This album is, simply, a necessary addition to the Busoni discography, carried off with panache. A studio recording, sound is uncramped, gutsily close, and incisively detailed. Sine qua non for the Busoni aficionado, and enthusiastically recommended to all who care for the literature of the piano.

- Adrian Corleonis Fanfare (From review of Capriccio 10896 which contains the same performances.)

This is an excellent Delius collection, as interesting for the repertoire as for the high quality of the performances. There are some real novelties here, including the American Rhapsody (later to become Appalachia in its expanded version) and the first recordings of Three Small Tone Poems, only one of which--Summer Evening--is at all well known. Sleigh Ride appears under its original title, Winter Night, as the centerpiece of the triptych, while Spring Morning wasn't even published until the late 1980s. So what we wind up with is three quarters of a Delian Four Seasons, with Spring Morning a wholly characteristic essay in the composer's early "Grieg meets Debussy" style.


As for the remaining items, The Walk to the Paradise Garden receives a beautifully flowing, ecstatic reading from Lloyd-Jones, while Two Pieces for Small Orchestra ("On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" and "Summer Night on the River") benefit from fine wind playing and tempos that never let the music meander excessively. A Song before Sunrise and Delius' last completed (with Eric Fenby's help) orchestral work, Fantastic Dance, complete this well-planned, career-spanning collection. Naxos' sonics rank with the finest work on the label, as is usually the case with its Glasgow recordings. Strongly recommended both for the novelties as well as for the more popular items.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

With this release continues the publication of Marco Enrico Bossi's opera omnia for organ. Here we have more transcriptions of various authors such as Handel, Wagner, Debussy and Saint Saens that deeply fascinated Marco Enrico Bossi in his personal discovery of symphonic and chamber music. For this work Andrea Macinanti uses an important historical instrument: the Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Saint-Antoine des Quinze-Vingts Church in Paris, an instrument specifically built in 1894 for the very wealthy Albert de l'Epée baron for performing Wagner transcriptions that, same as Marco Enrico Bossi, the baron passionately loved. Andrea Macinanti was born in Bologna in 1958. He attained diplomas in organ, harpsichord and voice from the Bologna and Parma Conservatories, and completed his studies with Klemens Schnorr in Munich. He obtained a first class degree in the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at the University of Bologna. He has recorded numerous albums; the most successful include recordings for two organs (with Francesco Tasini) and others released on the TACTUS label of the complete organ works by Ottorino Respighi and Goffredo Giarda, as well as previous recordings of Marco Enrico Bossi.

KREISLER String Quartet in a 1. ZIMBALIST String Quartet in e 1. YSAŸE Harmonies du soir 2 • 1,2 Fine Arts Qrt; 2 Otis Klöber, cond; 2 Members of Europe PO • NAXOS 8.572559 (71:36)


Two of the works on this disc—Zimbalist’s String Quartet and Ysaÿe’s Harmonies du soir —are premiere recordings. While it’s conceivable that someone reading this review could have heard Ysaÿe in concert toward the end of his career—he died in 1931—it’s more likely that readers will be more familiar with the great violinist as a composer, many of whose works, particularly his six sonatas for solo violin, have survived him to become standard repertoire pieces.


With Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962) and Efrem Zimbalist (1890–1985) the situation is somewhat reversed. More than a few readers, I suspect, will have heard them play, at least on record if not in person. Their compositional output, however, was either slim in the case of Zimbalist or, in Kreisler’s case, consisting of a collection of salon pieces, cadenzas to other composers’ concertos, and a number of hoaxes perpetrated under the names of actual Baroque composers.


Kreisler did, nonetheless, make at least one attempt at writing a serious, multimovement, classically-styled work, the String Quartet in A Minor heard on the present disc. He wrote it in 1919, and it displays both considerable craft and familiarity with the musical trends of the time, which is to say it’s a beautifully written piece with nary an original idea. The first movement, titled Fantasia, is a dead ringer for César Franck’s 1889 D-Major String Quartet. The second movement, a scherzo, is positively Mendelssohnian. The lovely Romanze returns to a Franck-Fauré-Debussy idiom, while the finale, titled “Retrospection,” takes on the character of some of Kreisler’s lighter salon pieces. It’s a sort of Caprice viennois flirting with a Fuchs serenade.


