Beethoven: The Solo Concertos / Vladar, Van Kuelen, Speckel, Wiener Kammerorchester
Capriccio
CD
$27.99Nov 18, 2016
If you fancy a set of the Beethoven piano concertos that’s suitable for listening to at a single sitting, then look no further. The ingredients are ideal for the job: abundant energy; bold, clear-sighted interpretation; brilliant though intelligently deployed pianism; poetic handling of the various slow movements; vital conducting and orchestral playing that fits the ‘chamber orchestra’ template like a glove. Vladar’s conducting is again excellent but it’s his playing and conducting that really makes the grade. The sound is very realistic, though be warned that the piano is very much upfront. An exceptional set.
Robert deMaine is an American virtuoso cellist who has been hailed by The New York Times as "an artist who makes one hang on every note.” He has distinguished himself as one of the finest and most versatile instrumentalists of his generation, performing to critical acclaim as soloist, recitalist, orchestral principal, recording artist and chamber musician. He is currently Principal Cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and is in demand around the world as a soloist, chamber musician and clinician. This recording is a collaboration with New York conductor Joel Eric Suben and the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra recorded at Reduta Conceret Hall in Olomuc, Czech Republic. It was in this spirit of personalized composition that Haydn wrote his Cello Concerto in C major, Hob. VIIb:1, for the Esterházy family. The piece was unknown to modern audiences until 1961, when a copy of the score was uncovered. Since that time, it has become a staple of the cello repertoire, championed by many of the world’s greatest cellists. Robert deMaine adds his name to that list with this lush recording. Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D major, Hob. VIIb:2 was written for the Esterházy orchestra’s principal cellist Antonín Kraft, who is said to have had a beautiful singing tone, expressive phrasing, and an explosive technique, especially in the cello’s upper register. All of this is realized once again in this fresh performance from Robert deMaine.
C.P.E. Bach: Quartettes for Keyboard, Flute & Viola
Haenssler Classic
CD
$20.99Oct 14, 2016
Among Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's last works are quartets for piano, flute and viola, composed in 1788. His reasoning for composing these works is unknown bu tin several respects they represent a climax in chamber writing. Stylistically, they may be seen as an extremely elaborate synthesis of Classical writing and the individual style that caused Bach to be referred to as an original genius even during his lifetime.
Benjamin Bruns began his singing career as an alto soloist with the boys' choir in his home city of Hanover. After four years of private singing lessons with Prof. Peter Sefcik, he studied at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg under the Kammersängerin Renate Behle. While still a student, he was offered a permanent contract by the Theater Bremen, a position which allowed him to build up a broadly based repertoire at an early stage. It was followed by a similar contract with the opera house in Cologne. His professional journey then took him via the Dresden State Opera to the Vienna State Opera. His repertoire contains such roles as Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Camille de Rosillon (The Merry Widow), Loge (Das Rheingold), or the Italian Tenor in the Strauss operas Capriccio and Der Rosenkavalier. Since his debut in summer 2012 he sang the Steersman in The Flying Dutchman for five seasons at the Bayreuth Festival. Oratorio and lieder form an important counterweight to Benjamin Bruns's stage work. At the heart of his extensive concert repertoire are the great sacred works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn. He has sung with such renowned ensembles as Berliner Philharmonics, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonics, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Bach Collegium Japan, the WDR Symphony Orchestra as well as Choir and Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome or the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Together with pianist Karola Theill he is regularly giving Lied recitals, dedicated especially to the important cycles of Schumann, Schubert and Beethoven. But also songs by Wolf, Britten, Fauré, Szymanowski and Strauss are to be found in his programs.
Mozart: Serenade K 203, Divertimento K 251 / Janiczek , Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Linn Records
CD
$15.99$20.99Save 25%May 27, 2014
The first thing you notice is the vibrant sound, the ensemble's immediacy and depth, giving a realistic spatial and sonic picture of the array of musicians and instruments performing in a very complementary acoustic. Then you have to appreciate the robust rhythmic character and clean articulation in the opening March K. 189, the companion piece to the following Serenade K. 185. Indeed, throughout the program you get the sure impression that these performers know and love Mozart, putting sufficient energy into each movement of each piece, granting each the appropriate character of Menuet or March, Andante grazioso or Allegro. The orchestra's gentle way with the thematic rhythms in the Serenade's Andante grazioso and the subtlety with which the players (and conductor) highlight this movement's slight but important mood shifts is a pure pleasure to hear.
Violinist/director Alexander Janiczek asks for tempos that neither blaze nor plod nor obscure the happy spirit of these primarily youthful works. As a soloist in the two Rondos and the lovely Adagio K. 261 Janiczek also provides tasteful cadenzas that highlight his expertly executed, personable, open-hearted style. And who can fail to be impressed with the Divertimento K. 113, a remarkably "mature" piece of orchestral writing that shows a 15-year-old composer already in control of techniques and thematic devices that would reappear in later, more famous, more extensively developed forms. This is a very well-played, thoughtfully programmed recording of works that are all too often ruined by casual, matter-of-fact treatment; if its primary purpose is entertainment, which it should be, then it succeeds admirably.
