Schumann's only piano concerto is romantically poetic and not a work of bravura virtuosity. The piano and the orchestra do not contend for dominance. Their parts are closely interwoven, and one is not imaginable without the other. Mozart composed his last three symphonies within an incredibly short period of less than two months in the summer of 1788.

This recording is based on the edition of Prof. William Carragan (Version 1878), which is oriented towards the Nowak Edition. It is shorter and much catchier than the usually performed version. The strings have the upper hand here instead of the brass, but the four horns do resurface with reminiscences of the first movement. Gerd Schaller leads the Philharmonie Festiva. Live recording.

Much of the music here would have been more familiar 75 years ago than it is today; Jascha Heifetz, in particular, championed the Saint-Saëns violin sonatas. But now that self-serving ideas of straight-line musical progress have been put to rest, Saint-Saëns is benefiting from something of a comeback, with the Naxos label and others putting out intelligently programmed selections of his music. This one, by French violinist Fanny Clamagirand and pianist Vanya Cohen, is delightful. It features a performance of the Violin Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 102, overflowing with melody in the slow movement, as well as some even less familiar music. The opening Suite in D minor for violin and piano, Op. 16, is fascinating. Composed in 1862, it represents Saint-Saëns take on the Baroque suite, and one might even say the French neo-classicism began here. There is also a violin sonata Saint-Saëns wrote at the age of 13, a charming piece of juvenilia, and two short works in contrasting modes, a Romance in C major, Op. 48, on the melodic side and a Méditation in quasi-operatic mode. The only really famous tune here is the arrangement for violin and piano of Le Cygne (The Swan), from The Carnival of the Animals; it serves as a kind of encore. As she did on her earlier recording of Saint-Saëns' chamber music, Clamagirand cultivates a lyrical attitude and a gorgeous tone that are the essence of the French school. Naxos deserves kudos for the sound this time out; the music is recorded in a superb (and non-French) venue, the UK's Wyastone Concert Hall, and the performers are up close but not overbearing.

-- James Manheim, All Music Guide

GOUNOD Symphonies: No. 1 in D. No. 2 in E? • Patrick Gallois, cond; Sinf Finlandia • NAXOS 8.557463 (68:14)


Charles Gounod (1818–1893), internationally famous for his grand opera Faust, composed both these symphonies in 1855. By that time, he was an accomplished and well-traveled musician, but not famous, and the symphonies went unperformed and, before the LP era, unrecorded. All the critics I read are unanimous that this is a shame. Though not among the towering masterpieces of the genre, both are perfect within their modest intentions. Among words and terms that fairly describe them are cheerful, polished, attractively scored, deftly organized, melodious, and economical. Now that they are available, listeners seem to like the First (here 29 minutes long) a bit better than the Second (almost 40 minutes), if they show any preference at all.


Gounod’s Symphony No. 1 is most often discussed as the model for the Symphony in C of his 17-year-old student, Georges Bizet. The two works are similar in length, mood, orchestration, and faithfulness to classical models. Furthermore, both remained unknown until modern times. But Gounod as a symphonist sounds like a French Mendelssohn, whereas his student, subsequently world-famous for Carmen, already sounds like himself. However, if the student’s essay deserves greater fame than its model, that is no reason for neglecting the fine work of the older composer.


Conductor and flautist Patrick Gallois recorded these symphonies with the Sinfonia Finlandia of Jyväskylä in May 2004. The performances are alert, disciplined, expressive, and beautifully recorded, making a highly recommendable disc. The leading current competitor is a widely praised Philips disc with Neville Marriner conducting the ASMF Orchestra. That costs more than this Naxos release, but has the bonus of including the ballet music from Faust. One assumes that Marriner either plays the symphonies faster, or skips repeats—possibly both. Finally, one should mention an ASV disc of the Gounod symphonies featuring John Lubbock and the Orchestra of St. John’s, which has its partisans.


