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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

On Sale

Trumpet Concertos / Friedrich, Mueller, Gottinger Symphony

~~$24.99~~ $18.99
SACD

MDG

Oct 01, 2012

9011770-6

Wagner Liaisons

Berlin Classics

Available as CD

$19.99

Nov 28, 2025

The German star pianist Matthias Kirschnereitdedicates this album entirely to the piano cosmos of Richard Wagner?. Wagner himself wrote few works for solo piano, but he influenced many of his contemporaries and musical heirs with his work?. Matthias Kirschnereit presents a wide range of repertoire - Wagner: Sonata for the album M.W., Lied ohne Worte E major for Eduard Reitz, In das Album der Furstin M., Zurcher Vielliebchen Walzer, Polka, Notenbrief fur Mathilde Wesendonck, Ankunft bei den Schwarzen Schwanen; Wagner/Stradal: Schmerzen; Wagner/Rubinstein: Musikalische Bilder aus Siegfried; Liszt: Am Grabe Richard Wagners; Bizet: Premier Nocturne D Dur; Duparc: Aux etoiles; Langgaard: Stambogsblad; Bulow: Innocence; Bruckner: Erinnerung; Mendelssohn: Lied ohne Worte E Dur op.38/3?

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Wagner Liaisons

$19.99
CD

Berlin Classics

Nov 28, 2025

0303973BC

Dvorak: Piano Quartet, Romantic Pieces, Sonatina / Ax, Stern, Ma

Sony Masterworks

Available as CD

$17.99

Jan 16, 2014

A chamber-music ensemble of star instrumentalists is an oxymoron; this foursome proves to be the exception. Isaac Stern is the key: His thrilling tone may have diminished and impeccable technique eroded, but his innate musicality has grown into wisdom. He is the Rudolf Serkin of our day, influencing innumerable young artists to become musicians rather than superstars. Which is not to slight the three others here: Each fits the mold perfectly, and Laredo and Ma have been strongly influenced by both Serkin and Stern. The four play as one, with youthful exuberance as well as the wisdom of age. The playing is filled with rhythmic vitality and avoids any touch of sentimentality. That it also has little Czech warmth is emphasized by rather clinical recorded sound. There have been more emotional performances (Josef Suk and colleagues) and more elegant ones (Artur Rubinstein with Guarneri members, Menahem Pressler with Emerson), but this sturdy reading is well worth hearing.

The duo performances are in a similar mold. The Sonatina is a delight, a blend of spirit and ease. The Romantic Pieces need a more luminous tone and vivacious expression than Stern provides. He receives sympathetic support from pianist Robert McDonald.

-- James H. North, FANFARE [9/2000]

Dvorak: Piano Quartet, Romantic Pieces, Sonatina / Ax, Stern, Ma

$17.99
CD

Sony Masterworks

Jan 16, 2014

SONY56141

Chopin: Piano Concerto No 1 / Nebolsin, Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic [blu-ray Audio]

Naxos AudioVisual

Available as Blu-Ray

~~$16.99~~ $11.99

Feb 22, 2011

This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

Nebolsin is the real thing, a genuine virtuoso who can interpret Chopin with imagination and style.

Most long-time admirers of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto are well aware of Artur Rubinstein’s classic 1961 recording, available now on an RCA CD. Other eminently worthy recordings include Argerich, on both DG (1968) and EMI (1999), Ax, on Sony (using a period-instrument piano), and Perahia, also Sony.

Young Uzbek-born, Spain-based pianist Eldar Nebolsin enters the ring. On no count is he ever less than thoroughly compelling in the concerto, from his dramatic and stormy entrance in the first movement to the brilliant but always tasteful virtuosity of his finale. His articulation is clear without sounding brittle, his phrasing elegant and warm, and his technique all-encompassing. Notice how deftly he captures Chopin’s lyrical side in the way he imparts delicate mystery to the first movement’s main theme or how he floats the main theme to the ensuing Romanza in lovely singing tones. In Nebolsin’s hands inner voices often emerge to impart greater impetus to the music: try the coda to his first movement where the left-hand figures - often buried in other performances - convey a sense of agitation and drive as the music hurtles nervously toward the ending. And if he doesn’t quite match the effervescence of Rubinstein’s finale coda, he comes very close.

