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SaleWinter Evening: Russian Art Songs / Briggs, Toren-Immerman, Quiring
Centaur Records · Nov 2022CD$17.99$8.99 -
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A Musical Journey - Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
Naxos AudioVisual
DVD
$13.99
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 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.
Chopin: Preludes, Ballades & Scherzos
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Sep 26, 2025
The extreme delicacy and finesse of Chopin's pianistic style was unusual in an era when star pianists such as Liszt and Anton Rubinstein were developing more virtuosic and experimental effects. It led some performers of the day to adapt Chopin's works to suit the context of their time. Goran Filipec has traced the practices of these pianists to fashion a programme of Chopin's works performed in the spirit of the 'grand style'. A digital EP featuring four bonus tracks is also available to stream and download (9.70383).
Farasha
Berlin Classics
CD
$19.99
Nov 21, 2025
Farasha is the debut release of the award-winning (e.g. Anton Rubinstein International Competition) soloist and chamber musician Sindy Mohamed on Berlin Classics. The violist recalls her Egyptian, French and German roots and reflects this in a diverse selection of pieces for the viola. The album contains Sonatas for Viola and Piano by Breville and Hinemith, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's Spring Song and a transcribed version of Saint-Saens' Sonata for bassoon and piano op. 168. In addition Sindy Mohamed presents a newly comissioned work by Khaled Al Kammar "Faten Amal Harby" for oud, viola, req and piano.
American Romantics - The Boston Scene
Piano Classics
CD
$21.99
Feb 24, 2015
A unique collection of American romantic piano music, written largely in the last third of the 19th century, by Foote, Whiting, Paine, Chadwick and Nevin. In a period where in Europe piano music was in the hands of towering virtuosos like Liszt, Anton Rubinstein and later Rachmaninoff, the American scene was notably less tormented, focusing on tone painting idyllic landscapes, rural scenes and charming dance forms. These genre pieces share the same delightful characteristics as their European pendants by Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Gade, Sinding and others. Young pianist Artem Belogurov (born in Latvia, grew up in Odessa/Ukraine and now lives in Boston) is a former student of Peter Serkin. For this recording he plays a beautiful period instrument, a 1873 Chickering piano. Chickering was one of the most respected and successful piano builders of the 19th century; Hans von Bülow premiered Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto in Boston on a Chickering, and Franz Liszt owned two of their instruments. The booklet contains extensive liner notes on the music and composers, an artist biography and information and photos of the instrument.
Winter Evening: Russian Art Songs / Briggs, Toren-Immerman, Quiring
Centaur Records
CD
$8.99
$17.99
Save 50%
Nov 18, 2022
Maria Briggs is joined on this album by pianist Drew Quiring, and violin/violist Limor Toren-immerman, where together they present a selection of songs by composers including Anton Rubinstein, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Mikhail Glinka, and more. Dr. Briggs-Okunev is a Russian-born, Australian soprano. She earned her Bachelor degree in piano performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Dr. Briggs then attained Masters in vocal performance, Newcastle Conservatorium and DMA from Sydney University and Royal Northern College of Music, UK. Her research is focused on training and development of young opera singers. Her published thesis on tertiary opera training is available online.
The History of the Russian Piano Trio, Vol. 1 / Brahms Trio
Naxos
CD
$13.99
$19.99
Save 30%
Nov 13, 2020
The piano trio holds an important place in the history of Russian chamber music and to follow the development of the genre is to accompany the fascinating history of Russian music in the 19th century. Its beginnings can be found with Alexander Alyabiev, a student of John Field, whose unfinished but elegant and vivacious Piano Trio in E flat major is paired with the yearning Romanticism of the Piano Trio in A minor. Mikhail Glinka’s Trio pathétique bears the inscription ‘I have only known love through the sorrow it causes!’, while Anton Rubinstein’s elaborately acrobatic piano writing in his Piano Trio in G minor reminds us of his own virtuosity, and reveals his magnificent skills as a melodist.