FANFARE: Robert McColley

CHOPIN Piano Concerto No. 2. Variations on “Là ci darem la mano.” Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise brillante • Eldar Nebolsin (pn); Antoni Wit, cond; Warsaw Phil O • NAXOS 8.572336 (62:53)

Eldar Nebolsin was born in Uzbekistan in 1974. He eventually went on to study with Dmitri Bashkirov, before garnering international attention after winning the Santander International Piano Competition back in 1992. In addition, he was awarded the Sviatoslav Richter Prize in the International Piano Competition, Moscow, in 2005. He is a name that is new to me, and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to hear a bit of what he’s doing right now. He has the kind of virtuosity that is less apparent than other pianists’, because he always seems to be completely in touch, musically, with what he’s doing—and not for the sake of showing off what he can do. He has a fluid sound, and a good lyrical sense—sometimes losing the rhythmic bite, the quirkiness of the rhythms, but always maintaining a beautiful sound. The concerto’s first movement is perfectly paced to bring out the Maestoso character that is asked for in its tempo marking. But again, sometimes the music loses that aforementioned bite and consequently its momentum. The way Nebolsin handles the delicate filigrees of the concerto’s Larghetto, though, is just one example of his good taste in never over-sentimentalizing this music. The Allegretto vivace that follows is equally well done, having an almost eerie, misterioso quality to it from the very beginning of the movement. The pianist shines especially in these latter two. The Mozart Variations—the piece that Schumann was so impressed with that he called Chopin a genius—has never been hugely popular in this century. Nebolsin does a good job of letting the music flow naturally, while keeping the textures of the piano figuration light and airy—not so easy, considering the difficulty of these etude-like variations. Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic provide excellent accompaniment, surging when necessary, supporting at other times, and getting out of the way when the soloist comes to the fore...The variations are splendid, and Nebolsin gets my vote for one of the best available.

FANFARE: Scott Noriega

Overall, I’d certainly strongly endorse the complete Nimbus set for reliable performances.

The arrival on the scene of a bright new talent in the Beethoven Piano Sonatas in the form of the young Korean pianist HJ Lim (EMI Classics 50999 7041855 2) has prompted me to return to the Nimbus set. The virtues of complete sets by the likes of Alfred Brendel (Philips 438 1342 – see June 2011/2 Download Roundup) and Wilhelm Kempff (DG – see below) are well enough known but, for some reason, we seem never to have got around to reviewing the Nimbus set with Bernard Roberts. Not the least of its virtues is that, with some ingenious organisation, the CD set is far less bulky than you might imagine: the 11 CDs come in two double-size cases, holding five discs plus booklet and six discs respectively, all housed inside a cardboard slip case.
 
I actually started to write a review of the complete Nimbus set a year ago, and lost what I’d written, apart from some notes and jottings, when my computer crashed. I was able to piece some of these together in time for the November 2011/2 Download Roundup, but fortunately, when I lost what I’d written, my friend Geoffrey Molyneux, who knows a great deal more about pianism than I ever did and has owned the Nimbus set for some time, came to the rescue. I promised then to patch my notes back together to finish that review but got around only partially to doing it.
 
Whereas Roberts’ recordings arose from mature consideration, HJ Lim has committed the whole œuvre to disc at an early stage in her career, whether from brave assurance or youthful bravado I was very interested to find out. You can do so for yourself from the Naxos Music Library if you have access to that extremely valuable service. They offer both the first two 2-CD single volumes and the complete set. As they also have the Roberts recordings, that’s a good way to compare for yourself.
 
Volume 1 from Lim contains Sonatas 29 Hammerklavier, 11, 26 Les Adieux, 4, 9, 10, 13 Quasi una fantasia and 14 Moonlight ( 730092, 2 CDs for around £12.50). The complete set (omitting the Op.49 sonatas because Beethoven didn’t intend them for publication) comes on 8 CDs for around £40 ( 4649522). Those willing to download can obtain Volume 1 for £6.99 from sainsburysentertainment.co.uk. They also have the complete 8-CD set to download for £10.99, though you may prefer to obtain this from amazon.co.uk for £12.99, complete with the pdf version of the booklet.
 
Lim opens both Volume 1 and the complete set with the Hammerklavier Sonata. She takes the first movement at a cracking pace – 10:24 against Roberts’ 11:42, making her performance commensurate with Earl Wild, at 10:20 one of the fastest ever accounts (Ivory Classics 76001). I was impressed by her technique; it makes a barnstorming opening to the set, but it’s all a bit too much unvaried and ‘hell-for-leather’; at his slightly slower tempo Roberts achieves much more light and shade in this movement and throughout the work, not least in his reading of the slow movement, where his 17:58 allows him to achieve Innigkeit without sounding portentous. At 12:50 Lim is certainly appassionato; she doesn’t sound as rushed as I might have expected from the different timings, but she doesn’t quite achieve the affective quality demanded by the marking con molto sentimento.
 