In the end, Nebolsin makes the decision between him and the others a tough one. However, what tilts the scales in favor of Naxos is the clear and powerful sound and the incisive conducting of Antoni Wit, a conductor who, in an oxymoronic irony, is famous for being unknown. His extraordinary talents were overlooked for years, as critic after critic lobbied in the wilderness on his behalf. Now, owing to their persistence and Wit’s numerous acclaimed recordings on Naxos, he has earned much justly deserved recognition. Wit makes the most of Chopin’s generally bland scoring, often giving it weight and muscle, or pointing up inner detail, or simply letting the music sing where appropriate.

In the accompanying works, Nebolsin is just as compelling: the Fantasia on Polish Airs sounds fresh and vital despite its somewhat less inspired music. Krakowiak comes across with brilliant colors and chipper moods, Nebolsin’s fingers seeming to negotiate the thorniest passages with utter ease. Again, the sound is vivid. The Warsaw Philharmonic play with spirit and accuracy in all works. Notes by Keith Anderson are informative, as usual.

I must point out, as is noted in the heading, that this Blu-ray disc is an audio-only, high-definition production. Also, there is a blurb on the album cover stating that this is the, “First recording to use the new Polish National Chopin Edition.” However, I noticed nothing different in the scores from other performances, and whatever differences there might be are probably negligible. On the whole, this is a splendid release and augurs well for a second DVD from these same forces shortly, presenting the Second Concerto and other Chopin works. In sum, Nebolsin is the real thing, a genuine virtuoso who can interpret Chopin with imagination and style.

-- Robert Cummings, MusicWeb International

Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

On Sale

Chopin: Piano Concerto No 1 / Nebolsin, Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic [blu-ray Audio]

~~$16.99~~ $11.99
Blu-Ray

Naxos AudioVisual

Feb 22, 2011

NBD0011

Legendary Treasures - Segovia And His Contemporaries Vol 4

Doremi

Available as CD

$20.99

Nov 17, 1998

Includes work(s) by Anton Rubinstein, various composers. Soloists: Andrés Segovia, Maria Luisa Anido.
Includes work(s) for guitar by Luis de Milan, Gaspar Sanz, Federico Moreno Torroba, Francisco Tarrega, Robert de Visée, Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados. Soloists: Andrés Segovia, Maria Luisa Anido.

Legendary Treasures - Segovia And His Contemporaries Vol 4

$20.99
CD

Doremi

Nov 17, 1998

DHR-7719

The Maiden's Prayer - Leaves From Grandmother's Piano Album

Naxos

Available as CD

$19.99

Sep 05, 1994

The Maiden's Prayer: Leaves from Grandmother's Piano Album

The Maiden's Prayer - Leaves From Grandmother's Piano Album

$19.99
CD

Naxos

Sep 05, 1994

8550646

Prima Voce - Chaliapin

Prima Voce

Available as CD

$20.99

Oct 01, 1996

Includes work(s) by various composers. Soloist: Feodor Chaliapin.

