Haydn: Symphonies No 57, 67, 68 / McGegan, Philharmonia Baroque
Philharmonia Baroque Productions
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%Sep 11, 2015
A few years ago Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra released a glorious disc containing Haydn symphonies Nos. 88, 101 and 104. Well, they’ve done it again, and their achievement is even more impressive in that this time they have chosen three relatively unknown, middle-period symphonies. None have nicknames, and few get played in modern concerts. I did see Leonard Slatkin–a champion of little-known Haydn–give a superb performance of No. 67, but other than that you’ll be lucky to hear any of these symphonies live.
This doesn’t mean that the music lacks anything in the way of interest. No. 67 is one of Haydn’s most original creations, with a slow movement that features a delicious coda played by the strings “col legno” (with the back of the bow), a trio of the minuet for two muted solo violins–one of them retuned–and a finale with a central “development” that starts as a string trio in an adagio tempo. It’s an amazing piece, and this performance relishes every striking detail.
Symphony No. 57 starts with a surprisingly unsettling slow introduction whose eerie grace notes return, purged of their unease, in the fleet main theme of the finale. No. 68 places the minuet second because the slow movement is probably the longest that Haydn ever wrote. It lasts more than twelve minutes in this performance (fourteen under Harnoncourt), but it’s so full of variety that the time passes without a thought. The finale is a “variation” rondo whose episodes constitute a veritable concerto for orchestra.
In short, each symphony has something special and characteristic to offer, and each gives McGegan and his ensemble an opportunity to display their individual and corporate musicianship and virtuosity. The strings play with precision and warmth. McGegan clearly knows when to sound “authentic,” and when to let his players sing. The solo winds and horns are excellent, ensemble balances invariably what they ought to be to let each work communicate vividly. The live sonics, a touch close and maybe very slightly edgy, actually suit the boldness and panache of the music. Haydn lovers rejoice.
The German composer Johann Adolf Hasse was born in Bergedorf on 25 March 1699 and died in Venice on 23 December 1783. He chose Italy as his adopted country: there he was nicknamed “the dear Saxon”. He was a pupil of Nicola Porpor and Alessandro Scarlatti, from whom he learned the typical composition style of the Neapolitan School. In 1727 he was appointed Kapellmeister of the Conservatorio degli Incurabili of Venice, the city in which he met his bride, Faustina Bordoni. He was engaged as a composer by the Polish court, for which he composed a great number of operas that were staged in Dresden and in other European countries, particularly Italy. The arias presented here by Elena De Simone belong to the genre of the opera seria and have been chosen among the most representative ones in Hasse’s unpublished production, which is based on texts – most of them by Metastasio and Apostolo Zeno – that were a great source of inspiration for the major European musicians of that time.
In this excellent second volume of the complete sonatas for violin and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven, Andrew Wan and Charles Richard-Hamelin present the three sonatas of opus 12 and Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24, often referred to as the “Spring Sonata” (Frühlingssonate), was composed in 1800 and 1801 during an especially productive period for Beethoven and is undoubtedly one of Beethoven’s most famous chamber works. The first volume of this collection was considered to be one of the best classical albums of 2018 by Radio-Canada. Andrew Wan is equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician and concertmaster. In August 2008, he was named concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (MSO), making him one of the youngest leaders of a major symphony. His relationship with the orchestra began with performances of Elgar's Violin Concerto, which were hailed as one of the top two musical moments of 2007 by La Presse. As a soloist, he has appeared in the United States, China, New Zealand, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Switzerland and Canada.
A couple of years ago this release would have made an easy reference recording. Bavouzet’s Haydn thus far has been excellent, and his playing on this disc is extremely fine: tasteful in its sustained lyricism in the adagios, and brilliant in the outer movements. Indeed the finales are, if anything, perhaps too quick to permit the fullest characterization of the music, but there’s no questioning their dazzling virtuosity.
Unfortunately for Bavouzet, this repertoire is now very well covered both on period instruments (for BIS and Harmonia Mundi) and above all by Marc-André Hamelin and Les Violons du Roy on Hyperion, which gives you the best of both worlds. Make no mistake, the Manchester Camerata under Gábor Takács-Nagy plays very well, and they are of one mind with Bavouzet. It’s just that the competition is better, however marginally. In the slow movement of the Concerto in F Major, the use of solo strings to open and close the movement strikes me as unnecessarily mannered, and Bavouzet’s cadenza, intended as a tribute to Friedrich Gulda in jazz mode, comes across almost as a weird paraphrase of the theme song from “The Young and the Restless”.