Artur Schnabel’s recording of this sonata may come on an album subtitled ‘Scholar of the Piano’ (EMI Icons 2650642) but there’s much more than scholarship involved in his performance. This remains my benchmark, especially for the slow movement: his tempo almost exactly matches that of Roberts, but he captures the affective qualities even more without ever sounding ponderous. His recording comes with a degree of light surface noise, but it’s never excessive and the piano tone is truly remarkable for its age. Nevertheless, Roberts offers a better-recorded modern alternative that I can certainly live with.
 
I should add that reviewers have been very much divided about Lim’s performances; some have seen a great deal more of value in them than I have. In the finale of the Hammerklavier I hear some of the qualities that her admirers postulate – she’s actually very little faster overall than Schnabel and her playing is certainly risoluto – but my own ultimate judgement hinges on whether I would wish to add her complete recording or Volume 1 to my over-crowded collection. I have to say that I wouldn’t, even at the attractive prices that I’ve mentioned.
 
On the other hand, I would certainly have considered purchasing the Roberts set, especially at the special price of £28 post free for which it’s offered by MusicWeb International. You won’t even find them as a download for less. I know that I’m effectively blowing our own trumpet, but I dipped into sonatas from every period of Beethoven’s working life, comparing what I heard with other versions that I knew, and found that Roberts stood up well to the competition in every respect. He is not always top dog in a particular sonata, but nearly always close. The whole set is so inexpensive that I would recommend beginners to buy it and to add individual recordings later.
 
CD 1 of the Nimbus set gets off to a quiet start with Sonata No.1 from 1795. Though there are signs of the distinctive Beethoven manner to come here, Roberts doesn’t stress these by over-egging the pudding; he gives a very satisfying, neat, tidy, but not too delicate account, taken at a fairly brisk pace throughout, though never sounding rushed. The same is true of No.2 and No.3, which open CD 2 and CD 3 respectively.
 
You might expect Lim to do particularly well in these youthful sonatas, so I turned to her account of No.1 in expectation. Predictably her tempi are consistently a little faster than Roberts’, but not to a huge extent. There’s certainly lightness of touch but it’s allied with underlying strength and I enjoyed this performance.
 
Nimbus CD 1 closes with the Appassionata Sonata, from Beethoven’s middle period. Roberts gives this, right from the start, the soulful treatment which its name implies. In the opening movement he takes Beethoven’s marking allegro assai with a pinch of salt, perhaps thinking, as I have seen suggested, that Beethoven sometimes confused the French assez (fairly) and the Italian assai (very). Whatever the reason, 10:13 – almost a minute longer than most performances – seems to me to be reasonable for this movement, especially as Roberts indulges in a degree of rubato (not excessive) to achieve it. I’m with Roberts and his slightly weightier tempo here, but if you are looking for a compromise, Jenö Jandó on Naxos (8.550294, with No.21 and No.23) – as usual reliable without being exceptional – splits the difference between Roberts and the ‘mainstream’, as does Alfred Brendel on his early Vox recording (CDX-5042, 2 CDs: Nos.16-19, 21-23 and 26 – or Alto ALC1016, Nos.8, 14, 23 and 26). In his recording of the Appassionata with the Emperor Concerto (Philips 468 6662, with VPO/Rattle), Brendel is even closer to Roberts in this movement.
 
There’s respect for the marking andante con moto, too, from Roberts in the second movement, though I might have welcomed a slightly faster pace at the outset. In the finale he observes both parts of the marking ( allegro non troppo), so there’s nothing headlong, but there is plenty of power and emotion and the concluding bars are taken at a virtuoso pace. Overall I found this a very satisfying account, bringing a degree of new light to a well-known work without being at all quirky. Listening to it a second time was even more convincing.
 
Predictably, Lim allies herself throughout with those who take a faster view of this sonata, though her tempi are not extreme she actually takes the opening movement slightly slower than Angela Hewitt on the first volume of her Beethoven recordings. Lim takes the finale at quite a lick but so, for example, does Vladimir Ashkenazy (Decca Eloquence 480 1309). Though her version certainly works for me, so too does Roberts’.
 
If HJ Lim has set her interpretations down at an early stage in her career, David Wilde is something of a wonder for the opposite reason – though well into his seventies, he’s only just entered the limelight, yet he plays with a combination of the technique of a young virtuoso and the maturity of a seasoned practitioner on his recording of Nos. 21 Waldstein, 17 Tempest and 31 (Delphian DCD34090: Recording of the Month and November 2011/2 Download Roundup.)
 