Prima Voce - Chaliapin

$20.99
CD

Prima Voce

Oct 01, 1996

NI7823-4

BOLERO AND OTHER SPANISH FAVOURITES

Naxos

Available as CD

$19.99

Sep 01, 1997

The music of Spain retains it's exotic attraction, with it's individual blend of regional and national elements, influenced by the colorful traditions of the country and of it's former colonies. It was in the nineteenth century, with the growth of nationalism, politically and culturally, that Spanish musical identity became established internationally as something apart from the main European cultural traditions of which Spain had for centuries formed apart. It was natural that something of this fascination with things Spanish should make an early appearance in neighboring France. The French composer Emmanuel Chabrier had spent the early part of his career as a civil servant, resigning his position only in 1880 in order to devote himself to music. Chabrier lacked the thorough training of the Conservatoire, but had been able to study music with some assiduity as a private pupil of a number of teachers of distinction, while mixing socially with a circle of well known musicians, painters and writers. In 1881 Charles Lamoureux made him chorus director and organizing secretary for the new concerts that he was promoting in Paris, his first professional musical employment. It was a journey to Spain in 1882 that aroused Chabrier's interest in the music of that country. Returning to Paris, he composed a fantasia for piano, based on the melodies he had collected, and played it through to Lamoureux, who encouraged him to orchestrate it. The result was the orchestral rhapsody España, first performed under Lamoureux on 6th November 1883. Chabrier won immediate fame, although his continuing operatic ambitions never brought him the success that he wanted. España, a vivid evocation of Spain, uses the contrasting elements of the jota and the malagueña in a colorfully orchestrated work. Manuel de Falla, born in Cádiz in 1876, was the leading Spanish composer of his generation, writing music that captured the essence of all that was Spanish, while proving acceptable internationally. His ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, originally a pantomime under the title El corregidor y la molinera (The Magistrate and the Miller's Wife), is based on a story by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. The plot concerns the jealousy of the miller, whose attractive wife has been subjected to the attentions of the elderly Corregidor. The ballet was first staged in London in 1919 by Dyagilev's Ballets russes, with décor by Picasso and choreography by Leonid Massin. The excerpts included here start with the Fandango for the miller's wife, followed by a Segnidillas for the neighbors, a Farruca for the miller and a final Jota. Manuel de Falla's opera La vida breve ('Short Life') was completed in 1905, before the composer left Spain for Paris, and was first staged in Nice in 1913, a year before de Falla's return to Spain. It's plot concerns the betrayal of the gypsy girl Salud by her lover Paco, who marries a girl of richer background. Salud, appearing with a companion to dance for Paco and Carmela's wedding-guests, falls down dead, as she moves forward to accuse Paco. An Interlude marks night-fall, leading to the well known Spanish Dance of the wedding-guests, familiar from arrangement after arrangement. El amor brujo ('Love the Magician'), staged in Madrid in 1915, made full use of the traditions Spanish gypsy music. It tells the story of a gypsy girl Candelas, haunted by the spirit of her dead lover, which she summons up in her ritual fire dance, in the original version the Dance of the End of the Day. A dominant figure in French opera towards the end of the nineteenth century, Jules Massenet based his opera Le Cid on the play on the subject of the Spanish hero by Corneille. The opera was first staged at the Paris Opéra in 1885. The Spanish dances on which much of the present reputation of Massenet's opera depends come in the first scene of the second act, a contrast to the tragic events that have taken place. At the heart of the drama is the conflict in the heart of Chiméne, whose lover Don Rodrigue, El Cid, has killed her father. Massenet offers, in his ballet scene, a series of characteristic dances. Composers in the newly developed Russian nationalist tradition also had recourse, as Glinka had done, to the exotic, whether to bordering countries, to the ethnic minorities of the Russian Empire or to remoter Spain. Rimsky-Korsakov's famous Capriccio Espagnol began as a Fantasia on Spanish Themes, for violin and orchestra, and was eventually completed in it's present form in 1887. The work won immediate acclaim, above all for the brilliance of it's orchestration, an achievement from which the composer drew great satisfaction. The French composer Maurice Ravel was the son of a Swiss father and of a mother from the Basque country. He was familiar from childhood with Spanish culture and language and had occasion to make use of this element in his background in a number of compositions. Boléro, which he himself described as an orchestrated crescendo, was written for Ida Rubinstein, whose ballet troupe staged it in 1928, with choreography by Nijinska. It's two thematic elements are linked by the continuing percussion rhythm that gives the work it's hypnotic fascination.

