
MARCUSE
PEROS: Motets
Renaissance Singers/ Richard Cunningham
Phoenix 878—66 minutes
For a start, the packaging seemed a mite
bizarre. 20 motets from a composer named
Nick Peros recorded by the Renaissance
Singers, and not a syllable in the booklet about
who the guy is, where the Renaissance Singers
ply their trade, or anything else that might set
the participants in context. What we are told is
that this is the first-ever recording of the Peros’s works, and that he aspires to create beautifully handcrafted fare in the manner of
Renaissance masters like Lassus and Gesualdo.
Several of the motets are in the 2-part style of
Lassus. Three of them (‘He That Follows Me’,
‘Blessed Is The Man’, and ‘The Righteous Shall
Blossom’) are psalm texts set by Lassus himself. Then I listened and found that, despite
the wonderful intentions, the music didn’t
hold my interest. I could admire the polyphonic energy of the opening ‘Love and Faithfulness’ or the attractiveness of ‘I Call On You, O
God’ from the 17th Psalm. But once the basic
ideas established themselves, they seemed to
proceed aimlessly with no place to go. Chromatic figures ascended, chromatic figures
descended, and—ready or not—chromatic figures cadenced and stopped. The end. The
choir struck me as OK, but nothing great; especially the Minnie Mouse soprano section.
Then I saw that this had been recorded in
Canada back in 1999. I immediately checked
through my ARGs and found we hadn’t
reviewed it. At that point, I went online and
found that Mr Peros (b 1963) is a Canadian
composer and guitarist who has been a producer in his country’s music industry. Since
the late 80s he has devoted himself to composition in the classical idiom. I also found that
reviewers from Fanfare, Classics Today, and
elsewhere had turned both thumbs up (with
varying levels of enthusiasm) when this came
out. None of this news changed my response
to the music. I would be interested in hearing
Nick Peros’s music today to see how he has
progressed since this rather aimless maiden
voyage.
GREENFIELD
PEROS: Poemes 1-3, 6, 8; Eden; Solo Cello
Suite 1
Virginia Markson, fl; Simon Fryer, vc; Linda Shumas, p
Nick Peros writes in a romantic style very
pleasant to listen to at first. I was going to
complain primarily about the shortness of the
disc, but after hearing all three of these pieces,
I’m not particularly interested in hearing more
of his strained writing. The piano pieces are
pleasant and lyrical, but the work for solo flute
builds up to an over-repetitive climax that,
though memorable for its effort, ends by going
nowhere. The same goes for the cello suite,
where each of the five movements seems to
push on towards a lack of melodic inspiration.
It all seems to need a richer harmonic backing
to give it more direction. Unfortunately, the
cellist needs a more solid set of fingers as well.
Put it all together, it doesn’t add up to much to
my ears.
D MOORE
PEROS: Songs
Heidi Klann, s; Alayne Hall, p
A collection of rather slight songs, setting
poems by Emily Bronte, Emily Dickinson, AE
Housman, and the composer, among others.
Some, especially the melancholy ones, are
pleasing and effective. Settings of ‘Sleep brings
no joy to me’ and ‘I know not how it falls on
me’ by Emily Bronte make effective use of
repeating bass lines in a strophic form, and a
delicate descending piano figure nicely illustrates the text in ‘Fall, leaves, fall’. Houseman’s
‘Eight O’Clock’ is appropriately dramatic with
its chromatic rising vocal lines over insistent
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ostinato bass notes. The collection as a whole
relies too much on repetitive whole-tone progressions; and the quicker, more impassioned
songs are annoyingly strident. Soprano Heidi
Klann sings with impressive accuracy, clear,
rounded tone, and admirable commitment to
the spirit of the texts, though her exaggerated
vowels sometimes obscure the sense.
MARCUSE
PERUCONA: Motets; see COZZOLANI
P
FITZNER: Cello Concerto 2;
MAYER: Prabhanda; Ragamalas
Rohan de Saram; Druvi de Saram, p; John Mayer,
tanpura; Netherlands Radio Orchestra/ Bohumil
Gregor—First Hand 14—60 minutes
These recordings were made back in 1980 and
1983 and give us an unexpected picture of this
British-born Sri Lankan cellist playing in the
style we expect from him in Hans Pfitzner’s
compact 16-minute concerto, and in his own
ethnic style with his brother Druvi on piano
and composer Mayer on tanpura in that Indian composer’s music in two 20-minute suites.
Rohan de Saram was a well-known player
in his time and these are powerful readings.
Pfitzner (1869-1949) wrote, among many other
fine compositions, three cello concertos. This
one is a romantic work but alive to the more
concise expression of the 20th Century, written
in 1935 for Gaspar Cassado, Saram’s teacher. It
has seldom been recorded, and this is a fine
interpretation.
John Mayer (1929-2004) manages to move
our consciousness into Indian idioms without
any great shock to the senses. Perhaps that is
because the first suite, Prabhanda, is played
with piano, so by the time we are introduced
to the twang of the tanpura we are prepared
for it. These pieces were written for Saram in
1982 and 1983 and are all about the Indian
ragas. They are quite beautiful concepts and
are played with energy and poetic expression.
If following this fine cellist into a world most of
us were unaware that he was a part of interests
you, or if you want a fine recording of a littleknown cello concerto, this is the place to go.
D MOORE
PFITZNER: Palestrina
Peter Bronder (Palestrina), Britta Stahlmeister
(Ighino), Wolfgang Koch (Borromeo), Johannes
Martin Kränzle (Morone), Frank van Aken
(Novagerio); Frankfurt Opera/ Kirill Petrenko
Oehms 930 [3CD] 190 minutes
This recording of Pfitzner’s magnum opus was
made in June 2010 in the Frankfurt Opera at a
staged performance. The opera is Pfitzner’s
greatest and most admired work. Its premiere
in Munich in 1917 was conducted by Bruno
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Walter and attended by luminaries like
Thomas Mann, who hailed it as “bold” and
“embraced” it. It’s still in the repertory of German opera houses; and there are recordings
from Munich, Berlin, and now Frankfurt.
The opera takes place in 1563 at the Council of Trent, which is about to wind up after 18
years of deliberations. Cardinal Borremeo, an
influential clergyman and friend of the Pope,
has commissioned Palestrina to compose a
new mass that he wants to use to counter reactionaries in the Church who want to ban polyphonic music in church services. The elderly
composer at first resists, but he is finally
inspired by a dream where nine great composers of the past appear and plead with him
to accept the task and save polyphonic music.
After much urging (and even threats) by Borromeo, Palestrina yields, enabling the Cardinal
to persuade the Pope to order a demonstration
mass to be composed by Palestrina; it will
decide the use of polyphonic music for church
services. Palestrina’s mass is a huge success;
it’s romantic and polyphonic, but Pfitzner’s
opera is also greatly influenced by Wagner’s
music dramas.
The opera requires a huge cast, but many
of the roles are short. In the title role, the English tenor Peter Bronder shows us a voice
that’s neither beautiful nor smooth; it’s sometimes wobbly, though his diction is quite good.
Better singing and interpretations are available
in recordings by Nicolai Gedda (DG), Julius
Patzak (Myto) and Peter Schreier (Myto). The
other important role is Borromeo, sung here
quite well by Wolfgang Koch, a promising baritone (who is scheduled to join the Met in
2014). Also promising is Johannes Kränzle,
here cast as Cardinal Morone, the Pope’s representative. Hans Hotter, on the Myto recording from Munich, is the most dramatic Borromeo I know; his interpretation, coupled with
Patzak’s Palestrina, make a strong case for the
Munich recording.
The only female roles in this opera are
Palestrina’s son Ighino, taken here by the
youthful-sounding German soprano Britta
Stallmeister, and his pupil Silla, sung by the
mezzo Claudia Mahnke, a Frankfurt regular,
whose pleasant voice seems not always to be
secure.
The Frankfurt Opera orchestra is very
good; and the Russian conductor Kirill
Petrenko, using fleet tempos, injects some welcome excitement into this wordy work. Texts
and translations and very good sound. The DG
recording, conducted by Kubelik, is still, overall, the best recorded Palestrina; it has not only
Gedda in the title role but also F-D as Borromeo.
MOSES
POLOVINKIN: Symphony 7; Heroic Overture; The Sunny Tribe
St Petersburg Symphony/ Alexander Titov
Northern Flowers 9998—60 minutes
I sometimes get the impression that Soviet
composers felt about their symphonies as Stalin his battalions: the more the better, never
mind the quality. Miaskovsky, Shostakovich,
and Vainberg are the best-known offenders,
but there are others (Ivanovs, anyone?)
Leonid Polovinkin (1894-1949) was comparatively modest in this respect, turning out
only nine. The Seventh, in four movements
that total 32 minutes, is from 1942. The opening allegro is the longest and also the dullest
movement, offering only threadbare ideas,
predictable developments, and conventional
emotion. It doesn’t make much of an impression on the listener. The shorter movements
that follow are less academic and more tuneful. II is an ambling, melodious pastorale; III a
bumptious, dancing scherzo with some heavyfooted humor. The finale dramatizes the
wartime ethos by displaying a lively populist
theme as it overcomes some darker, more
threatening undercurrents, though the result is
never really in doubt and the music’s optimistic mood dominates.
Polovinkin’s 9-minute Heroic Overture
from the same year is suitably triumphant. The
seven numbers from his film music for The
Sunny Tribe (a movie about bees) from two
years later is suitably abuzz with genial activity
and replete with hymns to Nature’s beauty.
This is all respectable and sometimes
enjoyable music, but so deficient in individual
personality and nuance, and so far beneath
Prokofieff and Shostakovich and Vainberg in
both imagination and craft, that few music
lovers will want to go much out of their way to
hear it—especially in these energetic but
rather coarse performances and rather coarse
sonics.
LEHMAN
PORPORA: Assumption Vespers
Marillia Vargas, Michiko Takahashi, s; Delphine
Galou, a; Matrise de Bretagne, Parlement de
Musique/ Martin Gester
Ambronay 30—59 minutes
Nicola Porpora (1686-1768) was famous in his
time as a teacher of some of the leading singers
(especially castratos) of his day, as well as a
composer of operas. But, along the way, he
spent several segments of time in Venice,
where he composed music for the city’s
famous orphanages, including the Pieta served
earlier by Vivaldi.
Porpora’s music in general is rarely heard
today, but his sacred works are even more
neglected. This release promises a chance to
hear a serious bloc of the latter, but does not
quite fulfill that promise. We do not have here
a full or substantial array of Vespers music. We
know from Porpora’s own testimony that such
an assemblage, for the feast of the Assumption
in 1744, once existed. It was even the subject of
some contract controversy raised by the officials of the commissioning Ospedaletto, who
accused the composer of having only reused
earlier music that he had written for the Pieta.
Tracing the scores of the 1744 pieces is difficult, and we are given here only four items that
can be identified in isolated manuscripts.
Thus, we have three Psalms, Laudate pueri
Dominum, Laetatus sum, and Lauda
Jerusalem, plus a Salve Regina.
Porpora’s style here remains characteristically operatic. Indeed, the Salve Regina is simply a solo motet in the Neapolitan idiom, for
alto and orchestra. The Psalms are multimovement pieces, with most sections scored
for one or more soloists, the choir rung in
mainly for passing effects. (There is, though, a
particularly fine cello obligato part in first of
the Psalms.) The writing for solo voices
belongs to a Neapolitan style of a generation
after Vivaldi, and the choral writing is highly
simplistic—but then Vivaldi, a wonderful composer for solo voices, was himself pretty flat in
choral work. In all, post-Vivaldian, postbaroque Italian all-girl sound here.
The performances are of good quality. All
three soloists have attractive voices and sing
very ably. The four-part female choral writing,
designed for the young-lady singers of the
orphanage, is carried by a strong girl’s choir;
and the small period orchestra of 12 string and
continuo players is quite competent. They are
all accorded excellent sound.
The booklet is most attractive, with good
notes and full texts with translations. This is
not a release of major music, but it will appeal
to people interested in Italian sacred music
that hovers between baroque and classical.
BARKER
PRAETORIUS: Easter Mass
Weser-Renaissance Bremen/ Manfred Cordes
The Easter Mass of Michael Praetorius (15711621) is essentially a series of baroque concertos, most movements calling for varied (and
competing) forces of chorus, vocal and instrumental soloists, and orchestra. It is a brilliant
performance, representing the best of German
baroque performance practice. Weser-Renaissance Bremen also demonstrates the range of
style a German audience might have encountered in the performance of an Easter Mass. It
is enlightening to hear such variety, with a
151
chanted ‘Credo’, a chordal setting of ‘Christ ist
Erstanden’, together with polyphonic movements. Texts and notes are in English.
LOEWEN
P
ROKOFIEFF: Toccata; Piano Sonata 2; 10
Pieces, op 12; Sarcasms; Visions Fugitives
Abdel Rahman El Bacha, p—Mirare 165—78 mins
El Bacha was born in Beirut and trained in
France. By the time he was 19 years old he had
won many awards and prizes, including the
Queen Elisabeth of Belgium in 1978. He has a
repertoire of some 60 piano concertos and has
recorded and performed the complete piano
music of Chopin and Ravel, the 32 Sonatas of
Beethoven, the Prokofieff and Ravel concertos,
and many, many more. Why is this the first the
time I have run into a recording by him? Bad
luck I guess, because he is a spectacular pianist
with a leaning towards repertoire that I particularly like. This is another Mirare recording
done at La Ferme de Villefavard in Limousin,
France, an extraordinary recording venue in a
country setting. I have commented on it several times before. Recordings made here seem to
bring out the best of interpretations, captured
with state-of-the-art sound.
El Bacha has selected piano music by
Prokofieff composed from 1912 to 1917: Opp.
11, 12, 14, 17, and 22. These were all composed
in Russia in the five years after Prokofieff graduated from the St Petersburg Conservatory. He
is an exciting performer—precise, clean, and
clear—with a strong rhythmic drive, essential
for Prokofieff. He has all the power required
for this music, but does not ever resort to
banging. His phrasing is to be commended,
from the innumerable two-note groups in the
Toccata to the long melodic phrases in the
Andante movement of Sonata 2.
I was particularly taken with the 10 Pieces,
Op. 12—not as often performed or recorded as
the Visions Fugitives or Sarcasms. They are relatively strict dance forms, all with the distinctive Prokofieff touch. The titles—’Marche’,
‘Gavotte’, ‘Rigaudon’, ‘Allemande’, ‘Capriccio’—could all be found in the Partitas or
French and English Suites of Bach. The ‘Prelude’ is sub-titled ‘Harp’ and has found its way
into the standard repertoire for harpists. It is
actually playable on the harp—that is, it has
none of the usual Prokofieff chromaticism. It is
firmly in C major, with only an occasional Bflat and one odd-ball chord near the end. El
Bacha gives us a remarkably fluid performance
of this piece. He also captures the humor in
the ‘Humorous Scherzo’ perfectly. Here
Prokofieff sub-titles the piece “for four bassoons”, which I imagine it has been arranged
for, but I have not heard that version. El Bacha
delineates the low-pitched four voices quite
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well, all with a subtle smile. The final ‘Scherzo’
is more in the same sound world as the ‘Toccata’. It is a driving, virtuosic work and a fitting
conclusion to the set.
I hope that this is only the first installment
of a possible complete Prokofieff Piano Music
series, though there is no indication that it is.
El Bacha seems perfectly suited to tackle such
a large project.
HARRINGTON
PROKOFIEFF: Symphony 5; The Year 1941
Sao Paulo Symphony/ Marin Alsop
The Year 1941 is a symphonic suite (three
movements) written in that year, a month after
the Germans invaded. It’s typical of the composer in many ways, but it was not well
received and has not been played much. The
only other current recording is Kuchar on
Naxos—with the Fifth Symphony! I guess
Naxos is replacing that whole series with this
new one from Sao Paulo.
The Fifth Symphony is the point here—or
maybe the orchestra is. The orchestra is very,
very good; and the music makes that abundantly clear. The brass are powerful, and the
strings are lush in the Adagio. (That has to be
some of the most beautiful music ever written.) The sound is glorious.
Will this replace our long-time top choices?
I’m thinking of Karajan, Ormandy, Slatkin, and
Michael Tilson Thomas (July/Aug 2004). The
beauty of the orchestra and sound are on that
level, but there is a little something missing in
the conducting and phrasing that would have
given it more majesty and more ardor—even
more “architecture”. Very few living conductors can do that, and Marin Alsop doesn’t,
though she does this extremely well otherwise.
So it is only fair to say that this is a terrific
recording that orchestra, conductor, engineers, and record label should be very proud
of.
I can’t resist adding some comments about
the notes. They refer to “the remarkable The
Fiery Angel”. People seem to forget that “the”
must be dropped from a title if an article or
possessive precedes it. It has to be “the
remarkable Fiery Angel”. The notes also use
the dreadful word “prestigious” and tell us
Marin Alsop is the first woman to head a major
US orchestra. That’s not true; JoAnn Falletta is.
VROON
PROKOFIEFF: Alexander Nevsky; see
RACHMANINOFF
Clarinet Sonata; see FRANCAIX
Piano Sonata 2; see JANACEK
Piano Sonata 7; see MOUSSORGSKY
Visions Fugitives; see Collections
PURCELL: Harmonia Sacra
Rosemary Joshua, s; Les Talens Lyriques/
Christophe Rousset
Aparté 27—76 minutes
In the 17th Century, sacred vocal music was
not just for church. The songs on this recording were not intended for public worship but
for private devotion in a domestic setting. As
program annotator Bruce Wood points out,
Henry Purcell’s devotional songs are, on their
modest scale, some of his most brilliant yet
least-known compositions. Next to the Bible
and the Book of Common Prayer, their texts
are among the finest poetry the composer ever
set to music, especially when compared with
the effusions of the court poetasters for
ephemeral birthday odes and welcome songs.
If Purcell chose the texts he set, he displayed a
discerning literary taste and produced some of
the most eloquent text settings ever. Most of
the songs alternate lyrical passages with
intense declamation in the form of impassioned arioso. The word “recitative” does not
even begin to do justice to this idiom.
Roughly half of Purcell’s devotional songs
survived only in manuscript, but others were
published by Henry Playford under the title
Harmonia Sacra in two collections of 1688 and
1693. Purcell was not the only composer, but
his was the lion’s share of the two books: 12 of
the 29 songs in the first volume and five of the
15 in the second. This testifies not only to the
outstanding quality of his contributions but
the fact that he was easily the most celebrated
English composer of that time, and his name
would have made the collections more attractive to purchasers. The pieces recorded here
are the solo songs for high voice. A few of them
conclude with a so-called “chorus”, with a bass
voice joining in, but that second voice is omitted in these performances.
This recording contains some of the finest
and best known of Purcell’s devotional songs,
including ‘Tell Me, Some Pitying Angel’, also
known as ‘The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation’,
text by Nahum Tate (1652-1715), who also
wrote the libretto for Dido and Aeneas. Bishop
William Fuller (1608-75) is the author of several of the songs including ‘Now that the Sun’,
also known as ‘An Evening Hymn on a
Ground’, a song whose peaceful serenity contrasts with the anguished penitence of most of
the others. Among the other poets are Jeremy
Taylor (1613-67), Sir Thomas Browne (160582), George Herbert (1593-1633), and Francis
Quarles (1592-1644). Two of the songs here—
’The Night is Come’ and ‘My Opening Eyes Are
Purged’—are probably not by Purcell. They
appeared anonymously in the 1693 collection.
In addition to those songs, the recording
contains some solo harpsichord pieces by Purcell performed by Christophe Rousset. Several
of them are Purcell’s arrangements of vocal
and orchestral compositions, but the fourmovement Suite in G minor was originally
conceived for the harpsichord. Rousset’s performances are stylish and coherent, displaying
a keen awareness of how this music moves.
Soprano Rosemary Joshua is especially
noted as a Handel singer, though she has
appeared in some of the lighter soprano roles
in the standard operatic repertory. Here she
displays the passion intrinsic to Purcell’s
intense declamatory writing. Sometimes she
sacrifices beauty of tone for dramatic or emotional effect. Listeners will have to decide for
themselves whether this is a good trade or
whether a more understated but still expressive approach might have been preferable.
On his title pages to the two volumes, Playford noted that the continuo is “for the theorbo-lute, bass-viol, harpsichord, or organ”. The
continuo ensemble on this recording consists
of viola da gamba, lute, harpsichord, and
organ. Rousset plays both keyboard instruments. Purists may object to the changing
composition of the continuo ensemble in a
song, usually to delineate the changing character of the words and music. I found that somewhat jarring sometimes, but the playing itself
is always at the highest standard.
GATENS
PURCELL: Love’s Madness
Dorothee Mields; Lautten Compagney Berlin/
Wolfgang Katschner
Carus 83371—76 minutes
From the title of this release I expected a rather
conventional performance of love songs, but
instead of love, madness is the theme of this
lively program. The Londoners of Purcell’s and
Shakespeare’s day were fascinated with madness, and it became a sort of pastime for them
to visit Bedlam on public holidays—and they
were charged admission. One has only to think
of some of Shakespeare’s mad characters to
understand that people then were at least as
interested as we are in what might constitute
the line between sanity and insanity, the causes of mental illness, and the strange ways it
manifests itself. A catch included in this program sums up the connection that Elizabethan
England perceived between love and madness:
“‘Tis women makes us love, ‘tis love that
makes us sad, ‘tis sadness makes us drink, and
drinking makes us mad’.
Given the theme of love and madness, the
songs here have a kind of wild quality, and
Dorothee Mields sings them brilliantly. The
rollicking period-instrument group that
accompanies her intersperses the songs with
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an occasional instrumental piece. Most pieces
are by Purcell; a few other composers, such as
Robert Johnson and Matthew Locke, appear
occasionally.
I recommend that you pick up this very
attractive presentation, as it is the most creative achievement in terms of Elizabethan
songs that I’ve seen in several years. The sound
is excellent. One very minor drawback is that
the accompaniment sometimes seems too
central in relation to the voice.
CRAWFORD
PYGOTT: Salve Regina; see LUDFORD
R
ACHMANINOFF: The Bells
with PROKOFIEFF: Alexander Nevsky
Elena Prokina, s; Daniil Shtoda, t; Sergei Leiferkus, bar; BBC Symphony & Chorus; Alfreda Hodgson, mz; Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus/
Yevgeny Svetlanov
ICA 5069—79 minutes
Svetlanov’s interpretations gained depth as he
grew older, and the results are often spectacular, as they are here in the Rachmaninoff. I’ve
reviewed quite a few fine recordings of The
Bells, including the recent BBC Philharmonic/Noseda (Mar/Apr), but I have to say that
few are as immediately gratifying and gripping
as this one, recorded at the Barbican Hall, London, 19 April 2002. Almost every other recording has at least a few moments that drag a little—not so here. Svetlanov keeps the line taut
through the entire performance; and even the
quiet passages, though certainly never hurried,
are clearly part of the overall arc of the work.
No doubt, it helped having a Russian conductor sensitive to both the music and the flow of
the language—and the composer’s careful
intertwining of the two.
If there is urgency and febrile energy in I
and III, there’s a remarkable mixture of repose
and longing in II and IV. Of course, that’s in
Rachmaninoff’s score, but here the otherworldly concentration also comes from the
conductor. Svetlanov was a dying man; this
performance was the last one he conducted.
He passed away at his home in Moscow two
weeks later. But there is no ebbing of life-force
in this performance.
Nevsky dates from 14 years earlier, 30 January 1988, and is vital, earthy, and very Russian
sounding. How did Svetlanov get English choir
singers to sound so Slavic? Very Russian sound
from Ms Hodgson, too. Svetlanov captures
both the epic timelessness of the score and the
human loss and pain of the dramatic events it
depicts. I should wave the caution flag and
remind you that the Reiner (RCA) has better
sound, Schippers (Sony) more excitement, and
Temirkanov (RCA) the advantage of more
154
music from the Alexander Nevsky movie score
itself—plus spectacular sonics and an unmistakably Russian sound. There’s a place for
Svetlanov’s sturdy, forthright, uninhibited
power. Svetlanov was recorded in the notorious difficult space of the Royal Albert Hall. It’s
a little Albert-y, but overall I find it very listenable.
HANSEN
R
ACHMANINOFF: Cello Sonata; Vocalise;
SHOSTAKOVICH: Sonata
Joseph Johnson; Victor Asuncion, p
JVBAM 1—73 minutes (CD Baby: 800-BUYMYCD)
First the complaint. They omit the exposition
repeat in the Rachmaninoff Sonata. Now the
reason for the complaint. Everything else they
play is outstanding and I want to hear how different the repeat would sound second time
around. Yes, I know it was freezing cold in the
recording studio in midwinter Minneapolis
without heat or lights and Johnson had just
smashed his cello before coming to town and
was sick because of it. But still, man, if you
guys can play that well we want to hear it
again!
Both the Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich
get perceptive, dramatic and lusciously blended performances here. The balance between
instruments works beautifully (it often doesn’t
in Rachmaninoff recordings) and one hears
the lines in both instruments with great clarity,
partly because the players love every note of
the music and make sure the listener understands why. And they bring out both the madness and the contrasting beauty in the
Shostakovich to great effect. This one is well
worth whatever they are charging for it. The
liner notes tell us only about the relations
between the two players and the history of the
recording session (also worth the price of
admission). A bio of Johnson was sent along as
well. But these pieces and composers hardly
need explanation for most listeners.
D MOORE
R
ACHMANINOFF: Fantasy Pieces, op 3;
Etudes-Tableaux, op 33; Corelli Variations
Nareh Arghamanyan, p
Pentatone 5186 399 [SACD] 63 minutes
The first record I heard by Arghamanyan
(Analekta 8762, Jan/Feb 2010) caused me to
question how a 20-year-old could possibly
play Liszt and Rachmaninoff sonatas so well.
Now at the ripe old age of 23, she has a new
exclusive recording deal with Pentatone and
gives us a superb Rachmaninoff recital. Early,
middle, and late piano works are represented.
First, the youthful Opus 3, including the
famous Prelude in C-sharp minor and the late
(1940) revisions of the ‘Melodie’ and ‘Sere-
nade’. Next, the first set of Etudes-Tableaux,
written on the heals of Piano Concerto 3 and
the completion of the 24 Preludes (with Op.
32). This is the heart of Rachmaninoff’s big,
complex virtuoso works. Finally his last work,
displaying more clarity; it has been described
by Ashkenazy as “perhaps his most perfect
work for piano”.
The early set is played just to my liking. I
especially the composer’s 1940 revisions of the
‘Melodie’ and ‘Serenade’. Rachmaninoff in his
late teens had some wonderful musical ideas,
but by the time he was in his 60s, his compositional skill had greatly increased and the transformation of these two miniatures is a small
example of what he did with his Piano Concerto 1. The first set of Etudes-Tableaux is usually
paired with the second, but I like it to stand on
its own. Arghamanyan has the musical insight
to find melodic lines in places I have never
heard them before. She also has great dynamic
control, with the ability to switch gears instantaneously where the music calls for it. My only
criticism is that the final big C-sharp minor
Etude could be a little faster. She gets a little
bogged down in the detail; others (notably
Richter and Ashkenazy) let it move along
more. As for the Corelli Variations, this is one
of the top two or three that I have ever heard.
It’s lightly pedaled and full of insight. I must
have listened to this recording a dozen times
over the last month.
This is the first disc I can recall to use the
composer’s numbering, as can be seen in the
manuscripts of these works: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Number 4 does not exist. And Rachmaninoff
withdrew 3 and 5 before publication. They
were found and restored to the set after he
died. Now all we need is a recording of the first
version of these as published in the new Rachmaninoff Critical Edition by Barenreiter. It also
includes a reconstruction of what the original
No. 4 might have been. It’s all right out there,
just waiting for an inspired pianist.
If you enjoy Rachmaninoff piano music,
you must get this. The Bonus DVD allows you
to see Arghamanyan play the theme and first
seven Corelli Variations and the Prelude in Csharp minor. The sound and presentation are
unbeatable.
HARRINGTON
R ACHMANINOFF: Moments Musicaux;
Corelli Variations; Etudes-Tableaux, op 39
Xiayin Wang, p
Chandos 10724—69:18
Another beautiful young Asian woman! They
are everywhere; they are taking over classical
music as it dies in the West. And some of them
are very, very good. As usual, there is no biography. Is she Chinese? Taiwanese? American?
She has played a lot in New York, and this was
recorded there.
Readers know, I think, that I consider the
Moments Musicaux the most perfect piano
pieces. Nothing else lets the instrument do so
impressively what a piano can do. They have
everything (well, almost); they are not just virtuosic. They are also emotional, majestic,
melodic, and warm. Rachmaninoff was 23
when he wrote them, and this pianist looks
about that age now.
There is a little smoothing out here: the
fasts are a little less fast, the slows a little less
slow than some of my favorite recordings. But
the phrasing and shape of the pieces is wonderful, and Rachmaninoff’s markings come
across: sostenuto is sustained, and maestoso is
majestic. Sometimes her touch is a little hard;
sometimes there is more percussion than tone.
Sometimes I hear a “buzz” in the piano, and I
hate that—but it is not often. All in all, this is a
very satisfying account of music that many
pianists murder.
The eight Etudes-Tableaux pass by much
faster than the six Moments Musicaux, and
they leave less of an impression. (Perhaps they
are as close as this composer came to Impressionism.) The Corelli Variations are not
unpleasant, but I’d rather listen to Corelli.
That is not the pianist’s fault; she presents
them about as well as I’ve heard them.
So the playing here is excellent, and she
joins a small handful of pianists whose musical
moments move me.
VROON
RACHMANINOFF: Etudes-Tableaux, op 39; see
SCHUMANN
RAFF: Piano Sonata, op 14; Suite, op 91
Adrian Ruiz
Genesis 118—68 minutes
In this recording from 1971, Ruiz explores
another peripheral piano personality from the
19th Century. Raff’s early career showed
promise, as he earned favorable reviews of
compositions from Schumann in the Neue
Zeitschrift für Music and toured Europe with
Franz Liszt. (Beginning in 1849, he served as
his assistant for five years).
The works included here reflect his more
substantial, serious output. The Sonata in Eflat minor retains its original low opus number
but was entirely revised near the end of his life.
It is worth hearing as a novelty, but does not
hold up well next to the hundreds of other
sonatas we commonly listen to from this period. I opens with a Shostakovich-like ramble of
parallel octaves; then it is off to the races as the
rhythmic values gradually decrease. The body
of the movement is built not as a series of easi-
155
ly-identifiable thematic areas but more as a
succession of short, disjointed segments
marked by contrasting textures. The finale is
an uninspired march that encapsulates the
composer’s cliches, among them bass pedal
points and melodic four-note scalar fragments
that serve as filler.
The Suite in D minor is a more creative
work. In the fantasy portion of the first number, bold rhetorical flourishes lead to a calmer
stretch that murmurs nicely. The attached
fugue is made awkward by its enigmatic subject, a second subject (double fugue) introduced where none is desirable, and a
blowhard conclusion that presents, of all
things, a drawn-out repetitive scalar descent
exactly in the style of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture! Next comes a reserved gigue in the minor
that launches into a rich set of variations. The
third movement (‘Cavatina’) is the most musical utterance on the release. It is a simple,
choral-style work that favors the lower register.
Ruiz does a superb job here, both with the
semplice material and in allowing the music to
surge forward. He is never afraid of employing
a full concert sound even when a piano or
mezzo-piano marking is called for. The movement as a whole comes across like a lyric
episode right out of the Schumann character
piece tradition. After it concludes, there is
hardly a reason to listen to the vapid march
(yes, another one) that concludes the work.
AUERBACH
RAMEAU: Dardanus
Georges Gautier (Dardanus), Frederica Von Stade
(Iphise), Christine Eda-Pierre (Venus), Michael
Devlin (Antenor), Jose van Dam (Ismenor), Roger
Soyer (Teucer), Paris Opera/ Raymond Leppard
The fifth of his operas and the third of
Rameau’s “lyric tragedies”, Dardanus is really
almost two operas. It was composed and first
presented in 1739 and was not a popular success. But in 1744 he and his librettist drastically revised it, completely rewriting Acts III-V to
change the plot, balance of characters, and
musical content. So there are two distinct versions of the opera for performers to consider.
While the work’s rich quantity of dances
and orchestral movements has attracted conductors and recording companies, the opera
itself has had only two recordings. Their differences illustrate the work’s split personality.
For a production at the Paris Opera in
1980, Leppard created his own performing edition. He was at the time, you will recall, in his
phase of exploring baroque operas and bringing them vividly to the public in somewhat free
adaptations—effective but subject to some
critical discomfort. In this case, he chose to
156
follow the idea of Rameau scholar Cuthbert
Girdlestone in making a composite of the two
scores. He cut the original Prologue and used
the revised Acts III-V of 1744. He also cut the
final chaconne, replacing it with a chorus of
unclarified origin. It is that version of the
score, recorded by Erato, that is here reissued.
Meanwhile, in 1998, Marc Minkowski
recorded the work (DG 463 476, 2CD: N/D
2000), and made a more drastic choice. He
chose the original 1739 form of the opera,
which he found more inventive and musically
fascinating. He did, however, use just a little
bit of the 1744 revision—above all the eloquent
prison monolog of Dardanus that was added
to begin the revised Act IV; but cuts and
changes were made in the 1739 Act II. The Prologue was retained, and the entire score was
brought in at a total of 156 minutes.
The opera’s plot is a grand muddling of
Greek mythological characters. Dardanus was
the legendary founder of Troy and ancestor of
Priam. He either received or was received by
Teucer, a local monarch who gave Dardanus
his daughter in marriage. (As a result, Trojans
were regularly called in Greek literature both
Dardanians and Teucrians.) Out of such
basics, the libretto creates conflicts of love and
combat. Teucer and Dardanus are at war with
each other. Teucer’s daughter, Iphise, is
secretly in love with Dardanus but is promised
to the hero Antenor (mythically a character in
the later Trojan War). Antenor and Dardanus
become bitter enemies, but are reconciled
after Dardanus saves both Antenor’s life and
the realm from a raging monster. Venus (the
star of the original Prologue) intervenes to
unite Iphise and Dardanus.
The two recordings are strongly contrasted
in more than performing editions. Leppard
was still using modern playing style, and leading with a leisurely flow that might now seem
dated. Minkowski, with an emphatically period-style band, is more choppy, but also more
penetrating emotionally.
On some counts, Minkowski has a slightly
superior cast. John Mark Ainsley is an
admirable title character, with more personality than Leppard’s routinier, Gautier; the same
can be said for Minkowski’s Antenor, Naouri,
against Devlin here. Minkowski even has the
then-novice Magdalena Kozena in a couple of
tiny roles. On the other hand, that fine veteran
of an older generation, Soyer, is a distinctive
Teucer. Eda-Pierre is an impressive Venus
here, but she has lost too much of her music,
and Minkowski’s Mirelle Delunsch brings off
the full role very handsomely.
Leppard does have two singers not to be
missed. Van Dam in his prime, as the magician
Ismenor, who tries to help Dardanus in Act II,
wields a formidable magic wand. And Von
Stade, here billed as a soprano, but the pleading plangency of her lower register makes her
irresistible, especially for listeners who will
justly treasure every scrap of recording she has
made—even though Minkowski’s Veronique
Gens creates a fully creditable Iphise in her
turn.
And the booklet? Warner, of course, has
followed the usual False Economy rule. In the
original Erato set, there were extensive and
informative essays, synopsis, and the full
libretto. In this reissue we have only the track
lists and a very casual plot synopsis. Warner
doesn’t want you even to think of a libretto,
print-available or otherwise.
Who knows? maybe some day there will be
new, separate recordings of the distinct 1739
and 1744 versions.
BARKER
RAMEAU: Suite in A;
MARCHAND: Suites in D+G
Christophe Rousset, hpsi
Ambronay 32—69 minutes
Checking the cumulative index I notice with
some surprise that no single release of
Marchand’s harpsichord music has been
reviewed since the late 80s. Nor do I own any
recordings, though I see that there are at least
two available (one by Ketil Haugsand and the
other by Mario Martinoli). Marchand is best
known for a famed keyboard duel with Bach;
according to the story—which can be found
only in German sources, not French ones—
Marchand departed in the middle of the night,
afraid to face the formidable JSB. Never mind.
Here the redoubtable Rousset regales us
with two Marchand suites (along with three
miscellaneous works) and the early one in A by
Rameau (who, like Marchand, was born in
Lyon). He performs on a 1716 instrument by
Donzelague, another 18th Century Lyonnese,
now housed in the Decorative Arts Museum
there. The sound is quite harsh, as if it was
recorded in a rather tiny room with the microphones bearing down inside the instrument;
with the harpsichord fully registered, it’s an
excruciating sound at normal listening volume. (Could this be the current taste for
recording harpsichord sound? Even at a lower
volume it sounds much too dry.) But the playing is magnificent, full of all sorts of rhythmic
nuance, all kinds of uncoordinated (staggered)
relationships between left and right hands,
ideal tempos. In the end, I must forgive the
arid acoustic for the musical brilliance.
HASKINS
RAVEL: Violin Pieces
Tzigane; Sonatas; Fauré Lullaby; Piece in the
Form of a Habanera
Sasha Rozhdestvensky; Michal Kanka, vc; Josiane
Marfurt, p
Praga 250286 [SACD] 66 minutes
Sasha Rozhdestvensky is here a very accomplished young violinist with a solid technique
and an attractive tone. (Mr Vroon hated his
Tchaikovsky in Jan/Feb.) The best performances are Tzigane and the Posthumous
Sonata. While I am impressed with his technique and musicianship, I can’t say that any of
the performances here are special or individual. I have heard superior performances of all
of the works.
Another weakness is Josiane Marfurt, who
plays more like an accompanist than a partner,
even in the two sonatas. For the Violin Sonata,
I never tire of extolling the virtues of Gilles
Apap and Eric Ferrand-N’Kaoua (March/April
2000). Kennedy and Lynn Harrell find more
colors in the Violin and Cello Sonata (Sept/Oct
2000). Regis Pasquier is very fine for the other
pieces and peerless in the Posthumous Sonata
(Jan/Feb 2009). As for sound, this release is
SACD with 5.1 surround sound, and while it is
pleasant and well balanced, I have heard regular CDs with more impressive sonics.
MAGIL
RAVEL: Daphnis & Chloe excerpts; see
BERLIOZ
Mother Goose; La Valse; see DEBUSSY
Piano Concerto; see Collections
Valses Nobles & Sentimentales; see JANACEK
REGER: Violin Sonatas 2+3; Albumblatt;
Romanze
Ulf Wallin; Roland Pöntinen, p
It’s difficult to believe that Max Reger was a
not-yet-20-year-old student when he gave the
first performance of his Second Violin Sonata
at the Wiesbaden Conservatory in 1892. He
was clearly under the spell of Brahms at the
time, and though this early work lacks the
economy and clarity of the violin sonatas
Brahms wrote when he was twice Reger’s age,
his ideas are original, and his technique as a
composer is impressive. It is difficult to follow
Reger’s “argument” in I of the Second Sonata,
but these musicians do everything possible to
give expressive life to his very long and sometimes quirky phrases, and ride them to their
conclusions.
Reger wrote his Third Sonata in 1898. Like
the Second, much of the overt complexity lies
in the long and winding themes of I (the first
theme lasts a little over two minutes); but a
157
second hearing makes the movement far easier to follow, particularly with the score in
hand. II is delightfully light and straightforward and looks forward to the 20th Century. III
and IV are both rather Brahmsian, but more in
texture than in harmonic material.
Reger can be daunting. He wrote a large
amount of music, much of it filled with vast
amounts of mind-boggling counterpoint. The
‘Albumblatt’ and ‘Romanze’, however, express
a side of Reger that is warm and comfortable in
its sophistication. These two pieces, published
in 1905 as Op. 87, are not as well known as
Reger’s other violin music (I don’t know of any
other recordings of them). They are excellent
pieces of great emotional scope, and they are
completely removed from the Brahmsian
idiom.
Wallin and Pöntinen have spent the last
ten years recording several volumes of Reger’s
violin and piano music for CPO (the seven
additional sonatas and three suites—see our
index). The quality of the playing here is so
high that I imagine the other Reger violin and
piano recordings would be well worth hearing.
FINE
R
IMSKY-KORSAKOFF: Scheherazade;
SCHREKER: Prelude to a Drama
Buffalo Philharmonic/ JoAnn Falletta
Beau Fleuve 9491—63 minutes
This is a solid, satisfying performance of
Scheherazade. The orchestra plays very well,
and conductor Falletta keeps a firm hand on
the tiller, letting us get close enough to the
rocks to enjoy the scenery without ever risking
running aground. It’s straightforward and
direct but not brusque—a Scheherazade for
somebody who doesn’t like interpretive excess
but still wants energy and engagement.
The Des Moines Symphony is going to play
this on their opening concert a couple of
weeks after this issue hits the mail. If they give
a performance like this one, I won’t complain.
But in the rare moments that I have for actually sitting down to listen to a recording, I’m
going to reach for one of the more spectacular,
brilliant interpretations like the masterly Reiner (RCA), one of the sensuously indulgent ones
like London Symphony/Stokowski (Decca) or
Goossens (Everest), or a poetic one like
Beecham (EMI) or Kondrashin (Philips). And
there are the interpretations that concentrate
more on sheer beauty of sound (Karajan, DG)
or dramatic excitement (Muti, EMI) or the
surging flow of the melodic line (Monteux,
Decca and RCA, different orchestras). Ms Falletta and her players don’t hit any of those
extremes. Over the years I’ve encountered
plenty of recordings that reach for more and
deliver less. In a concert, the performers are
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presenting the work mostly on their own
terms; in a recording, comparison with any
other recording is fair game.
