ArkivMusic

A Musical Journey - Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Naxos AudioVisual

Available as DVD

~~$13.99~~ $9.99

Dec 11, 2012

Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

The Places:

The tour starts in Uzbekistan, of which there are later glimpses. There is a visit to the historic Russian town of Suzdal and scenes from St Petersburg as well as from Ukraine. It would be impossible to avoid the Russian winter, which appears in various guises, providing entertainment for some and for others a seemingly enchanted snow-bound landscape.

The Music:

The music for the tour is taken from Russian composers who were, by and large, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of their country. This is reflected in Lyadov's arrangement of a series folk-songs and his translation of Russian legend into music. Other composers represented are Ippolitov-Ivanov, Kabalevsky and Anton Rubinstein, with two well known excerpts from unfinished operas by Mussorgsky.

The Welte Mignon Mystery Vol. XVI / Josef Lhevinne

TACET Musikproduktion

Available as CD

$23.99

Apr 15, 2010

The commercial discography of pianist Josef Lhévinne (1874-1944) is pitifully small - a single CD’s worth and not jam-packed at that. Born in Oryol in Central Russia he studied with Vassily Safonov in Moscow, began his international career in the early 1890s, taught, returned to Moscow as a professor, and then moved on to Berlin. The pattern is unsettled but things got worse. He was interned during the First World War but was finally allowed to emigrate to America, from which base he resumed his international career and taught. In time the latter came to occupy much more of his time than performing. His wife Rosina was a fellow Gold Winner at the Moscow Conservatoire and also a formidable interpreter and teacher.

Those few precious discs are augmented by the piano rolls he made for Welte Mignon in 1906 and 1911. They have been finely reproduced by Tacet, who are one of the leading companies in this field, and whose booklets are full of important technical details as to the system’s operation, the numbers of the particular rolls, and well produced relevant photographs.

One of his warhorses was Schulz-Evler’s Arabesken über Themen des Walzers "An der schönen blauen Donau", the Blue Danube subjected to roulades of virtuosic wit. His Victor recording of May 1928 is a classic of its kind. He cuts the impressionistic shimmering introduction for the commercial 78, to fit it to a 6:59 length but for the roll he can take as much time as he likes, and he does, taking 8:20. But note that Naxos’s transfer of this same roll [8.110677] in their Welte-Mignon series comes up short at 7:48. My own view is that Tacet’s is the more accurate roll restoration, and it also doesn’t enshrine action noise as Naxos’s does. But this kind of thing illuminates only too clearly the dangers of roll reproduction and the vagaries of the system – let alone the editorial mediations that make it so conditional and provisional a method of analysing performance practice with any kind of assurance or objectivity.

Two other rolls were the subject of studio disc recordings. Schumann’s Toccata was set down in roll form in 1906, and recorded on 78 in 1935. The narrative dynamism of the disc is remarkable, the dynamics surging and cresting, the playing full of leonine command. By contrast the roll is a broken albatross; flat, unconvincing and relatively feeble. True, there is nearly thirty years between them, but the objection relates to the mechanics by which the sound is transferred or transformed (not Tacet’s responsibility, obviously). This is even truer perhaps of Chopin’s Etude Op. 25 No.10. The passionate sweep and rubato of the 1935 disc attests to a performance of committed excellence. The roll’s runs are alas mechanical, the schema of the playing rendered antiseptic.

One must be grateful that we can ‘hear’ Josef Lhévinne in repertory he didn’t set down in the studio – there is Liszt, Rubinstein, Weber and much else in these two discs – and one can enjoy speculating as to the performances he must have given. But contrasting the same pieces in both disc and roll form reinforces, yet again, how wrong it would be to take these artefacts at face value.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Tracklist:

Disc One:
1. Paul de Schlozer: Étude de Concert Es-Dur op. 1,1
2. Chopin: Étude h-Moll op. 25,10 ('Oktavenetüde')
3. Benjamin Louis Godard: En route, Scherzo B-Dur op. 107
4. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: 7 Charakterstücke op. 7 Presto F-Dur Nr. 7
5. Alexander Skrjabin: Nocturne für die linke Hand
6. Schumann: Toccata C-Dur op. 7
7. Franz Liszt: Die Loreley R591, Begleitung für Sopran
8. Gluck/Brahms: Iphigenie in Aulis Gavotte aus der Oper von Gluck
9. Anton Rubinstein: Le Bal, Polka op. 14
10. Andrei Schulz-Evier: Arabesken über Themen des Walzers 'An der schönen blauen Donau'

