Born in Mexico, Jorge Federico Osorio began his musical studies at the age of five with his mother. He studied at the conservatories of Mexico, Paris and Moscow and his teachers have included Jacob Milstein and Wilhelm Kempff, among others. Maximiano Valdes is Principal Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain and as of September, 2002, Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago, Chile. He was born in Santiago and began his studies in piano and violin at the Conservatory of Music there and continued at the Accademia de Santa Cecilia in Rome where he took courses in composition and conducting. Completing his diploma in piano, he decided to concentrate entirely on conducting and enrolled in the conducting classes of Franco Ferrara in Bologna, Siena and Venice and also worked with Sergiu Celibadache in Stuttgart and Paris.

Born in Mexico, Jorge Federico Osorio studied at conservatories of Mexico, Paris and Moscow. Performing chamber music is an integral part of his artistic life. In addition to serving as artistic director of the Brahms Music Festival in Mexico, he has performed with the Moscow Quartet, Tel Aviv Quartet, violinist Mayumi Fujikawa and cellist Richard Markson as part of a piano trio with the late Henryk Szeryng. He received the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's Gina Bachauer Award.

An enchanting, astonishing and unusual combination: the rich warmth of the cello and the delicate timbre of the guitar are perfectly attuned to each other in the hands of Maxine Neuman and Peter Ernst. This recording demonstrates beyond a doubt what surprising, exquisite rapport these seemingly incompatible instruments can achieve. The order chosen for these recorded works was not guided by chronological or stylistic principles, but rather by the theatrical perspective of showcasing the range and beauty of this superlative partnership. The selections include compositions originally written for this instrumentation (by Zenamon, Domeniconi and Gnattali), pieces written for instruments similar to the present instrumentation (Schiffelholtz) or which - since not specified by the composer - one can imagine being realized by this combination (Vivaldi); the program is finally complemented by a transcription of a work originally composed for piano (Ibert). Guitarist Peter Ernst is widely recognized and celebrated for his interpretations of solo and chamber music, including repertoire from the Renaissance to the present, as well as folkloristic music from South America. In 2000-2001, he held a coveted full DAAD grant for studies with Sharon Isbin at the Juilliard School in New York City. Distinguished as a teacher as well as a performer, cellist Maxine Neuman has served as a judge for numerous international competitions. On the faculty at the New York's School for Strings, she has taught at Bennington College, Williams College and C.W. Post University.

Includes work(s) by Dmitri Shostakovich. Soloist: Elmar Oliveira.

There must be over fifty different recordings of Brahms’ D minor Violin Sonata alone in the catalogue, beginning with Isolde Menges and Harold Samuel in 1929 (on Biddulph if you can find it though it’s on an Italian pirate label as well). But there’s always room for an intelligent and tonally vibrant set, such as Oliveira and Osorio provide. In the first movement of the G major it is instructive to observe how they prefer expressive and emotive shading to more obvious metrical displacements and tempo changing. This imparts a seamlessness to their performance if perhaps at times a rather unyielding one. Osorio is on fine form in the Adagio, weighting his chords aptly and Oliveira catching the glinting, shifting profile of the violin’s line. The finale is steady, Oliveira playing with soaring caution, bringing the movement to a peak of lyrical intensity at 5.30 with some dramatically urgent and opulent tonal resources. They’re not as taut here as the famous oft-quoted Suk-Katchen duo but are strongly convincing on their own terms.

The difficult Second (difficult because it’s hard successfully to convey its sometimes elusive meaning) receives a dramatic interpretation. This is strong on luscious tonal expressivity, strongly etched and committed, a very exterior traversal. There’s much variation of vibrato usage from Oliveira and also some pungent chording from Osorio. In the slow movement in particular Oliveira digs into considerable reserves of lavished intensity, utilising the arsenal of devices open to a tonalist of stature to inflect and deepen the line. The gracious finale still has in their hands a steady, cumulative power to it. The D minor once more exemplifies Oliveira and Osorio’s drama and power-laced aesthetic in these works. The Allegro is strong and powerful, the Adagio structurally acute, Oliveira reserving emotive intensity for the optimum structural moment, which is not - pace certain well known fiddle players - too early. He manages to highlight lyric phrases adeptly and is not inclined to use his vibrato as a sauce. The third movement is elegant, wistful with just the right note of lightness and movement, the finale strong and courageous.

