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.
Robert Schumann composed the Op. 47 Piano Quartet in E flat major in his so-called ‘chamber music year’ of 1842, immediately after finishing the famous piano quintet in the same key. Despite the proximity in time and tonality, there are clear differences between the two works: the quintet tends more towards a concertante dialogue between the piano and string quartet while the quartet favours equality between the four parts – even if the cello has something of a leading role among the strings. Some ten years later, the young Johannes Brahms was entrusted with the task of making a piano four-hands arrangement of the quartet, and it is quite possible that this contact with Schumann’s chamber music for piano and strings opened his eyes to the potential of the genre. In any case, with its almost inexhaustible motivic abundance and captivating energy Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F minor, Op.34, is one of the most often performed works for these forces. Completed in 1864 it had actually started off as a string quintet which Brahms first reworked as a sonata for two pianos before arriving at the final scoring. Performing these two central works in 19th century chamber music is Yevgeny Sudbin and an international group of eminent string players consisting of violinists Hrachya Avanesyan and Boris Brovtsyn, violist Diemut Poppen and cellist Alexander Chaushian.
REVIEW:
There’s no lack of personalities on display here. Here we have a band of equals. The players are thrillingly daring in the Scherzo of the Schumann, taken at breakneck tempo with fizzing accents, but though you suspect that Sudbin is the ringleader here, there’s plenty of give and take within the group.
Seen as the successor to Beethoven by many of his contemporaries, Johannes Brahms combined traditional form with an originality o fmusical language that has inspired generations of composers. His two string quintets are, like Mozart's, scored with two violas for richness of texture and harmonic depth. The positive mood of the First String Quintet reflects the sunny resort of Bad Ischl where Brahms composed during the spring of 1882, while his Second String Quintet combines symphonic breadth with nostalgic melancholy in what was originally intended to be his final chamber work. Formed in 1987, the New Zealand String Quartet has established a distinguished international reputation over the past three decades. The ensemble's discography includes all the quartets by Mendelssohn, Bartok and Berg, and this recording completes their three albums of Brahms chamber music for Naxos.
The Art Of Transcription: J.S. Bach Arrangements For String Trio By Dmitry Sitkovetsky
Nimbus
CD
$16.99Jul 01, 2012
When I first wrote my transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for String Trio, in 1984, it was both a labour of love and an obsession with the 1981 Glenn Gould recording. For two months I probably had the time of my life, musically speaking, being in the constant company of Johann Sebastian Bach and Glenn Gould.
Generally, at that time, transcriptions were out of fashion and I recall that my own colleagues and managers were sceptical about such an audacious idea.
Since then my transcriptions have been played all over the world, and moreover they have opened the floodgates of new interpretive possibilities for the piece which have included solo harp, wind instruments of all kinds, saxophone quartets, Renaissance viols and even a fascinating concoction of Uri Caine, among many others.
By the time 2009 arrived I felt that this was the right moment to re-visit and somewhat re-examine my original transcription. It was 25 years after the piece was first transcribed, I had performed it many times and heard different adaptations of it, so I felt the need to return to a simpler version with hardly any repeats at all.
I have made some changes in orchestration, probably influenced by my String Orchestra transcription of 1992, but most of all I tried to inject some fresh, youthful energy to propel the piece from the beginning to end. As a result there was still room left for my old/new friends, 15 Sinfonias, which have always been in my mind to be played and recorded, and this was a welcome bonus for me and my talented young colleagues, Yuri Zhislin and Luigi Piovano.
I hope listeners will share in my life-long journey through the Goldberg Variations and my love of the music, indeed in the very first publication of the Variations, in 1742, J. S. Bach states that the spirit of the piece is “for the enjoyment of music lovers”.
English Music For Viola / Matthew Jones, Michael Hampton
Naxos
CD
$19.99Feb 22, 2011
The fortunes of the viola as a solo instrument enjoyed a remarkable upsurge during the first half of the 20th Century. Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata ranks among her finest compositions while Frank Bridge’s Four Pieces convey both melodic charm and elegiac warmth. Theodore Holland’s appealing Suite exploits the viola’s tender tones and jaunty potential. Arthur Bliss’s Intermezzo, transcribed from his Piano Quartet and William Walton’s Canzonetta and Scherzetto, originally for violin, complement Arnold Bax’s haunting Legend and Vaughan Williams’s posthumously performed Romance. Matthew Jones has been hailed by The Strad magazine as ‘a worthy successor to Lionel Tertis’. A major prize-winner from the Royal College of Music, Michael Hampton performs on major stages around the world.
Voices From The Past: Bela Bartok's 44 Duos & Original Field Recordings
Tantara Records
CD
$18.99May 27, 2014
"•Containing both the old and the new, this album features not only Béla Bartók’s 44 Duos but also all the existing original field recordings made by Bartók in the early 20th century of the folk music that inspired them.
• The purpose of this albumis to connect the listener to these original folk melodies.
• The field recordings appear here—for the first time together on one album—with permission from the varied sources that house them in Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary."
Faure: Piano Quartet No 1, Piano Trio, Pavane / Dukes, Kungsbacka Trio
Naxos
CD
$19.99Oct 29, 2013
Gabriel Fauré’s musical language bridges a gap between the romanticism of the 19th century and the new worlds of music which appeared in the 20th, employing subtle harmonic changes and a gift for melody to combine innovation with an entirely personal idiom. His First Piano Quartet is filled with characteristic French colour and lyricism, and the Piano Trio in D minor is a late work whose musical language is familiar from his songs. Both the Pavane and the popular Sicilienne express nostalgia for earlier times, and the short Pièce has great simplicity and charm.
Like so many composers, Sir Arnold Bax is known by only a fragment of his large output of music. Chief among the neglected areas of his achievement is the chamber music, which is certainly less frequently performed and recorded than his richly romantic orchestral scores.
Therefore it is good to find these viola pieces coupled in an appealing budget release from Naxos, pleasingly recorded by a particular talented player and his colleagues. Bax enjoyed an enduring friendship with the great Lionel Tertis (subject of a recently published biography by John White), and the substantial Sonata of 1922 is one of his finest compositions in any genre. The opening makes an arresting impression, at once atmospheric and expressive, while the scherzo is particularly exciting rhythmically. Martin Outram plays with warm expressiveness and a suitably rich tone, while Julian Rolton on the piano is recorded in just the right balance of perspective.
There is no question that the Viola Sonata ranks as the most significant composition among those collected here, and it is worth the price of the disc on its own. Alternative recordings are not numerous, and the most interesting is probably from Biddulph (LAB 148, mono) by the legendary William Primrose, accompanied by Harriet Cohen, famous for her relationship with the composer. However, the historical interest needs to be offset against the distinct lack of bloom of the pre-war recording. Earlier still, the composer and Lionel Tertis recorded the piece in 1929, though their version has remained out of the catalogue for several years.
That same year of 1929 Bax composed the Legend for viola and piano, music of serious and nostalgic character which finds him at his most darkly expressive. The other items, the Concert Piece for viola and piano, and the Trio for violin, viola and piano, are both early works, written well before the First World War. The latter is the more substantial of the two, and must rate as one of the strongest compositions from this phase of Bax’s creative life.
Benjamin Britten was a viola player as well as a pianist and wrote a significant body of chamber music for stringed instruments. The works on this recording - which contains important world premiere recordings - were written between 1925 and 1937, with the exception of the masterpiece for viola, Lachrymae. Each reveals some characteristic aspect of Britten's voice, from the variety and wit of the Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 6 to the little-known but absorbingly imaginative Reveille and the remarkably assured 1930 Elegy, written when he was just seventeen.