Disc Two:
1. Carl Czerny: Kunst der Fingerfertigkeit Oktaven-Etüde op. 740,5
2. Anton Rubinstein: Kamennoi-Ostrow op. 10,22 Rêve angèlique
3. Giovanni Sgambati: Quattro pezzi op. 18,2 Vecchio Minuetto
4. Beethoven/Saint-Saens: Die Ruinen von Athen op. 113,4 Chor der Derwische
5. Moritz Moszkowski: Menuett G-Dur op. 17,2
6. Anton Rubinstein: Barcarole c-Moll op. 104,4
7. Anton Rubinstein: Album de Peterhof op. 75,9 Prélude f-Moll
8. Chopin: Mazurka Nr. 23 D-Dur op. 33,2
9. Carl Maria von Weber: Sonate C-Dur op. 24 4. Satz Rondo 'Perpetuum mobile'
10. Chopin: Étude c-Moll op. 25,12
11. Franz Liszt: Reminiszensen de 'Robert le Diable' (Meyerbeer)

total playing time: 107:15

Radecke: Piano Trios / Trio Fontane

CPO

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $13.99

Jan 20, 2017

Following our successful first release featuring symphonic works by Robert Radecke, the Swiss Trio Fontane ensemble now turns to chamber music by this composer. Radecke took up residence in Berlin in 1853 and significantly influenced the city’s music culture through to the turn of the century. He initially performed in public as a chamber musician as the second violinist in Ferdinand Laub’s quartet and as a pianist who created a sensation with his renderings of Beethoven’s last sonatas. His mastery as an instrumentalist is reflected especially in the brilliant piano part of the Trio in B minor, which not coincidentally is dedicated to Anton Rubinstein. Radecke composed the first movement quite likely while he was still in Leipzig (1853) and added the cantabile adagio two years later. However, it was not until 1868 that he supplied a scherzo and a finale to complete the work for publication as his op. 33 by Bote & Bock of Berlin. This work and Radecke’s two piano trios, about whose circumstances of composition and reception hardly anything is known, are being presented in recording premieres on this release. Along with the Fantasy Pieces op. 7, this means that almost all of the composer’s published chamber compositions, that is, three of his total of four such works of this genre, have now been recorded. This beautiful romantic music displays Radecke’s independent talent coupled with consummate compositional artistry and a fine feel for formal perfection.

Busoni: Violin Sonatas / Turban, Scheps

CPO

Available as CD

$18.99

Aug 07, 2020

“For a long time no child prodigy has appealed to us so sympathetically as the little Ferruccio Busoni. Precisely because he has so little of the child prodigy about him, but instead a lot of the good musician, both as a pianist and as a budding composer.” This is what Eduard Hanslick, the famous Vienna music critic, had to say in 1876 about the ten-year-old Ferruccio Busoni. Around this time Busoni had already composed many works – mostly for clarinet with other instruments, and all these works were very much born of the spirit of his father, who played the clarinet. In his time Ferdinando Busoni was a famous virtuoso and created a sensation as a traveling artist with opera fantasies and virtuoso showpieces.

Of his son’s two Violin Sonatas composed in 1889 and 1898, the op. 36a second sonata is to be regarded as an absolute key work. According to Busoni’s own testimony, it first delineated his unique character as a composer. The entire work is based on a Bach chorale, and it culminates in a magnificent variation movement on the same. However, his enormous public appeal and the admiration for his transcription technique made Busoni skeptical, and he thought that he had strayed onto conventional paths – which was not the case. The op. 29 first sonata is very much more conventional. Within its limits, very much in keeping with its composer’s life and times, the work today speaks unusually clearly to us, as an homage to Brahms, who supported Busoni, or as a link to the great pianist of those times, Anton Rubinstein, who himself published three violin sonatas.

Piano Music For Four Hands / Duo Tal & Groethuysen

Sony Masterworks

Available as CD

~~$17.99~~ $13.99

Jun 19, 2008

The most imaginative of these three sexpartite sets of piano duets is the collection entitled From the Bohemian forest, which Dvofak completed early in 1884, two years before his second set of Slavonic Dances. The six pieces, the nimble "In the spinning-rooms", the evocative "By the black lake", the rumbustious "Witches' sabbath", the dramatic "On the watch", the poetic "Silent woods" (probably better known in its later transcription for cello and piano or orchestra), and the fiery "From stormy times", were inspired by the countryside near Vysokâ, the estate of Dvoiik's brother-in-law, where the composer often went walking, sometimes accompanied by his younger friend Jandeek. They are full of contrast and colour, even if, as seems likely, the titles were added later.

