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Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings, Op. 48 / Lychkov, Leducq-Barôme, Baltic Chamber Orchestra

Brilliant Classics

Available as CD

~~$13.99~~ $10.99

May 27, 2022

The second half of the 19th century witnessed a proliferation of significant works for strings alone including the Serenades for Strings by Dvorák (1875) and Tchaikovsky (1880) and Grieg’s Holberg Suite (1884), followed by a trio of works for strings in 1892 from Suk, Wolf and Elgar. Tchaikovsky’s music for string instruments is notable for its range and consistency – and this culminates in the magnificent Violin Concerto and one of the greatest works ever conceived for string orchestra, his Serenade of 1880. Earlier, in 1873, Tchaikovsky wrote incidental music to Ostrovsky’s three-act drama The Snow Maiden. Though he abandoned the idea of adapting it into an opera, when Rimsky-Korsakov composed one on the same subject, he retained affection for this little-known work. Judging by the beautiful Melodrama of Act II, its neglect is unjustified. Eight years before that, as a 25-year-old student at the St Petersburg Conservatory he composed a String Quartet in B flat. If, as some authorities believe, it had four movements, only one has survived. Such is the inner power of the music that it takes on a more expressive hue when performed by a full string orchestra as on this recording.

Towards the end of 1884, the Moscow Society of Artists wished to honor veteran actor Ivan Samarin’s 50-year artistic career, and Tchaikovsky enthusiastically contributed a musical entr’acte. Tchaikovsky’s publisher Jurgenson persuaded the composer the music was worthy of publication, under the title Elegy, as Samarin died the year after the celebrations. When Tchaikovsky suddenly died near the end of 1893, the slow movement of his Third String Quartet was arranged for string orchestra by Glazunov for performance at his funeral service. Glazunov’s subtle and sympathetic arrangement of this fine music for full string orchestra honors his friend, the great composer, in truly noble fashion.

REVIEW:

This attractive program includes Tchaikovsky’s familiar Serenade for Strings along with four shorter works, the last of which, the Glazounov-arranged Andante Funebre e Doloroso from the Third Quartet, was played at Tchaikovsky’s funeral in 1893.

The chamber orchestra's playing is full and warm, rich in vibrato and expression. If you like Russian music played by native musicians (I’m thinking here of the old Leningrad Philharmonic, which became the St Petersburg Philharmonic in 1991) you’ll enjoy this. It’s some of Tchaikovsky’s most attractive music, richly played and beautifully recorded.

-- American Record Guide

On Sale

Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings, Op. 48 / Lychkov, Leducq-Barôme, Baltic Chamber Orchestra

~~$13.99~~ $10.99
CD

Brilliant Classics

May 27, 2022

BRI96520

Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto, Etc / Kaler, Russian Po

Naxos

Available as CD

$19.99

Feb 27, 2007

Talk about rotten luck. Naxos has had these performances in the can for a couple of years, and have just released them, hot on the heels of Julia Fischer’s recent Tchaikovsky disc on Pentatone, containing exactly the same programme. The only difference is that Kaler plays Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d’un lieu cher in Glazunov’s orchestration, while Fischer plays the original version for violin and piano.

I fear that in all the excitement over Fischer’s album, Kaler’s will be ignored, and that would be incredibly unfair because this disc is excellent in every way. In fact, Kaler’s account points up the only deficiency in Fischer’s account: a lack of variety to her tone. Kaler's performance is full of contrasts, as he colours the violin line with subtle shading, yet maintains a lyrical virility throughout. It is clear that he has lived with this concerto under his fingertips for many years and that he still finds much to enjoy and inspire in the familiar turns of phrase. There is an artless facility to his playing of the big tunes as in the opening statement of the first movement or in the gorgeous Canzonetta, and a sweetness of tone that is quite disarming. As the violin writing gets busier, Kaler and the orchestra tend to pick up the pace quite significantly, yet the rapid passages are dispatched with effortless brilliance. Kaler's first movement cadenza has plenty of character, freedom and precision. Cadenzas apart, Yablonsky and his orchestra lend sympathetic support. This performance is not so much a full-blooded flood of romanticism as a blossoming account of elegance as well as brilliance. It also wears it war-horse status lightly, impressing itself upon the listener by virtue of its freshness and natural feeling. It is a tremendously satisfying account and one that bears rehearing.

Similar comments apply to the remaining pieces on this album. The quality of the music, both in terms of its inspiration and emotional content, makes this programme apt and it is hard to understand why it is not more common. The Sérénade mélancolique is quite a rarity, but it deserves to be far more popular. It was in fact Tchaikovsky's first piece for solo violin, written to a commission from the great Leopold Auer. The violin's part is so full of longing and achingly beautiful that it is almost a vocalise. There are striking effects of orchestration too, with some magical woodwind interplay underpinning the sighing of the violin.

The Souvenir is, if anything, even more engaging. The first of its three movements was initially intended as the second movement of the violin concerto, with the spakling scherzo and intimate melodie added later. The dark romanticism of Glazunov's orchestration is entirely idiomatic and Kaler's playing is sweet toned and brightly coloured. The little Valse-Scherzo that closes the disc makes an excellent encore and Kaler plays it with gusto.

Microphone placement favours Kaler throughout, but this is generally not overly problematic except for the first movement of the Souvenir where Kaler's breathing is a little distracting. Keith Anderson's liner-notes are up to his usual high standard.

If you are in the market for a new recording of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto this year, have a listen to this one before just buying Fischer’s. You may find, as I did, that you want both.

-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto, Etc / Kaler, Russian Po

$19.99
CD

Naxos

Feb 27, 2007

8557690

HORST STEIN: THE DECCA RECORDINGS

ELOQUENCE AUSTRALIA

Available as CD

$134.04

Apr 03, 2026

The complete Decca recordings of German conductor Horst Stein cover an astonishingly wide range of repertoire, with Friedrich Gulda in the 'very spontaneous, very lyrical Beethoven concerto cycle' (Gramophone), through music by Cherubini and Weber, to critically-acclaimed recordings of Bruckner, Wagner and Wolf. Included are four discs of his colourful Sibelius: 'free-wheeling readings of great thrust, drive and a big line... The sound is at once biting and smooth' wrote High Fidelity. The complete Decca recordings of a Horst Stein, directed with the unfussy authority of his many appearances at Bayreuth and the Vienna State Opera. The recordings in this set, cover an astonishingly broad range of repertoire. Beethoven concertos (with Friedrich Gulda, once a staple of the Decca catalogue), Cherubini, Prokofiev, Bruckner, Sibelius: all writing in completely contrasting idioms, and yet all brought stylishly to life here under the baton of Horst Stein. Stein learnt his craft as an opera conductor in postwar Bayreuth, where he served as an assistant to Karajan, Keilberth and Knappertsbusch in celebrated performances of the Ring and Parsifal. He later became known for the expert pacing and dramatic pulse of his own Wagner conducting, which is represented in this set by an album of orchestral highlights with the Vienna Philharmonic. Stein worked in Bayreuth and Vienna throughout his career, and later in life became a revered figure in Japan. He represented the best of the German Kapellmeister tradition, which produced straightforwardly eloquent and powerful performances of whatever music was at hand. When Stein conducted Bruckner - the Second and Sixth, again recorded in Vienna - he sounded like a natural Brucknerian. When he recorded Sibelius - four albums of tone poems and the Second Symphony from Geneva - he sounded like a complete Sibelian, and so on. As an addendum to his Decca output comes an album of Russian opera arias with the bass Kim Borg recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. Just as Stein lends noble support to Borg in the Death Scene from Boris Godunov, he is a detailed accompanist to Josef Sivo in violin concertos by Glazunov and Prokofiev, and to Friedrich Gulda in the piano concertos of Beethoven. Horst Stein's conducting will impress many modern listeners with it's rhythmic power and lack of ego, and this set is the most comprehensive survey of his legacy on record ever issued.