BOLERO AND OTHER SPANISH FAVOURITES

$19.99
CD

Naxos

Sep 01, 1997

8554044

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

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

$19.99
CD

Naxos

Jan 26, 2010

8572447

Herold: La Fille Mal Gardée / Royal Ballet

Opus Arte

Available as DVD

$24.99

Jul 29, 2008

Also available on Blu-ray

Ferdinand Hérold
LA FILLE MAL GARDÉE

Colas – Carlos Acosta
Lise – Marianela Nuñez
Simone – William Tuckett
Alain – Jonathan Howells

The Royal Ballet
The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Anthony Twiner, conductor

Frederick Ashton, choreographer
Osbert Lancaster, set design

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, 2 February 2005.

Bonus: Cast gallery and illustrated synopsis

Picture format: NTSC 16:9 anamorphic
Sound format: LPCM Stereo / 5.1 Surround sound
Region code: 0 (All regions)
Menu language: English
Running time: 112 mins

R E V I E W:

A delightful production … considerable charm and appeal.

Choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton was born in September 1904, so it was always likely that the Royal Ballet – of which he was Director for most of the 1960s – would take the opportunity to celebrate his centenary with revivals of some of his best works.

My colleague Ian Lace has already given a very warm welcome to Opus Arte’s DVD of the 2005 revival of Ashton’s 1952 production of Delibes’s Sylvia (see review). Now this new release, from the same television/DVD producers, is likely to offer just as much – if not more – pleasure to admirers of both the choreographer and several of the Royal Ballet’s most accomplished artistes.

The origins of the score are somewhat obscure. The earliest music – dating from 1789 - was cobbled together by an unknown hand from a variety of popular melodies. But by 1828 it was considered sufficiently dated for Ferdinand Hérold to be commissioned to rearrange and supplement it, using not just his own material but also unauthorized extracts from pieces by Donizetti, Rossini and others.

Hérold’s score held the field for less than 40 years, though, before it in turn was considered so old-fashioned that it was superseded by one penned by Peter Ludwig Hertel. Thus, from the 1860s onwards, it was Hertel’s music – at various times added to substantially by Drigo, Pugni, Minkus and Delibes, not to mention Anton Rubinstein and a certain Johann Armsheimer – that was associated with the La fille mal gardée story.

Had Ashton had a grander conception for his planned 1960 Covent Garden production, he might well have used the by now traditional Hertel score. But instead he envisaged a simple, pastoral, light-hearted and pastel-shaded interpretation of the old story – Watteau rather than Winterhalter. Thus, having retrieved Hérold’s long-neglected music from the archives, he asked John Lanchbery to edit and re-orchestrate it. [Ironically enough, a single bit of Hertel did eventually find its way into the new version and, as the theme of the famous clog dance, can be heard in one of the ballet’s best loved episodes!]

La fille mal gardée – yet another story of young lovers thwarting an ambitious parent’s plan to marry off one of them to a far wealthier suitor - is now considered the quintessential Ashton ballet and is certainly the best loved. The choreography’s apparent - but not actual! - simplicity and its sheer joie de vivre work in perfect harmony with the undemanding light-hearted story and the tuneful 1828 score to ensure that audiences invariably leave the theatre with faces wreathed in smiles. That would certainly have been so as patrons left the Royal Opera House on 2 February 2005 – and thankfully the BBC’s cameras were there to record the occasion.

While not having any great emotional depths to plumb in their roles, attractive and charismatic soloists Marianela Nuñez and Carlos Acosta are utterly convincing as youthful lovers. She is an exceptionally pretty girl, whereas he is the epitome of a virile and handsome young swain. Moreover, unlike many ballet productions, this is one case where the protagonists look genuinely and appropriately young. In fact, Nuñez was, at the time, just 23 and the Royal Ballet’s youngest Principal – though mere youth was clearly no handicap as she received, that same year, the Best Female Dancer accolade in the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. Acosta, though actually nine years older, makes an ideal visual match – as his many admirers will certainly testify.