The six Characteristic pieces by the legendary pianist and conductor Anton Rubinstein (founder of the St Petersburg Conservatoire), composed in 1854-8, are expertly written salon pieces, aptly described by their titles, "Nocturne", "Scherzo", "Barcarolle", "Capriccio", "Berceuse" and "Marche"—except that only an exceptionally exhausted (or deaf) baby could be lulled to sleep by this at times decidedly animated "Berceuse". Rachmaninov's six Morceaux, composed in 1894, when he was just 21, have had a bad Press (Culshaw: "Insipid.., a veil can conveniently be drawn"; Norris: "Poor pieces, distinguished by neither inventiveness nor skill"). Skill, and bravura, there is in plenty, however, and they are every bit as engaging as Rubinstein's, which, with their self-explanatory titles—"Barcarolle", "Scherzo", "Theme russe", "Valse", "Romance" and "Slays" ("Glory")—they resemble quite closely.

Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen formed their duo in 1985, and the virtuosity of their performances (stunningly captured by the Sony recording) parallels that of their Czerny record enthusiastically reviewed last year (5/91). Musically, this is all fairly small beer; they have also recorded some Reger and a Mendelssohn disc is promised, but the real test will come when they get down to Mozart and Schubert.

-- Gramophone [11/1992]

Alessio Bax Plays Beethoven

Signum Classics

Available as CD

~~$19.99~~ $14.99

Sep 09, 2014

If you happened to see Daniel Barenboim’s 2003 Beethoven master classes on DVD, you might remember an unusually poised young pianist, Alessio Bax, who chose the “Hammerklavier” sonata’s daunting final movement. Fast-forward 11 years to Bax’s recording of the complete work, coupled with the composer’s ubiquitous “Moonlight” sonata. Bax might not take the “Hammerklavier” Allegro at Beethoven’s admittedly optimistic metronome marking, but the hurling momentum, lean yet nuanced textures, and astute ear for voice leading (the amazingly well contoured fughetta, for instance) convey both structure and kinetic energy. Also note Bax’s explosive build-up of the upward alternating broken fifths and sixths leading into the recapitulation, complete with the controversial “misprint masterstroke” Urtext A-sharp (played by Schnabel and Arrau) rather than the more logical yet less quirky A-natural (Brendel and Kempff).

The brisk, appropriately sardonic Scherzo features stinging offbeat accents and a ferocious upward F major scale buttoning the Trio. When I played the Adagio sostenuto for my college piano teacher, he constantly admonished me to “put some beef on that left hand.” I pass that advice down to Alessio! While he certainly sustains his slow basic tempo with the utmost in expressive economy, he does tend to uniformly voice his slow-moving chords, with the top melody line to the fore. Bax brilliantly characterizes the Largo’s madcap mood swings and broken chord transition into the Fugue, while the Fugue itself is a knockout: brisk, clear, clean, and jazzy as hell.

Bax sets an ideal and flexible pace for the “Moonlight” sonata’s iconic Adagio sostenuto, which he plays gorgeously. A few of the Allegretto’s clipped phrase endings and teensy tenutos strike me as what one of my British colleagues describes as “a mite twee.” However, Bax’s rhythmic discipline, focused articulation, and sharp attention to dynamics in the Presto agitato finale make the performance sound faster than it actually is.

Under Bax’s virtuosic fingers, the Chorus of the Dervishes whirls with Lisztian abandon. On the other hand, his overly fast and lightweight treatment of the Turkish March lacks the thrust and force of Beethoven’s original orchestral version, not to mention the once-popular Anton Rubinstein transcription. Reservations aside, this release adds up to an impressive achievement for which Bax should be proud.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Medtner: Complete Songs

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

$23.99

Jan 09, 2026

One of the most important vocal projects of recent years: the complete songs on 5 CDs by Nikolai Medtner, performed by Ekaterina Levental and Frank Peters. Nikolai Medtner was born in Moscow in 1880. After piano lessons with his mother he entered the Moscow Conservatory where he had lessons from Pavel Pabst and Sergey Taneyev. He won the prestigious Anton Rubinstein Prize at age 20. A younger contemporary of Scriabin and Rachmaninoff he was destined for a brilliant pianistic career but he chose to concentrate on composition. In 1936 he settled in London where he spent the rest of his life teaching and composing till 1951. Medtner's style is rooted in the 19th century, full-blooded romantic, with a highly personal harmonic and melodic language, often complex and dense, but hauntingly beautiful. His vocal works fuse intricate piano accompaniments with expressive melodies and poetic texts, often by Goethe, Pushkin, or Tyutchev. Ekaterina Levental was born in Uzbekistan. She settled in The Netherlands where she studied at the Conservatory of The Hague. She embarked on a successful career as singer, dramatist and theatre producer. Pianist Frank Peters is a highly respected Dutch pianist, both as soloist and chamber music partner. He is an indefatigable champion of the piano works of Medtner. 'Levental's soft high notes are truly exquisite, and she can do things with the voice that most modern singers cannot, such as to drain the voice of vibrato for expressive effect. All things considered, she is a virtuoso vocalist of the old school, and such artists are extremely rare nowadays... "We are very lucky to have a pianist like Peters, who fully understands this dichotomy, as the pianist on this album. " (Artmusiclounge. Com). "Levental has a dark, rich voice, but her pure tone is never burdened by excess vibrato... She couldn't ask for a more responsive partner than Peters, who reveals an astonishingly deft touch and an uncanny ear for detail. " Fanfare (Volume 1, 96056). "The phrasing is so perfect, the sense of line so keen, the rubato so natural sounding, that this seems the only way to sing them... this lucidity is due to the purity of Levental's voice, which she employs with sure intonation and minimum vibrato, as well with an exquisite (but always controlled) play of colour... This is a major release. " Fanfare (Volume 2, 96061).

