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Shostakovich: Violin Concertos 1 & 2
$18.99CDOndine
Sep 09, 2014ODE 1239-2 -
SONG OF THE NIGHT / SZYMANOWSKI: VIOLIN CTO NO 1
$18.10CDDECCA
Jan 24, 2012DCAB001640902.2 -
PIANO TRIOS
$27.51CDWARNER CLASSICS
May 03, 2011WCL94180.2 -
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THIS IS RATTLE
$22.05Blu-RayLSO LIVE
Sep 06, 2019LSOL3066BR -
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On SaleMontalbetti: Chamber Music - Harmonieuses Dissonances / Various
CD$20.99$15.99Alpha
Apr 24, 2020ALPHA583 -
Lars Vogt - The Complete Warner Classics Edition
$78.29CDWARNER CLASSICS
Mar 29, 2024WCL760490.2 -
Sharon Kam plays Weber, Kurpinski & Crusell / Buhl, Vienna Radio Symphony
$20.99CDOrfeo
Mar 06, 2020ORF-C995201 -
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![The Naxos Music Group 2023 Catalogue [Book + Sampler CD]](//arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/highlights.jpg?v=1780169025&width=800)
On SaleThe Naxos Music Group 2023 Catalogue [Book + Sampler CD]
CD with Book$14.99$7.49Naxos
Jul 01, 20238551483 -
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On SaleSibelius: Kullervo / Lintu, Finnish Radio Symphony
SACD$18.99$14.99Ondine
Oct 04, 2019ODE 1338-5 -
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On SaleKodály & Ligeti: Solo Cello Sonatas / Hellen Weiss, Gabriel Schwabe
CD$19.99$9.99Naxos
Sep 25, 20208574202 -
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On SaleEugene Ysaÿe - Six Sonatas for Solo Violin / Daniel Matejča
CD$31.99$23.99Supraphon
May 05, 2023SU4313-2 -
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On SaleDvořák: Piano Trios Nos. 3 & 4 / Tetzlaff, Vogt, Tetzlaff
CD$18.99$14.99Ondine
Oct 05, 2018ODE 1316-2 -
TURNAGE ORCHESTRAL WORKS
$15.75CDLPO
Oct 30, 2012LPO66.2 -
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On SaleSchumann: Symphonic Etudes, Forest Scenes, Arabesque / Helmchen
SACD$21.99$16.99PENTATONE
Nov 13, 2012PTC5186452 -
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On SaleBeethoven: String Quartets Opp. 132, 130 & 133 / Tetzlaff Quartett
CD$18.99$14.99Ondine
Apr 03, 2020ODE 1347-2D -
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Joachim: Violin Concerto, Op. 11, Etc / Suyoen Kim, Et Al
$19.99CDNaxos
Oct 27, 20098570991 -
On SaleSchumann: Hermann & Dorothea Overture; Overture, Scherzo & Finale; Violin Concerto
CD$18.99$14.99Artek
Feb 26, 2013AR-0059-2 -
On SaleBrahms, Schumann: Piano Quintets / Joyce, Alexander String Quartet
CD$16.99$12.99Foghorn Classics
Jan 01, 2014FCL2014 -
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On SaleMendelssohn, Schumann: Violin Concertos / Christian Tetzlaff, Paavo Jarvi
CD$18.99$14.99Ondine
Nov 15, 2011ODE 1195-2 -
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Brahms: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1-3 / Tetzlaff, Vogt
$18.99CDOndine
Aug 12, 2016ODE 1284-2
Shostakovich: Violin Concertos 1 & 2
SONG OF THE NIGHT / SZYMANOWSKI: VIOLIN CTO NO 1
PIANO TRIOS
THIS IS RATTLE
Montalbetti: Chamber Music - Harmonieuses Dissonances / Various
Harmonieuses Dissonances: that is the title of the string quartet that closes this second album of music by Eric Montalbetti, but above all it is a statement of the very subject of the works assembled here: they start out from heterogeneous elements, like the diversity of the people we know, or of our moods and thoughts, and aim – through encounters, comparisons, organization or a search for common ground – to find the meaning of a life that we hope will, in the end, be harmonious. Since the first album of his music, Solos, appeared in 2016, Eric Montalbetti has been fortunate enough to hear seventeen of his scores come to life thanks to some wonderful musicians in France, Germany, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Japan and Korea. Two duos (including a Hommage a Matisse), a piano trio and a string quartet, were premiered and have now been recorded by Christian Tetzlaff and Alexandre Vorontsov, Delphine Haidan and Pierre Genisson, the soloists of the Ensemble intercontemporain and the Quatuor Les Dissonances.