HORST STEIN: THE DECCA RECORDINGS

$134.04
CD

ELOQUENCE AUSTRALIA

Apr 03, 2026

ELOA4844593.2

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto, Symphony No 1 / Sudbin, Shui

BIS

Available as SACD

$21.99

Jul 30, 2013

Completed in 1891 and 1895 respectively, the Piano Concerto No.1 and the D minor Symphony were Sergei Rachmaninov's first large-scale orchestral compositions, written by a young man still in his early 20s. The composer, whose self-critical vein was evident from the start, almost immediately decided to revise the concerto, even though he did choose to perform it in its original form when he made his London début as a pianist in 1899. Two years earlier, the symphony had been premièred, an event which has become notorious as one of music's great disasters: the rehearsal time had been completely inadequate, and Glazunov, who conducted the work, was less than sympathetic to it - and may also have been drunk during the performance. The scathing reception caused Rachmaninov to doubt not only the quality of the work, but his own gifts as a composer, and he didn't write anything of importance for three years. In 1917, he did revise the piano concerto, making use of the experience gained from having in the meantime composed the immensely successful 2nd and 3rd piano concertos and performing them numerous times himself. Rachmaninov also repeatedly expressed the wish to return to his first symphony, but the score was lost in the upheavals of the Russian revolution and the composer's move to the USA. Not until after his death in 1943 was a set of the original orchestral parts rediscovered. That Rachmaninov never forgot the work is however proven by the fact that he quoted it in his very last orchestral composition, the Symphonic Dances from 1940. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Lan Shui have previously impressed critics worldwide with their performances of Rachmaninovs Second and Third Symphony, and are once again joined by the piano soloist Yevgeny Sudbin, with whom the team recently recorded what the reviewer in American Record Guide described as 'the most stunning performance of the Rhapsody [on a theme of Paganini] I've ever heard.'

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto, Symphony No 1 / Sudbin, Shui

$21.99
SACD

BIS

Jul 30, 2013

BIS-2012

Antonio Pappano - Complete Santa Cecilia Symphonic,Concertante & Sacred Music Recordings

WARNER CLASSICS

Available as CD

$100.49

Aug 09, 2024

The collaborative efforts, the mutual emulation and inspiration of Sir Antonio Pappano and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome have spanned 18 years, led to one of the world's greatest and most versatile virtuoso ensembles and to acclaimed live and studio recordings showcasing an eclectic selection of symphonic and choral music. Their repertoire features already legendary performances of Verdi's Requiem and Quattro pezzi sacri. In addition, their recording of Bruckner's 8th Symphony features here for the very first time! This box brings together all the recordings that the British conductor Sir Antonio Pappano (b.1959) made with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in the years from 2005 to 2022 for Warner Classics.

Antonio Pappano - Complete Santa Cecilia Symphonic,Concertante & Sacred Music Recordings

$100.49
CD

WARNER CLASSICS

Aug 09, 2024

WCL779307.2

Great Violin Concertos

Naxos

Available as CD

~~$74.99~~ $52.99

Apr 24, 2012

GREAT VIOLIN CONCERTOS (10-CD Box Set)

The essence of a concerto is the contrast and combination of a solo instrument with a larger instrumental ensemble. Having developed out of the Baroque concept of concerto grosso, the concerto genre was fully established in the eighteenth century, and many works dating from this period are still a key part of the repertoire today. The opportunity for virtuosic display from the soloist has resulted in the concerto becoming a vital musical force on the concert platform.

The violin concerto owes a great deal of its development to the technical achievement of performers, and to this day many works are renowned for their fierce technical demands. Indeed, many composers who have written for the instrument were superlative players themselves—Wieniawski and Paganini among them. The fascinating history and capabilities of the instrument can be traced through the compositions contained herein; from the gossamer threads of Vivaldi to the exhilarating fireworks of Prokofiev, via the lilting swagger of Lalo and Saint-Saëns and nationalistic panache of Sibelius and Glazunov.

Reviews of some of the original recordings that make up this set:

Spohr: Concerto no 8
"Louis Spohr, once considered to hold a place among the greatest composers of his era, subsequently fell into a gray oblivion, only to be resurrected several times during the 20th century. Although his compositional output might have been more encompassing than those of many of his fellow violinist-composers, he may for practical purposes remain in contention principally for the honor of being one of the greatest of them rather than one of the greatest of composers in general.

The Eighth Concerto, written for Italian audiences, depends more heavily on Italianate forms and procedures. It’s soaring aria-like slow movement, its showy finale, and, most of all, its extended first movement recitative—all three encrusted with breathtaking ornamentation—provide a violinist with an ideal showcase. Heifetz, like Ethel Merman, could belt a tune in a way that defied audiences not to listen, and he played this Concerto, cutting down the tuttis, as he often did, with irresistible authority. Spohr denigrated Paganini’s manner of producing staccato off the string, and though Heifetz’s flying staccato, which he claimed to have had difficulty mastering, became one of his trademarks, he could electrify audiences with Spohr’s more solid staccatos on the string, so many passages of which adorn this Concerto. Albert Spalding’s recording of the work appealed to many who may have considered Heifetz’s a bit over the top, but it’s hardly as visceral; and, more recently, neither Uto Ughi (Dynamic 522, 31:1) nor Hilary Hahn (Deutsche Grammophon 000718802, 30:3) could recreate that magic. Though not nearly as confident as Heifetz, Lamsma still generates high voltage in, for example, the slow movement’s fast episode, and she plays with congenial sensitivity in the Adagio’s main sections. And unlike Heifetz, who succumbed to the temptation to add thirds to the last movement’s passages (as his teacher, Auer, did in Tchaikovsky’s cadenza to his Violin Concerto), she makes a case for it even while playing it straight. The Sixth Concerto’s misterioso returns enhanced in the 11th, which begins with an Adagio introduction that, if it’s not the Wolf’s Glen scene, may be the closest thing violinists have, and that introduces a main theme that postures squarely but stylishly as do some of Schumann’s melodic ideas. Warsop suggests that this Concerto might profitably be revived; it’s lucky that a sympathetic violinist like Lamsma has done so. Here’s a worthy counterpart to Bruch’s concertos (listeners might notice a similarity between the style of writing for the violin in Spohr’s concertos and in the first movement of Bruch’s Third) and a worthy champion. Listeners and would-be aficionados of Spohr may still find it a sort of stumbling block to full admiration that so many of Spohr’s harmonic turns and violinistic passages sound all too familiar—the 11th Concerto’s finale, for example, suggests, however obliquely, the Duo, op. 67/2. Violinist-composers have a notoriously hard time not following their fingers’ lead. Naxos’s program of Spohr concertos deserves a hearing for the young soloist’s’ bravado tempered with sensibility as well as for the orchestra’s generally sympathetic and competent accompaniment. But above all, it stands out for its version of the once famous Gesangszene, as it’s often called, perhaps the best after Heifetz’s—and, with Lamsma’s personal approach, a creditable alternative. Many violinists don’t have a sufficiently strong personality to project Spohr’s; Lamsma already does."