Ries: Piano Concertos Vol 2 / Hinterhuber, Grodd, Gavle Symphony
Naxos
CD
$19.99Sep 25, 2007
This disc offers you satisfying performances of satisfying music. How can you refuse?
This second instalment in the continuing cycle of Ries's piano concertos from Naxos is a disc for your wish-list.
Ries is more famous today for being Beethoven's pupil and biographer than for his own career in music. In his day he ranked with Hummel and, yes, even with Beethoven himself as one of Europe's greatest composer-pianists. Thanks to the efforts of Naxos and Allan Badley's Artaria Editions, we can now hear for ourselves what it was that so excited nineteenth century audiences.
All three works here show Ries to be a composer of originality, though one with a respect for his musical forebears. It would go too far to call him daring or revolutionary. Nonetheless, despite the backward glances at Mozart, his facility for contrasting grand orchestral statements with piano writing of a free, rhapsodic lyricism bridges the gap between Beethoven on the one hand and Chopin and Schumann on the other.
The Swedish National Air with Variations opens with a proud and darkly coloured orchestral flourish, which is immediately contrasted with a gently glittering statement from the piano. This pattern of contrasts is repeated throughout the 15 minutes of this piece, as Ries plies his skill at conjuring variations, first dazzling, then soulful. He casts the orchestra as chorus rather than as equal partner in dialogue, but he knows how to use its tone colours – listen to the lovely clarinet commentary about five minutes in, for example.
The Piano Concerto in C sharp minor is a delightful work, written largely on the road as Ries toured and then fled Russia in 1812. It is natural to want to draw comparisons with Beethoven's C minor concerto of 12 years earlier, but similarities are few and comparisons unhelpful. Apart from a few blustery tuttis, Ries uses the minor mode to spice harmonies and lend interest rather than to generate Beethovenian drama. The material is predominantly lyrical but virtuosic in the outer movements. The central slow movement lasts for less than five minutes, but is the heart of the concerto. Here Ries'sw gentle lyricism calls for a Chopinesque rubato and lightness of touch. His writing for orchestra, though, is better than Chopin's and full of interesting details and colourings.
The Introduction and Polonaise may have been composed 21 years after the other two pieces in this programme, but it demonstrates a remarkable consistency in Ries's idiom across the years. This piece is full of Mozartean turns of phrase, but with harmonic touches that point to Schumann. Again, there is some charming writing for the clarinets and flutes as they comment on the piano's discourse.
The Austrian pianist Christopher Hinterhuber plays with commitment and is a fine advocate for these works, just as able to command attention with flashes of fire as he is to lead the ear through the most delicate figurations. Grodd and the Gävle Symphony Orchestra support him well enough, though there is a little raggedness in the upper registers of the violins towards the close of the Introduction and Polonaise. The recorded sound is fine and the booklet notes by Allan Badley are interesting, though they hint at but do not explain the reconstruction of the score of the C sharp minor concerto.
All up, this disc offers you satisfying performances of satisfying music. How can you refuse?
The most famous Italian opera composer of his day, Domenico Cimarosa saw his fame spread all over Europe. Written towards the end of the ‘Neapolitan School’ era, his operas endured in popularity long after his death thanks to their melodic invention, colourful orchestration and sheer vitality. The overtures in this programme include I tre amanti (The Three Lovers), the hit opera that made Cimarosa’s name outside Naples, and Il pittor parigino (The Parisian Painter) and the tragedy Giunio Bruto that were admired by Haydn and conducted by him at the Esterházy court. The first three volumes are available on Naxos 8.570508, 8.570279 and 8.572734.
On two previous albums, Yevgeny Sudbin and Osmo Vänskä have released Beethoven’s three last piano concertos to critical acclaim. Distinctions include Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and top marks from the Italian magazine Musica and the German website Klassik-Heute.de, and performances have been described as ‘electrifying’ (classicfm.com), ‘absolutely stunning’ (Fanfare) and ‘a Beethoven experience you will not want to miss’ (ClassicsToday.com). For the final release in their cycle, Sudbin and Vänskä have travelled to Helsinki to team up with Tapiola Sinfonietta, one of the top Nordic ensembles, and well suited for these earlier and more classical of Beethoven’s concertos. Of the two, the one we now know as the Second was actually begun several years before Concerto No. 1, and indeed even before Beethoven left Bonn for Vienna. During the following decade, Beethoven returned to the score repeatedly and made substantial revisions – including composing a new final movement – and ultimately the C major concerto reached publication first. Both concertos were conceived long before Beethoven's involvement with the symphonic genre, and the influence of Mozart and Haydn is evident in the interaction between the orchestra and the soloist – but Beethoven's individual spirit is nevertheless unmistakeable.
