The music of the Edinburgh composer William Beaton Moonie (1883–1961) is as good as unknown. This first-ever album devoted to his piano music reveals a figure downstream from Schumann, Brahms and Grieg, writing in a conservative Romantic idiom colored by echoes of the folk-music of his native Scotland. Many of these pieces, indeed, are concerned to evoke images of the Scottish countryside or suggest aspects of Scottish history. Scottish pianist Christopher Guild is in demand as a recital artist, concerto soloist and collaborative pianist, with concert engagements taking him across the UK. Performances have included those given at St James’s Piccadilly, the Wigmore Hall and St John’s, Smith Square, as well as numerous recitals for music societies under the auspices of the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. Christopher’s concerto appearances have seen him work with conductors such as Sian Edwards, as well as with numerous non-professional orchestras. He has recorded CDs for Champs Hill Records as a duo pianist, and for Toccata Classics, as a soloist and duo partner.

Classical Music

In comic operas there are stock figures. One of these is the bass, often conceited and self-important, silly or evil – or both – who often ends up being ridiculed, humiliated and has to humble himself. We first meet him in Uberto in Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, then in Il barbiere di Siviglia – Paisiello’s as well as Rossini’s – as Doctor Bartolo. Mustafa in L’Italiana in Algeri is a close relative, as is Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola. The eponymous anti-hero in Don Pasquale is also a pitiable character – the slimy Dulcamara in L’Elisir d’amore less so. Later in history Sir John in Verdi’s Falstaff is possibly the most complex character in this mould, thanks to Boito’s masterly condensation of Shakespeare’s portraits and Verdi’s music. He has predecessors: Salieri wrote a Falstaff before Verdi was even born. On German ground Otto Nicolai created a rather likeable character in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor. In operas by Lortzing and Flotow we encounter similar second cousins. We shouldn’t forget Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail either. A lesser known but well delineated relative within the German sphere is Abul Hassan Ali Ebn Bekar, the larger-than-life barber in Peter Cornelius’s Der Barbier von Bagdad. He isn’t an evil person, quite the contrary, but he is a big braggart and manages to make a mess of things. The plot goes back to a story from ‘The Arabian Nights’ and a condensed version goes something like this:

The young and rich Nureddin is deeply in love with Margiana, the daughter of the Cadi. His childhood friend, Bostana, arranges a meeting and Nureddin sends for Abul Hassan Ali Ebn Bekar, the best barber in town, to make him presentable. The barber is more interested in talking about his knowledge of art and science and Nureddin asks his servants to throw him out. The Barber turns furious and chases the servants, knife in hand, but some tactical flatteries makes him calm down and do his job. When Nureddin tells him about his approaching meeting, the barber gets so excited that he offers to accompany Nureddin. In the second act the two lovers meet but are disturbed by the sudden return of the Cadi. Nureddin hides and when the barber hears cries from a slave being punished he believes it is Nureddin and rushes into the house. Believing Nureddin to have been murdered he sends for the Caliph, who arrives. Nureddin is found and pressurised by the Caliph. The Cadi accepts that the young couple should be married. The verbose barber makes such an impression on the Caliph that he is invited to work for him.

Not one of literature’s masterworks, maybe, but much thinner and more incomprehensible librettos have been successfully set to music. Cornelius’s opera was not a success at the premiere on 15 December 1858 at Hoftheater in Weimar. The composer describes the disaster as follows:

‘My work had drawn a full house. The performance filled the evening and was excellent, splendid, considering the difficulties the work presents. Right from the start, the applause was accompanied by persistent hissing from a hired, well-organized and expediently distributed group that was unprecedented in the annals of Weimar … At the end there was a fight lasting ten minutes.’

The reason for the debacle was decidedly not the quality of the music or the play. This was a protest against the conductor of the evening, Franz Liszt, whose radical ideas were not to everybody’s liking – and it was successful. The production was taken off the repertoire and Liszt resigned and left Weimar for good. But the one who suffered the most was Cornelius, who never saw his opera staged again during his lifetime. It was revived about twenty years later, again with no success. In 1884 in Karlsruhe, Felix Mottl – who orchestrated Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder – presented it, but in truncated and altered form. It was not until 1904 that it was staged in its original shape. After that it was regarded as one of the best German comic operas – next to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg according to some judges.