The pair are also very well matched as dancers and offer well-nigh perfect interpretations and performances. Ashton’s choreography may not offer too much in the way of flashy opportunities to bring down the house, but it is sufficiently taxing to require the dancers to demonstrate complete concentration and immaculate technique. Both are in clear evidence here.

As Widow Simone, the domineering mother determined to engineer an advantageous – if loveless – marriage for her daughter, William Tuckett plays the role for laughs. In full pantomime dame mode and equipped with a range of wonderfully exaggerated facial expressions, he certainly succeeds. He can, though, dance too – although I would have liked to have heard the clack-clack of his clogs more clearly over the orchestra, so as to emphasize his skillful footwork in the famous highlight solo.

Jonathan Howells’s interpretation of Alain, Widow Simone’s preferred rich-but-dim suitor for her daughter, is again strong on comedy but he also conveys an air of pathos that adds considerably to the role and was clearly appreciated by the Covent Garden audience.

The production keeps the corps de ballet especially busy portraying various types of cheerful, good natured country folk. These are remarkably sophisticated rustics, however – at least when it comes to their ability to interpret Ashton’s intricate, fluid patterns on stage. The maypole dance preceding the storm that brings the first act to a close - itself a striking coup de théâtre - offers an excellent example of the company’s strength in full ensemble, as does the exuberant finale to the whole ballet.

Meanwhile, conductor Anthony Twiner directs an appropriately jaunty and light-hearted account of the score and the Covent Garden orchestra responds with aplomb throughout.

The set is from designs by Osbert Lancaster who was, at that time well-known as a professional cartoonist for the Daily Express. Its simple, cartoon-like qualities and the exaggeratedly clichéd French peasant costumes also fit the mood of this delightful production perfectly and add measurably to its already considerable charm and appeal.

-- Rob Maynard, MusicWeb International

Herold: La Fille Mal Gardée / Royal Ballet

$24.99
DVD

Opus Arte

Jul 29, 2008

OA 0992D

Paderewski: Piano Concerto, Polish Fantasy / Kenner, Niesiolowski, Podlasie Opera Orchestra

DUX

Available as CD

$21.99

Oct 25, 2011

PADEREWSKI Piano Concerto. Polish Fantasy • Kevin Kenner (pn); Marcin Na??cz-Niesio?owski, cond; Podlasie Op O • DUX 733 (55:40)

Well, I’ve certainly been immersed in Paderewski lately … at least, Paderewski at one or two removes, which is not the same thing as the real deal. First, there was the Homage to Paderewski set on Hyperion 67903, which I reviewed in Fanfare 35:4, and now this new recording of his concerto and Polish Fantasy. As I expected, the concerto is very much in the big, late-Romantic mold of Brahms, Rubinstein, and other composers, but it’s a solid piece built around native Polish rhythms and with an interesting and exciting development section in the first movement. (In fact, at one point a solo piano passage sounds a little bit like a Russian folk song.) Although it is said that the second theme is an evocation of Chopin, it is an original melody and not one borrowed from that composer. The slow movement is even more delicate than Chopin’s andantes , almost Debussyan in its sparse use of the piano in the beginning and actually built around a three-part tune. Eventually, this delicate melody becomes more energetic, but never so much that the initial impression is forgotten. The lively rondo finale, based on a krakowiak, is likewise contrasted with a stately chorale that eventually caps the piece.

I find the Polish Fantasy an even more interesting work, having a more melancholy cast and somewhat related to Liszt’s Hungarian fantasies. It can be divided into four sections, each with its own character, though they are bound together by a mazurka-like motif. It is very nearly a concerto in itself, running over 21 minutes. I suspect that the composer refrained from calling it one simply because the four sections are played without a break, and such works in his day were almost always relegated to the “fantasy” category.