Zimbalist thought enough of his 1931 E-Minor String Quartet to revise it in 1959. It too, like Kreisler’s quartet, is a model of superbly crafted string writing, but differs considerably from it in style. Where Kreisler synthesized his score from the musical vocabularies of composers and their works that were roughly contemporaneous in 1919 when he wrote it, Zimbalist looks back for his inspiration to the closing decade of the 19th century and first decade of the 20th, and specifically to his Russian roots in the music of Arensky, Glazunov, and Sergei Taneyev. In other words, Zimbalist’s quartet is a throwback to an earlier period and style, one that is very romantic and very Russian sounding.


Ysaÿe’s Harmonies du soir is an unusual hybrid of a piece scored for string quartet and string orchestra. Written in 1924, it’s a fairly late entry in the composer’s catalog, described in Roy Malan’s program note as “a sensuously chromatic journey through thickly textured emotions and colors finally leading, by restlessly climbing motifs, to a glorious sunrise in C.” To my ear, the piece resembles early Schoenberg; Transfigured Night could well be its mother. The only documented public performance was given by the Columbia University Strings in New York in 1979.


As noted, the Zimbalist and Ysaÿe pieces are firsts on disc, and while both are quite attractive, I’d be surprised to see seconds anytime soon. Luckily, both scores find themselves in excellent hands with the Fine Arts Quartet and, in the Ysaÿe, joined by the string section of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Europe led by Otis Klöber.


Kreisler’s quartet has been previously recorded, most notably by Kreisler himself with an ensemble that also included violist William Primrose. That recording, however, appears to be available only in a 10-CD EMI set that gathers a multitude of concerto and sonata recordings featuring Kreisler in his capacity as violinist.


The performances on the current Naxos CD are top-notch, as is the recording. The three works are appealing enough and certainly of sufficient interest to warrant recommendation, especially given a release so affordably priced.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

MUSIC WEB INTERNATIONAL::


Igor Stravinsky memorably described Rachmaninov as ‘six-foot-six of Russian gloom’, and that description fits admirably, and at the same time magnificently, with this music. It arose out of Rachmaninov’s admiration for Tchaikovsky. For Tchaikovsky’s only Piano Trio, his Op. 50, had been dedicated ‘to the memory of a great artist’: Nikolai Rubinstein. Rachmaninov gave his Trio élégiaque of 1893 the same dedication; now the ‘great artist’ was Tchaikovsky himself. The young Rachmaninov was already making his mark on Russian musical life, as both prodigious pianist and talented composer. The dedication of the Trio is a reflection of the strong impression he had made on Tchaikovsky, the composer of the previous generation whom Rachmaninov most admired.


The Trio is arguably the finest achievement of Rachmaninov’s earlier career: the period before his breakdown following the disastrous premiere of the First Symphony. It was preceded by another piece of the same name and for the same instrumental combination; but in every way, in both scale and conception, the earlier work is a pale imitation of the later.


Naxos couple these two trios in a sensible combination that gives commercial value as well as artistic integrity. The performers seem ideal, and so too the recorded sound from that favourite venue for Naxos: Potton Hall in Suffolk. The Trio No. 1 is a work of sensitive emotion and admirable intellectual command, but the music lacks the vision and with it the truly epic commitment of the Op. 9 Trio of 1893. The latter is still an early work, and it is true that Rachmaninov returned to it fourteen years later to revise it in the light of a more sophisticated technique. Be that as it may, there is a complete integrity of design and an associated command of structure, and its every bar conveys an eloquent immediacy of emotion.


Of course the performers need bring their own vision to chamber music that is built on such an ambitious scale. This Russian trio of Grohovski, Wulfson and Yablonski combine to achieve eloquence of line and intensity of expression, a performance that is founded upon techniques of the utmost assurance. Their interpretation is captured in an acoustic whose warmth serves the music well. Make no mistake; this is one of the most successful recordings of chamber music one could wish to encounter, and to have it available at budget price is a cause for celebration.

Terry Barfoot, Music Web International

"From a seemingly unlikely source comes a project that must be rated a serious contender for record of the year. Charles Bruffy and the Kansas City Chorale...take on Rakhmaninov's sizable Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom with wonderful results. The chorus is everywhere remarkable, especially the basses, who prove fearless in approaching low-lying notes tailor-made for cavernous Russian basses."