I hadn’t heard the opera before, although there exist two studio recordings. Columbia set it down in London in 1956 with Erich Leinsdorf conducting and a starry cast including Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Nicolai Gedda, Hermann Prey and with Oskar Czerwenka as the barber. In the early 1970s Heinrich Hollreiser recorded it with Sylvia Geszty, Adalbert Kraus, Bernd Weikl and with Karl Ridderbusch as the barber. There also seems to have been an even older, Vienna-based recording, from 1952.

What I knew from as far back as the early 1960s was the overture, which appeared now and then in recordings and on concerts. I remembered it as something quite different from the usual potpourri of melodies from the subsequent opera. This piece, with a playing time of over seven minutes, is symphonically constructed – a kind of symphonic poem in fact. It is artfully orchestrated with a lot of woodwind solos and an orchestral texture that is transparent and airy - more Mozartean than Wagnerian. What is more: the whole opera is permeated by this artfulness with impressive ensembles and powerful but still translucent choruses with some contrapuntal writing. On top of all this there is an atmospheric entr’acte opening act two, thematically built on the muezzin’s proclamation of prayer. It is the only music in the score with an oriental touch.

The proceedings are dominated by Nureddin and Abul Hassan Ali Ebn Bekar, the barber. Both singers are excellent. Horst R. Laubenthal, then at the beginning of a great international career – was born in 1939 and made his debut in 1967. He has a mellifluous lyric tenor, ideally suited to Mozart and the lyric German tenor roles. He is also a vivid actor. The fine love duet in act two is one of the high-spots in the opera. There he is especially winning, partnered by Helen Donath, who here manages to soften her voice a little – elsewhere she can be irritatingly acidulous. There is nothing sour about Hans Sotin’s impressive barber, however. This must be a dream role for a fruity bass and Sotin revels in the opportunities to make a show. His is a large, sonorous, warm and evenly produced voice of exceptional beauty. The very lowest notes – and he is required to sing quite a few of them – are somewhat sketchy but otherwise he is admirable. He produces ringing top notes that many a baritone should envy.

The rest of the cast are more or less comprimarios, but the young Dale Duesing – he was only 26 at the time – is a fine Caliph. Veteran Fritz Peter is a Cadi full of character and Marga Schiml – also still in her twenties – does what she can with Bostana’s role. The versatile Ferdinand Leitner, who had a special affinity with Mozart, obviously enjoys the score. He is well supported by the Cologne Radio forces. The male chorus has a field day in the riveting Hinaus aus Hof und Haus (CD 1 tr. 7), where they are ordered to throw the cackling barber out of the house.

The sound is what is to be expected from a 35-year-old radio recording: not very spectacular but well balanced. I wouldn’t have minded some more cue-points and a libretto should have been included. Not many listeners will be familiar with the work and the brief synopsis is no substitute.

Whether Der Barbier von Bagdad will ever be a standard work again is hard to prophesy – this kind of story has probably lost its attraction to latter-day generations. It is nevertheless rather amusing and the music definitely deserves a better fate than oblivion.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

Gioachino Rossini’s remarkable life and career is well known: the opera composer who, with the world at his feet, appeared to retire at the age of 37. He had around 17 years of huge success with operas such as Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and after completing his last opera Guillaume Tell, he had another 39 years of ‘silence’. The second period of his life was in fact anything but silent, and Rossini would later turn up with pieces such as the Stabat Mater and the wonderful Petit messe solennelle.

More private were the creations which became collected as the Péchés de vieillesse or ‘Sins of Old Age’, which are contained in fourteen volumes. Some of these are for voice and piano, others, such as volume IX, include pieces with strings, harmonium and horn, the solo piano works from which appear at the end of this programme. Album de Chaumière or ‘The Cottage Album’ is the no doubt ironically twee title given to volume VII, the first of the albums for solo piano. This consists of 12 pieces ranging from titles such as Petite polka chinoise to works of a grander scale such as Une pensée à Florence. Rossini’s attitude with these works is frequently ironic and often deceptive. Confronted with a title such as Prélude inoffensif, one might expect something other than the extended lyrical aria which in fact appears. The generally light character of many of the pieces is interspersed with more searching, funereal atmospheres such as that in Un profound sommeil, and Un cauchemar – literally ‘A Nightmare’. In these pieces we are not so very far removed from the symbolic cries of the owl in Leoš Janá?ek’s ‘On a Overgrown Path.’ On the complete opposite there are parody-like pieces such as the bombastic Marche which closes Vol. VII.