Paganini: Concerto no 1
"lya Kaler is a Russian virtuoso (born in Moscow in 1963), a pupil of Leonid Kogan and a very good player, too. Paganini's once fiendish pyrotechnics hold no terrors for him, not even the whistling harmonics, and how nicely he can turn an Italianate lyrical phrase, as in the secondary theme of the first movement of the First Concerto. Then he can set off with panache into a flying staccato, bouncing his bow neatly on the strings when articulating the delicious spiccato finales of both works. Stephen Gunzenhauser launches into the opening movements with plenty of energy and aplomb and is a sympathetic accompanist throughout—he is never heavy in orchestral writing that can easily sound vapid or stodgy...Kaler's intonation is above suspicion and he is naturally balanced: there is none of the scratchiness that can ruin one's pleasure in Paganinian pyrotechnics."

-- I.M., Gramophone

Dvorak and Glazunov Concertos
"Kaler’s playing of these Romantic, sweetly-tuned works is excellent. His technique copes more than adequately with the technical demands of the Glazunov, a composer considered bourgeois in post-1917 Russia and dealt an uncharitable blow here by a critic who said he led Russian music in a comfortable decline into ignominious mediocrity. Not so, his work deserves as high a profile as Dvorák’s whose concerto is sympathetically presented."

-- Christopher Fifield , BBC Music Magazine

Vieuxtemps: Concerto no 5
"Keylin...plays the concerto as a grand dramatic statement, with a largeness of conception that may not be altogether fashionable—but then, neither is the concerto, and there’s really no better way to play it if you’re going to play it at all. He takes advantage, as he does in all the concertos, of Vieuxtemps’s singing passages on all four strings, finding the appropriate individuality for each on the 1715 Baron Knoop Stradivari, lent to him for the performances. If his passagework lacks Heifetz’s or Kogan’s effortlessness, his sense of the pieces’ perfect adaptation to their medium, together with his big sound and serious approach to works all too often dismissed as trivial, make adequate amends."

-- Robert Maxham, Fanfare

On Sale

Great Violin Concertos

~~$74.99~~ $52.99
CD

Naxos

Apr 24, 2012

8501058

Bernstein: Serenade After Plato; Music of Bloch & Barber / Gluzman, Neschling

BIS

Available as SACD

~~$21.99~~ $15.99

Nov 01, 2009

The three works for violin and orchestra gathered here testify both to the versatility of Vadim Gluzman as a performer and to the richness and variety of the influences at play in American music during the 20th century. Like the text by Plato which inspired it, Bernstein's Serenade, from 1954, is a series of statements in praise of love. Musically it is typical of its maker, with allusions both to his own music and to works by Bartók, Mendelssohn and Stravinsky, and with a hint of jazz in the finale. Composed some thirty years earlier, Ernest Bloch's Baal Shem turns to the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe, dealing specifically with aspects of the Chassidic movement. Its second movement, Nigun (Improvisation) is probably Bloch's most famous work for the violin, an attempt to recreate the ecstasy generated by fervent religious singing. Samuel Barber, on the other hand, was deeply fascinated by the music of J.S. Bach and Brahms, although this is not always obvious in his music. His Violin Concerto, which he began to compose in Switzerland in 1939, while war was breaking out in Europe, has been described as having 'a chastened and aristocratic classic style'. That violinist Vadim Gluzman possesses the musical convictions and the supreme command of his instrument to do justice to all of these works will be clear to anyone who has encountered his previous concerto disc, with works by Tchaikovsky and Glazunov. The recipient of numerous distinctions, it was glowingly reviewed, for instance in International Record Review: 'The variety of tone, lithe, sinuous and febrile ... is truly exceptional.' Gluzman is here supported by the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP) under John Neschling, a team that has demonstrated its versatility on a number of recordings ranging from Villa-Lobos' Choros to Liszt's piano concertos.

On Sale

Bernstein: Serenade After Plato; Music of Bloch & Barber / Gluzman, Neschling

~~$21.99~~ $15.99
SACD

BIS

Nov 01, 2009

BIS-SACD-1662

Rachmaninov: The Isle Of The Dead, "Youth" Symphony, Symphony No 1 / Noseda, BBC PO

Chandos

Available as CD

$21.99

Jun 24, 2008

The first Rachmaninoff recording by Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic; 'Francesca da Rimini', received the accolade of 'Classical CD of the Week' from The Daily Telegraph and elicited the comment, 'Noseda sculpts the brooding passions of Rachmaninoff's dramatic score with trhilling intensity', from The Times. They return with three highly charged orchestral works. Noseda writees of his journey with Symphony No.1: 'Having conducted several times the Rachmaninoff second and third symphonies, I've been wondering continuously why the first of his symphonies has been neglected or considered not as good as its later sisters. In the last couple of years the level of my curiousity has increased so much that I've taken seriously the task of studying, learning and finally performing Rachmaninoff's first symphony. The result astonished me greatly: the symphony has such a beauty in the melodic line, the harmony is so refined, the structure is well controlled and yet everything seems naturally fluent.' Regarded as one of the most remarkable composers of the twentieth century, Serge Rachmaninoff wrote three romanticalldy inclined symphonies, two of which are now standard orchestral repertoire. However, the premiere of Symphony No.1 was such a disaster that Rachmaninoff refrained from composing anything more for the next three years. The conductor, Glazunov, is reputed to have been drunk, and Rachmaninoff was unable to attend the entire performance. He reacted by tearing up the score. Thankfully for posterity, the instrumental parts were preserved and rediscoverd in 1945, permitting the work to be restored. It is a work full of youthful fervour, distinctive and sweeping themes, and nationalist sentiments, and is now widely regarded as a vivid example of his early talent. It is complemented here by the 'Youth Symphony', the first movement of a projected but never completed symphony in D minor, composed when Rachmaninoff was only seventeen, and the great symphonic poem 'The Isle of the Dead', inspired by Arnold Böcklin's painting of the same name which Rachmaninoff had seen on display in Paris in 1907. Composed in 1909, it is still a relatively early work, but contains some of the dark Russian spiritual qualities which Rachmaninoff was to develop further in his later compositions. Gianandrea Noseda has a particular affinity for Russian music, which perhaps grew from his time with Gergiev at the Kirov. It is clear from his conducting that Rachmaninoff's music is deeply personal to him. Orchestra and conductor will perform this work at the BBC Proims in summer 2008 and at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall in November. Gianandrea Noseda will also conduct Rachmaninoff with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in June.

Rachmaninov: The Isle Of The Dead, "Youth" Symphony, Symphony No 1 / Noseda, BBC PO

$21.99
CD

Chandos

Jun 24, 2008

CHAN 10475

Wolfgang Sawallisch: Complete Symphonic, Lieder & Choral Recordings - Warner Classics Edition, Vol. 1

WARNER CLASSICS

Available as CD

$200.17

Aug 09, 2024

For five decades Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) held a central position in the musical world. That centrality was reflected in a series of top orchestral and operatic posts and in his interpretations, free of self-regarding eccentricities. His modest but highly effective conducting technique also made him the ideal recording artist. Sawallisch was a Bavarian born in Munich, city of orchestras and a great opera company, which he headed for 21 years. He started his career as an outstanding pianist and remained a sought-after accompanist to great Lieder singers and instrumentalists. Volume 1 of a complete conspectus of his Warner Classics recordings (made for Electrola and EMI Classics between 1954 to 1997) includes wonderful Lieder and song collaborations, as well as famous concerto accompaniments for eminent soloists and a heartwarming traversal of Schubert's secular vocal and sacred choral music with Bavarian Radio colleagues. But the main focus among the 65 discs is on his symphonic achievements: Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bruckner and Dvorak - the latter's Eighth Symphony was his first published recording, from 1954. Richard Strauss, an early influence, is strongly represented. This 65CD-box brings together all the non-operatic recordings that the German conductor and pianist Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) made in the years from 1954 to 1997 for EMI Classics and Electrola (now Warner Classics).