Rather than the usual Capriccio Espagnol
or Russian Easter Overture, the Schreker prelude makes for an interesting filler—maybe
more interesting than the main work. It’s the
actual prelude to a one-act opera. It’s also a
long (17-minute) work, nicely orchestrated,
full of ripe, colorful orchestral effects and lateromantic portent.
Like the music, the recorded sound is solid
and free from gimmicks. I wouldn’t mind
stronger bass, more shimmer to the strings,
and more “presence”, but then I’m really asking for Reiner or Stokowski.
HANSEN
ROENTGEN: Symphonies 5, 6, 19
Concensus Vocalis, Netherlands Symphony/
David Porcelijn
In his last three years, Julius Roentgen (18551932) wrote 19 of his 25 symphonies—a feat to
rival the late blooming of Havergal Brian. Like
Brian’s, Roentgen’s symphonies are compact
in structure and duration, though new listeners will find them far easier to follow. These are
products of a master of form, concision, and
clarity.
Symphony 5, Death the Reaper (1926) is the
most Brahmsian in scoring of the three. It
begins with a brass summons, fleshed into an
impressive orchestral tutti. The movement
quotes the hymn ‘Aus Tiefer Not’. II has a
beautiful elegiac quality. After World War I
Roentgen became a Dutch citizen and
renewed his friendship with Kaiser Wilhelm II
in his exile at Doorn. He may have intended
the work in general, and this movement in particular, as a tribute to the dead. The scoring is
superb—every note counts. In its stark simplicity, it’s as moving as a Kaethe Kollwitz
drawing. III begins with a mysterious, deliberate tread, continuing under woodwind cries till
the chorus enters with the title hymn. The
emotional effect is one of complete catharsis.
Symphony 6 (1928) quotes a 16th Century
song of lost love, ‘Great God, To Whom Shall I
Lament?’. In one movement, running about 16
minutes, it’s more like a short cantata. The
choral counterpoint recreates an earlier era.
The vocal writing and its orchestral accompaniment are vigorous and clear, unlike so many
elaborate choral-orchestral works whose
sonorities degenerate into benign-sounding
mush.
The subtitle of Symphony 19 (1931) is B-AC-H, and it uses those pitches for a unifying
motiv. When I first saw this, I was all set to
complain that the BACH fragment, for all the
cute head games it affords, is melodically a
singularly drab shard. Roentgen’s symphony
proves me wrong. In I, the BACH figure develops into a genuinely attractive theme. The
movement sounds like an excellently scored
organ fantasia. II is a graceful slow waltz, with
transparent orchestral coloring. Roentgen’s
employment of the BACH motiv as a fill phrase
is ingenious—ingenuity here not replacing
inspiration, but enhancing it. III is a powerful
scherzo, with the orchestral choirs skillfully
pitted against one another. In IV, the motiv, at
first slowly spelled out, transforms into an
arcane fugue, whose answering phrases are
adventurously chromatic. The conclusion of
the work is totally convincing. This symphony
struck me without reservation as a masterpiece.
The performances and singing are excellent. CPO’s sound is up to its usual high standard. David Porcelijn more and more impresses me. When he conducts, I believe I’m hearing the music face to face, without an intermediary. This level of conducting demands the
highest degree of musicianship.
O’CONNOR
ROMAN: Suites, all
Oskar Ekberg, p
Daphne 1041 [2CD] 127 minutes
I haven’t reviewed Roman’s suites since 1994
(Nov/Dec), when Joseph Payne made a harpsichord recording on BIS. I pronounced the
music galant, ingratiating, and facile, which I
think was intended to give the impression that
I didn’t think it very memorable. They fare better with a pianist, and Oskar Ekberg gives them
more shape and character than Payne did.
Alas, his articulation often falls into a default
position of Gouldian non-legato (but without
the tonal brilliance that Gould managed with
it), so I find myself bogged down trying to differentiate one piece from another. I also find
myself asking why a pianist of Ekberg’s obvious gifts wouldn’t record a composer from
around the same time who’s better known, say
JC Bach or CPE Bach (who both lived a generation after but whose music approaches the
gentility of Roman’s). Maybe he will; we could
use a fine modern-piano recording of CPE, in
particular.
HASKINS
ROSETTI: Horn Concertos
Klaus Wallendorf, Sarah Willis; Kurpfälz Chamber
Orchestra/ Johannes Moesis
Antonio Rosetti (c 1750-92) composed seven
concertos for two horns. One has never been
found. With this album, Berlin Philharmonic
horn players Klaus Wallendorf and Sarah Willis
have completed their CPO traversal of the six
known ones. Their first recording, made over a
decade ago (Jan/Feb 2000), offered one (C 60)
along with two clarinet concertos. The next
(Jan/Feb 2004) offered three more (C56, C57,
C58). This one includes a complete concerto
(C61), a slow movement from another (C55),
and two solo horn concertos (Wallendorf in
C48, Willis in C50).
The readings are excellent. Wallendorf has
a compact tone quality and impressive high
register. Willis has a full tone and is even more
impressive in the low. I have never heard such
robust yet agile low-horn playing.
KILPATRICK
ROSSINI: Overtures; see VERDI
RUBINSTEIN: Symphony 2; Feramors Ballet
Russian Symphony/ Igor Golovchin
Delos 2010—66 minutes
It would appear the emerging trend among
companies that can no longer shoulder the
immense cost of recording their own product
is to either sell off their stock to some other
label or else recycle performances already
bought and paid for by another distributor.
Delos has become little more than a revolving
door, first letting Naxos reissue all its Hanson,
Hovhaness, et al and now recycling everything
of Igor Golovchin and the RSSO issued back in
the 1990s by Russian Disc. In addition to the
Anton Rubinstein Ocean Symphony offered
here (first covered in July/Aug 1994) the booklet tells us Delos will be opening the Golovchin
floodgates this year, including the Rubinstein
Ivan the Terrible and Don Quixote (2011),
Fourth Symphony (2012; Jan/Feb 1995) and
Second and Fourth Piano Concertos with
Alexander Paley (2013; July/Aug 1994) along
with Gliere’s Ilya Mourometz (2014; Jan/Feb
1995). So you can simply look up our previous
reviews now and get it over with, since a quick
check over headphones reassured me they
sound the same.
In the case of the Ocean Symphony, your
choice may depend first of all on which version you’re looking for. Originally cast in four
movements, the symphony proved quite
impressive when it was first performed in St
Petersburg. Tchaikovsky praised it effusively.
Yet the composer was not satisfied and 11
years later added another two movements, followed by one more nearly 30 years after the St
Petersburg premiere. Tchaikovsky felt they
destroyed the artistic balance of the original
score and made the symphony much too long;
and it would appear Russian conductors agree
with him, since both Golovchin and Fuat
Mansurov on Vista Vera (Mar/Apr 2008)
159
employ the original four-movement version
(George Hanson as well: MDG; July/Aug 2004).
Only Stephen Gunzenhauser on Naxos gives
you all seven movements (Mar/Apr 2002;
Jan/Feb 1988), so you can program any version
you choose. More to the point, that is by far
the most satisfying of the lot anyway, both for
performance and sonics. (For a more detailed
synopsis of all seven movements, see our 2008
review.)
The Delos faithfully reproduces both the
pleasures and faults of the Russian Disc.
Golovchin paints his seascapes in broad
strokes, making the opening movement in particular a pretty turgid affair (and the trumpet
in true Melodiya fashion is all too often overpowering). In the Adagio you may hear echoes
of Mendelssohn’s Scotch Symphony. Yet I find
that more of the earthy good humor of the
ensuing sailors’ dance comes across with
Golovchin; moreover, he offers vitality to spare
in the finale while yet making proper obeisance to the expressive secondary theme that
once again suggests Mendelssohn, and he
plays that powerful triumphant chorale for all
it’s worth. But if it’s the four-movement version you’re after, I’d go with Mansurov; in his
hands the opening movement is urgent and
compelling where Hanson’s genial approach
suggests our intrepid seafarers are dead in the
water. The expansive Adagio is as fluid as the
very sea itself, the sailors’ dance wonderfully
bracing, and he strides forward confidently in
the finale—unlike Hanson, who tends to push
too hard. The problem is that Mansurov’s
USSR Symphony sounds like it was recorded in
an Aeroflot hangar, though if you turn it up
loud enough and simply let it wash over you it
makes quite a splash. (The appended powerhouse Prokofieff PC 3 with Alexander Mndoyants is almost worth the price of admission.)
The dances from Feramors remind us
Rubinstein wanted to be remembered most of
all as a composer of opera; yet out of the dozen
or so he wrote, only The Demon has had much
success outside Russia, including a rare outing
at the Met in 1922. His fifth opera, Feramors, is
based on Lalla Rookh by the Irish poet Thomas
Moore. It would appear Rubinstein did not
share in the affinity for “Eastern” color that
came so easily to his colleagues Borodin and
Rimsky-Korsakoff; his attempt at oriental
imagery is pretty pallid stuff next to Prince Igor
or Scheherazade. On Marco Polo Michael
Halasz (Jan/Feb 1988) gives you both of these
along with Nero, but he either skims the surface—for example the first ‘Bayaderes’
Dance’—or else trudges along dispiritedly as in
the ‘Dance of the Kashmiri Brides’ (also
beguilingly turned by Richard Bonynge in his
Decca box “Fête du Ballet”—468 578). Fortu-
160
nately, Halasz and Golovchin are on the same
page in the boisterous ‘Wedding Procession’
(is it mere coincidence that Rubinstein at 3:09
employs the same rhythm as Mendelssohn’s
‘Wedding March’?) but if it’s Feramors you’re
after, Golovchin is the clear first choice.
You should plan to snap up each of these
Delos reissues as soon as they surface. Even
with his maddeningly quixotic tempos Igor
Golovchin knows and understands this music
by one of the great Russian romantics, and we
can never have too many recordings of Anton
Rubinstein’s wonderful Ocean Symphony.
HALLER
RUGGLES: Complete Works
Judith Blegen, s; Beverly Morgan, mz; Leonard
Raver, org; Michael Tilson Thomas, John Kirkpatrick, p; Speculum Musicae; Brass Ensemble/
Gerard Schwarz; Gregg Smith Singers; Buffalo
Philharmonic/ Michael Tilson Thomas
Other Minds 1020 [2CD] 85 minutes
This is a reissue of the Columbia LP set from
1980. It contains the dozen pieces that are considered the gruff American’s complete works,
but in reality there is very little music involved
(three of the pieces are arrangements, one is a
little song, and one—Exaltation—a simple
hymn with some “wrong notes” added.) There
is also a three-song chamber cycle (Vox Clemans in Deserto) lasting about six minutes.
The remaining four pieces are the orchestral
pieces the composer is best known for. Except
for a couple of CRIs, only Sun-Treader is represented in our index, and that only once
(Dohnanyi).
There may be good reasons for this. These
orchestral works, lasting about 35 minutes in
total, are hardly the masterpieces they’re
cracked up to be. “Experimental” and tentative, their reputation is based on their prevailing dissonant counterpoint and now rather
corny angularity. Their structures are improvisatory and blocky. The style is usually
thought of as “craggy” and “individual”, but I
find it almost amateurish. Bombast is a recurring theme: the most famous piece, SunTreader, opens with a strong horror movie-ish
introduction, then misused as a refrain, with a
result akin to constantly repeating a horror
film’s initially arresting sequence without variation or change of context. This will likely
become distressingly laughable as the film
progresses.
Men and Mountains, in three movements,
has what today seems like hilarious bombast
(again) surrounding a small little respite called
‘Lilacs’. Portals is an angst-driven essay for
string orchestra lasting about seven minutes.
Evocations, originally for piano solo, is a fourmovement suite of mostly sullen little pieces,
the piano version played here by John Kirkpatrick and followed by the orchestral version.
Organum interrupts its misery with dejected
crashes.
I didn’t think much of this music when the
Columbia set came out almost 30 years ago,
and I think even less of it now. But many luminaries disagree. It’s interesting to note that
Ruggles abandoned music altogether toward
the end of his life and took up painting. Notes
from the original LP are by Thomas and John
Kirkpatrick, and there’s an appreciation by
Lou Harrison filled with a number of outdated
ideas about music history. The Buffalo Philharmonic sounds a lot better today than it did
30 years ago. No texts—an unacceptable omission for a 33-page booklet.
GIMBEL
SAINSBURY; FOULDS: Cello Concertos
Raphael Wallfisch; Scottish National Orchestra,
Bournemouth Symphony/ Martin Yates
Lionel Sainsbury (b 1958) and John Foulds
(1880-1939) are two of England’s less recorded
composers. These are first recordings of both
of these cello concertos, both well played and
warmly engineered.
These are large-scale romantic-sounding
works in the customary three movements.
Each has its surprises. Sainsbury’s concerto of
1999 is in a lively yet mysterious style, full of
variety and verve, including even a touch of
jazz employed very effectively towards the end
of the last movement. It is a piece with a good
deal of personality, and Wallfisch plays it with
obvious enjoyment.
The Foulds from 1908-1909 is a lovely, outgoing piece with some memorable melodies in
it and some powerful orchestral writing.
This is a very fine release of music by two
composers that we should hear more of. The
idioms blend well together, and Wallfisch and
his orchestras play with warmth and clarity.
D MOORE
S
AINT-SAENS: Orchestral Works
Danse Macabre; Rouet d’Omphale; Phaeton;
Jeunesse d’Hercule; Princesse Jaune & Spartacus Overtures; Marche Militaire Française;
Coronation March; Bacchanale; Nuit a Lisbon
Scottish National Orchestra/ Neeme Jarvi
Chandos 5104 [SACD] 78 minutes
If you buy your Saint-Saens in bulk, this one’s
for you. Not only do you get all four tone
poems—why settle for Danse Macabre?—but
you also have the delightful overture to La
Princesse Jaune and the even rarer Spartacus
together with Une Nuit a Lisbon and the march
written for the coronation of Edward VII; and
these are filled out with the far better known
‘Marche Militaire Française’ from the Suite
Algerienne and the ubiquitous ‘Bacchanale’
from Samson and Delilah for a whopping
77:40.
But such bounty comes at a price, as
Neeme Jarvi once again seems constitutionally
incapable of letting the music speak for itself,
all too often going off the deep end. For evidence of this we need venture no farther than
the opening ‘Bacchanale’, which no ballet
troupe could ever dance to. Jarvi lures in the
unwary listener with an uncommonly seductive account of the sensual oboe melody—
kudos to the Scottish first chair—before tearing off in a shower of gravel. And to make matters worse, the engineers have put the allimportant kettledrums way too far back in the
soundstage until Jarvi finally gives them their
head in the closing bars. Wasted in the process
is a warmly evocative reading of the central
odalisque that cannot redeem this performance. There are plenty of other far better
recordings out there; and with all due obeisance to Paray I would particularly call your
attention to a superlative two-fer from Decca
Eloquence that restores to the catalog Anatole
Fistoulari’s RCA LP coupled with music from
Aida, Khovanshchina and William Tell that
used to be a collectors’ item both for sound
and performance.
Of the four tone poems only Danse
Macabre and possibly Rouet d’Omphale are
likely to show up on concert programs these
days; Phaeton is a sometime filler with the
Organ Symphony, but Jeunesse d’Hercule rarely
sees the light of day. Liszt could be proud to
have stimulated such splendid tonal imagery
from Saint-Saens, who wrote all four in the
space of only a few years. Danse Macabre is a
close cousin to Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz; the harp
sounds the 12 strokes of midnight (an inspired
touch!) and Death in the guise of the solo violin
summons a skeleton crew to dance to his bidding—you may hear their bony rattle in the
xylophone—and Saint-Saens even works in the
familiar ‘Dies Irae’ plainchant (transformed
into a waltz) before the oboe heralds the dawn
with a piercing cock crow and the hellish horde
must slink back to their graves for another day.
The willful Phaeton takes his father the Sun’s
fiery chariot out for a spin but finds he can’t
handle the mighty steeds; he veers too close to
the Earth and is struck down by a thunderbolt
from Zeus—with Chandos it sounds more like
an atom bomb—and plummets headlong into
the sea.
Both of the remaining tone poems have to
do with Hercules. As punishment for murdering one of his guests, Hercules is remanded to
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Queen Omphale of Lydia who bids him be
seated at her spinning wheel, and according to
some accounts even humiliates the great warrior further by making him wear one of her
gowns. The whirring of the spinning wheel you
can hear easily enough; but the central episode
showing Hercules chafing under Omphale’s
control will surely have old-time radio fans like
me muttering under their breath “Who knows
what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows (maniacal laughter)”...! Annotator
Roger Nichols suggests that Saint-Saens in
writing his fourth and last tone poem wished
to redeem our hero after his demeaning servitude with Omphale, telling how the young
Hercules, faced with the choice between virtue
and debauchery (taking his cue from Wagner’s
Tannhäuser bacchanale), sees in his triumph
over the monstrous foes that await him his
own immortality. Although this is the longest
of Saint-Saens’s essays, it is also the most
rewarding and reveals the 42-year-old composer at the height of his powers, making it all
the more unfortunate that this piece is so seldom heard.
Vinyl was far kinder to the Saint-Saens
tone poems than silver disc. Looking at my LP
shelf, I find Mitropoulos on Columbia, Dervaux on French EMI, Fourestier on a dowelspine Angel, and Dutoit on London and the
Vox Box from Froment. You may be able to
find the Dervaux coupled with Massenet’s
Scenes Pittoresques on a Japanese EMI CD
(13387); but you’d be more likely to turn up the
Dutoit (London 425 021) combined with the
Marche Heroique and Kyung Wha Chung doing
the Havanaise and Introduction and Rondo
Capriccioso. (Accept no substitutes; London
also brought out three of the tone poems on
414 460 but jettisoned Jeunesse d’Hercule in
favor of Carnival of the Animals.) Yoel Levi had
the chance to give us all four along with the
three symphonies for Cascavelle but dropped
the ball, omitting Jeunesse d’Hercule (Mar/Apr
2010); and a label called Concerto Royale
brought out a box containing Froment’s
Phaeton and Rouet d’Omphale but not the
other two. Dutoit remains your best choice;
the Japanese Dervaux is also worth having if
you can find it, but Hercules seems pretty
weary from spinning all day (and the same on
our Editor’s choice, the Beecham). Certainly
you can’t accuse him of nodding off at Jarvi’s
headstrong tempos, and Jeunesse is even more
manic; such a precipitous pace works better in
Phaeton—this is the chariot of the Sun after
all—but in both Rouet d’Omphale and Danse
Macabre he switches tempos on a dime (:53 in
Rouet and 2:17 in Danse) for no reason that I
could see.
Absent the “pseudo-Oriental cartoon
music” (vide Mr Parsons) that characterizes
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The Mikado—written ten years later—La
Princesse Jaune is a product of its time, when
all things Japanese fascinated Paris as much as
the familiar Janissary music of an earlier generation spread like wildfire among German
audiences. The “Yellow Princess” of the title is
not an actual monarch but a Japanese girl
whose portrait captivates a sensitive Dutch
artist to the point of obsession—he even
rejects the maiden who loves him—until he
awakens from a hallucination and finally
comes to his senses. This is music that calls for
a piquant touch and a deft ear for color, and
Jarvi’s hell-for-leather pacing simply won’t do;
moreover the engineers once again misfire, all
but burying the evocative low gong in the mix.
Until Sony brings back the Kostelanetz, you
can’t go wrong with Geoffrey Simon, whose
pair of CDs for Cala (Jan/Feb 1994) has since
been reissued in different groupings (Sept/Oct
2007). Charles Munch’s monaural recording
may be found alongside the Beethoven Ninth
in EMI’s series “Great Conductors of the 20th
Century” (May/June 2003, p 163). Or you can
get the whole thing (all 43:39 of it) from Francis Travis on Mr Parsons’s recommended
Chandos that also includes the Suite Algerienne (Mar/Apr 2001); Jarvi settles for the closing ‘Marche Militaire Française’, but I’d stick
with Paray for that.
Anyone familiar with Khachaturian’s opulent Spartacus ballet—let alone Alex North’s
trenchant soundtrack for the Kirk Douglas
sword-and-sandals epic—would doubtless
have no idea the rather rambling essay heard
here had anything to do with the doomed slave
revolt and its emphatic suppression by the
Roman army; Saint-Saens’s narrative often
seems closer to Dukas’s Polyeucte, at least until
the Romans march past the reviewing stand at
the close. Annotator Roger Nichols’s assessment of the march as “rather square” hardly
strays far from the mark, and Jarvi’s leaden
tempo doesn’t help; still, this will do if you
can’t find Jean-Jacques Kantorow’s well-nigh
definitive account for BIS (Mar/Apr 2002), in
turn far superior to his turgid earlier account
for EMI (Jan/Feb 1997). The “little barcarolle”
Une Nuit a Lisbon tossed off by Saint-Saens for
King Luis of Portugal is an attractive trifle that
Jarvi treats in somewhat breezy fashion; on
Adda Laurent Petitgirard (Jan/Feb 1992)
adopts a more dreamy tempo and also benefits
from much better string tone than Kantorow’s
wiry band on yet another EMI (Sept/Oct
1994)—and I’d choose his Suite in D over Kantorow’s too.
That leaves the Coronation March, written
in 1902 for His Majesty Edward VII, yet (we’re
told in the notes) incorporating a 16th Century
air from his opera Henry VIII that particularly
amused Queen Victoria. At Jarvi’s upbeat
tempo there seems more pomp than circumstance. I have it with band on two LPs, from
Desiré Dondeyne and the Gardiens de la Paix
de Paris and the Carabinieri Band under Fantini, both of whom adopt a more noble tempo.
I’d hoped for better from Jarvi, but the
expected high quality of both ensemble and
sound isn’t enough to recommend this one
unless you simply want to fill a gaping hole in
your Saint-Saens collection and don’t want to
be bothered seeking out more sympathetic
performances. Certainly if this is the only way
you’re likely to experience Jeunesse d’Hercules
or Princesse Jaune it will suffice; but veteran
collectors will want more.
HALLER
S
AINT-SAENS: Symphony 1; Cello Concerto 1; La Muse et le Poete
Pavel Gomziakov, vc; Augustin Dumay, v; Kansai
Philharmonic/ Augustin Dumay & Sachio Fujioka
Onyx 4091—64 minutes
Among the miraculous first symphonies in the
literature, alongside Brahms, Mahler, Shostakovich, and so many others, we also need to
include Saint-Saens, even though there’s actually an even earlier unnumbered Symphony in
A that turns up now and then. Upon incredulously reading through the score, François
Seghers, the conductor of the Societé SainteCecile, quickly realized no one would ever
believe a young of man of 18 could write such
an accomplished work; and so he listed it in
the program as a symphony by an unknown
composer, possibly a German. That seems
impossible to imagine today: from first note to
last it delights us with Gallic elegance, plangent scoring for the woodwinds and harp, and
above all that quality the French call joie de
vivre. It ends with a glorious march—the composer calls for two cornets, two saxhorns, and
three trombones and doubles the harp complement from two to four. In attendance at the
premiere was Hector Berlioz, who could
scarcely fail to notice the striking resemblance
of the insouciant Marche-Scherzo to the
‘March of the Pilgrims’ from his own Harold in
Italy—nor for that matter the echoes of his
Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale in the tense
buildup to the final Allegro maestoso. On finding out to his great astonishment that this was
in fact the work of a Frenchman then only 18,
he became a life-long friend and supporter of
Saint-Saens.
Certainly the best way out is to buy the
Martinon set of all five Saint-Saens symphonies from EMI (July/Aug 1999), but someone who already has the Organ Symphony and
just wants 1 will find this new Onyx an excellent choice on several counts. The Kansai players sound every bit as good as their Tokyo col-
leagues under Dumay, who’s currently their
music director; tempos are superbly judged,
and Osaka’s Izumi Hall offers a gratifying
blend of clarity and warmth. Dumay surges
ahead in the opening movement, yet always
allows Saint-Saens’s ardent phrasing room to
breathe; the Kansai winds are captivating and
light as a feather in the Marche-Scherzo, and
fluid tempos in the Adagio soothe the soul.
Dumay is very close to Martinon in the great
striding march, yet this sinew soon gives way
to a mercurial fugue before the entire expanded brass section fairly explodes in shards of
metallic tone. The EMI engineers managed to
bring out the harp arpeggios in the final bars
more clearly for Martinon, but this new Onyx
is still one of the best recordings around if all
you’re looking for is the First Symphony.
I’d still also recommend the Arte Nova
with Ivan Anguelov and his very fine Bratislava
ensemble (Nov/Dec 2001); he offers as coupling Bizet’s Roma—also very winningly set
forth. That makes a far more compelling discmate than the Cello Concerto heard here,
which I’m sure you already have in your collection. That’s nothing against Pavel Gomziakov, though I did find his heavy breathing
rather distracting—couldn’t the engineers
have pulled back the mike? Why didn’t Dumay
go with another of Saint-Saens’s symphonies
instead?
La Muse et la Poete is a lovely piece that
hasn’t been recorded that often, in essence a
rarified dialog between violin (the Muse) and
cello (the Poet). Dumay is the violinist, and
he’s ably replaced on the podium by the principal conductor of the Kansai Philharmonic,
Sachio Fujioka. I detected a bit of an edge to
Dumay’s violin—indeed, he veers toward
piercing in the uppermost octaves—but this is
a very good performance, though not on a
level with Geoffrey Simon’s “dream team” of
Stephanie Chase and Robert Truman for Cala
(Jan/Feb 1994; Sept/Oct 2007).
Other recordings of Saint-Saens’s First
Symphony are out there, and I hope you can
still find the Koss with Catherine Comet
(koMAY) and the Grand Rapids Symphony
(Nov/Dec 1997). She finds a buoyancy and
optimism in the finale that make Martinon
seem almost pompous; what’s more, the Koss
engineers absolutely nail that whimsical touch
near the close where the clarinetist goes utterly
mad—it’s all but buried both here and on the
EMI. It’s coupled with 2, as are Inbal on PentaTone (Jan/Feb 2006) and Prêtre on Erato
(Sept/Oct 1992)—neither of which can
approach Comet.
HALLER
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SAINT-SAENS: Piano Pieces 2
Geoffrey Burleson
Grand Piano 605—54 minutes
The complete solo piano works of this composer would ordinarily fill four discs. The Vox
Box with Marylene Dosse has five, but that
includes the two-piano pieces, along with the
Carnival of the Animals. Beyond that, to my
knowledge, no other pianist has attempted a
complete set, though there are other recordings of the Etudes and miscellaneous piano
pieces.
I missed the first volume of this series, and
it appears to have not been reviewed in this
journal. Geoffrey Burleson is very much
attuned to the stylistic requirements of this
music and has the technique to bring it off.
Included are the Allegro d’apres le 3e Concerto,
Op. 29; Suite, Op. 90; Allegro appassionato, Op.
70; Theme Varié, Op. 97; and Six Fugues, Op.
161.
No one would make any great claims for
Saint-Saens’s solo piano music. The French
master was a thorough professional, and all of
the piano music is skillfully written and falls
gratefully on the ear; but, like Tchaikovsky’s
solo keyboard music, these pieces remain
mostly on the surface without attempting
much depth. Still, there should be room in this
world for music of this much charm and facile
energy.
Given the low price for the Vox Box, and
Dosse’s poetically beautiful playing, I cannot
see anyone preferring this newcomer or wanting to replace their older set. Even in terms of
recorded sound, the excellence of the current
issue is outclassed by the rich bass and depth
of the Vox recording. The pianist’s notes are
very good.
BECKER
S
ALMENHAARA: Violin Sonata; Cello Sonatas; 3 Night Scenes
Raymond Cox, v; Laura Bucht, vc; Jouni Somero, p
Erkki Salmenhaara (1941-2002) was a Finnish
composer who began writing in a “contemporary” idiom (he studied with Kokkonen and
Ligeti) but soon abandoned fragmentation and
atonality and began adopting—gradually and
uncertainly—more tonal and traditional procedures in his music. Not a lot of his music has
been recorded, though his first two piano
sonatas came out on LP, and there’s a program
of orchestral pieces on Ondine 1031 (Jan/Feb
2005). FC Records issued a disc with his complete piano music (he wrote four piano
sonatas) in 2004, and now follows that with
this new collection of four violin-piano and
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cello-piano duos, all most likely first recordings.
These date from 1969 to 1982. The First
Cello Sonata, though finished in 1969, was
begun a decade earlier, when the composer
was still a teenager, and clearly shows Kokkonen’s influence. It’s craggy, austere, contrapuntal, and chromatic (but not astringent),
with long, sometimes ornamented melodic
lines spun out over steady-pulsed ostinatos.
The work is tightly unified—audibly derived
from a single motive cell—and the mood serious but impersonal in an identifiably “Nordic”
manner. Though beholden to his teacher, this
is a well made and, if you respond to the
idiom, enjoyable work.
Three Night Scenes for violin and piano,
from 1970, show the composer having
renounced all indebtedness to Kokkonen and
adopted a much more luxuriant, indeed postimpressionist, harmonic idiom. Counterpoint
and motive are no longer in evidence; instead
the piano plays lush, slow-moving harmonies
in arpeggios or in repeated chords under the
violin’s sustained, song-like incantations. The
music is (as you’d expect) nocturnal and
atmospheric, the tempos of all three movements (‘Night Birds’, ‘Moonlight’, and ‘Chaconne’) stately.
By 1982, when Salmenhaara wrote his Violin Sonata and Second Cello Sonata, his language had retrogressed all the way back to the
more garish environs of the 19th Century’s fin
de siecle. This openly and crudely “neo-romantic” music is pretty taken in short stretches,
with singable melodies and pleasant,
unthreatening harmonies; but it’s dumbeddown: sentimental, predictable, and repetitive.
No good composer of any era or any style
should be this complacent and conventional.
Real romantics (whether Schubert or Samuel
Barber) are also self-critical craftsmen who
constantly test the limits of their invention and
imagination, and they don’t “write down” to
their audience. Salmenhaara’s “romanticism”
is cheap, clumsy, and fake; it finally debases
the very style it purports to emulate.
Uncritical listeners may enjoy the later
pieces, but I’ll return to this only for the early
First Cello Sonata. Performances and sonics,
though neither the last word in refinement, are
good enough.
LEHMAN
SCARLATTI: 2-Harpsichord Sonatas
Elena Modena, Ilario Gregoletto
Here are five sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti
played on two harpsichords. The pieces are
drawn from the nine sonatas in Scarlatti’s output that were intended for treble instrument
and continuo. Harpsichordists Gregoletto and
Modena’s arrangement is in the spirit of
baroque music-making; transcription was a
popular and prevalent practice in the 17th and
18th centuries. Francesco Geminiani’s “harpsichord” pieces, for instance, are actually transcriptions from the composer’s violin and
orchestral works. Gregoletto is presented as
the “concertante” harpsichordist and Modena
as the “basso continuo” player. In reality this
arrangement is not as simple as concertante
versus continuo. Since the solo and continuo
are the same instrument the players risk on the
one hand blending incoherently into one
another’s sound and, on the other, getting in
each other’s way. Gregoletto and Modena
strike a fine balance in their performance.
Modena imitates melodies without intruding.
Gregoletto allows himself to be led by the
basso continuo. Modena, the improvising
player, implements a variety of devices to support and comment on the soloist’s part. She
introduces slow and fast arpeggios in order to
sustain or subdue the sound. She plays in
thirds with the melody and even in canon
sometimes, as in the opening of the Sonata in
D minor, K 90. The harmonies and syncopated
figures in the Andante Moderato of the Sonata
in G minor, K 88, bring to mind K 30, the socalled ‘Cat’s Fugue’. In that movement Modena’s contrapuntal improvisation is subtle and
quietly compelling.
This release is a notable feat of imagination. For listeners interested in pursuing the
rich world of harpsichord-solo-harpsichordcontinuo duos, turn to Skip Sempe’s superb
disc of Scarlatti sonatas (Paradizo), where he is
joined by the virtuoso harpsichordist Olivier
Fortin in four works originally written for solo
harpsichord.
KATZ
SCHMELZER: Sonatas & Balletts
Freiburg Baroque Consort
This is a lovely recording of some first-rate
music by one of the great masters of the early
German baroque (c. 1620-80). The sonatas and
balletts on this program capture so well the
spirit of the stile moderno that one need look
no further for better examples of the German
Italianate style.
If I didn’t know better, I would have identified this as a recording by Savall’s band Hesperion XXI. Freiburg Baroque’s polish, exciting
tempos and improvised percussion gives them
an edge that reminds me of the Spanish
ensemble.
The program is laden with virtuosity and
deep affection. The 12 sonatas and balletts
themselves are essentially dance suites, some-
times including variations on well-known
songs. Half of the drama in these pieces comes
from rhythmic drive, the rest from the melodic
and harmonic invention of soloists and continuo through their imitation of bird song,
brass, guitars, and the like. English notes.
LOEWEN
SCHNITTKE: Violin Sonata 1; Stille Musik;
Stille Nacht; A Paganini; Moz-Art; Preludium In Memoriam Shostakovich
Ordabek Dussien, Vladimir Dyo, Tigran Shiganyan, v; Iskander Zakirov, p; Ildar Khuziakhmetov, vc
I always considered “Schnittke” an appropriate name for this composer, because so much
of his music involves elements of collage: he
likes to take tiny “cuts” from different pieces
and put them together. He uses a full range of
techniques in his music, and he has compositional technique aplenty. Schnittke demands a
lot from string players who play his music, and
the violinists and cellist here rise admirably to
the huge leaps, fast passages in harmonics,
quarter tones, and difficult double-stops that
often involve harmonics.
The music here ranges from the comical to
the impressive. The entertaining music
includes Schnittke’s setting of ‘Silent Night’,
where the solo violin is “visited” by odd soft
dissonances in the piano that sound like
impossible double-stops, and the violin ends
the piece by bowing while tuning his G string
peg all the way down until there is nowhere
else to go.
It sounds like Schnittke could have written
the piece dedicated to Paganini by taking a
book of Paganini Caprices, cutting the pages
into little pieces, and assembling those fragments into a plausible (though often obtuse)
musical narrative. In the process he manages
to throw in snippets from other parts of the
violin literature (I detected a bit of Ravel’s Tzigane and some bits of Bach). The piece is
interesting and very well played, but 15 minutes is a bit long for this kind of thing.
Moz-Art for two violins is similar, yet different. The basis for the piece is a surviving
single part of a violin duet that Mozart abandoned. Sometimes Schnittke treats the fragment bitonally, sometimes he treats it tonally,
and sometimes he brings other bits of Mozart
into play.
Stille Musik is a violin and cello duet that
explores dissonance and texture. The dissonances and textures are not always pretty, but
the odd double stops are played as well as they
can be played.
The Praeludium is a serious violin duet
that Schnittke wrote in November of 1975, a
165
few months after Shostakovich died. It was
originally written for violin and taped violin
(with the taped violin sound coming from back
stage), and the theatrical effect is lost on a
recording. The liner notes mention that it is
filled with all sorts of references to the pitches
BACH and DSCH, and takes advantage of the C
natural and the B. I hear a lot of play on the
interval of a half step, with quarter tones popping in occasionally.
The Schnittke piece I like best here is the
sonata that he wrote in 1963 for Mark Lubotsky. It’s Russian to the core, with a huge range
of colors, from the darkest Prokofieff to the
lightest Shostakovich. The movements are
short, yet they are very substantial. The piano
playing is very impressive here, and Shiganyan’s violin playing is impressive everywhere. It is no easy task to play this music, and
it is a pleasure to hear it played so well.
dle that the ear is overwhelmed attempting to
sort them all out. It’s not cacophony but
romantic overload.
The recording, from January and February
2010 performances at the Chemnitz Opera, is
spectacular. Clarity and immediacy of recorded sound are a huge plus. It aids the ear in
sorting through all the orchestral outbursts,
effusions, and complexities. It is kind of fun relistening to the recording, because the ear
invariably uncovers musical felicities not
heard earlier. Zwerg and Dreissig are most
vivid in voice and characterization. The rest of
the large cast adds to the brilliance.
A German-English libretto is included.
FINE
SCHUMANN: Adagio & Allegro; Fantasy
Pieces; 5 Pieces in Folk Style
SCHREKER: Der Schmied von Gent
Oliver Zwerg (Smee), Undine Dreissig (Frau
Smee); Chemnitz/ Frank Beermann
CPO 777 647 [2CD] 128 minutes
I seem to becoming the resident authority on
Franz Schreker (1878-1934). In July/August I
reported on two of his operas, Der Ferne Klang
and Irrelohe. Both had previously graced my
sound system: Klang in November/December
2000 and Irrelohe in May/June 1996. That may
seem like a lot of Schreker, but it is not such a
bad thing. I would not term Schreker a great
composer, but one who is capable of staging
some melodramatics in a kind of expressionistic romanticism not meant for the audience to
hum along, but to capture the atmosphere of
the usually gloomy situation. It is a version of
Viennese modernism a la Zemlinsky and Korngold with touches of Berg, Schoenberg, and
Webern. And he does it very well.
Schmied is the last of Schreker’s nine
operas. Composed 1929-32, it was first performed at the German Opera, Berlin October
29, 1932. The opera’s source is one of Charles
de Coster’s 1857 “Flemish Legends: Smetse
Smee”. Schreker called it a “Grosse Zauberoper”. As such it is lighter in its heavy-duty dramatics than the composer’s earlier operas—
lighter in plot if not in musical construction
and romantic outpourings. In an attempt to
return to his popularity of earlier days Schreker composed a folk opera for gloomy times. It
is the straightforward story of a blacksmith
who makes a pact with the devil. Schreker
introduces music akin to Weinberger’s
Schwanda with its polka and fugue, waltzes
and marches, and a wealth of folk tunes. But
Schreker wraps them up in a huge orchestration and ties them into such an elaborate bun-
166
PARSONS
SCHREKER: Prelude to a Drama; see RIMSKY
SCHUBERT: Arpeggione Sonata;
Suren Bagratuni, vc; Jen-Ru Sun, p
This is played by Armenian-born Bagratuni
and Taiwanese pianist Sun with commendable
warmth at tempos that tend to be lively and
intense. These readings seem not particularly
poetic in effect initially, but then one finds that
both players do feel the music where it counts,
phrasing together with beauty and variety.
What at first appeared to be matter-of-fact
turns out to be only one side of a rather large
and varied coin. I have heard performances
that sounded more thoroughly idiomatic, but
these artists end by convincing me of their love
for this beautiful music. The recording is close
up and full-toned.
D MOORE
SCHUBERT: Octet
Fibonacci Sequence
Deux-Elles 1145—61 minutes
Here’s a recording that has it all! Tuning, intonation, and accuracy are perfect. In the opening movement a living pulse quickens the
floating, dancing musicality. The melody line
is always clear, but subsidiary lines are perfectly placed because of their clipped rhythmic
upbeat, tone colors, and character. Even with
the repeat of the exposition, which is played
even fresher the second time, the movement
never seems long. The players have a superb
grasp of form—one big arch.
In the Adagio (II) both pacing and pulse
immediately define a celestial atmosphere.
Balances between the clarinet (melody) and
first violin made me hold my breath as they
arched their way through long heavenly phrases. What an ear for harmony these players
have! How they sustain the long line and main-
tain a very slow adagio without acceleration
creep! The Scherzo (III) dances and waltzes.
Even with all the repeats (they take all the
repeats in all the movements), the music is
constantly fresh, a joy each time it’s heard.
The Andante (IV) theme begins not just
with a nice ambling, walking pace but gait. The
inter-relationships of tempos between the
variations are ideal but not exaggerated. All the
instrumental colors keep the music fresh;
woodwinds and strings link together seamlessly. Each variation takes on a character or style
of its own, yet they’re all linked together into a
whole—once again, a solid grasp of form. Variation 6, the treble one, is simply ethereal. Here
is consummate music-making and style.
After the beautifully played Minuet (V), the
introduction to the finale (VI) is positively
eerie, with light tremolo played very close to
the bridge, followed by an Allegro that is jaunty
without rushing, the perfect prelude to the
final acceleration with furious 16th triplets
played with articulation and style one has to
hear to believe.
Thanks to mellow, perfectly balanced engineering, it can all be heard, from the round low
tones of the string bass to the highest pitches.
The Fibonacci Sequence, eight players
based in England, are named after Leonardo of
Pisa (called Fibonacci), a medieval mathematician “whose sequence of numbers occurs all
through the natural world in flower pedals,
tree branches, spirals, and many more complex ways. The relationship of the numbers is
connected to the Golden Section, held by
many to determine the most harmonious proportions of art and music.” I have no idea what
that means, but it is a perfect description of
how these eight geniuses make music together.
Here’s a rare recording where not a measure of music has been misjudged. If only I had
heard this performance decades ago, it wouldn’t have taken until now for me to finally fall in
love with this work.
FRENCH
SCHUBERT: Piano Sonatas in E, A, A minor
Michelangelo Carbonara
Piano Classics 34—72 minutes
This pianist has an unexpectedly weighty
discography for his age: he’s recorded all of
Ravel’s piano music for Brilliant and has a
double CD of Scarlatti Sonatas. But I had not
heard of him, and ARG had not written about
him. On the surface, he has a very attractive
studio sound, achieved largely through a light,
liquid touch. He shapes the music mostly
through volume shifts and a bit of basic rubato. The piano he’s chosen is extremely bright
and warm.