Lars Vogt - The Complete Warner Classics Edition
Lars Vogt (1970-2022) early recordings collected here provide a document of an artist who always remained authentic, both to himself and to music. Lars Vogt never sought absolute truth, but truthfulness instead meant all the more to him. The man and the artist were always very close, never currying favour and never detached from the world. He was, instead, open and natural. "It's incredibly gratifying when you notice that you can perhaps light a little spark, a little flame for music in people, and when music helps you to find the path to your own soul."
Sharon Kam plays Weber, Kurpinski & Crusell / Buhl, Vienna Radio Symphony
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REVIEW:
Sharon Kam is one of the finest clarinettists in the world. Her approach and variability of tone are always surprising. She also masters the gentlest pianissimi, but can likewise strike dramatically more expressive tones.
– Online Merker (translated from German)
The Naxos Music Group 2023 Catalogue [Book + Sampler CD]
Naxos was founded in 1987 and has developed from being known primarily as a budget label focusing on standard repertoire into a virtual encyclopaedia of classical music with a catalogue of unparalleled depth and breadth. Innovative strategies for recording exciting new repertoire with exceptional talent have enabled the Naxos label to develop one of the largest and fastest-growing catalogues of unduplicated repertoire. Over 10,000 titles are currently available at affordable prices, recorded in state-of-the-art sound, both in hard format and on digital platforms. Naxos works with artists of the highest calibre and its recordings have been recognised with numerous international honours, including GRAMMY, ICMA, Opus Klassik and Gramophone Editor’s Choice Awards.
The company has also transformed into a global music group that owns, administers and/or distributes a large number of other independent record labels. Some of these labels are listed in this catalogue.
The sheer size of the 2023 catalogue requires it to be divided into three sections for convenient reading. Part 1 includes the Naxos label only, while Part 2 and Part 3 have the catalogues of the affiliated labels in the Naxos Music Group.
The sampler CD includes recordings from the Naxos main label as well as many of the group's global family of affiliates, with performances by Leonard Slatkin, Boris Giltburg, JoAnn Falletta, Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt, Daniel Müller-Schott, Walter Klien, and more.
![The Naxos Music Group 2023 Catalogue [Book + Sampler CD]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/highlights.jpg?v=1780169025&width=800)
Sibelius: Kullervo / Lintu, Finnish Radio Symphony
The work tells the story of Kullervo, a tragic hero drawn from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. While a student in Vienna, Sibelius started planning to write a large work that would crystallize the rising Finnish national feeling in music. It was in the cosmopolitan surroundings of Vienna where Sibelius finally discovered the Finnish sound for his orchestral works to follow. Until that moment the art music of his country, even works based on folklore characters such as found in the Kalevala poetry, had been largely influenced and dominated by German Romanticism. For his work Sibelius drew inspiration from traditional Finnish folk music and by studying the Kalevala epic on his own. From the 50 songs of the Kalevala, Sibelius chose passages from the most tragic sections of the work telling the story of Kullervo, an ill-fated young man. With the premiere of this work in Helsinki in 1892, Sibelius became a national hero – and also won the favour of his future father-in-law. Although the work was not performed never again in Sibelius’ lifetime after the following year, the work was a milestone for Sibelius himself in his development as a composer and a symphonist. It was the composer’s first serious attempt in composing a large-scale orchestral work. Kullervo is work by a young composer filled with inspiration, ideas, and drama.
Conductor Hannu Lintu recently won the Gramophone Award and ICMA Award for his recording of the Bartók Violin Concertos together with Christian Tetzlaff and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Kodály & Ligeti: Solo Cello Sonatas / Hellen Weiss, Gabriel Schwabe
Zoltán Kodály’s later years were dominated by a series of choral works but his early reputation centered upon chamber music, notably two string quartets, a Cello Sonata (8.553160) and the two masterpieces heard on this recording. The Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7 combines Classical form with folk influence, while the Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8, with its expanded harmonies and tone colours, is one of the greatest solo cello works since Bach’s Cello Suites. György Ligeti continued the Hungarian lineage with his Sonata for Solo Cello, a succinct but pivotal work in his compositional development. Gabriel Schwabe has established himself among the leading cellists of his generation. He is a laureate of numerous national and international competitions, including the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann and the Concours Rostropovich in Paris. In 2009, he won the prestigious Pierre Fournier Award in London. He is a regular guest at festivals such as the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, the Kronberg Academy Festival and the Amsterdam Biennale, and has performed with artists including Isabelle Faust, Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt, Kirill Gerstein and Jonathan Gilad.