Kevin Kenner, despite his American origins, proves himself to be fully up to the task of interpreting this Eastern European music. Like all modern pianists, he eschews the slightly out-of-synch coordination of hands favored by Paderewski and many other pianists of his generation, preferring to play in a clean, rhythmically consistent manner, but he certainly gets the feel of Polish music very well. Of course, having a Polish orchestra and conductor helps, and I am more than a little amused to see that the orchestra hails from Bia?ystok (known as the “Jerusalem of Poland” because of its heavy Jewish population and the birthplace of Dr. Albert Sabin, immortalized by Mel Brooks with the name of his principal character—Max Bialystock—in his zany comedy The Producers ). All concerned play beautifully on this CD, giving us about as convincing a reading of these works as can be imagined. One can find more visceral and exciting readings from Janina Fialkowska, supported by the great Antoni Wit, on Naxos 8554020, and by the late, great Earl Wild (the concerto on Elán 2266 with Arthur Fiedler and the London Symphony, the Fantasy on Ivory 72010 with conductor Massimo Freccia), but this recording meets the demands of the music with a more convincing nationalistic flavor than Wild and less clattery sound than we get from Fialkowska’s piano. Recommended without hesitation for both the unusual repertoire and its presentation.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Paderewski: Piano Concerto, Polish Fantasy / Kenner, Niesiolowski, Podlasie Opera Orchestra

$21.99
CD

DUX

Oct 25, 2011

DUX733

Mahler: Symphony No. 3

Archipel

Available as CD

$24.99

Jan 28, 2014

MAHLER Symphony No. 3 1. BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1 2 • Jascha Horenstein, cond; 1 Helen Watts (a); 1 Dennis Egan (posthorn); 1 Denis Wick (tbn); 1 Highgate School Ch; 1 Orpington Junior Singers; 2 Claudio Arrau (pn); 1 London SO & Ch; 2 French Natl RSO • ARCHIPEL 557, mono (2 CDs: 145:01) Live: 1 London 11/16/1961; 2 Montreux 9/17/1962

Sometimes you come to appreciate some of the conducting legends of the past when you have first listened to one of the conducting duds of the present, and that was my experience with this Mahler Third. I had just suffered (yes, I believe that is the precise word) through Carla Delfrate butchering the music of French opera composers when I put on this Mahler Third. The difference in musical intelligence, feeling, phrasing, rhythmic lift, and correctly judged tempos was like escaping the River Styx and being elevated to Valhalla.

Yet even without such a quantum leap in conducting quality, one cannot escape the feeling that this Mahler Third was indeed one of the great, even momentous, concerts of the 20th century. Shockingly for such a late date, this was its first professional performance in England, and those familiar with Horenstein’s work will know that the British were extremely lucky to have him for this concert. Just about the only negative thing one can note about this recording is the somewhat dry mono sound—good for a 1961 broadcast (indeed, better than Horenstein’s equally legendary Mahler Eighth) but still restricted in sonics. But heavens, what a performance! I actually think that Horenstein’s performance of the first movement even outstrips that of Georg Solti, which up until now was my all-time favorite reading of it, largely due to the more finely detailed layering of the instrumental texture. Despite the boxiness, you hear everything, and every instrument or instrumental group seems to have something important to add to the overall “story” of the music. Nor was I alone in my reaction: At the end of the movement, the London audience does something highly uncharacteristic for the British at an orchestral concert: they roundly applaud the first movement. It’s quite an achievement, and it seems almost incredible that this is its first-ever commercial release.