The acoustic can, it’s true, impart some edginess to Oliveira’s tone though the balance itself is just. Fortissimi are also inclined to be steely but this is reflective as much of the strength of the performances – which are recommended to those who enjoy high octane Brahms sonatas.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

BACH Violin Concertos: in a, BWV 1041; in E, BWV 1042; in g, BWV 1056; in d for Two Violins, BWV 1043 1 • Elmar Oliveira (vn, cond); 1 Eva Gruesser (vn); Arco Ens • ARTEK 0054 (63:24)


After reviewing Elmar Oliveira’s brilliant performance of Schumann’s Violin Concerto in conjunction with our interview, I have to admit that reviewing this CD of Bach’s violin concertos proved rather difficult for me. The reason is not due to any shortcomings found in Oliveira’s playing or the excellent support he receives from the Arco Ensemble. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault, dear reader, lies not in the music-making but in what we’ve come to expect of it. Reflexively, I found myself wanting to reject Oliveira’s approach, not for what it is but for what it isn’t.


In recent times, we’ve become so habituated to hearing this music performed on period instruments, that even when it’s performed on modern instruments, we demand that the players adopt the manners and style of performance informed by historical practice. Examples may be heard in two modern-instrument recordings of these Bach concertos by Hilary Hahn with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Julia Fischer with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Both embrace almost identical approaches: rapid tempos, minimal vibrato, short bow strokes, pointed phrasing, terraced dynamics, and surgically precise articulation. Yet, impressive as their performances are as pure execution, Hahn and Fischer’s versions both strike me as virtually devoid of emotional expression and warmth.


Elmar Oliveira’s readings of these concertos are not what I would call big-band Bach— from a group photo, the Arco Ensemble appears to be composed of 18 string players—but they are what I would call older-school Bach. Tempos are brisk enough, but more moderate than the lightning speeds adopted by so many modern-day ensembles; and the result is that one can actually hear and appreciate the intricate contrapuntal interplay between voices in the orchestra, and the intra -play between ripieno and soloist.


For Oliveira’s part, vibrato, long bow strokes, graduated dynamics, and songful phrasing are part and parcel of the art of making beautiful music and making the music sound beautiful. Time and again, as I listened to these performances, the violinist who came to mind was Arthur Grumiaux, whose patrician style Oliveira’s elegant, refined, aristocratic playing and warm tone very much reminds me of.


The more I listened to Oliveira’s Bach, the more I realized what I’ve been missing in so many recent versions both on period and modern instruments. There’s real feeling in these performances. Just listen to the slow movement of the D-Minor Concerto for Two Violins, in which Eva Gruesser is Oliveira’s perfectly matched partner. Of all the movements in these concertos, this one, with its intertwining solo voices overlapping each other with poignant dissonances, may just be the most touching; only the slow movement of the Violin and Oboe Concerto comes close. Interestingly, that concerto, which is a frequent discmate to the three standard violin concertos, is not included here. Instead, Oliveira has chosen to include the G-Minor Concerto, BWV 1056, which is generally more familiar in its F-Minor version for harpsichord.


The sheer beauty and affability of these performances will invite me back to them often, more often I daresay than will a number of impersonal and impassive accounts of recent vintage on both period and modern instruments. Oliveira proves once again, if proof be needed, that Bach belongs to no one school of playing, and that pure, heartfelt music-making transcends all ages. This is very strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

BRAHMS Cello Sonatas: No. 1; No. 2. 4 Hungarian Dances. Violin Sonata No. 3: Adagio • Bion Tsang (vc); Anton Nel (pn) • ARTEK 0051 (76:02) Live: Boston 4/5/2008


It’s been a while since I’ve kvetched about having to review too many new releases of Brahms’s cello sonatas. I love them dearly, but enough was enough. Now, after a welcome respite, here comes Michigan-born cellist Bion Tsang to “make the pie higher,” to borrow a phrase from an ex-POTUS’s primer of quotable quotes.