REVIEWS:
Schwabe’s magnificent interpretation of Kodaly’s Solo Sonata op. 8, another of the masterpieces of the cello repertoire, is declamatorily expressive and no less excellent for its polished sound. A perfect intonation and a lot of refinement as well as wonderful dynamic and colour nuances make up the richness of Schwabe’s playing.
With this CD, Schwabe has definitely given further proof of his mastery. Highly recommended!
-- Pizzicato
The tonal palette here is expanded by the inclusion of Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello, in which Schwabe’s musicianship is matched by that of Hellen Weiss…This is also important music and—in the hands of such players—essential listening.
-- BBC Music Magazine
Eugene Ysaÿe - Six Sonatas for Solo Violin / Daniel Matejča
“The artist's first task is to forget himself.” This statement, bold in its time, has been ascribed to Eugène Ysaÿe, referred to as the “King of the Violin”, who as a composer and performer considerably contributed to the modernization of violin playing. In 1923, he was so deeply impressed by J. S. Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001, as performed by Joseph Szigeti, that within a few hours (!) he sketched a set of six sonatas as a counterpart to Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas, BWV 1001-1006. Ysaÿe dedicated each of his sonatas to a superb contemporary violinist, tailoring it to his style. Technically reaching the limits of the instrument, the pieces placed enormous requirements on the dedicatees (Szigeti, Thibaud, Enescu, Kreisler, Crickboom, Quiroga), yet they remain challenging for the violinists of today.
One hundred years after Ysaÿe created the set of six sonatas, this formidable task has been undertaken by the outstanding young Czech virtuoso Daniel Matejča, the winner of the Eurovision Young Musicians competition (2022), Telemann Violin Competition (Poznan 2020) and Jugend musiziert (Halle 2019). Matejča studied with such distinguished violinists as Boris Belkin and Christian Tetzlaff, and, after collaborating to acclaim with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, has been invited to perform with other renowned orchestras. Supraphon has shifted the 100-year-old concept to the 21st century and commissioned a composition that would reflect Ysaÿe’s sonatas, as well as young violinists’ musicality and virtuosity. Jana Vöröšová’s Obsession II is both answer and challenge. Ysaÿe’s sonatas – a cherished challenge for the young virtuoso Daniel Matejča.
Dvořák: Piano Trios Nos. 3 & 4 / Tetzlaff, Vogt, Tetzlaff
This fruitful collaboration by three eminent chamber musicians, Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt, brings together two Piano Trios by the Czech master, Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904). During the last eight years, artists forming this unique trio have recorded eight albums of chamber music for Ondine with great acclaim, including some of the Romantic standard works. These two chamber music masterpieces by Antonín Dvořák express great emotional depth and dark passion.
The two piano trios by Dvořák featured in this album have remarkable similarities as well as differences. Piano Trio No. 3, nearly symphonic in its character, hints to the world of Johannes Brahms, while the Piano Trio No. 4 includes folkloric elements. The third piano trio might not only be considered as an homage to Brahms; it was written by the composer in 1883 shortly after the death of his mother which might well explain the sorrowful musical expression in the slow movement of the work. The ‘Dumky’ trio has a very unusual structure in its six movements. This intense and intimate work was written just prior to the composer’s departure to New York in 1891 and serves as a great climax for Dvořák’s series of piano trios.
REVIEW:
The Dumky really takes the plaudits here. Without question, it is the best I’ve heard, and the third movement is simply astonishing in its melancholic beauty.
These are two giants of the piano trio repertoire that is dear to my heart, and while this new recording enters a very crowded field, the presence of the three performers who are considerable soloists in their own right, means that the release demands attention.
Let’s get one thing out in the open straight away: these are the most dramatic and intense performances of these works I’ve heard. If your preference is for elegance such as those of the Beaux Arts and Florestan Trios, you may not be too keen on these big-boned and raw performances. Pianist Lars Vogt really hammers the keyboard at times, but don’t let that give you the impression that there is a lack of subtlety: the slow movements are meltingly beautiful. The booklet notes, which are in the form of a conversation between the three performers, emphasise the Bohemian folk music that inspired so much of Dvořák’s pre-American music. The raw intensity of the performances can be seen as a way of expressing these folk roots.