Alessandro Marangoni is a young pianist and a rising star whose reputation will in no way be harmed with these recordings. Whatever one thinks of these ‘Sins of Old Age’ they are certainly a fascinatingly enigmatic and eclectic mixture of Rossini in all moods. Fans of the Petit messe solenelle must certainly investigate these pieces, as the thick piano chords and bouncy bass lines which crop up in that work are certainly not absent here. Fans of Rossini’s operas are also kept well fed with rich melodic invention, if performed instrumentally rather than vocally. This Naxos recording is very good, with a rich, deep piano sound, if captured in a rather dry and tubby acoustic. The impression is one of a front room soirée rather than a concert hall performance, which isn’t such a bad thing for these pieces. I do however feel that a slightly more sympathetic space might have helped Alessandro Marangoni when trying to give a more legato feel, or in varying the colour and mood. The pieces come across a little on the lumpy side sometimes, and the contrast between some of the works is less startling than might otherwise have been the case.

This new series will have to compete with the recordings by Stefan Irmer on MDG, and although there is no information on the instrument used in the Naxos recording – other than that it is a Steinway & Sons from the Angelo Fabbrini collection, it gives the impression of being an older instrument, a quality it would then share with the MDG recordings. The bass has a pleasant rounded quality, and the usual Steinway brightness only really shines through in the upper registers at higher volume. Any reservations I may have can be accounted for as a matter of personal taste, so nothing I say should stop anyone from dropping into their local retailer and bagging this remarkable release forthwith. This is going to turn into another of Naxos’s eminently collectable sets, and on this showing will prove to be worth it at almost any price.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

The album also contains additional tracks by Francois Couperin that are identified by generic Baroque era dance titles without specific details: Allemande, Sarabande, Sicilenne, Gavotte.

In 2005, Thomas Gropper founded vocal ensemble Arcis Vocalists. Today the group consists of 50 singers who are actively engaged in the Bavarian and Munich concert scene. Following their debut album of Cantatas BWV 131 and 182, they now present Cantatas BWZ 12 and BWV 147.

A lasting love affair with the clarinet amongst composers from the dawn until the dusk of the Romantic era (i.e. from Schubert to Strauss) is the key takeaway of this Signum release. In recognition, a trio of leading British soloists - clarinetist Julian Bliss, soprano Ailish Tynan and pianist Christopher Glynn - perform a sumptuous selection of the era's chamber music by Brahms, Chopin, Schubert, Schumann and Richard Strauss. The program is centered around Schubert's iconic The Shepherd on the Rock, virtually the final complete work that Schubert composed before his tragic death in 1828, age 31.

For his latest solo album in a growing catalog of increasingly critically praised recordings for Signum Classics, Alessio Bax returns with a program of rich and evocative works for piano by Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Scriabin. The Italian-born, NYC-based pianist Alessio Bax creates “a ravishing listening experience” with his lyrical playing, insightful interpretations, and dazzling facility. “His playing quivers with an almost hypnotic intensity,” says Gramophone magazine, leading to what Dallas Morning News calls “an out-of-body experience.” “…a pianist of refreshing depth.” (International Piano) Alessio Bax plays Beethoven, released in 2014, was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice: “'Even when compared to legendary performances of this sonata (Kempff, Richter, Gilels, Brendel, etc), this performance stands its ground in music to test the technique and intellect of even the greatest pianists.”

REVIEW:

We are told that Luis Carlos Figueroa is one of the senior and much esteemed figures in Colombian music. As such this disc is very welcome as to most intents and purposes it serve as an initiation into the man’s music. Given his dates we might perhaps have expected a thornier style but it is warm and welcoming. This is attractive music that is well worth your ear-time.

