The 12 Transcendental Etudes are the ultimate test of quasi-orchestral virtuosity and of the capacity to achieve nobility and true eloquence. Jandó perhaps lacks diabolic frisson in the more ferocious numbers but his performances, overall, aren't disfigured by willful, sensational attributes or hysteria. No-1 is an impressive, dramatically pointed, curtain-raiser, and he can hell-raise with assurance in 'Mazeppa'. His 'Feux follets' hardly sparks with the brilliance of, say, some of the full-blooded accounts of certain Russian artists, but even when it hardly modulates from study to tone-poem it's still more than capable (higher praise than you might think where such intricacy is concerned). He flashes an impressive rapier at the start of 'Eroica' and there's plenty of swagger and facility in the so-called 'Appassionata' étude. 'Chasse-neige', too, proceeds with a fine sense of it's menacing start to a howling, elemental uproar before returning to distant thunder. Jandó is less assured in introspection, yet it has to be said that all-encompassing versions of the Transcendental Etudes are hard to come by. Jandó is impressively recorded.

"The Bridge disc features the expert New York chamber group Speculum Musicae, and has an attractive rarity as opener, the Three Poems of Robert Frost, composed in 1942 when Carter was still an obedient, highly effective adherent of the 'open-air' Coplandesque style, but orchestrated with exuberant resourcefulness as recently as 1980...The account of Syringa (1978), the most complex and hermetic of the vocal works, with its superimposition of the soprano's Robert Ashbery poem on a collection of ancient Greek texts sung by the bass, may strike listeners (and especially attentive score-readers) as more careful than inspired. But as it proceeds it conveys the spirit of the work's intricate yet impassioned enquiry into the sources and spaces of creativity very well. Momentum is maintained, and the instrumental detail is clear and precise.

A Mirror on which to Dwell (1976) is less ambitious, though these settings of six poems by Elizabeth Bishop are marvellously refined in sonority the vocal line ranging from lingering lyricism to subtly-patterned declamation. Christine Schadeberg characterizes the texts alertly, especially the tricky syntax of ''O Breath''...

It is indeed gratifying to find record companies so prompt in acknowledging the importance of the Carter phenomenon, and with performances that, if not always ideal in every respect, are for the most part worthy of this extraordinary music."

-- Arnold Whittall, Gramophone [2/1990]

Beethoven's Sonatas Probably the best known of Beethoven's sonatas are the Pathetique, Moonlight and Appassionata. Only the first name was given by the composer. The Moonlight Sonata has it's name from the inspiration of the poet Rellstab (whose verses were to be set to music by Schubert). Writing in 1832 he likened the sonata to the wild scenery bordering Lake Lucerne, seen from a boat by moonlight. The French romantic composer Berlioz, on the other hand, preferred to see sunlight in the sonata, and other writers have been equally imaginative. Sonata No.8 in C Minor, Op. 13 "Pathetique" The Sonata pathetique was written in 1798 and 1799, and was published in the latter year with a dedication to Prince Lichnowsky, the nobleman who had travelled to the court of Berlin with Mozart in 1789. The work, Opus 13, is in C Minor, and is described as a "Grande" Sonata, music suitable for public performance by the composer, who was at this time one of the most distinguished keyboard-players in Vienna. Sonata No.14 in C Sharp Minor 'quasi una fantasia' Op. 27, No.2 "Moonlight" The Moonlight Sonata is more properly described by it's title Sonata quasi una fantasia, Opus 27 No.1, in the key of C Sharp Minor. The imaginative writer Arnold Schering, already referred to, found a literary parallel with Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, but others have chosen to find in the sonata romantic notions of a different kind. It was completed in 1801, and dedicated, at the last minute, to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, a young pupil of Beethoven. Sonata No.23 in F Minor, Op. 57 "Appassionata" Sonata in F Minor, Opus 57, the Appassionata, was considered by Beethoven to be among his best piano sonatas. It's nick-name, although not chosen by the com- poser, is an apt one, although Schering's parallel with Shakespeare's MacBeth may appeal to us less. Dedicated to the Countess of Brunswick, the sonata was completed in 1805 and published two years later.