This is the only version of the Brahmsian F minor trio that I have in my collection to go beyond 40 minutes. I have no doubts that there are others, but it is to the credit of the performers that at no time is there a sense of dragging. Everything feels just about right. However, it is the Dumky that really takes the plaudits here. Without question, it is the best I’ve heard, and the third movement is simply astonishing in its melancholic beauty. If you love these works, and if you are reading this, you almost certainly do, you owe it to yourself to hear the Tetzlaffs and Vogt.
If I have a reservation about this otherwise marvellous recording, it is that the tone of the violin on occasions, generally at moments of fortissimo and above, becomes quite shrill. This is a something of a personal peeve, and I suspect most listeners will not be bothered by the sound. Perhaps the miking is a little close, though there is no extraneous noise.
Perhaps the intensity of the performances means that this is not a recording for every day, just Sunday best, but it is certainly special.
-- MusicWeb International (David Barker)
TURNAGE ORCHESTRAL WORKS
Schumann: Symphonic Etudes, Forest Scenes, Arabesque / Helmchen
SCHUMANN Waldszenen, Op. 82; Symphonische Etüden, Op. 13; Arabeske, Op. 18 • Martin Helmchen (pn) • PENTATONE 5186 452 (SACD: 60:52)
Martin Helmchen is a name which is probably new to no one: He has won numerous awards (including first prize in the Clara Haskil Competition in 2001), has worked with numerous illustrious orchestras, among them the Deutsche Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, and various chamber orchestras around Europe, with such master conductors as Marek Janowski, Philippe Herreweghe, Valery Gergiev, and Bernhard Klee. He has partnered in chamber music recitals with Boris Pergamenschikow, Heinrich Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Daniel Hope, and Lars Vogt, among many others. He is, in other words, a fabulous instrumentalist. And that is clear from the current recital.
The opening Waldszenen is for me the highlight of the disc. Here Helmchen is calm and reserved for the most part: The Eintritt here acts as not just an entranceway into the piece, but into the program as a whole. Oddly, when comparing it to Volodos’s version on his live recital from Vienna, Volodos seems to shade more sweetly than does Helmchen, but Helmchen does not see the piece in the same way: Here he captures an amazing simplicity akin to the C-Major Prelude in Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book I. His continuity of sound is entrancing. Verrufene Stelle evokes perfectly the odd, almost twisted quality of those ill-reputed places which Schumann musically describes so perfectly. Of course the highlight for most people is the strange and enigmatic Vogel als Prophet . While there is hardly a pianist out there capable of attaining the magical atmosphere of this piece as well as Alfred Cortot did, Helmchen does as admirable a job as many. The chorale-like middle section sounds as odd in this performance as it should, stopping the piece in midtrack, appearing and then disappearing just as quickly. The Symphonische Etüden, performed here with the five Anhang variations interspersed throughout the cycle, works well: The extra variations seem as though they truly belong to the cycle. It is far more satisfying to hear them this way than performed together at the conclusion of the opus proper. Here Helmchen alters his sound to fit his conception of the work. This is no longer light-hearted fare. This is as heavy and brooding as Schumann gets. And perhaps Helmchen here plays the work a bit too poised, too “normal” for my tastes. I tend to like my Schumann ever more schizophrenic in its rhythmic intricacies and eccentric in its numerous sforzandi . Helmchen plays the work a bit lighter than I would like, making it sound almost like Mendelssohn, yet there are moments when this works beautifully: Etude III and even Variation V sound as though they are lost parts of Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses here. The C-Major Arabeske brings us back to the light-hearted world of the opening, acting as both conclusion and encore. The pianist plays it simply: smooth, flowing, and tender. With bonus SACD quality sound, PentaTone has done it again. This one’s a keeper.
FANFARE: Scott Noriega
Beethoven: String Quartets Opp. 132, 130 & 133 / Tetzlaff Quartett
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REVIEW:
The immaculate execution prevailing throughout the Tetzlaff Quartett’s earlier Schubert/Haydn release for Ondine similarly yields top tier Beethoven. Before describing the performances, I should address one characteristic (or quirk, if you will) that crosses that tenuous line between painstaking calibration and micromanagement. It concerns an occasional yet slightly irritating tendency to telegraph Beethoven’s sforzandos with tiny gratuitous dynamic swells. At the same time, the ensemble applies infinite degrees of vibrato with the utmost sophistication and specificity, imparting a stinging intensity to unison passages and delicate contrapuntal interplay in Op. 132’s first movement.