Though it would seem there is ostensibly
little to complain about, I did not at all enjoy
this. His straight-ahead, brisk approach to
Schubert seems to miss the point of the music.
This is very much the case in I of the Sonata in
E, a juvenile work that must be played carefully to squeeze out the few tidbits that actually
carry meaning. (It is not, by the way, the basic
arpeggios and scales that fill the phrases but
rather the pregnant pauses that are placed
between them.) In II, Carbonara attains a
beautiful sound. The tempos are too mechanical, though, both in the melancholy refrain
and the first episode, a miniature in G that
should soar. It is disappointing to hear him
play this inspired music in such a deadpan
manner. Similar too-fast tempos plague I of
the “little” A-major Sonata and its finale. In the
A-minor Sonata, only IV is capable of generating excitement: most of the attacks—with the
unfortunate exception of the unison sol-misol-do gestures in the closing area—are meaty
and aggressive enough. III is too legato and
soft-edged, though; and I is so gentle and
under tempo that in many places it becomes
downright boring.
AUERBACH
SCHUBERT: Quartets 13+14
Endellion Quartet—Warner 66423—74 minutes
These two quartets are probably Schubert’s
most popular, and there are several excellent
recordings available of each (Overview, N/D
2003). I’d add these fine performances by the
Endellion Quartet to the list; they were recorded in 1996 in London in very good sound. The
performances are beautifully balanced so that
every instrumental line can easily be heard,
their tone is superb and never coarse, and
their interpretations are quite dramatic, for
instance in Quartet 14 (Death and the Maiden).
Tempos are conventional but strictly adhered
to, notably in fast movements like the finale of
Death and the Maiden. It’s marked Presto and
that’s how these young folks play it.
Similar comments apply to Quartet 13
(Rosamunde). The Rosamunde theme, while
beautifully played, is not emphasized, and its
performance is not sentimentalized; there’s a
bit of restraint, which I like. The tempos for the
minuet and the finale seem slower than in
other performances but neither is extreme.
The finale, in fact, is marked “allegro moderato” and this performance is, indeed, “moderato”. The performance doesn’t have the great
dynamic range of its discmate; it’s more lyrical. It works quite well.
There are no notes or bios of the players,
and I wondered what “Endellion” means. Still,
I’d recommend this.
MOSES
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SCHUBERT: Schwanengesang; Piano
Sonata in B-flat
Matthias Goerne, bar; Christoph Eschenbach, p
Harmonia Mundi 902139 [2CD] 111 minutes
Goerne has clearly established himself at the
apex of current lieder interpreters, but even his
reputation did not prepare me to be astonished by the emotional weight and drama of
this account of Schwanengesang. Here is a
reading to make you sit up and really pay
attention to Schubert’s amazing collection of
songs. Right from the start, it is clear that
something extraordinary is taking place.
‘Liebesbotschaft’ sets the tone of longing with
a gentle and wistfully reflective plea to the
brook to carry a message to his beloved.
‘Kriegers Ahnung’ builds on the theme as a soldier sings to his comrades of how he misses his
beloved. While Schubert did not intend these
songs as a cycle, there is a cumulative tenor of
disconsolation in the ordering of the songs;
and this theme of restless longing continues
through the seven Rellstab songs plus ‘Herbst’,
interpolated between ‘Aufenthalt’ and ‘In der
Ferne’. The songs express increasing sadness
and discontent before ‘Abschied’ presents a
traveler putting on a happy face while leaving
the town he has loved.
The tone of the songs takes a dramatic turn
toward bitterness and depression with the next
six Heine songs: thunderous rage at carrying
sadness as heavy as the weight of the world
(‘Der Atlas’), quietly despondent remembrance of love lost (‘Ihr Bild’ and ‘Die Stadt’),
longing for someone to take the risk of loving
him (‘Das Fischermädchen’), abject sadness
and anger (‘Am Meer’), and finally reaching
the verge of madness (‘Der Doppelgänger’).
Up to this point the songs seem very much like
a cycle, and Goerne and Eschenbach in fact
ended a performance of Schwanengesang at
this point in a recital at Salle Pleyel in Paris on
May 11, 2012. The cobbling together of this set
by the publisher places the setting of Seidl’s
‘Die Taubenpost’, probably Schubert’s final
song, at the conclusion, completely changing
the mood with what Graham Johnson calls in
his Hyperion essay “a song by someone who
accepts the status quo with a smile and a rueful sigh. To be in love with love, to have a guiding star, however distant, is better than to be
gloomy and cynical.”
Looking at this collection of songs from the
point of view of Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief
(denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance), it is easy to see those stages here
(except bargaining), ending with something
resembling acceptance.
What is especially striking about this reading is the slow tempos, consistently slower
song by song than a half dozen recordings I
168
checked. At 6:26 their approach to ‘Der Doppelgänger’ has got to be the slowest you’ll ever
hear, and it is in striking contrast to the 4:23
timing of his earlier Decca recording of a 2003
Wigmore Hall performance with Brendel that
Paul Althouse reviewed favorably (S/O 2005).
The timing for most singers is in that fourminute range. It is the most absolutely shattering rendition that captures perfectly the
haunted stillness of the night. With magnificent soft singing, Goerne reduces his voice to a
whisper that still fully supports his vocal richness without becoming breathy and produces
an eerie spectral quality, then raising his voice
to a fever pitch as he howls at the figure who
manifests his wretchedness. This performance
has astounding vocal control, coloring, and
dynamics.
Equal credit here goes to Eschenbach,
whose attention to detail in these songs is
probing and beautifully articulated—as for
example in the moving line in the last verse of
‘Kriegers Ahnung’ that comes across better
than any recording on a modern concert
grand. A bonus CD is included of Eschenbach
playing Schubert’s final Piano Sonata in B-flat.
Again the performance is strikingly slow. The
first movement at 21:13 is not as slow as
Richter (24:34) but much slower than Brendel
(15:05). The second movement at 13:24 is even
more controversial; hardly anyone takes
longer than 10 minutes. The good news is that
the tempos sound right, and Eschenbach
explores the sonata with illuminating attention
to detail. Spatially the sound is just about perfect: it is intimate but not uncomfortably close,
a full-bodied and rich-textured tapestry of
sound.
If you want readings of Schwanengesang
and the sonata that offer distinct interpretations, you will find that here. No lover of Schubert will want to miss this. A fine essay by
Christoph Ghristi connects the valedictory
song ‘Die Taubenpost’ with the final sonata.
Full texts and translations side by side.
R MOORE
SCHUBERT: Quartet 14; see KERNIS
SCHULHOFF: Piano Pieces
Adrian Ruiz—Genesis 119—73 minutes
The Genesis label was known, back in the last
days of vinyl, for its unusual late romantic
repertory. Many of us had at least a few recordings from this company and treasured them—
even replaced them, when they were reissued
on CD. I don’t recall having seen this one
before, though parts of it were issued back in
1982.
Jules Schulhoff (1825-98) was born in
Prague, studied with several of the greats from
that area, and eventually ventured forth to
Paris where he met Chopin among others. The
booklet quotes from Chopin’s praise for the
young pianist as well as praise from composercritic Henri Blanchard. It is not too surprising
to find that the music reflects heavily the influence of both Chopin and late Hummel. Do not
confuse him with 20th Century composer
Erwin Schulhoff, his great-nephew.
With the Sonata in F minor, Op.37 we are
transported immediately to a world of imagination and total mastery. Yes, many of the passages and figurations speak clearly of Chopin,
but they are none the worse for that. The clarity of the writing and beauty of the Andante put
us immediately at ease and assure that we are
in the hands of a master— if not always of the
first rank, certainly not far behind.
The Caprice sur des Airs Bohemiens, Op.10
is pure virtuosity, designed to impress, and
most certainly accomplishes that with flying
colors, especially in the hands of Ruiz. Six
Etudes from Op.13 could almost come from
another set of Chopins. They transcend the
realm of mere studies and have both harmonic
and melodic interest. They are also devilish to
play, and would certainly enhance the recital
programs of any pianist up to the task.
All of the remaining pieces are shorter
salon works. If they remind one of early
Chopin, Liszt, and Gottschalk they have endless charm and require a pianist who is willing
to take the challenges in stride. Titles such as
Polonaise, Mazurka, Elegie, Impromptu, and
Berceuse give an idea as to their content. Several photographs of Schulhoff plus two of Ruiz
contribute much to our appreciation of both
composer and interpreter. The sound is very
good, and the notes are both interesting and
thorough.
BECKER
SCHULHOFF: Sextet; see STRAUSS
S CHUMANN: Fairy Tale Pictures; Fairy
Tales; Fantasy Pieces; 3 Romances; Adagio &
Allegro; Violin Sonata 1
Nash Ensemble
The music here covers an especially fruitful
period for Schumann beginning in 1849 when
he began to extend the world of the miniature
character piece and cycles of such pieces
explored so creatively in his piano music into
chamber music. Apart from the A-minor Violin
Sonata, the music effectively explores instrumental combinations beyond the traditional
strings or strings and piano Schumann had so
written for in 1842. The appeal and also marketability of these miniatures was improved by
Schumann issuing versions substituting violin
or clarinet for oboe, violin or cello for horn or
clarinet, and violin for viola.
The Nash Ensemble presents these pieces
with the composer’s first choice of instrumentation, and the results are truly gratifying.
These much-acclaimed musicians, the resident chamber group at London’s Wigmore
Hall, reveal a wealth of subtle beauties in these
pieces with their moments of free counterpoint, their transparent textures, character
contrasts, and interwoven themes. Richard
Watkins’s horn playing is lyricism itself in the
Adagio and Allegro. Violist Lawrence Power
and pianist Ian Brown maintain a wonderfully
expressive pianissimo and decrescendo in the
melancholy fourth Märchenbilder. The clarity
of the polyphonic interplay between Richard
Hosford’s clarinet and the piano in Op. 73
beautifully reveals the delights of Schumann’s
craft. I’ve never been particularly moved by
the three oboe Romances until now, hearing
them in the whole context of the composer’s
chamber miniatures. Unlike the other sets of
pieces here, they have a consistent intimacy
and unity of mood that only subtly but effectively varies in each piece. For any listeners
with doubts about the quality of late Schumann compositions, the Nash players’ reading
of the 1853 Fairy Tales makes a strong case for
his continued ability to create whole musical
worlds on an intimate and miniature scale.
It is splendid to have all these works
assembled on a single release and performed
with a uniformly perceptive and engaging spirit. The inclusion of the First Violin Sonata here
is a bonus. Here we return to Schumann’s
work in more traditional chamber music formats. The smoldering sweep of I is evocative of
the opening movement of the composer’s First
Trio, though II and III could easily fit among
his character pieces. These are all truly brilliant and intelligent performances and will
hold a prominent place in my Schumann collection.
JD MOORE
S
CHUMANN: Fantasy, op 17;
RACHMANINOFF: Etudes-Tableaux, op 39
Alexander Drozdov, p
Quintone 10008 70 minutes
Drozdov combines two major works from the
early and late romantic period quite effectively. I can’t recall ever seeing this combination,
but the two masterpieces work well together.
Schumann called his Fantasy (dedicated to
Liszt) the most passionate music he had ever
written. Liszt was impressed, and in thanks he
dedicated his Piano Sonata to Schumann. I
find the opening of the Schumann one of the
most recognizable of all the composer’s major
works. Drozdov’s performance of the entire
169
work has given me many hours of enjoyable
listening over the past month. He captures all
the turbulence and passion of the first movement. The middle movement with its noble
theme and all of the dotted march rhythms so
characteristic of Schumann never loses sight of
the musical gestures, even in the notorious
final pages, where the leaps cause many a
pianist to miss bunches of notes (even
Horowitz). His pacing of the slow final movement builds to a gorgeous climax and then
fades away into peace and tranquillity. Is one
of the best modern recordings of one of Schumann’s greatest piano works.
Rachmaninoff’s second set of EtudesTableaux is generally considered one of the
greatest of his piano works. With a difficulty
level rivaling Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes, it
is no easy feat to give as convincing a performance of the entire set as Drozdov does. As in
the Schumann, there is a strong emphasis on
the bass line that is quite welcome. Sometimes
it becomes a little overbearing, as in the first
Etude. All of the right hand figuration is subordinated to what’s going on in the left. It does
give a new perspective that seems to work well.
The second Etude is one I have played, and I
always wished I could do it like this. Here and
there I might wish a voice was brought out
more or a tempo a little faster, but overall,
these are very satisfying performances. The
notes by Drozdov are brief, but perceptive, and
the piano sound is quite good.
HARRINGTON
S
CHUMANN: Papillons; Intermezzos, op 4;
Romances, op 28; Incidental Pieces
Florian Uhlig, p—Hänssler 646—75 minutes
My initial impression of Uhlig’s playing registered his technical strength and emotional
coolness (Nov/Dec 2010). The quality of this
release has caused me to warm incrementally
towards him: I am now more impressed with
his precision and control and am better able to
discern emotion in the subtle shadings of his
dynamics and attacks.
There are only three medium-sized works
included on this program. The first, Papillons,
opens with an easy charm. Uhlig has agile
hands that deploy strength when needed and
nicely pointed staccatos that never chop off
the sound. As I noted last time, his smooth
touch often ventures into the territory of
glassiness, which means listeners will never
swoon at his playing. But it remains smart,
intelligent, and sincere in its own way. For
example, the harmless winks that follow the
fevered opening phrases in Number 9 are
mawkish and witty at the same time. The lines
in the final movement, a paragon of suavity,
are so blended and mild as to transform the
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whole into a monumental anti-climax. I never
appreciated it in that way until spending time
with this release.
The 6 Intermezzos are nearly as good. The
first announces itself with more flair and arm
strength than anything that has come before.
The second, which opens big enough, is
uncorked further when both hands unleash
their arpeggios. A somber, tinkling middle section counterbalances the primary idea. The
only number that fails to deliver is the last,
which emerges as a torrent of uninteresting
black notes. Uhlig’s only method of punching
up the material is by raising the volume and
occasional accents. The smooth veneer never
breaks, though, and we listeners are never
directly challenged to have a reaction.
The Romances from Op. 28 are less impressive. The first is well executed, but repetitive
both in construction and interpretation.
Though he builds some thick climaxes, the
music fails to break out of its initial state (the
tempo hardly shifts at all). The second has a
beautiful alto melody and a gorgeous overall
sound, but feels underplayed because of the
thin bass, which is more of a background presence than a proper contributing voice.
There are as I said some moments of genuine brilliance here. In the end they are probably too few and far between to merit a purchase, though. As wonderful as Papillons is, it
is short. The other works are not masterpieces.
The 15 miniatures—intermezzos, marches,
and waltzes—may be necessary to realize this
project’s goal of “recording it all”, but for the
common listener they amount to so much
chaff. (There is perhaps only one exception in
this respect: the burlap fragment in G minor
from 1833 is a whirring, dark beauty). To combat this problem, the label should compress
more major works together on later releases
and assemble all the fragments on appendix
discs.
AUERBACH
S CHUMANN: Piano Concerto; Introduc-
tion & Allegro Appassionato; Introduction &
Allegro
Angela Hewitt, German Symphony Berlin/ Hannu
Lintu—Hyperion 67885—62 minutes
with Konzertstück in F
Gerhard Oppitz, Bamberg Symphony/ Marc
Andreae—Tudor 7181 [SACD] 77 minutes
Angela Hewitt’s reading of the concerto is
carefully structured and thought out. Too
much so. There is little elan or spontaneity in
her businesslike approach (III is particularly
prosaic), rather like Oleg Marshev (Sept/Oct
2011). She sounds more engaged in the other
two works (especially the Introduction and
Allegro). But Gerhard Oppitz shapes Schuman-
n’s music like a true romantic; in the concerto
his I and III are more passionate than Hewitt’s,
his II more alluring. Also the Bamberg orchestra sounds larger and richer than Lintu’s Berlin
ensemble. I’d rate Oppitz above Hewitt, Marshev, and Jando (July/Aug 2005) in these three
works (we don’t have Serkin’s performances all
on one record). Mr Oppitz includes a bonus:
an arrangement of Schumann’s Konzertstück
(the one starring four French horns) for piano
and orchestra. It’s not clear who made the
transcription, but it’s not as awkward as I
expected. Still I prefer an expert performance
of the real thing (Karl Ristenpart comes to
mind). The acoustics mirror the interpretations: Hewitt’s audio is detailed and a bit dry,
while Oppitz has lush, reverberant sound
made even more enveloping via the SACD surround layer.
KOLDYS
SCHUMANN: Piano Quintet; Piano Quartet
Jerusalem Quartet; Alexander Melnikov, p
In the days of the LP, I remember having to
hunt far and wide for recordings of the Piano
Quartet, long overshadowed by the popularity
of the structurally more unified and straightforward quintet. That may finally be changing;
there are now numerous recordings of this
inspired product of Schumann’s so-called
“chamber music year” (1842). There is even a
resurrected and reconstructed 1829 C-minor
Piano Quartet, though I’ve not heard it, recorded by the Trio Parnassus (MDG 3031414).
The Op. 47 Quartet affords glimpses of the
string quartets Schumann had been studying
at the time—by Schubert, Mendelssohn, and
especially Beethoven. The opening sostenuto
of I is straight from the world of Beethoven’s
late quartets, as is its occasional reiteration
later in the movement. II is a seriously frenetic
response to Mendelssohn’s trademark scherzos. Such allusions and influences abound in
both quartet and quintet, and the Jerusalem
musicians manage to draw attention to them
without overstatement. This is accomplished,
mature, and exciting playing by a group that is
still relatively young. They have a very clear
sense of the contrasting and often blended
worlds of expression in these works—Schumann’s dual musical personae, the daring and
extroverted Florestan and the intimate and
lyrical Eusebius. They play with admirable balance, though sometimes Melnikov’s sound in
the upper registers is a bit bright and percussive for my taste. Kyril Zlotnikov’s cello sound
is wonderful when it comes to the fore, and he
has an exquisite instrument—Jacqueline du
Pre’s “Sergio Perresson” cello.
JD MOORE
SCHUMANN: Piano Sonata 1; Symphonic
Etudes; Toccata
Nikolai Lugansky
Piano Classics 29—68 minutes
Lugansky is one of the world-class pianists that
has it all in terms of technique, sound, and
expression. It’s always possible to quibble with
an interpretation here or there, but it is difficult on the whole to do anything but marvel at
the artistry of the man who Tatiana Nikolaeva
declared would be “The Next One” in the line
of great Russian pianists.
Here he makes short work of all these lesser masterworks from Schumann. The Symphonic Etudes are delivered as persuasively as
the material permits. The first etude begins
with taut, explosive energy. The seventh one
tops it. The opening percussive chords are
doled out with an intensity that few could
match, then grow in volume and power from
there (the piano sounds as if it had been set
aflame). This number leads directly to Variation 4 (track 9), which contains some of the
most poignant, beautiful playing on the program. Inside the softly radiant texture—notes
appear and vanish across space but always
connect—a shy, reluctant melody resists the
pull of the lower voices moving in time. Later
on in track 13, Variation 2 is pretty enough
when it begins, but then the texture begins to
rustle. The magical transformation, which renders the mood light and expectant, lifts the
soul. All of the remaining numbers in the piece
are strong, ranging from a rousing Etude IX
played as a true “Presto possibile” to the
penultimate Etude XI, a marvelous mix of
intelligence and pathos.
Lugansky does first-rate work with the Fsharp minor Sonata as well. The melodies in
the brief ‘Aria’ (II) tug at the heart. They are
understated yet powerful by virtue of effective
leans on appoggiatura tones. The gentlest possible chordal attacks pump the blood through
the living work. He takes an aggressive
approach to III, which robs the A section of a
piece of the weightiness I prefer. The first trio
section flies, though, and the second one offers
a nice contrast of a sturdy polonaise. But the
real gem of this performance is IV. This is the
most dramatic rendition of the finale you can
imagine. In one instant it is legato and fluid,
then in the next it crescendos and climbs (and
dries out) to an ecstatic local climax. And then,
the music crackles further, imparting a climax
to the climax. Lugansky’s talent for making the
most of every texture is the essential ingredient
for unlocking the oft-overlooked spontaneity
and exhilaration embedded in the score; in
almost everyone else’s hands, the work sounds
dull and dead.
171
I have covered most of the high points of
the release. None of the other selections are
played badly, though there are occasional
duds. In Op. 13, Etude VI has massive, intense
tones that render it impersonal, and VIII
meanders. The real problem is I of the sonata,
which not even this pianist can redeem. The
introductory fantasy is an unimaginative work,
reminiscent of Chopin but lacking the necessary contrapuntal complexity. In the later allegro, the primary theme sounds like a bad
rhythm exercise, and the secondary one feels
like a product of forced lyricism. I am still waiting to hear a convincing performance of this
movement. But what I have heard up to this
point inclines me to pose a question: if a
pianist of this caliber is unable to redeem this
movement, is it really worth saving?
AUERBACH
S
CHUMANN: Symphonies 3+4;
WAGNER: Flying Dutchman Overture
London Symphony/ Yondani Butt
Nimbus 6163—79 minutes
“Brilliant imagination and dramatic command”...”verve and accurate color”—just two
of the effusive complements paid to Yondani
Butt in the booklet. What were these guys
smoking? Butt’s hyper tempos ruined many of
the recordings he made for ASV, including the
Rimsky-Korsakoff Third Symphony, Liszt’s Ce
Qu’on Entend sur la Montagne and Tchaikovsky’s Tempest; even worse, here he goes to
the opposite extreme, trudging through these
works of Schumann and Wagner so dispiritedly I wished I could ask the man on the podium
“Who are you, and what have you done with
Yondani Butt?” The Flying Dutchman’s vessel
must have struck a sand bar; Senta’s strain is
painfully stiff and the rest of it no better, dreary and dismal from first note to last. Even by
Klemperer’s standards this is too slow.
And either Paray or Bernstein would be a
much better choice in the Schumann symphonies. Yondani Butt’s turgid Rhenish rather
suggests something dredged up from the bottom of the Rhine, but that’s nothing compared
to 4: my jaw hit the floor on hearing his impossibly leaden account of the finale—so slow that
apparently there wasn’t any room for the
repeat. Paray doesn’t take the repeat either,
but I’d rather listen to his fiery monaural
recording than anything the Nimbus engineers
can muster. I took a lot of notes during each
movement, but I’ve already wasted enough
time on this dog and so have you. I’m not looking forward to 1 and 2 from Butt, nor any more
of his Wagner either.
HALLER
172
SCHUMANN: Cello Pieces; see SCHUBERT
S
CHWARZ-SCHILLING: Polonaise; Partita; Violin Concerto
Kirill Troussov, v; Weimar Staatskapelle/ Jose
Serebrier
Like many another conservative German composer from the first half of the 20th Century,
Reinhard Schwarz-Schilling (1904-85) was
once reasonably well known in his native land,
but pretty much forgotten after World War II
when adherence to tonality and tradition were
part of a past that most forward-looking German artists wished to repudiate. But as always,
fashion and fad have neither judgement nor
taste; good and bad art is made in many styles,
no matter how trendy or passé at the time.
Schwarz-Schilling, as it happens, was a highly
gifted and skillful composer who, rather like
Pfitzner or Gerhard Frommel (reviewed last
issue), wrote superbly crafted and imaginative
music, deeply individual in its own way, but
not the least au courant.
So it’s good to see that Naxos has continued its releases devoted to him. Naxos 570435
came out a few years back, with his Introduction and Fugue for Strings, Sinfonia Diatonica,
and Symphony in C, played by the
Staatskapelle Weimar under Jose Serebrier.
That was excellent. Now the same forces, plus
violinist Kirill Troussov, have made another
outstanding disc of his 1935 Partita, 1936
Polonaise, and 1953 Violin Concerto. It’s a
great pleasure to hear this wonderful music—
most of it known to me for many years from
earlier—and often inferior—LPs and CDs, here
at last beautifully played and vividly recorded.
Partita is a half-hour, four-movement
assemblage that, as its title suggests, pays
homage to 18th Century forms and procedures. As such it sometimes suggests Stravinsky’s re-creations of earlier music, as in the
opening, a neo-Bachian ‘Entrata’, though
Schwarz-Schilling’s temperament is (as you’d
expect) more German and more romantic than
Stravinsky’s. Stately it is, yes, but also passionate—in the composer’s always decorous, never
hysterical way. The following allegros—a
dance and an extended and elaborate rondo
finale—are more quicksilvery and make one
ponder what a Mozartean divertimento written by Mahler might have sounded like.
Between them comes a solemn and broadly
sonorous ‘Canzona’. The whole work is scored
with notable sensitivity and resourcefulness,
with many delicate concertante passages for
various groups of solo instruments and much
use of brilliant polyphonic interplay (one of
the characteristic glories of Schwarz-
Schilling’s music heard consistently in this
program).
From 1936, the Polonaise is a 6-minute
dance on two catchy tunes, one fleet and lithe,
the other melodious and lilting. These are presented with contrapuntal interweavings
almost kaleidoscopic in their complexity—
though the effect isn’t the least bit academic,
but rather restless and spooky, lightly tiptoeing
twixt mockery and menace. An astonishing
piece in its way, and although the composer
wrote on the score “unrevised” and “not to be
published”, I’m glad his executors ignored his
instructions and rescued this charmer from
oblivion. (This is its first-ever recording and
second-ever performance.)
The three-movement Violin Concerto presents elements apparent in the earlier music
with the same readily identifiable personality
but more subtlety and depth of emotion. The
central aria is especially songful and tender,
and the final allegro dazzling in its marriage of
intricacy and high-spirited virtuosity. An earlier CD of the Concerto, on Thorofon 2018
(May/June 1988, p 18) is also well played, but
lacks Naxos’s warmer, airier, more transparent
sonics. Given the low price and the other two
works on this new release, even collectors with
the Thorofon on their shelves might want to
get this one too. Another release to consider is
Thorofon 2137 (Nov/Dec 1992) with four of
Schwarz-Schilling’s chamber pieces, including
his 1932 String Quartet in F minor, a work,
despite its anachronistic tonal language, of
Beethovenian nobility and even profundity.
improvised solo material played by Shankar’s
sitarist daughter, Anoushka. Much of the
music comes across as fully notated orchestral
ragas. Phrasings are generated by rhythmic
cycles and are usually disposed in hypnotic
two-bar units. Melodic material is modal,
based on Indian scales, at least one of them
invented by the composer. Harmony is static,
essentially drones played by the string section.
There is no counterpoint in the Western
sense—the active voice is purely melodic. It is
somewhat unclear whether or not the finished
score (orchestration, notation, etc.) is entirely
by Shankar: it seems that conductor Murphy
had substantial involvement in the project.
Whether or not the fusion may be considered effective depends on your expectations
and perspective. The music does more than
merely take its place among the orchestral
exotica so popular in Western music history.
“Guilty pleasure” or not, I enjoyed it a lot, but I
doubt it can ever attain international repertoire status owing to its requirement of specialized solo instrument, though there is plenty of ethnomusicology today, and it’s entirely
possible that talented young practitioners
might be able to cut it.
Applause included (hysterically enthusiastic after the finale, and I don’t blame them).
This should be a hit.
LEHMAN
Ittai Shapira, v
Liverpool Philharmonic/ Neil Thomason; London
Serenate/ Krzysztof Chorzelski
Champs Hill 32—53 minutes
SHANKAR: Symphony
Anoushka Shankar, sitar; London Philharmonic/
David Murphy
LPO 60—42 minutes
People growing up in the 60s remember the
name of Ravi Shankar well. George Harrison of
the Beatles became associated with him
toward the end of the decade, and the combination ignited a memorable fusion between
the two cultures, which then became an international fad. The fusion is updated and
expanded to the realm of classical orchestral
music with this striking release, a concert performance of his 2010 Symphony.
Shankar was no stranger to Western classical music, having lived in Paris in the 30s
becoming acquainted with many of the luminaries of the time. There is nothing naive or
inconsequential here. The work is in the traditional four movements and is set up with the
standard movement scheme: Sonata-form-like
first movement, songful three-part slow movement, sizzling scherzo, exciting finale. Each
movement has a middle section containing
GIMBEL
SHAPERO: 2-Piano Sonata; see STRAVINSKY
SHAPIRA: Violin Concertos
I reviewed Mr Shapira’s Concierto Latino
(Sept/Oct 2011); while I could praise his virtuosity, I was unmoved by his music. This release
(which includes that concerto) offers more of
the same, with the exception that the new concerto, The Old Man and the Sea, has slightly
better orchestration. I find the music episodic
and incoherent, though there are many pleasant melodies.
HASKINS
SHERWOOD: Piano Concerto 2; see CATOIRE
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphonies 1-3
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic/ Mark Wigglesworth
BIS 1603 [SACD] 81 minutes
Wigglesworth’s Shostakovich cycle has had its
worthy moments, but none of ARG’s reviewers
has declared any of the releases stellar, though
Brian Buerkle liked 11 (BIS 1583, J/A 2010). I
173
covered the Fourth (BIS 1553, N/D 2009) and
found the playing too clean and crisp. I thought
the same thing when I first put this record on.
The First doesn’t have the emotional appeal (or
hilarity) of the Lopez-Cobos (Telarc 80572, S/O
2001) or the Gergiev (Mariinsky 502, N/D 2009).
III has as much happening as a ship in the doldrums. Lawrence Hansen noted (N/D 1999) the
extremes of tempo and dynamics, and those
problems persist—the softs are too soft. I do
hear some details for the first time, though, like
the violin’s repeated notes over top of the
Moussorgsky-like minor theme in II—what
Wigglesworth does with that passage is fascinating.
Symphony No. 2 is, as the Editor said once,
hopeless. Petrenko did such an astounding job
with No. 3 (Naxos 572396, J/A 2011) that it’s
hard to beat. He convinced me that it could be
a serious piece. The Wigglesworth is again too
crisp and detached, and it doesn’t overwhelm
me the way Petrenko did. Notes in English,
German, and French, with lyrics in Russian
and English.
ESTEP
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony 15
with Symphony 9
Stuttgart Radio Symphony/ Andrei Boreyko
Hänssler 93.284—72 minutes
with Symphony 2
Liverpool Philharmonic/ Vasily Petrenko
Wow! Not one but TWO new recordings of
Shostakovich’s enigmatic final symphony from
two young(ish) Russian conductors. I’d like to
go to town with some hardcore compare-andcontrast that would’ve made my English Comp
101 instructor proud, but I can’t manage it.
Perhaps I need to live with these recordings a
bit longer, but right now I find them very similar. Both conductors whip up some irreverent,
mischievous energy in I without really letting
go. Neither has particular trouble with the long
slow movement, but neither seems to dig very
deeply into the music. Both deliver a crisp,
snippy III, and they both avoid getting bogged
down in IV, though neither seems to find
much resolution there. Petrenko is slower in
every movement, and by the end of the symphony he’s running more than 4 minutes
longer than Boreyko; but the difference is
hardly noticeable until you look at the timings.
Neither has a decisive advantage over the
other in sonics, either. Hänssler offers slightly
closer miking with a more “in the orchestra”
sound, while Naxos gives a bit more hall ambience, probably closer to what you hear sitting
about mid-way back in the theater. Both are
well engineered, so no deal-breakers there.
Boreyko offers a lively, somewhat mechan-
174
ical run-through of Symphony 9—a decent
enough interpretation, unless you’re a picky
aficionado (I am, kind of). Petrenko gives a
solid, if somewhat bland account of the much
less often recorded Symphony 2. 30 years ago,
we’d have given quite a bit for this recording of
No. 2, but now there are quite a few. So for
both releases, the main work is the thing.
Solti was flush with the excitement of discovering Shostakovich’s music in the Indian
Summer of his career, and gets to the heart of
this piece far better in his recording (Sept/Oct
1999). The Cincinnati Symphony and LopezCobos (Sept/Oct 2001) get all of the wit with
less of the spikiness; Jansons (May/June 1999)
gets more of the spikiness and less of the wit.
Jarvi (DG) goes for raw energy, but his orchestra isn’t as refined as Cincinnati or as powerful
as Chicago, though his performance has a
drive and coherence that Boreyko and
Petrenko don’t quite achieve.
HANSEN
SHOSTAKOVICH: Viola Sonata
with GLAZOUNOV: Elegy;
TCHAIKOVSKY: Nocturne; Melody; Valse
Sentimentale;
RACHMANINOFF: Vocalise
Gerard Causse, va; Brigitte Engerer, p
This recital has a split personality. The first
half comprises music by the great Russian
romantics Glazounov, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff, all written in the czarist era. The second half holds the final work by Soviet composer Shostakovich. The pieces by the first
three composers are not just from a different
era, but they are the products of a different
sensibility. The music of the earlier composers
sounds freely expressive, the sentiments natural and unforced, the products of men who
found at least some satisfaction and beauty in
life. The music of the Soviet composer is nervous and filled with dread. It is the work of a
man staring in the face of death (Shostakovich
died the month after he completed it) who
fears death and yet looks back on his life with
regret and resentment.
Gerard Causse is a very fine violist, with a
full, flexible tone and a well-controlled vibrato.
He is a relaxed interpreter, and he does a fine
job playing the music of the romantics. While I
cannot say that I object to anything in his and
Brigitte Engerer’s interpretation of
Shostakovich, they seem to miss the essential
qualities of bitterness, terror, and resignation
(not the resignation of one who has come to
terms with impending death, but the resignation of a man who feels defeated and powerless) that are the essence of the work. I compared this with my favorite recording of the
piece by Yuri Bashmet and Sviatoslav Richter
(July/Aug 1998). If I had never heard Bashmet
and Richter, I would say that this is an excellent interpretation. Beginning with the opening bar, however, you feel as though the Russian duo is playing a completely different composition. Bashmet and Richter take you into a
different world, a world that no one would
really wish to visit. There is nothing wholesome about their interpretation, nothing that
could even be termed cathartic. This is the
final statement of a man whose life had been a
nightmare, a man who had witnessed institutionalized Orwellian doublethink and routine,
capricious injustice. Phrases that seemed to
mean one thing when played by the French
duo reveal a different, much more compelling
meaning when played by the Russians. Richter
knew Shostakovich, and Bashmet studied with
the man Shostakovich wrote the Viola Sonata
for: Fyodor Druzhinen, from 1964 to 1988 the
violist of the Beethoven Quartet, the quartet
that gave the premiere performances of all but
two of Shostakovich’s string quartets. Their
pedigrees are unimpeachable, but listening to
their gripping performance again and again
over the years is what has convinced me that
they know exactly what the composer wanted
to express in this work.
I can heartily recommend this for the performances of the Russian romantics, but if you
dare to hear the plaint of a condemned yet
innocent soul that exists in hopeless dread,
Bashmet and Richter are the men, like Dante’s
Virgil, who can lead you to him, all the way
down this spiral of Hell crafted in sound.
MAGIL
SHOSTAKOVICH: Violin Concertos
Sayaka Shoji; Ural Philharmonic/ Dmitri Liss
Shoji is a wisp of a violinist with a studied way
of performing. In 1:I she is less emotional than
Vengerov (Teldec 92256, M/J 1995); the music
sounds like it’s lurking in the background,
waiting to do its damage with a bone-chilling
sense of calm. The whole movement is a couple shades softer than Vengerov (the volume
level itself is a little lower, too). Her tone gets
thinner as she gets louder, though. Her sound
doesn’t stand out in front of the orchestra the
way Vengerov’s does; she has to work a little
harder, and some passages start to sound
scrappy. The orchestra in the Passacaglia is
blunt, and the sound is so dark it’s almost
murky; it makes her entrance even more
poignant. She really sings in this movement, as
far as phrasing and tone, but her intonation
gets shaky.
In 2, she has a strength (or better placement ahead of the orchestra) that she didn’t in
1. Either way, I is more intense, coming close
to searing. Her soliloquy toward the end of the
movement is didactic, and the flute solo is
world-weary but not ugly. She has a solid grasp
on this difficult piece, and it’s a top-notch performance. The orchestra isn’t as polished as
many, but it serves the music very well; in the
finale of 2, it’s a big, rattling machine. In spite
of the drawbacks in the First Concerto, it’s a
recording worth having. The sonics are quite
good. Notes in English, French, and Japanese.
ESTEP
SHOSTAKOVICH: Cello Sonata; see
RACHMANINOFF
SIBELIUS: Symphonies; Finlandia; Karelia;
Pohjola’s Daughter; Tapiola; The Bard
Birmingham Symphony/ Sakari Orama
This is a comprehensive survey of Sibelius’s
orchestral compositions. It is a reissue of a set
first recorded about 10 years ago. Though I’m
closely attentive to the Sibelius discography, I
must admit that this item got in under my
radar—this is my first encounter with it. Likewise, I had never heard of conductor Sakari
Orama, whose name suggests Finnish origins.
The Birmingham orchestra is a fine one,
though a little behind the LSO, Philharmonia,
and BBCSO in the UK pecking order. Research
indicates that Orama was chief conductor of
the CBSO in the first decade of the century,
and has recently been chosen to conduct the
BBCSO beginning in 2013.
This edition, like most others, has its
plusses and minusses. First of all, its four discs
go for a relatively low $25. Also, the quality of
recorded sound is high. The orchestra is registered with high definition as well as good
blend.
Symphony 1 is quite good, generally wellconstructed, with good orchestral playing and
effective and frequent use of silence—a necessary and meaningful employment not only
here but all through the Sibelius repertoire.
Gunther Herbig several years ago conducted
the Florida Orchestra in the flat-out worst performance of Sibelius 1 I’ve ever heard. Why?
Well, it was too loud, flailing and banging its
way through the music relentlessly with no
hint of the silence of the frozen lakes and
forests of the composer’s homeland! This performance (and most of the ones that follow)
are fortunately at the other end of this spectrum, contributing seriously—and effectively—to their final resolution.
If No. 1 was effective, No. 2 is colossal, with
slow tempos and silences that picture the
frozen landscapes of the northern latitudes
about as well or better than I could imagine,
175
the pregnant pauses as effective as the music
itself. At 44 minutes this isn’t the slowest performance around (Barbirolli’s recordings are
slower) but they render faithfully the composer’s vision. The finale emerges from the icy
episodes of I and II tentatively at first, then—
gradually and slowly, ever more strongly—
toward a titanic final climax. Barbirolli exposes
the repeated calls of the horns more effectively
in the final moments; but this performance, all
in all, is pretty much in the same class—near
the top of the heap.
No. 3 is in the rarefied heights of a few performances that adopt the very slow tempo in II
pioneered by Kajanus, who introduced the
work to the public with the composer’s imprimatur. It changes the whole character of the
work to one more serious, thoughtful, and
meaningful than it would otherwise have been.
Barbirolli employs it to advantage also, as do a
few other Scandinavian conductors; it illuminates the entire work with a palpable internal
glow. No. 4 is good also, with some unusually
slow, though effective, tempos notably for the
woodwind passages in II.
Symphony 5 is another unusual though
most interesting treatment. It begins at a funereal tempo and, very gradually gains velocity
and momentum over the course of the three
movements—all of which are thus tied together—until a final climax where the concluding
half-dozen chords are played as slowly and
powerfully as possible. 6 and 7 are more conventional, possibly in view of their more mundane subject matter. In any event they are
beautifully formed and flawlessly played.
In addition to the symphonies there are
the five smaller-scale works, Karelia, Finlandia, Pohjola’s Daughter, Tapiola, and The
Bard. The last is a minor work, pleasant but
unassuming. The others are played and
recorded most effectively—close to the top of
the heap musically.
If I may be permitted a final remark I would
observe that in the past century Sir Thomas
Beecham was the most influential exponent of
Sibelius’s music. His recordings were all
reviewed favorably but have not aged well. In
retrospect they appear to be hasty, ill-formed,
and impetuous. His mantle as a Sibelius conductor seems now to have landed on the shoulders of his slightly younger, more thoughtful
and more fastidious rival, Sir John Barbirolli.
MCKELVEY
SIEWINSKI: Mass
Requiem; Old Polish Funeral
Camerata Silesia Parnassos/ Anna Szostak
Dux 859—51 minutes
According to Marcin Konik, the purpose of this
recording is to reconstruct the music for an
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Old Polish funeral mass from around the early
18th Century. The ‘Kyrie’, ‘Dies Irae’, ‘Domine
Jesu’, ‘Sanctus’, and ‘Agnus Dei’ by Andrzej
Siewinski were composed before 1726, though
on stylistic grounds they could hardly have
been much before. Their harmonic language
and orchestration reflect a preponderance of
classical rather than baroque aesthetics. The
polyphonic movements come across as solo
motets—works for vocal soloists, choir, and
orchestra. On the other hand, the ‘Gradual’,
‘Tract’, and ‘Communion’ are sung as chant.
It is a polished performance. The notes are
excellent, and in English, but there are no
texts. It would be easy enough to find translations of the Latin Mass, but the Polish text
would reach a larger audience if translated.
LOEWEN
SIVORI: 12 Etudes-Caprices; La Genoise;
Folies Espagnoles
Fulvio Luciani, v; Massimiliano Motterle, p
Camillo Sivori (1815-94) was the only pupil
Niccolo Paganini acknowledged. The sevenyear-old Sivori studied with Paganini from
October 1822 to May 1823. He also studied
with Paganini’s teacher Giacomo Costa and his
friend Agostino Dellepiane. Sivori had a virtuoso technique like Paganini’s and won the
acclaim of Berlioz, Rossini, and Mendelssohn,
who entrusted him with the English premiere
of his Violin Concerto.