This is the only questionable moment in what is otherwise a wholly enjoyable release, and if you’ve been collecting Bavouzet’s Haydn (and you should be) then I can recommend this latest installment warmly. But as I said, there are several alternatives, Hamelin above all, that you might prefer if you have limited shelf space.
SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce the third volume in Leon McCawley’s much praised series of Franz Joseph Haydn’s Piano Sonatas. Six Sonatas, spanning the years 1767-84, are featured: the earliest No.31 in A-flat major, the latest No.56 in D major while Robert Matthew- Walker provides fascinating booklet notes describing the multifarious effects on his music of Haydn’s enthusiasm for equal temperament. Sonata No.31 in A-flat major is, he says, a continuation of Bach that seems to bypass Mozart and anticipate early Beethoven: “Astonishingly original music, and not just for its time”. The two-movement Sonata No.32 in G minor is a unique and intimate work while No.34 in D major boasts an innovative tonal scheme that disguises its virtuosity with immediately approachable technique. The F major Sonata No.38, notes Matthew-Walker, is “full of that wonderful combination of inner life and directly human expression that is the essence of Haydn”. Two later Sonatas – Nos.55 (B-flat major) and 56 (D major) – arguably saw romantic sonata form tested to its expressive limits by “Haydn’s original genius” and his “thematic developmental-variation technique even today causing surprise for its profoundly original subtleties”. Volume I was recognized with a coveted Diapason d’Or from Diapason magazine, which enthused: “What a range in his interpretation and how many layers of gradation! McCawley ties these together in a special quality of inflexions which make their point with great intelligibility and sensitivity”. BBC Music Magazine declared Volume II “should stand high on any list” of quality recordings of Haydn, adding “the sparkle of McCawley’s touch is instantly apparent”. Gramophone also commended McCawley’s playing, describing it as “light of touch, stylistically assured and brimful of intelligence and wit”.
Germany’s oldest Mozart festival celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2021. The present jubilee boxed set presents previously unpublished treasures from the archive of the Bavarian Broadcasting. All live recordings from the Baroque Imperial Hall at Würzburg Residence are digital remasters.
Beethoven: Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin, Vol. 3
Coro
CD
$10.49$20.99Save 50%Jun 02, 2017
Ian Watson and Susanna Ogata's acclaimed series on Coro Connections continues with the third album in their exploration of Beethoven's Sonatas for fortepiano and violin. Written at a time when the composer was struggling to accept his growing deafness, the three sonatas on this volume were published together in 1803 as his Opus 30 and provide a remarkable trilogy - a collection of incredible variety and sophistication. The wide compositional range of this set demonstrates Beethoven's prowess in creating bucolic, even humorous moments, contrasted with deep intensity, pathos and the truly sublime. Susanna Ogata has been praised for her ''totally convincing, spontaneous and free-flowing playing'' (The Berkshire Review) and is a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society where she was appointed Assistant Concertmaster of the orchestra in 2014. Ian Watson has been described by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as ''a conductor of formidable ability'', and by The Times in London as a keyboard performer with ''virtuosic panache and brilliantly articulated playing'' and ''a world-class soloist.'' He was appointed Associate Conductor of Boston's Handel and Haydn Society in 2016.
The Poulenc Trio is an impressive chamber ensemble made up of respected oboe, bassoon, and piano virtuosi. This release is the ensemble’s debut album for Delos. For the programme, the ensemble presents a fascinating mixture of old and new from Beethoven, Octavio Vasquez, and the centerpiece of the album, Alfred Schnittke. “From the first notes, we knew that this was a group of first-rate chamber musicians, who took as much delight in the joys of intimate playing as they gave.” (Ken Keaton, Palm Beach Daily News)
Beethoven: The Violin Sonatas / Francescatti, Casadesus
Sony Masterworks
CD
$22.98$45.98Save 50%May 08, 2020
These two patrician French musicians were leading lights at American Columbia from the 1940s until well into the 1960s. During World War II, violinist Zino Francescatti and pianist Robert Casadesus began performing as a duo (they were both also collaborators with Ravel early in the careers), and in the decades since then the Columbia/Sony catalogue has documented this partnership distinguished by interpretive grace and technical polish. Although Francescatti is probably best remembered for his wide-ranging concerto recordings with Bernstein, Ormandy and Bruno Walter and Casadesus for his sparkling Mozart concertos with Szell, their duo recordings were also greatly admired by music lovers, especially their landmark interpretations of the Beethoven Violin Sonatas. The first of these recordings – made in mono between 1949 and 1957 in New York, when both musicians were living in the US – comprised Nos. 3–9. A remake, this time the complete cycle, was recorded in stereo in Paris in 1958 and 1961. Now Sony Classical is reissuing all of these performances in a single 7-CD box set.