Beethoven: The Complete Variations, Bagatelles & Clavierstucke / Brautigam
BIS
SACD
$59.99Sep 20, 2019
Between 2003 and 2015, Ronald Brautigam recorded all of Beethoven’s music for solo piano – a huge undertaking resulting in a grand total of 15 highly acclaimed albums. Choosing to perform the works on the fortepiano, Brautigam began with a sonata cycle which caused one reviewer to talk of a challenge to ‘the very notion of playing this music on modern instruments, a stylistic paradigm shift.’ In 2010, after nine albums of sonatas, he went on to record the composer’s variations, bagatelles and other piano pieces – a staggering array of works ranging from a Bagatelle lasting 11 seconds to the monumental Diabelli Variations, and from a charming Rondo in C major composed by a 13-year old Beethoven, to what is often referred to as the composer's ‘Last Musical Thought’, an Andante maestoso dated 1826. Brautigam’s sonata recordings were released in a box set in 2014, and they are now followed by this 6-album set of the remaining works for solo piano, in the original hybrid format, and with full documentation in the form of the original booklets. Composed over the course of more than 40 years, the music is performed on three different instruments, all by the master builder Paul McNulty, demonstrating the rapid development that the fortepiano underwent during Beethoven’s lifetime.
REVIEWS:
This is a wonderful set, in which Ronald Brautigam excels in his conclusion to his survey of the complete solo piano music of Beethoven. I appreciate that some people do not like the sound of the fortepiano, but the instruments chosen for this set and edition as a whole, show the breadth of sound that was available at the time, and some people will be surprised by just how full a sound it is. Brautigam’s choice of tempos is well-measured and thoughtful, and his playing is nuanced throughout, resulting in this set being one that I have found difficult to take off my CD player. The performances certainly mark Brautigam out as a leading interpreter of Beethoven’s music regardless of the style and type of piano used.
– MusicWeb International
Brautigam’s fortepiano survey is magnificent, comprising four full discs of variations (including Eroica and Diabelli), the complete bagatelles, rondos and other miscellaneous pieces. Disc 1 begins with a charming rendition of the Op 33 set followed by a tranche of pieces dating mainly from the 1790s; the late sets Opp 119 and 126 are delivered with a sense of simplicity that can only come from depth of knowledge.
Haydn: The Creation / Christophers, Handel & Haydn Society
Coro
CD
$32.99Sep 28, 2015
Inspired by Haydn's trips to England, where he first heard Handel's oratorios, The Creation is widely considered Haydn's crowning masterpiece. Set for three vocal soloists, four-part chorus, and a large Classical orchestra, there seems little doubt that Haydn wanted a big sound (by the standard of his day) for this work. Based on both the biblical Book of Genesis and Milton's Paradise Lost, the oratorio was premiered in the US by the Handel and Haydn Society in 1819. Harry Christophers says: "Haydn's music is always a joy to perform but with The Creation he excels himself, allowing soloists, chorus and period orchestra to revel in vivid word painting, both vocal and instrumental. Can there be a more consistently happy work than The Creation? Feel free to smile at his genius." Handel and Haydn Society is America's oldest continuously operating arts organization.
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REVIEW:
An exceptional account of the oratorio from all points of view. What is wholly exceptional is the diction of both soloists and choir; you can hear every word without referring to the text printed in the booklet.
MOZART Clarinet Concerto.1 Trio for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, K 498 “Kegelstatt”2. Allegro for Clarinet and String Quartet, K Anh 91 (516c)3 • Martin Fröst (cl); 1cond; 2Antoine Tamestit (va); 2Leif Ove Andsnes (pn); 3Janine Jansen, 3Boris Brovtsyn (vn); 3Maxim Rysanov (va); 3Torleif Thedéen (vc); 1Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen • BIS 1893 (SACD: 53:43)
This is Martin Fröst’s second take on the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, recorded some decade after his first bestselling album. He here performs the Concerto, as in his first take, on a basset clarinet. Rather than including the Clarinet Quintet—the standard offering on most albums and his choice for his first disc—Fröst has brought together an array of artists and recorded two other chamber works: the “Kegelstatt” Trio for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano, and the fragmentary Allegro for Clarinet and String Quartet, which was completed only in the 1960s by Robert Levin. Fröst here also follows the path of many a pianist nowadays and chooses to conduct the orchestra himself in the Concerto. It is obviously a work he knows inside and out and loves deeply, as his simple yet heartfelt way with the piece shows. In some ways he sees the piece ever more inwardly speaking than he did his first time around. Though he may be one of the most technically proficient players of his instrument around today, and the ease of his performances is at times bewildering, this should not be confused with emotional distance. His Mozart Concerto sings occasionally, but more often it speaks: the first lone appearance of the instrument seems to grieve over some great loss, the sighing motives made palpable by his ever careful phrasing of them—and this all in the bright key of A Major! His full attention to details of articulation, his use of orchestral swelling to add tension (sometimes a bit much for my taste), and his ability to color his line differently than the orchestra all add to the overall interest in the movement. The Adagio which follows is perhaps even more inward looking than the first, yet it reveals that glimmer of hope that will be fulfilled in the final lighter-hearted, almost bubbling Rondo.