While Sivori made much of his connection
to Paganini, he was cut from different cloth
than the Master was. Paganini was an oldfashioned virtuoso who performed his own
music almost exclusively and was often criticized when he played other composers, but
Sivori was a tasteful interpreter of others’
music. He wasn’t the circus showman Paganini was either. Sivori’s own compositions don’t
have the pompous vulgarity of Paganini’s, and
in the Folies Espagnoles he even allows the
pianist to play a variation all by himself.
(Paganini invariably hogged the spotlight.)
There are still certain strong similarities
between these two Genoese composers. The
strongest can be heard in Sivori’s 12 EtudesCaprices. Paganini composed 24 Caprices, and
each had one or a few technical problems that
dominated the music. It is the same with
Sivori. Sivori’s music has a charmingly Italianate quality like Paganini’s; and while
Sivori’s virtuosity is not as spectacular and
over the top as Paganini’s, it is very interesting.
He does something in Caprice 12 that I had
never heard before. He introduces the theme
in alternating unison and chordal passages.
It’s a simple idea, but very effective.
La Genoise is a set of variations, and right
away the difference between Sivori and
Paganini is evident because of the amount of
attention given to the piano. The violin even
often accompanies the piano. I cannot think of
another violin virtuoso composer of the 19th
Century who was so generous to the piano.
Sivori must have really respected his accompanists!
The Folies Espagnoles was written in
Madrid in June 1854 and originally had the
title Carnevale di Madrid. It contains several
Spanish folk tunes and is a very effective showpiece with more musical value than one usually finds in the genre. It seems, though, to have
a more Italian feel than Spanish. I suppose I
am judging it in comparison with the Spanish
music by later composers like Granados and
Albeniz and the honorary Spaniard Debussy
(Iberia, Evening in Granada, La Puerta del
Vino).
Fulvio Luciani is a sensitive, intelligent
interpreter of this music. He has the technique
to handle all of the music’s demands. He plays
a Lorenzo Storioni violin (1810-1815). Excellent booklet notes by Flavio Menardi Noguera.
MAGIL
SMETANA: Dalibor
Vilem Pribyl (Dalibor), Eva Depoltova (Milada),
Vaclav Zitek (Vladislav), Jitka (Nada Sormova),
Jaroslav Horacek (Benes); Brno Philharmonic/
Vaclav Smetacek
Supraphon 4091 [2CD] 145 minutes
Dalibor is a gorgeous work, with grateful writing for the voices and lush, romantic orchestral
passages. Its plot has Fidelio overtones, in that
the heroine Milada disguises herself as a boy
and attempts to save the (justly, in this case)
imprisoned Dalibor, but she fails and both die.
We’ve reviewed several performances of
this, but not this one, which was made in 1979
and doesn’t really deserve reissue. Pribyl, now
nasal, squealy, and unheroic, was in better
voice when he recorded the title role under
Krombholc about 10 years earlier. Horacek, as
the jailer Benes (a bass, like Beethoven’s
Rocco) sang on the same recording, and
though he aged better, his role is small.
Depoltava’s Milada is at least steady, but her
big, cutting voice is very hard on the ears. She
softens a bit for the final scene, but by then
she’s worn out her welcome.
The sound is good, and Smetacek and his
orchestra know what they’re doing. No libretto
is supplied, and for this opera, you really need
it. Pass this up and go instead with Krombholc
on Supraphon 2185, if you can find it, or Kosler
(also Supraphon, J/A 1996).
SMETANA: Ma Vlast
Vienna Radio/ Lovro von Matacic
Orfeo 836 112—1:27
Matacic was from Croatia, so this is one of the
few recordings by a non-Czech. This is not a
studio recording, but rather a very decentsounding broadcast tape from a performance
in the Musikverein in Vienna on 15 January
1982. Given the acoustical quality of the place
and (probably) the need to tape the performance for later broadcast, the spacious sound
has good stereo separation and depth. Even
though the orchestra isn’t the Czech Philharmonic, the conductor gets a lot out of them,
though the tone is rather plain—none of the
inner glow you hear in a Talich or Kubelik performance—and the phrasing sometimes rather
square and stiff.
Matacic fans will still want this. For the rest
of us there are so many outstanding, musthear-before-you-die recordings, I can’t really
say you must have this one, too. He opens
‘Vysehrad’ with the requisite hushed reverence, though the livelier passages later in the
movement are kind of clumsy, and the dancelike episodes are a bit lead-footed. ‘Vltava’ is
atmospheric, with a particularly glowing tone
to the central nocturnal interlude before
crashing down to the rapids. In ‘Sarka’, again,
the lyrical interlude is particularly atmospheric; but the opening pages are rather slow and
the massacre music at the end is sluggish,
which blunts its effect. ‘Bohemia’s Meadows
and Forests’ swirls with energy, and Matacic
draws a good bit of gusto from his players in
the big stentorian hymn of ‘Tabor’ and
‘Blanik’. An interesting performance—worth
hearing if you, like me, never miss a chance to
hear Ma Vlast—but not an “essential” one.
I can’t think of another work I’m ready to
say this about, but Kubelik pretty much
“owns” Ma Vlast, and he left a trail of recordings that almost all drive straight to the heart
of this music, right up to his very last one, a
1990 concert performance with the Czech Philharmonic (Supraphon) that he gave on returning to his homeland after a 40-plus year
absence. Then there’s his best studio recording, with the Boston Symphony (DG), and his
most exciting, fiery studio recording, with the
Chicago Symphony (Mercury, monophonic).
It’s not surprising that Matacic isn’t in the
same league as any of those, or the 1954
Talich. Or Neumann, Smetacek, or Belohlavek.
HANSEN
LUCANO
177
SOMMER: Orchestral Songs
Elisabeth Kulman, mz; Bo Skovhus, bar; Bamberg
Symphony/ Sebastian Weigle
Tudor 7178 [SACD] 68 minutes
Hans Sommer (1837-1922) had first attempted
composing at age 10, but it was not until he
retired as professor of mathematics at age 47
that he turned to composing for a living, traveling to Weimar to study with Liszt. Of Sommer’s then recently completed Songs of Sappho, Liszt wrote: “While the songs are certainly
very dramatic, they are done with ability and
taste. Carry on like that!” Richard Strauss
became a friend and championed Sommer’s
operas.
This program begins with the Songs of Sappho, settings of six texts by “Carmen Sylva”
(the pseudonym of Romanian Queen Elizabeth
zur Wied) that tell of Sapho’s unrequited love
on the island of Lesbos, and ends with 13
Goethe settings from 1919-21. Between these
early and late songs is a striking 1901 setting of
Felix Dahn’s ‘Odysseus’ for harp, winds, and
timpani. As far as I can tell, this is the only
recording dedicated exclusively to Sommer’s
orchestral songs, and it is of such good quality
that it makes me wonder why has it taken so
long for this music to be recorded. Listening to
the Goethe songs, you hear the tonality of
Wagner and in some cases you’d think you
were listening to Wolf.
The performances are terrific. Kulman and
Skovhus each sing 10 songs, and both are in
excellent voice. Kulman in particular has an
intoxicatingly lovely voice that she uses with
great suppleness. The scoring is modest and
does not make great demands on the players
but calls mostly for quiet subtlety, which the
Bamberg Symphony offers perfectly well. Here
is an opportunity to discover some unjustly
neglected music performed exquisitely.
Notes, texts, and translations.
R MOORE
SOR: 20 Studies
Cristiano Porqueddu, g
Almost all guitarists play these 20 studies as
part of their intermediate training. They were
collected by Andres Segovia from the large
body of Sor’s pedagogical works; as was his
habit, he made several changes in the text that
he thought would be musical improvements.
The publication has always seemed a bit
strange. Segovia’s name is a the top, in huge
print, with his picture below, and only the bottom line, in much smaller type, recognizes the
actual composer.
In 2008, composer and musicologist Ange-
178
lo Gilardino prepared a new edition for Curci
that consulted Sor’s original music, the works
as edited by his student (and son-in-law,)
Napoleon Coste, and Segovia’s edition. I
haven’t seen that edition, but Gilardino is one
of the finest scholars in the guitar world, and
his work is painstakingly thorough.
Cristiano Porqueddu is best known to me
as the performer of Gilardino’s magnificent
Transcendental Etudes (N/D 2009). He wrote 5
sets of 12 each, and it’s among the greatest
music in the guitar repertory. His playing for
that massive project was unforgettable, one of
my Critic’s Choices for that year. Here his playing is somewhat less impressive; did he, perhaps, not find this music challenging enough?
Minor complaints: he doesn’t play the rests in
6 and 16, and that’s part of the important pedagogy for those two. Generally, he avoids
indulgent rubato, but that does disfigure 8 and
13. And that brings up another complaint—
shouldn’t these works have a consistent style?
There’s really no sense of development in
these works; Sor doesn’t have clear Early, Middle, and Late periods. Why are just these two
treated like turn of the century salon music?
Still, if you want the set, this is the best current option. Williams recorded the set when he
was a teenager, and that’s long deleted (I did
see a few astronomically expensive vinyl discs
on the internet). David Tanenbaum recorded
these, Carcassi’s Op. 60, and the first two sets
of Brouwer’s Estudios Sencillos on GSP back in
the early 90s (N/D 1991). Those performances
are rather dry, intentionally. He produced a
model (and a book) with few interpretive
extensions that students and teachers could
use in these standard works. This set is superior musically, even if one disagrees with some
of his decisions.
KEATON
SORENSEN: Fragments of Requiem; see
OCKEGHEM
SPERGER: Sinfonia; see GEMMINGEN
S
TAMP: 3 Places in England; In This Hid
Clearing; Percussion Concertino; 3 Brass
Quintet Turns; 5 Hill Songs; Moltres Dance; 2
Chorale Preludes; Tarheel Sketches
Keystone Wind Ensemble/ Jack Stamp; Michael
Kingan, perc; Mary L Hastings, s; Joseph
Baunoch, b; Hoodlebug Brass
Klavier 11189—75 minutes
Jack Stamp (b 1954) is music chair and head of
bands at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
He founded the Keystone Wind Ensemble in
1992, stocking it with alumni and others with
IUP affiliation. This is its third recording of
Stamp’s own works. Stamp writes excellent
fanfares, so it is fitting that the program opens
with ‘Fanfare for the Rock’ in Three Places in
England (2001).
IUP faculty soloists are heard in the middle
portion of the program. Michael Kingan is
energetic and skillful in the Percussion Concertino (2009). HoodleBug Brass (named for a
local trolley) does its best with Three Turns
(1975), a work from Stamp’s student days.
Soprano Mary L Hastings and bass Joseph
Baunoch sing Appalachian folk songs in Five
Songs from the Hills (2010).
In ‘Moltres Dance’ (2009), a quirky tribute
to a deceased high school baritone saxophonist, Stamp skillfully incorporates references
that the poor fellow’s friends and family would
recognize. Two Chorale Preludes (2010) are
based on church tunes, and Tarheel Sketches
(2008) depicts North Carolina places and characters: Kitty Hawk, the Raleigh-Durham
research triangle, Buies Creek, and the ‘Two
Sisters’ ballad.
Good music played by proficient musicians.
KILPATRICK
STEINER: Adventures of Don Juan; Arsenic
& Old Lace
Moscow Symphony/ William Stromberg
Tribute 1009 [2CD] 1:52
Max Steiner composed hundreds of film
scores, but counted Adventures of Don Juan
among his personal favorites. The film recast
Don Juan as a Robin Hood-style hero, with the
evil Duke de Lorca assuming the role of villain.
It’s a rollicking mix of swashbuckling action,
romance, royal pomp, tongue-in-cheek dialog,
and Steiner’s near-perfect music. The boisterous Don Juan theme (which reminds me a little of Smetana’s Bartered Bride Overture) sets
the tone, but there’s lots more to enjoy: a delicate Spanish-flavored ‘Serenade’, exhilarating
action music that rivals Korngold, and a spectacular processional resplendent with brass,
percussion, and bells.
This is the first recording of the full score;
Charles Gerhardt’s suite is expertly played and
has excellent sonics (July/Aug 2011, p 262) but
it’s only about 10 minutes. Tribute offers nearly 80 minutes of music, and while a few
sequences are not so inspired, the bulk of this
work is Max Steiner and Golden Age film scoring at their peak.
Arsenic and Old Lace is a different kettle of
fish. A whimsical murder comedy with surrealist overtones, it gets the kind of light scoring
typical of its time. Using a traditional hymn
(‘There Is a Happy Land, Far, Far Away’) as the
main theme was a good idea, but the score is
festooned with musical allusions to everything
from Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’ and
Chopin’s funeral march to ‘Take Me Out to the
Ball Game’! There are some charming moments, but this will appeal mainly to devotees
of the film and Steiner. Extras include the trailer music for both titles, plus the trailer scoring
for Steiner’s House of Wax.
William Stromberg recreates this music as
if Max himself were at the podium. The
Moscow players reproduce the Warner Brothers sound with uncanny skill, though I detected a few imperfect moments along the way.
John Morgan’s reconstruction of Steiner’s
manuscripts is faultless. The sonics are up
close and personal, revealing every detail of
the colorful orchestrations, though a bit more
ambience would have been nice. A superb 68page booklet completes a most welcome
release. Tribute Film Classics are distributed
by screenarchives.com (888-345-6335).
KOLDYS
STRAUSS, J: Die Fledermaus
Adrianne Pieczonka (Rosalinde), Edita Gruberova
(Adele), Thomas Moser (Eisenstein), Jorg Schneider (Alfred), Carmen Oprisanu (Orlofsky), Georg
Tichy (Falke), Gottfried Hornik (Frank); Hungarian Opera/ Friedrich Haider
Nightingale 58 [2CD] 95 minutes
Musically speaking, this is a jolly good show.
Haider, Gruberova’s husband, leads the proceedings with true Viennese flair. The music
sparkles and dances; and the warmth, with a
judicious use of rubato and luftpausen added
for good measure, is OK in my book. But I do
wish that Haider had recorded the original ballet rather than the ‘Thunder and Lightning
Polka’.
The 50-something Gruberova, despite
some loss of vocal bloom, gives a masterly performance. She’s still a pleasure to hear. Her
technique is still formidable, the voice attractive, her joy contagious. Canadian soprano
Pieczonka is best known for Verdi, Wagner,
and that other Strauss; but Rosalinde suits her
just fine, with lots of fire, lyricism, and nice
sound (even though it’s less fetching than
Gruberova’s). Oprisanu has a good-enough
voice, though she sounds too bored as the
bored Prince. The men, delightful as they are,
lack the glamour of the two leading ladies.
Moser suggests a likable lighter Wagnerian on
holiday. and Tichy is a truly self-centered
Alfred. The Falke and Frank are also well in the
picture.
But Vienna, we have a problem. Dialog has
been replaced by brief, unwitty commentary in
all three acts by a sober Frosch on Viennese
society and the operetta’s plot and characters.
Either leave in dialog or add musical bonus
tracks. When I play this Fledermaus again, I’ll
skip this nonsense. Most ARG readers might
179
do best to check out the Karajan, C Kleiber,
Boskovsky, and Krauss sets. Booklet with German-English libretto—the set’s non-musical
plus.
MARK
STRAUSS: Metamorphosen;
SCHULHOFF: Sextet
Hyperion Ensemble
Erwin Schulhoff began his Sextet (two each of
violins, violas, and cellos) a few years after
returning from serving in the Austrian army in
the First World War. Dedicated to Francis
Poulenc, the Sextet was first played with Paul
Hindemith on second viola. It was well
received but rarely heard afterwards, partly
because of its difficulty for players and audience and certainly because the Nazis did
everything to silence the Jewish Schulhoff,
including murdering him in 1942.
The work reflects the composer’s feelings
about his experiences at the front, easily earning Robert Matthew-Walker’s description of “a
rough-hewn work of deep brooding fearfulness”. A study in dark sonorities, it is tough in
personality and tough to take in, though its
short length makes it easier. Schulhoff wrote
the opening Allegro Risoluto in 1920 while
immersed in the music of Arnold Schoenberg.
The movement mimics Schoenberg’s extreme
chromaticism and sounds atonal. It is not,
though it is as far as Schulhoff pushed tonality.
Three notes, C, D-flat, and G, are announced
in the opening measures and are treated as
motifs and tonal centers. The harmony is
harsh in the outer sections and hardly ameliorated by motor rhythms and sharp leaps. The
midsection is quietly musing, almost lyrical,
spiked with weird pizzicato, ponticello, and
glissandos. For all its severity, Allegro Risoluto
ends quietly like a huge machine coming slowly to a stop—as did Schulhoff’s work on the
piece.
He did not pick it up again until 1924. By
then, “Schoenberg” was behind him, and he
was looking to Dadaism and Eastern European
folk music. The despairing mood of the work
did not change, though, and C, D-flat, and G
remained in place as a unifier. II, marked
Tranquillo (Andante), is dominated by a calm
but bleak, emotionless, and repetitious cantilena marked “without expression”. This
opens up to a relatively romantic interval, then
returns to the opening material. After a lone
viola is left repeating the opening pattern, the
beginning reappears with melodies in the
strings played without vibrato over ponticello,
accentuating the bleakness. This is not eerie so
much as despairing.
The ‘Burlesca’ is the Sextet’s main foray
180
into the folk idiom, but there is no letup in the
roughness and the grotesque. Its rhythm
sounds a little like metered Morse code.
Molto Adagio is the most clearly tonal
movement. It anticipates Bartok’s late quartets. The way Ravel comes to mind is harder to
believe, but the cello harkens to the contrabassoon writing in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ from
Mother Goose, though Schulhoff is far darker
and spookier. The piece ends with ghostly
ponticello and a number of groans as the main
theme wastes away, leaving the final C, D-flat,
and G standing. The Finale does not suggest
Schoenberg the way I does, but it does recall
that thorny sound.
The Hyperion Ensemble’s performance is
stunning. Every bit of the despair and fear that
gripped Schulhoff’s throat seems on display
here. This is a very difficult work, and their
playing sounds impeccable. I’ve not heard any
other recording of the Sextet, but I can’t imagine one more stark, dark, and eerie than this
one.
Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen is played
in the septet arrangement by Rudolf Leopold.
Of the several other performances of this
arrangement, I know only the one with the
Nash Ensemble. That is fine but soft in tone
and not all that intense compared to the Hyperion, which is more sharply defined, richer,
and more gripping and dramatic. Paladino
gives Hyperion more powerful and effective
sound, as well.
There are two major shortcomings with
this issue. The most obvious is the playing
time. Surely Paladino could have included
Martinu’s Sextet or the one by Korngold. Then
there are the notes, which tell little about the
composers and almost nothing about the
music. We learn that Strauss wrote Metamorphosen out of despair over the destruction of
his country but not that the catalyst was the
blowing up of the Munich Opera House. We
get a couple of basic facts about Schulhoff but
almost nothing about his essentially unknown
Sextet—not that it was dedicated to Poulenc
nor that Hindemith played the premiere, and
no description or analysis. We do get a psychobabble quote by Luigi Nono about how
one listens to music depends on one’s “individual circumstances of life”, etc. These performances deserve much better.
HECHT
STRAUSS: Oboe Concerto; see WAGNER
Never look at the trombones. You'll only
encourage them.
—Richard Strauss
STRAVINSKY: The Firebird; arrangements
Bergen Philharmonic/ Andrew Litton
BIS 1874 [SACD] 72 minutes
Rite of Spring; Firebird Suite; Scherzo a la
Russe; Tango
Budapest Festival Orchestra/ Ivan Fischer
Channel 32112 [SACD] 63 minutes
Complementary releases here, rather than an
either-or choice. The high point is Fischer’s
fierce, earthy, uninhibited Rite of Spring, brilliantly played by the orchestra and also well
captured by Channel’s engineers. Some conductors filter the Rite through a lens of later
20th Century music, including Stravinsky’s
later efforts, and try to make the music sound
avant-garde. I wonder if the original audience
in 1913 was more offended by the music’s
rhythmic ferocity than its modernity. From the
first growl of the introduction, Fischer and his
players give us the music straight, full of energy and often just a bit out of control. The resolution of the SACD sound is particularly welcome here, giving the orchestra a rich, warm
sound that matches the vigorous but unforced
interpretation.
As I write this, there are only a few more
weeks left before I go up to Minneapolis to
hear Mr Litton conduct the Minnesota Orchestra in their “Somerfest” concerts. He is by far
one of the most brilliant of American conductors, and he has done more than a few spectacular concerts in the Twin Cities. But if you
want to hear him on a new recording, it’ll be
with his Norwegian orchestra. Fortunately, the
Bergen Philharmonic is a fine ensemble and
they collaborate with the conductor—and
BIS’s engineering team—to give us a marvelous recording of the complete Firebird. The
SACD sound is as spacious as Channel’s, but
the orchestra is a little farther away from the
mikes. The sound is more blended, but details
are less prominent (all there, though). The
‘Infernal Dance’ and the finale will rattle the
pictures on your walls, but the sound has none
of the harshness we often associate with digital
recordings. More than once I found that I had
cranked the volume on my receiver to pretty
high levels, yet my ears felt no pain—a hallmark of really well engineered sonics (still
backed it off a bit).
The only complaint I have is the usual one:
I’d rather not sit through the entire Firebird
score, when I can get the high points from the
suite. Fischer offers only the suite, but the performance is not on the same inspired level as
his Rite of Spring. The introduction isn’t very
atmospheric or mysterious, and the Firebird
dances her dance prosaically. Fischer’s ‘Infernal Dance’ is exciting enough (lotsa oomph for
the bass drum), but the ‘Berceuse’ and finale
are painfully matter-of-fact. A chipper Scherzo
a la Russe and the composer’s orchestration of
his 1940 solo-piano ‘Tango’ don’t quite make
up for it.
Litton’s filler pieces are interesting:
Stravinsky’s orchestrations of works by other
composers—and not the usual suspects. In the
1940s, he wanted to conduct the ‘Blue Bird’
Pas de Deux from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping
Beauty, but he couldn’t find a copy of the full
score in the US; so he made his own orchestration—hardly a difficult task for the composer
of The Fairy’s Kiss. It certainly sounds like
Tchaikovsky, not Stravinsky. Next up is a 1963
arrangement of Sibelius’s string orchestra
‘Canzonetta’ for 8 instruments (4 horns, clarinet, bass clarinet, harp, and bass) and the two
Chopin pieces he orchestrated for Diaghilev’s
1909 production of Les Sylphides, the Nocturne
in A-flat, Op. 32:1, and the Op. 18 Waltz. If the
Rite of Spring and Firebird show Stravinsky the
innovative creator, these short arrangements
show him as the craftsman who adapts readily
to other composers’ styles. Last comes the
short (less than 1 minute) ‘Greeting Prelude’
for Pierre Monteux’s 80th birthday, written in
1955.
HANSEN
S
TRAVINSKY: Rite of Spring
with Petrouchka; 3 Easy Pieces; 5 Easy Pieces
Lidija & Sanja Bizjak, p
with DEBUSSY: Epigraphes Antiques;
SHAPERO: Sonata; Hands;
BERNSTEIN: Candide Overture
ZOFO Duet
Sono Luminus 92151—67 minutes
In the summer of 1912, at the home of musicologist Louis Laloy, the first performance of
Le Sacre du Printemps was given. Before the
orchestration was completed and the legendary first orchestral performance at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees took place on May 29,
1913, this ground-breaking work was already
published in a Piano 4-Hands version. The
orchestral score was not published until 1921,
so it is safe to assume that most public knowledge and analysis was gained initially from the
piano score. While I will never believe that the
4-hand version is preferable to Stravinsky’s
masterly orchestration, it has a legitimacy of
its own. It will also perk up the ears of people
who only know the orchestral version with a
clarity that only the piano can achieve. The
pianists in that 1912 performance were Igor
Stravinsky and Claude Debussy. Both recalled
the event with positive memories. Stravinsky
remarked about Debussy’s brilliant piano
playing and Debussy wrote of their performance “It haunts me like a beautiful night-
181
mare and I try, in vain, to reinvoke the terrific
impression.”
I must admit to having more recordings of
this amazing work by two pianists than by a
full orchestra. Dover Publications has a great
edition that reprints the original Edition Russe
de Musique Sacre and Firebird with the indication “for Piano Four Hands or Two Pianos”.
There are a number of passages that are
impossible to play as written on a single piano.
There are a number of two-piano recordings of
these, usually with the performers noting that
they were able to include additional voices
when playing on two pianos. Stravinsky himself found it necessary to add additional staves
to his score to include lines that could not be
accommodated. What the two pianists face is
not the straightforward piano duet notation of
two staves per part, but up to three per part,
two or more often occupying the same physical space on the piano keyboard.
My favorite recording is on two pianos,
with two world-class virtuosos inspiring each
other to produce an exceptional performance:
Ashkenazy and Gavrilov (London 433829).
Recently, a new version was created for two
pianos and two percussionists by Duo d’Accord (Genuin 11195, Sept/Oct 2011). The two
at hand perform this at one piano and both are
quite good. ZOFO (their capitalization, with no
indication of meaning or origin of the name)
plays the first part a little faster than the Bizjaks and the second part a little slower. Both
are very clear in their textures and pay close
attention to Stravinsky’s score. The ZOFO
recording has a bit more emphasis on the bass
parts (undoubtedly the pianist) and the
recorded level is a bit louder as well. The Bizjak
sisters have an ensemble that is good enough
to be compared with the Labeques—and technique to burn.
I am happy to have both recordings. The
comparisons have been enjoyable, but I realize
that part of my job here is to arm the reader
with enough information to make a choice.
The works that accompany The Rite of Spring
will probably be your reason to choose one
over the other. ZOFO gives us a varied program beginning with 1993 arrangement by
Charlie Harman of Bernstein’s ever-popular
Candide Overture. If you know and enjoy this
work, you will certainly enjoy its performance
here. The Sonata for Piano Four Hands by
Harold Shapero is dedicated to Bernstein, and
the two premiered the work while undergraduates at Harvard in 1941. The stylistic links to
the music of Bernstein and Copland make this
piece immediately accessible. I can recall only
hearing this work performed once before.
Debussy’s Six Epigraphes Antiques fill out the
ZOZO program with a nice contrast in style
182
and content, still related to the time period. It
was originally scored for the unusual combination of two flutes, two harps, and celeste to
accompany a recitation of poems by Pierre
Louys. Debussy used about half of the original
music to make the six duets and later reworked
them as solo piano pieces. ZOFO shows off
their ability to beautifully phrase melodic
music of a simpler texture in these wonderful
works.
The Bizjak sisters give us a compelling performance of Petrouchka in Stravinsky’s fourhand arrangement. Unlike the well-known virtuosic movements from Petrouchka that
Stravinsky arranged for solo piano (on a commission from Rubinstein), the piano four
hands version is of the complete ballet. Again,
the sisters’ ensemble and clear voicing make
for an enlightening performance. Filling out
their program are two sets of easy pieces for
piano four hands. The set of three (1915) has a
very easy lower part, while the top is much
more difficult; and the set of five (1917) reverses the difficult and easy parts. While there are a
number of significant other works for two
pianos and for solo piano, this disc, to the best
of my knowledge, is a complete recording of
the four hands at one piano music by Stravinsky.
I will listen to both recordings many more
times, but if I could have only one, I suppose
I’d get the Bizjak sisters—and then save up for
the ZOFO disc.
HARRINGTON
STRAVINSKY: Suite Italienne; Divertimento; Duo Concertant
Carolyn Huebl, v; Mark Wait, p
There’s a lot to learn about Stravinsky’s relationship with Samuel Dushkin from this
recording. Dushkin and Stravinsky made their
1932 Suite Italienne arrangement of music
from Pulcinella easier to play than Paul
Kochanski’s extremely difficult 1925 arrangement with the title Suite d’apres des themes,
fragments, et morceaux de Giambattista Pergolesi (recorded by Szymon Krzeszowiec and
Niklas Sivelöv and reviewed in this issue). The
“stand up” solo quality of the StravinskyDushkin 1934 transcription of the Divertimento, with the subtitle Le Baiser de la Feé brings
out the direct connection between ballets by
Stravinsky and ones by Tchaikovsky and
Glazounov.
After hearing Stravinsky’s orchestral music
reinterpreted in the language of the violin and
piano, it is quite eye opening (or perhaps ear
opening) to hear his 1932 Duo Concertant, a
piece he wrote explicitly for violin and piano.
These musicians play exquisitely. Carol
Huebl, the concertmaster of the IRIS Chamber
Orchestra, teaches at Vanderbilt University
and plays in the Blakemore Trio; and Mark
Wait is the dean of the music school at Vanderbilt and has won all sorts of awards for his
recordings. Everything is clean, clear, and brilliant, as recordings of Stravinsky’s music
should be.
FINE
SWEELINCK: Psalms, all
Glossa 922407 [12CD] 12:34
Cantiones Sacrae
Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam/ Harry van der
Kamp
Glossa 922406 [2CD] 2:27
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) was
something of a Janus-faced figure. He is bestremembered today for his music for organ and
harpsichord, which set important new standards in the style and pedagogy of keyboard
writing for the Baroque German era ahead.
Less familiar now is his huge output of vocal
music, secular and particularly sacred, where
he produced a kind of final testament to the
great Franco-Flemish or Netherlandish tradition he was part of.
Of Sweelinck’s keyboard music there has
been at least one complete recording, with
another one or two in progress, besides many
single-disc samplings. Likewise, there have
been sampler programs of Sweelinck’s sacred
works, but only his Latin motets have been
treated comprehensively. Harry van der Kamp
has decided to undertake a truly total compendium of Sweelinck’s vocal music. This venture is envisioned as “The Sweelinck Monument”—to make up for the failure of the composer’s lifelong home, Amsterdam, to erect a
physical monument to its great musician. This
“Monument” has three parts. The first, containing all of Sweelinck’s secular vocal writing,
was issued three years ago by Glossa (922401,
3CD: S/O 2009). The present two releases
cover all the rest.
And a true monument it is, a landmark in
the composer’s discography not likely to be
matched.
The most massive component, of course, is
Sweelinck’s Psalms—all of them, all 150, plus
duplicate settings of three. The composer was
organist in a Calvinist church that forbade
instrumental playing in the services themselves. But the Psalms were the essential bread
and butter of Calvinist music, sung in unison
for community worship and welcomed in
composed elaborations for private devotion.
That meant a constituency beyond simply
Amsterdam and the Netherlands.
There is no evidence that Sweelinck ever
set any texts in his native Dutch. Rather, he
recognized that he had a much wider audience
and market in the international spread of
Calvinism. He could reach them by using the
original French texts (translations by Calvin’s
associates Clement Marot and Theodore de
Beze) of the Genevan Psalter (1542, 1543, 1551,
1562).
For what we can recognize as his magnum
opus—and was so considered in his time—
Sweelinck clearly intended from the start to
cover the entire run of Psalms. He chose to
present them in four printed volumes. Book I
(1604) contained 50 Psalms, plus a setting of
the Canticle of Simeon; Book II (1613) and
Book III (1614) contained 30 Psalms each, the
latter adding a Sunday Prayer; Book IV (1621),
the crown on the venture (appearing a week
after he died, at age 59), contained 43 Psalm
settings plus the Decalogue (Die 10 Gebot
Gottes).
Yes, the number of discs (12) indicated
above is correct. As in any publication of this
sort, the composer intended them to be
resources, to be drawn on selectively, rather
than to be sung or heard as entities. So this set
is a reference source. Record listeners now
may understandably blanch at the idea of
going through all 12 discs in succession, but
the reviewer knows his duty. I did, indeed, listen straight through—scout’s honor!—if with
occasional breaks for meals and naps.
The point of this boast is that it represented by no means a boring or monotonous experience. Partly that was to the credit of Sweelinck himself. He scored his settings for anywhere from four to eight voices, sometimes
varying the number of voices in multi-sectional Psalms. His style of setting likewise varies.
Drawing on elements of traditional Netherlandish imitative polyphony, he used in some
cases the original Psalm melody as a cantus
around which the other voices spin elaboration. In other cases he broke up the Psalm
melody among the parts, taking its pieces as
points of departure for the voices to create a
rich texture. Directly or indirectly used, the
original melody is always present somehow.
To these techniques, Sweelinck adds the
rhythmic flexibility of the Italian madrigal and
the suppleness of the Paris polyphonic chanson. (To judge his imagination, listen to the
deliciously rowdy imitation of instruments in
Psalm 150.) Beyond providing musical variety,
Sweelinck devoted careful attention to bringing out the meanings and rhythms of the
words, guaranteeing a continuing vitality.
These Psalm settings might, in fact, be consid-
183
ered a triumphant final distillation of the compositional idioms of the earlier (16th) century.
But Van der Kamp and Glossa have further
avoided deadening routine. Each of the Psalm
settings is preceded by the original Genevan
melody, so that the “source” for Sweelinck’s
music is clearly set out. Further, in five cases,
the vocal setting is followed by a surviving
organ variation composed on the melody—
representing the Psalm elaborations the composer was allowed to play as preludes and
postludes to services of worship. (There are
also three Psalm-fantasias contributed by
Bernard Winsemius, the organist here, playing
at Sweelinck’s own Oude Kirk in Amsterdam.)
Even more, there are three intabulations
Sweelinck made for lute.
The performances are outstanding. Van
der Kamp draws on a pool of 13 singers. He
has them sing the Psalm melodies in small
mixed groups in unison, with great strength.
For Sweelinck’s settings, only one singer per
part is used. Their voices are individually lovely, but they also blend in superbly polished
ensembles. There have been fine recordings of
Sweelinck’s Psalms by choral groups, but, after
all, Psalm-singing was an important practice of
domestic devotion for Calvinists so that an elegant intimacy of household scale is altogether
appropriate.
Every aspect of this magnificent release
has been carried out carefully. The sound is
warm but handsomely clear and, in the larger
scorings, effectively directional. In the booklet
the detailed track lists run 28 pages, followed
by an admirable essay (in English, French,
German) and complete texts with (English
only) translations. There is even an index tracing the individual Psalm settings by their numbers. Glossa makes this sequence of 12 discs
available, at least in the Netherlands, in four
separate three-disc sets, one for each Book:
922402, 922403, 922404, and 922405.
I should add that this set not only gives us
Sweelinck’s magnum opus complete for the
first time; but it also, in effect, gives us the
complete melodies of the Genevan Psalter for
the first time—a potentially valuable tool for
students of early Protestant music.
Not content with dominating the market
for Calvinist Psalm settings, Sweelinck interrupted his output in that category, between
Books II and IV, to assemble a collection of his
treatments of traditional Latin texts, usable not
only for Roman Catholics but also for some
Protestant purposes. (There is some suggestion, too, that Sweelinck may privately have
retained Roman Catholic allegiance; he dedicated the collection to a devoutly Catholic student and patron.) This publication of Cantiones Sacrae or Sacred Songs (1619) consists
184
of 37 motets, including a modest Magnificat
and ending with an ambitious Te Deum. There
is no liturgical framework, and the motets are
organized in a random order. In presenting
them in this recording, Van der Kamp has
ignored the publication sequence and reassembled them by liturgical function. Thus
there are nine motets on Latin Psalm texts,
nine “Nativity motets”, nine motets on Gospel
texts, and nine “Passion motets”. To these, Van
der Kamp has added celebratory motets for
two weddings (published 1617, 1638), plus
three brief canons composed for students.
The vocal resources here consist of 14
singers. He rotates them, one to a part, for the
consistently five-voice writing of the 1619
motets, as well as for the eight-voice writing of
one of the wedding motets and the three-voice
writing of the canons. Organist Winsemius
does not retain the basso seguente parts that
publisher Phalese insisted on adding to the
1619 publication.
Once more the singing by Van der Kamp’s
vocalists is beautiful, and is captured in handsome sound. One per part, again, they bring
lovely transparency to the writing, and they
add unusual zest and meaning to the Latin
words, beyond what choral groups could usually manage.
Yet, whereas the minimalist intimacy
works so well for the Psalms, here I have reservations. Some of these motets (notably ‘Hodie
Christus natus est’) have been recorded by
choirs, and there are actually two complete
recordings of the full 37-item Cantiones
Sacrae—both, as it happens, by mixed-voice
British church choirs, both of Cambridge, and
both the same year (1998). Richard Marlow
leads the Trinity College Chapel Choir (Hyperion 67103, 67104): Marlow has 29 singers, and
uses the organ basso seguente. Timothy Brown
leads the Choir of Clair College (Etcetera 2025),
with 26 singers, in varying combinations from
full numbers to one per part, the organ bass
part used selectively, in 19 of the 37 motets.
For Hyperion, the publication’s order is strictly
followed, while the Etcetera set scrambles the
order into an informal liturgical sequence.
Those two recordings were reviewed
together by Mr Gatens (Sept/Oct 1999) who
found that Marlow’s performances had an
overall “churchly” sound, with interpretational
emphases ranging from eloquent to exaggerated, while Brown brought to the collection
more of an “early-music” or madrigalian quality, with greater clarity and lucidity. I would not
disagree, and there are lovely moments in each
recording, though on balance I find the Brown
set more consistently appealing.
As for other recordings of Sweelinck’s
sacred music, a series of three CDs from Radio
Nederland broadcasts had the Netherlands
Chamber Choir was led by five different conductors (William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, Ton Koopman, Peter Phillips, Paul
van Nevel) in a total of 39 selections, including
18 Psalms and 16 motets, among other things.
That was reissued by Etcetera in three separate
discs (1318, 1319, 1320). Marlow, meanwhile,
recorded with his Trinity College Choir a total
of 15 Psalms for the old Conifer label (205: J/F
1993) where the “churchly” sound is captured
with bold sonority in very satisfying performances. But notice should be taken of a
release from Harmonia Mundi (902033) where
Daniel Reuss leads the Cappella Amsterdam in
six of the Psalms and, with continuo players,
four of the motets (including the Magnificat
and the Te Deum). The 18-mixed-voices choir
sings splendidly, in forthright sound. Mr
Gatens (M/A 2010) had some reservations, but
I find this an admirable and most enjoyable
single-disc introduction to Sweelinck’s splendid sacred output.
But this Glossa “Monument” is a unique
achievement. No serious institutional music
library should be without all three sets, while
individual collectors who care about great
sacred music should give them thought, for all
the substantial investment involved.
BARKER
T
ANSMAN: Piano Concertino; Piece Concertante; Elegie; Stele
Christian Siebert, p; Brandenburg Orchestra/
Howard Griffiths
Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) wrote his
Concertino in 1931 for Jose Iturbi. It’s very
French-influenced, with a little Prokofieff
thrown in. I is five minutes of chromatic piano
chords scampering everywhere, a la the ‘Precipitato’ from the Russian’s Piano Sonata No. 7
but in common time. III is one of those wonderful pieces where the orchestra and piano
chase each other and their own tails. It would
be a great showpiece for a pops concert or for
an impetuous undergraduate pianist. I mean
no disrespect whatsoever referring to it that
way, but few concert pianists are going to program this 15-minute work when there are so
many warhorses that concertgoers and stringpullers want to hear.
Stele, written in 1972 in memory of Stravinsky, is completely different. It’s mysterious in
tonality, orchestration, and structure—dissonant, then pastoral, then aggressive. Piece
Concertante is for piano (left hand only) and
orchestra; it’s similar in tone to the Concertino, but a little calmer. II is a pleasant, lullabylike slow movement. If Tansman’s themes and
development, though good, were as brilliant as
his orchestration, we’d have an exceptional
piece. Elegy, written in 1975 “in memory of my
friend Darius Milhaud”, is more dignified
fondness than sadness. Halfway through,
there’s a little Paris jazziness that somehow
turns into an orchestra-wide tone cluster.
Playing and sound are superb; extensive notes
in English and German.
ESTEP
TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Pieces, opp 5, 7, 8, 40
Mikhail Pletnev
Regis 1354—64 minutes
Sonata in G; Children’s Album; Aveau Passionne; Impromptu; Valse-Scherzo
Jouni Somero, p
The Pletnev is a reissue from Melodiya (from
1986 and 1988). This may be its first appearance in this country. Had I heard it back then, I
would have praised it for its elegance, style,
and spirit. Listening to it now gives me great
pleasure and joy at having discovered the
many beauties of performances totally in sympathy with the music. Were I required to recommend a single disc of the composer’s piano
music, this would be the one. While all of the
selections belong to the realm of salon music,
they are melodic and charming. The slower
pieces also have a wistful sadness and bleed a
bit from the heart of old Russia.
The remaining three opus numbers are
additional gems to remind us what we are
missing since Pletnev has not recorded the
composer’s complete piano works. Although
we have a nicely performed complete set with
Victoria Postnikova and the start of a set with
Oxana Yablonskaya, neither is quite in the
same league as Pletnev. Even if you have the
Postnikova, you may want to consider this as a
supplement. The uncredited notes are good,
and the recording is excellent.
With Somero we have the start of yet
another set of the complete piano music.
Although this is marked as Volume 2, I have
not seen Volume 1; and if you look carefully
enough, the present volume is also marked
Volume 3, apparently of a series called “Russian Project”. Forget this, and forget the strange
spellings on this Finnish label’s website.
Somero is one heck of a pianist and I am
pleased to make his acquaintance twice this
month (see Blumenfeld review).
The Grand Sonata in G is a monumental
work lasting over half an hour. It has many
recordings—even one by Pletnev on Melodiya
with pretty nearly this same coupling. A check
of the Regis website shows that it is available
once again. It could be worth some serious
consideration. Somero meanwhile, aided by
185
some fabulous sound, offers a powerfully penetrating performance, as gutsy as one could
wish in this super-charged music. Some might
quibble with his demonic, driven approach,
though the music is designed to take no captors and to live constantly on the brink.