All of their recordings of Beethoven violin sonatas were held in the highest critical esteem. The mono recordings earned special praise from Gramophone in the UK for expressiveness without undue romanticism and from High Fidelity in the US for an equality between the two musicians not often found in recordings of these works. Similar plaudits for the stereo versions, Gramophone commending Francescatti’s “cool, relaxed ease and sweet tone [in the “Spring” Sonata] … Casadesus is wonderfully good, too … The playing is effortless and relaxed in the true chamber music way … Both in this [Op. 96] and the C minor Sonata they give the kind of limpid, poetic classical performances in which every detail falls miraculously into place. This is playing with a lifetime of musical experience behind it … The perspective is faultlessly calculated; but of course not even the best engineer in the world could have produced such a result without a ‘marriage of true minds’ between the performers.” High Fidelity’s reviewer referred to the players’ “general tendency towards objective clarity, rhythmic brio, and superb instrumental refinement … The entire set – flawlessly well articulated, cleanly reproduced, and with every element of Beethoven’s writing meticulously set into proper perspective – can be highly recommended.”
The new box contains two performances never before issued: the duo’s 1957 New York recordings of the “Spring” Sonata and of Op. 30 No. 1, which were apparently withheld because of the imminent commencement of the cycle’s complete remake in stereo.
Lively and touching Beethoven voiced for the piano and viola.
This CD is the first in one of Toccata’s many series – almost as many as Naxos. This one is Beethoven by Arrangement.
As far as we know Beethoven, himself a violist, completed no works for the viola as principal instrument. The absence of a local viola virtuoso or at least a viola commissioner might well have been the reason. Others stepped into the breach.
This disc documents their arrangements. Before doing so it documents the 27 second torso of a Viola Sonata he began but never completed. It’s typically assertive and lively. Paul Silverthorne who is the guiding mind and hand behind this project arranged the compact three-movement Horn Sonata. It was written originally for the celebrated horn-player Giovanni Punto. It works rather fluently with its pulsingly dynamic and tenderly noble outer movements framing a mournfully captivating little Poco Adagio. Karl Kleinheinz was a contemporary of Beethoven and turned his musical skills to bear on two works for string trio: the opp. 8 and 25 – the latter arranged for flute. The seven movement Serenade for String Trio op. 8 became the Notturno for viola and piano. It’s in the mood and manner of Mozart’s cassations and serenades with witty movements alternating with more pensive and serious ones. The Allegretto alla Polacca is especially attractive. Friedrich Hermann, a pupil of Mendelssohn at Leipzig, did the same service for the much arranged Septet op. 20 – here appositely dubbed the Grand Duo. It’s an even more extended work at forty minutes than the Notturno this time across six movements. The music is from the high watermark of Beethoven’s early period and rewards close attention as well as casual overhearing. After much profundity the finale’s Marcia and Presto end proceedings with gleaming-eyed cheer and urbane confidence. Intakes of breath can be distracting but I only really noticed them from Silverthorne in the Andante segment of the Grand Duo’s finale. Silverthorne’s playing on the Amati viola is impassioned and completely in-style. David Owen Norris is always not merely reliable but ready with apt and lucid playing; so it proves here.
The liner-notes are by Paul Silverthorne who is Principal Viola of the London Symphony Orchestra. I recall him as the violist who premiered the Thea Musgrave concerto in 1991. He was also the violist for the very late Rozsa Viola Concerto recorded by Koch International circa 1998. Toccata Press have Silverthorne’s Beethoven Edition comprising the Grand Duo and the op. 17 Sonata in preparation. Violists will be pleased and so should their audiences.
The recording was made on a Viennese Blümel piano (1865) and a Brothers Amati viola (1620).