Tsang debuted at the age of 11 with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic, went on to take his B.A. degree from Harvard and his master’s of musical arts from Yale, picked up a number of coveted prizes along the way, and has since gone on to distinguish himself as a top cellist on the American concert stage. According to the cellist’s Web site and the current album’s booklet note, Tsang’s discography—which is said to include Bach’s solo cello suites among some 15 other recordings he’s made—is more extensive than the one listing I found at ArkivMusic, or the three listings I found at Amazon. So where these other elusive discs might be hiding out I don’t know. I do know that I had kind words for Tsang’s Beethoven sonatas in Fanfare 30:1, commenting on his solid technique, full-throated vibrant tone, and poised performances that spoke to long, careful, and loving preparation. But nothing in his Beethoven could have prepared me for his Brahms.


My all-around favorite recording of the Brahms sonatas, and the one by which I’ve measured all comers, has been the one with Nancy Green and Frederick Moyer on the JRI label. That must now change thanks to Tsang, darn him anyway. His opening of the E-Minor Sonata took my breath away. It’s a bit on the slow side, even for the non troppo qualification Brahms tacked on to his Allegro marking, but the expressiveness of Tsang’s phrasing caresses the ears with such tenderness that at first it made me cry, and then it made me laugh. “Why laugh?” you wonder. Well, if you’re a Star Trek: TNG fan, you know about the highly sensitive Ferengi earlobes, which, when stroked with a technique called oo-mox , produces feelings of pleasure and contentment. I don’t mean to overlace this review with levity, but let’s just say that Tsang’s Brahms was oo-mox to my ears.


To his readings of the sonatas, Tsang brings a hyper-romantic sensibility. Some may find his not infrequent portamentos uncalled for, though personally, I find them well timed and appropriate, especially in the earlier E-Minor Sonata, the opening bars of which speak of such inconsolable sadness. But by the time Tsang reaches the sonata’s fiery finale, it’s clear that the slower tempo he adopted at the outset was a matter of choice, not necessity dictated by any technical inadequacy, for he presses forward to the finish line as fast as anyone else I’ve heard, and without a hint of strain.


In Tsang’s hands, the F-Major Sonata bursts forth with a lambency of startling radiance and passion. But I shouldn’t have come this far without mentioning Tsang’s partner, Anton Nel. Rarely have I heard the piano parts to these sonatas played so revealingly. Nel lays bare for the listener the interlocking plates, which, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle when joined together, disclose an extraordinarily detailed picture only hinted at by the individual tiles. Together Tsang and Nel present Brahms’s cello sonatas in readings that are not only gorgeously played, dramatic, urgent, and filled with thrilling romantic ardor, but that also expose with an almost clinical clarity Brahms’s profoundly classical compositional techniques. If those ends sound contradictory, I can only say that Tsang and Nel manage to find the common denominator in the seeming conflict that resolves it and renders it moot. For those who must know, first movement exposition repeats are taken in both sonatas.


There are two more contributors to the glory of these performances that must be acknowledged, and they are the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall and the uncredited recording team. I don’t think I’ve ever heard—no, I know I haven’t—a cello and piano duo sound this way on record. Both instruments soared from my speakers with such headroom and bloom that I could literally feel the ambient acoustic of the hall surrounding me, and this is not even a multichannel surround-sound CD. Truly amazing.


The two sonatas would have been gift enough, but in their largesse Tsang and Nel offer as an added bonus four of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances —Nos. 1, 2, 4, and 5—and top that with an encore in the form of a transcription for cello of the Adagio from Brahms’s D-Minor Violin Sonata, op. 108.


Much as it grieves me to say it, Nancy and Frederick, move over; Bion and Anton are now my top recommendation for the Brahms cello sonatas.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

This album presents classical chamber music including the well-known Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21 by Ernest Chausson, and the Violin and Piano Sonata in A major, Opus 13, by Gabriel Faure. Quartet-in-Residence at Emory University, the Vega Quartet is cultivating a new generation of chamber music lovers through dynamic performances and innovative community engagements. The Vega took four of the top six prizes at the 1999 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, including the International Music Critics’ prize and was also the first prize winner at the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition and the Carmel Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet’s major projects have included performing the complete cycle of Beethoven quartets, pairing Bach’s complete works for solo violin, viola and cello with the six Bartok quartets as well as a series of collaboration with dancers, singers, and theaters. They have toured throughout Asia, Europe, and North America.