Postnikova, on the other hand, takes several minutes longer and makes a heavier, more
weighty experience of the music. Her lyrical
contrasts are more deeply felt, but we have less
of an exciting ride, particularly in the Finale.
She is no lightweight in the technical department, though anyone playing this music must
be able to toss off difficulties with ease.
Sviatoslav Richter polishes off the Sonata
in slightly over 30 minutes, yet there is never
any feeling of undue haste. I am inclined to
give him the nod for overall excellence; very
few pianists could duplicate his achievement.
With everything perfectly in place, and his
expressiveness reaching the heart and soul of
this music, all one can do is sit back and marvel.
Yablonskaya takes an altogether different
view of this music. Her performance is all delicacy and avoidance of fire and brimstone. If I
find it at odds with the nature of the music, she
certainly tries to make a valid case for it. Don’t
expect it to set you afire.
The pleasant little pieces that make up the
Children’s Album find strong advocacy in the
hands of both Somero and Postnikova.
Tchaikovsky’s answer to Kinderszenen was
even dedicated to Schumann. The remaining
three pieces in Somero’s selection are without
opus numbers and date from 1889. They are
most pleasant to listen to. Somero’s notes are
extremely brief, but to the point.
BECKER
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony 2
Russian National Orchestra/ Mikhail Pletnev
Pentatone 5186382 [SACD] 48 minutes
This symphony takes 32 minutes at these tempos. The extra 16 minutes are taken up with
the original first movement. (And why should
we want to hear a movement Tchaikovsky
rejected and replaced? Once, maybe, out of
curiosity, but every time we play the disc?) So
you are buying an expensive SACD with one
32-minute work on it. And, what’s more, it
takes only 32 minutes because it’s fast. It’s not
a long piece, no matter how you slice it; and
it’s not atmospheric in any performance. The
music seems to invite a rather brisk, martial
approach. The best performance of it is by
Markevitch, and that takes 36 minutes—not a
huge difference.
I have not liked anything by this orchestra
and conductor. Everything they do sounds
impatient and “cosmopolitan”—that is, very
186
sophisticated and NOT Russian. There’s no
soul in any of it. The playing is technically very
good, the engineering crystal-clear, but again
without warmth or “space”. It’s studio sound,
not hall sound.
Last issue we had the Poppen recording of
this. His Saarbrucken orchestra sounds more
“real”; it has more depth, the soloists have
more soul, and it seems less slick all around—
as if the conductor was enjoying the music. It
is not a great recording, but it sounds great
next to this one. It has a humanity this one
doesn’t have. And Poppen gave us Symphony
3 on the same disc!
VROON
TCHAIKOVSKY: The Seasons; see ARENSKY
T
CHEREPNIN: Piano Sonatas 1+2; Bagatelles, op 5; Etudes, op 18; Inventions
Giorgio Koukl—Grand Piano 608—63 minutes
Tcherepnin’s name is bandied about often, but
few pianists concentrate on his repertoire.
Enter Koukl, a Martinu specialist who has now
turned his attention to recording all of this
composer’s piano output. The results here in
Volume 1 are promising but not overwhelming. Most of the blame for the lackluster outcome can be assigned to the compositions,
which vary tremendously in quality.
The First Sonata dating from 1918 is highly
accessible, but perhaps so much so that it
moves perilously close to being too obvious. I
is modular, built of regularly repeating fragments. Not one of them, though, stands out as
intellectually or emotionally significant. II feels
like a concept work, opening with a harmony
that is sustained for more than 20 seconds
before Lydian fragments intrude on it. III is a
brusque Russian two-step whose quick tempo
is undercut by massive scoring. IV begins by
exploring a low-register ostinato figure for
about 45 seconds, then shifts to concentrate
on a wandering melody over generic triplet
arpeggios. The whole thing, in a nutshell, is
mundane.
To a lesser extent, the same can be said
about the Bagatelle set written the same year.
These short pieces, which bought the composer his first bit of fame, are modestly built but at
least possess some charm. The first bristles
with energy. It is a clever study that mixes
Russian sounding tonal progressions with Bartokian clusters. There are pointed, resonant
staccatos and warm legatos; and a real purpose seems to animate the tiny figures rushing
into the downbeats. The seventh is another
great work. It is built of an incessant triplet figure that refuses to stop. They buzz dissonantly
here and there and run rampant through all
registers of the keyboard. It is only at the end
that a tonal context for the work is revealed as
conventional cadential formulas are juxtaposed against it.
The liner notes are almost apologetic
about the Inventions, implying that their
didactic nature (they were written in part so
the composer could explore the potential of
his nine-step scales) will alienate listeners. On
the contrary, I found them some of the most
direct, satisfying works on the release. Only the
fourth sounds dry at all; many of the others
seem to revel in the transparency between the
voices. In addition to their contrapuntal complexity, Number 2 is delightful for its boundless energy and Number 7 stands out for its
lyricism. The etudes are even better. Written in
close proximity to the bagatelles, these display
a certain kind of simplicity in the form of
rhythmic squareness; I found myself tapping
my foot to most of them. But the melodies are
catchier and the harmonies are richer than
before. On top of this there is a stronger sense
of unbridled creativity is at play. Any texture
seems capable of immediate and permanent
transformation, as in Etude 2 where a slowmoving turn-based main idea turns on a dime
to become the basis of a quirky march.
The most powerful music here is the autobiographical Second Sonata. It was written in
ten days in 1961 and depicts the composer’s
frightening experience with a (temporary) aural
disorder that caused him to imagine two high
pitches at the interval of a major second. I
begins as a sorrowful lento, where low tones
stack up in register and volume. There are
many false starts and lots of play with sustained tones initially hidden inside chords. The
music launches into what first appears to be a
joyful, buoyant allegro of bouncy, running
eighth notes. But once the major seconds begin
to infiltrate the texture there is no deterring
them. By the end, the ear is bullied by screeches of the main motive in high register in
quadruple octaves. In contrast, II is a plodding,
nondescript work; but III balances the seriousness of I nicely. It is a stark piece chiseled out of
rock, built of recurring gestures that are all presented loud and at top speed; it coasts on its
own power like an infernal machine.
AUERBACH
TELEMANN: The Autograph Scores
Collegium Musicum 90/ Simon Standage
Chandos 787—79:18
The title grows out of the initial information
we are given that, for all Telemann’s vast productivity, there are only 18 known autograph
scores of his instrumental pieces. Nine of
those survive in a collection of music Telemann was moved to compose to help celebrate the name-day of a patron, Landgraf Lud-
wig VIII of Darmstadt in 1766, in Telemann’s
final year of life. This collection survived as a
possession of the composer’s grandson.
From that starting-point, we might assume
that this program will draw specifically on that
late manuscript collection. But, no, of the six
items presented here only four come from that
late round of composition. Two others—a brief
Concerto in D for strings and continuo, and a
unconventional Concert en Ouverture for violin, strings, and continuo—date from about
1715 and the late 1730s. Only the latter of
those survives in what might be an autograph,
but cannot be proven. The rationale for
including it is weak, while offering the other is
puzzling—unless the intention is to contrast
Telemann’s early writing with his last years.
Of the later works, two are OuvertureSuites in standard French ouverture-withdances format. There is also a very brief Fanfare in D, perhaps meant for some function in
the Landgraf’s celebration. A Divertimento in
E-flat is a somewhat experimental miniature
suite in six short sections, mixing dances with
hunting evocation. The four pieces variously
mix in flutes, horns, and bassoon with the
strings and continuo.
Taken as a package, this program does
allow us to concentrate our attention on Telemann’s late orchestral style, still cosmopolitan, still following familiar paths, but yet with
the mind always open to new possibilities.
Standage is in his element here, and he
plays expertly as both soloist and leader. His
ensemble consists of 13 string players, with six
more on winds plus harpsichord. The performances are altogether lively and lovely, and
Telemann yet again reminds you of his infinite
resourcefulness.
BARKER
TEN HOLT: Canto Ostinato
Irene Russo, Fred Oldenburg, Sandra van Veen,
Jeroen van Veen, p
Brilliant 9261 [2CD] 145 minutes
Simeon ten Holt is a new name to me; he was
born in The Netherlands in 1923 and began
studying with Jacob van Domsalaer at age 12.
He later became a pupil of Honegger and Milhaud, immersed himself in serialism in the
1960s, then walked off into the minimalist sunset in the late 1970s, when Canto Ostinato was
written.
This is almost nothing like Glass: I counted
two, maybe three, harmonic turns that sounded more like a wink than an influence. Nor is it
like Reich: for a mere few seconds on Disc 1,
the rhythm started to disintegrate like a phase
shift, but was immediately pulled back. It was
rather exciting. If anything, it’s the most like
Adams’s Grand Pianola Music, though not as
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bombastic. There’s a similar climax toward the
end of Disc 1—which abruptly drops you off a
cliff before bringing you back up.
The entire piece is in 5/8, built around a
bass line that ends up sounding like the
‘Passepied’ from Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque,
and the punchy quintuple feel will be stuck in
your head for several hours. It’s not unpleasant, mind you, but I should give you fair warning. Need I say it’s insistent? Well, things that
go without saying often go better when they are
said. It’s very tonal; the underlying chords are
generally familiar, but what’s going on above is
where most of the interest lies.
The pianists have a lot of tonal variety; in
fact, some notes sound so free of an attack that
I’m not entirely convinced it wasn’t modified
electronically. I’m 99% sure they use their
hands to dampen the strings in other spots for
a pizzicato sound. They’ll vary the pedaling
and touch to delightful effect. This is played on
four grands, by the way (it was first scored for
three pianos and electronic organ). The energy
never flags, which is impressive in itself.
When the rhythm and harmonies are being
set up at the beginning, the first interruption
comes in the form of a very soft wrong note. I
had just pulled out of my driveway, and my
first thought was, “I’ve never heard my car
make this noise.” It took a few times to convince me that the sound was on the record,
because it was so unusual for minimalism, but
also for the texture it was poking through. And
it sounded so spookily non-pianistic!
The more I listen to this, the more I like it.
It was recorded in a church, and you can hear
the vastness; but the engineers kept the pianos
right in the foreground. The sound is really
superb. Notes in English, more about Ten Holt
and the pianists than the piece.
ESTEP
TOVEY: Trio; Quartet; Sonata Eroica
London Trio; Ornesby Ensemble; Robert Atchison, v—Guild—7352—74:34
In his highly regarded seven-volume Essays in
Musical Analysis, Sir Donald Francis Tovey
ventured back in time through the realms of
Palestrina and Wilbye and as far forward as
Vaughan Williams and Hindemith. But his primary attention was given to that rich body of
music that came out of Vienna, Salzburg, and
Berlin between the mid-1700s and the beginning of the 1900s—Haydn and Mozart to Wagner and Elgar, so to speak. This was not entirely a matter of personal taste on Tovey’s part.
That was the comparatively limited range
musicians were playing and audiences
demanding. Tovey after all was writing in support of the concerts and recitals of his own
time, including many given by himself.
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This is the second CD of Tovey’s music
released by Guild. Like the first (J/A 2011) it
reflects the orthodox musical life led by the
composer at a time when one compositional
revolution followed another and in seeming
pandemonium. Tovey belonged to the conservative wing of Britain’s already institutionalized cultural life. From 1924 until he died in
1940 he was a Professor of Music at Edinburgh
University, where tradition ran deep. Tovey
did not belong to the avant-garde, and thus
missed most of Schoenberg and Bartok. Opera
was not his beat, so he had to pass up involvement in the big works of Richard Strauss,
though the Essays contain a superlative report
on Don Juan and other of that composer’s
tone poems. Ballet does not appear to have
played a major role in his life—the best of it
was taking place on the continent—and so he
didn’t get to know the early Stravinsky.
Thus it isn’t at all surprising that when it
came to writing his own music, Tovey paddled
in familiar waters. If he had a personal model,
it was Brahms; both the Trio and the Piano
Quartet have overtly Brahmsian beginnings
and are warmly tonal. Tovey’s writing is free of
excess and self-indulgence. When he finished
what he wanted to say, he stopped. How nice.
Tovey was a pianist, and it shows in all those
cascading arpeggios. But he knew what the
strings could do, and he gives each a welcome
life to live.
The only flop here is the Sonata Eroica for
solo violin, which runs 24 minutes and is
bedecked with a full array of contrapuntal
challenges and a requisite number of doublestops and the like. It is dedicated to Tovey’s
friend Adolph Busch, though how often Busch
played it is unknown. It is a somewhat tedious
affair, suggesting that though the date of composition is the composer’s late 30s, the work
may have earlier roots and go back to an
undergraduate thesis.
BENDER
T
URINA: Piano Quartet; Violin Sonata 2;
Escena Andaluza; Trio 1; Oracion del Torero
Nash Ensemble—Hyperion 67889—72 minutes
When the 23-year old Turina went to Paris in
1905 to study, he fell under the influence of the
impressionists but was also taken firmly in
hand by Albeniz and Falla, who told him not to
neglect his heritage. Turina’s music is often a
curious hybrid of earthy Spanish tunes and
Ravel-like vagueness. When he sets his native
language in his vocal music, the Spanish influence tends to predominate; but in these chamber works, he speaks with a less distinctive
voice.
The second movement of the Piano Trio is
dance-like, but the first is a classic prelude and
fugue. In the Escena Andaluza (for viola and
piano quintet), the extra viola sings a warm
melody, but I don’t hear anything particularly
Iberian about it. Spanish rhythms are more
prominent in the Piano Quartet; you’ll almost
think you’re hearing a guitar in II. The Violin
Sonata (Sonata Espagnola) has the piano imitating a guitar, but the violin dominates and
never quite sings.
The Oracion del Torero (for string quartet)
is probably the most folk-like piece here. It
makes pleasant listening, and the players of
the Nash Ensemble (two violins, two violas,
cello, and piano) are expert at what they do;
but nothing really stuck in my head even after
several hearings. Hyperion’s sound and packaging are deluxe, as usual.
LUCANO
T
YE: Masses, Euge Bone & Western Wind;
Quaesumus Omnipotens et Misericors Deus;
Give Almes of thy Goods; Christ Rising Again
from the Dead; Peccavimus cum Patribus
Nostris; Nunc Dimittis
Westminster Abbey Choir/ James O’Donnell
Euge Bone Mass; In Pace in Idipsum; Gloria
Laus et Honor; Kyrie Orbis Factor; Quaesumus Omnipotens et Misericors Deus;
Omnes Gentes Plaudite Manibus; Christ Rising Again from the Dead; I Lift My Heart to
Thee; To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; From
the Depth I Called on Thee; Deliver Us, Good
Lord; Give Almes of thy Goods; Nunc Dimittis
(English)
Cambridge University Chamber Choir/ Timothy
Brown—Heritage 238—73 minutes
There is considerable overlap in the contents
of these two recordings of music by Christopher Tye (c1505-1573?). The principal work on
each is the six-part Mass Euge Bone, widely
regarded as his supreme masterpiece. The title
suggests that it is a parody mass, but if so, the
model is no longer extant. Meanwhile there is
some common musical material between the
mass and Tye’s six-part motet ‘Quaesumus
Omnipotens et Misericors Deus’, also included
on both of these recordings. The motet text is
adapted from a prayer for King Henry VII with
some modification to make it more generally
usable. It is possible but far from certain that
the mass was Tye’s doctoral submission to
Cambridge University in 1545.
The greater part of Tye’s career was spent
in Cambridge and Ely, where he enjoyed the
professional support of Richard Cox, a leading
Protestant reformer who served as personal
tutor to the future King Edward VI and eventually became Archdeacon and later Bishop of
Ely. He was certainly responsible for Tye’s
appointment to Ely Cathedral and most likely
introduced the composer to the royal family.
For a time Tye served as a Gentleman of the
Chapel Royal.
Much of Tye’s Latin church music displays
the continuing influence of the earlier generation of English composers associated with the
Eton Choirbook. His music would not be mistaken for theirs, but one sometimes finds comparably florid melodic writing and many
instances of what I have called vocal orchestration: extended passages for fewer voice parts
than the full choral texture and often with distinct colors. Tye was also a pioneer in the
development of the English anthem. His English church music dates from the reign of
Edward VI. While his anthems display considerable technical sophistication with imitative
counterpoint and some text repetition, they
are very different in personality from his earlier Latin works. His own Protestant inclinations
as well as the expectation of his employers
prompted a musical style much more closely
molded to the prosody of the words with the
intention that they should be clearly heard and
understood. There is not a hint of florid or
melismatic writing in the anthems.
In addition to the pieces already named,
the works common to both recordings are the
anthems ‘Give Almes of thy Goods’, ‘Christ
Rising Again from the Dead’, and an English
Nunc Dimittis with a text different from the
familiar one found in the Book of Common
Prayer. ‘Give Almes’ is a miniature gem, while
the six-part ‘Christ Rising’ demonstrates that
even under Reformation constraints it was
quite possible to produce music of festive exuberance and pungent harmonies.
These two recordings are very different in
character. The Choir of Westminster Abbey
under James O’Donnell gives us the classic
English cathedral sound, with boys who are
very good though not quite flawless. Their program includes Tye’s four-part Western Wynde
Mass, one of three surviving masses based on
the secular monophonic song of that name.
(The others are by Taverner and Sheppard.)
O’Donnell also includes the extended penitential votive antiphon ‘Peccavimus cum Patribus
Nostris’, probably written during the reign of
Queen Mary. As we have come to expect from
Hyperion, the recorded sound is warm and
ingratiating.
The recording by the Cambridge University Chamber Choir under Timothy Brown dates
from 1990. I reviewed a previous release of it,
though I am not certain it was the first (Guild
7121; Nov/Dec 1996). The ensemble has a
smooth mixed choir sound of young adult
voices with straight-toned sopranos, though as
I mentioned in my earlier review, it is more the
sound of an early-music concert choir than a
189
church choir. Their program opens with Latin
liturgical works: the responsory ‘In Pace in
Idipsum’, the Palm Sunday processional hymn
‘Gloria Laus et Honor’, and ‘Kyrie Orbis Factor’. Brown does not include a second mass
setting, but gives us four additional English
anthems, some of them quite substantial, and
the motet ‘Omnes Gentes Plaudite Manibus’, a
setting of Vulgate Psalm 46. This stands out
from the other Latin works in its almost
Protestant (or Tridentine) approach to text setting with melodic and rhythmic ideas that are
more incisive than flowing and more in the
service of the text.
In the Latin works on both recordings,
extended passages are sung by solo voices,
especially ones of fewer parts. The contrast is
more conspicuous on Brown’s recording than
O’Donnell’s. Perhaps the acoustic of the
church of All Hallows, Gospel Oak, London,
where the Westminster Abbey choir was
recorded, so carries and blends the vocal tone
that the difference is less marked. The Cambridge University Chamber Choir recording
was made in the chapel of Jesus College.
The physical production of the Heritage
recording is skimpy. Instead of a booklet there
is a two-panel folder with an informative essay
by Gavin Dixon. There are no texts or translations or even a list of the singers. Guild in 1996
furnished a booklet with a more ample program note by Roger Bowers and texts with
translations but no information about the
choir itself. Hyperion as usual includes a generous booklet with detailed program notes by
Jeremy Summerly.
GATENS
UNDERHILL: Quartets 3+4; Still Image;
Trombone Quintet
Jeremy Berkman, trb; Francois Houle, cl; Bozzini
Quartet—Centredisques 17412—70 minutes
Canadian composer Owen Underhill (b 1954)
speaks a musical language that is often stark,
spare, and bleak, with dissonance that sometimes reminds me of Arvo Pärt. His music
would be quite forbidding were it not for a
couple of warm passages in each of his works.
This program is string quartets, including
ones with added clarinet and trombone. While
composing Quartet 3 (The Alynne, 1998) after a
daughter was born with serious medical difficulties, Underhill found solace and inspiration
in a passage from Yeats (included in the
notes). Lively dance passages offer relief from
despair in the single-movement, 16-minute
work. In the 14-minute Quartet 4 (The Night,
2011), barren dissonance (darkness) gives way
to warm consonance (light).
Clarinetist Francois Houle commissioned
Still Image (2007, 2011) and is heard in this
190
arresting reading. In the three-movement, 18minute work, I is mysterious and includes disquieting quarter-tones in the clarinet part. II
takes advantage of clarinet multiphonics,
especially in a remarkable cadenza where
Houle creates an otherworldly atmosphere. III
is the most active and thickly textured movement, and the ending is breathtaking.
The Trombone Quintet (1999) has string
chorales with quiet, lyrical trombone in I and
III; trombone multiphonics and muting with
lively strings in II; and a mostly quiet, contrapuntal IV. With his trombone tone compact
and pure, his dynamic level held down, Jeremy
Berkman manages to play in balance with the
strings in this unusual work.
Excellent readings by the Montreal-based
Bozzini Quartet (violinists Clemens Merkel
and Mira Benjamin, violist Stephanie Bozzini,
and cellist Isabelle Bozzini), whose devotion to
new music—particularly in their annual Composers Kitchen—is laudable.
KILPATRICK
VACCAI: La Sposa di Messina
Jessica Pratt (Isabella), Wakako Ono (Beatrice),
Filippo Adami (Emanuele), Armando Ariostini
(Don Cesare), Maurizio Lo Piccolo (Diego); Wildbad Rossini Festival/ Antonino Fogliani
Naxos 660295 [2CD] 104 minutes
Naxos spells this composer’s name Vaccaj
instead of the more usual Vaccai. The J ending
is more common in Europe than in the US.
Actually Vaccai’s name, whatever the spelling
is not that well known. He was popular in his
day (1790-1848). He was a noted voice teacher.
In 1832 he published his “Practical Method of
Italian Singing”. It is still in use today.
He composed 18 operas. The most popular
one was Giulietta e Romeo (1825). So popular
was this opera that the final scene of Vaccai’s
Giulietta was frequently substituted for the
final scene of Bellini’s Capulets and
Montagues! It was the first of his operas to be
recorded (March/April 1998).
We scarcely think of opera subjects as controversial until modern times. But Vaccai came
up with one in 1839. The source material looks
innocent enough: Friedrich von Schiller’s 1801
play Die Braut von Messina. But here in all it
Italian opera glory is a story of sibling incest.
Before Wagner! Two brothers, the dreamily
romantic Emanuele and the evil Cesare, are
feuding over Emanuele’s mistress, Beatrice.
What they do not know is that Beatrice is their
long-lost sister. Three-way incest! But the real
tragic protagonist is Isabella, the trio’s mother.
She abandoned Beatrice at birth in fear of a
prophecy that the girl would destroy the family.
Now decades later the prophecy is coming
true. Woe all around. There was such outrage at
the March 1839 premiere at La Fenice in Venice
that the opera was withdrawn after the second
performance. It was not heard again until the
performances at the 21st Rossini in Wildbad
Festival (Kursaal Bad Wildbad) 15-18 July 2009.
It has been a lost to listeners for a long
time and the more’s the pity. Sposa really is a
lovely work—not a great one, but close enough
with its generous supply of melody. It has a
feeling of implacable fate to it which builds
inexorably to the tragic denouement.
A Rossini festival at a German spa may
seem like an unlikely venue for the revival of
forgotten Italian operas, but Wildbad has been
doing it for 21 years and this is just the latest in
their discoveries. Fogliani gets fine playing
from his forces, actually the Classica Chamber
Choir of Brno and the Virtuosi Brunensis,
imported for the festival. The singing is split
equally into the good (the ladies) and the not
so good (the gentlemen). The most worthy star
of the opera is soprano Jessica Pratt. Isabella is
a big bel canto role with lots of fireworks and
drama, and Pratt fearlessly plows her way
through with spectacular effect. Wakako Ono
casts an alluring spell as the much coveted
Beatrice. Filippo Adami (Emanuel) is bright
and chipper in his romantic effusions, but
Armando Ariostini’s watery, ineffectual baritone (Cesare) was also an affliction in the 1996
Giulietta recording. Maurizio Lo Piccolo does
well by the basso outburst of Diego.
Italian-English libretto online.
PARSONS
VAINBERG: Cello Concerto; Symphony 20
Claes Gunnarsson; Gothenburg Symphony/
Thord Svedlund—Chandos 5107 [SACD] 71 mins
Even with the outpouring of recent CDs of
music by the great Polish-born composer
Moishei Vainberg (Mieczyslaw Weinberg) who
fled to the USSR as a young man, he was so
prolific (dozens of symphonies, concertos,
quartets, sonatas, etc.) that there are still many
works yet to be commercially recorded. Happily for music lovers, long-running Vainberg
series by CPO and Chandos (see our cumulative index) have been whittling down the list,
and Chandos now offers yet another recorded
premiere: the 20th Symphony from 1988,
superbly played by the Gothenburg Symphony
under Thord Svedlund and captured in clear,
airy, powerful sonics. The much-earlier Cello
Concerto (1948) offers an interesting contrast:
recognizably by the same composer but always
staying in the confines of traditional expectations and conventions. There are several previous recordings of the concerto—Rostropovich
and Mark Dobrinsky (July/Aug 2002) among
the soloists on them—but this new one offers a
competitive performance and better sonics.
Vainberg is often compared to his close
friend and colleague Shostakovich, but though
there are definite kinships (and mutual influence going both ways) he doesn’t have the
older man’s caustic cynicism or neurotic anxieties. He has his own anxieties, of course, but
his essential personality is more optimistic or
at least more resigned, with an inner sweetness
and a sort of smiling-through-his-tears composure that, without ever denying them, shrugs
off much of the sufferings he had seen and
endured as a Jew and as a political liberal
escaping the Nazis only to be persecuted and
threatened for much of his later life by the Stalinist regime. Vainberg was also an inventive,
resourceful, ever-experimenting-and-exploring
artist. Though never abandoning classical harmonic and form, he absorbed newer ideas and
techniques not only from his fellow Soviet contemporaries but also from figures as varied as
Mahler, Nielsen, Bartok, and Hindemith, until
by his later years his musical language had
become thoroughly cosmopolitan—much like
such figures of comparable stature as, say, Kenneth Leighton or Walter Piston.
Vainberg’s Cello Concerto reveals its Slavic
parentage immediately in the slow first movement’s melancholy theme, sung by the solo
cello at the very beginning. The work’s inheritance from Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich
clearly established, a wistful moderato follows,
with elements of gentle tango rhythms played
off against Hebraically inflected figures. III is
fast and virtuosic, not far in manner from
Khachaturian’s bravura finales. The concerto
finishes with a lively rondo that eventually
returns to I’s slow tempo, reprising its opening
melody and soulful melancholy. With a plenitude of inviting tunes, appealing solo part,
admirable craftsmanship, engaging but unpretentious warmth, and easy-to-grasp formal
and emotional patterns, this wonderful concerto is sure to please most music lovers on
first hearing and would make a good introduction to the composer for anyone who hasn’t
yet discovered him.
Symphony 20 comes from the other end of
Vainberg’s career and shows how far he traveled from his earlier manner without ever
repudiating it. Indeed, he gave up nothing, but
instead continually added to his musical
resources and emotional range. The symphony
is a full-scale work in five movements lasting
40 minutes. Two long, slow, arch-like outer
movements enclose two shorter scherzos that
themselves surround a central short intermezzo. David Fanning’s annotations point out that
the dancier and earthier inner movements—
the scherzos Mahlerian, the intermezzo bumping along in wandering Hindemithian chromaticism—are the most approachable; and
191
the outer movements, with their long-spun
laments, chill chorales, muted trumpet calls,
and harmonic ambiguity, confirm the symphony’s overall impression of bleak austerity
and enigmatic remoteness. This sorrow-heavy
stoicism is unexpectedly renounced in the
symphony’s final moments, as it builds toward
an exultant affirmation, in plangent, fullorchestra concords, of a grand and courageous
statement of faith, as if to say: It is only darkness that allows us to see the light.
LEHMAN
VAINBERG: Symphony
6; Moldavian
Rhapsody
Glinka College Boys Choir; St Petersburg Symphony/ Vladimir Lande
This is the third recording of Moisei Vainberg’s
Sixth Symphony that I’m aware of. The others
are led by Korsten Fedoseyev (Neos) and Kiril
Kondrashin (Melodiya). The Rhapsody was
also recorded by Gabriel Chmura (Chandos).
Vainberg’s Sixth Symphony (1963) was his
first to use voices, in this case a boy choir. The
first movement is a powerfully somber Adagio
Sostenuto that would do Vainberg’s friend and
mentor, Dmitri Shostakovich, proud. Melancholy and pain are depicted with elements like
long, searching string melody, scoring cellos in
their high register, reinforcing violas with
horns, and rolling bass lines. This all reaches a
massive climax by gradually adding instruments. The searching resumes with a quasiimprovisational flute solo over strings and timpani. A declamatory motif of an open fifth and
drop of a minor second begins solos that pass
to the horn, clarinet, strings, back to the flute,
and finally to the clarinet over contrabassoon.
Annotator Richard Whitehouse calls what follows “eloquent [string] polyphony”, sometimes
bolstered by the meat of the horn section,
before dying quietly with flute and strings.
The Allegretto sets a Lev Kvitko poem
about a “boy making a violin from scraps on
which he plays to an audience of animals and
birds” (all quotes are from Whitehouse). The
boys’ entrance turns things whimsical and sardonically playful, if also a little bizarre. Outright weirdness follows, with a violin solo over
tuba and the boys becoming part of the instrumental ensemble, intoning brittle motifs
accompanied by high instruments pitted
against low. The whole thing sounds like a
combination of Shostakovich and a sparse and
spiky Russian Mahler’s Fourth Symphony (first
movement).
Allegro Molto is mainly a wild dance.
Shostakovich has done this kind of thing but
not as violently or for so long. (The first movement of DSCH’s Seventh is more militaristic
192
than mad.) A bizarre interval with shrieking
clarinets over angry horn drones takes
Berlioz’s ‘Witches Sabbath’ a few steps further
in grotesquerie. Is this a dance or violent madness? There ensues a bizarre fugue over a
dancing pizzicato rhythm and a few snide and
biting shots from the orchestra, before the wild
dance returns and tears to a pounding percussive conclusion that ends with a single chime.
What can follow such madness? Vainberg
reaches back (1944) to one of his Jewish Songs
for a Largo, though one would never know that
was coming from the stern fanfares of brass
and percussion that open proceedings. He
then changes course entirely for a setting of a
Samuil Galkin poem about “where the home
once stood is now a graveyard for the murdered children, and will one day serve as a
memorial to future generations”. The choir
might well be the murdered children singing a
Russian chant. The music seems to drift heavenward with celeste and woodwind accompaniment before the plaintive mood returns.
Searing brass take over with the trumpets and
low horns raw and raging. Only at the very end
do the winds give us peace—perhaps at the
graveyard.
The gentle Andantino begins without a
break. Opening slow trills in low woodwind
registers sound like Mahler, who dominates
this movement. That leads to a Mikhail
Lukonin poem “as a lullaby where the children
of the present and the future, from the Mississippi to the Mekong, are bid sleep in the confidence of a bright and productive tomorrow”.
The choir sounds more childlike than before
and is accompanied by sparse orchestral
motifs. A long violin solo on what sounds like a
Jewish theme wends its way over tuba. Horn
and strings enter with material from the opening of the symphony. The work seems about to
end as uncertainly as it began, when a chord in
the high flute over the low bassoon, like a bird
over the earth, brings it to a peaceful end.
After Vainberg came under fire in 1948 for
“formalism”, he turned away from symphonies
to nationalist and programmatic works. Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes (1949) is Russian
and Eastern (but not Asian) in its romanticism,
color, modality, and orchestration—the voice
of Rimsky-Korsakoff, Borodin, Ivanov-Ippolitov as opposed to Soviets like Khrennikov. The
first half is introspective, melancholy, and dark
until a furious dance breaks out—think of a
wild Gypsy dance or Khachaturian’s Saber
Dance, only more feral. From there, the work
barrels from one stirring invention to another.
I do not know the other recordings of these
works, but these are first rate. The sound and
Whitehouse’s notes are worthy partners.
HECHT
VAN GILSE: Symphony 3
Aile Asszonyi, s; Netherlands Symphony/ David
Porcelijn
In reviewing his Symphonies 1 and 2 (Jan/Feb
2009) I outlined the details of Jan van Gilse’s
unhappy life. Those symphonies derive from
Schumann, though in 2 his freer handling of
the orchestra, especially the horns, shows
Mahler’s influence. Symphony 3 (1907) is more
ambitious and effective, marking real progress
in his artistic growth. The work won the
Michael Beer Prize (named in memory of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s younger brother) in 1909.
Worth about $12,500 in today’s money, it gave
Van Gilse some breathing space to create.
The symphony is in five sections, with the
subtitle Erhebung or Exaltation. I is an introduction to the entire work. The music is meditative, as if hesitant to progress, but eventually
builds to an emotional statement, with particularly good writing for the lower double-reeds.
II is an allegro resembling Richard Strauss in
his more turbulent moods, and just as impressive. It’s mostly in the minor mode, but the
effect is bracing rather than depressing. It has
a songful dying close. In III, after an extended
cello rhapsody, the soprano enters, her text
from the Song of Songs. The vocal line as music
is quite beautiful, but most of it lies in the top
register. Asszonyi sings the part handsomely,
but let’s be realistic—when a soprano part
soars over the staff, forget about understanding any words. (There are notes and texts in
English and German.)
The scherzo, IV, is a boisterous symphonic
waltz, richly scored. A gentler interlude adds a
Mahlerian touch. In V, an eloquent string
paragraph builds step by step till thwarted by a
diminuendo, no doubt influenced by the finale
of the Mahler Symphony 3, a work Van Gilse
greatly admired. A more upbeat segment
brings back the soprano, the symphony concluding in impressive peaks with the soloist
interjecting between noble brass progressions.
As heard in the release, CPO has recorded
many fine Dutch symphonies (see Roentgen in
this issue) and this one is near the top of the
list in value. Maybe CPO will give us a modern
recording of Holland’s greatest symphony—
Pijper’s No. 3. The playing and singing are fine,
and what I said about Porcelijn’s conducting of
the Roentgen symphonies applies as much
here. I’m now at the stage where I’m interested
to hear anything he conducts.
O’CONNOR
VASKS: Organ Pieces
Te Deum; Viatore; Canto di Forza; Musica
Seria; Cantus ad Pacem
Tuomas Pyrhönen—Alba 325 [SACD] 76 minutes
Latvian composer Peteris Vasks (b 1946) is
probably best known for his chamber music,
though several of his orchestral and choral
works have been recorded. The five organ
works here constitute his entire solo output for
the instrument thus far, though he has included the organ in some of his orchestral and
choral works. Two of the pieces were not originally for the organ: Viatore was for string
orchestra and Canto di Forza for the 12 cellos
of the Berlin Philharmonic. According to the
program notes by organist Tuomas Pyrhönen,
the solo organ versions of these works were
written very soon after the originals.
Vasks’s father was a Baptist minister whose
fiery preaching he greatly admired, citing it as
an important influence on the intensity he
brings to his work as a composer. Brooding
melancholy is a prevailing characteristic; Pyrhönen describes it as “an indivisible part both of
Vasks’s personality and of his output as a composer”. He is particularly concerned about the
harm that has been done to the divine beauty of
nature by destructive human behavior. The
hardships and oppression of life in Latvia under
Soviet rule have also left their mark on him.
Among the composers mentioned as influences
on Vasks, it is not surprising to find the names
of Sibelius, Lutoslawski, Gorecki, and Pärt. An
unexpected name on the list is George Crumb.
In general, the musical idiom here is tonal
(or modal) with straightforward harmony and
melody. Each of these organ pieces is a substantial and broadly conceived work that
unfolds slowly and deliberately. In the later
works—Te Deum (1991), Viatore (2001), and
Canto di Forza (2006)—melodic and harmonic
figures are repeated many times, producing an
effect of time almost standing still, as in much
of the music of Pärt and Gorecki. In the earlier
works the harmonic diction is more complex.
Pyrhönen describes Musica Seria (1988,
revised 2008) as Vasks “at his most experimental” with intense chromatic dissonances and
clusters. The tonal and triadic foundation is
not abandoned, but it is stretched almost to
the breaking point. Cantus ad Pacem (1984) is
also triadic but with far more added-note color
and dissonance than in the later works.
The great four-manual 1884 Walcker organ
at Riga Cathedral is possibly the ideal medium
for the organ works of Vasks, who has
expressed his belief that any composer living
in Riga is duty-bound to write for that instrument. As one would expect, it has a broad
palette of romantic colors. The sound is pow-
193
erful but not as aggressive or overwhelming as
many other large organs of its time, yet even
the quieter registers have an eloquent intensity. These qualities are abundantly apparent in
this recording, made in the composer’s presence and with his consultation.
GATENS
V
ERDI: Requiem;
ROSSINI: Overtures
Barber, Scala di Seta, William Tell, Gazza Ladra,
Italiana in Algeri, Cenerentola
Galina Vishnevskaya, Nina Isakova, Vladimir
Ivanovsky, Ivan Petrov; Moscow Philharmonic,
ORTF/ Igor Markevitch
ICA 5068 [2CD] 136 minutes
Markevitch recorded Verdi’s Requiem for
Philips in 1960. This concert performance,
with the same soloists, was taped in Moscow
earlier that year. It’s a fast, powerful reading,
often sloppy (the choral “Salva me fons
pietatis”, for example) but always exciting and
moving. The raspy, inelegant tenor soloist is
difficult to listen to, but the other three are
fine. Mezzo Isakova is rock-solid, and Petrov’s
light bass is quite agreeable. Vishnevskaya,
though fiery when necessary, is sometimes
graceful (“sed signifer sanctus Michael”) and
nails all her top notes, whether loud or soft.
What compromises any enjoyment is the
shrill, steely sound, which will remind you of
those terrible Melodiya recordings made in the
50s and 60s. The six Rossini overtures recorded
in Paris in 1957 don’t sound any better. Markevitch’s Rossini is very much in the speedy, nononsense Toscanini-Reiner mold, but his wind
soloists are too reticent and his orchestra often
sounds flustered. There are many better
recordings of the Requiem (including Markevitch on Philips) and many better collections
of Rossini overtures, so this is for Markevitch
archivists only.
LUCANO
VIERNE: Organ Pieces 2
Pieces de Jeunesse; 3 Improvisations; Pieces
in Free Style; Triptyque; Low Mass; Low Mass
for the Dead
Pierre Labric—Solstice 286 [3CD] 3:09
This second volume of Vierne’s organ music
contains 43 pieces ranging from just over one
minute to over 11 minutes (Volume 1—Solstice 277, J/F 2012, includes the six symphonies). All selections were recorded in 1973
and 1974 in Saint-Ouen, Rouen; the instrument is a 4-82 Cavaillé-Coll (1890), characterized by Widor as worthy of Michelangelo, with
a marvelous 26-rank Recit Division.
It is unfortunate that four of the Pieces in
Free Style—Carillon, Elegie, Epithalame, and
Postlude—are not here, owing to the inexplica-
194
ble reluctance of the engineer at Teleson—who
has the original tapes—to make them available
to Solstice. This gap amounts to about 18 minutes of music. The remaining pieces are performed with sensible tempos, appropriate registration, and an assured touch.
The music in this three-disc collection
takes us from about 1892 (Allegretto, Op.1) to
1934 (Low Mass for the Dead, Op.62). The
great bulk of Op.31 is made up of pieces two to
four minutes long. Many seem to be improvisations Vierne remembered from the past and
then put into notation. Listening to all of them
without a break may be tedious to many, and I
imagine more attention will be paid to Labric’s
performance of the Triptyque, those three
haunting pieces concluding with Stele pour un
Enfant Defunt. It is well known that Vierne had
finished playing this piece—dedicated to little
Jean de Brancion—in a Notre-Dame recital on
June 2, 1937 and was about to begin the traditional post-recital improvisation when he had
a heart attack while his foot was on the low E
pedal. The audience figured it was the start of
Vierne’s improvisation when it was actually
the last note in his life.
Music lovers who seek a preferred performance of these short pieces will find Labric’s
interpretations among the best. Everything
about this collection reflects sensitive musicianship coupled to a superb instrument, one
with a smoother sonority than the one Van
Oosten plays at Saint-Antoine (MDG 3161011,
J/A 2001). Kaunzinger offers an acceptable
interpretation (J/F 1990), far better than Walsh
(N/D 1991).
METZ
VIEUXTEMPS: Violin Concertos 1+2;
Greeting to America
Chloe Hanslip, Flemish Philharmonic/ Martyn
Brabbins—Hyperion 67878—75 minutes
It appears we never got the Fuga Libera set of
all seven Vieuxtemps violin concertos issued a
couple of years ago where each concerto has a
different soloist. My immediate impression on
hearing it was that there’s a good reason we
never hear any of Vieuxtemps’s concertos outside of 4 and 5: these are simply the cream of
the crop, like 1 and 2 of Paganini. Hearing the
first two concertos from several hands while
comparing them to this new Hyperion suggested I might have been too hard on them
before, even though there’s no question many
of Vieuxtemps’s melodies sound just like
Paganini’s. Hyperion has already released 4
and 5 with Viviane Hagner, whose playing I
found beautiful but emotionally bland
(Sept/Oct 2010); and now they offer 1 and 2
with Chloe Hanslip, whose Warner recording
of the Bruch 1 and 3 (also with Brabbins) I
praised quite highly though later entries by
Godard and Hubay displayed a bit of an edge
in the highest register. All three movements of
2 could be played in the space of the opening
Allegro of 1.