Moreover, unlike Solti (and even unlike his Nonesuch studio recording of this Symphony with the same orchestra), Horenstein’s intensity and musical drive never slacken in this performance, not even for a millisecond. Seldom have I heard the second movement played so exquisitely, the strings singing sweetly and the rhythmic underpinning simply astonishing. Many years ago, before I began reviewing, I bought, heard, and was disappointed by James Levine’s Mahler Third recording, and I was only slightly more impressed by a live performance he gave with Jessye Norman as the mezzo soloist in Carnegie Hall. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong with it, but this Horenstein performance has everything right about it that Levine simply got wrong. Perhaps too much “devotion,” too much psychoanalyzing Mahler at the time he wrote it, and too little of just digging into the score and translating it into sound? It’s hard to say at the remove of 40 years, but let’s just say that Horenstein has the full measure of this Symphony while Levine only had a fair idea of it.

Now, one should be aware that Horenstein’s view of the score is not always 100 percent what Mahler wrote. He sometimes ignores tempo changes and gives his own spin on the music, but to my ears everything he does in this performance works well. Not to keep beating the same drum, but that first movement is an excellent example. In the studio recording, it went along at an almost dirge-like pace; here, it is utterly dynamic and thrilling. In both the studio and live versions, the posthorn solo is beautifully played by Dennis Egan, and this is one moment in this broadcast where the sonics are good enough to give the listener a fine sense of “space.” Helen Watts’s singing is rich and beautiful, although not quite as expressive in detail as Janet Baker with Michael Tilson Thomas (Sony-CBS) or Ewa Podle? with Antoni Wit (Naxos), my other two favorite Mahler Thirds. The Highgate School Choir is superb, having that sound that one somehow instinctively associates with British children’s choirs. Horenstein’s tempo in the last movement is brisk when compared to other Mahlerians (21:13 compared to Tilson Thomas’s 26:13 or Wit’s 25:31), which some listeners may interpret as a race to the finish on Horenstein’s part, but just listen to the feeling he elicits from the LSO; and, at this clip, the movement lacks its usual “draggy” feeling, as if it were an interminable exercise in bathos. Now, of course, it can and does also work well at the slower tempos that Tilson Thomas and Wit use, but that is the magic of Mahler. His symphonies, unlike almost any others I can think of, can withstand nearly any and every tempo change one can put into them. The only thing they cannot withstand is a boring reading, and boring is not a word one can apply to this performance.

As a bonus (since the entire Third Symphony clocks in at a few seconds under 90 minutes) we age given an equally spectacular reading of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with Claudio Arrau as soloist. My readers know that I like but do not really love Arrau as a pianist; everything he played was good and usually had the right style, but many of his performances and recordings are no better than those of several other pianists. Here, however, he truly sounds caught up in the moment, not least due to Horenstein’s exquisite shaping and phrasing of the music. Although I still love Fritz Reiner’s dynamic 1954 account with Rubinstein and Max Fiedler’s old-world and slightly eccentric (but still musical) performance from the early 1930s (with Alfred Hoehn as soloist), there is just something so shapely and well-phrased about Horenstein’s reading of the orchestral part that it grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. Arrau takes a while to heat up—his entrance is played very well but not with any particular abandon, but then just listen to the way he responds with both remarkable fire and stunning nuance to the equally nuanced playing of the French Radio and TV Orchestra. The best way to describe this performance, overall, is as an alternation of a singing line with ebb and flow against the dramatic outbursts, the latter never dull but also never so explosive that they ruin the line of the music. Oh, there are many of those among our young conductors today who could learn a thing or three from Horenstein about phrasing! True, the strings in the last movement sound a little scrappy, but no matter. The musical treatment and intensity of this performance trumps technical polish.

Archipel provides absolutely no liner notes with this release, not even a sentence or two to tell prospective buyers who Jascha Horenstein was. Even though I know that a recording like this is aimed at the collectors’ market, that very few people will bother with a 53-year-old mono recording of the Mahler Third when they can get digital stereo from Tilson Thomas, Wit, or the late Claudio Abbado (another outstanding version), but I still feel that the label owes it to those few who are under age 30 and buy this release to let them know who Horenstein was and explain his importance. Otherwise, I recommend this set highly.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Mahler: Symphony No. 3

$24.99
CD

Archipel

Jan 28, 2014

ARPCD0557

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