They take the lilting second movement’s “ma non tanto” directive to heart, where minimum vibrato and disembodied tonal qualities transform the Trio section into a folk dance. Here, however, I like the Hagen Quartett’s faster pace and suaver ensemble, plus their unusual rendering of the“L’istesso tempo” over the four alla breve bars, where they create a jolting “four against three” effect. The Tetzlaffs conventionally apply the “L’istesso tempo” to the individual notes in these bars, so that the quarter note equals the quarter note throughout. The great central Adagio is on the cool side, yet the slow and sustained writing couldn’t be more beautifully controlled and modulated. But the fourth movement’s rigid dotted rhythms and arch diminuendos reduce the composer’s joy to cuteness.
Every detail of timbre and bowing seems worked out to the proverbial nines in Op. 130’s first movement, and befits the music’s mercurial nature. At first I felt the second movement’s main theme to be held back and self-aware, yet it provides a contrasting context for the faster and more boisterously rendered second theme to flourish. In the third movement the musicians give distinct points of view to the sustained and detached passages as if they were characters in a drama instead of abstract contrapuntal lines. They glibly toss off the fourth movement, as if embarrassed to dance, yet bring a heartfelt, singing sensibility to the swifter than usual Cavatina.
Instead of Beethoven’s revised finale, the Tetzlaff Quartett presents the composer’s original ending, namely the Grosse Fuge. On one hand, their clipped style and bottomless palette of low-level dynamics transforms the gnarly, combative string writing into something quite lithe, transparent, shimmering, and (dare I say it) fun. Not unlike turning a warty frog into a handsome prince! If you want a Grosse Fuge that scratches and screeches and spews venom on each sforzando hammer blow, look elsewhere. However one ultimately responds to these interpretations, the fact is that Christian Tetzlaff and his colleagues realize their conceptions without the least hindrance, hesitation, or compromise.
– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)
Joachim: Violin Concerto, Op. 11, Etc / Suyoen Kim, Et Al
JOACHIM Violin Concertos: in G, op. 3; in d, op. 11, “in the Hungarian Style” • Suyoen Kim (vn); Michael Halász, cond; Staatskapelle Weimar • NAXOS 8.570991 (65:57)
From a position of near-obscurity in the early 1960s (at least in so far as recordings went), Joseph Joachim’s Hungarian Concerto received a lift-off from Charles Treger’s early complete recording with the Louisville Orchestra (Louisville LS 705) and from Aaron’s Rosand’s more brilliant but cut-down version on a Vox LP, reissued many times; while Takako Nishizaki recorded Joachim’s Third Concerto for Marco Polo (now available on Naxos 8.554733).
That leaves the First Concerto, a one-movement affair lasting about 20 minutes from the early 1850s, when Joachim had hardly reached or passed the age of 20. Already the work displays a certain individuality: Joachim integrated the violin’s first entry into the opening tutti, after which initial statement the orchestra continues on its own. The solo part offered its youthful composer a great number of opportunities for virtuoso display, but the Concerto’s high symphonic seriousness sets it apart from more display-oriented vehicles written for their own use by his contemporaries Ernst and Wieniawski. In its harmonic and melodic style, so heavily tinged with nostalgia, the work resembles the first (or only) movements of Bruch’s later works (such as his Allegro appassionato and, especially, his Third Concerto). Suyoen Kim, producing a slender but pure tone in all registers (but with a steelier core on the G-string) from a 1742 Camillus Camilli, nevertheless projects the mix of pyrotechnical excitement and poignant lyricism the score demands. Joachim exerted a strong influence on the history of violin playing through his students, who included personalities as diverse as Jenö Hubay, Bronislaw Huberman, and Leopold Auer (who, having studied with him for two years, claimed that Joachim had opened his eyes). If the Concerto seems to wander, that’s neither Kim’s fault nor Halász’s.