Radecke: Piano Trios / Trio Fontane
CPO
CD
$18.99
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.
Cui: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 2
Piano Classics
CD
$19.99
May 15, 2026
This valuable revival of the piano music by Cesar Cui began with a 2CD volume played by Marco Rapetti (PCL10211), surveying the composer's early output from 1877 to 1888. Born in what is now Vilnius, capital of modern-day Lithuania, Cui began to learn the piano as a child, initially from his elder sister. His first and last compositions were written for the piano, and he produced 29 opus numbers for the instrument (the total opus catalogue reaches 106). The Australian pianist Paul Rickard-Ford now moves the project on with a chronological survey from the Quatre Morceaux Op. 22 of 1883 to the Theme and Variations Op. 61, from 1901. Dedicated respectively to Theodore Leschitzky and to Josef Hofmann, these pieces show how admired Cui was in his day, even if he is now generally treated as the forgotten member of the 'Mighty Handful' group of Russian composers. One of Liszt's final works was a piano transcription of Cui's orchestral Tarantelle Op. 12. Other collections on the album are dedicated to Anton Rubinstein (the two Polonaises Op. 30) and to Hans von Bülow (three Impromptus Op. 35), as well as a charming pair of Bluettes Op. 29 dedicated to the Countess de Mercy-Argenteau, who was Cui's generous patron and indefatigable supporter outside Russia. Many of the pieces here are receiving their world-premiere recordings, such as the four pieces composed in 1900-01 and collected as Op. 60. They include a Polka, a Novelette, a Mazurka, and a Polonaise: all familiar genres, which Cui inflected with his individual brand of Russian-accented lyricism, ultimately drawing on an early-Romantic lexicon of expression formulated by Chopin and Schumann. Thus all the music here belongs to the salon, designed first and foremost to charm and to entertain. Paul Rickard-Ford has been on the staff of the Sydney Conservatorium for more than thirty years and was Chair of the Piano Unit from 2006 to 2016. His discography includes the Années de pèlerinage of Liszt, as well as recitals of Chopin and Schumann.
Busoni: Violin Sonatas / Turban, Scheps
CPO
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.
History Of The Russian Piano Trio, Vol. 2 / The Brahms Trio
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Jan 29, 2021
The Russian piano trio reached its apogee with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor, dedicated to the memory of Nikolay Rubinstein. A monumental piece in the repertoire, it is cast in only two movements, and was played at Tchaikovsky’s own memorial concert two years after its composition. Paul Pabst’s Piano Trio in A major is less well known. Composed in memory of Nikolay Rubinstein’s brother, Anton, it is a work of exceptional virtuosity and flowing lyricism, with unpredictable harmonies, a delightful Intermezzo and a tour de force of a Finale.
Alessio Bax Plays Beethoven
Signum Classics
CD
$14.99
$19.99
Save 25%
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
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).
Liszt: Russian Transcriptions, Vol. 35 / Alexandre Dossin
Naxos
CD
$19.99
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
Liszt: Complete Piano Music Vol 6 / Joseph Banowetz
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Nov 03, 1997
Volume 6 of Naxos' Complete Piano Music of Liszt continues the exploration of Liszt's transcriptions of lieder begun in the previous Volume 5. Compared to the commercial greats of pianism, Joseph Banowetz is not well known, and yet he one of the most versatile pianists alive. His repertory is variegated and often incongruent: he has left many recordings of Bach, Anton Rubinstein, Balakirev and Ronald Stevenson. I am an ardent supporter of Banowetz because of his amazing recordings of Anton's Rubinstein's works on the Marco Polo label.
Saint-Saens: Music for Two Pianos
SOMM Recordings
CD
$18.99
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
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.
Carl Davidoff: Cello Concertos 3 & 4
CPO
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
SACD
$24.99
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