Wolfgang Sawallisch: Complete Symphonic, Lieder & Choral Recordings - Warner Classics Edition, Vol. 1

$200.17
CD

WARNER CLASSICS

Aug 09, 2024

WCL783217.2

PROKOFIEV: CINDERELLA / VARIOUS

WARNER CLASSICS

Available as CD

$12.99

Jan 26, 2010

2009 2X CD remaster. Enchanting, full of pathos and with it's serpentine waltzes & nightmarishly urgent clock sometimes unnerving, Prokofiev's Cinderella conjures up the enticing, ambiguous world of fairy tales. First performed in Moscow in 19745, the ballet was an immediate triumph. The debut of Raymonda, set at the time of the Crusades, took place nearly 50 years earlier in St. Petersburg. Glazunov's colorful score incorporates elements from Hungary, Spain and the Middle East.

PROKOFIEV: CINDERELLA / VARIOUS

$12.99
CD

WARNER CLASSICS

Jan 26, 2010

WCL67706.2

VIOLIN MASTERCLASS 24 CONCS FROM BACH TO VIVALDI

ALTO

Available as CD

$44.49

Mar 09, 2021

David Oistrakh captured the hearts of listeners with his impeccable technique, rich tone and emotional power. Born in Odessa, he graduated from Conservatory aged 18 and a year later performed his debut with the Glazunov concerto under the composer's baton. Successful debuts in Leningrad and Moscow followed. His New York debut was 1955 and his entire career was full of searingly memorable performances with major worldwide orchestras and accompanists.

VIOLIN MASTERCLASS 24 CONCS FROM BACH TO VIVALDI

$44.49
CD

ALTO

Mar 09, 2021

AOTL3144.2

Music For Saxophone And Orchestra / Rahbari, Rahbari

Marco Polo

Available as CD

$19.99

Jul 11, 1991

MILHAUD: Scaramouche / GLAZUNOV: Saxophone Concerto / IBERT:

Music For Saxophone And Orchestra / Rahbari, Rahbari

$19.99
CD

Marco Polo

Jul 11, 1991

8223374

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker / Tilson Thomas

Sony Masterworks

Available as CD

~~$24.99~~ $18.99

Jan 08, 2010

"Michael Tilson Thomas made some excellent records with the Philharmonia in the ’80s, and although I hadn’t come across this particular performance before, knowing this conductor’s flair for such music, I expected good things. I wasn’t disappointed.

The Nutcracker was the final ballet in Tchaikovsky’s great triptych, and was completed in 1891, a year during which the composer made a fatiguing concert tour of America and also suffered a nervous collapse. There is real justification in calling Tchaikovsky the father of the modern ballet score, and he effectively paved the way for dance-theatre music to be taken seriously. However, his first ballets were coolly received, and he was (as ever) wracked with self-doubt about this work, even after the premiere. This score has, of course, gone on to become one of his most popular scores.

Like Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker is most often heard in highlight form, but in fact works better when experienced complete. It’s just the right length, and has so many famous numbers that it seems ridiculous to condense it to 20 or 30 minutes. I do possess excerpt discs, but turn most frequently to my benchmark complete version, Ashkenazy’s Decca recording with the Royal Philharmonic. It has a spectacular sound, full, rich and wide-ranging, and a very useful fill-up is included, Glazunov’s masterpiece The Seasons. However, that set is at full price, so the real competition for this budget Sony release comes from Previn’s excellent LSO version (now on Classics for Pleasure, also without a filler), and Dorati’s marvellous Concertgebouw recording on a Philips Duo, which finds room for a substantial Sleeping Beauty selection (Fistoulari and the LSO).

The fact that Tilson Thomas can hold his own against anyone is immediately evident in the Overture, which has a Mendelssohnian lightness and graceful wit that is captivating. As a Bernstein protégé, MTT is a theatrical conductor through and through (listen to any of his Mahler or Copland records), so he is completely at home with the colour and drama of this great score. His pacing throughout is exemplary, on the fast side but with ensemble crisp and rhythms tight. All the famous dances of Act 2 are as infectious as one could wish for; listen to the delectable trumpet playing in the Spanish Dance, whilst the Russian Dance has tremendous weight and panache. The principals of the Philharmonia obviously relish the many solos that litter the score, and indeed the whole orchestra enjoy themselves enormously. I like the way Tilson Thomas gives due attention to Tchaikovsky’s exotic ‘special-effects’, including a child’s trumpet in C, children’s drums, a rattle and mechanisms suggesting cuckoos and quails. He even uses a ratchet and Irish whistle in the Grandfather’s Dance, while kazoos, toy snare drums and a children’s cap gun are used in The Battle. Marvellous fun!

The whole performance has a flair and feeling of ‘rightness’ that are very captivating. The conductor never loses sight of the famous adage that ‘there is a lot of ballet in Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, and a lot of the symphony in his ballets’. He gives everything its due place, so one feels an organic growth in the piece, rather than a succession of set-pieces. Listening to these discs was as satisfying as any of the competition I had to hand, and in many ways the short playing time ceases to be an issue in the face of a great performance. Recording quality is also well up to scratch, with a full-bodied richness that matches the playing...highly recommended."

-- Tony Haywood, MusicWeb International

On Sale

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker / Tilson Thomas

~~$24.99~~ $18.99
CD

Sony Masterworks

Jan 08, 2010

SONY42173

Serebrier: Symphony No. 1 & Concertos / Callow, Karr, Quint, Bournemouth Symphony

Naxos

Available as CD

~~$19.99~~ $13.99

Aug 31, 2010

You certainly cannot pigeonhole the music of José Serebrier, if this survey is any guide. It does cover a broad period, from the youthful Symphony No. 1 of 1956 to the movie music for a film that was never made, in 2009. As related by the composer in the extensive program notes, all of these pieces have an interesting story behind them, none more so than the symphony. Serebrier was still a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in 1957 when, as he says, he literally bumped into a cello student on the street and spilled the pages of his manuscript onto the sidewalk. The cellist, Harvey Wolf, was on his way to join the Houston Symphony, then led by Leopold Stokowski, and suggested that he show the music to the great old man. Against all odds, Stokowski agreed to read the score, and liked it well enough to put it in the place of the Ives Fourth Symphony, which was giving his players trouble. Serebrier actually ignored the Curtis operator’s messages to return Stokowski’s phone calls, thinking it a student prank. Finally, Curtis director Efrem Zimbalist summoned the fledgling composer to his office; “What are you doing? Maestro Stokowski called me to say he’s been trying to reach you urgently for two days!”

It is not too hard to imagine what drew Stokowski to the music. It is a good showpiece, full of the kind of sweeping dramatic gestures that the wizard reveled in, as well as flashy writing for instrumentalists, especially in the brass. The rumbling opening has the flavor of Mahler as well.