-- New York Times

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Another disc of absolutely stunning quality from the Kansas City Chorale and their clearly inspirational conductor Charles Bruffy. I have written elsewhere of the extraordinary control and tonal blend that this choir achieves and those qualities are amply on display here. But to think that technique is a substitute for passion and power would be quite wrong because they are present in abundance too.
 
Although far from rare in the CD catalogues now, Rachmaninov’s two great settings of the Russian Liturgy; the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom Op.31 and the All-night Vigil Op.37 still come as something of a surprise to listeners brought up on Brief-Encounter Piano Concertos. Both these settings are big pieces; the work currently under review running to over an hour and a half. As an opus it sits with Isle of the Dead and the Piano Concerto No.3 before and the first sets of Piano Preludes and Études-Tableaux afterwards. So this can be seen as being central in a period of great musical fertility. I am far from being expert on the subtleties of the way in which the Russian liturgy is set. But from my position of textual ignorance this is quite glorious. Other recordings I have heard have always been performed by Eastern European choirs recorded in cavernous basilicas where the great booming resonance adds to the religious theatricality implicit in the music. Prior to listening to this recording I have to admit that I wondered if a small professional choir from the Midwest United States would be able to emulate this sound-world. I need not have worried – again I cannot speak about how idiomatic their Russian pronunciation is – but the fervour and ecstatic quality to the singing is all I could have hoped for. Normally, the choir consists of just 24 voices split into four even groups. Wisely I think, for this recording, they have drafted in an additional three bass voices as well as having the extensive Protodeacon solos taken by Father Andre Papkov who is a long-time expert in the music of the Russian Orthodox Church. Also, the three recordings I have heard by the choir have each been made in a different Kansas Church. It sounds as if the present venue for this recording has been chosen to mimic the longer resonance mentioned above. Whether that is a function of the venue or the engineering or both I think it is a wise choice and one that works very well. My other concern was the scale of the choir. The composition was conceived with the Moscow Synodal Choir in mind. This comprised 50 boys and 30 men – not far off three times the size of the choir here and significantly with no women’s voices. I am sure that for some the all-male choir would be authentically essential but when the upper parts are sung with the purity and sheer tonal beauty as they are here it’s a trade-off I am happy to make. Also, there is no lack of power when the music requires.
 
I find it very hard to select movements let alone moments in this performance that are highlights – the inspiration and execution run at a high level throughout. One thought I would share is the brilliance with which the choir adapt their internal balance between sections. Take the very opening of the first disc, over the calls to prayer from the Deacon and Celebrant the choir intone ‘Lord have mercy’ – Papkov’s sepulchral bass is supremely evocative but it is the blend of the main choir that amazes me every time I return to it. It grows from the lower lines – a prayer gradually ascending from the depths of darkness and doubt. As the higher voices are gradually added there is a glorious unfurling and widening of the choral range yet nothing is forced there is a natural evolution that is hypnotically compelling. Or try the second movement Bless the Lord, O My Soul. Here it is the alto line which carries the melody initially. The way the sopranos create a halo of light around the lead line and the bass provides the firmest and deepest of supports is breathtaking. The engineering and production by Nimbus’s unnamed team is exemplary – the atmosphere for this kind of work perfectly captured and the voices of the soloists placed ideally within the main choral group. The resonance of the St. John’s Centre in Kansas is clearly present without blurring detail. Part of the theatricality of this music is when great waves of choral exalting wash and blur over the succeeding wave – try 1:30 into the Little Liturgy (track 3) and you will hear what I mean.
 
It is not a mode of listening to music that I often promote – but this is such a life-enhancing, spirit-lifting disc that listened to in the quiet of an evening in a room with the lights turned down it is heaven on earth as far as I am concerned. I have been listening to a sequence of Nimbus discs recently and it has struck me how consistently high their production and presentation values are. A case in point with this disc; a superbly performed disc of fascinating repertoire, supported by discreetly excellent engineering. But this is aided and supported by presentation that includes a really excellent essay by Vladimir Morosan who is an expert on Rachmaninov’s sacred choral music. I am sure I am not alone in finding that part of the whole home-listening experience is having a good detailed liner-note to read to complement the performance. Now here I’m getting into rather more retentive issues; I do like the fact that Nimbus print their booklets on high quality paper! I know it does not really matter a jot but I appreciate it! A tiny quirk though; I wonder why the text was given in English only? A transliteration at least would have helped the non-Russian-speaking listener keep a closer track on where exactly we were in the liturgy at any given moment.
 
