The most recent and longest of the works heard here quite possibly makes the longest musical journey as well. The Clarinet Concerto (2001), subtitled Landscape with Blues, was commissioned by the IRIS Chamber Orchestra for Richard Stoltzman. In offering the commission, the orchestra's Executive Director, Albert Pertalion, asked for a work that might reflect in some way on the heritage of Mississippi Delta Blues. As the composer notes fondly, "he even took me on a whirlwind tour of blues country to get a feel for the birthplace of one of America's greatest musical traditions. From that trip, I took away an indelible sense of the countryside, the heat and humidity, the purple martens chasing mosquitoes at twilight". But in it's realization, the piece goes much farther afield than that. It starts in the West African nations of Senegal and The Gambia, or "Senegambia" as they are sometimes known, with their great musical story-telling tradition known as griot singing, audibly one of the roots of American blues. These audible links are heard in their repetitive accompaniment patterns and rhythmically free, declamatory vocal melodies that tend to begin high then work themselves down to a lower register. Here, Hartke casts the clarinet solo as the griot, with the woodwinds engaging in a sort of call and response chorus, all built over a repeated five-note bass line. The second movement, entitled Delta Nights recalls Hartke's impressions of the Delta, but just as importantly owes much to the novel, Train Whistle Guitar, by Albert Murray, about his boyhood in a small African-American community near the Delta during the heyday of the great itinerant bluesmen. Hartke writes: "In Delta Nights, the soloist evokes a blues harmonica wailing away in the night, and even the structure of the movement is loosely related to a series of blues choruses. Moreover, some of the soloist's turns of phrase are derived from the opening motive of Cool Drink of Water Blues by Tommy Johnson, one of my favorite bluesmen. But the predominant influence here was Murray's recollection of the excitement which fired his boyhood imagination, hearing the distant sound of blues music drifting across the fields from juke joints that he was too young to visit." The final movement, Philamayork, takes it's title from Albert Murray, a compound word he uses to denote the nearly mythical cities of the North, where blues had gone and become a hard-driving urban music. Here Hartke's own New York roots are most apparent, and the movement unfolds almost like a nightclub dance-set, starting with a blues, then a faster dance number, a slow torchy ballad and some travelling music at the finish.

I didn't at all take to Fleisher's account of Beethoven No. 3, but I must say that this is a most impressive and exciting account of the Emperor, aided and abetted by a wonderful accompaniment from Szell and his orchestra—and, I mustn't forget, by a most intelligently balanced recording.

Fleisher plays the first movement with splendid brio and the dash with which he gives out the opening flourishes is equalled by the orchestra's attack and energy when it starts the tutti. In one passage of brilliant semiquavers he tends to hurry very slightly, both times it comes, but in general his rhythm is excellent. There are, too, passages of most lovely liquid playing, a kind of brush of quiet sound, beautiful not only as sound but admirable in that they let woodwind solos come through without any forcing by the players. Fleisher is obviously always aware of what's going on in the orchestra and knows when he should be taking part in chamber music, rather than always holding the front of the stage. He does indulge in a wide range of speeds but not, I suppose, more than is usually done. The slow movement is played simply by both soloist and orchestra, as it should be— yet it's a difficult thing to play something so apparently simply but make it as moving as it is here.

At the very end of the movement (bar 80) you may be surprised to hear the strings play a long crotchet, arco, instead of the pizzicato to which we are all so used (which starts only at the last quaver of the bar). I asked Denis Matthews (always a mine of Beethoven information) about this and he told me he had played the concerto with Szell and was quite astonished at rehearsal when the expected 'plonk' from the strings didn't happen. Szell told him that Beethoven's autograph has the `pizz' written over the rests in the middle of the bar: and I now see that the preface in the Eulenburg miniature score states the same thing (despite which, the word is printed at the start of the bar!). This is not a trivial point, for it occurs, of course, at just about the most magical moment of the whole concerto and I do think that the long, grave, B flat from the strings is far more apt than the rather disturbing 'plonk' which emphasizes Beethoven's change from B to B flat in the wrong way.