The Second Concerto, “in the Hungarian style” has been described as the most difficult of concerted works for the violin (although certainly not for the listener); it requires strength and stamina as well as sustained brilliance, demanding a very occasional sacrifice of tonal beauty to achieve the requisite tonal strength. Kim demonstrates a rock-solid technique and the same compound of brilliance and warmth she displayed in the composer’s First Concerto, while the Halász and the Orchestra find both imposing rhetoric and human warmth in the orchestral part (as in the First Concerto, the engineers have balanced the solo and orchestra parts, creating a striking profile for the former against the highly detailed backdrop of the latter). Both soloist and orchestra emphasize the Concerto’s overt ethnicity (an element perhaps most obviously missing from alternative recordings by Treger, Rosand, Elmar Oliveira (Masters 27, 15:3), Rachel Barton Pine (Cedille 90000 068, 26:6), and Christian Tetzlaff (Virgin 502109, 31:6), all of whose readings nevertheless realized a great deal of the Concerto’s potential—except for Treger’s, which fell somewhat short of the work’s technical demands, and, in any case, isn’t any longer available. But Kim’s brilliant while offering a structurally synoptic view of this prolix Concerto (just over 45 minutes in this performance), brings an occasional poignancy that relieves the dramatic tension in the first movement—compared to Tetzlaff and Dausgaard’s thrustingly craggy symphonic reading of that movement, she and Halász take by comparison a more relaxed, expansive view (skirting the danger in such a long-winded movement, that offers no extra time to pause and smell the flowers). And after a long respite in the slow movement, a passage hardly bereft of difficulties and violinistic posturing, she opens the finale with an energetic flash that rivals Rosand’s and surpasses it in Hungarian verve.
For an imposing reading of the Hungarian Concerto, Kim’s and Halász’s could hardly be beat, and the program offers the relative novelty of the First Concerto, both in stunning performances. Strongly recommended to all kinds of listeners.
FANFARE: Robert Maxham
Schumann: Hermann & Dorothea Overture; Overture, Scherzo & Finale; Violin Concerto
& A conversation on the Schumann Violin Concerto with Elmar Oliveira and Stewart Robertson
In March of last year, a Boca Raton, Florida, audience was treated to this unusual all-Schumann program—unusual in that the works performed are not that often heard on record let alone live in concert. The highlight was Schumann’s ill-fated Violin Concerto, about which I’ve already had my say in the above interview. I first came to know the piece from Henryk Szeryng’s Mercury recording with Antal Doráti conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. That recording, coupled with Szeryng’s Mendelssohn Concerto was made in 1964, and I acquired it as an LP. I didn’t think much of the Schumann concerto then, and after a parade of others that followed—including Thomas Zehetmair, Joshua Bell, and Christian Tetzlaff—I still don’t think much of the piece now. Or, I didn’t, until I heard Elmar Oliveira play it on this CD. I wasn’t just trying to flatter him in our interview when I said I found his performance of the work the most persuasive I’ve heard.
I think there are some artists who play a piece for the same reason that some mountaineers climb a particular mountain—because it’s there. Then there are those artists who really believe in a piece and commit themselves to it body, mind, and soul in an effort to bring it to life in a way that no one else has before. I can’t, and won’t, say that I’m ready to accord Schumann’s violin concerto a place on high among the Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius concertos, but I can, and will, say that Oliveira, Robertson, and the ACO’s performance of the score made more sense to me than it ever has, and has convinced me that the work deserves at least second-tier status among the likes of the Dvo?ák, Glazunov, Goldmark, and Bruch concertos—and that’s not bad company to be in. It’s certainly several steps above where Schumann’s concerto has long languished, and Oliveira and Robertson can take credit for its rehabilitation.
Schumann composed a trivet of concert overtures based on literary works. I use the word “trivet” rather than trilogy, because though the three scores were composed in the same year, 1851, they are not related, and they were assigned non-contiguous opus numbers. The first of them, Braut von Messina , op. 100, is based on Schiller’s tragic play of the same name. The second overture, Julius Caesar , op. 128, was inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedy. And last, the overture performed here, Hermann and Dorothea , op. 136, was inspired by Goethe’s epic poem telling of the tragic fate of two lovers during the French Revolution. Tchaikovsky, it seems, was not the first composer to use the Marseillaise when he incorporated it into his 1812 Overture ; Schumann uses it here to set the time and place for his score. In works such as these, the lines between concert overture and tone poem are blurred. The question is not merely academic: If an orchestral piece of music takes its inspiration from a literary work, and it purports to depict the work’s characters and/or to outline its story, how does that differ from a tone poem?