Fine engineering here from Bernhard Hanke, solving all the tricky balance issues in the beautiful acoustic of Bad Münder’s Kurhaus, which almost becomes a third, discreet player. The full tone of Maxine Neuman’s cello dominates when it should, but the subtleties of Peter Ernst’s guitar-playing are never lost. Both instruments have their passionate outbursts, and the sound, though close, is unconfined when they let loose.

The Mozart is arranged from a wind-trio original, but suits cello/guitar just as well. In the Larghetto, the contrast between the elegance of Ernst’s top-notch guitar figuration and Neuman’s emotional scale gives a good indication of the strength of the chamber partnership, because the divergent sounds work perfectly together. The familiar Fauré miniatures are affecting, and Neuman’s straight approach to Après un rêve is very different from Tortelier’s more inflected account. Kraft was the principal cello in Haydn’s orchestra, and his work was actually composed for the cello/guitar combination. I’d commend it to players, especially for the catchy Lento cantabile theme, but the other movements are pretty soulful, too, and Neuman sounds highly involved with Kraft’s sympathetic cello line: a worthwhile discovery.

In Piazzolla’s Oblivion, Neuman makes palpable the sense of quiet outrage at lost love, with tears courtesy of Ernst’s rapt guitar. The Cohen and Gismonti works give Ernst more of a chance to shine, and his tonal range is captured with little in the way of fretboard noise. There are no disappointments, in fact, and I hope the success of this CD gives the Duo the confidence to make further arrangements from the meaty sonata repertoire. Cohen’s Toccata is a tour de force, technically and musically, from both artists, and this Artek disc is recommended to players and listeners alike.

Paul Ingram, FANFARE

CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 3. D. SCARLATTI Sonatas: in F, L 385; in d, L 422. MOZART Rondo in D, K 485. Fantasy in c, K 475. Piano Sonata in c, K 457 • Tao Lin (pn) • ARTEK 0055-2 (67:28) Live: Fremont, California 3/20/2010


The conceit of this album, as expressed by the pianist in his liner notes, is that live musical performances have a noticeably different character than studio recordings. I emphatically agree, and this recital, captured in California in 2010, is a good example. Tao Lin, a Shanghai-born and -trained pianist now living in America, has a fine, clean technique, so there are no blatant bloopers on this disc, which can be a feature of live recordings, and a reason some collectors avoid them. I don’t mind an occasional mistake in a performance; they can add a certain quality of humanity to the music. For example, I actually relish the little slips and smudges that one can readily hear on the famous 1965 Carnegie Hall recital of Horowitz, which was his first public appearance in 12 years. The playing is glorious, and the less than spot-perfect technique enhances the outsized personality of the interpretations.


Naturally, a performer of Horowitz’s already highly nervous, we might even say neurotic, personality would experience anxiety at a concert that was surely the highlight of the season, or even many seasons. But that anxiety is a key element of almost any recital (much more so than an ensemble performance, where the players can, to an extent, cover for one another). Lin starts his recital, for example, with a lively rendition of Scarlatti that feels just a bit rushed, just enough so as to add a positive level of energy to the music that would probably have not occurred in the studio. The great Mozart sonata seems a tad pedantic at first, but Lin’s playing gathers energy and drama as it goes. By the end of the first movement, the depth and passion of this extraordinary music is fully engaged, and in a very natural way. Similarly, Lin finds a pace in the grand, sublime slow movement that allows him to grow into the theatrical space of the music. The Chopin Sonata No. 3 does not lack for fine performances, but here again, the special energy of live performance enhances this playing. I heard Mitsuko Uchida play this in concert last season, and in the last movement wondered how she could maintain the level of intensity that she had initiated. Yet her power rallied, leading to a uniquely exciting conclusion. I cannot pay Lin a higher compliment than to say that his playing of the final passages of this music put me in mind of that Uchida recital.


There are too many excellent performances of these works to mention, and in a way, comparisons are beside the point. Lin means to demonstrate the special dynamics of live music-making here, and in that sense he has succeeded.