Lively and touching Beethoven voiced for the piano and viola. Viola players and the world’s curious Beethovenians will need to have this.
Swiss violinist Sebastian Bohren, who’s star is rapidly in the ascendant, makes his AVIE label debut with two concertos from Mozart’s “year of the violin” – Nos. 3 and 5 – paired with the composer’s youthful Symphony No. 29. Sebastian’s interpretations bring out the sparkling energy of the concertos, written when Mozart was just 19 years old, yet at the same time a brandish a smoothly burnished sense of style. His partners on the album, famed Hungarian violinist-turned conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy and Sebastian’s compatriots the CHAARTS Chamber Artists – comprised of leading European soloists and chamber musicians – perfectly embody these contrasting characteristics, both in their accompaniments and their reading of the Symphony which was written within a year of the concerti. Sebastian is equally at home as a soloist and chamber musician. He has performed with the Lucerne Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Basel Symphony Orchestras, among others, under such conductors as James Gaffigan, Andrew Litton and Ivor Bolton. His chamber music collaborators have included Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Thomas Demenga and Konstantin Lifschitz. He plays the “Ex-Wanamaker-Hart” violin made by Guadagnini in Parma in 1761.
REVIEW:
The concerto performances reveal classically balanced interpretations, with Sebastian Bohren's slender, delicate violin playing sounding entirely committed to heavenly, springy elegant tone.
Santiago Mantas leads the European Union Chamber Orchestra Wind Octect on this release of Mozart's Wind Serenades. These Serenades are among Mozart's most joyful and melodious compositions and this fine performance by the young musicians of the EUCO Wind Octet certainly displays the exuberance and high spirits of the young composer. Santiago Mantas has toured over thirty countries as both conductor and concert pianist and is also a successful composer of music for feature films and documentaries.
Mozart composed his violin concertos in 1773 (K 207) and 1775 (K 211, 216, 218 and 219). These five works and the three single movements recorded here have been passed down complete and verified as authentic. The genesis of these works is closely linked to Mozart’s work as Kapellmeister at the Salzburg court, ending with the probably most important kick-out in music history. Mozart scored no solo cadenzas for his violin concertos; in the practice of the time, they were improvised. All the cadenzas on these recordings derive from Baiba Skride. Eivind Aadland writes: “Baiba is such an intuitive player. She has this rare quality of discovering the music as we play. So she never plays exactly the same. There is a wonderful sense of creating, discovering, of going finding new ways.“ Baiba Skride about her new album: “I know that there are so many different and super recordings of Mozart, but I think it is important to enjoy the music you have heard a thousand times and will hear a thousand times more with new eyes and simply allow the music to play.”
MOZART Piano Concertos: No. 20 in d, K 466; No. 15 in B?, K 450 • Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (pn); Antoine de Bavier, cond; Stuttgart RSO • ICA 5103 (54:24) Live: Ludwigsburg 7/11/1956
Michelangeli’s Mozart is often criticized for having the same flaws as many of his other recordings: His playing is controlled, perhaps for some over-controlled to the point of being static in conception; his tempos are extreme, slower than normal in the middle movements, faster than most in the outer ones; he is free with rhythms in certain places, perhaps more so in the cadenzas than elsewhere (I have little problem with this detail in these areas in particular). Some would call him cold, a surface performer who glosses over the true spirit of this music. But it is difficult to judge harshly a performer who is so very polished in his interpretation. Even if Michelangeli were not only in his mid-30s at the time of these readings, one would be hard-pressed to call these performances cold. Perhaps even more importantly, these readings took place in the 1950s, when every composer was still seen through 19th-century eyes in some way or another; the “informed” practice of the second half of the century was soon to begin—the research into original instrumentation, dynamics, articulation, etc.