Saint-Saens: Music for Two Pianos

SOMM Recordings

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $14.99

Nov 15, 2024

SOMM Recordings is pleased to present Music for Two Pianos by the French virtuoso pianist and composer, Camille Saint-Saens (1835 - 1921), whose output for solo and duo pianists totals almost 200 compositions. The programme on this release comprises original works for two pianos alongside selections transcribed by Saint-Saens from his orchestral pieces. The featured pianists, Artur Pizarro and Ludovico Troncanetti, made their piano duo debut in Lisbon in 2023 with a recital featuring the repertoire on this album.�The artists share a love of performing two-piano and four-hands repertoire, and they have plans to continue their collaboration with further projects on stage and in the studio. The renowned Portuguese pianist, Artur Pizarro, winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition amongst others, performs internationally as a recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with the world's leading�orchestras and conductors.�The Italian pianist, Ludovico Troncanetti, is a graduate of the Milan Conservatory and is actively involved in reviving the works of the Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein. The recital opens with Saint-Saens' transcription of Le Rouet d'Omphale (Omphale's Spinning-Wheel), the most famous of his four symphonic poems inspired by Greco-Roman mythology. Both this work and the Marche heroique had their premiere in the original version for two pianos, the march seeming to presage the war that broke out between France and Prussia in July 1870. The first and most substantial of Saint-Saens' original two-piano works is a set of Variations on a Theme of Beethoven, based on the Trio section of the Minuet from Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18, the Hunt. The eight variations plus a fugue, presto, and coda require considerable ensemble skill from the pianists to pull off. From 1886-the year of the Organ Symphony and The Carnival of the Animals-comes Saint-Saens' tribute to Chopin, whom he had passionately admired since he was a student. Saint-Saens vividly evokes the spirit of the Polonaise without actually quoting any of Chopin's own works inspired by the national dance of his native Poland. Saint-Saens frequently wintered in North Africa; in fact he died in Algiers in December 1921. During an 1889 trip to Las Palmas in Northern Africa, he began composing his Scherzo for two pianos. It's a work with echoes of Debussy, Ravel, and Satie, which he cautioned would be difficult to read at sight and would require much practice. Caprice arabe, along with the symphonic poem Africa and the "Egyptian" Piano Concerto, is one of a trio of piano compositions inspired by Saint-Saens' journeys to North Africa. The recital ends with another caprice, the virtuosic Caprice heroique, which leans more towards being capricious than heroic, despite it's powerful opening and fugue-like ending.

Nocturnes from 19th Century Russia, Vol. 1 / Bart van Oort

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

$13.99

Nov 17, 2023

This recording, along with the forthcoming Vol.2, represents a first, comprehensive anthology of the Russian nocturne in its nearly two-hundred-year development. Some nocturnes are recorded here for the first time. The earliest Russian nocturnes were composed by Mikhail Glinka (1804–1857) and owe a debt to his teacher, the Irish composer John Field. The first, in E flat, was written in 1828 before his first trip to Italy. His Nocturne in F minor ‘La Séparation’, written at the height of his career, is styled like a ‘romance’ (song) without words. Karl Eduard Hartknoch (1796–1834) made his debut in 1816 as a concert pianist in Leipzig. In 1824 he moved to Russia, first to St. Petersburg and then to Moscow where he worked as a music teacher. He left a considerable number of piano compositions, including two concertos and the three Nocturnes Op.8. Anton Rubinstein (1829–1894) was a key figure in the history of Russian music, the first of the nation’s composers whose works for solo piano embodied the same serious artistic ideas as his symphonies and chamber music. He wrote eleven Nocturnes, two of them for piano four hands. The two Nocturnes by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) were written in the 1870s and are regarded as real jewels of Russian music. Tchaikovsky was interested in the subtle movements of the human soul, and like his symphonic and operatic works, his nocturnes abound with the heartfelt poetry of everyday life. Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915) was famous during his lifetime as a piano virtuoso, known for performing his own music. Scriabin wrote the majority of his works for the piano, and the two Nocturnes Op.5 reveal the influence of Frederic Chopin (his model during his early years). While not the first, the Nocturne for the Left Hand in D Flat is perhaps the greatest 19th-century masterpiece written for the left hand. Konstantin Antipov (1859–1927) was a member of the Belyaev Group. He graduated from Rimsky-Korsakov’s composition class at the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1886. Antipov is the author of a symphonic allegro, piano pieces (including two nocturnes), romances and other works. Alexander Glazunov (1865–1936) was an outstanding composer, conductor, educator, and social activist. He worked at the St Petersburg Conservatory for almost 30 years, directing it for more than 20. His style is characterized by attention to texture, harmonic sumptuousness and clarity of melodic lines. Vasily Kalinnikov (1866–1900) lived a short but eventful and creative life. His most significant output was orchestral: symphonies, intermezzos and incidental music for Tolstoy’s Tsar Boris. He wrote just seven works for the piano in the 1890s. His impressionistic Nocturne in F-sharp minor resembles lyrical miniatures in the spirit of Tchaikovsky.