FANFARE: Peter Burwasser

Introducing Benjamin Hochman

BARTÓK String Quartets: No. 2; No. 4; No. 6 • Euclid Quartet • ARTEK 0053 (78:47)


As far as I can tell, the Euclid Quartet, a group new to me, has made only one previous recording; it’s on the Centaur label and contains four of 18 string quartets by a mid 20th-century Austrian composer named Hugo Kauder. The fact that I’ve never heard of him I’m sure means diddly to members of the Hugo Kauder Society, who almost certainly have never heard of me. They have cataloged more than 300 of the composer’s works, but cite the Euclid Quartet’s Centaur album as the only recording of any of his music. Fascinating.


The quartet is based in South Bend, Indiana, where the ensemble is quartet-in-residence at Indiana University and its members are on the music faculty. The players are a multinational mix hailing from the U.S., the U.K., and Venezuela. The chances of a recording containing Bartók’s even-numbered quartets being a one-off is pretty slim, so I would expect a second disc to follow containing Nos. 1, 3, and 5.


Bartók wrote his six quartets over a period of 30 years. Those on the present CD were written in 1915–17 (No. 2), 1927 (No. 4), and 1939 (No. 6). The sixth and final quartet was the last work he would write before fleeing his native Hungary for the U.S. in 1940. The sound world of the Second Quartet has roots in the dense, chromatic, “liberated” tonality of early Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School. The atmosphere of the first movement is heavy and humid, and the result, according to note author Barbara Heninger, is “an otherworldly wandering through major and minor modes.” This is dispelled by the Allegro molto capriccioso that follows, a veritable Hungarian hoedown at a Gypsy encampment. The concluding Lento, austere and bleak, seems almost to anticipate the hallmark desolation in Shostakovich’s string quartets.


The Fourth Quartet is in five movements, and is considered by most commentators to be a breakthrough work that represents a new direction for the composer. Formally, the piece is extremely complex, drawing together elements of Bartók’s favored arch design, the mirroring of motivic and harmonic content, and the derivation of mathematical symmetries based on the “Golden Section,” a reference to the ideal ratio derived from numerical series and proportions. For an in-depth analysis, I would point you to a paper titled Formal Considerations in Béla Bartók’s Fourth String Quartet by Michael Ladd, accessible at bayarea.net/~kins/AboutMe/Bartok/Bartok_SQ4_Analysis.html.


Beyond the formal aspects, the Fourth Quartet became the composer’s experimental lab for extended instrumental techniques involving mutes, glissandos, and a technique that has come to be called “Bartók” or “snap-string” pizzicato, where the player pulls upward on the string and then releases it to slap against the fingerboard. The quartet is in some ways a primer for many of the common characteristics we tend to associate with Bartók’s music: the swarming insects, for example, of the Prestissimo, con sordino movement, or the raw, barbarous stomping dance of the concluding Allegro molto.


For his Sixth and final quartet, Bartók returns to a four-movement layout, but one in which each movement begins with a Mesto introduction composed of the same motivic material. With each movement, however, the Mesto becomes successively longer until finally, in the last movement, it is no longer introductory but subsumes the movement in its entirety. This was not the composer’s original intent. His sketches tell us that he had planned to end the piece with a fast, dance-like finale, but news of his mother’s death led to his abandoning the original design and expanding the Mesto into a moving elegy.


Bartók’s quartets have enjoyed a long and distinguished history on record. My first complete set was with the New Hungarian Quartet recorded in 1976 for one of those dreadful-sounding Vox Boxes. Luckily, only a year later, I was able to replace it with the Guarneri Quartet’s much improved sounding RCA LPs. Then, four years later, the Juilliard Quartet followed with its digitally recorded LP set, and in that same year (1981), I believe, the Tokyo Quartet added its readings to a growing discography. In 1987 the Alban Berg Quartet got on the bandwagon with what is still one of the most critically acclaimed sets. Since then, we’ve had second helpings from the Végh (Naïve) and Takács (Decca) Quartets, and first helpings from the Hagen, Emerson, and Belcea Quartets. These last two are particularly noteworthy. Barry Brenesal in Fanfare 31:6 reckoned that the Belcea’s version was one of the finest of the complete sets to appear in some time. But the greatest accolades, both here and elsewhere, have been reserved for the Emerson’s readings, which Art Lange in 30:6 elevated to “classic status.”