-- MusicWeb International

Classical Music

The award-winning French pianist Pascal Rogé presents a program of music by Gershwin and Ravel in a recording with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Bertrand de Billy. Rogé’s affinity for the French style and empathy with jazz make him particularly suited to this repertoire. His recordings of French piano music have received Gramophone, Grand Prix du Disque and Edison awards. In addition to the classical-romantic repertoire of the Viennese and German schools, 20th-century French music is also one of his specialties. “An intelligent, richly enjoyable performance of the ravel Concerto.” (BBC Music Magazine) “Roge’s playing of Ravel’s Left-Hand concerto is masterly. He has complete technical regard for the work; more importantly, he appreciates the range of the music, its darkness, menace, anger, other-worldly escape, introspection and defiance.” (International Piano Magazine)

REVIEW:

The team of Pascal Rogé and Bertrand de Billy, with some outstanding playing from the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, bring much to this music. The pianist makes easy work of Ravel’s tremendously difficult writing and clarifies a number of problematic textures in the Gershwin.

-- Fanfare

Classical Music

Classical Music

Composer Christopher Roberts’s four serene yet deeply emotive pieces for solo qin (a Chinese zither-like instrument) are quiet, sparce, slightly eerie, almost Feldmanesque. Performed by the composer, who learned the qin while living and teaching for many years in Taiwan. This is a 30-minute CD EP/single. “So Confucius walks into a bar, just in time for Bill Evans’s last set, and after closing time pulls out his qin for a few solos … That’s the vibe that Christopher Roberts captures in these intimate nocturnal musings where crystalline harmonics dance among gutsy bass slides while elegant harmonies whisper their most private thoughts. A truly haunting recording.” [John Schneider, Host of KPFK’s Global Village] “The most Chinese of instruments, the qin has roots in the ancient literati tradition…. Having studied its classical tradition in Taiwan, the quixotic Roberts (also a double bassist) also brings his own traditions of jazz, blues, and solo improvisation to the table. While starting somewhere near its traditional core, Roberts bends his instrument in new directions entirely, turning it westwards even as he faces east.” [Gramophone magazine] “‘Exotic’ is a relative term. Gorecki's music is exotic compared to Lloyd Webber’s, Ligeti’s music is exotic compared to Gorecki’s, and Christopher Roberts’ music is exotic compared to nearly any music you are likely to think of.… Last Cicada Singing integrates Eastern and Western music so well, finding their common ground in calm reflection of natural sounds and processes. Sit back, relax, contemplate.” [Malcolm Tattersall, Music & Vision] “You-are-there-grade realism. The recording is Christopher Roberts’ hauntingly beautiful and stunningly well-recorded Last Cicada Singing [Absolute Sound magazine] “Mesmerizing sounds...quiet, sparse, serene music.” [Michael Barone, Minnesota Public Radio]

Classical Music

Classical Music

Prokofiev, S.: Eugene Onegin

The present release is a fascinating journey through the music that unites Debussy with Spanish composers. Places are sounds- and this music is Granada. The city was a recurring source of inspiration for Debussy, and yet the composer never visited it; his knowledge of it was gained only indirectly through literary accounts, images, and musical sources heard in Paris. All of these materials served to unleash his imagination in regard to its sound, which according to Falla represented ‘the truth without authenticity, as not a single note is borrowed from Spanish folklore and yet, even in its smallest details, it wonderfully expresses Spain’. A common element links all the composers in the present program: the city of Paris. From the end of the nineteenth to the early twentieth century, the French capital was a fundamental goal for many Spanish composers, who at some point in their lives went there for study or work purposes. Born in Tokyo, Japan, Azumi Nishizawa is considered one of the finest Japanese pianists of her generation. She studied with Michiko Okamoto and Ikuyo Kamiya at the Toho Gakuen Conservatory of Music in Tokyo, and was subsequently selected as an outstanding pupil by the famous French pianist and instructor Dominique Merlet at the Geneva Conservatory where she won first prize for virtuosity.

V 42: MUSICA CLAROMONTANA

Gypsy Strings is a collection of arrangements of traditional gypsy music together with a selection of original compositions. The disc was conceived to display the talents of London Concertante’s leader, Adam Summerhayes, and the Bulgarian fiddle player Emil Chakalov. The music becomes a jousting match between the two, backed by London Concertante’s twelve-player string section. The ensemble enjoys an ever growing reputation for exciting and memorable performances, thanks to exceptional players and inspired programming.