Glazunov: Les Ruses D'amour / Andreescu, Romanian State Orchestra

Naxos

Available as CD

$19.99

Jan 26, 2010

The Naxos series of Glazunov orchestral works reaches volume 19 with this disc. Composed by Glazunov in 1898 Ruses is also known as The Trial of Damis. This disc is a reissue originally released on Marco Polo 8.220485.

Glazunov was a precocious student of Rimsky-Korsakov during the artistic ferment of the revival of Russian musical nationalism. Composed when he was a sixteen year old Glazunov gained sudden acclaim with the success of his Symphony No. 1. The audience would have been shocked when Glazunov took his bow at the premiere wearing his school uniform. International recognition was established with his symphonies, the tone poem Stenka Razin, the ballets The Seasons and Raymonda, and the ever popular Violin Concerto. He was still composing music in the manner of Rimsky, Anton Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky. His works soon became marginalised having failed to compete with the growing enthusiasm for progressive composers such as Schoenberg, Berg, Stravinsky and his own pupils Prokofiev and Shostakovich. After a century or so we should now be able to reassess Glazunov’s music for its innate qualities rather than be reference to the dynamic of the era in which it was written.

The première of the ballet Les Ruses d'amour was given in the small hall of the Hermitage Theatre, St. Petersburg in 1900. Marius Petipa provided the choreography. The leading dancers were the Italian prima ballerina assoluta Pierina Legnani and her Russian partner Pavel Gerdt. Briefly the story of Les Ruses d'amour centres on the role Isabella who is the daughter of a titled Lady. Isabella pretends to be a maid in a bid to test that the love of her fiancé the Marquis Damis is true and not driven simply by her wealth and status.

The popularity of Les Ruses d'amour has certainly not endured to the same degree as The Seasons and the longer Raymonda ballets that have remained on the fringes of the repertoire. Reasonably appealing, the music of Ruses d'amour is not as recognisable as Glazunov’s other ballets. The composer has not managed to achieve the same melodically memorable quality.

Showing a convincing enthusiasm the Romanian State Orchestra under Horia Andreescu provide creditable playing. I enjoyed the gentle and swaying lyricism of the Introduction and Scene I and in the Recitatif mimique the woodwind-infused music has a distinct bucolic feel. Melody after melody is released in the Sarabanda but the themes are typically unremarkable. One notices the childlike lyricism of the Danse des marionettes and Scenes IV and V are gentle and romantic. The movement Ballabile des paysans et des paysannes is infectious and energetic. I was struck by the soft and tender love music of Grand pas des fiancés which is sugar-coated with a gorgeous line for solo violin and cello. The engaging La Fricassée brings the score to an exciting and energetic conclusion.

Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International

Liszt: Russian Transcriptions, Vol. 35 / Alexandre Dossin

Naxos

Available as CD

~~$19.99~~ $13.99

Jun 26, 2012

LISZT Polonaise from Yevgeney Onegin. Le Rossignol. Chanson bohémienne. Abschied. Mazurka. March from Russlan and Ludmilla. Prelude to the Borodin Polka. Russian Galop. Tarantella by César Cui. Slavic Tarentella by Dargomyzhsky. 2 Anton Rubinstein songs. Autrefois • Alexandre Dossin (pn) • NAXOS 572432 (66: 25)

The Naxos traversal of Liszt’s complete piano music, which began in 1997, has now reached its 35th volume with Alexandre Dossin playing a fascinating program of transcriptions of Russian composers. Dossin’s bona fides as a Liszt player of distinction were established with his 2007 contribution to the series, a disc devoted to the Verdi transcriptions and paraphrases. This new release shows him in wide-ranging repertoire, from salon trifles such as the Chanson bohémienne of Bulakhov, through the resplendent setting of the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky’s Yevgeny Onegin , to the heartrending Abschied (Farewell), a simple song setting for Liszt’s beloved pupil Siloti.