The Euclid Quartet runs the Emerson a close race when it comes to precision of ensemble and clarity of texture, but the Euclid doesn’t quite match the Emerson in making the execution of these hair-raisingly difficult scores sound easy. Perhaps that’s a plus rather than a minus. One of the recurring criticisms one hears lodged against the Emerson is that the playing is a little too slick and clinical. While I’ve always adhered to the belief that the ideal in string playing should be one in which the bow is seen but not heard—i.e., a clean, non-abrasive sound—it could be argued that some abrasiveness in Bartók’s quartets is a good thing, that it’s in the nature of the music, and it’s what the composer would have wanted.


I’m not suggesting that the Euclid scrapes and scratches away like fingernails on a chalkboard; far from it. But the players are willing, where the music calls for it, to put a little elbow grease into the effort. The Euclid captures and reflects the wildly contrasting moods and emotional states of these works as well as any ensemble I’ve heard. When the quartets on this disc are inevitably joined by their odd-numbered companions, I believe we will have another Bartók cycle worthy of being ranked alongside the big-name groups mentioned above. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

BEETHOVEN Cello Sonatas: in F, op. 5/1; in g, op. 5/2; in A, op. 69; in C, op. 102/1; in D, op. 102/2. Variations: on a Theme from Handel?s Judas Maccabaeus ; on ?Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen? from Mozart?s Magic Flute; on ?Bei Männern, weiche Liebe fühlen? from Mozart?s Magic Flute ? Bion Tsang (vc); Anton Nel (pn) ? ARTEK 0025 (2 CDs: 145:59) Live: Boston 4/2005


Beethoven sells, but one might think from the recent onslaught of new recordings of the quartets, piano sonatas (see elsewhere in this issue), and cello sonatas that we are commemorating a jubilee of his birth, as we are of Mozart?s in 2006. Perhaps, since Beethoven died in 1827, we are gearing up for an anniversary of sorts in 2007. Whatever the incentive, Artek recorded these live performances, presented under sponsorship of the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts, in April 2005, at the New England Conservatory?s Jordan Hall, Boston.


Michigan-born Bion Tsang comes with an impressive portfolio of competition prizes and artist recognition awards, especially for one as young as he appears in his Web-site photo at www.biontsang.com. He also steps here into territory where many of cellodom?s heavyweights have staked a claim. Just among recent contenders are Miklós Perényi with András Schiff on ECM (which I reviewed positively in 28:3), Erling Blondal Bengtsson with Anker Blyme on Danacord, Pieter Wispelwey with Dejan Lazic on Channel Classics, and Brendel father and son, Alfred and Adrian on Philips. All include along with the sonatas the sets of variations Beethoven wrote for cello and piano, but Perényi and Schiff also include for good measure a horn sonata by Giovanni Punto that Beethoven himself transcribed.


The two sonatas that comprise op. 5?the F-Major and the G Minor?bear a dedication to Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia. Acknowledged as an accomplished amateur cellist, Wilhelm received Beethoven at his court in the summer of 1796, where the composer played the sonatas with one of the Duport brothers, Jeanne-Pierre or Jean-Louis. If the King later attempted to play the cello parts himself, the effort may have done him in, for barely four months later, on November 16, 1796, he died.


Though only in two movements?reminiscent of some of Mozart?s sonatas for piano and violin?the F-Major Sonata outstrips Mozart?s earlier duo works both in terms of scale and technical challenges. A lengthy Adagio introduction that vacillates between sorrowful sighs in the piano and songful lyricism in the cello leads to an Allegro that belies its F-Major high spirits in a stormy development section, turning the exuberant main theme of the exposition towards minor keys. The second movement, ostensibly a simple Rondo, likewise exhibits a minor-key episode midway through.