It’s a question that spills over into the other orchestral work on this program, the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, op. 52. What is its musical taxonomy? Even Schumann didn’t seem to know, at one time referring to it as his “Symphony No. 2,” at another time as a “suite,” and at still another time as a “sinfonietta.” Reducing it to its component parts, one could say it’s a symphony without a slow movement. Perhaps because of confusion over its classification, the work was long neglected for most of the 19th century, but it has been dusted off in the 20th and taken up by a number of famous conductors in the modern recording era, from Kletzki, Schuricht, and Konwitschny, to Karajan, Solti, Sawallisch, Marriner, Gardiner, and Thielemann.
The two orchestral works are presented in highly polished performances by conductor Robertson and the Atlantic Classical Orchestra, but of course, it’s Schumann’s violin concerto with soloist Oliveira that is the main fare on the menu and the reason for you to purchase this disc. As mentioned earlier, a 20-minute bonus track at the end includes a fascinating conversation on the concerto between Oliveira and Robertson.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Brahms, Schumann: Piano Quintets / Joyce, Alexander String Quartet
One would think that the Schumann and Brahms piano quintets would make natural partners on disc; yet, they’ve been paired together fewer times than I’d have thought. I found no more than half a dozen such couplings, and interestingly, of those, only one (not counting the present Alexander Quartet’s version) is anywhere near recent, and that is a 2007 recording with the Artemis Quartet and Leif Ove Andsnes on Virgin, which received a less than favorable review from me in 31:4. Three others fall into the historical category: a recording issued by Pearl with the Busch Quartet and Rudolf Serkin (Brahms, 1938; Schumann, 1942); a recording issued in a three-disc set by Testament with the Hollywood Quartet and Victor Aller (Brahms, 1954; Schumann, 1955); and a recording by Doremi with the Tel Aviv Quartet and Pnina Salzman (Brahms, 1974; Schumann, 1983). There’s also a pairing of the two works on a 2000 Globe CD, featuring the Rubio Quartet and Paul Komen.
This led me to wonder why these two piano quintets by two men who held each other in high esteem, and whose lives intersected in very personal ways, would not be joined together on disc more often. Then, listening to them, one after the other, as they’re programmed on the Alexander’s CD—the Schumann first, the Brahms second—some possible reasons presented themselves.
To begin with, the Brahms Piano Quintet dwarfs the Schumann, and not just in its duration, which is some 12 minutes longer, but in the thickness of its textures, the weightiness of its material, and especially the ponderousness of its piano part. Schumann, the keyboard virtuoso who wrote such magnificent music for his own instrument, also seemed to understand intuitively how to combine piano and strings in a way that was balanced and transparent and that allowed for the strings to be heard on an equal footing. He leveled the playing field. Steven Ritter, in a 34:1 review of the Quintet performed by the Leipzig Quartet and Christian Zacharias on MDG, wrote, “Schumann in this piece knew what he was writing for, and the balance among the strings with the piano is well-nigh perfect.” Exactly right.
Brahms, too, was reputedly a formidable pianist, but his writing for the instrument, at least in his earlier works, was of a different nature. It was muscular, bulky, and dense. For the string players in his Quintet, it’s a constant struggle to be heard.
Then there’s the music itself. Much of Schumann’s Quintet gives off a feeling of spontaneous inspiration. For the most part, it’s a buoyant, ebullient work. Brahms’s Quintet is not spontaneous sounding at all. Much of it, with its convoluted rhythmic contortions, sounds laboriously worked out. Add to that a score containing some of Brahms’s most violent music, and in the very dark key of F Minor—which, according to Christian Schubart’s Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (Ideas for an Aesthetic of Sound Art) (1806), expresses “deep depression, funereal lament, groans of misery, and longing for the grave”—and you have a work that’s grim, desperate, and brutal in three of its four movements. Can there be any more sudden or crueler ending to a piece than the fateful three-note thud that decapitates the Finale dead in its tracks?
The piano quintets by Schumann and Brahms are indeed very different works, which, on emotional and psychological levels, probably wouldn’t make compatible marriage partners.
There’s also the age difference to take into account. Schumann composed his Quintet in 1842, more than 10 years before he and Clara met Brahms for the first time in Düsseldorf in 1853. By the time Brahms completed his Piano Quintet in 1864, Schumann had been dead for eight years.