The Violin Concerto...is subtitled “Winter,” an allusion to a dark, even bleak character, especially as the one-movement work begins, with a slow solo cadenza at the low end of the violin’s range. As if to signal the changes of the seasons, the work brightens as it proceeds, with subtly integrated quotes from Haydn, Glazunov, and Tchaikovsky, all of whom also wrote musical odes to winter. The conclusion is the emotional reverse of the beginning, a bright, raucous fanfare. This is an impressive, compact concerto, easily the best work on this program.

The performance is excellent; the Bournemouth band gives us rich and precise playing, and we can assume that the leadership is authoritative.

--Fanfare (Peter Burwasser)

--------------------------------

José Serebrier is obviously a very talented composer, and it's good that Naxos is giving him the opportunity to record his music under optimal conditions. The First Symphony is an impressive piece of work, especially for a Uruguayan teenage musician of just 18. Like most of Serebrier's work, there's a lyrical side to much of the material that's quite winning, but the style and "feel" of the music, its single-movement form, and its alternation of melodic episodes with powerfully rhythmic outbursts are quite modern as well as personal.

However, perhaps the two most enjoyable large works here are the Violin Concerto "Winter" (another single-movement piece lasting a bit more than 15 minutes, and wonderfully played by Philippe Quint) and the Music for an Imaginary Film (2009). Actually the film was real; it just became imaginary when a strike forced its cancellation and Serebrier got stuck with the music he had already written. It's extremely colorful and fun.

The two short "tango" pieces have obvious appeal as encores or musical "calling cards"...given Serebrier's gifts as a conductor there's nothing to criticize here regarding the performances, and the engineering is very good also. Recommended wholeheartedly.

--ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

On Sale

Serebrier: Symphony No. 1 & Concertos / Callow, Karr, Quint, Bournemouth Symphony

~~$19.99~~ $13.99
CD

Naxos

Aug 31, 2010

8559648

Anatole Kitain - The Complete Columbia Recordings, 1936-1939

APR

Available as CD

~~$21.99~~ $16.99

May 01, 2015

Pianophiles should note immediately that this is a reissue of APR7029, first released around two decades ago, and that no new material has been added. If any unpublished takes exist, or if any unpublished recordings have survived, then that would deepen still further one’s appreciation of Kitain’s art. At the moment this seems unlikely – though far stranger things have cropped up in less promising circumstances, so we can but hope.

Kitain (1903-80) was an exact contemporary of Horowitz and was slightly younger than the incendiary Simon Barere. Bryan Crimp’s acknowledgement-preface in the booklet notes that standard reference books omit all mention of Kitain. I don’t know how much this has changed in the intervening 20 years but checking such staples as Harold C Schonberg, Kaiser, Lyle and even the Naxos A-Z of pianists boxed set fails to elicit a thing. So we are again reliant on Crimp’s own biographical outline in the handsome booklet for details of the rise and fall of this great pianist’s reputation.

Born in St Petersburg, he apparently so astonished Glazunov with his precocity that he won immediate entrance to the Conservatory. Soon he moved to Kiev, becoming a classmate of Horowitz, and studying with Felix Blumenfeld. The Kitain family fled Russia in 1923, Anatole winning a prize at the Liszt Piano Competition three years later – Annie Fischer won first place. He settled in France only for his life to be overtaken by upheaval yet again, moving to America when war broke out. Here there seem to have been a series of false starts, including performances under an alias, though he later gave admiringly reviewed recitals throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He made a series of LPs in the 1950s – one with his fiddle-playing brother, Robert. For MGM they recorded the sonatas by Brahms (Op.108) and Franck, and I’d certainly like to come across that disc.

What began with reluctance in 1936 – the Paris Columbia branch wasn’t keen to record him, but made two tests that were actually published – ended in some triumph as Kitain soon moved to record in the Abbey Road studios in London. Kitain was a bit of a first-take man from a quick look at the released matrix numbers. The Schumann Toccata, not surprisingly, necessitated retakes and the third take was used. Something odd seems to have gone on when he set down the Hungarian Dances of Brahms, where one side necessitated a retake a month later and a fifth take was used. Almost everything else, recorded between 1936 and 1939, was a first take.

Aside from a sense that he was naturally unfettered by studio constraints what impresses throughout is the naturalness of his phrasing and the sublimated virtuosity of a technique that allows him such freedoms as he takes. He is, in fact, not ‘free’ in the sense that he takes metrical liberties and even when he can seem idiosyncratic – perhaps in Chopin’s Scherzo in B minor – one senses the musical justification. The central section here shows his beautiful legato and sense of phrasing as the Etudes reveal his rhythmic and colouristic virtues. Whilst he is commanding in the C major, Op.10 No.7 he’s invariably controlled and though virtuosic in Liszt never for a moment crude. There are few exaggerations. He was keen to record the Brahms Dances and they are vitalising performances. His Russian repertoire is very valuable, given his background. There is great warmth and sensitivity in his Scriabin and one wishes he could have recorded more Rachmaninoff. A pity he was never asked to record his old teacher Blumenfeld’s Etude for the left hand, which Kitain played in recitals. However, the élan of the Strauss-Godowsky Fledermaus is something to be heard.

A few of the rarer examples here have a higher-than-average amount of surface noise and a few thumps, but they pass quickly. This skilfully compiled set is priced ‘as for one’. If you missed it before, you should get it now.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

On Sale

Anatole Kitain - The Complete Columbia Recordings, 1936-1939

~~$21.99~~ $16.99
CD

APR

May 01, 2015

APR6017

Kreisler, Zimbalist, Ysaye / Fine Arts Quartet

Naxos

Available as CD

~~$19.99~~ $13.99

Jan 31, 2012

KREISLER String Quartet in a 1. ZIMBALIST String Quartet in e 1. YSAŸE Harmonies du soir 2 • 1,2 Fine Arts Qrt; 2 Otis Klöber, cond; 2 Members of Europe PO • NAXOS 8.572559 (71:36)

Two of the works on this disc—Zimbalist’s String Quartet and Ysaÿe’s Harmonies du soir —are premiere recordings. While it’s conceivable that someone reading this review could have heard Ysaÿe in concert toward the end of his career—he died in 1931—it’s more likely that readers will be more familiar with the great violinist as a composer, many of whose works, particularly his six sonatas for solo violin, have survived him to become standard repertoire pieces.

With Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962) and Efrem Zimbalist (1890–1985) the situation is somewhat reversed. More than a few readers, I suspect, will have heard them play, at least on record if not in person. Their compositional output, however, was either slim in the case of Zimbalist or, in Kreisler’s case, consisting of a collection of salon pieces, cadenzas to other composers’ concertos, and a number of hoaxes perpetrated under the names of actual Baroque composers.

Kreisler did, nonetheless, make at least one attempt at writing a serious, multimovement, classically-styled work, the String Quartet in A Minor heard on the present disc. He wrote it in 1919, and it displays both considerable craft and familiarity with the musical trends of the time, which is to say it’s a beautifully written piece with nary an original idea. The first movement, titled Fantasia, is a dead ringer for César Franck’s 1889 D-Major String Quartet. The second movement, a scherzo, is positively Mendelssohnian. The lovely Romanze returns to a Franck-Fauré-Debussy idiom, while the finale, titled “Retrospection,” takes on the character of some of Kreisler’s lighter salon pieces. It’s a sort of Caprice viennois flirting with a Fuchs serenade.