The Concerto in E here takes 40:41—same
as the Brahms and Beethoven—with I alone
lasting 24:49. The compelling introduction sets
forth a suavely melodic melody in the
Beethoven manner—or possibly Spohr—with
a brazen statement by the horns heralding a
more martial stance. We hear briefly a lyrical
turn from the woodwinds, with one standout
rum-ti-tum tune that recurs often as the music
progresses. But Vieuxtemps relies on these
melodic elements for maybe half the movement, until at 12:27 the soloist launches into a
new theme redolent of Gypsy music—indeed
you may think of Liszt’s Second Hungarian
Rhapsody. More busywork follows until the
dramatic orchestral lead-in to the cadenza,
where Vieuxtemps finally decides to add cymbals to his orchestra (which Paganini of course
would have had up front right from the start).
The brief Adagio (here 3:33) little more than
sets up the final Rondo, where Vieuxtemps
adds the triangle to his arsenal while giving the
high-stepping soloist much to do, and he also
brings back the Adagio theme before launching into a perpetuum mobile coda.
In the F-sharp minor score published as
No. 2 a stern mincing step that threatens to
turn into the familiar “villain” motif from those
old silent film melodramas leads to a fustian
tutti, followed by a more fluid second subject;
this the soloist embraces together with other
material, but Vieuxtemps avoids the prolonged
discourse of the E-major score. Most of the
movement revolves around the tender opening strain and another melody that sounds a
lot like everyone’s favorite fondly remembered
lullaby. The buoyant closing rondo is once
again calculated to show off the skills of the
soloist, spelled by another theme the composer marks as lusingbiero (pleading). Both are
subjected to all manner of embellishment by
the soloist, but as with 1:III this is above all
music for the dance and requires great agility,
not just showmanship.
In both concertos Ms Hanslip’s playing
reminded me a lot of the Godard and Hubay—
lots of pure tone but also a shrill edge on top. I
had to turn down the sound when she entered
because she seemed to be right under the
mike. Nor did I ever really get the impression
she was fully inside this music; she churns out
endless pages of busywork but seems too cautious, even calculated. I wanted to hear more
of the sheer joy of playing this music and less
of the labored nuts and bolts of simply getting
from point A to point B, though I admit that’s
not easy in a work as discursive as the E major
score; in the slighter F-sharp minor matters
improved. I especially felt she was no more
than picking her way along in the Rondo of 1;
thus I was dismayed to pull down the Naxos
with Misha Keylin (May/June 2000) and find
him pretty much the same, but the Naxos is a
lot more resonant. And Paul Rosenthal on Biddulph is even more sodden. Here I was happy
to have the Fuga Libera set with Vineta Sareika, who moves things forward admirably in the
opening movement and has more of a spring
to her step in the Rondo—though I wouldn’t
mind hearing it played even faster.
In 2 the Fuga Libera set failed me with a
tentative, listless account from Hrachya
Avanesyan, dragged down even further by a
lumpish accompaniment. I still enjoy the
Westminster LP with Robert Gerle (17123).
Keylin (Sept/Oct 1997) finds in this music a
throbbing intensity unmatched by Gerle, but
he’s tepid in the finale and so is Carlo Van
Neste (Pavane). Overall I’m happiest with
Alexander Markov (July/Aug 1998), who blows
the cobwebs off this music; but his excesses in
4 5 effectively rule him out unless you have
those already. He’s matched pretty closely by
Avanesyan in the finale, but the orchestra really whales on the opening tutti. If your primary
concern is having all seven Vieuxtemps concertos, you could do worse than look for the
Fuga Libera set and supplement it with
Markov for 2; but if Hyperion now plans on
having Ms Hanslip complete the cycle, I hope
for better in the remaining works.
Even the Fuga Libera set won’t get you the
Greeting to America, pound for pound the
most entertaining piece on this disc. Written
for Vieuxtemps’s American tour (1843-4), this
incandescent display works up ‘Yankee Doodle’ left, right, and sideways before everyone
stands proud in ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.
Misha Keylin’s rousing display (Sept/Oct 2010)
simply can’t be beat; Ms Hanslip doesn’t even
come close to Keylin’s fiddling, and the trombones in the ringing close-out stand out a lot
better than they do on Hyperion. Gerard
Poulet on Auvidis is simply dreary, but you
may need that for 6 and 7 unless you end up
getting the Fuga Libera set.
HALLER
VINCI: Cantatas (4), Recorder Sonata;
SCARLATTI,A: Cantata
Emanuela Galli, Francesca Cassinari, s; Stile
Galante/ Stefano Aresi—Pan 10266—66:49
Leonardo Vinci (1690-1730) was one of the
most important and influential among the
constellation of composers active in Naples in
the early 18th Century.
Despite the brevity of his life and career,
195
Vinci was a markedly prolific composer. He
composed more than 30 operas, and over 20
solo cantatas add another dimension to his
vocal writing.
Recordings have been terribly sparing in
attention to his music. This release gives us a
good sampling of his rarely heard cantatas.
They set texts generally on themes of love
(happy and otherwise) in mythic Arcadia. But
at least one of them is a personalized address
to his favorite soprano, the young Faustina
Bordoni, who was leaving Naples for a wider
international career. Another was explicitly
composed for another soprano with whom
Vinci worked in Naples, Vittoria Tessi.
The master of this cantata form at the time
was, of course, old Alessandro Scarlatti (16601725). One of the cantatas here was once
attributed to Vinci but is now recognized as by
Scarlatti. Why it was included here, instead of
another of Vinci’s own and authentic cantatas,
is not clear—perhaps just to illustrate that his
reputation was sufficient to attract a faulty
attribution. (The rather pointless title of the
album, by the way, “Fileno”, refers to an Arcadian character in one of the cantatas.)
The performances here are fully committed
and generally persuasive. They are divided
between the two sopranos, both fine singers,
quite equal to the virtuosic demands. Cassinari
has a tendency to become hooty on sustained
notes, but is otherwise pleasing. Galli particularly impresses me for her ability to dig into the
emotions underlying these highly stylized texts.
To fill out the program, there is a recently
discovered Sonata in A minor for recorder and
continuo that adds to the composer’s meager
instrumental output and is quite a lively piece.
The six instrumentalists give vigorous support, and the sound is ideal. Adequate notes,
texts with translations.
BARKER
VIVALDI: Violin Concertos IV
Riccardo Minasi, Il Pomo d’Oro
Naive 30533—77:15
New Discoveries II
Ann Hallenberg, s; Anton Steck, v; Alexis
Kossenko, fl; Modo Antiquo/ Federico Maria
Sardelli—Naive 30534—58:18
Trio Sonatas, op 1
L’Estravagante—Naive 30535—74 minutes
Three new additions to Naive’s Vivaldi Edition
series.
In proposing to record for this series all the
violin concertos beyond the ones in the published opus collections, Naive has its work cut
out for it. But it has made the interesting decision to entrust each program in this sub-series
to different Italian soloists and ensembles,
196
rather than using the same personnel each
time. There are also separate “themes” that
each grouping of concertos can explore.
In this release, titled “L’imperatore” (The
Emperor), there are seven concertos, mostly
from the 1720s and many of them explicitly or
putatively involved in Vivaldi’s cordial relationship with the Hapsburg prince who
became Austrian Emperor Charles VI. These
concertos were among a dozen put together as
a gift to Charles, at a time when the composer’s Op. 9 publication was just going into
print. There are actually some overlappings
between this royal manuscript collection and
the Op. 9. One concerto is shared in full
between them—an interesting but rare
instance of scordatura retuning of the strings.
The other overlap is in movements here that
were organized differently for the first concerto of Op. 9.
Minasi is an intense performer, and his
ensemble (12 string players, plus one on harp
and two on harpsichord) backs him up with
robust period-style conviction. The sound is
close and full. Listeners familiar with Vivaldi’s
violin concertos only through the ones published in the numbered collections will find
these “stray” concertos important territory to
explore. In this material one can hear Vivaldi
the virtuoso turning his talents to a more
matured sensitivity than is heard in the earlier
numbered publications.
That no rocks are left unturned in the
quest for missing scraps of Vivaldi’s music is
attested by the second program from Naive of
“New Discoveries”. How far afield such questing must go is demonstrated here by yields
from archives in Enghien (Belgium), London,
Edinburgh, Berlin, Dresden, and (!) Berkeley
CA. Some of the items offered this time are
gratuitous additions, while others fill in some
known gaps in what we have had. Thus, we are
now given four arias (two each found in
Enghien and Berlin) recognized as from an
otherwise lost opera, L’ingano Trionfante in
Amore. Added to those is an aria fragment
from the lost opera Ipermestra found at UC
Berkeley. From Edinburgh comes a Flute Concerto in D minor, Il Gran Mogul, that seems to
belong to a till-now incomplete cycle of such
concertos. There is a violin concerto from
Dresden, and two sonatas for violin and continuo from London.
No great revelations in any of these items,
but a lot of characteristically Vivaldian pleasantry, along with some small new insights.
Hallenberg predictably does full-throated justice to the vocal selections. Alexis Kossenko is
the fine flute soloist, and Anton Steck is an
expert violinist. The period orchestra is 13
string players strong, with harpsichord and
two players who rotate theorbo, lute, and gui-
tar for some pepper in the continuo. Whether
as conductor or traffic cop, Sardelli maintains
a lively pace. Sturdy sound. The booklet’s
notes are extensive but sometimes a little
blurred on details. Full texts and translations.
Vivaldi’s earliest publications were of
chamber music, and in his Op. 1 of 1705 (or
perhaps 1703) we see him hewing consciously
to the models supplied by his great elder contemporary, Corelli. The latter published four
collections of trio sonatas, 12 sonatas per set,
as his Opp. 1-4, and then a dozen violin
sonatas as Op. 5. Vivaldi respects the format of
the trio sonatas Corelli had stabilized, while
giving as the set’s No. 12 his imaginative treatment of the La Follia figure, just as Corelli did
in his own Op. 5.
Vivaldi’s Op. 1 has long been the most popular of his chamber-music publications, certainly on recordings. I can pull from my shelves
seven earlier recordings of the compete publication, and I know I have missed at least one
other. An old standby, in reliable “modern
instrument” playing led by Salvatore Accardo,
was a staple through several releases by Philips.
As period playing took over, Monica Huggett
led her Trio Sonnerie in a spirited set for CPO
(999 511; not reviewed), and London Baroque
recorded the set in more straight-forward terms
for BIS (1025, J/F 2001). Both of those releases
added a number of other pieces as generous
fillers. Huggett spiced the continuo by throwing
in a player on lute, theorbo, and guitar: there is
even a guitar improvisation on the Follia figure
preceding Vivaldi’s sonata. More recently, Ms
Crawford (J/A 2008) liked a recording led by
Enrico Gatti for Glossa (921203, 2CD). That set
offers no fillers, and an archlute is used with
vigor as part of the continuo.
This new recording of the set follows the
Glossa one on some counts. The sound for
both is very close and up-front (as against the
sense of distance in Huggett’s set); and both
use a lute or whatever that gives the continuo,
along with one or another keyboard instrument, a particularly twangy quality. Both
recordings, too, oppose the two violins for
maximum dialog effect.
On the other hand, whereas Ms Crawford
found Gatti and his colleagues making a sound
of nearly orchestral fullness, it seems to me
that Montanari—clearly the leading spirit of
his ensemble—seeks a “chamber” leanness.
He is among the most adventurous of our performers in pushing tempos to extremes of slow
and fast, and he adds phrasing or agogic
touches that can boarder on the eccentric. I
would also bet that it was his idea not only to
scramble the order of these sonatas but to put
No. 12 as the very first, for a particularly sensational opening.
In all, I would recommend London
Baroque or Glossa as the most satisfying choices. But there is no doubt that Naive offers
excitement and sharp detail. And it alone has
managed to fit the entire set on just one disc.
I had thought that Naive’s gallery of ugly
bimbo photographs for its Vivaldi series had
pretty much reached it depths, but the horrible
cover for the Op. 1 recording actually plunges
to a new pit of bad taste. I do hope that the
company official responsible for these vulgar
irrelevancies (so insulting to women) will be
forced to mount the whole series on his office
walls, so that he must contemplate his sins to
the end of his days, or at least until he retires.
BARKER
WAGNER: Siegfried Idyll; Faust Overture;
arr: Iphigenia in Aulis Overture; Traume;
STRAUSS: Oboe Concerto
Louise Pellerin, ob; Bienne Symphony/ Thomas
Rosner—ATMA 2580
Bienne is the city I have always known as Biel,
half an hour from Berne. It is pretty small, but
is the headquarters of both Omega and
Rolex—watchmaking country. It is also utterly
bilingual. All street names are in both German
and French. The orchestra is a pitiful-sounding
little band. What is this Canadian label doing
there?
This is called “Wagner in Switzerland”.
Wagner had two Swiss exiles, and naturally he
didn’t stop writing music. Here are pieces he
wrote there. The Siegfried Idyll had its “premiere” in the house he and Cosima were living
in near Zurich (Tribschen) with 18 instruments. It sounds much better with plenty of
strings, but this orchestra doesn’t have plenty
of strings, so they make a virtue of necessity.
Nor does this orchestra have any vibrato in
the strings. Apparently they excuse that in the
case of the Gluck because some idiot told them
Gluck wouldn’t have had it (not true!). But
note: this is Wagner’s arrangement of Gluck!
Wagner without vibrato is so stupid I can’t
imagine anyone defending it. Stick to the
Klemperer recording.
The Faust Overture is so boring here that
you can’t imagine that anyone would bother
with it.
The Strauss (he went to Switzerland after
World War II for the superior health care) is
pretty nice. It’s a hard piece to bring off,
because Strauss had forsworn his ecstatic
romanticism; but this is one of the better
recordings. Too bad you have to put up with
some dreadful Wagner to have the 23 minutes
of Strauss. Well, actually, you don’t, because
there are a few other good Strauss recordings.
VROON
197
WAGNER: Flying Dutchman Overture; see
SCHUMANN
WEBER: Symphonies (2); Horn Concertino; Oboe Concertino
Stefan Dohr, hn; Munich Radio Orchestra/ Hansjörg Schellenberger, ob
Camerata 28215—68 minutes
This very fine pairing of the Weber symphonies was my introduction to Camerata, a
Japanese label distributed by Albany. Don
Vroon informs me the recordings are made for
the Japanese market, quite possibly by expatriate Japanese now living in Europe; and this
release comes complete with the familiar “obi”
though unlike the numerous Japanese Deccas
and Westminsters I’ve obtained you get notes
in English as well as Japanese. The jewel box
also bears the BR logo, and these performances were taken down by Bavarian Radio in
Munich by a conductor and orchestra who
clearly know and love Weber’s music.
Even though I already had nine couplings
of the Weber symphonies on my shelf, I’m
always willing to add one more when they’re
set forth as winningly as they are here; for just
like the two piano concertos and Konzertstück
Weber’s youthful exuberance quite disarms
criticism; and like the overtures you surely
already know, the effortless flow of cheerful
melody and most of all the adept writing for
the woodwinds—not least the oboe so beloved
of Weber’s patron, Duke Eugen of Karlsruhe—
handily repay repeated hearings.
Lacking scores for the symphonies, I’d
guess that Weber didn’t call for the usual
repeat in the opening movement of 1 (both are
in the key of C, incidentally), or at least none of
my recordings include it; most conductors do
take the repeat in the finale, I’m pleased to say,
as it gives the horns a splendid fusillade. More
curious, most conductors take the repeat in 2:1
even though this symphony is a good deal
longer, but not in the impish finale, which is
over almost before it begins.
This is music of great humor and delightful
tune-spinning that rivals the early symphonies
of Schubert, and Schellenberger is blessed
with an ensemble that can do no wrong, rising
to the challenge of some pretty whirlwind tempos from the podium. I marvel that the oboist
can scoot along so flawlessly in the scherzo of
1, and a lesser orchestra might falter in the
Presto finale of 2. Schellenberger also doubles
as soloist in Weber’s enchanting Oboe Concertino. Stefan Dohr—principal horn of the
Berlin Philharmonic—makes a meal of the better known Horn Concertino, with every
maneuver in the horn player’s arsenal, at one
point calling to mind the ancient serpent
Bernard Herrmann used so tellingly in Journey
to the Center of the Earth. If only they had filled
198
out with Weber’s Adagio and Hungarian
Rondo for bassoon—it would have thrived in
such jovial company!
By now you will no doubt have guessed I
love these symphonies, which I learned from
the Westminster LP with Victor Desarzens and
the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. Perhaps
because of limited space, Desarzens omits all
of the standard repeats, and he doesn’t goad
his men on like Schellenberger; still, his
healthy vigor is hard to resist, and the familiar
Westminster sonics are even more pellucid
than the Camerata.
I’ve covered the Weber symphonies in
these pages more times than I can count;
major contenders for your dollar include
Hans-Hubert Schönzeler on Guild (Jan/Feb
1998), Roger Norrington for EMI (Sept/Oct
1995), Roy Goodman’s Hanover Band on Nimbus (Nov/Dec 1989), and now this Camerata.
Only the stuffiest pedant could fail to be entertained by these delightful symphonies written
in the shadow of the great Beethoven, yet filled
to overflowing with the sheer joy of writing
music for a talented group of players.
HALLER
WEELKES: Anthems
Hosanna to the Son of David; What Joy so
True; All People Clap Your Hands; Lord to
Thee I Make My Moan; When David Heard;
Gloria in Excelsis Deo; Give Ear, O Lord;
Most Mighty and All-Knowing Lord; O How
Amiable; Alleluia, I Heard a Voice; O Mortal
Man; Give the King Thy Judgements; If King
Manasses; O Lord, Grant the King a Long
Life; consort pavans (3); Consort Fantasy;
organ voluntaries (2)
Benjamin Atkinson & Daniel Smith, organ; Fretwork; Sussex College Choir, Cambridge/ David
Skinner—Obsidian 708—63 minutes
Thomas Weelkes (1576?-1623) had a promising
early career. He probably sang as a boy chorister at Winchester Cathedral, and in 1598 was
appointed organist there. This was his most
fruitful time as a composer of madrigals. In
either 1601 or 1602 he was appointed organist
and choirmaster at Chichester Cathedral,
where he served for 20 years. He earned a
music degree from Oxford University and
seemed to be on a comfortable career path. He
was possibly known at the court of James I, but
his self-description as a Gentleman of the
Chapel Royal in his Fourth Book of Madrigals
(1608) may have been more wishful thinking
than fact. It was around this time that his personal life went into steep decline. Beginning in
1611 he was often charged with drunkenness,
foul language, and neglect of his duties at the
cathedral. There seems little doubt that today
he would be diagnosed with chronic alcoholism. In 1617 he was dismissed from his post
as organist and choirmaster but continued as a
singer in the cathedral choir. He spent his last
years in London at the home of a friend.
Here we have a selection of Weelkes’s
anthems as well as some instrumental pieces.
Most of his church music dates from his years
at Chichester. The surviving works include 16
full anthems and 23 verse anthems, though
only 5 of the 23 survive intact. His only surviving consort song is ‘Most Mighty and AllKnowing Lord’. For this recording two of his
full anthems—’Lord, to Thee I Make My Moan’
and ‘O Mortal Man’—are adapted as consort
songs with the top part sung by a solo soprano
and the lower parts played by viols. Weelkes
was a brilliantly gifted composer. He consistently displays an extraordinary fertility of
invention and an aptitude for effective and
expressive text setting.
The choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge is a mixed ensemble with straighttoned sopranos and female altos. It is typical of
many fine English mixed choirs of young adult
singers active today. It is a sound that is very
good for the clear and refined presentation of
music of Weelkes’s time. Still, it is not the
sound the composer would have expected. It is
for individual listeners to determine the
importance of the authentic English cathedral
sound of men and boys for the convincing presentation of this repertory. That sound at its
best is available on a reissued Weelkes recording by Winchester Cathedral Choir under
David Hill (Helios 55259; May/June 2008). On
its first appearance (Hyperion 66477;
March/April 1993), John Barker gave it a brief
review and mentioned as a worthy companion
the 1988 recording of Weelkes services and
anthems sung by the choir of Christ Church
Cathedral, Oxford, under Stephen Darlington
(Nimbus 5125). On the present recording
David Skinner directs performances that are
eloquently expressive yet somewhat understated. The consort pavans and fantasy as well
as the accompaniments of the consort songs
are performed by Fretwork, one of the outstanding ensembles of its kind.
This release comes on the heels of the
choir’s recording of music by Thomas
Tomkins (Obsidian 702). I have not yet heard
that recording, but if the standard is comparable with the present one, it will be well worth
getting to know.
GATENS
WEILL: Surabaya Johnny; see Collections
WEINIAWSKI: Violin Concerto 2; see
Collections
WIKLUND: Piano Concertos 1+2; Concert
Pieces
Martin Sturfält, Helsingborg Symphony/ Andrew
Manze—Hyperion 67828—75 minutes
I checked out sound bites from this new Hyperion online, and none of the brief excerpts they
offered held my interest; so I prevailed on our
Editor to send me a freebie as I’ve been collecting each installment in Hyperion’s
“Romantic Piano Concerto” series, but I didn’t
want to waste my hard-earned money on this
one. Only later did I find his review of Caprice
21363 (Mar/Apr 1989) wherein he greets this
music most enthusiastically, writing “(1:I) has
motion, melody, and a pleasant blend of
sounds; it’s late-romantic, sometimes hyperromantic...(but 2:II) is the more ecstatic, passionate, and rhapsodic of the two, with an
absolutely gorgeous Andante” and finding
echoes of works as divergent as Rachmaninoff’s PC 4 and Fauré’s Ballade—two pieces I’m
not all that familiar with—and even Addinsell’s
Warsaw Concerto.
One hearing of these marvelous performances by Martin Sturfält—who also wrote
the notes—made me hang my head in shame.
Mr Vroon was right on the money: this is glorious Nordic lyricism that not only continues on
nobly in the tradition of the great Grieg Concerto but can stand alongside the concertos by
Wilhelm Stenhammar, who not only served as
revered mentor to Wiklund but also introduced him to the music of Sibelius and Bruckner. So the moral of this tale is, never put your
faith in online sound bites.
Adolf Wiklund was another composer who
liked to play his own concertos, at least the
premieres—both conducted by Armas Järnefelt whose Berceuse you no doubt know—and
he wasn’t all that satisfied apparently, later
revising both scores. Unfortunately, as Sturfält
relates, the only available scores and parts are
the revisions; the piano scores are Wiklund’s
originals, and the piano-and-orchestra scores
are a mixture of both. Here Sturfält borrowed
from all three versions and that already makes
this recording unique. That Wiklund himself
was a highly accomplished pianist you can certainly hear in both of these grand concertos
written ten years apart.
The First Concerto, the longer of the two,
opens confidently with the soloist setting forth
a ringing chordal melody over a rolling bass;
soon we hear an expansive passage that
sounds very much like the Grieg Concerto, followed by a chorale-like strain before closing
out puckishly—again quite like the opening
section of Grieg’s Concerto. The soloist strums
the lyrical second subject in bardic fashion,
aided by the smoothly blended Helsingborg
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strings. The development begins with everyone’s fur standing up, severe tremolandos met
by muttering basses—one of many effective
touches by the 18-year-old Wiklund—and
there’s more drama that might have come
from an old-time radio show before the soloist
finally quells the disturbance and muses
thoughtfully, then strides ahead quite
unbowed before the quarrel resumes. Now the
horns resound (8:19) to herald the triumphant
return of the main theme, and the soloist mulls
this over before the melody ebbs in the cellos
and finally the solo violin colored by hushed
strokes on the cymbals reminiscent of the
‘Sanctus’ from the Berlioz Requiem.
Mr Vroon heard the Fauré Ballade in the
Andante; it certainly does sound French, possibly Massenet. After the orchestra quietly sets
the mood, the soloist enters discreetly and
joins with them for the opening melody; but
it’s the second theme that sounds distinctly
Nordic. A drumroll once again calling to mind
the Grieg Concerto (if more subdued) leads
into an ebullient Scherzo-like romp that suggests Strauss’s Burleske had it been written by
Rachmaninoff. Sturfält, who had the opportunity to talk with the composer’s grandson, tells
us the four-note primary motif—an ascending
major second followed by a descending fourth
starting from the main note—has for generations been a way for one Wiklund family member to pick another out of a large crowd: one
whistles the first notes and waits for the other
to respond with the other two! There is a hymnic trio, and in the coda Wiklund brings back
both themes from the opening movement.
In the Second Concerto, an opening “sting”
from the brass sets up a rather brawny exercise
by the soloist that certainly sounds Scandinavian, close to Stenhammar actually. The unassuming second subject does little to halt the
progress of the main theme, and we soon find
ourselves in the development, where the musing of the bassoons must be counted as another of Wiklund’s highly individual touches. In
the Andante the clarinet slowly wends its way
upward against descending chords in the
strings; once again the soloist holds back until
the orchestra has had their say, but around five
minutes in I could hear why our Editor thought
of the Warsaw Rhapsody—written 23 years
later! Martin Sturfält finds the bassoon’s introduction to the finale “Mephistophelian” but I
wonder if Sweden has its share of trolls too.
There’s one more treasurable moment in the
strings at 5:00 that Vaughan Williams would be
proud to claim as his own.
I don’t own the Caprice discussed by Mr
Vroon, which offers 1 from Ingemar Edgren
and 2 with Greta Eriksen, both with Swedish
orchestras; but I simply cannot imagine it
improving on what Sturfält and the Helsing-
200
borg Symphony give us here. The Caprice is
filled out with Wiklund’s Summer Night and
Sunrise; here we have a third piece for piano
and orchestra, the Konsertstycke, which we
reviewed just last issue from a new Sterling
with Maria Verbaite at the keyboard. This is
Wiklund’s Opus 1 and garnered enthusiastic
reviews from the critics, who praised its inventive ideas, admirable realization, and commendable orchestration. The Elgarian theme is
warmly set forth by the orchestra, and already
we can hear how well Wiklund brings out the
tuba. A series of fanciful or sustained ideas follows, including one at 7:11 that might have
come from Korngold’s film score for The
Adventures of Robin Hood—36 years later!
Needless to say, there’s also much brilliant passagework for the soloist that Sturfält surmounts
with ease. Mr O’Connor thought the “meandering” impression of the music attributable to the
conductor, B Tommy Andersson; but one need
listen no further than 2:07 to hear that the fault
lies with Ms Verbaite, whose shapeless
noodling distends the piece to 18:39 compared
to 16:06 for Sturfält. That makes it a clean
sweep for Hyperion, and this well-filled release
is enthusiastically recommended to anyone
interested in the Scandinavian piano literature.
WOLF: Serenade
Quartet; Intermezzo; Italian
HALLER
Quartetto Prometeo
These three works are all that Wolf wrote for
the string quartet. The D-minor Quartet is the
major work; he began its composition, the
notes tell us, when he lived for a while in a
house in Vienna that was once Beethoven’s.
Whether that accounts for its obvious debt to
Beethoven’s late quartets, I cannot say; but it
does have much of their intensity and vigor as
well as their musical structure. Add to that its
length of 43 minutes, many dramatic passages,
and vigorous and concise treatment of its
themes, and Wolf’s debt is quite apparent. Still,
Wolf was also an ardent Wagnerian (he met the
composer), as is indicated by the beginning of
the quartet’s slow movement, which calls to
mind the Prelude to Lohengrin with its silvery
violins playing in their high register.
The work opens with a grave introduction.
A citation from Goethe’s Faust, “You must
renounce, renounce” is written in the score.
It’s spoken by Faust when he is renouncing
human life and love as he seals his pact with
the Devil. III, “langsam” (slow), may remind
you (as it reminded me) of Beethoven’s
Heiliger Dankgesang, the slow movement of
his 15th Quartet.
Of the three works on this disc, only the
Italian Serenade is familiar; it’s often played as
an encore in chamber music concerts. It has
no literary source nor a program; it’s structured as an expressive rondo. The Italian group
plays it with a light touch that seems just right.
The Intermezzo, a rondo that is also known as
Humoristiches Intermezzo, is also a short work
whose main theme returns several times; it’s
used in a dialog between the violins, then
between second violin and viola, and finally is
assigned to the viola. I don’t find this work
rewarding listening, unlike the others. Still, it is
played with enthusiasm and appealing tone.
The players of the Quartetto Prometeo
seem to be young, judging by their photographs, but they have already won much
acclaim and many prizes in Europe, where
many of their concerts have been broadcast.
MOSES
ZADOR: 5 Contrasts; Children’s Symphony;
Aria & Allegro; Hungarian Caprice
Budapest Radio Symphony/ Mariusz Smolij
Eugene Zador (1894-1977) was born in
Bataszek, Hungary. In 1910 he went to Vienna
to study composition with Richard Heuberger.
A year later he moved to Leipzig, where he
studied with Max Reger. He took a doctorate at
the University of Munster, then taught at the
New Vienna Conservatory and composed two
operas and a symphony. He moved to New
York in 1938, where he wrote his opera-oratorio Christopher Columbus (1939). He later
moved to Los Angeles to make his living
orchestrating film scores, mainly for Miklos
Rozsa. He wrote a few of his own, too, as well
as four symphonies, several operas, chamber
music, piano works, pieces for chorus, songs,
and concertos.
Though Zador’s music never left Hungary
far behind, he was more Westernized than
Bartok and from the evidence here, influenced
a great deal by Rozsa. There is also a bit of the
Americana of Henry Cowell and Virgil Thomson. Groves hears some Strauss and Reger, but
that escapes me. Zador called himself as “a
middle of the road extremist”, referring to his
desire to write modern music that would
appeal to everyday audiences. He often goes
for the jugular with bold themes; overt, sometimes raw scoring; and harmony that, while
hardly subtle, has a touch of color. One thing
that is clear is that the man spent a lot of time
around movie studios. As an orchestrator, his
music tends to slight the woodwinds in favor
of the strings and even the brass.
The neoclassical Aria and Allegro for
Strings and Brass (1967) was commissioned by
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt. It opens simply with
a little tune that recalls Pachelbel’s Canon but
soon takes on a muscular character with the
dissonance of two trumpets. Strings and brass
then compete until the end. The Allegro adds
Thomson, some of the motivic Peter Mennin,
and a good deal of vigorous counterpoint.
Five Contrasts for Orchestra (1963) was
first played by the Philadelphia Orchestra
under Eugene Ormandy. Rozsa’s influence is
obvious here, especially in the Introduction,
which, as annotator Frank DeWald writes,
“evokes the sound of a brutal, dissonant 1940s
film”—the bold horn writing especially. The
piccolo stars in ‘Autumn Pastorale’ with its
Hungarian, Gypsy, or possibly Asian tune with
harp. Nice orchestral touches include the
celeste and piccolo playing over a dark bed of
strings. ‘Phantasy’ plays like a pastiche of raw,
combative movie scenes and offers an interesting mix of piano, trumpet, and skittering
strings. ‘Scherzo Rustico’ begins like a village
march, then yields to incidents for clarinet,
accordion (!), and a great one for bassoons.
There is also a triple fugue that is blunt and
brassy for the form.
Zador simplified his idiom for A Children’s
Symphony (1941), but the work is not “childlike”. I is in sonata form with its heavy march
and a lyrical second subject. ‘Fairy Tale’ opens
and closes with a sweet clarinet tune in a quiet,
rural style that could be background music for
romantic movie dialog. The midsection contrasts with a menacing brass fanfare and heavy
drums. ‘Scherzo Militaire’ is a march with a
strutting trumpet, dark string writing that
sounds like heavy puppets, and a bassoon trio.
‘The Farm’ centers around the children’s tune,
‘It’s Raining, It’s Pouring’. Zador portrays a
cow (a brilliant little thing for tuba), rooster
(trumpet), and goose (horn) jawing (beaking?)
at each other. A barn dance takes us back to
the first theme of I.
Hungarian Capriccio (1935) and Czardas
Rhapsody (1940) are the most popular works
on this program, but I find them the least
interesting. Both mine the lode of Hungarian
folk music, but Zador strings out ideas rather
than using them for development or interesting harmonizations. The more lyrical Rhapsody begins with a clarinet solo that sounds a
little like Scheherazade and proceeds to touch
on Hungarian rhapsodies by Liszt and Brahms,
though one melody sounds like Verdi. Both are
exciting works, but they are repetitious and
tend to be go on.
I recommend this to anyone interested in
American music with a foreign touch. The
sound has fine clarity, but there is a boxy quality, too, like those old CRI recordings. The
trumpets are especially affected. In a way, it
fits the music. The notes are informative and
detailed.
HECHT
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ZAIMONT: Piano Sonata; Calendar Collection; Calendar Set; Jupiter’s Moons; Wizards;
Cortege for Jack; American City; Hitchin’; In
my Lunchbox; Jazz Waltz; Hesitation Rag;
Reflective Rag; Judy’s Rag; Serenade
Elizabeth Moak, p—MSR 1366 [2CD] 156 minutes
Art Fire Soul is the title of this collection of
most of the piano music of Judith Lang Zaimont (b. 1945). She is a well-known American
composer who has won many awards and
teaches at the University of Minnesota. Her
musical style is light but imaginative, not precisely tonal but related to that idiom, as well as
to jazz and other human rather than abstract
expressive languages. She is not to be characterized easily, as she is fluent in all forms and
idioms and tends to sound improvisatory but
never boring. This is an impressively well-filled
pair of discs and is performed with taste and
clarity in warm sound. The question is, if you
already have some of the previous collections
of Zaimont’s attractive music, is there enough
new or better played music here to make you
want it? Let us explore the situation as succinctly as possible.
First, what is here that hasn’t appeared
before? Three works are listed as first recordings. The earliest piece is the six-movement
suite American City: Portrait of New York. This
was originally conceived back in 1957, when
the composer was a precocious 12 years old.
She has revised it recently, but her 20th Century-Mozartean approach to composition has
not changed tremendously in the interim. It is
an attractive, catchy set describing Rush hour,
Harbor Fog, a Coffee House, Central Park,
‘Scrapers, and a Garment Factory, all done
with verve and a light touch. From more recent
times we have her 2003 suite In my Lunchbox
where this healthy lady has brought with her a
Swimming Tuna, Celery Stalks, the Banana
Song, Mandarin Orange, and Dessert-Sugar
Rush. Now that’s healthy enough to attract
both my wife and me to the table, and it is
again handled with good taste and creates an
appetite for more. Unfortunately, the other
new piece is the Cortege for Jack that commemorates the untimely death of her teacher
and friend Jack Beeson in 2010. All of this adds
up to 23 minutes of attractive if not earthshaking music. Don’t get me wrong. I am glad
to have all of this music in one collection, and
perhaps you will be, too.
As you may have noticed, half the fun of
Zaimont’s inspiration is in the amusing titles
of her pieces. There are both a Calendar Set
from 1974-5 where all but two months are
introduced by a quotation, and a Calendar
Collection from 1976 with individual descriptive titles. Both these works are or were available elsewhere, the Set played by Gary Steiger-
202
walt on Leonarda LP 101 in a concise performance a bit more matter-of-fact sometimes
than Moak’s more poetic approach. More
recently it was played by Joanne Polk
(Arabesque 6683, May/June 1997) on a program containing Zaimont’s two piano trios.
Mark Lehman liked that.
The Collection is broken up into seasons
on Moak’s disc; and January, February, and
June are omitted. The complete Collection
may be heard on Leonarda CD 334, (Jan/Feb
1995, Lehman) played by Nanette Kaplan
Solomon, adding a big 3-1/2 minutes of music.
This would actually have just fit on Moak’s set.
The Steigerwalt LP was an all-Zaimont program including a performance of Nocturne: La
Fin de Siecle played by the composer, who also
accompanied the song cycle Chansons Nobles
et Sentimentales sung by Charles Bressler. Zaimont’s performance of the Nocturne is somewhat more questioning than Moak’s, but
Moak’s is a little clearer in bringing out the
voices—a little easier to follow. Solomon’s Calendar Collection was part of a program of
piano music by seven American women composers. Solomon plays it complete. This makes
more sense than Moak’s interspersing it with
other works and leaving out January, February,
and June—though there is little to choose
between with respect to interpretation or
sound quality.
There are also two Zaimont discs on
Albany that cover more of the piano territory.
On Albany 617 (May/June 2004, Becker) we
have the only really extended work, the sonata,
along with the suite on Jupiter’s Moons, the
Nocturne, and a ‘Hesitation Rag’. Joanne Polk
has an approach and is recorded in sound
quite similar to Moak, yet Moak has a certain
follow-through to her phrasing that makes her
interpretations more satisfying. Young-Ah Tak
on Albany 785 (March/April 2006, Gimbel)
plays Wizards, a short three-movements-inone suite, the rest of the program made up of
other solo and chamber pieces by Zaimont.
That is a disc worth having, by the way.
There is also a program of her rags, including the piano ones played by Moak as well as a
number of others for different scorings on
MSR 1238 (Nov/Dec 2007, Haskins). That is
highly entertaining, containing, among several
other items, three different scorings of the
‘Reflective Rag’ as well as performances of
‘Judy’s Rag’ and the Serenade, all played by
Zaimont herself. Most amusing and lovely.
So this new collection is well worth having,
even if you have the other discs. Moak is a fine
player with a personality that clarifies while it
warms the heart. She is a bit clearer than Polk,
who is the only real competition for the piano
works since the other discs mentioned all contain works for other instruments (otherwise
unrecorded). So if you want to hear some
tasteful and imaginative piano music played in
a particularly effective manner, I would go for
Moak’s set. Zaimont’s music is full of character
and personality and I am very glad to have
more of it. How about a cello sonata, Ms Zaimont?
D MOORE
ZELENKA: Holy Week Responsories
Collegium 1704/ Vaclav Luks
Accent 24259 [2CD] 158 minutes
In service at the Catholic court in Dresden, Jan
Dismas Zelenka was called on to supply music
for Holy Week. (In a local eccentricity, by the
way, the latter-day observances of the week
were advanced by one day: thus, Maundy
Thursday services were held on Wednesday,
and so forth.)
Beginning in 1722, Zelenka set the
sequences of two Lamentations of Jeremiah for
each Tenebrae service of Maundy Thursday,
Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, six in all, for
solo voices and instrumental ensemble. By the
following year, 1723, he had composed settings of the 27 Responsoria or Responses to the
Lectiones or Readings, three each for the three
“Nocturns” for the office of Matins of those
three days, for four voices with continuo plus
presumed colla parte accompaniment by
strings and trombones.
The Lamentations and the Responsories
thus constitute separate sets of music, and
recordings have treated them independently.
At least four recordings have been made of the
Lamentations. The nine Responsories for Good
Friday alone have appeared on the small Ades
label, excellently sung by a vocal quartet with
instruments (led by Paul Colleaux) and including the two Lamentations as well. The Good
Friday Responsories are very poorly presented
in a Supraphon release (3806: M/A 2006).
There have been only two earlier recordings of the full cycle of 27, both in 2CD sets.
One, on the Alba label (14) aimed at maximum
austerity, with a vocal octet plus cello and
organ, smooth and elegant but aloof. Capella
Montana under Ludwig Gossner (MDG 605
0964) is a 23-voice choir with gambas, trombones, and continuo. Neither the weightier
presentations nor the music itself particularly
impressed Mr Gatens (S/O 2000), though I am
better disposed to them.
But this newest recording quite wins me
over. This is the first one to include the three
solo-monodic Lectiones for each of the nine
Nocturns, save for the very first of them, which
is no less than the first of Zelenka’s Lamentations set. The listener is thus given a much better sense of the Responsories’ liturgical rationale. The vocal forces involve 17 singers, dou-
bled by 10 string players with 3 others on continuo. They bring shifting textures but overall
warmth plus clarity to the choral ensemble.
Lots of sacred music by Zelenka has made it to
discs before, but only this time did I appreciate
what a master he was of supple and carefully
crafted post-Renaissance polyphony.
The sound has fine presence. The packaging gets mixed marks. Someone repeatedly
bungled the spelling of the Greek-derived
word for Good Friday, which is Parasceve, not
“Paravesce”. The booklet contains detailed
track listings, excellent notes, and full texts
with translations. But it is irremediably bound
into the middle of a clumsy three-panel
album, perfect for maximum inconvenience.
Do the designers of these fancy albums ever
actually ever use them themselves, to see what
absurdities they create?
Otherwise, a lovely release, and a very
important contribution to the swelling Zelenka
discography.
BARKER
ZELENSKI: Songs
Urszula Kryger, mz; Warsaw Soloists/ Andrzej
Mysinski—Dux 690—66 minutes
During his lifetime Wladyslaw Zelenski (18371921) was renowned as composer, educator,
and concert pianist. Having helped found the
Cracow Conservatory, he served as its director
for 33 years. He composed in many genres,
including four operas, chamber music, occasional works for patriotic celebrations, piano
pieces, and songs. Many of his works are lost
and only a few are now in the general repertoire.
This appears to be the only available
recording dedicated to his songs (19 of them).
Written for piano accompaniment, they have
been orchestrated by Andrej Mysinski. Zelenski’s music is lyrical and gentle, but borders on
unrelentingly mild. It is hard to give this a fair
review since texts are in Polish only and one
must search through the chauvinistic notes
praising the composer to find no more than
the translations of the titles.
Kryger’s rich, Slavic-toned voice sounds
just right for this music, and she sings with
sweetness; but the music is so innocuously
pretty that you don’t get much sense of her
interpretive range other than a demonstration
of good use of dynamics and warm tone. The
Warsaw Soloists, a string orchestra of about 14,
play with gentleness and are only occasionally
challenged by the music to go beyond placidity. Overall this is a competently performed display of blandness; it’s like listening to airbrushed music.