The chief interest of this repertoire, however, is not its variety, but its chronology. Five of the transcriptions—those based on music of Alyabyev, Bulakhov, Glinka, and Vielgorsky—are souvenirs of Liszt’s Russian tours of the 1840s. The isolated Mazurka “composed by a St. Petersburg amateur,” possibly Vielgorsky, dates from 1856, during Liszt’s Weimar years. The remainder—including the Tchaikovsky Polonaise and the Borodin, Dargomyzhsky, and Cui transcriptions as well as the two Rubinstein songs—were all set by Liszt in 1880 or later. In other words, these final seven transcriptions are products of the last six years of Liszt’s life and thus contemporaneous with such late-style works as Czárdás macabre , the Hungarian Historical Portraits, Bagatelle without Tonality, Unstern!, and the several pieces memorializing Wagner.

The Polonaise from Onegin , easily the most familiar work on the disc, is given an extrovert reading that highlights its profusion of opulent pianistic detail without obscuring the overall structure and momentum of the dance. Dossin’s interpretation readily holds its own beside those older, famous ones of Cziffra and Ponti, and perhaps surpasses them in its unforced poise and characteristic voice. Dossin approaches Alyabyev’s The Nightingale , set by Liszt as a veritable mini-Russian rhapsody, with intelligence and finesse. Meanwhile, the quirky Circassian March from Glinka’s Russlan and Ludmilla, a virtuoso tour de force , fairly explodes with rhythmic acrobatics and kaleidoscopic colors.

The two tarantellas by Dargomyzhsky and Cui are particularly intriguing, reminding us that, during the 1860s, Liszt and Dargomyzhsky were among the first composers to experiment (independently) with use of the whole-tone scale—Dargomyzhsky in his opera The Stone Guest and Liszt in his melodrama Der traurige Mönch. Both tarantellas exemplify Liszt’s tendency in old age to transform the materials he transcribed, imbuing them with the radical harmonic and rhythmic characteristics of his own late style. In many cases, and certainly in these tarantellas, the originals are endowed with a “new formal and authorial weight,” as Jonathan Kregor has suggested in his pathbreaking study, Liszt as Transcriber (2010). Dargomyzhsky had been dead 10 years when his unprepossessing piano duet Slavic Tarantella was taken up by Liszt and expanded into a haunting and concert-worthy piano solo. The longest piece on the program is the Tarantella by César Cui , possibly Liszt’s very last transcription of another composer’s work. Kregor points out that Cui’s orchestral original had been in circulation for more than 25years when Liszt decided to transcribe it. Liszt expands, emends, and amplifies the material in a way that elevates this folk dance to a veritable metaphysical realm. If proof were needed that the acuity of Liszt’s perceptions and the richness of his imagination remained undiminished to the end, the Tarantella by César Cui provides ample testimony.

It is hard to imagine a more eloquent spokesman for this repertoire than Dossin. Though he is by birth and upbringing Brazilian, the nine years he spent studying in Moscow lend an unmistakable authenticity to his voice in Russian music. Moreover, Dossin’s refined and multifaceted pianism, combined with his formidable intellectual and musical grasp, make him one of the more remarkable Liszt interpreters before the public today.

FANFARE: Patrick Rucker

Carl Davidoff: Cello Concertos 3 & 4

CPO

Available as CD

$18.99

Jun 29, 2010

DAVIDOFF Cello Concertos: No. 4 in e; No. 3 in D. TCHAIKOVSKY Nocturne, op. 19/4. Pezzo Capriccioso, op. 62. Andante cantabile • Wenn-Sinn Yang (vc); Terje Mikkelsen, cond; Shanghai SO • CPO 777432 (71:39)

This completes cpo’s survey of Carl Davidoff’s cello concertos; and, like the earlier recording from these same forces (777263), which paired Davidoff’s first and second concertos with Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme , this disc also mates the two composers. It’s a logical coupling since the two men knew each other professionally and held each other in high regard, despite rivalries that existed between their competing conservatories in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Tchaikovsky is in fact often quoted as having dubbed Davidoff “the tsar of cellists,” and I’ve often wondered, if not for the politics, how much better Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations might have fared had the composer entrusted the editing and revising to Davidoff instead of to a fellow professor at the Moscow Conservatory, Wilhelm Fitzenhagen.

In Fanfare 31:1 Tom Godell reviewed the previous release, declaring Davidoff’s concertos “of dubious value.” He did, however, heap praise on cellist Wenn-Sinn Yang. One issue later (31:2) that CD turned up on my 2007 Want List.