Zimbalist thought enough of his 1931 E-Minor String Quartet to revise it in 1959. It too, like Kreisler’s quartet, is a model of superbly crafted string writing, but differs considerably from it in style. Where Kreisler synthesized his score from the musical vocabularies of composers and their works that were roughly contemporaneous in 1919 when he wrote it, Zimbalist looks back for his inspiration to the closing decade of the 19th century and first decade of the 20th, and specifically to his Russian roots in the music of Arensky, Glazunov, and Sergei Taneyev. In other words, Zimbalist’s quartet is a throwback to an earlier period and style, one that is very romantic and very Russian sounding.

Ysaÿe’s Harmonies du soir is an unusual hybrid of a piece scored for string quartet and string orchestra. Written in 1924, it’s a fairly late entry in the composer’s catalog, described in Roy Malan’s program note as “a sensuously chromatic journey through thickly textured emotions and colors finally leading, by restlessly climbing motifs, to a glorious sunrise in C.” To my ear, the piece resembles early Schoenberg; Transfigured Night could well be its mother. The only documented public performance was given by the Columbia University Strings in New York in 1979.

As noted, the Zimbalist and Ysaÿe pieces are firsts on disc, and while both are quite attractive, I’d be surprised to see seconds anytime soon. Luckily, both scores find themselves in excellent hands with the Fine Arts Quartet and, in the Ysaÿe, joined by the string section of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Europe led by Otis Klöber.

Kreisler’s quartet has been previously recorded, most notably by Kreisler himself with an ensemble that also included violist William Primrose. That recording, however, appears to be available only in a 10-CD EMI set that gathers a multitude of concerto and sonata recordings featuring Kreisler in his capacity as violinist.

The performances on the current Naxos CD are top-notch, as is the recording. The three works are appealing enough and certainly of sufficient interest to warrant recommendation, especially given a release so affordably priced.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

On Sale

Kreisler, Zimbalist, Ysaye / Fine Arts Quartet

~~$19.99~~ $13.99
CD

Naxos

Jan 31, 2012

8572559

Ying Quartet plays Anton Arensky

Sono Luminus

Available as CD

$18.99

Oct 25, 2011

ARENSKY String Quartets: No. 1; No. 2. Piano Quintet • Ying Qrt; Adam Neiman (pn) • SONO LUMINUS 92143 (76:56)

Anton Arensky’s String Quartet No. 1 appeared in 1888, six years after he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory, and immediately joined the Moscow Conservatory as professor of harmony and counterpoint. (The requirements were much lighter at the time, in a culture where classical music was essentially viewed as a new Russian art form, earlier isolated musicians such as Dmitri Bortniansky, Yevstigni Fomin, and Mikhail Glinka notwithstanding.) It reveals the pronounced influence of Tchaikovsky, who became a mentor and friend of his younger colleague. Not always to the good, either, as the first and third movements meander pleasantly with little of distinction to say and less energy to convey it, all much in Tchaikovsky’s worst manner. The andante sostenuto is better, a simple, lyrical song whose charm lies in its rich accompanying harmonies, while a central section nods perfunctorily at counterpoint. The finale is by far the best thing in the work, a theme and variations (a form that, like Glazunov, Arensky excelled at) of a very Russian cast. The variations reveal the art and unpredictability of which the composer was master.

The Second Quartet followed the first by 12 years, and exists as a complete work in two versions: one for the standard lineup of two violins, viola, and cello, and one for violin, viola, and two cellos. They are musically identical, and were presumably composed to prove a point—not for the first time, since Arensky was a contrarian who would go out of his way to do something when someone else said it couldn’t or shouldn’t be done. (Tchaikovsky once reproached him for his occasional employment of unusual meters, citing the 5/4 finale to his Piano Concerto. Arensky immediately responded by composing several further works with similar metrical irregularities.) It is a more striking and imaginative work than the previous quartet. The first movement attempts the same frequent shifts of effect, textures, and harmony as its predecessor, but with superior thematic material, if with no greater ability to weld its disparate parts together. It is followed by only one other movement, a large-scale (17:28, in this reading) theme and variations on a Tchaikovsky song. With a lengthier theme that supplied more elements to vary, Arensky achieves as much as he had in the first quartet, but on a more ambitious scale. If a couple of the variations, such as the fifth, are little more than ornamentation, the overall result is successful.

The Piano Quintet appeared in 1900. Schumann’s Florestan is prominent in its opening movement, while another group of variations makes its appearance immediately afterward. As such, it’s an andante set, a rarity in Russian music, and an unabashedly sentimental, Tchaikovsky-like set, too. The scherzo is perfunctory, but the finale is more Arensky contrarianism: a 3:31 movement of which the first 2:47 consists of a stern contrapuntal prelude, leading to a fast and otherwise undistinguished reprise of the Schumann-like theme that opened the quartet.

The Ying Quartet started life in 1988 with four Winnetka, Illinois, siblings who all studied at the Eastman School of Music. When first violinist Timothy left in 2009, Frank Huang took over the chair, and when he left the following year to become the Houston Symphony’s concertmaster, Ayano Ninomiya became first violinist. It’s this final lineup that recorded this Arensky album. Their most distinguishing characteristics are an emphasis on energy, a narrow, disciplined tone, chance-taking, and intense group practice. I enjoyed their silky and at times quixotic versions of the Tchaikovsky quartets and Souvenir de Florence (Telarc 80685), and wasn’t surprised to find much the same qualities exhibited on this release. The attempts at portamento aren’t especially convincing, given that their string tone lacks the kind of “plush” necessary to bring it off, but as the central section of the Piano Quintet demonstrates, they and pianist Adam Neiman are certainly capable of employing rubato and expressive dynamics as to the romantic manner born. These are, in short, worthy performances of all three pieces.

They aren’t without competition, however. The Lajtha Quartet with Nona Prunyi offered an identical lineup of music on Marco Polo 8.223911, though with slightly less technical virtuosity and a lot less theatricality. Among recorded performances that offer one of the works, the String Quartet No. 2 receives a vigorous, almost impatient reading from the Raphael Ensemble (Hyperion CDA 66648), while a more spacious account is offered by the Arienski Ensemble on Meridian 84211 (deleted, but still available from some sources). I’ve also enjoyed the warmly expressive live reading of the Piano Quintet on the three-disc set titled Martha Argerich and Friends , recorded at the 2008 Lugano Festival, though the Yings supply more finesse in the middle movement.

In short, while there’s no clear winner when it comes to a single version of the Second String Quartet, the Ying Quartet is my preference for all three works combined. With excellent sound, definitely recommended.

FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Ying Quartet plays Anton Arensky

$18.99
CD

Sono Luminus

Oct 25, 2011

DSL-92143

Wagenaar: Summer Of Life, Taming Of The Shrew Overture / Hermus, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie

CPO

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $13.99

Nov 17, 2009

WAGENAAR De getemde feeks: Overture. Levenszomer. Saul en David. Romantisch Intermezzo. Frithjofs Meerfahrt • Antony Hermus, cond; NW German Phil • CPO 777 479-2 (50:16)

Outside of the Netherlands, the music of Johan Wagenaar (1862–1941) is not well known. Its most prominent bid for worldwide dissemination, conductor Riccardo Chailly’s Decca CD with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, was issued almost 20 years ago. (It seems like it was almost yesterday.) Of course it was deleted during the previous decade’s Great Cultural Purge, but those who want it badly enough might be able to find a used copy, or an ArkivMusic CD-R reincarnation. (It is not currently listed on their Web site, but it may well be cycled back into circulation if enough people request it.) It overlaps the present CD in the overture to De getemde feeks (The Taming of the Shrew) and Saul en David . An earlier recording of Frithjofs Meerfahrt (“Frithiof’s Sea Voyage”) can be found on a disc of Dutch overtures in which the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Jac van Steen, but that has become scarce as well. Those who are interested in exploring Wagenaar’s music probably will gravitate to the present release, then, unless money is no object, or unless they are particularly persistent.