R MOORE
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Collections
Sounds of the 30s
RAVEL: Piano Concerto in G; STRAVINSKY:
Tango; WEILL: Surabaya Johnny; Tango Ballad; DE SABATA: 1001 Nights
Stefano Bollani, p; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/ Riccardo Chailly
Decca 4764832—66 minutes
This recording confirms the impressions I had
from hearing Chailly and the Gewandhaus
Orchestra perform in Berlin last May (see “On
the Way to Dresden” in this issue): this once
distinguished orchestra, now filled with second-rate principals and drawing some of its
players from the Leipzig Academy of Music
(and its dismal orchestra), has lost its luster.
Here’s a concept album, trying to illustrate
different composers’ takes on jazz in the 1930s,
and Chailly makes the Gewandhaus sound like
an overweight pops orchestra that just can’t
attain buoyancy. They and their music director
have got rhythm—that I can’t deny—but what
they lack in this repertoire is style.
Nor do the engineers help. They keep spotlighting different sections of the orchestra,
making one sound close, another distant, one
electronically phony, another muffled, and the
bass instruments tubby and muddy. Worst of
all, the piano sounds like a light blanket has
been thrown over it—it’s about one-third softer than the orchestra.
In Berlin, frenetic Helene Grimaud was
soloist in the Ravel. As in that performance,
here in first movement, when the solo harp
begins, the tempo of that entire section is
completely removed from what surrounds it;
the engineering only amplifies the feeling that
it’s been dropped in from another world. Bollani projects very little—does he just play to
himself? He sounds like he doesn’t have an
ounce of rhythm in his body. His pacing is
foursquare enough in the outer movements,
but how anyone can make the glorious Adagio
movement sound so plodding and dull is
beyond me!
The pianist does the same thing to his
three solos—’Surabaya Johnny’ from Happy
End, the ‘Tango Ballad’ from The Threepenny
Opera, and the original piano version of
Stravinsky’s ‘Tango’—though he does exhibit
some heat in the last third of the Stravinsky.
Chailly elicits some nice syncopation and
sliding inflections in his recording of the
‘Tango’, but this version, orchestrated by Felix
Guenther, doesn’t have the snap of Stravinsky’s own.
The liner notes say that the last work on
the album, Victor de Sabata’s ballet Mille e
204
Una Notte, pulls together all the historical
threads that this album illustrates. Hardly! It
might work well as ballet, but here it feels like
an aimless mash from the Nino Rota-George
Gershwin-cinematic-pops world of harmony.
Until its final five minutes, which is basically a
play on Gershwin’s ‘Fascinatin’ Rhythm’, there
isn’t a note of it that sticks in my head. And
hearing Chailly trying to make this earthbound
orchestra capture the work’s foxtrot, tango,
and waltzes is like watching Joan Crawford try
to dance with what seems like hiking boots in
clips from That’s Entertainment (one thing this
album is not). Even the concertmaster in his
tiny solo at 4:08 sounds sour.
FRENCH
Polish Masterworks
LUTOSLAWSKI: Concerto for Orchestra;
SZYMANOWSKI: Concert Overture; WIENIAWSKI: Violin Concerto 2; KARLOWICZ: Sad
Tale
Michael Ludwig, v; Buffalo Philharmonic/ JoAnn
Falletta
Beau Fleuve 9490
My benchmark for Lutoslowski’s Concerto for
Orchestra remains the 1962 recording by
Witold Rowicki and the Warsaw Philharmonic
(Philips). But the closest to it is this recording
by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic. It remains as incisive, intense, moody, slyly
evolving, and even electrifying on CD as when
I heard this performance in concert. The
muted scurrying Scherzo in II is absolutely on
edge; and the final Passacaglia, Toccata, and
Chorale proceeds from a dark largo with jolting brass screams to a compelling, quickened
finale.
All four works were recorded in concert,
Lutoslawski and Szymanowski in October
2010, the other two in November 2011. All have
the slightly muffled quality of most radio
broadcasts where the microphones were kept
close to the stage to eliminate audience noise
(there is none in any of the four works), but
that also dampens the resonance and compresses the sound into too confined a space,
making especially the 2010 recordings lacking
in transparency in loud passages (the 2011
ones are somewhat more spacious). The engineering also makes the violin sections sound
especially small. If you can put up with that,
the Lutoslawski shows Falletta at her very best.
I wish I could say the same for the Szymanowski, an early bright work where Rowicki
and the Warsaw Philharmonic (1980, no longer
available) are again my benchmark. Here Fall-
etta begins with uplifted exuberance, but with
the second theme the tempo and pulse wallow
and lose direction.
In the Wieniawski Concertmaster Michael
Ludwig is really hot in the finale. That same
firm grip is what’s lacking in the first two
movements. In I he not only slows down Falletta’s forward drama but actually is a bit
behind her beat. His sound is very sweet, but
he lacks assertiveness. He has no grip on the
movement’s overall arch or form. In II, once
more he doesn’t create a long enough arch to
carry the seamless emotion—nor does Falletta,
who just seems to move right along. This is the
album’s only work with applause.
In the Karlowicz Falletta moves along beat
by beat, when really a long liquid lyrical line
over a tense pulse is what’s necessary to convey the drama. For this nine-minute gem, the
creation of atmosphere is far more important
than mere crescendos with slight acceleration.
(This album translates the title as “Sad Tale”;
it’s more commonly translated “Sorrowful
Tale”, something it helps to know when looking for it on websites).
My reservations then have to do with interpretation and engineering, certainly not with
the quality of playing. The BPO here is in
superb shape, and Ludwig’s technique is flawless.
FRENCH
British Composers Premiere
Collections, Volume 2
BLOWER: Eclogue; Horn Concerto; MILFORD: Suite; KELLY: Serenade; COOPER:
Concertino
Rebecca Hall, fl; John McDonough, ob; José Garcia Gutierrez, hn; Malta Philharmonic/ Michael
Laus
All five works here are straight out of the English romantic-pastoral tradition. They’re very
well written and very lovely. With company
coming for dinner the day I listened to the
album, the Eclogue, Suite, and Serenade would
have been perfect for background music (that
puts them in the good company of Mozart’s
serenades and divertimentos). But the Concerto and Concertino are each in three abstract
movements without descriptive titles,
demanding more concentration.
Maurice Blower (1894-1982) wrote both of
his works in the 1950s for French horn and
strings. The Eclogue, reminiscent of Vaughan
Williams, is a charming seven-minute dialog
between soloist and orchestra in ABA form
with a lively midsection. The Concerto (14
minutes) is emotional, eloquent, and lovely,
especially given José Garcia Gutierrez’s superb
solo work.
Robin Milford (1903-59) wrote his Suite for
oboe and string orchestra in 1924. The four
movements are Overture, Gavotte, Minuet and
Musette, and Air (12 minutes). Its easy, jaunty,
pastoral style, complete with a lovely fugue
(no, that isn’t an oxymoron) in the Overture,
belies that both Vaughan Williams and especially Holst were his teachers. The rich, warm,
transparent engineering (true in all the works)
allows the counter-lines in the strings to all
have their effect. Soloist John McDonough is
steady and even; I just wish he were a little
more eloquent. Also, this recording cuts about
14 bars from the Overture and moves on to the
Gavotte without a break.
Frederick Kelly (1881-1916) was an Australian with an Irish mother. He was sent to
England for his studies, and the date 1916 confirms that he indeed did die in the war (at the
Sommes, after surviving two injuries at Gallipoli). His 19-minute Serenade for flute with
harp, horn, and string orchestra (1911) has five
movements called Prelude, Idyll, Menuet, Air
with Variations, and Jig, all of which have an
Irish folk flavor. The ‘Idyll’ is especially gorgeous with its rocking gait. Flutist Rebecca Hall
produces gorgeous tone, but, like McDonough,
I wish she had more subtlety. Also, the opening note is almost upcut by the producer, and
this work has a higher volume level than the
others here.
Walter Gaze Cooper (1895-1981) wrote his
Concertino for oboe and strings in 1957 for
Evelyn Rothwell, the wife of John Barbirolli.
This substantial 15-minute work, like the others, is truly lovely. But it’s here, however, and
in Blower’s Horn Concerto that the thin, poorly projected first violins—and, for that matter,
scrappy second violins and violas—sound the
weakest. The lighter, less continuous style of
writing in the more programmatic works
somewhat masks their deficiencies there.
The liner notes are excellent about the
composers and the works themselves, but they
don’t say a thing about the musicians. Hall is a
Newfoundlander now living in Malta. McDonough is the Malta Philharmonic’s principal
oboist. Gutierrez has been principal and coprincipal of several Spanish orchestras. Laus is
music director of the Malta Philharmonic.
Also, the notes don’t clarify if the album’s
“Premiere Collections” title means that these
are world premiere recordings or not. In fact,
the notes list four volumes in this series
already on the market, all with composers
whose names are unfamiliar to me. Despite my
criticisms of the performances, it’s likely the
world will end before other recordings of these
lovely works come along.
FRENCH
205
Waltz Revolution
Mozart, Strauss Sr, Lanner
Concentus Musicus/ Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Sony 91411 [2CD] 101 minutes
Period instruments—that’s the revolution.
Strings with no vibrato, no Viennese warmth,
ugly, clunky sound. A shame. How often does
one get to hear some of the rarities on these
tracks? I hope a future performance of Lanner’s Pas de Neuf after Saverio Mercadante has
more charm than the one heard here. Harnoncourt’s recordings with the RCO and VPO of
light Viennese music have a good feel for such
repertory. Stick with Boskovsky and Marriner
for Mozart dances and the obvious choces for
the 19th Century Viennese masters.
MARK
Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival
MORAVEC: Wind Quintet; ROREM: The
Unquestioned Answer; BUNCH: Changes of
Phase; MACCOMBIE: Light Upon the Turning Leaf
Marya Martin, fl; John Snow, ob; Jose FranchBallester, Anthony McGill, cl; Peter Kolkay, Seth
Baer, bn; Stewart Rose, hn; Jesse Milles, Yura Lee,
Stefan Jackiw, v; Beth Guterman, va; Fred Sherry,
Edward Arron, vc; Shai Wosner, Orion Weiss, p
BCMF—51 minutes
The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival
has taken place at the eastern end of Long
Island each August since 1984. The artists are
world-class, so this album offers superb
music-making in four fine works. Flutist Marya
Martin, artistic director of the BCMF, is heard
in all four.
The only piece not composed for the
BCMF is Paul Moravec’s seven-movement, 14minute Wind Quintet (2010). I begins and ends
quietly, with very busy minimalism in the middle. II scampers, III ruminates, IV is richly harmonized, V impish, VI dreamy, and VII a witty
finale. The excellent reading is by flutist Martin, oboist John Snow, clarinetist Jose FranchBallester, bassoonist Peter Kolkay, and horn
player Stewart Rose. The same group also
plays Kenji Bunch’s four-movement, 14minute Changes of Phase, commissioned by
the BCMF in 1999. As Bunch says in the notes,
“change of phase” can mean various things in
music. In I, minimalist patterns have instruments slightly out of phase with each other,
and there are moments when harmonies
change subtly. Pitches are passed from instrument to instrument in II, with resulting
changes of timbre. Chorale phrases are repeated with harmonic changes in the wistful III.
I’m not sure of the phase changes in IV, but its
intricate, pop-influenced passages are fascinating. This is a superb woodwind quintet.
Although Ned Rorem called his piece The
206
Unquestioned Answer (2002), I was asking
questions in the opening moments, when the
piano (Orion Weiss) was playing percussively
while the ensemble (flutist Martin with violinists Jesse Milles and Yura Lee and cellist Fred
Sherry) was playing very quietly. I still don’t
understand why Rorem wants that, but the
pianist eventually calms down and joins the
thoughtful discussion. The sonorities are gorgeous. Later, after an emphatic group passage
and a very quiet piano solo, everyone takes off
in a merry chase. The ending returns to the
mystery of the beginning: ensemble softly sustaining, piano playing petulantly.
Bruce MacCombie scored his 12-minute
Light Upon the Turning Leaf (2010) for trios of
winds (flutist Martin, clarinetist Anthony
McGill, bassoonist Seth Baer) and strings (violinist Stefan Jackiw, violist Beth Guterman, cellist Edward Arron) with piano (Shai Wosner).
Once again, the percussive nature of the
piano—even when played gently—is contrasted at the outset with the sustaining sounds of
winds and strings. After more than three minutes of contemplation, the body of the piece
begins with lyrical melodies, consonant harmonies, a steady pulse, and gradually increasing intensity. The climax is at 8:38, followed by
piano sounds with audible overtones, and then
string sounds with harmonics. The work, and
the album, ends somberly.
KILPATRICK
Elias Quartet
HAYDN: Quartet, op 64:6; SCHUMANN:
Quartet 1; GRANT: Lament for Mulroy
Wigmore Hall 51—52 minutes
This is a concert that the Elias Quartet played
in London’s Wigmore Hall on September 12,
2010. The young British ensemble has been
winning awards since 2005 and seems to be
making a career by playing the chestnuts of
the string quartet literature. They are all excellent players, and, thanks to excellent teaching
and coaching, they have the mechanics of
string quartet playing down.
Both the fast movements of the Schumann
are filled with crunchy excitement, and I am
very impressed with the acrobatic leap-andscale exchanges between the first violin and
the viola in IV. The slower movements are languid and expressive, and I find myself listening
more to the playing than to the music itself.
There are certain interpretational affectations
that bother me, like the relationships of certain
upbeats to downbeats, the occasional false
accent, and the way that accented notes are
resolved. Then again, this is a concert recording, and not the carefully controlled environment of a recording studio, where sections can
be recorded, scrutinized, and then re-recorded
and spliced in wherever they might be needed.
To their credit, this quartet always tries to
make the phrases of the Haydn long (usually
four-measure phrases), but the landings at the
ends of their four-measure phrases in I tend to
release with a very slight accent. I hear this
tendency in IV as well, but in that case the first
beat of the fourth measure of the phrase gets
accented. In the process of making long phrases, a bit of forward motion creeps in, and that
occasionally comes across as rhythmic instability, which compromises the kind of rhythmic definition that is necessary in Haydn. This
doesn’t seem to happen in periods of active
counterpoint. Perhaps my response has to do
with how much I love the “old school” stately
way that Kodaly Quartet plays this Haydn
Quartet (Naxos).
I remember having a discussion with a
group of young actors some 30 years ago about
which was more important: the actor or the
word. The consensus among those actors was
that the actor was more important, but my
vote went to the word. Taking this argument
into the dangerous arena of music, these musicians make a good case for the musician being
more important than the notes.
After a period of enthusiastic applause,
Donald Grant, one of the violinists in the quartet, speaks to the audience about the encore
piece that he wrote. It is a piece about the
ruins of Mulroy in Scotland. There is little in
spoken language quite as delicious as the
sound of a Scotsman saying the word “ruins”
(and in this case the voice of the speaker is
more important than the word itself). The
piece is a celtic-style lament that is effective
and poignant, and Grant plays the solo violin
part evocatively.
FINE
Saltarello
Garth Knox, va, fiddle; Agnes Vesterman, vc; Sylvain Lemetre, perc
This is a program primarily of arrangements by
Knox of music from Hildegard von Bingen and
Guillaume de Machaut through Dowland’s
‘Flow my Tears’ and Purcell’s ‘Music for a
While’ up to a viola d’amore concerto of Vivaldi, with a couple of folk tunes on the way, all
played by Knox with cello accompaniment and
sometimes with percussion. It is a curious
interpretation where everything is made to
sound like folk music, tastefully played but
definitely folk-influenced.
We also have along the way a ‘Fuga libre’
by Knox played on solo viola, a demanding
work in a similar style lasting eight minutes.
There are also two pieces by Kaija Saariaho,
written for Knox, both for solo viola and electronics. These two ‘Vent Nocturnes’ both
involve a good deal of heavy electronic breathing—well, they are about the wind.
Altogether, this is a pleasant release in a
curious idiom. Knox manages to make it work.
If you find the style up your alley—and he is
sensitive enough to make your walk a pleasure—you are ready to go up his particular
street with him.
D MOORE
Diamonds in a Haystack
Piano Trios by Babadjanyan, Francaix,
Schoenfield
Trio Solis—MSR 1418—56 minutes
This is an exceptional recording. For starters,
the release title comes closer to clever than to
cliched—a rare thing. All the players are a
pleasure to listen to, even with the violinist’s
intonation troubles; the ensemble and expression are top-notch. The sound is full and polished, warmly engineered.
Arno Babadjanyan was born in 1921 in
Yerevan and died in 1983 in Moscow; he
taught at the Yerevan Conservatory from 1950
to 1956, and this Trio in F-sharp minor was
written two years into that stint. It is quite
tonal and romantic, with much less of a folk
influence than in Khachaturian’s music. I is
impetuous and turbulent, with some Rachmaninoff-like melodies. II is dusky and beautifully chromatic, a real treasure. III, a vigorous
dance in five, uses folk material to good effect.
The label spells his name “Babajanian”; if you
go looking for more music of his, the most
common spelling is “Babadjanian”. In these
pages, it’s been spelled “Babadschanjan” (N/D
1998), but the Index has it as “Babadjanyan”. I
give up. Just enjoy the music.
There’s a nice connection between the
Babadjanyan and the Francaix: much of the
Francaix’s first movement is in five as well. If
you had looked at the name Francaix and put
money down that the piece would probably be
sunny and witty, you’d be walking home richer. Pieces like this are exactly what I love about
20th Century French music. Now, let’s face it—
better melodies exist in several places; but the
themes here are so well displayed that you
can’t help delighting in them anyway. I wish
the sound were a touch brighter to show off
the violin’s shimmers, but I can live with the
warmth. The trio pays a lot of attention to
unity of phrasing and has an obvious affection
for the music. IV begins with the pizzicato violin and cello alternating notes to make the
phrase as a team; the result is captivating.
Paul Schoenfield’s trio, Cafe Music, from
1987, is more backwards-looking than the
Babadjanyan. It’s “high-class dinner music—
music that could be played at a restaurant, but
might also (just barely) find its way into a con-
207
cert hall” (Schoenfield). It’s got a great feel to I,
and the performance is perfectly idiomatic. In
II, the players are somehow simultaneously
steamy and relaxed. Even if the music weren’t
so stunning (including an ear-catching common-tone modulation halfway through), they
would certainly make it so. III, Presto, has both
a hot jazz and a ragtime feel, with lots of
crunchy piano chords.
This release was a breath of fresh air for
me, one of the most enjoyable things I’ve
reviewed lately. Really, if the violin’s intonation were cleaned up in II of the Babadjanyan,
it would be about perfect. I’d travel quite a distance to hear this program in recital. (I am
curious why the trio is posing with scores by
Brahms and Beethoven on the cover photo.)
Notes in English.
ESTEP
Windermere Quartet
MOZART: Quartet 19; HAYDN: Quartet, op
33: 2; BEETHOVEN: Quartet 4
Pipistrelle 112—73 minutes
This recording, called The Golden Age of String
Quartets comes from a series of programs
made from one quartet from Haydn’s Opus 33,
Mozart’s Haydn Quartets, and Beethoven’s
first set of six.
The musicians use 18th Century (or early
19th Century) instruments and bows and play
at what sounds like classical pitch (A=430).
They only use vibrato rarely, and they play
cleanly, with excellent intonation and clear
articulation.
These musicians take very reasonable tempos, and always for reasons of musical clarity.
These are all what I would call “music first”
readings, and the Windermere Quartet goes
out of its way to make sure that the details that
they bring out in the music are tastefully in
balance.
I am particularly impressed by the way
these musicians handle the slides written into
the Scherzo movement of the Haydn Joke
Quartet. The first violinist plays them elegantly, giving the sort of slide-whistle effect that is
sometimes used to accompany a winsome
character in a silent movie.
The recording is beautifully balanced. The
cello volume is well matched to the viola’s, and
all the instruments sound natural. These readings are intimate, but they are not “precious”.
They are well thought out, but they never
come off as contrived or intellectualized. The
playing is expressive, and the expression
always seems to be divided equally by four.
I certainly hope that they make more of
these Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven Op. 18
recordings.
FINE
208
American Voices
JOPLIN: 3 Works; COPLAND: Old American
Songs; GERSHWIN: Porgy & Bess Suite;
ANDERSON: CBQ Suite; STAMPS: When the
Saints; WILLIS: Swing Low; NEWTON:
Amazing Grace
Chicago Brass Quintet; Brown Singers
It has been a long time since I last heard
Chicago Brass Quintet (Jan/Feb 1996: 207), an
amazingly long-lived ensemble that was
formed in 1964. That is very nearly 50 years,
and several of the group’s members have been
with it the entire time. This program consists
mainly of arrangements—Joplin rags, Copland
songs, Gershwin tunes—most by trombonist
James Mattern, some by tuba player Daniel
Anderson. Prominent at the end are the collaborations with the Brown Singers, a venerable
family group from Columbus, Ohio—in ‘When
the Saints’ and ‘Amazing Grace’.
The lone original work is tubist Anderson’s
CBQ Suite (1991), where each movement is
named and tailored for a group member. ‘Running Ross’ is a madcap chromatic ditty for
trumpeter Ross Beacraft, ‘Jumpin Jim’ a slippery thing for trombonist Mattern, ‘Gorgeous
Greg’ a ballad for horn player Gregory Flint,
‘Magnificent Matt’ a piccolo trumpet showpiece for Matthew Lee, and ‘Dangerous Dan’ a
funky perpetual-motion tune for tubist-composer Anderson. CBQ Suite is quite skillfully
written, entertaining, and doubtless a valuable
part of the group’s concert programs.
KILPATRICK
Bassoon & Piano
SAINT-SAENS: Sonata; BOZZA: NocturneDanse; Recitative, Siciliene, & Rondo,
BOUTRY: Interferences I; FRANCAIX: 2
Pieces; BERNAUD: Halucinations; BITSCH:
Concertino; TANSMAN: Sonatine; DUBOIS:
Sonatine-Tango
Rodion Tolmachev & Midori Kitagawa
MDG 6031728—73 minutes
This is a wonderful selection of music for the
CD debut of Uzbekistan-born bassoonist Rodion Tolmachev. He joins a long line of bassoonists putting their marks on these beloved
pieces. For some listeners, a full concert of
bassoon may be a bit much; and for others, a
program saturated with French competition
works may leave one a bit nerve-racked, but
there is a lot of entertainment and dazzle in his
selection of show-stoppers.
When pressed to select a genre of solo
repertoire that demonstrates the best qualities
of the instrument, I must say it is French late
romantic and 20th Century. Not only were the
French the only community of composers who
gave the bassoon this much attention, but they
really had an intuition for how wind solo and
chamber music needed to evolve into the 20th
Century.
He has won several international competitions and now plays in St Petersburg at the
Mariinsky Theater. While it is apparent he is
brimming with talent and on track to developing his own style, one hears the indelible mark
of his teacher Dag Jensen—not a bad thing.
SCHWARTZ
Memory
LEVITIN: Sonata; KLEBE: 6 Pieces; FRYBA:
Suite im Alten Stil; 3 Arabesques; GAJDOS:
Capriccio 2; LIM: Memory
Michinori Bunya, db
Bayer 100 376—63 minutes
This is mid-20th to 21st Century music for solo
contrabass played by a deeply involved player
whose only drawback is that he is not very precise about certain pitches. I found that this
bothered me only sometimes. He plays with
variety and has chosen an interesting program.
Jurij Levitin (1912-93) was a student of
Shostakovich. His three-movement sonata is
tonal in the Soviet manner, but imaginative.
Giselher Klebe (1925-2009) was a German
composer who hid a Jewish painter during
WW2. His six pieces, Op. 68, are written in the
12-tone system but no less expressive for that.
The only piece not a first recording is Hans
Fryba’s Suite, modeled so closely on Bach as to
contain the usual six movements. IV is called a
sarante. I would have sworn it was a sarabande. It certainly sounds like one. Anyway, I
like Bach’s suites better. Then we have three
little Arabesques in a somewhat more modern
idiom. Miloslav Gajdos’s Capriccio 2 in E
minor is another mod but basically tonal work.
The program ends with a piece written for
Bunya, Jiesun Lim’s Memory from Hwaum
Project, Op. 89. Written in 2009, this is a threemovement description of three pictures
included with the liner notes. There were
enough percussive sounds here to scare one of
our cats off the couch, but the music itself is
moving, warts and all.
The sound is unusually clear and shows
Bunya as a player with a strong feeling for
dynamic range. It scared my wife off the
couch, too, initially, but, unlike the cat, she
came back for more. Yes, I still wish the pitch
were more accurate in places, particularly
since most of the program is tonal, but Bunya
has virtues enough to keep most of us listening. And it is an unusual collection of solo bass
music. The liner notes are in German, English,
and could it be Korean?
D MOORE
Reminiscences of the 20th Century
Artem Chirkov, db; Mavzhida Gimaletdinova, p;
Lev Klichkov, v; Michael Lestov, Dmitriy Nilov,
perc
Bradetich Foundation—72 minutes
(1155 union Circle Ste 210143, Denton TX 76201)
This is double bass music played by the first
winner of the Bradetich Foundation international double bass solo competition held at the
University of North Texas in 2010. It is one of
those odd releases that contain in their notes
only a bio of the player, nothing on the music
he is playing. For that we are told to contact
www.Bradetichfoundation.org. I don’t claim to
be a computer expert, but I tried this and have
gotten nowhere so far.
As for the disc, it is smoothly played and
some of it is sure to please everyone. It begins
with a transcription of Glazounov’s lovely
‘Chant du Menestrel’, originally for cello, written in 1900. This is followed by a solo bass
piece of a fairly abstract but not unpleasant
nature, Invocation by Miloslav Gadjos, written
in 2002. Oh, I neglected to tell you, Chirkov is
from Russia and sounds it, with a rich,
assertive tone and a fondness for trying anything. Next, we have another transcription,
this time of a Prelude, Rachmaninoff’s Opus
23:10. Then a curious number by one Andrei
Petrov called ‘Walking Broadway’ that Chirkov
played as an encore on several occasions. It is
a little jazz piece and he and his wife play it
well, perhaps a little more seriously than an
American might do it, but it swings.
The main piece on the program is Frank
Proto’s 1963 Sonata, a four-movement work
that is also jazz-influenced. This has been
recorded before, by the composer (Red Mark
9228, Sept/Oct 2005) and by John Ebinger and
Roy Hakes (Soundset 1003). It is an attractively
relaxed piece that the composer plays with
more natural jazz inflections than Chirkov. To
make up for this, Chirkov plays the second and
third movements over again with a reinstrumentation of the keyboard part for vibraphone
and percussion added. Whether this was sanctioned by the composer we are not told.
The rest of the program has a transcription
of Rachmaninoff’s famous Vocalise and the
Adagio from Shostakovich’s ballet The Limpid
Stream, also originally a piece for cello with
orchestra. There are also two pieces by Astor
Piazzolla, ‘Contrabajeando’ and ‘Oblivion’,
both played well. There is also a piece by Francois Rabbath, Poucha Dass, a curious piece
that sounds like an Indian raga, accompanied
by a djembe, whatever piece of percussion that
is.
As you have no doubt gathered, this is a
program of considerable variety, played with
panache. It is a record of a fine young Russian
209
bass player testing various waters with both
hands. I hope we hear more from him. He has
a particularly lovely tone.
D MOORE
Zvezdochka in Orbit
NESS: Zvezdochka in Orbit; GULDA: Cello &
Winds Concerto; IBERT: Cello & Winds Concerto; THOMMESSEN: Phantom of Light
Ernst Simon Glaser, vc; Norwegian Navy Band,
Bergen/ Peter Szilvay
Aurora 5063—79 minutes
This is a curiously arranged program beginning and ending in outer space; the middle is
very much on the ground. Jon Oivind Ness and
Olav Anton Thommessen are Norwegian composers. Ness’s single-movement cello concerto
refers to the seventh dog sent into orbit by the
Russians in 1961 and the fourth that survived
(shades of Romney). It means “little star” in
Russian, and the title also refers to Stravinsky’s
cantata Zvezdoliki (The Star King). Zvezdochka
in Orbit is a 19-minute piece that itself begins
in the stratosphere of sound, eventually barking and whining by turns and finally fading
away. The idiom is not overtly tonal, using
quarter-tones and various strange effects, yet it
is not unpleasant, just slowly progressing,
sometimes nodding toward the minimal
camp, though not there, either. Thommessen’s
three-movement “miniature concerto for cello
and two woodwind quintets” is similar in progression and idiom, though the minimal elements are less in evidence.
Friedrich Gulda and Jacques Ibert supply
another end of the spectrum. Gulda was a
famous pianist from Austria. His compositions
are less well known. We have here a 31-minute
cello concerto in five movements with winds,
percussion, and guitar that shows him as quite
a personality. The opening Overture begins as
a kind of rocking jazz piece that moves into
folksong and ends with a marching band. The
following ‘Idylle’ gives us something simple
and lyrical that the liner notes relate to Mozart,
moving into a landler. III is a seven-minute
cello cadenza full of entertaining ideas. From
this we move back to 3/4 time with a Minuet.
The Finale alla Marcia recalls the first movement’s mood, jazz elements and all. The notes
tell us that the cello, guitar, and jazz bass
(there’s a classical bass part as well) are electronically amplified, but I hear no sign of it,
and that is just as well. This is a most entertaining concerto.
The shortest piece is Ibert’s Concerto. It
sounds positively classical after the Gulda.
This is a relatively well known work in three
movements from 1925, full of contrast and
bright colors.
Glaser is a fine player with precise fingers
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and bow-arm and a feeling for all of the varied
styles here. The Navy Band is fine as well, coming to life particularly in the martial sections of
the music but with a fine bunch of soloists for
the more demanding passages as well. This is a
highly unusual program handled with great
aplomb by all.
D MOORE
Liebesfreud & Liebesleid
Cello Encores
Michael Hell; Micaela Gelius, p
Profil 11071—75 minutes
This is an unusually high-class program of
short pieces with a surprising number of lovely
tunes. The emphasis is more on them than on
virtuosity. That is just as well, since Hell is
more of a lyricist than an acrobat. Besides the
Kreisler numbers we have Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, the Rachmaninoff Vocalise, Dvorak’s
Rondo, Saint-Saens’s Swan and Allegro Appassionato, the Meditation from Massenet’s
Thais, four Fauré pieces, though not the Elegie,
four Brahms song transcriptions, two Elgar
pieces, and a Shostakovich waltz, finishing up
with two Bach pieces, including the famous
Arioso. It is a highly listenable program played
with musicality. By the way, this is the second
disc this issue to list the pianist first, if in
smaller print than the cellist.
D MOORE
The French album
FRANCK; DEBUSSY: Cello Sonatas; FAURE:
Sicilienne; Elegie; Apres un Reve; OFFENBACH: Les Larmes de Jacqueline
Harriet Krigh; Kamilla Isanbaeva, p
Capriccio 5131—61 minutes
Here is a pleasant program of French music (if
you count Franck as French) played with affection and technical flair by a 21-year-old cellist
from the Netherlands who studied in Austria
and a Uzbekistani pianist who studied in the
Netherlands.
In the Franck sonata they sound quite
beautiful, playing with a wide dynamic range
and warmth of tone that fits the rich emotions
of this great romantic work (originally a violin
sonata). When it comes to Debussy, however,
the cellist’s personal phrasing and rubato tend
to get in the way of the music in certain phrases, creating a lack of clarity and occasionally
losing touch with the piano. One begins to
notice here and elsewhere a rubato that carries
over from piece to piece, making the interpretations sound a bit generalized rather than
presenting each of these varied composers as
individuals.
On the up side, the playing is excellent and
emotional, particularly in the Franck; and the
seven-minute piece by Jacques Offenbach is
beautiful—originally for cello and orchestra.
All in all, it is a lovely program played with
warmth and polish.
D MOORE
Feilmair & Feilmair
Weber, Poulenc, Francaix, Szalowski
Benjamin Feilmair, cl; Florian Feilmair, p
Young Viennese musician brothers Benjamin
and Florian Feilmair (ages 21 and 23) proudly
present their debut album, a recital of three
clarinet favorites plus a little-known work. The
program consists of the famous and operatic
Weber Grand Duo Concertante (1816); the
popular yet wistful Poulenc Sonata (1962); the
virtuosic yet cheeky Francaix Tema con Variazioni (1974), written as a Solo de Concours for
the annual Paris Conservatory clarinet exam;
and Polish composer Antoni Szalowski’s
Sonatina (1936), written in Paris soon after his
studies with Nadia Boulanger on a grant from
the Polish government. Like the Poulenc and
the Francaix, the Szalowski Sonatina fuses
accessible modernism with traditional form.
The Feilmair brothers certainly have the
tools to become international soloists. They
are gifted, knowledgeable, and confident, and
their performances are energetic and sincere.
Further growth and refinement, though, is
required. Benjamin has a nice sound, but his
clarity, intonation, and legato are not always
consistent; and while Florian draws an impressive array of volume out of the piano, his touch
sometimes has a percussive quality. Both
brothers have boundless technique and color
palettes, but they do not yet possess the kind
of large-scale thinking and artistic profundity
that only comes with time and maturity.
HANUDEL
English Clarinet Sonatas
Arnold, Bax, Horowitz, Howells, Ireland
Dawid Jarzynski; Anna Czaicka, p
In their second release together, the young
Polish clarinetist-composer Dawid Jarzynski
and the young Polish pianist Anna Czaicka
present 20th Century clarinet works by British
composers. Since their first collaboration
(contemporary music on Dux 622, May/June
2009), Jarzynski has moved to Switzerland,
where he plays in the Zurich Opera Orchestra;
and Cziacka remains in Katowice, Poland,
where she works at her alma mater, the Szymanowski Academy of Music. The program
here consists of the angular yet humorous
Malcolm Arnold Sonatina (1951), the highly
romantic Arnold Bax Sonata (1934), the nostalgic and modernist Herbert Howells Sonata
(1946), the congenial Joseph Horowitz Sonati-
na (1981), and the impressionist John Ireland
Fantasy-Sonata (1943).
Jarzynski and Czaicka play with effortless
technique and remarkable artistic awareness
and maturity, but their sonic concepts need
more refinement. Jarzynski, in particular, is
rarely in full control of his timbre, juxtaposing
beautiful phrasing with an unpleasantly
spread low tessitura, a pinched high register,
and wildly uneven intonation. Czaicka plays
with wonderful intuition and poise, but she
often uses too much pedal, creating unnecessarily murky textures.
HANUDEL
After You, Mr Gershwin!
Kovacs, D’Rivera, Mercure, Horowitz, Muczynksi, Mower
Andre Moisan, cl; Jean Saulnier, p
University of Montreal faculty members Andre
Moisan and Jean Saulnier play works for clarinet and piano that fuse classical and jazz:
Hungarian clarinetist Bela Kovacs’s After You,
Mr Gershwin! (2004), Cuban cross-over instrumentalist Paquito D’Rivera’s Cape Cod Files
(2009), written for clarinetist Jon Manasse and
pianist Jon Nakamatsu; Montreal pianist
Daniel Mercure’s For My Friend Leon (2011), a
fond remembrance of the late Montreal musician Leon Bernier; the charming Joseph
Horowitz Sonatina (1981); the Robert Muczynski Time Pieces (1984), written for the late
Mitchell Lurie; and British composer Mike
Mower’s Sonata (2006), recorded here for the
first time.
The performance is highly professional,
sizzling with energy, color, superb technique,
exquisite phrasing, and an intimate knowledge
of style and genre. Moisan boasts a resonant
and flexible sound, blazing fingers, thrilling
glissandos, and an excellent command of special effects such as growling, slap-tongue, and
multiphonics. He offers authoritative interpretations of the Kovacs, the D’Rivera, and the
Mower; and he gives the Horowitz a jazzy spin
that is both suitable and refreshing. His reed
comes across as a little soft, notably in the
Muczysnki, where the classical framework
requires proper control, but for the most part,
he handles it well. Saulnier is just as impressive, tackling each score with artistic intent,
and he takes the listener to lonely beaches,
bookish coffee houses, and smoky Prohibitionera bars with ease and delight.
HANUDEL
Geniuses so often seem melancholy because
they have come to an early realization of
how well busy fools do in the world.
—Sidney Harris
211
Polish Wind Pieces
Dobrzynski, Kilar, Lessel
Roman Widaszek, cl; Tadeusz Tomaszewski, hn;
Joanna Domanska, p
The city of Katowice, a metropolitan area just
30 miles north of the Carpathian Mountains, is
the business, industrial, and cultural hub of
southern Poland. Roman Widaszek serves as
professor of clarinet at the Music Academy of
Katowice, his alma mater; city native Tadeusz
Tomaszewski serves as principal horn of the
Polish Radio Symphony in Katowice; and Joanna Domanska serves on the keyboard faculty
at the Music Academy, also her alma mater.
Together, they present a recital of classically
inspired chamber music by Polish composers:
Ignacy Feliks Dobrzynski (1807-67) and his
Duo for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 47, a cross
between Weber’s Grand Duo Concertante and
the classical vein of early Beethoven; Wojciech
Kilar (b. 1932) and his youthful Horn Sonata
(1954), a highly virtuosic neo-classical work
influenced by Stravinsky and Bartok; and
Franciszek Lessel (1780-1838) and his Trio for
Piano, Clarinet, and Horn, Op. 4, an early contribution to the style brillant in keyboard playing, yet full of the careful craftsmanship and
increasingly expressive harmony of his
teacher, Franz Joseph Haydn.
The performances are sincere, well done,
and enjoyable, but not always even across the
board. Tomaszewski pairs his fearless soloistic
personality with excellent control, range, and
technique; and Domanska matches her collaborators with superb clarity, color, and presence. Widaszek has good fingers and nice
phrasing, but his soft reed thins the clarion
register, spreads somewhat in the lower tessitura, and makes his tongue more percussive
than necessary.
HANUDEL
British Flute Concertos
Alwyn, Berkeley, Dove, Poulenc
Emily Benyon; BBC Wales/ Bramwell Tovey
William Alwyn (1905-85) wrote his Concerto
for Flute and Eight Wind Instruments for
William Bennett in 1980. The composer was an
accomplished flutist himself, having played in
the London Symphony under Elgar, Holst,
Vaughan Williams, and Sir Henry Wood. The
first recording of the Alwyn was on Chandos
9152 (Jan/Feb 1994) with Kate Hill and the
Haffner Wind Ensemble of London. Kate Hill
takes 18:10 to play the piece, while Benyon
takes 19:29. Nearly all of the additional time
comes in the third (slow) movement. This is
the first recording of the relatively new orchestration of the work by John McCabe (b 1939)
212
from 2006. The sounds in both versions of the
piece remind me of Florent Schmitt’s Dionysiaques.
Jonathan Dove (b 1959) wrote The Magic
Flute Dances in 1999 for Benyon. It answers the
question, “What happens to the magic flute at
the end of Mozart’s opera?” Fragments of
Mozart are used in a very tonal and accessible
manner. This is a five-movement work that
runs about 19 minutes.
Lennox Berkeley’s Concerto, Opus 36
(1951-2) is a nearly 25-minute piece cast in
four movements; the outer movements actually have several changes of tempo. It sounds
like standard mid-century compositions and
does not excite me.
Berkeley orchestrated Francis Poulenc’s
sonata in 1976 at the request of James Galway.
He had studied under Boulanger and was quite
fond of French music, but he had a difficult
time with the project. I like the orchestration
and find that it presents a familiar work freshly.
Emily Benyon is principal flutist of the
Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, but
grew up in Wales. She plays this music
smoothly with excellent backup from her
countrymen. Chandos offers superb sound.
GORMAN
Czech Flute
Sonatas by Dvorak, Feld, Martinu, Schulhoff
Jeffrey Khaner; Charles Abramovic, p
Avie 2219—65 minutes
Jeffrey Khaner has been principal flutist of the
Philadelphia Orchestra since 1990, and this is
his seventh solo album for Avie. This all-Czech
program comes with strong and weak American ties plus French ones as well. Dvorak and
Martinu wrote their pieces while living here,
and Schulhoff was very interested in jazz,
though this isn’t really expressed in the flute
sonata. Jindrich Feld (1925-2007) was, like
Husa, a fairly cosmopolitan Czech figure who
spent time in the United States, Australia, and
France. It is the French influence that one
hears in the Feld, Martinu, and Schulhoff
sonatas more than anything else.
Many flutists have recorded these, and the
Schulhoff can no longer be described as littleknown, which it was 25 years ago. It is far less
common to get these pieces together, and you
could do very well with this program, but I
have a reservation.
Khaner’s playing rarely has much intensity.
A review quoted in the notes says Khaner has a
“large, muscular tone” on an earlier American
program that I have had for years. I would not
so describe it. Some may consider his gentle
and refined approach very suitable to the flute,
but I can’t help but think back to the range
Leonard Garrison demonstrated in an American program last issue (p. 232) or recall Eugenia Moliner’s unforgettable, life-changing
playing—just to name two examples—proving
that the flute’s expressive range is not limited
as it is here. It’s not that I’m looking for aggression; there’s no aggression in the Bach that I
praise to the skies earlier in this issue; that
playing is in many ways similar to Khaner’s,
but it’s not so flat and lifeless. What it does
have more of is color and nuance.