There are several fine other recordings available but this pair of discs will grace any collection. For those with an interest in sacred music or just choral singing of the very highest order this is a most beautiful if not essential recording.
 
-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International

Nearly 80 minutes of Elgar in march tempo many be a bit much at a single sitting, but this disc fills a useful niche. The most interesting work here is the symphonic prelude Polonia, dedicated to Paderewski, and composed during the First World War. Making use of various Polish melodies (including music by Paderewski and Chopin), at nearly fifteen minutes it's a major statement for a mere "occasional" work, and the only reason I can think of that it isn't better known is that it's not about England so no one especially cares. James Judd and the New Zealand Symphony play it very well, as they also do the Pomp and Circumstances Marches. Frankly, you can have your Boults and Barbirollis: compared to Judd they sound far less involved. He actually has interesting ideas about phrasing (listen to how he drives the opening of March No. 2), and makes a persuasive case for this music as music, rather than as a high school graduation exercise or some other mundane event.


The Coronation March and the Funeral March from Grania and Diarmid are also bigger than their titles might suggest, the first as reflective as it is opulent, the second really a brief, elegiac tone poem. It's a bit hard to get excited about either the Empire March or the March from Caractacus, and the March of the Mogul Emperors (from The Crown of India Suite) could crash and bash with more abandon (where is the tam-tam?), but there's certainly enough here to whet the appetite of committed Elgarians. The sonics are also quite good: a touch low-level, perhaps, but easily adjustable, with plenty of room to expand and good bass separation between timpani, bass drum, and organ pedals (which are well caught but not overbearing). In short, this is another successful collaboration between Judd and the New Zealanders--long may they continue.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

“I have always viewed Dr. Weigl as one of the best composers of the old generation; one of those continuing the illustrious Viennese tradition.” (Arnold Schönberg) In terms of style, with his works linked to basic tonalities, Weigl drew on the sound realm of late Romanticism, from whose aesthetics he never departed in favor of more progressive contemporary trends. The Symphony No. 1 in E major op. 5, written in 1908, is also far removed from any avant-garde experiments in the Romantic tradition, as epitomized among the Austrian composers of that time in the field of the symphony by composers such as Alexander von Zemlinsky, Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek or Franz Schmidt. On this release, the work is performed by the formidable Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz under the baton of Jurgen Bruns.

The greatest Czech artists have recorded this music, but they yield surprisingly little to JoAnn Falletta and her Buffalo players. If perhaps the winds aren't quite as characterful as their Bohemian colleagues, Falletta ensures that the performances have just as much energy and rhythmic snap. In Fairy Tale, a gorgeously romantic work as substantial as a symphony, The Game of Swans and Peacocks has all the bounce of a Slavonic Dance, while the large outer movements are beautifully shaped and exquisitely played.

Just as Fairy Tale might pass for a four-movement symphony, so the Fantasy is every bit as serious and cogent as a major violin concerto (though it has only one long movement). It's as big as, say, the Bruch G minor, perfectly proportioned, and like all of the music on this disc its neglect is simply incomprehensible. Michael Ludwig remains an impressive soloist; he has a big enough tone to do the lyrical moments justice, and plenty of dexterity in the flashy bits. He and Falletta make the ending memorably exciting.

The Fantastic Scherzo is a masterpiece of atmosphere and melody--like so much of Suk's music, the bitter-sweetness of its main ideas will stay with you for days. It's quite wonderfully played here: crisp and lively. Really, Falletta's performance is as good as any, and extremely well recorded too. It's so important that this wonderful music gets played by non-native musicians; it's the only way that it stands a chance of entering the standard repertoire, where it so obviously ought to be. Projects like this deserve your support, and will reward your time and attention many times over. Strongly recommended.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Giuseppe Martucci was admired and appreciated by his contemporaries Franz Liszt and Anton Rubinstein, and was an outstanding performer and teacher, as well as composer. This new release presents his Sonata in fa diesis minore op. 52, Due romanze per violoncello con accompagnamento di pianoforte op. 72, and Tre pezzi per violoncello e pianoforte op. 69. Performing these works is cellist Jacopo Francini and pianist Alessandro Deljavan.