I was curious about Wagenaar back in the early 1990s because I mistakenly thought that he had been the composition and harmony teacher of Bernard Herrmann. Actually, that was Bernard Wagenaar, who was no relation to Johan! I was glad to discover Johan Wagenaar’s music, however, for its (Richard) Straussian opulence and its salubrious affect. Those qualities are expressed most strongly in the concert overture, dating from 1909, which opens this CD—a good example of putting one’s best foot forward. Wagenaar doesn’t try to translate Shakespeare’s play into music. Instead, he contents himself with creating a positive, masculine mood, and his success in doing so is appealing enough.

Strauss often is cited as Wagenaar’s strongest influence, and then Berlioz, but it takes only a little imagination to hear his indebtedness to Brahms, and perhaps even a glance or two eastward at Glazunov. Elgar, who composed his own virtual tribute to Strauss in his orchestral work In the South , also can be compared to Wagenaar … or rather, the other way around, since Wagenaar’s music lacks the creativity of Elgar’s, to say nothing of Strauss’s. Still, one can argue that there can never be too much late-Romantic music, and Wagenaar’s works, while not revolutionary, are very satisfying when they are judged on their own terms. Levenszomer (“Summer of Life”) is a voluble expression of human happiness—perhaps the composer’s own, having found success after an impecunious childhood. Frithjofs Meerfahrt lacks many of the musical cues composers generally use to suggest Fahr ting on the Meer , or the Meer itself, and an episode involving two sea monsters is hardly impressive, so perhaps it is best to hear it as absolute music—it succeeds rather well as that. The same is true for the Intermezzo , which is more Romantisch stylistically than in the sense of amorousness. Saul and David naturally features an important part for the harp. Its inspiration was a painting by Rembrandt—no longer thought to be authentic, however. Again, Wagenaar’s skilled but generalized response encourages one to hear the score as accomplished absolute music, and to leave it at that.

The present selection sticks to music composed before 1910, so a second volume might be in the works. (Knowing cpo’s habits, that actually seems likely.) The Northwest German Philharmonia can’t compete with the Royal Concertgebouw’s tonal allure, but there’s nothing at all embarrassing about these performances. Antony Hermus knows his way around the music and keeps it from stagnating, although Chailly believes in it too, and almost succeeds in hiding the moments—not very many, mind you—when Wagenaar’s inspiration flags. In the absence of Chailly, though, this cpo disc makes Wagenaar’s case well enough.

FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

On Sale

Wagenaar: Summer Of Life, Taming Of The Shrew Overture / Hermus, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie

~~$18.99~~ $13.99
CD

CPO

Nov 17, 2009

777479-2

Schumann: Hermann & Dorothea Overture; Overture, Scherzo & Finale; Violin Concerto

Artek

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $14.99

Feb 26, 2013

SCHUMANN Hermann and Dorothea Overture, Op. 136. Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, Op. 52. Violin Concerto in d, WoO 1 1 & • Stewart Robertson, cond; Elmar Oliveira (vn); Atlantic Classical O • ARTEK 0059 (79:08) Live: Boca Raton, FL 3/5/2012

& A conversation on the Schumann Violin Concerto with Elmar Oliveira and Stewart Robertson

In March of last year, a Boca Raton, Florida, audience was treated to this unusual all-Schumann program—unusual in that the works performed are not that often heard on record let alone live in concert. The highlight was Schumann’s ill-fated Violin Concerto, about which I’ve already had my say in the above interview. I first came to know the piece from Henryk Szeryng’s Mercury recording with Antal Doráti conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. That recording, coupled with Szeryng’s Mendelssohn Concerto was made in 1964, and I acquired it as an LP. I didn’t think much of the Schumann concerto then, and after a parade of others that followed—including Thomas Zehetmair, Joshua Bell, and Christian Tetzlaff—I still don’t think much of the piece now. Or, I didn’t, until I heard Elmar Oliveira play it on this CD. I wasn’t just trying to flatter him in our interview when I said I found his performance of the work the most persuasive I’ve heard.

I think there are some artists who play a piece for the same reason that some mountaineers climb a particular mountain—because it’s there. Then there are those artists who really believe in a piece and commit themselves to it body, mind, and soul in an effort to bring it to life in a way that no one else has before. I can’t, and won’t, say that I’m ready to accord Schumann’s violin concerto a place on high among the Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius concertos, but I can, and will, say that Oliveira, Robertson, and the ACO’s performance of the score made more sense to me than it ever has, and has convinced me that the work deserves at least second-tier status among the likes of the Dvo?ák, Glazunov, Goldmark, and Bruch concertos—and that’s not bad company to be in. It’s certainly several steps above where Schumann’s concerto has long languished, and Oliveira and Robertson can take credit for its rehabilitation.

Schumann composed a trivet of concert overtures based on literary works. I use the word “trivet” rather than trilogy, because though the three scores were composed in the same year, 1851, they are not related, and they were assigned non-contiguous opus numbers. The first of them, Braut von Messina , op. 100, is based on Schiller’s tragic play of the same name. The second overture, Julius Caesar , op. 128, was inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedy. And last, the overture performed here, Hermann and Dorothea , op. 136, was inspired by Goethe’s epic poem telling of the tragic fate of two lovers during the French Revolution. Tchaikovsky, it seems, was not the first composer to use the Marseillaise when he incorporated it into his 1812 Overture ; Schumann uses it here to set the time and place for his score. In works such as these, the lines between concert overture and tone poem are blurred. The question is not merely academic: If an orchestral piece of music takes its inspiration from a literary work, and it purports to depict the work’s characters and/or to outline its story, how does that differ from a tone poem?

It’s a question that spills over into the other orchestral work on this program, the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, op. 52. What is its musical taxonomy? Even Schumann didn’t seem to know, at one time referring to it as his “Symphony No. 2,” at another time as a “suite,” and at still another time as a “sinfonietta.” Reducing it to its component parts, one could say it’s a symphony without a slow movement. Perhaps because of confusion over its classification, the work was long neglected for most of the 19th century, but it has been dusted off in the 20th and taken up by a number of famous conductors in the modern recording era, from Kletzki, Schuricht, and Konwitschny, to Karajan, Solti, Sawallisch, Marriner, Gardiner, and Thielemann.