If the slow introduction to the F-Major Sonata is alternately sorrowful and songful, the Adagio introduction to the G-Minor Sonata is portentous, even a bit grim. It hovers ambiguously, as many of Beethoven?s introductions do, in a kind of harmonic no-man?s land, building tension and expectation as it seeks resolution. What is so novel about this Adagio is its extraordinary length. Lasting for nearly six minutes, it is almost as long as the main body of the Allegro molto to which it is attached. Such an odd imbalance poses the speculation that Beethoven may have regarded the Adagio as a movement unto itself, a conjecture supported by the fact that some recordings band it as a separate track. The Sonata is therefore either in two movements, like its F-major sibling, or in three, depending on how one chooses to hear it.


G Minor is not a key to which Beethoven turned often, and the ensuing Allegro molto, to which he appended più tosto presto (more rapidly, as a presto), homes in on the minor mode with a vengeance. It is driven and unrelenting, a fine, early, example of the composer?s well-known Sturm und Drang manner. It is also an excellent example of how Beethoven develops a large-scaled work from a fragmentary motive that is more gestural in nature than it is melodic. This, too, will have momentous implications in later works. Everything that is Beethoven is here on display in proto form.


A dozen years separate the two op. 5 sonatas from op. 69. The A-Major Sonata was written as a peace offering to pacify an indignant Baron Ignaz von Gleichenstein whose feathers were ruffled when Beethoven promised to dedicate his Fourth Piano Concerto, op. 58, to him and then reneged. Astute enough to know who buttered his bread, Beethoven set out in 1807 to compensate Gleichenstein, another talented amateur cellist, with a cello sonata. Completed in 1808, the A-Major Sonata is contemporaneous with the Fifth Symphony as well as a number of the composer?s most popular and beloved works. This?Beethoven?s so-called ?middle period??was an extremely productive time in the composer?s life, giving rise to some of his greatest masterpieces?the Violin Concerto, the ?Waldstein? and ?Appassionata? Piano Sonatas, and the ?Pastoral? Symphony. It was also a time during which he was forced to confront the progressive deterioration of his hearing, and to contemplate the external world of silence that deafness would ultimately impose upon him.


The gulf that separates the A-Major Cello Sonata from the op. 5 set cannot be measured by years alone. Nor can the circumstances under which it was written?an act of contrition to placate an aggrieved patron?explain the order of magnitude leap in Beethoven?s musical thinking. The ethereal opening measures, the strange harmonic progressions, the open octave passages, and the heartbreak in the development section all speak to the composer?s broadening and deepening expression, and his full embrace of the Romantic ideal.


Written in 1815 for cellist Josef Linke, the two sonatas comprising op. 102 are works that must be lived with for a while in order to appreciate them fully. They are strange in many of the same ways that most of Beethoven?s later works are?formally irregular, disjointed, harmonically vague, amelodic, and marked by sudden, wrenching changes in key, tempo, and mood. They are also among the composer?s most complex and technically challenging works. The D-Major Sonata, in particular, with its enormously difficult third-movement fugue, was long held to be unplayable.


Tsang commands a solid technique and a full-throated vibrant tone that sings sweetly even when the going gets rough. These are remarkably poised performances that speak to long, careful, and loving preparation. ?Best,? or even ?better than,? are words I dare not use when comparing Tsang and Anton Nel to the aforementioned contenders, but I am comfortable in saying that these are highly satisfying readings on every count. To call Nel an outstanding accompanist seems a bit gratuitous considering that these works are as much sonatas for piano as they are for cello. Repeats are taken, the recorded sound is excellent, and the audience is heard only in applause at the end of each piece. Easily recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

COOMAN Fanfare for DGF. 1 Trombone Concerto, “Remembering Tomorrow” 2 In What Time Remains. 3 Oboe Quartet. 4 Piano Concerto No. 2, “Enchanted Tracings.” 5 Beyond All Knowing. 6 Brass Quintet 7 • Kirk Trevor, cond; 1,2,5 Robert Kozánek (tbn); 2 Petr La Garde (tpt); 3,7 Ratislav Suchan (tpt); 3,7 Igor Bielik (hn); 3,7 Albert Hrubovcak (tbn); 3,7 Nikolaj Kanisak (tb); 3,7 Igor Fábera (ob); 4 Robert Marecek (vn); 4 Alexander Lakatos (va); 4 Ján Slávik (vc); 4 Nora Skuta (pn); 5 Slovak RSO 1,2,5 • ARTEK 47 (66:12)