The finale goes splendidly all through and I only don't like Fleisher's mannered playing of part of the main theme each time. I refer to the bars marked espressivo, which would appear to suggest something other than his jerky delivery of the right hand phrases. But this is a small point and there is no doubt that this is the sort of performance that will make you enjoy the music afresh, for the playing all through the concerto is both zestful and perceptive; Szell's contribution is an added source of pleasure—and the admirable engineering complements the players' artistry.

-- Gramophone [1/1966, reviewing the original LP release of the Emperor Concerto]

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The apologies invariably made for Beethoven's Triple Concerto seem to have an effect on performances. I have rarely, if ever, known one which did not in some respect carry an apology with it, and I have rarely, if ever, known one which treated the work in the strong bravura way which makes for success in the Emperor or violin concertos. But here is just such a performance, and it makes one glory in what Beethoven did achieve in the work.

The scale of the work as conceived by Stern, Rose and Istomin is quite different from that of the rival performances on record, however enjoyable. The precision and stylishness of Schneiderhan, Fournier and Anda on DGG make for an eighteenthcentury manner in the outer movements, particularly the first. Some may well continue to prefer it, and technically the balance with the orchestra is better than on the new CBS disc, but the newly roused echoes of other Beethoven concertos place the Stern/ Rose/Istomin performance in the right period. It is after all a produce of the Fidelio years, the years which also produced the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto and the Symphonies Nos. 4 to 6. It is possible to regard the formalism of the outer movements, their conscientious balance of thematic statements by each of the three soloists in turn, as a return to eighteenth-century practice, but the sheer size speaks rather of a really grand manner. And if the thematic material is more bald and less striking than that in other Beethoven concertos (at least in the first movement) there was a practical need with three soloists to keep ideas short.

In achieving a sense of size Stern, Rose and Istomin reveal their own stature in the relaxation of the playing. Lesser players would either screw up the tension or become ponderous, but these three over and over again convey the joy of their playing: the relaxed lilt of the second subject, Rose's natural warmth in the slow movement enunciation, the whole of the final Rondo Polacca. Not only has the main Polacca theme tremendous verve, the middle episode, when the `yatta-tah-ta-tah-ta' rhythm emerges on horn and lower woodwind, has a unique tang of East European music. Stern obviously takes the idea of a Polacca literally and exaggerates the first beat in each dactyllic phrase, giving a real bounce to the music, and he is matched by his colleagues.

Then the semiquaver allegro reprise of the main theme towards the end is taken very fast and very clear, the result extraordinarily exciting. You have only to compare the DGG performance, very fast too and excellent in its way, to realize why Stern's, Rose's and Istomin's playing is not merely vital but great. Equally exciting are the furious florid dialogues between violin and 'cello in the passage-work of first and last movements. All three soloists are masterly in varying the tension, in shaping towards climaxes, and Ormandy draws from the Philadelphia Orchestra yet another of his really full-blooded accompaniments. In relation to the soloists the orchestra may seem a little backward, but the salient tuttis burst out with great effect, to match the scale of the soloists' playing. The nearness of the soloists does of course make it hard for them to sound as though they are playing really softly, and initial sotto voce entries in the finale are too loud.

In my detailed comparisons I have occasionally found points in which rivals score over Stern, Rose and Istomin, and the other CBS version has Serkin in marvellous form actually dominating the performance from the least prominent solo part, the non-virtuoso piano role originally devised for the Archduke Rudolf. But no minor shortcomings can alter the positive merits of what could well come to be regarded as a classic record.

-- Gramophone [10/1965, reviewing the original LP release of the Triple Concerto]

Live recording: Festspielhaus, July 29/30, 1958

Lisa Della Casa and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - this was an ideally cast Arabella with a dream couple in the leading roles. For years this production was a model for Munich and Vienna. It can now be heard for the first time in its original version, with the incomparable Strauss sound of the Vienna Philharmonic under Joseph Keilberth - the sensation of the 1958 Salzburg Festival.

Ned Rorem describes this performance of his Double Concerto for Violin and Cello as "perfect", so it would be presumptuous to challenge his opinion of it technically. Certainly the playing of Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson is excellent, as is that of the IRIS Orchestra under Michael Stern. Like some of Rorem's other concertante works, this takes the form of a series of short movements, eight in all, save that one of them (Conversation at Midnight) isn't so short, lasting for nearly a quarter of an hour, or about half the concerto's total time. The two soloists offer admirably focused playing here, with a real feeling of dialog both between themselves and with the orchestra. The scoring is Spartan--strings, eight woodwinds, and four brass--but there's no lack of color or incident. In short, this is a lovely addition to the string concerto repertoire, and a terrific piece for chamber orchestras to consider programming.