Born in what is now part of Latvia, Carl Davidoff (1838–89) completed a degree in mathematics at the St. Petersburg University before he enrolled at the Leipzig Conservatory to study composition. He had been playing cello, however, since he was 12; after renowned cellist Friedrich Wilhelm Grutzmacher departed his post, Davidoff, at 22, was offered his cello professorship at the Leipzig Conservatory. In 1876, after internal squabbling among the administrators of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Davidoff was appointed that institution’s director, no doubt to the displeasure of Tchaikovsky, who had been a candidate for the position. I suspect this was the irritant that caused Tchaikovsky to turn to Fitzenhagen instead of Davidoff for assistance with his Rococo Variations . The rest, as they say, is history. Davidoff, along with David Popper, became one of the most celebrated cellists of the second half of the 19th century, and was honored as the dedicatee of Dvo?ák’s famous concerto.

It’s not in the least far-fetched to draw parallels between Davidoff, the virtuoso cellist, and Wienawski (1835–80), the virtuoso violinist. Not only were they near contemporaries, but more significantly, at the invitation of Anton Rubinstein, Wieniawski moved to St. Petersburg, where he lived from 1860 to 1872, teaching violin in Rubinstein’s Russian Music Society. Davidoff had been teaching cello at the St. Petersburg Conservatory since 1863, so it’s almost certain that during Wieniawski’s years in the city the two men would have crossed paths.

The compositions written by both of them for their respective instruments represent a next phase in the development of the virtuoso concerto after Paganini. Hair-raising pyrotechnics and high-wire daredevil cadenzas still abound, but now there is at least some semblance of more serious, expansive concerted scores in which the orchestra plays more than a barrel-organ accompanimental role. Contrasting lyrical passages vie for attention more convincingly amid the miles of blistering runs up and down the fingerboard, joint-dislocating double-stops, bow-bending arpeggios, artificial harmonics, and flying staccato.

As music, I would tend to agree with Godell’s “of dubious value” judgment. But the technical innovations and challenges are not of dubious value, for they opened the door to works, like the cello concertos of Dvo?ák, Elgar, Shostakovich, Myaskovsky, and many others that would take those innovations for granted and make them an integral part of the composition.

Of such insignificance, apparently, are the three Tchaikovsky fillers on the disc that not a single word about them is to be found in eight pages of vanishingly small print by note author Eckhardt van den Hoogen who, nonetheless, finds it important to ramble on for a full page about Davidoff’s 1712 Stradivarius cello. So, to fill in the blank, Tchaikovsky’s Nocturne in C?-Minor has long been a favorite of cellists. It’s the fourth piece from the six Morceaux, op. 19, originally for solo piano. The Pezzo Capriccioso is an original piece for cello and orchestra written in 1887. Its title belies its depressive B-Minor mood, which is generally attributed to Tchaikovsky’s tending to a dying friend, Nikolay Kondratyev, who was nearing the end in his battle against syphilis. The Andante cantabile will of course be recognized as an arrangement for cello and orchestra of the second movement from Tchaikovsky’s D-Major String Quartet, op. 11.

At present, there does not appear to be any recorded competition for these two Davidoff concertos, so it’s good news that Wenn-Sinn Yang can be recommended without reservation to those who take pleasure in cello gymnastics of the most demanding kind. Yang never once loses composure, and even manages to play these extremely difficult works with a good deal of tonal beauty and, where the music allows it, with considerable emotional expressivity. Norwegian maestro Terje Mikkelsen, who studied under Mariss Jansons, and who has led the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since 2006, is a conductor who made quite an impression on me with a recent recording he made with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra for Sterling of two symphonies by Norwegian Romantic composer Eyvind Alnæs. I expect we will be hearing a lot more from Mikkelsen in the not-too-distant future.

In sum, this cpo release is an excellent recording, and one that may be strongly recommended to those with an appreciation for this type of repertoire.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Trumpet Concertos / Friedrich, Mueller, Gottinger Symphony

MDG

Available as SACD

~~$24.99~~ $18.99

Oct 01, 2012

RUSSIAN TRUMPET CONCERTOS • Reinhold Friedrich (tpt); Christoph-Mathias Mueller, cond; Göttinger SO • MDG 901 1770-6 (SACD: 61:26)

SHAKHOV Romantic Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra. ARUTIUNIAN Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra. O. BÖHME La Napolitaine. Tarantelle. VASILENKO Concerto for Trumpet “Concert-Poem.” GOEDICKE Concert Etude

The title of this disc is something of a misnomer. Out of the five composers represented here, one is an Armenian (Arutiunian), one a German immigrant to Russia (Böhme), and one a descendant of German immigrants to Russia (Goedicke). As it is, none of the works featured here—all unabashedly tonal and written in a popular vein—sound particularly “Russian” in any way.