After a while, this flute playing ends up
sounding generic. I had the same critique of
the last Avie release from the New York Philharmonic’s principal flutist Robert Langevin
(Mar/Apr 2011: 261). Perhaps these orchestral
players need to sound more conventional than
I prefer. I even get that sense from the Chicago
Symphony’s principal, Mathieu Dufour. I hope
the same hasn’t happened to Demarre McGill.
It is the Feld Sonata that suffers the most
from the emphasis on the froth and playfulness, for the piece has considerable heft
(which one should uncover) despite all the
fizz. To his credit, Khaner digs in some to the
legato line that comes up in the opening
movement, but other points of culmination
are lost. As a result, the piece actually grows
tiresome—something I never thought possible.
Nicole Riner brings far more weight to the Feld
on Centaur 3066 (Mar/Apr 2011: 262).
Tempos are on the fast side in the outer
movements of the Schulhoff and Feld, so I was
relieved that the opening movement of the
Martinu was truly Allegro moderato. Even better was the way they pulled back at the movement’s end. The very brisk pacing in the Feld
does bring out some slow-moving lines in the
piano part that are more difficult to connect at
a slower tempo.
The opening movement of the Dvorak
Sonatine strikes me as a little slushy for Allegro
risoluto. The piece is placid enough without
any additional smoothing out. It is particularly
the dotted figures that I disagree with, but they
turn crisper in the development. This sonatine
is actually several mintues longer than the
Schulhoff sonata (and many other sonatas).
Charles Abramovic appeared in these
pages recently with flutist Mimi Stillman
(Innova 814; Mar/Apr 2012: 196). His playing
was spectacular, and several of the pieces were
outstanding, too. Abramovic is just as good
here, with apt phrasing, judicious interplay,
excellent balance, and fluent, crystalline technique. The stretches when he plays by himself
are the most interesting ones. This is too often
the case in flute sonatas generally, but he
might have to tone things down less with a
bolder player.
Malcolm MacDonald has supplied vivid
notes, and the sound leaves nothing to be
desired.
GORMAN
Flute & Cello in Dialogue
Atsuko Koga & Ithay Khen
The program opens with an arrangement of
Mozart’s Duet K 423 for violin and viola, which
I did not even know existed. The notes mention praise for the work by Albert Einstein,
which probably should be changed to Alfred.
There are solo pieces by Takemitsu and Ferroud for flute and the engaging Cassado Suite
for solo cello. Villa-Lobos is represented by his
work for flute and bassoon, Bachianas
Brasileiras 6, and an original work for flute and
cello, the Jet Whistle. Both pieces are difficult
for the flutist.
These are two very assured performers
who play well together and imaginatively on
their own. Khen uses a fairly intense and fast
vibrato sometimes in the Cassado Suite, and
he meets its challenges well. There are a number of classical period works for flute and cello,
including six sonatas by Francois Devienne,
that I hope they might record next.
GORMAN
Flute Miniatures
Chopin, Debussy, Fauré, Gluck, Moniuszko,
Penderecki, Ravel, Roussel, Villa-Lobos
Grzegorz Olkiewicz; Waldemar Malicki, p
The resonant atmosphere is beautiful, but I
don’t always care for Olkiewicz’s vibrato. He
does produce a rich sound. Aside from the
three Polish pieces, these can be easily heard
elsewhere. The Penderecki ‘Misterioso’ is
enchanting and lasts two minutes.
The booklet has text in English and Polish,
including biographies of the artists.
GORMAN
Wroclaw Composers
Gasieniec, Gorlich, Pstrokonska-Nawratil,
Rogala, Szajna-Lewandowska, Wislocki
Grzegorz Olkiewicz, fl; Teresa Woronko, Maria
Szwajger-Kulakowska, Miroslaw Gasieniec,
Andrzej Jungiewicz, p
This comes in the jewel box most SACDs are
in, but nothing says that it is one. The recordings were made in 1992 and 1993 for Polish
Radio. The program is an assortment of flute
pieces written by 20th Century composers with
connections to the Polish city of Wroclaw; no
dates for the pieces are given, but there are
three pages of notes in English.
Litoral by Jacek Rogala (b 1966), uses a
213
variety of sound effects, including strummed
piano, tone clusters, simultaneous singing and
playing for the flutist, and air sounds with the
instrument. The four-movement Sonatina by
Jadwiga Szajna-Lewandowska (1912-94)
involves more traditional playing, including a
lot of trills. There is a 12-tone piece by Joachim
Gorlich (1931-2009), a Polish-born composer
who later moved to Germany. PstrokonskaNawratil’s dreamy solo Eco per Flauto uses
electronic effects to create overlapping
sounds. Two pieces by Miroslaw Gasieniec (b
1954) are accompanied by the composer; the
program ends with his Spanish Dance, which
is a character piece true to its name.
Grzegorz Olkiewicz has a fine command of
contemporary techniques and plays these
pieces with conviction and accuracy. There is
quite a bit of demanding high-register playing.
The pianists and the balances are consistently
good.
GORMAN
Spaces & Places
Bruun, Holmen, Oleson, Olsen, Snekkestad
Eva Ostergaard, fl; Peter Bruun, v; Peter Langberg,
bells
Da Capo 8226573—61 minutes
All these pieces were written by contemporary
Danish composers for the performer—with the
acoustics of a particular church in mind.
Ostergaard plays members of the flute family
from piccolo to bass, sometimes in combination; the two works by Jexper Holmen are for
nine bass flutes! The recordings were not made
in any particular space or setup, either, but all
over—in the vaulted nave, in passageways and
adjacent rooms, and outdoors—over a period
of four years. The composer Peter Bruun is
absolutely rhapsodic about the church: “There
is a quite special atmosphere around the old
abbey church in Logumkloster. History is alive
and present, and it’s as if you can feel the life
that was once there: the beautiful, impressive
building speaks! The surroundings too have
spiritual vibrations.”
If you are open to imaginative and different projects such as this, you will probably
enjoy it. The opening track has a very significant background of nature sounds, primarily
bird song. The nine bass flutes function like a
gentle pipe organ. There are vocals from the
flutist and the composer in Peter Bruun’s
pieces.
In addition, or perhaps instead, you simply
must hear Bruun’s brief 2 Pieces with Skylark
for recorder and choir on OUR 6220605
(Mar/Apr 2012: 195). The writing is lush and
the performance is stunningly beautiful.
GORMAN
214
English Recorder Concertos
Harvey, Arnold, Jacob
Michala Petri; Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra/
Jean Thorel
OUR 6220606 [SACD] 59 minutes
Michala Petri’s recording of Chinese recorder
concertos with Shui Lan blew me away (OUR
6220603, Jan/Feb 2011: 225). Here she is again,
with a different orchestra and conductor.
The Concerto Incantato by Richard Harvey
(b 1953) is new to records. It is a long, colorful
work in five movements commissioned in 2009
for this orchestra and soloist. Harvey plays the
recorder himself and has worked extensively
scoring for television and film. The notes call
this “A dazzling concerto for the Harry Potter
generation with, of course, a liberal sprinkling
of faery dust!”
Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto, Opus 133, was
also written for Petri, back in 1988. This threemovement work recalls Nielsen in a nod to
Petri’s Danish nationality. It is written in
Arnold’s usual breezy style, but II is actually a
passacaglia (don’t tell!).
Gordon Jacob was Malcolm Arnold’s
teacher and wrote the Suite for Recorder and
Strings for another famous figure, Carl Dolmetsch, in 1957. It was only recorded in its
original form recently, on an all-Jacob program on Naxos (Mar/Apr 2011). That program
gives a large sampling of Jacob’s music for
recorder and makes a great complement to
this one.
The sound and the playing here are excellent. If you want to hear the recorder at its
best, you now have three discs to purchase.
GORMAN
Flute Sonatas
Dvorak, Franck, Prokofieff
Junko Ukigaya; Valentina Igoshina, p
Antes 319278—76 minutes
The Dvorak Sonatine becomes an honorary
sonata for simplicity’s sake in the heading. It
also gets a good performance, probably also
owing to simplicity.
The first movement of the Prokofieff gets a
hesitant and literal performance. The difficult
sextuplets are labored, and in other ways it
doesn’t sound as if Ukigaya fully owns this
music. She arrives in the Andante, but excessive slowing down in the Finale takes her back
to where she was. The recordings by Tadeu
Coelho (Tempo Primo), Hans-Udo Heinzmann (Genuin), and Manuela Wiesler (BIS)
come to mind.
The Franck needs culmination and flow,
but the guiding hand and intelligence behind
the music are not there. Instead sometimes we
get note after note, and it can be trying. There
are some beautiful moments between the flute
and piano, but they are not redeemed by the
whole.
The lower half of the piano sounds tubby,
but all the important parts in the treble are
clear. Valentina Igoshina plays well given what
she has to work with. Junko Ukigaya has a
great tone and a big low register, but she doesn’t always use either well. It often sounds like
she is playing for someone else’s approval.
When she can find her own way, she may be
unstoppable.
GORMAN
Rafael Aguirre
GIMENEZ: Intermedio from La Boda de Luis
Alonzo; DEBUSSY: Soiree dans Grenade; La
Puerta del Vino; LUCIA: Guajiras de Lucia;
ASSAD: Spanish Impressions; LOPEZQUIROGA: Francisco Alegre; ALBENIZ: Triana; RODRIGO: Toccata; TARREGA: Gran
Jota; MALATS: Serenata Espanola
Rafael Aguirre, g
This is another of the Naxos Laureate series,
recordings of international competition winners. It is Mr Aguirre’s second such recording—this is for the 2010 Alhambra International. He also won the Tarrega International back
in 2007. He has a huge technique, intense and
dramatic, and he has chosen an ambitious
program of several transcriptions that aim to
push the limits of the guitar.
But I am not completely convinced. An effective transcription should sound complete,
never causing the audience to miss the original. Some such works have been surprising,
like the LAGQ’s classic performance of Falla’s
ballet El Amor Brujo. That one, like the Assad
brother’s Rhapsody in Blue, seems to work
because of the absolute virtuosity and musicianship of the performers. I can’t imagine
anyone but the Assads bringing off the Gershwin. Then there are others, like Kazuhito
Yamashita’s arrangement of the Dvorak New
World Symphony that leave one scratching
one’s head—what was he thinking?
None of the performances here is in that
category, and all are exciting and exhilarating.
The best are the works written for guitar: Paco
de Lucia’s Guajiras, and Sergio Assad’s Spanish Impressions, written for Aguirre. The Rodrigo Toccata is a real discovery. It was unpublished until 2005, and it’s a remarkable work. It
could benefit from more of a sense of the
work’s architecture—the performance didn’t
seem to have a real idea of where it was going,
despite Aguirre’s impressive virtuosic command. Even Tarrega’s tacky Gran Jota gets a
serious treatment. Beautiful command,
though Pepe Romero had more fun with it.
Then there are the arrangements. Two are
from zarzuelas, originally for orchestra. Gimeniz’s ‘Intermedio’ from La Boda de Luis Alonzo is well known to guitarists in an arrangement for guitar quartet. Aguirre’s solo reading
almost makes it, but I kept wanting more
sonority. His climax, however, is overwhelming! The other, from Lopez-Quiroga’s Francisco Alegra, also needs a bigger sound.
Aguirre’s transcription of ‘Triana’ from
Albeniz’s Iberia doesn’t quite produce the
sonority it needs. The Brazilian Quartet has
done a remarkable arrangement of the entire
cycle; and with four guitars, two with extended
ranges, there is nothing missed from the original. And the Debussy transcriptions, despite
their Spanish inspiration, don’t sound right
when removed from the piano.
You may not have any of these reservations, and I have no reservations with Aguirre’s
playing. I don’t think anyone else could make
these work better. I can’t fault him for flying
too close to the sun, and I applaud his effort to
expand our conception of what is possible on
guitar. Check this out and make up your own
mind.
KEATON
Dreams
PEDEIRA: Y Llamo Manuel!; Zamba para
Belen; Pixula; Chamego; Micuim; Sarara;
ROUGIER: Pels Pichons; SOUZA: Manu;
ASSAD: Dreams; DOMENICONI: Sogno
Furioso II; BELLINATI: Jogos de Rua;
LAURO: El Nino; CERRO: El Coyita;
KADOSCH: Papa Chocho; SAVIO: La Cajita
de Musica; AZUMA: Roda Vida
Cristina Azuma, g, viola caipira
GSP 1033—54 minutes
The young-looking Ms Azuma has been
recording for two decades. Her specialty is
Brazilian works that occupy that gap between
the cultivated and the vernacular. I first
encountered her in a recording of Santiago de
Murcia on Baroque guitar (J/A 2008). I was
impressed with her invention and spontaneity,
preferring her performance to Paul O’Dette’s.
This recording finds her in her home territory.
I’m not generally a fan of this repertory—it can
be cloying and superficial from the wrong
player—but she is nothing short of spectacular.
The key element here is rhythm, and by
that I mean something more than keeping
time. Rhythm in all its complexity and subtlety
is hard to truly master. And there is another
element: accent. Not stressed notes, but knowing the culture, the language the music arises
from. Spanish music can’t sound like French
(and, for that matter, peninsular Spanish can’t
sound like Latin American, nor can Andalusian
sound like Mardileno, or either like Catalan).
215
Azuma has this music in her blood, and she
has the finest time I’ve encountered in this
music. The entire recording is solo, but she
plays with such energy, precision, and flexibility that she sounds like she’s supported by a
rhythm section with a battery of percussion.
It’s irresistible.
This is another recording based on children (see Canciones de Cuna in this section),
though it’s not a collection of lullabies. Each
piece is a response to becoming a parent,
responses to infancy and young childhood.
Her own work, ‘Roda Vida’, was inspired by a
Brazilian proverb, “being a mother is to suffer
in paradise”. Others are more wistful, like
Thierry Rougier’s three works based on Occitan songs from the south of France, or Isaias
Savio’s imitation of a music box. The two
works by Paulo Bellinati were written for the
viola caipira, a plucked-stringed instrument
with ten steel strings and a sound rather like a
harpsichord.
Azuma’s playing is superb, no matter what
the technical demand of the percussive effects,
virtuosic passages, or complex polyrhythms.
Yet these are scenes of childhood, and there is
a pervasive tenderness here.
able with his playing, it was like finding a
brother.
Brother, not twin. One can always take
some exception with a few details. The Mudarra fantasia doesn’t use the cross-string effect to
imitate the harp, as the subtitle states, “in the
manner of Lodovico”. I am familiar with John
Duarte’s claim that this was not the composer’s intent, but I don’t find it convincing.
The long-term crescendo in ‘Asturias’s’ outer
sections could be steadier. And Falk treats
Turina’s ‘Fandanguillo’ more like a fantasia
than a fandanguillo.
But the felicities outweigh any carping by a
considerable degree. I actually found myself
dancing to Sanz’s ‘Canarios’, so infectious was
his rhythmic momentum. And the Sor Mozart
Variations is one of the finest I’ve ever heard.
It’s far more convincing than David Russell’s
performance on The Art of the Guitar (M/J
2007).
This is the stuff that made me, and many
others, fall in love with the guitar. It would be a
magnificent introductory recording for a neophyte, and it brings sophisticated enjoyment
to connoisseurs. One rarely finds both qualities on the same recording.
KEATON
KEATON
Espanoletas
NARVAEZ: Cancion del Emperador; Guardame las Vacas Variations; MUDARRA: Fantasia X; Gallarda; SANZ: Espanoletas;
Canarios; SOR: Mozart Variations; Etude;
TARREGA: Marieta; Gran Vals; Recuerdos de
la Alhambra; Prelude; ALBENIZ: Cadiz;
Asturias; GRANADOS: Spanish Dance 5;
LLOBET: Canco del Lladre; La Nit de Nadal;
El Mestre; TURINA: Fandanguillo
Marten Falk, g—DB 146—60 minutes
Marten Falk is a Swedish guitarist. He has a
particular interest in contemporary music, and
has performed 80 world premieres. He has
worked with electronics, video, performance
art, poetry and dance. He also plays the Russian seven-string guitar, which not only has an
extra string, but a different tuning. He recently
released a program of vihuela music (here he
plays the vihuela works and Baroque guitar
works on a modern guitar). Further, he is a
well-published scholar and wrote the excellent
and thorough notes for this recording (English
only on my copy). So, how will he do on a program of meat and potatoes Segovia repertory?
Beautifully, it turns out. All these works are
familiar to guitar lovers—I’ve played almost all
of them—so there is a great deal of competition. But his performances compare well with
nearly any other, and it’s great to have them all
in one collection. I found myself so comfort-
216
Invocacion
TARREGA: Recuerdos de la Alhambra;
Capricho Arabe; Preludes, Mazurkas;
CHOPIN: Nocturne; Preludes; Mazurkas;
PUJOL: 3 Spanish Pieces; LLOBET: Catalan
Songs
Mattias Jacobson, g—Avie 2254—62 minutes
This is a fascinating program. Tarrega is the
heart, and we see his influence in works by his
two most famous students, Emilio Pujol and
Miguel Llobet. We also hear his transcriptions
of the music of his most important influence,
Frederic Chopin. It was an inspiration to put,
side by side, Tarrega’s preludes, mazurkas, and
nocturnes with Chopin’s.
This did not, however, make me a believer.
Chopin’s music generally resists transcription—I cringe when I hear Les Sylphides, that
ballet based on Glazounov orchestral arrangements of Chopin’s piano music. And, though
most of these transcriptions are judiciously
chosen so they come fairly close to the original—Chopin’s most delicate and transparent
works—there are a few “what was he thinking”
moments. The D-flat Prelude, with its contrasting middle section in C-sharp minor,
needs to thunder, to threaten with annihilation. The guitar just sounds silly. Still, other
works, like the Nocturne Op. 9:2, or the 22nd
and 25th mazurkas work well. Jacobsson did
not include the Waltz, Op. 34:2, my favorite
Chopin on guitar—perhaps because there
were no Tarrega waltzes that were so clearly
inspired by Chopin.
Still, the performances are fine—Jacobsson
is delicate, nuanced, and tasteful, just what
this repertory needs. You’ll find better performances of some of the greatest hits, like
Recuerdos or Capricho Arabe, but his are perfectly stylish and satisfying. This is musicianly
playing, never trying to show off or draw the
attention away from the music itself. There are
some textual changes here and there. I doubt
these are just errors; this is a careful presentation. Perhaps these are alternate sources—he
does mention the original title for Recuerdos,
which was to be ‘A la Alhambra (Invocacion)’.
Llobet is represented by the three most
popular of the Catalan folk songs, along with
comments on what the text means. I’d never
encountered this before, and I’m grateful.
Pujol’s Three Spanish Pieces are given an
interesting interpretation, tracing the development of a couple’s relationship (Jacobsson’s
idea, not Pujol’s, but it works). And it led to the
idea of two distinct levels of pizzicato in the
final ‘Guajira’, representing a dialog between
the two characters. This is not notated—
indeed, there’s only one way to indicate that
effect in guitar notation, though there are several ways to realize it. I was delighted.
This is Mr Jacobsson’s debut disc. He is
from Sweden, a Juilliard graduate and a student of Goran Sollscher and Sharon Isbin. This
is highly artistic playing, in an imaginative program.
KEATON
Pasion
PIAZZOLLA: Libertango; Oblivion; BARRIOS: Un Sueno en la Floresta; Una
Limosna por el Amor de Dios; BROUWER:
Un Dia de Noviembre; VILLA-LOBOS: Prelude 1; Mazurka-Choro; PONCE: Scherzino
Mexicano; Chanson; MOREL: Danza
Brasileira; DYENS: Tango en Skai; GARDEL:
Por una Cabeza; CARDOSO: Milonga;
SAVIO: Batucada; FARRES: Quizas, Quizas,
Quizas; RODRIGUEZ: La Cumparsita
Milos Karadaglic, g
Sometime back, The Economist published an
article on Mr Karadaglic. The uncredited
author said, “After years in the doldrums, classical guitar has a bright new voice.” Never one
to miss a chance to send off an angry letter to
the editor, I heaped contumely on this comment—the guitar has not been in the doldrums. We have never had more excellent
artists and composers, and anyone who thinks
we’ve been in the doldrums hasn’t been paying attention.
Now, The Economist isn’t an arts publica-
tion, so I wasn’t expecting any attention to my
rant (and didn’t get any), but the publicity for
this release quotes that Economist rave. I am
interested to hear Mr Karadaglic. Any bright
new voice is welcome.
There are any number of promising young
artists in guitar (see Thanos Mitsalis below),
but this recording doesn’t come close to their
level. The repertory is mostly intermediate,
and the performances are marred by indulgent, haphazard interpretations. Some, like the
Villa-Lobos prelude, are almost unlistenable.
His rubato on the repeated chords is exactly
the same on nearly all of them. That’s not
rubato, that’s rewriting the rhythm. He seems
incapable of maintaining a long line, a sweeping phrase. He interrupts Brouwer’s simple little tune, ‘Un Dia de Noviembre’ with little
tenutos every measure or so. That, for me, is
not expressiveness—it’s indulgence, and it
spoils the work like too much makeup on a
naturally beautiful girl. And, scattered through
the program are four pieces with a string
orchestra, two by Piazzolla, plus two more
popular melodies. The guitar has an unnatural
balance, louder than the strings; and the
arrangements have the soloist playing mostly a
single line melody over sustained strings. Very
Mantovani. I kept wondering what floor the
elevator would be stopping at.
Mr Karadaglic (known simply as “Milos”)
may well be capable of a deeper artistry than is
evident here. His technique is quite good, and
he has a lovely sound, without any overplaying. A few pieces are quite good, including
Dyens’s ‘Tango en Skai’, probably the most
demanding work here. But this release is obviously designed for a mass market, and it takes
neither the music nor the artist seriously.
KEATON
In the Italian Tradition
TARREGA: Carneval of Venice Variations;
LEGNANI: Fantasia; CASTELNUOVOTEDESCO: Capriccio Diabolico; REGONDI:
Reverie; Introduction & Caprice; DOMENICONI: Koyunbaba
Thanos Mitsalas, g
Clear Note 74575—63 minutes
One can argue with the designation of this
program as a representation of the “Italian
Tradition”; the first work is by a Catalonian,
the last more Turkish than Italian. But that is
of small consequence when the program is so
well played.
I liked Mr Mitsalis in a program of Sergio
Assad’s early works (M/J 2012). This is even
better. He has a finely developed technique—
this is a challenging program, and he never
struggles. He has a wide range of timbre and
dynamics, though he never overplays. He has a
217
free yet convincing use of rubato. Overindulgent rubato can really ruin a piece—it should
always have a purpose, either to clarify the
architecture or to enhance the expression of a
phrase. Most important, it should always seem
natural and convincing. Some players leave
me scratching my head; but with Mitsalis I
always feel that this is right, there is no other
way to do this passage.
He can even make silk purses out of
proverbial sow’s ears. Tarrega’s ‘Carnival of
Venice’, based on Paganini’s, is not great
music. It’s stuff to have fun with. Mitsalis give
it a royal treatment, without any sense of how
tacky this can be. Giulio Regondi often overstays his welcome. He had lovely melodic talent, but his massive technical ability causes
him simply to keep going until the point of
absurdity has been crossed. It takes a great
musician to make these pieces work, and I’ve
never heard them played better.
Luigi Legnani was Paganini’s friend, the
guitarist in his many works for guitar and violin. I didn’t know this Fantasia, but it recalls
Giuliani (or, more accurately, Rossini) in its
sheer joyousness.
The Castelnuovo-Tedesco Capriccio Diabolico is one of his most beautiful and most
difficult works. In the last issue (J/A 2012) I had
good things to say about Renato Samuelli’s
performance, but this is stronger on all counts
(I’d kill to hear Xeifei Yang play this!). The
Domeniconi is ubiquitous—the “It” piece for
guitarists. There are many strong performances of this hauntingly beautiful work, but
this is as fine as any.
Giuliani, is best when working with melodies
by others.
Frederic Hand is a New York guitarist and
composer. ‘Waltz for Maurice’ is pleasantly
jazzy, as is much of his music, and Muller
plays it well. The ‘Maurice’ of the title is Ravel,
and it was inspired by the slow movement of
the piano concerto. The two pieces by Kevin
Callahan are influenced by popular music—
the gentle ‘River Bed’ by the American fingerpicking style, and ‘Undercurrents’ by rock and
blues. Muller seems comfortable in these. Perhaps he had his start as a popular guitarist.
Roland Dyens’s Libra Sonatine is more
sophisticated stuff and is the best played on
the recording. His performance compares
favorably to Stephen Robinson’s recent
recording (M/A 2012).
Notes are quite inadequate for a recording
of such little-known music—not a word on the
pieces, and only a fairly generic bio for Mr
Muller. But there had to be room for pictures
of the artist carrying his guitar through a field
next to a lake.
KEATON
Federico Garcia Lorca,
La Mirada Contemporanea
FALLA: Homenaje; MARCO: Tarots (sel);
CALANDIN: Simbolismos; SANZ-BURGUETE: Acusmatica; ARTERO: Teoria del
Jarnero Inmovil; MASEDA: Alquitara; CRUZ
DE CASTRO: Preludios Lorquianos; RONCERO: Elegia y Danza
Jose Luis Ruiz del Puerto, g
Ars Harmonica 222—60 minutes
KEATON
A Waltz for Maurice
BARRIOS: Waltzes; Julia Florida; Choro de
Saudade; REGONDI: Capulets & Montagues
Variation; HAND: Waltz for Maurice;
CALLAHAN: The River Bed; Undercurrents;
DYENS: Libra Sonatine
Daniel Muller, g—Preiser 91191—56 minutes
Mr Muller is an Austrian guitarist, and this
appears to be his debut recording. He’s a fine
player, and if I’d encountered this in a recital,
I’m sure it would be satisfying. But he’s up
against some serious competition internationally, and doesn’t show enough distinct personality on this recording to make a mark.
His Barrios, for instance, suffers from a
wayward rubato that wrecks the flow, particularly in ‘Julia Florida’. It is, after all, a barcarolle, and the base pulse needs to move
steadily. Here he lurches like he’s in bad
weather. The Regondi is much better. I wasn’t
familiar with this work, but it’s better controlled than most of his music. Perhaps he, like
218
In 1998, Ruiz del Puerto commissioned four
new works for guitar, celebrating the 100th
anniversary of the birth of Federico Garcia
Lorca. Best known as poet and playwright,
Lorca was also devoted to music—and what is
poetry but the music of language? His command of imagery is astonishing and profound
in translation. I can only imagine its power in
Spanish. He was deeply enamored with canta
jondo, the deep song of flamenco. He began, at
the end of his life, to learn to play guitar and
made arrangements of 13 Andalucian songs
(see the review under Lorca in this issue). With
Manuel de Falla and Andres Segovia, he organized a competition to honor the greatest
practitioners of the art of flamenco.
So this tribute—the title translates “a contemporary look”—is particularly appropriate.
And the release is timed for the 75th anniversary of Lorca’s death. He was executed by
right-wing Falangist troupes (perhaps because
of his liberal political views, perhaps because
he was gay). The four commissioned works
only run for half an hour, so several other
works of complementary style are included to
full the disc.
Except for the Falla, these are all modern
works—or what we used to call modern. They
are not tonal, heavy on gestures and effects,
such as Bartok pizzicato, bent notes, percussive sounds, and elaborate rasgueado passages, slide effects, even shouts from the player. Modern, but not academic. These are emotional pieces, often tortured, sometimes whimsical, humorous, or mystical. Lorca’s poetry
was not experimental—it was grounded in
spirit of the earth, in the souls of the outcasts
of society. Yet I think he would be moved by
these works. Each is deeply connected to the
voice of the guitar, the instrument at the heart
of his homeland. The effects all arise naturally
from the instrument, and I can’t imagine them
transcribed for any other medium. The back
page of the notes has pictures of the writer and
the performer, with the caption in Spanish
“Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) 75 years
later. The guitar...it is impossible to silence it.”
We hear four pieces from Emilio Calandin’s
set of miniatures, Symbolisms: Six Nocturnal
Poems. Each was inspired by one of Lorca’s
poems (a pity they weren’t included). Their
compressed intensity recalls Webern. Then we
have Juan Manuel Artero’s Theory of the
Unmoving Garden. It is a delicate work—his
notes say the piece should be performed “in the
open air, by fountains, by doves—using a metal
bar to supply sliding pitches on the strings.
Carlos Cruz de Castro’s two Preludios
Lorquianos are perhaps the closest to a tonal
language. Both are undulating arpeggios, the
first wild, the second calm. His notes are
almost incomprehensible, referring to three
strings in the air, versus three others stepped
on (?). But the pieces are quite lovely. Finally,
Vicente Romero’s Elegia y Danza depicts the
ominous hours before Lorca’s death, followed
by a horrifying dance of death, not only of the
poet, but also the spirit of the age.
Of the other works, only Falla’s Homenaje
is known. Del Puerto’s performance is less free
than many, but I find it quite effective. In
July/August I reviewed Marcello Fantoni’s performance of Tomas Marco’s Tarots, images of
the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot deck. I still
have the same misgivings about the composition, but Del Puerto’s excerpt of four of them is
effective—and even better played than Fantoni’s. Of the remaining works, Enrique SanzBurguete’s Acusmatica is a wild ride, full of
inventive effects. Eduardo Perez Maseda’s
Alquitara is, for me, the least convincing of the
recital. The title is from an Arabic term referring to the breaking apart of an idea to consider various parts and viewpoints. I was quite
lost in all the deconstruction.
These are challenging works, for listener
and performer alike, and Del Puerto’s mastery
is superb. He not only has the technical command for all the new languages required in
these works, but he has the intellect to hold
them together and make them intelligible.
More important, he has the emotional commitment to make them truly sing, to evoke
Garcia Lorca’s genius and heart. Unless you’re
opposed to non-tonal music as a matter of
course, you’ll find this fascinating and moving.
KEATON
Canciones de Cuna
Lullabies by Schumann, Schubert, Fauré,
Falla, Llobet, Lorca, Pujol, CastelnuovoTedesco, Harjidakis, Fleischmann, Mendelssohn, Barrios, Gustavino, Yupanqui,
Brouwer, Piana, Brahms, Bodorova, Fontanelli
Maria Isabel Siewers, g; Amiram Ganz, v; Nicolas
Pazur, va; Erica Pazur, narr; Silvia Cambiano,
Christoph Rosel, vocals
Acqua 322—72 minutes
Ms Siewers trained in her native Argentina
with Maria Luisa Anido. She has held several
teaching positions in Argentina, and since
1989 has headed the guitar department at the
Mozarteum in Salzburg. She is also a grandmother.
And it is in this last capacity that the inspiration for this collection was found. I reviewed
another all-lullaby collection back in 2011
(Jan/Feb), Aaron Larget-Caplan’s New Lullaby
Project. That collection included newly-composed works by mostly unfamiliar composers.
It was an interesting performance, though I
recommended hearing it in short segments—
nearly an hour of music designed to put the
baby to sleep is not a good programming idea.
Ms Siewers’s recording is nearly 20 minutes
longer than that one, and also should be heard
in shorter excerpts. But it should be heard.
She performs lullabies, many familiar
(Brahms, Brouwer, Falla, and others) and a few
not so familiar. She achieves variety by including other musicians—singers, a violinist, and a
violist—in half of the works. Her partners are
all quite effective, except for Cambiasso, who
sings just under pitch and makes the Lorca
and the Gustavino pieces difficult to enjoy.
The only other complaint I have in these
works is in ‘La Arrulladora’ from CastelnuovoTedesco’s Platero and I cycle for narrator and
guitar. I love these works and have performed
many of them. Segovia did a dozen without the
narrator, but I find that’s like doing a lied without the singer. But singers that I’ve worked
with all try to make their narration something
like sprechstimme, which doesn’t work. Ms
Pazur does this, elongating vowels that make
219
no sense in ordinary speech. I found it
unpleasant.
Minor quibbles aside, this recital is very
well done. Siewers plays with utmost taste and
balance—she’s a superb musician and knows
just how these lovely works should go. And I
don’t think I’m projecting (no kids in my life),
but I can really feel her love and affection for
her grandchildren. May they treasure this, now
and as they grow.
KEATON
Best of Yolanda Kondonassis
PIERNE: Impromptu-Caprice; GRANDJANY:
Rhapsody; BACH: Prelude; Presto; SALZEDO: Chanson dans la Nuit; Scintillation;
Rumba; Bolero; SAINT-SAENS: Fantasy;
SATIE: Gnossienne 3; GERSHWIN: Prelude
2; HASSELMANS: La Source
Azica 71273—55 minutes
With the demise of productions by Telarc,
Yolanda Kondonassis has to find another label,
judging from her liner notes. This album contains her favorites from 6 of her 15 Telarc
recordings: Scintillation (Nov/Dec 1993—her
first), A New Baroque (May/June 1995), Pictures of the Floating World (Nov/Dec 1998),
Quietude (July/Aug 2001), The Romantic Harp
(May/June 2003), and Salzedo’s Harp (not
reviewed—her last).
This album simply confirms what I’ve
believed over the years: she is the best harpist
alive, and also was the best-recorded, thanks
to Telarc. The titles alone of both the works
and the albums prove her versatility; the performances prove she is a master of many
styles, from Bach to Gershwin, from romantic
classics to rumbas and boleros South American-style. Her work is mellow, bright-eyed, terraced, and incredibly subtle. Textures are
clear, lucid, and transparent. She is the queen
of both musical flow and of use of the pedal—
no other harpist has mastered both sustaining
resonance and clearing the palate like Kondonassis.
She ends this album with ‘La Source’ by
Alphonse Hasselmans (1845-1912), which has
rapid triplet arpeggios against an easy-going
lyrical melody infused with rhythmic pulse
and forward motion. From “Pictures of a Floating World” indeed! As she says in the liner
notes, playing it gives her “an adrenaline rush
that feels like flying high and fast with the wind
at your back”. Then, on this marvelously laidout album whose variety makes sure it never
gets tiring, she tacks on what feels like two
encores: the Rumba and Bolero, one dancyfast, the other sultry-slow.
Here’s hoping she finds a way of recording
new repertoire.
FRENCH
220
La Pleiade: French Harpsichordists
Claudine Gomez-Vuistaz
Urtext 2024—72 minutes
The French harpsichord school begins with
Jacques Champion de Chambonnieres (160072). Louis Couperin (1626-61) and Nicolas
Lebegue (1631-1702) come out of this tradition. The music of the early French harpsichord school emphasized lute-like textures
and poetic eloquence. Claudine Gomez-Vuistaz picks up the story of French harpsichord
music from the end of the Chambonnieres tradition with the music of Gaspard le Roux
(1660-1707). His Chaconne opens her program. The climactic closing of the Chaconne
with its sparkling scales and lush, thick chords
points to later trends in harpsichord music.
The other composers represented here are
Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), Pancrace
Royer (1705-55), and Jacques Duphly (171589). In their music the harpsichord gains a
measure of independence from the lute.
Cantabile melody and sounds drawn from theatrical music are a central attraction. GomezVuistaz offers generous sets of character pieces
by Rameau, Royer, and Duphly. The pieces
evoke many moods and images: mythology
(Duphly’s ‘Medee’) the sounds of nature
(Rameau’s ‘Rappel des Oiseaux’) and abstract
emotional states, as in ‘La Sensible’ by Royer.
She plays with admirable energy and a
strong sense of that elusive quality that
Baroque musicians liked to talk about but
never quite define: good taste. I enjoyed her
decision to apply rhythmic inequality to the
arpeggiated figures in ‘L’Aimable’ (Royer).
Most often inequality (“notes inegales”) is
applied to scalar material but there are exceptions. Her way of playing ‘L’Aimable’ reminded me of other French pieces with dotted or
unequal arpeggios, like Francois Couperin’s
‘Audacieuse’ or ‘La De Vatre’ by Duphly.
KATZ
Zuzana Ruzickova Homage
Supraphon 4117 [2CD] 156 minutes
This homage is dedicated to Zuzana Ruzickova’s solo playing. The eminent Czech harpsichordist is also a highly accomplished chamber musician, and her ensemble work could be
the subject of a separate homage. The first disc
is devoted to two composers whose music
forms the bread and butter of many a harpsichordist’s daily life: Bach and Scarlatti. It also
includes a Vivaldi concerto in an arrangement
by Bach. Ruzickova interprets Baroque music
with great emotional depth and imagination.
Her reading of Chromatic Fantasy seized my
attention fully by its arresting contrasts. I
found myself deeply moved in hearing her play
Scarlatti’s Sonata in G minor, K 8 (the piece,
full of pathos, is one of his most heartfelt.)
The second disc is devoted to 20th Century
music: three concertos and two sets of solo
pieces. The concertos, by Falla, Poulenc, and
Martinu, represent the composers’ encounters
with an instrument that was still “new” in the
first half of the 20th Century. All three composers managed to breathe new life into the
instrument. Falla’s concerto is scored for harpsichord, flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, and cello.
This varied group of timbres mixes with and
supports the chameleonic sounds of the harpsichord. The ecstatic strummed arpeggios at
the end of II are a thrill. Poulenc, in his Concert
Champetre, exalts the harpsichord’s motive
quality and the conciseness of tone that drives
a powerful music engine. Poulenc’s quotation
of Handel’s Harmonious Blacksmith in III is
like a humorous joust with the ghost of the
older composer. The Martinu concerto is
notable for its whimsical mix of syncopated
ragtime-like rhythms with baroque-inspired
textures.
The solo pieces are more intimate. Sei
Invenzioni Canonici per Cembalo by the harpsichordist’s late husband Victor Kalabis (19232006) reveals in its carefully wrought counterpoint fantastic musical universes that the listener may only perceive for a moment at a
time. The composer Jan Rychlik dedicated
each movement of his Hommaggi Gravicembalistici to composers who were nearly
unknown to the musical public at the time
(1963): Bernardo Pasquini, Carlos Seixas, Antonio Cabezon, and Francois Couperin. Rychlik’s
affection for each composer shines through in
these poignant pieces.
This is a pleasure. Ruzickova is an artist of
the first order—truly worthy of this fine
homage.
KATZ
A Due Cembali
Aline Zylberajch, Martin Gester, hpsi & org
K617 233—66 minutes
Recordings of music for two keyboard instruments are not very common. This program is
thus a welcome contribution to the discography. They play on two harpsichords and harpsichord with positive organ. Baroque composers (Vivaldi, Telemann, Soler) are represented as well as classical composers:
Schobert, Haydn, and Mozart. They also include four pieces by contemporary composer
Peter Planyavsky. Planyavsky writes marvelously for two harpsichords. In his ‘Berceuse’
he mingles gentle arpeggios with bittersweet
harmonic interjections. His prelude starts with
a “mist” of chords and gives way to a poetic
melody that is stated by each harpsichord then
by the two in unison. The unison sound is
haunting; it imbues the music with a mystical
quality. This delightful disc, full of whimsy and
deeply felt emotion, is a tribute to the art of the
keyboard duo. The third track, not listed on
the back of the CD case, is a surprise.
KATZ
Oboe Concertos
Skalkotas, Aho, Strauss
Yeon-Hee Kwak; David Pia, vc; Munich Radio
Orchestra/ Johannes Goritzki
MDG 9031598—52 minutes
One might have called this album “1949”.
Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas was born at
the beginning of the century and died in 1949,
the same year that Richard Strauss died, and
the same year that Finnish composer Kalevi
Aho was born. Other descriptions of the music
that come to mind (except perhaps for
Strauss’s Concerto) are manic, volatile, agitating, and mildly depressing. While this may
seem a harsh assessment, there is a serious
question below the surface.
I often wonder how historians 100 years from
now will characterize the 20th Century—a
series of overlapping and disparate musical
periods? So much in these pieces speak of an
inner turmoil, a searching and not finding, the
sounding of an alarm that no one is hearing.
Perhaps I can speculate why Yeon-Hee
Kwak chose these pieces. In the context of her
other albums, she seems to be displaying an
evolution of musical language from basic to
advanced technical and stylistic demands. Her
first recording (MDG 6031432, May/June 2007)
had works of JS Bach, CPE Bach, Piazzolla, and
Silvestrini. It was generally a delight and did
not place too great a demand on the ear. A few
years later she programmed Martinu’s concerto, Dorati’s Divertimento, and one by Heinz
Holliger on her second album (MDG 9031586,
Sept/Oct 2010). There, while perhaps Martinu’s concerto reached slightly outside the realm
of the wholly accessible, Holliger’s technically
demanding and brainy unaccompanied work
required nothing less than a full commitment
to find enjoyment outside of any conventional
expectation for melody, harmony, or a recognizable idiom.
On this new album, though, only one of
the works will strike the average listener as
comprehensible, intuitive, and maybe immediately beautiful. The other two challenge what
all that might mean.
Skalkottas was sent to conservatory at 10,
graduated at 17, and was sent to Germany to
study with Kurt Weill, among others. Not until
he began to study with Arnold Schoenberg (a
blessing and a curse) did he apparently find
his voice. He struggled to make a living, lived
221
at home until he was 42, married in 1946, and
died a few years later. This Concertino was not
performed until 10 years after he died.
Unfortunately, history will probably not
make room for more than one composer of
atonalism. These days, the genre is compelling
mainly to performers or composers engaged in
an academic exercise. Perhaps the only time in
history that some audiences tried to understand atonalism was somewhere toward the
middle of the 1900s. For most of us today it is
academic and inaccessible.
Aho’s Seven Inventions strike a balance
between Skalkottas’s Concertino and the eloquent romanticism of Strauss’s post-depression World War II composition. Sometimes
dreamy and melodic, this piece for oboe and
cello also portrays the real a

American Record Guide "Philadelphia`s Center City Opera Postman

Transcription

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