What keeps this disc from getting the highest rating is an admittedly personal issue, one that you may not share. After Reading Shakespeare, a suite for solo cello, was also written for Sharon Robinson, and it is very sympathetically performed (listen, for example, to how vividly she characterizes "Titania and Oberon"). Nevertheless, the pairing of an orchestral piece with this most chamber-like of chamber compositions strikes me as unconvincing, coming as it does after the concerto. In his notes Rorem emphasizes the fact that the movement titles of this piece should not be taken literally, the music having preceded some of them. If so, then why use them at all? And why suggest as opening and closing movements such weighty subjects as "Lear" and "Othello and Iago"? They really beg the question of whether or not Rorem's inspiration is up to Shakespeare's, and we don't want to go there, do we? There are times when composers might do better to resist the temptation to offer verbal clues, even if they are perfectly valid ones. Still and all, the music and performances themselves are self-recommending to the composer's many admirers, and on that basis I can recommend this fine new release without further qualification.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Distance lends enchantment. This famous mid-century group used to sound ‘big’ in its time, and fortepiano fanciers will wince at the expansive, fruity opening to the Archduke. The rest of us can enjoy a generosity of phrasing that now seems to sing the joy and pain of life itself. To be frank it is a bit sedentary, but the steady pulse allows the interplay of fine musical responses to be taken in at ease. Several degrees lighter in manner and acoustic – and despite a stereo spread that, with headphones, has violin and cello arguing from opposite sides of your head – the Ghost has energy and feeling even if it doesn’t peer over the existential edge.

-- Robert Maycock, BBC Music Magazine

For those who specifically want a CD of trio sonatas by J. S. Bach & Sons and who prefer stylish playing on modern instruments to the extremes of unabashed Romanticizing or outand-out authenticity, this may be an attractive prospect. As MM observed, the Sonata by Carl Philipp Emanuel is particularly fine, and the unfinished Larghetto of Wilhelm Friedemann's is distinctly haunting.

Jean-Pierre Rampal's flute sound falls gratefully on the ear, more so than the harpsichord continuo or than Isaac Stern's violin. The latter has a slightly fierce, synthetic quality which negates the many sensitive touches in the playing. On CD at least balance is less sympathetic to the flute in the J. S. and C. P. E. works than in Johann Christoph Friedrich's Sonata, whose galante charms are helped along by an attractive fortepiano continuo.

-- Gramophone [11/1985]

Sony are now reissuing the earlier New York recordings of the Bernstein symphonies in the Bernstein Century Edition. In the case of No. 2 this is the very first (1950) mono version, with Lukas Foss as the piano soloist. Subtitled The Age of Anxiety and based on Auden's poem, this concertante work shows the composer at his most eclectic, with the stylistic contrasts emphasized by the clear, forward mono sound, the "Dirge" stridently dissonant, and the jazzy exuberance of the "Masque" contrasting boldly with the closing "Epilogue". Foss is dazzlingly idiomatic but he is too forwardly recorded; and the same has to be said of the coupled (1956) mono performance of the Serenade after Plato's "Symposium", with the violin soloist Isaac Stern on top form and naturally attuned to the score, but with the solo violin balanced way out front and the orchestral sound unrefined.

-- Ivan March, Gramophone [12/1998]

...By far the most interesting box in Sony's 31-volume "Isaac Stern - A Life in Music" is the fourth (® CD SX12K67196; 12 CDs), which contains Vols. 23-31 and includes a number of recordings that are either first-ever releases or new to the UK... [Alexander] Zakin takes over [as accompanist] for...a concert of music by Hindemith (the 1939 Sonata, recorded in 1946), Bloch (Baal Shem and the First Violin Sonata - recorded in 1961 and 1959, respectively) and a 1968 recording of the Copland Sonata with the composer at the piano (Vol. 28). This is a really superb recital...

-- Gramophone [9/1996]
reviewing the complete "Isaac Stern - A Life in Music" box set