The two orchestral works are presented in highly polished performances by conductor Robertson and the Atlantic Classical Orchestra, but of course, it’s Schumann’s violin concerto with soloist Oliveira that is the main fare on the menu and the reason for you to purchase this disc. As mentioned earlier, a 20-minute bonus track at the end includes a fascinating conversation on the concerto between Oliveira and Robertson.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

On Sale

Schumann: Hermann & Dorothea Overture; Overture, Scherzo & Finale; Violin Concerto

~~$18.99~~ $14.99
CD

Artek

Feb 26, 2013

AR-0059-2

Cellobration / Amit Peled, Eliza Ching

Centaur Records

Available as CD

~~$18.99~~ $14.99

Mar 01, 2010

CELLOBRATION • Amit Peled (vc); Eliza Ching (pn) • CENTAUR 3047 (59:30)

MENDELSSOHN On Wings of Song , op. 34/2. DAVIDOFF At the Fountain, op. 20/2. ECCLES Cello Sonata in g. GRANADOS Spanish Dance, op. 37/No. 5, “Andaluza” (“Playera”). FAURÉ Elégie. LIGETI Sonata for Solo Cello . BACH Pastorella in F. GLAZUNOV Chant du Ménéstrel. F. COUPERIN Pièces en Concert. CASALS Song of the Birds

Here is a collection of works for cello and piano both familiar and unfamiliar. Among the familiar are Fauré’s popular Élégie —albeit better known in its orchestral setting—transcribed for cello and piano, and Mendelssohn’s On Wings of Song , originally an actual song for voice and piano, that has been arranged and transcribed many times (Liszt and Heifetz both had a crack at it). In the unfamiliar category are a cello sonata by the virtually unknown Henry Eccles (1670–1742)—an English Baroque musician who ended up a member of Louis XIV’s King’s Band—and practically everything else on the disc, which though well known to cellists and often recorded, are not your usual fare on recital programs, except perhaps as encore pieces.

The Israeli-born Amit Peled plays a c.1689 cello by Andrea Guarneri, updated and fitted to modern standards. This, as far as I can tell, is only Peled’s second CD; the first, released in 2009 (Centaur 2988) was titled The Jewish Soul , and consisted of Jewish themed works, though not all necessarily by Jewish composers. For example, it included Bruch’s ubiquitous Kol Nidrei.

The “discovery” on this new disc is the Eccles sonata. Very little is known about this obscure violinist/composer, other than that he was born in England, was the elder brother to a more successful sibling John, whose success over his own he resented. Peeved by his perceived neglect, he moved to Paris, where he got himself hired on at the King’s court. What music he did write was either adapted from works by the Italian composer Giuseppe Valentini (1681–1753) or heavily influenced by them. In 1732, Eccles published 12 sonatas for gamba and figured bass; but according to the booklet note, the G-Minor Sonata given on the present CD is a transcription from an earlier set of violin sonatas. It takes the form of a typical sonata da chiesa (slow, fast, slow, fast), and considering its model, the piece, not surprisingly, is in an Italian style similar to what you would expect to hear from Vivaldi. What is perhaps surprising is that for a composer as virtually unknown as Eccles, there are five listed recordings of this sonata, going all the way back to a 1930 violin version played by Jacques Thibaud.

Latvian-born and Russian-trained, Carl (Karl) Davidoff (1838–89) was one of the great cello virtuosos of the 19th century. Tchaikovsky hailed Davidoff as “the tsar of cellists,” and the two men were friends and associates through their mutual connection to the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Davidoff’s At the Fountain is a popular encore piece that has had several recordings, including ones by Pieter Wispelwey, Miklós Perényi, and Jan Vogler. How would I describe the piece? A Flight of the Honeybee for cello: a nice little A-B-A form in which the bee leaves the hive and busily buzzes about to gather nectar and pollinate the petals (A), tarries momentarily to make love to a flower (B), and assisted by a tailwind returns home to the hive faster than it left (A).

From the 12 Spanish Dances by Enrique Granados, Peled plays a cello arrangement of the most popular number in the set, the No. 5. Titled Andaluza in the composer’s original version for piano, the piece has alternately come to be called Playera . It can be heard on some 140 recordings in arrangements for guitar, violin, voice, and in its original piano version, including by the composer himself. Nor does Peled have the field all to himself on cello. The piece has been recorded by Alban Gerhardt and Jamie Walton. One can easily appreciate the great popularity of the piece. Its guitar-like strumming accompaniment provides the underpinning for an alluring melody in the style of a seguidilla, a folksong or dance of Castillian origin. Bizet drew upon the seguidilla for his aria “Près des ramparts de Séville” in Carmen.

György Ligeti’s Sonata for Cello Solo has also received its fair share of recordings, one of which in particular, with Matt Haimovitz on Deutsche Grammophon, is especially noteworthy. Not unlike Paul Kletzki, the Jewish-Hungarian Ligeti (1923–2006) also suffered at the hands of both the Nazis and the Soviet Communists. The sonata heard here did not receive its first performance until 1983, but it’s an early work dating from the composer’s Hungarian period. In only two movements, its first was written in 1948, when Ligeti was 25; its second movement, five years later in 1953. The piece is clearly influenced by Bartók and Kodály. Glissando chords and pizzicato punctuate a melancholy “Dialogo,” marked adagio , followed by a moto perpetuo Capriccio, marked presto con slancio , a real test of the player’s mettle.

Bach’s F-Major Pastorella was originally composed as a four-movement suite for organ. Only its opening movement is heard here, but Bach recycled its concluding Gigue as the closing movement to the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. According to the booklet note, this arrangement by Pablo Casals, in a handwritten score, was acquired by the Beaux Arts Trio’s cellist, Bernard Greenhouse, and from him passed to Peled.

Glazunov’s Chant du Ménéstrel (Troubadour’s Song) is almost as popular, if you count numbers of recordings, as the Granados Playera . Frankly, it’s little more than a sentimental salon piece that happens to have been made famous by Beatrice Harrison, the British cellist who had the distinction of being Elgar’s handpicked player to make the official HMV recording of the composer’s Cello Concerto under his direction.

When it comes to the Couperin Pièces en Concert , I wish I could cite its provenance definitively, but unfortunately, neither the CD’s track listing nor the booklet note identifies the specific set of suites whence it comes. Even more curiously, other recordings of the work, as well as other references to it, are equally silent on the subject. Finally, by searching for a combination of Couperin and Bazelaire, the work’s arranger, I hit upon a program note from the 2002 Tyalgum (New South Wales) Festival that asserts that Bazelaire’s arrangement is a mixed-movement compilation drawn from Couperin’s Nouveaux Concerts published in 1724.

If you check ArkivMusic’s listing for the Casals piece under its English title, Song of the Birds , you will find only this one recording by Peled. But there are a couple of others listed under its Spanish title, El Cant dels Ocells . I’d have expected more, including one by the renowned cellist himself. The piece is an arrangement of a traditional Catalan folk song, which embodies, in Peled’s words, “a spiritual communication.”

I’ve said nothing about the Mendelssohn or Fauré pieces because they’re so well known there’s nothing to say.

By all evidence, Amit Peled is a superb cellist. His technical prowess in the Davidoff and Ligeti vouchsafe that; and his tone, of pellucid purity, gleams with a glint of gold in the slow, lyrical numbers. As an introduction to the artistry of this fine up-and-coming young artist, this album showcases his versatility in a wide range of repertoire. But now that Peled has produced two CDs of what are essentially arrangements, encore pieces, and lighter fare—except for the Eccles and Ligeti sonatas—I look forward to hearing him in some of the more substantial repertoire for his instrument. Pianist Eliza Ching has a somewhat lesser role to play in some of these numbers, but she carries out her role as accompanist admirably. Recorded sound is excellent. Recommended for an hour’s worth of canapés to whet the appetite; now bring on the main course.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

On Sale

Cellobration / Amit Peled, Eliza Ching

~~$18.99~~ $14.99
CD

Centaur Records

Mar 01, 2010

CRC3047

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