The mood is perfectly set for the more intimate nature of the “Kegelstatt” Trio. Joined by pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and violist Antoine Tamestit, here Fröst and company adopt a much more lyrical, singing approach to the work than that taken in the Concerto, though the energy at times feels a bit low—once again a mellow, inward-looking approach is taken. And though one may quibble about certain details, this is spectacular chamber playing, as just a quick glance at the final Rondo will show: each and every lyrical phrase is carefully performed and thoughtfully answered, producing a wonderful sense of give and take, a palpable sense of dialogue. The small Allegro for Clarinet and String Quartet, of which Mozart left an entire exposition, carefully and tastefully completed by Levin, makes for a fine encore to the recital. The energy that the players bring, along with their fine sense of stylistic matters in terms of articulation, instrumental balance, and gracefulness all add to the overall joie de vivre.
Perhaps my biggest complaint is that this recording gives us only 53 minutes of music; were it not for the final fragmentary Allegro recorded here, or even if a few repeats were to be left out in the mix of movements throughout the recital, the entire Clarinet Quintet could also have fit onto the current recording, and with a stellar roster to perform it! And yet the performances themselves—recorded in spectacularly vivid SACD sound, making one’s home feel like a concert hall—make one forget one’s prejudices about such trivialities. So the real question should be: which Fröst/Mozart should you go for? At least one, and that might depend more on how you like it served: with a side of Clarinet Quintet or a “Kegelstatt” Trio. Either way, you’re in for a treat.
Grammy Award winner Jason Vieaux joins forces with the esteemed Escher Quartet to produce a recording with some new and old works with dance themes in common. These three works may share elements of dance-inspired music, and contain actual allusions to specific dances in the titles (or expressive markings) of certain movements, but that is where the similarities end. These guitar quintets, all from very different periods, couldn’t be any more different from each other in style, timbre, texture and dynamics. They show the musical range and flexibility of the guitar within a more traditional chamber music group setting.
At the tender age of nine, Felix Klieser dreamed of being able to play Mozart's horn concertos. Today, 18 years later, that dream has finally come true and Felix Klieser now performs on the world's foremost concert stages, playing the very works which are part of any horn player's core repertoire. Yet he took his time before recording all four of Mozart's horn concertos: only after releasing three successful albums and winning an ECHO Klassik award and the Leonard Bernstein Award did he go to Salzburg, in September 2018, to record them with the famous Camerata Salzburg ensemble. Now, the results of that labor are presented on this stunning release.
It was Robert Schumann who praised the Anglo-French Georges Onslow, alongside Mendelssohn, as one of the successors to the chamber music legacy of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. His string quintets were intended for a market of cultivated amateurs, with parts for a second cello or bass. No. 10 in F minor, Op. 32 reflects Beethoven’s influence, its Sturm und Drang elements revealing a masterly balance between the stable and unpredictable. No. 22 in E flat major, lively and playful, offers an almost Schubertian songfulness. Of the first volume, Gramphone wrote: ‘these five players make a beguiling case for this music.’ The combination of string quartet with double bass has opened up a richness of tone and distinct soundscape that the Elan Quintet has dedicated to exploring, celebrating works by renowned composers such as Schubert, Dvorak and Cambini, working with contemporary artists in creating new works for quintet, and rediscovering neglected masterpieces by composers including Onslow and Bridge. The members of the Elan Quintet, Benjamin Scherer Quesada, Lelia Iancovici, Julia Chu-Ying Hu, Dmitri Tsirin, and Matthew Baker, formed the ensemble in Valencia in 2014 having worked with each other extensively in the opera orchestra of the Palau de les Arts as well as in masterclasses and in chamber music.
This new IDIS releases presents a series of rare Narciso Rodriguez recordings performed before the international definitive affirmation of his career that made him the most famous guitarist in the world after Segovia. The album is opened by a real pearl: Bach Ciaccona studio recorded in 1959 and presented in a personal transcription done by Rodriguez which is entirely different from Segovia's rendition. The present release also features the Haydn Quartetto in Re maggiore recorded in 1960 alongside the Quarteto Clasico de Madrid and a rare and wonderful interpretation of Manuel Palau's Concierto levantino. This is truly do not miss album for any true fans of Spanish guitar.