But Brahms’s Quintet was one of those works that had a lengthy gestation and a difficult birth, struggling to find its final form. Originally, it took shape as a two-cello String Quintet. Had Brahms not destroyed that first version, it would have been his only string quintet scored for two cellos, following the example of Schubert’s great C-Major Quintet. As it turned out, Brahms’s only two extant string quintets, opp. 88 and 111, are scored for two violas, following the examples of Mozart.
Unhappy with the piece as a String Quintet, Brahms next revised it as a Sonata for Two Pianos. He was well enough satisfied with that version not to have destroyed it, but Clara Schumann and Hermann Levi, who performed the two-piano version together in concert, both felt that the piece needed a bigger, perhaps orchestral, treatment. Brahms wasn’t ready yet to write a symphony, but he took his friends’ advice to heart, and rearranged the score one last time as the Piano Quintet we know today. The two-piano version, however, was preserved and published as op. 34b. But filed under the category of “can’t leave well-enough alone,” the destroyed two-cello Quintet version was exhumed in a speculative reconstruction by Anssi Karttunen and recorded at least once that I know of, on a Toccata Classics CD (TOCC0066).
The Alexander’s Schumann is indeed breathtaking, as much for its sweeping lyricism and emotional responsiveness to the music’s impassioned Romantic gestures, as for its technical precision, ensemble balance, and tonal bloom. It stands head and shoulders, by far, above any of the recent recordings of the work to come my way. I already mentioned the disappointing Artemis effort; and even more recently, I found the Fine Arts Quartet’s entry with pianist Xiayin Wang on Naxos “workmanlike and professional, but not emotionally moving or inspiring.” Yet another letdown was a live recording from the Heimbach Festival with Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt, and friends, a performance I found wanting for a bit more rehearsal time.
Quite honestly, until the arrival of this new version of the Schumann from the Alexander Quartet and Joyce Yang, my favorites have been a performance by the Schubert Ensemble on ASV, reviewed in 30:3, and the classic 1966 recording by the Guarneri Quartet with Arthur Rubinstein, a review of which (assuming it was reviewed) most likely predates the Fanfare Archive. The Alexander’s Schumann is simply wonderful, taking pride of place among all others with which I’m familiar.
The Brahms Quintet, too, is special. The hair-on-fire Scherzo, in particular, is a guided tour through Brahms’s rhythmic arsenal. If the players thoroughly appreciate the pulse-quickening, heart-pounding effect this movement is intended to have, and they deliver it accordingly, it should make you want to jump out of your skin. No one, of course, has literally ever done such a thing; it’s just an expression, like being beside oneself, which, according to quantum theory, at least, is a possibility. But I have to say that the Alexander’s performance is super-charged and electrifyingly exciting. Needless to say, the ensemble’s terrific reading of Brahms’s Piano Quintet is not limited to just the Scherzo. This new recording of the Schumann and Brahms piano quintets will be a serious contender for my year-end Want List.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Mendelssohn, Schumann: Violin Concertos / Christian Tetzlaff, Paavo Jarvi
Christian Tetzlaff is an absolutely fabulous violinist, and this repertoire suits him perfectly. His tone is unfailingly sweet, penetrating, and lyrical, but never burdened with excessive vibrato. His intonation is as accurate as we have any right to expect, his phrasing of the big tunes always natural and unaffected. In the slow movements, particularly that of the Mendelssohn, he makes his expressive points with an unobtrusive mastery that's truly moving, and seemingly inevitable. The music sounds as though it is being composed on the spot, songfully and spontaneously.
The couplings are perfectly chosen and even more impressive, if possible. Schumann's two clumsily orchestrated concertante works for violin and orchestra are full of beautiful ideas, but they so often bog down in what can seem like tiresome repetition. Not here. Tetzlaff plays with evident affection, making light of the difficult and often unforgiving solo parts, while Paavo Järvi does everything that he possibly can with Schumann's accompaniments. Superb engineering, ideally balanced, puts the finishing touch on an irresistible release.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Brahms: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1-3 / Tetzlaff, Vogt
REVIEWS:
A breathtaking balance of poise and daring. Tetzlaff and Vogt take obvious pleasure in details without losing sight of the larger picture, whether it’s a phrase, a movement or an entire work. Indeed, they sharply delineate the individual character of each sonata.
– Gramophone Magazine
I get the impression that Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt want to drag the composer out of his book-lined study and seal the door. It’s beautiful playing, tonally and expressively, and very musical, but it’s also surprisingly open – Brahms after an expensive course of Viennese psychotherapy.
– BBC Music Magazine