I’ve remarked in an earlier review ( Fanfare 31:3) that Carson Cooman seems to be a young man in a hurry. Born in 1982, he’s 27 as of this writing, and his age and output prompted me to do a little experiment. Since the most recent work on this collection (the Fanfare , from 2008) is labeled op. 762, and if we posit a reasonable hypothesis that the composer began composing in earnest around age 15, then he would have written one work every six days or so, many of them larger multimovement pieces. Besides this, he is a professional organist who specializes in new music, has a serious business as an arts consultant, and writes for this publication. One must assume he never sleeps, and that the pen is surgically attached to his hand. Yet I’ve met the composer, and he took time off for a leisurely dinner with me, with relaxed companionship and insightful conversation. So the secret of his prolificacy remains secure under his affable manner.


I’ve been a little arch at the start only because one has to confront Cooman’s remarkable scale of output in order to reach any critical judgment. One could easily dismiss him as the victim of some sort of “composer’s compulsion” disorder, except for the fact that the music is so much better than it should be, considering its breakneck speed of creation. All the pieces on this disc are confident in their presentation, expertly orchestrated, and above all, have rock-solid motivic ideas underpinning each that a listener immediately grasps, and can always refer to throughout. The composer remarked to me that one of his aims was to “reconcile the practices of Roy Harris and Charles Wuorinen.” I might have the pair wrong, but the gist of the memory is correct, especially since in his introduction to this disc Cooman remarks on his “intertwined interest in American neo-Romanticism and athletic modernism.” That desire to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable seems a noble goal to me, one I admire in its crazy ambition.


Since Cooman writes so much, I think it’s entirely appropriate to cull through any offerings and single out favorites. I can honestly say no piece in this group is substandard, and all project an authenticity in their expression. That said, I find certain works more compelling than others. Those that don’t move me as much tend to fall more on the mid-century Americanist pantonal-lyric portion of the spectrum (which tells you as much about my taste as Cooman’s work, I think). The two works for brass quintet, the Fanfare , and to a lesser degree the Concerto for Piano and Winds are in this category. The Concerto, however, is intriguing because in it I hear stronger echoes of particular earlier composers than in the other pieces: Stravinsky in his austere elegiac mode in the slow second movement, and Prokofiev raucously acting up in the third.


But then there are two pieces that stick with a vengeance. One is the tone poem for chamber orchestra, Beyond All Knowing (2003), an eight-minute essay that with its bare fourths and fifths, tolling bells, and chanting melody suggests a vast mystical landscape, and in which the composer’s love of early music is clearly evident.


The other is the 2007 Oboe Quartet. This piece starts with the most obviously “modernist” sound, a pointillistic sprinkling of string pizzicatos that gradually coalesces into the materials of the piece. At over 17 minutes, it’s the longest and most substantial piece of the program, and it revels in a tough-minded austerity that gives it real gravitas. While it initially develops into what seems to be conventional neo-Classical imitative counterpoint, that’s only a way station towards what becomes the ultimate goal. Eventually it reaches and never lets go of a rising minor second (half-step) motive, often repeating it obsessively, in ensemble unison, spinning off two-note variants, isolating it with framing silences. You feel you’ve really heard something when it’s done. I’ve noticed the oboe quartet making something of a comeback recently, with major works by Elliott Carter and Yehudi Wyner; Cooman’s seems a worthy addition to the genre and can share company with his elders without embarrassment.


All these performances (composer-supervised, I must assume) serve the music well. Cooman is blessed to have such a group of talented interpreters. The cover art doesn’t really reflect or serve well the character of this music, but that’s a minor quibble.


Who knows, this composer could be a Mozart in his early stages, and the really mature work hasn’t even emerged yet. And, of course, things could go in the opposite direction. But I’m willing to keep following Cooman on his path. Recommended in particular for the Oboe Quartet: this is a good introduction to the composer’s work, though it’s just one installment in an ongoing stream that shows no sign of letting up.


FANFARE: Robert Carl

FLAGELLO: Violin Concerto / Orchestral Songs