When listening to Michelangeli’s Mozart as performed at Ludwigsburg, one is struck more by the forward-propelled, one might even say Beethovenian, momentum of his playing. In the D-Minor Concerto, it is the latter composer’s oft-played cadenzas, which Michelangeli has also chosen to perform. In his hands the entire work seems momentous, from the very first low orchestral grumblings of the opening movement, through the lyrical at times, stormy at others, Romanze, to the virtuosic and flighty finale. Michelangeli performs as expected: His tone is always beautiful and rounded, his scales and arpeggios are crystal clear, his control of dynamic shading and nuances is awe-inspiring; but even more importantly his energy is palpable as is his sense of danger. One sits on the edge of one’s seat when listening to this Mozart. The B?-Major Concerto, K 450, was one of the pianist’s favorites. This reading is filled with some of the best of the qualities of the D Minor, though here some of those negative complaints heaped upon the performer seem more justified: The tempo in the opening movement is too fast. There are moments which just sound rushed; the rhythmic quirks are evident from the very opening—initiated by the orchestra, these are later echoed by the soloist. Yet for all the flaws, there are moments which are just magical: the gorgeous opening trills of the cadenza, and even more so the dance-like lift the pianist gives to the second subject just a few moments later; the simple yet sincere way the forces play the second movement, especially the wonderful sense of dialogue they maintain throughout. And if one requires technical perfection for any of Mozart’s finales, it would certainly be this one—one of the most difficult of his concertos. Michelangeli is not one to disappoint.
If one requires Mozart to sound the way a Brendel, a Schiff, or a Perahia would perform these works, then one should look towards those other performers; but if one is open to a variety of approaches, then this Michelangeli will supplement one’s collection nicely—to me the very best Mozart that the pianist ever committed to disc (forget the old EMI or DG recordings)! Though the sound is still somewhat primitive and the orchestra a bit stiff in certain places, these are, regardless, performances to cherish.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was born in the city of Bonn, but moved in 1792 to Vienna, where he spent the rest of his relatively short (he died aged 56) yet highly productive life. While best known, perhaps, for popular large-scale orchestral works such as his concertos and symphonies, he also composed string quartets and other chamber music, songs and, of course, a large amount of music for his 'own' instrument, the piano. In each genre, Beethoven was to some extent a path breaker, transforming the models he inherited from his predecessors or the approach taken by his contemporaries into something radically unique and bequeathing to posterity music that pushed the bounds of politely regulated Classicism towards the highly personal drama of Romanticism. When the young Beethoven arrived in Vienna, he quickly established himself as a virtuoso pianist-contemporaries had quite simply never heard anything like him before-and though deafness ended his career as a pianist, he continued to compose, ultimately publishing 32 piano sonatas (some early sonatas remained unpublished), several sets of piano variations, bagatelles and dances between 1793 and 1822, a representative selection of which are featured on Easy-Listening Piano Classics. Many of Beethoven's piano sonatas have names that describe their character, though not all of these originated with the composer. For instance, 'Pathétique' is an abbreviation of Beethoven's full title 'Grande sonate pathétique' (that is, 'passionate' rather than 'pitiful'); the 'Moonlight' was so named by a music critic who thought of moonlight shimmering upon Lake Lucerne when he heard the first movement (Beethoven simply gave it the sub-title Quasi una fantasia, 'Like a fantasy'); the 'Kurfürstensonaten' are pre-Viennese sonatas dedicated to the Elector (Kurfürst) of Cologne; 'The Tempest' comes from Anton Schindler's claim that the sonata was inspired by Shakespeare's play; 'Pastoral' was provided by one of Beethoven's publishers. In addition, Beethoven composed many shorter piano pieces, which he referred to as 'Kleinigkeiten (Small Things) or Bagatelles', though these should not be underestimated: while some are popular in style and suitable for amateur performers (such as the famous, and probably misnamed 'Für Elise') others are highly characterful miniatures that one writer has described as 'lapidary, fragmentary, yes, even ironic'-true harbingers of Romanticism. Many of his dances (Minuets, Ländler, Ecossaises and so forth) also combine charm and sophistication. Whether composing large-scale serious works for the enjoyment of connoisseurs or smaller popular pieces primarily designed to entertain, Beethoven was very interested in the piano, maintaining close contact with leading piano manufacturers in Vienna and London. The demands he made on both performers and the instrument itself contributed to the development of the modern concert grand. One observer wrote that when Beethoven played the piano 'the music of the man's soul passed over his countenance. He seems to feel the bold, the commanding, and the impetuous, more than what is soothing or gentle. The muscles of the face swell, and it's veins start out; the wild eye rolls doubly wild, the mouth quivers, and Beethoven looks like a wizard, overpowered by the demons whom he himself has called up.' Yet, whether seeking the sublime or appealing to the lighter sentiments, Beethoven's music always communicates 'From the heart... to the heart'.