The d minor Sonata, Op.31/2, the Tempest, dates from the transitional period between the earliest works, such as the Op.18 Quartets, and the very productive middle period. This was the period of the Third Piano Concerto when Beethoven’s music was beginning to break away from the influence of the previous generation of Haydn and Salieri. Wilde takes a more expansive view of the first movement, adopts roughly the same tempo as Roberts for the adagio, and is slightly faster in the allegretto finale. I thought Roberts somewhat routine in this sonata, especially in the adagio, which sounds ponderous rather than affective.
 
I certainly preferred Wilde in the finale, though Brian Reinhart, for all his admiration of the album as a whole, had some reservations here. Roberts’ finale offers us the letter of the music with exemplary technique, but it seems to miss the last degree of joy. I appreciate that it’s allegretto, not allegro, but I felt that Wilde’s 7:05 was more in the spirit of the music than Roberts’s 7:26. The latter seems to offer a view of a composer who is not yet completely his own man, not yet what Roberts himself describes in the brief notes as ‘dynamic, deeply expressive and visionary’. Lim rattles through this movement at an unbelievable 6:01; that’s preferable to Roberts and I can only marvel that none of the phrasing is slurred at this speed, but Wilde’s is the version of this sonata to have.
 
Though my recommendation of the Nimbus set overall holds, therefore, this illustrates the hazards of relying on just one artist throughout; for this sonata I’d certainly add another version. Though I listened to Roberts on CD and to Wilde from an mp3 download (albeit at the full 320kb/s rate, from classicsonline.com), which ought to give Roberts an edge, Wilde sounded more dynamic from the very opening of the first movement, the slow movement a little more expressive and the finale a little more joyful. Both Wilde and Roberts are preferable here to Thomas Sauer, whose recording of the Op.31 Sonatas I found somewhat wanting (MSR Classics MS1284).
 
David Wilde offers the middle-period Waldstein Sonata, No.21 on his new recording, one of the works also available separately from Nimbus. Wilde, who takes both sections very slightly faster than Roberts, is closer to the general consensus and on the whole slightly preferable. This time I think the contest between the two pianists a little less weighted in Wilde’s favour, though generally agreeing with Brian Reinhart, who thought this probably the highlight of the disc.
 
Lim plays the Waldstein on the second disc of Volume 2 – CD4 of the complete set. Here again, the tempo of the first movement is too hectic: at 9:58 against Wilde’s 10:48 and Roberts’s 11:05, the music doesn’t have time to breathe. The same is true of the Introduzione, here tracked as a separate movement, as on the Wilde recording. The final Rondo is a real tour de force combined with real delicacy in the slower sections, though the transition between the two can sound a little abrupt and brutal.
 
BR was slightly less impressed by Wilde’s take on the late sonata, Op.110. These late works are as difficult to bring off as the Late String Quartets with which they are contemporaneous; both perplexed Beethoven’s audiences and both can provide difficult listening even for modern ears.
 
There’s one set of the late sonatas that remains my benchmark: Wilhelm Kempff on DG E453 0102, an inexpensive 2-disc set of Nos. 27-32 from his 1960s stereo recordings. I didn’t consult him in the case of the Hammerklavier for fear of seeming to be unduly influenced by nostalgia, but I can’t resist calling Kempff into comparison for No.31, Op.110. Jens Laurson, writing about Kempff’s recordings in a survey of what was available at the time (2009) finds it hard to pin down exactly what it is that makes Kempff’s Beethoven so superb. Overall I can’t better his summing up – ‘Solid, in the best, most empathetically positive sense of the word.’
 
Kempff and Roberts adopt almost exactly the same tempo in each of the opening movements of Op.110, with Wilde just a little slower than either. All three combine the cantabile and molto espressivo aspects of the first movement very well. Wilde is a little faster in the adagio and fuga but, again, there’s very little in it. Kempff, on whose recording DG run these last two sections together, takes just 9:44 overall against Roberts’ 11:24 and Wilde’s 11:15. Both sections from Kempff are faster: his adagio is certainly more non troppo than from Roberts or Wilde, without losing any of its emotive power, and his fugue is certainly allegro without losing sight of the non troppo marking and without sounding hurried. As good as Roberts and Wilde are here, I’d certainly also want Kempff’s recording as an alternative.
 