Alfano' chamber music is receiving deserved recognition. The Violin Sonata is a powerful and impressive work, with elements of French impressionism, but essentially post-romantic in ethos. The Piano Quintet was Alfano' last chamber work, premiered in 1946.

This fabulous recording features lesser known violin repertoire played with a keen advocacy.

This fabulous recording features lesser known violin repertoire, played with a keen advocacy by soloist Henning Kraggerud and Dalasinfoniettan. Excepting the works of Ole Bull, the remaining pieces were composed between 1910 and 1930. However, none of this music embraces the radically dissonant sounds found in Austrian-Germanic music of this period. Anyone with a love of Holst and Vaughan Williams, Grieg and J.P.E. Hartmann will positively revel in this repertoire.

The CD opens with six modestly arranged Norwegian folksongs by Carl Olsen. The first movement begins with violin alone, played here with great sensitivity and refinement. Olsen ensure that even when the orchestra enters, the melody always stands out, keeping the harmonic writing fairly simple so that it compliments, rather than competes, with the melody. Throughout these songs, Kraggerud’s sound is burnished and rich, varying his vibrato to give greater shape and ardor to his phrasing, while the orchestra led by Bjarte Engeset, prove to be equally sensitive partners.

Atterberg’s Suite No. 3 was originally intended for a violin and viola soloist; this arrangement, for two violins, is its premiere recording. Both solo parts are played by Kraggerud, and while there is nothing to fault in his playing or in the engineer’s dubbing, I found myself resistant to this idea, as I would have liked to hear him interact with another player. Nevertheless, the playing is stunningly beautiful, the forlorn atmosphere of the first two movements gently dispelled by the final movement’s more uplifting waltz.

The Two Sentimental Romances very much reminded me of Vaughan Williams, in both their use of modes and constantly shifting textures. The first Romance, in A Major, is bright and inviting, a perfect evocation of a beautiful summer day, while the second F-minor Romance, marked Allegro patetico, brings greater intensity and a return to that forlorn atmosphere that many Nordic composers easily inhabit.

Ole Bull was considered the “Nordic Paganini”, well known not only for his great virtuosity but also his improvisational abilities. Memories of Havana was composed during Bull’s 1844 tour of Cuba. The score and solo part are lost, but a complete set of orchestral parts survives, so Kraggerud has reconstructed the solo part. The work’s structure is similar to Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsodies: several sections based on a national folk tune, connected by interlude material that is meant to give the listener (and performers) a break between moments of virtuosic writing. Mountain Vision features a tune by Bull that became incredibly popular in Norway, so much so that a text was written for the tune, called “The Herdgirl’s Sunday.” Similarly structured, the work includes not only includes Bull’s melody, but four other folk tunes. Both are performed with plenty of fire and beauty, without ever becoming over sentimentalized.

The final selections feature the music by the better known composers, Halvorsen, Sibelius and Sinding. Halvorsen’s Norwegian Dance No. 3, as the title suggests, is predominantly light-hearted and joyful in its outer sections, though the middle section features gentler, less rhythmic music that features a long-breathed, arching melody. Sibelius’s Six Humoresques express what the composer called “the sadness of living a life that was only occasionally illuminated by the sun”. These are performances of great sophistication and delicate beauty, more affecting that the rather heavy-handed treatment they receive in the Mutter/Staatskappelle/Previn 1996 DG recording.

Evening Mood clearly shows the influence of Sinding’s four years of study in Leipzig, featuring warmth of color that gently dispels the somewhat despondent mood of the previous Sibelius set, making for a satisfying hour plus of gorgeous music-making.

The recording itself is truly excellent, the soloist well integrated into the sound-picture. The engineers have fully captured the room’s warm ambience without any loss of clarity and there is a good front to back perspective. Notes are excellent and informative, but printed in a font size that might actually be in negative numbers. I look forward to more recordings from these performers.

David A. McConnell , MusicWeb International