Information on most of these composers is hard to come by, especially regarding Ilya Emmanuilovich Shakhov (1925–1986), who has no entry in any of the multiple online and print sources I consulted. According to the booklet notes, he was a pupil in violin at the Moscow Conservatory but had no formal training in composition. His studies were interrupted at age 16 with the Nazi invasion of Russia, at which point he entered military service and endured various hardships before returning to musical activities upon the war’s end. His Concerto, dating from 1955 and cast in the traditional fast-slow-fast three-movement form, is, at 22: 20, the longest work on this disc. It is a pleasantly upbeat and entertaining piece that sounds a bit like a cross of Rimsky-Korsakov with Francis Poulenc or William Walton in one of their cheekier, unbuttoned moods. The slow movement is quite lovely, and the entire piece is colorfully orchestrated in a manner that suggests the composer was intimately familiar with concert band repertoire.

Alexander Arutiunian (1920–2012) is easily the most famous figure represented on this release, with his Trumpet Concerto from 1950 being perhaps his most frequently performed composition. While conforming to the confines of Soviet Socialist Realism folkloric composition, it is of much higher quality of inspiration and compositional craft than most such works. Although traces of the influences of Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev are present (though remarkably not of Khatchaturian), the work also draws upon Armenian folk melody influences, particularly that of the ashug , an 18th-century minstrel that is an Armenian counterpart of the medieval troubadour or Meistersinger . A somewhat contrasting slow movement sounds more like French café music from one of the members of Les Six . As with the Shakhov concerto, the whole is brilliantly orchestrated.

In 36:3 I reviewed a CD featuring French trumpeter Thierry Gervais that included the Vasilenko “Concert-Poem,” and so I will refer readers there for notes on the composer and piece. While I slightly prefer Friedrich as a trumpeter due to his more mellow sound, the Gervais performance is better overall due to a superior conductor on the podium knowing how to shape the piece more effectively.

Oskar Böhme (1870–1938?) and Alexander Goedicke (1877–1957) are each represented by a brief and lively encore piece, the latter having its original piano part orchestrated by Gene Mullins. As its title indicates, La Napolitaine , dating from about 1900, is a brief tarantelle that sounds like something Rossini or Donizetti would have tossed off in a spare moment. The Concert Etude from 1936 sounds like a side piece from the desk of Glazunov, although at moments it also brings to mind the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Since both composers wrote trumpet concertos, I wish that one of those had been included instead—particularly in the case of Böhme, whose life ended horribly. Born in Dresden, he first established a reputation as a trumpet virtuoso there with tours beginning in 1885. In 1897 he migrated to Russia, where he played in the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra in St. Petersburg until 1921 and also taught at a music school. After the Bolshevik Revolution, he was assigned by the government to teach at a music school on Vasilievsky Island in the harbor of Petrograd (as St. Petersburg was then named) from 1921 to 1930, and then played in the Leningrad Drama Theater Orchestra from 1930 to 1934. At that point, being suspected as a foreign national of German extraction, he was arrested by the KGB in one of Stalin’s waves of mass purges and banished to a music school in Chkalovsk, a provincial administrative center on the Volga River in an area where the so-called Volga Germans lived. After teaching there from 1936 to 1938, he was re-arrested and vanished; there is one unconfirmed report of him being seen in 1941, at age 71, working as a slave laborer on construction of the Turkmen Channel Canal in Turkmenistan.

For his part, Alexander Goedicke (a first cousin to Nikolai Medtner) was far more fortunate. The son of a piano teacher at the Moscow Conservatory, he received his initial musical training there as a piano and organ virtuoso, where he was awarded the gold medal in 1898, followed in 1900 by first prize in the Anton Rubinstein Competition in Vienna. Despite having no formal training in composition, he also won the conservatory’s Rubinstein Prize for Composition at age 23. He was appointed a professor of piano there in 1909 and also of organ in 1923; his performing repertoire included the complete organ works of Bach.

Reinhold Friedrich, a pupil of Edward Tarr, has been professor of trumpet at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik (State Music Conservatory) in Karlsruhe since 1989. He is a widely traveled soloist, and has been principal trumpet of the Lucerne Festival Orchestral under Claudio Abbado since its founding in 2002. His discography includes over 50 LPs and CDs, several of which have been reviewed to approval in these pages. His is a tone that is more sweet than piercing, which happens to be how I like trumpets to sound, and in any case it is most appropriate for the present program. The Göttinger Symphony does justice to its part of the proceedings; conductor Christoph-Mathias Mueller is sound but not exceptional, as he could do more with bringing out inner voices and shaping phrases than he does. The SACD recorded sounded matches Friedrich perfectly, having an exceptionally pleasant mellowness. In sum, while there is nothing profound here, it is one of the most delightfully entertaining anthologies of trumpet music ever to come my way, and thus receives my hearty endorsement.

FANFARE: James A. Altena

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