Lim is even faster in the adagio and fuga – tracked together on her recording, as with Kempff, and coming in at just 8:34. She starts the adagio portentously and she’s generally both affective and effective in this section; by the clock she’s the fastest of all the recordings that I compared without seeming unduly hasty. Indeed, though she’s a minute faster overall even than Kempff, I enjoyed her take on this sonata more than I had expected.
 
Lim ends volume 1 with the Moonlight Sonata. In the first movement she’s notably faster than Roberts and at least some of the magic is lost thereby; a good deal less than you might imagine from the comparative timings, but Roberts captures the fantasia and allows us much better to see that the nickname is apt. I didn’t enjoy Lim’s tentative account of the second movement; it’s as if she were thinking out her approach on the spot where Roberts knows where he’s going from the start. Lim’s finale is sufficiently agitato but here again there’s too much of a scrabble, even at a basic tempo not much faster than that of Roberts, and I thought her less than fully involved with the music.
 
One advantage of the Delphian recording concerns the inclusion of Wilde’s own notes, which are informative not only about the music but also about some of his decisions in performance. Even at the extremely advantageous price, I could have wished that Nimbus had also offered more detailed notes; you get just the playing times plus two pages on the music and a page on Bernard Roberts. If you purchase the Lim complete recording as a download from amazon.co.uk, the booklet of notes comes as part of the deal; I haven’t seen this, but I understand that some of HJ Lim’s thoughts are a little bizarre.
 
Overall, then, I’d certainly strongly endorse the complete Nimbus set for reliable performances – often much than that – a decent quality of recording and sheer value. I’d want to supplement it with individual recordings from some of the artists whom I’ve mentioned. Regrettably, despite their availability at a most advantageous price, neither of the individual twofers from HJ Lim’s new recordings nor her complete set would be among them. Give her Beethoven a few years to settle down and a complete set from her may well be well worth hearing. Meanwhile, if you’re looking to supplement Roberts with performances from a young pianist on top form, try Ingrid Fliter in Nos. 8 Pathétique, 17 and 23 Appassionata (EMI 045732: Bargain of the Month and September 2011/2 Download Roundup).
 
-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International

While many historic editions focus on a performer, a less obvious but sometimes more artistically resonant choice is to focus on a conductor, one of those musical minds which shapes so much of what we hear. The Genter Wand Edition focuses on that great personality of the German music world, and this recording of Wand over the NDR Sinfonie Orchester and Jorge Bolet in his final years is filled with great musical moments. Wand once said "The older one gets, the clearer one's vision of perfection becomes," a sentiment befitting his masterful interpretation of Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky.

Sofja Gulbadamova's recording of a total of 14 Humoresques by the composers Edvard Grieg, Max Reger, Antonin Dvorak and Robert Schumann demonstrate the very wide range that music bearing this title could have in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. While the literary humoresque was a popular and entertaining, relatively short-lived "Biedermeier-style narrative form" (Appel), musical humoresques covered a whole range of forms - from the small-scale to the large-scale, multi-part format, from the amusing and lively through to the enigmatic and ambiguous. Be prepared for contrasts, exaggerations, the OTT and the seemingly incompatible, for pieces that can cause you to laugh or indeed to cry, and which plumb the depths of the abysmal, the desperate and the gloomy - music that speaks both directly and sometimes between the lines.

Despite a sonic soundstage that places the orchestra and soloist in a position akin to viewing celestial beings from the wrong end of a telescope, these are simply fabulous performances. It's good to have the Third Concerto in its conjectural three-movement manifestation (Tchaikovsky completed a first movement, which consigned it to a stand-alone composition, while Tanyev reconstructed a second and third movement from outlines Tchaikovsky had sketched for an ultimately rejected symphony), especially in a reading full of enough sweep and passion to outdistance Peter Donohoe's fine EMI traversal. Konstantin Scherbakov's sparkling, assured fingerwork in the cadenzas alone is a selling point--and the First concerto is a keeper, no doubt about it! It's fast, it's fluid, and it's utterly without airs, mannerisms, and pretentions.


Unlike other pianists who milk the lyrical unaccompanied sections out of shape, or dive into the octave sequences as if they were sporting events, Scherbakov's organic feeling for tempo relationships and musicianly virtuosity binds everything together, and the Russian Philharmonic musicians play their hearts out under Dmitry Yablonsky's uplifting direction. For superior sound, sophisticated orchestral execution, and soloistic individuality, it's worth spending the extra cost for Argerich/Abbado (DG) or Volodos/Ozawa (Sony). But give this release a try, and don't be surprised if you return to it more often than you've anticipated. [6/9/2004]
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com